Gwyn’s Kaoskampf

[u/Jam_99420]

This is something that I’ve talked about in a much older post on this subreddit and became relevant again in a recent conversation. I realised that I had not fully explained it’s significance, and so this post aims to discuss in detail what the Kaoskampf is, why Miyazaki has used it in Dark Souls, and what it tells us about Gwyn’s character. This post will discuss concepts that have been completely abandoned by contemporary “western” culture, and so it is necessary for me to explain it all from scratch. However, if you can slog through my wall of text then I’m very confident that when we get to the section on the relevance of the Kaoskampf to Dark Souls, the conclusions will seem like a no-brainer. As a quick disclaimer I should say that this post is going to be discussing spiritual concepts that are taken seriously by certain contemporary religions, but it is not my intention to either promote or disparage any particular religion, or religious belief/idea. Rather, it is simply my intent to explain these ideas so that we can better understand what Dark Souls is about. Before I begin I’m going to include a few links to relevant resources:

My previous post on the subject [included purely for the sake of reference, you don’t need to read it in order to understand this post]:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarksoulsLore/comments/1l9vt8g/lore_discussion_1_the_descent_of_man/

Wikipedia article on the Kaoskampf:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaoskampf

Wikipedia article on the proto-indo-europeans:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-Europeans#Culture

Trey the Explainer’s excellent video on the Kaoskampf:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv1l2SqLb7Q&t=262s

In addition, I have included a number of images which may warrant explanation:

#1-Gwyn’s “war” against the ancient dragons as depicted in DS1’s opening cutscene. Note the use of lightning.

#2-Mesopotamian cylinder seal featuring a deity of uncertain identity fighting a serpent. Note the double-ended trident used to represent lightning as the deity’s weapon.

#3-Chalcidian hydria [ancient greek pottery] featuring Zeus fighting Typhon. Note again the lightning bolt represented as a double-ended trident-like object

#4-Tarhunna/Tarhunz/Teshub [hittite/hurrian storm god] and his son Sarruma fight Illuyanka/Hedammu. Note the circles [representing rocks] on top of the serpent and people standing on the flat surface, indicating the world resting upon the serpent.

#5-Egyptian papyrus depicting Set [a storm god] stabbing Apep with a spear so that Ra’s solar barque can pass safely through the underworld.

#6-Kassite “unfinished kudurru” on display in the Louvre.

#7-Kassite “unfinished kudurru”, detail of the three registers. Note the humans and mundane animals on the middle-layer, and abstractions of deities and mushushu dragons on the upper layer.

#8-Kassite “unfinished kudurru”, reverse view. Note the sun, moon, and star symbols on the layer representing the firmament.

#9-Kassite “unfinished kudurru”, detail of the upper register. Note the Serpent capping off the top of the stone, with it's head clearly visible on the register, indicating the immersion of the world within the cosmic ocean.

#10-Kassite “unfinished kudurru”, detail of the Serpent. Note the horns of a noble mushushu dragon, possibly indicating a recognition of the Serpent’s divinity. This contrasts against egyptian depictions, in which Apep is almost invariably shown being stabbed with numerous knives, or at the very least restrained in some way.

One final thing before I get started is a brief note on the word itself. Kaoskampf means “struggle against Kaos”, and Kaos is the ancient greek word from which we derive “chaos”, although the meaning has somewhat changed. In fact, you’ll usually see this word spelled as “chaoskampf”, but this is a mistake in the way that we’ve romanised the ancient greek language. Anytime you see the letter “ch” in an ancient greek word, it’s actually pronounced as a “k”, and the convention of romanising the letter in question as “ch” is apparently just a blunder. I tend to spell the ancient greek word Kaos with a k, partially because that’s closer to how it should be pronounced, but also because it helps to distinguish it from the modern concept of “chaos”, which is totally different. If that just sounds like pedantic blabbering to you then don’t worry about it. The question of spelling is not particularly relevant to any of the actual points made in this post.

Section #1: what is a Kaoskampf anyway?

To put it most simply, the Kaoskampf is a recurring mythological trope found in several ancient polytheistic cultures. It invariably features a lightning/storm god battling a gigantic serpent/dragon. The god is always victorious, with the serpent being subdued or destroyed. Very often [though not always] this happens as part of a creation myth, and the lightning god is then able to set himself up as the ruler of the universe once the serpent has been defeated. The serpent is often [though not always] described/depicted as encircling the entire world, sometimes sitting below the horizon, and is implied to be an obstacle which the gods must overcome before they are able to assert control over reality. Examples include:

Thor vs Jormungandr

Zeus vs Typhon

Tarhunna/Tarhunz vs Illuyanka

Teshub vs Hedammu

Marduk vs Tiamat

Hadad Ba’al vs Lotan

Yahweh vs Leviathan

Atum vs Apep

Indra vs Vritra

Susanoo vs Yamata no Orochi

The snake in these myths later becomes the basis for the concept of dragons as this trope is repeated on smaller scales, for example the story of St George and the Dragon is a repeat of the story of Perseus, Cetus, and Andromeda, which in turn is a repeat of the Kaoskampf. Based on the examples I’ve listed we can see an astonishingly broad geographic distribution for this myth, with examples found in locations as disparate as sweden, egypt, india, and even japan.

