Dalisclock said:
There's one thing you forgot. Gerhman. It's not made incredibly obvious, but Gerhman is trapped there and apparently has been for a very long time. Accept the Sunrise ending by letting him kill you and he stays there. At least in the other endings he's released from the dream, even if that means you either take his place as caretaker or become something not even human.
It's unclear why Gerhman can't just kill himself to end it, but maybe the dream requires someone else has to do it for you, else you just wake up in the same place again and again.
Gehrman is why I point to the idea that Yharnam is not the first, and won't be the last. I even hint at the idea that Yharnam is destined to become part of the Chalice dungeons. Its interconnected depths and the secrets within waiting for others in the future. Built over and its secrets over the figurative and literal sands of time and other civilizations that have come and gone. Much like Ailing Loran.
All of this has happened before, it will happen again. And that fits in well with the idea of recurring dreams and the ever deepening dungeons beneath.
And the fact that if you accept the sunrise ending, you are miraculously healed. And that's what you'll remember... though tinged slightly by the fact that you are now a ticking time bomb waiting to become a beast yourself given you have forfeited your right to higher understanding in favour of accepting the blood and its curative properties.
And Gehrman will be there. Waiting still for others to hunt you as word and the secrets of blood ministration passes on to another civilization that has observed your miraculous recovery when you return home to your foreign land.
It's even hinted in the DLC that the knowledge of the Old Blood, and Blood Ministration and the Beastly Scourge, is spreading ...
Gehrman is adopted by the Moon Presence. The Hunter's Dream exists for a painful macabre of finding suitable heirs of the Great Ones. Gehrman is, in tragedy, adopted by the Moon Presence.
In truth his body is likely no different than the state we found Micolash's ...
Once you kill Gehrman, that's it ... I'm thinking the reason why Gerhman can't kill himself is because the Moon Presence would just bring him back. Just like she does with you.
In essence death in the Hunter's Dream itself is its own form of death of the self.
And if you decide to destroy Gehrman, he realizes what he must do ... he must save you from yourself. Gehrman is trapped there, likely has no real body left in a state to return, he just wants to die. But for him, it's final ... and the Moon Presence won't let him leave. Right up until you prove yourself his better ...
To put it buntly .... Gerhman is merely doing what you had done for Micolash.
By you denying Gerhman, it is no different than Micolash and his School of Mensis. And thus, just like you did ... Gerhman is resolute in the necessity of your destruction in the Hunter's Dream.
This is why if you let Gehrman kill you you
survive the night. It's not like that for Gehrman. I think Gehrman realizes that he's already passed on outside the dream. But for you? Well, you're still dreaming. You can be saved.
Right until the Moon Presence sees you're a worthy successor... You've proven you're the correct person to continue the Hunter's Dream and the eternal pursuit to find worthy successors of humanity to either replace you, or perhaps ... just perhaps ... inherit the title of a Great One should you assume its mantle.
This is why as an infant Great One, you will be the first to help lead humanity to its further evolution. The Hunter's Dream is yours to wield. Not a slave to it, nor as a temporary sufferer of it ... oh no. It's
yours, and what you do with it will have grave consequences for all of existence.
This is why I say the sunrise ending is perhaps the best one. You learn that some secrets aren't worth having, and you do so in time to save your humanity and save yourself by relinquishing that pursuit. You save yourself from either assuming the Moon Presence's mantle, and you save yourself from simply being a slave like "child" of it ...
Right up until the blood drives you mad at the raising of another Long Night, that is ... but
for now you are saved.
You can be like Eileen or Djura. It also makes Djura's reason for protecting the 'inhabitants' of Old Yharnam all the more relateable ... it's also why Eileen focusses on the hunting of
other hunters. She at the start sees herself in you, and she sees how you might become if you let Gehrman save you. In essence, Eileen is the PC who has already made the choice ... and the fact that if you aid her she dies a woman who was neither enslaved by the Great Ones, nor as a beast-lost hunter ... and for that alone she's grateful.
