No, that title has to go to the Ivory King. Gael was selfless in a way, sacrificing eons of time to give people a chance of a better life, but the Ivory King always felt more heroic to me. A king kind and loving enough to redeem a fragment of Manus' soul, who built a kingdom around a terrifying threat. But unlike most kings who would hide behind their walls, he sat his throne room right atop the entrance, he himself being the one standing at the front lines should the Old Chaos ever threaten his people.
I don't think think there is a limit to how many times an Undead can resurrect. It depends on willpower and resolve - so long as an Undead has motivation to keep pursuing their goals, they keep resurrecting and keep their personhood. Once you give in despair and give up, you go Hollow. You still resurrect, but you are a mindless shell, simply sitting and waiting for the world to end.
Yep, the popular headcanon is that if you stop playing the game, your character has gone hollow and never did succeed in linking the flame (or becoming dark lord). Which also explains why you can die as many times as is necessary for you to beat any of these games and your character will never go hollow on screen.
@@themightymcb7310 Although there's also a separation between gameplay and lore in that, Undead don't actually respawn at bonfires, they just stay dead for a while and then get up later. That's how Seath imprisoned you in the first game, he killed you, grabbed your body, and then dumped it inside a cell.
@@aldiascholarofthefirstsin1051 I do believe there is physical significance to the bonfires though. The lore seems purposely unclear on this matter. Otherwise, why would Havel and the other conspirators put the bonfire in the tunnel between valley of drakes and darkroot? What purpose would that bonfire serve if not a physical checkpoint for their mission?
@@themightymcb7310 You still gonna be depending on the bonfire for estus flask and as a resting point to recover some of your sanity/humanity after your death. Idk if leveling up from enemy souls is just a mechanic or an actual thing ingame, but the first few bonfires allowed you to temper your soul as well.
@@themightymcb7310 Do you think Seath intentionally constructed a bonfire in that first cell you wake up in? I understand that all or at least most of the bonfires are linked physically. Can't imagine the work that would go into plugging another bonfire into that already complicated and interconnected system.
It so funny to me how he starts off trying to 'so basically' sum it up, but can't help but dip into 'and so the waylaid ashen one doth enrages the father, awakening the flame that will burn away the-'
I love hearing Vaush talk about Dark Souls/Elden Ring lore, it's so good. Ariendel/Friede are my favorite bosses because of the lore, it's just so dark. Ariendel has like the most severe case of stockholm syndrome
The painter refers to him as "uncle Gael", but it's referring to the informal and non-familial use of "uncle" here. It's clear they have a good relationship.
Not only is Friede an Ashen One but shes a Hollow of Londor, meaning she tried and failed to become a Lord of Hollows. If you’re pursuing that questline she’ll tell you to go back to your subjects outside the painting. Its my theory that in her failure to defeat the Soul of Cinder she still desired to be a ruler, so she imposes her will upon the painted world and tries to make it last eternal. Just like Gwyn
11:40 Minor correction: no, ashen ones don't have a bit of the dark soul within them. It was consumed by the First Flame when they sacrificed themselves/were sacrificed to it. This is why they don't have humanity and it's replaced by embers as a game mechanic.
All humans have a bit of dark in them and ashen ones seem to be the same, Karla says something about that while teaching you dark spells. "Humans are of the dark and you're no different" And Gael before his boss fight tells you to give him your dark soul suggesting that your character have at least some humanity/darkness in them. and your character can learn dark spells and their descriptions suggest they are born from the darkness of the humanity with in your character. Also Frida uses dark fire and she is an Ashen one.
Remember that, in DS1, you get humanity, which are pieces of The Dark Soul, from helping your fellow man as a white phantasm. And to covet is also human, of course~. The Dark Soul is a manifestation of craving, at it's core. The feeling of emptiness and the need to feel, whichever feeling that is. All of the other Souls wanted to be austere statues, immune to time, perfect in solemnity. Fools. The Furtive Pygmy knew only nothingness, and wanted only that all around it could feel something, anything, before a return to immortal nothing. In that it persists, despite everything
@@verager2493 "... Grant a fleeting will to the Dark of humanity, and volley the result, the will feels envy, or perhaps love, and despite the inevitable trite and tragic ending, the will sees no alternative, and is driven madly towards its target." -Pursuers spell description DS1 "Be it sorcery or pyromancy, all techniques that infringe on humanity lead to the same place. That is to say, they all seek a will of their own." -Black serpent spell DD3 humanity seems to also be "will" and maybe other emotions than craving like love or envy (but you could make the argument than envy and love are a form of craving). That's probably why undead with strong will can mantain their humanity endlessly like Gael, the moment he saw his objective complete he lost the will to continue and turned hollow.
@@SkitariusNoKD I love the Persuer lore because it seems to me that it's powered by loneliness. They want to feel humanity, so they press, slowly and plaintively towards you
@@verager2493 It could also be that the dark souls/humanity is powered by will like the lord souls were by the first flame, as long you have will power the strenght of the dark soul is everlasting but not has flashy as the lord souls, so the furtive pigmy saw the value in a more humble cualities like perseverance were the gods wanted grandiose omnipotence. Pusuers is my favorite spell just because it's adorable but it's also quite sad, they just want a hug.
so, the lord of hollows ending does actually suggest that it creates something new, a twilight age that blends light and dark. this is suggested to be the path forward by vendrick and aldia in DS2, and by yuria in DS3 (though she is literally leading a cult, the sable church of londor, so take her words with a grain of salt). jury's out on whether it would be any better than the age of fire, but compared to every other ending, the possibility that something might have changed in the cycle is better than ending up in the ashen wasteland with gael.