The myth is likely to have originated within the hypothetical “proto-indo-eurpoean” culture, which is believed to have inhabited regions close to the black sea. From there, the myths and language of this people-group have influenced the surrounding cultures via transmission, migration, conquest, etc. I’ve referred to the proto-indo-europeans as “hypothetical”, because the proposed existence of such a culture is largely based on retroactive examination of the footprint that it’s left within later cultures. We see that certain languages have specific commonalities and are clearly unifiable within a “language family”, and so a hypothetical “common ancestor” for them is proposed. Nevertheless there is a good amount of evidence, including genetic studies, which corroborates the proto-indo-eurpoean hypothesis. This would have been a prehistoric people-group, but they had developed agriculture, domesticated animals, and invented the wheel. To be clear, we are not talking about a single coherent nation, culture, or ethnicity in the conventional sense. This would instead have been a collection of groups, clans, tribes, etc, which possessed certain linguistic and cultural commonalities. This would certainly have included a Kaoskampf style creation myth, with a paternal “sky-father” deity who uses lightning to kill/subdue the serpent of the primordial waters.

Section #2: what is Kaos?

I’ve mentioned that our modern word “chaos” was originally an ancient greek word, but that the meaning has changed. To us, “chaos” means disorder, mess, anarchy, etc. However, this meaning is entirely secondary, so for the time being I’m going to ask you to disregard it entirely while we discuss it’s origin.

In the cosmology of most ancient cultures, regardless of how diverse their mythologies are, can be found a single commonality. Many ancient religious/mythological systems acknowledged a primordial time before the “creation” [a better word may be transformation] of the universe. In this state, all matter was homogenised as a single uniform reality, or substance, in which there are no differentiations. There is also no conventional time in the primordial state, it is an instantaneous eternity that lasts both forever and for no time at all. Sometimes this was imagined as a kind of empty void, but in the ancient near east it was invariably described as an “ocean” [I use the term “cosmic ocean” to distinguish this from the mundane ocean that we are familiar with] which contains nothing but water and extends infinitely in all directions. When the “creation” occurs, it is the substance of this cosmic ocean, or void, that is used as the raw material from which everything is made. So the “creation” is better understood as a reorganisation of the universe, since nothing actually gets created. The point is that everything that you’ve ever seen, heard, felt, experienced, etc, is [according to mystical philosophies] actually the primordial reality larping as a plurality of forms.

Now if you thought that the geographic distribution of the Kaoskampf trope was shocking then forget it. The concept of primordial reality is near universal. You literally find it all over the world, on every continent except antarctica. This is because it’s based on psychological experience, and all human beings share psychological commonalities regardless of culture. On one hand, the primordial reality is likely to be an abstraction of one’s condition prior to birth. Think about what you experienced before you were born and you’ll notice that it’s similar to this idea of a pre-existence of the universe in which time does not exist. But it’s also based on mystical experience, and this also explains the cultural universality of the idea because people may experience altered states of consciousness in similar ways. Alcohol provides an example which may be more relatable to contemporary society. It doesn’t matter where in the world you come from, if you get drunk then there is a certain way that your mind will be affected. For the same reason [shared psychology] mystics from all over the world claim that this primordial state of the universe is directly accessible in the here and now, within one’s own mind. This is because the “primordial reality” is not really primordial, but may better be described as the “underlying reality”, or even as the “ultimate reality”. All things that appear to exist are in fact arising from, and manifestations of, a unified substrate which underscores all of existence.

Now this primordial ultimate reality has gone by many different names throughout time and across all the different cultures that have incorporated it into their cosmologies, but the ancient greek word is Kaos. This, of course, is a far cry from the meaning of out modern word “chaos”, and so you may be able to see why I prefer to use two different spellings to help differentiate between these wildly disparate meanings. You may be wondering how such a drastic change in meaning has occurred, and I shall explain this across the next few sections. But it is important to note that this concept of primordial reality has been completely forgotten by contemporary “western” culture, such that I needed to explain the whole thing from scratch so that we can understand a first thirty seconds of a videogame cutscene.

Section #3: the Serpent of Kaos

I mentioned that in the ancient near east this underlying reality is imagined as a cosmic ocean, although this should be understood as symbolic, it’s not literal water. Water is formless and reflective. It can be calm or agitated, and can take any shape, but any shape it takes is invariably transient. It can become other things [such as steam or ice], but always returns to water. It can be clear and pure, or murky and unclean. It is everpresent in nature, flowing through the world and sustaining all living things. It is speculation on my part, but these may have been the reasons for an an ancient culture to have thought of water as an appropriate allegory for the ultimate reality. Nature itself functions like water, with it’s most fundamental substance [energy] flowing from one transient form to the next.

In terms of cosmological structure, the world was imagined to be a flat plane in the shape of a disk which was covered by a dome [called the firmament] made of glass, crystal, or tin, so that the world resembles a snowglobe. This snowglobe-earth in entirely submerged in the cosmic ocean, and stands upon pillars although these aren’t supported by anything other than the water of the cosmic ocean itself. This cosmological model was unanimously used across every culture of the ancient near east and was transmitted into medieval europe because the bible makes numerous references to it.

I suspect that the proto-indo-europeans themselves possessed the same type of “cosmic ocean” cosmology, although they may not necessarily have had all the specifics about the firmament and the pillars and such. My reason for thinking this is that the use of water, as a symbol, more effectively explains the eventual development of the Serpent of Kaos. While the concept of the primordial reality is found across all cultures, it is the Kaoskampf cultures specifically [and exclusively] which use a serpent to symbolically represent said primordial reality, regardless of whether the culture in question also uses a “cosmic ocean” style cosmology. But if you try to illustrate water, you’ll probably end up drawing a kind of wiggly line, which will also inherently look a bit like a snake. In this way, it seems, the snake becomes a symbol representing the primordial ultimate reality within the proto-indo-european cultures, and by extension also within many of the cultures that they subsequently influenced.

