#omenboys

[lakay]

BTW, i write for elden ring now i suppose. mainly focused on the omen twins though this may be subject to change. check it out if you'd like!

[lakay]

they kinda look alike, tbh.

[lakay]

morgott the omen king. i hope you agree

[lakay]

i mentioned it in the replies of one of my posts, but i love how tied morgott and mohg are in soul despite their differences. their great runes occupying the same tower is one thing, but the possibilities that they work together in some capacity despite having such fundamental differences in beliefs is so interesting.

there's nothing that explicitly states that they're collaborating on anything, but i feel you can get real far if you let your mind wander. their shared occupation of the shunning grounds, morgott and mohg's matching shackles, morgott's sword having that bloodflame slice ability, the complimentary ways that they fight with morgott's speed and mohg's strength, mohg's illusion guarding the frenzied flame proscription with morgott's seal hidden behind him... there's so much to work with there!

the last part is what interests me the most, tbh. something peculiar about this setup is how morgott's illusions work; when he summons margit in stormveil and out in altus, gold shimmers around him while a symbol bearing the sigil of the crucible appears on the ground beneath margit. when he summons godfrey's spirit, the same symbol and golden hue appears on him. but with mohg, no such gold appears, nor any symbol. he merely materialises out of thin air.

this is interesting because of the fact that this means morgott didn't summon him. not only because he doesn't show up with the symbol or gold, but also because when you kill morgott, his margit illusions in stormveil and altus also disappear if you don't kill them before morgott. this doesn't happen with mohg in the sewers, who can be fought before you even get to godfrey, even if you kill mohg in his palace first before any of them. but why is that?

i personally believe that it's because mohg's illusion is not one born from the same magic that morgott uses for his incantations. i know, shocking, the golden order fanboy and the formless mother fanboy use different spells, but it does serve to explain why mohg's illusion stays even when the man himself was slain first. it sets their magic apart very clearly and decisively, but also grants more insight into their collaboration.

mainly because i think that morgott and mohg working together on this can fit into 2 different possible reasonings behind the nature of their relationship. the first being that this is a begrudging truce built off of mutual respect and fear of the frenzied flame, and that they don't agree on much else beyond that and are estranged otherwise. the second being that they still work together in some capacity and still hold even the slightest bit of affection for each other, and guardianship over the frenzied flame using the magic they are best at (illusions and seals) is testament to that.

both are plenty compelling, though i find myself more drawn to the 2nd reason. i wonder if there was a time before miquella where mohg was establishing his dynasty and his brother, a fanatic of the golden order, turned a blind eye to his actions out of love. its probable that morgott and mohg never publicly acknowledged their familial connection, since neither varre nor ansbach make any mention of mohg having a brother, nor does anyone (barring shaneheight) know that morgott is actually an omen. it could be that, when mohg left the sewers to establish his dynasty, morgott let the matter lie and the two went their separate ways rather amicably, if a little bitter.

as per usual, this was just a huge ramble with no direction. just musings pretty much. i love thinking about these guys a lot.

[lakay]

both morgott and the leonine misbegotten have tails with little wings above the base of them. i find it quite cute.

[lakay]

the not-insignificant differences between the omen twins

so, i saw this picture posted by @amanaci which inspired me to write this rather lengthy piece on the contrasts between morgott and mohg. i decided that, instead of dumping this whole think-piece on their post, i'd make my own separate post and ramble here.

this difference in their height really tracks for how their fighting styles and personalities are like, i feel. i always found it peculiar how different they are despite being twins; i feel like there's a rather stark resemblance between miquella and malenia in their soft-faced features, pale skin, and long flowing hair, and a close resemblance between the carian siblings with their red hair, but morgott and mohg are rather different from each other, only bearing similarities due to their omen nature. i looked a little bit into that and found that there's pretty good reasons behind why.

firstly, morgott is severely malnourished and unhealthy in comparison to mohg. you can see it in his body and how his skin sags, how his ribs and bones show, and how dry it looks. below is a comparison between his hands and mohg's hands.

morgott's hands are dry, almost rubbed red and raw around the knuckles and fingers. it reminds me a little of psoriasis, or some kind of skin discolouration caused by his poor health. it's likely he isn't eating well, or at the very least, he isn't eating as well as mohg. his twin, on the other hand (ha!), has shiny, veiny skin with a healthy colour and gleam to them. it's like he wants to call to attention how well moisturised he is (which, in this case, compared to morgott, he is).

