dark lord and link the fire theory

Before reading posts in the archives I thought I was connecting dots and assuming some stuff people might otherwise miss, like tarkus being summoned at the golem fight and latter showing up dead near the painting in anor londo, meaning he was one of the few that managed to conquer sen's.
Then I start reading threads here and most of you guys just blew me out of the water. Have to say some things are just wild and/or assume/read too much into small details, however it's great fun and there's also true insight in many posts.


Now for my post:
Lots of people have theories about the hero's quest but I don't belive I've seen many if any pointing to a certain religious motif in there.
For me linking the fire seems about humanity placing their fate in the hands of an higher power AKA the lords AKA the age of fire.
The dark lord and the pigmy seems about humanity standing or their own tiny feet without any hand holding. The dark part is maybe the fact we have to sin/make mistakes and learn on our own. After all "it is only human to commit a sin". The dark lord meaning humanity is now (real life) more than ever distancing itself from the old beliefs due to our technological/intelectual development. Seems the ending is saying we are our own masters, flawed or not.
Sacrificing "humanity" to kindle fires (fires meaning faith or belief maybe) can very well point to atrocious acts in the name of god AKA the inquisition. Why is that firekeeper forbidden from talking? In Portugal we had a similar thing with Lucy, the woman who supposedly witnessed the "miracle" of the virgin mary, and was then locked way for life.
Then there are the serpents who act as advisors and other details.

In the end there might be many things that go against this theory since the story may lend itself to many interpretations, like the dragons, who according to catolicism usually represent the devil. In dark souls they seem to represent nature or/and the hardships it presented humanity with in the very beggining of the world. What do you think?

"The dark lord and the pigmy seems about humanity standing or their own tiny feet without any hand holding. The dark part is maybe the fact we have to sin/make mistakes and learn on our own. After all "it is only human to commit a sin". The dark lord meaning humanity is now (real life) more than ever distancing itself from the old beliefs due to our technological/intelectual development. Seems the ending is saying we are our own masters, flawed or not.
Sacrificing "humanity" to kindle fires (fires meaning faith or belief maybe) can very well point to atrocious acts in the name of god AKA the inquisition."

This right here pretty much sums up my beliefs on the Dark Lord Ending. I think this has actually been posted by me, Acidic, and some others in the Search for Lore Thread. But, with how many long posts it has I can easily see someone missing it, I've actually not read every bit of that thread still.

Also in case you haven't been formally welcomed, Welcome man!

Thanks for the welcome.
Indeed I've seen some theories that were close but maybe presented under a less religious light, but like you said sometimes they're long posts and I may have missed something.
I think From were very cleaver in introducing a touchy subject in a rather ambigous way.
By the way, was it not you that almost despaired after trying some crazy theory with the bed of chaos recently? It think in the thread of ceaseless being an optional boss...
Don't hollow out my friend. For what is worth I also hate her.

A small note: some guys are true troopers testing out pendant theories. I believe it's just one big marketting scheme at the worst, or unimplemented sfuff / less important than people make it out to be at best.
I only tried one substancial thing so far and only because it was easy. I dropped the pendant on ng in the cell in the hopes (not really) that it would reappear in ng+ with, I dn't know) a kind of record for enemies I've killed, on many times I died or something like that.
People should make a thread with only stuff they tried to make it work, no theories or anything, just the method, if only to show From all the suffering they caused

My favourite sentence ever in these forums: don't go hollow because of the pendant.


Edit: guess I'll jump over to the lore thread. It's kinda spooky and overwhelming but great fun.

Hey, feel free to make such a thread, I'm sure people would post in it about how frustrated they are, and that they're about to try a sure fire idea, then ten minutes later make a very sad post. I've tried to drop Pendants all over the place, as a forest hunter I sometimes have 70 of them on me at a time. I tried to drop one at the Bed of Chaos, nothing, CD, still nothing, Centipede demon? He killed me, does that mean something? Please tell me it...Right, don't go hollow. Yeah, that was me, oh the pain, oh the woe! Now I know how Hamlet felt. To beat, or not to beat the Bed of Chaos, that is the question. You know, that sounded funny in my head, actually typing that out I'm an idiot. Trust me, many have gone hollow over the pendant. I think that is what happened to Glyph after all. Maybe I should make a thread compiling all the lore of Glyph and his struggle to find out who the god of war was.

Yep, the meaning of hollow runs deep in this game. It stretches its tendrils from the tv set and grabs you and your inquisitive nature wrapping you in despair, never mind the rather shallow hollowing from the game's difficulty, the search for meaning is much much worse.
Hollow is the great forth wall breaker.

Those sneaky bastards at From... cleaver but devious.

Artorias is definitely proof of their ability to create red herrings.

Welcome and surprisingly.....welcome to the Archives. I think the crazy rants in here tend to drive some (less hollowed perhaps) souls away.

