>He didn't link the fire
>>722511874why would I? I killed everything and everybody, the world belongs to me now
>>722512505What's the point of being king of the ashes?
The canon ending of DS1 is linking the fire, continuing the cursed cycle that progressively degrades everythingThe canon ending of DS3 is killing the player from DS1 and extinguishing the fire, entering the age of dark, severing the cycle and allowing humans to rule, forming their own light
>>722513802desu my interpretation is that the humans who try to rule in the darkness, within londor and shit, are a lost cause. they've already resorted to worshiping their own pain and shit to cope, and the cope can't last forever. they're doomed to go hollow and fade out.the real "winner" in the age of dark is the MC of DS3, who's made a new painting and uses it as a hiding place for himself and his friends to wait out the age of dark in, passing the time until a new first flame eventually catches. which is dramatic irony because the DS3 MC is the first true Dark Lord since the Furtive Pygmy himself, and uses the Dark Soul's power to do the exact same thing the Pygmy did: hide and let all the drama blow over
>>722511874>He didn't zelda the flame
Its what she wanted
>>722511874>He linked the fire
>>722511874Frampt propaganda BAKA,First, the entire metaphor and message of dark souls 3 (and ariandels dlc for that matter) is that it's better to let things die to build a foundation for new things than let a thing stick around for too long. Dark Souls 3 literally hates itself for existing. For that matter the dark age ending in 3 outright hints that in the distance the embers of champions and lords remain, hinting that things will continue.But the thing is that both linking the fire and embracing the dark age is ultimately perpetuating the material world. The snakes are playing a binary politic so you don't understand that to escape the curse of existence you must reject that choice entirely. You must transcend (Buddhist dragon shit yo)
>Light is le bad. Dark is le good.What did Michael Zaki mean by this? Is this a hecking Gnostic alegory?
>>722515248think about who named the Age of Light and the Age of Dark. The Lords tell you to perpetuate the Age of Light because that's what gives them power over you, so they want it to sound as appealing as possible, and the Age of Dark to sound as horrifying as possible
>>722515982You don't need Allfather Lloyd's propaganda to make the age of dark sound like a bad thing when Londor is out there worshiping torture.
>>722511874the snakes are both deceivers.do you uphold someone else's system or destroy it (with no resolution of making something different just nothing)
>>722515982The terms "Light" and "Dark" weren't some invention concocted by the gods, the omniscient narrator mentions them both by name in the intro cinematic and Kaathe calls it the Age of Dark even though he advocates for it.This all goes back to the Gnostic belief that the God of Eden was an evil god that sought to restrain humanity by denying them their nature (access to knowledge) because he feared what they could become (Gwyn trembled at the Dark and the Age of Men), while the serpent was a benevolent entity who sought to emancipate humanity by getting them to eat from the fruit of the tree so that they might acquire knowledge and become like God (and later get to vainquish God).Replace God by Gwyn, the serpent of Eden by Kaathe, and the knowledge of the tree by the Dark, and you get Dark Souls.There's a whole article on Medium about this: https://medium.com/@RoseOfNobility/smash-the-worlds-shell-the-symbolic-roots-of-the-dark-souls-trilogy-bf100b253273Sneaky Michael Zaki.
>>722511874>do a half-ass job and leave tons of gaps in your lore >somehow the fans eat it up and spend years trying to fill in the gaps this is "good lore" according to souls fans btw
>>722511874>He didn't link the fireit was always burning since the world's been turning
>>72251671650 IQ posters think the snakes are telling the truth100 IQ posters know the snakes lie to serve their agenda200 IQ posters know the snakes tell their slice of truth that serves their agenda
>>722511874>>722515008i choose something else entirely
You guys put way more thought into it than the devs ever did
>>722517440If you knew how well versed From are in all manner of occult and esoteric knowledge, and how much symbolism their games carry, you wouldn't say that.
>>722517708nta but do tell how versed are they?
>>722517793Like, this much!
>>722517708occult and esoteric, okay go watch another sam hyde video
>>722517440Souls lore undeniably had a lot of passion put into it on the devs end, it's just that people's opinions on the item-description-lore approach have been soured by Elden Ring which is kind of a stinker.
>>722517918Occult just means hidden you Redditor.
