Master List - Elden Ring Is The Large Glass

Structural / Geographical#

C-shape correspondence: The C-shape of the landmasses matches the C-shape of the crack pattern in The Large Glass
Alchemical topography: The topography corresponds to alchemical stages of creating the Magnum Opus (documented by others)
A Delay in Glass: The Lands Between exist in a "delay" - semi-permanent state of temporal suspension, just like Duchamp called it "A Delay in Glass"
Two planes of existence: Marika (divine/upper) and Tarnished (mortal/lower) = Bride's domain and Bachelors' domain
Dimensional evolution: The Large Glass is a 4D object portrayed in 2D; Elden Ring is the same 4D concept portrayed in 3D

The Elden Ring / Chocolate Grinder#

Top-down view: The Elden Ring symbol on the cover is the Chocolate Grinder viewed from top-down
Great Rune correspondence: Each Great Rune corresponds to parts of the Chocolate Grinder
Geometric proof: Godrick's and Morgott's anchor runes only make geometric sense as top-down view of cylindrical grinder structure

The Shattering#

Parallel breaking: The Shattering of the Elden Ring = the shattering of The Large Glass
Intentional destruction: Both widely believed to have been broken on purpose by their creators (Marika/Duchamp)
Failed repair: Radagon attempted to repair the Elden Ring = Duchamp repaired The Large Glass in 1936
Repair as art: Both remain broken/cracked after repair - the repair became part of the artwork

Marika = The Bride#

Primary identification: Marika = The Bride
Arbor-type: Marika/Radagon dual nature = Duchamp's "arbor-type" (both genders in one body)
Tree-person: "Arbor-type" literally means tree-person = Erdtree (arbor = tree)
Crucifixion: Marika crucified/suspended on the Erdtree = Bride crucified on the arbor apparatus
The descent: When you finally reach Marika at the end, she drops/descends down from her crucified position, exactly as Duchamp described the Bride's descent in his notes

The Bachelors / Tarnished#

Primary identification: All Tarnished = The Bachelors (seeking the Bride)
Cemetery of liveries: Duchamp called the Bachelors "a cemetery of liveries" (dead servants in uniforms) = The Tarnished are literally undead warriors in armor, perpetually dying and resurrecting
The cemetery made visible: Multiplayer bloodstains/messages = the cemetery made visible and interactive
36 million dead: 36 million dead warriors (players) simultaneously existing = the cemetery functioning
Infinite cycle: All Elden Ring playthroughs are part of the infinite cycle through multiplayer/lore integration - millions of Tarnished simultaneously attempting to reach the Bride, making Duchamp's conceptual infinite Bachelor machine literally functional

Vyke - The Shot That Got Closest#

Cover placement: Vyke appears on the game's cover
The closest shot: Vyke = Duchamp's "shot that got closest" (Duchamp fired nine paint-dipped matches from a toy cannon at The Large Glass; one got closer than all others)
Two Great Runes: Vyke got two Great Runes, made it to the foot of the Erdtree, closest to becoming Elden Lord but failed
Symbolic reference: Vyke is a minor character with no speaking lines - the only reason for his cover placement is this symbolic reference

Radahn - The Juggler of Gravity#

Primary identification: Radahn = The Juggler of Gravity (literal component in The Large Glass)
Gravity manipulation: Radahn manipulates gravity magic, holds the stars in place
The boxing match: Radahn as final DLC boss = the juggler participates in the boxing match (from Duchamp's notes for the unfinished portions)

Miquella & The DLC#

Unfinished portions: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC = the unfinished portions of The Large Glass that Duchamp never completed
Stripped bare: Miquella strips himself bare via the crosses (divesting flesh, love, fears, doubts) to become the new Bride
Literal transformation: "The Bride Stripped Bare" = Miquella's literal transformation process through the DLC
New arbor-type: Miquella wants to become the new arbor-type Bride, replacing Marika
Scissors and sieves: Miquella's power to compel love = related to the scissors and sieves that mold/filter Bachelors' desires to fit the Bride

