All three Dark Souls games suggest that it is impossible to escape the cycle of ages of Fire and Dark

The fire fades, and the lords go without thrones

>All three Dark Souls games suggest that it is impossible to escape the cycle of ages of Fire and Dark

Completely untrue, Dark Souls 3 has a different ending and the Convergence is a return to the Age of Ancient Dragons with anything but the two Klin remaining nothing but an Ash Lake

Cycle

There's no cycle
Dark Souls 2 isn't canon

Notice how ds2s lore is completely at odds with 1s and 3s. It's almost like it was made by an inferior team who didn't even understand the game world.

ds3s lore is also at odds with 1 and 2

Ds3 lore is exactly the same as 1. 2 is the only outlier with le epic unstoppable cycles. 1 and 3 both have endings that create a new world.

They couldn't even get basic geography of their levels right. Of course they didn't understand what was going on in 1 and that it wasn't a game about infinite cycles.

DS1

you are the chosen one... but one of many, who will carry on a futile task to rekindle the fire and begin a new age, just to continue the cycle of suffering...

DS3

THE EPIC LAST AND UNIQUE CHOSEN ONE FIGHTS AGAINST THE PERSONIFICATION OF ALL CHOSEN ONES FOR A POGGERS FIGHT AT THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!!

Ds2 freaks on absolute blast rn

ds2 is the best in the trilogy, keep coping. ds1 is barely even a game

Painting

OK

Paintings are the equivalent of pic related

O forgot to mention that there are no painted worlds in Dark Souls 2

ds3 completely retcons gwyn's motivations and actions, confuses a ton of the metaphysics and the nature of dark, introduces stuff that never gets explained like the deep, makes prophecies real instead of just tricks, copies the four souls idea for no real reason, removes the serpents who are some of the most important characters in the lore, makes pygmies into a new species instead of just the first humans, and so on
it's understandable because ds3 was rushed and everything was moved around last minute, but that doesn't mean it doesn't suck

No, it's not
It's literally a direct sequel to 1
There's no cycle. There's no Dark Age or Fire Age.
Kaathe has unsuccessfully tried to create a Dark Lord able to tame the Fire
The Painting remained for ages a colony of anti-God rebel fiends worshipping Velka and the tale of the Prophet of an Age of Dark
New Londo became a society of Darkwraiths spreading the word of the coming of the Age of Hollows through suicidal pilgrimations meant to covet Dark Sigils for their Lord.

Dark Souls 3 closes perfectly a duology

Dark Souls 2 stands out like a sore thumb, with the mundanity and simplicity of its plot and laughable attempt at character drama, it misses the soul of Souls worldbuilding and settings and goes for a westernized storytelling centered around metaphorical representation of themes. It completely distorts the lore of Souls games with gay shit like reincarnation.

Play DS2

All wrong, every single thing

I like the idea the DLC put forward that the fire linking cycles were just taking place in a larger natural cycle of parity and disparity since everything turned ashen, grey and empty in the end.

The Painting remained for ages a colony of anti-God rebel fiends worshipping Velka and the tale of the Prophet of an Age of Dark

does ds3 even reference velka outside of the statue?
they're very obviously just taking characters from ds1 and making surface level references that don't make any sense for the "member siegmeyer?" moments

Wow you didn't even get a single thing right, retard
Imagine being so legitimately stupid and low IQ you believe Gwyn linking humans to the Fire is a retcon

does ds3 even reference velka

You are asking me if the game full choke of Corvians literally worshipping the future Dark Lord tombstones references Velka?
Yes, i would say it does play the game. Retard

Imagine being so legitimately stupid and low IQ you believe Gwyn linking humans to the Fire is a retcon

lol I bet you actually believe that gwyn linked the darksign to humanity just because vaati or someone said so, despite the fact that there's literally zero evidence for it in the game
hollowing is caused by the fire fading, humanity is simply regressing to its natural state before the first flame. Hollows are the natural state of humanity, gywn has nothing to do with it.
Making it all into a big conspiracy from gwyn like we see in the ringed city makes his character and sacrifice much less interesting.

Retards. Both DS2 and 3 state there have been a inumberable number of cycles, ie kingdoms that have fallen, due to repeating the same mistakes as Lordran and Gwyn. You literally see the remains of old kingdoms in DS3's dlc.

What’s a more contentious game from a renowned series that is objectively good but nerds say it’s bad:
Fallout 3 or Dark Souls 2?
Both are pretty bad in the story department but Fallout 3 has peak level design while DS2 is either great or bad

Shut up nigger, try and understand what Dark Souls 1 story is before trying to speak to the adults

Both DS2 and 3 state there have been a inumberable number of cycles

There's no cycles. Dark Souls 3 never mentioned cycles. It's a complete fabrication of Shart Souls 2 to milk the IP. Dark Souls 3 simply states that no Dark Lord has ever come and the world is reversing to a state pre-Fire as the Fire fades with the Convergence

All you said is wrong, and is exactly wrong because you say it to validate Shart Souls 2, which didn't understand the original game, especiaoly shit like

hollowing is caused by the fire fading

Is just wrong and retarded

hollowing is very obviously caused by the fire fading
ds2 also sucks, but everyone already knows that

True. 3 gets a pass for memberberrying the concepts from 1 but recontextualizes or outright retcons almost all of it.

