St. Trina is described as a young girl or young boy, and probably looks pretty androgynous to pass as either. What about Melina's appearance makes you think she's a young boy?
I think it's a bad theory. The thing about all of these types of theories is that people come up with all these parallels and similarities between characters that could be super interesting to dig into, but then the conclusion is always just "they must be the same character".
As it stands, there is absolutely no reason for Melina to be anyone other than Melina. We can list as many connections as we want between her and Trina, or the GEQ, or Boc's mum, but it won't change the fact that Melina has a complete story which doesn't require her to be anyone else. All of the mystery surrounding her character is related to her relationship with her mother and the reason she became burnt and bodiless, and her being Trina wouldn't explain that.
Agreed.
Even if we discover they are the same person in dlc, this "theory" is an unfounded speculation. People don't discuss in-game evidence, just visual similarities.
Not true at all, there’s strong thematic evidence too - st trina associated with sleep, sleep being the opposite element to frenzy in the lore, and then melina seemingly being the counter to the flame of frenzy in that ending as her eye swirls with purple is, to me, the most compelling bit. Idk if I buy it overall but it is less weak than you are supposing.
Well
These relationships are so thin... Sleep x Frenzy... Which part of lore has this statement? Does sleep items oppose madness items / magic? Is Melina the counter to the flame of frenzy? Or is she a golden order girl?
There is so much wishful thinking about this game... Theories about Souls lore were well explained, based on items, item description, dialogues... Evidence... Now lore talk is to say that x is y or x was inspired by Berserk.
this just isn't true. she's a demi god, and she says she's old, yet we never hear a peep about her outside of talking directly to her. her origin is a fundamental mystery to her character.
You're missing what I'm saying. Nothing about the story we are presented in the game (Melina journeying to the Erdtree, discovering her purpose, and deciding to sacrifice herself to burn the Erdtree) requires her to be someone else. A big reveal about someone's identity shouldn't just be a cool-sounding bit of their backstory; it should actually impact their role within the main story too. If Melina is Trina/the GEQ/whoever, then it just amounts to an interesting piece of trivia that ultimately doesn't affect what she does in the story.
I don't understand what you mean, it fundamentally paints her motives and reasons for why she takes the actions she does, and it illustrates the other character with the traits and ideals that she displays as you interact with her through the story.
if melina is the gloam eyed queen for example, then the nature of the gloam eyed queen is fundamentally changed by the ideas that melina upholds in the main story relating to the value of the cycle of life. and the decisions and ideas she presents relating to the necessity of indiscriminate death are given a new meaning.
also, fundamentally there're two problems with the way you're thinking about this. one, this game is made fundamentally with the notion that you have to theorize. miyazaki has said multiple times over the course of more than a decade now, that when he presents the story, he takes out multiple sections of information so that you have to fill in the blanks, so downplaying these kinds of theories as a whole simply doesn't make sense. because you have to do it to engage with the game's story. second, the way that you're reasoning about melina's place in the story is skipping over large holes that you are simply ignoring. she is burned and bodyless, why? she's a demigod but we never hear of her anywhere, why? she's not young either (from when she's reflecting before sacrificing herself to burn the erdtree), which makes the last point even more suspect, why? the way you see this is obviously missing large chunks of information that you reject to attempt to patch up.
> don't understand what you mean, it fundamentally paints her motives and reasons for why she takes the actions she does, and it illustrates the other character with the traits and ideals that she displays as you interact with her through the story.
Her motivation already makes sense without that added detail.
> if melina is the gloam eyed queen for example, then the nature of the gloam eyed queen is fundamentally changed by the ideas that melina upholds in the main story relating to the value of the cycle of life. and the decisions and ideas she presents relating to the necessity of indiscriminate death are given a new meaning.
Not really, because the GEQ is never suggested to want death to be indiscriminate. In fact, she seems to discriminate very much in terms of who she brings death to.
> also, fundamentally there're two problems with the way you're thinking about this. one, this game is made fundamentally with the notion that you have to theorize. miyazaki has said multiple times over the course of more than a decade now, that when he presents the story, he takes out multiple sections of information so that you have to fill in the blanks, so downplaying these kinds of theories as a whole simply doesn't make sense. because you have to do it to engage with the game's story.
I do theorise, but I always consider whether the theory would actually add anything to the story. Melina being the GEQ wouldn't add anything other than a piece of trivia, because everything in her story holds together just fine without it. It's not like Marika=Radagon, in which both Marika's and Radagon's stories both rely on that twist to make sense.
