Talk:Soul of Cinder/@comment-31489245-20191009093257

I like how meta Slave Knight Gael and Soul of Cinder battles are, in that they represent Dark Souls fans who've enjoyed/suffered their way through the series

Gael seems to represent you and other players online interactions and experiences

1. You first meet him praying in despair because he's reached an opponent he can't beat (Friede) and desperately needs help to complete his quest, the same way players run into brick wall bosses like Smough and Ornstein despair at at ever progressing their games. And you, the player, come to his aid, just like you've aided others/been aided by others through difficult bosses in online play.

2. Later in the Ringed City DLC he helps you with tips and guidance, again like Online players (Though with an inexplicable lack of "Tongue Butthole" comments, but never mind)

3. Finally at the end he turns on you, like invading PCs, in order to fulfil the terms of his "Covenant" with the Painter.

Hence Gael can also be said to be a representative of Dark Souls players who seek to complete the game, (Especially given that, like DS fans, he's been fighting since the First Age of Fire, and has died countless times due to being a Slave Knight who is sent to fight Impossible Odds, like DS players, and overcome them by trying again and again relentlessly) to achieve an ending and rest in the satisfaction of having striven for and achieved the best possible outcome in the game.

In contrast, Soul of Cinder represents the players who didn't want the Dark Souls series to end. He's designed to look like all the previous Chosen Undeads, uses movesets from the series and when you find him he's huddled around the fading First Flame as though sheltering it with his body. His music with the Gwyn leitmotif really sells the bittersweet nostalgia.

God I'll miss Dark Souls, but it was an excellent way to end the series and I hope there won't be a DS4 as it would diminish the Feels and the the Underlying theme of the cyclical nature of life, death and rebirth and how its wrong to prolong things because if you do you get diminishing returns, and its better to let somethings die so new growth can take place. AS PAPA NURGLE INTENDED!