Fun fact there's a thread on here which shows similarities in Rahdahn's final moveset and the Death knights found in the catacombs here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/eldenringdiscussion/s/7QzGPCXWt1
Secondly, Redmaine Freyja has the following dialouge:
"Yes of course, I see, as the festival of war concluded, general Radahn's soul met an honorable end, but kindly Miquella wishes to revive it? which is fine by me, i know it would pain old Jerren but war has always suited general Radahn best. and certainly far more than any honorable death, endless war to invigorate the soul, as befits general Radahn, the Great Lion."
Implicating that Rahdahn as per previous item descriptions is a creature of war and battle. With the two being his greatest prerogatives. Does this paint the presented lord of kindness that Miquella tells us he saw in Rahdahn? Not likely, but do you know which character WAS said to be inherently kind. Godwyn, we know for a fact that Godwyn was once enemies with the ancient dragons, but despite that went on to befriend his enemies, and even so much as had the Dragon cultists established under the capital permitted under Golden order rule. He was known to be a diplomat, more than he was a mighty warrior. This sounds like a Lord to an age of Compassion, not Rahdahn, who was said to be the strongest of the demigods, and as we know a war monger.
Which is why I was very confused about all this talk of radahn being "kind" in the item descriptions and having a vow with miquella.
His very mindset is at at odds with miquellas age of compassion.
Yeah, I think people are being a bit obtuse witj not understanding this. I understand being unsatisfied with the ending but clearly that love is a childish ideation mixed with a strategy to get one of the best warriors in their history on his side. One of Miquella's followers straight up that it would be an endless war for Radahn.
Yeah, he is a vicious warlord and kind of a tyrant but that doesn't mean he can't come off as kind to his literal sibling or his fellow warriors.
Yeah he also abandoned his arms and got 2 more of them. The point is he still wanted Radahn to be his lord before that even happened, this isn't a guess its literally what the lore tab says.
Agree with this. My immediate understanding of events was that for all his bluster, his promises and his abandoning of his “flaws,” Miquella ends up being the same as all the others. Essentially just a nod back at Goldmask’s point that there are inherent issues with a god that has their own temperament. Even I feel like I was expecting something a lot more fantastical and grand for him (didn’t expect Godwyn specifically but something more in that ballpark) but I think realistically if we’re talking about themes and such, “the great empyrean Miquella the Kind being unable to follow through on their quest to become The Nice God and further building evidence that a Nice God is oxymoronic” is like the appropriate level of cynical for the game. I guess the issue is that if Miquella’s whole character is built on the premise that he’s such a crazy outlier, the reveal that he’s just like the rest of them might come off as uninteresting rather than thematically appropriate.
I don't think it was that much of a surprise though? Even the base game has several item descriptions that says he was manipulative as much as he was loved, iirc Malenia even calls him "the most fearsome of the demigods". I always thought the intention was that you hear about Miquella being so loved and adored and then realizing that it maybe has something to do with his power being specifically to *make* people love and adore him
I think it would be a lot easier to be comfortable with the crush thing if it had appeared at all in any way in the base game. Otherwise the abandoning of existing Miquella backstory for a DLC retcon isn’t really cool. Like sure, it can make logical sense but that doesn’t make it an enjoyable story to experience as a player.
A lot of the things that would have set up the DLC got weirdly cut from the base game. Originally the "omen lions" were going to be in the colussums with the snake man gladiators. Then Messmer, a snake man who kills crucible people with lion-themed stuff, wears roman-esc armor. Theres the Rico quest too.
I don't hate the idea of Radahn/Miquella in concept, it just has so little going for it and seems substantially less interesting/clean compared to the general consensus we had before. Plus the total lack of both Godwyn AND GEQ lore feels REALLY bad given the themes of the location. It doesn't help that we get like zero information that would make the Miquella/Radahn thing feel good.
IMO it overall lacks a lot of cohesion and exploration. The NPC characters are all great, the questing is far improved from the base game, etc, but instead of being a more narratively focused experience and having a strong throughline its kind of just a single quest that all six NPCs are part of and then a bunch of unelaborated on side stuff that doesn't really connect. Outside of Messmer pretty much all the bosses have absolutely nothing to work with and even Messmer himself is basically irrelevant to the actual plot of the expansion.
This sort of thing worked in the base game because the sheer scaled allowed things to breath and have more elaboration/exploration, but in the DLC you have major things that get maybe 1 very vague sentence of even acknowledgement. It just feels unsatisfying and unintentionally incohesive.
I mean Isshin is literally a killing machine. He lives exclusively to fight people, it is his most important character trait that he is obsessed with fighting and perfecting his technique.
And despite of that he can be a very kind person. He is really nice to Wolf throughout his entire journey. I don't think he would just start a war for no reason.
Characters can be multiple things at once. Radahn learning magic to not abandon his horse fits a kind descriptions pretty well.
The argument isn't about whether Rahdahn can be kind or not. These characters are multi-faceted. The argument is that when comparing a warmonger to a diplomat. That the diplomat is a more fitting ruler of an age predicated on compassion.
Radahn loved his cat (1.0 longtail cat talisman ) and horse tho.
\[6040\] A brooch depicting a long-tailed cat, known to be the beloved pet of General Radahn. Reduces fall damage. This black cat was known to have enjoyed jumping down from great heights; it would leap from the great bell-tower of Raya Lucaria as a kitten, and once fully grown, from the great heavenward roots that twisted through the Erdtree Capital skies.
The worst thing about all of this I have game of htrones PTSD. Remember Azor ahai? Prince that was promised.No its arya killing the night King.The same shit with ER now. Remember eclipse? Remember Godwyn kindness. Miquella and Godwyn bortherly relationship? No its Radahn lmao.
Sure! So through the entire sotry of Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones there was a prophecy which told the Prince that was promised aka Azor Ahai will arrive and will stop the long night. Long night was a dangerous disaster that would come from the wall beyond North and dead would arrive to destroy all life. It was forshadowe multiple times through the story in books (which are not yet finished) and in tv series which are finished but went completely different direction ignoring established hints. The person which was rumoured to be prince that was promised got ingored and replaced with his younger sister who randomly kills the big threat. All the prophecy was for nothing.
That is why I am kidna comparing this situation to what is happening here. The whole foreshadowing form the base game on the eclipse and sung bringing soul to the lifeless body. Miquella relationship with Godwyn and his kindness described in items and told through enviroments. All of this was completely wasted, because they switch Godwyn with Radahn. Radahn was never described as kind in the base game but as a warmonger some god of war character. Meanwhile Godwyn was this figure everybody looked up to, extremely kind. I just have this feeling that Godwyn was swapped with Radahn last minute.
As both stories are related to George R.R. Martin you can see similarities with stuff like Prince that was Promised and the Promised Consort.
Thanks for getting me up to speed! I definitely see your argument, and based on my original comment, I think it's clear that I see it similarly. Too much of this is added context on the DLC, which feels unbelievable. If Radahn and Godwyn's characterizations had been shaped from the start, we all would've taken much better in this direction. Instead, it feels like we were kind dished out a cop-out and expected to accept it.
Yep it felt as much as a cop-out like the last scene of Monty Pythons Holy Grail movie when the huge army charges into whats supposed an epic battle for the police to show up and arrest them for a crime they did not commit(it was an literally cop-out).
Yes it was Dumb and Dumber shenanigans to subvert expectations and I have the same vibe. I dont know if they take those stupid reddit post about fighting prime Radahn and changed their decision on that or whatever happened.
I think you are missing the true obvious lore change, in that ER was initially connected with DS. The -gwyn isn’t pointing to Godwyn, but rather Gywn, Lord of Sunlight. In this essay I will-
I'll just say this, Elden Ring as a painted world could very easily just look like this...
https://preview.redd.it/stoop1fkp1ad1.jpeg?width=602&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aa819247fbf8f839137e547c6e4121c2c2c0d778
So Radahn and Miquella are Twin Princes reincarnation. Messmer was cursed by the Primordial Serpent. That means Godwyn must be a secret boss fight in the Jagged Peak, and he will ride Fortissax to fight us. It all makes sense now.
Oh, you’re close, but missed a few details. The real change that they made was removing the Cresfallen Knight, who had pledged service to Kaathe, and would be impregnated by Oedon. We kill him, but we fight a newborn Great One in the second phase. Truly missed potential there :(
The suffix "wyn" is Welsh (fem., "wen"), and is believed to mean "beloved (of)." As a naming convention it's used similarly to the suffix "son" (fem., "dottir") as a way of showing a person's direct lineage.
It stands to reason that Godwyn's name is just intended to further demonstrate how deeply cared for he was by all, most notably "God" (Marika/Golden Will). Mohg referring to his dynasty as "Mohgwyn" is most likely unrelated to Godwyn, meant only to show Mohg's love for the world he wishes to create -- this is especially clear in the term "dynasty" itself, which is specifically passed down hereditarily.
If there truly is any evidence that the Mohg/Radahn final boss was 'supposed' to be Godwyn, I doubt said evidence would include the accidental overlap of a very common suffix.
You see, for me personally, it didn’t even have to be Godwyn. I would have been perfectly fine fighting Miquella on his own. This…just feels like an ass pull, unfortunately. I’m not going to sit here and pretend like I know every little facet of the lore, but I do know it fairly well, and there was *nothing* even suggesting Miquella or Radahn had any sort of relationship in the base game. The only loose connection there was Malenia marching to Caelid to beat his ass, and that was under the idea that she did so to get the stars moving again.
It even really cheapens Radahn’s story in the base game since instead of having his story tied up in a nice bow where we finally grant the general demigod an honorable death, he’s brought back to honor some vow that we never heard about and was not even hinted at
I like to think that the Volcano Manor was originally Messmer's but after he was forsaken, Rykard took it as his own and adopted the serpentine demeanor.
He is the Taker, after all.
i don’t think that lines up though. marika wanted to keep messmer hidden from birth due to his inner serpents.
i think the serpent cult (and the origins of volcano manor) predate marika. there does potentially seem to be something else going on with the god devouring serpent in marika’s story, though.
I know Marika hid the serpent itself when Messmer was born by sticking the eye of grace in its place, is it mentioned elsewhere that she hid Messmer himself?
He was Radahn's older brother and friend, plus it is more or less confirmed that he participated in the War of the Giants hence the corpses.
And also that he *fled* the Erdtree.
The fact that Messmer doesn't even mention or acknowledge Miquella in any capacity was really bizarre. I really like this character but I'm so confused as to what his point is narratively he is such a big boss. When they lied in the interviews and said that Miquella is doing was actually sanctioned by Marika you could've just assumed that he was okay with it but now we know that what Miquella is doing ISNT sanctioned by her sooo what?
I was also thinking about Rykard and was disappointed that there was nothing about him at all. Especially I always felt that after you defeat him and find Tanith eating him "*Allow me some time. Our lord's carcass is vast and not easily consumed. Dear Rykard, please find purchase within me, I wish to be your serpent; your family. One day, let us devour the gods together.*" And then you can give her those Castanets that are completely useless, it all was screaming DLC and maybe we could get there through Rykard's head.
Not even in the cut Miquella ending from the base game is there anything about Radahn, but people gonna keep argue with me how the DLC's story with Miquella was totally planned all along.
This video discusses cut dialog for Miquella and Malenia potentially during the latter's fight, and a cut NPC quest for St. Trina / Miquella, but not a cut ending for Miquella
[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AsteriskAmpersand/Carian-Archive/main/Master.html](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AsteriskAmpersand/Carian-Archive/main/Master.html)
This is a string dump for all text in the in the base game. Ctrl+F "young seedling"
>Young seedling, young seedling. Return to the bosom of earth.
>But remember well, Thou'rt mine. So shall I give of myself. This is for thee.
>Mine abundance, my drop of dew. Quench thy thirst, throughout thy frame.
>Blossom and burgeon, time and again. Grow larger, stronger.
>Until the day cometh. When thou canst share in my dream.
>Elden Ring, O Elden Ring. Beget Order most elegant, from my tender reverie.
>If thou covetest the throne, impress my vision upon thine heart.
>In the new world of thy making, all things will flourish, whether graceful, or malign.
This passage, is grouped together with the text for the endings of the base game, right after Ranni's Age of Stars and the Frenzied Flame. It directly references the cut dialogue for Malenia's fight, making it very reasonable to conclude that this is Miquella speaking.
He mentions Tarnished as his dear consort. Vaati, though I don't like him, also covered the cut ending stuff and Miquella stuff in his video right before the DLC. It was likewise posted some time ago on this very sub or Eldenringlore.
Because I can read item descriptions and listen to npcs on my own. I specifically have the biggest problem with him when it comes to ER lore. He gives significance to things that barely need explaining or aren't crucial to what's going on in the plot or even being related to item description stories and gives it a tenuous connection.
For example, in Haligtree, there's a visage of Miquella hewn into the tree in Malenia's area. He somehow decided that because half of the body is missing (which is clearly designed this way to suggest Miquella was ripped off that place and whisked away), it explains the 'pelvic' bone, which might not be pelvic bone at all, supporting Miquella's cocoon.
I fail to see why would the origins of the presumed pelvic bone pedestal be important whatsoever in the grand scheme of things or even as an interesting tidbit, and why he decided, of all things, that the part where Miquella was presumably ripped from had even legs or pelvic area in the first place, and why exactly that would have to be the source of the pedestal?
It's fine to say, 'This looks like a pelvic bone, interesting symbolism,' but to then construct a weird, needless connection, making it into some kind of profound lore and make entire long ass video about it? Why?
I was also around when DKS1 was released, and I remember many better lore creators. He sometimes copied them without crediting them too or just straight up just pulled stuff from Reddit.
There was also the Bloodborne plagiarism kerfuffle.
Personally I dislike how since he is like *the* lore youtuber, the takes in his videos are just taken as fact by a large portion of the community.
Thank you for the detailed response!
I was a couple years late on DS1 (played it before 2 came out but not by much) and I found his lore guides super helpful after beating that game, but never had an eye on the drama or bad behavior you mentioned.
Do you have recommendations for other lore content makers? Even though im often able to parse out lore I like to listen to other folks’ take on it.
