The eyes shown for Miquella here are specifically the ones from his model in the final post-fight cutscene, c8902. Interestingly, this model is referenced by the textures of the ring Miquella's cadaver wears in Mohgwyn Palace, suggesting it's much older than the rest of the DLC, so it may have been planned to appear in a different cutscene at some point in the base game.
Guess it could have been used in the Malenia bossfight? As far as i am aware, there were some cut voice lines for Miquella - making him related to that.
Do you have a patreon or anything? Cuz I have been watchin you for so long, and your videos are all of OUT-FUCKIN-STANDING quality, packed full of awesome lore-goodness, that I feel like I should be paying you at this point. All this amazingness for free? You deserve a good kickback. I cannot state enough how much I appreciate you.
Something that disturbs me about St Trina is where she is located. She's at the bottom of a pit deep underground surrounded by massive Stone Coffin Ships. Miquella didn't merely remove all of his love in his body, he did so in such a manner as to make sure no one would ever be able to find it.
Even worse, if you try to access Stone Coffin Fissure before Miquella breaks his great rune (which I did by accident), then the entrance from Cerulean Coast is blocked by his golden barrier akin to ones used by Morgott in Leyndell. Miquella didn't just dispose of her in the deepest pit to not be found in, he sealed the place too.
He literally tried to bury her within a sea of literal death, putrescence. Such that no one would be able to recover her. Wild stuff In a weird and twisted way, however, i’m glad that St. Trina didn’t have a PURE depressing fate like others. Her sacrifice, following inline with Elden Ring’s theme of Heroism and Ambition, was able to bring about new life.….. Death itself was able to resurrect St. Trina into new form of life, the form we see influencing the power of Ancient Death deep in the fissure. Sure, she’s disfigured, but it’s sort of poetic that her sacrifice was able to bring Life to Death around her, and vice versa.
I almost wonder if there was still some attempted kindness in this action. Sealing her away, for her own safety as well as his later plans. He may have abandoned his love but something about this act always struck me as particularly tragic. It's stated he failed to save her, after all.
is the Putrescent Knight secretly on Miquella's side and not St Trina's? you could argue that he's not there to protect her, but to prevent her from being found ( miquella's goal )
Also his arms, legs, heart, flesh, fears… Miquella attempted to sacrifice himself, and his other self, to make the world gentler. It did not end up working.
The ghost in the coffin fissure calls him out on this. "How can you hope to save those beyond hope, if you cannot even save your other self?" Or something along those lines. Kind of implies Trina was holding him back from becoming a god. Regardless, this is his Order's 'original sin' in a way. His Omen sewer, a hidden shadow locked away. His loving other self, and he abandoned her. The truth that he could do such a thing would demolish faith in his order. He was too brash and ironically emotional to become a god as himself. Perhaps more of the Golden Order self-hate syndrome like Morgott. Like Ymir said, "A tragedy if ever there was one."
@@WanderedIn It made me come to the realization that Miquella has practically been trying to play Dark Souls this whole time. While the Tarnished have been trying to fight for change in some form or another, Miquella is trying to STOP change in favor of his own visions of the Lands Between. It comes to no surprise that the one thing that Miquella doesn't want in his own personal lil golden age is entropy... because entropy does not care for the feelings and beliefs of others, not even those lulled by a fake god, or even that of the fake god's own feelings and beliefs. It is a fundamental force of reality, alongside order. Therefor, it simply is.
One thing I noticed is how St Trina is coming out of a flower whilst all of Radagon's statues depict him coming out of tree roots. They are both the alter egos of Gods after all.
@@katonbot so was st. trina until miquella removed her literally. The alter egos of the gods were legitimately different people inhabiting the same body and changing appearances when they switched
if you look a little closer at the statues the radagon i think its a little different. radagon IS atop a tree stump, but behind him is a crossed lattice. i always thought that was meant to represent how hes sort of holding it all together after the age of plenty under godfrey ended, and he started his reign as elden lord. the erdtree as we see it isnt even a tree anymore, its an illusion, proven by the fact that we burn it and yet we still get another erdtree in 3 of the endings. Radagon's whole shtick as "the leal hound of the golden order" is him attempting to support and maintain the Golden Order even after shit has hit the fan and the world is sorta burning down around him. The lattice represents that support.
Seeing the "other halfs" aspect with Marika/Radagon and Miquella/St. Trina I finally understand why the D brothers, despite seen as a abomination by others, was welcomed into the golden order. Their existence mirrors that of divinity
@@SpremeCalamiThe one you meet is D in the roundtable hold, and the other one is Darian, can be found at the Siofra Aqueduct. They are said to be brothers, but it's more likely they share the same bodies with two different entities. Cmiiw.
Exactly my thought! Although they are easy to overlook because they may not appear as proactive or impactful as some characters, D brothers are themselves a symbol to Golden Order and what's happening to it. In addition to them being inseperable twins, their relationship to Death allows them more layers, making them one (two?) of the most profound characters. The twin's armor appears to have two people intertwined, one in gold awake and the other one in silver dormant. This, to me, has always been a sort of symbolism to the sun and the moon. Like... how the older brother is active under the sun and Erdtree's golden light, and the other sleeping in Eternal City, a place closely related to silver. And the Sun and the Moon intertwined makes Eclipse, explaining why D is related to Death, also. The twins provide so much insight and symbolism. They worth more attention and love.
@@vylet9807 Yep and all Elden Ring is full of "Gold and Silver" theme. Classic relationship Int and Faith from Demon Souls, Ancient Dragons and Drakes, D and D, Erdtree and Shadowtree, Light and Dark, kinda 5-6 characters who have a secret identity, a hidden part or became something opposite to their previous life. (Coff Coff Martin coff coff ICE and FIRE coff coff)
"You must... Kill Miquella... Grant him forgiveness." This is what assures me, more than anything, that we're doing the right thing by killing Miquella. It's not about revenge, or justice, or undoing the harm he's done. Killing him doesn't fix Caelid, it doesn't save St. Trina, but it does grant him _mercy._ Freeing him from Godhood, before it does to him what it did to Marika.
