"Dark Souls 1 is bad because you need to read item descriptions within the game to fully understand the story" "Dark Souls 2 is great because you need to have watched a Japanese movie from 1957 to fully understand the significance of this character"

@jinkisaragi874

6 жыл бұрын

TomatoHouses That's clearly “smart and cool“ and also kinda “genious“.

@mariokarter13

6 жыл бұрын

Just like how the name "Darth Vader" was a subtle hint that he was Luke's father because "vader" is Dutch for "father." It all ties in to the strong narrative influence The Netherlands has over the franchise. It's in no way exploiting a complete coincidence to grasp at straws.

@Nick-wo3vi

6 жыл бұрын

I don't normally 'Thumbs up' a comment, but when I do, its a hilarious one that's completely true.

@Arkangel630

6 жыл бұрын

Or you know its a reference to the Norns, something that fits the general nordic inspiration seen in the games. "These three Norns are described as powerful maiden Jotuns whose arrival from Jötunheimr ended the golden age of the gods." Really makes you think almost like there's a thematic connection. It also of course is an almost universal idea to "weave fate". And it also plays to japanese audiences since the movie is very influential and well known. I don't like the entire intro, but I have to say they did a good job making it universally appealing.

@toxicitzi357

6 жыл бұрын

see Akrangel, the part is fine for what it does, even if it is a bit on the nose and unnecessary, but the problem is how little they did with it to adopt it into the world of Dark Souls. How they did with Anor Londo (Mount Olympus), or how they did with Lost Izalith (Hell) as far as story goes, if they did that with Dark Souls 2 and went for more presentation than lore heavy, integrating these ideas into the world than just referencing them, it would've had a stronger impact.

"lol the whole story of dark souls 1 is about a task given by a dead guy and the final boss has sad music. It's meaningless. Dark Souls fans are such friendless nerds." *[5 minutes later]* "Why are people so mean to Dark Souls 2 ? It has so much meaning. Look at this old lady that reminds me of an old movie I watched. Truly a fascinating game. Did you guys knew I watched old movies ?" What an incredible critic.

@somedude653

4 жыл бұрын

10/10

@WALTAH2000

3 жыл бұрын

Not enough fake, smug laughing and overuse of “theoretically” and “genius”.

@Imperium83

3 жыл бұрын

DS1 is like Berserk. Now give me monetized 1 million viewed video, thanks.

@Weldedhodag

3 жыл бұрын

i dunno man, that seems pretty cool and smart to me

@chrissyyduh7164

3 жыл бұрын

Rune Goon Berserk sucks ass

"It was already complete in its incompleteness." The level of cope was astounding.

@TheSlammurai

2 жыл бұрын

I'm glad cope became a meme these last few years. XD

@elitereptilian200

2 жыл бұрын

hard core copium is one helluva drug..

@bigmyke2008

Жыл бұрын

Dude talks like a 16 year old in a creative writing class

@AtreyusNinja

2 сағат бұрын

Domo3000 is showing how wrong is Mauler about DS2, and he is doing an amazing job. s

"it does not make sense and a world that does make sense would not be able to not make sense" This line made me burst out laughing!

@Neo2266.

5 жыл бұрын

Even better when you realize that a World that makes sense, would be able to both make and not make sense, so his argument is also fucking wrong XD

@papershadow

5 жыл бұрын

Doesn't a world not making sense require some kind of basis for what sense is? By that logic does the world of DS2 even not make sense if it exists as its own world without our own as a "sensible" baseline for comparison? For the record I'm not very versed in Dark Souls so if there is a legitimate answer to that question I would be legitimately interested in how it indeed works.

@RorytheRomulan

5 жыл бұрын

That sounds like something that would go in GDELB

@Helltown66

4 жыл бұрын

What are the most redundant statements ever said

@lapelcelery42

3 жыл бұрын

That argument is... It's not good. It's not the best it could beeee.

Am I the only one whose Spidey sense goes off whenever Harris uses his "soft" voice, the one where he seems trying to sell you snake oil? :)

@puppysect

3 жыл бұрын

I feel like I'm being creeped on when he does that.

@deviant_ghost

2 жыл бұрын

@The-Trustees YES EVERY TIME! lol.

@the-trustees

2 жыл бұрын

@@deviant_ghost Ha! :)

@FellishBeast

2 жыл бұрын

I can smell his foul breath when he puts on that voice.

@NintendanGX

2 жыл бұрын

His voice sounds phoney to me, as an Englishman myself. He always sounds like he's doing an impression of someone, rather than talking naturally.

"Vendrick is a shadow of the man talked about..." "He, like the fate of the undead, has lost his mind..." Hmmmmm, this makes me remember about someone... in the first game... hmmmm, I think his name was Gywn... *HMMMM*

@gabrielgreen1757

3 жыл бұрын

Pling pling plon

@nathanjora7627

3 жыл бұрын

Gabriel Green It’s funny you’d bring that up, because although « plin plin plon » is pretty much universally known in the DS community, and strongly associated with... the feels, it’s not at all the same for Vendrick’s theme, despite the fact that it’s more or less as easy to describe in words. Plin plan. Plin plan. (When you hear Vendrick’s music I think it’s as understandable as « plin plin plon ») Funny how two theoretically just as easy to remember and just as significant themes impacted the community so differently. Hell, even DS2 fans don’t have something like that as far as I know.

@matthewmuir8884

3 жыл бұрын

Honestly, the only unique thing when it comes to Vendrick is that he isn't the final boss, unlike Allant and Gwyn.

@nathanjora7627

3 жыл бұрын

Matthew St. Cyr Did you mean « Vendrick » ? If you meant Vendrick, then add to the list of differences the fact that he has a completely mental and poorly telegraphed gimmick for his fight, namely the giant souls.

@matthewmuir8884

3 жыл бұрын

@@nathanjora7627 I did mean Vendrick; thanks for pointing out the typo.

The only thing I have to say for this section is I don't understand why Harris talked about the story at all in relation to other souls games, since all the stories are told in essentially the same way and there's 0% chance of any kind of objective analysis of which story is better. Demon's Souls story is much simpler and smaller, with fewer characters. Dark Souls story is more sweeping and gives you a lot of info up front, but most of the info is functionally useless Dark Souls II has very little main "storyline," but a lot of the best (most complex, most moving, for example the tale of Lucatiel) story moments are found in character interactions or quests. Dark Souls III seems to be mostly a retread of DS1 concepts and themes with some designs taken from Bloodborne. Bloodborne is its own self-contained thing. It lays out its story in large chunks at different milestones in the game. It explains more than most soulsborne games, but the cosmic horror setting means shit doesn't have to strictly make sense or be logical. Beyond that, the stories are all basically told the same, even down to using a lot of the same voice actors who repeat lines which are almost verbatim their lines in the previous games. Oh and Harris really pissed me off with that pretentious film critic routine, as if he's the only one who ever heard of Kurosawa. Kurosawa, one of the most famous foreign film makers of all time. So DS2 has a random-ass movie reference. I guess that makes it a 10/10 game, top storyline bro. Lel. He really had to reach up his own ass for that one.

@soyekinthehideaway6763

6 жыл бұрын

That tone was fucking obnoxious to be honest, because ultimately he's just making it all about himself and make he looks smarter than he actually is. Maybe that's why he constantly refer other's opinion because he need to step on someone else's back.

@amarsofiane

5 жыл бұрын

I think what makes 3's story intresting is introducing the concept of the flames damaging the world, which recontextualizes gwyn's actions, you might think he did good bringing the age of fire and ruling in anor lando, and that it was tragic how he ended, but in 3 we learn that maybe that wasn't the right thing to do, since rekindling the flame keeps recking the world, or at least that's what I took from it

@matthewmuir8884

5 жыл бұрын

If I had to pick one game's story, it would probably be Demon's Souls, simply because the story is more thoroughly integrated into the gameplay than it is in the latter games. Don't get me wrong; most of the Soulsborne games do a fairly thorough job, but I think the original game probably was the most thorough. That being said, Bloodborne does have some unique strengths going for it: I think that Miyazaki's style of leaving out pieces here and there is more befitting a cosmic horror story than a dark fantasy or a high fantasy.

@louis5368

5 жыл бұрын

Every soul games story are undoubtedly shit, storytelling in general cannot be told by a meaning alone, your job as a writer to use the resources you establish, create patterns and situations to explain and expand the meaning you want to tell and so the "think your own" style of the soul game cannot work, it will be too weak and have no difference to saying a quote out loud.

@joaquinvelazquez521

5 жыл бұрын

I think the most complex and interesting storytelling elements of EVERY souls games come from character interactions (Ostrava, Solaire, Siegmeyer, Laurentius,Lucatiel, Greirat, etc.)

If someone asked me to guess the game and said: "You walk through mostly empty world , trying to open a door" I would never even consider Dark Souls. This guy's bending skill of narative is yoga master.

I do agree with Harris on 1 thing. In DS2, NG+ is the bad ending. Cuz if you want a good ending to DS2, you'll stop playing.

@_eeveeon_

Жыл бұрын

I enjoyed DS2 when it came out. I had my fair share of issues with it but it was new and enjoyable. The DLC's were pretty good in my opinion and I enjoyed them when they came out. But then DS3 came out and DS2 just completely fell off for me. I ended up buying the SoTFS edition because I lost the disc and wanted to replay DS2 and by God it was sooooo easy compared to DS3 and DS1. I legitimately 100% the game in just a couple of days and then uninstalled it.

@lukstar64

Жыл бұрын

Oh😅

@AtreyusNinja

9 ай бұрын

Ng+ ds2 is the best in the franchise

@AtreyusNinja

2 сағат бұрын

Domo3000 is showing how wrong is Mauler about DS2, and he is doing an amazing job. s

Everything in Lord of The Rings is either explained in the books or in Silmarillion, which is a headache to get through and I would reccomend any casual reader NOT to try, but calling Tolkien's world "underdeveloped" is a slap in the face of good world-building. Tolkien may not have been a good writer, but he developed entire languages, coherent mythology and timeline for almost every single event in Middle-Earth. If some things feel like they're missing in the movies is that even in the 11 hours of the extended editions, it was impossible to fit everything from the three LotR books ALONE, not to mention the Silmarillion. Tolkien was a Nerd, one of the first nerds in the modern sense of the world. His obsessive world-building is one of the secrets to his sustaintability in the modern fandoms.

