A Dark Souls 3 Story Retrospective

dark souls 3 is a perfect game due to the way a book ends the entire series but the only reason that i can say that is because of how much this game is being held up by its predecessors dark souls 3 on its own is still a good game but without all the effort put into the story from dark souls 1 and 2 its narrative wouldn't be as impactful that's the beauty of the dark souls trilogy it's one of the few series out there that truly feels like a tightly knit game many games get sequels but not many truly feel like a proper sequel just a game set in the same universe a year or so after the previous game it might make callbacks to the pass game but not enough to feel like what occurred in that game was important the dark souls trilogy and its repetitive ideas make the games feel properly connected the age of fire the undead curse hollowing and so much more have been a prominent part of the series since its inception which is why judging these games individually based on their stories is so difficult as each of these games relies on each other to actually make their story have an impact dark souls 2 and 3 could not exist without dark souls 1 and not just because of its world-building and important characters but because it's the game that showed us what the age of fire is and why it's important we then took this information into dark souls 2 which showed us how the age of fire is not all it's cooped up to be and how as all the years go by people are starting to embrace the fire less and less this all comes to an end to dark souls 3 a game that is purely focused on the age of dark and why the first flame needs to go each one of these games provides a crucial step in our journey and without even one of them every other game loses its meaning we already talked about the previous two games and what they attempt to show to the player and all these themes ideas and plots all converge towards dark souls 3 creating one of the best endings in a series i've ever seen and today i will explain why so without wasting any more time let's get started so ironically for a game that's going to be about the age of darkness and how much death and decay the current age has caused it starts off with an incredibly intense soundtrack it's not even been 10 seconds and this electrified feeling of exhilaration seeps into your body dark souls is back and it's time to kick some ass this feeling continues right into the intro cinematic and dark souls 3 weighs 0 time getting into the story this is the first time in the trilogy where the game outright tells you who the main bosses are which are the abyss watchers aldrich saint of the deep and yorm the giant there is also a fourth that isn't mentioned but we'll discuss them a bit later just like before it's four beings who will need to be dealt with in order to succeed but instead of them being the four lord soul users or the four great ones it's the four lords of cinder the question is why are they so important well oddly enough the game tells you but the pure spectacle of the intro is so hypnotizing you might not even realize what was just said according to the opening narration the bells only toll when threatened the reason they're being threatened is because the fire is fading again but furthermore it's because someone doesn't want to link the flame that person being prince lothric since the prince doesn't want to link the flame the bells of awakening revived previous lords of cinder from past kingdoms each of these aforementioned beings i mentioned earlier were people who link the flame in their lifetimes the bells assume that if they have linked it already then they'll do it again but they all refused the abyss watchers aldrich and yorm don't want to in the last ditch ever to make sure the fire is linked the bells of awakening have awoken other beings who are unkindled people who have failed to link the fire in the past but are now given a second chance and we are one such person known as the ashen one our job is to defeat the lords of cinder and take their ashes to their thrones as if they won't come back willingly then their ashes will serve as a substitute this is the plot of the game no small objective in between like finding vendrick or ringing the bells right away from the get-go we're tasked with killing these beings and licking the flame assuming you've played the previous games already then you've heard this story twice before and already know what you're getting into which is why our first boss isn't even 5 minutes into the game in dark souls 1 it took around the same time to fight the asylum demon but the game also taught us about our inventory and weaponry but also showed us that we can converse with npcs and used an estus flask dark souls 2 took a bit longer with this as the first boss wasn't for a couple hours and the basic tutorial can take a bit of time to run through in dark souls 3 we start with the estus flask get get all our gear and start our journey immediately there is no hand holding here as the game assumes you've done this all before and don't need much of a refresher the reason why they put udix in here is because he's supposed to test our strength not just the ashen one's strength but ours since dark souls 3 underwent some drastic changes in regards to its combat and for those who have noticed yes i'm using an axe again it wasn't until starting this game that i realized i'd used an axe for all three of them so i figured it'd be quite comical if i beat the entire trilogy with the same weapon before killing eudyx though we'll see him become engulfed in this black form this is called the pus of man this is a unique disease that is taking over the kingdom and it originates from the abyss similar to how manus humanity went wild causing him to become the ferocious beast that we know in game it's possible that this is happening to other hollows but on a much grander scale as this won't be the last time we see this pus of man in the game after utyx we can take the coiled sword from his body and use it to create the bonfire at the new firelink shrine i absolutely love the design of firelink shrine from the moment you walk in and see all the thrones lined up around the bonfire you feel a sense of comfort it's definitely my favorite across the entire series but i loathe its location firelink shrine feels so disconnected from the rest of the world even though majula was on the outskirts of draying lake castle it at least became a nexus for all the various paths that the player could traverse to the cherry on top years that we can't even travel to the first location were forced to teleport to it it just further shuts this place away from the rest of the kingdom there's no incentive to explore the other areas of the level as we've already seen everything it has i never understood why the series slowly moved towards this idea but it seemed to be a massive hit amongst the team as this would be used in other games going forward from a pure gameplay perspective the firelink shrine of dark souls 3 also reverts to the changes in dark souls 2 to keep things more simplistic andre is back and will handle anything regarding our weapons from upgrades to infusions and the shrine handmaid becomes our all-encompassing merchant so no more clutter like in dark souls 2. we also have our new level up lady who is just the fire keeper she doesn't have any unique backstory like the emerald herald but her condition does spark a few questions it seems that all the fire keepers have some sort of condition that afflicts them anastasia the lady under firelink shrine will initially be mute and cannot be spoken to the darkmoonitus in anor londo has a disfigured appearance which is why she hides it from us with her armor and this fire keeper is blind this has always been fascinating to me as i've never been able to fully understand why this is the case it's possible that this is a sort of rite of passage and the fire keepers are showing their willingness to the flame by giving up something but what they lose seems to differ across the games it's possible that this is just a coincidence but there's also an npc in the game will meet called irina who tries to be a fire keeper and is also blind fire keepers being blind only occurs in dark souls 3. so i've always wondered why blindness is occurring now instead of across the series it's something we never get an answer to but definitely a fascinating topic to discuss speaking of the characters in firelink shrine i want to talk about the npcs though before we embark on our journey third time's the charm as they say since the npcs this game are handled way better than in the previous two titles my issue with each game is that dark souls 1 kept replaying the same fate of hollowing across all of its characters which started losing its value very quickly and dark souls 2 seemed to just make characters for the rewards rather than their stories but dark souls 3 seems to fix this issue the quantity of the npcs has been drastically reduced as they're only around 27 or so in the main game there's also very little overlap in the merchants as each school of magic has one designated npc with the exception of pyromancy and while greyrat does have a pretty useless inventory for the most part since he's a thief you can actually send him to find gear which will increase his options this was so much better as i didn't have to run around the base finding the one merchant who sells the item i need furthermore the actual quests of the npcs were much more enjoyable this time around there was five standout characters for dark souls 3. but one interesting change with this game though is that the npcs connect with the main content both sigward and henry have a connection with a specific lord of cinder and yuri's questline ends up becoming one of the endings of the game i really liked this idea as so far the npcs have been separate from the main bosses so it was nice to see it all intertwine with one another it'll be a lot easier to explain what their quest lines are alongside the main content so we'll hold off on this for now which means the only other two that we have to talk about that have a more traditional quest line are irina and cirrus as we talked about before irina is blind and this is because she came from her land of kareem to become a fire keeper you might recognize the name kareem as oswald the trek and the marvelous chester from dark souls 1 are all from karim the reason we find irina here in this cell is because she's filled and hasn't become a fire keeper yet due to this failure she believed that she was unfit to tend the flames and fell into a deep depression the night guarding her is aegon of kareem and has a sworn duty to protect her no matter her state of being to progress her questline we need to buy her spells if we buy her miracles then we'll be able to give her the enlightenment she needed and will eventually become a fire keeper at firelink shrine gameplay-wise she's pretty useless in this state is not only is there already a fire keeper but she's also hundreds of feet away from the player as opposed to the actual fire keeper who is right next to you if we however only buy her dark miracles we further progress the ferocity of the humanity with inside of her causing her to be consumed by its dark power this turns aegon hostile who will fight you for betraying her she will eventually start to become worried and asks us to touch her against that she can tell who is nearby but eventually she will not recognize our touch and ask to be killed it's a genuinely sad outcome and this emotion has heightened further because we're the ones that caused it hedoe instead just kept purchasing her regular miracles we could have saved her from her impending fate it's a quest line of two extremes one where she gets everything she wants and one where she loses everything and it all depends on you as for siri she starts out as some random person who appears at firelink shrine sir seems to be a darkmoon blade since she uses the darkmoonblade spell which can only be acquired by those a part of the covenant but yorshka the leader of said covenant states that we'll be the only knight in the group if we join furthermore sierra says that she is a former servant of the divinity which may imply that she was a dark moon blade but left some time later as for why she left it seems to be related to the two people we fight against throughout her questline who are creighton and hodrick creighton is the same one from dark souls 2 