Capra Demon

About

Capra Demon is an optional boss in the 2011 action role-playing video game Dark Souls. A lesser demon wielding two heavy machetes, the Capra Demon is accompanied by two Attack Dogs and is notorious for the confined area in which the fight takes place, which consists of a small courtyard with a staircase inside of it. The boss and his fight area have both been subjects of various memes online.

Origin

On September 22nd, 2011, action role-playing video game Dark Souls, developed by FromSoftware, was released.^[1] In the Undead Burg, one of the earliest areas of the game, optional boss Capra Demon can be encountered and fought. The boss is a humanoid lesser demon with a goat-like skull for a head who wields two heavy machetes. Capra Demon is assisted by two Attack Dogs who will stagger the player, leaving them vulnerable to Capra Demon's powerful attacks. Notably, the fight takes place in a confined courtyard, leaving little opportunity for moving away from danger to regain stamina and restore health (gameplay video shown below).^[2]

Weaker variants of Capra Demon appear in the Demon Ruins, an area accessed later in the game, as normal enemies.

Spread

The character has been a subject of memes and fan art at least since 2013. On September 6th, 2013, Know Your Meme^[3] user Laika archived the earliest humorous fan art of the character, a D'ya Like Dags meme referencing the 2000 film Snatch (shown below).

On June 13th, 2014, an anonymous 4chan user made a humorous thread about Capra Demon on the /v/ board of the site. The post saw viral spread online: notably, on March 15th, 2018, Tumblr^[4] user maeborowski posted it, with users discussing and joking about it. The exchange (shown below) received over 79,000 reblogs and 83,000 likes on the platform in six years.

The character has appeared in various memes in various Dark Souls meme communities on Reddit and Facebook. For example, on January 16th, 2021, Redditor manofsteele1776 posted a caption meme referencing the boss fight that received over 1,900 upvotes in the /r/darksoulsmemes^[5] subreddit in four years.

The confined courtyard with a staircase in which the Capra Demon fight takes place has also been a popular subject of memes and references. For example, on October 13, 2023, X^[6] user @Sharp_Sticks captioned a photograph of a courtyard in Tallin with a reference to the fight. The post (shown below) garnered over 7,300 reposts and 38,000 likes in one month.

Kill the Dogs First

The Capra Demon boss fight popularized the cryptic advice "kill the dogs first", which has often been posted in Dark Souls discussions^[7][8] without context.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References