IMPORTANT NOTICE: This post contains massive Elden Ring spoilers.
I am a person who lives video games with great intensity. I can’t help it. I like the videogames. I always try to empathize with the character I manage to the point of making it my own: if it is already created, I get into the role and try to act as I think I would. If I have to create it, I just try to make it myself.
FromSoftware games are no exception, although I focus this intensity more towards the characters I interact with (NPCs, bosses, etc). Demon’s Souls and Sekiro were very watered down in this regard. Dark Souls and Bloodborne excited me… but not remotely similar to the emotional wreckage by Elden Ring.
Elden Ring: Precious Connections in a Falling World
FromSoftware has shown up to now in its video games disgraced worlds, you are too late and you can only imagine what the decline was like. In Elden Ring it doesn’t happen like this: the collapse of the Midlands is relatively recent and you arrive just to witness how everything collapses, it’s like watching the last cut of a sword in slow motion.
In this context, Elden Ring has managed to make me cry and not in the sense that many of you suppose. It wasn’t out of anger. I haven’t gone to those extremes. It has been pure sadness, compassion, respect, admiration… I have not known how to process in another way many of the enormous things that I have seen and experienced.
Sometimes you manage to empathize, connect, so much with certain characters that you can feel pain, that something breaks inside you. It is not something that everyone achieves and nothing happens. Each person experiences things from his perspective. In my case, my way of being, my circumstances, my state of mind and the design of certain characters have meant that I simply cannot avoid making some stories my own.
And which Elden Ring characters have managed to excite me? Ranni, Blaidd and Millicent will have a place in my heart until the end of my days.
- Ranni he pursues ideals very similar to mine, he is intelligent and his design is also beautiful… so it was inevitable that I would end up being his consort and choosing his end.
- Blaidd he is Ranni’s protector. His loyalty gives me a deep respect and in him I have always seen the perfect gentleman. It broke my heart that he lost his mind and that we had to face each other in combat. I will never forgive myself for killing him.
- Millicent is an incredible warrior who makes a journey home to face fate. From her she chooses to fight and die being what she has chosen to be instead of submitting and living as expected of her. Her convictions are so strong that she confronts her family. Her determination and the way she is captivates me.
Elden Ring is crushing you in every way: Hone your skills, shatter your pride, mold your humility, and mercilessly crush your feelings. Ranni, Blaidd and Millicent broke through every defense she could have, but it was Malenia who delivered the killing blow.
“My name is Malenia, Sword of Miquella and I have never known defeat.”
After touring the Midlands and reading a lot about the Elden Ring lore, I knew that the Hieratic Tree is the home of Malenia. He came from facing Mohg, Lord of Blood, so he knew that Miquella, Malenia’s brother, dies after being kidnapped by Mohg. Malenia should have protected him, but he was “in a coma” after the war on Caelid and the fight against General Radahn.
My intention was to find Malenia in Elphael, tutor of the Hieratic Tree to explain what happened to his brother and try to ally with her to finish the fight that started.
Advancing through the Hieratic Tree was not easy. Elden Ring makes it clear to you that the kingdom of Malenia is far above all the places you have visited so far. Despite being a beautiful, epic kingdom and with nothing to envy to Leyndell, the capital of the Kingdom, does not escape the decline of the Midlands. Miquella’s Hieratic Tree is hollow, everything is dying.
In the end, I reach Malenia. I don’t need to go through the fog to know it’s there. I wish I could reason with her, I think. I don’t want to fight her… or at least I want to avoid killing her. I take one last look at the descriptions of all the items and walk through the golden mist.
The cinematic shows what I was afraid of: Malenia sitting on her throne, dejected and melancholic, caressing her brother’s tree, his helmet and the Valkyrie prosthetic at his feet. Their gold and white legs they are also prosthetics that Miquella provided him while trying to stop the curse he was born with: the Red Rot.
The leaves of the tree fall as the breeze blows them away. It’s a malenia defeated and sad because when she returned wounded from the war she did not find her beloved brother.
“I have been dreaming for so long… that my flesh is now golden… and my blood has rotted. I left countless corpses in my wake. All waiting… for a loved one.”
