#the last god of anor londo

[rococospade]

Dark Sun Gwyndolin, the last god of Anor Londo

[girlvinland]

The Lore/Cov RP is picking up again and I’m so excited I need to express the emotion here too. They’ve been separated for sooooo long and finally finally finally about to reunite I cry and scream.

[unalloyeddivinity]

🕯️

A strange familiarity of a person of another land, another time, another world.

Familiar, yet different. Similarly androgynous, yet their goals quite different. After all, the Dark Sun sought to maintain a lie, while the Unalloyed sought something new.

And, too, their fates were odd. Entwined intimately with a monster. Though who is to say if their opinions of their 'monsters' were similar, or different? For love is devouring, but devouring is also devouring.

[luckyberet]

"Ire?" She paused. Marylin didn't think having an ire towards anyone or anything - at least... not in inspiration of starting her quest. Yet, their question has her ponder the answer for a while. What exactly made sorcerers like her to learn stronger and stronger spells? And once everything was mastered, what made them aim to create something even stronger?

The sorcerer crossed her legs, resting her hands against the knees, leaning closer the mist. In respectful distance, as requested, she wasn't there to challenge. She cannot see anything beyond the fog. She doesn't know if they saw her, either. Perhaps, or perhaps not. Even if Marylin never could see them, she found the someone behind pleasant. At least, they expressed some curiosity towards her interests it seems!

" For me, it is not about ire! Oh no - couldn't think such a thing!" She shook her head. "Where I come from it's a remarkable achievement. The knowledge, control and perhaps... pushing the limits even further. Heh, I suppose I am a product of my school. But each time I make a breakthrough I feel... happy. I feel accomplished. Even if I didn't need the wrath for anything. It must sound strange, I know..."

A thoughtful hum sounds from behind the fogged wall and god nods their head, a ghost of a smile on their lips. There was once a time when they too shared such enthusiasm.

"What or who has gained such ire from thee that thou wouldst summon the heavens themselves inflict thy wrath?" Their voice is hoarse from disuse but there is genuine curiosity hidden within the syllables.

[prismatic-starstuff]

and oh my god y'know what while i'm talking about dark souls characters who deserved better; may i Please have a moment of your time to Scream about my most precious and beloved gwyndolin

gwyndolin did absolutely nothing wrong as far as gwyn was concerned. gwyndolin was loyal and faithful and devoted to the cause, and loved his family so much. but for reasons i will never understand, he was deemed 'repulsive,' and he was forced all his youth to behave in a way that he didn't like solely because - checking my notes - someone somewhere says moon magic is exclusively feminine.

after all the other gods had left anor londo for various reasons, gwyndolin was the one who stayed. loyal and faithful gwyndolin protected the honorary tomb of the father who forced his ideas on him; devoted and loving gwyndolin kept the illusion up all for a family that had never truly done right by him.

bear in mind that through all this, this deity doesn't seek glory for himself. no, he hides away; likely because he's been called repulsive, because he's fragile. he tells his blades to serve father and sister, not himself.

all of this goes on... until he stops hiding. until he takes what is, by that point, his rightful place as king of the gods. until he comes to step out of the shadows at last; to take matters in his own hands, publicly and completely.

and when he does so, he's loved. by his sister, by his people. yorshka says we would've loved to meet him and he would've loved to meet us, too.

and after all this. after everything that his father and fate itself had done to him. after all the invalidation, all the insult, all the loyalty to a cause and a parent that had given none in return, all the years of hiding. after life finally became better.

after all this... he fell ill; possibly poisoned by an opportunistic manipulator.

after all this, he became sick, and was eaten.

darkmoon gwyndolin, who so earnestly loved the sun, spent his final moments in agony in the maw of an agent of the dark. he'd committed no crime; he'd spent his life in service to others. and when that life was finally looking up, it was taken away from him for no reason other than the selfish machinations of others.

...like i said earlier today. it's always the characters who deserve it the least, who end up suffering the most.

