#golden queen of stagnation (marika)

[roachymochi]

Radagon get a lot of characterisation from Shadow of the Erdtree, especially for someone who is never talk about even once.

But we learn about Marika. About her origin, her motivation, and the nature of her flesh.

And we learn about Miquella, how i cast aside his love that was litterally an entire other person, that was also him.

This is actually the second time we see an empyrean discard a good part of themselves on the path to godhood. The other time is Millicent, who is implied to be Melania's honor, or courage, she left behind in Caelid.

So we can extrapolate about what part of Marika was Radagon before they were separated. And he was a good part too.

While Marika is characterized as a distant but good (long ago at least) ruler, she is also described as having committed many atrocity in the name of power, and casting aside her childrens.

Radagon may have started as a champion, but it stopped the war by falling in love with the Carian Queen. His interaction with his children seems much more loving than Marika's. He was a craftsman, and a tailor, which require a lot more finesse and patience than we ever see in Marika's reputation. He firmly believed in the golden order, but also expended his faith beyond it, merging the study of incantation and sorcery to reach a true understanding of the greater will.

Even after Marika broke the Elden Ring, hopeless that any good thing could come out of the current state of the world, Radagon reforged it because i could still see in it things worth preserving.

The most interesting part of his characterization I think his is builder aspect. He may bear traits reminiscent of the fire giants, but he add all the good aspects of their forge : the light, the warmth, the power and will to change and reshape things, to refine them and bring them to perfection.

Meanwhile, Marika's empire is eternal, unchanging, stagnating. Even her iconic poses reflect her struggle through time : in the shadow land, she is depicted has kind, arms spread in a tender embrace. In the lands between, she is depicted with her arm above her, like she is trapped in shackles, bearing an incredible weight on her shoulder's. In the Erdtree, when we actually meet her, she is straight up crucified.

I think Radagon used to be Marika's hope.

And by casting him aside, she lost any ability to move, to grow, to react and change with the world. She wanted to build an eternal unchanging kingdom, and she doomed it from the start.

[nervousalpacahologram]

The Fish Theory

I'm Making this post so I can either be proven right or wrong when the DLC Comes out.

In Elden Ring, there's a suspicious hole in the story. That hole is perplexingly mermaid-shaped.

When Godwyn is found in game, something's happened to him. He's become gargantuan, twisted, stuck in the pose of his death and staring listlessly out into the darkness of the Deeproot Depths.

He's also a mermaid.

Why?

One could chock this up to a cool design decision, invoking the Ningen and the other aquatic imagery associated with Those Who Live In Death (Boats, Scales, Fins, Stagnation, Flies, etc). His head resembles a clam, and his hair is matted like it's wet. He has a tail, scaled and mermaid like. This could all just be a cool design.

But Fromsoft, the ones who put staggering amounts of detail into random pieces of iconography, building techniques, and even the road tiling to denote who created it and why, are not one to toss something into a game for it to look cool.

There has to be a reason Godwyn looks like that.

I personally believe that Godwyn was always this fish monster, and never a regular Demigod.

My Evidence:

1: Godwyn's face is never shown.

"But there's paintings of most characters!"

Not Godwyn.

"But the Statue of him cradling Miquella and Malenia!"

There's no confirmation that this is Godwyn. it may very well be Messmer, given his relationship to fire, his descendancy of Marika and/or Radagon, and his neat fit into the Butterfly Theory (Miquella=Nascent, Malenia=Aeonian, Messmer=Smoldering). Again, no confirmation.

"But we see him in the Intro and the cinematic trailer!"

That I will give you, however there is precedence on how this could be subverted. In the shot of him dead:

His face is obscured by shadows and hair, purposefully keeping him anonymous. And yet, a power of the Golden Lineage, demonstrated by Morgott and Mohg, is to project versions of themselves elsewhere:

(Godfrey even displays this to a lesser extent, with the golden clone of him in Leyndell.)

I believe that images of Godwyn and his appearances in the Lands Between are projections of him.

In every shot of Godwyn, you never see his face fully or his legs at all. Both are obscured, and even the shot of his eye only shows the barest hints of skin, which could be the more alive version of his clam-head skin. His forearms, where the fins grow out of in his Prince-of-Death form, are even suspiciously covered up. The skin of the Prince-of-Death is even the same as the head, so no contradictions in skin color there.

My final piece of evidence is this:

All of Queen Marika's children are cursed.

I'm talking specifically of Marika, and not the ones descended from Radagon taking charge. Morgott and Mohg are Omens. Miquella, Malenia, and Messmer are cursed or appear to possess unnatural features (Eternal youth, rot, serpentine characteristics). Ranni, Radahn, and Rykard appear perfectly fine.

So why does Godwyn appear normal, when none of his borthers or sisters do?

I think Godwyn was born as this mermaid-thing, or at least partially. He was born in the Age of Plenty, a time close to the Crucible, and may have inherited inhuman characteristics. But perhaps they were more easily covered-up, or perhaps he could project a version of himself that was more human, or maybe he simply wore a Mimic Veil.

This could explain his alliance with the Ancient Dragons, also creatures of the Crucible. It could explain why Deathroot confers aquatic features on those it effects, instead of the more avian features already associated with Death in the form of the Twinbird: Godwyn, already cursed, is the source of these appearences.

Godwyn doesn't look like that because of the Deathroot, Those Who Live In Death and those infected by Death look like that because of Godwyn.

