Metaphor, Gwyndolin, and the Transgender Experience

As someone who has experienced a lot of depression the idea of hollowing is one that has always helped me. In the Dark Souls universe giving up, losing the will to move forward, losing sight of yourself, losing what gives you meaning is the only thing that kills the undead. The fact that the community has adopted the phrase, “Don’t you dare go hollow.” Or a similar phrases has always moved me and in the right circumstances often makes me cry. It’s a similar kind of happy-sad, moved in a way that is difficult to describe, that I get from No Man’s Sky’s refrain of, “You are not alone.” I appreciate your videos, this one in particular as a fellow trans woman. I hope you keep creating, especially video essays. Don’t you dare go hollow.

Dark Souls never cured my depression. It actually made me more depressed, and that's good. It forced me to confront why I am so sad about the impermanence of things, why the ultimate forgetfulness of history makes me refuse to act in life, why the ash & dust at the end of humanity stops me from living today. The luminous darkness. The painful joy of knowing that a total sacrifice will bring life back to the world and make souls to flourish anew, but that it will perpetuate the curse of firelinking. The Lord Souls being the very embers that emanated from the principle of life in the first place, and the only fuel that will truly keep it going, is captivating. The burden of light, the curious peacefulness of dark, the twisting of assumed opposites. What if our nature was always to try to keep the flame lit, even if it harms us? What if we cannot but oppose the dark, even though it is our deepest self? Dark Souls (especially 2, with Aldia & Vendrick) helped me realise that fire (light, religion, philosophy, music, science) and dark (uncertainty, emotion, chaos, madness, lack of control) are not essential opposites but in perpetual mutual synergy in the heart of man. The "true shape of mankind" is impossible to see without fire and dark. And there is no path beyond their reach and scope. Thanks to Dark Souls, I have embraced all things, and I reject nothing in this world anymore. No mode of living, no hope, no despair, no love, no hate, is alien to me. I will always be depressed, but I know that I am part of a vast firelinking curse, of a potential darkness, that can allow for a sacred duty fulfilled, and also for a hollowing in an obscure, unremarkable, oddly gentle place. It will all have turned out to be the same in the end. Not trans myself, nor particularly interested in trans philosophy or identity. Gwyndolin being influenced (possibly by Seath) pre-birth into a moon affinity says more to me about religion and association between moon-female ("Dark Moon") and sun-male across cultures (though contradicted by ancient Germanic religion) than about gender identity per se, but whatever. Still interesting.

im a trans man and im really so happy to see someone else (best of all a trans woman!!!) who actually “gets” gwyndolin. like… if he was a girl why would he make the gwynevere illusion call him brother😭 it’s soooo frustrating to see some people ignore the fact that he was FORCED to live as a woman, just bc they wish they had been raised that way… 😵‍💫 loved the ds challenge runs and this video essay too! can’t wait to see what you do next :D

Audio quality was just fine, no worries there. You talk a little faster than I can keep up with but I think that's a me problem. I've seen so many different takes on Gwyndolin's gender identity from a trans woman saying "Gwyndolin is a trans woman being misgendered by the flavor text" to a cis man saying "Gwyndolin represents an alchemical concept of divine wholeness" that I don't even know what to think anymore. I'm just gonna say "they" because I'm not even sure if From Soft is sure. Japanese doesn't have gendered 3rd person pronouns (you can say "that man" or "that woman" but 3rd person pronouns are gender neutral) so the flavor text is subject to how the translator thinks of Gwyndolin. The complexity of Gwyndolin's character is what makes them truly special to me though and I think DS is a much, much better game for their inclusion. Thanks for making this video. I'm always happy to get more LBGTQ+ content in my YT feed.

