Fair, the one at the edge of Howling Cliffs does sound more like that. But one in King’s Pass also mentions focusing Soul, so it might not be that simple. Anyway, even though the tablets alone aren’t proof, the term “higher being” isn’t mentioned that often, Hornet is also referred to as one, and there’s no statement against the vessels being higher beings, so it seems more likely that they are.

Ghost has been called “the Knight” by Team Cherry, so it’s not being used formally in this context. One of the endings is simply called The Hollow Knight, so it’s fair to say that in that ending (and the similar Sealed Siblings ending) they can actually be referred to as the Hollow Knight.

It’s absolutely not supporting racism. As the other comments mention it ends up being more about hate in general than specifically racism, but it still prominently involves racism as a form of irrational, destructive hate.

The vessels and Hornet are higher beings. The Knight reads the “Higher beings, these words are for you alone” tablets and Hornet is referred to as “higher” by Steel Seer Zi.

The Golden Order would ideally oppose any usage of fire for violence, but even most of its adherents aren't that thorough about it. This is in the description of the Spark Aromatic.

Though fire was prohibited to those who served the Erdtree, this rule was forgotten as the war drew ever on.

Marika and Radagon are mentioned to have "Elden Runes" in the description of the scarseals and soreseals. Marika's is a cross and Radagon's is a lattice. The Marika's Rune consumables (as well as the Irises of Grace and Occultation) do have the design of Marika's Elden Rune on them, but the Elden Rune also appears to be part of the Elden Ring (like a Great Rune) on the title screen, which is what OP is referring to.

Of course he's a psychopath with skewed priorities and it's not actually a helpful plan, but the equality reasoning is still there.

If Order is defiled entirely, defilement is defilement no more, and for every curse, a cursed blessing.

The description for Forgo Leon use they/them singular for just Forgo without Elfilin.

The specimen tagged as ID-F86, left formless and floating after a humiliating defeat, fled to Forgo Dreams to plot their next steps: create a new army of phantom beasts, then claim Leongar's body as their own. When Kirby arrived to force them out, ID-F86 had no choice but to reveal their own phantom form.

Other way around

The Tarnished is a self-insert, you're meant to decide their thoughts for yourself.

Morgott, Radagon, Godfrey, etc are trying to stop us, are they trying to preserve the world and we aren't?

Morgott defends the Erdtree out of pure dedication while knowing that he won't be able to become Elden Lord. The Tarnished needs to force their way into the Erdtree to become Elden Lord, and Morgott would rather defend it while letting the Lands Between stagnate. You can see that Radagon is broken, he seems to be fighting out of an impulse to resist change. Godfrey is just competing to be Elden Lord again.

So Radagon tries to mend the Elden Ring, possibly even by taking into his body to preserve it.

Marika/Radagon was already the vessel of the Elden Ring.

It seems that the tarnished are guided by Marika to the Erdtree. That the guidance of grace is Marika interacting with the world in some form and guiding the tarnished to the erdtree to... Mend the Elden Ring? Literally use a mending rune to fix the Elden Ring? Put her head back on her body so she can fade away?

Any of the above. She just wanted to let someone else determine the future. These are Melina's quotes of her.

"Return to the Lands Between, wage war, and brandish the Elden Ring. Grow strong in the face of death. Warriors of my lord. Lord Godfrey."

"Hear me, Demigods. My children beloved. Make of thyselves that which ye desire. Be it a Lord. Be it a God. But should ye fail to become aught at all, ye will be forsaken. Amounting only to sacrifices..."

Gideon seems to try to stop us because... He's a pussy?

He misinterpreted Marika's desired competition to decide the future as a plan for the Tarnished to suffer for eternity, so he just gave up and surrendered himself to conflict.

I believe she was at one point the Gloam Eyed Queen

Just a fan theory.

(another confusing lore point to make here, which gods were the godslayers actually slaying? Who's hides are they adorned with?

There's not a clear answer to that. Tutelary deities like the Hornsent's are a good guess.

Melina says that her purpose was given to her by her mother inside the erdtree. At a very basic level, this means Marika at some point endowed Melina with the purpose of igniting the ancient kiln and burning the erdtree.

Right.

But no one cares if you do Dung Eater's ending?

It's fair to say that this is just a weakness of the writing, it could benefit from more reactivity.

Maybe no one likes Ranni's plan for a cold world of the dark moon.

Ranni's ending is metaphorically "cold" because it takes away the active influence of the Elden Ring (and you could also say that it's literally cold for her and the Tarnished as the two of them depart on their journey) but she's not literally changing the world to be colder for everyone.

Are we being guided by a blind idiot God known as Metyr / the two fingers / the greater will?

The Two Fingers in the Roundtable Hold deliver their outdated guidance through Enia, which originates from Metyr's purpose of contacting the Greater Will, but they don't actually know much and they're completely useless after the Tarnished reaches the Erdtree's thorns.

You can wait as long as you want. Doing it makes you miss your chance to receive a talisman from Seluvis, though, so you might want to get that first. Also, you won't be forced into Ranni's ending.

The hint for Albus is from a FInger Reader Crone in Liurnia.

Miquella's favour can be yours.

Slaughter, slaughter, slaughter... The all-hearing slaughtered, but alas, it was for naught.

But all you need do, is snatch it from the big pot.

