Lore

DS3: Wrapping Up

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My journey is coming to an end. I defeated the final boss (Lord of Cinder). Also, I have defeated Slave Knight Gael, the final boss of the Ring City DLC. The lore is very interesting, so I decided to go on a 2nd journey to unlock ‘The Usurpation of Fire’ ending. There are three endings total, and I have already seen two of them. One was from my old playthrough.

In my previous blog post, I said I would discuss the Painted World of Ariandel lore (particularly Sister Friede) but by doing so, you must have some knowledge of the Painted World of Ariamis in Anor Londo, where you face Priscilla in DS1. The painted world in DS3 is linked to the Hollow realm of Londo. Similarly, Sister Friede is like Pricilla except harder. She represents death. So just imagine a cold world without warmth. It’s not very pleasant. I personally did not enjoy the snow area, and it wasn’t because I hate the level design, it’s because the bright light from the snow hurts my eyes!

It’s not bad. At least there are flowers.

Anyway, Sister Friede is one of the maidens of the Primordial Serpent and one of the sisters (Yuria and Lillian) who founded the Sable Church. The Sable Church offers salvation to the hollows who led unsavory lives. And what does hollow mean? It is when the undead eventually lose their minds. Just like Sirri’s grandfather, who became a madman. Another important point is that Sister Friede is ashen like the player. Her duty was to link the fire to prevent the world from dying; however, she chose rot over flames along with Father Ariandel. In other words, they want the Painted World of Ariandel to rot. If you have played Demon’s Souls, does she remind you of Maiden Astraea, a pure soul that turned to an Archdemon because God was cruel for abandoning the Valley of Defilement and its inhabitants to wither and die? It’s female compassion backfired, but oddly maternal. Can a good mother ever abandon her children, even if they are monsters? So, when a player defeated Sister Friede, the painted world became engulfed in flames for the better. The action I took as an intrusive player messed with my conscience a bit because I empathized with Sister Friede’s decision to choose rot over flames, but I also know it’s not right to choose death. What she wanted was a world that rot away eternally. Is that what you call peace for the hollows? It kind of sound like hell to me. In her circumstances, compassion was her weakness, and therefore, she was no champion of life at all.

Dragon Path Gesture emote after defeating sister friede
Sorry, Sister Friede, for burning your sanctuary.

Instead, a “cold, dark and very gentle place” might be better. And that where the Ring City fits in, which is different from the hollow realm of Londor and which I won’t go into detail. I do want to mention that I really like Yuria and Sister Friede as characters but I don’t agree with their worldview–the hollow way is not the right way. I guess that is why I like Sirris of the Sunless Realms and Shira, Knight of Filianore. I rather live in a world full of warmth than a cold, sad one even if I am bound to selfless duty. What can you gain from a selfish world?

Painter sitting on a chair getting ready to paint
A “cold dark and very gentle place” for the hollows I suppose.

There are some Elden Ring references I noticed in DS3, which led me to believe this game is a prequel to Elden Ring. In Elden Ring, rot is the cycle of birth and decay–like how flowers bloom then wilt. Whereas flames, it’s light, the source of life. We are dealing with polytheism with a mixture of animalism here. It just shows how complex the narrative is in the game, leaving room for a lot of interpretation. But I can theorize that the story of DS3 is about allowing the fire to fade for a new world order. So everything in the game is mournfully sad. Apart from the theme, I feel sympathy for these NPCs and may have to go back and explore their questlines. I accidentally killed Ringfinger Leonhard, who has a sad story. Well, everyone in the game is sad and broken.

Meditating in the storm. It shall pass.

I am not sure if I want to platinum the game. For your money’s worth, this game is timeless, on par with classic books. Unfortunately, not everyone will ever get to experience the story because it’s a challenging game that requires some dedication. Maybe one day, FromSoftware will make a Dark Souls novel? I heard there is an Elden Ring movie in the making. I am not sure how effective the story will be, though. Video games as a medium for storytelling are a unique and one-of-a-kind experience. It just makes the story so much more personal and definitely more rewarding to get through. I must confess that this game is so hopelessly dark. The next game I am going to play is definitely something lighter and cheerful. Hmm… or maybe I will go back and reread Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a book that reminds me that adults have it backward when it comes to living.

