Marika and Miquella's eternal cycle
So, recently I've gotten into Elden Ring because of my boyfriend and this might be due to the fact that I'm new but I don't understand why people are upset that Miquella is not a %100 good person as from what I understand that runs true for all of the demigods so, why would it be any different for him?
Of course this may simply due to the sting of having the characterization people spent two years building up for him proved to be false but still it is a bit perplexing, especially when you consider the dlc is explicitly about him removing the parts of himself that made him a good person in order to achieve godhood which as we learn by playing is a direct parallel to his mother who made the exact same sacrifice. I think what the story the dlc was trying to convey was that oftentimes when trying to break a cycle you often end up repeating the same mistakes.
Honestly, I could do an entire breakdown about how Miquella actually took after his mother the most out of all her children, with them both trying to fix a broken world by becoming gods, Marika with her rein of order and Miquella with his rein of compassion. However, both had to sacrifice everything that kept them human and good to achieve this and became the personification of they're ideals, unable to change or question themselves, which in turn trapped them both in a prison where neither of them could truly create the world they wanted.
Miquella is quite literally Marika's shadow, the Erdtree's shadow if you will.
The only difference was that Marika was not stopped before she could truly enact her will so she was left to fester which led to the shattering of the ring. And her son would have followed that path if you the player had not stopped him and saved him from godhood.
With that be said I do think this plot could have been implemented better with the dlc for the most part, being a series of fetch quests where we didn't really interact with Miquella and truly understand him as a character with him still being a mystery even after the game is over and we kill him. Which is kind off a slap in the face when he was so heavily advertised which did give the impression to the audience that we would be interacting with him more which dose suck.
But still I think he is a infinitely more complex character than people give him credit for.