So does everything you do in these Dark Souls games amount to some magical ritual?

Well yes, more or less.
You link the fire, and the cycle repeats.
The fire is life, or at least one form of life, repeating over and over is common in buddhist themes, and since the series is japanese it makes sense it's prevalent.

That's also why people think in DaS3 ending the flame is the canon ending, it's strongly pushed as the end of the entire cycle, but the beginning of something different.
Wich is symbolic for fromsoft closing the chapter on souls games but starting again on something else.

...

I'm just glad they're done with DaS.
This one really had me burnt out, and doesn't feel remotely as fun as bloodborne.

There's still DLCs.
Probably 3, like DaS2.
Considering DLCs were the best part of DaS2 and DLCs in general contain some of the best content in all souls games maybe they'll make DaS3 more interesting.
I'm hoping for the bone fist to be re-implemented with a good moveset to make monk builds non shit for a change.

What's wrong with the Demon fists you can get?

Pratically everything.
From the scaling, to the damage, horrid as fuck moveset shared by fist weapons that 9 times out of 10 makes you miss multiple hits in a combo, forcing you to just spin over and over with the L2.

Also, since they nerfed the FUCK out of all the fist weapons poise damage and 90% of enemies both monsters and humanoid now have hyperarmor on almost all their moves, fist builds got fucked extra hard because anything and everything will simply hypearmor right trough your moves and cave your skull in.

There's only one word i can use to describe how miserable fist builds are in DaS3 after fist/claws were finally enjoyable in Bloodborne with the beast claws, stake driver and kos parasite: disgraceful.

DaS3 is 10 steps backwards in terms of fist weapons compared to BB.
I hope the inclusion of a shaolin style bone fist moveset like in DaS2 with reach, speed and poise damage might fix the situation but frankly, with this insane amount of hyperarmor on everything, it probably won't.

It seems like anyone interested in fist weapons in souls games is doomed to play bone fist in DaS2, or fist-like weapons in BB forever.

It's to wake up Fraampt, the primordial serpent.

He doesn't want to explain the prophesy to every schmuck that comes along, he only wants to deal with an undead who is capable and determined enough to go through with it so he just sleeps and waits for someone competent enough to ring both bells.

The whole point of the main story is that you are being manipulated into killing all this shit and becoming powerful just to make your own soul powerful by the time you get to the Kiln, so that when you burn it the fire will last much longer than it would if a random undead that didn't just kill a bunch of gods had lit it.

Ah, was curious to know Though it seems like a lot more got fucked over then just the fist weapons in DS3. I'm doing a play through on DS1 with a fucked deprived build that's focusing into strength.

Couldn't burning a bunch of worthless undead do the same thing then? Basically throwing a whole bunch a sticks into a pile to get a great big bonfire, as opposed to a nice log.

I'm guessing you have to link the fire willingly and can't be forced into it, otherwise yeah they probably would have just done like hitler and holocaust'ed some undead

Miyazaki explains this. If an undead didn't have the strength or willpower to sustain the First Flame, they get turned to ash, hence 'the unkindled'.

Really?
That's neat, it's the first time i heard of that.
But what the fuck is an unklindled, exactly?
It's so weird that i played all of DaS3 and still don't fully understand what an unkindled actually is.
Is it any undead that can link the flame?
Was the protagonist of DaS1 an unkindled and didn't even know it?

you're hitting the same problem i've had with the series and still struggle with.