THERE IS NO PATH YET WE ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ seek seek lest
>>722517416based
things end up really bad when you listen to Kathe, but things are OK but personally bad for you if you listen to Frampt
>>722515227Is there any character in the games that represents this?
The sequel should involve a dying god looking for a new flame throughout the Age of Dark because that shit way too fucking horrible to live through with just the Abyss lurking at every corner of humanity. Fuck that.
>>722517160filtered
>>722513802ds3 isn't canon desu
>>722517708Elder Scrolls does that in spades but still leaves room for the normalfags to actually understand the story with some sense of narrative cohesion. Its esotericism is built-in diegetically rather than it being the only thing everything and everyone is dealing with.
>>722518871>ENTER
>>722512889Lack of faggots around.
>>722517416I love Dark Souls 2's ending the most. Instead of having to deal with the fate of the world on your shoulders or whatever, you just reject the Throne and decide you'll enjoy the rest of your existence to the fullest, no matter what it'll bring or how long it'll last.
>>722517440Miyazaki literally wrote all the items descriptions himself
>>722518814Kaathe is a fucking retarded contrarian, Frampt is just a dotard.
>>722519114A lot of games do that, the Legend of Zelda being another example, but none of them do it as acccurately and as well as From.I'm not about to effort post in a basket weaving forum, so I'll say that much.
>>722517416Based, walk away from the eternal serpents and their false binaries
>>722519148
>>722519380>OY VEY, YOU'RE GUNNA PAINT YOUR OWN WORLD? IT'S LIKE ANUDDA SHOAH!!!!
>>722519332If you effortpost, I will effortpost in kind as well.>>722519380It isn't a false binary when the binary governs the state of the world. There's no true impartiality because the Dark is much much stronger to defeat the Flame.
I don't even remember what the endings mean
>>722511874>>722515008
>>722513802There's no canon endingsAll of them are fine>>722519075This but Dark Souls 2, 3 is great
>>722518000It also contradicts itself and sometimes goes unexplained. I wouldn't put much stock on Souls loremasters compared to other games like Legacy of Kain where the 'blueprint' of the lore is less arbitrary.
>>722519603Relink the Flame => Prophecy fulfilled. The Age of Fire is prolonged where you technically become the next Gwyn and have to keep the Flame lit and keep order.Don't Link the Flame => Prophecy denied. You assume your destiny as the Dark Lord to usher in a new Age where you are also at the head of everything but are not subservient in trying to keep everything in order. The Abyss subsequently and implicitly also gets stronger.TL;DR Gwyn was right.
>>722519950no he wasn't he was just a warlord scared of the dark, his legacy is cinders and decay
>>722519735But DS3 references DS2.
This is the best ending
>>722520095His legacy is the entire world. That's the point. The Age he spearheaded is the reason why everything looks the way it is, it represented triumph over the natural order where the natural order was literally a withering nothingness.
>>722520229shhh ds3 fags don't know shit beyond muh soul of cinder and gael
>>722520281dude look at the shit that happened in Lothric and tell me that there's a god
>>722520095Gwyn's legacy is literally civilization itself.
>>722520264D4RK SOVLS 4: HOLLOW KILLERSGOD RETVRNS
>>722511874The cute firekeeper wanted me to
DS3 fags are insufferable.DS1 and DS2 spend so much of their time highlighting the grand cycle that you are a part of, that even illusions of breaking are simply a part of said cycle.Then DS3 key-jingles a ton about DS1 while shitting out the idea that "Nuh uh bro you can totally just be the cool dark lord and usher in a true age of dark and it will be good and cool and break the cycle forever" and it's the lamest pick-me shit in the world. The entire point is that all these fucking things are insignificant in the grander scope of eternity and it's only your lived connection to them that makes meaning and worth of them within your own contexts but then DS3 tries to act like, no, actually, random fuckers like Quelana or the blacksmith giant were totally very super important and you, the protagonist, are the most important boy of destiny. It's such faggotry.
>>722520596They took a bite out of the Elder Scrolls and wanted their own Shezzarine without realizing that Dark Souls is not really a power fantasy.