Dark Souls 3 never mentioned cycles

What do you think the Soul of Cinder is supposed to be?

hollowing is caused by the fire fading

Is that why the Curse of the Undead didn't exist after Gwyn first linked the Fire? Is that why the Darksign teleports players to bonfires?
Dark Souls 2 fanboys trying desperately to fit their game headcanon in lore will always be hilarious.
DS2 didn't understand the story of Dark Souls at all

That was the indisputable canon until ringed city. The conspiracy was that the gods told everyone that hollowing was a perversion of the natural order, but the truth was the opposite. Hollows are the natural state of the pygmies without a fraction of a lord soul within them.

No, hollowing is caused by the Darksign, retard
There's no such thing as cycles
Samefag

Is that why the Curse of the Undead didn't exist after Gwyn first linked the Fire?

Yes? It went away once he temporarily strengthened the first flame and by association all the souls that have spawned from it. The stronger the flame, the stronger the fractions of the light soul within humans which keep them from their natural state.

Samefag

Fraid not

lol you can't argue my points without slandering me
using the darksign teleports you to a bonfire because it makes you die, and you teleport to a bonfire when you die. We don't know if there weren't hollows before gwyn linked the flame. Perhaps it simply hadn't weakened enough the first time.
then why are there no humans and only hollows in the time before the first flame?

That was the indisputable canon

Nope, it was always clear Gwyn linked humanity to the Fire and though their boundary they would be used to fuel it.
It was clear from the intro, where the Curse of the Undead appears only after the first time the Fire is linked
It was clear when the Way of the White used humanity as kindling fuel and created the Fire Keepers
It was also clear from Gwyn and his knights becoming hollow just like all those that consumed their souls through the Darksign.

We didn't need Dark Souls 3 to say the obvious but it did, Dark Souls 2 was just very bad and incompetent about... Well anything, it's utter shit. But especiaoly lore and story

Isn't this game 10 years old just move on to Elden Sharts faggots

Wasn’t the cycle broken at the end of 3 and a new age will finally begin?

rekindling doesn't start a new cycle it just keeps the fire buring a little longer.

Yes?

No, the curse of the undead appears after Gwyn links the Fire because Gwyn causes it, that's exactly the point

then why are there no humans and only hollows

Headcanon

using the darksign teleports you to a bonfire because

Because it's the link that Gwyn imposed to humans
It's through that link that the Dark Lord can usurp the Flame for humanity and create the age of Hollows, that embraces the Darksign, further proving hollowing is an unnatural state caused by Gwyn

It was clear from the intro, where the Curse of the Undead appears only after the first time the Fire is linked

we don't know this as a fact, the state of the world at the second fading is likely much worse than it was the first time

It was clear when the Way of the White used humanity as kindling fuel and created the Fire Keepers

this doesn't prove anything about the darksign or undeath

It was also clear from Gwyn and his knights becoming hollow just like all those that consumed their souls through the Darksign.

the knights become hollow because they were originally hollows themselves, uplifted by fragments of gwyn's souls
in fact, if the darksign is specifically placed on the soul of dark then gwyn's knights should not become hollow, because they don't have humanity

There's no cycles in the first place, it's a shitty headcanon by the mediocre writers of Dark Souls 2Miyazaki never mentioned cycle in Dark Souls 1 or 3

Dark Souls 3 features the first age of dark, retard

Not I nor seemingly the other guy give a shit about ds2 for the purposes of this discussion and short of a poor attempt at character evidence I don’t know why you keep bringing it up.

“Hollows” are visible in the first 2 seconds of the flame bursting forth. Pygmies were just hollows by another name, before the age of fire spread the misinformation that they were missing a fundamental part of themselves. It’s only contextualized as the undead curse once the age of fire creates civilization and a return to the status quo is seen as an unthinkable backstep.

ignores the painted world that's rotting and literally turning to shit

Dark Souls 2's "cycles" are an age of abundance, the fire begins to fade, humans suffer curses and are compelled to come sacrifice themselves to it, eventually one links the flame. The alternate ending of DS2 is not an age of dark, it is saying, "not my problem", abandoning your "destiny", and letting some other retard take the throne.

the dark lord doesn't need to usurp the flame, he simply lets it go out
and it isn't an age of hollows, hollows are a transitory state while the world is dim, between light and dark, like the time before fire.
When the world is completely dark you get the abyss, humans mutate into monsters and dark souls become engorged. It's a mirror to souls of light in the age of fire.

You directly contradicted yourself. First you said it went away after he linked the fire, then you said it returned once he liked the fire. It goes away, temporarily, because feeding the fire is a stopgap solution to hold off an unstoppable cosmic inevitability.

DS2 and DS3 fit together perfectly actually. Except for 3 having Gwyndolin still alive and thus implying he was just doing nothing for the whole of DS2.

rekindling doesn't start a new cycle

It does. DS2's "cycles" are just the flame going dim, bad shit happening, it gets relinked, there is paradise for a while, repeat.

2 and 3 only fit together because 2 doesn’t do anything so brazenly antithetical to the lore that 3 has to bring it up. Basically they can coexist because 3 doesn’t have to think about 2 until a half hearted reference in the dreg heap.

What the fuck is the Souls universe even about?
It HAS to be some dream-like universe, because nothing about the setting makes sense for anyone to live in. No society? Where do people sleep? Where do they get food? Are monsters just literally every 5 steps everywhere?

we don't know this as a fact

Yes we do, carries of the Darksign only appear after Gwyn links the Fire. Because the ritual was studied by the Way of the White

this doesn't prove anything about the darksign or undeath

Yes it does, the Way of the White literally took Nito's power and knowledge

the knights become hollow because they were originally hollows themselves

Trash Souls 2 headcanon by le DLC tree man NPC, because they really thought "a lie woll remain a lie" was smart writing
Bonfires are literally made of undead bones.
Firekeepers are created through manipulations of souls and have humanity debouring them as their souls are conduits to bonfires. Hollowing and the Darksign are all caused by Gwyn.