The woman you fight at the end of the world invades you. Invading can go across time and into different timelines canonically. That's why players/NPCs invading you in Dark Souls is actually mentioned in the canon. You can also fight her before you fight Gael as long as you don't activate his cutscene
I think Vaush gets it a little backwards when he talks about pygmies and humans and sentience at the end. Dark souls 2 expounds this concept big time between Aldia and Vendrick's monologues. Sentience, individuality, and consciousness only exist because of the light of flame. Darkness returns man to his natural state, hollowness. I think darkness is a bit like instrumentality from envangelion; it is an abolition of the separation of self from others. Whether or not this is good is up to the player. It can represent peace, unity, wholeness, but it also means destruction of the self, which can be a very scary thing to confront.
the interesting thing is that there is a period of time, after fire but before gwyn brands humans with the dark sign, where all humans have full access to the dark soul. it is implied through the ringed knight set and the dark hand in 1 and 3 that in this period, humans were essentially intelligent, killable hollows with deep wells of dark magicks at their disposal. they shared the dark amongst themselves through a precursor art to lifedrain, lived and forged weapons deep in the abyss and imparted their desires and wishes on their weapons, granting them quasi-living qualities. these humans are the ones who participated in gwyn's war against the dragons, and though the dragons killed many scores of them (gough's dialogue in 1), many of them managed to kill dragons using their dark powers and claimed their heads as trophies (dragon head shields of the ringed knights in 3). their dark power is what convinced gwyn that the dark is a threat, and it's why he branded the knights and sealed their kings, the pygmy lords, away in the ringed city. so, had gwyn not trembled at the dark, an age of dark would have been perfectly fine for the humans. they would probably have been weirdly intelligent hollows who spread the dark wherever they went, but in that state the dark is peaceful and friendly to all. it's not until their dark is burned out of them by the darksign, gwyn's brand, that they start to exhibit uncontrollable dark, malicious abysses and the loss of self associated with hollowing.
Like her sisters and everyone else from Londor, Friede is almost definitely hollowed. Since she's also unkindled, she must bear Dark Sigils and conceals her nature by way of something like an Untrue Dark Ring. Her set descriptions mention her "renouncing everything." I think the idea here is that her sister founders of the Sable Church had originally planned to make her the Lord of Hollows but like so many others before her, Friede abandoned her quest to claim the power of the first flame after failing to do so before her resurrection as an unkindled.
Gael is my favorite character in the souls franchise. Him and the ivory king are some of the only true heros in the franchise Also would like to add that raniis ending is the best ending for elden ring she cuts off the influence of the outer gods from the mortal world and she takes you and dips out to go voyage amongst the stars And leaves the mortals to figure out things for themselves.
@@schnoz2372 she literally fills the role of god, but then takes the godhood away from the lands between for " a thounsand year voyage into the stars" so that the darkmoon can watch the lands between far away, so no, it's not just creating a power vacum, she essentially took away anyone's power to become the vessel for an outergod in the lands between by cockblocking them
It honestly depends on how you see it.What she did imo was a good choice but did it worth all the suffering that the people felt and all the crimes that happens in the shattering.tho the world is no longer influenced by outer gods.the people who lives may not like that.so who knows what those people in LB would do. Ranni essentially took the main problems away without bothering to fix anything.so i don't know if it's a good ending.
@@edwardkenway2441 but if she didn't take away the outer gods, it would be impossible to fix the situation as the gods are obviously powerful enough to beat down any uprising
agree with everything except the dark lord and usurpation of fire endings being fake. Sure we never see the result of these endings but they are clearly the most distinct endings composited from the knowledge of the other 3 games which isn't just "fake."
The usurpation of fire is a scam. The hollows of londor work for kaathe which you find out if you attack and kill Yuria. I don't trust kaathe at all and feel he's manipulating us. The only good ending to any dark souls game is the ending of the ringed city dlc where we paint a new world free from the corruption of the current world
I disagree with his interpretation of usurping the flame. it seems to me that when you take up the first flame inside yourself that it no longer exists as a physical entity and thus can no longer ever be fed the way it used to. light is no completely gone from the world or at least exists in a totally different form than it used to which is why the orange glow disappears from the sky. The hollows bow to you as a King which seems totally beyond the scope of hollows abilities under normal circumstances. Something about the world's logic seems to be fundamentally changed.
@@JoeyCentral don't we all? Even Vaati credits others for their discoveries. The difficult part isn't finding the pieces, it's putting the puzzle together and trying to understand what the complete picture is
something i don't understand, if you die in the painted world of ariandel you still get resurrected because you're still cursed with undeath, so then, how is Gael's new painted world any different? the only difference i see is that the new painting will never rot because it's painted with dark soul, but what happens to YOU if you die in it? you're still cursed with undeath right? if not, what lifted your curse?
Painted worlds are grounded in the overworld still, they're just a bit more remote of a location, almost like a little pocket dimension. For example, in the first game, you can use the Lord Vessel to warp to the Painted World of Ariamis, but you can't use it to leave. This was because that particular painting was used to contain things that Gwyn feared (namely servants of Velka and Crossbreed Priscilla)
@@themightymcb7310 yeab but paintings still follow the rules of the overworld right? that means the world aria created will still have hollows and undead in it, they have escaped the cycle but not the curse
@@aX0n777 Yeah, painted worlds don't really cycle like the outside world does, they just kind of are how they are. Any undead would still bear the darksign and would come back after death. The player character does and there are a bunch of hollows in Ariamis that respawn.