@nonya_bidness

6 жыл бұрын

I can only imagine he was referring to the movies rather than the books. As the movies (as long as they are) didn't have the room for detailed explanations to close up various plot holes. One could argue that the movies need only reference the books, but that's at the very least a point of contention

@Goronian

6 жыл бұрын

Still, that's the exact problem: if something in the movies doesn't make sense, go read the book. Or, hell, just open a wiki, wikis are free.

@nonya_bidness

6 жыл бұрын

the responsibility of any piece of media is to keep its storytelling self-contained. if there exists a thematic reason to break that rule, then sure, break that rule. but that hardly applies to LotR. LotR is easily in my top 10 movies (I like to group trilogies and such as 1 entry on such lists) but there do exist plot holes that one must do extra work to fill. I'll grant you that its better to have auxiliary media provided rather than expecting the audience to do the writing for you. but it's still strictly worse than if the movie itself provided the answers needed. Also there are some problems in LotR that the books don't fix, like Frodo sending Sam home on the stairs. overall LotR's problems are both minor and rare, and most are fixed by the mentioned auxiliary media, its not enough to seriously harm the film's quality, but it's worth acknowledging nonetheless.

@kyleweaver2076

6 жыл бұрын

I've been saying Tolkien was a mediocre writer for years, but his world building was indeed first class. I'd rather go through Tolkien's Gateway than read The Silmarillion if I want to learn about Morgoth or Feanor, however.

@omnisel

5 жыл бұрын

That was sort of his argument in the first place. With Desinty you have to read cards, and that's stupid. With the LOTR movies, you have to read the books. The point is, the thing in of itself should make sense. The movies shouldn't have plot holes that require reading the book, but I'm also not saying that it should have every single detail. It takes skill but you can omit details and have a coherent film without glaring questions and holes.

Weird how he sees a woman spinning and goes "Throne of Blood, specifically, and the wiki doesn't cite it because nerds are dumb" when the image came from greek mythology and not just a movie. He's going after people not knowing Kurosawa when he doesn't know THE ODYSSEY

@TwilightWolf032

Жыл бұрын

Harry is the "actually" type of nerd - the arrogant one that thinks he's above the rest just because he's read a few books. Korval (the guy who wrote "Mother, May I See Metroid Other M" dissertation - go read it now) stated "a bad communicator may deliver the wrong message". Another insightful quote is "if I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." What Harry does is a variation of these what these two statements describe - Harry cannot convince people of his arguments if he utilizes a simplified language because he knows his arguments are weak, so he uses big words in a confusing manner to make his points seem credible and insightful. If you confuse your listeners just enough so you come across as an authority on the subject, but no so much that you give the impression that you have no idea what you're talking about, you can actually convince someone that you have more braincells than you actually have.

@TrueYankeeFan

Жыл бұрын

@@TwilightWolf032 I'll take your word for it because I don't think I can bring myself to Google anything with that title lol

@TwilightWolf032

Жыл бұрын

@@TrueYankeeFan Why not? The dissertation is an analytical review of the game Metroid Other M in the same vein as Mauler's videos on Harry's terrible content. It just analyses everything Other M did wrong, points out its contradictions with the rest of the franchise and talks about the conflict between narrative and gameplay being at odds with each other. The "Mother" in the title is just a reference to Other M's stupid references to motherhood. Because the mind behind Other M think a "theme" is something you write on a shovel and swing at the player with the force of a rampaging rhino.

@JerryMcB3rry

Жыл бұрын

@@TwilightWolf032 actually seems pretty interesting, I'll have to check that out sometime

@TwilightWolf032

Жыл бұрын

@@JerryMcB3rry Tell us what you thought of it after you do :)

"Just watch vaatividya for god's sake" hahaha, I'm binging this and I love it!

@linkook9822

3 жыл бұрын

Fr all the things he said he didn’t know are in vaativiydya’s videos

I have marathoned this whole thing, and I have noticed you slowly getting more and more impatient and irritated with the guy, and it is goddamn hilarious.

@AtreyusNinja

2 сағат бұрын

Domo3000 is showing how wrong is Mauler about DS2, and he is doing an amazing job. s

I think harris could have just made a simpler video. Title it "Why I like Dark Souls 2" then proceed to list personal reasons why he liked it. Thats what he did anyway. He could also go about it in a nicer way. Instead of insulting people who enjoyed the Demon souls and Dark souls games more. He could have said "these are my opinions and your free to disagree, but my hope is to try and maybe convince some people to give this game another chance." Then list every single problem this game has and say "i know it's ugly, but i still love it." See, wouldn't that have been easier?

@ZeroKitsune

6 жыл бұрын

That would certainly have been much better received. I doubt it would have had anywhere near such a negative reaction...might have actually swayed some people, too. It's amazing how much more likely people are to listen when you aren't condescending about it. And sometimes it's really nice to just hear someone be passionate and happy about something, I think that would have been way more compelling.

@lastmanstanding7155

6 жыл бұрын

ZeroKitsune I think he needs to just stop being so smug all the time. There is a reason a person like pewdiepie is so popular. Wether whoever reads this likes him or not the fact is that many people like pewdiepie. And for his political videos? i would want him to take a Jordan Peterson approach. I don't really know what he is like. For all we know Hbomber is just a persona he puts on. Similar to idubbbz. (Though the gap between Idubbbz and Ian is really small) But this attitude, wether it be fake or real, is not helping him. I say all this in a non-insultive way and with a lot of respect. Even though i don't really like him i think it's good to try and give some constructive crtisim.

@incelliousthewizard7883

5 жыл бұрын

no, its no persona, read his twitter, smug and contradiction is the only thing Hbomber knows

@lastmanstanding7155

5 жыл бұрын

I want cuphead to sit on my face Well, it's only wishful thinking. He pretends that everybody and everyrhing that isn't already in agreement with him is at odds with him. In reality, it's the other way around. It's quite sad. I think that's why I dislike him. We all know he doesn't have to act this way but he does.

@Spellweaver5

Жыл бұрын

After seeing this, I'm honestly in doubt if he even likes the game or just tried to argue for the sake of it.

You know, I get the impression that the designers of Dark Souls 2 wanted to do something that was a bit more straightforward than Dark Souls 1 was, but perhaps a bit more "epic?" Maybe that's not the right word. The idea of the Chosen Undead's quest being more personal in nature, and being told a story in a typical fashion is not a bad one. But I get the impression that the Designers went into this and either bit off more than they could chew (either due to laziness or lack of talent in general), or Namco told them "No, make it vague like the first game!" and they did so without actually understanding why that setup worked for Dark Souls 1. For example, Vendrick shambling around like that is surprising, I suppose, but also painfully straightforward. By contrast, Gwyn is much more interesting and ultimately tragic because he likely no longer even remembers _why_ he was protecting the First Flame to begin with. Just that it needed protecting. After a fashion, it's something kind of like seeing someone you know, either personally or vicariously, with Alzheimer's: They can remember SOME things, like an important item, or the name of someone they care about, but ultimately they're just a shell of their former selves; A shape that looks vaguely similar to the great person they once were. This would be Gwyn, the mighty father of the gods, who built wonders unparalleled, now nothing but a sad, lonely husk desperately fighting to preserve something that lost its purpose long ago. Compare this to Vendrick who did... what, exactly? Harris mentions something about the lore talking about Vendrick, but I can't recall any kind of achievements or powers he had, at least in Harris' video. So when you see this tall dude in a loincloth and a crown shambling around, this means... what exactly? That he's hollowed, I guess, but what does that even mean? Why is he just shambling around listlessly in circles? Why is he carrying around that big sword? Why is he even in this area, down here? I think this was just the Dev team trying to do their own spin on the "Gwyn twist," except they said "We can do it better!" Except for the part where they didn't >_>

@linkkicksu

6 жыл бұрын

Rather than 'epic', I'd say 'hollywood'

@Adorni

6 жыл бұрын

Hmm. Maybe. Bearing in mind that I haven't played Dark Souls 1 and 2, the sentiment I've gotten from "da internet" is that the story is somewhat vague, with a lot of it up to interpretation. It's _very_ Lore-heavy, which you learn about by roaming around the world, talking to NPCs, looking at the description of items, and just kind of paying attention to the world around you. This is not a bad way to make a game, as both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus also do this. That said, it does leave the narrative of the story feeling a bit lack-luster and wanting. Now, compare this to something like, say, God of War. The first game, to be specific. GoW doesn't have the BEST story, but Kratos' character and motivations are very clear to us: He's a Spartan warrior who offered his life to Ares, and was betrayed by Ares into killing his own wife and daughter in a sort of berserker rage. The story is about Kratos' efforts to absolve himself of this crime, though the way he does so is very questionable. Kratos is *not* a good person, but he did love his family, and their loss is something that is keenly presented to us over the course of the game. This part of the game, at the very least, is something that resonates with many players and drives them to continue playing, seeing whether or not Kratos can come to terms with the death of his beloved family. Now, imagine this kind of a Dark Souls game. The opening cinematic shows us a Nameless Undead, who had a wife and a child. The span of time he's been "alive," however, has been so great that he can no longer remember what they looked like. This is emotional and heart-wrenching. The desire to end his curse and be with his family again could be utilized as a very strong motivation to see where the story goes, because it's about him, personally. Not about the world at large. The Undead, and his relationship with his family, is the lens through which we experience the rest of the game, seeing other Undead who are allies or enemies, and who have lost themselves to their curse. We don't want to see this happen to the protagonist. This would lend the story a strong sense of narrative weight that Dark Souls, Dark Souls 3, and Bloodborne don't have. But by the same token, it would mean that it's *_not the same as Dark Souls._* Where before, we had protagonist we create, who is mostly silent and is more of an "avatar" of ourselves in the world of Dark Souls, this Nameless Undead has a history, has a personality, and a very strong sense of character by necessity of the plot. Heck, even his gender is pre-determined. Sure, we may still have the option of building him however we like in regards to weapons and/or magic, but his character and history is not something we can control. This would have positives and negatives. It would be different. And it may not be Dark Souls because of that. And the Development Team working on the game may have wanted that. But either they lacked the ability to make the game that way, or Bandai/Namco and From Software said to make it "more like the first game," and they had to throw the bulk of the narrative idea out to make the game's narrative more vague, like the first game. In lieu of making an epic narrative with strong themes and ideas built around a pre-existing character, they blundered their way through the same notes as the original Dark Souls, but without the subtle nuance and tact. Hence we replace the inherent tragic setpiece that is Gwynn, Lord of Cinder, with King Shambles-Aimlessly-Around-in-His-Underpants, who doesn't even bother taking a swing at you.

