The Undiscovered Secrets of Dark Souls 2 

Also in Dark Souls 1, Gwyn's four most elite knights were Artorias, Ornstein, Gough and Ciaran - three men and one woman.

Aside from the trinity of the souls, there is also duality between two couples of them: - Gwyn's lord soul gave Light to the world, and the Pygmy's lord soul will eventually give Dark to the world - The Witch's lord soul was used to birth new Life, while Nito's lord soul was used to create and spread Death For every individual conceptual force, there is an antagonizing, balancing, opposite conceptual force.

i really love the scene where we receive Vendrick's Crown Vendrick : Seek strength (plays the cutscene where players receive the crown) Vendrick : ...the rest, will follow

Your analysis of from software games are by far my favourite. Such rich lore to explore .

I've always felt like Dark Souls 2 had so much to offer especially from deeper occult themes. It has this strange attractive feeling, something gnaws from behind of the mind. My own "spiritual Awakening" if you can call it that actually started during the time I was playing DS2 not that it kicked it off but it felt like a part of synchronicity. I hold it quite close to my heart to this day.

Also in oriental mythology and symbology, the concept of "4 heavenly kings", linked with cardinal points is VERY powerful. Even Sailor Moon perpetuated this trope 😊

Nice a video to watch when I get home

I think a key component of the universe is hinted at by Aldia. He mentions something like shattering the yoke, spoiling the falsehood, that the world is an illusion or facade, but a splendid one. I think in a meta way it's a commentary on how the universe they inhabit isn't real, as intricate and complex as it may seem. He sought to find out the nature of reality (gnosis) and transcend it, but failed, in the process corrupting himself as he had previously corrupted others, perhaps as karmic punishment for his sins. Your character ultimately has two choices, perpetuate the cycle of illusion by coveting and claiming the throne, acting as a pawn of fate. You "win" in this scenario, but not really because you just end up right back at the start. You've really accomplished nothing. Alternatively you can turn from the cycle completely, refusing to restart it and create your own fate separate from the pre-destined one almost every player experiences in perpetuity, regardless of the consequences. Perhaps on some level it represents putting the game down when you've finished, and actually living life instead of being trapped in the game world and its predictable cycles, or perhaps it's analogous to life itself. Idk man, I could be way off, but there are definitely heavy Gnostic and Buddhist elements, especially in DS2. It's a cool game.

I have something to add to the theory about why there are four crowns. In Japanese the number 4 (四) shares a kana with death (死) which is し. 4 actually has two pronunciations depending on context. (You can connect those dots by yourself) to the point: with undeath in dark souls; collecting all four crowns will allow you to remove undeath from yourself and truly allow you to die. (For gameplay purposes you respawn, but in-universe, you can truly die. That’s how I view it

I love the way the human mind is just so motivated to detect and rationalize patterns. Numbers especially are an endless source of entertainment. Take any number and try to find all the different ways you could divide, multiply, or otherwise manipulate it into all kinds of seemingly mind blowing ways. I have always wondered if that means there really is a sacred geometry or if we are just masters of observing the material world and explaining it to ourselves in whichever way we find most attractive.

The "four" theme could also be connected to the Four Heavenly Kings or the Four Divine Beasts, the gods of the cardinal directions in Chinese beliefs (which later spread to Korea and Japan); a group of Elite Four is a common storytelling trope in Japan, with an additional or special 5th (like the elite four's leader or secret boss). I do not know about religion and the occult like you do, but I know from TV tropes that the number four is an auspicious in Japanese culture, related also with "death" because of its sound. Also, it would be cool for you to do a comparison between the four western elements system and the five chinese one.

Keep in mind it is not three light souls and one Dark soul. It is a Light Soul, a Death Soul, a Life Soul and a Dark Soul. All disparities. The Izalith Witches got the Life Soul, and Nito got the Death Soul.

Seeing Gwyn & Co as the supernal triad makes for an interesting take on the game as an undead in Malkuth ascending the Tree of Life. Also, Abyss sorceries being heavy also reminded me of how everything on the Tree is condensed in Malkuth. I wonder how much further this can go.

Perfect. Very excited. Just finished DS2 literally a week ago. Surprisingly so much better than expected… 😧

Dark Souls2 style of the Nexus is my favorite. The music, the mystical town with a talking cat and a mysterious well. The eerie house with the skeletons. The unusually powerful hogs. It had a dreamlike quality to it.

