*Many monarchs have come and gone. One drowned in poison, another succumbed to flame. Still another slumbers in a realm of ice. Not one of them stood here, as you do now. You, conqueror of adversities. Give us your answer."*-Aldia
"There is no path. Beyond the scope of light, beyond the reach of Dark... ...what could possibly await us? And yet, we seek it, insatiably... Such is our fate." Man, aldia will forever be my favorite dark souls character hand down, along with pontiff sulyvahn. Honestly aldia is such an inspiration in my own writing. Great work Tristan!
Okay I don't know if this is the right place to talk about this, but I want to make an analysis on the line "Men are props on the stage of life, and no matter how tender, how exquisite... A lie will remain a lie." Aldia tells us: "Once, the Lord of Light banished Dark, and all that stemmed from humanity. And men assumed a fleeting form. These are the roots of our world." He is talking about how Gwyn cursed humanity with the darksign. The true shape of humanity is being an immortal hollow, while the "fleeting form" is the mortal humanity as we know it. Vendrick further emphasizes this when he says "One day, fire will fade, and Dark will become a curse. Men will be free from death, left to wander eternally." Gwyn cursed humans with mortality. And in such, he gave life 'Light'. Knowing this, we can dissect what Aldia said. Men are props, temporary and false things. The stage of life represents the theater play that is bound to end one day. Aldia says "Life is brilliant. Beautiful. It enchants us, to the point of obsession." because we are entranced by that play even though we know it has no deeper meaning. Life itself has no meaning, that is what he is trying to say. No matter how beautiful life is, a lie will remain a lie. Desire leads to suffering and to desire is to live, such is that living is suffering itself. The Throne of Want as a whole is a metaphor to this fact. Without life, without want, there is no suffering, no such thing as pain. This is the true form of life reffered to as 'Dark'. "Knowing this, do you still desire peace?" So as the most introspective souls game, in the end, this is about you. What moves you forward? What makes you enjoy the play, knowing it's a lie, it's tainted by tragedy and will end soon? "What is it that drives you?" Life is meaningless. To desire is to suffer. Men are nothing more than lies. But are we going to accept that? Are we really going to "bury the false legends of yore… Only… Is this our only choice?" A path beyond the scope of Light, beyond the reach of Dark does not exist. "And yet, we seek it, insatiably... Such is our fate."
Gwyn actually cursed humans with immortality (aka the Curse of Undeath) creating the Darksign and linking their humanity to the bonfires, forcing them to revive and keep feeding the First Flame. The "lie" here is the cycle, it was not meant to be this way. The Flame was meant to fully exstinguish, which it now can no longer do because of Gwyn's sacrifice, and humanity, an able-to-normally-die humanity, was meant to rule the world once the Gods had hollowed and left. Life during the Age of Fire is beautiful, it's warm, it's safe, yet it is a twisted Age of Fire which relies upon the sacrifice of Undead (and prior to that their persecution and even torture) and it, again, is a lie as it was not what life was meant to be, the "illusion of life" is exactly that, but what can Men do if not believe such illusion? It's the only way they have left to live. Gwyn forever took away a true Age of Dark, a true life. That is perhaps until the Lord of Hollows ending, where the player does what Nashandra intended to do in Ds2 (hopefully with better intent) and takes the First Flame for themselves, perhaps undoing the Darksign and letting humans die in peace and get their well deserved Age.