This is a cinemasins tier opinion

umm but think of the GRAIN SUPPLY!!

If the game isn't set in some hell-like dream then it's stupid
Everyone just stands around doing nothing for eternity?

What the fuck are you two arguing about? Yes Gwyn made the dark sign. He tied humanity to be slaves of the first flame so that it would be tended to forever even after he was gone. The undead curse is the first flame drawing humans to it, which was exactly Gwyn's intention. In DS2, you can follow through and sacrifice yourself, or regain spiritual sovereignty and say "no way fag". In DS3, it's been so long with the flame being fed generation after generation of enthralled humans that the whole world is falling apart. You can fruitlessly try to keep it going, snuff it out for good, or eat it. There is no contradiction between the games.

Dark Souls 2's "cycles" are

Headcanon

the dark lord doesn't need to usurp the flame

Yes it does, that's exactly what happened to the 4 Kings. That's why their chest looks like Firekeepers souls but much worse. They were failed aspiring Dark Lords that were overwhelmed and weren't strong enough, and Kaathe says this

2 and 3 only fit together

They don't. 1 and 3 fit together, 2 and 3 are incompatible (or 1 and 2)

You directly contradicted yourself. First you said it went away after he linked

No, what the fuck are you talking about? I said it came only after he first linked the Fire, which is shown by the intro, confirming Ringed City to be true

It goes away, temporarily, because

Because the Darksign uses humanity from those souls to feed itself and the bonfires he linked, which is exactly why Rite of Kindling exists and why the player can upgrade bonfires, further proving Dark Souls 3 is perfectly in line with 1

the painted worlds are cycles themselves in case you didn't notice. they're an intentional parallel even. crow man NPC calls those that live outside the painting fools for resisting the natural order of things.

Dark Souls 2 is a shitty fanfic that implies hollowing is the natural state of humanity

Headcanon

Read the post, nigger

2 and 3 are incompatible (or 1 and 2)

Wrong, see

Yes we do, carries of the Darksign only appear after Gwyn links the Fire. Because the ritual was studied by the Way of the White

the opening does not actually specify if gwyn has yet linked the fire or not. It simply says that the fire is fading, and now carriers of the darksign are seen. This could be happening before or after gwyn links the fire

Yes it does, the Way of the White literally took Nito's power and knowledge

honestly I don't recall any explicit connection between the way of white and nito. Seems like headcanon

Trash Souls 2 headcanon by le DLC tree man NPC, because they really thought "a lie woll remain a lie" was smart writing

I don't see what that has to do with anything
gwyn had to have made his knights from hollows, because that's all that there was. The knights were uplifted by the soul of light in the same way humanity was uplifted by the soul of dark. The knights hollow because they were always just uplifted hollows, like humans. I don't remember aldia saying anything about that.

Dark Souls was never much of a mainstay series for FromSoftware, despite being their best seller.
DS1 is just recycled Demon Souls. DS3 is recycled Bloodborne. Even Elden Ring has most of it's engine and designs recycled from Sekiro.
In a way, DS2 is the only original one. And it fucking blows lmao.

No, it doesn't. It's explicitly stated as an afflicted curse and the DLC and SOTFS content are about obtaining means to arrest it, at least for yourself.

It's not a cycle because they haven't experienced the age of dark yet. It's about stagnation which is the theme of DS1. Only DS2 talks about cycles.

Yes Gwyn made the dark sign. He tied humanity to be slaves of the first flame so that it would be tended to forever even after he was gone. The undead curse is the first flame drawing humans to it, which was exactly Gwyn's intention.

never happened
humanity isn't drawn to the first flame, nobody in ds1 says or acts like this. The point of the prophecy is to trick someone into linking the flame, but there is no magical force compelling anyone to do so.

I think the crow man was actually referring to the crow people outside the walls wallowing in rot, but he could be referring to both really.

Yeah. 1, in its intro, flatly states that once the fire fades only dark will remain. There’s no coming back from the age of dark to an age of fire, because if the fires out it’s out.

humanity isn't drawn to the first flame

We know for a fact that humanity is drawn to the bonfires, which themselves are linked to the flame. The kiln of the first flame LITERALLY has a bonfire in it you interact with to link the fire. You are talking out of your ass.

Read the post

Nope, I saw headcanon and decided not to

Wrong, see

Your post immediately contradicts Dark Souls 2 entire story foundation loo
Play the game

Hollows

More headcanon.

>All three Dark Souls games suggest that it is impossible to escape the cycle of ages of Fire and Dark

it LITERALLY starts off with neither one in the first game you fucking subhuman cretin.

Its three things.
1. There are other nations in the world outside of the games settings
2. Light=Time and as the fire fades the world compresses in on itself like its collapsing into a singularity point that erases nuance in DS3
3. The games from the start do abstract exaggeration for effect. The all the knights aren't actually 7ft tall compared to your 5ft Player, the game just makes them look like that because its cool for gameplay, same with not showing the farms and shit in Das and DS2

Ok bro we get it you read the abyssal archives.

Which is a fan theory book btw

Gwyn established that link. The Way of the White created the Rite of Kindling and fucked around with wraiths and necromancy.

