Lost in Translation—Bloodborne’s True Story Explained

over five years after the release of bloodborne the story is still shrouded in mysteries what should have been direct has been obscured by translation cryptic design choices and common misconceptions shared by its fans in this episode of fear the old lore we'll examine the main story of the game comparing the english japanese and even the korean text on occasion to gain a better understanding of the lore warning spoilers ahead commonly held beliefs will be challenged in the opening cut scene of the game we're introduced to the concept of pale blood but we're not meant to know what it means the blood minister is responding to something the player says off-screen so it seems the protagonist has some knowledge of pale blood before coming to yharnam the blood minister's japanese dialogue differs in that he implies by taking the healing blood of yharnam the player will be able to learn more about pale blood but since he can't just talk to an outsider he needs to administer the blood first for that we need a contract once the contract is signed and the blood administered we have a vision of a beast crawling out of a pool of blood extending one of its claws towards the player as though it were trying to lure the meek into the depths it likely represents the inner beast of man and shortly after its emergence it spontaneously combusts into flame messengers begin crawling over the player and force us into unconsciousness we then hear a voiceover of the doll saying ah you found yourself a hunter this introductory cutscene may represent that beasthood has no hold over the player with messengers fearing us to and fro we've become a hunter sustained by the dream for the night after awakening from the nightmare of blood and beasts the hunter regains consciousness in yosepha's clinic the blood minister is gone the only thing of interest is a note on a chair it reads handwritten scroll seek pale blood to transcend the hunt many have wondered who exactly left this note in yosepha's clinic but the japanese is clear in saying it was self-pinned or written in the player's own handwriting since the hunter left a note for themselves they may have anticipated memory loss following the blood transfusion whatever the case it's clear the hunter's goal is to find pale blood but what is it it might be surprising but pale blood doesn't refer to blood at all it comes from alzamutachi which when broken down literally means paled blood or blood that has been made of pale it's used as an epithet to describe the moon presence and the red moon sky two sources confirmed this a note in the lecture hall describing pale blood and drained of blood an interview game director hirataka miyazaki did with future press we'll revisit those in more detail later but for now the no neosphis clinic is trying to tell us we must find the moon presence in order to end the hunt it's unclear how or why the hunters in search of pale blood before coming to yharnam but with the blood minister missing and no one around to answer our questions we're forced to search yharnam for answers the first hints in solving the mystery of pale blood come from two sources a note nestled in the corner of the hunter's dream workshop and from talking to gilbert the note in the hunter's dream states to escape this dreadful hunter's dream halt the source of the spreading scourge of beasts lest the night carry on forever we will discuss this more later but the source of the spreading scourge of beasts ultimately comes from the proximity of the moon presence or the red moon to yharnam it coincides with the note in the clinic telling us to seek pale blood to transcend the hunt gilbert doesn't seem to know about pale blood so he suggests the hunter go to the grand cathedral the birthplace of the healing church for more answers the most direct route to the cathedral ward is through the great bridge though it's guarded by the cleric beast unfortunately defeating the cleric beast doesn't bring the hunter any closer to discovering pale blood as the door to the cathedral ward has been blocked off return to gilbert and he'll say there's another route to the cathedral ward through the aqueducts it leads to the tomb of urden and father gascoigne defeating gascoigne unlocks access to urden chapel the small private library there has a note foreshadowing what's to come the bergen with spider hides all manner of rituals and keeps our lost master from us a terrible shame it makes my head shudder uncontrollably it's a little unclear but it's supposed to establish that rom the vacuous spider of byrgenwerth is hiding or concealing the rituals that are taking place on this night of the hunt it will tie into what's occurring in yahar ghoul in the hypogean jail later on cathedral ward can be accessed two ways first is from killing the cleric beast and using the hunter chief emblem to open its front gate second is from going to old yharnam killing the blood starved beast and unlocking of the door nerd and chapel that leads to the healing church workshop alfred can be found and route to old yharnam while he also doesn't know what pale blood is he echoes gilbert and says we should head to the grand cathedral he also hints everything sacred and yharnam can be traced back to bergenworth giving us a clue where to go if the grand cathedral doesn't pan out if we try to bypass the grand cathedral and head towards the forbidden woods first the gatekeeper will stop us and ask for the password a note atop a building in the cathedral ward tells us where we can learn more a watchman of byrgenwerth guards the gate with a password the sacred adage of the grand cathedral all ways forward point to the grand cathedral enter it and another note can be seen surrounded by candles on the ledge to the right