Why Elden Ring & Other FromSoft Games Always Have A Maiden

Gameplay footage from both the Network Test and trailers for Elden Ring shows players receiving aid from a mysterious, one-eyed woman named Melina, the latest incarnation of the Maiden archetype seen in FromSoftware RPG franchises created by Hidetaka Miyazaki. Maidens in a FromSoftware Soulslike are invariably soft-spoken women of unclear origins who players must visit in order to level their characters up. Their nurturing relationship with player characters may be a deliberate invocation of the knights-meets-maiden narratives seen in classic medieval ballads of courtly love – though the subservient demeanors of these Maidens may also be a facade they adopt in order to achieve their own secret agendas.

In 2009, FromSoftware released a dark fantasy action RPG called Demon’s Souls that swiftly became famous for its grim ambiance, jigsaw-puzzle storytelling, and challenging gameplay. A less obvious but still intriguing innovation of Demon’s Souls was how it tried to justify classic computer RPG tropes – growing stronger by defeating enemies, respawning after death, enemies who attack players mindlessly on sight – by giving them narrative justifications. Player characters who die in battle are resurrected in ghostly form by the power of a strange temple called the Nexus. The human beings fought by Demon’s Souls protagonists were all driven insane after having their souls stolen by demons. The experience points received by Demon’s Souls player characters after defeating enemies are literally fragments of their souls, which can augment a player’s physical and mental qualities when they interact with the Maiden In Black.

The Maiden In Black – an immortal woman with dark garments, bare feet, and hardened wax over her eyes – was the first of several Maiden characters to appear in FromSoftware’s signature titles. In the Dark Souls games, players interact with Firekeepers, disfigured custodians of bonfires who aid the Undead on their journeys by helping them level up or increasing the size of their healing flasks. In the gothic horror RPG Bloodborne, players go to the Hunter’s Dream in order to meet with the Plain Doll, a life-sized, finely-dressed mannequin who strengthens the Good Hunter with Blood Echoes from the monsters they hunted. In the world of Elden Ring, there are apparently several Finger Maidens, servants of the Two Fingers society who offer guidance to wandering Tarnished warriors; Melina does not rank among their number, though she can convert the “rune fragments” player characters collect into newfound strength.

Elden Ring’s Maiden Shares Common Motifs With Other FromSoft RPGs

It’s clear at this point that Hidetaka Miyazaki, the current president of FromSoftware and pioneer of the Soulslike RPG sub-genre, is a big fan of mysterious women who help players level up their player characters and make enigmatic statements such as “Touch the demon inside of me…” or “Share them with me, your thoughts, your ambitions…” Unlike other non-player characters in FromSoftware RPG worlds, these Maidens will never turn against the player if they attack them on purpose or by mistakes.

If they do die, they will resurrect and continue to offer their services as if nothing had happened (in part so players won’t break their game by accident). Few players will ever actually attempt to strike these Maidens down, though, thanks to their pacifistic, nurturing, almost motherly demeanors. As long as The Maiden In Black, The Firekeeper, The Plain Doll, or Melina in Elden Ring stand by the player character’s side, there’s ultimately no setback they can’t overcome – a motif also seen in certain medieval European tales of knights and maidens.

Symbolic Links Between Maidens In Elden Ring & Medieval Poetry

The Courtly Love genre of medieval poetry originated among troubadours in Southern France near the end of the 11th century before becoming one of the most popular forms of literature and performance in noble courts across Medieval Europe. The now-stereotypical trope of knights in shining armor rescuing damsels in distress from dragons or towers shows up in several courtly love poems and many King Arthur stories, but there were also many more courtly love poems and songs about brave knights who try to prove the depths of their affection for the maidens they love by performing brave deeds and fulfilling every request their beloved makes, no matter how hard or unreasonable. Unsurprisingly, the common theme of most Courtly Love tales is the Power of Love – specifically, how pure devotion to a beloved figure can bring out a person’s best qualities.

There are interesting parallels between the knights and maidens of medieval courtly love poems and the Maidens and PCs seen in fantasy or sci-fi Soulslike RPGs like Elden Ring. Players of games like Dark Souls or Demon’s Souls control characters clad in the armor of medieval knights who must overcome ludicrously difficult challenges and trials. Ultimately, they gain metaphorical strength from their affectionate bond with a nurturing maiden figure as well as literal strength from the souls these maidens channel and transform into attribute upgrades. As in many courtly love poems, the power dynamic between the maiden and the knight is strangely ambiguous in FromSoftware’s RPGs. The Maiden presents themselves subordinate to the player’s character, but also defines the player’s goals and urges them toward certain courses of action.

Hidden Agendas Of Maidens In Elden Ring & Other FromSoft RPGs

In a scene near the end of Demon’s Souls, the Maiden In Black, face-to-face with the demonic Old One who threatens to devour the world, teasingly and maternally tells them to “be good.” It would seem the Maiden In Black, the most ancient demon of all, gave birth to the Old One long ago and now seeks to stop their child from devouring the world. The Plain Doll of Bloodborne, made in the likeness of a long-dead Beast Hunter, muses philosophically about whether the “gods loves their creations” and guides the Good Hunter PC toward a strange cosmic transcendence.

During “Lost Grace” conversations with the one-eyed Melina in the Elden Ring Network Test, she states she is “searching for my purpose given to me by my mother inside the Erdtree long ago, for the reason that I yet live, burned and bodyless.” The Maidens of FromSoftware games may act submissive to the players and their characters, but thanks to the ambiguity and mysterious gaps in of most Soulslike narratives, every word and deed these Maidens perform is laden with alternate interpretation and tantalizing implications of the daunting power they hold over the players they serve.

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