Strange Girl Gaming

This post isn’t going to so much be about Slave knight Gael, more my thoughts on him as the final boss of the souls series and who I thought was likely to be our final battle. I will write my thoughts about Gael and his lore in his own post.
I would like to state straight away that I consider Gael to be an amazing boss, a really enjoyable fight. I actually struggle to fault the fight itself as I do hold it in high regard, it was certainly a pleasant surprise to have a highly aggressive boss to the standard of Knight Artorias. I might even go so far as to say it is one of my favourite fights across the entire series. This doesn’t mean I consider him to be the best option to have the prestigious honour of closing out a legendary story and series, in fact for a while now I have been expecting to see the daughter of Gwyn, sister of Gwyndolin, sister of the Nameless King, I have been expecting to see the goddess of fertility and bounty, I have been expecting to see Gwynevere. I can’t truly express my shock at never truly meeting this goddess, much less my disdain at never fighting this goddess of miracles.

Let me explain why I am so surprised and disappointed in never meeting this important woman from history. Firstly she is the daughter of the great Lord Gwyn and based on certain events from history and Gwyns obvious disdain for his youngest son I feel that it would be safe to say that she was his favourite child. We fought both of her brothers, disregarding Gwyndolin due to him being devoured in Dark Souls 3. We kill her father at the end of Dark Souls in order to link the flame, we may kill Gwyndolin though as I stated this is disregarded. At long last we discover the first born of lord Gwyn, only to kill him in Archdragons Peak. Therefore we are immediately responsible for the deaths of her father and brother. Does that not give enough reason to invoke a reaction? Well if not there is plenty more for me discuss. So let me jump right back into it, the dancer of the boreal valley. There is a theory which I strongly believe in which she is the daughter of Gwynevere, I have several reasons for this belief. Firstly upon transposing her soul you may trade it for bountiful sunlight, a miracle strongly associated with Gwynevere. Secondly her veil is said to only be worn by members of the old royal family giving a clear indication that she is related to the old royalty in some form. Combining those 2 reasons it makes logical sense that the Dancer be a daughter of gwynevre there for bringing the family death total up to 3.

Now lets discuss her other potential children, Lorian and Lothric. It is heavily implied that she is the mother of the twin princes which would make her the queen of lothric in turn making her the wife of the consumed king Oceiros. My reasoning behind this is that the queen of Lothric was initially revered as a goddess of bounty and fertility, we of course know that Gwynevere was the goddess of fertility and bounty which for me gives a clear indication to her being the queen of Lothric. Which if my calculations are correct would bring us up to a grand total of 6 family members we have killed. Surely you would think this to be enough to bring this goddess out from whatever hole she is hiding in to confront the ashen one who has killed 5 members of her family with Gwyn having been killed by the undead in dark souls 1. I just think that when you think about all of this alone surely finally meeting Gwynevere after all of this would have been an amazing closing to the series. I fail to see the significance Gael brings to warrant being the final boss.

I feel that to have truly earned the right to be the final boss you should have the lore that Gwynevere has, she isn’t an unknown exactly. Granted the only time we have met her was when she was an illusion created by her younger brother Gwyndolin back during dark souls 1 in Anor Londo. In my eyes that makes finally meeting her all the more considerate for the role of final boss, seeing her in all her glory for the first true time would have been something spectacular, especially since she would have been a miracles based boss which if we are being honest we are seriously lacking those, a good one anyway.

The way I picture this fight is filled with anger and emotion, what more does Gwynevere have left to lose? We could have found her at the ends of the earth amongst all the ruins, no more hiding, no more running. She would be forced to face her demons bringing a certain intensity to the fight. She would have watched countless kingdoms fall including her own, bringing her to this point, bringing her to the end of the world, to all of this ruin. What started with her father could have ended with her. Honestly for a very long time I believed we would meet this mysterious goddess yet I remained disappointed, we will never meet this important figure from history.

Gael has got his pros for being the final boss, he’s fast aggressive and considerably unpredictable, certainly not the laughable final boss Nashandra was at the end of dark souls 2. The arena in which we fight him is incredible with how we find him being rather chilling given that’s he’s devouring the pigmy lords in hopes of obtaining the dark soul. it’s just difficult for me to see past the fact that he has only been introduced in the first piece of DLC for Dark Souls 3. I know that when you combine his presence in both pieces of DLC he does become somewhat prominent, the ability to summon him for 2 boss fights is something that I believe adds to his merit especially since the second fight is standing in between you and the ringed city. I will rate Gael highly in terms of his boss fight, when I do an entire post dedicated to him it will be clear to see that I do harbour a fondness for our final battle, and I can understand why some people might consider him to be a good end to the souls series. The ringed city is easily one of the best pieces of DLC that from soft have delivered, in that regard Gael could be argued to be an excellent final boss to the series, as far as being the final boss to be fought in a piece of DLC he has more than earned his ranking of being one of the best bosses to grace the SoulsBorne series.

I would just like to mention that we never met Velka, Gwyns wife and mother to several of his children though I’m not sure about what impact she could have had if she was the final boss. It might have been nice to meet her at some point, then again this is dark souls and some things are doomed to remain a mystery.

So there you have it my thoughts on who the final boss of one of the video game series ever made should have been. I’m interested to hear what you guys think though, did you think Gael was a worthy boss to close out Dark Souls? Was there a different character you felt should have had that honour? Please let me know.