Dark Souls III - Lore Retrospective

well here we are we have reached the end of the third Dark Souls game and in doing so we have completed our side quest now all that's left is to try to figure out what the heck was happening in this game and OH have I tried piecing together the loose mythology of this world has always been a core part of the souls experience so upon completing the game I immediately jumped right into my traditional Lord I've I read wiki's and subreddits and watched an unhealthy number of youtube videos just trying to wrap my head around the general consensus understanding of Dark Souls 3 story and I think I have maybe so today to send this sidequest off into the creepy sunset let's retrace our steps through Dark Souls 3 and try to piece together everything that happened around us but first a few important things dimension 1 this video will be dense with spoilers not just for Dark Souls 3 but for the entire trilogy I figure you probably knew what you were getting into when you clicked on this video but just in case - if you are a Dark Souls veteran you probably already know this stuff and probably better than I do so apologies for anything I get wrong but then again if I do get something wrong I'm not gonna feel too bad about it because 3 to be frank connecting the dots in Dark Souls 3 is more challenging than ever before piecing this story together is gonna require a hefty dose of speculation guesswork possibly even a dash of headcanon and I would not be at all surprised if some of you connect these story dots to form a very different picture from the one I'm about to paint but that's okay it's kind of what Dark Souls is all about and I must stress that for none of the story details I'm about to share in this video are some new revelation these lore observations come to you largely thanks to the tireless work of the dedicated Souls community that has already dug up and compiled all of this information particular thanks go to Vaati vidya jerks on frontier mad Luigi the Bond fireside chat podcast and the editors of all of those wiki pages I have put a link to all of these in the description below and highly recommend exploring them yourself because there is no way I'm gonna cover even half of this game story content in just one video just know that if you're still feeling hungry for Souls lore after this video is over you have got an abundance of options anyway let's get to it [Music] at the end of Dark Souls we were faced with a choice do we sacrifice ourselves to link the flame and extend Gwen's age of fire or do we let that flame die and usher in the age of dark which Gwen fought so hard to delay ultimately we linked the fire and at the time that decision carried such a feeling of finality we had succeeded where countless others had failed and even though the fire would surely die someday our choice to revive this age still carried a sense of satisfying conclusion but then Dark Souls 2 revealed the lie there had been nothing final about our sacrifice Gwyn's artificially extended age of fire had disrupted the world's natural order and we were but the first of many sacrifice to keep that fire lit the world was stuck in a loop of fading fire the undead curse forever driving humanity into the flames and though we would once again resign ourselves to that same fate a question lingered in the air was this our only choice if we were to refuse to inherit the order of this world to reclaim the future Gwyn had stolen what might await us their ages have passed and this cycle of rekindling has been repeated countless times in the kingdom of lothric preservation of the fire has become ritual the curse the shrine the fire keeper the kill each component of the process is accounted for and countless heirs have been raised up just to be fed to that flame but then one day an heir refused the Lord meant to link the fire chose instead to watch the flame fade there were fail safes in place for this eventualities as the fire began to diminish a bell tolled and the Lords of cinder were revived powerful beings who had successfully linked the flame in ages past if five of them were to join together and take their Thrones one more time their lingering cinders would be enough to Kindle the fire again and prevent disaster alas only one Lord showed up to fulfill their role the rest of the Lords of cinder abandoned their thrones it would seem that for one reason or another these Lords had no interest in making that sacrifice a second time the curse ran rampant and panic set in civil war broke out within Lorex walls the land itself began to buckle and fold as all of the Lord's realms began to converge upon the city and in the midst of this chaos a horde of pilgrims appeared on the horizon hollows from the mysterious kingdom of LAN door slowly making their way to Lorex gates the fire is nearly out the Sun itself begins to dim and one last failsafe is deployed the bell rings again over Firelink shrine and nearby in the cemetery of ash the unconditioned EDD sacrifices the unhindered are the remains of those who once attempted to link the fire but failed now reborn we have only one role to find those Lords of cinder who have abandoned their duty and to return them to their thrones by any means necessary thus begins the story of the ashen one after awakening in the cemetery we make our way to Firelink shrine we are tested at the gates by an abyss corrupted night from some previous cycle but we survived claiming the coiled sword that was sheathed in his