Sote Spoilers - Tumblr Posts
i just saw a clip of someone talking to a dragon girly by the dragon communion place on jagged peak omg? i completely missed that WHO IS SHE???? by the time i got there no one was there at all
why am i seeing people say melina and messmer are twins? and that their parents are marika and radagon? is there any proof of this or is this people assuming things?
Alright I have this theory about Miquella, Malenia and Trina that I need to float out there.
When we find her, Malenia specifically states that she was dreaming. She has in fact been dreaming.
I dreamt for so long. My flesh was dull gold... and my blood, rotted. Corpse after corpse, left in my wake as I awaited his return. ... Heed my words. I am Malenia. Blade of Miquella. And I have never known defeat.
It's hard to say whether or not Malenia was in communication with Miquella via dreams. I do think there's some meat to the theory that she split herself, however, very much the way Miquella and Marika did.
Malenia budded off daughters in Aeonia, and I think that in the same way Trina represents Miquella's love and Radagon might be Marika's sense of loyalty, Millicent could literally be Malenia's dignity.
There is something I must return to Malenia. The will that was once her own. The dignity, the sense of self, that allowed her to resist the call of the scarlet rot. The pride she abandoned, to meet Radahn's measure.
-Millicent
Considering how relatively willingly Malenia bloomed for us, I have to wonder if she did indeed literally lose her restraint.
And she had so many splits.
By the time we get to her, Malenia has rotted the entire Haligtree and she seems to be a hollow shell of herself, repeating who she is and what she stands for like a mantra until we make her desperate. She is frozen in time as that woman who bloomed in Caelid, I think, just a fragment made of raw determination to win at any cost.
It's also notable that the Scarlet Rot isn't just painful, it might actively cause nightmares.
Everything is as you said. Since inserting the needle, the scarlet rot has ceased to writhe. Even the nightmares have abated...
-Millicent
Malenia might've been experiencing Rot-induced nightmares for a few hundred years until we got to her.
Miquella's textual motivation for moving proverbial mountains all throughout his life was curing his sister. While he struggled to uproot it at the source, they did find several stopgap treatments: wearing Miquella's unalloyed gold, which conferred a limited amount of his own immunity onto the bearer; and the Sword Saint's flowing water techniques.
I think Trina, as Miquella's love and an aspect of his own affinity for forgetfulness/oblivion, might've become the saint of sleep specifically out of Miquella's urge to soothe his sister's unquiet dreams. She eventually expanded and gained more autonomy, moving on to the Cleanrot Knights, then the merchants and albinaurics. It's hard to say when the albinaurics were brought to her attention, but I think Miquella had a lot of dealings with Ranni, Rykard, and maybe even Iji.
(Side note: could the mirrorhelm have made Iji immune to Miquella's charm?)
Torrent's whistle in particular is delicate goldwork that I think is heavily implied to be Miquella's handiwork. Of the smiths and engineers in-game, I think Miquella's skill at making outright automail had to take at least some inspiration from Rykard's machinery, and a lot of the weapons associated with the Haligtree take inspiration from Carian weaponry. The Miquellan Knight's sword is basically a Carian sword with the glintstone switched out for Haligtree bloodstone amber. Why is that?
(Additional side note: I think Loretta might've been Radahn's teacher in the art of horsemanship and archery, considering she's the only other Carian character heavily associated with horses and archery. It'd provide a good reason for why her albinauric identity was a huge secret. And, once Radahn left for Sellia to learn gravity magic/get a new mentor, that gave her the free time she would need to champion the albinaurics and investigate the Haligtree.)
Either way, Trina would have had front row seats to the treatment of the albinaurics as servants and worse, and there's a chance that that was when she had her first encounter with the Flame of Frenzy.
Miquella's approach to excising gods was scientific, but I think Trina attacked the problem from an ideological angle. It's actually a pretty good idea, since the gods in Elden Ring seem to be ideologies made physical. Frenzy is despair- so those afflicted with Frenzy must be given hope, and they were given a "holy land" in the form of the Haligtree. And we can in fact still find their hope in the Apostate Derelict, Philia's promise of being able to birth albinaurics, in very close proximity to the largest amount of Trina's Lilies in the game.
Tl;dr: I think Trina is a saint of sleep specifically because Malenia was afflicted by Rot-nightmares, and Miquella wanted so badly to help her that he budded off an aspect of himself that could.
This is the source of her being named as the Empyrean grandam. You get it from her after you defeat the Divine Beast and speak to her a couple times while wearing the lion head.
I just remembered something I never figured out - why is the grandam we meet in Belurat called the Empyrean Grandam? I remember looking up grandam and it’s just an old word for grandmother, but why Empyrean? Is her grandchild an empyrean? Was she once an empyrean? I remember her talking about her son, wanting him to fight alongside the Divine Beast. I got the feeling that the hornsent we meet could have been her son that she speaks of. I don’t know if there’s confirmation of this, but if you don’t summon him during the fight against Messmer, he mentions his mother, as well as his wife and child. Could his child have been chosen as an Empyrean?
I just found it odd when I read her title because empyrean’s are chosen by Two Fingers, and hornsent seem to be more focused on aspects of the crucible rather than Fingers. Obviously there are ancient ties to Fingers in the Land of Shadow because of the Finger Ruins, Metyr, and I assume Marika was chosen by her TF here. But idk it struck me as odd… is it possible there are Two Fingers still choosing empyreans in the LoS? I wonder if the hornsent did once have a connection to the Fingers, but after Marika’s ascension and subsequent massacre of the hornsent, they stopped believing in their guidance.
I just wonder if I missed something or it’s left purposefully ambiguous. One day I’ll properly do some research before I make a post just asking questions but today is not that day
Figured this rant was a better way to phrase my thoughts. This lore is driving me mad.