it reads heir to the ritual of blood purveyor of ministration place your hand on the altar sacred covering and describe master lawrence's adage upon your flesh further inside the cathedral we find vicar emilia deep in prayer trying desperately to hold onto her humanity her efforts are for naught and she transforms into a terrifying beast killing her offers no more insight into pale blood leaving the hunter little option than to place their hand on the altar lawrence's skull reveals the adage used to gain access to the forbidden woods is fear the old blood with nothing left to gain in the cathedral we must head to bergenworth the birthplace of the healing church in a bit of a cosmic horror twist telling the password gatekeeper the adage and opening the gate reveals he's already dead and has been for quite some time it should make players begin questioning their sanity and how they view the world though there isn't an official time to go going to the hypogean jail before byrgenwerth is important in understanding the role of rom bergenworth's evacus spider it can be accessed after killing the blood starved beast and being abducted by the kidnappers that appear in the cathedral ward or forbidden woods if one goes to yahara ghoul before touching lawrence's skull it will be evening and the sun will still be out coming after touching his skull will plunge the area into night while this doesn't affect gameplay it is important in understanding the lore after being kidnapped and upon awakening in the hypogean jail the figure of the kidnapper can be seen departing the unlocked cell which holds the hunter outside the cell nearby there's an extremely important note held by messengers madmen toil surreptitiously in rituals to beckon the moon uncover their secrets regrettably this note and many of the others found in yahoo have a lot of important information that's been lost in translation here's what i re-translated from japanese mad men their ritual beckons the moon and is being hidden the ritual's concealment must be destroyed the official english localization misses the clause which says that the rituals are being hidden this is actually supposed to hint that the unseen portion of yahar ghoul unseen village's name comes from the rituals being hidden since kakashi is used to describe both of them if we recall the note in urden chapel the spider hides all manner of rituals so this is a subtle hint that the vacuous spider must be defeated to reveal the unseen true nature of yahar ghoul rather than needing to uncover nondescript secrets it's very clear in japanese that whatever conceals the rituals needs to be destroyed the next note can be found upstairs near the hypogen jail lantern it states nightmarish rituals crave a newborn find one in silence it's harrowing cry the way it's written in english makes it sound as though the school of menses is looking for a random baby to kidnap and potentially kill but the japanese text has a very different take on things the nightmare ritual is with the infant find the infant please stop its crying voice this sets up that the rituals used to beckon the moon are tied to the crying voice of an infant more specifically the nightmare newborn mergo it might seem odd that the cries of an infant can beckon the moon but in this context it's meant to refer to the moon presence miyazaki's drain of blood interview with future press explains more in the world of bloodborne babies that are treated as special in one way or the other are offered as lures to the great ones the great ones have all lost their children because of their positions and as a result they're attracted to these special babies the babies are one way of calling them mergo's cries being used to beckon the moon presence was supposed to be reinforced in the final paragraph of the moon rune which can be found on a corpse in the middle of the chapel the english has the great ones that inhabit the nightmare are sympathetic in spirit and often answer when called upon whereas the japanese description states that the nightmare great one responds to the voices of those who call out and mirrors what's in the note about stopping the nightmare newborn's crying voice i should also mention the japanese is unclear whether the moon rune is supposed to refer to a singular nightmare great one or multiple ones there's a good chance it was meant to refer solely to the moon presence which would fit well with it being beckoned towards the sound of mergo's voice but it's ambiguous killing mergo's wet nurse and the orphan of cause does make nightmare slain text appear on the screen after all outside the chapel is an avenue that has one of the most difficult notes to understand in the entire game behold a pale blood sky since we can come to yahar ghoul in the sky can change at different phases of the night but the note stays the same it makes it seem blatantly mistaken or out of place rather than the note being wrong though it may be worth considering the hunter is seeing things wrong the note is saying the pale blood sky is always present the problem is it's being hidden by rom the vacuous spider of birgenworth it was supposed to become clear after defeating rom that the pale blood sky was referring to the sky with the red moon but miyazaki himself admits in the drain of blood interview that it may have been too hard to pick up on part of the problem in understanding the note comes from the language used while the translation behold a pale blood sky is accurate the japanese uses ambiguity as a literary device to have two differing yet simultaneously valid ways to interpret it the first interpretation comes from pale blood being used to describe the appearance of the sky which according to miyazaki is a very pale blue like a body drained of blood from this we can infer the term paled