The entirety of Demon's Souls' lore explained! 

I played it recently on emulator using the Archstones server and I had a blast.

@@hommedegout That's awesome. I hope more people follow your lead!

You should give it a try! It's in my opinion the best game ever made. I mean, I'd say love and appreciate every Fromsoft game equally. But DeS is special. xD

@@thefirelinkconspiracyDeS is a really special game. For as dated as it is From never really made something similar to DeS ever again

Thank you so much!!

Thank you, I'm glad you've enjoyed it!

The remake actually messes up way more environmental storytelling than that actually: The blood soup in the tutorial is gone, now just being a giant bowl of fire and thereby getting rid of the visible relationship between soul starved/Dregling Soldiers feeding the nearby Vanguard The Doran Statue Boletaria is now overgrown with plants as well which makes little sense considering that the point of the plant growths in the tutorial outpost is to show you that it is an outpost The faces on the Fat Officials and the noblewoman in Latria are now no longer cracked masks thereby getting rid of the visible evidence that Tendency and the Soul Arts/Fog/Demons are based on perception and egregory(I don't think I'm spelling that right) And a good couple more things actually, it's really sad

@@AntediluvianGirl The noble woman's redesign is worse than that. She's just a zombie-like human in the remake, which means the connection to the Gold Mask of the secret society is lost. In the original, it's implied that the Old Monk punished her for her association with the secret society, thus her face was disfigured to look like the mask. And yes, the remake's changes severely harm the lore. The Tutorial Area doesn't contrast to Boletaria with its ruined state and overgrown vegetation. The context surrounding it is lost. It's not what remains of Mird anymore, just random ruins. Every significant change they made is just like this.

do you know why the first one got deleted?

@@rylandsmathieux8076The author just wanted to make a better version.

It'd be impossible to talk about Demon's Souls' lore without using Demon's Souls' as a base. The 'remake' is unrelated. ;)

Thanks!

Ohh!!! Thank you so much!!!

Thank you so much! I'm glad you've enjoyed it.

Yeah, it's a reupload with more content(the original was 36 mins, so four minutes of new stuff here) and with it rearranged/presented in a somewhat different manner- the original I think is still in an unlisted playlist on his channel

@@AntediluvianGirl Thanks for explaining it! Yes, this is a reworked version of a video I posted a couple days ago. Its script was polished and expanded. The original video was 33 minutes long, this one is 40+; actually, it would've been ~45 minutes long but I decided to cut some of the content which will be part of a different video. :)

@@thefirelinkconspiracy Thats great! Glad to be lucky enough to get your channel on my feed.

Thanks, I'm glad you've enjoyed it :)

Oh, that's nice! I'll pin a comment sharing the Archstones servers to invite more players!

Me and my buddy played through those about 4 years ago, and it was so much fun!

OooOoh sounds like I should boot this up and try and join in

Thanks! And yes, that's a great observation!

Thanks for sharing your questions here. -It's difficult to say if the Nexus actually exists in the physical world. Since the Maiden in Black was refered to as 'the witch in the sky', I guess it's not impossible for the Nexus to be situated somewhere in the physical plane, but it's unclear still. I think Rydell and Allant might've reached it through shards of Archstone, which teleported them to the Nexus. I'll talk about this on the follow up video. -Most NPCs of the Nexus were trapped by the enchanted swords. -The Old One was awakened by man's avarice. Its purpose is to simply consume the world; it's more of a force of nature than a conscious being. Like a very simple-minded animal. -It's not explained how people would've originally discovered the Soul Arts. My guess it they learned them through alchemy, as represented by the Archstone of Latria. -The Old One doesn't really 'house demons'; he unleashes his colorless Fog, which manifests men's darkest thoughts, fears and desires, and incites living creatures to feed on souls. Every demon is born of this logic. -The Yellow Cloth Demon is probably not sentient, like most other demons. I'd guess it too is like an animal, a parasitical creature. It engaged in a sort of 'parasitic obligate mutualism'; it helped Geri enact his revenge while consuming an entire land's worth of souls. The Yellow Heart Womb Demon is the "true form" (I don't really like this descriptor) of the Demon, quite literally an evil tumor that births demons to ravage Latria. -The international ban of the Soul Arts was enforced through the power of the Church of God. They conducted witch hunts and holy wars against heretics who'd study the arts. The Archstones are an exception to the rule, as they were necessary to mend the world and were tended by the Monumentals. Mird vanished and left an enormous void in the center of the planet. -The swamp was where the impurity of the empires fell into. Corpses of those who fought in wars and criminals, indigent undesirables, ab* rt* d babies, general sewer residue, etc. However, the Valley was so big and populated as to warrant its own Archstone, which was made in the image of a 'chieftain of lost and ill-fortuned souls' (who could've been a 'shaman'/witch doctor, but it's difficult to say for sure.) -It's not that different at all. The slayer of demons must become demonic to acquire the necessary strength to fulfill his mission. -Petrified eyes imbued with concentrated souls are consumed to restore the connection of soul and body. Eyes are the way men perceive light - which is a core component of the soul. Which is what grants the eye stones such magical propoerties. -It has an in-world explanation; it relates to the way 'light' and 'shadow' are reflected/manifested upon the protagonist's world through their own soul. I hope this is comprehensive enough to sate your questions for now!

