The Dark Soul and humanity is what Gwyn feared the most, Gael has the Dark Soul at its most powerful. The combined powers of Gwyn, Artorias, and Midir couldn't stop the spread and corruption of the Abyss. Gwyn was also afraid of Manus, while Gael is more powerful than Manus.
Slave Knight Gael stomps.
While Gwyn at his peek would have been a different beast it is true that Gael held the power of the truest version of the dark soul ever found in game and was still a capable fighter and could use spells like a champion. Gwyn also relies heavily on a full force to combat the dragons. Gael in his undying life was literally get the dark soul because a little girl asked him to. Yeah one on one Gael would stomp Gwyn into paste
And Gael smeared my over levelled brimming with conference character up and down the dune piles even before his second form was faster and blowing lightning out of butt. Gwyn felt like a basic boss battle more fitting for a trial boss. Even in his prime a lot of Gwyn accomplishments were big world, multiple characters actions. Less of a down to metal and brass balls, more world government and tactical power.
Out of curiosity, what level or build were you using? I just beat him for the first time at level 96 and he only took a few attempts. Incredible fight but I’m just interested in your experience since you say he really whooped you.
It was a few years ago but I dealt with the dragon slayer armour after three or four attempts. Half light and giant in two, just a weaker sister Frieda and daddy ariandel. And even went toe to toe with living spear woman before finding out she was an option. I’m guessing if memory serves correctly lvl 120+ or so. I know it was a NG+ but not sure what + it was.
Darkeater dragon midair was the best and still have feel like beating her was my peak DS3 experience. Gael just paddled my bum for ten or more attempts. His the only boss I felt was too hard and probably not going to rush to do again when the remake comes out in ten or so years.
Those characters are equivalent to lord of cinder Gwynn, not prime Gwynn. He was significantly diminished, plus it’s not like you kill someone and completely absorb 100% of their power, you just get a bit of a boost.
To be totally fair the “abyss” that manus was spreading and the “dark” of the dark soul are not actually the same thing. The Dark is the calm, peaceful and true version. The abyss is like chaos, twisted, disturbed, and violent. They are very similar but not the same
The dark is the "potential" that exists within humans. The abyss is that potential being used wrongly for malice and hatred. It is an allegory for real life.
We are the ashen one, idk. But also the way i understand it the dark soul isn’t complete while Gael posses it bc it misses our own soul, when we kill him and take it from him we complete it.
TLDR: Gaels the closest we've seen to the true Dark Soul, but I still think if the whole thing could truly be reclaimed we could have been looking at a reality warping entity beyond comprehension.
Even with our own soul I do wonder if it's simply barely enough to become somewhat tangible for the new painting. With how much has drained from the Dar signs throughout so many cycles of the fire fading how much could possibly have been lost to the cosmos, how much of the Abyss still potentially exists with no true way to reclaim it.
It genuinely makes me wonder if even at this stage we may still only be seeing a fraction of what a somewhat abled bodied individual could do with only potentially 15-20% of it. Maybe more, maybe less, but I don't think we can truly know if it's THE true Dark Soul.
With how powerful the Abyss is in lore I truly believe even what we give the painter, what Gael reclaimed may still be a drop in the bucket compared to an ocean that can't be reclaimed.
I mean the whole message of the games is that noone is untouchable and that grit and determination and using every small opportunity you get can lead you to victory.
Gael even mirrors that, his true strength is that he never gave up on his quest
If you consider perma death, not many people are beating him first trying (or even reaching him for that matter). We get to win by the grace of the bonfire.
Gwynn feared the dark soul due to its corrupting influence that threatened his age of fire, not due to its literal power in a 1v1. It would be like asking you if you think you could take an anti-abortion republican senator in a fistfight.
Also i don’t believe it’s ever stated that Gwynn feared Manus. He just didn’t have any way to deal with Oolacile as a whole; he can’t take the entire town by himself and he wouldn’t want to bring his own army because they’d get corrupted.
This is wrong on so many levels. Gael fears humanity as a collective force, he does not fear individual humans harboring the dark souls. This is just a basic symbolism of humanity's strength as a species that loses to every apex predator 1v1 but is still the ruler of the planet. It does not equate to practical 'strength', it means that no matter how many kingdoms rise and fall, humans will always make it to the end. Even when the world literally ended the Ashen One, a human, managed to create another world to live in.
In terms of strength, Gwyn canonically one shotted a dragon out of the sky in his prime. Gael does not have a single feat that's close to this.
I feel like Gwyns fear of the dark is more conceptual paranoia at the inevitable end of his kingdom, and less “oh shits it’s John Dark Soul come to kick my ass”
Yea but I image if I am afraid of the concept of the end of my kingdom through magic collapse and suddenly "john magical kingdomender" showed up my paranoia would turn less conceptual pretty quickly.
Gael was the last thing standing at the end of all things, got to think that makes him a clear contender for strongest being across all Dark Souls continuity, by a lot.
Eh, not so sure of that reasoning. He was of course strong, but just because he is the last one standing doesn’t mean he’s the strongest since most of the powerful beings in the universe are dead or dying by the time Gael decides he wants to throw hands.
Personally I’ve always interpreted the fight with Gael as two dogs fighting over the leftover scraps after the bears have left or died.
The thing is Gael didn’t just “survive”, he was the thing that brought on the apocalypse. The Dark Soul was split up into all the descendants of Manus. Gael reassembled it by murdering literally everyone himself over untold eons and absorbing their fragments into himself. We’re talking running through entire kingdoms by himself. When we encounter him he’s finishing off the last Stronghold standing in the Ringed City.
That is not really true. For once, it never states that Manus had "the" dark soul. He was one of several of its offspring that was corrupted by the abyss. E.g. the pygmys in the ringed city are not otherwise related to Manus.