Great video. Two points I'd add that make everything a bit more convoluted are the unreliability of the in game narrators and Gwyndolin's loyalty to Gwyn. I think the narrative of Dark Souls 1 is intentionally unreliable. From characters trying to deceive us ("The legand of Artorias art none but a fabrication") to the semmingly omniscient person behind the item descriptions who still leaves questions open, we do not really have a narrative we can trust. I think this was also the intention by Miyazaki, who wanted us to piece the story together. With that said, I suppose we can never be sure what exactly Gwyndolin's identity is, right? It is never explicitly stated what exactly Gwyndolin identifies as by himself. But I still think it's best to go off what we do have given, which are item descriptions and the he/him pronouns. I think it would be disingenuous to not use he/him pronouns when that is all that we have to go off. Why even assume that Gwyndolin would go by exactly she/her even if he identified as a woman? Not only is he/him a perfectly valid thing to use then anyway but plenty of other pronouns are feminiely coded, like fae/faer. So the only two ways to go about his pronouns in a fair way, is to use the he/him pronouns given by the narrator, or to default to they/them if you think that the narrator is being disingenuous. There is also the question of Gwyndolin's loyalty to his father. It seems like Gwyndolin loves his father and has a lot of admiration for him. He does guard his tomb after all. So it does make me wonder, if Gwyndolin was (wrongfully) raised as a daughter, would he keep this identity just because of his deep admiration for his father? Or was Gwyn's death finally the release of the shackles of the identity placed upon him and he was able to freely live his life as a man from that point on? I feel like the latter also lends itself to a very meta storytelling. Gwyndolin is guarding the tomb exactly because it is now his free choice to do so, not because he is forced to anymore. I relate to this. It sounds gruesome but I did feel a sense of relief when my transphobic grandmother died and I was able to live my life more freely, even though I never wished anything bad upon her, I was there for her when she fell ill and I attended her funeral. Oh and fun fact, there is a good chance that y'all already know that Gwyndolin/Gwendolin is a feminine Welsh name. But maybe it's interesting for some here to know that Gwyndolin goes by "Wendolin" in the German tranlation, which is a German name of a male saint, the saint of sheep.

This video is so real to me, at least in my case. I'm also a transgender woman, who played Dark Souls when I was still a cis male teen. Like a lot of people, it ended up being something that my mind came back to when suicidal depression hit me harder and harder, and the way I thought about its subtext not only helped me through it but also in part allowed me to find my passion for narrative analysis in all of its glory. Well, it and The Elder Scrolls, the latter also has a character whose gender is as complex to fully ascertain as it is to learn the whole of the series' lore. I have yet to watch the essay you mentioned in the beginning. If it's any similar to how I think about that same idea (the separation of metaphor and text), I can't help but see the major reason for the textual focus of the stories as mostly perpetuated by bad faith actors. And I wouldn't personally say Vaati has participated in this wholesale, not that that's what you imply, but it doesn't help he hasn't really spoken about the lore through his own personal muses. In a way, you can view our own anecdotal experiences with the games as subnarratives within the stories, and that seems to be the intention. They help to connect the textual and metaphorical without overshadowing the other in the same beautiful way you put it here.

Hi, fellow trans lady who wouldn't be alive without dark souls here! I really loved the video, but I think you discount non male readings of Gwyndolin a bit too much. I think the entire point of Gwyndolin is ambiguity and the falling apart of binaries. The snack covenant has a really great episode on this called fire and binaries. To keep things short Gwyn's first 2 children are a hyper masculine god of war and a hyper feminine goddess of beauty but his last born, one closer to the fading of the flame, is Gwyndolin a character that gets defined by ambiguity in everything he does in lore. From illusion magic to running the blades of the darkmoon. I also think theres ambiguity in the "born a man yet rasied a woman" part of his lore. That could just as easily be read as Gwyndolin being a trans man. (my personal favorite reading). Gwyndolin is a character almost designed to be an unknown. Playing with ambiguity in gender is also not some exclusive to Gwyndolin in fromsofts catalog, Theres Radagon/Marika, Miquella/St Trina, Things betwixt in ds2 pretty being a womb and you can change your characters sex there and theres all the gender/body stuff going on in bloodborne.

YouTube put one of your videos on my recommended page and im so glad it did. I too am an ex Christian trans girl, and its nice to have a creator that is so easy to connect to. Thank you for your insight and your great videos!

"...forcing yourself to comply to the artist's vision instead of exercising your ability to interpret art in a way that fits you is an exercise in futility and dullness." I disagree, but I also have never felt this vulnerable so of course it is understandable that one may begin to seek out affirmation in things like media.

Heyyyyy another ex-christian trans woman who's super into souls games! So glad to have found you <3

Regardless of what you think Gwyndolin's identity is, I think you have to be willfully ignorant to not see him as some sort of commentary on gender identity in some way. I personally both really enjoy the idea of Gwyndolin being a transman or being gender noncomforming. I think it says a lot about Gwyn's character that he believed in uncompromising absolutes and that this even bled into how he treated his children. Gwyndolin being doted on as feminine for his association with qualities Gwyn himself labels as feminine feels pretty on point, just like when he completely disowned Nameless King for his association with dragons. And just like with Nameless King, the explanation for why he'd treat his kids this way is left open to interpretation. It's really neat storytelling that we get to paint a picture of who these people are without ever learning about the why these people are.