The opening of all 3 games propose a different reason for why you're there and what your purpose is.

in 1 you are pretty much there because you had the darksign, which all people who will be undead seem to get. It is implied that you are dumped into the asylum, possibly by living people, and that once you made it out, that bird goes and takes you to firelink. That is probably that bird's purpose, to carry undead that make it out of the asylum. Kind of like an extreme noob filter, you know?
Now, what you're doing and why you're doing it is never really explicitly told to you. You're kind of just DOING things and I always interpreted it as you as an Undead trying to just survive the world. Every other "human" character you meet seems to have gone fucking nuts and any others are just monsters. The whole "you got to link the flame" shit seems to pop up way fucking later and I would venture to guess that its all just you being manipulated into doing something by other people.

in 2 you are simply called to the land of the undead because I guess that's what people do when they go undead. Its been a while since I played the game but there doesn't seem to be a specific purpose for you being there either.

in 3 you actually get an explicit purpose. You were in your grave, the flames are dying out because the lords refuse to simply do what they're supposed to do and shit is going wrong in the world so there you go, rise out of your grave. It is implied that you're already in the land of the undead and in fact the land is nothing but that. There are graves anywhere and everywhere so you could consider that there are no such things as living people at all. And it is also told to you from the start "hey, this is what you're here for" and there are other undead (like that one coward in the shrine) that seem to know that they've been called for the same purpose.
If they're working towards it or not, I don't know. Some of them seem to be able to help you, others…I don't know? Its odd when they have their own agendas for…whatever reason?

There's one thing about DaS3 that i find neat because it's a cool concept, and that's how the world is structured.
Basically there's strong hints that as the flame is dying, the entire world is collapsing upon itself.
Either that, or being closer to the flame makes everything else seem closer in turn.
It's sort of a neat concept.

That's why all the places that are supposed to be so far apart are suddently so close to each other, and why once you get to the first flame if you look back you will see all the structures clustered, aiming themselves towards the flame itself.
It's like approaching a black hole, everything gradually gets sucked in, even light itself.

Everyone except Sieglinde are also undead, well, Queelana is not a human I think, she is one of the few surviving witches.

in DaS2 it seems like there is some parallelism to the choosen undead fate, the cycles are not quite connected to the first game, it seems to be a side story where you are manipulated by the queen.

So what meat was this?
Is this how you make an undead stay dead? Just complete dismemberment?

That piece is too big to be human.

Miyazaki kinda explained what an Unkindled is. An Unkindled is basically a failed Lord of Cinder, so essentially what happens is you are marked with the darksign. As Dark Souls 1 explains, the darksign marks the undead and only appears when the Flame flickers and fades. Now you, instead of running from the supposed duty of the undead to pursue the Flame or ignoring like so many others decide to Link the Fire. You try to become a Lord of Cinder. So basically imagine yourself going through the same kind of ordeals the Chosen Undead did in DS1, except for one key difference; you fail. Either because you lacked the strength of will or because you lacked strength in general you could not become a Lord, hence "nameless, accursed undead, unfit to be even Cinder". Now comes DS3, the repeated cycles of Light and Dark have taken it's toll on the world and the Flame, such that the Flame is not simply fading but dying for good this time. So in an attempt to sustain itself the Flame summons a couple of Lords from the dead to embolden the Fire, in a recreation of Gwyn's own linking. Except the Lords have gone mad or refuse to Link the Fire, in desperation it calls upon failures, the pitiful souls who couldn't even become fuel. That's where you come in.

So to answer your other point, no. The Chosen Undead could not have been an Unkindled since they were the second rung in the cycle. There was no age where they could have failed in Linking the Fire unless they attempted to Link it before Gwyn had.

DS3 reveals that yes, anyone can become a Lord, they need only the strength and the determination to do so.

Did you think of all that yourself?
I like it, makes sense to me.

I think it's a mistake to have sequels to "Souls" games. DS3 felt too much like fanservice to me. At least DS2, for all of it's faults, tried to do something almost completely disconnected from DS1.

All put together from various sources and shit. A lot of the info comes from interviews with Miyazaki. Taiwanese interviews. Here's a link to one of them and a translation; fextralife.com/forums/p812167//. the rest comes from item descriptions and dialogue, all found in the game. 'Course, this being Souls everything's fairly vague and obtuse so another person with the same information could put it together and put forth an interpretation that's fairly different from the conclusion I came to.

