The fingerslayer blade is like an unfinished, malformed version of the Sacred Relic Sword- both born from the corpse of a God. An unknown one in the case of the Nox, and Radagon/Marika in the case of the sacred Relic Sword.
It seems so obvious looking at them side by side but I never put it together untily first sorcery focused run. This game is so cool.
Art by Brush2H on twitter
Marika and the GEQ are oft suspected to be related to each other in SOME way, whether it's familial or something more abstract like Millicent to Malenia- there's an idea that these two are connected by something other than just their rivalry. I recently found some mythology that might support this idea.
Macaria (Romanized: Makaría, which is how I'll be spelling it for the rest of the post) was a very obscure figure in Greek myth*, only listed once in the Suda- a byzantine era encyclopedia. She was said to represent a blessed death- one that was peaceful, happy, and her name meant "Blessed one."
This connection isn't out of the blue- there are other references and name drops to Greek myth in the game too, most explicitly with Black Knife Alecto (named after the fury Alecto of Greek myth, who tortured those in death for their moral crimes) and the people of night, Nox (certainly based off Nyx, the Greek representation of night incarnate itself)
And Elden ring obviously loves to do name shit like this where those related to others have almost confusingly close names to their relatives (Renalla, Rellana, Miquella, Melania, Melina- it goes on)
I think it's very likely that the gloam eyed queen- also with powers of destined death via the black flame- was based off Makaria, and that this may even have been her actual name in lore- signifying that she was related to Marika somehow.
This connection could work for a couple different interpretations of Marika and Makaria's connection.
If they were familially related somehow, maybe as sisters in the shaman village, Makaria could have grown up as the inversion of Marika- where Marika bestowed eternal life, but one filled with strife and suffering to people, Makaria may have had powers over death as the gloam eyed queen- and the death she bestowed may have been more peaceful and happy for those that it sought out. Or at least, maybe preferable to the everlasting stagnated life Marika offered, a respite in the end of all things for immortal beings. It could also be that other people did not see this death as a good thing, but Makaria still followed a philosophy that did- and thus to HER it was still "blessed death" even if nobody else agreed with her.
Alternatively, if the GEQ was some PART of Marika- an offshoot of her or another half of her like St. Trina to Miquella, then Makaria may have been the name of this other self that she used alongside the title Gloam Eyed Queen. Or her name was still Marika and it's just the striking similarity between her name and the name of myth that the connection is meant to invoke and reference.
Of course, this is all up to personal interpretation, but I find the link between these figures and their names very significant, and think there's a high likelihood it could be intentional on the author's parts.
*It's worth noting that Makaria was almost certainly NOT actually a figure in historical Greek Myth. That is to say, if you asked an ancient Greek who Makaria was they'd have no idea who you were talking about. Like I said Makaria is only mentioned once in one encyclopedia EVER that was made in a Judeo-Christian empire. It's more likely that there was some kind of translation error that led the scholars to interpret Greek myth this way, or their understanding of Greek myth was just flawed or uncaring or incomplete, or that there was one mention in their time of this character that they then extrapolated from but the one mention was also the only one mention of the character EVER before their encyclopedia and they were just assuming one guys fanfiction was a foundational part of all Greek myth. Lots of possibilities.
BUT it's still relevant to Elden ring because for US in the modern world the character does still exist, if only because of this one mention, and GRRM or Miyazaki could have still very well learned of them and based Marika and her story off of them.
Art by RimyZipel on Twitter
Godfrey is the last stop before we find Marika- if he somehow had managed to defeat us for good he was seemingly about to waltz into the Erdtree to meet her for himself.
And he would have found her in the same state we do- completely broken, left hanging by a rune arc and impaled by (presumably?) a shard of destined death, either to torment or weaken her. It's not even clear how much of Marika is really there anymore- she doesn't even have eyes to speak to us through, the extent of her consciousness or sentience is rather unclear.
It's probable that Radagon would have come out again even for him and that they may have fought- and presuming that he won, Marika would still be there, as she was in our endings.
What do you think he does then? He seemed to love her truly when they were first together- he led multiple wars in her name and was her champion. It's unclear how upset he is about the whole "being sent to a hellish land to fight for eternity until you're brutally murdered" thing. He doesn't seem especially angry when we meet him- at least not until he returns to his barbaric ways, and even then that's more lust for battle than any personal misgivings running through him.
The only ending in which Marika is put to rest finally and not left catatonic and suffering as the basis for the Elden Ring is the age of stars (and I guess the frenzied flame come to think of it) and this is heavily implied to be the main GOOD ending.
I bring this up because I personally think this is what Godfrey would have wanted to do as well in our place. I think he would still hold some level of sympathy, if not outright understanding and love for Marika when he sees her broken as she is- and try to finally end her suffering and stagnation.
But maybe he would have just taken her as consort once again, even in this broken and barely existing state- not understanding enough of the world or the Elden ring to be able to think of much other than conquest, and attempting to cling onto the last vestiges of someone that may not even exist anymore.
Tarnished Edition is (presumably) the final patch we'll get for the game, so it'd be nice if From used it to patch up some of the bigger holes in the game balancing wise before the end.
This is gonna be a list of the biggest changes I hope for for the stuff that's in most dire need of them. It's also gonna be entirely PvE focused since I HATE PVP >:(
Flails, whips, perfume bottles, smithscript weapons/throwing weapon attacks need universal buffs to their damage, speed and stance damage.