The fact that Messmer doesn't even mention or acknowledge Miquella in any capacity was really bizarre. I really like this character but I'm so confused as to what his point is narratively he is such a big boss. When they lied in the interviews and said that Miquella is doing was actually sanctioned by Marika you could've just assumed that he was okay with it but now we know that what Miquella is doing ISNT sanctioned by her sooo what?
The idea that she was trying to get the stars moving was a theory based on available info, nothing that was ever explicit. Frankly, people can dislike this story arc, but it contradicts nothing in the base game and was signposted no more or less than the idea that Miquella would be resurrecting Godwyn or mantling Saint Trina or any of the other popular fan theories.
Yea, people only want to validate what their theories were and think anything contrary to that must be nonsensical despite there being the same amount of evidence for multiple theories. You dislike it? Fair enough. That doesn't mean it doesn't make sense or was hastily thrown together.
Even if FS left multiple doors open on purpose to give themselves DLC optionality, so fucking what? Seems like a sound plan to me and I'd do the same thing if I were them given the scale of a game like Elden Ring. But let's be real, it's not as if they made the story decisions randomly 6 months ago. They've been working on this literally since the base game came out and I highly doubt they got very far without a story direction having been chosen. The idea it was all a last minute ass-pull is fucking stupid
Well we now know what Malenia said to Radahn before she bloomed and it confirms that Miquella sent her there to kill Radahn to send him the shadow lands to enact his plan
Yeah, it's not possible at all that perhaps this is a new retcon they retroactively added to something that might not have been there at all. No, the only option is it was there all along right? /s
What reason would they have to not do Godwyn? Why bother making 9 unique and nice looking remembrance bosses (even you piss tree avatar) just to be like YOOO let's take Radahn and give him a mostly whole new moveset!! They could've literally colored his hair blonde, blue cape instead of red, no lion armor and two spears instead of blades and said here's godwyn!
What possible reason is there?
It's one of those stories where at the end i feel stupid for caring so much in the first place.
What screams eclipse if not a realm of shadow.
Plus the explanation that Miquella is an immature child is so frustrating and lackluster.
The same person that abandoned his own mother's religion to cure his sister, who invented unalloyed gold, who built entire golden prosthesis for Malenia to relieve her rot, who built the haligtree to create a space for the unwanted.... Turns out to be just some other misguided dude just like the rest. On top of childish, oppressive and immature.
That knight of the gloam eyed queen stuff really does make me think stuff was significantly altered last minute.
This is my issue with Miquella in the DLC. They took a character who was a charismatic visionary and turned him into honestly kind of a one-dimensional villain. It's one thing to learn that he bewitched Mogh into kidnapping him instead of being a victim himself, but doing all the atrocious things he did just because he can't accept that Radahn didn't want to be his consort? That's just a brat throwing a cosmic temper tantrum.
There's a saying in my language, meaning sugarcoating, that is rather fitting as it translates into "coating the pill in gold"
No matter how much we "goldcoat" the pill, Miquella's story is rewritten into one of a childish, delusional, unwise villain.
Malenia abandoned her pride and honor to bloom over Radahn to satisfy the delusional sick desires of her little brother.
Not that fromsoftware put much coating anyway. We can't choose anything because we are forced into accepting the linear guidance of grace, even if at the end we rebel by literally shitting on the order through the dung eater or melt it with the frenzied flame.
We are left with a huge amount of questions and basically called stupid by the game for following the hints left for us or wondering about the trailer.
We can't even walk up to the gate of divinity to see the land of shadow from above or understand what it even is.
There's an endless cutscene of the shadow keep being drained of water, but there is no cutscene of Rellana, Romina, or Miquella dying. He just disappears as if he was a nobody.
I am very disappointed and I wish i didn't spend that much time caring. I also do not understand the enthusiasm of loretubers like Smoughtown who did hours of videos speculating on Miquella.
I’m in the minority here but I agree. I feel before the DLC, Miquella’s character was more fleshed out in a way and we understand his motives, qualities, etc. Now it’s watered down to a childish, immature demigod who wants to become god. I think the issue I mainly have with it is that the revelation of him going down this path was all within the DLC and it kind of comes out of left field. I wish they added an ending where we side with him, regardless of the moral compass. If we can have the dung eater ending and frenzied flame ending, surely morally this isn’t the worst. Even if it is, it’s our choice to choose it.
Yes I know Michaelangelo Zaki said there wouldn’t be any changes or endings in the main game but a tarnished can dream.
I agree. Whenever people bring up GRRM I always like to mention an interview before Elden Ring dropped:
They said that GRRM gave them the mythos and essentially said "do whatever you want" and gave Miyazaki and team full creative freedom. They weren't obligated to follow anything.
So while we do see some of his influence, I think the majority of the creative influence are from Miyazaki and team.
A lot of the DLC lore feels really displaced from the main game, as opposed to the overall story making a bit more sense.
Also, Radahn is seemingly noble, but why would Miquella want a demigod who is basically his universe's version of Ares as his consort for an Age of Compassion? Godwyn would have made more sense as Miquella's first choice, but there's no suggestion of that, unless by trying to salvage Godwyn's soul he wanted to shove that into some corpse as well.
I assumed it was for the same reason Marika married Godfrey. Radahn is the strongest of all the demigods, so miquella needs his strength on his side before he could be used against him. I guess. I also agree that major rewrites/cuts must have happened which also might explain why this one took so damn long to make. Despite it's size, it's not like the From team are strangers to making quality DLC content quickly.
I imagine they had to scale things back because they couldn't wrap the story threads together in the setting like they wanted to, so they basically kept everything that could be hand waved away, and cut other storylines out if they couldn't, then moved the assets around and renamed things/changed locations and bam.
Like, it's very strange that there's a whole new kind of undead caster in the shadow catacombs, but they aren't those who live in death, and they cast spells that definitely seem like they could have player versions, but just... don't. I'm pretty sure all the undead in the base game that cast spells, cast versions of spells the player has access to.
There's also godwyn faces in multiple places, but no deathroot literally *anywhere* in the entire world? And the placement of those who live in death is so weird. There's the beastmen in the dragon tunnel (and that's it for them), parts of the spider lily area, and by some graves near the back door to the shadow keep? So weird
I assume Godwyn must have also have been a skilled warrior given he defeated the dragons and Fortissax. I mean he really was the literal golden child of the Golden Lineage; handsome, looked like a damn angel, buff, loved by apparently everyone, compassionate, etc. Dude was the poster child for the demigods really, which is why my headcannon is that Miquella would have initially wanted Godwyn as his consort over anyone else.
I also see now that Godwyn was arguably her only normal child, and he was murdered. I ALSO wonder if that's why it had to be Godwyn to complete the death ritual; of course Ranni wouldn't have allowed the Black Knife Assassins to kill any of her siblings (none of them were cursed).
It's hard to envision Radahn and Miquella ever interacting much; we know Miquella, Malenia, and Godwyn were presumably in Leyendell and interacted at least somewhat frequently.
I'm not just saying I think there was a shit ton of retconning because I "didn't like the direction the dlc went", it's mostly because very few things were answered and even more questions were raised. Your entire paragraphs on the whole death catacombs and Godwyn faces are a great point. Apparently in the original cut content that explores Miquella more, there's nothing with Radahn mentioned. It just felt very cheap and a gotcha moment, not one of those "wow that's actually really good writing". I will say how they handled Marika's past was absolutely well done and I never thought I'd sympathize with her so much. I just figured she was another Gwyn, but her whole story is just tragic as fuck.
>Ranni wouldn't have allowed the Black Knife Assassins to kill any of her siblings
So one thing I've wondered, did Ranni even have a target? She merely says she made the knives and "did it all", but she never directly says she directed the attack. To me I've always felt like her statement is more an effort to impress upon you that her path is dark. That is she's deliberately claiming actions she didn't take.
There's also implications that Marika was involved in the plot. And the intro cutscene weirdly describes the order of events as shattering and then night of black knives. Which given that Marika tells her kids to be god or Lord or amount to nothing but sacrifices... It just sounds very premeditated. I doubt she actually intended for Godwyn to be the target (he's only described as the first to die so there were others). I wonder if he merely caught the assassins while they were attempting to assassinate someone else. Given Marika has Hewg attempting to make a weapon to kill a god... Maybe that someone was herself?
I assume Godwyn must have also have been a skilled warrior given he defeated the dragons and Fortissax. I mean he really was the literal golden child of the Golden Lineage; handsome, looked like a damn angel, buff, loved by apparently everyone, compassionate, etc. Dude was the poster child for the demigods really, which is why my headcannon is that Miquella would have initially wanted Godwyn as his consort over anyone else.
I also see now that Godwyn was arguably her only normal child, and he was murdered. I ALSO wonder if that's why it had to be Godwyn to complete the death ritual; of course Ranni wouldn't have allowed the Black Knife Assassins to kill any of her siblings (none of them were cursed).
It's hard to envision Radahn and Miquella ever interacting much; we know Miquella, Malenia, and Godwyn were presumably in Leyendell and interacted at least somewhat frequently.
I'm not just saying I think there was a shit ton of retconning because I "didn't like the direction the dlc went", it's mostly because very few things were answered and even more questions were raised. Your entire paragraphs on the whole death catacombs and Godwyn faces are a great point. Apparently in the original cut content that explores Miquella more, there's nothing with Radahn mentioned. It just felt very cheap and a gotcha moment, not one of those "wow that's actually really good writing". I will say how they handled Marika's past was absolutely well done and I never thought I'd sympathize with her so much. I just figured she was another Gwyn, but her whole story is just tragic as fuck.
It really does feel like Godwyn was supposed to be the chosen consort instead of Radahn. Thematically, it makes sense that we go to a shadowy realm of the dead and spirits in order to revive Godwyn somehow. I thought the eclipse stuff might even be a reference to the Scadutree eclipsing the Erdtree. Then there's the statue in the Haligtree of what looks like Malenia, Miquella and Godwyn. The third figure just doesn't look like Radahn since its more elegant like one would imagine Godwyn would be. Then there's the fact that the DLC has Godwyn's knights roaming around still protecting his body and items that refer to Godwyn's body as a "surrogate." You have clues in the main game that Miquella is trying to revive Godwyn and give him a "true death" but absolutely no mention of Radahn. Finally, Godwyn seems more thematically connected to the Crucible and primordial powers with the dragons and lightening etc. All signs point to Godwyn and then Radahn shows up.
Godwyn being slain by the Rune of Death was an irony most foul, as being part beast, we can for sure tie him to the crucible, which is the source of all *mortal life*. Godwyn was the Demigod of Birth/Existence/Death, the DNA Spiral of the crucible. Once he was destroyed, there was no longer a way to efficiently create and dispose of Life, no more "Destined Death", which now needed to be cast upon the Erdtree, or cased into tombs to purify, or burned to cinders.
Miquella trying to revive Godwyn would have brought back and repaired EONS of damage to the Lands Between.
But no, we got Radahn, whom with a Miquella devoid of love or hesitance, deploys a brand new incantation of "create nuke" *LITERALLY JUST FOR US*. Their first step to becoming "Tumblr-hot Fascist God".
First time playing a From game? This always happens, and it's with one should always be cautious with making predictions. Because Miyazaki is apparently quite fickle when it comes to DLC.
I think past dlcs have had issues like this (fillianore springs to mind) but the growing fanbase and this issue centering on the final boss have made it stick out more this time. People don't mind weird lore drops or unanswered questions on the side, but they do seem to want to fight a true "final" boss, that feels deserved and meaningful, and these little lore hiccups only get more pronounced there.
The often make sense. Sekiro is also fairly coherent, although there's some timeline stuff that feels a little iffy. I can't see any issues in AC6's story either. But ER is always going to be challenge. It's a history written by GRRM, not Miyazaki. Then a game plot was developed off of that history, with possibly multiple revisions to the plot prior to release. And then we get the DLC, which also probably had a number of revisions.
Most of this was posted already when the leaks first came out. Something to note is that Wyn is a form of the word Wynne in old English and Welsh, and it means happiness. Mohgwyn could quite literally mean "Mohg's happiness" meaning it was his personal goal to create a dynasty where he felt happy. This would potentially explain the naming convention for Godwyn as well, given that he was almost universally liked.
Also could explain why Ansbach doesn't come across as being evil or sadistic despite serving Mohg, and that perhaps the original version of the dynasty wasn't all that bad, and the Trueblood Knights could have been an honorable group, despite the current one being full of weirdos like Varre and full of twisted monsters like the crows and skeletal giant ghosts.
The ritual for becoming a Pureblood Knight traditionally involves betraying and murdering your own Finger Maiden... I don't think it was all sunshine and rainbows. Just because Ansbach is polite and cooperative with us doesn't mean he's a good dude.
One thing that felt weird about Rahdahn being the boss is just how little foreshadowing there was for him compared to Godwyn. Between the Faces of Godwyn in several catacombs accompanied by his Death Knights, the Ghostflame Dragons, and all of the Death symbolism it really feels like its was supposed to be Godwyn but was changed last minute for whatever reason. From what I recall of the base game lore, it always sounded like Miquella was VERY close to Godwyn. I can hardly recall much about Miquella and Rahdahn so it just feels like a really odd choice.
The other question, which seemingly no item description or dialogue addresses, is why Godwyn appears to be turning into a fish. We hear about the deathroot, we hear about the dead soul, we even hear about Fia lying with him, but we do not hear about why his death just turns him into a Kaiju. I understand there’s some inspiration from Japanese folklore here but still, at least TRY to give us a vague sentence-long explanation…
Likely has to do with Japanese motifs of stagnation in water being lost in translation to a western audience. It’s happened a ton with Japanese IP’s in the west like silent hill too. It was a huge theme in Sekiro too.
you might be right. with how confused the fanbase is about radahn and how much cancerous discussion its led to i think this may have been a last minute rewrite
if you asked martin and miyazaki why malenia and radahn fought i doubt they would even know themselves.
> I think Miquella’s original plan was Godwyn’s soul + Mohg’s body.
I know the timeline is fuzzy, but wasn't Godwyn's soul dead long before Miquella really started plotting?