[chicxibalba]

cool four knights of gwyn headcanons

the age of fire lasted for thousands of years. kingdoms rose and fell, people lived and died. the only constants were the lords, anor londo itself, and ultimately, each other.

the dragonslayer, ever the busybody, took great pride on his cooking. what began as a necessity for survival turned into a genuine passion. you will never see him with a smile, but you will see one close enough when he's taking care of you with a hot meal.

the hawkeye is almost totally singular in his kind. born from the archtrees themselves far to the north, he was always compelled to wear a mask of some kind. his faceless visage was unsightly and unsettling to newcomers, even in spite of his good heart.

the lord's blade was never quite normal, or not as normal as she wished she were. she is a habitual liar, seeding falsehoods on reflex. it's easier to dress up the truth, to sweeten it, to just not be yourself. she wishes she could be honest with those close to her. it's safer for them is she's not.

the humble knight, a medial born among mortals, was born well after the dragon wars. his colleagues would never let him forget this, even when he went on to slay dragons of his own. the knight would never feel completely appreciated in his time, at least, not until the Abyss began to eat him alive.

the dragon slayer lived to serve. he served the Firstborn, he served his Lord, he served his compatriots. he and the lord's blade had known each other for a long time, since before they were even knighted. they served together in the war, became intimate. he feels the worst about how he was unable to prevent what she's become.

the hawkeye never understood romance so well. call it a cultural dissonance, or something else, but the drive isn't there. he has those who his is close with, though, from the blacksmith to his fellow knights. he is happy to let one rest with him, lay on him, tell him about their day. he never touched them back, not with his giant hands. not unless they ask.

the lord's blade is well acquainted with pain. she was born into it, living by it, in the form of a thousand cuts, burns, tears. her skin is painted in them. pain is satisfying, pain is cathartic, pain is pleasure. pain means that she is doing well. one day it will conquer her, but until then her every ache is a badge of honor.

the knight had always found himself the subject of the attentions of the other three. how couldn't he be? he'd always had a certain heart about him that simmered their suspicion and distance into true appreciation, brought them closer to him and to each other. his jokes, his wisdom, his love. the world was lighter with him.

the dragonslayer has family out there--sisters, nephews, nieces. he isn't acquainted with any of them anymore, and lost track of them quite a while ago. some intermarried with humans, gave birth to children with stunted mortalities. he himself always wondered if he could be a father, and raise a child better than his own had. his vows forbid it, but if things were different, together with his companions...

the hawkeye was fascinated by faces. lordranian giants had faces: humans had faces; gods had faces. they had eyes, noses, mouths. they blinked, smiled, growled, flushed red, drained pale. there was a little envy there, in how the dragonslayer might kiss his hand, or the lord's blade might share with him a truly rare smile. in how the dear knight might share a cup of tea with him, and describe its flavor. the faces he wishes he could share back, he whittles into wood.

the lord's blade wants to give back. these people in her life, these rocks of hers among a morbid blur, are all she has. she doesn't know how to. she doesn't even know where to begin. she has to be invited into love, into intimacy, and gradually warmed to it, before she even thinks herself worthy of it. in the end, she barely makes it. it's worth it all the same.

the knight hid when he first began to fall sick. he hidea his cold shivers, his inky-black coughs, his violent panic attacks. he catches himself in the mirror one morning. he's pale, utterly ashen, out of breath from the lightest exertion. his hand lays over his heart--it's racing. that sullen green ring hugs his finger, the symbol of his covenant with the Serpent. they can't know what he's done. they can't know what he's sacrificed to do the good he's always wished to do. they can never know what New Londo took from him the night it fell, and what he took from it in turn. they would despise him. hate him. throw him out. and then, just like in the beginning, he would be nothing.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Gwyndolin is the most important secret in Dark Souls

Gwyndolin might be the most interesting boss in Dark Souls. He is entirely optional, but as the last living god in Anor Londo it is also he who maintains the illusion of Gwynevere, and who maintains the lie of the prophecy of the Chosen Undead. When Gwynevere tells you are special, the only one who can become the next Great Lord and succeed Lord Gwyn, those words come from Gwyndolin.

He is the power behind the scenes, a secret manipulator in the shadows, and so, appropriately, he is identified with both snakes and tentacles. These are classic imagery of duplicitousness and manipulation, and even his boss fight is designed such that you are constantly chasing after an image of him - a mirage in an infinite hallway - that gets further away every time you get close.

