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📹 What The Eye In Every Conspiracy Theory Actually Means
Films like National Treasure love to play on conspiracy theories, and the Eye of Providence is a favorite that shows up time and …
📹 Elden Ring – The Malenia Conspiracy
I’ve been asked about this theory since some of the earliest days of Elden Ring’s launch, and for the longest time, I didn’t have any …
Because Elden Ring released after Sekiro, it’s easy to think about anything from Sekiro being rolled forward into Elden Ring. However, the development of both games actually overlapped, and they’ve said in interviews that Sekiro didn’t necessarily have an opportunity to strongly affect Elden Ring, as Sekiro concluded when Elden Ring was already well on its way. The potential for a complete, or nearly complete Tomoe concept to get started on for DLC, get scrapped, and then get featured in Elden Ring as Malenia doesn’t seem to fit cleanly in the development timeline. So, even if there may be some Sekiro DNA in her design, the idea at least that Malenia is “just Tomoe” or even really represents what a Tomoe fight would’ve been like feels unlikely.
Holy shit that detail with the simmilarities between Owl and Sekiro’s fighting style goes deep. I thought mikiri and shinobi tools were the only things they had in common, but even the way they attack? This a very cool insight. I understand why Miyazaki says Owl is his favourite boss fight in the game.
Seeing as Elden Ring and Sekiro were in development around the same time, and Malenia as a character was clearly fully conceived by the time Sekiro came out (as evidenced by the 2019 trailer), I think it’s likely that during this time Miyazaki just liked the idea of a “dancing swordswoman” archetype, as seen with the okami women in Fountainhead Palace, descriptions of Tomoe in dialogue, and of course Malenia herself. The juxtaposition of someone that posseses a striking elegance and refinement while still being able to kick your ass harder than anyone else is absolutely in line with the kinds of characters Miyazaki likes to make
While I don’t think a lack of lightning necessarily means much, given the Tree Spirits different elements, the lack of similar animations is pretty convincing. A “vague Sekiro inspiration” rather than ported over assets seems most likely, especially since being the game’s poster girl would have gotten her a lot of care and attention in design.
I always thought that Malenia’s “flowing” style was related to the blind swordman, her mentor who taught her how to fight her curse by using a flowing style that kept her in constant motion in contrast to the “stillness” of rot. If the master-student relation is also valid for Elden Ring, then it would make sense to not find those kind of animations in Sekiro since they came from another unseen character from Elden Ring’s lore.
I think you should make a separate article showing similarities in the way Teacher/Student fight in Sekiro as there are way more than people realize. I can give a few examples that i know of. 1.Owl father throwing a shuriken then dashing and hitting Sekiro is like Chasing Slice ability Sekiro can Unlock, Whirlwind Slash is used by Inner Father and also Mist Raven, Owl father can use Shadowfall like Sekiro can. 2.Emma Dashes like Ishin and Input Reads Heals into an attack similar to Ishin and there are many other similarities. 3.Floating Passage is also used by enemies in Fountainhead Palace and they also use Bow like Genichiro. 4.Different enemies in Sekiro can use Ashina Cross. Ichimonji, High Monk, Praying Strikes, and Ninjatar Slash.
2:50 I absolutely need to point out how insane Malenia’s animations are. Pay attention to her sword arm during her flurry technique here. From could have easily just made her attack faster while holding her sword toward the grip like always, but they made her shift her hand position further up the blade so she can swing faster. And then for the last stroke in the combo she slides her hand back to the grip position and you can HEAR the sound of metal on metal as her golden prosthetic moves across the sword. And there are sparks! They did NOT have to do this yet they did. This is why we all spend so much time outside of these games pouring over everything. From’s attention to detail is just crazy.
