Radagon is Elden Ring’s True Antagonist

I think Radagon gave the rune to rennala to prevent it from ever being reforged into the Elden ring. She would never part with it because it’s the last piece of radagon she has.

Radagon is evil because he's a ginger man.

Congratulations, you didn’t understand anything of Elden Ring 👍

The true antagonist? He's literally the final boss of the game, I don't know how much more true an antagonist can get.

My theory is that Radagon was once his own being, but the greater will wanted a perfect being/Avatar to carry out it's will. So it manipulated Radagon and fused Marika and Radagon together to become a type of rebis.

What one has to ask one's self, and this is overlooked by everyone, is WHEN exactly did that red spear that never gets mentioned wind up in Marika's body? And why would a spear of Destined Death even be a thing, when Malekith was the guardian of that power?

We DO hear of an example of Maliketh defeating someone in the lore. He defeated the Gloam Eyed Queen, and sealed her power over the Rune of Death. As she was an Empyrean, and thus at least a demigod, this means that Maliketh must have deployed Destined Death against the GEQ.

So we have a female godly being who is not dead, but is actively restrained by a spear of Destined Death. And we have exactly ONE example in the lore of a female character having Destined Death wielded against them. And yet, because of a pesky series of names nobody thinks to themselves that maybe this is the SAME CHARACTER IN BOTH INSTANCES. Marika, the ascended god and vessel of the Elden Ring, is in fact the GEQ. And ALWAYS HAS BEEN.

But wait, Marika defeated the GEQ. She ordered her shadow, Maliketh to do the deed. Didn't she? They can't both be true, can they? They can. Because there are TWO Marika's. One is the GEQ, and the other ordered Maliketh to defeat her and seal Destined Death. One of these Marika's defeated the Giants atop the Mountain and ushered in the Age of the Erdtree. The second Marika. And GEQ Marika was imprisoned within. Why? Why not just kill her outright? Simple, because Marika is the ascended goddess of the Age of the Tree (originally the Great Tree, somehow felled and with the Erdtree grafted to it's roots), the vessel of the Elden Ring. And the second Marika... isn't. Without access to the true divine vessel, she would be unable to wield that power, or to rule at all.

Everything the Golden Order ascribes to Marika is the work of this second, imposter Marika. Who has usurped the GEQ Marika's role and corrupted her age into Golden Fundamentalism. So, where exactly is this second Marika you may ask? Well, funny story. As Goldmask will tell you, Radagon IS Marika. Radagon who was said to have been cursed by the Giants. Radagon, who used to be a woman, the spitting image of Marika. A woman who was a sister to, an offshoot of, Marika herself. Millicent's story is the telling factor here. A daughter/sister/clone of Malenia, who is the spitting image of Malenia and has her talents but is not in fact Malenia. "You are not yet me. You are not yet a god."

Radagon established the Golden Order. Radagon built the Golden Empire. But at the moment of his (then her) absolute victory the Giants snatched it away with a curse that turned a blonde woman into a red-haired man. By replacing Godfrey as Elden Lord, Radagon is able to rule his empire directly. Though what will rot your noodle is the question of which Marika Godfrey was even married to.

This is why Miquella and Malenia are "deformed" demigods. Because they are the products of incest. Both their mother and their father ARE THE SAME GOD. This is why Marika says shattering the Elden Ring will also shatter Radagon. He is made from it's runes just as she is. This is also why Radagon can attempt to repair the Elden Ring when Marika shatters it. He is made from the same runes, and he tries to use pieces of himself to repair what his sister/wife/self broke. This is how they wind up sharing a body, because he could only cobble together enough bits for one form between the two of them.

This is why Marika conspired with Ranni to overthrow the Golden Order, why she backed Miquella's Haligtree as a rival to the Erdtree (a new tree free of the influence of corrupted gold) and Miquella as her heir (he was disillusioned with Fundamentalism and sought something more pure), and why she tasked Melina with burning the Erdtree.

The entire scheme is a counter-revolution. Marika is attempting to oust Radagon and his Golden Order from her age. And if that means her age must end, then so be it.

so instead of miquella being in the form of a larval tear or incomplete/mercurial, i thought of radagon as being this sort of mimic to marika. what led me to this was the cut quest for the silver tear asimi. asimi is a silver tear that becomes a part of the tarnished kinda hitching a ride similar to latenna however melina is even able to notice this extra presence when resting at a grace. she even greets them directly with *hello other you*. this makes me think of marikas line to radagon *thou art yet to become me, thou art yet to become a god*. in short marika created a mimic/silver tear, radagon, who married rennala but left her when marika had him return to the erdtree and they produced malenia and miquella. however since radagon left the rune with rennala the twins were incomplete.

i get the feeling that ranni and miquella had the greatest potential with ranni being born first and marika saw this. radagon being the leal hound that he is yearning to be complete came back as he is marikas mimic. similar to the cut asimi quest however it appears the mimic can begin to have their own free will and desires even sabotaging or trying to eliminate who created them.