Only Dark Souls 2 implies anything about "cycles"

Dark Souls 1 has you continue the age of fire, cycling back to its beginning.
The symbolism is a ring.
The game was going to be called Dark Ring.
The circle of fire is trapping darkness within it.
The age of fire was a spontaneous event, meaning when the fire eventually goes out, it will re-ignite after a time and we don't know the trigger.

This "dark souls 2 started the cycle plot" idiocy needs to stop, just because you're too retarded to understand anything that's not blatantly told to you doesn't mean everyone should be.

Your half right, people re attracted to the bonfires but the plot of Dark Souls 1 was a manipulation to get people to reach the kiln as a special more important fire on account of it being the core.

In other worlds undead are attracted to the bonfire but not the kiln in particular.

bonfires burn humanity which is why they're made of the bones of undead, they can be used to restore humanity to an undead
the firekeeper soul is a dark soul, because it is linked to a bonfire it becomes more powerful. But souls of dark themselves don't usually grow in power, they just accumulate more in numbers, which is why the firekeeper soul attracts dark souls
the four kings have souls that resemble firekeeper souls because their souls became powerful in the dark, and attracted more dark souls in the same way as firekeeper souls do
the kiln of the first flame has a bonfire in it because the whole point is to send an undead there. The undead needs a bonfire, but it's not related to the first flame. There would most likely not have been a bonfire there when gwyn linked the flame, there's no reason to believe the bonfire is necessary to link it. The undead links the flame by being in the kiln.

It's a cycle because... It must be, ring and shiet

Holy shit kill yourself you retard go go go go
The Ring means Order, bounding souls to something. The Dark Lord will use that boundary to establish a connection to humanity through the Usurped Flame. Because the Darksign was created by Gwyn and connects humanity to the Flame.
There's no cycle, there never was. There was the Age of Fire, and then the Age of Hollows

Dark Souls makes perfect sense when you think of it from a metaphorical view about motivation/rest. Darkness being sleep and the age of fire being slamming energy drinks.

DS2 never says or implies that there has been an age of dark. It's "cycles" are just the flame shitting out and drawing in retards to light it again before it goes out entirely. The world of DS3 is in such a sorry state because of thousands of such cycles.
Do you think Gwyn would rely on nothing more than a fairy tail to maintain his legacy? Even tens of thousands of years after Lordran has been totally forgotten, humanity still ties itself into knots to keep the fire alive. They'll try anything, sacrificing ab-humans, heretics, abominations, whole legions of people of every kind of strength, performing esoteric eugenics and atrocities to create ideal kindling. But that's just what, their culture? For whole eons? DS3 tells you right up front why. "Ash seeketh embers".

DS2 does nothing for the overall story except Aldia who is just a Reddit Matt Pat theorist who browses medieval early life pages.

Yes. And?

THE PLOT IS YOU HAVE TO CONTINUE THE AGE OF FIRE - STARTING A CYCLE.
THERE IS NOTHING TO BE CONFUSED ABOUT.
THERE'S NO FUCKING REASON FOR YOU TO BE OBSTINATE ABOUT THIS.

Do you think Gwyn would rely on nothing more than a fairy tail to maintain his legacy?

no, gwyn relies on frampt and gwyndolin to keep the prophecy alive and push the undead towards linking the flame
if there was an inherent draw towards the flame, there would be no need to manipulate the undead

"Ash seeketh embers".

ds3 is non-canon

DS3 is stagnation and convergence

Dark Souls 2 was a literal mirror world to Dark Souls 1. It's not the same actual physical reality.
Dark Souls 3 merely refers to the place as Drang.
You access Drang via a Lake.
Drangleic.

bonfires burn humanity which is why they're made of the bones of undead, they can be used to restore humanity to an undead

One of the primary functions of the bonfire in DS1 is for you, the undead, to SACRIFICE your humanity TO the fire to make it strobger and reverse hollowing. They all function as tiny personal first flames, because they are just extensions of it.

flame starts

flame starts to die

champion rekindles the flame

rinse and repeat

That’s the cycle you gay retard.

I understand and appreciate DS3's theme, especially with the black hole symbolism, the world decaying like it's a living entity and "hallucinating" and such. but man it had some ugly ass fucking areas as a result. Swamps and gross awful places.

You fucking retard, Kaathe in Dark Souls 1 already says this

The flames did fade, and only Dark remained.

Thus began the age of men, the Age of Dark.

However… Lord Gwyn trembled at the Dark.

Clinging to his Age of Fire, and in dire fear of humans, and the Dark Lord who would one day be born amongst them, Lord Gwyn resisted the course of nature.

By sacrificing himself to link the fire, and commanding his children to shepherd the humans,

Gwyn has blurred your past, to prevent the birth of the Dark Lord."

The Darksign was created to push humans to link the Fire.

You absolute stupid shit.
There will always be cycles and even metacycles.
An 'age of dark' is just as fleeting as the age of fire.
Sucking down abyss shit because you're a loser isn't accepting transience, it's fucking over the last good vestiges because you're an edgelord.
You're the kind of depressing motherfucker who says "I am not pessimistic, I am REALISTIC."
Fuck off.

gwyn relies on frampt and gwyndolin to keep the prophecy alive

And if they fail to convince? And when they inevitably die? What then?

Yeah but the characters and history there still happened.
Ignoring it entirely would be like ignoring the painted world.

Love that camera work

to SACRIFICE your humanity TO the fire to make it strobger and reverse hollowing

the bonfire is powered by humanity but it's also a way of consuming humanity, like burning incense to infuse yourself with it
the hollowing undead burns humanity to infuse itself with humanity and become physically human. But the dark soul itself is lost.

