Nito The Gravelord | Dark Souls Lore

the opening cinematic to the first Dark Souls is one of the most entrancing introductions to any game giving you the foundational lore of the world yet wetting your appetite for War I remember that when I first played the game in 2011 it was the three Lords in particular that fascinated me gwy isth and of course Nito Nito in particular had a very striking design and I remember thinking to myself I really hope we get to fight this guy and we dead yet upon my first playthrough I found his story was lacking when compared to the witch of isth and Gwyn or at the very least he was given less lore and I believe this was a common sentiment at the time however that was over 10 years ago and since then we've had many years to scrutinize every word every brick of the Catacombs and of course we've had a couple of sequels one of which added some interesting lore in regards to his legacy in a game series that is ruled by the concept of death arguably there's no greater fundamental lore point to understand than the nature of real death so in this lore video we are going to do a deepest dive as possible on Nito and death throughout the Dark Souls story looking at his Origins the nature of death his relationship to the other gods and his relationship to the dark by integrating the work of Loki's Abel archive we will also look at the semantics of the Japanese script for a deeper understanding I do want to make it clear at the onset of this video that a lot of my work here draws upon and is inspired by the work of lok's book I work with Loki a lot and I have his blessings to make this video but before we go any further guys remember that if you like Souls Lore then consider liking this video and subscribing to the channel but before we dive into the Tomb of the Giants we have a word from today's sponsor rayon a match made in heaven for small toown viewers and the perfect Valentine's Day gift with Valentine's Day approaching it time to reflect on what you love and I am in love with 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sponsoring this video and now back to the lore as we often seem to do in this Dark Souls Lore series we need to go back to the beginning to understand nito's Origins back to the transition between the age of ancients and the age of fire the introduction to the game itself tells us that the fire brought with it light and dark as well as life and death prior to this neither life nor death existed as the dragons of the age of ancients were essentially Perpetual minerals things that weren't alive and didn't die they just existed there was no change there was no life there was no Evolution and of course there was no death until fire came of course we have to discuss nito's honorific title when trying to understand his position as a Lord and his relation to death Nito is the first of the dead of course bringing us the two classic interpretations of this title one that he is the first among the dead I.E the leader of the dead and two he is the first Dead being ever personally I've always thought of it as a sort of double onon that he is the first being to die and as a result he is the leader of the Dead Loki provides some clarity on this discussion by translating the original Japanese confirming that the first of the Dead in relation to Nito is in terms of sequence and I quote Loki now Nito the first of the Dead fans often debate the meaning of first but this is the wrong question to ask first quite explicitly refers to the sequence not position he is the start of the Dead in the same way that the first flame is the beginning of fire Loki instead believes the real question that we should be asking is what does death mean in the world of Dark Souls and we will return to that shortly but for now let us focus on the origins of Nito as we now can confirm that he was the first being that was dead in the world of Dark Souls of course like the other Lords as described in the opening cinematic Nito must have discovered his Lord Soul within the Flames thus taking the power of the death soul and becoming the first Dead the fact that he is the first dead in regards to sequence is also evident without the shity of translation for example if we look at the item description of the Grave Lord sword dance which reads the following Miracle known only by the Servants of the first Dead grave Lord Nito seeing Nito as the first being to ever die at the onset of the age of fire to me makes him one of the most primeval beings in existence Nito is the personification of death and disease facets and Concepts that have defined Humanity long before civilization and Order took hold in our real world where Gwen represents civilization and Order Concepts that come much later in the history of human development needle's realm is a factor that unites all forms of life no matter their level of sentience and development thus thematically for me I've always seen Neo as one of the first of the Lords now obviously I have no real reason to believe that he's the first of the Lords apart from my own speculation beyond the Thematic reasons I have just alluded to his domain May well be further evidence of nito's association with early life it is named Tomb of the Giants and indeed most of it seems to have been designed for the in tment of Giants and is of course populated almost exclusively by the animated giant skeletons in terms of architectural strateg graphy the Tomb of the Giants is one of the deepest locations in the game and given its proximity to the Ash Lake the world where life came from According to the opening cinematic the Tomb of the Giants very much could have been one of the first migration points for the life that evolved from fire moving upwards to the upper levels above the canopy of Ash Lake possibly one of the first locations that the giant race settled there is something ancient classical and primordial about the architecture in the Tomb of the Giants compared to the catacombs above and of course later and Orlando Loki suggests that the catacombs were indeed built for a separate purpose an extension that came later attached to the Tomb of the Giants it was for the purpose of in tuming the