Dark Souls 2's Story: Explained!

this video will make more sense if you've watched part 1 of this series where I explain the ending because now that we know what it means to sit upon the throne we can explore the stories of those who would sit upon it and it turns out the original king of drangleic vendrick was supposed to link the flame and sit the throne but he never did and when you acquire his soul it is a soul of he who would link the flame Queen nashandra also makes reference to this when you visit her in the throne room the last king of this land King vendrick as he was called he was less of a king and you might imagine he found the strength to rule his people and when the undead were born cursed he found more strength to face them but in the end he never took the true throne a true monarch is much more than a ruler of men a true monarch carries the weight of their souls if a true monarch must carry a huge weight of souls and incinerate himself in the kiln to link the fire then perhaps vendrick wanted none of it so now we go back back before there was a king a queen and back before vendrick's kingdom of drangleic was even founded many kingdoms have risen and fallen on the spot that is now called drangleic the kingdoms take different shapes but the framework is always the same there's always a king there is always the undead curse and there are always four powerful souls back in Dark Souls 1 there were four great ones it's likely these were the first four great ones as they found their souls within the first flame many kingdoms have risen and fallen on this very spot each like a great flame that turns to soot King vendrick founded drangleic he vanquished four great ones and built this kingdom upon their souls vendrick crushed the kingdom and the four great ones who existed before him he then instigated a powerful Kingdom named drangleic which came about due to those who fought for him the ring bearing the soldiers seal was granted to warriors who distinguished themselves in the service of King vendrick he also commanded the Dragon Riders elite Knights straddling dragons who helped him crush the kingdoms former inhabitants drangleic was built upon the graves of those they defeated and his kingdom prospered but vendrick wasn't just interested in gaining the throne he also sought to maintain it and then there was a queen the King had a dear queen a woman of unparalleled beauty long ago the Queen came to us alone from a faraway land she warned our Lord of the looming threat across the seas of the Giants the King crossed the ocean and defeated the Giants with the Queen at his side the King commandeered their power and created the golems with the golems the king created this castle to celebrate victory and to show his love his gratitude to his queen the Queen brought peace to this land and to her King a piece of deep it was like the dark is this some sort of a dream where am i what has happened to our castle long ago the king cross the Seas pillaged the land of giants and brought back a prize it was then that the golems materialized whatever vendrick stole it appears to have come with the ability to create automatons in the form of golems golems are inanimate beings that carry out a set purpose like opening a door or building a bridge this purpose is powered by souls so it seems as if the thing vendrick stole from the Giants allowed him to infuse things with Souls key to many advancements was the Kings elder brother aldea aldea helped found drangleic and he was known for his experiments the mysterious lord aldia secluded himself inside a manor to conduct various experiments those who visited the manor disappeared replaced over time with malformed beasts that roamed its halls his discarded experiments are seen throughout the entire land of drangleic and i believe that when the kingdom encountered trouble vendrick turned to his brother for an experiment that might just solve his problem after conquering the Giants drangleic knew peace for a time this peace was destined to be short-lived for the undead curse had begun to appear in drangleic vendrick was trying to find ways to fight the curse many of his actions and the structures and creations within the land seemed bent towards this end like the rulers of Lordran before him Bendrick was frightened by the curse and unlike the lords in Lordran vendrick was human and susceptible to the curse just like his subjects were the origins of the curse is becoming known to us the common trend between the two games is that the curse appears when the flame is fading but vendrick doesn't know this like the lords in Lordran before him vendrick assumed that the curse was almost like an infection and he condemns the undead imprisoning and exile the Huntsman's corpse is evidence of this mindset undead hunts took place here before vendrick's time and these were led by the old iron king undead were corralled and locked away but this solved nothing also the skeleton Lords were once charged with the capture of all undead but even they were overcome by the curse and lastly the executioner's chariot was created only to torment undead running endlessly in a loop and running the undead down over and over and regardless of all this not working when king vendrick became ruler of drangleic he took similar measures to the rulers before him long ago the dungeons overflowed with the accursed and the king commanded a contorted sentry to deliver those with no cells to a faraway land to make certain that they were never heard from again we all fought the flexile sentry who waits in a boat outside no-man's Wharf when the bell is rung it signals that a new shipment has arrived and the flexile sentry comes in to take them away the King also hired shadow men to put down the Hallows but before long they will hollowed themselves and we see the pursuer which is a being without much backstory other than his purpose to hunt down bearers of the curse and cut them down during all this vendrick's time was running out a powerful soul is like a curse and vendrick king of drangleic used a powerful soul to keep the curse at bay sölden tells us that the curse is traceable to the soul if the soul is the essence of life itself then the real curse must be to walk this very earth vendrick is commonly touted as one who peered straight into the essence of the soul presumably in an attempt to understand this curse vendrick and his brother aldia began trying to discover the secrets of life itself the malformed claws tell us this saying that aldea viewed the undead as key to this mystery at some point I