Nah man I'll be honest, I got spoiled by a comment in the trailer that the promised consort Miquella was talking to wasn't the player, at that point I knew I was gonna kill him purely out of spite if I couldn't make him my waifu Turned out it was more difficult than expected, but I'll be damned if there's a femboy god and I'm not the one railing him, good ol' Ranni will have to suffice
@@mrsneedleton3254 ... I really should have just said that "I was doing the right thing" rather than including potential commentors with a "we're." I know _I_ was doing it to grant St. Trina's wish, but I should have never assumed decency from gamers. Thank you for showing me the error of my ways.
Yeah glad I didn't miss St. Trina's dialogue, albeit I laughed out loud the first time I drank the nectar. As much as I love Miquella's design he very much needs to rest and St. Trina being the part of him that does eternally shows exactly what he needs.
This is why I think that the whole "love" bit was always an illusion, he wants to rule, but he has seen that pure brute force like his mother did doesn't last, do he uses a veil of kindness and compassion to fool the eyes of men.
@@guerreiroazul3230 It lasted pretty well. Marika ended her own reign, she wasn't deposed by another. She even sent away her best warriors - and king - and still stayed in power.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn and it began with wars, had the Gloam Eyed Queen rebellion, it was full of problems since ever, and then destroyed her mind so much that she ended up breaking the Elden Ring.
Legitimately one of the saddest yet magical encounters in Erdtree. I’ve been deeply fascinated by St. Trina for a while and she’s finally an NPC. The interactions and lore implications are heartbreaking.
I'm so glad they finally let us meet her, Thiollier's questline is also heartbreaking and I wish I didn't like...despawn him in my playthrough on accident...
@@sticksstickersonI completely missed the guy. Also couldn't complete Freyja's quest due to rushing to Ansbach with the wrong scroll. Oh well, I did want a blind playthrough, after all. Guess I'll just have to NG+ another round of it or fix my mistakes with a different character.
Absolutely agreed, it was absolutely magical going all the way down that hole, fighting the knight, and being rewarded with such a sad yet beautiful figure in St. Trina...
Well I would disagree there, emotions are fully Interrelated to logical processes. Love you could say is just a specific paradigm of frameworks of care and affiliation. Losing love though would definitely affect predictive empathy and thus what compassion would be accepted or deemed compatible with people long term. The gap is kind of exposed in how you can get his fellowship to turn on itself. Without empathy compassion cannot bridge incompatible frameworks between people and thus isn't going to solve cruelty or violence
Alexithymia (blindness to one's emotions) is a common neurotypical trait which does not hinder one's ability to show compassion. On the contrary, the neurodivergent community is on the whole more sensitive to social injustice. That said, I would say love is more of a relationship than an emotion. To eschew Miquella's love would necessarily detach them from everyone, including those they sought to rule over.
Also unrelated to St. Trina but related to Miquella as well, his curse of nascency can be interpreted differently. Like being a child forever doesn't seem like that big of a curse until u see that everything Miquella does is cursed to be in its nascent form and doesn't thrive beyond it. His needle for Malenia could only stop the rot but not cure it, his haligtree started great but slowly we can see that it wasn't sustainable, and even his path to godhood. He is cursed to have everything he does only be prosperous in its nascent form. I might've overcooked here so do correct me if I'm wrong
To be fair, the Heiligtree was part of this whole eclipse plan. But it got iced because Mohg was underestimated by Miquella and Radahn. Stealing Miquella before his body could properly die to make the Heiligtree bloom a proper Erdtree was not part of the plan.
@@FaeQueenCory I figured it was Radahn holding back the stars that stopped the eclipse. Malenia failed to kill Radahn before the Eclipse could happen - as lorewise they ended with a stalemate. That ruined Miquella's plans and forced him to resort to the Mohg option. That's my understanding at least.
I love how they explored themes of identity in elden ring. Characters split into fractured selves, identical people sharing a soul, a lot of bodies fused while their minds are left behind, many beings who arent human yet feel human, and humans who feel like or become monsters. Feels like theyre asking where is the edge of one's self? What makes something a person?
Plenty of the game's NPCs are first encountered as, or hiding within, objects. Boc and Albus need to be broken out of mimic veil-like spells. Alexander and the other pots being... well, literal pots. St. Trina at first seeming like naught but a flower. Even Miquella's husk in Mohgwyn Palace is very... impersonal and object-like. You end the game picking up Marika's cracked, broken head, and placing it back atop her body. Ranni inhabits a doll, Godwyn is reduced to a mere environmental piece. Radahn, while animate, doesn't feel like a person anymore-- in either of his appearances. I think you're absolutely right about the game testing the limits and boundary of personhood and objectdom, and I wonder what lesson could that be trying to teach.
That's because it was never about compassion, it was about mind control, if it was compassion he would have taught love, acceptance and kindness, but he doesn't, he forces him will on to people so that they won't fight, but he never goes deeper in order to end the hatred that still burns within the hearts of people.
@@guerreiroazul3230 If you walked away from this DLC that his goal wasn’t compassion then you completely missed the point of his actions in its entirety.
@@simonealcazar816 but he doesn't, he left the Aubinorics to rot in the Heligtree, he sent his sister to die in order to get Radahn, he mind controlled Mohg and corrupted his knights, a group who was genuinely good judging by Ansbach, he them sent his mind control into everyone that came his way in the land of shadows, he threw Trina down a hole full of toxic waste. Miquella never cared about anyone that wasn't himself, that's why he uses this veil of "compassion", but he wants control, just like Marika, and just like the Hornsent god before her, it's not about "making a batter world" or whatever, it's about his order with him at the top.
@@guerreiroazul3230 It was about compassion but miquella's misguided definition of it, also, even in our world where there is a lot more love, kindness and acceptance than in the lands between, wars still occur and hatred is still very much alive, no matter how much you teach people that they perhaps shouldn't kill each other, they will keep killing each other, in a sense if Miquella were to reign wars would truly be over but so would a lot of our own will
I always thought that was her blood, not hair. Afterall, the buds from Miquella's blood are red and hers are purple, so I think that means her blood would be purple too.
