Fridge / Dark Souls

aka: Dark Souls

As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Fridge Brilliance

• During the opening sequence, the four Bearers of Lord Souls are listed in accordance with how important they are in the story. First, there's Nito, who doesn't do a whole lot aside from sleep in a coffin and lead a covenant. Then, there's the Witch of Izalith, who accidentally created the Bed of Chaos, which is where all the demons come from. Then there's Gwyn, who led the battle against the dragons and started the Age of Fire and eventually has to use himself as kindling to keep the First Flame going. Finally, there's the Pygmy, and if the WMG page is anything to go by, he had everything planned from the start, and also found the titular Dark Soul, which all humans possess. Funny how the most important character in the game is mentioned only once.
  • Also, in the Furtive Pygmy's introduction, he casts a disproportionately long shadow as he stands up.
• Quelaag wasn't guarding the Bell of Awakening at all, it just happened to be there. She was defending her defenseless sister from the heavily armed Undead who just broke into their home.
  • Another really brilliant theory is that since Quelaag's sister will stop mentioning the pain after feeding her enough humanity, it is likely Quelaag set up shop there specifically to kill and steal the humanity of all the undead that march through the area trying to ring the bell.
• The Crestfallen Warrior describes Frampt as having very terrible breath. The fact that the serpent will eat just about anything probably has something to do with this... but if one offers to feed him a Dung Pie, they'll see he offers a surprisingly high price of 200 souls. Frampt must really enjoy the taste of fecal matter.
  • Crosses into Fridge Horror when you remember how you get to Firelink Altar, by being carried in his mouth...
• Remember the gigantic, gigantic rat you fight in the Depths? If you look closely enough, there's an axe embedded on its left eye. Now do you remember that one of the corpses on the upper floor (that you can access via the Butcher's chute) has a Spider Shield? Both the Axe and the Spider Shield are the Bandit's starting equipment, and in that area particularly are freshly killed human beings, one with a Humanity attached to it. Yes, there were bandits that attacked the damn thing and they didn't survive to tell the tale. Poor bastards...
• The Man-Eating Oysters in Ash Lake have five legs to support them. Yet they are unbalanced due to their body structure. So top-heavy in fact, that they actually have poor stability in-game and nearly any strong attack (except from smaller weapons) will throw them off balance. The strong attack from an Ultra Greatsword will actually make them flip backwards, flailing their legs.
  • Crosses into Fridge Horror considering the way some items and enemies in the game are implied to have been made.
• You can get the armor and weapons from a lot of characters by effectively leading them to the events that cause their death. For example, you invade Lautrec's world and kill him, while Beatrice dies sometime after she helps you kill the Four Kings. One odd exception, though, is Iron Knight Tarkus; whether or not you summoned him for the Iron Golem, you'll always find his armor under the painting in Anor Londo. But then, if you do summon him, you'll see that he's perfectly capable of handling the Golem all by himself! In Tarkus' world, he was able to get past the Golem without any outside help.
  • Related to this: you find Tarkus' armor right in front of the painting in Anor Londo. Tarkus uses a BFS and wears heavy armor, neither of which are ideal on the rafters above the painting's chamber. With his weightiness and lack of finesse, it's hard to keep his footing under those circumstances, and he's especially vulnerable to the more nimble guardians perched on the rafters, making it very easy to send him plummeting to his death. Alternatively, Tarkus may have attempted to fight the Painting Guardians on the floor in front of the painting, who used their natural agility to avoid his powerful and cumbersome attacks and overpowered him with their raw numbers.
  • Peeking into Tarkus' stats reveals that he has a copy of Havel's Ring, which not only explains why he can wear so much armor without being slowed to a crawl, but also implies that Tarkus was either a follower of Havel the Rock, or like the player, he claimed it by defeating Havel. One can only imagine how that fight went...
• Why do you find Paladin Leeroy's body and armor in Gravelord Nito's chamber? Remember how you can stir up skeletons by moving into certain places of the tomb, and how the fight is generally easier if you stay out of the southern area (where all of the Giant Skeletons are)? Looks like while Leeroy was attempting to fight the Gravelord himself, he lived up to his original namesake.
