Elden Ring’s Malenia embodies FromSoftware’s problems with women

polygon.com:

She lies there, deep in the belly of the Haligtree, as if she had merely dozed off in the shafts of lights that filter down. Malenia the Severed (defender of Miquella!) has fallen to pieces, her one good arm resting at the feet of the whorls and gnarls that held her childlike brother. This enigmatic warrior captured the audience from the moment she appeared, and she featured prominently in the rest of the game’s marketing materials. But instead of becoming an uncontested favorite, she frustrated fans and revealed the limitations of FromSoftware’s imagination.

Malenia is a hard-as-nails endgame encounter, and while optional, she is a brick wall for a lot of players. Reminiscent of other difficult encounters, like Lady Maria from Bloodborne, it’s a two-phase fight full of fast, lethal strikes as Malenia heals from damage she’s dealt to the player.

As you encounter her in Elphael, she is instantly imposing. Her presence is quietly scary. Her movements are honed and practiced. Her voice is calm and unemotional. Her face is impassive. Everything in the first phase of the fight is designed to thwart and emasculate; there’s a deep humor in the idea of a woman whose very attacks steal health from you to empower herself. And the ultimate joke: Just when you think you’ve knocked her down, she gets back up one last time.

Malenia’s first death triggers her final transformation into the Goddess of Scarlet Rot, and she emerges triumphantly from her blossom to spread tragically beautiful wings of skin, rot, and butterflies. She is no longer clad in armor, and the camera does a long, slow reveal of her nakedness. Her body is crusted over with rot, and yet reveals her breasts and genitals being as smooth as a doll’s. It evokes a