A LIE
I need to check with all the NPCS just to make sure, but…
The fact that Ansbach, the Hornsent, and even arguably Thiollier seem to have forgotten certain things due to Miquella’s enchantment is rather curious.
Ansbach forgot that Mohg was bewitched. He forgot that he challenged Miquella.
Hornsent forgot about his need to specifically go after and kill Messmer— something arguably even more huge than the former revelation. Messmer has led a campaign where hundreds of thousands were slaughtered, where Hornsent’s own family was taken from him. His hatred was arguably dampened as well.
Thiollier seems to have forgotten about Saint Trina, immediately remembering her upon the charm being broken. Haunted by memories of her.
Meanwhile, it doesn’t seem that any other had forgotten anything. Maybe Leda one could say Leda “forgot” her paranoia, but it just seems like that was dampened. But regardless, those who had their memories altered are those Miquella would have felt would go against him for what he’s done— which makes sense, even for Hornsent. The guy can end up thinking that Miquella deserves to die too (if I’m remembering the end of his quest correctly). EDIT: Killing Messmer also means acquiring his kindling which means accessing the means to stop Miquella!
This revelation means that Miquella’s charm is strong on multiple levels. It doesn’t just make you like him and not want to hurt him, it’s intensity can vary from “forgetting the crush you have” to “forgetting your desire to kill the man who has tormented your people for hundreds of years at this point”.
Which is the kind of thing that makes me look at Mohg and consort Radahn and ask, “what exactly did you end up doing to them, Miquella?”
In the Shamans Village, where the people awaited Marikas return..
gotta say i didn’t expect wig snatched miquella to be canon
so miquella does open his eyes during the fight, but only when he orders his brother bride to nuke the tarnished.
also he dropped his wig.
all this time i was wondering abt the lost carian princesses and now its revealed one of them dropped everything for a redheaded man... this cant keep happening i'm in hysterics from laughing so hard
𝕲𝖆𝖗𝖉𝖊𝖓 𝖔𝖋 𝕯𝖊𝖊𝖕 𝕻𝖚𝖗𝖕𝖑𝖊
"𝕾t. Trina's life withered and fell, as fleeting as the seasons. At her last, she left a single water lily. Despite the velvety-purple hue, the flower is in no way poisonous—it merely blooms in quietude."
Messmer the Impaler by Omer Burak Onal
O lightless creature… Embrace thine oblivion, as shall I.
well, the plot thinnens. looks like they patched it out
was it a mistake this whole time? are they trying to annoy me
I just remembered something I never figured out - why is the grandam we meet in Belurat called the Empyrean Grandam? I remember looking up grandam and it’s just an old word for grandmother, but why Empyrean? Is her grandchild an empyrean? Was she once an empyrean? I remember her talking about her son, wanting him to fight alongside the Divine Beast. I got the feeling that the hornsent we meet could have been her son that she speaks of. I don’t know if there’s confirmation of this, but if you don’t summon him during the fight against Messmer, he mentions his mother, as well as his wife and child. Could his child have been chosen as an Empyrean?
I just found it odd when I read her title because empyrean’s are chosen by Two Fingers, and hornsent seem to be more focused on aspects of the crucible rather than Fingers. Obviously there are ancient ties to Fingers in the Land of Shadow because of the Finger Ruins, Metyr, and I assume Marika was chosen by her TF here. But idk it struck me as odd… is it possible there are Two Fingers still choosing empyreans in the LoS? I wonder if the hornsent did once have a connection to the Fingers, but after Marika’s ascension and subsequent massacre of the hornsent, they stopped believing in their guidance.
I just wonder if I missed something or it’s left purposefully ambiguous. One day I’ll properly do some research before I make a post just asking questions but today is not that day
Miquella gifted Leda with gentle gold to bring a soft hue to her faded eyes.
if you mention ymir in a room full of twitter, 9/10 some dudebro is gonna come along and laughably jeer “men can’t be mothers lmao”. which always had me worry, yknow, that maybe fromsoft WAS saying this.
but none of the lore or game itself ever points to ymir being presumably male as the reason for his failures; his downfall is due to hubris, yeah, but not from trying to birth as a man (that part goes very smoothly, actually), but as a human trying to claim some sort of dominion with alien life. far as i can recall, ymir’s gender never once is even pointed towards; not by himself, not by jolan, not by the player character’s convo choices
as that one analysis said, ymir was likely given shape by the devs in name association. ymir as the old norse giant seen as both male and female, then inspiring the character of elden ring’s ymir. there’s an emphasis in gender, yeah, but mostly just in reference, and not in how strange or bewildering or laughable it may be
ymir’s grief for the loss of any finger-children is taken as sympathetic and genuine, and also not laughable. his desire to be a mother shown as much the same, despite his pride. within the game, at least, he is not taken as any sort of a joke, and its honestly very heartening to see
(not that i recall soulsbornes have ever been particularly Bad with representations of alternate genders, barring fandom interactions themselves. but you always expect for the other shoe to drop eventually)
anyway i think it’s very cool of them to have done things like this, im very fond of ymir, and im glad they DID show such a heartfelt example of a non-ciswoman character who was so lovingly set on being a mother
Speaking of Ansbach, I am 100% convinced that Miquella felt he did Ansbach a genuine kindness when he charmed him.
Ansbach attacked Miquella with the intent to kill him. It was to save Mohg, in his mind, but it was a deadly violent confrontation. In the end, he lost. But Miquella spared his life. He made him forget the anguish of Mohg’s loss. He made room for him via forgiveness. He became Ansbach’s master so he would not be without purpose.
It was both a kind act and an egregious violation. And I think it encapsulates Miquella’s Godhood well.
St. Trina 💤
