Bloodborne, is heavily inspired by H.P. Lovecraft.

Lovecraft’s philosophy was that of cosmicism, not JUST the idea that
humans will discover aliens that they can fight should they find the right
tools, but that said aliens are so superior to humans that they don’t even
notice us. It was the idea that our species, while having value to us, is a
useless coincidence. We are to these cosmic beings as ants are to us.

It’s important to note that he was inspired by mythologies, so when his

stories of Old Ones gradually turned into one, it was no surprise. His
mythology, however, was different. It was used to push humans out of their
humancentric worldviews where a current Christian myth kept his society at
the center. But where Lovecraft’s invention of alien gods was revolutionary,
his execution… was not. He talked a lot about how horrible these discoveries
were to characters but he wasn’t great at communicating that to the reader.

Hidetaka Miyazaki, one of the main writers behind Bloodborne on the other
hand, seems to have the tool Lovecraft needed: the understanding and ability
to tell this mythology through the traditional myth. Because viewing
Bloodborne as a traditional myth, is essential to understanding just how
important a contribution it is to gaming. some things just naturally
complement each others. In this case, it’s Lovecraftian gods and Joseph
Campbell’s myth.

Using Campbell’s understanding of the universal need for mythology,

Miyazaki delivers what I will be calling the “antimyth” and in participating in
it, the audience experiences the deconstruction and ultimately the destruction
of the human-centered myth.

In a previous thesis on Dark Souls, I discussed how Miyazaki presents Joseph

Campbell’s idea of the Hero’s Journey. The idea that many cultures
independent of each other have a story that shares the same motifs. So Jesus,
Buddha, Hercules, The Chosen Undead - these stories followed similar paths.
While we’re going to use Joseph Campbell as a guide again in this discourse,
we’re going to focus on the bigger picture. Because while the hero is
important, they’re a smaller part of the larger myths.
Contained in these myths we find defining tales that talked about our creation
and the choices we make that are consequential for the rest of humanity.
When applying Joseph Campbell’s research on the myth to Miyazaki’s work,
we find Dark Souls was written in the recognizable handwriting of the myths
that came before it. For example, fire theft was a common trope in the hero’s
journey.

Bill Moyers: “In the story of Prometheus going after the fire and bringing it
back and benefiting humanity, then suffering for it.”

Campbell: “Yes. I mean, Prometheus brings fire to mankind and

consequently civilization. That by the way is a universal theme. The hero—
fire theft. Usually with a relay race after it… it’s a world-wide myth—the fire
theft.”

There’s something symbolic in this motif of the hero’s journey that resonates
with us, and that’s the reason we partake in a fire relay in Dark Souls. While
we probably didn’t even notice it, through the game’s mechanics
complementing its story, we don’t pass off the flame between other people,
but rather, we pass the flame between ourselves. From bonfire to bonfire, or
as seen through the game’s mechanics, from check point to check point. We
slowly make the same divine journey that the sun god Gwyn did to link the
flame.

Now before you dismiss this as useless information, and I’m sure, some of
you already have, This actually matters. As Campbell saw it, speaking
through myth was a universal language that all humans can understand, and
more importantly, it’s much more effective at transferring that message to the
audience. if we look carefully enough, we’ll see the outline of the most
popular creation myth in Dark Souls: When adam and eve ate from the tree of
knowledge of good.

Campbell: “When man had eaten from the fruit of the first tree, the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, he was said to have been expelled from the
garden. He had already expelled himself from the garden. The garden is the
place of unity. Non-duality. Non-duality of male and female, non-duality of
man and god, non-duality of good and evil. You eat the duality and you’re on
the way out. Ours is a mythology that’s based on the insight of duality, and so
our religions tend to be ethical in their accent, sin and atonement; right and
wrong. It started with a sin, you see.”

