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mkbosworth · 3 years

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Some Thought on Gwyn - Part 1

For the record, Gwyn, is hands down, my favorite character in ACOSF. Solid character backstory & development; some interesting nuggets dropped about her powers and parentage (that clearly means there is more to her than meets the eye); plus - I just love a smart, spunky, sarcastic, red-headed heroine.

I hope she gets more page time, and that her character gets to be more than, Nesta’s spunky, BFF. It seems given the amount of page time dedicated to her in ACOSF and the little breadcrumb trail that SMJ planted in the pages that there will be more on Gwyn to come. Here are some thoughts and theories, I have on Gwyn’s continued story:

GWYN’s PARENTAGE: I’m thinking that Gwyn’s GRANDFATHER is Eris. This has likely been discussed elsewhere - I’m sure I’m not the only one to think it. But here are my reasonings:

- Gwyn says her Grandma seduced a noble in the Autumn Court. This noble was a young, Eris. Eris, is the same age, if not even older than the rest of the IC. He could totally have a grandkid that’s 28 years old. Additionally, I think Eris’s relationship with Gwyn’s Gran and the birth of their daughter, happened several years even before he was engaged to Mor.

- Eris (SMJ) has left us a breadcrumb trail of clues that lead me to believe that he’s fathered a child - but that he’s being super secret about it.

1.) In ACOSF when Eris says to Rhy he’d give him anything he wants for Nesta’s hand. Rhys toys with him saying “Anything....including your first born.” Eris replies, “Not my first born...but anything else.” On the surface level, you could read that and think: Eris is just being a territorial Fae male, protecting any future progeny. But, I think SMJ put that exchange in there, intentionally. Com’on?!? She could of had Rhy jokingly ask for anything (i.e. your beloved hounds, or all the money in the Autumn Court Vault, The Crown Jewels of Autumn etc.) But, instead she specifically had him jokingly asked for his first-born? Why?!? I think she’s dropping us a clue. Eris already has a first-born. I think Eris’s response isn’t about a theoretical, future child at all - but the (illegitimate) child he already has. I think Eris knows about this child - and so his response is actually about him protecting her, and refusing to give her up. (Awww...Eris, you do have a heart!)

2.). In ACOFAS Eris and Mor have an argument about their history and specifically in regards to his actions of leaving Mor where her parents dumped her on the edge of the Autumn Court. Eris cryptically says to the Inner Court “Perhaps one day I’ll tell you the whole story....and what it cost me.” I don’t know why Eris didn’t do more to help MOR - but I do think it’s interesting that his actions COST him something!?!? We’ve gotten the story so many times from Mor/IC’s POV - that we’ve all been conditioned to think that Eris was the villain. He left Mor in the woods, and went back to his happy life at Court. But what if that’s not true? What if Beron still wanted Eris to go thru with match, because he wanted the tie to the Court of Nightmares. Beron is bullish about what he wants, and I just get the vibe that he wouldn’t really give a shit about whether Mor was a virgin or not. I think Eris used Mor’s loss of virginity, as a way to get himself out of a match that neither he or Mor wanted. And I think when he made the choice to do this, Beron was pissed! So he punish Eris. We know from Lucien’s backstory that Beron punishes his sons when they don’t do exactly as he wishes. And we know that Beron’s punishments are cruel and vindictive - they focus on taking-away and destroying the thing his sons’ love most. I think the cost of Eris’s action in the Mor fiasco, was that he lost his daughter. I think Beron banished Eris’s daughter (Gwyn’s mom) from their family home and the Autumn Court. I think Beron, also forbid Eris to have any contact or to see her ever again.

I think Cass is right - I think that underneath it all Eris is a good male, but he’s too weak to stand-up to his bully of a father. I think Eris likely did love and care for his daughter. I think he was trying to do the right thing by bringing her up, and that she was living with him in his families home. (Gwyn said that her mother was too wild for the Autumn House - that would be Eris’ family home.) I think it’s likely that Eris knows very little of what became of his daughter. He might not know she had twin girls. He might not know that he’s a grandfather. I think that was the cost. He lost his first-born.

(Side Note: I think Eris having been punished by his father in this way, having gone through this loss is why Eris helped Lucien escape the Autumn Court, after Beron killed his lover. I think Eris felt a true sympathy for his brother’s loss - as it echoed his own.)

