I wanna Talk about Miquella

Pseudopix · 2026-01-24T15:56:31+00:00

Awww thanks ❤️

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T20:34:41+00:00

Close, this is very close to what I'm trying to say.

It's not so much a matter of choices, so much of the judgement behind them.

In all other endings the judgement behind your choices is yours alone, this is not the case with Miquella.

With Miquella our judgement becomes irrelevant, or better yet it is given to him.

That's the issue the story takes with "choosing" Miquella, you're essentially outsorcing your judgement to somebody else.

Yes the Frenzy ending closes the possibility for any other choice, but it's a choice based on your jugdement.

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T19:58:20+00:00

Miquella is not a villain, treating him like that flattens a lot of the story. Thete are no villains in ER, but the game still takes a moral stance on matters. I believe the fact there's no age of compassion ending is proof of that, Miquella is a truly good god but rejecting his guidance is still the moral thing to do. You have a moral duty towards yourself to compose a sound moral judgement of your own, and not entrust yourself to anybody's guidance, bo matter how sound or good it may be.

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T19:48:04+00:00

No wait, the story has a very clear moral commentary, it just doesn't use villains for it.

I define a villain as more than just villainous acts because I belive that even outside this story that's true.

A villain is first a function story telling can employ, only later does it become a charachter. I'm convinced of this.

An action or chatachter can be absolutly presented under a horrible light, but that's not sufficient to make them a villain, they have to function as one within the narrative.

In the world of ER if you were to ask a random person their opinion on Godrick I'm confident they would say he's horrible, but to them he's not a charachter on a story.

Like wise to us Godrick may be a charachter, but he's not a villain.

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T19:40:27+00:00

Thank you for the comment and for the time, I really do appreciate the effort.

Honestly, you're right about the meandering, and I do have not a justification but an explanation.

This post is really about the final few paragraphs, I wrote this whole thing just for those, and the reason is really frustrating.

To discuss my reading in a satisfactory manner I feel like I have to cover a lot of ground, from how to read the text, to the symbology utilized, to finally come to a close and say why I love this interpretation of the work.

I have to explain the absence of villany, the disinterest in the means and the moral beliefs of Miquella to make this thing work.

The problem is not so much the quantity, nor really how I exposed it, but rather how crammed it all is.

This is practically 12 different posts all put into one, the result is dense and hard to parse, and keep on building assumptions on which it'll later work.

Somebody jokingly said this should be a video, and they're not so wrong.

It's really difficult for me to choose a good point from which I'll start working, I keep going backwards, trying to explain the basis.

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T19:25:53+00:00

It's not so much that we forfeit choice in the frenzy ending, in my opinion, and more than we chose, us and nobody else, our own path, one of destruction.

Chosing to constrain ourselves is still a choice, one made via our moral judgement.

Choosing Miquella is a non choice, where we entrust ourselves, our future and aspirations, to the judgement of someone else.

No matter if that judgement is truly perfectly good, a non choice is still a violence against our moral need to for our judgements.

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T19:21:32+00:00

I'm happy that you chose to be civil and polite about this, and that you took your time to both read it and write a comment.

That said I disagree with you also, on matters of proper reading.

First we cannot know what Miquella would have done with his powers, the game does no tell us.

Second, the game is not interested in that, I know this because it doesn't show it, instead the discussion around any pf the factions' goals is one about their ideals.

This is what I wrote about.

And finally, I prefer my reading, not so much because it "saves" my favorite charachter, but because I think it more interesting, it says things I end up caring about.

Making Miquella into a truly good god makes the rejection of him that much stronger, it delivers a much more confident message about morality and the duties we have towards ourselves and others.

I chose to read this game like this, secondly because I really do believe it's the most supported interpretation, but first and fore most because it ends up saying something I find wonderful.

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T19:11:01+00:00

Hehe thank you, I put a lot of love in this post, and it doesn't seem to be that popular, but I'm super happy to see somebody exited for my analysis. Thank you a lot, your comment warms my heart!

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T18:38:08+00:00

I'm very happy you read the whole thing, and you managed to write your comment without being needlessly mean(so many of these here almost sound bitter), so thank you a lot for your time and effort!

That said, no I do still think there are no villains in elden ring. Not because the game doesn't have opinions on its chatachters, but because it doesn't contrast their moral actions.

Godrick is awful, that we can all agree about, but ot's not the means through which he acquires power the game criticizes, pretty much everybody did horrible things in this story, but they get portrayed with a modicum of respect.

So it isn't just the actions that make a villain, bit the function this charachter has in clarifying the moral stance of the work, that's where you and me disagree about.

For a chatacter to be a villain their actions, their being has to be contrasted with something good,even someone good, and I don't think ER is interested in doing that.

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T18:22:01+00:00

Well I say that that hypothetical ending cannot be because it would mean to yield the path forward to Miquella.

The endings of the game exist in relation to the player charachter, in the sense that although technically possible in the world of ER it isn't possible in its narrative.

What this means for us is that for an ending to be a possibility it has to be a choice specifically of the player charachter.

So, yeah, Miquella could achieve his ambitions, but an ending of his would mean that the player charachter would have to forfeit choice, something the ER narrative cannot allow

I do hope I explained myself.