body and using it to reignite the shrines dormant bonfire we find a number of friendly faces in this safe haven andre the blacksmith who appears to still be alive and enjoying his work millennia later hawkwood another ashen warrior who is feeling incredibly crestfallen about this daunting task we on Kindle have been given the shrine hand made a familiar-looking old woman who looks after the shrine and keeps us equipped ludwig of corland the only lord of cinder to willingly return to his throne and of course the fire keeper who tends to the bonfire and gives us our mission find the lords of cinder and deliver them here and so our hunt begins our first target Artorius the abyss watcher left quite an impression and it's not entirely surprising that his legacy has developed a devoted fandom in universe as well they know him only as the wolfblood master but even so the abyss watchers have shaped themselves in artorias image an order of fare and knights the abyss watchers sought out the abyss wherever it sprang up and crushed it even a hint of exposure to the abyss was caused enough for total eradication if you saw these helmets marching on your town you did not have much time left as a sacred Rite every abyss watcher imbibes the blood of the wolf they are linked to each other by the blood and so when they linked the fire they did so together as one a collective sharing the blood of the wolf they so Revere Hawkwood was one of them once a failure a deserter unfit to link the fire alongside his brothers it's no wonder he feels so crestfallen now a worthless on kindled revived to fight legends an order he was unworthy to join what a sick joke the realm of Ferran stands upon soil that was once called dark root and illusio before that it's a little more than a reeking swamp all those old walls and towers sinking into the poisonous bog the Ferren keeps its over the old catacombs of Karthus an ancient city that fell to the abyss and was no doubt laid low by the abyss Watchers it may have been the last of this fallen realm that these Warriors managed to eradicate even now this keep stifles the lingering presence of the abyss below but such prolonged proximity to that furious burning darkness takes a toll it's clear that the abyss Watchers never learned the true fate of their hero how in reality artorias failed to quell the abyss in oolacile how he was corrupted and claimed by it how a chosen Undead the first heir of fire put him down and finished his job falling to the abyss was artorias as true fate and it seems poetically fitting that the abyss Watchers eventually succumbed to the same tragic corruption we find the Watchers still in there keep their minds consumed standing over the corpses of their kin they see the abyss in each other now and attack with the same ferocious zealot Rhee they once unleashed on Karthus below locked in a stalemate struggle to the end of time fighting dying reviving fighting again theirs is the first pile of cinders we return to their throne that's one down next up eldritch saint of the deep was a cleric once but his ascension to lordship had little to do with piety at some point he developed a habit of eating men the consumption of so many souls made him powerful and he quickly asserted control over his order of clerics founding the Church of the deep we don't know much about the deep other than that it's a form of still stagnant darkness beyond comprehension deeper than humanity the place to which humanity's dregs ultimately sink Aldrich encouraged his fellow clerics to join in his cannibalistic habit and eventually indulged in it so much himself that he bloated and then softened into a sludge but still so powerful was he that when the time came for someone to link the fire his order made him into a lord sacrificing him to the flame now that he has revived the Cathedral of the deep seems the best place to start our search we stumble upon Aldridge's trail as early as the undead settlement the Church of the deep has a strong presence here with evangelists gathering the villages inhabitants and sending these new followers towards the cathedral fresh human sacrifices for Aldrich and his order we follow the trail down that road of sacrifices toward the cathedral itself and we stumble upon two other knights walking that same road fellow unkennel denarii and Horace these two have a history with Aldridge back before his ascent to lordship as children Inari and Horace escaped the Cathedral of the deep the only two known to have successfully evaded sacrifice to the cannibal cleric now Aldrich has revived these two UNK indels have taken it upon themselves to hunt him down we soon find that Aldrich's Cathedral continues to thrive the Deacons of the deep stand guard over his coffin but upon defeating them we see that Aldridge is nowhere to be found inside the coffin we find only a small silver doll listen carefully and you can hear the doll whisper wherever you go the moon still sets in ear thill where ever you may be IRRI thill is your home these dolls are given by pontiff Sullivan to his most valued subjects as they grant access to ear Asil in the boreal valley a city bathed in snow and cool moonlight it would appear that this is where Aldrich's trail leads next on remakes it - IRRI thill - but his companion has already succumbed to the curse so he arrives alone in another life another reality Inari might have made it all the way to Aldrich himself but it wouldn't happen here and perhaps for the best for Aldrich has ascended far