It's not just the DLC ending. I think it's Elden Ring lore as a whole that's set up as one big Rashomon. With Dark Souls' lore, people will disagree and debate endlessly on what it all means, but they at least have a good idea of what factually happens in the story. With Elden Ring? Not so much. For example, we know Ranni somehow orchestrated the Night of the Black Knives, but we still don't fully know all of her co-conspirators and their possibly conflicting plans and intentions, whether Marika was in with the plan or shocked by it, etc. Two years later and we don't even fully know _what_ exactly happened.
imo this is due to two main factors, the first being that Elden Ring's lore on it's own is bigger, more complex and way more interconnected than any story or lore in previous souls games, the second is that Elden Ring also deals with way more interpersonal stuff that other entries simply do not attempt to do. For example in The Old Hunters it's revealed that Lady Maria was Gehrman's protegé and that he built the doll in her image and that's kinda it, on the other hand, in Shadow of the Erdtree, it's revealed that Marika had another child (Messmer) that was cursed with being the vessel for the abyssal serpent, which is a being that is profoundly hated not only by the people of the erdtree but also by the people of the tower, so she had to essentially hide him in a foreign land, but even then she loved him so much that she made special blessings for him only and for nobody else. for me, this level of complexity makes it kinda pointless to compare Elden Ring's story/lore to other games by from soft
Its overblown by people who dont look at the game in other languages or look for external lore, or forget most of the ingame lore. Your example for instance. "One grim night in the depths of winter, a flock of unknown assassins stole across the Lands Between. In a coetaneous attack, this foul covenant snuffed out the lives of many of the God-Queen’s kin throughout the empire, too numerous and too scattered for her godly protection to save. The assassins’ targets were multifold, but none was as devastating a loss to the Eternal Queen as that of Godwyn the Golden. After his death, the Elden Ring was somehow shattered, and the order of the world broke with it." Its not rocket science, ranni explains she did not want be "controlled by that thing" as a puppet/vessel of the GW, and thus burned her body and destroyed godwyns soul to break the GW and Fingers control, eventually destroying their age. Marika was not a co conspirator, but after his death, wanted to destroy the golden order. Along with literally all of her children being heavily influenced by outer gods to kill each other. (Goldmask even admits the golden order failed because of outer gods bickering, we as the player know the outer gods used her children) She then shattered the elden ring despite radagons attempts to repair it, and established the roundtable hold secretly by binding hewg and having her knights (golden) vow to overthrow her. (Well overthrow radagon. You know, Ra, and Dagon. The vision that burned her damn eyes out and bound her soul.)
@@tarvoc746 pfft, by do better, you mean provide a bunch of context that will be ignored by "some people?" Hmm, doesnt that seem a bit ironic? Nah that has nothing to do with anything here.
I saw someone said we are supposed to be disappointed by miquella and radhan. That we are supposed to see how people are glorified despite the deeds they commit to get to that point of glory.
Failing and amounting to nothing despite going through great efforts and sacrifices is a constant theme in Elden Ring though. Many demigods go through this: Godrick with his crafting, Rykard feeding himself to the serpent, Morgott’s futile attempt to protect the very place that hates him, Mogh and his delusional dynasty, etc.
Sounds like premium copium to me, they just don't want to admit the DLC has a trash story with uninteresting lore for the most part. Ringed City was revelation after revelation giving a nice conclusion to the Dark Souls story/lore. SotE is just a bunch of lore additions with barely any significant relevance with the base game, it doesn't expand the base game lore, it adds lore on top of it.
@@dearcastiel4667 More like you lot were expecting SoTE to be something that it was never advertised to be. SoTE is not an ending like the Ringed City, it's just a side quest to hunt another demigod. And about lore, it expands on the base game lore and explain more of Marika's motivations and confirms things like is the Greater Will actually gone or not, etc. Then it adds more after expanding. I really can't understand your take. But it's fine. Keep hating, but do it quietly instead of ruining the fun of someone else while presenting made up evidence.
It annoys me that the two sides of the argument RN are "radahn consented=Miquella is a hero" or "radahn is to good and noble to have agreed to this." I don't think radahn consented but I hate the assumption that he's a "good guy," none of the demigods are good.
People pick a tribe and go to war over it. Imo the truth lies in the middle, Radahn is a genuinely caring and kind person, but he is also a devoted conqueror and a warmonger. Miquela truly has good intentions and hurts for the world, but he's willing to perform the most sinister actions in order to strongarm an age of absolute compassion.
There isn't such thing as a god or bad guy life isn't black and white and neither is elden ring. With that being said radahn was a decent guy and comparing him with the rest like ranni he was a saint. The only other was godwyn
"We'll never know every detail within the narratives we participate in. Sometimes it's enough just to survive them so we can ponder on their mysteries later."
Liked the theory about Rashomon effect. Certainly does help players roleplay in NG+ without feeling so restricted in participating in a story in a way that feels good/engrossing.
I just do not think Miquella and Radahn have the same motivations or ambitions. Radahn is a warrior who, according to Freyja, "war suits best", whereas Miquella wants to "make the world a gentler place" (allegedly). Both could actually be true at the same time because it is such a GRR Martin device to have two people with opposing goals be thrust together by Fate (Robert Baratheon, for instance, and Cersei Lannister). He likes to upend tropes, and Miyazaki is a BIG fan of GRRM (stating that not only are the ASOIF books his faves, but Fevre Dream, too), so I think subverting expectations is Miyazaki's goal here (whether successful or not). Of course, ASOIF is written from multiple viewpoints, which is certainly the Rashomon Effect in action (brilliantly imo). I have always said that Miyazaki is the Gene Wolfe of videogames, and Wolfe knew GRRM. They were part of the same writer's group back in the day. Wolfe was more wily than GRRM, and I would LOVE for From to make a game based on The New Sun series. Dream game come true.