> second, the way that you're reasoning about melina's place in the story is skipping over large holes that you are simply ignoring. she is burned and bodyless, why? she's a demigod but we never hear of her anywhere, why? she's not young either (from when she's reflecting before sacrificing herself to burn the erdtree), which makes the last point even more suspect, why? the way you see this is obviously missing large chunks of information that you reject to attempt to patch up.
She's burned and bodiless because she's the kindling maiden. We find her sword in a hidden room with a dead Official guarding it. We know that the Officials were responsible for executions and gruesome rituals, so it makes the most sense that they burned Melina's body so as to turn her into a kindling maiden, since the role requires one to first "walk alongside fire". We probably don't hear about her because Marika created/birthed her for the specific purpose of becoming a kindling maiden, and if that got out people would know she intended to burn the Erdtree, so she was kept a secret. This is speculation which makes use of the specific details that are placed along the course of Melina's story, in order to explain her actions without forcing a whole different story on her.
I believe that melina is the gloam eyed queen (until this is contradicted in the dlc).
you said that the gloam eyed queen doesn't seem to want indiscriminate death, even completely rejecting the idea that melina is the gloam eyed queen, this is a bizarre way to look at this character's concept on a fundamental level. the golden order has an underlying conceit, that the gods and the erdtree can not die. but alongside this, throughout the entire video game we see that the erdtree is fed on mountains of corpses. so when you add in to this picture a faction whose sole purpose is to kill the gods with destined death fueled fire (the thing you in game use to burn the erdtree with), it seems like the explicit point would be to take this conceit that the gods should be exempt from death, and that the erdtree will last forever, and do away with it to make death indiscriminate. again completely ignoring melina. but there's nothing in the game pointing towards the motivations of the gloam eyed queen, besides the theory that melina is a remnant of her. to me this also fits perfectly with when miyazaki explicitly talked about the godskins in 2019, "Miyazaki said that the piece of concept art above represents “the darkness that the world and story possess” and the theme of Elden Ring: “the will, or ambition of mankind.”" referring to concept art of the godskin apostle.
melina being the gloam eyed queen does add to the story, it explains the motivations of one of the most mysterious characters in the story, that was described at one point as being emblematic of elden ring's base themes. which I think, revolve around marika's rejection of death. I want to know you think he meant when he said that.
her being bodyless isn't properly explained by what you gave, we've seen other maidens that were meant to be used for kindling, and they are not bodyless. vyke's maiden was supposed to be used for kindling, but she's just a regular finger maiden as far as we can tell. the only other character we meet who is bodyless in the way that melina is bodyless, is ranni. and she had to steal destined death and have it used on herself to become the way she is. if it was so easy to do that a random nameless official could do it, why would ranni need to steal the rune of death from maliketh and stage her own assassination. and if any finger maiden can be sacrificed to burn the erdtree, why would marika need to manufacture melina. also, melina explicitly sets herself apart from the finger maidens. she tells you she is no maiden. so if she says that but she actually just is straight up a maiden and is the exact same as the other maidens in every way, that just isn't coherent. why do we the player interact with melina, and not just a regular finger maiden, there's a reason that they made that decision. also, her being just born contradicts with her saying that she's watched the lands between for a long time. and also, also I don't see what you mean when you say its forcing a whole different story on her, in what way?
> you said that the gloam eyed queen doesn't seem to want indiscriminate death, even completely rejecting the idea that melina is the gloam eyed queen, this is a bizarre way to look at this character's concept on a fundamental level. the golden order has an underlying conceit, that the gods and the erdtree can not die. but alongside this, throughout the entire video game we see that the erdtree is fed on mountains of corpses. so when you add in to this picture a faction whose sole purpose is to kill the gods with destined death fueled fire (the thing you in game use to burn the erdtree with), it seems like the explicit point would be to take this conceit that the gods should be exempt from death, and that the erdtree will last forever, and do away with it to make death indiscriminate. again completely ignoring melina. but there's nothing in the game pointing towards the motivations of the gloam eyed queen, besides the theory that melina is a remnant of her. to me this also fits perfectly with when miyazaki explicitly talked about the godskins in 2019, "Miyazaki said that the piece of concept art above represents “the darkness that the world and story possess” and the theme of Elden Ring: “the will, or ambition of mankind.”" referring to concept art of the godskin apostle.