Radagon is the main antagonists, but his motives are hidden behind many layers of obfuscation.

Hey i got one for ya.... the god killing knife was used to split the 2 fingers from the 3 and thats why that town got banished ti the underground

Censoring the Word K***ht, classic joke.
FromSoftware really should implement this into their game somehow... perhaps when players name their characters?

I swear, i wrote a giant comment about why i disagree, then i closed by accident. Im too tired to do it again so gonna try to be short.

We dont understand fully understand the endgoals for Radagon and Marika to points toward an antagonist. Marika broke the ring, but guides the tarnished that seek to fix it. Radagon tried to fix the ring but blocks the path from anyony trying to fix it.

Also, Radagon being pretty much the father of golden order fundamentalism, the perfect order ending seems to me what he would have wanted, it protects the order from being mengled by feckle gods and protects it.

Holy fuck, the idea that Radagon essentially crippled his own children by sabotaging the birth rune is kinda heinous, I like it - makes it a lot more dramatic and vicious. Also, would be in line with G. R. R. Martin's vibes, if the lore of the god family drama was sketched up by him

Ranni orchestrates the death of two of her siblings, only to start a war, and cause the shattering. Ranni is the bad guy.

The golden order aren’t the good guys, but ranni isn’t either.

I disagree kind of, Marika and Radagon are two different souls in one body. In fact they might have had separate bodies until the shattering when they were punished. Marika was the one who shattered it, not Radagon, Radagon tried to fix it but might have made it worse, he's an antagonist but Marika is the true one. Radagons thorns were made to keep PEOPLE OUT OF HIS D A M N R O O M. He doesn't want people coming into his bedroom bro. I think Radagon is not good nor bad, he's just a god. There really isn't true good or bad in Elden Ring. Some could say Ranni is bad because he got Godwyn killed and caused the shattering, maybe you are bad? Basically there isn't any real good or bad.

That's not how you spell Ranni.

Gotta disagree, Marika is still the central antagonist here. She started all this, and she's been shown to treat her loyal subjects like trash. Her husband she chased off, her loyal shadow, she torments, her children, she tells to go kill each other. As for her reason, we were never told, but its quite obvious shes trying to destroy and remake her kingdom. Maybe out of realisation that she messed up by siding with the greater will? Who can say.

At any rate, with what you said, Radagon just seems like another claimant to the elden lordship, as himself this time, no longer bound as part of Marika. He is only as much a villain as the pc or Godfrey or Goldmask is.

I wouldn't say he's the main antagonist, as that role is still firmly owned by the Greater Will. The outer god(s) are the antagonists.

On the subject of "Marika's will", another thing to consider is the name of the god she once served. It could be that what he actually saw was something of the nature of the Greater Will, which is basically an eldritch horror. I don't know if it was deliberate, but I find that all of the outer gods make a decent allegory for colonial powers, baselessly claiming their own wisdom and benevolence before exploiting and enslaving the people of the lands between in the hopes of harvesting the land to add to their own wealth and power.
I also have a headcanon that harvesting the essence of the Lands Between would give enough power to create a new god, which various entities were interested in. The Greater Will wanted to use the Golden Order and the Erdtree to feed the power to its child the Elden Beast, the god of rot wanted to turn Malenia into a god using it, and Malenia held off on using the rot because if she used it three times and thus became a god, she would deprive Miquella of the same opportunity.

I could be wrong, but what I suspect is that when she turned against the Golden Order, Marika trapped the Elden Beast inside Radagon and then used her own "punishment" of being bound inside the Erdtree. That said, I don't think he was a good person even before that, as his treatment of Rennala indicates either callous insincerity or else that he lacked the free will to make moral decisions, possibly because of the influence of the law of regression.
As for the twins' afflictions, I would argue that the remembrance indicates that magic super incest was the reason they were afflicted, since it says they were "the children of a single god. As such they... suffered afflictions". You could read the second sentence as only attributing their empyrean status to their parentage, but I find the other reading more natural, and it would also make a certain degree of sense since, like purebred dogs, their incestuous parentage assured certain desirable traits but also worsened their overall health. Admittedly, I don't think item descriptions are meant to be 100% reliable so it's possible that even if that was what it was indicating it could still be false, or at least incomplete.
You do have some interesting points though, and there is definitely a plausible argument that he tried to prevent any threats to himself, but I think that by the time he did so he was acting under the control of the Elden Beast and not out of personal selfishness.