I’m still mildly curious about the harpy and bat enemies in elden ring. There’s one bat in particular, up in the mountaintops near where you complete the jellyfish questline, which has an interesting pattern on its wings. It has Eye Spots, a kind of intimidation style camoflauge commonly found on butterflies to make birds think twice about eating them. It’s the only bat I’ve found that has this. It suggests that they evolved that pattern to ward off the big raven enemies in the area, but since there’s only one of them, it either didn’t work, or isn’t an evolutionary trait- perhaps it’s paint.
regardless of whether there is a connection between Malenia and Tomoe, this article raises an interesting question about similarities in movesets between student/master pairs. In Elden Ring, we know Malenia learned her sword skills from a legendary blind swordsman. If we ever see him in-game, I wonder if From will carry over this trope from Sekiro
Unrelated, very much unrelated, but Bloodborne had this horseman enemy with a peg leg that was cut from the final game (some call it the Nameless Cainhurst Knight) and to me it looks very similar to both the commanders and the banished knights’ armors in Elden Ring, it even has a small dragon on its helmet in a similar fashion to the banished knights’ one.
Another some other interesting points to bring up such as the shadow clones Okami we’re said to be ghostly, and True Monk (while not a biological Okami) is infamous for making ghostly shadow clones Malenia also makes Shadow clones Then Malenia has a deflect animation, something no other character in Elden Ring has And then there’s the Okami to consider as possibly reflecting Malenia’s fighting style. Okami fight in a dance-like manner and so does Malenia, with even Spiral Cloud passage looking eerily similar to Waterfowl There’s also more similarities that Malenia has to Tomoe and Sekiro that were glossed over but they’re still notable. Both serve young lords and spread rot wherever they go.
I am also surprised to find out that Tomoe and lord Takeru share so many things in common with Malenia and Miquella. Tomoe and Malenia have both spread rot, both carrying a dance-like fighting style (waterfowl dance and spiral cloud passage), and willing to do everything to serve their lords/brother. Meanwhile Takeru (Former divine heir) and Miquella are both forever young and both desperately looking for ways to cure their dearest companion’s rot and their own curses. They have so many things in common that I don’t think it’s coincidence.
I think this is also a pet theory of a lot of people because Waterfowl Dance feels like a combo chain that you would be expected to parry in Sekiro. That attack feels incongruous with the rest of Elden Ring since there aren’t a lot of ways to punish it until she’s done. Add to that the instant grab stab she does that does a truck load of damage and can one shot a character butttt if you were Sekiro, you’d just revive after being killed.
Agreed on all counts. I’d argue that Malenia is actually an analog for Wolf – both are one-armed sword-masters; both were taught by enigmatic and powerful warriors; both are protecting children that they care for deeply, and both are rotting inside from a mysterious disease that utterly ruins the world around them while making them stronger, and that comes from the power of a god.
Tomoe and sekiro were supossed to be very similar. Like the common “the story repeats itself” thing that fs loves So the fact that malenia have a prosthetic, is protecting a young boy, having connections with flowers/blossoms (the everblossom thingies) and is unintentionally cursing those around her with a “rot” makes me wonder if she was inspired/based on tomoe’s unused lore material The waterfowl dance being a… dance (tomoe is said to dancelike fightstyle) and the fact that sekiro can get a skill that is almost identical to it is interesting too When i talk about this theory a lot of people say “she would be too easy in sekiro” or “she doesnt fit sekiro design” and bruh We’re not saying that she’s literally tomoe copy and pasted onto ER If she was lady tomoe at some point, she was probably in a very early development state. And her design and lore would’ve been 99% changed besides the possible inspired or referenced details It’s not a “i’m certain of it” theory. Is more like “i think there’s a chance of being the case and that’s cool” theory yk
While Genichiro doesn’t appear to resemble Malenia’s fighting style I do find it interesting to see the similarities in Isshin and Emma’s stances to Malenia here at 2:15, it makes me wonder if there are any shared animations or overlaps in ideas there, not to mention old Isshin’s area of effect blade flurries in phase 2.