blood might come from draining a body of its blood if true it would align with how the moon rune can allow a hunter to drain more blood echoes from their prey it could also support that the moon rune was supposed to be connected specifically to the moon presence the second way to interpret the note would be behold its pale blood sky with pale blood being a reference to the moon presence in other words it could be understood as behold it's the moon presence of sky it's supposed to make the red moon synonymous with the moon presence which matches how it appears and disappears with it in the hunter's dream at the end of the game i'd like to be clear that the following is speculation perhaps the reason it's called a pale blood sky is because the moon has symbolically drained it of its redness or blood over the course of the night this might help in painting the moon presence as a kind of cosmic parasite that drains the blood or blood echoes of whatever it comes into contact with but we'll get into that more later with the pale blood sky present yet hidden from the hunter there's no way to advance through yahar ghoul to bring an end to mergo's cries and stop the nightmare ritual this coincides with needing to explore bergenworth after the grand cathedral despite being abandoned and made forbidden ground by the healing church we can find yuri a member of the choir guarding the interior of briganworth once she's beaten we can examine two very important notes in peace on the second floor though both have had some information lost in translation the note closest to the chest of the student uniform reads the spider hides all manner of rituals certain to reveal nothing for true enlightenment need not be shared instead of saying the rituals will reveal nothing and that true enlightenment need not be shared the japanese differs by saying the rituals must not be exposed and that not everyone needs to understand the enlightening truth this makes it sound as though the healing church could be actively using ram to either rituals in yahar'gul the scope of which remains a mystery while enlightenment comes from kemotecki and does mean enlightening in english it's also worth noting camo's with the japanese uses for the insight stat so another way to understand the note could be the spider hides all rituals they must not be exposed the insightful truth is something not everyone needs to understand this was likely supposed to be a developer hint that if the hunter has enough insight they'll be able to perceive the rituals the spider is concealing it just so happens that if the player has 60 or more points of insight they can hear mergo's cries even before defeating ron it's not very straightforward but it ties into the note in yahoo ghoul about needing to stop the infant's crying voice to end the nightmare ritual the second note nestled in a bookshelf links the relationship between the moon and infants further when the red moon hangs low the line between man and beast is blurred and when the great ones descend a womb will be blessed with child any time the game mentions a womb being blessed with child or a woman bearing a child the japanese differs by stating that the infant is embraced instead the korean version of this note matches with what the english says so it seems very likely that the japanese text was revised if those revisions weren't translated back into the other languages it's uncertain why the lines were changed to embracing infants i suspect the idea was to have it evoke the imagery of the second and third endings where the moon presence descends and embraces the hunter nonetheless it reinforces the supernatural nature of the red moon its ability to blur the lines of reality and its connections to infants upstairs we can find the lunarium key and use it to gain access to master willem though he is in no condition to talk instead he gestures to the end of the platform indicating the hunter should plunge headlong into the moonside lake rather than falling into the water and drowning in what would be typical from soft fashion the hunter lands on an almost metallic looking fluid potentially related to quicksilver or mercury the moonside lake seems to exist in an alternate dimension and in the distance the gigantic figure of ram the vacuous spider can be made out approaching rom can be unsettling because her design is quite a departure compared to many of the enemies encountered until this point she is notably non-hostile and almost seems pathetic or lonely in the void that is the moonside lake when she is attacked she doesn't engage the player directly instead she retreats in someone's little rumblings to fend off the hunter this has left many players feeling helpless or heartless in attacking her but it should be emphasized that rahm is exacerbating things in yharnam and causes real harm to its citizens by concealing all manner of rituals she allows the school of menses to work unimpeded in beckoning the red moon causing people to go mad or transform in uncontrollable numbers in order to progress and bring an end to the night of the hunt rahm must be defeated to quickly address some confusion pertaining to her name vacuous comes from hakuchi which means idiot or someone with profound mental deficiencies not empty in the sense of vacuum upon her defeat rom drops a kitten cold blood which some have mistaken as a sign she isn't a true great one these claims are contradicted by her trophy description which clearly states that she is a great one claiming she's not a great one due to dropping cold blood is problematic since it would mean the human corpses we find in cainhurst the nightmare frontier and the nightmare of menses should also be classified as kin we can even find a few corpses in three more isle which drop great one cold blood if this