Dark Souls 2 Theory (part 10,11, &12)

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10. The cycle of Class struggle in dark souls and allusions to our world

In vampire hunter d the vampires represent an upper class that feeds off the life of the lower class. Humanity after destroying themselves in a nuclear holocaust, regress into barbarism and unable to recuperate, bring the vampires out of the shadows and set themselves up as rulers. It's important to note that once they establish order out of chaos and subjugate men, they give themselves the title of “nobility" as they see men inferior to them.
     As rulers the nobility create an age of super-science, and advance more than humans did in their time, unlocking many universal secrets. Science mixed with magic, is able to control the weather, manipulate space and time, and can create sophisticated artificial intelligence.
           Their society eventually stagnates when they reach their peak, and no longer have any more contributions in technology to offer. Evidently leading to their zenith of existence and are doomed to fall. Doing everything in their power to prolong their reign through science and experimenting on humans to find a cure to their dark curse gene (not being able to survive daylight). The human’s revolt and overthrow the nobility, putting an end to their civilizations evolutionary dead end. Throughout the story humans come into contact with the few survivors of the nobility and hold humanity in contempt and still see themselves as superior to them, does this sound familiar?
      In dark souls, one race sees itself superior to the other. An area that symbolizes this divide of classes and its eventual class struggle is Sens Fortress. To climb up and see the gods, the rulers, a human has to go through a series of struggles to reach the top, but the odds seem to be against him as the gods do their best to stop this from happening with many traps that can set you back constantly. The illusion is there, that you’re worthy enough to be up there with them, away from human misery and the exploitation of the gods. Remember feeding your humanity to the bonfire, prolongs their reign. They remain strong as you weaken and despair by giving them your life source. They suck you dry but keep you going with the illusion. It is important to note this because we also feed off each other as soul is the currency, this is to contrast to our world in which we give off a bit of our time and life, sweating our souls working for money or exploiting others’ lives for profit. The climb reveals all these class issues, as the sole problem wants to be at the top, which everyone wants to accomplish, this creates even more disparity, and the only resolution is to violently use force to overthrow those at the top who have created the impossible climb as they richen with your blood. The film Elysium by Neill Blomkamp is a great example of this.

"The working man being selfish wants all he can get in the division. The capitalist being selfish wants all he can get in the division. When there is only so much of the same thing, and when two men want all they can get of the same thing, there is conflict of interest. This is the conflict of interest between labor and capital. And it is an irreconcilable conflict. As long as working men and capitalist exist, they will continue to quarrel over the division.

-Jack London, The Iron Heel

  “‘My father was a good man,’ Ernest once said to me. The soul of him was good. And yet it was twisted as maimed and blunted by the savagery of his life. He was made into a broken down beast by his masters, the arch-beasts. He should be alive today, like your father. He had a strong constitution. But he was caught in the machine and worked to death for profit. Think of it. For profit- his life-blood transmuted into a wine supper or a jeweled gewgaw, or some similar sense orgy of the parasitic and idle rich, his masters, the arch-beasts.” -Jack London, The Iron Heel

"Power will be the arbiter. As it always has been the arbiter. It is a struggle of classes. Just as your class dragged down the old feudal nobility, so shall it be dragged down by my class, the working class. If you will read your biology and your sociology as clearly as you do your history, you will see that this end I have described is inevitable. It does not matter whether it is in one year, ten or a thousand- your class shall be dragged down. And it shall be done by power." -Jack London, The Iron Heel

"You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker"- Malcolm x


In nineteen eighty four, when Winston reads Goldstein's book, he learns that the history of humankind has been a cyclical struggle between competing social groups, the high, the middle, and the low. This theory was originated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the 19th century and became known as Marxism. Marxists believe that the aim of the middle group is to change places with the high, which they do by enlisting the support of the low group. After the middle group seizes power in a revolution, they become the high and thrust the low back into servitude. Eventually a new middle group splits off and the cycle begins again. At various points in the narrative, Winston entertains the hope that the proles will become conscious of their oppressed state and initiate a revolution. At other times, he despairs that since the proles cannot rebel until they become conscious, and cannot become conscious until only after they have rebelled, such a development is extremely unlikely.

