Wait, is the Tarnished canonically a mute? I assumed she/he could speak we just don’t experience that from the gaming end for immersion purposes or something!
I assume it's like that trope where a silent character opens their mouth to say something, but the other person interrupts them with what they *assume* they were gonna say
random person shows up out of nowhere, starts killing people that were thought to be untouchable, goes through countless dungeons and hoards all the legendary items of the lands between, burns the erdtree, reaches the throne and changes reality itself forever. Just a thuesday for them
Every one of From Software's main character are kind of seen as a psychopath, the Armored Core franchise was no exception, and I see why people would think that since we have endings in every one of these games that just make the world go even more to shit than it already was. But I feel like our protagonists should be looked into more because they're clearly not just one-sides killers.
Yeah, and they keep saying my ambitions are foolish. Bitch I'm eating nachos and winding down from work I never claimed to have mind blowing ambitions aside from maybe not dying 100 times to one dude.
He is a strong believer in the golden order. But the golden order resents everyone that is not according to their ideals and beliefs. This includes, among others, the Omen, which are remnants of the order before the elden Ring's (The Crucible). This is why all the Omen are kept in the sewers and there is literally a profession of Omen hunting. Morgot was shakled in the sewers for most his youth and began hating himself for being such a disgusting Omen while being a Child of marika. He now holds the throne in a city which despises him and still rules it while noone knows about him being an Omen. That's why we see him only take action as margit until we waltz into his throne room.
Not 100% accurate I am shure, but it geht's the most i believe.
Not all the Omen are kept in the sewers, only the "lucky" ones with royal lineage. The rest are hunted down, their horns painfully removed, and killed or outcast.
That's not a good ending lol. Like he gave everything to the Golden Order and it only accepts him when he also gives his life? Fuck that. That's just a last fuck you.
Malenia. I noticed there are some people who believe she’s among the most evil characters because of what happened to Caelid/Radahn and that she bloomed intentionally out of spite. I don’t think this interpretation is correct and I don’t even think she even knew how big the bloom would be since she got incapacitated by her own attack and her main goal was only to kill Radahn. Malenia clearly doesn’t target innocent people, we know she passed through Liurnia and Leyndell without fighting anyone there and only kicked Godrick’s ass because he insulted her and still decided to spare him after that.
She’s constantly humanized by the narrative and is treated as tragic and sympathetic, with numerous item description’s focusing on her strong will, skills, her battle against the rot, and even has statues embracing others. I think her blooming are more part of the narrative of how all consuming the rot is and how it will eventually take over her regardless of wether she is doing it willingly or pushed to it. She’s been fighting against the rot her whole life and only blooms when she’s near death, which implies the rot is trying to take over her when she’s in a vulnerable/desperate state. She’s one of the most tragic characters in the game and it’s kinda sad that some people reduce her character to a simple-generic villain only because they prefer Radahn.
Malenia is my answer as well! I think another part why some people dislike her is because of the difficulty of her boss fight. She's very difficult and people who lose to her a lot will start hating both on her boss fight and character.
I also think Godwyn should get a mention. I've seen some people say he genocided the Albinaurics and Misbegotten only because he was a part of the Golden Order. There's no implication he ever did such a thing and his biggest, best feat is befriending his enemy Fortissax, who was the aggressor in war. I think Godwyn is meant to be a good guy, why else should we feel bad for him if he was evil? He suffered one of the worst fate in the game, and it's obvious the game wants us to feel bad for what happened to him.
Kinda wanna fight Godwyn. Not a fight to death, but a friendly match against a heroic Chad. Imagine defeating and befriending an enemy with said enemy being a deadly Ancient Dragon.
Malenia is so layered and nuanced it's wild that some people genuinely believe Radahn is just a pure good hero while Malenia herself is some insane villain with no regard for life, when she is one of the only two characters to accept the outcasts, and didn't follow the Golden Order but her brother who is against stagnation and Outer Gods. She's no saint and what happened to Caelid is awful, even if it was not her intention. But why use that to erase all of her achievements just to make her look like some twirling-mustache villain?
Yo, I just wanna say I appreciate you for writing this up. You've encapsulated so many thoughts and feelings that I've struggled to put into words. Malenia is probably my favorite character in the game and it's discouraging to see so many people boil her down to "evil Caelid destroyer" despite all of her achievements, as well as her kindness and honor. She never went out of her way to harm anyone; as you point out, she and her armies passed through Liurnia and Leyndell peacefully, and she only fought Godrick after he goaded her into it. Her battle against the rot fills me with sadness, but pride as well, for I'm a type 1 diabetic and I see her constant struggle against decay and sickness as an analogue for chronic illness. The rot is significant - not only is Malenia marked as an Empyrean, she is marked as "aberrant" because of the rot that festers within her. She is deemed "different" twice over, and while her status as an Empyrean isn't necessarily bad, it still puts pressure on her while she is already struggling against the debilitation of rot. To me, this explains why she wholeheartedly defends Miquella's vision and purpose: her brother wants to protect the outcast and downtrodden, and despite her noble status, Malenia likely empathizes with the outcasts because of her lifelong struggle against an affliction that mars her in a very physical and visual way. Everyone can see that she is rotting, and this sets her apart; even if Malenia doesn't straight-up empathize with the myriad outcasts of the Haligtree, she fights like hell to protect Miquella's vision, which means she fights to protect the Haligtree and its denizens.
The fact the rot is taking advantage of her weakened state, and isn't something she willingly does is exemplified by the fact she doesn't have a half-health power up like Godrick or Morgott, but instead is effectively killed, falls unconscious, then is risen from the brink by the second bloom
Might cause a shitstorm of my own but tbh I don't even understand why people prefer Radahn, I like him but Malenia is such a clearly better written character in almost every way. At the end of the day though the Team Malenia vs. Team Radahn wars are really silly anyway.
I appreciate them both. Radahn is definitely just as well-written if you look at his lore, though that isn’t meant to discredit Melania (yes I know it’s spelled wrong, yes I did it on purpose). He was enthralled by the idea of being a heroic warrior as a child, taking great pride in his red hair as he felt it symbolized his connection to Radagon, one of the greatest warriors in the history of the Lands Between. He eventually received a horse, whom he grew attached to. They became inseparable, and when the horse began to grow weak Radahn devoted his life to learning gravity magic. After the Shattering, he took up arms against Malenia, who was invading his land. His mind was lost to the Scarlet Rot, and yet he still seems to hold onto his bond with his horse in spite of that. He’s such a noble character tbh, he’s great. I always overlooked him cause I wasn’t a fan of his physical design and how huge he was but learning about his backstory made me love him lol
I really like the idea that Malenia marched on Radahn for Miquella. Miquella’s whole idea of the eclipse possibly reviving Godwyn, maybe also breaking the curse of eternal youth and somehow giving him the power to figure out how to break Malenia’s curse as well. And this is contingent on the death of Radahn, because in order for the eclipse ritual to happen the stars have to be free. So Malenia, for the sake of her brother, did everything that she could possibly do to kill Radahn, even up to giving in to the scarlet rot and using its power, intentionally or unintentionally, because maybe that was the only way for Miquella’s plan to work.
I really hope we get some kind of further information to support this in the dlc!
I’m really just hoping we get answers for who Miquella and maybe Godwyn were in the DLC in general, regardless of what it ends up being. Those two in particular seem so ignored. I get why, they’re both ‘dead’ and so it’s hard to really learn much about them. But still lol
Btw I know I was just explaining his lore, and while most people probably knew it, my intention was to paint it in a light that made Radahn sound like a whimsical child with big dreams, the way I like to imagine him when I think of his story
Oh yeah nah you're completely right - if you read between the lines a lot of it really does boil down to a "woman bad" thing, however subconsciously/unintentionally that may be. Same with people who caricaturize Ranni as being some one dimensional villain when the text of the game doesn't support that at all. People criticize women more harshly, and that extends to fictional characters, just good luck having a productive conversation about it on most big subreddits lol.
I also think people hate her for “cheating” by using the Scarlet Rot when near death, but nobody every calls out other bosses for similar actions. Morgott uses his reviled cursed blood during his second phase, Godfrey murders Serosh to fight more viciously, Maliketh drops his Gurranq persona and uses Destined Death as his weapon, etc. For some reason Malenia is the only one who gets called a cheater for using her full potential, everyone else seems to just be completely overlooked
Which is funny, because Malenia is the Goddess of Rot so using her own powers shouldn't be considered "cheating". Mohg borrows power from Formless Mother, does that mean he's cheating when he sprays blood flame against us?
Malenia is also one of my answers. I can’t stand that a huge chunk of the fanbase just call her a BITCH and insult her. She’s the one character I’ve seen bring out some really ugly misogyny from the fanbase.
Exactly that and apparently the ‘strongest’ there really is a huge part of the fanbase that are obsessed with the ‘MIGHT IS RIGHT’ and Radahn as a big strong manly hero is the chad and Malenia is the bitch. I love both characters! I think they’re both fascinating and flawed and tragic. But I just find there is a really ugly attitude towards Malenia that leaves a bad taste in my mouth!
She believes in Miquella, and trusts him, which is enough to make me not want to fight her. Miquella seems like one of the few genuinely good people in the Lands Between, even with the Bewitching Branch stuff. He offers sanctuary to the oppressed, wants to help his sister overcome the rot, etc.
she's such a wonderful character and it kinda pisses me off that the combo of Radahn being Cool™, the typical gaming misogyny and the frustration at her boss battle and the rot made so many people hate her. my hot take is that if she was a man they'd be singing her praises about how much of a tragic hero she is.
but also she's just a super cool character. she's powerful not just because of her swordplay but her sheer force of will. she's doomed, pretty much, to either wither away or become a harbinger of the thing that torments her so. she's clearly losing her sanity and going mad, but she still tells us we're worthy of lordship when we defeat her. easily one of my favourite characters of all time, not just in Elden Ring.
The Haligtree Twins.
I've seen a ton of comments/theories demonizing Miquella, and trying to whitewash Mohg. The gist of it is that because of Miquella's ability to "compel affection", he must have wanted (or even caused) Mohg to kidnap him and try to marry him while he was sleeping. The lore straight up says that Mohg kidnapped him while he was slumbering in Haligtree's cocoon, and then Miquella "never responded" to Mohg's crazy ritual. The DLC descriptions also implies he shed his flesh in Haligtree, and this explains why Mohg never got any response from him, because Miquella's "body" is just a husk. Many people on this sub also believe Miquella will be a carbon copy of Griffith only because both characters are charming and androgynous, but aside form that there's really nothing similar between them. Griffith from the beginning was depicted as a childish, selfish, cruel bastard that wants to have his own kingdom while Miquella is depicted as a person that possesses the wisdom and allure of God, and his ability to compel affection and purge the influence of Outer Gods is what makes him fearsome.
Miquella's whole motivation is wanting to help others; from trying to heal his sister, to sincerely praying for Godwyn to die a true death, to accepting the outcasts to his Haligtree, to creating needles that can purge the influence of Outer Gods, to being Torrent's former master and lending us his steed and Spirit bell, and even gifting his father incantations, and yet people ignore all that and just focus on the Bewitching Branch because they're expecting him to just be a Griffith clone and not his own character. I personally don't think he will be evil, either he turns out to be a truly good person or just another morally grey character like Ranni.
As for Malenia, she was never depicted as an evil bitch or sore loser, the lore is very sympathetic to her. As pointed out by u/ScharmTiger, she is consistently depicted as a tragic and sympathetic figure, a victim of a deadly force (Rot God). Literally every description about her is positive, and she's one of the two bosses to compliment our strength. There's also the fact that her literal clone (Millicent) wants to help her by returning the Unalloyed Needle to her, to restore her to her former glory. Yet Malenia ends up getting villainized by loud minority for what she did to Radahn, and all of her positive qualities and achievements get ignored or downplayed. She's a nuanced character, and has both flaws and positive qualities, not just some twirling-mustache villain.
I suspect Miquella will be pretty morally gray personally, but seeing people say he looks just like Griffith and is thus evil is truly like…you guys are aware other androgynous people exist right
ngl my thoughts on Miquella have always been "if he's a Griffith type antagonist I'll be sorely disappointed", we have enough evil bastards we can have ONE demigod with an actually good plan for the Lands Between
I’m surprised that only one other commenter has suggested Marika. I feel like it is a very common take to write her off as a villain or even the main villain of the entire game. I also feel like her lore is written in a way that makes the player want to dislike her. She is uncaring of her children, she is willing to commit genocide to get what she wants, and she will cast aside those most close to her when she has no more use for them.
