The most heart-breaking moment is when she says "Quelaag? Please, sister, do not cry. I am happy, truly. I have you, don't I?". The truth is that the player is the one crying for taking Quelaag away from her TToTT
@@ENCHANTMEN_ a lot of things in life are unavoidable or inevitable. Lack of player choice in the narrative doesn't take away from the tragedy of it imo. Feels like an old Greek play.
The tragedy is Quelagg wouldn't have listened had you said you do not wish to fight. She needs the humanity to ease her sister's suffering and with how sick the Pale Lady is she can't defend herself. The Pale Lady only has Quelagg. Which is why it is heart breaking. You can't take Quelagg's place, even if you tried. It is an unavoidable heart ache for all. No one can back down, really. You need a purpose to keep yourself sane. Quelagg needs to protect her sister. The battle was inevitable and meant to show how terribly cruel the world is.
Nothing takes me back to my earliest memories of Dark Souls quite like the Daughter of Chaos soundtrack. It's so heart-wrenching to learn about the Fair Lady and her siblings, especially with Quelana so nearby but unable to bring herself to return.
What kills me is that had Quelaag not been so belligerent and let the player pass, then not only would the Fair Lady have had a pretty good shot at recovering, but demon kind would have had another female capable of giving birth to more demons a la DS3. Their race, and thus their culture, would not have died out, even with the pressure from Irithyll and Carthus.
I personally think finding Quelana’s corpse with the Fair Lady’s was tragically beautiful. Despite her cowardice and inability to face what became of her family, she truly did love them, and even if it was only for a short time or even after her death, Quelana was able to be with at least one of her sisters one final time before passing on, and you can see the love in the way she’s huddled up against the spider, as though she were trying to hug or cuddle with it as she’s dying. It’s such subtle storytelling like that which makes the games so beautiful.
It's possible she died shielding her sister from Sword Master, whom it is implied used the Chaos Blade to slay demons during the Irithyll campaign on the demon ruins. That's why the Witch's Locks exist, because he would have had to have gotten the black hair from Quelana, unlike Fair Lady's pale white hair.
Quelana’s corpse is very tragic (though I think calling her a coward a little extreme. she did witness the traumatic event of her family turning into grotesque parasitic monsters, civilized or not.) I found fair lady’s corpse itself weird after looking at it though. As you can see in the video, it almost looks like her human half was crushed under a rock in a cave in. Which I mean, it could happen. but it seems kinda odd to have a cave in on a character dying of sickness anyway
Finding out that if you get the ring will allow you to actually talk to her and then her mistaking me for her sister that I just fucking murdered was one of the genuine "am I the bad guy" moment I've ever had.
"Am I the bad guy" the answer in the Soulsborne series, sans perhaps DS2, is always 'Yes.' In DS1, I truly, truly wish there was a way, no matter how painstaking in the end, to at least not have to be part of the active tragedy in everyone around you. Because that's what the Chosen Undead, what the Ashen One have in common - They bring suffering and misery to the world around them, even if there's not much happiness to go around, they always make it worse. And well, ain't that just a bitch?
Technically all of dark souls story puts you in the bad guy category :/ Not just quelaag but most of the bosses in dark souls die because they are just in the way not because they did something bad!!
@@JagEterCoola DeS is probably the only time you aren't the bad guy. Boletaria was doomed before you got there. By King Allant and (technically) the Old Monk. Your efforts actually result in saving those that remain.
I think it's most unfortunate that you can only understand her with the Old Witch's Ring which is very hidden so most players won't hear the pain in her voice or that she is blind.
@@veilnebula2411 or you choose as a starting gift, or you trade a sunlight maggot to snuggly. which both are extremely obscure, since the old witch ring among the others gifts seems out of place, and snuggly is another secret that many wont find
Demons in Dark Souls had some of the worst lot in life. Born from Chaos, hunted by Black Knights, their home locked far below ice. Finally towards the end all that remains are two winged Demons in the collapse of the world and an old king, surrounded by the lifeless piles of his subjects.
Knowing Dark Souls, I imagine Quelana only found the courage to return to Izalith and reunite with her last remaining sister when it was too late. That's the impression I get from the way Quelana's corpse leans on the Fair Lady, crawled up, like she is filled with sorrow and shame. Beautiful and bleak indeed.
Even so, I like to believe Quelana was able to spend a few minutes with her sister before she passed. Given the nature of the series, is it unlikely? Absolutely. But I prefer to imagine that Quelana had a chance to be with and comfort her sister as she passed, before choosing to curl up beside her and await her own death. It’s a small comfort in a relentlessly tragic story.
@Primedragoon Lol if anything dumb spider witch succumbed to those eggs that was infecting her body. _Demons vanish when slain_ lmfao what a load of crap. See in games with more developed lore - Daedra cannot be slain they are only returned to oblivion. All Dark Souls has is item descriptions. Convoluted and mostly fan made speculation.
Not sure if intentional or just by accident, but the Fair Lady is of the best examples of rewarding kindness in a videogame. While the covenant rewards by themselves are decent, once you know the story it gives you an interesting setup to pursue. Giving her humanity because you feel sorry, you feel it right, or seek atonement for killing her sister. But at one point it hit me, CS +2 is the only way to save Solaire (excluding tricks). I love Dark Souls, because character choices aren't based on Bioware logic, and being a cool guy usually gets everyone killed, or worse (Lautrec/ Laurentius/ Siegmeyer), giving it a very grim atmosphere. So the idea of saving your best pal from a frankly horrifying fate, by showing kindness to a monster, atoning for killing her only family, and this happening seamlessly and organically, almost unintentional is absolutely glorious.
Honestly, the kindest thing is probably to put her out of her misery. Also, that humanity comes from somewhere. Kirk invades and kills people to gather humanity for her. That's hardly kind, and you have to kill a lot of things to get 40 humanity.
"There is only one silver lining to this tale. It's that deep within the long forgotten ruins, past the last surviving offshoots of the demon race and behind an illusory wall lies the corpse of Quelana curled up to the Fair Lady. She finally found the strength to return home."
is her body in the corpse? cause it look like only the spider half is there, would it be too much of a stretch to think her sister might have found a way to heal her and ditch her spider half while leaving the book as a gift for that egg guy who was a pyromancer and that is what we find
@@opticmidnight2629 I mean, if the fair lady was somehow brought back from being a demon then her body would rot too But it's easier to assume that the human body was Queelana
Why must you hurt me this way. I cried like a little bitch when I watched this Vaati's video the last time and now just reading the line made it all come back.
I'll be honest, Dark Souls' stories never hit me too hard emotionally. I've never been able to get into the "Prepare to Cry" stuff But when I first found the sisters in the Demon Ruins? I actually teared up. I'm very happy they had that.
Others have pointed out that wearing the Witch's Ring makes her talk to you as if you were her sister, who you just killed, but there's also the really sad truth about Kirk as well. He's the only person we know of who is in her covenant, invading worlds and trying to get humanity to heal her, and we kill the guy too, and can wear his Armour. We keep taking away anyone who would be helping her, and this is why I always give her my humanity every playthrough.
What I like best about him is that, despite him helping Quelaan, it’s still ambigious if he really was doing it out of kindness or an ulterior motive. Some people pointed out that Kirk may have discovered the truth about the whole “linking the fire vs don’t” and realized that it didn’t matter which of the two he chose, it ultimately would just perpetrate the cycle. So he may have been helping out a daughter of chaos thinking to himself that it’s at least better to try something new rather than go down a tried and failed path, but ultimately we’ll never truly know.
Poor Quelaan, she has such a sad backstory but she is still such a sweet, caring person worried about her sister. I always hoped given her enough humanity would cure her disease 😥
@@skhighglitch4217 Not quite. The community looked into DS1's files and found several spellings of Quelana, then mistook one of them for the name of the Fair Lady.
the fair lady and eingyi are among my favorites in the series. they're both such nice people in shitty circumstances. props to eingyi for having sterile spider eggs taking up 80% of his body mass and taking it like a champ too
And the way Eingyi tells the player they'll "face his wrath" if they harm the Fair Lady is so pathetic yet so grand. I mean, sure, he wouldn't stand a chance, but you have to admire the raw dedication.
@@TheTopazToad I always admired the little guy and his courage to stand up like this to the god-murdering behemoth that is The Chosen Undead. I just wish he would become nicer to you after you give enough Humanity to the Lady.
There is a happy part to that story. Not far from her corpse in DS3 there are hatched eggs, suggesting that some of her children were born and maybe survived even longer.
......Happy eh? Well, think of this. Maybe they hatched and like some newborn critters, only knew hunger... and that's why the human bits of the fair lady are missing.
@@MyLPMaster001 I knew that reply would get to some people! Myself included. I didn't mean to have that thought, but unfortunately I traffic in Believable Headcanon on my channel, and regrettably what I said isn't exactly an absurd notion...horrifying , but not absurd. FYI I threw up in my mouth a little when I typed it. >_>
@@thetruemonarch9354 Oh, I'm not offended or angry by it. I can also still see something good in that. She sacrificed herself for her children, the continuation of herself, and there is at least a bit of beauty even in that :D
At this point tragic backstories lost their impact,what i am saying is that after seeing almost every NPC backstory you stop feeling bad about them because you already know their backstory AND their conclusion.
@@frozenvoltz6739 such is the problem with, well, time. nowadays, after the souls series has officially finished and years have passed since the latest installment, you can search up any NPC and have a fully detailed guide on their backstory, actions, motivations and eventual end - without even touching any of the games. back in the ds1 days, forums discussing stuff like this barely existed - it was up to the player to both discover, and make their own judgement about, the characters they found in their playthroughs. which, admittedly, is a lot more 'magical' than watching a 15min video that tells you how you should feel about these characters.
@@we-must-live I am not talking about how easy it is to search the information of an NPC or how hard it is to progress through a questline I am talking about how repetitive the NPC's questlines have become -Almost everyone has a sad backstory -Almost everyone dies in the end(with the exception of Solaire) Really couldn't Fromsoft bother to make quests different?When you see an NPC with a quest you will know how it will end and how is their backstory very easily.
@@frozenvoltz6739 i mean, it is Dark Souls™ - the entire premise of the series is that you're trying to rekindle the last smidgen of hope in a dying land full of fallen heroes, mindless blights, and incredibly jaded 'good guys'. there can't really be any 'happy endings' in a situation like that, unless you wanna completely shift the tone of the series.
The fair lady was one of those characters that really got my attention, she became one of my favorite side stories, and when ds3 released i remember exploring the demon ruins and seeing a familiar shape at the distance, when I finally got closer I immediately recognized her and after picking the item of the person next to her I of course knew it was quelana who passed away right next to her sister. It's impressive how just two meshes and an item can deliver such a deep storytelling, I love Fromsoftware for stuff like this.