@@aX0n777 The Painted World was never meant to be an escape from the undead curse, which is obvious due to the fact that 99% of the population aren't undead. Rather, The Painted World kinda has a cycle of it's own. As above the Age of Fire and Dark change back and forth, so below the Painted World rots, burns, then is painted anew. This is interesting given that Friede is facilitating the stagnation, just like her undead sisters in the cult of Londor.
the painted has nothing to do with the curse, in reality humans are immortal, they become mortal only when the flame is strong and time runs normally , when the flame starts to go out the dakr sign loses his power and humaninty start leaking from it, that's the real curse, and human start to not die anymore, The fact they become hollow is porbably an effect of the dark sign
I think Friede doesn't come back because her body stays in the burning painting and ceases to exist with it OR alternatively, her failure to beat you breaks her spirit and she hollows, only to wander endlessly in the burning world until the new one comes and she subsequently ceases to exist
one of my favorite lore pieces in dark souls is the age of the abyss. i kinda hope that fromsoft makes a game (or dlc for a ds style game) where at least one area is what the abyss wouldve been in dark souls lore
i think you mean the age of dark. what it would have been like is laid out in some scraps in the lore, a quiet, peaceful, cold age where humanity rules. maybe it would have ended as well and passed into something else, but it was supposed to just be night following day, nothing special really. but gwyn didn't want his rule to end, so he subverted it and broke reality, linking himself and all souls to the first flame, making it so the flame cannot die permanently.
@@Yal_Rathol nope, turns out i meant the deep. Its the age of the deep sea that Aldrich saw in his vision. Where dregs sink into the deepest depths to form the new world later on. Just been long emough for me to confuse abyss with the deep, mostly because abyss sounds cooler
@@zakki9491 well "sinking into the deepest depths" is exactly what happens when the Abyss engulfs a place, so they're probably one and the same. I'd definitely prefer the stillness of Oolaciles Abyss over the eternal struggle of flame tho, even though everything bordering it becomes completely warped before finally being swallowed.
Ever since I was young I've always liked stories about the end times and people quietly witnessing the slow death of the world itself. One stand out favourite of mine is the anime Casshern Sins. Spoilers to the plot, it's the story of an android who is the embodiment of death wandering a world cursed by rot which previously enjoyed an eon of immortality. In his travels he meets many dying humans and robots desperately trying to give some meaning to their fleeting lives through art and other means. The protagonist finally concludes that he shall accept his original programming and provide death to mortals so that they may enjoy finding meaning to their lives, even though he never will. It's a real blast.
Casshern sins is Legit one of the best animes I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching, It’s one of the few animes I’ve watched where I would simply describe it as “beautiful”. From the shots to the story to the characters, and the MUSIC. it’s so “ artsy” and original, i love it lol.
Thinking about hollowing and why npc's don't respawn. Maybe it's easier to hollow than we think. Like, look at the percentage of players who got end game achievements in the souls series. It's not a whole lot. So, where do we find most undead? They're usually at a pretty low point in their lives and some naked dude savaging them with a giant club would probably be what breaks them.
In DS1, definitely. Though, not every NPC is actually undead, like the Catarina knight's daughter. But crestfallen knight hollows by himself, the way of white dudes hollow from the horrors of the tomb of giants, it's really not that hard to lose yourself in the madness.
Popular explanation of what were humans before age of fire and first linking, suggest that humans as well as gods were mindless zombies just wandering the land w/o purpouse. Fire gave gods their purpouse and white souls of immortality (that we gather in game as currency), humans were gifted dark soul which gave also purpouse, no immortality, but it was unique so it could multiply indefinitely unlike white souls which were finite. When Gwyn wanted to save the flame, he thought well if white souls are finite in nature the flame cannot be kept forever, so what other rescourse we have abundance of? Gwyn gave his soul up as a kindle but through that he also created something far far worse, The First Sin - linking of Dark Soul of humanity to the first flame, which was not smart to be lightly said. Through that humans became forever bound to the first flame and to white souls. You see the Dark Soul humans now enjoyed the benefits of first flame - immortality through connection of their being to the white souls of gods. But it also made them anchor their purpouse in the white souls, so when white souls run out humans hollow and lose their minds. When first flame is strong that doesn't matter, but when fire gets weaker, as Aldia have said "A lie will remain a lie", so humans are designed to return to their previous form which is impossible without losing mind because of the linking Gwyn did. So through Dark Sign of undead white souls spill out and humanity manifests. It is also popular theory that when we consume humanity or human effigy in DS1 & DS2 we are not actually repleneshing our dark soul, but we are giving the new target in which spilling of soul can occur so we buy ourselves time and reverse hollowing temporarly. And because Gwyn fucked up so badly, humans cannot reverse this linking as dark soul grows stronger humans seek flame desperatly and the power of dark soul is infinite, so the cycle will never stop as there always be someone with dark soul to rekindle the fire again (unless somebody decides that he now consumes whole dark soul)
Yea the problem is that immortality is almost always treated as a curse and humanity is treated as the thing that keeps people from going hollow. And humanity itself is some fragment of the dark soul. It is the dark soul that gives people their personalities and drive and meaningful life. Gwyn feared the power of the dark soul, with it being immortal and multiplying infinitely, not to mention all the crazy shit humans can do through it thanks to the lore, like traverse the abyss or make weapons out of it. So he put a seal on them, powered by the first flame. The humans are naturally immortal, but their power is limited through the seal which renders them mortal. And when the flame fades, which it eventually does, the seal can't rely on it as a fuel source and starts burning the humanity, the dark soul of the given undead to limit them, which eventually turns them into a mindless crazed (albeit not too powerful) shell of a human who's only goal is a desire to take the humanity, the dark soul of others.
