KazzArmaVids

Dark Souls lore, etymology, cosplay videos

[naehja]

Sebastian the Dog was a black german shepherd..

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I believe he was a Borzoi (though it’s hard to distinguish on the “quality” anime image, you can still see the ears are quite different + manga image of the same scene and “sketchy” image probably suggest a different type of hair than of German Shepherd): 

Though it’s kinda hard to tell precisely without explicit commentary from the author

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Offtopic: possible spoilers/teaser for future “Vinland Saga”manga chapters? Year 1019 in North/East European history

Basically, in the recent chapters of Vinland Saga the main characters have set up on a trip to Miklagarðr (Constantinople) to sell some narhval horns to the Greeks in order to raise money for their expedition to Vinland. 

Well, it’s quite a detour of course and it’s, I dunno, probably somewhat a “cheesy” move, or how to put it, on author’s part,after arcs about war and thralldom, when main character finally is free and reaches his home, to make him go on a journey in opposite direction than that of Vinland where he’s to go to fulfill his dream, just to sell some stuff,  but I actually liked this turn of events, and I believe it’s really justified to make the characters travel there.

Actually, it would almost be a crime not to make characters make travel there, as there was so much stuff going in those parts of the world in the time period covered by manga events, it really would be weird not to use it, and I hope you won’t find this post too long and boring to read it and see why is it so. Well, we can already see main characters having themselves caught in the middle of war in the Baltic Sea

However, as for what is going to happen on their journey next (of course if they will not find money in result of Baltic Sea war events and will continue their journey), I guess we can guess which historical events are the characters going to get involved into and what the characters are going to encounter, since we’ve seen quite a few hints already.  For example, to reach Miklagarðr from Iceland they could theoretically take two routes: one is to go south and then go through Gibraltar (somewhat like Bjǫrn Járnsíða did) and after that going past Italy to reach Miklagarðr from the West. Though obviously the characters went East right away and went to the Baltic Sea, which indicates that they will likely be taking (of course if they will still be going to Constantinople) the historical trade rout “from the Varangians to the Greeks” which did actually connect Scandinavia with (Eastern) Roman Empire. Actually, as you can see on the manga page below the route the characters were planning to take has already been shown, and it has  “from the Varangians to the Greeks” route as its part, where they would go from Baltic Sea along the Dnieper river (though, theoretically the still can take Dniester) South across Garðaríki to the Black Sea and from there to Grikkland. 

And it’s actually quite interesting, since taking such route they will most likely visit Kænugarðr (or Kijev) along their way. The city was an important point on the trading route and (not surprisingly) an important center (if not capital, though hardly such term is 100% applicable) of Kievan Rus' (or Garðaríki) which was an East Slavic state although ruled by the rulers of the Rurik dynasty which was of Norse origin (named after its founder, who’s mentioned in Slavic sources as Rurik, but, of course if you’ve even simply watched my Dark Souls etymology videos I guess it would be quite obvious that the origin of the name is Germanic, composed of elements *hrōþiz - for loud, or rather famed, in this case, and *rīks - king, ruler, an element we’ve seen in quite a few Dark Souls names).

And it happens so that the years of the manga events (1019 in the recent chapters, possibly 1020 by the time characters would reach Kænugarðr, provided they ever will, of course) match the first years of the reign of a person known to Norse peoples as konung Jarizleifr (also I believe he was called “the Lame” for indeed it seems he used to limp)  as high ruler of Kijev (the stuff I read about when working on an old Cossack cosplay video, which wasn’t even related to the cosplay in the end =/).  Bascially about 50% of the name “Jarizleifr“ has no real meaning in Old Norse, since it’s just an adaptation of a Slavic name Yaroslav (from Proto-Slavic *jarъ- “furious/fierce” and *slava - “fame/glory”), with “lav” part of “slav” element broken separately and taken as “leif” or “leifr” which is Old Norse for “inhertior/heir” and of course can be seen in the name of Leifr Eiríksson who is both a historical character and one of the major characters in the manga.  But, anyway, returning to the historical events which will possibly be covered in manga - the ruler of Kænugarðr in the years the manga events cover was prince Yaroslav the Wise, who himself was a descendant of Rurik and whose wife (whom he married in... 1019) was Princess Ingegerd of Sweden, daughter of king Olaf of Sweden.