It's funny, the first time I played through the game, I helped her just because I felt bad for her... I didn't even know Solaire would go mad, if I didn't help her, opened that short cut and killed the maggot...
@@matguimond92 so i threw my time of farming humanity in DLC into trash? Man, if i knew that this sorta thing is possible i would've finished Dark Souls earlier.
I recently said exactly this, the stories of the Witch of Izalith, her daughters, and her only son Ceaseless, have to be amongst the most, if not _the_ most depressing and horrifying stories from DS1 characters. Destined for years to suffer, either because of their monstrosity, or perhaps due to physical pain and anguish, or maybe suffer because you got away and you feel the guilt of being the only one lucky enough to still remain 'human' (Quelana). All this just because your mother thought she was doing the best for you and your people.
One silver lining is she actually kind of succeeded in her goal. Blight Town and the areas around Blight Town are a hell of a lot nicer in Dark Souls 3 than they were in Dark Souls 1. So much so that another kingdom rose and fell in its very spot. Plus the fact that Quelana reunited with her. I like imagine her final moments were both peaceful and happy. Not many Souls characters can say the same.
@@coffee7644 Given that Lost Izalith is below Blight Town in 1, and below the Catacombs of Carthus/Farron Swamp in 3, I assume they are basically the same place. It still sucks, it's Dark Souls, but at least two kingdoms rose in its place. She made the region habitable.
The Fair Lady really sticks out in my mind. I always go out of my way to give her humanity - less so out of guilt for killing Quelaag (it was self-defense, officer!), but more so because it’s one of the few times in the series where I feel like I’m making the world a little bit better rather than just putting it out of its misery. I’m glad she and Quelana were together in the end. Sometimes, that’s the best you can do.
Always felt bad for Queelan, and demonkind as a whole. Gwyn represents light, the Pigmy dark, Nito death. But Izalith represents life, and to see this life desperately clinging to a small kindle of hope as it gets strangled by the rest of the world. It always saddens me, and makes me wonder how the world would have gone if the Chaos civilization had not been destroyed.
There was no Chaos civilization. The Witch of Izalith was a simply witch of Fire and Light. Had it not been for Gwyn royally screwing things up, she would never have had to create the Chaos Flame in the first place (or, rather, replicate the First Flame, because, well, the accident was never part of the plan). Gwyn was the one to blame for the catastrophe of the Fair Lady's family. And Nito - for her disease, for he was the one who poisoned the citizens of Blighttown. Demons were nothing but rapacious, savage beasts as disgusting and, well, hellish, as "great" souls (save for the Witch, she actually tried save the life, not her fault that wasn't the way it worked). I frankly don't know why Quelaan and her sisters are even associated with that filth, because Quelaag, for all her sociopathy, never had been seen commanding them. Even someone as pure and hardly capable of hatred as Quelaan would have been disgusted seeing what she is typically aligned with in other's eyes. Or, probably, feel some compassion for them, because, before taking their ugly shape, demons were simply humanoid citizens of Izalith loyal to the Witch.
The Fair Lady is such a tragic character. I've never once done a run in DS1 where I don't join her covenant and max it out. I have never forgotten the guilt that I felt when I realized that I had killed her sister, the only support she had left. The thought of poor Quelaag desperately doing everything she can in order to save the only family she has left, damning herself in the process always reminded me of a friend of mine who had to forgo college and perform backbreaking, mind numbing work for long hours because his father had cancer.
Same, I always max out Chaos Servants, even joining the darkwraiths to get the humanity if need be. I also make it a rule to dislike any video in which our Fair Lady is killed. Yes, I am her simp. What of it?
I've always been a big fan of spiders, but I'm especially fond of the fair lady and Quelag because when I first played DS 1 without a care in the world I decided I wanted the mysterious old ring starting gift which meant I was always able to talk to her and hear her pain. As someone with a chronic illness (diabetes) I can also relate to the difficult dynamic of the sisters, with one simply trying to provide for her but also survive in such a cruel world.
@@WarhawkLieutenent this comment is ironic for me, when I first learned about the firelink bonfire firekeeper, I thought to myself - legs cut off, tongue cut off, burned, and imprisoned behind those bars? Someone should put her out of her misery, then Lautrec actually did it...
@@joaquinperez4830 i highly doubt her legs are actually supposed to be cut off, more likely they just didnt bother to model them cause she never moves anyway
@@yellowsaurus4895 that's fair, but she's the only human model in the game without legs. They went out of their way to make her unique in that regard. They could've given her legs and easily just say she's paralyzed
@@joaquinperez4830 she's also the only human model who sits in that position and wears a dress. Not bothering to model a body part that cant normally be seen and isnt going to get animated either isn't them "going out of their way" to make her unique, it's time saving. I mean, for us to even know that her model has no legs requires clipping the camera through the floor, or some other method that isn't normally possible (like viewing her model in cheat engine). The fact that we have to use exploits like that to see should tell you that her lack of legs is something we're not supposed to be aware of in the first place. If her leglessness was intentional, and the devs wanted us to figure that out, dont you think they would've put some kind of hint suggesting as such?
My Beloved. Edit: One thing people seem to leave out of this tragedy is the heroic selflessness of the Fair lady. Her home was destroyed, her family transformed into part demons. The horror her mother brought upon the world. And rather than running or hiding, she decided to shoulder the weight of everything that had happened to save others from her mother's mistake.
I'm curious as to the lack of a human body on the spider corpse in DS3. It puts into question whether the lootable corpse is actually Quelana or if it is instead Eingyi, who was given the tome by Quelana as she came back to reunite with her sister. If so, it's probable that Quelana took the Fair Lady's human corpse to give her a proper burial. With the slim possibility to clutch to in order to avoid depression, being that the Fair Lady was able to be extracted from the spider demon and both her an Quelana managed to live long, happy lives together...
Alright, from now on, that is my headcanon, thank you. Quelana came back, saved her sister, the removal of the Fair Lady essentially killed the spider part, turning it to stone and the two sisters left, happy to be reunited, living out their lives as the last remaining members of the family of Izalith.
@@Pyberspace I have a strong feeling Eingyi was the guy down below in the fiery pit, clutching the Fair Lady's hair lock put through the Old Witch's Ring. The White Hair Talisman, I mean.
I never noticed it until now but the Fair lady and Crossbreed Pricilla share alot of themes. Pale girls who take stewardship over those discarded and forgotten, both inhuman and the most humane people we meet.
Time to watch Vaati's Preapre to Cry on this one again, the Daughters of Chaos, which is quite possibly his best video. Also the one that has my saying every time I watch it "I was not prepared."
We can only hope that Qualana found her sister while she was still alive. ❤ Imagining them huddling together as the monumental fire of Izalith finally burns itself out, both outside and inside themselves, is strangely comforting.
Her story always tears my heart out and rips it to shreds in front of me. I could only bear listening to her voice line once because it broke my heart. despite her being a fictional being her pain is still very real. Her voice actress really did it well.
I always loved the tragic feeling of inevitability in dark souls, as if you're trapped in a fate you want no part of but can't escape. You may not have wanted to take this girls sister from her, but she wanted your humanity and you needed to move forward. There was never another choice.
I always saw her like a dying animal or someone in a very deep and long vegetative state. It would be even more cruel to not put her out of her extended torment and misery, especially since everything she was trying to protect is far too long gone to save or to help, and everyone that assisted her are either dead or gone, or soon to be dead and gone, like Kirk, her sisters, her brother, the denizens of Blighttown, et cetera. If we weren't forced to kill her sister then I would feel bad, but she refused or didn't even try to talk or even hesitate before initiating combat ahead of our goal, so she had to die.
It’s almost like Fromsoft guilts you into joining her covenant after you kill the ones caring for her then find out she’s a fire keeper who gave her health to save her people. The whole Izalith/Bed of Chaos story is so sad and the interesting despite the fact they botched the design of certain aspects.
I truly love their story and beautiful sadness with which it ended. Even drew art with her and Quelana at the recent soultober. Thanks for highlighting it one more time!
I just read a beautifull short manga about her knight, Kirk, the other day, its called "Thorns of Hate". An additional tiny bit of beautifull tragedy to the story of the Fair Lady told from the perspective of her most devout warrior, I reccomend it to anyone here with a handfull of minutes to spare.
We really are a peace of shit aren't we? Killing her sister who protects her. Killing her Family And preventing 3 of kirks invasions which leads to him hollowing
Thanks for this Zullie. What got me to try dark souls was actually a fanart of the fair lady, after that in every playtrough no matter what I didn't even try joining another covenant. A chaos servant through and through. There is just something so mowing about a story that doesn't try extremely hard to be sad, yet it is
She hears footfalls approaching, and turns her head to the sound, a wan smile greeting her visitor. "Sister, Quelaag, is that you? I'm so glad. Come, rest by my fire. I've kept it warm for you." The Fair Lady welcomes her guest, trying to point to the bonfire with a quivering forleg, which fails to move as desired. "No, it is not Quelaag. But Sister, yes." Regret and hesitancy is heard in the beautiful voice The Fair Lady hasn't heard in untold years. She claps her hands excitedly, her spiders legs kicking and shaking in glee. "QUELANA! Sister long lost! Come to me let me hold you! Joy of joys you've come home!" Quelana of Izalith stood but a moment in shock of the unhesitancy of her sisters welcome, and rushed to her. The Fair Lady took her in her arms and cradled her suddenly weeping Sister of Chaos. "Do not cry, my Sister. Soon we can be with Mother and the others again." Quelana had heard of her sisters state from the Chosen Undead who had been through here to ring the Bell of Awakening, and eventually linked the First Flame. They had mentioned that The Fair Lady seemed unaware of reality, absent of mind and perception. Quelana now knew that was a misunderstanding. Her Fair Sister knew very well the tragedies that had fallen, knew what must have happened to Quelaag for the Chosen to have visited her, but in her infinitely loving heart she had not held bitterness. Quelana had to confess. She told her sister of the tasks she had sent the Chosen Undead to do. The fate of their sisters, brother, and mother. "Yes." The Fair Lady said, as if discussing the weather. "So we may see them again when the fire fades, and all are brought together in stone and dark. Do not hate yourself, Quelana, you did as you felt right to do. Now we are together, and everything is as right as can be. Feel the warmth of my fire? Sister, it burns for thee." Quelana looked towards the barely smoldering bonfire, reflecting its Keeper's ability to sustain it. It was growing cold, and The Fair Lady was becoming still. "Yes, Sister. You were always the most wonderful Fire Keeper. Mother was, is, so proud. As am I." Quelana huddled close and embraced her sister, never to leave her side again. Together they welcomed the end, and the cavern of the Fair Lady became a cold, dark, and very gentle place.