although this does not imply that he was the canon winner between him and pate as this was probably thousands of years ago and i'm assuming that creighton is also unkindled as he most likely was revived alongside us sir says that creighton was a part of the rosario's fingers a rival covenant and one that she despises and hodrick seems to be her grandfather the reason we know this is because she calls out to him before the fight and when defeated she says that she's pleased that her granddad can rest in peace hodrick seems to have gone mad at some point and sirius wanted to put him out of his misery she has a short but sweet questline and the family connection to hodrick was quite the shock the question still remains though what is the sunless realms because her full name is cirrus of the sunless realms it's nice to speculate about it but there isn't much information to go off of and this is a running trend throughout the series and personally something i'm not a fan of there are so many locations in the game that we learn about like astora kareem katarina mira alkin venon so many more but there's no in-depth lore about them hell most of them don't even give us a service level idea of what they're about this is not a dark souls 3 issue and more of a series issue as the devs have been given three chances to develop some of these places and from software has just refused to do so many people including myself have tried to speculate on more details regarding these kingdoms but there's so little to go off of that it's not even worth it their inclusion in the game was probably because the team wanted to add a bit of flavor to the world to not only show that the main kingdom isn't the only kingdom in the dark souls universe but also that people from all over are flocking to this kingdom in search of something important it just feels like a wasted opportunity to barely mention these places after three whole games as a whole dark souls 3 has some great quest lines and i would go as far to say that it's the most polished out of the entire series dark souls 3 recognized what was wrong with the previous two entries and made sure not to repeat those same mistakes again with the npc's done we can now resume our objective which as a reminder is to defeat the lords of cinder and use their ashes as kindling so that we may travel to the kiln of the first flame and relink the fire to do this though we actually need five lords of cinder the abyss watchers yorm prince lothric aldridge and ludleth the reason i said four earlier is because ludleth is actually the only one who complies with the rules as he's already at firelink shrine when we arrive loveless throne says that he was exiled from his homeland the reason why he was exiled was because of his art of transposition for gameplay purposes this allows us to take the boss holes and make weapons out of them just like the pass games what's odd though is that when he dies he drops the skull ring which talks about a being called the soul feeder and how it was this insatiable beast that hungered for souls due to the ambiguity of his past it's led to many theories such as ludwig being a soul feeder himself but was at one point defeated which is why he has no legs and possibly can't fit on his throne it is also entirely possible that loveleth is just someone who wants to do the right thing and has no ill intentions but the skull ring definitely leaves a lot up to the imagination to get to the other four lords we'll need to use the bonfire at firelink shrine which will take us to the high wall of lothric and it is absolutely stunning you're immediately greeted with an entire view of the castle and it's a breathtaking view but it's also an illusion the kingdom of lothric is riddled with corpses and those who survived other became hollows or are still seen defending a lifeless kingdom lothric is governed by the three pillars of rule the knights who protect the kingdom the scholars who run the grand archives and the high priestess who also served as prince lothric's wet nurse those who abide by these rules are the lothric knights but these wingnite variants are said to be heretics as they don't accept their rules this is because of gertrude the heavenly daughter in the grand archives we can find a bird cage cell with a dead body in it this is assumed to be gertrude she was one of the queen's holy maidens although depending on some item descriptions she may also have been her daughter one day gertrude was visited by an angel and through this was able to establish the angelic faith of lothric seeing as this isn't a part of the regular three pillars gertrude was taken and imprisoned those who agreed with her teachings though banned together to defeat the current rulers of lothric which led to a massive civil war out of all the three kingdoms we've visited so far in the trilogy the kingdom of lothric is easily in the worst state this condition that we see the castle in may also symbolize the world of dark souls itself i'll elaborate more on this idea later but it's my personal theory that not only did our characters from dark souls 1 and 2 link the flame but every person in between these games did so as well if we go back to the intro the narrator says that lothric is where the transitory lands of the lord's converge meaning this isn't like the past games in dark souls 1 all the main bosses were within lordran already but in dark souls 3 the lands of these lords have been forced together it's unclear how this is even possible but it may go back to the first flame the world of dark souls is dying it's a shadow of its former self places are being buried destroyed and created in an endless loop the intro does a great job of showing this but the one area that truly opened my eyes to this was drag heap this place is covered in rubble and buildings that span so far and wide that you can't even tell what the buildings used to be or when they were built we talked about how time was convoluted in dark souls 1 but in dark souls 3 this has been progressed even further lands are being moved together creating a tidal wave of rubble and it's all because the first flame if you watched the past videos you may have noticed how worse things have gotten throughout the series and i believe this is because the first flame hasn't been snuffed out people are still clinging on to that illusion of life as aldia put it and are willing to stay in the comfort of what they know rather than step out into the unknown because of that the world has gotten even worse each dark souls game has tried to push the player toward one specific idea the age of fire in one the breaking of the curse in two and the age of dark and three everyone in dark souls 3 is just doing what they continue to do because it's all they know some are blindly following their faith and others are continuing to work on their craft this game truly conveys the attitude and the effects of a dying world one that is practically begging to be put out of its misery it's basically saying look at all of this in-game look at the destruction of the kingdoms the ruins of the world and the people who inhabit it do you think any of them are truly happy to be alive right now not even the lords of cinder beings who have insurmountable power don't even want to link the flame it lays all of this out for you and asks you to choose which is quite a heavy burden choosing to go against the status quo that has been said for who knows how long is a very hard decision but at least we don't have to make that choice now as the game will blindside us again and create another boss encounter for us to be hypnotized by we'll talk about it for later though as he does have ties to another boss later in the game after vort will be taken to the undead settlement this place functions like the undead burg in dark souls 1 as this place was the residence of many of the kingdom's undead but one thing we'll see immediately upon entry is this massive pile of corpses at the end of the bridge these beings are pilgrims that are most likely from the kingdom of londor as the only survivor is yole of londor he is related to yuria however so we will have to discuss him a bit later as we explore the undead settlement we can see that this place is in just as bad of shape as lothric castle bodies are piled up everywhere and some have even been put into cages this land has also been subjected to various curses and because of this many of the settlements inhabitants sealed them away in a spirit tree but would end up cursing the tree itself which would lead to the creation of the cursed rotted great wood during the second phase the great wood will slam into the ground and will discover the true resting place of all the settlements hollows in the aptly named pit of hollows it's unclear though whether or not the hollows that were dumped here were alive or not upon arrival but since the mound maker's covenant is down here it's possible that they were thrown in here alive and all fought to the death which would explain the plethora of bones covering the walls but it could also be that these people actually banded together to create the mound maker's covenant regardless it's clear that their fates were sealed the moment they were thrown in while the curse rotted great wood is to the left of the dilapidated bridge if we instead go to the right we'll make it to the road of sacrifices and subsequently fairing keep which leads us to our first lord of cinder the abyss watchers fair and keep is rather interesting as not only is it the resting place for the abyss watchers but it may also be the ruins of oolacile in this area we can find the golden scroll and the dusk crown items that have ties to oolacile and we can also find dead mushrooms and maybe even the final resting place of elizabeth if this taller mushroom is assumed to be her this would also fit narratively with the abyss watchers as they were a part of an organization dedicated to fighting the abyss and seeing his manus was located under oolacile this would tie together quite nicely the abyss watchers were the main fighting force of a group called the undead legion of pharyn who took inspiration from artorius and dedicated their lives to fighting the abyss but their group numbers seem to be much larger than they seem as these monstrous beings are seen guarding the abyss watchers boss arena they even managed to recruit one of the twin crystal sages that is said to have betrayed his scholarly friends of the grand archives to ally with the undead legion as for the abyss watchers themselves it said that they all shared the blood of the wolf most likely in reference to this wolf found in the area and used its blood to increase their power and their power was unmatched as not only were they able to hunt together like a pack of wolves but they've been known to bury an entire kingdom at the slightest sign of the abyss this group would eventually link the flame presumably an attempt to cast away the abyss for good but with their main force gone the rest of the forces dwindled and left the undead legion as there was nothing else to do but as we know the abyss can't be destroyed that easily it eventually came back and went unchecked since none of the legion were around and managed to turn their land into a festering swamp these monstrosities that we see may have been legion soldiers who were corrupted by the abyss when the abyss watchers awoke they came to the realization that their home was overrun and their mission was unsuccessful and while it's not stated when this happened at some point some of the members became tainted with the abyss itself which leads to the cutscene before the boss fight where they're all fighting one another as they're trying to fight back against the abyss but since they're all undead they're constantly being revived so they're stuck in this never-ending battle between each other which is likely why they won't link the flame doing it the first time didn't stop the abyss and they have more important things to do than sit on their throne and let the abyss consume the world i absolutely love the abyss watchers and not just from a lore perspective but also as a boss what really sold the fight for me was the hints of artorias that were spread throughout their move sets the undead legion took inspiration from artorias so it's only right that they mimic his fighting style and the fast-paced leaping attacks that they have really reminded me of that fight furthermore this fight's quality increases tenfold once the other