Princess Filianore

Lore

Lord Gwyn's youngest daughter, who was left in the Ringed City to await his return.

Filianore is a large, dark-haired woman who rests eternally on a bed while embracing a cracked shell. It is said that her slumber is for the sake of others.

The princess is guarded by the members of the Spears of the Church covenant. They prevent trespassers from disturbing her slumber. Once the player defeats the Spears of the Church, they can enter the Princess's chamber and touch the broken shell she is embracing. Doing so will cause the shell to fall apart and awaken Filianore. Her slumber was keeping the Ringed City locked in time though, and interrupting her slumber brings it forward, revealing ruin.

Theories

The Broken Egg Contained the Nameless Painter

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We find Filianore embracing an empty shell. Eggs in mythology often represent the World Egg, from which our world was created or a new world will be hatched at the end of the current one. But Filianore’s egg is empty, and there is no new world. In Greek mythology, the Orphic Egg contained not a world, but Phanes, a primordial deity. In some traditions, the egg belonged to Nyx, the goddess/personification of night. Ra was also hatched from an egg, along with many other primordial creatures across many, many cultures. These beings, in turn, often create new worlds or life themselves.

The cycle of destruction and creation is impossible to stop. Gael knew the old world would die no matter what the gods did, and that the creator of the new one would be born in the Ringed City. The egg hatched, and out came the painting girl, long after Gwyn and anyone else who might have done something about it was gone. So Gael took her, led her out of the Underworld and into the Painted World of Ariandel, a place for the forlorn and unwanted, where they would surely be safe from those who would try to stop the birth of the new world. There he raised her as his own, waiting for the day she was old enough to paint.

Filianore was Born to be the First Firekeeper

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Gwyn believed he could have someone who would tend to the flame. So his own daughter, Filianore, could be raised to be one. Ludleth says that eyes would reveal "scenes of betrayal, things never intended for her ken, visions of… the age's end…" Along these lines, it seems Gwyn imprisoned Filianore in fear of her vision of the end of the Age of Fire, and in desparation to procure another Fire Keeper, he fathered Gwyndolin to act as Filianore's shade. This is why Gwyndolin was raised a daughter, and perhaps why his eyes are covered (if he even has eyes), and in turn, all of the human Fire Keepers are blinded as well.

If you look closely, Filianore has no eyes, like all other Firekeepers, who share one set passed down through the ages. She also bears a resemblance to other Firekeepers, except in the color of her hair and dress. It's also noteworthy that beneath the Church of Filianore is a tomb resembling the one beside Firelink Shrine. We even discover an imitation Fire Keeper's mask there after defeating the Moaning Knight, whose relation to the Fire Keepers is apparent.

The Egg is Made of Abyss and can Control Time

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The egg is made of a mix of crystallized abyss as found in the Ringed City or on Midir and the void like stuff within the Firekeepers mask (while also have been made with a portion of the Dark Soul) which warps time, increased lifespan effect (prevention of losing full sanity) and an immunity to true death effect (last one could just be for the Firekeeper during her duty) allowing us to travel into the future without time catching up to us with the shell either potentially being Gywn/Church sealing it or both the contents and the shell were formed during the first flame as it created life and death. It was cracked open because of one of the following reasons: It could've been Gael when searching for the Dark Soul, The painter being born from the egg and taken by Elfriede, someone else who ended up in the painted world or could have been related to when/how the pygmy lords found out of their imprisonment in someway.

Other theories about Gwyn and his family establish that there's a lot of influence from Welsh mythology. In some older Welsh and Gaelic mythos, eggs like this have a lot of different magical properties. Some of them even allow you to see beyond magical auras, like if a witch cast a hex on you to hide something from you. This seems to fall directly in line with what we encounter in Filianore's church. We apporach her, touch the egg, and the reality of the situation is showed to us: we are brought to the literal end of the world.

Sources

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Pygmy King Dialogue
"If it is the Dark Soul thou desirest…Then seek Filianore's church, at the base of the cliff.
There wilt thou the sleeping Princess waken.
Her slumber, is a deceit…a lid, covering an overgrown privy;
a prop to keep thee from the dark soul of thine desire"

Church Guardian Shiv
This special throwing blade has a flat tip, and is wielded by guardians of the Church of Filianore.
Guardians of the Church, of whom few remain, watch over Princess Filianore's eternal slumber along with the Spears of the Church.

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PREV: Moaning Knight

NEXT: Ringed Knights

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