“You Need To Spend Dozens Of Hours Reading Item Descriptions And Watching Lore Videos To Understand

Rykard and the Night of the black knives.

Y’know after thinking about it for a while, I think Rykard's involvement in the night of the black knives could run a little deeper than just being a co conspirator. What if he was the person who actually did the deed?

Not on Godwyn mind you, we already know that was all the black knife assassins handy work. But there is one other corpse that is left unaccounted for.

What if he was the one who killed Ranni and carved the cursemark into her back?

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I know there’s no evidence in game that says anything about this but… it had to have been someone right? Someone other than Ranni I mean. She’s metal as fuck, but it would have been incredibly hard to carve such a specific symbol into her own back. Especially since failure would mean certain death. 

And I also don’t think it would have been some random black knife assassin either. It’s certainly possible but looking at everything revolving them, their alliance seemed shaky at best, and they may not have even known about Ranni's half of the plot to begin with. No, I don't think she would have trusted them to do it. But I do believe she’d trust Rykard. They were already in on this together, and assuming he wasn’t part of the heist itself then there’s only really one other role he could have played in the event. 

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And going off of purely in game mechanics, he definitely has the stats to wield a black knife blade. If you compare the stat requirements for the black knife and Rykards own blasphemous blade, then they match up pretty well. He would be able to use one.

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And then we've got Ranni's body itself, which is burnt beyond recognition. Which is strange for a black knife killing, since they have no inherent fire damage, and while they do seem to have some sort of burning affect, it's never as bad as how scorched Ranni's corpse is. We never see this sort of damage done by a black knife again.

This leads me to believe that Ranni's body may have been burnt after the fact. Possibly as one final middle finger to the Two Fingers and the GW for trying to control her fate. One last 'fuck you' by desecrating the holy flesh they bestowed upon her.

And who do we know that has access to fire powers? Or more specifically Magma powers?

Rykard. The lord of blasphemy himself.

Your honour, I rest my case.

I don't think a game has ever made me feel as physically ill as elden ring did when I found out about how Miquella was using Mohg. 

I always had a sneaking suspicion that Mohg's obsession with Miquella had something to do with his charming ability, but never really had much more than a hunch to go off of.

Finding out that that hunch was not only correct, but also how much deeper the rabbit hole went made me feel genuinely sick. He didn’t just charm Mohg, he somehow used him to gain access to the land of shadow, abandoned him and then stole his still warm corpse to desecrate into an entirely different form to house the soul of the consort he actually wanted.

Mohg doesn’t even get a footnote in his little “thank you” speech at the gate of divinity. To him, we were more impactful in his plans coming to fruition for inadvertently delivering Radahn’s soul to him than the person who got him into the land of shadow in the first place. The person who died to become the vessel of his king consort.

I don't know why this part of the game specifically had me feeling so disgusted, it's not really something I can explain. There's just something about this character that was put on such a high pedestal by the world around him, and who has received unconditional love throughout his entire life, weaponizing that very same love against someone that probably struggled with it for most of his life and used it to manipulate, take advantage of and isolate him.

And then when one of his knights comes looking for justice, for the freedom of his master, Miquella just charms him too, burying his memories of his devotion to his lord and stealing him for his own followers.

He stripped Mohg of absolutely everything and used him for his own gain until the very end and beyond. For me, Miquella’s age of compassion died the moment he decided doing that was acceptable.

One of my biggest pet peeves in media is when a character refuses to kill the big bad due to moral reasons but is perfectly happy condemning them to a fate far worse than death instead. It annoys me so much because if anyone thinks about it for more than 2 seconds, the narrative begins to collapse in on itself because doing that to someone is so so much worse than just killing them! In like, every conceivable way!

And it happens a lot too, which is baffling to think about. How has media got so many people convinced that imprisoning someone in a horrifically inhumane way, or literally sending them to the nightmare dimension™ is morally better than just killing them?

It ironically makes the characters seem way more vindictive and cruel than if they'd just killed the villain. It's no longer about protecting the innocent, or even just revenge. It's now about prolonging the villains suffering as much as possible. And I don't like how that's so commonly cited as the morally righteous decision.

Everytime I see talk about silksong taking too long to come out I can't help but raise an eyebrow. It’s been what? Five or six years since hollow knight had its final DLC and was officially “finished”? That’s a perfectly normal amount of time for a game to be in development for.

Hollow knight itself allegedly took around 4 years to create, so silksong, which is clearly a significantly larger and more ambitious game compared to their first has only been in development for slightly longer than that was atm.

