Fancy seeing you here @SmoughTown, I love your videos and Hawkshaw’s videos too. Dark Souls II is such a great and fun game, it doesn’t deserve all the hate that it gets, it deserves praise and it’s lore definitely deserves more praise, because it does play important roles within the entirety of the Dark Souls Timeline.
Need that Elden Ring book man. Also props for keeping the price very fair for the enormous amount of work I know went into it. The quality looks insane.
Aldia urging the bearer of the curse to look beyond the cycle of light and dark, and Vendrick advising them to seek strength as the foundation to face adversity is one of the best storytelling in Dark Souls and its criminal they play such a minimal role in ds3
Yeah I love their duality as brothers and how different their views of life are when it comes to the curse At the end of the day, it was Vendrick's way that ended up being the true one - the Bearer of the Curse seeks strength in the crowns of other great kings, and eventually beats the curse, unable to go hollow (if wearing one of said crowns)
Tbf, looking beyond the cycle was continued with the Painter wanting to start a new world altogether. Characters like Gael and Sulyvahn clearly were inspired by that mindset too.
It's nice they included the Drang knights in DS3, and a few other weapons / armor pieces from DS2 but man playing thru 3 right now feels like the stuff from 2 was just added mostly as an afterthought.
the lion-men aren't made by aldia, they are stranded forossans from most likely eleum loyce given the shrine of winter's vicinity which thanks to their lion culture and worship over faraam took on a lion form, thats why they called either demi-humans (亜人) or subhumans in the jpn, and also why the lion axe makes a point that they are too sophisticated to be a "lion tribe" along with the devs in the design works confirming that they are humans which were cursed, likely in this case by their own obsessive worship the kobold, or roaming dogs per the JPN, thanks to the collector's edition guide, are said that they are native to things betwixt and are implied to have been dogs experimented by aldia, hence why only in aldia's keep and shaded woods do the ones there drop aldia-related items, its kind of like the irl gist of dogs being experimented upon by humans i can tell more if u want on discord, my name there is RafaelBalbinus
Aldia, similar to how giantdad was made canon in ds2 with a item description, is essentially the canon manifestation of souls lore masters. He is one of the most important characters in the entire series, and I’m glad people have started to acknowledge that fact instead of trying to act like ds2 never happened like how it was a few years ago. So much can be gleamed from looking into what he was studying - with bits of his character traits can still be found in characters like rykard, midra, ymir, and shabiri to name a few just from ER.
I shouldve gone into more detail on the ashen mist heart and a few other things. I might do a follow up rant style video, stay tuned. Next up, the penguin video
Okay, DaS 2 is my favourite game from the trilogy, so I’m gonna outline my lore interpretations before I watch this. This is the midtimes of the linking of the fires. We go to multiple kingdoms that have both linked the fire and acquiesced to dark, respectively. The lost sinner used her pyromancy to replicate the witch of izalith. The rotten accepted the old soul of the dead. Which also meant it accepted all of the trash from Majula. the old iron king attempted to be as influential as Gwyn, The Duke of brightstone cove Tseldora wanted to be as intelligent as the old Duke of the archives, but he couldn’t and decided to let a remnant of the old duke become as strong as possible. All of which are tragically exactly what vendrick wanted.
I didn’t know Pontiff was originally planned to be the final boss fight. Tbh I think he should have been. I like Soul of Cinder but Pontiff’s pure influence over the plot of DS3 can not be understated
Although it was hard to understand in the game (as most souls games are), your explanation of ds2’s story within the ds3 and ds1’s sphere is very well said and easy to understand, which gives me more respect for ds2 in general as it was asking the big questions, reflecting back to the past game and the player’s decisions within it .
I think that taking the throne is more than just linking the fire; it represents the continuation of the light/dark cycle that Gwyn put the world into. Nashandra wanted to sit on that throne more than anything else, and something tells me she would definitely not have linked the fire, regardless of whether we do when we sit on it (which isn't even shown in that ending cutscene, it's left open to our own interpretation). Aldia's dialogue when you choose to leave the throne spells it out much more clearly, saying we are going "beyond the scope of light, beyond the reach of dark." This clearly tells us that leaving the throne is the act of abandoning the entire cycle of light/dark and trying to find a third path beyond what was offered to us in DS1; a way to break the curse, not to surrender to it or to overcome it.
Yeah I've always seen the throne as encapsulating both the endings of DS1. The idea that the two choices at the end are PART of the cycle. Choosing the dark ending is not rebellion, it is factored into the system, if that makes sense?
The amount of things you linked together in this video really justifies how long I've been hearing you say that it's coming this is seriously impressive
Dark souls 2 is my favorite game and I must say, I haven’t seen anyone else give it the justice you have, so far you’ve already by 23:53 created more of a picture of how and why Aldia is the way he is than I’ve ever seen in another video, I can’t wait for more honored madman dark souls 2
I've always been curious about the role Aldia's played in shaping the fandom's opinion of Gwyn, the cycles, and the nature of the world. Specifically, I'm curious why Aldia seems to be uniquely trusted above all other NPCs that tell us what to do (Frampt, Kaathe), there's some pretence that he's leaving us to decide but he's very clearly pushing a "something different" angle. The community was good and skeptic after DS1 came out, the fandom had gone in circles about what ending was good and had kinda settled on "neither, and both NPCs are manipulating us". When vanilla DS2 came out a lot of people were confused or didnt notice all the connective tissue, but it seemed even more vague and open to interpretation what was going on. Then SOTFS came out and the fandom seemed to universally just accept "oh good, an NPC that tells me who the bad guys were in DS1 and the best way for the player character to proceed", all skepticism gone. Part of this might just be Fromsoft pivoting after complaints about vanilla DS2 not being closely related enough to DS1, but we have lore from item descriptions (which are generally considered to a reliable narrator) that tell us even the names of the old Gods etc are all forgotten by this point in time. Then Aldia shows up and goes "oh yeah, Gwyn did this and it was a Tuesday morning and he was wearing a purple shirt, and his intentions were evil". How does he know any of this? Does he actually know, or is he making an educated guess? Why would anyone assume he's being truthful? Normally the guy who experiments on people and creates mutated monsters isnt considered to be the most altruistic, even in Souls (Seath, etc).
There was an interview with the directors of ds2 where they said that the story of ds2 (atleast what they wanted) was going to be alot more straightforward compared to ds1. This is why characters like emerald hareld, king vendrick and aldia just spell out ds1 story and theme very clearly to you.
@@xsubzerox3412 The self-contained story of ds2 was much more straightforward, but it wasnt until Scholar that they added Aldia + Vendrick talking your ear off about ds1. Generally in any soulsborne game I consider any NPC that gives me direct answers to be likely to be: 1. Wrong 2. Lying or 3. Guessing I think that last one is underappreciated in the Souls universe. If there's never been an Age of Dark, how does Kaathe know that it's going to be so great? Oolacile and New Londo dont seem great. I'm convinced Kaathe didnt even know how to trigger the Age of Dark in that first cycle, he seems to truly believe refusing the link the flame would achive that goal, but by the time of DS3 he's clearly learned the fire would need to be actively extinguished or usurped for that to happen. Which means he was mistaken in DS1, despite speaking so confidently. If he was mistaken about how to trigger it, then I wouldnt trust his bold claims about how amazing it'd be for mankind either. That was a small tangent but relevant because the Souls community seems to have similar assumptions that the "natural order" is better for mankind than constantly linking the fire, which mostly stems from Aldia or Aldia-aligned NPCs. But in a world that's only known grey nothingness and then the cycle, how could anyone claim to know what life outside the cycle looks like? Mankind in the 'natural order' could well be the mindless shambling hollows we see in the DS1 intro, since fire is what brought disparity.
@@MikeHesk742 Both Aldia and Vendrick, two brothers, investigated the nature of spirits together. Vendrick had gathered 4 Great Lord Spirits during his time. I think they studied these spirits and have knowledge of the events of DS1.
