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Rom just wanted to keep you innocent and unknowing forever. Then you had to go and ask where cosmic babies come from and it had to tell you about the birds and the beasts, and now THE VEIL HAS BEEN LIFTED SEEK THE NIGHTMARE NEWBORN NO MERCY FOR FALSE GODS
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Feb 2, 2018 18:38
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Yea that's all cool but check this out, Rom summoned creepy bugs so he had to die
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Feb 2, 2018 18:39
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The first level of the dlc is what finally taught me how to parry reliably. The beast cutter hunters and the boomhammer hunters are real easy to parry once you get the timing right. I actually ran the gauntlet of that level all the way to Ludwig 3 or so times without opening a shortcut or discovering the lamp near him. I felt so dumb once I found that haha. Used a lot of blue elixer to get past those drat bloodlickers that swarm you.
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Feb 2, 2018 19:41
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I always have trouble getting up the ladder without being shot to poo poo at low levels
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Feb 2, 2018 19:45
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CJacobs posted:Yea that's all cool but check this out, Rom summoned creepy bugs so he had to die But Rom is cute and its dumb babies are too.  I’ve seen people refer to Rom as both he and she, does the game ever specify? Lightning Knight fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Feb 2, 2018 |
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Feb 2, 2018 20:11
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I thought it was definitely a she.
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Feb 2, 2018 20:17
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Yorkshire Pudding posted:I thought it was definitely a she. This is what I thought as well, which is why I asked.
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Feb 2, 2018 20:19
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Lightning Knight posted:This is what I thought as well, which is why I asked. The only other rom I know is a male ferengi, but in retrospect I should not have assumed that spider's gender.
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Feb 2, 2018 20:22
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I put down "Only women here" sign outside Hemwick Charnel Lane I cant remember how it was rated except it mightve gotten a fair amount dislikes as well? Dunno why WaltherFeng fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Feb 2, 2018 |
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Feb 2, 2018 20:22
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In the Official Guide interview with Miyazaki he says something like "I really like her" when he refers to his favorite boss, Rom. I don't think the game mentions anything about her other than "Rom used to be a scholar at Byrgenwerth".
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Feb 2, 2018 20:26
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CJacobs posted:Yea that's all cool but check this out, Rom summoned creepy bugs so he had to die A friend, after months of putting off the game reached rom and surprisingly he didn't have much trouble but he hated the spiders. Oh boy, he's gonna enjoy reaching Nightmare of Mensis 
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Feb 2, 2018 21:15
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suuma posted:In the Official Guide interview with Miyazaki he says something like "I really like her" when he refers to his favorite boss, Rom. Wait a minute... Rom used to be human?
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Feb 2, 2018 21:27
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Rom was a human that Willem had ascended to a kin-like state, yes. It had to be a human to do the job since that's how you get kin. Whether it was voluntary or not is up for debate but I like to think they did offer themselves up, because Rom doesn't seem so upset about its position when you arrive. edit: And also after the Byrgenwerth schism, all of the various groups had some collaborative element of "ok but gently caress those other guys lol"
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Feb 2, 2018 21:55
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Ben Nerevarine posted:Wait a minute... Rom used to be human? Ebrietas as well. The old ones bleed red blood, the kinbleed white serum. Paleblood is never actually.explained reliably and there are competing theories ranging from the blood the kin bleed to itbing the disease the Hunter had.
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Feb 2, 2018 23:35
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Isn't there a theory that it's plasma in the blood? Iosefkas blood is goldish/clear, like you'd get from separating plasma from the blood using a centrifuge. The earliest centrifuges were built before electricity so it's not out of the realm of possibility.
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Feb 2, 2018 23:54
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MillennialVulcan posted:Isn't there a theory that it's plasma in the blood? Iosefkas blood is goldish/clear, like you'd get from separating plasma from the blood using a centrifuge. The earliest centrifuges were built before electricity so it's not out of the realm of possibility. This is sort of interesting but it doesn't really fit into the thematic elements of the game nor is it even mentioned. I think the most solid theory is that it's mercury, and everyone in the game is basically suffering from mercury poisoning, in a setting where mercury is magic and turns you into either a beast or an alien depending on the context. It fits with much of the game's theme, mercury is everywhere in terms of references, and it also fits the general look of kin blood to a degree (i.e. a light colored liquid). It also fits with "formless" Oedon, because mercury is the formless element.