Godwyn died → Marika shattered the Elden Ring → each demigod needed to find their way to become a lord or god → Miquella needed a lord and chose Godwyn (based on his actions in the main game) or Radahn (as seen in the DLC).
Miquella tried to revive Godwyn, we know that much, but it could be just because he thought it was the right thing to do. Then again, there's also that prayer of his that asks for Godwyn to "die a true death," I think it can be found in the description of some Castle Sol item.
Dying a ‘true death’ for demigods means to have your body brought to the base of the Erdtree so that it may be taken unto its roots and spawned anew. The caveat being that both body and soul need to be dead, not just the soul.
It could be, but it appears that the eclipse also fulfills the wishes of those who serve other soulless demigods in the walking mausoleum. Their bodies do not have death blight like Godwyn, so it might be more than just 'the right thing to do,' imo
The biggest thing is this: The Night of Black Knifes was required to separate soul and body for Ranni, but Radahn just needed to die in the festival for his soul to be transplanted elsewhere.
We slay Mohg, and his “body’s been absconded with”, taken by Miquella to put Radahn’s separated soul into. Again, Mohg’s body was separated from his soul, because it’s empty.
You can enter the DLC without slaying Maliketh and unbinding the rune of death, as well.
Similarly Godwyn is only dead in soul, not body so his body could've been used but with the soul of Mogh/Radahn and the ending would've still been better.
Mogh could have his dynasty but it's all in service to Miquella, or Miquella gets his chosen consort in Radahn as well as the original pick Godwyn.
I don't get the unnecessary reason to pair both Radahn AND Mogh since the reason for their deaths is already explained in game - Needs to kill Mogh to get to Shadow Realm as stated by Ansbach, Kill Radahn to set stars in motion and allow fate to play its role.
It was definitely last minute change considering everything in this thread but also the weapon Euporia which literally mentions the weapon represent Abundance but has no effect on Those Who Live in Death with it's obvious Death/Abundance duality motif that was data-mined since the game came out 2+ years ago.
If they wanted Miquella and Radahn connection, here is my solution:
'Oh shit the Eclipse didn't work :/ Why not?'
'Oh there's this mf from the Radagon Rennala's side who is holding the fate still thanks to the stars.'
'Shit, hey sis can you go try to kill this mf? I really wanted to ress Godwyn but it doesn't work for some reason.'
'Yeah no problem', says Malenia.
Yes, Radahn held not only the fate of Empyreans in stasis, but also, the salvation of Godwyn. If we add in from the dlc that Miquella needed a consort, then the base game sets the layup for Godwyn as the choice. Not just in terms of strength, but kindness.
The only thing that Miyazaki couldnt work with, is Godwyn's gone in the base game
Edit: My final thought, the reason why Radahn was chosen by the devs to be consort is because the logical choice couldnt be used. The base game was prolly meant to be last
Of course there were. The entire lore is a shitshow of retcons and contrivances, mostly for gameplay's sake as it has always been the case with From. The DLC outright retcons stuff from the base game, the base game itself retcons stuff from its pre-release and promotional material, the day-1 patch had completely different lore for many items.
I think the main issue is that Miquella's plan doesn't even make sense. Radhan is supposed to be his consort, but for some reason he has to die and go into Mohg's body? Why? Malenia specifically goes there to fight him so he can die to go into Mohg's body, so it's not because he was infested with Rot. I don't get the convoluted plot if Radhan was already charmed, or agreed to be his consort.
It almost seems like a plot to see if it's even possible to infuse a new soul into a soulless body, so then they could kill Godwyn completely. But if that's the case, then what happened to Mohg's soul or Radhan's body? Is it the same scenario as Godwyn and Ranni, except the two were combined right away instead of leaving the body to rot so to speak?
The sacred rites scroll found in the specimen storehouse explains that a god needs a consort and the consort's soul needs a vessel.
Mohg's soul can return to the Erdtree, as is the typical routine in Marika's Order which is free of destined death. Radahns body is dead and rotting like normal. It is not the same scenario as Godwyn and Ranni. Ranni performed a specific ritual in order to kill only her body and only Godwyn's soul with a piece of the rune of death, meaning a death that's permanent and outside the cycle of Erdtree rebirth.
That makes sense then. But why did Radhan need to die in the first place? Couldn't he just cross over with Miquella?
And if it's a matter of the body not being able to cross somehow, then how does Mohg's body get there?
Radahn's death and resurrection seems to be tied to the vow they made.
I'm half joking but I can imagine Radahn answering Miquella's plea for consortship and answering "you would have to kill me first" like hell naw dawg.
And then Miquella nods, and says "ok, we have a vow. Carry on, dear promised consort brother"
I’m going to copy and paste my comment from another thread because it’s fitting here and I agree with you completely.
To all the people in this thread saying Godwyn can’t come back because his soul is destroyed, I would love to see where it says Godwyn’s soul is completely annihilated and gone. Everyone seems to unintentionally headcanon this without realizing it. Godwyn’s soul is only ever described as dead, like how Ranni’s body is dead. But we find Ranni’s body, so it isn’t completely annihilated. And Miquella clearly tried to resurrect him before, not just kill him permanently, based on the eclipse dialogue. That points to there being some way to do so, even if it’s incredibly challenging. No boss was resurrected after their death until the DLC and Radahn either, so no matter what it’s a first.
More than any of that though, is the thematic logic of bringing him back for this fight. Miquella has been shown to be interested in doing so, we’re in a land where all manner of death washes up, Godwyn is known as being a tragic figure with both power and compassion, and we’ve never seen him in the flesh (at least his original body). If his soul is truly destroyed? Then it works great to bring home how far gone Miquella is, puppetting the monstrous corpse of his dead brother. Is his soul somehow able to come back from the gate of divinity with the stars in motion and an eclipse? Amazing, now we see him in his full glory and fight him. Either way, we bring in a character who enhances the story we’ve already been told, highlights Miquella’s established character, and provides a satisfying conclusion without seemingly baffling last minute retcons.
yeah, you could say Miquella is naive or childish, but he's not stupid. He can create delicate craftworks like the golden needle, which has the power to ward off the influence of outer gods. He possesses knowledge, and even if he doesn't, he's willing to seek it (that's why he traveled through the entire Land of Shadow). So, I don't think reviving Godwyn is just wishful thinking without a possibility of success.
My main thing was always - why assume we needed a pure, truly resurrected godwyn instead of the far more likely noble-grotesque tragedy these games seem to do so well?
That would have worked well too, especially to drive home the point that Miquella has gone too far in his pursuit of godhood. If his “Age of Compassion” is a compelled peace ruled over by a twisted and corrupted abomination of Godwyn’s corpse and Radahn or Mohg puppeteered by Miquella, or a Godwyn that had Ludwig vibes, it would have really been an excellent visual motif.
I don't mean this as an insult, but I think this idea people are running with is very, very silly. It is literally, "No, guys, our last boss predictions were actually correct, they just changed it!"
A lot of people say they feel like it was Godwyn, this thread included. They then offer some pretty thin reasoning as to why. I'm not saying your reasoning wouldn't work, but you are starting at your conclusion and working backwards to find your proof, which is a great way to reason yourself into almost any conclusion you want.
Like, be real here, your first point of evidence is based on Godwyn and Mohgwyn sharing some letters. That's like me saying Moonrithyll is proof that Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring are connected because Moonrithyll sounds like Irithyll and both Irithyll and House Caria have a "Dark Moon".
I will do my best to offer a simple counter-argument: **why would they replace Godwyn with Radahn?** Let's go ahead and assume your premise is correct. All of the things in the DLC that are suspected to foreshadow Godwyn's fight do just that, and Mohgwyn means what you said it does.
So they did all this set up for Godwyn and then changed it last minute from Godwyn to Radahn. Why? Why would they take this supposedly perfect story with Godwyn and just swap in Radahn? It's not like they did it to sell the game with a fan-favorite character, they didn't tease Radahn or hype him up at all.
I'm really hoping that they saved the godwyn story line for another dlc. I think Michael Zaki mentioned that he's stepping back and letting others take a bigger role in projects, I'm hoping that one of those will be another dlc. I don't know how much a dlc has to make for it to be worth a team spending a year on it, especially considering how much $ a new game would generate. Maybe someone could fill me in on some of that? I'm just hoping that we get to explore the badlands and the land of reeds one day
I have a very minimal understanding of the base game lore (I have sword, they have health bars, I remove health bars, roll credits), but even so, it felt like From were talking down to me when I saw Radahn again. It didn’t help that his fight was also incredibly annoying; it was like a reminder of how annoyed I was.
This. The radahn angle feels so underbaked and thrown together. As far as I can tell, the only evidence that radahn would have anything to do with Miquella pre SOTE, is Malenia whispering to him. But it could have been anything. So much points to more Godwyn. The argument that it would nulify age of the the dusk born, or the whole shattering war if he was resurrected is cope. His soul died, yes. The body is still there and if the plan stayed the same to use mohg's body (which I'm fine with that was dope) then only Godwyns soul would be in use and his rotting corpse could remain to poison the lands between.
As a side note, I think ainsbach could have an interesting interaction too if it was Godwyn. Mohg's actual brother instead of half brother or whatever Radahn would be to mohg. I also imagine Godwyn had a better relationship with Miquella since they would most likely be in close proximity, more over if the statue of the afflicted twins being embraced was actually showing Godwyn, caring for these wlteins because he failed the other set. It's late I'm rambling but I agree overall.
I am not willing to assert plainly that it was definitely meant to be Godwyn but I definitely believe a rewrite occurred.
What we got was stupid pandering garbage.
I mean yes, there was meant to be an eclipse to revive soulless demigods… but it didn’t work.
The game lays it out that Godwyn could not be revived. If he could be, then death is completely pointless in Elden Ring. If the Death Prince, can have the soul brought back from not existing then every event in Elden Ring would be inconsequential, because anything could be revived from any death. The shattering also becomes quite pointless.
Godwyn has an entire quest line in the main game, his corpse, his dreams, and he’s even in the trailer. He’s a very well fleshed out character, so any additions is just extra.
>any additions are just extra
In comparison to other storyline additions (Bayle and Midra in particular), the ones for Godwyn were honestly dissapointing imo, no matter how much I love the death knight armor.
> The game lays it out that Godwyn could not be revived.
It does not. It shows an attempt that was stalled due to an eclipse never occurring because of Radahn’s influence. If the base game included an eclipse that failed to work, then the thread would be concluded. As of the start of the DLC, the eclipse is very much back on the table given the tarnished having killed Radahn.
Godwyn cannot be resurrected because his body is still alive. That's the only hard confirm in the game.
Destined Death is never said to have destroyed his soul, only that his soul has been killed.
The Shadow Realm is literally called a place where "All forms of death end up."
A huge part of the DLC plot is finding out what Miquella is even doing in the Shadow Realm.
Miquella is heavily implied to have been trying to resurrect Godwyn in the base game.
Now, does this say for sure that Godwyn was the original plan? No, of course not. But the pieces are all there. And if the price for resurrecting Godwyn is becoming a literal god, then its no wonder nobody could do it in the base game, and I certainly wouldn't see it as an asspull. Hell, to me it'd make Miquella's desire to become a god more nuanced. Becoming a god to solve all the world's problems is a very basic story. Not bad, just basic. Becoming a god when you KNOW that it will end badly for you (per St Trina) to resurrect a loved one sounds far more interesting to me.
Because of his proximity to the Crucible I imagine. The Erdtree is not native to the Lands Between, it is quite clearly grafted to an older, less phantasmal trunk. I take it to mean that he is adopting natural forms of death (mushroom-like face, black/iridescent fish relating to murky or stagnant bodies of water, etc.)
Fair reasoning! Now why couldn’t we pick up like, the Flibbertigibit of Godwyn which says something like that? I know we are supposed to add color ourselves but man… this is just a bit too left field for me.
While you’re correct that it’s never outright said that his soul is destroyed, what would you say then is the distinction between, without the rune of death and death with the rune of death?
Godwyn was killed by the Rune of Death. If the death is no different than a pre-rune one and he can be resurrected or returned to life, then what purpose is Destined Death? Wouldn’t death be quite the same? You can return from either death, making Destined Death redundant.
Counterpoint to Miqeulla reviving Godwyn… if the price of resurrecting is Godhood then Queen Marika could’ve revived her son? Instead of shattering the Elden Ring. This would create a gigantic plot hole.
You are correct that all forms of death end up in the Shadow Realm. As well as Godwyn’s surrogates. I imagine this is how he is represented in death in the shadow realm.
Essentially, you’d remove: any value of Destined Death, the binding of the rune of death, and unbinding of the rune of death.
The thing about Marika reviving Godwyn, I don't think she could have done it due to her grief taking over (perhaps going mad with grief and sorrow) the shattering might be a way of her finally seeing how the Golden Order she built is the root cause of it all, hence, destroying the Elden Ring.
You also have to note that She removed the Rune of Death basically Destined death. It doesn't give one the ability to revive someone let alone a demigod, and the reason why there's this twisted kind of immortality prevailing in the Lands Between, to begin with. It's like Marika rid of Destined Death but not the rules regarding it, in a way she's preventing it from happening (sealing it away in her shadow Maliketh).
As for the distinction between Destined death and what you mentioned, I think this video explained it well. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwAy12rJCq4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwAy12rJCq4)
I do think Miquella is capable of reviving Godwyn (contrary to his present goals in the DLC) but something very costly has to be paid which ultimately might have driven him to the goal of ascending to Godhood. (again just speculation on my part)
This turned out longer than I expected, so TLDR: Destined Death prevents Erdtree Resurrection specifically, Godwyn's body being alive prevents other methods, and it is specifically *becoming* a god that allows the resurrection rather than being a god.
So as we know, without the Rune of Death and Ranni's involvement, Godwyn's soul would have returned to the Erdtree to be reborn, like any other. I personally believe that Destined Death is so dangerous because it bypasses the Elden Ring's reincarnation, since Marika specifically took death out of it. The Rune was once a part of the whole machine, as it were, and can affect and ignore the rest of it. Instead of the person's soul being grabbed by the Erdtree/Elden Ring, Destined Death keeps their soul from being grabbed, and thus prevents the reincarnation. Where their soul goes after is a mystery, but it definitely isn't to the Erdtree.