I’m thinking that the reason any of this is important, is that Gwyn will play a HUGE part in Eris’s redemption-arc. We can feel that SMJ is building-up to a redemption story for Eris. There might be something in which Eris recognizing what/who she is to him, sacrifices himself to save her. I think that would be something that would restore him in the eyes of the Inner Circle - who despite working with him, still hate his guts for what he did to Mor. Or maybe, Mor will stop dancing around the subject and just confess to everything that happened between them, which will prompt Eris to also admit “to the cost.” And the IC who know Gwyn will put 1 + 1 together.

#acotar #acosf #eris #eris vanserra #gwyn #gwyneth berdara #acosf theory #acosf thoughts #acotar thoughts #acotar theory #smj #smj theory

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rotten-games · 2 years

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Shameless copying/pasting this ask but. If the ROs (both games) were in an orpheus/eurydice situation, would they look back or make it out without looking?

Hmmm okay.

None of them would make it back 😔

RotT

Ardwen: He'd fail because he'd falsely believe it to be a bluff. Jokes on him, now his hubris has cost him.

Arke: He'd fail because impatience. He'd just want to see his partner!!!

Bex: look back, not fully trusting his own instincts when he doesn't hear anyone behind him.

Cal: she'd make it out after So Much agonizing over whether to look back or not. She'd spend so much time dwelling on it she'd simply walk right out without needing to.

Druvel: He'd get out because he's Like That. He, too, enjoys setting impossible tasks.

Emil: He'd look back, like, immediately

Ettia: Assuming she knows this God's tricks... of course she'd get out with her love.

Gwyn: Even if he knows this God's tricks he'd look back. No regrets like a little shit.

Herron: he'd make it out but it wouldn't feel like a win so he'd spend the rest of his life worrying about it.

Keller: pass with flying colours 😌

Korrin: they'd succeed out of spite

Lokeira: He'd also make it out out of spite but then proceed to piss off another god somewhere and get smote or another equally horrible punishment.

Necrolym: He'd almost make it out then look back at the last minute only to find his love hasn't made it out 😔

Nox: she'd fail almost immediately.

Qora: She'd make it out only if Zora is there

Severa: She'd look back but then try to kill the gid who did this to her.

Spotter: Fail when they dont hear anyone behind them.

CoI

Allard: Succeed only because they're very good at pretending they don't care.

Carol: she'd look back. She just... she has to know.

Lowrie: they'd obviously look back, they can't afford to lose someone else and in the process they'd lose them.,

Mordred: He'd make it out but he'd be cursing the whole way -- he's very good at ignoring his problems.

Doc: she'd make it out but at what cost

Ridley: no. Very no. They are baby who will not succeed.

Harley: They would get out but then be bitter about it for all eternity.

Arthur: Who's to say he already hasn't?🤔

Adrastea: they'd turn around immediately and stare their love in the eyes

Perci: of course she'd get out! How? Who knows

Saga: Again, this is a case of turning around at the end only for their love to not quite be out yet

Deimos: Sure he'd succeed, he could totally do it. No problems at all.

Dagda: They'd immediately fail. They are impatient and nervous.

#rott game #coi game #ros

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elejah-wonderland · 4 years

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Hellbound

Fanfiction

Prologue

This a tvd+to fanfiction story. Totally AU.

Premise:

The Mikaelsons helped the Mystic Falls Scoobies fight a clan of ancient werewolves called the Hundings. Klaus and Caroline paid the ultimate price, as well as Damon. But as it is the case in the magical world of the Mystic Falls vampires, death is not the end.

There is also a new adventure looming for the Mystic Falls Scoobies and their now friends, the Original vampires, as everything is somehow always conected to them. And so, they are Hellbound...

Main pairings_ Elijah MIkaelson x Elena Gilbert,

Rebekah Mikaelson x Stefan Salvatore

Kol Mikaelson x Bonnie Bennett

Damon Salvatore x Katherine Pierce

tag_ @teachingpanda

@elejahforever

thanks for reading, and for requesting a tvd/to story. This has sprung out from this gifset

https://elejah-wonderland.tumblr.com/post/624551723582816256/elijahwhat-are-you-saying-elenaesther-has

In Mystic Falls

Elijah finished his account of the battle against the Hundings for Sophie's Grimoire. Then he opened his diary. He had been doing some writing for days. This entry was of a more personal nature.

‘It is assumed that happiness is hard to capture. And how can one feel happy having lost so many dear people close to one's heart. Having existed now for more than a millenia, I can say with certainty that love is the driving force for all. The scars of the soul are mended with it, making it possible to look to another day, and I am witness to it. We are ruled by our fears and disbelief and it clouds our minds. Love is not a weakness but the ultimative strength.What would we be without love. I have allowed myself to believe in it. I have searched long enough for it. And it has been bestowed on me when I have least expected it. I have read a long time ago that one would know one's true love by the look in his or her eyes as they are the windows to one's soul. Maybe she is the one I was looking for all my life.'

He closed the diary as Elena came into the library.

"Hey" the doppelganger said joining the Original at the table.

"How are you? I saw Antoinette leave."

"I am fine. You?" Elijah replied.

"Went to the Wickery Bridge with Matt."

"You did?!" Elijah was somewhat surprised.

"Kind of needed closure. I don't know. My life changed twice there." "And did you get closure?"

Elena nodded a little. "I had dreams, thoughts about how my life would be. Whether to go to Whitmore or even New York, if I was going to move away after college. I wanted to study medicine like my- father. And then -you know-things first changed when my parents died."

"And second time when you were told you were a doppelganger?! Your life was never going to be completely your own?!" Elijah concluded.

"No-but I made peace with it. It was especially weird talking about with Katherine! Both of us didn't really have a choice in the matter. You know, I get her." Elena said.

"Well, only you can say that." Elijah remarked.

"Klaus killed her parents as punishment for turning and disabling him from breaking the curse." "I know, Elena." Elijah sighed a little.

Flashback

At the Plantation house, near New Orleans

Elijah found Katherine at Damon's grave planting flowers. She got up as she saw him standing there.

"Hello" Elijah said.

"I thought we said all there is to say?!" Katherine said looking at him in a serious manner.

"Yes. But there is one thing I need to say. It's about Klaus."

Katherine sighed a little. "What about him?!"

"It's about me as well."

The doppelganger looked at him calmly.

Elijah flashed back for a second to a moment 500 years ago when he had a conversation with her.

"What is it?" she now urged the Original to speak.

"There are no words that would lessen what we had done to you. But I want you to know that I recognize the pain we had caused you." Elijah said.

Katherine now turned the look onto Damon's grave and then to Elijah. "For more than 520 years I had one thing on my mind and that was finding a way to kill Klaus for having murdered my family. I have lied, cheated, manipulated, killed... all to survive and find a way to end him." Kathrine said, pausing for a moment.

She drew a deep breath and looked at Elijah poignantly, "We all have graves to visit now!"

Walking passed the Original vampire the brunette went her way to the house.

"I am sorry Katerina Petrova" Elijah muttered as he looked at her walking away.

"I'm sorry. This was not easy" Elena said.

They agreed that they would all continue with a clean slate and leave the past behind.

"It's all right. You don't have to feel bad for bringing it up." Elijah said. "You also didn't have much choice- you didn't ask to be turned." Elena reminded the vampire of his disposition.

"Still, we had the choice of seeking humanity within us. We were not completely souless monsters."

"Choices- yep!" Elena uttered.

"You miss Jeremy?!" "I do, but I have to respect his choices." Elena said with a little sigh and got up.

Suddenly they heard familiar voices coming from the disance. It was Rebekah arguing with Kol about him taking her supply of blood.

"Lable it then Rebekah's blood bag and maybe I won't touch it. Anyway, I hate cold blood!" Kol shot back at his sister.

"Why should I lable it- you should learn not to drink everything up and only think about number one-Kol!! Ugh, I wish I had that white oak ash dagger at times."

"And hello to you!" Elijah said as he opened the door for them.

"What brings you here?"

"May we not call on our brother?!" Rebekah said eyes still blazing angrily at Kol. "Of course you may. Still, has it occured to you that it might be best that you two get separate accomodation!" Elijah suggested.

"That is one reason why I came to see you," Rebekah said, "Stefan and I decided to leave MF! And I am hosting a farewell dinner-party! You are invited."

"Where are you going?" Elena enquired surprised to hear it as Stefan hadn't mentioned anything to her when they spoke earlier.

"England. We liked it there." Rebekah explained. "And you two are staying here for a guess?"

"For a little while longer." Elijah replied. Elena just added that she hadn’t decided what to do.

It's time to dump this place!" Kol concluded.

"And where are you again?" Elena asked.

"Sophie's in New York. I will try to win her precious heart back"

"Good luck with that!" Elena remarked.

"She says she can't be with a vampire, but her goodbye kiss told me something entirely different!" Kol said.

"Keep telling yourself that" Rebekah turned to her brother still furious about the empty fridge she had encountered as she got up that morning.

To sway them from more bickering, Elijah changed the subject to the dinner party.

Elena's phone rang and she answered it. Bonnie wanted to meet her. "I will see you later." Elena said to them and left.

🍀

At the Grill

"Matt left, ha?!" Bonnie said.

"Everyone's leaving." Elena then told her about Stefan, Rebekah and Kol, as well as the dinner party.