Gwyndolin is also, interestingly, very feminine. He was raised as a daughter because he had powerful magical potential and was made to serve the role of Moon sorceror to the regime, and so appropriately he is dressed in white and silver, with a sunlight crown. The moon reflects the sun's light, you see, and so Gwyndolin is silver crowned in gold.

Of course a character who is born male, raised socially as a girl, and associated with the moon brings up a lot of Gender Themes, so we'll continue this discussion in part two.

Gwyndolin can be understood many ways, all of them interesting

Watch part one if you haven't, but Gwyndolin is a character who is, in the lore, "born a boy, but raised as a daughter" due to their exceptional connection to moon magic.

And there is something hashtag problematic about having a gender-nonconforming character also be a duplicitous behind-the-scenes illusionist manipulator with literal snake tentacles. "You are a liar and deceiver" is one of the most common transphobic attacks, and leave it to the Souls community to put "funny" messages outside their boss arena saying shit like "tr** ahead."

But on the other hand Gwyndolin can also be interpreted as an affirming character. She was "born male" as it were, but when her family discovered that her soul was connected with the moon - one of the most universal symbols of womanhood - they raised her as a daughter because that's who she is inside.

Or you can see it the other way, that Gwyndolin was born a boy in the metaphysical sense, that this who he is on the inside, but he was forced by a religious orthodoxy to act as a woman to prop up its hegemony and ritual, that he is in effect a trans man. From that perspective, the fact that he is hidden away in a dark tomb below Anor Londo could imply a measure of shame on the part of his family, that they hid him away because he did not conform. And there are no statues of Gwyndolin in Anor Londo.

Like everything else in Dark Souls, Gwyndolin's story is a matter of interpretation.

[yanderes-galore]

Hey it's the anon from soul of cinder analysis , once again telling you my concept about Gwyndolin.

So Gwyndolin one of the deities who resided in Anor Londo during the Age of Fire. He was worshiped by the humans as the "god of the dark moon and dark sun'.the last child of Gwyn the child just like the moon overshadows by brilliant shining of his giant siblings (the nameless king, gwynevere and filianore) with strong affinity to sun and light magic however he was born with strong affinity toward moon magic.

As the last child from the Royal Family Gwyndolin he was the unfavorable one the one always forgotten due to his magic and his appearance"fragile and repulsive appearance" Because of this his father make him wear Reversal Ring and raised as a female so that he could not officially become the king's heir making the citizen in anor londo called him sullen brooding goddess

Despite all his father have done to him , Gwyndolin have this deep admiration and adoration toward his god father who rejected him from his birth and love toward his siblings who will never come back to the anor londo leaving him all alone to protect it and the image of this beautiful city of Gods

This can seen in him making covenant blade of the dark moon to protect his father tomb and legacies and making a illusion of Lady gwynevere once you broke the illusion you will see that the city it's not bright and beautiful as it was and it was replaced with dark sky and eerie vibe in which Gwyndolin try to hide

If you trespassing into Gwyn tomb, gwyndolin will be there trying to stopping you from tarnishing his father resting place and die trying (this is not cannon because we see him dark soul 3 )

In the event of dark soul 3 somewhere along the timelines gwyndolin was defeated and eaten by Aldrich one of Lord of cinder with the help of pontiff Sulyvahn his body was controlled by Aldrich which is the gooey black tar you see below his body

Gwyndolin also have a little sister from his mother side which is yorshka which he love and trust she was locked up in the tower by the Pontiff isolated and only a chime from her brother to comfort her loneliness

So in conclusion gwyndolin is a guy with abandonment issue and touch starved, a guy with rules and strictness to a t for his darling if we die he'll make a tomb and sleep inside tomb only rise when there's a treespaser , if the darling was still alive in the event where he was eaten by Aldrich he'll do everything in his power to lock darling up with yorshka ( yeah there's no Gwyn family that have a good ending in this story maybe gwynevere if you want to argue about it but I was pessimistic about it because of her daughters fate one is stuck at painting world and the other one became a fighting dancer hat lost her mind)

Gwyn family has serious issues....

But yeah, thank you so much anon!

You have been a huge help when it comes to figuring out the personalities or certain characters and bosses from Dark Souls!

If I need help with another character I'll post about it to summon you, lol.

