Thoughts on Black Knights as Demon Hunters and the Player

It's well established that black knights were made into something of a task force for fighting the demons from the bed of chaos. With how their weapons deal extra damage to demons and what not.

Intelligently, From Soft put no black knights in any of the chaos areas where there was demons or where they would end up near demons, as the AI in the game wouldn't be good enough to differentiate that the black knight should aggro on demons and demons onto the black knight.

So we only see black knights near other enemies in the game that are not demonic, whom they don't attack since they are not linked to the chaos flame.


Now then, the only enemy that we see them attacking, and thus know they attack other than the implied demons, is the player.

Why are they attacking a random undead? They are consistently near plenty of undead, such as in the burg, or Oscar, but never really bother to do anything. If aggroed and near other undead they only see the player as a threat.

It seems that the knights are hardwired to attack the player unlike any other undead.

This makes me believe that the player is in some way connected to the chaos flame, that the character you control is unique in that some way they are tied into both the chaos flame and the dark soul, unlike most undead that are only affected by the dark soul.

Just a thought.

Chaos weapons scale with humanity, and so do your resistances. Dono if that helps just adding to the connections

Well you are trying to kill Gwyn, who is their lord, so they don't take too kindly to that. Furthermore you seem to find them closer to hollows, who have no humanity, so they don't have a reason to attack them.

Their new mission is to kill the choosen undead. That's why I think the knight's at the asylum appear. And maybe the elite knight dude even knew that they would come and that's why he helped you to escape.

So, the Knights were a task force... could they have hollowed? This could be down to ignorance, but I see no reason why normal enemies should ignore the Knights and attack you, when you're both in the same 'state'. In fact, are there any enemies in the whole game who attack, or aggro, other enemies?

It's possible they have hollowed, but they don't seem like they were ever human to begin with, more the beings that are akin to Ciarin or Artorias.

On them having a mission to hunt the chosen undead, no one could have supplied such a mission due to Gwyn having gone insane after relighting the flame. It was after Gwyn went insane that the primordial serpents started to choose "chosen" undead (who in my opinion they call any undead that makes it far enough to grab the lord vessel).

Excellent points. I wasn't thinking they'd be hunting the chosen, just that they might attack him on sight, like the hollows. I'd forgotten hollowing was an exclusively human trait, ha.

I can't think of nay location you find them where there are other undead within their aggro range. Simple answer, no one else is bothering them.

From the Black Knight Armour description:

The knights followed Lord Gwyn when he
departed to link the flame, but they
were burned to ashes in newly kindled
fire, wandering the world as disembodied
spirits ever after.

They can't be Hollowed, since they're not even corporeal anymore. What we see is just a suit of armour with a disembodied spirit animating it.

DoughGuy wrote:I can't think of nay location you find them where there are other undead within their aggro range. Simple answer, no one else is bothering them.

The hollows in the burg? Oscar?

The Knights are the equivalent of hollowed, I think. I'm not sure they possess any independent thoughts other than malice and the will to destroy after being burnt to spirit.

Ghadis_God wrote:The Knights are the equivalent of hollowed, I think. I'm not sure they possess any independent thoughts other than malice and the will to destroy after being burnt to spirit.

The fact that their weapons are guaged against demons would say otherwise.

Probably because the player is still more Human than Hollow. I don't know why that would make a difference, but remember how the hollow mobs near the Channeler in the Undead Church do not attack him, but aid/serve him. The Channelers might have a way of controlling lesser minds though, seeing how one of them controls huge rats in the Depths.

The fact that there are no Human NPC's to be found anywhere near any Black Knight mobs in the game can also support this.

Maybe the black knights are just chilling, minding their own business when you, the player, run in, kill everything around you and annoy the hell outta the knight, so he attacks. Probably not.

Coming back to the disembodied spirits thing, they are probably just trying to survive, and stay as they are, as most things want to do.

Maybe we are giving FROM to much credit, and so the black knights are just minibosses designed to attack the player, just as other hollows don't attack other hollows.

From a lore perspective, the black knights are spirits, so that's why they disappear on death, rather than go all ragdoll on our ***. Silly havok physics engine.

What about the one in the Catacombs and the one by the grass cress shield? What are they doing? Each one generally seems to be there for a reason. How do they escape from the kiln anyway? :p

Murdeaulio wrote:What about the one in the Catacombs and the one by the grass cress shield? What are they doing? Each one generally seems to be there for a reason. How do they escape from the kiln anyway? :p

Recon? They are like Fringe observers, they are only in important places. I think they are just there to be a challenge, to see if the chosen undead deserves to link the fire, as Ornstein does.

Think about it, they are demon slayers, correct? so, why are they only in places withtou any demons nearby? maybe because they killed them or simply because they are on guard duty, defending their designed locations agaisnt further demonic attacks.

I have actually pulled the first black knight in the asylum into the stray demon fight. He totally ignored the demon and they teamed up to gank me instead..

ublug wrote:I have actually pulled the first black knight in the asylum into the stray demon fight. He totally ignored the demon and they teamed up to gank me instead..

Well that stray demon is used as a jailer, so they might be considered as being on the same side. Why they would use demons as jailers in the first place is beyond me.

Where they at least able to damage each other? I know Oscar and the Black Knight can kill each other, even though they prefer to target the player.