Bloodborne: A Theme Analysis
Mar. 23, 2016Bloodborne: A Theme Analysis
As I was playing theOld Hunters DLCforBloodborne, I came to realize something interesting about the theme of it, and certainly of the themes of the entire game, and that is the illusion of purpose that the hunters have and how the oppression and dire circumstances they are in drive them to keep fighting even though, if they just took a moment to think about what they were doing, they could see the insanity of it, similar to Djura. The hunters are employed to clear the scourge of beasts, to kill this never ending horde of monsters and because of the blood they use to help them in this, they themselves either become monsters, and if not they simply eventually die or go mad and get caught up in a never ending hunt of a nightmare. I think this even says something about the player too. If you keep fighting and fighting endlessly it can lead to an ending where you get stuck in the Hunter’s Dream, or even get “reborn” as a Great One, which is not something you actually choose and it’s arguable if that’s even a good thing. But if you finally give in at the end and let yourself die, you get to wake up the next morning, having survived and still being human.
The thing is, in the heat of the moment, all you can think about is to keep going, to keep progressing, to keep fighting because you have to kill the next hideous monster, but there’s no real end to them, ever. In the process of this eventually the purpose itself becomes only to fight. It’s not even about solving anything or saving anything, but just simply looking for more battles to fight because each battle is it’s own purpose. This is very clearly illustrated in the Chalice Dungeons whose only reward really is more powerful monsters, tougher fights, and tools to make you stronger in those fights. You can keep going on and on but the only real ending is actually stopping, being satisfied with what you have done and walking away. If you don’t it simply goes on forever, just like the hunters in the nightmare who spend every moment hunting.
I feel like the creators wanted to show the player this and confront them with a question about the value of continuing on endlessly instead of moving on. Several NPC storylines go along with this theme. Djura, who made the arguably right choice to stop. Eileen, whose story ends with her being either seemingly fatally wounded or losing her mind. Alfred who ends up committing suicide once his purpose ends, Simon, Brador, Henryk, Gascoigne, all of them die, turn into monsters themselves or continue to kill to fulfill their purpose.
In fact, those hunters who cling to their purpose the longest without questioning it are the ones who in the end become the most monstrous both literally and figuratively. Ludwig has obviously killed many, many beasts, that is to say transformed humans, and aren’t mass murderers called beasts and monsters already? At the end of his road not only must he have killed countlessly, he himself even became a monster in physical form and continued killing. Djura is one of the only examples of someone escaping the cycle, and shows that is IS possible to walk away, but very few can soften their hearts enough to actually do it. As much as I think the gameplay of Souls-like games is about learning the importance of not giving up, I feel like this game is trying to get you to look at yourself as a player participating in it’s world, and what that could mean.
So, I was talking about how Hunters would get so caught up in the danger and the job right in front of them that they couldn’t see anything else. They couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Djura is the only example of stepping back and looking at the whole picture, or at least, the portion of the picture he could see. Thing is, it’s not just the Hunters. You see, there’s a way of thinking when it comes to devoting yourself to something, whether academic, artistic, or whatever, that is to work for the sake of the work itself, because working for the sake of recognition or reward or what have you has problems as you can actually reach points where you feel done, and stop improving, or even worse, you can get that recognition or reward and feel like everything has lost it’s meaning since you’ve achieved that goal. So, working for the sake of the work is much better than this, as you won’t stop improving and learning. However, even this has problems as shown by a different group of people in this game.
The scholars of Byrgenwerth, the members of the Choir, and Yahar’Gul were all working for the sake of their work. Though they had different goals, were blinded by different things and were looking at different things, they all had the same problem. In the Scholar’s case, they were blinded by their pursuit and hunger of knowledge. It consumed them and they eventually became transformed madmen. A sort of beast who hungers for knowledge instead of blood. The Choir too were focusing only on how they could get closer to being Great Ones as quickly as possible and damned everything else around them for their own goals, essentially dooming an entire city. Yahar’Gul and it’s sect obviously caused some sort of disaster killing tons in the process of achieving their goals towards ascending to the dream world. Thing is, none of these people took a moment to ask:
“Why are we doing this?”
