Painting the End: A Dark Souls 3 Video Essay

แชร์
ฝัง
  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ม.ค. 2025

ความคิดเห็น • 60

  • @rhydercrust583
    @rhydercrust583 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +19

    Im a real loghead, you could call me a woodcel, i be lumbermaxxing

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  11 หลายเดือนก่อน +7

      This is the kind of energy I was hoping for, thank you

  • @SirZelean
    @SirZelean 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +7

    THIS! You perfectly explained what I felt the DS3 DLCs were. I remember understanding this and chatting with a friend of mine how this ending felt like the devs were almost begging us to leave this broken game world behind so something new could be born. Perfectly put!

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  7 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      Super gratifying to hear that the video resonated with you! Very glad you enjoyed it :)

  • @QuantumTelephone
    @QuantumTelephone 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    This is supereyepatchwolf at home. But your homelife is actually really nice and your mom and dad are thoughtful about getting you the right gifts and give you kisses and stuff

  • @Fauxhound
    @Fauxhound 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +10

    Im so FREAKING logpilled

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  11 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      Listen. You need to be logmaxxing. You need to be double logged, AT LEAST

  • @octopussquid6309
    @octopussquid6309 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +7

    I like how you framed the series, no pun intended. Video games as an artform is a really interesting topic and from soft games are always a good exercise in viewing them as such, they are generally pretty vague in their storytelling and require time to unravel their meaning for yourself. I always thought that lore youtubers created this weird dynamic where so many people watch their videos to find out about lore that what they think of the stories becomes gospel. Not hating on those people tho, they do great stuff.

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  11 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      Thanks a tonne! Glad you enjoyed. Another commenter just said that “textual knowledge informs metaphorical knowledge,” so in that sense the lore folks do incredible work - we need to know the stories to talk about them. I just wish they'd go the extra step after telling the story, and tell me what they think it means.

  • @damienjohn
    @damienjohn 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +9

    omg I'm such a loghead

  • @QuantumTelephone
    @QuantumTelephone 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    I'm logged up right now watching this. My log is so backed up it's about to splooge

  • @gopewdz4294
    @gopewdz4294 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +4

    Finally someone who gets it! Subbed!

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  11 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Thanks a lot! Welcome to the Log Zone

  • @topnott_4767
    @topnott_4767 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    Amazing video, instant sub

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  11 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Thanks so much, I’m glad you enjoyed it!

  • @mgxzazfbyjuchrisclarkvpz236
    @mgxzazfbyjuchrisclarkvpz236 4 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    What an eloquent way with words you have. Good stuff

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  4 หลายเดือนก่อน

      That’s really nice of you, thanks a lot!

  • @solarpellets
    @solarpellets 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +7

    I for one, as a new loghead, have no objections to the name
    In all seriousness, I don't think you have to choose between finding an "objective" narrative and feeling strongly about it. I can say that Gwyndolin is a male, was raised feminine, but wanted to be a guy so he started taking after his dad in the same breath that I recognize it as a commentary on societal gender roles, perception, preference, and expectations and that it speaks to me more than it would most as a transgender person. As for Malenia, you can recognize that, yeah, it's a metaphor for aristocracy and whatnot, but it's also a blight she was born with. Textual knowledge informs the metaphorical knowledge and vice versa. I would even argue that which side you focus on says more about you than specifically how it makes you feel.

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  11 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      Welcome to Logtown baby, population: you
      This is the kind of comment I love getting because it gives voice to the internal back and forth I had going while writing this.
      I absolutely agree with essentially everything you said. I’ll be talking in an upcoming video about the ways that Signalis lorehunters, specifically by doing deep narrative dives, helped me get my thoughts on that game straight- “Textual knowledge informs the metaphorical knowledge,” like you said.
      I’ve had this feeling of “so what” about Souls lore hunting specifically for a while because, I think, the focus is skewed too heavily toward a "wiki" approach of gathering objective facts about the story, without much consideration of what those stories are trying to say.
      When I hear these very literal theories about, for example, Malenia’s genes, or wondering what George Martin even did for Elden Ring, I come away thinking “how does this improve my experience with the game, beyond a “huh, cool.” (I know this sounds like I'm smelling my own farts but don't get me wrong - I respect the hell out of what these folks do. I could make what Vaati makes)
      Personally I’d love to see a move away from dissecting the lore and toward interpreting the lore, the way you did by relating Gwyndolin to the trans experience, and in that sense this video for sure says as much about me as it does about anything else