human followers of Anar and I quote Loki now he settles in the giant graveyard but the catacombs are built practically on top of it this underground graveyard is much more organized and clearly designed for human burials the only human civilizations in its immediate vicinity are the undead Berg and yolondo but both are populated by Undead and there is already a traditional graveyard behind Firelink Shrine so who was this middle layer of intermittent history for we can confirm the identity of one person in TB there there by the Dark Moon Seance ring on his person it is actually a dark moon priest ring and implies that a priest to gwendolin was laid to rest there not General adherence this ties the use of the Catacombs to the god of an Orondo I certainly agree with locate in the sense that these catacombs are clearly a later construction compared to the Tomb of the Giants the architecture is clearly more modern and as Loki says it is far more organized than the kind of burial pit that the tomb of the Giants is and thus the catacombs are a later extension that are joined on to the Tomb of the Giants as a later extension of his realm and in my personal opinion I believe Nito was a part of the giant race a race that predated humanity and even the race of gods that gwy and the witch of isth belonged to his form itself seems to align with the race of the Giants more thanks to the content creator Crest we can see what nle looks like after he has been stripped of his rags and other minor skeletons what remains underneath as the backbone of his form is the remains of a giant very similar in appearance to other skeletal Giants just as a quick aside this is my opinion I believe Loki disagrees on this point thinking that nle belongs to the race of medial that Gwyn and isth belong to and that this body is a construct of his necromantic abilities one of the other types of giant skeletons that is of great interest in the of the Giants when trying to analyze early non-dragon life is the quadruped variant that we fight as well the Beast skeletons if you will in my last Dark Souls video on the dragons which I will link below I shared a theory of lokis from his abysal archive in which we discuss the possibility that all life came from the dragons and there's certainly a good bit of logic to this as in the age of ancients there was only the Everlasting dragons with the onset of life death disparity and the flame the ancient dragons themselves became Afflicted with the curse of life and in time would evolve into their lesser Drake kin like the Dres we find in the Valley of the Drakes for example or the wyvern that we meet in Dark Souls 3 in regards to humanity and the Giants Loki's suggestion is that the Giants and later Humanity were just a derivative offshoot devolved from the dragons over Generations over Millennia to Force this idea Loki examines these skeletons that we can find in the environment of the Tomb of the Giants these skeletons are a little different from the giant skeletons that we Face they are more Serpentine in appearance and I will now quote Loki on his analysis of them littered across the tomb as a third type of skeleton unlike the other two while still retaining a humanoid element the skulls pronounced jaw has become a snout the teeth have become a set of sharp fangs and the cranial area has become slightly elongated the body has four limbs ending in claws instead of fingers and toes the Beast skeleton is the ancestral link between the modern Giants and these Serpentine humanoids which seem to have gone extinct as the giant lineage evolved into present bipedal form the Giants as we know them seem to have evolved from a serpentine ancestor likely tracing their lineage to actual serpents and thereby dragons whether or not you agree with this that humans and Giants are an offshoot of dragon kind I think the majority of people will still see some significance in the quadruped variants with their sharpened fangs and posture it is hard not to see these skeletons as that of primates again reinforcing the idea that this tomb houses the early ancestors of humanity speaking to the sheer age of nito's domain there's a common Trope in fantasy and myth that Giants are often portrayed as those who came before they are always larger and somewhat more primitive and it's easy to equate Dark Souls Giants with this idea for example in Norse mythology the Giants are the predecessors to the gods and the very first giant yamir arose from the primordial chaos of the universe likewise in Greek mythology the Giants or Titans represented barbarism and primitive culture whereas the Olympians that came after represented civilization I think it's fair to say that a lot of gwin is definitely based on Zeus and one could definitely equate high and Orlando with Olympus and therefore following this analogy down to the Giants and Dark Souls they do also seem to follow this tradition with the majority of giants now being enslaved by the gods represented as crude and simplistic with the giant blacksmith almost possessing a childlike manner of course Hawkeye gold shows us that there is a keen intelligence to some among their number yet his imprisonment is still in oblique reference their kind being excluded from Modern civilization and the new Gods taking over from the giant with all that said nito's journey to become the first of the Dead clearly started with his claiming of his Lord Soul so let's read the item description for his soul now soul of grave Lord Nito first of the Dead the lord soul was discovered at the dawn of the age of fire grave Lord Nito administers the death of all manner of beings the power of his soul is so great that it satiates the Lord vessel despite the fact that much of its energy has already been offered to death so the most interesting thing about this item description to me is where it says much of its energy has already been offered to death of course underlining the fact that Neo's power over death flows directly from his lord soul from the flame itself for now let us just accept that Neo was indeed the first to become dead dead in that specific dark Soul's way which we will address later but how was he the first