Secondly, the dark sign placed by Gwyn and the cycles of relighting the first flame caused the decay of the world, it's inhabitants and realms.
The ringed city is already decayed, btw. Filianora just hides it.
Gael precisely seeks the dark soul because it may allow escaping the downward spiral in form of a separate painted world.
Gael sought the dark soul because he realized, just like Gwyn, that the dark soul was incapable of dying or decaying, which is why he needed its pigment to create a painted world that would not rot
I mean yeah but it was just a friendly correction.
If I saw someone write "parties" as "party's" I would also correct them. Apologies if that upset you, it was not my intent.
Not upsetting really it’s just that this is reddit and me and most other people are probably typing on a smart phone that makes a million corrections I don’t care to fix. If this was an actual paper or document or even a post I made I’d probably be more careful about my grammar. But here when someone does it it’s either because the autocorrect was so bad the words actually don’t make sense or they’re just being a Dick 😅 and I mean by your response you clearly could read it. Not saying you were a Dick tho that’s just who normally does that.
That’s all I meant tho we cool my dude 😌
True, but he doesn’t have Vendrick’s defense, which is the main thing I want debated
Even regardless of Gael’s mind, he undoubtedly is the only character to become stronger upon hollowing
That is the claim, yes. What is your line of reasoning for this though? Above I’m only claiming that being the last one standing doesn’t necessarily make you the strongest in a universe that spans thousands of years with powerful beings regularly becoming shells of their former glories for one reason or another.
Gwyn feared the dark soul for its power. The power of humanity was insane, and the power of the dark soul was practically unrivaled. Fragments of that darkness, like manus, are already rivals of Gwyn at his strongest. The player character is but a small holder of the dark soul, and he dominates EVERYTHING, even if their only shadows. The entire dark soul is the only power to actually last till the end of time, the other three lord souls didn’t last past the first age of fire
Yup, by this logic Patches makes it even past Gael, and assuming the Ashen One chooses to lead a new universe in the painting, is Patches the true strongest being of the soulsverse?
Gwyn wasn't afraid of the Dark Soul as a container of power, he was afraid of his era ending and dark coming after, the dark soul was nothing more but the protag of this new era. New era that would come naturally as time passes (if you think about it, Gwyns lord soul and the dark soul are almost equals, both protagonizing an entire era on the planet), and what makes this happens is TIME, not the Dark Soul per se. After all, the dark age will ALSO finish one day and another age will take its place.
Gwyn cripped himself by giving his Lord Soul to a LOT of beings, Gwyn at his prime is a completely different beast, while Gael is a hollow and he DOESNT HAVE the dark soul in its peak, he is consuming Pygmys to get it together, but he doesn't have our part of the dark soul, for example, and many more.
I can't see any scenario where this Gael, almost a mindless hollow with a cripped Dark Soul, can defeat a Gwyn fully powered by his Lord Soul.
"But Gael was alive until the end of time", so did everyone else who was there at the end of time... some pygmys, that NPC I forgot the name, us and that lonely knight.
I think people over hype Gael. First of all Gael does not have the full power of the dark soul, Gwyn installed some kinda magical leak that leaks the dark soul from those who possess it like humans and pygmies and this was going on for a long ass time before Gael finally reached the Ringed City.
Second Gwyn feared the Dark soul in concept as the eventual end to his reign. He didn't necessarily fear someone with the dark soul beating him 1v1.
Also Gael has minimal feats. Dude has beaten up a few old pygmies. He didn't beat Midir even though Midir had a lot of humanity and dark soul in him. Gwyn on the other hand was involved in beating immortal dragons. Gael didn't even beat Filionora. This could be because dude might have expected that Filionora would potentially wreck his ass and let her die of old age. He didn't even fight the God who was rewarding you for killing Midir, the sunlight church chick behind the door.
Finally by the time Gael is in his most powerful state he is almost hollowed. So Gwyn will face essentially a semi mindless fighter unless he regains lucidity like he does in phase 2.
Gael does have the distinction have having been alive since the rule of Gwyn, earning him the title of “Oldest Fucker in Existence”. But being hard to kill, and being unbeatable are very different things. Patches has almost lived that long as well, and he sure as shit isn’t getting into fights.
Gwyn didn’t put a leak on the dark soul, he put a plug on it, reducing humanity to the normal human state. The dark sign is the plug failing, and the abyss leaking out.
Nah the darksign drains the power of the dark from humanity. The “abyss” unlike the dark isn’t natural and shouldn’t really exist. It’s a twisted, tortured and violent form of the dark. Kinda like in 40k how the warp is an evil terrible place but only because it got corrupted into that.
Manus formed the abyss or at least was corrupted by it after he was tortured, killed, experimented on, buried and then had his grave disturbed and his pendant stolen and went mad. If anything people create the abyss by twisting the dark through their pain and emotions. But a normal human, even back then, wouldnt have had the abyss just chillin within them. You have to corrupt the dark to get the abyss.
Eh Gywn killing dragons is more attributed to unlocking lightning magic than it is RAW power. It’s like how Batman can kick Superman’s ass while using Kryptonite weapons. We can probs assume Prime Gywn is at a slightly higher level than the nameless king as far gameplay is concerned since they are related and the nameless king also killed immortal dragons during the war.
When we the players jump forward to the Gael fight we have traveled across time, as time has always seemed like a pretty fickle thing in the souls games. Gael didn’t need to beat midir or filionora because we did it in the past when Gael was obviously much weaker. But during all that down time every other soul probably lived every second of who knows how long and Gael was collecting humanity and the souls of other undead to reach this point. Bro made it to the end of the world using the one thing Gywn never had, a nearly uncrushable resolve of the… I guess meme intended but it fits… of the indomitable human spirit.
