Bloodborne
Bloodborne
Entered by Cameron Olson (Spoilers ahead, sorry.)
Introduction
Bloodborne is a lovecraftian-esque roleplaying action game developed by FromSoftware with direction from Hidetaka Miyazaki, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2015. Months later in the same year, a DLC was released titled The Old Hunters. It is contained to Playstation 4 & 5 and is locked at a 30 frame-per-second limit. For years, fans have constantly wanted some new form of media for Bloodborne, being either a remaster/remake or a sequel, though none have been offered by Sony. As such, the fanbase has taken it upon themselves to release a PC Emulator in late of 2024, which is illegal. Various other fanmade projects have been made in recent years, however they have been either changed or deleted entirely due to copyright issues.
The story unfolds as you, a Hunter, explore the forsaken city of Yharnam—a town which has recently become the unfortunate centrefold for a bestial plague, the undead, and cosmic horrors beyond the comprehension of our fragile human minds. It follows a “cryptic narrative” (Mukherjee, 1) and “makes thematic use of environmental design” (Younis, Fedtke, 311) which requires you to invest time into studying the world through clever item descriptions, notes left behind, gothic architecture, and elusive dialogue to discover the eldritch truth. Each level ends in a boss fight designed to challenge your knowledge of the game and its mechanics so far. The game reaches further than just Yharnam’s borders. With thorough exploration, one can find themselves facing a massive, haunted, winter castle, dark, snake-infested forests, nightmarish dreamscapes, and labyrinthine tombs deep beneath the ground. Bloodborne has a variety of unique mechanics, such as the insight system, where you gain insight by encountering bosses and things you are not meant to see—and the trick weapons you can utilize in different ways to have an entire range of different viable builds during playthroughs that are able to transform into two forms, essentially giving you 2-for-1’s.
Autoethnographic Component
Bloodborne is undisputedly my favorite game of all time. Even though I have played it countless times, I always find myself coming back to it. It’s one of the main driving factors that made me join the goth subculture, and have an extensive passion for period pieces and horror, precisely body and cosmic horror. I am absolutely in love with it. I first got into it back when it came out in 2015, when I watched my dad play it. I’d seen him play Dark Souls before then, and also love those games to death, but Bloodborne was something different for me. At the time I had no idea what it was about, because I was 9, but I decided to play it some years later and was blown away. The gameplay is what stood out to me the most at the time. I’m such a huge fan of the fast-paced combat and the ability to transform your weapons into two different forms—so awesome. Over the years I bought the FuturePress Official Guidebook, got invested in the lore by watching numerous videos on YouTube and fan-theories on Reddit, played it with friends, and even wrote fan stories set within the world. A memory that really stands out for me while playing this is encountering the first mandatory boss, Father Gascoigne. Up until that point, the only things the player fights are these sort of slow-moving townsfolk and various animal-esque monsters such as dogs, crows, and werewolves. Gascoigne, like us, is a Hunter—however, one who is slowly succumbing to the beast-blood scourge. Having to fight another ‘character’ like us with fast-paced movements and a transformable weapon gives us the first little hint into what’s really happening with the citizens of Yharnam. “This makes him a particularly effective first boss, as he serves as a cautionary tale and an introduction to Bloodborne’s themes.” (Zullie, 0:50) Outside of being personally connected to it, I think it really matters because of its storytelling. I’ve rarely come across a game that is able to portray so many different tropes and themes while not outright describing or telling the player everything that's happening, as well as having so many connections to real life ranging between the landscape and architecture, the dialogue spoken by NPCs, the clothing, and the various objects such as medical tools, weapons, and books et cetera throughout the world, all with incredible historical accuracy pertaining to the dark and beautiful Victorian setting.
Body Horror Through Medical Science and Physics
One of the main, central themes of Bloodborne is the formidable presence of body horror. Body horror is one of—if not my favorite—themes in the genre. Body horror in Bloodborne is birthed from two forms of sciences: medical/biology, and physics. Before you make your way through the game’s city streets, there was an organization known as The Healing Church. They delved into ancient tombs beneath Yharnam, where they found special blood which could be used to heal the townspeople, in a process of blood ministration. This was—unbeknownst to them—the blood from a Great One, which are Cthulhuian “gods” in the world of Bloodborne. So, of course, anyone who received this special blood was transformed into a monstrous, lycanthropic beast. “We have a natural appreciation for symmetry, a balance in proportions…” (Cruz, 165) and in Bloodborne, all sense of symmetry is gone. Things that are asymmetrical, especially living organisms, usually create a heightened sense of disgust or fear. It isn’t just the enemies that are disproportionate, but the architecture and statues found throughout as well. Without fighting enemies, you still are told that something isn’t right with the city, and hasn’t been for a long time.
