The "True" meaning of Dark Souls? (possible Spoilers)

Deathsitexxi wrote:This could be a double post because my computer is acting like crap....Hey Johnny, I’ve read a few of your posts in the past and like the way you think! So first off, thanks for the read and respond! You also reminded me why I called it The “True” meaning of Darks Souls in the first place. Don’t you hate it when you’re writing something and half way through it you forget your final point and don’t even include it in your post…. Yeah moving on and warning this is more speculation! So, what it really got me thinking is “What does it mean to be considered a true God?” To me, the only thing you could do to be called a (this is pure opinion) true God is control time. If you control time you control life, death, any event of your choosing and basically you can change the rules how you see fit. Is that what the flame really is, time itself? Because if not I think most defiantly relates to it.

And thanks for the props Menzinho! However, it is just my speculation and really hard to make concrete..

Shkar wrote:

Deathsitexxi wrote:This could be a double post because my computer is acting like crap....Hey Johnny, I’ve read a few of your posts in the past and like the way you think! So first off, thanks for the read and respond! You also reminded me why I called it The “True” meaning of Darks Souls in the first place. Don’t you hate it when you’re writing something and half way through it you forget your final point and don’t even include it in your post…. Yeah moving on and warning this is more speculation! So, what it really got me thinking is “What does it mean to be considered a true God?” To me, the only thing you could do to be called a (this is pure opinion) true God is control time. If you control time you control life, death, any event of your choosing and basically you can change the rules how you see fit. Is that what the flame really is, time itself? Because if not I think most defiantly relates to it.

And thanks for the props Menzinho! However, it is just my speculation and really hard to make concrete..

When it says time is distorted, ot most likely doesn't include forward and backward much. Instead, it seems probable that the "distortion" is in fact "sideways". Alternate timelines. Timelines where the only discernible difference is who the player character is.

As for what's doing it, it seems to me as if it is the fire dying. All the timelines converge on that point. no matter what happens at this point, you are "sent back in time" to the start, as if time loops there. All the timeslines converge on the fire; It seems probable that it is what is drawing them there in the first place.

Deathsitexxi wrote:This could be a double post because my computer is acting like crap....Hey Johnny, I’ve read a few of your posts in the past and like the way you think! So first off, thanks for the read and respond! You also reminded me why I called it The “True” meaning of Darks Souls in the first place. Don’t you hate it when you’re writing something and half way through it you forget your final point and don’t even include it in your post…. Yeah moving on and warning this is more speculation! So, what it really got me thinking is “What does it mean to be considered a true God?” To me, the only thing you could do to be called a (this is pure opinion) true God is control time. If you control time you control life, death, any event of your choosing and basically you can change the rules how you see fit. Is that what the flame really is, time itself? Because if not I think most defiantly relates to it.

And thanks for the props Menzinho! However, it is just my speculation and really hard to make concrete..

JohnnyHarpoon wrote:

Deathsitexxi wrote:This could be a double post because my computer is acting like crap....Hey Johnny, I’ve read a few of your posts in the past and like the way you think! So first off, thanks for the read and respond! You also reminded me why I called it The “True” meaning of Darks Souls in the first place. Don’t you hate it when you’re writing something and half way through it you forget your final point and don’t even include it in your post…. Yeah moving on and warning this is more speculation! So, what it really got me thinking is “What does it mean to be considered a true God?” To me, the only thing you could do to be called a (this is pure opinion) true God is control time. If you control time you control life, death, any event of your choosing and basically you can change the rules how you see fit. Is that what the flame really is, time itself? Because if not I think most defiantly relates to it.

And thanks for the props Menzinho! However, it is just my speculation and really hard to make concrete..

I like the forward thinking here...

To turn from Dark Souls talk to just pure physics talk, time itself, as we know it, only exists because of light. Time really just is our mind's interpretation of light particles. They fly by us at a consistent speed, and thus we interpret time consistently. However, if we were to increase our own speed, the more we would travel into the future (because less light would pass by you than those still traveling normally, and thus more time would pass for them than you).