@@raracosi yes, it’s her blood/tears. St. Trina is often depicted with White hair/imagery, and purple is just her radiant essence. My theory is that once she becomes physically destroyed while falling into the earth, her blood/tears emerge from her essence and plunge her entire body. This fits well with the Flower theme they went with Trina’s design. She’s literally a flower, or a bud who is mosty nothing but PURE essence. Another sad/tragic detail, which may reinforce this idea, js the liquid that is covering her face. You could interpret it as Blood, or you could interpret it as Tears. Either way, I think it’s communicating that the colour of Purple is a result of internal rupture. Another thing that reinforces this are the contrasts between the colour WHITE (Sword of St. Trina -basegame) and PURPLE (sword of velvety sleep -DLC), which becomes separate as a result of Death. St Trina’s death/ruptures/abandonment increases the strength of the colour of her essence, making it more purple. If you subscribe to my theory, it makes it even more tragic, then, that the ENTIRE level is drowned in deep purple - indicating the places of which Trina was thrown. And the boss arena would be fully made up of, either, her tears or her blood. Both conclusions equally tragic
@@vgman94 I don't know what they means by "bleed when they drown", but I think they might be referring to how it looks when someone/something bleeds underwater. Specifically when it's a small wound, like a cut. I don't know where to find some visual examples, but you've probably see it somewhere. The blood sort of swirls in a wispy trail, like patterns on marbled rock. Eventually the blood and water mix, but that takes a while to do.
@@vgman94 Unoxigenated blood (from the veins) has a darker coloration than oxigenated blood (from the arteries). When people drown, suffocate or choke to death, their bodies discolor to purple or blue (cyanosis) due to hypoxia, I think. And, supposedly, if you spill blood from a vein underwater, the color is so dark that it almost looks like it's blue. I think that is what OP is referring to.
I'm not convinced Miquella's discarding love had anything to do with their plans or goals. Consider what he had been doing in the base game. His sister's slowly dying of the Scarlet Rot and all his efforts searching for a cure have turned up only a way to slow it's progress. Godwyn suffered a horrific psudo-death and lives on in what's presumed to be endless torment. His faith and trust in the Golden Order has been uprooted because it can't deal with either of these problems, and his efforts to replace it with the Haliegtree were stillborne. All the while pain and suffering in the world has only been increasing with the Shattering. Miquella Cares. His inability to help the people he cares about, let alone ease the suffering of people in general, would be a constant torment and burden. In discarding Love, he ceases to empathize and care. Thus ending his own tormented guilt over not being able to help.
You are absolutly right. His love for his sister is nearly unending, he would do anything to heal her even if it meant becoming a caged god beyond saving.
It's also worth noting that Trina is associated with the concept of accepting endings and death. It's likely that her influence over him was telling him to simply give up after Mohg ruined the haligtree plan, so he discarded her, believing (correctly) that such doubts and exhaustion were weaknesses.
@@SkeleTonHammer Using emotional manipulation to keep people from murdering each other is questionable at worst, not tyrannical or evil. It's by far the least destructive proposition in the game, and with minimal cost.
@@CPU9incarnateAn omnibenevolent God granted freewill, and thus the ability to do those things. To remove freewill is the opposite of benevolence, not simply „questionable.“
Seems like it might have been part of the rite of the divine gate, which is sad. I think it feeds more into the "divinity is a trap" idea. Miquella felt it was so necessary to become a god to solve the problems that initially provoked him to do so, that he would do whatever it takes, falling right into that trap of being a "caged divinity."
He abandons his emotions in this path. If this a rite then Marika wouldn't be so emotional after her ascension. If you go thru ansbach and hornsent dialogues it's implied heavily that miquella does this to divest him from his heritage which he deems improper. He probably did it because he though that he could only love all of creation if he was removed of all that he is, the fickleness of the gods as Goldmask concludes while making his rune, the will and power to alter fundamental metaphysical rules rather than have responsibility and follow a moral guideline to suppress their faults. without realizing that this is exactly what constitutes his tyranny, he did afterall tossed his imanent self into a giant grave.
@@joeymalaria4702 It's not substantiated anywhere. Trina makes an offhand comment about divinity being a "cage" but we have no reason to think she's right. Marika didn't have to give up anything, and everything she suffered was just blowback from her own mistakes, all of which she did AFTER attaining divinity. Miquella, by contrast, sacrificed both his physical body and most of his mind, but did so in order to become the kind of person HE considered worthy of divinity. It wasn't a cost of asscension.
I actually played this segment with my sister watching. I showed her a bunch of locations, including the flower feilds because they're pretty. I was wandering around telling her the lore I knew so far too. I showed her the east cross and explained how he was abandoning parts of himself and she was immediately like "He's gonna get rid of everything and be super evil. One of those is totally gonna be his emotions, like love." And sure enough, when we went down the pit where I had forgotten the seal had broken, we found that exact cross. Since she's read Berserk, her reaction to eventually seeing Miquella for the first time was pretty good too.
St Trina's power turning a darker purple when it contacted the putrescence from the coffins brings to mind another even darker purple attributed to the Gloam-Eyed Queen. The transition between sleep and death even follows the shift in tone from lavender purple to deep twilight purple, with eternal sleep and its velvety purple somewhere in between. This makes me wonder if St. Trina is somehow becoming a new incarnation of the former goddess of death, or even if she always was one, clinging to one of Marika's children the way the mark of the Omen and the sealed Rot God have.
There certainly is a trend of things being strengthened/diluted when either embraced or sealed. Colours are the best way to explore this idea, finding connective tissues between differing concepts (I.e - sleep and death: - When *Malenia* spent her entire life abandoning scarlet rot, the colour is a diluted red/orange/white when she finally becomes Goddess (pest creatures being dull-coloured). Conversely, when *Romina* embraced the the Rot to its purest form of Ancient divine essence, it became a Bright-Pink colour (pink pest creatures in DLC), closer to what we see in the Lake of Rot than what we see with Malenia. Rot in its purest, most embraced form of colour - death flame used to be Red before Maliketh *sealed* destined death, creating the diluted Black/White flame. - Ghost Flame used to be closer to purple, before Maliketh sealed death and it became a diluted Blue/white. - Trina’s sealed state, within Miquella, used to be closer to Lavender or Light Purple. When Trina was cut from Miquella, becoming purely her own being, she “embraced” the purest form of sleep - the deepest colour of purple - as she drifted further away from Miquella’s direct alchemical influence.
