Thiollier - Tumblr Posts
thiolliers quest is the funniest thing in the dlc for me. "thanks for the help lmk if youre feeling depressed ill give you something special to help you out :3c" and the something special is Instant Suicide Potion
2nd DLC session round-up yupppp
Started to explore a settlement called Belurat, v beautiful, I love all the draped cloth over the buildings and the beautiful trees. I found a key and unlocked a door that opened a storeroom, with an old woman and a horned lion head inside. She wasn't too happy to see me
damn they really hate Marika lmao. I find it so interesting that these 'hornsent' people are identifying me as something aligned with Marika/Messmer, and cursing me for it. We go through the whole game being shunned for being Tarnished because we are people stripped of grace, now we're being shunned for (I'm assuming) being a creation of Marika. It's super interesting. no one fucks with me fr
I continued on through the settlement and climbed the tower, and eventually got to the first major boss!! It's the Lion-Dancer we saw in the DLC trailers, and it's a really beautiful boss fight. It takes place on a stage, and the theatrics of it all are really so awe-inspiring. It wields different elemental damage in different parts of the fight - lightning, wind/storm, and frost. There's also lion sculptures with horned heads dotted around the stage and settlement. You can summon Freyja to help fight it :) not an easy fight at all, but eventually he went down and I got the reward of its remembrance, along with the lion head itself as a helm.
I absolutely love that this culture took their skills in theatrical performance and repurposed these skills for battle, that's just. I love it it's so cool. Another helm that makes you weaker to sleep, like the golden mask I found previously. The prayer it's talking about is heard at the beginning of the fight in the opening cutscene, and it is said by the old woman I found earlier. The map identifies her as 'Hornsent Grandam'.
I did something I'm not super proud of. But I read messages that alluded to it and mama I'm trying to research. I put the lion head on and went to talk to her again to see if anything would change. Her reaction made me feel really bad... she was so relieved to see a 'sculpted keeper' and was overcome with emotion. She mentioned something about wanting her son to fight alongside me (the keeper) against Messmer, and take revenge. And then she promised to sing for me and gave me an incantation.
Now the description of the incantation just about blew my head off. It referred to this woman as the 'Empyrean Grandam'. Empyrean??? I was not expecting to see that. I looked up grandam and apparently it's an old word for grandmother. Empyrean grandmother... does this mean she is/was an Empyrean, or she's the grandmother of an Empyrean? I'm surprised that Empyreans exist in this realm, considering how hidden everything and everyone is in this place. Can the Greater Will still reach this place? She does mention her son, does he have children? Empyrean children? So intriguing. I assume it's not her son because it seems like TGW/two fingers choose non-men as Empyreans (Miquella has ambiguous gender and a feminine alter-ego St. Trina).
Went back to the second Miquellan cross and met Sir Moore. I love him. I love him I would die for him if anything happens to him I'm going to scream from the rooftops
!!! I explored the river running through Gravesite Plain and found a couple of sleep/night adjacent items. The deep purple lily got me super excited because TRINAAA I could use some tbh I haven't been sleeping well. can you tell
Found a ghost down there too, these lines are making me Think about the connection between sleep and death. What if Miquella is really dead in some way, and this gives way to St. Trina being alive in his place... or something. I don't know but I'm Thinking
Even the turtles have horns here!! Found a new more powerful stamina talisman that depicts a two-headed turtle. There's a lot of depictions in this realm of two converging intertwining objects like trees, turtles, Miquella's sigil/needle is intertwining too.
Went back to Roundtable hold to see what the Remembrance rewards are. I wasn't sure in my last session but after watching some old lore videos to refresh my memory - divine in the context of ER seems to refer to the Crucible or aspects of it. What does it mean that they are messengers of the heavens though? The only other thing in game that I could relate to that are Two Fingers considering they commune with TGW. I have no idea
Was exploring and MET ANOTHER TRAILER GUY. He was sitting by another Cross of Miquella. Identifies himself as a Tarnished named Thiollier. Has 0 self confidence, says he's unintelligent and bad at fighting. Kinda weird for a Tarnished? Makes me wonder how he got there too, he's literally like just behind an encampment of Messmer soldiers. His special interest is poison, and sells you poison things. His armour is super interesting, the cloth/white hair is braided a lot like Miquella/Radagon's, and there's a gold figure in the middle of his chest. The mask is the most striking to me though, and looks like its lined with silver thorns. I just had a thought - who else do we know that wears masks like this and is all about poison? House Marais! Idk what the link could be but, something to keep in mind I guess
Got jumpscared by this guy yelling in pain. He yelled about someone he called 'vile Bayle' so I assume they're the person that maimed this guy. "Exquisite pain" though... reminds me of Mohg/Varré. Then I got invaded by an 'Ancient Dragon-Man'. I followed that path down and found a draconic cave, where I fought the real Dragon Man at the end. He was kicking my ass I can't lie. But I got him eventually and the reward was hmm-inducing
Anti-dragon spray. Wait what, what is the Dreaded One???? And what do you mean it's devoured by people?? What does any of this mean bruh. It sounds like an outer god but if people eat it (?) it can't be. Uhhhhhhhh ok I don't understand and I'm tired. I opened the door at the back of the boss room and...
Hell yeah. It led me out to a precipice overlooking the jagged peak I could see in the distance from where I entered the DLC. There's dragons sleeping below. I took some baller pics of my Tarnished.