@katlicks

6 жыл бұрын

Vendrick beat up the giants and enslaved them. I can't recall anything else, he was a successful warlord, who used giant slaves to build his castle, but, that was it. The Iron King was a weeaboo that thought lava was a stable foundation. On top of a tower. In the sky.

@divan4440

6 жыл бұрын

As far as i know he was a powerful king which attracted nashandra who was split off fragment of manus. nashandra convinced him to attack the giants which lead to the giants counter attacking. then he enslaved them after defeating them yet again. he let aldia have his ways with them and married nashandra. raime figured out that nashandra is not what she seems. then velstadt vs raime happens, raime gets banished. in the end he figures out that nashandra is evil. he hides in the crypt and orders velstadt to guard him before he hides his crown in shrine of amana. there he inevitably hollows. him being incredibly strong even hollow is proof of his power. you need 3 giants souls to even properly hurt him even though hes hollow. first i compared him to gwyn but after the dlcs im pretty sure him and the dlc kings are closer to the four kings in ds1.

@katlicks

6 жыл бұрын

Yeah, I did somewhat enjoy him just wandering and bumbling, because he wasn't exactly duty bound to anything when he was entombed (Unlike Gwyn who knew the fire was all that mattered) And to think of them as more like the Four Kings (rather than like Gwyn) makes it a bit more sympathetic and would have been a much better narrative choice, a twilight age for a kingdom about to plunge into the abyss, ushered in by Nashandra who is the inheritor Manus, Father of the Abyss. If they didn't beat the "It's all just a cycle, it's just like 1 but not!" over the head, it'd make a really solid theory and basis.

AND ALSO, he talks about that old lady refering to some old adaptation of McBeth... and be all smug about it... But he doesn't seem to have a clue about the fate weavers imagery coming straight from Greek mythology... all that associated with spiders... That's a very well establishd reference, but nah, talk about a movie, THAT's obviously the right reference... Smartass... (sorry for broken english, working on it)

@Leotheleprachaun

3 жыл бұрын

Fate Weavers....Spiders.... Spiders can tell the future *CONFIRMED*

@lilianboissard8030

3 жыл бұрын

Actually, before talking about the adaptation, he say that she's "deliberately evocative of the fortune telling spirits with spinning wheels that exist seemingly throughout human mythology and folk lore". So he knew that it's a common depiction of fate weaver but still chose to say that it was a reference to his movie. Moreover, I love how he says that the spider is obviously a reference to the title of his movie instead of the most common association between spider, string and fate.

@elitereptilian200

2 жыл бұрын

Pretty sure he knows that about greek mythology but, making it be a reference to some obscure film from decades ago of which most people don't know about makes him sound more intelligent, fun and cool.. to him at least..

I'm pulling my hair out with Harris' smug interpretation of the Dark Souls lore and why he thinks DkS2 is better in this regard. He isn't telling the correct story, he's just in love with himself and his own interpretation of it. Man this guy's ego would match Stalin's death count in comparable size.

@CruelestChris

6 жыл бұрын

Hell, give someone with his attitude a chance and he'd flat-out match Stalin.

@lastmanstanding7155

5 жыл бұрын

The NEW Nile Ue Ue Fly What? Is 50 to 100 million a small death count? Damn. I'd hate to see a large death count.

@lastmanstanding7155

5 жыл бұрын

@nikolai 1939 I'll admit that yea. I would have had him be my duo partner in fortnite.

@zakuhtet3775

5 жыл бұрын

Aw, come on! Even Stalin isn't that bloodthirsty!

@AnnNightNoxana

5 жыл бұрын

Every time Harris takes a stab at Matthewmatosis, I close my eyes and pretend that didn't happen. It's just so intelectually insulting.

Well as for some of the questions you brought up in the beginning: You sort of have to accept that the origin Grey Dragons, Fire Flame and Pygmies has to count as the "base" you mentioned because they were purposefully never explained in any of the lore. People try and speculate but its pointless. If you cna accept that then all the other questions are fairly easy to answer. - Basically, the entities that picked up the lord souls were Pygmies were transformed based on which aspect of the First Flame they picked up. Light equals Gwyn, Dark equals Manus, Life equals the Witch and Death equals Nito, and they then gifted tiny pieces to other pygmies to create their races. The witch though seemed to have made only a handful of daughters and Nito didn't make any subjects as far as we are aware. - I'm not sure what would happen to a dragon when he picked up a Lord Soul, but we can see the impact the First Flame has had on the dragons. Now that they are subject to the laws of life and death they can breed and become sick, resulting in the lesser dragons and drakes that we fight throughout the games. - Its not explained why they wanted to kill the dragons but you could argue that Gwyn was ambitious and directed his fellows to kill the dragons so they could have the world for themselves. I assume Manus was originally a Pygmy because the Dark soul was less powerful at the start of the First Flame's creation. - The Age of Fire was always going to end, and an Age of Dark was going to occur because the power of the Light soul would dim with the waning of the First Flame. But Gwyn stopped that by linking it to his Light soul. creating a temporary solution that caused all life to basically halt. But this is all lore, and most of the important bits about kindling the First Flame come not from item descriptions, but Kaathe. The actual story that is being told to the player is that the the Primordial Serpents are trying to get you to either kindle or discard the First Flame. The actual mechanics behind it don't really matter in the story itself, only the motivation the player has after fighting through the world and hearing both sides of the argument after a couple of playthroughs. Frampt is a lying asshole, who told you that you will be the king of the new world if you take Gwyn's place. He actually intends for you to be a band aid for the Age of Fire and some poor sap is going to have to go through this whole thing again. But, although I might disagree with it, some players who are informed about what's going on might think its important to eek out that tiny bit more glory in the world. Maybe in the next cycle people might find a solution? Then you have Kaathe, who gives you the painful truth that it's all bullshit and we need to start the Age of Dark as per the shitty inheritance left off by your less glorious, but altogether powerful predecessor. He's also lying though. He's saying that you will be a Dark Lord but as we can see from the Darkwraiths this will mostly involve people eating each other to try and become as powerful as they can. You'll just happen to be THE most powerful being on the planet. But the Age of Fire can't go on forever, as nice as it is, and it causes more and more agony the more it decays. Decay and fading are key themes throughout 1 and 3. This is all stuff in game that you'll find in the natural course of you playing it. Maybe not of the first playthrough, because you have to find Kaathe first, but it is entirely possible. You argue that the players never have a good sense of what the Age of Fire at its peak was like, but Anor Londo is an counter-point to that for people who pay attention to the environment. It would hard to argue that first opening shot, with sprawling vistas and steps built for giants hasn't impacted almost all players in some way. Hell, I (anecdote inbound in 3,2..) I showed my step-mother Anor Londo and even though she really doesn't know much about games, or this game in particular, she was struck with a sense of overwhelming wonder. In contrast, you will borrow down to the deep black chasms of Manus cave and Kaathe's pets, fighting off mutated creatures and literal humanities, to met with with the reality that the Age of Dark is going to be, well, dark, and scary.

@MauLerYT

6 жыл бұрын

conker690 really appreciate the effort with the comment, the questions I raised were essentially examples of what one could ask and most answers are speculation with different players disagreeing, which I believe is by design. That kind of design is not something I like when story telling because it usually means you leave holes in on purpose. Thanks for the comment tho :)

@Superschokokeks

6 жыл бұрын

It's not really confirmed Manus is the pigmy f..oh how he's called. Kaathe as mentioned can be lying about the "truth" (well except about Frampt intentions). And the deep black chasmn isn't necessarily a sign how the Age of Dark could be. The Abyss/the spread of the Abyss is due Manus humanity went insanse, thus it spreads. In fact we never really know how the Age of Dark could be. Taking DS3 into account Gwyn prevented it of ever happening (I really don't like what they did with the lore..) Please do not state theories as fact. That is one of biggest issue I have with all those lore-theorist out there. one site note something I found confusing: It seems to me everyone who has a split of the Dark Souls=Humanity is in fact a human, but then theorist call Gwyn and(or at least) his fellowship humans too, but Gwyn split is soul.. so.. no they aren't. the Silver Knights don't drop humanity or give softhumanity. THey look like humans, but in a technically sense they aren't. They are .. Gwyns race....? Artorias for example or. Makes me wonder how the abyss works exactly.. Well we do not need an answer for everything (I personally think DS lore isn't that great and convey it mainly via item describtion is a lazy and boring way imo. TES-series did that better(I said lore. not plot D:))

@Christof1391

6 жыл бұрын

MauLer you are correct that it is by design vague. Hidetaka Miyazaki, has stated that he wanted people to speculate, to make conclusions on the game for themselves. So, is it great story telling? No, but it is at least seemingly working as intended. On a different note I found this series about when it first started, but ended up missing the series (KZread's subscribe button doesn't work). I have since found you again, and have been binging these videos. Good work mate, looking forward to more of your content.

@mineerthegamer

6 жыл бұрын

LeadFaun I do adore that about Darksouls 1 especially, some things are way to meticulously placed to not have motivation, think about the stash in firelink behind petrus and what's in It. It has all the items a cleric would use, except there are items specifically for invading aswell, you also start to see petrus show his true colors throughout the game, so it's actually safe to assume the items in the stash were his and are a hint to his character that's very subtle. Or it's just all highly conecidental, but that's the fun of it all, anything could be where it is because of some form of motivation or odd little side story (like all the starting classes except the pyromancer can be found dead at points in the game even going so far as to have the axe the bandit starts with shoved in the giant undead rats eye and his sheild is on top of the overhangs in the rats arena, interesting shit) but as said many of these could just be overactive imaginations and convinet item placements.

@davoodoo8042

6 жыл бұрын

I dont even see them as actual explanations but more like centuries old legends.

Man, Tarkus is a beast

@Horatio787

6 жыл бұрын

TARKUS! TARKUS! TARKUS!

@toxicitzi357

6 жыл бұрын

TARKUS! TARKUS!

@adelrayen6808

5 жыл бұрын

Mauler was talking about supernatural or whatever, but I was just like "is Black Iron Tarkus beating Iron Golem? ALONE!"

@Trascist

5 жыл бұрын

was that a year-old jojo's reference?

@mariocdi8205

5 жыл бұрын

@@Trascist yeah that joke took a lot of pluck and it luckily was pulled off

In terms of where the first flame came from, all the game says is ‘and then there was fire,’ which in my opinion is all it needs. It appeared one day and no one knows why. The grayness wasn’t the Big Bang of Dark Souls, the FF was. It’s almost literally a Big Bang, since it has no discernible origin, have life (and death) to the universe, and will one day fade.

