[0:00] let's start from the very beginning upon
[0:02] Stein Dark Souls well you start with the
[0:04] star the beginning of time essentially a
[0:06] world where there is only one race of
[0:08] beings known as the archdragons and a
[0:10] whole lot of weird-looking trees and
[0:11] nothing else going on then Underneath It
[0:14] All a bunch of humanoids find fire and
[0:16] some of these people take the Lord's
[0:18] souls and become Lords of a soon to come
[0:20] Revolution Gwen takes the first most
[0:23] prominent Soul becoming the Lord of
[0:24] sunlight with lightning powers The Witch
[0:26] of izalith takes one and that gives her
[0:28] the power of fire sorcery Nito takes one
[0:30] and becomes the first of the undead with
[0:32] miasma powers and finally the furtive
[0:34] pygmy takes one and well we don't know
[0:36] for sure what it does for them right now
[0:39] but we know that it's somehow linked to
[0:41] humanity and the origins of Hollows Gwen
[0:44] buddies up with the others and uses the
[0:45] power of lightning fire and miasma an
[0:47] army of lesser beings known as the
[0:49] Silver Knight and recruits and albino
[0:51] archdragon called Seth to betray his own
[0:53] kin at a chance at developing a
[0:55] mortality that unlike the archdragons he
[0:57] lacked they fight they win and so ends
[1:00] the age of ancients Gwen establishes the
[1:03] age of fire and gives positions of power
[1:05] to all his mates and has a bunch of kids
[1:07] his unnamed first-born exiled under
[1:10] mysterious conditions Guinevere the
[1:12] queen of sunlight gwyndolin the third
[1:14] son who is gender ambiguous opting to
[1:16] present feminine due to their Affinity
[1:18] to the Moon some people were even given
[1:20] a part of his own soul as a reward for
[1:22] fighting alongside him and maintaining
[1:24] his order alongside his children there
[1:27] are only two known recipients of these
[1:28] souls and they were Seth and the Four
[1:30] Kings of New Londo Seth creates an
[1:32] academy type place and creates sorcery
[1:34] as a byproduct of his research into
[1:36] becoming Immortal and the Four Kings
[1:38] Rule New Londo with their Newfound power
[1:40] the world is Happy the Lesser beings
[1:42] live within the confines of gwyn's new
[1:44] age and everything is fine until it
[1:47] isn't
[1:48] the first ounce of trouble Brews when
[1:50] seeds starts doing unethical experiments
[1:52] that get him shunned by some of gwyn's
[1:54] most trusted Knights such as duke Havel
[1:56] Havel has his mates Forge occult weapons
[1:59] to [ __ ] up any gods that come in between
[2:01] him and seeth which eventually leads
[2:03] Gwyn to trapping him under a tower
[2:05] quelling the Rebellion to make matters
[2:08] worse something is happening to the Four
[2:09] Kings and they begin conspiring against
[2:11] Gwyn with the force of Life drain taught
[2:14] to them by a serpent named carth we'll
[2:16] get back to Kath fearing this to Gwen
[2:18] drowns New Londo becoming responsible
[2:20] for the death of thousands if not
[2:22] millions of people and seemingly
[2:24] disposes of the traitors but we all know
[2:27] bad things happen in threes as suddenly
[2:29] it appears that the fiery Souls the
[2:30] Lords all possessed start to dwindle and
[2:32] Gwen panics that his age is ending gwent
[2:35] asks the witch of izalith to use fire
[2:37] sorcery to reignite the first flame but
[2:39] it ends up being a crude mockery of the
[2:42] first flame and causes a whole load of
[2:44] craziness creating demons and mutating
[2:46] herself and her followers including her
[2:48] daughters the demons only accelerate
[2:50] gwyn's loss of power and causes most of
[2:52] his silver Knights to get killed none of
[2:54] gwyn's actions so far have really helped
[2:56] at all so as a last-ditch attempt Gwen
[2:58] literally Burns himself his own soul to
[3:01] rekindle the presence of the first flame
[3:02] without realizing the perversion of the
[3:04] course of nature causes Humanity to be
[3:07] plagued by a curse aka the hollowing
[3:09] people are essentially turning into
[3:10] mindless zombies the longer Gwen burns
