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[Tumetsu]

I agree with Sinclair on plot argument. Better worded than I was able to explain it.

Found this video where you can apparently see faces of different NPC's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=D0y7fpcbet0&feature=endscreen
Oswald of Carim and Lautrec are pretty frightening 

[SundownKid]

Hollow, story-wise, seems to be the descent into madness. While this is most often caused by the repeated death and resurrection of the Darksign, it can also be caused by other things. The most notable examples are Knight Solaire going hollow after finding the Sunlight Maggot and Big Hat Logan going hollow after discovering crystal-based magic. In both cases, the characters are human form (well, Solaire is an assumption, Logan is definitely human though).

It feels like a double standard that the main character never goes insane from their death and resurrection. It's never really explained, besides the catch-all term of "Chosen One".

You ring the bells to tell the giant in Sen's Fortress to open the gate. This leads to Anor Londo, which is where Frampt tells you to go after you have already rung the bells.  And it is actually explained why you are looking for these bells: there is a legend in Lordran society about a Chosen Undead who will break the undead curse by ringing both bells. It just turns out to be a little longer than you thought.

If the bells are a test to determine people's worthiness to enter Anor Londo, why were they in churches (that were ostensibly peaceful in ancient times), rather than at the end of monster filled gauntlets like Sen's Fortress? Sure, the monsters are there now, but what about before?

Two pieces, actually. Seath was given one piece, and the Four Kings were each given 1/4th of another. Bed of Chaos (aka Witch of Izalith) and Nito have Lord souls on par with Gwyn's. Remember, there are four lord souls: Gwyn, Nito, Witch, and Pygmy. Pay attention!

Actually, if I remember correctly, Gwyn's soul was the most powerful Lord Soul. But, you're right, you're supposed to collect the Lord Souls, still a pretty common trope, though. At least no one ambushed you and stole them after you collected them all *coughFinalFantasyIIIcough*

Alternatively, you can always just take the beginning of the game as you stumbling around and exploring your new environments and finding out that the legend of the bells is real and you are like *shrug* GUESS I SHOULD RING THEM THEN.

...Which also makes no sense, since the whole reason everyone is choosing not to fight is for fear of going hollow, but you can't because CHOSEN ONE!

"slapdash" implies they couldn't be bothered to write a "real" story but i think that's far from the truth. the game actually had MORE plot sequences during development (for instance artorias and quelaag talked, the guy who rescues you is called oscar of astora and originally had a much larger role) that were ultimately cut to keep things vague. there are way too many strategically placed red herrings and intriguing npc dialogs and item descriptions for a story that the devs didn't give a fuck about.

They took it out because it didn't make sense due to the new focus of the story, not because they would have made the game worse. I was really looking forward to seeing Artorias and it was disappointing how he didn't even utter a single peep. I really liked what bits of dialogue were in there, and think it would be great to have more characters wandering around.

[Glyph]

You ring the bells to tell the giant in Sen's Fortress to open the gate. This leads to Anor Londo, which is where Frampt tells you to go after you have already rung the bells.  And it is actually explained why you are looking for these bells: there is a legend in Lordran society about a Chosen Undead who will break the undead curse by ringing both bells. It just turns out to be a little longer than you thought.

If the bells are a test to determine people's worthiness to enter Anor Londo, why were they in churches (that were ostensibly peaceful in ancient times), rather than at the end of monster filled gauntlets like Sen's Fortress? Sure, the monsters are there now, but what about before?

The whole bell thing was just all part of Gwyndolin's plot. It was probably a useless folk legend long ago, and people came to believe it was true after the darksign curse took over. But no one had done it until you (the whole 'being chosen' thing is sort of half-explained by the multiple realities thing ('In Lordran, the flow of time is distorted...' that you see for online stuff)), so in your reality your specific character ends up conveniently not hollowing along their quest and being strong enough to beat Quelaag/Gargoyles to ring the bells.

[SundownKid]

That seems to make sense, but considering all the NPC's constantly warn you about "going hollow", it seems to indicate you are indeed at risk of going hollow. Maybe it's just because you keep obtaining souls to reverse it and no one else does, so I'll let that slide. But, you can technically beat the game as a Hollow and nothing of note happens, whereas if you let an NPC out of your sight for a minute, BAM, crazy zombie.

The time warp stuff only applies to the summoned players and enemies, so it's clear that if they're glowing, they're not in your reality, so to speak. If you were actually detatched from reality, you would appear as a specter/ghost, not a real person.

Having the bells being part of Gwyndolyn's attempt to make you believe you are some sort of chosen one is a good theory, but it seems the giant started moving on his own without any assistance from Gwnydolyn. That leads me to believe that the giant was trained to react to the bells in the distant past.

[saturdaymorning]

That seems to make sense, but considering all the NPC's constantly warn you about "going hollow", it seems to indicate you are indeed at risk of going hollow. Maybe it's just because you keep obtaining souls to reverse it and no one else does, so I'll let that slide. But, you can technically beat the game as a Hollow and nothing of note happens, whereas if you let an NPC out of your sight for a minute, BAM, crazy zombie.

I read or heard somewhere a while back (selectbutton.net podcast most likely) that in early builds of the game, you started out with a certain number of humanity. You could find more, but if I remember right, the idea was that if you lost all of it, you went hollow. Now, this could all just be playground rumors, but it's still pretty cool in concept and makes a lot more sense in the game's context. Not sure what would happen if you went hollow though. I guess permadeath is the next logical step, but I don't know how I feel about that.

