The story of Bloodborne has been shrouded in mysteries for far too long. This episode of Fear the Old Lore is focused on the story of the main game, and clearing up some misconceptions about its plot by comparing the English version of the game to its Japanese counterpart.
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Japanese to English Retranslations of Bloodborne's text:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
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0:00 Intro
0:24 Spoiler Warning
0:31 Blood Minister
1:05 Nightmare of Blood and Beasts
1:46 Seek Paleblood to transcend the hunt
2:22 What is Paleblood?
3:05 Beginning the search for Paleblood
4:15 The Byrgenwerth spider hides all manner of rituals
4:38 Entering Cathedral Ward
5:29 The Grand Cathedral
6:16 The Password Gatekeeper
6:30 Hypogean Gaol & Yahar'gul, Unseen Village
7:13 Madmen toil surreptitiously in rituals to beckon the moon
7:43 The "unseen" nature of Yahar'gul
8:15 Nightmarish rituals crave a newborn
9:11 The "Moon" rune
9:58 Behold! A Paleblood sky!
11:40 Moon Presence ─ Cosmic Parasite?
12:00 Byrgenwerth
12:32 True enlightenment need not be shared
13:36 When the red moon hangs low, the line between man and beast is blurred
14:26 Master Willem & Rom the Vacuous Spider
15:54 Kin Coldblood Concerns
16:38 Yharnam & the Red Moon
17:06 Ritual secret broken. Seek the nightmare newborn
18:35 The Mensis ritual must be stopped
19:08 Entering the Lecture Hall
19:31 Master Willem was right
20:22 Hunt the Great Ones
20:54 Laurence and his associates' Moon Presence. "Paleblood"
22:02 Third Umbilical Cords
22:37 Inner Eyes
23:10 Umbilical Cords
23:34 Nightmare of Mensis
24:14 Micolash, Host of the Nightmare
25:08 Kos granting eyes & name changes in development
26:29 Upper Mergo's Loft & Queen Yharnam
26:48 Iosefka's Blood Vial
27:20 The Lunarium, Mergo, & Mergo's Wet Nurse
28:18 Sleep as a Metaphor for Death
29:00 Return to the Hunter's Dream
29:20 Game Endings
30:19 The Nature of the Moon Presence
31:43 Do Hunters serve as Grim Reapers?
32:29 Blood Echoes ─ Dying Wills of Blood
33:26 Challenging the Moon Presence
34:52 Ascension to a Great One & the Cycle of the Hunt
36:10 Outro
Japanese version: * slaps you with the lore * English version: Prithee
Isn't that the TRUTH
Prithee be careful
English version: Try fist but hole
It’s all the translators. They’re given I chunk of material to translate, with no context whatsoever, and told “get this done by this deadline”. When breaking down such delicate intricacies and hidden plot meaning between two languages, especially two this far apart in almost every way, of course a ton will get lost in translation. Bill Murray would approve. It’s like watching a foreign movie that has both been dubbed and has subtitles on. They never match word for word.
@@hesh8367 That's an excellent metaphor for the lore translation! +1 Insight for me
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... By the Gods, Last Protagonist, fear it...
Grant us eyes... Grant us _eyes_ ...
Fear the old lore 🎉
Am I the only one to which lore at times begins to leak into one's perception of reality. As if reality truly is stranger than fiction
Praise the tiddies
@@angelm365 i saw the eldritch truth
Considering the Lovecraftian influences, it's interesting to note that the Accept Death ending is agreeing with Lovecraft's notion that there are things that humankind shouldn't know, and the Refusal ending is seeing the horrifying consequences of still trying to push past our limit. And the Umbilical Cord ending is "Fuck off Howard I do what I want."
I couldn't tell you which ending I think is the most positive, or at least the most hopeful. But I definitely think replacing Gehrman is the least hopeful ending. You get some of the knowledge, but not all of it, and now you're a servant to an unknowable will, perpetuating the cycle. I honestly kinda think the "just go home and forget about it all" ending is probably my personal "Good Ending"
"Ya know what? I LIKE being a squid monster, Howie. I'm gonna hang out with my sapient automaton friend in the dream world, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it, you racist fartbag!"
It depends on the story, I think. The Shadow Over Innsmouth ends with the protagonist accepting his monstrous ancestry and deciding to join the creatures he once considered vile.
@@conorflanagan9000 Probably the "become a great one" Ending is the best ending Because we free Gerhman from the Hunter's dream Killed the moon presence and freed other hunters and ended the nightmare I completed the dlc before completing the core story I felt so sad when Simon said "So our forefathers have sinned? We cannot bear the cycle any longer It isn't fair, it just isn't fair" (With sobbing voice) So I chose to consume the three cords Kill the moon presence and end the hunt once and for all
@@roshan6999 I dunno man. If you go down that route, who knows if it's even worth it. You'd be so far removed from your life as a human that any goals or desires you had would mean nothing anymore. And if the Old Ones are ALL blood echo parasites (the Moon Presence certainly seems to be) you might end up creating an even worse cycle to find your own supply. I kinda land with Lovecraft on this one. Some things aren't meant to be understood.
Japanese: perfectly explains objective, tells us the straight up lore English: ThEe ShAlL Do SoMtHiNg
HahahA
thats pretty much how its always been sadly it honestly feels like the english translators working on fromsoft games think theyre better writers sometimes with how much they change at points
@@donb7519 they’re probably not allowed to keep it the same as the Japanese versions.
@@rinnegan.x265 i mean they definitely are theyre translators thats their job
@@donb7519 Knowing a little of how translators in general work, it's more likely that they simply don't see the whole picture. The translators are given raw text to translate. They don't play the game through several times, they likely haven't even got a synopsis given to them. They do what they can with the scant material they have, and there's not even the advantage of having a single translator doing the whole thing. So what you get is a team effort, and it's impressive that the end result isn't more disjointed than it actually became. Apart from that, being someone who has studied Japanese at university level I can tell you that translating from Japanese to English is NOT easy. The two languages function quite differently, it is not just a straight equation about knowing what word means what. Grammar, syntax and subtle cultural assumptions are embedded in both. Language is a product of culture and at its core worldview. Furthermore the nature of the Japanese writing system exacerbates this even more. Kanji are complex and often used for double meanings, transfer of concepts and general connections to religion and cultural tropes. I know it's a popular idea among fans of Japanese pop culture in the West to shit on translators, but it's seldom as clear cut as it looks. Part of this is again coupled to work conditions. A translator working on a deadline to get paid by a company will not work the same way as a passionate geek digging through the lore of an anime or video game in their spare time.
Now I can officially say: "Rom the Idiot Spider" and have it be accurate
Tha Japanese name is so hilariously different to the English one, even "The fucking dumb retard spider" would be closer.
@@sttate why aren't more bosses named this way in the English version? Cleric piece-of-shit-dumbfuck-loser beast; or Orphan of wank-mangled-stupidhead-assbucket Kos? Would make all those deaths slightly more tolerable...
Rom the American Spider
@@kenjen9861 how dare you sir.
