Board Thread:Dark Souls II/@comment-46.64.182.203-20140312230146/@comment-1961216-20140429203106

The Old Dragonslayer is quite obviously Ornstein. Dark Souls II even lets you make the Dragonslayer Spear with his soul - not trade it with Straid, MAKE IT via Ornifex - and says "did you know this thing is / was enchanted with lightning???"

If he looks like an Ornstein, and walks like an Ornstein, and quacks like an Ornstein, and has most if not all Ornstein's moves just recolored - including one that can't belong to any other Dragonslayer, see below - and he drops Ornstein's ring, and his soul makes Ornstein's weapon just like Ornstein's soul does, only a delusional fool could pretend any significant likelihood that he is not Ornstein.

"But the Ornstein in Anor Londo was an illusion!!"

Okay first off that makes it MORE likely for Ornstein to still be alive following Dark Souls and thus be able to get to Dragleic since the CU didn't kill him.

But either way allow me to illustrate that this is impossible by citing two basic and readily observed facts.

FACT #1. You keep Sentinels' items

As we know, the Sentinels of Anor Londo drop a moderate amount of plain souls, as well as occasionally, their own armor and weapons.

That's because they're not illusions, not in the "all light and sound" sense. See, you need souls to wipe your own ass in Dark Souls, and Gwyndolin needs souls to animate a physical object. The Sentinels are real suits of armor with real weapons that are animated with souls - that's why they knock your ass flying when they hit you. By destroying the enchantment, you absorb the souls Dolly spent on said enchantment, and sometimes you can take part of the disabled Sentinel with you.

Sentinels don't actually fade into nothing when killed any more than Fang Boars or other minibosses do. That effect is there to avoid filling the game with high-detail corpses. That's why the items you earn from them don't fade away; the suits of armor are still there, just like the dead Fang Boar is still there.

Gwynevere drops no souls because she is indeed a straight-up illusion made of light and sound; a single hit breaks the illusion. Thus, Gwynevere requires no souls to maintain (just like Pyromancy et al. don't) and you don't get any for killing her, whereas Sentinels are real suits of armor that are animated by souls and thus you absorb them from killing them.

FACT #2. You can take souls apart but you can't put them back together

The player is perfectly well able to use mid-to-large souls (e.g. Soul of a Proud Knight, boss souls) to break them into little bitty normal souls.

The player is not able to put those souls back together afterward, even if they don't spend the souls they just got. Even if they had 0 souls before and all the souls they have now are all from that one boss soul.

No one can assemble small souls into big souls, other than into their own soul, and that includes Gwyndolin.

This is vital because, like every other (very real) boss, along with a large number of ordinary souls Ornstein also drops a single large soul. His own.

That leaves two possibilities: 1. That it is the real Ornstein in his real body or 2. That Dolly acquired Ornstein's soul and placed it in a suit of armor like he did with the Sentinels

And in either case that is "the real Ornstein".

So, unless someone can cite proof of the manufacture of major souls in emulation of an existing entity, I must maintain that the Ornstein fought in Anor Londo is the real Ornstein because it can't possibly have any soul other than his real soul.

"But that means Ornstein is dead!"

FACT #3. You can return souls to completely heal dead people

Such as the Fire Keeper Lautrec kills who you have the option of resurrecting.

She even gets her tongue back when you do it. That means you can do whatever you want to Ornstein - even turn him into a weapon (hint hint) - but as long as you don't divide his soul up for beer and hookers SOMEONE can revive him brand-spanking new, with all his war wounds and shaving accidents gone.

So I dunno I guess one of his fangirls saved him.

"But why is Ornstein in Dragleic???"

Well gosh I don't know!

But neither does he.

FACT #4. Dragleic lures people in with false promises and eats their memories

Ornstein is in Dragleic for the same reason every single other character is - because he's Undead. He was always Undead so far as the player is concerned; that's why he comes back after the Chosen Undead kills him, as certain NPC's very early in Dark Souls II plainly tell you happens to all Undead, and also why he makes spooky ghost noises while you're fighting him in the first game.

Because the Undead are one and all cursed with immortality at the cost of gradually turning Hollow and going feral (Dark Souls 1 made this clear and DS2 keeps hammering it at you), he does what everybody else did and heads to Dragleic on a goose chase because it's the last hope he has.

Then, like many of the NPC's (Cate is the most obvious), he forgets why he's there over the course of who knows how long. The closest cathedral is the only link he has left to his fading memory, and he guards it because "this is what I always did... I think."

You know, that thing every NPC says when they're doing something vaguely related to what they used to do..?

"But why does he use dark magic instead of lightning magic?"

FACT #5. "Cursed Undead"

I like to think I have done a fine job pointing out that Ornstein is an Undead just like the player.

The thing is that the Undead curse is, by its very definition, a thing of the Dark. That's why its symbol is called the Darksign.

All those who fall to the curse go Hollow. They also go Dark.

Only the player doesn't suffer Going Dark, just like the player doesn't go Hollow and kill everyone they meet --

Oh my sweet Lord.

FACT #6: Ornstein's distinctive derriére

Hear me out here.

When you fight the Old Dragonslayer, sometimes he jumps in the air and... sits on you or something, and it does area damage. It is the stupidest attack I have ever seen in Dark Souls and belongs in a WWE game.

Anyway, Ornstein has that attack too, lightning-ized - but only if you defeat Smough first and allow Ornstein to absorb him so that he has the lightning power to do it.

The heavy implication with suddenly getting that move is that normally, Dragonslayers don't or can't do that top-rope move. ONLY Ornstein can do that, and only because he absorbed Smough, whose Rikishi-like physique makes such a move quite potent.

Thus, the Old Dragonslayer is him and Smough was killed first canonically, and Ornstein can prove it with his deadly butt.

and also with everything else I said above.