Nature of the Flame

What do you think "The Flame" actually is? It seems to be the origin of the Lord Souls and the Dark Soul, but it's been suggested that the Dark Souls grows more powerful as the Flame dies.

I'm fairly sure that the Undead both fear (various item descs, don't quote me) and love the flame (Est), so Linking it may either break the curse or undead may continue to appear.

I've also read and watched that Souls and Humanity respectively represent the Flame and Darkness, but I don't really know where to go with that.

A lot of people call the first flame the flame of disparity because it made disparities in the world. I view it more as the flame of rebellion given form. It represented the anger of the first firekeeper at the dragons. the dark soul confuses me since in the intro its an actual Lord Soul made of fire, yet its meant to be dark.

Also Ive noticed that Nito and BoC's lord souls are small, while if you see the one in front of Gwyn its actually a full on fire.

Humanity is possibly a fragment of the dark soul passed down through the pygmy's descendants.

If humanity is fragments of the Dark Soul then hollowing has something to do with the Flame, but I don't know what.

Do any undead try to get humanity? It's never really clear why enemies attack you, maybe hollows do it because they feel the "warmth" of your humanity and souls, and I know Lautrec said something about it in one of his dialogues.

With any flame there's bound to be ash. I think the Dark Soul is what remained of the original flame, after the lord souls were taken.