There's like one good flail in the game rn and it's the dlc one.
The whips aren't unusably atrocious but there's no need for them to be as weak as they are rn- make them as fast as like curved swords and give them a crit animation.
Perfume bottles should be as fast as claws or daggers and just need more damage and stance damage across the board + better scaling. It'd be cool if they also got a buff that makes their status effects do more damage or something.
Every weapons throwing attack needs better stance damage, longer range, less damage falloff and improved damage overall. They all just feel so weak rn and I think it's really unnecessary. If the star fists can exist we can have strong throwing weapons. The daggers especially need major buffs.
Make bows work how they work in Nightreign. It's that simple honestly- give unlimited base arrows, increase the overall damage of bows across the board and give them the Ironeye bow moveset and you've got peak.
Crossbows and ballistae need scaling and shorter reload times across the board (except for maybe the pulley and repeating crossbows.) Also let the jar cannon shoot jars. Obviously.
Most consumables need major buffs in one area or another to be worth incorporating into your gameplay. The throwing daggers particularly are really pathetic- also all of the like thrown stone chunks and crystal chunks you get need love.
Make madness and death blight inflictable on all enemies. I imagine madness you could make it so the boss gets stunned and takes a burst of fire damage, then while they're stunned you can crit them. Death blight I think would be fine if you just made it take a long, long time to buildup and then when it did it did something crazy like 50% of the bosses current health bar. Death blight tools also need better death blight buildup.
Sleep should inflict on more enemies and sleep tools need better sleep buildup.
Gravity sorceries should work on more enemies and bosses- or at least gain a significant damage/stance damage buff against any enemies that can't be pulled. Also let gravity sorceries pull Malenia out of waterfowl dance PLEASE it'd be so funny.
Miriam's Vanishing should have significantly faster startup and recovery speed.
Ansbachs furious blade buff 🫦
General bug fixes (ex. Ancestral Horn Greataxe currently uses it's PvP debuff scaling of 15% for it's AoW in singleplayer as opposed to the intended 30%. Wowza.)
Allow stealth spells and tools to function on more bosses, ex. Darkness should work on morgott.
Buffs to various sorcery and incantation schools. Most namely: Crystal, Death, Spiral, Crucible (specifically bloom, porcupine and breath), Finger, Magma, Thorns, Bestial, Fundamentalist.
Also increase the amount of spells counted as being in these schools, ex. Rings of light now counts as Miquellan and Fundamentalist.
Add the nightreign legendary effects to most weapons they currently apply to.
Buff damage of shields and shield AoWs across the board + give shields the blocking I-frames during attacks that dueling shields have.
Revert nerfs to bloodhounds step iframes please 🥺
Universal buffs to torches damage and AoW damage. Or give them some extra utility in combat like making enemies take more damage after being hit with a torch (make it a unique status and call it "searing" idk)
Buffs to many rememberance items, particularly: Bloodboon, Rykards Rancor, Hand of Melania (make it do rot and scale with faith I'm begging), Hoarah Louxs Earthshaker, Rellana's twin blades (make using them on an int/Fth build more viable as opposed to only using one or the other), Maternal staff, Dragon Kings Cragblade (give it I-frames during the aow), Scarlet Aeonia, Godricks Greataxe, Grafted Dragon.
Buff rot, poison and deadly poison overall damage, damage tick rate and duration.
Buffs to all tools damage, use speed and recovery speed (including Lamenters Mask attack)
Buffs to some staves and seals, namely: Prince of Deaths staff, Maternal Staff, Cinquedea (boost the amount it buffs bestial incantations by), Staff of the Guilty, Demi-Human Queens Staff (make it's melee attacks do like 1000% more damage lol)
That's pretty much everything I think. The game is actually very well balance imo, in spire of what this long list may make it look like- but a lot of stuff could use love to shine and have its own niche and use cases over other items, and a lot of stuff here actually does need substantial buffs to be more usable in playthroughs.
If you think of anything you want changed in the final patch, say it down in the comments so the agent Fromsoft assigned to spy on you also sees it :D
In Castle Sol, right next to where you find the Haligtree Medallion after killing commander Niall, there's a spirit who says these lines:
"Lord Miquella, forgive me
The sun has not been swallowed. Our prayers were lacking.
Your comrade remains soulless...
I will never set my eyes upon it now...
Your divine Haligtree..."
Who is the comrade described here? Castle Sol has a lot to do with death blight, it's where you find the eclipse shotel and this dialogue itself is referencing their failure to bring about an eclipse, so maybe it has to do with Godwyn? But I really don't know. I feel like the answer here could potentially reveal a lot about the eclipse itself and what it means- that somehow bringing it to pass would give someone a soul.
I can't unsee godwyns face in the Draconic Tree Sentinels shield and it's driving me crazy.
I don't know if it's intentional or if I'm just reading too much into a vague visual similarity.
Lore wise, Godwyn and the Draconic Tree Sentinels do have not insignificant overlap- they're both entwined with the dragons, Godwyn being a friend of theres after his fight with Fortissax, and the Draconic Tree Sentinels have taken on draconic aspects and magics after Gransax attack on Leyndell.
We only find two DTS in the base game, one guarding the back entrance to Leyndell and one in Farum Azula. It's the second one that's relevant here because Farum Azula has fairly heavy presence of death blight pustules across it's land- an indicator of godwyns influence.
Do you guys think the shield design is an intentional connection or am I crazy?