Dahaarkan said:
All of the outer gods are written as flawed in someway as to create strife and chaos for the story to take place. Things also to keep in mind is that the erdtree is fake, as the golden projection you see in the game is merely a facade as hinted by the fact that the stump exists, but the rest of the tree is a ghostly projection just like the projection of Godfrey right before Morgot's arena.
This suggests the greater will is a usurper of the natural order and the original Yggdrasil has been destroyed and usurped by this fake tree linked to the parasitic god.
The god of rot seems to be the only god that has no real malicious intent and merely projects a natural cycle of death and rebirth. The rot itself is a byproduct of the elden ring's removal of death which breaks the natural cycle and results in rot.
As nothing dies, everything becomes forever trapped in the stage of rotting before death, and nothing is ever properly reborn. This ties into an incomplete great work which may be the whole point of the narrative that is the great work is incomplete and flawed, resulting in eternal rot.
The god of rot is nature itself and the hideous form the world takes when natural laws are broken and usurped by a false god and a false great work. The unalloyed gold needle is symbolic of the great work and it is used to deter the rot and complete the great work in the sense that it does not corrupt the natural cycle. None of the endings really matter because rot will continue to spread and fester until the great work is completed, and Miquella seems to be the only one who can
Miquella is ultimately the protagonist of this story as the only one to create unalloyed gold thus working to complete the great work. It's no coincidence that his sister is an avatar of nature itself dedicated to protecting him as the completes the great work and shuts out the meddling of false gods and deters, perhaps even could have solved the issue of perpetual rot. But as his work is incomplete, the rot continues to fester.
He attempts to create a new Yggdrasil to heal the world and uses unalloyed gold to deter rot. Unalloyed or "pure" gold is symbolic of the great work and many people glance over this. The "golden" order is alloyed gold, meaning it is mixed with other metals and thus impure, which is indicative of it's false and incomplete nature.
The unalloyed gold not only balances and deters rot but also filters out the meddling of false gods. Thus being the way to bring balance to the world and liberate it from flawed and malicious gods. Miquella being trapped in child form despite being much older is symbolic of his work being incomplete.
Mohg and Morgot are both misguided characters unaware they are puppets in the meddling of outer gods. The formless mother more than anything I think represents rage and lashing out and this fits Mohg and the merciless persecution he faced from birth, which sets his blood on fire. Mohg and Morgot both represent two sides of the coin of victims of abuse, Mohg lashes out against the greater will, where as Morgot submits to it's abuse.
Like Rykard, Mohg is misguided and lost in his ways, but is in the right to rebel against a false god.
You make good points, but I wouldn't say all endings mean nothing.
In all endings you kill the Elden Beast, who is the vessel of the Greater Will. That must mean something.
Even if you just restore the Elden Ring without modifying it, something must have changed. The Greater Will either has no control over the Lands Between anymore, or it's greatly diminished.
I like your arguments on Miquella, and I think that much more will be explained once the DLC (which will revolve greatly around him, as shown by the promo painting) comes out. Maybe we'll get a new ending, that is Miquella's legacy, and unalloyed Gold will be the center of it.
(So far, every ending is either legacy of Marika, Goldmask, Fia, Dung Eater, Ranni, or no one, maybe Shabriri, in the case of the Frenzied Flame ending).
I still think that Goldmask's ending is interesting. The mending rune of Order item description says that this rune will "attempt" to perfect the Golden Order by removing the "fickleness of Gods, no better than men".
The meaning changes drastically, based on what "Gods" are we talking about. Does the text refer to the physical Gods, such as Marika and Radagon, or to the Outer Gods?
If it's the latter, then Goldmask's ending is close to Miquella's goals. This is, in my opinion, validated by the binding circle around the Elden Ring.
There is one thing though that must be said, you rightfully said that removing Death was bad because of Rot, but the Elden Ring itself didn't remove Death.
The Elden Ring is supposed to be a metaphysical representation of universal laws, Death, Birth, etc...
Indeed the Elden Ring had the Rune of Death in it.
It was Marika who removed it, in order to let her and her offspring live forever.
This could very well be the actual failed attempt of Magnum Opus.
The Magnum Opus isn't about removing Death, it actually requires it, with a following rebirth (I am no alchemical expert though, I have yet to explore the depths of the Magnum Opus as it should be done).
![Voice of Enki [JG]](/data/avatars/m/0/84.jpg?1705131368){kind=avatar}
) and that Dark Souls contained perverted versions of our gods. 
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