The Ending was executed poorly. Everything about the DLC was great up until the moment you walk through that final fog gate, then when you look at all the items descriptions that revolve solely around Radahn, Malenia, Miquella, and Mohg; and you can't help but wonder what they were smoking in that final moment because it ruins so many characters in hindsight. The only thing that remained consistent with base game item descriptions are the hints that Miquella used his charms and his abilities to manipulate those around him, which may have included his own twin. While it kind of clears up the weirdness with Mohg, it also puts his entire character into question as to whether he was just mind controlled the entire time, and there is still the plothole of how did Miquella charm Mohg to yank him out of the Haligtree which then just got... lol what is that in the DLC. And then it also makes you wonder if Radahn rejected the consort offer and Miquella made Malenia go after Radahn to bring him back to make him heel... then an entire chunk of the Lands Between turned into Florida over incest? This is why I just pretend the final gank fight is the real ending of the DLC.
I think a lot of people mad radahn showed is up is because its changed the understanding of so much lore that people took as the true lore in their heads.
The parallels and subversions with Marika/Radagon and Miquella/Radahn are interesting especially going back and revisiting lore. Mirel says Radagon came into the lands at the head of a golden host. Miquella was going to come into the lands at the head of a red host. I wonder if Marika/Radagon cloned themselves into their children in different weights, mixes and measures hoping to get the perfect set of children to make a worthy god? Miquella is missing part of his arm just as Marika was missing part of her braid. So many possibilities. Previous lore reads way differently now with context.
I taught in japan for a year and was watching a bunch of japanese movies to keep learning when at home in my apartment. The movies: Dreams and Kuroneko really stuck with me! I totally missed out on Rashomon. Gotta check that out sometime soon!
The amount of time people are dedicating to this badly written and rushed ending is mind-boggling. They half-assed an ending because they had to cut the original one, it doesn't go deeper than that. It's 3 shots on a barely moving character being voiced-over and telling us what Ansbach already told us before the fight if we did his quest. I've been in the FromSoft lore for 13 years, but this ending is just straight up bad and every new video about it confirms it further to me with the amount of reaching people have to do over it (only to fall back on a pretty mediocre story anyway). They took the character with the most connexions and lore and did nothing with it only to pull out new lore from their 4ss that doesn't connect to anything, a good stroy is written with "because" to connect elements of the story, and what they did is a big fat "and then". Ringed City was so much better in terms of story and lore it's almost insulting it's the same people who wrote the two DLC... You'll also note how everybody is conveniently ignoring how utterly useless Trina is in this DLC.
I seriously can't fathom why people think this way. a) First of all ,the point about DLC being disconnected with the the rest of the game is absolutely not true. What the DLC does, is to set up context for a lot of things in the base game. However, The reverse is true....the base game DOES feel disconnected from the DLC. Because it is supposed to be. Not just this DLC but all the other DLCs FS has created. That's how they do it because they don't want to put the players who only play the base game to be gatekept from enjoying the base game experience. Take any DLC for example. Let's take the Ashes of Ariandel/the Ringed city. There is zero mention about Gael or the painter girl anywhere in the base game. We get ONE line to know that Yuria has a sister. But then, other than that we have no idea who Sister Frieda from the base game. If we are talking about the feeling of disconnected from the base game, then we should consider the DLC for DS3 under the same umbrella. To be honest, I love the DS3 DLCs too. I love the questline for Gael and how we had over the blood of the dark soul to the painter girl to paint a new world etc etc. But none of these events have any significanr changes to the base game or to any of its endings. You can do this with every single DLC in soulsbourne series. b) People who act confused or are disappointed with Radahn being the final boss are 90% of the time just Radahn fanboys who can't see their favorite character presented in a way they can't imagine him to be. Unfortunately, they are victims of extreme fandom. Even though I loved Radahn from the base game, I always thought Radahn of as this extremely conservative dude who refuses to let go of the past and clings on to the old ways. And also as Miyazaki's parody on the whole shonen Manga/anime hero character types like Goku. So for me, the DLC actually made Radahn better. After playing the DLC for the first time, I went through all the lore texts in my inventory and came up with my own theory of what could have happened. I strongly believe that's what these games are asking everyone to do. And i think this is why everyone is so tight about Radahn. They want their favorite character to be a giga chad so they now can't accept him being a Consort to his own brother.
It's fine. Miquella is female (all Empyreans are) and Miquella made the vow and promise without even consulting with Radahn, hence Radahn's extreme resistance and our seeing Miquella chatting only to himself and no one else at the end of the DLC. Radahn's chadness is secure; Miquella is the avatar of Miyazaki's frustration with people demanding he alter his design philosophy in order to make his games "gentler" and more accessible by force and coercion, rather than providing a uniform gameplay experience for those who play his games, which is what he desires to do.
@@rclaws3230 Hey there...I was supposed to put the original comment as a reply to someone else's comment. I accidentally put it here. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. And yes .. I totally disagree with your take. But there is no way I'll be able to change your mind because we'll need to go through the entire lore behind Miquella and Radahn. Ok Bye!!!!