Nah the other guy's right. Stop linking it. Endlessly linking the fire obviously did not work. The age of dark will come to an end too but the fire needs to rest like a human being needs sleep.
The alternative is to ascend and change how the world works somehow but how's that going to happen?
I think the "inherit the flame" ending just means the world is tied to your own life/motivation.

none of what kaathe said has anything to do with gwyn creating the darksign
kaathe literally says that all gwyn did was link the flame and leave his family to trick the undead into continuing to link the flame

It's a cycle because... It happens once

Can't be worse than Shaded Woods

I understand that but it does matter, it shows that there have been countless kingdoms that rise and fall between ds1 and 3 and serves to show how cyclical and despondent it is. It makes linking the fire seem a bit less inviting and introduces the theme of Want (motivation/desire/drive) which is what really fuels the world, or at least one's inner world and prevents hollowing.

Yeah I like the grander narrative of DS3, but I think the smaller stuff is a bit rough, especially with how it’s told through gameplay. Sulyvahn was presented very strangely in that game, I remember hearing about him from Vordt’s stuff but then everything else was from after he was already dead.

You're literally arguing over semantics you dumb retard.

Nooo! You can't call it a cycle.... becuase you just can't!

then the age of dark happens
frampt and gwyndolin are immortal anyway

I'm still waiting for that guy to restore all the cut plot and levels for dark souls 3
I haven't heard any news for some time now

Trusting any of the snakes

You absolute moron

none of what kaathe said has anything to do with gwyn creating the darksign

Yes it does

Sacrificing himself to link the Fire

What do you think he linked the Fire to? He linked the Fire to humans.
You don't single handedly fuel the Fire, you link the Fire to all the bonfires and all humanity that fuels them

I'm still waiting for that guy to restore all the cut plot and levels for dark souls 3

Why? They were cut for a reason.

then the age of dark happens

Completely unacceptable to Gwyn.

frampt and gwyndolin are immortal anyway

Ageless, not indestructible. If "DS3 isn't canon", the chosen undead can literally kill Gwyndolin himself.

There's no cut plot or levels

Yes it does

it literally doesn't
kaathe never implies in the slightest that gwyn made the darksign or linked humanity to the first flame

What do you think he linked the Fire to? He linked the Fire to humans.

gwyn linked the fire to his soul

You don't single handedly fuel the Fire, you link the Fire to all the bonfires and all humanity that fuels them

bonfires don't need the first flame and humanity doesn't need the first flame
bonfires work just as well in the abyss, which is full of powerful humanity

it's a last resort
gwyndolin is hidden away behind layers of illusions, and frampt is unkillable

Wow, Ornstein in Dark Souls 2? The one in Dark Souls 1 must be an hologram or something

This God of illusions and magic that creates hallucinations and distorts reality was surely killed

It's not a cycle if it goes out eventually which it does in DS3. Is it cycle if you throw wood at a fire place until you run out of wood?

lmao kys

and frampt is unkillable

EXPLAIN WHY HE RUNS FROM ME AND MY GIGANTIC SWORD THEN
THEY'RE NOT UNKILLABLE THEY'RE PUSSIES AND I WANT A DARK SOULS 4 JUST TO SLAY THEM I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE.

it literally doesn't

Yes it does

kaathe never implies in the slightest that gwyn made the darksign or linked humanity to the first flame

Yes he did, he linked the Fire.
You must be an ESL, because it literally says "Linked the Fire". He doesn't fuel the Fire, he links the Fire.
It literally causes the Darksign with that

>Wow, Ornstein in Dark Souls 2? The one in Dark Souls 1 must be an hologram or something

technically everything in ds2 is a memory or hologram too lol

the entire game was reshuffled badly because the story was supposed to be different, just like dark souls 2

If you kill him, his illusion over anor londo breaks, his subordinate tries to kill you in revenge, and you get his fucking soul.

the lore is always an after thought and most of it is head cannon by youtubers, only retards think the lore in these games is good

can the first flame ever pop again if it dies or is it a one time deal

Is it cycle if you throw wood at a fire place until you run out of wood?

Yes, retard.

uhhh aren't you by default in the age of fire in the first game?

You get souls from the giants that aren't real too

FromSoft isn't good at writing stories. They can write nice flavor text, thats it.

Elden Ring DLC centers around Miquella

Takes place in the Land of Shadow, where dead people go

Lore already has an established god of death

Miquella and Godwyn are already linked, Miquella wants to give Godwyn a true death

Godwyn's death knights are present in the DLC

Their items mention Godwyn going to the Land of Shadow

Godwyn is the only demigod we don't interact with at all

So naturally, the final boss is Radahn, again.
It was at this moment I realized no one at FromSoft knows how to write.

You sorry fool... You could not be the Chosen one. Enough... I shall slumber, until I am awakened again...

Firekeeper outright says it'll eventually come back in some form

the entire game was reshuffled badly

Wrong

believes*

A cycle would indicate that you could restart the flame which you can't. You DS2 trannies are retarded

Yes he did, he linked the Fire.

linking the fire means linking the fire to your own soul

In the intro, it's neither the age of fire nor dark. It's gray. The age of dragons and stillness. Then the flame ignites.