I will never know if Malenia knew her brother’s fate, if she knew where he was and if she expected him to come back from where he was, to be free from Mohg or from death itself. I will never know because as she utters these words so full of sorrow and guilt, Malenia prepares for battle… the last. And he warns me:
“Listen to what I tell you. My name is Malenia, Sword of Miquella, and I have never known defeat.”
I keep hoping interact with her until the last moment, until your life appears at the bottom of the screen. When I lay eyes on her again it’s too late, she’s lunged at me and kills me with several quick swings of her katana. “You are very cruel, Elden Ring”, I think.
“You know no defeat, but you have nothing left to fight for…that is full blown defeat, Malenia,” I shout back at him as I reappear in grace.
I have a soft spot for fallen warriors…
After returning home dying from the war on kaelid, of trying so hard to achieve victory that he transforms an entire region with his Red Rot and leaving General Radahn poisoned and wasting away because he couldn’t finish the job; The first thing Malenia does when she sees me is attack me. It’s broken.
“The most dangerous moment for a wolf is when it is injured…”, I reflect as I role-play the situation. I try again and again. He continued to try to take the life out of him while I’m looking for some dialogue to offer me the opportunity to stop fighting and interact with her. Nothing, so I take one last hit to take the life bar out of her.
“Well, that’s it, Malenia, you wanted it. I hope you find peace”, I think as I hold back the first tears with a knot in my chest. I’m going to drop the controller on the table when another cutscene plays. Malenia falls to the ground and my character looks up to where she was looking at first: Miquella’s face carved on the tree. “I wanted to help you, Malenia…”, I think as the Valkyrie’s body falls to the ground.
“Wait. The scarlet flower blooms once more. You will witness the true terror. Now, fuck you!” says Malenia as she re-emerges from a beautiful flower of pure Red Rot. I am speechless. I am unable to believe it. I am overwhelmed by such beauty.
Malenia is reborn as a goddess– Huge red rot wings shedding butterflies and naked body, showing the golden prosthetics and rot scars. To this day I am still speechless. The dialogue, the scene, the music, the character design… it is of an indescribable beauty for me. I’m not exaggerating.
Obviously, she walks over me every time I try to beat her. It is clear to me that Malenia doesn’t want to talk and I understand her: she has lost everything, her world is falling apart, she knows the taste of defeat and is broken with pain. Who wouldn’t sweep the world in his state?
I can’t with her, I’m incapable, so I summon two other players to defeat her. I’m lucky because we beat her quickly and on the first try, the fight only lasts a few minutes. Malenia, Goddess of Putrefaction dies Without saying a word. I feel bad very bad. I rest in grace and when I get up a huge flower appears… it’s Malenia. I let go of the controller, throw my hands up to my face, and start to cry.
The beauty of Malenia, Goddess of Putrefaction
I don’t know if I’ve fully understood all aspects of Malenia’s history and honestly I don’t know if I want to. As far as I know, Malenia is a beautiful character on all levels. A disgraced warrior who has lost everything, who fights to the end despite being broken in pain and finally blossoms as a goddess in the greatest adversity.
His Red Rot, which is commonly seen as negative in every way, to me represents a natural and important element in the cycle of life: the decomposition that ensures the birth of new lives. And that is precisely why Malenia still seems to me the best candidate for the throne, she is just what these dying Middle Lands need.
By killing Malenia, I killed something precious and natural. Both she and her brother Miquella were born cursed by Radagon and Marika, who are actually the same person. Both of them would have been the ideal successors… And Malenia was the last one standing of all those who fought for the great runes!
Very rarely have I felt Connection of this level with a character and even less have I cried so much in a video game as I have done in front of the great flower of Malenia, which now adorns the heart of the Hieratic Tree.
After completing the story, I ruled out the option to do NG+. Since then I have spent about 20 hours (of the total 200 hours that I have) helping other players beat Malenia As I watch her fight over and over again, I learn her moves and witness her transformation into a goddess once more.
I will stay there until the end, unless they release a DLC for Elden Ring. My character will perish next to the Malenia flower as a sign of respect and love To her. This is the story of how Malenia, Sword of Miquella shattered my heart.