Vyke suddenly feels claustrophobic in his armor. As if it is slowly constricting, tighter and tighter, pushing against his limbs, all while the heat grows daring him to hold his breath. But he keeps walking. With his wrist hanging limp upon the hilt of his sword, he holds his gaze ahead and swallows the discomfort with a tense jaw and a straining eye. Darian's presence is but a return of the past, of decisions long since made that tore him away from that part of his heart. Vyke may have dwelt on it all, his regrets and shame, while suspended within the evergaol, but there was the safety of distance. Of not looking into the eyes of one spurned by his actions.
❛ Mentally, no, ❜ Vyke then answers, his voice quiet with a flex of his hand. ❛ But they will not harm you there. Think of it as your new grace. Use what tools that have been opened to you, D. ❜ Still it hurts to speak of it. Darian, beyond the realm of the living. Who else is? He took little time to look in at the Lands Between as he traveled down below, deep underground, to follow the trail of the promising divinity with others at the head.
He has to take a quiet breath, to bring himself back to some semblance of control. It would do Darian little good with him out of sorts, as if the needle has not pierced deep enough.
I am still of use to him—even if it wanes. Even if I am wrong.
❛ Miquella simply asks for my loyalty. I didn't question it further, really. So I go where I am needed, when I am needed. ❜ Thinking back upon it, he should have questioned it. But the world was given back to him, his head cleared of the whispers and screams. He needed very little to follow blindly. Is that not the same as it has always been? Even with Lansseax. He feels the suffocating sensation again, ceasing those thoughts immediately. ❛ To the Gate of Divinity, that is. It lays within—or, perhaps, beyond—the tower cast in shadow to the west. ❜
Vyke's gaze turns to it. Up and off into the distance, a place that need only fire to reveal. The irony is not lost on him. He then looks over at Darian, trailing the length of the man and seeing the marks life and death stark upon him. Old habits bring his hand up just enough to ghost the back of his finger against Darian's forearm, but it never quite happens. He craves a connection no matter how small, yet his hand stills in the air and drops. ❛ If you need to rest, call it and we will stop. ❜
this reunion feels like a dream; it resembles pieces of reality, but they are all disjointed in an odd, inexplicable manner. everything is off-balance, the scales of their world tilted, and he upside down. no, simply wrong. diseased and undead. he ought to ask vyke to end it, to stab him again and mean it, freeing him from this life of sin. at least you would touch me again.
everything is wrong, and darian too weak to ask for this favour. he still wants to find rogier. he wants to believe vyke returned to him, though another parting already awaits.
i didn't question it further, vyke says, and darian does not respond. no mocking you never have, no more slights on a tongue sharpened by hurt. instead he follows the man's gaze to the tower, whose spiral turns to shadow and seems to crumble in the air. there is an undeniable, haunting beauty to it, its structure unlike anything else d has ever seen. still he says nothing. when vyke stays just barely shy of touching him, it feels as though he had gripped his heart and squeezed it. even the wordless disappearance had hurt less than this recognition that they could never again be what they were. even were there not still the gaping wound of betrayal darian could never expect vyke to want him like this.
and yet, despite the nauseating shame of his existence as it is now, he wants to live.
"i do not," he responds quietly and carries on walking slowly but steadily, pushing through the pain. "you said yourself this land is dangerous. we ought not to linger in one place too long."
for a moment, silence falls. then, "will you return? from this gate of divinity?" the voice that asks is steady and quiet, but he cannot but know it to be a plea. you said you would not let this place be my cage. please, do not leave me behind again. "will you come find me again?"
❛ his pull to me is so powerful, so terrible, yet my spirit cannot be evil as his. ❜
"it is not." he knows this with absolute certainty. with his whole being, darian believes that there is no evil in vyke. it took longer to understand that what drew him to the flame was not weakness in the face of seduction, not fully. that it was perhaps the very same quality that had assured d, as it did many others, that vyke was destined for the elden throne. that his grace, his valour and kindness, would set right the fractured lands between. he had simply lost his way.
darian kneels, hands carefully cupping the man's face. he says it again, would impress it upon him over and over, as if his one, singular voice could drown out whatever whispers persist in vyke's head. "it is not."
this conviction is unwavering. where darian's faith has crumbled, he still holds it here, in the goodness of vyke's heart.