beyond the mere cannibalistic cleric on arias caped as a child once resurrected Aldrich had spent time and contemplation gwen's age of fire he decided no longer concerned him no he was now obsessed with a different age he saw envisions the age of the deep-sea get it because Aldrich sounds like eldritch and the deep sea is it's a Lovecraft thing and I forget it anyway Aldrich chose a new path for himself and the only way he could see to reaching that new reality was to grow more powerful still consumption of man would no longer suffice he must consume God's and it so happened that his ally Sullivan ruler of ear thill and what remained of Anor Londo knew where to find some when we finally ascend to darkened honour Londo ourselves and set foot and that familiar Cathedral we lay eyes on Aldrich even now he is consuming Wendelin the last child of Gwyn to remain in the city of the gods who knows how many others Sullivan might have served up to this monstrous Lord of cinder but no more will suffer this fate we put the devourer of gods down for good and set his rotten ashes upon the throne where they belong that's two down [Music] not much is known of yours history he assumed the throne over a people begging for leadership but he never truly gained their respect Giants have rarely been treated well in the world of dark souls used buried experimented upon enslaved even after assuming the role of King your was mocked by his people yet still he strove to earn the respect he was due not only did he continually fight to defend his subject but he gave to them a gift a sword meant to slay Giants if they really truly wanted him gone they need only act he gave another of these blades to a dear friend a safety measure should the time come that you're needed to be put down despite everything he put great faith in his people even the circumstances of your ascension to lordship are shrouded in mystery it's known that at some point a great power emerged in your homeland the profaned flame an unnatural fire that could not be extinguished one that twisted and corrupted Souls and its presence Jorn shows to link Gwynn's fire himself in hopes of putting an end to this profaned flame but his efforts backfired horrific ly a blazing Inferno swept through his homeland incinerating human flesh and nothing else the people he served were extinguished in an instant when the bell rang and your menders were revived the giant looked upon the remains of his kingdom the charred corpses of his people and was crestfallen the fire had betrayed him everything he had fought so hard to protect Gwyn's curse at flame had taken away and so your returned to his old throne room and sat apathetic and alone numerous times along our journey we encounter a fellow on kindled named siegward a bumbling Onion Knight from catarina with a jolly disposition we share battles and hearty toasts with this new companion but he speaks in vague and uncharacteristically solemn terms of some duty he must perform in the profaned capital a grave promise he must keep it's not until we do finally reach the profaned capital and set foot in the ORMs throne room that we learned the true nature of that promise cyghfer stands at our side wielding a sword meant to slay giants the one your man trusted to his dear friend so long ago Siegfried is prepared to use it now to fulfill the promise he once made to his companion and with the onion Knights help we returned this Lord of cinders ashes to his rightful throne and Firelink our gathering of allies is beginning to diminish gray rat the despondent thief lost to increasingly dangerous scavenging missions yeol the strange pilgrim of launderer mysteriously dead after drawing out our true strength arena the blind none from Kareem finally succeeding in her goal of becoming a fire keeper but at the cost of herself she now sits a lonely husk amongst the corpses of countless fire keepers from cycles past Cirrus dark moon warrior of the sunless realms found dead after we help her put down her mad grandfather even our fellow one kindled dwindle in number cyghfer tis gone his duty in the profaned capital fulfilled we defeated Hawkwood ourselves when he challenged us for the twinkling dragon stone we held Horus fell hollow and was subdued in the smoldering lake on re well we'll get to him four Lords of cinder are now gathered only one remains unaccounted for and our time runs short the Sun is eclipsed over lauric now an enormous dark sign hanging overhead drawing humanity up into the sky the flame doesn't have much time left Prinze lothric was born to link the fire raised for it practically engineered for the task the lothric royal family had been obsessed with producing the perfect heir first through pure breeding later through far more extreme and unconventional means despite all their effort lothric was born frail and sickly but even so he was raised to fulfill his role to sit the throne to be the next heir of fire so when the time came for him to take that throne the kingdom must have been very surprised when he refused Prince lothric rejected his duty deciding instead to retreat to the high tower of his castle with his older brother Lorien and wait watching from a distance as everything fades to nothing it's difficult to determine why the Prince made this decision but we find clues to this story all over lothric castle even as we take our first steps along the kingdoms high wall we see evidence of some conflict taking place outside the castle at the castle entrance we meet Emma