Vaati is slacking, you have my attention.

I always found something strange about the amount of dead knights on the high wall but I could just never put it together. Good video and very plausible sounding theory

You're one of the better lore youtubers I've managed to find. Well done and keep it up, your content's superb.

I have a terrible feeling about the angels....... have you seen those statues with human female bodies and that orrible primordial serpents face? They also have something on their shoulders that resembles wings.....are they the angels?

to me, the existence of angels, implies that there is something "beyond the reach of the dark, beyond the scope of light". it implies that death can be permanent, which is touched upon several times throughout the different games' cycles - but more so that breaking out of the cycle means entering into a different one.... if this is true, then that means that linking the fire binds you to the cycle that the fire adheres to, and that what was implied in SotfS final ending might be true, you can turn your back on the cycle you adhere to presently, and embrace a new one - which left the world we explore in ds3 in ruin, and everything is about to collapse and fade...

Im loving these lore videos, not much other youtubers are doing it

Two points, the feathers in the cage make a wide, cross-like symbol, as well as a crude bird shape. The tail feathers start at the opening of the cage, with the wings spread to the side, and the head beyond Gertrude's body.Additionally, could the floating, bed-of-chaos-like beings, flying in the sky, be the angels that the knights refer to? The ones that shoot fire during the Dragonslayer Armor fight. We have never seen them before, and therefore this can be very likely as I do not recall off the top of my head that. Feel free to shoot me down!

thank you so much for posting this video!! i'm very interested in gertrude and not a lot of people seem to talk this in-depth about her, so, thank you very much!! great video!

This guy has the coolest accent ever. It seriously makes the video better.

I'm just winging it (pun intended lol) but do you think that whatever the darkluker from DS2 could be involved?

I really have enjoyed all of your lore videos so far, thanks for all the time you put into these, it must take a lot. Great job and cheers.

I've only started watching you an hour ago and im loving your lore videos, I am a huge ds fan and hearing your lore videos makes me love ds even more because of how open ds is. New Subscriber inbound :3

Smough I love your lore videos! Very in depth and plausible explanations for what is going on. Keep it up!

I can see this as the foundation of at least one DLC. Awesome video, I'm very happy to have found your channel.

Just found your channel yesterday, and I really like the thought and depth you put into your lore videos! I also enjoy how candid your commentary is, it's a lot more casual and easier to follow along than some of the more strictly edited and scripted videos out there. Can't wait to hear your ideas on some other concepts, like what exactly is going on with the three versions of Firelink Shrine.

Damn, your explanations are very convincing and you do not all high and mighty like some other lore explorers. Liked and subbed.

the dead winged knight near the courtyard has a lothric straight sword coming out of his back. that is pretty solid evidence

You're great at this honestly, posting these videos nearly daily, I really appreciate since I havent played DS1 or 2 thanks a lot. Keep going strong

I love this video so much. it makes a lot of sense. now I could appreciate the game more with your gathered knowledge.

Your theory makes a lot of sense! I originally thought that the battle scenes were just there, just like in Boletaria, but now that you pointed out the distinction between the Angelic Knights and the Knights of Lothric it all makes sense. Great job!

Excellent. You really came out swinging with these lore videos. They're insightful, well-reasoned, and backed up by as much evidence as can be gathered from a Souls game. And - maybe more importantly - you beat Vaati, fungo, TerraMantis and the other lore heavyweights to the punch. You could (and should!) have a lot of subscribers soon.

I believe the Ascended Winged Knights above Lothric Castle are the angels themselves. Perhaps the armor that normal knights wear is modeled after the golden armor worn by winged knights. After all, they do use Divine Pillars of Light, which is a miracle taught by the angels.

your souls videos are great, man. keep up the fantastic work

Dude another great lore vid. Keep up the good work.

Great video bro. Really enjoyed the lore you presented here, and I hope we get more of this in the DLC more so than any other thing. However, I will say that if you stutter or misspeak at all, do another take. It will increase the quality of your videos, which as it stands are fantastic already!

Great video. Knowing all this has enhanced my enjoyment and understanding of the game. Thanks.

Excellent video my man. I think, without question, this is the exact concept the creators were going for.

I think your explanation struck a nerve and that this faith will be further explained in a dlc. Called it.

I just came across your channel. And I gotta say man, I love the speculation. Great videos man ^u^

I love these kinds of videos, keep up this good work :)

Excellent video! Nice job examining the locations of items and enemies, you've convinced me that I want to know more about this order! Although part of the beauty of Dark Souls is mystery so perhaps it's better to simply know there is a mystery there,,, :)

Another ripper video smough keep em coming please!