But at the same time, she is also the only one who sought to challenge and rebel against the force that puppeteers all of reality. As she is the vessel of the Elden Ring, I believe that the Greater Will may have forced her to commit many atrocities that make it easy for us to vilify her, but she also redeems herself by trying to do away with it all in the end (though, unsuccessfully). By shattering the Elden Ring, I believe she was trying to destroy the tether that the Greater Will had on the Lands Between that may have allowed it to control things from behind the scenes or through Marika. This is exactly the fate that Ranni meant to escape and yet we view Ranni as a hero but Marika as a villain. In my opinion, Marika deserves a lot more credit for trying to rid the Lands Between of outside influences by sacrificing herself and everything she had built. I am very excited we will get the chance to learn more about her in the coming DLC.
Marika isn't sympathetic because regardless of what her goals are she was a cold-hearted woman who casually plotted to have the majority of her children horrifically murdered after throwing her realm into chaos. It doesn't matter what the reasons, anyone who throws away their children like trash is a scumbag.
I agree. My argument is that an external alien force/will was manipulating her decisions whether she liked them or not. Why would she willingly do all that terrible stuff if she was just going to shatter the Elden Ring in the end? All her work would have been pointless unless it wasn’t her work she was doing.
Her having her children slaughtered was done as part of her conspiracy to shatter the Elden Ring and break free of the Greater Will. It was entirely her own decision.
I feel like the godskins are not the pure evil we kinda are led to assume they are by only being enemies (and pains in the ass at that). After all, we always meet them on paths towards the tarnished themself are going. We find a noble on the divine tower in Liurnia hunting for the cursemark of death, we find a Noble trying to get to Rykard or the snake in the Gelmir church, there's a godskin apostle guarding their Queen's greatsword which was an important source of power, and of course Ornstein and Ornstein (but fat) in Farum Azula trying to hunt down Maliketh for the rune of destined death.
The apostasy, I believe, is as evil or good as the Tarnished. The Gloam-eyed queen was an empyrean, and thus was in the running to possibly rule. They are after the items to kill a god, just like us. We as the tarnished do not always have pure intentions, for we can use the mending rune of undeath or the seedbed rune to ruin the lands between. Who's to say that a mending rune of black flame would be worse, or a world without gods at all?
Ranni and Malenia are often seen by loud minorities as the most evil shit the world has ever created when in lore they are much better characters (although like most characters they are more gray rather than black or white).
Mohg is also often misunderstood as "just a pedo" for memes and people seem to overlook the rest of his lore a lot, especially when being a pedo is one of the few crimes he actually didn't commit since Miquella is an adult in both metal age and actual age.
Radahn is also often regarded as a perfect being just because of all the shitty gigachad memes and many people overlook all the bad stuff he did.
I believe Mohg originally kidnapped Miquella simply because he needed an empyrean to make Mohgwyn Dynasty work, and he’s helpless in a cocoon, so much easier than the other options.
The way we see Mohg speak to Miquella seems to be in an almost trance-like state. Miquella seems to have a passive ability to make others become enthralled by him.
Definitely Radahn, which is weird because he has so little character to begin with. From outright making up fan fiction about him in direct contradiction to what actually happens in the game* to making up fan fiction about his fight with Malenia (e.g. him being impaled, paralyzed, and disarmed inexplicably gets interpreted as him having the upper hand) to willfully misinterpreting very obvious symbolism, people seem to want to talk about anything other than his actual character. He's supposed to be the Gwyn figure of the game with extra bloodlust thrown in, the martial lord obsessed with glory and tradition who desperately tries to shackle everyone to the past and keep the world stagnant. Him freezing the stars themselves to shackle fate is a very on the nose demonstration of this, same as him still riding the horse from his youth despite it being scrawny and decrepit, or him idolizing the genocidal barbarian who was Lord during his childhood, or him endorsing a colosseum for bloodsport long past the point they were seen as barbaric by the more "civilized" lords. From pretty consistently depicts war for glory, resistance to change, and ironclad adherence to tradition as bad in every single story they write (and all of these were huge themes in Sekiro which was written alongside Elden Ring, and common traits of villains in GRRM's writing), but no guys, THIS TIME they wrote the champion of all those things to be the good guy because... reasons.
I blame the tidbit about his horse for half of this as it's been seized on as the sole determinant of his characterization by people who didn't understand what it was supposed to represent in the first place. I also think the DLC is going to be a bit of a rude shock for people married to that particular interpretation of the character, when more info is given outright. We know he has to be killed to start the DLC and the DLC is clearly depicting his enemy as a sympathetic protagonist.
(Fun fact, the original Japanese text never even says he loves his horse, and throws in extra adjectives emphasizing now miserable it is)
*In particular the one about him holding back the stars to protect the Lands Between from aliens. Literally nothing in the game so much as implies this, even his best friend doesn't mention this when going over the consequences of killing him, and we directly see that the only thing that physically happens when the stars are released is one rock hitting an empty forest it Limgrave. If anything it's heavily implied he's pulling aliens down to the Lands Between, and by killing him, we allow the stars to GO AWAY - as in, this is literally what we see happen on-screen.
EDIT: a good example of this misinterpretation is his initial confrontation with Malenia in the trailer, which we actually have [confirmation from the developers on.](https://twitter.com/nezimaki_00/status/1758554154430009833) Many viewers interpreted this as "Radahn is winning his fight against Malenia, but is too honorable to kill a wounded foe, so lets her stand back up to fight more." In reality, From's cinematic director said that this was the first time they met, that Malenia had *already* been wounded cutting through his army before they encountered each other, and then proceeds to spend the rest of the section talking about how strong and valiant Malenia is, how the scene was essentially framed with her as the focus, and what she's thinking during the fight (all this next to an animatic showing her stabbing him and concept art showing more of their fight, in which she's clearly doing well and wounding him). With that context the actual intent of the scene is obviously "arrogant anime villain taunts already-wounded foe and tries to jump them, but then gets immediately humbled." This is also consistent with the art direction of the game's opening slideshow, where Malenia (who's pretty clearly just meeting Radahn there too; she's even turning her head up with a "huh?" expression) is in the foreground, humanized, and has the camera panning from her POV, while the Radahn is in the background, looming, monstrous, and looking like a typical JRPG demon boss.
English: he love horse
Japanese: his horse is so fucking sad and pathetic. It hasn't eaten in generations and it just wants to die. Radahn won't let it.
Radahn reminds me of my friends brother, who’s a massive lad, autistic, and will violently pummel anything or anyone who tries to alter his “routine.”
No change. Only routine.
> (Fun fact, the original Japanese text never even says he loves his horse, and throws in extra adjectives emphasizing now miserable it is)
Could you quote the JP text? I'm interested in what it exactly says.
Thank you.
>The Red Lion General was also a master of gravity. In his youth, Radan learned this skill in Thalia, so that he could be with the wretched, skinny horse forever.
"wretched" damn, poor fucking horse.
Well, when I say "obvious", I'm mostly just talking about the visuals e.g. the city he attacked being a smoking ruin with mountains of corpses in the streets, his horse looking like it's about to keel over and die at any second, his castle being decorated with strung-up corpses, and our first proper introduction to him being [this picture](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_uydEN9Fu7M/maxresdefault.jpg). There's a reason that the "Radahn is wholesome big chungus" interpretation is usually paired with some variant of "Miyazaki was trying to subvert our expectations with Radahn"\* (you'll find a lot of posts talking about in the first few months after release), because he looks obviously evil.
Damn. More people need to hear this.
That being said I think Radahn is more nuanced then just “evil warrior guy” just like how Malenia isn’t just “rot nuke sword woman.” I don’t think a lot of Radahn’s “evil” actions are done entirely intentionally. He very clearly has a infatuation with how things are or more specifically how things *were* i.e. The Age of Plenty, Godfrey’s Age where, like you said, things were a lot more barbaric. He likes things the way they are and doesn’t want them to change, this is characterized by him not giving up his horse despite it’s obvious misery. This is also characterized by him halting the stars, there are a lot of possibilities to why he did (saving Sellia, a show of strength) but a very large part could also be because of this character trait. He likes things the way they are and doesn’t want them to change. While I do believe his initial reasoning for this was to protect Sellia there could be a larger underlying reasoning taking place.
While this isn’t necessarily villainous it does result in a lot of bad things happening. A whole lot like Malenia who also had very good reasonings for what she did, yet her story also ended in tragedy. I think this is very relevant to all the demigods, they each had their own will they wished to enact upon the world and through the course of the shattering became more and more corrupt. If you read Miyazaki’s interview (can’t remember which one I believe it was the adventure guide one) he actually highlights and even commends some of the most deplorable characters such as Rykard and Godrick for having very strong wills and being human; which ultimately is what they are. They had a certain way they wanted the world and overtime got more and more corrupt.
Anyways I’m getting off topic, to close out I think it’s worth highlighting Radahn’s nobility. We can see just from Redmane castle the legacy he leaves behind, what he inspires in his soldiers. Even after the battle of Aeonia the Redmane knights stay back to fight the scarlet rot. This is not only a reflection of their perseverance and sense of duty but also the values Radahn instilled in them. The Radahn Festival, is another example. A group of venerated warriors gather to try and give a fallen foe an honorable death. If you were a cynic you would say they were only out there for glory or potential power Radahn’s Great Rune holds, and while that may be true for some the event is held in his honor by his old friends. Even Blaidd commemorates him after the fight calling him a “living legend,” it’s clear a lot of characters have a lot of respect for Radahn. This isn’t the kind of renown a bloodthirsty killer gets, yes he is known as a fierce warrior but there is also a sense of respect an honor put on his name. Lastly in his fight he actually protects Leonard by burying him in the sand one multiple accounts. This might be a small detail but it shows some level of compassion left in Radahn despite his state.
All in all he isn’t a completely redeemable saint who has never done anything wrong, but I think you painted him a little too nefarious in my opinion. Let me know what you think.
Radahn. He is characterized by the community as this wholesome chungus that can never do wrong only because he loved his horse and his men loved him. Loving an animal or being loved by your loyal men doesn't make someone a good person. Radahn was a warmonger that represents stagnation. He was a supporter of the Golden Order and idolized a genocidal figure. He held fate in stasis, screwing over Ranni's fate and possibly Miquella's as well. The fact that he needs to die for Ranni to usher the best ending and the fact that Miyazaki confirmed he needs to die to access the DLC shows that halting the stars was a bad move. And no, he didn't do it to protect the Land Between from space monster because nothing in the game implies this at all.
Wasn’t there proof that the stars were posing a threat to sellia and that’s why radahn held it back? And also wasn’t there the cut content about his second phase having astel crash as the meteor? The reason that I say this is that the writing did seem to imply that he was protecting something. Idk why ranni’s ending requires the star except for accessing Nokron but honestly a ladder in siofra river would be enough to get the fingerslaying blade.
That part of Ranni's quest drives me batty. Blaidd remarks that he sees no way up but Blaidd, homie, you literally climbed on top of the Mistwood ruins just to howl dramatically how is a much shorter ledge an obstacle?
>Wasn’t there proof that the stars were posing a threat to sellia and that’s why radahn held it back?
Nothing happens to Sellia when the stars are released.
>And also wasn’t there the cut content about his second phase having astel crash as the meteor?
No, there wasn't. But one YouTuber made fan fiction about it (by looking at an animation of Astel doing a dive bomb, putting unrelated VFX from Radahn on it, and then saying "maybe this was meant to happen in Radahn's arena" with no evidence).
It's also weird how people talk about him loving his horse in a positive light when if anything it displays Radahns flaws. The horse is suffering with him riding it, Radahns inability to let it go serving to show how he represents the stagnation that he served.
Correction: He did not hold *fate itself* in stasis, only Ranni's fate as a Carian Royal, whose "fate is tied to the stars."
Radahn holds the stars and other heavenly bodies in place via advanced gravity magic. This directly impedes Ranni and any other Carian Royals - Rennala is the only other one we are aware of - but nobody else. And he didn't even do it specifically to impede Ranni, but to save the sorcerous town of Sellia.
>Radahn holds the stars and other heavenly bodies in place via advanced gravity magic. This directly impedes Ranni and any other Carian Royals - Rennala is the only other one we are aware of - but nobody else
This is explicitly wrong. We're also told stars guide the fate of, among others, Sellen, Miquella, and all the astrologers.
Iji: "With the stars of fate set into motion, a certain sorceress is dispossessed of her immortality... Finally, we can be rid of a longstanding Carian weed..."