According to the biblical myth, gained from eating from the tree of
knowledge of good and evil is the knowledge of god, the knowledge to see
the world like god does—through duality. And that’s the reason we’re
instructed to live moral lives in this myth. Because a moral life, is a life lived
with god working through us. As we’re going to see, the fire and the
forbidden fruit in garden of eden share the same meaning in our creation.
Because both events mark humanity’s understanding of the dual nature of the
world.

The only difference is Dark Souls doesn’t call it duality, but rather disparity.
So just like the Garden of Eden, the flame brings with it duality. But along
with that recognition of the dual nature of the world, both of these moments
in our creation give us something else. It also gives us a path to a meaningful
life.

Campell: “If the world is a mixture of good and evil, you do not put yourself
in accord with it. You identify with the good and you fight against the evil. “

It’s the same thing in Dark Souls. Our purpose is to not put ourselves in
accord with the dual nature of the world, but to fight for the light, and against
the Dark. As many of you know; however, the chosen undead is offered a
choice: they can either not rekindle the flame as encouraged by Darkstalker
Kaathe or they can sacrifice themselves to rekindle it, a path that’s
encouraged by Kingseeker Frampt. Both being the world serpents of that
universe.

But if you did not trust these snake-like things to give you a wholesome
option, that might have something to do with the fact that there’s a cultural
distrust for serpents. Because this too is reminiscent of the snake who offered
Eve the forbidden fruit. Campbell notes that there’s an important reason that
myths commonly use snakes as a vessel for change. Because to the people
telling these stories, snakes are representative of the fact that they shed their
skin and are reborn from what they leave behind. That is, after all, the state of
the world in Dark Souls where the fire is fading and needs to be rekindled.
But it’s not the result choice that matters. What matters is what the choice
represents. The player now sees the world in the same way as Gwyn did and
they will make their choice in the same place that Gwyn did, when he made
the decision that would change the world. So should they make a dark world
for humans or a world of light and dark that the gods valued, it is the player
character that will decide the fate of humanity. It’s beautiful stuff and it
succeeds in its goal that all myths set out to accomplish, for the player to see
god in themselves through experiencing it. For seeing the world through a
lens of duality, is the same lens through which the gods view the world.

Miyazaki carefully designed his myth to have the same symbolism of the
myths that came before it. Even though it might have different details, we
still recognize the meaning behind those details. And just as Campbell
foretells, Miyazaki’s version of the myth ends up contributing to a
transcendental experience because the player now feels like they have been a
part of something that was much bigger than they are. As we just described,
Dark Souls is based on the same motifs of other myths, and just like other
myths, humans have a role to play. That which gives them the opportunity to
elevate themselves to the same level as the gods.

That brings us to Bloodborne, a game that plays like Dark Souls, feels like
Dark Souls, and provides a similair struggle. but its story couldn’t be more in
contrast with that of Dark Souls, because while there are gods in Bloodborne,
humanity will not elevate themselves to their level. Miyazaki will again have
us experience a myth with different details. But this time, when he uses the
recognizable motifs, we’re going to see an inversion of the meaning we
would typically get from one of our otherwise recognizable myths.

- Lore and Communion -

In Bloodborne, instead of elevating ourselves and allowing us to see god in

ourselves, we will find the destruction of the human-centered myth. To best
understand just how important the events we’re about to talk about are, here’s
a quick recap of the lore for the uninitiated.

First there was Byrgenwerth, a place of learning. A place that realized

humans and the Great Ones were separate entities, and the great ones were far
superior to Humanity. Willem, a Byegenworth scholar, knew this and while
he wanted to understand them better, he was “disillusioned with the
limitations of humanity.” So he went on to line his brain with eyes. And he
encouraged his followers to do the same so they could, someday, evolve
beyond the confines of humanity to better understand the great ones.

Then, in the chalice dungeons, far below the earth, they discovered the “holy
medium”. And in a schism with the college, Laurence, a closer understudy of
William, founded the Healing church, an organization that would not honor
the adage of “fear the old blood” and would instead imbibe it. That brings us
to the most important moment in Bloodborne’s history as far as we know it,
when the Yharnamites attempt to brute force relationship with the gods.
Unlike other myths, Lawrence eating this forbidden fruit will not give
humans the knowledge of god, but rather, it will forever curse them to their
bestial nature.

