‘Let me solo her’ defeats 1,000th Malenia in heroic fashion

The tale of “Let me solo her” has reached an epic milestone: 1,000 Malenias defeated. The Elden Ring folk hero livestreamed the event, dispatching the thousandth Goddess of Rot in a manner that demands it be recounted to the masses.

The tale of “Let me solo her” began last month, when whispers of a strange warrior started making the rounds on Reddit. Players, stymied by a boss considered one of the hardest in FromSoftware history, would call for help, summoning a pot-helmeted, semi-nude warrior who would dispatch Malenia with relative ease. After that, “Let me solo her” would return to his world with a cheerful wave to await the next summons from a Tarnished in trouble. And from there, the legend was born.

“I chose Malenia to help others because I fell in love with her design,” “Let me solo her” said in an interview with IGN. After more than 200 unsuccessful attempts to beat her, when he finally triumphed, he decided to lend his strength to others so they wouldn’t have to struggle as he did.

In the IGN interview, “Let me solo her” estimated he had defeated Malenia around 300–400 times. In a span of less than a month, that number ballooned to over 980. So close to the 1,000th kill, “Let me solo her,” who has YouTube account under the name Klein Tsuboi, decided to stream the push to 1,000.

Even in a world of no-hit, level 1, and pacifist runs, “Let me solo her” makes fighting Malenia look easy. The bleed status effect is his primary ally against Malenia, taking a huge chunk out of her health bar at semi-regular intervals.

In his interview with IGN, “Let me solo her” explained that he’s not perfect every time and sometimes falls to his sworn enemy. The 1,000th fight looked like it might be one of his rare failures as Malenia got him down to a sliver of health with “Let me solo her” being either too cocky or cautious to take the time to heal.

For the fights, “Let me solo her’s” hosts have the option to view or skip the boss’s phase two cutscene. In the final fight, it seemed beautifully poetic that the host let the cutscene play out. As an added bit of flair, in the fight’s final moments, “Let me solo her” played the Elden Ring theme song — music that does not normally play during that encounter — taking the fight from just another day at the Malenia Farming Factory into something truly momentous. The chat and commenters on Twitter were screaming encouragements, hyped as all hell to have the privilege of watching Malenia fall for the 1,000th time. Even Bandai Namco got in on the fun, informing “Let me solo her” that he’d be receiving a gift for his efforts.

Klein Tsuboi / YouTube

At the end of the final fight, “Let me solo her” saluted with the ring gesture, thanked his viewers, and performed the dejection gesture as though collapsing under the impressive weight of the feat he just accomplished. He then promptly started new game plus, resetting the game and ending, at least for now, his glorious tale.

Bandai Namco / Klein Tsuboi

“Let me solo her’s” become a gaming folk hero, spawning fan comics, gag players that instead demand Malenia to solo them, and, apparently, impostors. Soulsborne games like Elden Ring, with their punishing difficulty, are some of the most demoralizing games one can play. The narratives themselves are also bleak, filled with undeserved, tragic deaths and endings that inspire little hope. In all that darkness, “Let me solo her” shines brighter than even the Erdtree. He’s gaming’s goodest dude, and those who have benefited from his aid can count themselves among the blessed.

Henry V’s St. Crispin’s Day speech is perhaps one of the most famous monologues in all of Shakespeare, in which the titular king rouses his unlikely force to eventually triumph over a superior enemy. Here, with a little liberties taken, I think the speech’s ending well-fits the story of “Let me solo her”:

And gentlefolk in The Lands Between now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their maidens cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with Let Me Solo Her