[reslari]

Alright, gonna take a stab at making sense of Certain SOTE things, because like it or not, this is the lore we have, so we gotta figure out what pieces fit where.

Assumption: Miquella speaking of the "vow" in plural, and the item from Freyja's questline pretty well contextualize that it was a mutual agreement. Miquella proposed it, Radahn agreed initially.

Lore Question: Why did Radahn agree in the first place?

Hypothesis: What we know about Radahn is characterized by a love of battle, an admiration of Godfrey and Radagon, and an allegience to the Golden Order. He is a quintessential warrior character - a warlord, even. Yet, there is more nuance to that: An affinity for gravity magic implies a sharp mind so he is not all brawn and no brain, and going to the lengths he went to preserve Leonard implies a nurturing side.

I think the former points are why he would agree to be consort, and the latter are why Miquella asked in the first place, and I think that schism brought up conflict.

If Miquella was poised to be the God-Heir Apparent of the Lands Between, then by becoming his Consort, Radahn would be poised to end up just like the two men he admired most in the world: The Elden Lord. Why wouldn't someone want that sort of position of honor? More than that, it seems like he was asked - he didn't even need to pursue such a goal - so saying a "yes" was fairly easy. No mind control required.

In Radahn, Miquella saw that nurturing side; things that likely reminded him of Radagon. Considering Miquella had a good relationship with Radagon, at least for some time, and Radagon was Miquella's frame of reference for what a "king" should be, it's sort of natural that the places where Radahn and Radagon overlap would catch the younger Miquella's attention. Even if it was partially because Radagon was also Radahn's father.

Now, it seems like this promise was made in secret. If many people knew about it, then I doubt Freyja would've had to go searching so hard for it, and it probably would've come up way more often in lore. An arranged marriage between demigods (and with an Empyrean) would be kind of a big deal; it would be the talk of Leyndell. Yet, it would also probably threaten Queen Marika, and what her vengeful self would do if she caught wind that Miquella was going through the preliminary steps to become a god would be Bad, so not mentioning it to anyone is honestly probably for the best, actually.

What's a little secret between brothers?

Lore Question 2: Why did Radahn back out?

I have a few thoughts for this:

1) Miquella does not age or mature. Because he is kept in a sort of youthful, unchanging stasis, maybe it started to look like he would never really "grow into" becoming a god. It was a non-starter because he could never actually mature into anything than the child he was. If your god doesn't become a god, then you don't become Elden Lord, and that was all a waste of time. (Radahn holding the stars back also likely contributed to the stagnation, but he wasn't going to give that up.)

2) Miquella abandoned the Golden Order. We know Radahn's campaign against the stars was done partially on orders from the Golden Order. We know he was a loyalist. Miquella abandoning it meant that when he became a god, it wasn't because he was going to be the heir of the Golden Order, nor was he going to make Golden Order 2.0: he was going to make his own thing, and that wasn't appealing to Radahn, who just wanted to live within the Golden Order.

3) Miquella wanted to build a "kind world" or a "kinder world". A world in which everyone is forced to get along isn't one in which a career soldier can thrive: No conflict, no war. No chance for honor and glory on the battlefield. Radahn can't live up to Radagon's legend, let alone Godfrey's, if there isn't anything for him to battle. And maybe, in that obsolescence, he'd be cast out, the same as Godfrey. He probably doesn't want to be THAT much like Godfrey - he wants to live the good parts of the legend, not the bad.

So yeah, I can see those, and maybe other reasons I'm not thinking of coalescing together and painting a picture for why Radahn didn't actually want to go through with it. Radahn is, of course, well within his rights to say actually, this isn't going to get me what I want, so I'm not going to do it.

Yet Miquella, a young prodigy with an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex didn't want to let him go so easily. Miquella, who famously has not actually fixed anything ever in his own life, decided he wanted to try to fix this.

Instead, Radahn walked out.

Miquella must have felt devastated, desperate, heartbroken. You PROMISED, Radahn! You promised!!

Lore Question: So what was the Battle of Aeonia?

Let me preface this: Malenia is the Blade of Miquella. I don't think enough people read enough low fantasy to take this seriously: When someone is the "blade" of someone else, they are calling themselves a tool. An object. A thing to be used to enact their masters' will. They sublimate their own feelings, opinions, and wants, in service to another. The only agency they have - and sometimes even that is questionable - is in whether they choose to serve someone. To that end: It does not actually matter if Malenia was mind controlled by Miquella. She would have been oath and honor-bound to enact his will, no matter what she thought of it. No matter how dangerous it was for her. No matter what she had to do.

Now, death in the Lands Between seems to work in one of two ways: Death where the souls and bodies are just recycled through the Erdtree and spit back out, and Destined Death, which is a one-and-done sort of deal. The former means the person is salvagable and will resurrect eventually, the other puts them beyond the reach of the Erdtree and any known systems at all. This relates to one reason Godwyn was never actually a viable option: but put a pin in that, and I'll come back to it.

But the resurrection form of death isn't really called death in the Lands Between. At least, it's not associated with that much gravitas. In Dark Souls, the humans do a similar thing: Since they're functionally immortal, they can, for instance, turn a wedding ceremony into a ritual sacrifice. Y'know, the whole Anri thing.