The humans also resemble immigrants in the U.S and their increasing numbers along with gods refusing to accept this change, just as much as some people fearing immigrants in the U.S.

In relation to refusing change and allowing stagnation, one main theme of the souls games is the nature of god and humanity,and the dangers of a dictatorship/ monarchy. Dictators erect statues of themselves and try to enforce their image into the culture of its citizens, their faces plastered in currency, signs of ego and selfishness. This seems harmless but when things really turn for the worse is when dictators hold on to power selfishly despite the demands of the people. Not only does this create revolt, oppression and many casualties but it drags the whole country down with them. The Arab Springs is a really good modern example of how tired old ideals, stagnate an entire country with dictators refusing to leave power and never accepting progressive change or the wants of the populace. Eventually the people revolt and overthrow the old and usher in something new, but when the old comes back into power no change can happen.

"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing gods service when it is violating all his laws" -John Adams



On letting go when the time is up, a good example of this is a very good band that progresses with each record, and show skill ,mastery and growth, as time goes on. Then they start experimenting with their sound to keep things fresh, here it may divide it's fans, but there are still signs of relevancy. Being humans, they can only contribute so much until eventually there's only room to repeat or regress. The real question is should the band call it quits and leave on the top of their creativity or should they force it and keep releasing  mediocre material that worsens with each attempt eventually tarnishing their legacy?

The giants in dark souls could be seen as communism and how this movement was squashed by capitalism.one of the reason communism failed was due to sanctions, blockades and constant attack, until it eventually turned on itself and its people and became an oppressor. But most importantly, it failed due to human self-interest over the common wealth. Even though communism and socialism were defeated, it's roots still sprung into many of our institutions and became a hybrid with something else, like socialized medicine, social security, welfare, food stamps, disability insurance, unemployment insurance, corporate bail outs, student loans and grants, scholarships.

The Souls games can be seen as deep allegory to what is happening in the gaming industry. I believe the souls games have begun ushering in a new age, the industry has grown stagnant with yearly sequels and games that get overhyped but don't live up to the expectations. Within this we are starting to see a trickle effect caused by the souls games where many games coming and yet to come have been inspired by them.  Many others are reversing to old genres and breathing new life into them. Among these Indies that adopt roguelike, metroidvania, difficulty, and minimalism. Many of the indie developers are branching of from big companies and making games otherwise wouldn't be made under corporate, and have been successful. These games are affordable and with great value. While the triple AAA titles are not necessarily dying, it has caused  already concern and alarm to consumers as these games are being overhyped, scaled back, released unfinished, glitches, sequelized, micro transactions causing great distrust in gaming companies as this causes concern  of developers actively taking out chunks of the game to make extra profit on the side, suspicious day one dlc or too much dlc, and the worst of all not innovating and playing it safe, also important to note that many of these negative trends in gaming today, caused a crash in 1983. It's a cause for concern since these are big budget games with heavy, impossible to avoid, marketing that have been failing, while indies are low budget games with little to no marketing that take relatively a small team of developers and tend to hit the mark most of the times. We the gamers can be considered the curse as we could choose to not support the companies that have such practices and damaging the industry, we through our decisions can either stop supporting companies damaging gaming and let them die off or improve, or we could support and help create something that has our best interest in quality as a respected consumer. But we need to be careful as big business and corporate can ruin the indie market in an attempt to survive and profit.


