Why Did Gwyn Link the Fire?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- Today I want to talk about the first flame and the age of fire, and what I think Gwyn hoped to accomplish, or prevent, with his sacrifice. I've wanted to make this video for a long time actually, but the response to my last video gave me the courage to put my thoughts out there. I really appreciate your viewership. I also apologize for the inconsistent audio quality. I don't have an ideal setup for voice recording, and I've never done it before, so I hope to be able to improve it in any future videos.
The Lord of Sunlight looked upon the coming age with fear, for his eyes couldn’t peer into the Dark. Rather than let his age end in a glorious flare or a peaceful rest, he condemned it to rot. Twisting and curling in on itself until it became a brittle thing, clinging desperately to a life as hollow as those he’d cursed.
*chef's kiss*
Someone cooked here.
Because it was cold. And dark.
good job on this video! criminally underrated channel 🎉
@@z_skafi wow thanks so much! I spent so much time on it by the end I couldn’t tell if it made any sense at all
@ yea you got yourself a sub
That was a great 4am video.
Keep it up.❤
Thank you so much! I know that vibe all too well
Great video essay
Thank you so much! I'm glad you found something worthwhile in it
Wow wat a great video! Excellently edited and brilliantly written
Do you think Gwyn regretted his actions?
That's a great question. In his hollowed state I don't think he could regret, but if he got the chance to make the choice again, I don't think he'd choose differently. The world that Gwyn ruled was one defined by disparity. It causes immense pain, but the ability to feel pain is the trade we make to feel love and hope. The world Gwyn overthrew was defined by very little, and its inhabitants existed in a state neither living nor dead; an afront to all Gwyn held dear. An afront to the sanctity of his age of fire. If, in humans, he saw something similar; something cold and empty, perhaps peaceful but devoid of that which makes us yearn for peace at all: fear, violence, hope, love, etc, then I doubt he would feel regret over his choice. Thanks so much for the question!
Great video my man.
Thank you!
imo there is some stuff lost with the localization that to me just makes things a lot clearer about life, light, dark, gwyn and etc
1- life in dark souls didnt come about as spontaneously. fire brought disparity, and as the ds3 fire keeper goes on to state in her EN and JPN lines, souls are the power of disparity, each firelinking filling the world with more of it as shanalotte says in ds2's throne ending. it was via souls that the archdragons, called transcendental beings, gained the poison of life as miyazaki says in a podcast interview, where they became half-mineral and half-living. the age of ancients, or the old age per the jpn, was wakatarezu/分かたれず, undistinguished, not unformed. only dragons of rock, fauna of rock, and rock existed in this mineral sameness. the jpn term for "they" is "several animals" (幾匹か), meaning, animal life came to be after fire came around, which isnt spontaneous, thus requiring process from a common ancestor. since the archdragons are the first to predate fire, they naturally would be the first living beings after fire's beginning, and we see a trace of that ancestry in the giants.
in ds3, we get the confirmed existence of horned giants, or oni, which solves the great horned skull of ash lake back from ds1, its from a horned giant. but why would some giants bear horns? the positioning of the skull next to an archdragon descendant implies to me that they have to be related, and this is further implied with the skeleton in the tomb of the giants which walks on four. that skeleton from a giant possesses a small tail, a dragon-like face with sharp fangs, with other giant remains littering the graveyard sharing similar features, but some even lacking a distinct pelvic region, instead having a continuous ribcage akin to that of a snake, and claws. taken together imo, there is a clear evolutionary line between the giants and a serpentine ancestor likely tracing their lineage to actual serpents, and thereby dragons, since serpents are called imperfect, or "failed-to-be" (なりそこない) dragons. if modern giants descend from dragons, what stops from the oni descending from them too, the horns being a remnant of their ancestry? if there are wyverns, wyrms, snakes, both called descendants and failures to be dragons, and even hydras and basilisks and two-headed lizards having snake/dragon-like features, then what stops all life in the animal kingdom being descendants from the archdragons who first gained life?