DS3: Strategy and Lore on Aldrich, Devourer of Gods

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Disclaimer: Contains Spoilers

Approaching the Cathedral of the Deep
Pathway to the Cathedral of the Deep

When I was working my way towards the Road of Sacrifice from the Undead Settlements, I was anticipating meeting Aldrich, the Saint of the Deep, also known as the Devourer of Gods. He is notorious for eating people (the undead) and, even more daringly, eating gods for pleasure in the most gruesome ways. And he doesn’t do it alone. He shares his joy with other twisted souls, “imbibing the final shudders of life while luxuriating in his victim’s screams (description from Aldrich’s Ruby).” So, when I reached the Pathway to the Cathedral of the Deep after defeating Sage Crystal, I thought I was getting closer. Oh no, I still had a way to go. I had to face the lesser twisted souls: Deacons of Cathedral of Deep, the Abyss Watcher, High Lord Wolnir, Old Demon King, Pontiff Sulyvahn, and Yhorm the Giant. Defeating Aldrich was the climax of the game. Like Dragon Slayer Ornstein and Executioner Smough from Dark Souls, the boss fight was difficult. It took me the entire day, after several runs, to finally beat a 5-minute battle. For one, I play as a sorcerer, and the boss was resistant to magic. So, what did I do? I switched to melee. Leveled up my endurance twice. Infused my hand axe weapon +6 to lightning effect because lightning is one of its weaknesses. Switched out sorcery’s rings for Chloranthy Ring, Estus Ring, Life Ring, and Dark Stoneplate Ring. For armor, I wore something light with high magic defense. I even allocated all of the Estus flasks (healing potion) to HP. Normally, I leave some for FP since I use magic spells. What I found comical was that I forgot to upgrade the healing potency of the Estus flask! It could have saved me time from trying to defeat the boss if I had upgraded it from +2 to +8, so I wouldn’t have to consume so many Estus flasks. Oopsie, that was a bit of a noob move! But in the end, it was the strategy that helped me defeat the boss.

Upon entering the boss fight, I ran towards it before it could blast its magic beam and perform its piercing rain arrow shots because it’s bad news for us players who do range attacks. The boss’s AoE is deadly. But what helped me in this battle was knowing exactly where it would spawn. For instance, if it is in the bottom left corner of the room, it will reappear in the upper right corner of the room, but it doesn’t always happen. I think I got lucky. Also, knowing when to reserve stamina (since running and hitting used up stamina) helped me defeat the boss. I let the stamina bar refill by not running toward the direction of the boss until it reappeared so that I could dodge and attack its tail as quickly as possible. Speed and damage are what it will take to defeat Aldrich. For better visualization, I include a video clip of my boss fight.

After defeating Aldrich, I learned that he had no fear of devouring the gods himself when he started ruminating about the fading of the fire. He envisioned the coming age of the deep sea (item description from Soul of Aldrich). It made me wonder why the fire was fading in the first place. And why was I transported back to the High Wall of Lothric to face the Dancer of the Boreal Valley, who happens to be the distant daughter of Pontiff Sulyvahn? Let’s backtrack a little bit here: Pontiff Sulyvahn is one of the earlier twisted souls I had to defeat. He is one of Aldrich’s cronies. He “imprisoned a god of the old royalty in the abandoned cathedral to be fed to [Aldrich] the devourer (item description from Souls of Pontiff Sulyvanh).” I must admit that I am a bit frightened. It sounds like they had a logistic, criminal system in place there. Do you know the saying “Wolves in sheep’s clothing”? That is exactly what Aldrich is, a supposedly upright lord with a dark appetite.

Dancer of the Boreal Valley, another twisted soul

Once I defeated the Dancer, I unlocked an area called Lothric Castle. It seems like she was either guarding or holding Prince Lothric hostage because I was asked by the High Priestess Emma of High Wall Lothric, in her last breath, to save Prince Lothric’s soul. She told me to tell Prince Lothric “that he must be. A Lord…” She didn’t get to finish her sentence, so I can only speculate that he must be the Lord of Cinder. And you are probably wondering like me…what is the significance of being the Lord of Cinder? Why is it important to the story? It has to do with the linking of the flames, the source of life, which is also the source of corruption. But that is just my educated guess for now, from all the sources I gathered in the game so far. Who knows what my conclusion is? So stay tuned, I still have more bosses to defeat and uncover their lore!