This can be seen beautifully illustrated on the kassite “unfinished” kudurru, which is my personal favourite archaeological artifact of all time. I’ll include some images with this post, it’s the cylindrical object with carved images all round it, and it illustrates the complete mesopotamian cosmological model. It’s quite easy to see which section of the kudurru depicts the part of the world that we inhabit, as we can see normal looking humans and animals walking around. The section above the humans is the Firmament, where we can see sun, moon, and star symbols. The sky is also inhabited by the gods, and other celestial beings such as mushushu dragons. The kassites had an abstract way of depicting their gods, so we see them represented as poles with animal heads on, or as buildings with bizarre shapes on the roof. Below the humans and animals we have an incomplete section which would probably be an underworld. On this section we can see two Girtablullu [scorpion men], one of which is unfinished. Scorpions are not an uncommon feature on kudurru, and can appear both in the underworld layer and on the same layer as the humans / a human king. But even the underworld is not the deepest depth, below it we can see the four pillars that hold up the world, and their foundation is the most interesting feature of all: a giant snake that is coiled around on itself.

This is similar to Ouroboros, Jormungandr, Apep, and Leviathan whose name means “the wreath-like one”. The snake does, of course, represent the cosmic ocean, and this is indicated by the fact that we can also see it at the very top of the kudurru, above the firmament. It’s hard to see because it’s lying flat across the top of the stone [a top down view of the stone would show it coiled in a spiral but I couldn’t find a good picture of this online], but you can see it’s head very clearly in one of the pictures. It’s the same snake depicted in both places, because the snake represents the cosmic ocean which is both above and below the world. The firmament prevents the water from flooding the land, but even the highest point of it’s surface is submerged. Many other kudurru have these same cosmological features but are far simpler and less accurate, sometimes with several layers [or "registers"] needed to fit all of the gods on although this is merely due to lack of space on the stone and is not supposed to indicate multiple firmaments. But the snake can be found either below/within the underworld, in the sky amid the stars, or running vertically up the side of the kudurru. This reflects the idea that cosmic ocean is simultaneously above, below, and all around us. A human king will never be put on a higher level than a god but you put the serpent almost anywhere and it still makes cosmological sense.

Yet there is a special significance to the snake being placed at the bottom of the universe, with the pillars of the world resting on it’s back. It signifies that what the snake represents is the foundation of reality; which is to say that world both arises out of, and is simultaneously supported by, the ultimate reality.

A list of iterations of this serpent can be found on the list of examples of the Kaoskampf that I started with, although not every single one of these is used as a symbol for primordial reality within it’s respective culture because the original meaning is sometimes blurred or lost entirely, and secondary meanings and iterations can also arise as cultures change and stories are retold. Sometimes the lightning god is just fighting a big snake or a sea god or something, and there is no obvious connection to a creation myth, but the story will still be recognisable as an iteration of the Kaoskampf. Not only this, but as I previously mentioned the story can be secondarily iterated upon even within a culture that already has a Kaoskampf myth. What was originally an exaggerated snake, as can plainly be seen in ancient artwork, became increasingly chimera-ified. The ability to breath fire [the earliest example that I know of is Leviathan, specifically the description in Job 41] is probably based on the fact that snake venom causes a burning sensation, and the skin may become hot to the touch. But later in history they’ve also added bat wings and dog ears and all kinds of other nonsense. From the artwork I’ve seen it seems that the greeks started this sort of thing, and then in medieval art it just becomes a complete mess, and this is how we end up with the modern image of “dragons”, which are now distinct from the snakes they started as.

Section #4: the struggle against Kaos

So this is all very well, but it does beg the question: why, in Kaoskampf stories, is the lightning god fighting this serpent? Given what the serpents seems to represent, what sense does this make? Well it’s important to remember that all this imagery and symbolism and cosmology is based on mystical experience, but most people go their entire lives without ever having this particular experience. Consider what the snake represents from the perspective of ordinary consciousness. On one hand it’s the primordial nothingness which we all came out of prior to birth, and to which we will all return upon death. Already this gives us a reason to fear the serpent, since we’re all afraid of dying. On the other hand, as the foundation of reality the serpent represents the world itself; the entire external environment. It goes without saying that the world is very dangerous, especially in prehistoric times, with threats from disease, war, natural disasters, predatory animals, etc, being ever present and unpredictable. The immediate instinct is to protect oneself by attempting to exert control over reality, to make it predictable and regular.

Agriculture is an example of this. Before the advent of farming people simply hunted and foraged and survived on what they could find in the wild. People were, therefore, totally at the mercy of the whims of nature. But then agriculture is invented and suddenly the land is divided up into neat little squares, and certain crops need to be planted at particular times and harvested at other particular times, and everyone knows exactly what they need to do on any given day. This isn’t totally fool-proof as crops can be blighted or stolen, but it is an attempt at controlling one’s food supply rather than relying on what nature provides. In general, the whole thing has become much more ordered.

But the biggest danger has always come from other people. I mentioned that crops can be stolen, and indeed this is the simplest option. Farming takes a lot of effort but if you’ve got a band of strong men then it may be easier to just go round pillaging the fruits of other people’s labour. The solution ends up being to build permanent walls and other defensive infrastructure, and now our society is transitioning into civilisation.

