The Furtive Pygmy (Japanese: 誰も知らぬ小人, lit. 'A small person that no one knowns') is a mentioned character in Dark Souls.
Description
The Pygmy looks like a normal humanoid figure, particularly thin, with an indistinguishable face and lacking hair.[1]
Plot
He is only ever mentioned indirectly by Darkstalker Kaathe, leader of the Darkwraiths, who resides in the Abyss formed in New Londo. According to Kaathe, the Furtive Pygmy planned to use the Dark Soul and its power to bring about the Age of Dark. This task is then passed on by Kaathe to the Chosen Undead, a distant descendant of the Pygmy.[2] If complied with, Kaathe and several other Primordial Serpents—including Frampt—will bow in respect to the new Dark Lord.
Lore
Dark Souls
The Pygmy finds the Dark Soul.
The Furtive Pygmy is one of the primordial humanoids that appeared underground following the advent of the First Flame which brought "disparity"—heat and cold, life and death, light and dark.[1] He was the one who found the Dark Soul among the four Lord Souls,[2] the other three of which were discovered by Gwyn, Lord of Sunlight, Gravelord Nito, and the Witch of Izalith.[1]
The Furtive Pygmy fragmented his Dark Soul among his descendants, creating the first Humans in the form of the Pygmies.[3][4][5] The pygmies harnessed their peculiar Lord Soul and unlocked the life-generating capabilities of its Abyss, forging weapons and armor that adopted the properties of darkness.[6]
As Gwyn's war against the Dragons proved costly for his forces,[7] the Lord of Sunlight was forced to integrate into his ranks the Ringed Knights,[8] descendants of the Furtive Pygmy who had developed their own weapons and armor vitalized by the Abyss.[6][9] With their combined might, the four Lords eventually defeated the dragons, beginning a new age.
The pygmies bow to Gwyn's rule.
While the Lords emerged victorious and were free to carve out their new domains, Great Lord Gwyn was evidently afraid of the Dark Soul. His dominion was threatened by the life-generating capabilities of the Abyss—it was similar to the First Flame, with a key exception: it had seemingly endless potential, as it lost little to no power when divided[10] unlike Gwyn's own Lord Soul.[11] The Lord of Sunlight resolved the issue through skillful diplomacy: He gifted the Pygmies a city at the edge of the world, along with his daughter Filianore as a token of their pact.[12] Gwyn's generosity was cause for much gratitude among the Pygmies, which manifested as veneration and prostration to the Great Lord. His daughter Filianore became an object of worship within the Ringed City, for whom a church was established wherein she could slumber peacefully, "all for the sake of man".[13][14] Gwyn had given Filianore his word that he would come for her "when the time came", a promise he never fulfilled, abandoning her to slumber in her church eternally.[12]
With this clever move Gwyn ensured the subjugation of the Pygmy Lords,[15][16] their Dark Soul trapped inside the Ringed City and expunged from the annals.[4][5] Even the contributions of the Ringed Knights during the war against the dragons were erased from history,[17] as well as the very existence of the Pygmy.[1]
His precautions notwithstanding, Gwyn continued to fear humans and the potential of their soul. Looking for a more permanent solution, he marked the humans with the Darksign, a ring of fire around the darkness of their souls. Powered by the First Flame itself, the Darksign castrated the powers of humans, making them mortal as well as incapable of using their natural abilities, who consequently assumed a "fleeting form".[18] Despite this cruel attempt to contain the Abyss seeping out of their souls, the pygmies continued to make use of the Abyss in subtle defiance of the gods' wishes, using it to taint multiple layers of cloth to cover their eyes, revealing to themselves the very darkness that the seal of fire had occluded.[19][20]
After several centuries of the Age of Fire and the rule of the gods over men, the history of the Pygmy had been nearly lost. It remained known only to the Primordial Serpent Kaathe, who provides the following account:
After the advent of Fire, the ancient Lords found the three souls. But your progenitor found a fourth, unique soul. The Dark Soul. Your ancestor claimed the Dark Soul, and waited for Fire to subside. And soon, the flames did fade, and only Dark remained. Thus began the age of men, the Age of Dark. However... Lord Gwyn trembled at the Dark. Clinging to his Age of Fire, and in dire fear of humans, and the Dark Lord who would one day be born amongst them, Lord Gwyn resisted the course of nature. By sacrificing himself to link the Fire, and commanding his children to shepherd the humans, Gwyn has blurred your past, to prevent the birth of the Dark Lord.
Dark Souls II
Several centuries after Lord Gwyn linked the First Flame for the first time, the Furtive Pygmy is all but forgotten even in Drangleic, a realm beyond the direct influence of the gods. Only the group known as the Pilgrims of Dark is still aware of the origins of the humans and appear to worship a Dark Lord of some sort, though they never directly refer to the Pygmy. Darkdiver Grandhal would encourage the undead who come to Drangleic to dive into the Abyss that has opened up in the region and to challenge the depths deeper and deeper to understand their own darkness,[21] for which he rewarded them with his hexes and dark sorceries.[22]
Dark Souls III
At some point, the primordial Pygmy died and his Dark Soul was inherited by his descendants, the royal family of the Ringed City.[23][24] Throughout the millennia that followed in the Age of Fire, the Pygmies maintained their obeisance and worship of the gods.[16] The Pygmy Lords who inherited the Dark Soul and ruled the city[5][25] would turn to Filianore for salvation in their direst times.[14]
The Ringed City.
