>>736830335
that's gwen, gwyn's evil brother who was turned to dark by the furtive pygmy

yoooooooooooo what the fuck gwyn is getting dome from the furtive pygmy

The pygmies didn't actually seem all that upset. Almost like they agreed with him. Only some of them. But if you see how monstrous they can get, seems pretty straight forward Gwyn was right. The Dark doesn't ever look like a good place to live.

>>736830335
>media literacy
it's not like they make it hard, they even made it easy for people with darker skin by making the music sad and bad during and after the fight and make your guy physically demonstrate he is clearly not having a good time being lit on fire in the end; a story does not need to have a binary GOOD and BAD ending. You should try out Metro 2033. The Darksign wasn't added in a secret post-Dark Souls III update nor was the opening cutscene to 1/PtDE. Kaathe's loredump on Gwyn freaking out about Men's potential wasn't patched in after they fucked Iron Flesh. Just because you have bad skin color and a worse colored brain doesn't mean the author weaving the story elements scattered throughout each title and pulling the thread taut is a retcon, you just realized the title of the book 200 pages in.

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>>736830335
Was it intentional /v/?

>>736830335
>Ummm... wtf?! This videogame has shitty writing?!

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>>736830493
shouldn't have keked at this

>>736830335
https://youtu.be/auggNRdDCZI you should try playing the first game from 2011 its pretty fucking crazy but its actually related to the 2nd and 3rd games

>>736830335
>he actually thought Gwyn was good

>>736830335
Gwyn has always been morally ambiguous. The Ringed City's only big highlight and retcon for moral failing is the filianore thing. The dark is shown to be pretty objectively terrible, but the important element is that it's part of nature and uniquely human, and also is a bit more sympathetic than we realize. Delaying the dark was always misguided, by the end of 3 the firekeeper makes it pretty clear that Lords of Cinder have strong enough wills to endure in the distant darkness.

That statue in particular big gwyn propaganda, bestowing a crown and a symbol of filianore to the pygmies as a gift, acknowledging their significance but secretly damning them

Gwyn was always evil retard
Kaathe said it in the first game

>>736830335
>god creates an age of gods that struck down the dragons and changes the world forever in a supposed happy peace
>all the degradation and the shit that happens is clearly unnatural, and all the non-god zones are hit the hardest and abandoned by their former deities because they largely cared more for themselves
The signs were there from the start that Gwyn may have "meant well" but was keeping the world alive on his terms because it's what he created. And honestly the way later things go on make it clear that the fire wasn't exactly the worst thing ever and Gwyn wasn't some hyper evil douchebag, but he was paranoid and discriminatory in seizing what he considered to be the best outcome. That wasn't the best outcome for many. It's called yet another shade of gray in a world filled with gray and black.

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>all Gwyn had to do was let the natural order take its course and a new lineage of gods would have rose up again eventually
Was he autistic?

>>736830335

Its been too damn long since I've played these games but if I remember right the revelation in DS3 is that Hollowing comes from the Dark Sign and is not a natural part of the Dark Soul or Humanity, and since Gwyn is responsible for the Dark Sign seal he is pretty much responsible for everything going to shit.
So what was the point of making Gwyn's actions less morally ambiguous?

>>736830335
the point isn't that gwyn is evil, the point is that gwyn was scared and desperate. gwyn's betrayal of the pygmies wasn't done out of malice, it was done out of fear. l2r faggot.

>>736831212
People with power don't like the idea of giving it up or passing it on to someone else. Humanity would have potentially been next to inherit the world but he wanted the gods to hold it forever.

My take was linking the fire always strengthened the Darksign, which made hollowing stop and made things much better for everyone. Gwyn was literally the best thing that ever happened.

Humanities very nature and the dark it springs from doesn't look fun at all and it's never shown to be anything but bad.

>>736831442
That comes from Dark Souls 1 and 2. Many other adventurers in the lands in-between make references to going hollow and in Dark Souls 2 you even meet and work alongside a fellow accursed undead who reveals to you the extent of her hollowing. She discusses with you the memory loss and physical degradation and the enemies you fight in 1 are literally called Undead Hollows. I guess you could say that 3 printed it on the back of your underwear, but, quite literally from the first game:
>The Darksign signifies an accursed Undead. Those branded with it are reborn after death, but will one day lose their mind and go hollow. Death triggers the Darksign, which returns its bearer to the last bonfire rested at, but at the cost of all humanity and souls.

>>736831538
This. Gwyn was the king of the age of fire, knew the age of darkness was inevitable and part of a cycle he had not control over, but tried to delay it as much as possible, sacrificing even himself to stretch the age of fire to its final embers.
>>736831719

No, you retard, here: >>736831772

Darkness would have have mingled more naturally with the fire and less like zombies and more like the shades you see, at most. And then fire would come back again, restarting the cycle.

>>736831772
What I'm saying is DS3 solidified that the Dark Sign(and Hollowing) is not inherent to the Dark Soul or being Human, and that its something Gwyn did.

>>736831918
so is the age of dark just a bunch of immortal floating humanities chilling out for centuries or whatever the age of dark entails? kinda like the end of the DS1 dlc?

>>736830493
big if true
will wait for vaati to release an official statement about this sloppy toppy situation

>>736830335
>retcon
if it was revealed in the first game it's called a plot twist

>>736832172
Not necessarily humanities but i think the Painter's next painted world would be similar in a lot of ways,; dark, cold but very gentle place (probably very quiet as well).

If both eras are natural and "good" the equivalent would be the age of fire a big animated party while the age of dark is a chill night home relaxing.

>>736831212
If Gwyn doesn't steal the fire someone else will

>>736832172
It's unknown. Could be heaven, could be hell.

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>>736830335

Kaathe didn't lie, he had no reason to since the fire fades naturally. He truly thought Gwyn was in the wrong. Frampt is the coward who plays both sides

>>736832172
That is literal humanity chilling in its' base form, hollowing is something that was likely and very heavily hinted to be created by Gwyn because he is afraid of humanity usurping him and his 12ft tall Demi-God friends. He weakened humanity intentionally, indoctrinated them into acting as human kindling to keep him and his friends' age of power going and placated the Lords of Men by giving them one of his kids as a trophy wife without any of the sex or love. Ironically she ended up preserving one of the last bastions of humanity by fucking up time and space with her Fire-powers by going into sleep mode next to a pure mote of darkness which protected her vassal state of subservient simps and men that bowed to her father, Gwyn.

It would kind of be like if the meteor was coming to wipe out the dinosaurs, but the dinosaurs were science-dinosaurs, so to save their own skin they create a giant magnetic rock apparatus that redirects the meteors but the equipment is so intricate it has to be adjusted by ape operators and so to coerce the apes into prolonging dinosaur supremacy they gave the apes AIDSmentia, but the environmental effects of the close calls from the meteors have continuing devastating effect on the Earth. If the meteor smashes into Earth it would be an apocalyptic scenario but from darkness the apes would emerge kind-of-thing.

>>736830532
Well dark would have naturally ended if Gwyn didn’t have his chud moment. Instead, we got a rotting, ever lasting age of fire that could only be fixed by literally just quitting the game entirely.

>>736832645
sure, but centuries floating as an immortal humanity sprite in a black void sounds worse than a declining age of fire to me

>>736832646
This.
I thought this was obvious, apparently it is not.

>>736832172
There is no concrete detail. All we have is conjecture from what human or deities state. Every game is set during the decline of the current age where everythings gone to shit due to numerous outside factors.

>>736832418
The point is that Gwyn is the reason for that. It was supposed to not be this endless loop of "if I don't someone else will anyway". It was supposed to die naturally.

>>736832737
that is just literal humanity's soul/base form chilling, if you lived or were born after darkness absorbs your locale you can walk around free. It's a note in 1 and 3 that humanity can walk through the abyss and darkness-enveloped locations freely but anything born of fire starts to deteriorate quickly without protective hexes or wards, everything and anything including their equipment is cursed (there's this dude in 1 called Artorias that this happens to, he wore a magic ring you can equip to stave off the deepest dark magics of the abyss, while your human ass can waltz around freely in your skivvies.

I'm a bit rusty on the lore but from what I remember the whole gimmick of the setting is that the age of the fire/flame is cyclical so it appears and is used for a cycle to create high civlizations and then it goes out and there's a period of dormancy then it reappears.
So staving it off is "unnatural" and bound to fail, but also the dark is not good in any sense of the word but a more "natural" state between ages of fire. So there is no right or wrong faction, it's all aspects of how the cycle is.
There was some link about the dark creating dragon forms that then go dormant in the age of the dark or something between the ages of fire but I forget. I know there was some link with the puss of man looking dragon-shaped which indicated maybe how dragons play into the cycle

>>736831212
Wouldn't happen regardless
The faggot pygmy spread his godhood everywhere, the order cannot continue as long as one human remains

>>736832960
>the dark is not good in any sense of the word
There really is no reason to believe this if Gwyn is the source of everything(directly or indirectly) that is wrong with what we see of the dark.

>>736832737
Again, even if age of dark was bad, the good thing is that it would end eventually. What we got instead was way way worse. The whole thing is about not letting go, stagnation etc. Just let shit be.

>>736833226
wouldn't you want to keep that stagnation over the bad? why is it eventually ending something as a plus? the age could last way longer than you might think.

>>736833175
Well I mean it looks like a black hellish void full of horrors. I consider that to be a good reason. Any place where the dark exerts more is seen as a corruptive puss like influence.
There's no depiction of it that looks pleasant or even neutral.

>>736831101
>(((Kaathe)))

>>736833308
we don't even know how long linking the fire lasts. It could be quick, and it could be long.

