The DLC butchers Malenia & Miquella's relationship and the plot twist is contrived.

[ArleniaSery]

The Embarrassing Differences:

Miquella in the Land of Shadow is in the process of abandoning himself, his love, emotions etc. Yet we aren't given a single piece of lore anywhere that describes the process by which he departs himself from (what should be) the most important person in his life, his sister. I'll explain later how the base game implies he does love his sister. Let's compare his and Malenia's dialogues first:

How Malenia treats Miquella:

- In her opening cutscene: I await the return of my brother, look how sad I am about it.

- Her death: I apologise my dear brother for dying.

- Her armour: My brother is the best.

- 75% of her character is about Miquella.

How Miquella treats Malenia :

- He references his beloved sister as his "loyal blade". There are no past mentions, like notes during his divestment process. Remember when we got there, Miquella was still in the process of divesting parts of himself. He had not fully become devoid of everything. They could have shown him losing his love for Malenia as he's becoming a God.

Unrequited Love:

Have you ever read a book where one character loves another and it's their whole identity and then you find out that the other person doesn't give a single ♥♥♥♥ about them? Yeah that's the DLC. Unrequited love characters are awkward and kind of pathetic. Which Malenia is the opposite of.

That isn't entirely my issue though. This aspect still butchers and disrespects Malenia's character to an extent but it's the way it's executed that is also a problem. This could've been done well. Imagine if, at a Miquella's Cross it said: here I abandon my love for my sister, and an NPC tells you that they figured out how/why Miquella never loved Malenia or stopped loving her. The issue is that it's like the Daenery's Season 8 of Game of Thrones meme, "she kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet". She has no involvement in a DLC that is about the closest person in her life. It makes her look like a pathetic and forgotten character.

Character Assassination:

Imagine if you told someone who only played the DLC that Miquella and Malenia are actually twins, that they grew up together, that they both shared the same trauma and pain, that Miquella abandoned the largest, most powerful religion in the Lands Between, the Golden Order, because he wanted to help her, that she's named after him, that there are statues in the Haligtree of them embracing, that Malenia called him out tenderly by name multiple times whilst literally dying. How ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gobsmacked would they be?

I don't personally think so but, with how she's ignored by the narrative, it's as if the DLC wants us to think there was a façade in their relationship. If so then where in the DLC is the façade ever dissected? Where is it talked about and evaluated by an NPC, or via items? I read every single item I came across. My playthrough was 50 hours long. I made tons of notes. Malenia is mentioned only 1 time. Radahn's armour tells us that Miquella advised Malenia to go fight Radahn and bloom and what she whispered, suggesting she was in on the whole Radahn Consort plan. That's it.

They're Inseparable:

In the base game it was always Miquella and Malenia, those names were inseparable, even though they were separated physically. Malenia's love for Miquella is super apparent but surely, with the way the Miquella DLC treats Malenia as an afterthought, as just some person who was once loyal to Miquella I guess, then it means that Miquella kind of just didn't like Malenia all that much, and his need to be a God superseded any familial relations... right?

Surely this piece of established, objective lore means nothing then: "And yet, the young Miquella abandoned fundamentalism, for it could do nothing to treat Malenia's accursed rot." This quote heavily implies that Miquella sought for a way to treat Malenia, and he first tried Golden Order Fundamentalism but left when it didn't work. So if his goal is to treat his sister, then he obviously cares about her.

Some could argue that he didn't want to cure her because he cared for her, but because he wanted to (insert whatever evil objective) and needed a pure Malenia to achieve it, implying his departure from the Golden Order and subsequent establishment of Unalloyed Gold was an attempt at a means to an end, the end being Godhood. Then we go back again to... why wasn't this explored in the DLC in relation to Malenia?

Radahn and Miquella's Relationship:

In the base game there isn't any tangible connection of a vow, or a promise made between Radahn and Miquella of all people. It just feels soooo out of left field and contrived. There didn't need to give us anything obvious, just give me the esoteric, vague lore drop in the base game... but they didn't (example: you find a random flower item that says: 'this young bud would never grow, it's innocent protected by the fearsome lion; a vow was made, never to be broken' ). In the Elden Ring text database there are only 2 instances where Radahn and Miquella are mentioned in the same sentence in the base game:

One is Morgott's cutscene where he's just naming the Demigods and the other is Gideon's dialogue, where he says this:

"I'd expect to find Malenia there. She who fought Radahn to a standstill. But...with the Haligtree as it is... I suppose Miquella must already be...".