The Three Nets#

Three Mending Runes: Three Tarnished who create Mending Runes (Goldmask, Dung Eater, Fia) = the three nets in The Large Glass
Processing function: The nets capture/process information from Bachelors and feed transformed data to the Bride = Mending Runes process philosophy/experience and transform the Elden Ring/world

Elden Beast - The Milky Way#

Primary identification: Elden Beast = The Milky Way (the apparatus/crucifix the Bride is suspended on in Duchamp's notes)
Cosmic apparatus: The Elden Beast is the cosmic apparatus holding Marika prisoner
Attacking the mechanism: Fighting the Elden Beast = attacking the mechanism that imprisons the Bride

Grace = Love Gasoline#

Animating force: Grace that animates the Tarnished = "love gasoline" that animates the Bachelors (dispensed by the Bride)
Dispensing points: Sites of Grace everywhere = dispensing points for the love gasoline
Without Grace: Without Grace, Tarnished are just dead = without love gasoline, Bachelors don't function
Source: Grace comes from Marika (the Bride) and is what keeps Tarnished moving/respawning

Visual & Aesthetic#

A world in yellow: Duchamp described The Large Glass as "a world in yellow"
Golden palette: Elden Ring's entire visual palette is golden/yellow (Grace, Erdtree, Golden Order, runes, Sites of Grace)
Defining characteristic: The world IS a world in yellow - the defining visual characteristic

Red Fading to Gold#

Oxidation: The Malic Molds in The Large Glass were originally painted red but faded to gold/yellow over decades due to oxidation
Suppressed red: The Golden Order originally included red (Giants' flame, Crucible, Radagon's red hair, red lightning) which was suppressed/faded to create pure gold aesthetic
Visual aging: The visual aging of The Large Glass = the political suppression of red from the Golden Order

The Waterwheel#

Futile labor: The waterwheel in The Large Glass = endless futile labor of the Bachelor apparatus
Gameplay loop: The Tarnished gameplay loop (die, respawn, try again endlessly) = turning the waterwheel
The mechanism: The struggle itself IS the mechanism - 36 million players turning the waterwheel simultaneously through their deaths and attempts

Gideon the All-Knowing#

System awareness: Gideon figures out the system is designed for eternal struggle
Eternal delay: "Marika has high hopes for us to struggle onwards unto eternity" = understanding the delay is intentional and the cycle perpetuates forever
Static knowledge: Gideon tries to stop you because he needs the world to stay static to remain "all-knowing" - change destroys his identity
Meta-reference: Possible reference to Anorak "the All-Knowing" from Ready Player One (Halliday's avatar) - meta-commentary on puzzle-hunt narratives

Storytelling Methodology#

Green Box parallel: Duchamp's Green Box/White Box notes = fragmentary, cryptic notes explaining The Large Glass
Item descriptions: Elden Ring's item descriptions = same exact storytelling methodology (scattered fragments requiring player assembly)
Audience assembly: Both require the audience to piece together meaning from cryptic, scattered information
Part of the artwork: The notes/descriptions ARE part of the artwork, not supplementary

Glass Shards#

Ubiquitous item: Glass Shards = the most common, most ignored item in the entire game
Everywhere: Found literally everywhere in the Lands Between
Dismissal instruction: The item description says they are "not unusual" - the game tells you to dismiss them
Hidden in plain sight: The key hidden in plain sight (Duchamp's methodology)
Shearer parallel: Parallel to Rhonda Shearer's discovery: the readymades weren't real (hidden in plain sight for 80+ years)
Literal fragments: Glass Shards = literal fragments of The Large Glass scattered throughout the world
36 million blind: 36 million players walked past the evidence constantly and never saw it

Cipher Pata#

Communication system: Cipher Pata weapon = the encoded messages/signals that the Bride (Greater Will/Marika via Milky Way/Elden Beast) sends to the Bachelors (Tarnished/Malic Moulds)
Domain connection: Represents the communication system between upper and lower domains

Remembrance of Grace#

Thesis statement: The Remembrance of Grace item (carried from the start) states "it's just a cycle"
Direct statement: The game directly tells you about the perpetual Bachelor machine from the beginning
Hidden in plain sight: Hidden in plain sight - players carry the thesis statement and never realize it