@@csquared4538 *_zing!_*
The Doll is pretty much all the context I need to understand the tone of every ending. Ending 1 = Hunter wakes up and forgets everything but the Doll seems to miss the Hunter and repeats her "Farewell line" Ending 2 = Hunter replaces Gehrman and the Doll says the cycle continues in an emotionless tone as it's no change for her Ending 3 = Hunter becomes an infant Great One and the Doll proceeds to cradle the Hunter followed by a gentle laugh in a more uplifting tone
here's a little tidbit about the ending 1: a new gravestone appears in NG+ if you choose that ending, and the Doll will sometimes pray there and mentions it's from a hunter she knew long ago... and they says she wishes *you* found meaning in the waking world
@@ThanesTito And some people have the nerve to say the Doll is evil smh. Especially considering the removed interaction of her praying to Flora/Moon Presence for your safety during the hunt.
@@impartialthrone2097 that interaction isn't removed it's just extremely rare and gets interrupted if you get too close. I recently restarted playing it and it's still there.
@@TheMetpower Touché. I've never gotten the interaction myself, but had heard it was possible. I just said removed because I think that was the devs' intention with the updates.
The Doll is the real host of the dream
The Great One ending isn't really posing a question. It's demonstrating what it means to transcend humanity. The disgust or apathy players feels in regards to this scene are its intended effect. By transcending humanity, we leave it behind. That is to say, not merely our physical form differs, but our desires, morals, and way of thinking change completely too. See, Wilhem's view of man's misunderstanding and beastly idiocy is a human perspective, as is his idea that our, "wretched evolution" will be our downfall. The truth is, is that he is assuming that the Great Ones have a superior form and intellect and understanding of the cosmos, than humans do. Ironic that the gameplay for the Hunter shows that this is not the case. Normally, people think of the word, "Transcend" to mean to surpass, exceed, or rise above. Yet, it also has the meaning, "to become independent of" usually in reference to restraints or constrains. What happens when we transcend humanity is that we become independent from it, as well as independent from our physical form/"the waking world." We can't even say with certainty that our physical form is the same as our "dream" form in this ending.
Becoming a beast would transcend manhood as well, which ties into the unintended consequences of transcending humanity
@@theskronklbeep very good comment king, pick up that crown. I was actually on my way to see if anyone had mentioned transcendence in another capacity here
Excellent comment. Allow me to quote the great Lovecraft, without whom we would not have Bloodborne: "The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and reveling in joy." “Warped and bigoted with preconceived illusions of justice, freedom, and consistency, they cast off the old lore and the old way with the old beliefs; nor ever stopped to think that the lore and those ways were the sole makers of their present thoughts and judgments, and the sole guides and standards in a meaningless universe without fixed aims or stable points of reference.”
You just beat the shit out of me with that. Well done.
The human player literally loose their character. It has ascended beyond the player's control and vision. You've been creating them from scratch, levelling them up as you wished for it.... and by literally seeking Ascension you loose your character forever as it no longer is what you created, nor a creature within your reach of control... literally and figuratively :p Or maybe I'm just looking too deep into it.
Ooh! Majestic! A hunter is a hunter, even in a lore dive.
Hoooonta*
Was I supposed to read that in Gehrmans voice
@@shanobian you mean micolash
@@chosenundead5009 no I meant Gehrman
@@shanobian but micolash is the one that says the line, so why?
Patient: "Doc, my blood is kinda pale. Is that normal?" Blood Minister: "It is around here!"
You... are not wanted 'ere!!
The beast appearing in the opening always made me think it was symbolic for beasthood trying to take control of your body but the messengers save you to become a moon scented Hunter. But then there's the very first beast you fight has reduced HP implying it's the same one from the cutscene. Always confuses me trying to make sense of it.
I always assumed the beast that is in the clinic is injured because whoever they're feasting on put up a fight
also something from another bb lore video ive seen,is that the beast describes the blood disease and the messengers are like the white blood cells(hence their colour) that defeat this illness and thats why u dont transform into a beast
and that first beast is standing over the dead body of the blood minister...
@@djbeema I never noticed that
@@djbeema I mainly just kill shit.
A somewhat disconcerting possibility: A human umbilical cord allows blood to pass between mother and child in order to sustain and nurture the latter at the expense of the former. If Great One's umbilical cords, specifically these Third Cords whatever that is meant to imply, work in an opposite fashion then it explains why all their children are stillborn and why they crave surrogates. They literally need children to sustain themselves. This might explain the peculiar tenderness with which the Moon Presence embraces the protagonist in the second ending, only to then leave them an imprisoned husk of their former self. To it, this is it's child's purpose. Perhaps, rather than giving them eyes or leading them to enlightenment, consuming enough Third Cords grants the protagonist the arcane eldritch means to do likewise and consume a Great One in order to thrive as one. Perhaps this is the only way to truly become a Great One, a zero sum game in which a few "enlightened" beings monopolize all the power, knowledge and arcane might of the cosmos. This also goes some way to explaining the Orphan of Kos, the only way for it to be born was for Kos' (or Kosm's) "physical" body to be slain by the Hunters so that it could not drain all the Orphan's blood. How or why infant Great Ones have blood that is not their parent's is anyone's best guess but perhaps this is the wretched evolution to which Master Wilhem alludes in a very literal sense. Humans or other creatures ascend to their level only to be consumed by Great Ones in their infancy, incubation as a form of predation certainly seems to line up with the Moon Presence's behavior the little that we observe of it. But that's obviously pure conjecture. TL;DR - Fear yer Old Mum Also, /late
Fucking amazing comment, great theory
You're alright, buddy.
"YOU EAT BABIES" John Marsten
It’s all a pyramid scheme!
This is a fine note
I had this argument with a friend a while ago about Willheim's motivation for telling you the location of Rom. It puts Willheim in a strange position if we only consider the vague English lore: If Rom is "helping" human from the Mensis ritual by "hiding it", then why would Willheim ask the hunter to kill the Rom? Or, if Willheim was trying to stop the church for overuse the blood to seek transcendence, does that mean he wishes the ritual to be “revealed” by killing Rom? Both of the explanations don't make us satisfied until watching this episode. Thanks to your digging into the Japanese lore we are quite clear now that Rom is not as innocent as we always thought, its "hiding" ability is merely a neutral force that kept the evil Mensis ritual from being seen, thus Rom is evil too. So, finally, Willheim's motivation is revealed and he is just an old scholar who wishes to seek transcendence only through good ways. Now I must wait 1 more second to show respect before I kill him for the Eye.
I wouldn't call Rom evil. Her name literally says she is "empty headed". I think Rom is scholars' construct, but I'm not sure if it was Mensis or Byrgenwerth scholars who made her. She strikes me as a great one with one purpose like Celestial Emmisary who is also created by humans.
Now that I think of it Rom was probably meant to impede the Mensis ritual, but it was not a final solution since it did not prevent the ritual. Master Willem probably knew that and awaited someone who is strong enough to confront ritual directly. If that wasn't the case why would Damian of Mensis even help us.
@@vanjaarsic1616 seems lika a stalemate. Willem being the intellectual that he is might've recognised that Rom's not a great one (she's vacuous and mechanicallicy weak to arcane plus she drops "only" a kin coldblood) capable of thwarting Mensis' ritual. With all the kidnapping going on, the Healing church already having abonded the Yharnamites and Willem being a fungus while the other scholars transformed without evolving what's the point in keeping that status quo? Another thing: Yhranam left her Shadows in the forbidden grave. She was alone at Moonside Lake. If Rom was only concealing the ritual without halting it, herself or her guard would've attacked Rom. Granted Yharnam might not have recognised that but on the other hand she even manages to enter the Nightmare before us.
