Why I don't like Dark Soul's 3 (spoilers)

[EvilRoy]

Maybe we can say the Annals of History is a sort of in-universe retcon, they created a compasionate story because the nameless joining the dragons was either too shameful or posed a threat to the other gods. Don't get how Gwyn has a grave if he is still alive... wait, does the eldest son necessarily refers to Gwin's firstborn?

Empty tombs are commonly practiced in cultures where having a place to honour the dead is important, but the body is irretrievable. In the culture surrounding Dark Souls I would assume there is a system like this in place for most cultures, since becoming undead roughly equals becoming dead and they have to do something for the mourning process.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Maybe we can say the Annals of History is a sort of in-universe retcon, they created a compasionate story because the nameless joining the dragons was either too shameful or posed a threat to the other gods. Don't get how Gwyn has a grave if he is still alive... wait, does the eldest son necessarily refers to Gwin's firstborn?

Empty tombs are commonly practiced in cultures where having a place to honour the dead is important, but the body is irretrievable. In the culture surrounding Dark Souls I would assume there is a system like this in place for most cultures, since becoming undead roughly equals becoming dead and they have to do something for the mourning process.

That's one way of looking at it. Another is that kings often times had their tombs built during their own lifetimes because they wanted to oversee the construction of their final resting place themselves. It's kind of like buying a plot of land for your grave while you're still alive. You know you're going to die eventually, might as well plan for it.

 

[Gizen]

While I have a LOT of problems with Dark Souls 3, and a LOT of problems with its lore... frankly, none of the things you listed are problems.

For instance, the mere fact that there is a sequel at all means that one of the original endings have been invalidated. The Dark Lord ending can no longer be canon, because there was never an age of dark. To make matters worse, even the linking of the fire ending makes no sense. The whole point was that you were either continuing the age of fire, or you were ushering in an age of man. And yet, in Dark Soul's 3, the age of man comes anyway. The gods interbreed with mortals, and Gwyndolin gets eaten by Aldritch. Humanity has basically taken control of the planet, the old religions have stopped worshipping the original gods, and people have even taken over Anor Londo and fed the remaining gods to a monster. If that's the case, then what was the point of linking the fire at all? The age of man comes either way, and humanity doesn't seem to be affected by either ending. The Dark Soul, which is what the game is named after, isn't even mentioned in Dark Soul's 3.

At times DS3 feels like self parody. What was Fromsoft thinking? In terms of lore, I think DS3 is even worse then DS2. What's your opinion on the lore? Is it salvageable? Is it even worth salvaging? Or do you think the game was fine despite these flaws?

That's the entire point of Dark Souls 2. The Dark Lord ending is canon, but the age of dark still never came anyways, and Dark Souls 2 (and event to an extent Dark Souls 3 itself) shows you why. Even if YOU choose not to link the fire and welcome the age of dark, it doesn't actually matter because some other undead will come along and do what you refused to do. That's what we do in Dark Souls 2 afterall. Vendrick was the 'chosen undead', but chose not to link the fire. In essence, he chose the Dark Lord ending... and it didn't matter because we came along and did it anyways. Likewise in DS3, Lothric is refusing to link the fire, so along comes us to (theoretically) get the job done.

More than that though, even if the age of dark DID come, you also have to take into account one very important thing about Lordran/Drangleic/Lothric: All of reality collapses in on itself there. The location the Souls games takes place, as established by Solaire in DS1 and mentioned in DS2 as well, is a place where reality and even time itself is fucked up and doesn't work the way that it's supposed to. It's the entire reason phantoms exist. In Lordran, you can actually cross through the boundaries from one reality to another. And you do, and not just you, but at least half the npcs do as well. Solaire, even when he isn't actively a phantom, is not and never was from your reality. Neither is Lautrec. In fact, you see this first hand when you invade Lautrec's world to kill him in Dark Souls 1. And in 3 you are summoned into Sirris's world to help her out. Hell, you can be summoned into Anri's world to help Anri kill Aldrich... and yet Aldrich will still be there in your own world when you return, requiring you to kill him again. Because even though you meet Anri in the flesh in your world, you and him are from separate realities, each with your own version of Aldrich.

When you're told in DS3 that 'the lands of the lords converge at the base of Lothric Castle', you are literally being told that the alternate realities that each lord hails from are crashing into each other and breaking down each other's barriers, the different dimensions colliding and fusing together.

And the thing about alternate realities is that there's infinite of them. Infinite realities and infinite possibilities.

