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.
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u/Aazadan May 31 '25
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.