I’m kinda glad to see this idea being challenged a little bit. It’s such a pervasive idea, yet it has very little basis of support to go on. I’ve seen people swear by this idea as part of their criticism of the boss’s presence in Elden Ring, and while there certainly are things to criticize about the implementation of some of her mechanics, I think the Sekiro idea is largely a red herring. There’s no evidence of it and it also doesn’t matter. This isn’t to say it would be unremarkable or uninteresting if the idea was true; it certainly would be both intriguing and noteworthy if it was. It’s just that it doesn’t really matter either way. Edit: many people in these comments are bringing up how modders have brought Malenia into Sekiro, claiming she “feels” right at home. They fail to consider how much had to change in order for Malenia in Sekiro to even function. Her waterfowl has to drop the aoe phantom slashes, she has to lose her heal-on-hit mechanic (or it must be redesigned), and she must be given perilous attacks which either can’t be blocked/parried or must be jumped. None of these fundamental things are true of Malenia in Elden RIng, and these design principles are essential to the design as a whole. These aren’t just things that get tacked on. Just because you think a modded version of her “feels” right in Sekiro doesn’t make the mod evidence for Malenia originally being a Sekiro boss. There’s literally nothing to this idea at all. It’s pure vibes and nothing else.
Thematically I always saw Malenia as more of a culmination of the different games Fromsoft has made in the series. It’s not a big leap to see inspiration from sekiro, bloodborne, and souls in her design. From her prosthetic limb that’s low key a trick weapon, to the designs around her armor and themes of decay, rebirth, and transformation. She also emulates some of the more iconic entities, as i recall people immediately making Lady Maria comparisons. I personally was reminded of Orenstein in her color palette and fighting style when first encountering her. Can’t say for certain if this is intentional or not, but it’s how I read the design of her character.
I wonder if Activision being the international publisher may have resulted in there being less cut content clues in the game files? With Dark Souls and Elden Ring being more of a solo operation I imagine FromSoft didn’t mind leaving some old references to unused content here and there, since they know only themselves and any plucky dataminers will ever see it. Whereas with Sekiro being given to Activision for publishing and possibly some other things like localization and other minor tweaks, maybe FromSoft feared leaving too many unused assets would create a lot of back-and-forth about what was necessary to be included? Also considering Elden Ring was likely well underway by then, they may have thought it best not to leave anything in Sekiro that could give hints to what was upcoming in the event of data leaks, or when the trailer for Elden Ring dropped. Just a thought though. Great article as always Zullie!
I personally find that one of Tomoe’s techniques, Spiral Cloud Passage, to be very similar to waterfowl. Both attacks involve successive sword slashes that release shockwaves, and Geni even uses a “lesser” version of it (his flurry attack) Maybe waterfowl and SCP could be this link between Malenia and Sekiro?
Would have been interesting to see Malenia’s moves compared to the Okami, seeing how Tomoe was an Okami herself. I always thought part of the conspiracy stemmed from how the proto-waterfowl dance has her moving similar to the Okami warriors, doing these gentle little hops on one foot, spinning around and having this overall “floaty” feel to it. And of course, how the final waterfowl dance resembles Spiral Cloud Passage, which was probably Tomoe’s technique.
While I see the similarities and where some of her moveset could be countered with Sekiro’s mobility mechanics, a lot of that could be said about even Dark Souls 3 bosses. Its the same with people saying Demon of Hatred is a Dark Souls boss but then touting Guardian Ape as one of Sekiro’s peaks. Its bizarre and doesn’t seem to get that across the Bloodborne, Sekiro, Souls, and Elden Ring, Fromsoftware have a pretty consistent language in regards to communicating motifs in combat and creating responsive and engaging encounters, even if the games have differences to their gameplay. Even if you don’t like Waterfowl or her fight, Malenia clearly had her model, lore, animations and fight made for this game. She wasn’t a last minute asset rip slapped together with a new model to increase the roster of bosses last minute, and therefore was developed with the combat of Elden Ring in mind. Wether you believe that she’s overtuned or that her breaking of certain rules is unfair is another matter. What is more likely than asset repurpose is that the dev team took inspiration from Sekiro’s visual design as the two games’s development cycles almost overlapped. Miyazaki has stated before that he enjoys putting bits of Japanese culture in the normally aesthetically western games Fromsoftware creates and with Sekiro they dove deeper into the Japanese aesthetic. When applying that same cultural inspiration to Elden Ring, they also might imported the same visual language Sekiro used to convey parts Japanese culture like swordsmanship, therefore creating a Japan-inspired boss that has a similar visual language to her attacks as the bosses of Sekiro.