    • @solarpellets
      @solarpellets 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      @@BacklogReviewer My personal preference for framing around these games is the meta, why I like the game in the first place, how you can play the game, and then taking the meta and seeing how it relates to the textual and metaphorical. For example, the idea that Dark Souls can help people through depression by presenting a seemingly insurmountable challenge and telling you to overcome it, telling you that if you don't, you won't have purpose. It gives you reason and ability both in the game and real life and frames it around a metaphor in hollowing being depression. It's obviously not a perfect metaphor, we don't go around locking up and banishing depressed people... most of the time... anyway, point is, it doesn't need to be in the same way the textual interpretation is and the way the two clash is fascinating. Overall, there is a lot of metaphorical looking into the game, but it's almost always framed around the meta effect, rather than presenting the metaphor itself. Challenge runners pull it off best, I think. The other "The Backlogs," Lemon, has a video of him beating Dark Souls 2 with only immolation and the ending waxes philosophical about the toll of doing the challenge runs and what it really feels like to play them. "All I had to do was push forward, head bowed and back broken from the strain." I understand the value and joy from a purely metaphorical reading, but I will always fall back on how that metaphor applies to me, you know?
      You know, maybe I should make an essay about Gwyndolin, relating it to myself 🤔

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  11 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      They're a funny series that way in that they present such a complete fictional world, but sometimes they cut through to real life in a really clear and startling way. Noah Gervais made a great link between DS2 and modern America in his video (linked in the description) that I've been chewing on for over a year.
      I'm gonna see if I can track down that DS2 challenge run you mentioned - sounds right up my street.
      I'd certainly watch/read the hell out of an essay about Gwyndolin and the trans experience - you should absolutely write that!

    • @solarpellets
      @solarpellets 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      @@BacklogReviewer I finished that essay. I have it scheduled for the 11th at around 8am pst for algorithm reasons, but it's done lol.

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  11 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      No way, so cool that you went ahead and wrote it! I subbed, I dinged the bell, I will be seated @@solarpellets

  • @QuantumTelephone
    @QuantumTelephone 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    A very goodly video. Thank you, this was a gift

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  10 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      Lmao, checking my notifications this morning was such a delight. Glad you enjoyed it! I particularly enjoyed the idea of the age of paint btw, that is very funny

  • @beccabeebee
    @beccabeebee 9 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    this is an absolutely phenomenal video, i can't believe it hasn't blown up more!! needless to say i'm logged in the head, i'll be logging on the daily from now on, you won't catch me lacking in the log department, i'm logging af man i'm a freak fr

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  9 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      Wow, that’s really kind of you to say, thanks! Always glad to have converted someone to the church of log, very happy to know you will be logmaxxing from here on in

  • @Soul_Of_A_GracelessTarnished
    @Soul_Of_A_GracelessTarnished 4 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    I LOVE your videos. This is the exactly what the souls community needs

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  4 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Thanks so much! I’m really happy you’ve enjoyed them - more on the way!

  • @kristenstoumann8345
    @kristenstoumann8345 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    What if one could play it selflessly, by healing the undead, from the affliction of the dark sign at the cost of ones own healthbar, but it would slowly heal itself, and by doing this "train" up your soul, to heal quicklier as well. And then perhaps if you choose the linkin the fires after such a game it would be very visible that the flame had regained its stregnth and vitality.

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  11 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      This actually sounds a little bit like Pathologic

    • @kristenstoumann8345
      @kristenstoumann8345 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      @@BacklogReviewer never heard of that game(pathologic) actually got the idea of it from the demon souls, the Maiden that wanted to help the people in that horrific Valley, which also had split of from her church, but unfortunately was one of the demons one needs to kill

  • @QuantumTelephone
    @QuantumTelephone 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    I never thought the ending of dark souls would be the age of paint. I'll give them that

  • @thegregnorton
    @thegregnorton 9 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    As a non-gamer who watches a lot of from software lore vids, I really enjoyed this perspective on the storytelling

  • @maxims.4415
    @maxims.4415 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    Allow me to point out one particular thing that always bugged me in the mainstream understanding of lore.
    It is commonly said among fans that the universe of Dark Souls constantly circles between Ages of Fire and Ages of Dark. An interpretation that this essay takes for granted, mentioning the "endless repetition" - and based on it, concludes the finale to be essentially an ultimate end of all things, impending and unavoidable.
    But I just don’t see it this way.
    If we look in the literal text of the lore, as spelled for us in all three games, than it will become very clear the Age of Dark *never truly came*. It was about to come, many-many times, but each and every one of them it was postponed by yet another… well, human sacrifice, essentially. The history of the Dark Souls universe in not a harmonious, natural cycle moving slowly towards its natural end - it’s an artificial, off-balanced, unsustainable system created by the people in power and unknowingly maintained by everyone else. If in the very first cycle, the Age of Dark was allowed to happen, then… well, nobody knows what would have happened exactly, but perhaps humanity could have adapted. Perhaps civilization would endure. And perhaps by the time of DSIII, the world would be a flourishing place, rather than a scorched barren desert we see in game.
    When looked through this lens, the underlying story of the trilogy becomes not of entropy and stagnation, but of humanity’s shortsightedness - shortsightedness of maintaining the status quo with no regard for the long-term consequences.
    And ending, though still bleak, becomes at least vaguely hopeful - yes, the world as it was for centuries finally crumbles down for good, and the darkness settles at last. But maybe, just maybe, after that darkness, something better, something less self-destructive would emerge in the old world’s place?
    After all, they did add the whole "One day, tiny flames would dance among the darkness…" line for a reason.
    Sorry if this rant was too long.