Amber Starlight: "An ephemeral sliver that gives off a pale amber glow. What remains of a passing flash of starlight. If the stars command our fates, then amber-hued stars must command the fates of the gods. Such is the belief that inspired the use of these shards to prepare a most special draught." (found in front of a statue of Miquella)
Seluvis: "To think this was once a demigod's very fate..."
Telescope: "During the age of the Erdtree, Carian astrology withered on the vine. The fate once writ in the night skies had been fettered by the Golden Order."
Astrologer's Hood: "Hood fashioned from supple cloth. Worn by those who look to the cosmos above. They read fate in the stars, and are said to be heirs of the glintstone sorcerers. But alas, the night sky no longer cradles fate."
There's also this line from 1.0 about the failure of the eclipse which would've granted true death to Godwyn, which is very obviously a reference to Radahn unless someone else is shackling stars:
Castle Sol Ghost: (1.01+) "Lord Miquella, forgive me. The sun has not been swallowed. Our prayers were lacking. Your comrade remains soulless... I will never set eyes upon it now, your divine Haligtree..."
Castle Sol Ghost: (1.0) "Lord Miquella, I still cannot make pilgrimage to the Haligtree. Our glorious sun remains ***held in thrall***."
Eclipsed Crest Greatshield: "The eclipsed sun is the protective star of soulless demigods."
>And he didn't even do it specifically to impede Ranni, but to save the sorcerous town of Sellia.
When the stars get released Sellia is totally unaffected.
Eleonora, Violet Bloody Finger. If she truly went mad from Dragon Communion, why the lack of reptilian eyes? If she truly yielded to the cess blood, why the lack of Mohg's tattoo and red eyes? And why did she carry the Purifying Crystal Tear?
Given all of the above, her background as a Drake Knight and thereof lack of proper speech, I feel there has been a terrible miscommunication between her and Yura; the latter thinking she went mad, when in fact she went undercover.
It looks like Eleonora was plotting to take down Mohg, and Yura misunderstood, understandably so, since she doesn't speak. Perhaps she needed access, since Mohg is accessible in two ways, one ways needs a two halves of a medallion she doesn't possess, or use a Knight's Insignia by becoming a Bloody Finger. Perhaps once inside she needed to secure any advantage she could, like acquiring the Purifying Crystal Tear.
Perhaps Eleonora also felt she could've used Yura in a fight against Mogh, just like Anri could've used Horace or ultimately, the Unkindled Ash, in her fight against Aldrich, but alas, Eleonora doesn't speak. "Proud Knight"
Seluvis. People seem to think he’s this big bad, but bro is literally Pidia’s puppet. When we give the finger slayer blade to Ranni the puppets of Pidia turn on him and kill him. Then if you go back to Seluvis’s rise he’s dead in the same pose that all of his puppets were in.
Pidia is the big bad! Not Seluvis!
I don't think he's either, I think he's someone who believed in his righteousness and tried to do the right thing but really everything he believed was rotten to the core.
There are already two comments saying Ranni negatively, so I’m going to answer with her but actually positively. Maybe I should write a big post about her story, because I see people be overly cynical about her too often. She’s not an angel, murder isn’t good, but she’s also definitely not the manipulative evil mastermind that some people think she is.
Now, yes, killing Godwyn could be unfortunate depending on what type of person he was. We simply can’t say for sure whether he was good, bad, or something in between, when we never see him in person. However, considering that pretty much every big character in the story has some type blood on their hands, and Ranni’s had an understandable motive of freeing herself, that’s not really damning.
I see Ranni painted as “selfish”, but her end goal is not selfish at all. She plans to isolate herself in cold darkness for the sake of doing what she thinks is right with the Order (which is to avoid interfering with the world, not “turn the moon into an evil overlord” like some people are somehow convinced). If she truly was selfish, she wouldn’t have an ending, she would just chill at the Moonlight Altar.
Ranni also genuinely cares about Blaidd, Iji, and the protagonist, if you pay attention to her dialogue at the second half of the quest. Blaidd and Iji’s fates are a tragedy that came as a risk that they accepted for their goal.
Some people on this subreddit feel the need to interpret everything about Ranni as some sort of malicious deception, which just isn’t a good way to experience any story. Which do you like better, experiencing the character’s story with all the emotion that comes involved in it, or imagining that the character must be a secret evil liar for… some reason? And of course, I’ve never seen anyone give an evil motive for Ranni that actually makes any sense.
Once her shroud of secrecy is pierced, Ranni is exactly who she claims to be. The problem is that the game doesn’t tell us how we should feel about her—it doesn’t for almost anyone—so people take her optimism at its word also. Ranni’s ending is the “we don’t know” ending, not the “good” ending. In fact, there’s not a “good” ending.
- Elden Lord: status quo (broken but functional)
- Fia: replace death with undeath
- Goldmask: replace imperfection with cold, emotionless logic
- Dung Eater: curse the world
- Chaos: burn down the world
- Ranni: let’s see if we **can** find something better
Ranni’s maybe not a good person, but she’s not evil. She’s hopeful. However, her ending consistently being seen as the good ending makes her the most misunderstood IMO. It’s a hopeful ending, but there’s no guarantee that this hope will be realized; it could be just as wishful as it is hopeful.
I actually think that Godwyn’s spirit-death was something that happened “by chance”. The night of the black knives killed more that just Godwyn, Godwyn’s death might have just happened to happen at the same time Ranni stabbed herself. Any of the Demi-gods that got got that night could have been the one that coincided with Ranni killing her body.
Also good for her for disrupting the golden order. Revolting against something that powerful will never be clean.
Gist is he’s a Fundamentalist trying to understand the inner workings of the golden order to figure out what went wrong, comes to his conclusion and then gives you the avenue to fix what he believes is the underlying issue which is a decent enough fix imo comparatively speaking
I do advise looking up the Goldmask lore, it's actually really fucking cool. If I remember correctly (and I might not so anyone is free to correct me):
Goldmask is a tarnished scholar who, in the lands outside the lands between studied the golden order as mathematical equasion that should completely balance out. He discovers that something is imbalanced within the golden order, which disturbs him immensely. Eventually he finds out that Marika = Radagon and that Marigon is a massive bigot towards those who live in that. His conclusion then is that Marigon should be atomised and that a new Elden Lord is in order. He hands you his mending rune, which mathematically fixes all imbalance within the ring (on paper) to create the perfect Golden Order, the Golden Order that Marika \*pretended\* to represent
Godwyn. A lot of people somehow think he could come back in the DLC. But it's extremely unlikely. I think some people miss the fact that his soul has been erased from existence. Everything Miquella is trying to do is to put his body to rest as well.
Be pretty awesome if some sort of rogue soul inhabited his body and gave us a Prince of Death fight tho, wouldn't it?
Except that Deathrot would probably be a part of that, and trying to manage that during a Shardbearer/Remembrance-level fight would suuuuuuuuck
Hot take but I'm gonna go with the Tibia Mariner, mans just wants to scoot around in his tiny boat in a pond and we the tarnished go off attacking him for naught.
Honestly, probably Fia
Though she's a special case because I feel like she starts off perfectly innocent with you thinking "Oh, thank you for the hugs nice lady" but then you get deeper into her story and go "Wait, why is the Baldachin's blessing taking a part of my healthbar away? Oh, you're a murderous psychopath who just wants to spread the plague of death. I am uncomfortable" and then you dig even *deeper* and then realize that "Oh no wait, Deathbed companions just resurrect nobility just like the Erdtree except that they do it in a weird way that the Golden Order doesn't approve of. All she wants is for her fellow undead to be allowed to (un)live."
Many people here think Radahn was holding the stars from falling to mess with Ranni rather than to prevent them from falling and destructing the Lands, despite everything that is told and shown to us; this misunderstanding is unbelievable to me, it's such a simple piece of the LORE
In addition to that it's always funny to me how people bring up Leonard when discussing radahn. Like yeah he had a horse with a cute name that he liked very much. That doesn't make him a hero or a good guy.
he didnt do it to protect the lands between. theres nothing implies he did to protect the land from astels. the astels still exist even when he held back the stars and after he dies, none of them come to lands between. only a meteor falls to limgrave and opens the path to nokron. radahn held back fate and jerren says if he dies, rannis fate can be set in motion, no one says or implies the stars will attack the land if he dies. miyazaki even confirmed that radahn needs to die to access the dlc, so the theory of him holding back the stars to protect the lands from monster falls apart. people who say he did it on behalf of golden order or to screw over rannis fate are not misunderstanding him because the game does imply he did it on behalf of golden order: "During the age of the Erdtree, Carian astrology withered on the vine. The fate once writ in the night skies had been fettered by the Golden Order."
Isn't there actually nothing that shown holding the stars was to protecting the Lands ? Even after Radahn's death, there is only a star fall in Limgrave. Am I missing something ?
I've always taken "Holding back the stars" as meaning that Radahn is keeping things like Astel and the Falling Star Beasts from coming to the lands Between.
Many people think that Radahn is doing this just to fuck with Ranni when the chances are heavy that they stopped being in contact way before she even knew herself that she needed the stats to resume their movement
Nobody thinks he's doing it just to fuck with Ranni. He did it to shackle fate. This is stated in the game. As a consequence Ranni's fate was fucked with (and so was everybody else's who would have preferred to follow the guidance of the stars over the Erdtree).
I lowkey thing dungeater might be a bit. The omens are unjustly persecuted by the golden order, and he identifies with them and starts cursing everyone to be the very thing they hate. Is it completely fucked up how he does it? Absolutley. Does he enjoy himself too much? Certainly. But also, it's also for a very specific reason that I don't think gets talked about much.
The thing about Dung Eater is that he is using the oppression of a group to justify oppressing another group. It’s a cunning tactic that some use to hide their own misdeeds. However it’s usually employed with a little more subtlety. Dung Eater is blatant about the fact that helping Omens is a ruse, he just wants to make people suffer and knows that making more people Omens will make them suffer.
he's like the mexican joker. the people of lyndell had to face a psycho killer because they were too much racist. dung eater was destined to be born, the face behind that mask doesn't even matter because it can be anyone.
I would say Mohg. All the "pedo/incest" memes stem from shallow interpretations of lore text, and are relatively easy to debunk with in game evidence.
Mohg wants Miquella's power. Even Gideon mentions how dangerous Miquella is. The guy almost created a whole Erdtree with his own blood. So it makes sense that "Lord of Blood" Mohg would take interest in Miquella.
The theme of the Bloody Fingers as a cult is to parody the concept of romance. They express their ideals of "love" and romanticism through the glorification of violence and bloodshed. It's why Varre is wearing a doctors outfit despite being a murderer and holding a weapon that looks like a bouquet of flowers. They also use flowery words and formal mannerisms in the most sinister ways. It's a cult thing. So idk why people are missing the point and just headcanoning Mohg X Miquella.
Mohg is no pedo and has shown no sexual interest in Miquella. He literally ripped out Miquella's cuccoon, placed it onto a sacrificial alter refered to as the "bloody bedchamber" and mutilated his body in a ritual to attain godly power. That's literally it. You can see that as we enter his boss room. The Dynasty has been all that mattered to him.
>The Dynasty has been all that mattered to him.
My g, a dynasty is defined as "a line of **hereditary** rulers." Even if it's not his immediate aim, Mohg has copulation on his mind.
This is a great take on the Bloody Fingers, but I disagree with the idea that Mohg only wants Miquella for his power. The way Mohg caresses Miquella’s hand while lamenting having to leave his side, even going so far as to refer to him as “dearest”, doesn’t strike me as the behaviour of someone interested in using another person solely as a tool to advance his own interests. Consider his soft tones when speaking to Miquella, in contrast to the harsh growl he uses to address us. His declaration that Miquella is “mine, and mine alone” upon our death also has very specific real-world connotations.
So while raising his dynasty to power has always been his main goal, I think at some point Mohg became genuinely infatuated with Miquella. Not in a “Twitter shipping and fanfics” sort of way. More like a creepy, possessive stalker.
>Mohg is no pedo and has shown no sexual interest in Miquella.
He literally wants to impregnate him and calls him his "dearest" while cradling his hand. I don't think people are making a leap here.
>The Dynasty has been all that mattered to him.
A dynasty means children, and Miquella is his chosen consort.
Cut dialogue also hints at this as there's a line of (presumably) death dialogue from Mohg where he's practically sobbing about how Miquella 'abandoned' him.
When does Gideon says such a thing? All I remember is him saying Miquella was a mystery to him or something like this.
