Why Does Malenia Attack Us?

She attacked us because we’re a stranger breaking into her house looking for Miquela, after killing a dozen of her guards, tree guardians and pests…😂 If only our character could speak…

The way you describe Malenia fighting to not lose herself reminds me of Patches telling himself that he's unbreakable.

Cut content basically confirmed that Miquela and Malenia did originally have a quest where you could help them, but it was axed late in development

About Malenia's fighting style: I think you're partly right about her being blind and not being able to pinpoint exactly where we are... ... but there are two things that deserve mention in that regard. First, the fact that her arena is filled with ankle-deep water is no coincidence. She definitely can tell our general location by the water noises. But second and most important, we know who her swordmaster was. He was the legendary blind swordsman, mentioned on the Prosthesis-wearer Heirloom and the Blue Dancer Charm. Regardless if her eyes were already covered at this point, her technique was always meant to fight blind. She's not just wildly swinging, these are calculated wild swings. The whole sword technique of her master is meant to emulate flowing waters, the antithesis to stagnant waters where rot festers.

This would have been pretty easy to build into the story :- 1. Find Miquella and mogh first 2. Find and fight malenia but only phase 1 3. When she is down, you tell her about Miquella 4. Go back to the mogwyn palace, and see Malenia distraught over the state of her brother. She finally goes mad, converts into Rot form, then you fight her again.

would’ve been so dope to have an npc version of Malenia be a summon for the Mohg fight. It couldve also been that after you defeated Mohg, Malenia’s there weeping for her brother, and then becomes the goddess of rot out of grief

>Trespasses into her secret tree hideout that is very deliberately hidden away. >Murders the majority of her guard without a second thought. >Breaks into her bedroom, armed and dangerous whilst she was taking a nap. >Doesn’t take the hint after she kills you 40 times. “Omg just hear me out you’re being unreasonable!”

I honestly believe that even without the influence of the Scarlet Rot, Malenia is mentally on the verge of a complete breakdown. By the time we find her the Haligtree has been entirely consumed by Rot and may of the innocent people who sought it for shelter have become rot zombies. In other words, Malenia has unwittingly destroyed her and Miquella's entire life's work just by existing - the Scarlet Rot is pouring out of her even when she's just sitting and doing nothing. The destruction of Caelid and all life within it probably also weighs on her conscience. It's pretty clear that Malenia, even in her weakened state, could probably still beat the remaining shard bearers and fix the Elden Ring... but that might just lead her to become the Goddess of Rot, a fate she wants to avoid at all costs. After all, the stress of battle against the PC does actually trigger her transformation. She's scared to leave her chamber, but unable to suppress the Rot growing inside her... all she can do is sit and hope Miquella somehow returns to her. By the time the PC kills her, I think she's at least somewhat relieved. Her long struggle has finally ended. She is at peace.

It'd be pretty sad if the outcome of telling her Miquella's location has a similar outcome to Anri being told where Horace is in DS3. There's no question she'd kill Mohg, but after that, what? Do we find a broken Malenia in Mohgwyn Palace, who's submitted herself to the formless mother in a last ditch effort to stay the rot? Or do we find Miquella's cocoon as it is now, only now there is a scarlet bloom right next to it?

I do notice that in Malenias arena its full of water so she can hear every step you take

the rot grows stronger in stagnation, when shes just sitting around waiting it gets worse, when shes defeated it immediately blooms and mutates her, the only way to stop or reverse it is to keep moving, like the flowing blue waters of the warrior who sealed the rot away. physically or metaphorically it doesnt matter as long as something is being done. the reason she attacks you on sight is not because you are a tarnished but because you are an intruder to her and her brothers sacred chamber, it is a place for gods that you have no business being in.

“Cuz she can’t exactly pin point where we are” Proceeds to oneshot from a mile away as soon as the cutscene ends

I long thought of a way to make her not want to kill us, imo it should be; When she's defeated for the 1st time in phase 1, instead of just going through the cutscene instantly, she would just fall on her knees and you can either attack her to transition to phase 2 OR you can stab her with the unalloyed gold needle you got from Millicent. (This choice would only appear the very first time you defeat her 1st phase) She would then totally understand you are trying to help and you could be given the chance to speak to her.

Fun little thought When you talk about Malenia’s reaction to Miquella in the cocoon in Mohgwyn Palace, you neglected her blindness. So to add onto the tragedy of the potential scene, she may not even know Miquella has been altered, she may in fact ignorantly be hopeful and happy with what is basically a malformed corpse Or of course she could touch his hand and feel some difference or something. But either way there’s definitely a lot of way the potential Malenia meeting Miquella in Mohgwyn Palace scene could still be a sad ending

Malenia lost herself when she had released the rot against Radahn. She had to abandon her morals and pride to let the rot take control. Millicent's story gave us a "happy ending" of sorts. You essentially do the same for her as Miquella did for Malenia to quell her rot. You allow her the satisfaction of fighting alongside you to regain that which she lost and be herself again. Just some of my observations.

Would have been really cool if you could straight up tell her where Miquella is if you went to Mogwyn. It would start a side quest akin to the one with Millicent, where she's gonna meet you in the blood swamp section. You traverse the entire place with her, killing enemies in an amazing tag team until you reach Mogh's room, where Malenia realizes what actually happened to her brother. I picture her just falling on her knees, speechless and motionless. (If you talk to her, only the '''...'' would appear and she doesn't even face you.) Then you can return to the Haligtree, where you find her in her boss room. At this point she would have nothing more to lose, but she asks you one last favor: the possibility to die as Malenia, Blade of Miquella, before the Scarlet Rot takes over her mind completely. He chooses you as her final opponent because she recognizes you as her equal, a friend, a worthy someone to entrust her shard to. I know that Fromsoft doesn't really like to turn bosses into allies, not like this at least, but it would have been really cool, and wouldn't alter the thing too much.

I imagined some possibilities for this: First go to mohg and kill him Then go to malenia and since she doesn’t know us she’ll immediately attack us but after we beat her first phase, she’ll be on her knees and we’ll get the option to either “finish” her off thus starting her second phase or wait a few seconds and then be given the option to talk to her (like we had with patches) and tell her where her brother is Then we’ll head back to mohg’s palace and find her there in distraught at how she found her bother and in a state of anguish and delirium, she’ll bloom and attack anything that moves forcing us to fight her again but in the palace thus giving them the sad ending FromSoft alway has a hard on for. If we don’t go to mohg first however then nothing will change or after her first phase we can tell her that we can help her find him and the rest is the same as the first one or we just fight her like in the normal game and won’t have the miquella quest line available.

To be fair at this point I've carved my way through the entire continent and killed every shardbearer I've found aside from Renalla I have this small theory that Shardbearers can sense if the person they're facing is also a shardbearer.

5:11 "Malenia can't pinpoint where we are" bro did we fight different bosses??

Malenia is arguably the only boss for whom the dodge mechanic actually works. Most bosses you can attack off to one side and have a 50/50 chance they'll dodge right into it, which is weird for most but makes sense for a literal blind woman who just hears you winding up for an attack and guesses it's probably aimed at her.