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>>736832847
every game is set during the age of fire, 1's ending deals with ending the age of fire, 2 is farther in the future and again deals with ending or persisting and 3 has multiple endings, again all pertaining to Y/N on ending the age of fire, you can take it a step further and instead of ushering in the age of dark usher in the age of man if you marry the knightbabe in 3 and link up with Kaathe's handbabe. 3 is like the hyper-ADHD dying state of the world, different time periods are being pulled in everywhere and entire kingdoms of old and from the future are popping up. If you link the flame in the end immediately or do the fire keeper secret ending you can clearly see that the flame is dying out even if rekindled, you get like a light wisp of smoke compared to the brilliant explosion from 1. I cannot remember which NPC says it, it might have been Kaathe, but they pretty much say it outright that the dying of the flame is an inevitability.

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>>736832960
Its easier to understand if you consider that the four lord souls represent 2 polarities
Life and Death, Light and Dark.
Death isn't "good", it just is. Its where Life must lead to, where things must end. And there's nothing wrong with that, because from Death, new Life is formed.
The nature of Light (Fire) and Dark is the same, but applied to the world at large. The Era of Dark would have been indeed just a resting period, complete and absolute darkness, in which only "Hollows", the true face of humanity, would reside.
And look at that, what do we see in the opening of DS1? "And then THEY came", THEY looking exactly like Hollows, before claiming the Souls in the fire.
That's the thing, that's the utility the Dark Soul, Humanity, and Hollows had. They were to be the vessels for the next Fire/Light period. That's what pissed off Gwyn so much, and as such, with the curse of Undead, and the unnatural extension of his Age of Fire, humanity got twisted, and Hollowing became something that wasn't supposed to.
Things like Manus or the abominations in Oolacile are examples of that. Things that the Dark wouldn't have produced, had it not been for the Light of Gwyn twisting it so hard.
Sorry for the rant. Been a while since I wanted to throw my knowledge of DS and could never found the opportunity

>>736830392
>the furtive pygmy
Shit I completely forgot about him

>>736833351
Alsanna is a child of dark and has given herself to ensure that her husband's wish to keep the chaos flame at bay is fulfilled.

In canon, dark is gentle until agitated (by light). Even beings like manus are hinted to be gentle until provoked. You say looks, but npcs describe being close to the dark as warm and nostalgic.

>>736833308
Thematically the games are pretty anti stagnation. That's why the painted world is seen as a metaphor, the dynamic is inverse but conveys the same idea. Villagers burn the painting to move onto the next world (ebb and flow of life and death), but ignoring that and forcing the world to stagnate leads to rot.

>>736833695
>Villagers burn the painting to move onto the next world (ebb and flow of life and death), but ignoring that and forcing the world to stagnate leads to rot
Would it have pissed players off if the next time they visited the Painted World it was almost completely on fire, depriving them the chance to revisit the area for items they missed?

>>736833308
The entirety of Dark Souls (or at least DS3) is showing why it's bad that it stagnated. Instead of "well age of dark was shit and lasted a while but at least it's over, now we have this new age, or, we're back to age of fire without the negative side effects", we got "lets perpetuate the age of fire, and each cycle will rot and be worse than the last until space and time is a coagulated mess at the end of time and everyone is rotting, mentally and spiritually exhausted, and physically mutated from the stress".

It's like imagine a pipe or river with running water. Normally, water passes, you get new clean water and the old dirty water goes down stream. Basic plumbing/water flow. What Gwyn did was force the water to loop back around, so overtime all the shit and debris just kept building up instead of passing normally until eventually the pipe was so full of shit and debris it was just this disgusting sludge that could barely move forward and the pipe/river was begging to burst.

>>736833695
>In canon, dark is gentle until agitated (by light). Even beings like manus are hinted to be gentle until provoked.

That seems like propaganda. I'd rather go by what I see then some fairy tale.

>>736833948
Sure, I get that, but we never get to see what it's like after the fire is linked too. That should stop the stagnation too. It should strengthen the darksign and stop hollowing.

White-faced Locust Preacher thread
Disregard propaganda
It's all feast-related

>>736834025
and it's kind of implied by the other games. other nations formed, and were built over the ages that the fire was linked. we always see it when the fire is in decline and the darksign weakens.

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There's no way to judge Gwyn's actions because the series has never depicted a single age of dark. Whether he's a retard or the only intelligent person solely relies on whether the age of dark is just kinda meh or if it's a horrific abyssal hellhole. Given the fact that all lands seem to literally PHYSICALLY converge, annihilating the entire world, Gwyn trying to postpone oblivion seems reasonable.

>>736834025
Light (Fire) isn't just heat and normal fire, we are implied many times in the series that Light governs things like time and illusions at large. And by illusions it isn't as simple as "a mere trick of disguise", but literally rewriting reality. Applying X on top of Y.
In fact you see that with humans. Their true shape is that of Hollows. Its only thanks to the Age of Fire strengthening "the illusion", that Humans appear like they do.
When the Fire is linked, the Light kicks back the illusory effects. So every sign of the stagnation gets essentially covered. Its only during DS3, when the Fire is so weak, that the illusion cannot cover the trash properly anymore.

>>736834338

We've seen the age of dark iirc.
It's just an endless cavernous rocky plane with dragons and zombie-like humanoids shuffling around. Legitimately looks like a dire hellhole. It was also describe as a place of stillness.
Kinda looks like maybe a more greek or jewish version of hell. Just entities mucking around and barely doing anything.
It also reminds me of that death dimension in the Earthsea series. In fact it's very similar to that.

>>736834338
It's kind of a "both ways suck" situation. The Age of Dark implications are that there will be turbulent times, death, destruction, bleak nothingness before all reforms to try to at least stabilize into something on the other side. It's a chance at something good. But with no way to see how that can turn out before the apocalyptic intermission, it's easy to assume it's simply not worth it. The Age of Fire kept a temporary era of peace stained with the selfish shepherding of the Gods, eventually cursed and laid to an endless rot of ruin and decay because they went too far and foiled themselves, turning all of reality into a nightmare convergence collapsing on itself to try to enforce a return to the Age of Dark. Even IF the Age of Fire had not been tainted by the foolish pride and paranoia in charge, it would but a temporary reprieve against the natural nature of the world itself; an artificial solstice of uneasy goings simply tainted the whole thing from the inside out.

No matter which way you go in the Souls series, everything is fucked and everyone will probably die permanently, but there's that vague, vain hope of a promise that after all has settled and the last of the embers finally turn to ash, something will eventually cause a new era after the chaos is smothered by the still, and something less horrible will finally come.

>>736834025
>That should stop the stagnation too
Are you not understanding? It literally does not stop the stagnation, it IS the stagnation. Each time the fire is linked, the "good" parts of the age are less good, and the "bad" parts are more bad. By DS3, we see just how bad it gets, it's agonizing and the "world" itself is begging to be put out of it's misery.

>>736834383
Calling it an illusion is misleading and in bad faith.
The "illusion" is fully functional and real. Nobody is playing "pretend" with creating great civilizations, they actually exist/have existed. It's not some parlor trick or a misdirection or a fake.
To draw an obvious real world parallel, discovering fire didn't make an illusion of a whole advanced human history springing from it, it really exists.

Darkness, get thee gone.

Gwyn did nothing wrong. The dark is scary

>>736834338
>Given the fact that all lands seem to literally PHYSICALLY converge, annihilating the entire world
But that was because Gwyn extending the age of fire. Had he not done shit, the age of dark would have happened like we see in its ending of DS3. Darkness covering it all.
The world getting twisted upon itself was due to the Fire pushing things beyond its limit.
Again, as I said in the previous post, its easier to understand if you apply the parallel of Light = Life, Dark = Death.
Extending someone's life beyond its natural limit will cause deformations, madness, shit to happen (something From explored in Sekiro, for example). While Death is just... death.

The Age of Deep sounds worse right? Murky deep waters full of slug people eating one another

>>736834590
But it really doesn't imply that. How did Dranglic and Lothric get created if it's all still stagnating or an illusion? Let's even assume it is still stagnating and illusion. Apparently that illusion is good enough to allow humans to prosper again and create.

>>736833961
>I still think on that creature from the Abyss that preyed on me. My faculties were far from lucid, but I quite clearly sensed certain emotions. A wrenching nostalgia, a lost joy, an object of obsession, and a sincere hope to reclaim it... Could these thoughts belong to the beast from the Abyss? But if that were true, then perhaps it is no beast after all? Oh, please forgive my ramblings. It's just that, I wish to know the truth. And no one, not even loving Elizabeth, will tell me.

Doesn't sound like the dark is the one spreading propaganda

>>736830335
This isn't evil though, he's not a great guy but he wasn't evil. He held the light soul, of course he has an in-built apprehension towards his opposing lord soul. I'd guess Nito and Izalith had the same dynamic, the only difference being that Nito doesn't give a fuck if he dies since he already embodies it.

>>736834652
I know its not the best word, because indeed humanity in Dark Souls created all those kingdoms, lived all those lives, under the pretense of their "human" form, not that of hollowing, being the truth.
And yet, I guess that's the point? The cruel irony that it was all a facade. Gwyn light painted a beautiful world, on which his kin and humans prospered. But like all things it needed to end.
So yes, it is an "illusion". A beautiful and sweet illusion, that no one in their right mind would want to let go off. Jeez, even Aldia admits so, how there's nothing wrong in wanting to grab on to the illusion of life.
But its still a lie. Something Gwyn painted over a "gray, timeless, and uncaring world".

>>736834746
It's not one frozen instance of time, it's stagnation in terms of ages. Everytime the fire is linked, good times come again, party, civilizations built. Except, it's not as good as last time, and when things go bad, the pain, the collapse, the deformations, the monstrosities etc are way worse.

>>736834652
>>736834798

No matter how tender or exquisite, a lie remains a lie. We humans did not have a choice in our lot in life, the undead curse isn't voluntary. The darksign is a branding like one does to a slave, to ensure we do not escape our station. You point to a castle and call it progress, yet you ignore the pain and suffering it took to build it and the ever expanding ruin that follows.

and you may say the darkness is the cause, but a shadow is born, cast by light. Shadows twist and shrivel, in the abyss, there are no shadows.

