@@storkyfallout6516 Just the ringed knights. Humanity should thank Gwyn on its knee for having saved them from the age of dark, and for having left embers that'd illuminate the age of dark once its coming would be unavoidable.
@@nathanjora7627 the dark sign is on the ringed knight who were the first to be branded. Humanity made him afraid do to the power the abyss held and he was greedy for his age of fire not his life . In irl people have chosen death over handing things over. Gwen was the cause of the first sin and he took the easy way out. Instead of being there to make the transition smooth he chose to prolong it and screw over whoever came after.
Evan Johns But he shared dominion over the world with two of the other lords and allowed plenty of human kingdoms to do their own things, when he could’ve easily dominated all of them as far as we know.
"People fear what they don't understand and hate what they can't conquer." - Andrew Smith "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." - H.P. Lovecraft "Life is brilliant. Beautiful. It enchants us, to the point of obsession." - Aldia "All men trust fully the illusion of life. But is this so wrong? A construction, a facade, and yet... A world full of warmth and resplendence." - Aldia
But a lie is always need for some good. Because you can't save everyone. You have to make sacrifices. Gwyn want to save his kind. Even he want to save humanity also. That's why he do these things.
@@unalloyedju Yeah a lie is remain lie. But like everything, it also need the balance between these ideology. He can even kill pygmys if he want. But he can't. He even want to save them also. That's why he tries his best to do something where he can save as most as people he can even humans and pygmys without harming his own people. In reality, you can't choise everything ad you want. You had to make sacrifices. And i think efforts did lead something. He already kniw they are doomed. But he is able to create some glimmer of hope which drives others.
HERMIT Aldia acknowledges this "Life is brilliant. Beautiful. It enchants us, to the point of obsession." "All men trust fully the illusion of life. But is this so wrong? A facade and yet a world full of warmth and resplendece." Aldia still calls Gwyn's action The First Sin not because Gwyn banished Dark but because he messed the world up as evidence in The Ringed City. If you think Gwyn did nothing wrong then thats ok too. Some people will think Gwyn did wrong and some will think he didn't do anything wrong just like in real life, people have their own opinions.
@@unalloyedju Yeah that's the point. I see the good point of gwyn action. I think that he create a glimmer of hope through his futile effort to save everyone. But it can also be interpreted as suffering. He created a world where everyone suffer in that cage and his effort only lead more suffering. So you are right. So it is completely dependent on the effects of his actions on different people.
I personally don't think Gwyn did what he did out of selfishness or hatred. I think he saw his acts as selfless and honestly wanted to protect his age of fire, though it did him more bad than good in the end. He just wanted to save his kingdom- his people, and did what was necessary to fulfill his duty. In his eyes, Lordran was worth all the suffering his actions created. In the end, it's rather tragic. He did so many horrible and unspeakable things, and yet, the only thing he caused was even more problems. Press [F] for Lord Gwyn
Agreed,I always thought that was what Miyazaki was trying to convey with Gwyn,hence his tragic theme song and the meaninglessness of linking the flame.
Yeah you have to think about what it cost them to win against the dragons. There’s no way he could let his great achievements fade into darkness without a fight.
Just want to point out it's also really fun to see it flipped around, Gwyn being the bad guy and always trying to keep the human race from ruining his age o' fire..... and Frampt being the master manipulater.
He isn't really a good guy when you take into considerations all the kind of wrong stuff he did during his age of fire, from enslaving the pigmies into mortal servitude (so they would forget all of their previous glory and become dependent on the gods), to letting Fillianore rot and hollow forever alone because he couldn't afford to wake her up and undo the illusion that was the ringed city, that is until he used himself as charcoal for the divine BBQ as a last ditch effort because he had used all his others ideas (Abyss couldn't be dealt with and stay ever lingering, chaos flame came to oppose the age of fire in its quest for supremacy, he exiled his only true heir from the annals of history over petty conflicts of ages past.). Lord Gwyn could have been a wonderful and incredible regent, alas he obviously grew fond of all the powers godhood provided and would have preferred to doom the entire existence over surrendering what was never truly his to begin with, even going as far as to literally and figuratively consume the very world the linking of the fire was meant to prolong in an ironic twist, all because he couldn't accept that after day comes night, and vice versa, and simply sought to make himself the sole influence, so his demise in the end.
@@cbl1199 That's a good point! However my point is that i don't think he did what he did on purpose or because he was "evil'", he just sort of wandered down that path in search of a way to maintain everything he had worked on for so many years. His quest to maintain power was his eventual downfall, and everything we as undead suffer is because one god couldn't realise that fighting time is impossible. In time, the day will fall and the night will rise, as you nicely put before. I won't say he wasn't a dick or that his actions are excused in any way, but i don't think hw did everything he did because of the simple reason that he was just "evil" and "wanted power". I suppose he was greedy in his wish to maintain himself in power for as long as possible, but considering how hard he fought to gain it, i could understand that. He wasn't a dick because he wanted to or because he was cruel, he simply felt it was necessary to save his kingdom. These are my thoughts, and i like the tragic idea that he fell down a dark path because of thr good intentions he had!
This community needed this video. So much of the speculation about and demonization of Gwynn comes from literally nowhere aside from the near-psychotic obsession with making any character presented as a 'Big Good, but with even the slightest flaws' into a consummate monster, whether any evidence exists for it or not.
Gwyn gave us the amazing chest, that alone endears him to me. I wish we could see Lordran and Anor Londo in its glory. I'd love a Witcher-like RPG in that world, only with DS3 combat.
a friend and i were just talking about this!! we want to see lordran before everything went to shit. anor londo bustling with gods and goddesses, the 4 knights, the silver knights! we want to see this incredible world at it's peak
@@nathanjora7627 do you seriously want that shitty poise system back? Where if you play with a straight sword or a katana, you literally can't stunlock anyone because like 90% of the players are wearing a fucking Giant Dad set and a greatsword? That system was like forcing the players to wear heavy armor and heavy weapons, this is really stupid. And the new system gives a lot more possibilities for those who like small weapons and light armor. And it's more realistic after all. If you get hit in real life, you get a bit staggered regardless of how heavy your armor is.
@@sweet_krona "Do you seriously want that shitty poise system back?" Do I want a more immersive combat system that makes visual sense and doesn't completely shatters my suspension of disbelief every time a hollow staggers me by punching me despite me wearing a full suit of plate armor ? ... Yes ? I wouldn't mind it being nerfed a bit, or even to have it in combination with hyper armor, but yes, I would definitely want it back. "Where if you play with a straight sword or a katana, you literally can't stunlock anyone because like 90% of the players are wearing a fucking Giant Dad set and a greatsword?" I honestly don't care in the least about PVP :I I'm here for the RPG, and the world. If my immersion is at the cost of slightly worse PVP, so be it. But frankly, it doesn't have to be like that. Balancing is a thing. "That system was like forcing the players to wear heavy armor and heavy weapons, this is really stupid" ... No ? That's... That's just realism. Besides, what you're arguing for isn't for no poise, it's for poise to not be as broken as it was in DS1, which I'm fine with. "And the new system gives a lot more possibilities for those who like small weapons and light armor." And a lot less for those who don't. Besides, it actually doesn't in the latter case, since now bigger weapons give hyper armor. "And it's more realistic after all. If you get hit in real life, you get a bit staggered regardless of how heavy your armor is." What's more realistic : you can't get staggered if you're wearing the equivalent of a rock you can get staggered just as easily wether you're naked or wether you're wearing the equivalent of a rock Clearly, the former is more realistic. It's not perfect, I'll agree, but having your poise increase with your armer weight is obviously more realistic, not less.
But would it really be the end? We’re given no proof of the Age of Dark being terrible for all humans to inhabit it. But you know what DOES cause human suffering throughout the ENTIRE series? Undeath and Hollowing, BOTH of which are caused by The Dark Sign, something that ONLY appeared when Gwyn linked the first flame. And it makes more sense of how many dark creatures are born from humanity, when you’re very nature of being a dark creature is being suppressed and wishes to break free, it can cause episodes like Manus
@@lemmonboy6459 the humans aren't gwyns family. There's also no proof the dark is NOT the end for his kind. Considering that he and his kin came from light, it's reasonable of them to assume the end of light would be the end of them.
Lemmon Boy « Undeath and Hollwong, BOTH of which are caused by The Dark Sign, something that ONLH appeared when Gwyn linked the first flame » 1) we don’t know 2) Vendrick tells us point blank that in the absence of flame humanity would revert back to its pre-light state and become eternal but mindless hollows, that would roam the cold land. At best, Gwyn may have messed up and accidentally created the dark sign when he linked the first flame. At worst, humanity was always condemned to become hollows once the light was gone. Besides, both Vendrick and Aldia tell us that the current non-mindless form of humanity is somehow link with the light and its lord, you know, the whole « a sweet lie is still a lie ». Which means that we may have to thank Gwyn for even not being hollows in the first place.
@@nathanjora7627 exactly. With all the lines about darkness being comfortable and eternal sleep. It doesn't sound like darkness is a good thing, but rather a return to the way things were originally. Wich is technically not a bad thing, but it's far from a good thing. It is nothingness. Ultimately, gwyn extended both the posotive and negative aspects of life. Remember that the world is not always in a state where the undead curse is rampant. We the players just happen to drop in on the world when it is. I think if any of us had to choose between, letting the world return to a state where nobody existed or had wills of their own, vs extended existence albeit at a great cost, most of us would choise the latter.
I thought the linking of the first flame/going against nature was the cause of the curse. Only after Gwyn's "sacrifice" did the way of white church emprisoned the undead in the asylum.
ALI sensei It’s never said when precisely the undead started cropping up for the first time, just that undead plagues coincided with the decline of the fire, after the first linking of the fire. It’s possible that Gwyn’s linking of the fire caused the undead curse, it’s possible that the decline of the fire is responsible for the undead curse.
There is a a very very strong resemblance between the dark sign (a ring of fire surrounding the dark that just happens to burn away humanity) and a seal of fire (represented as a literal ring of fire surrounding a void of darkness) that seals the ring knights humanity and power because they were able to not only resist but use to a very powerful extent the abyss (which until the last dlc was percieved as uncontrollable wild humanity) with armor and weapons good enough to be used by knights that went on and succeeded in killing ancient dragons (and judging by the lack of lightning magic the knights themselves used probably didn t even need to peel off the scales to hurt the dragons although we don t know that for sure il agree on that). It is true that it is never stated as being the exact same thing but its heavily implied to be either the same thing or a prototype of the undead curse that exists now.
ZergMeTaSWORM « they were able to not only resist but use to a very powerful extent the abyss » Either that, or they were just able to use it, like so many other people, and just like everyone else it was corrupting them, so the gods decided to seal the abyss to protect the ringed knights and everyone around them too. I’m not saying it’s the case, I’m saying that, considering how the abyss are portrayed, even by dark sorcerers like Karla, it’s a very real possibility. « which until the last dlc was perceived as uncontrollable wild humanity » Well... This doesn’t really change with the ringed city. Considering there are spells allowing people to wield the power of the abyss ever since DS1, the question was never about wether or not the abyss could or couldn’t be used, more « at what cost ». « judging by the lack of lightning magic the knights themselves used probably didn t even need to peel off the scales to hurt the dragons » Well, either that, or they only fought dragons once these were whittled down by Gwyn and his knights, like Nito and the witch did. Furthermore, although the knights themselves don’t use lightning, the ringed city is filled with people who do, so maybe those were paired with the ringed knights too. And let’s not forget that the silver knights’ bow isn’t imbued with lightning either, yet its arrows could do the job well enough. I’m pointing all that out just to establish that 1) it’s not like we know Gwyn’s armies’ strategies, so it’d make perfect sense for the ringed knights to have received help from people able or willing to use miracles even if they couldn’t/refused, 2) peeling off dragon scales seem to be doable even without lightning, case in point the bow. « It is true that it is never stated as being the exact same thing but its heavily implied to be either the same thing or a prototype of the undead curse that exists now » I don’t think you named all the plausible options, but I’ll agree that the dark sign and the seal of fire are very obviously related. The problem with them isn’t so much « what » they are, as much as « what can we deduce from them ». And I think that’s where we lack informations the most.
@@nathanjora7627 regarding the abyss thing. while they were capable of using it most of the time it was still in a very very uncontrollable form (amorphous balls of destruction, clouds of uncontrolled poison). the ring city knights were the first (and probably last and the kaathe followers im drawing a blank on their name now) that could use it in a more controlled manner capable of making armor. i think it was explicitly stated it was used to seal the abyss in them also which implies their humanity. and we know that pigmies were more dark than humans so to say since they were essentially the progenitors of humans and one pissed off pigmy could basically spawn an abyss capable of swallowing an entire major town regarding the bow thing i think the dragonslayers were useful because even without their immortal scales the dragons were still quite resilient. i think they worked on the same idea that goths bow worked aka a very big very fast projectile to penetrate and incapacitate/kill a dragon that has no immortality scale. and maybe the fire seal was different from the "dark seal" but gwyn twisting the first flame might have also twisted that seal as well, since i beleive that burning yourself on the flame tends to impart some memories and feelings to it(judging by how the last boss fight is)
His bossfight screams "I tried my best and the world is still ending." You can parry him, the music is sad as fuck, its a relatively easy fight. If he really was evil, I feel like they would've made him seem a lot more evil.
I think the timeline of events is quite important. Having seen Hawkshaws video on it, where they conclude that a) the Undead curse seen in humans was a deliberate action by the Way of White, copying what Gwyn did to the Ringed Knights equipment but actually using it on human life and b) the Curse began appearing long after Gwyn sacrificed himself to the flame, i saw him in a different light. They also say that Gwyn didn't know Gwyndolin even existed, and that the NK was likely exiled after Gwyn sacrificed himself. If true, that exonerates him from most of his crimes
There's just one problem with this theory: The Dark Sign. The thing that marks every undead, the brand that signifies who is a danger of going hollow and who isn't? That sign? That was created by Gwyn, and he created it to punish his _own allies._ The human knights of the Ringed City fought alongside Gwyn and the rest of the lords during the Dragon Wars, helping them to slay their old oppressors and create a new world for them all to live in harmony, but because the humans drew part of their power from the Abyss, Gwyn became paranoid about them once the war was over, and branded all of them with the first Dark Signs: the ones we see decorating the armour of the Ringed Knights. It was Gwyn's decision to create and unleash the undead curse, and his constant "charity" and "self-sacrifice" following the slow spread of his original sin were likely just showboating to try and distract his followers from the truth. If we want to use the covid-19 scenareo, it'd be like if a major world power intentionally created the virus as a weapon, only to have it bloom out of control and then act like they're the "forerunners" to fixing the problem while simulataniously using its threat as a way to control and corall a new highly vulnerable population. (But of course such a thing could _never_ happen in real life! Haha, ha.... ha...) This doesn't even go into the many crimes Gwyn committed against his own family: He exiled his eldest son and erased his name from history because the man was able to achieve peace with the dragons instead of blindly slaying them on sight. He absused and gaslit his youngest son into being raised as a brainwashed, gender-confused prisoner to tradition, all because the boy was born under the sign of the moon, rather than the sun. He literally sold off his youngest daughter to the humans as a gift of appeasment to the Ringed City - to keep them sated and simultaniously hide them from the rest of the world so that nobody would see the damage he dealt to them. And what of his bastard children, like Crossbreed Priscilla and Yorshka? Beings seemingly created by the insane, malicious and power-hungry Seath the Scaleless? (Whom Gwyn happily granted a dukedom to, and turned a blind eye towards the cruel and immoral expirements he conducted on the regular.) He had an entirely new, freezing cold demi-plane created just so he could lock these innocent children away from the real world, and then used this painted world to essentially cast away anything that frightened him even a little. Gwyn sent his knights on suicide missions to abyss-stricken lands (Artorias), allowed his most loyal subjects to undergo severe discrimination without raising a finger (Hawkeye Gough), employed a vile cannabilistic sadist as a royal executioner (Smough) and allowed for rampant cruelty to flourish amongst his subjects. And that's not even going into the whole mess regarding the Way of White, a religion built solely to shepard powerful undead into turning themselves into living firewood to further Gwyn's own legacy, and which was so inherently corrupt that it eventually devolved into the monstrous organisation that would later be named the Cathedrel of the Deep. Gwyn, I'm afraid to say, did a _lot_ of things wrong. Every major problem in the Souls' world can be traced right back to him, and his paranoid desire for an empire that would last forever.
Most of those issues are simply kingship. Yeah, kings of old sold their children in political marriages, and then sacked whatever city they were in. They employed terrible people, and soldiering is a dangerous profession, people die. Don't forget that Seath went mad AFTER Gwyn gave him power. I'm not saying he's a good man, but kingship requires brutality by it's nature. The fact he set *himself* I to the flames tells me who he is at core.
@@aidengray3998 Oh certainly, a lot of what he did comes with the territory of being a monarch and a god, but that doesn't excuse them. Gwyn was never a good man, perhaps he had some good intentions, but in the end, it was by his hand that almost all the misfortune of the Dark Souls universe happened.
cain « That was created by Gwyn » ... No ? It’s said absolutely nowhere, and the closest thing to a dark sign that was said to have been created at all, the seal of fire, was created by « the gods ». Not « Gwyn ». Granted, it likely included Gwyn, or was made with his accord, but he still wasn’t the only participant, and he had a good reason to put the seals of fire (namely protecting their bearers from the abyss). « helping them to slay their old oppressors » We don’t know why the dragons were slain though. « Gwyn became paranoid about them once the war was over, and branded all of them with the first Dark Signs » It shows how warped your view of things is, because we are never told this happened *after* the war. These seals were made to contain the abyss that served to make these weapons. So logically, they could’ve just been made during the war, or hell even when the weapons and armors were crafted. Not only that, but if the seals of fire were proto-dark signs... Who is to tell who made the dark signs exactly ? It could’ve been made by anyone, even the serpents, or the original dark lord himself in an attempt to have his men and descendants be more than hollows, which Vendrick tells us is the natural state of humanity to which we revert in the absence of the flame, which is the whole reason why Yuria wants you to usurp the flame in DS3 rather than merely let it die. « It was Gwyn’s decision to create and unleash the undead curse » Objection your honor : speculation, he didn’t bring any evidence to establish that. « likely just showboating » ... Sacrificing yourself to the fire is showboating ? What ?! Also, what you propose is indistinguishable from « Gwyn messed up trying to merely fix a problem with the dark, and thus owned to his mistake by sacrificing himself ». Also, it’s weird because in your comparison, the creators of the virus try to show their efforts to counteract its effects... Unlike Gwyn. As far as we know, Gwyn’s sacrifice wasn’t made public. Wether it was his decision or that of the other gods, the fact remains. « He exiled his eldest son » No, he didn’t. The sunlight blade miracle in DS1 states that NK left said miracle on Gwyn’s *tomb*, when NK left Anor Londo. So obviously Gwyn himself was dead when NK was exiled. It also explains why the statue of NK doesn’t look like it was destroyed a thousand years ago, but only years or at best one or two centuries ago. And no, the exil didn’t happen during the war against dragons, it’s fair to say Gwyn’s tomb wasn’t even conceived of as of yet. Hell, Anor Londo wasn’t even built at the time. « He abused and gaslit his youngest son into being raised as a brainwashed, gender-confused prisoner to tradition » ... I don’t know about brainwashed and gender confused, but he did abused him by forcing him to hid himself and live as a cross dresser. Note : in some real life cultures, there are traditional reasons to force girls into cross dressing for a period of their life (when the family lacks a son). In these cultures, the girl being cross dressed isn’t told she is a male, merely that she has to act like one, thus not resulting into much gender confusion nor necessitating gasliting. We don’t know if this is Gwyndolin’s case or not. But fair enough, what he did to him was bad enough even if it could be proven that he treated Gwyndolin well apart from these instances. « He literally sold off his youngest daughter to the humans » ... No ? First of all : he didn’t sell her Secondly : we don’t know that she was a gift, let alone a gift of appeasement. What’s really told is that he gave the ringed knights the duty to protect the slumber of his daughter, a duty they carry out even after hollowing, as proven by the covenant item they give off, and that he was supposed to get her at some point. As far as we know, the reason why filianore wasn’t awakened by Gwyn is that he had to sacrifice himself to the fire. « to [...] hide them from the rest of the world » ... Except we know that there were people that got out of it, whole delegations, and people that got in, both delegations and armies. Besides, most armies that got in entered seeking the dark soul, so it’s not unreasonable that instead of trying to hide them because of his shame, Gwyn hid them because he didn’t want them to constantly get invaded by greedy humans seeking the dark souls, which would’ve put his daughter in danger by the way. « what of his bastard children, like Crissbreed Priscilla » Simple : she’s not his bastard. Not as far as we know anyway. « and Yorshka » Although it’s possible Yorshka was his literal daughter, which pretty much completely invalidates the idea that Gwyn hated the dragons, otherwise why would he have danced the tango with one of them/accepted to let Yorshka live, it’s also possible he merely adopted her, which would the previously stated idea even more. Of course it’s also possible that she has nothing to do with Gwyn and Gwyndolin merely told her they were brother and sister because she thought so, or whatever. But let’s run with what she told us, and assume that she is indeed Gwyn’s offspring, or at least his adopted child : At what point is she said to be a bastard ? « Beings seemingly created by the insane, malicious and power-hungry Seath » Although I share with you your hatred for Seath, I see no reason to believe that Gwyn knew Seath’s darker side when Priscilla or Yorshka were created, if they were even created when Gwyn was still alive, which I don’t remember we are ever told. As for Yorshka, it’s plausible but not necessary that she was created by Seath, after all the painter girl wasn’t, as far as we know, and there are plenty of humans who became hybrids of dragons in their lifetime, up to and including quasi complete transformation in a dragon, like Oceiros. « Whom Gwyn happily [...] turned a blind eye toward the cruel and immoral experiments he conducted » How the hell would you know that ? How do you know Seath didn’t start his most twisted experimentations after Gwyn left because under he knew that Gwyn never would’ve left him do these had he caught wind of that ? I’m not saying it was the case, I’m saying you’re assuming a whole lot and don’t substantiate one lick of it. « just so he could lock these » Besides the fact that I don’t remember we are ever told it’s Gwyn who ordered the creation of the painted world, there is also the problem that 1) it was only Priscilla, so that’s one child, not two, 2) Priscilla was isolated (and left alive, mind you, even if it was Gwyn that did it he could’ve done far worse easily, considering how much of a monster you’re trying to pain him as) because of the extremely dangerous power she wielded. Yeah, that’s awful, that’s also the kind of thing you must be able to do as a sovereign in that kind of world. Which is true wether or not it was even Gwyn that did it, and not NK, or Gwyndolin, or Gwynevere, or Velka, or a council of gods after or before Gwyn’s departure « to essentially cast away anything that frightened him even a little » It’s weird because you’re trying to make him out to be a coward. The guy who participated in every war we know he participated to (against dragons and against demons), and that didn’t hesitate to sacrifice himself to the fire, rather than send someone else with a piece of his soul, would be a coward ? Yeah, that doesn’t compute :| Also, it’s weird how Gwyn, despite the power to do so, never destroyed these things he was allegedly so freightened by that he tried to hide them. If it was Gwyn that imprisoned Priscilla, it’s even weirder because he even put the door to her world right in his palace, rather than in some remote heavily guarded location. « Gwyn sent his knights on suicide missions to abyss-stricken lands » First : it’s « knight », singular, not « knights » plural. Secondly : by that time, Gwyn was already burning up, not sure how he would’ve ordered Artorias to do anything Thirdly : it wasn’t supposed to be a suicide mission. Artorias was fully confident he would be able to take down Manus, and honestly I think he could’ve without Sif. « allowed his most loyal subjects to undergo severe discrimination without raising a finger » Which you know... How ? Again, when we meet Gough, Gwyn was already long dead. « employed a vile cannibalistic sadist as a royal executioner » Cannibalistic ? That’s what we heard Vile and sadistic ? ... How would we even know that ? But hey, why not, it’s probably the least contentious point you made so far besides Gwyn’s treatment of Gwyndolin being abusive. « and allowed for rampant cruelty to flourish amongst his subjects » ... No ? But pray tell : if this was the case, what made you think it was the case ? Because as far as I know, Lordran was doing pretty good during the age of fire. And if you’re talking about kingdoms outside of Lordran (weird that you don’t point out how he left so many human kingdom flourish independently)... well, they were outside of Lordran. « the Way of White, a religion built solely to shepard powerful undead into turning themselves into living firewood to further Gwyn’s own legacy » ... No ? The way of white imprisoned undead, which is pretty rational considering how they eventually turn into hollows, and again : this happened a millenium after Gwyn’s death. How could we know what changes might’ve happened to the organization between its creation and now, especially since it wasn’t created by Gwyn but by his uncle. And that’s without mentioning the fact that the head bishop of the organization was one of Gwyn’s companions, Havel... *a human.*.
