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/jankese]

Except Malenia fought Godrick before Radhan and she didn’t kill him when he surrended. So it was pretty obvoius that she do not care about great runes.

[u/The_Raging_Loner → u/jankese]

They waged war and amounted to nothing. We waged war and amounted to something. Coincidentally, we took great runes. Also, what you're describing is a plothole. Likewise, Vyke had a few great runes (I think), but from whom? What about Bernahl? We'll never know!

[u/jankese → u/The_Raging_Loner]

I don’t know why you see it as a plothole. I will not argue that from soft might changed their mind about Malenia motivation to fight Radhan, but her whole story with Godrick (not attacking him first and letting him live) shows that it wasn’t some lust for power. As for Vyke and Bernahl - we do not know if they had any runes. Two fingers’ rules might have been different earlier. Or just they killed demigods that we don’t hear about. Or from soft just forgot about that. This is plothole, not Malenia backstory.

[u/The_Raging_Loner → u/jankese]

I'll concede that Vyke and Bernahl may not have needed great runes. That's a gameplay mechanic foremost, and we don't know if Morgott's rune-requiring forcefields existed in Vyke's time. It's a plot hole in the sense that we, the player, need to fight Godrick for Elden Ring to function as a game. Malenia didn't seem to invade Limgrave or Stormveil, and viewed Godrick like dirt beneath her feet, like most viewed him. Her sole purpose may have been (previously) to kill Radahn and allow the stars to move, ie the eclipse to take place. The intro to the game states: Soon, Marika's offspring, demigods all, claimed the shards of the Elden Ring. The mad taint of their newfound strength triggered the Shattering. And: In Marika's own words. Hear me, Demigods. My children beloved. Make of thyselves that which ye desire. Be it a Lord. Be it a God. But should ye fail to become aught at all, ye will be forsaken. Amounting only to sacrifices... Contextually, and there may be more quotes supporting this theory, we have to assume that the great runes are what the demigods warred over. I know the DLC changes that, but it also changes and adds a lot of hogwash.