Kindly Miquella - Blog Posts

Ledaposting again, i want to study her under a microscope

After a bit of time and a hefty amount of thinking abt the lore, SOTE really brings this post to my mind.

It's like. Miquella did love Malenia and Godwyn, but couldnt cure them the way he was. He did want to better the world, but it didnt help him as he retraced his mother's footsteps.

Midra did love, and was loved, he endured for ages in memory of the love he shared with Nanaya, and her entreaty. This didnt stop the inquisitors from ramming the sword of damnation through his throat.

Messmer did love his mother, and he obviously cared for her people. He cared for his knights, even when they betrayed him. He even seems to have cared about the hornsent in some capacity, judging by the amount of hornsent culture that remains preserved in the storehouse. And yet, despite all that, he still is responsible for the slaughter, and utter genocide the hornsent suffered. He still couldnt save the jar saints. He still couldnt get his mother to answer his pleas.

Marika did love Messmer. The amount of blessings she gave him is proof enough. She did love him, but it didnt prevent her from sending him on an endless crusade.

Marika loved her people. It didnt matter.

"Marika bathed the village of her home in gold, knowing full well that there was no one left to heal." "What was her prayer ? Her wish, her confession ? There is no one left to answer, and Marika never returned home again."

By the way, small addendum that is only somewhat related bc i dont want to make a full post abt it

The shaman village ost is the elden beast theme with only the harp, without the grandiose melody.

"Only the kindness of Gold, without Order."

The most interesting part with Leda for me, is that for all of the murder she does, she doesnt seem to enjoy it in any way. When she fights Ansbach, the Hornsent, Thiollier or you, she always seems to express some form of regret at having to kill you. Of course, she doesnt actually have to kill anyone, she is just very quick to use murder as a solution, but it doesnt seem to stem from a desire to hurt others, it feels like she genuinely believes this is the only way forward.

She says she is mistrustful of others, and while that convo is kinda funny, it really does feel like she has lost all trust in mankind. In the dialogue about Hornsent's crusade, while most people remember the "they were never saints" part, I mostly remember "Man is by nature a creature of conquest". It really does speak to how she views people, and it seems like she believes Miquella's forced age of compassion is the only way to change things for the better, that without his control, everyone would just constantly be at each other's throats. It almost makes me wonder about the needle kights. Did she kill them for the same reason ? Were they actually disloyal to Miquella ? Was there already infighting before she came along ? Whatever the case, Leda is now utterly convinced of Miquella's cause, and is ready to do anything to bring him to power.

It's a very interesting dynamic with Miquella, who is always portrayed as a very hopeful figure, always trying to create a kind and compassionate world, while Leda is a very pessimistic one. She seems to almost embody his "through whatever means necessary" philosophy. Had Miquella succeeded, i could almost see her taking on a role similar to the one Messmer took for Marika, an enforcer, someone who does the dirty jobs so their god can keep their hands clean. Hell, she's almost started to do it by herself, Miquella wouldn't even need to ask her.

How awkward do you think this interaction was ?

Elden ring + SotE lore rambles part 2 electric boogaloo

Spoilers ahead

If you want, my first post was here, its not necessary to read it to understand but it might also interest you.

Alright, so ive been playing the dlc and thinking a lot about Miquella, Marika, godhood and everything. And in my first post, I speculated that the reason Miquella turns out to be the "bad guy" (big quotation marks bc theres not really an actual "good" here cmon guys its fromsoft were talking about) was because the path to godhood required him to fundamentally change as a person.

We do see how much change is required here, Miquella abandons huge parts of himself, both physical and emotional. But the part that interests me here is St Trina specifically. St Trina is a large part of who Miquella once was, shorn away and made into an entirely new person, cast away in Miquella's post to godhood.

Now that got me thinking, bc doesnt that sound familiar to you ? A young empyrean, casting away part of themselves to become a god, and that part becoming an entirely new person of the opposite gender ? Now where have i heard that before...

Oh hi Radagon, what are you doing here ?

Do you see where i'm going here ? The whole Radagon is Marika thing has been a topic of debate for a while now, and i dont want to toot my own horn here but i might have cracked the code.

I think Marika split Radagon from herself on her own path to godhood just as Miquella did with St Trina.