Discord tranny

You're making an analysis based on the setting used in games taking place when absolutely everything went to shit without acknowledging it

She literally sees a vision of it with the funny eyes you give her, and it makes sense since the first flame came out of nothing originally

nobody knows

but the firekeeper says

ds3 is non-canon

One of DS3’s endings is letting it go out and the fire keeper says one day, it’ll come back.

A cycle would indicate that you could restart the flame

Based on what, fucktard?

This Anon is right
This Anon is wrong.

And this thread is stupid.

ds3 is non-canon

what a stupid thing to say, miyazaki worked on it himself, it's undoubtedly canon

Based on the lore, play the game

No, it means linking the Fire to all bonfires and souls tied to it
This includes his knights and humanity as a whole

They couldn't even get basic geography of their levels right

This wasn't intentional, either narratively or from a level design standpoint. The development of DS2 had a lot of issues and wasn't anywhere near complete as the release date rolled closer. Bamco wouldn't give them more time, so they had 6 months to put what they had into a workable game. What you see with the areas blending together in nonsensical ways is the result.

doesn't the intro claim that the age of fire started after gwyn killed all the dragons?

Why would there be a secret ds3 discord. Most mid darksouls ever and everyone with a brain hates 2

DS2 had the right idea of distancing itself from DS1 so it could do its own things. It's also real to life since things get lost with time, turning into legends and myths before fading away. All DS3 did was just end up assraping the lore.

"A shield with a blue relief of a spirit tree. A rather well-built shield decorated

by the spirit tree that appears in the allegory of Quella, god of dream.
Has a faint residue of magic, and can deflect spells by parrying."

Quella, god of dream = great tree

Dark souls 1 is supported by one of many great arch trees.

All Soulsborne games take place in dreamscapes, some more distant than others.
Dark souls 2 is a reflection/memory/dream of events post-dark souls 1, pre-dark souls 3.

Umbasa.

They should have renamed DS2 to something else since the game has nothing to do with dark souls

Dark Souls 2 is dogshit and a parody and bastardization of how Dark Souls did story and worldbuilding

Yes, he formed the cycle that will keep the fire lit by using himself as kindling, he also pretty much enslaved the pygmies by magically branding them with the dark sign to use them as kindling should the age of fire wane. Their hollowing is the sign. Gwyn's goal was the continued perpetuation of the Age of Fire.

PLAY THE FUCKING PIANO, CHOSEN UNDEAD

The fire came before them, but yeah the “age of fire” was pronounced after Gwyn, Nito, the witches, and Seath destroyed the dragons.

710340119

I don't know or care what statement is being made, soijaks are the ugliest meme ever created and I auto-hide them all.

Gwyn didn't create the undead curse though, it was a side effects of proloning the fire.

Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls 3, Elden Ring

The central plot is themes and metaphysical concepts that are connected to the plot. The stories are just in service of delivering a stellar and interesting setting. Archeological/Historiographic aspects of the setting are paramount

Dark Soils 2

Gay character drama, cheap feels, every location is basic and surface level with no real history strata and uniqueness. Westernized narrative that cares more about metaphors than interesting metaphysics and worldbuilding

Story is pointless with an emoty and meaningless ending

It's a seal placed on man to contain their darkness. This is a microcosm of what he did to the pygmys on a larger scale too - with the Ringed City which is also sealed away. Gwyn has a habit of sealing things he doesn't like.

Yes, which was him kickstarting the cycle. He uses himself as kindle so the Age of Fire starts, then when his life is exhausted someone else is expected to take the place. This will just keep happening forever until DS3 made different choices.

Well that's what they ended up doing for Elden Ring, which was basically Dark Souls 2 2.0.

Gwyn didn't create the undead curse though,

Yes he did

it was a side effects of proloning the fire.

No, it's caused by the Darksign literally working like a rite of kindling

muh cycles

muh light and dark

getting groomed into becoming firewood

NOT. MY. PROBLEM.

the game has nothing to do with dark souls

It had everything to do with dark souls. It gave you a glimpse of what's been going on after you link the fire (or let it sputter out). Inevitably, the cycle begins again, and kingdoms rise and fall in much the same way.

fucks off and is never seen again

WHERE THE FUCK DID HE GO, ZAKI?

That doesn't make sense since he himself became hollow in the end meaning that he didn't create the curse willingly.

Well that's what they ended up doing for Elden Ring, which was basically Dark Souls 2 2.0.

Elden Ring lifts 60% of its story concepts from Dark Souls 3, and the remaining are original.
It literally has nothing to do with Dark Souls 2, they are the least similar stories ever

Gwyn was originally a hollow like anyone else. Everyone and everything can go hollow. Watch the intro to dark souls 1 again. He was a hollow who discovered a Lord Soul.
A hollow that discovered the Dark Soul, the pygmy, became humanity. This frightened Gwyyn because... well, just look at how many humans there are. Gwyn's souls may be Quality but humanity is Quantity. That frightened him, and so he devised a plan to make them useful to him while also keeping them enslaved.

Show me where in the lore where it says he created the undead curse? Don't cite DS2 because that shit isn't canon.

The design philosophy behind ER is basically DS2 to a tee.

Traveling across and exploring a giant world

Focus on quantity over quality

Gank squads out the ass

Same combat philosophy

A more personal story about the Gods / Demi-Gods

Tanimura directed both because Miyazaki loves him.

Show me where in the lore where it says he created the undead curse?

Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 3
Because Fire consumed his soul when it was linked
He also puts the Darksign (a ring of Fire) so that it does happens to humans unless they fuel it. Hollowing is not a natural process

Hollows are the natural state of man.
The cursed sign is not a natural part of a Hollow. It's placed on pygmies (humans).
If the Ring of Fire is broken (unlinked), the darkness contained in humanity (pygmies) is released. That's what the Dark souls 1 DLC demonstrates.