@@MikeHesk742It’s worse when you consider that Aldia tortured and experimented the entire population of Drangleic, and for what? Nothing, other than being made a mockery by the shield of want in DS3. Yet has the gall to say Gwyn sinned, because he sacrificed himself to save his people
@@MennydorgesERArchive That's a good point. Speaking of Gwyn's sacrifice I see a lot of comments on the "Gwyn's the bad guy, linking the fire's bad" side of things that regurgitate what some Aldia or Kaathe-aligned NPCs say about it all being to prolong the age of gods and keep mankind down. But look at DS2, the great kingdoms of Drangleic, Forossa, the Iron King's kindom, Sunken City etc, were all human kingdom with man sitting at the top. No Gods looking down and ruling over like in Lordran. It feels like the Gods are all dead or hiding, and yet somehow allegedly continuing the cycle is about keeping mankind subservient to the Gods and Gwyn was so selfish he... sacrificed himself?
The hype surrounding this video is the stuff of legends. I swear I've been on the edge of my seat since I discovered your channel and you always tease this video. I'm so excited!
22:39 DS2 is beautiful in how truly bountiful its content is. I've completed at least six runs but never got this mask. And i thought the red phantoms on the belfry roof dropping their gear was rare! 12:16 i never noticed this until Madman paired the footage with the discussion, but does this shot of the CU peering at the dropped corpse kinda mirror how Gael looks over at the Ashen One when he's consumed the dark soul?
The whole giants being used as sacrifice to make dragons kinda makes sense. The dragons, the trees and the fog were there before it all, giants turn into trees, maybe growing into the rocky arch trees over time who knows. Giants are rocky looking, the seed of giants is also a thing. So maybe giants were the origins of the arch trees. Im guessing turning everlasting material into other everlasting material could be possible, i forget what its called but the technique Ludleth uses in dark souls 3 to make souls into weapons could be used at a grander scale for Aldia's experiments letting him transmutate giants into dragons. I also always felt like both dragons and giants probably are life born of splinters from the trees, all 3 being made of stone.
Soul transposition, which is, ironically, inside a great tree made of hollows Trees have always played a huge, unknown role in the dark souls lore that I don't see many ppl talk about
@@Sohelanthropus I do feel like it is actually a very big thing as well but just kinda gets mentioned in passing I think once in DS 2 & 3 and then never again just to explain boss weapons.
If you think about it, in Dark Souls 1, at the very bottom of The Great Hollow, you stumble across “Ash Lake”. A place that looks like it has been long forgotten and has giant dragon bones in it, a single Hydra which may be the last one in existence, and there looks like there is very tall trees all throughout Ash Lake if you look around the area, and you find the giant great dragon there that offers you to join it’s Covenant. The place looks very ancient and could be the birthplace or home of all ancient dragons and ancient giants alike, only now with the passage of time, there is basically nothing left there & it looks abandoned and deserted.
There genuinely are no great aldia-focused, long form videos on TH-cam yet, somehow. So thank you for filling this niche! I've been looking for one, since I beat ds2 but never played any DLC expansions. So I missed a lot of his story obviously
This is the first video that’s actually made me understand the lore of DS2. I love the loose and fast but densely packed style of presentation. Amazing lore video ❤
Aldia and Gwyn sorta represent the two parts that make of archetype of the deity Wotan. Gwyn is the creation and upholding of order and Aldia is the discovery of knowledge and wisdom, both achieved through tremendous and terrible sacrifice to the benefit of no one else.
The first 15ish minutes are some of the best and to the point recap of DS1's lore/backstory I have ever heard. The rest of the video is great but that part is truly impressive.
Sorry but Gwynn is absolutely the reason humanity is cursed. Did he know it would happen? Who can tell. But he's the reason for the curse. The Darksign is just a pilot light for dark souls. I'm inclined to believe every undead has it in DS1. Not sure about later games since over time the... "infrastructure" that Gwynn set in place before linking the fire might have crumbled. Could be wrong about the Darksign but that's my head-canon.
@@slaveykoslaveykov9069 The Undead Curse came from the Firelinking, no doubt. That was not intended on Gwyn's side. As for humans, Sieglinde, Siegmeyer's daughter is not Undead. And many characters speak of becoming undead. Laurentius, Solaire, Griggs, Rhea. They were not born with the Darksign, but got it later in life. Every Undead has the Darksign, yes, that's what makes them Undead, but not every human in the game is Undead to begin with.
@@josephbulkin9222 I see what you mean but I disagree - I do think all humans have the Darksign. It only makes sense for all of humanity to be branded, not just undead. Like you said Gwyn likely didn't even anticipate the curse. And, well, undead go hollow, and hollows dont have any humanity left so they don't have anything to burn.
I've always seen Aldia as a sort of Darth Kreia character. A sort of mentor character that doesnt quite want you to follow their ideals, but rather come to your own conclusions
Thats definitely it. He does want to see whats beyond light and dark but hes not gonna force the player to go his way. He fully explains both sides and is basically like, well now choose
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He finally dropped it 😭worth the wait good job man
43:30 instead of freeing himself from the yoke completely. He bound himself to it in a fashion that allowed him to ride it's course, rather than being amongst those pulling it.
Great breakdown for one of the most underrated characters of the series. I look forward to hearing more about Pontiff Sullivan. I would also be interested to hear your breakdowns about sister Friede who is frequently just summarized as "a evil bitch" and moved past hastily. Also Gael and the pygmy lords/the identity of the furtive pygmy, whats up with the witch of izalith/bed of chaos, as well as whatever significance you place on Manus in the series. Also for elden ring did you ever do a breakdown on your thoughts of who/ what the gloam eyed Queen is/was? I personally am of the belief that she was probably a white serpent, or at least had that as her shadow for how heavily serpentine imagery is associated with her, the godskins, and rykard. I would be curious to hear your thoughts though.
@@_thebigsteve fair enough. i've been digging into it a while and think there's a significant amount of evidence but i'd rather not argue in a giant comment laying it all out. it's definitely a fringe take, but i think it works well for the narrative. the theories about the GEQ being marika's rival, mother, sister, or daughter probably also work, but don't feel as clean to me.
@@_thebigsteve biggest 2 clues for me are how none of the lore ever says the GEQ and the Golden Order warred or opposed Marika. It's very specific to just state that Maliketh defeated her. In this circumstance, it could be seen as her empyrean shadow forcing her back under the rule of the Fingers, like Blaidd and the Fingers were trying to do with Ranni. and the thing that only recently got spotted and datamined out, the depiction of the Gloam Eyed Queen engraved on the Godskin Stitcher is basically identical to the Marika statue in Messmer's room.
@mattb6616 that's fair. She feels to me if anything at this point a character like velka from dark souls. Important to the narrative but in and of herself put in the background by the narrative because it wasn't as important to the overall story as what was done in response for her. Have you heard the theory that Messmer was one of the gloam eyed queens children that were taken by Marika and thats why he is affiliated with snakes, and has some explanation as to the role of the "abductor virgins" in the story?
Been looking forward to this vid for so long now, Madman. Glad to see you finally finished it. I really appreciate how you you take time to actively ponder upon alternative options to your main thesis, while still strengthening your main opinion. While an Elden DLC vid sounds fresh, I really think a Pontiff or Vendrick vid sounds really cool. You do you, bud. Keep up the good work! 🤙
Totally worth the wait. DS2 was my first FromSoft game and I was still early when it came to piecing things together, so Aldia was a bit of a mystery to me ... until now!
