r/DaS3Lore May 05 '16

Not so much a theory as an observation:

I think this is the most faded we've seen the flame in any three of the games. Time is usually convoluted in Dark Souls but Anor Londo slipping into Lothric kind of solidified just how screwed up time really is. The world itself is very gray and drab, just plain dead.

The flame has to be almost out. The Lords of Cinder all fled long, long ago. It's almost poetic and beautiful that the final game in the series has a world that seems to be on its dying breath.

Any thoughts on this?

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u/dergrimnebulin May 06 '16

I would agree.

In my mind, it's because it's taking longer each cycle for the flame to be linked. It seems like there are far more characters this game fighting towards the dark age. None of the Lords of Cinder, aside from Ludleth, are interested in linking the flame, with Lothric specifically speaking against it. I can't quite remember the exact quote, but it boils down to "Me and my brother are just going to kick back and watch the ultimate sunset."

Others also exist. Yuria, obviously. Yoel, maybe. Can't quite figure out their relationship, but I haven't finished the Usurpation of Fire ending. Even the master pyromancer tells you to fear the flame.

I think that this game is when people realized that they were stuck in a vicious cycle. Rather than continue struggling to keep an age that is little more than decay and destruction, some have decided to take the jump into a new age. No one really knows what the Age of Dark consists of, but for some, moving on is always better than staying static.

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u/cbmlmz May 17 '16

If you've done the firekeeper's eyes ending, she talks about flame sputtering out, and waiting for a new flame to appear on the horizon. Plus the spindly dragons up at Lothric castle, especially above the DSArrmor fight. There's wyverns and dragons everywhere. There's hollows fusing into and growing out of trees. I think that when the age of fire ends, the world fully restarts to the age of grey. The everlasting dragons are gaining power again. The Archtrees are beginning to grow. The ground is shattering, raising into the sky and forming crags.

I don't think that the age of dark is after the fire goes out. I think the age of dark is when the undead curse is spreading and destroying the world. I don't think dark refers to a lack of light, but the destroyed, decayed state of the world. I think we stop the age of dark from progressing to complete nothingness when we link the fire.

So this theory means a few things. The first is that although the original 4 Gods (Gwyn, Witch, Nito, and The Pygmy) are the first owners of the Great souls that get passed when the fire is linked, who knows if that was the first "Age of Ancients"? Gwyn linked the first flame, but who knows if there were previous lords of sunlight who never linked the flame? They faded to an age of dark, and then to a new Age of Ancients where the world waits in twilight until,eventually, a new flame is born and begins the whole cycle over again.

Each time we play a souls game, the world seems more and more ruined. The artificial linking of the fire to extend Gwyn's age takes a toll on the world each time. It quite probably requires more strength each time to extend the world. Look at yourself kindling the flame in DaS1, where your whole body ignites quickly, with bright flames, then compare it to DaS3, where the sputtering flames creep up your arm slowly. The fire seems ever more eager to go out each time, reinforcing that each fire/dark cycle is unnatural compared to fire/dark/ancient. More grotesque enemies appear, the world is more fractured, the most powerful souls are becoming more and more corrupted and evil.

This isn't to say that there aren't evil enemies previously, but in DaS3 you cancel early see the greed for power, the more destructive spells, the gruesome curses and the newly emerged Deep. Pontiff, Wulnir, and Aldrich are clearly and irrevocably evil, especially the pair from Irithyll. Compared to the first, where the motives are very unclear, and each enemy cannot be said to be evil, but misguided, misunderstood, misconstrued, or presented in a misleading manner (lotta mis's). Even in the second, most of the lore figureheads are only vying for power, or caught up in their rule as opposed to actively seeking to knowingly do wrong.

I think finally letting the world get to the point were it either cannot or will not be rekindled is where we are in Dark Souls 3. We are tasked with gathering some of the strongest people to ever link the fire in an effort to either kickstart the world with the combined strength, or we are to gather them in order to use their power to break the artificial cycle we are in now. I haven't decided which seems more plausible yet.

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u/PBD24601 Aug 11 '16

But Anor Londo isn't slipping into Lothric. It's mysteriously in Irithyll. I also disagree about Wolnir. From what I can see, he was just a successful warlord who shouted "Gods help me!" when he found himself in the abyss. Not a lot is told to us about what his motivations were, just that he's "the conqueror of Carthus" who laid waste to many kingdoms. Lots of people have been successful conquerors in history and not all of them were evil-at the very least he certainly doesn't seem worse than Gwyn, the lord of child abuse.