Why the Women of Dark Souls Are Doomed from the Start

Misogyny and Femininity in the Soulsborne Games

If you don’t think Dark Souls has anything to say about misogyny, I want you to listen carefully to this: in Dark Souls 1, the role of the Fire Keeper is a structurally female one, always a woman, always in service, and always silent. It's a role necessary for the very functioning of the world. Yet, by the time we arrive in Dark Souls 3, we’re met with a literal pile of dead Fire Keepers, discarded and left to rot in the darkness at the bottom of a tower with their predecessors.

Despite the symbolic reverence given to them, keepers of the flame, guides of the Undead, embodiments of holy devotion, the reality is that they’re disposable. None of them have graves. None of them have names that the world remembers. And this tension, between symbolic importance and actual disposability, mirrors the treatment of mothers and caretakers in our own societies. They're praised as sacred, yet frequently dehumanised and ignored once their usefulness expires.

In Dark Souls 3, our Fire Keeper is again framed as maternal. She’s soft-spoken, gentle, and wholly devoted to the player. But like motherhood in many patriarchal cultures, Fire Keeping is portrayed as the pinnacle of womanhood, a role that consumes identity. These women do not have lives of their own. They do not choose this path. Their fate is dictated by systems far older than they are, and maintained by rituals that demand total self-erasure.

But this is just the beginning.

Femininity as Function, Not Identity

Throughout the Dark Souls trilogy, female characters tend to fall into archetypes that reflect rigid societal roles: the mother, the maiden, the witch, the seductress, the fallen divine. Rarely are they allowed the complex, morally grey agency afforded to male characters. Instead, they are defined in relation to others, especially male protagonists or gods. Consider:

Gwynevere, the "Princess of Sunlight", is revealed to be an illusion, a false ideal. Her hyper-feminised form (absurdly large breasts, nurturing tone, and passive role) reflects the male fantasy of the benevolent, loving mother-goddess. But she doesn’t even exist.

Quelaag is another powerful example. She's a woman fused grotesquely with a spider, embodying male fears of female sexuality and autonomy. Her physical monstrosity mirrors her power, something that must be slain by the player, justified by a narrative that frames her as deceptive and dangerous.

The Witch of Izalith, once a creator and mother figure, is transformed into the Bed of Chaos, a formless, writhing mass. Her attempt to preserve life (through fire) results in catastrophe. She is punished for trying to take divine power into her own hands, punished for acting.

The implication is often the same: when women try to control their destinies, they become monsters. When they obey, they’re forgotten. Either way, they suffer.

Bloodborne and Visceral Femininity

FromSoftware’s Bloodborne takes this commentary even further. It trades fire for blood, and in doing so, reimagines femininity as visceral, abject, and powerful in ways both terrifying and sacred. In Bloodborne, blood is literally transformative. It creates life, warps bodies, and bridges the mundane with the divine.

But like in Dark Souls, female bodies are where this transformation is centred, and feared.

Arianna, a sex worker, can become miraculously pregnant if the player follows a certain path. But the result is monstrous: a Great One infant. Her motherhood is involuntary, alien, and punished by the Church. She is both revered and reviled.

Iosefka, the clinic doctor, experiments on people, transforming them into Kin. Her scientific ambition is framed as monstrous. Again, the woman who creates is the woman who corrupts.

The Wet Nurse, the final boss of The Nightmare of Mensis, is a massive cloaked creature that mimics maternal care but exudes menace. Even divine motherhood is horrific here.

The entire game is obsessed with childbirth, uterine imagery, and transformation through blood. Women in Bloodborne are not side characters, they are the mediums through which cosmic power flows. But they are never allowed to survive intact. They are used, warped, and discarded in the same way Fire Keepers were.

Holy Roles, Hollow Women

The Soulsborne series repeatedly positions women in “holy” roles, priestesses, goddesses, keepers, queens, but hollows out their agency. Their holiness is performative, symbolic, and often cruel. It elevates them while simultaneously erasing them as individuals.

To exist as a woman in these worlds is to be trapped between worship and violation, to be idealised and ignored, sacred and spent. The world praises the idea of you, but not you.

And that’s what makes these games so quietly brilliant. They're not just hard games about swords and monsters. They're whispering about something far more uncomfortable: the structures that determine worth, the mythologies we build around gender, and the way systems, whether fire or blood, consume the women they claim to sanctify.

Whether intentional or emergent from the tropes it draws upon, the Soulsborne universe holds up a mirror to misogyny, not just through character design, but through the way it treats sacred femininity. Fire Keepers, Witches, Wet Nurses, and Queens, all worshipped, all used, all discarded. These aren’t just fantasy roles. They echo the real-world treatment of mothers, caregivers, and women in religious or domestic roles: expected to give endlessly, thanked symbolically, and ultimately forgotten when they no longer serve.

Sources | Research

VaatiVidya – Deep lore breakdowns of Soulsborne characters.

Hbomberguy – Commentary on Bloodborne's themes and design.

Body Video – Lore interpretation with a gendered and psychological lens.