Elden Ring - Miquella's greatest mistake

St. Trina has been a point of interest in the fringes of Elden Ring's lore, especially given that some of the only content related to her ended up unused. Now we've finally gotten to see her in person, and it seems her tale is one of deep misfortune.

Song used: Twilight Realm - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

[ZullietheWitch]

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.

[archsteel]

"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.

[Xelatheshep]

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.

[Luminousreign]

St Trina purple hair mimics the way people bleed when they drown. The connection between death and sleep is really unnerving.

[Silyon]

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.

[aSingularJame]

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.

[Acorn_Anomaly]

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.

[duprica]

Miquella abandoning his other half felt reminiscent of Griffith shedding his humanity.

[ThatRipOff]

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.

[SleepyKerboro]

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

[GrayAndGrey]

"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.

[AdellRedwinters]

The Putrescent Knight arena looks so similar to Midir's arena from DS3

[fifty]

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

[val_mira]

*Lord Farquaad pointing* the deity thought ridding themselves of humanity would make them superior!

[Cummer]

NGL I truly appreciate how Zulie started their DLC lore videos in a sort of chronological fashion so that people who wernt far in the DLC dont get spoiled and have a chance to make some progress and catch up. Ty Zulie

[MGProductions]

Compassion w/o love is just gentle tyranny.

[ZippydsmLee-freetube]

If love is not controlled, it becomes madness. Compassion, without love, is absolution.

[muzzycosmos]

Beautiful video.

It's like fresh air after literal weeks where i keep fighting with my brother about this. He's so convinced Trina is Miquella's ex lover istg 😭😭

[stairmasternem]

St Trina’s appearance has always struck me as similar to the tree in Malenia’s arena, with the missing gap.

[warmak]

I think that Ansbach the all Chad is the one who made Miquella do a 'Flesh is weak' purge on himself after that duel. We don't see remnants of Marika when she ascended to godhood.