There's Some Delicious Irony In The Fact That The Omen Twins Are Probably The Most Accomplished And Successful

people are currently freaking out over the elden ring lore book and what it has to say about promised consort Radahn, and I'd just like to point out that despite being an official piece of merchandise, they aren't exactly accurate to the source material.

Like, the very same set of lore books says that Malenia narrowly won the battle of Aionia (despite the game making it abundantly clear that no one won that fight), that Godfrey's banishment and war march happened after the shattering began (which is literally impossible) and that Romina "created the scarlet rot" (do I even have to say anything?).

I think people who see the tarnished in elden ring as just murder hobo assholes who kill everything in their path for no other reason than wanting to are kind of missing the point of them.

First off, they’re not just some random asshole that strolled into the lands between looking for a fight. Our character was resurrected, torn from their home and thrown into this unrelenting hellscape against their will. They are just as much victims of circumstance as everyone else in this game.

Also there’s the whole aspect that we’re supposed to project a personality onto the tarnished ourselves. They’re not literally mute, determined, personalityless killers. If someone comes out of elden ring thinking the tarnished is just mindlessly killing everything in their path for no reason then I think that’s more of a problem with the player themselves. 

That being said, if someone doesn’t care to do that sort of character building or likes the idea of that being their tarnished’s personality then that’s perfectly fine, I’m not here to judge how you play the game. I’m just not a fan of people who call the tarnished in general a horrible person for doing what they do.

I know this is basically a pointless argument but the fact that people generalise the tarnished as one character instead of what they actually are (a blank slate that can be any type of character) kinda annoys me. Your tarnished and mine are not going to be the same type of person.

TLDR

“The tarnished in elden ring is an asshole” no, no, no, your tarnished is an asshole, mine is fine actually.

(I know this isn't about comparing character morality but I really wanna write my thoughts down on this real quick, sorry) Honestly Ranni’s acts are significantly more justifiable than Godfreys. Ranni only did the bare minimum she needed to separate herself from the greater will and eventually overthrow it. She was desperate, and I can’t blame her because from the way she describes the GW it sounds like it’s hardly more than a controlling parasite. Bottom line is that Ranni wouldn’t have had to resort to doing the things she did if she was allowed even a slither of autonomy over her own flesh, and wasn’t predestined to become the GW’s puppet.

It's also important to note that the shattering and everything that came from it was mostly Marika’s doing. I’m not entirely comfortable with blaming her for every atrocity her children committed but she definitely has to shoulder a significant amount of the blame for the whole “ordering her insanely powerful family to fight over the titles they desire all the while giving them a massive power boost via the shards” thing.

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Godfrey on the other hand is absolutely batshit. I love him but the dude really needed to chill the fuck out. Even before he became Marika’s lord he was presumably a bloodthirsty warrior who would fight and kill anyone and anything he could. And after becoming Marika’s lord he played a pivotal role in the destruction of pretty much any society who fell outside of the GW’s very strict circle. And after leaving Marika with the tarnished they presumably went back to fighting anything and anyone they could find. He was the aggressor in every single conflict he ever fought that we know of. I'd argue that purely from a moral standpoint he's probably worse Radagon, who atleast attempted to find peaceful solutions to the wars he was waging. Which is odd because Radagon seems to be the more disliked out of the two.

“it’s fine and actually heroic to violently conquer nations and kill thousands just because their existence threatens your empire as long as it makes your empire prosperous and benevolent and benefitting everyone’s well-being! wait what do you mean the empire is slaughtering albinaurics and omen and making misbegotten into slaves”

btw I'm calling it now that those eye markings that Melina and Ranni have are actually marks of empyreans. (which would also make Melina herself one aswell.)

I just think it's slightly too suspect that we never see the full face of a living empyrean in the game.

Marika has her eyes covered in the intro and is missing one half of her face in the ending (the perfect place for an eye marking to have been without leaving any evidence)

Malenia's upper face has been affected by the rot and thus no eye marking would be visible.

Miquella's face is also never properly shown in game. Even in the shadow of the erdtree teaser it is kept out of shot of the camera.

And while Ranni does have an eye marking on her puppet body, we have no idea what her original one might have had, as it's been burnt beyond recognition and no depictions of living Ranni exist in game.

Even if it isn't the eye marking, there's been a very deliberate choice to keep empyrean's faces hidden throughout the game and I feel like it means something.

This could also add to why susie acts so… reluctant? About her bullying of Kris in chapter 1. In the first chapter, while she’s still mean I notice that she almost constantly backs down on her threats and jabs, never even waiting for Kris to react to the things she says.

Something that a lot of people have pointed out is just how much worse Susie’s bullying is in the secret post compared to her more reserved nature in the game, (to an uncomfortable degree) to the point where it was theorised that it was intentionally written to seem out of character.

But now that you've brought this up, it seems much more likely that Susie did used to be so much worse, it's just that whatever Kris said to her that day shook her so badly that she started to mellow out.

Okay so Noelle’s private post about Kris and Susie, yeah that post.

So I see a lot of people theorising that Kris replied back to Susie something like ‘what like you?’ or ‘like your mom?’ or something like that, which is a possibility.

However I saw one person on twitter suggest another possible reply that is even more harrowing in my opinion.

And that was “good.”

I’m actually more inclined to believe that especially because of Susie reaction afterwards.

If what Kris had replied was insulting I think she would just get more angry, but instead, Susie was shocked. Noelle said that her whole demeanour changed and that she backed off quickly , this is important, it indicates that was Kris said disturbed her.

I think that sort of reaction out of Susie would’ve come more from Kris indicating wanting to be gone, or some sort of agreement that their mum would be happy if they did so.

Noelle also mentioned that Susie is head was held low, which of course may just be because she was upset at what Kris said if it was something equally cruel. However, to me it also shows shame,

because she realised that she was picking on someone who already wants to disappear.

Monster hunter wilds spoilers

The way I screamed when I saw that Olivia was going to be joining me while fighting the fish apex. Story hunts with other characters was something I really wanted out of wilds but wasn't confident we'd actually get, so when I saw that she was still there after the cutscene transition I was so excited!

That sort of thing was one of the big things I thought was missing with world's story. Especially when it came to Nergigante and Teostra, where it felt like there were very prominent characters tied to the monsters/missions, but it really stands out with just about any hunt where there's another well established and more experienced hunter around and they just turn to you like "ok you can handle this right? I'm gonna go back to camp and have a cuppa" So seeing the fellow hunters in wilds actually do something alongside you was so incredibly exciting and makes it feel much more like you're part of a team.

Nothing in monster hunter wilds feels worse than someone joining your hunt (uninvited) right at the end and stealing literally half your Zenny from doing nothing.

Ingo and Akari spinoff series of the two travelling through space and time trying to get back to their present day

call it "conductor who"

I actually stopped watching a gaming youtuber a while ago because they were playing a horror game and skipping all the lore notes, saying how it’s the same sort of stuff in every game, all the while complaining about world details that seemed abnormal, which were actually explained in those very notes.

It’s one thing to misinterpret the lore, but it’s another thing all together to go out of your way to ignore it and then complain that the world design makes no sense.

While I doubt they'll actually get added to wilds, it occurred to me recently that Seltas and Seltas queen would work really fucking well with wilds' Alpha/Pack system.

Like, imagine a quest similar to Alpha Doshaguma and it's massive pack that happens in the windward plains but it's a Seltas queen and her swarm of Seltas followers in the scarlet forest. I just think that'd be neat, especially with how underutilised the Alpha monsters were in wilds.