Ruminations on the Deep: The Symbolism of Dark Souls Part 2
Jun. 8, 2016Ruminations on the Deep: The Symbolism of Dark Souls Part 2
In thefirst partof this series, we took a look at the meaning and symbolism of the events that transpired duringDark SoulsandDark Souls 2. In this second and final part, we will see how they’ve all come to a culmination inDark Souls 3.
“Heed my words, Unkindled One. Fear the fire. The home of pyromancy, Izalith, was scorched by the very fire it created. Undoubtedly, it was aflame of chaos, tangled by a witch’s hand.But who’s to say that this Bonfire’s flame is any different.”
Cornix of the Greatswamp, Dark Souls 3
In Dark Souls 3, the linking of the fire has become mechanized. It is repeated and forced upon the powerful against their will, possibly an analogy for Miyazaki’s further involvement with the series. The lie is stronger than ever and the NPCs feel hollow and grim, with noAldia,Vendrick, orLucatielto guide us along. Instead, Dark Souls 3 crushes us with silence from above, leaving us and its characters in a state of resignation. While some may feel disappointed at the desolatedAnor Londo, or sad about the mostly non-interactive covenant leaders, this is all perfectly fitting, as if we are seeing the consequences of our continual longing for more from a series that’s message was far misunderstood. This is symbolized byAldrich, whose hunger for the flesh of man and gods alike has become the very reason for which he is made a lord. The message here is twofold, that in creating a machinery for progress, some rise to the top “not for virtue, but for might,” and that the indoctrination of illusion gives birth to the indoctrination of the dark as seen in the Cathedral of the Deep.
In many ways Aldrich resembles Nietzsche himself, who contemplated the endless quest for external gratification and embraced the deep, killing the gods in the process and relieving us of illusion.Nietzsche mentions the “deep sea” in several important points in his writings, which to him symbolized the depths of humanity rather than the external, illusory, or divine. In “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” when greeting the rising sun, Zarathustra decided that he would have to enter the “deep sea” in search of humanity, since even the sun must set to illuminate the underworld and later overflow with light. Nietzsche’s philosophy bears similarities to modern Japanese Buddhism, partly why he gained so much traction in Japan rather than in the west. Nietzsche’s solution to nihilism was to love andevolvehumanity rather than seek satisfaction from the external. Like fire and dark, Nietzsche made comparisons to the deep sea and the sun as opposites, suggesting that one not only become the source of the sun themselves, but explore the depths of humanity in order to do so. Unfortunately for Aldrich, he appears to be a failed version of Nietzsche’s overman, symbolic of only a religious indoctrination of the dark.
“Shadow is not cast, but born of fire. And, the brighter the flame, the deeper the shadow.”
Vendrick, Dark Souls 2
We have all become attached the famous phrase “praise the sun,” without a care for its meaning, but in Dark Souls 3, the consequences of the systematic worship of the external are shown more clearly, even the lords resigning from their duties to take the form of cinder or ash. This mirrors Nietzsche’s message, that god is dead, the sun is a lie, or more specifically, that the values supplied to us by higher powers are no longer valid. Instead of “praise the sun,” we hear an alternative from the characterSirris of the Sunless Realms,“blessing of the moon upon your journey,”When Carl Jung wrote about the sun as symbolic of god, he called it essential to life yet destructive, and like Nietzsche, stated that man must find theirinner sunwithin their depths in order to find peace.
“When by looking inwards (introversion) and going down into the depths of their own being they find “in their heart” the image of the Sun…“
Carl Jung,Psychologicallogy of the Unconscious, 1916
The same message could have easily been found in Dark Souls 1 with the abyss and age of dark, but while the nature of the abyss was unclear, and the addition of the cycle functionally erased the age of dark, Dark Souls 3 reinvented both the fire and dark in their extremes to reposition Miyazaki’s original dark as a solution.
One of the most interesting and disturbing lines in Dark Souls 3 isOceiros’s, “Ignorant slaves, how quickly you forget.” Literally he is referring to the power of his son Ocelotte. While the fact that Ocelotte is invisible is fascinating on a symbolic level, the child’s textures have been found within the game files and are more than disturbing. Even so, Oceiros is blind and frantically clutches on to and searches for what he cannot see. Ocerios asks if we have forgotten the power of his child, referring to the pursuit of power or Aldia’s lie. His son is much like Solaire’s “sun,” in that it is eludes him. Aldia tells us that there is no path beyond good and evil, yet we continue to seek it by defeating Oceiros and following his path through anillusory wall. In doing so, we reach a dark and empty version of Firelink Shrine with no fire keeper, signifying the emptiness which may come from seeking meaning from external sources. Below the map an abyss of sorts can be seen, be it glitch or not, with a color and texture similar to the ground where we fight Manus.The onlyNPCin the area is an alternate version of the shrine handmaiden, signifying the reward for the pursuit of the illusory, old age and death.
