Miquella's Great Rune was Mistranslated | Elden Ring DLC Lore

Here’s what it actually says.

Elden Ring is a massive game that weaves together so many different mythologies and traditions, some things are just bound to end up lost in translation. Most infamously, Ranni's Age of Stars ending had very different implications between the English and Japanese versions.

Unfortunately, the Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Ring has another mistranslation for another Demigod Empyrean. This time it appears in Miquella's Great Rune. According to its description, this was “a Great Rune relinquished by Miquella. Broken and bereft of its bounty, it retains naught but the power to resist charms. Miquella set off for the tower enshrouded by shadow, abandoning everything—his golden flesh, his blinding strength, even his fate.”

Now the mistranslation comes from the final line of the description: “All in an effort to bury the original sin. To embrace the whole of it, and be reborn as a new god.”

はじまりから続く因果を超えて 全てを抱く、新しい神になるために

But in the Japanese, there is no mention of sin at all, “original” or otherwise. Instead, the key concept is “causality” or 因果 (inga). And that is the same kanji used in the spell Law of Causality. In this video, I explore Miquella's relationship with the Law of Causality and how Elden Ring's version of causality is influenced by the Buddhist conceptions of karma, cause, and effect.

Sources
Great article on the differences between the English and Japanese versions for Ranni’s Age of Stars: https://www.frontlinejp.net/2022/03/1...

Nakamura, Kyoko Motomochi, trans. Miraculous Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Tradition: The Nihon ryòiki of the Monk Kyòkai (99-101)
https://archive.org/details/miraculou...

Wild Fox Koan: https://sacred-texts.com/bud/zen/mumo...

Dogen, "On the Absolute Certainty of Cause and Effect" https://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachin...

If you're intrigued by the wild fox koan, I'd highly recommend Prof. Steve Heine's "Shifting Shape, Shaping Text: Philosophy and Folklore in the Fox Koan"

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Edited with Gling AI: https://bit.ly/46bGeYv

00:00 Miquella's Great Rune in English & Japanese
02:46 The Law of Causality in Elden Ring
04:41 The Law of Causality in Buddhism
07:48 Miquella and the Law of Causality

#eldenringlore #eldenring #miquella