Dark Souls Lore | "Time is Convoluted" Explained

on an unassuming balcony of a dilapidated Town one of the most iconic interactions of gaming takes place we stumbled down some stairs blooded but triumphant after our well- earned victory over the Taurus demon and our greeted by some golden rays of sunlight it is a nice rest bite after the intense encounter silhouetted by this impressive view stands a rugged Knight and as imposing as he first appears we are immediately dis armed by his warm demeanor a startling contrast to the cruel and unforgiving world that we have witnessed thus far ah hello you don't look Hollow far from it I am Solair of asor an adherent of the Lord of sunlight not only does cir offer a rare sense of camaraderie but he also gives us a tool by which we can interact with one another the white soapstone you see time isn't working as normal in lordran and as such Solair explains that this tool can be used to cross the gaps between Divergent timelines in order to assist one another as a phantom we are amidst strange beings in a Strange Land the flow of time itself is convoluted with Heroes centuries old phasing in and out the very fabric wavers and relations shift and obscure there's no telling how much longer your world and mine will remain in contact but use this to summon one another as Spirits cross the gaps between the worlds and engage in Jolly cooperation this line about time being convoluted has always fascinated me and it felt like a satisfying explanation as to why Lord ran feels almost dreamlike that everything here is standing still compared to the outside world and it's why we feel so isolated in this particular part of the greater World however in time this line within the lore Community is quite often ridiculed or MD on seeing this line that time is convoluted as a lazy convenient way of explaining how multiplayer can exist within this game that it's a copout or a handwave on explaining multiplayer Beyond a surface level I'm unsure where this idea or opinion first originated but I assume for those who have followed the lore of dark souls for years you'll know what I'm talking about and you'll no doubt have an opinion one way or the other and perhaps you hold that view that the time is convoluted line is a bit of a joke and is lazy and while it's not for me to tell you what is the correct interpretation of this lore I do want to open a meaningful discussion on this area because I have personally always enjoyed this part of the lore and by the time we get to Dark Souls 3 the idea of time being tied to the first flame and the fading of it is such a major part of the lore as time and space converge on l this is why Loki's Abyssal archive resonated so strongly with me because Loki offers a solid explanation as to why the lore is the way it is and that by looking at the original Japanese of the text we can get a clearer picture of the developer's intention when they wrote this line and that perhaps a lot of the misgivings around this part of the lore could be to do with the translation and by the end of this video by looking at the works of Loki and own thoughts I hope you will at least understand the point of view that this is actually a well-conceived piece of lore that enriches the world of Dark Souls even if you still disagree so join me as we try and M the discourse a little surrounding time within the Dark Souls Trilogy and at the beginning of this video a massive shout out to Loki who is a well-known translator within the Dark Souls and Elden ring Community having written two books at this point on both demon souls and Dark Souls 1 and how we can enrich our understanding in of the lore by looking at the original text and analyzing it I will quote Loki throughout but I just want to make it clear that Loki is really the starting point for this video and why I'm doing it I work with Loki a lot and have his blessings to make this video so that being said it would mean a great deal to me if you would check out the Abyssal archive links as well as Loki's Channel and lur website which I'll link below as with most things in the lore of Dark Souls time begins with the coming of the first Flame and disparity before the age of flame there was the age of ancients the age of ancients was a time where everything simply existed in a state of uniformity in the age of ancients the world was unformed shrouded by fog a land of gray Crags Arch trees and everlasting dragons but then there was fire and with fire came disparity these ancient dragons are not Undead or Immortal in the way that we understand it they just exist in a time where there was no life they are essentially no different from a mineral or a rock and as such they exist outside the Notions of life and death this is why Undead join the path of the Dragon the Ancient Dragon C in all three games the item description in Dark Souls 1 reads the following the dragon Apostles seek ascendence of life itself attainable by transformation into an ancient dragon so moving beyond the concepts of life and death this is why Alia has such an interest in dragons in Dark Souls 2 he too seeks to escape entirely the cycle of life and death and as such our conclusion about the age of ancient is that everything in this time also existed without the Notions of life and death indeed this didn't even come about life and death until the first flame came as you'll find as a theme in this video Loki puts it far more eloquently for me and I will now quote a passage from Abyssal archive rather the world wasn't yet distinguished everything was composed of a soul mineral element there was flora and fauna but it