[beesmygod]

DORK SAULS: the hallway leading to gwyn's tomb is lined by statues of silver knights. granted that there are approximately seven million silver knight statues in anor londo, do you think the knights of that hallway are specifically meant to parallel the white staircase that silver knights walk across leading to the kiln of the first flame?

gwyn had two sets of knights. the silver knights in anor londo and the black knights that gwyn took with him to stave off the demons of chaos, rekindle the first flame, and in places where he really doesnt want anyone to touch anything.

its hard to see because they're sideways and only an insane person would notice, but the knights in the kiln of the first flame hallway are black knights. we can tell because they have a slightly different helmet horn shape. and their popped collar.

the black knights were once silver knights charred during the battle against the newly formed flame of chaos.

black knight shield description:

"Shield of the Black Knights that wander Lordan. A flowing canal is chiseled deeply into its face." "Long ago, the black knights faced the chaos demons, and were charred black, but their shields became highly resistant to fire."

gwyn took the same lads he took to the chaos demon fight to rekindle the first flame but got them all crisped up in the end.

black knight armor description:

"The knights followed Lord Gwyn when he departed to link the Fire but they were burned to ashes in the newly kindled flame, wandering the world as disembodied spirits ever after."

sucks! the ones IN lordran are not those spirits. those guys just didn't make the cut to get annihilated instantly through no fault of their own. they're left in places that make for good gameplay, but like, also they're sort of (99% coincidentally) in places that make for interesting lore readings: one in undead burg before you fight the taurus demon is also outside havel's cell. the one in the undead parish tower guards the firekeeper's soul. two of them seem to have been dispatched to figure out what the fuck happened at the asylum and brought the priscilla's doll with them to dump. the one in darkroot basin is near havel's prison AND the entrance to new londo, where the true nature of humanity can be uncovered.......and the last two are near vamos and his evil anti-god shield with his face on it

effigy shield description:

"Frightful occult shield. Defends against divine weapons and lightning.In an ill-fated plot to destroy the very gods, the followers of the occult once attempted to steal the power of Gravelord Nito, the first of the dead."

havel was part of that plot. lets not open this can of worms. those are the bare facts.

anyway: back to the hallway. i think the number of silver knight statues is intended to impart the once grand and massive scale of anor londo. the army we see is a tiny fraction of what they managed to make statues of. now it's eerily empty. there's a lot of debate over what the white hallway before the first kiln is supposed to be. a void i guess. who knows. this didnt tell us anything in the end. sorry.

[moonlight-eternal]

⏳

Sunlight streams in through the tall windows lining both sides of the ballroom, here in the grand cathedral at the peak of Anor Londo. Tables joined end to end cover both walls beneath the glass, bedecked with a royal feast – perhaps the last such feast for quite some time, or even forever.

Soon, the Princess of Sunlight, Gwynevere, and her spouse the Flame God Flann, will depart. With them will likely go large portions of the remaining population, abandoning the great City of the Gods to journey westward toward the hope of greener pastures afar, another pilgrimage to follow in the footsteps of those other gods who went away so long ago.

Gwyndolin will remain behind. She will stay, as she has through every farewell over the millennia, and care for the city as no one else will, even as its streets grow emptier once more. There will not be many gods left, soon, after this latest pair leaves. Only her, and Velka, and Vamos, and Lord Nito sleeping deep below. None of the others call this city home.

For now, though, the day is joyful. The crowd gathered here celebrates, and dances, and the guests of honor are both happy to entertain with displays of flame sorcery, an art long since lost to the common folk after Izalith's collapse.

When they get a moment, the two sisters meet at the back end of the ballroom, opposite the statues and the pair of elevators that alternately carry guests to the balcony above and servants from the kitchens below. Gwynevere carries a plate of dainties, offering some to Gwyndolin. The last of that type from the kitchens, according to the waiter who delivered them personally to the goddess's hands.

So Gwyndolin takes one, gratefully, ever anxious at the thought of stepping away from the wall at her back, of letting down her guard, of being seen in this body that everyone knows is wrong. Even apart from the half dozen snakes coiling out beneath her dress, even were that no issue at all, she would hesitate to appear in public.

The treat is cake-like yet savory, with hints of citrus... and far more than a hint of immediate nausea. Gwyndolin coughs once, partway bent over, and hurries to straighten up and conceal anything that might attract the notice of other guests. But Gwynevere sees, and is concerned, and asks if something is wrong.