2- the dark soul, despite being aligned with disparity's dark, is still a byproduct of fire's disparity. when igniting souls, the flame they produce share an aspect of the soul. dark souls ignite dark flames. izalith's lord soul when ignited birthed a life-producing fire, thus, its a byproduct of her life soul. but the nature of the dark is unique because, just as light is time, the dark is space, evident with the dark hand, which uses the power from the Dark Soul, generates or warps space to make a shield, this dominion confirmed by ds2's repel and twisted barricade, which warps space due to the dark. the dark/hollowing is also called "greedy" in the japanese script, for it is all consuming, dark fog saying that the dark is a poison to man who are even persons of dark, with other items like server/sacrificial blade, ds3's dark hand, sapping away at one's life due to its power, lifedrain, or "life-eating"/"spiritsucker", this vampiristic aspect explaining why there are humanity which heals us imo. the dark soul is also capable of giving birth to spontaneous life, seen with the vagrants, or “wandering spirits” (さまよう精霊), byproducts of disimbodied humanity, or the horns in the ringed knight sword, said to be tinged with life, or ds2's homonculi weapons, called in the jpn "small man/persons/humans" (小人). the dark is associated with luck, since ds1 increasing our item discovery when using a humanity, ds3 confirming this ultimately. humans are inherently lucky, but why? this suggests that luck is an actual force affecting the outcome of events in spacetime, which ties directly into the concepts of karma or destiny. the universe undoubtedly moves in a specific direction, and those affected positively by that direction are naturally fortunate, after all, once fire fades, only dark will remain. time stagnates because fire's light is fading, and the dark will overtake space. the dark is greedy because itll take everything. the gods, persons of fire, fear the dark because it will last for eternity, as man once did
3- godhood in dark souls is a status. one can marry into anor londo royalty and become a god, as we see with seath becoming an "outside relative" of gwyn *as* Duke, gaiseki (外戚) referring specifically to family of the king’s mother, consort, or princess. filianore was handed over to the pygmy royalty as its wife, as her internal name, of well wife, says it 妻. gwyn was also married to his wife to bear children, so it cant be her. the only female left of gwyn's family is gwynevere. by becoming duke, he gained godhood, as seen with the channelers, or the "evangelists" (伝道者) who wear "holy garments" (聖衣). one can lose godhood as we see with the nameless king. members of gwyn's clan/race may not be gods, but all gods are part of it. havel in the japanese isnt a bishop, but has a following of priests and warriors who worship him, quelana isnt a human nor a giant, which given her long age, may be part of gwyn's race, as did izalith and others. in ds2, we also get humans who are deified, like pharis becoming evlana due to *people* perceiving them as such. the gods worked hard to ensure that is how people see them, their godhood being attributed to an aspect of them, the war god firstborn, mcloyf, god of alcohol and drinks, etc.
4- the age of dark while sharing traits with the age of ancients, most certainly will have life in it, for it still is an age of the world which was affected by fire's disparity, since dark didnt exist without fire. it'll quite literally be an age without light or time, since in ds3's fire keeper ending, the sun fades alongside the first flame, making the sun a byproduct of fire, and the convolution/stagnation of time a byproduct of fire's fading. gwyn didnt create the darksign nor the curse when he linked the fire. all of mankind has this "dark ring", so this needs them to have been in a single, contained place where the gods could brand all of man, the ringed city confirming this happening long before the firelinking and the dragon hunts. the darksign ultimately seals the dark of man within a ring of fire, thus making man rely on the white souls they had since before the dark soul's discovery to build memories and so on, their self. if the dark soul is sealed, it cant have this same process as our white soul did, so it'll always be acting per its greedy nature, to consume. as told in homing soulmass of ds1, souls has a natural attraction towards souls, life. fire likewise captivates life, holding a fascination that dates back to the lords discovering the lord souls. in essence, while the soul is certainly the source of life, it is but a byproduct of fire, and life’s yearning for both is nostalgia for its primal origin. the soul inherent in a living being recognizes the link, and reacts accordingly. humanity is still a soul, so it will be attracted to other souls to consume them due to the dark.