above is a comparison between the twins' horns. the difference is extremely evident to me; morgott's horns are dry, almost seeming brittle, like sun-dried bone that hasn't seen rain or moisture in years. it reminds me of the horns of a very neglected ram, almost, but despite that, the horn growths seem more controlled, less like the wild growths all over the royal omens of the shunning grounds and more controlled as a sort of jutting crown from mainly one side of his head. meanwhile, mohg's horns are shiny, curling wildly to the point of injury, taking his eye in its path of growth. they grew wildly enough to replace his hair altogether, if he ever had any, and give him an even more imposing silhouette with a literal crown of horns (and a beard to boot). beyond this, his horns look healthy, with clearly defined rings to each growth that shine under the light, much like the rest of him. he's oiled leather to morgott's dry hide.

another somewhat interesting detail of morgott is his tail. i know a lot of people see it as soft, and it certainly looks the part, but what i find interesting are two things: the first being that his fur looks quite matted in some lightings and angles but overall looks soft to the touch, and the second being that his tail's horns look much healthier than his own horns on his head. this is in clear contrast to the rest of his body, which looks dry and unassuming with smatterings of coarse white hair up and down his body, and i believe its a matter of the limits to his own self-care. he utilises his tail as another weapon in his arsenal, so he cares for it that it might serve him well in battle, unlike his head of horns, which only serve as a detriment to him with how they must obscure some of his vision, if not most of it. additionally, he likely could bear to look at his tail and care for it, but for an omen that hates his nature more than the average, he probably doesn't enjoy looking at his own face in the mirror enough to properly care for himself.

which brings me back to the sheer differences between these two. morgott, unhealthy and self-loathing, neglects many visual aspects of himself likely because he sees vanity as a luxury not afforded to someone like him. mohg, healthy and self-obsessed, cares and grooms himself to appear very much so like the lord he claims to be, loving himself to a heretical extreme (in the eyes of the golden order). their statures reflect this too; morgott hunches low to the ground, ready to pounce at any given moment but also due to his own shame and humility, while mohg stands tall and proud, though not as tall as he could possibly be due to his upbringing being one of likely having to hunch low to fit beneath the ceilings of the smaller parts of the shunning grounds.

above is a picture of an omen from stormveil, which bears resemblance to all the omen you see in the game. in terms of clothing, one of the big ways people set the omen twins apart, morgott is completely naked save for the ragged cloak of animal hides he wears, signifying he is not fit to even dress himself in a shirt or trousers as befits a king, much like the omen pictured. he wears even less than that, actually, since he lacks even the slightest adornment save for the rope that clasps his cloak together. on the other hand, mohg is entirely adorned in finery, wearing a beautifully embroidered, fashionable priest's robe with matching vestments, and beneath that (as seen in the first image) some underclothes, a plain black button up and some pants. mohg's entire silhouette changes with the removal of his robe, while morgott's barely makes an impact once you realise he has only taken off the one article of clothing he had.

then, of course, there are their fighting styles. there's this fantastic video on youtube that i recommend watching of the twins fighting every major boss in the game, and you can clearly tell them apart from their fighting styles alone. morgott is fast, his size making him look deceptively slow only for him to dart out and do sick flips and somersaults and pirouettes that rival even the most flexible dancers, and he fights with speed and almost animalistic ferocity, save for when he conjures his weapon incantations. mohg is slow but strong, capable of swinging that large trident around like it weighs nothing while hitting with the force to knock down most enemies in a few hits, and most tarnished in just one, but he fights with a steady gracefulness in his every move, walking slowly and carefully while casting spells that hurt a lot.

even their phase 2 transitions are markedly different, with morgott's being one where he drops to his knees, vomits, and releases his cursed blood(?) all over the battlefield, causing his weapon to become alight with his curse and for him to fight with more in-your-face aggression, and with mohg's being one where he simply ignores your attacks and begins stabbing his spear into the formless mother for power at your expense, gaining a majestic set of wings that put distance between you and him so he can cast more of his spells at safer distances. where morgott is pushed to his limit and forced to confront his nature, mohg has long since embraced it and enjoys the fruits of his bloody labour with the mother of truth's blessing.

speaking of the mother of truth, even their patron orders are at odds with each other. the golden order was built upon the foundation of a very carefully-guarded lie: that marika is the one true god, which she can't be, with the existence of radagon (as per goldmask, perhaps the number 1 fundamentalist we meet in game). the formless mother is known also as the mother of truth, existing in direct opposition of the golden order's lies and craving the honesty of one of the purest expressions of life: blood. these two ideals would war against each other, with one being dedicated to the upholding of a beautiful, corrupt lie and the other being dedicated to the instillation of a dynasty of raw, pure truths. as such, even morgott and mohg's own great runes reflect these contrasts in faith, though, remarkably, these two great runes are ones that fit perfectly over each other, with mohg's slightly elevated (seen below, taken from the fextralife wiki).

so, where does this leave us? i don't know, exactly. i wasn't really writing this with any sort of ultimate conclusion. i just found it really interesting how different they were, and i wanted to talk about all the noticeable, significant differences between them here. thanks for coming to my ted talk.