doesn't mean they were great ones or more of a great one than rom cold blood doesn't define what kind of organism it comes from it just shows how many blood echoes are present within its blood having ken cold blood or great one cold blood doesn't transform something into a kin or a great one it just puts one on par with them after the fight with rom we can see a woman in a blood-stained wedding dress weeping and looking towards the sky she's yharnam the undead queen of the sumerians who were the first to use the blood approach her in a cutscene will trigger revealing the red moon as it descends it will drown out everything else along with the cries of an infant and the hunter will fall into unconsciousness a node automatically appears upon waking in a bath outside the entrance of yahoo the unseen village it says ritual secret broken seek the nightmare newborn at this point it may come as no surprise that some information was lost in translation the japanese is closer too to the concealment of the ritual has been broken find the nightmare infant the good news is the korean version matches what we have in english which likely means that the japanese was revised the bad news is this doesn't exactly help english or korean speaking fans understand what's written in japanese what may be the largest difference between the texts is that the japanese version is in quotation marks so the hunter is literally hearing the words being spoken the identity of the speaker is unknown but it's possible it's queen yharnam since she was the only other one present in the moonside lake another possibility is that it could come from the moon presence but this interpretation is contingent upon how much you believe the moon presence takes an active role in the hunt other options include the doll and garmin but these seem unlikely since they could have used a voice over here instead the japanese is also more explicit by saying the concealment of the ritual is destroyed rather than a vague ritual secret being broken it helps establish that ram is concealing the rituals and with her gone the enlightening truth is now exposed hence why the red moon is visible over yharnam and the nightmare newborn's cries are audible everywhere with the red moon appearing over yahar ghoul it reveals a town filled with eldritch horrors and abominations the next note is in a cell in the building to the left of the lantern it says the menses ritual must be stopped lest we all become beasts if the school of mensis rituals are causing people to transform into beasts it ties into the workshop note telling the hunter to halt the spreading scourge of beasts taken in conjunction with the other notes we can begin to paint a picture of what's occurring on this night of the hunt men of the school of menses are using a nightmare ritual along with an infant's crying voice in order to beckon the moon when it comes close the boundaries of man become blurred causing them to transform into terrible beasts in order to stop the infant's cries the hunter must proceed through yahar ghoul and come into contact with the mummified corpse of mikalash at the end of the advent plaza doing so will teleport them into the second floor of the lecture hall a bygone institution of byrgenwerth that's a drift in the nightmare more notes can be found here but they're difficult to understand the first is in the balcony above the theater master willem was right evolution without courage will be the ruin of our race the korean here is the same as the english but the final line is different in japanese and is something closer too professor willem is right the wretched evolution is man's downfall this version is a significant departure and meaning from what we get in english and adds an interesting amount of depth and trying to better understand master willem's position it's hard to get across in english but it's ambiguous as to whether it's referring to a specific kind of evolution or evolution in general on a surface level it should be obvious that willem would oppose beast evolutions since he opposed blood healing on the other hand if willa meant all forms of evolution it would call him to question the nature of the hunter's transformation in the third ending and whether or not it corrupts them there's another note in the adjoining room it simply reads hunt the great ones hunt the great ones it almost seems like the ravings of a madman or one drunk with blood since we don't have any indications of the healing church or bergen worth hunting great ones or regarding them as adversaries on the contrary it would seem to conflict with their goal of trying to become great ones themselves what's even more puzzling is there's no reason to indiscriminately kill great ones since they don't drop anything particular to being great ones two more notes can be found in an adjacent room with the first arguably being the most important note in the game it reads the nameless moon presence beckoned by lawrence and his associates pale blood even though it's possible to properly discern in english it's still difficult to pick up that pale blood is another term for the moon presence since it's called nameless the japanese version is closer to lawrence and his associate's moon presence paled blood with paled blood put into the equivalent of quotation marks it's very clear it's meant to refer to the moon presence while the korean is closer to the english there are a few differences worth mentioning first the korean doesn't say lawrence or his associates back in the moon presence though it can still be inferred second is that the korean version also has paled blood put in quotation marks even though it's still called nameless this suggests the developers wanted to avoid unnecessary confusion so they removed a bit about the moon presence being nameless