"Dinner-party with the Original family?!" Bonnie then said still not being able to process the great gap of a year she had missed being locked away in the spirit world by the Hunding witches.

"It will be fine. They are already back on with the bickering and I left Elijah to deal with them." Elena said.

"I will need loads of time to get used to it all.” Bonnie cocked an eyebrow and then got a chart out of her bag. “I found it among her Gram's books as I was trying to declutter. Read this!"

"Nova Scotia?!" Elena said as she took the map her witch friend handed it to her.

"Yes. Look at the name." Bonnie urged her friend to read on.

"Gwyn Mikaelson!" Elena read in the name written in runes and then looked at Bonnie amazed."This is weird. I don't get it?! There is another Mikaelson?!"

"I don't know what it is, but I guess one battle done, another mystery on horizon!" Bonnie said.

"One thing is for sure. It is never ends with the Mikaelson mysteries!" Elena said."can I take this?!"

"Be my guest. One thing is for sure, there is always something going on with the Mikaelsons!"

"Oh, yeah! New adventure here we come!" Elena exclaimed softly. Packing up the map and the books in the bags, they got up.

As the doppelganger got into the car, she pressed Elijah's speedial number.

❤

Hours later

Elijah, Kol and Rebekah, together with Elena, Stefan and Bonnie examined the map. They had Sophie Deveraux on loudspeaker.

"Gwyn Mikaelson," Rebekah said, 'tell me that she actually didn't die of plague and that this family has even darker secret in its closet!?"

Kol held the map in the hand. "There was nothing else in the Grimoire?" the Orignal said and looked at Bonnie. "Nothing. Just this map put in it randomly." the witch replied.

"Well, how about we channel the Bennet witch line and try and dig some information out of them?" Sophie inserted.

"Let's."Bonnie said.

"So, when are you arriving in Mystic Falls?" Kol asked and everyone looked at him as the question was directed to Sophie.

"Not just yet. My witchy instincts are telling me I will see you in Nova Scotia?! Ok, you guys, I have to go now, but keep me posted." Sophie said and hung up.

Everyone could see that Kol was slightly hurt and peeved off and now moved away from the table. He tried to keep his emotions in check and not let disappointment burst into anger. Rebekah wanted to follow him, but Elijah suggested she let him be.

"So, that's it for now?!" Elena said getting up from the round table."or shall we get packing like Sophie suggested."

"I would pack, "Stefan said looking at Rebekah "I guess we are going to postpone England?!"

"Right. And I just hope it doesn't involve digging old witches up and some weird werewolves.

How come Eilif didn't say anything about Gwyn?" Rebekah turned to her brother Elijah.

"I find it strange, too," Elijah said pensively,"but she left and it was a goodbye."

"I don't believe in goodbyes in this family. Something always comes up. Anyway, what secret do witches keep regarding our sister?!" Rebekah said taking the map in her hands,"secrets, secrets."

Bonnie now got up."Whatever it was it wasn't good. Ok, I am going to try and channel Grams and see if we can get any answers. See you later."

The witch took her books and went out of the room.

"You don't remember anything about anybody called Gwyn?" Elena directed the question to Elijah.

"Nothing that I can recall.” the Original replied.

"Mother did once say that there was a cousin born out of wedlock," Rebekah said.

”There is another Mikaelson out there - but - father had no brothers. I don’t understand. This does not make any sense.”

"I know."Rebekah uttered.

Elena looked at Elijah somewhat worried, but with great positivity in her voice "We will figure it out"

Elijah smiled a little. Her enthusiasm and optimism was always like the warm sun giving one strength to go on.

Flashback for readers

Nova Scotia, 995 AD

Three witches sat down around the small bonfire. They threw three rings into the fire chanting a spell.

"Always and forever" all three witches said in one voice.

Each of them then smeared their blood with sage, rosmary and thyme and threw it into the fire.

"The trinity of the sun, the moon and the earth is now sealed." one of the witches said.

As the fire subsided sometime after. They took the three rings from the ashes and put it on a young woman's body.

"Farewell, dear girl." they said crying, as they put the three herbs entwined on her head as a crown.

******

In New Orleans

"Jeremy...wake up!" Caroline said to poking Jeremy a bit with her finger.

"Ha...what?" the hunter murmured as he woke up looking at the blonde standing beside his bed.

"I told him to let you sleep." Klaus said sitting in one of the chairs by the window.

Jeremy rubbed his face and then his eyes.

"Tell me this is a nightmare...how...aren't you supposed to be locked away in some weird witchy void spirit world?!" Jeremy said referring to Klaus as he sat up.

