Before we cut to the chase, there are (obviously) spoilers for the final boss of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.

Promised Consort Radahn, the final boss of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, has proven to be something of a controversial choice from a lore perspective (aside from being as hard as a nail dipped in acid).

Some have argued that other candidates from Elden Ring's litany of blood-related demigods, such as the formerly golden Godwin, are more suitable, but there is much debate as to whether his soul is a valid candidate to be stuffed into Mog's puppeted corpse.

Whether you're on the team of Edward or Jacob, i.e., Godwin or Ladern, the latter may have been more chatty in the past. r/eldenringloretalk (thanks, Eurogamer) user LaMi_1, in the age-old tradition of Data mining, which has dug up some "cut" voice lines; LaMi_1 found the following three lines:

"I was checking the internal files of the DLC." LaMi_1 wrote." Translated the original Japanese text to discover if there were any relevant differences from the English version or meanings lost in translation." "While scrolling through the dialogues and comparing the English ones with the Japanese ones, I discovered some very interesting pieces of cut content." "

.

This leads us to a secondary question that has been on the tongues of Loremasters on YouTube since the DLC was delivered: how eager was Radahn to become the queen of Michaela in the first place?

In the DLC, it becomes clear that Morg was perhaps judged too harshly by the fanbase. His kidnapping and infatuation with Michaela was caused by the child-slaying demigod himself. In other words, he had been brainwashed. Two years later: the Blood King was exonerated of all charges.

If Michaela had made LaMayla promise to make LaMayla her queen, then LaMayla herself was a victim of "kindly" divine mind control.

The lines dug up by LaMi_1 are Zanzibarzian in that they actually reveal little about Radahn's motives. However, the phrase "a lion bred for battle" suggests that even he thinks of himself as a pet rather than a partner to Michaela. On the other hand, Radahn is a badass, and when a badass says he is a "lion bred for battle," he is, as one might imagine, a badass. At times, the curtains look blue. It is also interesting that he does not refer to himself as Michela's queen.

There are further interpretations of how much of a willing partner he is, but according to Ted Litchfield, our resident PC gamer and Eldenring expert, his description of the young lion's armor indicates that he became cold-hearted during the shattering and that Marenia, their brother They tracked him down on his behalf:

"When Marenia, the blade of Michaela, rose in Eonia, Rahdahn heard a murmur in his ear - "O promised queen, Michaela is waiting for you."

Though once fond of clowning around with his half-brother and boyfriend (don't even think about it), Radahn would later be crammed into the desecrated body of Mogh, the man whose wife was the most misunderstood in the "land of the in-between," and united with Boo, who had abandoned all that was good about her to become a deity He might have had a problem with being a part of it.

We can never know for sure because he says nothing. Radahn is silent throughout the battle, leaving the chatter to Michaela, who gives him the world's worst piggyback ride.

The third secret hand (which is totally my hand. It is a little out of character to define yourself by violence and war. If you are mind-controlled by a very unkind version of Michaela, it would be fitting.

Regardless of how one views the new Jock Supreme in the "Land of Shadows," it's clear that mind control won't stop Ladern from beating most players into the dirt. Unless, of course, you are a player who has trained Ladern without ever being hit. In that case, I fear for you.