Just as the sun was an illusion in Anor Londo in Dark Souls 1, pushing on towards truth in the external proves just as illusory in theUntended Graves. The dark shrine handmaiden asks us if it is too late for us, if we are imprisoned like “her,” referring to ourFire Keeper, imprisoned to the belief in only the linking of the fire. By returning to ourFirelinkand giving the eyes to her, we learn again that even seeking an absence of fire will lead to the continual linking of the flame. We know that both choices lead to suffering, so we look to a third path beyond fire and dark.
“Oh, your face! You’re practically Hollow. But who knows, going Hollow could solve quite a bit! Hah hah hah hah…”
Crestfallen Warrior, Dark Souls 1
In the Japanese novel “Woman in the Dunes,” by Kobo Abe, a man seeking fame and status falls into a giant pit in the desert. In the pit, he has a small hut and a woman to serve him for any need he may have, a fire keeper of sorts. Even food is offered to him from a mysterious community above. He tries endlessly and to no avail to escape, seeing death in the sand as it closes in around him. Each day he is forced to push back the sand only for it to enclose on him once again in the morning, a Sisyphean punishment for seeking external gratification. As a side project, he digs a hole and finds a way to produce water from it in the pit. Finally, one day when he goes outside his hut, he sees that the rope ladder has been left out. He stares at it in confusion, climbs up halfway, and then stops. He looks back down to the project he began, climbs back down, and the story ends. The story is about a resolution which exists both within and outside of the two choices we are given in life. The two larger choices he faced, to leave the pit or to stay, became irrelevant to him, and were in factboth prisons of their own. Similarly in Dark Souls 1, Hawkeye Gough achieved enlightenment while imprisoned in a tower through his carvings. It is only fitting thatYorshka, the only living covenant leader in Dark Souls 3, is found contently imprisoned in a tower. A quote from her makes one question the order by which one finds this middle path towards enlightenment.
“This tower, this prison, stands tall and solitary, the contraption bridging its lower reaches long unmoving. So… by what path didst thou here ascend?”
Yorshka, Dark Souls 3
The resolution in Woman in the Dunes is very Buddhist, as is the concept of being “hollow,” emptying yourself of all needs and attachments and finding a middle ground between two opposites. When you first meet Siegward at the elevator in Undead Settlement, he poses to you a kind of allegory for this concept. He describes the elevator from which he came up, which cannot go up without first going down. This is no different than the order by which you ascend to Anor Londo in Dark Souls 1, moving up to the first bell of awakening only to be forced to go down into the deepest depths before finally ascending to the city of the gods. You jump off the lift halfway to meetSiegwardwhere you destroy a fire demon and have a toast. There is also a massive bonfire there which can be extinguished. In this area are people sitting in chairs, growing into trees, symbolizing the transcendence one finds between the extremes of high and low, a microcosm of overcoming both the fire and dark. Just as an age of fire and dark lead to their own versions of imprisonment, a middle ground is needed as described in woman in the dunes. It is not until one chases their purpose that they learn they must fall down into the depths before ascending to their ultimate goal.
“The suffering of being imprisoned rests in the fact that it is impossible, at any time, to escape from oneself.”
Kobo Abe, Woman in the Dunes 1062
The idea of being imprisoned by forward progress only to find oneself moving backwards towards old truths is established in the opening cinematic of Dark Souls 1 and 3. In Dark Souls 1’s cinematic, the narrator tells us that the undead are corralled north towards imprisonment, and in Dark Souls 3 she says “in venturing north, pilgrims discover the truth of the old words.” The undead have been referred to as Pilgrims before.
“Big key belonging to a chosen Undead pilgrim. But this chosen Undead knows not what this pilgrimage has in store.”
Big Pilgrim’s Key, Dark Souls 1
“In thine exodus from the Undead Asylum, maketh pilgrimage to the land of Ancient Lords…”
Oscar, Knight of Astora, Dark Souls 1
In Dark Souls 3, the state of hollow is no longer represented as negative or as a result of losing one’s humanity. We also know that people from Londor are hollow yet sane. While it is referenced in Dark Souls 3 that hollowing causes men to lose their sanity, this is essentially the same as becoming free of outcome.In the Canadian existential film “The Cube,” multiple strangers enter a giant machine filled with traps with no creator. They are punished endlessly for no reason, forced to study the patterns and math of the machine and kill one another. One of the strangers is severely autistic, and only he survives in the end. The film represents just how absurd our society has become, nearly requiring a mental condition to survive.