Not much to go off in building even the slightest connection between them. And if there was a secret promise made between Miquella and Malenia to elevate Miquella to god-hood with a vow from Radahn, then why wasn't Malenia's part, as his twin and collaborator, explored at all?

Some Pests > Malenia:

The DLC explores Godwyn (Catacombs and Death Knights), Radahn (Freya, End Boss, Gauis), Mohg (Ansbach), Marika (literally everywhere) but not Malenia, the closest person to Miquella. Moore's Brood, the docile Children of Rot, have more characterisation and care given to them than the poster child for Elden Ring, let that sink in. There's a sizeable Scarlet Rot section but no Malenia mention. You could say that she was explored already... but so was everyone else I listed.

Conclusion:

Honestly, unlike some others, I love the difficulty of the DLC, and I love the end game bosses in base Elden Ring too. I love the Elden Ring boss design formula (multiple + delayed attacks etc I don't care that everyone else dislikes it). The visuals were 10/10, exploration was world-class. I had barely any performance issues. But I fear they missed the mark of the story this time. They disrespected their most popular character by treating her like barely an afterthought, pulled a Miquella/Radahn storyline out of their ass and went against established lore.

I hope someone makes a compelling lore video that clears everything up for me, and it all makes sense. I really don't want to hate the story because I love everything else.

[Persona Au Gratin]

Originally posted by SoloQ:

"Overview. Antisocial personality disorder, sometimes called sociopathy, is a mental health condition in which a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong and ignores the rights and feelings of others."

Miquella clearly makes overtures or gestures and, gasp, even makes a city that is a bastion for various persecuted peoples. The fact the Albinaurics worship it while never "laying eyes on it" would be an interesting thing to explore. It's the fact that item descriptions and such are strained to their limit. I see folks talk a lot about how "GRRM wrote the lore" and the problem is that it's ignoring the format in which that stuff is delivered. A lot of House of the Dragon, for instance, is presented as a historical record. The television show has a lot of range by which to interpret this record, including a particularly horrific scene about how someone "died during childbirth."

The remark "Died during childbirth" and how that death is presented is something I think people are looking for in the DLC and it does not really deliver in a particularly interesting way so very often.

[Senki]

Originally posted by CourtesyFlush09:

Originally posted by Senki:

the malenia vs radahn battle was never explained

It was. That finger reader lady and the Two Fingers said that the demigods waged war against each other because the "mad taint" of their Great Runes caused them to fight for control of the continent.

yeah that's just the extremely barebones simplified explanation, there were a lot more details to it

we saw malenia whispering something in radahn's ear in that cinematic but we didn't find out what until this dlc

[Persona Au Gratin]

Originally posted by Eren Jäger:

Originally posted by rhoenix:

I mean, that's what I thought pretty firmly before the events in the DLC. Now... there's the plausible option of Miquella being motivated by his desires in general rather than a more pointed desire to help his sister.

There are thick textbooks devoted to the multiple ways in which things can go sideways if you lose sight of your original goal while trying to make it real. Especially if one tends to view other people as chess pieces.

If this is the case, no matter what light his actions are seen in, it very easily explains how he got the end result he did - he didn't read the fine print as closely as he should have, and focused only on achieving his end goal.

It also places into question the actual purpose for the Haligtree, which is more uncomfortable.

That would of course also be possible. It could be that he only used Malenia as a tool (Sword of Miquella) to achieve his goals. His love and compassion are fake and only serve to make other people fight for his goals. The Haligtree was just an attempt to gather the poor and weak to form an army that he could use against Marika.

But I give him the benefit of the doubt. I think Malenia really meant something to him. It was desperation and sadness that made him believe there was no other option than to become a monster himself to save those he loved.

His whole disillusionment with the Golden Order was precisely based on how it couldn’t cure the scarlet rot. Which I think is a point where he clearly sees something unjust for what it is. Making him obsessed with an interpersonal account is just not an interesting direction to go in because frankly I kind of understood that from the jump from say, the previous understanding of Mohg.

[Kim]

it's far-fetched , Miquella is known by everyone as the kind one , he love everyone , not just his twin sister.

story wise , Malenia is still waiting his brother at the foot of the Haligtree.

Should she know where Miquella is , she would not wait for him elsewhere.

You have to kill Radahn in order to proceed in the lands of shadow.

Radahn being dead , he can fulfill his purpose as consort for Miquella.

The story is probably not the one you expected , you may not like it , but it remains consistent.

