Elden Ring came out two years ago this month (kind of shocking to think it's only been that long) and we've now finally got the release date for its DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, along with a trailer:
The expansion comes out on June 21st, so you can start your summer off with deadly FromSoft adventure.
I'm tempted to do an in-depth shot-by-shot analysis of the trailer, but don't think I have time for that. Instead, let's talk about the elements introduced here:
First, it does seem to be themed around Miquella. It appears that the way to get into the DLC will be by touching his withered arm at Mohgwyn Palace, which suggests that defeating Mohg will be the prerequisite for going in here. While Mohg is perhaps not as tough as Malenia or Placidusax, Mohg is nevertheless one of the big endgame optional bosses of Elden Ring, so this suggests that the difficulty of the DLC will likely be quite high. Miyazaki has said in an interview that it should be comparable to other endgame areas, but we'll have to see. But unlike Bloodborne or Dark Souls III, it does seem you'll have to be pretty far into the game to get to this - but then again, we've had two years.
While Miquella is obviously the central figure of the DLC, the trailer features a fairly distinctive character that looks like they'll be a major boss.
While the character seems to refer to the "Flames of Messmer" and it seems might have been named in other material as Messmer the Impaler, one cannot help but notice some imagery that seems similar to Praetor Rykard - Messmer has a red serpent (or serpents) that seem to extend from his body, and like all the Radagon/Renalla children, has brilliant red hair. His polearm weapon also seems to have flanges coming off of it that look a little like the weird vein things coming off of Rykard's Blasphemous Blade.
Up to this point, I've generally taken the reading that Miquella is ultimately one of the good guys - his Haligtree seemed to genuinely be a sanctuary for those who were lost and abandoned (though not the merchants, who probably needed a sanctuary more than anyone else). Still, given that this is coming from both FromSoft and from the original mythmaking of George R. R. Martin (who was not directly involved in the DLC, but they're still building off of the foundation he made - incidentally, I cannot think of a cushier job for a fantasy writer than to do a bunch of worldbuilding but never have to write out an actual plot. Living the dream, man) I would not be shocked to discover a darker side to Miquella, and even could imagine fighting him as the DLC's final boss (or perhaps as a kind of "secret final boss" like Laurence, the First Vicar).
Miquella is universally beloved - something that I think kind of bites him in the ass when Mohg kidnaps him. But as a demigod, this might be something of a strategy - we know that he's associated with sleep, and can kind of bewitch people into fawning over him. So... is he actually pure goodness and light, or is that just what he wants us to feel about him?
Indeed, I think it's interesting that Miquella is cursed with eternal childhood - as if the curse has hacked our brain to feel protective and positive toward him.
We're told that we're traveling into a Shadowland in this expansion, which we evidently access by holding Miquella's withered arm. What does it mean to be a Shadowland?
Given my recent obsession with Alan Wake, there's one obvious interpretation of the term, which is that the Shadowland is a reflection of the hidden, sometimes darker, truths about the land we know. The Lands Between have a lot of dark secrets hidden away (perhaps none so gruesome as the evident genocide of the Merchant people, buried deep below Leyndell). But a Shadow is also something we don't even really know about ourselves. In Jungian psychology, excavating and confronting the shadow, and integrating it into one's identity is a way to emerge as the true self.
Partially because I'm writing a book that, thematically, plays in the space of Jungian psychology and alchemy, but also because these two have strong parallels, I think it's also worth looking at this from a psychological standpoint, given the strong alchemical themes throughout Elden Ring.
Miquella is an empyrean. Indeed, he's probably the one most worthy to succeed Marika as a god if his benevolence is genuine. (Malenia clearly doesn't want the job - even if she possibly does achieve apotheosis in our fight with her. Ranni has a very different vision of what divinity should mean for the world, which could be better or worse, but she's definitely utterly ruthless in her pursuit of that goal.) But given Marika's rebis-like combination with Radagon, it might suggest that to be worthy of such a transformation there is some synthesis that is required.
Is the Shadowland the place where the shadows of the people of the Lands Between reside? Perhaps what we'll need to do is to find Miquella's shadow and confront it - vanquishing it so that it can be incorporated into him and for him to achieve completion.
And that makes me wonder if this Messmer is not, perhaps, some aspect of Miquella as well. What if he is the dark side of Miquella that he must acknowledge? We know that snakes are a symbol of something to be hated in the Lands Between - not only is there Rykard and his god-devouring serpent, but we also see the snake motif on the gladiators we occasionally fight, the snakes serving to identify them as "heels" in their gladiatorial fights. Might this be related to that?
Naturally, DLCs are often a chance to visit the distant past - we saw that in the original Dark Souls and in Bloodborne (sort of - technically the Hunter's Nightmare is a hellish dimension that old hunters are trapped in, but I believe it represents the past in which those hunters' sins were committed) and so it's possible we're going to be seeing an earlier era. Could Messmer be the enemy that led to snakes being this hated symbol in our present day? Possibly.
Anyway, it's precisely four months away. Hopefully I'll have finished Tears of the Kingdom and Final Fantasy Rebirth by then!
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