>>722518871Aldia represents the voice against the binary, and urges you to seek something beyond thatResults are varied, thematically it's meant to be unknown but the closest are the characters that pursue the path of the dragon, the ones that focus on combat and hardship and seek nothingness. It's the ascetic Buddhist monk angle to this whole gnostic dialogue. Dragons are still corrupted because of life and desire. You want to become like the dragons in the age of ancients.There are some other possible alternative paths, there's a reason Aldia was looking into abandoning the self (forlorn) and paintings like the painted world. The fact that he was able to make a replicated dragon with a giant soul might indicate something but I don't know what to make of it.
>>722517269Came here to post this.
>>722520596>"Nuh uh bro you can totally just be the cool dark lord and usher in a true age of dark and it will be good and cool and break the cycle forever"Ae you talking about the painting? Because other than that, there is no allusion to a sustainable age of dark in DS3.
>>722513802DS3's ending is letting the cycle go back to normal instead of unnaturally prolonging Gwyn's age of fire and fucking everything upEventually the embers will create a new age of fire
>>722520761Larping with dragons is the stupidest path that Gwyn exiled his own son for that stupidity. It's literally just about fighting forever. It's not a fucking philosophy to run civilization.
>>722520761>giants turn into trees when they "die">their memories are covered in a gray fog like in the age of the ancients>the archdragons protected the archtrees in the ds1 opening cinematic>aldia turns himself into an archtree bonifre to secape the ciclehe was trying to reverse engineer the age of ancients, that was his solution to the first sin
>>722520761>>722521045Actually thinking on it the most likely candidate for a being that's beyond the cycle might actually be... ocelotte. Primarily because he was fashioned as a dragon and is effectively stillborn. Cut content had ocelotte crying and an actual character model, now ocelotte is just not there and it's ambiguous if he's actually there or oceiros is too batshit.But the idea is a stillborn dragon would be a real dragon, as it was not born and did not die. The dragon egg in ds2 that's worshipped is also a hollow rock.
bump
>>722520596>Nuh uh bro you can totally just be the cool dark lord and usher in a true age of dark and it will be good and cool and break the cycle foreverBro please tell me you didn't actually fall for the Londor propaganda
>>722521175pre-DS 1 is Demon's Souls, Post-DS3 is Bloodborne
>>722524279no
>>722513802>ending of DS3 is killing the player from DS1What? The final boss is the spirit of the flame or some shit like that, the ds1 player is long dead at that point
>>722524347its a fact not a debate
>>722515227How do you break the cycle if not by letting the fire die? It's a cycle for a reason, that's the let it go choice
>>722524359>Soul of the Lords: Since Lord Gwyn, the first Lord of Cinder, many exalted lords have linked the First Flame, and it is their very souls that have manifested themselves as defender of the flame.The big guy at the DS3 first flame is an amalgamation of everyone who's ever linked it, that's why he randomly changes between DS1 and DS2 movesets
>>722513802>the playerIt's the culmination of everybody who linked it prior, including all lords that you killed. An amusing thing too, as it's also their regrets, as they're stopping you from reigniting the fire; of which they only realised it's a mistake after the fact. Hence why they try to stop anybody from doing the same mistake.The Grand Betrayal of 3 is the correct ending. Granted I don't 'get' the Lord of Hollows ending, seems shoehorned in for no good reason.
>>722514770why is she so chinkified in this art?
>>722517160>XXX , forgive me...
>>722517052Lewd.
>>722524526True, what I meant is that it's not ds1 player, but kind of a spirit amalgamation of the will of the fire
Fear not the dark my friend, and let the feast begin.
>>722524967What did he mean by that? What's the lore behind those hoppers? Seemed pretty lame anemies to me
>>722524967The parallel between the Deep and the First Flame is secretly extremely high IQ lore>The Deep is a giant infinitely large mass of humanity that's been stuck rotting at the bottom of the world because the flame blocks it from rising>When the flames fade and the world crumples in on itself, it swallows everything in a gigantic ocean of pure darkness>By Disparity, the Darkness equivalent to the first flame is a huge pool of cold, clammy, fluid>Like an oil slick on the floor it will one day catch alight and explode in a huge fireball (since it is a bigass clump of souls), thus making a new First Flame>The cycle continuesIt's like poetry, it rhymes
>>722519139Obsessed.
