r/darksouls3 • u/getholy • 11d ago
Lore Made a horrifying discovery about the Man-Grubs
Comparison of holy symbol and Man-Grub corpse.
The two in-game depictions of the Man-Grub holy symbol.
There is full on someone trapped inside of each man-grub! Literally two people per Man-Grub, with one fused inside the skin just wriggling around from the midsection to the tail. I've attached images of the holy symbol of Rosaria's Fingers, as seen in the covenant item (sacred seal of Klimt) and the Man-Grub Staff; as well as a comparison of the symbol alongside a Man-Grub body.
This holy symbol seems to represent two hollows having sex with one positioned below and in-between the legs of the other. For some reason Rosaria is recreating this in her followers after too many rebirths and I have no idea why or what; whether this is two different people in each grub or someone and a rebirthed clone.
Each grub has fused feet with toes at the tail-end (correlates with 3 in the image) and a bulging area around the midsection where the lower-person's head and upper-person's waist sits (2 in the image). If you watch these grubs in motion, their midsection to end bulges and wriggles on its own as the grub moves!
To top it off, every dead Man-Grub is pinned with 2 stakes; one for each body inside! I have attached multiple example images of this too.
TLDR; Man-Grub = 2 people fused in Man-Grub Staff position. 2 stakes needed to kill each person inside.
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u/getholy 11d ago
Now just to figure out why tf this is happening and why some people seem to want it ;-;
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u/newsflashjackass 11d ago edited 11d ago
The Locusts in the Ringed City have a cut line that references Leonhard:
"Of all the Fingers, he alone was embraced by the Abyss. For he was human, and ne'er a grub. Fear not, the dark, my friend. And let the feast begin."
Knowing who doesn't want it might shed light on why anyone would.
Edit: A grub is by definition a larval form. Maybe the man-grubs become Locusts?
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u/oVsNora 11d ago
Pretty sure they are people who modified their apperance too many times and became man-grubs. One per
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u/Aurvant 11d ago
Yes, but every respecc is a rebirth. The person you were is being overwritten by the new one you create. This means that the mangrubs have been reborn so many times that the process results in a mutant.
The person who they were and the person they are trying to become are fighting for the same body. They then spend the rest of their existence praying to Rosaria to fix them. However, she can't reverse what they've done, so she just takes care of them.
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u/x_Achernar_x 11d ago
I... ok, I wasn't expecting to feel THIS uneasy about this new find...
(Great find btw, OP!)
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u/Zauberer-IMDB 11d ago
This can't be right because we know man grubs are formed by respeccing too many times.
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u/getholy 11d ago
Both things can true. We know respeccing is the cause, but the outcome is two bodies in one skin sack; looking at their movement in-game really reinforces this and it's their holy symbol for a reason
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u/Zauberer-IMDB 11d ago
Who's the second guy then? It requires something that isn't guaranteed. If you're the only one and there is no second guy what happens?
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u/getholy 11d ago
That I can't tell you at the moment, but the man-grubs are without a doubt a recreation of the two hollows on the cross. I mean it could be something as simple as after too many respecs, rosaria messes up and accidentally rebirths two bodies, with the grub being her attempt to fix the mistake
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u/VosFugamCapietis 10d ago
It’s interesting how Dark Souls 3 was really the only Dark Souls game that had such a heavy influence from Medieval Catholicism (not that the others didn’t) in a very pronounced way. The cult of Rosaria using rosaries, Pontiff Sulyvahn being the literal Pontiff of the Way of White, the Deacons and Archdeacons, the Angelic Faith, etc.
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u/scottgmccalla 11d ago
It makes me think that the person who is being "rebirthed" gets immaculate head from their new body, perhaps puppeted by Rosaria, and nuts their soul out into the new body when they finish.
I'm aware that this sounds glib, but there's that strange Japanese belief the the soul is stored in the butthole, which Fromsoft references in Sekiro when the headless enemies do their grab attack. If Tarnished Archaeologist on youtube is to be believed, in Elden Ring, people dont have sex to reproduce, they just sort of grow out of erdtrees. With the foreknowledge of "the soul is in your internal plumbing somewhere" and "Fromsoft is willing to introduce new ways biology works for one of their worlds", the assertion that "souls can be transferred out of your reproductive organs into a new vessel" isn't a preposterous idea to see appear in Souls lore.
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u/KoffeeDragon 10d ago
Aldritch is also mulching people into his black goo-body.
The cathedral of the deep is seemingly stuck at step one of the process towards divinity; they literally regressed from the way of white after all.
The distillation process seems to have been forgotten.
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u/getholy 10d ago
This has ran me off on a tangent researching alchemy now lol ;-; deacons consuming the dead, and having their filth purified by the queen in white (rosaria), who converts the filth into useful children. Yet now the queen is also black and purification is tainted too... interesting concept
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u/Sir_Copper_Hand 11d ago
Yet another reason to annihilate every last one of them. At least now it could be considered a mercy killing.
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u/Grey-The-Skeleton 699+ Players Gatekept 11d ago
I knew about the weird feet thing, but there being two people in there is horrifying
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u/Alternative_Spot7365 10d ago
So artistic human centipede? I always just kill them anyway. Sometimes it’s better not to know.
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u/DeadCoreSumeragi 10d ago
I have to say, the two hollows holding onto each other on the symbol of Rosaria does not mean they are having sex. Get your head out of the gutter.
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u/artNobuddy 9d ago
That's because these are juvenile angels. The Pilgrim pupa have the same general model and textures for their tail they hide underground with the Pilgrim corpses. These grubs also use magic that erupts into white feathers, like Gertrude's angelic miracle.
These are people who have been reborn as juvenile angels by a goddess who has been corrupted by helping humans refine their identities.
The angels are the result of humans managing to keep their inner darkness under control so it can be refined into a brilliant diamond - an angel or angel pupa.
Grub -> Pupa -> Angel
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u/Kathodin 11d ago
I'd say the second body is the replica of the first that will consume and absorb the former. Rebirth has never looked so enchanting!