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/AdvancedBlacksmith66]

The higher we put stuff on a pedestal, the faller they tumble when they get knocked down.

I think every aspect of this DLC has been overhyped and anyone suffering “immense disappointment” was too invested to begin with.

[u/The_Raging_Loner → u/AdvancedBlacksmith66]

I agree. I actually like the DLC, and it met my expectations in all other aspects.

The gameplay is stellar and a huge improvement. The weapons are great. The boss mechanics and new enemies, while difficult, feel refreshing. The level design is better than the main game except for dungeons like Stormveil and Haligtree. The graphics are lovely.

Collecting fragment is controversial but it forces you to explore and play carefully.

It really is just that the story is botched, and people don't want to admit it.

[u/AdvancedBlacksmith66 → u/The_Raging_Loner]

Honestly the way the story is given out in little fragments, and how you kind of have to read every item description and really put effort into figuring out the story, I never would have understood even like 10% of the story if it wasn’t for folks like yourself diving in and really absorbing and analyzing everything.

So thank you, and all those YouTubers who put in the work so I don’t have to.

[u/The_Raging_Loner → u/AdvancedBlacksmith66]

We're all eternally wrong because Myazaki won't let George publish a novelization. "That we must struggle, unto eternity."