So killing Radahn isn't that serious of a thing, as long as Destined Death isn't involved. He'll be back. I don't know if it was the original intention to kill him, but I don't actually think it was. I think that came later.

Maybe by being defeated in combat, he would start to take Miquella seriously. Or maybe Miquella did want the chance to get the mind control hooks into him, but that seems too straightforward for a FromSoft game. I want to explore the former option:

Except Malenia, who is an extension of Miquella's will REGARDLESS of any paranormal influence Miquella might have had on her, was unable to beat Radahn. She was unable to get him to back down, submit, and/or actually uphold his part of the vow. So she cast aside her pride (quite literally, I love you Millicent), and gave into her own god's power. She is under orders; Miquella wanted Radahn, and she will deliver him in whatever form she can. If he dies, then his soul can be pulled out of the Erdtree, no harm, no foul.

This SHOULD have killed Radahn, but, again, not a Destined Death-death, so he would come back. And, having been killed (and thus defeated), could be told he was honor-bound to uphold his end of the vow upon his revival. Maybe with some newfound respect: Miquella is enough to become a god. He has the love of his men, a powerful blade, and a will to become the ruler he was born to be. If he still refused, well, Miquella still has that compulsion to him. He can still force it.

But Radahn's great rune saved him. Or, to be most precise, it cursed him to a fate worse than death. His rune is burning, after all, trying to stave off the rot. So instead of a... messy but functional death, he has to suffer a slow, painful degradation of his mind and body that leaves him naught but a howling animal in the dunes. Very much alive, and very much too incoherent to uphold any kind of vow.

Now this seems to be happening at about the same time that Miquella decides to put himself in the womb of the Haligtree. He seems, with this, to be trying to mature into an adult. This makes the plan simple: Prove to Radahn that he is going to be a mighty god, AND age himself to show that he is capable of growing up into a god.

Yet with the battle concluded, Miquella has failed yet again. And with Malenia out of commission, he has nothing and nobody to try to further Plan B. The leftover Cleanrot Knights can't beat Radahn, the Haligtree soldiers can't beat Radahn, Radahn's own men can't beat Radahn, he's just this ridiculously powerful being that's basically now untouchable. Until the Tarnished comes along, but that's in the future; there's no way for Miquella to know when or even if Marika's going to call the Tarnished back.

So Miquella needs another plan. Or at least to enact a backup plan. Enter, an Omen with a thirst for power, and a desire to build his own dynasty - a castaway yearning for love and acceptance for who - and what - he is. Who made contact with an outer god, but since he was not an Empyrean, could not be the vessel for it. He just needs a little... push. To turn that ambition into obsession.

Sorry, Mohg, but the Empyreans are playing on another field entirely. What's one cast-away son no one knows existed otherwise? Minor sacrifices must be made, as the doubts in Miquella's heart begin to fester, and push him in increasingly desperate directions. He's running out of options.

He just needs to become God, and he can fix all of this, he says, with the simplistic resolve of a child playing with dolls. All the world's problems are so easy to solve, he just needs the power to do it.

Lore Question: So why not Godwyn?

Hypothesis: This isn't even subtext, this is just plain obvious from the game. Maybe in an earlier iteration of the story it might be possible, but as soon as they wrote Godwyn into being the Prince of Death, it was over.

First of all: The statues in the Haligtree being Godwyn are based on entirely speculation. It's a popular fan theory, but only that. There are no references to them in items, nothing internally or externally in the game to tell you what they are. FromSoft put them in the game, and giggled softly as they made the "zippering shut" motion over their lips.

The popular theory of it being Godwyn mostly comes from the fact that Miquella refers positively to Godwyn, and was even willing to go to great lengths to help him out. This is the best theory we had at the time, but that's as solid as it gets. But if "Miquella speaks of the person in high regard" is the only basis for what the statues are, then we might as well say the statues are just as likely to be Radagon, protecting and loving his children. Someone on twitter even posited that it was Ranni, the raised arm and robe "shielding" her younger Empyrean siblings from the horrors of being an Empyrean in the first place, since she knows well how awful it is.

Now that we have the DLC, those statues could very easily now be Radahn. Not as Radahn is, but the ideal Radahn that Miquella saw and made a vow with.

No one but FromSoft knows what they were meant to represent; but what they are not is unambiguously Godwyn.

So remember the discussion about death vs. Destined Death? We know when Ranni perpetrated the Night of the Black Knives, she killed her body, and Godwyn's soul. That means both of those things are Dead-dead. Temporal incursion dead. Basically, so far out of reach of resurrection that it's impossible, so they functionally might as well not exist. But it was just her BODY, and Godwyn's SOUL.

Her soul lives.

And so does Godwyn's body.

Godwyn is functionally a tumor. I believe the Japanese descriptions of the Prince of Death's cyst and pustule both make direct references to cancer, in fact. Cancer is cell growth with damaged DNA that no longer has a termination peptide in it, and no limit to replication anymore. Immortal cells, basically, that rapidly reproduce. Fall down a wiki hole sometime about how cancer metastasises, and it will give you the creepiest, uncanny feeling that cancer actually has a will of its own.

But even without knowing the weird ways cancer can grow and spread, just knowing that it does spread explains a lot about Godwyn, and the Deathroot, and even why it would show up somewhere like Farum Azula. Because you only need a little bit of the cancer cells to "break away" or... be transported... from one place to another in order for a second tumor to start to grow. All that's needed afterward is a source of vitality. Since the broken-away tumor also has the DNA of the original tumor, as well, it is. Well. The same being. A clone at worst, but literally a shucked-off part of the body that keeps living, and is still its root being at the same time it is separate from it.