think it's likely that they stumbled upon something that we know but they didn't that the curse of the undead seems to be tied to the fading flame that previous Kingdom saw the undead curse appear when the first flame faded or that a cycle was taking place where kingdoms were rising into an age of fire and falling into an age of dark that there was almost some sort of fate involved from item descriptions and from Al Diaz creations we can see that vendrick and Al do a try to find a way to cheat fate it looks like they were trying to find a way to preserve their kingdom so that fate would not recycle their kingdom just like all the others but how do you cheat fate the seed of a tree of giants tells us that death is not the end for anything that has ever once lived remains a part of a great cycle of regeneration but what of those outside the cycle the only things outside the cycle of death and rebirth are those that never lived at all the ancient dragons aldia kept giants in his Manor and attempted to recreate a dragon but after some time he was not heard from again we find the ancient dragon at the peak of the dragon Airy it's really peculiar being as it drops a giant soul upon death along with dragon bones it's almost as if aldia used a giant soul to construct such a being we know that after vendrick invaded the Giants he came back with the ability to construct golems he could also infuse Souls into inanimate objects what if aldea tried to reanimate an ancient dragon in the same manner the powerful soul would give life to the inanimate bones just like regular Souls give life to the golems you'll find a great creature far to the east a colossal thing with the strength to match its size or something playing the part at least brave undead what did that dragon tell you that thing is a problem false deity don't be fooled my undead it's possible considering all this that aldea thought that by reviving the ancient dragon he could revive a being that was outside the shackles of fate the ancient dragons of Dark Souls ones were outside the cycle of fire and dark living in a lifeless age of gray he went further than this though when you consider the dialogue of Shanna wat the Emerald Herald my name is Shanna the dragon gave me this name for I was born with a nun I was born of dragons contrived by name born of dragons contrived by men it looks as if aldea attempted to birth another fire keeper a melding of human and dragon in the form of Shan alot the Emerald Herald one who could break the shackles of fate itself and maintain the fires indefinitely they say that she is the last fire keeper but they say a lot of things but they fail I did not come out as intending fate would not be best and men were cursed once again at some point during all this the Giants must have rallied and invaded drangleic with a vengeance this battle spans multiple generations bringing drangleic to ruin my father and his father both fought the Giants on this very land soon the Giants will descend upon this fort it is revenge for the kingdom's misguided barbarism my blade may break my arrows for wide but my will shall never be broken in the midst of this invasion I think that King vendrick had a chilling realization vendrick's attempt to create the Emerald Herald tells us that he understands a cycle is taking place a cycle where kingdoms are born into an age of light and eventually descend into darkness when the darkness comes Undead appear so when he considers this everything must have become clear when someone like vendrick considered where the darkness must have come from in his kingdom he would have realized that it came to him long ago this queen made him invade the Giants this queen got his kingdom into the state it was in and this Queen came before a darkening Kingdom when he considers this everything makes sense his wife the queen is a pretender and a manipulator slowly she has grown closer to the throne closer to the throne of want and closer to the first flame we have no need for two rulers nashandra 'he's want is the first flame as it's called by the Emerald Herald the great soul and as we mentioned before this is either within the structure at the end of the game or embodied by it and so now we come to understand the want of nashandra she wants access to the first flame and the great soul which is an access only a king of drangleic can give if you proceed nashandra will come after you knowing that you will take the throne and link the fire she covets the first flame and the great soul put nashandra to rest and n but vendrick's want was to deny fate we see this in his actions in the creation of the ancient dragon and in the birth of his Emerald Herald we saw it as he hunted the undead and we see it within the experiments of Ali escape and finally we see it in his soul the soul of he who would link the King vendrick refused to open the door to the throne and he refused to link the first flame with his own soul this is the first flame that nashandra once so badly the flame the flame Souls nashandra is characterized by her lust for power every fragment of her being is bent towards this end her origins are shrouded in mystery to the main characters of drangleic but we learn of her origins once we obtain her soul I don't know if you've read it but her soul states nashandra was born of the dark with an insatiable lust for strength the bow of want formed from her soul tells us that when the old one of the abyss was destroyed his soul split into a miniscule fragments and these were spread across the land the old one is Manas from Dark Souls 1 this is confirmed by the official guide Manas was responsible for the spread of the abyss in Dark Souls 1 an ancient being characterized by his lust for his lost pendant so similarly nashandra is driven by her lust for power the bow of Wands description tells us of how the smallest of these pieces of Manas sensing its own fragility yearned for what it lacked precisely due to its size the smallest piece of Manas was the first to restore its form a form that looks remarkably like princess dusk who Manus stole from all the seal but that's a topic for another day we can't be sure how vendrick realizes this but when he recognizes nashandra true nature he must give up on cheating fate he accepts that the curse will take over his flesh and his mind but his final act is to deny his Queen King vendrick prepares all the pieces of the puzzle and makes his move whatever the cost to him his Queen will not ascend the throne and so let's work backwards from the throne and let's finally see how vendrick set