>>736834982
What we see of humanity in those "Dark Soul sprites" is the literal definition of stagnation (inactivity). If the Age of Dark is a black void of those guys, that's much worse.

>>736830335
You aren't supposed to think he's a monster, just misguided. He did horrible things in the pursuit of what he thought was right, not because of hatred or evil. The message of the entire franchise is literally just "Don't be afraid of the dark," both literal and metaphorical, not that it's somehow entirely good and the light or flame are bad. Being afraid of the dark is trying to run away from your human nature, which has both good and bad manifestations. A very simple form of that is depicted in the series with the concept of "Want," which is associated with Dark. It represents desire and greed, but also comfort and tenderness, it's the urge that makes humans stick together and support each other.

>>736834741
Deep is a corruption of the Dark, yeah. Humanity gets all weird and gnarly and bestial, you get attacked by dregs of it and it's the same thing that corrupts Gwyndolin. It's yucky and bad for you and not as ambivalent as Dark.

>>736835109
And again, I refer to the dichotomy of Life and Death to illustrate it better.
Is Death stagnant? Obviously, you are just bones, you wont move, you will just remain there.
But that apparent stagnation hides the natural process of life starting anew. Bones becoming the nutrient for life to sprout.
In the case of Light and Dark, we even got the Fire Keeper saying it directly, how beyond the void of darkness, embers would start to appear once more.
Its a black void of stagnation, but only for a time.

>>736835253
Sounds terrible and something to stave off

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>>736830335
it isn't a recton thoughbeitfully this was established in DaS, assuming you have reading comprehension
>b-but age of fire was utopia!!!!!
not for humans, which you are, in-game and in real life, lest you forget. or lest you be the souls equivalent of an uncle tom

>>736835253
>Its a black void of stagnation, but only for a time.
No, that's the abyss, a manifestation of stagnant dark

>>736835321
>Do not go gentle into that good night,
>Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
>Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
But despite that, despite that being what motivated Gwyn... the consequences were still disastrous.
One must not pursue the end, perhaps not even accept it so easily when it comes. But eventually, one gotta surrender to the reality. For not doing so will only create more harm than good.

>>736835383
The abyss is gentle dark, agitated with light.

The stagnant dark by text is the deep. The dregs are stagnant humanity that has sunk to the bottom.

Even by the end of time, the dregs still have enough motion to rise up from the ashes.

The real thing about this moral conversation is no matter what, the dark will eventually happen. It's like trying to delay the inevitable. Yeah, maybe it's in our nature to fight against the end, but at some point we must also accept the end.

Can any of you loreautists tell me what the fuck is the Darklurker and what did Vendrick steal from the giants? Actually what is the deal with DS2's giants and why is there a tree version of one outside DS3's hub?

>>736835536
The deep is rotten
The abyss is stagnant

>>736830764
>You should try out Metro 2033.
metro fucking sucks
not op btw

>>736835564
Ok, yeah.

Looking back at the descriptions, you're correct.

>>736834528
The setting calls it the Age of Ancients, or the Age of Dragons, we don't actually know if it represents a natural part of the cycle or was some mystical pre-cycle state.

>>736835691
Besides dragons and later man there didn’t seem to be any indication of any other fauna and the dragons themselves seem alot more elemental and distant from what standard life usually is. The clam things in Ash Lake were made by Seathe and I think the hydra was too.

>>736834671
>Darkness covering it all.
And as she says, everywhere there are scattered pinpoints, embers of light, and you need not fear, because she (your fellow human) is there holding your hand. It's scary, but it's not bad, there's not nothing, and humanity clinging together is supposed to be a prime source and emblematic of hope. The dark is only scary when you go into it alone, which is what happens when you betray her at the last second out of fear.

>>736835564
>>736835608
Show me an item description regarding the abyss being stagnant. Literally, the spells most associated with the word "Stagnant" are deep spells. Looking at great deep soul right now. Yeah, the deep is also rotting. Won't debate that.

>>736835546
A lump of something, obtainable from a Giant-tree. Makes enemies react to invaders.
When the giants fell, they grew into great trees. Death is not the end, for anything that has ever once lived remains a part of a great cycle of regeneration.
But what of those outside of the cycle?

Another description trying to describe the cycle of life and death. Thematically they represent a separate thematic example of the great cycle. It's vague, but it's claimed that vendrick "stole their strength", mostly understood to be the kinship.

I understand darklurker (and some ds2 dark hexes) to be an example of light in the darkness or some ironic sense of deeper understanding. The covenant is about lighting dark caves to plunge further and once you've gone far enough you see him. Maybe in a literal sense he's more like one of those glow fish down in the ocean, but I also think there's a beautiful irony to there being angelic elements to darkness that we don't understand. Grandahl acknowledges that at the end.

>>736832172

No one knows what the Age of Dark is or what it looks like, they only know it's doesn't resemble the world as we know it now. That was the whole point of it in DS1, fear of the unknown. After the fire goes out completely in DS3 the fire keeper says "Can you still hear my voice?" because she doesn't even know if you're still standing there next to her or if sound can still carry.

>>736835530
I dunno, man. "Linking the fire" almost seems like a rebirth to me.

>>736835546
Ill be honest, not wanting to trash on DS2 too much BUT
There's nothing concrete, barely any description explaining what any of them actually were. We can only theorize heavily, which means "making shit up based on assumptions".
Like, if you ask ME, if would guess that Giants are related to the Archtrees. And that's why they become trees after dying, and how Aldia managed to make his own Ancient Dragon from Giant Souls. As for what Vendrick stole, supposedly it was the thing that allowed him to create the Golems. While the Darklurker may be just a strong Hex user. Some entity that controls the Dark.
And the Giant Tree in DS3, that's literally just gameplay purposes. They needed to add the Giant Seed somehow in 3. Even though they could have easily made a new consumable with the same effect...
The reality is that 2 tried too much to be its own thing, taking concepts, characters and storylines from 1, but only on a superficial manner.
With 3 we kinda could cope a way to ball it all together, but by essentially making 2 just "one of the many Declines that happened between 1 and 3".
So its story its a big whatever, honestly.

>>736834741
>>736835226
Darkness on its own is calm and gentle, as the Abyss it's festering, corruptive and mutating (too active, alive,) and as the Deep it's stagnant, rotten, and dead, which is even worse (collects and brings about all undying foulness and curses.) The Deep is basically another consequence of the linking of the Fire in the era of DS3, but the way it gets created (collecting lots of Dark and foul things in it in a still, sealed off place forever) hints at how Deep can be naturally created: it's what would happen if humans didn't let the Age of Dark end and cycle to a new Age of Fire, calm and gentle becomes rotten and stagnant and sick.

>>736835691
>>736835771
The Age of Ancients was beyond life. Imagine rocks. Disparity brought life, and death. It's not a bad thing on its own, but this karmic cycle exists whether we wish to fight it or not. There's only a few ways to escape it and most don't understand the larger implications.

There's a reason that ocelotte seems to be stillborn, and there's a reason that the dragon egg in ds2 is just a hollow rock. Lifelessness (not death, maybe think "nothingness") is the only escape. Removed from desire, removed from suffering or joy. It's the buddhist solution to a lot of the gnostic themes of dark souls.

>>736835893
In DS1, sure. It was made to seem that way. And only after reading through the dialogue, item descriptions, finding the jew serpent, and playing the DLC, you can conclude that extending the Age of Fire isn't as much a rebirth, but merely stretching it further.
Its why the Linking the Fire ending in DS3 is so... anticlimactic. Because that's how weak the fire is, how much its been stretched over the ages. Its light can only support the reality painted by Gwyn so much. Which is why everything got squeezed together, trying to hold on.

>>736833356
But you trust what Frampt tells you despite the ending showing that the two of them are working together

>>736836054
the sequels do kinda imply it was a rebirth. everyone forgot about the gods. new kingdom were created. lordran was forgotten and built over the top. out with the old, in with the new.

>>736835856
Bro calm the fuck down, the abyss is stagnant
Accept it

>>736835546
>>736835904
The Darklurker reminds me of the Pilgrim Butterflies in DS3, and by extension Manus. We know Pygmies can mutate their bodies and obtain monstrous forms by using the power of Dark. It seems to me like humans, through certain methods or simply time, can force and twist themselves similarly, and tend to adopt Angelic or Draconic forms. I'm wondering if the Darklurker managed to do so without Hollowing, which is why he's more humanoid.

>>736836059
the goal of the serpents is to perpetuate the material. Frampt pushes the institutions that maintain the light, but Kaathe does not really care for the natural cycle to continue. By dark souls 3 his church of hollows imitates the institutions of gwyn (and mimics their ceremonies) just with the image of man. It still subverts the course of nature (it's not the age of dark ending).

They eat no matter what, as long as there is life and death. They seem to eat souls, both fire and dark. They crush rock.As long as this debate goes on, escape is impossible. Escaping the cycle of suffering and desire is the only way, and that is what they're against.

>>736835991
I mean, it's not even really gnostic, just another tale of buddhist shinto shit. Its why you can make so many comparisons between Sekiro and DS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffnl7QL2h54
Is it really the "best" ending?

>>736835875
>No one knows what the Age of Dark is or what it looks like
The Firekeeper in DaS3 finds out and tells you when you give her the eyes you find in Untended Graves, and obviously you get to see it.

>>736836149
So you've got nothing. That is pretty chill.

>>736836124
What's interesting is that DS2 and DS3 are doing different things regarding it. It's clear that the dark age is the death that causes the rebirth ("the ebb and flow of all things living") but DS2 also tries to obscure history and really show how meaningless gwyn's fight was because it's just damned everyone down the line but it hasn't maintained his dynasty. It's a world of men, the world of gods is over.