So it all started with the chalice dungeons where Byrgenwerth scholars

discovered the old blood, and with it, they were able to cure diseases. That’s
all we really know about this early time in the story, and it leaves out an
important step, because it doesn’t make sense for the Byrgenwerth scholars to
use the blood to cure disease especially when there’s an adage of the college
that tells them not to. But it’s not until we view it in its mythical context that
humanity using blood to cure illness begins to make a lot more sense. For
once they found it, it was not simply the medium of blood healing, it was
called the holy medium.

It’s a subtle hint at the direction in which things are about to go and as we
now know, this lead to the creation of the church. And as you might expect,
the church acts as a direct symbol for man attempting to create a relationship
with gods in a reality that consists of them that would be the function of any
church. But notice the intentional change in the direction of the narrative.
Laurence founds the church, not a different college with different leadership,
that will split off and begin the using blood. For Laurence’s followers won’t
be content with simply studying the Great Ones like the scholars of
Byrgenwerth.

And that brings us to a surprisingly important character who we only briefly

encounter: vicar Amelia, one the founding heads of the Healing Curch.
Because she’s going to teach us about the church and its practices when
imbibing the blood. Unlike our character who imbibes the blood and forgets
about it in a sick room, there’s a ceremony associated with imbibing the
blood for Amelia. So it’s important our encounter with her is set in the Grand
Cathedral when we find her taking part in a ritual that’s intentionally
borrowed from Catholicism communion.

To fully appreciate the significance of communion, let’s look to Campbell to

give this ritual context in the larger antimyth.

Campell: “One of the wonderful things in the Catholic ritual is going to

communion. There you’re taught the ceremony of the body and blood of the
savior. And you take it to you to turn inward and there he’s working within
you. “

Through this context, we gain an understanding of what it means to imbibe

the blood and why this ritual came in to being through the church. To partake
in communion with the great ones is to attempt to unify themselves with
these gods. To have the blood of god pumping through their hearts. You can
notice the attention to detail in faithfully preserving this ritual from the
catholic myth. Should communion be taken by the hand it should be placed in
the left hand with the right hand holding the left. This is the same way that
Amelia holds her pendant, with her right hand holding the left.

Also important to the ritual is it’s to be held at the same level as the heart to
resemble the importance of god working through it. This is something we
notice in Vicar Amelia even when she succumbs to her beast form, for she
keeps her left hand at the same level as her heart at all moments that she is
able. This is all to say that Bloodborne does not clumsily use communion by
analogy and then turn it into their version of it. Instead, it’s careful to
preserve everything it can from the ritual to show its importance. It’s
respectful of the ceremony and what that means in the context of myth.

Because communion is Catholicism’s way of becoming unified with god, and

having god working through us through imbibing blood is even presented in
the box art of the game itself. We can see a character in the Hunter Set with a
crimson color that resembles wings, angel wings. But these are red and thus,
granted through blood. It shows us that the blood is our key to accessing the
divine transformation that will be a part of this myth. It’s a transformation
that’s paralleled in Amelia’s Transformation because the shot that focuses on
her silhouette doesn’t show her claws, or teeth transform. It shows her upper
back, the same place that wings are located, erupt with blood.

It’s similar to the wings of blood that spew from the backs of the Amygdalas,
the large and incomprehensible beings seen throughout the world given
enough insight possesed by the player, and it represents our transition into
this divine plane. Communion with the great ones marks an important
inversion of a typical myth. In any other myth, including the very one
Bloodborne borrowed the ritual from, humanity plays a unique role in which
they can become one with god. Instead, there’s a clear cost associated with
this gesture. Humans become, not invigorated, but sick and are doomed to
succumb to the bestial nature that lurks inside them.

