HI sorry if you answered this elsewhere, but what are your personal headcanons on Hollowing as a concept? You always have great ones and I'd be super intrigued to hear your take on it !!
O-oh! Thank you so much for asking, anon! I do have a fair few hcs on it, mostly because I find it as a concept to be fascinating and something that can be so much more than a simple loss of purpose and memory turning someone into a mindless beast. Most of my thoughts are based on Dark Souls II, as beyond that just being my favorite game it's also where Hollowing feels the most fleshed out with more in-depth consequences.
Also because my oc Pyralis, in her DS verse, is very much a study for how much being practically Hollow would fuck you up, even if you were restored to your 'true self', which I'll also touch on here because I can.
One of the more important aspects to me is the physical decay the body goes through. I don't think its revolutionary to say that when your hollowing, your body becomes rotten. In DS1 this means turning into jerky and in DS2 this means turning green. (I've never done the Lord of Hollows questline, so I don't actually know what Hollowing looks like in DS3 lol)
Now assume you remained like that for a while. Worse, imagine you die multiple times like that and the state of your body got worse. Putting aside the idea that magic / the Darksign is potentially preserving your body (because that's lame and I don't like it), that means your organs are also getting worse, right?
Someone mostly Hollow, or outright Hollow, is easier to cut down after all.
I think you can even see a more gradual (and more thorough) example of what I mean in Lucatiel of Mirrah; she is undergoing cognitive decay because of the curse in a way that seems similar to the first stages of dementia explicitly because of her Curse. It strips away memories, but it seems to be more than forgetting.
Hollowing preys upon fear. What more is there to fear but the loss of your self, after all?
I'm pretty sure (but not 100%) that it was Lucatiel's questline that directly led to my decision to explore how Hollowing could lead to brain damage with Pyralis. Because sure; your body is no longer rotting when you become Human. Is everything made right inside? It's more interesting if the answer is 'no', isn't it?
There's a wonderfully deep amount of disorders you could explore through the lens of that, I think. In my experience, it's rarely one thing wrong when you start talking about cognitive decay like that. Might as well dip a toe in and see what draws you, I say.
I'm also of the opinion that the BotC was practically Hollow when they arrived in Things Betwixt. I mean, you play that little tutorial area explicitly as some male Hollow, which I take to mean that there is a sort-of default state of Hollowing; maybe it's why there is that sort-of default face to Hollowing in each game.
DS1 has the pink-skinned broken straight sword hollows. DS2 ig has more variety, but they all tend to look the same between the Hollow Soldiers, the Hollow prisoners in Huntsmans Copse, the Hollows in the Gutter, etc. DS3 has the milky white Hollows. It's probably for gameplay reasons, ofc; why spend the time to make variants of enemies like that?
You can also explain it as what happens when a Human can no longer properly reflect their 'true self'. It's possible without Souls to sustain itself, the Dark Soul of Humanity cannot maintain individuality.
I need to figure out how I rationalize the difference between the Dark Soul of Humanity and the 'Light Souls', so to speak, that we pick up and use to level. The item description for Humanity in DS1 makes it clear that they should be just about the same thing. I'll probably find more of an answer in DS1, as they aren't really seen in 2 and 3.
I also think, then, it's entirely possible for Hollows to be passive, to still cling to a singular purpose. For the BotC, they kept traveling until they found that distant land where the Curse could be broken. They had nothing more than the clothes on their back.
A purpose is a powerful thing. Perhaps it is that in this singular case, regardless of it could be replicated, it was enough to reclaim the Self from the miasma of the Dark.
Building on the idea of 'true self' that I brought up before: I'm going to give some vibes based answers to what I think that means. It's said that when Gwyn placed the Darksign on humanity, we assumed a 'fleeting form'. This can simply mean they became mortal, that there was now a limit for how long a human could live. Oooooooooooooor it could mean that, ere humanity unchained from the Darksign, the only limitation on their appearance would be the understanding of the self and how to manipulate it.
The point being: the concept of a 'true self', from where I'm sitting, is often not reflective of our physical reality. One of the things we see the very little of comparatively is our own appearance. It's a very interesting choice of words that Dark Souls II makes, isn't it? When the BotC is brought back from the brink of Hollowing, from this featureless state, they are brought back as what they believe their 'true self' to be.
Perhaps it is, to an extent, Humanity that allows for the reaffirmation of the Self. Whether on its own or in the presence of Fire is something I don't really know if I can really say, but it's interesting enough to dwell on, I think. I suppose it creates a disparity of its own doesn't it? A spectrum of your sense of Self; those Undead with Humanity can affirm their sense of 'self' on one end, and those Undead that have Hollowed that cannot on the other.
I think it can be said that all Undead exist on that spectrum, at various stages. It's more interesting to me if they do, anyway.
............ or I'm just a dingus that thinks she's seen thing that aren't actually there again lol
I'm sure if I was more well read on the various spiritual concepts explored in DS I'd have somewhat more interesting things to say. I should say I don't think the abandonment of the Self is inherently a bad thing in this context (as much as the individualist in me revolts at saying that), as it seems that is the same path adherents of the Path of the Dragon must follow. Which isn't inherently bad. It's what real life ascetics do, yeah? The renouncement of the world, of the Self, to reach an enlightenment?
Maybe I just haven't been given a good pitch, but I don't think that kind of enlightenment is for me. The world is too wondrous to ignore so, and to learn to embrace the Self and all its sharp thorns sounds like a more beautiful an enlightenment than understanding the universe, the nature of divinity, or whatever may be reached through asceticism.
Just my thoughts on the matter, of course. It's my blog so I can say them. /lh I do mean it as a respectful disagreement, ofc.
Anyway, thank you again, anon! It was great to get to put my thoughts on this in one spot :> I hope some of this made... some sense. I could be entirely wrong, ofc, and I'd love to hear other folks thoughts on the subject!
Play Dark Souls II. Kiss Lucatiel. Remember Lucatiel's name. Bully Gilligan. Thank gods for the tights of judgement.
