And after a truly shameful amount of time since the Year of the Snake started, here is that post about Mytha I promised! @hollowwaterfairy and @dwdim5 (it wont let me tag you ive no idea why im so sorry..)Yap stands below the cool fanart.
(By Carsondrewit)
Despite what that misinformation-spreading scoundrel that is Gilligan says, Earthen Peak and Harvest Valley aren't part of Drangleic, but of Alken, the domain of Old Iron King, which makes Mytha the Queen of Alken (i've already mentioned this in the post about mistranslation but istg gilligan saying theyre in drangleic is so stupid like DOES THAT HALF SNAKE HEADLESS LADY LOOK LIKE NASHANDRA TO YOU MY DUDE?)
Either way, Mytha's husband is therefore the guy who's described in every item description as a hedonist, insane ass tyrant, so things aren't exactly looking good for her. In fact, the sorry state this section of Alken is in may very well have been caused by him.
If i recall correctly the game says somewhere that the mines have released toxic waste all over. For it to have spread that much the workers must have continued digging through the initial discharge of toxic matter, and guess who orderded them to do that? Yeah. The dude so obsessed with the metal they were presumably extracting that he has it as his epithet.
Speaking of Iron King, Gilligan actually says something right about him (ignoring that he calls him "prince" that's just mistranslation): that he did NOT love Mytha, and loved someone else instead.
The someone else in question was the Queen of Venn (current Lost Sinner), the post about mistranslation that I mentioned earlier also talks about that whole tragedy so I won't go into it here. Nevertheless, after the Lost Bastille Incident™ it is evident that OIK had completely gone insane, and perhaps this is when Mytha decided to, sadly for her only physically, distance herself from him and settle in Earthen Peak. Wether or not the place was already rotting is entirely up to personal preference of interpretation.
Now, unlike her shit ass husband, Mytha DID love him, and she likely kept loving him through and after his incredibly bad-ended affair. Gilligan is surprisingly useful to us again, and informs us that Mytha was using the poison to make herself more beautiful, in hopes that she'd eventually become good enough for that fucking basta- i mean for her king, to love.
Here in Earthen Peak, Mytha proceeded to also fall into insanity, and do things such as: behead whoever looked at her (mannequin mask desc), possibly force the workers to keep extracting poison for her to use, and apparently send some dudes to attempt to murder goddamn Vendrick or someone else in Drangleic Castle... and ok that last one needs explaining there we go on a tangent.!
Two of her mannequins are there, I'm supposing that she, in her madness, thought that doing that would get her husband's appretiation, seeing he likely despided Vendrick due to the second Lost Bastille Incident ™ (that would be Vendrick conquering the Bastille, i have a tiktok video on that but perhaps i should make a post of it here too).
So, what exactly caused her to go mad? To answer that, we have to take into consideration the effects emotional neglect from a loved one has on one's mental health, a delusional obsession (in Mytha's case that of becoming more beautiful) that shuts away your perception of reality, the Undead Curse overall making everyone paranoid as fuck and the toxic matter itself likely being damaging to the brain. Those are the reasons why Mytha went insane.
At some point however Mytha saw the real effects the poison was having on her and cut her head off, to save it from also being snakeified. As to why the poison had that effect on her alone, there could be many reasons: perhaps she mixed it with something or slightly changed its properties with magic.
Either way, her having turned half snake surely has a symbolic meaning: snakes (in DS and real life) are associated with excessive greed or vanity, which are the abjectives everyone around her, witouth looking into it, would use to describe Mytha.
This character is the DS2 classic of someone destroying and dehumanizing themselves in the name of love. Ironically enough Mytha is a parallel to Vendrick himself, and I will now proceed to go cry in my ds2 hyperfixated corner.
