Bloodborne Fear the Old Lore - The Divine Secret of the Eldritch Truth
In this episode of Fear the Old Lore, we examine the holy mystery of Bloodborne, and how what might have been its biggest theme was lost in translation.
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Japanese to English Retranslations of Bloodborne's text:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
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0:00 Intro
0:18 The Holy Mystery of Shinpi
1:43 Missing Contexts
2:26 Shinpi's Connections to the Arcane
3:19 Madness, Frenzy, & the Arcane
4:28 The Case Against Inconsistency
5:38 Arcane Liaisons
7:11 Sounds of the Arcane
8:08 It's Not All Bells & Whistles
9:45 The Holy Song of the Choir
10:16 The Arcane, Lakes, and the Sea
12:40 Beyond Water, to Greatness
15:37 Heavenly Guidance & Eyes on the Inside
17:35 Gaining Eyes via Contact with the Arcane
19:11 The Stillbirth of their Brains
20:09 Eyes in the Nightmare of Mensis
21:16 Conclusions
22:05 Outro
I don't know if it's on purpose, but this game being written by a Japanese man, based of an American set of written works that itself was translated, to be re translated back to psuedo British English of the Victorian era really helps this game and its feel.
Ya 9
Ya 10
Ya 11
Ya 12
Nah just Nah
It doesn’t seem to matter how much time passes because I can never get enough lore or dialogue around lore for the souls series
mostly because people keep finding out secrets, hidden meanings and making connections Truly amazing work
I love obsessively fearing the old blood!!!!
I found lore of Dark souls much simpler than Bloodborne
What a joy it is, to behold the divine. It must be such a pleasure. You're in my debt, you know. You're in nigh on a beast of the field, but here you are, treading a measure with the gods.
My interpretation of the idea "stillbirth of their brains" is linked to the effects of Frenzy. When you get Frenzied and die from it your head explodes, and even if you don't die there's a massive explosion of blood from your head when you get Frenzied. Because of that, I always interpreted that line as meaning that the Scholars of Mensis gained insight too fast and Frenzied, leading to their brains growing too many eyes and exploding because their skulls couldn't properly contain them anymore. This ties in with the idea of "stillbirth," which is when a child is born dead. The skulls of the Mensis Scholars "birthed" their brains, but since the human brain can't exist outside of the human body it led to their deaths rather than an arcane awakening.
Also the reason the brain of mensis exists :)
@@MultiLioNik That too.
Is there a chance the cage around Mensis heads were some attempt to prevent their heads from exploding?
@@lotterwinner6474 either that or the cages around the head were beacons for them to reach the actual dream.
@@antgarza4031 yeah i always thought that too, sort of like the reverse tin foil hat. But a bit neat to think that it might have another purpose.
Pretty mind blowing to consider that the choir named themselves after the noises of the arcane It seems like there's no end to amount of lore in bloodborne sometimes. Great video
A bottomless curse, a bottomless sea...
Man I've been getting back into bloodborne and there's still so many videos that could be made on this game. Especially on Loran
The Choir is named after the classification of Angels in the Christian bible, they were 3 of the 9 types that stayed in heaven with God & never interact with people.
not to mention, sounds do travel fastest in water, if sounds are one of the best way to convey arcane power then water is indeed the greatest and the purest of the conduit to observe and study it.
Damn, the arcane physics check out. Having lots of water inside your head would get your insides exposed more effectively to the arcane sounds and hopefully get you eyes on the inside before the outside
Staying hydrated is the secret of the great ones
Not to mention all the arcane left hand weapons, are liquid sprayer of some sort
More spcifically, sound travels faster through denser mediums. Air is not dense, water is much more dense, and solids are even more dense. Broadly speaking, the greater the difference in density between two mediums, the more difficult it is for sound to be transmitted from one to the other. This is why sounds underwater are virtually inaudible to people above water. Fun fact: this plays an important role in seismology, since seismic waves will change path and lose energy when they enter the mantle from the crust (and vice versa) and will outright reflect off the dense core of the Earth. I don’t think Bloodborne mentions Cthonic (underground) Gods at all, though. Only cosmic beings.
