FromSoft's Theology of Betrayal and Rebirth
A theological reading of Malenia and Miquella's story in Elden Ring and the Shadow of the Erdtree
In the world of Elden Ring things are rarely done by half measures, except for storytelling. That is left up to the player’s interpretation and is a part of the struggle and challenge of these games. This is not a place of hard dates and clear timelines. Instead there are mainly gulfs to be filled. And the player character themselves are on a mission to fill a gulf after the collapse of the existing power order. With the current god of the age, Marika, imprisoned or exiled into the Erdtree and all her children and other followers fighting over who shall succeed her. The player, should they beat the game, will ascend to become a new Elden Lord and usher in a new age under their direction. But it is not just you who wish create a new order. And two of the most prominent characters who might succeed and beat you to it are the twins Miquella and Malenia. They, or at least Miquella, seeks to offer the world of Elden Ring, a new theology with their new order. Miquella wishes to ascend to become the new god, usurping his mother. But to do that he must cast off much, and it seems that this includes his sister Malenia. But who is Malenia that Miquella would throw her away in his search for godhood?
A Monstrous Abject Woman
Malenia seems to serve as one of Elden Ring’s most profound embodiments of the “monstrous feminine.” This idea is taken from Barbara Creed’s theory, that the monstrous feminine disturbs and threatens patriarchal order through excessive and transgressive power. But upon closer inspection Malenia actually resolves into a deeply tragic figure. Her monstrosity is in her potential to defeat and overthrow but she has been co-opted into a site of abjection. She exists as a monstrous feminine only for the player. For the rest of the characters in the narrative she is actually a site where they may abandon what they fear or despise about themselves. . The “abject”, in the theory of Julia Kristeva, refers to the psychic expulsion of what is deemed impure or threatening in order to preserve the boundaries of the self. Malenia becomes this vessel and absorbs both in identity and bodily others’ fears, failures, and excesses. She serves as a locus for their worship, fear, and impurities.
She treats herself as an empty vessel, a container formed through her own erasure and others’ projections. In this, she echoes other female characters across the Soulsborne series who give themselves over to the purposes of others, often at the cost of their selves. The Fire Keeper and Anri of Dark Souls 3, and the Emerald Herald of Dark Souls 2, all offer echoes of this ritualized self-sacrifice. The Fire Keeper is blindfolded as part of the office and the ritualization of the Fire Linking Ritual. She can be killed, returning to serve again without any memory of the betrayal. A mirror reflection of the player’s own version of immortality. Even if the player wishes to subvert the ritual itself, she goes along with it because it is the player's will. Anri is ‘married’ to the player in a ritual which requires a sword to be plunged into their head. The Emerald Herald has “awaited one such as you, one who might shatter the shackles of fate.” These ritualized women are repeatedly subjected to violence, framed by themes of purity and decay, obedience and suffering, and ritual and betrayal.
Malenia’s words, actions, and boss battle dramatize the gendered and embodied anxieties which echo across these games and form part of their very base. The ways that she is echoed, formed, and abandoned by other characters signals that Melania should in be understood as a tragic figure rather than one of fear and revulsion. Her second phase’s nudity should not be read as eroticization but within the game’s world and logic as a state of vulnerability, life in decay, and sacrifice. Her brother Miquella’s abandonment should be understood not simply as a plot point but as a symbolic rejection and a severing of himself from femininity and care in favor of masculine might and apotheosis.
In Elden Ring, Malenia embodies the tragic form of the abject feminine. She is not merely feared or reviled but she is reconstructed. The self we encounter in game has been constructed by others’ worship, fear, and abandonment. Her identity emerges from these projections and her monstrousness lies not in her ability to dominate but in what she contains for others. Her story queers and complicates the narrative of monstrosity, forming its arc of betrayal, transformation and love.
Scarlet Rot and Abjection
Malenia’s scarlet rot is not merely a disease or affliction. It is a symbol of her excessive femininity and power. It marks her body both literally, her right arm and leg have rotted away and she is blind, and symbolically as both desired and feared. She is a figure whose contamination is a seat of a divinity of rot itself. This sort of fear mixed with desire is a key element in both the world of Elden Ring and in its fan community
The fandom fears her as one of the most difficult bosses in Elden Ring. Her line “I am Melania, Blade of Miquella. And I have never known defeat.” begins as an epic boast, becomes frustrating with repetition, and eventually arrives at unconsciously fear inducing. A player in the process of defeating her will likely hear this line so many times that it becomes almost autonomic. Her presence lingers with players long after they have ‘overcome’ her. The frequency and ease with which she defeats the player can instill a sense that she has never truly been defeated. A return to her arena reinforces this haunting feeling as her scarlet bloom appears, untouched, and seeming to wait. That bloom etches onto the player a vague sense that their singular defeat is more of a fluke than a genuine defeat.
