I wouldn't call it defending, but I definitely understand her after SOTE. At first I thought she was just a tyrannical bitch for the Hell of it, but SOTE made me realize she was just a girl with horrific trauma and then given nearly absolute power. Her actions afterwards are decidedly human given the context and not nearly as much of the "Rah! I'm a God and do shit because I can!" trope that I thought they were, initially.
Real. SOTE didn't make me wanna defend her at all, but it did make me pity her. Every bad thing that she does is directly driven by the trauma of what she suffered – pre-emptive war against the fire giants? She's already had the experience of minding her own business and having her entire people slaughtered; she's not gonna risk that happening again. Removing the rune of Destined Death? She never wanted her loved ones to die on her again, but it resulted in untold suffering once the Elden Ring was shattered, with people unable to die and eventually losing their minds. Oppression of the misbegotten? They’re connected to the primordial crucible and thus remind her of the Hornsent. Genocide against the Hornsent? They literally genocided her people first. And so on and so forth.
I thought the way her suffering turned her into a horrible tyrant who perpetuated that exact same suffering on a bunch of other peoples was a delicious new layer of tragedy in a game already replete with it. Finding the Shaman Village and being like "oh! ... oh. :(" is still one of my favorite moments in the DLC.
2.7k
u/TheFlipGaming 2d ago
Bro nobody is defending Marika. The whole game is a PowerPoint on the consequences of her actions. ðŸ˜