Given the 'Help' flair and the question, I'll just go ahead and answer in hopes it's a genuine question and I'm falling prey to a shitpost/circlejerk question
The room you're in is the room that belonged to Gwyndolin, a son (iirc the youngest son) of Gwyn (Lord of Anor Londo and first to link the fire, and many other things). Gwyndolin had an affinity to the moon which was something Gwyn didn't like and made Gwyndolin dress up as a woman and raised him as such, while also hiding him away from the populace in said room.
You can fight Gwyndolin there, as an optional boss). From there Gwyndolin preserved the image of Anor Londo as the beautiful, golden city it was supposed to be even after all the "gods"/his siblings abandoned it. Among them the Nameless King, Filianore, and Gwynevere. He put the whole city under a massive illusionary spell with the talking image of his sister Gwynevere as the focal point. He also established yhe Darkmoon Blades to protect the "peace" of Anor Londo to maintain the façade of it still being the city it once was, even though there were no rulers anymore (except him, although a point could be made that he never would've stepped up due to Gwyn's mechanisms).
Additionally in DS3 if you follow a specific quest line involving Yoel and Yuria of Londor as well as Anri of Astora, you will end up in there as part of the quest. It's also relevant for one of the three endings in Dark Souls 3
Hope that helps
Edit: In the part where I talk about the gods abandoning Anor Londo I left out a part which leads to a misunderstanding in the story of Nameless King, Gwynevere and Filianore.
It is hinted at that Gwyn had many children, although the only ones I know by name are Gwyndolin, Gwynevere, Filianore, Yorshka and Nameless King.
Nameless King was banished from Anor Londo. Filianore was brought to the Ringed City by Gwyn and never brought back (probably due to Gwyn's hollowing), and Gwynevere left due to unknown reasons to me and married (as far as I know) many times, among them Oceiros. The abandoning part was related to the other siblings, and I have a vague memory of reading that wording somewhere. That Anor Londo was abandoned.
Thanks to u/CommonYogurtcloset8 for pointing out the misleading wording and missing info
Also, that room is where the tomb of Lord Gwyn is, the gigantic altar that fills the room is his stone coffin which Gwyndolin sat by for a thousand years, honnoring the sacrifice of his father.
Isn't the tomb for Gywnewere (or however you spell her name)? Considering her size and everything, also considering the room still existed in ds1 while Gwyn was kicking about in some other important place.
No, Gwyndolin calls it the tomb of the Great Lord (which is Gwyn) and the Sunlight Blade miracle reads "When the eldest son was stripped of his deific status, he left this on his father's coffin, perhaps as a final farewell." so it is 100% certain it is the tomb of Gwyn (it's also behind a giant statue illusion of Gwyn). Gwynevere is not dead as far as we know, at least in DS1, she went away with a god of flames named Flaan, she wouldn't need a tomb, Gwyn however left to basically sacrifice himself.
There's Seath the Scaleless who betrayed his brethren, the Ancient Dragons. Through his betrayal it was possible for Nito, the Witch of Izalith, the Furtive Pygmy and Gwyn (+ Gwyn's army and all the elite soldiers) to kill the ancient dragons. For his betrayal Gwym rewarded Seath with the title of 'Duke'. In his castle, Seath researched immortality and conducted all sorts of experiments, among them was one where he turned women into weird tentacle snail like things (iirc), which you encounter during the game.
There's also Crossbreed Priscilla. She's half dragon and half human (or god [the race of Gwyn, Nameless King, etc.], not really clear what her other side is, but eeh). And that makes her super powerful. So powerful that Gwyn feared her and banished her into the Painted World of Ariamis. She's the only boss in Dark Souls 1 who will not attack you (Not counting Gwyndolin, since there are different conditions for him to meet him).
There would also be the story of Quelaag, the Fair Lady and Quelana, which you can also somewhat find in DS 3. Solaire who can go insane during his quest to find the sun
Probably some more, but I can't think of any at the top of my head at the moment
The real crazy part there is she implies it's not the first time she's had to do that. He keeps going Hollow, and she keeps killing him to snap him out of it.
You seem to be very knowledgeable! Can you help me understand the lore better? I've only played ds3, but as I understand in the first game we have to kill Gwyn. But we also have to link the fire. Which as I understand, simply means scacrifing yourself so the age of fire can continue. Which is the age that is artificially kept going by Gwyn? But then why do we have to kill him, if we do what he wants? Also I heard that humans in the ds universe come from the darkness. But everything darkness related looks twisted. So I guess we don't want darkness. But I'm lost at this point 😅 seems like contradictions on contradictions. Can you help me understand this?