The Healing Church, at some point, subdivided into two sects: The Choir and The School of Mensis, both with different aims. The Choir conducted experiments to try and evolve humanity, and the scholars of Mensis wanted to understand and commune with the Great Ones. Aside from the werewolves spawned from the “old blood”, the Choir’s experiments on humans involved taking people and implanting small parasitic celestial slugs in their brains to try and ‘evolve’ them—instead turning them into Brainsuckers: zombie-like thralls that have a thirst for your knowledge, with tentacles emerging from their faces, that are capable of using magic. Some of these experiments—patients which can be seen in the Research Hall—are somewhat more successful in evolution, and instead of tentacles bear large, swollen, shapeless heads which are very reminiscent of hydrocephalus, a disease which can be contracted by certain parasites. Students of Mensis, in their efforts to try and perform a ritual to summon a Great One through the use of lights, mirrors, and reflective liquid to make portals, “...turned into mercury monsters precisely because they worked with mercury day after day in their study of optics.” (Archaeologist, 14:08-14:14) Throughout the profaned city of Yahar'gul, you may find small liquid mirrors which can be used to transport yourself to different sections of the township.
Lycanthropic Superstitions & Potential Symbolism
Although it's a small part of the lore shrouded beneath the veil, superstition actually plays an interesting part in Yharnam's history. When the scourge—and subsequently the hunt—first began, it was a common widespread belief that the disease spread through the right leg, evidenced by the description of the Old Hunter Trousers, a piece of attire one can find in the DLC of the game. "“Old hunter trousers that protected countless hunters from the beasts in an older age. A widespread belief of the period was that "beast blood crept up the right leg", and this led to the double-wrapped belt.” Aside from this, nearly all—if not every—piece of legwear relative to the hunters of Yharnam in the game have a brace of some kind on the right leg. Gehrman, an old hunter—and the first—is missing his right leg, further adding belief to the superstition. The Hunter, your player-character, injects themselves with blood through the right leg. Another belief was that the curse could be kept at bay through using certain metals. The Decorative Old Hunter Trousers description reads "Old Hunter Garb decorated with brass trinkets. At the time, some hunters believed that certain metals would ward off beast blood. On a night of the hunt, it is no wonder that people would resort to superstition.” In real-world mythologies, silver affects many creatures, especially those of the undead, and werewolves. The silver argument is interesting, considering our form of ammunition are quicksilver bullets. Another interesting thing about this is that we can draw these bullets out of ourselves by sacrificing a portion of our health, or blood. This means that our blood has silver in it of some kind, or, that we are pale-blooded.
So, with all this evidence, how does this false belief of how the scourge travels actually have some truth to it? Well, the scourge spreads through wherever blood is injected. Not just the right leg. This superstition was spread probably because hunters commonly use their right legs as a form of “tactical” healing, it’s easy to access on the go. Because all these hunters injected themselves over and over, they found themselves becoming beastlike first at the source of the injection-site: the leg. A handful of enemies in the game—namely the Huntsmen—have noticeably longer, and hairier, left arms than their rights. This could be because it’s easier, or perhaps safer, to administer blood to the non-dominant arm. In the concept art for the player-character before they become a hunter and start using their leg as the administration site, their left forearm is wrapped in bandages and even has a tube going into the vein. The glove attire is also, simply, a bandage on the left forearm. This tube can even be seen in-game if inspected with a keen eye. During the opening cutscene, after given the blood by the minister, a monstrous lycanthrope crawls out of a pool of blood sprawling across the ground, and attempts to reach you before lit into flames and killed, before you are overtaken by the small, pallid messengers. This cutscene, of course, is the representation of you overcoming the curse of the beast plague through the infected blood, and claimed by the Moon Presence to become a… “moon-scented hunter.” A few things I noticed with some in-game items that I find neat are with the Beast Claw weapon: the right claw when transformed is a prosthetic, handheld claw carved from beast-bones. The left hand, however, is an actual beastial hand. This contrast could be a representation of man vs. beast. This can also be seen in the boss design for the Cleric Beast, whose left arm is excessively larger than the latter. The left gauntlet of the Charred Hunter’s set is made to... look like a claw. There is a piece of armor for the Henryk set, the leggings, which have one strap on each leg. This could be because Henryk, the old hunter, knew that it didn’t matter which limb the beasthood came from, as long as it was—in some way—tightened off. The discarded, forgotten corpses in the sewers all have both of their legs amputated. Hmm… Both of these limbs, the leg and the arm, share very interesting religious symbolisms. Even the Beast-possessed Soul enemy looks like Baphomet! The right thigh holds meaning associated with strength and authority, which could be why many hunters decide to use it for their healing transfusions. After all, the first hunters were started by the Healing Church, so it's safe to say their religious beliefs transferred over to how they healed themselves. In religion, more so western esotericism, the left hand—or claw—being non-dominant or widely accepted as lesser, is seen as malicious, occult, evil, satanic.