members join in as it turns this honorable duel into this chaotic mess you lose all focus during this fight as you're having to keep track of three different abyss watchers who can slide across the arena in a second and the second phase is just as deadly as the last dead abyss watcher consumes the blood of all his brethren in a last-ditch attempt to stop us he's a lot faster than last time and produces flames from his sword which makes the fight even harder it shows how dedicated the group is to their mission and how they'll use anything they can as long as they win similar to how artorias fought us with all his strength and even a broken arm from both a presentation and gameplay perspective the abyss watchers are fantastic lords of cinder and the best way to introduce the player to the sheer power these lords hold behind the abyss watchers is the catacombs of karthus a place that has seemingly no actual kingdom as this karthus is never seen in game but given that wolnir is located down here and is known to be a lord consumed by the abyss maybe the abyss watchers leveled the entire kingdom and while that is an interesting idea to think about what's more important is actually what's underneath the catacombs if we break this bridge and use it as a ladder we can enter the smoldering lake the original location of lost izalith and possibly ash lake in here we can see giant structures that look very similar to arch trees of ash lake and given the geography of lordran ash lake and lost izalith weren't too far from one another so it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that they can exist in the same location if we continue deeper into the lake we'll see dozens of dead demons that resemble the capra taurus and stray demon from dark souls 1. it's very clear that the demon race is dying and that they're struggling to survive we can even see this in this stray demon near fair and keep which is covered in stone rather than the flesh and blood that we're used to there's even the old demon king whose balsam is covered in the corpses of his fellow demons he'll try his best to fight the ashen one with all his might but most of his power ran out years ago and as a last resort will release all his flames in a fiery explosion but in doing so he'll lose all the power he's ever consumed and will be unable to fight the demons of dark souls 3 are a dying race and further adds to the theme of death and decay the game is trying to convey kingdoms aren't lavish spectacles of beautiful architecture they're a war zone and the demon race is no longer a formidable foe just a dying breed that won't last another generation the symbolism of this place is beautiful as it shows that everyone is being affected by the progression of time and no one is gaining from having this age continue but not everything needs to have a sad ending as if we explore the rest of the smoldering lake we can find the corpses of a spider and a woman and judging from the tone that is located on her body it seems that quelana found the fair lady and got to spend their last moments with one another it's a wonderful and happy ending quelana got to find her sister who she thought was dead and the fair lady is finally able to die and no longer has to suffer anymore getting back on track to get to our next lord of cinder we need to find irithyll but to gain entry we need to find a specific item that is located in the cathedral of the deep the resting place of aldrich saint of the deep aldridge's story is by far the most vague but also the most detailed amongst the lords of cinder as his story encompasses various other bosses that we've already had the pleasure of meeting years ago aldridge was a common cleric but he would eventually start experiencing visions of a deep sea this deep sea was another form of the abyss and it was located in the lowest possible depths imaginable and formed the core components of the world we never get to see the deep sea in game but it seems to be the lowest layer something only aldrich can see he then shared this info with only those he trusted who were his archdeacons mcdonnell royce and klimt they not only kept this information within their inner circle but also encouraged one of aldridge's insatiable urges whether this was something he always had within him or it came about when he saw visions of the deep aldrich had an insatiable urge to consume human flesh the archdeacons encouraged this behavior and used their influence to create an army of followers to not only worship aldrich but also went out and gathered sacrifices for him that's why these evangelists are located in the undead settlement as they are trying to bring the undead to the cathedral so that they may be consumed by aldrich we also learned that he would eat anyone even including children as anri and horus are said to be the only two children who managed to escape aldridge's grasp where henri and horus are located happens to be the road of sacrifices the path that these settlers and evangelists took to get to the cathedral before consumption this cathedral performed all manner of rituals and cleansings in order to purify those who entered its doors after numerous sacrifices the people around aldrich managed to go insane and even though aldrich himself was able to keep his sanity his form would change rapidly as he would eventually become the black sludge that we see in the intro due to his immense power he was used as a lord of cinder but seeing as aldrich was fully consumed by the visions of a deep sea linking the fire would be the opposite of what he had planned so this implies that it was linked against his will they would eventually return aldridge's body to the cathedral to be placed inside the large coffin scene in the deacons of the deep boss fight these deacons were led by the archdeacons we discussed earlier but while aldrich was laying in his coffin another piece was added to the board pontiff sullivan was a former resident of the painted world of ariandel just like the world of dark souls the painted worlds have their own cycles that need to be rekindled in a sense well the pontiff lived in the current painted world of ariandel but felt no reason to continue his life here as he had not experienced any hardship or despair we'll learn about the painting's residents in the dlc but unlike the painted world of ariamis which was a world for all the things the gods feared ariandel was for those who had nowhere else to go and are without purpose sullivan would then set out in search of a purpose and would eventually come across the irithyll this place is very relevant to the story as right next to it is on orlando the same one from dark souls 1. from various item descriptions we learned that gwyndolin didn't actually die in dark souls 1 as he is still very much alive in this game now whether or not the chosen undead never fought him or they killed him but he somehow revived himself is unknown and ultimately irrelevant but with gwyndolin being the only god left in anor londo he tried to reach out to those in his extended family in hopes of trying to rebuild the god's rule the only one he managed to find though was yorshka a crossbreed girl similar to priscilla it's unclear what her relationship with gwyndolin was or even her relationship with priscilla was but all we know is that she was content with helping gwyndolin in his objective gwyndolin would also reinstate the darkmoon blades as a way to help protect them from any adversaries one of their knights though happened to be pontiff sullivan who infiltrated its ranks and managed to corrupt all the members he came across he would then end up enacting his plan when gwyndolin was stricken with an illness that left him unable to care for his covenant or city sullivan in one successful swoop managed to imprison yorshka in a nearby tower and throw gwyndolin inside an orlando cathedral allowing him to have complete control of earth which is how he earned the title of pontiff in order to ensure protection of his new kingdom the pontiff would not only set irithyll knights in various positions as guards create a barrier over the whole city so that no one could enter but also send outrider knights to conquer other lands we've already seen a few outrider nights across the game already but the two most notable knights are vort and the dancer of the boreal valley not much is known about the duo except the fact that the dancer was a daughter from one of the royal families in irithyll whether she served willingly or not is unknown either way both of their fates would end up the same as they were both bestowed a ring given by the pontiff which would end up slowly turning them into these malformed beasts after an unknown amount of time aldrich would re-awake again as a lord of cinder and would foresee the world's eventual destruction at the hands of the deep sea due to this premonition though he would neglect the throne and wait for the deep to overcome the world and it was during this waiting that he would dream of the old gods and how they wanted to relink the flame he saw this as a ploy against his own wishes and sought to devour the very gods he then traveled to irithyll decimated the knights guarding the city and forced the pontiff to surrender who gave up control of anor londo allowing aldridge to have an audience with gwyndolin what happened next is what we see during the boss fight we interrupt aldrich mid-consumption who now has to use the barely conscious body of gwyndolin as a weapon to defeat us aldrich seems to have very supernatural powers as his soul when transposed can give us the darkmoon longbow which belonged to gwyndolin but also the lifehunt scythe that belonged to priscilla but interestingly though he never consumed priscilla only dreamed of her from what i can gather it seems that aldridge can acquire abilities from those he consumed and is also able to peer into that person's memories the reason he was able to acquire the life on scythe is because it's a miracle miracles and dark souls are like stories you're essentially reciting a story and using the talisman as a medium for the power so aldrich consumed gwyndolin and dreamt of priscilla during the consumption and then learned the story of the life on scythe and was able to cast it since it's basically just the equivalent of reading a story again earlier i said aldrich had the most detailed story out of the lords of cinder and i wasn't lying his story doesn't just include himself but five other bosses and close to a dozen named characters it is a very long story to wrap your head around but it is the kind of storytelling that got me interested in these games in the first place it showcases all the different events from different points of view and how these characters fit into one cohesive timeline but just as the story is detailed so too is it vague the deep sits on a shelf alongside many of the concepts of the dark souls universe that are barely touched upon in its defense though the deet does have a lot of item descriptions tied to it so we can at least get a better understanding of what its true nature is but seeing as it's never shown to us in game or ever elaborated on further than what we talked about it just becomes another idea in the world of dark souls that leaves a lot open to the interpretation as for the boss fight aldrich was pretty entertaining but i think a much better boss fight in my opinion was pontiff sullivan i've always liked sullivan's design and plus the walk towards him is always very ominous as you don't know what to expect especially when he dashes right at you the moment you get too close ford and the dancer were pretty much on the same level as aldrich in my opinion i still think pontiff ranks higher than all of them but they were really entertaining fights and honestly this opinion i have is pretty much the same for most of the bosses in this game even udyx was an entertaining fight and he was the first boss we ever face it's clear that the quality of the bosses has been raised thanks to dark souls 3 and i think one reason for this was because the team reverted the previous ideas of dark souls 2 and instead focused on the quality again rather than the quantity each fight brought some sort of unique twist so that it never felt like you were in some traditional fight as that's what the enemies were for even fights i dislike due to their lack of difficulty like the deacons are still at least mildly impressive as its leagues better than the congregation from dark souls 2 which i'm assuming