Okay, my fellow Tarnished, if you are reading this, then you probably already know about the various endings one can get in Elden Ring. If you don’t and are still reading this, then I recommend you either: A. Play the game and get the ending your Tarnished Lord earned with your choices, B. Or stay and read about the different endings here.
I’d rather you stay, but if you wish to play through the game first, that is okay too. Come back when you are done to see if you went with what I did (and what I think is the morally best choice for the Lands Between).
With the spoiler warning done, everyone who has stayed must know that there are 6 endings in Elden Ring. For the sake of this article, I am going to avoid the Lord of Frenzied Flame ending as that (in my opinion) is the morally worst ending for the people of the Lands Between as everyone and everything burns to death. And I also just can’t stand to see Torrent slowly fade into nothingness because of our betrayal against Melina.
(Screenshot: Elden Ring-Rise, Tarnished)
Alright, the other five endings, Ranni’s (Age of the Stars), Goldmasks’ (Age of Order), Fia’s (Age of Duskborn), Dung Eater’s (Blessing of Despair), and the regular ending (Age of Fracture), are the remaining options for me to choose from. The next choice to eliminate seems easy, right? How could I not eliminate Dung Eater’s vengeance-driven mission to corrupt everyone with his “Fell Curse” (which essentially just causes all living creatures to live with horns all over their body and their spirts to never rejoin the Erdtree when they die)?
Yeah, that is a bad fate. But not morally worse than the Age of Fracture, in my opinion. In the Age of Fracture, the regular/”expected” ending, the player defeats the two required demigods needed to mend the ring, heads to Lyndell City, defeats Morgott, Godfrey, Radagon, and the Elden Beast to become Marika’s 3rd Elden Lord. Sounds not too bad? It must be better than Dung Eater’s quest.
Well, actually, no. It is actually a lot worse (at least morally). In that ending, the Tarnished player only further continues the cycle of ambition, greed, death, suffering, and civil war that devastated the Lands Between.
In only a matter of time, Marika, now free from captivity as the Tarnished mended the ring without any outside influence, will banish the Tarnished like she did to her first Elden Lord, Godfrey, and shatter the ring once more. And the Lands Between will once again be ravaged by a bloody civil war for power over the ring shards by the remaining demigods.
Why is that destined to happen? Because that was Marika’s plan in the first place. She wanted the Tarnished to come back to the Lands Between and free her from her imprisonment by the Two Fingers. If the Tarnished player just places the same constraints the Two Fingers originally held on Marika with the ring by putting ring back on her, she is bound to shatter the ring once more and start the game’s events over.
It would not be very moral to continue the suffering of the thousands who live in the Lands Between with another civil war.
(Screenshot: Elden Ring- E3 2019 Announcement Trailer)
The Dung Eater’s outcome is not much better, though I think it just edges the Age of Fracture in terms of morality. There would be no war in the Dung Eater’s outcome as the Two Fingers would lose their control over the Lands Between as the Erdtree no longer has the souls to “power” it (at least, I’m pretty sure that is how this game’s lore works).
And if everyone is cursed, does that mean it is still a curse? Or would the “Fell Curse” just become a part of life and no longer be seen as a horrific plague?
Now onto the top three “morally right” (if those two words really even exist in the Lands Between) ending choices. The Age of the Stars vs. Age of Order vs. Age of Duskborn. And my choice for the third most morally right ending is:….Age of Order. Yes, I think Goldmask the Brilliant’s brilliant solution to solving the issues of the Golden Order is not so morally brilliant compared to the top two.
Why? Well, in this ending, the Tarnished still places the Elden Ring back with Marika, though only now, Marika has seemingly lost all her free will from the Two Fingers. And I guess that would apply to everyone else too.
As the mend Goldmask introduced to the Elden Ring not only stopped the struggle for the shards of the Elden Ring (as the Tarnished collected the required pieces and told him of Marika and Radagon’s secret), but also grants the Two Fingers complete control over the Lands Between. So, in this ending all war and conflict would stop, but so would any individual freedom to rebel against the Golden Order and the Two Fingers.