Not my case. I find the readings here nice, especially the mythological decodings. Red some of your posts regarding norse (probably my favourite) and arturian interconnections. Insteresting

I find a lot of bad influences in this Forum. I put the game down because Skyrim was collecting dust unopened and I had my plat for this game. Then Tolvo and Brokewilly decided to be interesting Forest Hunters which led to weeks of training for the Forest of the Damned event. Then I went back to Skyrim and Emergence had to open his mouth (keyboard?) and that got me back into lore. I went back to Skyrim and now everyone seems to be encouraging more lore hunting again. Last night I literally turned the game on just to stare at Domhnall with binoculars. When that wasn't good enough I put the damn set on and stood next to a wall to exploit the camera angles. I've gone more insane than ever and those guys are to blame. To which I say thanks......

Welcome bla! And yes skare, I too have been walking around with binocs staring at every little detail.

Emergence wrote:Welcome bla! And yes skare, I too have been walking around with binocs staring at every little detail.

Translation: Yes I spend hours looking for "secrets" in the Princess Chamber.

Nice

Lol.....those "details" aren't little. Perhaps he has a thing for Anastacia?

Thanks Emergence

FexDs wrote: Translation: Yes I spend hours looking for "secrets" in the Princess Chamber

A true secret make no mistake. Something in plain sight yet slightly hidden.

@ Scarekrow13
You're the godfather of Dark souls.

Ha ha...I appreciate it but you'll soon learn it's bad to encourage me.

What? You're gonna make me an offer I can't refuse?

Lol....worse.....my rants get longer

Hmm...

So what do you think of these religious assumptions?
You can just point me in the right direction (read: thread) since this seems to have been covered before, no doubt by you as well?

Ok....you asked for it.

I actually only recently brought any "religious" themes into the conversation recently in the Magical Theory 201 thread but that's only in discussion of miracles. Off the top of my head I would say most of the game has some religious aspects but not necessarily one of the current time big religions. We call it mythology but Norse, Greek/Roman and other lore really is religion. Also, there's a lot of parallels to their lore and current religion with the notable exception being polytheism losing popularity to monotheism. Even in current religious trends there are what would be called demigods in myth. Some of the angels have similar characteristics and the Christian God even had a child that interacted and influenced mortals directly. Not too far off really from Loki tricking people or Aphrodite starring in a beauty contest. I could probably make some ties to characters in the game and symbolism but my thought is that there's not a lot of characters based on current religious trends.

Story wise I can't think of a single flaw with your ending analyses. Linking the fire seems consistent with faith in a higher cause/being/power but also seems to represent the sacrifice found in a lot of religion for the greater good (Jesus and Tyr are the best examples). There's also the theme of being consumed by the power which might mean that regardless of power there is always something bigger and/or becoming one with the higher power as an ultimate goal.

Walking away is a pretty clear shout out to abandoning the old ways and like you said, standing on our own. That one's tougher because you have to assume that Gwyn is "evil" or doing the wrong thing to conclude that this is a good thing to do. Sacrifice might be present here too as you allow the power that helped shape the world to die.

Personally I think there aren't any "good" endings in this game. Both choices reflect that there is hardship and sacrifice as well as faith, just in different places. I'd be hard pressed to compare the total quest to a single story but there's many details that are dripping in religion and/or lore.

I also think there are no good endings. Only hardship in this game. Most of the characters who have a goal die or go hollow. Even the crestfallen warrior ends up taking action and losing himself. Some npcs who decide to stay put like the cresfallen merchant for example make it through the game albeit theirs is a stagnated existance to say the least.
Dark souls is indeed dark.

So after getting to know the endings what do you guys choose more often? Do you choose based on your character type or simply because you feel it's the most correct?

I especially like your connection between the flames and faith. Feeding humanity into the flames is a nice parallel all the loss of life suffered due to religious wars. Both endings are sad when you consider Gwyn used to be the hero who led humanity from the dark into an age where they could prosper, but now because the world is tired of him he should be replaced. You're only a hero while the crowd still cheers. The overall theme of dark souls is one of loss and sadness. If you've noticed there are no happy endings. I believe every NPC you meet is either virtually hollow/depressed (the merchants) or goes hollow eventually (the mentors). There is no happy ending here, there is no good nor no evil in the endings. The game is about the players actions and the journey.

For the endings I'm one of those people that puts a little rp in every character. So my pyromancers and clerics will always link with the flame, my knights and warriors will always walk away as they believe in man not the gods etc. So for me its who I think my character would choose.

My cleric linked the fire because it seemed in keeping with the character.
My pyromancer was kind of an evil one and got the dark lord ending and will one day set the whole of lordran on fire... not in the good way.
I also liked the connection skarekrow did with the jesus/gwyn sacrifice connection.
Overlooked that one.

Aye, great interpretation of the endings bla. I prefer the dark ending, not out of malicious intent, but because the Link the Fire ending makes me think that the gods will continue doing what they've always been doing. So yes, I dark lord for the betterment of humanity.