Some of my favorite character dynamics

Miquella and Marika: Both begin their journeys optimistic and full of hope that they can make the world a better place. Both see the awful things that they do as a means to an end. Both have a habit of using their family members as pawns. Both have ideological clashes with their other halves. Both of them fail in their attempts to create a better world and all that comes from their endeavors is more suffering. In an attempt to right the wrongs of his mother, Miquella ended up becoming just like her.

Maliketh and Malenia: Both insanely powerful warriors of legendary renown who are holding back a destructive force of nature. Both are completely dedicated to their sibling and fight by their side no matter what “Cower before Maliketh, Marika’s black blade”, “I am Malenia, Blade of Miquella”. Both of them end up dying believing that they had failed said sibling when in reality it was them who was betrayed/abandoned. They also both may or may not have caused me to crashout during my first playthroughs.

Miquella and Messmer: My favorite. In all the promotional material for Shadow of the Erdtree they really went out of their way to make Messmer look as evil and sinister as possible. The perpetrator of a horrific genocide, his flames are so dark and evil looking, and the association with serpents makes him appear similar to Rykard (who we know was a fucking maniac). Even his voice deliver in the trailers is deceptively different then it is in game, with him sounding like a snobbish spoiled prince type of character as compared to the broken and depressed emo brooding alone in the dark that we got in game. But then the dlc came out and we got one of the most tragic and saddest figures in the whole game. Messmer and Miquella were both cursed from birth but the nature of Messmer cursed pretty much guaranteed that he would always be hated and shunned, as opposed to Miquella’s curse which pretty much assured that he’d be loved no matter how vile his later actions may be. Messmer inspires genuine loyalty and admiration from those who follow him and it seems like he really cared for them in return as evidence of him mourning the loss of a brother in arms when one of his black knights rebels. Multiple extreme powerful and influential figures in the lands between such as Rellana and the fire knight’s disavowed their birth rights in order to follow him into oblivion. Messmer seemingly had a very wholesome relationship with Radahn meanwhile Miquella…well y’know. And the cherry on top is that Messmer looks just like Radagon and Miquella looks just like Marika. Both Messmer and Miquella are tragic in their own unique ways but I truly love the way they foil off of eachother in pretty much every way, even the order of their birth with Messmer (most likely) being the oldest demigod and Miquella being the youngest (tied for the youngest anyway)

Messmer and Radagon: Hinted at this in the last section but part of the reason why I’m so thoroughly convinced that Messmer is the son of Radagon (besides the fact that bro…literally just look at them lol) is how similar their behaviors are. Both moody redheads with a close relationship with carian royalty, both stay loyal to the golden order no matter despite them having some of the most valid reasons for rebelling, both put duty over love (most of the time), both are defined by their really toxic love/hate relationship with Marika, and Messmer’s theme is literally a darker and more tragic version of Radagon’s. Messmer lives his life as nothing more than a weapon for Marika and in the end Radagon LITERALLY becomes a weapon for the elden beast. p.s Messmer being Radagon’s son would also make him an emperyan which would also makes sense considering how crazy powerful Messmer is. Idk if it’s been confirmed anywhere that the abyssal serpent is the influence of an outer god but if it is then that would make even more sense. The abyssal serpent was slowly changing and devouring Messmer’s body the same way the scarlet rot was doing to Malenia.

Messmer and Morgott: My 2 favorite characters. Despite how horribly mistreated they were and despite literally every single one of their siblings rebelling against the golden order, Messmer and Morgott stayed true to their duties no matter what. Part of the reason for this is probably because of how much both of them hates themselves, with Morgott despising his cursed omen blood and Messmer despising his own fire. At the very least Morgott is rewarded for his service by finally being free from his horns in death, then being embraced and laid to rest by his father. As opposed to Messmer who is truly left with nothing in end, leaving him only to curse the mother who had abandoned him to his awful fate.

Gideon and Ansbach: The all knowing and the all learning. When we meet Gideon we have every reason to trust him, he’s the leader of the noble round table hold and is a well respected figure in the golden order. However as the game goes on, it becomes increasingly clear that Gideon is a total POS who truly cares about no one but himself. He orders the slaughter of the Albunuric villiage and then sends Ensha to kill us to take the medallion he was looking for, he disowns Nepehli loux for some bullshit reason that I can’t remember. And then to top it off he finally betrays and confronts us because he’s to chicken shit to face Marika himself. As opposed to the fucking legend gigachad Ansbach who we are very suspicious of at first because of him being Mohg’s right hand man basically (by this point we still think Mohg was a lunatic), but as the dlc progresses he reveals himself to be one of the most rational and level headed characters in the whole game. He’s the only one of Miquella’s “followers” to call him what he is, a monster, and as terrified as he is of Miquella he decides to face his fears and stand before the freshly ascended god and fight to the death for the sake of his lord. Absolute fucking legend (sorry for shameless Ansbach glazing I just love that dude lol).

Anyway there are loads of other dynamics to talk about which I’m sure y’all will discuss here but I just wanted to lay out all of my personal favorites.