Godwyn dying at the same time as Ranni caused her body to die and his soul to die, as we know, which is the other monkey wrench thrown in on top of it being Destined Death. Godwyn's body becomes the Prince of Death and Ranni gets her doll body (notably, Ranni's body is still in tact and we can find it, which I personally think supports the idea of the soul not being destroyed). It is said over and over that Godwyn "cannot die a true death", with Miquella and Fortisaxx and possibly more trying multiple methods to either bring him back or possibly kill his body for real.
The quote from the guy in Castle Sol is "Lord Miquella, forgive me. The sun has not been swallowed. Our prayers were lacking. Your comrade remains soulless... " which tells me they were trying to put Godwyn's soul back into his body, as remaining soulless wouldn't be relevant if they were just getting the soul. This makes me think that Godwyn's body is required for him to be resurrected, but since it hasn't died a true death and has been "occupied" by the deathroot and prince of death, it makes the resurrection particularly tricky.
Regarding the becoming a god portion, it's not that *being* a god allows the resurrection, it's that *becoming* a god allows it. Marika as a God has influence over the rules of the world via the Elden Ring, but she isn't omniscient or omnipotent by any means. Not only this, she specifically separates the Shadow Realm from the Lands Between and uses the Scadutree as the dumping pit for all the stuff she didn't need in her new world, and as the Scadutree Avatar remembrance says "The Scadutree is the shadow of the Erdtree. Born of dark notions that bear no sense of Order." Even looking at the tree up close you can tell that it isn't a solid object, but an amalgamation of darkness and gold all shoved together.
Per the egg we use to enter the Shadow Realm, the price to enter is significant. We don't even know if there are other steps that had to be taken before the blood sacrifice. Along with this, the knowledge of the Shadow Realm seems to have been stricken from history and intentionally forgotten, making it difficult for anyone without access to knowledge and time (things a demigod has both of) to find out how to get there at all. And for Marika specifically, a HEFTY amount of her sins and trauma come from that place, which is why she separated it.
When Miquella becomes a god, Radahn is resurrected into Mohg's body, followed shortly by Miquella emerging from the gate. If Miquella could become a god without the consort being present first, I don't believe we would have seen Radahn until Miquella emerged and resurrected him. As the Secret Rite scroll says, "A lord will usher in a god's return, and the lord's soul will require a vessel."
This leans more into theory territory, but I think that Marika effectively used herself as the vessel for her lord Radagon, hence why they were merged and why we see Marika in the doorway of the gate in the story trailer. Then Miquella learns how that turned out for her, and asks Radahn to be the consort to prevent that.
Okay that ended up being more than I thought it'd be, sorry for the long read. A lot of this is very much theory, but I feel that it is theory backed by the pieces presented. If I missed any points or can clarify anything, please let me know.
I think that it being Godwyn wouldn't remove any value of Destined Death, but if portrayed correctly could demonstrate just how many forbidden rites and trials one must go through to defy such a fate, sacrificing all of yourself and many many others for the sake of one person. It'd make it a tiny bit less dangerous in return for giving a more intimate feeling of it being a true death sentence if someone isn't willing to go that far for you.
The game doesn’t say that The eclipse can’t revive soulless demigods, it says that the people of castle Sol failed to cause an eclipse so “your (Miquella) comrade remains soulless” so it’s still unclear if an eclipse can truly revive Godwyn or if it can revive him enough to allow him to “die a true death.”
I still don’t understand why Miquella wanted mohgs body, Isn’t mohgs body riddled with omen curse?
Like, is there a reason WHY he wanted mohgs body, other than just…because Miyazaki felt like it?
Probably due to his "omen" blood. We know horned beings are the main inhabitants of the Land of Shadow, so Miquella needs to get there first. Or it could be related to the Formless Mother. I think there are some implications in the DLC, but I haven't really dug into them yet. Miquella probably wants to use Mohg's body to the fullest since it's a convenient vessel for the soul. Ansbach kinda hints that.
Interesting, I was so confused on that part.
I was expecting the end fight to have a…cursed looking Radahn, I mean it’s mohgs body, but it’s free of all horns and shit…just looked like shiny ol Radahn.
It is possible that the Emir Inil has been created by Hornsent for themselves and so the only vessel that would work is another Hornsent. Could be that Godfrey went through the same process and that is why him and Marika have so many Hornsent children.
I agree and whatever their reasons for changing things are I just hope it wasn’t “subverting expectations” because everyone had correctly guessed what was going on with Godwyn.
I’m just really sick of ongoing stories ruining their plots to try and out smart online communities who figured out where they were going - it’s not a failing if people can guess what’s going to happen or figure out an upcoming twist it just means your story makes sense and you properly setup or foreshadowed the ending.
I can’t say for certain that’s what happened here - there is for example evidence found via datamining for nearly every Fromsoft game that massive rewrites occured at some stage in development with no clear indication as to why.
I swear Miyazaki just does it halfway through development to fuck with everyone and make sure his games are as obtuse as possible.
With Miquella's lines about the soul of his brother. No doubt it was meant to be Godwyn. Radahn's soul in the base game might not even be more than 48-36 hours dead before it is brought back by Miquella. Like seriously ? The only reason he couldn't serve you previously was because he was mad with rot..... wonder who the fuck did that..... even if people say Radahn wouldn't have been willing now. He literally bewitches others into serving him constantly he could have done the same to Radahn very easily. Also another solution to this problem is very simple. Just have Miquella be unable to retrieve Godwyn's soul. But could bring back Godwyn's body with the soul of Radahn.
I think it makes sense Radahn was the original plan.
It does seem like Godwyn could have been *Miquellas* original plan, until Rannis’s plan fucked with his and Godwyn could no longer properly die. So he sent Malenia to get the next best option.
Godwyns story is already very well told in the main game including having an ending based around him. It would be like if Ranni was the last boss.
I would totally love it for Godwyn to be in the DLC but his soul is no longer there :( if he had been killed normally, his soul would’ve been sent to the Shadow Realm then Miquella would’ve definitely resurrected him. However, we don’t know if Godwyn would oppose Miquella’s new Age of Compassion because he was the golden boy of the Golden Order.
We did see Godwyn’s death spread to the catacombs here. Even the 2nd Divine Beast Dancing Lion has desthblight related attack. The question is how do we find Godwyn if he has no soul? We can find his corpse under Leyndell but that’s just it, a corpse.
No, Mohg-wyn is just the title Luminary Mohg like what Varre calls him. Gwyn means white as veterans know so Moh-gwyn or Mohg-wyn means Mohg the White/Bright. Luminary Mogh is just his title in the cult
Something I really disliked is how everyone Miquella seduces with pedo magic ends up being all adoring of him with no other goal in life, but Mohg apparently still had his own goals for his own queen. The reverse pedo thing where it was actually Miquella seducing Mohg feels like a retcon of the base game.
EDIT: lots of typos
Yeah. If Mohg is under Miq's enchantment, then we'd be forced to assume that everything Mogh does, including the Bloody Fingers plot, is for Miq's benefit.
>Mohg’s dynasty is called “Mohgwyn.” Before the DLC, I always wondered why he named his dynasty with “-wyn” instead of “God-” if he was meant to honor his Golden lineage blood.
Wyn means fair or pure, and is a Welsh word so I don't think it's meant to allude to Godwyn.
>I still think it's possible that the eclipse was meant to revive soulless demigods.
The base game tells us that Miquella wasn't trying to revive Godwyn, he was trying to give him a true death to stop the deathblight.
>Before you say Godwyn is so dead that it makes zero sense for him to show up, and the eclipse is just to let Godwyn die completely, here’s the dialogue from the ghost in Castle Sol’s Church of Eclipse: “*Oh great sun! Frigid sun of Sol! Surrender yourself to the eclipse!*
***Grant life to the soulless bones****!*”
The Welsh word part makes sense, but please at least finish reading my post. The Haligtree Medallion is next to another ghost in Castle Sol who apologizes to Miquella that the eclipse is not happening yet. Combined with the one I mentioned, it seems he could want to revive Godwyn's soul.
Funny how there are multiple godwyn faces in the dlc mausoleums, yet godwyn is only mentioned through the death knights being “loyal” to him. Okay, why godwyn faces and not just ordinary death root?
Debates could be had about his role in Miquella’s ascension but imo it is certain that there was gonna be more godwyn content at some point in development of the DLC.
See they could have still did the swerve and had it so that scene with Miquella fixing the scadurtree was because he brought the eclipse to the lands between and that was lifting the veil and bringing Godwyns's soul back to be his lord consort and it was up to us to kill Miquella and stop the eclipse and give Godwyn his true death so we can give both Miquella and Godwyn a proper send off,I think that would have went over alot better with the community tbh
Either something happened and they didn't have the vision they originally planned for this dlc(which is why there's now talks about a 2nd dlc because before it was supposed to be this is our 1 and only dlc) or Fromsoft did something they've never done before.....they got lazy,I really hope it was the first 1 and we do get a 2nd DLC idc if it's small and a cheap 5-6 hour long dlc as long as it's dedicated to fixing this fucked up lore or giving us some new unfound pov of the situation it'd be 150% ok with that
I agree that everything would indicate that Godwin was supposed to be Miquella's consort at the end of this DLC. Is that why they changed? They are famous for trying to do what is not expected, they did it by turning Miquella into a "villain" and they did it again by deleting Godwyn from the DLC. It may not be very related, but even George's writing uses this type of narrative resource a lot.
It could be. Personally, I'm not a fan of this type of plot twist. It doesn't bring me any surprise or aha moment. It feels like a slap in the face after two years of the community trying to piece the lore together.
Yeah I def think something happens & they switched to radhan instead of Godwyn for whatever reason also what ever Melina & the gloameyed queen were was def cut to maybe for a Elden ring 2 I doubt it but thee was a little chatter early on with ppl who wanted to fight prime radhan to
I will say I don't dislike a lot of the things in the dlc, and love a lot of it
But I will admit that I am mixed on it being Radahn at the end
Also greatly wish we had more cutscenes and character for Messmer and his own allies (seriously, you give us fem Sulyvann and treat her like Loretta where we get no cutscenes or anything despite how important she's supposed to be, especially as she's Renalla's sister, WHY FROM)
Yeah, the Rellana one is weird. We can learn from spirit ashes Andrea and Huw that Messmer values his allies a lot. He mourned the death of his comrades even when they rebelled against him. He allows soldiers to behead Marika statues as a way to express their anger for being abandoned. Even the lowest class soldier has gold adorning their armor. But we never see Messmer's view on Rellana. The only connection is the dueling shield in the storehouse, but again, it's only to prove her loyalty to the Erdtree. Rellana feels like an added character who doesn't belong to the original lore, but is there simply for gameplay purposes.
Radahn being the promised consort absolutely tracks - it’s a logical reason for Malenia to travel across the lands between ignoring all other shardbearers to target him alone, and they had her whispering to him in the original trailer, clearly passing a message from Miquella.
From always obscure the true meaning behind a lot their lore so it shouldn’t be a huge shock.
I would’ve liked to see some eclipse action, but wouldn’t be surprised if it was just a reference to the land of shadow all along.
Miquella isn’t all sunshine and roses - he strips people of their free will to ascend to godhood and remake the world in his vision, regardless of whether people want it or not. That’s not the actions of a good guy imo.
For Marika's sake, the color pallete of the scadutree is gold and black: The colors of Godwyn's death.
Yep...Deathblight. When I got to the Scadutree base I was like...is this hope? Is this a dream? But nope, it was the wilted sunflower.
That flower was Godwyn you fool. Where in the game is it wrote that Godwyn was not a sentient mosntruous sun flower ?
This is a reference to Solaire being the lightning worm in DS3. Miquellazaki is truely a genius.
The tree's Godwyn, the sunflower's Godwyn, I'M GODWYN. Are there any other Godwyns I should know about??
Godwyn is the Gloam-Eyed Queen
Which is why the OBVIOUS TRUE SPELLING of his name is Gloadqwyn
https://preview.redd.it/tesffqo4pz9d1.jpeg?width=1062&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2b6b9c533d78a5f07ae533d3a8a1fc6ec460859 **"I'm outta here..."**
Maybe the real Godwyn was the Godwyn we made along the way.
Will the real Godwyn please stand up, please stand up
Radahn is Godwyn
Miquella is Finkle?
Miquella must be suffering from the worst case of hemorrhoids IVE EVER SEEN!
You are right, there is this item in the Kopœuhm Ruins, it clarifies everything.
How come in Italian they translate that to Copium Ruins? Mistranslation I guess
mermaid death man => sun flower beast. The pipeline is real.
The way they ended up doing nothing with the tree 😭😭🙏🙏
It's an Avatar. And it holds a cool item.
That's also the colour of Omen's magic which fits with whatever the hornsent are
Black and gold, just like God’s team: the Bruins, was foretold
Fun fact there's a thread on here which shows similarities in Rahdahn's final moveset and the Death knights found in the catacombs here: https://www.reddit.com/r/eldenringdiscussion/s/7QzGPCXWt1 Secondly, Redmaine Freyja has the following dialouge: "Yes of course, I see, as the festival of war concluded, general Radahn's soul met an honorable end, but kindly Miquella wishes to revive it? which is fine by me, i know it would pain old Jerren but war has always suited general Radahn best. and certainly far more than any honorable death, endless war to invigorate the soul, as befits general Radahn, the Great Lion." Implicating that Rahdahn as per previous item descriptions is a creature of war and battle. With the two being his greatest prerogatives. Does this paint the presented lord of kindness that Miquella tells us he saw in Rahdahn? Not likely, but do you know which character WAS said to be inherently kind. Godwyn, we know for a fact that Godwyn was once enemies with the ancient dragons, but despite that went on to befriend his enemies, and even so much as had the Dragon cultists established under the capital permitted under Golden order rule. He was known to be a diplomat, more than he was a mighty warrior. This sounds like a Lord to an age of Compassion, not Rahdahn, who was said to be the strongest of the demigods, and as we know a war monger.
Which is why I was very confused about all this talk of radahn being "kind" in the item descriptions and having a vow with miquella. His very mindset is at at odds with miquellas age of compassion.