"He kinda got released due to good behaviour. And I had something to do with it being a heroine for killing a weird-looking werewolf. Anyway, get up. you need to get to Elena and the others. Something weird is happening again. You have to tell them that they need to try and find Sigrid Mikaelson. That's all we know." Caroline said in her ghostly form.

"I thought it was too good to be true that I will have a life and not have to do any of the vampire-ghost relaying messages thing!!"Jeremy moaned.

"We have to go" Klaus said to Caroline.

"I want to stay here a little while longer" Caroline said to the Original hybrid.

"We have to go, love" Klaus came up to the blonde.

Suddenly Jeremy could feel the surge of magic break.

"Caroline!" he called out, but the pair were gone.

"Great!" Jeremy said taking his phone dialing Elena's number, which went directly to voice mail.

Hours later, on the plane to Nova Scotia

Elena opnened her diary and wrote down, "I don't know what date it is anymore. Who cares. Here we are on the plane to Nova Scotia. Only a few months ago we fought off the Hunding werewolf clan, who tried to take over and kill the Original family.

I will not write about Elijah today. Because if I do, it will take pages and pages. It’s so complicated. Idk why. But it is. It’s like - we are friends, and then we are not. Idk what we are. Ugh I got to stop, cuz as I said it would be pages and pages and pages about me and Elijah - I just know that I - want to be with him. But he still has issues with stuff - like Tatia, Antoinette. Etc.

Oh....seems like there is a lot of ohs coming.

There was a lot going on in the last few months. Nothing is the same. And it is ok.

Now we are going to try to figure out if the mysterious map with the name of Gwyn Mikaelson really makes sense and if she is somewhere out there.

It's a new adventure. I must say that I am partly excited. Elijah, Rebekah and Kol are sort of anxious, although they would never admit it. The ancient Original thing being cool and all. We haven't got a clue what we will find, if anything. I just hope we don't dig something that will haunt us. But then again, I think we will. Like Bonnie said- ever since the Originals came into our lives, it is not boring.

I am glad Bonnie is with us, but it is still strange not having Caroline around. I miss her so much. And if there is any truth about her ghost being with Klaus' ghost, then it makes a bit easier to go on.

I don't want to think of my nightmare.

I will keep you up to date, dear diary.

Elena."

#elena gilbert #elijah mikaelson #rebekah mikaelson #kol mikaelson #klaus mikaelson #bonnie bennett #caroline forbes #tvd fanfiction #fanfiction

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not-poignant · 5 years

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Gwyn and Augus don't really read like they are thousands of years old. I don't know if that's just me or because of their trauma but I can believe Albion is thousands of years old, or old Pete, or the Gancanagh and the uh, swan dude (omg horrible I forgot his name what), but not Augus and Gwyn. Is this on purpose or just me not picking up on things?

There’s bits about why this happens, and this has definitely been explained in asks before (though not for a while). But! Basically the cost of fae being neotenous (looking youthful) is that they don’t emotionally mature at a rapid rate, and tend to be emotionally stunted.

This is how fae who are tens of thousands of years old (like Ondine and the Nain Rouge for example) can still behave in ‘youthful’ ways.

It’s sort of like...how the domesticated dogs we have, are bred for neoteny. They’re bred to look like and act like puppies, essentially (some more than others). As a result of neoteny, they are stunted in some other ways as well. Some benefit us, and some don’t. Some domesticated dogs basically never do well in a wild setting, because the ability to cope in wild settings has been kind of bred out of them. In exchange, we get cuter dogs with more puppyish behaviours throughout their lives. That’s what humans often like.

In fairy tales and folklore, the stories tend to go out of their way to imply that the gentle folk (fae) can both seem like they’re ageless and childish at the same time. Like, it’s specifically characteristic to fae and can be tracked back in like, contemporary fantasy fiction, but also in the folklore itself. My ‘reasoning’ for that which would sort of work biologically in the world is that their drive for self-fixed neoteny and youthfulness, along with their agelenessness, drastically slows down their capacity for emotional maturity.

As a result, even fae that are much older than Gwyn and Augus can be very immature at times. Some fae pretend to be more mature; but Albion throwing a tantrum because Gwyn lied to him, and punishing him disproportionately as a result is not a very mature thing to do, even if he sounds mature. I’m sure we all had friends in highschool who ‘talked’ in a very mature way but still behaved like a total juvenile when they wanted to.