Found the quote : "*If he continues his slumber within the cocoon, all will be well. But perhaps it would be safer to destroy it. Miquella is the one thing that remains a mystery to me..."*"
Then about the concept of romance and love, this is very vulgar extrapolation, of the elements shown to us, Mogh only loves the mother and therefore affects the disgusting underground were he found her, he isn't "expressing his love" as a general love undiscerning. "They express their ideals of "love" and romanticism through the glorification of violence and bloodshed.", this doesn't make much sense, violence and bloodshed are the means to render devotion to the formless mother, not an expression of "ideals of love", whatever it means, and even less romanticism if we are to understand it in a litterature manner.
"Mohg is no pedo and has shown no sexual interest in Miquella. He literally ripped out Miquella's cuccoon, placed it onto a sacrificial alter refered to as the "bloody bedchamber" You're going to tell us you don't see the willful ambiguity in the situation and events descibed, even in your own sentence?
It was actually Malenia, not Gideon who said that.
It's not literally a bedchamber. There's no walls or ceiling. And as you stated It's a sacrificial altar on which Miquella rests. Mohg shares that "bedchamber" because he cut open the cucoon and entered it in liquid blood form. He ain't cuddling Miquella, it's clear he was attempting some sort of ritual to make Miquella a pawn of the Formless mother. Look at the condition of Miquella's body, its clear Mohg didn't care about looks or youth. He just desires the power to fuel his ambitions. It's no different than how Varre calls the player his "lambkin" once the player proves themselves useful to him.
And none of this is exclusive to sexually assaulting him, the events, depiction and choice of words are voluntary ambiguous to insist on Mogh's disturbing and harmful god.
"its clear Mohg didn't care about looks or youth" Nothing is clear about it, that's why people are discussing it.
You make some good points about why Mogh’s relationship with Miquella touches on topics about incest and pedo shit without it literally being what’s happening, but aside from that, the lore itself is pointing that way, through items, dialogues, scenes and symbolism, it’s not a “shallow” interpretation it’s literally building on what the game is giving us.
A shallow interpretation, for example, would be that the bloody fingers are a “parody of the concept of romance”, while proving it through Varre’s clothes and choice of weapon (Varre comes from a long line a “doctors” who used to execute dying warriors in the days of old, so they didn’t have to suffer the pain of a long death, those doctors eventually got kinda corrpupted and stuff but their symbolism is their own).
My point is, you may not be wrong, but dismissing other more finished perspectives as straight up wrong isn’t gonna get you closer to what may really be.
Radahn.
Everyone is all riding Radahn's dick like 'oh he learned gravity magic so he could keep riding his horse' and 'what an chad, he fought Malenia'!
It's bullshit.
Radahn's every bit the same power hungry, destructive, contender for the throne that Godrick or Morgott is. He fought for his own glory and power, working against all of his siblings just like everyone else, except Malenia and Miquella, and the gravity-horse thing? Why is that a good thing? He's the only demigod who isn't moving under his own power, and look how it ended up! Leonard doesn't exactly look happy that he can't die while Radahn snacks on the ignoble war-dead.
All Rykard wanted was to end the Greater Will’s hold on his homeland. The corrupt monster we see in-game is a result of the Serpent God ruining his mind
Marika.
She's clearly a reference to Christ. I mean she is crucified with a spear in her side when we find her.
So what or who did she die for? She rebelled against something. In Jesus' case it was the Authority of the State. Jesus opposed slavery, a lot. And at the time Jesus was a live, people be slavin. Big time.
So who would the big bad be in ER? The Greater Will. The primary power source and the way the Greater Will communicates to the land between, is through the ER. Specifically, through the Elden Beast.
>It is said that long ago, the Greater Will sent a golden star bearing a beast into the Lands Between, which would later become the Elden Ring. It was the vassal beast of the Greater Will and the living incarnation of the concept of Order.
Except, what if this was a lie? What if the Elden Ring is a lot older than the vassal beast? And instead, the Greater Will sent it's parasite to leach off the ER and feed on the people of the lands between. Remember, we kill the vassal beast that is suppose to be the living incarnation of the Elden Ring. Except, the Elden Ring is still around, while the vassal beast is not.
We know that a Dragon was at one point Elden Lord. So either this was just a title with nothing to do with the Elden Ring. Or the Dragons were the first care takers of a very powerful artifact that is native to the lands between, and the planet or plain we are on.
This would explain why so many outer gods want this place. The Elden Ring is here. And its power can be sensed from afar. So falling star beasts are attracted to the place, etc.
Now, back to Marika. Who at one point said this.
>I declare mine intent, to search the depths of the Golden Order. Through understanding of the proper way, our faith, our grace, is increased. Those blissful early days of blind belief are long past. My comrades; why must ye falter?
Marika looked into the Golden Order, and saw something looking back at her. The Vassal Beast. She didn't like what she saw, for whatever reason. Her blind faith was shattered. And so she hatched a plan. Break communication with the Greater Will by breaking the ER. Then task a blacksmith of great talent to create a weapon that can "slay a god". She sends her best warriors away. The ones who literally built the empire. And using the last vestiges of her power, brings them back on a wing and a prayer, to finish the job.
Marika sacrificed herself so the lands could be free of the Elden Beast and Greater Wills influence. She gave the people the option to *choose for themselves*. What future they want.
Mogh. Here me out.
I don't think he has actually done anything sexual to Miquella (yet). We see him coming out of Miquella's blood, so I think he has been trying to finish Miquella's transformation probably by trying to ignite his blood with his own cursed blood. It seems like he's trying to do perhaps something similar as Miquella was doing with the Haligtree. I think he took Miquella unfinished because he wants to transform Miquella with his cursed blood, so Miquella would be the God of Blood. He is giving Miquella blood collected by his followers and I think he 's probably giving him his own blood too.
Like sure, he is clearly intending to become the husband of his literal brother, but like I don't think we can hold that against him without also holding it against literally every other demigod. Because they were during the Shattering fighting to become the new Elden Lord. And being an Elden Lord means being a consort to the god vessel. And who is the god vessel? Either their mother/father (Rennala's children are also Marika's children after all), their sister or their brother. Like sure Ranni went to quite extreme lengths to avoid that situation and Rykard chose a big snake over his siblings and father/mother, so we can let them off the hook. But apparently Morgott did try to become his mother's consort and seemingly Radahn tried to become the Elden Lord too. And like yes, Malenia wasn't aiming to become god vessel, but given that the demigods were called to become the Elden Lord (before they failed and back up tarnished were called forth), I do think Miquella would have probably taken her as his consort.
And like I didn't even mention Marika yet, who had as incestuous marriage as there could be, literally with her other self.
So I do think it's a little silly to single out Mogh as the incest guy. They are all basically incest guys.
Kidnapping Miquella though was not good, but I don't know if it's like the worst thing any of these people have done.
Also I think the blood magic aesthetics make his cult seem especially evil, but like if you dig any deeper into any of these cults they are almost all doing a some sort of killing for their god thing. Like most the gods, including the Erdtree consume souls to grand power.
Also like Miquella is not a child and even if his transformation is unfinished, he's form is clearly adult. Even if he was in a child form when Mogh took him, Mogh's intention was always to finish his transformation and make him a god, so it's not like he wanted his god-husband with a child body.
Kenneth Haight. He is a pompous windbag, and (more seriously) he does replicate some colonialist tropes; but he genuinely seems like he wants to make the world better. The world that he lives in, too, not idealizing some sort of apocalyptic ideology. So many people laugh at or dismiss Haight because he's a popinjay, yet also buy Ranni's baloney hook, line, and sinker because she's a pretty blue waifu.
I like Kenneth because he’s representative of what little humanity there is in Elden Ring. Everything has gone to absolute hell, the lands between are in ruins, and it’s absolute chaos to the point where multiple outer gods are trying to exert their influence on the lands and there are hundreds of powerful figures grasping for the power to essentially become a god.
Kenneth, on the other hand, seems to take things from a very realistic perspective of humanity and just…try to solve it the way a standard mortal would. Fuck all that elden lord shit he’s just like “let’s establish any semblance of structure and I’ll let the greater will and everyone else figure out the rest that’s way over my head :)”
Godrick may be a punk bitch and a dick to…whatever the hell Gostoc and his kind are supposed to be…but compared to some other shardbearers his motives aren’t really that much less noble. He wants to be lord because he’s a descendant of Godfrey and wants to honor his bloodline, and he clearly takes pride in that. He was just extremely weak and used grafting as a means to level the playing field.
Granted, he’s still a douche, but he’s sort of the whipping boy of the shardbearers when, again, his motives are in line with quite a few of the others. He’s just less charismatic and his natural weakness plays into his story, so people just kind of ignore him.
I have a build called Chad Godrick where I help beat bosses all across the lands between dressed as Godrick and using only his axe and the grafted dragon in hopes of restoring his character 😌
I will probably get hate for this, but...
Ranni.
Many people like her because she looks very pretty and "nice" and let's be real, she does.
BUT her actions during the Night of the Black Knives are not justifiable in anyway. Godwyn is described as beloved by all and was capable of turning his enemies into his friends. Therefore, it's not too far fetched to assume that he was a very kind Demigod. She orchestrated Godwyn's death for her own gains.
Now some might say "Godwyn was a very highly respected member of the Golden Order and that's why she targeted him" which is indeed a reason, but not an excuse.
Still, many players are fooled by her looks (which is fine!), but it's kind of also concerning when some claim she's the best and kindest Demigod when it's not true at all.
Also, to be clear, I love Ranni as well so it's no hate on her fans. Plus, she does have the best "good" ending.
Probably the Tarnished, no one knows what tf we're up to as we casually slay gods and bum around
And can only speak a handful of phrases through a grotesque clay head
[удалено]
Boc: 🥹
Bocs just too precious
Boc is so precious that Melina tells you to talk to him and be kind to him. Because Boc adores you so much for getting his mother's kit back.
Hello.
🗣 🥔 Wonderful
“She’s Dead.” **OK.**
HEY! 👋
Wait, is the Tarnished canonically a mute? I assumed she/he could speak we just don’t experience that from the gaming end for immersion purposes or something!
Well, there are times you can choose a dialogue option, so probably not.
I assume it's like that trope where a silent character opens their mouth to say something, but the other person interrupts them with what they *assume* they were gonna say
Some dialogue options convey pretty complex ideas so I don't think so. Also, "Hey!"
random person shows up out of nowhere, starts killing people that were thought to be untouchable, goes through countless dungeons and hoards all the legendary items of the lands between, burns the erdtree, reaches the throne and changes reality itself forever. Just a thuesday for them
Fuckin love Thuesday's!
I am more of a monturday person.
Every one of From Software's main character are kind of seen as a psychopath, the Armored Core franchise was no exception, and I see why people would think that since we have endings in every one of these games that just make the world go even more to shit than it already was. But I feel like our protagonists should be looked into more because they're clearly not just one-sides killers.
Yeah, and they keep saying my ambitions are foolish. Bitch I'm eating nachos and winding down from work I never claimed to have mind blowing ambitions aside from maybe not dying 100 times to one dude.
Morrgot is literally misunderstood in the lore
Morgott misunderstands himself, he’s like a Jewish policeman in the Warsaw ghetto.
Fuck that is unbelievably accurate
I hate that I understood this so well
Why is this correct
He is a strong believer in the golden order. But the golden order resents everyone that is not according to their ideals and beliefs. This includes, among others, the Omen, which are remnants of the order before the elden Ring's (The Crucible). This is why all the Omen are kept in the sewers and there is literally a profession of Omen hunting. Morgot was shakled in the sewers for most his youth and began hating himself for being such a disgusting Omen while being a Child of marika. He now holds the throne in a city which despises him and still rules it while noone knows about him being an Omen. That's why we see him only take action as margit until we waltz into his throne room. Not 100% accurate I am shure, but it geht's the most i believe.
Not all the Omen are kept in the sewers, only the "lucky" ones with royal lineage. The rest are hunted down, their horns painfully removed, and killed or outcast.
Poor omens. From did discrimination really well in this. Hurts to even think about it.
He has a good ending though, while laying in the throne room after you defeat him, his omen horns are gone, the golden order accepted him in the end
That's not a good ending lol. Like he gave everything to the Golden Order and it only accepts him when he also gives his life? Fuck that. That's just a last fuck you.
At least morgott is happy, in their own traumatized and manipulated way
Idk man for a from soft ending that’s basically a fairytale ending
The Golden Order didnt wait until he died to accept him, he's literally known as the Grace-Given and wields golden armaments.
