Talk:Hollow/@comment-47.136.162.130-20170101094442/@comment-29522860-20170120040606

I had a realization just now.

The basic idea is that one can enter the decomposed state of mindlessness, which is considered hollowed. But players can rot without being mad, and the mad Undead still respawn when the player sits at a bonfire. So why do the Hollow enemies revive when NPCs die?

My beleif now is that those enemies are not Hollows.

Think of this. If one has no purpose in their existance, they hollow, correct? Once hollowed, they die perminatly if killed again. This makes the "hollowed" enemies very different from the hollowed NPCs. Let me use Oscar and Anri and the Lothric Soldiers (the smaller ones) as examples.

Oscar came to the asylum to help fufill the prophecy, by assisting the departure of an Undead from it. Dying from his injuries, he has done all he wished with his existance, and upon death he is left a mindless being, dying perminatly. Anri sought to kill Aldrich, and upon doing so, she returns to Horace's resting place so that she may not harm anyone upon hollowing with her task having ended.

The soldiers of Lothric, on the other hand, were likely assigned in life to be constant protectors of the kingdom. Now that the place is in ruins, they are likely not going to see intruders, and they go mad and decompose. While they have progressed this far in hollowing, the very idea of guarding something is that one must wait until an intruder comes, and the very possibility of such an event gives meaning to their vigil and prevents full hollowing. The very fact that people such as players come around allows them to act their part, even if they must wait millenia before they get the chance to do their duties again, and so they technically have purpose.

This could also apply to the residents of the Undead Settlment, who worship the teachings of the evangalists and had always made their living preparing the bodies of the dead, and sometimes frequented the Greatwood and worshipped that. They are utterly useless in terms of their existance, but they still have things they must do.

After all, Hollows need not be mad.

With this, I propose that the enemies considered Hollows have not experianced the full requisites of hollowing, and so are not true Hollows as NPCs can.