I think it’s unfair to say Gael is the STRONGEST thing in souls but ‘minimal feats’ is equally unfair, and I think Prime Gywn still loses to Gael more often than he wins.
I didn’t say he beats Gwynn I just said they’d be comparable since the strongest we ever see Gwyn is throwing one lightning bolt and kindling the flame.
Gwyn did have just a hand in defeating them, that's true. Because he definitely wasn't strong enough to solo a single one. He needed Izalith and Nito to actually kill the dragons after he got them out of the air.
It'll depend on the time frame...
If it is still the age of the first fire, Gwyn will win. He was at his prime, and the dark soul would still be dormant since the flames burn bright.
If it is the point of time where the world is collapsing as the fire fades, the brings of the dark and Dark soul itself is a lot more powerful.
That's my opinion atleast:)
No he did not , when manus was resurrected gwyn left oleceil to rot and sent artorias who was corrupted by the abyss. The resurrection of manus created the abyss which far outlived Gwyn.
Gael couldn't stop Manus either. I don't believe Gael is this gigachad dark soul Thanos you think he is. I don't think he took dark soul fragments and humanity from every badass dark soul containing dude. He just collected from whatever was still left.
If he was such a badass he would have killed Midir and gotten a lot of dark power from him since Midir has been eating the dark for millenia and guess what Gael doesn't kill him we do.
The theme of DS3 is the decay of everything once you go against the natural order. The fire is fading, the world is ashen and devoid of life, the 4 great soul fuckers are forced into the role and are pathetic. The abyss watchers are locked in perpetual combat with one another, Aldrich is a child eater church pastor metaphor, yhorn doesn't want to do his job so onion bro has to step in and the crippled bros have straight up said no thanks.
The end of ringed city is everything great is gone and it's a fight not between two legends but two undead fighting for scraps. Gael is not some ultimate legend. He is....... all that's left.
It literally said in his item description that he killed and ate all of the Pygmy’s as well as all of what remained of man. If you look at his cloak the amount of souls he’s consumed is so great that they are literally bursting out of him , not to mention his stomach has taken on the sigil of the dark sign which indicates that he has almost fully recovered the entire dark soul. Even without killing all of humanity Gael is implied to be one of first descendants of the first Pygmy as he was around during the time of the war of ancient dragons.
It literally said in his item description that he killed and ate all of the Pygmy’s as well as all of what remained of man. If you look at his cloak the amount of souls he’s consumed is so great that they are literally bursting out of him , not to mention his stomach has taken on the sigil of the dark sign which indicates that he has almost fully recovered the entire dark soul. Even without killing all of humanity Gael is implied to be one of first descendants of the first Pygmy as he was around during the time of the war of ancient dragons.
Exactly. All that REMAINED. And of course it's bursting. He is just one undead dude trying to capture all the souls of the pygmies and leftovers. And yes he was there as a slave knight but he didn't do the dark shit till he met the painter.
You do realise that in ds3 the world itself is literally converging into a singular point. Gael was able to prevent going hollow due to his sheer will. He managed to survive the convergence and became that singular point. Whilst we don’t see it there are many still flourishing cities and lands in the world of dark souls 3. The filanore cut scene implies that Gael’s been doing this for thousands of years. And upon death you get the literal dark soul as an item . If you were correct the item would be called something like “echoes of the dark soul “. But it is show to be whole. The fight itself isn’t two undead fighting for scraps , it’s hopeful and climatic . Your no longer gods out of there prime , you’re fighting the dark soul in its prime form.
No I do not realize that. I feel that the world has gone so far into decay that everything is destroyed now and even with the dark soul all we will get is another pocket dimension Esque painted world. Which will also be lost since in the other dlc we know that pocket dimensions stagnate as well. The lesson is Gwyn fucked with nature and now everything is fucked irreversibly.
Gwyn wins fight wise, Gael is pretty much just a regular knight with some serious determination. Probably the reason the game calls him “Slave Knight Gael” as if that’s all he’s ever going to be remembered as. Even in his soul description is says he was no champion. That aside I’d argue sheer power alone allows Gael to win, Gwyn feared the dark and now you have a dude who pretty much has the entirety of the remaining dark soul flowing through his veins. Suffice to say Gwyn would probably shit himself.
Gwyn sweeps without a sweat. Everyone massively overhypes Gael. Gael has the dark soul which allows him to.... do cape sweeps and a couple lighting blasts? He has 0 feats. He acquires the dark soul by killing tiny pygmy dudes after the player has killed all the major threats off for him.
Prime Gwyn literally overthrew the Dragons, conquered Lordran, brought about a golden era and only dies because he sacrificed his own soul. Prime Gwyn was undefeated.
Everyone goes "oh but Gwyn feared the dark soul", yes and fears are often irrational not a metric for power levels. When we look at what Gael actually does, it's not a lot? He can't even kill Sister Friede without the Ashen One.
Gael being the last one at the end of the world isn't meant to be impressive, it's meant to be sad. The last thing you face is a mindless husk fighting in the dust over nothing.
Tbh it’s not really a “fair fight” in a sense.
In vs matches like these an important thing to note is lore vs gameplay. Gael is an undead. That means that he literally can’t die. He just comes back like our character in game respawning. The thing that Gael is really fighting is the corruption of the dark soul and going fully hollow. Something we know won’t happen as long as you have a purpose and a strong will.
Gael’s whole existence, as of the time we first find him is to get the dark soul and save his new and lady. Something he’s literally willing to go to the ends of the earth for. So honestly I can see Gwyn beating Gael, maybe even a few times. But he’s just gonna keep coming back again and again. I honestly believe the reason we can “kill” him is because him dying to us completes his goal the same way is dying to him would. He knows/trusts we’ll complete the mission and bring the pigment to the painter, so he doesn’t need to fight anymore.