In essence, Eileen and Djura are the two sides of the coin that the PC may land on assuming they
choose to survive the Hunter's Dream.
But both of them share an understanding of the threat that Hunters become ... and are willing to fight that, even if it means their end.
This is why I reckon in
Bloodborne you're
actually playing the antagonist.
Probably one of the best written 'villains' in videogaming.
Your character is hypocritical, self obsessed with power, and unearthing secrets that are provenly disastrous regardless of the moral question of whether they should be unearthed. You're not really interested in 'wisdom' ... you're no different from a beast yourself towards the end.
Your character is the proof that immorality can be banal and subliminal.
Gehrman is merely acting in the same way you do to Micolash, so to fight him rather than realize from Micolash's example of just what your humanity you're risking ... the gravity of the threats of pursuing this line of inquiry has to the rest of humanity ... by refusing him you're giving in to the most self-destructive aspects of human behaviour. Gehrman is acting from a position of """power""" to control who rules and what passes muster in the Hunter's Dream ... he has no reason to trust you or to let you stay if you refuse to recognize
he is trying to save you from yourself.
What happens to all those Djuras and Eileens when he is forced to pass the torch to a relentless, immoral, bloodthirsty hunter that is a match for anything the world can throws at them and seems unfazed by all the torments that can be imagined ... death after death after brutal death you do not back down ... you do not question your actions ... you do not even allow yourself an end to the fighting ...
You're the T-1000, and you
love it.
And you do it all without even a real
humanly acceptable and rational purpose. And if you do not let Gerhman save you from that... you'll end up as ultimately inept and powerless as he is ... or worse, just imagine what you will be like when you have s guiding hand in shaping humanity ...
Gehrman's Hunter's Dream is a replica of the hidden chapter in the flesh. Gerhman is the price a hunter who communes with the Great Ones for that guidance. Their sympathies boundless but alien to human wellbeing.
Gehrman recognizes that ... but in you and
your Hunter's Dream ... that is infinitely more frightening than the salvation you can offer him by replacing him and letting him rest in peace. And he sees that in you the moment you refuse to relinquish your power and much of your pursuit of the Eldritch Truth ... The game even storyline wise incentivizes you relinquishing control. Giving you gold coins and telling you; "Once the night is over you can perhaps spend these..."
But the game artfully evades any direct game reward for collecting them... so the player never takes it into consideration...
It signals in a way your character is slowly losing grips to their humanity ...
Why did you come to Yharnam? For a cure for the plague ravaging your homeland. That is understandably human... why you refuse Gerhman to rejoin your sanity and kinfolk? Because you've lost sight of yourself in the madness
and you like it.
This is why when you refuse his mercy, he says something along the lines of; "Oh dear ... what was it? The hunt? The blood? The horrible dreams? It doesn't matter ..." He talks to you as if you're an addict and a beast, as if disappointed and relishes in the idea that he can rightfully pursue the Hunt even in the place where he is bound for eternity.
Disappointed, yes... but hunting beasts is something he craves, and he can see the beast within you.
The Hunter's Dream is burning down because the Long Night is almost over ... Gerhman is nearing the end of his duties. The Moon Presence has listened to his pleas and recruited you to be give him a bit of closure ... but by destroying Gehrman, you
prolong it and by doing so the Moon Presence either listens to your desires and embraces you ... or you destroy the Moon Presence, and you become the arbiter of humanity's now ever darker destiny.
All Great Ones lose a child, and long for a surrogate ... why would you be any different after becoming one yourself?
Hence why I say the Sunrise ending is the 'best' ending. In terms of perhaps the morality behind it, IMHO.
Hence why in passing Gerhnam reminds you to
fear the old blood ... at least hoping, maybe, this time will be different.
But all of that ... all of it ... is for naught if you refuse, or you assume the mantle of demigodhood.
