#they are geniuenly some of the most lifechanging and awe inspiring pieces of media ive ever gotten to consume

[irrelevant-iguanadon]

Okay let's elaborate on this. However before I start I would like to say I haven't played Sekiro yet and while I adore Demon's Souls, I've only played through its once and am much less familiar with its themes, so those two aren't on this post, but please add on with your thoughts on them, or elaborated thoughts/points I missed on the games I did talk about :))

Anyways putting my thoughts on this down is kind of hard, so bear with me if it's a little all over the place.

Elden Ring is about love and just how strong of a force it is.

We see this with almost every major character in the game and their stories. Marika literally became a god to avenge the people she loved. The part of the game that I think shows this the best though is the Frenzied Flame ending.

The whole philosophy of the Flame of Frenzy is that life itself is the cause of suffering and that the only way to get rid of suffering is by getting rid of life. The thing about it though is that the game makes it very clear that this is the wrong choice, the wrong philosophy, and tries to push us away from it. It's super hard and tedious to get to the three fingers. The sewers alone where a maze, and I'm pretty sure I died to the platforming puzzle more than I did to any of the dlc bosses. Melina actively tries to push us away from the three fingers too, and some of my favorite dialogue in the game actually comes from this.

"However ruined this world has become, however mired in torment and despair, life endures. Births continue. There is beauty in that, is there not?"

No matter how awful it gets, there is still beauty in the world. There is still love. Is it really worth taking that away?

Hell, the guy who steers us towards the free fingers is even in game called "the most reviled man in history" by the game. And finally, how exactly does he steer you towards the Flame of Frenzy? Takes advantage of your love for Melina, shows you a way to keep her alive.

And as previously stated, this is far from the only time love and it's importance, it's power, is shown to you by the game. The DLC hammers this point home with both Marika and Messmer, and for as many problems as I may have with his story, Miquella especially.

I might elaborate on more of the examples and other themes present in either a reblog or a completely new post because there is TONS to talk about. For now though let's move on.

Bloodborne, while not as central, still shares these themes in a lot of places. Familial and motherly love specifically is everywhere in Yharnam, although not exclusively.

Gascoigne and his family clearly were all very close at some point, and while at least partially brought on by guilt, Djura shows a protective kind of love and kindness towards the beasts of Old Yharnam. Whichever way you interpret it, Gehrman loved Maria, and her death drives to sacrifice a lot in an attempt to bring her back.

The Doll has her speech about love that makes me tear up if I think about it too hard, and even if she hadn't said it she very clearly loves our Hunter, and likely the ones that came before us as well. Everytime we stop talking to her to, she tells us goodbye and that she hopes we find worth in the waking world. What is the doll if not full of love.

The Chapel Dweller too, has a love for the people of Yharnam and does as much as they can to keep them safe. They love us as well, even going so far as to clarify that we're amazing not just because we hunt, but because we're us.

The Great Ones too, have their own strangely human kind of love we catch glimpses of every once in a while, like when Ebrietas is mourning Rom, or Kos's protective anger over the fishing hamlet and whatever was done to her child. The whole thing with how every great one yearns for a child too seems to often be more about the desire to love their child than just to reproduce, at least that's the reading I get.

All this without mentioning Queen Yharnam and Mergo, too.

Bloodborne is admittedly the hardest to argue this for, and not the main point in my eyes, but the themes of love are still present in their own slightly darker ways. If anyone has any other thoughts on this game specifically I'd love to hear them :)

Dark Souls however, is the most significant with these themes in my eyes, and has geniuenly changed my worldview.

Dark Souls, is about how there is always hope, no matter how bad it gets, and positive change is inevitable no matter how much people try to prevent it.

Let's look at Gwyn, the age of fire, and the linking of the flame. Here we have an old man in a place of power who ruled over the relatively successful age of fire. Once it became evident however, that this age of fire would eventually end he did everything he could to prevent it put of fear.

Out of the fear of change, he put a curse on humanity and burnt himself alive to extend the order that he knew. And it worked in a way, with people coming after him to keep extending it when it eventually started to fade again. But with each linking of the fire, the time before the next one grew shorter, and the world started to collapse on itself. The age of fire lasting as long as it had was against the nature of world, and so the world was rejecting it more and more as time went on. But no matter how many times the fire got linked, no matter how desperately some tried to cling to the flame, to the old order, to the old world, change did eventually come. The flame did fizzle out, and a new world took its place.

What is this story about if not about change? About how there is always hope for change?

Dark Souls is full of light. To me, at least.

And this is all without going into how game mechanics reinforce these themes, and add their own. But that's already been talked about ad nauseum.

For as bleak and dark and scary as the worlds of these games are, they are filled to the brim with love, hope, and and faith in the future. And that's beautiful, isn't it?

Our world is also bleak and dark and scary right now, but please don't ever forget that it is also filled to the brim with love and hope and a better future that will inevitably come. Don't you dare give up on it. Don't you dare go hollow.

Souls games are about love and hope and change btw