As Far As I've Seen Recently, I've Noticed A Pretty Big Shift In Public Opinion Regarding The DLC's Final

thinking long and hard about Godwyn and Fortissax's friendship like

>the dragons begin a war with the golden order

>Godwyn and Fortissax become “good friends” which brings an era of peace between the golden order and the dragons

>Godwyn goes on to begin the golden lineage with a completely unmentioned partner

>dragons are known to take the form of humans and even have relations with them, as seen with Vyke and Fortissax's sister Lanssax

>One of Godwyn’s many descendants is Godrick, who refers to the dragon in his arena as “kindred one”

>While Godwyn was the first demigod to fall during the night of the black knives, it’s implied that many others followed at the hands of the assassins. Due to the rest of the known descendants of Marika being alive, and no one else having a child pre-shattering it can be inferred that Godwyn's bloodline was specifically targeted for some reason. Since those are the only other demigods that existed at the time.

>Godwyn is assassinated and because him and Fortissax are such “Good friends” Fortissax proceeds to enter godwyns mind and spends decades, possibly centuries attempting to fight off the deathblight from within him, eventually succumbing to it themselves but still unwilling to abandon their “good friend” regardless.

Even then it's made clear that the sealing power passed down the royal family is still very much a thing. Along with most of the other standard zelda stuff (link/the hero being reborn throughout time and Ganon coming back to wreck havoc on the kingdom.) Even Fi seems to be somewhat cannon to the BOTW timeline.

Remember BOTW's story only works the way it does because the Kingdom knew about Ganon's resurrections and planned for it ahead of time. So he's definitely come back before and will almost certainly come back again.

Even if it's set in a different timeline/continuity it still follows the same general rules as the other zelda games

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.

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.

"Radahn is a warmonger!"

my brother in Christ, they are all warmongers. Radahn is probably the softest character of the lot when it comes to the leaders during the shattering.

Like, Rykard's house is a torture chamber and he's partly responsible for the most horrific (documented) war in the lands between and Ranni masterminded a mass assassination but we're beefing with their brother who *checks notes* Just really likes fighting things, riding his horse and is documented to be a rather fair and honourable opponent to go up against?

1) Yes I stole poll idea from a mutual, 2) Seluvis is excluded on the notion of being "comically evil" character (kinda like Petrus from DS1) when the purpose of the poll is that blorbo has a lot of nuance to base the defence on. No shade on his simps btw gfhfhdbg and 3) Marika and Mohg are excluded on the notion that hate towards them kinda evaporated after SOTE

I love when pokemon games use a character’s team to tell us more about them.

Take Ghetsis from black and white 2 for example. Did you know that his Hydreigon can use the move frustration at maximum power? frustration is a move that gets more powerful the more a pokemon dislikes their trainer, which means that Ghetsis’ Hydreigon literally hates him.

Did you know that his Hydreigon is also a whole ten levels below when the pokemon would normally evolve? While this isn’t uncommon for NPC’s in pokemon games, you could make the argument that this specific instance of it suggests that Ghetsis somehow forced his pokemon to evolve earlier than it ever would have naturally, which isn’t exactly out of character for him.

I’m not even done with Ghetsis and his affront towards nature yet lmao. Did you also know that his Hydreigon is specifically designed to counter N’s team? Y’know, his own foster son.

It has dragon pulse for his legendary

Fire blast for his Vanillux and Klingklang

And focus blast for Carracosta, Zoroark and Archeops

He also has a Cofagrigus who can nullify the legendary’s ability with his mummy ability.

It’s very likely that no matter the outcome of N’s battle with us, Ghetsis was always going to turn on his son to take the dragon for himself. And looking at his team I could believe he would succeed.

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Let's look at a slightly more recent example.

In pokemon sword and shield, chairman Rose actually does some preparations before waking up Eternatus, specifically it seems that he did some research into Eternatus’ typing (Poison/Dragon) and designed his team to counter it. He brought a full team of steel types to fight it, which are not only immune to poison but also heavily resist dragon as well. With everything he knew, it really was one of the smartest choices he could have made.

But if he was so prepared then how did Eternatus wipe the floor with him so quickly? Surely he could have easily defeated the legendary and capture it himself right? 

Well there was one thing Rose didn’t take into account when designing his team. One thing he couldn’t have possibly known, even with his extensive research into the creature.

Eternatus knows flame thrower.