When I had my first playthough of DS1 I had never felt such a rending feeling for a character such as her. I didn’t understand the story as I do today but her few lines made me understand a lot about her. Her thinking we were her sister we just killed, then due to our guilt or mercy, we take up her sister’s role, providing humanities to her to ease her suffering. Then years later I see her and her sister(how could I forget since my first class in both games were a pyromancer) dead at the end of the hallway, I literally started crying. A lot of Dark Souls’ character stories are tragic, but the Fair Lady’s story hits harder than any of the other stories.
It seems that the 'Ladies of White' suffer quite a bit within the soulsborne games: Quelanna - sickly and dying, whom only tried to help. Priscilla - ostracized and locked away, simply because she existed. Firekeeper - blinded and body writhing with untold amount of Humanity. Doll - only semi-living within a dream of an old man's unrequited desires. Maria - overwhelmed by guilt of her own and fellow hunter's actions against the fishing village.
Ciaran - forever friendzoned. Mildred - doomed to eternally tank lava pools for the people that killed her 5 minutes ago. Rhea - Burdened with her family's name and duty, betrayed by her guardian, left to die on a pitch black pit with only the hollow husks of her comrades to keep her company. Saved by a fated encounter, only to be later assasinated in cold blood or inprisoned and experimented on.
I'm a complete and total monster...The first time I played Dark Souls, I killed the Fair Lady before the end. It was calculated because I felt that she wouldn't survive even with the Humanity I had given her...And knowing her eventual fate is to burn out and petrify, possibly all alone because we don't know if Quelana reunited with her first, or found her petrified body later and died beside it out of grief, I wonder if...Maybe it was the kinder fate? I still tear up thinking about it, though. Eignyi's heart-wrenching scream of horror as he crawled towards me to avenge his mistress struck me harder than anything else in the entire franchise. Apart from Ludleth and Gerhman's nightmares (old-age characters full of regret REALLY get to me in ways nearly no other trope does, and both of these poor boys have regret and guilt aplenty). He called me a monster, and I suppose I am.
The worse thing being, until you discover the truth, its too late. your character is most of the time just defending himself, trying to not get killed in a almost complete hostile world. and when we found that, it was by our hand that not only the fair lady, but the entire demon race died out... thats when eignyi seems to be completely right about us being monsters. because in a vain quest to let the golden age not die, we became reapers of most of the little hope that world knew.
The only actual tearjerker of a story in all of the soulsborne franchise...Man i just wanted her to be healthy and happy. I sacrificed 100 humanity to her right before i finished DS1.
Dark souls is a story telling masterpiece. With everything you do and see having a deep intricate background that is harrowing at one half and somber on the other. From Soft is likely just objectively the best company.
Aah, yes, the story of the Chaos witches.The soulsborne universe is just full of tragic stories, like the deeply tragic story of Vendrick, Ostrava's quest, Anri and Horace, the whole deal with Oceiros, etc... But nothing ever hit me as hard as Gascoigne's family did. The day I "completed" that quest, was definitely my saddest day in video games.
Do that questline once and never again. Even fromsoftware makes the reward so miniscule, that it's very skippable, which probably everyone does. Truly horrowing. No silverlining, just pure bleakness.
Isn’t there also a way for the Gascoignes daughter to die while trying to get to her father or something? I remember that in one play through the window was empty and I found the music box I think inside the big boat in the sewers that lead to Gascoigne wich indicates that the girl tried to take the same rout but was eaten by the boar. I actually never really payed attention to Bloodbornes story because it was so confusing. But I did notice that wich left me feeling very sad. Poor little girl.
if you want a slightly happier interpretation, the fact her upper half is missing could imply she separated from it(or perhaps molted) leaving behind the spider body which seems to basically already be dead and possibly getting a better life
I woud guess, knowing the deviousness of Dark Souls' universe, that Quelana found her sister only after Fair Lady already died, and simply died then and there herself, mourning her sister and blaming herself for not coming sooner.
After learning what the ring does in DS, every play through after that I only took witches ring. She’s such a beautiful and tragic character, one of my favourite souls stories.
Dark Souls is probably the most tragic game of the whole trilogy . No matter what you try to do...by the end of it you are powerless to save anyone ( Solaire being an exception through rather intricate means ) . The crestfallen warrior slowly goes hollow , Petrus's companions meet their end in the catacombs , Reah by going mad in the duke's archives , Griggs' in Sen's fortress while looking for Logan , Logan goes crazy by studying Seath's books , Laurentius goes hollow looking for pyromancies in the Great Swamp , Quelana dies protecting her last living sister , The Fair Lady without knowing what happened to Quelaag , Solaire by finding a fake sun , Siegmeyer pushes himself too far while looking to save his daughter , The giant Blacksmith probably gets killed by Aldrich or by Sulyvahn's men , The Darkmoon Knightess will disappear and leave her armor behind , Shiva might go mad looking for a cursed blade...only to be killed by the person he stole it from in return , Lautrec will receive the right punishment for his crimes .
Killing the bed of chaos just made me feel sad in the later games. You can tell that they’re dying out as in ds2, I believe that the covetous demon is the only demon boss in the game. In ds3, you return to their birthplace and find that almost everything is dead, corpses lining the area, as their source of life is now gone. In fact, some ghrus have made home in the area, most likely because the only other living species in the DR are the demon’s, which are going extinct. In the dlc, you kill off the last shred of demon life, in the old firelink shrine. It amazes me how fromsoft does this, making you feel horrible for straight up becoming the doomslayer.
Sadness it the only thing i always fell around her, but when i get the old witch ring, it was nice to finally understand her and fill like i was making her a little happy :')
I felt sorry for her towards the end of my first play through, I decided to end her suffering so that she may know peace before beginning the next cycle. Hearing her in that sad weakened state was just so hard to bare.
That reminds me, I'd like one video about exactly what is Micolash's relevance to bloodborne. The more I play, the more I feel like he's responsible for half the events in the present of the game. It really feels like he has some control to the witches of Hemwick and the snatchers. He definitely has his role in the one reborn and the last phase of the game. I believe he also has some responsability with Arianna's offspring (my crazy theory is that he managed to be reborn as a monster, since his death is the trigger for this monster's birth. It feels like he could do just that). By all means, I feel like he has enough material to be the main antagonist. And yet he dies the first time we meet him. It also makes me wonder if he ever had more of a role. I also feel like his fight should have been way more massive. It starts feeling like a maze where you'll have to catch and kill him while he teleports in mirrors and beneath skeletons and then it's just two halls
Fun fact: that wasn't always going to be the case. Quelaag actually has dialogue in the files where you could speak with her. Meaning you may never have had to kill her at all.
And that children, is why you shouldn't play with fire. Thank you for another great video, Zullie. You provide a great service, and I get to learn more about my favorite series almost everyday.
When I played ds1 and found her by accident I had 2 different feelings despite knowing what I did on both occassions: I let her be but felt terrible knowing I've killed her loved one and after seeing the lore I found the situation as tragic as I had to kill her sister regardless of knowledge....so I joined her covenant and kindled the flame In another playthrough I thought it would be the most less painful route so I decided to kill her to end the suffering, but despite I did that I didnt know about her taking the disease from Blighttown despite the area being already awful it could've gotten even worse if she didnt take the other disease. It's good to know there was some form of closure in 3 but it doesnt get any better....its like warhammer 40k its alway grimdark.....like the Entire story of the Lamenters Chapter
being nice got her longer then she should have be able to survive. in the horrors that dark souls has to offer, the kindness of many kept her going and gave many people purpose. while certainly bleak she in a way probably made demons of the later find a new resolve to keep going and make new flames as time changed, as hard as that might be.
I always thought that quelana finally reunited with the fair lady only to find her corpse then took her own life out of guilt for not finding her sooner, very sad characters
It's more likely, due to the existance of the Witch's Locks, that Quelana died trying to protect and shield the Fair Lady from Sword Master, who used the Chaos Blade.
nothing takes me back quite like finding the fair lady and her families story way back in DS1. that was when i really started falling in love with this series
The Fair Lady and Kirk's entangled story has to be the saddest tale in Souls. Utilizing both obscure methods, piecing together visual context, and the way so much is delivered through small paragraphs of item descriptions. Piecing together the story of a suffering sister and the initially villainous man who tried to help her. And while I do like that they gave a big of closure for her in DS3, that they brought Kirk back as well always annoyed him. DS3 has a lot of, "Hey guys, reference!!" moments in it, most to the game's detriment, but Kirk showing up for no reason as they tried to recreate his story felt tasteless toward what they had crafted before.
While i like the Catharina knight story, I don't like his personality and name are so similar to Siegmeyer. DS 3 has more fan service than story for many of it's characters
@@felipecosta-kv2fx Considering that DS3 and DS2 take place more or less at the same time, just in different places of the world, and both take place long after DS1, I think it's pretty obvious DS3's Kirk isn't the same person as DS1's Kirk. More likely a follower of his legend that took his armour, weapons and name and found a similar cause.
@@yusukeelric Miyazaki was probably tired of making sequel of DkS which explained why there are suddenly so many new yet rough ideas added and complicated a well-established setting in the original DkS. DkS3 was just a dumping ground of abandoned concepts and a mean to satisfy demands from fans with tons of fan services. I'm sure he wanted to do new things, the meaning behind the Painting from the DLC explained it all.
@@apophisstr6719 I really personally dont feel like that. altho I can agree that it might have had a meta meaning of the world being tired after the sequels and needing to end finally. I think reducing the callbacks to just fan service for the sake of it is ignoring the story and lore of the whole thing and how important said callbacks are to it. the entirety of the game including the DLCs to me are about how this world has run its course and is continuing its existence way beyond what it was intended to take. and every thing from the chaos fire running out, the demons dying , the previously shining anor londo having become a cold frigid place, the last heir of the gods being eaten up by a slime. and much more are all very much in line with the entire message and story of the third game. and the dreg heap is the final part of it all, to see that there is no more place for this world to go, its time to let it go and make a new world.
Great video! I have a question about helping her. It is possible to give to the lady of humanity in order to "heal" her. The improvement of her health condition is visible (very slightly) on her human body. Is it the same on her spider body?
The reveal of Quelana and the Fair Lady's fate in DS3 reminds me of another reveal in that game: Lucatiel's Mask. It's description basically confirms that the Bearer of the Curse did the last thing she asked of them: remembering her name. Both stories end tragically, but have that tiny bit of happiness added to them with these reveals.
Not all of them chose to become demons. In Hawkshaw's video he does an amazing job of showing how the flame of Chaos was not uncontrolled at first, and that becoming a grotesque nude monster was a choice that some chose and some did not. The unnamed sister guarding the entrance to Bed of Chaos is in her right mind and uses advanced pyromancies showing she too is a daughter of the Witch. Same for Quelana who ultimately causes the Fair Lady's illness- she rejects the transformations because it is not forced.