I have so much to figure out I still can't really believe all this, it's so jarring running around not knowing anything. it's awesome i love this game
[also small PSA it's fine if anyone reading this wants to reply with their thoughts, but please don't spoil anything, this is my blind playthrough and i want it to stay that way :)]
You are a wretched, wretched soul. A nightmare come to plague me.
Thiollier elden ring is so funny to me I haven't done much of the dlc yet but the fact he's like 'hey I'm thiollier I'm the biggest idiot alive and a hawk can carry me away easily anyway do you want my drink of instantly kill yourself?'
...Huh. Thiollier is seemingly the only other Tarnished to have arrived in the realm of shadow, yet instead of Miquella, he came in search of St. Trina.
St. Trina, who implores us to kill Miquella before he becomes a god...
Moreover, we were gifted the Spirit Summoning Bell by Ranni, under the instruction of "Torrent's former master." This was evidently Miquella, but... why would he call for the Tarnished if only to turn them away from his coming paradise?
But if St. Trina is Miquella's other half, and embodies his "doubt and vacillation," then perhaps it was actually she who gave Ranni the bell... After all, Ranni appears to have lulled Kalé and his donkey to sleep nearby, and one of her cohorts, Seluvis, was once familiar with another Tarnished who served St. Trina: Sleeping Arrow Dolores.
...Is St. Trina the real MVP of the entire goddamn game?
I need to check with all the NPCS just to make sure, but…
The fact that Ansbach, the Hornsent, and even arguably Thiollier seem to have forgotten certain things due to Miquella’s enchantment is rather curious.
Ansbach forgot that Mohg was bewitched. He forgot that he challenged Miquella.
Hornsent forgot about his need to specifically go after and kill Messmer— something arguably even more huge than the former revelation. Messmer has led a campaign where hundreds of thousands were slaughtered, where Hornsent’s own family was taken from him. His hatred was arguably dampened as well.
Thiollier seems to have forgotten about Saint Trina, immediately remembering her upon the charm being broken. Haunted by memories of her.
Meanwhile, it doesn’t seem that any other had forgotten anything. Maybe Leda one could say Leda “forgot” her paranoia, but it just seems like that was dampened. But regardless, those who had their memories altered are those Miquella would have felt would go against him for what he’s done— which makes sense, even for Hornsent. The guy can end up thinking that Miquella deserves to die too (if I’m remembering the end of his quest correctly). EDIT: Killing Messmer also means acquiring his kindling which means accessing the means to stop Miquella!
This revelation means that Miquella’s charm is strong on multiple levels. It doesn’t just make you like him and not want to hurt him, it’s intensity can vary from “forgetting the crush you have” to “forgetting your desire to kill the man who has tormented your people for hundreds of years at this point”.
Which is the kind of thing that makes me look at Mohg and consort Radahn and ask, “what exactly did you end up doing to them, Miquella?”
sometimes i randomly remember 'you are a wretched, wretched soul... a nightmare come to plague me.' and i want to roll around on the floor forever
drawing mr eep to try and break through my artblock. everyone say a prayer in the hope that it works 🤲
started redoing this in procreate but i kind of like it just how it looks as a sketch. thiollier my beloved <3
[details below]
Thiollier is incredibly fascinating to me, as his devotion to Saint Trina and his personality/dialogue leaves a lot unsaid, yet we can learn so much about him.
He is self-loathing, believing that from the very beginning he was worthless. Weak and an idiot only good for making poisons. This isn’t a belief that could have sprouted up from nowhere, whatever environment he had to have been raised in surely instilled and reinforced this idea in him. It’s up in the air what exactly led to him feeling this way about himself, but I do read it as Thiollier being a victim of abuse.
Then, Saint Trina has practically always been representative of addiction, both in the base game and in DLC. Hell, cut content would’ve made this theme even more obvious, with Rhico’s questline and the existence of Dreambrew— something that is pretty much just a form of alcohol. She genuinely desires to help, Trina does not mean ill will and wishes to grant respite to those suffering. However, as this respite is this inherently addictive thing that can prove to be rather dangerous— if you go too far, imbibe too much nectar, you are plunged into endless sleep, the closest thing to death offered in The Lands Between.
Thiollier was able to experience the “sweet repose of velvety sleep” only once. It’s different from the typical rest offered by Trina’s followers, likely stemming directly from the saint herself. And after experiencing it, he has spent the rest of his life chasing after it again. Desperate to be put at rest, to forget all his worries and woes and forget about his miserable life in the waking world.
Thiollier can’t stand himself, ever scorned and loathed.
It’s no wonder why he feels this arguably obsessive love towards Trina, and why he gets so angry with us for being able to speak with her. He wants to her to smile for him and him alone, to be the only one of the already very few allowed to experience the true rest she creates. Trina is one of the only ones who ever made him feel at ease, the only one to make him feel special and worthy of something, and he idolizes her. And she knows this, which is why she ends up speaking to us rather than him. She knows that his idolization would also lead to him being unwilling to accept the idea of needing to kill Miquella until it’s too late. But just as she does for all others, she still cares for him in her own way.
I do think too that Trina knows of how addictive her sleep can be, but I feel that, based off the description of the Lulling Branch, she desires to give people the will to wake up, to gather the strength to continue on living. I should make a post about Trina herself, eventually.
weak as a kitten and thick as two planks<3 quite happy with this one
some elden ring dlc stuff
unlikely allies at enir-ilim
