Boyd is an Ashen Knight (we assume,) which in the context of DS2 Ashen Knights are related to Nadalia and her champion, the Fume Knight. Given that the Irithyllian nobles obviously knew the importance of the Smelter Throne it means that there's a possible story there.
Boyd, possibly, slays a 'dragon' in what may have been his homeland with the Freja/Tseldora/Duke Aldia stuff. Possibly he fights a stand-in for Lugh, another Celtic sun god, when facing the Mirror Knight: the thing that shows you what you are, really.
I'm sure all that's not important or more people would've commented on it by now.
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| that witch only embraces itself... |
Dark Souls is smart. This gets commented on a lot.
Language is important, and as Chomsky tells us: 'language isn't real. There's just ways people talk that are more or less like each other.' Or, to put it in Insufferable Stirnerist terms: language is a spook.
It evolves though, just like everything else. Language wends it's way through history twists, a mad uphill flood across brief centuries, a thousand tributaries born from a central river spat from the great ocean of life, crissing and crossing, creating lakes and marshes and valleys of dialects and sub-dialects and 'right' ways of talking and 'wrong' ways of talking.
Why is this important?
Because maybe it's important, maybe it's not.
There's a Celtic holiday called La Boyd Beltane, which means The Golden Day of Belenus. There is a character in-game, possibly even associated with Boyd, that partially shares the name of Belenus: Llewellyn of Mirrah.
The name Llewellyn means Lugh-Belenus.
My point is, Dark Souls is full of weird linguistic shit like that. Is it lore related? Fucked if I know, but if you allow that it is then it doesn't contradict any of the other weird 'this can't possibly be lore' things that seem an awful lot like they're lore that I've been outlining for however long I've been doing this.
I'm willing to allow that, further, the interplay of these languages, the Gaellic and the Latin, the inscrutable Aramaic stuff, the fleeting but pervasive Old Norse, is all lore-relevant. Now, I'm not saying it's something that can be understood from the outside, but I'm at the point I'm convinced that the miraculous "prayer circles" or those words coming off of Quelaag or the Pinwheel Lantern tracers are all some kind of understandable set of languages, we just need to save all our boxtops and send off for the decoder ring or something.
I also think that, since my dumb experiment with translating the Crushed Eye yielded pretty surprising results, I'm slightly less crazy for thinking that literally anything that looks like language in Souls really is language, even if we haven't been able to find any reliable cyphers beyond Futhark=Titanite Runes.
Vorgel the Sinner - From proto-Germanic fluglaz, meaning 'bird' or 'that which flies.' Same root we get the word fowl from. Vorgel is apparently another of Raime's soldiers. Where Boyd shared a connection via ashen knighthood, Vorgel shares an association with birds. Additionally, it should be noted that Vorgel is specifically a sinner, in an area associated with the Lost Sinner, and is dressed in armor based on armor based on Paladin Leeroy's.
Ever since I found out what his name means I have been unable to think of him as anything other than Fowl the Foul.
Fowl the Foul his name is Fowl the Foul.
Stachoos
There are a lot of statues in these games. Some of them appear in more than one location. Here are some of the ones that stand out to me. I like to think of them as riddles, as well as some of the many reasons I don't and will never have a six figure income or normal human relationships.
Mother
This is the statue that kicked off my weird obsession. This character is depicted most prominently in the Undead Crypt, where we find three different versions. First is the skull-headed version, shown as being worshiped by various robed figures. The second shows the goddess in her more common, human form. This version appears alone, but is bordered by skull-headed cherubs. The third version of the statue appears like the second, but has a large candle melted onto her head. Upon lighting the candle we're presented with the message ['when the flame is lit shadows are revealed']. Additionally, in the Scholar update, lighting this statue causes the braziers held by the giant Leydia statues to light up and the red phantom cleric knights to appear. Killing the cleric knights will gradually cause the Leydia braziers to extinguish.
The Mother figure also appears in the Fort of Fallen Giants, prominently and obviously and usually completely overlooked, in the overgrown Cardinal Tower. This version is blood-stained, and is found in a room with Melentia, a bonfire, and a Divine Blessing. The vegetation in the room is some of the healthiest in the series, the room is directly above the salamander pit, and the tower is surrounded by crows/ravens and heavily associated with Raime.
The statue, or a version of it, can also be found in the Iron Keep. just before reaching the area where Armorer Dennis and the Shulvan loyalist invades is a kinda-but-not-really gatehouse structure featuring several statues. At the top is the statue, depicted as an angel. The statue is covered in chains that appear to be symbolically tying her down.
Finally, the statue appears in the third game. In the final hallway leading to the Twin Princes boss fight you can turn around and find a version of the Holy Skull Mother mural from the Undead Crypt. This version has two cherubs holding a crown over Skull Mother's head. The goddess's face is obscured, implying that the mural could be either the human or skull form, or might represent an 'ascended' or unseen incarnation of the goddess. Or, of course, be a reference to her buried history.