It works pretty well with every aspect of the lore so far. It explains the how in the Radagon is Marika thing, St Trina is somewhat antagonistic towards Miquella just as Radagon and Marika were somewhat antagonistic towards each other, I dont think either Radagon or St Trina are empyreans despite their other halves being so, etc etc. And we do see that St Trina is a whole ass different person which implies Radagon probably was as well.

Anyways damn, like mother like son amirite ?

Elden ring + Shadow of the Erdtree lore thoughts

Alright, so, first off, obviously, spoilers ahead.

I've been thoroughly enjoying and getting my ass kicked by SotE and what ive seen of the lore so i wanted to ramble about it.

I specifically wanted to talk about how Elden Ring explores power and godhood.

In the base game, godhood isnt seen as inherently bad. Marika's golden order is fucked up six ways to sunday, but the blame mainly rests on Marika's shoulders it seems. She's a genocidal homewrecking war-mongerer who threw two of her children in the sewers bc of racism, she's not a good god, but it doesnt portray the problem as her being a god, just her being a mess. The game provides several "solutions" to unfuck everything :

Ranni's ending has you completely throw the system in the trash. She says, fuck it, godhood's the problem, im out of here. She is kinda right, but the lands remain fractured and the power vacuum left behind is going to be immense. We're on the right track but could be better.

The frenzied flame ending is just pure concentrated nihilism so i think we can move past it for this one.

The bunch of other endings are fairly similar : you beat Marika/Radagon's ass and you impose yourself as Elden Lord to keep her in check and fix the issues you see as most important. This doesnt fix anything long-term, the god in power is still the exact same fucking mess but with a chaperone now i guess.

None of these endings are very satisfying, they all leave you with a sense of "it could be worse i guess" (except the frenzied flame one but you get the point). This is where Miquella comes in :

Everything we hear about Miquella sounds great. He's kind, compassionate, against racism, doesnt like violence, etc etc. Cherry on top, he's even one of the characters with a direct shot at godhood, brilliant ! Why cant we just put him in charge, he'll do much better than the absolute wreck we have right now.

And thats where the base game leaves us, Marika is a fucked up mess of a person, and the obvious solution is to put the much better Miquella in her place.

Shadow of the erdtree, on the other hands, aims to set the record straight. The problem wasnt just Marika, the problem is inherent to godhood in and of itself.

In SotE, we see the land of shadow, the realm where Marika came from and ascended to godhood, and the realm where Miquella intends to do the same. And the more we hear about who Marika was before in snippets of lore, and the more we watch Miquella tread the road to godhood, we realise something :

There is no such thing as a good god

It doesnt matter how kind and compassionate you were, what your morals were, who you loved, who you loathed, none of it matters because you cannot grasp the power to become a god without sacrificing who you were before.

In the dlc we see Miquella shed more and more of himself, his flesh, his arms, his eye, his heart, his doubts, his fears and even his love. Miquella has shorn so much of who he was that he formed an entire new person (St Trina) from it. Some of him remains, he still wishes for a kinder world, but he cant sacrifice anymore of himself for it. Now he has to start sacrificing others.

Miquella was always blessed with the ability to charm others, and he sees it as the least painful path to make others do as he wishes. And so he charms his sister, he charms Mohg, he charms Radahn, his followers, Leda, Moore, Thiollier, Freyja, the hornsent, Ansbach, and everyone he can convince to give themselves up for his dream of a kinder world, regardless of the pain they might cause or feel by being enthralled by him.

And oh boy do they feel pain. Mohg is used and discarded like a ragdoll, and his followers and dynasty slowly crumble to nothing as the last pureblood knight watches helplessly, himself entranced by the one responsible after he failed to kill him. Radahn's soul is shoved in a corpse so that he can play consort to a god that is his antithesis, depriving him of his glory and honour as lord of the battlefield. Malenia is left alone to rot after Miquella has no use or help for her, and she endlessly waits for her brother to return. Every one of Miquella's followers has to grapple with those feelings of betrayal, manipulation, and lost memories returning all at once. It is by no means painless.

And so we end up with a god that is not much better than Marika was. On his path to godhood, Miquella has caused as much pain to those along the way as his mother once did, in this very same land that still feels the scars of Marika's ascension.

The only way to gain power is to take it from everyone else, and that cannot be achieved without pain.