[3:13] up as a source of the first Flame the
[3:15] weaker the flame gets and the closer
[3:17] Humanity goes to hollowing up so the
[3:19] Agents of the first flame create a
[3:20] prophecy which is essentially a grooming
[3:22] program for humans to usurp the powers
[3:24] of all the Lord's souls and become fuel
[3:26] for the first flame much like Gwyn has
[3:29] already and then comes us locked in a
[3:31] Cell in a place where all Hollows go to
[3:33] be forgotten where eventually saved by a
[3:35] bloke who regurgitates the same prophecy
[3:37] and asks us to ring some bells in order
[3:40] to take Gwen's place so that's exactly
[3:42] what we do we kill a big demon guard and
[3:44] leave the prison fight off a bunch of
[3:45] Hollows demons and other creatures until
[3:47] we rank all the bells and open Pathway
[3:49] to the land of the Lords a very sunny
[3:51] fortified Kingdom called anolando we go
[3:54] off and fight more things including a
[3:56] certain Fable Duo and reach a very nice
[3:59] chest this very nice chest gives us a
[4:01] big bowl called the Lord vessel if you
[4:04] want you can go even deeper into
[4:05] analondo and find out its Sunny
[4:07] complexion is an illusion created by one
[4:09] of his living children gwyndolin further
[4:11] reiterating the point that the world is
[4:13] going dark now from this point we can go
[4:14] one of two ways we either speak to
[4:16] frampt a serpent who reiterates Quinn's
[4:18] prophecy and encourages us to become
[4:19] kindling for the first Flame or we meet
[4:22] carth who tells us to use the Lord
[4:23] vessel to kill Gwynne and refuse to
[4:25] allow for the flame to be reignited and
[4:27] begin an era where the hollows are in
[4:30] charge either way we still have a bunch
[4:31] of Lords to kill we kill Seth in his
[4:33] Library Academy university place to find
[4:35] out he was never truly able to become
[4:37] immortal we kill Nito who sort of is
[4:39] just chilling underground we kill the
[4:41] witch of izalith who's found deep in the
[4:43] consequences of her actions and we kill
[4:45] the Four Kings in the now destroyed New
[4:47] Londo as for the soul of the 30 pygmy
[4:49] although not necessary for an audience
[4:51] with Gwynn we can find something at
[4:52] least slightly linked to it if we take
[4:54] the optional route of the DLC we can go
[4:56] back into the past and learn more about
[4:58] what happened at the precipice of
[5:00] everything going wrong we land in a
[5:02] place that was at the source of the
[5:03] Abyss that we are told is linked closely
[5:05] to the darkening of the world with the
[5:07] intention of helping a woman who's been
[5:09] captured by said Abyss we end up in a
[5:11] place with floating Humanity Sprites and
[5:13] eventually face to face with Manus who
[5:15] is the so-called father of the Abyss at
[5:18] this point the nature of Madness is hard
[5:19] to gauge it's likely that he is deferred
[5:21] to pygmy a concept we'll go further into
[5:23] into the next game regardless with all
[5:25] the Lord's dead All That Remains is our
[5:27] audience with the big man Gwyn with all
[5:29] the Lord's souls in tow we enter the
[5:31] Kiln of the first flame and face off
[5:32] against Gwyn except he's barely the man
[5:34] of the tales he's going Hollow his flame
[5:37] has clearly dwindled with some effort we
[5:39] can kill him now you have two choices
[5:40] Kindle The Flame or leave regardless of
[5:43] what you do because of gwyn's actions
[5:45] the world is in a cycle and eventually
[5:47] someone does rekindle that said flame
[5:50] and that's where we end the first game
[5:52] and then we get into Dark Souls 2
[5:54] regardless of what anyone says Dark
[5:56] Souls 2 is Canon its events have weight
[5:58] in the overall story and its existence
[6:00] influences much of what happens in the
[6:02] rest of the series in Dark Souls 2 we
[6:04] are what seems a few Generations from
[6:06] the first installment of the game it's
[6:07] unclear how many cycles we've gone
[6:09] through at this point but it doesn't
[6:10] matter because we arrive in one of many
[6:12] kingdoms that exists during a cycle with
