#souls lore

As I was watching SmoughTown's most recent Elden Ring lore video, I started thinking about the lore hunting of Souls games as a social phenomenon, and I genuinely hope this community is studied by psychologists and social scientists someday, because it's worthy of research.

Normally the rise of FromSoftware's games from relative obscurity to worldwide fame is what people might be interested in, but the dedicated lore community online and especially on YouTube is especially fascinating to me. Dozens of YouTube channels are specifically dedicated to collecting, compiling and deciphering every scrap of lore and storytelling available in these games with a deliberately obfuscated storyline, and hundreds of thousands of people watch and consume this content, not simply satisfied with playing the game, but joining in on the search, the debate and discovery.

I'm reminded of Jacob Geller's absolutely stellar video "Shadow of the Colossus and the Search for the Last Great Secret", and I feel like the modern Souls lore community is a convergently evolved social phenomenon to the "Secret Seekers" on those old forums trying to tease out the last secrets of Fumito Ueda's masterpiece (Hidetaka Miyazaki was directly influenced by Ueda's work, so this makes sense).

People will evaluate Souls lore with greater skepticism than I see most people use for their political or personal beliefs, and the lore debates I've seen in person often feel like academic discourse more than your average nerds discussing their favorite game, so I suppose all I have left to say is "why is no one studying this???"

Moladh don Ghrian, Grá don Ghealach and invitation to join the Serpent Family

Dragonslayer Ornstein is one of the most iconic characters in Dark Souls, and for a good reason. His design is incredible, and his fight in tandem with Smough is one of the best in the series to this day. It is therefore interesting to see how strangely handled is actual in-game presence his. I am perfectly aware that a lot of this is a result of somewhat inelegant retcons, but I will attempt to bridge all of the information together to paint a picture that I find to be, if not completely satisfying, at least consistent with what I believed happened to our good old dragonslayer.

Let's start with what we learn in Dark Souls 1, which is the most straightforward. Ornstein is a being of incredible strength as the leader of the Four Knights of Gwyn, Lordran's elite soldiers who are all unquestionably loyal to their Lord. Unfortunately, by the time of Dark Souls 1, the other Knights have either died or left, so he's left alone guarding the capital City of Anor Londo. He's however joined by his good buddy Executioner Smough: and by good buddy I mean insane psycho. Smough was considered as a candidate for the position of Knight of Gwyn, but the recruiters probably changed their minds after learning that he enjoys grinding the bones of people in his meals. Also, not a surprise, he really enjoys murder.

Anyway, the important point being is that Ornstein and Smough are guarding the chamber to Gwynevere, and fight you to the death if you want to go in. This begs a question: why exactly? Gwynevere is an illusion concocted by Gwyndolin, since she has left Anor Londo long ago. Hell, Gwyndolin is actively trying to get some poor sucker to link the fire, which would require you to get the Lordvessel, which is given to you by Gwynevere/Gwyndolin. Who also doesn't seem to be particularly concerned by the two strongest knights in the realm having just died.

So the main hypothesis is that Ornstein and Smough have been placed there by Gwyndolin to test you. After all the linking of the fire is a sacred act, and you'd wanna make sure that the person you send to do it would actually be able to: after all, as shown by Dark Souls 3, you can actually fail to link the fire. So perhaps, as I said, what Gwyndolin is doing is testing you: and I get using Smough for the task, considering that everyone hates him and he also is probably willing to prove himself to join the Knights, but Ornstein? At the twilight of the kingdom of Lordran, what use is there to having the strongest knight left sacrifice himself to test a random Undead? Well, hold on that thought. For now, let's just say that the Chosen Undead kills both and proceeds to link the flame, or walk away from it.

Back with a vengeance

So let's move on to Dark Souls 2 now. Here we are in Drangleic, a completely different land set after Dark Souls 1. Which makes it very strange that in that game you can find an "Old Dragonslayer", identical to Ornstein, chilling in a church.