Gwynn knew of the undead curse long before the fire began to fade, as evidenced by the slave knights used as undead fodder in his wars. He was not only afraid of their ability to multiply, but also of their inexhaustible ability to overwhelm the enemy
there are things lost in localization which unfortunately hinder many things in this video untrue, but the thing with aldia is that he is a fence sitter lets first begin at the start: aldia and vendrick, when drangleic was facing the rise of undeath, wanted to know what was causing it, and per wellager's dialogue, they managed to understand that the soul somehow was involved in this, but to understand the nature of the curse, one has to understand many things, like disparity, magic, fire, light, dark and so on, and so he went on to become a "researcher" (探究者) to try and understand the curse, thus gathering many sorcerers from all around to his newly built mansion as we see with the acolytes, known originally as the students/learning juniors (学徒) of An diel, Aldia's original name, with the archmasters being the scholars/learning experts (学師), just a simple hierarchy To get lots of stuff out of the way to get to why Aldia is a fence sitter, we need to understand the "first sin", the connection Aldia managed to uncover regarding Gwyn and the undead curse. First, as we see in the trilogy, light is time, so it can affect time (repair spell for instance), and dark is space, and so can affect space (dark hand manipulating space to form shield and repel along with twisted barricade confirming this dominion over the dark). Despite them being seperate elements, they are still intrisically connected. For example, one cannot alter the time of a water in a cup without altering the space filling the cup, either making the cup full or half-full. But, as said, they are still seperate and so have their own properties. If there is no time in a space, no light, then that thing remains eternal, unchanging. Indeed, when the lords found the lord souls/souls of kings originally, each ended up becoming the king of a certain aspect of disparity. If gwyn is the king of the sun's light (太陽の光の王), he so found the light soul *near* the first flame per the JPN, not within. If nito is the grave king who manipulates death, he found the death soul. If izalith managed to give life to the Flame of Chaos and is called a "king" internally, she is the king of life, thus she found the life soul. if the furtive pygmy is the king of dark, he found the dark soul. However, there is one thing to note. in the japanese version, humans and the gods are sometimes called "persons of dark" for the former and "persons of fire" for the latter, also the latter when talking about life being an weakness in the dragon eye's jpn description: "Art of the transcenders who pray to the archdragon and try to approach it. Life is a weakness, and even the gods who are persons of fire are no exception. The goal of the transcenders is apparently to be different from life." as for why life is considered a weakness, it can be easy to surmise, when you live, you die, you bear time, while the archdragons didn't in the "old age"/age of ancients since life/souls/the first flame didn't yet exist, they just "were", and thus were immune to other states of existence like life or death, since they only came to be with the first flame's advent. now, considering this, consider the element of the dark soul, the Dark. since humans went on to inherit the dark soul via the pygmy sharing his soul among his clan, they would also inherit the lack of time in the Dark's space, meaning, they were superior to life, they were ageless immortals, thus superior to the gods when they found the dark soul. Naturally this would make gwyn fear the dark, and so he went on to not only shackle the dark soul in man via the darksign's ring of fire, this making men rely on their white souls they previously relied upon and thus gain time and the transitory "human" form, while the true human form, a form with a liberated dark soul, would be viewed as the "hollow" form, but gwyn also went on to make humans forget that their origin is in the dark, thus obscuring man's memory, and rewrite the world's logic of the inevitable age of dark with his own, to preserve the age of fire/the first flame via the firelinking. this is why aldia and vendrick in the jpn say these things: "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. No matter how kind, how beautiful, a lie is ultimately no more than a lie. Hollow. Do you still want peace, even so?" - aldia "Man lives in peace. And so, they believe and love the cage of falsehoods, even if it is likely all a lie. Until the curse is eventually shown on their bodies. That is the yoke that was imposed on us. And thus, the Dark is undoubtedly the truth that dwells within man." - aldia "The country will fall, fire will come apart… and *our souls of old will regain their power*… The Dark *will remove the shackles* and become a curse… And man will be in its *proper form*…" -vendrick "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…" - vendrick Ok, but what does this have to do with aldia being a fence sitter? with this all established, we can understand more of aldia's motivations. aldia hates the actions of gwyn, screwing up with humanity, causing the accidental undead curse (since humanity/dark soul is shackled since the early age of fire, it wasnt able to develop beyond its primal instinct, to consume. when darksign fades, the wild dark soul/humanity will break free from this shackle made of fire and consume the white soul, e.g. lost undead soul, which was developed to have memories and feelings. thats why the dark/humanity is constantly called "greedy" in the jpn script, why humans go on to become hollows who seek souls, the source of life, and why crestfallen are called "heartbroken" in JPN and why some npcs in the jpn script tell you to "not lose heart and hollow", since the heart = the soul/white soul in this case) rewriting the world's natural logic and so on. BUT, aldia cant deny, despite his frustrations, that this logic, this lie, is a beautiful lie, living in the warm sun's light, thats why he says these things (this is also why he experimented upon dragonification and dragons via the dragon shrine, he wanted to give the dragon's immortality to men, but failed, for the result of it was shanalotte, a "flop" according to herself. aldia didnt want men to look like dragons, he wanted men to look like men, thats why she hides away her unique eye with bangs, use gloves or bandages, and clothes which leaves most of her body hidden, to hide her dragon traits): "Life is dazzling and beautiful. And so, everyone is captured by it. The one who doesn’t forget his mission, even though reduced to an empty shell. The one who lost his body and ended up becoming a mere head. The one who seeks a love she couldn’t obtain. And you yourself…?" "All of man is within a false life. But, is it truly wrong? A false life manufactured. But… it is a surprisingly kind and sweet world. Hollow, do you really want to release the yoke and break the falsehoods, even so?" and lastly, his ending is clear evidence of this. by us rejecting the throne, we reject either becoming the king of dark or the king of kindling/lord of cinder, leaving our journey in the last leg and not commiting to either of them. aldia essentially feeds us this answer, what *he* thinks is best, with the ending calling this a self-imposed trial. but as we see with the flames fading before the credits roll, fire WILL fade, the age of dark WILL come, but it will take longer to, and thus the world will face the consequences of this fading. aldia wants the best of both worlds, he wants man to live immortal lives while living in the sun's rays, THAT is why he is a fence sitter, he cant commit to one or the other, and this is why ds1 only boiled down to TWO options only, fire or dark. its too late to reverse gwyn's damage, so we only have the option to work with what we already have, either continue the damage or end it. alongside this, by abandoning the throne thus your kingship, you not only leave potential anarchy from happening thanks to a missing dark lord, but also leaves the spot for someone to rule that you may *wish* didn't rule over you. TLDR: aldia is the smart kid at school that is dumb outside it, and i doubt any will see this comment. if this gets recognition, sorry for the wall of text :D
Dark is mass rather than space I believe. The descriptions of black flame and other Dark hexes and pyromancies call them weighty, heavy. In DS3, whole realms, landmasses, the entire world in fact converge towards the unrecognizable remnants of the Kiln of the First Flame and its worldtree. But what is manifested in the DLC is that they are actually converging toward something further yet, just beyond the ruined Firelink Shrine (where we fight the demon prince): the Ringed City. Where an unthinkable concentration of the Dark Soul's fragments have pooled throughout the eons, and where almost its totality has been brought to by Gael, further in time. The way the Dreg Heap looks and behaves is akin to a collapsing world, a singularity, a black hole that'd be the Ringed City (and we know how Miyazaki loves his cosmic and physics allegories, cf Elden Ring collapsing stars and such). But only when we unveil the light (time) illusion cast by Filianore do we truly arrive at to the moment that this place should have reached. But also, time grinds to almost a stop where gravity overwhelms the fabric of reality. The unification of the Dark Soul might actually slow down the world locally, from an external observer's perspective. Last but not least, the giant dark sign in the sky seems to point to/originate from the Ringed City, and also kind of looks like a black hole. (Actually looks a lot like the vey first photography ever taken of a black hole, but this happened in 2019, way after the DLC's release, so just a happy coincidence!).