it's unfortunate this information wasn't translated back into the other languages as it really goes a long way in helping to understand what pale blood is of course while the information helps the player understand what pale blood is it doesn't bring the hunter any closer to finding it the note on the table in the back of the room provides the biggest clue yet three third chords although it's cryptic using three-third chords is necessary for the hunter to be able to challenge the moon presence without them the moon presence will be able to captivate or possess the hunter the honoring wishes ending forcing them to replace german in the hunter's dream though this is an issue only in the north american version of the game others before me have pointed out they're supposed to be called third umbilical cords not one third of an umbilical cord it may sound a little confusing but the japanese uses ordinal numbers or sequential numbers like first second third and fourth to describe them not fractions the mechanics of how they work are a bit of a mystery but we can make some pretty good educated guesses about them since third chords are said to make one gain eyes on the inside they may open one's inner or third eye beliefs about third eyes vary by culture but in hinduism and buddhism they're associated with enlightenment and allowing one to transcend or see beyond reality they're also associated with deep sleep and naturally projecting oneself when dreaming these beliefs extend to many themes present in bloodborne and might help understanding transcending into a great one moving beyond the symbolism of inner eyes it may also be worth exploring what role umbilical cords serve in embryos and fetuses umbilical cords filter waste away from the child while absorbing nutrients from the mother's blood in the placenta perhaps this idea can be applied to the hunter and that consuming three-third cords gives them a metaphysical umbilical cord capable of filtering and metabolizing blood or blood echoes leaving the room with the two notes and taking the door on the left leads to the nightmare of menses two chapels can be seen looming in the distance arguments can be made as to whether or not they were created before the school arrived in the nightmare or whether they were created for the school's rituals it's possible the area was originally inhabited by the thumerians or the laurenites potentially explaining why we can find lauren silverbeast and mergo's attendance there it's also possible the petrified remains of the yarnamites fused into the walls of yargul helped create the nightmare of menses with the petrified figures of people or faces in the rocks coming from them maybe the truth lies somewhere in between proceeding through the nightmare of menses the hunter will eventually come face to face with mikalash the leader of the school of menses his dialogue during the fight reveals the goal of the school of mensis is to come into contact with a great one so they may gain eyes on the inside based on his mannerisms alone it should be self-evident he's mad and that his dialogue should be taken with a grain of salt cause the great one he prays to has presumably been dead for some time so it doesn't make much sense for him to be praying to her between mergo and mergo's wet nurse there are other great ones he could contact nearby so it's unclear whether coming into contact with coss is special or if he's just mistaken about her identity since it was the school's goal to beckon the moon there is another way to interpret mikalash's intentions but i'd like to make it abundantly clear its conjecture based on cut content that may be incompatible with the retail version of the game in the alpha version of the game a few characters were known by different names abritas the daughter of the cosmos was known as cause and the moon presence was known as a brightest mother cause as we know her didn't seem to exist yet thus when mikalash beseech's cause to grant them eyes on the inside he could have intended for those prayers to go to a brightest instead surprisingly there is evidence of a brightest granting people eyes on the inside when we look at the iron it's described as having been spoken by left behind gregorians it's a little ambiguous since japanese doesn't often distinguish whether something is singular or plural but this mention of left behind great ones should be understood as a singular reference to ebritis the left behind great one there are no mentions of other left behind great ones to consider and the auger of brightness makes it clear it's referencing her with the voice of a brightest being able to grant metaphorical eyes to those who hear it this could provide context for cause granting eyes to rom it could also help contextualize why a brightest is grieving near the rom-like corpse found in the altar of despair it would also be quite ironic for mikalash to be praying to a great one he doesn't have access to only for it to be hidden by the choir deep beneath the grand cathedral unfortunately it does rely on cut content and a whole lot of headcanon to support this interpretation but i think it does a nice job of connecting some parts of the story which don't quite fit together after defeating mklash the hunter can access the upper levels of mergo's loft where the cries of the baby will be much clearer and much louder than in any portion of the game shadows of yharnam can be seen prowling through the area and will attack anything in the vicinity they seem to be guarding queen yarnum whom we can find crying and looking up to the lunarium towards mergo beyond her lies a chest that holds yosefka's blood vial it's often asked why yosefka's blood vial is at the top of mergo's loft truthfully we're not given a good reason for it in earlier points of development