I honestly dont like this nihilistic conclusion that seems to be the most canon likely. Id rather believe in a sad end rather than a pointless end. I believe that while aldia talks about man being props in life, he means that we have empty lives, not amounting to anything than appreciating the beauty of life. When gwyn realised that his age of light was fading, rather than accepting to give the era to a less capable and ugly, immortal population, he decided to link them to die “normally” and further continue the light. In theory, this would bring more meaning to life and continue the beauty of the light age, and it would make gwyn feel like he’s saved the generations to come, so he made a first, cardinal sin. Of course, this unnatural beauty would haunt the people in due time, as nature doesnt like to be meddled with. Because the humans were not supposed to die in the first place, when the effect of fire -which brought peaceful death upon the humans- has dimmed back to darkness, the immortality came back and met with the death that was unnaturally granted. This has caused the hollowing, and degraded the age of the dark. The people who were unaware of their situation believed the immortality to be an unnatural curse, brought by the dimming of the fire, so they sought to burn it bright again, hence starting the cycle. Through every loop, countless bodies would die and be brought back again, worsening their hollow souls, and for every cycle passed, the age of dark turns into an even more unliveable disaster. If you choose to rekindle the fire, you worsen the state of the hollowing, the more bodies that were alive, the more undead who lack their humanity, but even so, the humans can see the beautiful lie of the age of the fire again… Until the fire gets cold again. If you choose to let the fire burn out, it doesnt change the fact that you are linked to the fire, so you will now live through an age where the newborn humans are naturally immortal, but the hollow immortals are a massive threat. It’s only a matter of time until another fool hero rekindles the fire and ’saves’ his people. If by some chance, you find a way to break the link between the humans and the fire, then perhaps there is an end where you repair the hollow. But until then, good luck with the problems that have been gathering through unknown generations. Those shitty, greedy idealist gwyn and the following fire symphatizers dug you in a grave so foul, you might never know the beauty of the original dark age.
My headcanon is all that above. It feels better (imo) to think that the peace of our generation was in fact stolen from us, rather than the disgusting hollow immortal humanity being the intended reality, which we are supposed to accept but we cant and thats why we keep rekindling. Because if so, then I would 100% support gwyn, hell no to hollowification, and Aldia’d been my enemy in that world for forcing the narrative that death is a lie.
@@123deserted I don't think it's a nihilistic ending at all, if anything, it's the most hopeful ending dark souls could have. The path of which is beyond the scope of light and the reach of dark is futile to thread for there is nothing to be found at the end of it. But life is not about the destination, it's about the journey. If you think about it, the reason why our character at the end of the game does not hollow is because we embody what Vendrick said: "Seek strength, the rest will follow." We as a character learn to find meaning in facing adversity and by doing so we become one step closer to reach that impossible destination beyond Light and Dark. That way we don't go hollow, that is, we don't lose meaning. The very act of struggling becomes the means by which we can oppose Light and Dark and since there is no end to that path there is no ending to the meaning of life. It's a similar concept to what Camus described as "One must imagine Sysiphus happy." So by embracing the act of pursuing that path, what Aldia calls "our fate" we are already defying the structures of the world, the yoke that binds us. About Gwyn, we know he is not good nor evil. So maybe inside of him he truly believed he was doing what would be best for the majority of people when he did the first sin.
@@Shaniver Thank you for taking time to reply, however I am now more confused, so I'd like to ask for clarity on some points, feel free to ignore my comment if you just aren't interested in wasting too much time on a yt comment, I'd understand. You've said "Gwyn cursed humans with mortality.", this assumption is a fact of dark souls series, no problem here, but when you say, "Desire leads to suffering and to desire is to live, such is that living is suffering itself. The Throne of Want as a whole is a metaphor to this fact. Without life, without want, there is no suffering, no such thing as pain. This is the true form of life reffered to as 'Dark'.", do you imply that the true form of humans (for dark souls) were supposed to be immortal, desireless people, who were never intended to have desire until gwyn gave it to them? I think this is an assumption without too much weight, but it can still be right idk. Because then it would be nihilistic in what I wanted to point out, even if in the end we can have a conclusion that is stoic, I don't like the idea of humanity's original self being with no desire, since it is a pretty boring and uninteresting concept in my honest opinion. (I might be wrong with the usage of words here, I could be saying nihilism when I mean something