Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Scholar of Scholar: Table of Contents and Sources

Table of Contents

Look...


This is the story of Dark Souls 2. Parts of it. The important parts, in chronologicalish order. 

Probably. I think some of it's right. 

I started writing it because the reason the story for Dark Souls 3 doesn't make sense to anyone is because no one understands the story of the second game. Even after everything was said and done, with Ariandel and the Ringed City, none of the big name loresmiths had any interest in revisiting the second game and subjecting it to the kind of inquisition that led to the Paleblood Hunt. 

Over the past...Jesus, two years, Scholar has led to a couple of spinoff series, Ashen Idols and Prisoner of Ash. See, what happened was when I finished Scholar I realized that hammering out some kind of serviceable framework for the DS2 story would then require going back and reviewing the first and third game in light of new revelation. Then the entire series would have to be re-reviewed with all the new conclusions and then then we can maybe start really understanding what's going on with the important stuff like the metaphysics of crustaceans or what the hell the Sandworm is, then, if it isn't Solaire.

Ashen Idols deals with a lot of the loose ends and connective tissue between the three games (inasmuch as anyone understands the third game at this point). Prisoner of Ash is currently not being worked on as I hit a wall and realized I didn't understand DS2's story nearly as well as I thought I did, despite understanding the story, I humbly submit, better than anyone ever should. 

Part 1: Olaphis - Chronicles the fall of Oolacile and the Exodus of Gwynevere of the Dawn, Ur-Drang, the First Sin, the Purging of Scholars, Gwynevere's Second Exodus, the rise of Queen Elana the Great, the Reformation of Shulva, and Sir Yorgh's Betrayal.

Part 2: Alken and Venn - Proposed histories of Venn, Alken, Their Civil War, the Nature and Relationship of Prince Iron of Alken, Princess Ivory of Venn, and Queen Mytha the Great, with particular attention paid to the nature of protracted sieges, giants, and puppetry.

Part 3: Of Scholars* - Proposed, and largely obsolete, history of spellcraft in the Soulsverse, including discussions of the common roots of many classes of art, convergent and divergent schools within those classes, and a study of a variety of in-universe scholars

Part 4: Drangleic - Chronicles the rise and fall of Drangleic, the twin dragons Aldia Son of Iron and Vendrick the Bastard, and possible implications of the Throne of Want, as well as a discussion of larger in-world events. 

Part 5: Margins* - Chronicles seemingly unimportant story points that end up being critical to understanding both the second game DLCs as well as the third game.

Part 6: Cursebearer - Discussion of Post-Drangleic, the First Sin, including in-depth discussion of meta-physics and just regular physics, further discussion of larger in-universe events and offers a proposed history of Drangleic following the ascent of the King of Want.

Part 7: The Last Scholar* - Further meta-narrative discussion, proposed - obsolete - history of Lordran, discussion of the environs of Drangleic, and possible implications of an Heir of Want Renouncing the Throne.

Prisoner of Ash ToC - An attempt-in-stalled-progress to outline the history of Lothric.

Ashen Idols ToC - 'monster of the week' style deep-dives mostly laying the groundwork for a Prisoner re-write. Probably twice as long as Scholar and Prisoner combined and better written. Debateably.

 



I'm trying to keep all of the lore theories I front-and-center in-line with other 'usual suspect' lore hounds outlined in the Sources section. Whenever I think a theory is particularly suspect I try to say so and offer other possible explanations. I imagine the three series can be read in any order and still make as little sense, but taken individually they should probably be read in order.

Scholar deals almost exclusively with DS2, beyond how big events (the Anor Londo Exodus or the fall of Oolacile, for example,) are reflected in the second game's story.

They're gonna patch that, watch.

Prisoner focuses more on DS1&3 stuff, while Idols deals more with the first two games. When Prisoner gets picked back up I imagine most of the stuff I've already written will be heavily revised beforehand. Hypothetically there's a podcast in the works, but I've been saying that for ages so I wouldn't hold my breath.

[Update June 2019: Probably read Scholar first, Idols second, Prisoner third in the unlikely event you're still here. The Eagle Shield post is coming, been busy. Figure out a way to give me money if you want more or better or different content]


*These posts are tangential to the main-ish story and history of Dark Souls 2, mainly dealing with stuff that didn't fit elsewhere. Except 7, which is like a lead-in to Prisoner.


Sources

(absolutely not a complete list, which would be like a crazy amount of long-ass Reddit/Gamefaqs/Discord/Fextralife/etc. threads.) If I'm referencing something directly I'll try to include a link, but mostly it's just banging item descriptions, reddit threads, and environmental clues together for the better part of a decade and trying to synthesize whatever holds up.
  • The wikidot wiki I generally use.
  • The lore wiki, which I consider authoritative unless I disagree with it then they're liars and fools. Unless I'm just wrong, which probably I mean have you tried reading this thing? 
  • The Reddit, which is fairly healthy by video game standards. 
Old school channels my interpretation of the story is heavily influenced by:

Newer channels:
   
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