@@Rakshael Now where is that stated in the game? If that were the case, you'd think more would choose *not* to become disgusting, pain-ridden monsters, like Ceaseless, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
@@Valanway it's not stated- it's shown by the fact that there's two, possibly three depending on interpretation, sisters who are untransformed humans around
@@Rakshael She's also shown stating during her questline that she got out before her (bug) mommy and the flame made things even worse because she knew shit was not good. She literally says the chaos flame got her mom and sister and turned them into monsters against their will really fast and are all in anguish and in a thousand years of torment, which doesn't sound like something someone would voluntarily want, especially since the fact the flame going out of control was *not* the goal. Besides, the other sister by Ceaseless could have very easily died before she would change, and as we all know, they're not humans, so the undead curse and dark sign are not likely something that affects them the same way.
@@Valanway Well truthfully if you watch Quelaag she embraces her spider half. She caresses it in the cutscene and during battle she both rubs it and hugs it. Someone horrified by their existence wouldn't do that. The demons had an entire language and culture evident on the pyromancer's rags, any of the Bed of Chaos spells, and some other places. They weren't keen on losing any of their culture because the Chaos Flame was a part of them and they liked it. The Demon Firesage's existence explicitly shows they have a religious and social hierarchy based around worship of the Chaos Flame that made them all that way. You don't worship something you despise and fear. Furthermore- Quelana can't be trusted as a source of information. She is the one who sent Eingyi to go infect Blighttown and her sisters, and if you talk to her she tells you to go kill her mother and sisters, which is FAR from normal or okay when they themselves don't wish that. Quelaag isn't suffering, plain and simple. Fair Lady wasn't suffering until she absorbed blightpus. Witch of Izalith is only depressed because King Jeremiah cheated on her (see: Demon Prince in Blighttown and "King" Jeremiah's headpiece looking identical as chaos bug/parasite growth, as well as his hat exchanging at the Crow's nest for a Ring of Favor) and ran off with another goddess. In fact by DS3 we see Quelana repents and goes back to her sister and dies trying to save her, instead of kill her. DS1 Quelana is unequivocally and unarguably in the wrong, both from our outside moral perspective, and from the moral perspective of the characters in the Dark Souls universe, including eventually herself. In addition, Berserk (which Dark Souls takes HEAVY inspiration from) has a race of demons which are people who look monstrous, but all CHOSE to become that way to gain power and join that society. Watch Hawkshaw's vid on it, he really does a good job of elaborating further.
We may talk about Izalith and her daughters, which suffered from a desperate choice. We may talk about Aldia, who dedicated his studies, life, and learning, just to accept his hate for an old sin. We may talk about Artorias, a man who tried to believe that something could be done for everyone's sake, only to lose himself, protecting something precious. We may talk about Gael, and how the fight with him is nothing but a representation of the human condition, where in the end our struggle with fate is nearly useless, since our mistakes are the roots of nowadays life. Or... we can talk about Gwyn. The god, the sunlight. The creator of all, yet the one who decided to burn this beautiful world just for his pride, his selfishness... and fear of the darkness. The darkness, the core of humanity. That one thing that Gwyn himself was not able to accept. The end of all, of light, of LIFE. Mankind can't stand death, WE can't stand death. As much as Gwyn couldn't. So he morphed the world, destroyed it, as much as we are doing. Gwyn came back as the Soul of Cinder, but in the end, nothing changed. Not him, not his ideals, not the world. We can talk about everything. Dark Souls remains a life lesson, no matter what.
@@jacksonpeds5298 No, it wasn't. But then the fire made it as such. Gwyn created everything on it, but when he had to accept that everything has and end, he couldn't. He then destroyed it.
The worst part for me is to find out we are directly responsible for most of the tragedies in these games and usually only found out after the fact, then are helpless to do anything. The best course of action is usually to leave them alone and never progress their quest. At least the sisters can see each other one last time before the fire fade.
Maybe the upper part of the Fair Lady missing means that their demonic transformation is more of a symbiotic relationship (also seen in how Quelaag pets her spider half), the demonic spider turned into stone while the upper part of the Fair Lady decomposed eventually, anyways, one of the saddest stories out there, even if seeing Quelana and the Fair Lady reunited, it still feels so incredibly dark
The souls series truly special, not just for its "difficulty", which I'm afraid is honestly toxically exaggerated, and seves to gatekeep the community away from a touching and tragic collection of stories. The souls series is LITTERED with moments that have made me burst into tears. DS3s moment where you find The Fair Lady's burnt husk of a corpse was one for me that I couldn't ever not cry around. Every time I found her it reminds me that we failed to save her, but it was someone on another comment here that pointed out that you can only save solaire with CS+2, which I did, but forgot the connection entirely. So thank you for the video, and thank you for revealing these things that would otherwise go unnoticed. Truly you're a gem of the souls community Zulie. And thank you to the other fans and other commentors as well. Now I know it wasn't all for nothing.
Interesting that some of the spider legs were tied to, and coming out of, the egg models. I wonder if that means that there is something spider-like within the eggs that's being fed by the humanity. I somehow doubt it, probably they never really decided what was to be inside the eggs, as the covenant system was kind of rushed.
TheEditedOne Yeah, those eggs were really interesting, some are closed, and others are slit open with blood on the gash, plus it seems the upper body of the fair lady has morphed itself into an egg in DS3.
All the Witch of Izalith wanted was to start her own happy family and this is what she got. What do we learn? Reject traditional concepts of social bonding and embrace video games.
I'm still wondering why there was no upper half in ds3. It probably means nothing but there is still slim hope within me that lack of upper half of fair lady means that Quelana found a way to get her out of spider and corpse we find is actually Eingyi who decided to stay behind and to whom Quelana left her tome as a thanks for taking care of her sister.
The most heart-breaking moment is when she says "Quelaag? Please, sister, do not cry. I am happy, truly. I have you, don't I?". The truth is that the player is the one crying for taking Quelaag away from her TToTT
OH MY GOD
The game literally forces you to kill Quelaag then tries to make you feel bad about it.
@@ENCHANTMEN_ a lot of things in life are unavoidable or inevitable. Lack of player choice in the narrative doesn't take away from the tragedy of it imo. Feels like an old Greek play.
@@ENCHANTMEN_ so you can't feel bad about murdering someone if you were forced to do so?
The tragedy is Quelagg wouldn't have listened had you said you do not wish to fight. She needs the humanity to ease her sister's suffering and with how sick the Pale Lady is she can't defend herself. The Pale Lady only has Quelagg. Which is why it is heart breaking. You can't take Quelagg's place, even if you tried. It is an unavoidable heart ache for all. No one can back down, really. You need a purpose to keep yourself sane. Quelagg needs to protect her sister. The battle was inevitable and meant to show how terribly cruel the world is.
Nothing takes me back to my earliest memories of Dark Souls quite like the Daughter of Chaos soundtrack. It's so heart-wrenching to learn about the Fair Lady and her siblings, especially with Quelana so nearby but unable to bring herself to return.
Wanted to hug all of them after seeing Vaati's video on the lore behind them. Still do, honestly. ❤
Absolutely. Such a deep track.
What kills me is that had Quelaag not been so belligerent and let the player pass, then not only would the Fair Lady have had a pretty good shot at recovering, but demon kind would have had another female capable of giving birth to more demons a la DS3. Their race, and thus their culture, would not have died out, even with the pressure from Irithyll and Carthus.
And the fact you just murdered her only remaining being in the world she can talk to.
@@ClarksonNo1 And we proceed to kill their brother and another supposedly surviving sister
I personally think finding Quelana’s corpse with the Fair Lady’s was tragically beautiful. Despite her cowardice and inability to face what became of her family, she truly did love them, and even if it was only for a short time or even after her death, Quelana was able to be with at least one of her sisters one final time before passing on, and you can see the love in the way she’s huddled up against the spider, as though she were trying to hug or cuddle with it as she’s dying.
It’s such subtle storytelling like that which makes the games so beautiful.
It's possible she died shielding her sister from Sword Master, whom it is implied used the Chaos Blade to slay demons during the Irithyll campaign on the demon ruins. That's why the Witch's Locks exist, because he would have had to have gotten the black hair from Quelana, unlike Fair Lady's pale white hair.
@@Rakshael what the fuck are you talking about
(Hidden in the Archives there's the Pale Lady's white lock, btw...)
Quelana’s corpse is very tragic (though I think calling her a coward a little extreme. she did witness the traumatic event of her family turning into grotesque parasitic monsters, civilized or not.)
I found fair lady’s corpse itself weird after looking at it though. As you can see in the video, it almost looks like her human half was crushed under a rock in a cave in. Which I mean, it could happen. but it seems kinda odd to have a cave in on a character dying of sickness anyway
Why
Finding out that if you get the ring will allow you to actually talk to her and then her mistaking me for her sister that I just fucking murdered was one of the genuine "am I the bad guy" moment I've ever had.
She probably mistaken you for Quelaag because her soul is now part of you.
tbh is self defense
all you were doing was trying to ring the bell, not going to kill quelaag lol
"Am I the bad guy" the answer in the Soulsborne series, sans perhaps DS2, is always 'Yes.'
In DS1, I truly, truly wish there was a way, no matter how painstaking in the end, to at least not have to be part of the active tragedy in everyone around you.
Because that's what the Chosen Undead, what the Ashen One have in common - They bring suffering and misery to the world around them, even if there's not much happiness to go around, they always make it worse.
And well, ain't that just a bitch?
Technically all of dark souls story puts you in the bad guy category :/
Not just quelaag but most of the bosses in dark souls die because they are just in the way not because they did something bad!!
@@JagEterCoola DeS is probably the only time you aren't the bad guy. Boletaria was doomed before you got there. By King Allant and (technically) the Old Monk. Your efforts actually result in saving those that remain.
I think it's most unfortunate that you can only understand her with the Old Witch's Ring which is very hidden so most players won't hear the pain in her voice or that she is blind.
And in DS3 the white hair talisman is made up of the Fair Lady’s hair and bound with the Old Witch’s Ring
I always take the old witch ring as my starting item.
it is hidden some where ?!
@@veilnebula2411 or you choose as a starting gift, or you trade a sunlight maggot to snuggly.
which both are extremely obscure, since the old witch ring among the others gifts seems out of place, and snuggly is another secret that many wont find
@@clairelili873 i do know about snuggly i just dont know what the dang thing wants from me lol
Demons in Dark Souls had some of the worst lot in life. Born from Chaos, hunted by Black Knights, their home locked far below ice. Finally towards the end all that remains are two winged Demons in the collapse of the world and an old king, surrounded by the lifeless piles of his subjects.
