[SPOILER?] Lore Question: Would Gael be in the new painting?

[Sovietkotek]

So I thought it was kind of poetic that the Painting Girl thought her new painting would make a good home for Gael, I guess not knowing it was literally Gael's corpse she was using to paint it.

Would this mean he would be in the NEW painted world in some meaningful way? He's undead, after all and can't actually die, Unless he was completely hollow by the time he is killed and therefore dies permanently). However, I'm not sure if Gael was actually hollow when you fight him, because he was still in the process of fulfilling his purpose.

[Tiny serpent Shnissuvihr]

He gone. killed. ripped. made into some thick gooey dark soul pasta that'll be used as paint.

But maybe his soul'll still be somewhere out there, somehow influencing the living and shaping the world just like the souls of lords past after linking the fire.

Guess we'll never know since this game really loves to tell stories in a very incomplete and often inconclusive way that leads people to speculate and fill the gaps themselves.

[Fapping and Crapping]

It's not his corpse she uses but his soul, or at least what's left of it after his journey to find 'the dark soul'. And he does die, we kill him and pass his soul onto the painting girl.

Also, he turns hollow in his second phase in the cutscene when you see him bleeding. For evidence of this, the Hollowslayer Greatsword does higher damage against phase 2 and 3 in comparison to the damage it does against phase 1.

But here's the weird thing. In phase 1, he fights on all fours like a beast, but in phase 2 upon hollowing he fights standing while 2 handing his sword as if he has come to terms with his situation and wants to fight you properly. Interesting detail there, it reminds me of how Ludwig changes in Bloodborne.

But to answer your question, I don't think Gael would be in the new painting seeing as it's his soul we are using for his lady's painting.

[Sovietkotek]

Ahhh true. I only assumed he wasn't hollow because it seemed like he was still in the process of fulfilling his purpose, but consuming so much of the dark soul probably hollowed him.

I just thought since it's his soul itself that will form the new world, that he would be in it in some form.

[Fapping and Crapping]

You're right with the idea of fulfilling a purpose, but what leads to him becoming hollow isn't consuming the dark soul but the realisation that he has already acquired it. Gael's desire to get the dark soul is so strong that once he realises he actually has it, he forgets his task to deliver it to the painting lady and instead hollows in the fight with the Ashen One.

Similar to the Crestfallen Warrior in DS1. When Old Cresty finds out you rang both bells of awakening, he realises he no longer has a purpose and leaves Firelink to turn hollow in New Londo.

It's kind of a bittersweet twisted tale really, Gael tricks the Ashen One and uses them to kill Friede when he is too weak to do so, but then he gets killed by the Ashen One and we deliver the dark soul to the painting lady so in the end he gets the pigment to her by becoming the source of her painting.

[Sovietkotek]

Originally posted by Fapping and Crapping:

It's kind of a bittersweet twisted tale really

Yeah I was trying to avoid that but since he hollowed I guess that means he was dead for good long before the new painting would even be started.

[Crowley42]

I feel people are making a mistake when they interpret the story of the Dark Souls games' so heavily grounded in reality.

I think Gael's search for the Blood is simply meant to be interpreted as a sharp contrast to the player character's motives. The player keeps on looking for a purpose, an end, an apotheosis into some more pure state (which we see the hunter reach in bloodborne) but ultimately fails to find it. Gael on the other hand to me simbolizes a man who has recognized that the eternal cycle of life and death, (light and dark) is beyond the reach of anyone, and has instead chosen to pass on the essence of this world cycle to an entirely new world, which would be the painting.