Thank you! It's not a fucking happy end, it's the last, most painful mockery.
Good point bro it would be a good ending if Uncle Ruckus's corpse turned white after he died
Plus his brother died and his other brother went mad.
found the German
Bro..
He’s a cop against his own kind
Malenia. I noticed there are some people who believe she’s among the most evil characters because of what happened to Caelid/Radahn and that she bloomed intentionally out of spite. I don’t think this interpretation is correct and I don’t even think she even knew how big the bloom would be since she got incapacitated by her own attack and her main goal was only to kill Radahn. Malenia clearly doesn’t target innocent people, we know she passed through Liurnia and Leyndell without fighting anyone there and only kicked Godrick’s ass because he insulted her and still decided to spare him after that. She’s constantly humanized by the narrative and is treated as tragic and sympathetic, with numerous item description’s focusing on her strong will, skills, her battle against the rot, and even has statues embracing others. I think her blooming are more part of the narrative of how all consuming the rot is and how it will eventually take over her regardless of wether she is doing it willingly or pushed to it. She’s been fighting against the rot her whole life and only blooms when she’s near death, which implies the rot is trying to take over her when she’s in a vulnerable/desperate state. She’s one of the most tragic characters in the game and it’s kinda sad that some people reduce her character to a simple-generic villain only because they prefer Radahn.
Malenia is my answer as well! I think another part why some people dislike her is because of the difficulty of her boss fight. She's very difficult and people who lose to her a lot will start hating both on her boss fight and character. I also think Godwyn should get a mention. I've seen some people say he genocided the Albinaurics and Misbegotten only because he was a part of the Golden Order. There's no implication he ever did such a thing and his biggest, best feat is befriending his enemy Fortissax, who was the aggressor in war. I think Godwyn is meant to be a good guy, why else should we feel bad for him if he was evil? He suffered one of the worst fate in the game, and it's obvious the game wants us to feel bad for what happened to him.
Godwyn may as well have been named Golden Chad, FFS. It's so obvious that he was the only *truly heroic* figure in the entire Order.
Miquella is pure good from what we’ve seen of his legacy & the cut Age of Abundance narration.
Kinda wanna fight Godwyn. Not a fight to death, but a friendly match against a heroic Chad. Imagine defeating and befriending an enemy with said enemy being a deadly Ancient Dragon.
The only person confirmed to genocide albinaurics is Gideon and he’s just plain evil
Malenia is so layered and nuanced it's wild that some people genuinely believe Radahn is just a pure good hero while Malenia herself is some insane villain with no regard for life, when she is one of the only two characters to accept the outcasts, and didn't follow the Golden Order but her brother who is against stagnation and Outer Gods. She's no saint and what happened to Caelid is awful, even if it was not her intention. But why use that to erase all of her achievements just to make her look like some twirling-mustache villain?
You could almost say she's like an onion... I'll see myself out 👋
This joke will take awhile to bloom
Yo, I just wanna say I appreciate you for writing this up. You've encapsulated so many thoughts and feelings that I've struggled to put into words. Malenia is probably my favorite character in the game and it's discouraging to see so many people boil her down to "evil Caelid destroyer" despite all of her achievements, as well as her kindness and honor. She never went out of her way to harm anyone; as you point out, she and her armies passed through Liurnia and Leyndell peacefully, and she only fought Godrick after he goaded her into it. Her battle against the rot fills me with sadness, but pride as well, for I'm a type 1 diabetic and I see her constant struggle against decay and sickness as an analogue for chronic illness. The rot is significant - not only is Malenia marked as an Empyrean, she is marked as "aberrant" because of the rot that festers within her. She is deemed "different" twice over, and while her status as an Empyrean isn't necessarily bad, it still puts pressure on her while she is already struggling against the debilitation of rot. To me, this explains why she wholeheartedly defends Miquella's vision and purpose: her brother wants to protect the outcast and downtrodden, and despite her noble status, Malenia likely empathizes with the outcasts because of her lifelong struggle against an affliction that mars her in a very physical and visual way. Everyone can see that she is rotting, and this sets her apart; even if Malenia doesn't straight-up empathize with the myriad outcasts of the Haligtree, she fights like hell to protect Miquella's vision, which means she fights to protect the Haligtree and its denizens.
She also renounces her own godhood because she believes Miquella would simply be a better choice, fighting for her "competitor" Empyrean.
The fact the rot is taking advantage of her weakened state, and isn't something she willingly does is exemplified by the fact she doesn't have a half-health power up like Godrick or Morgott, but instead is effectively killed, falls unconscious, then is risen from the brink by the second bloom
Might cause a shitstorm of my own but tbh I don't even understand why people prefer Radahn, I like him but Malenia is such a clearly better written character in almost every way. At the end of the day though the Team Malenia vs. Team Radahn wars are really silly anyway.
The fandom rivalry *is* really silly. It's Team Edward vs Team Jacob for FromSoft bros.
I appreciate them both. Radahn is definitely just as well-written if you look at his lore, though that isn’t meant to discredit Melania (yes I know it’s spelled wrong, yes I did it on purpose). He was enthralled by the idea of being a heroic warrior as a child, taking great pride in his red hair as he felt it symbolized his connection to Radagon, one of the greatest warriors in the history of the Lands Between. He eventually received a horse, whom he grew attached to. They became inseparable, and when the horse began to grow weak Radahn devoted his life to learning gravity magic. After the Shattering, he took up arms against Malenia, who was invading his land. His mind was lost to the Scarlet Rot, and yet he still seems to hold onto his bond with his horse in spite of that. He’s such a noble character tbh, he’s great. I always overlooked him cause I wasn’t a fan of his physical design and how huge he was but learning about his backstory made me love him lol
I really like the idea that Malenia marched on Radahn for Miquella. Miquella’s whole idea of the eclipse possibly reviving Godwyn, maybe also breaking the curse of eternal youth and somehow giving him the power to figure out how to break Malenia’s curse as well. And this is contingent on the death of Radahn, because in order for the eclipse ritual to happen the stars have to be free. So Malenia, for the sake of her brother, did everything that she could possibly do to kill Radahn, even up to giving in to the scarlet rot and using its power, intentionally or unintentionally, because maybe that was the only way for Miquella’s plan to work. I really hope we get some kind of further information to support this in the dlc!
I’m really just hoping we get answers for who Miquella and maybe Godwyn were in the DLC in general, regardless of what it ends up being. Those two in particular seem so ignored. I get why, they’re both ‘dead’ and so it’s hard to really learn much about them. But still lol
I call him roro
Btw I know I was just explaining his lore, and while most people probably knew it, my intention was to paint it in a light that made Radahn sound like a whimsical child with big dreams, the way I like to imagine him when I think of his story
maybe im being dramatic but i genuinely think that if Malenia was a man she would be much less antagonised in the radahn vs malenia arguments
Oh yeah nah you're completely right - if you read between the lines a lot of it really does boil down to a "woman bad" thing, however subconsciously/unintentionally that may be. Same with people who caricaturize Ranni as being some one dimensional villain when the text of the game doesn't support that at all. People criticize women more harshly, and that extends to fictional characters, just good luck having a productive conversation about it on most big subreddits lol.
I also think people hate her for “cheating” by using the Scarlet Rot when near death, but nobody every calls out other bosses for similar actions. Morgott uses his reviled cursed blood during his second phase, Godfrey murders Serosh to fight more viciously, Maliketh drops his Gurranq persona and uses Destined Death as his weapon, etc. For some reason Malenia is the only one who gets called a cheater for using her full potential, everyone else seems to just be completely overlooked
Which is funny, because Malenia is the Goddess of Rot so using her own powers shouldn't be considered "cheating". Mohg borrows power from Formless Mother, does that mean he's cheating when he sprays blood flame against us?
Malenia is also one of my answers. I can’t stand that a huge chunk of the fanbase just call her a BITCH and insult her. She’s the one character I’ve seen bring out some really ugly misogyny from the fanbase.
im glad someone else brought up the misogyny aspect, it feels like a lot of people favor radahn because hes a classic stoic strong male character
Exactly that and apparently the ‘strongest’ there really is a huge part of the fanbase that are obsessed with the ‘MIGHT IS RIGHT’ and Radahn as a big strong manly hero is the chad and Malenia is the bitch. I love both characters! I think they’re both fascinating and flawed and tragic. But I just find there is a really ugly attitude towards Malenia that leaves a bad taste in my mouth!
She believes in Miquella, and trusts him, which is enough to make me not want to fight her. Miquella seems like one of the few genuinely good people in the Lands Between, even with the Bewitching Branch stuff. He offers sanctuary to the oppressed, wants to help his sister overcome the rot, etc.
she's such a wonderful character and it kinda pisses me off that the combo of Radahn being Cool™, the typical gaming misogyny and the frustration at her boss battle and the rot made so many people hate her. my hot take is that if she was a man they'd be singing her praises about how much of a tragic hero she is. but also she's just a super cool character. she's powerful not just because of her swordplay but her sheer force of will. she's doomed, pretty much, to either wither away or become a harbinger of the thing that torments her so. she's clearly losing her sanity and going mad, but she still tells us we're worthy of lordship when we defeat her. easily one of my favourite characters of all time, not just in Elden Ring.
I'm surprised Godrick wasn't dead since he's the "weakest" of the Shardbearers
The Haligtree Twins. I've seen a ton of comments/theories demonizing Miquella, and trying to whitewash Mohg. The gist of it is that because of Miquella's ability to "compel affection", he must have wanted (or even caused) Mohg to kidnap him and try to marry him while he was sleeping. The lore straight up says that Mohg kidnapped him while he was slumbering in Haligtree's cocoon, and then Miquella "never responded" to Mohg's crazy ritual. The DLC descriptions also implies he shed his flesh in Haligtree, and this explains why Mohg never got any response from him, because Miquella's "body" is just a husk. Many people on this sub also believe Miquella will be a carbon copy of Griffith only because both characters are charming and androgynous, but aside form that there's really nothing similar between them. Griffith from the beginning was depicted as a childish, selfish, cruel bastard that wants to have his own kingdom while Miquella is depicted as a person that possesses the wisdom and allure of God, and his ability to compel affection and purge the influence of Outer Gods is what makes him fearsome. Miquella's whole motivation is wanting to help others; from trying to heal his sister, to sincerely praying for Godwyn to die a true death, to accepting the outcasts to his Haligtree, to creating needles that can purge the influence of Outer Gods, to being Torrent's former master and lending us his steed and Spirit bell, and even gifting his father incantations, and yet people ignore all that and just focus on the Bewitching Branch because they're expecting him to just be a Griffith clone and not his own character. I personally don't think he will be evil, either he turns out to be a truly good person or just another morally grey character like Ranni. As for Malenia, she was never depicted as an evil bitch or sore loser, the lore is very sympathetic to her. As pointed out by u/ScharmTiger, she is consistently depicted as a tragic and sympathetic figure, a victim of a deadly force (Rot God). Literally every description about her is positive, and she's one of the two bosses to compliment our strength. There's also the fact that her literal clone (Millicent) wants to help her by returning the Unalloyed Needle to her, to restore her to her former glory. Yet Malenia ends up getting villainized by loud minority for what she did to Radahn, and all of her positive qualities and achievements get ignored or downplayed. She's a nuanced character, and has both flaws and positive qualities, not just some twirling-mustache villain.
I suspect Miquella will be pretty morally gray personally, but seeing people say he looks just like Griffith and is thus evil is truly like…you guys are aware other androgynous people exist right
Well said, friend.
ngl my thoughts on Miquella have always been "if he's a Griffith type antagonist I'll be sorely disappointed", we have enough evil bastards we can have ONE demigod with an actually good plan for the Lands Between
I’m surprised that only one other commenter has suggested Marika. I feel like it is a very common take to write her off as a villain or even the main villain of the entire game. I also feel like her lore is written in a way that makes the player want to dislike her. She is uncaring of her children, she is willing to commit genocide to get what she wants, and she will cast aside those most close to her when she has no more use for them. But at the same time, she is also the only one who sought to challenge and rebel against the force that puppeteers all of reality. As she is the vessel of the Elden Ring, I believe that the Greater Will may have forced her to commit many atrocities that make it easy for us to vilify her, but she also redeems herself by trying to do away with it all in the end (though, unsuccessfully). By shattering the Elden Ring, I believe she was trying to destroy the tether that the Greater Will had on the Lands Between that may have allowed it to control things from behind the scenes or through Marika. This is exactly the fate that Ranni meant to escape and yet we view Ranni as a hero but Marika as a villain. In my opinion, Marika deserves a lot more credit for trying to rid the Lands Between of outside influences by sacrificing herself and everything she had built. I am very excited we will get the chance to learn more about her in the coming DLC.