It’s from this moment that that the rest of the events of Bloodborne unfold,
because now Yharnam is stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of its citizens
turning into beasts, and the hunters who hunt them. Humans will go on to try
different methods to make themselves relevant in a world of gods…but all of
them will fail. This is ultimately the main idea behind Bloodborne.

In a world of gods, humans naturally see themselves as a part of that higher

plane of existence, and be it through communion, meditation, or some other
means, humans will try some method to gain entry. But Bloodborne inverts
that and not just for our myths, but also for the expectations from the player.
To better understand how it translates to the player, we need to look no
further than Bloodborne’s inverted hero’s journey.

- The Inverted Journey -

Let’s start this section with a quick distinction: Where the myth is focused on
the things that we experience from the external, the Hero’s Journey within the
myth is focused on things that we experience from the inside. Therefore the
myth is about god and how he affects us, and the hero’s journey is how
humans can have a spiritual transformation from within where they overcome
their egos and take on traits that resemble the traits of god.

But as we’ve already discussed, humanity seems to be barred from entering

this realm in Bloodborne, And that’s what we experience in this corrupted
version of the hero’s journey. So just as was done in my previous lecture on
Dark Souls, we’re going to apply the steps of the hero’s journey and see how
Miyazaki merges the meaning of those steps with the games mechanics to
translate to the player. But this time, where the end result should be the
player using their humanity to overcome their egos and demonstrate traits
that resemble the traits of god, we’re going to see how this corrupted version
of the journey makes the player feel dejected by the limitations of humanity.

Now in the beginning act of Bloodborne, things are fairly normal from the
perspective of the hero’s journey, and the first three steps all seem to come at
once.

The first is the Ordinary World and while we don’t see it, we have an idea of
what the ordinary world was for our character from the stat select screen that
tells us our history, and we have our call to adventure which is our contract
that obligates us to carrying out the hunt. These two steps can’t really be
inverted because they affect the character, and thereby the player’s
motivation. So there’s not much to work with here since Bloodborne can’t
tell its story if the player isn’t motivated to carry it out.

So let’s move onto the next step: The meeting with the mentor.

In Dark Souls, this was the meeting with the dying knight, Oscar who gives
us the divine gift of the Estus Flask and it was the step that was so important
to Dark Souls’ hero’s journey, that I talked about it ad nauseam in that
lecture. In Bloodborne, the Blood Vials serve the same purpose as a healing
mechanic and as a divine gift. It’s the sole reason we’re able to get through
the game because it teaches us how to navigate the game’s exceptionally
dangerous world through trial and error. It’s also an item we use through the
game, beginning to end that gives us a psychological boost so that we know
we’re making progress. But our mentor here, the blood minister, is a little bit
more of a sketchy character than Oscar was.

While it’s not immediately clear, there’s good reason for us to be suspicious,
because while we need the blood to cure us of our illness, it causes the player
to willingly inject themselves with the very thing that has turned men into
beasts. This is the brilliance of Miyazaki. Just like in Dark Souls, he is able to
use the game’s mechanics as a metaphor, for the blood also devolves the
player into beasts. The first thing you might notice about the blood vials
when comparing it to the Estus Flask is it reverts to the more flawed system
that forces us to waste time farming them. Now, can players go through the
game without making an effort to restock their supply of blood vials,
absolutely.

Will they?

Not likely unless they were trying to prove a point that they’re better than me.
What was probably the typical experience for the naïve Bloodborne player
was they had to farm blood vials in one way or another. For me it was a route
in Central Yharnam. Many other players likely had a different route or
method that they felt was a reliable way to get blood vials. But there was
probably never any serious number crunching on what was the best method.

Instead, we felt a certain path was the best because it was the one that worked
for us before. There’s a reason for this. There’s a part of our brains that are
carried over from our animal origins. It’s the part that associates locations
with certain stimuli. Similarly, that’s the reason why we think of our farming
location as a good one. It’s our animal brain telling us that we’re in the right
place because it knows it has paid off before.

