Bloodborne: the dark side of birth, maternity, infants and conception

The adult fear of giving birth to an aberrant creature is always a big taboo. If in the movies this dogma was already faced several times, especially in 1977 with the nightmarish David Lynch’s Eraserhead (check my article talking about surreal sex and “wrong” birth: Eraserhead Intro: a surreal sex scene), in videogames this concept was still not truly explored. Bloodborne, even hiding behind the facade of an action-RPG, is able to strongly represent this concept and this fear.

The plot of Bloodborne is complex and cryptic, centered around the Great Ones, creatures that defy logic hidden from the human reality, and of course inspired by Lovecraft myths. The Great Ones in Bloodborne are connected to humanity by the concept of fertility and conception. The Great Ones have serious difficulties to generate an offspring, often producing only an aberrant stillborn. This information is related to a very important and yet peculiar item: the umbilical cords of the infants themselves, the most powerful relics in Bloodborne to enter in contact with the knowledge of the Great Ones.

“Every Great One loses its child, and then yearns for a surrogate.”

Before starting to talk about nightmarish conceptions and how the Great Ones are searching for surrogates, let’s introduce Oedon the formless. Oedon is an entity that transcended the physical form to exist only as words and consciousness, and one of the most powerful Great Ones. However, he is never met during the game, but even in this way, many clues highlight how Oedon is probably the mastermind behind all the events of Bloodborne. Worth to specify that Oedon is the only Great One directly identified as “male”. Even without a specific physical body, Oedon is still obsessed to get his offspring, as another umbilical cord suggests:

“Every Great One loses its child, and then yearns for a surrogate, and Oedon, the formless Great One, is no different. To think, it was corrupted blood that began this eldritch liaison.”

Coming back to infants and the searching for a surrogate, the most creepy detail is “how” the Great Ones, especially Oedon, are doing it. The nightmarish reality of the Great Ones is isolated behind an illusionary facade, which protects human minds from the trauma that lurks behind. If scholars and special people can see what lurks behind the threshold, thanks to their Insight, common people are still protected by a Veil. When the enchantment is broken and the Veil dissolved, a Blood Moon is revealed to shine on the new reality. After the revelation, all the invisible creatures are now under the view of everybody. In the background, it is also possible to hear a constant and distant baby crying. The worst part of the Blood Moon is the prophecy related to it, written in a piece of paper:

“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.”

When the Blood Moon is revealed, the Great Ones will search for a womb. And this is literally what will happen.  After the Blood Moon appears not only the world will change, but also some characters will start to act “peculiarly”, especially women. The Great Ones will influence the world with their will of paternity, searching for their surrogate child while impregnating human women.

Arianna is a mistress of the Holy Church, gifted with a blood able to cure diseases. After the Blood Moon, she will start to feel sick and weird. One day she will escape in a basement, to hide a horrible truth. She gave birth to a deformed creature, a celestial progeny, a horrible gift from an unknown and alien force. Arianna is shocked and empty, a shell with a damaged mind, the mother of an unwanted alien abomination forcibly pregnant of an unknown God. The progeny is a sort of abortion, not the great descendant of the Great Ones. By killing the weak and submissive infant, the player can recover one of the umbilical cords. The description of the item tells the history of Oedon, implying with some speculations, that the father of the creature and mate of Arianna is the formless Oedon himself.

But Arianna is not the only woman to receive an unholy pregnancy. Fake Iosefka is a mysterious character, an evil doppelgänger substituting a helpful doctor, also member of the Church. Instead of helping people, she is experimenting with them. The player could help her with her researches bringing new victims, or can kill her after a tough fight. However, if she is alive when the Blood Moon is revealed, she will also receive the “blessing” of an unholy pregnancy.  After accessing to her hideout when the Blood Moon is shining, the player will find her in pain on a table, like if she is close to give birth. She is in great pain but also almost exited for the honour to be one of the chosen surrogate mothers:

God I’m nauseous… Have you ever felt this? It’s progressing. I can see things… I knew it, I’m different. I’m no beast… I… Oh… God, it feels awful… but, it proves that I’m chosen. Don’t you see? How they writhe, writhe inside my head… It’s… rather… rapturous…”

Also in this case, her death will grant another creepy umbilical cord.