Kinda like Trina and Radagon, now that I think about it.

Still, every time you see the giant clam-face, every time you see the deathroots, those are all Godwyn. So Godwyn's body is not just the giant, unmoving merman thing in Deeproot Depths, it is functionally in every corner of the Lands Between, and a few places outside it. And it's still growing, still living, still replicating.

Now, try to put Radahn's soul into that.

Where would you even begin?

More than that, could you do it? Since Godwyn's body is still alive? And if you did... what's to say that it wouldn't just be Radahn in a giant, immobile fish body, genetically glued into the roots of the Erdtree, and spreading everywhere else? How could he be a King, how could he be a warrior if he's immobile, and buried?

Miquella wants a functional king. If he's modeling it off what he knows, then Radagon was able to mingle among the people, to fight wars, to be present in the lives of the court. He wouldn't get that with Godwyn's body, even if it was as simple as sticking a new soul in a still-living body that spans the entirety of the Lands Between, which I sincerely doubt it is.

No, Godwyn was never an option.

But a more normal dead body? One whose soul has only recently fled? That was otherwise whole and hale? That could be useful.

"What are you doing? This is not right," says St. Trina inside Miquella's head. She's starting to get annoying. Doesn't she understand he just needs to get this one thing done?

Oh, and look at that.

The Tarnished have returned.

Conclusion: I like it. I think it's kind of funny, actually. It's not what I was expecting - I do agree that at least like. One. Item in the base game could have legitimately alluded to some connection here, because I absolutely can see how this feels like a sucker punch to people who had two years to set their lore assumptions in stone. But as it's presented in the DLC... it's fine. I can make sense of it. It's sufficiently doomed and tragic: Miquella didn't become the god he could have, he became the god Radahn wanted. And becoming god at all required a sacrifice that removed all the reasons he would've been a good god to begin with.

My biggest qualm with the ending is this: I think if you get your heart stolen by Miquella, it should trigger an ending. Thus, most players will probably get the "bad end" where you end up a subordinate of Miquella's reign, forcing them to use either the Great Rune he cast aside, or to just not get grabbed to get the "good" ending. Please, FromSoft, it was a perfect opportunity!!!

Now this doesn't account for absolutely everything, and maybe an item will be discovered somewhere in the DLC that bucks all of it, but this makes the most sense to me, and based on some other readings, it seems to align with other people. Miquella is far from a perfectly innocent being in all of this, but he's not some purely evil mastermind either. He's a kid, trying to fix a deeply broken world like he's playing with dolls, without the capability of regard for how real lives are affected in a nuanced way.

Just trust him! He'll become a god, and- and all of this will be better!

("No," whispers Saint Trina, sleepily, where she was cast off. Now, where Miquella cannot hear her. "No, godhood will be your prison.")

[yolowritter]

A perspective on Gideon Ofnir part 3

Alright! Last post of this saga, continuing off this ramble about Gideon. This time, I want to explore more about what happens at the Endgame, so obviously spoilers for that. Let's get started with a bit of setupt!

So, Gideon remains as I previously stated until we finally defeat Morgott, at which point several things change at the Rountable. If we visit Enia the Finger Reader, she'll inform us that the Two Fingers are disturbed by this turn of events (the Tarnished being barred from the Erdtree by Radagon's wall of thorns). It's extremely likely that this is Radagon's going (and maybe by extension the Greater Will's) since it's his symbol we see amidst the barbs. The Fingers then decide to reach out to the Greater Will...only to never get an answer. Enia says that "thousands of moons might pass" and asks the Tarnished "oh, how will you manage the wait?". If we venture to Gideon's office after this, we see him singing a different tune towards them as well. He urges us to go to the Mountaintops of the Giants, against the wishes of the Fingers, when before he insisted that any Tarnished was forbidden from entering the Capital until two Great Runes had been collected.

Gideon even says that "the Two Fingers lost their purpose a long time ago" in a later conversation, but before we defeat Maliketh. The point is that he finally sees them for what they are, envoys without a master that have been reciting off a script for eons upon eons. Gideon then urges us to reach the Flame of Ruin, believing that to be in accordance with Marika's wishes. Perhaps he suspects that she isn't the one who placed the barrier at the Erdtree, since it's the Queen who gave all Tarnished the call to return to the Lands Between in the first place. So...why would she block the way? I'm sure he's picked up on it, and Gideon even has some extra dialogue if we return after defeating the Fire Giant.

He's finally made up his mind on leaving the now burning Rountable Hold, but only after he's collected as much knowledge as there is to be gathered from his library. Even now, at the penultimate area of Elden Ring's conclusion, Gideon acts consistantly with how his character has been portrayed throughout the game. So that begs the question, why does he attack us in the Ashen Capital, seemingly betraying his own ideals?

Well...I think it might be Radagon's fault. Many others have already said this, but I feel the need to reiterate what's been said in defense of Gideon. Now, the matter of Marika and Radagon's relationship to the Greater Will is a completely different topic that I won't cover here, but it's quite obvious that Marika rebelled against the Greater Will while Radagon (willingly or unwillingly) continues to hold onto the dying Golden Order. And with Gideon always following the Eternal Queen's will, as well as never indicating he knows that they are one and the same...it would be easy for him to be misled, to fall prey to the very faults that Tarnished before him did, and fail in his own journey.