@dodojesus4529

4 жыл бұрын

Just like how eru from LOTR is just there

@mbiwe3ep_on_futanari617

11 ай бұрын

BASED

You have to love the way Harris simps for "big fantasy doors" when he's talking anout DS2, but he says "open a big door" sarcastically when he's talking about DS1.

Minor correction: Gwyn linking the first flame didn't manifest the undead curse. There was a first undead curse that Gwyn attempted to resolve by linking the first flame. The undead curse is the dark soul exerting its nature on its holder as its power grows, which is relative to the waning strength of the light soul. Basically, the dark soul is associated with physicality; the 'curse' is retaining that physicality using the first flame's estus, in the event the body becomes too damaged. Basically, there is no curse - it's just the natural state of existence in that universe. The idea that Gwyn was somehow involved is an error Dark Souls 2 created with Scholar, and than erroneously propagated, with the help of ardent wiki editors. But yes, Dark Souls 1 is very mythical in its delivery of its lore, which is very frustrating for people.

@josephmclaughlin6191

4 жыл бұрын

I enjoyed your lets plague videos

@nackskott12

4 жыл бұрын

See, when I played through DS2 and met Aldia, I interpreted him as saying the first sin was trying to fight the curse of the undead, and that the age of dark (and the hollowing of all mankind) is an inevitable part of life. I determined the “first sin” was a philosophical sin about defying nature (“inherit the order of this world, or destroy it”), until I remember that Aldia also says that “humanity assumed a fleeting form” AFTER the first sin. Man, DS2 is lame.

@Christopher-xg8kp

4 жыл бұрын

not true dude... if you played the Ring city DLC you should know Gwyn actively put a seal of fire on armor and weapons of the first men to seal their darkness and over time the same seal burned a hole in their bodies and soul (causing ppl to go hollow) and even later the same seal appeared on the world itself ( the darksign in the sky at the end of DS 3) which also explains why more undead appear when the fire fades, the seal of fire on humankind is of the same fire that is linked every game. what you talk about kinda is in DS 2 that soul and curse is one and the same but later we find out that's kinda bullshit

@rawen160

4 жыл бұрын

There is curse for sure. We know there are both "these cursed" and "these uncursed". Not only DSII says that directy by the name of MC beeing Bearer of the curse, his wife and kid dying assumably permamently, but also DSI has paladin Leeroy who was special because he BECAME undead (synonymous with cursed in that universe). Indirectly, but also Lloyd's charm indicats for that, as is was used to fight specificly the undead.

@Sou1Reav3r

4 жыл бұрын

Rawen 1 wife and kids were fine, our cursed hero just forgot them as explained in Lucatiel story. Regarding Leeroy, I'm not sure there's anything special about him. He was the first undead of the Way of Wight, but there were many more after him, we personally encounter 4 others on our way. Undead curse is linked to the first flame, it spreads as the fire fades, locking shards of the dark soul (humanity) inside people and preventing the age of dark/humanity.

47:54 You drop from ice to fire because the ice is literally holding all that fire at bay: it's the Ivory King's wife using her blizzard-making power to suppress the Old Chaos. It's explained. It isn't the world giving away. The ice is a conscious response to the fire getting too big.

Reminder: this guy made fun of Sherlock fans who theorized a fourth season based on the fact the whole third season didn’t make sense and now can’t stop falling in love with a whole game’s theme apparently being about not making sense

I always looked at the storytelling in DS as something that is comparable to a historian or archaeologist showing up at a newly found civilization and starting from scratch as far as putting the pieces of history together. The idea being that you can put together a rough timeline based on the records and artifacts you find (introductory cutscene, lore text on item descriptions), but the rest of the missing pieces have to be drawn out of inferences you draw from either environmental clues or from the item descriptions. I personally like the idea that a lot of the mysteries in the game do not have real answers, as in that manner it accurately reflects attempts to understand IRL history and thus encourages players to make those inferences. Unlike LOTR, which dispels the potential mysteries due to the thoroughness of its text, DS tantalizes the viewer with questions with open answers which keeps that sense of mystery intact. As far as the intro cutscene, I always viewed that more as a creation myth due to its more dramatic delivery and thus view it as unreliable in its narration. As in the general plot points are correct, but it is embellished for dramatic effect. I feel like understanding or dissecting this game's story needs to be approached in a way that is different than the traditional lens of approaching writing due to the fact that it seems to be telling its story in a completely different way than the norm in traditional media.

If you're interested in understanding more of the story(and I understand if you're not) there's a series of long videos by a KZreadr named Hawkshaw, who goes into the most detail and offers by far the most evidence of what he puts forth that I've seen, including a fairly cohesive timeline. His work is further supplemented by looking at the original Japanese text in the game and showing where some localization errors occurred and created some confusion in the English releases.

@Redoer

5 жыл бұрын

vaati copies alot of shit from other lore channels as well but he's ok

@unsweeteneddoll

4 жыл бұрын

I can't stand Hawkshaw because he doesn't actually show proof for the information he gets. He expects us to take him at his word, for example his translation videos never even give you the original japanese, so a japanese viewer can't fact check him on the spot. :/

@MewMewSun

4 жыл бұрын

@@unsweeteneddoll That's an error on his part. A simple fix would be for him to provide a link to the interview accompanied with timestamps from which the quotes are taken from.

@unsweeteneddoll

4 жыл бұрын

MewMewSun it’s not just interviews, there’s also text from the game itself. It would have been so easy to show this japanese text and explain how he translated it but he did not.

@StephanuSneed

2 жыл бұрын

Hawkshaw is really cool, but they get a lot wrong due to bad English translations. Their entire video on the WoW is wrong because of that.

This series is the best representation of MauLer's content to date. Going point by point, deconstructing poor arguments, defending objective ones, and promoting better quality in writing and design in art. Top notch work. Given that, I am greatly excited to see how the TFA Critique turns out.

@Superschokokeks

4 жыл бұрын

EFAP before EFAP was a thing

9:44 "In Game of Thrones death is final." Me: Hur hur Not anymore. Now before they die they cut away and survive.

@marcschwartz6460

4 жыл бұрын

God damn it, it's true

I noticed the pattern that HBomber very often says "developers did this, did that, intended that" like there is a meaningful decision to every design (story included) choice to DS2. I HIGHLY doubt that this is the case. DS2's development process was a mess through and through. I even heard that the entire reason why SotFS came to be was because Miyazaki saw DS2 and said "this is fucked, redo it". DS2 is objectively a mess. It is also a decent stand-alone game. Its playable. Its somewhat fun. I played it a fair lot and enjoyed it. Still doesn't change the fact that its a mess and frankly would do better to not carry a Dark Souls name on it.

@papershadow

4 жыл бұрын

It's a very obvious combination of ego and appeal to authority. The former in that HBomber, as the one defending Dark Souls 2, is one of the few who pieced together this intention that makes him like the game; the latter in that if he says it, it's one interpretation or perspective, but if it's what the developers want, then it's your fault for approaching the experience wrong, like going to see a High Fantasy story akin to Lord of the Rings and then being disappointed it didn't have elements of a Romantic Comedy genre. Without interviews on the matter the best one can do is infer Developer intention, even someone extremely studied in how game design and development progresses. However if one can sound convincing in their interpretation while saying it simply is what the dev's meant, then H isn't telling you you're incorrect, the game is.

For me, the biggest hint that Gwyn went hollow was the fact that there's no lightning in his boss fight. The opening cinematic and several items and spells draw attention to his lightning abilities. It's actually pretty cathartic in Dark Souls 3 where the Soul of Cinder gets them back. It's the real deal. Gwyn is in some way back, and fully testing you, still clinging on to his age of fire even when it's far past it's expiration date. This time though, you're canonically ending the age of fire once and for all.

@forgot7en

6 ай бұрын

I mean, the cinematic doesn't just show Gwyn throwing lightning spears at dragons, it's an entire army doing that. You do get a special Miracle out of his soul, so you do have a point, but it's possible the reason why he doesn't cast spells is because he's been completely consumed by the First Flame. Meanwhile the Lord of Cinder in DS3 isn't Gwyn specifically, it's an amalgamation of all the souls of all the Chosen Undead up to that point, and it doesn't just cast Lightning Spears, it casts several spells and pyromancies, including Power Within, which the lore in DS1 says is the "Pyromancy of Carmina, who harnessed the power of flame to actualize the inner-self." You might be asking "who tf is Carmina?" Well, she was "the most accomplished pupil of Salaman the Master Pyromancer." Who tf is Salaman? Well, he is mentioned by name by Quelana, who taught him pyromancy. The only reason we even know someone named Carmina exists is because of the Power Within and Flash Sweat descriptions. Otherwise, these two characters may as well not even exist, because they weren't Chosen Undead, and yet, Lord of Cinder uses Carmina's trademark Pyromancy. It casts other miracles too, such as Force and Healing and they all have their own attributes. It also keeps shapeshifting the coiled sword into other weapons such as a curved sword and a spear. I don't think Lord of Cinder embodying Gwyn's moveset has any greater meaning besides the final boss of DS3 bookending the series. As they always say, you can parry Gwyn, but you can't parry the feels. Even Lord of Cinder is unparryable no matter what it does, it's an entity, not a person.

As far as I know, the two major "plot holes" in LOTR that are frequently brought up (the two you've shown) have reasonable explanations, even outside of the books (which I have not read). It seemed apparent to me that the eagles would have been shot down or killed by the the Nazgul without the distraction at the gates of Mordor, and the reason the ghost army didn't stick around is because their only duty (and the reason they are ghosts in the first place) was to defend Minas Tirith, which they did. That said, I could be wrong, and there are doubtless other legitimate plot holes, but the two that you (and many others) cite never seemed legitimate to me. Also, I love your channel, keep up the good work.

@otwk

4 жыл бұрын

LOTR itself has some minor plot holes (Nazgul hating water, for example). The "Extended Universe" and behind-the-scenes lore (starting already in the Appendixes) has a big bunch of them, mainly because a) Tolkien was only human and b) It was unfinished.

@dodojesus4529

4 жыл бұрын

@@otwk lets just be real he would never have finished it. A World like that can't really be completed

@jetthejudge

3 жыл бұрын

@@dodojesus4529 exactly

Harris' soft voice when he tries to sell DkS2 is fucking infuriating.

His defense is even more hilarious in retrospect now that we know DS2 was in development hell, had its initial director removed from the project and that Yui Tanamura was basically put in charge to salvage it and all the levels were literally patchworked together from the assets that were finished to meet the release date. xD

@KeyToAeris2024

2 жыл бұрын

I mean Miyazaki clearly wanted to make sure Bloodborne was perfect and he didn’t even want to do a sequel to Dark Souls so I can see why he left it.

