A question circulating online has Dark Souls fans answering where they would like to spend their time as a Fire Keeper around any of the original game's many bonfires. The results are interesting, but not surprising, as many fans seem to have chosen areas where there are other NPCs around for company, such as in Anor Londo after Ornstein and Smough.
This question comes from a recent post by a Dark Souls fan, where the user sets up the rhetorical experiment by asking where players would set themselves up as Fire Keepers. The only stipulation to this question is that any bonfires like Firelink or the start of Anor Londo are already taken and therefor can't be claimed.
The most popular choice from the comments on the original post by u/Lingonkart appears to be in Undead Parish, specifically because it is above the blacksmith Andre. However, the counterargument to this choice seems to be that as nice as Andre's company might be, the fact that he constantly hammers away at his anvil might be annoying to listen to forever. Of course, this is only one of the many NPCs in Dark Souls who might make for good company as these players spend eternity tending to bonfires nearby.
Other popular options have centered around Anor Londo, such as the bonfire in the Painted World of Ariamis to be near Priscilla and her followers. While there are some bonfires that are most popular, it is interesting to see the variety of choices players make, from the Duke's Archives to Darkroot Garden. Most players do still gravitate towards areas that have friendly NPCs, but almost every bonfire in Dark Souls seems to be a viable place for at least one fan to want to spend their time tending to the flame.
The variety of choices does go to show how different everyone's gameplay experience is. Similar to how everyone might have different favorites among the Dark Souls boss roster, it appears that players have their own favorite areas and environments to spend their time in. While the common practice is to head near NPCs, a nice enough looking location or a place with the most interesting enemies can also call out for different players. Of course, this is also only considering the first Dark Souls, and answers might differ even more widely when choosing from checkpoint locations across the rest of the series or FromSoftware's Soulsborne catalog.
Dark Souls is available now for PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.