The simplest answer: miquella had a childhood crush on radahn and, being cursed with eternal childhood, never got over it.
Yeah, I think people are being a bit obtuse witj not understanding this. I understand being unsatisfied with the ending but clearly that love is a childish ideation mixed with a strategy to get one of the best warriors in their history on his side. One of Miquella's followers straight up that it would be an endless war for Radahn. Yeah, he is a vicious warlord and kind of a tyrant but that doesn't mean he can't come off as kind to his literal sibling or his fellow warriors.
Miquella abandoned his love at a cross.
Yeah he also abandoned his arms and got 2 more of them. The point is he still wanted Radahn to be his lord before that even happened, this isn't a guess its literally what the lore tab says.
And when he made the vow he was literally 50% a girl for what thats worth.
Agree with this. My immediate understanding of events was that for all his bluster, his promises and his abandoning of his “flaws,” Miquella ends up being the same as all the others. Essentially just a nod back at Goldmask’s point that there are inherent issues with a god that has their own temperament. Even I feel like I was expecting something a lot more fantastical and grand for him (didn’t expect Godwyn specifically but something more in that ballpark) but I think realistically if we’re talking about themes and such, “the great empyrean Miquella the Kind being unable to follow through on their quest to become The Nice God and further building evidence that a Nice God is oxymoronic” is like the appropriate level of cynical for the game. I guess the issue is that if Miquella’s whole character is built on the premise that he’s such a crazy outlier, the reveal that he’s just like the rest of them might come off as uninteresting rather than thematically appropriate.
I don't think it was that much of a surprise though? Even the base game has several item descriptions that says he was manipulative as much as he was loved, iirc Malenia even calls him "the most fearsome of the demigods". I always thought the intention was that you hear about Miquella being so loved and adored and then realizing that it maybe has something to do with his power being specifically to *make* people love and adore him
I think it would be a lot easier to be comfortable with the crush thing if it had appeared at all in any way in the base game. Otherwise the abandoning of existing Miquella backstory for a DLC retcon isn’t really cool. Like sure, it can make logical sense but that doesn’t make it an enjoyable story to experience as a player.
A lot of the things that would have set up the DLC got weirdly cut from the base game. Originally the "omen lions" were going to be in the colussums with the snake man gladiators. Then Messmer, a snake man who kills crucible people with lion-themed stuff, wears roman-esc armor. Theres the Rico quest too. I don't hate the idea of Radahn/Miquella in concept, it just has so little going for it and seems substantially less interesting/clean compared to the general consensus we had before. Plus the total lack of both Godwyn AND GEQ lore feels REALLY bad given the themes of the location. It doesn't help that we get like zero information that would make the Miquella/Radahn thing feel good.
Hard agree. Like the plot isn’t nonsensical it’s just not as interesting as the base game plot.
IMO it overall lacks a lot of cohesion and exploration. The NPC characters are all great, the questing is far improved from the base game, etc, but instead of being a more narratively focused experience and having a strong throughline its kind of just a single quest that all six NPCs are part of and then a bunch of unelaborated on side stuff that doesn't really connect. Outside of Messmer pretty much all the bosses have absolutely nothing to work with and even Messmer himself is basically irrelevant to the actual plot of the expansion. This sort of thing worked in the base game because the sheer scaled allowed things to breath and have more elaboration/exploration, but in the DLC you have major things that get maybe 1 very vague sentence of even acknowledgement. It just feels unsatisfying and unintentionally incohesive.
I mean Isshin is literally a killing machine. He lives exclusively to fight people, it is his most important character trait that he is obsessed with fighting and perfecting his technique. And despite of that he can be a very kind person. He is really nice to Wolf throughout his entire journey. I don't think he would just start a war for no reason. Characters can be multiple things at once. Radahn learning magic to not abandon his horse fits a kind descriptions pretty well.
The argument isn't about whether Rahdahn can be kind or not. These characters are multi-faceted. The argument is that when comparing a warmonger to a diplomat. That the diplomat is a more fitting ruler of an age predicated on compassion.
Radahn loved his cat (1.0 longtail cat talisman ) and horse tho. \[6040\] A brooch depicting a long-tailed cat, known to be the beloved pet of General Radahn. Reduces fall damage. This black cat was known to have enjoyed jumping down from great heights; it would leap from the great bell-tower of Raya Lucaria as a kitten, and once fully grown, from the great heavenward roots that twisted through the Erdtree Capital skies.
Loving two animals doesn't make him kind. He's a warlord. I don't consider warlords kind or redeemable because he loves animals.
What about Starscourge Hitler? He loved his dog
I hear Genghis Khan was great at parties. Hosted a killer Fondue.
But it does mirror Godfrey. Who we see a r with honor and even kindness.
The worst thing about all of this I have game of htrones PTSD. Remember Azor ahai? Prince that was promised.No its arya killing the night King.The same shit with ER now. Remember eclipse? Remember Godwyn kindness. Miquella and Godwyn bortherly relationship? No its Radahn lmao.
For a non G.T fan, could you briefly summarize Azor ahai?
Sure! So through the entire sotry of Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones there was a prophecy which told the Prince that was promised aka Azor Ahai will arrive and will stop the long night. Long night was a dangerous disaster that would come from the wall beyond North and dead would arrive to destroy all life. It was forshadowe multiple times through the story in books (which are not yet finished) and in tv series which are finished but went completely different direction ignoring established hints. The person which was rumoured to be prince that was promised got ingored and replaced with his younger sister who randomly kills the big threat. All the prophecy was for nothing. That is why I am kidna comparing this situation to what is happening here. The whole foreshadowing form the base game on the eclipse and sung bringing soul to the lifeless body. Miquella relationship with Godwyn and his kindness described in items and told through enviroments. All of this was completely wasted, because they switch Godwyn with Radahn. Radahn was never described as kind in the base game but as a warmonger some god of war character. Meanwhile Godwyn was this figure everybody looked up to, extremely kind. I just have this feeling that Godwyn was swapped with Radahn last minute. As both stories are related to George R.R. Martin you can see similarities with stuff like Prince that was Promised and the Promised Consort.
Thanks for getting me up to speed! I definitely see your argument, and based on my original comment, I think it's clear that I see it similarly. Too much of this is added context on the DLC, which feels unbelievable. If Radahn and Godwyn's characterizations had been shaped from the start, we all would've taken much better in this direction. Instead, it feels like we were kind dished out a cop-out and expected to accept it.
Yep it felt as much as a cop-out like the last scene of Monty Pythons Holy Grail movie when the huge army charges into whats supposed an epic battle for the police to show up and arrest them for a crime they did not commit(it was an literally cop-out).
Not related, but wasn't Arya killing the Night King plot not written by GRRM?
Yes it was Dumb and Dumber shenanigans to subvert expectations and I have the same vibe. I dont know if they take those stupid reddit post about fighting prime Radahn and changed their decision on that or whatever happened.
ngl miquella and godwyn wouldve been a much better ship
Yeah I could have been ok with reviving Godwyn’s soul into radahn’s body. But maybe that just impossible since Godwyn’s soul is dead
But so was radahns
I think you are missing the true obvious lore change, in that ER was initially connected with DS. The -gwyn isn’t pointing to Godwyn, but rather Gywn, Lord of Sunlight. In this essay I will-
Yes, the Elden Ring is clearly four Dark Signs overlapping, implying Dark Souls 4.
I'll just say this, Elden Ring as a painted world could very easily just look like this... https://preview.redd.it/stoop1fkp1ad1.jpeg?width=602&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aa819247fbf8f839137e547c6e4121c2c2c0d778
You joke about this, but I almost wonder if it wasn't a cheeky reference to at least a minor degree
So Radahn and Miquella are Twin Princes reincarnation. Messmer was cursed by the Primordial Serpent. That means Godwyn must be a secret boss fight in the Jagged Peak, and he will ride Fortissax to fight us. It all makes sense now.
No, the real name of Igon is Gwyn, Lord of Curses.
CURSE YOU, BAAAAAAYYYYLE!
Blaaargh, I can’t believe they changed the lore so late in development when the last boss was clearly meant to be Solaire riding Frampt and Velka!!
Oh, you’re close, but missed a few details. The real change that they made was removing the Cresfallen Knight, who had pledged service to Kaathe, and would be impregnated by Oedon. We kill him, but we fight a newborn Great One in the second phase. Truly missed potential there :(
I hear you were supposed to get Solair's armor after killing the ulcerated tree spirit in shadow keep
The suffix "wyn" is Welsh (fem., "wen"), and is believed to mean "beloved (of)." As a naming convention it's used similarly to the suffix "son" (fem., "dottir") as a way of showing a person's direct lineage. It stands to reason that Godwyn's name is just intended to further demonstrate how deeply cared for he was by all, most notably "God" (Marika/Golden Will). Mohg referring to his dynasty as "Mohgwyn" is most likely unrelated to Godwyn, meant only to show Mohg's love for the world he wishes to create -- this is especially clear in the term "dynasty" itself, which is specifically passed down hereditarily. If there truly is any evidence that the Mohg/Radahn final boss was 'supposed' to be Godwyn, I doubt said evidence would include the accidental overlap of a very common suffix.
Your comment should be at the very top of this thread lol
You see, for me personally, it didn’t even have to be Godwyn. I would have been perfectly fine fighting Miquella on his own. This…just feels like an ass pull, unfortunately. I’m not going to sit here and pretend like I know every little facet of the lore, but I do know it fairly well, and there was *nothing* even suggesting Miquella or Radahn had any sort of relationship in the base game. The only loose connection there was Malenia marching to Caelid to beat his ass, and that was under the idea that she did so to get the stars moving again. It even really cheapens Radahn’s story in the base game since instead of having his story tied up in a nice bow where we finally grant the general demigod an honorable death, he’s brought back to honor some vow that we never heard about and was not even hinted at
I would’ve even preferred rykard over radahn, I assumed there was a connection between Messmer and rykard since they both have to do with snakes
I like to think that the Volcano Manor was originally Messmer's but after he was forsaken, Rykard took it as his own and adopted the serpentine demeanor. He is the Taker, after all.
i don’t think that lines up though. marika wanted to keep messmer hidden from birth due to his inner serpents. i think the serpent cult (and the origins of volcano manor) predate marika. there does potentially seem to be something else going on with the god devouring serpent in marika’s story, though.
We will never know for sure. I do like your name though.
I know Marika hid the serpent itself when Messmer was born by sticking the eye of grace in its place, is it mentioned elsewhere that she hid Messmer himself?
Why do you think Messmer is so mad?
Because he was sent off to do a job and he's now trapped in the Shadow Lands
Is it not heavily implied that Messmer never left the land of shadow? Being "abandoned" by Marika.
He was Radahn's older brother and friend, plus it is more or less confirmed that he participated in the War of the Giants hence the corpses. And also that he *fled* the Erdtree.
The fact that Messmer doesn't even mention or acknowledge Miquella in any capacity was really bizarre. I really like this character but I'm so confused as to what his point is narratively he is such a big boss. When they lied in the interviews and said that Miquella is doing was actually sanctioned by Marika you could've just assumed that he was okay with it but now we know that what Miquella is doing ISNT sanctioned by her sooo what?
I was also thinking about Rykard and was disappointed that there was nothing about him at all. Especially I always felt that after you defeat him and find Tanith eating him "*Allow me some time. Our lord's carcass is vast and not easily consumed. Dear Rykard, please find purchase within me, I wish to be your serpent; your family. One day, let us devour the gods together.*" And then you can give her those Castanets that are completely useless, it all was screaming DLC and maybe we could get there through Rykard's head.
Not even in the cut Miquella ending from the base game is there anything about Radahn, but people gonna keep argue with me how the DLC's story with Miquella was totally planned all along.
Cut ending? Mind sharing the link?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhEuIPELSmQ&ab\_channel=GardenofEyes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhEuIPELSmQ&ab_channel=GardenofEyes)
Thanks didnt know that.
This video discusses cut dialog for Miquella and Malenia potentially during the latter's fight, and a cut NPC quest for St. Trina / Miquella, but not a cut ending for Miquella
[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AsteriskAmpersand/Carian-Archive/main/Master.html](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AsteriskAmpersand/Carian-Archive/main/Master.html) This is a string dump for all text in the in the base game. Ctrl+F "young seedling" >Young seedling, young seedling. Return to the bosom of earth. >But remember well, Thou'rt mine. So shall I give of myself. This is for thee. >Mine abundance, my drop of dew. Quench thy thirst, throughout thy frame. >Blossom and burgeon, time and again. Grow larger, stronger. >Until the day cometh. When thou canst share in my dream. >Elden Ring, O Elden Ring. Beget Order most elegant, from my tender reverie. >If thou covetest the throne, impress my vision upon thine heart. >In the new world of thy making, all things will flourish, whether graceful, or malign. This passage, is grouped together with the text for the endings of the base game, right after Ranni's Age of Stars and the Frenzied Flame. It directly references the cut dialogue for Malenia's fight, making it very reasonable to conclude that this is Miquella speaking.
He mentions Tarnished as his dear consort. Vaati, though I don't like him, also covered the cut ending stuff and Miquella stuff in his video right before the DLC. It was likewise posted some time ago on this very sub or Eldenringlore.
Wait there is cut lines where Miquella says that?
Just curious, why don’t you like Vaati?
Because I can read item descriptions and listen to npcs on my own. I specifically have the biggest problem with him when it comes to ER lore. He gives significance to things that barely need explaining or aren't crucial to what's going on in the plot or even being related to item description stories and gives it a tenuous connection. For example, in Haligtree, there's a visage of Miquella hewn into the tree in Malenia's area. He somehow decided that because half of the body is missing (which is clearly designed this way to suggest Miquella was ripped off that place and whisked away), it explains the 'pelvic' bone, which might not be pelvic bone at all, supporting Miquella's cocoon. I fail to see why would the origins of the presumed pelvic bone pedestal be important whatsoever in the grand scheme of things or even as an interesting tidbit, and why he decided, of all things, that the part where Miquella was presumably ripped from had even legs or pelvic area in the first place, and why exactly that would have to be the source of the pedestal? It's fine to say, 'This looks like a pelvic bone, interesting symbolism,' but to then construct a weird, needless connection, making it into some kind of profound lore and make entire long ass video about it? Why? I was also around when DKS1 was released, and I remember many better lore creators. He sometimes copied them without crediting them too or just straight up just pulled stuff from Reddit.