cain « and which was so inherently corrupt that it eventually devolved into the monstrous organization that would later be named the Cathedrel of the Deep » ... No, that’s factually false. In DS3, the way of white is an organization split in two, one faction still faithful to Lloyd, and one that isn’t, and whose main occupation is hunting undead. Neither are or are know to be the progenitors of the church of the deep. The church of the deep wasn’t always monstrous, by the way, it was originally a proper organization, it’s just the constant exposure to the deep that ended up corrupting them, not the teachings at the core of their organization. So you’re wrong on pretty much all counts and even if you were, you blatantly ignore that the modern way of white (was of DS3) came from a schism, so even if the modern way of white was behind the church of the deep, it couldn’t be blamed on either Gwyn or Lloyd since Lloyd was no longer in control nor his followers. « Gwyn, I’m afraid to say, did a lot of things wrong » Which you have so far failed to demonstrate :| Much of your conclusion relied on erroneous facts, nonsequiturs, and things that we can’t know about that you asserted as if they were the truth. I didn’t yet give you my own opinion on Gwyn because I wanted your opinion as to what you thought my opinion is. The truth is : I don’t think Gwyn was a good person. I don’t think Gwyn was a bad person. I think that we don’t know enough about Gwyn and the reasons behind his actions to pass either judgement. It’s not to say we can’t judge anything, just that we don’t have enough to go by to say that he was good or bad. What I think we can say : He was courageous. Not in the sense that he didn’t feel fear, but in the sense that he was able to surpass them. There are multiple examples of that, like how he personally involved himself in wars against immeasurably powerful and frightening enemies, like the dragons or the demons, or how he has enough courage to sacrifice himself to the flame. He was *at the very least* a pragmatic ruler, since he didn’t destroy the things he previously fought against he allegedly feared, like dragons, humans, or the dark. Rather, he let them be, despite the danger he felt they were, or despite the danger they previously were, in the case of dragons. He even at least allowed that a dragon was raised by his fellow gods, and plausibly either birthed or adopted a cross breed. He was bigoted, case in point Gwyndolin, although it might’ve been merely him being prisoner of customs. He was wise and powerful enough to create a kingdom that flourished like no other, in which were created countless wonders that were shared with the world, like magic, or miracles. He was selfless. Not in the sense that he cared about humans, he might’ve, he might’ve not. I say he was selfless in the sense that he didn’t hesitate to sacrifice himself (rather than someone else) in order to protect at least his family, if not his kingdom, if not the whole world. Maybe he is at the origin of most bad things, it’s possible, or at least that he let happened many of them. But he also didn’t let happen many of them, and caused many great things. Miracles, magic, the age of fire, the linking of the fire, keeping Izalith under control after the birth of the demons, and the ray of hope that are the « embers left by previous linkers of the fire » that DS3’s firekeeper tells us about if we give her her eyes back.
cain « Gwyn was never a good man, perhaps he had some good intentions, but in the end, it was by his hand that almost all the misfortunes of the Dark Souls universe happened » Besides the fact that this is just untrue, Kaathe is also behind a lot of the bad, and most bad guys in the series didn’t need Gwyn to be bad guys, there is also the weird logic that a man with good intentions but actions with a bad outcome can’t be good : Since when can’t someone be good and do bad things because his actions have unforeseen consequences ? If he had good intentions (which I don’t think we can prove beyond « he wanted to protect at least his family »), and he took actions that had bad consequences independently of his will, that’d make him a good person that was also a failure. I honestly don’t think Gwyn was a good person and a failure, I think he was an overall good leader that might’ve been flawed but managed to pull of what he ultimately wanted (to protect the world from the dark), although he might’ve not known that he even managed to do that.
Two things can be true at the same time. Gwyn can honestly be fighting in an attempt to save the world, WHILE serving his own ends. Gwyn can believe he has humanity's best interests at heart, WHILE taking advantage of them in his exploits. Gwyn can be guilty of murder, even genocide at New Londo, AND be trying to help and protect others. I find it strange that a community that so loves ambiguity and complexity is so dead set on a one-dimensional view on Gwyn. The entire world as he knew it was being destroyed. OF COURSE he thought it was in the best interests of the people that it not be destroyed.
clockoff94 Nope. We are never told why Gwyn battled the dragons. Considering how powerful they are, and how intelligent Gwyn was, it’s fair to say he probably had a good reason to fight them, but this reason may not have been morally virtuous. As far as we know he could’ve destroyed them merely because they were an obstacle to world domination, or because they were tyrants forcing every other race underground, or maybe he killed them merely because they were like savage animals, not good or evil, more like a natural disasters, except killeable so it was a good idea to get rid of them before one of them ate up a whole city just because he was hungry. There are lots of possible reasons and unfortunately we are never told, or even hinted at. The opening cutscene says that Gwyn « challenged » the dragons, which may indicate that they were in a formal position of power and dominance over the land (and not merely a presence that could’ve been ignored) and what he did was nothing more than an act of conquest, or perhaps revolt. The fact that Gwyn had Seath as a trusted advisor and at the very least authorized Midir being raised by the gods, and that he potentially even adopted or conceived a dragon crossbreed (Yorshka, who refers to Gwyn as her literal father) also indicates that Gwyn probably didn’t wage this war merely out of hatred for the dragons, as some people claim. Which, again, doesn’t mean he had good intentions, just that hate was probably not a prime motivation. In the end all we really know is that 1) the reason was sufficient for all four lords and their people to battle the dragons, and wasn’t mere resentment, 2) at least some members of the ancient dragons’ race were intelligent (ex : Seath and Midir), 3) eventually (though far after the war with dragons ended, even after the first linking of the fire) one of the greatest, if not the greatest, dragonslayers of all times, the nameless king, heir and firstborn of Gwyn, decided to join them, despite the exile this forced him into, 4) many people came to worship dragons due to their power, which may or may not be linked with 3). Do of that what you will, and I hope people will correct me or add anything they deem useful to my recap.
Zachary Heine « no one is really doing morally good » Laurentius, Solaire, Sieglinde, the Fair Lady, Artorias, Anri and Horace, Siegward, Yhorm, Rhea, Irina and Eygon, Sirris, Ludleth, the Ivory King, the Ivory King, and also the Ivory King, would all like to have a word with you. « but they’ve all got pretty solid reasons for being shitty » No, not really no. Most souls characters are either clearly good, clearly bad, or not on the moral spectrum at all. When I say « not on the moral spectrum » I mean that they never act in a way that’d allow us to know their morality. Take most merchants. Could you tell me if any of them is really good ? I mean, most of them are pretty chill and sound harmless, but that doesn’t mean they are secretly huge bastards. There are a few ambiguous characters though, but generally those clearly have at least good intentions. Gwyn, Gwyndolin, The Witch of Izalith, Vendrick, hell even Yuria, or Greirat (a thief, ie : not the most upright character), all seem to at least want the good of most people, or at least their people, which is generally commendable even if it comes at the expanse of other people. The only characters I can think of who are shitty but for good reasons would be the Abyss Watcher’s (with their « Spanish inquisition » vibe, it’s fair to say they probably brought a great deal of not always justified destruction), Queelag (trying to defend and heal her sister) and Lothric and Lorian. These two are being shitty by refusing to link the flame, thus letting the world go to hell and decay ever further, not even mentioning what might happen if the flame goes out, and they do that purely for egotistical reasons, not for any grand ideological reason like Yuria... But on the other hand, who could blame them ? They never asked to get the duty of linking the first flame, they had it pushed onto them without ever having a choice in the matter. Demons too. I guess demons do have a pretty good reason for acting shitty, at least as far as DS3 is concerned, when their very existence is threatened after some guy in underwear decided to kill the flame that let them live and reproduce. I don’t know if they’d really count as people though. I don’t think so but there are convincing arguments that it was originally meant to be the case. I don’t know if enough was left of these original intentions in the final game to justify saying that demons are people.
Gywn panicked at the fading of the light, I don't think anyone can blame him for doing what he thought he should for the sake of everyone that followed the flame/light. I sympathize with him even though he went to extreme measures to ensure the flame kept breathing. Sometimes you have to go to great lengths to survive.
While this is interesting, I am not convinced. Linking the flame has more consequences, which becomes more and more evident as the series go on. No matter what happens it the dark will always come back, and in the mean time the constant linking just makes it worse degrading the entire world and never actually stops the curse. You speak of splitting his soul as if its a kind act, yet he trusts the likes of absolute monsters like Seath. Fear not the dark my friend, and let the feast begin. (Also not going to lie while I do agree with your point, including all that stuff about our modern day just kind of sours the video. I'm not any of those people who deny the virus or anything like that I just wanted references to things in souls not be reminded of the world I want to take a small break from to watch your videos.)
I mean, Gwyn can't exactly see the future. All he knew is he had to start the flame again to help life move on, not really knowing what consequence that would've had. Also I see why you hate the fact he brought up real life events, but that's the only way certain people would be able to understand and see through their eyes.
The people saying he was not aware of the circumstances, you do realize Izalith tried something similar and we all know how that turned out. Gwyn was just scared of the Dark, here why he tried controlling the abyss by placing Seals of Fire on abyssal weapons and armor. It's all about control in the end, let's not try to sugarcoat someone's sin.
« No matter what happens it the dark will always come back » Diseases will likely never be fully eradicated, and catching one disease won’t prevent you from catching all the others. Should we stop fighting them ? A harmful phenomenon being recurrent doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight it. Also, what you say isn’t entirely true, in DS3 the pure age of dark is no longer the only option, since even without the dark lord to usurp the fire, the age of dark will contain little flames left by previous linkers of the fire. Which Gwyn may or may not have planned for all along (and if he did, that’d take him to Leto Atreides II levels of badasserie). As for giving his soul to death and four kings : You have to remember that at the time these weren’t the same people as the one we found. There is a whole milllennium between when Gwyn left and when we find them. « Fear not the dark my friend, and let the feast begin » Thanks for demonstrating why the dark is bad.
Facts. The age of fire is literally the age of gods it’s stated in the lore. He altered the course of nature for his own selfish wants of securing the place of the gods. He was born in the age of ancients and just as all ages must rise and fall he refused to allow the age of humans or the age of dark to take place. To prevent humans from ruling the world rather than the gods he killed thousands.
Actually he didn't want to destroy any of them. He want to save both kinds but it need sacrifices. But in reality only one kind can exist. That's why Gwyn need to sacrifice one to save others. But he wanted to save everyone. He tried or hope to save everyone.
@@alexandersmith5319 i would argue gwyn WAS a good person. He had the right to continue this age of goodness which is what most people wanted anyway. The dying of the goodness is what caused all the suffering! Not the goodness itself. That’s insane to blame what you love just because it’s dying.
Different perspective than the norm. I agree that simply fighting against nature to preserve life isn’t inherently wrong or selfish, however sinful the scholars may view it as. While the peace Gwyn desired may have been a “lie”, the age of fire, before the flames began to fade, was truly the age where everyone who came from the dark could prosper. The ringed city became a prison, to be fair, but its leaders still cried out for Filianore in their dying breaths.
It’s a good pondering. It’s definitely a good example that the endings of the games aren’t just good or evil in what comprises them. I don’t think what Gwyn did was intentional, the ‘breaking of the karma of the world’ as it’s translated. I think what did happen was that Lloyd and the Way of White propagandized what he did for their own gains while silencing Gwyndolyn, his remaining male heir, with the whole made up reason of moon magic being associated with the feminine. Gwyn’s legacy was tainted by what a materialistic culture did in the name of the gods after he left. To the point that they don’t even praise his name anymore.
Get the notification on my phone with the title of this video... MY MANS JAKE ABOUT TO CATCH THESE HANDS Watch the video and get hit with compelling arguments.... MAYBE YOU RIGHT THOUGH
Gotta agree with your reactions to this. Saw title, wondered if Jake had taken a bit more than a one-hitter if you get my meaning. Now though...while I DO see FLAWS in the argument, other actions of Gwyn are highlighted in a way I can't throw out easily. Was he perfect, oh no. Did he make the BEST choices, certainly not. But...for the given value of what he knew, what he understood, and how things likely were at the time? ...I can't judge him as harshly as I once did. I feel more sympathy for the Lord of Light and later Ash. Would I still bring an age of Dark knowing this? ...less likely than before, where I'd have said "lol yes"...now I'd feel the need for a measure more thought. Admittedly, by Dark Souls 3, the Fire had run it's course, quite obviously. But then the Fire Keeper's option...that takes new meaning now. That'd be my go-to option, and I think the best fate an Ashen Hollow could bring to a burnt-out world.
Essentially this entire video rests on the premise that the Age of Dark = being a mindless hollow = Bad. Do we know for certain that the Age of Dark would lead to humans being mindless hollows? Is there any evidence in the series that would contradict that claim? In any case, if we accept the arguments of this video then the world of Dark Souls 3 is actually just fucked considering how underwhelming the Link the Fire ending is in DS3.
Nobody in the series knows what an Age of Dark would look like, which is fitting because humans can embody many things and the Dark Soul can take many forms. The Dark is the Abyss corrupting and devouring Oolacile, and the Dark is the cold, lightless and gentle goodly home for those with nowhere else to go. The Dark is Manus' mad bestial fury, and the Dark is Manus' heart-wrenching yet hopeful desire to reclaim a lost joy. The Dark is the monstrous Darkwraiths consuming others only for personal gain, and the Dark is the loyal Abyss Knights who gave their lives in the war against the dragons. The Dark is Nashandra's deceit, and the Dark is Alsanna's devotion. The Dark is the innate desire of humans to seek each other out and be together, whether in love or hate. (Even in the depths of the Abyss in Oolacile, what do the numerous Humanity Phantoms there do? They move near you. Touching them causes damage but they aren't actually doing anything to you, they're not stealing anything from you like your health or your Humanity or your souls. They just want to be near you.) Humanity, the human condition itself, is Dark. It was because he trembled at the Dark that Gwyn made no attempt to understand it and its people, instead doing everything he possibly could to smother it. However, he could end up right in hindsight if the eventual Age of Dark (eventually the fire will fade no matter how many times it's linked, as Dark Souls 3 showed us) turns out to be horrible for reasons that have nothing to do with the cycle of firelinking leaving humanity a burnt husk of a world to inherit.
Honestly? We need to keep in mind humans didn't really exist until the Age of Fire. The Pigmies, the ancestor of man, they existed, and kept the Dark Soul, divided it up among themselves, and to early man. We also know what happens when a person Hollows, in all games. Outside of the player character, they become like all the enemies we cut down, no dialogue options for most if not all of them. And would a world that is dark, full of all those so Hollow, would that be a world worth living in? Fighting endlessly over souls we no longer know what to do with? Humanity we can't offer to bonfires to restore ourselves...if that even makes sense in a world of Dark. Finally, we need to keep in mind that, while in Dark Souls 3 we have Londor, the Pilgrim and the Sister that preach of a Lord of Hollows, could we say they are the new standard of Hollow? Would that be what we truly become in a world of Dark? Who's to say, but then, by that game we are Unkindled Ash, not a Human or even a Hollow by that point. I think that's the tragedy, nothing is absolute or certain, even for Gods, ones we see end, some like Gwyn at the end of our Blade. I cannot say Gwyn did NOTHING wrong...but I can't say he wasn't right about a good few things either. He knew what would become of his folk, the gods, and even their servants should Dark prevail. He didn't hoard the souls he had, his own especially. He gave it's power to others he trusted, to those he hoped would honor his final act...and he cast HIMSELF, not his kin or some hapless human, HIMSELF into the Flame, so that it may continue. What ever came after, I feel Gwyn wasn't a villain; Tyrant? Maybe, and certainly to some. A fool? Indeed, as to some of his decisions and his judgement of others. But evil? Malicious and scheming? No...perhaps that's the most interesting of all. The God Gwyn of Sunlight...was a Good Man.
@@AkaRedFallen The pygmies are just the first humans, the descendants of the Furtive Pygmy and the first inheritors of the Dark Soul that all humans have. There are two effects of Hollowing: physical and mental. Both come from the weakening of the white soul--the same white soul you get from kills and world drops. As the white soul dims with death, humans begin to return to their original non-living state. Were it not for the curse/seal of fire/Darksign (all three are the same thing), this wouldn't be an issue aside from looking hideous, but the curse stops humans from making proper use of their Dark Soul. Their minds and identities are derived from their white soul alone, so those fade along with their white soul whenever they die. It stands to reason that once the First Flame fades completely, the seal of fire derived from its power would fade as well, setting humanity free and allowing their minds to unify with their Dark Soul. This would remove the mental decline of Hollowing, and since there would be no more death without the disparity of fire, everything still animate would be "Hollow." Thus, it stands to reason that an Age of Dark could be full of Hollows who act the same as they did before rather than devolve into mindless zombies. This is the state of being that Londor tries to uphold, being a land of Hollows who live in a functioning society. Londor is a "new standard" in that it's an enclave of Dark as free from the influence of the old gods as can be.
Even if this is what ashen hollow is saying and it MAY be wrong these are almost certainly the reason why gwyn made the calls he made. It doesn’t matter what the right answer might be in hindsight, to gwyn he was genuinely trying to help his people, that doesn’t make him a villain.
« Do we know for certain that the Age of Dark would lead to humans being mindless hollows » Yes. It’s literally one of the only explicit dialogues in DS2. Vendrick tells us that much and deplore that there isn’t a third path, that is found by the bearer of the curse when he brings Vendrick the four crowns (vendrick’s, Old Iron King’s, Ivory King’s, and ... Poison King’s. No clue what his name was >
Shet man you blew my mind. Now I'm not so sure if gwyn was the bad guy or if he was just trying to do what was best for his people. But we must remember the mad Titan Thanos, whom was also doing what he thought was best for the people of the universe
@@brasingt It's is my favorite infusion, on a knight I like using it because it goes great with the elite knight set. Chaos anything is awesome if your a Darkwraith.
This theory is essentially exactly what I thought before I played the games myself. Not a bad theory, it makes sense within the basic story, as it’s represented. But I think the theory necessitates ignorance of context and much of the deeper lore
I never understood the argument that linking the Fire damages the world. It always seemed that the effects of linking the Fire just degrade over time. Every time the world comes back a little darker, or 'Darker'. The fuel for the Fire becomes weaker and weaker so the world comes back a little... less. Until we come to the Unkindled One, who for all their power and skill and determination is made up of nothing but the ashes of someone that once was, so they can't even link the Fire properly.
Actually some one before pointed out that the first flame was linked to humanity by non other than Gwyn making humanity a salve to the gods to the first flame, all because of fear of the dark soul or dark lord that will rule in an age of darkness the age of humanity
At the very least he was not the coward Kaathe calls him. A coward wouldn't throw himself into a literal fire just so that his children would get to bask in a sun he'd never see again.
Personally, I don’t even know if Gwyn actually even matters during the events of the games. He’s part of the History and culture but nothing else. He’s dead and gone and his Kingdom is literally nothing but ruins. From the moment the player begins the journey it’s not even about what was right or wrong during Gwyn’s Time. We have to decide for ourselves what’s right or wrong in the events we’re currently experiencing. Linking the Fire preserves a dying age, and each time it is linked, a greater sacrifice will be demanded the next time it needs to be linked. Can the world really afford to live on like that? Eventually, nothing will appease the flame. Abandon the flame, let the world fall to darkness. The survivors go mad and the living are plagued by monsters, death, and madness with no light to protect them. That doesn’t sound like an age sane people would want to live in. Lord of Hollows Ending: Wrest the Flame from the mantle and lead the people as a Lord of Hollows. This Ending is only as good or bad as the player is. You basically become the new Gwyn. The world is protected or damned under your judgment. However at the very least, this path doesn’t leave you burning at the kiln or your world fading to black. You leave the kiln and pursue your next mission. The world is still visible and people still have hope. Whether that Hope is in Vain or not is on you. Such is the Burden of Lordship.
