A bit of theoretical rambling regarding one of the main characters in Dark Souls 2. Spoilers ahead if you don't want to know too much about the endings of both games.
So we learn near the end of the game that the Emerald Herald was a failed experiment, a human manifested from dragons, but who failed to achieve her purpose. It's hinted rather heavily that Vendrick and Aldier were trying to create a curse-breaking human by trying to clone the Ancient Dragons, and the closest they came was Shanalotte, who might be considered, for all intents and purposes, an incomplete dragon. It's the latter term that I think is important, as in the first Dark Souls, it is said that serpents are considered incomplete dragons.
Which brings us to Frampt and Kathe, who act in the same sort of role as the Emerald Herald: they guide the player's character, who is otherwise a completely lost and wayward soul, and gives them purpose, telling them what to do and what it is they're supposed to accomplish. Frampt tells the player to gather the Lord Souls in order to help relight the flame, while Kathe tells the player to kill the gods in order to usher in a new age of dark. Yet, should you choose the Dark ending, both Frampt and Kathe are seen together, presumably in cahoots and perfectly okay with whatever it is the player decided to do. All they care about (and this is a guess about motivations on my part) is that Gwynn and all his buddies are dead, and that a future has been set up for them.
Back to Dark Souls 2. There are a ton of references to the first game, and relics from Gwynn's age of Light can be found all over the place, clearly emphasizing that Lordran and Drangleic are on the same turf. Yet at no point in Dark Souls 2 are the serpents ever seen, in spite of the fact that they are pretty much the last ones standing after the Chosen Undead's killing spree. Yet, as mentioned before, we still have an incomplete dragon in the form of the Emerald Herald, who does her best to get the player's character to keep repeating the chain of events that seems to keep the First Flame blazing brightly. She mentions that even before you ascend the Throne of Want that her mission is already complete. At that point, she's had you take out the four Great Souls, uncover Vendrick's hiding place, and if nothing else, had you open the door to the throne. At that point, either you take the throne and rekindle the Flame, or Nashandra kills you, takes your stuff, and gets the throne herself and ushers in an age of Darkness. The latter doesn't happen due to gameplay mechanics, but either way, what matters is that the old, stagnant kingdom is thrown out, and a new one is put in its place.
I don't really want to affirm that the Herald and Frampt and Kathe are necessarily plotting in a back room somewhere, but given that all of them have a sort of strange disconnect from both the world of men, gods, and dragons, it's possible that they at least share the same motivation of making sure that the world keeps moving on.
A bit of theoretical rambling regarding one of the main characters in Dark Souls 2. Spoilers ahead if you don't want to know too much about the endings of both games.
So we learn near the end of the game that the Emerald Herald was a failed experiment, a human manifested from dragons, but who failed to achieve her purpose. It's hinted rather heavily that Vendrick and Aldier were trying to create a curse-breaking human by trying to clone the Ancient Dragons, and the closest they came was Shanalotte, who might be considered, for all intents and purposes, an incomplete dragon. It's the latter term that I think is important, as in the first Dark Souls, it is said that serpents are considered incomplete dragons.
Which brings us to Frampt and Kathe, who act in the same sort of role as the Emerald Herald: they guide the player's character, who is otherwise a completely lost and wayward soul, and gives them purpose, telling them what to do and what it is they're supposed to accomplish. Frampt tells the player to gather the Lord Souls in order to help relight the flame, while Kathe tells the player to kill the gods in order to usher in a new age of dark. Yet, should you choose the Dark ending, both Frampt and Kathe are seen together, presumably in cahoots and perfectly okay with whatever it is the player decided to do. All they care about (and this is a guess about motivations on my part) is that Gwynn and all his buddies are dead, and that a future has been set up for them.
Back to Dark Souls 2. There are a ton of references to the first game, and relics from Gwynn's age of Light can be found all over the place, clearly emphasizing that Lordran and Drangleic are on the same turf. Yet at no point in Dark Souls 2 are the serpents ever seen, in spite of the fact that they are pretty much the last ones standing after the Chosen Undead's killing spree. Yet, as mentioned before, we still have an incomplete dragon in the form of the Emerald Herald, who does her best to get the player's character to keep repeating the chain of events that seems to keep the First Flame blazing brightly. She mentions that even before you ascend the Throne of Want that her mission is already complete. At that point, she's had you take out the four Great Souls, uncover Vendrick's hiding place, and if nothing else, had you open the door to the throne. At that point, either you take the throne and rekindle the Flame, or Nashandra kills you, takes your stuff, and gets the throne herself and ushers in an age of Darkness. The latter doesn't happen due to gameplay mechanics, but either way, what matters is that the old, stagnant kingdom is thrown out, and a new one is put in its place.
I don't really want to affirm that the Herald and Frampt and Kathe are necessarily plotting in a back room somewhere, but given that all of them have a sort of strange disconnect from both the world of men, gods, and dragons, it's possible that they at least share the same motivation of making sure that the world keeps moving on.