Speculations on the Bonfires? Need your input! (Secrets of the Dark)

Hey everyone, Effylmimer here. I need your help building up a convincing speculation about the bonfires and how they work and their role in Lordran for my new series. How do you think they revive the undead? 
Why don't they revive NPC's? Are all bonfires linked to a Firekeeper? If so, who keeps all of the unlit fires once you light them? 
How does hollowing work? Reverse Hollowing? How does kindling work? 
Why is the Chosen Undead able to light bonfires and no one else seems to be able to? Any information or speculation you have will be greatly appreciated to help me build my narrative for my first episode.

My series is called Secrets of the Dark. It follows a man named Loremaster Aldrich who tells all of the secrets of Lordran through journal entries. Each week, I will cover a new topic that has no real factual evidence within the game, and base the evidence on my own speculation and the information I get in the forums. If you want to check out the trailer I made for the series, the link is here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2jLSAu4qM4&feature=c4-overview&list=UUy-L6bsDRgNhUHClXIr-uVA

Well they only revive chosen undead, and as the NPCs are not "chosen" they will not revive. Or maybe they rested at a bonfire outside of Lordran and you are just being an a-- and making them walk all the way back. 

I believe all bonfires are/were linked to a firekeeper, notice that the ones with a firekeeper have already been kindled and Anastasia will even kindle firelink all the way.

You have a lot of questions though and some of them are worthy of a thread all on their own because there are so many debatable issues regarding them. Plus, if this is you series I think it would be better if you came up with it on your own or only consulted in game items. That way we might be able to get a fresh perspective on things instead of the same old stuff.

Effylmimer wrote:How do you think they revive the undead?

I have two ideas.

1. The darksign link the undead to the first flame. The undead originates from The Pygmy and the dark soul, and since the dark souls and humanity is connected to the first flame so is the undead. The bonfires acts as connected spots in the world, making a direct connection to the first flame. The undead's darksign stops their souls from dissipating after death, instead moving the soul towards the bonfire and rebuilds the body.

2. Time is strange in Lordran, with words phasing into each other (That's why we can speak with Lautrec and still invade him in his own world). I think that bonfires and the first flame affects time the closer vicinity you are too them, and the darksign connects you to the flame. When you die, you lose your humanity and souls before you are reverted back to the bonfire. Basically, your actions are undone. You never killed the undead hollow, and that's why they're there again. When you rest with a bonfire, you are basically shielding yourself from the time anomaly, allowing you to keep your souls but the enemies to revert back.

undefined wrote:Why don't they revive NPC's?

Here, I only have a strange hypothesis.

I am thinking that all NPC's have their own world, and because of time anomalies we can see them. When they "die," they only do so in our world, and are drawn back to their own worlds bonfire. Because they do not have the same determination as the chosen undead, they eventually hollow and roams their own worlds as hollows.

Effylmimer wrote:Are all bonfires linked to a Firekeeper? If so, who keeps all of the unlit fires once you light them?

I do not believe every bonfire is linked to a Firekeeper. I think that the bonfire that are kept by them acts as "gather places" for undead and are places in crucial places throughout the world, whether it is important to a religion or the world itself. I think they act as key nodes so to say, and that they are directly connected to the first flame, with the others connected to the bonfire with a Firekeeper. They do not die because they are not connected to a Firekeeper. A bonfire with a Firekeeper are directly connected to her, and now works as one with her.

Effylmimer wrote:How does hollowing work?

I think that the physical hollowing, that is, our character looking more undead is the lack of humanity damaging their body.

I think that the state known as "hollow" is when they've lost their goal "meaning" with their life, having been forced to die over and over again. Their minds has been shattered, and now only works to collect souls and humanity, following their primal instincts.

Effylmimer wrote:Reverse Hollowing?

Here, I think you use the bonfire as a catalyst, channeling humanity through it and reverts your body to "normal," temporarily pushing back the physical hollowing.

If from a time perspective, perhaps you fuel it with humanity, and the flame distorts time and returns your body to how it should be, making it so that basically you never were hollowing?