@@executioner_ecgbert884 LOL!
Related to sound, you can hear a similar noise at the very bottom of Yahar'gul with all the Undead Amalgams and in the boss room for The One Reborn, and you can hear a constant bell like chorus in the Upper Cathedral Ward. It's pretty neat how the game's uses a theme of sound for the arcane!
Severely underrated channel.
Criminally
Not necessarily. I only recently discovered him, but the videos I’ve seen are relatively recent. If these videos had been back when the game was new, he’d have well over 100k subs from them.
Give it time, I’m sure it will grow. Only recently found this channel as well and I’ve binged everything so far and he’s still uploading!
Yes.
It's like the Hawkshaw of Bloodborne. Amazing and probably the most accurate description of Bloodborne's lore. Just like Hawkshaw does with Dark Souls.
We are born of the Lore, made men by the Lore, undone by the Lore. Our eyes are yet to open... Fear the old Lore.
Bleh
@@nicmanza4657 what you need is more eyes.
For context the bell imagery with the underworld isn't exclusive to Buddhism but also many Catholic beliefs as bells ( specifically church bells) are used during both marriages and funeral services to call those to join in or understand that something is going on, as well as in certain subsets they are also used to keep malevolent spirits from joining the precession ( off topic but there's also the old myth that hearing church bells while no bell is ringing is the sign of someone will be dying soon)
OH SHIT! Is that where the phrase "For whom the bell tolls" comes from? I thought it was just a reference to funeral bells ringing, but that makes waaaaay more sense. Thanks!
Actually, the phrase "for whom the bell tolls" is derived from a work by John Donne; the full sentence is "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." This does sound pretty ominous when taken out of context, but in reality Donne was writing about the oneness of humanity--"No man is an island" also comes from this same work. Donne was saying that we are all connected, that we all depend upon one another, and each of us is just as human and just as important as the next. Humanity is made lesser by the death of even one person, even one person who you may not know or like. Every life is valuable, and when a life is lost, we all mourn. When the funeral bell tolls, it's not just for that person's immediate family and loved ones; the bell rings for all of us, to grieve the loss of a life.
@@thewolfofthestars1847 it explains the jolly cooperation when the hunter rings his bell
Any connection with the Feast axe or whatever it’s called from DS3? Dark Souls as a series has also used bells to summon spirits, malevolent or champions
@@sp5072 possible
This is amazing and changes everything. Most of the changes characters go through can be reduced to a sort of “Arcane Radiation Exposure” Now I know how they grew the garden of eyes.
I love that this game is nearly 6 years old and people are still making lore vids. Testament too how captivating the world of BB is.
BRO THAT MAKE SO MUCH SENSE. Remember how they said they found a way to contact the great ones in the catacombs? And remember THE BIG ASS BELLS there ??
Very nice to see Bloodborne lore analysis is still alive and well.
Another great example of the bell sound being arcane is the giant humanoid squid enemy at the start of the dlc. It has an axe that it can buff with a cosmic looking power that's accompanied by a distinct bell sound. I'm glad I found this video, you were really on to something here.
It sounds like there is an ongoing war(cold or otherwise) between two major camps of believers. The literal and the figurative. Laurence means it literally, while Willam means it figuratively.
Maybe "aggressive vs passive" would be a better way to put it.
@@Bulletproof222 can't be true there's no way my wife could be in both schools at the same time.
@@Bulletproof222 That way it doesn’t sound cool or pompous, which is what the comment is clearly getting at
I think its more like, direct, cause like, I remember that the Healing Church and the Byrgenwerth School were sort of sworn enemies.
@@cosmic2750 Laurence and Willam are both members of the same organization. The Hunters are a branch of that organization, and they both had a hand in it. If they were in open conflict, you wouldn't be talking to people from both sides without being attacked constantly. You only get attacked by humans for specific reasons that have to do with becoming a beast or a killer, not because of the leader you follow. They are more like Protestants and Catholics in England in between their massive, revolutionary Civil wars and purges. They differ on the methods and rituals but not the goal. When it comes to reaching the goal, Willam is about adding eyes as a metaphor for expanding his mind, and Laurence is about adding eyes physically. The problem is that neither way works by itself. There needs to be some physical change and there needs to be expanded consciousness, which is why YOU ascend while they both hit a plateau.
