ok we need to talk about the writing

[SewnTogether]

it really does feel like the dlc story was written by a separate team all together the only thing thats giving plausibility to the story is malenia's words to radahn that Miquella awaits for him to be consort but we never actually heard anything. she couldve said literally anything the writers wanted to fit the direction the dlc went. the whole "bewitch mohg, my half brother, to kidnap and molest me so someone kills him and i can use his body as a vessel for radahns soul" is just crackpipe level writing and doesnt fit Miquella at all. The Haligtree is a testament to his kindness and selflessness and the DLC takes such a monumental, physically traversable proof of character and throws it out the window due to his actions. Mohg, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Mohg was perfect. he was evil, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up, a really good villain and they just took all the weight out of his actions and character. just everything about the writing in this dlc makes me so frustrated. really the only good parts are the bite sized side quests of ansbach, thiolier and ighor plus the insanely satisfying overarching narratives of messmer and marika. also messmer's VA change makes me want to ball up and start crying he sounds so bad and dead inside comared to the trailer

[Key]

Agreed for the most part.

Everything about Miquella feels pretty disjointed and ends up amounting to nothing. It honestly feels like they made the DLC about Messmer and then added the Miquella stuff on top as an afterthought.

We don't even know why Miquella wanted to ascend to Godhood, and other than the fact that the DLC is situated there, we have no real reason for which our Tarnished even gives a damn about Miquella. Trina plays essentially no role in the DLC.

In addition to this, it retroactively ruins a bunch of characters from the main game.

Radahn now looks like a compete victim that we fought twice, and both times he wasn't even himself.

While Malenia and Mohg are made so much less interesting and imposing by just being reduced to another pair of Miquella's tools.

[mpcgannon]

Can someone explain Malenia's role in the whole thing?

[paincanbefun]

i have not seen the end of the game but i'm not surprised by what i hear of the story and it's what the base game led me to expect

the base game hinted that miquella manipulated his situation and the haligtee seemed like absolute horror to me when i saw it for the first time. a holy world tree, but rotting, falling down, needing to be braced up, and full of disease at the bottom. i didn't see selflessness, i saw the total mindf*** of a "promised land" that turned out to be an empty promise, and the albinurics that get lost and end up in Mohg's realm just drove that home, to me

miquella being a gender diverse femboy (or whatever) is interesting, but there is more reason to think that the epithet "kindly" is a lie than that it is the truth. this is even hinted repeatedly in the trailer

malenia is pretty similar. she's the same archetype as Queelag from DS1. sexualized, but still a monster, not a friend. she transforms into a god of disease and says "witness horror" and she tells you that miquella is stronger than she is and she is devoted to him. so, all the fans that wished they could talk to her were just projecting onto her. she's not even her own person, she is "the blade of miquella". if miquella turns out to be a similar monster, it is not surprising

[⎛⎝ Kupo ⎠⎞]

Souls games have always kinda just been references and random vague lore, I think people need to remember that guys like Vaatividya is just speculating...
People treat him like some saint who *knows* what the story is and like everything he says is always right.
I don't even think the devs know lmao, I honestly don't even think they write things with the intent of there being a real story.
It's just meant to give a '' vibe '' basically, it's meant to feel mysterious and make you speculate and wonder but I don't think the actual substance is really there or is even intended to be there.

Every time you answer something in the game it just makes you ask more questions and I think that's the intent, there's a reason why these games are basically resets and don't have any real continuity even tho they copy paste stuff.
They sorta hinted at it in Dark Souls 3 but again it's overly vague and they never really commit for real to anything.

[Key]

Originally posted by mpcgannon:

Can someone explain Malenia's role in the whole thing?

We're left with three options:

She was either:

1. Compelled by Miquella to try and kill Radahn so that he could join Miquella in the Shadowlands and abandoned when she didn't actually kill him. (Which doesn't really make sense, since Demigods cannot kill eachother without us freeing the rune of Death from Maliketh)

2. Jealous of Miquella's interest towards Radahn, enough to try and kill him and nuke Caelid in the process. (Which again doesn't really make sense for the above reason)

3. Just straight up abandoned like a dog by Miquella, who had no intention of coming back, which seems the most likely. She fought Radahn for unexplained reasons.

4. All of the above.

Either way, she's essentially a victim and has zero agency in the story, she's pretty much reduced to Miquella's lapdog, same with Mohg, and now Radahn.