Nope. The seal of fire, which may or may not be a proto-dark sign, or a derivation of the dark sign if the dark sign preceded it, was created by "the godS", plural. It may or may not have included Gwyn, although admittedly it's likely that Gwyn at least let it happen. But it also might've involved even the furtive pygmy himself. So, besides the fact that we aren't told that the dark sign is Gwyn's creation, we aren't even told who exactly are the creators of the seal of fire.
@@nathanjora7627 And the gods are Gwyn and his people.So your attempt at defending the scumbag is laughable. And the pygmy being ok with his descendents being branded and having their power sealed is downright idiotic.
Posting it separately so that you'll maybe see, Ashen: The metaphor of fire and dark in the series isn't that the light banishes the dark, exactly, it's that it enhances disparity: there is less dark, but more importantly, there's a clear and sharp difference between it and the light, in the same way that a strong light casts strong, sharp shadows. As the light dims, the shadows get bigger and blurrier. The locust preachers refer to this pretty explicitly, as does one of the "lore dump" characters in DS2.
...and I forgot to add: that clear and sharp distinction is mirrored by a distinction between life and death. Ie the "fleeting form" men assume is one marked by clear life and death, without living decay and madness. Limited, but nicer, reinforcing a central theme of the series, that enough time ruins or makes pointless everything, eventually.
@@alexandersmith5319 Damn good point any ending other than linking the fire must be wrong can't believe I didnt think of this after what my first tomb of the giants looked like
"long ago the way of white (aka the way of Gwyn) produced its first undead..." item description from Leeroys Paladin set in DS1 so we know that Gwyn is responsible for the undead curse. to fuel the flame
Great work on reexamining your own positions Jake, when I saw the title, I figured it was a gag. :) That said, I'd add my voice to the choir that Gwen, was imperfect but basically well intentioned. He did what he did as best he could because he feared for all, not just himself or his legacy. And he had a lot of unkowns to deal with in his attempt to battle back the darkness.
I see Dark Souls as a sort of Hegelian dialectic and class war. Fire created disparity not just of heat and cold, light and dark, but also power. The ideology that lead Gwyn to link the fire has failed because disparity of power inevitably leads to resentment and revolt. The dark isn't a good alternative and has failed numerous times, but I think most people would agree that the best ending in Dark Souls 3 is the userpation of fire. A synthesis between light and dark.
Well, all that Gywn did was for his benefit. He created the Fire linking curse, locked the pgymies away in the ringed city, prevented the use of the dark soul. All to keep his age running
"All to keep his age running" ... Without him around to benefit from it. Ergo : his age running wasn't for Gwyn's benefit. Ergo : not all that Gwyn did was for his own benefit. If Gwyn really was as selfish as you made him out to be, why not just give fragments of his soul to one of the countless fanatically loyal soldiers he had under his command ? Literally hundreds, if not thousands of Black Knights, if not more, walked straight into the fire with him. If they were ready to do that, don't you think it would've been easy to task one or a group of them to link the fire in his stead, using fragments of his soul, that we know he can split since he gave parts of it to Seath and the four kings ? "He created the Fire linking curse" ... No ? The fire needs linking because otherwise it dies out. Gwyn didn't invent that. And the world goes to hell when the fire dies out because the world's current state relies on the age of fire, so naturally when this age of fire dies, so does the world. And because the age of dark is death and all that. "locked the pgymies away in the ringed city" It's literally explicitly said that they could get out of the ringed city. Manus was one of those.
Albert Hucks For which part ? Is it for the Manus was allowed to go out of the ringed city stuff ? Right now it’s pretty much the only event I mentioned that’s not so integral to anyone of the DS plot that anyone who played the game should know them, but I’m still not sure it’s the thing you want reference for. Anyway I’d be happy to provide, even for the whole comment if need be
Sheev Palpatine Gwyn burned in agony for a thousand years. The world, though, experienced thriving comparable to that of the first age of fire, so definitely not burning agony. And when the fire is linked, the world doesn’t agonize, the world lives, the world only agonizes when it’s near the end of an age of fire, as it’s near death.
@Sheev Palpatine "That's my point." Oh, sorry, I thought you meant the millennium of painful agony for the world >< My bad. "in reality he was too nice to a fault" I... Don't think we have enough to justify that proposition. Certainly he was no coward, no racist/speciest, he wasn't selfish either, not in terms of his personal power anyway, but that alone, and the immense respect he got from so many people, including so many honorable people, isn't enough to justify Gwyn being "too nice to a fault", when we have things like Gwyndolin's upbringing, that had to have been made at the very least with Gwyn's consent. "characters like Kaathe, Manus and Aldia, on the other hand, they are a real piece of work." I'll agree on Kaathe and Aldia, if we can even call Aldia a character (I hate aldia, not just as a person, I think he is a really badly made character), but Manus, not so much. As far as we know, he himself was profoundly good, but his inner darkness, literally, the piece of dark soul he had, as well as some unclear event following his discovery by the Oolacilians, corrupted him, so as far as I'm aware, we can't really fault him on anything he did in his beast form. Point being : the beast form was clearly harmful, at the very least a sort of King Kong like character (ie : unintentionally harmful, and misunderstood), but the human form was, as far as we know, clearly good (since his soul is a lump of gentle humanities).
one of many reasons why dark souls in the greatest game ever made. not only is the game play a master piece but the story is so deep with lore that its up for endless discussion. brilliant
As a rebuttal, Gwyn "Sharing his Soul" isn't as virtuous as you think. He gave parts of his soul only to people who pledges complete loyalty towards him. At that point it's more of a Tribunal situation from Elder Scrolls. Also what Gwyn did is CLEARLY the bad thing cause all of reality gets more and more fucked the more the cycles go on and even the Fire Keeper at the end of DS3 sees something so terrible she decides to completely do a 180 on the ritual if you give her the eyes.
@FOOL!! "He gave parts of his soul only to people who pledges complete loyalty towards him" ... Yeah ? He intended for the people he shared his soul with to rule the kingdom in his absence. Of course he didn't give his soul to his enemies, or people he had reason to think would betray him (which, as far as we know, he had no reason to suspect in either Seath's or the Four king's case). "At that point it's more of a Tribunal situation from Elder Scrolls" ... No, it's like any vassal ever in history. He gave power to those he thought would use his power to continue his legacy, aka : people loyal to him. I don't see the problem with that :I "Also what Gwyn did is CLEARLY the bad thing cause all of reality gets more and more fucked the more the cycles go on" First of all : no it's not that clear, because although reality slowly breaks down, it's better than the dark (in which he was born in mind you, so he ought to know how it is) Second of all : no it's not that clear, because DS3's firekeeper tells us that in the distance of the age of dark, there are precious embers *left by previous linkers of the fire*. Meaning that wether Gwyn knew it or not, his sacrifice allowed for the age of dark to not completely take over, even after the fire would die out. Third of all : it's irrelevant. Gwyn made the wrong choice, but he did it for the good reasons. Hence, he didn't do anything wrong insofar as his goal was virtuous. "even the Fire Keeper at the end of DS3 sees something so terrible she decides to completely do a 180 on the ritual if you give her the eyes." Okay, listen : the terrible things she see is the betrayal of the fire ("These will reveal, through a sliver of light, *frightful images of betrayal. A world without fire*. Ashen one, is this truly thy wish?") BUT she also says that she is drawn to realize these visions ("take these eyes away. Before I am drawn into the darkness. seduced by the thin light, and the awful betrayal.") Now, why that is ? Well, she has an explanation, although she is not sure : it's because even when dark will reign, there'll be lights that will remain ("The eyes show a world without fire, a vast stretch of darkness. But 'tis different to what is seen when stripped of vision. *In the far distance, I sense the presence of tiny flames. Like precious embers, left to us by past Lords, linkers of the fire. Could this be what draws me to this strangely enticing darkness?*") Conclusion : the fire keeper is likely not drawn to betraying the fire because she thinks what Gwyn did was messed up, but instead because wether Gwyn knew it or not, he allowed for the creation of an age of twilight, neither truly dark, nor truly light. That's just a personal name I give it by the way, there is no in game explanation as to what precisely that age of dark with small embers would be like, maybe it'd be the regular age of dark, but with places where a bonfire would create a miniature age of light, maybe it's just that somehow by their sacrifice, all linkers of the fire infused humans with a part of the original light soul, and thus now the dark won't turn humans into hollow... We don't know. But we do know that it's not like the age of dark that Gwyndolin feared, and that Gwyn wanted to avoid.
Nathan Jora first off your first point is completely wrong Gwyn was not born in the age of dark so no, he knows nothing of what the age of dark entails except knowing it means his age and the gods will die, he was born in the age of ancients clearly stated in dark souls lore, the age of ancients is when the ancient dragons ruled this is literally stated in the first video of dark souls, so if your first statement is wrong it’s clearly easy to see your just wrong in general. Just because there was no fire does not mean it’s the age of dark. The land was covered in fog and unformed in the age of ancients the age of dark is not there is no fog there is no light there is only darkness. Second Gwyn did nothing for humanity he did it to extend his own age the age of fire which is clearly stated that it is the age of the gods, he did it so he could extend the age of the gods stopping the age of darkness from taking over (the age of humanity) He wished to never let humans take the place of gods he cared nothing for the humans.
Zachary Pendragon « Gwyn was not born in the age of dark » No, he was born (or at the very least has lived) in the dark though. Remember DS1’s intro ? « And from the Dark they came » which introduces the four lords ? « he knows nothing of what the age of dark entails » Even if Gwyn wasn’t born or had not lived in the dark (which canonically he has, as per DS1’s intro), the guy was pal with Frampt, and knew Kaathe as well as the furtive Pygmy, and let’s not forget that the firekeepers, as per DS3, are said to 1) be able to see at least partially into the age of dark to come (ie : they are able to see what it looks like), 2) had their eyes (that reveal at least part of said future age of dark) taken off from them ever since the first firekeeper, so at least some knowledge of how the age of dark would be should’ve been known from Gwyn. Finally, Kaathe and the intro both say or imply (in the intro’s case) that the age of dark had begun before Gwyn fueled the first flame, so he should’ve been at least able to see what a weakening of the flame would’ve resulted in. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that the intro for DS1 says that « only dark will remain », which implies that dark was the default state of the world ever since the appearance of the dark, or at the very least that it had been very much present since the beginning, meaning that Gwyn, by creating his age of fire in the first place, ought to have known what he was casting out too. All in all : it’s fair to say that the ultimate soul, founder of the age of light, and battle brother of the first dark lord, as well as accointance of the primordial serpents, should’ve known a fair bit about the age of dark :| « this is literally stated in the first video of dark souls » Well, if you think so I can’t advise you enough to return listen to said video. You’ll see that the narrator says exactly what I said, that Gwyn and the other three lords came from the dark, and also that « only dark will *remain* », which implies at the very least that dark was part of the world ever since the apparition of the first flame. « it’s clearly easy to see your just wrong in general » Actually no, because my general case doesn’t rely on this fact alone. A case can be made and rely on several independent pieces of evidence, in which case discarding one wouldn’t discredit the others.
Nathan Jora th-cam.com/video/ylFzJ3wRgHw/w-d-xo.html You mean this intro where literally it states in the first sentence it was the age of ancients not the age of darkness? “A world surrounded by fog, the world grey and covered in crags.” Nowhere does the intro say it was an age of darkness it literally says a world of grey. Want to try again? It also clearly states that dark did not exist until the flame came into existence meaning obviously that Gwyn could not have been born in darkness because darkness did not exist. Also of course he had the fire keepers eyes removed, this is more proof of his selfishness he knew the fire keepers seeing into the darkness they would be able to tell the humans (who were already beginning to get behind the age of dark) that it would be them who overtake the gods leading to the next era. Gwyn did everything out of selfishness to keep the power in the hands of the gods. This is also proven by the first fire keeper at Firelink who was considered impure (the only impure fire keepers are ones with eyes) She also had her tongue cut out and as mentioned by the crestfallen warrior her tongue was cut out because she used her words against the gods.
Imma be on the level with you my dude, the main anti-covid argument isn't that it doesn't exist, its that we're handling the pandemic wrong and have been from the beginning. I get what you were saying and going for with the comparison, which was spot on, but I gotta nitpick when its due.
Pointing out how badly we're handling the pandemic isn't anti-covid. There are plenty of people, too many people pretending to know more than science about how to conduct themselves and it is hurting us.
@@TheAshenHollow I'm really just saying, in terms of framing it, there isn't a large group of people who are saying "Covid not real." Its more of a question of whether or not the lockdowns and business closures are working or worth it, whether or not masks are effective at this stage, which treatments are effective, which aren't, why, which doctors or experts seem to be the most reliable or accurate etc. I'll agree, it isn't helping that a lot of people are playing armchair cdc right now, but a lot of that is going on on both sides of the issue right now too.
Well gwyn is somewhat like the griffith of dark souls ( also the title of this video seems a reference to that as well ) one who on the surface seems like he did good things and deserves the deific status he sought to obtain but the deeper u look the more you see a man so in love with himself and so bent on achieving his goals that he will sacrifice anything to do that , be it friends , family or the entire of humanity ( also everything seems to indicate the actions of gwyn were not a sort of response to save humanity but rather they are what caused humanity to be cursed with the darksign to begin with ) So yeah gwyn ( just like griffith ) built his castle on a mountain of corpses and will let nothing stand in his way
@@briancooley8777 there can be no joy without suffering to make that joy shine brilliantly, a life with no death slowly devolves into monotony and misery
@@BeefMeisterSupreme ah that’s the great lie of duality. It’s just all we know so we think it must be the whole of reality. We think That there can be no other way. The knowledge of good and evil tells us there “must always be a balance” ♻️ but it’s a prison. So the way to escape must be something eternal something limitless. Ahah! Yes Nirvana! Heaven is eternal life reconnected to the source of all things: God (the infinite)
Natural doesn't necessarily equal "good". DS1 context, when given the choice of living, and knowing your descendants will have a chance of life versus annihilation, most people would choose life. The curse of the undead generally appears at the dying of the flame. With DS3 context our firekeeper can see the world be reborn after snuffing out the first flame, albeit in an unknowable amount of time.
Is reigniting the First Flame truly unnatural? The Lord's Souls enabled the transition from the Age of Ancients and the Age of Fire, and the Lord's Souls are the result of previous individuals linking the flame in a previous Cycle. If the ages are truly cyclical, then rekindling the First Flame is a necessary part of the cycle, otherwise there would be no Lord's Souls and no end to the Age of Ancients.
I love this part of the Dark Souls the community was Gwyn good? Evil? Perfect? I think there are good points from every angle personally I think Gwyn was more "human" than he realized with how much he tried to do and achieve but in doing the most he could he caused much hardship I think its also hard to say whether Gwyn did good or bad by linking the Flame because we never get a good look at what the Dark would've had in store for the world. What if the Dark was the same as the Light but just with Humans being in charge and the Gods lower? I think it's a good question we might never have an answer for. An example of Gwyn doing something bad many believe would be Gwyns treatment of gwyndolin and his upbringing but some things that must be acknowledged is that Gwyndolin appears in Miracles in ds3 so clearly gwyndolin wasn't as much of a secret as we were lead to believe in dark souls 1 and also the fact that gwyndolin may not have been completely against his upbringing although we have no reason to believe that and is more wild speculation. I believe Gwin made mistakes but was tryly trying his best for his people but had the problem of no perfect solution. Now a character I truly wish we got more information on was Gwyndolin we know so little about him and yet to me it seems he's hiding a lot of vital information on the Gods and the time that passed between ds1 and ds3 but all we can really say for sure is he lived for a long time and just before we reach him in ds3 he is consumed by Aldrich (That jerk hiding our lore and consuming best souls waifu at once how dare he that ugly blob of sadness)
What prevents me from being convinced of this, the most, is the apparent fact that Gwyn was selfish enough to place the darksign on humanity. He was working things for himself alone, and you can see that by how he treated the pigmy and how he used his children. His character is shown through his actions, and his actions leave much to be desired. For all one can say about his sacrifice to the flame; Maybe he did it out of spite? He truly preferred to die rather than let that flame fade. Think about it. What truly was the reason for all of his wars? What did the dragons ever do to him? What did the demons do to him? If history is written by the victors, and he truly won those wars, then why did no one speak of the causes and reasons for them? Think of his war against the abyss. Think of the reason as to why Manus fathered it. These challenges were provoked. They weren't necessarily problems to begin with. Gwyn just wanted more than he ever needed and waged war to acquire it all, then threw himself into his obsession over an everlasting rule.
"Gwyn was selfish enough to place the darksign on humanity." He wasn't though :I The godS put a seal of fire on the ringed knights, which may or may not be the same thing as the darksign, and it may or may not have changed as it was possibly passed down to non-ringed knights, if that ever happened, which we don't know either. Point being : there are too much unknowns to blame it on Gwyn, let alone on his presumed selfishness. Though, I'd have you recall they did that because the ringed knights had their armors and weapons made form the abyss, and corrupted as a result. It seems to me like the seal of fire was a protection, not a curse. "He was working things for himself alone" Had he been working for himself alone, don't you think he would've simply gave a big chunk of his soul to one of his many devoted knights and told him to burn himself in the fire ? "His character is shown through his actions, and his actions leave much to be desired." Let's see : he fought on the battlefield in the wars he waged he left many wonders across the world he had human companions that had immense respect and admiration for him (like Havel) his firstborn son, when exiled by the other gods, thought highly enough of his father to leave a memento of himself on his father's tomb (technically neither of the last two are Gwyn's actions, but how good or bad gwyn was can also be reasonably inferred from his surroundings' actions toward him) he had enough confidence in men and dragons, despite having fought the latter, and feared what great harms the former could bring, that he entrusted one of his daughter to both humans and a dragon, and that he gave pieces of his soul to both a dragon and multiple humans (both of which would then betray him, proving that maybe he shouldn't have been so nice) he sacrificed himself to the fire after having given out most of his soul to his successors so that they may rule properly, all to protect the world from the encroaching darkness ... Seems like a good guy to me :I "For all one can say about his sacrifice to the flame; Maybe he did it out of spite? He truly preferred to die rather than let that flame fade." Yeah, and maybe he did it out of pity for humans :I If we're going to blatantly disregard every piece of information we were given for a character's actions, then I get to make things up too :I "Think about it. What truly was the reason for all of his wars? What did the dragons ever do to him? What did the demons do to him?" For the dragons : we don't know. What did they do to the other lords ? As for the demons... They are demons :I Like... They destroy things. That's what demons do :I They are destructive. And from all we know, it's entirely possible he thought the demons were responsible for the destruction of Izalith and the death of his former comrade. Best case scenario : they can be reasoned with, in which case since there are demons in anor londo and that Izalith wasn't obliterated by Gwyn, it's probable that he spared them, which would make him the good guy. "If history is written by the victors, and he truly won those wars, then why did no one speak of the causes and reasons for them? Think of his war against the abyss. Think of the reason as to why Manus fathered it." ... He never went to war against the abyss though õ_ó ? He sacrificed himself to push back the dark. The abyss that Manus fathered appeared as the consequence of Oolacilians messing with Manus, not as a result of Gwyn's actions. As for why no one speaks of the causes of these wars... It was millennia ago, for the war against dragons, and a millennium ago for the war against demons :i "These challenges were provoked. They weren't necessarily problems to begin with. Gwyn just wanted more than he ever needed and waged war to acquire it all, then threw himself into his obsession over an everlasting rule." So you're telling me that the guy who wanted everlasting rule... Preferred to sacrifice himself, rather than send someone who could've done that in his place, as we know he could've... Makes total sense.
I don't think you can view war on dragons as a conventional war waged by people on other people. The everlasting dragons aren't "alive" in the common sense - they represent natural state of the world. As such, the war on dragons echoes ancient creation myths, in which the world as we know it is said to be formed out of primordial, formless (lacking disparity) matter
@@Unstable_constant Sounds nice and all, but in the Dark Souls realm, they're not being symbolic. It is their reality. Everlasting apparently didn't mean unkillable. They still committed genocide. The dragons haven't returned. Whatever part of nature that they played doesn't seem to be a part that has cycled them back into existence. Conventional war or not, Gwyn's actions are very telling of his terrible nature. His own son turned his back on him because of it, and he was a God of war.
@@theliveing can't really call that a genocide if we aren't even sure how the war looked like, or how sentient the original everlasting dragons actually were (Miyazaki even refuses to call them "alive"). And in my opinion, yes, they are absolutely meant to be understood as representations of nature before fire (ie. before reason and change) and interpreting them as normal living creatures kinda misses the point, but that's subjective I guess. What's objective however is that the firstborn always highly respected Gwyn - see the scroll under Gwyn's coffin - even assuming it was Gwyn who banished him (which is not a fact but a far-fetched theory)
Well, as the saying goes, "The path to hell is paved with good intentions." I don't believe actions are inherently good nor bad but rather it's the context and ultimate effect/outcome our actions have dictate what's justifiable and what is not. Some things just need to happen weather we like it or not... Maybe that's a depressing idea but I see it in a bittersweet sort of light. Best to embrace both the good and the bad, no? Kinda funny... Souls taught me acceptance and had me adopt a "it's only when you accept death that you can then truely live" mindset. Weird ramble aside, Gwyns actions are definitely understandable though not necessarily "good" in my eyes. Most of us would likely do the same if placed in his shoes.
... No ? The drowning of an entire city wasn't done by him, it was done long after his sacrifice, and it was done in order to contain the dark wraiths lead by the four kings that once ruled New Londor, and that risked getting out of New Londor that they were currently rampaging through. So it was a misery kill for New Londor, and pest control for dark wraiths, all wrapped up into one. He didn't imprison anyone in the ringed city, which is evidenced by the fact that 1) people got in, 2) people got out (legally that is, as far as we know), 3) the alleged jailor (midir) was friend with at least one resident of the city (Shira), left the ringed city for enough time to wage a war, which is consistent with what Shira tells us about his duty (which is to battle dark, not to keep the ringed knights inside the ringed city), and would've been pretty much the worst jailor for this particular city since... He's a dragon. Asking a dragon to watch over a city filled with dragon slayers (ie : the ringed knights) is pretty dumb. And Gwyn ain't dumb. As for Gwyn disrupting the natural order... Yeah, this mad lad did it. At least for the sake of his family, if not all the gods, if not outright everyone. But tell me : why would it be wrong ? I mean intrinsically, I don't mean "the effects", I mean "what's so bad about disrupting the natural order" ? Don't we disrupt the natural order all the time with great consequences ? We cure diseases, send people to the moon, cloth ourselves in materials nature would've never been able to create. Would you want to abandon all that ? Nature is what it is, not what's best for us. If Gwyn thought that he could improve the world by defying the natural order of things, that made him a pure badass and a great man, even if he was wrong (which I don't think he even was).
