The introduction of, and fight against, the Old Dragons is kind of a bizarre moment in the story, and they aren't really commented on in the text of the game. You get very little information explicitly given for them, so maybe it's worth reading into things a bit.
Who is the corpse which sent us to this boss ? What are these little dragons Why does the dragon god has scars and a wounded arm ? Why ? Why ? Why ? Because From Software, at least since Demon's Soul ?
@@alfredberdo7495 Never looked into it but during every playthrough I automatically assume that the corpse is Tomoe. After having accompanied Takeru in his quest to end his own immortality, she stood by his tomb and eventually joined her master.
Some of the grapple points throughout Fountainhead Palace look like little statues of the Old Dragons of the Tree, or rather the cut dragon with the large ears. The painted screens in the palace also depict the Old Dragons, their lower bodies being connected to branches. I assumed they were palace nobles that had ascended and merged with the Divine Dragon somehow, or perhaps they were the deliverers of the Divine Dragon to Japan, now withered beyond their years. Interestingly, Tomoe wrote of Takeru's "worsening cough" as the Dragonrot ravaged Ashina years ago, so it would seem those associated with the purity of the Dragon Heritage become ill as their power is sapped by mortals... However, why killing the dragons should restore them as blackened doubles is a bit odd, considering other forms of immortals simply cannot die, growing ever more riddled with pestilence... Overall, I think it's probably more allegorical. Maybe the Old Dragons of the Tree merely exist to illustrate stagnation of thought and ideals with time. Sekiro is very much a story about code and honor, but unlike many depictions, the story emphasizes the importance of breaking oaths and deciding one's own fate, whether in betraying a father to embrace the will of the young, or by slaying the undying spirits that fester throughout the land, their minds dulled by their permanence.
@@SpeedCapa aren't they already buried somewhere in game? for one of the endings you have to speak to emma at two graves which im pretty sure she says are their graves?
Dragons in DS1 : "Cool" Dragons in DS2 : "Somewhat Armor-looking, but still cool" Dragons in DS3 : "Anorexia" Dragons in Sekiro : "Old Men with lung cancer"
Interesting thing to note is that the whitening of bark on trees is typically a sign of dryness, decay or mold sickness in trees with darker looking bark. So despite their scary appearance, the black dragons are arguably healtheir, fresher sprouts of the divine dragon in a way.
Definitely my personal head canon (especially given your comment), but I like to think the black dragons represent the tree’s last ‘natural’ line of defense against those who threaten the Divine Dragon in some way
there is a type of mold/fungi that infects tree/plant, it looks white and like a flour when you touch it, I live in a tropical climate dunno if that plays a factor but it is very common on where I lives. It will literally cover the plant in white powder and the plant will just rot. my sunflowers died because of this.
@@__Hanasei__Levinus__ Bleaching the trees, aside from being done for aesthetic, usually is done in tandem with preserving the dead wood. There are multiple reasons why a tree could (naturally) turn white, though. I looked at a forestry forum and some have said that it “...could just be a condition called white patch, also called smooth patch. Caused by a fungus that attacks the outer bark and causes these smooth patches to form. Most often seen on either slow growing or old white oaks. Pretty common on bigger white oaks. Doesn't harm the tree at all.” Or even, “Might even just be a large patch of lichen (blue-green Algae and Fungi), which are harmless. They feed off air pollutants. Some are light blue-green in color, almost white.” Although this info is mainly about oak trees and I’m definitely not a botanist or expert of any kind.
@@annie.V. no no, the info is correct; these lichens are often seen at our young trees over here, signifying that theyre healthy... and I don't even call them WHITE, but light blue-green, so the article is correct. What I don't know about is the white sickness most often found in OLD trees, not young ones... the one is OP is talking about. That's why I asked a question so as to begin a discussion... These lichens also helps in telling someone if the area is cool enough to hang around during the afternoons... Children often playing around them.