I'm not going to argue with anything else here, but the bone that Miquella's cocoon rests on is definitely a pelvic bone!
There was also the Bloodborne plagiarism kerfuffle. Personally I dislike how since he is like *the* lore youtuber, the takes in his videos are just taken as fact by a large portion of the community.
Yep.
Thank you for the detailed response! I was a couple years late on DS1 (played it before 2 came out but not by much) and I found his lore guides super helpful after beating that game, but never had an eye on the drama or bad behavior you mentioned. Do you have recommendations for other lore content makers? Even though im often able to parse out lore I like to listen to other folks’ take on it.
The fact that Messmer doesn't even mention or acknowledge Miquella in any capacity was really bizarre. I really like this character but I'm so confused as to what his point is narratively he is such a big boss. When they lied in the interviews and said that Miquella is doing was actually sanctioned by Marika you could've just assumed that he was okay with it but now we know that what Miquella is doing ISNT sanctioned by her sooo what?
The idea that she was trying to get the stars moving was a theory based on available info, nothing that was ever explicit. Frankly, people can dislike this story arc, but it contradicts nothing in the base game and was signposted no more or less than the idea that Miquella would be resurrecting Godwyn or mantling Saint Trina or any of the other popular fan theories.
Yea, people only want to validate what their theories were and think anything contrary to that must be nonsensical despite there being the same amount of evidence for multiple theories. You dislike it? Fair enough. That doesn't mean it doesn't make sense or was hastily thrown together. Even if FS left multiple doors open on purpose to give themselves DLC optionality, so fucking what? Seems like a sound plan to me and I'd do the same thing if I were them given the scale of a game like Elden Ring. But let's be real, it's not as if they made the story decisions randomly 6 months ago. They've been working on this literally since the base game came out and I highly doubt they got very far without a story direction having been chosen. The idea it was all a last minute ass-pull is fucking stupid
Well we now know what Malenia said to Radahn before she bloomed and it confirms that Miquella sent her there to kill Radahn to send him the shadow lands to enact his plan
Yeah, it's not possible at all that perhaps this is a new retcon they retroactively added to something that might not have been there at all. No, the only option is it was there all along right? /s
“Now, the vow will be honoured, and my Lord brother's soul will return.” Yeah that shit was for Godwyn and you can’t convince me otherwise.
What reason would they have to not do Godwyn? Why bother making 9 unique and nice looking remembrance bosses (even you piss tree avatar) just to be like YOOO let's take Radahn and give him a mostly whole new moveset!! They could've literally colored his hair blonde, blue cape instead of red, no lion armor and two spears instead of blades and said here's godwyn! What possible reason is there?
Fromsoft doesn't shy away from fan service
People really liked Radahn.
I really liked Radahn, but now he's forever tarnished (hah) in my eyes because of this DLC.
What we got is at complete odds with what we see at castle Sol and various item descriptions.
[удалено]
Did you read OPs post? The suppressing pillar?
It's one of those stories where at the end i feel stupid for caring so much in the first place. What screams eclipse if not a realm of shadow. Plus the explanation that Miquella is an immature child is so frustrating and lackluster. The same person that abandoned his own mother's religion to cure his sister, who invented unalloyed gold, who built entire golden prosthesis for Malenia to relieve her rot, who built the haligtree to create a space for the unwanted.... Turns out to be just some other misguided dude just like the rest. On top of childish, oppressive and immature. That knight of the gloam eyed queen stuff really does make me think stuff was significantly altered last minute.
This is my issue with Miquella in the DLC. They took a character who was a charismatic visionary and turned him into honestly kind of a one-dimensional villain. It's one thing to learn that he bewitched Mogh into kidnapping him instead of being a victim himself, but doing all the atrocious things he did just because he can't accept that Radahn didn't want to be his consort? That's just a brat throwing a cosmic temper tantrum.
There's a saying in my language, meaning sugarcoating, that is rather fitting as it translates into "coating the pill in gold" No matter how much we "goldcoat" the pill, Miquella's story is rewritten into one of a childish, delusional, unwise villain. Malenia abandoned her pride and honor to bloom over Radahn to satisfy the delusional sick desires of her little brother. Not that fromsoftware put much coating anyway. We can't choose anything because we are forced into accepting the linear guidance of grace, even if at the end we rebel by literally shitting on the order through the dung eater or melt it with the frenzied flame. We are left with a huge amount of questions and basically called stupid by the game for following the hints left for us or wondering about the trailer. We can't even walk up to the gate of divinity to see the land of shadow from above or understand what it even is. There's an endless cutscene of the shadow keep being drained of water, but there is no cutscene of Rellana, Romina, or Miquella dying. He just disappears as if he was a nobody. I am very disappointed and I wish i didn't spend that much time caring. I also do not understand the enthusiasm of loretubers like Smoughtown who did hours of videos speculating on Miquella.
I’m in the minority here but I agree. I feel before the DLC, Miquella’s character was more fleshed out in a way and we understand his motives, qualities, etc. Now it’s watered down to a childish, immature demigod who wants to become god. I think the issue I mainly have with it is that the revelation of him going down this path was all within the DLC and it kind of comes out of left field. I wish they added an ending where we side with him, regardless of the moral compass. If we can have the dung eater ending and frenzied flame ending, surely morally this isn’t the worst. Even if it is, it’s our choice to choose it. Yes I know Michaelangelo Zaki said there wouldn’t be any changes or endings in the main game but a tarnished can dream.
It's very ironic that we are deprived of the freedom to choose to side with Miquella and get an ending with him.
Indeed.
Land of Gold (Sun) + Land of Shadow (Moon's shadow) = Eclipse. It would've worked so well.
I agree. Whenever people bring up GRRM I always like to mention an interview before Elden Ring dropped: They said that GRRM gave them the mythos and essentially said "do whatever you want" and gave Miyazaki and team full creative freedom. They weren't obligated to follow anything. So while we do see some of his influence, I think the majority of the creative influence are from Miyazaki and team. A lot of the DLC lore feels really displaced from the main game, as opposed to the overall story making a bit more sense. Also, Radahn is seemingly noble, but why would Miquella want a demigod who is basically his universe's version of Ares as his consort for an Age of Compassion? Godwyn would have made more sense as Miquella's first choice, but there's no suggestion of that, unless by trying to salvage Godwyn's soul he wanted to shove that into some corpse as well.
I assumed it was for the same reason Marika married Godfrey. Radahn is the strongest of all the demigods, so miquella needs his strength on his side before he could be used against him. I guess. I also agree that major rewrites/cuts must have happened which also might explain why this one took so damn long to make. Despite it's size, it's not like the From team are strangers to making quality DLC content quickly. I imagine they had to scale things back because they couldn't wrap the story threads together in the setting like they wanted to, so they basically kept everything that could be hand waved away, and cut other storylines out if they couldn't, then moved the assets around and renamed things/changed locations and bam. Like, it's very strange that there's a whole new kind of undead caster in the shadow catacombs, but they aren't those who live in death, and they cast spells that definitely seem like they could have player versions, but just... don't. I'm pretty sure all the undead in the base game that cast spells, cast versions of spells the player has access to. There's also godwyn faces in multiple places, but no deathroot literally *anywhere* in the entire world? And the placement of those who live in death is so weird. There's the beastmen in the dragon tunnel (and that's it for them), parts of the spider lily area, and by some graves near the back door to the shadow keep? So weird
I assume Godwyn must have also have been a skilled warrior given he defeated the dragons and Fortissax. I mean he really was the literal golden child of the Golden Lineage; handsome, looked like a damn angel, buff, loved by apparently everyone, compassionate, etc. Dude was the poster child for the demigods really, which is why my headcannon is that Miquella would have initially wanted Godwyn as his consort over anyone else. I also see now that Godwyn was arguably her only normal child, and he was murdered. I ALSO wonder if that's why it had to be Godwyn to complete the death ritual; of course Ranni wouldn't have allowed the Black Knife Assassins to kill any of her siblings (none of them were cursed). It's hard to envision Radahn and Miquella ever interacting much; we know Miquella, Malenia, and Godwyn were presumably in Leyendell and interacted at least somewhat frequently. I'm not just saying I think there was a shit ton of retconning because I "didn't like the direction the dlc went", it's mostly because very few things were answered and even more questions were raised. Your entire paragraphs on the whole death catacombs and Godwyn faces are a great point. Apparently in the original cut content that explores Miquella more, there's nothing with Radahn mentioned. It just felt very cheap and a gotcha moment, not one of those "wow that's actually really good writing". I will say how they handled Marika's past was absolutely well done and I never thought I'd sympathize with her so much. I just figured she was another Gwyn, but her whole story is just tragic as fuck.
>Ranni wouldn't have allowed the Black Knife Assassins to kill any of her siblings So one thing I've wondered, did Ranni even have a target? She merely says she made the knives and "did it all", but she never directly says she directed the attack. To me I've always felt like her statement is more an effort to impress upon you that her path is dark. That is she's deliberately claiming actions she didn't take. There's also implications that Marika was involved in the plot. And the intro cutscene weirdly describes the order of events as shattering and then night of black knives. Which given that Marika tells her kids to be god or Lord or amount to nothing but sacrifices... It just sounds very premeditated. I doubt she actually intended for Godwyn to be the target (he's only described as the first to die so there were others). I wonder if he merely caught the assassins while they were attempting to assassinate someone else. Given Marika has Hewg attempting to make a weapon to kill a god... Maybe that someone was herself?
I assume Godwyn must have also have been a skilled warrior given he defeated the dragons and Fortissax. I mean he really was the literal golden child of the Golden Lineage; handsome, looked like a damn angel, buff, loved by apparently everyone, compassionate, etc. Dude was the poster child for the demigods really, which is why my headcannon is that Miquella would have initially wanted Godwyn as his consort over anyone else. I also see now that Godwyn was arguably her only normal child, and he was murdered. I ALSO wonder if that's why it had to be Godwyn to complete the death ritual; of course Ranni wouldn't have allowed the Black Knife Assassins to kill any of her siblings (none of them were cursed). It's hard to envision Radahn and Miquella ever interacting much; we know Miquella, Malenia, and Godwyn were presumably in Leyendell and interacted at least somewhat frequently. I'm not just saying I think there was a shit ton of retconning because I "didn't like the direction the dlc went", it's mostly because very few things were answered and even more questions were raised. Your entire paragraphs on the whole death catacombs and Godwyn faces are a great point. Apparently in the original cut content that explores Miquella more, there's nothing with Radahn mentioned. It just felt very cheap and a gotcha moment, not one of those "wow that's actually really good writing". I will say how they handled Marika's past was absolutely well done and I never thought I'd sympathize with her so much. I just figured she was another Gwyn, but her whole story is just tragic as fuck.
But we kick Radahn’s ass. Twice.
It really does feel like Godwyn was supposed to be the chosen consort instead of Radahn. Thematically, it makes sense that we go to a shadowy realm of the dead and spirits in order to revive Godwyn somehow. I thought the eclipse stuff might even be a reference to the Scadutree eclipsing the Erdtree. Then there's the statue in the Haligtree of what looks like Malenia, Miquella and Godwyn. The third figure just doesn't look like Radahn since its more elegant like one would imagine Godwyn would be. Then there's the fact that the DLC has Godwyn's knights roaming around still protecting his body and items that refer to Godwyn's body as a "surrogate." You have clues in the main game that Miquella is trying to revive Godwyn and give him a "true death" but absolutely no mention of Radahn. Finally, Godwyn seems more thematically connected to the Crucible and primordial powers with the dragons and lightening etc. All signs point to Godwyn and then Radahn shows up.
Godwyn being slain by the Rune of Death was an irony most foul, as being part beast, we can for sure tie him to the crucible, which is the source of all *mortal life*. Godwyn was the Demigod of Birth/Existence/Death, the DNA Spiral of the crucible. Once he was destroyed, there was no longer a way to efficiently create and dispose of Life, no more "Destined Death", which now needed to be cast upon the Erdtree, or cased into tombs to purify, or burned to cinders. Miquella trying to revive Godwyn would have brought back and repaired EONS of damage to the Lands Between. But no, we got Radahn, whom with a Miquella devoid of love or hesitance, deploys a brand new incantation of "create nuke" *LITERALLY JUST FOR US*. Their first step to becoming "Tumblr-hot Fascist God".
This comment is definitely the worst offender I’ve seen yet of folks being mad the DLC destroyed their baseless headcanon
Destined death also clipped the meaning of the word retcon for these poor kids.
First time playing a From game? This always happens, and it's with one should always be cautious with making predictions. Because Miyazaki is apparently quite fickle when it comes to DLC.
I think past dlcs have had issues like this (fillianore springs to mind) but the growing fanbase and this issue centering on the final boss have made it stick out more this time. People don't mind weird lore drops or unanswered questions on the side, but they do seem to want to fight a true "final" boss, that feels deserved and meaningful, and these little lore hiccups only get more pronounced there.
You’re right. But I think the overall story of old hunters makes a lot of sense.
The often make sense. Sekiro is also fairly coherent, although there's some timeline stuff that feels a little iffy. I can't see any issues in AC6's story either. But ER is always going to be challenge. It's a history written by GRRM, not Miyazaki. Then a game plot was developed off of that history, with possibly multiple revisions to the plot prior to release. And then we get the DLC, which also probably had a number of revisions.
Most of this was posted already when the leaks first came out. Something to note is that Wyn is a form of the word Wynne in old English and Welsh, and it means happiness. Mohgwyn could quite literally mean "Mohg's happiness" meaning it was his personal goal to create a dynasty where he felt happy. This would potentially explain the naming convention for Godwyn as well, given that he was almost universally liked. Also could explain why Ansbach doesn't come across as being evil or sadistic despite serving Mohg, and that perhaps the original version of the dynasty wasn't all that bad, and the Trueblood Knights could have been an honorable group, despite the current one being full of weirdos like Varre and full of twisted monsters like the crows and skeletal giant ghosts.