I recentl started playing bloodborne, I am so glad that you make these great videos. This game has the best lore ever and is probably one of the few pieces of art which really can make cosmic horror work.
personally, i kind of find the variety of translations for this greatly helps to avoid boiling down such an otherworldly and abstract concept into a much more flat (imo) plot device. if one heard “arcane” or even “eldritch truth” repeated enough in the game, i personally would just start to internalize it as a sort of catch-all “cthulhu magic” rather than an unknowable force connected to a variety of entities, concepts, effects, and differing interpretations. lord knows the word “blood” started to lose meaning at times, haha. in my opinion, one of the biggest strengths of language is the sheer number of synonymous alternatives to any given concept, and all of the slight differences in connotation each way of phrasing something entails, and im always glad to see that subtlety in action, even if it might be on accident in this case. that said, i agree it’s a shame how disconnected some of these things ended up seeming due to this translation method, and this video helped clear that up enough for me to come to this conclusion, so thank you! as always, it gave me a lot to think about, and i appreciate the excellent video!! ^_^
You're right on the money with this. Boiling it down to just "arcane" leads him to simplify a lot of the game's themes, and make incorrect conclusions throughout the entire video. To me, videos like these are essentially fun facts. Something cool to know about how the two languages differ, but not really to be taken too seriously in regards to the lore.
@@twobyfour8984 I've definitely noticed with his videos he seems to interpret words (both in English and Japanese) in the most literal way possible, leading him to claim that the original Japanese gives some major insight into the game's story because of slightly different wording, even though in pretty much every case the meaning is incredibly similar. Of the videos I've watched, my perception of Bloodborne is pretty much completely unchanged given how prevalent the themes that he claims are unique to the Japanese are in the English translation.
but if there alot of different version of the same word the correct conclusion would be harder to find the true lore
I don't completely agree, but I do agree with your overall sentiment about vaugness and mystery making things more compelling and engaging. There's a way to have the strange cosmic magic be that without it being so simply categorized. I personally like the idea of cosmic magic, but love leaving it poorly defined as to what that means and how it functions. To me, the Eldritch Truth is a way of aknowledging that there is or are some source(s) of cosmic power, even if we can't specifically comprehend or uncover it as humans.
@@saulgoneman yeah, I don't think there's really an issue discerning the thematic elements of the story for most players, but there *are* a lot of misconceptions about historical events and environmental storytelling that I find videos like this to be really helpful in clarifying. Hawkshaw is the master of parsing that out in Soulsborne, but I don't know of they've ever done any Bloodborne content specifically.
Might be worth noting regarding sound. The Holy Moonlight Greatsword makes a sound when it's revealed. And the two weapons forged with Siderite(Burial Blade and Blades of Mercy) make a specific noise when doing certain moves and are implied to do extra damage during those moves as noted on the wiki. EDIT: Not to mention the sound effect of charging the strong attack on most weapons. It's stretching the idea since Siderite weapons are more noted to have a relation to the Cosmos while strong attacks don't really have a mention.
Is it the same sound it makes in all the other games? If so you may have broken the code here man
The point about liquid carrying the resonance of great one voices is a worthwhile one, especially considering that liquid is typically one of the best conduits for sound.
The "already dead" visual gag is underrated
You've really made me appreciate this game a whole lot more. All the eastern symbolism and reinterpreting iffy words really makes everything more cohesive. I did notice the chime sounds during the Ebrietas fight being weird but I never made the connection that it was because I had heard it when leveling up at the doll.
One angle I never see anyone take in Bloodborne is the drug angle. The first thing I thought when you drank that blood and heard a bell is how when someone uses crack for the first time and really gets high they have audio hallucinations that can sound like that. It's called having your "bell rung".