was the inspiration for it those enemies between the bosses are allowed to have basic attacks and a combo or two but the bosses are where all the creative talent is supposed to be spilled into it felt like there was real passion behind these bosses again from their designs to their move sets and that's one of the reasons dark souls 3 is held in such a high regard within the franchise the other reason may also be down to the locations themselves there is beauty and destruction as they say and dark souls 3 proves time and time again how this is possible the catacombs the cathedral and the smoldering lake are all great examples of this but the way the game shifts this idea and instead showcases beauty through architecture again through the lens of things like irithyll and anor londo is genius even the smallest things like looking over a ledge and seeing the rest of the kingdom or just walking through the hallway that leads to gwyn's tomb are beautiful not only because we get to see some of these locations in a new more updated light but because from software has always expertly crafted its levels to showcase these moments for us that's one of the reasons anor londo was so beloved amongst the community is not only was it the first area that showed actual signs of life in the world of lord jam but its design was a sight to behold even anor londo in its current state still holds that beauty it's just a different kind of beauty not how various pieces of architecture can create a god-like city that people can only dream of but how despite its destruction and loss of life anor londo still manages to be a beacon of light and upholds the massive significance that it displayed in dark souls 1. after the defeat of aldrich if we retrace our steps back to irithyll we can find a separate path that leads to the profaned capital ruled by yorn the giant interestingly though we don't just arrive in the capital as upon exiting through this hole in the wall we arrive in the irithyll dungeon this place is a massive and convoluted prison filled with all manner of beings who have been imprisoned and tortured and abused by all the jailers these jailers are said to hail from the profane capital but later served under the rule of pontiff sullivan they're also very ruthless in their methods when it comes to subduing skbs as they have a poisonous mist that saps your health away and use a scoldering piece of hot iron that not only burns at the touch but will hinder your ability to run away as you temporarily fat roll when afflicted if you manage to escape the prison you'll be greeted by the underground city of the profaned capital from a pure spectacle or design perspective i think shulva had a much better greeting upon its entry but the profane capital is still nice to look at it is admittedly quite small this could once again be due to the geological shift of the lands towards lothric but that doesn't ignore the fact that the devs could have done a bit more with its design you'll likely spend more time in the adjacent dungeon than in the actual capital while the area does lack in length it does try to circumvent the issue a bit by adding a bit more depth the capital is covered in various trinkets goblets and burned corpses and these bodies don't just stop at the entrance they are in every section of the capitol they're trying to get the player to wonder what exactly happened here well the capital was under attack by a new flame called the profaned flame this was a curse created by a group of women and while they did become disfigured and turn into these creatures we see just outside the capital they did manage to win in the end as it pretty much killed every single person who resided in said capital but this is where gorm came in as he attempted to stop this profane flame before it caused any damage by linking the flame and becoming a lord of cinder but it didn't work as the aforementioned destruction followed shortly after the main question surrounding it though is why do these women create such a thing and how well it's possible that it may have ties to the abyss as both carla the witch and the profaned cole who are both found in the irithyll dungeon have ties to the abyss you're here to save me but i'm guilty a wretched child of the abyss the words did you happen upon this coal this is much too dark i see the abyss in it furthermore we need to look at the pontiff and elianora pontiff carries a sword called the profaned greatsword which states that sullivan discovered an unfading flame below the tundra of irithyll in the axe elianora can be dropped from these monstrous creatures which says that the women who triggered the curse were relatives of a certain oracle these words tundra irithyll of land covered in snow and oracle all point to elaine lois and alsana being this oracle from what we just talked about regarding the smoldering lake and what we know from the old chaos and a lamb lois it's clear that the flame of chaos is dying so maybe this is an altered version of the flame of chaos or at least maybe the last few sparks of it it's definitely a stretch but the profane flame has always been interesting to me as the last time a new flame was mentioned in the series well we kinda know how that went upon his revival though yorm saw the state of his city and was in utter shock at what had occurred so now he sits in despair unwilling to link the flame but despite how depressing it would be to kill him we not only need his ashes but a friend also needs to uphold his promise yom old friend i secret of the knights of katarina have come to uphold my promise let the sun shine upon this lord of cinder when jordan became the ruler of his kingdom many of the people disapproved of him in an effort to gain their trust he created two weapons called the storm rulers and gave one to his people should he ever step out of line and the other to his best friend siegward who promised to kill him should he come back to life this is also the final step in secret's questline and was the main reason i enjoyed it so much as being able to fight alongside an npc such as him against a giant sounds like a blast but despite the wonderful presentation and design of yorm's character it's easily the most underwhelming fight in the game using the storm ruler is the only way to do real damage to the arm the main attack of the storm ruler is the weapon art that produces a slash of wind capable of downing him but that's just it it's just the same move over and over again doing this alone is easy and with secret it becomes even easier as you can almost unlock your home for a large portion of the battle and for this to occur during a fight with a lord of cinder is pretty pathetic on top of this yarm's second phase doesn't really change anything it just adds a bit of fire to his weapon i feel like there was much more potential for yorm but it was never given to us thankfully this wouldn't be the last time this idea would exist in a souls game as eldon ring repurposed this idea and it was much better handled there our final lord of cinder is prince lothric the one who started this problem in the first place but the real question is why it's the one thing that's been rattling in my head since the very beginning why did lothric refuse to link the flame well the answer is honestly a bit sad prince lothric was born to die the rulers of lothric were king osiris and his queen osiris had three children named lorian lothrich and ocelot lorian was the first and was a formidable soldier on the battlefield who was able to single-handedly defeat the demon prince who was said to rule over all the demons osiris figured that his lineage could push their power even further by creating a child specifically to become a lord of cinder and lothric was to be that child but he failed lothric wasn't strong enough so the family committed a deed so heinous that it cursed him for life despite the curse though it worked and lothrick was capable of relinking the flame but his frail body combined with his poor health left him bedridden and resentful being the helpful brother that he was elorian wanted to combine his soul with lothrics but because of lothric's curse it consumed lorian as well which left him mute and a due to this the current state of the world and the fact that even his teacher was having doubts about relinking the flame it ultimately caused lothric to refuse and honestly it's hard to blame him being created for the sake of power and not knowing what your sacrifice will truly do is a hard burden to put on a child especially when you consider how much grooming was presumably done to get lother ready to link the flame had even brought up in a different light this story could have been changed but due to the greed of the king it ultimately started a chain of events that would bring about the end of the world at the very least though the twin princes weren't the only ones that suffered osiris is more dragon than human now and has gone insane because of it similar to how big hat logan became deranged from the knowledge he read on sith so too did osiris and depending on what you believe he may also be hallucinating during the fight he talks about his son ocelot and we can infer that he's carrying him in his hand but nothing is there this however may not be as obvious as it seems there's currently two theories i believe in that argue for and against ocelot's existence on one hand ocelot may be a hallucination from the king either because ocelot died and he can't accept the loss or that he had been hallucinating the mere idea that he had a child in the first place however on the other hand ocelot may actually exist but was removed due to some real world complications during the second phase of the boss fight osiris will scream ocelot's name then slam the hand that carries him into the ground presumably killing him we can hear a baby crying in the background during the fight implying that he lived but i think this was a loophole buy from software to get rid of complaints killing kids in games if i'm not mistaken will get a game banned just about everywhere and from software has honored this rule and rarely ever adds kids their games to begin with the only ones that come to mind are kuro and sekiro and father gascoin's daughter in bloodborne but his daughter is never seen as we're forced to talk to her through a wall and while crow does make an appearance numerous times he is never shown to be harmed there are three parts in the game that kuro is actually cut with something and each time it happens we never actually see the real act it is of course implied that he has suffered a wound but it's never actually shown from software most likely wanted to add ocelot and his death to the game but couldn't do to the possibility of the game being banned personally i've always been a fan of the four party and do believe that the king is not hallucinating and ocelot was meant to be in the game because this also connects to the king's current mindset as he is going so insane that he doesn't even realize the harm he's putting his child in but to make matters worse while the king was consumed by seath's writings on immortality and the twins were currently suffering through no fault of their own the queen had just decided to leave she disappeared quietly into the night from the kingdom and was never seen again the queen's identity though is unknown but it is heavily theorized to be gwynevere from dark souls 1 we know that guinevere bestowed divine blessings to her people and was seen as a symbol of bounty and fertility because of it and the divine blessing of dark souls 3 says that the queen of lothric was initially revered as a goddess of fertility and bounty but the issue is that we know that she left anor londo and became the wife of a flame god flan so how did she go from him to osiris and why did she leave him and come back here furthermore if gwyndolin was actually trying to get the gods back in anor londo how did the two never find one another and why didn't gwenevere come back this could have been due to the presence of aldrich and the pontiff within the cathedral but this also calls into question rosaria as her soul can create the bountiful sunlight miracle which is one of the miracles of gwynevere and given the presentation of both characters from the room's layout to their positions on the bed it's clear that there is a connection between the two whether rosaria is actually guinevere or simply someone guinevere knew is never explicitly told to us and really