Dead did he die before any other being and thus claimed the Lord's soul in death or did he claim the Lord's soul and therefore become dead after the power of death was imbued within him my assumption has always been that nle claimed the soul and then became dead he claimed the Lord's Soul at the dawn of the age of fire death and Nito are one and the same as long as there has been death there has been Nito upon claiming this Soul he became nle that we know now a lord of death and it was him who would start to administer death in this world that is just my assumption and I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below of course now there's the inherent difficulty of understanding the differences between death and the curse of the undead given the necromantic nature of n's realm and servants because to the uninitiated it may well seem like there's little difference between the curse of the undead brought on by the dark sign and the skeletons and spirits of needle's Realm again this is an aspect that Loki is great at dissecting due to his keen understanding of the Soul life and death within Dark Souls throughout his book Loki reminds the reader of the fact that Souls were found within the flame and they are the key element that is the source of life in this new age of fire in the ancient Dragons video which again I'd recommend you watch we discuss how it was the Advent of souls that corrupted the ancient dragons transforming them from a mineral non-living being into a living race that would eventually devolve and become the DRS that we know now once again I quote Loki from abysal archive as I find this to be a rather important passage in understanding the nature of death and the Soul he writes the following all living things age until death finally claims them at which point their living bodies disconnected from even their souls further atrophy even Immortal dragons aren't immune to this phenomena the power of rock simply prevents it from from occurring naturally while the base souls are still tied to the non-living bodies ultimately death affects everything touched by the soul death can be best described as decay the inevitable entropy of the universe when the power of fire runs its course to its natural conclusion and yet the reanimated dead are in a sense alive nito's my Asma of death still affects the skeletons fighting alongside him and slaying them provides Souls just like living beings Miyazaki distinguished the arch dragons from Life due to their being half living and half element we can apply this same framing to the Dead who possess living Souls but expired bodies for me the key takeaway from this passage and Loki's analysis is that the soul and the body are two separate things that while the soul is the source of all life and disparity it can persist when its original frame has expired and this is why the reanimated skeletons are essentially expired bodies that have had a soul transplanted into them by nito's necromantic Arts he is able to use his necromancy to use souls to animate dead bodies in a manner that doesn't feel too different from the Golems of Drang l so these beings are dead in the sense that their living tissue has long since atrophied but they are still powered by souls and this is the core aspect of nito's necromantic Miracles it's important to understand this definition of death and Souls of living matter and dead as I believe it very much comes into play when we try to examine the undead crypt of Dark Souls 2 and its purpose in the latter part of this video with that said we now turn to the powers of Nito his followers and his relationship with the other gods it is probably important that we discuss the way in which nle administers this death we of course get a taste of it in the opening cin atic of the game where Nito unleashes his miasma of death and disease to waste away the bodies of the Dragons just as an aside this of course has interesting implications for the nature of the dragons at this point in history for surely if they were still completely mineral like the ancient dragons of the age of ancients NATO's Powers would simply have no effect on them this reinforces Loki's theory that we discussed in my Dragons video that the ancient Dragons Were transformed by the of the fire as much as every other type of life that they became sort of half living and eventually over time would devolve into other species Loki touched on it earlier but I agree that the power of death within the world of Dark Souls is essentially the power of atrophy anything that wastes away the living the four main powers that come into existence in the age of fire with the flame are light and dark life and death and so it makes sense that in a world that is now full of living beings there would need to be some death so it makes sense that Nito would need to spread his power of death throughout the world administering it so that natural death May counteract and balance out life one way in which he does this is via his grave Lord servant Covenant a group of followers bound to Nito by contract who spread death on behalf of their lord we know from the grave Lord sword dance that Nito expects his great Lord's servants to spread Death In His Name using the eyes of death we learn a little of the process via the item descriptions of the eyes themselves which read the following the Dreadful eyes of death spread disaster across neighboring worlds Phantoms lured to the host world may end up as victims allowing the eyes of death to multiply and leading to further proliferation of ban so these eyes of death are artifacts that are able to spread death across neighboring worlds now the concept of multiple worlds is a subject we discussed in detail in my Dark Souls time video video and I would highly recommend that you check that out however in short the idea of multiple worlds in Dark Souls is less like parallel worlds or a Multiverse and more a result of stagnating time in Lord ran specifically or more specifically in the region where the first flame is located dry lake in Dark Souls 2 and lothric in Dark Souls 3 the description of the white soap stone from Dark Souls 1 the item through which you can engage in