Now, let's not beat around the bush here: this is probably an impostor (among us????). A couple things make it pretty clear: first off, instead of using lightning attacks he wields darkness, which doesn't mean much in itself: however the Soul that you get from this boss says that "the Old Dragonslayer is reminiscent of a certain knight that appears in old legends", I'm leaning towards him being just an imitator. After all, beings with Fire Souls (Is it even a thing? You get what I mean) aren't able to come back from death, and killing Ornstein is mandatory to the story of Dark Souls 1, which we know already happened by the time of 2. The only alternative is that the Ornstein in Dark Souls 1 was an illusion, but that would be a bit silly, right?

The Ornstein in Dark Souls 1 was an illusion

Well, uh, this is awkward. Dark Souls 3 comes in and, with extreme confidence, makes everything so much more confusing. This is becaus, after defeating Gwyn's firstborn, the Nameless King, you find none other than Ornstein's armor. But hey, it could be just a repli-

Golden armor associated with Dragonslayer Ornstein, from the age of gods, and imbued with the strength of lightning. In the dragonless age, this knight, who long guarded the ruined cathedral, left the land in search of the nameless king.

Uhhhh, let's check Smough's armor maybe?

Grotesque armor associated with Smough, the last knight to stand in defense of the ruined cathedral.

Well, at least now we know that the Old Dragonslayer was a faker????

Ok ok so, what happened? It seems like that, before the events of Dark Souls 1, Ornstein left his post to search for the Nameless King, and left Smough behind in Anor Londo. So well, the logical explanation is that the first one you fight is actually an illusion made by Gwyndolin. But! The "illusion" also drops Ornstein's own Souls behind. Now, this is a bit of a pickle.

Before I go further, let me clarify something: Gwyndolin is also a character you can kill in Dark Souls 1 that returns in Dark Souls 3, but his fight is optional, and likely considered non canonical in 3. After all, there are other characters you can murder that show up again, the difference is that Ornstein is as far from optional as you can get.

So let's entertain that the Dragonslayer is an illusion: why does he drop his Soul, then ? I have an idea of what could have happned. First off, in Anor Londo you fight sever other illusions fashioned by Gwyndolin that all drop souls upon death. This, to me, seems to suggest that our favorite god of ambigous gender can't just conjure something out of nothing: they need souls.

Here's another piece of the puzzle: in the Dark Souls universe you can totally detach at least part of your soul from your body and be none the wiser. We see this with Gwyn, who gave a portion of his Souls to the Four Kings and other loyal subjects, and with Vendrick who, perhaps in shame, locked his own Soul away in the Shrine of Amana before going hollow. So I believe that the most likely explanation is that Ornstein, before departing to find the Nameless King, left his Soul (or a portion of it) to Gwyndolin in order for them to fashion an illusory guardian out of his likeness. Smough was there too, I guess. Probably Gwyndolin just wanted to get rid of him. That makes everything work out, more or less!

So let's answer one last question. Why did Ornstein seek the Nameless King? I've seen some people say that he was loyal to him all along, and some particularly creative theories state that he transformed into the dragon that the Firstborn rides. I find this to be a somewhat unsatisfactory explanation. Particularly the dragon part, of course, because the only character we ever saw meddle in dragon transformation experiments was Aldia who is probably the smartest person in the entire world, and even he didn't really get it perfectly right. Also there is absolutely zero evidence of it. Regarding the rest, well, I suppose it would be possible that Ornstein was loyal to the Nameless King, but why? He is a dragonslayer, after all, and the King was cast away specifically for having betrayed the gods in favor of the dragons (as a sidenote, the fact that the Ring of the Firstborn in Dark Souls 1 is slightly mistranslated and it made people think that he was banished for "losing the annals" is very funny. He was lost to the annals, there's no magical item named "the annals" which he lost lmao).

Anyway, I think Ornstein left to confront the Nameless King over his betrayal: perhaps he did so once his location on the Archdragon Peak became known. Talk to him? Kill him? Who knows. But is significative that the Dragonslayer Armor is found in the Nameless King's boss arena. I think that him and Ornstein engaged in a fight and, perhaps weakened by the lack of his Soul, the latter was defeated and died there. Whether this happened before or after Dark Souls 1 I do not know, but I have a feeling that this is how the warrior met his demise.

