A bit of wondering about the storyline, protagonists' motive and the dragon hunt.

Just a while ago I ended my adventure in Dark Souls and started digging the lore and everything I missed. I’m wondering what was the storyline actually about and decided to share my toughs, can you tell me what I do understand and what am I wrong about?

As far as I understood, back in time there was nothing but darkness and the role of gods was kept by the everlasting dragons but Gwynn appeared and created the first flame in with he burned life gaining power greater than that of the dragons. He granted the flame to the lords and they helped him get rid of most of the dragons.
But with time the flame extinguished and thus there has been no life, with was used to fuel it. Without life there is no death and thus people started to turn undead.

Description of pendant claims: "Trinket. No effect, but fond memories comfort travelers."
I was wondering why does our undead push forward? He has no real reason to believe in some random prophecy just like that from a stray warrior in a random place. Neither does he seem to have any reason to not go hollow unless we give him one.
Or does he?
Miyazaki says that for him it's either the gift or pendant or nothing.
At some point I realised that memories of life may be what gives our protagonist the strength needed to overcome this hell that stands before him in search for a cure to the curse.
But I need some clarification around that, so some opinions will be nice~

In the end we defeat even Gwynn but then come to realise that he was a false god, gaining power by draining him from the life of the world.
It comes to me that both endings are good no matter the players choice. Pretty contrary to claims about both of them begin bad. Why?
Well for what I understand the world in dark souls has never been in balance.
It seems that the world in dark souls is in constant rotation. It started in dark, then there was light of flame and the dark is now approaching again. The player can either lit the flame and let this era continue only for a little longer or start the new age continuing the rotation. Both endings are good for the world itself even if they are of no salvation to humanity. With greatly explains why the protagonist may not want to sacrifice himself if he wishes to save us from the curse.


I'm not really sure why did Gwyn hunt dragons thought. Was it because before he became a god there was nothing more powerful? (demons have been created by bed of chaos, so only a bit before the start of the game compared to the start of the age). I really do wonder.

So, what have I got right and where am I wrong?

From what i understand is that the First Flame began out of nowhere, kinda like the big bang hahaha, then from that came CHANGE.

the way I've understood it is this the dragons lived atop kinda like in the surface of the world, and the Giant/hollow-type(prior to becoming Gods through the First Flame) lived underground, at least in the video it seems like we are taken underground or some lower level of the world to where they inhabit, maybe middle-earth(i wonder if FROMSOFT was inspired by the middle-earth theory). and as for the whole First Flame thing i kinda wrote about it in another post

"then from the dark, they came" that sounds like they've[the giant/hollows, we see in the video, before ascending into godhood] been just chillin in the dark... I think what it means is the the flame created a contrast in reality(if you were born and grew up living the dark, would you call it the dark since that would be your standard perception of reality and there's nothing to compare it to, it's not the dark, it just is). You couldn't really die before, or "live" for that matter, you just EXISTED in that space and maybe "time" was also created since there was never a need to measure your existence or actions or anything for that matter. "life" was one, or nothing really. So, when it says it create life and death... this seems to be implying more of a metaphysical sense and that there's now an actual essence to "living", rather than it created lifeforms. The first flame sounds kinda like the mythos archetype of pandora box. There was no evil or sin before, so "morality" meant jack shhht, or when Eve took a bite from the apple in Genesis, and then she was self-aware of being self-aware, and with knowledge came "an understanding of morals".

Maybe the "Gods" were envious of the Dragons controlling the surface territory and waged a war for it. How many species of animals, including us, wage war over territory?

I'd also like to understand the true cause or deeper understanding why the war broke out in the first place.

As for the demons, they were born from the chaos flame/bed of chaos/life, but in the titanite demon description it states that "When the nameless blacksmith deity passed,
from several Slabs, great beasts arose.
The power of titanite remains within them,
and they still roam Lordran today" ....so I'm not sure if this happened before the chaos demons or after, and it seems demons are not exclusive to the chaos flame, which interest me greatly because what we think is solid evidence of anything of Dark Souls can easily mean squat once you start putting other puzzle pieces together.

Gwyn didn't create the first flame, the first flame created everything else (basicaly); as the first flame created disparity, the only thing that could have existed before it is nothing (or, theoretically, some kind of neutral state, though that would still be different from nothing).

Much like how science and nature in real life is fueled by differences in forces such as temperature and speed (Fear the Heat Death of the Universe!), the flame created life and light. You could either think of it scientifically, with the flame acting as the sun and blossoming heat and life on the surface of the world, or metaphorically and think of it like, say, a computer maintaining the world (or an Xbox, Ps3, etc).

While it is possible that taking the lord souls is what caused the flame to start to fade (note that both serpents want you to return the lord souls to the kiln), it is possible that Gwyn was literally "draining the life from the planet," though there isn't much to support that.

Likewise, though I personally believe that the protagonist, the Chosen Undead, is the most likely candidate for the Firstborn position, the reason that their goals are never revealed is to allow the player to implant those ideas into their character. In essence, the protagonist continues on because we want them to.

I believe that the Lords essentially did challenge the dragons in what amounts to a battle for territory. Every bit of evidence points towards the undead being mere humans during the war; as such, they were not immortal. The whole point of adaptation and evolution, whether you believe it exists solely in the human spirit or in all life, is to fight to be the best. Much like how modern humans wouldn't be forced to live underground in caves if the surface was habitable aside from, say, lions, the original humans and godlings would not have done so just because of some pesky dragons; not if they thought they had any chance to take the surface.

As for the endings, I do not believe the Dark Lord Ending is good. If we look solely at what is presented, it is allowing the flame to die; It's possible that is a clever lie, but there's no real evidence to support that. We also know from the intro that the undead curse is recent, as is the fading of the flame, and that the two are linked. Since the flame that created the line between opposites such as life and death fading is causing that line to blur, it's only logical to assume that killing that flame would remove that line entirely. As such, killing the flame would reset the world to a neutral state, or back to nothingness. No life or death, no light or dark, no hot or cold.

I'll let you get caught up with some vids rather than launching into a detailed post. The guys (gals?) before me did that already.

Here's the vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iuhu8Gw50Ig

Epicnamebro's vids are a good sort of a lore 101 class if you're interested. It's not everything, but he covers a lot (especially the basics).