[6:15] a story that's mostly disconnected from
[6:17] the grand narrative of the series Drang
[6:19] Lake is a place not too dissimilar to
[6:21] the setting of Dark Souls 1 in the way
[6:23] that they're both dealing with the
[6:24] impending fate of Halloween caused by
[6:26] gwyn's perversion of the course of
[6:28] nature The Narrative history of
[6:30] dranglake begins with a man named
[6:32] Vendrick much like the Chosen and dead
[6:34] of the first installment vendrix slays
[6:35] all four bearers of the Lord's souls and
[6:37] build strong Lake on the back of their
[6:39] souls eventually Vendrick would fall in
[6:41] love with Nashandra a woman of Unknown
[6:43] Origin who would win over the heart of
[6:44] the king and warn him of a land of
[6:46] Giants and the threat they posed to the
[6:48] future of dranglake Vendrick takes this
[6:50] knowledge goes to Land of the Giants
[6:51] beats them and takes something from them
[6:53] with the help of his brother aldia this
[6:55] something allows them to create Golems
[6:57] these Golems help him build Wrangler
[6:59] Castle further solidifying dranglake as
[7:01] one of the great kingdoms of the land
[7:03] everything is fine until it isn't just
[7:05] like the first game bad things come as
[7:08] eventually the Giants seek revenge and
[7:10] after a few attempts that Revenge the
[7:11] Giants are finally defeated and the king
[7:13] is brought to their knees by an unnamed
[7:15] hero but the Giants ruined a large
[7:17] portion of the country True by this
[7:18] point bringing many sites to roon and
[7:20] just like the first game the curse of
[7:22] Halloween is now also returning
[7:23] Nashandra advises Vendrick to take
[7:25] gwyn's old mantle and Ascend the Throne
[7:27] of want which is essentially a place
[7:29] where he can make the choice of either
[7:30] continuing the age of Fire by burning
[7:32] himself up or allow for the age of dark
[7:34] Nashandra herself is a fragment of Manus
[7:37] and therefore seeks power through
[7:38] vendrick's Soul so that she can
[7:40] Puppeteer him into doing what she wants
[7:42] essentially giving her the power of the
[7:44] throne fendrick eventually sees through
[7:46] her plan flees the capsule and hides
[7:47] away tasking aldia to find another
[7:49] solution to curing the curse that
[7:51] doesn't give Nashandra the power she
[7:52] desires audio looking back at the old
[7:54] archdragons wants to fuse their Essence
[7:56] with humans to create something that
[7:58] transcends the confines of the curse as
[8:00] the archdragons didn't exist within that
[8:02] framework aldia does a bunch of failed
[8:04] experiments and eventually creates two
[8:06] notable Creations Shanola and the
[8:08] ancient dragon both hybrids one of human
[8:10] and dragon and one of giant and dragon
[8:11] both essentially ineffective in staving
[8:14] off the curse as although both beings
[8:15] repelled the curse it did nothing to
[8:17] help Stave off the entirety of the curse
[8:19] on Humanity in the meantime Vendrick
[8:21] becomes hollowing the Crypt surrounded
[8:23] by race of beings that keep the hollows
[8:25] at a stage of dark peace now all that is
[8:27] left for us is to take the Throne of
[8:28] want for ourselves in the place of
[8:30] Vendrick however there is another route
[8:32] we can take if we go through the DLCs we
[8:34] can travel to various different lands we
[8:36] venture through each of these lands and
[8:37] find three kings with three queens all
[8:39] three kings shed stories similar to
[8:41] Vendrick and all three queens shed
[8:43] stories similar to Nashandra much like
[8:45] Nashandra all three queens are fragments
[8:47] of Manus that share the longing for
[8:48] strength through their kings except one
[8:50] of these Queens became more committed to
[8:52] a King and instead chose to help her
[8:54] King with staving off the chaos that is
[8:56] threatening their Kingdom regardless we
[8:58] kill them all get their crowns and we
[9:00] learn that the existence of each Crown
[9:01] can be fused to create an ultimate crown
[9:04] that allows us to transcend the curse
[9:06] but only for oneself there is no real
[9:08] cure to this curse the story of Dark
[9:10] Souls 2 is that regardless of what level
[9:12] of interference we have the undead curse
[9:14] is here to stay so we go on to the
[9:17] throne of one
[9:18] and we get two choices we either take
[9:20] the throne and gain the power to control
[9:22] the future or reject it and wander the
[9:25] Earth in a place of limbo likely to
[9:27] allow another to take the Throne of one
[9:29] in due time and restart the cycle
[9:30] altogether thus Begins the story of Dark
[9:33] Souls 3. in Dark Souls 3 we return to a
[9:36] place much more reminiscent of the first
[9:38] installment what is clear is that Dark
[9:39] Souls 3 takes place much longer after
[9:41] the events of the first two games
[9:43] because the world has clearly seen so
[9:45] many cycles that it's literally turning
[9:46] into Ash before we land in Dark Souls 3
[9:49] a few notable things have happened we
[9:51] know of four notable Lords have already
[9:52] linked the flame you armed a giant of
[9:54] corland the Abyss Watchers and Aldrich
[9:57] the abyss Watchers are a group of
[9:58] Warriors that have taken our Taurus's
[10:00] mantle and used their power to stop the
[10:02] abyss in the form of King wolnir they
[10:04] succeed and then they use their combined
[10:06] mic to link the Flames together and then
[10:08] comes yorm he's a giant that's initially
[10:10] tasked to look over the profaned capital
[10:11] and reluctantly and selflessly agrees to
[10:14] do so and eventually he even agrees to
[10:16] link the fire after fearing the rise of
[10:17] the profaned flame he looked over that
[10:19] was very similar to the original chaos
[10:21] flame of izalith Yom chose to link the
[10:24] flame he does but also kills many of his
[10:26] citizens and then comes Aldrich Aldrich
[10:29] was the saint of the Church of the deep
[10:30] that tried to materialize a more
[10:31] peaceful alternative to the age of fire
[10:33] Aldrich would eventually go want to
[10:35] devour a bunch of people and become
[10:37] bloated with power and souls and is
[10:38] eventually forced to link the flame with
[10:40] his new power he does it works and then
[10:43] finally comes ludlith a pygmy Lord who
[10:45] chooses to link the flame and does so
[10:46] better than most people but equally
[10:48] suffers the most to his Reign is awesome
[10:50] lots of kingdoms are built it's great
[10:52] the next chosen to link the flame is
[10:54] lothric lothric is born very frail
[10:56] despite his father Osiris attempting to
[10:58] groom his heir to become the Lord of
[10:59] Cinder lothric eventually fuses with his
[11:01] much stronger brother and they become
[11:03] one now able to link the fire however
[11:05] pontiff Sullivan a scholar that aligned
[11:08] himself with the Church of the deep
[11:09] convinces lothric to let the fire fade
[11:12] they listen and neither lothric nor his
[11:14] brother want to sacrifice themselves to
[11:16] link the first flame eventually a judge
[11:18] from a distant land comes to lothric to
[11:20] link the first flame he's already too
[11:22] late though with no fire Keepers to Aid
[11:24] him he cannot carry on eventually he
[11:26] takes a cold sword used to create a
[11:27] bonfire and sticks it within him until
[11:29] someone strong enough can take on his
[11:31] task at a later date now while the world
[11:33] is left in limbo and through an unnamed
[11:35] occurrence a bell is struck and the
[11:37] preceding four Lords Of Cinders are
[11:39] rebirth neither of them want to link the
[11:41] fire so in a final act the Bell is told
[11:44] again and the humans who have previously
[11:45] failed to link the first flame are born
[11:48] they're called Ashen ones that's us
[11:51] we're tasked with killing all four
[11:52] rebirth Lords kill lothric and use the
[11:54] immensity of their souls to combine and
[11:56] Link the first flame sound familiar yes
[11:59] it should because we are once again back
[12:01] in a cycle we find the judge gondia take
[12:03] his coiled sword and are shepherded by a
[12:06] fire keeper that resides within Firelink