Personally I think that Malenia was designed for Elden Ring, but her prosthetic took some leftover ideas from Sekiro. Something about her arm seems much more intricate than most other things in the Lands Between, I could definitely see someone with an arm like that in Sekiro though. Maybe not gold however
Just saw a short this morning showing her dodge animation mirroring Isshin’s Dodge. As Isshin is connected to Tomoe, maybe not as Teacher Master, but perhaps as enemy (Isshin seems to fit the role of Genichiro to us when it comes to Tomoe being like Sekiro, so Isshin would maybe have killed her) and in defeating her he takes on her lightning powers (which we see in Sword Saint, but perhaps not used for old man isshin as he has reflected on what he did and no longer wishes to be reminded of his biggest regret in killing Tomoe)
I think just like how the demon of hatred was created as an homage to manus from dark souls 1 and plays exactly like a dark souls boss, requiring mostly dodging and timing for attacks instead of parrying and breaking his guard, Malenia is also an homage to sekiro bosses without the parrying. Both are the hardest bosses in their respective games and both are homages to other games.
I don’t know if this is anything of note but Malenia did have a mentor, the blind swordsman who seems to be based off of a traditional warrior. She adopted the waterfowl dance from him and his fighting style so it appears there’s a connection there. Not directly from Sekiro but at least inspired by it.
While Malenia doesn’t share animations with Genichiro, I do believe the Water Fowl Dance fit the thematic of what we know of Tomoe. If I recall correctly, she’s said to be from the Divine Palace, and the Okami use a very “flowy” fighting style where they float above the ground. Also Isshin mentions that Tomoe’s style was beautiful and gracious, and that she was also performing in front of young Emma dancing with her sword. All of this fit the Water Fowl Dance. Floating above the ground, gracious and the “Dance” aspect. So my theory is that Water Fowl Dance could have been imagined first for a Tomoe bossfight, and then repurposed for Malenia in Elden Ring. The rest of her kit actually fit in an Elden Ring boss design, but the Water Fowl Dance doesn’t and feel more like a Sekiro move than the rest of her moveset.
This is so cool I think honestly my favorite part was comparing sekiros characters to each other. I’d love a more in depth break down on that (if there’s more to be seen of course). I always knew they used the same big flashy things like combat arts or owls shinobi tools but seeing how owl even mirrors wolfs light attack string is so sick. I also just love seeing any appreciation for sekiro in 2024 I adore that game. Great article as always, really impressive use of mod tools.
Hello, I was one of the earliest (maybe even first) to suggest this theory in one of your articles. Few more notes i came up with. 1. Malenia has prostethic arm(shinobi arm) she uses to manipulate the katana(to shorten it for some faster strikes) 2. Scarlet blooms are almost a color swap away from lotus blossoms. I hypothesized she might have originally been part of the fountainhead palace area(where else she would have been?). 3. When doing her signature waterfowl dance, she stops mid-air, hoisting her sword like a lightning rod, seemingly to telegraph her attack. I suspect this was originally intended to be the time her sword gets hit with lightning, just like Isshin does in his final fight. Thank you Zullie for covering this conspiracy.
Sekiro is my favorite game ever, or so I say, and in all my playthroughs and all the lore articles I’ve seen I’ve never noticed or was told about the student/teacher style parallel. Feels amazing to learn something new about Sekiro, and to be surprised by the depth and ingenuity of your analysis even after all this time.
Think this theory rose from the spiral cloud passage skill from Sekiro feeling conceptually very similar to Malenia’s waterfowl moves, along with her unused waterfowl feeling more… oriental? If that’s the right word. Personally more than anything else, when I fight Malenia the flow of the fight feels like I’d have much better time playing as Wolf than my Elden Ring character. Waterfowl feels like it was meant to be parried like you do Genichiro’s cloud passage, which is what gave/gives me the impression her moveset finds it origins in Sekiro.