Nathan Jora If Gwyn wasn’t wrong in disrupting the natural order, then wouldn’t the Sable Church and the Ashen One in the Lord of Hollows ending be in the right as well? They’re disrupting the “natural” order set up by the gods for their own benefit, just as Gwyn did before to the cycle of Light and Dark before.
Austin Richards « If Gwyn wasn’t wrong in disrupting the natural order » I didn’t say that. Well... I do think he wasn’t wrong, but that wasn’t my point. My point was that disrupting the natural order isn’t *in itself* a problem. « then wouldn’t the Sable Church And the Ashen One in the Lord of Hollows ending be in the right as well » No, not necessarily. Again, wether you break the natural order or not isn’t the problem, it’s why you do it, and what knowledge of the consequences you had beforehand. I think that the lord of hollow ending is no longer the worse one in DS3, contrary to DS1, because it won’t be a complete age of dark and the lord of hollow is not a dark wraith, like the dark lord. There is the issue that the sable church was inspired by Kaathe’s teachings and leads Londor as a ruthless theocracy, but at least in this ending the dark doesn’t fully prevail, like in the dark lord ending of DS1, or the age of dark ending of DS2. « They’re disrupting the ‘’natural’’ order » It’s not a natural order. The whole point is that it’s unnatural. It became the normal order, maybe that’s what you meant by natural, but it was never natural. Also : yes, even if the infinite cycles thing was natural, I would say that merely going against nature would not make the sable church wrong. It’s all a question of motivations and foreseeable consequences. « set up by the gods for their own benefit » Citation needed :| The gods did not seem to profit a whole lot from the ages of fire that succeeded the first age of fire. Ever since Gwyn left and Anor Londo was abandoned, the world was mostly ruled by humans. Furthermore, wether it was Gwyn’s intent or not, the age of fire benefited humans too, so extending it would’ve benefited humans too.
I believe that Gwyn was caught in a loosing situation. It was either make a choice that is bad or leave things alone and the situation gets a lot worse. Now I'm sure Gwyn did some bad things, no one is perfect, but I believe he did what he had to as there was no other way. The right answer isn't the popular one after all. I see Gwyn as a hero but he was forced to make bad choices. It's beena thousand years since Gwyn lit the first flame according to DS1 lore and thre are others who have designs on the flame and want to fulfill their own agenda like Frampt or Kaarthe. In the end, all what he had built up, his friends, family, alllies, kingdom, subjects. He lost it all. He lost everything just to keep the fire going a little longer and for humans and others to continue to prosper.
Vaati did a video that basically boiled down to Gwyn intentionally created the undead curse to force people into linking the fire. The curse is what causes humanity to writhe and go mad. If not for Gwyn hollows wouldn’t exist and humanity wouldn’t create abominations. It’s a tough position to defend.
Thanks for replying. I know it’s not technically canon but it’s based on quite a bit of fact, if someone disagrees I make sure to stay open to discussion.
I have so much implicit lore connections I haven't been able to find anywhere else. Is there somewhere I could just send you a crazy-hermit sounding list of things I just want to see spread.
I believe Gwyn did the best he could to further what he believed was the best course of action, and, to be honest, the Dark doesn't exactly present itself as cuddly and peaceful. I think he did an almost messianic self-sacrifice for a good cause, even if he resorted to some shady means to achieve his goals.
01:50 The undead curse is not the dark's doing but that of Gwyn's first sin - the linking of the fire. The brand of the undead being formed like the ring Gwyn and his men branded upon the humans as a means to contain them is an ironic rebuttal to Gwyn's sins of the past. The dark doesnt spawn the curse at all. It may spawn the abyss, but also has a gentle and cold side to it.
I see where you're coming from. However, I see Gwyn akin to that of the 40k Emperor. Both did what they did for the good of all, but the consequences of their actions screwed everything. Gwyn's linking of the fire eventually burned the world to ash. In the end everything died any way.
Okay I'm going to have to step in here for a sec. The parallels between covid-19 actually fit better with the idea of Gwyn manipulating people into fearing the dark. On his end the only thing they have to go on is their faith in him. Not to mention, just like in this case, Gwyn actively sealed away anyting that did not fit with his vision of the world even before the light started to fade. This can be seen in how he dealt with items like the dark/occult Ember. I'll give you this much it was an interesting experiment to try to see you attempt to defend him. In the end though, I believe there's enough in game evidence to prove that his intentions were less than noble. Also something that a lot of people don't understand or forget about the series, there is a big difference between the dark and the abyss. The abyss is to the dark what the flame of Chaos is to the Life Soul. Basically the abyss, the flame of Chaos, and the undead curse are all examples of corrupting a lord soul. The undead curse is like a tree being hollowed out from the inside after being struck by lightning and catching fire. The darksign isn't a sign of the dark eating through the person, it's a sign of the fire burning to all the person is and feeding on the person's own dark.
To me Gwyn's actions show that he wasn't selfish. Everything he did was to extend fire and preserve life. The fact that he sacrificed himself to the first flame, allowing it to consume his body and soul as fuel, demonstrates that he valued the prosperity of the world over everything else. Also there is no proof that the "dark" is a good thing for humanity. Just cause the furtive pygmy was humanity's ancestor doesn't mean he knew what he was doing or how powerful/corrupt the dark is. Kaathe keeps promising a glorious age of man without fire but there's literally no evidence that humanity would thrive in such an age. Also what's wrong with "fighting against the course of nature"? If Nature had it's way we'd all be prey on the savannahs instead of watching TH-cam lol.
Gwyn tried to fight nature but he did it the wrong way, you're not supposed to attack the undead curse with raw fire because that will burn the flame out, instead you have to grab the darkness with one hand a the fire with the other forcing them to mix and match fueling eachother until you get that soft purplish undead never ending flame that will NEVER die out We do that in the end of dark souls 3 finally putting an end to the cycle of light and dark by forcing them together into a purple not gray age of slow yet never ending growth... Imagine the age of light but without the impending doom of it In terms of modern medicine, Gwyn tried to cure a disease locking everyone in quarantine until the disease died out. Khathe wanted us to ignore the disease because to him it doesn't exist anyways. And the "Dark Lord" aka the Ashen One took the disease and created a vaccine out of it, you can see Anri and Horace right next to you in that ending, keeping all the benefits of undead without the negative effects
I dont think gywn tried to fight the undead curse. I don't believe it was even around when he was alive. From everything we are told it came after he reignited the first flame
Actually in this ending you do the same thing Gwyn did, but with an enternal and vicious circle in the Age of Hollows, you're not helping humanity... The third ending is the one where you put and end to the curse, the vicious circle, and restore the world natural order thus beggining the Age of Dark.
6:34 dayum i remember getting to that tower and see her look so young then the time passed and i assume she died and you go outside to find everything in ashes which i assume is what the fire can do to the world and what will happen to lothric/Lordran in time if the fire keeps being linked
I always disagreed with the notion that Gywn did that they did out of selfishness, hatred, or fear. The age of Fire is the time of moving. The world changes during ages of fire, we KNOW this from the games all being different, with history having moved on. Yet each claim that the Flame is a lie, and the dark is the truth, but isn't the dark a lie? As far as I could ever tell the Dark only brings stagnation to the point of madness. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE eventually hollows within the dark. There are no minds, no wills, no wants aside from the base urge of destroying contained in beasts of the dark. You don't TALK with the overwhelming majority of creatures and the ones that you do talk to make it very clear what is to come. "Let the feast.... begin." All of the others have not spent time in the dark. They claim it is a path worth following, but the Sable Church's adherents WORSHIP the dark and HERALD its coming, not exist within it. It wouldn't surprise me if they were wholly ignorant of what actually happens within the dark. The only one that actual knows was Kaath, and I trust that serpent's words like I trust a hollowed human (fully taken by the dark, since that is what hollowing is) to not blindly attack me as I walk by.
Interesting ways to defend him, though I don't completely agree. I think to make this supposition requires ignoring a lot of other perspectives and evidence in the game. I'm probably inviting some rather heated arguments by saying so, but I think Gywn's conquest and steps taken to sustain his age isn't so much analogous to science, but more to imperialism and/or capitalism. The issue came not from Gwyn seeking a better way of life for the denizens of the world, but from denying nature and natural consequences to his actions. He sought eternal growth and prosperity, and ignored, imprisoned, and condemned symptoms of the fundamental issues that that pursuit would cause. The way I see it is more similar to something like the fossil fuel industry: they provide energy for sustaining a quality of life that was unthinkable before (age of fire), but in doing so, it erodes the quality of the atmosphere and causes a massive chain reaction that eats away at life and the world on all levels, eventually causing feedback loops that find their way back up to the rich people who live like gods among men despite being fundamentally no different (ie the gods response to hollowing). Knowledge that their actions are causing the world to die would jeopardize not only their noble image and others' loyalty to them, but also spur them to take combative action against changing their way of life that they've become so comfortable in. The most action that is taken to actually combat the existential threats to their way of life is small ways to drive back the effects of the world dying, without actually addressing the underlying issues as to why it's happening (linking the fire, staving off the dark). The undead seem much less like anti-science, and more like people who are either living in harmony with nature or embracing the natural cycle of cause-and-effect, who fight to climb to the top to make their way in the world and possibly change it for the better. In regards to the chosen undead, in doing so they might fall victim to the propaganda espoused by those at the top of the societal heap (Faumpt) or they might come to learn of dark truths about the corrupt nature of the current order (Kaathe). I do think that the dark that the chosen undead can embrace isn't a solution though, since we know that it doesn't make a difference later on. Even if they tear down the whole establishment order, the fire still finds a kindler who prolongs the age of fire into the subsequent games anyways. In terms of the bearer of the curse, they come into a world where the system is still going on; "countless kingdoms have risen and fallen on this very land" but generations later, the same system is still in place -- the system that prospers while the world falls apart on a knowable schedule. And as Aldia, debatably the greatest scholarly and scientific mind in the souls-verse says, "there is no path", embracing a sort of pessimism about the state of things, but at the same time, he hints at his own existentialism, saying "beyond the scope of light, beyond the reach of dark, what could possibly await us? And yet we seek it, insatiably". Aldia hints at there being a way to find a compromise or alternative between the light of eternal growth-prosperity and the dark of eternal consumption-destruction. However, we never really get to see this actualized, unfortunately. And then in DS3, the unkindled one comes into a world that is so degraded that it isn't even akin to a waning fire anymore, but just burnt out ash with tiny cinders scattered about. The sun isn't even whole in that era anymore; even the light of the sky is hollowing. All of the normal endings to that game hint that the cycle will continue to go on and eat away at the world in the same ways it always has. But the ending of the DLC, where the dark soul pigment is given to the girl that Vaati calls Aria, seems to suggest that the hope can still be found. It may be in creating and going to a new world (think of how many people talk of humanity having screwed up the Earth too badly and seeking to colonize other planets instead), or in people finding their escape in new worlds created by art, even as the rotting world burns around them. Either way, the theme of this cycle of rising and falling empires that eat away at the integrity of the world is always present, and I can think of no better real-life metaphor for that than the current human politico-economic systems, where Gwyn represents the 1%. But that's just my hot take lol, idk what's really going on inside Miyazaki's head.
Bruh I feel betrayed. Playing ds3 I remembered them saying darkness was the age of man and all that so I was like "Yeah. Bunk that dude gwyn" but I recently got remastered and after hearing all this and seeing artorias (and hearing his cut lines)...I feel kinda bad for my boy. I know its a souls game but...Does dark souls 3 even have a happy ending? Cuz all of them lead to the age of dark if my memory serves me right.
"Did nothing wrong". He potentially ended the Age of Ancients prematurely and slaughtered an entire race of beings, literally genocide, ushered in the Age of Fire, a.k.a. Endless God Party Time Baby, and then begrudged humanity of their Age of Dark because "o noes me fire dying me scared of dark". He, like every sapient being out there with a will and a sense of self-preservation, did everything in his power to retain his and his peoples' way of life. That doesn't make him right though. He not only committed mass genocide on a race of ancient beings, he then condemned another to exist in a cycle of cursed undeath and madness. Gwyn, Nito, and the Witch of Izalith, are as much treacherous villains as Seath is for betraying his own kind out of jealousy and spite. Let's see if your video can change my mind even a little. I love your content, and I value the freedom of expression and opinion, and enjoy watching and reading content that contains opposing values and opinions from my own. It broadens the mind. Thank you for this opportunity to broaden my mind even more. ❤
I will say this in defense of Gwyn. He could not possibly understand that by defying the course of nature he was dooming the world. How could he? He just wanted to prevent the light from fading to allow his subjects to be free of the undead curse for a while longer. But in the end, he made the biggest mistake by linking the fire.
@@TheAshenHollow Not really considering it carries symptoms common with a flu. it's not the plague and even if it was, we're still here. A far deadlier disease would be willful ignorance in this case, especially of one's history.
I appreciate the new look on the story. Whether Gwyn did bad or good really depends on the Undead Curse itself, and as I'm personally a believer in the theory that the Curse was created by the Way of White, it's difficult to not assign Gwyn some measure of culpability. Still, good video! It makes decent points and had a bop for an intro!
I think the undead curse and the abyss are side effects which came from gwyn's efforts to stifle the dark that was inevitable. Him creating the dark sign and trying to contain it, changed and corrupted the dark somehow. He saw the age of dark as his enemy because it threatened his own power and he didnt understand its nature. Gwyn ended up corrupting and destroying the very things he sought to protect because he was terrified of inevitable change and losing power. Like the gray world before his, everything has a cycle and at some point, Gwyn felt his cycle of power and light was greater and more deserving of existence than the next one. But that isnt how life/existence works. The next cycle of things is coming and it doesn't matter how powerful you are, there is no resisting it. His efforts to stop the the coming age of dark and man only delayed and corrupted it.
Glad to see this video. This video is quite a flipped outlook on the actions of Gwyn, and him as a whole, compared to your last video about the first sin. Perhaps this is you saying the first sin wasn’t his fault, overall, quality content as usual, sir.
To be fair. Science is a relatively young language and has a fundamental difference from days of old. Humans thrived and survived even before the advent of technology; however, technology has allowed more prosperity for the many. To the point of our own self brought demise.
Thank you! Everyone is always painting Gwyn as this evil tyrant. Fact is, we don't know that he is. The only thing we know is that he created something dear to him which he wants to preserve. Sure we can see some bad consequences, but I really can't get behind all those people who say he's evil.
We know so little about what's really going on, how can we tell? Everyone in the games has an agenda of some kind which might motivate them not to tell us the whole truth, and that's assuming they even know what the truth really is. Even three games later we know basically nothing about what the Age of Darkness actually means and was it always a bad thing or did it become a bad thing after eons of thwarting the natural progression of the world? Is the undead curse natural or is it a product of Gwynn unnaturally extending the Age of Fire? The games give us so few facts to analyze about what's going on or what the 'natural' progression of the world should actually be that you can easily argue this any way you want and there's really no way to refute it
My honest take on Gwyn’s “righteousness” in his actions; is that he truly cared for his own, but was consumed by the power of flame, so much so that in fear that he would be lost to the dark. He would portray the denial of the natural order of things, as right and good. I think it was the people who continued his legacy willingly blind to what they were actually doing. Humanity to him was a necessary evil, humans being so closely bound to the dark. Were used as cannon fodder in the dragon war, and made for excellent servants. He divided his power among those who he felt he needed to keep beside him. So was he wrong, i think so... but was he a cunning fellow about it, most certainly
I don't know that I buy it. Your argument relies on the undead curse being inherent in humanity. But I thought the common understanding was that Gwyn, possibly with Nito's help, created the curse and the Dark Sign. I can, however, see an argument that Gwyn did nothing wrong in the sense that he acted to preserve his own people at the expense of humans, to whom he had no obligation. He and his children are called gods, but they seem to be of a race separate from both humans and giants, and ultimately hold no allegiance to humans. Or at the most, his actions extended existing human civilizations at the cost of Humanity's ascendancy.
i also think, and this is my personal belief, that Gwyn knew what was happening while he was in the kiln of the first flame. it is my belief that Gwyn sealed himself there to protect the flame and actually prevent it from being linked, as he knew that he had made mistakes in linking it the first times, as all things do. so in my opinion, Gwyn is cognizant of what is going on around him up until the chosen undead arrives.
One thing I respect about Gwyn is his conviction. He believed in his age of fire enough to burn for it, sacrificing himself for what he saw as the right path.
I can't agree at all, first off he started the cycle that completely destroyed the world as seen at the end of Dark Souls 3 (Dreg Heap, Kiln and Gael's boss arena), the only reason that there's hope in the world at the end of DS3 is because Gael gave his life for pigment to hopefully create a painted world that won't rot like the others. He may have had the best intentions, but they say that the road to hell is paved with the best intentions and him starting the cycle of linking the fire destroyed the world in the end. Honestly it was best to simply let it die out and not completely fuck up the world several millennia later, undead curse included. Secondly it's very much possible that if he let the Age of Fire run out that maybe the Abyss and creatures of the dark wouldn't be so devastating or dangerous, though this one depends HEAVILY on if the events of AotA happen after Gwyn linked the fire or not (which I'm leading to believe that it happens after). Denying them their place in time would sure as hell piss them off (I mean wouldn't you in that place), which is likely why the Four Kings sided with Kathe, they were betrayed by Gwyn and probably weren't too happy about it. Also the war on the dragons, it seems that they started it, and when his firstborn realized the truth he was disgusted enough by his own father's actions to betray him, Gwyn ended up basically erasing his history for that, history is written by the victors they say. Not only that but the things that he did to his own family (Nameless and Filianore) was very wrong.
Gwyn did nothing wrong.
*The everlasting dragons want to know your location*
Lmfao
Not so everlasting after all it would seem
Hey the ringed knights and all of humanity would like a word
@@storkyfallout6516 Just the ringed knights.
Humanity should thank Gwyn on its knee for having saved them from the age of dark, and for having left embers that'd illuminate the age of dark once its coming would be unavoidable.
@@nathanjora7627 the dark sign is on the ringed knight who were the first to be branded. Humanity made him afraid do to the power the abyss held and he was greedy for his age of fire not his life . In irl people have chosen death over handing things over. Gwen was the cause of the first sin and he took the easy way out. Instead of being there to make the transition smooth he chose to prolong it and screw over whoever came after.
"Gwyn wasn't manipulative, he gave power to those who betrayed their people to serve him"
Hmmmmm...
He shared his power amongest others,he couldve been a greedy asshole and hogged it all for himself.
@@JT044-iz1cv he only gave to others when it benefitted himself, though?
Evan Johns But he shared dominion over the world with two of the other lords and allowed plenty of human kingdoms to do their own things, when he could’ve easily dominated all of them as far as we know.
Evan Johns Except the four kings didn’t betray humanity, not until they became dark wraiths.
"People fear what they don't understand and hate what they can't conquer." - Andrew Smith
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." - H.P. Lovecraft
"Life is brilliant. Beautiful. It enchants us, to the point of obsession." - Aldia
"All men trust fully the illusion of life. But is this so wrong? A construction, a facade, and yet... A world full of warmth and resplendence." - Aldia
Underrated comment honestly, bless you.
all words to describe Gwen or better yet 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'
No matter how tinder, how exquisite.
A LIE WILL REMAIN A LIE.
But a lie is always need for some good. Because you can't save everyone. You have to make sacrifices. Gwyn want to save his kind. Even he want to save humanity also. That's why he do these things.
HERMIT A lie will remain a lie.
@@unalloyedju Yeah a lie is remain lie. But like everything, it also need the balance between these ideology. He can even kill pygmys if he want. But he can't. He even want to save them also. That's why he tries his best to do something where he can save as most as people he can even humans and pygmys without harming his own people. In reality, you can't choise everything ad you want. You had to make sacrifices. And i think efforts did lead something. He already kniw they are doomed. But he is able to create some glimmer of hope which drives others.
HERMIT Aldia acknowledges this "Life is brilliant. Beautiful. It enchants us, to the point of obsession." "All men trust fully the illusion of life. But is this so wrong? A facade and yet a world full of warmth and resplendece." Aldia still calls Gwyn's action The First Sin not because Gwyn banished Dark but because he messed the world up as evidence in The Ringed City. If you think Gwyn did nothing wrong then thats ok too. Some people will think Gwyn did wrong and some will think he didn't do anything wrong just like in real life, people have their own opinions.
@@unalloyedju Yeah that's the point. I see the good point of gwyn action. I think that he create a glimmer of hope through his futile effort to save everyone. But it can also be interpreted as suffering. He created a world where everyone suffer in that cage and his effort only lead more suffering. So you are right. So it is completely dependent on the effects of his actions on different people.
*Kaeth ruins Oolacile
"That wasn't true age of man, it'll work next time"
*Kaeth ruins New Londo
"That wasn't true age of man, it'll work next time"
The true Age of man is everyone's humanity getting sucked out by a Darklord with Lifedrain and having to live as Hollows
Nice 😂 everywhere he goes trying to usher in the age of man ends up having demonic abyss creature pop up.
Jack Taylor 044 that would be the age of hollows
*Londor begins sweating nervously
I always thought it made more sense for Frampt being who ruined Oolacile
I personally don't think Gwyn did what he did out of selfishness or hatred. I think he saw his acts as selfless and honestly wanted to protect his age of fire, though it did him more bad than good in the end. He just wanted to save his kingdom- his people, and did what was necessary to fulfill his duty. In his eyes, Lordran was worth all the suffering his actions created.
In the end, it's rather tragic. He did so many horrible and unspeakable things, and yet, the only thing he caused was even more problems.
Press [F] for Lord Gwyn
Agreed,I always thought that was what Miyazaki was trying to convey with Gwyn,hence his tragic theme song and the meaninglessness of linking the flame.
