Manus Theory

I've realized there really aren't any threads in the Archives that talk about the origins of Manus so I might as well try to contribute of what I think Manus may in fact be.

Well first off, we all know that he is the father of the abyss, there really isn't any argument there. However I would like to point out one of the first things about him, his name. This creature is ancient possibly even older than Lordran. One of the things that makes me wonder is the fact that Lordran is obviously just a translation to "Land of the Lords" in some other type of language, could that be the same thing for Manus?
There are two words that we can draw one is Man and the other would just get censored.
This got me thinking on what Manus may in fact be. Let's take in to account that the age of man coincides with the age of dark if we choose the dark lord ending. In other words mankind has something to do with the darkness and possibly the abyss. So is it possible that Manus is also the father of mankind as well?
The other Gods of the world don't exactly like the idea of the age of man coming around so it's possible that they weren't the ones that made mankind, instead it's more likely Manus did.

One of the other things that was mentioned in another topic is that things in the world of Dark Souls, always balance themselves out even if the Gods don't want them too.
So it is possible that there is a cycle that time abides by. (The land of fog (time of dragons), Lordran (time of Gods and Lords), and the age of man, than a reset of it all. Except what happens to the Dark Lord? Does he die like everyone else? Or does something happen to him?
Here's what I'm trying to get at, I think that if the player were to chose the Dark Lord ending what eventually happens to that character is that they turn in to a creature like Manus since they were the ones that started the age of man and possibly fathered mankind.
Why do I think this? Two words, the pendant.
For what we know we are the only ones that have a pendant after the age of dark sets in, and we still bare the memories that the pendant holds with it. It's possible that as the age of man starts to fade away, the character that we played as goes maddens like Gwyn did and turns into Manus and cradles the memories he had when he fathered Mankind.

So why are we able to fight Manus? Blame it on the Oolacilians and one of the primordial serpents for distorting the time in Lordran. I think it began with too much curiosity from both of them that brought Manus into a different time, and he attempted to continue the existence of humanity.
This might also explain the large masses of humanity that are floating around in the abyss, Manus at the end of Mankind's time may have tried warped methods of magic on both man, woman, and children (explaining how they come off in three different shapes)I think the only reason I think this might be the case is because of the description of the pursuers.
"The will feels envy, or perhaps love, and despite the inevitably trite and tragic ending,
the will sees no alternative, and is driven madly toward its target"
The pursuers may in fact be humans that recognize us and move towards our old selves, because they think that we might help them from end their suffering or it could be the other way around that they hate us and they have accepted their fate and only wish to kill us.

So I'd like to know what you think of this theory. Do you think it's plausible or not?

Now that I think of it, Lordran is really just "Lord-ran", like Lord's run the place. And Manus could be "Man = us", the embodiment of the age of man. It's very plausible in my eyes and is very logical.

Just explained the entire DLC and lingering question of "the pendant" in a single post. Well done, good Sir!

This has actually been on my mind for quite some time actually, I just wanted to look more into it before actually posting it on the Archives.

Well done then c:

Manus actually for any Latin-speaking person reminds you of the word for "Hand", the plural would be Mani.
He is definitely the original Dark Lord, the one that created the Dark Hand the Darkwraiths mimic.

Just pouring some sugar over your cake.

And nay, I don't think the Chosen Undead is Manus, simply because there are 284732847382578327583247324 Chosen Undeads, and Manus has a very distinct and unique set story.

Humanities are actually parts of the Dark Soul, one of the Lord Souls. SO he can't exist before the discovery of the First Flame. He is definitely something AFTER the Pygmy.

I can't remember if Kaathe mentions that it is the Dark Lord that is the progenitor of all mankind. And also one of the Lords. If so, Manus is the Pygmy

/thread

Orango19 wrote:Manus actually for any Latin-speaking person reminds you of the word for "Hand", the plural would be Mani.
He is definitely the original Dark Lord, the one that created the Dark Hand the Darkwraiths mimic.