[SundownKid]

Actually, I think the Bells of Awakening were not a test at all, but merely a signal to open Sen's Fortress in case of an emergency. While one bell would not work since it tolls every hour, having both bells at once would alert the giant to open the gate. Hence the legend about how the Chosen Undead would open the gate, gaining entrance to Anor Londo.

The idea about going hollow permanently was probably removed for the same reason the curse was nerfed - not only does it sound too similar, but getting stuck in that state would not be very fun. It still makes the story somewhat dissonant, since the idea that you can die again and again is counteracted by the undeads going mad. If you could heal them back by giving them humanity, it would make more sense, but then Miyazaki wouldn't get to kill everyone, so yeah.  

[s0]

They took it out because it didn't make sense due to the new focus of the story, not because they would have made the game worse. I was really looking forward to seeing Artorias and it was disappointing how he didn't even utter a single peep. I really liked what bits of dialogue were in there, and think it would be great to have more characters wandering around.

nothing quelaag and artorias would have said wasn't in the story lol

[Ben_Hurr]

Actually, I think the Bells of Awakening were not a test at all, but merely a signal to open Sen's Fortress in case of an emergency. While one bell would not work since it tolls every hour, having both bells at once would alert the giant to open the gate. Hence the legend about how the Chosen Undead would open the gate, gaining entrance to Anor Londo.

The idea about going hollow permanently was probably removed for the same reason the curse was nerfed - not only does it sound too similar, but getting stuck in that state would not be very fun. It still makes the story somewhat dissonant, since the idea that you can die again and again is counteracted by the undeads going mad. If you could heal them back by giving them humanity, it would make more sense, but then Miyazaki wouldn't get to kill everyone, so yeah.  

It would actually make sense to be able to bring back hollows with humanity, since humanity just seems to be a missing ingredient for sanity rather than something that personally holds what you are like a soul.

I'm surprised you couldn't inverted darkwraith-chokehold people. 

[s0]

re: the merchants: i don't think going hollow necessarily makes you aggressive. there are non-aggressive hollows in the asylum and new londo ruins. the hollow merchants don't seem entirely sane to me. the male one keeps talking about his nonexistent pet(?) "yulia" and the female one goes on a bizarre rant when you hit her and uh... lives in a sewer lol.

maybe there are different stages of hollowing?

[ink.inc]

yulia is the name of the female hollow iirc

[s0]

just a theory! (another one is that yulia is his uchigatana). point is theyre both KUH-RAAAZY

vee hee hee hee...

[Tumetsu]

Yulia is his katana afaik. Logan gets rather crazy just before he goes hollow, so it seems like rambling etc. is the first stage of hollowing or something.

Going hollow reminds me a lot of getting "forged" in Robin Hobb's Farseer books. In them pirates captured whole villages and then sent ultimatum to the kingdom, where they demanded gold for killing villagers, otherwise they would release them. Turned out they had done something to villagers, which removed all of their capacity to empathy, love, compassion etc. while still preserving their skills, logic etc. Forged people basically attacked anyone to get their cape, food or whatever and if needed killed to do so.

[SundownKid]

There are definitely different stages of hollowing. It seems that perhaps people either lose their Humanity over time, or just gradually from dying repeatedly, but you don't know for sure either way.

[Blademasterbobo]

people in the game become hollowed when they give up (blue dude) or succeed and have no further goals (pyro dude) or whatever, it doesn't seem to really have much to do with dying or humanity.

[ink.inc]

humanity just seems to be a missing ingredient for sanity

Humanities Absorption on NPCs
NPC Name    Humanities drained
Andre of Astora    None
Crestfallen Merchant    None
Dusk of Oolacile    None
Giant Blacksmith    None
Griggs of Vinheim    3 Humanities
Ingward    4 Humanities
Lady of the Darkling    None
Laurentius of the Great Swamp    5 Humanities (in Firelink Shrine after being saved)
Knight Lautrec of Carim    7 Humanities
Oswald of Carim    None
Patches    7 Humanities
Petrus of Thorolund    2 Humanities
Rhea of Thorolund    10 Humanities (in Undead Parish after being saved)
Sieglinde of Catarina    10 Humanities
Siegmeyer of Catarina    4 Humanities
Solaire of Astora    5 Humanities
Vince and Nico of Thorolund    8 Humanities (5 from Vince and 3 from Nico)

the people with the most humanity are rhea and sieglinde (both relatively rational), but right after them are lautrec and patches (who are on the crazy side of the npc spectrum).... while andre and dusk (equal in mental standing to the first two) have none at all

there doesn't seem to be too much of a relationship between humanity and sanity; it's a random spread

[s0]

i don't think patches is crazy, he's just a scumbag lol. and isn't lautrec on some sort of "mission" to kill the firekeeper or sth. they both seem sane to me.

[Blademasterbobo]

you can drain humanity from some of the hollowed versions of them can't you

[Dragonmaw]

Rhea also drops 7 humanities which I think makes her the most humanity-laden person besides yourself.

[Ben_Hurr]

Well except that if you don't have humanity, you're one of the blood-thirsty hollows in the undead burg ganking random people... or you're andre, who I'm not so sure is human now.

I don't know, this game doesn't seem to make sense in that respect.

Actually come to think of it, if all the undead in the burg and parish are hollow, how do they have organized defenses? (portcullus closing guy, armed knights, armored boar, fortifications, etc etc)

[Dragonmaw]

They probably went hollow and just went back to their old jobs ala Dawn of the Dead