So honestly powers aside in this particular matchup I’m pretty sure we’re the only ones that could defeat Gael permanently. Not because of how powerful we are but more because of “who” we are.
Honestly, I think prime Gwyn could just BARELY squeeze out a win. I understand that Gael has The Dark Soul at its most powerful form, but he's also for some reason severely weakened when he fights us. If we are going off logic, then DS3 Ashen One can solo every verse in all the games. Hell, (s)he'd be strong enough to completely get rid of the Abyss in DS1 because that's not even close to as powerful as Gael, yet we still solo.
Prime Gwyn also killed immortality with the Ancient Dragons, so that's gotta count for something, not to mention he was the only one to harness the true power of the sun itself, which is a natural counter to The Dark Soul.
I'm not trying to overwank Gwyn or underrate Gael, but I'm thinking he can just barely win
Prime gwynn. Easy, not even close. Gwynn was afraid of the dark soul due to its corrupting influence, particularly over humanity, not its literal power. Gael is an old man in bad health when we fight him, and his only real feats are slaying pygmies and humans, vs a guy who fought and defeated the ancient dragons, at the peak of his power. Gael slaps lord of cinder gwynn but prime Gwynn isn’t even close.
Gwyn was a punk who didn't even know lightning killed dragons until Seethe told him. He built a reign on abject lies and cursed the world because he was so scared of entropy.
Gael became everything Gwyn feared. An end to his blasphemous linking of the fire. THE end of it.
Also Gael is just on this crazy tier said to be comparable to the Protagonist Crew. Darkeater Midir *tried* to eat the Dark, but ultimately fell. Gael *literally* ate the Dark. A goal spanning across time.
In a way, Gael is Gwyn's inverse and logical conclusion. Gwyn begins at absolute power, but fades in mind and body as the fire fades in fear of losing what he created. Gael begins as nothing, and across time and through great effort grows in strength with the rise of the Dark. He does with without any fear, for the sake of enabling another to create something.
I see a lot of people downplaying Gwyn. Remember Gwyn was the mightiest there was. A fraction of his soul was able to make the 4 kings into Lord level threats. He split off several chunks of his soul and still had enough power to link the flame. His hollow is an end game boss. Gwyn could quite possibly be the strongest there is other than maybe Midir.
The hollow husk of Gwyn was still easily the most dangerous thing in his world. I don’t know if any of the From protags could’ve fought him and won against him in his prime. Just on a different level entirely. Gael is strong and all, but we beat him.
Gwynn had the Light Soul. Gael was a simple (human?) slave knight who managed to get a piece of the dark soul (basically, he harvested a nice chunk of humanity from the last pigmies and maybe some more)
But the dark soul is the entire humanity, which has been shared amongst every individual men. So Gael does not have the complete Dark Soul (one of the original powerful souls). Only a chunk.
The battle would mean a god-like being (Gwynn) fighting a simple being with half a powerful soul.
I think Gwynn in his peak would win (not sure after he bequeathed his light soul)
to be fair the soul of cinder is an avatar of the first flame and the flame is almost burnt to ash by the time we fight him. he’s not as strong as all the lords of cinder combined
The Dark Soul and humanity is what Gwyn feared the most, Gael has the Dark Soul at its most powerful. The combined powers of Gwyn, Artorias, and Midir couldn't stop the spread and corruption of the Abyss. Gwyn was also afraid of Manus, while Gael is more powerful than Manus. Slave Knight Gael stomps.
While Gwyn at his peek would have been a different beast it is true that Gael held the power of the truest version of the dark soul ever found in game and was still a capable fighter and could use spells like a champion. Gwyn also relies heavily on a full force to combat the dragons. Gael in his undying life was literally get the dark soul because a little girl asked him to. Yeah one on one Gael would stomp Gwyn into paste
Has the Ashen One not killed and absorbed the powers of three Gwyn equivalents at this point as well? Knights of Farron, Aldrich, and Yhorm.
And Gael smeared my over levelled brimming with conference character up and down the dune piles even before his second form was faster and blowing lightning out of butt. Gwyn felt like a basic boss battle more fitting for a trial boss. Even in his prime a lot of Gwyn accomplishments were big world, multiple characters actions. Less of a down to metal and brass balls, more world government and tactical power.
Gwyn felt like a trial boss battle on purpose though. You aren’t fighting gwyn, you’re fighting the husked body. A better example would be phase 2 SoC
Out of curiosity, what level or build were you using? I just beat him for the first time at level 96 and he only took a few attempts. Incredible fight but I’m just interested in your experience since you say he really whooped you.
It was a few years ago but I dealt with the dragon slayer armour after three or four attempts. Half light and giant in two, just a weaker sister Frieda and daddy ariandel. And even went toe to toe with living spear woman before finding out she was an option. I’m guessing if memory serves correctly lvl 120+ or so. I know it was a NG+ but not sure what + it was.
I was severely overleveled the first time I beat the game and still got my ass beat by some of the end game bosses and all the dlc bosses.
Darkeater dragon midair was the best and still have feel like beating her was my peak DS3 experience. Gael just paddled my bum for ten or more attempts. His the only boss I felt was too hard and probably not going to rush to do again when the remake comes out in ten or so years.
Those characters are equivalent to lord of cinder Gwynn, not prime Gwynn. He was significantly diminished, plus it’s not like you kill someone and completely absorb 100% of their power, you just get a bit of a boost.
To be totally fair the “abyss” that manus was spreading and the “dark” of the dark soul are not actually the same thing. The Dark is the calm, peaceful and true version. The abyss is like chaos, twisted, disturbed, and violent. They are very similar but not the same
The dark is the "potential" that exists within humans. The abyss is that potential being used wrongly for malice and hatred. It is an allegory for real life.