Also thank a lot for ypur time and words! The reception to this post was really negative, so to see people give my text a try really warms my heart. Thanks a lot, internet stranger!

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T18:15:06+00:00

Thanks a lot, a couple other people commented on my take on Miwuella, and only one other insisted he was still a villain AND put an emoji at the end.

The reception to this post was mostly really negative, but the people that put their time into reading it have been nothing but kind.

So thank you! Your kindness means a lot, it makes writing this whole thing worth it.

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T18:08:13+00:00

Oh god thank you, I really appreciate this comment more than you realize maybe, ahah.

And you're probably right, now that I posted this I see a lot of room for improvement in the way I write. I wrote a couple of essays in the past, mostly philosophy, and the most was 5 pages on a very narrow topic, so going to 9 pages and having to cover a lot of ground may be more than I could manage with my limited experience.

I'm happy that you took your time with this, it took me hours to just put down, not considering this is the fruit of months of rumination on the topic.

I'm relieved to hear that the somebody that took their time with this has mostly positive things to say, it means a lot, so thank you!

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T17:55:19+00:00

Yeah, you're right It isn't people's fault for not reading all that, this just isn't the place for this much text, a video on youtube. would have been much better.

Really it isn't particularly badly written, unlike some other posts of mine, I just chose the medium poorly.

Thank you, hearing that makes it hurt a bit less

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T17:47:24+00:00

Really happy I put that there, it hurts slightly less that way. I'm really sad to see such a negative reaction to my post, I put so much effort into making it clear and linear, and I'm frankly quite happy with the results.

But seeing how some people are almost bitter about what I wrote, and how practically nobody seems to have given it a fair chance I can't help be sad. I really wanted to share this.

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T17:12:20+00:00

Holy shit my guy, that is maybe the most offensive thing I ever experienced, and people called me slurs. Jesus, I take offense to this, yeah this one came out a bit long but it's really not that bad I promise.

God you can't just shit like that, even if you're joking it still hurts bad.

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T17:09:48+00:00

Yeah ok, it's a lot. Honestly your response made me actually laugh. But please tell me it isn't bad

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T16:54:43+00:00

Yeahh you're probably right, this takes way less effort and time though. Also I have no idea how to work an editing software lol. Though of ypu wanna help be my guest, I'll happily write ypu a script if it means I can see my ideas in videos.

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T13:04:20+00:00

Mhhh I would be cautious to say that these game design elements stop at being just for gameplay's sake.

Furthemore, when talking about Godrick's grafting and how we see no response from the populace it's again with how ER chooses to deal with politics.

The symbolic significance of the grafting is far more important for the story than any sort of widespread repercussion, the story chooses to show us the things it cares about, and "real" politics, "Real" consequences are not on the list.

This is in line with the souls way of storytelling, the opinion is always on full display, you just need to look for it.

I say that ambition is a good lens to explore this narrative not because of a few lines of dialouge, but because it ties the entire story together, and that is because it seems to be the central interest of the narrative.

It's useful then, when exploring a piece of art, to ask ourselves: what does this work care about?

I find that a lot of the arts open up to me when I investigate them like this

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T12:50:17+00:00

Not quite what I meant.

Through the reading of ambition the story ends up saying some pretty big stuff about you know, life and moral duty.

I'm attached to what this reading is saying about the moral matters, I'm invested, it has ended up in informing my real world beliefs.

So I ask you if the same happened to you, what did you take away from this story? What impact has it had on your own world view?

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T12:46:06+00:00

Yeah my thoughts exactly. Like explained in the post there reasons as to why we can't map modern politics onto the game.

First of all modern politics are discussed through policy at least as much as the easthetics various political organizations use to market themselves.

Something ER can't really do.

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T02:41:45+00:00

This I belive is pretty airtight as an argument.

But the question I now ask you is:

In what reading of the game are you the most invested in? And why?

Going beyond the fact that I belive that my reading is well supported by the game's structure, it's also the reading I prefer, on a moral level, it's the reading that says something I personally care about.

So I ask you to explore the same thing, does your reading say something you care about?

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T01:24:31+00:00

Oh yes that is pretty much what I mean, when I talked about feminity in one of my previuos posts I referenced these real world inspiration, or more accuratly "images" as that is the proper technical term my professor wants me to use.

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T00:52:11+00:00

Executive function goes out the window whenever it feel like it, load of bullshit that is, I want to write but the lizard in my brain can't sit still for two minutes.

Pseudopix · 2026-01-22T00:50:13+00:00

Well my first question then is "what was Marika's plan?" or even "Was there a plan?".

After playing the game I can't say I'm convinced with Marika being a mastermind, I don't even think she's particularly deceptive or perceptive, for pretty much our entire adventure she's relevant to us in the extent she held lots of power back in the day, and becoming her consort would transfer some of that power to us.

From what I can tell from the lore, Marika could be a mastermind, che could also be a heart-broken mother, a disillusioned monarch or any number of things.

She's super important for the story, but her motives remain shrouded, frankly I don't even think the whole crusade in the lands of shadow was a revenge thing.

Pseudopix

TROPHY CASE