I don’t think final product Malenia has anything to do with Sekiro’s final product plot. However, I do believe that her framework beginnings have something to do with Sekiro design. That she started off as a concept for or inspired by Sekiro, at the very very beginning, before being recognizable as Malenia. If she did have a prototype developed in/around Sekiro, clearly the original asset isn’t there. Not in a recognizable fashion. It’s kinda like how Sister Friede “should’ve been” a Bloodborne boss. Still, if there was something to Malenia originally made from or inspired by Sekiro, which I strongly believe there’s something, then the lack of identifiability does bring up the “Ship of Theseus” concept.
Y’know this brings up a point I’ve had in my head for a while. So, I finished Sekiro a few times. Got all the endings. Genichiro is actually my favorite boss to fight, and the one things I kinda notice, however, no matter how different their combinations, have two specific move sets that are strangely similar. Genichiro’s flurry combo/Melania’s light hand flurry Genichiro’s jumping attacks/Melania’s lunging and jump attacks. It could entirely speculative to have the possibility that Lady Tomoe could’ve disappeared under a different moniker to hide from Ashina’s masterful spies and espionage attempts. On another Note: it was never really stated when Lady Tomoe disappeared, and could’ve left Genichiro to learn the Lightning of Tomoe on his own, battling the lightning in fountainhead palace in place of a missing master. Entirely speculative
This is my new favorite article of yours! I loved seeing the master-student similarities in movement in Sekiro. While I’ve never bought the idea that Malenia was partly built from unused Tomoe assets, I’d be surprised if there was no conceptual inspiration there. Malenia does have that flowing, floating style. I believe that Genichiro tends to force everything more than Tomoe would have because of his personality and motivations. He has a very driven “at any costs” mindset and I think FromSoft showed that perfectly in the way he moves and attacks… even his version of Floating Passage is very muscular and forceful. You can almost feel him gritting his teeth on the last couple hits. Conversely, Tomoe is described as being like a dancer, probably indicating a grace and smoothness to her style. Terms like “Floating Passage” certainly bring to mind the way that Malenia moves and attacks… nothing is forced or muscled, it simply flows. While Genichiro was her actual student, I believe Malenia is a better glimpse into the concept of Tomoe, and a partial vision of what her style may have been like.
Waterflow dance has a little tidbit that might be useful as Tomor’s character: she’s the one that taught genichiro lightning style A great number of her attacks let her remain in the air, enough time to catch a lighting and redirect it to the enemy One of her attacks is sending rot copies of herself against our chatacter while floating in the air, this could very well fit for a lightning attack Lastly, scarlet aeonia, her signature attack could very well be herself acting as lightning rod and land a massive lightning from which we have to run from
The biggest reason to believe this, IMO, is it’s the only possible explaination for how they thought Waterfowl Dance was an okay thing to put in their game. It’d be managable in Sekiro, but in Elden Ring it’s possibly one of my most hated attacks in a series which has otherwise outstanding boss design.
Malenia fits within Elden Ring’s combat very well, she wouldn’t fit in Sekiro well, she’ll become much easier, her attacks are way too linear, bosses in Sekiro when you deflect them, they’ll change their maneuvers & when they deflect you, they’ll continue with a hit that you have to deflect in order to end their combo, this stuff doesn’t occur in ER, Malenia strongly depends on positional-based attacks which ER uses a lot with its bosses, in Sekiro this hardly exists because you’ll always be in bosses’ contact, it’s just people making baseless speculations mixed with confirmation bias because she wields a Katana so they automatically assume she’s a cut-content boss from Sekiro which is weird.