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Feb 2, 2018 23:57
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Lightning Knight posted:This is sort of interesting but it doesn't really fit into the thematic elements of the game nor is it even mentioned. This also relates to a real-life incident which is still very much a part of the Japanese collective memory. A corporation dumped huge amounts of methylmercury into the ocean near a fishing village for nearly 30 years, causing untold numbers of death and debilitation among people an animals. It was known as Minamata Disease (after the village where it primarily occurred), and ties in with a lot of themes of corruption and blood throughout the game, IE everything starting from Byrgenwerth scholars mucking around with Kos from the ocean. Assuming that residents of Yharnam primarily subsisted on fish, which would make sense because other than Hemwick Charnel Lane (which doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot of agriculture or herding, at least not enough to support what may be one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the world) the only place we see that could produce food is the Hamlet, so even average citizens would be ingesting large amounts of mercury. Byrgenwerth could have discovered that high levels of mercury offered some sort of healing effect without knowing that the corruption would eventually bring out Beasthood or Kin transformation. Willem believed that the "Old Blood" was dangerous and said "No you need insight to ascend", and Laurence said "Nah just use a fuckload of Old Blood", but they were both wrong because the Protagonist realized "You actually need to have an absolute fuckload of both and then you can be a real slug". It's also supported by the fact that Quicksilver (IE Mercury) is used extensively by hunters for their mundane and arcane tools. The fact that you can also literally use your own blood to create Quicksilver bullets seems to support the theory that Hunters are just loving filled with the poo poo.
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Feb 3, 2018 01:13
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WoodrowSkillson posted:Ebrietas as well. I haven't seen a single reference anywhere in game or in all those lore videos to suggest this. I thought she was found in the labyrinth and brought to the surface by the Healing Church?
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Feb 3, 2018 01:26
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Yorkshire Pudding posted:This also relates to a real-life incident which is still very much a part of the Japanese collective memory. A corporation dumped huge amounts of methylmercury into the ocean near a fishing village for nearly 30 years, causing untold numbers of death and debilitation among people an animals. It was known as Minamata Disease (after the village where it primarily occurred), and ties in with a lot of themes of corruption and blood throughout the game, IE everything starting from Byrgenwerth scholars mucking around with Kos from the ocean. Assuming that residents of Yharnam primarily subsisted on fish, which would make sense because other than Hemwick Charnel Lane (which doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot of agriculture or herding, at least not enough to support what may be one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the world) the only place we see that could produce food is the Hamlet, so even average citizens would be ingesting large amounts of mercury. Byrgenwerth could have discovered that high levels of mercury offered some sort of healing effect without knowing that the corruption would eventually bring out Beasthood or Kin transformation. Willem believed that the "Old Blood" was dangerous and said "No you need insight to ascend", and Laurence said "Nah just use a fuckload of Old Blood", but they were both wrong because the Protagonist realized "You actually need to have an absolute fuckload of both and then you can be a real slug". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjpcKIQyK5I This is where I heard that theory, and yes, "Bloodborne as metaphor for Minamata Disease and the misguided xenophobia of Japanese people obscuring the fact that their institutions are dangerous and don't have their best interests at heart" is my favorite interpretation of the game thematically, as it uses an inherently European setting and style (Lovecraftian/Gothic horror in a Victorian setting, Lovecraft having been driven by his rampant paranoia, xenophobia, and racism, and Catholicism, a deeply hierarchical, institutional religion) to convey an inherently Japanese story that is steeped in Shintoism and the concept of kegare.
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Feb 3, 2018 01:27
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I like Redgrave, but he (like a lot of Souls-lore theoryists) go a little overboard with stuff like Shintoism and "kegare". The role that Shinto plays in Japanese society and history isn't the same as how Christianity has affected the West, and I feel like a lot of people are conflating their own understanding of Christianity shaping the West with Shintoism in Japan. The whole kegare thing also seems a bit overblown too, in the same way that a lot of people who read Chrysanthemum and the Sword feel like bushido is this fundamental part of Japanese traditional society which is so disingenuous.
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Feb 3, 2018 01:38
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I mean, most of the stuff with kegare is related to the League/Vileblood/Forbidden Woods subplots and they mostly feel like they've been cut down and pushed out of focus in the final game versus what was likely originally intended, at least to me. I dunno a lot about Shintoism or kegare tbh, I find the latter concept entirely baffling, but I just find Redgrave's take on the game very fascinating.