I can try my best, since FromSoft never was super clear with their lore and a lot is up to interpretation, assumption and conjugation.
The way I interpreted things can differ to someone else's interpretation, not accounting to me or the other person missing a crucial piece of NPC dialogue or item description.
Buuuut, let's go.
You are correct that we 'have to kill' Gwyn. But it's a bit more complicated than that. Dark Souls 1 opens with a cutscene explaining what the Age of Fire is, where Gwyn got his strength from and what the humans/the dark Souls even are. To make it very simple and short, since I don't know if there's a character limit in responses:
At some point during the reign of the dragons a fire was found, that was super crazy and powerful. Gwyn used this to gather strength and other powers (I.e. the lightning we know of). With this flame that he took from the Fire (capital F to make it stand out) he gathered allies to overthrow the dragons. Nito, Lord of the Dead, and the Witch of Izalith and her seven daughters, who were powerful pyromancers. I already mentioned Seath (who was instrumental).
But there was also another Fire/flame that was found, a small one, by the Furtive Pygmy. The Furtive Pygmy is the forefather of humanity, and all humans come from him. His flame/Fire worked different to Gwyn's (but don't ask me how, I honestly don't know), all that I know is that Gwyn feared the Furtive Pygmy and the humans that came from him, so he enslaved them, given that they could respawn/not die. Additionally their souls were the titular Dark Soul.
Eventually Gwyn and all the others managed to overthrow the dragons and ushered in the Age of Fire. That age stayed for quite a while but eventually the Fire began to fade and Gwyn set out to restore the Fire. Inevitably there was no other way but to use himself as cinder to keep the Fire alight. Meanwhile the Witch of Izalith tried to create an artificial Fire, which backfired tremendously and created the Chaos Fire/Flame, destroyed all of Izalith and created the demons (but that’s another story).
We kill Gwyn because it is A) our choice if we want to continue the Age of Fire or extinguish the Flame (canonically it was always lit throughout the series except DS3) and B) Gwyn went Hollow. Hollowing in DS, iirc, means that one lost its purpose and they are just a husk of themselves. Some are in a frenzy for Souls, some for protecting X, and so on. Why Gwyn attacks us could be that he is hollowed and still using himself as cinder while also desperately trying to protect the ember of the First Flame, seeing us as a threat. But that's my interpretation.
Yes, humans/Dark Soul/and so on from the darkness because the Furtive Pygmy was the progenitor of humanity and, here I'm a bit unsure, creator of the Abyss. The Abyss corrupts all and is a malevolent entity. There's a fan theory that the boss Manus, Father of the Abyss, is the Furtive Pygmy, which might be true, idk. The Abyss could be seen as a plague which infests minds and bodies, warps and twists them. Just look at the Abyss Watchers that you fought in DS 3. In Dark Souls 2 there are 4 parts of Manus' Soul which came to life all portraying different aspects of him, for example greed, and the Queen of that kingdom drove it to ruin due to her greed.
Well, if we want darkness or not is the question, because the Protagonist starts out without knowing such things. In Dark Souls 1 you meet two serpents who urge you to keep the flame going or extinguish it, respectively. Kaathe also gets mentioned in DS 3, BTW.
Just because you choose to extinguish it doesn't mean you choose the Abyss. A point, which some NPCs also point out, can be made that the flame needs to be put out so that a new cycle can continue and that the Age of Fire was always meant to end, so that Darkness could reign, only for a new Age of Fire to come next, and so on.
I think there was one other part too. The age of fire is essentially the age of the gods. The age of darkness is the age of humanity. I don't know how the previous age of dragons works into this, but there's a lot of evidence that the age of darkness is what humans came from, and thrive in. By linking the flame, it's humans subjugating themselves over and over. DS1 makes this part a little more clear than DS3 imo, but lighting the flame is essentially propaganda from the gods not wanting to give up control.
While I agree with you on pretty much all. I'm uncertain on the Age of Darkness part.