the gael fight is probably not the end relaly fa rin the future, you can see lothric castle standing in the distance, while we know it's in ruins on top of the dreg heaps, so it may be before the soul of cinder fight. the ringed city was like in a time bubble thanks to filianore
@@littlemoth4956 Bb has one of the best fighting mechanics for those who can handle fast-paced gameplay and without a doubt one of the best upgrade systems. Lore wise obviously it can’t be beat. The game is rendered beautifully with its unique and intricate Gothic Victorian style. The only thing it’s missing is it’s lack of gameplay.
I think talking to vaush about lore would be interesting. Listening to him is one of the most infuriating things ever. he is just way too confident in things he only knows the half truth on, or states his opinion on things that are kinda up for interpretation as fact. but like, go off.
As for frieda. When she dies, she does return to a bonfire... but in another universe. My take is that every time you come back, it's another universe branch
hmm, she might have returned to her version of the world (versions of reality do exist, see the "time is convoluted" talk with solaire), but i think its more likely she just finally died properly and returned to the bonfire. where that bonfire is? who knows, but it's probably not in the painting.
I think in DS1 it's pretty clear that men were originally hollows and it's only the Lord Souls that make them human. Without at least one of the Lord Souls there would be no humanity.
Opposite, actually - the original form of humans, before the first flame, were as hollows perfectly attuned to the dark. There's quite a lot of evidence for this - in the opening cutscene of DS1 the first flame shows up and we see a bunch of hollows emerge from the dark of the cave, showing that hollows existed before the flame and that this is their natural state of being. King Vendrick in DS2 says outright that men took a fleeting form when humans gained souls from the first flame and that when we cast aside the flame we'll regain our true form. Many items throughout the series also provide evidence of this, like the fact that quite a few items or spells linked to dark are outright named things like human pine resin, and that dark spells take on human emotions like Affinity. The fact that the pure dark, untouched by humans worshipped by the pygmies actually takes on a vaguely human shape should be enough to shake the idea that humans are anything but dark made flesh. Take a drink every time I mention dark if you want alcohol poisoning.
Im gonna get crap for this and I love Vaush, but to rag on a game as incredible as Nier Automata by saying it’s philosophical themes weren’t profound, the gameplay was boring, and that the story was almost pompous, it seems a little odd to blather on about a game series where the entire plot is only told through items which makes it feel like a cop out for actual writing, and where every game is exactly the same game mechanics and combat. Don’t get me wrong, I like the ambiance of the Souls games - they can be fun. But Souls is just the new Call of Duty of this generation in my opinion and a lot of it’s fanbase seem similar. Might be a controversial take, but literally every game coming out now just feels like a Souls game knock off and I kinda miss games that actually had things like…you know…personality. Character building, plot, events, and not everything just milking the open world thing.
Gael is the most heroic character in Fromsoft lore
nah that title goes to soldier of godrick
@@OblivionDust2719 Based.
No shot. That honor goes to my man Black Iron Tarkus. Absolute madlad.
No, that title has to go to the Ivory King. Gael was selfless in a way, sacrificing eons of time to give people a chance of a better life, but the Ivory King always felt more heroic to me. A king kind and loving enough to redeem a fragment of Manus' soul, who built a kingdom around a terrifying threat. But unlike most kings who would hide behind their walls, he sat his throne room right atop the entrance, he himself being the one standing at the front lines should the Old Chaos ever threaten his people.
@@Sivanot I gotta finish those dlcs.
I don't think think there is a limit to how many times an Undead can resurrect. It depends on willpower and resolve - so long as an Undead has motivation to keep pursuing their goals, they keep resurrecting and keep their personhood. Once you give in despair and give up, you go Hollow. You still resurrect, but you are a mindless shell, simply sitting and waiting for the world to end.
Yep, the popular headcanon is that if you stop playing the game, your character has gone hollow and never did succeed in linking the flame (or becoming dark lord). Which also explains why you can die as many times as is necessary for you to beat any of these games and your character will never go hollow on screen.
@@themightymcb7310
Although there's also a separation between gameplay and lore in that, Undead don't actually respawn at bonfires, they just stay dead for a while and then get up later.
That's how Seath imprisoned you in the first game, he killed you, grabbed your body, and then dumped it inside a cell.
@@aldiascholarofthefirstsin1051 I do believe there is physical significance to the bonfires though. The lore seems purposely unclear on this matter. Otherwise, why would Havel and the other conspirators put the bonfire in the tunnel between valley of drakes and darkroot? What purpose would that bonfire serve if not a physical checkpoint for their mission?
@@themightymcb7310 You still gonna be depending on the bonfire for estus flask and as a resting point to recover some of your sanity/humanity after your death. Idk if leveling up from enemy souls is just a mechanic or an actual thing ingame, but the first few bonfires allowed you to temper your soul as well.
