#In the middle of making the omen twins theory and now I realise I must cover the other kids first for that to make sense lol

[blender2902]

Melina Chose To Sacrifice Herself(Marika Did Not Ask Her To Do It)

For the last 2 years, a take that I believed in was ‘Marika gave Melina her purpose, to help the tarnished become elden lord by burning the erdtree’ but now I believe that this take is simply untrue if we take all the pieces of evidence and dialogue. After looking into the lore again, I have concluded that Marika did not tell Melina to sacrifice herself but Melina chose to burn the erdtree by her own decision which she made when we after seeing her mother(Marika) in her crucified state. Don't expect any GEQ stuff, that shit is left too vague.

First let’s look at what initially suggested that Marika gave Melina the purpose of burning the erdtree-

These lines of dialogue from Melina when we reach altus-

The dialogue after defeating Morgott-

These lines of dialogue suggests that Marika gave Melina the purpose of helping the tarnished become elden lord which would lead to Melina sacrificing herself. BUT there is another piece of dialogue that flips this perspective on its head-

This one after we speak with sabriri-

Melina straight up says that whatever she is doing is out of her own free will. Let’s list down all the relevant things that we know about her goals-

She wants to help the tarnished become elden lord even though she would have to sacrifice herself for it.

She does not want us to inherit the frenzied flame as then we would end up destroying the world which means that Melina does not want life to end.

Melina is doing this ‘of her own volition’ and ‘Regardless of mother’s(Marika’s) designs.’ The first line basically tells us that sacrificing herself is Melina’s own choice and the second line implies that burning the erdtree was not part of Marika’s design (at least originally). Will discuss this point further later in this post.

Melina’s purpose that was given by Marika is different from what she ends up doing i.e. Melina choosing to sacrifice herself was Melina’s choice not Marika’s.

Let’s refute the theory where Marika gave Melina the purpose of sacrificing herself-

The assumptions made in that theory (from what I remember) were-

Marika told Melina to sacrifice herself for the tarnished

Marika likely gave torrent to Melina to help her.

When Melina went back to the erdtree, Marika somehow reminded Melina of her purpose

Let’s debunk these one by one-

Marika told Melina to sacrifice herself: The dialogue I provided earlier pretty much confirms that Melina’s sacrifice was her own choice. If Maika really did want Melina to help her accomplish her goal then Melina would have been trying a whole lot harder. Marika’s goal in guiding the tarnished via grace is 1) Free Marika from godhood and 2) free the world of the golden order. If Marika really sent out Melina to help the tarnished then I feel Melina would have given her help to many more tarnished than just us. I do believe Marika has some bias when it come to whom she wants to free her (I believe that at the end she wanted to see Godfrey one last time) but ultimately what she wants is for anyone to come and kill her along with Radagon and elden beast ending the golden order. Therefore it would be more logical for her to have Melina go for as many tarnished as possible to increase the odds but as far as we are aware Melina will only serve the one torrent chooses. There are plenty of strong tarnished in the lore so logically Melina should have helped them out but she did not it seems. This assumption simply does not add up logically and Melina’s dialogue after shabriri does contradict this.

Marika likely gave torrent to Melina: From the little we get about torrent, we know that Miquella was likely his original owner based on the first dlc image. Marika could have given it to Miquella when he was little but by the time Marika shattered the elden ring Miquella was torrents owner. Therefore its more likely that Miquella gave torrent to Melina after the shattering (probably after the battle of Aeonia) so that the tarnished could kill Radahn and send his soul to Miquella. Maybe my theory here is not exactly perfect but the point is that Marika being the one to give torrent to Melina is highly unlikely.

Melina went back to the erdtree and Marika somehow reminded Melina of her purpose: Again the dialogue I gave earlier makes it clear that whatever purpose Marika gave to Melina is different from Melina choosing to sacrifice herself. I also doubt Marika could have communicated with Melina in the state we find her in, like neither her nor Radagon speak a word.

With all this in mind we have a few facts that are established-

Melina chose to sacrifice herself out of her own volition.

The purpose Marika gave Melina is not burning the erdtree but something else.

So now we are left with a few questions-

Why did Melina choose to burn the erdtree ‘Regardless of mother’s design’

What purpose did Marika give to Melina?