The two characters, even if both victims of the same unexpected fate, reacted in a very different way. Arianna is shocked for this abuse, practically raped by a mysterious entity and pregnant her against her will. She gave birth to a monster and will never recover from the trauma. Also this unholy pregnancy is quite similar to the Immaculate Conception for Virgin Mary, just in a nightmarish way. There is no angel this time to announce it, just an enigmatic God who decided to fecundate random women with his inauspicious seed, without any contact or sign. A nightmarish conception, where just the shining of the Blood Moon will cause pregnancy in the chosen ones.  At the opposite, Iosefka felt blessed with this unwanted pregnancy. The chosen one, selected to be part of the greatest mystery. Her reaction is close to the Virgin Mary, accepting the blessing without hesitations, without thinking how a stronger will is imposing on her. Probably Oedon is the father in both cases, the male Great One more obsessed to obtain a progeny.

Another important piece of the puzzle is the existence of Mergo and Yharnam the Pthumerian Queen. One of the most important information about Mergo’s  identity is reported in another scattered piece of lore:

“Nightmarish rituals crave a newborn. Find one, and silence its harrowing cry.”

This is connected to the constant cry that can be heard after the Blood Moon is revealed, which is in fact Mergo. The Queen Yharnam was probably one of the first surrogate mothers of Oedon, from long time ago. Her ghost is clearly related to pregnancy, and she probably delivered something that could be called a baby, but probably the traumatic event killed her, judging by the amount of blood in her clothes.

Mergo is probably a premature infant of Oedon, born under another Blood Moon aeons ago. Mergo is the closest infant to born is a proper way, and for this reason is anyway a powerful entity. The School of Mensis was a cult searching for knowledge that, using the umbilical cord of Mergo itself, entered in contact with it. This event was a total failure and all the School of Mensis was killed in the process and their minds were imprisoned in a nightmare. Also Mergo is part of this reality, trapped in the nightmare, crying while attended by a creepy wet nurse. Mergo appears just as an empty stroller, without any physical form if not just a loud cry. As is biological father, Oedon, Mergo is also formless and exists only as a harrowing cry.

Mergo’s Wet Nurse is keeping the infant alive, having a direct bond with it. Probably the nurse is serving Oedon, and this connection is the only way to keep the premature Mergo alive. With the death of the Wet Nurse, the cry will stop and the stroller will disappear, with an ominous message “Nightmare slain”.

Mergo is responsible of the existence of the nightmare and it is the final prey to be killed by the player to end everything. The ghost of Queen Yharnam will be pleased by the death of Mergo. Probably she was shocked of how was painful the existence of her own child, trapped in a constant crying and kept alive by a creepy monster. With the death of Mergo the player will receive its umbilical cord, giving information regarding its existence.

“Every Great One loses its child, and then yearns for a surrogate. This Cord granted Mensis audience with Mergo, but resulted in the stillbirth of their brains.”

Not only Queen Yharnam got pregnant against her will, probably dying while giving birth, but also her son was trapped in an existence of pain. Nothing could be worst for a mother. This is a fate worst than the ones of Arianna and Iosefka, a nightmarish fear for every mother. She is so sad about the condition of her son, that his death is a relief instead than a trauma.

There is one last creepy piece of the puzzle regarding aberrant infants, unholy pregnancies and unwanted maternity. The player can actually “consume” the umbilical cords obtained from the progeny of the Great Ones. Without focusing on the disgusting act itself, eating at least 3 cords will give access to a secret ending. After a fight with an entity called the Moon Presence, the player will transform in a small black slug. Since the ending is called “Childhood’s beginning”, this implies that the player was reborn as a child of the Great Ones. A human consuming the umbilical cords of the progeny of the Great Ones will reborn as one of them. This is the last secret behind the life-cycle of these mysterious entities, maybe a paradox and a joke for the Great Ones. They were searching for centuries for a progeny, mating with women under the Blood Moon, while a human eating their umbilical cords would evolve in a higher entity. Well, just a black slug, so not such a powerful entity, but as the ending specify this is just an infant at the beginning of the life.

Between unwanted pregnancies, unholy conceptions, children trapped in a constant crying, human devouring umbilical cords to evolve, the theme of maternity in the world of Bloodborne is darker than in any videogame media before.