What’s the Deal with Consort Radahn?

Promised Consort Radahn is one of, if not the most challenging boss game developer From Software has ever created. For those blissfully unaware, Consort Radahn appears at the end of ELDEN RING’s Shadow of the Erdtree expansion and serves as the capstone to the expansion’s narrative, seeing demigod Miquella ascend to godhood with fellow demigod Radahn as his gigachad husband. The boss deals immense damage with dual-wielded swords and beams of holy light, performs attacks with arena-wide hitboxes and certain extremely precise attacks which require specialized dodging, and possesses a large health pool with fast recovery between attacks and high poise, stymieing the player’s attempts to heal between combos and break the boss’ stance. Representing Radahn’s prowess in the prime of his youth, the boss is the ultimate challenge of player acuity, reflexes, and character build, and a new benchmark for perceived difficulty in video games. I’m very proud to have defeated him myself on multiple occasions – I consider it one of my greatest gamer achievements to date – and now I’d like to relive those memories with you all as I discuss the boss’ soundtrack.

This track is an odd one which I’ve come to greatly enjoy through analysis. Bloodborne and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice composer Shoi Miyazawa has brought his signature rhythmic flair to the OST, adding some quirky cross-rhythms and referencing his previous work on the OST for Starscourge Radahn, the demigod’s prior iteration in vanilla ELDEN RING. The track runs just over six and a half minutes, with around ninety seconds of that music occurring during cutscenes. Join me on this journey of discovery as I delve into a track designed to accompany players getting repeatedly stomped into the ground.

I’d love to begin my analysis by mentioning just how odd this piece sounds at first listen. There are frequent meter and key changes, the childlike vocal timbre in the second phase is highly unusual for the series, and a lot of melodic material is used in this six-minute work. Throughout, I’m reminded of free counterpoint: each motivic cell is distinct, but not so much so that it feels divorced from the piece as a whole. In each phase, there’s a repeated melodic figure which functions as somewhat of a ground bass which establishes a firm foundation on which more disparate motivic elements can play. During the first phase, the ground bass manifests as the following four-bar figure taken from Starscourge Radahn’s second phase:

*Music notation depicting the ground bass*

This element is more or less omnipresent throughout the first three minutes of The Promised Consort, and Miyazawa’s treatment of it is highly instructive as to how one can re-use material constantly without losing the audience’s interest. Metric shifts are a large part of this technique: Miyazawa alternates between 2/2 and 6/4 (half note equal to dotted half note) every four to eight bars in the first phase.

2/2 Example rhythms

6/4 Example rhythms

Each 2/2 section is characterized by a martial drum-and-fife-like snare drum part which serves as both an engaging groove and a reminder of Radahn’s lore as a military general. While the 6/4 sections are devoid of this element, they provide an effective rhythmic contrast as they frequently alternate. The precise locations of each are outlined in the table below:

*Table outlining sections of phase 1. Lists meter, number of measures, and a short description for each*

As is demonstrated above, rhythmic interest is preserved in this section by virtue of metric shifts between half notes and dotted half notes and of constant introduction of new melodic material. Most crucial to this section is what I have termed the “Radahn Theme:”

*Music notation: the Radahn Theme (0’33”, 1’38”, 1’54”)*

As indicated in the table above, the Radahn Theme appears thrice in the first phase: first during the introductory cutscene (and, might I add, beneath tremolo strings in a manner befitting either a Bruckner symphony or the trailer for a Captain America film), then during the initial measures of the fight proper, then over the ground bass at around one minute into the fight. Note how the Radahn Theme is complimented by the ground bass: where the theme places its longest notes and arrival points almost exclusively on beat 1 of measures, the bass places its highest note (again, almost exclusively) on beat 3. The overall effect is one of two separate accent patterns, allowing each voice to be heard equally well and cementing the first phase’s slow war-march feel. This excellent counterpoint allows both elements to weave in and out of each other, creating a sensation of unfolding intensity and highlighting the best aspects of both melodies.

The Radahn Theme isn’t the only element blessed by strong counterpoint, though: even the secondary and tertiary melodic elements possess this quality, albeit with some musical quirks. For instance, the closing melody which occurs twice from 2’10” to 2’42” highlights beat 3 almost as strongly as it does beat 1:

Placing long notes on off-beats (such as in mm. 1, 3, and 5 of this excerpt) is a classic trick of Renaissance polyphony which utilizes fourth species – that is, two half notes tied across the barline – in conjunction with other note lengths to displace accents and create harmonic interest through suspensions. While there aren’t any suspensions here (at least none that Palestrina would recognize), I think the first aspect absolutely applies here. The tied half notes are the longest in this passage, and their frequent presence on an off-beat syncopates in a way which prevents the melody from feeling stagnant (by leading into pairs of quarter notes) while also preserving a warlike chant quality integral to the feel of this piece. Moreover, while the Radahn Theme does accent off-beats somewhat (look at the five-beat notes in m. 1 and 5), this closing melody ratchets up the syncopation as if the music – and, by extension, the boss - is off-balance. I believe this is absolutely the intent given that, at this point in the fight, many players will have broken the boss’s stance at least once, and some may have finished the phase entirely. A quick look at the other secondary material, found in a brief eight-bar interlude around 1’22”, seems to support my hypothesis: while the excerpt begins in quasi-fourth species with two dotted half notes tied across the barline, all of the longest notes (in mm. 3 and 7) begin on beat 1 of a measure. Matching musical material with the ludic intent – what the player is supposed to be doing at that moment – is what game soundtracks are all about, and I’m thrilled Miyazawa has injected that ethos into this piece in such subtle ways.

This brings me into the second phase, whose music is very puzzling to me. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t favor any of its melodic materials, highlighting certain among them with orchestration and production techniques rather than structural placement. This phase is also through-composed, moving directly through six different melodies and three keys without stopping for gas. Below is a table depicting the progression of this part of the piece:

While the individual melodies are vastly different, there are a few peculiarities I’d like to discuss. First, note that I’ve placed the entire section in 12/8 meter, meaning each measure contains four dotted quarter notes which, in turn, each contain three eighth notes. 12/8 is an important meter in Elden Ring: one can determine a boss’ proximity to the game’s main Outer God (the Greater Will) and its religion in the game world (the Golden Order) by how much its meter resembles the 12/8 heard in Radagon’s boss music. Messmer, an abandoned demigod living outside of Queen Marika’s grace, is missing a beat in his track’s 9/8 meter (only three dotted quarter notes – notice how it’s rhythmically similar and in the same key as Radagon!); Rellana, also divorced from grace, has her music in an aggressive 3/4; the Lion Dancer, which hails from the Hornsent culture that came before the Golden Order, is in a fast 3/4 which emphasizes the second beat of each measure; and Midra, who contains within himself the maddening Frenzied Flame, has a demented off-kilter waltz in 10/8 (in the phantasmagoric key of G-sharp minor, no less!).

*Music notation: Divine Beast Dancing Lion*

It’s for this reason that I find the 12/8 in the second phase of Consort Radahn to be incredibly significant in communicating the boss’ in-game lore. In phase 2, Miquella, Radahn’s brother and newly-minted god, appears hanging by his arms around Radahn’s neck and granting Radahn holy abilities. I believe the use of 12/8 in a different key from Radagon’s 12/8 (D minor versus A minor) communicates Miquella’s fate as a “caged divinity;” in-game, it is suggested that although Miquella intends to “make the world a kinder place” through a new world order, his self-abandoning attempt at becoming a god has stripped him of his best aspects (more on this later when I discuss St. Trina’s theme!). Extrapolating from this, I see the disparate melodic elements in this second phase as Miquella attempting (and not always succeeding) to find his footing and identity as a god.

To support this, I’d like to look at Phrases A and B. Phrase A is markedly similar to all of Radahn’s solo material: we see the telltale dotted half notes tied across the barline alongside a nondescript descending scale and the distinctive leap of a perfect fifth (m. 5) found in the Radahn Theme. In Phrase B we find the influence of Enir-Elim, the location of this boss fight which serves as a divine tower for the Hornsent. Of particular interest is the use of the b7-6 melodic motion from m. 1 to m. 3 of Phrase B which figures prominently in Enir-Elim’s ambient track. Also of note is the ascending – dare I say spiralling - figure in the accompaniment (the spiral is a common architectural reference and holy symbol for the Hornsent and Enir-Elim).

It’s not until Phrase C that Miquella begins to find his own identity as a god. Here we see something characteristic which incorporates the Radahn Theme (syncopated notes in m.4 and m.8; perfect fifth leap in m.3), Enir-Elim (melodic motion in m.7) and scalar motion - something entirely new which eventually subsumes all the other component parts. It’s as if Miquella is absorbing the essence of his consort and the location and, in so doing, rendering himself more powerful.

It’s not over yet, though. Phrase D begins in the stratosphere with a high C – the flat seventh – which moves down to the sixth twice in a row only to change keys to D-flat major. What do we hear first in the new key but the Radahn Theme’s distinctive initial leap moving into Miquella’s now-distinctive downward scale towards C-flat, then to C-flat up the octave for yet another key change in E-flat minor, the opening key of the first phase. Speaking as a gamer, this part absolutely knocked my socks off and was almost too much stimulation when paired with the boss’ insane moveset.

