Current Events > When you first enter the Unintended Graves in DS3...

(+) Yeah! (+)

Who shut off all the lights?

I don't want to live in the dark ages anymore

"Unintended"

Reminds me of the Langoliers. A dead place left behind.

look into the past/parallel past, when there was an age of darkness.

I took it to mean that even if the flame isn't kindled, whatever happens is temporary, but maybe I'm wrong.

Its like Bloodborne's Abandoned Workshop had a baby with King's Field 3's dark ending and the stuff about Seath. I think they may have been doing a take on alternate endings, translation differences between Japanese and the Western versions of the games, retcons, sequels which were never meant to be, and probably a bunch of other meta ideas about alternate endings.

That's where you get the ability to fade the First Flame, and you can get the Wolf Armor there from an NPC who uses the model of a Dark Souls 2 Old Fire Keeper. So, the biggest relevance I see outside the lore or whatever is to Sekiro, and of course Artorias, but Guts, and Beasts, the Penetrator, the Pursuer, the Undead, and creating a new dark icon for FS games besides the Moonlight Sword. Elden Ring is definitely an Okami/wolf oriented game in terms of designs.

Oceiros and "Ocelotte" hehe I mean come on

CapnMuffin posted...

Reminds me of the Langoliers. A dead place left behind.

I love you for this reference.

g0ldie posted...

look into the past/parallel past, when there was an age of darkness.

I took it to mean that even if the flame isn't kindled, whatever happens is temporary, but maybe I'm wrong.

I haven't fully understood anything except it's either a portal to the past or an alternate timeline where Gundyr fucked up big time (in his armor notes) as the supposed hero of Dark Souls instead of the main character, telling you what happens if you also fuck up royally in the end.

Anyway the thought of no sun is incredibly terrifying and scary moreso than most of Bloodborne.

Xethuminra posted...

So, the biggest relevance I see outside the lore or whatever is to Sekiro, and of course Artorias, but Guts, and Beasts, the Penetrator, the Pursuer, the Undead, and creating a new dark icon for FS games besides the Moonlight Sword. Elden Ring is definitely an Okami/wolf oriented game in terms of designs.

Oceiros and "Ocelotte" hehe I mean come on

<insert George Lucas poetry meme here>

Jagr_68 posted...

I haven't fully understood anything except it's either a portal to the past or an alternate timeline where Gundyr fucked up big time (in his armor notes) as the supposed hero of Dark Souls instead of the main character, telling you what happens if you also fuck up royally in the end.

Anyway the thought of no sun is incredibly terrifying and scary moreso than most of Bloodborne.

I kinda feel it's more a portal to the past because of how Iudex Gundyr is infected with the Pus of Man, and how that happens because of the Abyss

Okay, so if Lorian slew the Demon Prince, does that mean he traveled into the future and any ending you pick just leads to Ringed City?

The Sword Master

The Abyss Watchers & alternate faiths

You can only get there by killing Emma or I locking the Eclipse, bringing the world into the Kiln state, or its destined future, etc

I think it's the present day. Firelink exists outside of time, which is why so many characters can congregate there. But in the actual world the ashen one inhabits, Gundyr has already made his way to his real world version of Firelink, only to find that the fire has already been extinguished, so he waits around. And then you show up and kill him and teleport back to your Firelink with the eyes you find.

idk.

The merchant says you're early when you get there

Intended Graves = Past
Firelink = Present
Kiln = Future
Dreg Heap = the beyond, opposite ash lake and the beginning, past all.apocalyses, like Aldia envisioned, and where Gwyn placed the Blood of the Dark Soul, past the end of time itself

One of the big themes of ds3 is that time and reality has sort of eroded over time with each perpetuation of the first flame until it finally has begun to fall inwards into itself. You see a glimpse of it when you go to the kiln and you full of get to see the far flung end of time in the ringed city dlc where the world has degraded so deeply that it's all mashed together in a chaotic jumble (and then at the very end when you meet Gael it's degraded to the point that there's nothing but a wasteland where people are murdering each like primal beasts no better than Manus)

The alternate untended graves feels like a piece of that. It's a version of the world we know that's at the same time somehow from another place and another time that's dangling off of the world like a hangnail. It shouldn't be there but reality is eroding so deeply that it's gone beyond the state of things as they were in dark souls 1 where you were just paradoxically running into dead heroes from other worlds out of their own time and entire places that shouldn't have been or never were are now accessible

Right. I think Yoel's Ashes appear there, indicating that it would be in the future. I think Ludleth's dialogue indicated it is in the past though, but shows a scene of an alternate future. So, it might be in direct opposition to the Blood of the Dark Soul, being hidden in a mixture of various pasts instead of various futures. Gundyr doesn't have the Pus in Untended Graves, for example. The Sword Master isnt hollow yet in Untended Graves. Etc

But it's cut off from the present, like a world without time

So the clues are all there like the handmaiden, Sword Master samurai dude being human (who sucks btw), uncursed Gundyr, Earthen Peak Ruins in the Ringed City, etc. but goddamnit if only it were much simpler as past/present/future...

