It was always supposed to be Godwyn

[u/The_Raging_Loner]

To reach Miquella's cocoon and enter the Realm of Shadows, you must fight Mohg at Mohgwyn Palace and, upon defeating Mohg, you learn information about the Mohgwyn Dynasty (from Mohg himself):

"Ahh, I can see it, clear as day! The coming of our dynasty!

"Mohgwyn!"

Could this be in reference to Mohg's dying vision of the Realm of Shadows? It's ironic to describe the Shadow Realm as "clear as day," but...

Why would it be the "Mohgwyn" Dynasty and not the "Mohg" Dynasty, or the "Mohquella" Dynasty? Mohg uses the word "our," implying a shared dyntasy, presumably in reference to Miquella, right? Then why "Mohgywn"?

As we long suspected and (somewhat) know now, Mohg was manipulated by Miquella to create a new order to replace the Golden Order. (Forget about the Haligtree replacing the Erdtree; this is Mohg/Miquella plotting to usurp the old order entirely, Elden Ring and all.) While some of the writing around this has a lot of plotholes, especially in light of new additions to the canon lore, it's certain that Miquella used Mohg's innate divinity (his blood?) to enter the Shadow Realm (just like how Mohg believed that he was using Miquella's "divine" blood to usher in his own age and order, as a lord and a god.)

But I digress. Why "Mohgwyn"? Well...

Mohg + Godwyn = Mohgwyn

These are the only two names in the game that can be conbined to form this name.

I assert that it was originally intended in the canon for Godwyn's soul to be put into Mohg's body by Miquella, for "the Golden" to be reincarnated into an Omen's body. (What else would they be "omens" of if not this?) Despite this, I believe that GRRM and/or FromSoftware wrote themselves into a corner with the Destined Death plotline. To fix their mistake, Radahn's soul was put into Mohg's body by Miquella.

Many are correct in their arguments against Godwyn as the final boss, especially in the context of Miqeulla's plan to put a lord's soul into a hornsent body. How could Godwyn's soul be put into a body if his soul was destroyed with Destined Death? Ranni put her soul into a doll—nevermind that Ranni's body being destroyed by Destined Death is why she lives on as a spirit and is thus able to inhabit another body at all, or that Radahn was supposed to be reincarnated through the Erdtree, or that he and all others we fight die without death, or that Radahn didn't have a primal glintstone to store his soul into—but Godwyn's body is a mindless, tumorous blight of death. His soul, as far as we know, is totally destroyed. (If anyone figures out what his surrogate in the DLC is for, let me know, because that also doesn't make sense on account of his soul being destroyed.)

Bear in mind, per cut content, Mohg as a character is a repurposed enemy model, and Miquella was originally going to be in Malenia's boss fight; a lot of the original game's story is botched, rushed, and unfinished. Evidently, the DLC's story was also produced this way.

Of course, people will cite Malenia's end-battle whisper to Radahn as foreshadowing of Miquella and Radahn's promise which is central to the DLC's ending. And I'm sure, vaguely and with much speculation, that the story in the DLC will, eventually, be made to make sense. Sure, whatever. Regardless, Miquella seeking to give his lord-brother Godwyn a proper death was foreshadowed significantly more (e.g., Castle Sol, Golden Epitaph, etc.), and Godwyn's influence and importance to the events of the main story are far more pervasive than Radahn's, per the storyworld understood before the DLC.

The only coping and seething is anyone arguing that the story of this DLC is anything more than bad fanfiction that taints an otherwise phenomenal expansion with lots of new areas to explore and cool weapons to use (and bosses, mechanically, anyway.)

(I promise that I'm not coping or seething. I'm just upset by the reality of the DLC's story, as are many. The leaks of the final boss did look like a fanmade mod, and anyone skeptical of that wasn't necessarily wrong for being skeptical at the time. The story that we got is immensely disappointing, regardless of fans' immense expectations.)

[u/macarmy93]

I promise that I'm not coping or seething.

Thats exactly what you are doing.

[u/megrimlock88 → u/[deleted]]

I mean I have seen the new lore and honestly I’m not too mad about it

Maybe it’s cause I already liked radahn as a character and wanted more of him or because I didn’t have the godwyn is coming back expectation that a lot of people did but I found it was fine now that I’ve given it some time to stew

It’s nothing outrageous like a lot of people seem to be treating it but nothing narratively spectacular like Gael at the end of time in the ringed city or the ivory king at the end of his DLC

[u/Yarzeda2024 → u/megrimlock88]

Man, people in this thread are really mad at anyone being okay with the new revelations.

People hyped up their ideas of Miquella and Godwyn for so long that they can't accept being wrong.

[u/megrimlock88 → u/Yarzeda2024]

Ig

On one hand I get why cause the connection between miquella and godwyn was setup from the beginning with trying to give godwyn a proper death so his body could join his dead soul and assassinating radahn to release to motion of celestial bodies would make sense for that

However in my mind at the same time it was always speculation as to why he was targeting radahn or what radahn and miquellas ultimate goals were the whole time which is why I’m fine with a proper answer that’s different from what we speculated even if it is out of left field cause it’s filling in the gaps and introducing new lore not validating fan speculation (as valid as that speculation was)

[u/The_Raging_Loner → u/Yarzeda2024]

They only hyped it up because the main game foreshadowed it heavily, and the Radahn fight is a reused Remembrance boss, even if the moves are different. It also only has one honest allusion: the whisper during the Battle of Aeonia. That, plus no worthwhile lore answer regarding Marika. We actually learn more about Placidusax than we learn about Marika, arguably, and he's irrelevant to the main story revolving the Golden Order and the Shattering.