Dark Souls 3 thematically is about the failure of institutions, they perpetuate themselves and protect themselves and enslaves people long after their purpose is over

>>736836223
The difference is that trying to step out of the cycle by becoming an Eternal Dragon, while accepted and not depicted as bad (just nearly, maybe actually impossible,) isn't treated as the only right or acceptable answer like how Enlightenment is in Buddhism. Accepting the cycle of light and dark for what it is, is also treated as completely viable with its own advantages, and not an eternal torture like how Buddhists think of Samsara.

>>736836301
Wtf are you babbling about, you still haven't proven the abyss isn't stagnant

>>736836223
The gwyn/aldia stuff is absolutely steeped in gnosticism, Miyazaki was deeply informed by that stuff and has said so in interviews. It intersects well with buddhist shinto shit and is stuff fromsoft has been exploring years before ds1, but it's definitely there

>>736836124
Except we do have examples both in 2 and 3 of the memory of events remaining. Though ill give you, certain things do seem to have been reset.
This can either be just a case of enough time passing that history simply forgot and repeated itself. Or, what I personally subscribe to: Another case of the Fire, being so related to time, not only twisting the physical world but also time itself. Which would honestly explain why so much of 1 remained in 3.
Like, imagine that the same way all kingdoms converged towards the First Flame, all major events in history did the same.
Sounds crazy, but again, it is factual that Light = Time. And Light is the domain of Gwyn's Flame. The one that's been linked.

>>736836305
I always thought that the stone form dragons that just sit completely inert were the ones who actually succeeded. You're not supposed to run around doing things, to be animate is to be alive, to be alive is to still be within the cycle.

>>736836416
Very possible. The Eternal Dragons started to die off when they started to move and fight, when they became flesh under their scales, and the one of their kin who was a mutant lacking their eternity and became consumed by fear, jealousy, curiosity, and desire (things that didn't exist before) betrayed them.

>>736836416
Yep. The ones that became stone, and are just in meditating pose, are the ones who achieved the goal.
I doubt Dragons even moved at all during the Age of Ancients. They were the same as any rock.

>>736836305
>>736836364
Isn't there a shinto variation that's more about movement and fighting stagnation? Because im pretty sure either there's one, or that's just Miyazaki philosophy that he's been inserting in every single fucking game.

>>736836490
>>736836501
Couldn't that imply that parity/disparity is just another larger cycle?.

Honestly if after not just Dark Souls but also Sekiro and Elden Ring, if the Big M doesn't have a DNR under sever circumstances he would be the biggest hypocrite.

>>736836554
Impurity in Shinto is defined by stagnation and rot, this is what corruption and evil is in that religion. The difference between Dark Soul's worldview and Shinto is that in Shinto, death is itself dirty and impure, but in Dark Souls it's not.

>>736836397
my comment was that linking the fire is the rebirth, not that the sequels are a cycle of light and dark. few ways to interpret things.

>>736830335
>I bet a purely benevolent king who consolidated his power in totally moral ways and not at the expense of anyone innocent has existed ever!
So you're a moron?

>>736836572
We don't know, because nothing in the series implies the age of dragons can return. If it can or does, it's beyond the scope of the series.

>>736836572
Doubt it. The cycle began with Fire, as in, the very CONCEPT of there being a cycle. Things weren't alive nor death, nor cold nor hot. They simply were.
And I don't think the world can even escape the cycle for real now. For either the Fire continues, or it fades and an age of Dark commences.
The Age of Ancients its more like a background, a bedrock for the current world.

>>736836305
>>736836416
Last post I'm making, but yeah technically the still ones would be the closest to true dragons (the closest to a true dragon in DS is either the Age of Ancients version of the ancient dragon which is a giant stone or it's the fuzzy dragon in ash lake who is also completely still but is kinda clearly alive in some way)

>Malformed black armor of the Ringed Knights. The armor of early men was forged in the Abyss, and betrays a smidgen of life.
>For this reason the gods cast a seal of fire upon such armor, and those who possessed them.

The problem for humans is that our shells come from the darkness ("from the dark they came", probably from a previous cycle, where we were the golems ala ds2), our hollow shells are alive and the souls within seek to escape these shackles. The body is a shackle for the soul and has a mind of its own.They're at odds with each other, it's why there is such a struggle for identity and the branding of the TRC armor is pretty explicitly the same reason man is branded. That's what Londor's church and the lord of hollows is escaping.

I always like to think of "the hollow" (the londor hollows) as a separate life and identity. Yoel says he was something different in a past life, and Lapp is a different person than patches. It's possible that a hollow goes through multiple identities. DS2 you choose your identity and past and shape it, and Lapp similarly does it when he realizes the nature of the world (though the purging monument definitely has something to do with it)

The very fact that the Firekeeper can speak to and touch you during the Age of Dark, and that she sees points of light in it in her vision, implies to me that the Age of Dark isn't 100% Dark any more than the Age of Fire was 100% Light (there was always Dark there, just subdued,) and the perception that there's literally nothing or that everything is dead or that people lose their rationality during the Age of Dark is completely false.

>>736836648
And I mean that. Whenever you link the fire, the age of fire may as well just reset, and history with it. But I think there's enough evidence of kingdoms being build physically on top of other kingdoms, to show there's a known linear progression of time, and that forgotten events are just due to human error.
What I would say, however, is that we know how time is convoluted, so maybe when we link the fire certain events in the timeline get altered or fully reset as well. And that in the case of 3, things got so out of hand, the Eras were being converged unto one.

>>736836726
The final state of the Ringed City kind of shows a far future where there's hardly any light or dark, barely anything living or dying. The Dark Soul managed to last all that time because it had been scattered, but Gwyn collects it and you extract it and take it to the past. I get the impression that after that point the very concepts themselves are finally burned out and the world turns grey and unchanging again. You've got some people turning into dragons, and other people turning into trees, the opening scene of DaS tells us the world was one of archtrees and everlasting dragons.

>>736836938
I interpreted that vision to be the true state of the Ringed City, once Fillianore's time-stagnating sleep was broken. That's not the future, that's the now, the truest reality of now, where linking the Flame has burned the world until there is almost nothing left, just ash, a few stones, and the last of the Pygmies sustained by the eternal Dark Soul.

>>736836938
I mean, it could perfectly be that the end result of an Ashen World is just the Grayness from the Age of the Ancients.
But im not fully convinced... mainly because the nature of the Fire implies that whenever it would finally fade, be by letting it end, or simply wasting all its fuel, the age of dark would immediately follow. For it didn't even took a few seconds of the Fire Keeper letting the fire fade, that darkness just covered everything.

>>736836740
Always wondered what happened to Lapp after the fight. Did he go on to wake Filianore like we did? It would track for his hate of the church.

>>736837017
Gael bulked up real fast, then

>>736836740
>our shells come from the darkness
The essence and core of humanity is the Dark Soul, the darkness. It's better to say the bodies are just soulless matter, which stumbled into disparity and embraced the darkness, not formed out of darkness. But I disagree with the idea that the cycle leads to the age of ancients every anyway.

>>736837102
Time is convoluted. You can't really track at what points in time you met and interacted with Gael, shit's basically non-linear.

>>736837017
That's the correct interpretation, yes. Its heavily implied by the totally not Pygmy when you first arrive at the city. The illusion created by Filianore' sleep. However, it wasn't an illusion in the sense "oh, nothing was real". More akin to a veil that preserved a semblance of the time before the fire burned it all.
Again, Light = Illusions, but also Time. Both things go hand in hand.

>it's taken 10 years for soulsfags to accept DS3 lore is a disaster

Couldnt they make artificial light? Who cares about somr flame
Doesnt the sun exist?

>>736837198
It's not a disaster, just unnecessary.
Nothing 3 tells wasn't already implied, either subtlety or heavily, in 1.

>>736837198
Nothing in this thread is about how it's a disaster, just that it spells all the setting's themes out for people who didn't get it in a more obvious way than before.

>>736837198
DS3 lore is shit mostly because it wants to have its cake and eat it too but won't take five seconds to properly contextualize anything without jumping through fifty hoops and headcanon here and there that isn't just reiterating stuff already done elsewhere.

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>>736837210
Its funny because the cosmology in Dark Souls do seem funky too. We don't know if the sun is a real astronomical object, because its too heavily linked to Gwyn and his Fire. However, the MOON have been stated to be an ancient thing, that the Dragons held a memory of.

>>736837325
The moon tends to hold a greater importance and weight than the sun in From's games, you see it in Bloodborne and Elden Ring too.

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>>736837198
DaS really should not have had numerous sequels and comic-tie ins.

>>736837365
woah its almost as if miyazaki hatred on doing sequels to any of his games wasn't him being petty.

>>736837041
The dark soul is mostly unspent since it's never present for the firelinking ritual in its entirety, being scattered amongst humanity. Only life, death and light are gathered in their totality for each firelinking, so they're the ones that are being whittled down over the ages.

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>>736837210
>Doesnt the sun exist?
Here, your sun.

>>736837495
3 is justified in its existence by giving us pretty snow areas.

>>736837507
Life is fucked because it got turned into Chaos which eventually exhausted itself.

>>736837636
Totally not an analogy to Gwyn Light, btw.

>>736837636
Even death got fucked, because you've got long dead folks just getting out of their graves like it's nothing.

>>736831212
But did you see the shit the Dark was shitting out of the Abyss?

>>736837659
>Hey guys I'm not sure if trying to artificially reawaken the Flame is bad or not, I missed the fact that the first attempt at it created fucking DEMONS

>>736837706
Pygmies can control, induce, and destroy Abysses. That's literally how they made their weapons and armor back before Gwyn fucked them over. The Abyss isn't the natural state of Dark anyway, it's induced.

>>736837713
Izalith ain't all that, Gwyn's the guy you want to talk to if you wanna figure out how to torture people forever

>>736835361
it's a retcon because it changes gwyn from being fearful of the dark and unsure of what to do about it, to being an evil jerk who only wants to extend his rule
also it invents pygmy lords and shit when the furtive pygmy was supposed to be a normal human

>the witches of izalith burned down the trees
>gwyn and his knights removed the dragons invulnerability
>nito made them killable
So humanity was the one that actually did the killing, right?