The problem with this is that the GEQ was doing all that before the Golden Order was founded. Remember, the Golden Order was created when the Rune of Death was sealed, and that didn't happen until after the GEQ was defeated. So the GEQ wasn't killing gods because she believed they shouldn't be exempt from death. They were already able to die, because the Rune of Death was still in action. The GEQ just wanted them dead faster.
> melina being the gloam eyed queen does add to the story, it explains the motivations of one of the most mysterious characters in the story, that was described at one point as being emblematic of elden ring's base themes. which I think, revolve around marika's rejection of death. I want to know you think he meant when he said that.
A lot of fromsoft's storytelling has been about mankind's fight against gods. I think that's what he meant.
> her being bodyless isn't properly explained by what you gave, we've seen other maidens that were meant to be used for kindling, and they are not bodyless. vyke's maiden was supposed to be used for kindling, but she's just a regular finger maiden as far as we can tell.
Vyke's maiden never actually got used for kindling, and Bernahl's seemingly failed. We know that it's because in order to burn the Erdtree you need to have been burnt before- that's why we're able to do it without Melina's help if we take on the Flame of Frenzy. The implication is that the reason Melina is able to do it where others failed, is that she has been burnt before.
> if it was so easy to do that a random nameless official could do it, why would ranni need to steal the rune of death from maliketh and stage her own assassination.
That's a fair point, but it's also not something that any theory can explain at the moment, even with Melina being the GEQ. If Ranni's way of separating her soul from her body is the only way to do it, that means that Melina was killed using Destined Death at the same moment as another Demigod, but who? One of the random soulless Demigods in the Mausoleums? That doesn't seem very satisfying.
> and if any finger maiden can be sacrificed to burn the erdtree, why would marika need to manufacture melina. also, melina explicitly sets herself apart from the finger maidens. she tells you she is no maiden. so if she says that but she actually just is straight up a maiden and is the exact same as the other maidens in every way, that just isn't coherent. why do we the player interact with melina, and not just a regular finger maiden, there's a reason that they made that decision.
I don't think any finger maiden could be sacrificed. I think that's kinda the point. Melina was set up specifically to be able to burn the Erdtree, through a specific ritual that burned her, which is a prerequisite to be able to burn the Erdtree.
> also, her being just born contradicts with her saying that she's watched the lands between for a long time.
How so? I'd say she's probably the youngest Demigod but she was likely still born before the Shattering, which was a long time ago. She's young compared to the rest of the family, but not compared to the average person.
> also, also I don't see what you mean when you say its forcing a whole different story on her, in what way?
As in, the story of the god hunt and her defeat at the hands of Maliketh. It never comes up during Melina's story. Her story makes full sense without the player even hearing about the GEQ.
if the gloam eyed queen happened before the inception of the golden order then I don't think that melina is her. the game does not say that her defeat was the inception, it says that her defeat was when the rune of death was sealed in maliketh. for melina to be geq, the timeline that I see would have to be: golden order is created and the rune of death is removed (not using malekith) -> geq takes the rune of death and rebels against marika -> malekith defeats geq and seals destined death within himself so that no one can do what she did again. if we find out the gloam eyed queen's defeat is a driving force in the creation of the golden order in the dlc this theory becomes defunct all else equal.
another problem with melina being the youngest child of marika made to burn the erdtree, is that radagon does not agree with marika's plans as far as we can tell. so that's a confusing part of this create a secret child to burn the erdtree scheme.
malekith using the rune of death on melina would be the cause of her being burned and bodyless (destined death is linked with fire, as melina herself says), so that's where it would be brought up. with the needing two people to die thing, I don't have a good answer, but I don't think there's a good answer for why melina is bodyless without destined death.
I think that the tarnished have different worlds because of vyke's great runes, and I looked into bernahl's maiden and I recuse myself from the interdimensional maiden immolation discussions because the ground is too shaky from me
> for melina to be geq, the timeline that I see would have to be: golden order is created and the rune of death is removed (not using malekith) -> geq takes the rune of death and rebels against marika -> malekith defeats geq and seals destined death within himself so that no one can do what she did again. if we find out the gloam eyed queen's defeat is a driving force in the creation of the golden order in the dlc this theory becomes defunct all else equal.
The problem is that then we're putting a lot of weight on a relationship that isn't set up at all by the game. There is no information on any kind of interaction between Marika and the GEQ. It's not that they couldn't have known each other, but if fromsoft wanted us to understand that the GEQ obtained the Rune after Marika removed it, and that she betrayed her, surely they would do something to establish that they were close in some way. It's poor storytelling to expect the player to conclude that the GEQ betrayed Marika when it was never even set up that they were on the same side.