Just pouring some sugar over your cake.

And nay, I don't think the Chosen Undead is Manus, simply because there are 284732847382578327583247324 Chosen Undeads, and Manus has a very distinct and unique set story.

Humanities are actually parts of the Dark Soul, one of the Lord Souls. SO he can't exist before the discovery of the First Flame. He is definitely something AFTER the Pygmy.

I can't remember if Kaathe mentions that it is the Dark Lord that is the progenitor of all mankind. And also one of the Lords. If so, Manus is the Pygmy

/thread

Yes, I had already ran into that definition of Manus, that is a possibility but I think that there is also the chance that Manus also works the same way the name Lordran works. Either one points to the fact that he was a Dark Lord.

Your right on this, Manus is a specific Dark Lord but that doesn't mean that the current chosen undead in this cycle won't go mad like Manus did if we choose the Dark Lord ending and clutch to the pendant that we either chose from the start or possibly got later in the game.

Perhaps I didn't word it correctly when I said that Manus is from a different time period than the Oolicilians. Again he is from a different age in time where the age of man is at it's own end like the age of the Gods and he clutches to the darkness the same way Gwyn clutches to the light. They have both been driven mad with the idea that their own age will fade away. The difference with Manus is that after the age of man the cycle of the ages repeats and the age of the ancients begins again. This would explain why time is different for every chosen undead, they all live in different cycles of a never-ending uroboros.

Also think of it like this every chosen undead can only choose from two endings thus limiting the end result from being very different from each other. In the To Link the Fire ending all that happens is that the age of dark eventually sets in but without a Dark Lord and the Dark Lord ending meaning the exact opposite. We either burn alive until the flame fades away or we become like Manus before the cycle of time in the Dark Souls world resets itself and starts NG+.

So, what happens if four or five chosen undead in a row choose to link the fire? Are you saying that after every age of man, Gwyn, Nito, and the rest would just be born again, waltz up to the flame and take out the Lord Souls?

It's an interesting theory, but if they were trying to imply that, they likely would have made the pendant actually important to the initial storyline, so that it wasn't possible to play through the game without one.

GrinTwist wrote:One of the things that makes me wonder is the fact that Lordran is obviously just a translation to "Land of the Lords"...

I did not mention this earlier. But any Warcraft player might recognize the similarity of Lordaeron and Lordran.

I can't recall any other country in video-game history with that kind of name; but I'm pretty sure it is a common name.

Mostly derived from Lord + London. I don't know about you, Americans; but the rest of the world usually associate Medieval Age with the British culture (I blame King Arthur and Merlin) and obviously London.

The name was pick simply to make it easier for you to associate with the place with a legendary kingdom. You knew Lordran had castles even before seeing it, simply because the narrator mentioned its name. Human psychology right there.

GrinTwist wrote:Yes, I had already ran into that definition of Manus, that is a possibility but I think that there is also the chance that Manus also works the same way the name Lordran works. Either one points to the fact that he was a Dark Lord.

If we consider the FROM team to be really really smart. They picked the name because it'll likely remind you of Man and Hand at the same time.

The only thing that can make you think he is the previous Dark Lord is his Hand; a Dark Hand.

GrinTwist wrote:Your right on this, Manus is a specific Dark Lord but that doesn't mean that the current chosen undead in this cycle won't go mad like Manus did if we choose the Dark Lord ending and clutch to the pendant that we either chose from the start or possibly got later in the game.

I honestly think it is more like Manus can control whoever gets infected with too much Dark. e.g: Artorias.

"Our Dark Lord has returned..." I don't remember controlling my character after beating Gwyn. Probably what happened to Artorias happened to you. Manus possessed your body and the Primordial Serpents recognize this.

He is like a badass demon, waiting for someone to be tainted enough with Dark to become his new vessel of darkness. MAYBE that's what happened to Dusk. Kaathe was trying to bring his Dark Lord back to life, but this time he used a random creature (Dusk); that's why he was so weak and easily killed.