The souls game also have a lot in similarity to how the games have been developed. Miyazaki representing Gwyn and the age of fire, the team who worked on dark souls 1 are the gods through experience and mastering of their craft. The level design is complex and interconnected. The environment feels epic and majestic like a place where gods reigned. You constantly battle huge creatures for boss fights and also go against some remaining deities like Gwyndolin, Ornstein and Smough, Priscilla, Artorias, Nito, witch of Izalith and Gwyn, the scale is epic and so are the bosses. One problem with the gods is that they were overly ambitious and due to time restrains left parts in the game that weren't fully fleshed out. dark souls has the majestic beauty in experience, Sif could work as the embodiment of this, and their ambitious reach leaving ideas incomplete could embody bed of chaos.
      Dark souls 2 takes place in the age of humans, and the two directors Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura could be seen as the two rulers of Drangleic, Vendrick and Nashandra (I'll let you assume who represents who) the development team working on dark souls 2 is a new team, representing the humans. Humanity being more flawed than the gods, attempt really hard to reach the level of design and intricacy as the land of Lordran. We find Drangleic castle and iron keep but they don't amount to the level of Anor Londo, or lost Izalith. The level design is more linear and direct. This is the age of humans and everything is more subtle, we don't fight gods anymore, instead we fight other humans. We never fight a beast in the scale of gaping dragon. And this subtlety helps get across beautifully that we are living in a flawed age of humans, and long gone are the age of gods. The frailty of humanity and the glimpses of genius are seen through some aspects of development and within the game itself. Dark souls 2 genius, while flawed in comparison to dark souls 1, is the fact that it never killed my suspension of disbelief. I believed this was the age of humans, it wouldn't of had worked if humanity somehow became bigger and more elegant than the gods with cleverly over done intrinsic design. While they did try their best and gave it their all, it’s clear that Vendrick needed the strength to live up to the expectations laying heavy on his shoulders. Because of this Vendrick and the directors tried different things that were innovative and nuanced and perhaps we might not have seen if the gods were developing it, for example the first time we meet the pursuer, bonfire ascetics, Vendrick hollow roaming, the giants root springing corpses, the giants memories and their attack on Drangleic, the lost sinner, executioner chariot, demon of song, dark lurker, emerald herald, Sir Alonne, frigid outskirts, the best dragon fight Sinh and pretty much the three dlc's. We all know that they tried their best. Perhaps also the two directors had some disagreements like Vendrick and Nashandra did. In dark souls 2 the giants could represent Bloodborne, the looming threat across the seas, and like the humans in Drangleic, the 2nd team are trying to remain relevant by artificially prolonging their reign with scholar of the first sin for the next gen consoles, making Bloodborne and dark souls 2 competitors since their release window are so close to each other. The inexperience and flaws of the new team could be embodied by the royal rat authority, while their drive to live up to the expectations and innovate in their attempt to reach god status can be embodied as the burnt ivory king.


11. Dark souls and 2001 space odyssey

I've always believed dark souls is the 2001 space odyssey of video games, not only in its masterful artistry and innovation but also in some themes and plot. To me the most obvious one is the beginning of both. In space odyssey a monkey (named moon watcher in Arthur c Clark's novel) touches a black monolith from which he gathers curiosity intelligence, consciousness and identity, and this sparks original thought and helps the monkeys progress by creating weapons out of bones to defend themselves from the indifference of nature by killing off and defending from the competition, helping them eventually evolve into humans in the span of millions of years until eventually they are in space. In dark souls, hollowed forms pick up great souls from the first flame which leads them to become gods. They go up in arms against the dragons that were there before them and usher in an age of fire, which starts a cycle of life and death as another form picks up a fragile dark soul that would spawn humanity, the disparity to the gods.

"Moon watcher felt for the first faint twinges of a new and potent emotion. It was a vague and diffuse sense of envy-- of dissatisfaction with his life. He had no idea of its cause, still less of its cure; but discontent had come into his soul and he had taken one small step toward humanity- Arthur c Clark 2001 a space odyssey."

     In space odyssey humanity comes into conflict with an artificial intelligence that has gained conscious entity. This a.i is named Hal and Dave the human astronaut battles it out in space to reach the monolith that gave the spark of evolution and necessary tools to advance. In dark souls 1 and 2, the gods battle it out with the dragons, humans with the gods and I believe in dark souls human are fighting it out with the giants, as the bearer of the curse is trying to reach the throne of want which holds the first flame, were the great souls originated and gave advancements to life.
       There are many more subtle similarities but it would deviate from the point, for example how the monkeys through ingenuity advance, so as the players who are dropped into the world of dark souls with no hold handing or instructions, evolve or perish. If you haven't watched the film and are a fan of dark souls or enjoy pondering over mysterious meaning and speculation, I would highly encourage watching the film.
      In this music video of cattle decapitation's kingdom of tyrants, we see the artist use the same symbolism of 2001, but instead we see it as a regression of man, a future where man has long peaked and lives in a technological and industrial wasteland. We see the humans turned into mechanical beings that hardly even resemble a human anymore, this time when one touches the monolith, it gives off inhumanity, and it makes one these beings exterminate those few remaining of the bastardized human race, and with them the babies the tyrant is harvesting to prolong humanity. Instead of the monolith working as a means to progress, once Humans peak, it serves as a means to regression and extinction similar to the curse in dark souls.