Cosmic Influence of H.P. Lovecraft
It's no secret that Bloodborne's major influences were the many works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. They are seen in almost everything within the game, especially the monsters. Although I myself—admittedly—have only read a small handful of his stories, and have yet to completely immerse myself beneath the waves of his work, I've done my research. The Gods of Bloodborne, the Great Ones, are "[especially] reminiscent of cosmic entities from H.P. Lovecraft’s oeuvre, pointing to an aspect of reality that is completely outside our grasp." (Sen, 421) One Reddit user, Fenrirman, says that an enemy type in the game, a Garden of Eyes, "...kind of remind me of the Mi-Go, an alien race featured in Lovecraft's 'The Whisperer in Darkness'," however, I personally don't see it. There are other monsters in Bloodborne that look very similar to Cthulhu, those being (off the top of my head) the Brainsuckers, the Nightmare Executioners, and the Amygdala. In The Call of Cthulhu, there is a R'lyehian verse "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn," which translates to "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming." This suggests that although the Gods might be dead, their consciousnesses remain alive. Something similar like this happens in Bloodborne, pertaining to the nightmare ritual of Mensis, where the scholars used the umbilical cord of the infant Great One, Mergo in an attempt to contact his cosmic relatives. Mergo, in the waking world, is dead. However, in the Nightmare of Mensis, his consciousness lives on. The most influential of his works was the short story, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, which is argued as his best piece of work, however unfortunately being an allegory for Lovecraft's view on race-mixing. The final area of the Old Hunters DLC is a stormy, depressive fishing hamlet filled with depraved fishmen, which is the setting for the short story. There are two main, encompassing collections of work, those being the Cthulhu Mythos, and the Dream Cycle which are both heavy influences for Bloodborne through the cosmic entities and the blurring line between reality, dreams, and nightmares. One of the more prominent references to Lovecraft is the Milkweed Rune, which one can acquire after completing Adeline's quest in the Research Hall. It's symbol can be made out as "H.P." There are many more references to be made, but for the sake of word count I will leave them to your own disclosure.
Nightmarish Maternity and Religious Connections
The most prominent theme in Bloodborne is motherhood, and with it, the fear of giving birth. It’s the central driving factor of the story. Numerous characters set within the game are mothers, both human and celestial. The Great Ones cannot bear children without resulting in stillbirth, and as such, seek surrogates to carry their offspring. This information is given to us through the description of the One Third of Umbilical Cord, an item needed to access one of the endings of the game, the one in which we fight the nameless Moon Presence. “Every Great One loses its child, and then yearns for a surrogate.” There are two characters in the game we can talk to, whose stories if progressed properly, result in pregnancy through commune with the Great Ones: Arianna, and Iosefka—or rather her imposter. Because the mere thought of being impregnated without knowing by a God is so unbearable, both of these characters lose their minds to insanity. This “event” is caused by the reveal of the Red Moon. A sort of illusion is cast upon the city of Yharnam which hides the Red Moon from those with little insight. When our character breaks that illusion after killing Rom the Vacuous Spider, the curtain that conceals the Red Moon is drawn, and the citizens become aware and succumb to the madness, as told by a prophecy found in the game. “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.” This idea can be connected to the trope of the monstrous womb in Barbara Creed’s book, The Monstrous-Feminine. “The idea that woman in her mothering role is transformed into a human/animal figure is represented very strongly in The Brood, and in other horror films, such as Aliens where the generative mother is literally a creature and the ‘human’ mother is a surrogate…” (Creed, 184-85) There are other instances of motherhood in Bloodborne, those being with Queen Yharnam, who is not human but Pthumerian, and a surrogate as well who had “her” child, Mergo, ripped from her womb (presumably by the Healing Church in their quest for audience with the Great Ones through the Mensis ritual), and the Great One Kos whose child we fight at the end of the fishing hamlet. Kos’ maternity is interesting, because in the Nightmare, although she is dead, an orphaned child still crawls out of her corpse. Of course in reality, the child was stillborn, much like Mergo, with the mind still remaining alive. This child does not look like a child, but a fully-grown man. Fans of the game have theorized that the Orphan of Kos could be a nightmare representation of Gehrman, the First Hunter, as the Orphan’s cry is nearly identical to Gehrman’s which can be heard in a rare dialogue option. This would also explain the maturity of the child. The Hunter's Nightmare after all is a punishment, a sort of purgatory, created by the conscious mind of Kos or her child to trap the dreaming minds of the Old Hunters after they committed some sort of injustice in the hamlet. (Possibly an involvement in Kos' death.)