To be the Lord of Light would be to be the Lord of Time in a way, because all time is relative to the speed at which you travel in relation to light (aka time is relative).

In this regard, the Flame going out is almost like the opposite of traveling into the future - instead of accelerating to the speed of light, light itself is weak and slowing down. This would distort time in other ways, as opposed to simply traveling into the future.

Granted I am applying real life physics in a world with magic missiles, false suns, zombies, and a bunch of things...but this almost seems to me that 'Linking the Fire' might actually end the Undead Curse, albeit only temporarily and at your own sacrifice.

Life sprung from the Flame, the Flame begins to go out and needs to be Kindled...once fire is weak and time grows more distorted, the Undead Curse begins to manifest itself, because, without proper time, people stop dying - it's a mess - until, finally, somebody Links the Flame, and their soul fuels it for another 1000 years, or maybe forever (given a Human never linked the Flame before, etc.), but either way, the Flame grows strong again and time ceases to be inconsistent.

Everything we've got here is really tying together.

menzinho wrote:ah man, don't degrade your ideas, they may be only speculation, but for speculation to become true (like Solaire or the PC being the firstborn <--- total lie btw), all you need is people to believe it and support it, and you already got one HIGH FIVE DUDE!

Shkar wrote:Alright, here goes. Remember that I am very possibly wrong about the science parts I mention in the next paragraph.

"Time" exists even without light; it's a simple representation of how things change. Even if there was no light, a rock suspended in the air would still fall over the course of a few seconds. Heck, light can be slowed down. Every discussion about relativity talks about time from the point of view of an individual; the "frame of reference". What they forget is that nature doesn't go off us, nature goes off the view of the universe as a whole. In that aspect, space is the equivalent of a movie and time is the bar you use to select what part to watch. "Freezing time" would be the equivalent of freezing height so that you wouldn't fall or climb up hills or etc; it just doesn't make sense.

Now, the obvious part of this whole time debate is that we are dealing with "parallel" timelines. This implies some kind of multiverse theory, but the only alternate dimensions we ever hear about are the ones where someone else is the main character. That is literally the only difference. They still have to ring the bells, they still have to get the lordvessel, they still need to kill Gwyn. We aren't dealing with a normal multiverse theory where every possible alternative happens in some parallel universe. There isn't a world referenced where, say, The Witch never tried to remake the fire. Every parallel world is different SOLELY in who the main character is.

Most of the actual game is unimportant. You can skip every boss before Sen's except for Quelaag and the Bell Gargoyles. You can become a darkwraith and abandon the fire or you can join the Way of White and link it. Even the bosses you have to kill are only important because there is no way around them. The only IMPORTANT part of the actual gameplay is when you kill Gwyn (because of the decision that immediately follows), and the only detail important enough to change between worlds is who the main character is.

After you kill Gwyn, you (and you alone) immediately warp back in time. This isn't "Hard mode unlocked"; Your inventory, your skills, and your memory are all retained. You keep your armor, your stats don't deteriorate, and you remember your spells. You are warping back in time, as if time is looped. The only other media I know of that has covered a similar scenario is Groundhog Day, and if it follows that it means that there is some alternative ending (lorewise) that would break the time-loop.

I think the fire is symbolic. It represents heat, life, light; basically, energy of any and all forms. It is the "soul" of the universe; the battery, so to speak. Magic is ALWAYS symbolic; Fey are weak against iron, vampires hate garlic, werewolves are weak to silver. It is possible that linking the flame isn't a physical "process", so much as it is a symbolic offering. You offer up your life, your "energy", in order to allow the universe to live on a while longer.

JohnnyHarpoon wrote:

Shkar wrote:Alright, here goes. Remember that I am very possibly wrong about the science parts I mention in the next paragraph.