the High Priestess of lothric who once served as the prince's wet nurse she would later implore us with her dying breath please save his soul tell him what he must be as we ascend the castle itself we stumble upon a strange half-dragon creature Osiris former king of lothric now utterly consumed by an obsession with dragon blood and immortality holding what may or may not be an invisible infant in his arms Ocelot child of dragons he calls it it would seem this Mad King was the one behind the Royal Family's pursuit of a perfect heir and now we see evidence of the kind of unconventional means of breeding that may have resulted in the princes shriveled and sickly form behind the consumed King's room we make yet another discovery stumbling into a dark place frozen in time a familiar shrine where the prince was once meant to fulfill his duty but this Firelink shrine lies abandoned shrouded in darkness higher still into the castle we wander into the grand archives the domain of lothric scholars rumor has it that the prince first began to reconsider his sacred duty after taking the guidance of some mentor a skeptic among these scholars who doubted the linking of the flame he certainly wouldn't be the first scholar to question this age of fire at long last we find lothric at the top of his tower accompanied by his older brother the two have linked their souls together though the joining has left Lorien mute and crippled by lothric skarssen illness the prince invites us to stay with him to all sit and watch the world end together but we have a role to fulfill the lords must sit their Thrones remain among the accursed the Lords of cinder are gathered each placed upon their respective throne willingly or as a pile of ash everything is ready but what happens from here all depends on what future we choose and to understand the ramifications of that choice we need to go back to where this started in the time of Lordran there were two primordial serpents frampt and cough who each tried to influence the path of the chosen undead frampt was allied with the family of Gwyn and tried to steer the chosen undead toward rekindling the flame but Kath sought the end of Gwynn's age of fire hoped to bring about an age of dark to raise the chosen undead up as a new Dark Lord frampt would win the battle for the chosen undead as she would go on to restore gwyn's dying flame but the serpent swore over the fire didn't end that day if anything it escalated see Gwen's greatest manipulation hadn't been teaching man to fear the dark their own nature but in providing them a structural means to fight the dark for the way of white founded by gods but championed by man this religious order of clerics had made it their mission to Kindle bonfires and preserve the God's power they instilled the fear of the dark into their fellow man taught that the dark sign was a cursed brand that the only way to fight against this curse was to keep the fires lit even after the fall of Lordran it was prophecy and superstition that led so many undead to the land of ancient Lords in pursuit of the first flame there was an old saying in my family thou who out undead art chosen and dine exodus from the undead asylum maketh pilgrimage to the land of ancient Lords when thou ringeth the bell of awakening the fate of the undead thou shalt no man achieved their greatest triumphs through cooperation it seemed and the best way to incentivize that cooperation was to provide a cause and a structure and it would seem that both serpents internalized this lesson for they both set out to create just that frampt gathered Gwyn surviving descendants and followers and led them to found a new nation dedicated to the cycle of kindling above all else under frampt subtle guidance and supervision lothric grew into a flourishing kingdom and they slowly refined the fire kindling process into a clockwork ritual goth to oversaw the foundation of a kingdom a realm for hollows and undead one dedicated to mankind's natural state a land for people who do not fear the dark what's more lon door established a sacred order of its own the sable church led by three sisters dedicated to coughs caused the sable church stood as a mirror image to Gwen's way of light an order dedicated to the extinguishing of the flame and the eradication of the false life it bestows alas with the flame still being regularly kindled and defended in lothric there was little lawn door could do but grow stronger and wait quietly probing Lorex defenses in anticipation of the day when a crack appeared it would take many generations of waiting but that opportunity would finally arrive when one day a young heir of fire rejected his throne the princes rejection of his duty through lothric into a state of chaos rejecting the kindling ritual was an act tantamount to treason but the perpetrator was not only a member of the royal family but a descendant of the gods of old the kingdom's power structure fractured as lothric Spillers of rule feuded over what should be done and the nation collapsed into a full-blown Civil War as we wander through the aftermath we encounter many knights some clad in red others in blue most of them dead and scattered over lothric streets it would appear that the knights in red are those who turned against the royal family and fought to preserve loether extraditions while the knights in blue chose loyalty to their prince indeed once we venture beyond the grand archives we encounter a significant number of them defending lothric and lorian's