Hollowing is connected to the undead curse, so how could he be hollow if he created the curse?

Hollowing is connected to the undead curse

Hollows existed prior to dark souls 1 starting. They assumed a more fleshy form upon discovering the flame and the lord souls. Please stop making me bring up the ds1 intro, you can just go watch it. This is the last time I'm going to explain this to you.

The design philosophy behind ER is basically DS2 to a tee.

No it's not

>Traveling across and exploring a giant world

What giant world? Dark Souls 2 world is small, linear and ugly

>Focus on quantity over quality

Elden Ring has the highest quality levels and enemies in the series

>Gank squads out the ass

>Same combat philosophy

Lol

>A more personal story about the Gods / Demi-Gods

What personal story about Gods? The fuck you on about?

Tanimura directed both because Miyazaki loves him.

Tanimura shouldn't be blamed for Dark Souls 2 being dogshit

Headcanon
Headcanon
Hollowing is Fire consuming souls.
The Darksign is a curse that does that

This frightened Gwyyn because... well, just look at how many humans there are

It isn't just that there are a lot of humans, its the fact that the dark soul is so fucking strong compared to the other three and Gwyn's polar opposite. The Ringed Knights, even when bound by the dark sign, slap hard, and it is directly implied that the only reason the war against the archdragons was won was because the earliest humans born from the dark soul were the ones to actually deliver the killing blows (Izalith burned the trees, Gwyn removed their scales, Nito made them killable).

abyssniggers lost so many times the world literally turned to dust

Headcanon

It's the first thing you see when you start up dark souls 1.

He's in Elden Ring Fortnight

(Izalith burned the trees, Gwyn removed their scales, Nito made them killable).

Now that you say it like that, it feels like scrubbed history that Gwyn refused to mention the pygmies.

In DS2 he was directing the Darkmoon Blades (renamed Blue Sentinels) to protect undead of the Way of Blue so that they may smoothly easily link the fire.

No, the first thing you see when starting Dark Souls is humanoid figures.
You ASSume they are hollows because it helps your headcanon validating Dark Souls 2 bullshit

Hollowing is Fire consuming souls.

Explains hollows existing before there was ever a fire.

It's not a cycle if it goes out eventually

This is THE most retarded, media illiterate post ever made on this site
I guess there's not a single fucking video game about cycles or time loops then since all of them end with breaking the cycle you fucking troglodyte?

DUHH THERE WUZ NEVUR A CYCL IF IT BREAKS IN THE END

Holy shit you retarded nigger, was there never a brain in your head before I ventilated it?

He yote them to the end of the world and used his daughter's kooky time powers to lock the pygmy lords and the ringed knights in temporal stasis, no shit he scrubbed them from history. Gael's entire arc is a final and lasting fuck you to Gwyn and everything he had built.

Gael's entire arc is a final and lasting fuck you to Gwyn and everything he had built.

And the blood of the dark souls is like "proof of humanity" or proof that they lived. Using it to paint a new world for humans is pretty fucking kino.

He's Wolnir

Ain't it fantastic how from a badly translated and hastily put together and rewritten multiple times (due to release dates creeping up on them devs) collection of games which are using item descriptions to channel important tidbits about the lore we got TWO decades of fruitless debates about what the fucking fuck those yellow fucks meant with the symbolism and story of dark souls?
It's a thing of beauty.
The best part is how the main parts the mythology of dark souls circle around are left sufficiently vague to generate discussions and theories, with interpretations becoming as interesting as the "intended" meaning if there's one fixed in stone that is, yet faggots are studying and eating each other about it like if they were scrutinizing hard sciences and not a story open to dreams and reveries.

The dark sign was made to contain the power of dark soul. Gwyn never intended to make people go hollow.

the First Flame started to naturally fade out, and the Darksign, which used the power of the Flame to contain the Dark Soul, weakened too, leading humans to come back to life as Undead, but also cursing them to eventually become Hollows, as the Darksign would consume their Humanity still forced on their bodies

Oh shit

They don't, that's the thing stupid retard.
Humans existed before the First Flame. And primeval humans like those of Oolacile existed way before the First Flame formed exactly here

I bet you use "gameplay loop" every time you talk about a game

Development was convoluted

The discussions will continue until we figure out what that fucking pendant was for

DS2 shows nothing to sughest he's still around directing them and that they're not just carrying on the legacy of the old darkmoon blades.

Humans existed before the First Flame

They were hollows in the age of ancients (dragons). Hollow means to be empty, without soul. A hollow with a lord soul like Gwyn's becomes a god, a hollow with a dark soul (humanity) becomes human.

the only good souls game was demon's souls every other game afterwards was derivative and inferior in every single way.

The dark sign was made to contain the power of dark soul.

No, it was made to link humans to Fire, which is why the Catacombs studied Dark Souls to use them as kindling. Why would you make up random shit when the game says already what the Darksign is for?

Hollowing happens when an undead has nothing to strive for. That's the reason why every npc goes hollow after you help them achieve their goals.

Nice head canon, too bad none of that is in the game

Why was this nigga so obsessed with putting his schlong inside Casca?

woah what a shitshow of a thread. Straight up battlefield in here.
At least we can all agree that 1 is the superior game

It doesn’t suggest that at all considering the painting has its own rot cycle

that game sucks after sen's fortress

one of the first things you see in the game actually is hollows finding the lord souls.

don't wake her up

It doesn't directly, but DS3 retroactively shows that Blue Sentinels and Darkmoon Blades are the same covenant.