"Time" exists even without light; it's a simple representation of how things change. Even if there was no light, a rock suspended in the air would still fall over the course of a few seconds. Heck, light can be slowed down. Every discussion about relativity talks about time from the point of view of an individual; the "frame of reference". What they forget is that nature doesn't go off us, nature goes off the view of the universe as a whole. In that aspect, space is the equivalent of a movie and time is the bar you use to select what part to watch. "Freezing time" would be the equivalent of freezing height so that you wouldn't fall or climb up hills or etc; it just doesn't make sense.

Now, the obvious part of this whole time debate is that we are dealing with "parallel" timelines. This implies some kind of multiverse theory, but the only alternate dimensions we ever hear about are the ones where someone else is the main character. That is literally the only difference. They still have to ring the bells, they still have to get the lordvessel, they still need to kill Gwyn. We aren't dealing with a normal multiverse theory where every possible alternative happens in some parallel universe. There isn't a world referenced where, say, The Witch never tried to remake the fire. Every parallel world is different SOLELY in who the main character is.

Most of the actual game is unimportant. You can skip every boss before Sen's except for Quelaag and the Bell Gargoyles. You can become a darkwraith and abandon the fire or you can join the Way of White and link it. Even the bosses you have to kill are only important because there is no way around them. The only IMPORTANT part of the actual gameplay is when you kill Gwyn (because of the decision that immediately follows), and the only detail important enough to change between worlds is who the main character is.

After you kill Gwyn, you (and you alone) immediately warp back in time. This isn't "Hard mode unlocked"; Your inventory, your skills, and your memory are all retained. You keep your armor, your stats don't deteriorate, and you remember your spells. You are warping back in time, as if time is looped. The only other media I know of that has covered a similar scenario is Groundhog Day, and if it follows that it means that there is some alternative ending (lorewise) that would break the time-loop.

I think the fire is symbolic. It represents heat, life, light; basically, energy of any and all forms. It is the "soul" of the universe; the battery, so to speak. Magic is ALWAYS symbolic; Fey are weak against iron, vampires hate garlic, werewolves are weak to silver. It is possible that linking the flame isn't a physical "process", so much as it is a symbolic offering. You offer up your life, your "energy", in order to allow the universe to live on a while longer.

I suppose you could argue that time exists in darkness, but one's perception of time, which is all that really counts, is entirely based upon light, and their relative speed in the universe.

Time for a a physics lesson:
First, you just kind of have to understand that, generally speaking, nothing travels faster than light...which is obvious, anyway. But also, the speed of light in a vacuum is a very important constant throughout all of physics, so 'slowing light down' is not quite so easily done as said.

Anyway, I think it also important to understand how light works. If you're looking at me, light is striking me, and then the waves bounces off me and travels from me to your eye. If you see me blink, that means that more light particles have bounced off of me in the instant I blinked, and those new particles then went and and hit your eye. The only reason you see things is because light waves bounce off of them, and right into your eyeball.

Now, to start incorporating time, a good example is looking at a distant object in the night sky (pretty much anything except a planet in our solar system, their moons, or the Sun).

All of these things are lightyears and lightyears away from us. Now, a lightyear is actually a measure of distance - not time - as it is the distance that light (traveling faster than anything else in the Universe) can travel through space in one year.

Now, given these things are lightyears away from us, we actually see them in the past - if we see a planet 3 million lightyears away from us, that essentially means that, 3 million years ago, light struck and was reflected off that planet...it traveled through space for 3 million years...until the lightwaves reach us, now. But, given it took these waves 3 million years to reach us, we are actually looking at the planet 3 million years ago!

Now, who's reality is distorted?

But anyway, my grand point is, essentially, if you could travel at the speed of light...the lightwaves around would be at a stand still - or rather, you would constantly be moving with the same particles of light, everywhere you go. Effectively, you would be frozen in time, as you would consistently see the universe in one singular instance of light.

Instead, however, Dark Souls seems to have a twist. Instead of you being accelerated to the speed of light, it is almost as if the 'speed of light', that universal constant, is now slowing down, faltering, dying...and the very fabric of time now wavers.

Shkar wrote:When it says time is distorted, ot most likely doesn't include forward and backward much. Instead, it seems probable that the "distortion" is in fact "sideways". Alternate timelines. Timelines where the only discernible difference is who the player character is.