didn't live or die it simply existed and would continue to exist in perpetuity if left unimpeded this can be difficult to grasp since the notion of having being without the state of life or death is completely foreign to us but it is a fundamental truth of this universe this is why the ancient dragons of Dark Souls are so compelling they're almost alien in their concept everything existed in perpetuity it was just static with no concept of Life Death a aging and thus it makes sense in this static World state where everything just was and nothing changed that time was also not a thing time is the main factor when it comes to life death and aging and change and it makes sense that it was the flame that brought time to this universe alongside death and Age Again Loki puts this far more eloquently than I and I quote another passage from Ab Bessel archive the name first Flame denotes it as the beginning fire it is at once the first fire in existence a fire which begets more fire and all things resulting from fire and a fire which irreversibly changes the universe change is the operative word for we are told that fire also brought disparity flame is by nature boundless unbiased and Unapologetic affecting everything without discrimination disparity isn't simply a duality of Polar Opposites like existence and non-existence there is a sequence and consequence sequence and Consequence the age of ancients has neither and if we so readily accept that life and light is born of and tied to the first flame logic would dictate that time the very definition of flow consequence and change would also be tied to the first flame as Loki says in the opening line to his chapter on time because there is disparity there is consequence causality events occur in linear sequence creating a flow of time the first flame is somewhat analogous to the Elden ring and that both govern the physics and makeup of the current age and so with the idea that time is fundamentally tied to the first flame Let Us return to lordran and try and unpack what is happening here and what effect the fading of the flame had is on time itself one major thing that you need to keep in mind when playing Dark Souls 1 is that lordran is not the entire world it's a very special place the epicenter of the age of fire outside of these lands we know that there are plenty human cities that we hear about aor venim kareim and thurland for example but the most important thing about lordran isn't really that this is the land of the Gods though this is significant no the most important aspect of lordran is what lies at the bottom of it the Kil of the first flame beneath fire link Shrine we find the first flame itself and thus the entirety of lordran is the Nexus the eye of the storm to the cataclysmic event that is currently taking place the fading of the flame for me this is why we see the souls of the Black Knights stuck in an endless March in the entrance to the Kil as a sort of entrance to the eye of the storm as the first flame begins to fade the area surrounding it this eye of the storm has become unstable and so Souls being intrinsically linked to the first flame are caught around the Kil like water circling a drain this effect is more pronounced and obvious in the events of Dark Souls 3 wherein both the kill of the first flame and the drag heap of the ringed City DLC have this twisting and circling effect showing that land and space is literally warping around the Kil of the first flame even in the base game it is suggested that as the first flame begins to fade that lothric has become a sort of Nexus itself and everything has been drawn into it lands from far away the transitory lands of Lords of Cinder are being pulled towards lothric before finally coalescing into the mess that we see in the drag Heap in the future we are getting getting ahead of ourselves but the point is this by the third game it is made clear that the fading of the first flame leads to this sort of collapse of the physics of the world the groundwork for this concept however was laid in Dark Souls 1 with soler's dialogue and the concept of time what Sol is telling us in his dialogue is that time in this land in Lord ran specifically is collapsing because we are at the epicenter of reality collapse in and it implies that Beyond this land time is still advancing as normal the white soap stone only works within lordran because it is lordran that is being affected Loki points the original Japanese that can offer some clarity in what solir is actually saying and I quote Loki's translation now this is a truly strange place the flow of time is stagnant if you consider there are legends of over a 100 years ago since it is terribly unstable various things will soon slip out of alignment I don't know how long the worlds of you and I will remain overlapped stagnant a term familiar to friends of the channel or those familiar with deeper Souls lore in general for those who maybe aren't familiar the specific term stagnant is a reference to the greater themes of Dark Souls and are a product of this game being culturally Japanese in Japanese Shintoism the concept of flowing water is very important that your life should mirror flowing water as flowing water is pure due to its vigorous movements that keeps impurities and parasites from Gathering conversely stagnant water represents corruption because it is within still water that parasites can breed and the water festers that is the absolute basics of it but now that if you look at dark souls and its lore the idea of not letting things stagnate and allowing things to flow naturally as they should should really resonate