@@themightymcb7310 Do you think Seath intentionally constructed a bonfire in that first cell you wake up in? I understand that all or at least most of the bonfires are linked physically. Can't imagine the work that would go into plugging another bonfire into that already complicated and interconnected system.
It so funny to me how he starts off trying to 'so basically' sum it up, but can't help but dip into 'and so the waylaid ashen one doth enrages the father, awakening the flame that will burn away the-'
Damn vaush knows his shit. I'm still trying to understand the first game
He probably watched a bunch of lore videos haha
Nah he is saying stuff I never heard in videos
if it weren't for chat you'd understand the games even less after watching this lol
I love hearing Vaush talk about Dark Souls/Elden Ring lore, it's so good. Ariendel/Friede are my favorite bosses because of the lore, it's just so dark. Ariendel has like the most severe case of stockholm syndrome
Gael calls the painter "my lady" multiple times, which makes me think he once served or continues to serve her as one of her knights.
of cvoruse he his, his mission is to bring the dark soul to her
The painter refers to him as "uncle Gael", but it's referring to the informal and non-familial use of "uncle" here. It's clear they have a good relationship.
the ashen one visits a blacksmith multiple times, which makes me think they once trained or continues to train in the use of weaponry to kill foes
Vaati and Vaush debate let's goooo
"Let's say you crash land in Blight Town, with one other Undead..."
@@SA-mo3hq “hes already picked all the moss, and wont let you have any unless you let him dark hand you”
Not only is Friede an Ashen One but shes a Hollow of Londor, meaning she tried and failed to become a Lord of Hollows. If you’re pursuing that questline she’ll tell you to go back to your subjects outside the painting.
Its my theory that in her failure to defeat the Soul of Cinder she still desired to be a ruler, so she imposes her will upon the painted world and tries to make it last eternal. Just like Gwyn
11:40 Minor correction: no, ashen ones don't have a bit of the dark soul within them. It was consumed by the First Flame when they sacrificed themselves/were sacrificed to it. This is why they don't have humanity and it's replaced by embers as a game mechanic.
All humans have a bit of dark in them and ashen ones seem to be the same, Karla says something about that while teaching you dark spells.
"Humans are of the dark and you're no different"
And Gael before his boss fight tells you to give him your dark soul suggesting that your character have at least some humanity/darkness in them.
and your character can learn dark spells and their descriptions suggest they are born from the darkness of the humanity with in your character.
Also Frida uses dark fire and she is an Ashen one.
Remember that, in DS1, you get humanity, which are pieces of The Dark Soul, from helping your fellow man as a white phantasm. And to covet is also human, of course~.
The Dark Soul is a manifestation of craving, at it's core. The feeling of emptiness and the need to feel, whichever feeling that is.
All of the other Souls wanted to be austere statues, immune to time, perfect in solemnity. Fools.
The Furtive Pygmy knew only nothingness, and wanted only that all around it could feel something, anything, before a return to immortal nothing. In that it persists, despite everything
@@verager2493 "... Grant a fleeting will to the Dark of humanity, and volley the result, the will feels envy, or perhaps love, and despite the inevitable trite and tragic ending, the will sees no alternative, and is driven madly towards its target."
-Pursuers spell description DS1
"Be it sorcery or pyromancy, all techniques that infringe on humanity lead to the same place. That is to say, they all seek a will of their own."
-Black serpent spell DD3
humanity seems to also be "will" and maybe other emotions than craving like love or envy (but you could make the argument than envy and love are a form of craving).
That's probably why undead with strong will can mantain their humanity endlessly like Gael, the moment he saw his objective complete he lost the will to continue and turned hollow.
@@SkitariusNoKD I love the Persuer lore because it seems to me that it's powered by loneliness.
They want to feel humanity, so they press, slowly and plaintively towards you
@@verager2493 It could also be that the dark souls/humanity is powered by will like the lord souls were by the first flame, as long you have will power the strenght of the dark soul is everlasting but not has flashy as the lord souls, so the furtive pigmy saw the value in a more humble cualities like perseverance were the gods wanted grandiose omnipotence.
Pusuers is my favorite spell just because it's adorable but it's also quite sad, they just want a hug.
Dark Souls is the best video game series ever made full stop
Id like to prove you wrong
I’m more of a bloodborne simp.
But if that was declared as fact I wouldn’t be mad
@@lucasgroubert it’s essentially the same series so bloodborne counts too
This is true
@@RevolutionaryLoser what’s a better one?
so, the lord of hollows ending does actually suggest that it creates something new, a twilight age that blends light and dark. this is suggested to be the path forward by vendrick and aldia in DS2, and by yuria in DS3 (though she is literally leading a cult, the sable church of londor, so take her words with a grain of salt).
jury's out on whether it would be any better than the age of fire, but compared to every other ending, the possibility that something might have changed in the cycle is better than ending up in the ashen wasteland with gael.