It's ironic, that Gideon has spent so much of his life standing back and watching countless Tarnished always fail at the very last step...only for him to finally undertake his own journey...and do the very same thing. What I believe happened is that Radagon came to Gideon as Marika, and since he didn't know they are the same person, Gideon just assumed he was getting direct orders from the Queen. Radagon must have tricked Gideon, or re-contextualized Marika's original plans to make it sound like this prolonged dying gasp of the Order was the plan...when we know otherwise. Radagon is heavily connected to the themes of stagnation and absolute beliefs, so it's no wonder he would want to keep the world as is regardless of the ruined state the Lands Between exist in. It's no wonder that Gideon's potential arguments would never have swayed him, because absolute belief is just that. Unchanging.

And so, while Gideon was passing through the Erdtree Sancuary, potentially about to go challenge Godfrey...he recieves a direct message from "Queen Marika". The first directive they've recieved aside from the drivel spoken by the Two Fingers. It re-ignites Gideon's hope, that he and the Tarnished have done it! That they're so very close to the Elden Ring, to finally restoring these fractured lands...but he's told to do the opposite. Direct, clear orders from "Marika" say to prevent us from going near the Erdtree, that this age must last unto eternity. We all know what happens next. Gideon grabs a hold of his staff and seal...and the rest is history. Even more ironically, this too is hopeless. It's very possible that Gideon has lost the Guidance of Grace for going against the Two Fingers earlier on, because he doesn't come back. No matter how many times he kills the Tarnished, we will inevitably return to challenge him again.

Also, remember what Gideon does when he defeats us. He doesn't gloat or brag that he's the better fighter, instead he congratulates us. "My fellow, you've fought well, until now". I think it could be a way to thank us for co-operating, or an acknowledgement of everything we've been through on our journey (sometimes on his behalf). Gideon continues to fight, never tires and stands guard in the Sanctuary, because those are his orders. Because he believes this to be Queen Marika's will, and cannot go against her. And when we finally defeat him? Gideon at last lets his hopes die, gives into despair and says that it's all pointless. No man can kill a God. Not even us, whose progress he has been watching with a keen eye for such a long time. Actually, I think this is where Gideon loses Grace. By giving up the mission, by foregoing his ambitious spirit that drives him and guided him for so many years...the fleeting specks of gold leave his eyes, and Gideon Ofnir dies a hopeless, broken old man who would only have needed to choose his battles and see his dream of restoring Order finally come true. This unrelenting conviction that helped him hang on until we finally arrive...is the very same reason he falls prey to Radagon's lie. Ironic, isn't it? That if only Gideon had held firmly to his faith in us instead of an absent God, we could have challenged Godfrey, Radagon and the Elden Beast together, finally seeing his dream come true?

Well, this is my take on Sir Gideon Ofnir, the All-Knowing. I'd love to chat more about him, so feel free to drop asks or comments to let me know what you all think. It'll be a while before I post about Elden Ring, but until then, Stay Tarnished everyone!

[on-stained-glass-wings]

Headcanons: Miquella and the Strain of Pretending to be an Adult

(TW/CW: Discussions of child abuse/neglect)

Miquella may be very good at pretending to be an adult, but that doesn’t mean he is an adult, and that’s a very important distinction most people that interact with him forget about.

Don’t get me wrong; Miquella is both a genius and extremely mature for his age, both due to...well...being over 1,000+ years old and also being forced to grow up early by living in a fraught political environment and even more fraught family. Given what we learn about Marika’s parenting in game, it’s clear that she was a very cold, distant mother, and Miquella probably went from being the golden child to being a burden due to his stagnant physical age. Radagon tried his best, and it’s clear--based on the statue of him and the twins in Loretta’s boss arena in the Haligtree and the incantations they made for each other--that Miquella at least had a positive relationship with Radagon. In the canon of this blog, actually, it was Radagon that helped Miquella and Malenia flee from Leyndell to the consecrated snowfield once Marika grew displeased with their ‘disobedience’, and he was the one to engineer the Great Lift of Rold with its secret mechanism so she couldn’t find them. However, Radagon could only do so much, and it’s very likely that the political situation in Leyndell and the situation with the Greater Will was deteriorating even before Godwyn’s death.

Add to this that Miquella had simultaneously deal with being patronized and babied for his stagnant physical age and being assumed to just be a mini-adult, sprinkle in likely assassination attempts and political predation, and you have a very small, stressed, eternally baby genius who’s trying to save his sister to start with, and then--once he becomes Saint Trina and learns of the plight of the oppressed races and minorities of the Haligtree--half of the Lands Between as well.

Honestly, Miquella pretends to be an adult so well that most sentient beings can be deceived into thinking he is a mini-adult. He is articulate, well-spoken,  and has a vocabulary befitting his true age and then some. He’s brilliant and extremely well-read and educated. He’s forced himself to learn as much as he can about politics and negotiation to hold his own against Leyndell’s elite, foreign delegations, and delegations to the Haligtree. He even seems to have an adult’s emotional maturity, although his facial expressions are noticeably more transparent than those of a fully grown humanoid.

Here’s the thing, though. Miquella’s not an adult, no matter how badly he wants to be. A child who’s content with his knowledge, body, brain, and power wouldn’t encase himself in a cocoon for god knows how much time in order to become an adult.