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  10 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      So you're completely right that the cycle doesn't go from age of fire to age of dark and back again. Gwyn's sin was to usurp the age of dark by tying humanity to the first flame. The universe of DS is sort of like a scratched record - it's trying to play a continuous song but Gwyn has made it so the needle keeps playing the same section over and over. I've always figured that's why time is screwy, because it's been bent back on itself, repeating Gwyn's glory days over and over, the future spooling out like ribbon from a casette tape, ruined and unusable and lost.
      Please correct me if I'm wrong (I can't rewatch my own video again, I watched it so many times in editing lmao), but I think the main point I make regarding cycles in the essay is to compare the cycle of rot - rebirth of the painted world to the fading of the first flame in the universe at large. The fading of the fire is itself a cycle with definite indicators - appearance of the dark sign etc.
      With that in mind I'd definitely argue that the third game, if not the trilogy at large, is absolutely a story about stagnation - not the stagnation of light and dark rotating in and out, because that would constitute equilibrium. Like you said, it's the stagnation of an unbalanced system, the stagnation of a world forced to play out the age of fire on repeat until the end of time.
      I think your interpretation is really interesting, and there's absolutely some stuff you said that I will magpie for my own headcanon, but there's definitely a couple points I'd contest. I think you place a level of responsibility on humanity, whose age never came, whose essence was used as kindling for innumerable generations, that isn't really supported by the text. That's completely fine of course, interpret every pixel how you want, every interpretation is a valid one, but the game is definitely more sympathetic to humanity and what's become of them than condemnatory, I think.
      Humanity aren't maintaining the status quo out of short sightedness, they were deceived, and even when they do allow the fire to go out, it is always, inevitably rekindled - tiny flames dancing in the darkness and all of that. It would take every hollow, every human from DS1 right through to the ringed city choosing not to rekindle the flame for the age of fire not to be rebirthed from the ash - and that doesn't even mean an age of dark will come. It only takes one ashen one, one bearer of the curse, one chosen undead, to reset the clock back to 0.
      I've always interpreted the flames dancing in the darkness as a kind of wink to the player from the devs, an acknowledgement that the cycle isn't over, the fire will flare again. It's part of why I love the DLC ending so much. DS3 isn't a game at all concerned with closure, with breaking the cycle, but about finding a way to live with it. The DLC is a hopeful window into a world outside of the cycle, something new built on the promise of the age of dark, the age that never came.
      Lastly, never apologise for leaving an essay/rant on this channel, I eat long comments like this for breakfast lmao, I love that shit. I love these games, I love to talk about them and I will always reply with an even longer and more ridiculous comment

    • @maxims.4415
      @maxims.4415 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      ​@@BacklogReviewer
      When I mentioned "humanity's shortsightedness", I meant it in a more general, even somewhat allegorical way, with "humanity" referring to all sapient beings rather than just to the pygmy descendants. What I meant is that firelinking tradition isn't enforced by one guy, but maintained by a society at large - much like in our world, some things may be self-destructive, yet maintained by society as a whole.
      And yes, I do think that pygmy-descendants-humans are indeed guilty, at least in part. Gwyn might have been the one who started it all, but after his death, the whole system was maintained by humans for centuries, possibly even millennia, even when there were almost no gods left.
      As for the ending, I always felt that the "link the fire" ending of DSIII is meant to indicate that fire is on its last legs - just compare how explosive it was in the first game, and how weak it is here. You fed the First Flame what basically amounts to 6 chosen undeads at once, and yet it barely flickers! The way I see it, the flame's basically gone, and even if your character can still squeeze one more cycle out of it, it will probably be the last one, regardless of how many undeads will attempt to kindle it after you.
      And the "tiny flames" - well, to me, it reads less like "the fire will be inevitably rekindled by someone" and more like "hundreds of thousands of years from now, after dark, when the world is cooled down, a completely new flame will arise on its own with new souls, new lords and new everything, even though we won't be here to see it". But that's just my interpretation - the ending is obviously quite vague.

