Dark Souls: Why the Chosen Must be Undead

Hello! I made a video hoping to explain why the Chosen Undead has to be Undead. If you've ever wondered why Gwyndolin, Ornstein and/or Smough couldn't go kindle their own dang fires, this vid's for you.

The reason why the chosen most be undead, is because it is the land of the dead. The afterlife. The land of the gods.
At least, that is why I think the chosen most be undead.

Because it says "Chosen Undead"
duh

EDIT: ha.

Werdax wrote:The reason why the chosen most be undead, is because it is the land of the dead. The afterlife. The land of the gods.
At least, that is why I think the chosen most be undead.

Lordran is the land of Lords, not the dead. It is not the afterlife; everyone there is alive.

Hachouma wrote:Because it says "Chosen Undead"
duh

Not sure if sarcasm. If so: ha. If not: yes, but why does it say Chosen Undead?


Thanks for the comments.

Thanks Thymos! Glad you enjoyed it.

Humans become undead when they are branded with the Darksign. I think this happens to humans as a sign that the gods and the first flame are dying, the undead are able to carry and consume humanity and use souls to further increase their abilities as undead. So, if humans are becoming undead with superhuman capabilities and are able to carry humanity because the gods are dying, then its probably because..

1. Humans are given the opportunity to use their ability to control humanity to link the fire.
or
2. Humans are given their new strength as undead to destroy the gods.

InfiniteDoomsday wrote:Humans become undead when they are branded with the Darksign. I think this happens to humans as a sign that the gods and the first flame are dying, the undead are able to carry and consume humanity and use souls to further increase their abilities as undead. So, if humans are becoming undead with superhuman capabilities and are able to carry humanity because the gods are dying, then its probably because..

1. Humans are given the opportunity to use their ability to control humanity to link the fire.
or
2. Humans are given their new strength as undead to destroy the gods.

You're assuming that there's some greater power at work that gives Undead abilities in order to accomplish some task. I don't think so. People, in the real world, have abilities that far surpass any other creatures, but we weren't necessarily "given" those abilities and we don't necessarily have a purpose.

Not sure if you've watched the vid, but I was addressing why the gods' plan had to include an Undead. As opposed to, say, sending Ornstein and Smough to go kindle the fire.

DE5PA1R wrote:

InfiniteDoomsday wrote:Humans become undead when they are branded with the Darksign. I think this happens to humans as a sign that the gods and the first flame are dying, the undead are able to carry and consume humanity and use souls to further increase their abilities as undead. So, if humans are becoming undead with superhuman capabilities and are able to carry humanity because the gods are dying, then its probably because..

1. Humans are given the opportunity to use their ability to control humanity to link the fire.
or
2. Humans are given their new strength as undead to destroy the gods.

You're assuming that there's some greater power at work that gives Undead abilities in order to accomplish some task. I don't think so. People, in the real world, have abilities that far surpass any other creatures, but we weren't necessarily "given" those abilities and we don't necessarily have a purpose.

Not sure if you've watched the vid, but I was addressing why the gods' plan had to include an Undead. As opposed to, say, sending Ornstein and Smough to go kindle the fire.

The only thing humans are better at is their intelligence. We're outran by a huge number of animals and overpowered by nearly as many. Our children take far longer to learn to survive on their own, and even though we need to work together to survive, we aren't even as good at that as even the lowly ant.

With the gods being several feat taller than us, even with the assumption that the height is due to stronger souls, it suggests that the gods could easily overpower us in a physical sense, and we KNOW they outclass us in terms of magic.

Shkar wrote:

DE5PA1R wrote:

InfiniteDoomsday wrote:Humans become undead when they are branded with the Darksign. I think this happens to humans as a sign that the gods and the first flame are dying, the undead are able to carry and consume humanity and use souls to further increase their abilities as undead. So, if humans are becoming undead with superhuman capabilities and are able to carry humanity because the gods are dying, then its probably because..

1. Humans are given the opportunity to use their ability to control humanity to link the fire.
or
2. Humans are given their new strength as undead to destroy the gods.

You're assuming that there's some greater power at work that gives Undead abilities in order to accomplish some task. I don't think so. People, in the real world, have abilities that far surpass any other creatures, but we weren't necessarily "given" those abilities and we don't necessarily have a purpose.

Not sure if you've watched the vid, but I was addressing why the gods' plan had to include an Undead. As opposed to, say, sending Ornstein and Smough to go kindle the fire.

The only thing humans are better at is their intelligence. We're outran by a huge number of animals and overpowered by nearly as many. Our children take far longer to learn to survive on their own, and even though we need to work together to survive, we aren't even as good at that as even the lowly ant.

With the gods being several feat taller than us, even with the assumption that the height is due to stronger souls, it suggests that the gods could easily overpower us in a physical sense, and we KNOW they outclass us in terms of magic.

Humans have more endurance than most animals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursorial_hunting


Back to Lordran, i think it would be better for humans to not kindle the flame because, you know, that's the age of gods, so they would keep sacrificing their lives sanity for another, nearly extinct race, the gods, who are (as Frampt says) not exactly serving a purpose anymore

It's better for them to start the age of dark and end the undead curse (i.e. darksign), so people who die are dead, and stop going hollow

Except ushering in the Dark pretty obviously won't end the 'curse of the Darksign,' either. Either everything went wrong in both New Londo and Oolacile by Kaathe's point of view and everyone mutated and went berserk/crazy when they weren't supposed to, or the Abyss turns humans into ghosts, Darkwraiths and the squiggly-people present in Oolacile.