@jokemon9547

2 жыл бұрын

@@KeyToAeris2024 Miyazaki was never the director for DS2 in the first place. The initial director he is talking about was Tomohiro Shibuya. Although Miyazaki did have a supervisory role in the background, I believe he wanted the team working on Dark Souls 2 be more independent and not use him for guidance. How the game ended up was more due to the development issues as opposed to just all of their ideas being bad.

@forgot7en

6 ай бұрын

​@@jokemon9547Strictly speaking, none of the ideas for context/lore in DS2 are any better or worse than anything in DS1. They only seem bad because the game itself is a mess and the presentation is sorely lacking, but there is value to what was written, and the voice acting is still great. The problem is that it's titled Dark Souls II, when it's really a spinoff, in the same way that Dark Souls is a spinoff of Demon's Souls. If this game stood on its own with its own title, it'd be much more fondly remembered and not so hotly debated. It's how I look at Devil May Cry 4 and 5, they're so far removed from what the characters and story were like in the first three games in the series, and the writing is so bad that it betrays the series' foundations that, once you understand 4 and 5 completely, it is impossible to consider them canonical, even though they do have some cool ideas here and there.

Oh my fucking God. For the thousand time. The birds didn't enter Mordor before the destruction of the first ring because they would've been fucking shot down.

@R1R1R2

Жыл бұрын

wHy NoT uSe ThE eAgLeS I’m not even a Tolkien fan and people who ask that raise my blood pressure.

@L251125

Жыл бұрын

@@R1R1R2 I legitimate can't understand how people are that stupid.

Oh, one point I do want to make is I don't think Aldia was necessary to put into the game. I liked the theory that Navlaan was actually Aldia under another name. Adding Aldia as a character shoots that theory in the foot and makes Navlaan just some rando guy, which is a bit at odds with how prominently he's placed in Aldia's Keep, his level of strength as a black phantom, his dual personality and the circumstances surrounding his imprisonment. I think Navlaan was a much more interesting character than the Aldia they added in scholar of the first sin. I liked the idea of Vendrick going hollow, whereas Aldia stays human but goes insane. They'd both lose their minds in different ways. And both were deliberately imprisoned, most likely by themselves. But no, thanks to the definitive dark souls 2 scholar experience, we get the weirdo tree head who explodes bonfires to scare noobs. GG

@7Zealot

5 жыл бұрын

Absolutely agree. I personally also liked the open-ended nature of the original ending, simple as it was. Between these points, I feel like Aldia not only failed to add to the overall experience, but in some ways he took away from it.

"MYEH! I'VE WATCHED AN OLD MOVIE AND YOU HAVEN'T! MYEH!"

@familyguyfreemoviedownload8314

3 жыл бұрын

believe it or not, media literacy is important in discussions of art. try seeking out media that isn’t focus-grouped for mass consoomption sometime

@cameronroy2129

3 жыл бұрын

@@familyguyfreemoviedownload8314 not like Hbomb does, how he does it is the issue. Just knowing that doesn't make you better equipped or smarter on the subject because many of the types who say that just read way too much into something and ignore the context of each thing they compare. The original person is correct that Harris basically talks about something older and talks most of the time with an air of superiority like trying to imply it makes no sense and that's why it makes sense despite the fact thats not what the game is trying to do. Harris read way too much into the shield thing and that was really dumb and personal and he has trouble admitting when something is just dumb when he likes it so he goes farther and farther saying nonsense trying to justify it. You are correct that having that knowledge can help but most of the time people read it wrong when applying that knowledge and come off as arrogant or desperately trying to justify something simply not justified.

@ivanyekimov1470

3 жыл бұрын

@@familyguyfreemoviedownload8314 tldr: his smugness defeats the nuance of cross-referencing

@callmequaz9052

3 жыл бұрын

@@familyguyfreemoviedownload8314 as another user pointed out- simply knowing something doesn't mean anything. There's a difference between knowledge and understanding, and it's clear Hbomber lacks the second half.

@xuanathan

3 жыл бұрын

Theres a good way of cross referencing, for example a large part of Berserk is the ambiguity between its "light" and its "dark", which is a common theme in Dark Souls, where the struggle between light and dark isn't black and white like other works with that premise.

Imma be honest I didnt feel anything when I first saw vendrick because i had no idea who it was supposed to be i just thought "huh wonder why there's some wierd old guy here"

@coolguychapman6685

Ай бұрын

I think thats the case for most of us lol i dont even think they show what vendrick looks like until that point LMAO

Something important to note is that the first Dark Souls was intended to be pretty open-and-shut. The only reason the player was strong enough to kindle the First Flame was because the Lord Souls (and fragments of Gwyn's) were handily available. The Age of Fire wouldn't be able to continue for much longer, maybe a few more centuries, and choosing to begin the Age of Dark was considered a permanent change to the world as a whole. Miyazaki never intended for there to be more than one Dark Souls game, but due to the game's success, the previous president of the company (prior to Miyazaki) signed an agreement to produce two more games. Miyazaki whipped together the whole cycle nonsense *after* the first game, in order for the idea of additional games in the series making sense.

A couple of points for today: 1) How annoying was Aldia, considering you were using a weapon with such short range? 2) How in the seven holy hells did it occur to you to use fire and pyromancy on Gwyn, the guy who's called the Lord of SUNLIGHT and CINDERS, who uses a giant FLAMING sword?!? Your gameplay is truly baffling sir, and I enjoyed your video all the more for it:) 3) Didn't Harris tear Bethesda a new arsehole when they added in a new ending to Fallout 3 via dlc, yet not a peep is heard when Dark Souls 2 gets a new ending via 3(!) dlcs. Seems like something you could have had him crucified with.

@MauLerYT

6 жыл бұрын

Hey Michael :) 1) I found that if I moved close to him immediately, he would activate the tentacle move that is highly telegraphed, so I would easily avoid it and wail on him then he disappeared and I repeat. He was an extremely underwhelming boss :( which was lame to come after Nashandra, the even more underwhelming boss :(( 2) So, funny story; I didn't have a play through of Dark Souls 1 to use footage for, so I decided to stream a play through where I chose to spread my levels and item build across several things, I grabbed some miracles, the Zweihander, and a heavy set of armour while spreading levels and it was horribly punishing, even for a guy who has spent a huge amount of time with the game. And I liked that, I liked being punished for trying to focus loads of things at once considering your choices SHOULD mean something, but I decided to try and beat the game with it and so I picked up a pyromancy too while in The Daughter of Chaos cave and by the time I got to the end I thought "Fuck it, let's see what this does to Gwyn :D" Honestly it was a fun play through and the 20 Estus was only JUST able to carry me as you can see I hit zero on my Artorias fight because of how weird the build was. but yeah, short answer: I wanted to mess around and I needed footage for the video ;) 3) Harris is a hypocrite with many of his principals from past videos, I suppose we can all be rung up for that sort of thing at some point but Harris, far more so. There are a few things I have since wanted to add to my videos and there are always going to be more but you are absolutely right! Hope your enjoying the series dude :)

@michaeljaradeh6213

6 жыл бұрын

MauLer 1) Yeah, the fight was just really boring, especially for any end game character. At least bosses like the royal rat vanguard and the covetous demon are fun to beat on, this was just a waste of disc space and hype, considering the fact that the "definitive" edition was named after him. 2) That would explain why you were cheesing the game so hard with Havel's, the stamina shield and dex, otherwise cool story, I can't really say more :-> 3) Since you opened up the subject, what would you add to or subtract from the series so far, if you had the power to? Oh, I'm having a whale of a time, thanks ;)

@MauLerYT

6 жыл бұрын

3) Oh man, that's a huge question I couldn't answer here, I could make a ten hour series on that alone ;)

@michaeljaradeh6213

6 жыл бұрын

MauLer I can imagine the title now: RE: "RE: "In Defense of Dark Souls 2" - A Measured Response part 1" - A More Measured Response part 8 You'd rake in the views!

@JoshM512

4 жыл бұрын

Really late comment so you probably know this by now, but Gwyn is actually weak to fire I believe.

Okay, I think the fundamental problem you have with the story is one that was deliberate on the part of Miyazaki. He wrote out the story in a manner that emulated what he felt when reading stories from the West, where the language barrier left a huge amount of information blank for him and he had to fill them in with his own imagination. Call it what you like, but saying it's poorly written just because a lot of information doesn't seem to make sense and is left extremely vague...is honestly disingenuous when it was intentionally written to evoke that feeling. You're entitled to your opinion, however Dark Souls' story is an extremely odd situation where the story was not made to be coherent, consistent, and structured. It's a mess, and it was made to be a mess in order to evoke a certain feeling in the player who's reading it, and...if it brought that feeling forward, even if you didn't like it...doesn't that mean the story did its job?

@MrRaziza

6 жыл бұрын

Occult Nightingale I think a lot of it has to do with the boundaries that games can push as a medium. In a book, the Dark Souls story would be completely trash. Vague, confusing plot points strung together into "sort of" story beats with no real way to understand it on a first read without extensive time dedicated to analysis and theory. But as a game... you're experiencing the story much differently. I don't think one can really deny the world building in Dark Souls, it's phenomenal at conveying atmosphere and tone. But you're picking up those feelings (for the most part) from what you're experiencing, not what's being described to you. There's a much greater connectivity to something you're experiencing on the screen while you go through the game, one failure and triumph at a time. That, in combination with the story elements that are told and explained, set up a world unlike any other for you to slip into via your character. You're the one discovering all its secrets, you're the one speculating, and you're the one trying to make sense of it all while YOU have ultimate control from the simple fact that you as the player interact with the world on your own accord. To me, that's what makes the story great, and in a larger sense, makes the whole "objectively good/bad" argument irrelevant. Dark Souls would not be nearly as enticing of a game if it had a traditional story with exposition dump NPC's and story based cut scenes, and arguably not as good of a game either.

@Trakesh

6 жыл бұрын

To be honest I didn't read any of that I was just looking for a comment thread to latch unto where I could state this: Dark Souls was translated extremely badly and the people doing so took liberties on the level of the recent (infamous) Fire Emblem translations. There are videos of this on youtube.

@borgue

6 жыл бұрын

Ah, the shortcomings are deliberate. Well-known in the DS community which includes the creator of this video. Still, DELIBERATELY incoherent you say; I see... But do you?