• If you look at the two elevators in the room where you fight Ornstein and Smough that lead up to Gwynevere, they are completely different sizes. One could pass this off as asymmetrical design, which is strange in a place like Anor Londo, where a lot of the scenery is perfectly aligned. Then you remember a certain trait pertaining to Smough and that larger elevator on the right makes a lot more sense.
  • Alternately, considering the size difference between humans and gods, the left-side elevator is for humans and the right-side one is for gods.
  • There are also stairs of two distinct sizes leading to Gwynevere's chamber.
  • And also two kinds of stairs leading up the main hall of Anor Londo. Seriously, the whole place is geared towards both giants and humans.
• The only way to have a "No death/Souls Lost" run is to wear the ring of sacrifice; guess what you need to avoid dying with souls? By trading a piece of humanity. Guess the ritual involves giving up one's humanity to keep their soul.
• Small Fridge: Humanity in soul's shadow form is probably the reason why people from different cultures, even the ones that hide from the gods, can understand each other; absorbing someone else's humanity means you recycle a portion of their skills and individuality into your soul, including a part of being human: speech. Second, the reason why the main character can understand everyone intelligible at any time is because they inherited the dark soul from their ancestors; if the Dark Soul allows its possessor to produce a (really small) humanity every time they almost go hollow, why not produce a humanity with all languages? That would explain how the main character talks to giant cats and mushrooms.
  • The only characters in the game you are unable to naturally communicate with are an Everlasting Dragon and a sickly God — both creatures who do not possess their own humanities.
• It's only natural that the Pinwheel would be an easy Breather Boss. He's not some ancient demon of yore, he's just a more capable Necromancer you bump into after you're strong enough to take on the freaking gods themselves.
  • In addition, the Pinwheel the player fights has most of his power devoted elsewhere. During the fight with him/she/them/it, Pinwheel creates copies/servants that go down in one good hit. Right outside Nito's boss room are several much tougher Pinwheel servants, as well as infinitely spawning baby skeletons. Most likely Pinwheel had to put most of his power into holding Nito in place and guarding him while he/she/they/it conducted whatever research they were up to with the piles of books in the boss room, to the point where the servants persist even after the main Pinwheel is killed.
  • Looking at the difference in power between the two, one cannot help but wonder how Pinwheel was able to pull off stealing anything from Nito without getting completely destroyed, considering even the Chosen Undead can have difficulty with him. Then you take a closer look at Pinwheel's move set. He can teleport around the area somewhat quickly, create an infinite amount of copies of himself, and all his offensive abilities are fire-based, which Nito is weak against! Meanwhile, Nito is large, slow, and cumbersome. Then look at the two boss arenas. While you fight Pinwheel in a cramped gigantic coffin, Nito's arena is much larger, with a pillar in the middle for cover. Finally, taking into consideration that Pinwheel's copies can attack as well, and he can churn out a large amount of them if given the chance, and suddenly it becomes clear how this guy was able to tango with Nito.
    • Pinwheel actually still can; pitting him against Nito boss-on-boss, as in this video, results in Pinwheel winning more often than not.
  • Finally, some brilliance from a Doylist perspective: Pinwheel is an easy boss by the time you reach him because he's scaled as an early-game boss. A player who knows what they're doing can get through the Catacombs as soon as they arrive at Firelink Shrine, by taking a couple strategic drops down the side of the cliff. Additionally, the early areas contain a free Ring Of Sacrifice that can be used to skip the trip back up, and the Rite of Kindling Pinwheel drops is incredibly useful in the early game. It's also worth noting that fighting him at this stage actually is reasonably difficult; his Doppelgänger Attack abilities make it so the player has to focus down his clones, which will Zerg Rush if left unchecked. In other words, From Software designed him with Sequence Breaking in mind. Kudos, guys.
• You know why it seems like your character never turns hollowed no matter how many times they die, or how much souls and humanity they lost? Because you, the player, did not give up. All of the characters that turned hollowed in the game are those who, after receiving enough punishment from the unforgiving world of Dark Souls, slowly turned insane and thus, hollowed. If at any point the player gives up and stops playing the game as a whole, that is when their character starts turning hollowed.
• One might be surprised that Gwyn is very weak to fire, while he himself is wielding a burning greatsword and spent an incredible amount of time burning in the Kiln of the First Flame. Yet, when you stop to think about it, by using fire spells and equipment, you are actually making Gwyn burn out faster. The Age of Fire is ending, Gwyn has become Lord of Cinder, and you are accelerating the process by using Pyromancy/fire weapons. Just something to consider.
  • Similarly, the Demon Firesage is weak to fire, despite being wreathed in the stuff, to no ill effect. According to the text on his catalyst, the Demon Firesage is the last practitioner of a fire-based sorcery that preceded pyromancy. One can infer that pyromancy itself constituted an improvement in technique, and thus is effective against him.
• Witch Beatrice's less-than-stellar performance as a Summon against the Four Kings may have been deliberate on the developers' part: if she had so much difficulty beating them with your help, what the Izalith was she thinking taking them on by herself?! No wonder she was killed.
  • Not only that, but the two boss fights you can summon Beatrice for are the Four Kings and the Moonlight Butterfly. Notably, you can't summon her to fight Sif even though they're not far away from each other. If Beatrice never fought Sif in her own time, then she didn't get the Covenant of Artorias and would have died just from entering the Abyss, much less fighting the Four Kings.
• Have you wondered why the Bells Of Awakening are called that? At first, it seems to be just for dramatic effect or maybe metaphorical, like their ringing awakens you to your destiny. But no, they're just Frampt's wake-up call.
• Of the three invasion points where Kirk attacks you, the Depths seemingly makes the least amount of sense. Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith are close enough to the Chaos Covenant, yet the Depths is a good distance away. Until you realize that the rats there have among the best drop rate for Humanity in the game, which is above all things what Kirk needs more than anything else. Seems even NPCs aren't entirely above farming when times are tough...
• Frampt sending you to kill Gravelord Nito, the Witch of Izalith, the Four Kings, and Seath the Scaleless looks, at first glance, like a pretty straightforward task of recovering the Lord Souls. However, if you look a bit closer, one can note that taking out these entities isn't just a matter of recovering their Lord Souls. The Four Kings and the Abyss are a serious threat to Anor Londo; the situation is only contained by the flooding of the city, and all it takes is someone opening the city's gate for the water to go and Darkwraiths to start rising again. The Witch of Izalith is spawning endless hordes of powerful demons as the Bed of Chaos, something that Gwyn and his army in their prime barely beat back. Seath the Scaleless is completely batshit crazy and conducting horrible experiments right outside the main palace of the gods, and his agents are roaming around the country grabbing victims wherever they can. And while Gravelord Nito is relatively passive, necromancers by the bucketload are camping in the Catacombs and raising their own brands of undead, not that far from Anor Londo itself. Remember that Frampt and Gwyndolin are trying to maintain their power in Lordran and the power of the gods in the rest of the world by Linking the Fire, and in order to reestablish that power and rebuild Lordran, they've got to get rid of all these beings who are causing trouble in their backyard. So along comes a badass Chosen Undead who proves his/her willingness to go this far on his/her quest — an ideal weapon to dispose of these troublemakers....
• Gwyn is a bit of an Anti-Climax Boss. While he hits like a freight train and moves fast, it's nothing you haven't dealt with by that point, and far more dangerous and unfair bosses have been pounding you the rest of the way through the game thus far. But this makes sense, as the Lord Soul that gave him all his power has been bequeathed to Seath the Scaleless and the Four Kings. What's left is a crazed old man with a big sword and fire/lightning magic, but little else. If you'd faced Gwyn at his prime....
• Why is it that darkness, with no more fire, could be good for humans? Because then their humanity won't be used to feed fire anymore.
• If Lautrec is truly as self-serving as in-game items say, why is he available for summoning twice? Because he gets something out of it too. Both times you summon him, you can also summon Solaire. When a Knight of Sunlight is summoned and a boss killed, all participants (summoner and summoned alike) get a sunlight medal. Even when he seems to be helping you, he's really helping himself. The fact that he gives you a sunlight medal as thanks for freeing him suggest it's a regular thing for him.
