#+ melina's burning of the erdtree was ultimately marika's will. it seems reasonable that he might have participated too

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

anyway also adding "messmer was the one to burn melina" to the List until proven otherwise

[anomalocariscanadensis]

okay time to get on my real crackpot shit

but first, a few things that aren't pure crackpot

i don't think Marika split off from Radagon. at the time she called him "leal hound", they had yet to merge. i think it's reasonable to read that as disparaging, but if she was disillusioned with him before the merge it wouldn't make sense for her to split off due to disillusionment

Melina isn't actually a Finger Maiden, just playing the role of one. the Black Knives were Numen who Rogier claims originated from the Eternal City; i don't think the Finger Maidens came from the Cities, though the Fingers themselves existed before their downfall

Melina's purpose was to walk alongside flame and meet the road of destined death. i think her statement about her own volition is intended to reassure you that she's not just throwing herself in the fire out of duty, she's choosing to walk that path to enact the world she desires. she doesn't want you to listen to Shabriri to try and save her. i don't really have an explanation for who or what she is other than that, but i think it's interesting that she survives burned and bodiless. why was she burned in the first place?

The Two Fingers are the most direct representatives of the Greater Will, and they want you to become Elden Lord. i don't think the Greater Will wants to keep everyone away from the Elden Ring. the Fingers' guidance fails only when it turns out you can't get in to actually repair the Elden Ring without burning the Erdtree. and then of course once you've committed the cardinal sin and ultimate blasphemy the Greater Will doesn't want you touching the Ring so you have to fight the Elden Beast for it.

okay now to the fun stuff

Radagon is Marika. i think this actually goes a lot deeper than you're portraying it as. Goldmask is brought to questioning the Golden Order itself by that simple fact. Marika shattered the ring and Radagon attempted to repair it. when they're seen as separate people, these are two contrary and opposing actions. but if Radagon is Marika, then these aren't separate actions, but rather a single attempt to reforge the Ring. Radagon's other notable intervention around the Ring is that his seal is on the thorns that prevent you from accessing the Erdtree. like repairing the Ring, this seems on the surface like it's an act of loyalty to the Greater Will, preventing an outsider from coming in and fucking up the Elden Ring any worse than it's been fucked up. but what it actually ensures, in practice, is that whoever gets to reforge the Ring will be someone who's willing to burn the Erdtree and unleash Destined Death.

the Golden Order predates the Erdtree by quite a long time. Placidusax was Elden Lord in the age before the Erdtree. i think he served the Greater Will just as Godfrey and Radagon did - the god mentioned in his remembrance would be the equivalent of Marika, not an equivalent to the Greater Will. further, Marika and the Dusk-Eyed Queen were both Empyreans, chosen by the Fingers (who serve the Will) as candidates to become gods and establish a new iteration of the Golden Order. i think Marika wanted to separate the Order she established from the overarching Order of the Greater Will.

apparently, Godwyn's death should have marked him with the full circular cursemark of death. this full circular mark is essentially what Fia produces as the Mending Rune of the Death-Prince. but "should" can't be from the perspective of Ranni, who fully intended to sever herself from her flesh and create two separate wounds, so it must have been expected by the other plotter of the Night of the Black Knives, i.e. Marika. i think she regretted sealing Destined Death and wanted to incorporate it into her Order, another outside strength to revitalize it. but i'd guess she wasn't directly involved in the plotting - i feel like that would have come out more directly at some point in one of the questlines, if she had been - she just set things up so that Ranni could manage it. but she didn't expect Ranni to die at the exact same moment as Godwyn and take half the cursemark for herself.

maybe this was how it went. Marika shattered the Elden Ring, and Radagon attempted to repair it, but the mending-rune that would have allowed it to actually be repaired was missing. before it could be reconstructed, the Elden Beast intervened, crucifying Marika on a rune arc. with the Ring shattered, demigods began to converge on Leyndell in hopes of becoming Elden Lord. but Radagon had managed to lay an impenetrable seal on the Erdtree. Morgott knew none could pass without burning the Erdtree, so he defended the city and tree with all his might, and though the outer walls of Leyndell were breached, the core of the city stood strong against every assault, until the attackers were forced to retreat to their various corners of the Lands Between. until the only ones who would dare seek the throne were the Tarnished, returning from faraway lands having lived and died countless times, smouldering with the flame of ambition.

elden lord endings are like “the golden order took over the world by being flexible enough to absorb things that contradicted itself, then stagnated when it came to assume that it already contained everything worth having, until eventually it was torn apart by the forces it excluded instead of taking them over. you’re in charge now, do you want to:

1. glue it back together

2. glue it back together but this time it’ll be perfect you swear

3. incorporate the main power which it tried to exclude before, thus completing the erdtree’s conquest to a greater degree than even its architects ever planned

4. mutilate a bunch of corpses so you can shit in everyone’s soul at once”