u/A_b_b_o

^(I did post this as a) video ^(a few weeks back, but I really wanted to share it here too so do enjoy the results of my fixation on plague history lmao!)

Daniel Defoe wrote A Journal of the Plague Year in 1722, a semi-biographical account of the 1665 bubonic plague that ravaged Europe, mercilessly. A first person account, Defoe allegedly used the diaries of his uncle, Henry Foe, who lived in London at the time (while Defoe was only five). It is a harrowing account, one aromatic and uncensored to the brutality of plague.

>“A certain ‘dreadful set of fellows’ who habituated Pye Tavern found ghastly amusement in sitting in a room next to the street to watch the deadcart empty its loads of bodies into the burial pit and would jeer and mock at the mourners through the windows”.

Writing this in 2026, of course it is no grand statement to say how cruel epidemic can make humanity. How selfish we become in a constant buzz to survive, comfortably. I mean… we had fights over toilet paper, guys, we’re at the top of the food chain as some cruel joke I think. But, despite having lived, in a blur, through it, I will be relying on Defoe’s Plague Year as my point of reference but mainly William McNeill’s Plagues and Peoples, a comprehensive look at how plague effected societal development, written in a very… dry… manner...

In Journal of a Plague Year, we can see how a 17th century morality differs greatly, especially in a time of great mortality. They were far more exposed to death, public hangings being an event to go witness, and far less of a taboo hung around the concept of seeing death in its manifestation. But desperation can turn us all into beasts, and we can see this in the callous behaviour of a handful of NPCs throughout the game. The old woman, and the Yharnamite most ardently. Both care little for their fellow survivors, only bask in the pride of their own sustained life.

Plague is an equaliser, one that does not discriminate, and so it is no surprise that religion and pestilence are so closely tied throughout history.

William McNeill highlights the eastern reaction to the Black Death of the 14th century, stating that

>"Moslem response to plague was (or became) passive. Epidemic disease had been known in Arabia in Muhammad’s time, and among the traditions that Islamic men of learning treasured as guides to life were various injuctions from the Prophet’s own mouth about how to react to pestilental outbreaks. The key sentences may be translated as follows:"

”When you learn that epidemic disease exists in a country, do not go there, but if it breaks out in the country where you are, do not leave.”
and again:
”He who dies of epidemic disease is a martyr.”

To relate this back to Bloodborne, we can see how Yharnam’s culture revolves around the malady that infects it. But in a way unique to Yharnam’s world, religion is deeply ingrained in the disease, and is fact the very cause of it. This shows us a deep antithesis between our world and Bloodborne. When the Black Death ravaged the world, none were safe, not even holymen, and so people began to wonder at the benevolence of their God. Some returned to mysticism and paganism, but some went in the opposite direction and followed heretical yet manic belief. Another example is, as McNeill highlights, the upheavel of Flagellants in Germany whom whipped themselves as penance for their sins (and attacked Jewish communities, who were often to blame for pestilential outbreak).

We can see how, in turn, Yharnamites either remained concerningly loyal to the Healing Church, or cursed it for all it was worth (while also blaming outsiders for the spread). In Bloodborne, unlike the people enduring the Black Death, the Yharnamites had something tangible to blame (and were right in their assumptions). In turn, the existence of Great Ones is not questionable unlike humanity’s deities on Earth. They, in the know, had something terrible to point fingers at. Perhaps this is why the people the hunter speaks to are so spiteful.

McNeill states, in relation to this:

>“God’s justice seemed far to seek in the way plague spared some, killed others; and the regular administration of God’s grace through the sacraments (even when consecrated priests remained available) was entirely inadequate psychological counterpoise to the statistical vagaries of lethal infection and sudden death”

It is this psychological aspect I want to focus on here. Bloodborne’s plague is characterised by its development into vacuity and madness. It turns men into mindless beasts, animalistic, and thus of course (with the cosmic element) taps into their inner psyche and entity. The actual bestial visual to their metamorphosis is merely a side effect of this beasthood. The plague is entirely an attack on the psyche and ones DNA (in a way that reminds me of Rabies and the way it makes its host terrified of water for its own survival. Like that… that is absolutely horrifying). This helps it hide before the effects become overt, and also manifests as a test of surrounding mentalities.