Yeah you have to think about what it cost them to win against the dragons. There’s no way he could let his great achievements fade into darkness without a fight.
Just want to point out it's also really fun to see it flipped around, Gwyn being the bad guy and always trying to keep the human race from ruining his age o' fire..... and Frampt being the master manipulater.
He isn't really a good guy when you take into considerations all the kind of wrong stuff he did during his age of fire, from enslaving the pigmies into mortal servitude (so they would forget all of their previous glory and become dependent on the gods), to letting Fillianore rot and hollow forever alone because he couldn't afford to wake her up and undo the illusion that was the ringed city, that is until he used himself as charcoal for the divine BBQ as a last ditch effort because he had used all his others ideas (Abyss couldn't be dealt with and stay ever lingering, chaos flame came to oppose the age of fire in its quest for supremacy, he exiled his only true heir from the annals of history over petty conflicts of ages past.). Lord Gwyn could have been a wonderful and incredible regent, alas he obviously grew fond of all the powers godhood provided and would have preferred to doom the entire existence over surrendering what was never truly his to begin with, even going as far as to literally and figuratively consume the very world the linking of the fire was meant to prolong in an ironic twist, all because he couldn't accept that after day comes night, and vice versa, and simply sought to make himself the sole influence, so his demise in the end.
@@cbl1199 That's a good point! However my point is that i don't think he did what he did on purpose or because he was "evil'", he just sort of wandered down that path in search of a way to maintain everything he had worked on for so many years. His quest to maintain power was his eventual downfall, and everything we as undead suffer is because one god couldn't realise that fighting time is impossible. In time, the day will fall and the night will rise, as you nicely put before.
I won't say he wasn't a dick or that his actions are excused in any way, but i don't think hw did everything he did because of the simple reason that he was just "evil" and "wanted power". I suppose he was greedy in his wish to maintain himself in power for as long as possible, but considering how hard he fought to gain it, i could understand that. He wasn't a dick because he wanted to or because he was cruel, he simply felt it was necessary to save his kingdom.
These are my thoughts, and i like the tragic idea that he fell down a dark path because of thr good intentions he had!
This community needed this video.
So much of the speculation about and demonization of Gwynn comes from literally nowhere aside from the near-psychotic obsession with making any character presented as a 'Big Good, but with even the slightest flaws' into a consummate monster, whether any evidence exists for it or not.
A thousand times this. I honestly find it really irritating in the Souls community.
@@JD-xz1mx Irritating?Dude,Gwyn being the absolute scumbag and villan is a stonw cold fact.And you have to be blind to not see it.
Gwyn gave us the amazing chest, that alone endears him to me.
I wish we could see Lordran and Anor Londo in its glory. I'd love a Witcher-like RPG in that world, only with DS3 combat.
a friend and i were just talking about this!! we want to see lordran before everything went to shit. anor londo bustling with gods and goddesses, the 4 knights, the silver knights! we want to see this incredible world at it's peak
did once a DnD campaign with that setting, heavily homebrewn to fit the difficulty of darksouls. Was great.
« with DS3 combat »
Okay, but with DS1’s poise.
@@nathanjora7627 do you seriously want that shitty poise system back? Where if you play with a straight sword or a katana, you literally can't stunlock anyone because like 90% of the players are wearing a fucking Giant Dad set and a greatsword? That system was like forcing the players to wear heavy armor and heavy weapons, this is really stupid. And the new system gives a lot more possibilities for those who like small weapons and light armor. And it's more realistic after all. If you get hit in real life, you get a bit staggered regardless of how heavy your armor is.
@@sweet_krona "Do you seriously want that shitty poise system back?"
Do I want a more immersive combat system that makes visual sense and doesn't completely shatters my suspension of disbelief every time a hollow staggers me by punching me despite me wearing a full suit of plate armor ?
... Yes ?
I wouldn't mind it being nerfed a bit, or even to have it in combination with hyper armor, but yes, I would definitely want it back.
"Where if you play with a straight sword or a katana, you literally can't stunlock anyone because like 90% of the players are wearing a fucking Giant Dad set and a greatsword?"
I honestly don't care in the least about PVP :I
I'm here for the RPG, and the world. If my immersion is at the cost of slightly worse PVP, so be it.
But frankly, it doesn't have to be like that. Balancing is a thing.
"That system was like forcing the players to wear heavy armor and heavy weapons, this is really stupid"
... No ? That's... That's just realism.
Besides, what you're arguing for isn't for no poise, it's for poise to not be as broken as it was in DS1, which I'm fine with.
"And the new system gives a lot more possibilities for those who like small weapons and light armor."
And a lot less for those who don't.
Besides, it actually doesn't in the latter case, since now bigger weapons give hyper armor.
"And it's more realistic after all. If you get hit in real life, you get a bit staggered regardless of how heavy your armor is."
What's more realistic :
you can't get staggered if you're wearing the equivalent of a rock
you can get staggered just as easily wether you're naked or wether you're wearing the equivalent of a rock
Clearly, the former is more realistic. It's not perfect, I'll agree, but having your poise increase with your armer weight is obviously more realistic, not less.
When faced with the end of everything and everyone you love, I think we'd all do the same thing.
But would it really be the end? We’re given no proof of the Age of Dark being terrible for all humans to inhabit it. But you know what DOES cause human suffering throughout the ENTIRE series? Undeath and Hollowing, BOTH of which are caused by The Dark Sign, something that ONLY appeared when Gwyn linked the first flame. And it makes more sense of how many dark creatures are born from humanity, when you’re very nature of being a dark creature is being suppressed and wishes to break free, it can cause episodes like Manus
@@lemmonboy6459 the humans aren't gwyns family.
There's also no proof the dark is NOT the end for his kind.
Considering that he and his kin came from light, it's reasonable of them to assume the end of light would be the end of them.
#1Slayer He was born in the dark, not the light. All lords were born in the dark.
Lemmon Boy « Undeath and Hollwong, BOTH of which are caused by The Dark Sign, something that ONLH appeared when Gwyn linked the first flame »
1) we don’t know
2) Vendrick tells us point blank that in the absence of flame humanity would revert back to its pre-light state and become eternal but mindless hollows, that would roam the cold land.
At best, Gwyn may have messed up and accidentally created the dark sign when he linked the first flame.
At worst, humanity was always condemned to become hollows once the light was gone.
Besides, both Vendrick and Aldia tell us that the current non-mindless form of humanity is somehow link with the light and its lord, you know, the whole « a sweet lie is still a lie ».
Which means that we may have to thank Gwyn for even not being hollows in the first place.
@@nathanjora7627 exactly.
With all the lines about darkness being comfortable and eternal sleep.
It doesn't sound like darkness is a good thing, but rather a return to the way things were originally.
Wich is technically not a bad thing, but it's far from a good thing.
It is nothingness.
Ultimately, gwyn extended both the posotive and negative aspects of life.
Remember that the world is not always in a state where the undead curse is rampant.
We the players just happen to drop in on the world when it is.
I think if any of us had to choose between, letting the world return to a state where nobody existed or had wills of their own, vs extended existence albeit at a great cost, most of us would choise the latter.
I thought the linking of the first flame/going against nature was the cause of the curse. Only after Gwyn's "sacrifice" did the way of white church emprisoned the undead in the asylum.
ALI sensei Same I’m kind of fuzzy on those events
ALI sensei It’s never said when precisely the undead started cropping up for the first time, just that undead plagues coincided with the decline of the fire, after the first linking of the fire.
It’s possible that Gwyn’s linking of the fire caused the undead curse, it’s possible that the decline of the fire is responsible for the undead curse.
There is a a very very strong resemblance between the dark sign (a ring of fire surrounding the dark that just happens to burn away humanity) and a seal of fire (represented as a literal ring of fire surrounding a void of darkness) that seals the ring knights humanity and power because they were able to not only resist but use to a very powerful extent the abyss (which until the last dlc was percieved as uncontrollable wild humanity) with armor and weapons good enough to be used by knights that went on and succeeded in killing ancient dragons (and judging by the lack of lightning magic the knights themselves used probably didn t even need to peel off the scales to hurt the dragons although we don t know that for sure il agree on that).
It is true that it is never stated as being the exact same thing but its heavily implied to be either the same thing or a prototype of the undead curse that exists now.
ZergMeTaSWORM « they were able to not only resist but use to a very powerful extent the abyss »
Either that, or they were just able to use it, like so many other people, and just like everyone else it was corrupting them, so the gods decided to seal the abyss to protect the ringed knights and everyone around them too.
I’m not saying it’s the case, I’m saying that, considering how the abyss are portrayed, even by dark sorcerers like Karla, it’s a very real possibility.
« which until the last dlc was perceived as uncontrollable wild humanity »
Well... This doesn’t really change with the ringed city.
Considering there are spells allowing people to wield the power of the abyss ever since DS1, the question was never about wether or not the abyss could or couldn’t be used, more « at what cost ».
« judging by the lack of lightning magic the knights themselves used probably didn t even need to peel off the scales to hurt the dragons »
Well, either that, or they only fought dragons once these were whittled down by Gwyn and his knights, like Nito and the witch did.
Furthermore, although the knights themselves don’t use lightning, the ringed city is filled with people who do, so maybe those were paired with the ringed knights too.
And let’s not forget that the silver knights’ bow isn’t imbued with lightning either, yet its arrows could do the job well enough.
I’m pointing all that out just to establish that 1) it’s not like we know Gwyn’s armies’ strategies, so it’d make perfect sense for the ringed knights to have received help from people able or willing to use miracles even if they couldn’t/refused, 2) peeling off dragon scales seem to be doable even without lightning, case in point the bow.
« It is true that it is never stated as being the exact same thing but its heavily implied to be either the same thing or a prototype of the undead curse that exists now »
I don’t think you named all the plausible options, but I’ll agree that the dark sign and the seal of fire are very obviously related.
The problem with them isn’t so much « what » they are, as much as « what can we deduce from them ».
And I think that’s where we lack informations the most.
@@nathanjora7627 regarding the abyss thing. while they were capable of using it most of the time it was still in a very very uncontrollable form (amorphous balls of destruction, clouds of uncontrolled poison). the ring city knights were the first (and probably last and the kaathe followers im drawing a blank on their name now) that could use it in a more controlled manner capable of making armor.
i think it was explicitly stated it was used to seal the abyss in them also which implies their humanity. and we know that pigmies were more dark than humans so to say since they were essentially the progenitors of humans and one pissed off pigmy could basically spawn an abyss capable of swallowing an entire major town
regarding the bow thing i think the dragonslayers were useful because even without their immortal scales the dragons were still quite resilient. i think they worked on the same idea that goths bow worked aka a very big very fast projectile to penetrate and incapacitate/kill a dragon that has no immortality scale.
and maybe the fire seal was different from the "dark seal" but gwyn twisting the first flame might have also twisted that seal as well, since i beleive that burning yourself on the flame tends to impart some memories and feelings to it(judging by how the last boss fight is)
His bossfight screams "I tried my best and the world is still ending." You can parry him, the music is sad as fuck, its a relatively easy fight. If he really was evil, I feel like they would've made him seem a lot more evil.
Nah son, he aint Magnus. This man did some wrong.
Our beautiful chicken boy
Nice try Magnymagic, but you did your fair share of wrong. Unlike the fabulous hawk boi.
@@tagrerte4701 put your grasses on; Griffith did nothing wrong
Magnus did more wrong than Gwyn.
@@bengale9977 How?
I think the timeline of events is quite important. Having seen Hawkshaws video on it, where they conclude that a) the Undead curse seen in humans was a deliberate action by the Way of White, copying what Gwyn did to the Ringed Knights equipment but actually using it on human life and b) the Curse began appearing long after Gwyn sacrificed himself to the flame, i saw him in a different light. They also say that Gwyn didn't know Gwyndolin even existed, and that the NK was likely exiled after Gwyn sacrificed himself. If true, that exonerates him from most of his crimes
There's just one problem with this theory: The Dark Sign. The thing that marks every undead, the brand that signifies who is a danger of going hollow and who isn't? That sign?
That was created by Gwyn, and he created it to punish his _own allies._ The human knights of the Ringed City fought alongside Gwyn and the rest of the lords during the Dragon Wars, helping them to slay their old oppressors and create a new world for them all to live in harmony, but because the humans drew part of their power from the Abyss, Gwyn became paranoid about them once the war was over, and branded all of them with the first Dark Signs: the ones we see decorating the armour of the Ringed Knights.
It was Gwyn's decision to create and unleash the undead curse, and his constant "charity" and "self-sacrifice" following the slow spread of his original sin were likely just showboating to try and distract his followers from the truth. If we want to use the covid-19 scenareo, it'd be like if a major world power intentionally created the virus as a weapon, only to have it bloom out of control and then act like they're the "forerunners" to fixing the problem while simulataniously using its threat as a way to control and corall a new highly vulnerable population. (But of course such a thing could _never_ happen in real life! Haha, ha.... ha...)
This doesn't even go into the many crimes Gwyn committed against his own family: He exiled his eldest son and erased his name from history because the man was able to achieve peace with the dragons instead of blindly slaying them on sight. He absused and gaslit his youngest son into being raised as a brainwashed, gender-confused prisoner to tradition, all because the boy was born under the sign of the moon, rather than the sun. He literally sold off his youngest daughter to the humans as a gift of appeasment to the Ringed City - to keep them sated and simultaniously hide them from the rest of the world so that nobody would see the damage he dealt to them.
And what of his bastard children, like
Crossbreed Priscilla and Yorshka? Beings seemingly created by the insane, malicious and power-hungry Seath the Scaleless? (Whom Gwyn happily granted a dukedom to, and turned a blind eye towards the cruel and immoral expirements he conducted on the regular.) He had an entirely new, freezing cold demi-plane created just so he could lock these innocent children away from the real world, and then used this painted world to essentially cast away anything that frightened him even a little.
Gwyn sent his knights on suicide missions to abyss-stricken lands (Artorias), allowed his most loyal subjects to undergo severe discrimination without raising a finger (Hawkeye Gough), employed a vile cannabilistic sadist as a royal executioner (Smough) and allowed for rampant cruelty to flourish amongst his subjects. And that's not even going into the whole mess regarding the Way of White, a religion built solely to shepard powerful undead into turning themselves into living firewood to further Gwyn's own legacy, and which was so inherently corrupt that it eventually devolved into the monstrous organisation that would later be named the Cathedrel of the Deep.
Gwyn, I'm afraid to say, did a _lot_ of things wrong. Every major problem in the Souls' world can be traced right back to him, and his paranoid desire for an empire that would last forever.
Most of those issues are simply kingship. Yeah, kings of old sold their children in political marriages, and then sacked whatever city they were in. They employed terrible people, and soldiering is a dangerous profession, people die. Don't forget that Seath went mad AFTER Gwyn gave him power. I'm not saying he's a good man, but kingship requires brutality by it's nature. The fact he set *himself* I to the flames tells me who he is at core.
@@aidengray3998 Oh certainly, a lot of what he did comes with the territory of being a monarch and a god, but that doesn't excuse them. Gwyn was never a good man, perhaps he had some good intentions, but in the end, it was by his hand that almost all the misfortune of the Dark Souls universe happened.
cain « That was created by Gwyn »
... No ?
It’s said absolutely nowhere, and the closest thing to a dark sign that was said to have been created at all, the seal of fire, was created by « the gods ».
Not « Gwyn ».
Granted, it likely included Gwyn, or was made with his accord, but he still wasn’t the only participant, and he had a good reason to put the seals of fire (namely protecting their bearers from the abyss).
« helping them to slay their old oppressors »
We don’t know why the dragons were slain though.
« Gwyn became paranoid about them once the war was over, and branded all of them with the first Dark Signs »
It shows how warped your view of things is, because we are never told this happened *after* the war.
These seals were made to contain the abyss that served to make these weapons.
So logically, they could’ve just been made during the war, or hell even when the weapons and armors were crafted.
Not only that, but if the seals of fire were proto-dark signs... Who is to tell who made the dark signs exactly ? It could’ve been made by anyone, even the serpents, or the original dark lord himself in an attempt to have his men and descendants be more than hollows, which Vendrick tells us is the natural state of humanity to which we revert in the absence of the flame, which is the whole reason why Yuria wants you to usurp the flame in DS3 rather than merely let it die.
« It was Gwyn’s decision to create and unleash the undead curse »
Objection your honor : speculation, he didn’t bring any evidence to establish that.
« likely just showboating »
... Sacrificing yourself to the fire is showboating ?
What ?!
Also, what you propose is indistinguishable from « Gwyn messed up trying to merely fix a problem with the dark, and thus owned to his mistake by sacrificing himself ».
Also, it’s weird because in your comparison, the creators of the virus try to show their efforts to counteract its effects... Unlike Gwyn.
As far as we know, Gwyn’s sacrifice wasn’t made public. Wether it was his decision or that of the other gods, the fact remains.
« He exiled his eldest son »
No, he didn’t.
The sunlight blade miracle in DS1 states that NK left said miracle on Gwyn’s *tomb*, when NK left Anor Londo.
So obviously Gwyn himself was dead when NK was exiled.
It also explains why the statue of NK doesn’t look like it was destroyed a thousand years ago, but only years or at best one or two centuries ago.
And no, the exil didn’t happen during the war against dragons, it’s fair to say Gwyn’s tomb wasn’t even conceived of as of yet.
Hell, Anor Londo wasn’t even built at the time.
« He abused and gaslit his youngest son into being raised as a brainwashed, gender-confused prisoner to tradition »
... I don’t know about brainwashed and gender confused, but he did abused him by forcing him to hid himself and live as a cross dresser.
Note : in some real life cultures, there are traditional reasons to force girls into cross dressing for a period of their life (when the family lacks a son). In these cultures, the girl being cross dressed isn’t told she is a male, merely that she has to act like one, thus not resulting into much gender confusion nor necessitating gasliting.
We don’t know if this is Gwyndolin’s case or not.
But fair enough, what he did to him was bad enough even if it could be proven that he treated Gwyndolin well apart from these instances.
« He literally sold off his youngest daughter to the humans »
... No ?
First of all : he didn’t sell her
Secondly : we don’t know that she was a gift, let alone a gift of appeasement.
What’s really told is that he gave the ringed knights the duty to protect the slumber of his daughter, a duty they carry out even after hollowing, as proven by the covenant item they give off, and that he was supposed to get her at some point.
As far as we know, the reason why filianore wasn’t awakened by Gwyn is that he had to sacrifice himself to the fire.
« to [...] hide them from the rest of the world »
... Except we know that there were people that got out of it, whole delegations, and people that got in, both delegations and armies.
Besides, most armies that got in entered seeking the dark soul, so it’s not unreasonable that instead of trying to hide them because of his shame, Gwyn hid them because he didn’t want them to constantly get invaded by greedy humans seeking the dark souls, which would’ve put his daughter in danger by the way.
« what of his bastard children, like Crissbreed Priscilla »
Simple : she’s not his bastard.
Not as far as we know anyway.
« and Yorshka »
Although it’s possible Yorshka was his literal daughter, which pretty much completely invalidates the idea that Gwyn hated the dragons, otherwise why would he have danced the tango with one of them/accepted to let Yorshka live, it’s also possible he merely adopted her, which would the previously stated idea even more.
Of course it’s also possible that she has nothing to do with Gwyn and Gwyndolin merely told her they were brother and sister because she thought so, or whatever.
But let’s run with what she told us, and assume that she is indeed Gwyn’s offspring, or at least his adopted child :
At what point is she said to be a bastard ?
« Beings seemingly created by the insane, malicious and power-hungry Seath »
Although I share with you your hatred for Seath, I see no reason to believe that Gwyn knew Seath’s darker side when Priscilla or Yorshka were created, if they were even created when Gwyn was still alive, which I don’t remember we are ever told.
As for Yorshka, it’s plausible but not necessary that she was created by Seath, after all the painter girl wasn’t, as far as we know, and there are plenty of humans who became hybrids of dragons in their lifetime, up to and including quasi complete transformation in a dragon, like Oceiros.
« Whom Gwyn happily [...] turned a blind eye toward the cruel and immoral experiments he conducted »
How the hell would you know that ?
How do you know Seath didn’t start his most twisted experimentations after Gwyn left because under he knew that Gwyn never would’ve left him do these had he caught wind of that ?
I’m not saying it was the case, I’m saying you’re assuming a whole lot and don’t substantiate one lick of it.
« just so he could lock these »
Besides the fact that I don’t remember we are ever told it’s Gwyn who ordered the creation of the painted world, there is also the problem that 1) it was only Priscilla, so that’s one child, not two, 2) Priscilla was isolated (and left alive, mind you, even if it was Gwyn that did it he could’ve done far worse easily, considering how much of a monster you’re trying to pain him as) because of the extremely dangerous power she wielded. Yeah, that’s awful, that’s also the kind of thing you must be able to do as a sovereign in that kind of world.
Which is true wether or not it was even Gwyn that did it, and not NK, or Gwyndolin, or Gwynevere, or Velka, or a council of gods after or before Gwyn’s departure
« to essentially cast away anything that frightened him even a little »
It’s weird because you’re trying to make him out to be a coward.
The guy who participated in every war we know he participated to (against dragons and against demons), and that didn’t hesitate to sacrifice himself to the fire, rather than send someone else with a piece of his soul, would be a coward ?
Yeah, that doesn’t compute :|
Also, it’s weird how Gwyn, despite the power to do so, never destroyed these things he was allegedly so freightened by that he tried to hide them.
If it was Gwyn that imprisoned Priscilla, it’s even weirder because he even put the door to her world right in his palace, rather than in some remote heavily guarded location.
« Gwyn sent his knights on suicide missions to abyss-stricken lands »
First : it’s « knight », singular, not « knights » plural.
Secondly : by that time, Gwyn was already burning up, not sure how he would’ve ordered Artorias to do anything
Thirdly : it wasn’t supposed to be a suicide mission. Artorias was fully confident he would be able to take down Manus, and honestly I think he could’ve without Sif.
« allowed his most loyal subjects to undergo severe discrimination without raising a finger »
Which you know... How ? Again, when we meet Gough, Gwyn was already long dead.
« employed a vile cannibalistic sadist as a royal executioner »
Cannibalistic ? That’s what we heard
Vile and sadistic ?
...
How would we even know that ?
