My Take On The Promised Consort.

Sellen talking about her plan to overthrow the carian royale family is so much funnier if you’re doing an age of stars playthrough. Like Sellen, do you not see what's strapped to my back? This massive sword of ice and magic? The wedding gift I got from one of the Carian royals?!

Last time we spoke you knew I was already Serving Ranni the witch right? That alone would be reason enough not to tell me of all people that you’re planning to overthrow her mother! What did you think was going to happen?! FFS Sellen I am wearing the dark moon greatsword!

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.

Plot twist:

Radahn initially agreed to be Miquella's consort in order to spare Ranni of her fate of becoming a god, knowing that she wouldn't have to if another were to rise instead. However after she 'died' during the night of the black knives Radahn lost all incentive to uphold his end of the bargain, leading to the battle of Aionia

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.

y'know, it only just hit me recently but like... Marika would definitely have fucking hated modern Godrick right?

Forcing weaker and more vulnerable individuals into horrific experiments of fusing flesh is basically exactly the sort of thing she dealt with growing up under the Hornsent. The practice of grafting would have been a really sore spot for Marika, which is probably why it seems like it only came into practice during the shattering.

Godrick is lucky he started experimenting with grafting after Marika was imprisoned because if she was still around she probably would have come crashing through his roof with her hammer and make Radagon's grab attack look soft.

Thinking about how Farum Azula is about the only place in the lands between a body can be put to rest without it being "returned to the erdtree" via its roots.

Thinking about how the society of Farum Azula seem to hold the dead in incredibly high regards, the entire city being a mass mausoleum in which the dead can be seen weaved into the very foundation.

Thinking about how Dragonlord Placidusax is said to have been elden lord long before the erdtree even existed and that he's waiting for his missing god to return even to this very day.

Thinking about Farum Azula having an ancient, more whole depiction of the elden ring designed into one of its major buildings.

Thinking about how the Godskins have reptilian, almost dragon like features and are fought in Farum Azula's prayer room.

Thinking about how the dragons and the golden order warred fairly early on in the Golden order's history, and that unlike many other of its documented conquests, the dragons were the aggressors in the situation, as stated in bolt of Gransax' item description. However what caused the dragons to attack seems to be conveniently forgotten in modern history.

Thinking about the sheer magnitude of history that's seemingly been buried from before the golden order, including an entire age that existed before it that had its own elden lord and god.

Thinking about how Marika had to defeat the gloam eyed queen before she was able to alter the elden ring and remove the rune of death to begin her own order.

Thinking about how the GEQ was an empyrean queen who had ties to death.

Thinking about how Placidusax has a missing god who used to host the elden ring before the age of the erdtree and ruled from within a mausoleum city that worships and honours the dead.

Radagon and Rennala’s marriage is so fucking funny to me and I am shocked people don’t bring up the absolute absurdity of it more often.

I mean, this man strolls into Liurnia looking to invade it with presumably an entire army, gets his ass absolutely handed to him by Rennala and like 10 dudes, proceeds to propose to her (possibly on the spot)! And she says yes!

And then they get married by a turtle!

Honestly when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense that the lands between and land of shadow don't connect perfectly when you try to overlay the maps, even though they were once part of the same landmass.

The two have been separated for many years by the time the game takes place, and have both developed independently through untold years of turmoil, war, natural disasters and weathering.

I'd be more surprised if they did connect properly after all of that.

Something I'd also like to add that didn't fit well into the initial post is that whatever it was that he discovered while looking into Marika, didn't just scare him beyond his breaking point. Whatever it was it also got him absolutely convinced that

a tarnished cannot become a lord

2. and a man cannot kill a god

which is rather odd, considering that no matter what ending we choose, we prove him wrong on both accounts.

There’s something so terrifying about Gideon’s downfall. At the end of his near-constant research he discovered something about Marika and her will that made him shudder in fear.

Gideon Ofnir. The man that ordered the full destruction of an entire village for a key fragment and then abandoned his adopted daughter for daring to question him. The man who’s henchmen died trying to take that very key from us, only to shrug it off like it was nothing.

The man who lives in a world of monsters and suffering eternal. The man who’s so dedicated to learning everything there is to know about The lands between’s blood soaked history that it’s literally part of his name. The man who probably knows of, witnessed or directly contributed to some of the most horrific atrocities in the lands between.

Gideon Ofnir, the all knowing. The man who took one look into Marika’s will and was rendered so terrified at his discovery that he almost immediately gave up on the goal he had worked so hard for, instead choosing to confront, and eventually fall to our tarnished character.

Gideon is one of the most unempathetic and uncaring characters I’ve seen in media. He’s largely unshaken by the state of the world around him, seems to lack any semblance of morals or values and his interactions with just about anything begin and end with trying to figure out how he can personally benefit. No matter what he'd have to do.

What could he have possibly figured out to make him of all people horrified to such an extent?

honestly SAO:A has always been capable of being increadibly heartfelt and genuine. To this day that final conversation between Asuna and Kirito in the end of season one, as SAO crumbles around them and they're unsure as to whether they're going to make it out or not is one of my favorite scenes in anime as a whole. It just feels so real.

I don't even know how they manage it but something witty has been able to write a show that's not only one of the funniest things I've ever seen but also one of the most uniquely heartfelt and genuine ones aswell. They really are fantastic writers.

To SAOA:

What the fuck. what the everliving fuck. I am literally sobbing I cannot stop this - this was the funny series! You can't do this to me!

Like just ughhhhhhhh - Suguha and Kazuto becoming unaligned for just a moment, just a second of him going faster, farther than her - and her sticking in out! Trying so hard to reach out! And him not doing the same because he doesn't even notice, and that abandonment twisting under years and years and years, of feeling unwanted and unloved, and feeling safer when she's unbearable, because she cannot afford that vulnerability again. And then Kirito coming back, older and wiser and more willing to spend time on the people he loves because of SAO where he got so close to losing them, and her not being able to fix these two versions of him together because they aren't! They aren't the same person! But he can't tell her, can't show her how he's changed because she cannot let either one of them be soft around one another.

And from Kirito's side, all he sees is his relationship with his baby sister grow strained under the weight of years, of her slowly turning into something awful that he thinks hates him, because what else could there be? Literally what else?

And her still dragging him to the kendo mat years later, despite the fact that he hates it. That being literally the first scene of them together.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH