*Sigh*
That's a lot of subs.
But, it didn't feel right to make a video on just that.
So, I figured let's do one last round of secrets first.
Number one:
When Gael teleports in phase two, you might have noticed a tiny visual detail
He's actually summoning himself with a white summon soapstone, underneath you.
If you're looking for a lore explanation
The white summon soapstone item has always referenced the convolution of time
and, it's always referenced the link between undead.
and Gael is a character that can be summoned by you all throughout the DLCs.
So it does make some sense that he could abuse this link to your character.
Gael, actually has quite a few little visual details that really flesh out his character
For instance, his soapstone messages look unlike any other.
and, they emanate those same skull fumes that he has all throughout phase two of his boss fight.
So what are those skulls?
Well, there's nothing in Dark Souls 3 that defines them...
but they are pretty much the same as those summoned by the executioner's gloves in Bloodborne
Which gives us some idea what they were thinking with this asset.
In Bloodborne, they are said to be the wrathful spirits of the past.
And considering they also bulge outwards from the purging monument...
I think it's fair to say that Gael, who has probably consumed half the souls of the world, by this point,
it's fair to say that he is overflowing with the spirits and the curses of the past as well.
Another thing, deep within Gael.
If you look really closely at his character model, he has a perfect circle that looks identical to the dark sigil.
Which is the mark that resembles the brand of the undead.
And if you are hollow,
devoid of humanity,
Did you know that you will no longer cast a shadow upon the ground, or, a reflection in the water?
I think we can explain why this happens.
In the black flame item descriptions,
The, and I quote:
"Impenetrable flame of humanity is said to be a weighty physical force."
So, it makes some sense that, losing your soul, your humanity, would make a hollow more ethereal.
and, thus they would be incapable of blocking out light and producing a shadow.
But, I'll admit, being shadowless is somewhat of a strange addition.
Especially considering it's never directly mentioned, and, out of all the Souls games
this, I believe only occurs in Dark Souls 3.
But, I can't really imagine them putting this in by mistake.
Can you?
Another thing, I'm always unsure of, is this interaction with the firekeeper.
So, it occurs when you return here, still drenched in the wax of the Grand Archives.
She turns away, presumably in distaste.
For, she does exactly the same thing when you wear one of the rings that mark you as someone from Londor .
And, as we all know, the hollows of Londor were widely detested.
So, assumedly, she is turning away in distaste here as well.
And, assuming this isn't a mistake:
Why?
Why would she turn away from a wax-headed scholar?
The only theory I have is this:
To a degree, Firelink Shrine functions as an extension of Lothric
A kingdom devoted to the linking of the fire, which is a goal that's upheld by the three pillars:
The Knight, The Priestess, and The Scholar.
And of the three, there is evidence that the scholars started to go against the knights and the priestesses.
And Lothric's firelinking legacy in general.
For example, the first of the scholars is said to have doubted the linking of the fire.
And, the blessed weapon enchantment was created after the scholars acquired the Grand Archives.
Which, apparently marked the strengthening of ties between the other two pillars:
the Knights and the Handmaidens.
So, it's quite possible that the scholars were the third pillar that were sort of
responsible for the fall of entire structure.
So to speak.
And it's quite possible that this small, seemingly insignificant interaction, where she turns away
in disgust,
Could be, a third little nod towards the treachery of the scholars, as well.
But that's just a theory.
And it's one of those things where it's really hard to know whether a detail is meant to be important from a lore perspective.
And, the same is definitely true when it comes to the pictures in the official design works.
Take, for example, this image of Filianore where she holds the egg.
Except, the inside of this egg is overlayed with the stitched crystal lizard hide of a Transposing Kiln
Look how similar these two are.
So, the Transposing Kiln we find withing the Curse-Rotted Greatwood,
is said to hail from Courland
And it's stitched with crystal lizard hide and it is capable of extracting the essence of a soul.
And, of course, the egg in game doesn't acctualy have this stitched crystal lizard hide transposing kiln within it
But still, even though this was changed,
the picture gives us this rare piece of insight into what the developers might have actually been thinking
when they designed Filianore.
It tells us, that at some stage, Filianor may have been linked with Courland.
And, that at some stage, the Transposing Kiln here may have been the method
by which the original Dark Soul was hidden within the Ringed City.
Also notable in the design works,
Is a fourth shrine of Farron that doesn't appear alongside the three others in Farron swamp.
The three existing shrines depict the Four Kings, Nito, and the Witch of Izalith.
And this fourth, removed shrine, depicts Seath the Pale Dragon
The last three things I wanna talk about, are a few speedrunning tricks.
First, the fast wyvern kill.
Basically, you run to the elevated part of the stairs
You hope, for the horizontal fire breath
And then you perform a jump attack with the right timing.
And the fight's over.
Next, a jump-skip, to skip Irithyll
this one is best performed with a keyboard, so that you can get some better
90-degree angle changes,
by nestling your character in this corner, you align the camera just like this
then you sprint into the corner and then abruptly run forward
and jump at the second step down. From here if this short, glitchy walk to a
distant manor bonfire, which skips basically all of Irithyll, to get to Yorm.
And finally, a little trick that completely immobilizes the watches of Faron
Walk into this corner, then align your base vigor health bar,
just so it's at the edge near this candle,
then, tap forward on your keyboard,
commit to a fully charged R2, then a single R2, skip the cutscene, quit out, get back in
and the fight is yours.
So. I'm not going to go into great detail on these,
because, honestly if these strats have piqued your interest in any way,
then you can find them all on the speed souls wiki
or you really should watch them all performed firsthand by the speedrunning community this game has on twitch
because if you haven't yet delved into that side of the souls community
Do it!
I've been waiting for an excuse to shot them out for ages.
You can watch these streamers for hours on end and never get bored,
because it's so exciting watching them break the game in such controlled ways and you never know
when they're about to break a new world record so it's really exciting
and speaking of breaking records,
hitting new milestones,
we hit a million subscribers after the last video
at the end of the souls saga, no less!
Like, that feels really neat to me, so thank you so much for being here
I remember when I started and I couldn't even comprehend 500 people.
Try to do that! You can't imagine 500 individual people with all their complexities,
you just can't do it, I don't think
and, I don't think you can truly conceptualize what that amount of people means.
Let alone a million!
I did this notepad thing I saw reckful do once,
just to help me visualize what a million looked like. But,
it just made things worse
But, you know,
Yes, a million is an insanely striking number
and you get a thrill when you see it on your channel page for the first time, for sure,
but then the next day, it hits you a little less
and then the next day it hits you a little bit less than that, and then
the next day it's just normal.
You know? Like every other milestone you hit in life, no matter what it is
I don't think you can do YouTube, or anything really
just for the milestones, or the money you make.
It just doesn't fulfill you. It's not really enough in my opinion.
So what's really grounded me, as I continue doing stuff on this channel
is thinking about the individual behind the screen
and you can get really caught up in the statistics.
But I think, that the statistic, that really represents the individual,
like you behind the screen, or me, watching a youtube video is
one stat, called viewer retention.
and it's basically how long the average viewer will watch your video
and this is what I care about.
I care that 60 to 70 percent of you guys stay until the very end of the video.
From what I hear those are pretty good stats.
Because more than subscribers I care, that
you get excited, when you see one of my videos uploaded
I care that you don't feel like quitting the video, halfway through
I care that you might walk away from the video and enjoy the Soul's series, that tiny bit more
because that's a feeling I can grasp and empathize with
and it matters way more than a million subscribers does, in my opinion,
because celebrating a million sort of devalues the individual behind the screen
and the individual is what matters, right?
I could go on for a long time.
I could talk about how great it's been to be a part of this community and
What it's like sharing how amazing these games are.
Like, I could really go into depth on that.
But, you guys know.
You guys can empathize, with that feeling, I'm sure.
Because you know how great these games are and what it's like to share it with other people.
Maybe through this YouTube channel, or maybe people you know in real life, or
maybe people you talk to online, people you do co-op with,
you understand what it's like.
And I just want to thank you, for being a part of that for me.
So, E3 is around the corner and honestly I feel like for leaks, this year, from From Software
might be better than what they could possibly announce.
Just look at this. c:
So, I'm pretty sure, they'll announce something at e3 that will be relevant to us and to the channel
because while they have said
that they aren't working on anymore Souls like titles, like Bloodborne or Dark Souls,
they said they are working on something, that will be interesting to the Souls audience.
So, in my opinion, I feel like they won't stray too far from the souls-like, sort-of-genre
they've created for themselves.
Y-you can't really take everything they say about the future of From Software
at, like, face value. You can't take it without a grain of salt.
Because remember just before they announced Bloodborne, Miyazaki said
he wanted to work on something happier and light-hearted and a more warmer universe.
And then he announced Bloodborne. This gory, gruesome title about werewolves and aliens, so
You never really know, what they're planning.
But, I'm sure it will be interesting, to some of us.
So, as always, thank you for watching and I'll see you next time.