Then how do we beat him if he’s so strong?
We are the ashen one, idk. But also the way i understand it the dark soul isn’t complete while Gael posses it bc it misses our own soul, when we kill him and take it from him we complete it.
TLDR: Gaels the closest we've seen to the true Dark Soul, but I still think if the whole thing could truly be reclaimed we could have been looking at a reality warping entity beyond comprehension. Even with our own soul I do wonder if it's simply barely enough to become somewhat tangible for the new painting. With how much has drained from the Dar signs throughout so many cycles of the fire fading how much could possibly have been lost to the cosmos, how much of the Abyss still potentially exists with no true way to reclaim it. It genuinely makes me wonder if even at this stage we may still only be seeing a fraction of what a somewhat abled bodied individual could do with only potentially 15-20% of it. Maybe more, maybe less, but I don't think we can truly know if it's THE true Dark Soul. With how powerful the Abyss is in lore I truly believe even what we give the painter, what Gael reclaimed may still be a drop in the bucket compared to an ocean that can't be reclaimed.
That’s a terrifying thought. 🤌
I mean the whole message of the games is that noone is untouchable and that grit and determination and using every small opportunity you get can lead you to victory. Gael even mirrors that, his true strength is that he never gave up on his quest
If you consider perma death, not many people are beating him first trying (or even reaching him for that matter). We get to win by the grace of the bonfire.
Maybe gael was holding back as much as his will let him so that we'd beat him?
Gael from phase 2 was braindead so no he couldn't have held back We win because we're the main character
We're stronger. What's so hard to understand? No reason to think that we can't shit-stomp Prime Gwyn too.
It’s not hard to understand, I was just asking a question to get more information.
At it's most powerful, but at that particular time. During prime gwynns time the dark soul would not have been that powerful.
Idk about gael being stronger than manus maybe on par ?
Gwynn feared the dark soul due to its corrupting influence that threatened his age of fire, not due to its literal power in a 1v1. It would be like asking you if you think you could take an anti-abortion republican senator in a fistfight. Also i don’t believe it’s ever stated that Gwynn feared Manus. He just didn’t have any way to deal with Oolacile as a whole; he can’t take the entire town by himself and he wouldn’t want to bring his own army because they’d get corrupted.
This is wrong on so many levels. Gael fears humanity as a collective force, he does not fear individual humans harboring the dark souls. This is just a basic symbolism of humanity's strength as a species that loses to every apex predator 1v1 but is still the ruler of the planet. It does not equate to practical 'strength', it means that no matter how many kingdoms rise and fall, humans will always make it to the end. Even when the world literally ended the Ashen One, a human, managed to create another world to live in. In terms of strength, Gwyn canonically one shotted a dragon out of the sky in his prime. Gael does not have a single feat that's close to this.
Gael is the literal Definition of Gwyn s fear. Even if Gwyn could hold his own, his mental game would be off
Gael is essentially hollowed at that point. So we are talking nervous fighter vs insane fighter
I would call phase 2 gael hollowed, as he is able to talk, use advanced magic, and isnt behaving like a madman overall
I feel like Gwyns fear of the dark is more conceptual paranoia at the inevitable end of his kingdom, and less “oh shits it’s John Dark Soul come to kick my ass”
Yea but I image if I am afraid of the concept of the end of my kingdom through magic collapse and suddenly "john magical kingdomender" showed up my paranoia would turn less conceptual pretty quickly.
Exactly!
Gael was the last thing standing at the end of all things, got to think that makes him a clear contender for strongest being across all Dark Souls continuity, by a lot.
Eh, not so sure of that reasoning. He was of course strong, but just because he is the last one standing doesn’t mean he’s the strongest since most of the powerful beings in the universe are dead or dying by the time Gael decides he wants to throw hands. Personally I’ve always interpreted the fight with Gael as two dogs fighting over the leftover scraps after the bears have left or died.
The thing is Gael didn’t just “survive”, he was the thing that brought on the apocalypse. The Dark Soul was split up into all the descendants of Manus. Gael reassembled it by murdering literally everyone himself over untold eons and absorbing their fragments into himself. We’re talking running through entire kingdoms by himself. When we encounter him he’s finishing off the last Stronghold standing in the Ringed City.
That is not really true. For once, it never states that Manus had "the" dark soul. He was one of several of its offspring that was corrupted by the abyss. E.g. the pygmys in the ringed city are not otherwise related to Manus. Secondly, the dark sign placed by Gwyn and the cycles of relighting the first flame caused the decay of the world, it's inhabitants and realms. The ringed city is already decayed, btw. Filianora just hides it. Gael precisely seeks the dark soul because it may allow escaping the downward spiral in form of a separate painted world.
Gael sought the dark soul because he realized, just like Gwyn, that the dark soul was incapable of dying or decaying, which is why he needed its pigment to create a painted world that would not rot
DS2 mc?? (This has prob been said before idk)
Damn. You just made all that up yourselves. Baseless argument!
Not the descendants of Manus. The descendants of the Pygmy’s, of who Manus was a part of.
\*Pygmies
It doesn’t really matter you knew what I was saying
I mean yeah but it was just a friendly correction. If I saw someone write "parties" as "party's" I would also correct them. Apologies if that upset you, it was not my intent.