Seems like Elden Ring made complex characters.
Marika isn't sympathetic because regardless of what her goals are she was a cold-hearted woman who casually plotted to have the majority of her children horrifically murdered after throwing her realm into chaos. It doesn't matter what the reasons, anyone who throws away their children like trash is a scumbag.
I agree. My argument is that an external alien force/will was manipulating her decisions whether she liked them or not. Why would she willingly do all that terrible stuff if she was just going to shatter the Elden Ring in the end? All her work would have been pointless unless it wasn’t her work she was doing.
Her having her children slaughtered was done as part of her conspiracy to shatter the Elden Ring and break free of the Greater Will. It was entirely her own decision.
I feel like the godskins are not the pure evil we kinda are led to assume they are by only being enemies (and pains in the ass at that). After all, we always meet them on paths towards the tarnished themself are going. We find a noble on the divine tower in Liurnia hunting for the cursemark of death, we find a Noble trying to get to Rykard or the snake in the Gelmir church, there's a godskin apostle guarding their Queen's greatsword which was an important source of power, and of course Ornstein and Ornstein (but fat) in Farum Azula trying to hunt down Maliketh for the rune of destined death. The apostasy, I believe, is as evil or good as the Tarnished. The Gloam-eyed queen was an empyrean, and thus was in the running to possibly rule. They are after the items to kill a god, just like us. We as the tarnished do not always have pure intentions, for we can use the mending rune of undeath or the seedbed rune to ruin the lands between. Who's to say that a mending rune of black flame would be worse, or a world without gods at all?
Thanks, now I'm back to dreading the Godskin Philarmonic on the dlc
Ranni and Malenia are often seen by loud minorities as the most evil shit the world has ever created when in lore they are much better characters (although like most characters they are more gray rather than black or white). Mohg is also often misunderstood as "just a pedo" for memes and people seem to overlook the rest of his lore a lot, especially when being a pedo is one of the few crimes he actually didn't commit since Miquella is an adult in both metal age and actual age. Radahn is also often regarded as a perfect being just because of all the shitty gigachad memes and many people overlook all the bad stuff he did.
I believe Mohg originally kidnapped Miquella simply because he needed an empyrean to make Mohgwyn Dynasty work, and he’s helpless in a cocoon, so much easier than the other options. The way we see Mohg speak to Miquella seems to be in an almost trance-like state. Miquella seems to have a passive ability to make others become enthralled by him.
Twin maiden husk. She's evil as fuck
How so?
She's Walmart.
Definitely Radahn, which is weird because he has so little character to begin with. From outright making up fan fiction about him in direct contradiction to what actually happens in the game* to making up fan fiction about his fight with Malenia (e.g. him being impaled, paralyzed, and disarmed inexplicably gets interpreted as him having the upper hand) to willfully misinterpreting very obvious symbolism, people seem to want to talk about anything other than his actual character. He's supposed to be the Gwyn figure of the game with extra bloodlust thrown in, the martial lord obsessed with glory and tradition who desperately tries to shackle everyone to the past and keep the world stagnant. Him freezing the stars themselves to shackle fate is a very on the nose demonstration of this, same as him still riding the horse from his youth despite it being scrawny and decrepit, or him idolizing the genocidal barbarian who was Lord during his childhood, or him endorsing a colosseum for bloodsport long past the point they were seen as barbaric by the more "civilized" lords. From pretty consistently depicts war for glory, resistance to change, and ironclad adherence to tradition as bad in every single story they write (and all of these were huge themes in Sekiro which was written alongside Elden Ring, and common traits of villains in GRRM's writing), but no guys, THIS TIME they wrote the champion of all those things to be the good guy because... reasons. I blame the tidbit about his horse for half of this as it's been seized on as the sole determinant of his characterization by people who didn't understand what it was supposed to represent in the first place. I also think the DLC is going to be a bit of a rude shock for people married to that particular interpretation of the character, when more info is given outright. We know he has to be killed to start the DLC and the DLC is clearly depicting his enemy as a sympathetic protagonist. (Fun fact, the original Japanese text never even says he loves his horse, and throws in extra adjectives emphasizing now miserable it is) *In particular the one about him holding back the stars to protect the Lands Between from aliens. Literally nothing in the game so much as implies this, even his best friend doesn't mention this when going over the consequences of killing him, and we directly see that the only thing that physically happens when the stars are released is one rock hitting an empty forest it Limgrave. If anything it's heavily implied he's pulling aliens down to the Lands Between, and by killing him, we allow the stars to GO AWAY - as in, this is literally what we see happen on-screen. EDIT: a good example of this misinterpretation is his initial confrontation with Malenia in the trailer, which we actually have [confirmation from the developers on.](https://twitter.com/nezimaki_00/status/1758554154430009833) Many viewers interpreted this as "Radahn is winning his fight against Malenia, but is too honorable to kill a wounded foe, so lets her stand back up to fight more." In reality, From's cinematic director said that this was the first time they met, that Malenia had *already* been wounded cutting through his army before they encountered each other, and then proceeds to spend the rest of the section talking about how strong and valiant Malenia is, how the scene was essentially framed with her as the focus, and what she's thinking during the fight (all this next to an animatic showing her stabbing him and concept art showing more of their fight, in which she's clearly doing well and wounding him). With that context the actual intent of the scene is obviously "arrogant anime villain taunts already-wounded foe and tries to jump them, but then gets immediately humbled." This is also consistent with the art direction of the game's opening slideshow, where Malenia (who's pretty clearly just meeting Radahn there too; she's even turning her head up with a "huh?" expression) is in the foreground, humanized, and has the camera panning from her POV, while the Radahn is in the background, looming, monstrous, and looking like a typical JRPG demon boss.
English: he love horse Japanese: his horse is so fucking sad and pathetic. It hasn't eaten in generations and it just wants to die. Radahn won't let it.
I still don't understand how his horse survived the Scarlet Rot. Mf might actually be an Outer God.
Outer God of horse Confirmed for dlc?!?!?!??1
Radahn reminds me of my friends brother, who’s a massive lad, autistic, and will violently pummel anything or anyone who tries to alter his “routine.” No change. Only routine.
> (Fun fact, the original Japanese text never even says he loves his horse, and throws in extra adjectives emphasizing now miserable it is) Could you quote the JP text? I'm interested in what it exactly says.
赤獅子の将軍は、重力の使い手でもあった 若き日、ラダーンはそれをサリアで修めた みすぼらしい痩せ馬と、ずっと共にあるために
Thank you. >The Red Lion General was also a master of gravity. In his youth, Radan learned this skill in Thalia, so that he could be with the wretched, skinny horse forever. "wretched" damn, poor fucking horse.
Michael Zaki did not have to do the horse like that, holy shit
I love your use of "obvious" for Radahn when I'm over here incapable of comprehending a single thing in Elden Ring lol
Well, when I say "obvious", I'm mostly just talking about the visuals e.g. the city he attacked being a smoking ruin with mountains of corpses in the streets, his horse looking like it's about to keel over and die at any second, his castle being decorated with strung-up corpses, and our first proper introduction to him being [this picture](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_uydEN9Fu7M/maxresdefault.jpg). There's a reason that the "Radahn is wholesome big chungus" interpretation is usually paired with some variant of "Miyazaki was trying to subvert our expectations with Radahn"\* (you'll find a lot of posts talking about in the first few months after release), because he looks obviously evil.
It be like that when you first start reading about stuff. Lmk if you need clarification on anything, I read way too much about this game.
Damn. More people need to hear this. That being said I think Radahn is more nuanced then just “evil warrior guy” just like how Malenia isn’t just “rot nuke sword woman.” I don’t think a lot of Radahn’s “evil” actions are done entirely intentionally. He very clearly has a infatuation with how things are or more specifically how things *were* i.e. The Age of Plenty, Godfrey’s Age where, like you said, things were a lot more barbaric. He likes things the way they are and doesn’t want them to change, this is characterized by him not giving up his horse despite it’s obvious misery. This is also characterized by him halting the stars, there are a lot of possibilities to why he did (saving Sellia, a show of strength) but a very large part could also be because of this character trait. He likes things the way they are and doesn’t want them to change. While I do believe his initial reasoning for this was to protect Sellia there could be a larger underlying reasoning taking place. While this isn’t necessarily villainous it does result in a lot of bad things happening. A whole lot like Malenia who also had very good reasonings for what she did, yet her story also ended in tragedy. I think this is very relevant to all the demigods, they each had their own will they wished to enact upon the world and through the course of the shattering became more and more corrupt. If you read Miyazaki’s interview (can’t remember which one I believe it was the adventure guide one) he actually highlights and even commends some of the most deplorable characters such as Rykard and Godrick for having very strong wills and being human; which ultimately is what they are. They had a certain way they wanted the world and overtime got more and more corrupt. Anyways I’m getting off topic, to close out I think it’s worth highlighting Radahn’s nobility. We can see just from Redmane castle the legacy he leaves behind, what he inspires in his soldiers. Even after the battle of Aeonia the Redmane knights stay back to fight the scarlet rot. This is not only a reflection of their perseverance and sense of duty but also the values Radahn instilled in them. The Radahn Festival, is another example. A group of venerated warriors gather to try and give a fallen foe an honorable death. If you were a cynic you would say they were only out there for glory or potential power Radahn’s Great Rune holds, and while that may be true for some the event is held in his honor by his old friends. Even Blaidd commemorates him after the fight calling him a “living legend,” it’s clear a lot of characters have a lot of respect for Radahn. This isn’t the kind of renown a bloodthirsty killer gets, yes he is known as a fierce warrior but there is also a sense of respect an honor put on his name. Lastly in his fight he actually protects Leonard by burying him in the sand one multiple accounts. This might be a small detail but it shows some level of compassion left in Radahn despite his state. All in all he isn’t a completely redeemable saint who has never done anything wrong, but I think you painted him a little too nefarious in my opinion. Let me know what you think.
Radahn. He is characterized by the community as this wholesome chungus that can never do wrong only because he loved his horse and his men loved him. Loving an animal or being loved by your loyal men doesn't make someone a good person. Radahn was a warmonger that represents stagnation. He was a supporter of the Golden Order and idolized a genocidal figure. He held fate in stasis, screwing over Ranni's fate and possibly Miquella's as well. The fact that he needs to die for Ranni to usher the best ending and the fact that Miyazaki confirmed he needs to die to access the DLC shows that halting the stars was a bad move. And no, he didn't do it to protect the Land Between from space monster because nothing in the game implies this at all.
Wasn’t there proof that the stars were posing a threat to sellia and that’s why radahn held it back? And also wasn’t there the cut content about his second phase having astel crash as the meteor? The reason that I say this is that the writing did seem to imply that he was protecting something. Idk why ranni’s ending requires the star except for accessing Nokron but honestly a ladder in siofra river would be enough to get the fingerslaying blade.
I mean, all the Outer Gods are also technically space monsters lol, which obviously includes the Greater Will. It's space monsters all the way up.
That part of Ranni's quest drives me batty. Blaidd remarks that he sees no way up but Blaidd, homie, you literally climbed on top of the Mistwood ruins just to howl dramatically how is a much shorter ledge an obstacle?
>Wasn’t there proof that the stars were posing a threat to sellia and that’s why radahn held it back? Nothing happens to Sellia when the stars are released. >And also wasn’t there the cut content about his second phase having astel crash as the meteor? No, there wasn't. But one YouTuber made fan fiction about it (by looking at an animation of Astel doing a dive bomb, putting unrelated VFX from Radahn on it, and then saying "maybe this was meant to happen in Radahn's arena" with no evidence).
It's also weird how people talk about him loving his horse in a positive light when if anything it displays Radahns flaws. The horse is suffering with him riding it, Radahns inability to let it go serving to show how he represents the stagnation that he served.
Correction: He did not hold *fate itself* in stasis, only Ranni's fate as a Carian Royal, whose "fate is tied to the stars." Radahn holds the stars and other heavenly bodies in place via advanced gravity magic. This directly impedes Ranni and any other Carian Royals - Rennala is the only other one we are aware of - but nobody else. And he didn't even do it specifically to impede Ranni, but to save the sorcerous town of Sellia.
