#but vordt isn't one of them

[aeolianasio]

there's actually a fair bit on Vordt if you pick through what's available!

i apologize for how rambling this is, it was written in between bouts of academic reading for my exams so it's probably not 100% coherent sorry!

he was a knight of Irithyll, sent to the High Wall of Lothric for two purposes - one, kill any chosen ash that got that far in an effort to protect the Pontiff and his... master? unwitting pawn? really fucked up buddy, Aldrich, and two, to get him out of the way, facilitating the Pontiff's takeover of Irithyll - Vordt was loyal to Gwyndolin, but moreso to the woman who would eventually become the Dancer of the Boreal Valley, who was also a member of Irithyll's royal famlily, being descended assumedly from the gods - he was said to never be far from her, according to his soul description, if i remember correctly. either way, the Pontiff didn't believe he could be turned against them - and according to the Dancer's soul description, the outrider knights were more or less exiled, given tasks far away from Irithyll, to be replaced instead by the Pontiff's own knights as part of his consolidation of power

to prevent the threat of Vordt - or any of the other Outrider knights -returning once removed from the city, the Pontiff gave him one of the rings made from his own eyes, which twist the user into monsters, under the guise of a gift - resulting in him losing his mind and regressing into the bestial state we encounter him in.

anyway, long story short, pontiff takes over, feeds Gwyndolin, last god of Anor Londo, to Aldrich, forces the Dancer to become, well, the Dancer before getting tired of her and banishing her to the High Wall in turn, with a ring of her own - potentially in an effort to protect Lothric after Lorien was crippled in his fight with the Demon Prince, but that's just idle speculation.

and now Vordt just... waits. he's been told to guard the gates, so he does, whether he remembers that order or not.

he's lost everything. the city he swore to protect is under the rule of a despotic tyrant. his god has been fed to an abomination prophesising the end of days. the woman he loves - platonically or romantically - has been turned into a thing just as monstrous as himself, and is located *less than a hundred metres away from him*

do they even remember each other? i kind of hope they don't.

he's the first mark of the Pontiff's influence upon the world you encounter. he's an archetypal dark souls boss, a ruined knight brought low by corruption. he's a reminder of the miserable state of the world. he's hinting at the existence of the Dancer, and how she's going to beat the crap out of you in about ten hours. he's a man in full plate armour who moves like a pitbull and runs into walls a lot. i am running out of clever things to say.

anyway. i really need to play Lies of P once i finish AC6. i hope this changes your mind a little on Vordt and his role in the game and its narrative, being a really effective retroactive emotional gut punch for me personally, but i totally get it if not - i'm just sort of rambling.

so lies of p is a really good game in the soulslike genre

i am struck immensely by the approach neowiz (the development studio behind lies of p) takes with its story telling. while prolific with item descriptions that give hints as to what horrible events went down in the setting (a la dark souls) it also has numerous in-world pieces of writing, by in-world writers. critics. fathers. children.

letters to family, letters to warn off strangers, cryptic notes (obv), advertising flyers, landmark information for tourist reviews, it's there! its information in the game about the world made BY the people in the world! and its not vague as shit! i feel more for the Scrapped Watchman than i ever could for Vordt of the Boreal Valley or most any other boss in Dark Souls 3.

Vordt here is the prime comparison to the Scrapped Watchman I feel. Each is an appropriately early boss, required for progress, who is large, wild, and inflicts a status ailment heavily in their second phase.

The most I can surmise from Vordt (from multiple item descriptions) is that he was sent as an outrider from Irithyll by Pontiff Sulyvahn, sent to Lothric to do... something. Stop undead? Block pilgrims? Couldn't tell you. But he WAS sent to kill. And that's about it. Who Vordt was before he was a monster is unknown. All he has ever been to DS3 was a boss to be fought. Even his unique weapon gives no information about it's wielder. Lame.

The Scrapped Watchman, on the other hand, hoo buddy. I felt bad after that fight. The amount of information you can find in the area leading up to him gives you a clear idea of who they were, what they did, and who in the community cared about them, before everything went wrong. (being vague on purpose here)

suffice to say, lies of p rewards exploration of its world with more information about its world, in a way that is really satisfying, compared to the slow drip-feed that dark souls games likes to give. its very refreshing. play lies of p.