So this time, Kaathe goes around searching for a stronger creature to be the new vessel of his Lord. And Ta-dah, it is you. It's more like a straight line than a cycle. IMO.

GrinTwist wrote:Perhaps I didn't word it correctly when I said that Manus is from a different time period than the Oolicilians. Again he is from a different age in time where the age of man is at it's own end like the age of the Gods and he clutches to the darkness the same way Gwyn clutches to the light. They have both been driven mad with the idea that their own age will fade away. The difference with Manus is that after the age of man the cycle of the ages repeats and the age of the ancients begins again. This would explain why time is different for every chosen undead, they all live in different cycles of a never-ending uroboros.

I can't see how the Arch-trees can grow up again, but the dragons are coming back to life through the Undead, that are slowly becoming dragons themselves (those that follow the Dragon Covenant).

This kinda makes sense, if you see only the Ages repeating in the never-ending cycle; and not the characters. However it is more likely it is an allusion to our own Universe.

Nothingness (Age of Ancients) -> Big Bang (heat - First Flame) -> Sh it start to cool down and retract (Dark - Abyss) -> Nothingness again (Second Age of Ancients).

We can't be sure if the Universe will be born again.

GrinTwist wrote:Also think of it like this every chosen undead can only choose from two endings thus limiting the end result from being very different from each other. In the To Link the Fire ending all that happens is that the age of dark eventually sets in but without a Dark Lord and the Dark Lord ending meaning the exact opposite. We either burn alive until the flame fades away or we become like Manus before the cycle of time in the Dark Souls world resets itself and starts NG+.

I think it is more of a gameplay feature than story-wise.
And considering it is a roleplaying game, there is more than 2 endings. I, myself, chose to don't give a f*ck and become a forest bandit, stealing titanite Chunks and Pendants from unwary people visiting the Darkroot Garden. hehe

In regards to the names and art styles similar to parallels in our own world, there's a lot of Welsh/Brythonic, Irish and Roman themes. A lot of divine characters have names of Welsh/Brythonic and Irish names, including Gwyn, (literally 'white, holy, blessed'; also the name of the fairy-king that ruled over winter and the Wild Hunt) Gwynevere, (Gwynafar in its original form, meaning 'white ghost') Gwyndolin, (Welsh for 'white ring, white bow) Ciaran, (Irish Gaelic for 'little dark one, blacky') Gough, (a Welsh surname or last name) Logan (A Scottish name derived from a last name derived from the name of a place) and possibly many others-there's a LOT of characters in Welsh and Irish myth, many of which I do not know the names of.
Artorias is a Roman name, as is Manus, (literally 'hand') Nito, (meaning 'blessed') Vince, (meaning 'prevailing) Laurentius (meaning 'a man from Laurentum', a city near Rome, or 'the one who wears a laural wreath') and Solaire. (Sol is the Latin word for 'sun')
The Greek names present in the game include Rhea and (meaning 'flowing') Nico. (related to victory)
There are also Norse/German names, including Sif and Rickert. (German form of Richard, meaning 'powerful leader')
Andre is a French name that means 'brave, manly'.
The presence of lightning spears may be a reference to both or either Zeus's lightning bolts, or the spear the Irish Lugh Lampfada used to kill Balor of the Evil Eye, which some scholars believe is an allusion to or metaphor for lightning. There's a LOT of cultural references in Dark Souls.

What all this leads to is that I think the name Manus is more related to his hand than to Man themselves. (though the two are related) The size of his hand makes this seem very plausible to me.
That Humanity is a part of the Dark Soul is a theory by another player, not a fact, as is the idea that the world works in repeating cycles of grey, white and black. I individually think both of these are incorrect.
Its also nowhere stated that the gods made men-in fact, if Kaathe is telling any shred of truth or if what few facts about the pygmy there are actually mean what they insinuate, then humans are descended from the Furtive Pygmy-a creature entirely different from the Gods and about (presumably) as old.

