With all this in mind, there’s another relevant fire: The profane flame. This would also explain why the base fear of Bloodborne’s beasts, which come from humanity’s animal side going wild, is fire. The existence of Blackflame, coupled with DS3’s optional ending of absorbing the gods’ flame into your body, suggests humans will finally become independent. The gods were supposed to let the first flame die, letting the Age of Fire fall to the Age of Man, but they instead linked Humanity, and thus humankind’s existence, to the flame. The Painted World’s guardian, Friede, takes on the title “Blackflame” and rips a Dark-based fire from, importantly, herself. As the Abyss-based Black Serpent pyromancy describes, “all techniques that infringe on humanity lead to the same place… they all seek a will of their own.” The Dark Hand, too, “mercilessly saps the essence of its victims”, hungry. Dark spills from and controls DS3 enemies, the Pus of Man.Īshes of Ariandel introduces a new form of this Dark: Blackflame. DS2 established mankind’s driving force is Want, and it’s likely that Dark is a manifestation of Want. The Dark takes physical form in the Abyss, a constantly spreading darkness. In Dark Souls, Humanity is physical, and has its own drive separate from its host. Dregs of Humanity, like dregs of blood a third equivalence.Īnd Humanity, like the Deep and insects, infects.
And dregs have a FromSoft precedent: Blood Dregs from Bloodborne, which, incidentally, look like the Souls of the Deacons of the Deep. The Deep dyes souls dark blue. Deep Souls “swell from the deep pursue their target, drawn towards life.” The Great Deep Soul explains that to sorcerer-priest Archdeacon McDonnell, “stagnating souls… represented the glorious bedrock of this world.” These are called Human Dregs, “the heaviest things within the human body, sink to the lowest depths imaginable.” They look like Humanity from prior Dark Souls games. The range of ken recalls Bloodborne’s kin of the cosmos, and the fact that insects come from blood and the Deep– which is linked to Humanity, shattered Dark Soul– is another point of equivalence. Deep Protection tells us that the deep “became the final rest for many abhorrent things.” The Deep Gem states that there is “a darkness beyond ken,” or what is known. Insects come from blood, but also “the Deep”. The miracle Gnaw summons “insects which lurk in the deep.” The Deep is new to Dark Souls lore, but is closely associated with humanity. In Bloodborne, Vermin are centipede-like creatures discovered in blood, “and are the root of man’s impurity.” They’re likely the source of power for the Vilebloods and human/mosqituo Bloodlickers. This equates the Dark Soul to blood, and the implications are extraordinary.īlood, as it turns out, has always been a big part of Dark Souls 3, through an unlikely source: Insects. DS3’s waterways contain Sewer Centipedes, and the DLC confirms they come from the Painted World’s rot– which is rotting blood. A girl known only as The Painter remarks in front of a red-stained canvas that she will soon be brought “the pigment … The dark soul of man.” The name sake for the series, The Dark Soul was a tangible thing, split amongst all humans in the form of tangible Humanity, and drives most of the series’ lore.īut we know something else about this “pigment.” The Painted World of Ariandel, which exists within a painting in the “real world”, was actually restored by Ariandel, and originally painted by some Ariamis, using blood. As the Rose of Ariandel explicitly states, “the Painted World …was painted with blood.” The Painter intends to make a new Painted World… with the Dark Soul. The connection in Ashes of Ariandel comes down to an equivalence statement.
SPOILERS: End-game plot details for Bloodborne and the entire Dark Souls series ahead. Dark Souls 3 links its lore to Bloodborne’s with a very simple thing: Blood.
FromSoftware is meticulous about lore details to a degree bordering on absurd the connections between the games have been there all along, but the Dark Souls 3 DLC, Ashes of Ariandel, brings them into the light.
But there are too many signs in Ashes of Ariandel to deny that Dark Souls may be a prequel to Bloodborne.