I always felt that the reason the water was corrupting people was because the tree and dragon were themselves going "stale", and that killing the tree dragons cleansed the divine dragon and would eventually stop the coruption of the waters. Meaning the black dragons are how they are supposed to look
Yes, that’s a common theme in Sekiro as well. Water is the source of life and in game, the rejuvenating waters can bring people to near immortality. But stagnation can corrupt this power to a point beyond repair, which is why the palace nobles exist. They were all drawn in to the waters power but by overusing it they turned hideous and weak. This is also reflected in the contrast of imagery between the centipedes and dragon, both which are sources of “immortality”
The corruption of the infested seems to come from the dead fish at the bottom of the waters, where little centipedes are growing. The waters are rejuvenating, but they cause you to be infiltrated by the bugs.
@@TannuWannu both actually because the dead fish are causing centipedes/parasitic bugs to grow and feed off of the putrid and dead bodies of the fish causing the corruption to grow more. It is an endless cycle of good and evil fighting another like Ying and yang.
I think an important aspect to remember is that the dragon doesn't belong in Ashina; he came there "from the West" (presumably either Korea or China) and it's likely that the stagnation arises from the dragon not being truly compatible with the area and usurping the local kami. In terms of resurrection, it seems to come from the dragon's blood, and there are basically three types: the dragon's heritage, which is bestowed on the Divine Heir (Kuro) and which he gives to Wolf, artificial resurrection which comes from some property in the rejuvenating waters; the rejuvenating sediment gives Genichiro immortality, the rejuvenating waters are used to create the false Dragon's Heritage that Kuro's gf has, and the Mibu villagers have some form of resurrection from drinking so much of the water. It should be noted though, that the palace nobles do not have immortality, and you need to drink the water of the palace to become a noble. It probably requires highly concentrated or long term exposure to the waters to confer immortality. This also seems to come at the cost of the user's humanity, although not in the case of the Divine Child (although maybe there's something there about the fact all the other children died?) The last way is through infestation, the centipedes that grow on the dead Great Carp get washed downstream and take over the bodies of different creatures, such as the Guardian Ape and the monks. The fact that this immortality can be gained through consuming the sediment, and the fact that drinking a lot of the water leaves a crystal growing in your stomach, suggests that there is some sort of mineral in the waters that flows from the Divine Dragon that creates immortality, rather than a quality of the water itself. It seems that all the resurrection abilities are somewhat parasitic in nature; Sekiro takes the lifeforce of those around him whenever he resurrects (giving them dragonrot), the sediment eats away at your humanity and possibly also your own health as the bodies of those who use it appear very thin and sickly; and the infested are well, openly parasitic; requiring a host body to survive. This is in keeping with the idea that the dragon doesn't belong in Ashina, and that by being there it has bestowed great power but that also slowly poisons and kills the land itself.
It could be analogous to pruning a tree, as the Divine Dragon has a lot of tree-like features. The white dragons could then represent limbs of the tree being affected by some disease (dragonrot) and when they are pruned those limbs can grow back healthier.
Iirc pruning isn't done so the "limbs" themselves grow back healthier, but rather to cut off unwanted "limbs". In fruit trees "limbs" are pruned so the tree gives more ressources to the "limbs" with fruit on them, making them more plump.
@@Blueqt2 the concept still applies theirs rot happening to the tree, in order to keep it healthy you’re removing infected parts before it spreads throughout the whole tree. You’re treating it from dying by making sure the disease doesn’t have time to kill it. At the same time the rot is happening in lore because it’s power is being spread too thin it doesn’t have enough energy to keep it up so is stealing from life around it. By “pruning” it it ensures it stays healthy
@@Blueqt2 might depend on the tree but I could be wrong. There are some Trees outside of where I work that get “shaved” once a year, all the leafy branches get removed and it all grows back.
Just a thought, but those aren't just horns. They're antlers. And antlers are *supposed* to be broken off; it can be pretty bad and uncomfortable for the animal if they aren't. Them being missing strengthens the idea that it's something ultimately healthy for the dragons to go through.