And if you felt uneasy traversing the world with your blood vials lower than
the max amount, that was our animal brains telling us we’re breaking from
our proven ritual. It knows that we can and should be more prepared. And
even though we rarely use all of our blood vials when exploring the world,
we’re still creating an unnecessary risk. Both of these things can be attributed
to that same primitive animal part of the brain that also shares its name with
one of the great ones: The amygdala.

It’s an important clue because this is also the part of the brain that recognizes
what we should be afraid of—and we’re going to see a lot more on fear in
this upcoming steps. For now, just note that the narrative about men turning
into beasts after consuming the blood works in more ways than just in the
story. It’s a direct commentary we get from the game that keeps cropping up.
Be it from the hunter tools that acknowledge the primitive parts of men, Or
the runes that tell of the horrific and unwelcome bestial instincts within our
hearts.
It all combines to say that a human brain is an animal brain. That by being
forced to farm the blood vials in this ritualistic way, we too are giving into
our animal nature. Our next important step in the journey is something
Campbell points out to be a motif of the modern myths, The bar scene. Here
the hero is just about to cross the first threshold and begin their initiation
process. It’s where they encounter the characters who have already
experienced the special world and it serves to contrast the hero’s
inexperience.

Consider as a famous pop culture example of Star Wars, Episode 4 - A New

Hope. When Luke Skywalker joins Ben Kenobi to enter the outskirts of
Tatooine, the Mos Eisley Bar, he is soon surrounded by world lifestyles and
characteristics that are alien to him, but commonplace to the branching
characters. It’s a taste of what’s to come when they experience the outside
world for themselves.

In Dark Souls, it’s Firelink shrine. A safe place that’s just on the border of the
special world. It’s here that the player will run into NPCs who will offer him
or her advice on how to navigate Lordran, as well as NPCs who will sell
them the spells and miracles that they’ve already learned. Each time we
encounter an NPC whom we send back to Firelink, they automatically know
where to go. It’s well known as a haven in this dangerous world.

In Bloodborne, things are different. The equivalent to the Bar scene comes
after the first mandatory boss, Father Gascoigne in the Oeden Chappel. Here,
there are incense that ward off the beasts that make it a safe space. But where
the warriors and seasoned veterans of the special world should inhabit the bar
like in Dark Souls, we instead find people who know less about the special
world than you do. Instead of knowing where to go like in Dark Souls, they
ask you where to go. But the player likely doesn’t have an informed answer
on their first play through.

They’re given a choice where they can send them to Iosefka’s Clinic, Oedon
Chappel, or nowhere at all. In this sense, the player is just as informed as the
NPCs looking for a good answer. Giving them a wrong answer, as we know,
will make them subject to Imposter Iosefka’s horrifying experiments. So
there’s a lot here at stake if our intention is for them to survive. The value of
a bar scene isn’t just an obscure reference that we’re meant to pick up on
should we do the research. There’s a reason this interaction from the hero’s
journey exists and why it is inverted. The player will feel a sense of
loneliness and despair.

After the defeat of Rom, the player experiences the reveal of the real terror
behind the events of the game. In my own personal experieces, it was the first
time I desperately wanted to talk to the NPCs. I longed for them to tell me
that this was a normal part of the hunt and Cthulu-like creatures are nothing
out of the ordinary. Because discovering the first amygdala wasn’t just a
weird out of place allusion to what was going to happen later in the story.

They were now everywhere. It made me feel discomfited and I wanted to

know that someone else has seen it before. Instead, the refugees of Oedon
chapel were beset by a psychological decline much worse than mine. They
were less prepared for this than the player was. And so the player is alone in
what is the game’s true special world. And the Oedon Chappel brings us to
the next extremely important step of this hero’s journey: the meeting with the
Goddess.

This is a step where the character experiences love, and that love can be
romantic or maternal. So let’s look at Arianna, one of the few NPCs that can
be sent to the Oeden Chappel, because she offers us inversions of both
romantic and maternal love. As for her romantic love, given the allusions to
her being most likely a prostitute, as well as her suggestive dialogue
borderlining flirtation, we might assume that is her purpose. It’s a bit too on
the nose, really.