Shkar wrote:

JohnnyHarpoon wrote:

Shkar wrote:Alright, here goes. Remember that I am very possibly wrong about the science parts I mention in the next paragraph.

"Time" exists even without light; it's a simple representation of how things change. Even if there was no light, a rock suspended in the air would still fall over the course of a few seconds. Heck, light can be slowed down. Every discussion about relativity talks about time from the point of view of an individual; the "frame of reference". What they forget is that nature doesn't go off us, nature goes off the view of the universe as a whole. In that aspect, space is the equivalent of a movie and time is the bar you use to select what part to watch. "Freezing time" would be the equivalent of freezing height so that you wouldn't fall or climb up hills or etc; it just doesn't make sense.

Now, the obvious part of this whole time debate is that we are dealing with "parallel" timelines. This implies some kind of multiverse theory, but the only alternate dimensions we ever hear about are the ones where someone else is the main character. That is literally the only difference. They still have to ring the bells, they still have to get the lordvessel, they still need to kill Gwyn. We aren't dealing with a normal multiverse theory where every possible alternative happens in some parallel universe. There isn't a world referenced where, say, The Witch never tried to remake the fire. Every parallel world is different SOLELY in who the main character is.

Most of the actual game is unimportant. You can skip every boss before Sen's except for Quelaag and the Bell Gargoyles. You can become a darkwraith and abandon the fire or you can join the Way of White and link it. Even the bosses you have to kill are only important because there is no way around them. The only IMPORTANT part of the actual gameplay is when you kill Gwyn (because of the decision that immediately follows), and the only detail important enough to change between worlds is who the main character is.

After you kill Gwyn, you (and you alone) immediately warp back in time. This isn't "Hard mode unlocked"; Your inventory, your skills, and your memory are all retained. You keep your armor, your stats don't deteriorate, and you remember your spells. You are warping back in time, as if time is looped. The only other media I know of that has covered a similar scenario is Groundhog Day, and if it follows that it means that there is some alternative ending (lorewise) that would break the time-loop.

I think the fire is symbolic. It represents heat, life, light; basically, energy of any and all forms. It is the "soul" of the universe; the battery, so to speak. Magic is ALWAYS symbolic; Fey are weak against iron, vampires hate garlic, werewolves are weak to silver. It is possible that linking the flame isn't a physical "process", so much as it is a symbolic offering. You offer up your life, your "energy", in order to allow the universe to live on a while longer.

I suppose you could argue that time exists in darkness, but one's perception of time, which is all that really counts, is entirely based upon light, and their relative speed in the universe.

Time for a a physics lesson:
First, you just kind of have to understand that, generally speaking, nothing travels faster than light...which is obvious, anyway. But also, the speed of light in a vacuum is a very important constant throughout all of physics, so 'slowing light down' is not quite so easily done as said.

Anyway, I think it also important to understand how light works. If you're looking at me, light is striking me, and then the waves bounces off me and travels from me to your eye. If you see me blink, that means that more light particles have bounced off of me in the instant I blinked, and those new particles then went and and hit your eye. The only reason you see things is because light waves bounce off of them, and right into your eyeball.

Now, to start incorporating time, a good example is looking at a distant object in the night sky (pretty much anything except a planet in our solar system, their moons, or the Sun).

All of these things are lightyears and lightyears away from us. Now, a lightyear is actually a measure of distance - not time - as it is the distance that light (traveling faster than anything else in the Universe) can travel through space in one year.

Now, given these things are lightyears away from us, we actually see them in the past - if we see a planet 3 million lightyears away from us, that essentially means that, 3 million years ago, light struck and was reflected off that planet...it traveled through space for 3 million years...until the lightwaves reach us, now. But, given it took these waves 3 million years to reach us, we are actually looking at the planet 3 million years ago!

Now, who's reality is distorted?