I believe both Ratatoskr and user Revanx77, who commented under his video titled “Negative Shadow of the Erdtree Review - Elden Ring”, put my issues far more succinctly than I could. You can skip to 8:24 for Ratatoskr’s section which I’ve transcripted below. Ratatoskr: “All right, let's talk about my second criticism. The big criticism: the last boss. If you didn't see a spoiler warning up until this point, now is your chance to leave. This is not a spoiler-free video. The last boss is Radahn, and a lot of people are unhappy with Radahn being the final boss. There are people that are unhappy with him mechanically as a boss. There are people that think that the fight is too much, it's too difficult, disorienting. But apart from those, there are people unhappy with the story ending with Radahn as the final boss. There are people that will go so far as to speculate that the initial story planned Godwyn to be Miquella's consort, and it was changed to Radahn for some reason. The basis of the speculation is that there are numerous item descriptions tying Godwyn to Miquella. The Golden Epitaph sword has Miquella referring to Godwyn as “Lord Brother”, and “Lord Brother" is how he refers to Radahn in the memory cutscene at the end. The sword also has Miquella wishing that Godwyn would die a true death, which could be similar to how he needed Radahn to die so he could bring his soul back in Mohg's body. There's also that Mohg calls his coming dynasty the Mohgwyn Dynasty, which has the words “Mohg” and “Gwyn” in it. Now before I get to my criticism, I want to make sure that it's understood that these two are not the criticisms that I hold. I don't think the fight is too hard or unfair, and I don't think having Radahn at the end is a retcon or that Radahn took the place that Godwyn was supposed to be in. I think it's possible that if we look at previous lore points and the new stuff introduced in Shadow of the Erdtree, the connection between Radahn and Miquella might make more sense. But there is still a problem, and I think it's the real reason why people are dissatisfied with the ending. And it's that having Radahn as the final boss is more confusing than it is satisfying. So for example, let's assume that I'm right and that after some time has passed and we look into the lore and speculation becomes more refined, we discover that the connection between Radahn and Miquella makes perfect sense. Let's assume the best-case scenario, and if we dig deep into the lore, we find that it's actually completely satisfying after the fact. Well, in that case, that still doesn't really help us during the fight. It doesn't help us in the short term. It doesn't matter that it was hinted at for a tiny amount of time in the DLC. It doesn't help the situation that Ansbach and Freyja's questline lets you know about it beforehand. None of those factors make it seem less stupid when you first hear about it. Confusion and displeasure is not what the revelation of the final boss should be inspiring in people during the boss fight. Let me give you an example. In Dark Souls 3, Soul of Cinder had presentation. And you don't have to be very well-versed in the lore, you don't have to go around reading every single item description to understand what Soul of Cinder represents. As you fight him, he switches forms, changing his play style and in many ways moving very much like a player. And as the fight goes on, you realize what he's supposed to be, you realize what he represents. He's you. He's a representation of all the people who chose to link the fire. And then when you get him into the final phase, his fighting style changes once more to resemble Gwyn's, the first Lord of Cinder. It's an impactful moment and it's something you can easily understand even if you don't understand the story, even if you're only partially paying attention to what's happening. From Software is very good at this. They've done it well with many different bosses throughout the years. But Radahn is an unfortunate exception. The reaction I am seeing from people when they see Radahn is confusion and displeasure, and almost all the relevant lore details that would ease the shock aren't accessible until after the boss fight. The remembrance tells us the reason why Miquella wanted Radahn as a consort, and the armor item description reveals to us finally what Malenia said to Radahn during their battle in Caelid, and it helps explain what Malenia was doing in Caelid warring with Radahn in the first place, which was a big mystery in the base game. But again, this is all stuff that you don't get until after you beat the boss fight. It's information that will do nothing for you when Radahn is first revealed or when you are fighting him. And given how difficult he is, that could be quite a while. I think they did a bad job with how Radahn was introduced in the DLC. You can tell by how many people are complaining about it. But not just anybody, even people like me. I'm the biggest Radahn supporter. No one has levied more Malenia slander on this Earth than I. So if even I am unhappy with Radahn's presentation, then I think it's obvious that there's a problem.”!