  • @J_CtheEngineer
    @J_CtheEngineer 4 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    Here for the log

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  4 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Hell yeah, get lumberpilled

  • @pkthunder416
    @pkthunder416 4 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    They painted the Crucible from Elden Ring, but even that acceptance didn't last

  • @suhfee
    @suhfee 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    laying logs of truth all day

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  10 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      We drop em hot and fresh here

  • @ianwilliams2632
    @ianwilliams2632 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    "Where's the tab for how it made ya feel, Vaati?"
    I've asked this about his work since a year or two before ER came out. His earliest videos were short, and asked poignant questions about how various character arcs and stories in Dark Souls made people feel -- how they might influence our own daily lives. Since then, he merely regards lore as trivia, or bland archaeological strata, like many do. Just some cool facts about obscure things.
    To be fair, though, the latest FromSoft game created an emotionless archive mindset. Nothing in that world is human so much as it is mere information. Elden Ring feels hollow, shallow, spread thin, uninterested in engaging the emotion like Souls did. It's pared down to an intellectual exercise of discovering esoteric facts -- not even facts, because even the most basic timeline & motivations of main players in the history is still unknown. I feel like ER was Miyazaki's attempt to parody himself and his fanbase, and he succeeded.
    I do think we can combine in-game literalism with appreciation of symbol. Of course you can see Malenia's rot as a metaphor for aristocracy & royalty. I find that absurd, personally, because Gowry explicitly says the Rot they worship is nothing less than the cycle of life and death incarnate. Latter-day aristocracy is, of course, a social attempt to stave off change. It can be stagnation incarnate. But its insistence on its purpose rooted in warfare is also a prime mover of change.
    FromSoft's mature work under Miyazaki ultimately wants to say that there is no difference between anything, imo. If you let go, you hold on; if you die, you live again, if you say yes, you say no. Even disparity is made up of equal opposites. No fire without shadows cast, no shadows without a flame to illuminate objects. No life without death, no stagnation without rebirth, no cleansing waters without standing pools. It goes on forever and ever, from the personal to the social. The purposelessness of eternal cycles is a stable ground to allow us to develop purpose. For thy duty, whatever it may be.
    I'm glad you've made this video to try to pry a line between the two opposites of meaning and fact.

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  7 หลายเดือนก่อน

      I find myself asking that question while watching a lot of Elden Ring lore vids - there's a culture that's sprung up about lore hunting for game that really neglects anything but that 'conspiracy board approach,' and it often fails to justify itself.
      I don't at all agree that Elden Ring is emotionless or encourages an archival mindset though - I'd even say it has some of the most tragic and human characters From has ever written. Morgott is an example I always come back to. He haunts us from the first area of the game and appears in the second-last bosses opening cutscene. His characterisation is ver strong, and his story speaks to some of the larger themes of the game - the destructive hypocrisy of societal expectation, how systems of power must crush and alienate minorities in order to self-perpetuate.
      I'll admit that the Malenia example I used here was weak as hell though lmao - it was an off-the-cuff that interpretation that occurred to me while recording. I wanted to include it as an example of a reading of Elden Ring's symbolism that's separate from the lore, an interpretation of the game as opposed to a reading of the words of it's item descriptions.
      I really love the way you close out your comment - prying meaning from fact was precisely what I was going for, and I'm so glad you got something from it! The youtuber SolarPellets made a really cool video in response to this one that I'd recommend watching if you can - she talks about the ways that meaning is inextricable from fact, and it makes for a really nice rebut to some of what I said here.

  • @tidalgrunt
    @tidalgrunt 5 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    Just watched your Elden Ring/RR Martin video and didn't even realise you had less than 1k subs, thats wild.

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  5 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Haha, glad to hear you’re enjoying the videos! Thanks a lot 👌

  • @monkeydluffy9131
    @monkeydluffy9131 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    were here

  • @pkthunder416
    @pkthunder416 4 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    CRUNDER!

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  4 หลายเดือนก่อน

      (banging my fists on the table) CRUNDER CRUNDER CRUNDER CRUNDER

  • @howdyfriends7950
    @howdyfriends7950 5 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    logheads logheads

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  5 หลายเดือนก่อน

      I love getting these comments lmao

  • @QuantumTelephone
    @QuantumTelephone 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    You should rename your channel "The Crunder Backlog". Sorry for posting so much but I'm trying to boost your numbers and engagement so this pops off

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  10 หลายเดือนก่อน

      I need you to know that I have no way of dismissing comments that I haven’t replied to, so every time I open TH-cam analytics the first thing I see is the phrase “crunder backlog.” It’s consistently a delight

  • @TheKrozoa
    @TheKrozoa 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    Great video! I'm a log head now :)

    • @BacklogReviewer
      @BacklogReviewer  11 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Thanks so much! Welcome to the log zone babyyyyy