He brought nothing but steel types.

He never stood a chance.

oh this dlc is gonna be so fucking good, prepare for me to be very normal about this for the following weeks

After a copious amount of time looking into the topic, cross referencing interpretations and reading item descriptions I think I've finally solidified my stance on the nature of the whole "Radagon is Marika" twist.

As far as I'm aware, it seems that Radagon and Marika used to be the same individual before being split apart for some reason. Enia says how all the demigods are direct descendants of Marika, which would only really be possible if Radagon was a part of Marika from the beginning. Even while split apart he would still be Marika to a certain extent. This goes even further with the fact that Radagon gifted Rennala with a great rune when he was leaving to become elden lord, which is something he'd only have access to if he was part of Marika.

The story doesn't work if they used to be two separate people who somehow became one, which was what I originally believed to be the case. It only works if they were the same and got split at some point.

The thing I'm puzzled on however is when were they split apart and why? And when and how did they remerge into one being with two minds?

I'm also curious about how Radagon, despite being Marika wasn't a god himself.

The line "Thou'rt yet to become me. Thou'rt yet to become a god" has stumped me for the longest time, and continues to do so because it seems to imply the idea that the two aren't the same individual split into two... But everything else does seem to imply that.

Is it a Millicent/Malenia situation? Where part of Marika was shed and became its own person? If so then why?

At this point I'm sort of at a loss and would love to hear the opinions, so what do you guys think?

One detail I really like about Shadow of the Erdtree's final boss is that you can tell he's not fully there... (lore analysis under the cut)

...because his horse isn't with him! What you learn in the base game is that Radahn would never willingly separate from his horse. This man mastered a new school of magic fully so he could keep his horse with him at all times. He's the prime horse girl of the lands between. And yet when we meet him he is on his own, no horse in sight.

For the people saying Radahn being the final boss is somehow a cop-out, i vehemently disagree. This part of the lore was always going to be present, and it was clearly planned out since the start. There's a lore reason Malenia and Radahn fought now. Miquella was always going to be an evil little shit. Long before the DLC came out people had already figured out that Miquella as a character is heavily inspired by Griffith from berserk. Griffith, the quintessential betrayer of hopes in modern Japanese fiction. The guy who murdered everyone he ever loved for a shot at godhood. Sorry Miquella simps, but Miquella is right: it was his very fate to betray you.

Speaking of which! I really like the contrast between Miquella and Ranni in that aspect. Someone else already discussed how they mirror each other in terms of love and how they treat those who love them, but fate is another really interesting contrast between the two. Where Ranni in the base game goes to absurd lengths to escape her fated godhood, to the point of killing the most beloved man in the lands between just to get a shot at killing herself too; Miquella goes to even more absurd lengths to achieve his. Ironically, this, too involves getting rid of his body.

And the narrative supports Ranni over Miquella. She's right to escape her fate, she's right to value the love of others as much as she does, she's right in her attempts to stop people from sacrificing themselves on her altar. But she also deserves to not be alone. She deserves to have trustworthy companions at her side. If you choose to stick with her, she ends the game victorious, with a trusted consort of any gender at her side*.

Miquella meanwhile uses those who love him as tools and sacrifices everyone who ever valued him in his bid to follow the path fate laid out for him. He gets rightfully stomped into the ground at the end of the DLC for his troubles. zombie spouse and all.

*=unless you got the frenzied flame ending, you naked maniac!

I always find it particularly funny when people say that Ranni is just manipulating the player and that she’s using them as a means to a much more nefarious secret end, because if you actually pay attention to the game and character then one thing becomes abundantly clear.

Ranni literally cannot lie to save her life.

No seriously, she’s a cunning mastermind but she is a fucking terrible liar. When a random tarnished comes looking for her and accuses her of the assassination of Godwyn, she just goes “yeah? And what of it?” as if she’s not admitting to being the one behind the biggest act of heresy in known history. That's not something you should just say to people, least of all a tarnished!

You get her alone with you and within seconds she’s rambling about her plan, her past, her family, her friends that she adores with all of her heart, how you’re actually a lot like them, nevermind forget that last part please-

Sorry to burst the bubble of all the nihilist theorists out there that really want age of stars to secretly be a bad ending but if Ranni was planning anything nefarious with her godhood then I’m willing to bet that she wouldn’t be able to keep quiet about it until the end of her questline.