Jolly cooperation tells us that in lordran the flow of time is distorted meaning it is localized to this specific region indeed the dialogue from Solair himself reinforces the idea that this is a localized phenomena to lordran as he says 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 so it's a fair assumption like everything else in Dark Souls that this phenomena is caused by the fading flame we are in its localized eye of the storm a bubble in which things aren't working properly so L's dialogue where he says that time is convoluted is more correctly translated to stagnant the age of ancients before disparity came was a time of everlasting dragons it was a state of Perpetual non-life there is no change no Evolution and no sequence Loki describes the age of fire as a time when there was sequence and consequence and to me that makes perfect sense when there is such a phenomena as life things change there is a sequence of events the age of fire happens and then it begins to fade this means means there is time it's not Perpetual like the age of ancient thus if fire brought time it makes sense that when the fire Fades time too begins to break down and that's what's happening in lordran time isn't convoluted more like it's stagnating in a pool of water there's no longer a linearity to it and so Undead who are traveling through lordran all of a sudden gets separated into different time streams resulting in bizarre events where we can summon black Iron tarus to our world and yet 2 minutes later we find his body in an Orlando he's clearly been dead for a long time and yet because of the state of time within lordran we are still able to summon him into our time stream again credit to Loki for this Theory and again I would highly recommend you watch my time video if you want more of an explanation so with the understanding that there are multiple times coexisting in lordran at this time we can return to the eyes of death death and so if we follow the logic regarding neighboring worlds These Eyes seem to take advantage of the fading flame State their effects Crossing across the multiple stagnant timelines present within lordran an extremely efficient way to spread death in Bane this also means to me that this has only really been a practice of the Grave Lord Covenant since the fading of the flame this all seems to make sense given nito's current position he is a God who has suffered numerous ous setbacks the weakening of his power over time as described by his own soul as he's offered a lot of it to death The Fading of the flame which his power is also tied to and then there are the two attempts on stealing his power the cultist described in the Effigy Shield which was likely not successful but then there is the Betrayal by the pin wheel who stole a portion of nito's power never mind the fact that a god of death is likely to see his influence way in an era that is plagued by the curse of the undead so it makes perfect sense that Neo would look to take advantage of the strengths of the undead by using them and turning him to his advantage to spread death on his behalf it's almost certain that the nle we face in battle in the Tomb of the Giants in our time is a pale imitation of the power he held at his Peak no doubt he would have had the ability to reduce our physical form in seconds with a wave of death at the peak of his powers as we see him in the opening cinematic I do really like these Lord details in regards to Nito as surely the Lord of death at his Peak would have been unbeatable and it makes sense that the L goes out its way to explain why NATO is far weakened by the time that we are able to finish him off the same kind of case with gwy after all however in the early age of fire we can imagine that Nito was an immensely powerful being who would have carved out his domain in the Tomb of the Giants in due time the other Lords would also claim their lands the w wi of isth and gwy of anondo both developing their civilizations over a large period of time presumably at some stage Gwen would have approached nato in order to seal a pact a pack to eradicate the dragons and rule the world as a trium it Nito clearly agreed using his immense power over death to waste away the now semi- living bodies of the ancient dragons whilst gwinn's Army of silver Knights and human ringed Knights likely did the heavy lifting with the dragons eliminated Nito was free to rule over his domain of the Dead while gwy ruled from the heights of Anar Londo much like Hades and Zeus of the old Greek pantheon Loki has some interesting ideas regarding gwy and nito's Arrangement trying to dissect the terms of this pact by examining the type of dead that Nito watched over Loki notes that in both the Tomb of the Giants and the catacombs there are only human burials or giant burials there are no two tombs that seem to fit the size of the medials the name that Loki gives to the race that the gods belong to Beyond two sarcophagus found in NATO's Arena aside from that they're all giant or all human I quote Loki now Gwen most likely struck a deal with Nito granting the grave Lord absolute authority over the dead and permission to spread death to any of the living he chose except for medials living is a weakness even for the gods by striking this the gods of an Orondo and witches of isth could coexist with the grave Lord without fear of him bringing them under his purview there is definitely weight to the idea that Gwen may have feared the power of Nito when we look at the Effigy Shield later you will see its item description describes an event where cultists went into nito's domain hoping to steal his power so they could use it against the gods specifically suggesting that the gods could indeed be affected by NATO's death Powers we've we' also discussed Loki's belief that the catacombs were a later extension of the Tomb of the giants made to house the human followers of the Gods of anondo and it would make sense that this construction would take place during the formalization of this deal and like the gods he was now in cahoots with grave Lord Nito would cultivate his followers in the last chapter of this video we will discuss the legacy of Nito in