This took like two weeks longer than it needed to because there's like two pictures you need for a post like this and it took me two weeks to realize that I could just put whatever in.
Beyond Fight or Flight
The Clutch rings are a set of four elemental rings found in the DS2 DLC areas and scattered around various DS3 base-game locations. THEY ARE IMPORTANT but I have no idea why. I'm gonna talk about where we find them, then what I think they are, and then how they fit into the narrative.
Fire Clutch
The clutch of fire is deep inside Eleum Loyce. The chest we find it in is on more-or-less full display in the room with the three facsimile giant golems guarding the Nil curved sword. You need to melt the ice to even access the area which is enough of a pain-in-the-ass without then running the gauntlet of retainers, spellswords, rampart golems, and chain-spawning Nekkid Iron Golems. It's almost as bad as the hedgehogs, which are almost as bad as the horses. I'm at the point I like the horses, though [hahah ha hah aha ha]
So, the ring is really hard to get to as well as being a relatively hard-to-find secret treasure in a technically optional area past the Loyce Knight (the actual secret treasure we're there for).
I know what you're thinking: are the fac. golems animated by the same principles as the rampart golems and the answer is no and also don't ask that question because we're talking about the clutch ring here.
You'll notice a kind of pattern with these rings. They hide themselves from their enemies, and when they are captured they turn the situation to their advantage. Presumably they position themselves in a way that best acts as a lure for the crestfallen.
The rings want skilled hands, though.
Given EL's relationship to Chaos, it's difficult to pick one or two characters that may have been the crestfallen pyromancer to bring the ring to the north in the first place.
In the third game we find the fire clutch ring early on, but it involves poking around in a dangerous area so it's easy to miss. The Settlement and EL are opposites in terms of their philosophical relationship to fire. EL, obviously, was all about keeping the flame of an old religion squelched, while UDS is all about lighting fires with a fervor born of pyromania.
The nearby gatehouse is where we find Cornyx and, later, the body of Cuculus, with the possible implications being that the ring was luring or had lured one of the two.
Lightning Clutch
Within the wall of Shulva, when we begin the journey from the Dragon's Sanctum to the Cave of the Dead, we find the Lightning Clutch guarded by two priestesses. This could fit in with the theme of the brightest lights existing in the darkest places, as with Darklurker & the Dragon Chime or Nashandra & her bow.
When we open the door to the "inner chamber," we first find a room with two Priestesses and a bunch of chests. Apart from the Lightning Clutch the chests contain dried roots.
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| Dried Roots and a lot of sexy |
I've previously outlined my thoughts on Carim's involvement with Elana's church, because of things like the Denial and Promised Walk miracles. This church is known to the outside world as the Archdrake Sect of Lindelt. Just as the surviving sorcerers and pyromancers of Olaphis founded the Melfian school, the surviving clergy of Olaphis founded the Archdrake Sect. Elana is the matriarch of the Archdrakes, as well as the rightful queen of Olaphis to anyone still pulling for Olaphis.
Given the presence of her priestesses in the room with the clutch makes it clear that Elana knows what she has. That she has priestesses guarding it rather than knights lines up with the 'lure for crestfallen' thing: the Sanctum Knights are obviously not having a crisis of faith and are therefore not crestfallen and not of interest to the ring. The priestesses, however, know what the ring is and know that it is in their personal interest (and the interests of Olaphis more broadly,) to out-Tranquilize the lure until they can locate a suitably malleable crestfallen to take the mantle of Lightning Clutched.
Metaphorically, the Clutch could to represent the Archdrake Sect being a 'weapon of light' secretly wielded by agents of Dark. Past here you fight Rockshield Baldyr, who, well, you can look at his gear. While you're at it check out the Gank Squad's gear.
In the third game we find the ring just around the corner from the main gate leading to the first Ancient Wyvern. The corpse holding the ring is guarded by a lesser serpentman, who apparently killed the previous Clutched, but it's unclear if the serpentman is aware of this in the same way the priestesses in Shulva were aware they were guarding a treasure of Caitha or whoever.
As to potential ringbearer/s...
There are a lot of candidates, as the second and third game Path of the Dragon covenant is tied to Kalameet, which means basically any paladin with any dragonslaying-or-riding ambitions. As if FTH builds weren't already hard-enough mode.
Magic/Sorcery Clutch
The DS2 version is found in a dogleg on the final bridge just above the Fume bossfight. The bridge is a very golem-y area, with Possessed Armors, an Iron Warrior, and, of course, the numerous giant Old Knights.
It's presence seems completely idiosyncratic, as Nadalia seems very FTH based and is obviously a product of fire and dark. But then there's a chaos pyromancy hidden in Tseldora, a very wizardy place, so this kind of thing isn't unheard of.
Plus we can summon Carhillion, real name Carrion. If you read Scholar you'll recall I frame the Melfian Academy as having a very Boomer-Xer-Millennial generational dynamic, as explained through the -plate rings and Rosabeth's accounts of Carhillion and Glocken (derived by way of German from the Latin clocca, meaning 'bell').
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| Unrelated, it's just damn near impossible to get a screenshot of this thing's face |
Carrion may have been the Clutched that brought the ring to the tower. Conversely, the Clutch may have lured him to the tower, at which point Nadalia -- whose influence seems a lot stronger but maybe shorter-ranged -- overpowered the ring.
He, Carrion, like Logan, became disillusioned with academic life and set out to find the Source and Glory and Enlightenment and he, like Logan, vastly overestimates his own abilities and he, like Logan, turned out to be a dumb, sexist old man who would have perished decades ago were it not for the scourge of tradition.
Logan, before he went crazier, was locked in a cell with a firekeeper's soul and two mutated handmaidens of Gwynevere. There was a lifetime of research right there, but Logan, even though he despises the academy, thinks knowledge comes from books and not the things books are about.
We don't know why Carrion came to Brume, beyond him generally behaving like the kind of person that made 'ok, boomer,' a thing.
The Clutch ring itself is being guarded by Nadalia, as is all of Brume Tower. We know that the Smelter Throne of Brume was very important to the mythology of...well, somebody in Irithyll, which makes it interesting that we find the third game version of this ring in a dogleg around the corner from Nameless' Throne.
The third game version is found just before the Church of Yorshka bonfire. The main road we enter by terminates in front of a large throne-like structure. A corpse on the structure holds the Ring of the Sun's Firstborn, and a corpse at its base holds a Lightning Gem. This would seem to indicate that this is meant to be some kind of shrine to the Firstborn, located beneath the Church of Sulyvahn (formerly Gwyndolin). In NG+ the CHLORANTHY Ring +1 can be found behind the throne. The Magic Clutch can be found behind an illusory wall off to the side.
Dark Clutch
There's a roof in Eleum Loyce with three frozen treasure chests protected by a...it's like an advanced Seath-type multi-weapon golem from what I can tell. The chests contain the Sorcerer's Twinblade, a Divine Blessing, and a Soul Vessel. The Dark Clutch is on a corpse next to a tree off to the side of the roof.
The Twinblade states that it was rarely used by Melfian warriors owing to its reliance on skill (because it's a trash weapon). The Divine Blessing states that 'in every age there are those who refuse to see reason. It is their meddling that distorts the truth." This would seem to be in reference to Melfia's Gwynevere denialism in the face of stuff like Divine Blessings. The Soul Vessel I assume is meant to imply that someone, probably some kind of oddball from Melfia underwent some kind of psychological, and maybe literal, rebirth regarding Gwynevere.
The Dark Clutch is apparently just minding its own business around the corner from a kind of shrine to one of Gwyn's elder children, same as the Magic ring.
In the third game the Dark Clutch can be found in a DS2 mimic. Approaching the ring results in several basilisks entering the sewer pipe, trapping the player between them and the exit. The tunnel itself seems to be distinct from the rest of the dungeon in several ways. The basilisks, obviously, but we find rats as well, andwe pick up the legendary Pickaxe just as we enter the tunnel, implying that the workers-disguised-as-jailers we fought on our way in may tie in to the area. Across from the Mimic is a normal chest containing the Old Cell Key (Seigward's cell).
It's not relevant to the Clutch Ring discussion, or maybe it is, but I just want to point out that whoever put the key there put Seigward where he is, as well as the Covetous Gold Ring, and possibly even had the rapey scab ratfuck Prisoner Chief murdered.
I mean, maybe, right?
One of the big plot points in this area that doesn't get commented on much is that the jailers, as a group, or at least some of them, appear to have double-crossed the Prisoner Chief, who we find dead and locked in his own cell.
The main collective of Jailers seem to be concerned with guarding the lowest level of the main dungeon, particularly Karla, and we find them, the Jailers, working with the infested prisoners in the upper levels. I mean the infested could just leave if they wanted, most of their cells aren't even closed.
Is this how Sulyvahn wants things? I can't imagine so but, yknow, he's an insane evil genius tree monster that grew up in an extra-dimensional prison colony, his reasoning is difficult to parse.
Grasping
The Clutch Rings, associated with one of the 'darker deities,' increase damage output of the relevant element, at the cost of lowered physical defense. A 'Londor fable' talks about the rings being 'lures' that 'reach out to the Crestfallen, who might otherwise be overcome by despair.' The rings depict a tiny jewel being clutched in a talon.
It's obviously a standard Soulsian blessing/curse arrangement. Narratively, it might mean something like the dark deity bestowing the blessing on a prospective champion. Giving this blessing might even curse the goddess herself in some sense, leaving them weak or exposed. Generally something like this is the trade in any conflict.
I suspect that each ring tells a different story, but that each story is an echo of the other. I'll now fail to try to outline this.
The general idea is that, as with the Sorcerer's Twinblade or Cuculus' mad attempt on the Demon King: the weapon doesn't make the legend, the legend makes the weapon. Killing Gwyn with a broken straight sword is a higher glory than killing him with a +15 zweihander.
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| THIS IS A RIDDLE |
This is expressed historically in Souls, at least in part, by the movement of Great Smiths. When Anor Londo lost Help Anytime I Gwyndolin had to come out of hiding and lead her people or she'd have no people left to lead. Vendrick would have Llewellyn at any cost because Vendrick knew having a great smith meant the difference between Good Rome and Bad Rome. Who do we find suspiciously just hanging out at DS3 Firelink when we show up? Nobles and clergy. And a pretty great smith.
But the thing is: having good weapons, for whatever reason, leads to bad swordsmanship. In the 1980s in the United States you could buy literally a functional sword for like thirty bucks, probably still can, and you will find no people in all of history with a worse understanding of basic swordsmanship than the average US citizen. On the other hand you look at places in Central and South America or really dig into the 'who's who' of Middle-Eastern factions you'll realize that the deadliest fighters on the planet usually have, like, rusty shotguns and homemade machetes.
Which is not to say you can't have both comfort and discipline. This is what the smiths, as well as the clutch rings, represent. Yes, you can one-shot that enemy, but you gotta be willing to let it one-shot you, and that takes skill and skill comes through practice and practice is discipline applied.
So,
Both the Fire and Dark rings are initially found in Eleum Loyce. The Fire ring is heavily guarded, but the Dark ring is on a random corpse, although both are well-hidden. In the third game the Fire ring is on a random corpse and the Dark ring is deep in a heavily guarded dungeon. I don't know that I would describe these rings as hidden, but the Dark Clutch is held in a DS2 mimic. I'm not sure if this means that the ring was put in a mimic or if the ring was put in a chest and the chest turned into a DS2 mimic. For reference, the Mimic at the other end of the area is a DS1-style biped and holds an Estus Flash Shard.
The Dark ring, between the games, goes from being discarded by nobles (Divine Blessing on the roof) to being held as some kind of sacred by the underclass. The inverse is true for the Fire ring, initially being deep within the citadel of Eleum Loyce to being almost forgotten save for a lone crestfallen hollow in the Undead Settlement.
So the Dark ring travels from Eleum Loyce to the Irithyll dungeon. Turn Back made the case that Team Elana (The Neo-Olaphis Proto-Lothric faction from DS2,) was working with Volgen and Forossa on some kind of mission to invade/settle in EL. From here it could have made its way to the Undead Settlement (along with or independently of the Fire ring,) where it fell into the hands of the Profaned Capitalists (a place with ties to Eleum Loyce) or possibly Sulyvahn (ties to witchtrees, who are present in the Sunken and Ivory AND Ariandel DLCS).
The Irithyll Dungeon 'jailers' we find in the hall surrounding the Old Cell are actually UDS Workers wearing the Jailer's headpiece. They're pretending to be Jailers, just to be absolutely clear, and they're guarding the secret/makeshift path leading to the Dark Clutch.
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| KNOW WHO ELSE TURNS COMPLETELY INVISIBLE FRIEDE AND IRITHYLL SLAVES |
I feel like I'm talking crazy talk but, like, clearly something like that is going on, right? Someone, somewhat recently, broke open that big sewer grate* and dug a tunnel off of the sewer to connect the Old Cell to the floor of the main dungeon. I'm fairly certain Sulyvahn doesn't know about it, but I'm wondering if it ties into Seigward's quest, which seems to involve him visiting the in-game giants (Help Anytime II, Deep Cathedral Guards, the Old Prisoner, King Yhorm).
*That the bars are bowed outward doesn't necessarily mean they were 'pushed' outward from the sewer side; they could have been pried out with the same kind of tools that dug the side tunnel. Which, yes, could also have just been dug mindlessly by giant rats BUT WE ALL KNOW RATS AREN'T MINDLESS DON'T WE.
The Old Cell area is protected by rats, workers, and basilisks. The Giant's Cell connects on the opposite side to the Profaned University, where we find Siegward and the Court Sorcerer. You can even see, or rather you can't see, the two fully invisible jailers, possibly 'jailers,' from the entrance to the Pickaxe Tunnel [you can see them from behind in the Old Cell. The assorted lightning arrows around the place may indicate slain Sulyvahn loyalists, since nobody down there uses them{Also, iirc the only other enemies that turn fully invisible are the Irithyll Slaves, who, given their 'true' Darkmoon loyalties, could easily be aligned with the UDS workers} -fm].
I'll be talking about Siegward at the end of the post. This is all strictly off-topic. Moving on to the lightning clutch...
The Lightning ring undergoes a similar inversion as the Dark ring. With Dark, it was initially hiding out in the 'light'-est place in DS2 and later is kept as a treasure in a sewer by people that hang out in sewers. We find Lightning initially being kept as a dirty, possibly forgotten secret in the dirtiest, secretest hole in the entire world. This hole is nevertheless considered an incredibly holy place, and is under the control of the Archdrake Sect, a divergent branch of the old old Way of White. The Archdrakes, headed by Elana, were likely the Drang faction that eventually became the Lothric Priestess faction, and may have been responsible for or aligned with the Blue Sentinel faction of Volgen. By the third game the ring finds itself outside the gate of The Nameless King of Anor Londo, beneath both sun and moon, in the shadow of an actual dragon cunningly disguised as a mountain.
The Fire Clutch seems the most straightforward: It's a fire ring surrounded by fire and mourned by a crestfallen. It's probably as happy as a ring can be when we find it.
And yes, I am starting to suspect that they have a rudimentary sentience and can, in a sense, hide from their enemies and reveal themselves to potential allies, a la the Ring/s of Power from Middle Earth. I say that because they seem to either camouflage themselves or find a way to 'hide out' near heavily defended treasure or, as with the Irithyll Dungeon, find loyal cultists (or possibly beckon a mimic or something like that) in order to protect itself.
The Magic/Sorcery Clutch is the most perplexing, especially with the name change. I don't have a copy of a Japanese script to see if it was originally the same word or if the words are interchangeable in-universe, but it needs to be pointed out, because it might represent an 'heirdom' aspect to the ring's story.
The Ring is associated with Nadalia and Brume in the second game. True to what seems to be the nature of the Clutch Rings, it's off to the side and somewhat easily missed, as most players are probably charging for the elevator.
The elevator has a big-ole sun symbol on it, which is probably significant in a Red & Blue sense because sorcery/magic is associated with the moon.
We find the ring in the third game, again in a dogleg near a Large Sunlike Thing. The corpse we find it on is overlooking the street leading from the Noble's Mansion to the shortcut back up to Nameless' Throne. The Mansion, of course, has that conspicuous painting of the Smelter Throne.
So in the Magic Clutch we find something like a glass-cannon sorcerer being kept, we assume intentionally, as a treasure by Nadalia, Queen of the Black Fog, Dancer in Solitude, Beckoner, One Eye, The Black Fire, Bride of Soot, Mother of Ash, Embracer, Relic.
Lothric was, from what I can tell, in an arms race, mostly against itself. Something similar happens in Bloodborne, where everyone's constantly trying to find a miracle cure for the latest unforeseen horrific side effect brought about by the previous miracle cure for the previous unforeseen horrific side effect brought about by (and so on).
Brume Tower represents an incredible source of potential power. If the Iron King had been less of a failson about everything he could've conquered the world, so imagine what someone like Emma or Sulyvahn could/might have done with it.
Assuming that's even possible. Nadalia seems like one of those deals where the more you try to contain her the more she spreads.
That's all interesting, maybe, but as of now I don't have a through-line for the four different 'stories,' such as they are, but I do want to follow up on the Siegward/Irithyll Dungeon tangent. So, to sum up what I suspect are some general truisms about the Clutch Rings,
- They represent a blessing/curse offered to the Crestfallen
- They are aware of themselves and their surroundings to some degree, and can hide from or lure certain people
- Heavy Velka Vibes, but the answer is never actually Velka trust me
- They seem to root for underdogs.
- They all tell a journey of a humour traveling from the lands of its 'enemy' to something like a 'home' (The Dark Clutch going from a relic in the Land of the White King to a blessing hidden away in the Darkest Sewer Ever, for example).
- They represent glass-cannon builds, ergo whoever uses one plans on being able to one-or-two shot everything they come across or being able to fight circles around any opponent or genuinely aren't bothered by the prospect of hollowing or a thousand painful deaths.
Alright, so turns out I was lying and wrong about Siegward being discussed in-depth right here. Turns out it's big enough to get its own post so it's in the queue, along with Targray and Alonne and Vendrick and the Paintings and the cladistic descent of Iz and all the other stuff I keep saying is coming.