So it’s absolutely deliberate. It’s an homage to folklore and fairy tales, it’s a biological feature/bug of the fae ability to fix their appearance at a certain age, instead of aging out forever. Fae tend to also get stuck in development, so they can go 1,000 years with nothing really happening in their lives, and then something might happen and they experience everything really acutely as a result of - ‘hey I haven’t been through anything like this for 1,000 years’ and neoteny and just their general disposition.

Gwyn and Augus were never supposed to read like they are 1000s of years old outside of learned experience (i.e. they both know things a person can’t learn in a single lifetime), because that would make them very hard to relate to as characters. If anything, their being fae means they experience and express emotions more intensely than humans do, which can make them more relatable, or turn more mellow moments between people, into more exacerbated moments.

If anything, I’d say fae are on the whole less mature than humans, though they get better at pretending at maturity, and some generally are more mature. But like humans, that’s as much to do with personality as it is lived experience. Again, as with teens, some teens are just very mature, and will pretty much stay that way forever. Some adults never grow out of being as juvenile as possible. Like Oengus, as an example, didn’t ‘grow’ into his maturity so much as he was just a very serious creature prone to depression (and even his depression has elements of immaturity to it. I mean he’s basically a fae who refuses to let go of love, which is something most humans do actually learn to do in a mature manner. But that...inability is what makes elements of folklore more romantic to people - I just wanted a biological reason to explain it; and neoteny is the reason).

#asks and answers #fae tales verse #fae tales worldbuilding #fae tales #i mean even the gancanagh #refuses to move on from his unrequited love #even the mature characters that we get to know #often have signs of like #being stuck in moments where they're just #*not growing past or through something*#often for thousands of years at a time #administrator Gwyn wants this in the queue #Anonymous

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blessuswithblogs · 7 years

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Cycles, Lies, and Memories: On the Thematic and Narrative Incompatibility of Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 3

~Warning! This post contains spoilers for Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2 and all DLC, and Dark Souls 3 and Ariandel and the Ringed City! Read at your own risk~

My stance on Dark Souls 3 is likely well known at this point: it's kind of a bummer. The two DLC packages, Ashes of Ariandel and The Ringed City, are in particular rather dire, but after some reflection, I think that the thing that really just rubs me the wrong way about the third installment is how it largely disavows that 2 ever happened. My stance on Dark Souls 2 is probably even more well known by now: it's actually a masterpiece of interactive fiction. Naturally, the fact that 3 likes to pretend that it doesn't exist is distressing to me. Now, especially with Ringed City, there are some concrete references to 2's world. The mysteriously flammable windmill of Earthen Peak and the sexy desert pyromancer outfit feature prominently in the Dreg Heap, the first miserable area of the Ringed City where screaming angels rain holy death upon you nonstop until you find their hidden summoners. Lapp, an NPC you meet here, is going hollow, and seeks the purging monument to restore his fading memories, which pays some lipservice to the powerful themes of loss of identity and self present in the second game but is otherwise completely absent in 3's narrative. These offerings come too little, too late to avert a very considerable gap between the cosmology and thematic elements of the two games.

Let's start with Hollowing. Hollowing is the process by which the undead, over the course of many deaths over the endless march of years, gradually lose themselves to the curse of the Darksign. Hollowing is an important element of Dark Souls 1, and utterly crucial to the story of 2. The process is almost absence in 3. Hollows still exist, but their role in things is alarmingly different. The player character doesn't hollow on death naturally. It's a mechanic that only appears if you do the Londor sidequest and Yoel draws out your "true strength" and manifests the dark sigil. Londor is apparently an entire nation of hollows, with advanced religious institutions and pilgrimages and fancy rings and purging stones to keep the hollows mostly functional. The entire idea of this, has, from the outset, struck me as absurd. There's no possible way that a nation of hollows could function at all in the paradigm of dark souls 1 and 2, because it would be a nation of people who do not even recognize themselves or society at large. The introduction of quick fixes to the problem of hollowing can be written off narratively with retcons to old information and allowed for with the changing, decaying state of the world, but it will never be graceful, and there is no way to reconcile these developments thematically. The desperate search to find a way to stave off hollowing defined some of my favorite characters in 2, like Lucatiel and Vendrick, but evidently you can just rub some purging stones on your face and you'll last to the damn end of the world. It doesn't even make sense in context of Dark Souls 1, where the way to restore yourself was with pillaged Humanity. It feels, in a way, oddly disrespectful to what came before, which is especially strange for a game like Dark Souls 3 that is so chock-full of desperate callbacks and recycled material.

