#we know fia knows death sorceries given she makes one of her own

[wraith-caller]

This is interesting... In the above video, the player attacks and kills Fia. A lot of people believe the death rancor spell that typically shows up is evidence that Godwyn is protecting Fia, given that she says "Godwyn, is that you dear?" as she awakes from sleeping. But here, she is awake, and still says this line, and the rancor spell doesn't happen at all.

[wraith-caller]

I really want to understand what's going on when you attack Fia and a spell hits you, so I'm like trying to muddle my way through who is doing the spell. Spoiler alert, I'm not confident that it actually is Godwyn, and it mostly comes down to his level of consciousness being so ambiguous.

If you aren't aware, when you attack Fia after she moves to Deeproot Depths, sometimes there will be a retaliation in the form of Rancorcall(specifically this and NOT Ancient Death Rancor, which puts out more skulls). Some have said "It only happens when she begins gestating the rune" but this is not the case, as this retaliation can still happen before you even give her the other cursemark.

VV Click to watch me fight myself in a Denny's parking lot like the gibbering buffoon that I am VV

Points in favor of it being Godwyn, plus counterarguments:

-Godwyn is protecting Fia so that she can create the mending rune.

Counterpoint: This would be the only direct instance of Godwyn expressing any sort of will or intention post-soul death. If there were further evidence of Godwyn doing anything intentional, this point would be a stronger argument. As it stands, this is essentially circular logic: "This is enough evidence of Godwyn taking action of his own volition and we know it because here he is taking action of his own volition." There are multiple instances in Elden Ring of a soul being essential to the higher functioning of a person. Ranni is purely a soul in a doll body, and is perfectly lucid and capable of higher thought. Sellen's puppet body is lifeless until her primal glintstone is inserted into it. And most damning of all is the case of the D twins, who share a soul, and as a consequence, only the one with the soul can be awake. The evidence for awareness and lucidity of bodies without souls is vanishingly thin. Those Who Live in Death do little else but fight, while other mob enemies can be seen praying, grieving, foraging, or even begging us for their lives.

-Godwyn is the Prince of Death and this is a death spell, which we can find on a scarab on the way to his second corpse in Stormveil

Counterpoint: This relates back to intention. We do not know if Godwyn wants anything, much less to be this 'prince of death' or if he would rather not be relieved of his suffering. Additionally, this spell is a once-forgotten hex rediscovered by Necromancer Garris. Garris may be Tarnished, as his eyes are not gold or blue, which are the colors of the graceborn natives of the Lands Between like Tanith or Thops, or the Carian associated natives, like Sellen or Seluvis. His eye color is quite similar to a few of the Bloody Fingers, who Yura tells us are Tarnished. The reason this is relevant to it allegedly being Godwyn using this spell is that, if this spell was rediscovered by a Tarnished, it is less likely that Godwyn would be making use of it as it would have been lost knowledge when he was alive and aware enough to learn and use it.

Even if you do suppose that his undead form is aware enough to learn this spell, you then have to justify how he learned of it if this necromancer is the one to rediscover it. It's tempting to say 'well duh a necromancer might come to Godwyn's corpse', but then you have to justify that. Here is where we may concede Garris was at Stormveil at some point, given the spell is found on a scarab there. So there is the possibility of him communing with Godwyn's second corpse. However, again, we run into the issue of awareness. This second corpse is not yet full grown, still lacking eyes and half of its body. Is it capable of relaying such information back to the original corpse at the base of the Erdtree?

For these reasons, it would be more straightforward if Fia is the one using the spell. We already know she is capable of death sorceries(and may be extremely competent with them, as she has crafted her own), and we know she is most likely a more recent arrival to the Lands Between(relative to Godwyn) given her exile. This, combined with her interest in death, would perfectly explain how she may come to be in the company of a necromancer and learn a spell like this.

-The spell is cast without a catalyst so it must come from a more powerful source than a Tarnished like Fia.

