How long has it been between Dark Souls 1 and 2?
That question keeps arising in the course of gameplay, and of writing other analysis.
Shalquoir’s mention of “those four who have grown so incredibly ancient” makes it sound like it’s been a long time between Dark Souls 1 and 2. DS1 occupies the end of the first fading of the Flame, and ends with the beginning of a new cycle; DS2 naturally enough takes place at the end of its cycle. So “how long has it been” breaks down into two questions.
How long is a fire cycle?
Long enough for multiple human kingdoms to rise and fall. While we know some of the names of the last rulers of those kingdoms, we generally don’t know if they were also the founding rulers. Looking for a moment at real-world history, it seems prudent to assume they weren’t.
We can also look at DS1. Gwyn linked the fire somewhere during Anor Londo’s period of strength.
The question reduces to “how long did Anor Londo remain in power after Gwyn’s linking?” Again, I run into a lack of data. The turning points we know of in Anor Londo’s history all fall before his linking, aside from its eventual abandonment – and even the cause of that event is unknown.
The Chosen Undead finds Anor Londo in a state of disrepair, but the mechanisms still function and the buildings are still standing, so it may not have been more than a couple hundred years from its abandonment to the rise of the new Lord. That gives us a nice minimum.
Even if we don’t have enough information to put an actual number of years on the length of a fire cycle, by estimate, it’s a few centuries at the low end; more than a thousand at the high end.
How many fire cycles have there been between DS1 and DS2?
Initially, I assumed this was the very next cycle, but there’s nothing in the game to support it. I don’t think that assumption holds water.
“Incredibly ancient,” then, could be anything from the time it took the fire to fade after Gwyn’s linking in DS1, to multiple thousands of years. It includes some number of ages of Fire and Dark, each marked by the linking of some powerful undead.
We know there has been at least one such linking thanks to the existence of Sublime Bone Dust, but the item does not answer how many undead could have linked.
“They say these are the remains of a saint who cast himself into the bonfire. But we will never know for sure, for soot and ashes tell no story.”
Sublime Bone Dust, Dark Souls 2
Bonfire Ascetics raise a new twist on the same question.
How many fire cycles are reflected within DS2?
There is no straightforward answer – it depends entirely on how many Bonfire Ascetics a given player uses, and in which locations. Someone who advances multiple regions by a single fire cycle may cover two, while someone who advances a single region by several cycles touches more.
“Once the Bonfire Ascetic is devoured by the flames, its effects can never be reversed. Be prepared before using this perilous ember.“
Bonfire Ascetic, Dark Souls 2
Actions taken in a ‘future’ state have enduring effects on this one. Whether it’s souls taken, or wanderers helped, it seems the boundaries between fire cycles are as porous as the boundaries of individual timelines, and can be crossed with the assistance of the bonfire’s power.
Time is Convoluted
Solaire’s statement that “time is convoluted” becomes useful here, but it’s also worth looking at the differences between English and Japanese. “時の流れが淀んで” he says. The flow of time has stagnated, faltered; thus people from other times, even in excess of a century, can appear before us.
It’s not the case that everything is confused, but that it’s looping and repeating, like water in an eddy that cannot flow onward and become fresh again. The verb “淀む yodomu” also has a secondary meaning: to become stale, or corrupt.
Considering the themes of the Souls series, corruption is a very different statement than mere confusion. The stagnation of time gives rise to these improbable events, permitting undead to assist – or harass – one another.
All in all, it seems that time – including great expanses of time, such as those defined by fire cycles – has been flowing back on itself in a way that wasn’t obvious in DS1. (That makes sense, as DS1 is near the start of the overall cycle.) We, undead borrowing great souls, may reach into adjacent parts of the timeline, and bring whatever benefit may exist in that time to our own.
Yet the arrow of time remains in effect. What is done cannot be undone. We cannot act to change those events behind us in time, only those yet to come.