Miquella’s brain isn’t fully developed. No matter how smart he is or how quickly he’s been forced to mature by the world, he still has the brain structure of an 8-10 year old. He can logic his way into pseudo deductive reasoning but still makes impulsive, short-sighted decisions, because he literally cannot see things any other way. He likes to play with his sister and occasionally longs for the chance to play with other children ‘his age’. He gets overwhelmed really easily--both mentally and physically--and will often have sensory and emotional meltdowns after really long stents of time of keeping up the act of adulting. He just doesn’t have the capacity to grasp things as well as an adult, and it’s that inability to piece together a final picture that drives him into the cocoon, because he hit a mental wall when it came to the unalloyed gold and knew he needed to not have a child’s brain any longer to figure it out.

Yet he’s also a god, and the leader of a kingdom, and is brilliant and clever. He does have an astonishing amount of emotional intelligence and maturity for someone his age, even if it’s nowhere near an adult level. So many sentient beings are relying on him to save them, and if they saw him as childish, they would lose faith. So very few people know that he likes to climb the branches of the Haligtree and play Tree Sentinel vs Ulcerated Tree Spirit in the roots with his sister. They can’t know Malenia helps to wash his hair at night and still reads him bedtime stories (albeit on topics ‘beneficial�� to both).

The few people in the know are several higher-ranking members of the Cleanrot Knights, Finlay, Loretta, and, of course, Malenia, who has long since mastered the art of treating her elder brother like an equal and a child all at once. One of the conditions of her entering a romantic relationship with Finlay was that she understand as well, but when Finlay caught Malenia calming down Miquella after a tearful breakdown and immediately stepped in to assist, the goddess knew she could love no one else.

[maldrontheassassin]

On Matters of the State || Moved

Continued from here with @allknowingofnir

"Because you lot did such a fantastic job while the Grace of Gold never abandoned you. The way you all just, so kindly tossed us aside like so much refuse that you'd think we were all as loathsome as the Dung Eater.

It is true, there can only be one Elden Lord. Every Tarnished that return knows that. It's the matter of odds we fight against, the entire damned world spurned us and spit us out into the crucible of combat where we were reduced to sharpening swords upon one another.

I seek to be All-Knowing to escape the mistakes that lead us here, to fix YOUR mess that you left the world in. Marika herself was the one who shattered the Elden Ring, and it was your lords and masters the shardbearers that descended like carrion upon the fragments raining upon the lands, and it was YOUR war that reduced us to this stagnation! Don't you dare proselytize to me when out of EVERYONE in this affair, I'M the one who knows what it's done to this land its people.

Should night fall upon this Hold then I too will go forth into that sunlight which shines upon us all. In the end you'd best watch yourself, or it may be my boots you fall to beg forgiveness from for this treachery of yours."

─╠═►”It is as it always was, spurned by the Golden Order.” The cavalryman retorts, vitriol emanating from his helm. But not directed at Gideon, looking so small beneath his height.

“Like the Omen, like the Dragons, like the Giants. Its reign has stained in the blood of countless innocents and undesirables. The old ways are not worth protecting. But what was lost, and what has been sacrificed by all who came before..! I will not have those who know no better choose the fate of this world. Be they the traitorous spawn or a brute who can fell legends with strength alone.” 

“Spurned by the guidance of grace, the masses returned to the Lands Between, killing all in your path like a wave of locusts. By the Queen’s will or some unholy force, we are all trapped. Helpless. Only by the grace of the Last Lord of Leyndell doth the Erdtree still stand, where the Lord of Blasphemy and the Starscourge alike both failed to breach its walls! But even the Veiled Monarch trusts in the Golden Order more than the Queen. You were bred to be strong in the badlands, past the mists. The Night’s Cavalry are the slayers of champions. We, your hunters, to ensure the Erdtree is never breached. To strike before you can collect, before you can reach too far.” His words are thick in his mouth, the first time in an age that he has tried to negotiate. To utilize charisma��rather than a blade.

Oh how much it made him feel out of his element, after how long he’d spent committed to the duty. It just reminded him more of those days in the past -- of how they were never coming back.

“Surely, then, you’ve learned well? I choose to believe that you’ve not wasted that mission to know all there is to know. Then tell me, Gideon Ofnir, Champion of the Roundtable Hold. For what would Queen Marika choose to strip the Grace from you and yours? To send you away? To then trigger the Shattering!?

The Sacrificial Twig of the Erdtree itself shall be extended to they who shall listen. To spurn the quest to claim the Golden Order, to consort with a Queen who desired the destruction of the Elden Ring? Just as I choose to believe that you, who should be my enemy, seek to do the right thing by all peoples of the Lands Between, I too believe in Queen Marika’s decision to shatter the Elden Ring.

The question I would ask of you, to see if there is any way we can come to a consensus, as an intellectual, is why?”

[on-stained-glass-wings]

☕️ + Marika

TW: Implied incest; implied marital rape; discussions of child abuse and neglect; discussions of eugenics and genocide.

Malenia chuckled huskily and rested her head against the back of her 'throne' in the roots of the Haligtree, staring with sightless, scarred eyes up at the sky. The red and golden orange of the coastal sunset bathed her face and caught the thick red hair spilling over her shoulders in a flame-like sheen. Miquella, curled up in his blanket nest in the hollow of the roots, slept blissfully on.

