I Don't Think A Game Has Ever Made Me Feel As Physically Ill As Elden Ring Did When I Found Out About

One thing that I really like about elden ring is how devoid of anything noteworthy our character is because it opens up a lot of opportunities to make the character truly my own. Too many times in games like this, where you’re expected to project a personality onto a character the developers also muddy that character with a predetermined story or personality, and you end up with a really awkward mix of too little personality so it's hard to be invested in the character but just enough personality that it makes it hard to project something onto the character. Elden ring (and by extension the rest of soulsborne) doesn't do this. Your character is a completely blank slate outside of the many class origins you can pick for it and it’s up to you to determine who they are, what their past is and what they want.

I think the endings of elden ring and how loose the story is also helps with this since they’re all ideology based. Is your character a noble fighter looking to grow powerful and lead the lands between? Well then you’ve got the normal ending where you become elden lord. But what if your character is disillusioned with the gods and wants to be rid of their rule? Well then you can team up with Ranni and bring about the age of stars, removing them all together. What if you’re character's just a murder hobo that wants to kill and destroy everything in their path? Lord of frenzied flame is great for them then.

There’s so much personality you can put into these characters and it really shows with how much fan work has come out of the characters people have made for their playthroughs. It's really the first time I've actually liked having a blank slate protagonist.

The quiet tragedy of shadow of the erdtree is playing through the DLC, encountering cross after cross along your journey and slowly coming to the haunting realisation that Miquella, the person you’ve been tailing throughout the entirety of the DLC, the creator of the Haligtree and protector of its denizens, the most fearsome and kind demigod of them all… Is long dead.

He’s not at the divine gates seeking godhood. Not really. The person known as Miquella is buried at the base of each and every cross in the land. Survived only by a few select ailing entities. St. Trina, slowly wilting at the bottom of the world, The Scadutree avatar who inherited his greatrune, and Miquella the Kind at the very peak of Enir-Ilim.

He not only abandoned his flesh, but went so far as to fracture his very soul. His doubts, his fear, his love. All abandoned in an attempt to fashion a perfect god. To right the wrongs of his mother and people and finally bring the world peace.

His flesh, his power, his birthright, his fate, his fear, his doubts, his love… after leaving all that behind, how much of what’s left is actually Miquella?

Miquella may have hurt many people in his quest for godhood, but he himself was never spared from that very same pain. He may have stripped Radahn and Mohg of their dignity and sense of self to fashion into the perfect consort, but he was just as willing to do the same to himself to fashion into the perfect god.

Thinking about how Ranni probably hated her own body because it made her nothing more than a puppet for the GW. And that’s probably why there’s no depictions of her anywhere in the game (I wouldn't be suprised if she slowly got rid of them all before deciding to revolt completely), and why she decided to make her new bodies in the image of her teacher instead of herself.

Because any sight of her previous body would be a horrible reminder of what she was.

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Edit:

To add onto this, Rykard obviously loved his sister as he was willing to fuck with Maliketh just because it would help her, but despite this there’s no depiction of her in volcano manor. Only ones of himself and Radahn. 

Soooo he obviously cared for his sister and also obviously cared for these grand displays of affection/family power or he wouldn't have had these portraits made, so why wouldn’t he also have a picture of her? Well I can only assume it was because she didn’t want one.

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.

Elden ring DLC ending spoilers.

I’ve seen a lot of contention surrounding the main twist regarding Miquella and Radahn in the DLC, primarily the lack of build up to it in the base game, and while I understand where these people are coming from, it's something I can personally forgive.

While it would have been nice to have some sort of hint to who Miquella’s chosen consort would be, or even that he had someone in mind at all in the base game, they did go to great lengths to rectify this in the DLC, and adequately hint at Miquella’s plans and who his consort will be.

Radahn does not in any way come out of nowhere by the end of the DLC. He only comes out of Nowhere if you’re not engaging in the questlines and talking with the characters, which still isn’t perfect mind you, especially with how easily they seem to be breaking at the moment, but this also isn’t a flaw exclusive to the DLC. The base game is just as, if not more guilty of this with its Marika/Radagon twist.

I also think it's a fine twist because it gives context to past events that we could only speculate on before. Mainly, why Radahn and Malenia fought. Despite being such a massive part of the games story, we previously had absolutely no idea why it took place. But now we do. We finally have context behind one of the most important historical battles in the lands between's history.

Personnal storyboard based on my favorite scene of @eldenring shadow of the erdtree, the tragic confrontation with former comrades… The music of the fight (Those United In Common Cause - Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree OST) is so beautiful I had to do something with it. It was a totally different exercise than the previous storyboard, with one simple arena but many different characters.

One small part of elden ring I find really interesting is Millicent's prosthesis and how you go about getting it.

I find it incredibly interesting to have such a good item locked behind doing something horrible during a questline. It's an entirely needless act of evil as well. Millicent trusts you wholeheartedly and never gives you a reason to attack her. The only way to get this item is through actively betraying her completely unprovoked.

The game gives you a pretty interesting ultimatum. What's more important to you? An incredibly useful and powerful talisman? Or the life of one of the very few friendly faces throughout the lands between? Does the answer change knowing that she's doomed to fall either way?

It's also good that this time around, there isn't an achievement for collecting every talisman. Only the legendary ones. So there's not even an achievement based incentive for the talisman. If you want the talisman, you want it for entirely self imposed reasons, and you're going to have to go through Millicent to get it.

Miquella the kind when you ask him why there's an Albinauric torture chamber in castle sol.

Considering the vast majority of the fandom calls Ranni a spoilt, selfish little princess for not wanting to play nice with the god and order that destroyed her home and drove her mother insane, it really doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that many would also not see what’s wrong with how the other races in the lands between are treated.

It seems like anyone who tries to break the status quo in the lands between is often painted out to be a villain in the fandom's eyes, unless they do it in a purely pacifistic way. Including the tarnished themselves. 

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Side note but this is also why I feel like any ending that reninstates the golden order as it was (including goldmasks ending) are some of the worst in the game. The persecution of many of the other races in the lands between aren’t going to stop if the golden order is put back in power. The golden order at its core was about trying to brute force control and "order" into the world by assimilating everyone else into it.

It kind of shocks me how people in the Souls fandom do not see Albinaurics as real people. Or even the Misbegotten rebelling in the Castle Morne as something they had to do.

Just want to point out to all the people saying that Zelda would never have kids that her bloodline quite literally needs to continue. Her family are genuinely the only people with the sealing power needed to fight off Ganon whenever he attacks the world.

It’s definitely a pretty fucked up responsibility, but that’s sort of the theme of the franchise as a whole. Link, Zelda and to a certain extent even Ganondorf are all victims of this constant, never ending cycle that they’re all stuck in.

Until Demise/Ganon is finally stopped Hylia/Zelda’s bloodline needs to continue, and the hero/Link's soul is going to keep getting recycled.