Something is very wrong. Gwyndolin turns her back to the party and chokes out a few words – poison, don't touch the others, she's going back to her room but don't tell anyone. Gwynevere nods, wishes her luck, says she'll dispose of the plate and meet her there.

Gwyndolin draws up a sigil in the air formed of strands of sunlight, a fusion of sorcery and miracles, and releases its power to hurl herself through space in an instant... but sick as she is, the teleport is miscast, and she appears halfway along the straight line path to her destination, stumbling on unsteady snakes into the railing overlooking a hall below.

Ahead of her is the double-helix staircase that could take her to the rooftops, but before that point a room off to the right, a small chapel of sorts tucked away beside the main hall. She ducks in there, short of breath, and hurries to the far corner across from the door where a secret passage waits. The wall slides apart, and Gwyndolin struggles up a narrow spiral staircase – difficult enough on snakes even in the best of times – to another hall above.

Gwynevere teleports in ahead of her, empty-handed, just in time to catch her as she falls. Gwyndolin tries to speak but only coughs come out, and she points to the heavy, reinforced door that marks her personal chambers.

Instead of helping her up to keep moving, Gwynevere only lays her sister down gently on the marble floor and begins casting a miracle of her own. Soothing sunlight radiates around her, enveloping both women and flooding the hall in either direction with healing rays.

The swelling in Gwyndolin's throat lessens, then clears entirely, and she manages to produce words at last. "Thank you," she says, sitting up on the hard floor beside her sister.

"Are you alright? What happened?"

"Poison," Gwyndolin repeats. "In the hors d'oeuvre plate. Something fast acting and serious, and I suspect... professional."

"An assassin?" Gwynevere looks concerned, but unconvinced. "I mean no offense, but you are more concerned with evildoers than most... Are you sure it was not simple contamination, or an allergy?"

Gwyndolin nods. "I could barely cast my most practiced spell. This would have killed a human in seconds, and probably could have killed one of us if left untreated. Particularly if the strongest healer in the land were the one afflicted."

Gwynevere narrows her eyes. "What do you mean? You're not a healer. And who would try to kill you anyway?"

"It would not be the first such attempt on my life. But you are overlooking the obvious, dear sister. You told me just before, that the platter was delivered personally, with intent, and the story told was that the last should be yours as an honor. You then carried the malignant cakes to share, and that is how I came to be poisoned."

Finally, it clicks. "You don't think–"

Gwyndolin meets her sister's eyes and nods. "I was not the target. Someone at your farewell banquet has tried to assassinate you."

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2024-02-12

The sun is slowly coming back

Listening: Vienna Teng, because she posted a thing about the start of her Germany tour and I'm going to the tail end of that in March. I like how especially the Dreaming Through the Noise songs are often about relatively mundane modern things. Like "1br/1ba", which is about finding an okay but kinda crappy apartment for yourself, or "City Hall" which is about getting gay married in San Francisco in 2004.

Reading: While flipping through my Wishlist on Kobo, I saw they had Bloodchild available for free. Bloodchild is so good. It's a sci-fi love story. It's about commitment and responsibility and anxiety. It's about power dynamics. It's about mpreg. There are bugs.

Bloodchild especially lands because at no point does it other the Tlic. They're people, which makes them way, way more interesting.

Also, started rereading Gideon the Ninth because I should reread that series so I can see all the secrets and hoo boy are there secrets. God damn this is a whole different book. Dulcinea was like kind of vaguely ominous on a first read but she is so much more now. Almost done with that.

Watching: Good Bad Movie night was Yellow Submarine, the Beatles musical animated movie. It's absolutely bizarre but it's also very pretty, every frame is a worthwhile desktop wallpaper. Big bold colours and some very extravagant design.

Also more Gundam, and catching up to Gundam on Mobile Suit Breakdown, a Gundam watch-along-and-research podcast.

Playing: Oops All Dark Souls. Found my way back out of Blighttown, visited the Undead Asylum, went through Sen's Fortress and up into Anor Londo, but now I am trapped in the Painted World. I killed the dragon but there appears to be another dragon in my way so now I have to go around and deal with the fucking wheel skeletons.

