A piece for Souls Zine III that I drew a long time ago
You know you’ve fucked up when you’re sharing a kingdom with someone who literally infected 1/6th of the continent during a petty power squabble and you still end up being the most disliked demi-god in your family.
Like, Caelid's infection is literally at Limgrave's front door at this point and Godricks people still hate him leagues more than they dislike Malenia. How do you fuck up that badly lmao
Most hated demigod in lore
It's not really implied very heavily in lore but I've always subscribed to the theory that the greatrunes negatively affect their demi-gods, since most greatrune holders have been trapped into never ending cycles of trying to amass power/accomplish a specific goal.
Rykard, Mohg and Godrick are all similarly running in circles trying to gain power without actually doing anything with it and Rennala is endlessly trying to birth something before we take her greatrune off of her.
The only real exceptions to this are Radahn, because he's lost his mind, Malenia, because she's only just woken up for the first time since the shattering wars and Morgott because... IDK, I've got nothing for Morgott, he's just built different I guess. (Though you could argue that him hunting tarnished and perpetuating the status quo is his endless cycle)
All active people who own a greatrune shard, demi-god or not, have fallen into some sort of self destructive, never ending cycle.
fuck, if you really wanna push this theory Maliketh is holding a greatrune in the form of the rune of death and he's litterelly been stuck in a timeless structure for the entire shattering.
I feel like this is also implied because Ranni decided to cast aside her greatrune, this being significant because she’s the only demi-god who can actually accomplish their end goal by the finale of the game and isn't just running in circles.