The second-best moral ending, in my view, would be the Age of Duskborn. In this ending, you would mend the Elden Ring with Fia’s mending rune, called the Mending Rune of the Death-Prince. My understanding of that ending is that Fia successfully brought Godwyn the Golden’s soul back to life and transferred it into the rune, which you would then use to mend the Elden Ring to bring upon the Duskborn Age.
What does that Age entail? I really don’t know. It is a little confusing. I’m pretty sure this ending means that all souls are no longer repackaged into new bodies by the Erdtree once they die.
Also, Godwyn’s soul may renter his deformed body (check under Stormveil Castle if you don’t know what I’m talking about), though that could be entirely wrong. Elden Ring’s lore is rather confusing and vague. Anyways, I find dying and my soul not being repurpose for a new life better than living an eternal life as a mindless servant to the Two Fingers and the Golden Order. Thus, the Age of Duskborn gets the #2 slot.
And for my #1 most moral choice, I am going with everyone’s favorite blue-doll consort Ranni the Witch’s Age of the Stars ending. Now, our beloved Ranni may not be the most honorable character (she does order the murder of Godwyn the Golden), but her intentions are the purest compared to the other five endings. Before Ranni’s ending, you must complete her long, arduous, and rather sad (Blaidd and Iji’s fates, especially) side quest which is easily one of the best in the game (it’s my personal favorite).
On this quest you journey to underground cities, fight against the coolest demigod, journey across a lake of rot, fight against aspirations of god-slaying assassins, face off against once trusted allies, and eventually guide Ranni to confronting the Two Fingers (whom she kills, ending their domination over her fate). Yes, I am a little biased, but you cannot say that does not sound a little awesome.
Anyway, back to Ranni’s motivations. Like I mentioned, her quest is to end the influence of the Two Fingers over her life as she was once chosen to be the replacement for Marika, becoming the Two Fingers new representative of the Lands Between.
That is why she ordered Godwyn’s death. She needed to kill another demigod at the same time she took her own life. Otherwise, her spirit would have been destroyed as well. Yeah, I know, confusing.
(Screenshot: Elden Ring-Story Trailer)
Regardless, once she was free, which she will be if we progress her quest to the point she kills the Two Fingers, she then wants to entirely reshape the structure of the universe.
As the name “Age of Stars” implies, she will bring about an Age that is not dictated by the Golden Order and Two Fingers. Instead, the inhabitants of the Lands Between will have their fate in their own hands, rather than being controlled by an Order, or demigods, or some all-powerful, overarching being.
And that choice just sounds the most morally right to me. That and she is my favorite character from the game, so I went with her ending. Regardless, maybe I am wrong and you think another ending sounds better. And you would be right. It all comes down to how your Tarnished feels what is right for the Lands Between.
(But between you and me, Ranni’s ending is clearly the best choice. :))
If you want to read more about the lore of Elden Ring, I linked a few channels and websites that I used to better understand aspects of the lore. These people have far superior knowledge with this game than I do, so I definitely recommend you check them out.
Image Sources: Feature Image: (Screenshot) (ELDEN RING – Story Trailer – YouTube)
In Text Image 1: (Screenshot) (ELDEN RING – Rise, Tarnished | Official Launch Trailer – YouTube)
In Text Image 2: (Screenshot) (Elden Ring – E3 2019 Announcement Trailer | PS4 – YouTube)
In Text Image 3: (Screenshot) (ELDEN RING – Story Trailer – YouTube)
Other Sources: Elden Ring Lore: (VaatiVidya) Elden Ring’s Lore â–º Explained! – YouTube, (VaatiVidya) Elden Ring’s Demigods â–º Explained! – YouTube, (Elden Ring Wiki) Lore | Elden Ring Wiki (fextralife.com), (The Ashen Hollow) Elden Ring Lore Explained! – YouTube