The black dragons look alot more... Alive then the white dragons, so I'm also betting on renewal. It could be the shared health bar is the amount of rot left, and as you prune these spirits away more and more new growth springs up untainted.
You can also take it in the very literal sense. The boss is called "Old Dragons" and when you kill the darker ones, that health bar does not deplete. So you can take that as the game telling you directly they are not old dragons.
I was always conflicted about what we do to the divine dragon in this game, dudes just chilling and we go and stab him in the eye. it's a nice thought that we may also be helping him in some way though
According to the Divine Child, the dragon never belonged in Japan in the first place, having come from the west. I don't think they're terribly concerned with maiming it as a matter of ritual to severe the immortality curse it brought upon Ashina.
As many have pointed out, it might be like pruning a tree, but I have another notion. White is often a color associated with sickness, and most creatures don’t have naturally pale skin/exteriors. And most reptiles have a very dark color for their scales, often black too. The lack of horns is also probably a sign of age, which adds up considering how the black dragons don’t cough. So perhaps it really is a rebirth for the old dragons. The fact that killing the black ones doesn’t reduce the health further is a good indication that you’re killing the old ones and leaving new, healthy ones instead Which has me thinking, what if this means that by killing the Divine Dragon, it’ll return healthy and young again with black skin?
@Kai Nakrit Dunno. Feels like the Mortal Blade definitely could kill the dragon, and the way you wound him for the tears is pretty brutal it's hard for me to think that the dragon didn't die to it.
I think what they're trying to say is that immorality itself is a sickness which is why when you "kill" the white dragons they become healthy black dragons. Much like the other imperfect forms of immorality in sekiro, the divine dragon is also not perfect. Not just the dragonrot, the pursuit of immorality is a cause of conflict and endless bloodshed. Death (which is often associated with the color black) is usually depicted as a bad thing, but life in excess it can lead to stagnation (like the old droopy "gray" faces of the dragons) , eventually driving you crazy (or maybe hollow ;D), waiting for an end which will never come. Although I don't think it's shown in game, I'd like to think that each of the smaller dragon's are previous death's of sekiro which in turn cause dragonrot to people who surround him, and by killing the smaller dragons you free them of their dragonrot. I think I agree with Kai Nakrit though, I don't think sekiro kills the divine dragon, in fact I don't think it's possible to kill it, it is literally immortal. What sekiro was fighting for however, was mercy. The divine dragon's tears are stated as a "gracious gift of tears can only be granted by the Mortal Blade." The key words here is that it's considered a "gracious gift" despite sekiro literally ripping it out of the divine dragon. Everyone of the divine dragon's heritage are her children, and by shedding tear it represents a loss of a loved one.
@@sanesanchezs while the attack may have looked brutal, it wasn't all too damaging to the primary functions of life for the Divine Dragon. His giant chest gash and missing arm are also far more dire and yet he is, mostly, fine
@@sanesanchezs Lol a little cut under the eye isn't gonna kill a dragon. Besides, you can see the Dragon still breathing after the cut, Sekiro had no reason to kill it.
Yo Zullie, congrats on 250k. Always love to see your kind of crazy work ethic pay off in such a big way. The content you make is extremely valuable to this community, and at least for me, it's been a great way to take a momentary break from the struggles of daily life and just get engrossed in these amazing Fromsoft franchises. Here's to your continued success, I'm sure you'll go much further.