> another problem with melina being the youngest child of marika made to burn the erdtree, is that radagon does not agree with marika's plans as far as we can tell. so that's a confusing part of this create a secret child to burn the erdtree scheme.
There's something unusual about Melina's origin anyway, since she hints that she wasn't born of a mother. She could be an offshoot of Marika like Millicent is of Malenia. Melina and Millicent dress the same and their arcs parallel one another (both start off knowing they have some kind of purpose related to their mother, and both later discover that their purpose is to die as part of someone else's scheme).
> malekith using the rune of death on melina would be the cause of her being burned and bodyless (destined death is linked with fire, as melina herself says), so that's where it would be brought up. with the needing two people to die thing, I don't have a good answer, but I don't think there's a good answer for why melina is bodyless without destined death.
The theory that she was burned by the Officials makes use of the hidden office and dead Official as evidence. The theory that she was killed by Maliketh ignores that, and also doesn't explain why she didn't die fully since that's what Destined Death is supposed to do. We know that there are bodiless spirits that aren't a result of being killed by Destined Death (spirit ashes, spirit NPCs etc), so we don't need Maliketh or Destined Death to be involved in her present state.
> I think that the tarnished have different worlds because of vyke's great runes, and I looked into bernahl's maiden and I recuse myself from the interdimensional maiden immolation discussions because the ground is too shaky from me
Thing is, even if that's true, Vyke still very much existed within the history of our character's world, and the story of him seeking out the Three Fingers to spare his maiden is treated as an event that happened in that history, not in another world. His Great Runes can be explained by him killing other Demigods.
If you're talking about Timdiggity's video then I'm not convinced by the conclusion but there was some interesting evidence in there I hadn't considered.
Personally I came away from it with the theory that all empyreans have a mark on their eye and with additional evidence to support what I already thought, that Ranni, Melina, and Miquella are working together.
There's been a few other minor loretubers recently posting far fetched theories, emerald gecko springs to mind. It seems very attention seeking and their attitude comes across as arrogant. They act more interested in getting the buzz, the new hit theory, rather than being legitimately interested in discussion.
My issue with the theory is it completely ignores the very clear connections that Melina has to Marika reborn in some fashion.
Melina is the character who can manipulate runes to level us up, perhaps this is something all maidens can do, but we only know Melina can, and Marika has the Elden Ring. She is also going against the Golden Order and aiding the Tarnished which is also what Marika is doing.
Melina knows the echos of Marika at the various Churches.
This seems like an incredibly clear link. Aside from giving her a random power to divine echos, the most logical thing to explain this is her remembering something Marika/she spoke.
She has the Rold Medallion.
The Medallion takes us to the Forbidden Lands and the Moutaintops of the Giants which Marika sealed off, has the First Church of Marika, and the Chruch of Repose. This word connects to the Shield of the Guilty which talks about a maiden dying and being reborn.
Shield made to venerate a maiden whose eyes were crushed by Briars of Sin before being reborn in these lands.
Venerating the repose of the soul, this shield boosts focus. The briars can be used to attack foes.
When Melina burns, so does the Erdtree, and the only other way to burn the tree, the FF, also ties into Melina's quest and storyline.
Marika and the Elden Ring are the Erdtree. She is like the Dryad or spirit of the world tree and Melina is trying to get rid of the old tree/ring/Goddess, so a new one can be reforged/reposed/reborn. The FF ending messes that all up so, as the goddess of the tree she is gonna kill us.
Marika is also hung in a way that is similar to imprisoned Sellen, and Sellen is projecting herself. If anyone knows about Norse Mythology, they should recognize the parallels between Odin/Yggdrasil/Slepnir/astral travel with Marika/Melina/Erdtree/Torrent/projection.
Just my opinion but I think St Trina is just another iteration of this archetypal idea with Miquella in the Haligtree, and Trina as a projection of some kind.