in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter but it is a very interesting theory nonetheless it's clear though to no one's surprise that the royal family is in disarray and is currently suffering just like the kingdom is despite this though the knights of the kingdom still stay strong and continue to defend the castle against the corruption that is the pus of man but it's starting to fight back as the puss of man is embedded within these twin wyverns and many of the castle soldiers and it seems like the pilgrims of londor have also started advancing on the castle as they've managed to control the armor of the dragon slayer and use it as a tool of their destruction after battling through all of this chaos though we can finally meet the prince himself the twin princes actually go against the status quo of the game not just in their decision to refuse the throne but also in how they're presented to the player lothric in a way is this game's gwyn or vendrick he's clearly not on the same level as the other two but it was lothric's choices that set the game's plot into motion just like how gwyn and vendrick's choices set their games blocked into motion instead of being presented as a shambling corpse lothric is the opposite even if he's just some bedridden child that's cursed with a lifelong illness the boss fight isn't this sad encounter that makes you feel like you're doing them a service by putting them out of their misery you're fighting a being who is extremely powerful and is fully conscious of their actions as opposed to the hollow versions of the other two it was a wonderful twist as i expected to be greeted by a somber tune all while seeing the death and decay that has continued to spread throughout the kingdom reached the prince's chambers but i didn't and that surprised me and now is probably a good time to correct a previous statement of mine a couple months ago i made a review on dark souls 3. it was a bit more gameplay-centric than this video is but in that video i said despite loving the twin princes lorian had always pissed me off due to his awful teleportation ability and i want to rectify that statement as i never felt these feelings this time around in the previous video on dark souls 2 i talked about how the quality of these bosses will always be a subjective opinion as the boss's enjoyment largely depends on the build and the skill of the player i naively at the time did not take this into consideration and never considered that i was the problem looking at the gameplay now is downright embarrassing and i realized that lorian was never the issue it was me yes his teleport move does occasionally break line of sight which is still annoying but everything was not as bad as i'd made it out to be i always liked the twin princes as a boss fighter that opinion has never changed but i think i can now officially say that it's not only the best lord of cinder fight in the game but it's easily one of the few fights in dark souls 3 that i consider completely perfect the sheer presence of these two is amazing the fight is pretty much lorian vs the player lothric is able to protect lorian with magic and heal him once he dies the same way the player can heal with estus and use their equipment to aid them lothric is like the support role in this duo but he's also the main character that needs to be defeated as he can obviously revive lorien but his magic forces the player to not engage them prolonging the fight even longer than it already is giving lauren enough time to finish us off and the fact that the duo manages to be a threat no matter the distance always adds to the intensity of the fight i've always been one to admit when i'm wrong and except the fact that my opinions are never meant to be set in stone and can always be changed and this playthrough thoroughly changed my mind about this fight as the twin princes are not only worthy of the title lord of cinder but were such an excellent boss to put at the end of the journey out of all the souls games i ended up talking about these bosses the most out of any in the trilogy and this is due in part to the lord of cinders being the only objective in the game so talking about them is really all we can discuss they are the main focus of the game and thus need to have detailed lore to back it up this was forgivable in the other games as while those beings did have some importance in the world they weren't the main focus but in dark souls 3 they are if it wasn't for the lords of cinder we wouldn't have a game so they ended up becoming the main focus of the story and the devs managed to deliver aldrich is a testament to that statement as i may have spent more time on them than any character in the series with the exception of the witch of izalith who coincidentally also had numerous bosses and characters tied to her plot i was really impressed by the overall presentation of this game especially when it came to our four lords of cinder even including yorm who had a wonderful design and presentation despite the fight being a bit lackluster their lore was rich with details and the item descriptions were long enough to create an essay's worth of information but also left enough info out to keep that soul spirit of finding the context clues and filling in the gaps plus the encounters with said bosses made the time spent getting to them worth it even yorm as once again despite being disappointing there was at least an attempt to create the spectacle of tackling a monolithic sized giant but if there was one thing that bothered me about this game it was the lack of attention given to dark souls 2. narratively this actually fits quite well as drang lake was supposed to be seen as this unimportant kingdom that would be easily toppled and replaced with something else in time only to be forgotten by the rest of the world but if the point was to make the kingdom feel unimportant why are there constant references to it like creighton appearing in cirrus's quest lucatiel's armor and aslatiosword resurfacing in the game the dead giant at firelink shrine and not only a portrait of nashandra but of a liam loyce and broome tower found in irithyll it just feels confusing it's like the team actively wants the player to know that despite not making dark souls 2 they are aware and care about the game but barely put in the effort to justify it what is truly the most upsetting part about this is that both vendrick and aldia to my knowledge are never mentioned once throughout the game there is one magic spell found in the grand archives that says the words the first of the scholars which many people have pointed towards a link to aldia but he was a scholar of the first sin not a first scholar plus the first of the scholars could refer to the scholars of the grand archives not aldia it's a shame because they were the only beings that we know of who sought to break the curse through unconventional means and there's zero remnants of their work the two are never brought up in the game and the actual structures of drangleic or altius keep are never seen in game i understand that dark souls 2 is not everybody's cup of tea and maybe the original team wanted to do away with the beat team's creation but you can't deny that vendrick and aldia had the potential to create a sizeable impact on the story and for their legacy to be tarnished like this is a bit disappointing with all the lords of cinder dead and their ashes within our inventory we can now link the first flame but before we do that there is two dlc's and a couple other bits of content from the main areas that i want to address first if we rewind and go back to osiris and visit the area behind his boss arena we'll uncover a place called the untended graves this place is identical to the cemetery of ash in the beginning of the game with the only difference being the lighting it's one of the most talked about locations within the community as this confusion coupled with this feeling of nervousness settles in as upon entry you start to recognize all the familiar landscapes and are just bewildered that a place like this even exists the boss is also identical as its champion gundyr as opposed to utics according to his boss description champion gundyr came to firelink shrine to relink the fire but failed and arrived too late he was then eventually bested by an unknown warrior and given the series have a use of that term we can assume that this warrior was us afterwards he then became a she for the coiled sword so similar to oolacile and the memory of the giants we can go back in the past kill champion gundyr who then becomes a sheath for the coiled sword and hopes another warrior will come and use it to link the flame who just happens to be us we then take the sword from his present body as udyk's gundyr and use it at the bonfire if we happen to defeat champion gundyr though we'll be greeted with an identical firelink shrine and while the fire keeper is not here there are an eyes of a fire keeper located inside the building if we have the eyes in our inventory ludleth and the firekeeper will comment on them loveth refers to the fire keeper as her implying that he knows the identity of this person and the fire keeper will mention how these eyes reveal frightening images of betrayal in a world without fire so we can assume that this was in the past and since ludwig is familiar with the fire keeper and is a lord of cinder it's possible that this was during the time he linked the fire which would also connect with the intro of the game that says that the land of lords are converging together this line just happens to be ludleth's but what doesn't make sense is the handmaid's dialogue as in the dark firelink shrine her attitude seems to imply that the flame is still lit as she tells us to hurry along but how is this possible well sadly i don't have an answer for that the untended graves is one of the hardest parts of this game to wrap your head around which makes discussing it extremely difficult one explanation though could be that the fire keeper's eyes are what's causing this darkness as the world in present-day dark souls 3 is getting close to the age of dark as evidenced by the giant dark sign eclipse in the sky but there's still plenty of light left in this world whereas in the untended graves there's nothing but if all the lights extinguish and that implies that this is an age of dark but ludlow think the flame and continue the age of fire so that's why i think it's the eyes of a fire keeper displaying a vision in the sense of what the world would come to should we enact this grand betrayal which is letting the flame die out another thing of note though is the repair spell in dark souls 3 which says that light is time and the reversal of its effects is a forbidden art so this implies that the untended graves could be like the things betwixt it sort of stuck in limbo because there's no light existing and therefore time not existing regardless this but it's very confusing backstory it's probably my favorite location to discuss in the game as there's so many possibilities as what this place truly means the final location is near irithyll dungeon as we can use the dragon pose from the untended graves to be transported into arc dragon peak we already know that immortality via dragon form is not unheard of as many people worship the stone dragon in dark souls 1 osiris is assumed to be human before he became a dragon and we can actually find some dragon stones which will turn us into a humanoid dragon similar to the one sitting next to us so it's pretty safe to assume that this place was used to worship the ancient dragons despite the fact that they're all dead now but even though they're all dead that doesn't mean the other flying types won't exist as we get to challenge a wyvern shortly after arriving which at first glance is a pretty cool fight until you realize that the enemies on the walkways are actually tougher than the boss itself i can recognize that the team was most likely experimenting with some bold ideas for boss fights and while it's definitely cool at first it just feels a bit unnatural if you will as completely destroying its health bar in one plunge attack just felt off arc dragon peak not only has a questionable first boss but also raises various questions that admittedly may leave people confused two characters have arrived at this location at certain points in time which are havil and ornstein we find havel next to a downed dragon and we find ornstein's armor towards the end of the level i can