Acarnatia wrote:In regards to the names and art styles similar to parallels in our own world, there's a lot of Welsh/Brythonic, Irish and Roman themes. A lot of divine characters have names of Welsh/Brythonic and Irish names, including Gwyn, (literally 'white, holy, blessed'; also the name of the fairy-king that ruled over winter and the Wild Hunt) Gwynevere, (Gwynafar in its original form, meaning 'white ghost') Gwyndolin, (Welsh for 'white ring, white bow) Ciaran, (Irish Gaelic for 'little dark one, blacky') Gough, (a Welsh surname or last name) Logan (A Scottish name derived from a last name derived from the name of a place) and possibly many others-there's a LOT of characters in Welsh and Irish myth, many of which I do not know the names of.
Artorias is a Roman name, as is Manus, (literally 'hand') Nito, (meaning 'blessed') Vince, (meaning 'prevailing) Laurentius (meaning 'a man from Laurentum', a city near Rome, or 'the one who wears a laural wreath') and Solaire. (Sol is the Latin word for 'sun')
The Greek names present in the game include Rhea and (meaning 'flowing') Nico. (related to victory)
There are also Norse/German names, including Sif and Rickert. (German form of Richard, meaning 'powerful leader')
Andre is a French name that means 'brave, manly'.

Yup. Sol is actually the name of the sun. And a Roman God, he is the sun. lol

The presence of lightning spears may be a reference to both or either Zeus's lightning bolts, or the spear the Irish Lugh Lampfada used to kill Balor of the Evil Eye, which some scholars believe is an allusion to or metaphor for lightning. There's a LOT of cultural references in Dark Souls.

I remember there is a creature called The Evil Eye in Dark Souls too. Nice, I didn't know that.

That Humanity is a part of the Dark Soul is a theory by another player, not a fact, as is the idea that the world works in repeating cycles of grey, white and black. I individually think both of these are incorrect.

Nope. It IS a fact.
http://pastebin.com/u/kaelsmith Do your homework ^^

(Isomura Tomomi - Host): Our next question. Is furtive pygmy that only appears in the prologue the main
protagonist that had inheritted the lord soul in a different world?
(Miyazaki Hidetaka): Its bit of a spoiler but first of all its "pygmy" (小人 in jp can be read differently)
(Isomura Tomomi): pygmy
(Miyazaki Hidetaka): "It aint written anywhere so how could I know". The image is something like a human
ancestor. It found the Lord Soul and humanity is like a fragment of it. Kinda like
an ancestor, so the descendants have a part of that soul.
(Isomura Tomomi and Murohashi): aww I see

Its also nowhere stated that the gods made men-in fact, if Kaathe is telling any shred of truth or if what few facts about the pygmy there are actually mean what they insinuate, then humans are descended from the Furtive Pygmy-a creature entirely different from the Gods and about (presumably) as old.

I always considered this an obvious part of the story. Dark Souls actually have races. Pretty much like other fantasy games (elves, humans, dwarves and etc).

We have Giants, Izalithians and Humans. A pygmy (I DON'T WANT TO BE RACIST) is like a dark small hobbit in the real world. LOL

He was probably called that because he was small in comparison to the Giants and Izalithians; so the other races see primeval humans as pygmys, that later evolved into a race of their own: Humans.

Hm. I'd never thought of it before, but look at the size of the different race populations.

Clearly the pygmy was sleeping around...

Shkar wrote:Hm. I'd never thought of it before, but look at the size of the different race populations.

Clearly the pygmy was sleeping around...