[SewnTogether]

Originally posted by paincanbefun:

i have not seen the end of the game but i'm not surprised by what i hear of the story and it's what the base game led me to expect

the base game hinted that miquella manipulated his situation and the haligtee seemed like absolute horror to me when i saw it for the first time. a holy world tree, but rotting, falling down, needing to be braced up, and full of rot at the bottom. i didn't see selflessness, i saw the total mindf*** of a "promised land" that turned out to be an empty promise, and the albinurics that get lost and end up in Mohg's realm just drove that home, to me

miquella being a gender diverse femboy (or whatever) is interesting, but there is more reason to think that the epithet "kindly" is a lie than that it is the truth. this is even hinted repeatedly in the trailer

both Miquella and Malenia are flawed empyreans. the Haligtree unlike the erdtree is of Miquellas own flesh and blood, the graves outside the entrance to the roots go the extra half-mile to show that the bodies arent used for something similar to erdtree burial. Miquella created a haven as best he could, but again he and his sister are flawed and have afflictiuons that inevitably seeped into the Haligtree. still the tree remains a home and its inhabitants seem content. the misbegotten are praying together, the knights and bugmen are mourning in the graveyard, the trumpet guys are playing music while the ants work etc in fact its us the player who instigate violence.

[paincanbefun]

Originally posted by SewnTogether ↓↓:

Miquella created a haven as best he could

from what i gather of the end of the dlc, this just is not a correct reading of miquella's character. it's what i expected from the base game and i'm not surprised

don't know what else to say about that. "kindly" just does not match who he is, so his earlier actions weren't kindly either

i haven't seen the end, so i won't keep arguing, but if you made assumptions about him being kind and generous and they turned out to not be true, then this is more about your assumptions than the writing, which - like i say - seemed obvious to me from the moment i saw the rot and bugs at the bottom of the haligtree (and honestly, just the phrase "Brace of the Haligtree")

the trumpet guys are likely a reference to Lovecraft, by the way, so that's more horror

[SewnTogether]

Originally posted by Key:

Agreed for the most part.

Everything about Miquella feels pretty disjointed and ends up amounting to nothing. It honestly feels like they made the DLC about Messmer and then added the Miquella stuff on top as an afterthought.

We don't even know why Miquella wanted to ascend to Godhood, and other than the fact that the DLC is situated there, we have no real reason for which our Tarnished even gives a damn about Miquella. Trina plays essentially no role in the DLC.

In addition to this, it retroactively ruins a bunch of characters from the main game.

Radahn now looks like a compete victim that we fought twice, and both times he wasn't even himself.

While Malenia and Mohg are made so much less interesting and imposing by just being reduced to another pair of Miquella's tools.

agree with all of this especially about St Trina and Radahn. I really thought wed get a large dedicated area themed around Trina full of details and story, personally a sleep swamp is what i expected ngl.

[Key]

Originally posted by SewnTogether ↓↓:

Originally posted by Key:

Agreed for the most part.

Everything about Miquella feels pretty disjointed and ends up amounting to nothing. It honestly feels like they made the DLC about Messmer and then added the Miquella stuff on top as an afterthought.

We don't even know why Miquella wanted to ascend to Godhood, and other than the fact that the DLC is situated there, we have no real reason for which our Tarnished even gives a damn about Miquella. Trina plays essentially no role in the DLC.

In addition to this, it retroactively ruins a bunch of characters from the main game.

Radahn now looks like a compete victim that we fought twice, and both times he wasn't even himself.

While Malenia and Mohg are made so much less interesting and imposing by just being reduced to another pair of Miquella's tools.

agree with all of this especially about St Trina and Radahn. I really thought wed get a large dedicated area themed around Trina full of details and story, personally a sleep swamp is what i expected ngl.

Really disappointed with the Trina stuff especially, yeah, hoped to see something more akin to a full on war between factions led by Miquella on one side and Trina on the other.

Instead the only faction we have is Messmer's, who strangely doesn't even seem to have any connection to Miquella whatsoever.

[SewnTogether]

Originally posted by paincanbefun:

Originally posted by SewnTogether ↓↓:

Miquella created a haven as best he could

from what i gather of the end of the dlc, this just is not a correct reading of miquella's character. it's what i expected from the base game and i'm not surprised

don't know what else to say about that. "kindly" just does not match who he is, so his earlier actions weren't kindly either

i haven't seen the end, so i won't keep arguing, but if you made assumptions about him being kind and generous and they turned out to not be true, then this is more about your assumptions than the writing, which - like i say - seemed obvious to me from the moment i saw the rot and bugs at the bottom of the haligtree

I get it, to put it into perspective its the absurdity of his actions with mohg and radahn mixed with the single only thread connecting the dlc to the base game being a scene in a trailer that has me in denial. if there was more of a reason or explanation i wouldnt be so unaccepting of the story

[Key]

Originally posted by SewnTogether ↓↓:

Originally posted by paincanbefun:

from what i gather of the end of the dlc, this just is not a correct reading of miquella's character. it's what i expected from the base game and i'm not surprised

don't know what else to say about that. "kindly" just does not match who he is, so his earlier actions weren't kindly either

i haven't seen the end, so i won't keep arguing, but if you made assumptions about him being kind and generous and they turned out to not be true, then this is more about your assumptions than the writing, which - like i say - seemed obvious to me from the moment i saw the rot and bugs at the bottom of the haligtree

I get it, to put it into perspective its the absurdity of his actions with mohg and radahn mixed with the single only thread connecting the dlc to the base game being a scene in a trailer that has me in denial. if there was more of a reason or explanation i wouldnt be so unaccepting of the story

Speaking of, we are given no reason as to why we're killing all the bosses that we're killing.

