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[Mifec]

in our true shape = either referring to the Undead

It means exactly that. No ifs about it.

 

[tcrunch]

Thanks OP nice summary, as you I read and try to have a cohesive story and lore about the DS games but sometimes I think Miyazaki has gone to far on the plot hole narrative technique, specially since the lore of the games are so rich and interesting that a lot of us would want to have a solid cohesive story in order to understand it.

There are a lot of plot holes that there is no way to connect them , no matter how far you explore the game or if you get all the DLCs , Miyazaki said that he likes to do it so the player can get its own conclusions but I find this a little sad since DS games have a great story but not a definitive version of it.

Hmmm, I'm not sure if the plot holes are a technique, just a side effect of a style that communicates not just through text but through gameplay elements (like those crowns...) and the appearance of levels and characters. If you want to learn more about Miyazaki's design process, I strongly recommend picking up the Dark Souls Design Works (which is available in English as of 2014). It comes with a very informative interview.

I don't have a copy with me atm but for example here is a translation of the Japanese version, about Big Hat Logan, when you meet him for the final time in the Duke's Archives:

Well as to why I made him naked, I wanted to show that the character had found enlightenment, but unfortunately the character models in dark souls weren’t built with a wide range of emotional expression, so as I was thinking about how to overcome this problem, for some reason, I hit upon the idea of making him naked… Its Logan’s goal to gain the power of the ancient dragons, so in order to do this, I had an image of him casting off his human clothes. It’s similar to when when you use the Dragon head or torso stone, you have to remove your equipment don’t you. Of course there are gameplay reasons for this to, but there was also this image of the player character leaving something of their humanity behind. Similarly, Logan removing his clothes is his attempt to bring himself closer to Seath in some way. Although I couldn’t take his hat off because you wouldn’t have known who it was, but personally I like to think that unlike the followers of the path of the Dragon, Logan sought to gained the dragons power, while still retaining his pride as a human.

So you can see in this case it was some combination of wanting to get a story across visually, to having technical difficulties with what the game is capable of, having issues with "well how is the player going to see this", and then solving both those problems in a novel way. Then you add supporting text (Logan getting increasingly babbly when you talk to him in Duke's Archives), but the punchline of the story is a visual/gameplay experience.

Some character designs were actually commissioned from outside FROM's pool of artists as well, like Priscilla, because in her case he had a very concrete idea of what he wanted so he just sent that write-up to the contractor. There is also a book for Dark Souls II, but I have not read it.

Speaking by memory but weren't the serpents also called imperfect dragons?

Yes, by the covetous serpent rings in the game, which also say they have a reputation for gluttony (to me this works quite well with Frampt eating your stuff/you...) and are symbols of the Undead.

 

[Bo Knows GAF]

Awesome post OP, thank you!

 

[floatingcoffins]

One thing I've always wanted is a map that unites the locations mentioned in Dark Souls I and II. Specifically, it would be interesting to see how the various named kingdoms are connected. Surely hardcore lore buffs have a decent idea that "this kingdom and this kingdom were located in the same spot," and knowledge about other things along those lines, but I've had difficulty finding anything covering this.

Noone knows. It's possible that the countries mentioned in DS2 correspond to a particular DS1 country, or they can be in different parts of the world entirely. Things like the sunbro altar can be explained by model reusage or fan service (or both).

It's heavily implied that all countries have gone through multiple eras with new names. Straid says as much. But I doubt that there is a specific document at From saying "Astora eventually became Mirrah" or something like that. Even within DS1 itself, at least part of what is called Lordran was once Oolacile.

I always wanted to know what ordinary life was like in the other areas that are mentioned.

 

[Uthred]

I'm not a Dark Souls lore expert, but there are several things I disagree with on the OP. And it's exactly the ambiguity and people reading into things that aren't there that drives me nuts. Every summary of the story of DS should come with a disclaimer that it's that person's interpretation.

Strongly agree with this, putting forward interpretation masquerading as some kind of authoritative objective truth is the bane of Souls/Bloodborne lore discussion. Amusingly so at times, "Oh these games are great, the story's so ambiguous, now take this YouTube video about what it means as gospel!"

 

[DedValve]

So is the age of dark bad for everyone, or just bad for non humans?