So was Gwyn... LMAO

Looks like I'm spamming the forums... recently took a break from them lol. Anyways, I've had a theory on the evolution of the speices in Dark Souls for a bit now. If you have time please give it a read =)

https://soulswiki.forumotion.com/t15104-analysis-series-dark-souls-intro-truths-reveled

Long story short, the "Dark" that's mentioned in the intro is the primordial soup (reference Artoria's Armor descrip for more proof) and all races that we know of sprang from the soup. Hence, the reason Primordial serpents have human-esque faces. I explain it more in the link above. Let me know what you think

Manus is for sure the pygmy. His soul is the 'dark soul', as the father and master of dark sorcery and the abyss.

The pendant has also been described as the link to the pygmy, and manus is obsessed with the pendant so yeah..

He's also hunched over like the pygmy is in the opening sequence.. yeah.

With regards to Manus, it means hand, but it can also mean a force or band of men, quite often in military terminology, so it may also be indicating his intent of conquering, just a neat tidbit.

I like the whole manus-possession theory, it does wrap everything up quite nicely, but here's a question: Why didn't artorias become the next dark lord? Sure, he had a will of steel, but he was conquered and was too weak to beat Manus, and fell to him, unlike the Chosen Undead, who is probably stronger.

As for the pendant thing: I agree that it was probably going to be part of the game at one point, but got cut, like the DkS version of second chance.

It's funny, nobody takes into account that the Abyss still kept spreading after Manus was slain in Oolacile. For all that is known Dusk herself still told that her kingdom was devastated and this can be easily assumed to have happened after Manus fell. Even if anything, i find it kind of intriguing that these events of darkening, twisted transformations and madness are all preceded by the lack of souls. For all its worth, humanity is in abundance which in turn explains the fact why demons are more prelevant in areas with Abyssal influence, because by definition demons are just creatures animated by the flames of humanity, while all things that carry an excess of humanity have the capacity to become a demon (Darkwraiths being the prime example).

I honestly think the DLC was just made to make us go clinically insane over what the pendant does...

Dutchy wrote:I honestly think the DLC was just made to make us go clinically insane over what the pendant does...

Especially since you need the "broken pendant" to get to manus. That got the old gears working again when I got my broken pendant.

To throw my opinion out their, i like to think that manus in fact is the furtave pygme. Prime evil in a way can be translated to mean "origin". the pygme was the first of man kind to exist among the lords. He then took the dark soul and went into hiding. Later such actions would lead to the expansion of mankind for all humanity that resides in man and are but pieces of the dark soul. splitting up lord souls is a proven theory for gwyn himself gave pieces of his souls to his followers such as seath and the four kings.
another thing to consider is that you find the human shaped barreal in the center of the arena where you fight manus. who was to say that the pygme being human and all simply didnt just die off over time. Then after being awakend (or resurrected) by the folks of Olocelle, his humanity went out of control, becoming manus and the starting of the corruption of the abyss.

So if Manus is the furtive pygmy then whats so special about the chosen undead? if i recall isnt he supposed to be the pygmy incarnete?

twilightwarwolf wrote:So if Manus is the furtive pygmy then whats so special about the chosen undead? if i recall isnt he supposed to be the pygmy incarnete?

No; Kaathe claims he's your predecessor, but I'm fairly certain he means that in regard to being the "Dark Lord."

so again whats so special about the chosen undead if there is in fact a chosen undead.

twilightwarwolf wrote:so again whats so special about the chosen undead if there is in fact a chosen undead.

There doesn't have to be something special about them. Sure, maybe they are a hero chosen by the flame to reinvigorate it, or the Firstborn of Gwyn, or secretly an alien; any one of those could secretly be true.

Or, the story could just be about determination. It's believed that characters hollow when they give up. If our character is just braver and more determined than everyone else, isn't that enough?

I think whatever Manus was, he was holding back the Abyss. Father of the Abyss... what does a father usually do? Care and tend to it's children; the abyss. When we killed Manus, we removed that care and nurturing the Abyss was getting and gave it free reign to infect and destroy things. Killing Manus was the worst thing we could have done...