Elden Ring: Who Is Melina?!?!

I can’t believe nobody has figured this out yet. One of the most endearing and honorable characters in all of Elden Ring, our ‘Maiden’ Melina, may also be the most mysterious as nobody has figured out what her real identity is.

Melina may be the most prominent side character, as she guides and informs the Tarnished whenever they rest as a Site of Grace, and is definitely the friendliness character the Tarnished will meet as she actively helps them achieve their goal of becoming Elden Lord.

Yet, like I said, nobody knows who she actually is.

There are some hints about her origins as she says that to the Tarnished “I’m searching for my purpose given to me by my mother inside the Erdtree long ago, for the reason that I yet live, burned and bodyless,” when asked about her true purpose.

Now, to me, that either means that Melina’s mother is inside the Erdtree, or that Melina received her purpose by her mother when the two of them were last in the Erdtree.

That may not sound like a big difference in interpretation, but it actually couldn’t be any more important of a distinction. If Melina’s mother resides within the Erdtree, then there’s no doubt that she’s the daughter of Queen Marika. However, if Melina only received her purpose from her mother while they were inside the Erdtree, but not living there, then she’s probably not related to Marika.

If my second interpretation is correct, then perhaps her mother was a servant to Marika, which would give Melina and her mother access to the Erdtree. Maybe the reason why Melina is so bent on destroying the Erdtree is that she wants to destroy Queen Marika as revenge for killing/harming her own mother (i.e.: the purpose she is looking for).

Nevertheless, I think the theory that Melina is Marika’s daughter is probably the most credible one as Melina is far too involved/knowledgeable about the Queen for them not to be related. At every single important Site of Grace to Queen Marika, Melina has some piece of knowledge about Marika.

Whether it is a quote from the distant past, a hint of Marika’s true personality, or some explanations behind Marika’s past actions, Melina is more than willing to share her knowledge about the queen to the Tarnished.

Either she has some supernatural ability to witness the past (which I wouldn’t doubt), or she was there with Marika as the eternal queen was conquering the Lands Between. I’m leaning towards that latter option.

Moreover, she’s the character that led the Tarnished to the Roundtable Hold, the place where all Tarnished in the Lands Between rest and plan their journeys on becoming Elden Lord.

How is this significant? Well, Queen Marika is the one who created the “Tarnished” in the first place by banishing her first husband, Lord Godfrey, and his band of followers from the Lands Between, thus making them the Tarnished.

Therefore, my theory (which someone may have already thought of, though I couldn’t find it anywhere) is that Melina is the daughter of Markia…but not Radagon, even though she could have only of been born during the time of the marriage between Marika and Radagon.

I think that Marika: A. Conceived Melina with some other person in the Elden Ring universe; or B. Conceived Melina with Godfrey but gave birth to her after his banishment, thus making it impossible to connect Godfrey and Melina. Thus, she successfully kept Melina’s birth (or at least her identity) a secret from her second husband, Radagon, and the Greater Will

“That doesn’t make sense. She created the Golden Order with the Greater Will. Why would she hide/cover up Melina’s true identity?” you may be wondering. Well, I think that Marika had been planning to break free from the Greater Will’s rule for far longer than what was previously thought.

Personally, I don’t see why she would have banished Lord Godfrey to marry Radagon, her other half and dedicated servant to the Greater Will, unless the Greater Will made her do so. Her marriage to Godfrey was supposedly going smoothly up until Godfrey “defeated his last enemy”, which must have been the moment Marika started going against the Greater Will’s authority.

She probably was going to conspire to overthrow the Greater Will with Godfrey once he defeated the last threat to her rule in the Lands Between, but the Greater Will anticipated this and forced her to banish the First Elden Lord before that could hapen.

Why else would the Greater will have split the personalities of Marika and Radagon, ensuring that the Queen’s loyal, obedient half would have the power to stop her if necessary, if she wasn’t displaying disobedient traits/actions?

Thus, I also think that Marika’s “purpose” to Melina was to secretly guide and lead the newly-banished Tarnished on the path of becoming Elden Lord, hoping that one of them would be able to defeat Radagon, the Greater Will, and free her from her “imprisonment”. A purpose that Melina eventually achieves (as long as the Tarnished does not side with Ranni or the Lord of Frenzy) by the end of the game.

Moreover, when the Night of The Black Knives attack derailed Marika’s schemes, causing her to shatter the Elden Ring and become imprisoned by the Greater Will, that’s when Melina lost her purpose. Just like how Godfrey lost Marika’s grace when he defeated her final opponent, Melina lost hers once Queen Marika was imprisoned by the Greater Will.

Obviously, this theory has a few holes in it: Why does Melina attack Morgott, her brother, during his boss fight? Why does Melina look EXACTLY like Ranni’s doll? How did the Greater Will never find out about Melina? How has Melina forgotten her entire family and life in Markia’s court?

Still, I think this could be a real possibility as to the true identity of Melina.

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In Text Image 1: (FromSoftware/Bandai Namco) (Elden Ring)

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