@@MEUARoh boy.... bro, dark, while being weighty, doesnt have domain over *mass*, it has domain over *space*, thats why the dark hand, which has the power of the DARK SOUL, warps SPACE itself to create a shield. This is also why things of the dark not only last eternally, but also why twisted barricade and repel affect space, because just as light can manipulate time, dark can affect its space regarding the "convergence", it isnt called that in the original japanese. it is called the "drift", and in the cinematic intro, a certain word is used to describe this, "nagaretsuku" (流れ着く), which means to "arrive with the flow", this case, the STAGNANT flow of time, not convoluted. i want you to imagine this: imagine there is a river that flows in a singular direction, that would be the flow of time, but at some point in time, that flow stops. this is what happened in lordran back in ds1 100 years prior to the game's events according to solaire's original JAPANESE dialogue, not his ENGLISH one, which, alongside the game, is full of localization errors i can explain to you better on discord, which is Babs or balbabs, but to sum up what is the drift, it is this: the first flame is the progenitor of time as a result of its light. thus, it creates a sequence of time, causality. but, as a result of it fading, *time* fading, it began to stagnate on the place where the first flame is located at, hence why solaire in the JPN says that LORDRAN specifically is a "strange place" due to its stagnated time, meaning, the rest of the world, the world of man as the JPN calls it, isn't with stagnated time. As to how it works, pretty much different points of time began intersecting in the same space, this being lordran, hence why solaire says that "his world" will not overlap with ours after we talk with him each person who enters lordran, which pretty much is in a time bubble that miyazaki himself implies to be the case by calling it a "different dimension", inhabits their own "world", or as i prefer to call it, their own timespace, a space at a certain point in time since we now know that different times are stagnating into the same space, how can we define the drift? essentially different SPACES *stagnating* at the SAME TIME (this being why emma in her JPN dialogue says STAGNATES instead of converge) ds2 already indicated this by the presence of the first flame in the far northern region of the world of man, ds2's setting (drangleic) being beyond the throne, a mere path to it, but also by the presence of the old ones, the old chaos, the forest of oolacile as the shaded woods and huntsman's copse, and the presence of manus' abyss in that distant region. basically drangleic IS and is NOT lordran. parts of lordran, different spaces, got warped to the far north of the world of man, which would then stagnate on the land they would end upon. warping is a phenomena exclusive to fire, since we use a bonfire's light to warp, and since drangleic too is subject to the stagnant flow of time, its very likely that this warping is another byproduct of the world's stagnation, fire being constantly kept around and dark kept at bay in ds3, the first flame warps once more to another region, which lothric would be built upon, and this time, alongside bringing parts of drangleic to such region, it would begin to also bring in other spaces outside of the time bubble to stagnate in lothric, where the first flame is at, akin to a black hole sucking everything to it if this is too complicated, allow me to explain in an analogy. ds1 is a black chocolate cake with black chocolate sprinkles ds2 is a white chocolate cake with black chocolate sprinkles as a result of the first game ds3 is both a white and chocolate cake again, i encourage you to message me on discord, bc youtube comments is kinda tough😭
@@rafael8946 That is a very interesting prespective, I did not knew that the japanese dialogue of the game was that different from its english counterpart. May I ask, does in the japanese text say how the First Flame was created? Or even by whom?
Ive been wanting to a video on it for so long ive got all the clips saved i just gotta rewatch the movie one more time to suitably rant about how awesome it is
Wow holy fucking shit man, just when I commented making a meme about him teasing us on this vid for a year straight, he drops it😭😭💀 Imma watch this one very meticulously, but now is not the time - I'll wait for dinner just before going to bed to blast this on my TV, a video like this requires the utmost of attention
19:27 to 19:45 there is some narrative dissonance with the assertion that the giants are a reincarnation or otherwise connected to the everlasting dragons other than converging on balance and un-change. why? well, if the dragons represent a non-stagnant eternity, and the flame is change, then "reincarnation" in giants goes completely against this notion. The everlasting dragons are supposedly outside the endless cycles of fire. For what we know maybe the cycles of light and dark have happened even before the main story, and the dragons and the trees were already there; for what we know, the dragons might just "exist" and they just become more apparent whenever there's no disparity.
Amazing vid man. Hopefully one day you'd consider making a lord of hollows vid. If anyone can make a worthwhile commentary on a seemingly unexplored story given the limited sources about it, it would be you. Keep up the great content ✊🏽
great video, really made me think about ds lore again after being deep into ER lore. Looking forward to more DS lore and especially the pontiff one. I hope you also get around to making a lore video on Londor since I think it's a slightly underexplored topic in DS lore videos. anyways much love
I thought Giants in ds2 were the forms of ArchTrees - why the dead ones look like trees and spring seeds you can collect. Also pretty sure we know what Aldia looks like - he 's on the cover of the opening screen holding a crown. Great vid.
I know that Pontiff doesn't sound like the First Scholar anymore, but you can see remnants of that being the case in early DS3 development, seeing how he was basically meant to be the final boss - someone knowing the fire and dark very closely, there to end it all, get rid of gods entirely and the cycle.
While Gwyn was the lord of light, nowhere in the games are the lord souls themselves given the light/death/life aspects. They’re pretty much a fan creation.
Right but thats the subtext we can get since the only other disparity we have heard that sprung from the first flame within the games is life and death so using that and putting several things together like nito's title as first of the dead death like aesthetics etc,etc its a safe assumption to do since tbh dark souls is like 99% subtext...
Nito took death. Hence the affinity with death. The Witch of Izaleth, life, the birth of demons her legacy. Gwyn took light, evidenced by the sun and his control over it. The dark soul was divided among all of man, a gift from the furative pygmy. Even if the souls don't say or show what they carry, what they did to their hosts is evident.
As for Sullivan, I still think he couldve been the one mentoring the princes. Even if hes just some guy there must have been some kind of catalyst for him to be able to control both flame and darkmoon spells. It hints at a pretty deep understanding of the magics that Gwyn used in that first age
Tremendous video mate - Aldia is such an incredible character and you've done him justice here!
Fancy seeing you here @SmoughTown, I love your videos and Hawkshaw’s videos too.
Dark Souls II is such a great and fun game, it doesn’t deserve all the hate that it gets, it deserves praise and it’s lore definitely deserves more praise, because it does play important roles within the entirety of the Dark Souls Timeline.
Need that Elden Ring book man. Also props for keeping the price very fair for the enormous amount of work I know went into it. The quality looks insane.
My favorite character in the souls series bar none
The “A LIE WILL REMAIN A LIE” monologue is still one of the hardest in gaming history
Men are props on the stage of life...
Second place would be Sir Vilhelm's dialogue to ashen one
Aldia urging the bearer of the curse to look beyond the cycle of light and dark, and Vendrick advising them to seek strength as the foundation to face adversity is one of the best storytelling in Dark Souls and its criminal they play such a minimal role in ds3
Yeah I love their duality as brothers and how different their views of life are when it comes to the curse
At the end of the day, it was Vendrick's way that ended up being the true one - the Bearer of the Curse seeks strength in the crowns of other great kings, and eventually beats the curse, unable to go hollow (if wearing one of said crowns)
Tbf, looking beyond the cycle was continued with the Painter wanting to start a new world altogether. Characters like Gael and Sulyvahn clearly were inspired by that mindset too.
It's nice they included the Drang knights in DS3, and a few other weapons / armor pieces from DS2 but man playing thru 3 right now feels like the stuff from 2 was just added mostly as an afterthought.
Aldia created a dragon, elephant people, lion people, dragon people, dragon people², hippo people, mirror portals, rust dogs, and a cute emo girl
Crazy accomplishment
If I knew my research might lead to making the emerald GF I would not cease my research until the last flame ceased
the lion-men aren't made by aldia, they are stranded forossans from most likely eleum loyce given the shrine of winter's vicinity which thanks to their lion culture and worship over faraam took on a lion form, thats why they called either demi-humans (亜人) or subhumans in the jpn, and also why the lion axe makes a point that they are too sophisticated to be a "lion tribe" along with the devs in the design works confirming that they are humans which were cursed, likely in this case by their own obsessive worship
the kobold, or roaming dogs per the JPN, thanks to the collector's edition guide, are said that they are native to things betwixt and are implied to have been dogs experimented by aldia, hence why only in aldia's keep and shaded woods do the ones there drop aldia-related items, its kind of like the irl gist of dogs being experimented upon by humans
i can tell more if u want on discord, my name there is RafaelBalbinus
Aldia, similar to how giantdad was made canon in ds2 with a item description, is essentially the canon manifestation of souls lore masters. He is one of the most important characters in the entire series, and I’m glad people have started to acknowledge that fact instead of trying to act like ds2 never happened like how it was a few years ago.
So much can be gleamed from looking into what he was studying - with bits of his character traits can still be found in characters like rykard, midra, ymir, and shabiri to name a few just from ER.
Aldia is definitely one of the main pillars of Dark Souls.
He is very important to the universe.
What item description made GiantDad canon?
Gleaned*
Ah, Aldia- Truly peak dark souls writing at its finest.
The lore is so deep calling DS2 "God tier" seems inadequate. This is Furtive Pygmy tier
@@ThommyofThenn Furtive who?
@@juromori Some easily forgotten tiny fella
Forlorn and Numen
Only women.
From another word
Attacks from the shadows.