“What does humanity actually gain from this?”
“How will we grow from this pursuit?”
and “What kind of long lasting consequences or results will this have?”
And you see, I think those are very important life questions that any person should ask themselves, the players who are playing the game included. I think the better thing to do is not work for recognition, not work for the sake of work, but work for the sake of humbly improving yourself and humanity. Achievement is great, but being absorbed in one thing and becoming blind to everything else around you can be problematic. This game shows multi ple examples on multiple fronts of how bad things turn if everyone is doing that. It ain’t pretty. So, I think the game itself is asking us those same questions. It’s just up to the player to answer, consider, or even ignore it if they so wish.
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Gasarocky
Interestingly they become more aggressive when there’s a lot of them.
When their numbers dwindle they become cowardly again.
Very interesting is how MANY monsters dont attack player especially at the DLC. In first location for example—its around 20 Beast Patients. I’ve been walking around with many of them curiously following me, not going too close because of fear of my cane and smell of the hunter, but still far away from being aggressive to me. I was focused to defend them against mad bloodthirsty old hunters, rather than “blood-blindedly” (invented word) killing them as well.
Well, thing is, the article isn’t so much a lore discussion as it is a discussion of the themes of the game relative to real issues humans face in life. But just thinking about it now, I imagine he is/was similar in his pursuit of his goals.
I think it depends on what you believe his backstory to actually be but it certainly feels like he had some obsession with Maria which may have even led to the creation of the dream and as an unfortunate result, him being stuck there. Which of course we learn he isn’t happy about at all, as we can find him weeping, wishing to be saved. He too was too focused on something to think about the repercussions of his actions.
And that’s really the point of the article as a whole, that so many people in Yharnam focused only on the goal right in front of them and didn’t think about consequences. And living like that made many, many people pay the price, many of which were probably even innocent, to some degree at least.
So how do you see Gehrman fitting into all this/his perspective and role in your article?
Ooooh, I see what you meant now, yeah certainly it’s similar. I mean, luckily as people seeing a message about this sort of thing outside of truly dire, life-threatening circumstances, we can take it in and think about it calmly, but certainly for someone who is actually in such circumstances, it’s not anywhere near that easy, and I would imagine basically impossible for most people.
Still, I think being able to be confronted with such a topic while having the time to think about it is a good thing, and certainly is an awesome thing about Bloodborne, or any such piece of media that can cause the person interacting with it to think
As you described the Hunter will focus in on the task at hand of defeating more and more powerful enemies. During times of War and Trauma something similar happens. It can be focusing on the next target for a soldier, sorting through rubble for a rescue worker, counting the days for a prisoner, etc.
Often in times of Trauma a persons mind will shut down and focus on the task at hand until they are safe and away from the trauma. Sometimes even getting PTSD afterwards, but their mind shutting down like this is what preserved them in the first place. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to complete said tasks to survive.
Truly an excellent write up!
Very well reasoned and thought out!
Thanks for the great read!
Exactly. “Everyone else attacked me first, so I’m just defending myself, screw them.” But if you just go along with that thinking without doing any kind of digging for understanding, I don’t think it ever ends well
How so? I’m not familiar
Nice Article. What you describe sounds similar to the Shock Trauma victims experience.
I agree wholeheartedly.
It’s very hard to find a hunter in Bloodborne that knows what fight he’s fighting and who he’s killing.You can get all Umbilical Cords, unlock all the endings, kill every boss, get every weapon…You’ll still be none the wiser on what you’ve done.
I killed monsters I tell myself. I mean they must have been monsters because they attacked me first.
With important exceptions like Rom…
And assuming I’m not insane to the point I’m imagining them attacking me…
What’s with all the eyes I’m seeing anyway…
