this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024
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Dark Souls lore seems deeper than it is because it's less coherently presented than in TES.
And also because lore youtubers gotta eat, but there's only so much lore in each game, so they grasp at straws to come up with far-fetched theories that were definitely not intended by the writers.
Dark Souls lore has actual themes deeper than "we need an excuse for the player's power fantasy".
Most of what people call DS's lore is made up of complete guess work from the fans, and pretty much everyone you ask will have a different idea of the lore. Even the YouTube DS lore masters will contradict each other on a lot of things, or have a different version of the events.
It's perfectly fine for people to enjoy that, but it's definitely not as deep as people make it seem.
As for ES, the lore is actually quite deep and has been developed for a lot longer than DS lore. As a couple of examples, you have Pelinal Whitestrake and the Dwemer, the latter of which is also the subject of a lot of speculation and fan theories. Just between those two, and not counting fan theory and speculation, you probably have more lore than in all of Dark Souls.
So if lore is not explicitly stated, it is bad, becapse of guess work, unless it's in TES, because then it sparks "fan theories".
Look: Lore is really a "quality over quantity" kind of deal. I know that there are entire books in Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. But just because there's a lot of it doesn't make it great. And just because some author in Morrowind took some ketamine back in 2000, doesn't absolve the later TES games, where the whole world boils down to "the player is the most important being in the world".
TES games are basically a solipsism simulator, whereas DS drips with atmosphere and themes of decay, hope and even teaches you a bit of zen.
The fact that it's so vague but still makes people be so invested in the world speaks to the strength of the writing.
Yes, you will have nuggets of genius in TES games. But that's because
A) Morrowind's writing was really weird and actually good and they still reference that a lot B) they throw everything at the wall and then you're bound to have something good if you have some talent employed.
You still have to wade through so much trite, boilerplate fantasy shit, though.
I never said DS lore was "bad", I just said it wasn't really that deep, because most of it was based on guess work from fans and YouTubers who need a reason to keep making videos. I like DS, and I've played the whole trilogy, including DLCs, but a lot of the "lore" is actually fan fiction. Then I said that in comparison, TES is much deeper - or more "expansive"/"developed", if you prefer those terms - while also offering room for fans theories. That's all.
Basically, learning DS lore is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle that is missing most of the pieces, whereas learning ES is like reading history books, which can never give you all the answers.
Some people will like one or the other more, for different reasons; but I'd say TES lore is definitely deeper, since it has a lot more to dig into.
But what there is of it is hand-crafted to perfection.
There are also fundamental differences in plot mechanics between Western and Eastern RPGs.
In a Japanese game the plot lines don't wait indefinitely for the player to pick them up — you get brief windows of opportunity and then they move on.
It makes things a lot more realistic because you don't have any of those silly circumstances where you've already done tremendous things in one plot line only to be treated like a newb in another.