• Hawkeye Gough's line is as follows: "The dragons shall never be forgotten… We knights fought valiantly, but for every one of them, we lost three score of our own. Exhilaration, pride, hatred, rage… The dragons teased out our dearest emotions …Thou will understand, one day." Pay careful attention to that last line. He's talking about the Dark Souls experience. All of the frustration of the game brings out all those emotions.
• How does the Chosen Undead return to a bonfire after dying or dropping off of a large cliff? By using their Dark Sign, which returns the player to the bonfire minus their souls and can be used at any time.
• Dark Souls is a dark game. Darkness is overcoming everything, as the gods themselves fall and the flames fade. Now, what soul did the Undead inherit again? Darkness Overcomes becomes a whole lot more literal.
• Relatedly, in Kaathe's ending, you become the "Dark Lord" of humanity. Now, most of us have been so spoiled with other fantasy series like The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars that "Dark Lord" sounds incredibly clichéd, and almost immediately brings to mind the Big Bad trope. However, there's a very good reason the writers chose that specific wording. The other god-like beings in this game, namely Gwyn, Nito, the Witch of Izalith, and the Furtive Pygmy, are also referred to as "Lords." Gwyn being the Lord of Sunlight, Nito being Lord of Death, and the Witch of Izalith being Lord of Life, with at least the former two being called by those names in-game. "Dark Lord" just means "Lord of Dark," or whoever has achieved mastery of the Dark Soul (for evil or good) and who is on par with the other Lords in strength, which you've proven by personally defeating each and every one of them (possibly including your predecessor, if you count Manus as the Pygmy).
• You know how when you kill another character, they disappear from the game, but if you die you just respawn at the bonfire. This can be chalked up to game mechanics, or it could be that they are sent into their world's bonfire. Remember when Solaire says 'There's no telling how much longer your world and mine will remain in contact.'? So when you kill an NPC, you're just separating him/her from your world and sending them back to theirs. That's why they 'die' in the game.
• Priscilla sounds like she's out of her mind when she says that the inhabitants of the Painted World of Aramis are peaceful and kind when you had to fight your way through a horde of Demonic Spiders just to get to her. But if you pay attention to the lore, you'll find that she was sealed away with some of her loyal servants. Of course they're peaceful and kind... to her. You, however, are an intruder, and have to be dealt with in order to protect her.
  • Relatedly, consider the Crow Demons. They're the only enemy in the game to drop Souvenirs of Reprisal (the severed ears of sinners). Mechanically, attacking Priscilla is deemed a sin; the Crow Demons likely took the ears as trophies from other people who braved the Painted World with presumably hostile intent.
• Smough's Soul is fairly valuable if consumed, but Frampt gives you a mere 1 Soul if you offer it to him. Seems a bit weird... until you remember Smough's cannibalistic habits made him appear repulsive to his own people.
  • Similarly, crystal gear, the Channeler's set, the Moonlight Greatsword, the Moonlight Butterfly Horn, and the Crystal Ring Shield are all worth a whopping 1 soul apiece. Given that all of those items have direct connections to Seathe, it's not exactly surprising that Frampt barely gives the player anything for them.
• If you examine the composite 3D map of Lordran, several interesting details become apparent:
  • Anor Londo and the Everlasting Dragon's lair are quite literally located on the opposite ends of the game world. Makes a lot of sense for the last dragon to get as far away as it can from the dragon-slaying gods' base of operations.
  • The Lost Izalith is located directly underneath Anor Londo — not surprising, considering the (strongly implied) alliance between the Goddess of Life and the God of Light and their respective families. Conversely, Nito (God of Death) and the Witch seem to have tried to place as much stone between themselves as possible.
  • The chamber where you fight the Gaping Dragon drains the sewage directly into Blighttown... and just happens to be situated directly above the sarcophagus of Gravelord Nito, whose propensity for "miasma of disease" is mentioned as early as the intro cutscene. In other words, the "Blight" part of "Blighttown" is likely Nito's doing!
• Gwyndolin fighting the Chosen Undead makes sense when you consider the actions that must be done to fight him. The first way is to equip a certain ring and enter into the honorary tomb of Gwyn against his instructions; this no doubt is a Berserk Button for him. The other way, however, is to attack the illusion of Gwynevere. This is probably the way many players discovered Gwyndolin, so in a sense, he fights you because you're possibly a threat to him. The act of attacking a god (illusion or not) is probably deemed as a big sin in the setting. In a way, his reaction is justified.