"you are a good man, vyke." his head dips, tilting to ensure his pale blue gaze meet the other's eye. often does he feel helpless, powerless in the face of a force he cannot see, cannot hear, knows only that it has found a nest within the man he loves. he cannot soothe his pain, cannot heal his wounds or gift him restful slumber. only this he can do, to anchor him, wanting so desperately for vyke to never seek refuge with the frenzy flame again. "do not let him make you believe otherwise."
fia says: you have a profound, elusive sadness about you.
in the low, flickering light, the hooded woman appears shapeless. a shadow, haunting the hold, who one day simply appeared, and whose true purpose d has yet to understand. for he would not come to receive her embrace, would not gift his life to the undead, and would not hear her seductions. but rogier did. and that was, perhaps, worse.
worse yet is the sight of it. the sound of it. in this now rather empty hold, the pair's murmurs and whispers can be heard even by those who want nothing more than to close their ears to them. it twists his heart beyond recognition, bringing forth such vile hatred within himself that he frightens himself with the intensity of it. he wonders at times if she knows. if she delights in it. most of all he wonders if she could ever see in rogier what he once saw. no, darian believes wholeheartedly, she does nothing but use him.
their distaste for each other is wholly unspoken. not one word has he graced her with, turning instead away whenever they pass each other, as if to avoid her gaze lest it bewitch him.
when the witch breaks their shared silence, it stops him in his tracks on the way back from hewg's anvil to the roundtable. still he does not look at her. it would be some concession, he thinks, to lift even his masked face and meet her eyes. contempt, bitter and vile, rises like a flash flood in his chest. it is colder than anger, does not call his hand to violence in what feels like an insult, like a deliberate breaching of their boundary of silence.
for a long moment, darian considers not answering at all. he simply stands, his back half turned, and hears her voice echo in his mind.
"i have nothing to say to you," he finally responds, and then continues so quietly he hopes hewg does not hear, does not wish to be seen speaking with her at all, "you know very well what it is that saddens me."
thinking about the npc placement in the hold and how d sits so close to the balcony where rogier later is, and for fia and rogier to be together after rogier is blighted he either has to drag himself past d (or ask him to carry him 💀) or fia has to walk across the hall and past d to the balcony. there's no getting around that man unless they wait for him to leave but he doesn't really leave the hold at all so—
Vyke knows he will not forgive himself for the task he gives to Darian. Nor will he for seeing the torment cross those features of his Vyke has loved for years yet. ( And a small hope that for years more to come so that these demands of his never come to bear. ) But he asks for it anyway. ❛ Forgive me, ❜ Vyke asks in a whisper at the desperate plea. He has no right to ask for it, but still, he does so. He holds Darian closer, it is the least he can do.
❛ Forgive me, Darian, ❜ he says again, under his breath it is a question if it can be heard. Vyke presses his lips to Darian's temple, and he lingers there as he closes his eyes. The man smells of soap; fresh mint and dried herbs. It coalesces into the thought of him, golden and ever resplendent even without the armor. His weight atop him that neither feels constricting nor discomforting. Instead, he finds a home therein better than the four walls of their bedroom they made together.
❛ You know how I worry, ❜ he says without moving away, lips ghosting against the warm flesh, his arms growing tighter. He speaks it into the man. ❛ I never want to hurt you. ❜ And yet he has, in some distant future where his body must be put to rest at Darian's own hands. Where inaction once, must now be rectified. So he says again, ❛ Forgive me. ❜
his breath shudders. his vow settles around him, a weight he will grow accustomed to but never forget. the cloak of vyke's embrace cannot quite eclipse it, through he pretends that it does. closes his eyes and turns in toward him, nose pressing into the hollow between neck and collarbone, nestled into the faint scent of sage and soot.
"i know..." darian's voice is muffled against vyke's skin. his own hold on him tightens. tears threaten to swell again in his throat, though he finds comfort in the other's arms. there is nothing to forgive. no ask too great, not anymore. "i would do anything you asked. anything to ease this..." he trails off, struggling against the ache of this responsibility and wanting vyke to place no guilt upon himself for it. darian lifts himself up, breaking from the cradle to rest his weight on one arm, while the other comes to carefully brush over vyke's cheek in the dark. when he opens them, his eyes glisten. it seems impossible now to imagine a time where he might find himself entirely alone again.
he doesn't know why he whispers. it is no secret, nor is there anyone else to hear. it does not shame him to say and the words come easily. no, perhaps he whispers only to control the tremor in his voice. to not speak as if he were mourning him already.
d returns home only to find vyke already there. "finally."
their peace was never going to last forever. they both knew it. vyke, who made darian swear to let him go. darian, who quietly sharpened the blade and kept wood stocked. their bliss would end eventually and they thought to anticipate the recipe of its dissolution, as if it might prepare them for the inevitable.
never once did darian think the end would come this way.
dressed in flowy silks, thinly veiled vitriol in a tone of voice that calls his name as if a mother about to reprimand a child. oh, d... in the middle of the small lake, fia seemed akin to an apparition. a ghost of the past, of an age long gone. he had never seen her outside of the hold and so she seemed misplaced. the sunlight made her hair shine even under the hood, glistening gold more bright here than he remembered from the dimly lit room she commanded for herself. it seemed wrong, for her to be in the light. she had found him unarmed save for a small knife he used to cut through fishing nets and scrape the scale off his catch, or crack open the shells of sweet-water crabs. death came to him standing barefoot in the water, trousers rolled up, his face hot in the sun. (and death brought spirits. the whisling glintblades of an erstwhile lover turned against him.) the shallow water swallowed his scream when the thorns took root. above him, a bleary shimmer of the witch's face. she disappeared then just the same as she came.
the way home feels like an eternity. by the time darian reaches the garden gate, the sun has dropped low behind the horizon. the ascent is a blur, his focus wholly on keeping his insides on the inside, every branching thorn searing agony. they catch on his torn shirt, biting deeper into the flesh from which they sprout. light pours out of their small hut's windows. smoke rises from the chimney. when darian stumbles through the door, it smells of bread and rosemary.
relief falls over him like heavy drapery. vyke is there, unharmed, waiting for him. unharmed. waiting. finally ...
he's left bloody handprints on the door. "vyke..." he tries to take a step toward him, and falls.
whoever it was that said the twins' maiden couldn’t find them because they were in different places and so she fucking died in the process I hope you know I still think about that
forever fascinated by the fact that the golden order accepted the d twins when no one else would, implying that even if there was no explicit doctrine re soul-sharing, it was at least tolerated. but the marika-radagon rebis was somehow so earth-shattering a revelation it drove the most learned scholars to despair.
Vyke nods to the question of Miquella. Where the demigod is now, he cannot rightly say. There is more to do, more to find, for the little divinity, and Vyke was not meant to be a part of it. Not until the last, or so he has been told, just like the others who look towards the sky in hopes for another whisper from the golden son. The small group touched by the demigod's hands, healed in more ways than physical, given promises of a better tomorrow if only they gave him their loyalty. It is a price that is not hard to pay, that unlike the Frenzy, or so Vyke desires to hope, to silently plead ...
Yet it is in Darian's comment that has him stiffening some. He does not look at the other. He merely freezes before lowering just to grab his helmet from the ground. It is slight regardless, he hopes it does not show. Slowly, he flicks the dirt away from the shining surface, staring down at it as if it is far more interesting than the world itself. It shifts in his hands, reflecting the dull sun and the tarnished gold.
❛ I am aware, ❜ he starts, the words come out measured and deliberate, ❛ I have wronged you. ❜ But they still fall ashen upon his tongue. He does not go on. There is a small struggle to do so, as he opens his mouth to say more before closing it with a twist of his lips. What is there to say? It is hard to argue against a point you ultimately agree with; even if a part does not desire to reconcile it. To bring to mind and think thoughts he has already contended with for however long he sat suspended within the evergaol.
Thus, with a small, strangled grunt, Vyke puts his helmet back on.