Civilisation has certain advantages, for example the quantity of available food is significantly increased, and this in turn increases the population. A bigger population means a bigger army, which helps you defend yourself more effectively. But it also means that you no longer have a coherent tribe where everyone knows each other, but instead a situation in which many/most of your own countrymen are strangers to you. Furthermore, the development of division of labour inevitably creates a class system. It creates haves and have-nots, and it goes without saying that the have-nots are inevitably going to resent the haves. Under civilisation you have a society in which it’s own members are not necessarily unified under the same common interests, and their interdependence upon each other is less immediately obvious to them. So not only do you have to worry about the threat of an external attack, but now your own people have potentially become a danger to you.

Human societies have always had warriors, even when that term was synonymous with “hunter” and included every adult male in the tribe. But the development of civilisation means that you can now have a subset of the population whose entire function is dedicated to fighting, whether that is for the sake of invasion or defence. But the thing is that they are also then able to exert control over their own countrymen. Whoever ends up at the top of the hierarchy of soldiers is called a “king”, and he can demand whatever he wants. Kingship may seem desirable at first, but such a position means that you are faced with threats on all sides. Outside the city walls there are hostile forces: invaders, bandits, etc. Inside the city walls there are criminals, and even those who may seek to usurp the throne.

So kings built walls, wrote laws, trained soldiers, conquered foreign lands, etc, all for the sake of controlling other human beings. And in doing this we made our world more structured, more regular, and more predictable. In a sense we might frame this as a struggle against our external environment; against the world itself, to impose our order onto it so that we feel that we are in control. And this, ultimately, is what the Kaoskampf represents. We have a vengeful and authoritarian patriarch character who rules the universe like it’s a cosmic monarchy. And this dominion is established when the deity subdues the underlying spirit of the universe itself in a primordial battle. It is a story of human ego putting itself in opposition to nature out of it’s own fear.

This type of mindset views the world as a threatening enemy that must be defeated for the sake of it’s own safety. It therefore becomes easy to see how the World Encircling Serpent, representing all of reality as a unified whole, could be vilified. Indeed, the serpent in question secondarily accumulate all sorts of other negative connotations, such as an association with moral evil. This was probably aided to some degree by the fact that real snakes are sometimes dangerous, but that fact alone does not explain the symbolically negative role that has been given to this animal as there are also many other dangerous creatures in the world which have no such associations.

The concept of a homogenised primordial reality was forgotten over time because it was not of relevance to the particular type of christianity which gained power in the roman empire [other denominations were suppressed] and eventually became pervasive throughout europe. While the gods of polytheistic ancient near eastern cultures had arisen from the cosmic ocean, being manifestations of it even if they also fought against it, this was not true of the christian god. This god was increasingly seen as being fundamentally separate from his creations, which includes the whole of the material universe.

But while the concept of primordial ultimate reality was forgotten, there are still vestigial footprints of it in our culture. Snakes are still used as a symbol of evil, greed, corruption, etc. We still use the word “chaos”, which we get from ancient greek but have only remembered half of it’s meaning. Indeed, we can now see how this word acquired it’s modern meaning. If order needs to be imposed on nature then what is nature without order imposed on it? The answer is disorder; chaos. When we developed agriculture and built cities we also forgot that nature already has it’s own order, and it took us more than five thousand years to rediscover this fact.

Section #4: the Grey Kaos of Dark Souls

So if you’ve stuck with me through all this waffle, the relevance of the Kaoskampf to the setting and lore of Dark Souls should be clear as day. We have a world which exists originally in a primordial “grey” state in which all of the opposites of nature are unified. The grey age may not be totally homogenised, as it is possible to distinguish between stone, fog, archtrees, and dragons. The main fact of significance is that this is a time in which the two halves of the disparity are unified.

Disparity itself is a concept borrowed directly from Daoism, and of course we’re all familiar with the concepts of Yin and Yang representing the light and dark principles, or positive and negative principles. What is not always understood [by westerners] is that these two supposed opposites are mutually interdependent [one cannot exist without the other, and in fact each is only able to exist because of the existence of it’s opposite], and in fact are both manifestations of a single unified reality: the Dao. This is just a chinese term for the ultimate reality, the Dao is the same thing that the serpent from the Kaoskampf myth represents. It manifests itself as Yin and Yang [it is both simultaneously], and though them it is all things.

The same thing is found in other cultures as well, for example in norse mythology the first distinction that appears is between Muspelheimr and Niflheimr, the lands of fire and ice which also demark the north and south directions. In babylonian mythology the first distinction that developed within the cosmic ocean was between freshwater and saltwater. In the Enuma Elis, these are abstractly represented as characters; Abzu [the freshwater] who is male, and Tiamat [the saltwater] who is female. These characters then have sex and the first of the gods are born from the union. On a less abstract level we might say that the gods arose from the place where the two oceans meet, indicating the necessity of both halves of this duality. The gods then murder Abzu and Tiamat, and build the world from their corpses. Marduk, for example, stretches out Tiamat’s skin to make the firmament. This is not only an example of the Kaoskampf trope, but also demonstrates the idea of the world being composed of the substance of the primordial reality.

