With Elden Ring's DLC around the Corner, let's revisit Dark Soul 1s lore by assessing who is the strongest NPC according ONLY to the lore.

As always these are all my opinions, though large amounts of research go into videos such as these, there will always be some level of subjective world building required by Souls Games, you're likely to have a different opinion - that's fine, and is a cornerstone of why Dark Souls discourse is as alive as well today as it was the day the first game was released!

A huge shoutout to the below for helping me contextualise a few entries:
Zullie the Witch:    / @zulliethewitch  
Hawkshaw:    / @hawkshaw  

Ranked Order
0:00 Intro
1:10 43
4:00 42
6:09 41
9:33 40
11:10 39
14:57 38
17:18 37
20:37 36
24:26 35
27:14 34
30:44 33
34:01 32
36:23 31
39:00 30
40:53 29
43:39 28
47:20 27
51:44 26
56:11 25
59:10 24
1:02:35 23
1:05:16 22
1:11:07 21
1:13:06 20
1:16:29 19
1:20:54 18
1:23:56 17
1:26:45 16
1:30:30 15
1:36:53 14
1:41:07 13
1:44:46 12
1:48:19 11
1:54:01 10
1:57:54 9
2:03:23 8
2:10:55 7
2:15:02 6
2:19:16 5
2:25:46 4
2:30:11 3
2:34:00 2
2:39:01 1