>>736837808
Considering the oldest named human in the series is Havel, whose claim to fame is killing dragons? Yes.

>>736837275
no, anon
you're just retarded

>>736837198
I've been saying this for 10 years though
ds1 is the only canon dark souls

>>736837807
Pygmy Lords are regular humans, they're just the kings. Lord is a title. It's the non-Pygmy appearance which is artificial, and not regular.

>>736837859
>no more dragons to kill
>plans to start killing gods next
The man was a nut

>>736830335
Yes, he was evil, or at least sinful. He created the curse (with his buddies) because he didn't want to die.

>>736838009
>He created the curse
youtuber headcanon with zero textual evidence

>>736837807
Remember, "Pygmy" is pretty much the name Gwyn and his people refereed to humans. For they were smaller than themselves. And obviously as derogatory term.
It was only after the war, when Gwyn decided to take humans under his rule as well, that the Pygmy term got applied mainly to the Progenitor Pygmy, and the Pygmy Lords

>>736838051
I have also accepted it as my headcanon. "Muh textual evidence" is cope.

>>736838051
The curse was indeed created by Gwyn, but not the curse as it was presented in game.
Hollowing isn't the curse, its just the true state of Humanity coming out. The curse was the circle of fire around the Dark Soul, that prevents true hollowing from taking place. The curse is therefore the fire, which inhibits the Dark from growing. But as humans got so used to their new "fleeting forms", for them the curse became losing that form, and becoming hollow. Which is what Gwyn employed to trick those who became Undead to go and link the fire.

>dark souls 1 makes it clear that they genocide entire societies if they seem to get out of control
>is this guy, le bad?
what

>>736838334
souls-world version of 4chan would feature a /pol/ board full of anons claiming that the new londo flooding DIDN'T HAPPEN

>>736838334
He also literally sacrificed himself to make sure it continues for others.

>>736838390
yeah, totally, containing darkwraiths was evil and in no way beneficent

>>736838334
Yeah, I would too, if the alternative to age of fire was abyss niggerdry from a bunch of dumb apes listening to asshole serpents. Gwyn was the tragic hero of the setting.

>>736837923
I thought the implication was while you think the guy in the bottom of the tower was Havel, it could be inferred that it was someone in his armor, as he was pretty "easy" to beat compared to some of the dragon bosses.

>>736838668
The guy in the tower drops the ring, and the key description reads thus
>Key to the basement of the watchtower in the Undead Burg.
>The basement of the watchtower forms a stone cell. There are rumors of a hero turned Hollow who was locked away by a dear friend. For his own good, of course.
It's actual Havel, but it is strange that we find the rest of his equipment in Anor Londo.

>>736838668
Isnt Havels real weaponry still locked away in Anor Londo? It might not be a theory and the real one could have been died eons ago and laid to rest.

>>736838779
The "For his own good, of course." scream tongue-in-cheek bullshit, as you don't get the tooth from him there either, but in Anor Londo.

>>736838390
weren't the people that did the flooding even from New Londo? Ingward and his sealer group? They clearly thought it was the right thing to do.

>>736838229
>its just the true state of Humanity coming out. The curse was the circle of fire around the Dark Soul, that prevents true hollowing from taking place
False

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>>736838334
"He founded Lordran is what he did! He was a godly ruler! And in this house Gwyn is a hero! End of story!”

>>736838816
Yes, but like I said you do get the ring. I think the "for his own good" part was a lie. There's an occult club along with his other equipment, and we know occult weaponry is dangerous to the gods because it's literally the Dark, if it had been like everything else the gods feared, it would have been in the painting, so it's probably Havel's and he was probably planning to murder the gods.

>>736838229
>Hollowing isn't the curse, its just the true state of Humanity coming out.
Pygmies aren't insane and without will or intelligence like a Hollow in their natural state. They literally had their own civilization Gwyn imposed upon.

>>736838816
>>736839020
My guess is that Havel went along with Gwyn's plan to turn Pygmies into humans and trusted his judgement that the Dark was dangerous (Havel, being part of the war against the Eternal Dragons, must have been a Pygmy and not born with the Darksign.) Yet when people started Hollowing, Havel became disillusioned with the entire plot and realized Gwyn had betrayed them, so he was going to start smashing gods. Gwyn couldn't bring himself to kill an old friend despite everything, so he locked him up, just like he couldn't bring himself to kill Yorshka and locked her away too.

Gwyn had gay sex with the pygmy who was a cute twink. This was the "original sin" which doomed humanity and eventually lead to the creation of tranny satan aka Gwyndolin.

>>736839309
Gwyndolin was born from Velka, as was the rest of Gwyn's children.

>>736837198
You have to understand that we were filled with retarded console-playing underage brown weebs who can't grasp subtext and doesn't know good writing during the early 2010s 4chan era and so they quickly scrounge any mediocre Japanese action game to fill up the dark void in their soul when Skyrim mogs the entirety of japanese RPG at the time. Dark Soul is the unfortunate poorly written janky mess that has been chosen by weebs to wage an unholy jihad against the western gaming industry and we have stuck with it since.

>>736839397
>when Skyrim mogs
Stopped reading there

>>736839365
Can you provide five pieces of textual evidence in Miyazaki's original (Japanese) handwriting? Otherwise I will be forced to dismiss your claim.

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>>736835578
This, and I'm not talking about the story or setting, it sucks as a game

>enemies are bullet sponges
>they dash at you from fullscreen at high speed
>your weapons have low ammo and you take a century to reload
>most the game is on small tunels
>gameplay is basically shooting twice at the enemy, then spend full 10 seconds reloading while he punches you non stop

Frustrating to play. You getting punched by a hulking monster while reloading as slow as possible for "muh realism" is so dumb, it actually makes the game less realistic

>>736839581
Be right back, I'm gonna kidnap Miyazaki and get some answers.

>>736839290
>the only other weapons with the Occult effect are Priscilla’s dagger a character who was feared and locked away for her lifehunting weapon and Velkas rapier
>Velka has an overarching presence in the first game, especially in the painted world where you find said rapier
>to make Occult weapons you also need the Dark Ember found in Ariamis
I think Velka was the original god who got tired of everyones shit and plotted against them.

>>736839630
>enemies are bullet sponges
Play on the highest difficulty, problem solved. Also it's a stealth game pretty much.

>>736839656
Isn't Velka's thing about punishing sin? It's possible, but we know so very very little about her otherwise we can only speculate. I think it's interesting that Priscilla is putting out Dark naturally though, since as a god+dragon hybrid she isn't human and shouldn't have the Dark Soul, or otherwise be able to interact with Dark without corrupting herself.

>>736839730
It's said she betrayed the gods and then became the goddess of sin. I'm thinking that betrayal was Velka getting a little scaleless action, if you know what I mean.

>>736839726
This is basically trading one type of frustration for another. Also, most of the encounters on the game are scripted garbage where stealth isn't an option

>>736839794
>most of the encounters on the game are scripted garbage where stealth isn't an option
Categorically false, I stealthed my way through pretty much the whole game. Guess you have a skill issue.

>>736839730
The gods are rife with sin, remember they’re just as fallible as humans are. Hell they really are at the end of the day just slightly taller and stronger humans. Smough is a sadistic cannibal, Nameless King betrayed his lineage and family, Gwyn throws deities to the meat-grinder and then his uncle who constructs a religion around worshipping said gods.

>>736839906
>Nameless King betrayed his lineage and family
He realised the dragons did nothing wrong. They did literally nothing, that was their whole thing. Gwyn just decided to kill them because???

>>736839973
The lightning industrial complex required a target to avoid economic collapse.

>>736839973
For the same reason he apparently fucked one to produce Yorshka, he's a slave to his baser instincts.

>>736839973
He needed to collect 10 dragon asses for 200 XP.

>>736835186
>saving the entire world from the unrelenting shitshow that is The Age of Dark
>misguided

>>736840298
This entire thread is a discussion about how that was misguided, yes. Read it.

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>Satan was good all along

Whatever you say OP

>>736840298
It only became a shitshow after the fine folks of Oolacile decided fucking around with an ancient dead body was a good idea.

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>OP : Gwyn is a misunderstood figure it’s a retcon. He has a sad theme

LOL

>>736836501
ok yea I can agree with this
the mountain sized dragon in ds3 makes sense actually not dead just sitting there doing nothing

How can anyone not choose to walk into the sunset with fire wife.

>>736836501
that makes me wonder if aldia knew of this but just dont want to sit and do nothing so he chose the more destructive part which is losing his own body but being able to move

>>736841913
Wasn't he only researching the dragons because he wanted to transcend the human condition in general, especially the Darksign? I think he just wasn't interested in sitting still all the time personally.

>>736841006
It's the end of the world and these lizards are just sitting around being comfy

>>736830335
>dude gwyn was le good
Fags who say that got manipulated by the fucking plin plin plon.

>gwyn should have let the world end because... um... the age of dark would be natural!

>>736837808
>So humanity was the one that actually did the killing, right?
doesnt gels armor says they were used as fodder that gwyn and the others threw first against the dragons

>>736838870
yes, ingward and the other 2/3? sorceress were human and they flooded new londo as a last resort

>>736842160
Average guys like Gael for sure were, but I'm not so sure when it comes to the Ringed knights. They might still be slaves, but even Gwyn was terrified of those guys, so terrified that all he could think to do was seal them instead of kill them, a decision he readily made against the dragons.

>>736842245
was the ringed city created after the dragons were defeated or whats the timeline, did the ringed city and the ringed knights existed while gwyn and the other other gods used the slave knights as fodder against the dragons? because the ringed knights in the dlc use dragons heads as shields

>>736830335
I haven't played DaS3. Wasn't he pretty much "evil" in DaS1 anyways? I don't think these games are meant to have moral characters.

