That's one of the most fucked up humanoid anatomies FromSoft did. With the armor on, Harmonia looks unsettling yet angelic; without it, she just looks grotesque, even diseased. It's like a child whose body mutated too fast into a doll-like mockery of adulthood and died in the process, but the body is still working somehow.

The Child-like faces make them look even more spooky imo. Like it was forced onto a body not their own or forced to age.

They sure do their squats.

thats crazy
smash

I love when FromSoft blends the beautiful and the grotesque.

It’s interesting that their faces look so young. In the lore for the Balancers it states that a village was being besieged by Bandits, and in the chaos a young village girl ran away seeking help. She ended up in a forest and found a statue of a “Protective Deity”, which she then prayed to. After doing so she returned to the village and slew all of the bandits besieging the village. How was a young girl able to single-handedly slay all of the bandits in the village?  I think that this “protective deity” granted some kind of pact to turn the girl into a warrior that could save her village. And in the process the girl’s body rapidly shifted to become that of a warrior capable of saving her village. Which would explain why her body is that of a grown woman, but her face is obviously that of a child. And the bodies of the Balancers are covered in tumorous growths, which were probably due to the rapid metamorphosis that the girls bodies had to endure to become a warrior capable of enacting the justice they wished to exact. So all of the Balancers are probably young girls who prayed to that protective deity and were granted the help they needed. But probably at the cost of their own free will, and at this point they’re probably being enslaved and used by this “protective deity” to enact its idea of balance onto the world.

Though I could be 100% wrong, and most of this is pure speculation based on visual appearances and a small snippet of lore text. This is all just a theory and should be taken with a grain of salt, but it is my personal conclusion.

Foot design look similiar to lotus foot / foot binding from ancient china

2:22 Seems like they're being controlled BY their weapons.

A closer look indeed...

3:36 Close enough, welcome back Mesmer

I feel the distortion of limbs and unnatural proportion between head and body are very unsettling. Considering this is a From Software world, I think these angels or Valkyries definitely have some dark background lore.

Oh my god, THANK YOU. I am a fanartist and I spent the last week frantically looking for reference pictures of the Balancers so I could draw them accurately, but all of the screenshots available were blurry or low res. This is a godsent

The Will of the Balancers does suggest that the Weapon Bequeathed Harmonia were at first each, or all collectively, a young girl who became possessed by the very weapon that their village deity bequeathed her. I think it's interesting then that the Harmonia retain a childlike face, but their bodies have been stretched to uncanny proportions. Plus, although it may be a quirk of the model that wasn't quite intended to be seen, that their feet have been deformed to appear cervine (even seeming somewhat cloven at the points) makes them out to be odd girl-flower-bird-deer monsters whose souls seem to be tethered to their polearms.

I wonder if they're connected to the cutting-gifted folk?

After seeing the way that the floral Seraph wings emerge in fire and how scarred their bodies are, I can't help but see the visual parallels to Romina, Saint of the Bud and her own polearm weapon.

On top of that, the way in which the Balancers invasion event turns the enemies against each other matching the Miquella & St. Trina parallels overlaps with how Romina shifts towards Malenia's Valkyries and the Scarlet Rot:

“After the church was burned to the ground, Romina discovered a twisted divine element, which she weaved into the baleful scarlet rot. Perhaps then, the buds might find somewhere to gain purchase once more, within the scorched remains.”

Some fascinating implications about that relationship tucked away in the details here, so thanks as always for uncovering & showcasing these little design elements!!

Babe, wake up, new Elden Ring Mommies just dropped.

If Milicent and the sisters are Malenia's lesser scarlet valkyries, then the Balancers can be interpreted as "what if" Miquella and Trina's spawns would be their own version of valkyries.

4:48 - Go on without me, I'll hold them off!

It's kinda cool to see that their whole body is modeled, but they do look a bit cursed at a closer look lol.

The young girl described in the Balancer relic description reminds me of Queen Marika.

***A tiny farming village was besieged by bandits, who proceeded to ravage both its plots and people.
A young village girl, seeking help, dashed into the forest, where she prayed to the statue of a protective deity that held a weapon raised overhead.
By the end the village was steeped in red and settled in silence. The village girl, drenched in blood, stood with a vacant stare and a heroic weapon in her grip.***

The Harmonia as a collective look like their ideals morphed them without human anatomy in mind. They are physically warped and grotesque because 100% of the focus was used to represent their 'perfect' judgement. Like trying to draw the human form from memory as an afterthought, it's all slightly warped.