It’s just speculation and always has been for souls games that makes it open for discussions. But there are a few evidence that support it, like the following:
* Melina having no flesh : Miquella abandoning his body
* Melina having torrent : Miquella being the original owner of torrent
* Melina being a child of Marika even though there’s no evidence of her existing
* Miquella being a parallel to Marika : Marika can seperate from Radagon
* People having contrasting opinion on St trina’s gender
We don’t, miquella is st trina
That’s the crazy part, the video I watched on it was saying Melina is Miquella u should check it out the guys channel is timdiggity
Godwyn is miquella is messmer is st trina confirmed
Yeah lots of different *videos* these days lol
St. Trina is described as a young girl or young boy, and probably looks pretty androgynous to pass as either. What about Melina's appearance makes you think she's a young boy?
you have seen zero evidence, only baseless speculation, its not a theory, its a sensationalist clickbait comment
Don’t get me wrong man it’s crackpot as hell but it’s entertaining to think about
I think it's a bad theory. The thing about all of these types of theories is that people come up with all these parallels and similarities between characters that could be super interesting to dig into, but then the conclusion is always just "they must be the same character". As it stands, there is absolutely no reason for Melina to be anyone other than Melina. We can list as many connections as we want between her and Trina, or the GEQ, or Boc's mum, but it won't change the fact that Melina has a complete story which doesn't require her to be anyone else. All of the mystery surrounding her character is related to her relationship with her mother and the reason she became burnt and bodiless, and her being Trina wouldn't explain that.
Agreed. Even if we discover they are the same person in dlc, this "theory" is an unfounded speculation. People don't discuss in-game evidence, just visual similarities.
Not true at all, there’s strong thematic evidence too - st trina associated with sleep, sleep being the opposite element to frenzy in the lore, and then melina seemingly being the counter to the flame of frenzy in that ending as her eye swirls with purple is, to me, the most compelling bit. Idk if I buy it overall but it is less weak than you are supposing.
Well These relationships are so thin... Sleep x Frenzy... Which part of lore has this statement? Does sleep items oppose madness items / magic? Is Melina the counter to the flame of frenzy? Or is she a golden order girl? There is so much wishful thinking about this game... Theories about Souls lore were well explained, based on items, item description, dialogues... Evidence... Now lore talk is to say that x is y or x was inspired by Berserk.
this just isn't true. she's a demi god, and she says she's old, yet we never hear a peep about her outside of talking directly to her. her origin is a fundamental mystery to her character.
You're missing what I'm saying. Nothing about the story we are presented in the game (Melina journeying to the Erdtree, discovering her purpose, and deciding to sacrifice herself to burn the Erdtree) requires her to be someone else. A big reveal about someone's identity shouldn't just be a cool-sounding bit of their backstory; it should actually impact their role within the main story too. If Melina is Trina/the GEQ/whoever, then it just amounts to an interesting piece of trivia that ultimately doesn't affect what she does in the story.
I don't understand what you mean, it fundamentally paints her motives and reasons for why she takes the actions she does, and it illustrates the other character with the traits and ideals that she displays as you interact with her through the story. if melina is the gloam eyed queen for example, then the nature of the gloam eyed queen is fundamentally changed by the ideas that melina upholds in the main story relating to the value of the cycle of life. and the decisions and ideas she presents relating to the necessity of indiscriminate death are given a new meaning. also, fundamentally there're two problems with the way you're thinking about this. one, this game is made fundamentally with the notion that you have to theorize. miyazaki has said multiple times over the course of more than a decade now, that when he presents the story, he takes out multiple sections of information so that you have to fill in the blanks, so downplaying these kinds of theories as a whole simply doesn't make sense. because you have to do it to engage with the game's story. second, the way that you're reasoning about melina's place in the story is skipping over large holes that you are simply ignoring. she is burned and bodyless, why? she's a demigod but we never hear of her anywhere, why? she's not young either (from when she's reflecting before sacrificing herself to burn the erdtree), which makes the last point even more suspect, why? the way you see this is obviously missing large chunks of information that you reject to attempt to patch up.
