Twins in Elden Ring

 I don't know that this will be an exhaustive list or anything, but I think twins are an important motif in Elden Ring.

Among the demigods, we have two examples of twins - first, Morgott and Mohg, and then Malenia and Miquella. To be fair, I find myself remembering Morgott and Mohg as twins but can't recall if that's officially confirmed. Still, their Great Runes both look very similar and are activated at the same Divine Tower (the only case, I recall correctly, of activating both runes at a single tower). Though not demigods, we also have the "D" brothers, who are said to share a single soul and are zealous hunters of Those Who Live in Death.

Now, first initials are also clearly pretty important. I've been presenting a sort of code for how demigods are named somewhat thoughtlessly for a while: that there are essentially three generations that each have their own initial. G for the children of Godfrey and Marika, R for the children of Radagon and Renalla, and M for the children of Marika and Radagon.

But that's wrong, isn't it?

After all, Morgott and Mohg are from that first generation (I've tended to interpret them as being Marika's firstborn children) but their names start with an M, just like dear old mom.

In fact, the only confirmed members of the demigod cohort are, I believe, Morgott, Mohg, and Godwyn. There are, of course, plenty of other demigods who aren't named - while Godwyn was the first to die, it seems many other did in the Night of Black Knives, some of whom are the interred of the Wandering Mausoleums. There are also other G demigods, but these are not Marika's direct children - they are presumably descended from Godwyn, and include our likely first demigod boss, Godrick the Grafted, along with some figure between them found in an evergaol (I don't know if Miyazaki just learned British English, but between this and the Hypogean Gaol in Bloodborne, he must prefer the UK spelling of the word Americans spell "jail") known as Godefroy.

Godrick is obsessed with the idea that he's the last scion of the "Golden Lineage," and so I'll concede here that the "G" names - which, I'll also point out not only have the initial G but actually have the entire word "God" in all of them - might not have been assigned to all of Godfrey and Marika's children, but only reserved for those directly descending from Godwyn. Godwyn was more or less the equivalent of Baldur from Norse mythology, as a deity who was universally beloved but whose killing ignited an apocalyptic war.

Also, consider that Godfrey is not really the guy's name: he's actually a barbarian warlord named Horah Loux who made a lot of changes to his whole demeanor, the way he dressed, and how he acted in order to fit the proper kingly image of Elden Lord. So, why was "Godfrey" chosen as a name?

Given that Morgott and Mohg were born as Omens (periodic reminder here that the very word "monster" comes from the Latin "Monstrum" which means Omen - so Omens are basically just "monsters," at least when people are calling them that) but Godwyn was not (though he sure as hell is a crazy monster now!) I could imagine that he became kind of the great hope of Marika's dynasty - that perhaps Godwyn was meant to sire the rightful and noble successors of power in the Lands Between.

But let's consider something else:

While I doubt he'd want to simply repeat himself (and he's got a pretty broad set of subjects he's written about,) George R. R. Martin did, you know, famously write a fantasy series (and will maybe finish it one day?) in which a massive war breaks out because it turns out that the heir to the throne is not actually the king's son.

In A Song of Ice and Fire (and the TV adaptation, Game of Thrones,) the three royal children are actually bastards, born out of incest between the queen Cersei and her brother Jaime. In fact, hair color plays a big part in the story, as the king, Robert Baratheon, has dark hair and basically every Baratheon has had dark-haired children, while the two princes and the princess all have their mother's golden blonde hair - a family trait of her Lannister clan.

Marika's third generation of children are... sort of also born of incest if you consider a single person being both mother and father as like that. Radagon, as we discover, is actually just the male aspect of Marika (though it's ambiguous whether Radagon was ever his own person - in the past I've tended to think that he was, though I've moved a little more toward the notion that he was always Marika. Basically the only sticking point was that I thought Radagon was descended from Fire Giants while Marika is pretty clearly part of the Numen people. But if Radagon's red hair isn't a sign of ancestry but instead a spiteful curse placed upon him for the cruel genocide he waged against the Fire Giants, then the conflict goes away).

This transformation between sexes is clearly true down to the physiological level, as Radagon fathers Rykard, Radahn, and Ranni while Marika had mothered Morgott, Mohg, and Godfrey. You know, she's a god. It's not that crazy.

But, let's take a step back: those names. If Godwyn was not a special case, getting a G name like his father, then what would it mean for Morgott and Mohg to have M names? The other demigods with M names are the children of Marika and Radagon - which is to say children who are entirely born from Marika herself. (Even if Radagon seems to have developed his own conflicting will and intention separate from Marika's, and might even resent that his female half is the only one who gets to truly be a god.)

Consider the following:

Of all the demigods, only four we know of are considered cursed in some way. Morgott and Mohg were born as Omens. Malenia is a vessel for the Scarlet Rot. And Miquella is cursed with eternal childhood.

Are these curses the result of being the child of a single biological parent? In other words, is Radagon the true father of Morgott and Mohg?

Whether they are or not, Godfrey did seem to love Morgott - and, interestingly, also seems associated with an era that might have been far more accepting of Omens and the other expressions of mixed biologies and the Crucible.

The nature of the curses is, of course, quite different. Morgott and Mohg are afflicted in the same basic way, only that Morgott seems to strive to transcend his Omen nature while Mohg seems to have gone all in on the pain and suffering of that existence as if it's a positive thing. The younger twins, though, have somewhat more individualized but also more... how to say it, sophisticated curses? Miquella and Malenia are empyreans, after all.

But I wonder if that reflects the changes in approach that Marika took in birthing them. Radagon, of course, had created this hybrid of sorcery and incantation, combining scholarship with faith to create Golden Order Fundamentalism - a practice that seems to tie itself closely to esoteric Alchemy in real world traditions (Radagon and Marika make a rather perfect Rebis, combining the Red King and White Queen).

Still, the other parallel here is that if Morgott and Mohg were born from Marika alone, that would mean two instances of Marika's children from self-impregnation coming out as twins.

What if there's a third pair?

Melina is one of the game's biggest enigmas. But one thing I think pretty much any Elden Ring lore theorists agree on is that she's probably Marika's daughter. She comes very close to saying so explicitly.

Melina, given her M name, would probably be from that third generation of demigods. In fact, it's long been speculated that the Smoldering Butterfly is associated with her in the same way that the Nascent Butterfly is with Miquella and the Aeonian Butterfly is with Malenia. These latter two butterflies reflect the curse that afflicts those twins. And so, given that Melina is both already burned and bodiless and also is burned to ignite the Erdtree (if we don't get that Frenzied Flame that is) it seems a strong connection to make.

However, with the introduction of Messmer in the Shadow of the Erdtree trailer, we're given a surprising new wrinkle. Messmer is confirmed to be a demigod on the same level as the others we've seen (hence why he's seated on a throne similar to the ones that appear in front of the Erdtree before the Morgott fight in Leyndell) and, as a fellow M name, he's probably 3rd generation (again, I know that Mohg and Morgott complicate this as a way of referring to it, but I mean post-Godfrey, post-Renalla). And he is also associated with flame. Also, like Melina, his left eye is closed.

So... could he be Melina's twin brother?

I realize here that in the last several posts, I've suggested that Messmer either is Miquella (or a kind of shadow version of him), or he is Melina, or that he and Melina are twins. And you know what, any of these could be right. And we might not even get a clear answer!

When the DLC actually comes out, we'll probably have some clear answers and a million new questions.

But here's another question to toss on the bonfire: Every single one of Radagon's children has red hair (Ranni did when she was in her original body).

Except for Miquella.

Why?