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Lore
The Maiden is a tall, blonde woman who works to help the plague-stricken and diseased inhabitants of the Valley of Defilement. Her bodyguard, Garl Vinland, is her only form of offense and defense.
Maiden Astraea, also called the Sixth Saint Astraea, was raised a pure and perfect follower of God from birth to a noble home. When she travelled to the Valley in an effort of relief, she felt genuine pity for the poor and abandoned living there, working for many years in their service. However, over time, she began to lose her faith in a God who would allow such suffering to exist. She decided that the only true way to heal the pain of the people of the Valley was for her to accept demonhood herself, becoming an Archdemon and ruling over the land with her still human companion, Garl Vinland. In showing the people kindness, she had amassed a large cult of followers who worshipped her with slavish devotion, willing to offer her everything in exchange for her salvation.
Unfortunately, the Maiden, who came from a background of privlage herself, believed her vision of relief to be the only option, and her actions in turn changed the Valley for the worse. To end their pain, Maiden Astraea would perform the actions of a true Demon, taking the souls from her followers and thus their ability to properly think and feel, effectively lobotomizing them. Both evidenced by dialogue from the Filthy Woman and the many corpses of humans in the area, mainly women, Maiden Astraea's followers began to kill those not following her as they desired, offering the corpses up to the Archdemon along with the souls they carried. In her boss arena, the bodies of knights are stacked high around her, many wearing the Mirdan Scale Armor of the Church of God, from which Astraea originally hailed, as the Church refused to believe their Saint would abandon them in such a manner. Though her actions came from a place of good will and pity, they lack the empathy to understand the importance of the lives of those beneath her, and she sees her effectively wiping out the Valley's culture and population as a mercy killing. Even her repeated insistence that, if they were only left alone, the people of the Valley of Defilement would do no harm to the wider world, rings false given that the souls she collects inevitably help the Old One in destroying everything. In the end, her altruism is flawed and dangerous, creating a monster from a place of innocence and virtue. As the text for the Miracle Death Cloud that is created from her Demon Soul states, "Astraea, who willingly accepted the corrupted and corroded, naturally became the most corrupted of them all."
Theories
Maiden Astraea is a Witch
Dialogue
Sources
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