Revanx77: I think that Radahn is a symptom, not a cause. By which I mean the reason behind why people are dissatisfied with him is absolutely all over the DLC. That reason being that the DLC has almost zero integration with the main game. There is zero mention of Messmer anywhere in the base game. When people first heard about Rellana, they thought that it was a joke. The Scadutree and the Divine Gate and the veil over the lands are neither explained nor brought up anywhere in the Lands Between. In the vast majority of the new lore, we are adding complications rather than elaborations, with just a few exceptions. The base game did not hint at any sort of connection between Miquella and Radahn outside of the fact that Malenia fought him, which was the subject of rampant speculation. On the flipside of the coin, the DLC barely, if at all, touches on anything Miquella was doing in the base game. The Haligtree is not mentioned once. Malenia is only referred to by proxy as the mother of the forager brood and is only mentioned by name in the description of Radahn's armor. The Eclipse or what it was for is never mentioned despite Godwyn's Death Knights being present and on a completely inscrutable quest. You can have Miquella's Needle in your head and it goes unnoted. You can wear Miquella's tiara to Malenia's boss fight or her own armor to Radahn's boss fight and nobody says a word. You can have the Flame of Frenzy in you and Midra doesn't change at all, and you are still referred to as a Lord of the Old Order or of the Erdtree or of Marika by everybody. There's no explanation of whether or not the body in the cocoon is even Miquella. There isn't even a cutscene for entering the DLC, you just go through a loading screen and zone in. I've heard people, including you, say that the Godwyn stuff was always wishful thinking in the vein of Velka from DS1. Well to me the much more apt comparison to DS1 is Sif. If you went and did Artorias of the Abyss first and save Sif, then Sif's cutscene actually reflected that in the base game. To me that reflects a level of care which is so often absent from Elden Ring. In a lot of ways this DLC is the most polished and finely crafted piece of content FromSoft has ever put out, but it's also missing the polish and craft that I would most care about.”!< I think the direction they took Miquella's character is worse than their original plans and isn't well-supported outside the DLC, ergo narratively dissatisfying. But the biggest disappointment is that it really didn't have to be. Godwyn needn't necessarily be involved (though it still makes more sense than what we got), but the complete disassociation of the DLC from the base game - and everything we've seen and been told - to the point of asspull territory is the letdown. And then we don't even get a new line or two from any characters afterwards. I'm not sure why they didn't just have Miquella as a standalone boss, if nothing else. But the fact they chose the route they did and the execution is terrible to the point of being jarring is what people are struggling with. From cut and change a lot of things, but they usually do it more deftly than this. And if anything in a story can happen just because, it's harder to stay invested in that story. Don't get me wrong, I still think the DLC is good. But this kind of choppiness is present through the whole thing, down to the half-ass presentations of major characters like Rellana, how ultimately disposable Messmer's presence is, and the emptiness of the map proper (hope you like cookbooks). It's not a bad DLC by any means, but it's no Old Hunters. As for Malenia and Melina, it's less a question of "completeness" and more of effectiveness. Malenia's been the face of the game for five years, so her cut plotline (the only thing that remains is the implication she's still alive) has always stuck out sorely to me. Melina arguably has it even worse: she acts as this game's maiden, but has less of a presence than DSIII's firekeeper despite being directly related to the plot. You could ostensibly see her but three times (or fewer) in your game before she burns herself to death. And yet she's the most mysterious character in the cast. Her exact nature, how and why and when she came into being, her eye, why she's the only entity who could survive the oblivion of the entire game universe...never getting so much as a nod to any of that. No appearance in or comment on the DLC. Best we get is a throwaway line telling us something we already knew as we use Messmer like matchsticks. I just don't think the places the narrative (or even gameplay) real estate went make much sense. We didn't need a resurrection plot at all, but we really absolutely didn't need a Radahn plot that (imo) diminishes him and all the other characters involved.
@@VictorIV0310 I have strong disagreements with these sentiments. a) First of all ,the point about DLC being disconnected with the the rest of the game is absolutely not true. What the DLC does, is to set up context for a lot of things in the base game. However, The reverse is true....the base game DOES feel disconnected from the DLC. Because it is supposed to be. Not just this DLC but all the other DLCs FS has created. That's how they do it because they don't want to put the players who only play the base game to be gatekept from enjoying the base game experience. Take any DLC for example. Let's take the Ashes of Ariandel/the Ringed city. There is zero mention about Gael or the painter girl anywhere in the base game. We get ONE line to know that Yuria has a sister. But then, other than that we have no idea who Sister Frieda from the base game. If we are talking about the feeling of disconnected from the base game, then we should consider the DLC for DS3 under the same umbrella. To be honest, I love the DS3 DLCs too. I love the questline for Gael and how we had over the blood of the dark soul to the painter girl to paint a new world etc etc. But none of these events have any significanr changes to the base game or to any of its endings. You can do this with every single DLC in soulsbourne series. b) People who act confused or are disappointed with Radahn being the final boss are 90% of the time just Radahn fanboys who can't see their favorite character presented in a way they can't imagine him to be. Unfortunately, they are victims of extreme fandom. Even though I loved Radahn from the base game, I always thought Radahn of as this extremely conservative dude who refuses to let go of the past and clings on to the old ways. And also as Miyazaki's parody on the whole shonen Manga/anime hero character types like Goku. So for me, the DLC actually made Radahn better. After playing the DLC for the first time, I went through all the lore texts in my inventory and came up with my own theory of what could have happened. I strongly believe that's what these games are asking everyone to do. And i think this is why everyone is so tight about Radahn. They want their favorite character to be a giga chad so they now can't accept him being a Consort to his own brother.
It's not just the DLC ending. I think it's Elden Ring lore as a whole that's set up as one big Rashomon. With Dark Souls' lore, people will disagree and debate endlessly on what it all means, but they at least have a good idea of what factually happens in the story. With Elden Ring? Not so much. For example, we know Ranni somehow orchestrated the Night of the Black Knives, but we still don't fully know all of her co-conspirators and their possibly conflicting plans and intentions, whether Marika was in with the plan or shocked by it, etc. Two years later and we don't even fully know _what_ exactly happened.
imo this is due to two main factors, the first being that Elden Ring's lore on it's own is bigger, more complex and way more interconnected than any story or lore in previous souls games, the second is that Elden Ring also deals with way more interpersonal stuff that other entries simply do not attempt to do. For example in The Old Hunters it's revealed that Lady Maria was Gehrman's protegé and that he built the doll in her image and that's kinda it, on the other hand, in Shadow of the Erdtree, it's revealed that Marika had another child (Messmer) that was cursed with being the vessel for the abyssal serpent, which is a being that is profoundly hated not only by the people of the erdtree but also by the people of the tower, so she had to essentially hide him in a foreign land, but even then she loved him so much that she made special blessings for him only and for nobody else. for me, this level of complexity makes it kinda pointless to compare Elden Ring's story/lore to other games by from soft
Its overblown by people who dont look at the game in other languages or look for external lore, or forget most of the ingame lore. Your example for instance.