Dont have faces.
Elden Ring really is Ds2 2
You got proof the numen are all women?
i mean yeah
I shouldve gone into more detail on the ashen mist heart and a few other things. I might do a follow up rant style video, stay tuned. Next up, the penguin video
Can’t wait man! Gonna watch Penguin tonight
The long-awaited Aldia video is here. Glad to see it. Commenting now for visibility, but I'll check it out on stream some time
Much appreciated, king
So cool seeing you here! 😊
Babe drop EVERYTHING...the fabled Honored Madman Aldia video has come at last!
I hope you and Jonathan enjoy the vid!
@@Eh_2_Zed I sure will!
Been waiting a long time for this.
Hilarious comment so unique
@@hulkingmass but he's the Bob ross of underrated Souls character lore videos :)
A LIE WILL REMAIN A LIEEEEEEE
YOUNG HOLLOW, KNOWING THIS, DO YOU STILL DESIRE PEACE?
The story of Aldia is the story of Dark Souls 2 (and basically of all of the Dark Souls series) if you think about it.
8:20 The dragons bullied Gwyn for being bald!?!! Pieces are finally fallng into place. Thx Madman
Okay, DaS 2 is my favourite game from the trilogy, so I’m gonna outline my lore interpretations before I watch this.
This is the midtimes of the linking of the fires. We go to multiple kingdoms that have both linked the fire and acquiesced to dark, respectively.
The lost sinner used her pyromancy to replicate the witch of izalith.
The rotten accepted the old soul of the dead. Which also meant it accepted all of the trash from Majula.
the old iron king attempted to be as influential as Gwyn,
The Duke of brightstone cove Tseldora wanted to be as intelligent as the old Duke of the archives, but he couldn’t and decided to let a remnant of the old duke become as strong as possible.
All of which are tragically exactly what vendrick wanted.
I didn’t know Pontiff was originally planned to be the final boss fight.
Tbh I think he should have been. I like Soul of Cinder but Pontiff’s pure influence over the plot of DS3 can not be understated
Although it was hard to understand in the game (as most souls games are), your explanation of ds2’s story within the ds3 and ds1’s sphere is very well said and easy to understand, which gives me more respect for ds2 in general as it was asking the big questions, reflecting back to the past game and the player’s decisions within it .
Wow, references to The Storyteller, The Gentlemen, Deadwood, AND Casual Geographic?
I love this channel.
I think that taking the throne is more than just linking the fire; it represents the continuation of the light/dark cycle that Gwyn put the world into. Nashandra wanted to sit on that throne more than anything else, and something tells me she would definitely not have linked the fire, regardless of whether we do when we sit on it (which isn't even shown in that ending cutscene, it's left open to our own interpretation). Aldia's dialogue when you choose to leave the throne spells it out much more clearly, saying we are going "beyond the scope of light, beyond the reach of dark." This clearly tells us that leaving the throne is the act of abandoning the entire cycle of light/dark and trying to find a third path beyond what was offered to us in DS1; a way to break the curse, not to surrender to it or to overcome it.
Yeah I've always seen the throne as encapsulating both the endings of DS1. The idea that the two choices at the end are PART of the cycle. Choosing the dark ending is not rebellion, it is factored into the system, if that makes sense?
The amount of things you linked together in this video really justifies how long I've been hearing you say that it's coming this is seriously impressive
A video all about the greatest souls character.... yes please. I'm so glad Aldia is still talked about
aldia crawled so elden ring could run
My god, you madlad you actually did it. I've been waiting forever for this!
This is great! After hearing about it for so long, I'm glad you took your time with it, it really paid off! Thank you for your work!
THE ALDIA VIDEO IS REAL!! 🗣❗️
In earlier cycles it was lost media, but how a great champion has come to Like the First Aldia Vid, bringing about an age of plenty
Damn it really gets across how long and how much experimenting he went through. So many accomplishments over the ages.
Honored Madman, Scholar of the Second Souls.
I’ve been waiting months for this one! Finally! Thank you for creating this!
Very grateful I’m not the only one still obsessed with DS2 lore
Dark souls 2 is my favorite game and I must say, I haven’t seen anyone else give it the justice you have, so far you’ve already by 23:53 created more of a picture of how and why Aldia is the way he is than I’ve ever seen in another video, I can’t wait for more honored madman dark souls 2
Also glad to see you finally finished this big project of a video, man, congrats.
I've always been curious about the role Aldia's played in shaping the fandom's opinion of Gwyn, the cycles, and the nature of the world. Specifically, I'm curious why Aldia seems to be uniquely trusted above all other NPCs that tell us what to do (Frampt, Kaathe), there's some pretence that he's leaving us to decide but he's very clearly pushing a "something different" angle.
The community was good and skeptic after DS1 came out, the fandom had gone in circles about what ending was good and had kinda settled on "neither, and both NPCs are manipulating us". When vanilla DS2 came out a lot of people were confused or didnt notice all the connective tissue, but it seemed even more vague and open to interpretation what was going on. Then SOTFS came out and the fandom seemed to universally just accept "oh good, an NPC that tells me who the bad guys were in DS1 and the best way for the player character to proceed", all skepticism gone. Part of this might just be Fromsoft pivoting after complaints about vanilla DS2 not being closely related enough to DS1, but we have lore from item descriptions (which are generally considered to a reliable narrator) that tell us even the names of the old Gods etc are all forgotten by this point in time. Then Aldia shows up and goes "oh yeah, Gwyn did this and it was a Tuesday morning and he was wearing a purple shirt, and his intentions were evil". How does he know any of this? Does he actually know, or is he making an educated guess? Why would anyone assume he's being truthful? Normally the guy who experiments on people and creates mutated monsters isnt considered to be the most altruistic, even in Souls (Seath, etc).
There was an interview with the directors of ds2 where they said that the story of ds2 (atleast what they wanted) was going to be alot more straightforward compared to ds1.
This is why characters like emerald hareld, king vendrick and aldia just spell out ds1 story and theme very clearly to you.
@@xsubzerox3412 The self-contained story of ds2 was much more straightforward, but it wasnt until Scholar that they added Aldia + Vendrick talking your ear off about ds1. Generally in any soulsborne game I consider any NPC that gives me direct answers to be likely to be:
1. Wrong
2. Lying
or
3. Guessing
I think that last one is underappreciated in the Souls universe. If there's never been an Age of Dark, how does Kaathe know that it's going to be so great? Oolacile and New Londo dont seem great. I'm convinced Kaathe didnt even know how to trigger the Age of Dark in that first cycle, he seems to truly believe refusing the link the flame would achive that goal, but by the time of DS3 he's clearly learned the fire would need to be actively extinguished or usurped for that to happen. Which means he was mistaken in DS1, despite speaking so confidently. If he was mistaken about how to trigger it, then I wouldnt trust his bold claims about how amazing it'd be for mankind either.
That was a small tangent but relevant because the Souls community seems to have similar assumptions that the "natural order" is better for mankind than constantly linking the fire, which mostly stems from Aldia or Aldia-aligned NPCs. But in a world that's only known grey nothingness and then the cycle, how could anyone claim to know what life outside the cycle looks like? Mankind in the 'natural order' could well be the mindless shambling hollows we see in the DS1 intro, since fire is what brought disparity.
@@MikeHesk742 Both Aldia and Vendrick, two brothers, investigated the nature of spirits together. Vendrick had gathered 4 Great Lord Spirits during his time. I think they studied these spirits and have knowledge of the events of DS1.
@@MikeHesk742It’s worse when you consider that Aldia tortured and experimented the entire population of Drangleic, and for what? Nothing, other than being made a mockery by the shield of want in DS3.
Yet has the gall to say Gwyn sinned, because he sacrificed himself to save his people
@@MennydorgesERArchive That's a good point. Speaking of Gwyn's sacrifice I see a lot of comments on the "Gwyn's the bad guy, linking the fire's bad" side of things that regurgitate what some Aldia or Kaathe-aligned NPCs say about it all being to prolong the age of gods and keep mankind down. But look at DS2, the great kingdoms of Drangleic, Forossa, the Iron King's kindom, Sunken City etc, were all human kingdom with man sitting at the top. No Gods looking down and ruling over like in Lordran. It feels like the Gods are all dead or hiding, and yet somehow allegedly continuing the cycle is about keeping mankind subservient to the Gods and Gwyn was so selfish he... sacrificed himself?