Dark Souls 2 and this includes two groups of followers of Nito the malito and the fenito clearly developed by Nito during his reign as the grave Lord just unseen in the events of Dark Souls 1 more pertinent for the first game story is the group of priests known as the pin Wheels when discussing the nature of these pin wheel necromancers Loki makes an analogous comparison between Nito and Gwyn between necromancy and the Miracles of Gwyn he begins this discussion by talking about the pin Wheels plural the one we fight most prominently in the catacombs is merely a traitor one of a greater order we find a far larger contingent of them outside nito's boss room again reinforcing the fact this is an order not one individual unlike the selfish pin wheel of the Catacombs these pin Wheels clearly are defending the Lord of death right outside his boss room Loki believes these are essentially nito's Priests of his order and I quote Loki now the gods commonly have priests learning their magic and serving their wealth if these pin wheels are nito's priests then necromancy is just the art passed on by the grave Lord himself Nito dedicates his Lord Soul's power to spreading death to the living thus he found the death soul and so just like how the discovery and development of holy magic stem from the study of Gwen's light Soul necromancy must be an art stemming from Nito studying the power of his death Soul nle thus found the death soul and began to use its power not only not only to spread death but to control it manipulating The Souls of the Dead to create his Undead servants as well as his own construct body the pin Wheels themselves are of course well known to be constructs themselves as Loki reminds us the Japanese name for this character is three quot man a reference to the Twan quote comedy act highly suggesting that this character is three people combined together meaning it is likely an undead construct as well three bodies f together via necromancy and so with the dragons defeated his pack secured with the other gods nle would Reign Over his demain of death only to be interrupted by other events The cultist Heist pen wheel's betrayal and the rise of the undead let us start with the attack on nito's domain as described by the Effigy Shield which reads the following in an elated plot to destroy the gods the followers of the occult once attempted to steal the power of grave Lord Nito the first of the Dead this is of course interesting because we get further hints of discontent are the rule of the Gods in a hidden room of Anor Londo itself there is an occult Club alongside H's armor suggesting that either hav himself or one of his followers was involved in a conspiracy against the gods whether these two groups are linked is unknown but what is clear is that those who entered the Tomb of the Giants believed that the grave Lord's power over death could be turned against the gods themselves this is extremely interesting suggesting that even the gods could have been Afflicted with the power of death as we mentioned earlier and while the followers of the occult are clearly more aligned with the dark it seems as though they were trying to use any tool they could Against The Gods whatever the reasoning behind it the term ill fated tells us all we need to know about the outcome of this plot the Effigy Shield itself is found on a corpse and it is likely that all members of this Expedition befell a similar fate killed by the grave Lord or his servants in the dark of the Tomb of the Giants we learned so little about this event only one line essentially from one item but it really gets the imagination going these occultists breaking in to the Tomb of the Giants trying to steal the power of the Grave Lord itself however while the grave Lord defended his power in this instance pin wheel the traitor later succeeds as we learn of via any of the dropped pin wheel masks for example the mask of the father reads the following one of the three masks of the pin wheel The Necromancer who stole the power of the Grave Lord and Reigns over the catacombs this mask belonged to the Valiant father the power that this pin wheel stole well it has to be the key item that he drops the right of kindling an artifact that is of great interest to the way of white also this is fascinating for if we are correct in assuming that the right of kindling is indeed the power of the Grave Lord that was stolen by pin wheel then this means that Nito developed the right of kindling a tool meant to hamper the progress of the dark it's an interesting idea to ponder as one may initially Associated it closer with the way of white and their objectives which it is given their focus on claiming it via Expeditions and how it lines up with the God's objectives of manipulating and sacrificing the undead yet as we have already discussed Nito had a somewhat of an alliance with gwy and not only that but the fading of the fire and the rise of the undead is as just as much of threat to Neo as it is to Gwyn Loki offers an interesting interpretation as to how Neo might have developed such a tool and I quote Loki now the items menu graphic portrays a single Humanity curled over in apparent pain as it is burned by a bonfire Flame by offering up Humanity in this way the flame grows along with its healing properties when its heat is extracted to Estus basically this ceremony sacrifices a fragment of the Dark Soul to further fuel bonfires if the soul is the origin of life then its destruction would fall under the grave Lord's domain n created a means to destroy the dark within Man by Drowning it in flame having experience with creating and negating darkness with light again I find this very compelling that the Lord of death is the one that created a way in which you could destroy a fragment of the Dark Soul to empower the fire yet the way of whites are clearly also aware of this right meaning that Nito must have shared it with them at one point a point that Loki makes yet now the way of white are sending Expeditions into n's domain to recover it perhaps it is because pin wheel has taken possession of it for his own means a rogue element unlikely to work with the way of white over his own