" Miquella is far more magnanimous when it comes to Mother than I," Malenia whispered harshly, turning her face towards her brother's nest. " We have discussed our family many a time, and when it comes to Queen Marika the Eternal, Miquella simply feels...sad. He neither likes her nor respects her actions and ideals--and how could he, once he learned of the atrocities and genocides she has committed in the name of the Greater Will. Yet he recognizes that she herself is trapped and mostly powerless in the face of her patron god; indeed, the Elden Ring is as much a shackle around her throat as it is the manifestation of Regression and Causality. The way Miquella looks upon Mother is the way one would look upon a starving, rabid dog in the rain: dangerous, yet so terribly pitiful. He considers the inevitability of stripping her of her Grace as a mercy."

Malenia turned her face back towards the canopy, humming in satisfaction at the faint warmth playing on her pockmarked skin.

" Miquella, as always, is the better of us...for he finds it in his pure, good heart to love her still, whereas my own love has long since wilted, choked in the thick overgrowth of my anger and...hate. Yes, I freely admit that I hate Mother with every inch of my rot-burned body, and every scrap of my weary will. It is a hate that is both personal and ideological. Idealogically, I hate her for the genocides she committed against the giants, the omen, the Nox, and the nomadic tribes. I hate how she has isolated the Lands Between from the rest of the world, converting visitors to our lands but sending none in turn, for who could possibly want more than the stagnant golden grace of the Erdtree? I hate her for cowing to the Greater Will and throwing her own children into the sewers to pitifully waste away. I hate her banishing Lord Godfrey and the entirety of his people from the Lands Between, all in the name of some grand task, some eternal grasping at more and more power and more and more strength. I hate how she has wielded fundamentalism as a spiked flail, forcing the demi-humans into either exile or slavery, and turning a blind eye to the slaughter and persecution of the albinaurics. Even if I was not her daughter, I would hate her for this alone."

Malenia's left hand clenched into a trembling fist in her lap, and she moved from leaning over the back of the chair to slumping forward, picking up her prosthetic arm from the ground with palpable weariness.

" Yet as her daughter, I hate her more." Malenia spat bitterly, resting the prosthesis on her lap and running the fingers of her left hand along the worn, grooved joints, crude gold patches, and hastily hammered dents. The act seemed to calm her somewhat, although her shoulders were still taught with tension. " I hate that she forced Father away from the woman he loved and into her bed without his consent. I hate that she broke both Father and dear Rennala--who will forever be a better woman, queen, and mother than Marika could ever hope to be--all in the name of an Empyrean heir of her own; for she could not let the Carian family line have control of the Elden Throne, now could she?" She chuckled bitterly and let her head hang low between her shoulders. " Is it any wonder that Miquella and I are cursed, having been born from such better designs, such selfish whims, and such...such violation? We would be cursed even if Mother and Father were not..."

Malenia trailed off, unable to admit her family's greatest secret and greatest shame, even to the most well-intentioned stranger. Finlay and Ranni had been the only two beings the twins had ever told, and they intended to keep it that way for the foreseeable future.

Even without saying it, though, the revulsion and bitterness of such a lie...such a blasphemy...such a crime against nature in and of itself...it made her want to vomit.

" I hate her for her hiding me away when I was suffering with rot." Malenia said after a moment of heavy silence. " For believing my pain would lead me to greater strength and power--and then, when I remained rotted and sad and not stronger through adversity, she grew disdainful. 'Should ye fail to be nothing at all, ye shall be forsaken.' That is always what she said to me when I was being too troublesome--too unruly--and I knew in my heart that it was a threat. She had thrown her newborns into a sewer simply because they were born 'cursed'; why would she hesitate with a miserable, unruly daughter disfigured by rot? Even after I grew my skill with the sword, she was cold, distant. I was simply a replacement champion for her--someone to wage her wars and fight her battles as her proxy when Father was too heavy with melancholy to move. Even being chosen as an Empyrean did not satisfy her...although she certainly was cross when I renounced my Two Fingers mere days later."

The memory of her mother's sour-lemon face brought a rueful smile to Malenia's lips. She shook her head and began to flex the finger joints of her prosthetic arm, checking to see if any needed oiling or smoothing.

" Yet even if she was naught but the sweetest, kindest, most devoted mother to me...even if she had not forced Father to lie with her to conceive my brother and I...I would still hate her, for I consider what she did to Miquella innumerably worse than what she did to me. She used his intelligence, his ideas, his brilliant creativity for her own aims, trotted him around like a show pony during political affairs and royal events, only to regard him with naught but cold eyes and stony silence when in private. She considered Miquella to be an eternally innocent, pure, meek little boy; and yet when it came to caring for that boy? The moment he stopped growing was the moment she stopped acting as his mother. He was as old as I was, she said, so he did not need any 'coddling'...and Miquella, so desperate he was for Mother's love, agreed, and tried so valiantly to make himself into an adult he could never be. Yet he was not an adult--still is not an adult--and he still so desperately needed his mother's love and touch. She knew this, but she could not be bothered with him, so it was up to I--his sister--to act as mother in her stead." Malenia wearily rubbed her eyes with her left hand.

