#witch of izalith

[ivyjinna]

Lord souls and discovery of first flame.

[folkdevilism]

The most recent Zullie the Witch Messmer lore video still has me in a chokehold.

[katyahina]

Okay, so apparently Izalith is the name of Witch of Izalith!

(From this ( x ) page)

私の母イザリスは literally means 'My mother, Izalith'! It makes sense (and also localisation team is PHYSICALLY incapable of stopping to hold an L I guess 🤦‍♂️)

Additionally, Miyazaki says this in interview about design works ( x ), in the section about Ceaseless Discharge:

All demons are born from the fire of chaos, but he was the first, born so long ago, when the fire wasn't yet stable. He possesses it, but he can't control it and it burns him constantly. Despite his size, he's actually the youngest of Izalith's children, he stands gazing up at the ruins where his sisters live. The only source of comfort in his pitiful, painful existence is the belief that they are watching over him.

He ALSO refers to Izalith as a name! Honestly maybe it is fork found in the kitchen situation but it is not something I was aware of before o: Just documenting it here just in case! It makese sense actually that Manus would be the only one of the OG Four Lords to go unnamed in the intro! It is literally intention and lore! He is "easily forgotten" xD

So basically:

DS1: Izalith from Izalith DS2: Aldia from Aldia DS3: Lothric from Lothric

[maranigai]

Them.

[earlgraytay]

For the Reverse Unpopular Opinion Meme, give me Dark Souls.

Gwyndolin and the Witch of Izalith are both fascinating characters, and I really wish they got more fandom exploration.

Specifically, I wish fandom would explore the villainous/vengeance-focused side of Gwyndolin's character more often, and I wish that fandom would explore the Byronic/Prometheus/hero side of the Witch's character more often.

Gwyndolin's carrying on his family's monstrous legacy, mostly out of inertia. He's sending so many humans- "heroes" all- to kindle the flame and die in the process. And for what? Gwyn's dead, the Nameless King isn't coming back, Gwynevere is somewhere far away, and Velka fucked right off.

(Velka's another character I wish fandom would explore more. The concept of a goddess of sin is fascinating, especially given what little we know about the concept of 'sin' in Dark Souls... and the implication that she's the mother of Gwyn's children. But that's a whole nother kettle of fish.)

Point is, Gwyndolin is doing some truly monstrous things, in the name of propping up the old order. The old order that's never been particularly sustainable, and is becoming less and less so with time. The old order that full well half the playerbase wants to see torn down. His personal world's basically as over as the Age of Fire is, and keeping things The Same As They Always Were isn't making anyone happy.

Out of all the people left alive in the setting, Gwyndolin is probably the person best equipped to try to find a new way to keep the world running. But he's not even trying! He's just keeping things the same, and meteing out vengeance to anyone who gets in the way of that. For gods' sakes, the Blades of the Darkmoon cut off sinners' ears and bring them back to him.

I find Gwyndolin a deeply tragic and sympathetic figure, but I wish people would engage with this side of him, rather than just "oh, he's got a soft voice and is some kind of trans, let's assume he's never done anything wrong in his life." I'd love to see more people explore just how much of a miserable monster Gwyndolin is. How much fuckery he's doing, while not even seeming to enjoy it. How much agency he's given up to (his interpretation of) the whims of dead people, and how the nature of godhood means that giving up that agency is the worst thing he could possibly do. And how giving up that agency is honestly the politically savvy thing to do! Except that politics is dead and he should know that by now.

Similarly? I'd love to see people explore the Witch of Izalith as a tragic hero. Because, like, fandom doesn't do shit with her, but she's the one person in the setting who even tried to do (what most of us think is) the 'right' thing.

The Witch of Izalith is the one person in this goddamn world who tried to solve the trolley problem by derailing the train. The world depends on the First Flame for everything that humans need to thrive? The First Flame's going out? Okay, let's make a new fucking Flame, then, what are we waiting for?