With which the same person has a. W Mm
@@hansheinrich125 Yep. Also I don't think Rom is epecially weak to arcane. She is weak to bolt.
Wow..how many other people missed that note that's right after entering the Cathedral? I've replayed Bloodborne about 10x and not once have I ever noticed a note right there
Yeah I missed the note even after playing 2 playthroughs and one NG+ walkthrough
Yeah, I've played through the game many times and never spotted that note!
I got it on my third replay fighting the bloody crow
Yup
I found it on my first playthrough, completely forgot about it on my 2nd playthrough lol
Bloodborne is a trilogy of games for me. First playthrough I accepted death and returned human. I repeated the cycle, and refused execution, finally putting Gherman’s nightmare to an end and allowing him to rest. But something was left unfinished. Some final task remained, and many questions were left unanswered. So I struggled through the hunt once more, seeking insight. At last I was reborn, a celestial slug.
The fact that the note to "Seek the Paleblood" is written by the Hunter themselves fascinates me. It calls into question exactly how much they knew before starting the game, which is something I hadn't even had to consider through just the English text. It turns what sounded like looking for a cure for a disease, into a search for ending an existential threat to humanity. Did the Hunter have prior experiences with a Night of the Hunt before? Were they a survivor, or maybe just a tangential witness? How did they come to know about the Paleblood otherwise? If you refuse Gehrman's offer to forget the Hunt, could that be interpreted as the Hunter wanting to face the Moon Presence to find a way to end its threat forever? Ending the ritual would save people for a time, but with the Moon Presence still alive, it would just be re-summoned at a later time. The status quo wouldn't really have changed. Does the Hunter take the Third Umbilical Cords to transcend Humanity and become a Great One, or as a means to fight the Moon Presence? Did they choose to do the former strictly to accomplish the latter, regardless of whatever the results to themselves would be? Or were the goals not so altruistic? I love Bloodborne so much. I finally feel like I understand more of its core plotpoints, but there are some questions that the game just won't ever provide clear answers to, and I think that's beautiful.
Another question: is Gherman truly the first hunter, or only "first among hunters" in that he took the place of whatever was waiting there before him?
I love the idea that The One Reborn is just a mass of the bodies of the college students that partook in the final ritual, while the Brain is their literal essence reformed in a nightmare.
Explains why it is made up of messengers. Because it is created from the essence of dead people.
Dude after watching tens of lore videos and playing through the game many times, this is the first time that I feel like I finally understand the basic pillars of the lore. My hat off to you good hunter.
Glad to hear that Mergo goes to sleep rather than dies. That made me smile.
Sleep is a metaphor to death, it's ment as a nicer way to say it
@@theskronklbeep He said that the bad things that were happening in the game were a result of Mergo having a nightmare. Once we killed the monsters from her bad dreams she has a proper sleep, at least that's how I interpreted it.
Considering the direct Lovecraft influences it may be worth remembering Cthulhu lies both dead and dreaming in his house at R'lyeh.
Not in my game. I even go so far as to break all the prams I see in the game (mostly in cathedral ward). Id like to see ANY baby sleep through a whirligig saw to the face
@@OliverLee789 Right, it's not a metaphor to death, but in this case think of the gods as neither dying nor sleeping but something that is basically both. Like Wesley Thomas referenced with Chtulhu being "Dead yet dreaming" Another interpretation could be that when a god like being from Bloodborne dies, they live on in a dream that is like their own personal little afterlife. And it can be a nice dream or a hellish nightmare.
My opinion of the Moon Presence is that it is specifically a Great One who has descended into Beasthood. All of the Beast runes and spell items make mention of the idea of "Beasthood" being a dark inclination in humanity: the violent an animalistic parts of the human animal at their zenith, devoid of the reason and understanding that we usually associate with the idea of humans as "people" rather than animals. Taken that way, in conjunction with the idea of the Moon Presence acting as a parasite devouring the Blood of hunters, helps explain its motivations. At some prior point in the lore the Moon Presence may have had a greater motivation, but by this point its motivation has simply become to indulge in as much Blood as possible. My interpretation of the Night of the Hunt is that it's more or less the Moon Presence using hunters to farm Blood Echoes for it, as if it knew that Bloodborne was a videogame and was abusing that information. As Last Protagonist said, it sends out hunters to kill beasts (and other Great Ones if they can) in order to gain more Blood Echoes, then has Gehrman kill them. When you kill enemies you gain their Blood Echoes, so it follows that when Gehrman kills you he gains your Blood Echoes, and since Gehrman is empowered by the Moon Presence it drains those Echoes from Gehrman. Thus, the Moon Presence's perspective is that the entire game is just another farming run. This also explains why the only way to truly vanquish the Night of the Hunt is to kill the Moon Presence. As the Doll says, hundreds of hunters have come and gone from the Dream through the ages, so the Moon Presence is able to beckon many hunters (even if it can presumably only do so one at a time). Thus, the Yharnam Sunrise ending changes nothing: you get to live your life, but the Moon Presence is free to contract another hunter and start another "farming run." The Honoring Wishes ending is the same as the Yharnam Sunrise ending just from a different perspective. Rather than leaving Gehrman in the Dream to act as purveyor to the Moon Presence's "farming," you kill him and take his place. The only way to truly end the Night of the Hunt is to kill the Moon Presence, the one actively working towards making it happen.
The question I have though is how the Hunt can get as bad as this one if Mergo and Mensis have been killed - aren't they what made this particular hunt the worst and most transformative?
Wibbly wobbly timey wimey
I think you’ve nailed it or near enough anyway. Why else would the Moon Presence be interested in Humans hunting beasts, to save the humans? Nope, more likely what you suggested. I think the Humans are like cattle to the great ones and the moon presence is simply the most successful.
This video fucking slaps. Full throttle, no filler. Excellent. *Chef's kiss*
Full on nuts to butts
37 minutes of loregasms !
What a disgusting word.
@@basedcringe9000 What? No it’s beautiful
At 23:58 the guy looks like he's saying "Mom said it's my turn on the xbox."
I always had the impression that the Moon Presence (Which is called Flora by the doll) is having some type of proxy war against other Great Ones. This happens in the Lovecraft mythos which Bloodborne draws inspiration from. The Hunters Dream and the doll exist because of the MP. Gehrman is basically a prisoner that is forced to maintain the Hunters Dream, and seems to think that Master Willem or Laurence will save him someday. We are definitely an agent of the MP. Queen Annalise calls us “Moon Scented Hunter”, as if she can smell, or sense the MP’s influence on us. My personal opinion is that Odeon is or was a Great One that is a rival of the MP. I say Odeon because that’s the most mysterious Great One I can think of. It’s mentioned multiple times but we never actually see any direct representation of it.
Oeden is described in his rune as "exist(ing) only in voice" and "the oozing blood is... the essence of the formless Great One," as well as being a seeker of the "precious" blood, which makes him interesting in the context of the Moon Presence, who also has obvious and clear ties to blood. My best guess is that the Moon Presence may specifically be aiming to absorb or devour Oeden by corrupting the blood of the Yharnamites, though puzzling out their mutual connection to "precious" blood and by extension the Pthumerians is still unclear. I see why some earlier lore theorists initially assumed Oeden and the Moon Presence were the same entity.