Cattle Decapitation "Kingdom of Tyrants: The Extended Minifilm Version" (OFFICIAL VIDEO)  

     We see the tyrant sending off female workers to find energy supplies in order to artificially keep him alive. Another form of life support for the king is draining other humans. At the same time they bear the tyrants babies, in a desperate and arrogant means to keep on existing and keep humanity from extinction despite the unbearable living conditions, selfishly clinging on to life just as selfishly they procreate and just as selfishly they probably destroyed themselves. The name of the album is called monolith of inhumanity and the cover art shows the monolith turning humans back into monkeys.


12. The rotten, collectivism and materialism

The rotten is a critique of human collectiveness and why it's bound to not work, the self, and the ugly horrifying  thing the collective is forced to turn into in order to repress individuals and oppress the collective. In order for a collective society to work everybody would have to put their selfishness aside and act as one entity, this is of course impossible and one of the many reasons communism hasn't worked. The individual works against the collective. As a single entity comprised of many bodies, it's hard to go anywhere when individuals want to take the single body in different directions.  In our own history it's been an ugly thing, in communist or socialist states oppression happened to individuals who spoke out against it or who attributed ideals not important to the collective. Purges, surveillance, media censorship, all these horrors witnessed under collective states, were meant to weed out the individual, and keep the mass in check. Because of this communism was never able to fully prosper and become the beautiful ideal written in paper, humans are too selfish and greedy, as a state forcing its citizens, the collective becomes the oppressor it was once trying to free itself from. Communism started as an ideal that gave power to the masses and the working classes, the afflicted, the citizens abused by the power of greedy tyrants, it meant to stop class division and keep them all balanced, with not one falling into poverty, it aimed at fixing a broken system that only benefitted a wealthy few. But in trying to fix what was broken, it ended destroying itself, this is why in the beginning cut scene of the rotten we see him trying to piece together a broken statue, but seeing that it cannot be fixed, it completely destroys it in anger. We see the many bodies attached to him, at the bottom we see humans oppressed by the weight with faces of agony, either trying to escape or pulling in different directions. They represent the masses, the working class, oppressed by the weight of their obligation to the collective. As a face we see a cage that has imprisoned people, reaching out trying to escape, representation of what collective states have done to individuals who not share part of the collective, they are forced and oppressed. The rotten smashes like an oppressor, instead of a collective equal state, because of our individuality; the state becomes a butcher of its citizens. If u think its far fetch, then look at the ones we summon to fight the rotten, LONE hunter Schmidt, it says it all in the name, and Lucatiel, the advocate for selfishness. In Bioshock 1 the game dealt with unchecked capitalism and how selfishness and greed can destroy a society. In Bioshock 2 the game explores the collective, and why it's bound to fail. Perhaps the Rottens’ looks are homage to big daddy.

“Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism?”-Ayn Rand

        At the bottom we have collectivization, we find some of the undead perhaps trying to escape this, but the gutter is a representation of an ugly side of capitalism, as humans dump all their waste, all the nature they have turn into a commodity and then into a gutter wasteland. The undead use this materialism that has piled up and use it as a means to reach the top. This might be a representation on how people strive to obtain more and more to satisfy their need of feeling complete through materialism, how more embeds you in a high class status of contentment and how one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. But if materialism were a source of contentment and fulfillment, it would've never turn a land into a gutter filled with trash. A great film that shows a wasteland brought on by capitalism is Wall-e.

   "And so it was, instead of in paradise, that I found myself in the arid desert of commercialism. I found nothing but stupidity, except for business. I found many who were alive- with rottenness. What I find was monstrous selfishness and heartlessness and a gross gluttonous, practiced and practical materialism" -Jack London, The Iron Heel

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