Really great quality video, great job. I think the angels might be Kaathe or Frampt and other serpents in league with him. The statue of them with the angel wings makes me think this and that Gertrude was visited by them.

So why are there statues of primordial serpents in the Grand Archives?

Maybe gertrude was also hated because she tried to "improve" the twin princes capabilities to make a worthy heir of fire as they were trying to but failed in the process. This would explain the feathers in their boss room, their aspect (pale and deformed, like decrepit angels) and why both have some miracle capabilities (lorian makes a very healing-like circle when he tps and lothric uses that crystal yellow spear along with other things) How could have gertrude taught lothric that crystal yellow spear? Going with the theory that gwynevere is the queen, maybe Seath also experimented with gwynevere after he saw the results of the crossbreed: Priscilla, and that made her children with the other gods inherit the crystal magic along with her miracles, hence the reason why they were called heavenly. Another proof that gwynevere was the queen is that just below gertrude's cage there is a man grub of Rosaria, and why i think Rosaria Gwynevere and the Queen are the same person is because in Rosaria's chamber there are lots of cribs there, most of them in the roof, close to the light that symbolizes heaven, what her children once were called and now she is giving the possibility to rebirth to anyone who has a pale tongue. That is because all her children are gone (heavenly children) or went wrong (children with oceiros). Yeah just had these random thoughts after watching this video at 3 of the morning and i needed to put them in the comment box. Maybe im totally wrong and this is closer to a fantasy than a good theory but your video made me think about this and that is the important thing! Thank you for these lore videos that almost nobody is doing and to everyone that reached the end of this endless comment xD.

You need more subscribers sir, as this is just awesome!

And the wait is over! Damn, man :D You analyze easily overlooked lore, and make it super intriguing, all the while others can't even make generic lore intriguing! Seriously, you and Vaativydia are my favorites right now. You're even doing better than him right now :D You're gaining momentum, keep it up ❤️

Very interesting video, this is really good work. Especially in the fact that you explain your way of thinking and do not imposed it to your viewers. Nb : Sorry, english is not my native language.

My favourtie piece of lore. And you're doing it!

Very good video! Food for thought. If the world of Lothirc is descending into an age of Dark I don't think it's stretch so postulate a fringe religion in this case the Angelic Faith to crop up and attract followers. Clearly we come across an aftermath of some battle in the first stage of the game. In that intro stage we see hollows praying/worshiping a winged totems across. Angles I would assume. I think that adds credence to your theory that some religious battle or uprising took place. Interesting to think what the motivation behind the religion was.

Subscribed! Solid stuff man keep it up!

Best Dark Souls 3 Lore Channel bar FAR!

Keep them coming Please, Your Lore videos are great =)

Awesome lore video!

These lore videos are very good and interesting so keep up the good work

your voice is satisfying thats why im watching them, keep up the good voice man

...This lore research/ speculation actually explains so much. I had always wondered why that one Winged Knight was in the courtyard surrounded by so many slain Lothric knights, and even if it isn't story relevant for the Unkindled, it kind of bugged me the whole game. Excellent research.

The winged knights capability are a representation of how poise would work with Dark Souls 3.

Your lore is amazing i like how you explore everything Ps: having your own intro will be amazing and outro, instead of using the cutscene

Another fantastic video. I'm excited for angels in one of the DLCs. I'm thinking it's a 90% chance we'll see them. Floating out on KZfaq is one of the songs from a future DLC that was on the Dark Souls 3 disc. It sounds very angelic.... EDIT: Search for "Dark Souls 3 OST - DLC Boss 3" if you want to listen to it.

Like. Favourite. Subscribe. Comment. I was completely entranced by your voice and story. eventually lying facedown with my eyes closed and just having the story flow over me like waves from the ocean. I can't wait for the next installments!

Great video! I think that the "divine messengers" are the gargoyles which carry you from Sen's Fortress to Anor Londo in DS1 and whom carry you from the high wall of Lothric to the Undead Settlement. If you look at their abilities in DS1 you should recall they do make use of lightning, much like the winged knights.

Excellent video. I couldn't help but notice that the Gold and Rusted Coins bear the visage of a seemingly angelic figure, complete with feathered wings. The silhouette seems starkly dissimilar to our lovely Serpents' photoshopped attempt to be beautiful, but it seems to indicate that the Angels were respected at a state/church level prior to the split. Not to mention the fact that the Winged Knights wear Blue, which the Magic Stoneplate Ring tells us is the color of Royal Palace Guards.

