#like how the hell did they manage to make miquella a nothingburger character

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Now doing DLC again and being more attentive, while also properly finishing up NPC questlines, and I'm just getting more disappointed with Miquella's story and the way it was handled in DLC.

With all the verbiage going on in the base game of how powerful Miquella's allure was, and how he had the ability to command loyalty through the guise of kindness, you would think it would be like dealing with brainwashing, to some degree. Miquella is charming people into thinking he is more altruistic than he actually is.

I'm really let down that it just ended up being "actually he's just kinda shady, I guess. You should kill him", with no real substance.

The St. Trina dialogue was super cheesy and blatantly lacking reason. Begging us to kill Miquella, and I'm just sitting here thinking "why?"

All the legacy Miquella had built up around himself, including cut content, like St. Trina charitably helping the merchant nomads with their trauma and insomnia. Growing the Haligtree with his blood, welcoming every living being to his to his town without prejudice, and spreading an overall message of peace.

Throughout all this, you're telling me it chalked up to "don't let him be a god :( It would be bad for him, I guess! Also...he's doing weird things with his step bro! And some other shady stuff, I guess!"

I was expecting something along the lines of what we see with Marika, and her fallacies in the Golden Order. Miquella is truly extremely wise, he does command loyalty, and he does desire for peace. But you cannot obtain true peace by placing people under a brainwash of loyalty. And when that illusion is shattered, that alone is what causes people to question him.

But in the DLC, some people are following Miquella for their own purposes, and for the ones that are trying to be loyal to him, it doesn't even take all that much to make them stop following him. That doesn't lend anything to the narrative that Miquella inspired loyalty.

A realization that Miquella is using mind control would have been a far more interesting plot than whatever was haphazardly put together in the DLC. This DLC felt like a reduction of Miquella's character, not an exploration of it. Everything about Miquella that was alluded to in the base game was just... abandoned in place of this new characterization.

All of this, on top of the weird Radahn storyline that came out of nowhere (which I already ranted about), and also knowing that one of the most interesting plots in the game—Godwyn—will never be addressed... it all just leaves me disappointed.

This is genuinely the first time a FromSoft game or DLC has made me want to say to Miyazaki "actually, I think you're wrong here." The DLC in terms of level area, boss, and enemy designs? Immaculate. But with all the hype around Miquella, you would think the writing would have also had a shine as well. I just don't know if it did...