@@raymondthrone7197 very neat!
@@raymondthrone7197 And when he spoke of the original text being in quotes as if there was a voice that said it when the illusion was shattered and you see the Blood Moon, it could be Oedon's voice that tells you. The Moon Presence is definitely orchestrating the Hunter's Dream and, in turn, the player, but Oedon is guiding the player without MP knowing.
@@raymondthrone7197 In my head, it might make more sense (going with the theory that the MP is some kind of "parasite") that the two are maybe not one entity, but two symbiotically connected entities that play out the long and cyclical ritual of producing their own sustenance via the game of the Hunt and the Dream.
My personal theory is that Oedon IS the doll... or perhaps is using the doll to speak through. It explains why it doesn't wake up until you have insight, has the power to channel the echoes into strength, and seems to adopt the newborn hunter great one in the third ending. It, like all Great Ones, seeks a surrogate child, and has used this opportunity to hide out in the Moon Presence's realm so it can seize one.
Some notes on the ending. The moon presence looks like it's putting its head to your hunters belly (like where a baby would be) and even the way it's tentacles wrap around you look like a soft embrace of a child. Also it's ribs being exposed and having no belly might not be a sign of infinite hunger like you said but could be referencing it not being able to have/bare a child. Nice vid btw 👍.
Calling back to earlier entries, the gaping dragon has the same design idea. It was so hungry that it mutated and its ribs becoming more like teeth to symbolize infinite hunger. That doesn't exclude the inability to have a child, but it just gives more reason to believe its infinitely hungry.
@@Trakesh Yet these two entities are not in relation coincidence doesn't equal correlation
Hehe moon god tummy kisses 💙
I want to say how great the subtle guidance and story telling is in Bloodborne. I fairly recently played the game for the first time and went in 100% blind. All I knew was people say its hard. You start so confused and by the end you understand the story and never really even know it happened because there's no big info dump. You pick it up one piece at a time and not always in order til it suddenly starts to click. Also I love the way I walked out to the Lunarium and tried to talk to Willem and he just silently points. I think in the mind set of another game I would have not understood what to do for a while but in Bloodborne I just instantly went "maybe I should try jumping off the ledge". Also after the Blood Starved Beast fight the door by the cathedral latern opens so you think "thats where im going I guess" and you end up going down this tower and ending up in the little section of the city with the kidnappers everywhere and of course they kill me because they are surprisingly fast compared to other large enemies so far and alot more powerful than anything id faced up to then but instead of waking up at the last lantern I get a cut scene and go to the Gaol area. I had no idea that was a thing, i didn't do it on purpose. The game just creates a situation where its likely to happen naturally. Haven't had this much fun with a video game since I was a kid.
Five years. Five YEARS, and people are still finding new clues, hidden objects, easter eggs and content. Miyasaki must have spent all his spear time to stuff this game with all kinds of material to make people lose their sanity trying to find all of it. In another five years there will probably be a new video about never before seen content of this game.
I think the entire issue is simply because we don't have a good translation of the actual game. I get the feeling bloodborne was meant to be like Sekiro, a much more direct story than what we've experienced with the English version of bloodborne
People still be making skyrim lore videos too
@@treemane0 TES has been around 30 years, 5 mainline games, many spinoffs and extensive lore built over all this time, to give skyrim the base material to do that bloodborne has had... developer interviews and translations? that's all I really can think of, it's absolutely not a comparison
We still dont know the use for the Yharnam Queen's drop and the ring of betrothal
I think that people are still making these videos because of the LACK of material in the game, yeah the lore is interesting, but the information is scarse and confusing as fuck, even to the point were you can pass the whole game read everything and still not understand whats going on. In my opinion its bullshit.
I may be wrong, but I believe Miyazaki explains the mercy and ascension endings. The mercy ending isn't death, but Gehrman removing the hunter from the dream to continue to live in the waking world. The doll's line about finding rest in the waking world reinforces that. The ascension ending is a little more vague, but Miyazaki hints that one of the memories the hunter loses at the clinic is their desire to transcend mortality and uplift humanity beyond the threat of the beast scourge. Becoming a Great One was your original goal.
15:48 an alternative interpretation i suggest is that "haku chi" also could be translated as "white blood" or more meaningfully "paleblood". So perhaps it's a double entendre referencing how Rom is "vacuous" in the sense that she is an empty shield that hides the secret "paleblood" ritual. Edit: it could also be a witty triple entedre by Miyazaki including the "idiot" meaning of hakuchi. Rom's ironically an "idiot" because even though she's filled with eyes (which suggest enlightenment) her only purpose is to hide knowledge. Also an "idiot" in how her moveset is composed of brute-like attacks.
Hahaha, that's a really nice catch I hadn't thought of! Sorry for the late reply. I didn't get a notification for your comment.
I don’t have a solid theory, but the line about “wretched evolution” again brings Frankenstein to my mind. How learned men of Byrgenwerth fail at creating/turning into Great Ones through their experiments, meanwhile the Hunter through his interactions with female npcs gains the ability to transcend. Probably getting it all wrong but can’t stop thinking about it
I honestly feel this fits well with the established themes. The desire to ascend and control the natural act of reproduction through a patriarchial, scientific process is STRONG in Frankenstein. Bloodborne draws heavily on the Victorian & Edwardian traditions of the Gothic & the Weird, and explicitly has themes of trying to analyze and dissect the reproductive processes of Great Ones (much to the detriment of all). Especially when factoring in the Fishing Village of the DLC, and what the Old Hunters did there, it's apparent that there's a theme of a rationalist, triumphalist, paternalist notion of Learning & Progress that guides the Bergynworth Scholars (much to their downfall). What you say isn't a stretch at all!
Yeah, like evolving naturally, organically, is the true way
The Flora Statues have stapled foreheads. The Mother Brain might have been constructed from what they found in Kos' autopsy.
@@core-nix1885 samus is pissed rn
The moral of the story: respect women. (I mean I’m making a Witty Internet Comment for a joke here but also, y’know.)
Wow I never knew that Gherman has no blood echoes. That is an interesting tidbit and definitely supports the idea that the Moon Presence drains them from hunters.
What does the doll do with them? Is she possessed by the moon presence to steal em?
@@gethspectre66 I think she is just an element of the hunter's dream, so she is an illusion used to give hunters comfort while using them.
@@gethspectre66 probably like a transfusion of the blood echoes back into you, the doll being the process Hence why you use them to level up
Excellent video, very straightforward explanation and very insightful Japanese translations really help making it clearer. You sir got yourself a new sub.
wrr, pgskn s inferiox, no such thing as should or diffx or unsettiling or make quex, no such thing as inxcondix or not, say , can say any nmw and any s k
@@zes3813 pardon?
