Still Young : The Beautiful Naivety of Demon’s Souls
Humans are incurably meddlesome. We like to suss and discover and snoop; know. During childhood a general nosiness facilitates our growth into ostensibly responsible, grown-uppy creatures and later becomes a way to give ourselves direction as we navigate the quandaries of everyday life.
When playing a game like Demon’s Souls, curiosity is key, but it isn’t enough. I think a certain innocence is important too, an untarnished ability to, no matter how bad things might seem, simply shrug and bound on in anyway with what’s the worst that can happen resounding at the forefront of my mind. At least bound as much as my fluted armour will permit. Stamina here is to be cherished— and sprinting used wisely.
The concept of the unknown permeates Demon’s Souls from the very beginning, and arises within its thematic battle between light and dark. Selecting from a variety of traits, strengths and weaknesses, you create a ‘fallen warrior’, who is promptly suspended between life and death in a spectral limbo known as The Nexus. From here, you’re transported across the doomed Boletaria in attempt to free it of an ancient Demon, by entering an accursed fog to collect the corrupted souls within.
The Nexus’ celestial design strengthens its connection with symbolic light, and as the silent traveller, you are repeatedly birthed across Boletaria’s five forsaken realms as a beacon of such light, projecting connotations of innocence onto the character the player assumes. As such, we see a reversal of the typical fairytale story arc; the player is born into a realm where darkness and sin already reign and hope is long lost. It is the light that is seen as the invader. But despite hope being lost within the narrative, Demon’s Souls’ level design lends rather heavily to the innocent optimism demonstrated by the player in their choice to advance further into the fog.
Game designers have their own ways of directing the player, often in a way that is suggestive, but not dominating. Uncharted stirs up memories of running up rather a lot of stairs, or scaling numerous buildings in pursuit of treasures. The focus on ‘heading upwards’ often projects a positive image of safety or opportunity, and serves as a suitable way point to direct Uncharted’s protagonist, Drake. Interestingly, Demon’s Souls uses the inverse ideology to project a similar positive image — but it’s one that resides very much within the player.
Demon’s Souls had me more often descending into shadowy passageways and wretched swamplands, whilst the illumined castles of Latria lay initially off limits. Darkness became suggestive of exciting opportunities, rather than compromising barriers, and only by innocently venturing into the gloom could I free the cursed Boletaria. Because this was all felt through my involvement as the player, the battle between light and dark in Demon’s Souls felt not only more meaningful, but intensely more personal.
We can, however, always return to those places we thought we ‘freed’, to find they are once again riddled with corruption. Gates and doors might stay as we left them, but there are still just as many enemies as before. At first glance, this feels like a set-back- a defeatist sigh that darkness is all-consuming, no matter how hard one tries to fight it. But the rebirth of formerly slain enemies also carries connotations of innocent optimism in Demon’s Souls, and can be seen as harbingers of light underscoring the player’s acclimation to the game’s rising difficulty.
Adversaries aren’t just obstacles in Boletaria — they’re often your only friends. Death lends motivation to the study of attack patterns and mannerisms, and with such comes the eventual growth of the player (reflected by levelling up and obtaining stronger weaponry). Revisiting the previously nightmarish Boletarian Palace now feels something of a holiday compared to my schleps in the Valley of Defilement. Naturally, I was cut down so often that I’d become a better Demon hunter for it; something that was only fully realised upon returning to my Boletarian roots.
The re-darkening of my previously salvaged realities symbolised how far I’d come, and indeed, how much stronger I was still to grow. It’s a game that observes yin and yang deliberately playing off each other; darkness and despair sing the praises of growth and optimism. Through the obscure hand of death, such optimism kept my hope as the player burning, promoting the innocent mindset that light can still be restored, even amongst the bogs of defilement. And so I pressed on, because hey, what’s the worst that can happen?
One of the most interesting conflicts between light and dark occurs via the online components. A shame in one respect, as Demon’s Souls online presence has dwindled somewhat since its 2009 inception, but nevertheless one of the mechanical trademarks of the successive Souls series. Online you’re still — for the most part — alone, but there’s always a gnostic resonance of alternate dimensions; multiple Latrias being muddled through by wanderers just like you.
The only means of online communication is written word; a fitting addition to Demon’s Souls’ ethereal, yet isolate environments. Notes are left burned into the ground as anonymous, runic markings. Some are helpful, dropping hints about hidden items you may have missed. Others only seem good-natured, lying about pitfalls, even teasing you for getting lost because somewhere, in some separate macrocosm, the same happened to them. Creating notes has a limited selection scheme, allowing you to warn other players to “be wary of the enemy’s attack” without spoiling what the attack might be, or how it will take form. This implies a commitment to the player’s best interests; no matter how prepared we’d like a game to make us, it’s always more engaging to go see for ourselves.
There’s also the Black Phantom mechanic to contend with. Through use of mystical stones in Demon’s Souls, players can connect online and invade the game of another. As contact with pre-programmed monsters becomes the norm across your travels, the prospect of running into another you — another human player — adds a distanced, yet constant uncertainty to Souls’ multiplayer.
You’re caught in a sense of open-distrust (‘open’ assuming a positive symbol of light; distrust relating more to concealment and darkness), the balance of which can tip every so often. Being controlled by sentient players that are awarded for killing their hosts, the actions of Black Phantoms aren’t as reliable as the game’s recurring enemies. Indeed, like many of the deceptive notes, their true intentions can only be ascertained once you’ve racked up a sufficient number of deaths.
Thus, here is a realm of suspended stasis, in which you can only meander between naive curiosity and fleeting revelation. Psychologist Carl Jung interpreted the gnostic Ouroboros to “slay himself and bring himself to life”, aligning simultaneously and eternally within the light and dark. Through use of online mechanics (and previous combat), it appears that Demon’s Souls places the player in much a similar position. Having been caught between life and death from the beginning via The Nexus, the player’s cyclic enlightenment (i.e. light) and death (i.e. darkness) can be viewed as a projection of the Ouroboros; a notion further intensified by the game’s mythical ending.
After striking your way through ruined Boletaria, you’re forced to choose between succumbing to the kingdom’s blackened corruption to rule over the land, and slaying the ancient Demon to bring light to the fallen world. Each way, the hero kills a part of themselves (the dark or the light) to give birth to a new world, strengthening their role as the Ouroboros of Demon’s Souls.
Through this interpretation of eternal death and rebirth, it is quite possible to argue that Demon’s Souls references the existence of the player themselves. It possibly shows awareness of the player’s creation of and power over the fallen warrior, the multiple realms they’ve visited, and the ultimate death of their journey, as well as their ability to rise again through Souls’ tougher New Game Plus Mode. After curiously calling who’s there through the darkness of Boletaria, by the end, it is the game itself that recognises your voice.
Uncertainty is what makes a trek an adventure, but it’s also a useful platform for studying what it means for the adventurer. Demon’s Souls’ indirect correspondence to and between players rekindles the inquisitiveness that first brought gaming to life for me, and hints at many interpretable symbolisms that bring its elusive storyline to the surface. It plays on the notion that if you think it’s worth it then do it, whilst constantly reminding you that there will be consequences either way. It’s risk-reward, it’s risk-regardless, and sometimes the best way to address that is to repair your spear, hug your shield and embrace the child’s prerogative: to have a good old nose around.
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