FromSoftware games are known for having incredibly deep stories and character connections which can be completely missed by the player. The company’s latest game, Elden Ring, is no exception to this as very little about the game’s intricate plot will ever be overtly explained to the player. Instead, Elden Ring’s story has to be collected piece by piece through character dialogue, item descriptions, and things as subtle as an NPC’s choice of weapon.
The Elden Ring player community adores this aspect of the game, as there are YouTube channels, subreddits, and countless internet forums dedicated to pooling theories and piecing together the game's lore. But Elden Ring’s ambiguous nature can sometimes leave certain characters in an unclear position in the game's lore.
One of the most mysterious characters in Elden Ring is Melina, who the player will enter into an alliance with at the beginning of the game, which allows the player to both level up and use the horse mount, Torrent. Beyond this, not much is known about Melina or her motivations, although there has been a lot of speculation about Melina’s true identity in the lore of Elden Ring. A Reddit user named Razhork has shared a comparison clip which shows a very subtle design choice about Melina’s weapon, the Blade of Calling, which ties Melina to the game’s Black Knife Assassins.
Many players have likely never seen Melina’s Blade of Calling because she only wields it if the player summons her to assist with the Morgott the Omen King boss fight. Razhork’s Reddit post reveals, however, that the blade is functionally identical to the Black Knife wielded by the Black Knife Assassins who, in the game's lore, killed Godwyn the Golden in the events preceding Elden Ring's story. Crucially, this assassination was done using knives imbued with the Rune of Death. Razhork states that Melina's weapon is a modified Black Knife, but what is more likely is that the Black Knives were originally Blades of Calling before coming into contact with the Rune of Death.
The most important aspect of this connection is that the Elden Ring community had already worked out that Ranni the Witch had at least partly orchestrated The Night of the Black Knives in order to free herself from her mortal body. This weapon comparison provides another possible connection between Melina and Ranni in Elden Ring's lore, as many fans are certain these two characters are connected in some important aspect due to them each having one closed eye.
If fans have learned anything from exploring the world of Elden Ring, it is that no detail is too small when it comes to explaining the lore of the game. This can be seen in character weapon choices or even in the portraits on the walls of Elden Ring's Raya Lucaria Academy.
Elden Ring is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.