@greasysmith3150

6 жыл бұрын

No it means that they didnt write a story they wrote something if a setting for you to fill in. You know what else does this? DnD players handbook, but mist people dont say it tells a good or well written stoey, intrad its a spring board for your own stories, but compared to a pen and paper rpg DS is way to resyricted to accomplish this.

@Trakesh

6 жыл бұрын

Dungeons and Dragons is also trash. Play a better tabletop.

I was losing my mind when Harris talked about how you expect Vendrick to be the "traditional Souls final boss" but instead was a huge shock/twist when Demon's Souls did this EXACT thing. When you cut to King Allant I was soooooo grateful that didn't get left out.

@bradleyhandsonjoehallschro5419

2 жыл бұрын

Demon's Souls did it. Dark Souls 1 did it with Gwyn. The difference with Ds2's Vendrick is as I looked more into the story, the less logical Vendrick's actions and where he ended up became.

@abaddononion

2 жыл бұрын

@@bradleyhandsonjoehallschro5419 Agreed. But I think Mauler makes a good point here about how it's more subtle with Gwyn so I can forgive someone for missing it, especially if they weren't a huge fan of DaS1. But it's not even remotely subtle in Demon's Souls, it's literally the exact same scenario. And Harris went out of his way to say "the previous two souls games' kings", so it's just a completely indefensible statement.

The story is not badly written for being vague and obtuse intentionally. That's like saying Goat Simulator's gameplay is bad because it's buggy.

@SorowFame

4 жыл бұрын

I think that his point is that on a purely technical level it is, however that doesn't mean people can't enjoy the story.

@kidnameless

3 жыл бұрын

@@SorowFame That’s why I prefer to use the term “unconventional” rather than split the terms good and bad into both objective and subjective categories. Unconventional forms of storytelling, by definition, break standard rules that have been widely accepted as the norm, and are likely to be considered bad by many as such. But I feel it’s hard to call it “objectively bad” when it’s an intentional choice that many would say ultimately adds a lot to the atmosphere of the story being told. The very criteria that somebody judges to determine what makes a story good or bad will have at least some basis in subjectivity. Usually.

@joaoassumpcao3347

2 жыл бұрын

@@kidnameless Yeah, the whole "objectively good or bad" raises the question of whether something can be good or bad without the influence of opinion, which I think it can't. The definition of "well written" as "adhering to good writing practices" (as this video seems to define) sounds more like that piece is more standard, not objectively good. But then it completely delegitimizes outsider art as being "objectively bad". Then any kind of experimental and revolutionary structure would be viewed as "objectively bad", until that changed the "good writing practices" so that the new becomes "objectively good" and the old becomes "objectively bad". It also brings into question cultural influence. Obviously what is considered good writing varies from culture to culture, so saying something has objectively bad writing knowing it comes from a completely different culture (like is the case with Dark Souls) comes off as a little ignorant imo.

I swear when Harris said this is i thought he was going to say "poetry, it rhymes"

Ironically, Dark Souls 2 is even more concrete with it's storytelling if you consider the fact that your character is basically partaking the role of a third party between a lover's squabble between Vendrick and Nashandra. It's so in your face with Nashandra's dialogue and Vendrick's dialogue that in retrospect, it's hilarious what your character got wrapped up in.

You know what I love about the lore/stories in DS1? Its not about us and its, in a way, not written for us. a smaller scale example would be the story of Siegmeyer and his daughter Sieglinde: Whenever you have such a drama in another game or movie or whatver, the characters would somehow tell you about their feelings, about whats happened and have you somehow join in on the events, so you can understand what happens. but with Siegmeyer and his daughters story, they only give away hints about their backstory, they let through their care for each other and Sieglinde clearly is very dedicated, cut content also lets us know that Sieglinde isnt even undead. and if we let their story unfold til the end, Siegmeyer ends up dead and it seems to be Sieglind, who killed him, but even that isnt 100% clear. what exactly led their we cannot know, what Sieglindes "last words of her mother" which she was dedicated to tell her father were, we have no idea, its implied that Siegmeyer went hollow, but we do not know ... it all happened without us and we can only see the end result, we do not hear the ultimate conclusion, and this is awesome imo. because what business would either of them have telling us that private stuff? they´d do it only because we are the player and we want to hear the stories, why write a story if the consumer isnt going to hear it? But dark souls goes there and tells stories without bothering to let us hear it, we know there is a complex story going on, but we don´t experience it in detail. you could always argue that the writers didnt have an actual story in mind and only gave us small parts to imply that there was one, but I dont think so, since the characters and their behaviour are so believable and there are no plotholes in the entire game, which is amazing and would be so stupid hard to make sure of, if you create a bunch of ambigious story threads, that lead nowhere. I think creating a complex story and leaving large parts out of it would actually be easier, when you strife for that same end result of having no plotholes and a believable world with great characters. also you know that story, where that idea of storywriting came from myazaki having read western litirature as a kid and due to his bad english, he couldnt understand large parts of the story and had to fill in the gaps with his fantasy, so the stories he read were complete, but he couldnt comprehend them completely, they were still whole and made sense in themselves.

So he’s really impressed by an NPC talking about a civilisation that existed long before Drangleic. Has he heard of Oolacile??

@forgot7en

6 ай бұрын

Forget Oolacile, what about Izalith, which is even older?

the old firekeeper with a spinning wheel is more likely to be a berserk reference than a movie reference, an old woman with a spinning wheel appears to direct griffith to the castle in his introspective moment in the eclipse, which fits better narratively being that you need to get to castle drangleic

@forgot7en

6 ай бұрын

Even if it were a direct reference to a movie or an anime or a manga or whatever, I can guarantee you that any of those are referencing something else. Either way, it doesn't matter, the symbolism of an old woman with a spinning wheel is that of "creation" in MANY stories, folklore, myths, etc. you can't really trace for sure where it comes from because it's been used for that purpose. It could be a Berserk reference since there are already so many in the franchise, it's an obvious source of inspiration especially in the games Hidetaka Miyazaki worked on, so it's a fair assumption. But Harris definitively saying it's a direct reference to a vintage Japanese film is absolutely hilarious just because they put a spider on the wall lmao

To be fair, you need to have a very high IQ to understand the story of dark souls 2™

@demonicious_

5 жыл бұрын

No you don't. You only need to watch some Videos on KZread.

@teddybearpaladin

4 жыл бұрын

He’s making a joke-reference thing. It comes from a rather infamous Reddit Post claiming you need a High IQ to understand the humor of Rick and Morty. It is the subject of much ridicule for just how stupid the claim is, especially since if a show or game actually did require a High IQ to enjoy, it would be absurdly inaccessible and probably written off as boring by most of us “non-High IQ” people. Admittedly this is explaining the joke, but it’s been at least months since this comment was posted and I thought to just add clarity to a matter I have come to understand amidst My browsing’s through the internet. But yeah, it’s meme.

@1SWINZ1

4 жыл бұрын

No you don't, you just need to know about Buddhism. This is why Westerners can't work out the story, btw. Westerners generally don't know the first thing about Buddhism, and so they lack the tools to do so. I mean, it's not impossible, it's just very hard. I worked out much of the story of DS1 and 2 without knowing anything about Buddhism, but as soon as I did learn about Buddhism, it only confirmed my theories about the story in these games. Like, the Throne of Want... If you're a Westerner, this comes out of nowhere, and makes no sense. But if you know about Buddhism, which states that the source of all of humanity's suffering comes from desire/want, then it all falls into place. This is also what Souls represent: they're desire, but they're not your identity. Desires and wants change over time, and the mistake that most people make is that they identify with those desires, and think it defines them, such as we who identify as "gamers". But there's something unchanging about humans, and that's what Humanity is. 'Cause Souls are fire, and the Humanity within us is kind of like a black container of nothingness that contains the Soul. It's all very complicated and I'd be here all day trying to explain it, but if you want to know more, learn about Buddhism. It'll give you all of the answers to the story of Dark Souls, including most of the things that Mauler claims is unexplained/or that it doesn't make sense.

@TheStraightestWhitest

4 жыл бұрын

@@1SWINZ1 Here's where Buddhism miserably fails: They strive to be free of desire. Should I repeat that? They strive to be free of desire. Basically, it is their desire to be free of desire. A fool's errand.

@1SWINZ1

4 жыл бұрын

@@TheStraightestWhitest According to the Dalai Lama, that's actually a gross misconception, and he called it ridiculous for the same reason that you did: Of course, you need the desire to remove desires.

"It was already complete in its incompleteness." Don't know how many times I've binged this series now, but I still can't get over that statement.

@dorn0531

Жыл бұрын

Me too. Harris needs to lay off the copium. That stuff is bad for you

@forgot7en

6 ай бұрын

Technically, this statement is true if we're talking about MGSV; Kojima himself said he's satisfied with the story as it is presented in the final game. It's deliberately left incomplete as the author intended. The same can't really be said about DS2 unless its author says otherwise, though, but it's quite possibly the most reasonable opinion Harris has about it... but only if we ignore the fact Scholar is labelled as the definitive edition of the game.

Love this series. Thanks for making it. I can’t even begin to imagine how long it took to produce. Probably a 100 hours or more. Just know that I appreciate your thoroughness and non-half assedness. You definitely gave it your all and I’m happy I found your channel.

One of my favorite parts of dark souls comes right from the creator. He loved European fiction but didn’t fully understand English so he filled in what he couldn’t understand. This was the inspiration for the style of the souls games story telling.

Lol I'm sorry, but the opening cinematic of Dark Souls 1 fascinated me and made me really want to figure out what was going on, what drove the individual beings mentioned throughout. Where's the furtive pygmy? What's a furtive pygmy? What is anything? Why is anything happening? Why does it so early mirror parts of our own world? The story of what happened in Lordran is fascinating, and it plays out in a unique way that you just don't see in many games.

I personally feel the lore channel around the site kind raised Dark Soul's "story" to a different level, since they are really just intriguing flavor text that kind make sense and is relevent to your current location. The reason people like them so much is because a lot of the time you can make logical connections between them and paint a beautiful/tragic story for yourself. A good example I feel would be Tarkus. He appeared as a NPC summon in Sion's Fortress and is capable defeating Iron Golems as well (You kind did that actually), but then you later found his dead body with his full set of equipment on in the grand cathedral. The common idea there is, consider the environment we are in and the fact window was broken already, Tarkus must explored this route first but utimately fell to his tragic demise. And it's quiet relatable consider he wield great sword with heavy armor, which is ill suit for the celling battle there. There are quiet some logical question can be asked there, like why he would gave up at this point and die as a hollow while he never gave up on much harsh Sion's Fortress, some more fundamental one would be why I should care about this non-character to begin with. But I think those elements of story really doesn't matter there, because those are essentially flavor text that gave the environment some more life and help player engage the game itself with more understanding of their surronding. The "Story" was purposefully vague and might not make sense at the end but it is fine because they are secondary elements in Dark Soul that's designed to flesh out the environment some more and is there to company the gameplay, the meat of the series. I also think Dark Soul's story (Let's just call it lore or flavor text for what it actually is) is well in comparison to many that was inspired, like Salt and Sanctuary, but that would be too much to write since I need to explain where SaS falls short and why DS is better, especially when it's 4 am there and I just want to finish the video and go to bed to have some sleep. Anyway, just want to gave some ideas on why Dark Soul's "story" was well liked by the community.