@@woahthere7895 Siezures affect many people
A video of the events that took place in the fishing hamlet, the research halls, and other things not talked about in this video would be nice. Such as how "The One Reborn", "Living Failures", and the "celestial emissary" came into creation
I always interpreted The One Reborn as an attempt by the School of Mensis to create their own Great One through human sacrifice. The name is meant to be sort of poetic, like "through many sacrifices, one is reborn." The Living Failures and the Celestial Emissaries are attempts by the Church to do pretty much the same thing. They're called the Living Failures because they're early, unsuccessful prototypes of the Emissaries. They look kind of like the Emissaries, but they're slower and clumsier and clearly unintelligent.
The thing about the moon "draining" the blood of the night might be true, considering that if you look at the hunter's dream sky after killing rom it shows having blotches of blood-colored clouds, while the moon looks normal, as if Paleblood is slowly eating the night's blood away and carrying it into his world, which parallels all the creatures we have killed and whose echoes we have sold to the Doll (Moon Presence's agent) in exchange for strength. Also i think the "when the red moon hangs low" it's used to explain why Yharnam citizens are half beasts since the beginning, or why the scourge is present. a lot of people think the Red moon is what causes more chaos to happen, while except in yhargul the world is more or less still the same (apart from some minor differences). in reality the red moon is always present, as well as its effects, but it's unseen. what it really happens after Rom's death is that the citizens see the all the eldritch stuff that had been hidden, causing some to go crazy or die out of cardiac arrest. their mental defenses get broken and some fall to beasthood, while others are so stubborn they don't give a damn (the old man). as for Arianna and fake yosefka, i think they were already pregnant, but the red moon made them ignore the process (hide the ritual, which in their cases a pregnancy from a great one counts as ritual).
"If, in order to transcend humanity, it meant you had to leave your humanity behind... would you do it?" Me: I'M THROWING AWAY MY HUMANITY, JOJO!!!
@Top Lobster They should be happy as they will help to go to the next level
To shake off the maddening and wearying limitations of time and space and natural law-to be linked with the vast outside-to come close to the nighted and abysmal secrets of the infinite and the ultimate-surely such a thing was worth the risk of one’s life, soul, and sanity!
@Top Lobster What any inteligent person would say/do: "Thanks for the meal"
@Top Lobster they were wasting it anyway.
You thought it was the Moon Presence... But it was me, DIO!!!
I was under the impression that with the addition of The Old Hunters DLC that Micolash WAS actually referring to Kos. Assuming Micolash was with Byrgenwerth when they raided the fishing hamlet, he would know of the experiments performed on the Orphan, and therefor conscious of the experiments done in the research hall. Just what I observed from playing the game.
There were no "experiments performed on the Orphan". Orphan of Kos is Gehrman trapped inside Hunter's Nightmare, the game makes it very clear.
@@sergeysmyshlyaev9716 I have to admit that is a pretty interesting way of looking at it. I'm just going to assume that you're talking about how Gehrman is able to sleep easier after the orphan dies just like the Doll feels a weight lifted after the death of Maria. I am however, quite certain that the orphan is a seperate entity, seeing as how the mumblin denizen of the hamlet at the beginning begs for mercy on behalf of the child, or the fact that it's essence is trapped to kos (the black wisp) after the boss battle. It may be a stretch to say the orphan was taken and experimented on, but I'm reasonably confident that it is a seperate entity from Gehrman, and the relief of said hunter's guilt is from the freeing of the orphan's spirit. However could you state what brought you to that conclusion? It's pretty interesting.
@@mindcake8811 the sobbing sound in the Orphan of Kos cutscene is the same soundbite as Gehrman’s sobbing in his rare “dreaming” dialogue, where he calls out to Laurence and Willem and begs to be unshackled from dreaming. Given that they bothered to splice the new audio of a baby crying into it, this is probably not a recycled asset but a deliberate choice. When you kill the Orphan of Kos, regardless of whether the black baby wisp is scattered or not, and come back to the Hunter's Dream, the Doll says something about Gehrman being able to sleep more calmly now, which he coudn't do before. The Orphan has to be linked to Gehrman.
I think both can be true in some way. Perhaps the orphan in the real world couldn't be born and Byrgenwerth took his umbilical chord, but in the nightmare the orphan is born as a representation of Gerhman's guilt. The nightmare is an astral plane born and fueled by the powerful Great One consciousness of the Orphan ( the black spirit we kill at the end) plus the guilt and torment of Gerhman. That's why the physical form of the Orphan resembles Gerhman so much ( the cry, the face, the humanoid body, the way he holds the placenta like a Hunter weapon), he is the manifestation of the Gerhman regret and guilt and also all the rage and sorrow of Kos, the Orphan and the people killed in the hamlet.
The "wretched evolution" translation I think is probably referring to using the old blood of the moon presence to try achieve the next step, since master Willem saw the old blood as bad and to be feared, and not that evolution itself is bad, since everything else in game points to him still trying to gain insight to ascend
Your argument regarding the Kin Coldblood is definitely a strong one. Most sources I've relied on still discuss whether Rom dropping it means she's only Kin or not, but your reasoning is definitely a more solid one that I don't have a problem accepting.
Dude solid analysis. The moon presence forever indulging on blood echos makes sense, along with the blood echoes being the will of the undead. It made total sense when you said Healing yourself imbues one with the will to keep going on, solid connection
Excellent video. One potential note of caution: you suggest that we don't have any indication of Byrgenwerth hunting the Great Ones, but that depends on whether or not you think Byrgenwerth was responsible for the demise of Kos, as explored in the DLC. Certainly the priest of the Hamlet thinks Byrgenwerth should be blamed for something.
Well he calls them Blood crazed fiends and blasphemous murderers, so I think it's quite obvious that they killed pregnant Kos, probably to obtain an Umbelical Cord.
@@Sleepy_Dandelion That's definitely the most straightforward reading of everything we are told in the DLC.
i don't think that they killed kos, but rather that they massacred and vivisected the mutated villagers to study her presence's effects, as well as taking her already dead unborn child/killing it themselves for an umbilical cord
@@ashencometmom5291 Yes it is confirmed that they butchered the villagers to harvest the eyes inside their skulls. But then why we find Kos dead on the beach?
@@Sleepy_Dandelion There are multiple references to "Old Ones losing their child, and yearning for a surrogate," so perhaps for the reverse to happen, the mother had to die, and it had already died in order to give birth to the Orphan
I have a theory as for the reason ebrietas grants eyes to those who ask and why rom is considered the vacuous (idiot) spider. She is the left behind great one and so I believe she feels the loneliness that entails and thus, trough an unknown method, transforms other beings into great ones to abate that loneliness. However since the one transformed (in this case rom) does not have enough insight (three third chords) it cannot handle the transformation and all the expansion of consciousness and knowledge that it brings, becoming, then, a stupid being incapable of accomplishing much of anything. Perhaps the existence of a being such as this diverts some sort of energy and knowledge from the world obscuring the horrible reality of it (the paleblood sky and all the eldritch beings in yarnham). Just a theory. Edit: Oh and the reason that the dimension rom stays in is an empty space with a body of water that has no depth could be a representation of the emptiness of rom’s mind, and the fact that it is incapable to reach the depths of knowledge that it’s transformation brings thus it becomes stuck in this realm where nothing but empty space exists. Perhaps the existence of this empty dimension balances the madness seeping from the dimension made by the ritual’s nightmare.