Miquella was sadly misguided. To create a gentler world, you need empathy - the ability to experience, even if only in your imagination, what other people go through in their lives. Without love, one of the components is missing.
I think that Miquella’s Age of Compassion/Eden is characterized by the effects of his charm - forgetting old rivalries, abandoning feuds. There is no justice by revenge, no rightful winner chosen over the sinful loser. All are embraced, and thus, all chance to settle old crimes is buried. The Hornsent, under the charm, is at least willing to consider it - that saving his people is better than avenging them. Without the charm, he can seek only revenge. To me, this may speak to the compassion of Miquella’s order, but also to his lack of love: love can demand revenge, when the world is so grievously wounded by sin.
Excellent work as always, Zullie. One thing I wonder about Miquella is whether or not his love ties into his worldview of Original Sin (i.e. the view that humanity is innately evil and has been since the evil in the beginning, written as "Causality" in the original JP text to mean largely the same thing). Perhaps he thinks love is a flaw that is part of that Original Sin, since it was love that caused Marika to experience the grief over what happened to her Shaman village family, which led her to to betray and genocide the Hornsent. And since so many of his actions are explicitly done to distance himself from Marika as much as possible, I feel like abandoning his love ties into that in a lot of satisfying ways.
Yours is the best take I've read in these comments. it makes a lot of sense when we realize how Marika did love a lot. And ironically it shows how miquella can be just as cruel by throwing his imanent self into a giant grave, if he is willing to kill his own self, what horrors would he do as a god to the nonbelievers.
@@Sewersyrup Thank you! And yeah, that's the tragic irony of it all. You can totally see how he arrived at that point - if Miquella was already primed to think people and gods were innately broken based on everything he saw in The Lands Between (perhaps judging himself too for some of that cruelty you mentioned, after what his actions led to in Caelid and what he did to Mohg), then there's no way he would walk away from a visit to the Lands of Shadow with a more positive view of humans and gods. It makes sense how he got there, but it's also exactly why his plan was broken from the start.
@@Sewersyrup but his plan was to ‘embrace everyone’ - I think the only one Miquella wanted to harm was himself, hoping to become perfect enough to bring about an age of innocence and compassion. It never happened, but it did seem universalist.
Really goes to show that in an attempt to right the wrongs of his mother, Miquella ended up becoming just like her. A tyrant who believes they’re in the right no matter what and sees the awful things that they do as a means to an end, while using everyone around them (even family members) as nothing more than pawns. He even has his Maliketh in the form of Malenia and his own radagon in the form of St. Trina. That being said I do genuinely feel kinda bad for Miquella, I believe his curse to remain a child forever was much more detrimental then we first thought. Every single one of his plans fail, and upon divesting himself of everything and finally ascending to godhood the first thing he does is get murdered. He was always doomed to never reach his full potential.
There’s the idea in Theravada Buddhism that grief for the world (a phrase Miquella uses) is an impediment that we ought to distance ourselves from. It is an attachment. This doesn’t mean the result should be detached compassionless coldness, an anti-grief, but the emptiness between either pole- simply the non-attaching to the arising of grief, as a way of seeing matters clearly. (At least as I understand the idea)
I think I get what you're saying. Grief for the world, grief for all the evil and suffering that transpires in the world, can have a catastrophically detrimental effect on a person's psyche. We are simply not equipped as human beings to bear the weight of the world's suffering. It's overwhelming and will destroy you if it stays in your heart for too long. Its enormity will make any small victories and kindnesses taste like ash... The selfsame small victories and kindnesses that are instrumental in challenging the world's grief. Cold detachment and apathy is not the answer; but almost paradoxically, to challenge the world's grief one must not let it infest them as it did Miquella.
I think people forget that Fromsoft is a Japanese company, and as such, are typically influenced way more buddhist ideologies than christian ones. There's tons of stuff that has its roots in shintoism, buddhism, etc. Also, stuff like the philosophy of the three fingers for example with the cycle of existence being suffering and finding enlightenment through oblivion.
What the real overstep in adhering to this philosophy is what we can understand through Jungian Psych as Miquella discarding & divesting himself of his own Anima, which is Trina. This in itself is not only a harm to himself, on the obvious front, but it also includes the ability to not only love, but relate with others as well. Miquella if he had succeeded would have become so isolated in his state of Godhood, that what he'd want to gain back he never could, but he also wouldn't know where to even look, because if he's gone full Super-Ego, he'd never think that discarding Trina was where he even went wrong.
@@TOUGHEYES what of the limiting nature of the anima? Does it limit the psyche for this purpose, or for another also? And could you explain how she limits?
100% agree - It wouldn't surprise me if FS used Buddhist scripture and belief again, considering how much of the Dark Souls series is based around the foundational Buddhist concept of "to exist is to suffer."
One little detail I like is which part of himself Miquella had to abandon _before_ this. Following the paths you're able to take in the game, you get to Stone Coffin Fissure by traveling through the Cerulean Coast. And what part of himself did Miquella abandon in the Cerulean Coast? "my doubt and vacillation". Even Miquella was doubtful about cutting off his love, and St. Trina, and it was only after abandoning his capacity for doubt that he was able to do so.
Something i wanna mention, is that the description of her blossom mentions that Trina's life was as fleeting as the seasons. Which makes me wonder if she'll eventually bloom again, as the seasons always eventually come back.
The seasonal ephemeral nature of herself fits pretty well in comparison to Miquellas eternal youth. Especially with plant analogies being so common in Eldenring. Miquellas ideas cam never bear fruit, Trinas can but they never last long
most likely means that St trina will die, but her essence, her blood her flowers will keep blooming again. life that never ceases but has a limited time.
@MrFallenone but she had someone else killed to achieve in. And has cursed the Lands Between to suffer from whatever Godwyn's corpse is doing, since she leaves for the stars without resolving that issue.