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Feb 3, 2018 01:41
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Dr. Clockwork posted:I haven't seen a single reference anywhere in game or in all those lore videos to suggest this. I thought she was found in the labyrinth and brought to the surface by the Healing Church? She takes extra damage to weapons that damage kin, kin are not actually great ones. She also bleeds white like brainsuckers and other kin do. Kinhunter gems don't help against the actual great one bosses like amygdala, mergos wet nurse, and moon presence.
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Feb 3, 2018 01:45
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He's by far my favorite theory guy throughout all of the franchise games. Paleblood Hunt took me from "This game is sweet" to "This game is objectively the best". kegare is really just a synonym for "corruption", but it's closer to being something like "stagnation" in Japanese. It has roots in Zen Buddhist philosophy which is focused on the conceptual idea of movement and change, and that anything unmoving is associated with decay. Pools of stagnant water breed mosquitoes and parasites and other nasties, specifically centipedes which were traditionally symbols/avatars of death and poison, hence the League "vermin" looking like centipedes. In game terms I would say that the idea is that a little bit of mercury is okay as long as its being filtered out by the continual cleansing mechanisms of the body, but when it starts to pool up, like in hunters or Vilebloods who would consume huge amounts of mercury-laden blood, it corrupts the host.
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Feb 3, 2018 01:49
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All that about people going in for orientalizing readings of Fromsoft’s games may well be true but it’s a bit rich to say that people are reading the concept of kegare into BB. It’s right there. The Caryll rune “corruption” (the vileblood covenant rune) is named “kegare”. The item “blood dreg” is “blood kegare”. The vilebloods themselves are the “blood tribe who hunt kegare for the queen”. Basically everything to do with vilebloods is full of kegare and the various translations obfuscate this because there is not an obvious single translation that captures the entire sense of the word in all contexts. See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/bloodborne/comments/4ivd4d/spoiler_about_corruption_and_vileblood_minor/ e: DS is obviously a bit less concerned with that sort of thing as well given its themes, but it’s not absent concept either. For example in the Japanese version of DS3, the Soul of a Fire Keeper is “kegareta” because of the abyss. Given the dark fantasy nature of these games I think it’s pretty inevitable that they will touch on religious concepts of taint, defilement, corruption, impurity and pollution, and I think it’s cool that people are willing to look at traditional Japanese ways of understanding these concepts. skasion fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Feb 3, 2018 |
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Feb 3, 2018 01:52
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WoodrowSkillson posted:She takes extra damage to weapons that damage kin, kin are not actually great ones. She also bleeds white like brainsuckers and other kin do. Kinhunter gems don't help against the actual great one bosses like amygdala, mergos wet nurse, and moon presence. Yeah but those boss fights all take place in the Nightmare and Ebriatas is a physical entity in the real world. I think they found Ebriatas dead in the Chalice Dungeons and revived her on the altar, but she’s definitely an old one, she’s just the only old one you fight in the “real” world. There’s also a lot to suggest different factions within the old ones. Moon Presence trying to kill Mergo makes more sense to me than any other reading honestly Bust Rodd fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Feb 3, 2018 |
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Feb 3, 2018 02:00
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True, and the Japanese translations are obviously where a lot of this stuff comes directly from. Like I said kegare is essentially a translation of the word "corruption". My annoyance with it is more that some people dig way too deep into Shintoism and trying to make it seem like the creators were making some sort of religious-type statement in the same way that a lot of people want to say that certain films (Matrix springs to mind) are explicitly about Christianity.
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Feb 3, 2018 02:04
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If the color of the blood is the big giveaway between an ascended human kin and a Great One, then explain why Rom has red blood in the labyrinth boss fight. I'm all about the lore in the game and I love it to pieces, but sometimes I wonder if people read too much into minor things. It might be more apt to assume that someone had a deadline and wanted to go to lunch, and patched in white blood instead of red blood and they just went to press.
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Feb 3, 2018 02:10
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Dr. Clockwork posted:If the color of the blood is the big giveaway between an ascended human kin and a Great One, then explain why Rom has red blood in the labyrinth boss fight. She bleeds white if you hit her head. Red from the body.
