Board Thread:Dark Souls II/@comment-7889951-20140530054919/@comment-16047389-20140530134127

I don't think Humanity has gotten weaker from the first game. I think the healing effect of it only existed in Dark Souls because there wasn't another item that could effectively be farmed for healing purposes (i.e. Lifegems). Now that Lifegems do exist, Humanity is scaled back to its original purpose of restoring human form. The shattering of the Lordvessel wouldn't mean anything. It wasn't connected to Humans or the Dark Soul at all. It's only purpose was to open the pathway to the Kiln of the First Flame.

The reason why Manus IS the Furitive Pygmy, is due to the soul he drops. His soul is quite litterally MADE of Humanity. He is the only being in any of the games that has such a soul. If the Dark Soul is what all Humanity was fragmented from, then it would only make sense that the Dark Soul was made of the same material. The Soul of Manus is the Dark Soul. However, years of splitting the Dark Soul would've taken its toll on the Pygmy (this can be evidenced with Gwyn as well, and how he became weaker after splitting his own soul), and being killed likely only made it worse on him, maybe even driving him insane. That's the whole purpose of the Darkwraiths: to recover Humanity across the land and join it with the Abyss, in order to rebuild and empower the Dark Soul.