[thorondragon]

Originally posted by rabureta:

Originally posted by ArleniaSery:

Everyone gets that Miquella isn't himself by the time we get to him. That makes complete sense and isn't at all a problem. The issue is that there was a time before and after he divested love and emotions. His sister isn't explored at all both when Miquella still has love and during the process of him divesting love. She's forgotten about both those times. That's a problem.

When Miquella "was himself" and still had his love, he still went around charming people for his own ends. Mohg, all of his followers except Leda and Dane, and so forth.

Miquella failed to save Godwyn with the Eclipse (natural law) and failed to save Malenia with the Haligtree (divine law) so he decided to change both by becoming a god, but how could he save anyone if he could not save himself?

I think this actually gives a good idea of what happened to marika when she ascended. madness and detachment of what made her mortal, made her sane, leading to rotten roots all around.


Seems like it takes a powerful soul and will to ascend without such madness. think Ranni achieved this b ut in her own way..... and more so without shedding her humanity.

Marika and Miquella made that mistake. They shed that humanity, think it would help them. Instead it made them monsters. That humanity became new life, the fierce radagon and the toxically gentle Trina.

[An Irate Walrus]

That's one hell of a breakdown, OP, and I seriously respect the hell out of the time and effort that went into it.

But a question occurs: why are we supposed to take the lore as-available concerning Miquella as gospel? Even in real-world religions, the relative divinity (or lack thereof) of individual persons is generally a political consideration/matter for whomever controlled the printing press, rather than a matter of irrefutably fact-based history.

Why should it be any different in the Lands Between, particularly given that Miquella has the power to command love (bewitch, essentially) from others? Who's to say he didn't have Malenia's brain puttied long before her fight with Radahn--and that the official histories of that battle were written in a way to largely excise Miquella's involvement?

Looking for a cure doesn't suddenly mean he can't also be a user. Many are the historical figures who cared deeply for those closest to them while also using those same people as a means to an end when the mud got thick. And beyond that, the most dangerous people in human history were *convinced* they were on a righteous path as they committed horrors.

What could be more righteous than seeking apotheosis as a manner of "saving" someone close to you?

...and if we want to back it out to colder terms, what kind of loving sibling refers to their sister as a "loyal blade?" A blade is an instrument--a weapon--to be directed against foes and other obstacles. It's an object, not a person, and its value lies entirely in its utility to the wielder.

There are a *lot* of reasons Miquella's true nature as revealed by the expansion doesn't necessarily conflict with the base game--historical revisionism canonizing/lionizing figures who had all kinds of imperfections in the real world chief among them.

I'm not saying your complaint has no merit, but to put it all down to bad writing requires a *very* narrow reading of the base game.

[Kyutaru]

Originally posted by Senki:

we saw malenia whispering something in radahn's ear in that cinematic but we didn't find out what until this dlc

Ah yes, the Young Lion Helm quote. "Miquella awaits thee, O promised consort."

She was there to assassinate Radahn for her brother. It's all been a Miquella plot the entire time. I'm just surprised the Tarnished showing up wasn't part of Miquella's plot as well considering just about everything else has been. Who is Miquella supposed to be, Tzeentch?

I'm suddenly wanting to play Metallica's Master of Puppets.

[Persona Au Gratin]

Originally posted by thorondragon:

Originally posted by rabureta:

When Miquella "was himself" and still had his love, he still went around charming people for his own ends. Mohg, all of his followers except Leda and Dane, and so forth.

Miquella failed to save Godwyn with the Eclipse (natural law) and failed to save Malenia with the Haligtree (divine law) so he decided to change both by becoming a god, but how could he save anyone if he could not save himself?

I think this actually gives a good idea of what happened to marika when she ascended. madness and detachment of what made her mortal, made her sane, leading to rotten roots all around.


Seems like it takes a powerful soul and will to ascend without such madness. think Ranni achieved this b ut in her own way..... and more so without shedding her humanity.

Marika and Miquella made that mistake. They shed that humanity, think it would help them. Instead it made them monsters. That humanity became new life, the fierce radagon and the toxically gentle Trina.

I disagree about it being "humanity", it's that the Two Fingers/Three Fingers and the whole meddling of Outer Gods create a situation where corrupting aspects intensify, it's a package deal. When Ranni declares to make her new era, she rejects the Two Fingers whereas Marika's whole entrapment, even going so far as to become "One" with Radagon, who was a real person, all of those things were orchestrated by The Greater Will.

Ranni specifically isn't talking about "humanity", she's talking about how their meddling is clearly a threat. It's even made clear that the fact she opposes the Fingers in this way makes other people cooperate with her schemes, such as potentially Marika or the Numen themselves.