>>736842320
There's no clear timeline for those days for whether it existed before or after, but I think it's safe to say it was built after for the pygmy lords by Gwyn to contain them when he no longer needed them. It would make sense since the weapons and armors were made from the dark, and gwyn erased all knowledge of those arts except from the ringed city.
>because the ringed knights in the dlc use dragons heads as shields
The armor in general is dragon themed, there are horn and scale motiffs. Hard to say if they were made in mimicry of their foes during the conflict or in commemoration afterwards. There's just not enough information available.

Dark Souls 1 is still the best despite its flaws and dated mechanics.

>>736835076
Thanks Aldia

>>736841643
Age of Darkness, nigga.

>>736832949
Wut?
You literally have to go collect said ring to fight 4 kings, or you die

>everything is le cycle
There has NEVER been a cycle.
>Age of Ancients
>Age of Fire
>prolonged Age of Fire
>still Age of Fire
>weak as fuck but Age of Fire
>never letting go of the Age of Fire
>fuck the dark all my homies do the Age of Fire
and then DS3 ends.

0 fucking cycles

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>>736832949
>while your human ass can waltz around freely in your skivvies.

>>736839726
>also it's a shit game pretty much
Glad we agree

>>736830335
We knew that from the first game though

>>736842926
>>736843272
He's retarded. Most self proclaimed "lore masters" are.

>>736843034
It was first stated by Aldia in DS2 that the Ages are a cycle. There is no mention of the Ages as a cycle in DS1, just that the Primordial Serpents are seemingly both at odds and allied with one another to keep things in motion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9TadzQb1Ec

>>736835904
>With 3 we kinda could cope a way to ball it all together, but by essentially making 2 just "one of the many Declines that happened between 1 and 3".
>So its story its a big whatever, honestly.
I think 2 isn't just one of the many declines; I think its supposed to be the one time someone actually saw through it all. Bear in mind DS2 is not the game they wanted to make, so the story isn't it either. Considering you can get the 4 Lord Souls in DS2 NG+ and there's rumor that there was going to be a whole end sequence to DS3 wherein the Soul of Cinder opened a gateway to some primordial space where Gwyn's consciousness persisted; that may have been a redux of that unrealized concept. Speculation is fun, but Miyazaki must be dying to have the real story out there.
>>736836938
I hate the Ringed City. From Software is so bad at DLC narratively. DLC in DS1 is a cute side story, but changes nothing. DLC in DS2 is a big pile of "so what?" You're not hollow, good for you; what's that do for anyone else? DLC in DS3 is entirely inconsequential. Oh you collected the Dark Soul at the end of time? Cool go pick an ending at Soul of Cinder lol :o)
Even Elden Ring's ending is a pile of who gives a shit that doesn't effect the greater narrative or world.
>>736837325
I still maintain that there is no day night cycle in Lordran/Dark Souls

>>736843957
Nobody asked

>>736830335
All powerful people are evil. You can't be powerful and good.

>>736844049
>You can't
Why?

>>736844049
wrong, im POWERFUL and good

>>736843272
>>736842926
>>736843684
Is this the same ring you have to wear to walk around the Abyss in the DLC? Or is it the magic helmet you have to wear to traverse the cursed bits of Oolacile? Or is it the magic shield and gloves needed to tank the darkness while fighting Manus? Surely you're not referring to the cursed gambeon that allows you to enter The Deep without being instantly incinerated or corrupted?

gwyn made his son troon out, he is inherently evil

>>736844082
Because in order to gain power you must be evil. By being good it's impossible to gain power, you will be filtered by other evil people. Just look at real life, look at our politicians, not a single good person among them. Some pedos, psychos, snitches etc

>>736844109
The only time an object needs to be worn to survive the abyss is in the base game with the four kings, nothing is necessary for the oolacile dungeon in the DLC, but humanity sprites will still damage you on contact. That said, the abyss the four kings dwell in and what's happening in Oolacile are clearly two very different phenomena.

>>736844278
>Because in order to gain power you must be evil.
Why?
>Just look at real life
Oh you're one of those, nevermind.

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>>736844323
>Why?
Because this is how the world works. Bad/evil people always succeed, good people always lose and cope with religion. Rules of nature

>>736844427
You are under the age of 25, you have no idea how the world works yet, all you're doing here is coming off as a pseud

Every person who betrayed me, did it only because I treated them well. It's literally impossible to be a good person and not be cucked by others. You must be a complete hermit or at least partially evil/bad in order to survive among people.

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>>736844526
I'm 33..

>>736844609
That's incredibly embarrassing then, you should have figured out years ago that ontological good and evil have absolutely nothing to do with real life, and the fact you ever thought it did was imparted to you purely through fictional media.

>>736844609
when did brendan frasier become a lion

>>736832279
No it wasn't. The first game was far more nuanced than that and never stated that one side was more evil than the other. That's the reason the serpents lead you in both directions, ultimately whichever you choose benefits a certain group.

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>>736844280
The Four Kings hold fragments of Gwyn's soul, when Kaathe cast them into the abyss it corrupted it and created a very different form of Darkness, yes, it's only because of their former humanity as vassal lords for Gwyn that they were able to survive in total darkness. Fire is not supposed to exist in the Dark and can only be ultimately snuffed out or killed by it. Dark Souls 3's secret boss is literally killing off the Hoover the Gods put together in a last ditch effort to absorb the oncoming collapse so they could prolong their rule (only for it to fail and become corrupted, but encapsulated in his daughter's magic dark/fire bubble with the rest of her simp nation.)

Humanity can traverse darkness without it causing outright physical harm or killing them, but unbridled darkness can 'corrupt' them. You see it in the citizens of Oolacile, Aldrich (dude that vores Gwyndolin after eating too much darkness), Artorias' descendants locked in permanent combat with each other trying to stamp out their own corrupted bloodline in order to contain darkness (another 4skins situation where dark/fire coexist in the same organic with Artorias' God blood and their human bodies) and Wolnir (human who genocides his entire kingdoms after conquering everyone and getting bored, becomes a lich, accidentally peeks into the abyss so he gets scared and harnesses the Dark Soul entangled in it to craft pyromancies and teach the guardians of his tomb kingdom.)

All of those examples I provided in my post were just made of gobbledygook, there's no magic darkness helmet or cursed gambeon..

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>>736837198
No that's Dark Souls 2, but that was made noncanon
>>736837365
>DaS really should not have had numerous sequels
Dark Souls 3 is a direct follow up to Dark Souls to the point that it reveals a lot of what Kaathe wants to do and recontextualizes the Dark Lord ending entirely
>>736837275
>but won't take five seconds to properly contextualize anything
No you are just dumb
>>736837220
>Nothing 3 tells wasn't already implied,
False. We don't get to see New Londo and the Darkwraiths as an institution and their plans for the usurpation take place until 3.
In 3 we also get to see an actual post-Gods human society where Gods are actually forgotten and ironically enough humanity switched from worshipping the Gods to worshipping the Fire they were shackled to
Dark Souls 3 is just lore bomb after lore bomb that makes you say "oh shit, bow the original makes a lot more sense" in a way that anyone who isn't a pretentious lorelet that didn't actually understand the original game can tell DS3 was necessary.

Look at Sulyvahn, he is literally the realized, sane embodiment of what Kaathe was using humanity to turn the 4Kings into.
Issue is any candidate like Dark Lord or the 4Kings went made but Sulyvahn, able to usr the Profaned Flame with the spell Power Within and actually complete the ritual to become Dark Lord.

Now we finally understand what Kaathe is talking about and why his henchmen need to harvest humanity.

the dark is based because it lets you invade people
>but muh lore
don't care faggot

>>736844728
>The Four Kings hold fragments of Gwyn's soul,
Source?

>>736844780
The funny red man doesn't care about any of this, the funny red man is just here to kill. He is probably the most human of any of us.

>>736830335
Not a retcon what game were you playing

>>736844793
The game, retard

>>736832172
I tend to assume the Age of Dark is the modern world, but that's just speculation.

>>736830830
He never cared for slaves, but the union.

>>736831567
It's fear that drives them, not purpose. That's the difference. Same person can be a great leader as soon as fear kicks in. Then he claws to power and wealth.

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>>736844793
The game, part of 'getting' the lore in Dark Souls is reading item descriptions. In order to beat Dark Souls 1 you need to defeat The Four Kings which results in a 'boss soul' dropping. There is no way to skip picking up this item in a conventional playthrough.

>>736832894
>Gwyn
Defies fate and nature.
Come to think of it, was it necessary that the dark lord was an ashen one?

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>>736844823
Yeah? can you please point out where in the game it says that?
>>736832172
No, the Age of Dark is a world without Fire, a world where humanity itself doesn't exist in its current form, but takes new ones like the Locusts, creatures forsaken by the Fire entirely.

>>736833534
>dying of the flame is an inevitability
Kaathe. The fire keeper form 3 also states that fire will come back, too.

>>736833613
Wasn't manus an alien?

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>>736844895
It says "fragments of a Great Soul"
It doesn't say "fragments of Gwyn's Soul"
The Souls were are all granted by Gwyn, nothing says he shared his own Soul with the 4Kings

>>736845113
no, he was most likely from the ringed city

fear not the dark my friends
and let the feast begin

>>736845036
>>736844895
>>736845126
You're welcome. If you need help the Dawn of the Age of Fire is when Gwyn and Co beat up the dragons and ushered in the rule of humanoids. Lord Souls are the things that spawned next to the first flame, Gwyn got one, Nito got one, Izalith took one as well and the last soul was squeaked away by that forgettable Furtive Pygmy. There are only 4 splitting it up into little pieces doesn't make it 6 or 8 or 10. Only 4, and only those 4 people can empower others with its' divinity.

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>>736845036
>Yeah? can you please point out where in the game it says that?