>>722525164To be a visual demonstration of the kind of parasitic abyssal creatures that supposedly have corrupted the darkness, that are mentioned in a few item descriptions before then. i.e. those descriptions aren't somehow lying, the narrator isn't unreliable, they do exist.
there will never be another game like dark souls 1it's all been downhill since ds2 (with ds2 being the mariana trench)i still can't cope with it and buy new fromsoft slop occasionally but it's not even close
>>722525164Giant locusts with human faces that use the arms of their comrades as a staff does sound pretty lame. They should've just been hollows again, you're right.
>>722524515Watchdragon parma says the serpents watch over timeCaduceus kite shield in ds1 mirrors the ritualThe cycle of letting the world go dark is the natural cycle, the linking of the fire is an institutional cycle to ensure certain hegemonies are perpetuated, but don't get it twisted: in the dark age ending all the serpents everywhere are right up in line to congratulate you, even frampt.The Londor church is an effort to spite the nature cycle by just flipping it. Instead of a lord of cinder worshipped they're making a lord of hollows with its own ritual in institution. The anarchy of choosing the dark age wasn't sustainable or easily propagated. It only leads to another linking cycle eventually. Flames and embers of lords endure into the dark ages because of their will
>>722525164The material we have on them is the dialogue and head you can wearThey're bug preachers that herald the death of a civilization. Part of the reading is what they say is meant to lure you into being okay with being devoured/devouring in darkness. The other part of it is telling how important the darkness is to the human spirit and the one(s?) Talking to you are telling true stories of how seeking answers in flame have left in ruin, and how the abyss isn't that bad. Flames twist shadows, in the abyss there are none and the abyss doesn't make the things that gnaw at you, you make them yourself (this is also kinda literal manifestation of insecurities, highlighting the spells and Irinas quest failures)
>>722525378I'm in the same boat, minus I've yet to buy ER (I will, but I'm hearing that there's some Tarnished edition that will be out "soon"?). Hear very mixed things on ER and what little I know of it, mixed feelings on it. I just hope it's still decent overall and not as bad as DS2; that game is a colossal disappointment. A bit of a shame other 3D games don't capture the kind of level and world design of DS1's first 2 thirds at all. Closest would be some PS2 games like R&C where there are 3 pathways, and they each loop back to the beginning (this basic level of design is pretty common though).
wait, isn't this the ladder guy from DS2?
>>722526656Yep, Gilligan. One of the few references DS3 throws towards DS2.
>>722526656Yes it is. There's even dishes in there from the majula mansion. That entire area is ds2 coded, even yhorm.
>>722526793I always liked the schizo theory that the Profaned Capital was Eleum Loyce and that the Profaned Flame is Abyss-corrupted chaos fire
Is Nito the same person as Allfather Lloyd?
>>722526656Speaking of ds2 references, why is this, eleum loyce, and Brume tower featured in anor londo?
>>722526876It's more likely to be the capital of Karthus. Wolnir is suggested to be its previous ruler before Yhorm.
>>722526970No, why would you ever think this?
>>722527009Nothing other than an attempt to legitimise DS2 in some way as the writers of it were very slack and non-forward thinking. The few lore-dense videos that even bring up such paintings say nothing more on it, just "here's x/y/z places" as you've said too.
>>722527258The big lore thing from DS2 that made it into DS3 is confirmation that the Dark is SUPPOSED to be nice and peaceful, and that the Abyss is a perversion of it rather than the way things intrinsically are.
>>722525316>parasitic abyssal creatures that supposedly have corrupted the darknessShould have been way too subtle. >>722526421Cool concept but they should have come up with a better design, something more ethereal.>>722525383Forgive me for disliking the 50000th random creature with human head, it's a lazy and uninspired design that probably was discarded on previous souls for being shit, and they just used on 3 dlc to get it out asap
>>722527343That's the same in DS1 too. DS1's DLC made the 'Abyss = bad' obvious. And what the Dark is wasn't as clear, but as time went on (particularly DS3) it's obvious that Dark is natural and part of the cycle of life, and likewise, Gwyn was anxious. Forcefully reigniting the fire to extend the age of fire is a mistake (again DS3 makes this more and more obvious). At least DS3 does a pretty good job making these clear repeatedly. And more-so, the DLCs (esp' Dreg Heap).
>dark souls is 20 years old
I have no fucking idea what the storyline in Dark Souls is, let alone the rest of the series. Somehow I know every fucking lore tidbit and conspiracy theory about Bloodborne though.