And keep in mind, there's a reason why I think you play the antagonist, the villain of the story ... in the DLC, in the Hunter's Nightmare, which is a curse upon the Byrgenwerth Scholars and their children, and their children's children (meaning the Churches, then the leagues of Hunters that come after) ... there is a Hunter just like you that remarks your sanity. He tells you to turn back, unless you've an interest in nightmares.
You tell him you don't, and he rewards your lack of inquisitiveness and remarks that is 'as it should be' ... but if you tell him you do have an interest, it all changes.
He tells you that you are as if the spirit of Byrgenwerth reborn, the curiosity within you as you search out for secrets to be unearthed that should remain buried and never brought to light.
And just like the Byrgenwerth Scholars, you maim and plunder ... and you realize the curse of the hidden fishing village was to target beastial hunters such as yourself in the process. If you slaughter the nightmare, you free Maria and Gehrman from it.
Symbolizing that Gehrman is himself a beastly hunter destined for that plane of existence if not for the intercession of the Moon Presence. The fact that you can save yourself from the Nightmare realm of the blood-driven hunters is all too apparent. That the secrets should remain buried, and if you do not ... well that is the price of such horrid curiosity that awaits you.
Eileen and Djura are probably the only Hunters I can think of that escape this twist of fate for a reason, and only by surviving the night can you hope to live up to their example of their humanity that hasn't been driven out of them by such infernal curiosity.
And there's a reason for that ... unlike them, you still have your insatiable desire for power and for knowledge.
As Lady Maria puts it; "How the secrets beckon so sweetly..." and "A corpse should well be left alone..." remarking not on her entrapment in the dream, nor her own body, but the curse laid down of the blood and the damnable pursuit for answers to the unknown of the Great Ones ... and her case, the actions taken in defiling the bodies of the fishing hamlet.
As I was saying, the PC acts not out of good intentions or desperation. Arguably a sane person, and a decent one at that, should have used the powers of the dreaming to leave the city. To flee, or to destroy the knowledge of Byrgenwerth and to burn it down till it's nothing but ash.
But you don't do that. As per the words of the hunters with some semblance of humanity and sanity remaining to them, they tell you to leave the place well alone. They tell you repeatedly that some secrets are not meant to be unearthed.
But you ignore them, and you ignore them to a bitter end. They were not telling you these things to save themselves. They are already damned. They are telling you this
because there is a hope of your salvation not to make the same mistakes.
But you make them, you repeat what they did, by refusing to forget most of what you have learnt.
The Sunrise ending is the
only one that leads the player to be able to continue to be human andnot be shackled by fate. The Sunrise ending is the only one with a definite, very clear definition of salvation in the form of Djura and Eileen.
It represents the salvation that you can have. That you
still have a chance of it. And you'd be
positively mad not to take it.
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And on that note...
This is principally why I murder Master Willem on each of my playthroughs now. The bastard does not deserve to live. The bastard does not deserve to be hidden from the monsters he helped to create. Rom, the vacuous spider, hides Byrgenwerth and some church members from people. She keeps Master Willem safe and cosy.
"Rom keeps our lost master hidden from us..."
This is why they fight you once you pierce the illusion.
The bastard deserves to die.
In the research hall, you see a much younger Master Willem autopsying the defiled bodies recovered at the fishing hamlet as represented by the statues and altar you use to ascend the hall.
It also paints Master Lawrence in a different light.
It also paints in my head the key reason for the creation of the Caryll runes. In their description Master Willem would have been proud of the Caryll runes ... representing the idea that Caryll split off from Byrgenwerth with good reasons and had no intentions with reconnecting with the organization.
While Master Willem was defiling and experimenting on the people from the fishing hamlet...
Master Lawrence, at least, tried to use the research to help other people. Perhaps due to the suffering and pain caused by Master Willem and the 'First Hunters' of Byrgenwerth.
The old bastard deserves to die, and everything he created deserves to be lost to history save for the anger of those wronged by Byrgenwerth and the terrible knowledge uncovered.