• Why is the Black Knight Sword a greatsword, and the Black Knight Greatsword an ultra greatsword? Because Black Knights are quite a bit bigger than you. To them the weapons are the size of a straight sword and a greatsword. Still doesn't explain why the weapon just called "Greatsword" is an ultra greatsword, though...
• Both Witch Beatrice and Black Iron Tarkus are capable of soloing their respective bosses by beating them at their own game — Beatrice out-spams the Moonlight Butterfly with sorcery, and Tarkus overpowers the Iron Golem through sheer strength — but die when their highly specialized builds can't adapt to other situations. Beatrice is overwhelmed from multiple angles by the Four Kings, and Tarkus falls to an ignoble death thanks to his sluggishness. The Chosen Undead, on the other hand, is almost certainly more versatile, and willing to adapt, as well as change up their gear.
• The popular giantdad build relies primarily on a zweihander, heavy armor, and an aggressive style that makes passive, defensive play difficult. Historically, the landsknect, normally armed with halberds and pikes, had designated "double pay men" (doppelsöldners), who were paid double for their position. Their job was to serve as a vanguard and charge into enemy formations of pikemen with, you guessed it, a zweihander and heavy armor, breaking their ranks. History repeats in ways we might not expect.
  • Siegmeyer's build is actually quite similar to the Giantdad: he has the same zweihander, and the Catarina Set is some of the strongest, heaviest, and most poise-buffing Medium Armor in the game, just like the Giant Set. His only problem is that he's not optimized for fast-rolling, making him a Mighty Glacier instead of a Lightning Bruiser, but otherwise the same basic fighting style. And yes, he fights like a double pay man against the Chaos Eaters in Lost Izalith: no tricks, just running up to the nearest enemy to chop them up while screaming as loud as he can to break the enemy ranks while relying on his armor to carry him through.
• Some players might find it frustrating or unfair that there are no bonfires to be found in New Londo, especially before a fight as difficult as The Four Kings. However, this is actually an example of forward thinking in both lore and game design, because the whole place was flooded to keep the Abyss from leaking out into the rest of the world. Suddenly, it makes sense that any bonfires that did exist there have been long since extinguished, either by the water or smothered by the Abyss.
• Once you're tasked with getting the Lord Souls, you have four places to get them from, in whatever order you choose: New Londo Ruins, The Duke's Archives, Tomb of the Giants, and Lost Izalith. Considering all the items and NPCs you find there, these areas seem to have individual focuses for the elements, giving players items for spells and weapon upgrades of the corresponding element. The Duke's Archives focuses on sorceries/intelligence, Tomb of the Giants focuses on miracles/faith, Lost Izalith focuses on pyromancies and fire weapons, and New Londo Ruins focuses on physical weapon upgrades. These are late-game areas, so by the time they get to them, the average player will likely be working towards a specialized build of some kind. That considered, the option to choose which area to play first is actually a clever game design choice, since it offers players an easy path to get the best late-game items for their build, whatever that build is. In fact, New Londo Ruins can be played through at any time, not just late-game, which makes perfect sense, since a relatively large number of players will be focusing on physical damage rather than elemental damage.
• Though by now word-of-mouth has practically made his existence common knowledge, Darkstalker Kaathe was surprisingly well-hidden when the game was first released, and for good reason. If you don't complete New Londo until the game outright tells you to go there, you'll never meet him, as you'll have placed the Lordvessel under Frampt's guidance and missed your chance. And to realize that New Londo can be completed early, the player would have to notice that the Four Kings are the only Lord Soul-bearing boss with no golden fog gate making them inaccessible. Even then, the player would also need to either A) know not to run off and place the Lordvessel as soon as they acquire it, or B) kill Ingward (a non-hostile and potentially useful NPC) for his key to the floodgates. Both options require deviating quite a bit from the path the rest of the game wants you to follow... and a player like that is just the kind of deviant Kaathe is looking for to throw Gwyn's plan fully off the rails and become the new Dark Lord.
• The Darksign is at the heart of the Vicious Cycle. It also is the Vicious Cycle; it's literally shaped like a circle!