What is your speculation on the significance of the ritual torch reliefs found in Farron Keep, in regards to the themes of the three, the four, and the hidden? The reliefs feature the Witch of Izalith, Nito, and the Four Kings. There exists a fourth relief in the files featuring Seath the Scaleless. I always found it interesting that you fight Nito and the Witch for their souls, but then the Lordvessel is satisfied by two pieces of Gwyn's soul, and NOT the Dark Souls OR Seath's own soul. (I could talk about Seath for hours, honestly, but I'm very curious what your take on all of this is).

your justification for Vendricks crown being touched by the dark soul because of Nashandra is applicable to each of the crowns, each one has a shard of manus/furtive pygmy/dark soul vying for its/ its owners power. (Alsanna, Nadalia, Elana)

Any day Max posts a video is a good day

A positive comment to drive engagement.

Max Derrat uploads, I click. Simple as.

How is the death soul "light"? Nito's soul always seemed like a companion soul to the pygmy's soul the way Izalith's soul was a companion to Gwyn's. There's ample associations between Nito and darkness.

Thanks for your teachings Max :) I enjoy these videos and makes me take a great interest in magic, they way it conceptualizes metaphysics, ontology and proto-science is just so interesting.

@Max Derrat , I'm happy you did a follow up video on the subject of the holy trinity, along with the 4th incompatible part. After your last video I couldn't get it out of my head with seeing it in some of my favourite games and stories, but mostly I'm interested in it's importance in Elden Ring right now. I would love to pick your brain or anyone's really on this thought I had. For me the Trinity in Elden Ring was that of Marika, Elden Beast and The Greater Will, with Radagon not being the 4th incompatible part. That spot would be better suited to The Gloam-Eyed Queen, as she was also a Feminine figure that planned to disrupt the balance of the golden order and bring change to the world. With that in mine I wondered if there is room in a mythos like this for two sets of Trinities like a second age or a new cycle. This video really helped in cementing this idea for me, like the 4 crowns being that for the Dark souls games. So in Elden Ring the second Trinity would be that of Miquella, Malenia and Melina, with meany things grouping this trio in the lore, and the 4th being Ranni, a symbol of the moon and enacting change to the balance of the Golden order. Sorry about the long comment, but I wanted to throw that out there as food for thought.

I feel this raises the question "who is the fourth in the rennala/marika/radagon trinity?" and I think it's clear that would be the gloam-eyed queen. Taking other parallels into account, it's easy to conclude these 4 parallel both 4s in alchemy: mercury/salt/sulfur/magnesium and albedo/nigredo/rubedo/citrinitas. On the latter, rubedo and citrinitas are parallel to radagon and marika so it makes sense the gloam eyed queen and rennala are albedo/nigredo, going just by their hair colors. If this is true, since all the demigods are a product of incest/parthenogenesis, all pairings of the 4 must've produced offspring. The demigods named with an R are rennala's, the one's named with an M are marika's and the hair colors (just as in Martin's lore) are a giveaway of who the parents are. This really makes me wonder about which of the demigod's are children of the gloam-eyed queen. My best guesses would be Maliketh and St. Trina, given their respective realms/godhoods.

A good old fashioned lore video. Love to see it

Thank you for the new insight bro as a lot of other people dark souls has been in my life for a long time and I never seen or thought or heard about this concept and it was very thought provoking just like dark souls 2. Thank you also for making a video showing why dark souls 2 is important to the universe as a whole and not just a separate story/ game to dark souls.

About the excluded 4 regarding the four daughters of Manus, I will say that Alsanna is the excluded one in the sense that she is only daughter of darkness that is not evil or an antagonist to the bearer of the curse.

Your explanation on the trinity excluding a 4th element is literally the background for Blasphemous' Wounds of Eventide DLC, where the 3 high wills expell the 4th

Love your analyses and having it be on dark souls is perfect.

I just came across this channel and I’m glad I did! Fantastic video and great insights into the DS lore and the Occult. Look forward to checking out your other videos

I look forward to every one of your videos! Dark Souls 2 definitely deserves a lot more attention

Yup mind blown ... again, with regards to your comparison drawn between the illustration of the of the Rebis and the Statue of Marika/Radagon, I do find it somewhat coincidental that they are both located above a dragon.