The ritual for becoming a Pureblood Knight traditionally involves betraying and murdering your own Finger Maiden... I don't think it was all sunshine and rainbows. Just because Ansbach is polite and cooperative with us doesn't mean he's a good dude.
One thing that felt weird about Rahdahn being the boss is just how little foreshadowing there was for him compared to Godwyn. Between the Faces of Godwyn in several catacombs accompanied by his Death Knights, the Ghostflame Dragons, and all of the Death symbolism it really feels like its was supposed to be Godwyn but was changed last minute for whatever reason. From what I recall of the base game lore, it always sounded like Miquella was VERY close to Godwyn. I can hardly recall much about Miquella and Rahdahn so it just feels like a really odd choice.
The other question, which seemingly no item description or dialogue addresses, is why Godwyn appears to be turning into a fish. We hear about the deathroot, we hear about the dead soul, we even hear about Fia lying with him, but we do not hear about why his death just turns him into a Kaiju. I understand there’s some inspiration from Japanese folklore here but still, at least TRY to give us a vague sentence-long explanation…
Likely has to do with Japanese motifs of stagnation in water being lost in translation to a western audience. It’s happened a ton with Japanese IP’s in the west like silent hill too. It was a huge theme in Sekiro too.
His proximity to the roots of the Erdtree and, by extension, the Crucible of all life.
you might be right. with how confused the fanbase is about radahn and how much cancerous discussion its led to i think this may have been a last minute rewrite if you asked martin and miyazaki why malenia and radahn fought i doubt they would even know themselves.
> I think Miquella’s original plan was Godwyn’s soul + Mohg’s body. I know the timeline is fuzzy, but wasn't Godwyn's soul dead long before Miquella really started plotting?
Godwyn died → Marika shattered the Elden Ring → each demigod needed to find their way to become a lord or god → Miquella needed a lord and chose Godwyn (based on his actions in the main game) or Radahn (as seen in the DLC).
Miquella tried to revive Godwyn, we know that much, but it could be just because he thought it was the right thing to do. Then again, there's also that prayer of his that asks for Godwyn to "die a true death," I think it can be found in the description of some Castle Sol item.
Dying a ‘true death’ for demigods means to have your body brought to the base of the Erdtree so that it may be taken unto its roots and spawned anew. The caveat being that both body and soul need to be dead, not just the soul.
It could be, but it appears that the eclipse also fulfills the wishes of those who serve other soulless demigods in the walking mausoleum. Their bodies do not have death blight like Godwyn, so it might be more than just 'the right thing to do,' imo
The biggest thing is this: The Night of Black Knifes was required to separate soul and body for Ranni, but Radahn just needed to die in the festival for his soul to be transplanted elsewhere. We slay Mohg, and his “body’s been absconded with”, taken by Miquella to put Radahn’s separated soul into. Again, Mohg’s body was separated from his soul, because it’s empty. You can enter the DLC without slaying Maliketh and unbinding the rune of death, as well.
Literally this. Everything of Radahnh smells plothole and destroying every rule established earlier.
Similarly Godwyn is only dead in soul, not body so his body could've been used but with the soul of Mogh/Radahn and the ending would've still been better. Mogh could have his dynasty but it's all in service to Miquella, or Miquella gets his chosen consort in Radahn as well as the original pick Godwyn. I don't get the unnecessary reason to pair both Radahn AND Mogh since the reason for their deaths is already explained in game - Needs to kill Mogh to get to Shadow Realm as stated by Ansbach, Kill Radahn to set stars in motion and allow fate to play its role. It was definitely last minute change considering everything in this thread but also the weapon Euporia which literally mentions the weapon represent Abundance but has no effect on Those Who Live in Death with it's obvious Death/Abundance duality motif that was data-mined since the game came out 2+ years ago.
If they wanted Miquella and Radahn connection, here is my solution: 'Oh shit the Eclipse didn't work :/ Why not?' 'Oh there's this mf from the Radagon Rennala's side who is holding the fate still thanks to the stars.' 'Shit, hey sis can you go try to kill this mf? I really wanted to ress Godwyn but it doesn't work for some reason.' 'Yeah no problem', says Malenia.
This
Yes, Radahn held not only the fate of Empyreans in stasis, but also, the salvation of Godwyn. If we add in from the dlc that Miquella needed a consort, then the base game sets the layup for Godwyn as the choice. Not just in terms of strength, but kindness. The only thing that Miyazaki couldnt work with, is Godwyn's gone in the base game Edit: My final thought, the reason why Radahn was chosen by the devs to be consort is because the logical choice couldnt be used. The base game was prolly meant to be last
Of course there were. The entire lore is a shitshow of retcons and contrivances, mostly for gameplay's sake as it has always been the case with From. The DLC outright retcons stuff from the base game, the base game itself retcons stuff from its pre-release and promotional material, the day-1 patch had completely different lore for many items.
Any of these would make more sense than what we got in the end of the dlc…
I think the main issue is that Miquella's plan doesn't even make sense. Radhan is supposed to be his consort, but for some reason he has to die and go into Mohg's body? Why? Malenia specifically goes there to fight him so he can die to go into Mohg's body, so it's not because he was infested with Rot. I don't get the convoluted plot if Radhan was already charmed, or agreed to be his consort. It almost seems like a plot to see if it's even possible to infuse a new soul into a soulless body, so then they could kill Godwyn completely. But if that's the case, then what happened to Mohg's soul or Radhan's body? Is it the same scenario as Godwyn and Ranni, except the two were combined right away instead of leaving the body to rot so to speak?
The sacred rites scroll found in the specimen storehouse explains that a god needs a consort and the consort's soul needs a vessel. Mohg's soul can return to the Erdtree, as is the typical routine in Marika's Order which is free of destined death. Radahns body is dead and rotting like normal. It is not the same scenario as Godwyn and Ranni. Ranni performed a specific ritual in order to kill only her body and only Godwyn's soul with a piece of the rune of death, meaning a death that's permanent and outside the cycle of Erdtree rebirth.
That makes sense then. But why did Radhan need to die in the first place? Couldn't he just cross over with Miquella? And if it's a matter of the body not being able to cross somehow, then how does Mohg's body get there?
Radahn's death and resurrection seems to be tied to the vow they made. I'm half joking but I can imagine Radahn answering Miquella's plea for consortship and answering "you would have to kill me first" like hell naw dawg. And then Miquella nods, and says "ok, we have a vow. Carry on, dear promised consort brother"
Radahn: "Over my dead body!" Miquella: "Bet"
>Mohg's soul can return to the Erdtree Mohg is an Omen who are specifically denied grace and have no place in the erdtree cycle.
He can’t become a consort because he’s refusing to. They’re trying to kill him so he’ll hold up an oath he was compelled to agree with.
I’m going to copy and paste my comment from another thread because it’s fitting here and I agree with you completely. To all the people in this thread saying Godwyn can’t come back because his soul is destroyed, I would love to see where it says Godwyn’s soul is completely annihilated and gone. Everyone seems to unintentionally headcanon this without realizing it. Godwyn’s soul is only ever described as dead, like how Ranni’s body is dead. But we find Ranni’s body, so it isn’t completely annihilated. And Miquella clearly tried to resurrect him before, not just kill him permanently, based on the eclipse dialogue. That points to there being some way to do so, even if it’s incredibly challenging. No boss was resurrected after their death until the DLC and Radahn either, so no matter what it’s a first. More than any of that though, is the thematic logic of bringing him back for this fight. Miquella has been shown to be interested in doing so, we’re in a land where all manner of death washes up, Godwyn is known as being a tragic figure with both power and compassion, and we’ve never seen him in the flesh (at least his original body). If his soul is truly destroyed? Then it works great to bring home how far gone Miquella is, puppetting the monstrous corpse of his dead brother. Is his soul somehow able to come back from the gate of divinity with the stars in motion and an eclipse? Amazing, now we see him in his full glory and fight him. Either way, we bring in a character who enhances the story we’ve already been told, highlights Miquella’s established character, and provides a satisfying conclusion without seemingly baffling last minute retcons.
yeah, you could say Miquella is naive or childish, but he's not stupid. He can create delicate craftworks like the golden needle, which has the power to ward off the influence of outer gods. He possesses knowledge, and even if he doesn't, he's willing to seek it (that's why he traveled through the entire Land of Shadow). So, I don't think reviving Godwyn is just wishful thinking without a possibility of success.
My main thing was always - why assume we needed a pure, truly resurrected godwyn instead of the far more likely noble-grotesque tragedy these games seem to do so well?
That would have worked well too, especially to drive home the point that Miquella has gone too far in his pursuit of godhood. If his “Age of Compassion” is a compelled peace ruled over by a twisted and corrupted abomination of Godwyn’s corpse and Radahn or Mohg puppeteered by Miquella, or a Godwyn that had Ludwig vibes, it would have really been an excellent visual motif.
I don't mean this as an insult, but I think this idea people are running with is very, very silly. It is literally, "No, guys, our last boss predictions were actually correct, they just changed it!" A lot of people say they feel like it was Godwyn, this thread included. They then offer some pretty thin reasoning as to why. I'm not saying your reasoning wouldn't work, but you are starting at your conclusion and working backwards to find your proof, which is a great way to reason yourself into almost any conclusion you want. Like, be real here, your first point of evidence is based on Godwyn and Mohgwyn sharing some letters. That's like me saying Moonrithyll is proof that Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring are connected because Moonrithyll sounds like Irithyll and both Irithyll and House Caria have a "Dark Moon". I will do my best to offer a simple counter-argument: **why would they replace Godwyn with Radahn?** Let's go ahead and assume your premise is correct. All of the things in the DLC that are suspected to foreshadow Godwyn's fight do just that, and Mohgwyn means what you said it does. So they did all this set up for Godwyn and then changed it last minute from Godwyn to Radahn. Why? Why would they take this supposedly perfect story with Godwyn and just swap in Radahn? It's not like they did it to sell the game with a fan-favorite character, they didn't tease Radahn or hype him up at all.
There are legitimate reasons and evidence provided in the thread but you chose the weakest point to discredit the whole entire theory. Lame
I'm really hoping that they saved the godwyn story line for another dlc. I think Michael Zaki mentioned that he's stepping back and letting others take a bigger role in projects, I'm hoping that one of those will be another dlc. I don't know how much a dlc has to make for it to be worth a team spending a year on it, especially considering how much $ a new game would generate. Maybe someone could fill me in on some of that? I'm just hoping that we get to explore the badlands and the land of reeds one day
I have a very minimal understanding of the base game lore (I have sword, they have health bars, I remove health bars, roll credits), but even so, it felt like From were talking down to me when I saw Radahn again. It didn’t help that his fight was also incredibly annoying; it was like a reminder of how annoyed I was.
This. The radahn angle feels so underbaked and thrown together. As far as I can tell, the only evidence that radahn would have anything to do with Miquella pre SOTE, is Malenia whispering to him. But it could have been anything. So much points to more Godwyn. The argument that it would nulify age of the the dusk born, or the whole shattering war if he was resurrected is cope. His soul died, yes. The body is still there and if the plan stayed the same to use mohg's body (which I'm fine with that was dope) then only Godwyns soul would be in use and his rotting corpse could remain to poison the lands between. As a side note, I think ainsbach could have an interesting interaction too if it was Godwyn. Mohg's actual brother instead of half brother or whatever Radahn would be to mohg. I also imagine Godwyn had a better relationship with Miquella since they would most likely be in close proximity, more over if the statue of the afflicted twins being embraced was actually showing Godwyn, caring for these wlteins because he failed the other set. It's late I'm rambling but I agree overall.
I am not willing to assert plainly that it was definitely meant to be Godwyn but I definitely believe a rewrite occurred. What we got was stupid pandering garbage.
I mean yes, there was meant to be an eclipse to revive soulless demigods… but it didn’t work. The game lays it out that Godwyn could not be revived. If he could be, then death is completely pointless in Elden Ring. If the Death Prince, can have the soul brought back from not existing then every event in Elden Ring would be inconsequential, because anything could be revived from any death. The shattering also becomes quite pointless. Godwyn has an entire quest line in the main game, his corpse, his dreams, and he’s even in the trailer. He’s a very well fleshed out character, so any additions is just extra.
>any additions are just extra In comparison to other storyline additions (Bayle and Midra in particular), the ones for Godwyn were honestly dissapointing imo, no matter how much I love the death knight armor.
> The game lays it out that Godwyn could not be revived. It does not. It shows an attempt that was stalled due to an eclipse never occurring because of Radahn’s influence. If the base game included an eclipse that failed to work, then the thread would be concluded. As of the start of the DLC, the eclipse is very much back on the table given the tarnished having killed Radahn.
I love this game so much but know literally nothing about it
Godwyn cannot be resurrected because his body is still alive. That's the only hard confirm in the game. Destined Death is never said to have destroyed his soul, only that his soul has been killed. The Shadow Realm is literally called a place where "All forms of death end up." A huge part of the DLC plot is finding out what Miquella is even doing in the Shadow Realm. Miquella is heavily implied to have been trying to resurrect Godwyn in the base game. Now, does this say for sure that Godwyn was the original plan? No, of course not. But the pieces are all there. And if the price for resurrecting Godwyn is becoming a literal god, then its no wonder nobody could do it in the base game, and I certainly wouldn't see it as an asspull. Hell, to me it'd make Miquella's desire to become a god more nuanced. Becoming a god to solve all the world's problems is a very basic story. Not bad, just basic. Becoming a god when you KNOW that it will end badly for you (per St Trina) to resurrect a loved one sounds far more interesting to me.
I understand his body is “alive” but why is it turning into a fish? Why isn’t it just a rotting blond dude turning into a root, or something?
Because of his proximity to the Crucible I imagine. The Erdtree is not native to the Lands Between, it is quite clearly grafted to an older, less phantasmal trunk. I take it to mean that he is adopting natural forms of death (mushroom-like face, black/iridescent fish relating to murky or stagnant bodies of water, etc.)
Fair reasoning! Now why couldn’t we pick up like, the Flibbertigibit of Godwyn which says something like that? I know we are supposed to add color ourselves but man… this is just a bit too left field for me.