This could also change the perception of Ebrietas mourning over the corpse of Rom at the altar of despair (which, for the record, I believe is the physical corpse of Rom and the Rom we fight in the lake is, like you said, an empty vestige of its consciousness). Following your theory, if Rom became vacuous and incapable of thought upon transformation into a great one, and is the only known one it have undergone such a transformation, then perhaps Ebrietas is not only mourning the death of Rom but also lamenting her own failures at creating companionship. After failing so spectacularly, she may have resigned herself to her lonesome fate, refusing to acknowledge or speak to anymore humans. This would further explain why Micolash failed to contact her, as well explain why there are not numerous Rom-like beings.
@@holdthephonexylophone agreed. The name of the altar, for me, also refers to Ebrietas despairing at the realization of her loneliness. I also agree that is Rom’s corpse
Moonside lake not being deep at all representing Rom's lack of intelligence is actually very good Because let's look at Kos, she had the whole ocean and its deep, not shallow waters representing her way deeper IQ
I love your idea about Moon Presence draining echoes, that's so much more believable than MP manipulating hunters for some grand scheme!
The grand scheme could be it searching for more and more Echoes. It may be like a anaconda where the more it eats the more its appetite grows. So after a certain point killing common men and beast aren't enough to sustain it's hunger. So it quite literally pushes us to seek Pale Blood or hunt other Great Ones. Once we kill the Wet Nurse the hunt is over. Until Flora gets hungry again.
@@GrubKiller436 For the same reason you and I might eat. Or perhaps the same reason why someone might want a child. The Moon Presence, no matter how Eldrith it is, or how alien it appears, is a living thing that desires. And even then, it seems to be more on the bestial side of these desires, so it could be consuming for sustenance, or to be able to have child.
@@GrubKiller436 why does a tree bear fruit?
I really agree with the idea that the Great Ones don't have any plan, plot or even hostility against one another. To me it always looked like the only thing the Great Ones care about and are stated to care about in what written lore we get is procreation (which is very difficult for advanced creatures like them, and leads them to be attracted to surrogates and replacements for the chidlren they can't have) and sometimes doing things for the creatures that somehow manage to contact them in the dreamlands (like the Hunter's Dream seems to be this parallel dimension supported by the Moon's Presence after Gehrman made some kind of ritual in the old workshop, since there's an umbilical cord there, or Mergo with the cultists when they asked for a brain filled with eyes, and Mergo literally spawned a giant brained that caused people to go mad with the truth). All Oedon does is making babies when the separation between human and dream world weakens, all the Moon Presence does is helping the hunters and getting near Yharnam because the cries of Mergo caused by the ritual attracted her, Mergo would rather sleep but the cult forced him to wake up, Kos ended up landing on a beach to give birth only for the Byrgenwerth scholars to come, slaughter the villagers and carve up her body and her baby, who then cursed the hunters for their misdeeds. I definitely see a lot of irony in the fact that the scholars of Mensis and the Church are desperately trying to overcome their bestial instincts, when in reality the superior creatures they're admiring are just as fundamentally animalistic, simple and direct in their motives while also being strange, superior creatures that exist on a different level of reality. I also don't think the Moon Presence really dies in any ending, even the one where we "kill" her, and the same for Kos. The "major" Great Ones are likely immortal for true, as in, killing them won't destroy them for good and they will keep on existing in the dreamworld. Kos may be dead on Earth but she still has an influence and controls the Hunters' Nightmare, Mergo is already a dead baby Great One I think and he could still be summoned by the cult of Mensis, while the Moon is high in the Hunter's Dream even in the ending where we defeated her. Like in the Lovecraft mythos the most powerful of these creatures are likely well beyond the idea of life and death.
I wonder if when you have 60 insight and start to hear mergo's cries it may mean you're transforming into a great one? Since its said the great ones can hear and be summoned by the cries of a "special baby" Also the fact you become an actual great one with the moon presence ending.
i think it by having enough insight rom's hiding spell or whatever no longer works on you and you are able to see and hear the things as they truly are
There's a theory that Mergo is the child of Oedon, which a Great One that exists in voice only. So it could be that Mergo is also voice-only and, not being bound by physical form, can exist everywhere. So he was always there, you just didn't have enough insight to hear him.
Your musings on the Moon Presence's motives are on point. The problem with the grim reaper analogy is that you don't mention it comes from the hunters of hunters - ie Eileen's role, not just the hunters generally.
Wow. The ending remarks especially are what make this video so freaking great. A surprisingly concise, yet deep and comprehensive "unifying theory" that ties everything together, i adore the interpretation of the role of hunters as grim reapers that carry with them the wishes of the dead. FANTASTIC work, really remarkable.
Man theres nothing like still getting bloodborne videos with new perspective this long after release, great vid homie
My first thoughts with the paleblood sky was with the reddish moon, and how it looks like it’s semi bloody. I used to have a major issue with my nose where I would have bloody noses every day as a kid, and I still get them frequently but not as often. Whenever I would spit out blood, the combination of the two would look exactly how the red-yellow moon does in game. It’s strange and gross, but it’s always been my first thought lmao
This is a very clearly and concise lore explanation and I absolutely love it. No nonsense, no rambling, straight to the point in an accurate and easy to understand format. Please do more videos like this if you enjoyed making this one, new sub +1
This is my most loved and cherished game, equally because of the unrelenting play style AND the increasingly chaotic but enticing lore. Your video is super on point... well researched and awesome editing. Glad I found your channel!
I just found this channel, so I'm gonna be up for a while
This is awesome! Thank you for enlightening me on the meanings of some of these notes. It makes a lot more sense how to join the dots, with your updated translations. 😁
Well done. Never thought to swap identities of the great ones. Really clears things up! Thanks!
Hands down one of if not the best explanation I’ve seen on KZhead. Fantastic job man.
All these years later and still new analysis
what a nice coherent and succinct video. Remember when all we had to watch were 1 hour long lore vids that just focused on the translation of "blood" or just the Make Contact gesture?
One important thing that I always consider that I think many people forget about, but I think you have displayed very well, is that of the unreliable narrator. Bloodborne's characters, every single one of them, is an unreliable source of info. Not a single character can give accurate info, including the Doll herself. They are all experiencing new events and ideas that they clearly have no idea how to conceptualize nor explain. Thank you for not using character's dialogue as 100% proof of whats true or whats not in this game.
Vaati 👀
thats just conjecture on your part
@@en3525 maybe, but at the end of the day, I dont think what little info we have about what Oedon is accurate, givin much of it is given to us pre-enlightenment style orthodox church dogma, who i will remind you, basically had no idea what they were doing with healing blood from the very start. Oedon could just as easily not even exist at all in the compacity we think it does. Oedon could literally be a force of nature with no conscience or sentience similar to gravity, or time, and nothing at all changes about the story despite the fact Oedon is treated as some type of presence with personal agency by many characters/lore entries. There simply isn't evidence to back any of that up, we only have anecdotes and personal interpretation of said anecdotes from people who who treat Oedon similar to the Abrahamic God. One of the big things about cosmic horror being so effective is that it's obscure nature of story-telling plays with our ideas of what's real and whats not. Ancient Egyptians use to believe the Nile river was made from a God's ejaculate to explain why it flowed backwards. You cant look at Bloodborne's lore without recognizing that all the info you are receiving is based of mere perceptions of people who have limited perception, and not nearly enough of said perception to accurate describe thier experiences to you. When you see the color green, I can agree with you that its the color green, but can you proove the green you see is the same green I see? How would you describe that green? You would just call it green. Same green you've seen a billion times. But maybe I'm seeing the color blue, its just that when I see blue, I call it green instead, thus you and I are seeing two different colors, we have just both agreed to call it green. Am I wrong? are you wrong? Are we both wrong and the true color we are seeing is actually pink? Neither of us will ever know, but both of us will be confident regardless that the green exists and it is infact green.