She sacrificed everything- her followers, her daughters, her son, her husband, even her own physical form! - to try to make this work. She gave everything she had to save the world, making way more sacrifices than Gwyn or any of his children made, trying desperately to save the world-- and it was all for nothing. Her creation of demons made everything worse for everyone. But she kept going anyway, because what other choice did she have?

The Witch of Izalith's like a much more sympathetic Laurence. Sketchy, conniving, yet incredibly idealistic and passionate? Incredibly learned, but in ways that let her do more dangerously stupid stuff faster and more efficiently? Crazy enough to think this just might work?

I love her. I would love to see more fandom love for her, and her daughters, and the witches of this series in general. I get not seeing it from Tumblr fandom- we ship twinks here, sir- but honestly, I don't even see it from the reddit side of fandom that likes to ship the fromsoft waifs, and that makes me really sad.

But yeah. More love for the fucked up parts of Gwyndolin's character. More love for the Witch of Izalith and her passionate intensity.

(ETA: I realized while writing this that this turned into more salt than gushing, because my unpopular opinions about Dark Souls get salty- buuuuuut I do love me some evil Gwyndolin and some Witch of Izalith, so this stands.)

[headcanontheshitoutofsoulsborne]

Gwyn, Nito and the Witch of Izalith spent a solid two weeks hyping each other up before they went to war with the dragons, no there were no battle plans discussed in that time, only hype.

[katyspersonal]

[martinisnotavampire]

The thing

[helga-ackerman]

❤️‍🔥 Witch of Izalith ❤️‍🔥

[knightscanfeeltoo]

If Laurentius ever found and met Quelana and probably keeps Begging her to Teach him...

(Like how Hidetaka Miyazaki Begged From Software to do Demon's Souls I think...)

[v03]

Man, why is Dark Souls so sad that it has me crying over a half-spider, half-human girlie 😞

Anyways, I'm watching Dark Souls lore videos again because my mind has decided to forget about half of the lore (ehem, Elden Ring's fault, ehem)

[bri-the-nautilus]

Sinner's Rise

I finally got over my writer's block! This is one I'm excited about. It's a Dark Souls/Dark Souls II piece featuring my lovely blorbos Lucatiel of Mirrah and... the Lost Sinner? She's a blorbo to me

Anyway I'm on a fucking roll right now so updates for this and Unnatural Born are gonna be hot and heavy for a bit.

[katyahina]

Turns out two Daughters of Chaos becoming part of Bed of Chaos IS accurate! We got them all now!

Okay, so the wiki I've seen this idea at didn't sound very convincing on the matter, as well as Quelana saying "free my mother and sisters from the Flame of Chaos" just can be read as her refering to what simply putting down the "source" (the Bed) would do in general., especially since at least three of them are certainly not part of the Bed.

But you know what does sound convincing? JAPANESE SCRIPT!

(Japanese text from this ( x ) archive)

混沌の炎は、母も、妹たちも飲み込み 異形の生命の苗床にしてしまった

Lost in translation! So, basically, these:

are THESE!

So that settles everyone's whereabout! She has 7 daughters in total shown in the intro cutscene:

1) Grana, the eldest! Her name didn't even make it into localisation (as always..... as ALWAYS.......). But, she is the one attacking us in Izalith, and using the pyromancy that was said to be wielded by the eldest!

(From this ( x ) page) 魔女の娘グラナ means ‘Grana, the Witch’s Daughter’!

(This isn't mistranslated, I double-checked)

2, 3) Quelaag and Quelaag's Sister (or 'Fair Lady')!

4) Quelana herself!

5) The dead sister that Ceaceless Discharge is mourning! Don't have her confused with Quelana or anything of the sorts; Quelana states that she escaped:

Although we pick the gold-hemmed robes from her corpse that refer to Quelana, all of the sisters were wearing these robes! Grana is wearing the same set too! It is normal for Fromsoft to cram a lore of a specific character onto a set that is used by multiple characters, as they only have so much room to share the lore! Off the top of my head like how Alva from DS2 was definitely not the only one to wear his armor, but it reveals info about him! Same for the set Licia is wearing that isn't unique to her, but description refers to her. etc

And

6, 7) These two!

The list of her childen doesn't end here, of course.

