I think if you added up the run time of all the trailer analysis videos that came out just today, Story Trailer Day, you'd have like a week solid of ideas to sort through.
I generally try to avoid lore channels and deep dive theories until I've gone through the game a couple times and kind of got my head around what I think is going on. Like I figured the zamorans and ebonivory lords would connect somehow. Gut instinct, KNEW IT IN MY HEART, fucking no, nothing. They're just the around the same height and use magic is all.
I think rykard, and to a lesser degree marias, in the base game, are essentially the heirs of mesmers operation.
When we arrive on Altus by the main elevator we don't find any guards. Even the golems I'm pretty sure won't attack if you have the medallion.
But then off to the left you see damn near every able-bodied bonker in the kingdom facing the same direction, from behind a barricade, with a weapon out. Omen are there, misbegotten. I'm sure once the honorable and upstanding Kenneth Haight works his magic the nearby demihumans will join in the fun.
By fun I mean staring at the path to Gelmir, terrified.
But what's to be afraid of? One political genius and half a dozen not-at-all-to-kinda strong Ayn Randian fascists? Like, sure, the serpent and the lava and all is pretty impressive but have you heard Fia's offer? She gives hugs, Tanith. Most people would take a hug over some dork-ass non-erotic dancing and being burned on a stake for being insufficiently murderous.
Just to point out, leyndell isnt or shouldn't be worried about Marias, he ain't gonna do nothing, he fell in love with Malenia.
It doesn't really make sense that Leyndell would have that many arrows pointed at Gelmir if all that could really happen is Bernhal and like three other guys charge at them.
It kinda also doesn't make sense Rykard being that big of a player in the Shattering that he would have that big an army. The descriptions of the Gelmir front and the sheer horror of the opening cinematic make it clear that that whole stretch was a literal meat grinder that made what happened in Caelid look humane and reasonable by comparison.
I don't think Rykard could ever inspire that kind of devotion, even under threat of being fed to snakes while on fire. I also don't think Rykard would be the one to face Maliketh if Rykard was the top dog of Caria's offensive.
If Radahn had sided with Rennala then whoever was leading the assault wins.
So, from this I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the army from the opening cinematic was originally under Mesmer's command, and that Mesmer was originally gonna be the World Devouring Immortal Serpent from Gelmir. And from this new trailer we can infer that he did break the walls but this breech, unlike Gransax's, wasn't recorded. There was a theory I heard in a Ziostorm video that, when you think about it, the opening cinematic battle HAD TO have happened before half of Leyndell was blasted down into Nameless Eternal, because that gate doesn't have anything but a lake behind it in the present.
So, judging from the burning of Leyndell in this new trailer it becomes clear that the walls weren't just breeched: it would be seemingly impossible to stop the assault without giving Mesmer anything he wanted.
Except they did.
I think maybe Radahn did. Not directly, but he had access to Ivory and Ebony Lords and those guys are only called lords because everyone's scared of what they can do.
Astel means "Star". And someone called them. And they answered. Not that penny-ante bullshit Radahn's doing; these things treat up and down and now and then like a child's flipbook.
But Mesmer ain't here no more, so problem fixed. Plus Morgott gets to justifiably send Radahn packing back to Caelid.
Couple of notes on Mesmer:
He and his spears are dressed closely to Drakebloods, and seem to be a 'shadow' faction of dragon cultists, and it's pretty likely they were in direct opposition to Godwyn's faction. Maybe not even a shadow faction: the Magma Worm faction.
Where Rykard and his serpent are represented as gluttony incarnate, Mesmer and his snakes are The Machinist thin.
So what are the snakes?
I think they're slugs. Like you'll be riding through a green field on a rainy day and there's be a gathering of like five slugs, on fire, crawling around setting a fire, with a bunch of butterflies, also on fire, hovering around them. It's the kind of thing your partner will see and say something like 'I thought everything in this game made sense" and you're like "it does" they're like "that slug is on fire" "it's a fire slug" "it doesn't make sense" "it does we just don't understand how it makes sense" "that's literally what 'it doesn't make sense' means".
The slugs like to find shells and they can take on a variety of different pokemon evolutions. Skeleton snails, classic. Those things all over Rykard's sword are like baby ones. "Those aren't snakes" the snails in Gelmir are snakes. The not on fire ones I mean. There aren't fire snails, there are snail snakes. "so three unrelated animals with zero things common between them?" Yeah, they're all the same thing. Like Eevee. "Also none of them have wings like on the statues" that's probably because the Mesmer evolution went extinct in the base game.