Maiden
This one is more obscure. In the Cave of the Dead in the Shulva DLC, an area no one in their right mind has any reason to visit, hidden in a nook around a blind corner, is a large statue of a praying woman that spews petrification mist.
It might as well have been a taco truck for as much sense as it made to me for, like, years.
I say she's praying, but she could just as easily be singing or puking or something.
Playing around with Chameleon one day I realized that there are several areas in the game with unique transformations. You can turn into Elizabeth in Amana, for example. Around the Ruined Fork Road bonfire, the area associated with the statue of what I assume is something like Gwynevere/Queen Olaphis/Princess Venn the Bountiful, the player can turn into a small version of the Shulva Maiden. The Shaded Woods deserves its own post, so we'll come back to this then, if it ever happens.
Trying to connect the areas we find her with any kind of 'what I think happened' theory is pretty impossible, but what I think happened is that the Flower Dress belonged to Elana, long before she became the Queen. The Pharros Mask, I think, is meant to inform us that Pharros
- Was Shulva's - maybe even all of Olaphis' - architect.
- Had a big beard like how a Gyrm'd have.
- Gots a big old case of the sads.
- Was strong against fire, but weak against lightning. And maybe fatally weak against Dark.
- Probably died a long time ago, maybe was even killed by the royals under Elana.
- Still in the running for Left Shoulder Guy on The Rotten
But so who was the Maiden?
I haven't found any other copies of her, at least not anything similar enough to say I'm sure about, but her association-by-proximity to both Elana and a Gwynevere stand-in has me convinced that she must have been someone important, like maybe the Cardinal of Shulva or the matriarch of the pre-Elana faith of Olaphis or the first firekeeper of the second bonfire system.
Her robes look somewhat similar to a Way of Way Maiden or, again, the retired firekeepers or, again again, the statues holding vigil along the High Wall of Lothric. Also again: I'm not sure about any of those.
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| Melentia best waifu. No, I'm right, you're just remembering wrong. |
Crone
I'm dumb, okay.
This statue caught my attention early on. It's old, older than the Bastille, I imagine. It's in a room next to a giant, almost-new statue of who I assume is a gloating Aldia approaching the peak of his madness.
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| Aldia would like you to know how impressive he is. |
Around six months ago when I finally played DS:R it finally finally dawned on me.
I had seen this statue before.
Often. A ridiculous number of times. Uncountable times.
I had seen this statue, dozens of them, nothing but them, long corridors of this statue, over and over, for years. The only way FROM could have made this statue more prominent would be throwing to a cutscene showing the statue and just the statue any and every time my genius ass goes chasing after wizards.
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| Well yeah and like her, obviously, jesus christ why even have eyeballs |
Right, so obviously this is an incredibly important character in all three games, and she's depicted as getting older over a very, very long time. She was probably the master of the Archives before Seathe took them over. The statue of her in the Bastille may have been brought by the colonists, or it may have been a statue of one of the colonists. The statue in the third game is of an obviously older person, but the gesture is unmistakable.
She seems to be associated with Seathe, in that she was probably an object of his obsession in High Anor Londo. This may have carried over to Aldia, who had possibly been poisoned by the Ruin in Tseldora. The Ruin, from what I can tell, doesn't like make Seathe possess you like a demon, but sort of warps one's natural instincts and desires into mad, paradoxical obsessions more in line with Seathe's psychology.
Her statue is in the Lothric Archives in the third game, but mostly in out-of-the-way places, like on top of bookshelves. The copies of her in the Ariandel archives are prominent, but have had their head removed, indicating that the original scholars - either the native crow people or Way of White/Blue painting restorers - saw her as good, while Friede's order saw her as evil.
I think the dynamic here might be something like Inviting Wisdom = Beckoning Ruin.
Her appearance in the third game is evocative of the Priestess Pillar, but her location and history would seem to associate her with the Scholar. She looks, in the third, quite a bit like the Way of Blue Firekeepers (who I'm convinced basically are the Priestess/WoB in Lothric).
By that I mean that, since Lothric was founded by descendants of Drang, Forossa, Mirrah and so on, their understanding of firelinking is informed by the events of the second game, hence the inclusion of concepts like firekeepers appearing somewhat uniform (Saulden's dialogue, Black Firekeeper's Set,) 'Going Beyond Death' (marketing,) or firelinking champions needing to first get kill-married in order become a true king/queen (Nashandra & Vendrick/Cursebearer, Yuria's questline).
Sentinel
This character appears most prominently in the Cathedral of Blue in heide, and is probably Targray's 'Great Sentinel.' We find a copy of the statues head just past the Shrine of Winter. The fact that there's a tree growing over it seems to indicate that, like the other ruins, it probably pre-dates Drangleic. Other 'copies' of him I'm less sure about.