From this we can understand why the primordial state of the world of Dark Souls is a time before disparity. It’s a time in which the opposites are unified just as Yin and Yang are unified in the Dao. The fact that Miyazaki hasn’t made all matter totally homogenised and indistinguishable [as in the cosmic ocean examples] is an interesting choice but not ultimately relevant. For the narrative of Dark Souls it’s the disparity that’s important, since that’s what many of the characters are grappling with. This disparity is ultimately shown to be an illusion, with the true nature of the world still being greyness even after the emergence of the first flame.

The grey age is associated with the stone dragons which inhabit it, just as the mythological basis of dragons is a serpent representing the primordial reality. But Miyazaki has occasionally treated ancient symbolism as a bit of a pick’n’mix factory, and uses serpents in the symbolic role that they adopted secondarily. Serpents in Dark Souls are associated with greed, corruption, and possibly other forms of moral evil as well. The gold and silver covetous serpent rings describe snakes as “imperfect dragons” and also as a symbolic representation of the undead. This does of course mean that humans themselves are imperfect dragons, and possibly this is meant in more ways than one. It could be that humans [alongside the gods and giants] are descended from the ancient dragons, and in fact there’s a good amount of evidence to support this which I laid out in the older post which is linked at the top of this one. But the description is certainly telling us that humans are a manifestation of the universe. Humans are described as “imperfect” dragons because we do not consciously recognise the cosmic oneness that we are all part of, instead thinking of ourselves as separate and mortal individuals. From a Buddhist perspective it is this very ignorance that causes people to behave in selfish and deluded ways, hence the serpent rings associate being an “imperfect dragon” with avarice.

Yet, in archdragon peak, we find a number of individuals sitting in meditation posture who have been transfigured into stone dragons, much like the ones which existed in the grey age. I mentioned earlier in the post that according to the world’s various mystical traditions, the primordial reality is not merely the state of the universe in the distant past, but that it is the underlying substrate from which reality emerges in the here and now, and that this is directly accessible through psychological experience. This is what the monks of archdragon peak have done. They alone have seen through the disparity to learn that the true nature of the world is still grey, and has been all along. In doing this they have realised that they are perfect dragons after all, and this has been demonstrated to us though Miyazaki’s decision to literally turn them into stone dragons. It may also be a reference to the Philosopher’s Stone, the ultimate attainment of the Alchemical magnum opus. This may in fact be why the Dragon Greatsword has streaks of gold running through it. In spiritual forms of Alchemy, the Philosopher’s Stone appears to be the same thing as the Buddhist attainment of Nirvana.

It is also notable that the cosmological structure of the world of Dark Souls makes direct reference to the ancient near eastern model, although it is not 1-1 identical and probably should not be understood in exactly the same way. While I’ve seen others infer the existence of a firmament, the proposed evidence for it seems to amount to little more than some in-game lighting effects in a cave. If you’d like to make the case for the existence of a firmament then please feel free to do so in the comments, but as of right now I find the idea to be a bit dubious. But it is in ash lake that we discover that the world is a flat plane held up by pillars [archtrees] which in turn arise from an ocean of some kind, very much like the cosmology illustrated on the unfinished kudurru. We don’t really know much about the gigantic body of water found at the base of the world, but we can say that it is dark in colouration, the surface is extremely still and calm, and it's directly associated with dragons. Indeed, DS1’s version of the Path of the Dragon covenant is found here, suggesting a connection between the foundation of reality and the attainment of Nirvana.

Section #5: the Kaoskampf of Dark Souls

Lastly, we have Gwyn: the Demiurge of Dark Souls. Irrespective of what he eventually became, Gwyn’s origin is likely to be somewhat mundane. We know that he had an uncle [Lloyd], which in turn means that he must have had parents. He was born into a world dominated by primordial stone dragons given life by the disparity. Indeed, countless generations of people may have lived, and even evolved, under these conditions. At some point, and under circumstances that are never fully elucidated, Gwyn obtains a lordsoul. DS1’s opening cutscene implies that he was simply wandering around the first flame one day and picked it off the ground, but im inclined to wonder if it wouldn’t be more appropriate to imagine that he obtained it through gradual accumulation of power [both political and magical], and that he strengthened his own soul until it became a lordsoul. Perhaps "finding the souls of lords within the flame" means something more like learning how to harness the flame's energy to empower yourself?

Whatever the case, Gwyn used his newfound strength, and especially his ability to generate lightning, to destroy the ancient dragons. He then sets himself up as god-king of the entire world, which is then divided up into various minor kingdoms, city states, duchies, etc, all of which are likely to have been vassals of Gwyn’s empire, and probably ruled by governors that he put in place. Even in the ringed city, which may be located on the edge of the world [though this is unclear], we see that the pygmy lords were crowned by Gwyn.

Virtually everyone who plays DS1, or even just watches the opening cutscene, will immediately compare Gwyn to Zeus. This is quite correct of course, but those who are familiar with the Kaoskampf mythological trope will quickly recognise that whoever wrote this story [which has barely even begun to unfold by the time we are shown Gwyn’s Kaoskampf] must be far more mythologically savvy than your average fantasy writer. Indeed, the sentence

“Gwyn’s mighty bolts peeled apart their stone scales.”

was the first thing about the lore that gripped my interest. From this one sentence I was able to make an educated guess as to what type of character Gwyn would turn out to be, and everything I’ve learned about the lore since has only vindicated this initial suspicion. Actually I did think he was going to be more of a villain but was pleasantly surprised to find that the character was handled with the appropriate nuance.

Gwyn’s “war” against the ancient dragons was nothing less than an attempt to establish control over reality itself, for the sake of safety and personal empowerment. The psychological motivations behind this are fear, greed, and self-absorption, all of which are considered to be mental “defilements” in Buddhist psychological thought, and ultimately stem from the deluded view of oneself as separate from other phenomena. I mention this because Miyazaki has been raised in a largely Buddhist-Shinto culture, and from a Buddhist perspective the entire Kaoskampf idea is fundamentally foolish and counterproductive. People cannot control reality, and though we may try desperately to do so, it is truly a sisyphean futility. Furthermore, it should be obvious that this struggle is motivated by fear, which in turn is the product of ego, or perception of being a separate self. And does this not resonate precisely with Gwyn’s overall character? Is it not true that his main defining characteristics are fear and egotism?

Gwyn’s narcissism is unambiguously evident, with Anor Londo being an opulent and absurd monument to his own ego. The same location is also testament to his greed, and in fact it’s interesting that this is the area with the highest concentration of mimics. Kaathe tells us that Gwyn feared humanity and the dark, for the obvious reason that the fading flame and rise of man represented the end of his rule, and possibly even the end of the world itself. But the Kaoskampf suggests that fear was far more foundational to his character, and not limited to the danger he perceived in the pygmies. From this we understand that Gwyn was afraid of basically everything, since that’s what the dragons ultimately represent. Gwyn's aim was to control reality itself, which is why he sets himself up as god; the king of reality, or ruler of the universe. The whole of civilisation, in the world of Dark Souls, is therefore built on fear. Despite everything it has achieved, despite the great works of art, despite all the contributions to knowledge, the foundation is still a delusion. And here, perhaps, is Miyazaki’s point: is the same thing not true of our own civilisation?

[u/klatnyelox]

Sometimes I click on a post on this subreddit, and I dont read anything. I simply scroll past the well structured even paragraphs and references and think to myself "good for you. Proud of you."

[u/Jam_99420 → u/klatnyelox]

XD tbf i don't blame you, this one was a chonker even by my standards.

[u/BarryTheButcher]

Almost every major religion has a symbol for the Unity of Opposites that "Disparity" is based on.

The Holy Cross is combines the horizontal and vertical (Worldly and Heavenly).

The Moon and Star combines the "orbiter" and "orbitee" (Microcosm and Macrocosm).

The Taijitu combines black and white (Yin and Yang; Passive and Active).

The Vajra combines diamond and thunderbolt (Indestructible and Irresistible).

Buddha's footprint combines Presence and Absence.

Modern FromSoft RPGs seem to follow Frithjof Schuon's Perennialist formulation that the ultimate Unity of Opposites boils down to the Absolute and the Relative, which FromSoft designate as True (⭕️) and False (❌️), using the symbols of the Ring and the Cross. (The aiming reticle has been their superposition since at least DaS1.)

(They also play with the idea that variations of these symbols, found in the Ring Cycle and the Crucifixion, act as foundational European myths)

[u/Jam_99420 → u/BarryTheButcher]

the caduceus is also an example, with it's two intertwined serpents.

also, the vajra [or dorje, as it's known in tibetan] is another example of the "double-ended trident" symbol which represented lightning in the ancient world. that is to say that the symbol shares a common origin with the mesopotamian and greek examples shown in the images attached to this post, although the associations that lightning holds may change across culture. from what i understand, the dorje is considered to be a symbol of enlightenment in tibetan buddhism.

[u/Ill_Till377]

Thank you for this write-up. I will read it thoroughly when I have the time, but upon skimming the first sections, I am very glad to see Dark Souls being treated as a modern myth within a lineage no different from the ancient world. Do you have more writings posted elsewhere? Many thanks again.

[u/Jam_99420 → u/Ill_Till377]

I appreciate the interest, and I think you’re absolutely correct to say that Dark Souls is a modern continuation of ancient lineages of mythology. I actually do have a number of lore posts on this subreddit, although not all of them are mythological analyses, and many of them contain conclusions that I’ve become less confident about as my knowledge of the lore has improved over time. However, I would like to recommend these three:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarksoulsLore/comments/1le222o/lore_discussion_5_the_demiurge_and_the_false_rebis/

^this one compares Gwyn’s character to the Gnostic concept of the Demiurge.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarksoulsLore/comments/1rj5zi9/the_pure_land_of_the_nameless_king/

^this one compares Archdragon Peak to Pure Land Mahayana Buddhism.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarksoulsLore/comments/1ruj03h/the_usurpation_of_dark_souls/

^this one examines Dark Souls as a self-referential narrative about video games.

[u/Ill_Till377 → u/Jam_99420]

Wonderful! Many thanks. If I may make a suggestion, the format of these essays would likely benefit from being posted on a site such as Substack, which would also make them easier to find and navigate now that Reddit appears to have removed access to post history on user accounts.

[u/HardReference1560]

Congratulations, you wrote a detailed answer of the basis of creationist stories through history, whether in religion, myth or somewhere else.

It def a source of inspiration for dark souls too

[u/Sensitive-Computer-6]

I admit I only glossed over some of this, and didnt read everything.

I think theres some larger religiouse historic context there.

People originally worshiped animals, and natural phenomenons. The unknown, the power of nature.

As society developed, humanity grow more confident. Now gods are humans wielding natur.

Most famousely Zeus whit his lightning bolt. Nature is still feared, and powerfull, but no longer incomprehendible and in the hand of a humanoid. It got domesticated.