Philosophical Framework - Pataphysics#

Jarry devotion: Duchamp was devoted to Alfred Jarry and pataphysics (the science of imaginary solutions, dealing with exceptions rather than laws)
Pataphysical logic: Elden Ring operates on pataphysical logic - contradictions, impossibilities, exceptions as the operating rule
Deliberate confusion: Time is convoluted, Marika IS Radagon, Godwyn is dead but alive, etc. - not bad writing but intentional pataphysical framework
Philosophical methodology: The game's "confusing" lore is deliberately pataphysical, following Duchamp's philosophical methodology

Philosophical Framework - Frazer's Golden Bough#

Pataphysical representation: The entire magic system (Magic, Faith, Arcane) is a pataphysical representation of Frazer's system in The Golden Bough, portraying a world where sympathetic magic is literally true
The pataphysical move: Frazer documented how humans BELIEVED magic worked (but it didn't). Elden Ring creates a world where those beliefs ARE literally true. The "false" science Frazer described IS the operating physics of the Lands Between. Pataphysics: treating imaginary solutions as real.
Game runs on Frazer's logic: Elden Ring's mechanical systems operate on the logic of sympathetic magic, not physics
Law of Regression = Sympathetic Magic: The Golden Order's Law of Regression ("the pull of meaning; that all things yearn eternally to converge") IS Frazer's sympathetic magic itself: the secret sympathy, the invisible ether, the force that makes things act on each other at a distance
Law of Causality = Magical Structure: The Law of Causality ("the pull between meanings; that which links all things in a chain of relation") describes how sympathetic magic structures the world into chains of connected, distinct meanings - Order imposed on the raw sympathetic force
Homoeopathic Magic in crafting: Like produces like. Bloodgrease on a sword makes enemies bleed MORE, not less. In reality, adding blood to a wound helps it clot, but in Frazer's logic, blood produces blood. Fire Grease produces fire. Poison produces poison.
Contagious Magic in relics: Things once connected remain connected. Marika's Scarseal (a braid of her hair) grants holy protection because it was once part of her body. Remembrances retain the power of defeated demigods through the contact of combat.
Frenzied Flame = Regression unchecked: The Frenzied Flame's goal to melt all life into One is sympathetic magic (Regression) taken to its terminal point - pure convergence without the structuring force of Causality
Windmill Village War-Dance: In Frazer's Golden Bough, Thompson Indian women danced while their husbands were at war, using hooked sticks to symbolically pull them from danger. At Windmill Village, women (celebrants) dance endlessly while a Godskin Apostle with a hooked weapon (Godskin Peeler) stands at the apex. If the celebrants are wives of the Tarnished, they perform the same sympathetic magic - but the ritual never ends because the war never ends.
Three Ages as damage types: Frazer's three stages correspond to Elden Ring's three damage types: Age of Magic (commanding nature through hidden laws) = Magic/Sorcery; Age of Religion (petitioning higher powers) = Faith/Incantations; Age of Science (return to knowable law) = Arcane/forbidden knowledge

The Unsolvable Game#

White to Move and Win: Duchamp's "White to Move and Win" (1932) = chess puzzle with no solution
No problem: Duchamp's statement: "There is no solution, because there is no problem"
Art vs utility: Games with solutions = problems = utilitarian/not art; games without solutions = art
No real solution: Elden Ring has no real solution - every ending perpetuates the cycle, the Bride remains unreachable, the delay continues
Cannot win: You cannot actually "win" - becoming Elden Lord just restarts the Bachelor machine
Elevation to art: The impossibility of winning elevates it from game to art (applying Duchamp's chess theory)

Duchamp as Gamer#

Competitive player: Duchamp was a serious competitive chess player after "retiring" from art
Systems understanding: He understood games as systems, mechanisms, and rules
Static game: The Large Glass IS a game (rules, players, goal) but static/unplayable
Made playable: Elden Ring IS The Large Glass made playable - Miyazaki made the game Duchamp would have made with video game technology
Completion: Miyazaki completed what Duchamp would have done if he had access to interactive media