> don't understand what you mean, it fundamentally paints her motives and reasons for why she takes the actions she does, and it illustrates the other character with the traits and ideals that she displays as you interact with her through the story. Her motivation already makes sense without that added detail. > if melina is the gloam eyed queen for example, then the nature of the gloam eyed queen is fundamentally changed by the ideas that melina upholds in the main story relating to the value of the cycle of life. and the decisions and ideas she presents relating to the necessity of indiscriminate death are given a new meaning. Not really, because the GEQ is never suggested to want death to be indiscriminate. In fact, she seems to discriminate very much in terms of who she brings death to. > also, fundamentally there're two problems with the way you're thinking about this. one, this game is made fundamentally with the notion that you have to theorize. miyazaki has said multiple times over the course of more than a decade now, that when he presents the story, he takes out multiple sections of information so that you have to fill in the blanks, so downplaying these kinds of theories as a whole simply doesn't make sense. because you have to do it to engage with the game's story. I do theorise, but I always consider whether the theory would actually add anything to the story. Melina being the GEQ wouldn't add anything other than a piece of trivia, because everything in her story holds together just fine without it. It's not like Marika=Radagon, in which both Marika's and Radagon's stories both rely on that twist to make sense. > second, the way that you're reasoning about melina's place in the story is skipping over large holes that you are simply ignoring. she is burned and bodyless, why? she's a demigod but we never hear of her anywhere, why? she's not young either (from when she's reflecting before sacrificing herself to burn the erdtree), which makes the last point even more suspect, why? the way you see this is obviously missing large chunks of information that you reject to attempt to patch up. She's burned and bodiless because she's the kindling maiden. We find her sword in a hidden room with a dead Official guarding it. We know that the Officials were responsible for executions and gruesome rituals, so it makes the most sense that they burned Melina's body so as to turn her into a kindling maiden, since the role requires one to first "walk alongside fire". We probably don't hear about her because Marika created/birthed her for the specific purpose of becoming a kindling maiden, and if that got out people would know she intended to burn the Erdtree, so she was kept a secret. This is speculation which makes use of the specific details that are placed along the course of Melina's story, in order to explain her actions without forcing a whole different story on her.
I believe that melina is the gloam eyed queen (until this is contradicted in the dlc). you said that the gloam eyed queen doesn't seem to want indiscriminate death, even completely rejecting the idea that melina is the gloam eyed queen, this is a bizarre way to look at this character's concept on a fundamental level. the golden order has an underlying conceit, that the gods and the erdtree can not die. but alongside this, throughout the entire video game we see that the erdtree is fed on mountains of corpses. so when you add in to this picture a faction whose sole purpose is to kill the gods with destined death fueled fire (the thing you in game use to burn the erdtree with), it seems like the explicit point would be to take this conceit that the gods should be exempt from death, and that the erdtree will last forever, and do away with it to make death indiscriminate. again completely ignoring melina. but there's nothing in the game pointing towards the motivations of the gloam eyed queen, besides the theory that melina is a remnant of her. to me this also fits perfectly with when miyazaki explicitly talked about the godskins in 2019, "Miyazaki said that the piece of concept art above represents “the darkness that the world and story possess” and the theme of Elden Ring: “the will, or ambition of mankind.”" referring to concept art of the godskin apostle. melina being the gloam eyed queen does add to the story, it explains the motivations of one of the most mysterious characters in the story, that was described at one point as being emblematic of elden ring's base themes. which I think, revolve around marika's rejection of death. I want to know you think he meant when he said that. her being bodyless isn't properly explained by what you gave, we've seen other maidens that were meant to be used for kindling, and they are not bodyless. vyke's maiden was supposed to be used for kindling, but she's just a regular finger maiden as far as we can tell. the only other character we meet who is bodyless in the way that melina is bodyless, is ranni. and she had to steal destined death and have it used on herself to become the way she is. if it was so easy to do that a random nameless official could do it, why would ranni need to steal the rune of death from maliketh and stage her own assassination. and if any finger maiden can be sacrificed to burn the erdtree, why would marika need to manufacture melina. also, melina explicitly sets herself apart from the finger maidens. she tells you she is no maiden. so if she says that but she actually just is straight up a maiden and is the exact same as the other maidens in every way, that just isn't coherent. why do we the player interact with melina, and not just a regular finger maiden, there's a reason that they made that decision. also, her being just born contradicts with her saying that she's watched the lands between for a long time. and also, also I don't see what you mean when you say its forcing a whole different story on her, in what way?