>>722525635The age of dark is the world before civilization (first flame), I don't understand how you guys can come up with such as controversial explanation for such a direct concept. I guess it's the "scientific" mind of the west. Provably that's also why there are so many 5 hour videos on the most irrelevant thing in the game.
>>722527343i mean, kaathe already kinda implied that in ds1, no?
>>722513802What the fuck was the point of DS2 anyway?
>>722527751What makes a great one? And what is mergo wet nurse?
I didn't link the fire so the age of dark would just happen already and the world can get closer to the next cycle of light
>>722527886making easy money off the souls franchisesame with the ds1 remastersame with scholarit started the age of slop and we've yet to see the end of it
>>722527886They jumped the gun, tried to make two games at once, AND it got pushed forward/rushed by Sony. It's a good reminder of why not to make multiple games simultaneously.>>722528021From/Souls needs an Age of Dark; a great reset. Start anew (maybe some other developer/studio).
>>722527951The full roster of confirmed Great Ones in Bloodborne is given by the trophy descriptions>Amygdala>Rom>Ebrietas>Celestial Emissary>Mergo's Wet Nurse>Mergo>Moon Presence>Squid Hunter>Orphan of Kos
>>722527574>fights tall guy in armor with sword for the nteenth time>zomg 10/10 yass!>deviates from the formula in a single area to explain the disgust of the abyssal sludge>this is so lazy, they should've kept it on the cut content shelfThere's just simply no pleasing you retards.
>>722528125That's not what I asked, also, second question?
>>722528090What's funny is how Elden Ring is DS2:2 in that it's made by the same director as DS2 and is the full realization of the "big fucking continent-sized open world" vision DS2 was supposed to have but the consoles of the time couldn't handle. It's also got a ton of the same MMO-style balancing issues and fucky online mechanics DS2 had.
>>722528090none of the other developers care about the covenants or the interconnected worlds as far as i'm aware. or they simply lack the funding or expertise to implement the cool multiplayer ideas ds1 had that were ultimately undercooked
>Be Ashen One>Fire's gone out>Everything's going to shit>Only safe harbor is the Painted World of Ash that just got finishedWho's getting invited into (your) pocket dimension? Note: Patches is automatically not invited.
>>722528457Siegward and Andre and Greirat.
>>722513802The Soul of Cinder isn't the DS1 player retard
>>722528457I want Patches, he's a secret homie in DS3
>>722528163>At least it's not a knightCope. Ds3 designs are lame as fuck, this hoppers are just the bottom of the barrel, like the empty field they live in.
>>722528368 (me)nor do the players, reallythey genuinely just want rollslop or to steamroll everything with friends without any resistanceduskbloods can potentially be interesting but i'm really not holding my breath, especially not since it's a switch2 game
>>722528357>same directorWhich one? DS2 had two (1st, which got replaced). I'm guessing the second director.>>722528457DS3's Firekeeper. She's sweet and rather well done. I like how she has a bunch of reactions to your gestures, too. I like her attitude to you giving her the Firekeeper's eyes, and joins you in the betrayal if you choose to. Great lines, great VA, and the writing for her is succinct. Follow-ups are Sirrus (reminds me of DS2's Lucatiel, one of few good things in DS2); Eygon and Irina too, I liked both a lot.
>>722528617Imagine if Patches was the Furtive Pygmy.
>>722527951Great Ones are best described simply as entities not originating from the planet/plane of existence the Hunter and (most) of the game world does. They are a third party in that regard, and have no true definitive form or understanding. Formless Oedon being the strangest one, who appears to exist on a different, potentially "greater" dimensional plane than all other known Great Ones.I.E. They're space niggas, but they're not the the alium niggas, which are kinMergo's Wet Nurse is largely ambiguous, moreso than a lot of the other entities. It's presumed to be a Great One, and was assigned to watch over Queen Yharnam's child (Mergo) who was impregnated by the aforementioned Oedon, although some theories suggest the Moon Presence or even the Hunter as the father. Apart from that, it's just a boss. Game-wise it seems like Yharnam herself (who appears as a Chalice Boss) was probably originally intended to be the boss and have a bigger role in the story, but it was scrapped for another giga nigga fight.