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>>736844662
>ontological good and evil have absolutely nothing to do with real life
biggest pseud faggot ITT

>>736845126
>The Souls were are all granted by Gwyn, nothing says he shared his own Soul with the 4Kings
like the others already said, there are only 4 great souls, gwyn had to give them part of his own to seath and the 4 kings, he cant simply create another one for them

>>736845126
That's the soul of Ornstein. Gwyn granted the power of his Lord soul directly to the Four Skins and Cope&Seethe the Skillless. You can see it in the item descriptions up there. A being having a powerful soul is a measure of their own personal will and strength. A Lord Soul is a magical, divine blessing bequeathed by a magic fire, of which only 4 were handed out.

>>736845298
Indeed Gwyn gave souls from the First Flame of which he claimed ownership, didn't actually split his, which is why he still has it
I accept your concession.

>>736844764
Why does he have a slenderman face tho?

>>736845472
he is part tree, blame his mom

>>736845459
>Indeed Gwyn gave souls from the First Flame of which he claimed ownership
My man that is NOT what happened

>>736845409
What's the point of posting the picture that proves you wrong?
>Bequeted most of hsi powers to the Gods, and burned as a cinder
Are you ESL? because the 4Kings not Seethe are certainly "Gods".

>>736845526
Kindly point out where in the game it says they're not gods?

fear not the dark my friends
and let the feast begin

>>736845459
Hey quick question before we all continue this discussion, totally unrelated to skin color, how would you feel if you didn't get to chow down on some breakfast this morning?

>>736845526
>Soul of the Four Princes, who sank in the Dark. Part of one of the souls of the Kings found at the beginning of the Age of Fire.
>They were once the great leaders of Little Londo. They were noticed by King Gwyn, who bestowed upon them the title of princes and a part of his great soul.
>It is worthy of filling the King's Vessel, though only partially.
Literal translation of the japanese text. You're getting gaped, kiddo.

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>>736845671
delete this RIGHT NOW, you are making me look dumb

>>736845220
According to ai he's the furtive pygmy. So what, was his grave opened or did he flee? There's humanity everywhere on the surface, so I thought he was on the surface. Abyss malformed him. Where's oolacile on the world tree?

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>>736845506
Yes it is. The idea that Gwyn went sudoku and split his actual soul is completely false and only Frampt (and no desceiption) claims something alongside that because it assumes Gwyn owns the First Flame
Kaathe created the Moonlight Butterflies by giving them souls. Soul manipulation and splitting is the foundation of sorcery and an even more ancient practice than Gwyn becoming ruler giving that the first soul spells were created by Oolacile, land of Sorcery, and were completely heretical. Gwyn didn't invent splitting souls and the game never implies the 4 Lords have pieces of Gwyn Soul. Gwyn shared part of his power to the Gods (of which only 2 have Lord Souls) and would have never granted his own soul fragments to the 4 Kings

>>736845732
>he's the furtive pygmy
is not confirmed, ringed city used to send envoys to human settlements like oolacile, manus probably was from the ringed city and died in oolacile, his tomb was disturbed by order of kaathe/frampt and he turned into the manus we see in the dlc

>>736845732
>Where's oolacile on the world tree?
no idea what you talking about

>>736845526
Did you forget the part of the game where he used his sunshine magic to help his gay son power up and make a holographic daughter with rocking tits to continue to project the false image of a continuing golden age of fire that you can easily dismantle by attacking said tittymonster? Did you even play the first game or did you watch your favorite Grump play it?

>>736844895
>In order to beat Dark Souls 1 you need to defeat The Four Kings which results in a 'boss soul' dropping.
false

>>736845710
To be fair, most players of these games don't look this far into it, I know I didn't for years. The japanese transliteration adds so much fucking context that is absent in the english version of the game it's not even funny. Lore speculation on the english side would not fucking exist without it, we could have lived in a world free of the likes of Vaatividya.

fear not the dark my friends
and let the feast begin

>>736845671
>Japanese translation
Worthless, Miyazaki writes in english and From translates back
Japanese versions get corrected a lot more than english ones

>>736845836
i used to read lokey's blog because he uses the japanese and english translations also, the japanese pretty much agree 100% that priscilla is the mother of gwyndolin

>>736845893
>Miyazaki writes in english and From translates back
he writes in japanese and then translates to english

>>736845953
>Velka fucks Seathe, births Priscilla
>Priscilla fucks Gwyn, births Gwyndolin
I believe it

>>736845802
>disturbed by order of kaathe/frampt
Right.
>not confirmed
Heavily implied.
>world tree
You never saw the drawing with ashen lake, izalith, the sun aso? It's a tree stemming from the abyss featuring prominent locations from dark souls.

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>>736845836
The japanese translation is not the official version of the game and is constantly wrong
All souls, even that of the player, come from the First Flame, and there's not ruth to the concept that Gwyn is specifically picki g pieces of his self and spreading it. Gwyn spread his power among Gods, not Kaathe or the 4 Kings. The power those 4 bosses were granted does not mean they have fragments of the actual soul of Gwyn

Funnily enough the two actual Gods don't mention being granted Souls in the first place, let alone reveiving a shard of "Gwyn".
The truth is that claiming that Gwyn granted a shard of his own soul is pure propaganda. kaathe and 4Kings are mentioned to have been granted a soul to justify them having one and being a mandatory boss
Nowhere it implies that Nito or Bed of Chaos souls are just shards of Gwyn soul because that's fucking retarded, we literally see those characters in their full power at the intro.

Those bosses were "granted" a shard of Soul in the same way everyone else was, by having Gwyn simply split the pie and play favourites among those 4, not just separating his actual, personal, Soul.

>>736846185
>there's not ruth to the concept that Gwyn is specifically picki g pieces of his self and spreading it
Why not? The furtive pygmy did it.

>>736846228
And that's why he is not around

>>736831101
>the evil lying snake that commands an order of niggas that rape and murder the innocent for personal profit said this dude was bad so you gotta trust him
I'm gonna be honest, I think Kaathe is full of shit and the only reason people ever remotely trusted him is because he's hidden so their kneejerk reaction is
>THE HIDDEN ENDING MUST BE THE GOOD ENDING
That isn't to say Frampt is right, either. They're both deceitful snakes. Dark Souls 1 only has Bad endings.

>>736846185
>Funnily enough the two actual Gods don't mention being granted Souls in the first place, let alone reveiving a shard of "Gwyn".
Because the witch of Izalith, Nito and the Furtive Pygmy found their souls within the first flame, just as Gwyn found the Light soul. He didn't find all the souls and hand them out, that's your stupid headcannon with zero basis in any game. Seathe and the Four Kings were granted parts of Gwyn's own Light soul, which is why you have to gather them specifically for the lord vessel.

On top of this, these transliterations have not been corrected in over ten years, if they were not correct, it would have been patched at the very least with the remaster, which they were not. You may now begin to cope and seathe.

>>736846338
>That isn't to say Frampt is right, either. They're both deceitful snakes
both of them bow down to you in the dark lord ending, so yeah, pretty obvious they are both bad

>>736830335
?
That was obvious in DS1.

Dark Souls 3 is From's best game by far

>>736846185
>>736844895
Hey genius look up Lord Soul. If you won't listen to everyone in this thread just go ahead and Google it and read your own lore dump on what a Lord's Soul is.

Caught up?

Good.
>"a fragment of a Lord Soul discovered at the dawn of the Age of Fire"
>""Although this is not a full Lord Soul" ie denoting it is in fact a FRAGMENT OF A LORD SOUL BEQUEATHED BY THE LORD OF CINDER (ONE OF FOUR LORD SOULS AND GODS IN THE AGE OF FIRE)

>>736846228
And the Pygmy Lords received parts of his soul, which makes actual sense because Courland (The Ringed City) was the home of soul transposition.
Instead the 4 Lords received their Souls when they were found at the dawn of the Age of Fire.
The only reason retards believe those bequeted Souls are part of Gwyn's own, personal Soul is entirely due to falling for and taking Frampt bs literally, where accoridng to Frampt Gwyn is the Lord of the First Flame and thus owns ecery piece of power coming from it and the souls it spreads.

fear not the dark my friends
and let the feast begin

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>the localization studio that did DS1, 2, 3, BB, AC6 and ER said in an interview that they get handed the script in japanse and then they do the translation to english
> a retarded anon is arguing that miyazaki writes the script/item descriptions in english

>retarded westoids still don't understand that Mitsubishi is a sad, nihilist hack and there is no 'good' in his games, every character and plot point is morally grey at best
The last From game to have had a good ending was King's Field IV.

>>736846458
Our guy is objectively good at least.

>>736831212
Scared. Fearful. Some people take the egotistical approach for Gwyn but I don't think that's correct. I think ultimately he was good, but also scared of letting go.

>>736846458
eternal ring had a good ending from what i remember

>>736846365
>Because the witch of Izalith, Nito and the Furtive Pygmy found their souls within the first flame,
So this already debunks Frampt claims
>just as Gwyn found the Light soul
There's no "Light soul"
>Seathe and the Four Kings were granted parts of Gwyn's own Light soul
No, they were granted a soul from the First Flame exactly in the same way the other two main bosses, Nito and BoC, received it much earlier. Because Bequeted Lord Souls are indeed not piece of Gwyn himself, but just other Souls from the Fire
I love how you are suddenly walking back on attempting to generalize the nature of Bequeted Lord Souls and trying to save face, go on I want to see for how long you can keep up this clownshow
>>736846427
>>"a fragment of a Lord Soul discovered at the dawn of the Age of Fire"
So indeed not the Soul of Gwyn, but another Soul exactly the likes of the one Gwyn himself received at the very same dawn of the Age of Fire.
Thanks for your concession

>>736846365
>>736846185
He's referring to this part in the official English translated intro to the first game where The Four Kings fly by really fast and pick up the hidden 5th ⅛th of a Lord Soul it happens like in-between frames you have to blink really hard like a minute or two in and you might catch it https://youtu.be/4lmEqpgg3B4 you have to be really quick though it actually was supposed to be a full 5 second scene in the Xbox One port

>>736846605
AAAAAIIIIEEEEE MY EYES CAN'T SEE FAST ENOUGH

>>736846598
>this retard believes that the first flame kept creating new souls
>gwyn took them and shared them when he wanted to promote someone
>it was never mentioned anywhere tho
okay

>>736843794
DS2 is not canon.