I’m not trans, I just have this pfp cause it makes pedophiles angry, but I’ve always loved how much queer allegory fromsoft has put in their games over the years. It’s so easy to play through these games where you’re playing as cool knights and killing powerful gods and not look any deeper at any of the themes than what you’re told directly, but these games have always had such a kind and devoted community to reading deeper into the lore and what it means. It’s funny how you can read through these comments and tell who has and hasn’t played all the games or 100% one of them, watched all the lore videos they could find or engaged in its discussion, because the content of these games really does filter that ignorance and negativity out, or change the people spouting them for the better, and that’s the power of such a great story.

Fellow trans woman here, your vid just popped into my recs (because I'm devouring SoulsBorne content at the moment I guess). Gwyndolin has always fascinated me as a character, though I think FromSoft handled the character pretty poorly (or, at least, the English translations did, as I'm not sure what the original text is like). Despite everything, I still very much see Gwyndolin's gender as being open to interpretation, regardless of the pronouns assigned to him by item descriptions or other characters (unreliable narrators, etc, plus the fact that pronouns aren't gendered so a trans woman can use he/him, etc). Personally, I've always headcanoned (like many trans women do) that Gwyndolin is a trans woman that people still referred to with he/him pronouns. Anyways, I subscribed 😅

Hearts out to you sis, I feel like there’s probably a lot of gender queer characters in souls games, sure I don’t know much about the series but Gwendolyn being an important character in one game (I have so far not played but eh) and also Marika and Radagon in Eldenring being one person I bet there’s a lot to be read into with that as well. Much love, a trans girl from Austria :3

Omg, I feel the same thing when someone calls Gwyndolin a "she", Idk, I've seen people talk about Gwyndolin and like-, yeah, they can have their own interpretations, but it bugged me that a lot of people are like "I will call Gwyndolin she/Gwyndolin is a trans woman" and basically explaining that calling him a "he" was kind of transphobic in a very "sue me" way and like-, Idk, Ig I can understand that there are a lot of ways to see Gwyndolin, but the people who just straight up call Gwyndolin a "Trans woman" and think the game is being transphobic for calling him a "he" are ignoring the way Gwyndolin can connect with other ways of experiencing gender identity and that kind of stuff and pushing that idea as the right way of interpret the character is just-, feels weird. I think it should be open to interpretation

I loved this! Really thoughtful and considered. You're so, so right about textual readings informing metaphorical ones - definitely something I wish I'd made clearer in my video and something I grappled with in writing it. In hindsight I think the hard focus I place on metaphorical readings comes across as a little self-satisfied. What's missing for me with Souls lore generally is a sense of "so what?" that accompanies those really literal readings. "Melania has a genetic disorder." "So what?" "My favourite bits of lore analysis are instead like yours, where you focus in on one of the game's stories, Gwyndolin's relationship to his gender and his father, and run with it, or when you talk about the way the difficulty and feeling of overcoming insurmountable odds affected your life. I love listening to people reflect on what these games, their lore, the experience of playing them, means to them, especially people with a perspective different to mine, who can see things that pass me by. Excellent video!

As someone who is AFAB whose father always wanted a boy I really identified with Gwyndolin. I always saw him as a tragic character who wanted to please his father so badly that he would go along with being forced into being a girl. I really like how they continued his lore in DS3 by having him abandon his fathers tomb and leave the ring of reversal there as a symbol of how he no longer is living based on what his father wants from him, but for himself. I am not trans but I really love how you explained his character and it made me see him in a new way.

4:20 You just rekindled my desire to beat Malenia by myself. Which will probably lead to overcoming more real life challenges. Thank you.

great vid, gwyndolin's one of the most interesting bosses in the game imo but so much of the conversation seems to just devolve to "no homo" jokes

I loved Lemon's speech at the end of the immolation only run. Also found a bit of solace hearing about your experience in development & interest in philosophy. You are not alone, as am I. Going through this first portion of my life as assumed & expected, I seek my transition. For I have already developed my temperament in understanding & compassion, I now wish to blossom in my appreciation of emotion. Had I fully understood my options sooner, I fear, I may not have come to understand myself as I do now.