Gerhman suffers rightfully. He bought his first class ticket to Hell, and sympathies should be limited solely to the fact that he doesn't suffer the Hunter's Nightmare instead as he ought to. But at least,
at least, he recognizes in you the chance for salvation he cannot, and should never, earn for himself.
He belongs in that prison. And so do you if you choose not to end the Long Night, but rather continue to spill blood.
And the game suggests this itself. After you defeat Lady Maria, the Plain Doll remarks that her shackles have been undone through destruction of the curse placed by the fishing hamlet.
The 'Paleblood Hunter' is an absolver of sin, at least it can be. You can be that absolver of sin. But the absolution of sin comes from the destruction of nightmares. And after all your tribulations, that also involves isolating and cutting yourself from what is the true seat of your power. The nightmare that you are intimately tied to.
Iosefka and the clinic relates as much, right from the start. Seek the Paleblood to transcend the Hunt.
That is your calling. But will you listen to it? Arguably by denying Gehrman, refusing to end the Long Night and your attachment to that realm of nightmares, you have
failed.
Of course you can see the flipside of this. You could say
Gehrman has suffered enough and choose instead to suffer in his place. And the Plain Doll will thank you by staying at your side dutifully and even coddling you if you transcend your humanity ... but honestly even from the start of the game it tells you should transcend the hunt.
I think the game rewards the Plain Doll's affections regardless of any path you take, precisely because
you're still someone worth saving. And ultimately her praying at your tomb if you decide to transcend the Hunt and see a new Sunrise is ultimately telling you that even if you leave Gehrman to his suffering, the Plain Doll recognizes that and sees you as someone worthy of respect as the Paleblood Hunter.
Just another innocent dragged into this mess, but chooses instead to find absolution from the nightmares of their deepening psychosis and blood-addled hunts. Instead reconnecting to their humanity and transcending the Hunt.
The role of the Palblood Hunter is the absolver of human sin. At the start of the game, you merely hunt beasts. "It's just what hunters do..." as Gerhman explains. But with growing insight, your relationship to the hunt transcends.
The Sunrise ending is the only one where you can definitively change humanity's relationship to the Old Blood and the Great Ones. You can burn down Byrgenwerth, you can kill the remaining of the Healing Church. You can set fire to all of bloody Yharnam and grind it down into the ash. You can actively fight other people from divulging the secrets of blood ministration. You can stop people from seeking treatment.
It's a temporary stopgap, but it's one you can mercifully provide. You can't do any of that if you choose to remain in the Hunter's Dream .... arguably by remaining in the Hunter's Dream, you either prolong the Hunts ... make it
certain that the hunts will continue ... or just like a Great One, end up communing with humanity as the game hiints that's exactly what you will be like as you "lift humanity up..."
The question of your transcendence to a Great One is ... are you
actually making the human condition better ... because quite clearly, the Great Ones do not. And why exactly would you be the exception?
Think of all the debauchery, the violence, the horror, and the madness one must undertake to be "lifted up" ... is that truly what you wish to inflict upon the world? The Great Ones may see such evolution as being "sympathetic in spirit" ... but frankly most of humanity cannot survive such sympathy of the Old Ones and neither should they have to.
Fortunately by picking the Sunrise ending, you have a small ... infinitely small, but extant ... chance of reversing such things.
Think of Djura's lines; "You're a skilled hunter. Adept, merciless, half-cut with Blood like the best of them. Which is why I must stop you..." and "I should think you still Dream. Perhaps give some thought to the hunt ..."
Or think about the Afflicted Beggar when you stop his spree killing; "You call
me a beast!?"
Even former hunters recognize the scourge within hunters. They see the beast in the player. Driven only by an insatiablelust for power and knowledge, and yet ironically never stopping to question why. Leading them further into madness and becoming unrecognizable as human in the process.
But the Paleblood Hunter has a choice ... transcend the hunt like Eileen or Djura, or be consumedby it utterly.