up the barriers to new Chandra's rule the Giants kinship grants access to the throne beneath the castle why we need to be of giant blood to ascend the throne is a topic we'll hopefully understand soon but note that the throne has a human-sized seat carved into a much larger throne we find the Giants kinship within the memory J a giant who fell in the final battle with drangleic where the giant Lord was present the giant Lord was eventually defeated by an unnamed hero and we take their place inside the memory in order to obtain the Giants kinship the memories of the Giants can only be accessed once you have obtained the ashen mist heart which requires the blessing of the ancient dragon hidden deep within the dragon shrine such a thing cannot be taken by force mist is associated with time travel and space and it's also associated with the ancient dragons so it makes a degree of sense then that the false ancient dragon should have the ability to give you something like this something to access the memory of giants something to get the Giants kinship and something to let you access the throne the doors to all of these things only open when one wears the King's ring the king resided in drangleic castle with his queen but eventually retreated deeper within it with his ring I imagined vendrick traveling with his trusted protector vel start deeper into drung lahic castle he assigns the looking last night to overlook the entrance to our mana fearing something wicked the king fled the castle and never returned but his warrior forever true to his command stands ready to expunge those who would challenge him so the king traveled to his shrine of a mana which exists below drangleic castle its purpose I believe is to repel nashandra within it are the mill finito who sing to bring comfort to those bound by death and dark when we sing the little one of time the little ones grant comfort to those who bear death and dark the little ones are the fireflies while the mill funny toes sing the fireflies gather around those bound by death and dark rendering them passive dosel and inert if we stop them singing then the creatures of death and dark become aggressive and revert to the natural selves nashandra is very being his death and dark and she would be bound by this calming force if she attempted to travel through here within drangleic castle we also see a captured mill finito which presumably was taken by the Queen as she attempted to penetrate the shrine after vendrick went through it so at one point when vendrick is traveling through the shrine he splits himself apart from his soul and places it behind a door only open able by human maybe one day the chosen undead will pass through here unable to be broken down by the undead curse hence they will be human and able to open this door and obtain the Kings soul and maybe then they'll understand from here after splitting his soul I imagined that vendrick is carried by his trusted hand they'll start who carries his husk of a body to rest in the undead crypt they'll start known as the royal aegis gave himself to the king both in life and death a vendrick's armor is placed in a neat pile with the Kings ring ready to be taken by a worthy Undead perhaps his gear is put aside by they'll start in the hopes that the chosen undead will take the ring and what he needs but not harm the king he has been charged with protecting the king is a soulless husk and there is nothing to be gained from killing him one day this undead may link the fire vendrick knows that he will one day be overthrown by an undead worthy to link the flame for it is written in fate but he makes sure that nashandra will not be the one to open it as the barriers to her presence so great the Kings Ultra great sword depicts the Queen only the King knows whether the depiction of the Queen is an affectionate exaltation or a resentful mockery I believe it's the latter a mockery of the Queen as vendrick succeeded in delaying her access to the throne and resentful because he must abandon his kingdom to keep safe nashandra weights during all this she guides the undead knowing she can't hope to ascend the throne without you if you go back to her at different points in the game she'll tell you about the dragon in the shrine and the king in the crypt she encourages you to descend upon the throne of want and waits until you take out the throne watcher and the throne defender before finally presenting herself grave undead you have proven yourself to me now be one with the DA nashandra born of Manus has one final chance to take out the chosen undead and descend the throne but the undead is strong strong enough to overthrow the sinner the rotten the old iron king and the Dukes dear Freya strong enough to conquer the giant memories and uncover vendrick and his crypt so just like in Dark Souls 1 we're strong enough at the end because of the barriers in our way many of which were put there by King vendrick and because of vendrick we easily conquer nashandra as she tries to stop you from ascending the throne hope you enjoyed these two videos guys these two took a long time to research and make and even then I'm nowhere near answering all the questions in this game there's so much left to uncover so many things that I left out of this video just for simplicity's sake I have a bunch of these questions listed in the description and I'll probably make a video talking about them at some point but if you wanted to try and answer some of them with your own theories in the comments down below that like button then I think that would make for some great discussion anyway click on the bonfire if you enjoy my content and if you'd want to Kindle the channel and maybe I'll see you over on patreon with this small community I have over there but regardless of that I'll see you in the next video later guys great sovereign take your throne what lies ahead only you can see you

Channel: VaatiVidya

Views: 2,223,379

Rating: 4.973526 out of 5

Keywords: Dark, Souls, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls II, Dark Souls 2 Lore, Lore, II, two, Story, Vaatividya, vaati, vidya, vati, vatti, prepare, to, cry, Dark Souls (Video Game), Dark Souls 2 (Video Game), ending, cutscene, cinematic, alternate, nashandra, vendrick, emerald herald, shanalotte, ancient dragon, why, good ending, bad ending, secret ending, story explained, lore discussion, last boss, final boss, the end, throne of want, what happens

Id: nNo9Ow6XG10

Length: 21min 39sec (1299 seconds)

Published: Mon May 19 2014

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