It's great how Dark Souls makes you go from "ugh this is impossible" to "why was I having such a hard time" in like two hours, it took several tries for me to figure out the toxic hollows in Ariamis but by the time I took down the dragon I was literally sprinting through the level clobbering them with light running attacks.

Making: Parts for the NAS system are arriving so I am busy designing the case. Lots of sketching things, transferring them into CAD, and then throwing it out because it doesn't quite line up. I think I've got a good idea but it has yet to go into CAD.

I'm busy printing a dummy hard drive so that I can get a physical sense for the items because I don't want to heft my very expensive real drives around. Testing out Lightning Infill, a plastic-saving infill that is non-structural but can support solid upper layers with a minimal amount of plastic.

Tools and Equipment: ACPICA is a weird little software tool for Linux made by Intel that you can use to dump, rewrite, and patch ACPI entries on your system. Dealing with ACPI is a goddamn pain in the ass but this dramatically simplifies it to just a pain in the ass. Here's a little doc on how to do patching specifically that I am busy dealing with at work.

[blackjackkent]

Update: apparently the door that actually leads into the castle was on the previous level of the prison, so we didn't actually have to go through that little ghost escapade at all. :P Oh well!

Back downstairs and into the correct stairway:

Unsurprisingly, lots more of Gromnir's people to fight. The castle itself is quite nicely styled; reminds me mildly of the castle of Anor Londo in Dark Souls.

The carpet is v pretty.

The only immediately obvious path is up the stairs, and who should we find up there but Melissan, in an apparently involuntary audience with his lordship the madman.

Gromnir il-Khan is yet another character voiced by Jim Cummings (Minsc, Gorion, and numerous others in this game). He is a half-orc and looking very imposing up there on the platform as he stares down Melissan.

It would be an interesting twist if it turned out that Gromnir was actually correct here, although honestly Melissan hasn't seemed like she has enough guile for that to be the case. However, the odds of Caden's hoped-for diplomatic solution here seem to be diminishing all the time.

As Melissan is dragged away, the half-orc turns his piercing gaze on the new arrivals into the room. Caden can see the madness in his expression, the exultant, undirected destructive force. In a terrible way it almost reminds him of Minsc, that gleeful violence, but Minsc has kindness in his heart, and this man has only cruelty.

Gromnir scowls at him, his jaw twisting around its long, sharp lower teeth.

Without warning, and far faster than should be possible for a man of his size, he leaps forward, striking out with an axe that seems to materialize in his hand out of nowhere. Caden, whose mouth is open to try and argue, to ask for some semblance of rationality, is cut off and forced to defend himself.

The battle is swift and brutal; as the last body falls, there is the sound of a dimension door spell and Melissan bursts into the room again, eyes wide.

(A/N: That "NOOOO" was so over-the-top that it made me laugh. She laid into it like nobody's business.)

I sat a bit perplexed on that dialogue option for a while because...*does* Caden know how to leave the city again? I guess he must because there were no options that said he didn't. But it seemed a bit out of nowhere.

Time for an exposition dump!

For their sake, not for yours, he doesn't say. Caden does not like Melissan. He does not like how secretive she is being, how extremely ill-advised this city seems to have been, or how she is deliberately manipulating his sense of kindness and generosity to do what she wants without giving him any of the information he needs. But he is not going to leave these people to die.

LOL. Imoen as usual cutting right to the emotional core of the situation. :P

...

They all stare at her. Surely she is not telling them this, surely this is not their new task, their new goal. Surely she is not telling them to do the impossible with no hope of reward or even understanding why.

And then she is gone, leaving them all bewildered and battered in the center of the blood-smeared throne room.

Aerie grips Caden's arm tightly. It is reassuring to feel him grip her hand back, as he never did when he was emptied of his soul, but it is not enough to stave off the creeping sense of doom. "Oh, Caden...she can't truly mean it, can she?" she whispers uncertainly. "Surely there is...another way..."

"If the gods had any mercy in them," Rasaad says hoarsely, "we would all be far from this place. And rest and comfort would await us rather than this death and destruction. But..."

"But we have no choice," Caden finishes wearily. "We'll try the glade first." He turns his head, presses his lips to the top of Aerie's head, eyes closed, as if trying to hold onto the moment of respite for just a moment longer.