So yes, you chose the Dark Lord ending in Dark Souls 1, and that ending is absolutely canon, but just because that's the ending you chose, doesn't mean some other undead asshole didn't come along and undo your choice. And even if they DIDN'T come along and undo your work, it still doesn't matter because that only happened in ONE reality out of infinite possibilities, and so there are still uncountable worlds where that didn't happen.

A few other things to note: Ornstein appears in DS2 as well, despite being killed in 1, except having given in to the dark. It's entirely possible, even likely, that Ornstein and Smough 'survive' you murdering their asses in DS1. They could be undead themselves, cursed to return to life (with returning to life and going hollow being a common theory as to what's going on with Ornstein in DS2). Or, considering everything in Anor Londo, including even half the enemies that you fight, are just illusions created by Gwyndolin, you have to wonder if you truly killed them at all, and not just an illusion of them while they slinked away to lick their wounds.

Also keep in mind that Gwyndolin was an optional secret boss. Which means you didn't have to kill him. Which means there are plenty of realities where he didn't die. And since you are actively visiting multiple realities in DS3, it's likely that the one Aldrich ate him in was a reality where Gwyndolin survived.

And Solaire/Andre being Gwyn's son was never a thing that was confirmed. A popular fan theory, sure, with evidence to back it up in absence of evidence to conflict it, but never a thing that was proven as absolute fact.

And finally, the gods being all gone and fucked isn't something new to 3, it was like that in 1, when Gwyndolin was literally the only one left and all the others had peaced out. And that was after Gwyn linked the fire but before you ever had the chance to even make your choice whether to continue linking it or not. Because continuing the age of fire is a futile endeavour and always was, and that's the point. That said, the age of fire is in shambles, but the age of man has not yet come, because so long as the fire is linked, humans are still, well, human looking, and weak, with monsters roaming and the remnants of the gods' age pulling strings in the background. Once the age of dark begins, humanity would take on its true monstrous form, which you glimpse in the form of things like Manus in Dark Souls 1's DLC.

You ARE right that Dark Souls 3's lore IS worse than 2's, but you're wrong about why. It isn't worse because it conflicts with story events in Dark Souls 1/2, because alternate reality nonsense hand-waves all that shit away, and has been hand hand-waving it away since the very beginning. No, DS3's lore is worse than the previous games because it suddenly introduces a lot of new details to the fundamental base of the world's setting with no explanation. Like, wtf is an 'unkindled'? Why are you different/special from ordinary undead? Why are Aldrich/Yhorm/The Abyss Watchers even still alive? The final step in kindling the first flame is defeating the previous Lord of Cinder in combat, so there should never be more than one at a time, and instead we've got multiple of them. And why do we need them to kindle the first flame when we never have before? Etc. THESE are the questions you should be asking, because they're the reason why Dark Souls 3's lore is fucked up.

 

[Kingjackl]

Every complaint I've read about DS3 feels like it's coming from some weird alternate timeline where DS2 was released as the third game.

"It feels petty and fanservicey."
"It didn't make any sense."
"It butchered the previous lore."
"The level design was too linear."

Did... did any actually PLAY Dark Souls 2? Seriously, go back and play it again, and TRY to tell me that those four statements aren't a completely accurate summary. Dark Souls 3, on the other hand, has excellent level design (not quite on the same level as 1, but that's a REALLY high bar), the plot made sense and was well-written, and the callbacks were frankly minor and sparingly used (with possible exceptions for the return to Anor Londo.)

Like, seriously, what am i missing here? What is it you guys are seeing that makes you hate 3's lore so much? Because i played the same damn game and felt the lore was close to perfect.

Dark Souls 3 has made me look back more kindly on Dark Souls 2. That's not as bad as it sounds; DS2 is easily the weakest game in the series, especially from a design perspective. And while 3 is a fantastic game, the problem is it almost lacks an identity of it's own. It's so wrapped up in Dark Souls 1's lore and Bloodborne's gameplay and aesthetic, that it feels like playing an amalgamation of two games that already got it right the first time.

DS2 may be linear, it's levels may be dull and it may have a few unnecessary callbacks to the first game, but at least those callbacks didn't bury it. The boss souls of DS2 being reincarnations of DS1s lords was a weird choice, but you didn't really have to worry about it (and the connection between Lost Sinner and the Witch of Izalith was actually quite clever). Meanwhile, the new lore involving Vendrick, the Children of Dark, the giants and the greater focus on the Undead Curse felt like an expansion of Dark Souls 1's lore. Dark Souls 3 feels like a regression, since it's gone back to Gwyn, the Anor Londo gods and the Age of Fire/Dark as the centre of everything, while anything to do with Vendrick, the curse and the giants has been buried.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

What about Dark Souls 2 and 3 implies there wasnt an age of darkness after the first games age of light? You could be in the end of a second and third age of light and this is all an eternal cycle. It would explain why so much is forgotten.

