As flame rises, so does it fade
such is the way of things.
Light and dark, neither can fade, while the other survives.
This is the lore of the dark souls universe
and all the characters within are bound by its principles.
But it was not always this way.
Once, long ago, the world was grey, without heat, cold, life, death, light or dark.
But then, the first flame appeared,
after the advent of fire
the ancient lords found the three souls,
but your progenitor found a fourth unique soul,
the Dark Soul.
Your ancestor claimed the dark soul
and waited for fire to subside.
And soon, the flames did fade, and only dark remained.
Thus began the age of men, the age of dark.
This was the natural progression that was supposed to take place in the world, it was supposed to be
the age of ancients and then the age of fire, then the dark age of man.
However, Lord Gwyn trembled at the dark clinging to his age of fire and in dire fear of humans and the Dark Lord who would one day be born amongst them.
Lord Gwyn resisted the course of nature by sacrificing himself to link the fire and commanding his children to shepherd the humans.
Gwyn has blurred your past the prevent the birth of the Dark Lord
What Gwyn did could be called the First Sin. For he resisted the course of nature.
He forced the darkness back and from this moment forth, the light and the dark have been in a constant ebb and flow
Like the rising and the falling of the tide.
In the ending of Dark Souls 1, we are a part of this flow.
The world is in the grip of darkness, filled with broken tired characters.
We tear through the remains of their fragile world and are guided to the kiln of the first flame.
Here we have a choice, we can do the same thing Gwyn did and bolster the power of the flame with our own soul.
Or we can turn our back on the dying light and let darkness grip the world.
Before Dark Souls 2, we thought that these endings were polar opposites.
But we were wrong.
The choice itself is irrelevant and whether you link to the flame or whether you turned your back on it.
Your choice would have led to the events of Dark Souls 2.
It would have led to the kingdom of Drangleic, where our character exists.
Drangleic was once a proud kingdom of light but it has fallen into darkness and decay like the countless kingdoms before it
No flame, however brilliant, does not one day splutter and
fade but then
from the ashes, the flame reignites
and a new kingdom is born, sporting a new face.
It is all a curse.
"Laughs"
And it is your cursed flesh that will inherit the flame.
"More laughing"
In the ending of Dark Souls 2, we once again arrive at the kiln to either link the fire or let the world fade into darkness.
Once the fire is linked souls will flourish anew and all of this will play out again.
It is your choice to embrace or renounce this.
The Emerald Herald pushes us to link the fire for she wishes to be free of the curse. It reminds me of Anastacia from Dark Souls 1, a fire keeper who also wished for us to link the fire.
Frampt has told me of you , that you have agreed to link to the fire.
I thank you sincerely.
Finally the curse of the Undead will be lifted and I can die human.
To link the fire is to become free of the curse of the undead and if linking the fire frees us of the curse, then it does follow that the initial linking of the fire, the thing that started all of this is related to the curse.
Aldia says as much after all.
Once, the Lord of Light banished Dark, and all that stemmed from humanity.
And men assumed a fleeting form.
These are the roots of our world.
What Aldia is saying
is that when Gwyn linked to the fire and banished Dark, man became much less.
He says that man assumed a fleeting form.
Fleeting means temporary, so I take this to mean that Gwyn reduced mankind's existence in some way but what exactly? Did he make them mortal?
Did he place the undead curse upon them?
Causing them to return to their hollow state?
And as far as I know there's nothing in the game that explicitly explains what Gwyn's linking of the flame did to man.
My current theory is that Gwen actually linked the fire to humanity.
Which would explain a lot.
By doing this, he could feed the flame with humanity's souls plus it would explain why we respawn at the bonfire.
Why we kindle the bonfire and why we're drawn to it even though our nature is inherently dark.
Agdayne says : "In the past, humans were one with the dark"
and we are one with it no longer. : "Men are props on the stage of life, and no matter how tender, how exquisite... A lie will remain a lie!"
Men became something to be used.
You can hear the fury in his voice when he says this because Aldia realizes that men were supposed to inherit the world
but they can't because the world seems stuck in a cycle of Light and Dark.
Men had everything taken from them but this defines them.
They are fateless but they still want for more.
And so they loved, they lost and they achieved all within the bounds of their desire.
Peace grants men the illusion of life.
While the flame is at its height and the world is peaceful, mankind seems able to die.
We know this because the curse of undeath is always listed as something that appears rather than something that has always existed.
Usually this happens sometime after the fire has been linked.
Perhaps as soon as it begins to fade, for example,
Gwyn was undead long after he links the fire.
And similarly Vendrick started to fear the curse after his reign had begun.
He began to fear men who would not die, Men who were cursed to return to their hollow state.
Shackled by falsehoods, they yearn for love, unaware of its grand illusion.
Until the curse touches their flesh.
We are bound by this yoke.
As true as the Dark that churns within men.
This is the fate that the Emerald Herald,
Vendrick and Anastacia want to avoid by linking the fire.
They want to be free from the curse of the undead so that they can become human and die.
Better to die than to become a soulless husk like you see in the trailer.
So in the original ending of Dark Souls 2,
you could choose to link the fire or you can choose to let it fade
both are irrelevant because the world of
Dark Souls 2 is defined by the countless civilizations that have risen and fallen.
This one ending where you ascend the throne
and the Emerald Herald tells you, you can link the fire a walk away from it
is the same as the two endings of Dark Souls 1,
because whether you link the fire or extend the age of Dark, you become part of the cycle.
So Dark Souls 2 gives you no in-game choice to be made
because in this game you are supposed to have learned today is no significant choice to be made.
If you link the fire, the cycle renews and if you choose not to,
eventually an undead will rise who can unseat you and link the fire.
That's who your character in Dark Souls 2 is after all.
Vendrick was the Lord of Light before you
but after spending countless years researching the curse, he realized that it was all futile.
His soul's description says that he is the one who should have linked the fire
but he became overwhelmed by despair and seems to have accepted the darkness instead.
One day fire will fade and Dark will become a curse
Men will be free from death left to wander eternally.
Dark will again be ours and in our crude shape, we can bury the false legends of yore.
Vendrick is inclined to believe that there are two choices:
To link the fire or let it fade.
He believes that by accepting the darkness the world will eventually pass into an age of man built around their dark souls.
Only is this our only choice?
And while it is true,
that we have never seen exactly what happens once the flame fades entirely.
Aldia is a character who believes that it never will.
Young Hollow, there are but two paths.
Inherit the order of this world, or destroy it.
But only a true monarch can make such a choice.
To link the fire or to let it fade.
These aren't two choices, they are one.
This is what Aldia calls inheriting the order
of the world. It's the order Gwyn began long ago
when he linked the flame, forcing the darkness and the light into a constant ebb and flow.
A cycle that would repeat itself throughout the centuries
but Aldia tells us a second choice, not to inherit the order of the world,
but, to destroy the cycle entirely and this is exactly the ending.
Dark Souls 2 needed. For we are the one undead in history who is able to ignore the hollowing effects of the curse.
And in my previous video on this topic, I told you about the effects of gathering the three crowns from the DLC.
When you have the three crowns
it doesn't cure the undead curse, it stops you from hollowing
and once you have united the crowns of Lords long past, you have the ability to ignore your fate.
You can now exist outside of the cycle.
For while every other undead is immortal.
You are the only one who will never be broken by the curse and you were the one who will never hollow.
Many monarchs have come and gone.
One drowned in poison, another succumbed to flame.
Still another slumbers in a realm of ice.
Not one of them stood here, as you do now.
You, conquerer of adversities.
Give us your answer.
Throughout the entire game, we've been told that we do without really knowing why.
But that is exactly what it means to be man, it is exactly what is required of you in the end.
For there is no path and we are the one undead who can forge forward.
Forging a new path and bringing us into a new age.
Not an age of ancients which passed naturally not an age of fire which Gwyn failed to implement.
Nor an age of Dark which Nashandra perished by.
We are the true monarch, who cannot perish,
who cannot hollow and we seek to break free of the cycle.
To march forward bravely into an uncertain future.
There is no path.
Beyond the scope of light, beyond the reach of Dark...
What could possible await us?
And yet, we seek it, insatiably...
Such is our fate.
Thanks for watching!