So, in summary. On one hand, we have "the" divine dragon. He looks sick. He's turning into wood and deeply intertwined with the sakura tree. He's considered the source of immortality in a "pure" form (A.K.A. not consumed by centipedes). He arrived from Korea and supplanted the old gods living Ashina, such as the world serpent and the old dragons, but it's clear that it is not his birth place. On the other hand, you have the old dragons of the tree. They look sick. The old ones slowly turn white, both like diseased wood, but also like the divine dragon. When you kill an old, coughing one, you see them get replaced by new, healthier one. And when you arrive, you ONLY have old ones. This could lead to believe that they get sick because they are forced to stay alive, one way or another. Feels like the divine dragon, after he arrived from Korea, very poorly adapted to the former eco-system, that also didn't handled his presence well. Could be that he's "forcing" (not intentionally) the old tree dragons to stay alive for far longer than they -should-, while they "try" to slowly make him part of the same tree they all originate from. A process that is painful and goes against the very nature of all parties involved. And the result is the divine dragon's heritage, and the rebirth that goes with it. You cannot die of natural circumstances, and if you do perish, you are brought back to life by leeching on the life energy of those around you. The divine dragon is meant to last forever, the divine tree goes through death and rebirth to exist. The fountainhead palace, and the waters that flow from it, aren't "impure" because something *corrupted* changed them, but because two forces, very pure but opposed in nature, are forced to merge with each other. Or at least that what I think is going on, but don't ask me where all the disgusting bugs come from, I have no idea. (BTW for the "old gods", you can see small, very damaged statues of the dragon of the tree in the fountainhead palace, as well as temples dedicated to the giant serpents, now in ruin, with even sacrificial rituals associated with them.)
I think you're overthinking it. The Divine Dragon represents the natural order of life and death. Parts of him die in the boss battle so that new ones can be born. I think this is likely a more accurate interpretation because it fits the themes of the game so well. Death is natural and necessary for new life. The search for immortality throughout the game stagnates not only the people involved, but even the divine. Stopping the process of natural death has profound consequences on everything, even down into the Sacred Realm. I believe that's the main point being expressed in the battle. That immortality is so fundamentally WRONG that it rots the spiritual foundation of the world.
@@Wveth Well, yes, except for the part where it's said explicitely by the characters that it's his heritage that "causes" some people to become immortal in the first place ? And he doesn't die, he simply "gives" his tears. It's what the red death blade is named after and what the bossfight says when you finish it. The "dragons of the tree" were there long before he arrived, you can find decayed iconography of them in the fountainhead palace.
Any idea how dragons got to be so essential in mythology across several distant ancient civilizations? Definitely adding this game to my list of "must-play From titles."
The way I've always interpreted this is that this part of the fight treats the Divine Dragon like a bonsai tree; the "bad" branches must be pruned/removed so that the good branches can stay healthy, or in this case be rejuvenated. It isn't until the White Dragons are reborn anew and the Dragonrot is purged that the tree is able to blossom, revealing the Divine Dragon and initiating the fight.
I never thought about what the little wormy dragons might represent. I assumed they were similar to the Great Carp; humans who were transformed by their quest for immortality or godhood.
@@colorpg152 its carp jumping (or leaping over) the dragon gate. it's an actual phenomenon when fishes went against the river current and even jumping small waterfall to spread their seeds.
I've never played Sekiro nor have I ever seen a walk through, but watching your videos I feel like I've played through the game and have been familiarized to the enemies in it, too. Same for Bloodbourne. Thanks, Zulie
It's kind of interesting how you haven't played the games, but you're watching videos on the lore lol. I recommend Vaatvidya if you're interested on the main plot and stories of these games.
@@verymanite8996 Yeah, I've never seen someone get so in-depth about enemies that you would typically think to just engage, take down, and be done with. I've discovered designs of environment and enemy types in these games thanks to Zulie that I otherwise would've not seen at all.
Ahh, found my brethren... Cheers! No money for a decent PC to play these games... Nor actual time to play them otherwise, since im finally starting college.
I feel like I've learned a decent amount of game development from these videos. The trick with the trees is cool, although it does remove a bit of magic.
The black dragons no longer cough. That's a good representation of the idea that these dragons symbolize dragonrot. Someone should test if the parameters of this boss change depending on how much dragonrot you have, have acquired, or cured.