"One grim night in the depths of winter, a flock of unknown assassins stole across the Lands Between.
In a coetaneous attack, this foul covenant snuffed out the lives of many of the God-Queen’s kin throughout the empire, too numerous and too scattered for her godly protection to save.
The assassins’ targets were multifold, but none was as devastating a loss to the Eternal Queen as that of Godwyn the Golden. After his death, the Elden Ring was somehow shattered, and the order of the world broke with it."
Its not rocket science, ranni explains she did not want be "controlled by that thing" as a puppet/vessel of the GW, and thus burned her body and destroyed godwyns soul to break the GW and Fingers control, eventually destroying their age. Marika was not a co conspirator, but after his death, wanted to destroy the golden order.
Along with literally all of her children being heavily influenced by outer gods to kill each other. (Goldmask even admits the golden order failed because of outer gods bickering, we as the player know the outer gods used her children) She then shattered the elden ring despite radagons attempts to repair it, and established the roundtable hold secretly by binding hewg and having her knights (golden) vow to overthrow her.
(Well overthrow radagon. You know, Ra, and Dagon. The vision that burned her damn eyes out and bound her soul.)
@@tarvoc746 some people think the earth is flat.
@@tarvoc746 Youre a little special arentcha?
@@tarvoc746 pfft, by do better, you mean provide a bunch of context that will be ignored by "some people?" Hmm, doesnt that seem a bit ironic? Nah that has nothing to do with anything here.
When you gotta make multiple videos on the same thing, that's how you know you're playing a Fromsoft game
What do I think happened in Elden Ring?
I have no IDEA WHAT ANYBODY was talking about but it sounded like a cool story. Strength build goes bonk.
Chapeau to that.
I saw someone said we are supposed to be disappointed by miquella and radhan. That we are supposed to see how people are glorified despite the deeds they commit to get to that point of glory.
Intentionally setting up your grand finale as an anticlimax is a ballsy move. Kudos to Miyazaki if true.
Failing and amounting to nothing despite going through great efforts and sacrifices is a constant theme in Elden Ring though. Many demigods go through this: Godrick with his crafting, Rykard feeding himself to the serpent, Morgott’s futile attempt to protect the very place that hates him, Mogh and his delusional dynasty, etc.
Sounds like premium copium to me, they just don't want to admit the DLC has a trash story with uninteresting lore for the most part.
Ringed City was revelation after revelation giving a nice conclusion to the Dark Souls story/lore.
SotE is just a bunch of lore additions with barely any significant relevance with the base game, it doesn't expand the base game lore, it adds lore on top of it.
@@dearcastiel4667 More like you lot were expecting SoTE to be something that it was never advertised to be. SoTE is not an ending like the Ringed City, it's just a side quest to hunt another demigod.
And about lore, it expands on the base game lore and explain more of Marika's motivations and confirms things like is the Greater Will actually gone or not, etc.
Then it adds more after expanding. I really can't understand your take. But it's fine. Keep hating, but do it quietly instead of ruining the fun of someone else while presenting made up evidence.
@@MaidenlessScrub I was expecting it to have good writing, my bad I guess.
It annoys me that the two sides of the argument RN are "radahn consented=Miquella is a hero" or "radahn is to good and noble to have agreed to this." I don't think radahn consented but I hate the assumption that he's a "good guy," none of the demigods are good.
People pick a tribe and go to war over it. Imo the truth lies in the middle, Radahn is a genuinely caring and kind person, but he is also a devoted conqueror and a warmonger. Miquela truly has good intentions and hurts for the world, but he's willing to perform the most sinister actions in order to strongarm an age of absolute compassion.
There isn't such thing as a god or bad guy life isn't black and white and neither is elden ring. With that being said radahn was a decent guy and comparing him with the rest like ranni he was a saint. The only other was godwyn
you may not be one of the people wishing it was Godwyn but I sure am. What a nothingburger their whole relationship turned out to be.
"We'll never know every detail within the narratives we participate in. Sometimes it's enough just to survive them so we can ponder on their mysteries later."
Liked the theory about Rashomon effect. Certainly does help players roleplay in NG+ without feeling so restricted in participating in a story in a way that feels good/engrossing.
I just do not think Miquella and Radahn have the same motivations or ambitions. Radahn is a warrior who, according to Freyja, "war suits best", whereas Miquella wants to "make the world a gentler place" (allegedly). Both could actually be true at the same time because it is such a GRR Martin device to have two people with opposing goals be thrust together by Fate (Robert Baratheon, for instance, and Cersei Lannister). He likes to upend tropes, and Miyazaki is a BIG fan of GRRM (stating that not only are the ASOIF books his faves, but Fevre Dream, too), so I think subverting expectations is Miyazaki's goal here (whether successful or not). Of course, ASOIF is written from multiple viewpoints, which is certainly the Rashomon Effect in action (brilliantly imo).