From Software and Max is my dream team (I love how it end with "I simplified all i could", this easily could be a 4 hours video)

I always found the payoff of completing the DS2 dlc to be kind of weird. It felt like we were moving outside of the cycle of light/dark to somewhere else. I never really wore the crown because I enjoyed the hollowing effect for the risk/reward gameplay. But in a way, I guess that shows how Souls is all about the conflict between light/dark, which I've found so engrossing that the option to escape it feels entirely alien. Kinda meta😅

Ohhh goodie, a Max video! I just started a 2nd playthrough, too, so will give this a watch soon when I have my coffee 😊☕

4 is pronounced "Shi" in Japanese, is the same pronunciation for Death, I thought that was the reason why the number 4 is always in the game

Great video. This is a very interesting set of observations on DS lore. Looking forward to more content

The one thing I think is a bit of a stretch is connecting the crowns to the four lord souls, and saying that because Nashandra went after Vendrick and coveted his crown that his is the crown of the Dark Soul. All of the fragments of Manus sought out kings, not just Nashandra.

I like the perfect fourth concept in general, cause it’s a big philosophical implication that when you make a trinity you are using three things to make a new fourth thing that is a separate thing

Yooo was just binging your vids and a new one comes out let's go!

This is my favorite game in the series.

Love you Max!! Your video’s are always so good.

I truly believe dark souls 2 is the deepest and most interesting of the 3. Even though it’d seem 1 and 3 have a better connection, 2 stands on its own and connects to them with such uniqueness it’s so cool. There’s so much in its world and feels like such an adventure to explore.

Dark in DS also appears to be associated with unity, the erasure of individuality (seen with the Four Kings, who definetly were relatively different human beings, now look identical) and perhaps a loss of self (seen with the effects of Hollowing and possibly the "peace so deep it was like the Dark" that Nashandra brought in Drangleic). I guess it matches the Dark's (and the forth) association with wholeness?

Great video. Also note that the Rebis is standing on a Dragon which lines up perfectly with your initial statement of the ancient dragons representing wholeness.

Great video, always love your stuff.

You forgot about the sixth element: SURPRISE!

Just loop this into an hour long upload so I can listen to it to fall asleep, surprisingly effective

The reason why 4 is a complete number is because it represents stability. 4 legs of a table, 4 walls of a building, 4 limbs of an animal, and 4 seasons of the year. 4 is also associated with death because death is the only certainty in this world.

Hey Max, I'm a big of your channel and your unique content. I'm currently writing my M.A thesis in criticism and comparative literature and I strongly believe that your content and ideas are worthy of a PhD thesis. This can be a huge topic for another day. Your videos add to me and I learn a lot from them as I'm sure they do to many others. Stay yellow (;

even Vendrick supports this with his line “Inherit Fire, and harness the Dark, such is the calling of a true leader.”

13:47 Bruh. Got me by surprise.

Been loving this new DLC, can't wait for 5 to drop In all seriousness, thank you, I feel like I'm learning a lot about myself. I tried to look into the "threes" and I thought it was close, but not quite what I have going on. It's all clicking now though

This is gonna be a treat 😊

Is that a song from the Ender Lilies soundtrack I hear particularly in the video's last section? What a pleasant surprise.

I really like the absolute poetry of dark souls 2, the whole basis of your quest is to cure the hollowing curse, and the fused crown you get from beating all the dlc bosses and acquiring vendricks, and yet in it you almost have no reason to hold that power as there is nothing left to do except end the game. Much like with many of the other character in the series including slave knight Gael halfway through his fight. Once you have gained everything you sought, than what's left to search for. And in the end rather than hollowing to the curse you either hollow to the endless crawl of time or kindle the flame perpetuating the endless cycle.

Great video as always Max 🍻 What are the chances of you maybe looking in to Twin Peaks one of these days 🤔

A bit of info i think you might find interesting. Chronus is the titan god of time, his firstborn daughter is Estia, the goddess associated with flame. Gwyn daughter Filianore that we find in Dark souls 3 is blind, like the firekeepers and is forever watching over our "home". The firekeeper connection might be considered weak, but the fact the first creature Chronus god of time generated is related to domestic fire, i think that is interesting

Great video, thank you!

This was really interesting. I kinda want to apply some of this to Silent Hill Homecoming - I think that game had a lot of similar stuff going on.

I think it should be stated that Manus is not the Furtive Pygmy, that is never stated, or even really alluded to, anywhere in any of the three games.

