There are numerous ways in which you can fail in life, try yelling back at your landlord, try fisting the wall in anger, try falling in love, or try playing Dark Souls. Each of these experiences leave a certain sensation certainly in your mind, an experience that polishes the way you are and makes way for the person you are to become, especially those numerous deaths in Dark Souls. Life isn’t simple, but unlike Dark Souls, life doesn’t give you a second chance. If you commit mistakes, you live and die by your deed. At least in Dark Souls, despite the thousands of souls you have lost, you can still start afresh at the bonfire and make up for the loss. Dark Souls is a commitment that a few do in their lives, it is more than a punishment scheme, it is a school of thought. It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you are free to do anything, and Dark Souls makes you merge with your loss so that when you rise, you rise like a phoenix.
It was only recently that I was playing Dark Souls the first, slaying the skeleton like beasts in the Tomb of the Giants, treading cautiously through the darkness, trying not to despise the moment that I came across a unique analogy. Dark Souls is more than a 1.6k investment, Dark Souls is the true nature of our lives, and the little orbs that make our lives complete. When your body hurts from the pain you’ve received in Sen’s Fortress, you are greeted by the majestic sight of Anor Londo, which heals the pain that dwelled deep inside you. When you finally take down the Looking Glass Knight, Dark Souls 2 opens the motherlode for you; you are ready for a degree in Dark Souls 2 from here on, the Shrine of Amana and Aldia’s Keep are yours.
500 Days of Summer
I do not go sucker for every rom-com movie that comes knocking at my doorstep, but there’s this flick which is very close to my collection of daily inspirations – 500 Days of Summer. Maybe because it’s one of those few rom-coms that show the true nature of relationships and how one can easily get worn out by the daily threshold of prolonging it for the sake of prolonging it. It is the Dark Souls of movies, what starts as an easy journey becomes erratically difficult, and eventually becomes a curse that gives direction to an otherwise directionless life. The constant rambles, the question of ‘What are we doing?’ and the sense of negligence straight after a jig of joy when your dreams did come true makes you want to re-establish your supremacy in life. And you either decide to win and slay the feeling, or walk away from it, defeated. Even though it’s easier to walk away, the worth is in winning the fight; you do want to see what’s in store on the other side of the argument. And in Dark Souls, you will be rewarded with regular item drops if you dare to challenge the hollows, knights and gargoyles that dare cross your path. Joseph Gordon-Levitt will likely be the undead in the film version, he quickly realises when it is to fight is and when to retreat. And even though I feel Howard Webb deliberately made the movie sweeter than his true motivations, (because of a huge rom-com audience) the movie has the Dark Souls kind of treatment through and through. Dark Souls is like the love you’d fight for and die by, to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. When you think of Dark Souls, the same can be said too. In life, no one is perfect or completely guilt-free; the way you met out justice to the hollows and the heroics you assume, may be just your own perspective. Both Lordran and Drangleic are fallen empires, and you are a trespasser who is trying to tell himself that he is reviving the former glory and restoring balance to the world, doesn’t that happen with every dictatorship and military coup? Who is the one who decides what’s right and what’s wrong? Why do you hit Priscilla when she is not even wanting to fight you, why fight the Heide Knight in the Forest of the Fallen Giants, when he is possibly lamenting next to a corpse? Because you know for a fact that if you win the brawl and slay your competition you get their souls and maybe a rare item drop. More like an undead’s dive into the ocean of greed than an actual redemption. Maybe you’re just like Patches, who is greedy of the trinklets that he may rob off a corpse after he’s kicked him to his death in the Tomb of the Giants. And why does the story of Souls happen over and over again, be it with the same undead arising plot throughout Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2, or with New Game Pluses? Because just like in every universe, deeds repeat, and heroes and villains arise time after time. You’re like Superman in Red Son, who doesn’t deserve to live, but still does. Or maybe like Lord Rama in the Hindu mythology saga Ramayana, who completely stole the limelight from the King of Lankas – an otherwise god fearing Ravana. Aren’t you ranting a lot and throwing your controller way too easily, I suppose?
Dark Souls teaches in day to day life what to care for, it improves your prerogatives: things that matter to you the most. I’ve never used my favourite moulded specialty weapon unless I’m right outside the fog gate and am about to face the boss, for slaying petty AI, my Claymore+10 does terrific damage, and when it does break, I still have my favourite weapon up my sleeves. Whenever I am carrying enough souls to make me go three or four levels higher, I usually use the Homeward Bone or Homeward Spell and return safe to my last bonfire to upgrade myself. Risks grant you chances plenty in Dark Souls, but even you need to draw the line separating taking risks and going complete nuts. When you beat the Royal Rat Vanguard and proceed to join the Covenant of Rats, you can choose to go back to your previous bonfire, or step ahead. On accepting to step ahead with 55k souls, there is a risk that you might forget the drop below and perish into oblivion with those many souls. Dark Souls doesn’t actually make a cleverer person in real life, but it does improve your awareness to a large extent, you tend to look into the details of an official letter that you sign off. You do realise what’s the meaning of laying back, laying low, serving a 9-5 schedule and leading a normal life, Dark Souls detest that. Dark Souls quickly bites you and tells you to go for the life-taking, challenging option, which can make or break your career.
Dark Souls will punish you for your mistakes, and you will learn to forgive yourself by looking back at your mistakes. Dark Souls doesn’t allow you to contest the boss of a particular level without knowing the complete anatomy of the level/map. Dark Souls makes you lose a lot, and the joy of winning from thereon is sheer brutal human passion. Only when you lose everything, that you’re free to do anything, Dark Souls sticks up to Tyler Durden’s golden words. You don’t win anything in life without losing exactly the same way. Dark Souls understands that you are ready for the bigger tasks and rewards you positively, however the trials by fire go a notch higher as well. There is a reason why the Shrine of Amana comes much later in the game, there is a reason why you chose the wrong path in the early stages of Dark Souls 2 and got yourself thumped by colossal guards of the Flame Tower. There is a reason why you can summon spirits willing to help you out, and eventually get invaded by quite a ton of notorious ones. Dark Souls is the philosophy of life presented in the most raw and humble way, and even while video games tend to be your escape from real life, Dark Souls keep you synced with the absolute values of staying alive and living a life. You watched summoned phantoms perish to the moves of Nashandra and still battled it out with a heavy and defeated heart, thinking that this was all part of fate. And you came out gloriously vindicated. If this game teaches you anything, it teaches that you are a mere pawn in the richer and bigger scheme of life and death. You are definitely no Undead Champion as the game tells you in the end, you’re just another Hollow fighting to live and see another day. Until then, stay alive and praise the goddamn sun.
Every time I play Dark Souls, I feel like its a tale of your life, my life, decaying every second, and we are fighting the odds, beating someone ten times our fit, just to live for another moment. It’s like that famous Nine Inch Nails song that goes like this:
