How Miquella FAILED to Save Malenia from the Scarlet Rot! || Elden Ring Lore Theory
12This video explains a new theory about Elden Ring lore. It concerns Miquella's attempt to cure Malenia from the plague of the scarlet rot. This video argues that Miquella's cure not only failed, but it made Malenia's affliction worse than the two of them could have ever imagined.
The cure in question is the needle of unalloyed gold, which Miquella devised as a treatment for the scarlet rot. The reason this needle is supposed to work in theory is because (i) unalloyed gold has magical properties that ward off the influence of the outer gods, and (ii) the scarlet rot is itself the expression of an outer god's influence. So, by inserting a needle of unalloyed gold into Malenia's flesh, Miquella sought to silence the rot within her.
But there is reason to think that Miquella's cure backfired. The evidence comes from Millicent's questline. This questline introduces the character of Gowry, who uses one of Miquella's needles on Millicent, who also suffers from the scarlet rot. But he doesn't use it to cure her. He believes that the needle will help to create conditions under which the scarlet rot will utterly consume her and transform her into a valkyrie of the rot, who is more powerful than Millicent could have ever become on her own, without this treatment.
We learn from Gowry that the needle of unalloyed gold *does* suppress the *symptoms* of the scarlet rot, but the rot still lies dormant within its host, and during its dormancy it feeds on the emotions, especially negative emotions. And all of that negative energy accumulates over time, until the host achieves a crisis of emotion, at which point she 'blooms' into a new scarlet divinity. Gowry gave Millicent the golden needle in order to cultivate such a crisis, so she could be reborn.
And perhaps this explains why Malenia destroyed the entire kingdom Caelid when she removed her needle of unalloyed gold during the wars of the Shattering, as part of a last ditch effort to defeat Radahn. Perhaps Malenia experienced a crisis of emotion like the one that Gowry wanted to cultivate for Millicent, and all the pent-up negative energy that Malenia released thereby destroyed not merely Radahn but the whole of the kingdom that he once called his own.
P.S. I wonder if we will see more of Miquella's relationship to Malenia in the upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. Will there be a scarlet rot themed ending? Will it reveal new insight into the needle of unalloyed gold? Who knows, but I can't wait!
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00:00 Thesis: Miquella's Needle Backfired
01:10 The Evidence of Gowry and Millicent
03:28 What Millicent Teaches us about Malenia
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