And Yaroslav’s way to power as ruler of Kijev was marked by a struggle for power against his brother Sviatopolk  and foreign invasions (like of Poles under Bolesław I Chrobry (the Brave) who supported Yaroslav’s rival Sviatopolk) in 1018, with Yaroslav finally winning the throne against his brother in... 1019.   Although Yaroslav’s victory was only followed by a conflict against own nephew Bryachislav, whom he fought and defeated in 1020. And these historical events are actually covered in Norse sagas (well, more correctly in þættir - sort of “short sagas”) namely the story of Eymundr, which tells of a Norse konung Eymundr who, not willing to fight against king St. Olaf II Haraldsson of Norway (as Olaf began joining Norðvegr under his own rule) and hearing the news of power struggle among brother-princes in Garðaríki following the death of konung Valdemarr (prince Vladimir), leaves his homeland together with his friend jarl Ragnarr and their men (whom include not only Norwegians but also Icelanders) to offer their services as mercenaries to Jarizleifr or whoever will treat them better.  Well, since it’s a Norse story, it’s somewhat hard to say how much does it exaggerate things when it tells about greedy local ruler who can’t handle anything by himself without his wise Norse wife and is several times saved by mercenary Norsemen who aid him in war against his relatives and give him wise counsel, whom he however tries to trick in times of peace when he thinks he doesn’t need them already. And eventually (although after defeating one of the “three brothers” - Burizleifr, whose name is likely derived from the name of the Polish Duke Bolesław who supported and gave army to the actual brother Sviatopolk) Eymundr and Ragnrarr leave Jarizleif to serve “third brother” Vartilafr (likely rather nephew Bryachislav whose name likely has the very same origin as such names as Wrocisław or Vratislav in other Slavic languages) and when the two armies confront each other Eymundr manages to negotiate peace between “brothers” with Ingegerd, Jarizleif’s wife. And subsequently Eymundr got lands for himself becoming a “guardian” of the local state and it’s also said that together with Ingegerd they used to solve all the serious problems in Garðaríki . So, returning to manga, Garðaríki wouldn’t really be that much of a foreign place to the heroes of Vinland Saga (well foreign, but with lots of their kinsmen involved, and I believe the inhabitants of Kijev were called “Danes” in some Western European sources at that age, apparently because the ruling dynasty there was of Norse origin), and there was really lot of interesting stuff going on historically (and described in þættir) involving Norsemen (and particularly Icelanders) in the very same years the manga covers, and that only in that one spot of the route which the heroes, it seems, are going to take.   And I guess it would be strange if it’s not going to be covered in the manga. So, escaping the power struggle for throne of Denmark and power struggle within the Jomsvikings, the characters might arrive to Garðaríki to get involved in power struggle there, and who knows, maybe it will be the pacifist  Þorfinnr Karlsefni of the manga who will negotiate peace between rival parties of Garðaríki  conflict in 1019/1020 ?  Another dimension is that Garðaríki had already adopted Christianity, but from Byzantine Empire, and although Leifr is Christian also, he’s rather a Western Christian, while the events of manga take place just some decades before the East–West Schism (which only finalized the process that had been going on for some time already), so it’s interesting if it’s going to be covered as well.  But anyway, it’s only one point of the possible route, and after Kænugarðr there are Dnieper thresholds to the south with Turkic nomadic peoples ambushing the traders and so on and so forth, all the way to Miklagarðr where Roman emperors had Varangian guard and, for example, one could find some Norse Runic writings on marble parapets mentioning some Norseman Halfdan....

