Hollow or Hollowing in Dark Souls and Dark Souls Remastered refers to a degenerative state that eventually leads to complete madness. Enemies in this state are known as Hollows.
Hollow State in Dark Souls
When players die, they lose their Humanity, and with it some gameplay mechanics change.
- Players are no longer able to summon others into their world
- Players can no longer be invaded by other players or NPCs
- Unlike other Dark Souls games, player health is not reduced
Removing Hollow Status
Players do not go completely hollow, but can revert to sanity by using Humanity at a bonfire, or defeating a boss either in their world or as an NPC phantom.
Please see Humanity Farming for more details.
AnonymousAnyone have the same glitch or maybe a hack, Idk. But I never go hollow. I’ve died of course I’m not amazing at the game. But for some reason it won’t let me go hollow. So I’m constantly invaded but I kinda like that aspect. Still takes away from the fun of hoarding humanity for “just in case”
- Anonymous
For a while, I've tried to understand why going Hollow was different than simply getting old and not remembering things.
I think the two things that makes it that much more lore-wise is that it can happen even if you're young, and that it's much more than simply not remembering something.
If you think about it, nothing really has any inherent "worth" to it, in the context of what matters in life. Only we are able to give things that value.
Hollowing doesn't just destroy a person's mind, It destroys whatever worth they had. It wasn't that Gwyn went insane from it, It's that he had to watch the Age of Fire lose any meaning that it once had to him. To me, that's the nature of Hollowing.
- Anonymous
I think it makes way more sense for hollowing to be a concept as it was in the first game than a dumb mechanic as it was in later ones.
The idea of hollowing very likely comes from T.S. Eliot's poem 'Hollow men'. From Wikipedia:
"The Hollow Men follows the otherworldly journey of the spiritually dead. These "hollow men" have the realization, humility, and acknowledgement of their guilt and their status as broken, lost souls... The "hollow men" fail to transform their motions into actions, conception to creation, desire to fulfillment."
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