Bloodborne Lore | The Great Ones

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Imagine the amount of eyes Miyazaki has to have on his brain to be able to contrive something so special and amazing. He and his peers are the true great ones here.

It may be worth pointing out that Lovecraft’s Azathoth is known as the “Idiot God”. Could be the seed for the concept of the “Vacuous Rom”

I think an overlooked fact of the Brain of Mensis is how it is contained in the Nightmare. We see it chained up with spikes in it, up in that tower where it lashes out at everything (I recall it's glow affects the beastmen on your approach to the building too). But once we drop it into that black abyss below the building, it seems completely pacified. We can even "converse" with it using the Make Contact gesture, and makes no move to stop us if we attack it. If this was something made of the collective minds of the School of Mensis, I doubt it would need to be tortured to serve as a defender, nor be peaceful with us once released. If it is a collection of minds, I'd wager it is the minds of those we see in Yahar'Gul used to create the One Reborn. The One Reborn being the populace's physical remains, the Brain of Mensis being their mental remains. A source that certainly wouldn't willing help the School of Mensis, and be happy to be released from its tortured existence.

I am so glad one of the lore greats is coming back to bloodborne semi-consistently. I love the lore of this game.

There’s a theory in the Pokémon community that the Pokémon Slowpoke is only so dopey because it’s borderline omniscient and is struggling to comprehend everything it sees. I think something similar could be happening with Rom. Perhaps she ascended without the necessary insight and became overwhelmed with all the new information she received thereby coming off as “stupid” to any observers.

Could the school be trying to trap Mergo? The one “reborn”. Mergo died in childbirth.

Woke up to an hour and a half long SmoughTown video, it's gonna be a good day boys.

I can't wait to see how the Albinauric Bloodclot plays into all of this.

Just to add, the winter lanterns are things that look exactly like the doll and their brains are made of messengers

I think Rom's appearance is meant to represent her literally shattered mind. Her mind ascended but broke into pieces - represented most directly by all the spiders with her face. That's why her corpse looks so different from the version we actually fight.

I've noticed a little trend within the Great Ones: the less a Great One physically manifests in a realm of a dimension they are less likely to be physically vulnarable towards human attacks and in danger of being killed. In the case of Kos some in the comments have pointed out the ship wreckages in the beach area which indicates that people likely hunted this being out in the sea, and through the damage Kos received from the fishermen and the exhaustion from fleeing she ended up dead and her carcass ran ashore in the vincinty of the Fishing Hamlet. I interpret this phenomena that Great Ones bounded in one realm can be physically damaged and even killed - in the conventional use of the verb. Amygdala in the Nightmare Frontier and in the Chalice dungeons bleeds and is permanently removed from that area, you can also find the skeletal remains of another Amygdala in the Hunter's Nightmare (could this be the Amygdala that we fight in the Nightmare Frontier which might explain why there is the corpse in the first place?). The Moon Presence doesn't appear during the whole journey and only manifests physically at the end game if we defeated Gehrman, and yet we are subjugated under its power if we haven't consumed the three parts of an umbilical chord before. Then there is the Great One Oedon who doesn't appear at all and is only briefly mentioned in their dedicated Runes and Places. It is said that Oedon has ascended so far and beyond that the common methods of luring a Great One or consuming much insight don't work. In a way Oedon is a body without organs, a being that is everywhere, anywhere and nowhere, untethered and unshakled from dimensional boundaries. The driving force of a civilazation in the world of Bloodborne is ascension, and throughout our journey we read or bear witness how the people are and were attempting to ascend - with very little to no success: the Blood Ministrations were the beginning of the beastly scourge and the downfall of a civilization, gaining insight might be a much more promising method but you are likely to reach a state of absolute frenzy or fall into an almost catatonic state like in Willem's case - either way gaining insight too much breaks the fragile human mind and grinds any human reason to dust. But what does ascension to a being in Bloodborne actually mean? Not only the transformation of one's biological body (as we can see how the Nightmare Apsotles are a precursor of the many Amygdalas) but also to be able to bear the Eldritch Truth both physically and mentally. The attempts to ascend made by humans in past and present proves to be futile because human mind and body were too fragile for that heaviest weight, even most of the powerful Great Ones themselves are not invulnerable to phyiscal attacks in the case of Kos, Amygdala and the Moon Presence. The only being that does not possess these vices is the omnipresent, omniabsent Oedon who does not have a physical body that can break or a human mind that can lose its reason. And Oedon might be the closest to the Eldritch Truth than any being ever was.

I personally think Mergo's Wet Nurse is a manifestation of the students of Byrgenwerth who operated on Queen Yharnam's body. That is why it has so many knives, and when killed, finally gives Mergo and Queen Yharnam peace due to the "nightmare slain"

The arms used by the winter lanterns for the grab attack also matches with the brain. It has a little arm on it

Mergo’s Wet Nurse’s multiple arms makes me think of the Hindu gods, which are often depicted with many arms to show their great power and ability to do many things at once. Perhaps the many arms of some Great Ones show their immense power (compared to humans who only have two) and their ability to act on/affect many dimensions/dreams at once, similar to how many eyes may give one the ability to perceive multiple dimensions at once. Actually, it just occurred to me that in the real world, the number of eyes a human has already affects how many dimensions they can see. Someone with only one functioning eye can only see in 2 dimensions, while having two working eyes is what gives us depth perception, aka the ability to see in 3 dimensions. So, in the world of Bloodborne, perhaps having even more eyes, such as eyes lining one’s brain, gives one perception of even more dimensions.

Now I've never been able to fully grasp the lore of bloodborne, but I always thought the children or offspring the great ones lost wasn't so much their kids, but a lower form they possessed. Kinda of like how some people see their kids as an extension of themselves. So when they lost their children, it was the lower form they possessed, and in order to better interact with those planes, they long for a new child to take form of. But what do I know.

The good thing about Bloodborne content is that it's infinitely rewatchable, as I'm too dumb to understand what's going on in this game.

Ah yes, Bloodborne! You only need to unravel its mistery.

Nothing like a video about fictional unspeakable eldtrich horrors to take my mind off the unspeakable eldtrich horrors of real life

always thought the bird cages were an odd choice but mergo's "loft" and the wet nurse's appearance make things make more sense