@@thefirelinkconspiracy Thank you so much. Getting to a much, much fuller comprehension thanks to this. Just a few lingering doubts then: - What I find confusing about the Nexus is that on one hand it houses the archstones which allow travel between lands, which is something people would generally use, which in turn requires it to be a physical place. But on the other hand it traps peoples' souls which wouldn't really work if people just come through there while travelling. Maybe the entrapment part activates only when The Old One is awake? - They all touched some enchanted sword made through demon arts and it triggered the soul trapping property of the Nexus? That's quite a lot of coincidences and/or bad luck. But also some NPCs end up there during our playthrough (like Sage Freke), so they must be able to go there willingly. Which is why I asked if the Nexus is a physical place. - You did say something about King Allant getting disillusioned and deciding to awaken The Old One. Can it be done intentionally then, not only through avarice? - Ok! - I get it now! - So this demon has a monstrous physical form but also is able to influence and give powers to the monk through yellow cloth. That'd make it quite a unique demon. - Ah, now it makes sense. - So it's Blighttown's big brother, got it. - Ha, knew it. - The question is then whether it's just the reanimation of the body through magic or a philosophical issue about the protagonist's perception. - That sound a lot like how the colorless fog functions. And since the protagonist is becoming demonic, projecting the contents of protagonist's soul actually makes sense as explanation.

Rather than "true form" how about "central nodule" or "main body" like a siphonophore(sea creature compromised of many smaller single cell organisms of different species forming into a whole new species) so in other words that the Yellow Cloth is "one cell" of the Yellow Heart-Womb Demon that is parasitizing Geri?​@@thefirelinkconspiracy

@@timecage -"Maybe the entrapment part activates only when The Old One is awake?" Yes, that seems to be the most plausible explanation. The Nexus wasn't widely used after the Soul Arts were banished though. Rydell found it by accident during his adventures, as it was long forgotten by civilization. -Some NPCs do go there willingly, such as Freke. Others, like Thomas, were trapped. -It's implied that Allant deliberately disturbed the Old One's slumber, you're correct. And it's possible that the Queen did so as well. By 'avarice' being the trigger I mean moreso that the Queen's avarice was the driving force for her actions. We can't know for sure how she did it though, it could've been involuntary. -About the eye stones, it's definitely a literal reanimation through magic. Our character dies and wanders around as a soul until it can find a way to regain connection to his body through ephemeral eye stones. I'm very glad to have had this discussion with you! Always feel free to post your questions here.

@@thefirelinkconspiracy Thank you! This is fascinating stuff. I'd be leaning to the Queen doing it accidentally since she had no way of knowing about the Old One's existence - possibly. Also if the Nexus was forgotten then the lands must've lived unaware of each other for a long time. Or at least not interacting. Since, as you've said, there is a void between them. But then Rydell must've told everybody about it since there are clear signs of people using it to travel to other lands - possibly only after the fog came through. We have ministers in world 2 and of course Astraea in the swamp.

Thank you!! I care deeply about Demon's Souls. I'm glad to see others like me around!

Thanks xD

@@thefirelinkconspiracy I really appreciate it XD hopefully I can get my hands on an OG copy... There's a real beauty to it that got missed, even if the graphics were more simple I consider them to be a lot more striking than much of the blue-and-orange -flavoured remake 🤔 many details you've pointed out, I'll have to imagine they're still there XD Bless bro 🌞 stay safe and be well! 🙏🏻

@@madmorgo6233 I'm sure Demon's Souls will amaze you once you get to play it! And bless you too brother.

I would be impossible to make a Demon's Souls lore video with the remake as a base. The PS5 version massively harmed the game's lore; there's nothing to be learned there.

Thanks!

As soon as I saw that the blood soup in the tutorial(which Firelink uses in the video to illustrate the point about Vanguard's enslaved Dregling Soldiers feeding it human bodies as a metaphor for bloodlust) was gone in the remake I immediately had a huge sigh and said out loud "they did not understand the point of most things in this game" and whaddya know, I got proven right over and over each and every time

Obligatory I thought the remake was fine 😔

​@@yetanotheraccount3361 I agree! I thought the PS5 version was highly regarded 🤷‍♂️

​@@JoelAwesome2 The PS5 american version of DeS betrays the spirit and lore of the original, and is a glorified tech demo. Unfortunately, I'd have to say the americans who developed it did not understand Demon's Souls; they didn't understand its art, nor its story, and thus butchered it all for the sake of 'improving it for modern audiences/americanizing' it, akin to Hollywood remakes of japanese movies. It's more like a parody of the original game than anything. In fact, the changes are so jarring, tone deaf and misinformed that they break the lore of the game. I know this is a controversial thing to say, as most From Software fans haven't even played and don't care for the original, and mostly see no issue with the american remake, but this opinion is very informed and comes from a place of respect and adoration for Demon's Souls and its artistry.

​@@yetanotheraccount3361"Fine" is a huge step down from "masterpiece"

o7

An updated reupload yes

Yes, this is a reworked version of a video I posted a couple days ago. Its script was polished and expanded. The original video was 33 minutes long, this one is 40+; actually, it would've been ~45 minutes long but I decided to cut some of the content which will be part of a different video. :)

You're welcome, and thank you too!

Tell that to Miyazaki xD

Thanks a lot! xD Yes, Demon's Souls' narrative is a work of genius. The evidence is mostly contextual clues, as Demon's Souls never spells any of its mysteries out to the player through text. We can infer that she is the queen for various reasons; such as her placement and role in the Nexus, her symbolic punishment - which relates to the themes around Latria, the "Tower of Babel" land of Demon's Souls, her having been the oldest of Demons (which means she was the one who awoke the Old One and triggered the First Scourge), etc. As an additional observation, her dark hair with a ponytail is a bit similar to the Fool's Idol. :)