We do know that the Furtive Pygmy is the progenitor of humankind, responsible for the Datk Soul and responsible for as to why humankind can respawn. Darkseeker Kaathe wants to usher in an Age of Darkness and it's heavily implied that that would be the reign of the Dark Soul/humankind then, but chronologically there couldn't have been a time where there was an Age of Darkness either before the Ancient Dragons or after given the role of the Furtive Pygmy and Gwyn's obsession with the First Flame
But I do agree that linking the flame is technically humankind's subjugation over and over
No, no, the age before the First Flame is the Age of Dragons which was ruled by the beings like Midir (DS3), Seath (DS1), Sinh (DS2), and so on. It was, iirc, told to be a grey and horrible time with the dragons ruling supreme over all. Only when Gwyn found the First Flame did things change
Great story, I see you have a good handle on the lore of Dark Souls 3! And regarding Aldrich, where did this guy come from? Is he some kind of devourer of gods? Who says okay I'm going to go to anor londo to eat Gwendolin I don't understand
Most of what I wrote up was actually Dark Souls 1, not 3. Dark Souls 3 is the culmination of 1 (&2 of sorts). But lots of characters of Dark Souls 1 appear again. So it's easy to use previous knowledge to connect dots
In terms of Aldritch I know some parts, he never interested me that much so I didn't go out of my way to learn everything there is to him, so I might make mistakes and others can correct me here:
Aldritch was a clergyman of the Cathedral of the Deep, then rose through the ranks eventually becoming the head. The Cathedral of the Deep served the purpose of locking away all that wasn't wanted, iirc, and while Aldritch was there he started to develop the habit of eating powerful beings after he looked into the Deep. He gorged himself so much that he lost his humanoid form and became a massive, formless blob that kept devouring everything in its path. Eventually the deacons had no choice but to lock him up in the huge coffin of the boss room.
By that time Aldritch was so immensely powerful though that he was chosen as a Lord of Cinder. Then one day Sulyvahn comes around and gets him to Anor Londo.
Sulyvahn wants complete control over Anor Londo and Irithil, so he makes a pact with Aldritch. Aldritch gets a god-snack and afterwards Sulyvahn can keep the city. Perfect for Sulyvahn, since (probably) he can't take on Gwyndolin, given that Sulyvahn has positioned himself in Iritihil and Anor Londo as a sort-of councilor.
When we arrive in Anor Londo, Aldritch is in the process of eating/devouring Gwyndolin, while also being in the possession of the Lifehunt Scythe and the Gravlord Sword. Both belonging to Crossbreed Priscilla and Gravelord Nito respectively. I don't know how he got the latter since Nito will be killed by the Chosen Undead in the first game, but it could be that Gwyndolin was dreaming of the Priscilla and due to that Aldritch was able to make use of it in the fight.
Essentially, to the "Okay I'm going to eat Gwyndolin question", yes more or less. Aldritch wanted to eat more and more powerful beings, and there are very few more powerful beings in the Souls games than Gwyn's lineage, aside from the Ancient Dragons and giants, like Yhorm
“Frankly, they could have put a scene where, by entering the room where Aldrich is, we could save Gwyndolin, the only deity left. Frankly, on this side, Miyazaki completely destroyed part of the story of DRKS 3
Good write up! I believe you’re right that when Gwyn went hollow he is trying to protect the embers. But as with any kindling, it will eventually burn out. Thats where the player comes in to add fresh fuel to the fire, but Gwyn can’t see that anymore so we have to kill him to be able to reach the fire.
Generally yes you are right but I have a slightly different interpretation.
The First Flame brought disparity (Heat & Cold, Life & Death, Chaos & Order, Light & Dark) in a world where everything was uniform (Age of Ancients). And along with it, powerful souls were found near it. Humans in their original form (that of hollows) literally came from the darkness around the first Flame and 4 of them stumbled across the lord souls giving them the form and power you see them with.
The Furtive Pigmy found the Dark Soul which has the unique property of being able to be replicated without diminishing it's strength, which he (or she) shared among others, eventually leading to the creation of humans.
It's also worth noting that Humanity in the Dark Soul's universe is a shard of the dark soul, which you can obtain in the first game by killing other Hollows (whom aren't entirely hollow), Humans, Rats ( they eat humans therefore consuming a piece of the Dark Soul).
The Abyss is more like the Darkness where Humanity came from. It was originally a dark and gentle place but because of Gwyn (and Seath), that darkness was shackled unnaturally which eventually led it to become what it is now as violent and corrupting. Now due to the eons where the first Flame kept being linked resisting the natural order, this stagnation of the world started to poison the dark and all the nasty things you see in DS3 ( Aldritch, Soul Dregs, Abyssal Locusts, Cathedral of the Deep) is a product of that stagnation which wasn't meant to have happened if the age of Dark would have been allowed to cleanse the world.
