In Dark Souls, it’s primarily about looting, leveling up, and defeating bosses. The former can usually be found on corpses scattered wildly throughout Lordran, Drangleic, or Lothric. However, one player has discovered something about these corpses that makes looting a bit unpleasant.
What was discovered? The player Purpleyeggs reported in a thread on Reddit about something that he can’t get out of his head, and this thing concerns the corpses in the game. A large portion of the loot in Dark Souls can indeed be found on the corpses of various husks lying on the ground.
Now one might think that these are just normal heroes and people who have perished over time and are lying where they were placed, but that makes no sense. Dark Souls is the game of the undead and husks; they shouldn’t be dead at all… and indeed, they are not.
A world full of wandering corpses
What is the deal with the husks? In Dark Souls, all beings branded with the Dark Sign are cursed to wander as husks eventually.
Husks are beings that require humanity (shadows of darkness) to remain sane. Those who lose their humanity become a husk – a wandering corpse that can distinguish neither friend nor foe, attacking everything and everyone. Some of these husks represent the corpses that you loot during your journey. However, Purpleyeggs notes: these husks can’t possibly be dead.
In a land where the husks are immortal, they cannot possibly be dead. As Purpleyeggs aptly puts it, the husks are in a form of stasis: “You have lost any sense and purpose you clung to, but you can’t even be in a furious rage; you just sit and lie there until another undead picks up your things without paying you any attention.”
What supports the player’s thesis? Husks cannot die unless their parts are used to create a new bonfire. Those who are still “alive” are still living, just without consciousness and the drive to exist.
The best evidence that the husks are still alive lies in Dark Souls 3. In the dungeon of Irithyll, there is a husk in a cell that has loot on its lap. When you try to steal from the husk, it starts screaming and reaching for the player. What appears to be a jumpscare is more an indication that the “corpses” are still alive, just without the will to live.
So next time you loot a corpse in Dark Souls, don’t feel too good about it. Who knows, it might just come back to haunt you. If you want to read more about Dark Souls, here’s an exciting list: The strongest bosses in Dark Souls 1, 2, and 3 according to lore in the power ranking