chamber this Civil War shredded Lorex defenses from the inside and as the first flame dwindled the undead curse spread weakening them further lon door saw their chance and the sisters of the sable church went to work in lothric we find the corpses of dozens of black robed pilgrims with stones chained to their backs and many other strange sights hollows which burst into violent abyss corrupted monstrosity and others which have grown into strange white trees reaching for the heavens as if something within them was drawn out of their body in some way or another toward the sky in this final hour as the first flame fades to nothing is our humanity being drawn up into that vortex pulled up and out of these hollowing vessels into the sky this pus of man might be a similar phenomenon in a more violent form we've seen what happens to the Dark Soul when it's agitated and later as we make our ascent up the castle we see great wispy creatures drifting overhead their wings look notably similar to tree branches still pointed upward skyward and closer inspection with modded cameras reveals more interesting details a composition of what looks like flesh and bone torsos looking like an open ribcage the creatures are known as pilgrim butterflies in the old days the way of white had a tradition for ridding themselves of any follower who turned Undead they would send the cursed member of their order to Lordran to venture down into the catacombs where it was rumored that the rite of kindling could be found should an undead way of white follower retrieve this artifact it would bring the way of white even greater success and their mission of bonfire kindling but if the undead should fail well at least the order was rid of them and I can't help but think that these pilgrims of launderer are performing a similar function sent to lothric in droves with great stones on their back meant to hold their humanity in as they travel allowing them to persist just long enough to reach their destination once there they can spread the word of the sable church to the hollowing kingdom of lothric gained new converts spread further descent and confusion among its populace they might even managed to influence someone in a position of power but should they only manage to perish at Lorex gates well at the very least they might wreak havoc on long doors enemies in death the Dragon Slayer Armour we encounter is but an empty suit after all controlled by the pilgrim butterflies overhead who knows what other chaos the remains of these pilgrims have inflicted on this struggling Kingdom in this light the pilgrims seem like some sort of hybrid missionary and siege weapon sent in droves to the enemy fortifications to stir up as much chaos as possible weakening lothric and making them vulnerable to the critical blow which is where we come in as we wander outside the city walls we encounter a long door pilgrim who has managed to survive yeol he is beyond excited to meet a champion of Ash and he asks to join us once in our employ he offers to draw out our true strength granting us greater power but so these mysterious dark sigils black gaping holes in the flesh resembling the dark sign but from which humanity seeps these sigils are hollowing us literally draining the dark soul from the vessel that is our body once he has drawn all the strength from us he can Yeol mysteriously perishes but we are then greeted by a new face one of the sisters of the sable church yuria it would seem that she has found in us a champion the one who will finally achieve goths great mission she would have us bring Gwen's age of fire to an end at long last and ascend to claim the role of Dark Lord our fellow unkennel honoree is pulled into this plot as yuria has us meet him in an Orlando for a twisted sort of wedding ceremony it is indeed a form of joining in performing this ceremony we claim his dark sigils enough of them to prepare us for the task ahead urea urges us to go to the fire as lothric would haven't but when the time comes she says don't link the fire claimed it wrest it from its mantle and make it ours and in doing so become the lord of Hallows lan door has sought all of these years it's not the age of dark as the world should have had and it's not the mere extinguishing of flame we are to take the fire to seize an era of our own by force we have our new orders our hunt for cinders is over and thus we begin the ritual the Lords of cinder burned one last time to grant us the fire we'll need to Kindle Gwen's dying flame we are ready we are sent to the kiln of the first flame to complete our mission and it is here that we see an extraordinary glimpse of what the end of this world might look like all the kingdoms of man and gods converged to one point crumbling in over each other folding buckling and collapsing everything we have built falling over the edge of the world upon reaching the kiln we are greeted by one final opponent the soul of cinder an amalgamation of every soul to Kindle the fire before us we fight many heirs of fire that day Knights and clerics and mages and pyromancers and finally the last soul of cinder the original soul of cinder Gwyn the one responsible for all of this he who clung to his age of fire who staved off the dark for as long as possible he who committed the first sin and doomed man to follow in his footsteps for generations to come he who subjugated us who robbed us of our age to preserve his own he who used us and has continued to use us long after his own demise the Lord