selfish desires the catac at this stage are no longer nitos it is now pin wheel's domain hostile territory and with NATO essentially aose these Expeditions have become a dangerous necessity for the way of white with all these events and elements working against NATO his power has very much faded and when we face him in his tomb we are able to strike down the shambling god of death claiming his lord soul and ending his dominion over the dead at least in the immediate sense as nito's Legacy does seem to carry on Beyond his physical Demise by the time of Dark Souls 2 countless Millennia have already passed and the four Lords are remembered in passing but the world is no longer dominated by these gods that being said it's a sheer Testament to the power of the Lord Souls that their legacy has shaped the institutions and civilizations of this later era we see this in Hy's Tower of flame clearly an offshoot from an Orondo itself that still emulates the beliefs and foundations of that Society but time and distance have changed it somewhat instead of the blades of the Dark Moon we now have the more simplified blue Sentinels clearly descended from the former carrying out its Mission but forgetting its original master and reasons for it one of my favorite details about the ter of Hyde is an observation made by Loki regarding the Falcon headed statues in this area in his article on hide which I will link below Loki points out that these statues are essentially Gwynn it has just changed in presentation over time and lack of proximity the statue strikes the same pose as the old statue of Gwen found in an Orlando with his head being replaced by the head of a falcon likely a reference to the sun god Rah in Loki's opinion thus the statue has become a generalized Sun God over time rather than Gwen specifically likewise nito's Legacy seems not to have died with him as he had acolytes beyond the pin Wheels who he appears to have taught his ways to firstly we come to the shrine of am Mana A peculiar location that lies in the depths below drangle Castle the purpose of the shrine may not be immediately clear but my speculation is that it's another attempt at confining the undead for in this location we find the fascinating beings called the melanito and as one can guess from their name they are associated with the original Lord of death Nito the melanito we speak to give us some insight into their origin and the role as they say the following melito that is what we are called my name do you mean our name we know nothing of the outside world we sing eternally for those who Bear death and dark within themselves we have been here forever we know nothing of the outside world and we do not need to little ones were born from the great Dead one and the great Dead one taught a song we have sung Ever since to comfort those Bound by death and dark this is what we were taught so we are straight up told that they were given this role by the great Dead one the term by which Nito is referred to in Dark Souls I again showing the generalization of this deity much like Gwen became the sun god the melanito also talk about the little ones who were born from the great Dead one meaning these creatures or whatever they are are creations of Nito himself the melanito tell us that these little ones dance when the melanito sing now it has long been my interpretation and of course many others that the little ones are the golden sparkles that float above the head of the crawling Undead found within the area the reason I think so is because while these Sparkles are present the crawlers are passive and the mopal told us that when the little ones dance it gives Comfort to those who have death and darkness within them and so I think this is the pacifying effect of the little ones they are dancing and providing Comfort to these creatures the reason I refer to these crawling creatures as Undead is because of the way the melanito described them beings who carry death and darkness inside of them clearly the undead or the hollows indeed the entire Shrine seems to be a place dedicated to nullifying hollowing as further in there is another Shrine one with fire in the middle seemingly dedicated to the Lord of death given its skeletal affectations and melanito attendant the bonfire near this Shrine is also called the rise of of the Dead hammering home that this Shrine is likely associated with Nito the purpose of said altar is to reverse one's hollowing perhaps channeling the power of death and the flame to do so as we saw when we discussed the r of kindling it appears that Neo was able to use the fire to counteract the Dark Soul burning it in the flame what else is interesting is that in this area there are pyromancers dressed in the Garb of the Great Swamp present around this Burning Shrine but why are these pyromancers here are they defending it or are they merely Hollows who sought to utilize its power to reverse the undead curse both are real possibilities though I do think it's more likely they are simply Hollows who are drawn to its power and entranced by the song of the melanito but let's consider the alternate possibility that they have made a PCT with the melanito to defend this area Perhaps it is because they too worship the old Pantheon via the mother of chaos the Witch of isth as such they too may wish to defend their Shrine to the old Pantheon a pretty out there Theory but a valid one to consider regardless the shrine of am Mana as a whole seems to fit in with what we know about Drang Le and its attempts to subvert the rise of the undead curse by Vendrick and Alia the melanito say they have been here forever but whether this means literally in this spot forever or in the world seems moot given it is in the land surrounding drangle Castle it is more or less a certainty that the shrine's current infrastructure was created by Vendrick no doubt Vendrick hoped to harness their dark caming Powers against the rising dark and this would explain why we find an imprisoned melanito in the tower of dry lake Castle perhaps she was being interrogated experimented upon whatever the purpose behind her imprisonment I have no doubt it had something to do with their ability over