what does this have to do with the darksign or curse? as said in ds1's cinematic, when fire began to fade, the curse began to appear. the darksign is ultimately a ring of fire. by fire's fade, the darksign fades too, thus releasing the imprisoned dark within man. that dark then begins eating away at our white soul, hence the loss of memories, the loss of self many hollowing go through, until they all become a hollow husk puppetered by a wild dark soul. but, hollows dont die, as the many white souls in ds1 we can loot state in the jpn, they belong to hollows who stopped moving, ds3's corpse with the dusk crown ring in irithyll dungeon alluding to this. as yuria and vendrick say, the true form of man is their hollow form. when we die, we ultimately return to the state where our dark soul is in control, and if man are persons of dark, then it is their true self. but what makes humanity so unique from all other life? the jpn of the ds1 butcher knife states that man has forgotten their "fear of prey", with vendrick in the japanese saying that: "Eventually fire will cease and Dark will become a curse. Man will be released from death and acquire eternity. Per the form of the Dark we had once come to possess. The story of falsehoods will end…"
humanity was superior than life, it had no time, ageless immortals. thats why man forgot the fear of prey, or why gwyn feared the dark and the coming of a new dark lord/king of dark, because they were a threat to his dominence by being eternals. by gwyn brading man, it gave them the most terrible curse, time. humans in dark souls live quite short life-spans, 100 years max as we see with logan or vendrick, while other beings like sif, basilisks, and the gods like gwyndolin and NK and been around for who knows how many years. by sealing away the eternal dark of man, it restricted man's potential and as we see with anti-dark organizations like the way of white/church, it made man far easier to manipulate, to make them forget they are persons of dark. the gods brought the curse upon themselves, and if they took away the darksign, they would undo all years of brainwashing they did on man about their origins, so they had to adapt, this birthing the firelinking ritual we undergo in all 3 games. gwyn's fear of the Dark probably simply surpassed his fear of death. if the Age of Dark came about, he and the gods would be forgotten and nothing would remain, for it would be the age of humans as kaathe puts it, of dark. he was an egotistical man and would rather die in a literal blaze of glory than see the monuments to his greatness, arguably his last bastion at immortality, collapse before his very eyes. THAT is why he went to link the fire
sorry for the long divided text, but i hope this whole essay is informative! :D
@@Nobrezmil I appreciate the insight. Don’t worry about the length, I find the information fascinating. What makes you think Gwyn only feared the loss of his image?
So if gwyn was scared of humans... he looks human... what is he? Are the other soul bearers not human either?
@@tabunga4669 that’s a great question. Humanity, in Dark Souls, refers specifically to the descendants of the Pygmy. They are people endowed with the dark soul. The first pronoun used for Gwyn and the other lords is they, (Then from the dark they came, and found the souls of lords within the flame), (with the strength of lords they challenged the dragons). I find that interesting because it avoids naming him as a human or a king. He is viewed by the people in the world as a god/lord, and he worked very hard to achieve that. I think it’s interesting to note that his godhood is not innate, it comes from the Lord Soul he claimed in the fire. Humans in Dark Souls are defined as much by hollowing, or the undead curse, as anything else, and hollowing is a condition unique to humans. So Gwyn and the other lords are something in the shape of humans, but different in some sense. Not bound by the dark soul.
@@hollowedmorihollowing is definitely not a thing unique to humans, just the curse itself.
In the intro, we see what the narrator only calls ‘they’, beings that look like hollows; soulless husks. These beings go on to be Gwyn and his gods, the humans, Izalith and her daughters, and Nito.