 

[Aces&Eights]

Fantastic OP. I have one question and it's probably really stupid so I apologize in advance:

Is all of "Men" humans? I mean, It talks about the Age of Dark ushering in man, but then the people who found the first flames, what were they? I am confused at who is human, demon and non-human. I understand the bed of Chaos created all demons and that dragons were all immortal before the first flames (except Seeth) so who created the very first human being? Were we spawned in during the first flame? If so, the finders of the first flame look human but were not? Is Gwyn a human being? When all the undead were sent to Undead Asylum, I assume it's because they have the curse of not dying. Then who put them there? Humans who didn't have the curse? Didn't the curse affect ALL humans? What makes you immune to it?

I know all that probably doesn't make sense so TLDR: Who was the very first human being ever in a Dark Souls game and where/when did they come from? Are there human"like" people in Souls games but not really humans? We have Dragons, Demons and humans, correct?

 

[DarkFlame]

So is the age of dark bad for everyone, or just bad for non humans?

i guess its bad for everyone except humans,since humanity came from Manus and his Dark Soul,so the Age of Dark is the one that the Dark Soul thrives in

 

[Ferr986]

Fantastic OP. I have one question and it's probably really stupid so I apologize in advance:

Is all of "Men" humans? I mean, It talks about the Age of Dark ushering in man, but then the people who found the first flames, what were they? I am confused at who is human, demon and non-human. I understand the bed of Chaos created all demons and that dragons were all immortal before the first flames (except Seeth) so who created the very first human being? Were we spawned in during the first flame? If so, the finders of the first flame look human but were not? Is Gwyn a human being? When all the undead were sent to Undead Asylum, I assume it's because they have the curse of not dying. Then who put them there? Humans who didn't have the curse? Didn't the curse affect ALL humans? What makes you immune to it?

I know all that probably doesn't make sense so TLDR: Who was the very first human being ever in a Dark Souls game and where/when did they come from? Are there human"like" people in Souls games but not really humans? We have Dragons, Demons and humans, correct?

I take it (unless I forgot something big) that humans are just the same as what Gwyn and co. were, but with humanity (dark from the Dark Soul), because humans are descendants from the Pygmy, who had the Dark Soul .

Curse should effect everyone, cause even Gwyn was hollowed at the end of Souls 1. That doesn't mean that the humans that are yet cursed wouldn't want them zombies closed far away in a cell, after all when you go hollow you go on a killing spree :/

IMO all the stuff about Gwyn and co being gods it's just words. They're powerful beings because they got the Lord Souls, and they call themselves gods, but they're just very strong dudes, that's it. They die and can be killed, and they can't create shit.

Hell, they're probably the same as what a king or monarch (like Vendrick) are in Souls 2.

 

[tcrunch]

So is the age of dark bad for everyone, or just bad for non humans?

The Age of Fire is "bad" for humans, because as descendants of the Dark Lord they have less power during that time.

Likewise, the Age of Dark would be "bad" for Lords/those that call themselves deities, because as descendants of the Fire they would have less power during that time.

We've never quite gotten to an Age of Dark because bozos keep throwing themselves on the Fire to keep it going, so we don't fully know what it entails. Another way to say this is that we are in an Age of Dark, but it's distorted by the still-burning Fire. There is a cutscene at the end of DARK SOULS for a Dark Lord ending but it is not comprehensive. Due to the Aldia patch content of DS2, where the protagonist is free to be immortal and non-hollow while also leaving the Fire behind, we might find out more in DS3. Remember that Kaathe says the Age of Dark is the natural course. It was completely natural for the world to begin as a formless gray soup, for life to briefly arrive alongside Fire, then for Darkness to reign forever afterwards when Fire inevitably goes out.

I take it (unless I forgot something big) that humans are just the same as what Gwyn and co. were, but with humanity (dark from the Dark Soul), because humans are descendants from the Pygmy, who had the Dark Soul

I agree with this. Take a quick look at the intro again, and the image of the lifeforms before any of them came into contact with Fire directly:

They're all flabby little raisin people to start, there is no difference between them. The difference came when 3 of them picked up Fire, and 1 picked up what remained after. The 3 that picked up Fire call themselves Lords, and in Gwyn's case especially they took to equating Lords with deities.

who created the very first human being? Were we spawned in during the first flame?