mergo's wet nurse may have been related to an npc found in josephus clinic and there may have been a connection between that npc and mergo but we very little information to go on the most likely and perhaps the most dissatisfying explanation is that it's left as a developer hints to return to the clinic and meet the imposter doctor to obtain her third umbilical cord in the lunarium we can see a lone stroller in the distance as the hunter approaches a cutscene will trigger and mergo's wetness will drop down from the sky cradling it briefly a gurgling sound will play suggesting the wet nurse absorbs the crying baby i realize this clay may be hard to believe for what it's worth lance mcdonald a popular producer of bloodborne content videos has mentioned in earlier builds of the game the cutscene had the wetner spring mergo to its chest before glowing purple and absorbing it perhaps its goal is to absorb the baby to protect it from the hunter some fear that by killing the wet nurse we also kill mergo it's difficult to hear but once the wet nurse is defeated mergo's cries will gradually stop and turn into a kind of restful slumber or snoring sleep is often used as a metaphor for death yet items like the yarn of stone show beings like great ones cannot truly die even if their bodies are destroyed their consciousness can persist in sleeper dreams if one of these beings were to have a nightmare instead of a dream would it manifest into something similar to mergo's wet nurse the nightmare slain text appears intentionally only after mergo snoring is finished with its cries silenced we've halted the source of the spreading scourge of beasts and the moon should no longer be beckoned towards yharnam if one goes back to queen yarnham she will no longer be crying and will bow in gratitude to the hunter before she disappears the only thing left to do is return to the hunter's dream returning to the dream we can see the workshop has been engulfed in flames if we talk to the doll she will say it will be done soon and that gearman awaits us under the great tree cut content confirms it but it can still be inferred he's the one who set the workshop on fire possibly as a means to signal the hunt is coming to an end and we need stay no longer there are three endings for the game depending on the hunter's actions talking to gearman at the base of the great tree he offers to assist in our suicide and sever our connection to the dream if his offer is refused german will try killing the hunter over and over until they give up on the dream unless they become prisoner to it like he has freed from the night after defeating german the moon presence will decide with the red moon appearing in the background reinforcing that pale blood and the red moon are related the three third umbilical cords aren't used prior to the fight with german the moon presence will embrace the hunter draw them in close and the gurgling sound will play before the scene fades to black the cutscene will transition and the next thing we see is the doll pushing the hunter who is missing a leg in a wheelchair she'll crouch next to us and say the hunt begins again meaning we've been forced to take the place of german in a never-ending cycle of the hunt opinions about the nature of the moon presence differ with some believing it's hostile towards the other great ones and it wants them killed others believe the moon presence takes an active role in controlling hunters in the hunt my beliefs differ from these for a few reasons while we're not given much information about the nature of the great ones it's arguable whether their intentions can even be discerned with great ones like rom and the brain of menses being literally brain damaged and the etymology for a brightness potentially coming from abreus or intoxicated in latin it makes it difficult for me to believe that the beast-like moon presence is any different or has grand machinations over the night of the hunt for the most part the great ones seem relatively disinterested in humans it's more likely to me that since the moon presence is related to pale blood or potentially draining bodies of blood it may be acting as a kind of cosmic parasite draining the blood echoes from hunters at the end of each hunt having an emaciated skeletal figure with his ribs exposed and protruding from its body may symbolize the moon presence's insatiable greed and hunger if his goal is to absorb as many echoes as it can in his possessed game it would make sense for him to tell us to not think about what we're doing and to just go out and hunt a few beasts it's also worth mentioning that if the moon presence has been draining blood echoes from hunters german doesn't drop any when he's killed in the third ending if the moon presence drains blood echoes from hunters and is unrelated to the hunter's dream this may lead to questions about the roles of hunters i'd like to be clear that the following is conjecture but there is some evidence in the japanese crow feather set that implies hunters could serve as kinds of grim reapers here's its final paragraph retranslated from japanese the first hunter hunters foreigners chose the honorable ways of home not the blasphemous burials of yharnam this way the dying goals of their comrades would at least reach heaven or perhaps the hunter's dream if hunters exist as kinds of grim reapers which send the dead into the afterlife it mirrors how german uses the scythe and how his hunts were meant to allow his prey to rest in peace it could imply hunter's powers do not come from the moon presence instead it's more likely they come from the wills or the spirits of the dead allow me to explain the term blood out goes comes from chinoishi which literally means the dying wills of blood they represent the hopes dreams unfulfilled desires or the