But anyway, my grand point is, essentially, if you could travel at the speed of light...the lightwaves around would be at a stand still - or rather, you would constantly be moving with the same particles of light, everywhere you go. Effectively, you would be frozen in time, as you would consistently see the universe in one singular instance of light.

Instead, however, Dark Souls seems to have a twist. Instead of you being accelerated to the speed of light, it is almost as if the 'speed of light', that universal constant, is now slowing down, faltering, dying...and the very fabric of time now wavers.

Slowing down light is actually fairly simple (comparatively). It isn't some theory that someone thought up and is dozens of years beyond our skills; they have actually gone and slowed down light to the speed of normal traffic. The speed of light is the maximum speed because it is massless (at rest). Since it is just pure energy, it doesn't have to take a crapload of energy to accelerate it.

Now, light waves don't actually "bounce" off an object, like most people think. They are actually absorbed by the atoms they hit, which uses that energy to "boost" the energy level of its electrons. When the energy level drops back down, the energy is released as light.

Now, I don't see how you could actually "lower the speed of light" in a vacuum too any discernible degree, but it wouldn't have the effects the flame dying has. Yes, our sense of time would be thrown off, but time would still be flowing at the same rate. People wouldn't stop dying, the sun wouldn't fade, time wouldn't loop.

Deathsitexxi wrote:

I’ve gotta say that I can’t even jump into this conversation with you guys due to my lack of knowledge on the subject. I have a friend that loves this type of stuff and after reading both of your posts he wants to play Dark Souls now lol (been trying to talk him into it for almost a year now). The only thing I really wanted to add was something I thought of while playing this weekend that I have not given much thought to until we started talking about this. Maybe this is just a game mechanic similar to the other things we are talking about, but with all the detail in this game why is there no day or night cycle? In game it seems as if “Nature’s Clock” has stopped, whether or not the people’s time is moving forward or not. Anyways guys, thank you so much for making this post much more interesting then I was originally thinking it would be!

Shkar wrote:

JohnnyHarpoon wrote:

Shkar wrote:Alright, here goes. Remember that I am very possibly wrong about the science parts I mention in the next paragraph.

"Time" exists even without light; it's a simple representation of how things change. Even if there was no light, a rock suspended in the air would still fall over the course of a few seconds. Heck, light can be slowed down. Every discussion about relativity talks about time from the point of view of an individual; the "frame of reference". What they forget is that nature doesn't go off us, nature goes off the view of the universe as a whole. In that aspect, space is the equivalent of a movie and time is the bar you use to select what part to watch. "Freezing time" would be the equivalent of freezing height so that you wouldn't fall or climb up hills or etc; it just doesn't make sense.

Now, the obvious part of this whole time debate is that we are dealing with "parallel" timelines. This implies some kind of multiverse theory, but the only alternate dimensions we ever hear about are the ones where someone else is the main character. That is literally the only difference. They still have to ring the bells, they still have to get the lordvessel, they still need to kill Gwyn. We aren't dealing with a normal multiverse theory where every possible alternative happens in some parallel universe. There isn't a world referenced where, say, The Witch never tried to remake the fire. Every parallel world is different SOLELY in who the main character is.

Most of the actual game is unimportant. You can skip every boss before Sen's except for Quelaag and the Bell Gargoyles. You can become a darkwraith and abandon the fire or you can join the Way of White and link it. Even the bosses you have to kill are only important because there is no way around them. The only IMPORTANT part of the actual gameplay is when you kill Gwyn (because of the decision that immediately follows), and the only detail important enough to change between worlds is who the main character is.

After you kill Gwyn, you (and you alone) immediately warp back in time. This isn't "Hard mode unlocked"; Your inventory, your skills, and your memory are all retained. You keep your armor, your stats don't deteriorate, and you remember your spells. You are warping back in time, as if time is looped. The only other media I know of that has covered a similar scenario is Groundhog Day, and if it follows that it means that there is some alternative ending (lorewise) that would break the time-loop.