This guy has always intrigued me because he's a complete non-presence in the lore. There's only one line of text in the entire game that mentions him. But he feels like he should be more important. Here's a literal demigod just stuck in an evergaol, and we're supposed to overlook that??

First off: Yes, of all the copy-paste bosses, he's the most copypasted. He is literally an exact copy of Godrick, just with a blue glow. He even has less moves than the original. If I had my druthers, he'd at least look a little different. Maybe give him a beard or something, IDK.

While he's not the only copy-pasted Runebearer boss, he's the only one who is clearly meant to be a different character and not just an illusion or summon or whatever. Yet unlike the copies of Mohg and Morgott, he's not guarding something important. He's stuck in some out of the way area, holding a mediocre talisman. There is literally no reason for him to exist unless he's supposed to tell us something.

But what?

When there's very little to go on, we have to look at connections. That presents a problem in Elden Ring because the world is far more interconnected than any other From Souls game. You can spin out into madness following the web of connections. Not only is it complex, a lot of things we take for granted are contradicted later because what we thought we believed was just hearsay and propaganda. Propaganda is everywhere in the Lands Between, and that perhaps gives us our first clue:

Godefroy has been erased.

Whatever his role was in the past, he's been memory holed, just like Mohg and Placidusax. An Omen demigod who doesn't hate himself and won't play ball? An Elden Lord that predates the supposed First Elden Lord Godfrey? That's inconvenient. It messes up the clean narrative of the Golden Order. He's never mentioned because he has been unpersoned, and unlike Mohg, he's not still around to cause trouble.

I will start!

"Withered Souls" is a username I changed to when I got really hyper fixated onto Identity V! The username is inspired by my Hunter Main; Axe Boy / Robbie White

In game his abilities include a "Corrupt Area" & "Resentful Souls"

I don't remember how exactly I found my way from "Corrupt" to "Withered" - maybe back then I just misremembered the ability name, or I thought it sounded cool? I genuinely can't recall. (Edit whilst typing this: it actually may refer to his ability "Corrupting Breath" as I always interpreted the slowing down upon leaving a corrupt area as the survivors life force withering away)

But the "Souls" obviously stems from the Resentful Souls he uses in the game!

Looking for images of the Souls I realized they aren't really depicted in his official art nearly as much as I thought they were? That's kinda sad considering they're kind of lore relevant and all that.

As for my old username that eventually became "Glitchy Galaxy" - it started of as "LittleGlitchyGirl" based off my undertale (now multifandom) oc Kate who was a glitch, I later changed it to "LittleGlitchyGalaxy" when I came out as nonbinary, with the help of a friend picking the word Galaxy. I then later shortened it to just "Glitchy Galaxy" as I got older bc people were super rude about it and didn't believe that I was an adult bc of the "Little" in it

Rambling ab the Robbie & Souls stuff below cut, not really relevant to username origin unless you want to know about the abilities it's based off:

Let's look at the actual facts regarding Godefroy the Grafted.

We find him in the Golden Lineage Evergaol on the Altus Plateau.

He took part in the First Defense of Leyndell

He was captured by Ancient Dragon Knight Kristoff.

He carries the Godfrey Icon Talisman.

He is an exact duplicate of Godrick.

That's all we know. Literally, that's it. So, I'm gonna investigate these

Evergaols are pretty self-explanatory, and I'll deal with the First Defense when I get to Godrick, so first I'll start with Kristoff. Who was he?

Well, he was a Leyndell Knight. Really, that's it. Why was he called "Ancient Dragon Knight," then? It's likely that the order changed names at some point after he was interred as Spirit Ash.

This is also suggested by the Dragon-Cult Prayerbook, which Brother Corhyn calls a heresy. The Gravel-Stone Seal has the rather dubious line:

The worship of the ancient dragons does not conflict with belief in the Erdtree. After all, this seal, and lightning itself, are both imbued with gold.

Note for later: Things that have to be insisted this strongly are probably what someone wants you to believe rather than what is actually true.

Now, Kristoff's actual description is the only text mention of Godefroy in the game:

Spirit of Kristoff, an honorable knight of Leyndell who was also a devout worshipper of the ancient dragons. His skills strike down foes with thunderbolts, the dragons' weapon of choice. After the First Defense of Leyndell, Kristoff earned the hero's honor of Erdtree Burial for the feat of capturing Godefroy the Grafted.