This theme of these women—more importantly Queen Yharnam—being impregnated by the Great Ones can be directly connected to the scenes of The Annunciation, The Nativity, and Pieta—the life cycle of Jesus Christ in various western religions. In the game, "[The Madonna] is shown countless times in statues, lintels, and reliefs throughout the city." (Archaeologist, 15:46-15:50) The Madonna is of course the mother of a divine child, much like the many mothers depicted in Bloodborne. Environmental storytelling is extraordinary in this game. There are other statues and such within the game which depict scenes of characters staring skyward, especially with their noses upturned, which is a direct correlation with the Moon Presence. The Hunter, our character, is "moon-scented," which offers the idea of the Moon having a certain distinguishable smell. The characters in these statues are very likely staring up at God—or for the sake of the game—a Great One, likely the Moon Presence. This is in direct relation with Mary being visited by the angel Gabriel in The Annunciation. These mourning statues are more obscurely related to the sad tale of Queen Yharnam, as she mourns the death of her child, Mergo. They are even both looking up to whatever presence is looking back. These connections between the statues may be telling that the Moon Presence is actually the Great One who impregnated the Queen with Mergo, though many fans suspect that the formless Oedon was the Great One who did so. (The omnipresent true "God" of Bloodborne's lore.)
A little side-relation I want to make a note about, still relative to the connection between maternity and religion, the cutscene where our character meets the Moon Presence bears similarities with The Creation of Adam, painted by Michelangelo. The Creation of Adam symbolizes life being transferred from God to Man, as is what happens at the end of the game (for the "Childhood's Beginning" ending.) After we kill the Moon Presence, we essentially absorb its power—along with the Umbilical Cords we must consume—and become a slug-like Great One child ourselves, perhaps either the child of the Moon Presence, or its reincarnation. The Moon is our mother, and we are our own surrogate.
Gameplay Video: The Music of Bloodborne
Citations
- Mukherjee, Hiranya. “‘Fear the Old Blood’: The Gothicism of Bloodborne.” Games and Culture 19, no. 1 (February 12, 2023): 94-115.
- Younis, Aya, and Jana Fedtke. “‘You’ve Been Living Here for as Long as You Can Remember’: Trauma in Omori’s Environmental Design.” Games and Culture 19, no. 3 (March 15, 2023): 309–36.
- Zullie the Witch “Why Bloodborne’s First Boss Is One of Its Best.” YouTube, (February 1, 2022): 3:34.
- Cruz, Ronald Allan. “Mutations and Metamorphoses: Body Horror Is Biological Horror.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 40, no. 4 (October 2012): 160–68.
- The Tarnished Archaeologist “What is the Mensis Ritual Anyway? | Bloodborne Archaeology Ep. 3.” YouTube, (October 21, 2023): 33:18.
- Sen, Aabir. “‘We’re All Mad Here!’: Becoming God in Bloodborne.” Games and Culture 19, no. 4 (April 2, 2023): 419-32.
- Fenrirman. “Since people have already mentioned the classics, I'll try pointing out different stories.” Reddit, (October 20, 2015): https://www.reddit.com/r/bloodborne/comments/3piyqr/what_lovecraft_books_inspiredinfluenced_bloodborne/
- Creed, Barbara. “The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis.” Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. (2024): 648.
- The Tarnished Archaeologist "The Secret Religion of Old Yharnam | Bloodborne Archaeology Ep. 1." YouTube, (August 5, 2023): 33:33.
AI Disclosure & Appendix
No artificial intelligence of any kind was used in the making of this wiki entry.