This brings us to another stark contrast between 2 and 3: 2 was fiercely its own thing. It was its own thing to the point that people (myself included, for a time) felt that it was too different from one, that there weren't enough callbacks to the first game. In the end, though, this individuality was what really endeared me to Dark Souls 2. It took the framework from 1 and expanded upon the world and cosmology in a thoughtful, creative way that allowed it to be a game all its own. 3 is like ridiculously not that. 3 lives and dies by its fan pandering, callbacks, and slavish devotion to the order that 1 put forth. This is completely and utterly encapsulated by the two DLC packages, which both take place in worlds that are ripped straight from 1 (and 2). Ariandel is another painted world, filled with references to the first and Priscilla. The Dreg Heap is literally an amalgamation of all the works of man, dragged to the end of the world, and the ringed City is a reskin of Anor Londo, right up to housing a Large Girl Holding it All Together that you can kill to make everything 5000x worse. The bosses are The Last Two Demons, Another Fucking Slog of a Dragon Fight, the Old Monk, and Martyr Artorias. There are no new ideas here. Like, alarmingly so. The chestnut the game dangles in front of you is the mystery of the Dark Soul of Man and the pygmy lords, but, it's actually really hard to care about. I've done this all before, and done it better. Certainly, there's metatextual weight to this sensation due to how everything sort of smooshes together at the apocalypse, but it doesn't outweight how stale it all feels anyway.

Following from this might be my biggest observed discrepency: how 2 and 3 treat the cycle of fire and dark. In 3, the cycle has a definite end in the god danged End of the World, Fire Goin' Out, All Becomes Dust sense. 2, however, proposes a cycle that is well and truly endless, as a sort of karmic constant of the universe. The nature of 2's world is purgatorial, a divine punishment upon those who were self-important enough to deem themselves gods that the rest of us got caught up in. Gwyn and his cohorts are forgotten by the march of time, replaced by new gods, who are then themselves lost and replaced, forevermore. The soul of the ineffable reincarnates Gwyn, Seath, Nito, and the Witch for all eternity, doomed to repeat their mistakes in different forms over and over. Fire and Dark are the same, and one cannot exist without the other. This is entirely in line with the principles laid out in the opening sequence of the entire series: fire created disparity. Dark did not exist before fire. Dark Souls 3, however, takes a different direction entirely, and the Abyss becomes an entity seemingly outside of this dichotomy. At least, according to the locust preachers. They could be full of it. The game does call them out on being an unruly lot who only think about their stomachs. "Where fire resideth, shadows twist and shrivel. But in the Abyss, there are shadows none. Fear not, the dark, my friend." is the line I'm thinking about, which implies the Abyss is some sort of Ur-Darkness that can exist without contrasting light. Either way, there's a lot of contradictions between these two cosmological paradigms. Another example of this is how in Dark Souls 3, the old gods of Lordran are still a big deal, with like three different Divine Cities of Wonder squirreled away where agents of the old aristocracy still venerate Gwyn's Great and Mighty Sunlight Penis. Part of this seems to be a lack of original ideas to draw from, but it also betrays a cosmological bias towards the finders of the First Flame. The difference in the way that the universe treats Gwyn and company in Dark Souls 2 and 3 is a huge part of what drives them apart as narratives that can coexist in the same universe.

Aldia, Scholar of the First Sin, and all around Guy Who Knows About Stuff, seems to have the right of it. One of the major points of Dark Souls 2 was the futility of the first game's ending choice. Whether one links the fire or leaves it to fade does not matter within this eternal cycle. If linked, the flame will always fade again. If left to gutter, someone will always come along to stoke the fire once more. Mankind's "true shape", as posited by Vendrick, will never be realized because of the interference of fearful gods. Humans were descended of the Dark Soul, the soul that stands in contrast to the brilliant energies of light and fire that Gwyn, Nito, and the Witch found, and the gods hated it. They felt it was a threat, and so went against the natural order of things to prolong their own age of fire and used their fantastic power to curse humanity with transient forms. The most powerful lines in the series are delivered by Aldia: "No matter how tender, how exquisite, a lie will remain a lie." By his estimation, there are but two paths: inherit the order of this world, or destroy it. He is not referring to linking the fire or embracing the dark, because he knows that those are the same thing. To destroy the order of the world is to overcome the curse, to transcend it, to render the ultimatum of the gods ineffective. Gwyn's meddling left humanity with the choice of either continuing his vainglories to stave off Hollowing, or to defy him and become detestable creatures of the dark without self or identity. Aldia staked everything he had on finding a way to remove the curse, and ultimately lost it all in his endeavors. What those were are a matter for another time, but if you're asking, I think he tried to create another First Flame like the witch did. Honestly, I think he met with more success than the Witch of Izalith, because at least he didn't create a demon race, and he does seem to be beyond the curse.