The woman you fight at the end of the world invades you. Invading can go across time and into different timelines canonically. That's why players/NPCs invading you in Dark Souls is actually mentioned in the canon. You can also fight her before you fight Gael as long as you don't activate his cutscene
I think Vaush gets it a little backwards when he talks about pygmies and humans and sentience at the end. Dark souls 2 expounds this concept big time between Aldia and Vendrick's monologues. Sentience, individuality, and consciousness only exist because of the light of flame. Darkness returns man to his natural state, hollowness. I think darkness is a bit like instrumentality from envangelion; it is an abolition of the separation of self from others. Whether or not this is good is up to the player. It can represent peace, unity, wholeness, but it also means destruction of the self, which can be a very scary thing to confront.
the interesting thing is that there is a period of time, after fire but before gwyn brands humans with the dark sign, where all humans have full access to the dark soul.
it is implied through the ringed knight set and the dark hand in 1 and 3 that in this period, humans were essentially intelligent, killable hollows with deep wells of dark magicks at their disposal. they shared the dark amongst themselves through a precursor art to lifedrain, lived and forged weapons deep in the abyss and imparted their desires and wishes on their weapons, granting them quasi-living qualities.
these humans are the ones who participated in gwyn's war against the dragons, and though the dragons killed many scores of them (gough's dialogue in 1), many of them managed to kill dragons using their dark powers and claimed their heads as trophies (dragon head shields of the ringed knights in 3). their dark power is what convinced gwyn that the dark is a threat, and it's why he branded the knights and sealed their kings, the pygmy lords, away in the ringed city.
so, had gwyn not trembled at the dark, an age of dark would have been perfectly fine for the humans. they would probably have been weirdly intelligent hollows who spread the dark wherever they went, but in that state the dark is peaceful and friendly to all. it's not until their dark is burned out of them by the darksign, gwyn's brand, that they start to exhibit uncontrollable dark, malicious abysses and the loss of self associated with hollowing.
We are hollow untill our foolish ambitions drive us to be lord... don't you dare go hollow unkindled one
That would be true if not for the fact that you CAN go hollow and retain your sense of self. That's what the lord of hollows ending in Ds3 is.
Like her sisters and everyone else from Londor, Friede is almost definitely hollowed. Since she's also unkindled, she must bear Dark Sigils and conceals her nature by way of something like an Untrue Dark Ring. Her set descriptions mention her "renouncing everything." I think the idea here is that her sister founders of the Sable Church had originally planned to make her the Lord of Hollows but like so many others before her, Friede abandoned her quest to claim the power of the first flame after failing to do so before her resurrection as an unkindled.
Gael is my favorite character in the souls franchise. Him and the ivory king are some of the only true heros in the franchise
Also would like to add that raniis ending is the best ending for elden ring she cuts off the influence of the outer gods from the mortal world and she takes you and dips out to go voyage amongst the stars
And leaves the mortals to figure out things for themselves.
she leaves with the protagonist? So she creates a power vacuum
@@schnoz2372 land between didn't have functioning ruler by the time the player shows up so your point is...
@@schnoz2372 she literally fills the role of god, but then takes the godhood away from the lands between for " a thounsand year voyage into the stars" so that the darkmoon can watch the lands between far away, so no, it's not just creating a power vacum, she essentially took away anyone's power to become the vessel for an outergod in the lands between by cockblocking them
It honestly depends on how you see it.What she did imo was a good choice but did it worth all the suffering that the people felt and all the crimes that happens in the shattering.tho the world is no longer influenced by outer gods.the people who lives may not like that.so who knows what those people in LB would do.
Ranni essentially took the main problems away without bothering to fix anything.so i don't know if it's a good ending.
@@edwardkenway2441 but if she didn't take away the outer gods, it would be impossible to fix the situation as the gods are obviously powerful enough to beat down any uprising
he did a lore talk for bloodborn also. would be a good video to rewatch if you ever get around to putting that up
Why do I love to hear Vaush talk about media
One thing i love about ds is that even if you don't understand the lore the tone of the game gets through and still makes you feel the right things.
I still haven't forgiven them for Greirat 😭
Shout outs to my boy, Micolash.
Love you baby, never change.
agree with everything except the dark lord and usurpation of fire endings being fake. Sure we never see the result of these endings but they are clearly the most distinct endings composited from the knowledge of the other 3 games which isn't just "fake."
The usurpation of fire is a scam. The hollows of londor work for kaathe which you find out if you attack and kill Yuria. I don't trust kaathe at all and feel he's manipulating us. The only good ending to any dark souls game is the ending of the ringed city dlc where we paint a new world free from the corruption of the current world
I disagree with his interpretation of usurping the flame. it seems to me that when you take up the first flame inside yourself that it no longer exists as a physical entity and thus can no longer ever be fed the way it used to. light is no completely gone from the world or at least exists in a totally different form than it used to which is why the orange glow disappears from the sky. The hollows bow to you as a King which seems totally beyond the scope of hollows abilities under normal circumstances. Something about the world's logic seems to be fundamentally changed.
I want vaush to start a lore channel so bad
He literally just uses information from other lore channels.
@@JoeyCentral don't we all? Even Vaati credits others for their discoveries. The difficult part isn't finding the pieces, it's putting the puzzle together and trying to understand what the complete picture is
Destiny went hollow during this debate
I like the end of fire ending as my canonical dark souls ending. Reject fire, return to blind monke.
something i don't understand,
if you die in the painted world of ariandel you still get resurrected because you're still cursed with undeath, so then, how is Gael's new painted world any different?
the only difference i see is that the new painting will never rot because it's painted with dark soul, but what happens to YOU if you die in it? you're still cursed with undeath right? if not, what lifted your curse?
Painted worlds are grounded in the overworld still, they're just a bit more remote of a location, almost like a little pocket dimension.
