“Is that really lordship’s last reward?”
I’ve said once before that one of the most beautiful things about the human race is that even if you as an individual should one day fall, then someone else will pick up where you left off, in one way or another. I don’t believe people love this series because its world solicits votes for futility and cynicism, but because its fundamental message is one of hope once you look at the bigger picture. It’s all about honoring those who couldn’t live long enough to see you succeed where they failed. Anri avenges all those who were terrorized and devoured by a true monster. Siegward is driven by a duty to an old friend. Hawkwood acknowledges you as the rightful one to transcend your own humanity, thus transcending an endless cycle of suffering. Greirat deems you as someone worth risking his life for, because you kept your word to him. Eygon entrusts Irina to you, because somehow by a miracle you brought out her full potential in the way that he never could. Patches, of all people, helps you in one of your final battles because he’s genuinely impressed by your sense of forgiveness in a world this unforgiving. And Gael, who lived his entire life as a slave and carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, waives his freedom one last time, because he loved his niece and he believed in you to help create a better world for her.
It all does seem like nihilism at its finest, but Dark Souls, like life itself, is ultimately what you make it to be. You lose people you grow to care about, but they always leave something behind that helps you continue. It could be an item, their weapon, their soul, their attire, or in the case of Artorias and the Abyss Watchers, an ideology and subsequent hope.