Dark Souls 3 discusses the potential madness found between good and evil with the addition of the Mound Makers covenant, and at the end of the game, an eclipse looms overhead, two examples of the combination of light and dark found in the game. The error in seeking illusion is shown to us in the Untended Graves, while the horror of seeking the deep in the Cathedral and in Aldrich. But Miyazaki may also be suggesting that when going down into darkness, there is a limit before we reach madness. This can be found in the scene in the Catacombs whereAnristands above the maddenedHoracein theSmouldering Lake, separated only by a fragile bridge.
Seeker of fire, conqueror of Dark. I too sought fire once. With fire, they say, a true king can harness the curse. A lie, but I knew no better… Seeker of fire, you know not the depth of Dark within you. It grows deeper still, the more flame you covet. Flame, oh, flame…
Vendrick, Dark Souls 2
Inherit fire, and harness the Dark. Such is the calling of a true leader…”
Vendrick
While it is understood that Dark Souls 3 discusses imprisonment, even in Dark Souls 1 the Firekeeper was imprisoned behind bars. She loses her tongue and is killed until you revive her. The Firekeeper is one who cannot die, who tends to the flames and the player, keeping men on a quest for achievement and at war with themselves. The nature of women presented in Dark Souls is that of being blind, imprisoned, and without voice, yet forced to preserve desire and illusion. The emerald herald in Dark Souls 2 was “born of dragons, contrived of man,”and the Firekeeper’s hands in Dark Souls 3 are bloody from this burden, failed clones of her locked away in the tower.Ludlethtells us that the Firekeeper is “much like thee. Prisoners, both, kept to link the fire.”The Firekeeper represents women, and the undead or unkindled represent men, and while it may seem that it is men who force women into their role, it is rather the interaction between the two that creates acycleof imprisonment. Specifically, it is when one hands their values into the hands of the other, be it god, the opposite sex, or society, that a cycle of imprisonment is born. When one can become the source of their values instead, they become their own lord, breaking the cycle.
Thereversal ringbelonged toGwyndolin, who was a combination of male and female, and the wedding ceremony takes place in the room where you first meet her in Dark Souls 1, the ritual lit by moonlight. It is here where we combined both opposites, later to find an eclipse above, symbolizing the combining of fire and dark, male and female.
We are guided towards this ending byYoelandYuriawho belong to a group of hollows from Londor. By looking at the rings Yuria carries, we read that the hollows are detested and have many secrets. The rings themselves allow one to appear human or somehow act as a disguise. Moreover, one of the rings has scales like a serpent, and she is found to serveKaathewhen killed. These hollows, or enlightened ones, have to hide from the rest of society in an attempt to appear normal to the outside world. Miyazaki appears to be telling us that the path towards freedom or enlightenment is not found in seeking either extreme, but rather exists within those of us who are shunned by society, who embrace both light and dark within themselves. By creating the deep and combining the original dark with hollowing, his old message managed to slither its way into new form, no longer representing the meaningless opposite of fire as in Dark Souls 2, but rather a middle path between the two. While there is no correct or definitive ending to any of the games, it would appear that the Usurpation of Fire gives symbolic significance and preference to the original age of dark in Dark Souls 1, and even more major of an achievement, solves the entire riddle posed by the first game.
With three largeDLCscoming, I suspect much more will be explained to us in time. Even the identity of Ocelotte may be revealed, perhaps as the son of Oceiros andRosaria, or perhaps a whole different ending will be offered to us. Anything is possible, but looking over the symbolism and philosophy across the series, it would seem that the major themes and messages in Dark Souls 1 and 2 have been clarified and greatly expanded upon. The fire is illusory, the dark must be conquered, and it is within ourselves that we combine both to find peace.
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
Camus, translated inLyrical and Critical Essays,1968
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Wes
Thank you very much! While perhaps a million references could be made when talking about the games, existential or absurdist themes seem the strongest to me, with Nietzche being the most obvious.
In the lore of the Abyss Watchers, the abyss slowly crept its way into their own kind to force them to eternally fight among themselves. The ideamustbe a direct reference to Nietzche’s “if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” With Aldia speaking of beyond good and evil, the idea of being imprisoned in a cycle, and now the deep sea and Aldrich, there seems to be much more to go off when looking for Nietzche’s philosophy.
Personally, I like the Camus quotes the best as well. Thanks a lot.
Love the symbolism you choose and the various references you chose. My favorites are Vendrick and Albert Camus. Great read, hope to see more
Nice Analysis.
Love the Carl Jung reference. Praise it!