I mean you can definitely see the white dragons look much older and sicker than black ones. The 'white' looks less like their natural color and more sun bleached, old wrinkly and cracking skin
The difference between antlers and horns is that antlers are temporary structures. They are shed and regrown annually in adult animals that have them These structures certainly appear more like antlers and true horns, as horns do not often branch like the dragons do. It should also be noted that descriptions of eastern dragons often describe them as having antlers If these are antlers instead of horns, they may be further reinforcing the themes of decay through stagnation expressed elsewhere in the game, and the loss of them could support the renewal interpretation of the old Dragons of the Tree
Ok I went from researching if there are animals with branched horns to taking political quizzes and looking up the wiki for the atomic orbital but I STILL HAVEN'T FOUND ANIMALS WITH BRANCHED OUT HORNS IF YOU KNOW ANY PLEASE TELL was "often" in "do not often branch" just a way of saying none?
@@SaladDongs I was thinking of the four horned goat breed. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have used the term branching for horns because horns can't branch Horns grow from the base out, while antlers grow from the tips. Horns cannot branch like antlers do because of it. The tissue is already dead
@@user-wq1dt7li2x Ahh thanks so much. I don't exactly know what turned on my curiosity, maybe it's just being a fellow average biology enjoyer. I deal more with prokaryotes though sadly. But thank you for indulging it
Ever since I discovered this channel I've been running around all the Soulsborne games looking at every little detail I can find and my appreciation for these games have grown immensely. What a fantastic channel.
Always felt bad for just rolling up to the old dragon boi and slicing his eyelid up for some tears. Nice to know that we actually may have ended up helping him in the end.
Something interesting I've noticed are the leaves and plants. When the old dragons barf, the poison that come out turn into leaves. When you swing them they leave a trail of leaves. The Divine dragon is associated with cherry blossoms and where the water pools deepest you find a white flower. You also find a white flower in later entrance to the hall of illusions BUT when you enter the fountain head palace you can also see these blue flowers only growing around these rocks. I could've sword I heard something about a meteor falling on the land. Well for now I'm thinking these rocks are possible meteorites and am looming for more blue flowers locations. The blue flowers matched the blue on the shield. It also matched the lazulite which is kinda weird that you don't need lazulite to make that shield. I ALSO took interest in the leaves at senpou temple. Just as cherry blossoms are associated with the divine dragon so too do the fall colored leaves seem to be associated with the monks. Curiously enough on the bridge to rhe palace you see A whole shit ton of trees with orange leaves. The same as the ones on the divine abduction and the ones in senpou temple. Actually the bridge is even called the vermillion bridge. Another interesting plant I noticed were ones growing on the teleportation location for the Hall of illusions. There's seems to be a white flower there and odd plants. Currently I'm looking at divine abduction to see what that may be about. Curiously I think the attack is pretty damn similar to the attack the dragon uses to push you away from him. Other things I noticed There are cherry blossom trees growing upside down on lily pads in the palace. Also trees in the water are alive except for the parts that stick out the water Why are there houses where the carp is? The gourd seeds you get are constantly oozing and in the location where you go to see the dragon perhaps the same substance can be seen below your feet. The Dragon kinda just looks like a bigger version of these small idiots. Is it possible the dragon was once human? The divine realm is full of cherry blossoms and green leaves and the hall of illusions has one giant fall colored tree. Is the Divine dragon buried? And are the Gourd seeds the dragons scales?
It seems like in a similar fashion to how Sekiro's hair turns white slowly and even how the Divine Heir's hair has silver strands similar to the girl in the hidden temple the white dragons have their color turn black as a side effect to their revival from death, showing that this revival plague is most likely not originating from the divine dragon as your previous video about him might suggest that he himself is very sick.
The programming trick is pretty common. I mean why would you make a new enemy if it's essentially the same just with different stats and a different mesh? There is probably lore with the black and white enemies, but the programming is just a relatively common trick, and wouldn't mean anything by itself
I think the idea is that the dead rotted dragons are feeding the life of the new dragons. Death and rebirth, like you said. Immortality is stagnation because things NEED to die in order for new things to arise later. This theme is also expressed in Dark Souls 3; the world clinging onto the Age of Fire is making everything stagnate. So yeah, I think you're right on the money that Wolf is helping the Divine Dragon by killing part of it.
