More than a Boss: The Fume Knight (Dark Souls 2)

Maybe this is all a bad idea.

This is about as small as a blog can be, I missed year end awards that I had loads of ideas for, and I have decided to write about my least favourite game of a series, a game that is now four year old.

I guess this must be a pretty special boss then.

Far more than a “dude in armor”

Dark Souls 2 is different. As is so often the case, this is both a good and a bad thing. One of the main “issues” is what’s known as the “dudes in armor” complaint, the idea that too many bosses who are “just knights”. Now, this is fair in many ways, there are a lot of knights, but this only becomes an issue for me when the fights are generic or uninteresting. This is the case for some, I’m looking at you Dragonrider (And Dragonriders!), but there is the reverse of this. When knight fights are done well, they are the best, for a few reasons. As much as I love twisted monstrosities and creatures, fighting knights is more fun a lot of the time, more of a dance of blades and dodges, more personable. The other reason is that the good versions of these fights have very human stories behind them. These are the legendary knights, kings, and queens, whose faults or problems, or sometimes just the passing of time has laid them low.

There are a lot of good versions of these in Dark Souls 2 as well. The Ivory King, Sir Alonne, The Lost Sinner, and Velstadt the Royal Aegis are all momentous plot moments, with brilliant stories behind them. In the case of the last one however, Velstadt, this is a story only half told.

A holy man, but a good one?

A lot of Dark Souls is seen by many as having critical subtexts of religion, but here it is abundantly obvious. Vendrick, the king of the land you travel through, had two main trusted knights. These soldiers were the strongest of a huge army of strong soldiers, and each received specific attention as the kings left and right hand. Velstadt is one, bullishly devoted to his king above all else, his devotion matched by the other hand, Raime. This being Dark Souls though, this happy arrangement could not remain. Vendrick took a queen, a queen that was the centre of corruption and abyss, that would eventually ruin all that Vendrick had built.

Velstadt was blind to this, his devotion to the king so absolute he could not see the problems (Do you see the religion criticism?), but Raime, as much as he loved his king, could not let the kingdom fall into darkness.

From left to right, the right hand, the king, the left hand…

So they fought, the right and left hand fought for the future of a kingdom.

Velstadt was a stoic religious fighter, using a huge bell like hammer, the far stronger of the pair. Raime was faster, avoiding damage and inflicting it with a faster sword. Might prevailed however, Velstadts brute strength won out, and Raime was banished from his kingdom.

That’s a hell of a lot of lore I just spouted at you, but it is central to what makes the boss fight, which I promise I will get to, so magnificent. There is a lot of subtext and context to this, but honestly to get it all, both play through it, and watch VaatiVidya, watch VaatiVidya no matter what to be honest it’s to interesting not to.

Lets take a second though, to put yourself in the mind of an attentive player. You fight Velstadt, at what seems like the games end, and you meet Vendrick, the king he has been protecting. He is a hollow shell, mind lost, rotting in the depths of the crypts. Clearly, Raime was right, he could’ve, tried to, save the kingdom.

But what happened to him? Did he really just give up, just leave?

Well he did leave, but he could not abandon his kingdom. He left looking for power, he left looking to return and save his king. He found this power, but as is so often in Dark Souls, this was more than he could deal with.

This is how Raime becomes the Fume Knight. He meets another queen, Nadalia, or at least would be queen with the same dark that Vendrick was corrupted by. Him, without his king, her without her own, they are drawn to each other. Raime is granted the power he needs, but he no longer has the will to use it, content to stay and protect his kingless domain for the queen with a heart of darkness.

I think it says a lot about how great this story is that I’m trying to tell the paired down version and I’m taking far too long to do it (You probably should again, just have seen the Vaatividya video), but to properly appreciate the fight, you have to appreciate the build up. To truly demonstrate this, if you just show the fight to someone, as I have, having raved about it, they will not be impressed. Its a big knight with a weird sword in an arena, brilliant. The fact the context, the build up, the story behind it makes it brilliant, and its why Dark Souls is the antithesis, of say, a God of War boss. A boss that is all spectacle, all massive attacks and ridiculous takedowns. It’s a completely unbelievable fight, and the story behind it is simple and very easily explained. I’m not trying to bag on God of War and games of its ilk, but Dark Souls is the exact reverse and much better for it.

So in general the bosses you fight in Dark Souls used to be legends, invincible warriors and fighters, but now their husks, weak enough to make fighting them doable, to make fighting them fair. This is the much more engaging opposite of a huge spectacle against a seemingly impossible foe. Sure, one immediately looks more impressive, but one means much more, its a fair fight. Another way the souls series diverges is the fight is often a tragic one. This was a once great hero, who achieved more than you ever could, and maybe his hubris, maybe this world has turned him insane, and its your job to put him out of his misery. This smaller scale personal fight against former legends is absolutely incredible, and one of the main reasons for me Dark Souls as a series is so elevated.

Isolated, they’re cool fights, with their stories it becomes so much more…

So then, you fight the Fume Knight, but it is one thing to have a great story, another to realise it. The Fume Knight is a very tough fight, he’s a big damage dealer, he has a stronger second phase and most believe he is the toughest fight in the entirety of the game. That’s a very basic example of gameplay and story merging well, Raime’s weaker than he was in many ways, he has aged and lost his speed, but he has been given the power of the dark and that increases and already incredibly strong soldier even at his age.

On that note here are some of the best examples of gameplay, story and narrative all intertwining. Firstly, you can see that this is not the Raime of the stories, for one he has abandoned his shield, found back in Drangleic, and replaced it with the huge blackened sword. His own sword looks small and inconsequential beside it. I like how he has abandoned his shield, the idea that he needs more power, to do more damage and as such has abandoned defense, the shield that also had his symbol, gives the idea he has given up who he is in exchange for power. Then there is the first half of the fight, where he uses both swords, and it is clear a remnant of what Raime remains. With his old sword he moves faster, and echo of the Raime of old, but as you beat him, he abandons it, embracing the power of the dark, Raime is gone. There is the subtler but deliberate mirroring of the fight Raime has already lost. Velstadt beat Raime with his superior strength despite Raime’s manoeuvrability and speed, now, Raime loses despite his strength to one far faster and more manoeuvrable, which seems like very cruel fate indeed .

There are other factors that all build into this being a brilliant boss. The lead up, where you see his ash covered arena on the towers floor really builds the mood, the ashen idols outside that give the Fume Knight health back till you get rid of them are really cool, a perfection of the Dark Souls 2 idea of making bosses easier by doing the extra stuff and exploring, intersecting really well with the lore. Also the massive detail of spawning right outside the arena, something Dark Souls 2 doesn’t do enough…

Ultimately its all these factors that work together to make Fume Knight in my view the best in Dark Souls 2 and the highlight of the game.

A tragic figure, a fantastic fight, a worthy opponent

I hope you enjoyed the article, this won’t be the only time we cover “SoulsBorne”, obviously, Fume Knight may be fantastic but he falls short of a certain red hooded slave, a king who’s name has been scrubbed from the history books, and all are beaten for my money, by a certain orphan on a desolate beach…

We will be putting up more content over the next few days, quite possibly a best of the year article, so thanks for the reading and look out for more!