Because yeah when you reach Kiln of the First Flame, that's technically the 3rd Shrine in the same mold separate from Firelink as well as the Graves AND Yuria from the "main world" is able to join you against Lord of Cinder (if that quest was done 100%), so I don't think Miyazaki lazily had them accessibly linked together for gameplay reasons.

From what everyone here is saying, sounds more like a sci-fi twist on a medieval tale. Bloodborne's Hunter's Dream had a similar theme with multi dimensions but that felt alot less convoluted because it all just boiled down to a corrupt church experimenting with forces beyond reality ie. The Great Ones.

It's this game's version of the Abandoned Workshop, except Untended Graves is the cycle just before the one the bulk of this game takes place in (with AW being the real counterpart of Hunter's Dream). It's basically a hint that the choice of linking the fire or letting it go out was always a sham; whether you link it or not, it'll be relit automatically after an age of dark. Gundyr was basically YOU, but because he didn't make it in time, he gave up, lost his purpose, and eventually faced corruption.

GrandConjuraton posted...

It's this game's version of the Abandoned Workshop, except Untended Graves is the cycle just before the one the bulk of this game takes place in (with AW being the real counterpart of Hunter's Dream). It's basically a hint that the choice of linking the fire or letting it go out was always a sham; whether you link it or not, it'll be relit automatically after an age of dark. Gundyr was basically YOU, but because he didn't make it in time, he gave up, lost his purpose, and eventually faced corruption.

Who's pulling the strings in DS to enact these phases of time? Gwyn, the universe, some other all powerful celestial god?

The idea that everyone in the world got it wrong but still preached the myth of the fire as fact in their own various interpretations is hilariously delicious.

Jagr_68 posted...

Who's pulling the strings in DS to enact these phases of time? Gwyn, the universe, some other all powerful celestial god?

The idea that everyone in the world got it wrong but still preached the myth of the fire as fact in their own various interpretations is hilariously delicious.

While I can't speak to if there's anything further beyond all of it, I can say that a lot of the actual problems you see in terms of the overall plot stem back to two figures: Gwyn and Kaathe (the hidden primordial serpent in DS1).

• Gwyn's damage to the world comes in the form of a few things. Firstly, Gwyn was never the hero that the people thought that he was; he was greedy, self-absorbed, and bigoted. He only cared about holding onto his rule and extending what he viewed as his age, and him tasking the Witch of Izalith with creating a new First Flame to accomplish that (which created the chaos flame and a whole slew of demons in extension) causing irrevocable damage that can be felt even as far as DS3. He was so afraid of losing his power that he rounded the undead into prisons like the one the "Chosen Undead" was jailed in until the start of DS1... The Ringed City being cut off from the rest of the world because of its direct connection to the Dark Soul is another example of an atrocity he had a direct hand in.
• Basically, the whole idea of "linking the fire = the ultimate good" was rooted entirely on the lie that Gwyn was a benevolent ruler, and that lie was passed down through the ages even after his name eventually became lost to time.
• On the flipside, we have Kaathe. Rather than perpetuating a lie for the individual, Kaathe perpetuated a lie in a number of places that he was working for the good of man... his influence caused the fall of Oolacile (the setting of the DS1 DLC) by encouraging them to awaken Manus and cause their own destruction as a consequence. This event caused the Abyss to become an issue, and he eventually moved on to cause the downfall of New Londo as well, and you can even see statues of him all over the Ringed City (though one could argue that it could be a different serpent entirely, but in my opinion, it's quite likely him) that speaks to him having had an influence there as well. Furthermore, you can reasonably speculate that he's behind the Sable Church, since Yuria has a line that refers to a serpent...
• The awakening of Manus and the spread of the Abyss had their own widespread consequences across the ages. The spawns of Manus (of which you encounter a few in the DS2 DLCs) latched onto various kingdoms and caused their destruction by latching onto their monarch and steering the individual countries in the process into that ruin.
• While Gwyn's motivations were clear, Kaathe's are not. There's no clear indicator of what he ACTUALLY wanted, but I personally speculate that his actions are born from bitterness and misanthropy. Bitterness that he was never a fully fledged dragon, and was only a mere serpent who could never ascend... hatred against the "gods" and man for ending the age of the dragons? It could all be an elaborate revenge plot for all we know.

Sorry for the long post, >.< . The idea is that there is no clear truth on what is actually right or wrong because literally everything was built on lies from the start, and much like matters in real life, it's up to the individual to determine their own truth.