The two main things I get from Malenia’s animations are that One of them is nearly Identical to Isshins. The way they Hold their hip after finishing a swing, after hundreds of hours of fighting them both I still find it particularly uncanny. The second thing is how she strafes exactly like Alecto does, meaning she and Alecto were both potentially students of the Flowey Swords Man. Thank you for making this article, it is genuinely beautiful to watch
the thing that sells this theory for me is that the skill floating passage from sekiro really reminds me of Malenia’s waterfowl dance, and that skill was developed by Tomoe herself also Malenia’s moveset fits so righg with sekiro’s combat, like the lunge is asking for a mikiri counter and I bet waterfowl dance would feel amazing to parry theres this guy who imported Malenia into sekiro and it feels like she “belongs” there maybe its just convergent development evolution from the same core ideas or whatever but I’ll always believe in this theory haha
Malenia was based on a secret, unused version of the Guardian Ape. There used to be a third phase where he would use a very similar moveset like Malenia, just with the addition of throwing dookies at you and poopoo farting to gain momentum for his waterfowl dance (which was supposedly called “Crazy Ape Breakdance”). My dad works at FromSoft and he told me.
I think the “thematic connection” idea is pretty on the nose. A few things that link Malenia to Sekrio (the game) and also Tomoe (the character) Sekiro: -not only does she have a prosthetic and a katana, as you mentioned, but she is rotting. This is similar to dragonrot, but even more similar to Genichiro’s rejuvenating sediments causing him to have some kind of impure healing, leaving him more and more messed up. Tomoe: -Both characters are defenders of young, male, divine beings. There are plenty of differences here, like Takeru presumably being about as good at combat as Kuro (not at all) whereas Micky is “the most fearsome Emperean”. -Tomoe is a divine warrior lady, hailing from the fountainhead and being of the Okami (‘messenger of the Gods’) clan. Divinity, femaleness and warrior prowess are all important elements of her character. Malenia is based on a Valkyrie with her winged helmet and red hair (red/blonde was common amongst the Norse peoples, where valkyrie myths come from). Valkyries are heavenly (but not Gods themselves. More like defenders/messengers. Okami.), exclusively women and fearsome warriors. -Waterfowl Dance is clearly evocative of Spiral Cloud Passage. It may not be a 1-to-1, but it’s rapid multihit nature, wispy wind contrails and gravity defying movement, as well as the fact that it’s broken into distinct “phases” and ends with a final attack that has even more range than the previous ‘phases’ all give it a very SCP vibe. Floating Passage/Spiral Cloud Passage are tools of the Okami clan.
The biggest connection in my opinion is how Waterfowl Dance is basically an evolved Flowing Passage with the delayed slashes that you can see in other attacks like One Mind. And just the name Waterfowl Dance makes it sound like it originated from Sekiro, when in Sekiro there is also has an attack with “Dance” in the name, being the Sakura Dance, though it doesn’t have much resemblance to Malenia’s attacks. Edit: also should mention Spiral Cloud Passage, which is maybe the most similar to Waterfowl Dance.
There is one thing I saw brought up when people discussed this theory that stuck with me, even if it’s also far from substantial. It’s a matter of aesthetics. The article notes Malenia makes no use of lightning, and while this is true, it could simply be a matter of swapping visuals, and there is one attack where this seems particularly meaningful: Scarlet Aeonia. I didn’t notice until someone pointed it out but the mechanics of that attack feel oddly matched to its aesthetics. Does it make sense to be created from scratch? Someone rises up, into a kind of flower bud, then crashes down towards the player, as a flower bud, then soon after explodes by…blooming. Leaving a lingering damaging AoE from the blooming flower. It doesn’t sound like an attack concept that would be thought up from scratch. Instead, wouldn’t that make more sense if a boss floated up into storm clouds, then struck down as a bolt of lightning, unleashing an electrical explosion that left a damaging AoE of electricity in the area? Perhaps the more pressing but controversial reason this theory even prevails is the fact the fight doesn’t feel well designed and gets a pass more for the fact people favor difficulty regardless of how it’s achieved, and an explanation that would have the boss partially built from mechanics intended for a different game would help it make more sense. The fact her moveset was different, with a move that got later cut, on release day, further contributes to the sense that something is “off” about her design.
