Shadow of the Erdtree’s demigod ruler may have to more to him than meets the eye.
Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC finally has a release date, as well as a brand-new trailer that fans of the title have wasted no time picking to pieces for potential lore and story hints. While most of the trailer consisted of battles against scary monsters with fancy new weaponry, it did introduce the Lands of Shadow's ruler, Messmer the Impaler.
A lot of the speculation and theorizing surrounding Shadow of the Erdtree has revolved around Messmer in some way, and there seems to be a strong possibility that the demigod is actually the brother of both Miquella and Malenia. For starters, Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki has revealed that Queen Marika, the mother of Malenia and Miquella, hails from the Lands of Shadow, and that Miquella is there to find her.
With Queen Marika having previously lived in the Lands of Shadow, it means there's a significant period of time in which Messmer could have been born. However, one of the more convincing pieces of evidence regarding this theory comes in the form of a few items that players can collect in the base game.
Throughout your time in Elden Ring, you'll more than likely come across a series of butterflies that can be collected and used as crafting materials. These butterflies are called the Nascent Butterfly, Aeonian Butterfly, and Smoldering Butterfly, and Elden Ring fans theorize that each butterfly corresponds to one of Queen Marika's children, with the Nascent and Aeonian butterflies corresponding to Miquella and Malenia respectively.
Fans had originally thought that the Smoldering Butterfly represented Melina, and that she was a secret child of Queen Marika and Radagon, but it now looks much more likely that these butterflies were actually hinting at the existence of Messmer, especially given his command of fire as seen in the DLC's trailer. Reddit user Icy_Mixes also points out the statue of Queen Marika in the room where the player and Messmer are fighting the trailer, further strengthening the ties between the two.
Of course, this is just a theory (I'm not going to say it), and we won't know for sure what kind of connection to Miquella and Malenia Messmer actually has until we play through the game and dive into all the juicy lore ourselves. At the very least, it seems as though Messmer will play a large role in the story of Shadow of the Erdtree, as you don't get a giant statue in a fancy Collector's Edition for being a nobody.