> you said that the gloam eyed queen doesn't seem to want indiscriminate death, even completely rejecting the idea that melina is the gloam eyed queen, this is a bizarre way to look at this character's concept on a fundamental level. the golden order has an underlying conceit, that the gods and the erdtree can not die. but alongside this, throughout the entire video game we see that the erdtree is fed on mountains of corpses. so when you add in to this picture a faction whose sole purpose is to kill the gods with destined death fueled fire (the thing you in game use to burn the erdtree with), it seems like the explicit point would be to take this conceit that the gods should be exempt from death, and that the erdtree will last forever, and do away with it to make death indiscriminate. again completely ignoring melina. but there's nothing in the game pointing towards the motivations of the gloam eyed queen, besides the theory that melina is a remnant of her. to me this also fits perfectly with when miyazaki explicitly talked about the godskins in 2019, "Miyazaki said that the piece of concept art above represents “the darkness that the world and story possess” and the theme of Elden Ring: “the will, or ambition of mankind.”" referring to concept art of the godskin apostle. The problem with this is that the GEQ was doing all that before the Golden Order was founded. Remember, the Golden Order was created when the Rune of Death was sealed, and that didn't happen until after the GEQ was defeated. So the GEQ wasn't killing gods because she believed they shouldn't be exempt from death. They were already able to die, because the Rune of Death was still in action. The GEQ just wanted them dead faster. > melina being the gloam eyed queen does add to the story, it explains the motivations of one of the most mysterious characters in the story, that was described at one point as being emblematic of elden ring's base themes. which I think, revolve around marika's rejection of death. I want to know you think he meant when he said that. A lot of fromsoft's storytelling has been about mankind's fight against gods. I think that's what he meant. > her being bodyless isn't properly explained by what you gave, we've seen other maidens that were meant to be used for kindling, and they are not bodyless. vyke's maiden was supposed to be used for kindling, but she's just a regular finger maiden as far as we can tell. Vyke's maiden never actually got used for kindling, and Bernahl's seemingly failed. We know that it's because in order to burn the Erdtree you need to have been burnt before- that's why we're able to do it without Melina's help if we take on the Flame of Frenzy. The implication is that the reason Melina is able to do it where others failed, is that she has been burnt before. > if it was so easy to do that a random nameless official could do it, why would ranni need to steal the rune of death from maliketh and stage her own assassination. That's a fair point, but it's also not something that any theory can explain at the moment, even with Melina being the GEQ. If Ranni's way of separating her soul from her body is the only way to do it, that means that Melina was killed using Destined Death at the same moment as another Demigod, but who? One of the random soulless Demigods in the Mausoleums? That doesn't seem very satisfying. > and if any finger maiden can be sacrificed to burn the erdtree, why would marika need to manufacture melina. also, melina explicitly sets herself apart from the finger maidens. she tells you she is no maiden. so if she says that but she actually just is straight up a maiden and is the exact same as the other maidens in every way, that just isn't coherent. why do we the player interact with melina, and not just a regular finger maiden, there's a reason that they made that decision. I don't think any finger maiden could be sacrificed. I think that's kinda the point. Melina was set up specifically to be able to burn the Erdtree, through a specific ritual that burned her, which is a prerequisite to be able to burn the Erdtree. > also, her being just born contradicts with her saying that she's watched the lands between for a long time. How so? I'd say she's probably the youngest Demigod but she was likely still born before the Shattering, which was a long time ago. She's young compared to the rest of the family, but not compared to the average person. > also, also I don't see what you mean when you say its forcing a whole different story on her, in what way? As in, the story of the god hunt and her defeat at the hands of Maliketh. It never comes up during Melina's story. Her story makes full sense without the player even hearing about the GEQ.
if the gloam eyed queen happened before the inception of the golden order then I don't think that melina is her. the game does not say that her defeat was the inception, it says that her defeat was when the rune of death was sealed in maliketh. for melina to be geq, the timeline that I see would have to be: golden order is created and the rune of death is removed (not using malekith) -> geq takes the rune of death and rebels against marika -> malekith defeats geq and seals destined death within himself so that no one can do what she did again. if we find out the gloam eyed queen's defeat is a driving force in the creation of the golden order in the dlc this theory becomes defunct all else equal. another problem with melina being the youngest child of marika made to burn the erdtree, is that radagon does not agree with marika's plans as far as we can tell. so that's a confusing part of this create a secret child to burn the erdtree scheme. malekith using the rune of death on melina would be the cause of her being burned and bodyless (destined death is linked with fire, as melina herself says), so that's where it would be brought up. with the needing two people to die thing, I don't have a good answer, but I don't think there's a good answer for why melina is bodyless without destined death. I think that the tarnished have different worlds because of vyke's great runes, and I looked into bernahl's maiden and I recuse myself from the interdimensional maiden immolation discussions because the ground is too shaky from me
