My favorite king and queen in the Dark Souls saga.
"The Ivory King built his throne and kingdom above the chaos. He sat there, waiting for any sign of evil, ready to combat it. He met Alsanna, one of the daughters of Manus, and helped her, cared for her, and gave her his strength. Even though she never told him the truth, he knew about the danger she could bring to him and his kingdom, but he chose to stay by her side. After he was gone, Alsanna kept praying for him and for their kingdom, to keep the forces of chaos under control."
You fucked your Queen without knowing she was a monster born from Abyss. I fucked mine knowing full well. We are not the same.
Disclaimer I am aware that their situations are different, most notably Alsanna was less a threat than Nashandra because she only wanted to survive. Still, when you put the two kings stories together the contrast is funny
I'd never heard of the theory that the Ivory King and the knights of Eleum Loyce were all secretly female before, but I can actually get behind that. (For context, this theory is based on the facts that female characters get a healing bonus when wearing the Ivory or Burnt Ivory sets, and that the Ivory King and his knights always hid their faces from public.)
This also lines up with Alsanna's allusions to Ciaran. Each of the Sisters of Dark bear some thematic affiliation with the Knights of Gwyn (Nashandra and the giants = Gough, Nadalia and Fume Knight Raime = Artorias, Elana and Yorgh the dragonslayer = Ornstein, Alsanna mourning her corrupted companion = Ciaran).
Ciaran and the rest of the Lord's Blades were all female... I'm not sure why it would matter to the Ivory King that they obscured their gender, but it's kind of cool to think they were defying binarism though. Either way, I'm just always excited to see more acknowledgement of Ciaran in lore lol.
Fella's is it yuri to potentially sacrifice your entire kingdom by protecting and falling in love with a shard of darkness incarnate....what am I saying, of course thats Yuri.
uh oh, more insane theories from the local Lucatiel Simp
Y'all know the drill by now.
So relating to my last post, the second theory I have concerning the Darklurker is that it is the last fragment of Manus' being, similar to the queens within the game.
First, an explanation of the queens within ds2 in case you're one of those poor fucks who follows me but doesn't play ds2:
Within Dark Souls, one of the most important entities lorewise is Manus, the Father of the Abyss. His soul, contrary to those of the other Lords, was dark, borne from the shadows that linger on the edge of a fire's light (in my opinion. He did possess the Dark Soul, but it's not really specified what made it different, apart from its name and apparent power).
However, Manus wasn't manus when he found it. He was the Furtive Pygmy, and actually split the Dark Soul into fragments prior to his first death, which led to the creation of humankind.
Later on, people from Oolacile, a land of Golden Sorcery that (ironically) manipulated light, dug his corpse up and at the behest of the Darkstalker Kaathe (one of the Abyssal serpents who manipulate the world from shadow) performed terrible and cruel experiments upon it.
These experiments, coupled with the theft of the Pygmy's amulet, drove its lingering soul mad, causing the birth of Manus and the complete devastation of Oolacile, and the creation of the place that would become known as the Abyss.
The main character of Dark Souls 1, the Chosen Undead, eventually destroys Manus, and that's the end. Or so we thought.
As it turns out, parts of manus persisted within the Abyss, emerging thousands of years later as four (or five, if you think Mytha is one) women, each borne from one of his Negative emotions. Alsanna from his Fears, Elana from his Wrath, Nashandra from his Want, and while Nadalia isn't specified, a lot of people think she is his Loneliness.
Now, something you may have noticed is that none of these are particularly good things, which makes sense. The birth of Manus was not a happy event, and I think that most goodness was driven from his Soul upon his birth.
Most.
My main theory for the Darklurker (took long enough, eh?) is that it is the virtues of Manus. Those better aspects of him that were nearly lost during the transformation into the progenitor of the boundless dark within men. The Darklurker's lack of a voice at all, its ability to wield magic, and its pseudo-angelic appearance reminds me of a fallen angel, which is notably different from the appearance of the Abyssal Daughters. They, for the most part, resemble darker beings such as Demons, Grim Reapers, or horribly twisted human forms. The otherwordly appearance of the Darklurker makes me feel like its nature is much less grounded, and more abstract. Hence, the virtues of Manus.
anyway sorry for the rambling, I just realized i have a semi-captive audience. Love y'all moots.
