Hello everyone
If this post isnt suitable for this sub please tell me and I will delete it imediatly.
I just finished DS3 (my first souls game) and I didnt really focus on the story because I want to get the lore from the whole lore cornologically. So i dont know anything from the story. What are some things I should know about before getting in the research?
Thanks to everyone :)
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Another comment gave you good starting point already. Another is, to be a bit more straightforward, time is convoluted and not all information you're given is given to you in a chronological order. (Lothric being called King in Firelink Shrine but later fighting him hes still Prince). Some interested in Lore dismiss this as a gameplay gimmick, but it's really not
There are issues in the game obviously and gameplay gimmick cuts a lot from what the story should be, however in this case Lothric is named a King because of the role his family was sure he would have fullfilled before they knew of his condition (In japanese Lord of Cinder is the same as saying King of Cinder) The things about time being convoluted is a bad translation, in every game the original is "stagnant" time and space pile and pile over themselves as the First Flame fades because light is time, its like a river that is slowly losing speed until it stops and everything remains where it is.
I mean, I don't know about the Japanese translation thing, but I'm not refering to the Lord of Cinder title, but on his throne it says something like "Holy King Lothric...", not related to the title Lord of Cinder. You might still be right, though.
And regarding your second point, in DS3 we clearly travel through multiple times as the age of fire is breaking down, making it more than a game mechanic
You are asking for something really complex in particular with DS3 that has a not definite chronology given that each Lord of Cinders comes from a not really clear time.
Main things you should know if you want to understand DS3 Lore in particular should be
What really is the First Flame and the Dark Soul
What are the Age of Fire and Dark
Who is Gwyn and what he did
What is the DarkSign and the condition of the humans
How the linking of the Fire works and Lords of Cinder
Once you have the foundamentals you can easily get into the main characters of the bosses of DS3: Prince Lothric, Oceiros, Sulyvahn, Aldrich, Gwyndolin, Gael then stuff like Londor, Lothric kingdom and thr Cathedral of the Deep to understand the state and factions of the world.
Leaving you the link to compiled pages with sources, reading the characters you might start to pile infos on various subjects and grasp the situation.
* https://darksouls.fandom.com/wiki/Lothric,_Younger_Prince
* https://darksouls.fandom.com/wiki/Oceiros,_the_Consumed_King
* https://darksouls.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Sun_Gwyndolin
* https://darksouls.fandom.com/wiki/Pontiff_Sulyvahn
* https://darksouls.fandom.com/wiki/Aldrich,_Devourer_of_Gods
* https://darksouls.fandom.com/wiki/Lothric?so=search
* https://darksouls.fandom.com/wiki/Londor?so=search
Holy shit thank you so much. I think I stated it a bit wrong. I dont want to only do DS3 but the whole trilogy. But still I think I will have a good baselane to start with
No problem and have fun! If you want to have a better grasp on the whole trilogy then i recommend you searching for: Gwyn, Seath, Furtive Pygmy, Izalith etc as they are the pillars of many things happening later.
A few things to better understand DS3 lore are:
Play DS1 and DS2; DS3 can be considered the direct sequel of DS1 because they are both made by the same director (Miyazaki), so you can find a narrative coherence (99% of the time), while with DS2, having two different directors (Shibuya and Tanimura), they took DS1 lore and gave their own interpretation, so take DS2 lore with a grain of salt (there are still some important bits here and there, later referenced in DS3).
Unfortunately DS3 (as well as all From Software games) has been poorly localized, where some words and phrases have been wrongly translated or cut, this caused a lot of lore theorists (like Vaatividya) to speculate on inaccurate translations and to misinterpret things; not everything is wrong, but to be sure always check that what they say or write is based on the Japanese translation; my personal recommendation would be Lokey (https://lokeysouls.com/), it's very verbose, but offer one of the most accurate and complete explanation of the lore of Dark Souls.
The absolute most important thing to know is that nobody is objectively correct about the lore. Not Vaati, not Hawkshaw, Tarnished Archeologist, Smoughtown etc. and not anybody on this sub. Anything outside the physical text and dialogue is interpretation and conjecture, not truth. You may choose to believe someone or come up with your own interpretation, but that doesn't make it true.
Everybody was given the same pieces, but everybody interprets the picture differently.
Most important thing to know is that the lore is vague as a feature.
They want it to be incomplete so you can create your own personal interpretation.
A lot of people who talk about the lore talk about it as if they had found “the secret behind what really happened in…” But those secrets are meant to stay hidden.
Focus on the themes and the vibes more than anything and you’ll be good
The lore is not vague on 80% of the things. There are sources and descriptions explaning the majority of events, characters and questions.
Vibes and themes its not what op was seeking
But it's what they SHOULD be seeking. Focusing on "oh what's the answer to this..." is how you miss out on the beauty of the lore.
Like... "oh shit this person knows exactly who Velka is, how did I miss this?" vs "hey, maybe the idea of Velka is that agents of change are often left on the wayside of history and kept away from all records/discourse, but that doesn't reduce how influential they can be, particularly during times of crisis", which is much more interesting to analyze.
Thats the layer that comes after understanding a story elements, if they dont even understand who Velka is theyre never gonna even think this deep on the first time.
That's not how it works though. You can't deeply analyze themes and philosophize until you actually have a foundation of facts to start with.
Those "oh what's the answer to this?" questions need to be answered if there's a factual answer to be given.
And the majority of those facts are indeed provided in the games -- but they're presented esoterically.
So what OP wants is them presented chronologically and with more clarity.
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The kinds of things YOU wanna discuss are what come later -- after those fundamental questions are answered.