After a transitional eight bars in which little melodic motion occurs, we reach the phase’s ultimate arrival point. Beginning in the strings with an ascending scale, Phrase F then moves towards a high B-flat, then elides with its second half: a descending scalar motion from E-flat down to G-flat. The Radahn Theme is placed underneath Phrase F2 in perfect counterpoint, uniting Miquella’s transcendent power with Radahn’s might and zeal. The piece then winds down with a brief four-bar postlude before returning to D minor so that the Phase 2 music can loop if needed.

*Music notation: Phrase F1 and F2 with Radahn Theme (5’50”)*

While I do find it very cool that Miyazawa has put so much material in a short span of musical time, there are drawbacks to his approach. All of this melodic and harmonic shifting tends to make my head spin during the fight. These elements combine to create a feeling of intense turbulence which is matched by the intensity of the gameplay. It is so intense, in fact, that I suspect it works against many players who attempt to fight this boss and are thrown off – or even pushed away – by the boss’ difficulty in combination with an extremely active soundscape. Stuffing so much material into such a short time – the second phase lasts about two-thirds as long as the first despite containing vastly more information – risks forcing the listener to tune the music out, or worse, shut it off entirely. It doesn’t help that the mix of this track is rather washy and indistinct, unfortunately making it so that much of Miyazawa’s careful composition doesn’t come off without deeply focused listening.

Another problem which I’ve alluded to earlier is the length of this phase’s music, which is disproportionate to the length of the second phase in comparison to the first. Consort Radahn phase transitions once he’s lost around 65 percent of his health which, despite the boss’ massive health pool, is a fairly trivial amount for most late-game builds. Moreover, the boss’ second phase sees him become much more aggressive, adding thousands of permutations of attacks which come out quickly and counter player attacks, thus disrupting their damage per second and making the remaining 65% of Radahn’s health take much longer to eliminate. I haven’t even mentioned the part where, at around 20% health, Radahn flies into the sky for around ten seconds and nukes nearly the entire arena! I haven’t yet completed this boss without hearing the second phase music at least twice the whole way through. All of these elegant details in the music tend to wash away when you hear it multiple times during dozens (or even hundreds) of attempts at defeating the most challenging boss From Software has released to date.

With that said, though, I’ve really enjoyed listening to this track outside of the game. It brings a much-needed quirk to the game’s soundtrack, introducing some new timbres such as the gorgeous solo voice part and playing with material in a way that reveals Miyazawa’s skill at the craft of composition. I get a sense that this piece posed the unique challenge of integrating two very disparate sound worlds – that of Starscourge Radahn and that of Miquella – and the ways in which Miyazawa approached this challenge are both technically sound and deeply musical.

There’s one more thing I’d like to talk about before I go: St. Trina. In Elden Ring’s lore, St. Trina is a demigod of sleep and oblivion as well as Miquella’s alter-ego and/or alternate self. As part of his journey to godhood, Miquella abandons parts of himself: the crosses strewn around the game’s expansion each represent one part. Deep in the Fissure, a late-DLC area, we find a cross which reads:

“I abandon here my love”

Further along in the area, we find an area named The Garden of Deep Purple where St. Trina resides, dumped in the bottom of a pit filled with the putrescent ooze of tens of thousands of corpses stuffed into leaking mass coffins. It’s here that, should we drink her nectar of oblivion a few times, St. Trina speaks to us, asking us to “make Miquella stop” and telling us we “must kill Miquella.” This is the essence of Miquella’s love, abandoned and beseeching a great hero of the stagnant old order to destroy her other half. There’s music playing here, music written by my personal FromSoft GOAT Yuka Kitamura. In it we hear harp, gentle tremolo strings in a perpetual suspension, and a distinct melodic figure:

*Music notation: melody from “St. Trina”*

It's a bit like the Radahn Theme, isn’t it? That distinctive leap of a perfect fifth, the accenting of off-beats… to me, it feels like a warning. A warning that Miquella has left behind the part of him that could prevent his reign from becoming tragic, that could prevent his divinity from being caged by some eldritch Outer God, that could have let him genuinely “make the world a kinder place.” It’s significant to me that this track is placed at the end of the OST album, tying the whole journey together and bookending the DLC’s tragic narrative. In the end, the pursuit of power warps those who undertake it; nothing, not even love itself, cannot be twisted to achieve a higher station. Like everything else in the land of shadow, Miquella’s divinity ends up being worth nothing but squandered hopes and dashed dreams.

Thanks to all who read this – I truly, truly appreciate anyone with the patience to sit through my various rants. If you enjoyed this analysis, I have good news: I’ve been listening through the entire Shadow of the Erdtree soundtrack and I feel like I have a lot to say about many of the tracks on it, so I’d like to do more of these. I’m writing this here so I feel accountable enough to actually crank out words. Please stay tuned for more Elden Ring music analysis, and I hope you all have a wonderful day.

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