First and foremost, assume massive spoilers are ahead. I don't recommend reading further unless you've done at least one playthrough of the game.

 

After beating Dark Souls 3 (and impressing myself in that I didn't miss nearly as many items or lore bits as I thought I had), I thought I'd take a shot at putting together some of the wonderfully vague mysteries and secrets floating around in the game and try my hand at making some sense of them, and I encourage anyone else who feels like it to do the same. At this point, I doubt there are any right answers, and any one theory might be as sound as the next, so feel free to throw in any thoughts or ideas as you desire.

 

The Nature of Lothric

 

It’s worth stating straight away that I’m certain there’s something going on with Lothric on a metaphysical level similar to the dream states of Yharnham, and I’m afraid I don’t quite know the exact details of what that might be. I do believe that Lothric exists in a different time and space than the worlds of Lordran and Drangleic, since most of the evidence points toward this being the case. The first clue is right in the opening cinematic, where we’re told that this is where the transitory lands converge; the lands which the Lords lived in are fleeting and short lived, but they are merging together here to make one kingdom. So Lothric is something akin to a giant melting pot, where places and people zip into existence even if their time is long past. EpicNameBro made a good observation that Anri and Horace both come from Astora, but the Astora Straight Sword says that Astora has long since fallen, so what has happened in the past isn’t necessarily the end-all when it comes to finding things in Lothric.

 

The other big tell that we get from the opening is the fact that multiple Lords of Cinder are all risen and inhabiting the same place at the same time. You only get to be a Lord of Cinder by linking the flame, which really only needs to be done once per age or when necessity strikes, so it’s safe to say that they are all from distinct and separate periods of time. Also, blazing the First Flame is pretty much the closest you can get to getting a definite death in the world of Dark Souls, and it’s telling that all of the Lords are first seen in their coffins in a massive and expansive graveyard. So even if they did manage to die, they are all being brought back in one location at the same time for the purpose of trying to get the First Flame lit again. It almost feels like Lothric (or whatever temporal plane it exists on) is where you go when you die, and exists adjacent to other kingdoms and existences, but I’m really not sure what direct relationship it has to these other places. We know from the ending that you can get to the Kiln of the First Flame from here, and even there, the world looks like it’s twisted and practically imploding, kind of hinting towards the fact that things are rapidly falling apart on all cylinders, and the Darksign can be seen high in the sky in the second act of the game, so I don’t know if this is where the Curse stems from or is fixed, or what is going on there.

 

But at the same time, I don’t know if dying is the only way to get in, mostly due to the pilgrims of Londor that we see scattered about the kingdom, and we can see in the opening that they are actively traveling to get to this place. So even if places like Astora are ten feet under, Londor is still a place that exists, if the Church of Sable and the third ending are to be believed, and you can walk between the two.

 

Speaking of Hollows and the Darksign, let’s talk about the player character for second. We know he is Undead, and he is in possession of the Darksign. But not matter how many times you die, you are in no apparent danger of Hollowing, made even more interesting given how close the world is to going Dark, and that’s usually when the Hollowing epidemic kicks in at full force. There are hollows around, and given how the Anri/Horace questline ends (or at least, one of the ways it can end), Hollowing is still a distinct possibility, just not for you. The only way it’s even an option is if you willingly submit yourself to it by letting Yoel, who is presumably Undead himself, to unlock your inner power and give you the Dark Sigil. So how is this all going down? Seeing as the act of Hollowing seems tied to the Dark Soul, which is in every human, part of me feels that somehow, your character does not have the Dark Soul in it anymore. Which might make sense, given that we see you raise from the same graveyard as the other Lords, who are only there having been burnt and reborn, so maybe by virtue of however you made it to Lothric, be it through fire or other means, you were purged of the Dark Soul. Which also might lend credence to the idea that you are Ashen, and the Souls are born of the First Flame, so you might simply have petered out. Which, ironically, might make you the biggest Hollow of all, given that you’ve lost Humanity and Souls and now exist solely as the vessel to bring other Souls back to the Shrine. Again, I’m not going to stand too hard by this idea (already, the fact that Anri claims to be Unkindled but can still go Hollow pokes some holes in the notion), but it’s something to think about.

 

The nature of Lothric confuses me sometimes. I feel like im in a place where different timelines are merged together. For example the dark version of firelink shrine I found after beating Oceiros the Consumed King. Its like a nightmare version of firelink shrine. I went back to the first bonfire in the game to check and found that it was actually 2 separate locations and I didn't go in a loop. Unless I went into the abyss version of firelink shrine. Now that I think about it that makes sense because the shrine handmaidan sell Artorias armor set. But if the abyss shrine handmaidan is different from the firelink shrine handmaidan then why do they both sell the tower key. It looks like I could have bought it from abyss handmaidan if I hadn't bought it from firelink shrine handmaidan. Also the old wolf of Farron. Is that Sif? It doesn't look TOO much like Sif. I only ask cause fromsoft is almost trying very hard to remind me of Sif cuz its surrounded by swords and in from of a large grave. Also I cant wait for epicnamebros reaction to discovering Anor Londo

The nature of Lothric confuses me sometimes. I feel like im in a place where different timelines are merged together. For example the dark version of firelink shrine I found after beating Oceiros the Consumed King. Its like a nightmare version of firelink shrine. I went back to the first bonfire in the game to check and found that it was actually 2 separate locations and I didn't go in a loop. Unless I went into the abyss version of firelink shrine. Now that I think about it that makes sense because the shrine handmaidan sell Artorias armor set. But if the abyss shrine handmaidan is different from the firelink shrine handmaidan then why do they both sell the tower key. It looks like I could have bought it from abyss handmaidan if I hadn't bought it from firelink shrine handmaidan. Also the old wolf of Farron. Is that Sif? It doesn't look TOO much like Sif. I only ask cause fromsoft is almost trying very hard to remind me of Sif cuz its surrounded by swords and in from of a large grave. Also I cant wait for epicnamebros reaction to discovering Anor Londo

 

I'm a bit confused on the Dark Firelink as well. After you beat Gundyr there, either his soul or his armor (or some other item that I forget) mentions that he was late to the proceedings, and the Estus Ring in the Belltower mentions that there was once a Firekeeper who didn't meet their champion. So I think the Dark Firelink is what happened when something went wrong and the fire didn't get linked. Though the idea of it being consumed by the Abyss is interesting too. Also interesting is that you find it underneath Lotric Castle, making me think that everything we see in the world now is built on top of an older version of the world, and that it keeps building up and up.