The second ending of Dark Souls 2 is one which is available if you do all the DLC and collect the crowns of the kings, and speak to Vendrick in his memory. By collecting the crowns of true and almost true monarchs, you accumulate enough power in the crowns to overcome the Curse of Life. You don't cure or remove it, but by wearing one of the crowns, you become immune to hollowing. You can die as many times as you can imagine, and still retain your sense of self. The cycle of fire and dark is an allegory to the Buddhist concept of Samsara: death and rebirth. However, it is not a total transplantation. It finds roots in Samsara and Nirvana, but in Souls 2, the end result of Nirvana is significantly different, perhaps unattainable. In Buddhist doctrine, the ultimate release from Samsara comes from the quenching of the three fires, or poisons, of passion, ignorance, and aversion, becoming a being of "no-self." Way smarter people than me have talked about this a lot and my analysis is extremely pedestrian, but the idea of no-self comes into conflict with the ultimate goal of removing hollowing: retention of self. The iconic line, "The Curse of Life is the Curse of Want", is a very Samsara-tastic sentiment, but ultimately, enlightenment in Souls 2 is more straightforward than in Buddhist doctrine, as beings of no-self are acknoweledged by scholars to be somewhat paradoxical concepts. I think I've gotten slightly off track here. But that's good! Games that give you a lot to think about are good. That's my opinion and you can put it on a t-shirt. OKAY LET'S MOVE ON, BACK TO THE SECOND ENDING.

What happens is that Aldia confronts you after Nashandra's defeat, not to actually stop you or really do you harm but to simply test your convictions. Do you embrace the lie, or do you use your insight and the power of the crowns to search for a different path? By leaving the room, you choose to search for something different, and Aldia's disembodied voice accompanies you and muses about the difficulties ahead. There is no path. Beyond the scope of light and the reach of dark, you'll have to make your own. It's an extremely uplifting and affecting conclusion to the game. It's imperfect. It's not enlightenment, exactly. We still seek an answer, insatiably, but it is a form of transcendence born of a deep dissatisfaction with the order of the world, a sort of affirmation that to yearn for something better is not evil. It's hopeful and melancholy at the same time, a powerful conclusion to a personal journey, and perhaps the start of another. The fate of the world may not have changed, but the fate of the bearer of the curse has, and there is value in that. The search for truth is what gives the truth meaning. The questions the game raises about what it means to be a "true monarch" are thought provoking and powerful, encouraging the player to reject traditional models of power and monarchy by throwing like all of the shade ever at most of the kings to have ever ruled in the world of Dark Souls. Vendrick did all of this amazing stuff with the power of his soul, but in the end, was too cowardly to amount to anything. Gwyn was a vainglorious liar afraid of his own shadow. The old Iron King built a fucking magma castle just because he could. The only king to not get roasted is the Old Ivory King, who sacrificed everything for the wellbeing of his subjects, which is what we come to understand as the duty of a True Monarch: to not take the easy, convenient path.

In Dark Souls 3 there is absolutely no mention of any of this like EXTREMELY IMPORTANT SHIT where there's an undead who DOESN'T GO HOLLOW AT ALL UMM??? and the apocalypse is encroaching on a world where apocalypse should have no real meaning. The world has already ended and been reborn countless times before this. Kingdoms rise and fall and only Straid of Olaphis seems to remember the ones that came before because he spent the long centuries as a dang rock. It's not just that it feels like Dark Souls 2 never happened. It's that for Dark Souls 3 to work at all, it -needs- to have never happened. A lot of this probably comes from the fact that different teams worked on these games with different visions, but I feel like it's really disrespectful for the returning Miyazaki team to just disregard the genuinely fantastic work the "B team" did. This is especially true when you consider that Souls 3 is, as stated, kind of a fuckin bummer my dudes. It gives off the distinct impression of a game that never really wanted to be made. It feels reluctant to show its true self, which is almost unheard of in the Souls series, which in all other instances has worn its own self on its sleeve since the very beginning. Even after all this time, I don't know what Dark Souls 3 is really trying to say. It stands in opposition to its own predecessors despite feeling the need to draw so much from them, and this dissonance is ultimately the final nail in the coffin. It's a shame it had to end like this, but it also feels somewhat inevitable after the response that Dark Souls 2 got from ~angry gamers~. I hope that whatever Miyazaki and his team work on next, they can put their all into without reservation, and in the meantime, other developers try their hands at the souls formula. I want more games like Salt and Sanctuary and Nioh! ...even if it does mean I have to put up with the occasional Lords of the Fallen.

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