forgive havel for being here since he's always had a hatred for dragons and seats since dark souls 1 but that doesn't explain how he's alive while havel had a band of knights who followed him and more than likely wore the same armor as he did so i don't think this is havel more just a night of havel but while this is explained fairly easily ornstein is not ornstein has always had a complicated history within the series as he was clearly present in dark souls 1 but then shows up again in dark souls 2 as the old dragon slayer and then again in this game as the dragon slayer armor and in arc dragon peak where we are now firstly i've always been a firm believer in the fact that we kill ornstein in dark souls 1. the old dragon slayer is simply someone who is trying to uphold ornstein's legacy or is somehow connected to ornstein's soul since we know from dark souls 2 that the old lord souls can inhibit other's bodies so it's possible orenstein's soul inhibited someone wearing his armor it's also possible that the soul felt comfortable with this decision given orenstein's armor is pretty synonymous with his legacy as for dark souls 3 we know that the dragon slayer armor is not ornstein it is simply just another dragon slayer as the weapon and armor are completely different but arc dragon peak is unique this is not only the same armor that orenstein wore but its item description talks about how he left the anor londo cathedral to come here but when did this happen he couldn't have came here and then went back to the cathedral as his armor is located here and he couldn't have left after dark souls 1 because he died so the only real explanation that makes any plausible sense is that ornstein dies in dark souls 1. he then has his soul return like the previous lord soul wears but decides to inhabit someone wearing his armor or maybe even the armor itself as it's familiar to the soul we talked about in dark souls 2 how it seemed like the four great ones were connected to specific lord souls because of their feelings and emotions we still don't know whether or not these lord souls connected with them because of these similar emotions or if they gain these feelings from consuming the souls but if this is true then it would make sense that ornstein is continuing to fight the same and has the same goals and ambitions across all the games regardless of how orenstein is alive or how we even ended up here in the first place we at least know why he was here and that was because of the nameless king the nemesis king has actually been t since dark souls 1 as he was the infamous firstborn son of gwyn that was referenced in various items in that game from both 1 and 3 we can piece together that the nameless king is the firstborn son of gwyn and was a dragon slayer during the war with the everlasting dragons but at some point he would eventually cast all this away and ally himself with the dragons and if you want to talk about presentation when it comes to boss fights this one needs to be mentioned not only does the introduction of the boss feel intense as the nameless king swoops in on a storm drake but when we finish the drake off he literally kills it and takes the power for himself from just a pure gameplay perspective he's easily the second best fight in the game there's a feeling that occurs across the entire series when everything comes together you've learned the moveset understood the timings and discovered the punishes all that's required is to put it together and when that clicks it becomes one of the best fights in the game his moves are punishing have delays and are even mixed together as one combo might have two swings but the next will be three or will do away with the third swing and had a completely different move the fight requires complete concentration and the ability to be patient dodging too early will more often than not lead to your death so you have to be on high alert for the whole fight genuinely a great fight from top to bottom with it only being surpassed by one being we have yet to cover but before we move on to the dlc i want to look back at the game so far dark souls 3 set out to create a dying world that features places that have been ridden with disease and death showing to the player that their inability to let go of what they know and continue this age of fire will only make things worse even a basic understanding of the lore will convey this as you can see just how bad everything has gotten from the fact that there's hundreds of dead bodies that are throughout each level and people are becoming corrupted and infected with these diseases and plagues causing them to either go hollow or turn into a massive black sludge the demon race a group of beings thought to be on top are dying out the gods have all been wiped out and the lords of cinder beings who have the ability to rule over anything they please due to their power refuse to continue this age of fire aldrich wants to continue his own age so admittedly that is a bit more selfish but the other three have recognized that their sacrifice did or will amount to nothing linking the flame never stopped the abyss and never stopped the profane flame and it's never going to end the suffering that's occurred since lordran so the first flame is supposed to be this symbol of peace and comfort then what is actually so good about it all this has been illustrated to us throughout the story and is a testament to how genius the writing of dark souls 3 truly is but now it's time to move on not just to a new ages that will come later but to a new world a painted world even this old man in front of us is gail and he's how we start the dlc ashes of ariandel we talked about this place briefly when we discussed pontiff sullivan and said it was a painted world for those without purpose upon entering we're greeted by a deformed being who welcomes us and tells us to get comfortable on a bed of rot similar to the real world the painted worlds have their own cycle and it's this cycle that is so interesting as in the main game the age of fire is being constantly prolonged and it's the age of dark that will take it over but as we'll soon see it's the rot that's being prolonged and the only way to get rid of it is to burn it the painted world of ariandel is just a similar version of the dark souls universe with the same themes and ideas just twisted around they're both separate worlds with separate cycles and each one has a particular cycle that is going on too long and it's either the fire that's causing it or the fire that will get rid of it this is also the reason gail sends us to the painted world in the first place as opposed to the corvian we meet first who tells us to embrace the rock gale and even this corvian settler want us to set it aflame setting the painting of flame will allow a new painted world to be created but they can't do that without fire and the person preventing this is sister freed she is the reason the rot is being prolonged and she's also the other ash that the gale and the corvian refer to meaning she's unkindled it's because of her decision to keep the rock going that has caused much of the destruction of this place interestingly though only the corvians seem to care as we talked about the painted world is for those without purpose and the corvians aren't the only ones who reside here as these soldiers are the members of the undead legion of pharyn in the beginning of the video when we talked about the abyss watchers i mentioned that when they linked the flame the rest of the legion left once that occurred the others no longer had a purpose and further lost any chance of having one once they came to the realization that their home had turned into a swamp according to their armor these pharan followers seem to be specifically tasked with killing any undead legion who succumbed to the abyss which makes me wonder how the abyss watchers cutscene would have played out had the assassins not left maybe the abyss watchers would have finally been able to regain their strength again now that they didn't have to kill each other the other group of people are the millwood knights they don't have too much lore and anything to really tie any of the characters or events to them but at some point in time they lost their forest that they called home and then sought refuge in the painted world these groups seem to just carry on throughout their day and simply exist within the painted world but the corvians are different as you have the regular looking settlers who want to burn the rod away but then there's also the corvian knights who were so infatuated with sister free that they have now turned against their brethren just the basic idea of what the painted world represents to the people within it is such an intriguing concept but the way this loosely connects to the main game's themes is genius one thing i always found disappointing though about ashes of ariendo was the length once we enter the painting we're to meet with sister freed who welcomes us but just as quickly dismisses our arrival and tells us to leave because we no longer belong here i have no issue with this as it's not holding the player's hand but everything just feels like it's going so fast as right after this we're to find the painter enter the basement of sister freed's church activate a lever and then we're already at the final boss everything just feels so fast and i was surprised how quickly the final boss was introduced to me i've talked about before how most of the souls games dlcs are like this and don't take much time overall this of course though largely depends on how fast you beat the bosses as they're usually the main hurdles but ashes of ariendo felt shorter than normal there is an optional boss that could take up more of your time but this was just so that the player could access the pvp matches and the lore of the boss also connects to this as this was the champion of the undead matches that the undead used to partake in other than that it's pretty much just going from one area to the next and the distance between them is quite short once we do finish talking with sister frieda though our path will eventually lead us to the corvian settlements and its church where we will meet with sir wilhelm he was the guard that was outside the church where sister freed was located but what's more interesting though about sir wilhelm is that he not only has a black flame buff on his weapon but he also wields the darkhand both of which have ties to the abyss this relates back to sister freda as she was one of the three sisters of the sable church her other sisters were lillian and yuria which means she has ties to londor and this is reinforced by the different dialogue options that we get from her if we have the dark sigils in our inventory from yuria's questline it's not much but she does recognize us as the lord of hollows given that she is unkindled it's possible that she tried to link the flame or usurpet and this possibly got her exile from the church without a purpose or home she may have been drawn to the painted world which is how she ended up here in the first place and figured that she could rule over this land by herself however given that we have this innate ability to ruin people's plans we're going to prevent sister fred from doing so to do this we need to talk to the painter and unlock the doors leading to her room for her to be able to paint though she will need to see flame and to do this we need to get to the source bring this is father ariendo the painter of the painted world of ariandel who is now being held captive by sister freda she managed to convince father erie andel that the only way to preserve the painted world was to bury the flame and let the rock consume the world to stop it from spreading he uses his flail on himself causing him to bleed which appeases the flame it's quite a sad story and it makes sister frida out to be even worse of a person than she already was given that we're going against her wishes though she fights us and she is very difficult which is also very entertaining i love this fight and i think it's a great way to end the dlc the fight starts out quite normal until her blood reaches father ariandel who freaks out causing the room to be engulfed in flames and him to break out of his restraints and attack us fruit is also back and it turns into a 2v1 it's very reminiscent of ornstein and smoe as the duo complements each other quite well this is also the only fight in the trilogy to my knowledge where you can summon an