Our progenitor spawned, like the progenitors of all other peoples, when the Fire appeared and created a shadow ("and then, from the Dark, They came"). So while yes the Fire is responsible, it's good to remember that there's that extra step before life appeared, the creation of light/dark. In the Age of Ancients there was no darkness, just that null gray fog.

When the Furtive Pygmy (one of the raisin people) picked up the last bit of power, that was the founding of Humanity. With his power, Gwyn spawned gods. With her power, the Witch of Izalith spawned her many powerful daughters. With his power, Nito er...well Nito is a weird case but anyway he became a spooky skeleton.

And with his power, the Furtive Pygmy spawned humankind. They are all people, but humanity is unique in having derived from the Dark Soul.

If you have played the game you know there is a fourth "Lord" boss you fight, the Four Kings. These are actually humans gifted pieces of Gwyn's soul, so they aren't one of the original Lords.

When all the undead were sent to Undead Asylum, I assume it's because they have the curse of not dying. Then who put them there? Humans who didn't have the curse? Didn't the curse affect ALL humans? What makes you immune to it?

The curse does not affect all humans as yet in DARK SOULS. Why some people have it and other people don't...not known, I think.

--

As far as your division of groups, yes, dragons are from the Age of Ancients, but not all dragons are everlasting dragons. Like the raisin people, dragons were altered by Fire, not because they took anything from it, but because their world was effectively over when it appeared. It would be like taking a saltwater fish and dumping it in a freshwater stream. Combine that with Gwyn's slaughter of most of them and you end up with a lot of deformed dragon babies that will never recall the Age of Ancients.

Humans derive from the Dark Soul, Lords (or deities if you like) from the Fire.

Demons do exist but they aren't really players in the whole "clash of Ages" overarching narrative. They're just mistakes.

tl;dr Why won't we just let the world die?!

 

[Chambers35]

Good read Nice to see the story gathered together. Thanks for putting in the effort, tcrunch.

Roll on DS3!!!

 

[Raven117]

As mentioned elsewhere, one of the later patches for DS2 introduced Vendrick's brother Aldia, who has new dialogues. Vendrick himself was also made available to talk to (via memory) when the DLCs were released. The Aldia patch also made edits to several item descriptions. You need all the DLCs to finish Vendrick's new dialogues, as they are unlocked by gathering crowns from the DLC areas.

The additional content for the game went a long way to make the story more intelligible, but apparently not enough for me!

Ah! That would explain why I was confused.

I sort of liked the "non-choice" at the end of II. The "Whatever you do, you can't escape the cycle." Sort of thing.

I mean, I didn't link the fires at the end of DSI, so all this should have been ended by now anyway. (IMO, From didn't think they were getting a sequel to DS . . . that story is actually final...Don't link...dark takes over...man rises...THE END).

 

[SymbiantXenos]

Ah! That would explain why I was confused.

I sort of liked the "non-choice" at the end of II. The "Whatever you do, you can't escape the cycle." Sort of thing.

I mean, I didn't link the fires at the end of DSI, so all this should have been ended by now anyway. (IMO, From didn't think they were getting a sequel to DS . . . that story is actually final...Don't link...dark takes over...man rises...THE END).

Another choosen undead could've linked the fire at a later time.

 

[down 2 orth]

Ok so I just finished DS2 and I'm almost done the last DLC.

Here's what I don't get: the theory that Vendrick apparently took the dark route and apparently did not usher in a new Age of Fire (for better or worse). That idea makes it seem like his actions (even as a pawn) were decisive in changing or maintaining the course for humanity. But here's the thing: Vendrick's actions only influenced his kingdom, not humanity itself. All the other NPCs talk about the Drangleic area as if its an oddity removed from the rest of the realm, and they make it seem like the places they came from had no concept of an undead curse.

So here's what I think: I think the writers of the story and lore are simply imagining what it would be like to traverse the areas between limbo and hell for an imaginary fantasy setting, with an explicit rule to not tell the player that that's what's happening. It's an effective way to let the player feel a sense of dismay and curiosity contained within a shroud of mystery.