It might be for performance. It’s called “resource pooling” where devs reuse things like enemies, bullets, etc. instead of deleting them which can cause lag. Since they are already spawned in/instantiated, the enemy or bullet is basically teleported out of the map when “killed or destroyed” and then teleported back in as a “respawning enemy” or “new bullet” at the barrel of a gun.
Reminds me of powdery mildew. Got some plants that, left in the shade, become almost painted in white. Not healthy, but the plants can still eek it out.
I still need to play this game. I don’t really consider watching this vids as spoilers, it’s a completely different beast to play these games vs simply watching.
Played it yet? I'm currently in that same boat of enjoying these videos whilst yearning to play the game(s). Been watching a lot of the DS2 ones as well.
@@rey-o haha, same! Are you playing ER or just watching videos? I put about 40 hours into it, but had to take some time away from it to get real world things accomplished lol. Looking forward to getting back into it. Luckily most of what I'd done in those 40 hours was just exploring, leveling & trying to take care of smaller quests, so when I get back in I've still got a TON of story left to enjoy.
@@rey-o Nice! The time I spent with it I loved. I'm REALLY early game, but have done a lot of what I found to do in that general area. Beaten several caves and catacombs, beat the Weeping Peninsula boss, beat the boss in that weird underground area you access in the forest, 1 or 2 evergaols, a number of the world map minibosses. I haven't tried to beat the lake dragon yet. So basically just trying to comb the areas I have easy access to for any loot while leveling up and talking to any npc I find. Oh, and I used the warp by the... 3rd Church(?) that takes you to the area with the big black dragon on the bridge and all the tiny little assassin guys who like to slit your throat lol. Seemed to be a great farming area early game.
I thought the old men were somehow ascended forms of the palace nobles - who have gone from absorbing youthful energy from mortals to now absorbing the Dragon's divine energy. So when you defeat enough of them you restorr the dragon back to life
I wonder if it's the opposite, symbolizing the great dragon succumbing to dragonrot, since the great dragin is white and dragonrot seems to be characterized with black... stuffs infecting things. Also, dying and getting revived promotes dragonrot, iirc, so there may be a connection that way too
@@sakarilaakkonen5466 This. Black does come into the equation when regarding Genichiro and his reincarnation. He does have black stains on his body, though he uses 'forbidden' techniques of Tomoe IIRC.
As one person pointed out, it might be the opposite since white on plants is typically a sign of dryness and weakness. So I’m more inclined to think that it is a rebirth, not corruption. Plus, for most creatures, pale colors indicate sickness, and the presence of their horns may suggest that they are old and sick. And since having black colors is natural for a lot of creatures- especially reptiles- the black skin may just mean that these newer old dragons are in fact reborn, healthy and young again
You've got it backwards, Gohunt001. The Divine Dragon is white because of the stagnation of immortality. It's the same kind of white on Wolf's head. By killing the little dragons, it's more like you're cutting out some of the rot.
The coloration of the trees alone have a significance: white + yellow (diseased parts of a tree and sickness) vs black + red (fresh growth and healthy skin). I also want to point out (don't know if this adds to the theory) that at the tutorial stage, you start in white winter. Upon losing your arm and your first 'canon death and rebirth' you wake in an autumn/summer looking area at the temple.
This is probably one of my favorite videos you've done! It's neat and makes me feel like maybe I'm doing some good instead of slaying everything I see haha. Keep up the great work!
Zullie: Ok, class I hope you took notes on the video, because here’s a pop quiz. Also Zullie after I turn in my test: Oh, what is this . . . Me: Answered all the questions at once with an inserted image of Miyazaki and his cheeky smile.
"Thanks ever so much, shinobi, you've pruned the rot from me. How can I repay you?" "I need your tears." "Erm...of course. I think I have some onions in the pantry, let me just-" *stabs eye* "...Or, you know, do that."
