So what do you think was "the first sin?"

[Sabaithal]

Take into account all three games, so spoilers I suppose.

My main theory, the ringed city. Specifically, Gwyn first creating the darksign and binding it to the holders of the original dark soul (the pygmy kings). Why is this a sin? Because they were Gwyn's loyal allies, and he effectively betrayed them.

[Chinese Blin]

Read your lore maybe?

The first sin was the linking of the first flame, AKA Gwyn burning his arse for the sake of the night to never come.

I'm not into the lore of the games that much btw.

[Trusty Patches]

DS3 may have retconned it to the ringed city, but at the time of DS2 release, it was most likely Gwyn linking the first flame. It was a "sin" because he went against the natural order of things, creating the fire linking cicle and the "curse" of the undead.

[Iban The Dude]

Originally posted by Chinese Blin:

Read your lore maybe?

The first sin was the linking of the first flame, AKA Gwyn burning his arse for the sake of the night to never come.

I'm not into the lore of the games that much btw.

This ^

[Sabaithal]

Originally posted by Chinese Blin:

Read your lore maybe?

The first sin was the linking of the first flame, AKA Gwyn burning his arse for the sake of the night to never come.

I'm not into the lore of the games that much btw.

He failed though? He wasn't able to link the flame successfully, it just redistributed his soul and left him hollow.

Can't link the flame if there is no dark within you, and Gwyn, THE high lord, had none. In fact he feared it, hence him creating the darksign in the first place.

[Chinese Blin]

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

Originally posted by Chinese Blin:

Read your lore maybe?

The first sin was the linking of the first flame, AKA Gwyn burning his arse for the sake of the night to never come.

I'm not into the lore of the games that much btw.

He failed though? He wasn't able to link the flame successfully, it just redistributed his soul and left him hollow.

Can't link the flame if there is no dark within you, and Gwyn, THE high lord, had none. In fact he feared it, hence him creating the darksign in the first place.

he partially succeed though, true, his soul was to deteriorated by that point that instead of prolonging the age of fire for many years like someone like the chosen undead did, he just gained barely enough time for someone else, like the chosen undead, to show his face and finish the job, gwyn didn't face you to test you in the first game, like you said, he went hollow, just so happened that his body was powerful enough to survive the first linking of fire .

as for the dark sign, that was not gwyn's doing, not directly at least, the dark sign appeared because gwyn's refusal to make the cycle of light and dark go round like it should have, instead because of his greed he accidentally created the undead curse, along with the sign, condemning everyone to eventually go crazy and essentially go back to monkey.

[Call Sign: Raven]

I thought the dark sign was circumstantial, though. It didn’t come across that Gwyn made the curse, accidentally or otherwise. What I got out of it was that Gwyn linked the flame ages ago, did his undead sacrifices for god knows how long, and by the time the player meets him he’s been going for so long that he’s almost burnt out. The hint for me was his lack of power, which was a great story element, btw.

It almost felt like his undead sacrifices were implied as a form of atonement or something.

As for the first sin, I’m thinking it has to do with human desire, actually. A lot of people act “unfed” in life, even though they have so much. They are always hungry for the next thing, and in the case of DS2, it came across to me that the first sin had to do with humans and their insatiable appetite for power.

[Trusty Patches]

Originally posted by Chinese Blin:

as for the dark sign, that was not gwyn's doing, not directly at least, the dark sign appeared because gwyn's refusal to make the cycle of light and dark go round like it should have, instead because of his greed he accidentally created the undead curse, along with the sign, condemning everyone to eventually go crazy and essentially go back to monkey.

Dark Souls 3 heavily implies that the Dark Sign was Gwyn's doing, that him and the gods branded humanity to contain their Dark.

Dark Souls 2 does this too, "Once, the Lord of Light banished Dark, and all that stemmed from humanity. And men assumed a fleeting form. These are the roots of our world. Men are props on the stage of life, and no matter how tender, how exquisite... A lie will remain a lie."

But some fans theorize that this lie is "human form", and that humanity's original appearance was closer to that of a hollow.

[Sabaithal]

Originally posted by Chinese Blin:

as for the dark sign, that was not gwyn's doing, not directly at least, the dark sign appeared because gwyn's refusal to make the cycle of light and dark go round like it should have, instead because of his greed he accidentally created the undead curse, along with the sign, condemning everyone to eventually go crazy and essentially go back to monkey.

The entirety of the ringed city implies otherwise. That was the original city of humans (well technically pygmies, but they are humanity's progenitors), abyssal warriors too, and they all have a ring of light emblazed right on the front of their armor. That should serve as a massive hint by itself. (also a side note observe the extremely similar appearance between the ringed knights and the darkwraiths)

That seal on their armor keeps them from succumbing to the abyss, exactly like the undead, but also greatly weakens their power. It also looks identical to the darksign. In fact everything in this city, the inhabitants, the statues, the shape of the city itself (ringed) is about the ring of fire, a burden the inhabitants bear, believing it to be a blessing.

Gwyn feared the abyss, the dark spreading, so he placed the darksign curse upon the holders of the original dark soul: the pygmy kings. A ring of fire to contain the dark. And the curse seems to manifest on any holders of part of the dark soul as consequence, as far as I can tell it will only manifest when the darkness within an individual becomes great enough.

Also a common misconception, there is no "cycle" of light and dark. Once a dark age happens, that's it. No more light. And if another age of fire does happen eventually, all the events of the previous era would be entirely gone.

[cat_from_heaven]

The First Sin was the creation of Dark Souls 2 all along.

[CthuluIsSpy]

Aldia flat out tells you that it was Gwyn Linking the first flame.

"Once, the Lord of Light banished Dark, and all that stemmed from humanity.
And men assumed a fleeting form.
These are the roots of our world.
Men are props on the stage of life, and no matter how tender, how exquisite...
A lie will remain a lie.
Young Hollow, knowing this, do you still desire peace?"

[CthuluIsSpy]

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

Also a common misconception, there is no "cycle" of light and dark. Once a dark age happens, that's it. No more light. And if another age of fire does happen eventually, all the events of the previous era would be entirely gone.

Yeah, a lot of people get that wrong.
They say Dark Souls 2 is the one that introduced that concept, but if you listen carefully to the dialogue no one ever said that there's a cycle of light and dark. Plenty of talk of kingdoms rising and falling but nothing about the Age of Dark ever starting and then ending.

I don't think Dark Souls 3 even talks about a cycle, rather the opposite; stagnation.
Stagnation is what created the Rot in the Painted World. Stagnation is what created the Deep and Pus of Men. All because the Age of Dark kept getting delayed.

[Call Sign: Raven]

Originally posted by CthuluIsSpy:

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

Also a common misconception, there is no "cycle" of light and dark. Once a dark age happens, that's it. No more light. And if another age of fire does happen eventually, all the events of the previous era would be entirely gone.

Yeah, a lot of people get that wrong.
They say Dark Souls 2 is the one that introduced that concept, but if you listen carefully to the dialogue no one ever said that there's a cycle of light and dark. Plenty of talk of kingdoms rising and falling but nothing about the Age of Dark ever starting and then ending.

I don't think Dark Souls 3 even talks about a cycle, rather the opposite; stagnation.
Stagnation is what created the Rot in the Painted World. Stagnation is what created the Deep and Pus of Men. All because the Age of Dark kept getting delayed.

Ehh, too much of a stretch. Considering that the games have always had choices between age of fire or age of dark, you would have to blatantly ignore the endings to come to that conclusion. If each game had a fixed ending, your theory would make more sense. But since it has the capability to fluctuate, and since From never came out and said which ending is canon for each game, the stagnation theory doesn’t fit in a global sense.

Pockets of stagnation could explain things like puss of man, though.

And Aldia isn’t being truthful to the player. The choices to his questions don’t change the outcome, first hint. And he tries to kill you if you defeat King Vendrick, second hint. Hell, for all we know, Aldia could be a powerful hallucination from the bearer of the curse’s hollowing. The opening cut scene has hallucinations in it, so it’s implied that he or she is already hollowing pretty badly. Plus, Aldia doesn’t drop any souls, and you keep hearing the voice after you defeat him.

[WassySK]

Originally posted by Chinese Blin:

Read your lore maybe?

The first sin was the linking of the first flame, AKA Gwyn burning his arse for the sake of the night to never come.

I'm not into the lore of the games that much btw.

You dont have to be a ♥♥♥♥, it was just a question.

[CthuluIsSpy]

Originally posted by Harrison Ford:

Originally posted by CthuluIsSpy:

Yeah, a lot of people get that wrong.
They say Dark Souls 2 is the one that introduced that concept, but if you listen carefully to the dialogue no one ever said that there's a cycle of light and dark. Plenty of talk of kingdoms rising and falling but nothing about the Age of Dark ever starting and then ending.

I don't think Dark Souls 3 even talks about a cycle, rather the opposite; stagnation.
Stagnation is what created the Rot in the Painted World. Stagnation is what created the Deep and Pus of Men. All because the Age of Dark kept getting delayed.