Been waiting for this!!! Great job!!
The hype surrounding this video is the stuff of legends. I swear I've been on the edge of my seat since I discovered your channel and you always tease this video. I'm so excited!
22:39 DS2 is beautiful in how truly bountiful its content is. I've completed at least six runs but never got this mask. And i thought the red phantoms on the belfry roof dropping their gear was rare!
12:16 i never noticed this until Madman paired the footage with the discussion, but does this shot of the CU peering at the dropped corpse kinda mirror how Gael looks over at the Ashen One when he's consumed the dark soul?
That was my thought while editing, i was wondering if it was intentional or if i was just reading too much into it lol
@@TheHonoredMadmanpossibly a gamer equivalent to a recurring, subtle visual motif in a director's filmography.
@@jerrym1218 some IPs like those marvel movies go way too heavy on it. I have many other problems with their lousy movies but that is a big part of it
Aldia's experiments could've been justified had he succeeded
Thank you for this ❤DS2 was my first Souls game and I think it deserves more lore attention
This video has more lore in it than i ever knew was in dark souls. it was an amazing deep dive into one of my personal favorite series.
The whole giants being used as sacrifice to make dragons kinda makes sense. The dragons, the trees and the fog were there before it all, giants turn into trees, maybe growing into the rocky arch trees over time who knows.
Giants are rocky looking, the seed of giants is also a thing. So maybe giants were the origins of the arch trees.
Im guessing turning everlasting material into other everlasting material could be possible, i forget what its called but the technique Ludleth uses in dark souls 3 to make souls into weapons could be used at a grander scale for Aldia's experiments letting him transmutate giants into dragons.
I also always felt like both dragons and giants probably are life born of splinters from the trees, all 3 being made of stone.
Soul transposition, which is, ironically, inside a great tree made of hollows
Trees have always played a huge, unknown role in the dark souls lore that I don't see many ppl talk about
@@Sohelanthropus I do feel like it is actually a very big thing as well but just kinda gets mentioned in passing I think once in DS 2 & 3 and then never again just to explain boss weapons.
If you think about it, in Dark Souls 1, at the very bottom of The Great Hollow, you stumble across “Ash Lake”.
A place that looks like it has been long forgotten and has giant dragon bones in it, a single Hydra which may be the last one in existence, and there looks like there is very tall trees all throughout Ash Lake if you look around the area, and you find the giant great dragon there that offers you to join it’s Covenant.
The place looks very ancient and could be the birthplace or home of all ancient dragons and ancient giants alike, only now with the passage of time, there is basically nothing left there & it looks abandoned and deserted.
Great video! About Aldia’s human appearance, you can actually see him on the cover art of the European sotf version.
Oooooohhhhhh, I BEEN waitin on this one! Finally!!!!
There genuinely are no great aldia-focused, long form videos on TH-cam yet, somehow. So thank you for filling this niche! I've been looking for one, since I beat ds2 but never played any DLC expansions. So I missed a lot of his story obviously
This is the first video that’s actually made me understand the lore of DS2. I love the loose and fast but densely packed style of presentation. Amazing lore video ❤
Man, what a blessed day to have brand new 1h+ Aldia video to watch!
Keep up the awesome work man!
Aldia and Gwyn sorta represent the two parts that make of archetype of the deity Wotan.
Gwyn is the creation and upholding of order and Aldia is the discovery of knowledge and wisdom, both achieved through tremendous and terrible sacrifice to the benefit of no one else.
Awesome video man, we all really appreciate the effort you put into making these videos.
Great video! I'm glad you're open about when you are speculating
Great video! I’m so glad to have found this channel, so much good content, and I especially like the attention to ds2 lore
I've been diving into Sotfs really hard this past month, playing everyday so this video dropped at the perfect time for me
I thought this was a running gag. Going to make popcorn for this!
Great breakdown of an extremely interesting character, one that deconstructs a lot of what was presented in Dark Souls 1. Great vid.
My lore goat 🐐💯🙌
The first 15ish minutes are some of the best and to the point recap of DS1's lore/backstory I have ever heard. The rest of the video is great but that part is truly impressive.
But it lies. Gwyn didnt give humans the Undead Curse(not intentionally, at least), and certainly not all humans carry the Darksign.
Sorry but Gwynn is absolutely the reason humanity is cursed. Did he know it would happen? Who can tell. But he's the reason for the curse. The Darksign is just a pilot light for dark souls. I'm inclined to believe every undead has it in DS1. Not sure about later games since over time the... "infrastructure" that Gwynn set in place before linking the fire might have crumbled. Could be wrong about the Darksign but that's my head-canon.
@@slaveykoslaveykov9069 The Undead Curse came from the Firelinking, no doubt. That was not intended on Gwyn's side.
As for humans, Sieglinde, Siegmeyer's daughter is not Undead. And many characters speak of becoming undead. Laurentius, Solaire, Griggs, Rhea. They were not born with the Darksign, but got it later in life. Every Undead has the Darksign, yes, that's what makes them Undead, but not every human in the game is Undead to begin with.
@@josephbulkin9222 I see what you mean but I disagree - I do think all humans have the Darksign. It only makes sense for all of humanity to be branded, not just undead. Like you said Gwyn likely didn't even anticipate the curse. And, well, undead go hollow, and hollows dont have any humanity left so they don't have anything to burn.
Really good video, I’ve been watching all of your vids after seeing this
I've always seen Aldia as a sort of Darth Kreia character. A sort of mentor character that doesnt quite want you to follow their ideals, but rather come to your own conclusions
Thats definitely it. He does want to see whats beyond light and dark but hes not gonna force the player to go his way. He fully explains both sides and is basically like, well now choose
He finally dropped it 😭worth the wait good job man
I screamed, I've been waiting so long for this!!
43:30 instead of freeing himself from the yoke completely. He bound himself to it in a fashion that allowed him to ride it's course, rather than being amongst those pulling it.
Yours synthesis of DS lore is the best I've heard
Great breakdown for one of the most underrated characters of the series. I look forward to hearing more about Pontiff Sullivan. I would also be interested to hear your breakdowns about sister Friede who is frequently just summarized as "a evil bitch" and moved past hastily. Also Gael and the pygmy lords/the identity of the furtive pygmy, whats up with the witch of izalith/bed of chaos, as well as whatever significance you place on Manus in the series.
Also for elden ring did you ever do a breakdown on your thoughts of who/ what the gloam eyed Queen is/was? I personally am of the belief that she was probably a white serpent, or at least had that as her shadow for how heavily serpentine imagery is associated with her, the godskins, and rykard. I would be curious to hear your thoughts though.
she was marika
@mattb6616 that's been a theory I've heard a lot but the evidence seems pretty lackluster or a shot in the dark.
@@_thebigsteve fair enough. i've been digging into it a while and think there's a significant amount of evidence but i'd rather not argue in a giant comment laying it all out. it's definitely a fringe take, but i think it works well for the narrative. the theories about the GEQ being marika's rival, mother, sister, or daughter probably also work, but don't feel as clean to me.
@@_thebigsteve biggest 2 clues for me are how none of the lore ever says the GEQ and the Golden Order warred or opposed Marika. It's very specific to just state that Maliketh defeated her. In this circumstance, it could be seen as her empyrean shadow forcing her back under the rule of the Fingers, like Blaidd and the Fingers were trying to do with Ranni.
and the thing that only recently got spotted and datamined out, the depiction of the Gloam Eyed Queen engraved on the Godskin Stitcher is basically identical to the Marika statue in Messmer's room.
@mattb6616 that's fair. She feels to me if anything at this point a character like velka from dark souls. Important to the narrative but in and of herself put in the background by the narrative because it wasn't as important to the overall story as what was done in response for her. Have you heard the theory that Messmer was one of the gloam eyed queens children that were taken by Marika and thats why he is affiliated with snakes, and has some explanation as to the role of the "abductor virgins" in the story?