The basic outline's all there though and it's only the finer points that could be interpreted differently. No matter how you slice it it all boils down to; you're a failed Lord of Cinder called back from the dead to get the actual Lords to Relink the Flame.

The Sealer's set was my favorite. Why do they do fan service for pretty much every armor set except this one?

He might be a coward but he sure rocked the shit out of those knights in front of The Consumed King

I wondered that too. Seemed like pretty much everything there was undead, so once killed its corpse should just vanish from that spot and then be alive again.

Speaking of everything being undead like you, that's a good in-game explanation for enemies respawning for once. (Though why random hollows pop back up wherever and not next to bonfires too is unclear.) However, what I don't quite get is the in-game reasoning for the enemies that never respawn. Bosses might be their own thing, for example it's never stated the Gaping Dragon is undead, for example, so okay. (Though there clearly are undead dragons so one might wonder why none of the living ones just decide not to die too.) But mostly, what bugs me is the other unique human undead NPCs never respawning. They're clearly undead, they should just pop back up like you do. Instead they die permanently, and leave their loot behind unlike PC undead. Is there any actual explanation for that? You could argue that being fully hollow allows you to leave yours stuff behind, like the difference is the lack of will to hold onto it, but non-hollow unique NPCs give you loot too.

Would you expect anything less of a former Legion member? Just imagine being the Lord of Cinder of their age. The boss fight was decently challenging with just a handful of them, much less the entire Legion.

In DS1 you're some poor schmuck who gets tricked into growing fat on other schmuck's souls so you can be used as fuel for the First Flame.

In DS2 you're some poor schmuck who gets tricked into growing fat on other schmuck's souls so you can unlock access to some magical throne that the shard of Manus wants for some reason.

In DS3 you're some poor schmuck who isn't even good enough to be kindling so you go out and drag the asses of the people who were SUPPOSED to fuel the First Flame back.

Be mindful of these two easy to miss facts: the fact undead not dying is what causes collapse of every civilization ever, only the ones with Dark Sign get to respawn other just rise back and not everyone/everything is undead.

And a third bonus one about non-respawning/rising back undead it is a computar gaem.

Going with one or the other all the time is fine but I never liked that double standard. I'm not saying the inconsistent stuff ruined the game for me but noticing the bad counts just as much as enjoying the good.

Not everything is undead in Lordran. The drakes or rats for example might look sickly but not straight up undead.

Pretty sure only humans get afflicted by the curse

Well user big enemies and anything with a non-standard human skeleton rigging on their models always disappear because their ragdolls look like shit, that's not something to go on with. On top of technical constraints you are doing "magical shit on a magical realm" like making people "live" again by lighting a bonfire in middle of nowhere.

Speculating about speculative fiction is fun but by its nature there is no "one true answer".

I'm not complaining about dead bodies disappearing, if that's what happens when cursed undead die then that's how it works. My complaint is simply that once a story sets its own rules, it should follow them. Internal consistency applies to magic just as much as anything else.

If undead cannot possibly die and just come back forever that's cool, if part of the magic curse means their stuff goes with them that's fine too. But then when some undead don't work that way for no apparent reason that's a valid point to notice. If you want to argue that the real reason is the setting has to be broken a little for the sake of game functionality, that's fine, I agree. But don't act like that's a satisfying answer.

Surely you agree that ideally the story would be compatible with 100% of the game instead of just 80% of it, right?

We have a general.

I honestly didn't expect this thread to go this far.

I mean, we were talking about Dark Souls 1 nonstop back before any of the later sequels came out, somehow it doesn't surprise me we're still talking about it in bulk now.

I know that the shopkeeper old lady in DS3 is undead and comes back if you kill her, but doing so turns her into an uber-Jew out of rage and she'll raise her prices drastically to gouge you out of spite.

fucking ganksquads

Sounds like a regular PvP match to me