At the end of the game, we see Gwyn with his soul almost burnt to ash has taken on a hollow form. That’s because he’s reverting back to his state before he claimed the lord soul, a soulless husk, a hollow. That’s what the curse is, it drains humans of their dark soul and makes them hollow as they once were, and that’s why they can’t die. Something that has no soul, but a will, cannot be extinguished.
@@NoLifeKing_0 Very good point. I should have spoken more clearly.
@@NoLifeKing_0 hollowing is exclusively a human phenomena, for it is said in the original japanese of ds1's cinematic that the darksign only appears on *man*, not the living as the localization puts it. the "they" referred in the cinematic are just "several animals" (幾匹か), meaning, civilized races that we know of didn't exist back then, only beings akin to lions, hawks, wild animals that lived simple lives, these humanoids included, with the gold hemmed set, which predates the age of fire/lord soul discovery, suggesting people dealt with everyday plagues or disease given its high resistances.
the soul is also called the source of life. you cant live if you dont have a soul, thus beings we call hollows too have a soul which renders them immortal, since white souls in the original game describe them to belong to hollows who "stopped moving" instead of dying (i explained this more in my comments in this video). thus, before the lord souls, every humanoid we see in the cinematic, whether that may be a pygmy, or one of gwyn's clan, had to have a standard white soul in order to be alive (those like "soul of a lost undead" for example)
gwyn and his clan of gods are also persons of fire, not persons of dark as the japanese script puts it. the gods dont hollow, only humans, because only humans have the dark soul in them. the dark soul/dark/man are also called greedy, and has many vampire-like atributes, like lifedrain being called "life-eating"/"spiritsucker". the gods are also stated to be responsible for the darksign in man in the description of the ringed knight set iirc, so it is nonsensical for gwyn to seal his source of immortality when he isnt even a human in the first place. aldia also says this in the original japanese script: *"The one who once became the King of Light shut away the Dark of the name “man”… And so man acquired a transient form. That is undoubtedly the beginning of this world’s logic, and all of man exists within a false life."*
the transient form is our "human form". every time we die we go back to being a hollow, for as vendrick later puts it, it is our original form, per the dark man had once come to possess. since the hollow form is attributed to man's dark, it can be thus understood that it is a byproduct of the dark soul sealed in the darksign, a ring of fire. once fire fades, the darksign fades too, and since humanity was sealed for who knows how long, it didnt grow beyond its greedy instinct to consume, hence why hollows are also called soul-starved, or why those hollowing lose memories, because their standard soul which memories were developed, their self, is being eaten away by their wild dark soul, a hollow essentially being a being puppetered by wild humanity
@@NoLifeKing_0 it is a human phenomena, the original japanese script in ds1's cinematic says that the darksign only appears on man, not the living. likewise, the gods are also called persons of fire instead of persons of dark. ds2 and ds3 later say that the gods are the reason why the darksign and in consequence exists, because they sealed away the dark within man, aldia best putting it in his original japanese dialogue:
"The one who once became the King of Light shut away the Dark of the name “man”… And so man acquired a transient form. That is undoubtedly the beginning of this world’s logic, and all of man exists within a false life."
this transient form is our human form, for every time we die, we come back to our original hollow form as vendrick and later on yuria state. souls are also stated to be the source of life, u cant live if u dont have a soul, thus hollows too have souls, something implied in the jpn descriptions of white souls we can loot in ds1 stating that they belong to hollows who stopped moving, irithyll dungeon's corpse with the dusk crown ring alluding to this. we dont have any idea on who the beings in the cinematic are, for they are called "several animals" in the original japanese (幾匹か), but they most certainly arent hollows, since the darksign didnt yet exist when the pygmy found the dark soul. i recommend looking at my comments in this video, i clarify there more on the curse's nature, and looking at a book and the analyses of "lokey" in his blog, a really good lorebro in the souls community who looks at the original japanese to see stuff lost in localization and uses lots of evidence to back up his takes