Why doesn’t Melina return after we cure ourselves of the frenzied flame?

Let’s answer these one by one

Why did Melina choose to burn the erdtree ‘Regardless of mother’s design’?

To answer this, we must first see what Melina must have witnessed at Leyndell. She said that she was born at the foot of the erdtree and she is summonable for Morgott which heavily implies that she went inside the erdtree somehow. What did she see inside the erdtree? Her mother crucified in a state where she can’t be put to rest. Now we must ask, how does Melina feel about Marika? We don’t get much but the minor erdtree incantation is stated to be a ‘secret incantation of Queen Marika’ and Melina also uses this. For Melina to know how to use this incantation, she must have learned it from Marika as its her ‘secret incantation’. This implies that Marika taught Melina her secret incantation which means they must have been close. With all this in mind, we get a clear picture- Melina, wanting to ascertain her purpose. goes to her birthplace, the erdtree. Upon entering the erdtree she is met with the sight of her mother, who was very close to her, crucified. This would naturally shake her. After recovering from the shock she is reminded of one of the many conversations she had with Marika, in this one Marika talked about how the flame of the forge possessed the power to burn the erdtree and destroy it(along with the destined death stuff which could have happened here or maybe in another conversation). Now determined to free her mother from her state and finally put her to rest, she goes on another journey to burn the erdtree by sacrificing her life, all for the sake of freeing her mother. She would go against what Marika had designed for the order, which she later came to regret.

What purpose did Marika give to Melina?

This is purely up to speculation but let’s go about it logically. All the stuff with torrent is likely related with Miquella so we can rule that out. Melina serving as kindling was her own choice as I have already explained so we can rule that out as well. Now what I am going to say next will be based on my Messmer theory which you can read here-

TLDR of that post is Messmer was sealed after the night of the black knives by Marika in order to protect his life, as the base serpent got revealed somehow to the public.

Melina is implied to be Messmer’s sister so I can make the connection of her wanting to protect Messmer also applying to Melina. With all this in mind here is my theory. Before Marika shattered the Elden ring she gave Melina her purpose, to avoid all conflict and live. Years later she started doubting that Marika would give her a purpose so simple and, in a way, meaningless. Thus, she decides to venture to the erdtree. This theory answers all the questions I had about Melina’s behaviour. Why does she seemingly try so little to get an elden lord? That was not what her purpose was hence she would not try very hard. Why would she forget such an important thing? She did not forget it; she simply doubted her memory. This theory makes complete logical sense to me so I would be interested if anyone can poke a hole into this.

Why doesn’t Melina return after we cure ourselves of the frenzied flame?

There are 2 explainations to this. 1) She does not even know that we did cure ourselves. 2) Maybe she just wanted to be her mom’s saviour in a way and we took that away from her so she is pissed or maybe she just kept doing what Marika told her to do, live and forget about us.

Summary of Melina’s story- Before shattering the elden ring, Marika sent Melina away with the purpose of staying away from all the wars and to survive. This fits in with my Messmer take. After the battle of Aeonia, Miquella gave torrent to Melina so that torrent could choose a tarnished strong enough to kill Radahn and send him to the shadow realm. After a long period of time Melina starts to doubt that surviving was the purpose Marika gave her so she decides to go on a journey to the erdtree to ascertain her purpose. When she reached the erdtree she saw her mother in her crucified husk of a state. Melina then decided that she would free her mother once and for all and serve as kindling to the flame of ruin. She talks with us after meeting shabriri as the frenzied flame would kill everything which is a big no-no to Melina. Marika did not have any communication with Melina when she got into the erdtree. Marika and Melina are implied to be close as Melina uses the minor erdtree incantation which is a ’secret incantation of Queen Marika’ so its likely that Marika talked about the forge and the order of the erdtree with Melina which explains how Melina knew exactly what to do to burn the erdtree and why she thought that burning the erdtree might go against Marika’s design. She would only say ‘Regardless of my mother’s design’ if what she was doing went against what Marika had talked to her about.  Melina chose to oppose what her mother wants her to do (Marika wants her to live) to finally put Marika to rest even if it means sacrificing her own life.