Elden Ring: Wrapping Up

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I noticed in my blog I covered a lot of gaming materials these past few months, and I enjoyed documenting my thoughts about them as well. It’s considered brain exercise to me. But after completing Elden Ring with a 92 percent trophy completion and obtaining the majority of the loots (I’m sure there are still some items I missed), I decided to move on once I finished my 3rd playthrough to get the Flame of Frenzied ending which will give me the platinum trophy. Then I can brag to other gamers that I have skills! I am just kidding. Bragging was never my cup of tea. Maybe it’s just my upbringing, I have always found it difficult to talk highly of myself. You see, the game is not easy but I managed to complete it. So, I should give myself some credit. I think it’s pretty amazing how patient and determined I am, but I wish I was a bit more competitive. I didn’t enjoy invading other’s people world and conquering them. As a result, I failed to see through some questlines in Elden Ring. If I am not enjoying it then there’s no point.

White-Faced Varre (He’s to the right) asked me to invade other people’s worlds, which is part of a quest line. I prefer my dress clean. Being strong enough to defend myself is more than enough killing for me.

New people who come across my blog recently might think this is my first entry to the Souls games because I don’t like PVP. Truth is I started off with Demon’s Souls (2009). I have always played for the atmosphere. And one thing I noticed from all of the Souls games is the lack of feminine armors. I wish the Souls games had more of them. There weren’t many pretty armors. I know in real life wearing a pretty dress would attract predators, but this is fantasy. Why not? The armors in the game look so intimidating. I suppose it made sense in a world where dogs eat dogs. This is a battleground after all. There’s no time to be soft like a jellyfish, although I learned that being a “jellyfish” (soft) does not make a person weak as we see in the character Roderika, a spirit tuner who is afraid of getting her limbs pulled apart like her fellow men who have crossed the sea to the Lands of Between and got grafted in her place. Roderika may lack courage, but she compensates it through other form. You see, the spirit cannot be crushed. She makes them stronger. I like how the character’s weakness is turn into strength. Also, I just realized I wore Roderika’s armor this entire time. It’s the Noble’s Traveling Garb set as you can see from the picture below. It’s one of the few nice feminine gears I could find in the game.

The caption in the picture says, “No time to waste. Let’s see the stars.” The dialogue is part of a small quest line.

I know that I am rambling a bit in this blog post. I did warn readers that I want to be more casual and less structured for my mental health. It does take a lot of revising to get my point across. Anyway as I was searching for a picture of the Jellyfish, I realized something beautiful. According to the description of the Spirit Jellyfish Ashes which was given to me by Roderika, the Jellyfish spirit’s name is Aurelia and she is in search of her distant home. Well, it just dawn on me that the stars can be found underground in a place called SIOFRA RIVER. These beautiful creatures are indeed dead. It’s bittersweet and sad because before Aurelia reunited with her sister, her sister was hauntingly calling out for her in the Stargazer Ruins. I found this little aha moment quite delightful. It’s a lovely artistic composition.

Speaking of the characters, they are all quite interesting and balanced. It’s a theme I notice quite often. Perhaps, that is the thesis of the story that Hidetaka Miyazaki the director, and George R. R. Martin the writer want to express. That sounds like another blog post idea. There is so much to dive into in this heavy-loaded game. When gameplay is combined with a good story, it just blows my mind. I never thought I’d see something as grand as this. It got me obsessed for two months all because I want to escape from the prairie’s heat. However, I don’t know if that is a good thing. My mind can’t find rest. I have to piece the story myself but I am also curious about other people’s interpretation.

Because this game is so massive, it will probably be the last game I play for the remainder of the year as I have upcoming major plans in the coming months. Plus, I want to give more attention and love to the book department. Playing Elden Ring made me realize how much I miss reading a good book.