wills of the dead hunters inherit these wills allowing the dead to vicariously live again through them this ties into how the hp stat is described as the power or will to survive when the hunter uses a blood vial to regain hp they're literally barring the will to live from the dead another idea supporting blood being tied to the wills of the dead comes from the messengers in japanese they're called shisha and while that does literally mean messenger or emissary it shares the same pronunciation as shisha for dead or deceased person and is likely a deliberate play on words with messengers potentially representing spirits of the dead and the dead sustaining hunters on knights of the hunt it gives more meaning to the dolls line and how they find hunters like yourself worship and serve them if the moon presence devours blood echoes and bloodborne it would mirror themes used in other from soft games like the old one devouring souls and demon souls to resist the moon presence's possession and possibly being drained of blood the hunter must use three-third umbilical cords before the fight with german this may give them eyes on the inside or the enlightenment necessary to withstand the moon presence's psionic onslaught when the moon presence fails to captivate the hunter it will become hostile in attack despite being a great one the moon presence's movements and snarls almost resemble that of a beast further connecting pale blood and the red moon's ties to beasthood the juxtaposition of the moon presence being a great one or a potentially enlightened being yet being beast-like should call into question the knowledge and motivations of those trying to transcend the beastly idiocy of man beyond its physical attacks the moon presence also displays a mastery over the arcane being able to transform parts of the nightmare into blood blood echoes and vice versa it can use its arcane attacks to drain the hunter's will to fight by reducing their hp to one and prevent their ability to heal with blood vials though the fight isn't very challenging mechanically the powers of moon presence exhibits are still quite considerable from a lower perspective killing the moon presence causes the nightmare slain text to appear in a reign of blood rather than getting a stereotypically good ending we're treated to one of the most disconcerting cutscenes in any game a small slug-like creature can be seen squirming on the ground in the hunter's dream after a moment the doll will pick it up and ask the hunter if they're cold we have turned into an infant great one by defeating the moon presence and halting the source of the spreading scourge of beasts the hunter has ended the hunt but this has left many wondering what that means do we just replace the moon presence and start the cycle over again fundamentally it's left to the individual player to decide there's reason to believe the hunter's transcension into a great one might be greater than that of the moon presence or other great ones if the umbilical cords represent the union of blood and insight then we should attain a body and mind capable of bearing cosmic enlightenment with this perspective it could be taken as a positive ending with the hunter potentially being a benevolent force that will lift humanity into its next evolution if one is more fatalistic and believes the note and the lecture all about wretched evolution being the ruin of our race then the transformation of the hunter could be taken negatively the cycle of the hunt may be inevitable and the hunter may go on to replace the moon presence similar to replacing gearman in the honoring wishes ending some don't like either interpretation and would prefer their character not transform at all i completely understand and can appreciate those sentiments but i think a question bloodborne wants the player to ask themselves is this if in order to transcend humanity it meant you had to leave your humanity behind would you do it thank you for watching this video i hope you enjoyed it i know there's still much i didn't touch on in the interest of saving time but i hope it helped clear up some of the mysteries surrounding the game if you enjoyed it please consider liking it or subscribing to my channel why i intend to release more bloodborne related content in the future farewell good hunter may you find your worth in the waking world fear the old lore

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Views: 261,789

Rating: 4.9399943 out of 5

Keywords: fear, the, old, lore, fear the old lore, bloodborne, from, software, hidetaka, miyazaki, fromsoft, games, willem, laurence, paleblood, moon presence, gehrman, doll, rom, vacuous, spider, idiot, great one, transcension, transcend, hunt, beast, beasts, hunter, hunters, story, plot, narrative, mystery, seek, search, quest, lost, in, translation, lost in translation, bloodborne's, explained, bloodborne's story, third, cord, umbilical cord, third eye, yharnam, mergo, mergo's, crying, wet nurse, bloodborne lore, bloodborne's lore

Id: fZQP3rjBA7o

Length: 36min 51sec (2211 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Palmfreight]

Holy Old Blood! This is so fleshed out and explained very well! I have gained so much more insight into what truly is the story of bloodborne. I don’t really want to compare both this video and other bloodborne lore vids such as Vaatvidya’s and choose which one is right because both are very good and well-thought out vids. God i love more Bloodborne content especially ones that explain the lore. Well done Fellow Hoonter!

[u/therealscenic]

Very cool. I love that even after an in depth 30+ min video, alot of the plot is still very open for personal interpretation. Best soulsbourne game. Absolutely love BB lore.

I really enjoyed the japanese interpretations. Very insightful 👈😎👈

Thanks!