Messmer Down

 I suppose this is a spoiler, but those who are familiar with FromSoft's tendencies when making DLC should have seen it coming: Messmer, who dominates the marketing for Shadow of the Erdtree, is not its final boss.

And, it's the first Remembrance boss that took me more than one try. I've actually been pleasantly surprised that the DLC here is not ass-stompingly difficult. I've done some thorough exploration, leveling up a bit (not a ton, but maybe 6-7 levels) and gaining a lot of the Scadutree Blessings (I'm up to 11).

Spoilers Ahead:

It's actually pretty interesting how the ratio of Scadutree (and Revered Spirit Ash, though I've gotten fewer of those, only up to 5 upgrades) to Runes gained means that I think the DLC will probably do a decent job of evening out the power level of characters coming in - the granular power bonus to your levels at this point is going to be overshadowed (no pun intended) by the other buffs. I actually spared a single level to get my Intelligence up to 11 (the character began as a Wretch, so his base for all stats is 10) in order to be able to use the Smithscript throwing weapons (I don't think I'm going to stick with them, but I do think a Dex-based character with the Smithscript Dagger could be fun, as even its R1 attacks throw them).

Anyway, Messmer sits at the top of the Shadow Keep, which requires climbing up the massive Specimen Storage area that reminds me a lot of the Grand Archives in DSIII and slightly of the clinic in Bloodborne's Old Hunters. The main threat here are Messmer's fire knights, who are quite tough but will go down if you can hit like a truck, which is what my build is all about. I actually got one of their helmets, which increases you HP, Stamina, and Equip Load, and now that I'm up to 30 Endurance, I can wear some very heavy armor (it helps that I also set aside the chest slot for the Raptor's Black Feathers).

Anyway, Messmer is a two-phase boss, but with just a single health bar. He's very aggressive in both phases, fighting with a spear and some nasty fire magic. In the second phase, he unleashes the serpent within him, able to transform into a giant snake for certain attacks.

There's probably something to the symbolism that the serpents growing out of him in the first phase are red, whereas in the second phase they're white. White and Red are clearly important colors in this world, with Marika and Radagon playing the roles of White Queen and Red King in the alchemical symbolism. Messmer has red hair, which would seem to mark him as a son of Radagon, though his assault upon the Hornsent culture's place in the timeline is not clear.

Anyway, like in the base game, one of the major impediments to your progress is a wooden overgrowth that bars your way to a sacred space, in this case being the top of Belurat Tower Settlement, and you need Messmer's Flame to burn it.

Interestingly, this doesn't seem to actually be the Scadutree that you're going to burn.

I've also got a clearer picture of the overall plot (also some things were spoiled for me by YouTube). Ansbach, the former servant of Mohg, and Freyja, a former subordinate of Radahn, discover that Miquella is planning to resurrect Radahn by putting his soul into Mohg's body - beyond using Mohg's omen nature to get into the Land of Shadow, Miquella is planning to basically body-snatch him to let Radahn serve as his Elden Lord.

Ansbach is horrified at this implication, while Freyja basically thinks that "honorable death" would be a less desirable fate to Radahn than being able to endlessly fight for a cause.

It's interesting because it reframes Mohg in a serious way: while I think it would be naive to simply conclude he was a good guy all along, his most heinous act of kidnapping Miquella now seems to be something that he was compelled to do, and Miquella is the actual perpetrator. This, then, makes Malenia's abandonment in the Haligtree a crueler fate.

Both Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R. R. Martin seem to have profound distrust for authority figures, and so it seems that the moral of the story here is that anyone seeking the godhood is inherently going to be sort of a nasty, callous person. In this sense, I almost feel like I'm coming around again to thinking that the Age of Stars ending might actually be the best one - Ranni promises to be a Goddess who doesn't meddle in mortal affairs. She did some really horrible things to get to that place (like having Godwyn assassinated by the Black Knives, and thus inadvertently setting off the whole Deathroot thing and Those Who Live in Death) but at least her plan as the world's deity is to get the hell out of there and let people figure their own stuff out.

On the other hand, I can imagine that Miquella's vision for the world is truly a benevolent one - he wants everyone to get along and live in love and compassion. It's just that, perhaps due to his curse of eternal childhood, he doesn't really understand the nuances that compelled love isn't really love at all. You can't just force people to cooperate and feel good about one another.

Still, I do find it fascinating that the shattering of his great rune breaks the camaraderie between Leda's gathered flock, and immediately things start to get nasty, with Leda becoming a paranoid McCarthyist, basically.

Anyway, I'm trying my best to speak with all the NPCs I can find and exhaust their dialogue options. I feel like I'm probably doing a good job with Ansbach and Freyja. I need to do some exploring to progress Thiollier's quests. I think I'm at a fork in the road with Leda and Ansbach - I suspect only one of them is going to survive to continue on in the plot. I'm inclined to side with Ansbach, though we'll see.

Oh, and one last crazy thing: you can summon the Hornsent in the Messmer fight, but the summon sign is inside the arena, so I basically just dodged his opening attack and let my Mimic Tear grab aggro before I ran over and grabbed him. The Hornsent deserves to get some vengeance on this guy, though his comments after defeating the boss are a little worrying: he wants to continue his rampage of revenge and is now down to stop Miquella from his apotheosis simply because he doesn't want to calm down and lose the anger that drives him to slay basically every one of Marika's descendants (not that there are too many left at this point) and every denizen of the Erdtree (which sounds a bit like genocide-for-genocide revenge... not exactly great).

I mean, this is a Soulsborne game. I don't expect anyone's questline to have a happy ending.