Don't forget the wandering stone stray demon whose flame has gone out
@@lordtalo2062 And the fire demon who gets bullied by the mimic and Skeletons
@@lordtalo2062 oh yeah, the strays in general. I do like to think that was a Havel who went to face some dragons, then lost his way back to the brood.
@@agenttex5973 mimics, skeletons, and jolly Onions.
Locked below ice? Do you mean the Ivory King DLC area? I kept thinking there was a detail I missed in DS3. :P
Knowing Dark Souls, I imagine Quelana only found the courage to return to Izalith and reunite with her last remaining sister when it was too late. That's the impression I get from the way Quelana's corpse leans on the Fair Lady, crawled up, like she is filled with sorrow and shame. Beautiful and bleak indeed.
Even so, I like to believe Quelana was able to spend a few minutes with her sister before she passed. Given the nature of the series, is it unlikely? Absolutely. But I prefer to imagine that Quelana had a chance to be with and comfort her sister as she passed, before choosing to curl up beside her and await her own death. It’s a small comfort in a relentlessly tragic story.
@Primedragoon Lol if anything dumb spider witch succumbed to those eggs that was infecting her body. _Demons vanish when slain_ lmfao what a load of crap. See in games with more developed lore - Daedra cannot be slain they are only returned to oblivion. All Dark Souls has is item descriptions. Convoluted and mostly fan made speculation.
@@matguimond92 bro do you not have a life? Lmao
@@luan4753 more of a life than you
Not sure if intentional or just by accident, but the Fair Lady is of the best examples of rewarding kindness in a videogame.
While the covenant rewards by themselves are decent, once you know the story it gives you an interesting setup to pursue. Giving her humanity because you feel sorry, you feel it right, or seek atonement for killing her sister. But at one point it hit me, CS +2 is the only way to save Solaire (excluding tricks).
I love Dark Souls, because character choices aren't based on Bioware logic, and being a cool guy usually gets everyone killed, or worse (Lautrec/ Laurentius/ Siegmeyer), giving it a very grim atmosphere. So the idea of saving your best pal from a frankly horrifying fate, by showing kindness to a monster, atoning for killing her only family, and this happening seamlessly and organically, almost unintentional is absolutely glorious.
It also let's you skip those lava fields full of dragon asses
Honestly, the kindest thing is probably to put her out of her misery.
Also, that humanity comes from somewhere. Kirk invades and kills people to gather humanity for her. That's hardly kind, and you have to kill a lot of things to get 40 humanity.
@@meko98743 I just farmed the rats. The Souls were already being wasted boi.
@@meko98743 mostly rats in a sewer, a bit of jungle work isn't too high a price to pay to be kind
@@meko98743 quantity usage exploit.
"There is only one silver lining to this tale. It's that deep within the long forgotten ruins, past the last surviving offshoots of the demon race and behind an illusory wall lies the corpse of Quelana curled up to the Fair Lady. She finally found the strength to return home."
is her body in the corpse? cause it look like only the spider half is there, would it be too much of a stretch to think her sister might have found a way to heal her and ditch her spider half while leaving the book as a gift for that egg guy who was a pyromancer and that is what we find
@@colorpg152 no.. bodies rot away the demons turn to stone the tome is very possible to be Qulana
@@opticmidnight2629 I mean, if the fair lady was somehow brought back from being a demon then her body would rot too
But it's easier to assume that the human body was Queelana
Why must you hurt me this way. I cried like a little bitch when I watched this Vaati's video the last time and now just reading the line made it all come back.
I'll be honest, Dark Souls' stories never hit me too hard emotionally. I've never been able to get into the "Prepare to Cry" stuff
But when I first found the sisters in the Demon Ruins? I actually teared up. I'm very happy they had that.
Same by me. I only found the twins story sad because i could hear from them directly all their suffering
Same. Some of the other sad stuff while tragic never hit this hard.
@Lujack Shaw Ah, yes. Children in Africa having it worse makes the pain of some first worlder losing his job less real.
Not even Sif? Dude.
@@ninakore sifs story is shit
Others have pointed out that wearing the Witch's Ring makes her talk to you as if you were her sister, who you just killed, but there's also the really sad truth about Kirk as well. He's the only person we know of who is in her covenant, invading worlds and trying to get humanity to heal her, and we kill the guy too, and can wear his Armour. We keep taking away anyone who would be helping her, and this is why I always give her my humanity every playthrough.
What I like best about him is that, despite him helping Quelaan, it’s still ambigious if he really was doing it out of kindness or an ulterior motive. Some people pointed out that Kirk may have discovered the truth about the whole “linking the fire vs don’t” and realized that it didn’t matter which of the two he chose, it ultimately would just perpetrate the cycle. So he may have been helping out a daughter of chaos thinking to himself that it’s at least better to try something new rather than go down a tried and failed path, but ultimately we’ll never truly know.
Gankers get no respect. Kirk should have just grinded rats like the rest of us!
Technically we don't kill him personally, we just beat up his spirit so many times that he gets tilted and ragequits. :p
Kirk is a Darkwraith and he only deals with the Covenant of Chaos because it's convenient. He's a right shit bastard.
@@Valanway he ain't ganking though, invaders are the ones always getting ganked.
Poor Quelaan, she has such a sad backstory but she is still such a sweet, caring person worried about her sister.
I always hoped given her enough humanity would cure her disease 😥
I've heard people call her that before, is that her cannon name?
@@kylebaker5941 I don’t think so. This was a community given name it seems. Combining Quelaag and Quelana to make Quelaan.
@@skhighglitch4217 Not quite. The community looked into DS1's files and found several spellings of Quelana, then mistook one of them for the name of the Fair Lady.
Humanity don't cure the disease, it only lessen the pain for her
@@mrgabest That makes sense. I do kinda like her name being Quelaan though. She was one of my favorites in DS1
the fair lady and eingyi are among my favorites in the series. they're both such nice people in shitty circumstances. props to eingyi for having sterile spider eggs taking up 80% of his body mass and taking it like a champ too
And the way Eingyi tells the player they'll "face his wrath" if they harm the Fair Lady is so pathetic yet so grand. I mean, sure, he wouldn't stand a chance, but you have to admire the raw dedication.
@@TheTopazToad I always admired the little guy and his courage to stand up like this to the god-murdering behemoth that is The Chosen Undead.
I just wish he would become nicer to you after you give enough Humanity to the Lady.
@@zimnylech527 He does give you spells if you get infected at least.
There is a happy part to that story. Not far from her corpse in DS3 there are hatched eggs, suggesting that some of her children were born and maybe survived even longer.
......Happy eh? Well, think of this. Maybe they hatched and like some newborn critters, only knew hunger... and that's why the human bits of the fair lady are missing.
@@thetruemonarch9354 There are two types of people. The ones that try to see something good in a bad situation, and then there is you :P
@@thetruemonarch9354 ;(
@@MyLPMaster001 I knew that reply would get to some people! Myself included. I didn't mean to have that thought, but unfortunately I traffic in Believable Headcanon on my channel, and regrettably what I said isn't exactly an absurd notion...horrifying , but not absurd. FYI I threw up in my mouth a little when I typed it. >_>
@@thetruemonarch9354 Oh, I'm not offended or angry by it. I can also still see something good in that. She sacrificed herself for her children, the continuation of herself, and there is at least a bit of beauty even in that :D
I feel so bad for her. Fromsoft is really good at making tragic characters that is as pure as gold.
At this point tragic backstories lost their impact,what i am saying is that after seeing almost every NPC backstory you stop feeling bad about them because you already know their backstory AND their conclusion.
@@frozenvoltz6739 such is the problem with, well, time.
nowadays, after the souls series has officially finished and years have passed since the latest installment, you can search up any NPC and have a fully detailed guide on their backstory, actions, motivations and eventual end - without even touching any of the games.
back in the ds1 days, forums discussing stuff like this barely existed - it was up to the player to both discover, and make their own judgement about, the characters they found in their playthroughs. which, admittedly, is a lot more 'magical' than watching a 15min video that tells you how you should feel about these characters.
@@we-must-live I am not talking about how easy it is to search the information of an NPC or how hard it is to progress through a questline
I am talking about how repetitive the NPC's questlines have become
-Almost everyone has a sad backstory
-Almost everyone dies in the end(with the exception of Solaire)
Really couldn't Fromsoft bother to make quests different?When you see an NPC with a quest you will know how it will end and how is their backstory very easily.
@@frozenvoltz6739 i mean, it is Dark Souls™ - the entire premise of the series is that you're trying to rekindle the last smidgen of hope in a dying land full of fallen heroes, mindless blights, and incredibly jaded 'good guys'. there can't really be any 'happy endings' in a situation like that, unless you wanna completely shift the tone of the series.
@@frozenvoltz6739 nonsense
The fair lady was one of those characters that really got my attention, she became one of my favorite side stories, and when ds3 released i remember exploring the demon ruins and seeing a familiar shape at the distance, when I finally got closer I immediately recognized her and after picking the item of the person next to her I of course knew it was quelana who passed away right next to her sister.
It's impressive how just two meshes and an item can deliver such a deep storytelling, I love Fromsoftware for stuff like this.
Best girl of the whole series, she helped you save Solaire
I just used poison mist without the shortcut xd
nope. I used toxic mist I didn't waste my time and humanity on this waste of space.
@@matguimond92 Well that's blunt. C'mon, where's the enjoyment in a videogame if you don't let yourself get at least a little bit immersed?
It's funny, the first time I played through the game, I helped her just because I felt bad for her...
I didn't even know Solaire would go mad, if I didn't help her, opened that short cut and killed the maggot...
@@matguimond92 so i threw my time of farming humanity in DLC into trash? Man, if i knew that this sorta thing is possible i would've finished Dark Souls earlier.
people always complain about how bad demon ruins is while i was still busy farming humanity to help ease her pain :'(
I killed rats for hours for her and her pyromancy
I tip my hat to you, my friend. You fought well. If only that was ever enough...
I recently said exactly this, the stories of the Witch of Izalith, her daughters, and her only son Ceaseless, have to be amongst the most, if not _the_ most depressing and horrifying stories from DS1 characters. Destined for years to suffer, either because of their monstrosity, or perhaps due to physical pain and anguish, or maybe suffer because you got away and you feel the guilt of being the only one lucky enough to still remain 'human' (Quelana). All this just because your mother thought she was doing the best for you and your people.
One silver lining is she actually kind of succeeded in her goal. Blight Town and the areas around Blight Town are a hell of a lot nicer in Dark Souls 3 than they were in Dark Souls 1. So much so that another kingdom rose and fell in its very spot.