So instead of True Love, Arianna is a lady of the night. So rather than helping
us to understand what love is, she offers shallow and unfulfilling pleasure in
the form of her sharing her unique blood with the player. So what about her
maternal love? For that, let’s look at her motherhood, because as we know, it
is a miracle or perhaps curse that Arianna is fated to give birth and be mother
to an inhuman nightmare that will drive her to madness come the rise of the
red moon night. Now it’s not a new idea in story telling to have a character
impregnated by a monster or aliens. But being impregnated by alien gods is a
unique one.

And because this is in the context of a myth and already borrows so heavy
from Catholicism, there seems to be a lot in this story that resembles the
Virgin Birth that takes place in the New Testament. That’s because the virgin
birth is a common motif of the myth.

Campbell: “This is the virgin birth. It’s the birth of spiritual man out of the
animal man.”

Moyers: “But in these stories, that’s the moment when gods are born.”

Campbell: “And you know who that god is? It’s you.”

It’s not a physical birth. It’s symbolic of a spiritual transformation. That’s

what the virgin birth’s about. As we know, Arianna is impregnated by a Great
One and that on its own elevates her to the goddess status. But also contained
in her story is the fact that she was impregnated without touch just like the
Virgin Mary for it was initiated by the great one without a physical form,
Oedon. But as you’d expect, the story of the virgin birth is inverted.

It’s not virginity that makes Arianna special. Instead, the one who is
associated with virginity, Adella the nun of the healing church who can also
be rescued, is ignored and Oedon impregnates the whore with special blood.
Instead of being told she would be the mother to god before he impregnated
her like Mary was, Oedon Surreptitiously impregnates Arianna. Lastly,
Arianna doesn’t take her baby to a manger like Mary did, but rather, she
takes it to the gutters.

This is where the audience is supposed to feel the most uncontrovertibly

beautiful thing about being human. To experience love. But here, Arianna
does not love her child but rather, she is horrified by it. And for many it could
be considered one of the most horrific events witnessed in gaming. But it’s
not for shock value. Rather, it was to expose our human weakness. That’s the
importance of this inverted step. We do not see this virgin birth as a metaphor
for a spiritual transformation without a physical touch as Campbell discussed.
Instead, we simply experience horror.

Later we have atonement with the father, who isn’t necessarily restricted to
being our father but rather, a figure with immense power in Bloodborne. That
would be the ever omnipresent Moon Presence, another Great one who
supposedly is the conjurer of the Hunter’s Dream. Lastly, there’s Apotheosis
which is a spiritual transformation but more on these last two steps later.

All of these inversions matter when taken together to contribute to the hero’s
journey because, as I’ve already said, they don’t work to uplift us, but rather,
they work to give us experiences and emotions that are unique to humanity.
But these experiences and emotions reveal our weakness. And while these are
important, I think there’s one step that stands out. There is a moment in the
game where we engage in what should be the most pivotal part of the
journey: where the hero confronts and conquers the abyss.

This act is going to mirror the step in the journey referred to by Campbell as
the Belly of the Whale. It’s where the hero appears to have died, and that’s
important because it symbolizes the fact that the hero has to shed an aspect to
themselves that’s holding them back so they can become fully prepared for
what’s to come.

- Belly of the Whale -

That’s exactly what we get from the Snatcher, a cloaked monsterous figure
with a sack that at any time could appear to the player and overcome them.
Unlike every other fight in the game, if we fail, we don’t return to our last
lantern, but rather, we’re abducted and taken to the alien world of Hypogean
Gaol, the hidden city of Yahar’gul where many more were taken before us
for experimentation, and now it is where we’re seemingly trapped.

As we’re going to see, Bloodborne uses horror more effectively than ever
before to make this step better translate to the player. It marks some of the
most sophisticated design choices in the horror game genre, because one of
its tools is to show that the larger system that governs the rules of the story
can be broken.