npc in the middle of the fight as gayle can only be summoned for the second phase it also makes sense to bring him along since both you and him have the same objective so there's no reason for him not to help you after sister freda has been dealt with though we can return to the page [Music] yeah so if it wasn't already bad enough sister frida has a third phase this whole encounter is extremely stressful as you not only have to plan for one but two extra phases there's been so many times where i got pummeled during this fight in the first phase that i just reset as i knew it wasn't worth starting the next phase with half the estus she really forces the player to learn her move set thankfully though gail does make the encounter easier but is still very difficult even with his assistance with sister fred and father ariendel dead for real this time the fire will now be able to consume the painting without any delays which means the painter can now work on the new world she plans to create a cold dark and very gentle place as she calls it she's going to need paint to make that painting and from what we learn from father eryandel's soul we know that the paintings are written in blood so gail's objective will be to scour the land for some blood to use his pigment and while he does that we can go on to the next dlc but gail's here too he has written messages for us and points us towards where we're supposed to go so what blood is he getting well gail is trying to find the blood of the dark soul the dark soul which leads him to the ring city ashes of arianda was a short but decent dlc the bosses were great and the actual design of ariendo was beautiful from its frozen tundras to its rotted swamps but if it felt complete or if the dlc suddenly ended so soon that's the point as both of dark souls 3's dlcs are a connected story the story of gale and the painter and their quest to create a new world which leads us to the ring city the start of the ring city dlc sees us travel to the drag heap the area we talked about earlier in the video as i said then time is getting worse as the world progresses and this is a perfect example as now that the age of fire is getting even closer to the end lands are converging on each other more and more and the world is practically collapsing in on itself here in the drag keep we can see nostalgic call backs to the past like the earthen peak windmill and the desert pyromancer from dark souls 2. this is a very long and convoluted level to really showcase how bad everything has gotten but at the very end of the level is the demon duo not only is the gameplay of this fight fantastic as it not only surpasses the previous duo but might even be on par as orenstein and smoe but the location of the fight is heavily theorized to be the original firelink shrine of dark souls 1. the reason being is that the exit of this arena is the same structure that frampt appears in gil can once again join you for this fight but it will trivialize this encounter tremendously as the demons have long cooldowns between their attacks and also alternate movesets i actually found this fight to be balanced while being outnumbered so adding more people makes it worse once the demons are both dead the last one to die gets to be reborn as the demon prince just like the first flame the chaos flame needed to be rekindled by a demon with vast power and the current demon prince at the time was going to but ended up facing lorian and was defeated however all demons share memories with another so in theory that means they can share the power of the demon prince and when the last demon falls it is reborn as the demon prince and the last of its kind the demon prince is a genuinely great fight and for being the first boss in the dlc this is already a great start to the additional content when the demon prince does fall though we can finally say goodbye to the demons the once great race thought to be almost on top has now withered away never to be remembered again just like everything else in this world with the drake finished we can move on to the final location of the dlc but one thing that's been very interesting about the drag heat was the progression of time as we go further down in the game we're actually going further back in the past as we start out at the very top in dark souls 3 we move further down to dark souls 2 with the earthen peak making an appearance and then we're all the way at the bottom where we're back in dark souls 1 with the firelink shrine but we can go even further back as past the old firelink shrine we can travel to the ring city a place that has existed since the gods toppled the dragons the ring city is gorgeous and is one of the most beautiful locations in the dark souls trilogy this place is home to the pygmy lords and they have a wonderful welcoming committee oddly enough though these shadow archers actually look like the ruined sentinels from dark souls 2. according to their armor set they were a band of knights who were sent to the ring city so it's possible that vendrick may have sent them here as a way to find out more about the undead curse but were defeated and now are used by the city to defend its people during city is the home of the pygmies the ancestors of mankind we don't hear much regarding the actual furtive pygmy but the ring city is ruled by the pygmy lords the early descendants of the original pygmy according to various item descriptions though gwyn gave them this city as a reward for their help against the dragons but since this is located at the literal edge of the world it's possible gwen wanted the pygmies out of sight and away from his kingdom since they had the dark soul which of course he does not like as for how the pygmies helped during the war what we can find out soon after as these ringed knights were some of the soldiers who fought during the war with the everlasting dragons the weapons they carry were forged from the abyss since that was the birthplace of humanity which would explain the play in dark sign on their chest as it seems that they too were cursed like we were by gwyn if we progress further into the level we'll end up in this abyssal swamp and end up fighting the dragon slayer armor again and if we read its description we'll discover that when we defeated it in lothric it somehow made its way down here and then became possessed again by the feeling of battle look i love orenstein as much as the next guy but we do not have to keep bringing him back we can just let his legacy die i understand in this case it is just a piece of armor and not actually ornstein but you have to admit that this boss's design is purposely similar to orenstein's i found this encounter more annoying rather than interesting as there was zero reason to bring back the dragon's lair armor again in the swamp we can also find a white face locus similar to the one earlier in the level these locusts are beings from the abyss and they were supposed to pre-sermons to men so that they could draw them towards the dark but they couldn't see past their stomachs and cared more about what they were eating which is why they act like gluttonous monsters this description means that this is what they always looked like and didn't turn into these creatures at some point but it may also imply that they were born alongside humanity within the abyss each of them ends up talking about specific people and are possibly referencing certain npcs and so she lived in fear of the dark of the things that gnawed at her flesh the little creatures that nibble at me in the darkness and so despite his weighty armor he lived in fear of a delicate thing little more than a girl where fire resideth shadows twist and shrivel but in the abyss there are shadows none fear not the dark my friend and let the feast begin i've always found this interaction odd as it's unclear how this creature even knows anything about these npcs this has caused a bit of debate amongst many people in the community as some claim that it's showing how destructive humanity is but on the other hand like with the case of irian his dialogue the locus preacher could be implying that the abyss is not as bad as it seems as that preconceived idea earing ahead of the abyss caused her to feel these insect-like creatures in her head i don't really think that there is a correct answer here as it sort of ties into the world of dark souls and how the player views the abyss humanity and the age of dark and whether or not it's something that they should be embracing similar to how we have to make a choice at the end of the games before we leave though we can view this purging monument which is only accessible to humans as to even get to this area we need to transform into a humanity sprite using a white tree branch this monument may be the source of all the purging stones printing stones have existed since dark souls 1 and were used to remove the curse effect in that game but it's not about taking the curse and removing it it's just transferring it to the stone itself to be the new host but the stone is said to once be a person so maybe these are the beings who were turned into stone or what they became once we transfer the curse to the stone or maybe it's something else entirely after getting out of the swamp we'll find a dragon named madeir this isn't fake like the ancient dragon madeir is an actual descendant of the arc dragons from long ago even though he only seems to make an appearance here if we knock him off the bridge and find a secret tunnel we can find him again he is easily the most difficult boss in the entire game with a staggering 15 000 health and he's also equipped with some moves that might one shot the player depending on their equipment according to his boss soul madeir was actually raised by the gods and was tasked with fighting the abyss and it seems that he's been alive for a long time as one description says from not long after the beginning meaning he may have existed before even fire was born back when the dragons ruled the world the reason he's going so crazy is very similar to artorias as the abyss has fully corrupted him so we need to put him out of his misery he is definitely the ultimate challenge for players given his kit of high damaging moves but assuming you can conquer him you'll receive the spears of the church which ties into our next boss half-light half-light is a member of the covenant spears of the church who guards phillianor who is said to be gwyn's daughter who he left here in the ring city but halflight is a pvp boss as there's a chance a real player can replace half-light and be the boss instead but that is only accessible to those who defeat media since he drops the pendant that allows you to access the covenant sadly though since this game is over 6 years old you will more than likely just get half light instead interestingly though half-life may have been from oolacile as the bow he uses says that it was a relic from an ancient land of sorceries that has been swallowed by the abyss and we know that oolacile has many unique spells like repair hidden body and chameleon his outfit also states that a group of young missionaries went to the ring city long ago but half-light stayed behind making him the final spear of the church this would also mean that there was a time in ulysses history and when it wasn't corrupted by the abyss and was a normal land before koth came and tricked them behind the church is filing or the girl they swore to protect and she may have one of the best cutscenes the series has to offer upon touching her egg she wakes up which sees the world change out of everything in the dark souls series this might be at the top as the most talked about interaction in the game as there's so much that happens with very little explanation as to what it means many people believe that filianore and her egg held up the illusion of the ring city similar to gwyndolin and anor londo and dark souls 1 but some have also claimed that this takes us to the future and is a glimpse of what the world will look like should we keep things going her egg though is interesting as it has a very dark center and if we relate this back to the repair spell from earlier that's as light as time by breaking the egg we break the dark inside of it which allows light to appear meaning now time exists and is no longer stagnant which would go along with the theory that this is a future as the time accelerates after being stagnant for so long regardless of what you believe in though this cutscene is great and allows