Plus the fact that Quelana reunited with her. I like imagine her final moments were both peaceful and happy. Not many Souls characters can say the same.
First I'm hearing of this, which area in DS3 is Blight Town
@@coffee7644 Given that Lost Izalith is below Blight Town in 1, and below the Catacombs of Carthus/Farron Swamp in 3, I assume they are basically the same place.
It still sucks, it's Dark Souls, but at least two kingdoms rose in its place. She made the region habitable.
@@TheodoricFriede I honestly still think Farron Keep is Oolaciel but interesting theory nonetheless
I mean ash lake is cool Oh right CARTHUS an entire civilization right next to it.
@@TheodoricFriede nah
I regret absolutely none of the invasions or NPC Dark Handings I committed to heal her.
None.
Going back to 3 and seeing her and Qeulana in the demon ruins was one of the most sad things I've ever seen in a game.
The Fair Lady really sticks out in my mind. I always go out of my way to give her humanity - less so out of guilt for killing Quelaag (it was self-defense, officer!), but more so because it’s one of the few times in the series where I feel like I’m making the world a little bit better rather than just putting it out of its misery.
I’m glad she and Quelana were together in the end. Sometimes, that’s the best you can do.
"Please sister, do not cry. I am happy, really. I have you, don't I?"
Breaks my heart every single time
Always felt bad for Queelan, and demonkind as a whole. Gwyn represents light, the Pigmy dark, Nito death. But Izalith represents life, and to see this life desperately clinging to a small kindle of hope as it gets strangled by the rest of the world. It always saddens me, and makes me wonder how the world would have gone if the Chaos civilization had not been destroyed.
There was no Chaos civilization. The Witch of Izalith was a simply witch of Fire and Light. Had it not been for Gwyn royally screwing things up, she would never have had to create the Chaos Flame in the first place (or, rather, replicate the First Flame, because, well, the accident was never part of the plan). Gwyn was the one to blame for the catastrophe of the Fair Lady's family. And Nito - for her disease, for he was the one who poisoned the citizens of Blighttown.
Demons were nothing but rapacious, savage beasts as disgusting and, well, hellish, as "great" souls (save for the Witch, she actually tried save the life, not her fault that wasn't the way it worked). I frankly don't know why Quelaan and her sisters are even associated with that filth, because Quelaag, for all her sociopathy, never had been seen commanding them.
Even someone as pure and hardly capable of hatred as Quelaan would have been disgusted seeing what she is typically aligned with in other's eyes. Or, probably, feel some compassion for them, because, before taking their ugly shape, demons were simply humanoid citizens of Izalith loyal to the Witch.
i was not prepared for that. sometimes i forget that FromSoft can write amazingly deep and emotional stories with literally two or three models.
The Fair Lady is such a tragic character. I've never once done a run in DS1 where I don't join her covenant and max it out. I have never forgotten the guilt that I felt when I realized that I had killed her sister, the only support she had left.
The thought of poor Quelaag desperately doing everything she can in order to save the only family she has left, damning herself in the process always reminded me of a friend of mine who had to forgo college and perform backbreaking, mind numbing work for long hours because his father had cancer.
That's the major reason why Quelaag's become my favorite lady of the series.
I hope everything worked out to the best it could have for your friend.
Same, I always max out Chaos Servants, even joining the darkwraiths to get the humanity if need be.
I also make it a rule to dislike any video in which our Fair Lady is killed.
Yes, I am her simp. What of it?
@@KFP_Prophet Good thing dislikes basically don't exist anymore
I hope your friend is doing alright.
I've always been a big fan of spiders, but I'm especially fond of the fair lady and Quelag because when I first played DS 1 without a care in the world I decided I wanted the mysterious old ring starting gift which meant I was always able to talk to her and hear her pain.
As someone with a chronic illness (diabetes) I can also relate to the difficult dynamic of the sisters, with one simply trying to provide for her but also survive in such a cruel world.
AWWWWWE BRUH.... I never realized that bit that Quelana finally went back to her sister. That's as heartwarming as it is heart-wrenching ;-;
The one firekeeper soul that is off limits, even for me.
Heh.
I always take it. She's in so much pain that I consider it a coup de grace really.
@@WarhawkLieutenent this comment is ironic for me, when I first learned about the firelink bonfire firekeeper, I thought to myself - legs cut off, tongue cut off, burned, and imprisoned behind those bars? Someone should put her out of her misery, then Lautrec actually did it...
@@joaquinperez4830 i highly doubt her legs are actually supposed to be cut off, more likely they just didnt bother to model them cause she never moves anyway
@@yellowsaurus4895 that's fair, but she's the only human model in the game without legs. They went out of their way to make her unique in that regard. They could've given her legs and easily just say she's paralyzed
@@joaquinperez4830 she's also the only human model who sits in that position and wears a dress. Not bothering to model a body part that cant normally be seen and isnt going to get animated either isn't them "going out of their way" to make her unique, it's time saving.
I mean, for us to even know that her model has no legs requires clipping the camera through the floor, or some other method that isn't normally possible (like viewing her model in cheat engine). The fact that we have to use exploits like that to see should tell you that her lack of legs is something we're not supposed to be aware of in the first place. If her leglessness was intentional, and the devs wanted us to figure that out, dont you think they would've put some kind of hint suggesting as such?
My Beloved.
Edit: One thing people seem to leave out of this tragedy is the heroic selflessness of the Fair lady. Her home was destroyed, her family transformed into part demons. The horror her mother brought upon the world. And rather than running or hiding, she decided to shoulder the weight of everything that had happened to save others from her mother's mistake.
One of my favorite NPCs. I cried when I found her in DS3. I also gave her 99 humanity on my first playthrough in DS1.
I'm curious as to the lack of a human body on the spider corpse in DS3.
It puts into question whether the lootable corpse is actually Quelana or if it is instead Eingyi, who was given the tome by Quelana as she came back to reunite with her sister.
If so, it's probable that Quelana took the Fair Lady's human corpse to give her a proper burial.
With the slim possibility to clutch to in order to avoid depression, being that the Fair Lady was able to be extracted from the spider demon and both her an Quelana managed to live long, happy lives together...
I assumed it was Eingyi too.
Alright, from now on, that is my headcanon, thank you. Quelana came back, saved her sister, the removal of the Fair Lady essentially killed the spider part, turning it to stone and the two sisters left, happy to be reunited, living out their lives as the last remaining members of the family of Izalith.
@@darklord884 yay! Now I can go to sleep not absolutely depressed
@@darklord884
If only there was a slight bit of confirmation to that... 😭
@@Pyberspace
I have a strong feeling Eingyi was the guy down below in the fiery pit, clutching the Fair Lady's hair lock put through the Old Witch's Ring. The White Hair Talisman, I mean.
I never noticed it until now but the Fair lady and Crossbreed Pricilla share alot of themes. Pale girls who take stewardship over those discarded and forgotten, both inhuman and the most humane people we meet.
Time to watch Vaati's Preapre to Cry on this one again, the Daughters of Chaos, which is quite possibly his best video. Also the one that has my saying every time I watch it "I was not prepared."
When I saw that video, I was at the Bed of Chaos. Didn't know if I really wanted to murder her family. I basically wanted to hug everything.
Have you seen the Izalith translated video? That gives further context that makes them not look so great.
This is made even more tragic when you find out there’s cut dialogue of her saying shes getting better until it”Hurts no longer, dear sister.”
We can only hope that Qualana found her sister while she was still alive. ❤
Imagining them huddling together as the monumental fire of Izalith finally burns itself out, both outside and inside themselves, is strangely comforting.
Her story always tears my heart out and rips it to shreds in front of me. I could only bear listening to her voice line once because it broke my heart. despite her being a fictional being her pain is still very real. Her voice actress really did it well.
I always loved the tragic feeling of inevitability in dark souls, as if you're trapped in a fate you want no part of but can't escape. You may not have wanted to take this girls sister from her, but she wanted your humanity and you needed to move forward. There was never another choice.
Killing her in my first playthrough made me feel more terrible than almost anything else I,ve done in the whole game
It's really sad
But probably better for her than to live completely alone and maybe don't knowing it
I always saw her like a dying animal or someone in a very deep and long vegetative state. It would be even more cruel to not put her out of her extended torment and misery, especially since everything she was trying to protect is far too long gone to save or to help, and everyone that assisted her are either dead or gone, or soon to be dead and gone, like Kirk, her sisters, her brother, the denizens of Blighttown, et cetera. If we weren't forced to kill her sister then I would feel bad, but she refused or didn't even try to talk or even hesitate before initiating combat ahead of our goal, so she had to die.
I always killed her
Sometimes death is a mercy
@@fabi3790 This is assuming that you're going for the fire ending, though.
It’s almost like Fromsoft guilts you into joining her covenant after you kill the ones caring for her then find out she’s a fire keeper who gave her health to save her people.
The whole Izalith/Bed of Chaos story is so sad and the interesting despite the fact they botched the design of certain aspects.
and there is another tragedy, they were forced to rush development of izalith so you could say that even their home was stricken
Eh, the way I see it, any guilt the player feels is self inflicted. From isn't doing anything different here.
I truly love their story and beautiful sadness with which it ended. Even drew art with her and Quelana at the recent soultober. Thanks for highlighting it one more time!
I just read a beautifull short manga about her knight, Kirk, the other day, its called "Thorns of Hate".
An additional tiny bit of beautifull tragedy to the story of the Fair Lady told from the perspective of her most devout warrior, I reccomend it to anyone here with a handfull of minutes to spare.
We really are a peace of shit aren't we?
Killing her sister who protects her.
Killing her Family
And preventing 3 of kirks invasions which leads to him hollowing
Place where i could read it?
@@agustinexposito9123 What is Google? Seriously, it's the second result. This is not rocket science.
What do you mean "Most devout"???? Don't disrespect my man Eingyi like this bro.
@@Pulich07 I wouldnt call him a warrior tho
Thanks for this Zullie. What got me to try dark souls was actually a fanart of the fair lady, after that in every playtrough no matter what I didn't even try joining another covenant. A chaos servant through and through. There is just something so mowing about a story that doesn't try extremely hard to be sad, yet it is
She hears footfalls approaching, and turns her head to the sound, a wan smile greeting her visitor.
"Sister, Quelaag, is that you? I'm so glad. Come, rest by my fire. I've kept it warm for you." The Fair Lady welcomes her guest, trying to point to the bonfire with a quivering forleg, which fails to move as desired.
"No, it is not Quelaag. But Sister, yes." Regret and hesitancy is heard in the beautiful voice The Fair Lady hasn't heard in untold years.
She claps her hands excitedly, her spiders legs kicking and shaking in glee.
"QUELANA! Sister long lost! Come to me let me hold you! Joy of joys you've come home!"