I alr commented but fr i have an unhealthy obsession with primal knights i dont know why but they take up space in my head daily thank you aldia❤❤
Great video ! I love Aldia and it was awesome to find this lore video :D
The Goat himself has spoken once more and once more I shall listen with batted breath
I absolutely need the melody thats played in the first 5 seconds, pleaseeee
Souls of Mist (Character Creation) - Demons' Souls soundtrack.
My favorite part of this entire video is the huge ass hit you took at the end. I laughed out loud.
Yes finally an hour long video about my favorite dark souls character
Been looking forward to this vid for so long now, Madman. Glad to see you finally finished it.
I really appreciate how you you take time to actively ponder upon alternative options to your main thesis, while still strengthening your main opinion.
While an Elden DLC vid sounds fresh, I really think a Pontiff or Vendrick vid sounds really cool. You do you, bud.
Keep up the good work! 🤙
Your videos are so fire I appreciate you making these videos man your dry commentary is awesome compared to guys like vaati who go so over the top
A whole hour video about one of my favorite characters in fiction ever? Sign me up
Totally worth the wait. DS2 was my first FromSoft game and I was still early when it came to piecing things together, so Aldia was a bit of a mystery to me ... until now!
thanks for this video, aldia has always been my favorite fromsoft character
Great video, absolutely worth the wait
I’ve already accidentally fallen asleep to this a few times. Excited to do it again
An hourlong Aldia video? Very fucking excited!
Aldia "Scholar of the first sin" Thundercock
Just found your channel - I'm in. Watched the whole thing. Solid work mate.
Gwynn knew of the undead curse long before the fire began to fade, as evidenced by the slave knights used as undead fodder in his wars.
He was not only afraid of their ability to multiply, but also of their inexhaustible ability to overwhelm the enemy
there are things lost in localization which unfortunately hinder many things in this video untrue, but the thing with aldia is that he is a fence sitter
lets first begin at the start: aldia and vendrick, when drangleic was facing the rise of undeath, wanted to know what was causing it, and per wellager's dialogue, they managed to understand that the soul somehow was involved in this, but to understand the nature of the curse, one has to understand many things, like disparity, magic, fire, light, dark and so on, and so he went on to become a "researcher" (探究者) to try and understand the curse, thus gathering many sorcerers from all around to his newly built mansion as we see with the acolytes, known originally as the students/learning juniors (学徒) of An diel, Aldia's original name, with the archmasters being the scholars/learning experts (学師), just a simple hierarchy
To get lots of stuff out of the way to get to why Aldia is a fence sitter, we need to understand the "first sin", the connection Aldia managed to uncover regarding Gwyn and the undead curse. First, as we see in the trilogy, light is time, so it can affect time (repair spell for instance), and dark is space, and so can affect space (dark hand manipulating space to form shield and repel along with twisted barricade confirming this dominion over the dark). Despite them being seperate elements, they are still intrisically connected. For example, one cannot alter the time of a water in a cup without altering the space filling the cup, either making the cup full or half-full. But, as said, they are still seperate and so have their own properties. If there is no time in a space, no light, then that thing remains eternal, unchanging. Indeed, when the lords found the lord souls/souls of kings originally, each ended up becoming the king of a certain aspect of disparity. If gwyn is the king of the sun's light (太陽の光の王), he so found the light soul *near* the first flame per the JPN, not within. If nito is the grave king who manipulates death, he found the death soul. If izalith managed to give life to the Flame of Chaos and is called a "king" internally, she is the king of life, thus she found the life soul. if the furtive pygmy is the king of dark, he found the dark soul.
However, there is one thing to note. in the japanese version, humans and the gods are sometimes called "persons of dark" for the former and "persons of fire" for the latter, also the latter when talking about life being an weakness in the dragon eye's jpn description:
"Art of the transcenders who pray to the archdragon and try to approach it. Life is a weakness, and even the gods who are persons of fire are no exception. The goal of the transcenders is apparently to be different from life."
as for why life is considered a weakness, it can be easy to surmise, when you live, you die, you bear time, while the archdragons didn't in the "old age"/age of ancients since life/souls/the first flame didn't yet exist, they just "were", and thus were immune to other states of existence like life or death, since they only came to be with the first flame's advent. now, considering this, consider the element of the dark soul, the Dark. since humans went on to inherit the dark soul via the pygmy sharing his soul among his clan, they would also inherit the lack of time in the Dark's space, meaning, they were superior to life, they were ageless immortals, thus superior to the gods when they found the dark soul. Naturally this would make gwyn fear the dark, and so he went on to not only shackle the dark soul in man via the darksign's ring of fire, this making men rely on their white souls they previously relied upon and thus gain time and the transitory "human" form, while the true human form, a form with a liberated dark soul, would be viewed as the "hollow" form, but gwyn also went on to make humans forget that their origin is in the dark, thus obscuring man's memory, and rewrite the world's logic of the inevitable age of dark with his own, to preserve the age of fire/the first flame via the firelinking. this is why aldia and vendrick in the jpn say these things:
"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. No matter how kind, how beautiful, a lie is ultimately no more than a lie. Hollow. Do you still want peace, even so?" - aldia
"Man lives in peace. And so, they believe and love the cage of falsehoods, even if it is likely all a lie. Until the curse is eventually shown on their bodies. That is the yoke that was imposed on us. And thus, the Dark is undoubtedly the truth that dwells within man." - aldia
"The country will fall, fire will come apart… and *our souls of old will regain their power*… The Dark *will remove the shackles* and become a curse… And man will be in its *proper form*…" -vendrick
"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…" - vendrick
Ok, but what does this have to do with aldia being a fence sitter? with this all established, we can understand more of aldia's motivations. aldia hates the actions of gwyn, screwing up with humanity, causing the accidental undead curse (since humanity/dark soul is shackled since the early age of fire, it wasnt able to develop beyond its primal instinct, to consume. when darksign fades, the wild dark soul/humanity will break free from this shackle made of fire and consume the white soul, e.g. lost undead soul, which was developed to have memories and feelings. thats why the dark/humanity is constantly called "greedy" in the jpn script, why humans go on to become hollows who seek souls, the source of life, and why crestfallen are called "heartbroken" in JPN and why some npcs in the jpn script tell you to "not lose heart and hollow", since the heart = the soul/white soul in this case) rewriting the world's natural logic and so on. BUT, aldia cant deny, despite his frustrations, that this logic, this lie, is a beautiful lie, living in the warm sun's light, thats why he says these things (this is also why he experimented upon dragonification and dragons via the dragon shrine, he wanted to give the dragon's immortality to men, but failed, for the result of it was shanalotte, a "flop" according to herself. aldia didnt want men to look like dragons, he wanted men to look like men, thats why she hides away her unique eye with bangs, use gloves or bandages, and clothes which leaves most of her body hidden, to hide her dragon traits):
"Life is dazzling and beautiful. And so, everyone is captured by it. The one who doesn’t forget his mission, even though reduced to an empty shell. The one who lost his body and ended up becoming a mere head. The one who seeks a love she couldn’t obtain. And you yourself…?"
"All of man is within a false life. But, is it truly wrong? A false life manufactured. But… it is a surprisingly kind and sweet world. Hollow, do you really want to release the yoke and break the falsehoods, even so?"
and lastly, his ending is clear evidence of this. by us rejecting the throne, we reject either becoming the king of dark or the king of kindling/lord of cinder, leaving our journey in the last leg and not commiting to either of them. aldia essentially feeds us this answer, what *he* thinks is best, with the ending calling this a self-imposed trial. but as we see with the flames fading before the credits roll, fire WILL fade, the age of dark WILL come, but it will take longer to, and thus the world will face the consequences of this fading. aldia wants the best of both worlds, he wants man to live immortal lives while living in the sun's rays, THAT is why he is a fence sitter, he cant commit to one or the other, and this is why ds1 only boiled down to TWO options only, fire or dark. its too late to reverse gwyn's damage, so we only have the option to work with what we already have, either continue the damage or end it. alongside this, by abandoning the throne thus your kingship, you not only leave potential anarchy from happening thanks to a missing dark lord, but also leaves the spot for someone to rule that you may *wish* didn't rule over you.
TLDR: aldia is the smart kid at school that is dumb outside it, and i doubt any will see this comment. if this gets recognition, sorry for the wall of text :D
You’re entirely right.