See I’d argue the way dark souls’s story is told is actually genius. It was never advertised as a story driven game. If you want to look for the story, then it’s there, but you don’t have to in order to enjoy the game. Now something like destiny that was advertised as having a story based experience, but most of the story requires you to leave the game, is quite bullshit. Especially when the story they DID have in game was exposited through lazy and uninteresting dialogue. The universe of destiny told through Grimoire cards is actually pretty amazing through. Too bad D2 is just RetConing it all with no respect or restraint.

Dark Souls 2 is the story about a man who realized he dun goofed, because he married an evil lady, and then he does everything in his power to give someone else a chance to make amends, because he knows he's in over his head. The DLCs are about the sisters of the evil lady, one of which was also evil, the other of which was ambivalent until her king made her a better person through faith.

You know when I saw the old lady in dark souls 2 I immediately thought that's a three Fates from Greek mythology reference or possibly the Norns from Norse mythology I didn't think Macbeth or it's Japanese adaptation.

@dunkelklinge0

4 жыл бұрын

To be fair, the three witches in Macbeth seem to be an adaption of those figures or are at least influenced by them.

@DanielSmith-mp4le

4 жыл бұрын

@@dunkelklinge0 I honestly doubt that considering the three witches are malevolent while the fates or the norns are not.

@dunkelklinge0

4 жыл бұрын

@@DanielSmith-mp4leWell we cant be certain, but the 3 hags or witches are a Myth that can be traced through a lot of european folklore. They seem to be connected, but yeah, probably not on purpose. Have a nice day.

@DanielSmith-mp4le

4 жыл бұрын

@@dunkelklinge0 you too

@AshleyWilliamsN7

Жыл бұрын

Well clearly you aren't as cultured as Harris. He watches old black and white foreign movies.

Hey man, I just wanted to say that I've been having an extraordinary shitty day today, and these videos are really helping me out. Keeping me out of my head with my depressive and anxious thoughts. And I just want to say that I really appreciate your content. Thank you for what you do.

I was quite sad at seeing Vendrick, reminded me of my dad who passed away from Alzheimer's. Seeing such a great/powerful man a shell of himself gutted me, that music helped too. I didn't get that from Gwyn, I found his encounter very disappointing. I was there to rekindle the flame, or perpetuate it, so I was confused that he was so hostile, but I once I looked more into the lore, it made sense that he was a hollow madman, attacking anything, then I felt sad lol Outside of Vendrick and The boss Giant (seeing his husk earlier and fighting him later was pretty cool) I never felt attached to much in DS2, even the lore videos didn't help things greatly, unlike DS1. Getting to Anor Londo in DS1 is one of the highpoints in any game. Guinevere patting me on the head with her "amazing chest", gave so much to that area, and my spirits.Even if though she was faked, it was awe inducing to see a prolific figure from a greater time that didn't want to kill me, and hadn't gone hollow. There are so many great characters/locations in DS1, I just wish they were as fleshed out in the game as they are in some of the amazing lore videos out there. Artorias, Havel, Sif, NIto, Pinwheel, Lost Isalith and sisters of Chaos, flooded New Londo, etc... What an intriguing world!

I love this style of video, you do so well dissecting arguments and it’s helped me understanding arguements a great deal more.

I love and applaud how you handled the intro. Just an awesome way to get the viewer on board with your line of thought.

I have to thank Hbomber for one thing, I stumbled upon his video and agreed to it since I didn't know any better, then, someone mentioned MauLer, checked him out and never went back. It has been one year since then, and MauLer is without a doubt my favorite content creator.

@CErra310

3 жыл бұрын

yeah same here. MauLer says he's still a fan of hbomb but honestly I just... don't want to give that guy views anymore

@Vlaffffy

2 ай бұрын

The D riding is crazy

Harry's voice, tone and simply the way he talk overall changes from kind of a "this is bad" way of talking when referring to DS1, whilst having a "this is fantastic" tone in regards to DS2... it's obvious and blatant bias.

The beginning to this video was super interesting in the way that you shifted tone throughout your description of DS1's story. Really illustrated the point that you can talk about any narrative with varying degrees of reductiveness, which Harris does a lot when he talks about the narrative in DS1. It was a great way to frame this video, since this concept was fresh in my mind throughout. I'm so glad I discovered your channel, the sheer amount of work you put in to your videos is staggering. But the thoroughness with which you approach everything is truly unique and I appreciate the hell out of it.

Its just amazing to me how Harris states way too many times that DS2 worldbuilding is good because is incoherent, makes no sense and its poorly put together while diminishing DS1 worldbuilding because he didnt like the first half of the game making you walk through an extremely interconnected and well-built map.

I'm only 8 mins in, but the storytelling method is based on Miyazakis own experiences as a child. He loved fantasy books, but couldn't fully understand all the words, which forced him to fill the holes where needed. The Dark Souls method of telling the story is based on this. Not saying it's a good way of storytelling for understanding the whole story, it's just an interesting and different way of telling a story, and most of all, it's intentional. Otherwise these videos so far

@louis5368

5 жыл бұрын

It's not storytelling, it's world building.

Objectively, the story does what Miyazaki intended. He grew up reading stories in English and he didn’t know all the words, so he was missing key details in a lot of them. But he still enjoyed the stories by filling in the gaps for himself. I believe that is the experience he wanted to recreate. It is straightforward story, but also a myth, and also a metaphor, as well as an excuse for gameplay at times, most likely. Analyzing these games always leads me to introspection and learning about myself in the process, in addition to being compelling stories.

you were cooking for 6 parts but your takes on the mysterious/ magical plot points in Dark Souls and LOTR are truly stinkers.

Just to defend Supernatural for a second, Death did matter for the first five seasons. However that is when the first main plot and creator of the story left. Afterwards....yeaaaah, a little less.

Technically, Hollows are the true from of humanity before they were given shards of the Dark Soul, so it isn't so much that they are becoming a shadow of their former selves so much as they're being stripped of the illusions of nobility and intelligence given to them by the Dark Soul and returning to the state that they were in in the Age of Grey. In fact, the entirety of Dark Souls is more or less constructed of comforting illusions, and illusions make up a large part of gameplay and lore, what with illusionary walls and even the *sun itself* being merely a comforting illusion in the first DS game, along with the fake Gwynevere, both of which were meant to sustain a *THIRD* illusion: that the power of the gods remained in Anor Londo, and they had not faded completely. Which was pretty much untrue, as the gods had waned to the point that they ditched Anor Londo and scattered to the four winds save Gwyndolin, who is, *himself,* maintaining the illusion that he's female, not to mention the fact that he's responsible for both the sun and Gwynevere, and potentially every illusion in the game. Rabbit hole for days.

@StephanuSneed

2 жыл бұрын

That's not true. Hollows still have their pieces of the Dark Soul. Being hollow is one possible outcome of having unsealed Dark inside you. It's the reason why Nashandra's power is to literally turn you hollow, why the Dark Pyromancy Flame becomes more powerful the more hollow you are, and why Dark Sigils in 3 are what allows unkindled to hollow. Being hollow doesn't mean you are without soul, it means that your fragment of the Dark Soul has taken over. "returning to the state that they were in in the Age of Grey." They didn't exist during the Age of Ancients. The intro very explicitly states they only appeared after the First Flame came into being, since life didn't exist yet.

I had a much better time piecing together the story of Dark Souls 1 than I did DS2. I still have no idea who any of the characters were besides the giant king wanted revenge, Nashandra wants to sit in the big chair.

@spookzie4208

5 жыл бұрын

You didnt enjoy Lucatiels story?

I'm going to recommend this video. You have a great voice, are very detailed and objective and I love your content. This was the first video series I saw of yours and I'm rewatching it now, but I love how you do your videos. You deserve far more subscribers, you are an amazing analyst and you don't come as smug very often, and when you do it seems more like you intended to be smug to prove a point. When it comes to Harris, who I respected a lot until I saw the Bloodborne and Dark Souls 2 videos, I think you've done an amazing job of coming at him with dignity and sincerity while also not sparring his feelings.

I’ve never played dark souls 2 and here I am 7 parts in, what a ride this has been. Quality long form content my friend.

To me, the Red Firekeepers seem to be a direct homage to Moirae of Greek Mythology, the three goddesses spinning, allotting and cutting all the threads of fate. They were probably one of the inspiration for Kurosawa's character.

What the hell is he talking about? "Oh, there's so much theory crafting about the old woman with the spinning wheel". Bruh, the first people you meet in the game are a whole bunch of old women in red and they tell you one of them isn't there, and the one that sent you to that place was an old woman in red, it really ain't that deep.

I think the storytelling in DS is a + because it does allow for much complexity and at the same time does not shove it in peoples faces, if they are not interested. and since its an interactive medium, its up to you to decide, whether you want to invest more or less in making the story up in your mind. I can agree this isnt effective to have the majority of people understand whats going on, but for many many people it makes the story or rather the lore of DS incredibly enjoyable and makes our own imagination awake from its slumber. making the audience filling the gaps themselves imo is a great achievement and its not the same as how DS2 simply gave us stories, that were meant to be incomplete. when you look very closely into the soulsborne games and their details, you will find that there are so many small details, that match up with the rest, and thats a big part of what makes these games different. I dont know if you´d be able to get the same amount of satisfaction out of deep analysis of this stuff, as I do, but imo its worth a look! I freaking love how much work and attention to detail they put into stuff, that 98% of players wouldnt ever notice, hell how many people played the game to the end and never saw ash lake? or the painted world - which imo is the best designed area in the game? thats kinda crazy, usually artists are scared of their hard work not being appreciated, which often results in a lack of subtlety, but with DS its quite the opposite. in fact most players will probably just ask themselves "why the fuck am I on fire?!" at the end of the game.