Quelana of Izalith stood but a moment in shock of the unhesitancy of her sisters welcome, and rushed to her.
The Fair Lady took her in her arms and cradled her suddenly weeping Sister of Chaos.
"Do not cry, my Sister. Soon we can be with Mother and the others again."
Quelana had heard of her sisters state from the Chosen Undead who had been through here to ring the Bell of Awakening, and eventually linked the First Flame. They had mentioned that The Fair Lady seemed unaware of reality, absent of mind and perception.
Quelana now knew that was a misunderstanding. Her Fair Sister knew very well the tragedies that had fallen, knew what must have happened to Quelaag for the Chosen to have visited her, but in her infinitely loving heart she had not held bitterness.
Quelana had to confess. She told her sister of the tasks she had sent the Chosen Undead to do. The fate of their sisters, brother, and mother.
"Yes." The Fair Lady said, as if discussing the weather. "So we may see them again when the fire fades, and all are brought together in stone and dark. Do not hate yourself, Quelana, you did as you felt right to do. Now we are together, and everything is as right as can be. Feel the warmth of my fire? Sister, it burns for thee."
Quelana looked towards the barely smoldering bonfire, reflecting its Keeper's ability to sustain it. It was growing cold, and The Fair Lady was becoming still.
"Yes, Sister. You were always the most wonderful Fire Keeper. Mother was, is, so proud. As am I."
Quelana huddled close and embraced her sister, never to leave her side again. Together they welcomed the end, and the cavern of the Fair Lady became a cold, dark, and very gentle place.
Amazing, from now on this is my headcanon as to how they reunited and spended their last moments
That sounds autistic
and then everyone on the bus clapped
Not only did she get me sad in OG DS, but when I found her and Quelana's corpses in DS3, I legit got micro-depression.
When I had my first playthough of DS1 I had never felt such a rending feeling for a character such as her. I didn’t understand the story as I do today but her few lines made me understand a lot about her. Her thinking we were her sister we just killed, then due to our guilt or mercy, we take up her sister’s role, providing humanities to her to ease her suffering. Then years later I see her and her sister(how could I forget since my first class in both games were a pyromancer) dead at the end of the hallway, I literally started crying. A lot of Dark Souls’ character stories are tragic, but the Fair Lady’s story hits harder than any of the other stories.
It seems that the 'Ladies of White' suffer quite a bit within the soulsborne games:
Quelanna - sickly and dying, whom only tried to help.
Priscilla - ostracized and locked away, simply because she existed.
Firekeeper - blinded and body writhing with untold amount of Humanity.
Doll - only semi-living within a dream of an old man's unrequited desires.
Maria - overwhelmed by guilt of her own and fellow hunter's actions against the fishing village.
Ciaran - forever friendzoned.
Mildred - doomed to eternally tank lava pools for the people that killed her 5 minutes ago.
Rhea - Burdened with her family's name and duty, betrayed by her guardian, left to die on a pitch black pit with only the hollow husks of her comrades to keep her company. Saved by a fated encounter, only to be later assasinated in cold blood or inprisoned and experimented on.
That probably doesn't bode well for Melina in Elden Ring, then.
I'm a complete and total monster...The first time I played Dark Souls, I killed the Fair Lady before the end. It was calculated because I felt that she wouldn't survive even with the Humanity I had given her...And knowing her eventual fate is to burn out and petrify, possibly all alone because we don't know if Quelana reunited with her first, or found her petrified body later and died beside it out of grief, I wonder if...Maybe it was the kinder fate? I still tear up thinking about it, though. Eignyi's heart-wrenching scream of horror as he crawled towards me to avenge his mistress struck me harder than anything else in the entire franchise. Apart from Ludleth and Gerhman's nightmares (old-age characters full of regret REALLY get to me in ways nearly no other trope does, and both of these poor boys have regret and guilt aplenty).
He called me a monster, and I suppose I am.
The worse thing being, until you discover the truth, its too late. your character is most of the time just defending himself, trying to not get killed in a almost complete hostile world. and when we found that, it was by our hand that not only the fair lady, but the entire demon race died out... thats when eignyi seems to be completely right about us being monsters.
because in a vain quest to let the golden age not die, we became reapers of most of the little hope that world knew.
I gave her so much humanity in the hopes of making her better. I remember reading online rumors about being able to cure her. 😢
The only actual tearjerker of a story in all of the soulsborne franchise...Man i just wanted her to be healthy and happy. I sacrificed 100 humanity to her right before i finished DS1.
Dark souls is a story telling masterpiece. With everything you do and see having a deep intricate background that is harrowing at one half and somber on the other. From Soft is likely just objectively the best company.
I consider them god tier. Essentially, they’re a 10/10 company. If I could rate the company higher, they would go beyond a 10.
Aah, yes, the story of the Chaos witches.The soulsborne universe is just full of tragic stories, like the deeply tragic story of Vendrick, Ostrava's quest, Anri and Horace, the whole deal with Oceiros, etc... But nothing ever hit me as hard as Gascoigne's family did. The day I "completed" that quest, was definitely my saddest day in video games.
Do that questline once and never again. Even fromsoftware makes the reward so miniscule, that it's very skippable, which probably everyone does. Truly horrowing. No silverlining, just pure bleakness.
Each time, you think it can't get any worse, but then it gets worse.
@@Mia_2512 Heh, nice one
Isn’t there also a way for the Gascoignes daughter to die while trying to get to her father or something? I remember that in one play through the window was empty and I found the music box I think inside the big boat in the sewers that lead to Gascoigne wich indicates that the girl tried to take the same rout but was eaten by the boar.
I actually never really payed attention to Bloodbornes story because it was so confusing. But I did notice that wich left me feeling very sad. Poor little girl.
if you want a slightly happier interpretation, the fact her upper half is missing could imply she separated from it(or perhaps molted) leaving behind the spider body which seems to basically already be dead and possibly getting a better life
I woud guess, knowing the deviousness of Dark Souls' universe, that Quelana found her sister only after Fair Lady already died, and simply died then and there herself, mourning her sister and blaming herself for not coming sooner.
After learning what the ring does in DS, every play through after that I only took witches ring. She’s such a beautiful and tragic character, one of my favourite souls stories.
Dark Souls is probably the most tragic game of the whole trilogy . No matter what you try to do...by the end of it you are powerless to save anyone ( Solaire being an exception through rather intricate means ) .
The crestfallen warrior slowly goes hollow ,
Petrus's companions meet their end in the catacombs ,
Reah by going mad in the duke's archives ,
Griggs' in Sen's fortress while looking for Logan ,
Logan goes crazy by studying Seath's books ,
Laurentius goes hollow looking for pyromancies in the Great Swamp ,
Quelana dies protecting her last living sister ,
The Fair Lady without knowing what happened to Quelaag ,
Solaire by finding a fake sun ,
Siegmeyer pushes himself too far while looking to save his daughter ,
The giant Blacksmith probably gets killed by Aldrich or by Sulyvahn's men ,
The Darkmoon Knightess will disappear and leave her armor behind ,
Shiva might go mad looking for a cursed blade...only to be killed by the person he stole it from in return ,
Lautrec will receive the right punishment for his crimes .
I have never used a humanity in DS1 after joining her covenant, glad that other chosen undeads here feel the same
Killing the bed of chaos just made me feel sad in the later games. You can tell that they’re dying out as in ds2, I believe that the covetous demon is the only demon boss in the game. In ds3, you return to their birthplace and find that almost everything is dead, corpses lining the area, as their source of life is now gone. In fact, some ghrus have made home in the area, most likely because the only other living species in the DR are the demon’s, which are going extinct. In the dlc, you kill off the last shred of demon life, in the old firelink shrine. It amazes me how fromsoft does this, making you feel horrible for straight up becoming the doomslayer.
yeah, I forget who it was but someone said this thing about pitying people who've slain all their enemies...
Sadness it the only thing i always fell around her, but when i get the old witch ring, it was nice to finally understand her and fill like i was making her a little happy :')
I felt sorry for her towards the end of my first play through, I decided to end her suffering so that she may know peace before beginning the next cycle. Hearing her in that sad weakened state was just so hard to bare.
Now I feel shit for killing her and taking the firekeeper soul, thank you Zullie.
Yeah thats the game
Regardless of what you do, you probably feel like shit eventually
I shed a few tears when I found that lifeless shell, but the book really made it hit harder.
That reminds me,
I'd like one video about exactly what is Micolash's relevance to bloodborne. The more I play, the more I feel like he's responsible for half the events in the present of the game. It really feels like he has some control to the witches of Hemwick and the snatchers. He definitely has his role in the one reborn and the last phase of the game. I believe he also has some responsability with Arianna's offspring (my crazy theory is that he managed to be reborn as a monster, since his death is the trigger for this monster's birth. It feels like he could do just that). By all means, I feel like he has enough material to be the main antagonist. And yet he dies the first time we meet him. It also makes me wonder if he ever had more of a role.
I also feel like his fight should have been way more massive. It starts feeling like a maze where you'll have to catch and kill him while he teleports in mirrors and beneath skeletons and then it's just two halls
The fair lady and all of those poor mushroom sprites both stuck a chord in me in DS3. Along with the giant blacksmith.
What smoking the chaos flame pack does to a woman
Didn't think I'd be tearing up before 8am. Truly special.
Man, this family is the one I truly feels like I wanna save them. The fact that we are pretty much forced to kill Quelaag is just make this worse.
Fun fact: that wasn't always going to be the case. Quelaag actually has dialogue in the files where you could speak with her. Meaning you may never have had to kill her at all.
And that children, is why you shouldn't play with fire.
Thank you for another great video, Zullie. You provide a great service, and I get to learn more about my favorite series almost everyday.
When I played ds1 and found her by accident I had 2 different feelings despite knowing what I did on both occassions:
I let her be but felt terrible knowing I've killed her loved one and after seeing the lore I found the situation as tragic as I had to kill her sister regardless of knowledge....so I joined her covenant and kindled the flame
In another playthrough I thought it would be the most less painful route so I decided to kill her to end the suffering, but despite I did that I didnt know about her taking the disease from Blighttown despite the area being already awful it could've gotten even worse if she didnt take the other disease.
It's good to know there was some form of closure in 3 but it doesnt get any better....its like warhammer 40k its alway grimdark.....like the Entire story of the Lamenters Chapter
May my last humanity sprite always be for thee My Lady
O, our fair lady...
being nice got her longer then she should have be able to survive. in the horrors that dark souls has to offer, the kindness of many kept her going and gave many people purpose. while certainly bleak she in a way probably made demons of the later find a new resolve to keep going and make new flames as time changed, as hard as that might be.