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| Sentinel in the Sky, I can get twice as high. Take a Look. It's in a book. WHY BRAIN WHY |
The first is on the Iron Keep bridge support thing I mentioned in the Silent Goddess description. The pillars holding her statue up each have two statues, one of a young scholar - possibly Aldia - and the other a young warrior - possibly Vendrick.
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| I get the feeling the chains, the warrior, and the angel are meant to symbolize OIK's Cluster B disorder, while the Aldia statue is meant to symbolize him starting off on the wrong foot. Or hand, in this case. Important note: IT PROBABLY DOESN"T EVEN REPRESENT THEM |
Finally, there's the Bearded Sentinels watching the ocean at the Fort of Fallen Giants. These statues are of a much older character carrying a greatshield. The head of one of these statues serves not only as the gate leading to the Pursuer boss fight and one of the Watcher Trees, but also acts as the ball in the ball trap leading to the Giant Lord boss fight in the past. Presumably the head is severed by the Giant Lord when he sees us approaching.
These last two statues probably aren't of the Sentinel. Their helmets are different, for one. They may, however, each represent Vendrick, first as a young prince of Alken (although he was probably kept in ignorance of his heritage and just served as captain of the guard or something similar,) and the second as the ascendant king of Drangleic. The war against the Giants spanned generations, with the giants probably attacking in waves with the defenders spending the time between waves making repairs and searching for reinforcements. In the past we arrive at the end of the war, shortly after Vendrick quit the field, and find Capt. Drummond, whose grandfather served as a Captain in the same war. So it could be that the Giant Sentinel is supposed to be the middle-aged Vendrick who started the war with the Giants, with the Giant Lord symbolically ending the war by cutting the statue's head off after the much older Vendrick finally retreats.
So, who is the sentinel?
The Blue Sentinels serve the same function as the Darkmoon Blades. You could almost think of them as a Blue faction's Red faction. In the third game they /are/ Darkmoon Blades, they just don't always know it. If the Iron Keep Statues are meant to represent young Aldia and Vendrick, then this red/blue relationship could, in a sense, be mirrored in their relationship. For example, Aldia was the rightful king under Alken, but as a blue character chose to instead help his very red brother become king so that, as duke, he would be free to pursue his work.
The King of Olaphis was killed by Sir Yorgh, Captain of the Drakeblood knights. We don't know who Yorgh was, really, apart from sharing the twin dragon charge with kings Alken and Vendrick. Vendrick, in the time of Alken, would have been a bastard and probably wasn't welcome in the Iron Court, at least not as a prince. I mentioned above how he may have served as something like Captain of the Guard (Yorgh or the Great Sentinel may once have filled a similar role in Olaphis-Shulva,) before leaving to find his fortune in Lordran.
The Older Sentinel at the Fort of Fallen Giants has an inverted Odal/Othala rune on his helmet. From Sunny Way
Othala: O: Ancestral property -
Inherited property or possessions, a house, a home.
What is truly important to one.
Group order, group prosperity.
Land of birth, spiritual heritage, experience and fundamental values.
Aid in spiritual and physical journeys.
Source of safety, increase and abundance.
Othala Reversed or Merkstave -
Lack of customary order, totalitarianism, slavery, poverty, homelessness.
Bad karma, prejudice, clannishness, provincialism.
What a man is bound to.
Odal as inheritance or ancestral lands lines up with Vendrick, as does the merkstave presentation of totalitarian descent and being bound to bad karma. As with a depressingly large amount of Norse imagery, the Odal rune figures heavily in fascist imagery, because nazis love stealing shit.
There's a break in the wall where a giant sword has lodged itself in the fort. I can't tell if it's meant to belong to the statue or the giant lord. It looks like the statue's, but it would be impossible for the statue's sword to have embedded itself there. You can climb up this sword to find a body with a halberd that looks as if it's been specifically arranged in a kind of sky burial. Infantrymen will drop down from above and attack you if you ouch the body. You also find the arms and armor of the Captain of the Fort near here, minus the helmet, which you collect from Drummond in the past.
This would seem to present someone in Drummond/Raulmond's line as a candidate for the First Sentinel of Drangleic, rather than Vendrick. Given the game's tendency to basically invert every story the second time I wouldn't be surprised if my last post was wrong and Drummond is somehow descended from Flann or Gwynevere or something.
Whatever the case, neither of these possibilities sheds much more light on the Great Sentinel of Blue, unless we allow that Yorgh was both the Great Sentinel and Vendrick's ancestor and that Vendrick served as Sentinel for both Alken and Drangleic.
Of course, I may be completely wrong about everything and just spent most of the morning making myself crazy over nothing.
The Mural
One of these things is not like the other.
I have a whole post about Elana and Shulva planned, but it took me a long time to realize that this wasn't just the same asset recycled for Shulva so I don't know how it connects or why it changed. Sure, you could say they had to move the staff wielder because of the door, but then why would you change the wyvern or other supplicants?