the dark secondly the shrine of am Mana actually acts as an excellent buffer or defense against the dark and Undead and this was a point made in a Reddit post by commenter better Korea who suggested that perhaps Vendrick saw the melanito as a way of keeping any creatures of dark out of the undead crypt Nashandra included and this is why he flees there because he knows he has the shrine of a Mana as a buffer to escape from nandra and as we'll discuss in a moment the undead crypt also seems to be a place where the undead are lulled to Slumber and contained and again perhaps the shrine of a Mana is another buffer to make sure no one did leave the Crypt either way it is fascinating that these beings creatures taught by Nito himself seem to be concerned with dealing with the dark of course nito's Legacy continues right into the undead crypt a further location that's purpose seems to be allowing the dead to rest and as the name would suggest containing the undead we learned this from the overseer of the crypt himself grave Warden agdan who says the following to us as we enter the Crypt I am agdan guardian of the crypt countless dead rest here in peace cradled by the comfort of dark light only agitates we have no need for it here I am a phito we weave death and War watch over the dead this task was granted to me by the one who gave us the first death countless Souls rest here some of them from ages long ago some were Rich others poor some wise some dull but now they're all just dead so once again the name of this particular race and yes it is a race because he refers to us as humans tells us that these are a creation of Nito Again part of his legacy for reference the phito are the blue skinned beings that include agdan and the other female priests who could be found near the entrance to the undead crypt casting dark magics he tells us how the dead can be potentially disturbed by light and that the dark seems to comfort them earlier we discussed the fact that Loki tells us that death is really the death of the physical form and that the spirit can exist and persist Beyond this death and while necromancy is a direct intervention to resurrect these Spirits in other forms even in dead bodies as Nito and his followers do it seems that Spirits can persist after their bodies have died and Loki comments on this phenomena by talking about the enemies in New Londo known as the mass of Souls and I quote Loki now Neo's mass of souls enemy more accurately a mountain of corpses is an amalgamation of human bodies which it twists into Spears or releases as the same wisps found in the catacombs these wisps internal name of Grudge implies that they persist due to resentment hence their willingness to self-destruct to are detriment they are found alongside the cursed ghost whose designs evoke URI Japanese spirits that remain bound to the Earth due to grudges of their own and so going back to the undead crypt this is also most likely the case of ghosts that we can find throughout the Crypt these are spirits whose bodies have died but they persist for some reason for some Grudge and perhaps in part these are the dead that grave Warden agdan hopes to give Comfort to and rest to however the place is ultimately called the undead crypt and as we venture further into the Crypt we do find Undead enemies bursting out of the ground agan mentions how the dead that are resting in the undead crypt are cradled by the comfort of the dark this once again makes me think of what we saw in the shrine of a Mana where these Undead were comforted and pacified by the song of the melanito is it perhaps the same case in the undead crypt that the power of the dark overseen by the phito are somehow pacifying the undead found here and this is essentially a containment center for the undead this is definitely my interpretation of the undead crypt and it's a fascinating reflection on how intelligently Neo plan for the future when you think about it and certainly lends greater perspective on his plans in his later years before he was slain by The Chosen Undead before we wrap up the video we can't mention the fact that Neo taught his followers to use the dark or challenge it and not question it how does Nito have such an understanding of the dark for evidence of these followers of Nito using dark magic look no further than the phito priestesses that welcome you into the Crypt with a volley of pursuer hexes followers of Neo literally wielding power derived from the Dark Soul I'm sure many will look at nito's domain over death and see how closely it Cleaves to the dark this is an unusual position for a God that aligned himself with Gwyn and the witch and Loki does a great dissection of this unusual relationship and I quote Loki now nle holds a strange position in the pantheon the grave Lord servants interference with and kill of others for prizes is reminiscent of the dark wths invasions of other worlds to Rob men of their Humanity nle shrouds his domain in darkness and his Aura of death has a black core and white outline in game similar to humanity and Orlando's holy magic counters both agents of dark and the dead negating necromancy this is true even for Lloyd's Talisman nito's power and the dark have a similar perhaps complimentary nature as powers of consequence if disparity is mapped out on a spectrum then light and life are closer to a state where fire is present whereas dark and death are closer to the state where fire is absent I think Loki as usual Cleaves right to the heart of the matter here in a system of disparity and opposites the Life Soul of isth and the light soul of gwy likely sit opposite the death soul of Nito and the Dark Soul of the pigmy death and dark are two sides of the same coin quiet absent passive very much of the yin side alongside dark in a yin and yang concept of universe imbalance yet unlike the dark Death cannot exist without its counterbalance the dark can consume all and be left as the only thing standing but if the dark brings Oblivion then Nito will have no life it can bring death to this explains Neo's close relationship to the dark but also explains his resistance to it it is an interesting relationship and it likely explains why