I always thought that quelana finally reunited with the fair lady only to find her corpse then took her own life out of guilt for not finding her sooner, very sad characters
It's more likely, due to the existance of the Witch's Locks, that Quelana died trying to protect and shield the Fair Lady from Sword Master, who used the Chaos Blade.
@@Rakshael where did you get that from?
nothing takes me back quite like finding the fair lady and her families story way back in DS1. that was when i really started falling in love with this series
The Fair Lady and Kirk's entangled story has to be the saddest tale in Souls. Utilizing both obscure methods, piecing together visual context, and the way so much is delivered through small paragraphs of item descriptions. Piecing together the story of a suffering sister and the initially villainous man who tried to help her.
And while I do like that they gave a big of closure for her in DS3, that they brought Kirk back as well always annoyed him. DS3 has a lot of, "Hey guys, reference!!" moments in it, most to the game's detriment, but Kirk showing up for no reason as they tried to recreate his story felt tasteless toward what they had crafted before.
Makes sense, why the hell is he still Alive? And why? He has no reason, his lady is... Dead
While i like the Catharina knight story, I don't like his personality and name are so similar to Siegmeyer. DS 3 has more fan service than story for many of it's characters
@@felipecosta-kv2fx Considering that DS3 and DS2 take place more or less at the same time, just in different places of the world, and both take place long after DS1, I think it's pretty obvious DS3's Kirk isn't the same person as DS1's Kirk. More likely a follower of his legend that took his armour, weapons and name and found a similar cause.
@@yusukeelric Miyazaki was probably tired of making sequel of DkS which explained why there are suddenly so many new yet rough ideas added and complicated a well-established setting in the original DkS. DkS3 was just a dumping ground of abandoned concepts and a mean to satisfy demands from fans with tons of fan services.
I'm sure he wanted to do new things, the meaning behind the Painting from the DLC explained it all.
@@apophisstr6719 I really personally dont feel like that. altho I can agree that it might have had a meta meaning of the world being tired after the sequels and needing to end finally. I think reducing the callbacks to just fan service for the sake of it is ignoring the story and lore of the whole thing and how important said callbacks are to it.
the entirety of the game including the DLCs to me are about how this world has run its course and is continuing its existence way beyond what it was intended to take. and every thing from the chaos fire running out, the demons dying , the previously shining anor londo having become a cold frigid place, the last heir of the gods being eaten up by a slime. and much more are all very much in line with the entire message and story of the third game. and the dreg heap is the final part of it all, to see that there is no more place for this world to go, its time to let it go and make a new world.
I didn’t know about her showing up in Dark Souls III, that’s really neat (but also sad)
Great video! I have a question about helping her.
It is possible to give to the lady of humanity in order to "heal" her.
The improvement of her health condition is visible (very slightly) on her human body.
Is it the same on her spider body?
The reveal of Quelana and the Fair Lady's fate in DS3 reminds me of another reveal in that game: Lucatiel's Mask. It's description basically confirms that the Bearer of the Curse did the last thing she asked of them: remembering her name. Both stories end tragically, but have that tiny bit of happiness added to them with these reveals.
I always wondered why only Quelag and the fair lady were the only two of the Witches daughters to get "spiderfied" after the demons were unleashed.
Not all of them chose to become demons. In Hawkshaw's video he does an amazing job of showing how the flame of Chaos was not uncontrolled at first, and that becoming a grotesque nude monster was a choice that some chose and some did not. The unnamed sister guarding the entrance to Bed of Chaos is in her right mind and uses advanced pyromancies showing she too is a daughter of the Witch. Same for Quelana who ultimately causes the Fair Lady's illness- she rejects the transformations because it is not forced.
@@Rakshael Now where is that stated in the game? If that were the case, you'd think more would choose *not* to become disgusting, pain-ridden monsters, like Ceaseless, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
@@Valanway it's not stated- it's shown by the fact that there's two, possibly three depending on interpretation, sisters who are untransformed humans around
@@Rakshael She's also shown stating during her questline that she got out before her (bug) mommy and the flame made things even worse because she knew shit was not good. She literally says the chaos flame got her mom and sister and turned them into monsters against their will really fast and are all in anguish and in a thousand years of torment, which doesn't sound like something someone would voluntarily want, especially since the fact the flame going out of control was *not* the goal.
Besides, the other sister by Ceaseless could have very easily died before she would change, and as we all know, they're not humans, so the undead curse and dark sign are not likely something that affects them the same way.
@@Valanway Well truthfully if you watch Quelaag she embraces her spider half. She caresses it in the cutscene and during battle she both rubs it and hugs it. Someone horrified by their existence wouldn't do that. The demons had an entire language and culture evident on the pyromancer's rags, any of the Bed of Chaos spells, and some other places. They weren't keen on losing any of their culture because the Chaos Flame was a part of them and they liked it. The Demon Firesage's existence explicitly shows they have a religious and social hierarchy based around worship of the Chaos Flame that made them all that way. You don't worship something you despise and fear.
Furthermore- Quelana can't be trusted as a source of information. She is the one who sent Eingyi to go infect Blighttown and her sisters, and if you talk to her she tells you to go kill her mother and sisters, which is FAR from normal or okay when they themselves don't wish that. Quelaag isn't suffering, plain and simple. Fair Lady wasn't suffering until she absorbed blightpus. Witch of Izalith is only depressed because King Jeremiah cheated on her (see: Demon Prince in Blighttown and "King" Jeremiah's headpiece looking identical as chaos bug/parasite growth, as well as his hat exchanging at the Crow's nest for a Ring of Favor) and ran off with another goddess. In fact by DS3 we see Quelana repents and goes back to her sister and dies trying to save her, instead of kill her. DS1 Quelana is unequivocally and unarguably in the wrong, both from our outside moral perspective, and from the moral perspective of the characters in the Dark Souls universe, including eventually herself.
In addition, Berserk (which Dark Souls takes HEAVY inspiration from) has a race of demons which are people who look monstrous, but all CHOSE to become that way to gain power and join that society. Watch Hawkshaw's vid on it, he really does a good job of elaborating further.
There’s something about tragedy that if done right, can be beautiful beyond words…
We may talk about Izalith and her daughters, which suffered from a desperate choice.
We may talk about Aldia, who dedicated his studies, life, and learning, just to accept his hate for an old sin.
We may talk about Artorias, a man who tried to believe that something could be done for everyone's sake, only to lose himself, protecting something precious.
We may talk about Gael, and how the fight with him is nothing but a representation of the human condition, where in the end our struggle with fate is nearly useless, since our mistakes are the roots of nowadays life.
Or... we can talk about Gwyn. The god, the sunlight. The creator of all, yet the one who decided to burn this beautiful world just for his pride, his selfishness... and fear of the darkness. The darkness, the core of humanity. That one thing that Gwyn himself was not able to accept. The end of all, of light, of LIFE. Mankind can't stand death, WE can't stand death. As much as Gwyn couldn't. So he morphed the world, destroyed it, as much as we are doing.
Gwyn came back as the Soul of Cinder, but in the end, nothing changed. Not him, not his ideals, not the world.
We can talk about everything. Dark Souls remains a life lesson, no matter what.
The world before Gwyn was not "beautiful" not by modern human standards, that is.
@@jacksonpeds5298 No, it wasn't. But then the fire made it as such. Gwyn created everything on it, but when he had to accept that everything has and end, he couldn't. He then destroyed it.
The worst part for me is to find out we are directly responsible for most of the tragedies in these games and usually only found out after the fact, then are helpless to do anything. The best course of action is usually to leave them alone and never progress their quest.
At least the sisters can see each other one last time before the fire fade.
Fr the saddest character I've seen in the series
The flow of time is convoluted. There are undoubtedly timelines where our Fair Lady did not meet such an unfortunate fate.
Don´t ever buy no blightpus from no gas station man
Her story is so tragic that even a dark wraith like Kirk finds purpose in helping her, despite her not even knowing who he is.
I am a perpetual Chaos Servant. Her sacrifice must be honoured!
Dang, an extra dose of sadness & sorrow was definitely not what I needed at the moment.
Maybe the upper part of the Fair Lady missing means that their demonic transformation is more of a symbiotic relationship (also seen in how Quelaag pets her spider half), the demonic spider turned into stone while the upper part of the Fair Lady decomposed eventually, anyways, one of the saddest stories out there, even if seeing Quelana and the Fair Lady reunited, it still feels so incredibly dark
Well Quelana did not decompose. I assume she/her corpse was crushed by a stone.
@@18Krieger yeah that's also valid, corpses often stay put when miyazaki needs them lol
If you look closely, it seems the upper body has morphed into an egg.
Deep down... everyone of us is kirk...
if you don't know the lore, he was a darkwraith then he found her and dedicated his life to her.
Why, that's an awesome overview for this model!! Can't wait for that Grafted Scion video! GJ GJ GJ
It's good that we were all nice to her sister and didn't do anything bad!
The souls series truly special, not just for its "difficulty", which I'm afraid is honestly toxically exaggerated, and seves to gatekeep the community away from a touching and tragic collection of stories.
The souls series is LITTERED with moments that have made me burst into tears. DS3s moment where you find The Fair Lady's burnt husk of a corpse was one for me that I couldn't ever not cry around. Every time I found her it reminds me that we failed to save her, but it was someone on another comment here that pointed out that you can only save solaire with CS+2, which I did, but forgot the connection entirely. So thank you for the video, and thank you for revealing these things that would otherwise go unnoticed. Truly you're a gem of the souls community Zulie.
And thank you to the other fans and other commentors as well. Now I know it wasn't all for nothing.
Interesting that some of the spider legs were tied to, and coming out of, the egg models. I wonder if that means that there is something spider-like within the eggs that's being fed by the humanity. I somehow doubt it, probably they never really decided what was to be inside the eggs, as the covenant system was kind of rushed.
TheEditedOne
Yeah, those eggs were really interesting, some are closed, and others are slit open with blood on the gash, plus it seems the upper body of the fair lady has morphed itself into an egg in DS3.
In ds3, some of her eggs are open. it is a possibility that there are fair lady children somewhere in the world, but one can just wonder
@@clairelili873 Maybe that's where the crabs come from!!!!
After so many years and after so many channels, you still discover oddities from DS
Sad that yourself hasn’t been more elaborated by the devs :(
All the Witch of Izalith wanted was to start her own happy family and this is what she got. What do we learn? Reject traditional concepts of social bonding and embrace video games.
They put even so much details in things you cannot see as a normal player
I'm still wondering why there was no upper half in ds3. It probably means nothing but there is still slim hope within me that lack of upper half of fair lady means that Quelana found a way to get her out of spider and corpse we find is actually Eingyi who decided to stay behind and to whom Quelana left her tome as a thanks for taking care of her sister.
I like to believe in some convoluted way Kirk is still feeding her the humanity of new players..