>>722528752He's far more likely to be the Pygmy than Manus
>>722528752He's far too large and a very different being. Ludleth is a pygmy for example.>>722528690Speak for yourself. Many players, myself included, are much the opposite, and critique much of the direction From has gone. Where it's bosses, rollspam, how enemies/bosses get far more retarded, anime-esque, spam etc, and yet players have seldom evolved at all. How environment/atmosphere/world etc has been on the backburner for just more combat shit. Likewise, we're those that typically prefer Demon's and DS1 over DS3 and BB. Even though I enjoy said games too, but DS1 is overall where it's at, and what From do best, and other studios fail at, whereas From do not do fast/complex combat or bosses well, and other studios do (or at least, better than From).
>>722521045>Gwyn exiled his own sonHe didn't. It was Gwyndolyn that banished the NK, after Gwyn went on to link the fire
>>722528948>DS1 is overall where it's at, and what From do bestbut they haven't done that since ds1 itself, how do you know unc 'zaki still got it?
>>722528948Ludleth is physically deformed. The pygmy lords you meet in the game are all normal-sized.
>>722528670>Cope.There's not a single thing that isn't ripped from Berserk from DS1. God forbid the team actually gets creative and starts crafting their own shit. There is just simply no pleasing you retards.
>>722527009>>722527258>>722527343here's an explanationhttps://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls3/comments/6c4it5/theory_manus_and_filianore_share_an_incredible/
>>722529078>still got itI don't know, and can't infer such. At best, he still "has it" but is too smitten by the sudden success of DS1 and beyond as prior to DS1's success, From as a company had fuck-all success for so many years prior. And seemingly, the loudest feedback was difficulty, combat, and bosses. Hence the direction of their games post DS1 (and especially post DS2).>>722529169Yes, deformed, and a Pygmy. It is interesting how Patches is alive after all this time, and when he was Lapp, remembers his nature, to be a mischievous asshole, and I took that as to how he's alive this whole time as an undead. As undead turn hollow when they give up and have no purpose. But maybe there's more to him. I doubt it, but who knows what From had in store. They did flesh him quite a bit right at the end of DS3's DLC.
>>722528828With each year I think great ones are simply old ascended ptumerians. About mergo, the worst part is that most Bloodborne HAS to be explained with cut content. Mergo was clearly designed as an entity, with shadows of yharnm as minions. Like the beasts for the beast great one. Every great one had a way to transform humans, but at some point they decided to scrap half the game. Project beast did a very good job at approximating what bb was planned to be.
>>722529298Lmao, thanks for the concession, btw those guys live rent free in your head KEK
what if the fire was the souls we made along the way
>>722529872You will never have another game like DaS1. Cope and seethe retard. Stay mad that you got left in the piss drawer and can't enjoy a game released post 2015.
>enjoying fromslop released post 2011
>buys every game and dlcs>"""hates""" them>why does from keep releasing slop?
>>722530420Elden Ring was my last Fromsoft Soulslike. I didn't buy Nightreign. I'm not going to buy their Nintendo Bloodborne. I'm only breaking out my wallet for AC7.
>>722530250Found the schizo nigger, get out of 4 chan kid
>>722530497You hate DaS2 and 3 but bought ER? You'll definitely skip the next installment then.
What was the difference between vanilla DS2 and Scholar? Is it just dlcs packed into the game + new enemy placements?
>>722530667I liked DS2 and DS3, but I thought Elden Ring was mid and SOTE doubled down on everything I didn't like.
>>722511874>live next to a church >every time i hear the bells i get an urge to replay dark souls 1bros...
My schizo headcanon: the pyromancy flame is a shard of Qualana's Lord Soul. She shared her soul as a way of nerfing fire magic in the wake of the disaster at Izalith. Since it must be split to be passed on, it can only get weaker over time and thus be nerfed. That's why in DS1 it got leveled up with souls and had no scaling - its a foreign soul that's been stapled onto yours like a parasite. The flame weakened in DS2 and DS3 to the point where it needed to be manually upgraded, and you have to augment its power with yours which is why it now has scaling.
>>722524967Thanks Mr. Giant Man-eating Locust I'll be sure to usher in the age of dark now
h-hello?
>>722534767very good
>>722530340>posting le slop meme after 2023
>>722519262>Frampt is just a dotard