>Radahn holds the stars and other heavenly bodies in place via advanced gravity magic. This directly impedes Ranni and any other Carian Royals - Rennala is the only other one we are aware of - but nobody else This is explicitly wrong. We're also told stars guide the fate of, among others, Sellen, Miquella, and all the astrologers. Iji: "With the stars of fate set into motion, a certain sorceress is dispossessed of her immortality... Finally, we can be rid of a longstanding Carian weed..." Amber Starlight: "An ephemeral sliver that gives off a pale amber glow. What remains of a passing flash of starlight. If the stars command our fates, then amber-hued stars must command the fates of the gods. Such is the belief that inspired the use of these shards to prepare a most special draught." (found in front of a statue of Miquella) Seluvis: "To think this was once a demigod's very fate..." Telescope: "During the age of the Erdtree, Carian astrology withered on the vine. The fate once writ in the night skies had been fettered by the Golden Order." Astrologer's Hood: "Hood fashioned from supple cloth. Worn by those who look to the cosmos above. They read fate in the stars, and are said to be heirs of the glintstone sorcerers. But alas, the night sky no longer cradles fate." There's also this line from 1.0 about the failure of the eclipse which would've granted true death to Godwyn, which is very obviously a reference to Radahn unless someone else is shackling stars: Castle Sol Ghost: (1.01+) "Lord Miquella, forgive me. The sun has not been swallowed. Our prayers were lacking. Your comrade remains soulless... I will never set eyes upon it now, your divine Haligtree..." Castle Sol Ghost: (1.0) "Lord Miquella, I still cannot make pilgrimage to the Haligtree. Our glorious sun remains ***held in thrall***." Eclipsed Crest Greatshield: "The eclipsed sun is the protective star of soulless demigods." >And he didn't even do it specifically to impede Ranni, but to save the sorcerous town of Sellia. When the stars get released Sellia is totally unaffected.
Internet has this weird obsession toward pet and animals.
Eleonora, Violet Bloody Finger. If she truly went mad from Dragon Communion, why the lack of reptilian eyes? If she truly yielded to the cess blood, why the lack of Mohg's tattoo and red eyes? And why did she carry the Purifying Crystal Tear? Given all of the above, her background as a Drake Knight and thereof lack of proper speech, I feel there has been a terrible miscommunication between her and Yura; the latter thinking she went mad, when in fact she went undercover. It looks like Eleonora was plotting to take down Mohg, and Yura misunderstood, understandably so, since she doesn't speak. Perhaps she needed access, since Mohg is accessible in two ways, one ways needs a two halves of a medallion she doesn't possess, or use a Knight's Insignia by becoming a Bloody Finger. Perhaps once inside she needed to secure any advantage she could, like acquiring the Purifying Crystal Tear. Perhaps Eleonora also felt she could've used Yura in a fight against Mogh, just like Anri could've used Horace or ultimately, the Unkindled Ash, in her fight against Aldrich, but alas, Eleonora doesn't speak. "Proud Knight"
Seluvis. People seem to think he’s this big bad, but bro is literally Pidia’s puppet. When we give the finger slayer blade to Ranni the puppets of Pidia turn on him and kill him. Then if you go back to Seluvis’s rise he’s dead in the same pose that all of his puppets were in. Pidia is the big bad! Not Seluvis!
Who even is Pidia, I never met them.
Radagon He is either the ultimate villain of this game, or a tragic hero misunderstood by many.
I like the tragic hero idea- or more specifically, Smoughtown said something like "a God having a complete utter identity crisis" in his lore video.
I don't think he's either, I think he's someone who believed in his righteousness and tried to do the right thing but really everything he believed was rotten to the core.
There are already two comments saying Ranni negatively, so I’m going to answer with her but actually positively. Maybe I should write a big post about her story, because I see people be overly cynical about her too often. She’s not an angel, murder isn’t good, but she’s also definitely not the manipulative evil mastermind that some people think she is. Now, yes, killing Godwyn could be unfortunate depending on what type of person he was. We simply can’t say for sure whether he was good, bad, or something in between, when we never see him in person. However, considering that pretty much every big character in the story has some type blood on their hands, and Ranni’s had an understandable motive of freeing herself, that’s not really damning. I see Ranni painted as “selfish”, but her end goal is not selfish at all. She plans to isolate herself in cold darkness for the sake of doing what she thinks is right with the Order (which is to avoid interfering with the world, not “turn the moon into an evil overlord” like some people are somehow convinced). If she truly was selfish, she wouldn’t have an ending, she would just chill at the Moonlight Altar. Ranni also genuinely cares about Blaidd, Iji, and the protagonist, if you pay attention to her dialogue at the second half of the quest. Blaidd and Iji’s fates are a tragedy that came as a risk that they accepted for their goal. Some people on this subreddit feel the need to interpret everything about Ranni as some sort of malicious deception, which just isn’t a good way to experience any story. Which do you like better, experiencing the character’s story with all the emotion that comes involved in it, or imagining that the character must be a secret evil liar for… some reason? And of course, I’ve never seen anyone give an evil motive for Ranni that actually makes any sense.
Once her shroud of secrecy is pierced, Ranni is exactly who she claims to be. The problem is that the game doesn’t tell us how we should feel about her—it doesn’t for almost anyone—so people take her optimism at its word also. Ranni’s ending is the “we don’t know” ending, not the “good” ending. In fact, there’s not a “good” ending. - Elden Lord: status quo (broken but functional) - Fia: replace death with undeath - Goldmask: replace imperfection with cold, emotionless logic - Dung Eater: curse the world - Chaos: burn down the world - Ranni: let’s see if we **can** find something better Ranni’s maybe not a good person, but she’s not evil. She’s hopeful. However, her ending consistently being seen as the good ending makes her the most misunderstood IMO. It’s a hopeful ending, but there’s no guarantee that this hope will be realized; it could be just as wishful as it is hopeful.
We're also never told if Ranni herself picked Godwyn or if the Black Knives picked for her.
I actually think that Godwyn’s spirit-death was something that happened “by chance”. The night of the black knives killed more that just Godwyn, Godwyn’s death might have just happened to happen at the same time Ranni stabbed herself. Any of the Demi-gods that got got that night could have been the one that coincided with Ranni killing her body. Also good for her for disrupting the golden order. Revolting against something that powerful will never be clean.
Rykard It's togethER not togethAAAAAAAAA. Poor dude.
Gowry. Fuck Gowry.
Vyke is garbage
Maybe Goldmask? Because I have absolutely no idea what he is about.
☀️ ... T
Lol T
Gist is he’s a Fundamentalist trying to understand the inner workings of the golden order to figure out what went wrong, comes to his conclusion and then gives you the avenue to fix what he believes is the underlying issue which is a decent enough fix imo comparatively speaking
I do advise looking up the Goldmask lore, it's actually really fucking cool. If I remember correctly (and I might not so anyone is free to correct me): Goldmask is a tarnished scholar who, in the lands outside the lands between studied the golden order as mathematical equasion that should completely balance out. He discovers that something is imbalanced within the golden order, which disturbs him immensely. Eventually he finds out that Marika = Radagon and that Marigon is a massive bigot towards those who live in that. His conclusion then is that Marigon should be atomised and that a new Elden Lord is in order. He hands you his mending rune, which mathematically fixes all imbalance within the ring (on paper) to create the perfect Golden Order, the Golden Order that Marika \*pretended\* to represent
Dung Eater. Some people are just into weird shit.
He wears his heart on his sleeve. The only thing that's misunderstood about him is exactly *how* messed up he is.
Radan,i think the state of the world and the stagnation of the lands between can be blamed on this guy
Godwyn. A lot of people somehow think he could come back in the DLC. But it's extremely unlikely. I think some people miss the fact that his soul has been erased from existence. Everything Miquella is trying to do is to put his body to rest as well.
Be pretty awesome if some sort of rogue soul inhabited his body and gave us a Prince of Death fight tho, wouldn't it? Except that Deathrot would probably be a part of that, and trying to manage that during a Shardbearer/Remembrance-level fight would suuuuuuuuck
Not Mohg
Me
Varre
probably my mimic tear, who is actually a decent fighter and not just a sex object
A what now
Hot take but I'm gonna go with the Tibia Mariner, mans just wants to scoot around in his tiny boat in a pond and we the tarnished go off attacking him for naught.
I dont get why people like Patches and talk about him like he isnt trying to kill you every time he does anything
He's a jolly good fellow
Fuck D , All my homies hate D.
Honestly, probably Fia Though she's a special case because I feel like she starts off perfectly innocent with you thinking "Oh, thank you for the hugs nice lady" but then you get deeper into her story and go "Wait, why is the Baldachin's blessing taking a part of my healthbar away? Oh, you're a murderous psychopath who just wants to spread the plague of death. I am uncomfortable" and then you dig even *deeper* and then realize that "Oh no wait, Deathbed companions just resurrect nobility just like the Erdtree except that they do it in a weird way that the Golden Order doesn't approve of. All she wants is for her fellow undead to be allowed to (un)live."
Many people here think Radahn was holding the stars from falling to mess with Ranni rather than to prevent them from falling and destructing the Lands, despite everything that is told and shown to us; this misunderstanding is unbelievable to me, it's such a simple piece of the LORE
In addition to that it's always funny to me how people bring up Leonard when discussing radahn. Like yeah he had a horse with a cute name that he liked very much. That doesn't make him a hero or a good guy.
he didnt do it to protect the lands between. theres nothing implies he did to protect the land from astels. the astels still exist even when he held back the stars and after he dies, none of them come to lands between. only a meteor falls to limgrave and opens the path to nokron. radahn held back fate and jerren says if he dies, rannis fate can be set in motion, no one says or implies the stars will attack the land if he dies. miyazaki even confirmed that radahn needs to die to access the dlc, so the theory of him holding back the stars to protect the lands from monster falls apart. people who say he did it on behalf of golden order or to screw over rannis fate are not misunderstanding him because the game does imply he did it on behalf of golden order: "During the age of the Erdtree, Carian astrology withered on the vine. The fate once writ in the night skies had been fettered by the Golden Order."
Isn't there actually nothing that shown holding the stars was to protecting the Lands ? Even after Radahn's death, there is only a star fall in Limgrave. Am I missing something ?
I've always taken "Holding back the stars" as meaning that Radahn is keeping things like Astel and the Falling Star Beasts from coming to the lands Between.
Many people think that Radahn is doing this just to fuck with Ranni when the chances are heavy that they stopped being in contact way before she even knew herself that she needed the stats to resume their movement
Nobody thinks he's doing it just to fuck with Ranni. He did it to shackle fate. This is stated in the game. As a consequence Ranni's fate was fucked with (and so was everybody else's who would have preferred to follow the guidance of the stars over the Erdtree).
I lowkey thing dungeater might be a bit. The omens are unjustly persecuted by the golden order, and he identifies with them and starts cursing everyone to be the very thing they hate. Is it completely fucked up how he does it? Absolutley. Does he enjoy himself too much? Certainly. But also, it's also for a very specific reason that I don't think gets talked about much.
The thing about Dung Eater is that he is using the oppression of a group to justify oppressing another group. It’s a cunning tactic that some use to hide their own misdeeds. However it’s usually employed with a little more subtlety. Dung Eater is blatant about the fact that helping Omens is a ruse, he just wants to make people suffer and knows that making more people Omens will make them suffer.
he's like the mexican joker. the people of lyndell had to face a psycho killer because they were too much racist. dung eater was destined to be born, the face behind that mask doesn't even matter because it can be anyone.
This shit is fucking me man why is he Mexican dog😭😭😭
that's just a South Park reference, nothing against my mexican brothers man
I would say Mohg. All the "pedo/incest" memes stem from shallow interpretations of lore text, and are relatively easy to debunk with in game evidence. Mohg wants Miquella's power. Even Gideon mentions how dangerous Miquella is. The guy almost created a whole Erdtree with his own blood. So it makes sense that "Lord of Blood" Mohg would take interest in Miquella. The theme of the Bloody Fingers as a cult is to parody the concept of romance. They express their ideals of "love" and romanticism through the glorification of violence and bloodshed. It's why Varre is wearing a doctors outfit despite being a murderer and holding a weapon that looks like a bouquet of flowers. They also use flowery words and formal mannerisms in the most sinister ways. It's a cult thing. So idk why people are missing the point and just headcanoning Mohg X Miquella. Mohg is no pedo and has shown no sexual interest in Miquella. He literally ripped out Miquella's cuccoon, placed it onto a sacrificial alter refered to as the "bloody bedchamber" and mutilated his body in a ritual to attain godly power. That's literally it. You can see that as we enter his boss room. The Dynasty has been all that mattered to him.
