About the Dark Lord ending.
I've been replaying the game and reading about the endings recently. Which one is the good and the bad one and that kind of stuff. I have a very different opinion about the ending and I'd like to know what you guys think. I wrote a huge post about it but then erased it by mistake. Oops.
One of the strengths of the game is how easily you can role play. When I read item descriptions, I always figure my character also reads it, one way or the other. I assume he knows as much as me. Knowing that, when the serpents bow down before him, calling him the Dark Lord, I assume he knows it's bullshit. He's been to Oolacile, to New Londo. He knows very very well that Kaathe and Frampt are manipulating him into creating the abyss and/or shortening the Age of Dark ( or whatever the fuck they want). Why would he let them manipulate him? I always tought he'd fight back somehow.
So, the way I see it, there's three endings.
Linking the fire, which is considered a bad ending by most people. The Dark Lord ending where you obliviously believe Kaathe and the third ending, the open one, which is up to you. What do you guys think ?
Posted Jul 23, 2015, 6:17 AM UTC
I've always chosen to think of the whole thing as nothing more than an infinitely repeating cycle in which Frampt and Kaathe are just two manipulators trying to win a chess game. Or they may even be two heads of the same creature. Either way, no matter what you choose is just one more chit mark for either one, and the cycle begins again. NG+s are just new iterations of the cycle, where everything's alive again and frampt and kaathe have another chance to convince you to come to their side. But there is no AFTER you link the flame or let it die. Either way it's the last moment before the cycle repeats.
I have always believed they were part of the same creature, just like a hydra. This shield might be a hint to their true nature : http://darksouls.wikidot.com/caduceus-round-shield
that is pretty interesting, i never really looked at the shield, but given the nature of this game I'd say it's no accident. And it's made from the wood of Ash Lake trees, where one of the hydras lives, and hydras drop dragon scales, so maybe frampt and Kaathe are really one two-headed dragon and the hydras are their descendants. If it really all is just an endless cycle, maybe the whole conceit of the chosen undead and gwyn and the age of fire is their way of punishing Gwyn. Frampt is supposed to be Gwyn's friend, but he's used his magic to distort time and space in Lordran and force this aging man who waged war against them to relive his descent into insanity and finally his death over and over again.