Talk:Endings (Dark Souls)/@comment-17773214-20130921031916/@comment-18016240-20131018100615

It's a neat bit of writing, but I'd have to disagree.

Consider that Gwyn apparently commanded the gods to "shepard the humans" in order to maintain his Age of Fire. Now, when one thinks of the word shepard it usually conjures up images of a person leading around and directing a flock of sheep, sheep are used for mostly two things when it comes to agriculture, wool... and meat. The gods had been 'farming' humans for their humanity to keep the Fires going via the Rite of Kindling (hence the reason why bonfires get bigger and brighter when given humanity) and to prevent the Dark Lord from being born amongst humans. The side product of this process are those who become Undead, they have lost their original humanity and need to hunt for more in order to sustain themselves and to keep from hollowing. This is why kingdoms like Baldur and Berenike are falling apart: their people are turning into undead and going hollow by the dozen. Seeing these undead as no longer being useful and in fact being a threat to their 'livestock', the gods (primarily Allfather Lloyd) organize a group of knights who specialize in (what else?) fighting and capturing the undead, and then shipping them off to asylums like the one the player starts in to go hollow, away from the flock.

By the events of the game, the world is nearing it's end. The Lords are each gone due to mishaps or other circumstances and demons have begun to enter the rest of Lordran from Izalith, causing the majority of the gods to flee for fear of their lives. It's also possible that humans are nearly extinct at this point and in their desperation, Gwyndolin and Frampt join forces to trick a powerful undead who has a lot of humanity into replacing Gwyn in a bid to restart the Age of Fire. (though this part is pure speculation on my part) since we see almost no humans that aren't undead or hollow (with the possible exceptions being Sieglinde and the creatures in Seathe's lab/prison)