This is so interesting to watch actually glad I found this

59: He's treating the game like it's Undertale for some reason. Whereas Undertale had actual consequences for the player on repeat playthroughs, where characters confronted you on your psycopathic betrayal when you go from a good run to a genocide run, milking the game for all it's worth, and treating its characters like nothing more than pixelated playthings was actually punished by increased difficulty on many previous bosses and the opportunity to face the strongest boss in the game, with many heartbreaking scenes of betrayal peppered throughout. DS2 just had "begin journey 2 to Drangleic", no character referenced your earlier adventures, not even the supposedly infinitely knowledgable cat, no one confronts you on robbing them from their recently regained humanity, no one tries to kill you in revenge of the life you took from them in previous playthroughs. It's way too mechanical, and it gave way too much power for you to even consider giving a shit.

*parrying Gwen*

The spider fortune teller is actually a reference to EFAP

I love how Harris goes into headcanon and subjective interpretations for why you find the Lordvessel broken in the basement of the mansion in Majula, when there's a very easy reason as to why they put it there, and why it's in the state it's in. To explain why you can warp from bonfire to bonfire from the start of the game. The Lordvessel in Dark Souls 1 allowed that ability. At some point after Dark Souls 1, it was broken. When it was shattered, it allowed all bonfires to be able to use the warp. That's it. Obviously, there's no confirmation from the developers, but it seems much more likely they included it to provide an explanation for the mechanic of the instant ability to warp, as opposed to some confusing and contradictory metaphor for the world being doomed and broken, or how it represents the new development team not wanting to play it safe by relying on the original game.

I swear, if I see the text "without really knowing why" one more time in DS2 footage, I'm gonna need a therapist. Being self aware doesn't automatically fix the flaw in question, a bad story is still a bad story, and no amount of old ladies laughing at the audience will change that.

What is story-telling in games ? Cinematic exposition ? Lore books ? What's the point of having different narrative mediums if they all obey to the same rules ?

@Pangora2

2 жыл бұрын

So it can fall into the "Objective" label. For Mauler, objective is measurable. Since Dark Souls is unconventional, and succeeds without checking those boxes, he labels it a mess.

@mrcbi460

2 жыл бұрын

​@@Pangora2 Yeah that's absolutely true. Plus when you think about it one part he criticizes is the intro where not everything is clear, for instance where do the knights of Gwyn come from ? But... It's a myth. Told by someone thousands years later. Maybe even exaggerating Gwyn's achievements to consolidate his power. He's missing the point entirely

Vendrick : This character is genius because he is a shadow of his former self and not what the story has described so far Dark Souls 1 - Gwyn been basically shown as a God, has an army of tough knights. Reality he's the only boss you can parry

Shush my child, lemme answer ALL your questions about Dark Souls story with the ultimate canon answers! In the beginning, there were dragons... Being a dragon was... Amazing. *Amaaaaaaaaazing!* Rulling over their endless gray landscape of gray water and gray trees! They even got that skull! (The hell if anyone knows where that even came from!) That really was the high life! Except for Seeeeeeeeeath! Aw, Seath... What was the matter with Seath? Maybe he was still pissed off cause he was gonna die someday cause he didn't got no scales? Bitch ain't even got no legs (Didn't EVEN GOT LEGS!), meanwhile the other dragons even got that crystal shit that made them Double Immortal for some reason, they didn't even need it (Didn't *even need it!* ) So Seath knew what it felt like... Being a bitch... Okay I'll stop now =x

@MewMewSun

4 жыл бұрын

*LIGHTNING.*

@because_raisins

Жыл бұрын

no wait keep going

It’s heavily implied that Gwyn rekindling the first flame caused the curse of the undead which forced the undead to sacrifice humanity to bonfires which extends the age of fire

@Leotheleprachaun

2 жыл бұрын

Nope, go and play the Ringed City.

One time I just spent a few hours reading the DS wiki and jumping through links to learn about the lore. Pretty decent time.

Personally I like the souls storytelling, where it is more of a detective story, you piece it together yourself. But I also understand not everyone likes this type of story, which I hesitate to even type that, but I suppose it has to be said.

I am really enjoying this series that you have made and I want to tell you that I am learning quite a lot about my own biases and preconceptions. I first watched Harri's video and didn't question many of his claims. I still think that Dark Souls 2 is my favourite in the series but now I am replaying the game to see if I can identify why that is the case. Thank you for taking the time to make and publish these videos. This is great content. By the way the joke at 1:01:12 was smooth editing. Well done. I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the series.

It's unfair to criticize Lord of the Rings for the Eagles because it's a better understood plot point in the books. The tl;dr reason is that the plan was to sneak into Mordor and not fly in while trusting a bunch of Magical Eagles to betray their entire race to the army that's probably going to conquer all of Middle Earth. It's much easier for Gandalf to get them to rescue the hobbits who saved everything.

@MaximusAutismus

4 жыл бұрын

Wasn't the reason for not being able to use the eagles that The eye of sauron was stopping them?

@otwk

4 жыл бұрын

Smough Yes, basically (though Keep in mind the eye was just a symbol for Saurons almost all-seeing mind, Not an actual Thing). And once he sees the eagles (when they would still take days to get there) he could get up all kinds of defenses against them.

Regarding the opening cinematic, i always found it similar to creation myths from around the world, especially in terms of tone. I agree that those might not be shining examples of great literary achievement, but in evoking that style, dark souls does something very effective in setting up the atmosphere, which basically was it's goal. Achieving what you set out to do with your piece of writing, will generally make it a success, regardless of if it is "good" or not.

I come back to this series every couple of months to give it another listen because I enjoy it while i work. Every time I listen I get a little bit more out of it. I probably heard this whole series about as many times as it had been drafted. This time around I've got myself wondering exactly who on the dev team was whisperiing in H bomber guys ear because he apparently knows more about exactly what was going through their minds during this games development better than anyone else could have known

"The story is also poorly written" I disagree. I think that there is a distinct LACK on writing done for the story because there is an art form the story strives for in being vague. Only players who are truly invested in the story can read through item descriptions and piece together the state and nature of the world. You also state that the storytelling, the way it is done, is bad. Well , whatever you believe, the writers of Dark Souls INTENDED for it to be this way. That doesn't necessarily mean you should think it's good, I'm just saying that the writers were trying to write the story using a specific style and medium. Personally I think it's great in just about every way.

@louis5368

5 жыл бұрын

If you have to presume the story, then that means it have to be simple and short and have nothing strengthen its meaning or its emotional investment. And that's assuming if ds have the developed materials to make one, because most... Every time the characters just make stuff about themselves on the spot without any consideration. It's even worse than novel like brave new world, instead of having to think about the world but not the story, you now have nothing to feel or think about, while compare to game like Soma where you not only have a strong and thorough world to serve its theme, but also the story which by the way, every piece of art need nowadays because you won't beat Gordon ramsay with only raw meat.

@mircoc3507

4 жыл бұрын

@@louis5368 That's your opinion and I wouldn't take it as a fact, even if your deliver is trying to say otherwise. Since we are giving our opinions, tho I'd like to give you mine. Dark Souls story is still something that I think about from time to time and, each time I get back into the game, it provides me new little chunks of information that I previously missed. The experience felt different each time I started a new game and the gameplay built around it made the whole replay more enjoyable, thanks to the various classes and skills you can challenge yourself with. I see the story as an old myth, where most of it is lost in time. It may not be story driven like many other games, but it sure left me more to think about. The story driven games give you the story and that's it. You're playing a movie where you get to interact between cinematics. I enjoy them during the first playthrough, but it doesn't make me want to come back. You may say that objectively it gives you more, but I much prefer something like Dark Souls where little pieces of a puzzle are all you have. While I tend to forget games that won't survive after one playthrough, games like Dark Souls gave me more than just "a story". I can't forget the experience of going through a world where much of it was ambiguous and mysterious, where the smallest choice, from which sword to stick with to which NPC I want to help first, matters. Story always matters, but in this case the lack of a good chunk of it made me more invested than ever. The curiosity pushed me further than ever before and made me play the game multiple times, something a story driven game couldn't do. I wouldn't say it's a flaw.

When is your "In Defence of Joel Schumacher" video coming?

23:55 for someone who loves dark souls 2 so much. he doesnt seem to know the difference between the grave of saints and the undead crypt

Anyone else get a skin crawling feeling whenever Harris uses his 'gentle-trying-to-tell-you-a-secret' voice?

@AshleyWilliamsN7

2 жыл бұрын

Yes. It's an emotional tool to try to get you on his side. He uses it because he's a very emotional person. If you're a reasonable person, it comes off as weird and creepy.

@elvickRULES

Жыл бұрын

He relies on emotive language and vocal inflection in place of actual arguments. He makes a mocking voice when he wants to show something is bad, gets that light emotional voice when trying to be convincing. It’s so fake

Man this series is top notch. Wish you would do more response videos.

Harris' point about the old lady and Spiderweb Castle doesn't make any sense. She's not "deliberately evocative" of the portrayal of the figure in Spiderweb Castle, she looks nothing like her, with no visible hair and different clothes. She's not presented in the same way, where her static movement and clear attire contrasts with everything else in the movie. She also has the cloudy eyes of a blind person when the one in Spiderweb Castle has normal eyes. THEY LOOK NOTHING ALIKE HARRIS. I'm all for finding references to other people's work but that is a fucking stretch my dude.

@forgot7en

6 ай бұрын

Exactly, she's obviously deliberately evocative of the witch from Snow White!

"It also represents the developer's attempt to do their own thing and move on, by reducing an iconic part of the previous game to a piece of ruble" oh God TLJ

"Pretend it's what you wanted and see how you feel." -Bilbo Baggins

What I don't get about Straid is how he can be where he is considering his background. The lost bastille is obviously a part of Drangleic, it's where prisoners and such were sent, I'm assuming, a place that currently or recently has seen use, not some forgotten ruin. It would maybe make sense if he was found frozen in some obscure part of the bastille, maybe behind a hidden wall or inside some cave, but he is standing in a doorway to a cell that would've probably seen use. It would be like if a guy from the medieval ages was found frozen in time in the middle of a doorway inside of a modern skyscraper, and when he was unfrozen the only reaction he had to being in a literal skyscraper is "New York City? Oh is that what they call this land now?". Did they build the doorway around him or did someone find his statue and thought it would be a brilliant idea to place in the doorway of a cell, instead of just locking that cell door? Honestly the whole "statue blocks your way" idea is so poorly executed, in many places our character could easily get around them if they wanted to, hell, they could probably just have destroyed the statue since that's clearly possible when it comes to the other statues in the game.