13

In Dark Souls, the undead can replenish their health by drinking from an Estus Flask (an undead favourite). I assume these are dull, green, flasks which contain something called Estus.

What is Estus? What is the lore behind Estus? Please annotate any potential spoilers.

Improve this question
4
  • 5
    Hi! I would like to know why people are downvoting the question. Thanks!
    – brain56
    Commented Jan 14, 2014 at 1:49
  • 1
    This is because it is largely a lore question, which tend to be tricky to answer.
    – Yuuki
    Commented Jan 14, 2014 at 3:46
  • 7
    Just because a question is difficult or "tricky" to answer, that doesn't mean it's erroneous, does it? I think the downvotes are in bad faith. I am, after all, still in topic, am I?
    – brain56
    Commented Jan 14, 2014 at 4:31
  • 3
    Anyway, I read about the issue in meta. I'll leave the related post here: meta.gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/5522/…
    – brain56
    Commented Jan 14, 2014 at 4:35

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
29

Estus is essentially bottled fire. In the world of Dark Souls, fire is symbolic of life and the power thereof. The current Age, the age of gods (Gwyn, Seath, Nito, The Witch of Izalith, The Pygmy), is also known as The Age of Fire.

When you rest at a bonfire, you capture some of its flame in your Estus Flask. Bonfire themselves are beacons of fire, life, and humanity. This can be evidenced by kindling, strengthening bonfires by sacrificing humanity to them, as well as you regaining health whenever you rest at a bonfire. Thus, whenever you drink from your Estus Flask, you are "consuming" the life held within the flames.

Improve this answer
9
  • 4
    This seems like conjecture...
    – ediblecode
    Commented Jan 15, 2014 at 17:31
  • 4
    It quite literally says in the introduction that fire is akin to life. "Heat and cold, life and death"
    – Yuuki
    Commented Jan 15, 2014 at 17:58
  • 11
    Conjecture or not, to anyone that has played the game for an extended period of time, this will ring true in their ears.
    – Ravekner
    Commented Jan 19, 2014 at 14:33
  • 3
    @Yuki That's your interpretation that heat maps to life and cold maps to death. It can quite conceivable be two different statements that are opposites, nothing explicitly states what the Estus is. I think it's a good answer (I upvoted), but there nowhere in the game does it definitely say what Estus is.
    – ediblecode
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 15:05
  • 2
    @OlivierBégassat If you wanna get technical, you can't define something without also defining the opposite of it. There can not be life, but no death. The lack of death makes it impossible to define what "life" is. Fire brought disparity, it brought heat and cold, life and death, light and darkness. Neither of those 6 were defined before the fire.
    – Kevin
    Commented Dec 2, 2014 at 14:02

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.