rocketboot

@myrmicus: @development: I've been meaning to say something about the word 'kinship' for a while now. I think a lot of people are misunderstanding it's meaning. It has more to do with familial or relational ties than anything else.

From dictionary.com:

kin·ship

[kin-ship]

noun

1. the state or fact of being of kin; family relationship.

2. relationship by nature, qualities, etc.; affinity.

I think we need to stop thinking of Giant's Kinship as a tangible item that someone can just take. I see at as a kind of respect that you earn after defeating the Giant Lord. In that case it is possible that Vendrick earned kinship with the giants after his first encounter with them, but that makes me question why they would want to return to "take it back." Not to mention how some one could possibly "take back" something so abstract.

I stumbled upon a Reddit thread yesterday that was very interesting. Apparently, the message on the back of the obelisk in Majula that says "The letters are worn beyond recognition" displays differently in the Portuguese version of the game. Translated into English it says "The Giants crossed the seas, perhaps to return home." (Apparently the text was not there before the update to v 1.04. The most sensible explanation I've seen for this is that it has something to do with future DLC and it wasn't supposed to be added in yet and some one made a mistake) Could this mean the giants originally came from the land Drangleic stands on? Or possibly, as I've inferred before, that they have some connection to the Abyss, which is very prominent in Drangleic? Here's another crazy idea: Vendrick came to the land of the giants and straight up conquered it. Ran them out. And Drangleic is the land of the giants. Before everyone starts freaking out I don't actually believe that's the case, it's just food for thought. I think it's pretty likely that can be disproved easily anyway, but I don't feel like doing the digging right now to see if anything/anyone says something about Vendrick returning after fighting the giants.

@myrmicus: Gilligan also makes a comment about the whole poison queen situation happening a very long time ago. I'm assuming the king in that story to be the Old Iron King, but I suppose there's always a chance that may not be the case.

@dudeglove: Ahh interesting. It is too bad, if it were a crow we could almost irrifutably connect him to Velka, as his gear talks about how he hunts down the guilty to atone for his own crimes. Although I believe that could explain why he is on the wall of the fort, as that is where we kill the Giant Lord later in the game. He could be some kind of time travelling dark fantasy Terminator type dude. I like the idea but admittedly it is a weak thread.

The only other hint towards the Pursuer I can think of is the Ring of Blades that we get from him, making reference to the mad knight of Alkan. Maybe this mad knight is the Pursuer? We also have the Mad Warrior invader in Belfry Sol, which I think is the Bell of Alkan. I really don't think there's any more on the subject, definitely not enough to draw any conclusions.

Has anyone looked frame by frame or anything to definitively confirm what bird carries the Pursuer and takes you to the Bastille? I'm no bird expert, but it didn't really strike me as a crow or raven. Maybe an eagle or falcon, it has a bit more of a brown colour. I think it's obvious we'd all like it to be a crow but I don't think we've had a sunstantial conversation about it.

@karkarov: This is interesting, I must have missed your original post about it. I just want to point out I think the person she clashed with was Vestaldt, as the shield description states that the two were the left and right hands of the king. When it says "their wills clashed" I read Raime and Velstadt. It's really too bad that shield is literally the only reference to Raime we have in the game, I'm guessing because whatever she did to clash with whoever she clashed with was pretty unforgivable.

@brackstone: The doors in the Iron Keep and Sinner's rise do have an implication, actually. Do the names Alkan and Venn ring any bells? I'm second guessing my choice of pun there... Anyway the two belfries contain a ton of lore which states that those two kingdoms were created by the same guy. The bells are named for Alkan and Venn, suggesting that the Bastille and the Iron Keep are these two kingdoms and therefore built by the same ruler. Hence the doors.

@development: I didn't misunderstand anything, that was a bit of a jab. Why do you consider one thing to be important while seeing another as decorative? That statue is only seen in 2 locations, and the first is a dark room that seems to be for storage. That's the kind of vague, half hidden reference From has built storytelling off of. Kind of like a few carvings in another dark room that reference something seen in only one other place. Or like Heide's Tower of Flame resembling Anor Londo. The answers are always ambiguous but they always mean something. That's why we're all here, right?

@development: Thanks for adding that. I don't think it's decorative, most of these kind of things in these games are put there for a reason. What you mentioned about the bug is kind of what I was getting at. Kind of.

About the Shrine of Winter: there's a thread on Reddit I think where a guy has screenshots showing that the four carvings on the wall in there are actually pieces of a bigger carving found in the Dranon Shrine above the petrified dragon egg. This carving shows 3 dragons, some people seemingly worshipping one of them, and a man with a staff placing his hand on a child's head. Again I would say this falls on the side of meaningful rather than decorative.

edit: you can find that reddit thread here

Photos of the Lost Sinner in the art book. Sorry about the quality, I'd have scanned the page but I'd rather not tear it out... Anyway it's pretty clear to me that's a beard. The Sinner also seems to be a bit lacking in the chest area.

Now I'm going to state these arguments one last time for anyone who doesn't want to scroll up. It's possible that the Sinner was portrayed as feminine for two reasons: the possession of the Old With Soul and it's influence on the land and reality, as well as the fact that the Lost Bastille is a "night time area" where the moon is always present. Gwyndolin was portrayed as a woman because of his affinity to the moon, even though he was the only remaining son of the main deity at the time.

Unfortunately I very foolishly went to NG++ on my main toon last night not thinking I should get some shots of the statue in the Lost Bastille and of the statues in Aldia's Keep to show you guys that they're the same. But you can check it out for yourselves! The statue in the Bastille is most easily accessible from the No-Man's Warf entrance. After fighting the jailer that drops from the scaffolding with the two dogs take the path to the right (I think you need to break some boards?) continue until you reach a room containing a Pharros contraption and a couple Royal Swordsmen. There's no need to use a lockstone, just light a torch. You'll see a statue of a woman holding her hand out closest to the entrance and to her left there is a larger statue of a bearded man wearing robes holding a sword in one hand and a scroll in the other. This is the statue in question. Next stop is Aldia's Keep. From the courtyard bonfire head into the manor. Upon entering the room with the animated dragon skeleton, turn around and look up. Way up. You might want to look through a bow or the binoculars but you will see 6-8 of the same statue (the man with the sword and scroll) lining the wall. You can make them out very clearly there's no question it's the same statue.

I've done a lot of comparison between the sword the statue is carrying and every other sword in the game. None of them match.

Well I'm bit going to argue any further as to the Sinner's gender, I've given my evidence and you can all choose to accept or ignore it. I don't think you can say Aldia wasn't a fighter, those statues in his manor show him holding a sword and a scroll so we can assume he was a sort of warrior scholar. Although you can find his creations all over I think it's noteworthy that you only find those extremely mutated undead in the run up to the Lost Sinner (aside from the caged one in Aldia's Keep of course). One more point I just discovered: the first place we find the Northern Ritual Band is in the Sinner's Rise. Like it or not there is a lot to go off of here. Definitely more that the Ancient Dragon theory anyway.