NATO is more apt in using the dark for his own aims he understands it better and is ultimately closer to it in nature this closeness could be further signified by the fact that two dark related items can be made from the old dead one soul in Dark Souls 2 a hex called numbness and the Crypt blacksword the numbness hex in particular is interesting as its description seems to suggest that it uses the power of the dark to numb one's existence perhaps in the same manner that the dark is used in the undead crypt to lull the undead to Slumber a fascinating indicator of how close needle really was to the dark and how his soul is closer than any to the Dark Soul this is ultimately the same God who ruled over a light devouring domain of death the Tomb of the Giants which has an unnatural Darkness to it indeed Loki also highlights the fact that the darkness within the Tomb of the Giants is not natural and is clearly the work of the Grave Lord's power Loki's translation of of the skull Lantern lanterns used by the necromancers in the catacombs indicates that nito's domain deives ordinary light which is why these magical lanterns are needed by his servants to navigate this dark domain with agd's comments about the dead resting in the dark in mind it's hard not to look back at the TB of the Giants retrospectively from Dark Souls I and think that nle made this to meain dark not only to make it a more dangerous place for his enemies but to help the dead rest again I do think Dark Souls 2 does add some interesting retrospective elements to nito's story it makes us realize how powerful Nito Soul truly was of course nito's Legacy persists in a more direct way than the phito or melanito in the form of the rotten the rotten is the newest inheritor of the Lord of death Soul given it drops the old dead one soul in New Game Plus it becomes apparent that while the rotten is not the Lord of death reborn some habits and elements of nito's Personality clearly comes through with certain behaviors firstly the rotten finds himself in the bowels of the earth as if it is instinctive for this particular soul to seek out a domain that is similar to its original one of course the rotten also wields a singular large blade in its right hand just like Nito did again perhaps a force of habit from this soul and the form of the rotten itself is also very similar to grave Lord Nito however instead of being a construct of skeletons this is a construct of Flesh perhaps using a remnant of nito's necromantic powers to create this body and finally the rotten seems to be the guardian for lost things as its Soul reads the following soul of the rotten who rides deep within the gutter the rotten Embraces all in his Sanctuary for All Things Rotten or tossed away much as Nito was once the guardian for the dead watching over them the rotten is now the guardian of all things forgotten or rotten one of my favorite passages from Loki's chapter on Nito is the following where he comments on nito's pension for necromancy and creating his skeletal and necromantic servants we skipped over the design of the pin wheel as I wanted to discuss it here at the close of the video it of course takes the form of a family child mother and father all combined but why I remember in the early days of dark Soul's lore right at the beginning there were some that theorized that this was a personal story that the pin wheel boss was trying to use n's power to undo this and bring back his family however this of course makes no sense given there are numerous pin wheels so there must be some logic or reason behind making the servants this way Loki's interpretation of their makeup is as follows this may reflect on their Master as Nito is the only medial Lord with no intimate partner or surviving relatives if the God was celibate in life then his Embrace of death and focus on spreading it to others May double as a means for him to cope with the Solitude he was alone in the unfair chaos of life but now they are all part of the equalizing harmonious family of death the grave Lord's servants are kenzoku which also refers to one's kin or household and is commonly employed for the familiars and turned Servants of vampires among others I find this really compelling especially when you consider the Ki used for the grave Lord's servants denoting them as part of his household rather than his slaves or priests perhaps this desire for family is what is coming through with the rotten as well we can see he welcomes all the undesired of the above world including these unusual statues that inhabit The Gulch this is something so meaningful to him that it causes him to go into an unfettered rage when one of these statues breaks hi I think this definitely thematically fits with what we know about Nito he is ultimately a guardian watching over his flock and I think this is personally one of the most warming aspects of the Grave Lord it was his need for family or belonging that persisted into his new form beyond anything else while he's not the Lord of death he is still a being that watches over a new flock that would be largely vilified on the surface world so thanks guys that is my take on the cve Lord Death and his legacy once again a massive shout out to Loki and his abysal archive if you do want to grab the archive for yourself either digital or hard copy feel free to follow my affiliate Link in the description below this is certainly a subject that requires a lot of speculation and interpretation as there's a lot of gaps to fill in and so now it's your turn to take to the comments and give me your thoughts on Neo and his followers where you disagree or where you agree with me but until next time guys I will see you in the Tomb of the Giant take care watch your step and have a wonderful evening

Channel: SmoughTown

Views: 104,719

Keywords: Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 3, Scholar of the First Sin, Nito, Gravelord Nito, The Dark Soul, Gwyn, The Witch of Izalith, Age of Fire, Dark souls story explained, Dark souls lore, dark souls lore explained, Tomb of the Giants, Firelink Shrine

Id: 8AQV80cbuT4

Length: 54min 18sec (3258 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 15 2024