But hey, why not, it’s probably the least contentious point you made so far besides Gwyn’s treatment of Gwyndolin being abusive.
« and allowed for rampant cruelty to flourish amongst his subjects »
... No ?
But pray tell : if this was the case, what made you think it was the case ?
Because as far as I know, Lordran was doing pretty good during the age of fire.
And if you’re talking about kingdoms outside of Lordran (weird that you don’t point out how he left so many human kingdom flourish independently)... well, they were outside of Lordran.
« the Way of White, a religion built solely to shepard powerful undead into turning themselves into living firewood to further Gwyn’s own legacy »
... No ? The way of white imprisoned undead, which is pretty rational considering how they eventually turn into hollows, and again : this happened a millenium after Gwyn’s death.
How could we know what changes might’ve happened to the organization between its creation and now, especially since it wasn’t created by Gwyn but by his uncle.
And that’s without mentioning the fact that the head bishop of the organization was one of Gwyn’s companions, Havel... *a human.*.
cain « and which was so inherently corrupt that it eventually devolved into the monstrous organization that would later be named the Cathedrel of the Deep »
... No, that’s factually false.
In DS3, the way of white is an organization split in two, one faction still faithful to Lloyd, and one that isn’t, and whose main occupation is hunting undead.
Neither are or are know to be the progenitors of the church of the deep.
The church of the deep wasn’t always monstrous, by the way, it was originally a proper organization, it’s just the constant exposure to the deep that ended up corrupting them, not the teachings at the core of their organization.
So you’re wrong on pretty much all counts and even if you were, you blatantly ignore that the modern way of white (was of DS3) came from a schism, so even if the modern way of white was behind the church of the deep, it couldn’t be blamed on either Gwyn or Lloyd since Lloyd was no longer in control nor his followers.
« Gwyn, I’m afraid to say, did a lot of things wrong »
Which you have so far failed to demonstrate :|
Much of your conclusion relied on erroneous facts, nonsequiturs, and things that we can’t know about that you asserted as if they were the truth.
I didn’t yet give you my own opinion on Gwyn because I wanted your opinion as to what you thought my opinion is.
The truth is :
I don’t think Gwyn was a good person.
I don’t think Gwyn was a bad person.
I think that we don’t know enough about Gwyn and the reasons behind his actions to pass either judgement.
It’s not to say we can’t judge anything, just that we don’t have enough to go by to say that he was good or bad.
What I think we can say :
He was courageous. Not in the sense that he didn’t feel fear, but in the sense that he was able to surpass them. There are multiple examples of that, like how he personally involved himself in wars against immeasurably powerful and frightening enemies, like the dragons or the demons, or how he has enough courage to sacrifice himself to the flame.
He was *at the very least* a pragmatic ruler, since he didn’t destroy the things he previously fought against he allegedly feared, like dragons, humans, or the dark. Rather, he let them be, despite the danger he felt they were, or despite the danger they previously were, in the case of dragons.
He even at least allowed that a dragon was raised by his fellow gods, and plausibly either birthed or adopted a cross breed.
He was bigoted, case in point Gwyndolin, although it might’ve been merely him being prisoner of customs.
He was wise and powerful enough to create a kingdom that flourished like no other, in which were created countless wonders that were shared with the world, like magic, or miracles.
He was selfless. Not in the sense that he cared about humans, he might’ve, he might’ve not. I say he was selfless in the sense that he didn’t hesitate to sacrifice himself (rather than someone else) in order to protect at least his family, if not his kingdom, if not the whole world.
Maybe he is at the origin of most bad things, it’s possible, or at least that he let happened many of them.
But he also didn’t let happen many of them, and caused many great things.
Miracles, magic, the age of fire, the linking of the fire, keeping Izalith under control after the birth of the demons, and the ray of hope that are the « embers left by previous linkers of the fire » that DS3’s firekeeper tells us about if we give her her eyes back.
cain « Gwyn was never a good man, perhaps he had some good intentions, but in the end, it was by his hand that almost all the misfortunes of the Dark Souls universe happened »
Besides the fact that this is just untrue, Kaathe is also behind a lot of the bad, and most bad guys in the series didn’t need Gwyn to be bad guys, there is also the weird logic that a man with good intentions but actions with a bad outcome can’t be good :
Since when can’t someone be good and do bad things because his actions have unforeseen consequences ?
If he had good intentions (which I don’t think we can prove beyond « he wanted to protect at least his family »), and he took actions that had bad consequences independently of his will, that’d make him a good person that was also a failure.
I honestly don’t think Gwyn was a good person and a failure, I think he was an overall good leader that might’ve been flawed but managed to pull of what he ultimately wanted (to protect the world from the dark), although he might’ve not known that he even managed to do that.
Two things can be true at the same time.
Gwyn can honestly be fighting in an attempt to save the world, WHILE serving his own ends.
Gwyn can believe he has humanity's best interests at heart, WHILE taking advantage of them in his exploits.
Gwyn can be guilty of murder, even genocide at New Londo, AND be trying to help and protect others.
I find it strange that a community that so loves ambiguity and complexity is so dead set on a one-dimensional view on Gwyn. The entire world as he knew it was being destroyed. OF COURSE he thought it was in the best interests of the people that it not be destroyed.
"The Darksign is marking them" yeeaaah, where did that come from right ? :eyes:
I think the whole point of souls is that no one is really doing wrong, theyre all just trying to get by
Seath, Aldrich, Sulyvahn, Old Iron King, and the duke of Tseldora were all clearly doing wrong.
I'm pretty sure the whole point of souls is no one is really doing morally good, but they've all got pretty solid reasons for being shitty
@@nathanjora7627 i mean were the dragons not evil?/didnt they kill off any other race and thats why gwyn fought back?
clockoff94 Nope.
We are never told why Gwyn battled the dragons.
Considering how powerful they are, and how intelligent Gwyn was, it’s fair to say he probably had a good reason to fight them, but this reason may not have been morally virtuous.
As far as we know he could’ve destroyed them merely because they were an obstacle to world domination, or because they were tyrants forcing every other race underground, or maybe he killed them merely because they were like savage animals, not good or evil, more like a natural disasters, except killeable so it was a good idea to get rid of them before one of them ate up a whole city just because he was hungry.
There are lots of possible reasons and unfortunately we are never told, or even hinted at.
The opening cutscene says that Gwyn « challenged » the dragons, which may indicate that they were in a formal position of power and dominance over the land (and not merely a presence that could’ve been ignored) and what he did was nothing more than an act of conquest, or perhaps revolt.
The fact that Gwyn had Seath as a trusted advisor and at the very least authorized Midir being raised by the gods, and that he potentially even adopted or conceived a dragon crossbreed (Yorshka, who refers to Gwyn as her literal father) also indicates that Gwyn probably didn’t wage this war merely out of hatred for the dragons, as some people claim. Which, again, doesn’t mean he had good intentions, just that hate was probably not a prime motivation.
In the end all we really know is that 1) the reason was sufficient for all four lords and their people to battle the dragons, and wasn’t mere resentment, 2) at least some members of the ancient dragons’ race were intelligent (ex : Seath and Midir), 3) eventually (though far after the war with dragons ended, even after the first linking of the fire) one of the greatest, if not the greatest, dragonslayers of all times, the nameless king, heir and firstborn of Gwyn, decided to join them, despite the exile this forced him into, 4) many people came to worship dragons due to their power, which may or may not be linked with 3).
Do of that what you will, and I hope people will correct me or add anything they deem useful to my recap.
Zachary Heine « no one is really doing morally good »
Laurentius, Solaire, Sieglinde, the Fair Lady, Artorias, Anri and Horace, Siegward, Yhorm, Rhea, Irina and Eygon, Sirris, Ludleth, the Ivory King, the Ivory King, and also the Ivory King, would all like to have a word with you.
« but they’ve all got pretty solid reasons for being shitty »
No, not really no.
Most souls characters are either clearly good, clearly bad, or not on the moral spectrum at all.
When I say « not on the moral spectrum » I mean that they never act in a way that’d allow us to know their morality.
Take most merchants. Could you tell me if any of them is really good ? I mean, most of them are pretty chill and sound harmless, but that doesn’t mean they are secretly huge bastards.
There are a few ambiguous characters though, but generally those clearly have at least good intentions.
Gwyn, Gwyndolin, The Witch of Izalith, Vendrick, hell even Yuria, or Greirat (a thief, ie : not the most upright character), all seem to at least want the good of most people, or at least their people, which is generally commendable even if it comes at the expanse of other people.
The only characters I can think of who are shitty but for good reasons would be the Abyss Watcher’s (with their « Spanish inquisition » vibe, it’s fair to say they probably brought a great deal of not always justified destruction), Queelag (trying to defend and heal her sister) and Lothric and Lorian.
These two are being shitty by refusing to link the flame, thus letting the world go to hell and decay ever further, not even mentioning what might happen if the flame goes out, and they do that purely for egotistical reasons, not for any grand ideological reason like Yuria... But on the other hand, who could blame them ? They never asked to get the duty of linking the first flame, they had it pushed onto them without ever having a choice in the matter.
Demons too. I guess demons do have a pretty good reason for acting shitty, at least as far as DS3 is concerned, when their very existence is threatened after some guy in underwear decided to kill the flame that let them live and reproduce. I don’t know if they’d really count as people though. I don’t think so but there are convincing arguments that it was originally meant to be the case. I don’t know if enough was left of these original intentions in the final game to justify saying that demons are people.
The way you liken Gwyn's story to our modern main stream media narrative is spot on!
Gywn panicked at the fading of the light, I don't think anyone can blame him for doing what he thought he should for the sake of everyone that followed the flame/light.
I sympathize with him even though he went to extreme measures to ensure the flame kept breathing. Sometimes you have to go to great lengths to survive.
This is completely off topic but are any of y'all disappointed we never got to see Londor and/or the Sable Church?
All the time. I just wish we could’ve seen Astora, or especially Carim or even Catarina
@@badoinker yes!
Yes!
And yes!
Especially Astoria
one day
I wanna see carim
@@D_us_T I want a oil painting of the painted world, but I want Ariandel lol.
While this is interesting, I am not convinced. Linking the flame has more consequences, which becomes more and more evident as the series go on. No matter what happens it the dark will always come back, and in the mean time the constant linking just makes it worse degrading the entire world and never actually stops the curse. You speak of splitting his soul as if its a kind act, yet he trusts the likes of absolute monsters like Seath.
Fear not the dark my friend, and let the feast begin.
(Also not going to lie while I do agree with your point, including all that stuff about our modern day just kind of sours the video. I'm not any of those people who deny the virus or anything like that I just wanted references to things in souls not be reminded of the world I want to take a small break from to watch your videos.)
Agree with your point as well, just like that Guinsoo's Rage Blade.
Gwyn was likely not aware of how all this would turn out
I mean, Gwyn can't exactly see the future. All he knew is he had to start the flame again to help life move on, not really knowing what consequence that would've had.
Also I see why you hate the fact he brought up real life events, but that's the only way certain people would be able to understand and see through their eyes.
The people saying he was not aware of the circumstances, you do realize Izalith tried something similar and we all know how that turned out. Gwyn was just scared of the Dark, here why he tried controlling the abyss by placing Seals of Fire on abyssal weapons and armor. It's all about control in the end, let's not try to sugarcoat someone's sin.
« No matter what happens it the dark will always come back »
Diseases will likely never be fully eradicated, and catching one disease won’t prevent you from catching all the others.
Should we stop fighting them ? A harmful phenomenon being recurrent doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight it.
Also, what you say isn’t entirely true, in DS3 the pure age of dark is no longer the only option, since even without the dark lord to usurp the fire, the age of dark will contain little flames left by previous linkers of the fire.
Which Gwyn may or may not have planned for all along (and if he did, that’d take him to Leto Atreides II levels of badasserie).
As for giving his soul to death and four kings :
You have to remember that at the time these weren’t the same people as the one we found.
There is a whole milllennium between when Gwyn left and when we find them.
« Fear not the dark my friend, and let the feast begin »
Thanks for demonstrating why the dark is bad.
i think gwyn tried to save the gods that he only cared about his kind but not humanity
Facts. The age of fire is literally the age of gods it’s stated in the lore. He altered the course of nature for his own selfish wants of securing the place of the gods. He was born in the age of ancients and just as all ages must rise and fall he refused to allow the age of humans or the age of dark to take place. To prevent humans from ruling the world rather than the gods he killed thousands.
I mean, he did have human companions, like Havel, and many human subjects.
It'd be weird if he didn't cared one bit about them.
Actually he didn't want to destroy any of them. He want to save both kinds but it need sacrifices. But in reality only one kind can exist. That's why Gwyn need to sacrifice one to save others. But he wanted to save everyone. He tried or hope to save everyone.
@@alexandersmith5319 i would argue gwyn WAS a good person. He had the right to continue this age of goodness which is what most people wanted anyway. The dying of the goodness is what caused all the suffering! Not the goodness itself. That’s insane to blame what you love just because it’s dying.
@@briancooley8777 wasn’t an age of goodness lol
Different perspective than the norm. I agree that simply fighting against nature to preserve life isn’t inherently wrong or selfish, however sinful the scholars may view it as. While the peace Gwyn desired may have been a “lie”, the age of fire, before the flames began to fade, was truly the age where everyone who came from the dark could prosper. The ringed city became a prison, to be fair, but its leaders still cried out for Filianore in their dying breaths.
It’s a good pondering. It’s definitely a good example that the endings of the games aren’t just good or evil in what comprises them. I don’t think what Gwyn did was intentional, the ‘breaking of the karma of the world’ as it’s translated. I think what did happen was that Lloyd and the Way of White propagandized what he did for their own gains while silencing Gwyndolyn, his remaining male heir, with the whole made up reason of moon magic being associated with the feminine. Gwyn’s legacy was tainted by what a materialistic culture did in the name of the gods after he left. To the point that they don’t even praise his name anymore.
Get the notification on my phone with the title of this video...
MY MANS JAKE ABOUT TO CATCH THESE HANDS
Watch the video and get hit with compelling arguments....
MAYBE YOU RIGHT THOUGH
Gotta agree with your reactions to this. Saw title, wondered if Jake had taken a bit more than a one-hitter if you get my meaning. Now though...while I DO see FLAWS in the argument, other actions of Gwyn are highlighted in a way I can't throw out easily. Was he perfect, oh no. Did he make the BEST choices, certainly not. But...for the given value of what he knew, what he understood, and how things likely were at the time? ...I can't judge him as harshly as I once did. I feel more sympathy for the Lord of Light and later Ash. Would I still bring an age of Dark knowing this? ...less likely than before, where I'd have said "lol yes"...now I'd feel the need for a measure more thought. Admittedly, by Dark Souls 3, the Fire had run it's course, quite obviously. But then the Fire Keeper's option...that takes new meaning now. That'd be my go-to option, and I think the best fate an Ashen Hollow could bring to a burnt-out world.
I was an avid Gwyn-hater, but uh... you have me convinced.
Hail to Gwyn then, I guess.
Essentially this entire video rests on the premise that the Age of Dark = being a mindless hollow = Bad. Do we know for certain that the Age of Dark would lead to humans being mindless hollows? Is there any evidence in the series that would contradict that claim?
In any case, if we accept the arguments of this video then the world of Dark Souls 3 is actually just fucked considering how underwhelming the Link the Fire ending is in DS3.
Nobody in the series knows what an Age of Dark would look like, which is fitting because humans can embody many things and the Dark Soul can take many forms.
The Dark is the Abyss corrupting and devouring Oolacile, and the Dark is the cold, lightless and gentle goodly home for those with nowhere else to go.
The Dark is Manus' mad bestial fury, and the Dark is Manus' heart-wrenching yet hopeful desire to reclaim a lost joy.
The Dark is the monstrous Darkwraiths consuming others only for personal gain, and the Dark is the loyal Abyss Knights who gave their lives in the war against the dragons.
The Dark is Nashandra's deceit, and the Dark is Alsanna's devotion.
The Dark is the innate desire of humans to seek each other out and be together, whether in love or hate. (Even in the depths of the Abyss in Oolacile, what do the numerous Humanity Phantoms there do? They move near you. Touching them causes damage but they aren't actually doing anything to you, they're not stealing anything from you like your health or your Humanity or your souls. They just want to be near you.)
Humanity, the human condition itself, is Dark.
It was because he trembled at the Dark that Gwyn made no attempt to understand it and its people, instead doing everything he possibly could to smother it. However, he could end up right in hindsight if the eventual Age of Dark (eventually the fire will fade no matter how many times it's linked, as Dark Souls 3 showed us) turns out to be horrible for reasons that have nothing to do with the cycle of firelinking leaving humanity a burnt husk of a world to inherit.
Honestly? We need to keep in mind humans didn't really exist until the Age of Fire. The Pigmies, the ancestor of man, they existed, and kept the Dark Soul, divided it up among themselves, and to early man. We also know what happens when a person Hollows, in all games. Outside of the player character, they become like all the enemies we cut down, no dialogue options for most if not all of them. And would a world that is dark, full of all those so Hollow, would that be a world worth living in? Fighting endlessly over souls we no longer know what to do with? Humanity we can't offer to bonfires to restore ourselves...if that even makes sense in a world of Dark. Finally, we need to keep in mind that, while in Dark Souls 3 we have Londor, the Pilgrim and the Sister that preach of a Lord of Hollows, could we say they are the new standard of Hollow? Would that be what we truly become in a world of Dark?
Who's to say, but then, by that game we are Unkindled Ash, not a Human or even a Hollow by that point. I think that's the tragedy, nothing is absolute or certain, even for Gods, ones we see end, some like Gwyn at the end of our Blade. I cannot say Gwyn did NOTHING wrong...but I can't say he wasn't right about a good few things either. He knew what would become of his folk, the gods, and even their servants should Dark prevail. He didn't hoard the souls he had, his own especially. He gave it's power to others he trusted, to those he hoped would honor his final act...and he cast HIMSELF, not his kin or some hapless human, HIMSELF into the Flame, so that it may continue. What ever came after, I feel Gwyn wasn't a villain; Tyrant? Maybe, and certainly to some. A fool? Indeed, as to some of his decisions and his judgement of others. But evil? Malicious and scheming? No...perhaps that's the most interesting of all. The God Gwyn of Sunlight...was a Good Man.
@@AkaRedFallen The pygmies are just the first humans, the descendants of the Furtive Pygmy and the first inheritors of the Dark Soul that all humans have.
There are two effects of Hollowing: physical and mental. Both come from the weakening of the white soul--the same white soul you get from kills and world drops. As the white soul dims with death, humans begin to return to their original non-living state. Were it not for the curse/seal of fire/Darksign (all three are the same thing), this wouldn't be an issue aside from looking hideous, but the curse stops humans from making proper use of their Dark Soul. Their minds and identities are derived from their white soul alone, so those fade along with their white soul whenever they die.
It stands to reason that once the First Flame fades completely, the seal of fire derived from its power would fade as well, setting humanity free and allowing their minds to unify with their Dark Soul. This would remove the mental decline of Hollowing, and since there would be no more death without the disparity of fire, everything still animate would be "Hollow." Thus, it stands to reason that an Age of Dark could be full of Hollows who act the same as they did before rather than devolve into mindless zombies.
This is the state of being that Londor tries to uphold, being a land of Hollows who live in a functioning society. Londor is a "new standard" in that it's an enclave of Dark as free from the influence of the old gods as can be.
Even if this is what ashen hollow is saying and it MAY be wrong these are almost certainly the reason why gwyn made the calls he made. It doesn’t matter what the right answer might be in hindsight, to gwyn he was genuinely trying to help his people, that doesn’t make him a villain.
« Do we know for certain that the Age of Dark would lead to humans being mindless hollows »
Yes.
It’s literally one of the only explicit dialogues in DS2.
Vendrick tells us that much and deplore that there isn’t a third path, that is found by the bearer of the curse when he brings Vendrick the four crowns (vendrick’s, Old Iron King’s, Ivory King’s, and ... Poison King’s. No clue what his name was >
Shet man you blew my mind. Now I'm not so sure if gwyn was the bad guy or if he was just trying to do what was best for his people. But we must remember the mad Titan Thanos, whom was also doing what he thought was best for the people of the universe
Gwyn did something very wrong, he had souls and I wanted them.
Darwraiths for life, GIMMIE DA SUCC!
I wanted his Badass Greatsword
@@JT044-iz1cv I have my trinity in DS1 the Uchi for dex builds, Darksword for Darkwaithing, and Bastard Sword for being a bastard xD
KeK StrayHALO_MAN is a chaos bastard sword awesome?
@@brasingt It's is my favorite infusion, on a knight I like using it because it goes great with the elite knight set.
Chaos anything is awesome if your a Darkwraith.
Thank you @TheCrimsonfucker, how is dear Seras these days again? Also, did you ever get another Blackbird after that last one?
This theory is essentially exactly what I thought before I played the games myself. Not a bad theory, it makes sense within the basic story, as it’s represented. But I think the theory necessitates ignorance of context and much of the deeper lore
I never understood the argument that linking the Fire damages the world. It always seemed that the effects of linking the Fire just degrade over time. Every time the world comes back a little darker, or 'Darker'. The fuel for the Fire becomes weaker and weaker so the world comes back a little... less. Until we come to the Unkindled One, who for all their power and skill and determination is made up of nothing but the ashes of someone that once was, so they can't even link the Fire properly.
Its not an argument it’s canon lol
Actually some one before pointed out that the first flame was linked to humanity by non other than Gwyn making humanity a salve to the gods to the first flame, all because of fear of the dark soul or dark lord that will rule in an age of darkness the age of humanity
At the very least he was not the coward Kaathe calls him. A coward wouldn't throw himself into a literal fire just so that his children would get to bask in a sun he'd never see again.
Personally, I don’t even know if Gwyn actually even matters during the events of the games.
He’s part of the History and culture but nothing else. He’s dead and gone and his Kingdom is literally nothing but ruins.
From the moment the player begins the journey it’s not even about what was right or wrong during Gwyn’s Time. We have to decide for ourselves what’s right or wrong in the events we’re currently experiencing.
Linking the Fire preserves a dying age, and each time it is linked, a greater sacrifice will be demanded the next time it needs to be linked. Can the world really afford to live on like that? Eventually, nothing will appease the flame.