@@tiacool7978 to this day I still feel like the Godwyn problem is extremely solvable if anyone actually cared enough to try. Like just take his body out of the Erdtree roots. Yeah it's big but it's not like it's going to fight back. Not Ranni's fault the Leyndell folks chucked the half-corpse abomination into the heart of their sacred death-tree and then forgot about it. 100% skill issue on the part of the Golden Order.
@android19willpwn 1. Clones of Godwyn are growing across the continent, the cancer is metastatic now. Plus if it was that easy than Ranni could and should have been the one to clean up her own mess. 2. It’s 100% Ranni’s fault for killing an innocent man for convenience, and not doing anything to hide the body when she knew that Erdtree burial was the only way it would have been buried. 3. Say what you want about Mickey, when he wanted to divorce himself from the Golden Order and cast off his Empyrean flesh, he just ripped chunks of himself off barehanded. None of that unnecessary Black Knife garbage, the same as how the Fingerslayer Blade was pointless as Metyr, source and strongest of the Fingers, is kill able by any method available to someone how isn’t a coward and a weakling. In conclusion; Ranni’s a piece of trash who can’t do anything herself and caused more harm than her enemies ever did, intended, or were ever capable of.
Thinking about it, the parallels with Griffith makes sense. It's the same vibe of "this dudes pretty chill we should back what he's doin- wait wtf are you doing."
The most emotionally challenging part of the dlc, the moment i realized st. Trina is there and can be interacted with, my mind went insane and my fan passion started to rekindle.
For me it was when idiots throughout the game told me to seek Miquella, and at the end they were all gathered there and angry about me doing what they told me to do... Miquella being another broken god made me lose my will to fight before even going into the fight. I don't think I can do it, physically or mentally. I am not good enough and my will to fight is broken...
I had the pleasure of experiencing this place completely blind on my first DLC play through and it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in a game. I had been exploring the beautiful Cerulean Coast area and saw that elevated peninsula and rode up there for a closer look, and was just about to head back down thinking, “cool view of the sea, nothing else to see here,” when I noticed a small divot and though it might be a small cave like the size of those in Limgrave with maybe a treasure chest or a mini boss. So I thought, what the heck, “ I’ll just cross exploring that off the list and head out quick, probably won’t take more than a few minutes.” Imagine my surprise when it just kept going, and going, and going. I was lucky to have found it after breaking the seal so I never had to stop until St. Trina and I found the entire experience utterly surreal and beautifully made.
@@justinlowery6017 I'm really glad they made her appear, she's an incredibly enigmatic and mysterious figure in the base game, being connected to Miquella all i thought we would get is a remnant of her ashes or some weapon, but as i went deep into the fissure, learning she was divested from Miquella, she was his love, his other self is incredible, i also was broken knowing she wanted to kill Miquella. Funnily enough the only time i heard her speak to me was after i killed the scadutree avatar and getting Miquella's rune, i thought getting that would maaaaybe trigger something snd make her react, when she did and spoke to me i was immediately caught off guard, i didn't know all it took was like 5 tries of imbuing the nectar, i just luckily stopped at the 4th one and it earned that moment 100%, the sheer weight of the emotion any fan of her lore would feel is insane, of course i won't forget another favorite character who also relates to her, who outright had the best character development in the dlc.
Fascinating interpretation of the meaning of Miquella discarding his love. If love is defined as being partial, having the ability to prioritize some over others, then what Miquella was doing was ridding himself of any ability to connect with his followers or anyone he’d rule over. By this logic, the more he rid himself of his humanity, the more evil he became, all without knowing it. A completely blind love is no genuine love at all.
i would say he knew it, thats why he abandoned his doubt and vascillation first, before his love and fate. He abandoned his fear last, probably because he knew deep down what he would become, and feared it, so he cut that part out of him aswell.
It’s all perspective, I think. People like us think power and agency leads to damnation. But, in a fantasy setting where one can become God, abandoning your humanity to ascend to Godhood is something so incomprehensible to our typical beliefs that we can’t critically or emotionally evaluate it. either we scoff at it or we praise it like the second coming of Jesus. I’m of the belief that Godhood isn’t innately evil, nor is it good - in a fantasy setting. I think it’s a neutral state of being driven by a singular motive. How we perceive a Gods’ intentions (we may think they’re “evil”) is different to how they would view their own intentions (Godhood implies ascension. Ascension, depending on their methods, imply a level of comprehension of reality that is far above humans). Such is the case that what WE think is evil is not what a GOD would think it’s evil. A relatable example I could think of is Galactus from Marvel. He’s a Titan God-like entity that feeds on our Marvellous heroes’ worlds. The heroes think he’s a bad guy for doing that, but Galactus’ entire existence was birthed as a means to counteract the fickleness of Humanity. He’s a ‘Big Bang’, a godlike entity that’s a natural disaster, as opposed to someone who intentionally and evilly feeds on human lives. His motives, scale, goals and purpose COMPLETELY differs from that of typical human. That’s why people think he’s evil, when he’s just kinda fulfilling a pact with the universe. Nothing less, nothing more. And oddly enough, especially in fantastical settings, Gods are more simplistic and vivid in their Goals than we humans are lol. For most cases, there’s really only 1 goal a God wants, and the rest of the universe makes up the rest of the story while following the Gods’ throughline backbone story. And (P.S.) let me be clear here: when I talk about “Gods,” im more referring to the Abrahamic-esque Godlike entity employed in fantasy settings (like the Greater Will), than I am referring to heroic Gods that are human (like Zeus or Queen Marika). The Latter are perfect examples of HUMANS attempting Godhood leading to failures. Their human emotions, motives, tendencies and feelings inhibit them from truly attaining true Godhood. Which is why Marika is a failure, as she attempted to become a God based off Human emotions. And it’s why Miquella is a failure - despite him correctly acknowledging that he must cut his humanity from his soul to become a God, he inversely attempts to create an Order that a God can NEVER make. He attempts to create a World of Compassion, and such is a World that no God would allow to exist given how it’s inspired by human emotions TL;DR - sorry for the long comment lol, but the condensed form is: God no Evil. Human yes Evil
According to that one cut content line, mirrored and brought back somewhat in the dlc, Miquella's goal was to embrace all things, graceful or malign. I wonder if Trina, being his love, and with it attachment, held him back from that in some way. Thiollier does name Miquella's kindness and Trina's love specifically, which makes me think that Miquella wanted kindness for all without particular attachment. That, and interestingly, a few of the nectarblood burgeons can be found next to the "doubt" cross, and a dlc item says that truth comes in deep sleep. Perhaps that very same attachment and love was also what held him back, caused him to doubt his actions and potentially realize how bad things could go. My view, at least, goes back to that Thiollier line. Miquella is Kindness, Trina is love, but what is compassion but their joining? Not just doing good, but caring.
i don't know how often it is said, but i love the screen you put in the background, must take a lot of work to get the npc's there and into the right poses
Most three minute videos take me around 8 to 12 hours, though part of that is writing. It definitely could go by faster if I didn't spend so much time setting up some of the more elaborate shots.