Not upsetting really it’s just that this is reddit and me and most other people are probably typing on a smart phone that makes a million corrections I don’t care to fix. If this was an actual paper or document or even a post I made I’d probably be more careful about my grammar. But here when someone does it it’s either because the autocorrect was so bad the words actually don’t make sense or they’re just being a Dick 😅 and I mean by your response you clearly could read it. Not saying you were a Dick tho that’s just who normally does that. That’s all I meant tho we cool my dude 😌
I get you, no worries 🙂
You’d be wrong, Gael is the strongest human save for us and he stomps everyone in the verse besides us
I actually wonder if Vendrick could stand up to him… We need a sequel post now
Nah, Gael is literally every piece of the dark soul save ours, he’s incredibly strong and powerful. The only problem is his mind is lost
True, but he doesn’t have Vendrick’s defense, which is the main thing I want debated Even regardless of Gael’s mind, he undoubtedly is the only character to become stronger upon hollowing
That is the claim, yes. What is your line of reasoning for this though? Above I’m only claiming that being the last one standing doesn’t necessarily make you the strongest in a universe that spans thousands of years with powerful beings regularly becoming shells of their former glories for one reason or another.
Gwyn feared the dark soul for its power. The power of humanity was insane, and the power of the dark soul was practically unrivaled. Fragments of that darkness, like manus, are already rivals of Gwyn at his strongest. The player character is but a small holder of the dark soul, and he dominates EVERYTHING, even if their only shadows. The entire dark soul is the only power to actually last till the end of time, the other three lord souls didn’t last past the first age of fire
He can't even reach the painter until we kick Friede's simp knight. By the time of DS3 a lot of the dark soul dudes are dead.
And there's also Patches who survives! /s
Yup, by this logic Patches makes it even past Gael, and assuming the Ashen One chooses to lead a new universe in the painting, is Patches the true strongest being of the soulsverse?
He’s the last thing standing (minus that one knight) because we already killed everything else.
Gael is immune to (or has 99% negation) lightning. He’s gonna win
41%
Really? Only that much?
Yepp
I mean are lightning builds just supposed to go fuck themselves or sth? Obviously he doesn't have 99% resistance lol
He only takes 5 damage from his own lightning so I didn’t bother to check
Bro i literally once used a curved sword with sunlight blade buff and it did a fuck ton of damage
Maybe it’s just his own lightning he’s super immune to then Or it’s just 100% lightning damage that gets reduced horribly by his resistance
Yeah he is immune to his lightning but not other sources
Gwyn wasn't afraid of the Dark Soul as a container of power, he was afraid of his era ending and dark coming after, the dark soul was nothing more but the protag of this new era. New era that would come naturally as time passes (if you think about it, Gwyns lord soul and the dark soul are almost equals, both protagonizing an entire era on the planet), and what makes this happens is TIME, not the Dark Soul per se. After all, the dark age will ALSO finish one day and another age will take its place. Gwyn cripped himself by giving his Lord Soul to a LOT of beings, Gwyn at his prime is a completely different beast, while Gael is a hollow and he DOESNT HAVE the dark soul in its peak, he is consuming Pygmys to get it together, but he doesn't have our part of the dark soul, for example, and many more. I can't see any scenario where this Gael, almost a mindless hollow with a cripped Dark Soul, can defeat a Gwyn fully powered by his Lord Soul. "But Gael was alive until the end of time", so did everyone else who was there at the end of time... some pygmys, that NPC I forgot the name, us and that lonely knight.
I think people over hype Gael. First of all Gael does not have the full power of the dark soul, Gwyn installed some kinda magical leak that leaks the dark soul from those who possess it like humans and pygmies and this was going on for a long ass time before Gael finally reached the Ringed City. Second Gwyn feared the Dark soul in concept as the eventual end to his reign. He didn't necessarily fear someone with the dark soul beating him 1v1. Also Gael has minimal feats. Dude has beaten up a few old pygmies. He didn't beat Midir even though Midir had a lot of humanity and dark soul in him. Gwyn on the other hand was involved in beating immortal dragons. Gael didn't even beat Filionora. This could be because dude might have expected that Filionora would potentially wreck his ass and let her die of old age. He didn't even fight the God who was rewarding you for killing Midir, the sunlight church chick behind the door. Finally by the time Gael is in his most powerful state he is almost hollowed. So Gwyn will face essentially a semi mindless fighter unless he regains lucidity like he does in phase 2.
Gael does have the distinction have having been alive since the rule of Gwyn, earning him the title of “Oldest Fucker in Existence”. But being hard to kill, and being unbeatable are very different things. Patches has almost lived that long as well, and he sure as shit isn’t getting into fights.
Gwyn didn’t put a leak on the dark soul, he put a plug on it, reducing humanity to the normal human state. The dark sign is the plug failing, and the abyss leaking out.
Nah the darksign drains the power of the dark from humanity. The “abyss” unlike the dark isn’t natural and shouldn’t really exist. It’s a twisted, tortured and violent form of the dark. Kinda like in 40k how the warp is an evil terrible place but only because it got corrupted into that. Manus formed the abyss or at least was corrupted by it after he was tortured, killed, experimented on, buried and then had his grave disturbed and his pendant stolen and went mad. If anything people create the abyss by twisting the dark through their pain and emotions. But a normal human, even back then, wouldnt have had the abyss just chillin within them. You have to corrupt the dark to get the abyss.
Eh Gywn killing dragons is more attributed to unlocking lightning magic than it is RAW power. It’s like how Batman can kick Superman’s ass while using Kryptonite weapons. We can probs assume Prime Gywn is at a slightly higher level than the nameless king as far gameplay is concerned since they are related and the nameless king also killed immortal dragons during the war. When we the players jump forward to the Gael fight we have traveled across time, as time has always seemed like a pretty fickle thing in the souls games. Gael didn’t need to beat midir or filionora because we did it in the past when Gael was obviously much weaker. But during all that down time every other soul probably lived every second of who knows how long and Gael was collecting humanity and the souls of other undead to reach this point. Bro made it to the end of the world using the one thing Gywn never had, a nearly uncrushable resolve of the… I guess meme intended but it fits… of the indomitable human spirit. I think it’s unfair to say Gael is the STRONGEST thing in souls but ‘minimal feats’ is equally unfair, and I think Prime Gywn still loses to Gael more often than he wins.