@@Phurzt Did you just take a beginner class on philosophy? Thanks for bringing up 3 different tertiary points that do not correlate to your original thesis. Absolutely none of what you typed above addresses the original criticism of your first argument: That is just conjecture on your part. Try again. Or don't, full disclosure, I won't be back to check on a response. I've made the decision, based on the plethora of mistakes and fallacies in your post, that it is not worth my time to teach why your position is untenable.
@@switters8679 you realise I'm basically admitting that I'm wrong and I have no clue, so you saying I'm wrong is you agreeing with me, right? So much in Bloodborne is unknowable. The only correct opinion to have on the obscure lore is to admit you dont know.
This was amazing. Thank you so much for such a straight forward explanation.
Bloodborne is my favorite game of all time. I also love the lore that everyone has. That being said, this lore take is one that is close to my own and makes a lot of sense. The unfortunate translation issues really do make Bloodborne more ambiguous that it needs to be. This video is great, and I will keep coming back to it. I like how you use only in-game explanations. When encountered with a "lore-hole" I usually fall back on "Well it's based on H.P. and cosmic horror, so how does cosmic horror fill in the gaps?" instead of looking directly at the source. I wish the translations could be edited, and when we get an emulator or PC version (if ever) I'd love to see that change. Also, I noticed besides references to the Orphan, you left out the entire DLC. Is that because it doesn't pertain much to the story as a whole? Or that it is incongruous with what you proposed? If you're making a video on it I'd love to see it!
I really like your video, I've been waiting for a summary like this for a long while, thank you
What an excellently comprehensible video. I knew all these things, but they feel so fragmented and hard to keep track of. Your perspective and explanation made it much more clear and concise. Keep it up!
This is my first video of Last Protagonist’s, tonight right now I stumbled across it randomly while searching for other Bloodborne lore videos, and this one BY FAR is the most in depth and meticulous. I wish I could subscribe twice. This dude is a fucking legend. I already know what I’m doing for the next few hours. I’m binging this guys videos. Hell, I’ll even watch lore videos from games I haven’t even played or heard of if this guy has any. What a champion.
I've been a huge fan of Bloodborne ever since it came out. I've searched the internet for every bit of lore I could find, but was still left with some unanswered questions. This video pretty much tied all that up, and makes me feel truely complete in my knowledge of the game.
Thank you. Glad to hear it.
Man! this was such an excellent retelling and analysis of the main plot in Bloodborne. Thank you for this seriously.
Nice Work Dude! Nice Researchs and some great unknown Informations for me. Keep Going!
I think you missed one very important thing in this (beautiful and great) video: why the moon presence let you go, with Gehrman killing you, if you kill Mergo? That is the reason why many believe that the Moon Presence is enemy to other great ones, or at least their offspring. Other clue on that come from the fact that Laurence, Gehrman and Willhelm (Gehrman say his name too when you see him sleeping in the dream) summoned her, maybe luring her with the Doll (created with the corpse of Lady Maria, descendant of Annalise, who has the blood of Yahrnam, the only being we know of capable of conceiving a baby with a great one). Knowing that the great ones are sympathetic in spirit and answer when called upon, one must think: what could Gherman, Willhelm and Laurence called her for? The guess is that they called her to end the hunt. Not knowing that the hunt occours whenever a great one approaches Yahrnam, and so Gehrman would be trapped in the dream 'cause there is no ending to the hunt, but only to a particular night of the hunt. And maybe, the moon presence has an active role in luring other great ones near? I guess that what we miss in understanding her comes from the fact that we only know about one night of the hunt. We know that there were many of it before the one we play, from the graves and from Djura and Eileen, that presumably has gone throught their own night of the hunt and chose to be put down by Gehrman at the end. We're trying to understand the whole picture by having only the last fraction of it. Also notable is that the moon presence has great similarity with an umbilical cord: her face is the section of an umbilical cord (check it out on google, one of the first image show a stunning similarity), and she place it on the belly of the hunter when she hug it in the ending. And in her artworks, she is showed having an evanescent placenta-like thing over her head. God damn i love this game and talking about it.
This video is sooooooo helpful. There are so many great Bloodbourne lore videos, but none that seem to just straight up explain the sequence of events in the game and why they occur in the order that they do.
this was absolutely ace. outstanding job, lad
I‘ve enjoyed this thoroughly. Great work! Thank you so much for this, Sir.
great lore dive! learning the differences between the english and japanese versions makes one think and helps tie some plot points. thank you for your effort!
Amazing video. Love the way you explain it over the course of the games events in playthrough order.
This was beautiful and everything I needed right now. thanks buddy
You did clear up some of the mystery. Nice work dude. Your japanese is on point. Damnnn.
Phenomenal video. Just when I thought Vaati Vidya was the only powerhouse for these kinds of things, here you come along. 1st time watching your stuff. Take my sub, good sir!
Actually MP using the doll to absorb blood echoes from the Hunter makes totally sense, especially from the "greed look" as you pointed out :D
A great lore video, really ties everything up nice. Can't wait for your sub count to explode!
I somehow wonder: When you kill Micolash in the nightmare, he cries out, that he's going to wake up and forget everything. Is he not aware, that his physical body is long dead? Or is there another layer? Like, is his conscious returning to the same plane the player will awake to, if they accept death by the hand of Gehrman?
One interesting thing about his Japanese death quote is that it's posed as a question, showing his lack of knowledge about what's happened to his body as well as the dreams in general.
@@LastProtagonist That makes so much more sense, since he couldn't really know, being the first to carry out such a ritual. Too bad, they didn't phrase it like that in other languages. Thanks for clarifying!
Amazing and insightful video, our eyes were yet to open.
Love it! Best vid about main lore things in Bb ! I need more bro :DD
Great video! After watching and reading so much about the lore of this game, I figured I considered and consumed every bit of meaningful detail it had to offer (outside of McDonald's slow drip of info). But I'm amazed how much more there was to learn in your video! This game has the best story of any video game, I think. Thanks for all your hard work.
Thank you! Cant get enough of Bloodborne lore and theories!
This is beautifully done. You just gained a subscriber
Awesome video! The part where you talk about Ebrietas and the cut content makes a lot of sense. There are a lot of mentions to 'cosmos' in several itens from Ebrietas and the Choir and the Moon Presence being called Ebrietas makes a lot of sense, since it's its presence that causes the blood frenzy. The thing you point out, about Micolash trying to reach Ebrietas while she is in the cathedral makes sense, but if she was hidden there, it would fit with the fact that the School of Mensis and the Choir were spying each other. Also, maybe Micolash realized that Ebrietas turned Rom into a 'vacuous' being and was interested in searching for ascension from another Great One. As it is, and using the original content, I intepret that Kos (from Fishing Hamlet) was the one who caused Rom's ascension. My idea is that Byrgenwerth, knowing that Great Ones search for a surrogate after losing a child, would kill Kos' child hoping that it would cause the ascension of Rom. Gherman, being the one who killed Kos' chikd, saved his umbilical cord, later using it to call upon the Moon Presence. Well, this backfired because Kos created the Hunter's Nightmare to preserve it's child, haunting Gherman forever. Well, time to jump to the Discord server and talk about Bloodborne lore. Boy, I missed that!