For example, in the first game, you can use the Lord Vessel to warp to the Painted World of Ariamis, but you can't use it to leave. This was because that particular painting was used to contain things that Gwyn feared (namely servants of Velka and Crossbreed Priscilla)
@@themightymcb7310
yeab but paintings still follow the rules of the overworld right? that means the world aria created will still have hollows and undead in it, they have escaped the cycle but not the curse
@@aX0n777 Yeah, painted worlds don't really cycle like the outside world does, they just kind of are how they are. Any undead would still bear the darksign and would come back after death. The player character does and there are a bunch of hollows in Ariamis that respawn.
@@aX0n777 The Painted World was never meant to be an escape from the undead curse, which is obvious due to the fact that 99% of the population aren't undead.
Rather, The Painted World kinda has a cycle of it's own. As above the Age of Fire and Dark change back and forth, so below the Painted World rots, burns, then is painted anew. This is interesting given that Friede is facilitating the stagnation, just like her undead sisters in the cult of Londor.
the painted has nothing to do with the curse, in reality humans are immortal, they become mortal only when the flame is strong and time runs normally , when the flame starts to go out the dakr sign loses his power and humaninty start leaking from it, that's the real curse, and human start to not die anymore, The fact they become hollow is porbably an effect of the dark sign
bababooey
Very well, Bababooey One, touch the darkness inside me.
I think Friede doesn't come back because her body stays in the burning painting and ceases to exist with it OR alternatively, her failure to beat you breaks her spirit and she hollows, only to wander endlessly in the burning world until the new one comes and she subsequently ceases to exist
one of my favorite lore pieces in dark souls is the age of the abyss. i kinda hope that fromsoft makes a game (or dlc for a ds style game) where at least one area is what the abyss wouldve been in dark souls lore
ther is no age of the abyss, unless you mean the deep. We get a taste of that in the dreg heaps, with the murky men
i think you mean the age of dark.
what it would have been like is laid out in some scraps in the lore, a quiet, peaceful, cold age where humanity rules. maybe it would have ended as well and passed into something else, but it was supposed to just be night following day, nothing special really.
but gwyn didn't want his rule to end, so he subverted it and broke reality, linking himself and all souls to the first flame, making it so the flame cannot die permanently.
@@Yal_Rathol nope, turns out i meant the deep. Its the age of the deep sea that Aldrich saw in his vision. Where dregs sink into the deepest depths to form the new world later on. Just been long emough for me to confuse abyss with the deep, mostly because abyss sounds cooler
@@zakki9491 well "sinking into the deepest depths" is exactly what happens when the Abyss engulfs a place, so they're probably one and the same. I'd definitely prefer the stillness of Oolaciles Abyss over the eternal struggle of flame tho, even though everything bordering it becomes completely warped before finally being swallowed.
Ever since I was young I've always liked stories about the end times and people quietly witnessing the slow death of the world itself. One stand out favourite of mine is the anime Casshern Sins. Spoilers to the plot, it's the story of an android who is the embodiment of death wandering a world cursed by rot which previously enjoyed an eon of immortality. In his travels he meets many dying humans and robots desperately trying to give some meaning to their fleeting lives through art and other means. The protagonist finally concludes that he shall accept his original programming and provide death to mortals so that they may enjoy finding meaning to their lives, even though he never will. It's a real blast.
Casshern sins is Legit one of the best animes I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching, It’s one of the few animes I’ve watched where I would simply describe it as “beautiful”. From the shots to the story to the characters, and the MUSIC. it’s so “ artsy” and original, i love it lol.
Read The road
One theory is that Manus, Father of the Abyss, is the Furtive Pigmy
Thinking about hollowing and why npc's don't respawn. Maybe it's easier to hollow than we think. Like, look at the percentage of players who got end game achievements in the souls series. It's not a whole lot. So, where do we find most undead? They're usually at a pretty low point in their lives and some naked dude savaging them with a giant club would probably be what breaks them.
In DS1, definitely. Though, not every NPC is actually undead, like the Catarina knight's daughter. But crestfallen knight hollows by himself, the way of white dudes hollow from the horrors of the tomb of giants, it's really not that hard to lose yourself in the madness.
Popular explanation of what were humans before age of fire and first linking, suggest that humans as well as gods were mindless zombies just wandering the land w/o purpouse. Fire gave gods their purpouse and white souls of immortality (that we gather in game as currency), humans were gifted dark soul which gave also purpouse, no immortality, but it was unique so it could multiply indefinitely unlike white souls which were finite.
When Gwyn wanted to save the flame, he thought well if white souls are finite in nature the flame cannot be kept forever, so what other rescourse we have abundance of? Gwyn gave his soul up as a kindle but through that he also created something far far worse, The First Sin - linking of Dark Soul of humanity to the first flame, which was not smart to be lightly said. Through that humans became forever bound to the first flame and to white souls. You see the Dark Soul humans now enjoyed the benefits of first flame - immortality through connection of their being to the white souls of gods. But it also made them anchor their purpouse in the white souls, so when white souls run out humans hollow and lose their minds. When first flame is strong that doesn't matter, but when fire gets weaker, as Aldia have said "A lie will remain a lie", so humans are designed to return to their previous form which is impossible without losing mind because of the linking Gwyn did. So through Dark Sign of undead white souls spill out and humanity manifests. It is also popular theory that when we consume humanity or human effigy in DS1 & DS2 we are not actually repleneshing our dark soul, but we are giving the new target in which spilling of soul can occur so we buy ourselves time and reverse hollowing temporarly.