Now, I'm no 'hollow knight news master', so I totally could be missing something or be wrong about something here, but from my point of view it hasn't been in development that long at all.

There's some delicious irony in the fact that the omen twins are probably the most accomplished and successful demigods in the family despite having all the odds stacked against them.

Morgott

is the ruling king of Leyndell

has one of the most powerful armies in the lands between, only really being beaten out by Miquella's haligtree forces and Messmer's crusade army

has successfully guarded the capital from both the redmanes and volcano manor invasions and chased Godrick and Godefroy from its walls

is a master of holy magic, being able to project himself across the lands, seal multiple pathways to dangerous artefacts (the giants forge and the 3 fingers) and cast a myriad of holy weapon spells which he all likely had to self teach.

Mohg

is the lord of a budding dynasty

had some of the most loyal followers out of all of the demigods, despite his Omen heritage, which he wore openly and proudly

had such loyal followers that even after the dynasty's collapse, a small handful were still willing to fight a god to the death to do right by him

is a master of blood magic

can also project illusions of himself

somehow learned of a way to access the sealed away land of shadow, an ability so exclusive to him that Miquella had to use him to gain access to it.

has gained the favour of a fucking outer god! a feat that no other basic demigod was capable of

all of which was also probably self taught due to growing up in isolation in the sewers.

These two absolutely amaze me. They had everything stacked against them and were still able to forge a place for themselves in the lands between.

Elden ring DLC ending spoilers

It's really interesting how Ranni and Miquella’s goals for godhood are basically polar opposites.

Ranni wants to create a better world through absolute freedom while Miquella wants to create a better wolrd through absolute control.

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Ranni believes in and strives for absolute freedom. Both for herself and for all other residents of the world. She doesn’t want to use her power of godhood to rule over the lands between as queen, but instead decides to watch on from a distance and let the people of the world decide for themselves how to live. For better or for worse.

You can also see this in the way she treats her followers. She never forces anyone to do anything. She's borderline remorseful of just how loyal Blaidd and Ijji are towards her, and says in her own words that they are "willing to give to much for her."

It also extends to how she interacts with the tarnished. She holds unimaginable power over them. Able to kill them instantly with a mere glance if she so chooses. But she very rarely does. No matter what you do in her questline, the only time she'll get truly furious enough with them to the point of using that power is if the Tarnished attempts to use Seluvis' tonic on her.

You can ignore her orders in the second half of the questline, betray and attack her right at the end and even straight up not summon her at the end of the game, and the only time she'll ever actively be a threat to you is if you attempt to take away her bodily autonomy.

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Miquella however has no qualms with controlling others to benefit himself, and to force them to do his bidding.

Whether you're friend or foe, you're never truly safe from his powers.

He uses his powers to force his followers to get along and follow in his footsteps. Even ones that are unshakingly loyal to him aren’t spared from having their rougher edges smoothed off by his ability.

He uses his powers to make connections and further his goals. Stealing Mohg’s heart and taking advantage of him to enter the lands of shadow and then later, after he's taken all he can, goes on to desecrate his corpse.

He also likely uses his powers on Radahn, as I wholeheartedly believe that he did not accept Miquella’s proposal to become his consort.

The dude's a golden order loyalist that thrives on the battle ground. I don't see him suddenly siding with Miquella to make the world a "gentler place." Especially since him and Malenia got into such a violent battle during the shattering. And how there's no record anywhere in the game about the connection between Miquella and Radahn.

Because it's entirely one sided.

And the worst part of it all is that he'll convince you that it was your thoughts and feelings all along.

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Ranni's age is an age of doubt and fear because there's truly no knowing how people will chose to move forward with their strings severed. You've just got to put your trust in the good of people and hope that they can manage make the world a better place now that they're free of the god's petty power squabbles.

Miquella's age would be akin to a gilded cage. Peaceful and gentle, but the furthest thing from free that the lands between has ever been. You can't even trust that your own thoughts, feelings and devotion are genuine, because no matter your stance or standing, Miquella the god is all too willing to twist your mind if it will in any way benefit him. And if he for some reason can't? Well, he's got one of the most terrifying and powerful demigods in existence under his control.

If you don't agree with him or like him, Yes you do! Remember? You always have silly! And you always will...

It always annoys me when people say that the Jurassic Park movies are ‘proof that bringing extinct species back is a bad idea’ or that the message in the movies is that a dinosaur zoo is impossible to safely run, because the parks in those movies literally never fail because of the dinosaurs. They fail because of corporate greed and general incompetence.

The original Jurassic park? Failed because of security malfunctions, sabotage and general lack of knowledge on the living specimens due to incompetent levels of research before they were introduced to their enclosures and guests.