Nice channel man I like your video's and loving the new channel art haha

Love this, wish I was good enough to do lore video :D could never do all the looking up and work that you do :) I'll just stick to the cosplay PvP, but seriously, love lore videos, glad I found this channel :D

Great video. This is some deep lore that I love about Dark Souls. My only problem is that It's hard to watch lore videos along with videos of just someone running around killing mobs. Maybe try to focus on what you're talking about visually as well more often?

Very good lore video!

The Angelic Faith, The remains of the Abyss, The Deep, and the remnants of Chaos, four things i would really like to know more about, and only Two DLC planned that could explain some of it if we are lucky. . .

Great lore video SmoughTown. Looking at the statues in the Grand Archives of the Primordial Serpents with human torsos, one can see (also visible in your videos) that they have small feathers for arms. There is a point in the theory: could the "angelic being" that visited Gertrude be a Primordial Serpent in disguise, or this timeline's version of a Primordial Serpent? Much like in the original game the two primordial serpents both represented one of the sides in the cycle (The Dark and the Fire), I devised the theory that for each "cycle", certain beings come to represent one of the sides and attempt to influence the participants on that age to either link the Fire or let the Dark take place. They are called "primordial" since they very likely exist before the Dark and the Fire began to cycle. In Dark Souls, Kingseeker Frampt sided with Gwyn and attempted to convince the Chosen Undead to "link the flame" while Darkstalker Kaathe attempted to convince the player to allow the Dark to settle. Since we can find those statues of the winged torsos with the Primordial Serpents heads, could this mean one of these beings assumed an "angelic form", appeared before Gertrude and convinced her to start a new religion that defied the current Lothric nobility? It quite seems that the royal line linked the fire: this serpent could be this timeline's version of Kaathe, attempting to sway Gertrude away from the fire and into the Dark? She did create a new rebel religion: why would the Pillars despise her so much? Unless she defended the fall of the Fire, which the prince had linked. I come to think every time I look at it, that the Souls series deals with a fragmented timeline from the moment the first cycle began: there are parallels across all world, places where they link, but there isn't a past, present or a future. Just my two cents.

I think this is the start of a new dark souls they may end Chaos flame and start angelic miracles maybe give us more game play in the dlc also

Thank you so much for this! I was wondering who all those Lothric knights died to, but I never revisited the area after I found the Winged Knights in the castle, so I never put it together. I really hope From Software decides to expand upon this angel thing in one of the DLCs.

you are just churning out quality content $$$

These lore videos make me wish there was a series of novels set in the Dark Souls universe.

Probably has been noticed before, but when we look in the cage the feathers are actually on the floor in a "angelic" shape!

Has anyone noticed that the grave markers at the lothric castle gate (the one right after the 2 dragons) have a pattern? all the ones where the sword is pointing to their left have a leg broken all the ones that have the sword pointing to their right do not (your right and left as you are standing in front of them). This goes for the 4 that have the tomb in the wall behind the small fence. same pattern

Although I love this theory and agree with almost everything stated, there is a small thing I must note. This video states that the Lothric Knights in blue are on the side of the angelic faith and the Lothric Knights in red are for the way of white, but the official color of the Lothric Royal Guard is blue and the official color of other lower knights is red. This means that not all knights in blue support the angelic faith and not all knights in red support the way of white, both groups of knights are divided within themselves and both sides aren't just on one side. I still totally agree with this theory and support it all the way. I just felt it would be best I correct this.

Yeah you did it :) Very good video, and very useful one

The DLC seed.

Still a banger of a video in 2023, wonder if smough will get around to remaking ds3 lore videos like he’s been doing with Bloodborne

What do you think about how the feathers in the cage aren't just scattered but in the shape of a bird? (Two wings, a wide triangular tail, with a narrow "head")

around 6:40 when you talk about the hunters, I feel like the hunters may have joined the religion. notice in the hunter armor how it states there were only three people known to wear it. then there happen to be three knights where the ring was dropped.

Great vid! Quite nice how you can make such an insightful video on seemingly so little evidence AND keep it interesting. Keep up the good work! :D Also, question/observation. On the 10:50 mark you observe a statue to the right of the wax pool. The one on the left is a stylized version of Frampt I assume, and I assumed the one on the right was simply the statue of a scholar that had been dipped in wax by all the candles around. But your closer look makes it seem like this is simply the actual design of the statue. This got me thinking: there was a scholar that taught the young prince, who instilled in him the doubt of the linking of the fire. And here we have a statue of a scholar that appears to be something of a tentacle creature, or more likely, something like roots. Is this the Scholar of the first sin, Aldia? What do you think? I'd love it for him to be involved.