❛ I'll show you to safer grounds so that you may get your bearings and figure out what to do, ❜ Vyke then says, voice now muffled behind shining metal as he looks back at Darian. ❛ It is better this way, for this place holds no mercy for the ills it has been done. Though you may very well find peace among a different crowd, one you are not all too stranger to, deep within the catacombs. ❜
A solemn tinge to his words, but he says them nonetheless even if regret trails close behind. Vyke struggles for a moment to simply turn back around and start leading the way, staring as he does through a thin slit at the man he would have given his all to had there been a different path. It is no surprise to Vyke that love remains in his heart, even when he knows he should not. That it may very well be an insult after leaving the way he did.
❛ ... For what it is worth, ❜ he says quietly, ❛ I am sorry. ❜
vyke has become, although still intimately familiar, akin to a stranger. once upon a time they understood each other—never perfectly aligned, with mismatches broadening a gap between them, but never one that felt too great to cross. now, though they have shared breaths in a closeness connected by the blade of his sword, vyke yet feels out of reach. darian speaks sharply, and it marks him changed, too. or perhaps this disdain had been always within him, subdued only by a greater loyalty that has since fallen, a love he still holds but feels a stranger to.
it is worth something. even as he looks at an unfamiliar silhouette, now this knight of miquella, hidden again behind a helm while darian's face is now bare. even quiet as it is, the apology is meaningful. and so darian lets up, though the wound remains. his silence is, perhaps, answer enough.
he picks himself up and follows. catacombs.
"you think i should fare better in the company of imps and living corpses?" he asks dryly, but lacking in malice. this whole land seems naught but a haven of misery. from the great dragon he'd spied laying dead far away, to the keep that seeps darkness, to the shadowy spiral and the darkened shadow-tree. darian had not yet come so far as to see the sprawling fields of cerulean flowers on the coast, or their crimson sisters below. yet even that beauty would be shortlived in his mind, nothing but pretty drapery over a land of rising dead. it will be some time ere he resigns himself to the fact that he has become one of them, and forever will be.
in his palm he finds the scale seal. as they walk, he looks down at it as if surprised to find it there, as if he had not been holding it ever since vyke gave it to him. after a moment's hesitation, darian puts it away, into the leather pouch on his belt he had picked off a dead soldier. every step hurts, though less so with time, and he picks up the pace to not fall behind.
"you know well that i would not seek peace with the undead..."
and yet, where else might he go? his mind drifts to rogier again. the one he had been looking for. he cannot bring himself to speak his name aloud. so he just follows the guidance of the man in gold. "where will you go? what does miquella ask of you?"
The bustling hub area that exists outside of the Lands Between. A place to mingle with other adventurerers, craftsmen, resupply and discover a trove of blessings and rooms of secrets.
D, Hunter of the Dead, or Darian, is easy for a lot of people to hate. He’s rigid, allied with the Golden Order, and a hunter of the undead, who may be in need of mercies which the Order isn't interested in providing. I often see him written off as sort of bigoted, callous, an asshole, and given little in the way of nuance that is afforded to (almost all of) the rest of the cast of complicated characters we encounter. So I’d like to try to tease out those shades of grey, highlight the very human tragedy of his backstory, as well as make a few (hopefully interesting) observations about his parallels with both Fia and Morgott.
🚨🚨SPOILERS AHEAD🚨🚨
I. A quick recap
Players can first meet Darian near Summonwater, where he warns us about the Tibia Mariner and Those Who Live in Death. If we harvest the Mariner’s deathroot and return to him, he’ll offer to show us to the Bestial Sanctum and ask us to take his place as Gurranq’s servant. He will move to the Roundtable Hold and gives us a little info on who he is, who he serves, his bitterness towards Rogier, and will teach us incantations which are especially effective against the undead. We can summon him for help in two fights: one against a Mariner in eastern Liurnia, and another against a Black Knife Assassin in the Black Knife Catacombs. If you’ve kept up with Fia’s quest, she’ll ask you to bring the Weathered Dagger to its original owner. Interacting with Darian while having this item will result in him wondering where you got it, offering to take it off your hands, and thanking you for it. Next time you come to the Roundtable, he’ll be dead, presumably killed by the Fia’s Mist spell.