That´s actually really interesting, didn´t know that
That's one of the issues with Japanese. It's so contextual, that trying to translate it gets muddled at times. Granted, I think the inconsistency and ambiguity between the terms in English further deepen the mystery of Bloodborne's lore. While it would have been nice to have it consistent, if this mysterious force is supposed to be unknowable to mortal minds, the fact that it's called so many different things in English further ties it to the nature of Bloodborne as a whole.
The fact so many concepts and details are muddled by translation feeds into the theme of the story: that there are things beyond our mortal comprehension and we need eyes on the inside to truly see.
I think throughout, you miss the relevance of mercury, and how it serves as a physical representation of Oedon's presence, especially in the themes of birth and menstruation. I wish I could succinctly put across how important this idea is to my understanding of bloodborne, as it literally ties every point you've made here together. But it would end up nothing short of an essay!
Just as one example - look at the picture of the brain fluid. This is Oedon writheing. I suspect this is the source of the chime heard throughout, and what the patients hear of the sea around them. The presence of mercury in the blood allows the great one Oedon to writhe within. And for one who knows it's presence, through the Caryl rune, it's so loud you can hear it and rip it out.
@@mysteryperson706 I'll discuss the topic more in future videos, but you can see mercury as being the heaviest "fluid," which would metaphorically make it the closest to where the arcane lies. Unfortunately, there's only so much information I can pack into a video without going off onto too many tangents and losing the overall sight of the goal. I think what you bring up is an important topic though, so thanks nonetheless
@@LastProtagonist well if you ever want to make a super long video covering everything you've ever thought, I'd be interested haha. But yeah I understand that you can't fit it all in one video. Still really interesting stuff and I enjoyed watching this a lot.
If you're serious about that, I do have 2 lorethroughs on my channel
@@LastProtagonist oh awesome, I'll give them a look!
Adeline is just describing hearing her own stomach digesting, it sounds like. Until you look at her...lmao
Keep the content coming, this is by far the greatest bloodborne content on KZhead imo!! May the good blood guide your way.
Having arcane be the proper term for the Eldtrich Truth (or the unknowable cosmic power of Bloodborne) makes so much more sense considering the definition of arcane. Arcane /ɑːˈkeɪn / ▸ adjective understood by few; mysterious or secret.
I believe the legs of the Cainhurst knights are missing because they are the Cainhurst version of a hunter. The plague of the beast spreads from the right leg (according to old hunter's pants), and so hunters...and these knights...amputated their right leg. So the Cainhurst knights caught the plague while battling beasts. This is sort of my headcannon: the Cainhurst hunters dressed in plate and road horses to hunt beasts within the lands (which would be sparsely populated) for beasts. Imagine like a fox hunt...except with vampires.
Really great content, however I want to give you some constructive criticism. You use the exact same cadence and rise and fall in pitch for reading every sentence. Consider allowing yourself to use emphasis with your cadence and pitch on important elements. It is harder to comprehend this thick material as a listener when every sentence is read exactly the same way. I'm subscribed, keep up with the good content.
I have the same criticism
Agreed.
Reminds me of the Food Wishes guy.
Food Wishes. Of course! He may not be able to help it.
CHEF JOHN 😂
17:35 How have I never noticed this change to the lanterns?! I tend to play with insight banked up
Glad to see lore videos still being made. This game's half a decade old and I still find the story extremely captivating in a way few other stories are.
Even after all this time, there's so much hidden in Yharnam. Thanks for uncovering some more of it!
Also note that with higher insight some cathedral ward enemies have arcane scythes and the frenzy crucifix wielders do more frenzy build up
Can't believe this channel has so few subscribers, keep em coming as others have said I can't get enough lore for these games, just when you think you've heard it all and fully understand everything, a video like these comes along and shows you that there's way more than initially thought
I just finished my first playthrough of bloodbourne and I'm so glad the community is still alive and you're making these videos to help explain the world. Keep up the quality work!
Solid lore dive, as always. You’ve quickly become one of my favorite lore channels.
Do note that mergo’s wet nurse, a great one, is guarding another great one, Mergo must be strong
Just when I thought I couldn't learn more about Bloodborne I find out this guy's channel. Love the videos man, keep it up!
Your channel is very quickly becoming my favorite!