Spells can be cast without catalysts and there is precedence for that with Sellen's body in Witchbane Ruins. If you attack her while she's chained up, she can still summon a phalanx which appears overhead the same way as this rancor, all without even using her hands or waving an arm. I believe when the Nox Maidens use their mists, it is also cast without a stave.

-Fia says, "Godwyn is that you dear?" when the spell is cast.

This isn't 100% accurate, because she says this even before the spell happens.

Points against it being Godwyn, plus counterarguments:

-This manner of death spell is not linked to Godwyn, lacking the signature gold and black particle effects of sorceries like Fia's Mist or Death Flare, and using instead necromancy/ghostflame. It's also weird that, rather than a spell he doesn't simply blight us the way Rogier was blighted in Stormveil.

Counterpoint: Fia's Mist would cause similar ambiguities about who is actually casting the spell. It's also possible the devs care less about these distinctions between types of death sorcery, or that Godwyn is undiscerning. They may also not have had the time to insert a special, unique attack for Godwyn, and just used something readily available which was loosely related to death in a broader sense than specifically those living in death. They may not have used deathblight as was seen used against Rogier since it would be an instant kill, and they want to give you the option to kill Fia for some reason. -If Godwyn is hoping for the mending rune to be made by Fia, it would have made sense for him to also attack Devin both when he first took the cursemark from his flesh, and/or when he came to Fia as she was making it. Counterpoint: It could be that the weathered state of the dagger is evidence of Godwyn having retaliated against Devin, though it must also be noted the weathering may simply be a result of being used on Godwyn's cursed flesh. It may also be that Godwyn did not care to retaliate when Devin returns, because Fia is already dead and the rune is already made. This would, however, indicate he doesn't feel much in the way of anything sentimental for her, given he's apparently okay with Devin harming her corpse.

-Fia is a death sorceress while Godwyn is only known to have been associated with dragon incantations(primarily via his knights and his personal friendship with Fortissax).

Counterpoint: Godwyn learned these spells after his soul died. (This reasoning has issues outlined up above, primarily with intention and the question of how lucid a body can be without a soul given what we know of this world's lore around that).

-We simply do not know enough to say that Godwyn wants to be Prince of Death, while it is something advocated for by Fia, thus giving further reason for the spell to be her defending herself as opposed to Godwyn defending her.

Counterpoint: His inner circle of knights defend his divided corpses and await the Age of the Duskborn. However, it must be noted that this is AGAIN not something evidenced to come from Godwyn's own intentions. His knights are loyal and will serve him until his death and he is simply not dead, given his body lives on. There's also the fact that, in life, Godwyn could not know this was going to happen to him, or that the cursemarks could be used to form a rune, or that his body would sprout deathroot and create TWLID, or that he'd even be killed at all. So he could not have the intention to become this Prince of Death when all the things making that possible occur after his soul death and we again come up against the issue of intention.

-Thematically speaking, preserving the lack of response from Godwyn also preserves the exploration of one's agency in Ranni and Fia's own stories. Godwyn hangs over the narrative but is not a participating force in it the way Ranni and Fia are. Both are linked closely to Godwyn, and their connections to him are all about their own lack of autonomy, and how their treatment of him resolves their struggle for self-determination while robbing him of his own.

Counterpoint: If we accept Fia is making this rune because Godwyn wants it, she would be returning his autonomy and thus be a 'cure' for the consequences of Ranni's action. The tragedy of his undeath would become a source of power for him instead, returning control over his own fate to him. However, this again feels like it runs counter to the point of his story, given that the Duskborn arc is not about giving new life and purpose to old things but rather preserving and clinging to that old thing and forcing it to carry on. The role of a deathbed companion is explicitly NOT about the creation of something new, but the preservation and rejuvenation of something that's already had its time AT THE EXPENSE of something new(an old noble reborn instead of a new child having its chance at life). It is not unlike Radahn with Leonard - Fia sees in the undead not miserable wretches being forced to cling to a diminished halflife, but beloved children for her to mother, as she was robbed of having any for herself after her expulsion from her homeland, and conditioned into seeing the dead as something to be mothered rather than mourned and laid to rest.