II. The allure of acceptance in an otherwise hostile world
As with most characters, we’re given very little info about who Darian and Devin were or where they’re coming from. Info from the Inseparable Sword tells us:
The inseparable twins found solace in the Golden Order, the only institution not to revile them as accursed beings.
The reason for the harsh treatment appears to be related to their strange nature. The twins share a single soul between them, living otherwise as distinct, autonomous persons. Per the Twinned Set:
The two known as D are inseparable twins.
They are of two bodies and two minds, but one single soul.
Elden Ring is full of curses and shunned beings, so it’s not all that surprising that the world saw these kids with their weird spiritual situation and just weren’t having it. What is surprising at first glance is that the Golden Order, who are generally experts at reviling aberrant lifeforms, are the ones to accept them. But it makes some sense. Marika birthed not one, but two sets of cursed twins. And of course, Marika and Radagon have a very similar condition. In the fight within the Erdtree, we see them as one singular body, shifting between two aspects. It likely wasn’t always this way, and they were probably two distinct beings at some point, like Darian and Devin. Aside from how impractical it'd be to ask us to believe that no one noticed these two high profile rulers were never active at the same time, the wording of some of Marika’s echos indicates the two were not sharing a single body at some point:
O Radagon, leal hound of the Golden Order. Thou'rt yet to become me. Thou'rt yet to become a god. Let us be shattered, both. Mine other self.
All of this is to say, Marika and Radagon’s nature may have at one point been exactly like the D twins: a single soul shared between two bodies. This is further teased at by the fact that we receive the Inner Order gesture from Devin, and the Outer Order after listening to Marika’s words in a church. While the placement of these gestures was likely much more about illustrating the difference in blind faith versus an examined one, given Marika’s dialog there, it’s certainly interesting that we are given these paired gestures by these two characters. It’s not common knowledge to people of the Lands Between that Marika and Radagon are the same, but perhaps enough people in the upper echelons of the Order know this so as to recognize the similarity, and thus accept Darian and Devin.
It's clear why the Golden Order might make an exception for the D twins. It also conveniently sets the stage for some very fanatical devotion. It’s easy to write off fanatics. After all, they’re, well, fanatical. They’re rigid, unchanging, uninterested in adapting to new information which sheds any unflattering light on their new group. We’re all quite susceptible to this, our propensity towards tribalism once being a valuable trait which helped us to survive in our species’ infancy. The D twins get this kind of cranked up to 11 because they suffered a lifetime of being not just unwanted, but actively despised by everyone. They’re reviled for something they have no control over. We don’t know anything about their life as children, but it wouldn’t be surprising to learn they were abandoned by their parents if all institutions saw them as reviled. It could be that their parents were also adherents of the Golden Order, but given that they are Tarnished, and that the Inseparable Sword description specifies that they found solace rather than took solace or similar wording, it reads as though they may have only really had each other until the Order took them in.
What does something like that do to a person, especially if they lived with such cruelty as children? The need to belong is fundamental to our being, and shunning on a societal level like this would be pretty devastating. And it isn’t just one society that’s repulsed by you – it is every society except one. While the Golden Order has done horrible things, that becomes a lot harder to focus on when the hands that have committed those wrongs are the first to ever be extended to you in kindness. It’s hardly surprising then that Darian doesn’t just serve the Order, but has woven it into his identity. He doesn’t have any interests to share with us outside of his dedication to the Golden Order, like Rogier with his desire to be a scholar. He was given a purpose by the only people to show him acceptance, and he will pursue it doggedly.
III. Morgott and Darian – “Thy kind are all of a piece”
I mentioned before that the Order may have been accepting of the D twins due to Marika’s own 2 sets of twins. Malenia and Miquella have no significant similarities to Darian and Devin. And while Mohg shares a sense of instability with Devin, they don’t have much more in common beyond their cursed nature. Darian and Morgott, however, share a handful of interesting parallels.