A great example of this is Silent Hill PT, a game that’s, at its core, a puzzle
game. So the player is reliant on carrying over the same rules of reality that
govern their life, and the laws of logic that help the navigate it. This is why
PT is so effective at what it does. Logic is essential for solving these reality
based puzzles, but we can’t rely on our only mechanism for survival because
reality breaks down. Minutes tick backwards, hallways go on forever, and
fourth walls are broken. This all works together to transfer a feeling of
powerlessness to the player. To make them understand that they’re at the
mercy of a system that’s more powerful than them.

And that brings us to Yahar’gul. Here we have no choice but to face this
challenge. If you try to die or use the Hunter’s Mark, to force the game to
take you back to your last lantern, it will return you to the jail cell instead—
here, the system as we knew it has broken down. We are no longer able to
exploit the system because it anticipates us trying to override it. It effectively
is the world telling us:

“I’m sorry Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” - Hal, 2001 a space odyssey

This is important because just like how understanding reality is essential to

overcoming the challenges in PT but reality starts to break down, our
inability to force the game into letting us back to the Hunter’s dream offers us
the same feeling of powerlessness. Instead of our understanding of reality
being our tool for success, in Bloodborne, it’s our opportunity to upgrade our
stats and gear. But now we’re prohibited from doing this until we escape. The
player has always been in the situation where they decide whether or not they
are strong enough to continue fighting in a certain area. This is the hallmark
of a Souls game. It’s why their brutal difficulty is tolerated, and this impacts
the challenge of the area substantially.

It is here we have a constant reminder that we’re likely outclassed and our
fight or flight instinct is putting more pressure on the flight side. This gives
us a nagging feeling of doubt in our abilities because it disarms us of the key
to our strength. It’s like in the Disney film, Dumbo, when Dumbo lost his
feather and had to realize that his ability to fly came from within, and this
feeling of doubt heavily influences our decisions and that leads us to the
second reason this area is brilliantly designed. Because in addition to
doubting our ability to handle this challenge, Bloodborne takes advantage of
another tool of the horror game genre which is to charge the player with
multiple meaningful decisions.

Since we are abducted and taken to the center of the dungeon, we have no
reliable way to know how to escape. And what’s more is we’re at the bottom
level of a three-dimensional labyrinth with no idea where the exit is. We can
go left, right, upstairs, which lead to more stairs both up and down, which all
lead to new areas on their own. Every time we reveal a new corridor or
stairwell, we’re also revealing a new risk. Will the path we choose reveal the
exit or will it bring us deeper into the dungeon, into the belly?

This is all extremely important to the overall experience because the

emotional weight of our decisions and the vast amounts of them contribute to
one of the most anxiety inducing, adrenaline pumping, and all out terrifying
experiences some of you may have had in gaming. It might be tempting to
classify this scene as just another unfair cheap way to frustrate the player as
the Souls games can be known for, but this was an extremely important
moment in the context of the hero’s journey.

The Belly of the Whale scene we got here was followed faithfully. It’s
usually a scene where the hero is taken prisoner or is otherwise trapped
against their will, it’s a scene where they appear to have died and return from
the abyss, it’s a scene where they shed a weaker part of themselves so that
they can take on the more demanding challenges of the special world. And
that’s why this is so expertly handled because in addition to the player
experiencing all of these moments, by delivering this scene through horror,
Miyazaki is able to directly communicate this feeling of self-overcoming to
the player.

For players will overcome that animal part of their brains that’s screaming at
them to be terrified of every new hallway and every new monster so that they
can conquer and return from the abyss. But this isn’t all that’s important
about this scene because as we know, this is the inverted hero’s journey. So
just like with every other step we’ve talked about at length, instead of being
uplifted by this, we’re going to experience demoralization. What Bloodborne
giveth, Bloodborne taketh away.