"Mawika" "Wadagon"

But did radagon self love in his mouth or into his butt in order to have the twins?

Radagon might be the antagonist but he is definitely an ass for what he did to Renala.

Not trying to be rude but why do you talk like that?

it says something about how obscure the game's narrative is that people need to be persuaded that the final boss is in fact the main antagonist.

Yes I am well aware that Marika is the antagonist. Who, honestly who, has not figured this out yet?

The True Antagonist is Ranni, she started it all

Interesting thought that Radagon blocks the players audience with Marika, instead of Marika/Elden beast. Explains why Enia is so confused, as she probably thinks you're turning down a great boon, rather then retaliating from a great disgrace.

Say "biggus dickus"

Selfcest is masturbation+.

You tawk wike a wetard

Bloodbourne mob: IT"S ALL YOUR FAULT

Dang, he was Gwyn all along.

I believe that Marika is somehow cursed and it is something not known. Or there is a fault on the "twin birth" because not only Miquela and Malenia are afflicted but also Morgott and Mogh.
Another thing that made me think was the spear in Marika. In the Evangelion anime the spear was also a sort of locking System to bound the "giants" which could have the same meaning with Marika to keep her contained - if she was punished for the shattering then someone had to be punisher. In theory Radagon could be that punisher that was her champion and was choose by the will to replace her as he was the spear that bounded her and also the sword for the Beast, along that Marika still was capable of using the grace to guide the tarnished in this "uprising" against the will. This could explain why the two fingers got confused about the last line of actions to be taken by the tarnished as the grace is being controlled by Marika but not the Greater Will. In fact I don't fully believe Rasagon being part of Marika at first as he much more alike the fire giants and this could even be a sort of revenge. It is most likely he tried to absorb Marika once she has been contained and both are partially degraded from the process.
Unfortunately I think the DLC is our only hope have more answers and lots of new questions hahahahah

I love the souls community so much, this is such a kick ass theory and it goes through so many things I didn’t even think to look at a second time and it all makes sense. Shit if ur not on to something, I give up we’ll never get it

The whole "struggle for ever" sounds a lot like the story behind Armored Core. But instead of gods there it was mega corporations.

Great rune of the unborn both miquella and Melania could be seen as "unborn" as miquella will never age and Melania was born dead

"k***ht" you know what you did 😑🤣🤣🤣

Perfect, you solved the Twins. It makes sense. But yeah, the Veil it's actually merikas. Radegon emprisoned her in the tree. Pretended to be her while keeping her locked up to give birth. Maybe he was still mid experiment?

This is 100% accurate in my eyes because the war started because it was a war of two families. Radagons old one and his new one. Including the fact he stole his second from another man. Then fused with her.

You pronounce your "r" like a "w" and its hilarious

so the thing about this is, radagon isn't technically alive anymore
his body is barely holding it together as is and from how it looks, it's really the greater will itself that you''re fighting, it seems more like it's just using radagons body as he still has the elden ring inside of himself and even at the end of the fight the greater will transforms his body into the sword and manifests itself as the elden beast as a last ditch effort to defeat you

Good work, you're good at this 😁

I think this plays into the theory of Marika being more of a mourning mother type, than the scheming mastermind. I like it.

The antagonist of all time!

Miquella and Malenia being "damaged" "unworthy" and generally weakened, doesn't jive with them being emperyans, being the strongest of the children, or being referred to as the "twin prodigies"-

Elden ring is a post apocalypse game and nobody can convince me otherwise

Excellent theory, i was always confused why marika's actions seemed so contradictory, but it makes perfect sense if it was radagon who was foiling her at every turn. As to why he gave the rune of the unborn to rennala, perhaps he was attempting to be reborn apart from marika, leaving her imprisoned in the tree, but was never able to seperate from his other half.

Nice theory but every twin Marika has ever had has been flawed. Long before the run of the unborn became a topic.

agree, he made his FULL MOONLIGHT GREATSWORD IN TO PISS COLOR

I agree that Radagon is the cause of the problems afflicting the Lands Between. The question is how is Radagon Marika? Is he a silver tear of Marika? Was he created by the Numen to usurp Marika? Is he part of Marika, the part of her that doesn’t want her reign to end? Is he the part of her that fights fate? I think Marika banished Godfrey because she knew what Radagon was going to do, and wanted Godfrey and the tarnished safe somewhere else while Radagon usurped Marika’s reign. Personally I think the Eternal Cities created a mimic of Marika which is Radagon. The Eternal cities have a reputation for defying the Greater Will. It is clear the Greater Will is opposed to Radagon. The Greater Will leads us to burn the tree so we can defeat Radagon and save Marika.