They’re both reviled and rejected due to the circumstances of their birth. Cursed through no fault of their own, both were likely abandoned for it and kept from participating in society. Both serve the Golden Order fervently, with Morgott presiding over Leyndell as king while Darian hunts the dead on their behalf. In spite of being mistreated for what they are, they both perpetuate that mistreatment onto others like them. Morgott keeps the Merchants imprisoned, and leaves the Omens to wallow in the sewers. Darian hunts Those Who Live in Death while refusing to accept Rogier’s discovery that they are a result of a flaw in the very thing Darian has devoted himself to.
And both have a less than stable twin brother, one they never mention but for whom we might be able to reasonably assume they care about all the same as they were both likely each other’s only companion for much of their lives. When naming all of his siblings as traitors, Morgott notably leaves out Mohg from his condemnations. Darian, if killed by the player, begs his brother’s forgiveness, and keeps his very existence under wraps, with only Rogier appearing to know of Devin. Of further note, Morgott and Darian walk above ground, under the light of the Erdtree, while both Mohg and Devin live beneath the earth, in the endless night of the Eternal Cities.
IV. Rogier – “Such adaptability is more important now than ever...”
Besides Gurranq, the only other person we hear much about from Darian is Rogier. The dialog these two give about each other indicates that they meant a lot to each other before their fallout. I touched on it in my post about Rogier, but in essence, while Rogier appears composed and maybe even a bit wistful about their old days, Darian seems to stew and fume with resentment. He talks about Rogier as someone who used to be all of these positive things, but that he gave it up when he fell from the righteous path and took up with Those Who Live in Death, ultimately becoming a victim of them.
Yet in spite of their apparent split, we still catch Darian helping Rogier out with his research. He tells Rogier about the markings he found in Summonwater, and he fights a Black Knife Assassin in order to help us bring the knife print back to Rogier. There’s a strange little back and forth between them and I can’t help but read it as Darian navigating an internal conflict he’s not all that familiar with. After all, he’s unlikely to have had a friend like Rogier before, given how he was hated by everyone. So he’s even more unprepared to deal with losing that singular positive relationship he had with another person who wasn’t his own brother, or ordained to accept him. So he struggles, both resenting Rogier for his sacrilegious discoveries and maybe regretting parting ways to begin with. It has him fuming one moment then bringing back peace offerings the next.
They’re a classic case of opposites attracting, and the polarity between the refusal/acceptance of change was their downfall. Rogier encountered new information, was able to integrate that into his reality, made the challenging admission that he’d been doing wrong, and tried to fix it. Darian listened, but simply shut it down. It’s easy to write it off as bigotry, fanaticism, or whatever else – Fia indicates that the undead are unjustly persecuted by the Order, and Rogier tells us they aren’t malicious but rather unfortunate bystanders. Darian is too rigid in his beliefs to accept change, especially a change so radical as this. And he’d have to admit that he and Rogier may have been perpetuating an injustice in their brutal treatment of Those Who Live in Death.
I think there’s another pretty important factor in this which is often overlooked in discussions of Darian’s inability to adapt to the idea of a flawed Golden Order. And that’s in how much of his self-worth, his self-esteem, is going to inevitably be tied to the only people in the world to accept him and his brother as being fit for life. He wasn’t just exiled from his home after witnessing Grace like Fia or Roderika, he was reviled by everyone from day one. As I’ve said before, this leaves an indelible mark on a person, and such extreme shunning and forced isolation from society are a form of psychological torture. This is bound to leave a person with some trauma and maladaptive traits, and one that is relevant here is Darian’s inability to handle the Golden Order being mistaken about something so personal. This isn’t some mild administrative mistake, or even a major miscalculation in a war. It is a mistake about who is accursed and who isn’t, who is fit for society and who isn’t. And if they’re mistaken about the dead, who else are they mistaken about?
