Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree - The Hidden Endings of NPCs
The more critical NPCs in Shadow of the Erdtree are Sir Ansbach, Needle Knight Leda, Redmane Freyja, and Hornsent & Thiolliere. Among them is the core of a group, Needle Knight Leda, who guides our way into the Shadow of Erdtree. As we continued playing through the game, multiple items fell out of Miquella.
What Miquella's Charm Do To You
Another issue is that Miquella keeps leaving his Great Rune behind whenever Charms, breaking this capacity. As his charm wanes, we watch these NPCs' perspectives shift. Miquella manipulates them into each coming to Shadow of the Erdtree as part of their cooperation. They are freed from their mind control and battle each other as they choose new paths.
Miquella's Followers' Fate
Sir Ansbach's Story
Lord Ansbach: Scrabblecharmless, he finds Mohg's body has been stolen. He fights with Needle Knight Leda, and they find Mohg's body; regarding this conflict of players supporting either Sir Ansbach or Needle Knight Leda.
You will be able to find the method of how Sir Ansbach can help you (at this point, that head in question) and support us during a final fight with Radahn—such aid would end up being a sacrificial aspect.
He is a reasonable, knowledgeable, and brave individual. You could ostensibly meet Ullanoc at a different point. However, if not for his explanation that Miquella had stolen Mohg's body and would use it as an appropriate vessel of Radahn, the player might never have seen past deception.
I respect him for this, but it has made me even more of a fan because he knows the player killed Mohg and believes any king who meets his end in an honorable, fair duel has been shown proper kingship. We learn less about him than we do other characters, and while he does not grow appreciably, it is still through him that the player learns what their role and relationship to these people/places are for Shadow of the Erdtree.
Needle Knight Leda's Role
Leda of the Needle Knight: Even if the spell is broken, she is a follower. They are killers, Miquella's blood soldiers in every sense of the term, and she kills anyone who disgusts her or stands between her desired vision for Miuqella. "After lifting the charm," she orders the player to assassinate Sir Ansbach.
Play the role of Sir Ansbach or Needle Knight Leda in this conflict. You get Sir Ansbach's weapon, Ansbach Longbow, if you help Needle Knight Leda, but she will not come to your aid in the Radahn fight.
Shitty depiction of the character. Needle Knight Leda is steadfastly loyal, even more so than Redmane Freyja, but it also leads her to lose some humanlike qualities. She is the first in her group to try and get one of their old teammates killed off, making it more difficult for a player to take Miquella out.
If Shadow of the Erdtree had an optional ending where you team up with Miquella instead to conquer all that there is as it deserves, this new character would give more positive feedback.
However, considering FromSoftware has a real "ends when the player kills Miquella" fixed ending, their story knows what they did here was wrong in Needle Knight Leda.
Redmane Freyja's Loyalty
Redmane Freyja: A maid of Radahn seeking ways to serve, she finally becomes available when the spell wears off. She discovers Miquella has revived Radahn using Mohg's body. While she may disagree with Miquella's methods, her only care is for Radahn to return.
Serving as the muscle for Needle Knight Leda in hunting down Sir Ansbach, she only gets involved due to reluctantly agreeing to it.
Even though her loyal master is turned into a puppet, serving someone she knows does not deserve control of the throne (she's seen wearing his mask on one sleeve), we consider this her remaining faithful to Radahn. However, is such loyalty the best? For any player, all is in the eyes of the beholder.
The Terrible Tale of Hornsentadecimal's Vengeance
A reader eloquently dubbed Hornsent "a head many shades flame," out for blood against his relative Messmer, who had laid waste to his family and clan, except Miquella beguiled him. He appears as a controllable ally during Messmer's boss's fight for assistance in his vengeance.
From there, he vows to drive on with his campaign of vengeance by slaughtering the rest of Marika's progeny. He would be despondent and no longer there if not called during a battle with Messmer.
This guy is so sad. Shadow of the Erdtree follows with many war scenes, cities, and memorials that have been burned to ashes. With his race and homeland conquered, it makes sense for one of the few chances he has left is to kill a man from that otherworldly group making him nothing by Jack's bullet fodder.
Even after he reaches his destination, that hatred never leaves him and makes it so now there is almost no difference between the man who was gunned down in slow motion from above and the one with which fatal end we were expected to identify. This is where his greatest tragedy lies: Woah, oh, Woah...
Thiollier's Transformation
Thiollier: The greatest NPC character in the DLC. He worships Trina (the lovely side of Miquella). When the player tells him Trina wants to stop the scheme from Miquella, he loses all faith.
He finds himself and no longer feels miserable after a loss against the player. He will eventually join Sir Ansbach in helping the player get rid of Radahn, Consort of Miquella, on Trina's request to stop him from killing her but die fighting.
My favorite of the DLC characters is him. Though he possesses none of the steel that courses through Sir Ansbach, fear and self-doubt clog up his soul. Finally, and most importantly, the point of this transformation post is that only after he watches his god trust in you does Renn form and tell it to pike off.
After trying to fight back, he deals and receives quite a punch in the gut. This was my first prediction, and usually, he would have accepted it with a deep despair, ready for death.
Except during the battle against Needle Knight Leda, he recovers his pride and sides with Trina, who trusts you.
That decision takes huge inner turmoil. Courage is in accepting your fate and fighting it bravely.
The Effect of Miquella's Lie
This was a display of the fact that these ex-followers of Miquella were not real loyalists by any means but brainwashed people. As different as their experiences were, they both took wildly divergent paths.
As you bear witness to the stories of each character in Shadow of the Erdtree, and its taken charm is laid bare before your eyes due to not being hidden behind gated content anymore, you could decide for yourself, depending on all this given above.
Conclusion and Gameplay Note
However, the second phase starts with Messmer's Kindling, which replaces a Sealing Tree. If You Skip This Part, the questline is bricked—so Do It. To see the whole story, watch for this in-game action.