The world of Elden Ring is haunted by disembodied spirits.
It's actually nuts: our horse (a horned horse, which is actually a detail whose significance only occurred to me just now) is a spirit that manifests when we blow on our ring-whistle. Melina is burned in body, with only her spirit able to meet us at Sites of Grace. We have summoned spirits via their Spirit Ash. Ghostly spirits are everywhere, even before you get to the Land of Shadow, where most of the Hornsent are shadowy spirits, slain in Messmer's crusade.
And then, the Erdtree is also a spirit.
It's never stated explicitly, but there is a lot of implication across the game that at some point in the past, the Erdtree burned to ash, and that the version we see towering over the Lands Between is, effectively, its ghost. Some NPCs ask if we see the Erdtree, which would be a ludicrous question if it were still a physical object, glowing brighter than the sun. However, it's implied that to see the Erdtree, one must also see the Guidance of Grace, and that is not something that everyone is capable of doing.
Now, it's not a perfect theory: in support of it is that Leyndell is already covered in ash, with alleys and backstreets mostly buried. Why, then, after we are the ones to burn it with either Melina's help or with the Frenzied Flame, is there significantly more ash, such that nearly the entire city is buried beneath?
(As a side note, something occurred to me: In Alchemical tradition, there's a stage in the Magnum Opus called the Rubedo, in which the sun turns red, which red also representing the highest of the elements, fire. In Elden Ring, the Erdtree has kind of usurped the role of the sun as the source of light, with a past "Sun Realm" era long fallen away. When we burn it, the tree still stands, but it is consumed with a deep red flame. Is this the Rubedo of our grand alchemical work to transform the world?)
Marika's reign can be roughly divided into two eras, one with Godfrey as her Elden Lord and one with Radagon. Notably, it seems that with Godfrey, Marika was kind of tied more to the physical world. Her sacred rite was to collect the sap of the Erdtree for people to, I assume, drink. Godfrey, being tied more to nature via the Crucible and his old barbarian ways, was thus paired with this more kind of nature/fertility goddess whose blessings were tangible nourishment.
With Radagon, however, the religion of the Golden Order became far more abstract and conceptual. Radagon promoted a more scholarly understanding of the Golden Order, existing beyond the realm of the physical and into the metaphysical. You can even see how the older Erdtree holy symbols were organic, making use of tree imagery, while the Golden Order Fundamentalist symbols are more geometric and less representational.
What if Radagon's influence on the Golden Order was a reaction to some catastrophe? What if it was the destruction of the Erdtree, the centerpiece to Marika's religious order, and the very boon that she granted to people that legitimized her as a god, required a radical redefinition about what faith in Marika actually meant.
Now, where within all of this the Night of Black Knives, the removal of the Rune of Death, the Shattering all take place is something I can't really say for certain (I've generally assumed the Shattering was a reaction to the Night of Black Knives, but that means it'd have to have been after the removal of the Rune of Death because the Black Knife Assassins needed that rune to do what they did... I think? Boy, what does it even mean for Maliketh to be guarding the rune in Farum Azula when bits of it are in Ranni and Godwyn's bodies?)
I'd argued earlier that Melina's total lack of fear in being the kindling for the Erdtree might actually be because her spirit won't be destroyed if she does so. It's not the Flame of Frenzy. Though, what's weird is that in the Lord of Frenzied Flame ending, Melina does appear, looking like he hair is singed by the fire, and seems to physically exist, which is... boy not even sure what to do with that.
Marika went on a war to conquer the Lands Between while Godfrey was her lord, and I believe the final battle was agains the Fire Giants, which led to a massacre not unlike that of the Hornsent.
Marika's animosity toward the Hornsent isn't hard to understand, given what was done to her people (and I think probably done to her as well - I think she's the "successful" Jar-Saint that the Hornsent were trying to make, and I guess it didn't occur to them that doing so would make an incredibly powerful individual who would hate you with a burning passion).
And you know what, this might also kind of explain her attitude toward death. The Hornsent were obsessed with spirits - with ghosts - and Marika built her entire Golden Order around the idea that no one would permanently die. You die, your body and soul are recycled through the Erdtree, returning to life as a real, living, breathing person, not some ghostly spirit.
But that's no longer possible when the Erdtree is, itself, a ghost.
It's interesting, because I think Radagon's transformation of the Golden Order is an allegory for the development of religious thought in human culture. Theologians over the past couple thousand years have described far more sophisticated and complex and, well, less grounded ideas that are dervied from ancient religions. I don't mean to say that ancient people weren't sophisticated, but there's a kind of rabbit hole of subtle distinctions that lead people into holy wars with one another, or having people executed for heresy, where if you're not well-versed in the intricacies of the theology, you might be confused as to why these people are even in conflict.
In other words, this kind of sophistication isn't necessarily progressive, and I think it's pretty strongly implied that the Golden Order under Godfrey was probably a lot better to live under than it was under Radagon (though maybe not so great for the people in the process of being conquered - like... better, but not necessarily good).
It's ironic, though, that Marika sought to build a world grounded in the physical reality, the familiar, living world, but her Order was then turned into this cerebral, abstract thing.
Is this the reason she decided to tear it all down?
Marika's motivations are one of the biggest enigmas in the game. While Melina is able to quote her at various churches, we never actually hear her or Radagon speak (let's just set aside the question of whether Radagon was ever his own fully independent person or not, or if he was always just Marika's male aspect).
When we make it to the interior of the Erdtree (which I didn't clock until someone online pointed it out, but we actually seem to start there in the opening cutscene before showing up at the Chapel of Anticipation) we see Marika crucified on a Rune Arc, with a massive lance the red color of the Rune of Death impaling her (very Spear of Longinus-coded).
Who did this to her? Truly, I have no clue. I doubt it was Radagon, as this imprisoned him just as much as it imprisoned her.
Still, I think that there's this interesting tension: the Fundamentalist version of the Golden Order might be totally antithetical to her original vision. But then, it also seems that she and Radagon, despite sharing the same body, are also at odds with one another.
Last little note:
Given these affiliations, it might be ironic, then, that Marika's Scarseal and Soreseal boost "mental" stats like Intelligence, Faith, and Mind, while Radagon's Scarseal and Soreseal boost physical stats like Strength, Dexterity, and Endurance, as you'd think they would be opposites. Maybe, and this is kind of a shot in the dark, but maybe it's that these are the qualities that they lack, rather than what they posses and grant?
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