with you as most of Dark Souls events come from a man Gwinn not allowing things to take their natural course further to this he and his followers set up a framework that essentially builds a religion and belief system around continuing the age of fire this is a practice and belief or a Dogma that clearly takes root for countless Millennia to the point that we can trace it right through the events of Dark Souls 2 all the way to Dark Souls 3 and much like stagnant Waters by the time we get to Dark Souls 3 corruption and rot has taken place within the world because it has not been allowed to progress as a flowing river would following this logic and Loki's translation of cir's dialogue which includes this term stagnated instead of convoluted we can see that time is a further victim of Gwen's meddling that by unnaturally prolonging this age that was made to have already ended time has been corrupted it has been stagnated it is unable to flow normally anymore and in this bubble of lordran time will now not behave as normal in a linear fashion so if you're to take anything away from this particular chapter of this video bear in mind that the term convoluted might have been a pure choice for the translation and has led to a lot of confusion or dislike of this particular line from Solair however when you look at it as a stagnation of time you can see how it begins to fit within the greater themes of Dark Souls perfectly and what actually is being said here by Solair Loki provided me with an illustration to help visualize what the stagnation of time would look like if you could physically see it and I will show you that now in the normal flow of time it's linear it is causality it is continuous like the flowing river but when the river of time becomes stagnated it all pools and mixes together this is the convolution of time that solir speaks of with the flow of time being stopped all of time has began to intersect alt together there is no linearity to it anymore and this is why sometimes overlap within this pool of time but only within the bubble of lordran the eye of the storm around the fading first flame and as such Invaders and Cooperators alike can manipulate this breaking down of time to invade or help other Undead from software games often make an effort to make it clear that what's happening to you in the game area is something like a bubble that is unaffecting the world outside of it this is in fact most overtly the case in the very first soulslike game Demon Souls where boletaria is actually cut off from the outside world by a creeping fog and right at the beginning of the game the character is literally shown past passing through a barrier into boletaria it is less overt in Dark Souls but it is the same we are in a region of the world that is for some reason or another cut off from the outside world it is a bubble and within this particular bubble the rules of reality are not the same as they are outside of it indeed if you take a look at the borders of each games of the Dark Souls series you will certainly feel cut off from the outside world whether you are separated by a great sea an endless horizon or as in the case of Drang Lake in Dark Souls 2 you literally come here from a world you cannot return to separated by time and space we can see this as even the case in the latest of from software's Souls like if you will elen ring where the lands between are also a self-contained area of the world where tarnished are seemingly transported to when they are chosen by Grace always these self-contained region are the centers of some Calamity or Cosmic collapse in Dark Souls you are localized around the first flame in every single game in Elden ring you are in the land of the Elden ring itself and in Demon Souls you are in the heart of a demon Scourge a land sealed off from the outside by a creeping fog so when looking at Demon Souls as an illustration a limited region bubbled by a fog it shouldn't be that hard to imagine how the events lordran are localized to an area around the first flame that there is a sort of bubble around lordran not physically but in a way in which it's affected by the first flame this is one of the main pillars of Loki's Theory and in trying to prove it he homes in on specific words used by Solair and I quote Loki now Solair states that time's function in lordran makes it strange which suggests that time flows normally in the world outside in short lordran is in a Time bubble hence why Miyazaki calls it a different dimension in an edge interview with that said we also need to deal with one of the issues that comes up when talking about time being convoluted and one of the bug bears that many who don't like this line have with it and so let's start by returning to what Solair says about the white soap stone and how it functions he says there's no telling how much longer your world and mine will remain contact but use this to summon one another as Spirits cross the gaps between worlds and engage in Jolly cooperation so cair uses the term worlds here and this is the kind of wording that has led to groaning eye rolling and hand throwing Within These Souls community and I completely understand why it suggests that there are multiple worlds multiverses and parallel Dimensions or universes can be extremely lazy storytelling used as a crutch to explain things way something we can see happening in the modern MCU for example yeah I've never believed that this is actually what is being said here that there are different worlds side by side to me with my doctor who mind I've thought that everyone is instead in different time streams rather than