So the historical period is quite exciting offering lots of opportunities to make some very interesting stories, even before finally “sending” the main characters to Vinland and I’m really looking forward to see if my guesses were right or not

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Offtopic: about Gorthol

I wonder if isn’t it closer to what the dragon-helm of Dor-lómin was supposed to look like? 

  I’ve seen some nice arts by Alan Lee (and others of similar style), however, are they really that close to a description of dwarf-helmet which were noted for their grim masks? (where does such idea of depiction of this helmet come from?)

Given Tolkien’s interests, I guess it’s somewhat likely that the inspiration for the dragon-helm were some Vendel-age “crested helmets” (featuring “dragon-crests” as well as fitting the description of dwarvish“masked” helmets)

Though of course Khuzdul has a lot in common with real-life Semitic languages (which however doesn’t really fit the “Eddic” names of some dwarves)

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Offtopic: of Morgoth, his hand and Carcharoth (and also a little bit of Fenrir, of course)

Well, it’s quite an embarrassing topic, but also something that could be very fitting for the story and something I’ve been wanting to discuss with someone for years. And who knows maybe I didn’t misread the thing when I read it first time after all...  So, in Silmarillion there is this part telling of Carcharoth  and how Melkor raised him.

Then Morgoth recalled the doom of Huan, and he chose one from among the whelps of the race of Draugluin; and he fed him with his own hand upon living flesh, and put his power upon him. Swiftly the wolf grew, until he could creep into no den, but lay huge and hungry before the feet of Morgoth. There the fire and anguish of hell entered into him, and he became filled with a devouring spirit, tormented, terrible, and strong. Carcharoth, the Red Maw, he is named in the tales of those days, and Anfauglir, the Jaws of Thirst. And Morgoth set him to lie unsleeping before the doors of Angband, lest Huan come.  