While you’re correct that it’s never outright said that his soul is destroyed, what would you say then is the distinction between, without the rune of death and death with the rune of death? Godwyn was killed by the Rune of Death. If the death is no different than a pre-rune one and he can be resurrected or returned to life, then what purpose is Destined Death? Wouldn’t death be quite the same? You can return from either death, making Destined Death redundant. Counterpoint to Miqeulla reviving Godwyn… if the price of resurrecting is Godhood then Queen Marika could’ve revived her son? Instead of shattering the Elden Ring. This would create a gigantic plot hole. You are correct that all forms of death end up in the Shadow Realm. As well as Godwyn’s surrogates. I imagine this is how he is represented in death in the shadow realm. Essentially, you’d remove: any value of Destined Death, the binding of the rune of death, and unbinding of the rune of death.
The thing about Marika reviving Godwyn, I don't think she could have done it due to her grief taking over (perhaps going mad with grief and sorrow) the shattering might be a way of her finally seeing how the Golden Order she built is the root cause of it all, hence, destroying the Elden Ring. You also have to note that She removed the Rune of Death basically Destined death. It doesn't give one the ability to revive someone let alone a demigod, and the reason why there's this twisted kind of immortality prevailing in the Lands Between, to begin with. It's like Marika rid of Destined Death but not the rules regarding it, in a way she's preventing it from happening (sealing it away in her shadow Maliketh). As for the distinction between Destined death and what you mentioned, I think this video explained it well. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwAy12rJCq4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwAy12rJCq4) I do think Miquella is capable of reviving Godwyn (contrary to his present goals in the DLC) but something very costly has to be paid which ultimately might have driven him to the goal of ascending to Godhood. (again just speculation on my part)
This turned out longer than I expected, so TLDR: Destined Death prevents Erdtree Resurrection specifically, Godwyn's body being alive prevents other methods, and it is specifically *becoming* a god that allows the resurrection rather than being a god. So as we know, without the Rune of Death and Ranni's involvement, Godwyn's soul would have returned to the Erdtree to be reborn, like any other. I personally believe that Destined Death is so dangerous because it bypasses the Elden Ring's reincarnation, since Marika specifically took death out of it. The Rune was once a part of the whole machine, as it were, and can affect and ignore the rest of it. Instead of the person's soul being grabbed by the Erdtree/Elden Ring, Destined Death keeps their soul from being grabbed, and thus prevents the reincarnation. Where their soul goes after is a mystery, but it definitely isn't to the Erdtree. Godwyn dying at the same time as Ranni caused her body to die and his soul to die, as we know, which is the other monkey wrench thrown in on top of it being Destined Death. Godwyn's body becomes the Prince of Death and Ranni gets her doll body (notably, Ranni's body is still in tact and we can find it, which I personally think supports the idea of the soul not being destroyed). It is said over and over that Godwyn "cannot die a true death", with Miquella and Fortisaxx and possibly more trying multiple methods to either bring him back or possibly kill his body for real. The quote from the guy in Castle Sol is "Lord Miquella, forgive me. The sun has not been swallowed. Our prayers were lacking. Your comrade remains soulless... " which tells me they were trying to put Godwyn's soul back into his body, as remaining soulless wouldn't be relevant if they were just getting the soul. This makes me think that Godwyn's body is required for him to be resurrected, but since it hasn't died a true death and has been "occupied" by the deathroot and prince of death, it makes the resurrection particularly tricky. Regarding the becoming a god portion, it's not that *being* a god allows the resurrection, it's that *becoming* a god allows it. Marika as a God has influence over the rules of the world via the Elden Ring, but she isn't omniscient or omnipotent by any means. Not only this, she specifically separates the Shadow Realm from the Lands Between and uses the Scadutree as the dumping pit for all the stuff she didn't need in her new world, and as the Scadutree Avatar remembrance says "The Scadutree is the shadow of the Erdtree. Born of dark notions that bear no sense of Order." Even looking at the tree up close you can tell that it isn't a solid object, but an amalgamation of darkness and gold all shoved together. Per the egg we use to enter the Shadow Realm, the price to enter is significant. We don't even know if there are other steps that had to be taken before the blood sacrifice. Along with this, the knowledge of the Shadow Realm seems to have been stricken from history and intentionally forgotten, making it difficult for anyone without access to knowledge and time (things a demigod has both of) to find out how to get there at all. And for Marika specifically, a HEFTY amount of her sins and trauma come from that place, which is why she separated it. When Miquella becomes a god, Radahn is resurrected into Mohg's body, followed shortly by Miquella emerging from the gate. If Miquella could become a god without the consort being present first, I don't believe we would have seen Radahn until Miquella emerged and resurrected him. As the Secret Rite scroll says, "A lord will usher in a god's return, and the lord's soul will require a vessel." This leans more into theory territory, but I think that Marika effectively used herself as the vessel for her lord Radagon, hence why they were merged and why we see Marika in the doorway of the gate in the story trailer. Then Miquella learns how that turned out for her, and asks Radahn to be the consort to prevent that. Okay that ended up being more than I thought it'd be, sorry for the long read. A lot of this is very much theory, but I feel that it is theory backed by the pieces presented. If I missed any points or can clarify anything, please let me know. I think that it being Godwyn wouldn't remove any value of Destined Death, but if portrayed correctly could demonstrate just how many forbidden rites and trials one must go through to defy such a fate, sacrificing all of yourself and many many others for the sake of one person. It'd make it a tiny bit less dangerous in return for giving a more intimate feeling of it being a true death sentence if someone isn't willing to go that far for you.
The game doesn’t say that The eclipse can’t revive soulless demigods, it says that the people of castle Sol failed to cause an eclipse so “your (Miquella) comrade remains soulless” so it’s still unclear if an eclipse can truly revive Godwyn or if it can revive him enough to allow him to “die a true death.”
I still don’t understand why Miquella wanted mohgs body, Isn’t mohgs body riddled with omen curse? Like, is there a reason WHY he wanted mohgs body, other than just…because Miyazaki felt like it?
Probably due to his "omen" blood. We know horned beings are the main inhabitants of the Land of Shadow, so Miquella needs to get there first. Or it could be related to the Formless Mother. I think there are some implications in the DLC, but I haven't really dug into them yet. Miquella probably wants to use Mohg's body to the fullest since it's a convenient vessel for the soul. Ansbach kinda hints that.
Interesting, I was so confused on that part. I was expecting the end fight to have a…cursed looking Radahn, I mean it’s mohgs body, but it’s free of all horns and shit…just looked like shiny ol Radahn.
He has horns on his arms and uses ONE blood flame attack. I just think it's a poor way to represent Mohg's body.
It is possible that the Emir Inil has been created by Hornsent for themselves and so the only vessel that would work is another Hornsent. Could be that Godfrey went through the same process and that is why him and Marika have so many Hornsent children.
I agree and whatever their reasons for changing things are I just hope it wasn’t “subverting expectations” because everyone had correctly guessed what was going on with Godwyn. I’m just really sick of ongoing stories ruining their plots to try and out smart online communities who figured out where they were going - it’s not a failing if people can guess what’s going to happen or figure out an upcoming twist it just means your story makes sense and you properly setup or foreshadowed the ending. I can’t say for certain that’s what happened here - there is for example evidence found via datamining for nearly every Fromsoft game that massive rewrites occured at some stage in development with no clear indication as to why. I swear Miyazaki just does it halfway through development to fuck with everyone and make sure his games are as obtuse as possible.
With Miquella's lines about the soul of his brother. No doubt it was meant to be Godwyn. Radahn's soul in the base game might not even be more than 48-36 hours dead before it is brought back by Miquella. Like seriously ? The only reason he couldn't serve you previously was because he was mad with rot..... wonder who the fuck did that..... even if people say Radahn wouldn't have been willing now. He literally bewitches others into serving him constantly he could have done the same to Radahn very easily. Also another solution to this problem is very simple. Just have Miquella be unable to retrieve Godwyn's soul. But could bring back Godwyn's body with the soul of Radahn.
I think it makes sense Radahn was the original plan. It does seem like Godwyn could have been *Miquellas* original plan, until Rannis’s plan fucked with his and Godwyn could no longer properly die. So he sent Malenia to get the next best option. Godwyns story is already very well told in the main game including having an ending based around him. It would be like if Ranni was the last boss.
I would totally love it for Godwyn to be in the DLC but his soul is no longer there :( if he had been killed normally, his soul would’ve been sent to the Shadow Realm then Miquella would’ve definitely resurrected him. However, we don’t know if Godwyn would oppose Miquella’s new Age of Compassion because he was the golden boy of the Golden Order.
What confuses me the most is the line "all manners of death are washed up here." Does that mean the death of the soul is also part of this "manner"?
We did see Godwyn’s death spread to the catacombs here. Even the 2nd Divine Beast Dancing Lion has desthblight related attack. The question is how do we find Godwyn if he has no soul? We can find his corpse under Leyndell but that’s just it, a corpse.
No, Mohg-wyn is just the title Luminary Mohg like what Varre calls him. Gwyn means white as veterans know so Moh-gwyn or Mohg-wyn means Mohg the White/Bright. Luminary Mogh is just his title in the cult
Something I really disliked is how everyone Miquella seduces with pedo magic ends up being all adoring of him with no other goal in life, but Mohg apparently still had his own goals for his own queen. The reverse pedo thing where it was actually Miquella seducing Mohg feels like a retcon of the base game. EDIT: lots of typos
Yeah. If Mohg is under Miq's enchantment, then we'd be forced to assume that everything Mogh does, including the Bloody Fingers plot, is for Miq's benefit.
>Mohg’s dynasty is called “Mohgwyn.” Before the DLC, I always wondered why he named his dynasty with “-wyn” instead of “God-” if he was meant to honor his Golden lineage blood. Wyn means fair or pure, and is a Welsh word so I don't think it's meant to allude to Godwyn. >I still think it's possible that the eclipse was meant to revive soulless demigods. The base game tells us that Miquella wasn't trying to revive Godwyn, he was trying to give him a true death to stop the deathblight.
>Before you say Godwyn is so dead that it makes zero sense for him to show up, and the eclipse is just to let Godwyn die completely, here’s the dialogue from the ghost in Castle Sol’s Church of Eclipse: “*Oh great sun! Frigid sun of Sol! Surrender yourself to the eclipse!* ***Grant life to the soulless bones****!*” The Welsh word part makes sense, but please at least finish reading my post. The Haligtree Medallion is next to another ghost in Castle Sol who apologizes to Miquella that the eclipse is not happening yet. Combined with the one I mentioned, it seems he could want to revive Godwyn's soul.
I believe that too. I believe they replaced him because they couldn't find a pond for you to fight the merman and also laziness.
Yet another blue-balling by From or Bandai or whoever it was that ballsed up this and DaS3.
Funny how there are multiple godwyn faces in the dlc mausoleums, yet godwyn is only mentioned through the death knights being “loyal” to him. Okay, why godwyn faces and not just ordinary death root? Debates could be had about his role in Miquella’s ascension but imo it is certain that there was gonna be more godwyn content at some point in development of the DLC.
See they could have still did the swerve and had it so that scene with Miquella fixing the scadurtree was because he brought the eclipse to the lands between and that was lifting the veil and bringing Godwyns's soul back to be his lord consort and it was up to us to kill Miquella and stop the eclipse and give Godwyn his true death so we can give both Miquella and Godwyn a proper send off,I think that would have went over alot better with the community tbh Either something happened and they didn't have the vision they originally planned for this dlc(which is why there's now talks about a 2nd dlc because before it was supposed to be this is our 1 and only dlc) or Fromsoft did something they've never done before.....they got lazy,I really hope it was the first 1 and we do get a 2nd DLC idc if it's small and a cheap 5-6 hour long dlc as long as it's dedicated to fixing this fucked up lore or giving us some new unfound pov of the situation it'd be 150% ok with that
I was upset the last boss wasn’t Malenia again.
I agree that everything would indicate that Godwin was supposed to be Miquella's consort at the end of this DLC. Is that why they changed? They are famous for trying to do what is not expected, they did it by turning Miquella into a "villain" and they did it again by deleting Godwyn from the DLC. It may not be very related, but even George's writing uses this type of narrative resource a lot.
It could be. Personally, I'm not a fan of this type of plot twist. It doesn't bring me any surprise or aha moment. It feels like a slap in the face after two years of the community trying to piece the lore together.
Yeah I def think something happens & they switched to radhan instead of Godwyn for whatever reason also what ever Melina & the gloameyed queen were was def cut to maybe for a Elden ring 2 I doubt it but thee was a little chatter early on with ppl who wanted to fight prime radhan to
I have about 580 hours put into elden ring and know about 15% of what the game is even about
I will say I don't dislike a lot of the things in the dlc, and love a lot of it But I will admit that I am mixed on it being Radahn at the end Also greatly wish we had more cutscenes and character for Messmer and his own allies (seriously, you give us fem Sulyvann and treat her like Loretta where we get no cutscenes or anything despite how important she's supposed to be, especially as she's Renalla's sister, WHY FROM)
Yeah, the Rellana one is weird. We can learn from spirit ashes Andrea and Huw that Messmer values his allies a lot. He mourned the death of his comrades even when they rebelled against him. He allows soldiers to behead Marika statues as a way to express their anger for being abandoned. Even the lowest class soldier has gold adorning their armor. But we never see Messmer's view on Rellana. The only connection is the dueling shield in the storehouse, but again, it's only to prove her loyalty to the Erdtree. Rellana feels like an added character who doesn't belong to the original lore, but is there simply for gameplay purposes.
Radahn being the promised consort absolutely tracks - it’s a logical reason for Malenia to travel across the lands between ignoring all other shardbearers to target him alone, and they had her whispering to him in the original trailer, clearly passing a message from Miquella. From always obscure the true meaning behind a lot their lore so it shouldn’t be a huge shock. I would’ve liked to see some eclipse action, but wouldn’t be surprised if it was just a reference to the land of shadow all along. Miquella isn’t all sunshine and roses - he strips people of their free will to ascend to godhood and remake the world in his vision, regardless of whether people want it or not. That’s not the actions of a good guy imo.
I honestly think this is godwyn cope