I have always said that Miyazaki is the Gene Wolfe of videogames, and Wolfe knew GRRM. They were part of the same writer's group back in the day. Wolfe was more wily than GRRM, and I would LOVE for From to make a game based on The New Sun series. Dream game come true.
The Ending was executed poorly. Everything about the DLC was great up until the moment you walk through that final fog gate, then when you look at all the items descriptions that revolve solely around Radahn, Malenia, Miquella, and Mohg; and you can't help but wonder what they were smoking in that final moment because it ruins so many characters in hindsight. The only thing that remained consistent with base game item descriptions are the hints that Miquella used his charms and his abilities to manipulate those around him, which may have included his own twin. While it kind of clears up the weirdness with Mohg, it also puts his entire character into question as to whether he was just mind controlled the entire time, and there is still the plothole of how did Miquella charm Mohg to yank him out of the Haligtree which then just got... lol what is that in the DLC. And then it also makes you wonder if Radahn rejected the consort offer and Miquella made Malenia go after Radahn to bring him back to make him heel... then an entire chunk of the Lands Between turned into Florida over incest?
This is why I just pretend the final gank fight is the real ending of the DLC.
I think a lot of people mad radahn showed is up is because its changed the understanding of so much lore that people took as the true lore in their heads.
The parallels and subversions with Marika/Radagon and Miquella/Radahn are interesting especially going back and revisiting lore. Mirel says Radagon came into the lands at the head of a golden host. Miquella was going to come into the lands at the head of a red host. I wonder if Marika/Radagon cloned themselves into their children in different weights, mixes and measures hoping to get the perfect set of children to make a worthy god? Miquella is missing part of his arm just as Marika was missing part of her braid. So many possibilities. Previous lore reads way differently now with context.
The missing arm might be due to Ansbach.
I taught in japan for a year and was watching a bunch of japanese movies to keep learning when at home in my apartment. The movies: Dreams and Kuroneko really stuck with me! I totally missed out on Rashomon. Gotta check that out sometime soon!
Shadow of the elden ring
The amount of time people are dedicating to this badly written and rushed ending is mind-boggling.
They half-assed an ending because they had to cut the original one, it doesn't go deeper than that. It's 3 shots on a barely moving character being voiced-over and telling us what Ansbach already told us before the fight if we did his quest. I've been in the FromSoft lore for 13 years, but this ending is just straight up bad and every new video about it confirms it further to me with the amount of reaching people have to do over it (only to fall back on a pretty mediocre story anyway).
They took the character with the most connexions and lore and did nothing with it only to pull out new lore from their 4ss that doesn't connect to anything, a good stroy is written with "because" to connect elements of the story, and what they did is a big fat "and then".
Ringed City was so much better in terms of story and lore it's almost insulting it's the same people who wrote the two DLC...
You'll also note how everybody is conveniently ignoring how utterly useless Trina is in this DLC.
I thought you would have fixed your pronunciation of Radahn by now lol
Try as I might, the Philly accent simply cannot be contained xD
Might as well get raJAWN on printed on a shirt, at this point!
I seriously can't fathom
why people think this way.
a) First of all ,the point about DLC being disconnected with the the rest of the game is absolutely not true. What the DLC does, is to set up context for a lot of things in the base game. However, The reverse is true....the base game DOES feel disconnected from the DLC.
Because it is supposed to be. Not just this DLC but all the other DLCs FS has created. That's how they do it because they don't want to put the players who only play the base game to be gatekept from enjoying the base game experience.
Take any DLC for example. Let's take the Ashes of Ariandel/the Ringed city. There is zero mention about Gael or the painter girl anywhere in the base game. We get ONE line to know that Yuria has a sister. But then, other than that we have no idea who Sister Frieda from the base game. If we are talking about the feeling of disconnected from the base game, then we should consider the DLC for DS3 under the same umbrella.
To be honest, I love the DS3 DLCs too. I love the questline for Gael and how we had over the blood of the dark soul to the painter girl to paint a new world etc etc. But none of these events have any significanr changes to the base game or to any of its endings.
You can do this with every single DLC in soulsbourne series.
b) People who act confused or are disappointed with Radahn being the final boss are 90% of the time just Radahn fanboys who can't see their favorite character presented in a way they can't imagine him to be. Unfortunately, they are victims of extreme fandom.
Even though I loved Radahn from the base game, I always thought Radahn of as this extremely conservative dude who refuses to let go of the past and clings on to the old ways. And also as Miyazaki's parody on the whole shonen Manga/anime hero character types like Goku.
So for me, the DLC actually made Radahn better. After playing the DLC for the first time, I went through all the lore texts in my inventory and came up with my own theory of what could have happened.
I strongly believe that's what these games are asking everyone to do. And i think this is why everyone is so tight about Radahn. They want their favorite character to be a giga chad so they now can't accept him being a Consort to his own brother.
It's fine. Miquella is female (all Empyreans are) and Miquella made the vow and promise without even consulting with Radahn, hence Radahn's extreme resistance and our seeing Miquella chatting only to himself and no one else at the end of the DLC.
Radahn's chadness is secure; Miquella is the avatar of Miyazaki's frustration with people demanding he alter his design philosophy in order to make his games "gentler" and more accessible by force and coercion, rather than providing a uniform gameplay experience for those who play his games, which is what he desires to do.