[12:08] Shrine the main root of the game has us
[12:09] fulfilled the original prophecy take
[12:11] down all four Lords of Cinder lothric
[12:13] and other obstacles and eventually
[12:15] defeat the soul of Cinder that protects
[12:17] the first flame linking it once again to
[12:19] rebirth the temporarily stagnated cycle
[12:22] another route has us instead asking our
[12:24] fire keeper to mull the flame but it's
[12:26] clear we've just temporarily staved off
[12:27] the cycle once again another route has
[12:30] us instead killing the fire keeper
[12:31] before she molds the flame instead
[12:33] leading to an age of unkindling which
[12:36] essentially promotes the same future
[12:37] except you're just a monster now there
[12:41] is another route however this route has
[12:42] us instead taking heed of a certain
[12:44] primordial serpent yes carth is back and
[12:48] we can go through a series of
[12:49] intermingling with his followers a weird
[12:51] wedding ritual and eventually a chance
[12:53] at usurping the flame and bringing about
[12:55] the age of Hollows where you lead a
[12:58] world of hollowed humans to a seemingly
[13:00] better future
[13:02] if none of these endings feel like a
[13:04] true end thankfully we are also given a
[13:06] DLC ending which is canonically the end
[13:08] of the entire series and perhaps the
[13:11] world of dark souls in both DLCs we are
[13:13] tasked with following a lowly slave
[13:15] Knight named Gail Gail initially asked
[13:17] us to rescue an alternative Universe
[13:19] from a curse of rot by using fire that
[13:22] is inherent to our being we do so and
[13:24] burn this alternative Universe called
[13:26] The Painted World of ariandel through
[13:28] our travels we essentially learn more
[13:29] about the nature of our own world in
[13:31] parallel it's a great metaphor we also
[13:34] learn of the existence of a painter who
[13:35] is attempting to paint a new world where
[13:37] we can all escape from all forms of the
[13:39] cycle and live in quiet peace Gail wants
[13:42] this too and tasks himself with finding
[13:44] a worthy pigment for the painters
[13:46] painting
[13:47] in the second DLC Gail once again
[13:49] transports us into a new place much
[13:51] further into the future named The Ring
[13:53] City it's essentially a place so far in
[13:55] the future that time has collapsed on
[13:57] itself in this place we learn a few very
[13:59] important things we learned that Gwyn
[14:01] was very aware of the existence of
[14:03] humanity even before the age of fire and
[14:05] Humanity would help him take down the
[14:07] dragons in the form of ranged Knights a
[14:09] very Primal form of man that was
[14:11] subjects of the furtive pygmy these ring
[14:13] Knights help kill the archdragons but
[14:15] Gwyn was scared of their Dark Soul and
[14:17] instead of lording them after the war he
[14:19] gave them the dark sign a seal to their
[14:21] Humanity in order to keep them from
[14:23] eventually rising up against him this
[14:25] sign both imprisoned the humans and is
[14:27] the source of hollowing for Humanity and
[14:29] it's exactly why when the fire fade so
[14:31] does the dark sign and therefore we
[14:33] become Hollow hollowing is therefore the
[14:36] natural form of man after a series of
[14:39] insightful discoveries a bit of
[14:40] nostalgia and an egg we are transported
[14:42] to the end of the world where only two
[14:44] remain you and Gail Gail has now
[14:47] consumed air every ounce of souls in
[14:49] this world and wants yours too we kill
[14:51] him take his soul and find out his
[14:52] actions have allowed him to create a
[14:54] soul of worthy pigment to create a new
[14:57] world this soul is thusly called the
[14:59] Dark Soul containing all of humanity and
[15:01] notably all of the pygmy sold we can go
[15:03] ahead and give the painter this pigment
[15:05] and this helps her eventually create a
[15:07] new world a world void of the sins of
[15:10] this one and one that is therefore
[15:11] untainted by its cycle thus ending the
[15:15] cycle altogether and ending the soul
[15:18] series
[15:23] foreign