Said hero's burial was in the Sainted Hero's Grave, so yeah this was a pretty big fucking deal. Going with my theory that Godefroy was memory holed, it's pretty weird that the man who captured him was given a sainted burial and the whole grave was renamed* in his honor.

He's guarded by an Ancient Hero of Zamor, who shows up as a recurring boss and a basic enemy, once in the Mountaintops of the Giants. The description of their equipment says:

These long-lived warriors, clad in biting, freezing winds, are said to have been the mortal enemies of the Fire Giants since time immemorial.

There are two others in the game, but the one that I think is important is the one on the Weeping Peninsula, trapped in his own Evergaol. That one drops Radagon's Scarseal, which states:

These seals represent the lifelong duty of those chosen by the gods.

So they're long-lived, and have a lifetime duty. Seems like an ideal tomb guardian, but that in and of itself doesn't tell us much. However, the fact one of them is found so far from home, in an area controlled by Godrick, and carrying an item sacred to Radagon (and thus the Golden Order as a whole), suggests that this might be a prisoner of war from the First Defense. So at least the losing side also took...uh...this guy!

It also suggests that the sainted hero was interred before the Zamori retreated to their Mountain and were still cooperating with the Golden Order. The one in the Sainted Hero's Grave might have even thought they were acting on Radagon's orders. To me, this indicates an attempt to maintain an illusion of normalcy in the early days of the Shattering. Most people didn't even realize something had gone horribly wrong yet.

It's likely that Kristoff's heroic actions were used as a means of legitimizing the Dragon Cult. They were tolerated before the First Defense, but afterwards, they were held up as heroes. Whoever was controlling Leyndell at the time (likely Morgott) must have desperately needed a PR win. Yet this victory was erased from history, at least the specifics were. There's no mention of who actually took part in the First Defense, unlike the Second, where Margit the Fell Omen (aka Morgott the Veiled King) is held up as the hero.

To me, that means information about who actually instigated the war must have come out later. The war went from a victory to a great shame, so the deeds of Kristoff were stricken from official records.

To address some comments from the previous part: I realize that the timeline of the Dragon Cult's acceptance at the capitol isn't exactly clear. While it's existed in the Capitol ever since Gransax attacked, there seems to have been a political shift wherein the Dragon Knights were rechristened as the Leyndell Knights.

Anway.

The reason this took so long is I had numerous starts and stops. I wasn't sure where to take this next. New research undermined old theories. Case in point, I had a massive post with lots of quotes and supporting evidence. I'd been working on it for days. I deleted it all when I looked at this image. Really, REALLY looked at it. Because I came to a startling revelation that upended everything.

We all recognize this scene from the announcement trailer, way back in 2019. At the time, the image sparked our imaginations. Now that we know it's just Godrick, the first major boss of the game, it probably doesn't elicit very much thought. But I think it might be a key to this puzzle.

Now, previous games have had less than indicative trailers. The Dark Souls 2 trailer included a lot of things that wouldn't make it into the final cut, for example. Elden Ring feels a lot tighter, probably because it was working from a pretty concrete design document, and the trailers only focused on the characters created by GRRM. So I think we can still use the trailers to guide our lore investigations.

So first of all, note the way he bows his head. Is this reverence or submission? The hand on his face could imply shame, though that fades as the hand starts to twitch. This arm is important. He knows that there was a sacrifice involved. It will bless him with strength, and he will bless it with life.

Now I said we know it's Godrick, but it may be more accurate to say we assume it's Godrick. But he existence of Godefroy, his exact doppelganger, should throw this into question. So which Grafted is that? Well...contrast that image with this.

Godrick throwing a tantrum. Screaming like a lunatic. Chopping off his own arm (his own LEFT) arm just so he can violently fist a dragon's thrussy.

I showed these to a friend of mine who's not as familiar with the lore, and he assumed they had to be two different characters. He didn't think it was possible that the character who so gently attached a new left arm to his own could later just hack off the same arm like that. And I think he might have been onto something.

I don't think that was Godrick in the initial trailer.

I think it was Godefroy.