And the very first time I read it, the line “he fed him with his own hand upon living flesh” made me think that Morgoth actually fed his own hand (now, that’s the embarrassing part, because I kinda missed “with”) and it didn’t really surprise me but looked quite natural to me (for the reasons I’d like to discuss in this post). In fact, it still surprises me how fitting the mistaken perception of that line would be for Melkor’s story, possibly making it even better. Of course reading it the other way (I guess the proper way) the line simply tells us that Morgoth personally fed living flesh to Carcharoth, emphasizing that he had been personally overseeing the bringing up of the werewolf, showing his concern of threat from Huan the Hound.  But, despite how weird it may sound that Morgoth fed his own body to a werewolf, it actually seemed completely natural to me (and I believe, or hope at least, that over the years there were some people who read it the same way that I did, lol) that Morgoth would actually feed his hand to Carcharoth. In fact, it would be pretty much the same thing as what he had been doing all along. Because throughout the story we can see it emphasized by Tolkien in several places how from the mightiest, the greatest, the fairest of Ainur, Melkor, through his pride, jealousy, arrogance, wrath, evil turns into weakened, fearful, crippled, even pitiful creature.  I believe it’s really well, edifyingly, depicted how Melkor spent all his power and wisdom (which indeed were the greatest) on evil, on attempts to dominate and destroy or at least mar that which he could not dominate. He gradually dispersed his powers to change, spoil, the very matter of Arda, dispersed his powers among his servants (otherwise weak-willed without a dark lord leading them), spent his powers on destruction and eventually from once somewhat “the closest to Ilúvatar” (though the very point of the story is pretty much that no one can ever be close to Ilúvatar, not to speak of being equal, which was Melkor’s desire that led him to his ruin) Melkor eventually fell to the state when he wasn’t able to even heal his hröa being left forever crippled, and it was Melkor himself in the first place who got marred and destroyed in the result (”something that might happen to us too if we are only focused on hatred towards others and thoughts of how better we are than others, how inferior are the others comparing to us” I believe is what Tolkien was talking about there), and dispersing his power among his slaves Bauglir himself became slave to them in a certain sense - the fear was known to him and he was afraid to fight Fingolfin, but he still had to fight, for even more he was afraid of losing his face before his servants. And during that very fight he got those injuries which left him scarred and crippled, which he could never heal, and it’s really beautiful how Tolkien shown it all together - weakening of Morgoth’s spirit, Morgoth’s power, Morgoth’s hröa, generally Morgoth’s fall on different levels, in pretty much a single scene. So basically Morgoth converted his initial power into all sorts destruction, evil, darkness now blighting Arda forever.  So having all that said, the idea of Morgoth feeding own body to create the mightiest wolf that would kill Valinor’s Hound, doesn’t sound that weird.  He had been doing the same all along, spending basically himself, converting his himself into destruction, into evil, into deceit, into the power of his servants, leaving the rest of him weaker and weaker on the other hand. And wouldn’t it be very fitting for his story if, having already reached a rather pitiful state, he still had to go on and keep converting himself into power of his tools, and had to feed his own hand to convert it into Carcharoth exceptional power, basically to literally convert his hand into Carcharoth and make Carcharoth his hand which would kill Huan? I don’t know, maybe it’s so only to me, but such version of Carcharoth’s bringing up would be even better for the story, and who knows, maybe the way I read that line at first was because in some earlier drafts, in some earlier versions it was indeed written without “with” as if Morgoth indeed fed his own hand?  And, well, speaking of a hand feeding a great wolf, and a great wolf devouring the hand that fed him, I believe that quite naturally we recall the story of Fenrir and Týr (who fed Fenrir with his own hand and I guess it’s possible to say that eventually “fed his own hand”, though, of course it wasn’t the point to simply sate Fenrir’s hunger) While of course the story of Eru and Melkor, Melkor’s fall is really very Christian, (naturally reflecting Tolkien’s views), and in my opinion also  very well written and illustrating a point about God in real-life Christianity really well (something that quite a lot of people I’ve seen getting wrong about the God in Christianity actually, it’s not about a somewhat “yin–yang”-like situation (only fighting each other) between the good and evil  but pretty much the point is that devil is nowhere close to the God) some Old Norse inspirations can be obviously seen in the legendarium (and also Finnish of course, and it’s quite fascinating how different the Finnish stories are from Norse ones, but Tolkien still took both and combined them in the story of Húrin’s  children) so who knows, maybe there was something about feeding wolf with a hand at some point after all. Sorry, I’m not really good at writing things (when I really like something I keep talking about it, repeating the same thing several times, it’s not like I do it without noticing it, but these are really the things I really love and enjoy and I want to talk about them a lot, and repeat the same stuff over and over, sorry).

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Offtopic: O’Gorman in “American Gods”

Name used by American Óðinn - “O’Gorman” as Old Irish “son of little blue one” (Óðinn’s association with blue clothes? And he does wear dark blue clothes when using the name) as “O’” + “gorm” for “blue” + “-án” diminutve suffix? (of course the suffix is familiar from  “Súildubhán” as “súile” for “eyes” + “dubh” for “black” + “-án” as in Dark Souls’ Pontiff Sulyvahn’s name, meaning “little dark eyes” referring to his Dark Pontiff Eye Rings) Also possibly Gorman as from Germund “spear” + “protection” (Óðinn’s Gungnir?) but “O’” part is probably a hint to Gaelic roots.