I was just recently replaying Sekiro and got back to the divine realm after spending an embarassing amount of time relearning genichiro’s flurry timing, and then got fromsoft brain blasted™ when one of the okami warriors flew into the air and I parried the whole thing without thinking. Genichiro must have learned it from somewhere, and Tomoe is from the realm, so to put a simplified version of his flurry on the basic enemies is such an interesting way to place lore.
i would assume the connection is drawn from the similarity between spiral cloud passage and waterfowl dance, spiral cloud passage being a skill devised by lady tomoe. regardless, she has plenty of other moves reminiscent of sekiro skills that have nothing to do with tomoe, which just seem to be moves wolf is capable of using
Very sad you didn’t mention her attack patterns during waterfowl. The way she swings the swords, creating multiple air attacks simultaneously while jumping around and seemingly balancing herself on one foot while doing so, was straight out of how the creatures fought in Fountainhead Palace, and there’s the combat art “Spiral Cloud Passage” which does that too. Not saying I 100% believe the theory, but if I were to argue in favor of it, I would certainly mention it, perhaps even make one of this comparisons to see if they are actually that similar. Just a tought.
Wonderful! Feels like they just pump Elden Ring creative department full of cool historical characters and they spit out a unique thing seamlessly woven together. Malenia had her own story, but there’s undoubtedly parallels with Miquella as her charge to protect among other things. Georges character probably makes up much of the rest.
Malenia’s main attack is called Waterfowl Dance, similarly we find in game elden ring lore about a Waterdancer or a swordsmen who uses movements like flowing water. Malenia’s inspiration may also be an inspired by the Blind Swordsmen. A very repetitive concept within Japanese fiction at attributed to a seemingly real legend. To which the blind swordsmen had movements that flowed like water.
I think there’s one thing that seems similar though. That one flurry of attacks of Genichiro reminds me of a way turned down version of waterfowl. Mainly the last hit they do diagonal upwards to the (same) side gives me that impression. I still don’t think that Malenia in that state would have been Tomoe, but it’s a sweet thing to imagine
It’s worth pointing out that Genichiro’s fighting style resembles the fountainhead palace warriors a lot (a bunch of spinning, generally very flamboyant), which makes sense considering Tomoe was supposed to from there. So clearly there IS an intended fighting style there, yet Malenia shares very little resemblance, making it incredibly unlikely anything but select few assets would have been taken from anything like Tomoe. And as you noted – we don’t really have any reason to believe Tomoe was ever designed to be a boss fight to begin with. I’ve been saying this stuff since day 1 of the Tomoe theory.
There was one other similarity – Tomoe was said to not be exactly human, perhaps one of the Okami warrior women in the divine realm, for example. She was from the divine realm and was able to travel there with Takeru for some kind of wedding ceremony. The Okami in sekiro were the ones who trained Genichiro. When you watch the Okami fight, they have some similar attacks with Malenia, notably the wind up for Malenia’s waterfowl dance being very similar to their lightning move. This is not to say that Malenia IS Tomoe, but that there are clearly reused assets from Sekiro. Another such asset is the animation for waterfowl dance involving the dancing extra swirling blades. This is direct from Sekiro, from the alternate version of Isshin (the one with the fire), who has a lunge attack that ends with that animation of swirling blades.
I feel if she had been included with Sekiro’s combat system she’d be far too easy for most players familiar with the series. Waterfowl wouldn’t be as big of an issue and her lunge would most likely be easily mikiri countered, even her little sweep kick would most likely be easily punishable by doing the ol goomba stomp. She’d be a fun fight in Sekiro though for sure.