The games lore is so ambigious I find it hard for anybody to definitively say Dark Souls 3 breaks canon...

 

[Maphysto]

Every complaint I've read about DS3 feels like it's coming from some weird alternate timeline where DS2 was released as the third game.

"It feels petty and fanservicey."
"It didn't make any sense."
"It butchered the previous lore."
"The level design was too linear."

Did... did any actually PLAY Dark Souls 2? Seriously, go back and play it again, and TRY to tell me that those four statements aren't a completely accurate summary. Dark Souls 3, on the other hand, has excellent level design (not quite on the same level as 1, but that's a REALLY high bar), the plot made sense and was well-written, and the callbacks were frankly minor and sparingly used (with possible exceptions for the return to Anor Londo.)

Like, seriously, what am i missing here? What is it you guys are seeing that makes you hate 3's lore so much? Because i played the same damn game and felt the lore was close to perfect.

Dark Souls 3 has made me look back more kindly on Dark Souls 2. That's not as bad as it sounds; DS2 is easily the weakest game in the series, especially from a design perspective. And while 3 is a fantastic game, the problem is it almost lacks an identity of it's own. It's so wrapped up in Dark Souls 1's lore and Bloodborne's gameplay and aesthetic, that it feels like playing an amalgamation of two games that already got it right the first time.

DS2 may be linear, it's levels may be dull and it may have a few unnecessary callbacks to the first game, but at least those callbacks didn't bury it. The boss souls of DS2 being reincarnations of DS1s lords was a weird choice, but you didn't really have to worry about it (and the connection between Lost Sinner and the Witch of Izalith was actually quite clever). Meanwhile, the new lore involving Vendrick, the Children of Dark, the giants and the greater focus on the Undead Curse felt like an expansion of Dark Souls 1's lore. Dark Souls 3 feels like a regression, since it's gone back to Gwyn, the Anor Londo gods and the Age of Fire/Dark as the centre of everything, while anything to do with Vendrick, the curse and the giants has been buried.

The thing of it is, ultimately? Dark Souls never needed a sequel, and I think FROM understands that now.

For all my complaints about DS2, I would have infinitely greater respect for it if it had just been it's own, stand-alone game, "Cursed Souls", or something. In fact, it honestly feels like that's what it started out as, a stand-alone Souls game in the vein of Demon's/Dark; but then some fuckwit executive got the idea to turn it into a sequel to Dark Souls, so they had to shove in a bunch of stuff tying it to the first game. The references to DS1's lore don't just feel vague, they feel rushed. The stuff you mention, like the four big bosses being reincarnations of the Lords, would've been a good move if they'd just taken it a little further. And then there's all the stuff that's just downright contradictory and confusing.

Like, what the fuck is Ornstein doing there? Pretty sure we killed him the first time around, didn't we? What was the deal with the Giants? Were they the descendants of the Giants of Anor Londo? And for that matter, where the fuck ARE we? Because the game seems to simultaneously try to hint that Drangleic is Lordran ages in the future, and that Lordran is another continent entirely. And then there's the ending. Okay, we defeated an aspect of Manus, and then... we walked into a big stone thing and sat on a chair. And that did... what, exactly? Because it sure as hell didn't link the fire. The First Flame was nowhere to be seen, and in fact may or may not have been on a different fucking continent. So if none of this was about linking the flame, what WAS it about?

The whole thing is a garbled mess that makes zero sense in context of 1's lore. And I feel that Miyazaki realized that, said "Okay, guys, we've railroaded ourselves into sequels, so let's do one more, and do it RIGHT this time", and made Dark Souls 3.

 

[THM]

Although I haven't played DS3 yet (though I am watching a playthrough), I have to ask: Is there a straightforward 'path' through the lore of any of this series? ('Cause I've been reading the thread so far, and it seems confusing as hell - the 'story/lore', I mean.) Or, is it a case of multiple paths, and you 'take' whichever one makes the most sense to you? Or are you (as a player/player-character) just supposed to be a small cog in a vast machine, the total design of which you never see or comprehend?

'Cause I have to admit, I've been trying to put stuff together while reading this thread and all I'm getting is a headache.