Very neat! I love the fact that we're still figuring things out and making connections after so long. Thank you for all your hard work, it's really...insightful, for lack of a better phrase.
I like the idea of 'eyes on the inside'. To me eyes would represent awareness, consciousness, presence. Inside would refer to what lies below the surface, the truth, what's internal. Having 'eyes on the inside' would therefore be an expression to explain the capability of seeing things from a deeper perspective, looking/observing concepts from within, opposed to looking/observing concepts on just the surface. I enjoy it because I feel Bloodborne represents those who would take that expression literally, and in attempt of gaining more knowledge create the hideous world of Bloodborne.
This is probably my favorite bloodborne lore video because of how wonderfully it ties all these disparate concepts and ideas together. Amazing work, sir!
THANK YOU! I’ve been watching some of your videos and it inspired me to delve deeper into blood-borne than ever before! All that’s left is the Orphan of Kos and the endings.
man, I thought I had a pretty indepth indurstanding of the lore of bloodborne, after many playthroughs, and tons of time spent consuming lore-content, as well as ruminating on the lore myself. That being said, you have opened up the lore, and my understanding of it, so much! amazing channel, I love your thinking process.
The reason why the game's arcane is aquatic themed is because the game is based on lovecraft's fiction. Of course many know that. However the reason why the author made his characters aquatic AND snail like is because he was severely afraid of sea life aquatic creatures and insects and mollusks. Hope that clarifies stuff :)
it goes deeper than that (pun only semi-intentional) as the ocean literally represents a vast abyss of the unknowable, and that's what lovecraft's fiction was all about. So while literal phobias he had himself may have factored into it, there's also a rich symbolic association already present.
Fantastic work! My love for Bloodborne lore has become even deeper.
I'm gonna be re-watching this video many times in the future, there are still a lot of things that go over my head. Thank you for sharing the insight with us!
Fear the old lore, for you may not want to go back to office when it re-opens!!!
I feel like I popped a few Madman's Knowledge after watching this video. Esoteric knowledge is a HUGE part of the Lovecraft Mythos. I fkng love this game!
Consider: If Arianna's blood is closest to the Great One Formless Oedon; and Arianna is clearly of Cainhurst descent, and therefore her blood is Vileblood; Would it therefore mean that Vileblood, the "old forbidden blood" that Cainhurst was known for, is in fact directly connected to the Great One? It's also theorized that the Healing Church got their blood from Ebrietas; so is that the reason why those two factions hated each other? They simply got their blood, and the pertaining characteristics, from different Great Ones.
Can you do a podcast with JSF? That would be an awesome discussion.
That dude has lot of Insight!!!!
Love the video and greatly appreciate you making these lore videos!
Man your channel is so good
Just got off work and this is out. Hell yeah, thanks for the vid bro
Incredible job re translating, love the series, And is Imposter Yosefka righthing and twitching on that table the best animation in the souls series.
as always, an amazing job! thank you for sharing it with us :)
Ur vids really make me remember how good bloodborne’s lore is thank you
Your videos are great man , this is like the 2nd one i watch but yea , im subbing now , thanks!
Thank you for this video! I have been desperately wanting to listen to the lore in this video for a while...Oedon Wrythes in my mind...
Incredible stuff as always
Nice work my friend
The spears that get launched at you by Winter Lanterns and the Brain of Mensis are also associated with a distinct sound.
Thanks for your...uhh..insights...into this game's lore :) I think it's really closing the loop on the questions I still have, this many years later!
bro yesterday you had 1.k i love watching the growth!
this was really interesting! thanks for the hard work!
This video fucking slapped my across the face with the girth of its insight.
I just want to let you know your lore videos are great and I 100% want to see more.
Another wonderful video. Well done!!!
Cool to see bb content still coming out after so many years!
Excellent video, once again!
Amazing analysis. Bloodborne is even more genius than I had previously considered.