Max is The God of Filtering. He filters such big amount of information from all kinds of sources and he talks about the most beautiful parts of them. God damn Max thank you man

"There is no path. Beyond the scope of light, beyond the reach of Dark… what could possibly await us?" What lies ahead, only a true King can see

You just introduced me to this idea of the trinity with the 4th element and how the 4th element is chaotic and seperate from the rest. I think thats incredibly interesting because even with modern science we believe in 4 fundamental forces and gravity is the force that won't be unified with the rest but if you go back to the beginning of the Big Bang or before it, the fundamental forces are one, the quintessence.

I think it's important to mention that the number 4 is also pretty superstitious in japanese culture, simmilar to 13 in the west.

Love the video, but got to ask, have any of the developers ever openly stated that they have been inspired by the occult and alchemy? Or are you drawing parallels and conclusions based on these links?

Thinking back to other FromSoftware games, it makes total sense, their Echo Night saga was also all about Alchemy (they include 2 stones, one red stone that seems really similar to the concept of the Philosopher's stone) To be honest, those games, while old, are certainly worth playing through and analysing. Hopefully you can cover them at some point! I'm a big fan of your channel and would really like to hear your take on them.

DS2 definitely deserves more love an attention

Fuck those two questions at 2:35 have me spinning now lol. Also thumbs up for the square joke, puns are life giving.

Many new ideas I hadn't thought of before and no condescending vaatividya voice, perfect

Ha. The number 3 and 4 kinda shocked me. Never have I paid attention to these numbers. Amazing. But I've read that number 7 is also sacred and plays a crucial part. For example, _"The 7 ruling powers of the World", "The 7 deadly sins"_ etc.

The soul of cinder is our chara from ds2 since it is the only human that can resist hollowing the souls of all who linked the fire afterwards plus the old lords gathered from the crowns in ds2.

A recommendation about sets of 3's, 4's and 12's: look up the Black Sun zodiac - also called the Demon zodiac - and cross compare it with Vedic Astrology. It is transparently invoked with Dark Sun Gwyndolin. The sign of Cancer in the Black Sun zodiac is also called "The Serpent" and "seen as very moody people". The sign of Cancer in Vedic Astrology is governed by the sign of the moon. Another major one is the Gemini and the Bell Gargoyles: not just that there are 2 gargoyles but also the 2 bells and where they are located. In Vedic Astrology, Gemini is about communication between heaven and the underworld. I'm quite certain at this point that the Age of Fire corresponds to the first point on the zodiac - Aries, the fixed fire sign. The Age of the Dark was supposed to start on Cancer - the fixed water sign - but instead it was unnaturally prolonged. The end of Dark Souls 1 would be occurring at about the time of Libra - the next fixed sign in the cycle. It gets messy when trying to sort the various bosses into how they fit into the zodiac - elements are intentionally asymmetrically distributed to disguise them. But a pattern emerges for the Lord Souls and the classic elements: Gwyn, Lord of Cinder and Sunlight, has domain over the Cardinal Fire sign Aries and the Fixed Fire sign Leo (sign governed by the sun). Other boss enemies are subordinate under these signs - Ornstein has the lion theme aspect of Leo, and as a pair both Ornstein and Smough are demonstrating the Black Sun version of Leo called "the War Maiden" through the mechanic where when one dies first it will be absorbed by the other - "Leos want attention and if they feel ignored they can create problems for themselves as well as others." Gravelord Nito has the Fixed Earth sign Taurus and the Cardinal Earth sign Capricorn. See the heads swapped on the Taurus and Capra Demons? And the cow head on the Capra demon is bone? Compare Pinwheel with the description of Capricorn in the black sun signs: "There is always some mystery that points towards the dark and the sinister of them. These people will never show you their real side and will keep you in dilemma by mixing up things.") Pinwheel cycles between 3 masks. The mask of the child and mask of the father look normal. The mask of the mother looks like a goat. The air and water signs are more mysterious in DS1. Witch of Izalith would be the cardinal air sign Libra and fixed air sign Aquarius - Black Sun Aquarius is "The Master of Demons". And the Pygmy/the Dark Soul would be the cardinal water sign Cancer and fixed water sign Scorpio. The Four Kings may perhaps collectively correspond to the 4 mutable signs. And Seathe the Scaleless I assume to be the mutable water sign Pisces for the Age of Ancients - Pisces is also called "the Sword" in the Black Sun zodiac and cutting off his tail gives you the Moonlight Greatsword.