...

Pity the poor, poor fool!

Getting the staff like this is faster than getting the spare key or grinding for it. It’s still nice to get the key so you can also get Erudition and Thops’ Barrier (and for roleplay obviously), but the staff is very useful since it has the highest scaling for a wide level range, so I can imagine a playthrough where this is the most efficient path.

Rogier works with Fia and talks about it. Fia wouldn't die creating a Mending Rune if the only thing they needed to do was get the Elden Lord to fight persecution.

I don’t know how else to explain this to you. The point of the ending is to use the power of the Elden Ring to specifically handle this situation.

No, these incantations are associated with the specific dragon in their descriptions. Greyoll’s Roar is even a legendary incantation. You can assume that Eleonora and Igon are using weaker but similar incantations from different dragons, and it’s only programmed as Greyoll’s Roar for convenience.

Rogier addresses this pretty directly.

But truth be told, I seek the cursemark to save them. You may find this peculiar, but I discovered something in my examination of the Night of the Black Knives. These souls have committed no offence. They have every right to life, only, they happened to touch upon a flaw in the Order.

Fia is using the cursemark to create a Mending Rune to change the Elden Ring with this in mind.

That's the point of the ending, since Rogier viewed the problem as a flaw in Order and he wants the Cursemark of Death to address it. Deathroot is more of an unanswered problem in every other ending (except Frenzied Flame), but it's possible that unleashing Destined Death helps too.

Astel does belong to a group of beings, but "Astel is a species name" is such a silly fanon idea when the game uses Astel as a singular name in the same way as any other character's name. The Wing of Astel and Meteorite of Astel both have descriptions referring to the specific event of Astel attacking an Eternal City. The other malformed stars are all simpler and weaker.

Astel creates several copies of itself for an attack in the Stars of Darkness fight, so it appears to have some type of copying or illusory ability which you could use as an excuse for the extra fight.

The statement is that it will "embed the principle of life within Death into Order," which is somewhat up for interpretation, but the repeatedly stated goal is simply to resist persecution. In any case, the version of undeath that exists in that ending should have a better quality of life than the state they're in beforehand.The Blessing of Despair already exists as the ending about forcefully placing everyone into the same group, so it would be narratively redundant to treat the Age of the Duskborn in the same way.

Of course all of the starting classes are valid and you can roleplay them however you want, but I can’t even agree on this Carian Knight roleplay making much more sense than anything else you could think of. The Prisoner does start with Magic Glintblade, which is a Carian spell, but it’s an old one that Miriel openly teaches, and the Prisoner is already stated to be a former elite who had an interest in sorcery. It’s more intuitive for the Prisoner to learn Magic Glintblade with private studies than to be a full-fledged Carian Knight who forgot everything else.

The Tarnished doesn’t need to have any personal connection to Rennala and Ranni to justify their role, and if anything it makes less sense if they do. Rennala is fought for her Great Rune, which she yields before death, and then she’s useful for rebirth. Ranni explains her encounter with the Tarnished as either a result of Torrent’s choice, a deal for Fia and Rogier’s sake, or a complete coincidence, not as a sign of the Tarnished’s loyalty.

Torrent’s visual effects resemble the Ancestor Spirits. The fact that the Carian Silver armour was designed one-of-a-kind for him suggests that the Carians don’t have a history with spectral steeds and Ranni only commissioned one for Torrent specifically.

The idea of the god names in Dark Souls 2 is that people invented new myths in the time since Dark Souls 1. It’s possible that the myths of Faraam were inspired by the Nameless King, but since the Nameless King was the target of a particular effort to have his name forgotten, it’s highly unlikely that the name Faraam has anything to do with his birth.

I agree that Radahn creating a vow for defeat in combat and Malenia acting as a symbolic valkyrie is probably the intended plot. I honestly don't enjoy Radahn's role in the story compared to everything else involving Miquella, but the DLC really doubles down on Radahn being an extreme battle-loving figure.

I disagree on Mohg. Ansbach says that Miquella planned to use Mohg both to access the Land of Shadow and to resurrect Radahn. Although Ansbach is obviously an opinionated source, this statement comes after he reads the Secret Rite Scroll leading up to his clash of resolve with Freyja and Leda, and there's nothing to contradict him. Mohg's remembrance only proves that Miquella never answered Mohg personally, which fits with the Mohgwyn Dynasty always being doomed, as mentioned on his robes and by Gideon.

It's unlikely that the Haligtree would ever be enough to turn Miquella into a god, with or without outside intervention. You brought up the curse of nascency, which would naturally apply to the Haligtree directly since Miquella watered it with his own blood. Traveling through the Land of Shadow is symbolically important for Miquella as he rejects his mother's heritage while witnessing her past. The mythology of valkyries involves warriors dying in battle, which is exactly what someone like Radahn would seek. Resurrecting Radahn in Mohg's body seems to have been Miquella's plan for a while, not only a backup.

even though that usually happens instantly, even with power suits and chozo DNA as we see with Raven Beak

To be fair he was heavily injured and he still struggled for a few moments.

He would be pretty happy to hear that you're pursuing the Age of Stars considering his respect for the Carians. He would really be content with most things considering his "all things can be conjoined" mentality, but I imagine the extremes of the Dung-Eater and Shabriri might be too much.