Abandon the flame, let the world fall to darkness. The survivors go mad and the living are plagued by monsters, death, and madness with no light to protect them. That doesn’t sound like an age sane people would want to live in.
Lord of Hollows Ending: Wrest the Flame from the mantle and lead the people as a Lord of Hollows. This Ending is only as good or bad as the player is. You basically become the new Gwyn. The world is protected or damned under your judgment. However at the very least, this path doesn’t leave you burning at the kiln or your world fading to black. You leave the kiln and pursue your next mission. The world is still visible and people still have hope. Whether that Hope is in Vain or not is on you. Such is the Burden of Lordship.
I could be wrong but didn't some lore from Dark Souls 3's ringed city show that Gwyn was the one who inflicted the dark sign on humanity?
Nope.
The seal of fire, which may or may not be a proto-dark sign, or a derivation of the dark sign if the dark sign preceded it, was created by "the godS", plural.
It may or may not have included Gwyn, although admittedly it's likely that Gwyn at least let it happen. But it also might've involved even the furtive pygmy himself.
So, besides the fact that we aren't told that the dark sign is Gwyn's creation, we aren't even told who exactly are the creators of the seal of fire.
@@nathanjora7627 And the gods are Gwyn and his people.So your attempt at defending the scumbag is laughable. And the pygmy being ok with his descendents being branded and having their power sealed is downright idiotic.
Yes
great content as always jake! always excited for stuff from you and Vaati
Yay, thank you! =D
Posting it separately so that you'll maybe see, Ashen:
The metaphor of fire and dark in the series isn't that the light banishes the dark, exactly, it's that it enhances disparity: there is less dark, but more importantly, there's a clear and sharp difference between it and the light, in the same way that a strong light casts strong, sharp shadows.
As the light dims, the shadows get bigger and blurrier.
The locust preachers refer to this pretty explicitly, as does one of the "lore dump" characters in DS2.
...and I forgot to add: that clear and sharp distinction is mirrored by a distinction between life and death. Ie the "fleeting form" men assume is one marked by clear life and death, without living decay and madness. Limited, but nicer, reinforcing a central theme of the series, that enough time ruins or makes pointless everything, eventually.
@@alexandersmith5319 Damn good point any ending other than linking the fire must be wrong can't believe I didnt think of this after what my first tomb of the giants looked like
"long ago the way of white (aka the way of Gwyn) produced its first undead..."
item description from Leeroys Paladin set in DS1
so we know that Gwyn is responsible for the undead curse. to fuel the flame
Great work on reexamining your own positions Jake, when I saw the title, I figured it was a gag. :) That said, I'd add my voice to the choir that Gwen, was imperfect but basically well intentioned. He did what he did as best he could because he feared for all, not just himself or his legacy. And he had a lot of unkowns to deal with in his attempt to battle back the darkness.
*The Ashen Hollow:* Gwyn did nothing wrong
*Kaathe:* Understandable, Have a nice day
Ahh conjecture and semanthics, two of the most beautiful aspects of dark souls lore. Good point of view btw.
I think you mean PRAISE THE SUN \[T]/
I see Dark Souls as a sort of Hegelian dialectic and class war. Fire created disparity not just of heat and cold, light and dark, but also power. The ideology that lead Gwyn to link the fire has failed because disparity of power inevitably leads to resentment and revolt. The dark isn't a good alternative and has failed numerous times, but I think most people would agree that the best ending in Dark Souls 3 is the userpation of fire. A synthesis between light and dark.
Well, all that Gywn did was for his benefit.
He created the Fire linking curse, locked the pgymies away in the ringed city, prevented the use of the dark soul.
All to keep his age running
"All to keep his age running"
... Without him around to benefit from it.
Ergo : his age running wasn't for Gwyn's benefit.
Ergo : not all that Gwyn did was for his own benefit.
If Gwyn really was as selfish as you made him out to be, why not just give fragments of his soul to one of the countless fanatically loyal soldiers he had under his command ? Literally hundreds, if not thousands of Black Knights, if not more, walked straight into the fire with him.
If they were ready to do that, don't you think it would've been easy to task one or a group of them to link the fire in his stead, using fragments of his soul, that we know he can split since he gave parts of it to Seath and the four kings ?
"He created the Fire linking curse"
... No ?
The fire needs linking because otherwise it dies out. Gwyn didn't invent that.
And the world goes to hell when the fire dies out because the world's current state relies on the age of fire, so naturally when this age of fire dies, so does the world. And because the age of dark is death and all that.
"locked the pgymies away in the ringed city"
It's literally explicitly said that they could get out of the ringed city.
Manus was one of those.
@@nathanjora7627 citation needed
Albert Hucks For which part ?
Is it for the Manus was allowed to go out of the ringed city stuff ?
Right now it’s pretty much the only event I mentioned that’s not so integral to anyone of the DS plot that anyone who played the game should know them, but I’m still not sure it’s the thing you want reference for.
Anyway I’d be happy to provide, even for the whole comment if need be
Sheev Palpatine Gwyn burned in agony for a thousand years.
The world, though, experienced thriving comparable to that of the first age of fire, so definitely not burning agony.
And when the fire is linked, the world doesn’t agonize, the world lives, the world only agonizes when it’s near the end of an age of fire, as it’s near death.
@Sheev Palpatine "That's my point."
Oh, sorry, I thought you meant the millennium of painful agony for the world ><
My bad.
"in reality he was too nice to a fault"
I... Don't think we have enough to justify that proposition.
Certainly he was no coward, no racist/speciest, he wasn't selfish either, not in terms of his personal power anyway, but that alone, and the immense respect he got from so many people, including so many honorable people, isn't enough to justify Gwyn being "too nice to a fault", when we have things like Gwyndolin's upbringing, that had to have been made at the very least with Gwyn's consent.
"characters like Kaathe, Manus and Aldia, on the other hand, they are a real piece of work."
I'll agree on Kaathe and Aldia, if we can even call Aldia a character (I hate aldia, not just as a person, I think he is a really badly made character), but Manus, not so much.
As far as we know, he himself was profoundly good, but his inner darkness, literally, the piece of dark soul he had, as well as some unclear event following his discovery by the Oolacilians, corrupted him, so as far as I'm aware, we can't really fault him on anything he did in his beast form.
Point being : the beast form was clearly harmful, at the very least a sort of King Kong like character (ie : unintentionally harmful, and misunderstood), but the human form was, as far as we know, clearly good (since his soul is a lump of gentle humanities).
one of many reasons why dark souls in the greatest game ever made. not only is the game play a master piece but the story is so deep with lore that its up for endless discussion. brilliant
This actually has a great point. You’ve convinced me
As a rebuttal, Gwyn "Sharing his Soul" isn't as virtuous as you think. He gave parts of his soul only to people who pledges complete loyalty towards him. At that point it's more of a Tribunal situation from Elder Scrolls. Also what Gwyn did is CLEARLY the bad thing cause all of reality gets more and more fucked the more the cycles go on and even the Fire Keeper at the end of DS3 sees something so terrible she decides to completely do a 180 on the ritual if you give her the eyes.
@FOOL!! "He gave parts of his soul only to people who pledges complete loyalty towards him"
... Yeah ? He intended for the people he shared his soul with to rule the kingdom in his absence.
Of course he didn't give his soul to his enemies, or people he had reason to think would betray him (which, as far as we know, he had no reason to suspect in either Seath's or the Four king's case).
"At that point it's more of a Tribunal situation from Elder Scrolls"
... No, it's like any vassal ever in history.
He gave power to those he thought would use his power to continue his legacy, aka : people loyal to him.
I don't see the problem with that :I
"Also what Gwyn did is CLEARLY the bad thing cause all of reality gets more and more fucked the more the cycles go on"
First of all : no it's not that clear, because although reality slowly breaks down, it's better than the dark (in which he was born in mind you, so he ought to know how it is)
Second of all : no it's not that clear, because DS3's firekeeper tells us that in the distance of the age of dark, there are precious embers *left by previous linkers of the fire*. Meaning that wether Gwyn knew it or not, his sacrifice allowed for the age of dark to not completely take over, even after the fire would die out.
Third of all : it's irrelevant. Gwyn made the wrong choice, but he did it for the good reasons. Hence, he didn't do anything wrong insofar as his goal was virtuous.
"even the Fire Keeper at the end of DS3 sees something so terrible she decides to completely do a 180 on the ritual if you give her the eyes."
Okay, listen : the terrible things she see is the betrayal of the fire ("These will reveal, through a sliver of light, *frightful images of betrayal. A world without fire*. Ashen one, is this truly thy wish?")
BUT she also says that she is drawn to realize these visions ("take these eyes away. Before I am drawn into the darkness. seduced by the thin light, and the awful betrayal.")
Now, why that is ? Well, she has an explanation, although she is not sure : it's because even when dark will reign, there'll be lights that will remain ("The eyes show a world without fire, a vast stretch of darkness. But 'tis different to what is seen when stripped of vision. *In the far distance, I sense the presence of tiny flames. Like precious embers, left to us by past Lords, linkers of the fire. Could this be what draws me to this strangely enticing darkness?*")
Conclusion : the fire keeper is likely not drawn to betraying the fire because she thinks what Gwyn did was messed up, but instead because wether Gwyn knew it or not, he allowed for the creation of an age of twilight, neither truly dark, nor truly light.
That's just a personal name I give it by the way, there is no in game explanation as to what precisely that age of dark with small embers would be like, maybe it'd be the regular age of dark, but with places where a bonfire would create a miniature age of light, maybe it's just that somehow by their sacrifice, all linkers of the fire infused humans with a part of the original light soul, and thus now the dark won't turn humans into hollow...
We don't know.
But we do know that it's not like the age of dark that Gwyndolin feared, and that Gwyn wanted to avoid.
Nathan Jora first off your first point is completely wrong Gwyn was not born in the age of dark so no, he knows nothing of what the age of dark entails except knowing it means his age and the gods will die, he was born in the age of ancients clearly stated in dark souls lore, the age of ancients is when the ancient dragons ruled this is literally stated in the first video of dark souls, so if your first statement is wrong it’s clearly easy to see your just wrong in general. Just because there was no fire does not mean it’s the age of dark. The land was covered in fog and unformed in the age of ancients the age of dark is not there is no fog there is no light there is only darkness. Second Gwyn did nothing for humanity he did it to extend his own age the age of fire which is clearly stated that it is the age of the gods, he did it so he could extend the age of the gods stopping the age of darkness from taking over (the age of humanity) He wished to never let humans take the place of gods he cared nothing for the humans.
Zachary Pendragon « Gwyn was not born in the age of dark »
No, he was born (or at the very least has lived) in the dark though.
Remember DS1’s intro ? « And from the Dark they came » which introduces the four lords ?
« he knows nothing of what the age of dark entails »
Even if Gwyn wasn’t born or had not lived in the dark (which canonically he has, as per DS1’s intro), the guy was pal with Frampt, and knew Kaathe as well as the furtive Pygmy, and let’s not forget that the firekeepers, as per DS3, are said to 1) be able to see at least partially into the age of dark to come (ie : they are able to see what it looks like), 2) had their eyes (that reveal at least part of said future age of dark) taken off from them ever since the first firekeeper, so at least some knowledge of how the age of dark would be should’ve been known from Gwyn.
Finally, Kaathe and the intro both say or imply (in the intro’s case) that the age of dark had begun before Gwyn fueled the first flame, so he should’ve been at least able to see what a weakening of the flame would’ve resulted in.
And that’s not even mentioning the fact that the intro for DS1 says that « only dark will remain », which implies that dark was the default state of the world ever since the appearance of the dark, or at the very least that it had been very much present since the beginning, meaning that Gwyn, by creating his age of fire in the first place, ought to have known what he was casting out too.
All in all : it’s fair to say that the ultimate soul, founder of the age of light, and battle brother of the first dark lord, as well as accointance of the primordial serpents, should’ve known a fair bit about the age of dark :|
« this is literally stated in the first video of dark souls »
Well, if you think so I can’t advise you enough to return listen to said video. You’ll see that the narrator says exactly what I said, that Gwyn and the other three lords came from the dark, and also that « only dark will *remain* », which implies at the very least that dark was part of the world ever since the apparition of the first flame.
« it’s clearly easy to see your just wrong in general »
Actually no, because my general case doesn’t rely on this fact alone.
A case can be made and rely on several independent pieces of evidence, in which case discarding one wouldn’t discredit the others.
Nathan Jora th-cam.com/video/ylFzJ3wRgHw/w-d-xo.html You mean this intro where literally it states in the first sentence it was the age of ancients not the age of darkness? “A world surrounded by fog, the world grey and covered in crags.” Nowhere does the intro say it was an age of darkness it literally says a world of grey. Want to try again? It also clearly states that dark did not exist until the flame came into existence meaning obviously that Gwyn could not have been born in darkness because darkness did not exist. Also of course he had the fire keepers eyes removed, this is more proof of his selfishness he knew the fire keepers seeing into the darkness they would be able to tell the humans (who were already beginning to get behind the age of dark) that it would be them who overtake the gods leading to the next era. Gwyn did everything out of selfishness to keep the power in the hands of the gods. This is also proven by the first fire keeper at Firelink who was considered impure (the only impure fire keepers are ones with eyes) She also had her tongue cut out and as mentioned by the crestfallen warrior her tongue was cut out because she used her words against the gods.
Fear not the Dark my friend, and let the Feast begin!
Imma be on the level with you my dude, the main anti-covid argument isn't that it doesn't exist, its that we're handling the pandemic wrong and have been from the beginning. I get what you were saying and going for with the comparison, which was spot on, but I gotta nitpick when its due.
Pointing out how badly we're handling the pandemic isn't anti-covid. There are plenty of people, too many people pretending to know more than science about how to conduct themselves and it is hurting us.
@@TheAshenHollow I'm really just saying, in terms of framing it, there isn't a large group of people who are saying "Covid not real." Its more of a question of whether or not the lockdowns and business closures are working or worth it, whether or not masks are effective at this stage, which treatments are effective, which aren't, why, which doctors or experts seem to be the most reliable or accurate etc. I'll agree, it isn't helping that a lot of people are playing armchair cdc right now, but a lot of that is going on on both sides of the issue right now too.
Well gwyn is somewhat like the griffith of dark souls ( also the title of this video seems a reference to that as well ) one who on the surface seems like he did good things and deserves the deific status he sought to obtain but the deeper u look the more you see a man so in love with himself and so bent on achieving his goals that he will sacrifice anything to do that , be it friends , family or the entire of humanity ( also everything seems to indicate the actions of gwyn were not a sort of response to save humanity but rather they are what caused humanity to be cursed with the darksign to begin with )
So yeah gwyn ( just like griffith ) built his castle on a mountain of corpses and will let nothing stand in his way
Nah he did everything wrong in my opinion should've just let the natural order of things but you have made some good points
What if the natural order is suffering and death?
@@briancooley8777 there can be no joy without suffering to make that joy shine brilliantly, a life with no death slowly devolves into monotony and misery
@@BeefMeisterSupreme ah that’s the great lie of duality. It’s just all we know so we think it must be the whole of reality. We think That there can be no other way. The knowledge of good and evil tells us there “must always be a balance” ♻️ but it’s a prison. So the way to escape must be something eternal something limitless. Ahah! Yes Nirvana! Heaven is eternal life reconnected to the source of all things: God (the infinite)
Natural doesn't necessarily equal "good". DS1 context, when given the choice of living, and knowing your descendants will have a chance of life versus annihilation, most people would choose life. The curse of the undead generally appears at the dying of the flame. With DS3 context our firekeeper can see the world be reborn after snuffing out the first flame, albeit in an unknowable amount of time.
Is reigniting the First Flame truly unnatural? The Lord's Souls enabled the transition from the Age of Ancients and the Age of Fire, and the Lord's Souls are the result of previous individuals linking the flame in a previous Cycle. If the ages are truly cyclical, then rekindling the First Flame is a necessary part of the cycle, otherwise there would be no Lord's Souls and no end to the Age of Ancients.
I love this part of the Dark Souls the community was Gwyn good? Evil? Perfect? I think there are good points from every angle personally I think Gwyn was more "human" than he realized with how much he tried to do and achieve but in doing the most he could he caused much hardship I think its also hard to say whether Gwyn did good or bad by linking the Flame because we never get a good look at what the Dark would've had in store for the world. What if the Dark was the same as the Light but just with Humans being in charge and the Gods lower? I think it's a good question we might never have an answer for. An example of Gwyn doing something bad many believe would be Gwyns treatment of gwyndolin and his upbringing but some things that must be acknowledged is that Gwyndolin appears in Miracles in ds3 so clearly gwyndolin wasn't as much of a secret as we were lead to believe in dark souls 1 and also the fact that gwyndolin may not have been completely against his upbringing although we have no reason to believe that and is more wild speculation. I believe Gwin made mistakes but was tryly trying his best for his people but had the problem of no perfect solution. Now a character I truly wish we got more information on was Gwyndolin we know so little about him and yet to me it seems he's hiding a lot of vital information on the Gods and the time that passed between ds1 and ds3 but all we can really say for sure is he lived for a long time and just before we reach him in ds3 he is consumed by Aldrich (That jerk hiding our lore and consuming best souls waifu at once how dare he that ugly blob of sadness)
What prevents me from being convinced of this, the most, is the apparent fact that Gwyn was selfish enough to place the darksign on humanity.
He was working things for himself alone, and you can see that by how he treated the pigmy and how he used his children. His character is shown through his actions, and his actions leave much to be desired.
For all one can say about his sacrifice to the flame; Maybe he did it out of spite? He truly preferred to die rather than let that flame fade.
Think about it. What truly was the reason for all of his wars? What did the dragons ever do to him? What did the demons do to him?
If history is written by the victors, and he truly won those wars, then why did no one speak of the causes and reasons for them? Think of his war against the abyss. Think of the reason as to why Manus fathered it.
These challenges were provoked. They weren't necessarily problems to begin with. Gwyn just wanted more than he ever needed and waged war to acquire it all, then threw himself into his obsession over an everlasting rule.
"Gwyn was selfish enough to place the darksign on humanity."
He wasn't though :I
The godS put a seal of fire on the ringed knights, which may or may not be the same thing as the darksign, and it may or may not have changed as it was possibly passed down to non-ringed knights, if that ever happened, which we don't know either. Point being : there are too much unknowns to blame it on Gwyn, let alone on his presumed selfishness.
Though, I'd have you recall they did that because the ringed knights had their armors and weapons made form the abyss, and corrupted as a result. It seems to me like the seal of fire was a protection, not a curse.
"He was working things for himself alone"
Had he been working for himself alone, don't you think he would've simply gave a big chunk of his soul to one of his many devoted knights and told him to burn himself in the fire ?
"His character is shown through his actions, and his actions leave much to be desired."
Let's see :
he fought on the battlefield in the wars he waged
he left many wonders across the world
he had human companions that had immense respect and admiration for him (like Havel)
his firstborn son, when exiled by the other gods, thought highly enough of his father to leave a memento of himself on his father's tomb (technically neither of the last two are Gwyn's actions, but how good or bad gwyn was can also be reasonably inferred from his surroundings' actions toward him)
he had enough confidence in men and dragons, despite having fought the latter, and feared what great harms the former could bring, that he entrusted one of his daughter to both humans and a dragon, and that he gave pieces of his soul to both a dragon and multiple humans (both of which would then betray him, proving that maybe he shouldn't have been so nice)
he sacrificed himself to the fire after having given out most of his soul to his successors so that they may rule properly, all to protect the world from the encroaching darkness
... Seems like a good guy to me :I
"For all one can say about his sacrifice to the flame; Maybe he did it out of spite? He truly preferred to die rather than let that flame fade."
Yeah, and maybe he did it out of pity for humans :I
If we're going to blatantly disregard every piece of information we were given for a character's actions, then I get to make things up too :I
"Think about it. What truly was the reason for all of his wars? What did the dragons ever do to him? What did the demons do to him?"
For the dragons : we don't know. What did they do to the other lords ?
As for the demons... They are demons :I
Like... They destroy things. That's what demons do :I They are destructive.
And from all we know, it's entirely possible he thought the demons were responsible for the destruction of Izalith and the death of his former comrade.
Best case scenario : they can be reasoned with, in which case since there are demons in anor londo and that Izalith wasn't obliterated by Gwyn, it's probable that he spared them, which would make him the good guy.
"If history is written by the victors, and he truly won those wars, then why did no one speak of the causes and reasons for them? Think of his war against the abyss. Think of the reason as to why Manus fathered it."
... He never went to war against the abyss though õ_ó ?
He sacrificed himself to push back the dark.
The abyss that Manus fathered appeared as the consequence of Oolacilians messing with Manus, not as a result of Gwyn's actions.
As for why no one speaks of the causes of these wars... It was millennia ago, for the war against dragons, and a millennium ago for the war against demons :i
"These challenges were provoked. They weren't necessarily problems to begin with. Gwyn just wanted more than he ever needed and waged war to acquire it all, then threw himself into his obsession over an everlasting rule."
So you're telling me that the guy who wanted everlasting rule... Preferred to sacrifice himself, rather than send someone who could've done that in his place, as we know he could've... Makes total sense.
I don't think you can view war on dragons as a conventional war waged by people on other people. The everlasting dragons aren't "alive" in the common sense - they represent natural state of the world. As such, the war on dragons echoes ancient creation myths, in which the world as we know it is said to be formed out of primordial, formless (lacking disparity) matter
@@Unstable_constant Sounds nice and all, but in the Dark Souls realm, they're not being symbolic. It is their reality. Everlasting apparently didn't mean unkillable. They still committed genocide. The dragons haven't returned. Whatever part of nature that they played doesn't seem to be a part that has cycled them back into existence.
Conventional war or not, Gwyn's actions are very telling of his terrible nature. His own son turned his back on him because of it, and he was a God of war.
@@theliveing can't really call that a genocide if we aren't even sure how the war looked like, or how sentient the original everlasting dragons actually were (Miyazaki even refuses to call them "alive"). And in my opinion, yes, they are absolutely meant to be understood as representations of nature before fire (ie. before reason and change) and interpreting them as normal living creatures kinda misses the point, but that's subjective I guess. What's objective however is that the firstborn always highly respected Gwyn - see the scroll under Gwyn's coffin - even assuming it was Gwyn who banished him (which is not a fact but a far-fetched theory)
@@Unstable_constant I don't think it matters too much if he was banished or not. He's siding with the dragons, and that certainly said something.