@@rclaws3230 Hey there...I was supposed to put the original comment as a reply to someone else's comment. I accidentally put it here. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
And yes .. I totally disagree with your take. But there is no way I'll be able to change your mind because we'll need to go through the entire lore behind Miquella and Radahn.
Ok Bye!!!!
Sanest gayoid coping hard.
Bro literally thinks radahn consented to this. Holy shit just go back to Tumblr and cry.
Bro is obviously charmed
@@Synchro-tq1mo?
Shadow of the Erdtree completely soured Elden Ring for me. Wish they’d consider doing another DLC that focuses on Godwyn
?
Godwyn, the guy that got a whole ending for himself in the base game? Yeah right
@@MaidenlessScrub you’re arguing in bad faith and for that I say go kick rocks
@@MaidenlessScrubYour comment equally applies to Radhan’s story in the base game
@@Gotsyn Radahn did not get an ending in the base game. Did you make one for him? Show me.
I believe both Ratatoskr and user Revanx77, who commented under his video titled “Negative Shadow of the Erdtree Review - Elden Ring”, put my issues far more succinctly than I could. You can skip to 8:24 for Ratatoskr’s section which I’ve transcripted below.
Ratatoskr:
“All right, let's talk about my second criticism. The big criticism: the last boss. If you didn't see a spoiler warning up until this point, now is your chance to leave. This is not a spoiler-free video.
The last boss is Radahn, and a lot of people are unhappy with Radahn being the final boss. There are people that are unhappy with him mechanically as a boss. There are people that think that the fight is too much, it's too difficult, disorienting. But apart from those, there are people unhappy with the story ending with Radahn as the final boss. There are people that will go so far as to speculate that the initial story planned Godwyn to be Miquella's consort, and it was changed to Radahn for some reason.
The basis of the speculation is that there are numerous item descriptions tying Godwyn to Miquella. The Golden Epitaph sword has Miquella referring to Godwyn as “Lord Brother”, and “Lord Brother" is how he refers to Radahn in the memory cutscene at the end. The sword also has Miquella wishing that Godwyn would die a true death, which could be similar to how he needed Radahn to die so he could bring his soul back in Mohg's body. There's also that Mohg calls his coming dynasty the Mohgwyn Dynasty, which has the words “Mohg” and “Gwyn” in it.
Now before I get to my criticism, I want to make sure that it's understood that these two are not the criticisms that I hold. I don't think the fight is too hard or unfair, and I don't think having Radahn at the end is a retcon or that Radahn took the place that Godwyn was supposed to be in. I think it's possible that if we look at previous lore points and the new stuff introduced in Shadow of the Erdtree, the connection between Radahn and Miquella might make more sense. But there is still a problem, and I think it's the real reason why people are dissatisfied with the ending.
And it's that having Radahn as the final boss is more confusing than it is satisfying. So for example, let's assume that I'm right and that after some time has passed and we look into the lore and speculation becomes more refined, we discover that the connection between Radahn and Miquella makes perfect sense. Let's assume the best-case scenario, and if we dig deep into the lore, we find that it's actually completely satisfying after the fact. Well, in that case, that still doesn't really help us during the fight. It doesn't help us in the short term. It doesn't matter that it was hinted at for a tiny amount of time in the DLC. It doesn't help the situation that Ansbach and Freyja's questline lets you know about it beforehand. None of those factors make it seem less stupid when you first hear about it.
Confusion and displeasure is not what the revelation of the final boss should be inspiring in people during the boss fight. Let me give you an example. In Dark Souls 3, Soul of Cinder had presentation. And you don't have to be very well-versed in the lore, you don't have to go around reading every single item description to understand what Soul of Cinder represents. As you fight him, he switches forms, changing his play style and in many ways moving very much like a player. And as the fight goes on, you realize what he's supposed to be, you realize what he represents. He's you. He's a representation of all the people who chose to link the fire. And then when you get him into the final phase, his fighting style changes once more to resemble Gwyn's, the first Lord of Cinder. It's an impactful moment and it's something you can easily understand even if you don't understand the story, even if you're only partially paying attention to what's happening.
From Software is very good at this. They've done it well with many different bosses throughout the years. But Radahn is an unfortunate exception. The reaction I am seeing from people when they see Radahn is confusion and displeasure, and almost all the relevant lore details that would ease the shock aren't accessible until after the boss fight. The remembrance tells us the reason why Miquella wanted Radahn as a consort, and the armor item description reveals to us finally what Malenia said to Radahn during their battle in Caelid, and it helps explain what Malenia was doing in Caelid warring with Radahn in the first place, which was a big mystery in the base game.
But again, this is all stuff that you don't get until after you beat the boss fight. It's information that will do nothing for you when Radahn is first revealed or when you are fighting him. And given how difficult he is, that could be quite a while. I think they did a bad job with how Radahn was introduced in the DLC. You can tell by how many people are complaining about it. But not just anybody, even people like me. I'm the biggest Radahn supporter. No one has levied more Malenia slander on this Earth than I. So if even I am unhappy with Radahn's presentation, then I think it's obvious that there's a problem.”!
Revanx77:
I think that Radahn is a symptom, not a cause. By which I mean the reason behind why people are dissatisfied with him is absolutely all over the DLC. That reason being that the DLC has almost zero integration with the main game.
There is zero mention of Messmer anywhere in the base game. When people first heard about Rellana, they thought that it was a joke. The Scadutree and the Divine Gate and the veil over the lands are neither explained nor brought up anywhere in the Lands Between. In the vast majority of the new lore, we are adding complications rather than elaborations, with just a few exceptions.