The point of pupils so closely mimicking their masters’ fighting styles seems to be proof enough that Genichiro and Melenia’s styles don’t bear anywhere near enough resemblance to support the theory, tbh That said, Malenia’s impale animation would admittedly make for one hell of a lighting-based attack; tossing the player into the air such that a thunderous lighting strike is websiteed perfectly in time with the sharp, upward thrust of her katana piercing the heavens (and a few organs)
I think it bears mentioning that Isshin Ashina has an attack very similar to the final “orb of blades” strike of the Waterfowl Dance, though much less deadly. He uses it at least during his Shura ending fight, but I don’t remember the Sword Saint version of the fight having it. Those two attacks are, in my mind, the biggest connecting thread between Sekiro and Elden Ring. These games always contain subtle nods to previous From games, from the Moonlight Blade to attack animations, heck Dark Souls III even called back to Demon’s Souls in one of its endings. I assumed that the Elden Ring developers liked the feel of that animation and put it in their big end-game boss as a reference or call-back, but I don’t put any more significance on it then that.
Even though there is no notable similarities between Genichiro and Malenia, I want to point out his Floating Passage or Spiral Cloud Passage from Mushin art. The reason why some believe (even me) that Malenia was a unused boss of Sekiro was because of those two combat arts resonance with her Waterfowl Dance, a flurry of strikes with a dancing fluid motion. This sentiment also shared with ash of war Bloody Slash, which has a similar animation with Wolf’s Mortal Blade draw
Now I have to know, looking at the idle animation for Isshin and Emma- they look startlingly similar to Malenia. And Isshin does use Tomoe’s lightning in his final phase of the normal route. Perhaps there could be overlap in Isshin and Emma’s animations? Or perhaps in Wolf and Owls? I think it could be interesting to see.
I think she is clearly a allusion to sekiro, drawing on many aspects that reference it – the prosthetic, the weapon and fighting style, the master-student relationship, the ‘undying swordsman in service to a young master’, her battle against the rot being similar to the Shinobi with Shura etc, but her lore is too well wound into the Elden ring lore for her to have been a ‘ported boss’ so to speak. Pair that with the fact that she doesn’t share much with who she would have been in Sekiro, it just looks more and more likely she was built from the ground up for Elden ring, but to be a wholesome reference to sekiro.
Is there anything in the games code that implies that Millicent was ever intended to be or become Malenia at the end of her quest? It always seemed to me that Malenia might have died fighting Radahn (to the rot), but been reborn through Millicent and her sisters, with Millicent being her true inheritor, taking up her armour and sword upon arrival at the base of the Haligtree. Would love a article exploring this (if indeed there is anything to be explored at all)! Love your content. Thanks Zullie.
I like to think that FromSoft just put a bunch of references to their previous works into Elden Ring, Malenia is Sekio, Ranni and the Moon is for Bloodborne (A doll and a moons presence), the many types of fire come from Dark Souls and Melina using herself an Kindling to help end an age. If their are any more direct references I’m not sure.
I always thought of Malenia resembling Sekiro more because of her character development rather than the boss fight. She cares and protects Miquella in the same way Wolf does to Kuro (and ofc, Tomoe did to Takeru before), she can be seen as a loyal guard dog just like Wolf and like Wolf, she “failed” and lost Miquella. But she alsos resembles Genichiro in her destroyed body and all that power that comes from it. The difference here is Geni chose to destroy his body in order to gain power, while Malenia was born like this and used it in her favor. Anyways, I like the parallels, but I too don’t think she comes from Sekiro originally.
3:16 – dommy mommy Malenia and her baby Genichiro. But, on a serious note, Genichiro and Malenia’s attack chain was pretty similar. There’s only 2 major differences: 1 – Genichiro has an extra swing before the last attack. 2 – Genichiro attacks 2-handed, while Malenia attacks with 1 hand. But that could be explained by the fact that Malenia is probably much, much stronger than Genichiro and doesn’t need a second hand on the blade. But, yeah, apart from that, I think the bow and the lightning are pretty clear signs that Malenia is probably not Tomoe.
Malenia is inspired from her teacher, who taught her to fight the rot by flowing like the rivers. stagnent waters lead to germs and diseases forming but flowing waters wash the diseases away, this is why its called waterfoul dance. In sekiro, floating passage and cloud spiral passage styled moves are special moves used by okami worrior found at fountain head palace where theres a giant waterfall, here is where they honed their flowing, dance like skills. Thats why malenia and okami warriors are somewhat similar, their fighting styles both are inspired by flowing waters.