Ehh, too much of a stretch. Considering that the games have always had choices between age of fire or age of dark, you would have to blatantly ignore the endings to come to that conclusion. If each game had a fixed ending, your theory would make more sense. But since it has the capability to fluctuate, and since From never came out and said which ending is canon for each game, the stagnation theory doesn’t fit in a global sense.

Pockets of stagnation could explain things like puss of man, though.

And Aldia isn’t being truthful to the player. The choices to his questions don’t change the outcome, first hint. And he tries to kill you if you defeat King Vendrick, second hint. Hell, for all we know, Aldia could be a powerful hallucination from the bearer of the curse’s hollowing. The opening cut scene has hallucinations in it, so it’s implied that he or she is already hollowing pretty badly. Plus, Aldia doesn’t drop any souls, and you keep hearing the voice after you defeat him.

I dunno, I think it's pretty clear that Linking the fire is supposed to be the "default" ending.
Remember that you don't get the option to walk away from the First Flame unless you speak to Kaathe before Frampt, which is a pretty convoluted and obscure thing to do, as such an act isn't even possible until you kill the Four Kings. Which means you have to go pretty far off the intended progression path and flat out ignore Frampt when he shows up in Firelink. Most players wouldn't know to do that.

If I recall correctly, the original release of Dark Souls 2 didn't give you the option to walk away from the Throne, and in order to unlock Aldia's ending you have to Kill Vendrick before killing the final boss, which again isn't an obvious course of action, especially when you first need to collect giant souls to make sure it doesn't take you all day to kill him.

The alternate endings in Dark Souls 3, on the other hand, are much more easily obtainable, as there are no absolute cutoff points or required bosses to kill. Only Lord of Hollows could be failed, and even then that's hard to do unless you absolutely have to smack every statue you see.

[Call Sign: Raven]

Originally posted by CthuluIsSpy:

Originally posted by Harrison Ford:

Ehh, too much of a stretch. Considering that the games have always had choices between age of fire or age of dark, you would have to blatantly ignore the endings to come to that conclusion. If each game had a fixed ending, your theory would make more sense. But since it has the capability to fluctuate, and since From never came out and said which ending is canon for each game, the stagnation theory doesn’t fit in a global sense.

Pockets of stagnation could explain things like puss of man, though.

And Aldia isn’t being truthful to the player. The choices to his questions don’t change the outcome, first hint. And he tries to kill you if you defeat King Vendrick, second hint. Hell, for all we know, Aldia could be a powerful hallucination from the bearer of the curse’s hollowing. The opening cut scene has hallucinations in it, so it’s implied that he or she is already hollowing pretty badly. Plus, Aldia doesn’t drop any souls, and you keep hearing the voice after you defeat him.

I dunno, I think it's pretty clear that Linking the fire is supposed to be the "default" ending.
Remember that you don't get the option to walk away from the First Flame unless you speak to Kaathe before Frampt, which is a pretty convoluted and obscure thing to do, as such an act isn't even possible until you kill the Four Kings. Which means you have to go pretty far off the intended progression path and flat out ignore Frampt when he shows up in Firelink. Most players wouldn't know to do that.

If I recall correctly, the original release of Dark Souls 2 didn't give you the option to walk away from the Throne, and in order to unlock Aldia's ending you have to Kill Vendrick before killing the final boss, which again isn't an obvious course of action, especially when you first need to collect giant souls to make sure it doesn't take you all day to kill him.

The alternate endings in Dark Souls 3, on the other hand, are much more easily obtainable, as there are no absolute cutoff points or required bosses to kill. Only Lord of Hollows could be failed, and even then that's hard to do unless you absolutely have to smack every statue you see.

You actually can walk away from linking the flame without talking with Frampt or Kaathe. Early speed runs demonstrated this, because one of their strats was to kill Gwyn as close to the fog as possible so they could instantly trigger the end-credits upon his death, instead of wasting time lighting the bonfire.

DS3 isn't a good supporting example, since you have to do extra things to earn both the alternate endings, as well.

In either case, there's no implication as to which ending is "default" except in Dark Souls 3, since the linking of the fire is the only ending that you can get just by playing naturally and without acquiring extra items.

Further, how common an ending is can't be a direct correlation to which ending is considered canon. If you want to go by that logic, then the most common outcome is for people to not even finish the game, therefor there is no ending. But that wouldn't make sense, and it doesn't make sense when you try to determine a "common" ending, either.