9:52 actually, the text appears when mergo stops crying, implying mergo is the nightmare
Smashed it mate, best deep dive on here
OH my god YES! This is the lore breakdown we need! Rather than running amok with what are clearly translation quirks!! Thank you so much for doing this!
This is so interesting to watch! Fear the old lore indeed! Will finish this after work. I hope you bring up the chairs!
I think there’s a lot of overthinking about the motives of the Great Ones. It is observed generally that the more advanced the organism , the harder it is for it to reproduce. And the game clearly tells you the Great Ones long for a child of their own after they lose a child. I believe the Moon Presence shares this objective. As for why the Moon Presence seeks the death of the other great ones and their child, there isn’t enough material to suggest that it actually does. The notes are the only guidance you get to kill Great Ones and they aren’t necessarily in accordance with the Moon Presences will,the one with the umbilical cords for example. Even the note about hunting great ones is indiscriminate. It may very well include the Moon Presence itself, as it is the initial goal to get “Paleblood” to transcend the hunt and as you said in your video, transcend may also mean “to be free of/“ Written by someone who actually may not be aware of the Paleblood actually being a Great One (assuming your theory is correct) And at no point Gehrman ever directs you to hunt down the Great Ones, he does once tell you to “just go out and kill a few beasts” but that is different. The fact that the one third umbilical cords beckon the Moon Presence is evidence to this, Because the cord is also known to have been used to gain audience with Mergo, Another is alluded to have been taken from Oedon’s child And one of them beckoned the moon presence for the first time. Having the moon presence beckoned twice by the cords suggests their affinity towards seeking Children, It’s almost as if that organ related to childbirth is a lure for the Great Ones and it wouldn’t be if that wasn’t their motive. However how the Hunter’s Dream helps the Moon Presence achieve it’s objective of reproducing remains a mystery, so does the reason for it’s very existence and I have no understanding or way of explaining it. But in my interpretation, the primary objective of the Moon Presence is, to reproduce and not the slaying of other Great Ones. EDIT: It also just dawned on me that the rituals that Rom was hiding to summon the Moon Presence involved the crying Mergo , another proof of it’s desire for having a child. It may also be an explanation that due to the slaying or silencing of Mergo , assuming you do not actually take the umbilical cords, the Moon Presence simply leaves, as the doll suggests that dawn is coming and the dream is about to end. Now from here on out it is my interpretation of the ending which may be entirely wrong I don’t believe the ending of the dream was specific to the Hunter , as you can see the effects of your actions with the Dream and workshop being set ablaze, possibly by the first lights. I believe that the ending cutscene in Yharnam Sunrise is the beginning of the new hunt, assuming the moon presence has returned or has been beckoned again, with the dream being restored and the doll tending to your grave. But I really think there is enough to establish that the main motive of the Moon Presence is to procreate, just like the other great ones.
I think you are right about the Moon Presence objective of having a child, but I also think that's why she made the Hunter's Dream, to make Gerhman and us in the ending her "child", you see, the way she run the embrace us after we kill Gerhman looks like a mother running to hug her child.
That's the best Bloodborne lore video I've seen, and I saw A LOT
I thought the "wretched evolution" was referring to the forced evolution using the healing church's blood, rather than using insight
Thank you for your hard work, we all appreciate it. You are awesome.
Great video! It really changes the perspective on the protagonist Hunter - from a hapless outsider trapped in this situation to somebody on a mission actively pursuing their goal.
Thank you so much for this video. It's incredible, how much is lost in translation; the retail release Moon rune description makes it heavily seem as though the Moon rune is a gift of pity to those who ask for help from the Great Ones, whereas your accurate translation paints it as a much more sinister warning, that calling out in need to them will beckon them to devour you...
Welp you got me hooked. Good story telling as well. Was a big fan of this.
Great video. You make the best bloodborne lore videos on yt
I feel the “evolution without courage will be our downfall” may relate to Rom and the Heart of Mensis, both examples of Byrgenwerth and School Mensis’ attempts at ascending to become great ones only for them to become insane in the end, I think it’s also shown with how both play defensively and become exceedingly susceptible to damage once all defenses are down, Rom may have the arcane powers but other than that can only flail around and the Heart can only just stare at you once it is dropped from its tower That and the original patients as seen in the archives in the old hunters dlc are all on the brink of madness due to the forceful way they tried to “gain eyes”
I realize now the brain of Mensis is not man made but was found in the nightmare, oops
thank you so much for this work, well done
I remember reading the creator said he made bloodborne as a way to intercept the story yourself, because when he was growing up he couldn’t read English too well and would fill in parts of the story himself.
Few things I've been thinking about: 1) could Kos or some say Kosm mean the cosmos itself and all/any entities residing there? And so the body (with human face and arms) that the Orphan of Kos emerges from isn't necessarily Kos. Ie the OoK is more like the left behind child wondering why it was left behind? It seems to beseech towards the sky and we know of course the sky and the cosmos are one; 2) I think the nameless moon presence was given the name Paleblood by Lawrence and his associates. I think it truly didn't have a name, and since it only emerged when the moon is the colour of pale blood, the name seemed apt. Its at that point as well that I feel a deal was struck and it was this deal that meant that Gehrman became stuck in the Hunters Dream; 3) you mentioned that Rom's drop of Kin Coldblood doesn't mean she's Kin, because blood doesn't define the organism. While I agree to a point and wonder about the Cainhurst drops, I could swear that there's an item which explicitly states that the blood DOES define the organism. I'll try to find which item it is. EDIT: it's the Blood Gem Workshop Tool.
I've also been thinking about what the MP does when you use umbilical cord. It looks like it's trying to suck something out of your belly!! Could it be that it wants to steal your baby (whether you've got one or not!) It's a half formed thought, but I haven't seen anyone talk about it...
And finally, could Mergo be a lure for Great Ones? Assuming Mergo was stolen from PQ could it be the case that the Pthumerians and eventually Mensis use the baby as a way to entice Great Ones back from the Cosmos? Oh and as Columbo used to say "one more thing". Does anyone else notice how 'formless' Mergo's Wet Nurse is? The only thing giving it form is the garb. Look again. Could the MWN be Oedon itself? After all a Wet Nurse provides and looks after a baby in ways the mother can't ie sustenance. Is it possible that Oedon guards Mergo as if it's their own?
I love these hidden details. Thank you for your hard work, we all appreciate it. Keep up the incredible and amazing work. You are awesome.
This is an impressive goddamn video. Well done man!
Very well put together! @31:10 I believe the "holes" in Flora's face match the "cross-section" of a human umbilical cord. That implies that it becomes our mother-like figure, trapping the Player and it feeding us (the alternative being that it sucks our "nurturing blood", but hardly makes sense). If we consume the 3 cords, it might prevent IT from making such a connection (because we already "have one").