in completely different worlds in the Abyssal archive Loki also disagrees with the notion that there are multiple worlds or dimensions and he described it in a way that really resonated with me when I first read it so I'm now going to quote a lengthy passage from a Bessel archive mainly because I think I would be doing Loki a disservice by not providing his full explanation for this phenomena and why he doesn't think that it is multiple worlds within this bubble events that couldn't occur otherwise are possible leading to cair's Second point we can meet people who should be long dead heroes from over a century ago both parties may have entered the bubble years apart yet they can still share the the same space in either time simultaneously regardless of the Gap however causality is still in effect and events occur in sequence thereby excluding true parallel worlds as an explanation furthermore time followed a stable flow before the bubble so all possibilities within it are limited by what is already transpired there is no reality where quana didn't abandon isth or Gwen didn't link the fire so L's wording indicates that the bubble has only existed for a 100 years some interpretations of cir's comments suppose that reality within the bubble has split into every possible variation and will converge into a singer reality again come the bubbles end this passage really is a testimony to Loki's reasoning skill as I had said above Loki also argues that these aren't parallel worlds more like different time streams where people can enter the bubble years apart but because time is stagnating within the bubble they can overlap while we have all entered the eye of the storm time is affecting each participant differently at different moments while we can summon black Iron tarus into our world to help us with the iron golem he is already dead we find his corpse within an Orlando Loki also makes the strong point that if there is multiple worlds within Dark Souls it doesn't exist beyond the moment of the fire fading but because if there were true parallel worlds or different dimensions then the linearity of events up to this point would be different in different worlds in parallel worlds in the MCU for example different things happen in different ways but in Dark Souls everything before this moment in lordran happens the same way in everyone's World in soler's World in Black Iron ts' World Gwen always always links the fire if there were true parallel worlds then surely there are parallel worlds where Gwen didn't link the fire but that simply isn't true this is one world it's just that things have got a little muddy since the fading of the first flame now of course there are still some issues with this in regards to summoning and the bosses but we will answer that at the end in the last chapter where we talk about some of the issues with all of this but to conclude I would not agree that there are multiple or parallel Dimensions rather everyone every dead within the lordran bubble is simply moving at a different time stream because time has broken down and this notion doesn't end in Dark Souls 1 as the summoning and Invasion mechanic is present in the other two games and so with that said let us move on to Drang Lake and then lothric I've already somewhat touched upon the implications that this facet of the LA has on later iterations of the games but let's go in depth on the sequels now to reaffirm confirm that this isn't just a lazy lore point but it's something that has been developed and expanded upon throughout the trilogy this is also something that Loki has dedicated some time in his writing to by exploring the subject of time in subsequent games I think it's fair to say that our arrival in Dr lake is unconventional to say the least we seemingly fall into a pocket Dimension via a Vortex When we arrive at this Shrine let's say it is a ruined mes but when the vortex is activated we can see a reflection in the water a reflection that shows this area in a time before it was a ruin clearly implying that there is some time Shenanigans foot here and it's not exactly a novel interpretation to say that we are moving into a Time pocket when we pass through this swirling Nexus the swirling imagery of this Nexus or Whirlpool at the beginning of Dark Souls I is a powerful one for me and it ties into a couple of other things in the dark Dark Souls series the way the dark sign is depicted in Dark Souls 2 in particular is a swirling Nexus as we can see in the opening cinematic and on our backs and on the back of any other Hollow then of course we have the drag keep and the killing of the first flame within Dark Souls I which has a similar Whirlpool effect around it and we will talk more about the latter shortly but this repeated use of the swirling imagery is important to me as it's always felt a bit Cosmic I'm not a scientific expert by any stretch but it's always evoked the image of a black hole or the Big Bang to me both are relevant symbolic Illusions both are states of high density black holes are so dense that they warp time and space around them very much in line with what is happening around the Kil of the first flame and the big bang a state of high density from which the universe arose perhaps an illusion to the fact that in Dark Souls three especially we are on the cusp of a new age the age of dark of course it is silly to take symbology and outside Illusions and run away with it to literally transplant lore exterior to the game into the game based on symbolic ties something I myself have been guilty of in the past rather to me in general these swirling effects are just meant