• Gwyn's theme is a sad piano-driven waltz which, when viewed on a music sheet, avoids black keys entirely. It really adds a new meaning to Gwyn's character; an old man scared of the Darkness.
• Consider "Trusty" Patches. His name may seem like an Honest John's Dealership kinda deal, but think about it this way: Patches appears in nearly every game in the series, and you can always trust that he'll do the same: Give you a kick, and then becomes a merchant. In a weird way, he's one of the most trustworthy people in the franchise.
  • Also, the fact that he becomes a merchant after giving you a kick; when he kicks you, he runs under the assumption that he can just kill you and take your stuff (or, more likely, trap you someplace until you go Hollow, then steal your stuff). He gives it up after you show him the flaw in that plan: you're Undead, and a Determinator at that, which means you can rather easily make your way back to him (possibly by dying) and kick him in turn. Rather than push his luck with other Undead, he decides to make an honest (well, "honest") living instead.
• Aside from the Duke's Archives, there are two places you can find a Channeler; one is in the loft of the Undead Parish, and the other is in The Depths. Both locations contain objects that would be of great interest to Immortality Seeker Seath: the loft overlooks an area with a Firekeeper's soul; since the bonfires are a focal point for the undead's Resurrective Immortality, so of course Seath wants one. The Channeler in the Depths, on the other hand, is most likely there for the Gaping Dragon, which is likely since he outright interferes in the fight if you don't take care of him. If the name is literal, we have a powerful undead dragon Seath would also want to study, possibly so he can become undead as well and stop relying on his crystal Soul Jar.
• Gwynevere's chamber is odd, as the only entrance to it is FAR too small for her. Practically every other part of Anor Londo accounts for the size of the Gods in some way (stairs, elevators, etc.), but not the alleged personal chambers for a member of the royal family. This is your first clue that she isn't real; what is she supposed to do, crawl through the window?

Fridge Horror

• Do only special bonfires have a caretaker or did they all once have one?
  • No, they did not. You cannot sit down at a bonfire after the firekeeper has been killed, as the flame goes out. All of the bonfires without fire keepers are still lit; thus, there were no fire keepers there to begin with.
    • Unless every bonfire actually has a corresponding Fire Keeper, we just never reach them...
• Giant rats drop Humanity. Think about that.
  • That probably doesn't mean what you think it does. They're giant rats. Just like you find corpses with humanity, they most likely end up eating remains with humanity left in them. In the case of the giant giant rat, it probably just ate a guy or something.
    • Ah, Dark Souls, where the less horrifying option is "The giant monster rat was probably just eating human corpses."
• In Duke's Archives, you will encounter strange, squid-head monsters called Pisaca. In the area you fight them in, you will find two non-hostile ones cowering in the corner, and if you get near them, you can hear girls sobbing. If you kill them, you receive two healing miracles, and their descriptions state that they're special miracles granted only to the maidens of Gwynevere, Princess of the Sun. All of these creatures have a chance of dropping Humanity, and the Duke's Archives is used for some unspecified horrifying experiments...
  • The above is made even worse by the fact that Maiden Rhea can be found imprisoned in the Duke's Archives under specific circumstances.
• In a radio interview, the creators state that the maggot ending is the happier ending for Solaire, because if you defeat Gwyn with him, he links the fire in his own world.
  • Which still doesn't mean players won't intentionally get that certain ending. Still, both are subject to Wild Mass Guessing.
• The Purging Stones are extremely important and useful items capable of removing curses, the most debilitating debuff in the game. However, the item description states that humans are powerless against curses and can merely redirect their influence and that the stones were once human or some other creature. When you use a Purging Stone, you aren't erasing the curse, but merely directing it towards some already tortured or dead individual. Arstor, the Earl of Carim, was a messed-up dude.
  • A good way to acquire Twinkling Titanite is to harvest it from the Man-Eater Shells found in the Crystal Forest and Ash Lake. Man-Eater Shells, which are basically giant demonic oysters, are filled with human skulls. By the way, did you know they also drop Purging Stones? Does it mean that the creation of Purging Stones means feeding people into these walking horrors?
