BLAH BLAH BLOGGING: Dark Souls 2 Plot (major, major spoilers)

  I finally beat the last boss of Dark Souls2, and saw the ending cutscene.  There's no multiple endings in this one, and the scene lasts all of about one minute (you walk to a throne and sit on it.  Enjoy!).  There was a tiny bit more plot that came out when you go back into the dreams of the giants, and I pulled a few more pieces of lore out when I realized that the Boss Souls not only had descriptions, but each item you could craft from them talked about the boss's histories, too (easily viewable in the blacksmiths' menus).  The lore still has huge gaps, allowing you to fill in some yourself, and make your own story-- the one I like best so far is from GameFAQs user "applesforapples," originally posted here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/693331-dark-souls-ii/68813195

and cut-and-pasted here (hi if you find this!  Hope you don't mind me linking to you:


 (response was to someone discussing the queen, Nashandra, and her role in the game's history, particularly a claim that she came to Drangleic to warn of the Giant's invasion):
"

No. She came to Lordran to tell Vendrick of a threat beyond his borders. This is never specified to be the Giants. It could be an undead curse. I'm pretty sure the undead curse was caused when the Lost Sinner relit the first flame. When she did so, she restarted a bond between humans and the fire, also known as undeath. Its likely no one understood this except Nashandra, who suggested to Vendrick that they go find some Wondrous Souls, the one's originally found within the flame, to keep it alight and their nation from crumbling. Anyway they go and pilfer the four old lord souls from the giants to try and stop the undead curse, and succeed marginally. In a similar manner to the monumentals, they distributed the souls across the kingdom, giving one to protect to the Iron King, one to the Duke of Tseldora, one to be guarded in the Lost Bastille by the Lost Sinner, and one taken into the depths of the pit where no one would dare look (I like to think it was given to the Rat King, or hidden in the grave of saints before ending up with the Rotten). Each of these beings were given a "Primal Bonfire" to protect, ensuring the flame would remain healthy enough to save the kingdoms. Nashandra brought the kingdom into a "dark-like peace".

Undeath lost its stigma, as sites like the Undead Crypt and Shrine of Amana were built to give undead peace. This is likely when Dragon Cults came about, as a possible means of ascending beyond undeath by becoming a dragon. Some though, like the Iron King felt undead should not be given free reign and should be "contained" or exterminated. This is when the infamous undead hunts began, and likely when the Iron King misused the Lord Soul. But before all of that...

the giants came a knocking all like "Give me back our souls humans", and all the corpses from the war and depletion of souls/humanity caused undeath to spread like a wildfire. This sent the nation into chaos, and is how the souls become separated once more.

In efforts to protect himself, the Duke of Tseldora pilfered the Old Paledrake Soul, which unintentionally empowered his pet spider, whose brood destroyed his mining town. Most people considered the place too dangerous to try to retrieve the soul, (as it was also near the Writhing Ruins, but thats unrelated).

The Old Iron King's Castle, where he housed the primal bonfire and the Old Lord soul, sank into the volcano after the King was made into a demon by absorbing the Lord Soul.

Lost Sinner is attoning for creating this whole crises. This motivation keeps her from going hollow, but blinds her to all else but the task Nashandra gave her, Protect the primal bonfire and the Old Witch's Soul.

And finally, within the chaos the Old Dead One's Soul was either taken to the rotten by the rats for protection, which is why the rat covenant guards the pit's entrance. Or maybe it just ended up there somehow, who knows.

So Nashandra covetted power, she didn't want the kingdom to fall, I don't think she cared. She wanted control, and whilst in the midst of chaos, of undeath, she had an iron grip over the kingdom and its monarch, vendrick. But I don't think it was her intention to tear the nation apart. Her motive's are likely more irrational and chaotic, like Manus's. Oh, she's a piece of Manus for those who weren't aware. Thats why she looks like Dusk of Oolacile a bit in posture, voice, and appearance."

END QUOTE

  Other elements from various posters--  the Lost Sinner is Quelanna, last of the Witches of Ivalice; Nashandra made up the "threat" and was the one who had the King invade in the first place to get something (most likely the First Flame, possibly the Lord Souls and the Throne of Want); somehow they definitely got the Lordvessal and Lord Souls (the broken pieces of the Lordvessal are in the Majula mansion).  The "giants" were probably Ador Londo gods; they built the Heide tower, and the enemies there were leftover giants.  The First Flame was what made the golems you encounter.  And so on, and so on-- all guesses, but very, very educated guesses, and I bet most of them are exactly what the developers planned.  I'm actually disappointed in myself for how many of these things I should have realized myself (totally missed the Lordvessal in the basement, e.g., and wouldn't have recognized it anyway), since I've been reading the Lore.

  So, you have everything wrapped up in a pretty nice little bow, making some leaps that exist mostly as references to the last game (the biggest one being the idea that the King split up four old lord souls to the people in this game).  I like that the lore in-game does make it clear that Solaire at least (in one of the conflicting, multiple timelines and realities that exist in the game-- the distortion is canon!) did link the flames even if you character did not, and that the Last Sinner tried to restart the fire, setting off the curse.  The evidence for the four souls being the last game's Old Lord Souls was weak for me until I realized that on NG+ you get different souls that are clearly referencing the Lord Souls-- e.g, "Pale Drake" as Seath and "Old Dead One" for Gravelord Nito, etc.  You could "guess" that they were related in your first playthrough, but it's more explicit here. 

  Anyway, all good stuff, but I still say not as neatly wrapped up together as the last game.  Also-- the game lost a bit of steam to me once you hit the castle; there were still a few highlights, notably the Shrine of Amana and the Dragon Aerie, and to a lesser extent the graveyard/catacomb area, but the bosses were mostly just "guys in armor," the final boss was a pushover and hardly recognizable as the Queen, the Firekeeper's reveal as a dragon construct was almost fan-fiction level groanworthy... it was good enough, but not as good as the leadup.  Clearly, I've loved the game-- I still have the final two optional bosses to kill (both of whom are high-HP enemies who aren't especially challenging on the face of it, but who kill you in one hit, so you have to do a long, perfect run), I'm going to re-spec to test out how a magic-intensive character works (pyromancy is sooooo good), and I'll likely stick a toe into NG+.  All said, I haven't had a game in recent memory that gripped me so intensely, for so long, and which still has me contemplating it this much-- so I gotta say, this game is a major winner to me.  But I'll still be glad to be done with it for a while soon!