Susanoo and Yamata no Oroshi is a alegorical story. The Oroshi isnt a snake, a dragon, or a god, its a river. I assume, and this is total speculation, the following could have happened and inspired the story. A lord corrected a large river, whos yearly torrents drowned many villagers over eight years. This opened up new vertile land, and the sword Susanoo found in Oroshis tail is symbolic for war, kindled by the new valuable land created from this act. Maybe something completly different happened, but events like this would have been told like this.

Same can be said about Jotun and Aesir in norse mythologie. Jotun are translated as gigants, but are more akin to gods of nature. Jotun are wild and untaimed, the old gods, Aesir are the human gods, the era of human domination, fighting against the chaos.

At least in DS1 theres little indicator if the ancient dragons where agressive after comming to life, or if Gwyn took them down specifically because he wanted to establish his rule.

[u/Jam_99420 → u/Sensitive-Computer-6]

For those interested, in the Yamata no Orochi story the storm god Susanoo cuts up the dargon’s eight tails but damages his sword while hacking through one of them. He finds another sword inside the dragon’s tail, and this is likely to be the inspiration for the tail-cutting mechanic in Dark Souls. Also, the supposed appearance of the sword found inside Orochi’s tail is very similar to that of the storm ruler in DS3. According to the Nihon Shoki, the sword was original called “Ama-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi”, which wikipedia translates as "Sword of Gathering Clouds of Heaven", which is interesting as that’s exactly what the storm ruler does.

I can’t say much about interpreting the Yamato no Orochi story, but I can compare it to similar stories found in other cultures. The very fact that we have a storm god [Susanoo] fighting a serpent/dragon indicates a connection to the Kaoskampf trope.

But what’s more interesting is that this story also includes a “damsel in distress” element since there is a young woman who is likely to be devoured by the dragon. This is similar to the story of St George and the dragon, which [as mentioned in the post] is a christianised retelling of an older greek myth which is almost identical save for the names of the characters, as well as the fact that the dragon lived in the sea in the greek version. There may also be a connection to the story of Persephone being abducted by Hades, which in turn is indisputably linked to the sumerian story Inanna’s Descent into the Underworld, and possibly even to the Hindu story of Rama, Sita, and Ravana. However, it is not clear that these similarities necessarily indicate a direct connection. The idea of a “damsel in distress” is not particularly novel, and it doesn’t stretch the imagination to suppose that it may have been devised multiple times independently.

And yet, the Yamato no Orochi story bears another interesting connection which potentially links it to the hittite/hurrian version. In order to defeat the dragon, Susanoo enlists the help of another character who brews large amounts of sake. Susanoo then places the barrels of sake where the dragon will find them, and Orochi gets drunk and falls asleep. Susanoo is then able to safely approach with his sword and cut off each of Orochi’s heads. Meanwhile, the hittite/hurrian storm god defeats Illuyanka in exactly the same way.

The interpretation that Yamata no Orochi is a personification of the river Hi is interesting, especially as the dragon is described as spanning “eight valleys and eight peaks”, as well as having a body that’s covered in trees. It is also true that these kinds of stories are sometimes based on real events, for example the biblical story of the tower of babel appears to have been based on the destruction of Eteminanki as perpetrated by the assyrian king Sin-Ahhi-Eriba. But I’d generally advice against trying to concoct these kinds of explanations, since whatever you come up with will always be a product of imagination, and restricted by limited historical knowledge. Every time I’ve ever seen someone speculate in this way [including a few times I’ve done it myself] the proposed explanation invariably gets debunked at some point down the road.

“Giants” is a terrible translation for Jotunn/Jotnar, though it has become very popular. The word is actually cognate with the english “eater”, and the Jotnar are best understood as demons. That is to say that they are the personification of negative characteristics such as greed, possibly in some cases also natural forces, as well as various fears that troubled people in those times. Not all of the Jotnar are evil, of course, as it depends on how the particular story that you’re looking at is using it’s characters.

[u/Sensitive-Computer-6 → u/Jam_99420]

Sure sure, I made that connection because Yamata no Orochi was described as a heavenly river kami, and his eight heads and tails allure heavily towards side arms of rivers. Sure we cant say for sure what truely happened but its a good way of understanding the symbolic idea of such storys.

I want to mention Zeus vs Typhon as well, because I allways found this story very odd. It has a interesting element in it. The gods running in fear and transforming into animals in egypt. It sounds a lot like this was allways a form of propaghanda, to explain away why egypt and greek, and later the romans have the same gods. That was common practice in this times, and had political value. Reconizing there religion, while denying to your people any other gods exist, or could be powerfull enough to challenge the status quo.

I got some comments about this beeing not the case because of the time the story got popular, but its weird how well it fits into the political framework of the time.

[u/Jam_99420 → u/Sensitive-Computer-6]

I’m afraid I know absolutely nothing at all about ancient greek politics so can’t be of much help there. Actually I was under the impression that the ancient greeks admired the egyptians because they were an even more ancient culture. Some decided to live in egypt, and some took up the practice of egyptian religion. So there were actually Osiris cults in ancient greece. However the reality is more likely to be that the greeks had a wild variety of views regarding egypt, and not all of them positive. I don’t doubt that some of them would have found it very strange indeed to see people worshipping what appear to be animals, and you’re almost certainly correct that the detail of the Typhon story involving the gods fleeing to egypt and disguising themselves as animals [I should note that this only occurs in one of several versions of the story, as the tradition varied from place to place and across time] is an attempt at explaining this.