else, so please try your best to read what I mean using the whole picture I'm painting rather than focusing on certain wrong words I use, feel free to point them out though, so I can improve my writing, English isn't my first language) It's uninteresting to me because - I would always support gwyn on giving humans desire and mortality even if it was a lie - it would mean Aldia is just upset that gwyn set up a lie -The whole reason of the massive events, the tragedies of the dark souls franchise was because "humans were originally supposed to be hollows", which decreases the impact of the meaning behind the series, because real life has this already, I like to look at fantasy series for unique and creative stories, not repetition of real life. I realise that I automatically assumed being hollow is a bad thing, but even if the message here was that "hollowing is natural, and the way of life suggests we only fear it because we are afraid of the change", the message would be weak. I think I can even argue the claim's integrity, but my main point is that I'd rather believe that gwyn was a greedy fool rather than a stoic gray figure. I'm sure I missed out on some things, but I tried my best to minimize the word amount after writing, so sorry for the wall of text
Vendrick, King of Drangleic the Old King of Want and Lord Aldia, The Scholar of The First Sin These two characters are among the rare game characters that influence my perspective on life. "Seek Strength....the rest will follow"
This is beautiful. Would it be alright if I used this in an Aldia tribute video with full credit to you? (with your name/link on screen and in description) :)
Young hollow, how you grapple, without falter, with this dreadfully twisted world. Peace grants men the illusion of life, shackled by falsehoods, they yearn for love, unaware of its grand illusion. Until, the curse touches their flesh, we are bound by this yoke, as true as the Dark that churns within men. All men trust fully the illusion of life, but is this so wrong? A construction, a facade, and yet…a world full of warmth and resplendence. Young Hollow, are you intent on shattering the yoke, spoiling this wonderful falsehood? *What do you want, truly? Light? Dark? Or something else entirely...*
*Many monarchs have come and gone. One drowned in poison, another succumbed to flame. Still another slumbers in a realm of ice. Not one of them stood here, as you do now. You, conqueror of adversities. Give us your answer."*-Aldia
I am Aldia. I sought to shatter the yoke of fate, but failed. Now, I only await an answer.
@@Dev_Six The throne will certainly receive you. But the question remains, what do you want, truly? Light? Dark? Or something else entirely?
This goes so hard it's gonna motivate Aldia to study all the way up to the fifth sin.
Are you the man on tiktok spanish thing no ?
@@nihil7655 LMAO I AM
@@grassblock7668 😭😭
"There is no path.
Beyond the scope of light, beyond the reach of Dark...
...what could possibly await us?
And yet, we seek it, insatiably...
Such is our fate."
Man, aldia will forever be my favorite dark souls character hand down, along with pontiff sulyvahn. Honestly aldia is such an inspiration in my own writing. Great work Tristan!
Okay I don't know if this is the right place to talk about this, but I want to make an analysis on the line "Men are props on the stage of life, and no matter how tender, how exquisite... A lie will remain a lie."
Aldia tells us: "Once, the Lord of Light banished Dark, and all that stemmed from humanity. And men assumed a fleeting form. These are the roots of our world."
He is talking about how Gwyn cursed humanity with the darksign. The true shape of humanity is being an immortal hollow, while the "fleeting form" is the mortal humanity as we know it. Vendrick further emphasizes this when he says "One day, fire will fade, and Dark will become a curse. Men will be free from death, left to wander eternally." Gwyn cursed humans with mortality. And in such, he gave life 'Light'.
Knowing this, we can dissect what Aldia said.
Men are props, temporary and false things. The stage of life represents the theater play that is bound to end one day. Aldia says "Life is brilliant. Beautiful. It enchants us, to the point of obsession." because we are entranced by that play even though we know it has no deeper meaning. Life itself has no meaning, that is what he is trying to say. No matter how beautiful life is, a lie will remain a lie.
Desire leads to suffering and to desire is to live, such is that living is suffering itself. The Throne of Want as a whole is a metaphor to this fact. Without life, without want, there is no suffering, no such thing as pain. This is the true form of life reffered to as 'Dark'.
"Knowing this, do you still desire peace?"
So as the most introspective souls game, in the end, this is about you. What moves you forward? What makes you enjoy the play, knowing it's a lie, it's tainted by tragedy and will end soon? "What is it that drives you?"
Life is meaningless. To desire is to suffer. Men are nothing more than lies. But are we going to accept that? Are we really going to "bury the false legends of yore… Only… Is this our only choice?"
A path beyond the scope of Light, beyond the reach of Dark does not exist. "And yet, we seek it, insatiably... Such is our fate."
Gwyn actually cursed humans with immortality (aka the Curse of Undeath) creating the Darksign and linking their humanity to the bonfires, forcing them to revive and keep feeding the First Flame.