Then he turns and strides out the door with desperate purpose.

[confusedlocalgod]

Yeah but video games do be filling that niche tho.

From the Dark Souls series we have:

Anor Londo, the realm of the gods

Castle Drangleic, the dark tower in an eternal storm

Lothric Castle, home of the last Lord of Cinder

Not to mention the ever changing castle that created a new genre, Dracula's Castle-Castlevania from well Castlevania

And the Granddaddy of them all

BOWSERS CASTLE FROM MARIO

animated fantasy films just don’t make fucked up evil castles like they used to

[fearandhungies]

i wish that most content of the era where it was just gwyndolin and yorshka as the only gods in anor londo werent made by aldrich or sulyvahn perverts because my god. the emotional torment it brings me. like i do like to think about that era and the dynamic between gwyndolin and yorshka, with how gwyndolin came out of her perpetual hiding to at least Try and take care of yorshka in the face of the very clearly not good intentioned people moving in on anor londo. thinks abt the lifehunt scythe description where it says gwyndolins last thoughts where of a sad, scared pale little girl and tries not to cry

[eldenstars]

I just finished Solaire's quest last night...the poor guy didn't deserve this :(

[mistleaneous-chaos]

Dark Souls 3, for all of its faults of story getting cut, aspects not being elaborated on, and just a general sense of a messy development, has one of my favorite endings to a video game series. And overall it brings the culmination of the themes of the games into a beautiful yet sad message of the entropic nature of the world you play in.

Starting at 1 you are embroiled in a story of Gods and Dragons. We learn of Humans and how Gwyn was afraid of them, due to the Dark Soul they all inherently possessed , causing him to Link the Flame and serve as kindling for it. And then we are stuck in a quest of having to kill them in order to either continue a cycle started by the God of the Sun or become a Dark Lord and herald a new age.

2 is different in many ways, as it is a story that is both disconnected from 1 yet you feel the effects of its story all over as the Undead Curse is prevalent throughout the game, and you realize as you progress that there is no way for you to escape the Curse, with the only person who did that in some form becoming so detached from the World in the most literal way possible that he can’t even exist anymore. Along with that we learn of Gwyn’s “Sin”, from Aldia who dedicated himself more than anyone to the research of the World and we start to think more about the ramifications of Gwyn’s actions. And in the end the only choice you have is to either become someone who will link the flame again(not even doing it) or just leaving, choosing something else, with no idea what will happen.

And finally we have 3. This is the point where we start to realize why what Gwyn did was a “Sin.” Gwyn damned the world the second he decided to start the cycle. The world was not meant to be in a single state for so long, and while it usually would have just gone to another Age, the existence of the Flame at all made it so that as long as a single person made it there, the Age of Fire would just return. There would never be another age except the Age of Dark and the Age of Fire. And the Ringed City DLC portrayed the result of this perfectly. You discover the Pygmies after 3 games of knowing nothing about them but they don’t matter. You find the original Firelink and kill the last Demons but it doesn’t matter. You discover Gywn had another daughter, but that doesn’t matter. Because the illusion that any of it will ever mean anything to anyone is gone the second you step out of the door after meeting Filianore. There is no world, there is no more hope, there is nothing. You have reached the end of the world, seeing the ruins of Lothric and Anor Londo in the distance, and you realize that everything meant nothing.

And in the end, you find someone like you. An undead who was a slave to a cause they had no choice in. And 2 nobodies drawn together at the end of the world fight for something that no longer has any meaning to anyone, and will never have an impact on this world because you know for a fact that the world you spent 3 games loving will never have a happy ending. Siegward, Solaire, The Emerald Maiden, The Chosen Undead, The Bearer of The Curse, and The Ashen One, and Oscar. All of their efforts meant nothing because the world was damned the second Gwyn linked the flame.

And the only thing you can do is give the dregs of that which Gwyn feared the most to a little girl who paints a new world, all for the hope that one day that new world will be able to live free of the Curse you all bore, because after all, isn’t that all a Curse-bearer wants? Freedom?

(Also sorry if this was a bit weird of me to post I just NEEDED to say this at least once because of how much I love the series yet NOBODY talks about this from what I’ve seen, like the fact that the entire world was doomed by actions we never could have stopped is just so HARD HITTING)