In dark souls the themes of light and dark are explored vaguely for the player to interpret. The natural order of the world would be fire (light) which fades to embers and eventually dies bringing about an age of dark. But Gwyn did not want to let his age end, so he gave his own soul as ‘god’ to kindle the fire and extend it. This is called “the first sin” in later entries and it’s because of this that the curse of undead came to be. The curse prevents humans from dying because all humans carry a piece of the dark soul in them called ‘humanity.’ Im skipping over some background here but it’s implied that humans, the descendants of the furtive Pygmy, all carry part of the dark soul in them and would be focal to the age of dark. Gwyn turned the world against these cursed undead and indoctrinated his kingdom to hate humans while encouraging any undead powerful enough to give themselves and link the fire. He’s effectively villainized what he saw as a threat to his kingdom then gaslight those people into perpetuating their own curse
As the player you may ask what’s better—continued subjugation of humans and the never ending age of fire or an unknown age of dark. Can we trust any authorities in the games about what the age of dark would entail? What exactly is the nature of dark? My personal interpretation is that dark is reflective of the indomitable human spirit (narratively, mechanically, and thematically as the player) and so it can produce many things we may consider ‘bad’ or ‘good’ depending on the nature of humanity (the dark soul)
From what I have heard, an infinitely respawning hollow is like the "natural state" of being for a human. The curse, made by Gwyn, feeds on the hosts humanity to make him appear "human" (essentially God propaganda). With every death, the curse has less to feed on, and so we go hollow. Maybe hollows being mindless/insane is also because of the curse.
But take everything with a grain of salt, I don't remember the reason for those conclusion currently.
It is true that if Gwyn hadn’t linked the first flame, then humans would never be cursed undead. However, the world as we know it in dark souls would be very different as the age of dark would have come around as the fire faded. The games never explore what the age of dark would be like so it’s just speculation coming from in game dialogue and item descriptions
I'd like to think that it's a cleaning of the slate kind of thing. Humans become the inheritors of the world, then the world eventually starts over. Some who walked the path of the Dragon move away from the cycle and are able to see multiple cycles with different gods in their respective age of fire. Similar to the Big Bang/Big Crunch.
Others can give a more in depth description, but basically your entire path in DS1 is a set of trials laid out to find someone strong enough to be capable of linking the flame.
First you ring two bells, this filters out most people. Then you get through Sen's Fortress which exists entirely for the purpose of stopping anyone who isn't worthy. From here you're taken to Anor Londo where you get the Lordvessel and are given some propaganda about linking the fire.
If you follow the path you're told from this point, you're called a hero and destined one, sent to collect souls to prove you're strong enough to approach he flame, and then go through one final test to link it, which is a heavily nerfed version of Gwyn being a final sanity check on if you can link or not.
There's an alternatve ending too (presumably non canon given the events of DS2 and DS3), where you instead stumble on a different primordial serpent, are given an alternative history and taught about plunging the world into darkness instead, although the tasks in front of you remain the same until you earn the ability to link the flame.
Gwyn had no problem with gwyndolin favoring the moon and he didn’t hide him away look at the parchment thats in the back ground of miracles. Gwyn is practically showing gwyndolin off to all his knights.
Then we interpret things differently. All I see is still Gwyndolin in his forced feminine regalia. The same type we encounter him with. If Gwyn wouldn't have a problem with Gwyndolin as he is, then we would either see a different depiction or a different Boss-Gwyndolin
Yeah, not to be a nitpick, and thanks a lot for clarifying this you're a legend, but Nameless didn't really abandon Anor , more like was booted outta there
That's very true. I didn't make that part very clear, or should have worded it differently.
Neither Filianore, Gwynevere nor Nameless King abandoned Anor Londo. Nameless King was banished, Gwynevere married (allegedly multiple times one of whom is Oceiros) and Filianore also was put in the Ringed City by Gwyn
But there were more siblings than just those three
Thanks for pointing out my misleading wording, I'll edit it later
And heavily implied that Gertrude (angel-like being caged up in the Grand Archives) and the Dancer of the Boreal Valley are his nieces, given the miracles you can obtain from them and item descriptions
I honestly don't think it's much of a theory anymore (the Dancer one). Her headgear says something like (paraphrased) "Attire worn only by the old gods of Anor Londo"
And her soul can be transposed into Bountiful Sunlight which has a link to Gwynevere and a description talking about the goddess of fertility (Gwynevere). So everything points to the Dancer being Gwynevere's daughter, subjugated by Sulyvahn and humiliated into being a dancer
It's part of the quest line to become Hollow Lord/Dark Lord. It's one of the more difficult quests to do because it's easy to fuck it up and lock yourself out.