> for melina to be geq, the timeline that I see would have to be: golden order is created and the rune of death is removed (not using malekith) -> geq takes the rune of death and rebels against marika -> malekith defeats geq and seals destined death within himself so that no one can do what she did again. if we find out the gloam eyed queen's defeat is a driving force in the creation of the golden order in the dlc this theory becomes defunct all else equal. The problem is that then we're putting a lot of weight on a relationship that isn't set up at all by the game. There is no information on any kind of interaction between Marika and the GEQ. It's not that they couldn't have known each other, but if fromsoft wanted us to understand that the GEQ obtained the Rune after Marika removed it, and that she betrayed her, surely they would do something to establish that they were close in some way. It's poor storytelling to expect the player to conclude that the GEQ betrayed Marika when it was never even set up that they were on the same side. > another problem with melina being the youngest child of marika made to burn the erdtree, is that radagon does not agree with marika's plans as far as we can tell. so that's a confusing part of this create a secret child to burn the erdtree scheme. There's something unusual about Melina's origin anyway, since she hints that she wasn't born of a mother. She could be an offshoot of Marika like Millicent is of Malenia. Melina and Millicent dress the same and their arcs parallel one another (both start off knowing they have some kind of purpose related to their mother, and both later discover that their purpose is to die as part of someone else's scheme). > malekith using the rune of death on melina would be the cause of her being burned and bodyless (destined death is linked with fire, as melina herself says), so that's where it would be brought up. with the needing two people to die thing, I don't have a good answer, but I don't think there's a good answer for why melina is bodyless without destined death. The theory that she was burned by the Officials makes use of the hidden office and dead Official as evidence. The theory that she was killed by Maliketh ignores that, and also doesn't explain why she didn't die fully since that's what Destined Death is supposed to do. We know that there are bodiless spirits that aren't a result of being killed by Destined Death (spirit ashes, spirit NPCs etc), so we don't need Maliketh or Destined Death to be involved in her present state. > I think that the tarnished have different worlds because of vyke's great runes, and I looked into bernahl's maiden and I recuse myself from the interdimensional maiden immolation discussions because the ground is too shaky from me Thing is, even if that's true, Vyke still very much existed within the history of our character's world, and the story of him seeking out the Three Fingers to spare his maiden is treated as an event that happened in that history, not in another world. His Great Runes can be explained by him killing other Demigods.
If you're talking about Timdiggity's video then I'm not convinced by the conclusion but there was some interesting evidence in there I hadn't considered. Personally I came away from it with the theory that all empyreans have a mark on their eye and with additional evidence to support what I already thought, that Ranni, Melina, and Miquella are working together.
There's been a few other minor loretubers recently posting far fetched theories, emerald gecko springs to mind. It seems very attention seeking and their attitude comes across as arrogant. They act more interested in getting the buzz, the new hit theory, rather than being legitimately interested in discussion.
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My issue with the theory is it completely ignores the very clear connections that Melina has to Marika reborn in some fashion. Melina is the character who can manipulate runes to level us up, perhaps this is something all maidens can do, but we only know Melina can, and Marika has the Elden Ring. She is also going against the Golden Order and aiding the Tarnished which is also what Marika is doing. Melina knows the echos of Marika at the various Churches. This seems like an incredibly clear link. Aside from giving her a random power to divine echos, the most logical thing to explain this is her remembering something Marika/she spoke. She has the Rold Medallion. The Medallion takes us to the Forbidden Lands and the Moutaintops of the Giants which Marika sealed off, has the First Church of Marika, and the Chruch of Repose. This word connects to the Shield of the Guilty which talks about a maiden dying and being reborn. Shield made to venerate a maiden whose eyes were crushed by Briars of Sin before being reborn in these lands. Venerating the repose of the soul, this shield boosts focus. The briars can be used to attack foes. When Melina burns, so does the Erdtree, and the only other way to burn the tree, the FF, also ties into Melina's quest and storyline. Marika and the Elden Ring are the Erdtree. She is like the Dryad or spirit of the world tree and Melina is trying to get rid of the old tree/ring/Goddess, so a new one can be reforged/reposed/reborn. The FF ending messes that all up so, as the goddess of the tree she is gonna kill us. Marika is also hung in a way that is similar to imprisoned Sellen, and Sellen is projecting herself. If anyone knows about Norse Mythology, they should recognize the parallels between Odin/Yggdrasil/Slepnir/astral travel with Marika/Melina/Erdtree/Torrent/projection. Just my opinion but I think St Trina is just another iteration of this archetypal idea with Miquella in the Haligtree, and Trina as a projection of some kind.
It’s just speculation and always has been for souls games that makes it open for discussions. But there are a few evidence that support it, like the following: * Melina having no flesh : Miquella abandoning his body * Melina having torrent : Miquella being the original owner of torrent * Melina being a child of Marika even though there’s no evidence of her existing * Miquella being a parallel to Marika : Marika can seperate from Radagon * People having contrasting opinion on St trina’s gender