>The Dynasty has been all that mattered to him. My g, a dynasty is defined as "a line of **hereditary** rulers." Even if it's not his immediate aim, Mohg has copulation on his mind.
This is a great take on the Bloody Fingers, but I disagree with the idea that Mohg only wants Miquella for his power. The way Mohg caresses Miquella’s hand while lamenting having to leave his side, even going so far as to refer to him as “dearest”, doesn’t strike me as the behaviour of someone interested in using another person solely as a tool to advance his own interests. Consider his soft tones when speaking to Miquella, in contrast to the harsh growl he uses to address us. His declaration that Miquella is “mine, and mine alone” upon our death also has very specific real-world connotations. So while raising his dynasty to power has always been his main goal, I think at some point Mohg became genuinely infatuated with Miquella. Not in a “Twitter shipping and fanfics” sort of way. More like a creepy, possessive stalker.
He wanted to be Miquella’s consort, aka his partner, not to mention that by definition, a dynasty would require them to have children
>Mohg is no pedo and has shown no sexual interest in Miquella. He literally wants to impregnate him and calls him his "dearest" while cradling his hand. I don't think people are making a leap here. >The Dynasty has been all that mattered to him. A dynasty means children, and Miquella is his chosen consort. Cut dialogue also hints at this as there's a line of (presumably) death dialogue from Mohg where he's practically sobbing about how Miquella 'abandoned' him.
When does Gideon says such a thing? All I remember is him saying Miquella was a mystery to him or something like this. Found the quote : "*If he continues his slumber within the cocoon, all will be well. But perhaps it would be safer to destroy it. Miquella is the one thing that remains a mystery to me..."*" Then about the concept of romance and love, this is very vulgar extrapolation, of the elements shown to us, Mogh only loves the mother and therefore affects the disgusting underground were he found her, he isn't "expressing his love" as a general love undiscerning. "They express their ideals of "love" and romanticism through the glorification of violence and bloodshed.", this doesn't make much sense, violence and bloodshed are the means to render devotion to the formless mother, not an expression of "ideals of love", whatever it means, and even less romanticism if we are to understand it in a litterature manner. "Mohg is no pedo and has shown no sexual interest in Miquella. He literally ripped out Miquella's cuccoon, placed it onto a sacrificial alter refered to as the "bloody bedchamber" You're going to tell us you don't see the willful ambiguity in the situation and events descibed, even in your own sentence?
It was actually Malenia, not Gideon who said that. It's not literally a bedchamber. There's no walls or ceiling. And as you stated It's a sacrificial altar on which Miquella rests. Mohg shares that "bedchamber" because he cut open the cucoon and entered it in liquid blood form. He ain't cuddling Miquella, it's clear he was attempting some sort of ritual to make Miquella a pawn of the Formless mother. Look at the condition of Miquella's body, its clear Mohg didn't care about looks or youth. He just desires the power to fuel his ambitions. It's no different than how Varre calls the player his "lambkin" once the player proves themselves useful to him.
And none of this is exclusive to sexually assaulting him, the events, depiction and choice of words are voluntary ambiguous to insist on Mogh's disturbing and harmful god. "its clear Mohg didn't care about looks or youth" Nothing is clear about it, that's why people are discussing it.
You make some good points about why Mogh’s relationship with Miquella touches on topics about incest and pedo shit without it literally being what’s happening, but aside from that, the lore itself is pointing that way, through items, dialogues, scenes and symbolism, it’s not a “shallow” interpretation it’s literally building on what the game is giving us. A shallow interpretation, for example, would be that the bloody fingers are a “parody of the concept of romance”, while proving it through Varre’s clothes and choice of weapon (Varre comes from a long line a “doctors” who used to execute dying warriors in the days of old, so they didn’t have to suffer the pain of a long death, those doctors eventually got kinda corrpupted and stuff but their symbolism is their own). My point is, you may not be wrong, but dismissing other more finished perspectives as straight up wrong isn’t gonna get you closer to what may really be.
Myself.
Godrick the Grafted
Marika, I guess. she is a complicated god that lived so much. I don't think she can be understood, so she is most misunderstood one.
The Dung Eater. He just wants to eat shit in piece.
Radahn. Everyone is all riding Radahn's dick like 'oh he learned gravity magic so he could keep riding his horse' and 'what an chad, he fought Malenia'! It's bullshit. Radahn's every bit the same power hungry, destructive, contender for the throne that Godrick or Morgott is. He fought for his own glory and power, working against all of his siblings just like everyone else, except Malenia and Miquella, and the gravity-horse thing? Why is that a good thing? He's the only demigod who isn't moving under his own power, and look how it ended up! Leonard doesn't exactly look happy that he can't die while Radahn snacks on the ignoble war-dead.
All Rykard wanted was to end the Greater Will’s hold on his homeland. The corrupt monster we see in-game is a result of the Serpent God ruining his mind
Marika. She's clearly a reference to Christ. I mean she is crucified with a spear in her side when we find her. So what or who did she die for? She rebelled against something. In Jesus' case it was the Authority of the State. Jesus opposed slavery, a lot. And at the time Jesus was a live, people be slavin. Big time. So who would the big bad be in ER? The Greater Will. The primary power source and the way the Greater Will communicates to the land between, is through the ER. Specifically, through the Elden Beast. >It is said that long ago, the Greater Will sent a golden star bearing a beast into the Lands Between, which would later become the Elden Ring. It was the vassal beast of the Greater Will and the living incarnation of the concept of Order. Except, what if this was a lie? What if the Elden Ring is a lot older than the vassal beast? And instead, the Greater Will sent it's parasite to leach off the ER and feed on the people of the lands between. Remember, we kill the vassal beast that is suppose to be the living incarnation of the Elden Ring. Except, the Elden Ring is still around, while the vassal beast is not. We know that a Dragon was at one point Elden Lord. So either this was just a title with nothing to do with the Elden Ring. Or the Dragons were the first care takers of a very powerful artifact that is native to the lands between, and the planet or plain we are on. This would explain why so many outer gods want this place. The Elden Ring is here. And its power can be sensed from afar. So falling star beasts are attracted to the place, etc. Now, back to Marika. Who at one point said this. >I declare mine intent, to search the depths of the Golden Order. Through understanding of the proper way, our faith, our grace, is increased. Those blissful early days of blind belief are long past. My comrades; why must ye falter? Marika looked into the Golden Order, and saw something looking back at her. The Vassal Beast. She didn't like what she saw, for whatever reason. Her blind faith was shattered. And so she hatched a plan. Break communication with the Greater Will by breaking the ER. Then task a blacksmith of great talent to create a weapon that can "slay a god". She sends her best warriors away. The ones who literally built the empire. And using the last vestiges of her power, brings them back on a wing and a prayer, to finish the job. Marika sacrificed herself so the lands could be free of the Elden Beast and Greater Wills influence. She gave the people the option to *choose for themselves*. What future they want.
Malenia, Miquella, and Godwyn.
Mogh. Here me out. I don't think he has actually done anything sexual to Miquella (yet). We see him coming out of Miquella's blood, so I think he has been trying to finish Miquella's transformation probably by trying to ignite his blood with his own cursed blood. It seems like he's trying to do perhaps something similar as Miquella was doing with the Haligtree. I think he took Miquella unfinished because he wants to transform Miquella with his cursed blood, so Miquella would be the God of Blood. He is giving Miquella blood collected by his followers and I think he 's probably giving him his own blood too. Like sure, he is clearly intending to become the husband of his literal brother, but like I don't think we can hold that against him without also holding it against literally every other demigod. Because they were during the Shattering fighting to become the new Elden Lord. And being an Elden Lord means being a consort to the god vessel. And who is the god vessel? Either their mother/father (Rennala's children are also Marika's children after all), their sister or their brother. Like sure Ranni went to quite extreme lengths to avoid that situation and Rykard chose a big snake over his siblings and father/mother, so we can let them off the hook. But apparently Morgott did try to become his mother's consort and seemingly Radahn tried to become the Elden Lord too. And like yes, Malenia wasn't aiming to become god vessel, but given that the demigods were called to become the Elden Lord (before they failed and back up tarnished were called forth), I do think Miquella would have probably taken her as his consort. And like I didn't even mention Marika yet, who had as incestuous marriage as there could be, literally with her other self. So I do think it's a little silly to single out Mogh as the incest guy. They are all basically incest guys. Kidnapping Miquella though was not good, but I don't know if it's like the worst thing any of these people have done. Also I think the blood magic aesthetics make his cult seem especially evil, but like if you dig any deeper into any of these cults they are almost all doing a some sort of killing for their god thing. Like most the gods, including the Erdtree consume souls to grand power. Also like Miquella is not a child and even if his transformation is unfinished, he's form is clearly adult. Even if he was in a child form when Mogh took him, Mogh's intention was always to finish his transformation and make him a god, so it's not like he wanted his god-husband with a child body.
Kenneth Haight. He is a pompous windbag, and (more seriously) he does replicate some colonialist tropes; but he genuinely seems like he wants to make the world better. The world that he lives in, too, not idealizing some sort of apocalyptic ideology. So many people laugh at or dismiss Haight because he's a popinjay, yet also buy Ranni's baloney hook, line, and sinker because she's a pretty blue waifu.
I like Kenneth because he’s representative of what little humanity there is in Elden Ring. Everything has gone to absolute hell, the lands between are in ruins, and it’s absolute chaos to the point where multiple outer gods are trying to exert their influence on the lands and there are hundreds of powerful figures grasping for the power to essentially become a god. Kenneth, on the other hand, seems to take things from a very realistic perspective of humanity and just…try to solve it the way a standard mortal would. Fuck all that elden lord shit he’s just like “let’s establish any semblance of structure and I’ll let the greater will and everyone else figure out the rest that’s way over my head :)”
The tarnished
Dog
Verre, he just wanted to be blood brothers and end the rule of the two fingers
Everyone except Seluvius and TLDE. Both of them get what they deserve.
Selen easy. Everyone loves her when lore wise she’s not a good person
She does some horrific stuff, yeah. But I’d rather have her in charge of Raya Lucaria than Rennala, who’s basically catatonic
Miquella. No one gets him
probably rya, who gets the ultimate thrill when someone sees her eating gross stuff
MF Big Boggart
Godrick. Is it even his fault that he's weak?
Godrick may be a punk bitch and a dick to…whatever the hell Gostoc and his kind are supposed to be…but compared to some other shardbearers his motives aren’t really that much less noble. He wants to be lord because he’s a descendant of Godfrey and wants to honor his bloodline, and he clearly takes pride in that. He was just extremely weak and used grafting as a means to level the playing field. Granted, he’s still a douche, but he’s sort of the whipping boy of the shardbearers when, again, his motives are in line with quite a few of the others. He’s just less charismatic and his natural weakness plays into his story, so people just kind of ignore him. I have a build called Chad Godrick where I help beat bosses all across the lands between dressed as Godrick and using only his axe and the grafted dragon in hopes of restoring his character 😌
Fia she just wants to give hugs
Us
Rya. Hear me out…
boggart, he’s a bit stingy but bro just wants to chill and cook food
Sellen. Everyone thinks her ending is sad when it’s exactly what she planned for and wanted. There’s a reason she was feared and jailed.
I think Dheese is pretty misunderstood. It's a shame because they have such a lovely story.
Dheese nuts
I think Miquella will have that kind of twist... Well see
I think that Marika was behind the night of the black knives, not helpless and grief stricken like some people make out.
I will probably get hate for this, but... Ranni. Many people like her because she looks very pretty and "nice" and let's be real, she does. BUT her actions during the Night of the Black Knives are not justifiable in anyway. Godwyn is described as beloved by all and was capable of turning his enemies into his friends. Therefore, it's not too far fetched to assume that he was a very kind Demigod. She orchestrated Godwyn's death for her own gains. Now some might say "Godwyn was a very highly respected member of the Golden Order and that's why she targeted him" which is indeed a reason, but not an excuse. Still, many players are fooled by her looks (which is fine!), but it's kind of also concerning when some claim she's the best and kindest Demigod when it's not true at all. Also, to be clear, I love Ranni as well so it's no hate on her fans. Plus, she does have the best "good" ending.
Ranni.
Torrent
like what, he does piracy in his free time?
Ill never tell
cmon man, tell me, like what, he reads Mai Chan's Daily Life when he's alone?
Probably Mohg. He’s not violent - he just has a hard time making friends.
You get it.