Well, as the saying goes, "The path to hell is paved with good intentions."
I don't believe actions are inherently good nor bad but rather it's the context and ultimate effect/outcome our actions have dictate what's justifiable and what is not.
Some things just need to happen weather we like it or not... Maybe that's a depressing idea but I see it in a bittersweet sort of light.
Best to embrace both the good and the bad, no?
Kinda funny... Souls taught me acceptance and had me adopt a "it's only when you accept death that you can then truely live" mindset.
Weird ramble aside, Gwyns actions are definitely understandable though not necessarily "good" in my eyes.
Most of us would likely do the same if placed in his shoes.
Didnt he drown an entire city and imprisoned people in the ringed city so he could disrupt the natural order of light and dark
... No ?
The drowning of an entire city wasn't done by him, it was done long after his sacrifice, and it was done in order to contain the dark wraiths lead by the four kings that once ruled New Londor, and that risked getting out of New Londor that they were currently rampaging through.
So it was a misery kill for New Londor, and pest control for dark wraiths, all wrapped up into one.
He didn't imprison anyone in the ringed city, which is evidenced by the fact that 1) people got in, 2) people got out (legally that is, as far as we know), 3) the alleged jailor (midir) was friend with at least one resident of the city (Shira), left the ringed city for enough time to wage a war, which is consistent with what Shira tells us about his duty (which is to battle dark, not to keep the ringed knights inside the ringed city), and would've been pretty much the worst jailor for this particular city since... He's a dragon. Asking a dragon to watch over a city filled with dragon slayers (ie : the ringed knights) is pretty dumb. And Gwyn ain't dumb.
As for Gwyn disrupting the natural order... Yeah, this mad lad did it. At least for the sake of his family, if not all the gods, if not outright everyone.
But tell me : why would it be wrong ? I mean intrinsically, I don't mean "the effects", I mean "what's so bad about disrupting the natural order" ? Don't we disrupt the natural order all the time with great consequences ? We cure diseases, send people to the moon, cloth ourselves in materials nature would've never been able to create. Would you want to abandon all that ?
Nature is what it is, not what's best for us. If Gwyn thought that he could improve the world by defying the natural order of things, that made him a pure badass and a great man, even if he was wrong (which I don't think he even was).
Nathan Jora If Gwyn wasn’t wrong in disrupting the natural order, then wouldn’t the Sable Church and the Ashen One in the Lord of Hollows ending be in the right as well? They’re disrupting the “natural” order set up by the gods for their own benefit, just as Gwyn did before to the cycle of Light and Dark before.
Austin Richards « If Gwyn wasn’t wrong in disrupting the natural order »
I didn’t say that.
Well... I do think he wasn’t wrong, but that wasn’t my point.
My point was that disrupting the natural order isn’t *in itself* a problem.
« then wouldn’t the Sable Church And the Ashen One in the Lord of Hollows ending be in the right as well »
No, not necessarily.
Again, wether you break the natural order or not isn’t the problem, it’s why you do it, and what knowledge of the consequences you had beforehand.
I think that the lord of hollow ending is no longer the worse one in DS3, contrary to DS1, because it won’t be a complete age of dark and the lord of hollow is not a dark wraith, like the dark lord.
There is the issue that the sable church was inspired by Kaathe’s teachings and leads Londor as a ruthless theocracy, but at least in this ending the dark doesn’t fully prevail, like in the dark lord ending of DS1, or the age of dark ending of DS2.
« They’re disrupting the ‘’natural’’ order »
It’s not a natural order. The whole point is that it’s unnatural.
It became the normal order, maybe that’s what you meant by natural, but it was never natural.
Also : yes, even if the infinite cycles thing was natural, I would say that merely going against nature would not make the sable church wrong.
It’s all a question of motivations and foreseeable consequences.
« set up by the gods for their own benefit »
Citation needed :|
The gods did not seem to profit a whole lot from the ages of fire that succeeded the first age of fire.
Ever since Gwyn left and Anor Londo was abandoned, the world was mostly ruled by humans.
Furthermore, wether it was Gwyn’s intent or not, the age of fire benefited humans too, so extending it would’ve benefited humans too.
I believe that Gwyn was caught in a loosing situation. It was either make a choice that is bad or leave things alone and the situation gets a lot worse. Now I'm sure Gwyn did some bad things, no one is perfect, but I believe he did what he had to as there was no other way. The right answer isn't the popular one after all. I see Gwyn as a hero but he was forced to make bad choices. It's beena thousand years since Gwyn lit the first flame according to DS1 lore and thre are others who have designs on the flame and want to fulfill their own agenda like Frampt or Kaarthe. In the end, all what he had built up, his friends, family, alllies, kingdom, subjects. He lost it all. He lost everything just to keep the fire going a little longer and for humans and others to continue to prosper.
Nice try, Gwyndolin. I see through your illusion.
Vaati did a video that basically boiled down to Gwyn intentionally created the undead curse to force people into linking the fire. The curse is what causes humanity to writhe and go mad. If not for Gwyn hollows wouldn’t exist and humanity wouldn’t create abominations. It’s a tough position to defend.
Just for the record, Vaati's videos are his theories and opinions on events. His word isn't canon. A lot of people would benefit from knowing that! ;)
Thanks for replying. I know it’s not technically canon but it’s based on quite a bit of fact, if someone disagrees I make sure to stay open to discussion.
I have so much implicit lore connections I haven't been able to find anywhere else. Is there somewhere I could just send you a crazy-hermit sounding list of things I just want to see spread.
There's a lore section for Dark Souls on the Discord! =D
I believe Gwyn did the best he could to further what he believed was the best course of action, and, to be honest, the Dark doesn't exactly present itself as cuddly and peaceful. I think he did an almost messianic self-sacrifice for a good cause, even if he resorted to some shady means to achieve his goals.
gwyn is griffith?😂
Artorias=Guts
Nameless King=King Gaiseric
Ciaran=Caska
I wonder who the Dark Souls equivient of Grffith would be.Sulyvahn?The 4 Kings? Manus?
@@JT044-iz1cv Manus is the godhand, and the fire is the idea of evil
Seath would probably be the closest analogue to Griffith.
Ornstein
@@JT044-iz1cv ... You telling me that Artorias raped Ciaran ? Could you please refrain from making comparisons that'll make me puke >
01:50
The undead curse is not the dark's doing but that of Gwyn's first sin - the linking of the fire.
The brand of the undead being formed like the ring Gwyn and his men branded upon the humans as a means to contain them is an ironic rebuttal to Gwyn's sins of the past.
The dark doesnt spawn the curse at all. It may spawn the abyss, but also has a gentle and cold side to it.
I see where you're coming from. However, I see Gwyn akin to that of the 40k Emperor. Both did what they did for the good of all, but the consequences of their actions screwed everything. Gwyn's linking of the fire eventually burned the world to ash. In the end everything died any way.
*loads bolter with religious intent*
Whaddya said about our Emperor ya heretic ?!
Why did he wage war against the dragons in the first place
Okay I'm going to have to step in here for a sec. The parallels between covid-19 actually fit better with the idea of Gwyn manipulating people into fearing the dark. On his end the only thing they have to go on is their faith in him. Not to mention, just like in this case, Gwyn actively sealed away anyting that did not fit with his vision of the world even before the light started to fade. This can be seen in how he dealt with items like the dark/occult Ember. I'll give you this much it was an interesting experiment to try to see you attempt to defend him. In the end though, I believe there's enough in game evidence to prove that his intentions were less than noble. Also something that a lot of people don't understand or forget about the series, there is a big difference between the dark and the abyss. The abyss is to the dark what the flame of Chaos is to the Life Soul. Basically the abyss, the flame of Chaos, and the undead curse are all examples of corrupting a lord soul. The undead curse is like a tree being hollowed out from the inside after being struck by lightning and catching fire. The darksign isn't a sign of the dark eating through the person, it's a sign of the fire burning to all the person is and feeding on the person's own dark.
To me Gwyn's actions show that he wasn't selfish. Everything he did was to extend fire and preserve life. The fact that he sacrificed himself to the first flame, allowing it to consume his body and soul as fuel, demonstrates that he valued the prosperity of the world over everything else. Also there is no proof that the "dark" is a good thing for humanity. Just cause the furtive pygmy was humanity's ancestor doesn't mean he knew what he was doing or how powerful/corrupt the dark is. Kaathe keeps promising a glorious age of man without fire but there's literally no evidence that humanity would thrive in such an age. Also what's wrong with "fighting against the course of nature"? If Nature had it's way we'd all be prey on the savannahs instead of watching TH-cam lol.
Gwyn tried to fight nature but he did it the wrong way, you're not supposed to attack the undead curse with raw fire because that will burn the flame out, instead you have to grab the darkness with one hand a the fire with the other forcing them to mix and match fueling eachother until you get that soft purplish undead never ending flame that will NEVER die out
We do that in the end of dark souls 3 finally putting an end to the cycle of light and dark by forcing them together into a purple not gray age of slow yet never ending growth... Imagine the age of light but without the impending doom of it
In terms of modern medicine, Gwyn tried to cure a disease locking everyone in quarantine until the disease died out.
Khathe wanted us to ignore the disease because to him it doesn't exist anyways.
And the "Dark Lord" aka the Ashen One took the disease and created a vaccine out of it, you can see Anri and Horace right next to you in that ending, keeping all the benefits of undead without the negative effects
I dont think gywn tried to fight the undead curse. I don't believe it was even around when he was alive. From everything we are told it came after he reignited the first flame
@@notusgodwind4512 no it was happening before that because man creatures of the dark were embracing the light which was against their nature
Actually in this ending you do the same thing Gwyn did, but with an enternal and vicious circle in the Age of Hollows, you're not helping humanity... The third ending is the one where you put and end to the curse, the vicious circle, and restore the world natural order thus beggining the Age of Dark.
Age of dawn & dusk
6:34 dayum i remember getting to that tower and see her look so young then the time passed and i assume she died and you go outside to find everything in ashes which i assume is what the fire can do to the world and what will happen to lothric/Lordran in time if the fire keeps being linked
Love your intro:)
I always disagreed with the notion that Gywn did that they did out of selfishness, hatred, or fear. The age of Fire is the time of moving. The world changes during ages of fire, we KNOW this from the games all being different, with history having moved on. Yet each claim that the Flame is a lie, and the dark is the truth, but isn't the dark a lie? As far as I could ever tell the Dark only brings stagnation to the point of madness. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE eventually hollows within the dark. There are no minds, no wills, no wants aside from the base urge of destroying contained in beasts of the dark. You don't TALK with the overwhelming majority of creatures and the ones that you do talk to make it very clear what is to come. "Let the feast.... begin." All of the others have not spent time in the dark. They claim it is a path worth following, but the Sable Church's adherents WORSHIP the dark and HERALD its coming, not exist within it. It wouldn't surprise me if they were wholly ignorant of what actually happens within the dark. The only one that actual knows was Kaath, and I trust that serpent's words like I trust a hollowed human (fully taken by the dark, since that is what hollowing is) to not blindly attack me as I walk by.
Praise The Sun! Always saw Gwyn as more noble than many believe
5:20 Linking the Flame is like fighting Covid 🤣💦
Interesting ways to defend him, though I don't completely agree. I think to make this supposition requires ignoring a lot of other perspectives and evidence in the game.
I'm probably inviting some rather heated arguments by saying so, but I think Gywn's conquest and steps taken to sustain his age isn't so much analogous to science, but more to imperialism and/or capitalism. The issue came not from Gwyn seeking a better way of life for the denizens of the world, but from denying nature and natural consequences to his actions. He sought eternal growth and prosperity, and ignored, imprisoned, and condemned symptoms of the fundamental issues that that pursuit would cause.
The way I see it is more similar to something like the fossil fuel industry: they provide energy for sustaining a quality of life that was unthinkable before (age of fire), but in doing so, it erodes the quality of the atmosphere and causes a massive chain reaction that eats away at life and the world on all levels, eventually causing feedback loops that find their way back up to the rich people who live like gods among men despite being fundamentally no different (ie the gods response to hollowing). Knowledge that their actions are causing the world to die would jeopardize not only their noble image and others' loyalty to them, but also spur them to take combative action against changing their way of life that they've become so comfortable in. The most action that is taken to actually combat the existential threats to their way of life is small ways to drive back the effects of the world dying, without actually addressing the underlying issues as to why it's happening (linking the fire, staving off the dark).
The undead seem much less like anti-science, and more like people who are either living in harmony with nature or embracing the natural cycle of cause-and-effect, who fight to climb to the top to make their way in the world and possibly change it for the better. In regards to the chosen undead, in doing so they might fall victim to the propaganda espoused by those at the top of the societal heap (Faumpt) or they might come to learn of dark truths about the corrupt nature of the current order (Kaathe). I do think that the dark that the chosen undead can embrace isn't a solution though, since we know that it doesn't make a difference later on. Even if they tear down the whole establishment order, the fire still finds a kindler who prolongs the age of fire into the subsequent games anyways.
In terms of the bearer of the curse, they come into a world where the system is still going on; "countless kingdoms have risen and fallen on this very land" but generations later, the same system is still in place -- the system that prospers while the world falls apart on a knowable schedule. And as Aldia, debatably the greatest scholarly and scientific mind in the souls-verse says, "there is no path", embracing a sort of pessimism about the state of things, but at the same time, he hints at his own existentialism, saying "beyond the scope of light, beyond the reach of dark, what could possibly await us? And yet we seek it, insatiably". Aldia hints at there being a way to find a compromise or alternative between the light of eternal growth-prosperity and the dark of eternal consumption-destruction. However, we never really get to see this actualized, unfortunately.
And then in DS3, the unkindled one comes into a world that is so degraded that it isn't even akin to a waning fire anymore, but just burnt out ash with tiny cinders scattered about. The sun isn't even whole in that era anymore; even the light of the sky is hollowing. All of the normal endings to that game hint that the cycle will continue to go on and eat away at the world in the same ways it always has. But the ending of the DLC, where the dark soul pigment is given to the girl that Vaati calls Aria, seems to suggest that the hope can still be found. It may be in creating and going to a new world (think of how many people talk of humanity having screwed up the Earth too badly and seeking to colonize other planets instead), or in people finding their escape in new worlds created by art, even as the rotting world burns around them.
Either way, the theme of this cycle of rising and falling empires that eat away at the integrity of the world is always present, and I can think of no better real-life metaphor for that than the current human politico-economic systems, where Gwyn represents the 1%. But that's just my hot take lol, idk what's really going on inside Miyazaki's head.
Fear not the dark my friend, and let the feast begin.
Sorry guy, you will never convince me that a king trying to prolong his rule or age will ever be in the right. Good try though.
yeah you know whats great? BEING ABLE TO FUCKING SEE. the age of dark is just a bunch of zombies bumping into each other.
@@josephhuggins5394 lmao an interesting way of putting it
Bruh I feel betrayed. Playing ds3 I remembered them saying darkness was the age of man and all that so I was like "Yeah. Bunk that dude gwyn" but I recently got remastered and after hearing all this and seeing artorias (and hearing his cut lines)...I feel kinda bad for my boy. I know its a souls game but...Does dark souls 3 even have a happy ending? Cuz all of them lead to the age of dark if my memory serves me right.
first (this channel is beautiful)
Several hours away from first it would seem
Honestly even if Gwyn did wrong he is still my favorite character in all of Dark souls
"Did nothing wrong".
He potentially ended the Age of Ancients prematurely and slaughtered an entire race of beings, literally genocide, ushered in the Age of Fire, a.k.a. Endless God Party Time Baby, and then begrudged humanity of their Age of Dark because "o noes me fire dying me scared of dark".
He, like every sapient being out there with a will and a sense of self-preservation, did everything in his power to retain his and his peoples' way of life. That doesn't make him right though. He not only committed mass genocide on a race of ancient beings, he then condemned another to exist in a cycle of cursed undeath and madness. Gwyn, Nito, and the Witch of Izalith, are as much treacherous villains as Seath is for betraying his own kind out of jealousy and spite. Let's see if your video can change my mind even a little. I love your content, and I value the freedom of expression and opinion, and enjoy watching and reading content that contains opposing values and opinions from my own. It broadens the mind. Thank you for this opportunity to broaden my mind even more. ❤
Did it change your mind?
I will say this in defense of Gwyn. He could not possibly understand that by defying the course of nature he was dooming the world. How could he? He just wanted to prevent the light from fading to allow his subjects to be free of the undead curse for a while longer. But in the end, he made the biggest mistake by linking the fire.
I love this man and everything he does for us. I miss playing dark souls and getting lost in these videos. If only my days were better :(
Glad you enjoy the content, dude. I hope whatever's got you down turns around for you real soon! =]
Lot of issues with comparing a flu to The Undead Curse. For one Gwyn didn't need to fudge the numbers on the death total to make it look bad.
Lot of issues with calling Covid "a flu" lol
@@TheAshenHollow Not really considering it carries symptoms common with a flu. it's not the plague and even if it was, we're still here. A far deadlier disease would be willful ignorance in this case, especially of one's history.
honestly this is some quality stuff keep up the good work
Except we know that the undead curse was caused by the seal of fire that Gwyn branded the Pygmy race with
I appreciate the new look on the story. Whether Gwyn did bad or good really depends on the Undead Curse itself, and as I'm personally a believer in the theory that the Curse was created by the Way of White, it's difficult to not assign Gwyn some measure of culpability.
Still, good video! It makes decent points and had a bop for an intro!
I think the undead curse and the abyss are side effects which came from gwyn's efforts to stifle the dark that was inevitable. Him creating the dark sign and trying to contain it, changed and corrupted the dark somehow. He saw the age of dark as his enemy because it threatened his own power and he didnt understand its nature.
Gwyn ended up corrupting and destroying the very things he sought to protect because he was terrified of inevitable change and losing power. Like the gray world before his, everything has a cycle and at some point, Gwyn felt his cycle of power and light was greater and more deserving of existence than the next one. But that isnt how life/existence works. The next cycle of things is coming and it doesn't matter how powerful you are, there is no resisting it. His efforts to stop the the coming age of dark and man only delayed and corrupted it.
Glad to see this video. This video is quite a flipped outlook on the actions of Gwyn, and him as a whole, compared to your last video about the first sin. Perhaps this is you saying the first sin wasn’t his fault, overall, quality content as usual, sir.
To be fair. Science is a relatively young language and has a fundamental difference from days of old. Humans thrived and survived even before the advent of technology; however, technology has allowed more prosperity for the many. To the point of our own self brought demise.
Thank you! Everyone is always painting Gwyn as this evil tyrant. Fact is, we don't know that he is. The only thing we know is that he created something dear to him which he wants to preserve. Sure we can see some bad consequences, but I really can't get behind all those people who say he's evil.
5:20 If only this poor man knew that it was man made..
Everyone's the hero of their own story.
but didnt gwynn cast the curse on the humans in the first place?
We know so little about what's really going on, how can we tell?
Everyone in the games has an agenda of some kind which might motivate them not to tell us the whole truth, and that's assuming they even know what the truth really is.
Even three games later we know basically nothing about what the Age of Darkness actually means and was it always a bad thing or did it become a bad thing after eons of thwarting the natural progression of the world? Is the undead curse natural or is it a product of Gwynn unnaturally extending the Age of Fire?
The games give us so few facts to analyze about what's going on or what the 'natural' progression of the world should actually be that you can easily argue this any way you want and there's really no way to refute it
My honest take on Gwyn’s “righteousness” in his actions; is that he truly cared for his own, but was consumed by the power of flame, so much so that in fear that he would be lost to the dark. He would portray the denial of the natural order of things, as right and good. I think it was the people who continued his legacy willingly blind to what they were actually doing. Humanity to him was a necessary evil, humans being so closely bound to the dark. Were used as cannon fodder in the dragon war, and made for excellent servants. He divided his power among those who he felt he needed to keep beside him. So was he wrong, i think so... but was he a cunning fellow about it, most certainly
Great video, love seeing different points of view!!
Thanks dude! =D
Doesn't the whole start of this get ruined by the fact gywn created the darksign?
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Thank you. Been waiting a video on this theory for years. Legend!
I don't know that I buy it. Your argument relies on the undead curse being inherent in humanity. But I thought the common understanding was that Gwyn, possibly with Nito's help, created the curse and the Dark Sign.
I can, however, see an argument that Gwyn did nothing wrong in the sense that he acted to preserve his own people at the expense of humans, to whom he had no obligation. He and his children are called gods, but they seem to be of a race separate from both humans and giants, and ultimately hold no allegiance to humans.
Or at the most, his actions extended existing human civilizations at the cost of Humanity's ascendancy.
i also think, and this is my personal belief, that Gwyn knew what was happening while he was in the kiln of the first flame. it is my belief that Gwyn sealed himself there to protect the flame and actually prevent it from being linked, as he knew that he had made mistakes in linking it the first times, as all things do. so in my opinion, Gwyn is cognizant of what is going on around him up until the chosen undead arrives.
One thing I respect about Gwyn is his conviction. He believed in his age of fire enough to burn for it, sacrificing himself for what he saw as the right path.
I can't agree at all, first off he started the cycle that completely destroyed the world as seen at the end of Dark Souls 3 (Dreg Heap, Kiln and Gael's boss arena), the only reason that there's hope in the world at the end of DS3 is because Gael gave his life for pigment to hopefully create a painted world that won't rot like the others. He may have had the best intentions, but they say that the road to hell is paved with the best intentions and him starting the cycle of linking the fire destroyed the world in the end. Honestly it was best to simply let it die out and not completely fuck up the world several millennia later, undead curse included.
Secondly it's very much possible that if he let the Age of Fire run out that maybe the Abyss and creatures of the dark wouldn't be so devastating or dangerous, though this one depends HEAVILY on if the events of AotA happen after Gwyn linked the fire or not (which I'm leading to believe that it happens after). Denying them their place in time would sure as hell piss them off (I mean wouldn't you in that place), which is likely why the Four Kings sided with Kathe, they were betrayed by Gwyn and probably weren't too happy about it.
Also the war on the dragons, it seems that they started it, and when his firstborn realized the truth he was disgusted enough by his own father's actions to betray him, Gwyn ended up basically erasing his history for that, history is written by the victors they say. Not only that but the things that he did to his own family (Nameless and Filianore) was very wrong.