If you get the Lord of Frenzied Flame ending after using your own flame to burn the Erdtree rather than Melina's, there's a postscript after the Frenzied Flame begins to overtake the world. In this, Melina finds Torrent's whistle among the ashes and vows to take you down, opening her long-closed eye and revealing an eye of pale blue.
Given that this blue is almost identical to the blue of the Beast Eye, granted by Gurranq after you meet him the first time, I've generally started to believe a theory that these eyes are a pair, and that they originally belonged to the Gloam-Eyed Queen.
Spoilers Ahead
The GEQ was a rival Empyrean who was defeated at some point by Marika and her forces. Indeed, I've also got a theory going that she was the queen to Placidusax's Elden Lord, as Maliketh was sent to Farum Azula to guard the Rune of Death (and to be clear, Gurranq is just Maliketh in a paper-thin disguise).
The high drama of Maliketh's strike against Farum Azula is a whole other post's worth of theories, but to boil it down, I think Maliketh was probably of the same species as the Beastmen of Farum Azula (as was Blaidd) and probably a member of that society (and given that he's referred to as Marika's brother, I'd guess that if that relationship goes back as far as the one between Ranni and Blaidd, presumably there was a time when Marika was welcome in Farum Azula, so the GEQ could easily be her sister, cousin, or other relative).
Melina is associated with fire, and of course the fire that burns the Erdtree. But Messmer is also associated with fire, and in his remembrance and other items he drops, it refers to how he had a vision of fire that was shared by his younger sister.
While it's said that Marika became a God in the Land of Shadow (much as Miquella intends to do) and evidence suggests she was born there, we don't actually know how long after her apotheosis she sent Messmer to purge the Hornsent people.
It might have been a long time.
Still, let's talk about thematics and motifs:
If Melina had one of the Gloam-Eyed Queen's eyes placed in her head, and kind of sealed away as a weapon of last resort (hence the tattoo over her eye and her refusal to open it,) that implies that she was missing an eye - either it was removed in order to receive this transplant, or she simply didn't have it.
Well, wouldn't you know? Messmer is also missing an eye - actually, both of his eyes if you don't count the eyes on the snakes growing out of his body.
But it looks like he has an eye, glowing with the grace of gold. Only it's not an eye - or at least not his. Halfway through the Messmer fight, the Impaler plucks the eye out, revealing it actually to be one of Marika's Scarseals. Like the item we can get (I want to say near the Dragonborn guy above Siofra River? Or maybe from the Zamor guy in the Evergaol,) it appears to be an eye with Marika's rune on it (and buffs a bunch of mental stats at the cost of increased damage to you - probably less useful than Radagon's Scar and Sore Seals, but still helpful especially at early levels).
Messmer crushes this seal and undergoes a transformation - his embedded serpents lose their wings and turn white from red (two colors with strong thematic associations as far as Marika is concerned) and he becomes overall more monstrous in form, with sharp claw-like toe and fingernails and coils of exposed muscle (that... kind of look like writhing snakes under his skin).
In a manner perhaps not entirely unlike Godfrey with Serosh, Messmer essentially removes a restraint on himself - but while Godfrey slays the beast that is keeping him from indulging in his barbarian ways, Messmer allows the beast within out.
Still, point is that Messmer and Melina both have this theme of eyes.
And eyes are very important in Elden Ring. The Grace of Gold is found in the eyes - as Tarnished, our irises don't have any gold in them, allowing anyone to clock us the moment they meet us. On top of that, the various Rune items generally look like Irises (more and more the more powerful they are). Grace seems to be found in the eyes, and the guidance of grace also affects what we can see (with one or two NPCs even implying that not everyone can even see the Erdtree above the Lands Between).
The Beast Eye also lends us a certain guidance - allowing us to sense when Deathroot is near. And the Rune of Death is basically the inversion of Marika's rune, meaning hers is likely the Rune of Life.
I have this really strong sense that at one time, Marika and the Gloam-Eyed Queen were meant to exist alongside one another, balancing each other - a Goddess of Life and a Goddess of Death. This could even explain how Godfrey could be the first Elden Lord even if Placidusax might have pre-dated him, because they were Lords to different Gods.
Is there meant to be a balance? Miquella and Malenia are twins and both Empyreans. Were they meant to be balanced forces of Rot and Perseverance? I mean, you've got one sibling whose whole thing is chaotic mutation and change, and another who is eternally a child. Were they meant to balance one another as Change and Endurance?
What about other pairs? Morgott dedicates himself to loyally serving his mother and honoring his father, condemning us for our ambitions while Mohg has grand designs of a brand-new dynasty that will see him ascend to be Elden Lord of a whole new regime. Are they Humility and Ambition?
Are Messmer and Melina a similarly bonded pair? And if so, what are the values that they represent and balance? Aesthetically, they're very similar, and while they each have affiliated butterflies like Miquella and Malenia, both the butterflies associated with Melina and those associated with Messmer are both burning.
In the launch trailer for Shadow of the Erdtree, we get what I assume is a distant flashback to Marika's apotheosis. I believe that the massive gateway of bodies is actually where we'll fight Miquella and his Frankenstein'd lord, as he attempts to achieve godhood as well.
But if we consider this idea that there's supposed to be balance, and that this world is meant to have two Gods, not just one, it puts something new into perspective:
We see Marika pull a strand of what looks like hair from a body in what might be Godskin robes.
Was Marika's original sin the slaying of her own sister, the Gloam-Eyed Queen? Did she kill the Goddess of Death to create her Golden Order and ascend to monotheistic godhood? And has every ill thing that has befallen her world been because the Gloam-Eyed Queen was meant to balance her?
(Hell, if we want to carry on our nearly unsupported "Midra and Nanaya are Marika's parents" theory, could they have fallen victim to the Frenzied Flame knowing that one of their daughters had killed the other?)
I don't know if there's any intention to make direct sequels to Elden Ring - it's something they've only ever done for Dark Souls, and Dark Souls III felt practically like a game all about how sequels shouldn't exist. Still, I think you could do something really interesting if you had a sort of inverted timeline - what would the world look like if this conflict between sisters (one that I'll concede is, as far as I know, purely my own theory) had gone the other way?
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