[An Irate Walrus]

Originally posted by Kyutaru:

Originally posted by Senki:

we saw malenia whispering something in radahn's ear in that cinematic but we didn't find out what until this dlc

Ah yes, the Young Lion Helm quote. "Miquella awaits thee, O promised consort."

She was there to assassinate Radahn for her brother. It's all been a Miquella plot the entire time. I'm just surprised the Tarnished showing up wasn't part of Miquella's plot as well considering just about everything else has been. Who is Miquella supposed to be, Tzeentch?

I'm suddenly wanting to play Metallica's Master of Puppets.

Miquella is clearly Slaanesh.

[Augustine]

yeah I don't get the miquella-melina-torrent relationship anymore. If Miquella really wants to be a god then he shoulda just asked the living tarnished to be his lord perhaps, there is no reason to even use Radahn when we killed the dude plus Mohg ezpz?
I think I was expecting Godwyn plus like some outer-god avatar shenanigans. Fighting prime+ Radahn is cool, but fighting like an extra dimensional necro-lord with those giant squid face illithid things would have been totally new. Plus holy might have been good for once

[hemorrhage911]

Originally posted by Kyutaru:

Originally posted by hemorrhage911:

It's just stupid. Something a western dev would write.

I guess a segment of the player base got what they wanted. Little femboy being big gay.

Well George RR Martin wrote the script and if you don't know of his writing style from Game of Thrones, then let's just say none of this is unusual for him.

Also, he's not a femboy, he's just an eternal 8-year-old. Eight year old boys and girls look basically identical and if you put a little boy in a dress and give him long hair you wouldn't know he's not female.

No, he's quite feminine. He's also gay.

Also Martin didn't write this. I used to wonder about the intent of why Gwyndolin was written the way he was - initially I thought it was just showing how being beholden to tradition hurt a child, but nah, seems someone (maybe Miyazaki) is just into making little boys behave in a feminine manner.

[Eren Jäger]

Originally posted by Augustine:

yeah I don't get the miquella-melina-torrent relationship anymore. If Miquella really wants to be a god then he shoulda just asked the living tarnished to be his lord perhaps, there is no reason to even use Radahn when we killed the dude plus Mohg ezpz?
I think I was expecting Godwyn plus like some outer-god avatar shenanigans. Fighting prime+ Radahn is cool, but fighting like an extra dimensional necro-lord with those giant squid face illithid things would have been totally new. Plus holy might have been good for once

There is a simple reason why Miquella doesn't want us as a lord but rather Radahn that he has manipulated so that he can no longer contradict him. Our character fights for his own goals. Be it either to serve himself, Marika or Ranni etc. No matter what ending our character chooses. It is his own decision.

Serving Miquella would mean giving up his own will and becoming his puppet.

[hemorrhage911]

The biggest problem with the DLC is that it has very little that really connects to the main base game story. At least in Dark Souls with the DLCs (1 and 3 that is) the team remembered that Gwyn and his dynasty is the main focus of the lore. Dark Souls 1 DLC added to that and we saw the impact of extending the flame birthing the abyss. Dark Souls 3 had a perfect ending to that story, Gwyn got what he wanted and his dynasty still stood but it burned the world down around it.

Elden Ring, at it's core, is about Marika and her family being ripped apart by power. I don't have issue with Miquella being featured in the DLC, but the main focus? This is like making Artorious and Lady Marie the focal point of the DLC stories.

[hemorrhage911]

Originally posted by Eren Jäger:

Originally posted by Augustine:

yeah I don't get the miquella-melina-torrent relationship anymore. If Miquella really wants to be a god then he shoulda just asked the living tarnished to be his lord perhaps, there is no reason to even use Radahn when we killed the dude plus Mohg ezpz?
I think I was expecting Godwyn plus like some outer-god avatar shenanigans. Fighting prime+ Radahn is cool, but fighting like an extra dimensional necro-lord with those giant squid face illithid things would have been totally new. Plus holy might have been good for once

There is a simple reason why Miquella doesn't want us as a lord but rather Radahn that he has manipulated so that he can no longer contradict him. Our character fights for his own goals. Be it either to serve himself, Marika or Ranni etc. No matter what ending our character chooses. It is his own decision.

Serving Miquella would mean giving up his own will and becoming his puppet.

It is shown in game that Miquella can still charm the Tarnished - it just seems to be less effective after he broke his rune.

[Sonnenbank]

To be honest the story of both base game and DLC wasnt too good.

there are a lot of things that dont make too much sense but never get explained.
Also they could have done a lot more story in the DLC overall.