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Offtopic: host & guest

Both words originate from the very same single PIE root *gʰóstis. Somewhat difficult to describe the meaning of the root, since we’ll require words which are actually related to it: “stranger” but also with meanings of “guest, host,  someone one should treat with hospitality”.  And actually I find it very interesting and somewhat funny, ironic, how the very same root is also the origin for the word “hostile” Despite both “host” and “guest” originating from the same root, I believe “guest” is actually closer to original meaning, being derived via ME “gest”, ON gestr, OE ġiest, from Proto-Germanic *gastiz which has its roots in PIE word which was probably something like “*gʰóstis“.  “Host” however seems to be originating from Latin “hospes” - a combination of “hostis” (from the PIE root *gʰóstis - “stranger, guest, etc”) and “potis” (from PIE  -  “owner, master, host, husband”, and it’s really killing me that it’s impossible to describe a word’s origin without using the word itself), thus “guest master” in this meaning. Of course the word “hospitality” originates from the very same “hospes”.  Somewhat, I’d even say symbolically or ironically, the words derived from  *gʰóstis were used not only for the guests you should be hospitable to, but also (via the meaning of “stranger”) to unwanted guests, someone you’d rather fight than greet - enemies, hostiles - from Latin “hostis” - enemies, strangers, invaders, derived from the very same *gʰóstis . And from this meaning of “invaders”, “strangers”, “foreign enemies” also originates the meaning of “host” as an “army”.  In any case, the word which likely was *gʰóstis probably had been playing an important role in the lives of Proto-Indoeuropeans as we can find still similarly sounding words originating from it in many languages (well, or rather because the word was lucky to consist of sounds that don’t change too significantly lol), for example the title of “hospodar” I mentioned in my videos about cosplay of Vlad Dracula and Earl Arstor , or Croatian “gospòdār” are also related to the very same roots that “hospes” -  “hostis” and  “potis” as seen in Proto-Slavic “*gostьpodь” - master, owner, lord

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Óðinn, Seath, Logan and the pursuit of wisdom

,Finally I have some free time, lol. So, re-watching the cosplay video about Gandalf and  Óðinn, there was also one thing I kinda wanted to discuss but it didn’t really fit into the video and is rather boring maybe and most of the stuff is probably long long known anyway and also a speculation, but as to have a little break I guess I may as well talk about it here, lol. So, speaking of some parallels between  Óðinn and characters like Gandalf, we may also recall that there’s a slight similarity between Óðinn in his guise of a wanderer and Big Hat Logan of Dark Souls I. Of course one thing in common is wide-brimmed hat (which, however doesn’t seem to be something inspired by Óðinn ‘s wanderer disguise directly and more likely is just a general“wizard”, “Gandalf” thing if anything), but another is actually the pursuit of knowledge, which, however, at the same time also differs in nature somewhat significantly. So, speaking of Óðinn, he’s surely known for his pursuit of wisdom, he gave his eye for it, he “sacrificed himself to himself”when he hang from Yggdrasill  ) pierced with a spear for 9 nights without food or water and thus learned the runes.

(possibly to be able to see the place Yggdrasill’s roots come from in such way? also peculiar thing, one of names used by Óðinn is “ Yggr” - “terrible”, I guess I didn’t go deeper into this when mentioned Yggdrasill as the video was already too long and covered really different stuff like Japanese names, Shakespeare’s plays, Norse mythology and war gear and their influence on some of the Slavic gear and possibly mythology )

While at the same time Óðinn also provokes conflicts and bloodshed among humans, like for example he simply appears at  Vǫlsung‘s daughter’s wedding, offers a sword as a gift to anyone who would be able to take it from the tree-trunk he smote it into, Sigmund takes the sword and refuses to sell it to Siggeir and it triggers quite a bloodshed in result which also “breeds” some mighty warriors for Óðinn’s host in Valhǫll. Which probably appears something different from the pursuit of wisdom.

