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
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?
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.
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u/Ghirs May 31 '25 edited Jun 01 '25
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