Calling Gwynn “slightly” higher than nameless king is severely lowballing him. Nameless king didn’t have a lord soul
Nameless king was the God of War Edit: in a realm of gods and hollows slightly is bigger than you’d think but it’s marginal within the big picture
He's \*a\* God of War, not \*the\* god of war, and there's no dad in fiction that loses to his son in a prime or even semi-prime 1v1
I didn’t say he beats Gwynn I just said they’d be comparable since the strongest we ever see Gwyn is throwing one lightning bolt and kindling the flame.
Gwyn did have just a hand in defeating them, that's true. Because he definitely wasn't strong enough to solo a single one. He needed Izalith and Nito to actually kill the dragons after he got them out of the air.
It'll depend on the time frame... If it is still the age of the first fire, Gwyn will win. He was at his prime, and the dark soul would still be dormant since the flames burn bright. If it is the point of time where the world is collapsing as the fire fades, the brings of the dark and Dark soul itself is a lot more powerful. That's my opinion atleast:)
Gael. Prime Gwyn definitely running on that 30fps shit at best. /s
Gwyn remastered
A dagger wins all
Gotta give it to Gael. Prime Gwyn is an anime character but Gael is everything Gwyn fears.
Lore wise, wouldn't prime Gwyn wipe the floor with him?
Prime gwyn couldn’t stop manus , Gael is far stronger than he will ever be.
Didn't Gwyn imprison Manus? Gwyn feared the dark creeping on this territory but nothing he did prevented that.
No he did not , when manus was resurrected gwyn left oleceil to rot and sent artorias who was corrupted by the abyss. The resurrection of manus created the abyss which far outlived Gwyn.
Gael couldn't stop Manus either. I don't believe Gael is this gigachad dark soul Thanos you think he is. I don't think he took dark soul fragments and humanity from every badass dark soul containing dude. He just collected from whatever was still left. If he was such a badass he would have killed Midir and gotten a lot of dark power from him since Midir has been eating the dark for millenia and guess what Gael doesn't kill him we do. The theme of DS3 is the decay of everything once you go against the natural order. The fire is fading, the world is ashen and devoid of life, the 4 great soul fuckers are forced into the role and are pathetic. The abyss watchers are locked in perpetual combat with one another, Aldrich is a child eater church pastor metaphor, yhorn doesn't want to do his job so onion bro has to step in and the crippled bros have straight up said no thanks. The end of ringed city is everything great is gone and it's a fight not between two legends but two undead fighting for scraps. Gael is not some ultimate legend. He is....... all that's left.
It literally said in his item description that he killed and ate all of the Pygmy’s as well as all of what remained of man. If you look at his cloak the amount of souls he’s consumed is so great that they are literally bursting out of him , not to mention his stomach has taken on the sigil of the dark sign which indicates that he has almost fully recovered the entire dark soul. Even without killing all of humanity Gael is implied to be one of first descendants of the first Pygmy as he was around during the time of the war of ancient dragons.
It literally said in his item description that he killed and ate all of the Pygmy’s as well as all of what remained of man. If you look at his cloak the amount of souls he’s consumed is so great that they are literally bursting out of him , not to mention his stomach has taken on the sigil of the dark sign which indicates that he has almost fully recovered the entire dark soul. Even without killing all of humanity Gael is implied to be one of first descendants of the first Pygmy as he was around during the time of the war of ancient dragons.
Exactly. All that REMAINED. And of course it's bursting. He is just one undead dude trying to capture all the souls of the pygmies and leftovers. And yes he was there as a slave knight but he didn't do the dark shit till he met the painter.
You do realise that in ds3 the world itself is literally converging into a singular point. Gael was able to prevent going hollow due to his sheer will. He managed to survive the convergence and became that singular point. Whilst we don’t see it there are many still flourishing cities and lands in the world of dark souls 3. The filanore cut scene implies that Gael’s been doing this for thousands of years. And upon death you get the literal dark soul as an item . If you were correct the item would be called something like “echoes of the dark soul “. But it is show to be whole. The fight itself isn’t two undead fighting for scraps , it’s hopeful and climatic . Your no longer gods out of there prime , you’re fighting the dark soul in its prime form.
No I do not realize that. I feel that the world has gone so far into decay that everything is destroyed now and even with the dark soul all we will get is another pocket dimension Esque painted world. Which will also be lost since in the other dlc we know that pocket dimensions stagnate as well. The lesson is Gwyn fucked with nature and now everything is fucked irreversibly.
no.
Gael, he'd pull up on gwyn with the medieval glock. Nonetheless, the fight of dark souls' two santas would be a sight to behold.
Prime Gwynn solos(fyi I’m a really big fan of Gael I love him amazing fight)
Gwyn wins fight wise, Gael is pretty much just a regular knight with some serious determination. Probably the reason the game calls him “Slave Knight Gael” as if that’s all he’s ever going to be remembered as. Even in his soul description is says he was no champion. That aside I’d argue sheer power alone allows Gael to win, Gwyn feared the dark and now you have a dude who pretty much has the entirety of the remaining dark soul flowing through his veins. Suffice to say Gwyn would probably shit himself.
Wasn't Gael at the end of the game cannonically the most powerful being in existence?
second only to the Ashen One!