to evoke this idea of collapse regardless on my thoughts on the swirling imagery after passing through it we end up in an area called things betwix which of course means things between the clear suggestion meaning that this area is the place between the world we came from and the world of Dr leic it is a bridge between these two worlds for lack of a better word Loki has some interesting insights on the translation of this area and I quote him now according to the Dark Souls 2 collector's addition strategy guide things betwix as a small dimensional Rift bridging Dr Lake and the rest of the world this is why the area is called a gap or interspace cave and is such an irrational geography relative to the rest of the game World this dark Cavern is a distorted space and we can see beyond the massive breach in the cave we pass through to reach the world Beyond and yet once we formally enter dran Le proper we can look back to find neither the enormous crack nor the massive Cavern behind us only a rift in a relatively small crack this is proof that we had just passed through a gap in space time this is very true when you're inside things betwix you see this huge light this huge crack as if you're moving into a new dimension And yet when you pass through it from the other side it just looks like an ordinary cave this again reinforces more strongly than Dark Souls 1 that again we have just entered a Time bubble that time is affected in a different way here and indeed like in Dark Souls 1 there is is summoning and there are Invaders we can use the wipe soap stone and by the end of the game we know that we are in the lands of the first flame so this is again no surprise that this world this area is affected in the exact same way that lordran was as we will look at in more detail in the Dark Souls 3 segment of the video the first Flames collapse also affects space not just time with the lands being drawn into its orbit in Dark Souls I culminating in the drag keep that we see swirling around the Kil with that in mind we do need to consider how the first flame is here in Drang Lake when previously it had been below lordran now prior to Dark Souls 3 most of us just assumed that Drang Lake was built on top of where Lord ran once lay however in Dark Souls I we see that an Orlando still physically exists it is a contradiction that we could simply write off as just that however Loki does tried to explain it by reconciling the lore of Dark Souls II and Dark Souls 2 a curious point of the lore in Dark Souls 2 is the location of Hyde which has a pretty blatant overlap with an orlondo at the time of Dark Souls 2's release Before Dark Souls I came out there were those of the lore Community who theorized that Hyde was just the successor to Anor Londo that it was built on top or at least culturally evolved from that ancient city and there's good reason for this the athetics of the location itself are very similar to an Orondo it is the home of the blue Sentinels a covenant that is clearly a derivative evolution of the blades of the Dark Moon and of course we Face the old dragon slayer a dark and pale imitation of the captain of Gwen's Knights orstein Loki makes some further observations that help Tai hide to an orlandoo and I quote them now moreover statues found within and without the church are clearly modeled after the statues of gwy seen in an Orlando except replacing his head with what looks like that of a falcon taking clear inspiration from the sun god of Egyptian mythology Rah aside from connections to gwy and the Gods in general we can also find a chest containing a divine blessing this holy water belonged to the goddess gvir who once resided in an Orondo and had left some of these vials behind in Dark Souls 1 yet when we get to the time of Dark Souls 3 we see that an Orondo still physically exists and thus hide must be its own place at least physically and spatially these connections to an Orondo of course still cannot be ignored and it is clear that Hyde is connected somehow even if it is not the hallowed City itself or built on top of it adding to the confusion Loki points out that Dark Souls 2's original director shuya in an interview with polygon suggested that Dark Souls 2 takes place in a completely different part of the world comparing them to the North and South Pole respectively however we should treat this with a pinch of salt because of course this director did not oversee the final product and thus the lore could have changed dramatically from then and its release date yet it is hard to ignore that in Drang Lake we have the first flame and an Anor clone in a land that is seemingly spatially different from the original Dark Souls 1 but Loki does try to explain this contradiction in lore using the fading flame one more and I quote them now we are then simply left to question the cause of this phenomena warping across time and space is typically related to the power of fire thus the most likely culprit to this radical change in setting is the first flame recall that lordran existed in a Time bubble where its flow had stagnated and thus caused worlds to overlap presumably as a direct result of the fading first flame being located within the vicinity it is therefore quite likely that its presence in Dr Lake along with various parts of lordran is a part of the space-time stagnation caused by Fire's imminent waning in short much as time has stagnated and overlapped Loki argues that space can overlap as well and we do see this in Dark Souls I this would account for why there are literal elements from lordran within Hyde and greater Dr L the divine blessing and the armor