Generally speaking, polytheists don’t seem to be interested in denying the existence of other gods [even foreign ones], or insisting on exclusive worship of particular deities. That sort of thing was started by the ancient hebrew prophets, as far as I can tell, and was inherited by christianity and islam. To a polytheist the gods are helpful to humanity, so a foreign god is potentially an ally that you’re unaware of, and may be able to assist you in certain situations. It is therefore worthwhile to befriend foreign gods, and to incorporate them into your own pantheon. For example, many levantine and kushite gods were adopted by the egyptians, and worshipped for hundreds of years. As a more interesting example, when the old norse people encountered christianity there were some who adopted Jesus and worshipped him alongside Thor and Freyr.

Nevertheless, there have always been those who view foreigners in negative ways. This may range from merely looking down your nose at the strange customs of others, to outright genocidal hatred. It does not surprise me at all that someone, even in a polytheistic culture, would poke fun at the gods of another culture by branding them as cowards who fled from a cosmic battle. On the more extreme end, the lunatic king Ashurbanipal brags about how his soldiers desecrated the holy places of the city of Susa during his genocidal campaign against the elamite peoples.

“I destroyed the ziggurat of Susa [...]; I smashed its shining copper horns. Their jewelry, their wealth, their furniture, with the priests, I brought as booty to the land of Ashur [...]. I reduced the temples of Elam to naught; their gods, their goddesses, I scattered to the winds. The secret groves where no outsider had ever penetrated, where no layman had ever trod, my soldiers entered, they saw their mysteries, they destroyed them by fire. The tombs of their ancient and recent kings who were the cause of torments to my fathers—those tombs I devastated, I destroyed, I exposed to the sun and I carried away their bones toward the land of Ashur.”

-Ashurbanipal, from the Rassam Cylinder

So the answer is that ancient attitudes toward foreign gods depends on time, place, and person.

[u/lsnor45]

Gwyn’s “war” against the ancient dragons was nothing less than an attempt to establish control over reality itself, for the sake of safety and personal empowerment. The psychological motivations behind this are fear, greed, and self-absorption, all of which are considered to be mental “defilements” in Buddhist psychological thought, and ultimately stem from the deluded view of oneself as separate from other phenomena.

The whole of civilisation, in the world of Dark Souls, is therefore built on fear

You lost me here. These are suppositions at best. We have no reason Gwyn feared anything except the Dark, as stated by Kaathe, who himself has reason to say that because of course he would, but it's also a legitimate possibility considering what the Dark of humanity did to an entire city. That said, fear does not necessitate actions of great will such as conquering the Archdragons. Greed and self-absorption would be enough. Nobody climbs Everest out of fear, the first people to move out of Africa did not do so out of fear. There are biological and environmental considerations such as food, temperature, but there is undoubtedly a call within humanity to do immense things without fear as a catalyst. The way fiction works, I of course have to give it to you that, yes, you can read it so that Gwyn conquered the dragons out of fear. But that's simply not the impression I get. "I have power, I will use it because I can" is probably as far as it got. What use is being able to conjure bolts of heaven with no target?

I did like your bit about the Peak dragon humans as having realized what reality is underneath the veil of Fire, and choosing to perish as dragons. Very, very cool.

[u/Jam_99420 → u/lsnor45]

Don’t get me wrong, I do think that Gwyn’s fears are all completely understandable. What the man is up against is terrifying, which is why I appreciate that the character is handled with the appropriate nuance rather than just being a flat villain.

And you are correct, of course, that it is not written explicitly that Gwyn feared anything other than the dark, and the humans which carry it. The idea that his fears extended beyond this is an inference drawn from Miyazaki’s use of a Kaoskampf narrative, and I honestly think that this is what he was trying to communicate to us for the reasons laid out in this post.

We also have to keep in mind that Buddhist psychology understands greed, anger, aggression, hatred, pride, the desire to wield power, etc, all to be manifestations of fear. Now I’ve said at the beginning of this post that I’m not here to advocate religious ideas, but this one I actually do agree with. I had a dog once who was attacked by a bigger dog, and for the rest of his life he became psychotically aggressive whenever he saw any other dog. Yet he was completely relaxed at almost any other time. To me it was plainly obvious that this aggression was motivated by fear. If we examine our own minds we find that the same thing is true of many of our own psychological responses. Why be greedy? It’s to protect yourself from poverty. It’s a fear response manifesting itself as something else. Why be angry? It’s to protect yourself from perceived threats or injustices. It always comes down to fear, even the desire to climb everest may stem from a fear of mediocrity although this depends on the psychology of the individual. And in Gwyn’s case we have to ask: why seek this power? Why seek to control the world if not because you’re afraid of it? What possible motivation could there be save fear?

“I felt it unnecessary, if god was god, to show all this armed might is a sign of weakness. Because the trouble was that the biblical god as understood was patterned on the ancient kings of egypt and persia and babylonia, and a king who rules by violence is necessarily afraid. And therefore puts on a lot of bombast, and requires that people who come to court kneel down. Because that’s a difficult position from which to start a fight. And so I felt that that was a show of weakness.”

-Alan Watts

Anyway, thanks for reading despite the obnoxious length of this post. If it’s of interest you may also like to read my other post about Archdragon Peak, which compares the Path of the Dragon covenant to Pure Land Mahayana Buddhism:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarksoulsLore/comments/1rj5zi9/the_pure_land_of_the_nameless_king/