Dark is mass rather than space I believe. The descriptions of black flame and other Dark hexes and pyromancies call them weighty, heavy. In DS3, whole realms, landmasses, the entire world in fact converge towards the unrecognizable remnants of the Kiln of the First Flame and its worldtree. But what is manifested in the DLC is that they are actually converging toward something further yet, just beyond the ruined Firelink Shrine (where we fight the demon prince): the Ringed City. Where an unthinkable concentration of the Dark Soul's fragments have pooled throughout the eons, and where almost its totality has been brought to by Gael, further in time. The way the Dreg Heap looks and behaves is akin to a collapsing world, a singularity, a black hole that'd be the Ringed City (and we know how Miyazaki loves his cosmic and physics allegories, cf Elden Ring collapsing stars and such). But only when we unveil the light (time) illusion cast by Filianore do we truly arrive at to the moment that this place should have reached. But also, time grinds to almost a stop where gravity overwhelms the fabric of reality. The unification of the Dark Soul might actually slow down the world locally, from an external observer's perspective. Last but not least, the giant dark sign in the sky seems to point to/originate from the Ringed City, and also kind of looks like a black hole. (Actually looks a lot like the vey first photography ever taken of a black hole, but this happened in 2019, way after the DLC's release, so just a happy coincidence!).
@@MEUARoh boy....
bro, dark, while being weighty, doesnt have domain over *mass*, it has domain over *space*, thats why the dark hand, which has the power of the DARK SOUL, warps SPACE itself to create a shield.
This is also why things of the dark not only last eternally, but also why twisted barricade and repel affect space, because just as light can manipulate time, dark can affect its space
regarding the "convergence", it isnt called that in the original japanese. it is called the "drift", and in the cinematic intro, a certain word is used to describe this, "nagaretsuku" (流れ着く), which means to "arrive with the flow", this case, the STAGNANT flow of time, not convoluted.
i want you to imagine this: imagine there is a river that flows in a singular direction, that would be the flow of time, but at some point in time, that flow stops. this is what happened in lordran back in ds1 100 years prior to the game's events according to solaire's original JAPANESE dialogue, not his ENGLISH one, which, alongside the game, is full of localization errors
i can explain to you better on discord, which is Babs or balbabs, but to sum up what is the drift, it is this:
the first flame is the progenitor of time as a result of its light. thus, it creates a sequence of time, causality. but, as a result of it fading, *time* fading, it began to stagnate on the place where the first flame is located at, hence why solaire in the JPN says that LORDRAN specifically is a "strange place" due to its stagnated time, meaning, the rest of the world, the world of man as the JPN calls it, isn't with stagnated time. As to how it works, pretty much different points of time began intersecting in the same space, this being lordran, hence why solaire says that "his world" will not overlap with ours after we talk with him
each person who enters lordran, which pretty much is in a time bubble that miyazaki himself implies to be the case by calling it a "different dimension", inhabits their own "world", or as i prefer to call it, their own timespace, a space at a certain point in time
since we now know that different times are stagnating into the same space, how can we define the drift? essentially different SPACES *stagnating* at the SAME TIME (this being why emma in her JPN dialogue says STAGNATES instead of converge)
ds2 already indicated this by the presence of the first flame in the far northern region of the world of man, ds2's setting (drangleic) being beyond the throne, a mere path to it, but also by the presence of the old ones, the old chaos, the forest of oolacile as the shaded woods and huntsman's copse, and the presence of manus' abyss in that distant region. basically drangleic IS and is NOT lordran.
parts of lordran, different spaces, got warped to the far north of the world of man, which would then stagnate on the land they would end upon. warping is a phenomena exclusive to fire, since we use a bonfire's light to warp, and since drangleic too is subject to the stagnant flow of time, its very likely that this warping is another byproduct of the world's stagnation, fire being constantly kept around and dark kept at bay
in ds3, the first flame warps once more to another region, which lothric would be built upon, and this time, alongside bringing parts of drangleic to such region, it would begin to also bring in other spaces outside of the time bubble to stagnate in lothric, where the first flame is at, akin to a black hole sucking everything to it
if this is too complicated, allow me to explain in an analogy.
ds1 is a black chocolate cake with black chocolate sprinkles
ds2 is a white chocolate cake with black chocolate sprinkles as a result of the first game
ds3 is both a white and chocolate cake
again, i encourage you to message me on discord, bc youtube comments is kinda tough😭
@@rafael8946 That is a very interesting prespective, I did not knew that the japanese dialogue of the game was that different from its english counterpart.
May I ask, does in the japanese text say how the First Flame was created? Or even by whom?
YES! I've been waiting for this video
A darksouls video in our year 2024
It truly brings a tear to my eye
Cool video! Looking forward to the Prospect video, that one was cool to stumble across.
Ive been wanting to a video on it for so long ive got all the clips saved i just gotta rewatch the movie one more time to suitably rant about how awesome it is
I think I’ll subscribe solely off be being caught off guard by that bong rip. Now I feel like I gotta smoke with you
Its finally here!! Bros been edging us with this video
Wow holy fucking shit man, just when I commented making a meme about him teasing us on this vid for a year straight, he drops it😭😭💀
Imma watch this one very meticulously, but now is not the time - I'll wait for dinner just before going to bed to blast this on my TV, a video like this requires the utmost of attention
This one of those videos you come back to
You’re my favorite soulstuber bro. Keep it up🎉
19:27 to 19:45 there is some narrative dissonance with the assertion that the giants are a reincarnation or otherwise connected to the everlasting dragons other than converging on balance and un-change. why? well, if the dragons represent a non-stagnant eternity, and the flame is change, then "reincarnation" in giants goes completely against this notion. The everlasting dragons are supposedly outside the endless cycles of fire. For what we know maybe the cycles of light and dark have happened even before the main story, and the dragons and the trees were already there; for what we know, the dragons might just "exist" and they just become more apparent whenever there's no disparity.
Amazing vid man. Hopefully one day you'd consider making a lord of hollows vid. If anyone can make a worthwhile commentary on a seemingly unexplored story given the limited sources about it, it would be you. Keep up the great content ✊🏽
great video, really made me think about ds lore again after being deep into ER lore. Looking forward to more DS lore and especially the pontiff one. I hope you also get around to making a lore video on Londor since I think it's a slightly underexplored topic in DS lore videos. anyways much love
This video is great would be an understatement.
Nice, been waiting for this bad boy
I thought Giants in ds2 were the forms of ArchTrees - why the dead ones look like trees and spring seeds you can collect. Also pretty sure we know what Aldia looks like - he 's on the cover of the opening screen holding a crown. Great vid.
My managers just left and it’s just me for the next 2 and half hours. Couldn’t ask for anything better to pass the time🙏🙏 thank you!
I was looking for a 1 hour long video on DS2 lore this whole week...
A Deadwood reference within the first minute and a half is wild
I know that Pontiff doesn't sound like the First Scholar anymore, but you can see remnants of that being the case in early DS3 development, seeing how he was basically meant to be the final boss - someone knowing the fire and dark very closely, there to end it all, get rid of gods entirely and the cycle.
Aldia? >.> take my like then. I can't resist that enchanting voice
While Gwyn was the lord of light, nowhere in the games are the lord souls themselves given the light/death/life aspects. They’re pretty much a fan creation.
Right but thats the subtext we can get since the only other disparity we have heard that sprung from the first flame within the games is life and death so using that and putting several things together like nito's title as first of the dead death like aesthetics etc,etc its a safe assumption to do since tbh dark souls is like 99% subtext...
Nito took death. Hence the affinity with death. The Witch of Izaleth, life, the birth of demons her legacy. Gwyn took light, evidenced by the sun and his control over it. The dark soul was divided among all of man, a gift from the furative pygmy. Even if the souls don't say or show what they carry, what they did to their hosts is evident.
Just found this channel and I really enjoy your vibe! :)
Aldia is the result of unchecked “Let the man cook.”
As for Sullivan, I still think he couldve been the one mentoring the princes. Even if hes just some guy there must have been some kind of catalyst for him to be able to control both flame and darkmoon spells. It hints at a pretty deep understanding of the magics that Gwyn used in that first age