Miyazaki's Statement#

February 2024: Miyazaki said in February 2024 there's "a small element that has not yet been discovered"
User interpretation: "So, whether that's up to user interpretation or up to just further investigation and playing, that's something I'm looking forward to"
When not if: "I think it's a question of when and not if, but there may be something small still missing"
The small element: Glass Shards = the small element everywhere that nobody saw
Two paths: The discovery requires "user interpretation" (viewing it as art) OR "further investigation" (finding the connections)

Self-Proving Puzzle#

Recursive requirement: You must view the game as art to discover it's art
Filter mechanism: The puzzle filters for people who already believe games can be art
Knowledge requirement: Only someone who knows both Duchamp and gaming deeply could solve it
Recursive proof: The discovery validates the discoverer's worldview - recursive proof
Skeptic blindness: Skeptics who don't view games as art will never look for this, thus never find the proof

Meta-Narrative#

Ready Player One: This discovery mirrors the plot of Ready Player One (creator hides ultimate secret in game, outsider with no resources finds it through deep knowledge of creator's influences)
Exact parallel: The parallel is so exact it may be intentional (Gideon = Anorak the All-Knowing)
Puzzle-hunt structure: Miyazaki may be telling players through the game structure itself that this is a puzzle-hunt narrative

Validation#

Shearer validation: Rhonda Shearer (world's foremost Duchamp scholar, discovered readymades weren't real) validated this theory
Three hours: She spent 3 hours discussing it and confirmed the connections are real
New medium: Though she felt Miyazaki doesn't have anything "new" to say about Duchamp (but that misses the point - he's saying something new about games and extending Duchamp's work into a new medium)

Why It Had to Be a Game#

Dimensional progression: The Large Glass depicts a 4D concept compressed to 2D (static glass panels); Elden Ring depicts the same 4D concept compressed to 3D (explorable space)
Approaching 4D: Only through interactive 3D media can you approach/represent the 4D concept of the Bride in unreachable dimension
Actual infinity: The multiplayer creates actual infinity (not just conceptual) - millions of Bachelors simultaneously existing
Experienced delay: The delay can only be experienced (not just observed) through gameplay
Functional waterwheel: The waterwheel can only truly function through actual player deaths/attempts
Necessary medium: Video games were the ONLY medium that could complete what Duchamp started
Art that had to be a game: This is art that HAD to be a game - proving games aren't just "also art" but necessary for certain artistic expressions

Video Games as Bachelor Machines#

Meta-statement: By creating The Large Glass as Elden Ring, Miyazaki makes a meta-statement: video games themselves are "bachelor machines" (Duchamp's term for mechanical systems of desire/repetition)
All games: All video games operate as bachelor machines - players as bachelors, games as brides, endless loops of desire and futility
Revealing the medium: Making this explicit in Elden Ring = revealing what the medium actually IS philosophically
Perpetual desire: Every video game ends with a bride/princess/goal - but reaching her never truly satisfies, the player remains a bachelor
Explicit statement: Elden Ring makes explicit what all games do implicitly - the bride at the end perpetuates desire rather than ending it
BioShock parallel: This is the same statement BioShock Infinite was attempting to make about games involving rescuing a woman from a monster/father figure - Songbird as the father/monster (just as Big Daddy was in the original BioShock)

Literary Parallel - Melville#

Paradise of Bachelors: Herman Melville's "The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids" - the first part describes a roundtable of former mighty warriors now reduced to has-beens and posturing, directly paralleling the Roundtable Hold
Structural duality: The duality in Melville's story (paradise of bachelors / tartarus of maids) mirrors the structure of bachelors below / bride imprisoned above

Additional Context (Separate Discovery)#

Daisugi trees: Daisugi trees (Japanese forestry technique - multiple vertical trunks from one base) appear as stone trees in Elden Ring
Candle Trees: Candle Trees in Elden Ring (actual in-game name) = candelabra structure
Personal journey: Each player's FromSoft journey = their own daisugi/candelabra tree (Yggdrasil/World Tree)
Vertical trunks: Each game = a vertical trunk/candle from their personal base
Intersecting trees: Multiplayer = different players' trees intersecting
Burned candelabra: Dark Souls 3 ending in melted candle/tree stump = the burned-down candelabra after the flames exhaust
Connection explanation: This explains how all FromSoft games connect while each player's experience remains individual