Also, yes, humans are outraced by most animals; on the other hand, humans can outdistance almost every animal. (and humans also have one of the least energy effective walking methods there is) Our manual dexterity and endurance is very high. What ultimately does make humans different from animals, rather than just a durable, agile animal, is his or her mind. (and depending on your and my spiritual beliefs, soul)

Hachouma wrote:Back to Lordran, i think it would be better for humans to not kindle the flame because, you know, that's the age of gods, so they would keep sacrificing their lives sanity for another, nearly extinct race, the gods, who are (as Frampt says) not exactly serving a purpose anymore

It's better for them to start the age of dark and end the undead curse (i.e. darksign), so people who die are dead, and stop going hollow

Somebody else pointed this out, but the Dark Lord ending doesn't necessarily end the Undead Curse. Unless, like, everybody dies or something.

The point of the vid is to question the theory that the First Flame has to keep being kindled over and over. I don't think that's the case; I think an Undead linking the flame ends the cycle.

Shkar wrote:The only thing humans are better at is their intelligence.

That's the only thing that counts.

[url=http://***.tumblr.com/search/smough]
Sry bro i don't think smough is fat! this is apperantly from the art book. jus keep scrolling down until you find a picture of half of smough's armor. the guy who posted it said it was from the design works. I don't think the butchers are really fat either, wheen you look at them they are rippled with muscle. mildred is rather large though

Edit: sry the link isn't working. If you wan't to see it go f u c k y e a h p r a i s e t h e s u n

type that in on google with no spaces and when you et onto he website use te search bar and type in "smough". it'a not thefirst picture but it's there not to far down

Well it doesn't need much explaining considering the tale of the chosen undead was woven by the gods to trick undead humans to being puppets to help them. They just wanted the most insignificant creature they had at their disposal to kill itself to help them.

There's no real need of 'why' when the whole thing was just a manipulative fabrication.

I'd brought up the idea before that simply returning the lord souls to the flame may stabilize and reinvigorate it. Too the best of our knowledge, the flame didn't begin to fame until after the lord souls were removed from it.

And, in a way, it's almost more humane for a human to link the flame than a god, assuming that the results are the same. It's the same reason why someone would save the life of a 20 year old instead of the life of a 90 year old; one has more life to live. The humans are obviously, well, human. They will die of old age. Yet the gods are essentially immortal.

And when you compare the loss of, what, say 30 years to an eternity? No comparison.

Serious_Much wrote:They just wanted the most insignificant creature they had at their disposal to kill itself to help them.

There's no real need of 'why' when the whole thing was just a manipulative fabrication.

Lol that's ridiculous.

Gwynevere: Looks like the First Flame is dying. Someone needs to go kindle it.
Gwyndolin: Ornstein. Go.
Ornstein: Uh... Wait! I have an idea!
Gwyndolin: ...
Gwynevere: You're just trying to get out of it.
Ornstein: No really, I have a plan! We'll get an Undead to do it.
Gwyndolin: Wat
Ornstein: Yeah! We'll formulate a crazy convoluted plan. We'll need to start a religion to persecute the Undead, an Asylum with a Demon in it - no 2 Demons! - a fortress full of traps that's only activated by 2 bells that are far away from each other, and an alliance with a primordial serpent. Oh, and it'll cost us our diefic status, wipe out 99% of the humans that worship us, lead to our downfall as gods, and might take an extremely long time.
Gwynevere: ...
Gwyndolin: You're an idiot. Go kindle the damn flame.

Personally, I think the only reason the chosen undead has to be undead is because Frampt and Gwyn and all their other god-buddies think they'll have an easier time conning an undead into perpetuating the Age of Fire. (I don't really think they consider themselves to be conmen, but they know that keeping the Kiln lit is a **** gig, at the very least. Gwyn's a pretty tragic character.) I think they're hedging they're bets on the idea that an undead who makes it to the Kiln of the First Flame will probably be pretty close to hollow by then, and not really think twice about spending the rest of the life of their soul standing by a bonfire.
This is why I consider the dark ending to be the "good" ending of Dark Souls. I think that the light ending sort of implies that you've gone hollow over the course of the game. (It's kind of funny, actually, it's almost like you've been wittled down by the difficulty of the game so much that when you have the option to light the bonfire, your instincts and distrust that the game wouldn't screw you for not doing it. Meanwhile, if you kept a level-head throughout the game, you'll know what the implications of lighting that bonfire are. At least, that's my interpretation.)

It may very well just be stated in a prophecy that s/he has to be Undead and everyone believes it or knows it's true.

The undead curse is a recent development, so it is unlikely that it is a prophecy situation (where would the oracles get their "prophecy" from if not the gods?).

It is also ridiculous to think the whole plot was to try to con some undead into kindling the flame for the gods. They have/had entire religions devoted to them, some of whom, like Solaire, were undoubtedly nuts. There were probably some that would have willingly done it and, if not, they could have just lied to them. So there's a deeper reason than just not wanting to be the one to do it.

Shkar wrote:The undead curse is a recent development, so it is unlikely that it is a prophecy situation (where would the oracles get their "prophecy" from if not the gods?).

It is also ridiculous to think the whole plot was to try to con some undead into kindling the flame for the gods. They have/had entire religions devoted to them, some of whom, like Solaire, were undoubtedly nuts. There were probably some that would have willingly done it and, if not, they could have just lied to them. So there's a deeper reason than just not wanting to be the one to do it.

This.

Should be obvious.