Despite or because of this, fan portrayals often seek to soften her. She is reimagined through more clearly sexualized art that emphasizes her body, something that the game on its own does not invite. In the game’s world, no one seems to desire Malenia’s body in this way. Rather they desire her for the rot she carries. The Scarlet Rot is what is longed for, feared, or worshiped. Gowry, who serves as the center of Millicent’s quest, comes closest to expressing desire. But his interest lies in the transformation possible through it rather than Malenia’s body as a body. He claims a twisted sovereignty over Millicent’s body, claiming the right to decide its condition, shape, and if it lives or dies. He reveres Malenia. It is the fandom which eroticizes Malenia’s flesh, not the characters.
Malenia’s subversion of herself can also be seen in her sword. Not only does it vampirically consume the life of whoever it strikes, but it also has no guard. She grips the blade in a bare hand, with no care or desire to protect herself from her own weapon. The player themselves can acquire this weapon after defeating Malenia and its name builds on this sense that Malenia has no consideration for division between herself and her weapon. It is called the “Hand of Malenia.” And it is important to note who created the prosthetics which Malenia uses, including her ‘hand.’ Through context clues from Miquella’s Needles, the Valkyrie Prosthetic, and Malenia’s Winged Helm we can surmise that Miquella was the one who constructed the prosthetics along with many other things. This means that Miquella helped, in part, to reconstruct his sister after he failed to cure her Scarlet Rot.
A Small Bud
Millicent’s quest line offers a haunting echo of Malenia’s story and role. Gowry calls her a “bud” of Malenia, destined to become a “scarlet valkyrie” upon Malenia’s third and true flowering. This does not imply literal lineage and Millicent herself does not know exactly what she is, only that she is tied somehow to Malenia saying:
I am of Malenia's blood.
But in what capacity I know not.
I could be sister,
daughter,
or an offshoot…
Ultimately it does not matter their exact relationship. What matters is that Millicent carries within her the potential to become another vessel, another sacred monster. But Millicent, unlike Malenia, refuses. She rejects this potential inheritance and transformation. She does not do this by overcoming the rot, but by refusing to transform into anything other than herself.
That if I am to flower into something other than myself,
I would rather rot into nothingness as I am.
In her defiance she gains a kind of dignity that Malenia refused–a dignity required not to be rewritten for others’ ambitions. Malenia remains bound to a loyalty and love to someone who defines her; her brother Miquella. Her own selfhood, desires, and identity are sublimated in service to him; to become his blade. It is for him that she endures. And in doing so, she becomes a vessel for not just the Scarlet Rot but of others’ monstrosities.
A Queer Godhood
Miquella, like Melania, carries a curse which warps their body. But unlike Malenia, Miquella is not defined by decay. Instead Miquella is defined by childhood, innocence, and compassion. Malenia completely identifies herself with her twin; “Blade of Miquella” functioning as an honorific or second name. She is seemingly empty of ambition or desire for herself. She acts only when others, Miquella or the God of Rot, directs her to. Miquella and Melania’s twinning is uncanny. Miquella is referred to with masculine pronouns, but their body is androgynous and their twin self–St. Trina–presents as feminine and is eternally asleep. Instead of twins it is almost as if they are triplets sharing two bodies.
In order to ascend to godhood, it is this softer, gentler, and more feminine part which Miquella severs from himself. Their pursuit of divinity requires the rejection of care, the abandonment of dreams, and the embrace of will by Miquella. Additionally Miquella has to take a consort, which we learn is Radhan, again queering the established protocol of Marika and Godrick or Radagon being heterosexual consorts. It is in the war against Radahn that forces Malenia to bloom for the first time. In this sense, Melania can be read as another aspect or part of Miquella’s cast off femininity. She is sent into the world to acquire or conquer Radahn by proxy. The war and duel between Malenia and Radhan becomes a twisted romance or courtship ritual enacted through violence.
This “courtship by conquest” ultimately fails with apocalyptic results. Results the player must undo. Malenia has to return to watch over Miquella as he sleeps at the base of the Haligtree and Radahn is transformed into a mindless beast, consuming the bodies of the fallen “like a dog” and howling at the sky in rage.
The reason for the need for this sort of combat as courtship is not explicitly stated. It might be that Miquella’s choice of Radhan as his consort was not accepted by Radahn. Miquella’s ability to bend people to his will is not absolute, as shown by the player character’s ability to resist it to a limited extent. Also Radahn’s other actions, specifically his holding the stars in place, seems to indicate his desire for Marika’s Golden Order to continue indefinitely. There is also the possibility that Miquella was already within the artificial womb of the Haligtree when Malenia was sent to retrieve Radhan. This artificial womb seems to have been designed by Miquella to either replace or prepare him for the Gate of Divinity found in Lands of Shadow.
So while the player will eventually fight a renewed version of Radahn as the consort to an ascended Miquella, we know that this Radahn is reconstructed using Mogh’s body. It is a sort of puppet of Miquella and its full identity with the original Radahn is questionable. No matter the exact mechanics this divine romance ends in ruin. A sort of inversion of medieval myth. Not a knight sent by a king to rescue a lady, but a sister sent to conquer a consort.