of sunlight upon defeating this specter of Gwyn we are once again faced with a choice we could Kindle this fire the task our ashes were revived to perform keeping the flame lit just a little bit longer or we could let the fire die out finally allow the age of fire to end embrace the dark that would follow but no we came here with other plans instead we claim the fire taking it within us the darkness sets in but on our terms at long last the Hallows will have their day mankind will have their day perhaps this is that pathless future aldea once yearned to find that future beyond the scope of light and beyond the reach of dark or perhaps this future we've claimed is just a new artificial age outside the natural order another perversion of what should have been but at least for the first time whatever awaits us we venture into that future on our own terms [Music] Dark Souls 3 presents some extremely compelling imagery and ideas and as you can see you can connect those dots in some pretty compelling ways with some effort that said as any of you who have spent time exploring this game's lore already know I have been taking some big speculative leaps Dark Souls has always been a series which gives you a large collection of story dots and expect you to do the work to connect them but with Dark Souls 3 those dots are further apart than ever before and a lot of them don't really connect in any way that makes much sense indeed there are some dots which feel like they should be connecting in an obvious way but aren't and a lot of dots that seem to conflict with each other they defy connecting is what I'm saying and on the one hand that's to be expected leaving you with some lingering questions on the outer fringes of the story is what these games do who is velka who was this lost sinner really who is Rosaria what the heck did happen to Ornstein these are the kinds of questions that encourage you to spin up new theories and make the world of Dark Souls seem even larger than what the games explicitly show and I am a hundred percent on board for that but then some of the particular questions Dark Souls 3 leaves hanging seem really important to getting a fundamental understanding of what is happening in this game and that is a bit more frustrating like okay Ludwig of Courland this guy seems fascinating for one he appears to be an actual pygmy which is a huge deal we had never met one before this he's also a Lord of cinder and there are lots of subtle hints to suggest that the story of his particular ascent to lordship is really unusual in some significant ways for one he knows about the untended graves that dark duplicate of our Firelink shrine he knows about the fire keepers eyes we find there and what they do good luck figuring him out though I have yet to find one theory that feels satisfyingly conclusive and what is going on with the untended graves we stumble upon a few different versions of Firelink shrine in our adventure but this is the only one that's actually physically connected - the lothric we spend the game exploring which would suggest that it's somehow the real one in a way that ours isn't most evidence seems to suggest that it's a version of Firelink stuck further back in the past but a few stray details seem to suggest that it could be the future and what does this make our version of Firelink shrine then any player messages left in our home Firelink also appear in this one so they are certainly connected in some way it is just baffling oh and then there's the angels there's this whole side plot with lothric civil war involving angels that is super underdeveloped all we really know is that at some point a woman named Gertrude who was one of Queen Lorex hand maidens and possibly her daughter was visited by an angel and this apparently led to a huge schism that played a big role in the civil war it would seem that the teachings of the angels were declared heresy by all the pillars of lothric but some like these winged Knights here embraced it and there are tons of theories about who Gertrude is what happened to her where she went but there is just so little compelling evidence to build a solid story around which is really frustrating because it seems like it's supposed to be this bombshell that blows the whole lauric story wide open especially when you consider that we do see angels ourselves in the DLC over the drej heap and what's more they kind of appear to be the final evolution of launderers pilgrim butterflies which would suggest that launderer might have been responsible for that angel visiting Gertrude and starting the whole schism but there are so few conclusive details to be found anywhere that the whole story thread just feels undercooked and don't even get me started on the profane flame it's not the first flame and it seems to be something entirely different from the chaos flame of izalith because that one's burning out which is why we're seeing all of these dying and dead demons everywhere so this flame seems like some new third thing and one that's kind of important to understanding your story and also probably pontiff Sullivan's gives me conniptions on a lure front there are many plot elements in Dark Souls 3 that feel frustratingly underbaked for a lot of reasons but that said looking back I really do enjoy the arc of this trilogy as a whole I love the way our understanding of Gwyn evolves from game to game he starts out as this God figure the deity who wrought everything that lays before us a great being whose works fell