Through a Glass Darkly: The Narrative of Bloodborne
On Narrative Recurrence, Identity, and Fragmentation in Bloodborne
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
— Ecclesiastes 1:9
Bloodborne is yet another FromSoft game which stands apart from games that revolve around player empowerment and forward momentum. It invites the player into a world which is already in motion rather than centering the action around the player. In titles like Pokemon and Fable, the player is the active protagonist who engineers the change in the world and upon whom the center of the world waits for change. Bloodborne by contrast thrusts the player into a world already unraveled, where the story has long since occurred. What the player moves through is the events after the tragedy. It is therefore a fragmentary story of echoes and nightmares. The player is explicitly a late-comer, blamed for the failure of the Hunt, but also powerless to change anything about its outcome. They are foreigners–the residents of Yharnam immediately recognize us as such somehow–stumbling through a city long in its death throes, trying to decipher a history of blood and obsession. The player progresses by allowing this world to shape them rather than trying to shape the world.
A World Already in Motion
The player is closer to an archaeologist or a historian than the conductor of other games. It is therefore not surprising that there are NPCs who directly follow the player’s own path or progression. This is not like the rival in Pokemon games or the squadmates in games like Persona or Fire Emblem games whose progression mirrors the main character. In the Pokemon games the rival, especially in the earlier games, is closer to the Shadow of the player. In the tactical RPGs of Persona or Fire Emblem the squadmates are individualized chess pieces for the player to maneuver and promote and modify as they see fit. In Bloodborne the player and the NPCs are caught in the same grander forces and cycles which direct and shape their journey. The player’s ability to escape is determined by the willingness of the game to tell its narrative to the player rather than anything intrinsic in the character we assume in the game.
The narrative, dominated by gore, eldritch symbols, and nightmarish scenes, resists clarity through the repetition of images and the dislocation of scenes. The story or stories have to be assembled from the wreckage of their ending. So any player wishing to understand the game has to cycle through the item descriptions, place names, and mechanics just as non-linearly as their own gameplay is forced to be. The player is further invited into this nonlinear reiteration because the NPCs themselves often seem to be engaged with it.
Simon the Harrowed and the Burden of Memory
Simon the Harrowed is a veteran Hunter for the Healing Church who is tired of the lies and secrecy. His entire mission throughout the DLC centers on undoing the various guardrails and deceptions of the church so that all can be freed from the Nightmare and the Church’s influence. That he is unsuccessful reflects the number of attempts that it takes the player to accomplish the same goal. We, as the player, are moving through the history of the Church towards the origin of the Hunters and the Church at the Fishing Hamlet and the Academy of Byrgenwerth. But it seems that the Fishing Hamlet holds something essential to the continuance of the Nightmare. It is “the true secret. Testament to the old sins...It feeds this Hunter's Nightmare…” Simon is tired of carrying the weight of his forefather’s sins. That it “isn't fair, it just isn't fair…” for the contemporary Hunters to constantly have to chase after the failures of their predecessors. To help them hide the truth of their actions.
At Byrgenwerth we learned of the source of the ideas of the Healing Church in Laurence. But in the Fishing Hamlet we meet the first Old One which the Church discovered and the Hamlet that they destroyed and purged to hide it.
Yamamura the Wanderer and the Cost of Entry
The second NPC which summarizes the journey of the player is Yamamura the Wanderer. He is a Hunter who joined the Church from the outside, like the player’s character. And did so because he was pursuing a beast “for honourable revenge.” Just as the player feels towards the werewolf who is often the first creature who kills the player when the game first starts. This also echoes the feelings of players as they struggle against the myriad bosses of the game, and FromSoft games in general. But Yamamura’s mind cracked and broke during the Hunt “when he stared straight into impurity” and so the Church disposed of him. They locked his consciousness in a cell in the Nightmare and quite literally threw away the key. When the player finds him, he is endlessly smashing his head against the wall and muttering a mantra or poem to himself. The only thing that the player can do is kill him to end his misery. He will drop his set and so the player can take on his identity in a way as clothing is so tightly tied to identity in FromSoft games.
Shrouded by night but with steady stride.
Colored by blood, but always clear of mind.
Proud hunter of the Church
Beasts are a curse, and the curse is a shackle.
Only ye are the true blades of the Church.
Outsider, Mirror, and Madman
Both of these NPC’s echo parts of the player’s own journey. They too are wanderers from the outside, both literally as the character we play in the game is not a native of Yharnam, and in a meta sense as the human player must choose to interact with the game world from outside of the game world. We are also often curious about the history and the mechanisms which cause the game and story to function as it does. Either from a PvP perspective as the understanding of animations and the triggers for actions lends an edge, or the lore which in the typically inscrutable narrative of FromSoft games must be untangled non-linearly rather than read like a traditional narrative. We are also caught in the cycle of the game, possibly driven a bit mad by the need for ceaseless repetition until something gives way; our patience or the enemy’s health bar. We are not driven mad per-say by the game, but the expression ‘banging your head against a wall’ comes remarkably close to the experience of FromSoft players.
What Were We Hunting?
In the end, Bloodborne does not offer narrative closure, though it might offer the satisfaction of mechanical mastery. What it does offer is the experience of its world; through mood, atmosphere, and density of implication. The world offers the player to absorb its narrative of suffering, ritualized knowledge, and private madness without the catharsis of a more traditional ending. These have to be stitched together from the symbols, fragments, and echoes which we are left with as we move through the haunted gameworld. Like Simon we attempt to piece together the past to uncover the truth and grow frustrated by the process. We also discover that despite our efforts the story remains one of supposition and not surety, we are ultimately defeated in our uncovering of the ‘truth’ of the narrative. Like Yamamura we wander into the world from the outside, a stranger in a strange land, recruited for a mission that we do not fully understand. We mistake our goal for a clarity of purpose and understanding. We participate in the symbolic act of madmen trying the same thing over and over again expecting or at least hoping for a different result. Even our ‘victory’ does not end things. We start a new game with everything a little bit harder, ourselves a little bit stronger.
The narrative of Bloodborne is an implication of the world. It is not a passive passage through the world. The game reshapes the player character through repetition, uncertainty, and immersion into symbols we do not understand even as they help us grow more powerful. We inject the story into our veins, wear its memories in our clothing, and act according to our limited options. Bloodborne does not care whether we understand it, or the Insight that it grants.