And because Gwyn fucked up so badly, humans cannot reverse this linking as dark soul grows stronger humans seek flame desperatly and the power of dark soul is infinite, so the cycle will never stop as there always be someone with dark soul to rekindle the fire again (unless somebody decides that he now consumes whole dark soul)
humans are actually the real immortals, they become mortals when the flame is strong and time floes normally,
Yea the problem is that immortality is almost always treated as a curse and humanity is treated as the thing that keeps people from going hollow. And humanity itself is some fragment of the dark soul. It is the dark soul that gives people their personalities and drive and meaningful life. Gwyn feared the power of the dark soul, with it being immortal and multiplying infinitely, not to mention all the crazy shit humans can do through it thanks to the lore, like traverse the abyss or make weapons out of it. So he put a seal on them, powered by the first flame. The humans are naturally immortal, but their power is limited through the seal which renders them mortal. And when the flame fades, which it eventually does, the seal can't rely on it as a fuel source and starts burning the humanity, the dark soul of the given undead to limit them, which eventually turns them into a mindless crazed (albeit not too powerful) shell of a human who's only goal is a desire to take the humanity, the dark soul of others.
I am so shit at Fromsoft games but I love the lore so much
the gael fight is probably not the end relaly fa rin the future, you can see lothric castle standing in the distance, while we know it's in ruins on top of the dreg heaps, so it may be before the soul of cinder fight. the ringed city was like in a time bubble thanks to filianore
wooooow
The intro explains why I have a dark souls tattoo
If you play Demons Souls you get to expirience the world before the fire was even needed. You witness the comming of the age of fog.
I personally believe the Sable Sisters are reincarnations of the Daughters Of Manus from DS2.
*Manus
Also, Ds2 🤢🤢🤢
Dark Souls is so good and Bloodborne is even better
Lore wise? I guess. Mechanic wise? Fuck no fuck no fuck no fuck no fuck no fuck no
@@littlemoth4956 Bb has one of the best fighting mechanics for those who can handle fast-paced gameplay and without a doubt one of the best upgrade systems. Lore wise obviously it can’t be beat. The game is rendered beautifully with its unique and intricate Gothic Victorian style. The only thing it’s missing is it’s lack of gameplay.
anyone do dnd in the darksouls verse?
I don’t but I have a friend who did I think. I’d be interested if I knew literally anyone else he plays with lol
4:48 had to pause here because hooboi 😤
4:50 oh thank god 😮💨
I'd love a game or DLC where you play as gael
I'm waiting desperately waiting for Vaush to talk about Elden ring some more
You mean soy out over Elden Ring like every obnoxious FromSoft fanboy.
I would still want to be immortal
14:00
I think talking to vaush about lore would be interesting. Listening to him is one of the most infuriating things ever. he is just way too confident in things he only knows the half truth on, or states his opinion on things that are kinda up for interpretation as fact. but like, go off.
Vaush knows more about souls lore than actual Lore channels no cap
lots of speculation
@@endofen9107 Most of the lore is literally speculation based on 3 lines of dialogue and some item descriptions.
These games get so complicated when you try to piece it together lol
As for frieda. When she dies, she does return to a bonfire... but in another universe. My take is that every time you come back, it's another universe branch
hmm, she might have returned to her version of the world (versions of reality do exist, see the "time is convoluted" talk with solaire), but i think its more likely she just finally died properly and returned to the bonfire. where that bonfire is? who knows, but it's probably not in the painting.
damn vaush. you explained this better than vatti did. I like his content but damn is it needlessly obtuse at times.
I always thought dark souls lore was too ridiculous for me.
The beard stroking is making me uncomfortable,lol
I think that being human is the og form of humanity but the first flame turns humans hollow by consuming their humanity
I think in DS1 it's pretty clear that men were originally hollows and it's only the Lord Souls that make them human. Without at least one of the Lord Souls there would be no humanity.
Opposite, actually - the original form of humans, before the first flame, were as hollows perfectly attuned to the dark. There's quite a lot of evidence for this - in the opening cutscene of DS1 the first flame shows up and we see a bunch of hollows emerge from the dark of the cave, showing that hollows existed before the flame and that this is their natural state of being. King Vendrick in DS2 says outright that men took a fleeting form when humans gained souls from the first flame and that when we cast aside the flame we'll regain our true form. Many items throughout the series also provide evidence of this, like the fact that quite a few items or spells linked to dark are outright named things like human pine resin, and that dark spells take on human emotions like Affinity. The fact that the pure dark, untouched by humans worshipped by the pygmies actually takes on a vaguely human shape should be enough to shake the idea that humans are anything but dark made flesh.
Take a drink every time I mention dark if you want alcohol poisoning.
why did the same sequence keep occurring, vaush would kill the dude and then the dude with the bowl resurrected him like 6 times
he was attempting to kill the boss but he was failing many times. you can also see death screen at times i think
@@vaushite oh I haven’t played this game yet so I wasn’t sure, thanks!
Im gonna get crap for this and I love Vaush, but to rag on a game as incredible as Nier Automata by saying it’s philosophical themes weren’t profound, the gameplay was boring, and that the story was almost pompous, it seems a little odd to blather on about a game series where the entire plot is only told through items which makes it feel like a cop out for actual writing, and where every game is exactly the same game mechanics and combat. Don’t get me wrong, I like the ambiance of the Souls games - they can be fun. But Souls is just the new Call of Duty of this generation in my opinion and a lot of it’s fanbase seem similar. Might be a controversial take, but literally every game coming out now just feels like a Souls game knock off and I kinda miss games that actually had things like…you know…personality. Character building, plot, events, and not everything just milking the open world thing.