They were hollows

No. They were not. In fact, the ancient beings are referred as "Primordial Humans, like Manus

Not gameplay not canon

*enters filianore's tower with an air horn*

The fog and how it reminds me of the never ending story and how creepy a world eaten away by nothingness is, and with monstrous demons playing the role of agents of the void, working as a force to wipe out reality itself, was nothing but kino of the highest order.
The flame waning and the age of dark will never be as ominous as demon' souls and its old one.

"Primordial Humans, like Manus

That's what the hollows that discovered Humanity became. Humans.

then nothing is canon you subhuman discord tranny
imagine wasting five years of your life doing nothing but shitting up any fromsoft thread because the games completely mindbroke you for some reason

Manus is an ancient Pygmy with overflowing Dark Soul fragments (that in universe are called Humanity).
The beings that rose from the Dark after the Fire appeared could not yet be called humans. In fact, Gwyn, Nito and Izalith also rose from the Dark, but are not humans.

The fact that every thread about Dark Souls' lore devolves into a 500 posts of shit flinging and rage is proof of how brilliant the lore is.

I do think it's brilliant but it's not confusing at this point, it's just spergs like
who refuse to accept anything logical. That or he's a troll keeping the discussion going through argument.

yeah "brilliant"

Why are these people like this? What do they get out of it?

Not canon

"They failed me...every last one of them. I'm certain you will prove different."

You hear this quote from Kaathe telling you to tackle the abyss and win. Why would you deny Hidetaka Miyazaki the morning he desperately wants?

It's right there in the description for Artorias soul.

The Legend that Artorias repelled the Abyss only told half of the story. It seems that he was defeated, and his honor preserved, by some unsung hero, who is the true victor over the Abyss.

It could be you

If the intro wasn't canon then it wouldn't be in the game.

fight against gael literally takes place at the end of the world, after endless cycles and after both light and dark are extinguished

Retardo, retardinho caralho

Yes, this is generally how the end of a big trilogy goes.

after endless cycles and after both light and dark are extinguished

And that explains the age of ancients, or gray waste and dragons where the fire came to light.
It's cycles all the way down, friend.

DS3

you are a literal nobody who failed to link the flame once before, brought back to life by a desperate flame after the actual badasses that linked it before refused to do so again

you fight another literal nobody at the end of the world for a meaningless and symbolic piece of power

meaningless

The blood of the dark soul is proof of humanity's existence. There's meaning in that.
We were here.

When the fuck did I say it wasn't, you ageless retard

you guys take these games way too fucking seriously

Shitposting is brilliant, beautiful. It enchants us to the point of obsession.
One man lost his own Anon Babble pass, but lingered on as a troll, another still sleep in the realm of sharties. Others chase the charm of memes, however elusive.
What is it that drives (you)?

Those aren't hollows. A hollow is something without a soul. In The Age of Ancients, the concept of a soul didn't exist. Whatever the fuck those are existed as merely a "thing". When the First Flame sprouted souls began to exist. And 4 of those "things" grabbed a soul each because why not. They don't have a name and they sure as fuck aren't Hollows

Even better considering that every last lord soul at that point was already gone, only Man persisted to the uttermost end. Oh and that one fuckass mad dragon woman I guess.

And you don't take things seriously enough. Where's your passion?

It's fun

All that's left at the end of time is hollows and dragons

fucking brilliant 10/10 miyazaki

REAL ABYSS HAS NOT BEEN TRIED

You will now realise that the archdragons were likely humans from the previous cycle of disparity, and the humans of the current cycle are turning back into them to save themselves.

Literally. Firetards kept prolonging, making the dark more stagnant and ugly with each passing link.

If it's all cyclical than what's wrong with it

you guys take these games way too fucking seriously

Ha ha ha ha...sweet summer child...

We're honoring Miyazaki's wish...which has been made clear through Bloodborne's "The First Hunter" unheard lyrics.

bloodborne.fandom.com/wiki/The_First_Hunter

The theme has multiple verses, but the final verse has not been encountered ingame yet. It reads like this:

Hunter, who hold in awe the abyss

But you are never supposed to be a scapegoat

I would swing this scythe once again, to offer an end to your nightmare

But please, give me an end to my role.

This is Miyazaki's wish for Bloodborne. We have to honor it. There is only one way to end Hidetaka Miyazaki's role as President of FROM SOFTWARE, and it is to actually beat the Abyss.

I would like to think of it as giving him a beginning, rather than an ending.

Everything after DS1 is not canon. "Cycles" literally did not exist thematically in DS1, it was the TWIST of the ENDING that linking the fire would continue the age of the gods. The narrative focus on cycles only started with DS2 because they had to make shit up because of how open and shut DS1's story was so it ended up with this awkward mix of old recycled ideas and and bizarre parallels.

DS3 of course had to tie into both 1 and 2 so you again get this horrible retread of old themes bundled with fanfiction-tier bullshit like Gwyn crowning the Furtive Pygmy and the Soul of Cinder (again, a twist ending now reduced to a literal job description). It's just bad and sloppy all around.

I like when you jump without enough forward momentum to roll and instead your guy just does a little hop

we were here

And absolutely no one fucking cares because no one is left there to care

Godcels seething over humanchads

The point of getting the blood of the dark soul was to paint a world for humanity where people live and absolutely do care.