How could the Yharnamites tell if their loved ones were becoming beastly, or just losing their wits? There was an ardent obsession with madness and insanity during the 19th century due to the plane of unknown it resided upon. It is not a stretch to conclude that the same could be said of Yharnam, a city in the likeness of 19th century Edinburgh. It already has a very prominent medicinal element to it, and the beastly scourge is mostly psychological. It begs the question of what Yharnam might have looked like before the hunt our character enters into? Some artists have visualised it, but I wonder what the culture and society was like. Were they paranoid? Turning on their fellows out of utter terror of the malady that threatened them?

The Hunt became a common, nightly event. This is not the first Hunt to have happened in this world, only the most damning. Thus, we can assume that each previous hunt must have been worse than the last. The city slowly deteriorated from the inside out, literally eating itself alive. Small fires broke out (in one case, literally). The burning of Old Yharnam, the sealing off of Byrgenwerth, the initial invasion of the Fishing Hamlet — one can only guess at the way the common Yharnamite reacted to these events, and how it effected their mentality and hope.

Perhaps, like in the case of Gascoigne’s eldest daughter, it wasn’t the plague that killed off all. Perhaps it was the sudden descent into grief and anguish, death at every corner. McNeill explains

>“Painting also responded to the plague-darkened vision of the human condition provoked by repeated exposure to sudden, inexplicable death. Tuscan painters, for instance, reacted against Giotto’s serenity, preferring sterner, hieratic portrayals of religious scenes and figures. The Dance of Death became a common theme for art; and several other macabre motifs entered the European repertory.”

Death became apart of Yharnam because of this sickness. It, like victorian death rituals (of which I would like to explore in regards to Bloodborne in another video), became an every day part of life. It is almost unthinkable to a Western culture where death is feared and branded in taboo. But due to the vehemence of it that occurred, Yharnamites did not become more sentimental and kinder to the dying, but crueler.

This, also, makes one wonder what was the control of the Great Ones, and what was simply human nature in reaction to the pestilence?

Another brief connection I want to interpret from this information is the prevalence of rats. Infamously, rats are seen as the catalyst for many plagues (most notably The Black Death) which had the infection ride on fleas, and in turn rats, on ships all over Europe and Asia. Rats were the perfect host for many infections due to their burrows or “cities” that existed in vast quantity underground. They bred disease (though I think it’s time we stop with the stigma against rats. They’re incredibly intelligent creatures and ever so cute), in these dark, damp, closely-knit communities… not unlike a harsh winter in a medieval European settlement which beckoned families to huddle in close quarters for warmth.

Disease is not something one can completely prevent, as it is attracted to our comforts and unavoidable disgusts alike. But, in regards to Bloodborne, I can see an interpretation seep from the labyrinths beneath the city. The Pthumerians, an anaemic, pale race of people long killed off. They are the rats, the catalysts for the scourge. Though they did not found the Healing Church nor harvest Kos’ corpse, they sought the knowledge from Great Ones all the same — and achieved it, in the form of Queen Yharnam. They are the root of everything that happens in Bloodborne, and they scurried beneath the ground (another connection to Edinburgh, also, with its underground streets), festering knowledge and ambition.

Yes, ambition are the fleas that attach themselves to the Pthumerians and, eventually, the Byrgenwerth Scholars. Ambition heralds madness and beasthood or failed ascension in the form of Kin. Bloodborne’s plague is both psychological and physical; it has a celestial origin, yet is bred by human ignorance. It causes paranoia and strife, a failure in believe or a kind of rapture. Ambition, like most of Fromsoftware’s games, is the catalyst for apocalypse.

(bonus: crow set is clearly inspired by a plague doctor + the incense urns throughout the Cathedral Ward proves there is at least an aspect of miasma fear; along with the constant references to scent).

Either non fiction or fiction! I just desperately want to either get immersed, or learn about the deep sea (without it being a marine biologists' autobiography ideally lmao). Something bioluminescent...

For an example, I picked up David Attenborough's Ocean and am really excited to read that!