8) Ceaceless Discharge

Apparently, Izalith had more children than just her seven daughters, since Ceaceless is her youngest child, but isn't one of the daughters:

Miyazaki also gives some insight in interview ( x ):

All demons are born from the fire of chaos, but he was the first, born so long ago, when the fire wasn't yet stable. He possesses it, but he can't control it and it burns him constantly. Despite his size, he's actually the youngest of Izalith's children, he stands gazing up at the ruins where his sisters live. The only source of comfort in his pitiful, painful existence is the belief that they are watching over him.

So, what this tells us is that he is her lastborn, but born already when she created the Chaos Flame and it became part of her body! Thus, he was born not quite what species the Witches are but already counted as a demon! However, he is the only demon born by Izalith in person and not from the Flame itself!

They used to conjure fire with their staffs before pyromancy (which is flame being part of one's body), so that makes sense.

It is also possible that Izalith had a couple more sons, too!

9) 'Prince Izalith' (potentially)

(From this ( x ) video on internal file names) Okay, I know everyone noticed this already, but the Wall Hugger appears to have the same thing as whatever plagues Jeremiah's head- and Jeremiah is, coincidentially, a King who 1) also uses Chaos Pyromancies and 2) is also banished in Painted World of Ariamis, which is the place for those banished by Gods rather than place for the forlorn like the painted world in DS3!

(Good quick ref from this ( x ) thread on Reddit)

Since he is a king and effected by a similar stuff and clearly was affiliated with Izalith, he might have even been Izalith's husband! At least one of them! I went through this better in this ( x ) post, but TLDR; we have appearances for Grana and what appears to be some unused male character data! The model for 'Grana the Witch's Daughter' uses 'female' NPC body, but the heads switch between female and male depending on in which order the NPCs data is loaded:

The blonde with green eyes, Grana

The male head that can also load over Grana's body, also a unique data that is not used on anyone else! I'd give it to the 'Prince Izalith' before he got consumed by whatever is eating away at Jeremiah now!

All according to rayanthemad on Twitter ( x ) who datamined this NPC and confirmed the model behaves very strange (no wonder for over decade we never had a screenshot of Grana without headwear lol). And still, two unique faces, one of which appears to be unused content still stored in data?

At the same time, Jeremiah himself is blond-ish, if having lost hair saturation with age but it still looks blond, and also has green eyes!

10) Vamos (potentially)

Vamos comes from the royal line, recognises and amber from Lost Izalith and knows how to work with Chaos, and he clearly doesn't want to speak about his past again!

It is very possible that Daughters of Chaos were involved, and maybe even managed to get some dragon descendants to help them! Izalith waged war against Gods, Jeremiah who is also a Chaos pyromancer and a royal got exciled into Painted World too, Izalith (place) is so close to Catacombs you can literally see it from there, the Undead Dragons (so, dragons touched by Nito's death) are upper bodies of dragons but their lower parts are found in Izalith, and one of the Undead Dragons is in the painted world too! Also, oddly enough, Titchy Gren from DS2 sells both a Scythe that is in Nito's Catacombs in DS1 and Chaos Pyromancies, as well as god their Narh Alma is depicted wielding a scythe and scales!

Possibly, the strange tendrils he has are traces of prior monstrous mutation by Chaos? Heck, I wonder whether melted iron next to him is actually not it but lava of the Chaos, at this rate! Maybe he was one of the detractors from whatever nonsense his family was doing! And is also a happier person since becoming a living skeleton helped him to stop being tormented by Chaos, albeit he doesn't wish to speak of his former affiliation anymore! Could have even played a part in why Chaos Witches failed!

....or it all isn't that complicated, and he simply searched shelter (and "healing" from chaos starting to mutate his body through power of "death") here lol.

In any case, if Prince Izalith and Vamos are also two sons of Izalith, they'd have to be born before Ceaceless Discharge!

[maranigai]

...the old gods of Lordran, deliverers of the First Flame.

[underlordmenace]

My personal headcannon is that they play poker every weekend

[marikedrawinge]

Daughter of Izalith 2020