The base game did not hint at any sort of connection between Miquella and Radahn outside of the fact that Malenia fought him, which was the subject of rampant speculation. On the flipside of the coin, the DLC barely, if at all, touches on anything Miquella was doing in the base game. The Haligtree is not mentioned once. Malenia is only referred to by proxy as the mother of the forager brood and is only mentioned by name in the description of Radahn's armor. The Eclipse or what it was for is never mentioned despite Godwyn's Death Knights being present and on a completely inscrutable quest. You can have Miquella's Needle in your head and it goes unnoted. You can wear Miquella's tiara to Malenia's boss fight or her own armor to Radahn's boss fight and nobody says a word. You can have the Flame of Frenzy in you and Midra doesn't change at all, and you are still referred to as a Lord of the Old Order or of the Erdtree or of Marika by everybody. There's no explanation of whether or not the body in the cocoon is even Miquella. There isn't even a cutscene for entering the DLC, you just go through a loading screen and zone in.
I've heard people, including you, say that the Godwyn stuff was always wishful thinking in the vein of Velka from DS1. Well to me the much more apt comparison to DS1 is Sif. If you went and did Artorias of the Abyss first and save Sif, then Sif's cutscene actually reflected that in the base game. To me that reflects a level of care which is so often absent from Elden Ring. In a lot of ways this DLC is the most polished and finely crafted piece of content FromSoft has ever put out, but it's also missing the polish and craft that I would most care about.”!<
I think the direction they took Miquella's character is worse than their original plans and isn't well-supported outside the DLC, ergo narratively dissatisfying. But the biggest disappointment is that it really didn't have to be. Godwyn needn't necessarily be involved (though it still makes more sense than what we got), but the complete disassociation of the DLC from the base game - and everything we've seen and been told - to the point of asspull territory is the letdown. And then we don't even get a new line or two from any characters afterwards. I'm not sure why they didn't just have Miquella as a standalone boss, if nothing else. But the fact they chose the route they did and the execution is terrible to the point of being jarring is what people are struggling with. From cut and change a lot of things, but they usually do it more deftly than this. And if anything in a story can happen just because, it's harder to stay invested in that story. Don't get me wrong, I still think the DLC is good. But this kind of choppiness is present through the whole thing, down to the half-ass presentations of major characters like Rellana, how ultimately disposable Messmer's presence is, and the emptiness of the map proper (hope you like cookbooks). It's not a bad DLC by any means, but it's no Old Hunters.
As for Malenia and Melina, it's less a question of "completeness" and more of effectiveness. Malenia's been the face of the game for five years, so her cut plotline (the only thing that remains is the implication she's still alive) has always stuck out sorely to me. Melina arguably has it even worse: she acts as this game's maiden, but has less of a presence than DSIII's firekeeper despite being directly related to the plot. You could ostensibly see her but three times (or fewer) in your game before she burns herself to death. And yet she's the most mysterious character in the cast. Her exact nature, how and why and when she came into being, her eye, why she's the only entity who could survive the oblivion of the entire game universe...never getting so much as a nod to any of that. No appearance in or comment on the DLC. Best we get is a throwaway line telling us something we already knew as we use Messmer like matchsticks.
I just don't think the places the narrative (or even gameplay) real estate went make much sense. We didn't need a resurrection plot at all, but we really absolutely didn't need a Radahn plot that (imo) diminishes him and all the other characters involved.
@@VictorIV0310 I have strong disagreements with these sentiments.
a) First of all ,the point about DLC being disconnected with the the rest of the game is absolutely not true. What the DLC does, is to set up context for a lot of things in the base game. However, The reverse is true....the base game DOES feel disconnected from the DLC.
Because it is supposed to be. Not just this DLC but all the other DLCs FS has created. That's how they do it because they don't want to put the players who only play the base game to be gatekept from enjoying the base game experience.
Take any DLC for example. Let's take the Ashes of Ariandel/the Ringed city. There is zero mention about Gael or the painter girl anywhere in the base game. We get ONE line to know that Yuria has a sister. But then, other than that we have no idea who Sister Frieda from the base game. If we are talking about the feeling of disconnected from the base game, then we should consider the DLC for DS3 under the same umbrella.
To be honest, I love the DS3 DLCs too. I love the questline for Gael and how we had over the blood of the dark soul to the painter girl to paint a new world etc etc. But none of these events have any significanr changes to the base game or to any of its endings.
You can do this with every single DLC in soulsbourne series.
b) People who act confused or are disappointed with Radahn being the final boss are 90% of the time just Radahn fanboys who can't see their favorite character presented in a way they can't imagine him to be. Unfortunately, they are victims of extreme fandom.
Even though I loved Radahn from the base game, I always thought Radahn of as this extremely conservative dude who refuses to let go of the past and clings on to the old ways. And also as Miyazaki's parody on the whole shonen Manga/anime hero character types like Goku.
So for me, the DLC actually made Radahn better. After playing the DLC for the first time, I went through all the lore texts in my inventory and came up with my own theory of what could have happened.
I strongly believe that's what these games are asking everyone to do. And i think this is why everyone is so tight about Radahn. They want their favorite character to be a giga chad so they now can't accept him being a Consort to his own brother.
@@VictorIV0310 You spam these comments under every lore video, can you give this a rest.