of the old dragon slayer these aren't just cultural ties but literal items that hearken back to Anor Londo never mind the fact that drangle is now the home of the old ones possessors of The Souls of those Gods who once lived in lordran and the reason that the first flame and elements of the old world an Orlando appearing in hide is because of spatial displacement and the parts of lordran alongside the first flame moved into this new continent and this included elements of Anor Londo the city of the Gods and hide arose from these remnants that been specially displaced thus hide both preserves an Orlando's culture but also warps it slightly a testament to the difference in space and time which is why statues of GW are now statues of this generic Sun God and why the Knights of the Dark Moon are now the blue Sentinels that really is just a summary a short version of Loki's full thesis and I highly recommend their excellent article on hide which I will link below but for the purposes of this video the idea of time Distortion is very much alive and well in Dark Souls 2 summoning and Invasion still happen we are in the land of the first flame meaning we are once again in a distorted stagnant time bubble and with that said let us move on to the final game which is the game that deals with it most strongly and most in depth Dark Souls 3 to me has always been a fascinating game in regards to the lore and again my opinion differs from many who sometimes just see Dark Souls I as cheap fan service but I've always loved the way that it wraps up the series and handles the ideas of time and how worn out this world is from being stretched far beyond its natural end and ultimately its story is the culmination of that line that solir said in Dark Souls 1 it wraps up the idea that time is convoluted Dark Souls I almost has a singular focus on history and time especially when you consider its most Central figures the Lords of Cinder each representing an age past a different linking of the fire a concept made only more Stark when you meet the final boss the soul of Cinder the literal embodiment of those who came before of those who link the fire before us even the player character is a symbol of this cumulative history an ashen one someone who failed to link the fire in the days past with such a clear focus on time in history it is perhaps no surprise that Dark Souls I has a far more refined and in-depth exploration on the effects of the fading flame and its effects on time this is at the Forefront of the lore even during the introductory cinematic it is called lothric where the transitory lenss of the Lords of Cinder converge in venturing North the pilgrims discover the truth of the old words the fire [Music] Fades and the Lords go without thron so straight up these lands of lothric have now become a Nexus for transitory lands meaning that lands from different areas are being pulled towards this Central Point this is why when we first leave the high wall of lothric and look out at the landscape there are so many different diverse lands right on its doorstep because they have been pulled towards it this is of course the effect of the first flame fading as when we enter the Kil of the first flame we can see that the world is sort of twisting around it this is clearly the Nexus of everything that is happening and so just as space is convoluting around the first flame once more so is time once again the WIP soap stone is used in Dark Souls I meaning that the lands around lothric are affected by the same stagnation of time as they were in dark Souls one and so there is a prevalence of Cooperators and Invaders the appearance of long long dead people such as Kirk who seemingly died in Dark Souls 1 upon completing his quest invading your world now in Dark Souls 3 really hammers home how convoluted time is getting these really are heroes and villains from long dead times so this is all well and good and what we'd expect from Dark Souls 1 lore but as I've said things are different here we can see the special effects of the killing of the first Flame the lands getting drawn in towards lothric this is a Nuance picked up by Loki as well who says the following unlike previous games where characters or items such as the white soapstone related about the flow of time stagnating in the given setting Dark Souls 3 asserts that lothric is where all has stagnated it is no longer just the intersection of different times at the same space but also the intersection of different spaces at the same time land from different parts of the world have suddenly appeared in this region replacing or overlapping with what existed there this becomes all the more evident in the third games DLC the ringed City when at the end of all time all land seem to have converged in a giant sinkhole known as the drag including lothric and places like Earth and Peak from Dark Souls 2 to places separated by great distances physical and temporal yet now pulled together into a single moment and single space and what Loki says in the previous quote is essentially a continuation of the ideas we explored in the hi chapter of this video that different spaces can intersect in locations that they weren't previously from and this is what Loki suggests is what happened with Hyde and its an orando foundations as well as how the first flame and other parts of lordran as well as the old souls ended up in Drang Lake but of course these ideas are far more pronounced in Dark Souls I Loki once again provides some clarity on the naming Convention of the drag Heap which he believes is more closely translated to drift fitting given all the locations