Traps and Illusions: Gwyndolin in Dark Souls

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR DARK SOULS 
In order to celebrate the recent release of the popular neo-medieval action RPG Dark Souls 3 , I've decided to blog about the character Gwyndolin in Dark Souls. A reader can break down this character through reading in the gender  and how Gwyndolin functions in web culture.


So: A quick rundown of who Gwyndolin is and her function within Souls.

The land of Anor Londo used to be overrun with dragons but Gwyn, Lord of the Sunlight, Nito, The First of the Death,  and  the Witch of Izalith all fought the dragons. After this war, humanity was able to live within the land of Anor Londo. Gwyndolin is the most beloved child of Gwyn, and the only child to live within the realm of humanity. She has been tasked with guarding the tomb of Lord Gwyn.  She was born a male child, but due to her affinity towards the moon, was was raised as the daughter of Gwyn. Having a feminine (or androgynous) appearance, she's pretty much treated as a (very deadly and mysterious) woman according to her father and her sister, Gwynevere.   Serpents follow her as she moves around and her power lies within illusions. 

Scan from Dark Souls Design Works

I'd like to start off by speaking a little on how we connect Gwyndolin to our readings of gender within medieval and neo-medieval texts. A note on pronouns: Keeping with a neo-medieval theme, FromSoftware made all the characters speak English, with Japanese subtitles for the Japanese version. Gwyndolin speaks of herself us我 (ware) pronoun, which is analogous to to the gender-neutral royal We. She's so blue blooded, her father was literal lord of all light. A description of her waistcloth (which you pick up after her defeat) uses the 彼の (ano) pronoun, another hint of ambiguity. It's a pronoun that is similar to the Royal We, but is tinged with fantasy and neo-medieval ideas, matching her speech pattern of "Thee" and "Thou". (DISCLAIMER: I know near nothing about Japanese speech patterns, this is according to other people who have written on Gwyndolin)
Frankly, just as with Silence, it's Calvinball with Gwyndolin's pronouns. I only refer to her as "her" because I can, I guess.  The English Localization team decided to refer to her as "he" and give him/her a cis male voice actor, although with a pretty andro voice. 


By taking a look at her powers, we can see that Gwyndolin's forte is illusions and trickery. She even tricks the player into thinking her sister, Gwynevere is among the humans, when she is simply an illusion. She leads on the player constantly, she is constantly pulling on the strings, even leading the player to self-immolate themselves in order to extend the lifetime of the gods in Anor Londo. Where have we heard gender non-conforming individuals that serve royalty before? Silence's father chose to "disguise her/ as you heard me before/ I want to make a male of a female" (2039-2041). The "magic" that inhabits both Silence and Gwyndolin stems from belonging to one "nature", but transgressing due to "nurture". With Gwyndolin, thanks to actual factual Magic and deityhood, the feeling of transgressing against "nature" and it's chromosomes and hormones is intensified. 

A reader could continue to see connections with Silence through Gwyndolin's attempts to hide her identity. Gwyndolin finds that her illusions help her hide her "repulsive appearance" (according to item descriptions that she drops).A reader can connect this to how Silence hides behind his "mouth too hard for kisses, and arms too rough for embraces...Whatever Nature may do, I will never betray the secret!" (2647-2657). Both are secretive about their identity, Gwyndolin hides behind a mask while Silence hides behind his socialization as a boy. There is something to be said for how these two characters are contradictions of all our preconceived notions on gender within medieval settings. Both embody the cultural anxieties that a reader might have towards gender transgressions and how it effects power relations. A player is left wondering why Gwyndolin has chosen to look so unsettling and strange.   

One of the few SFW fan art images of Gwyndolin I could find on the internet
thanks to witnesstheabsurd

I wanted to discuss briefly on how Gwyndolin is an aspect of web culture. 

As pointed out by the caption on the picture I could find, Gwyndolin is often fetishized as something "other" and it really infuriates me that all of the fanart is lewd of her. She's a powerful character! There's so many cool things about her, but somebody biologically male who decides to be feminine loses all of her agency in the face of that.  How is a character like Gwyndolin supposed to come off as powerful and accepting of herself when she is fetishized? How is this literal moon goddess supposed to have agency when she becomes fodder for raunchy imageboard posts?

I would say that this is part of web culture's obsession with "traps", and could be argued as empowering, but honestly with stuff like this I wish people just could be respectable, damnit. 

 related google searches to Gwyndolin are a hint at how she's treated online.

Special thanks to Eva Problem's great Medium article "Yes, Dark Sun Gwyndolin is a trans woman, no, you can't have her"
As well as Rory Fleming's article on Entropy " DARK SOULS, DARK SUN GWYNDOLIN, AND THE SPIRIT OF ART"