A "mad" king was one day born among the pygmies, whose actions led Shira, Knight of Filianore to put him to rest. Made undying by the Dark Soul, Shira was only able to pin her cross spear to the king's body, where she watched over his imprisoned remains forever.[24] Following this event, the Pygmy Lords apparently continued to rule as an oligarchy.[23][26]
Sometime before the arrival of the Ashen One at the Ringed City, a pygmy—plausibly a disgruntled Pygmy Lord—[27][28] came to detest the Gods for condemning the pygmies to their accursed fate, and took up residence at the outskirts of their city.[29] There, he welcomed new arrivals and directed into Filianore's Church those who sought the Dark Soul, where they could confront the "lid covering an overgrown privy".[5]
The Pygmy Lords obeyed and relied on the gods for eons,[14] and remained passive unto the end of time, at which point even their own blood had dried up.[23] The last Pygmy Lords would meet their ends at the hands of Slave Knight Gael, who had sought their Dark Soul for centuries. Finding that their blood had long ago dried up, he consumed their Dark Soul, so that he could take it back to his Lady to be used as pigment for her painting.[23][30]
A Pygmy Lord, at the end of time.
The pilgrims of Londor appear to possess knowledge of the situation of the Ringed City,[4] to the extent that they were inspired by the motifs of the Pygmies, modeling their Sword of Avowal after the symbolism of their fabled city.[31] This sword would be "wielded" by their destined Dark Lord, who would usher the Age of Man that was long desired by Kaathe and the pilgrims of Londor.[32]
Trivia
- If the statue in the Ringed City truly depicts the Pygmy, it would then mean that he was still alive when the humans were gifted the Ringed City by Lord Gwyn, and having been its original ruler makes highly probable that his body is conserved in the Mausoleum that towers above the city.
- The Furtive Pygmy being Humanity's ancestor was confirmed in an interview with Miyazaki.[3] This confirms the words of Darkstalker Kaathe, who states in-game that the Furtive Pygmy was the ancestor of humans.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Opening (Dark Souls) cinematic.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Darkstalker Kaathe dialogue.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Game o Shokutaku interview (archived Jan 2022), Miyazaki: "It isn't written anywhere, but, the image is something like humanity's ancestor. He found the Lord Soul, fragmented it and humanity are like the fragments of it. Kinda like an ancestor, yeah. So the descendants, the humans, have a part of that Lord Soul."
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Stone-humped Hag dialogue.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Ringed City Pygmy dialogue.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Ringed Knight Paired Greatswords description.
- ↑ Hawkeye Gough dialogue: "The dragons shall never be forgotten... We knights fought valiantly, but for every one of them, we lost three score of our own."
- ↑ Dragonhead Shield description.
- ↑ Ringed Knight#Drops
- ↑ Every descendant of the Furtive Pygmy holds within themselves at least one Humanity. Each Humanity is a fragment of the Dark Soul, like the Bequeathed Lord Soul Shards, with a key difference: when humans procreate, they conceive new Humanities which maintain the integrity of their progenitors. Theoretically, Humans could procreate for infinity, and yet their Humanity would not lose its strength, which by extension means that the Dark Soul would maintain its power.
- ↑ Bequeathed Lord Soul Shard descriptions.
- ↑ Shira, Knight of Filianore dialogue: "Please, I bid thee take not from the Princess her peace or rest. As the fire waneth, does she lie by the dark, all for the sake of Man."
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Pygmy Lord dialogue: "Ohh, Filianore, help me, please... The Red-hood is come to eat us... to eat our dark souls..."
- ↑ Pygmy Lord dialogue implies that the pygmy lords themselves worshipped the gods of Anor Londo, relying on them for salvation.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Undead Clerics use miracles of the gods, evidence of their unyielding faith after thousands of years.
- ↑ Dragonhead Greatshield description.
- ↑ Aldia, Scholar of the First Sin dialogue: "Once, the Lord of Light banished Dark, and all that stemmed from humanity. And men assumed a fleeting form. These are the roots of our world."
- ↑ Ringed Knight Hood description.
- ↑ Eyes of a Fire Keeper description.
- ↑ Darkdiver Grandahl dialogue.
- ↑ Darkdiver Grandahl#Character information
- ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 23.3 Blood of the Dark Soul description.
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 Crucifix of the Mad King description.
- ↑ File:Gwyn statue in the Ringed City.jpg
- ↑ Gael's arena within the ruins of a chamber of thrones, seats of the pygmy royalty
- ↑ File:Ringed_City_Old_Pygmy.jpg
- ↑ He wears a tattered version of the robes worn by the Pygmy Lords, though he bears no crown, and his hair is just as long.
- ↑ Ringed City Pygmy#Location
- ↑ Slave Knight Gael dialogue: "What, still here? Hand it over. That thing, your dark soul. For my lady's painting."
- ↑ Sword of Avowal appearance.
- ↑ Ending (Dark Souls III)#The Usurpation of Fire