It took me until like halfway through the video to realize that this was Zelda music and not ambience from Sekiro because I've never played it and it sounded like it would fit
That's also the impression i got when i first played the game, just from the whole package of the fight, it comes across as if you're cutting away rot from an old tree
I view cutting down the rotting dragons as pruning diseased branches from the tree to restore it to health. It feels to me like an offering you make to the tree, perhaps as penance for Lord Takeru taking a branch from the tree.
Could you measure the height of the divine dragons sword? I lack the tools to do so as am trying to figure out exactly how much Newton’s of force Sekiro is deflecting from the divine dragon’s attacks. So far with my rough estimations of the height and diameter of the sword, and saying it’s made of iron like it’s real world counterpart, I reached the conclusion Sekiro is deflecting over *8,000,000,000 N of force...*
That reminds me of the “rods from god”, a possible weaponized satellite that drops metal columns from orbit at terminal velocity. All the devastation of nuclear warheads, but you don’t need hazmat suits to claim the territory. I don’t think the sword hits *that* hard, but it seems that wolf should be reduced to kibble regardless.
If this fight is more of a spiritual representation of Sekiro purifying the divine tree, at least we can say that he's not literally doing that. Although he's gotta be exerting superhuman levels of force or mass when he kills the Snake God.
@@weirdalexander8193 to be fair, when you are deflecting a blow, you deliberately aren't absorbing much, or any, of the force of that blow. Instead, you are redirecting that force off to the side, normally though a combination of unequal resistance (your braced sword on one side, nothing on other, force move towards the nothing because its easier) and through applying lateral force. That being said, he should probably be tossed about a bit even when deflecting a blow, but he can literally die and come back to life, regular human stuff only lightly applies to him.
I bet Shadow of the Colossus' soundtrack would work well over these games too. It's like they're both spiritual predecessors to the newer From games especially. I actually first got into DS1 after reading an article comparing it with SotC- not from a gameplay standpoint but the atmosphere & environment.
Deactivate and pooling the NPCs when they are dead to activate and respawn later is very common thing to do in game dev actually. It's less performant to instantiate the NPC from scratch so usually game devs try to instantiate every NPC on loading screen to avoid fps spikes in runtime.
Sorry if this was commented already, but something interesting to note is how the black dragons respawn with 50% HP compared to the white dragons. Whenever Wolf dies and resurrects, its at 50% HP. I feel as though this further supports your idea that the black dragons are the reborn white dragons that Wolf kills during the fight. I think its even a suggestion that every thing thats experienced Resurrection via ties to the Divine Dragon is resurrected at half strength or something. Maybe if Wolf stuck around for long enough, the Dragon would get back up and start fighting again, with 50% health lol
The White Dragons look elderly and afflicted, whereas the Black ones almost seem healthier in some fashion. Long horns on the White Dragons suggest they've gone through a long life, whereas the cut-off state of the Black ones indicates a new beginning, or a pruning. Perhaps a pruning of the Dragonrot? That, along with the fact that they no longer cough once they become blackened seems to indicate that Sekiro is, in a way, destroying the Dragonrot. Let's posit for a moment that, just maybe, clearing out the dragonrot this way allows the Divine Dragon to awaken and blossom fully once again - even if the damage dealt to it seems to be permanent, the "cleansing" of the dragons, the act of "pruning" them, allows the Divine Dragon to breathe easily once more. Or maybe I'm just looking into this too much while I'm half-asleep, right now. Still... it almost feels like this is the case: Sekiro destroys one of these Old Dragons, and they respawn/reincarnate soon after as a "New" dragon, clear of the rot afflicting it.
The fact the mortal blade is known also as "Gracious gift of tears" implies that during it's creation it was designed specifically to obtain the Divine Dragon's tears. It makes me wonder who commissioned, designed and created the two mortal blades because as we find out, Lord Takeru didn't know how to sever immortality or even cut himself until the days leading to the beheading. And if they didn't know any of that, I wonder how they discovered that ingesting the Dragon's tears would lead to the immortal severance. So many questions left unanswered.