The only cycle was chosen undeads getting fooled and burning themselves in the first flame to prolong the age of fire.

fear not the dark my friends
and let the feast begin

>>736846450
>>the localization studio that did DS1, 2, 3, BB, AC6 and ER said in an interview that they get handed the script in japanse
Yeah for dialogues, retard

>>736846720
>yeah, we did the dialogue, item descriptions, everything in the game
>we had miyazaki sit down with us and describe the items with his own words so we could do the english translation
just kill tourself

>>736846598
>There's no "Light soul"
You're actually quite stupid aren't you? There are four lord souls in all, Life, Death, Light and Dark. Izalith and Nito took Life and Death respectively, the Furtive Pygmy took the titular Dark Soul, which leaves only one lord soul, the Light soul. Gwyn took that one, I mean, he's literally the lord of sunlight. Come on man, you're arguing against literal game lore now.

>>736846598
Holy shit do you know what bequeathed means? Obviously you can't spell it, it means he gave it to them. They even help you and tell you in the item description >>736844895
>"Lord Gwyn recognized the foresight of these four great leaders of New Londo and granted them their ranks and the fragments of a great soul. Although this is not a full Lord Soul* it can still satiate the Lordvessel.
*Denoting the item being described is a Lord Soul, albeit a portion of one, BEQUEATHED (that means given, by Gwyn in this case) to them

>>736830335
Gwyn's refusal of the natural order to maintain his kingdom literally caused the fabric of reality to start falling apart

>>736846518
You're right, my guy is good for letting the world die in exchange of aryan Firekeeper pussy in DSIII

>>736846850
Yeah!

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>>736846664
>>this retard believes that the first flame kept creating new souls
Never said that
>>736846762
Headcanon
>>736846775
Wrong, it means it was inherited directly by the First Flame, and we can literally see all 4 Lords receive their Souls directly. All coming from the First Flame, not Gwyn.

>>736846883
>Never said that
>the first flame created the 4 lord souls, and others that were never mentioned, anyways, gwyn picked these other souls and hide them so he could use them to promote people in the future
retard

>>736846883
My words are backed up quite literally by the item description up there, your take is conjecture Vaati. Link to the item that says the Four Kings soul is wrong and the power wasn't bequeathed by Gwyn and was actually a super secret hidden third option. You are getting bodied by everyone here at this point and it's just getting embarrassing.

>>736846757
>>we had miyazaki sit down with us and describe the items with his own words so we could do the english translation
Yes, because english is the official version and the one that Miyazaki writes. He doesn't write a script and send it to Frognation. They literally work together while writing the actual game and descriptions and then translate dialogues.
Just because it's not Miyazaki himself that write it does it doesn't actually mean that the game is made in Japanese and then translated

How can one man be so confidently retarded and misinformed?

>>736847014
You tell me.

>>736846978
>Yes, because english is the official version and the one that Miyazaki writes
there are several cut lines in japanese that never got translated to english retard

>>736832207
>vaati
nah wait for somebody on /v/, /vg/ or reddit to make a post for him to rip off first

>>736846667
>ds2 is not canon
a lie will remain a lie

>>736846338
Darkwraiths look incredibly evil but Kaathe never verifiably decieves you. If it's true that the Age of Dark needs to be brought about then the creation of the Darkwraiths is entirely justified.
Frampt is in league with Gwyndolin and actively pushes the idea of the mission of the Chosen Undead to go to Anor Londo, a location that shows that they are lying to get what they want.

>>736846965
>My words are backed up
No. They are a retarded headcanon. The description only ever mentions those Souls being found in the First Flame at its dawn, and we see that.
You made a big fucking logical leap to claim Gwyn had split his soul into fragments before even fighting the Gods.
None of what you say makes sense. Nito is Nito, and remained Nito after receiving his Soul alongside, and not from, Gwyn. Gwyn granted lots of boss souls, doesn't mean he split his own very Soul to create mini pieces of him

>>736847035
>there are several cut lines in japanese that never got translated to english
Thare are also several english lines never found in japanese so what the fuck is your point. Do you realize the game is recorded in english?

>>736847074
>Gwyn had split his soul into fragments before even fighting the Gods
Gwyn fought dragons dude, his side were the Gods

>>736830335
We knew from the start that he was evil because forcing the Fire to continue disrupted the balance of the cosmos and caused Undeath in humanity that was meant to take over.
Even if DS1 doesn't have him create a specific curse to bind humans to the First Flame, you can tell that he's perverting the system.

>>736847154
>Do you realize the game is recorded in english?
why are you trying to change the subject, you said miyazaki writes the script and item descriptions in english (and then gets a localizer to translate to english again?)

>Thare are also several english lines never found in japanese so what the fuck is your point
my point is mitazaki doesnt write it the script/items in english, the fact that there are japanese cut lines that were never translated to english proves that, doesnt matter if there are also ones in english but not in japanese

>gwyndolin is priscilla’s son
I sometimes see people claiming the jp community agrees on this but have never read a jp post about it

>>736847074
>Gwyn had split his soul into fragments before even fighting the Gods
What the fuck are you talking about? Are you mandela effecting this entire game or what?

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>>736833632
>create a character who is innately have forgetful traits
>forgotten by most of the playerbase by 2026
HOLY SHIT HONDA MITSUBISHI IS A GENIUS!

>>736847206
>>736847339
>arguing with a dude thats probably responding using chatgpt

>>736847074
So right at the start they found more Lord Souls within the First Flame and instead of using them in the war against the dragons Gwyn stashed them away for later in case he needed to reward some really good kings or science nerds?

>>736847074
>Item is called BEQUEATHED LORD SOUL SHARD
>only 4 Lord Souls in the game, this is indicated explicitly by the intro narration
>Kiln (that's the chamber fuel goes in to in an oven or furnace) requires biometric lock that will only open with 4 Lord Souls that were present at the linking of the first flame in the heart of this giant oven
>Obtain one from Bed of Chaos, Izalith's descendants
>Obtain one from Nito, one of the original claimants
>You are a portion of one
>Last soul is locked behind the door currently acting as a living charcoal briquette meaning we can't unlock the door with his Lord Soul
>Obtain one fragment from Four Kings, BEQUEATHED by Lord Gwyn
>Obtain one from Seath, also a gift from Gwyn for helping solve the dragon problem and betraying his own kind
You are dense and there is no helping you.

fear not the dark my friends
and let the feast begin

>>736835546
The Darklurker has too little to work with to say anything. What we know is that despite being trapped in the remnants of the Abyss he's actually preventing the dark from spreading, and his soul isn't a dark soul. This would imply he isn't actually a being of the dark or even corrupted by it - Midir and Artorias were both corrupted and their souls turned dark.

The only other thing we know is that he was originally called "Agdayne's Stand" in the files, implying he'd be... well, just that, Agdayne's Stand he fights you with a la Jojo. Which is also an ultimately rather similar role as a protector of a grave.

>>736847413
That worm at the center of the bed of chaos is the wicked witch herself I'm pretty sure.

Fire in DaS is clearly meant as the superficial, hylic-centered element.
You ask 'but what does Fire do besides the superficial stuff' when the superficial stuff that Gwyn indulges people in is EXACTLY what Fire was doing in the first place, and exactly why he wanted to maintain it
Its spelled out. Its why the superficial fire leads to an eventual superficial Church of Light.

On a meta level, Fire is literally paralleling Zoroastrianism, which is the religion that invented Good and Evil, in a very superstitious manner, that eventually lead to Christianity. The Dark represents the unknown, potential, possibility, evolution, which is why all the NPCs in the Dark world are gentle but individualist, and why everything in the Dark 'evolves'.

The choice is not one of trade offs, there's a clear distinction between the Untermensch 'Fire link path' and the Ubermensch 'Dark Lord' path. It's why the it's the Dark LORD ending.

>>736847470
>Agdayne's Stand
That's fucking awesome holy shit

>>736847513
It's not that awesome and it's an idea they reused anyway if you really liked the sound of it

>>736847513
Extremely, imagine pulling out some light in his presence and he just unleashes that fucker on you. Would've been insane.

OH SO NOW THE INTRO MATTERS
>In the Age of Ancients, the world was unformed, shrouded by fog. A land of grey crags, archtrees, and everlasting dragons. But then there was Fire. And with Fire, came Disparity. Heat and cold, life and death, and of course... Light and Dark. Then, from the Dark, They came, and found the Souls of Lords within the flame. Nito, the first of the dead, the Witch of Izalith, and her Daughters of Chaos, Gwyn, the Lord of Sunlight, and his faithful knights, and the furtive pygmy, so easily forgotten. With the Strength of Lords, they challenged the dragons
>With the Strength of Lords
>STRENGTH OF LORDS
Nowhere, ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE is it implied the 4 main bosses get their soul directly from Gwyn. Nowhere. They all get it from the same source
>They came, and found the Souls of Lords within the flame
>FOUND THE SOULS OF LORDS WITHIN THE FLAME
Why can't you just admit being wrong?

>>736847385
>So right at the start they found more Lord Souls within the First Flame and instead of using them in the war against the dragons
Play the intro to the game at least
>>736847593
NOOOOOOOO YOU CAN'T POST IT DELETE IT. IT'S ACTUALLY THE LIGHT SOUL OF GWYN WHICH IS NOWHERE AND I HEADCANONED IN MY HEAD AFTER HITTING THE CRACKPIPE

>>736847593
Nito, Izalith, Pygmy and Gwyn got their souls from the flame. Pygmy split his amongst humanity, later Gwyn would do a similar by splitting off parts of his own soul to give to Seathe and the Four Kings. This isn't even difficult to understand.

>>736847593
I do notice how not one of those bosses are the ones possessing a Lord Soul Shard explicitly bequeathed to them by Gwyn