In the main game we're looking for Great Runes, and bosses are either Shardbearers or people that serve/protect the access to the Shardbearers. Here we're just sorta going to people's forts/castles and slaughtering everything we come across for no reason.

There's no buildup like there was with Friede or Gael, it's just sort of gratuitous and ends up working in our favor.

[Valthejean]

It's all a mess. I sincerely believe that they had a decent story in mind, but then someone at the higher ups decided that Radahn was popular, so they needed to bring him back. This single action has caused such a torrent of absurdity to the lore.

For example: why did Malenia need to kill Radahn now? If you didn't know the lore, you would have thought Radahn was always a rot inflicted monster, but he only became that AFTER Malenia fought him. He was *already* in his prime, and then Malenia withered it to the monster we fight in the festival.

Just go to Castle Sol, look at the connection between Miquella and Godwyn, Radahn is never once mentioned. The story would have made FAR more sense if Miquella had been consumed by an idea of trying to bring Godwyn back, whether successful or not, it would have been consistent with his character, being willing to sacrifice everything of himself to try and bring back a beloved brother. Instead, we have him orchestrating the deaths of his own brothers, so that he could revive one of them....for reasons...

[Key]

Originally posted by Valthejean:

It's all a mess. I sincerely believe that they had a decent story in mind, but then someone at the higher ups decided that Radahn was popular, so they needed to bring him back. This single action has caused such a torrent of absurdity to the lore.

For example: why did Malenia need to kill Radahn now? If you didn't know the lore, you would have thought Radahn was always a rot inflicted monster, but he only became that AFTER Malenia fought him. He was *already* in his prime, and then Malenia withered it to the monster we fight in the festival.

Just go to Castle Sol, look at the connection between Miquella and Godwyn, Radahn is never once mentioned. The story would have made FAR more sense if Miquella had been consumed by an idea of trying to bring Godwyn back, whether successful or not, it would have been consistent with his character, being willing to sacrifice everything of himself to try and bring back a beloved brother. Instead, we have him orchestrating the deaths of his own brothers, so that he could revive one of them....for reasons...

Honestly I think you're spot on, the complete lack of any mention of Radahn prior to the Miquella fight feels like a sign that it's just been stitched on top because fans really liked Radahn as a character.

[SewnTogether]

Originally posted by Key:

Originally posted by SewnTogether ↓↓:

I get it, to put it into perspective its the absurdity of his actions with mohg and radahn mixed with the single only thread connecting the dlc to the base game being a scene in a trailer that has me in denial. if there was more of a reason or explanation i wouldnt be so unaccepting of the story

Speaking of, we are given no reason as to why we're killing all the bosses that we're killing.

In the main game we're looking for great runes, and bosses are either Shardbearers or people that serve the shardbearers. Here we're just sorta going to people's forts/castles and slaughtering everything we come across for no reason.

I think that might just be a flaw of fromsofts open world design. finer details and motive can take a backseat bc theres just so much in between. i remember at the end of the base game for the first time i had no clue who godfrey or hoarah loux were bc the last mention of him that i heard was the opening cutscene. NPCs are hard to find in such a big world and Leda is the one whos leading the expedition and she really doesnt explain much outside of "finding out what miquella is up to" for half of it. even the use of messmers flame to burn the shadowy thorns is mentioned in a few sentences in a letter despite being set as an equal in plot importance as burning the erdtree was.

[SewnTogether]

Originally posted by Key:

Originally posted by Valthejean:

It's all a mess. I sincerely believe that they had a decent story in mind, but then someone at the higher ups decided that Radahn was popular, so they needed to bring him back. This single action has caused such a torrent of absurdity to the lore.

For example: why did Malenia need to kill Radahn now? If you didn't know the lore, you would have thought Radahn was always a rot inflicted monster, but he only became that AFTER Malenia fought him. He was *already* in his prime, and then Malenia withered it to the monster we fight in the festival.

Just go to Castle Sol, look at the connection between Miquella and Godwyn, Radahn is never once mentioned. The story would have made FAR more sense if Miquella had been consumed by an idea of trying to bring Godwyn back, whether successful or not, it would have been consistent with his character, being willing to sacrifice everything of himself to try and bring back a beloved brother. Instead, we have him orchestrating the deaths of his own brothers, so that he could revive one of them....for reasons...

Honestly I think you're spot on, the complete lack of any mention of Radahn prior to the Miquella fight feels like a sign that it's just been stitched on top because fans really liked Radahn as a character.

very good chance i could be wrong and spreading misinfo cuz i read someone mention it briefly on twitter, but apparently miyazaki's favorite boss is Radahn and he wanted to do more with him so that very much could be the case. "cool guy is cool and i want more of him" feels about right for how tacked on Radahn is