Effylmimer wrote:How does kindling work?

First of, the rite of kindling description:

"This secret rite allows bonfires to be bolstered further with Kindling, so that even more Estus can be collected.

Kindling was a sacred rite passed down among clerics, but all Undead can imitate the process, in the same manner that they restore their Hollowing with humanity.

How peculiar that humans had found little use for humanity until they turned Undead."

As for the mechanics behind it. I am thinking that the flame, and in turn the bonfire, are fueled by souls, and since humanity is a kind of soul you can use it to fuel the flame. Perhaps it is that you partially use the same way you do when reverting humanity, but instead of channeling it to you you let it stay in the bonfire?

Effylmimer wrote:Why is the Chosen Undead able to light bonfires and no one else seems to be able to?

Once again, I am thinking that they have their own world, and use the bonfires there.

I hoped I helped.

Edit: If you use this, please make a shout out to me

Or you could let Cat do all the work for you 

Heh, I hope I was to any help though.

What if hollowing was caused by the lack of humanity creating a sort of vacuum within the person and thus deteriorating them?

Wow Cat thanks for the massive amounts of feedback. You too Andres. At the end of the day, the series will be what I personally speculate, but different opinions open your eyes to somethings that you may never have thought of. I will definitely credit anyone I use information from, I plan on making this series a type of community interactive thing, ya know?

Yeah, I just wanted to know what YOU  think.

When will the first episode be up?

The first episode will be Monday the 15th!

Cool, I'll look forward to seeing it! Just make sure you post on this thread again or something when you upload it so we all remember to watch it. 

This isn't specifically a theory on how a bonfire works, but I think it explains pretty well how they come about.
Undead clerics are on a sacred mission to seek kindling, "the art of feeding bonfires with humanity". Reah and her company immediately descend into the catacombs for an unexplained reason and get lost down there like a bunch of losers.
When you descend, you meet the Pinwheel who stole the power of Gravelord Nito, and when you kill him he drops the Rite of Kindling.


Its a pretty huge stretch, but I personally like to believe that Nito himself created the bonfire -since he does after all raise the dead, and we can all agree that there is certainly a ton of backstory in dark souls that we haven't come close to understanding.
Hope you take this into consideration.

Or crazy thought and all, but what if we act as firekeeper for all the bonfires we're kindling. Could be possible if the main character is the furtive pygmy.

Soul of Stray Demon wrote:Or crazy thought and all, but what if we act as firekeeper for all the bonfires we're kindling. Could be possible if the main character is the furtive pygmy.

I've presented that idea before, way back when. It's also supported by the fact that the the church sent an envoy to figure out how to kindle flames; something that the character can do instinctively, and even better than the firekeepers; we see (through Anastacia) that they can kindle up to +20, but it likely takes some kind of extra effort (else she would do it for saving her). All your character has to do is figure out how to do it, and they can do it with no issue.

And that could explain why Qualeeg and Kirk go after you so fast. Because they know the enormous amount of humanity we have inside.

that bit at the end where kaathe pops up behind him was great. I'll definitely be watching them. good luck man

Effylmimer wrote:Are all bonfires linked to a Firekeeper? If so, who keeps all of the unlit fires once you light them?

 I think that by lighting them the chosen undead becomes their firekeeper, And due to being the chosen undead(if we believe frampt) or the descendant of the furtive pygmy (if we belirve kathe) He can freely leave the bonfires without them going out. That would certainly explain the weird scar the hollowed chosen undead has on their chest.

Bassman Bob wrote:

Effylmimer wrote:Are all bonfires linked to a Firekeeper? If so, who keeps all of the unlit fires once you light them?

 I think that by lighting them the chosen undead becomes their firekeeper, And due to being the chosen undead(if we believe frampt) or the descendant of the furtive pygmy (if we belirve kathe) He can freely leave the bonfires without them going out. That would certainly explain the weird scar the hollowed chosen undead has on their chest.

But not really, since every undead has that... Unless you go with the idea that every undead is chosen... Anyways, that scar is not unique.