I interpreted Miquella casting away his love as a result of his plans failing. Miquella was initially pushed by kindness and love, but it made him extremely naive. The problems with the haligtree, the unalloyed gold, and giving Godwyn a true death were that all those plans were too good intentioned and all failed because Miquella was too kind for the lands between. Brought by desperation he started his last plan, which involved casting away everything that made him Miquella, all to fix his world. I bet his original fate was to turn into saint trina within the haligtree and bring peace to the nomad merchants and godwyn, but after the battle of aeonia he was so distraught he abandoned his fate. His fated "future self" took form within the true characteristic of Miquella: his love.
...there's one problem with that: Miquella STARTED the Battle of Aeonia. He literally sent Malenia after Radahn because he wanted his 'promised consort' and couldn't handle Radahn having his own stuff to do.
@@Nehfarius but he probably wasn't planning for Malenia to release her scarlet rot. Basically the way I see it, it was supposed to be a simple duel. If Radhan won, he would have been left alone to become Elden lord just like his idols Godfrey and Radagon, if Malenia won, he would have been lord of Miquella's new order. The 2 fought, Radhan had the best over Malenia. Malenia, deeply affectionate towards her brother, desperate to win and give him Radhan, fell to the temptation of the scarlet rot and nuked caelid to win over Radhan. That wasn't planned and, imo, was what broke Miquella and gave him the idea to seduce Mogh, abandon his body and look for the divine gate
@@Nehfarius Nobody in the entire game, including any of the redmanes, bad mouths Malenia or the battle of Aeonia. In fact, Freyja, who was not even under Miquella's spell at the time, outright approves of Radahn being Miquella's consort. From this we can only conclude that what happened in Caelid was, apparently, consensual, or at least viewed as sufficiently honorable by the redmanes themselves.
I wish we could have learned more from St Trina or at least had a few more convos with her she’s an interesting character. Perhaps we could have learned a bit more of her and Miquella’s past
I cried after the final battle with Miquella and Radahn. I went back to see if she would have more dialogue. Just out of sheer curiosity. What i found…What I found…I actually cried…Trriiinnaaaa!!!!
This line combined with Ranni words that she refused to be a slave to the golden order made me understand what being a god is, basically if being an Empyrean means to be controlled by two fingers then maybe being a god means to be controlled by the Greater Will directly.
Zullie, I really appreciate that you've been using Twilight Princess music with SOTE videos, because I truly felt like I was playing some amazing new version of TP while playing the DLC! And it's interesting to see that maybe you had the same inkling!
I'm annoyed that a give up on drinking after like 2 times. I didn't realise that would go anywhere and i presumed i was missing an item to not die to the nectar
If you don't check the wiki for every new npc you meet, you basically consign yourself to missing multiple questlines. Such is the Fromsoft way of not having any quest log.
Compassion without Love is nothing but a curse, and St. Trina knew this, and wished someone to put Miquella out of his misery as a loveless god. It's a shame we never got to see Miquella's fears in physical form, since it would have made into a very interesting, if not a super secret and very difficult boss fight for us to fight against. I don't know what Miquella's fears truly were, but I would have loved to witness it, but it's also possible his fears were utterly insignificant, or worse, unknown even to him, but it's most likely cut content. if the Convergence modders ever try to expand on the Shadow of the Erdtree, I would really like it if they made a possible boss fight that depicted Miquella's fears in physical form, and a Remembrance Weapon to be used as a weapon against Miquella.
They must of cut it out because Miquie's greatest fear is the Lord of the Old Order, aka, you! *queue DOOM soundtrack* But seriously it would probably be a manifestation of his "nascent" curse. Not being able to grow, so maybe a very large baby like Resident Evil 8.
What evidence is there for there being a bossfight representing Miquella’s “fears”?? lol I took that Miquella cross just the same as the others (like “I abandon my doubts”, “I abandon my arm”, “I abandon my fears”, etc). Please direct me to the cut content, because I’ve never found anything and if there is cut content on his “fears” I’d be curious to find out considering how interesting it sounds
Would you believe me if I told you there are people who unironically believe “I would rather have found another Scadutree fragment than have met St. Trina at this spot”?
I don't see abandoning his love as being impartial. I see it as abandoning his doubt. Like he KNEW his plan was insane and wrong, but rather than abandon it, he chose to totally lose his ability to care instead. Trina was his moral compass, and he chose to abandon her because he knew he couldn't live with the horrible things he felt he had to do.
But his doubt was in a seperate cross, in Enir-Ilam i think. That implies he carried doubts even after discarding St. Trina, and that he did not wholly divest it when Trina was split.
It was made clear in the base game that Miquella didn't really care about right and wrong. He just wanted everyone, the innocent, the pure, the violent, the hateful, to all live together without conflict obviously this is a very naive world view, which isn't surprising given that it's coming from an eternal child
So basically St. Trina’s body was damaged and Started rooting herself to the area she fell into and unintentionally change the environment due to her blood.🐱
Stone coffin fissure was and is probably my absolute fav area in the DLC. It was sooo soo…idk was like discovering an abandoned secret or something but absolutely loved it!
This DLC really proves that Ranni is really the only Empyrean with her head on straight. She realizes no God can be trusted, even herself. (Hell, she doesn't even try to hide that she is as much of a monster as any of her peers.)