The "lie" here is the cycle, it was not meant to be this way. The Flame was meant to fully exstinguish, which it now can no longer do because of Gwyn's sacrifice, and humanity, an able-to-normally-die humanity, was meant to rule the world once the Gods had hollowed and left. Life during the Age of Fire is beautiful, it's warm, it's safe, yet it is a twisted Age of Fire which relies upon the sacrifice of Undead (and prior to that their persecution and even torture) and it, again, is a lie as it was not what life was meant to be, the "illusion of life" is exactly that, but what can Men do if not believe such illusion? It's the only way they have left to live. Gwyn forever took away a true Age of Dark, a true life.
That is perhaps until the Lord of Hollows ending, where the player does what Nashandra intended to do in Ds2 (hopefully with better intent) and takes the First Flame for themselves, perhaps undoing the Darksign and letting humans die in peace and get their well deserved Age.
I honestly dont like this nihilistic conclusion that seems to be the most canon likely. Id rather believe in a sad end rather than a pointless end. I believe that while aldia talks about man being props in life, he means that we have empty lives, not amounting to anything than appreciating the beauty of life. When gwyn realised that his age of light was fading, rather than accepting to give the era to a less capable and ugly, immortal population, he decided to link them to die “normally” and further continue the light. In theory, this would bring more meaning to life and continue the beauty of the light age, and it would make gwyn feel like he’s saved the generations to come, so he made a first, cardinal sin. Of course, this unnatural beauty would haunt the people in due time, as nature doesnt like to be meddled with.
Because the humans were not supposed to die in the first place, when the effect of fire -which brought peaceful death upon the humans- has dimmed back to darkness, the immortality came back and met with the death that was unnaturally granted. This has caused the hollowing, and degraded the age of the dark. The people who were unaware of their situation believed the immortality to be an unnatural curse, brought by the dimming of the fire, so they sought to burn it bright again, hence starting the cycle. Through every loop, countless bodies would die and be brought back again, worsening their hollow souls, and for every cycle passed, the age of dark turns into an even more unliveable disaster.
If you choose to rekindle the fire, you worsen the state of the hollowing, the more bodies that were alive, the more undead who lack their humanity, but even so, the humans can see the beautiful lie of the age of the fire again… Until the fire gets cold again.
If you choose to let the fire burn out, it doesnt change the fact that you are linked to the fire, so you will now live through an age where the newborn humans are naturally immortal, but the hollow immortals are a massive threat. It’s only a matter of time until another fool hero rekindles the fire and ’saves’ his people.
If by some chance, you find a way to break the link between the humans and the fire, then perhaps there is an end where you repair the hollow. But until then, good luck with the problems that have been gathering through unknown generations. Those shitty, greedy idealist gwyn and the following fire symphatizers dug you in a grave so foul, you might never know the beauty of the original dark age.
My headcanon is all that above. It feels better (imo) to think that the peace of our generation was in fact stolen from us, rather than the disgusting hollow immortal humanity being the intended reality, which we are supposed to accept but we cant and thats why we keep rekindling. Because if so, then I would 100% support gwyn, hell no to hollowification, and Aldia’d been my enemy in that world for forcing the narrative that death is a lie.
@@123deserted I don't think it's a nihilistic ending at all, if anything, it's the most hopeful ending dark souls could have. The path of which is beyond the scope of light and the reach of dark is futile to thread for there is nothing to be found at the end of it. But life is not about the destination, it's about the journey.
If you think about it, the reason why our character at the end of the game does not hollow is because we embody what Vendrick said: "Seek strength, the rest will follow."
We as a character learn to find meaning in facing adversity and by doing so we become one step closer to reach that impossible destination beyond Light and Dark. That way we don't go hollow, that is, we don't lose meaning. The very act of struggling becomes the means by which we can oppose Light and Dark and since there is no end to that path there is no ending to the meaning of life. It's a similar concept to what Camus described as "One must imagine Sysiphus happy."
So by embracing the act of pursuing that path, what Aldia calls "our fate" we are already defying the structures of the world, the yoke that binds us.
About Gwyn, we know he is not good nor evil. So maybe inside of him he truly believed he was doing what would be best for the majority of people when he did the first sin.
