See I don't think that's true, at no point are you told by anyone in DS1 what linking the fire actually means.
That's because it's exactly what the name implies. There is no subtlety or subtext. The person "linking" bounds themselves to the fire and burns to "cinder". Again, people way overthink this stuff. Pretty much everything Frampt says is straight exposition. It's meant to be self-explanatory, but it seems people don't realize that.
The Japanese name for "Lord of Cinder" is, I shit you not, "King of the Firewood". It's
that overt. The person becomes the firewood feeding the fire.
The only hint you're given that it might be a negative thing are the fire keepers, all of which are hideously disfigured and condemned to watch over their respective shrines.
You are repeatedly told that the sun itself and all manner of positive miracles are derived from either the first flame or its adherents. Conversely, everything to do with dark is shown to suck and is a magnet for misery, psychopaths and disaster. Four Kings, Darkwraiths, Kaathe, New Londo, Abyss, Oolacile. The game pretty much screams in your face that first flame = good (including being able to see at all) and that dark = corrupt (and a dreary shithole where you can't see).
There's more story behind the scenes with eg. bright Anor Londo being a facade since there was a schizm between the gods and it's mostly abandoned, but that's to round out the world itself and to stick to the somber, dark fantasy tone of the game.
people tend to side with Kaathe.
Which is fucking dumb, and is a scathing indictment on people's basic ability to use their eyes. He's presented as the most evil character in literally every way possible visually and narratively. His whole speech is nothing but him tempting you with the idea of ruling the world as a "Dark Lord", and if you wanna talk about shit that never gets any explanation whatsoever, that's fucking it.
I mean, he seethes about Gwyn trying to contain the dark, as you are in the middle of the infinite pit of darkness that has destroyed the city above you. After you killed 4 humans that turned into monsters thanks to the Abyss. And then he asks you if you want to join his cult of soul stealing mass murderers.
Just compare the presentation of the two serpents:
Kaathe appears shrouded in darkness, a scary monster with burning red eyes, looking evil as fuck, not a single bit of levity or personality besides being angry and vindictive, who runs a death cult.
Frampt is an ugly monster in bright sunlight who falls asleep like a grandpa and snores loudly, has people talking about how he stinks, and makes happy (but disgusting) noises when you bring him the lordvessel. He also doubles as a trash can. He does silly shit, even hanging upside down in the altar that results in his dangly mustache thing to... dangle. But upside down.
Like, the game is literally doing everything short of just having text flash on screen telling you which is evil and which is just a boob.
Energy is finite and the age of fire is unsustainable, which is why the idea of the cycle is fucking retarded.
Nope. Not a single thing in DS1 or 3 says it can't be linked in perpetuity, and in fact, the tragedy of the story is meant to be that the world goes to shit because it is human nature to just fuck everything up eventually through selfishness. DS3's story is specifically about how the world has become so evil and corrupt that there's nobody to rise to the challenge anymore while the former heroes see that their sacrifices were made pointless by the corrupt state of the world.
Obviously, there's certain individuals in the story that did more than anybody to fuck things up completely, eg. Lothric, but that is still just meant to be the product of a rotten world. And in general there's a cynical aspect about how individual sacrifice is undermined by the rest of the world being shit and the sacrifice itself is too heavy to demand from the person making it.
The cycle shit is DS2 being DS2 and fucking up the basic story completely.
In my opinion the best character in the original souls series is Hawkeye Gough, because he decides to look inward and work on himself instead of trying to save Artorias or fight Kalameet. He still enjoys hunting dragons and fighting but he admits that time in his life is over. He doesn't lose hope he just decides to better himself and enjoy what few joys there are in life, something most of his compatriots failed to do. He is a relic of another time but unlike Gwyn he accepts what will be.
Again, Kaathe is literally the most overtly villanous character who says nothing insightful. He's just seething about Gwyn and tempting you with the thought of ruling the world. This whole "bro Gwyn needs to just accept he lost bro" take relies on taking everything Kaathe says as 100% earnest truth while ignoring literally everything else in the game, including the way Kaathe himself is presented narratively and visually (aka just a salty evil asshole).
It is equally obvious that Frampt and Kaathe are on the same side.
Not really. It more just seems that Frampt was revealed to have been serving Gwyn because he was the strongest, and switches sides when you defeat him.
Frampt tells you to piss off if you side with Kaathe and tells you you will fail. Their goals are also completely mutually exclusive. Kaathe wants to spread dark, strengthening the first flame keeps dark at bay.
It's also meant to further illustrate how Gwyn and the gods have built everything on lies, how far he was willing to go to keep a lid on his fuckup, and to keep anyone who could challenge him in check.
...no? See above, this is retrofitting DS3 to fit with only what Kaathe said, which ignores pretty much the entirety of both games. Everything Gwyn did is shown to just be to contain the abyss/dark, which is unequivocally shown to be fuck awful and a potentially world ending disaster in every iteration it shows up in DS1&3. It even destroyed the Ringed City, lol.
For example, the seal of fire on the Ringed Knights is because their weapons, armor and even their cloth is seeping with abyss, meaning the armor pieces themselves could go full Manus. Remember, the Dragonslayer Armour came to life just because it got filled up with some abyss juice from pilgrim butterflies.
This whole thing about "bro Gwyn just taking out his rivals" is so baseless and wrong, because quite literally everything he does in the games is just to stop the dark from spreading, because it's
bad. The pygmies were locked away because their dark soul is a disaster waiting to happen, case in point when Gael eats it, he turns OP and loses his mind. Manus, who most assuredly was a pygmy in possession of an original piece of the dark soul, creates an abyss that destroys a city because he was distraught after his pendant went missing. A. Fuckin. Pendant.
Also, if Gwyn was as evil as everyone pretends he was, he'd have 0 qualms killing every human and pygmy. Y'know, instead of splitting pieces of his own soul and giving it to worthy humans (who then betray him. Because the unsubtle theme of the games is still, humanity = selfish shits). He's by no means meant to be a saint, but he is meant to be a morally righteous warrior king who's downfall is tragic. Plin Plin Plon. (And everything he does to contain the abyss is shown to be 100% in the right, even if it sucks to be on the receiving end of it.)
Why is she the "abomination" who has "no place in this world", when she exists because Seath is a bitter incel nerd who couldn't reproduce without human sex slaves?
Priscilla is a feared because of her lifehunt shit. "Lifehunt" makes her the "anthitesis of life". It's not being subtle. Apparently it's more obvious in Japanese, but she is meant to be a bastard child too, born out of wedlock. The whole human sex slave/experiment shit is really shoddy fanfiction. She's just a "normal" half-dragon, which was translated weirdly into crossbreed. The "abomination" specifically hinting at Priscilla may be a trannylation thing too, as the Japanese text seems to just generally describe the doll as something that leads abominations to the painting, and there's quite a few fucked up things in that painting.
Because Ariamis is almost entirely a Velka themed area, it is presumed that Seath and Velka are Priscilla's parents. Which is messed up because Velka is also suspected of being Gwyn's wife, and Priscilla is Gwyndolin's mother. And Seath may have (definitely) fucked Gwynevere.
Gwyn and Seath be fuckin' eachother's hos.