" I do not regret it. I have never once resented Miquella for staying young while I have grown older--for needing more from me than as a twin and a friend. 'tis not his fault, and we are so precious and dear to each other...it does not matter to me that I am younger twin, bosom friend, co-ruler, bodyguard, blade, and mother all at once. I cherish this unique, bewildering, yet beautiful relationship we share, and I would gladly strike this balance until the end of our days if need be. All I have ever felt about Miquella's stagnation is guilt--guilt that I, the younger twin, was forced to leave him behind."

Her lips curled into an almost feral snarl.

" Yet Queen Marika the Eternal, who abandoned her child when he needed her the most...I shall hate her until the stars fall and the sun melts into itself. I shall hate her until there is nothing left of me to feel such hate. And if it turns out the reason behind her disappearance is her death...even if it means that Father is also..."

Malenia swallowed, and when she spoke again, her voice was choked and cracking.

" ...if she has died...then I hope she died in a manner that she deserved: alone; abandoned; slowly; and howling in indolent rage at the Greater Will--the one being in the universe even colder than she."

[on-stained-glass-wings]

☕ + the twins' thoughts on "best mom" Marika?

(Since I already answered this for Malenia here, I'll have Miquella take this one.)

TW: Discussion of child abuse; discussion of child neglect.

" I know how terribly Malenia hates mother," Miquella said softly, kicking his legs against the twisted, blooming branch of the Haligtree where he sat. " I envy her that unapologetic anger, that unrepentant rage...I always have. Malenia has always been so much better at anger than I."

Below him were the bustling sounds of the kingdom's market district: a cacophony of yelling vendors, laughing children, slamming crates, boisterous haggling, and the bleats and caws of livestock. The scent of piping hot street food wafted in the air. Miquella could see his younger twin 'patrolling' the streets below, hand in hand with the Cleanrot Knight nearest and dearest to her heart; and despite the heaviness of the topic at hand, Miquella couldn't help but snicker at Finlay's loud, obnoxious laugh. He could hear it even all the way up there!

" Mother did an excellent job at wringing the anger out of me." Miquella admitted after a moment of contemplation. " Malenia and I always knew what she had done to Morgott and Mohg just hours after they were born; it was an open palace 'secret' that they had been given to an Omen 'midwife' in the sewers with their umbilical cords still wet. Malenia and I were destined to be Empyrean--Mother had told us that from the moment we could think--yet Malenia was so sick and in so much pain. Father--poor Father!--tried his best to help her, but Mother? She washed her hands of Malenia's illness as she did of any problem she could not fix and told her to grow stronger through her tribulations. Is it any wonder that my sister's pain turned to hate and that she wielded her anger as the only weapon she truly possessed? Mother hated strong emotions of any kind, and she did not know how to handle Malenia's unceasing anger aside from threats...threats of being tossed in the sewers like her other 'cursed' children if she didn't start behaving. When it came to me, Mother..."

Miquella bit his lip and ducked his head in shame. His hands picked restlessly at the folds of his skirt.

" I was Mother's 'favorite' early on. She praised how quiet I was. How steady. How good. How obedient. How calm. Her smile was sweet and her words were syrupy, and her hugs were always stiff and uncomfortable, but they were...they were something, I suppose. Rewards for being a good child. I was able to use this position of favoritism to talk her down off the proverbial ledge, so to speak, when it came to some of Malenia's antics. I was the one who suggested channeling Malenia's pain and rage into battle, and Mother...it was the one time I ever saw her look truly excited. She suddenly saw Malenia as a champion that could replace long-departed Lord Godfrey, and she sent for Ser Issachar the very next day. I thought maybe she would start loving Malenia once she proved herself useful--as terrible as it sounds!--but I quickly learned that loving a person's feats is far different than loving the person themself. Our Mother adored Malenia's strength and glory, but she resented everything else."

The picking fingers soon migrated to the skin of his wrists, and swollen, red welts began to bloom as Miquella sank deeper and deeper into the brack waters of memory.

"...yet just because I struggle to express anger, and hatred, and range...and just because I pity our Mother and her golden shackles, and the gilded cage in which she locked herself...that does not mean I do not hate her. I hate her for her crimes, her dogma, the genocide and the enslavement of races and beings she considered 'lesser' and unworthy of the Erdtree's light. I hate her warmongering. I hate the stagnation in which she has blanketed the land due to her own fear of irrelevance and death. I hate what she did to Father. I hate what she did to Lady Rennala. I hate what she did to Godwyn."

Miquella's trimmed fingernails dug into the raw skin of his wrist, yet when he spoke next, his voice as unnervingly cool and level.

"...but I despise her for what she did to Malenia. In the face of the unfathomable and almost incomprehensible suffering Mother has inflected on my people and on the Lands Between as a whole, my mind immediately shifts from anger to planning and action, for I would be unable to function if I let myself experience the magnitude of my anger at such barbarism and cruelty. Yet for Malenia...for my dear younger sister, who is so loving in spite of her pain and rage, who holds me so tightly with her rotted body, who Mother thought fit only for endless battle...it makes me wish I could hate the way Malenia does: loudly; boldly; and without blunting or tempering. Yet my rage is a cold, black flame, and I will use it to scorch every trace of Queen Marika from these lands. I will bring upon her the fate that she has always tried so desperately to avoid...irrelevance."

Small pricks of blood bloomed beneath his fingernails.

" And so long as I live, she will never hurt Malenia again."

[on-stained-glass-wings]

Tag Dump Time!

Will be updated based on future interactions and needs!