True about the honesty, but I’m under the impression that when she talks about removing the senses from the experience of existing, she’s not just talking about you and her, she’s talking about the world at large. It’s an entirely new Order, after all. She would rather abandon the world and what life is at present, in favor of her moon’s guidance. It’s very similar to AC6’s true/final ending. As such, I prefer the alternatives where we at least have the possibility of righting the world without wildly changing the Lands Between itself. But indeed, at least Ranni is honest about how absolute it is, and she understands why literally any regular person wouldn’t want what she would bring about.
The idea of love being a form of discrimination is interesting, because it can be used for unequal treatment or hurting others, by showing too much love or depriving others of it... Personally I thought through the whole DLC that every emotion Miquella abandoned, love, fear, doubt, were things he had to abandon to even get himself to go through the process of ascension in the first place. I think he knew exactly how badly this could turn out - but we already saw in the basegame he had tried everything to build a haven for the outcast, and to treat his sister's curse. Yet the world outside the haligtree was still cruel, and the scarlet rot refused to be cured. I felt as if he was at the end of his rope, here. Maybe he had doubt and fear because he would become an entirely different version of himself. Maybe he abandoned his love because he loved others too much to become as detached from them as only a god could be. Any way you spin it, he's still my #1 problematic fav now. Thanks Miyazaki for the bishonen demigod with a misguided plan to save the world.
You have to remember that marika grieved for miquella after he got kidnapped (had himself get kidnapped) by mohg. Maybe Marika knew what his plan was then and knew that his journey would only end in death.
Descending down that Fissure was one of the highlights of the DLC for me. You know what's coming when you see the purple coastline, you read the tragic message at the cross above the cavern, and then you finally find her. The whole experience was so heavy and melencoly. Grade A environmental and direct storytelling. I was just following along the path until then, but once I saw that Miquella cast away such a sad, sleepy waifu ... I knew it was time to go kick his ass.
The difference between him and his parents is, Trina keep thinking about Miquella, but as soon as Marika divested Radagon for a short period of time to lead the golden army, he was like "hmmm. dayum, that goth witch is sus af"
I believe St. Trina is meant to embody the subconscious human mind. FromSoft's game are intimately, as any good media is, to real life concepts. As she is also closely tied to sleep, it would make sense that with Miquella, she existed as a more literal form of subconsciousness at the edges of Miquella's own mind and possibly body at times (hence why there are actually some references to people seeing St. Trina in the main game in the past). Like his/their mother before them, Miquella's mind essentially broke from seeing atrocities committed by Marika and his siblings as is likely what happened to Marika upon enduring the Hornsent persecution of the Shamans. Both essentially decided to strip away from themselves all that they are in order to "fix" the world around them. However, this is obviously a madmen's logic as if you are seeking to change the world based on your own internal morals, then stripping away yourself until you are nothing but a thought would also require you stripping away those morals and ideas you had for a better world. I believe St. Trina to be a deeper, more selfless form of Miquella's love, essentially what we might call compassion or altruistic love. Even in the main game, Miquella is mentioned to be a friend to those less fortunate ie. Albunaurics and others who come to his failed Haligtree and the Brace. However, the Miquella we see in Shadow is different. His love is forceful, mandatory, exacting, and without any of the softness implied by the word. When we arrive at the plunge to St. Trina, there are dozens of docile animals resting or maybe even mourning, looking in the direction of St. Trina. I believe that these animals, innocent and calm creatures all, used to follow Miquella where he went. But when he cast St. Trina into the pit, he lost his subconscious compassion, basically condemning him to repeat all the mistakes of his mother Marika before him. He could no longer moderate his feelings, no longer soften his love with altruistic compassion and so he could now use his charms to force others to obey him rather than it being a natural love for Miquella/St. Trina because they were, together, a true good in a world of darkness. This is also why St. Trina wants us to kill Miquella, she would know best his intentions for the world, his power, but also loves him or rather the Miquella she knew before they were parted. She knows it'll kill her too, but it's worth it to save the little animals, the helpless Albunaurics, those left behind and trampled on, etc. including Miquella himself. Twisted by his mother's action, we are sent by St. Trina to kill Miquella not out of hate, but of true altruistic love for all that could be better in the world. A tragic end to a tale from which a world of compassion could've been born, if only Miquella hadn't gone mad like his mother before him.
Good comment. I think miquella knew all this, the emotions he divested before was his own doubt and vascillation. He also abandoned his fate wich drives me crazy considering what it could imply. All that was the things holding him back to true godhood, the last piece of him he abandoned was his own fear.
imagine the Erdtree, having to resurrect your ass over and over as you imbibe it repeatedly "yo wtf is this tarnished doing? why do they keep dying in such short interval?"
I think resurections and guaidance of Grace is directly Marika's doing. I imagine her mentally banging pots and pans to wake you up because Land Between still need a Lord and you are her best candidate.
"Here I abandon my love." Compassion without love is just pity. Godhood without love leads to tyranny. Without fear, doubt, and indecisiveness, there's inflexibility. Wirhout eyes, there's no possibility to _see_ mistakes. Without St. Trina - his other self - and her dissent, he has no conscience. He was a genius, and he knew it, but the biggest flaw of genius is the lack of self-awareness - they are so sure of their intelligence they have a hard time accepting that they may be in the wrong. That's why you can see highly intelligent people falling for scams or conspiracy theories or making bad decisions. Miquella is no different: he convinced himself he could get rid of his flaws by discarding what made him human. Instead, what remains are his flaws. His eternal childishness dooms him and his cause.
Tarnished: *Imbibes Trina’s nectar and dies.* St. Trina: Shame… Tarnished: “I lived, bitch.” In all seriousness though, St. Trina was probably one of the most emotional moments I had in the DLC, listening to her soft-spoken words as I respawned. Only rivaled by when I defeated Messmer and realizing just how much of a good guy he was and could have been.
I was gonna say it, but you beat me to it. Messmer isn’t “good.” Maybe, could have been, had Marika not made him into what he was - which is still the leader of a genocide, whether the Hornsent deserved it or not doesn’t matter. Two wrongs don’t make a right and it definitely doesn’t unmake Sir Messmer as a vicious murderer, he still is that as much as he is a victim.