From truly knows their audience and the lenghts they go to avidly collect every drop of lore. We will have to decompile and find out the order of cases in Isshin's AI switch statements to figure out what are his priorities in life [Sarcasm implied]
Another interesting thing to note that the dragons horns are like horns of deer and elk, who go through an annual process of shedding and regrowing their horns (like how Sakura trees bloom annually). The loss of horns, among other things mentioned in the comments, could be another indicator of the fight 'rejuvenating' the Everblossom.
Since they have the faces and ears of men, I'd always assumed that the Old Dragons were Fountainhead Palace nobles who became one with the Divine Dragon in order to achieve a more proper form/another form of immortality. They still have those flutes, after all. I'd bet that you are cleansing the rot, like everyone thinks too. Sort of like a tribute for an audience with the Divine Dragon itself.
I always saw this as a cleansing process for the dragon, destroying its ailment and restoring the natural process of immortality so we can then severe ourselves from it without some dragonrot side effect killing us afterwards.
I know In Tenchu during Wrath of Heaven Rikimaru has a shadow that dies for him. Rikimaru gets stuck in a portal but before he’s trapped he sends his shadow on a mission. The shadow is just trying to open the portal for og Rikimaru to return. Kinda suggesting that the original is stronger then the shadow. I know it’s not completely connected but it’s something it reminded me of. Shadows die twice an all
Isn't white a color for death in Japan? It could mean that when they resurrect from the dragon blood they regain vitality while the white old dragons are already at deaths door.
I think being in Ashina is what caused the dragons to begin rotting. In the journey to the west ending its said wolf is setting out to return the dragon's gift to wherever it came from. Passing that gift to humans obviously made the dragons weaker and begin to accumulate rot
I heard from a friend that black in japanese culture is the color for revival. Dunno how true that it, but it would make sense with the dragons turning black.
There's this technique called pooling in game dev. It's used for spawning stuff. Whenever you spawn something in that needs to be spawned multiple times, usually projectiles or enemies, the game needs to load it and it might take some time or processing power mid gameplay. So instead, you preload several of those resources, keep them in an array and just move one to the game whenever you need to spawn one, eventually cycling through. It reduces the weight of loading them mid fights but increases the load time of whatever scene it is where you need to access them, the boss fight arena in this case. That's probably what's going on here.
No, each of the dragons is a distinct NPC, with set spawn points and everything. It doesn't use them interchangeably. From has been pretty rigid with their character spawn system for years.
@@ZullietheWitch They only reuse one to spawn black ones, then? Maybe because only the white ones deal damage to the boss means there is always a fixed number of white ones to spawn. Is each white dragon its own unique NPC with a different ID and everything? If yes, do they at least have different stats, models or textures? If not, it might be just weird programming. Maybe they just respawn them as blacks because blacks can be respawned indefinitely, and since they have unique NPCs for each white they don't need to pool them, that's even more efficient than pooling.
Each dragon is a unique NPC with a different ID, yes. Whenever any dragon dies, it will be respawned, but after 10 respawns, it starts changing them into black dragons as they respawn. Then they continuously get respawned as black dragons. If you killed the same white dragon 10 times it would keep coming back as white the whole time until it finally switched over to black.
Wolf is basically built the same as the player in Dark Souls III. He has a helmet, armor, gauntlets, and leggings, they just happen to be variations of his head, his coat, his arms with or without the shinobi prosthetic, and pants. The aged condition is similar to the Dragon Head Stone, where a SpEffect places a different helmet on your head, in this case switching out Wolf's regular head for an old man version.
My interpretation is that when you kill the white dragons you cut them off from the tree and the black dragons are more decayed because the tree is no longer sustaining them. This is why killing them no longer effects the health bar.
I just realized Wolf could potentially, and most likely, kill every single DS protag, and BB protag *permanently.* The Mortal Blade kills immortal beings, even people like Wolf and Kuro who will infinitely revive.