However, I guess (although of course it’s a speculation) the both sides of his nature seem to be caused by the same thing - fear of Ragnarǫk. And if we look at it from such perspective, Óðinn selflessly (or rather super selfishly) seeks knowledge and willingly sacrifices his eye and undergoes some suffering in order to obtain some wisdom because he already knows beforehand about Ragnarǫk so sacrificing an eye for a chance to obtain wisdom which will possibly allow him to trick the fate doesn’t appear to be a difficult choice to him. But of course it’s still a speculation. At the same time he also provokes wars around his human descendants, somewhat aids them and then kills them and things like that to have a stronger army for Ragnarǫk (now is it a manifestation of the very wisdom he obtained or simply something he does meanwhile he seeks ways to know even more?)   While Logan on the other hand appears to be quite different (although he, I guess we may say somewhat incidentally wears a wide-brimmed hat) as he’s more like a scholar type of character.

He pursuits wisdom too and is very eager about it, but from what we know he’s not driven by fear nor need, but rather simply by the love for knowledge as a scholar addicted to this feeling, excitement of discovery of something interesting, understanding things, possibly seeing something that appeared not related actually fit something bigger in a perfect way and unexpectedly  making sense, an having tasted this feeling once he just can’t stop and becomes a slave to an unquenchable desire for the truth even though it ruins him in the end. Although, there’s one character, whose legacy Logan is so eager to absorb, who also sought knowledge and wisdom and is possibly somewhat more similar to Óðinn than Logan - Seath the Scaleless, “the Duke of the Archives”.   Also seeking knowledge and achieving some truly prominent, possibly simply unprecedented results, I guess we may speculate that, he, similarly to Óðinn, seeks to learn more not simply (or at least not only) because of scholar’s love for discovery, but rather some really simple, understandable fear and need, as, quite obviously Seath lacked the dragon scales which other Everlasting Dragons had, and apparently it was pretty much the reason for his betrayal, as he sought the Primordial Crystal to grant him immortality. And so driven by fear and need he doesn’t care about the measures and sacrifices necessary to progress (which may possibly be similar to  Óðinn  using any opportunity to obtain wisdom, likely to be able to trick his doom). Though, of course everything that I wrote so far was really a lot of wild speculations and Logan also mentions (and actually praises) Seath’s desire for knowledge, which of course may actually be also a scholar’s love for discovery, learning the nature of things, but still I think that we’re actually told about some serious motivation Seath could have to drive his research However, we may also once more return to Logan and other somewhat similar characters in Souls games, many of them seem to eventually loose their minds as result of their pursuit of knowledge, while Óðinn’s name is actually related to “óðr” with meanings of “mad”, “mind”, “inspired” (well, to be more precise “óðr” is  what the original element was changed into in Old Norse, as Óðinn is how something that once probably sounded like *Wōdanaz became in Old Norse)

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I wonder if it would fit as a background music for DS videos though somewhat not dark enough and too electronic or whatever is the word for this + would probably cause ads in the videos if not copyright problems (one my old lore video is still blocked in the US because of music, lol, but it wasn’t too interesting anyway), but some guys complained that I have too much of Susumu Hirasawa’s music in my videos T_T

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Suddenly realized I forgot to post it here T_T

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Sorry for yet another offtopic, but...

Ooohh... ...  ohh..mm.....  I have no words..

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Sorry for another offtopic, it’s incredibly dumb but this guy looks so funny T_T  And I’m probably going to get a softban for this

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Offtopic: that moment when after like 15 years since last playing Max Payne 1 you suddenly realize that Alfred Woden from that game was a super clear reference to  Óðinn (even had one eye!)  and his name basically means “Elf counsel   Wōden / Óðinn “ Not like even back then I didn’t realize that it had a lot of obvious references to Norse mythology, but somehow it occurred to me only now that Woden was sort of an “Odinnic” character

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Slightly shortened version

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Almost 30 minutes and there’s still a lot of to things finish when I finally return.  But probably I won’t be even able to upload such video on my main channel so not that many people will even watch it.  It’s so ridiculous, so much effort and probably already in vain lol

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Too embarrassing to be published on the main channel T_T

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Sorry for the delay, I’ve already started working on next video (probably a cosplay and then an update of older coplays) but atm I’m not at home for several days and away from my PC so there’s even longer delay than planned.

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T_T