  • Arstor, the Earl of Carim was also responsible for the "Bite" rings, which grant resistance against a variety of debuffs. Though nothing specific is named, the game goes out of its way to tell you that the process for creating these rings is abominable.
  • Or at least he saw there is no other way to prevent the effects of a curse, and even beforehand one must give up their humanity to prevent the curses from inflicting them. Once one is officially cursed though, there is no other way to remove it than to pass it on to the dead. Being Cursed is effectively becoming a hollow.
• When you find Artorias in the DLC, one of his arms is broken and hangs limply at his side. When you find Sif, he is protected by the Cleansing Shield, a version of Artorias's shield that is battered and broken. Artorias protected Sif until his arm broke from the force.
  • And consider this: Artorias' left arm was the one that was mangled beyond use. The description of the Majestic Greatsword (all but outright said to be Artorias' sword) in Dark Souls 2 says that all prominent swordsmen that wielded it were left-handed. If used in your left hand, one uses some of Artorias' attacks. So what does this all mean? Artorias wasn't fighting you with his sword hand and he was still that powerful regardless.
• Izalith wasn't always Lost, it was once a living city. Now imagine what it was like for the inhabitants the day the Witch of Izalith became the Bed of Chaos and demons started flooding the streets. Or maybe the people themselves were transformed into the demons the chosen undead fights...
• Look carefully at the teeth of a Mimic. They're actually finger bones.
• In the Undead Burg, you meet a female undead merchant, she sells poison-related items, Moss clumps that cure poison and toxins, arrows, and... Dung Pies? In the Undead Burg and the Parish, the hollows never drop Dung Pies, nor is it found on the ground. What is she selling you, then?
  • The Dung Pie description in Dark Souls 3 implies that Undead don't excrete, so they probably aren't hers, but that just raises further questions as to where (and why) she got them.
• It is said that the Undead can never die; well, not truly, anyway. Unless you go hollow, then you can at last become subject to true death. Fall down seven times, stand up eight, but if eight isn't enough, then you'll go hollow and something will turn up eventually to put you down for good, right? Then it can finally, truly end, right? Right? ...or perhaps not. Perhaps this is just a comforting illusion perpetuated for the sake of avoiding a harsher reality? Perhaps the mad undead you face aren't the final form of hollowing? Perhaps, after you've lost all your higher motivations as a sapient being, you've still got a way to go in your hollowing, until even the more feral motives driving you to attack whoever approaches have left you. Perhaps all those corpses you find scattered across Lordran aren't corpses at all, but undead who have gone so hollow they can't even motivate themselves to so much as twitch as you rifle through their pockets? Think about this the next time you visit the graveyard in the painted world.
• How is Rhea, bearer of several powerful miracles, able to be captured by the Channelers? When you first get to the chapel where she resides (after saving her from the Giant's Tomb), there's a Channeler lying in wait... above and directly behind where she prays. Even if you take that one out, who's to say it doesn't have an unseen replacement? Or a time double, if the time loop theory is true?
  • Except for the fact that she is assassinated by Petrus if you don't purchase all of her miracles. Her inability to fight back against him could possibly be explained that she didn't see the danger until it was too late, and she was inexperienced in melee combat besides. The Channelers only abduct her if you buy every miracle she has... meaning you bought all of her defenses. It's your fault she had nothing left to defend herself with.
  • Alternately, we know that miracles are dependent on a person's faith, and while you normally can't lose stats in Dark Souls, Rhea's faith is pretty roughly tested (if not broken) by what happened at the Giant's Tomb. She may not be able to cast those miracles anymore, which is why she's okay with selling them to you, and why she can't use them to defend herself from Petrus or the Channelers.
• If Knight Kirk isn't actually a Darkwraith, but a Chaos Servant posing as one, then that means he doesn't have a working Red Eye Orb, and therefore he can't invade at will, instead having to make do with cracked orbs like those the player can find. Those orbs are limited per playthrough, so every time he invades someone (like you), he's taking the risk of it being his last one. After you beat him the third time in a row, he stops invading you. You made him waste his last orb, so he can't keep hunting for the humanity needed to keep his version of the Fair Lady alive.
  • Alternatively, he just decided to go after easier prey. No sense wasting Orbs invading someone who can trounce you repeatedly.