Malenia sits waiting for her brother, twin, and other half to return and remake the world. She claims “My brother will keep his promise. He possesses the wisdom, the allure, of a god – he is the most fearsome Empyrean of all.” For this Malenia is willing to remain, to endure, to suffer and surrender to the Scarlet Rot. As she dreams,
“flesh was dull gold...and my blood, rotted.
Corpse after corpse, left in my wake...
As I awaited...his return.”
But Miquella does not return for his waiting sister, because he “is a monster. Pure and radiant, he wields love to shrive clean the hearts of men. There is nothing more terrifying.” In the cut ending of his he says to the Tarnished,
“I hereby swear. Lord brother. To every living being, and every living soul.
At long last, you are returned. Now comes the age of our eden.
A thousand year voyage guided by compassion. Tarnished one.
Beginning here, love encompasses all. Aspiring Lord of the old order.
No living thing will be denied, no deed censured.
If you have known sin, if you grieve for this world,
I am ready. To embrace the whole of it.
Then yield the path forward to us.
Let us go together. To I, Miquella, Radahn, my promised consort.
and my promised consort, Radahn.”
Nowhere is Malenia mentioned in his dialogue or in his followers’ dialogue. She is cast aside like his flesh, second self, fate, and Great Rune. In this it is revealed the emptiness of Miquella’s age. That all his monstrous compassion is merely covering for his deeper monstrosity. The severing away of all his real compassion and love for obsession and obedience. In embracing everything Miquella seeks to bend all to his will and in swallowing all sin he seeks to obliterate the sin upon which Marika, his mother, founded her order. He does not wish for freedom for his followers but only their obedience to his will. His compassion is to be cast off when one is broken or not allowed to die if one chooses. Radahn is not given a choice but to serve. His sister is not given a choice but to wait. And the Tarnished are not given a choice but to kneel. Miquella’s project is to erase the past, not to redeem or forgive it.
He casts off every trace of familial memory to create a future untouched by history. It is a blank of perfection born from divine forgetting. So he offers compassion to all so that he can destroy history and move forever forwards with the past as an eternal blank. His compassion would wipe away all that came before it because it does not want to be defined by it or even to look at it. This is why the last thing that St. Trina says to the player before falling back into silence is, “You must kill Miquella... Grant him forgiveness.” He has confused erasure with forgiveness.
What Miquella calls compassion is in fact conquest and domination. A divine love that erases difference, silences memory, and abandons even its most faithful servant.
Liminal Faith and Hollow Flesh
Malenia’s tragedy is not just in her suffering, but in how that suffering is sanctified and then betrayed. She is a figure of martial beauty and bodily decay. Her rot exists between states of being, neither fully alive nor dead, corrupting but also granting immense strength. This in-betweenness dissolves her identity. Malenia is reduced as the tragedy of her is heightened. Malenia’s self was destabilized from birth alongside the co-joined Miquella and St. Trina. Then it was further eroded as her body was filled with the Scarlet Rot. Now not only is her self liminal and ambiguous but her body is falling away as a sickness eats at it and writhes underneath the skin.
And yet, despite this she achieves martial dominance and devotion from her own followers. Even with her corruption–or because of it–she becomes an object of worship. She is the vessel into which others pour their impurities. Miquella casts her off after she fails to capture or convince Radahn. But her followers continue to revere her because she is a container for the world’s impurities and they consider themselves impure. In their eyes her decay becomes sacred. They sanctify their own impurity through her contamination and it becomes their affirmation. As the Flock’s Canvas Talisman, dropped by Gowry, says, “What is faith if not an affirmation?”
Malenia becomes a saint of a hollow faith. Her sacrifice and pain is unacknowledged. Her devotion to her brother is unrewarded. Her sanctity is built from betrayal and the exploitation of her body by a God of Rot.
This pattern is repeated in tragic miniature in Millicent. Gowry wishes to see Millicent betrayed, so that she may flower into a new vessel of rot. This betrayal would echo Miquella’s betrayal of Malenia But there is a difference. If the player decides to betray Millicent, then, Millicent will know that she was betrayed. Malenia does not seem to understand her betrayal. Her tragedy is not only her suffering but her ignorance of the purpose of it. She waits, in the absence of love, in the expectation of it.
Malenia belongs to a lineage of FromSoft Women–sacred, maternal, erotic, monstrous–who exist to be betrayed. The Fire Keeper in Dark Souls 3 can be slain by the player at the final moment, her obedience to the player’s will sacrificed for ambition at the final moment. Priscilla, the only neutral boss in Dark Souls, begs the player to leave her Painted World in peace. But if attacked she must die and the player is rewarded for the pointless violence. Each embodies a contradictory cocktail of sacred, maternal, erotic, and monstrous traits. These women occupy unstable symbolic roles. They are not simply goddesses, monsters, or priestesses. They are the soft spaces through which power passes. They are gates and thresholds in a series concerned with cycles. They are remembered not for their strength or will but as sacred vessels. Thresholds through which love, power, and decay pass without looking back.
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