An interesting fact about curse, the purging stones imply that curse cannot be fully dispelled, rather passed on. The purging stones item description describes them as something that used to be human, so when you use a purging stone you are passing it onto whatever or whomever was transposed within the stone. The technique used to do so is left purposefully vague like a lot of stuff in this game but the idea that humans are so susceptible to curse that they came up with a way to put fellow humans in rocks to get rid of it is an interest and disturbing idea. Just a fun tidbit.
Since being cursed is visualized with characters being crystallized, maybe the purging stones were just people who were crystallized and eventually became more stone like. Maybe that’s just my wishful thinking hoping people didn’t turn people into tools but this is the Dark Souls universe after all…
You're definitely right about the Depths bonfire; it one of the (strangely enough) "safest" resting places in the game despite the area being so perilous. I've spent many hours here farming for titanite/humanity and meanwhile listening to podcasts in the background. And I appreciate the theme of "fire consuming you" running here that you brought up. I feel like the game is at the core of it very critical of the good and bad brought upon by belief systems and how bright times can literally and figuratively lead to dark ages and vice versa. Being an Iranian myself, it's always a sad notion that I realize upon thinking about this game's story, being that how the contrast between the light/dark forces here very much signifies for me the better, happier days my country has had, before extremism and violent religious institutions took over and brought it in into a dark, oppressive era that has lasted for decades now.
An interesting detail with the Gaping Dragon is all the corpses of other adventurers scattered around the arena, namely the fact that they wear the armor of classes we can start as. Other than the fact that it reiterates that we aren't the first "Chosen Undead," it also tells of wanna-be dragonslayers who met their demise because of their glut for acclaim. Some people speculate that the Gaping Dragon drops the Blighttown Key because it devoured the person who held the key.
wow 130 views I'm proud to be one. Dark souls has been my favorite game for over 10 years now. this video reminds me of the lore videos that kept me going on my first playthrough.