@@Shaniver Thank you for taking time to reply, however I am now more confused, so I'd like to ask for clarity on some points, feel free to ignore my comment if you just aren't interested in wasting too much time on a yt comment, I'd understand.
You've said "Gwyn cursed humans with mortality.", this assumption is a fact of dark souls series, no problem here,
but when you say,
"Desire leads to suffering and to desire is to live, such is that living is suffering itself. The Throne of Want as a whole is a metaphor to this fact. Without life, without want, there is no suffering, no such thing as pain. This is the true form of life reffered to as 'Dark'.",
do you imply that the true form of humans (for dark souls) were supposed to be immortal, desireless people, who were never intended to have desire until gwyn gave it to them? I think this is an assumption without too much weight, but it can still be right idk.
Because then it would be nihilistic in what I wanted to point out, even if in the end we can have a conclusion that is stoic, I don't like the idea of humanity's original self being with no desire, since it is a pretty boring and uninteresting concept in my honest opinion. (I might be wrong with the usage of words here, I could be saying nihilism when I mean something else, so please try your best to read what I mean using the whole picture I'm painting rather than focusing on certain wrong words I use, feel free to point them out though, so I can improve my writing, English isn't my first language)
It's uninteresting to me because
- I would always support gwyn on giving humans desire and mortality even if it was a lie
- it would mean Aldia is just upset that gwyn set up a lie
-The whole reason of the massive events, the tragedies of the dark souls franchise was because "humans were originally supposed to be hollows", which decreases the impact of the meaning behind the series, because real life has this already, I like to look at fantasy series for unique and creative stories, not repetition of real life.
I realise that I automatically assumed being hollow is a bad thing, but even if the message here was that "hollowing is natural, and the way of life suggests we only fear it because we are afraid of the change", the message would be weak.
I think I can even argue the claim's integrity, but my main point is that I'd rather believe that gwyn was a greedy fool rather than a stoic gray figure.
I'm sure I missed out on some things, but I tried my best to minimize the word amount after writing, so sorry for the wall of text
Vendrick, King of Drangleic the Old King of Want and Lord Aldia, The Scholar of The First Sin
These two characters are among the rare game characters that influence my perspective on life.
"Seek Strength....the rest will follow"
Hooboy I gotta thank recommendations for this one, DS2 is one of my favourite games of all time, and this cover of Aldia's theme is phenomenal
I feel like you should do a cover of Lady Maria with this level of talent!
A suitable song to reveal the truth about the biggest of all lies, the gods don’t care about men.
Stupid comment
This sounds so fkng fantastic.
Oh this is so good.
This cover is magnificent.
Это потрясающе, просто потрясающе!
This is a very good one.
GOATED COVER!!!
That's pretty insane 👌
yo how did I just find this bomb ass shit?
There is no path.
Beyond the scope of light, beyond the reach of dark..
@@rysspace2511 And yet we seek it unsatiably...
@@grassblock7668 ....such is our fate
This is beautiful. Would it be alright if I used this in an Aldia tribute video with full credit to you? (with your name/link on screen and in description) :)
Sure, feel free.
@@TristanGray Thank you. 🙏
Arte
Young hollow, how you grapple, without falter, with this dreadfully twisted world.
Peace grants men the illusion of life, shackled by falsehoods, they yearn for love, unaware of its grand illusion. Until, the curse touches their flesh, we are bound by this yoke, as true as the Dark that churns within men.
All men trust fully the illusion of life, but is this so wrong? A construction, a facade, and yet…a world full of warmth and resplendence.
Young Hollow, are you intent on shattering the yoke, spoiling this wonderful falsehood?
*What do you want, truly? Light? Dark? Or something else entirely...*
Thx
OHHH YES!
wouldst thou truly lordship sanction in one so, bereft of light
to arms. then toss to the wind
then travel to this withered arms, i will not be far, behind
malenia blade of miquella
nameless king, the twin princess..
lift off
Aldia fracassou em livrar a humanidade da maldição, mas obteve sucesso em sair do ciclo se tornando algo que vai alem da condição humana
Sucks that the actual fight was garbage