to ruin despite everything he sacrificed but then the further in the series we get the less admirable his actions look the more we learn the more he is revealed as a tyrant clinging to what he's built and more than that afraid afraid of the threat we pose to him and as we slowly come to understand the full breadth of Gwen's treatment of our kind the more villainous he's revealed to be and sole heir poor little soul heir I sympathize with those who were disappointed to learn that he is not in fact the long-lost son of Gwyn but what we're left with in the wake of the nameless Kings reveal I actually still rather like he's not a fallen God or a lost son he's a true believer a jolly knight who wants nothing more than the glory of being the chosen undead the hero who will follow in Gwen's footsteps and rekindle his Lords age of fire not that unlike us our first time through the game really and though his longing for that glory led him to tragedy in this playthrough knowing what I do now I like his other possible fate even better in keeping him alive long enough to reach the kiln you allow him to perform the duty he desired more than anything it may be a hollow glory knowing what we do now but it's a glory he wanted and I love Dark Souls two's place in this series even more now I see a lot of people casually dismissing it in the wake of Dark Souls 3 since there aren't a whole lot of direct plot links leading from one to the next but I love how much larger it makes this world feel Dark Souls three pulls directly from the first game so frequently that I'm glad we got a chance to see that there was more world out there besides in the larger series arc Dark Souls 2 represents that crucial turning point it's the entry that pulled back the curtain on what linking the fire in Dark Souls 1 meant I went into Dark Souls 3 with a very different perspective on Dark Souls ones events thanks to that middle game and I am so glad I didn't skip it plus I love how where Dark Souls 1 and 3 are driven by the mythology of the old gods and the aftermath of their stories Dark Souls 2 places its focus squarely on humanity just trying to deal with the hand they've been dealt on the people still playing this cycle out long after Gwen's name has been forgotten on the human kings who faced the rise of that same undead curse and the different ways they futile II tried to fight it on all the small comforts those cursed souls of drangleic find in a peaceful settlement like majula on all of the personal miseries this undead curse inflicts how you forget yourself your loved ones your purpose and are left empty Luka Till's story alone adds so much to my understanding of what hollowing feels like that I can't imagine experiencing Dark Souls without this middle chapter even more though I love the way our understanding of linking the fire and what that actually means evolves with each new game when we first learn of it it seems like our salvation like the thing that will save us from this undead curse and maybe reverse the decay this world is suffering if only for a while a noble cause worth fighting for but then Dark Souls 2 comes in and introduces doubt maybe we had it wrong maybe this age of fire we've been suffering and dying in an endless loop to preserve was never in our best interest maybe that age of dark we've been fearing all this time wasn't something we were protected from but something that was taken from us and if so might there be some way to break this cycle somehow and then by Dark Souls 3 doubt turns to certainty as we see the stagnation this endless cycle has wrought it's never been a cycle really but a spiral it was always going to end and now we get a glimpse of what that end looks like playing these games has been one of the most rewarding gaming experiences I've ever had and I'm grateful all you folks came along on that with me it has been a pleasure but before we end this we have one last story even from the beginning Gwen used the children of the Dark Soul to his own ends when he challenged the ancient dragons to establish his age of fire he fought with a human army at his side though their efforts would never be commemorated there were ringed knights armored and equipment forged in the abyss itself with a dark sign seared into their breastplate to ensure that their Dark Soul was safely constrained but the first wave to attack were always the slave Knights disposable cannon fodder clad in red and doomed to revive endlessly they were good for exhausting the enemy in advance of the real attack one of these lowly downtrodden Knights was named gale he fought and died and fought and died without end until one day the fighting stopped all his lords were gone Gale wandered without purpose for who knows how long until he finally stumbled into an old musty painting the painted world of arendelle he was not the first to mysteriously find himself here and he would not be the last this painting had a way of attracting forlorn Souls without home or purpose who knows how long Gale spent inside this painting wandering but at some point he met someone very special a mysterious young cross-breed girl a painter he grew to care a great deal for the child and found new purpose in her service she even came to call him uncle the occupants of this painting had a tradition he learned they existed in a cycle of their own when the painting they inhabit begins to rot they put it to flame and create for themselves a new painted home a new beginning Gale found that fought appealing