us to access the wasteland of ash inside this wasteland is two beings and if you subscribe to the theory that this is the future this might be the last two beings left in the world us and gail what still here handed over that thing your dark soul gail has not only gone mad and grown in size but he is the final boss of the dlc the ring city was the final dlc and also the final piece of content in the dark souls trilogy having played this game on release i had already beaten the final boss tons of time so for me gail was technically my final boss of dark souls and i couldn't have asked for anything better to me gail is the best boss in the game and even the entire trilogy everything from design to presentation to gameplay is completely perfect gael is a slave knight who are knights that were used as fodder in many of the land's bleakest wars but it seems most of them went hollow all except for gale gill came to the ring city in search of the dark souls and thus slaughtered the pygmy lords as they contain the dark souls within them since they're the descendants of the furtive pygmy but gail realized that the dark souls had dried up so in order to make them liquid enough to be used as pigment he consumed the dark souls that they carried since it was now in his bloodstream it was able to mix into a liquid again but doing so made him go mad gail literally has the power of the dark soul within his body and uses the power of the dark soul and the abyss to fight us as evident by these red skulls that appear from his cape he and gwyn also contrast each other in this respect gwyn was a being who was a god from the beginning and on top of the food chain and is remembered by all for his sacrifice but gail was a slave the lowest of the low whose sacrifice will be known by only us a lowly piece of unkindled ash this sacrifice of gales ties into a theory of mine after his death we can take the blood of the dark soul to the painter to be used as pigment for her new world gail knew he wouldn't make it back but continued his mission anyway by handing it off to us he helps us defeat sister freda and the demon prince which are the two required bosses we need to beat to get to the ring city and once we do get to the ring city he leaves markings of his cape along the way that it will eventually point us towards his location he wanted us to find him and he wanted us to defeat him so that we can continue his mission for him and give the painter the blood she needed as a whole gail is easily my favorite character and boss in this game he is like us a nobody he isn't some godlike figure or a being who was born with insurmountable power he like us gained this power through battle and now the two strongest beings in the world are duking it out at the edge of the world truly the best boss this game has to offer and was the best way to end all the dlcs with gail defeated we can now give the painter the pigment she thanks us and will eventually start painting she never actually finishes the painting though and this is an important detail just like the other dlcs in the trilogy this isn't the end of the game the final boss is at the kiln it's not gayle so giving her this pigment doesn't mean the end of the game it's just one part of our long journey even if it seems like a wonderful conclusion to the game the dlcs of dark souls are the best in the series and the ring city is a big reason why ashes of ariandel is great and a nice additional side story especially since we get to learn more about the painted worlds but the callbacks references and answers to questions we've been wondering about for years are what makes this dlc so impressive furthermore both dlcs have some of the most intense fights in the game and are the pinnacle of this game's combat from software has always made their dlcs with incredible quality and sometimes are even better than the main game and dark souls 3 continues to honor this tradition gale's objective is now complete so now it's time to complete ours which is go to the kiln and determine the fate of the world once again defending this kiln is being known as the soul of cinder this is the physical manifestation of every being to link the flame since its inception meaning our characters from dark souls 1 and 2 are a part of this being he also fights like a real player too as his moveset is by far the most diverse in the game he has three different melee weapons uses all the schools of magic and even has the ninja flipping from dark souls 1 but our old characters aren't the only ones in this being there is one other character we know of the one who was here from the very beginning he was the one that created this world so it's ironic that he gets to be here for when we destroy it so [Music] [Music] the soul of cinder not only has the same move set as gwen but also the same piano and it's the music i'll be honest i get a bit emotional whenever i hear this hearing that piano made me think of the journey i had taken to get here all the defeats and victories all the npcs i had encountered all the kingdoms i uncovered and all the fates of the people i've met along the way we have seen the literal rise and fall of the entire world before our eyes and every single person and decision we have made has shaped us into the person we are now a person who now has to determine the entire fate of the world should you go against everything this game has taught you and still believe in the first flame you'll be shown a very depressing ending the action one links the flame and continues the age of fire but it's not the spectacle we saw in dark souls 1. it can barely even cover our character let alone the rest of the arena the ashen one looks disappointed as if they expected something more in fact we the player were probably expecting something more and are now just as disappointed this is why i believe that everyone from gwen till now has linked the flame when it faded as if the world alternated like it was supposed to then this wouldn't make sense as to why the flame is this pitiful the first flame is on its deathbed and we still haven't granted it the death it wants if we instead summon the fire keeper she will take the first flame and extinguish it for good the age of dark will commence and the world has gone completely black and while it may seem scary to venture into a world without fire the fire keeper assures us that the fire will eventually return someday just like it did all those years ago remember things are meant to live and die the age of dark is temporary and fire will return and an age of fire will begin again but hopefully it will not be extended this time if you're feeling greedy you can also enact the age of dark and take the flame's power for yourself this is similar to our final ending and the secret ending of dark souls 3 the usurpation of fire this requires us to complete yuria's questline yuria is from a place called londor and we know that she's also the sister of frida and lilian who created the sable church and londor but what is londor well it's a land of hollows as we can see all the hollows bowing down to us as the new lord of hollows londor also had many pilgrims that came to this land possibly to find the first flame and overtake lothric those butterflies from the dragon slayer armor are called pilgrim butterflies so maybe this is the pilgrim's final form so to speak these pilgrims are most likely members of the sable church as while the sisters created the church the pilgrims most likely went here to worship their god who happens to be the primordial serpent koth we never see koth in game and the only reason we even know this is because of yuri's death dialogue but the call back to him was insane and almost maybe nervous for a bit as he could have been orchestrating this church for who knows how long so that he finally gets what he wants if you remember he tricked the four kings and the people of oolacile into being engulfed by the abyss so what's stopping him from doing it against the people of londor although in his defense when we placed the lord vessel in dark souls 1 koth says that every last one of them failed him so maybe he isn't trying to screw with londor or impossibly found a genuine group of people that will follow and carry out his wish accompanying us into the new world is also henri of astora who depending on our actions either got to defeat aldrich with us and finally be able to kill the person she hated the most or gets killed and unwillingly serves as our bride when we become the lord of hollows which is quite a dark twist londor also seems to embrace its hollow state but this may come at a cost joel of londor can give us the dark sigils required to progress the quest line but once he does that he dies and the assassin who gives us the wedding sword dies after the ceremony so it seems like they're only able to retain their sanity when hollow but as a consequence die once their purpose has been fulfilled this is just about all we know in regards to londor but there are still quite a few theories involved with the kingdom such as the fact that londor could be tied to drawing lake or velka admittedly it's a small connection but items from dark souls 1 and 2 like the vow of silence dead again dark drift and dark hand have had their item descriptions changed vow of silence in dark souls 1 is a spell that was created by velka but in dark souls 3 it's used by members of the church and the dark drift from dark souls 2 was said to be used by the grave warden in the undead crypt but in dark souls 3 it's used by yuria however i don't think vendrick and aldia are related to this though as the two of them wanted to remove the curse and londor wants to embrace their hollow form although in a manner of speaking the hollow form is the true version of man and thus could be in a way what the brothers desired but i'm not too sure i believe in this theory especially given how the brothers are never mentioned in this game and would be weird if they finally made an appearance now regardless now it's time to say goodbye to the age of fire and to dark souls the age of dark is a metaphor for the dark souls series every dark souls game has taken place in the age of fire and by keeping this age going we can keep the dark souls games going but is that really what we want many games have gone on to make numerous sequels and ruin the integrity of that series the age of dark is not just about moving on from the age of fire but from dark souls itself as much as i want more dark souls games to keep coming it's only going to ruin the franchise going forward but that doesn't mean we have to say goodbye to the souls genre we have eldon ring and any other souls games that come after it so our hunger for this genre of games will never die but we do need to say goodbye to dark souls having dark souls end now means it ends on a high note and i'd rather see the game quit while it's ahead then watch it release sequel after sequel that will inevitably tarnish its reputation causing it to be one of the many games in the industry that ran itself into the dirt so it's time to finally put this game and its world to rest thank you for watching [Music] so [Music] if you made it this far then thank you the length of this video was a lot longer than i thought it would be but i felt it was necessary if we're going to talk about everything that dark souls 3 was trying to convey the dark souls games to this day are still some of the best games i've ever played as from start to finish it managed to deliver quality content that kept me engaged across all three games and having dark souls 3 be the end is fitting as a book ends the series in a way i've never seen done before we still have demon souls to cover before we officially close the curtains on the franchise though so look out for that as for after that game well i got a lot of plans but we could talk about that next video as always thank you to my returning viewers for coming back to another video and take care everyone goodbye you

Channel: Gingy

Views: 840,010

Keywords: dark souls 3, dark souls 3 story, dark souls 3 lore, dark souls 3 story explained, dark souls 3 lore explained, dark souls 3 endings, dark souls 3 dlc, dark souls 3 endings explained, dark souls 3 dlc explained, dark souls 3 dlc lore, dark souls 3 endings lore, lords of cinder, ashes of ariandel, the ringed city, gingy, dark souls 3 review, dark souls 3 video essay, video essay

Id: 7t9d5Ctd724

Length: 80min 52sec (4852 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 26 2022