Jurassic world? They had it in the bag. They’d created a profitable and incredibly safe system that had very few structural weak points and even less incidents involving guests being harmed by the dinosaurs. That was of course until they decided they wanted more money and fame and genetically spliced a superweapon dinosaur that could outsmart and overpower everything else on the island. Which obviously led to a security breach because they didn’t even do the bare minimum of research or even tell the people watching it WHAT IT WAS SPLICED WITH TO BEGIN WITH!

And then we have all the times where dinosaurs were released in rural areas and caused insane amounts of damage and death, which once again, only happened because greedy, underprepared and incompetent business men brought the dinosaurs to those locations without any sort of plan.

Honestly I’m surprised by the amount of people who think Mohg’s character was at all reduced by the DLC— if anything, the introduction of a character like Ansbach and the reveal that he was bewitched adds a lot to his story.

I wonder if there’s any correlation between those who believe his character was taken away from and those who very staunchly believed that he kidnapped Miquella all on his own? Because in my personal experience, I’m someone who always thought it was more likely that it was either a mutual agreement or manipulation + bewitchment on Miquella’s end rather than kidnapping— otherwise, there’s a lot going on in terms of the environment and story details that just don’t make sense (IE; why is nobody at the Haligtree concerned about there being a kidnapping, and are simply waiting for Miquella to come back)! And also, since GRRM has a quote discussing how he’s not fond of the “here’s the good guys, they dress in white and look pretty while the bad guys dress in black and are ugly” trope, I would’ve been more shocked if that was played straight and it WAS a kidnapping.

Another thing, I fell in love with his character before I knew anything about his involvement with Miquella. Varré’s quest, the subtle buildup of his presence you see throughout the world of the game and the characterization it provides! As soon as I saw the Bloodroses for the first time, I knew he was going to be a favorite of mine. They alone clue us in on so much about him as a character, painting this mysterious Lord of Blood as a romantic, but morbid figure.

He has so much character without Miquella, he has a fully fleshed out backstory that I can’t help but to adore. Then, the DLC comes in and makes you confront any pre-conceived notions of what Mohgwyn was like prior to Miquella, it makes you ask what this blood cult was like before it got extra bloody, it makes you ask where this love for Miquella came from, and so on. I personally subscribe to “it was a combination of genuine manipulation from Miq’s end along with bewitchment— which played horribly well with Mohg’s idea of and need for love”, but there’s so many ways you can go about it! So many fun possibilities to explore that add further depth to these characters and their relationship!

So I find it surprising as hell that people would think the DLC took anything away from his character, when it really just fleshed him out further.

Easy fix that I haven’t seen anyone try but I have seen brought up a lot:

Make the rival/best friend also the love interest.

No honestly, it’s really that simple. The love interest lack the same sort of passion and energy that the best friend/rival typically has? Just combine the characters. This way you have less characters you have to worry about writing material for and fleshing out and you also get a stupid simple fix for romances coming off as stale and forgettable. Hell, you don’t even need to get rid of the best friend characterTM because you could just as easily give the love interest a similarly compelling dynamic and still keep both characters.

Anime/Manga Writers: Why don’t the fans like the canon straight couple instead of the non-canon gay ships?

MC looking at their canon love interest: So pretty and fights good.

MC looking at their rival/best friend/partner: They’re like the sun, brilliantly blinding and all-consumingly powerful. There’s a deadly beauty and grace to every action they take. They’re the other half of me that I never thought could exist, the one person who pushes me to be my best self, and life without them would not be worth living. There’s nothing in this world that they could not accomplish and I am but a fool chasing after them in hopes of reaching their level. Even then, having them in front of me/by my side has pushed me to heights I never thought imaginable.

true, but there's nothing stopping the writers from making the rival/best friend a woman if that were an issue for them. Though I guess an even easier fix would be to do what you say. Just write fleshed out and dynamic female characters who aren't just there because the protagonist needs a partner at the end of the story.

Anime/Manga Writers: Why don’t the fans like the canon straight couple instead of the non-canon gay ships?

MC looking at their canon love interest: So pretty and fights good.

MC looking at their rival/best friend/partner: They’re like the sun, brilliantly blinding and all-consumingly powerful. There’s a deadly beauty and grace to every action they take. They’re the other half of me that I never thought could exist, the one person who pushes me to be my best self, and life without them would not be worth living. There’s nothing in this world that they could not accomplish and I am but a fool chasing after them in hopes of reaching their level. Even then, having them in front of me/by my side has pushed me to heights I never thought imaginable.