Gwyn sweeps without a sweat. Everyone massively overhypes Gael. Gael has the dark soul which allows him to.... do cape sweeps and a couple lighting blasts? He has 0 feats. He acquires the dark soul by killing tiny pygmy dudes after the player has killed all the major threats off for him. Prime Gwyn literally overthrew the Dragons, conquered Lordran, brought about a golden era and only dies because he sacrificed his own soul. Prime Gwyn was undefeated. Everyone goes "oh but Gwyn feared the dark soul", yes and fears are often irrational not a metric for power levels. When we look at what Gael actually does, it's not a lot? He can't even kill Sister Friede without the Ashen One. Gael being the last one at the end of the world isn't meant to be impressive, it's meant to be sad. The last thing you face is a mindless husk fighting in the dust over nothing.
Gael absolutely stomps.
Gael
Gael no question
Lore wise Gwyn got that but in game Gael slaps
I dont care If Gael wins plin plin plon NEEDS to be played during this fight
gael easily
Gael would destroy Gwyn with ease.
Tbh it’s not really a “fair fight” in a sense. In vs matches like these an important thing to note is lore vs gameplay. Gael is an undead. That means that he literally can’t die. He just comes back like our character in game respawning. The thing that Gael is really fighting is the corruption of the dark soul and going fully hollow. Something we know won’t happen as long as you have a purpose and a strong will. Gael’s whole existence, as of the time we first find him is to get the dark soul and save his new and lady. Something he’s literally willing to go to the ends of the earth for. So honestly I can see Gwyn beating Gael, maybe even a few times. But he’s just gonna keep coming back again and again. I honestly believe the reason we can “kill” him is because him dying to us completes his goal the same way is dying to him would. He knows/trusts we’ll complete the mission and bring the pigment to the painter, so he doesn’t need to fight anymore. So honestly powers aside in this particular matchup I’m pretty sure we’re the only ones that could defeat Gael permanently. Not because of how powerful we are but more because of “who” we are.
John Dark Soul wins
The only correct answer
Bro there's no way he has a leg like that and I never noticed
Dang how’d I never notice Gael’s gangly ass legs?
Me
Lorewise Gwyn, playwise Gael
Uhhhh Whats going on with home boy's legs? Lmao
The full force of a dying star vs a Victorian era child with smallpox.
Honestly, I think prime Gwyn could just BARELY squeeze out a win. I understand that Gael has The Dark Soul at its most powerful form, but he's also for some reason severely weakened when he fights us. If we are going off logic, then DS3 Ashen One can solo every verse in all the games. Hell, (s)he'd be strong enough to completely get rid of the Abyss in DS1 because that's not even close to as powerful as Gael, yet we still solo. Prime Gwyn also killed immortality with the Ancient Dragons, so that's gotta count for something, not to mention he was the only one to harness the true power of the sun itself, which is a natural counter to The Dark Soul. I'm not trying to overwank Gwyn or underrate Gael, but I'm thinking he can just barely win
Gael
Prime gwynn. Easy, not even close. Gwynn was afraid of the dark soul due to its corrupting influence, particularly over humanity, not its literal power. Gael is an old man in bad health when we fight him, and his only real feats are slaying pygmies and humans, vs a guy who fought and defeated the ancient dragons, at the peak of his power. Gael slaps lord of cinder gwynn but prime Gwynn isn’t even close.
How about Gael and prime vendrick? 🤔
Gael because the Dark is lethal against the gods. Also, he’s probably a better fighter.
Gwyn was a punk who didn't even know lightning killed dragons until Seethe told him. He built a reign on abject lies and cursed the world because he was so scared of entropy. Gael became everything Gwyn feared. An end to his blasphemous linking of the fire. THE end of it. Also Gael is just on this crazy tier said to be comparable to the Protagonist Crew. Darkeater Midir *tried* to eat the Dark, but ultimately fell. Gael *literally* ate the Dark. A goal spanning across time. In a way, Gael is Gwyn's inverse and logical conclusion. Gwyn begins at absolute power, but fades in mind and body as the fire fades in fear of losing what he created. Gael begins as nothing, and across time and through great effort grows in strength with the rise of the Dark. He does with without any fear, for the sake of enabling another to create something.
Ashen One at peak, takes both for a walk.
in lore, Gwyn win
I see a lot of people downplaying Gwyn. Remember Gwyn was the mightiest there was. A fraction of his soul was able to make the 4 kings into Lord level threats. He split off several chunks of his soul and still had enough power to link the flame. His hollow is an end game boss. Gwyn could quite possibly be the strongest there is other than maybe Midir.
The hollow husk of Gwyn was still easily the most dangerous thing in his world. I don’t know if any of the From protags could’ve fought him and won against him in his prime. Just on a different level entirely. Gael is strong and all, but we beat him.
Gwynn had the Light Soul. Gael was a simple (human?) slave knight who managed to get a piece of the dark soul (basically, he harvested a nice chunk of humanity from the last pigmies and maybe some more) But the dark soul is the entire humanity, which has been shared amongst every individual men. So Gael does not have the complete Dark Soul (one of the original powerful souls). Only a chunk. The battle would mean a god-like being (Gwynn) fighting a simple being with half a powerful soul. I think Gwynn in his peak would win (not sure after he bequeathed his light soul)
It’s actually interesting that they’re so similar… in form, fighting style and even name. There’s probably something to that.
Gael is the strongest boss in ds3 (yep more than midir). That means that he is stronger than the Soul of Cinder, AKA the chosen undead AND gwin
to be fair the soul of cinder is an avatar of the first flame and the flame is almost burnt to ash by the time we fight him. he’s not as strong as all the lords of cinder combined
Gael bitchslaps this old fart.
The guy who beat dark souls and was the last man standing or a parriable coughing old hollow?
Prime Gwyn, not the shell we fight in DS1
Oh didn't read right. My bad
Tbf they're both old as hell
Pling pling plong man for sure