Because as we know, we return to Yahar’gul after overcoming Rom the

Vacuous spider. And this time, we find that our participation in one of the
most powerful acts in the game turns out to be a ruse. As we know, after we
defeat Rom and enter Yahar’gul from its normal entrance, we find this area is
different on all accounts. While this should be a moment where the hero
returns to conquered ground, they instead find the layout has changed with
new and more difficult enemies.
But more important than this, defeating Rom reveals something new to the
player that was likely there during our prison break. Now we can see the
Amygdalas who look down on us from high above, all around us,
surrounding us, Unable to be conquered and likely unconcerned with our
existence. Personally, upon having that creepy realization that I was being
watched during my desperate fight for survival, I felt instantly dejected.

Here, every one of my decisions mattered to me. They were crucial to my

survival. Upon conquering the abyss, we are supposed to feel like we have
ascended from prisoner to warden. But that was never true. These Amygdala
didn’t intervene and probably didn’t care of any of our decisions that felt so
important at the time for our concerns were human concerns. And they have
no impact on the universe. Even if they’re the actions of a hero. And with this
realization, I felt nostalgic for the much more difficult, much more terrifying
experience of my jail break. A time before I had the insight that revealed the
Amygdalas.

Because even though we were in an alien world, legitimately confused and

frightened, at least at that moment, the story was about us. Unlike other
myths, the most pivotal moment for the hero of the myth didn’t help the hero
to save the world. It made us realize how insignificant we truly were. Players
participate in The Hero’s Journey because they’re certain that they will find
themselves at the center of the myth. But players in Bloodborne gain no such
insight. Instead, we have done the equivalent of imbibing the forbidden
blood.

In participating in this version of the hero’s journey, we went in thinking

humans would conquer this world and unite ourselves with some aspect of
god. Instead, we discover that we’re nothing more than sophisticated beasts
with good intentions. It’s important to note that Campbell doesn’t take any of
these motifs of the myth literally. To him, they’re all metaphors that offer
humans a path to become better than their bestial instincts and put them in
touch with the better parts of their nature. That’s why Bloodborne functions
so well at what it does.

We don’t need to have researched Campbell to feel the universal message of

a myth and become elevated. In the same way, we don’t need to have
researched Campbell to feel the Universal Message of Bloodborne, that
humans will have multiple futile attempts to see the gods in themselves, but
will ultimately succumb to their animal nature. This was the point Lovecraft
was trying to make. These gods don’t exist for humanity. They exist with no
concern for humanity. The myth is Miyazaki’s tool to makes us truly feel this
way because it is universally about us. About us and our place in the
universe.

It’s about us and our destiny to inherit the earth. But here, Miyazaki uses it to
point out that even at our greatest, we are but ants to these gods. But there’s
another option that completes this antimyth.

- Imbibing Abandonment -

Should we follow the instructions at the school of Mensis’ Lecture Building

and use three third umbelical Cords, we will ascend after defeating the Moon
Presence. The player character’s ascension is marked by another virgin birth,
this time to the doll of the dream who instantly nurtures us in our vulnerable
state. Not to a human that will use its humanity to ascend to godhood like
Campbell talked about, but to an infant alien god who has ascended through
shedding its humanity.

We have completed our hero’s journey and beared witness to another virgin
birth but we cannot relate to this metaphor of spiritual transformation because
these gods are not meant for humans. So players are trapped on this human
plane, likely feeling confused and unsettled by what they’re seeing because
as Willem puts it: Our eyes have yet to open.

The quote unquote true ending to Bloodborne shows our hero ascended to
godhood without the player. They are trapped on this human plane, unable to
see themselves in this virgin birth. This is how Miyazaki delivers the
Lovecraftian mythos in a way that Lovecraft would have envied. By using
Campbell’s research on the myth as well as the game’s mechanics, Miyazaki
presents to us the antimyth that directly affects the player.

So while this is a story about gods, and this is a story about humans. This is
not a story about humans participating in a myth. Bloodborne denies us the
ability to see ourselves in god and instead, offers us a story where we see
ourselves for the beasts that we are.