To translate this into real-world examples, the player is the idealistic man with an unbreakable will who seeks to create a utopia in his lifetime (linking the fire, or letting the age of dark begin), while Gael is a wiser man who has realized that such an effort is futile and instead chooses to dedicate his life to passing on the memes of his era to a new generation, (more as a teacher to a pupil than a father to son). The era of the kingdom of Lothric is the passage of one lifetime and Gael spends this era seeking the Blood of the Dark Soul, which I interpret as the knowledge of a lifetime. The player character has no use for this Blood as he has also experienced much of it, but this collection of memes is passed down to the painter girl, who with this knowledge creates new life in her painting. The connection between Gael and the painter sort of plays into the theme of DS1 a bit as well since the human sould was made up of "souls" and "humanity", while the painter provides the shell for the new generation, the souls, the Blood of the Dark Soul is the humanity part which gives it consciousness.

Maybe I'm overthinking it and the truth is just "red man in cape drink blood and blood is like paint bro" but this is what Gael's character signifies in my eyes, I personally also think it is a beautiful note to end the series on, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[Fapping and Crapping]

Originally posted by Crowley42:

I feel people are making a mistake when they interpret the story of the Dark Souls games' so heavily grounded in reality.

I hope you aren't referring to me there haha. I'm just illustrating my idea of the game lore purely based on in-game details such as; the cutscenes, character dialogues and item descriptions.

It's kind of funny you say "I feel people are making a mistake when they interpret the story of the Dark Souls games so heavily grounded in reality." but then later on you do this exact thing when you start talking about 'real-world examples'. I'm slightly lost there to be honest with you, it seems a little paradoxical.

Edit: To reiterate my point, I'm only using in-game content to form a story. I'm not trying to relate it to any real-world stuff or make it 'grounded in reality' as you say.

[Tiny serpent Shnissuvihr]

Originally posted by Fapping and Crapping:

It's not his corpse she uses but his soul, or at least what's left of it after his journey to find 'the dark soul'. And he does die, we kill him and pass his soul onto the painting girl.

Well, not exactly, he drops both his soul and the blood of the dark soul upon death. It is entirely possible that the blood of the dark soul is just all that he has extracted from the pygmies and other souls.

Kind of like the wolf blood from the abyss watchers making reference to artorias and the actual soul of artorias or the old souls that appear in some bosses of dark souls 2 that make reference to things like the witch of izalith, seath and other powerful characters.

IMO no soul is ever truly gone from the world, they just take different forms or inhabit different beings...

[Sovietkotek]

Yeah I was only saying "his corpse" because the pygmy blood was dried up and he had to consume it to convert it into his own blood.

[Free]

we ripped his soul from his body so he is ded for real now, rip the most badass uncle i've ever seen

[Sovietkotek]

Originally posted by Freegwid:

we ripped his soul from his body so he is ded for real now, rip the most badass uncle i've ever seen

Hmm, that's where I was getting caught up because his body may be dead but his soul was preserved to be made into a new painted world. I was just curious if he would be manifested in some way.

[Crowley42]

Originally posted by Fapping and Crapping:

To reiterate my point, I'm only using in-game content to form a story. I'm not trying to relate it to any real-world stuff or make it 'grounded in reality' as you say.

When I said "real" I meant that as in "grounded in the reality of the game", the story should be interpreted metaphorically imo.

[See i've got somethin to tell]

Originally posted by Sock-Vivian:

Originally posted by Freegwid:

we ripped his soul from his body so he is ded for real now, rip the most badass uncle i've ever seen

Hmm, that's where I was getting caught up because his body may be dead but his soul was preserved to be made into a new painted world. I was just curious if he would be manifested in some way.

Well in my case he's soul turned into fine greatsword long time ago

[Sovietkotek]

Oooohhhhhh ♥♥♥♥ that's right, he drops the dark soul but his own soul is separate from that. Okay that means he's got NO chance of being in the painting then....

=(

[Crowley42]

Originally posted by Sock-Vivian:

Oooohhhhhh ♥♥♥♥ that's right, he drops the dark soul but his own soul is separate from that. Okay that means he's got NO chance of being in the painting then....

=(

To be fair we have no info on how the painting even works, it's safe to assume that it is a completely separate world, the time travel is also not explained at all (beyond the ever so satisfactory "the flow of time is convoluted lol") so technically by the time the painting gets painted, Gael is still alive, it's up for your interpretation.