The Age of Dark is a lie told by Kaathe
Leaving aside the moral ambiguity between the Age of Fire (let's call it AoF) or Age of Dark (let's call it AoD) dilemma, I'd like to propose the idea that the AoD is actually a lie told by Kaathe.
As we play through Dark Souls 1, 2 and 3. We're always fed the narrative that Gwyn destroyed the natural flow of the world by reigniting the First Flame (let's call it FF), preventing the advent of the AoD. But first, let's reflect on some facts:
1) Most, if not all arguments we have on favor of the AoD come from people that have heavy ties to the dark, so they're bound to be biased.
2) The biggest advocator of the AoD is Kaathe, whose influence already made 2 cities go down because of the Abyss (which is literally the actual source of the dark).
So most of the info we have regarding the dark is not only subjected to be wrong because they're coming from people inside the game, but they're coming from people who have agendas related to the dark. But what do we know FOR SURE is the dark?
Well, we know the dark came from the FF, because the DS1 trailer said so...but maybe that's a lie. The trailer said that the FF brought disparity, and that comes with light and dark, but think about it with me:
1) If the dark comes from the FF, then how is it necessary that the FF fades in order for the AoD to begin? That doesn't make sense because if the dark really came from the FF, then the FF would actually empower it just like the other souls, but the FF actually weakens the dark. Every single thing that came from the FF relies on the existance of the FF to remain existing, why would the Dark Soul be any different?
2) If the dark really comes from the FF, why is it the only soul that comes from the FF who has a different color? All other lord souls have fiery aspect.
My main gripe here is with the fact that people tend to defend the existance of the darkness because they claim that "the darkness and the abyss are different", but as I pointed out, that can't be true or else it would be impossible for an AoD to ever exist. That's because there can only be 2 sources for the existance of the dark: the FF or the Abyss. And If the dark came from the FF, there's no Age of Dark without the FF, that simple.
If the dark is truly different from the Abyss, then it didn't came from the FF directly, but is rather a byproduct of the existance of light. Much like evil doesn't truly exist on Christianity, but is rather a byproduct of the absence of good. But that possibility is very low since the Abyss exists on its own, and it wouldn't make sense for dark to be a byproduct of light when the Abyss contains darkness and exists on its own.
What we can conclude from all of that?
1) As much as NPCs (and some very diehard darkness fanboys) try to feed you that narrative, the dark is actually no different from the Abyss.
2) There is no Age of Dark without the Abyss. The AoD is literally the manifestation of the Abyss, and we already saw what the Abyss does: New Londo, Oolacile, Carthus and more.
But let me hear your thoughts, what do you think? I for real think that people associate the Age of Fire with Gwyn, and they tend to put everything together, so if Gwyn is evil (which I don't think he is anyways) then the AoF is also evil. I think the AoD is far worse, much much worse than anything Gwyn could ever do.