Normal people who have normal lives have a hard enough time accepting change. And those normal people have an even harder time taking in that change if it conflicts with some belief they already hold dear. So for someone like Darian, a change like this is not some trivial adjustment. It could be world-shattering for him, and would take loads of effort to accept, an effort he’d then have to make entirely on his own since his initial reaction was to flee from the conflict that brought it on altogether. He left Rogier, unable to handle this revelation, finding it easier to deny it altogether than accept it. And that in itself must tell us how painful this new truth would be for him – as someone viewed as accursed by all societies outside of the Order, Rogier very well could have been his only friend. Darian was willing to sever that link in an effort to preserve the reality where he has acceptance and a place in society. It is a very human reaction, and one that I feel deserves a little bit of reflecting on when we consider Darian and his motivations. This isn’t a standard case of someone being a stubborn ass because they can’t admit they made a mistake. This is something akin to cult indoctrination, when a traumatized person’s identity is far too wrapped up in people who told them that they are good, and that it’s everyone else who doesn’t love them.
V. Fia and Darian as caregivers
These two have more in common than you might think initially, since they’re positioned on opposite ends of the spectrum in the matter of death. While Fia seeks to uplift the dead, Darian would terminate them. One reviles the Order while the other reveres it. But both know very well what it is to be an outcast. Fia is exiled from her home after seeing Grace, and upon her arrival to the Lands Between is seen by some as “vulgar”. It’s her first taste of receiving the kind of scorn Darian would’ve known all his life.
But she still finds it in herself to care for others. And I would argue that Darian does too. Fia seeks to bear the hatred and disgust others have for the dead, to protect them from persecution. She has a gentle bearing that invites us to let our guard down around her, is soft spoken, steady, and calm. Darian shares a similarly placid disposition for the most part. Where Fia wants to protect the dead, Darian seeks to protect others from them. While he hunts the dead for the perfection of the Order, he clearly cares about the people the dead inflict themselves on. Upon first encountering him in Limgrave, we overhear him speaking to one such victim of Those Who Live in Death, saying:
I'm sorry, I cannot give you your proper rites...
But at least you did not join Those Who Live in Death. Your soul will return to the Erdtree, in time.
He gives what comfort he can to this person, admitting that it isn’t much. And he does his best to warn us away from the village, trying to keep us from harm. When we return with the deathroot, he names us a comrade. Contrast this with Tanith or Varre, who ask us to kill for them to prove our allegiance. Darian does the opposite, telling us to leave the dead alone lest we fall victim, chastises us as foolish for taking such a risk to get the root anyway, and then invites us to serve Gurranq. He’s uninterested in pressuring or forcing us to join him, much less in having us bloody our hands for his own approval.
In his cut dialog for the Dreambrew quest, his thoughts go not to his own personal enjoyment of the drink we offer him, but to the victims of the dead. He says:
Alcohol, to make a libation? A fine idea. The Lands Between brim with the dead. If a drink can serve even as a small rite of remembrance, that is enough.
And then there’s probably the most blatant symbolism of this caring nature seen in the form of his armor and his posture with it. He literally holds his other half protectively in his idle stance, cradling the head of his twin as he is clutched by this smaller, frailer form. Even in death, repositioning the camera beneath him shows him shielding the bust as if to protect it from Fia’s fatal attack on him.
I often see Darian characterized as cold because of his distaste for the undead. But all of these little things about him add up to me as someone who is more concerned with being conscientious and caring of the living.
VI. Conclusion
I don't anticipate changing many minds about Darian. This is a pretty niche corner of an already niche fandom, after all, and it's super tempting to pick sides in search of which group in the game is right or wrong, which is going to pave the best way forward. Most characters in the game are doing something less than moral in an effort to advance an agenda, whether their own or that of who they serve. But at the same time, they usually have interesting and sympathetic motivations pushing them towards those goals. Fia murders Darian and never tells us her true goals until we find her with Godwyn, never letting us know that we were assisting her in killing someone, maybe even a friend, when she handed us that dagger. But she does all this in an effort to protect those she sees as persecuted. Darian is the one persecuting that group, but he does it as someone who has seen the violence the dead inflict on the living, as someone who has lived the very same persecution, as a servant to the only people to ever stay that persecution for him the way Fia would for the dead. This game is not interested in giving us neatly delineated good guys and bad guys for the most part, which is what makes their stories so compelling even when we're only given a few breadcrumbs. But it's also why it's strikes me as a bit short-sighted to write any one of them off as wholly irredeemable.
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