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Feb 3, 2018 02:13
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Yorkshire Pudding posted:True, and the Japanese translations are obviously where a lot of this stuff comes directly from. Like I said kegare is essentially a translation of the word "corruption". My annoyance with it is more that some people dig way too deep into Shintoism and trying to make it seem like the creators were making some sort of religious-type statement in the same way that a lot of people want to say that certain films (Matrix springs to mind) are explicitly about Christianity. Well yeah, but the thing is someone at Fromsoft chose to use the word “kegare”, surely aware of its religious connotations of ritual pollution and poo poo, rather than other words that could be glossed as corruption, like 腐敗 or 堕落 or something. I don’t want to make an excessive deal about this but the intent in using the word was clearly to evoke a (Shinto) religiously charged idea.
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Feb 3, 2018 02:16
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skasion posted:Well yeah, but the thing is someone at Fromsoft chose to use the word “kegare”, surely aware of its religious connotations of ritual pollution and poo poo, rather than other words that could be glossed as corruption, like 腐敗 or 堕落 or something. I don’t want to make an excessive deal about this but the intent in using the word was clearly to evoke a (Shinto) religiously charged idea. Yeah, in the same way that any Western games or shows or whatever with resurrection as a theme could be seen as invoking a religiously charged idea. That doesn't mean the creators are specifically intending to give that particular media a religious overtone. I fully agree that Shintoism and certain Japanese ideals are purposely present in Bloodborne, but reading a lot of lore stuff I see people who take that and run with it to extremes and start trying to make everything be about this Very Specific Thing.
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Feb 3, 2018 02:41
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skasion posted:All that about people going in for orientalizing readings of Fromsoft’s games may well be true but it’s a bit rich to say that people are reading the concept of kegare into BB. It's always bothered me much more in readings of the Souls games which are much more explicit in their interest in Western symbolism and myth. Both gothic horror and lovecraftian horror are much more amenable to a broader reading I reckon.
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Feb 3, 2018 03:42
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i agree, but there is so much catholic imagery all over this game that it seems weird to me that they'd intentionally gut meaning implied by their Japanese roots.
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Feb 3, 2018 04:21
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The item descriptions are explicit about Ebrietas's origins. I'm not saying there's nothing weird going on with her blood but if you want an explanation for that it has to fit the textual information. Just saying she used to be human doesn't make any sense.
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Feb 3, 2018 04:34
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Bust Rodd posted:i agree, but there is so much catholic imagery all over this game that it seems weird to me that they'd intentionally gut meaning implied by their Japanese roots. Look up syncretic Christianity in Japan and prepare to whoaaaaaaab
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Feb 3, 2018 05:22
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Regy Rusty posted:The item descriptions are explicit about Ebrietas's origins. I'm not saying there's nothing weird going on with her blood but if you want an explanation for that it has to fit the textual information. Just saying she used to be human doesn't make any sense. If anything she is Pthumerian. She can still be from the labyrinth and also be an ascendend mortal
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Feb 3, 2018 05:34
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So which of the six "main" chalices are the best to keep? I just finished the lower Pthumerian one and obtained the Defiled and am starting the Hintertomb ones. Should I just delete the first two chalices when I need more room or is there anything extremely important in them. I got the Haze Extractor already.
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Feb 3, 2018 05:47
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Desperate Character posted:So which of the six "main" chalices are the best to keep? I just finished the lower Pthumerian one and obtained the Defiled and am starting the Hintertomb ones. Should I just delete the first two chalices when I need more room or is there anything extremely important in them. I got the Haze Extractor already. There is no point in keeping any of them if you have gone through them all and you’re sure you picked up everything. Hintertombs are almost completely pointless so you can get rid of those at your leisure.
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Feb 3, 2018 06:10
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WoodrowSkillson posted:If anything she is Pthumerian. She can still be from the labyrinth and also be an ascendend mortal I actually agree with this, I was under the impression that she is the equivalent of Rom from the Pthumerian times, and being alive for so long has given her power.
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Feb 3, 2018 06:10
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Ebrietas is described as a medium that allowed the church to converse with Great Ones, to better understand the 'forbidden knowledge' the game loves to beat around the bush about. It would make sense for Ebrietas to be a Pthumerian that was ascended to kin, rather than just a friendly Great One they randomly came across in some dungeon far away. Like it's their version of Rom or something. edit: beat by a country mile, this is what I get for posting without refreshing
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Feb 3, 2018 06:25
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I came away from the game with the impression that Rom and the player were "reborn" as Great Ones, and Ebrietas always was one. I guess I have a hard time with the general notion that you should use game mechanics like +ATK vs Kin in a textual analysis. hampig fucked around with this message at 12:08 on Feb 3, 2018 |
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Feb 3, 2018 11:56
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