in the game have drifted into this location the fact that so much time and different spaces is overlapping in this same location helps explain the untended graves a location that is an exact mirror of our starting location the cemetery of Ash except this place is Co in darkness Udi's grandier is also here as well but not afflicted by the P of man all evidence pointing to the fact that the untended graves are the same space but at a different time and again Loki has a full article discussing this point of the lore that I will link below not much else needs to be said here as we've said enough times already the flame is fading the force which governs time and space and as it fades all stagnates around it and while it's more obvious in Dark Souls I in every single Dark Souls game we are caught in this Nexus of the fading flame and that is why we can use summoning tools because time at this point is no longer linear in the eye of the storm surrounding the first flame that is what solir was trying to say when he said that time is convoluted and it's an idea that is persisted and expanded upon right until the final game while I feel I have adequately explained why the lore of dark souls's time is actually pretty solid I acknowledge that while it is not lazy It Is by no means perfect Loki was kind enough to provide a sort of common issues document for me to try and anticipate some of the common problems of this lore the first issue is regarding the summoning mechanic the example that Loki gives in this document is when we kill Aldrich if you follow andry's Quest linee you can kill Aldrich as a summon for her but then you still need to kill him in your timeline if this isn't a Multiverse how can we explain that Aldrich is killed twice in ER world and in anre this really goes for any Co-op throughout the game that if we help another player kill a boss we still eventually need to kill them in our own world the rebuttal that Loki gives to this is the most straightforward and logical one that game mechanics do sometimes have to take precedent over lore in general Dark Souls makes great efforts to bind its mechanics to the lore including death but at the end of the day it is still just a game I would argue that there is a lore reason as well however time is stagnant and so if we help anry kill Aldrich in her time it doesn't necessarily mean that Aldrich is automatically killed in hours things are not moving in a linear fashion after all in Doctor Who where there's normal time traveling where time is linear if Doctor Who went back in time and killed let's say Alexander the Great and then returned to the modern era that would have an effect on the current timeline because Alexander's history would never have happened but as we have said adium there is no linear time in these bubbles so to me at least it still makes sense that a boss can exist in multiple different time instances even if he is killed because it doesn't affect the linearity of time another point that Loki brings up is to do with Solair in that if we save Solair from the chaos bug in Dark Souls one we can summon him for gwyn's fight heavily implying that he also links the fire in his own time so how can we both link the fire well Loki again makes the solid point that nothing of the sort is necessarily cannon in the first game besides someone eventually linked the fire whether it was us or Solair or another undead I also described to the belief that Solair canonically did not survive and that the carus sandworm found in the demon ruins of Dark Souls 3 is Solair this is what he becomes after years of being taken over by this parasite and explains its relationship to lightning and why it drops lightning Stak and so canonically he doesn't actually link the fire Loki counters a few more arguments and below I will leave a link to this FAQ but in short I think that most of these inconsist instes can be explained by just game mechanics taking president certain things not been cannon from the previous games or what I suggested that because time is not linear multiple instances can happen at different times but of course any further questions you have or any issues with this please let me know in the comments below well that will do it for this video please let me know your thoughts in the comments below even if you don't agree with me I hope this video at least stirs some thought debate I would once again like to thank Loki for providing the real meat to this video and I will give all their links below including the link to their book their website and their Channel shout out to Ash and Hollow as well who graciously provided me with footage from their ringed City L videos and again I will link these original videos below but let me know your thoughts on the idea of time within Dark Souls do you still not like it and why and do you think I missed any pertinent points for or against what I was discussing but until next time guys I will see you in the Kil of the first flame but at a different time take care and have a wonderful evening or morning or both at the same time

Channel: SmoughTown

Views: 152,715

Keywords: dark souls, dark souls lore, dark souls story, dark souls explained, time is convoluted, solaire, solaire of astora, lordran, lothric, dark souls 3, kiln of the first flame, smoughtown, the first flame, gwyn, gwyndolin, dark souls trilogy, dark souls trilogy lore, ringed city, dreg heap, fires of ariandel, painted world of ariandel, lore, kaathe, frampt, gravelord nito, seathe the scaleless, drangleic

Id: KoH3d2Mku6k

Length: 43min 26sec (2606 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 08 2023