Long and convoluted story cut short, I just wanna get straight to the point because the games themes translate well with past and present issues regarding power control, imperialism, destruction, chaos, mostly death, all to support one mans infatuation with something he found. In Dark Souls, there are two parts of the world, above ground and below ground. Above ground is where the dragons reign but below ground is where humanoid beings lived, kinda in darkness until flame introduced itself. Gwynn had discovered a great soul in the form of flame, decided to dedicate his entire life to this discovery which eventually became his downfall. Gwynn gave parts of this soul to the witch of izalith, nito, and seath. They all aided Gwynn in eradicating the dragons which eventually happened, Gwynn had succeeded in killing off all the dragons but this came at a heavy cost, for dragons were the things that brought light through their flames.

Taking it back to when Gwynn defeated the dragons, he became very egotistical and forged a faith in light, giving himself and his family a god like status and basically forcing everyone to believe the world is good and cool because he found a flame in the dark. Yeah Gwynn is a pos but he’s supposed to be, he’s the perfect antagonist, the perfect example of how an infatuation with ones own achievements can make one devolve into another being entirely, because anything from that point onwards cannot outshine your one and only achievement. It takes a lot of energy to keep up that sort of control and it shows, because I didn’t mention another being who found flame in the darkness, the furtive pygmy, this pygmy used the flame to create humanity. Gwynn feared humans so much to the point he cursed them all with the darksign, a brand on the body that absorbs souls and burns away at your entire being until you are left a hollow husk. It is also worth mentioning the curse of the darksign is its attachment to the bonfires. Bonfires are the save points in an area, they are also ( in game ) points of revival, if you die, you resurrect at a bonfire, but this comes at a cost. For you are dead and you become hollow with more death. In order to reverse the hollowing, one must provide humanity sprites to the flame, giving you back your humanity and slowing down the degradation hollowing brings. Humanity and their curse are proof of Gwynn’s madness, but also his destruction he inflicted on the race of dragons.

Now it bares the question, why would anyone want to live in darkness forever? As all species need to evolve and adapt in more ways. Fish grew limbs and eventually grew lungs and turned to mammals, certainly this ambition to seek something than you current state is the essence of life itself, adapting to changes by evolving. I understand the want to progress outside of the dark depths, for darkness is scary and unpredictable. Was it this fear of the dark that drove Gwynn upwards to start a war with dragons? Maybe, but then we also have to understand dragons in the entire souls series. I want to know if dragons were needlessly hostile once the humanoids appeared from below the ground. Some dragons in the series are ‘allies’ an example of this is the Ancient Dragon from DS2, although produced by Aldia meaning the dragon was made not born, this dragon doesn’t attack you unless you attack it first. Midir from DS3 was an ancient dragon who Gwynn used to eat away at the dark, kinda like a watcher over the pygmy’s keeping them in check, making sure none of them turned to dark for if they did, they would be destroyed. So okay 2 dragons, wait the one in DS1 that is literally just a covenant idle and nothing more, three dragons who do not attack and aren’t hostile. Now I could mention Seath, but Seath was enraged by his jealousy of being mortal, for Seath lacked the scales dragons needed for their immortality. Seath is malicious and in many ways much of an antagonist as Gwynn. Any other dragon, wyvern, drake, or dragon in the series straight up attacks the player. Could this be that dragons fear humanoid figures because of an almost endless war between Gwynn’s army of black knights and the other lords? I would like to think so, because in ash lake, kinda like a time machine back to how things were before humanoids occupied land., the ancient dragon here doesn’t attack the player at all. This dragon doesn’t even attack you once you chop its tail off for a weapon. I think this is proof that the dragons didn’t start the war, I mean they had no choice anyway, I’m pretty sure it was Gwynn who gained an immense amount of courage from the flame to draw first blood, whether it be from jealousy that dragons could produce flame naturally or the fact he feared them, or (I doubt this) but they attacked him first. I mean, dragons are reptiles, reptiles for the most part like dinosaurs and some other reptiles who live on earth now, are for the most part hostile. Could you even reason with a dragon? How would you go about communicating with them. Would you even trust a humanoid figure as a dragon, I know I wouldn’t trust something 1-100th+ of my size, I already hate some bugs.

Dark Souls is convoluted but a lot of it’s story is told through indirect story telling, mostly from lore descriptions on items and cutscenes with narration.