This was fantastic

Interesting is that the giant gate in Anor Londo in Dark Souls 1, the first one after you climb the giant stairway, has the image of an angel and a person who seems to be a woman, and the angel seems to be kneeling in front of her.

What about the feathers in Lothric's throne room? Or are you covering them in Lothric's and Lorian's video?

I'm guessing with the long death of Gwyn and the pantheon he was a part of, mankind began to create their own Gods in order to stir hope and fear in these dark times, like when people began to see a monstrous thing like Aldrich as a holy entity. It's almost like a warped version of the transition Europe went through from the epic story-based Pagan religions to the more abstract kind of faith Monotheistic religions have.

Good stuff man

Hopefully they'll touch more on the topic of angels in the two dlcs coming.

your voice is so good to listen too keep it up

I'm really hoping for Angel dlc an angelic boss sounds awesome!

one detail that you kinda glossed over is the winged knight corpse reaching for his halberd has a *lothric knight* straight sword embedded in him

Solid video, i'm loving the depth of the lore in this. Could not the Pilgrim Butterfly's possibly be the Angels? They look really decrepit now, but maybe originally they were feathered and awe-inspiring creatures forming the new religion.

initially i figured the barricades were for the dragons but this is a really good explanation for the inner barricades

Wasnt there beasts in the woods who form wings? How did this happen and what made the knights have more radient wings?

i love this explanation. idk if it pertains to this per se, but have you realized that all of the "dead" lothric nights scattered about the "barricaded" areas are just empty sets of armor, where as when u hit one of the "Dead" winged knights they are not hollow, and blood still comes out. is this to suggest that the lothric nights were illusions? similar to how many of the enemies of DKS1 anor londo were illusions?

what is your vitality set at that you can roll in Lothric and Winged Knight armor?

Hey, what about the corvians in the road of sacrificies? They have wings and there is something about them being lead by heretic preachers or something like that. Maybe they fled the fight and the "angels" cursed them with that horrid form instead of cool angel like wings?

How do the dragons figure into all this for you? There is a winged knight near the area where the dragons are as well - maybe the winged knights somehow turned the dragons against the knights? Or maybe the knights tried to use the dragons against the winged knights and that blight took hold of them instead?

Vaatividya explained that Gertrude was an Angel and those feathers belong to her. She is called The Heavenly Daughter.

i have a feeling that we might be meeting this angel soon in the dlc and that its gonna be one hell of a fight

The real mystery: why are the Winged Knights so fat??

Kind of hope they introduce more in-depth lore on the angels in dlc

This is very interesting stuff

There is an interesting set of statues around Lothric castle and the archives depicting a primordial serpent with small wings in the place of its arms. Or maybe it is a serpent man, i am not sure. Maybe the angel is a primordial serpent ? When you consider that the voluntary seclusion of Prince Lothric is leading to a complete first flame fading, it makes sense to believe that some have interest in destroying him and to reach him, to destroy the three pillars of Lothric. A serpent like Frampt or Kaathe (or another one) could simply create a new religion to generate chaos and destroy Prince Lothric.

I hope this arc gets expanded in the upcoming DLC's, It's by far one of the most interesting Dark Souls 3 lorepieces.

Pretty good video. Interesting findings on a different hard-to-notice elements of the environment that can give alot of different hits. Anyway, video was pretty good, but you still need to work on your text, you repeat yourself too much. Should make some notes or something like that.

That was very reasonable thinking, comparing with the first religions, those before even Egypt.

What about the fact of there being feathers all over the room of the Twin Princes? were they aligned with the angelic faith?

Going to back track a bit. We know that Gwyn is the father of miracles through the first flame, and his power was represented as the sun. Now I know that looking at the sun directly in real life will make you blind (no duh). Does this apply to the first flame as well. IF these "angels" showed her visions of the first flame, would that mean she would be able to give birth to new miracles seeing it herself. Also we know the cycle will repeat onto itself into history, in that the scholars would be the incarnations of Seath and his crystals for immortality. Then like Gwyn giving Seath his library to study. The women that Seath captured and experimented on is now repeating again with Gertrude in this case.

Great vid and keep up the good work! You didn't mention the lone man grub that is under Gertrude's cage. I believe this must be a strong lore indicator that Rosalia's covenant is directly tied to the angelic cult somehow. Could it be that the man grubs are the larval stage of the winged knights? Meaning that the rebirth is a butterfly-like lifecycle which transforms man to mangrub then to winged knight?