Amazing work thank you for all your effort
Hey, I am a new viewer and I'd like to say, that I love your vods, and videos, I enjoy diving so deep into the lore after what all these years. The points you are making are eye opening and refreshing, good job keep doing what you do! As a request or idea for a future video I thought it would be a cool idea, to learn about your transition between the first time you played and explored the game to the point where you started translating the japanese and share it for us on youtube! Like what exactly was it that made you go down that route? why going through all the work to translating all this , how much time did it actually take? what part of bloodbourne made you say " Ok I really need to dedicate alot of time comparing the languages and decipher all these secrets and details? That would be really interesting for me, and perhabs for others as well? :-)
Bro how does he use the threaded cane so well I swear it doesn’t do that much stagger when I use it
This video is phenomenal
Loving this series!
The way you speak of Adeline "picturing" the rune inside her head has me wondering if "eyes on the inside" could simply mean the ability to mentally visualize images.
WHAT A BOMB! AMAZING VIDEO TRULY! 2021 eyes have been granted
Wow....just wow. Subscribed. Thank you for this
Excellent video, keep the good work, I subscribed. Ps: make a video about the water and the stall, and shinto religión, I once saw one video like that and since then I can't find it anymore, and you are really good making this videos
So, the way I see it, the best way to understand Shinpi as a concept would be to relate it to real life initiatory practices, such as ancient Roman mystery cults like Mithraism and Christianity, or to modern initiatory groups like the Freemasons or traditional Gardnerian Wicca. Basically, it's knowledge that you gain by being initiated into the group and which you're bound not to reveal, or even to write down depending on the group and era. This is actually a really old way to do religion and religious knowledge; maybe one of the oldest ways, even predating formalized institutions. It's also cool to connect that back to how Christianity started as a mystery cult with "arcane" knowledge hidden behind initiation, but became a powerful institution across a vast geographic area, similar to how the "arcane" knowledge of the Bergenwerth scholars led to the institution of the Healing Church, which is directly based on the Catholic Church.
Love your stuff, wondering if you could cover lore on the aliens? Or whatever the things from the celestial emissary boss fight. I’ve found weirdly so little information about them all over
Your point about Eldritch Truth is pretty Localization 101. Japanese writing relies inherently more upon reiteration and repetitive phrasing and one of the first things you do when translating aka rewriting into the new language, is you change the context into what's idiomatically the target language. One such thing being: We use a thesaurus, and we judge good writing more by varied and comprehensive diction. Nothing is "Lost in translation" just because there's no reiteration of the same word. Whether it's "uncanny" or "mysterious" or "Eldritch" I think anyone gets what it means. Eldritch is also a direct reference to Cthulhu lore of which the source material is inspired, and the tone of the script is old and english in its diction. It makes every bit of sense to translate it the way they did. You're arguing for a literal translation against a localization.
I gained insight watching this video!
Might sound to easy or naive, but might water be a "bullwark“ simply because sound(-waves) behave different in water/liquids?!
You also hear a chiming sound when you get blood echoes. Either way, whatever this "Eldritch Truth" is, it is not meant for human eyes and minds.
"Use to gain Insight and, so they say, eyes on the inside, although no one remembers what that truly entails."
Great stuff
Very nice, love the lore
Subbed :D also got me hooked on bloodborne again so thank you :p
Kinda Funny bump let’s go!!!!!!!
I love bloodborne but videos like this one make me love it even more.
It’s like Sanity in Call of Cthulhu, and Gnosis in Platonism and Neoplatonism
What are the last two things? Never heard of them.
@@jakomioftherose2434 Platonism is the philosophy of Plato, where the true "meaning", "shapes", the abstract forms of the sensible world, are in another realm, which can be reach through knowledge (it's the meaning of the "Allegory of the cave"). Neoplatonism is the mystical view on this, that inspired heretical christian doctrines (search for gnosticism. catharism and bogomilism). This had influence on western occultism, and occultism had influence in Lovecraft works.
Amazing content
Subbed. Need that tasty lore
Please do more videos in this format
this man is doing gods work
When you're having a tough time and you go to YT to see Last Protag has dropped another fear the old lore vid! you've just cheered me up bro! thanks.
Watching this video grants eyes on the inside
Just fell upon your vid on pure luck, amazing work. Keep it up good hunter.
One of the best.
This is great