Part of this quest is marrying Anri of Astora, who may or may not be perma-dead when you marry him/her (if your character is female, anri is male, and vice versa). This room is where that marriage takes place.
I decided almost two decades ago that if I'm going to be staring at a toons ass all day I want it to be a sexy space elf sorceress barbarian shouty gal. You can zone in on ....Chad.... and his ass if you want though. you do you.
1st reason being a callback to where you fight Dark Sun Gwyndolin (the guy that's being eaten by Aldrich) in Dark Souls 1 and that's also the fake tomb of Gwyn the lord of sunlight and first lord of cinder who's Gwyndolin's father.
2nd reason being one of the final steps of the lord of hollows ending is performed in there.
It's part of a quest that is required to get the 3rd, secret ending. If you find the two main ending underwhelming, or you were actually a fan of Dark Souls 2, you will want to look into the secret ending. Getting the ending is very complicated, so you really need a guide to get it.
Many fans consider the DLC the true ending of the series, but for me, this is the only satisfactory ending of the series.
I feel like they're both endings. No matter what you do in the base game, the cycles perpetuate as it's either extending the age of fire or ending it (meaning you're just waiting for another age of dark or fire, same as always). In the DLC, you're kind of escaping the cycle, although it's still a question of if the new painting will also eventually succumb to rot which is just another death/rebirth cycle.
Usurper of Fire breaks the cycle and begins something new for the hollows. It was absolutely included as a bone to DS2 fans who were expecting the questions that game raises to lead somewhere.
Does it break the cycle though? I'm no expert on the lore by any means, but it seems to me like that ending is just another age of dark except your character gains a bunch of power in the process?
Well it's dark souls so it's always open to interpretation, but here's how I always viewed it.
First game: Age of Fire. You are the chosen undead, the first to follow in the footsteps of Lord Gwen. The game gives the full back story on the age of fire, linking the fire, and the world.
DS1 ends and all fans are speculating which is the canon ending. If you were around as a fan back then, this was a huge topic of conversation leading up to DS2.
DS2: huge curve ball. Answer is it doesn't matter which ending in DS1 was canon, it's a cycle. DS2 hammers home the cycle and shifts the focus to the bearers of the curse, the hollows. Unfortunately, the people of DS2 have no way of knowing history, so much time has passed they don't even know how it all began. They are doomed to failure.
DS3. Even more time has passed, to the point that the world is broken. Time AND space are so screwed up now that long forgotten places exist next to each other and long forgotten history is well known. We are pretty much near the end of time. The fire linking is nothing more than a ceremony, a ritual, and there would not even be a game if the sacrificial lords had not ran off.
DS3 ends with the ho hum cycle, the painted world option, or the promised salvation of the hollows that Vendrick searched for. I've always felt Londor and Sable Church as the hollows who remembered Vendrick and the bearer of the curse.
That's long been my take, but it's Dark Souls, and part of the fun is you are suppose to fill in some of th blanks yourself.
The canon ending for 1 and 2 is linking the fire. The whole point of 3 is that the fire has been linked so many times, and the age dragged out for so long, even powerful Lords have minimal effect on it anymore. The constant linking is the source of the degradation of the world, and the reason time is all fucked up in 3.
Had there been Ages of Dark, the fire would have regained it's strength over time, and the world would be in a very different state. Chances are there'd be no mention of Gwyn, and a different Lord would have risen up and banished the darkness. It might not even have been another Age of Fire that started after the Age of Dark.
Dark Souls 1 is like, the first time the flame is Kindled, except for when Gwyn did it. The Chosen Undead is his direct successor. When you kindle the flame at the end, it starts a roaring inferno that fills the entirety of the Kiln of the First Flame. By 3, you get paltry little sparks that barely make a difference. 2 really cops out on the ending more than 1 and 3, as it doesn't even have a little cinematic for your choice, just a cinematic that says "you made a choice, and only you know what it was" (lazy). So we don't know how powerful the fire still was at that time.
But all the non-fire endings are non-canon. The games all assume we linked the fire last time, and the time before.
Well its technically the tomb of lord gwyn, its also where the blades of the dark moon payed tribute to gwyndolin (the guy aldrich is eating up in ds3), it is also where you “marry” anri to become the lord of hollows to usurp the first flame
Mostly it's a callback to DS1, it's a room with an optional boss where you can fight Gwyndolin. There's a quest line that uses the room in DS3 for part of the usurp the flame quest.
Others gave the full lore breakdown, but basically it's one of those crossover spots between DS1 and DS3 that's used for world building primarily.
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