@@lovemachine5151 I agree he definitely not excused from those, but inspiring loyalty in multiple different groups of people to join his Crusade, being an older brother/older brother figure to the mightiest demigod of the Shattering, having an elite sect of Knights who he trusted with his darkest secrets, having friendships with some of his regular Black Knights, creating a clinic to treat the Jar people, and remaining loyal to his mother and the cause she sent him on up until he’s forced to destroy the seal holding back the Abyssal Serpent within him that his mother tried to cure him of, and even then he apologizes to Marika before he curses her, definitely chalk up some good guy points for him in my opinion.
@@doodlebop921this isnt a situation where most of the populace can claim ignorance or fear when they all openly knew and celebrated the jar saints existence they deserved what they got
"Miquella the Kind... It seems you have discarded that which should have never been yours. By no means. How do you expect to save those that can't be saved... If you couldn't even save your own other half?" - Stonecoffin ghost
St. Trina's bottom half looks like the petals of a dead flower, I find it neat. It contrasts how, in the trailer, her bottom half looks like a lily of sorts.
The whole thing with Miquella casting out his love the way he did reminds me of a Berserk moment.Griffith casting out his love for his friends and sacrificing them to become a god. Truly poetic if this is a nod towards Griffith
To be fair Mogh was only a Lord of a lesser outer god that didn't even had a empyrean for avatar and Miquella wasn't tryng to become simply a avatar of a outer god but a outer god himself and so his Consort would had been in direct marriage with a outer god and not a avatar
I like the idea that both Miquella and Ranni realized that they needed to divest themselves of their mortal coil in order to be free of the Two Fingers, but they went about it in completely different ways.
And for different goals. Ranni clearly states her order was going to do away with the interference of outer gods and shield them from them with eternal night. Letting man rule themselves
@@colinnixon7739it would'nt had shielded them tough...still the current outer gods influence would'nt had been removed she would had simply left the world with the Tarnished the only god out of the equation would had been the influence of the greater will
The alternative ending i would choose insted of the ending of frenzied flame. Yet both equaly as bad. Eternal sleep, a quiet world of individual peace, dreams. The Infinite Tsukuyomi of elden ring.
I want to shout out the writing quality for this vid in particular! Always good, of course, but this is extra poetic. Maybe because it's about lore and not game mechanics, it brings out that lyricism side. GG
Miquella post-Trina likely understood compassion and tolerance as a cerebral rather than an emotional topic. This is not unheard of. Mentally ill individuals genuinely incapable of certain emotions are still fully capable of coming to understand things like empathy in purely intellectual terms. They can still value these things and comprehend them as positives simply for their practical and utilitarian benefits. It is likely this very realization that allowed Miquella to abandon St. Trina, believing that the bias of emotion would limit the potential of universal compassion. And this is where Miquella made the greatest of his many, many mistakes. Lacking the capacity to love or feel empathy is a disability. One that can, through effort, education, and practice, be overcome. But it is not the natural state of humanity, nor one that is healthy to pursue. Miquella did not leave the fissure an ascended being. He left it crippled.
Miquella preaches about him being kind. Yet here he is, throwing away his soulmate to slowly die just so he can follow his twisted goals. And despite it all, she still cares about him. Trina deserves better.
Miquella and St. Trina are meant to be together. One cannot exist without the other. Miquella and Trina were supposed to be like Marika and Radagon, so strong was Trina's poison that a single sip could kill even a demigod. Thus was she meant to take the title of Elden Lord for Miquella, but Miquella instead chose Radahn to be his King Consort and Saint Trina was but a ln obstacle. So he divested his love, not of the world, but his love of her.
Yeah especially after DLC makes out Marika to not have been so bad initially but by the end she wasn’t the same anymore. Whether just because of what she went through or because she shed her humanity as well we’ll never know.
I believe that that the purpose behind St. Trina being thrown away was showing how Miquella was so desperate to finally "bloom" and get through his curse of never coming to fruition. He was so desperate to fulfil his goals that he abandoned the very thing that fueled his hope and the chances of actually becoming a God worthy of leading people. However, I believe because of this his reign would have been "good" in the sense that everyone is charmed into false obedience and happiness. Even the charm that he actively uses (given that I'm not sure he can even control it, if so then he was never a good person to begin with) brings doubt that he ever was going to give a true and free reign. Personally, I view Miquella as the ultimate tyrannical leader. He is so charming and his ideas are so nice that it makes people not even question his true intentions. The fact that he charms people really can make you even question if the deal he had made with Radahn was of Radahn's own free will either. It also goes to show that maybe instead of Malenia being loyal to him out of love for her brother, because she was so close to him growing up she is just a puppet at this point. To be fair, I'm a rather cynnical person, I don't see much good where I look in real life so that's undoubtedly going to influence my interpretation, but even trying to look at it objectively I really don't think I'm far off.
The ending cutscene was proof enough that Radahn was never a party to any deals with Miquella. He might have been the only one(or one of the few) immune to his charms. That is why Moghs body must be used to rebirth Radahn. Moghs body is made of blood so it can take any form and it was completely comsumed by "love" for Miquella. Radahn's soul is not reborn in the DLC. It is imprisoned.
It makes me think if Marika also divested herself of "love" when ascending to godhood, and that explains why she treated her consort Godfrey and her demigod children like tools. Who knows, maybe the "love" she discarded was her other half, Radagon, just like St. Trina was the "love" of Miquella.
The parts weren't only physical but spiritual he had to abandon his flesh for going to the shadow Realm but he than discarded his parts of his spirits in facts he also discard concepts not only limbs
The first time I read "I abandon here my love" it sent shivers down my spine, such an impactful moment. A little sad that it wasn't a St. Trina bossfight
That was precisely what would make having a new endong based on this age of compassion so interesting to be heard described more in detail by anything in the game. A loveless God's age of compassion sounds so contrary and confusing yet kind of potentially scary, especially when driven by a kid who is naive and doesn't understand some things he does fully as well as his very deadly enforcer brother.