>"Siphonophores (from Ancient Greek σίφων (siphōn), meaning "tube" and -φόρος (-phóros), meaning "bearing") are cnidarian animals of the hydrozoan order Siphonophorae. According to the World Register of Marine Species, the order contains 194 species described thus far.^(" - Wikipedia (I know, very reliable shush))

It isn't much of a grand statement to make the claim that Bloodborne has very overt connections to the maritime, the deep sea, and all things the ocean. Lovecraft wrote a handful of stories in relation to the ocean, that great sprawling edifice of the unknown. There is so much scope for the imagination in relation to it, so confirming Lovecraft's influence over Bloodborne (in some aspects, not all, and honestly not so much as people think imo), it is no wonder some of the enemies will take inspiration from deep sea creatures.

Can't lie, on the verge of a fixation on the deep sea as a topic. Not as something horrifying, but as something beautiful and luminescent; somnolent, and I love the idea of drifting in an endless dark, or guided by quiet, scintillating critters. So, during the start of my research, I discovered these creatures with the most delicious name. Siphonophores (sounds adjacent to Serpenphare as a side note-- from Clair Obscur).

Now take a look at the 5th image I attached (nabbed from Wikipedia ofc lol), and tell me H, I, J, K, A, B and G do not look so similar to these Fluorescent Flowers; especially in their concept art.

Furthermore, it seems as though most if not all enemies connected to something maritime are, or have a connection to, an entity from a different dimension. The Fishing Hamlet residents have a connection, and were corrupted by, Kos' Parasite (whether by her intention or not, I theorise it was the parasite that killed her. The Villagers seemed to revere her, and if we take from the Shadow Over Innsmouth, they would worship rather than seek to destroy, but that's neither here nor there). The Flowers themselves disappear into a kind of vortex when killed, and also bleed "paleblood" -- also... just look at them, obviously they are not of this world. This taps into that otherworldly-ness of our own deep sea. The incomprehensible depth and darkness, and the creatures herewith; they look alien.

Of course, they are on land and not an ocean-dweller. I wonder if their fungal aspects is another point to emphasise this alien aspect -- fungi are also often regarded, colloquially, as alien and otherworldly. Finally, I wonder if this passage helps us understand the nature of these Flowers. They're quite ambiguous, rightly so, but deemed as Kin (thus, once were human, now ascended beyond their mortal form... but at what cost?) I wonder if they are not one entity but multiple? Consciousness and mentality is such a fascinating thing in regards to the animal kingdom, and ocean creatures as is. They do not think as we do, some don't even have brains, and that is such a complex idea that we struggle to understand. I imagine there is something similar here with these kinds of enemies.

>Siphonophores are highly polymorphic and complex organisms, which blur the line between individual organisms ("regular" animals, built from organs and cells) and colonial organisms (like e.g. corals, where each polyp can in principle live on its own). Each specimen is composed of medusoid and polypoid zooids that are morphologically and functionally specialized. Zooids are multicellular units that develop from a single fertilized egg and combine to create functional colonies able to reproduce, digest, float, maintain body positioning, and use jet propulsion to move. Most colonies are long, thin, transparent floaters living in the pelagic zone.

Another aspect here could be related to the different zones in the deep see. The Twilight Zone, Midnight Zone, Abyssal Zone and Hadal Zone. Does that not sound so very like the moon cycle of Bloodborne? The deeper one dives, the stranger creatures one will find.

She's practicing her cosplay ready for comic con I think. Thought I'd share as this was my first thought lmao

thought I’d share because I found it very funny. Had Henryk’s armour, didn’t realise I’d be meeting him again lmao

“where’d the beast go?” I’ve never in my LIFE heard this when they de-aggro!

Bit spenny but so worth it. This is Beryl the sheep! the fluffiest ted I’ve ever owned. She sadly sheds quite a bit but I think it’s worth it to be honest.

They have a bunch of different characters, two different sizes and also keychain editions!

I live with them, told my mum about this sub and she gave permission for me to post lol!

Placidusax honestly makes me so nervous because he ALWAYS MAKES ME JUMP!! I also barely have fought him (save that glitch that still exists where his grace is activated despite you never having entered the boss room).