 

I don't think the Farron wolf is Sif, mostly because they look totally different. And actually, I think that might be intentional; the Watchers are so convinced that they are walking in Artorias's footsteps, but they went and grabbed the wrong wolf, so they can only ever be posers.

I'm a bit confused on the Dark Firelink as well. After you beat Gundyr there, either his soul or his armor (or some other item that I forget) mentions that he was late to the proceedings, and the Estus Ring in the Belltower mentions that there was once a Firekeeper who didn't meet their champion. So I think the Dark Firelink is what happened when something went wrong and the fire didn't get linked. Though the idea of it being consumed by the Abyss is interesting too. Also interesting is that you find it underneath Lotric Castle, making me think that everything we see in the world now is built on top of an older version of the world, and that it keeps building up and up.

 

I don't think the Farron wolf is Sif, mostly because they look totally different. And actually, I think that might be intentional; the Watchers are so convinced that they are walking in Artorias's footsteps, but they went and grabbed the wrong wolf, so they can only ever be posers.

 

So, something about the Dark Firelink that got me was this: My first time visiting Dark Firelink, I was killed by one of the many knights wandering around. For some weird reason, I actually traveled to the ACTUAL firelink, and lo and behold, my lost souls were there. This may just be a weird glitch, but I think these two firelinks are one in the same. I just happen to think that the dark firelink is a glimpse of what is to come of Firelink in the future, once the player beats the game.

So, something about the Dark Firelink that got me was this: My first time visiting Dark Firelink, I was killed by one of the many knights wandering around. For some weird reason, I actually traveled to the ACTUAL firelink, and lo and behold, my lost souls were there. This may just be a weird glitch, but I think these two firelinks are one in the same. I just happen to think that the dark firelink is a glimpse of what is to come of Firelink in the future, once the player beats the game.

 

Another bit of odd similarity between the two shrines: the thrones all have the same Lord names on the back of them, and I'd assume that you can't use the same Lord twice to light the flame (or, at least, nothing in their stories insinuate that this is the case). I'm not sure if that was just an oversight, or if it does mean something.

Some more thoughts as I near the end of my second playthrough,

 

- We learn from the Angel Knight set that the worship of Angels was akin to heresy in Lothric, as there was no place among the Three Pillars for them, yet we can still see the Angel Knights here and there in the area of the castle. When you scale the high wall and run into your first Angel Knight in the fountain area, we see that there are a ton of decapitated Lothric Knights hanging around, as well as only one Angel Knight corpse on the outside that has a bunch of swords in it. It kind of leads me to believe that the two are fighting, in some capacity, or at the very least don't like one another, because how ballsy would the Angel Knights have to be to dawn their armor in a place that has said such a worship is forbidden if they weren't willing to back it up?

 

-Speaking of Angels, we are told that Gertrude, the Queen's Heavenly Maiden, was visited by an Angel, who bestowed upon her the Miracle of Divine Pillars of Light. It's also a safe bet that the body we find the miracle on is hers, given that it's imprisoned in the highest tower and surrounded by feathers that look akin to angel wings. More fun stuff on Gertrude: her old chime, The Crystal Chime, was apparently hijacked by the scholars in the archives. The Bountiful Sunlight Miracle mentions that she was possibly the daughter of the queen of Lothric, who, it's a safe bet to say, was Gwynevere. The imagery of the Scholars, who worship Seath and his Crystal Sorceries, messing around with someone related to Gwynevere sounds awfully familiar.

 

-Once you make it to the archives, you start seeing statues portraying Frampt in robes and, of all things, bearing a pair of wings on his back. The wings made me initially think that this was the angel that Gertrude spoke of, but given that Lothric didn't want to talk about such things, it doesn't make sense as to why they'd put up statues. Which brings up the fun question of why on earth is Frampt being canonized? I'm assuming it's Frampt, since Kaathe shows up in other ways in the game that are wholly incompatible with what Lothric is trying to do. One thing we know is that the Linking of the Fire, at this point, seems to be universally known and expected, and the kings of Lothric are trying to purposely breed suitable heirs to the Fire. Maybe Frampt's meddling was finally seen as something akin to divine intervention? I wish we knew more about the High Priestess section of the Three Pillars, because part of me feels that there would be a link there.

 

-Speaking of High Priestesses, I noticed that when you return to Emma after getting the three Lords of Cinder, she is sitting among a pool of blood, leading me to think that someone has attacked her, and that's why we find her dying now. Not 100% certain who that would be. I mean, the Dancer is in the room, but she makes a note of not appearing until Emma has already died. It could be by the designs of Prince Lotric himself, who makes it very clear that he's not keen on becoming a Lord of Cinder, and doesn't take kindly to Emma telling him to blaze it.

 

-I'm having a hard time making heads or tails of the beheading motif that we find in Lotric. The basin we use to enter the castle proper triggers a decapitation of a statue, and inside, we find even more statues intentionally designed without heads. There's a meaning behind it, but I'm afraid I don't really know what it is.