Thanks for the contents you wonderful yellow man

I came very late, but still; This reminds me of the Darkdiver covenant. You're walking in the Dark,filled with dangerous phantoms. You light three fires, and boom, you meet the Darklurker, a thing with wings that has a light soul but gives only dark damage for the most part. A living absurdity. A revelation. The unity of opposites, incarnated.

Not sure if it was said but to further support the rotten/nito link. The poison statues look similar to the statues in the catacombs who also harm you...

In ancient Greek mythology it is similar whereas you have Ouranus/Uranus ruler of Space and the Heavens, then Khronos/Saturn ruler of time of which all things live and die, the third is Zeus/Jupiter ruler of men and the fourth is Gaea/Earth ruler of the material realm/abyss born of chaos. Appreciate your work, it puts everything together as it can be difficult to hold it all in your head while playing the games and make the connections.

If you obtain the four crowns and talk to vendrick BEFORE entering the Thone room, you have to deafeat the Throne Watcher andThrone Defender, Nashandra and Aldia, 4 bosses in a row.

Wow! Great video!

High quality content, my dude.

A DS2 video in 2023 and it’s from Max? Instant watch!

Nothing has compelled me to play the souls games until your series of videos.

Very well done video.

Ender Lilies gotta be next vid because that bgm you used is one of my favs 😍

I was just playing dark souls after years and this video just came out.

i really enjoyed your theory but i have a problem(not a problem really just a different view) on how you present the 4 Lord souls I think that the 3 Lord souls are not actually just light souls and the 4th is the dark soul if anything they present an opposite aspect Gwyn has the Sun soul and the drak soul which is the opposite of that Nito has the death soul and the witch of izalith has the life souls which is the opposite that's it just my little observation

overlappingJust holy shit it all looks so clear to me. Thank you my dude!

Max, can i recommend you a game called "Everything" ? It is such a weird game, i feel there something deep in it but i can't get my head around it, the game provides some audio logs with some filosofical(?) talks i guess, i would love to see your perspective about that game.

Fantastic work. I am curious, is all of this from your personal studies and interests or did you learn all the occult info you have through some sort of program. I'm curious avout learning!

I'm gonna throw a couple of wrenches into your analysis. 1: Hexes are represented by the number six (this could be creative licence by the localization team though). 2: DS1 pyromancy doesn't scale with any investment stat, but chaos pyromancy did scale with soft humanity. Regarding the second point, Miyazaki made pyromancy that way because he wanted to give melee builds a viable casting option, but the PvP community complained like crazy which is why the system was changed in the sequels. I don't think this change impacted the lore that much, it just shifts the soul investment from the pyromancy flame to stat investment.

I didn’t know that the world of Dark Souls is filled with traces of alchemy here,and all the kings and their souls is based around the elements. That explains everything about immortality and rid of undead curse,and the sun itself represents the light in which embodies upon them.

Always so enjoyable

Awesome video. Only i like to mention that it should be as a symbol 3outside 4 in than in that is the 3 but on a head and than the 4 in the very middle but as a +. So that it all united in a one piece of never ending change.

Great video! I still go back and forth about who the pygmy is or was after seeing the kings in 3. Is it Manus? Is it even important who it was? I could be very wrong in this thinking.

I would love to see you do an analysis video on Martha is dead and Alan Wake if you haven't already

The final antagonist of the manga "Bleach" is named "Juha Bach" and he is the son of the "Soul King". His plan is literally to bring about everlasting life for everyone by reverting reality to it's primordial state before the concept of the cycle of life and death was invented. These themes really do pop up everywhere.

I recommend to also play TUNIC, it has a good use of this trinity concept. I really like these videos by the way.

SIR! long time lurker first time commenter i love your videos and im thankful you are doing things about my favorite game dark souls two. Your thoughts and research is always amazing thanks for the entertain

In the beginning there was God who is Infinite Perfect Being. And the Void. Therefore the beginning is both Infinitely filled and Infinitely empty. Therefore Materiality is inevitable.

Just found your channel! I haven’t watched this video yet but I can tell ima like you 👏 I just came off of my 1st ds2 run & I hated it @1st but then fell in love! (W/ a few points in agility lolol) I just came back to ds3 for the DLCs I never played but darn it Sister black flame bitch got me on the ropes! It harder to parry that phase 😅 I’m hyped to listen to this later, the ds2 story eludes me atm so this could help 😊