a chance to leave the rot of a stagnating cruel world behind and build something new perhaps better the painter girl desired to paint that new home and he desired to see it done but it would not be so easy a task another forlorn soul had found her way into the painted world around the time a nun kindled named Alfreda one of the founders of some land or Church apparently she had no desire to see her new home burned and so she asserted control assuming the name lady Freda and presenting herself in a way that the paintings occupants found more familiar and comforting she convinced the paintings creator to subdue the fire which would have been used to burn this little world away she would have them embrace the rot abandon this endless cycle she even had her loyal knight Vilhelm locked the painter girl away out of Gail's reach but Gayle was determined with renewed purpose in mind he ventured back out into the world with scrap of the painted world in hand he wandered again searching for someone to help someone who could free his lady the painter and to bring fire to this rotting world after a long disheartening search he finally finds that someone a wandering unkennel do doesn't know better than to touch a scrap of rotten painting when offered we do achieve what Gayle asks of us though we free the painter girl and confront lady Freda bringing long overdue fire to the painted world of re and L but Gayle is not waiting idle already he has set off to find the other essential component for his lady's work she will need pigment and the Gayle can think of no better source than the blood of the Dark Soul itself if you're gonna paint a fresh start you might as well go all out and unlike most Gayle knows exactly where the blood of the Dark Soul resides after conquering the Dragons and establishing his age of fire Gwen was faced with a problem what to do with these pygmies these inheritors of the dark soul who might someday threaten his new kingdom he needed them pacified and preferably as far away as possible so he gave to them a city isolated at the edge of the world and surrounded by a high wall the ringed City in addition he left to the city his youngest daughter philia nor promising that he would return for her one day her slumber holds the city in a stasis trapped in time the world we've known is falling to pieces as we set out to find Gale he's left us a clear trail though he knew we'd be following we make our way down through the drej heaps layers of ruined civilization the remnants of Dark Souls threes lothric Dark Souls twos earthen peak Dark Souls ones Firelink shrine and are brought to the ancient ring city though a little overgrown the place is still standing still stuck in time but not for much longer we see no sign of Gale but we do find Fillion or still sleeping in her chamber still awaiting her father's return it's hard to determine exactly what transpires when we stir her from her slumber but the one thing we can be certain of is that the magic which locked the ring city and time is broken and the next thing we know we are standing at the end of all things philia nor is a long dead husk the ringed city is no more the kingdoms of old are buried nothing but ash and dust as far as the eye can see and now at last we catch up to Gale he had spent eternity pursuing pigment for his ladies painting the pygmy Lords of old contained the dark soul within them he had hoped their blood would serve his lady's needs but alas that blood has dried over the ages it was useless now so instead Gale has been consuming the pygmy Lords himself one by one imbibing their dried blood and the Dark Soul with it hoping that his own blood might then serve as a worthy substitute who knows how long he has been pursuing this quest his equipment is half ruined his body transforming his mind warped he attacks us for our portion of the dark soul on sight but he did know we would come here he likely knew that we would be the one to finally bring the blood of the Dark Soul back to his lady and we do Gayle's mission is a success the painted world of re and L burns and the painter girl has the pigment she needs she will paint a new world with this a gentle one a good home it's a quiet anticlimactic ending for this trilogy of games but I do like it as a send-off from software has been working on this franchise for quite some time now and I'm sure they're ready to move on to something new to take all the experience and the knowledge they've accrued developing these games and start fresh with a clean canvas the time has come to move on before rot has a chance to take hold so it feels rather appropriate that our final action in this wonderful trilogy be to take hold of the dark soul itself and to use it to create a fresh new world whatever from soft decides to paint for us next I can't wait to see it thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: PlayFrame

Views: 69,989

Rating: 4.9608393 out of 5

Keywords: newb run dark souls 3, dark souls 3, dark souls iii, noob run dark souls 3, side quest dark souls 3, dan floyd dark souls, playthrough, dark souls, commentary, extra play dark souls, side quest dark souls, extra credits dark souls, extra credits, extra play, dark souls side quest, dark souls extra play, dark souls extra credits, dan plays dark souls, dark souls iii lore, dark souls lore retrospective, dark souls iii story, dark souls 3 story, dark souls 3 lore

Id: 6G7fCwl5Ezw

Length: 49min 25sec (2965 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 12 2018