I think the fire is symbolic. It represents heat, life, light; basically, energy of any and all forms. It is the "soul" of the universe; the battery, so to speak. Magic is ALWAYS symbolic; Fey are weak against iron, vampires hate garlic, werewolves are weak to silver. It is possible that linking the flame isn't a physical "process", so much as it is a symbolic offering. You offer up your life, your "energy", in order to allow the universe to live on a while longer.

I suppose you could argue that time exists in darkness, but one's perception of time, which is all that really counts, is entirely based upon light, and their relative speed in the universe.

Time for a a physics lesson:
First, you just kind of have to understand that, generally speaking, nothing travels faster than light...which is obvious, anyway. But also, the speed of light in a vacuum is a very important constant throughout all of physics, so 'slowing light down' is not quite so easily done as said.

Anyway, I think it also important to understand how light works. If you're looking at me, light is striking me, and then the waves bounces off me and travels from me to your eye. If you see me blink, that means that more light particles have bounced off of me in the instant I blinked, and those new particles then went and and hit your eye. The only reason you see things is because light waves bounce off of them, and right into your eyeball.

Now, to start incorporating time, a good example is looking at a distant object in the night sky (pretty much anything except a planet in our solar system, their moons, or the Sun).

All of these things are lightyears and lightyears away from us. Now, a lightyear is actually a measure of distance - not time - as it is the distance that light (traveling faster than anything else in the Universe) can travel through space in one year.

Now, given these things are lightyears away from us, we actually see them in the past - if we see a planet 3 million lightyears away from us, that essentially means that, 3 million years ago, light struck and was reflected off that planet...it traveled through space for 3 million years...until the lightwaves reach us, now. But, given it took these waves 3 million years to reach us, we are actually looking at the planet 3 million years ago!

Now, who's reality is distorted?

But anyway, my grand point is, essentially, if you could travel at the speed of light...the lightwaves around would be at a stand still - or rather, you would constantly be moving with the same particles of light, everywhere you go. Effectively, you would be frozen in time, as you would consistently see the universe in one singular instance of light.

Instead, however, Dark Souls seems to have a twist. Instead of you being accelerated to the speed of light, it is almost as if the 'speed of light', that universal constant, is now slowing down, faltering, dying...and the very fabric of time now wavers.

Slowing down light is actually fairly simple (comparatively). It isn't some theory that someone thought up and is dozens of years beyond our skills; they have actually gone and slowed down light to the speed of normal traffic. The speed of light is the maximum speed because it is massless (at rest). Since it is just pure energy, it doesn't have to take a crapload of energy to accelerate it.

Now, light waves don't actually "bounce" off an object, like most people think. They are actually absorbed by the atoms they hit, which uses that energy to "boost" the energy level of its electrons. When the energy level drops back down, the energy is released as light.

Now, I don't see how you could actually "lower the speed of light" in a vacuum too any discernible degree, but it wouldn't have the effects the flame dying has. Yes, our sense of time would be thrown off, but time would still be flowing at the same rate. People wouldn't stop dying, the sun wouldn't fade, time wouldn't loop.

BaalDS wrote:I just read through all of this and wanted to say that I think this has been a great post. Very interesting!

Shkar wrote:

Deathsitexxi wrote:

I’ve gotta say that I can’t even jump into this conversation with you guys due to my lack of knowledge on the subject. I have a friend that loves this type of stuff and after reading both of your posts he wants to play Dark Souls now lol (been trying to talk him into it for almost a year now). The only thing I really wanted to add was something I thought of while playing this weekend that I have not given much thought to until we started talking about this. Maybe this is just a game mechanic similar to the other things we are talking about, but with all the detail in this game why is there no day or night cycle? In game it seems as if “Nature’s Clock” has stopped, whether or not the people’s time is moving forward or not. Anyways guys, thank you so much for making this post much more interesting then I was originally thinking it would be!

I think that's a simple design aspect. It would be a huge undertaking to go through and make the game actually have the capability to do that, and we know for a fact they cut aspects due to time. If you notice, as you progress through the areas it does seem to get "later". It's near sunset when you get to Anor Londo.