|
This was a fun LP. I've only ever beaten Dark Souls 3, but all the other games except DS2 I've experienced vicariously through LPs. I liked the tour guide aesthetic.
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2018 23:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 17:05 |
|
|
BioEnchanted posted:This was a fun LP. I've only ever beaten Dark Souls 3, but all the other games except DS2 I've experienced vicariously through LPs. I liked the tour guide aesthetic.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2018 23:23
|
|
|
Cardiovorax posted:Geop has a very nice half-finished playthrough of DS2 on his channel. Give it a look! Better than playing the game, that's for sure. I have been, kind of forgot about it til now. I hope to see more bosses in these games like the brothers from DS3, who straight up just asks you nicely to let the flame die before the fight starts They're more interesting than the mindless ones. Also I want a joke ending in BB2 where the player hears a rhythmic beeping during an optional boss fight, and then after the fight you get a cutscene of the player character waking up, hitting the beeping alarm clock and getting a bowl of cereal while skypeing with their friend about the weird dream they just had. BioEnchanted fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Dec 9, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2018 23:27
|
|
|
Thanks for the LP! It must have been a titanic amount of work. I've said it before, but it's an incredible shame I'll probably never get to play the game myself since I just can't justify buying a PS4... so this is the next best thing, I think. Unless at some point in the future there's a "Bloodborne Remastered" or something that also gets a PC release. Anyway; going directly from the Gehrman fight into the Moon Presence fight, I was worried for a moment that the game was going to rudely dump you right into it with all your resources still depleted. Dark Souls 3 kind of does that a few times, from memory. But no; thankfully it auto-replenished your blood vials and whatnot.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2018 23:42
|
|
|
Antistar01 posted:Anyway; going directly from the Gehrman fight into the Moon Presence fight, I was worried for a moment that the game was going to rudely dump you right into it with all your resources still depleted. They do. If you pause real quick right after the fadeout from the Moon Presence intro cutscene you can see that I'm running back from the fog gate because they tried to make me fight it with like 0 blood vials and I was not having that! But it is actually a much more tense fight that way.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2018 23:56
|
|
|
The moon presence is a lot less scary of a boss fight then Gehrman.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2018 23:58
|
|
|
I'm just glad I managed to end the Gehrman boss fight perfectly with the music. I was almost gonna do the LP with the music turned off so that I could insert it appropriately and time it perfectly but I decided it'd be too much work. Mind you this was back in early 2016 when I first recorded the footage.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 00:04
|
|
|
So, now that you are an ascended squidkid, what will you do when the humans inevitably come for blood/eyeballs/space?
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 00:27
|
|
|
You know, I always wondered, if the reason a Great One's children are always doomed to be stillborn is because you cannot just create a Great One soul. That spirit and power can only be passed down, and only when a previous Great One stops using it. If the parent is still alive, its child cannot be. And conversely... Jill consumed a complete umbilical cord. And then the Moon Presence made contact. But perhaps it wasn't just the insight that gave her power over it - the Moon Presence unwittingly (or perhaps even intentionally) connected in a fundamental, biological way, and by killing it, Jill could claim its place as a new Great One soul. Perhaps that is what Mycolash meant about Kos granting eyes to Rom - Kos had died, and it is her spirit that was claimed from her orphan by the hunters to give to the Byrgenwerth spider? Perhaps Mensis was trying to do the same thing. But then, whether or not I'm right, what to make of Arianna's newborn, which seemed to be surviving?
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 00:37
|
|
|
The Great Ones aren't just supernatural things that exist intrinsically as some part of the universe. They used to be just regular squid person things. Then, they did something and became quasi-divine squid person things. So I think that's a no.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 00:54
|
|
|
I have a very different understanding of what the moon presence is. So Laurence was busy digging into the eldritch power provided by the old ones blood and was happily making progress until the beast plague began. For at its essence treated blood is raw power and for those without the resolve or insight to handle such blessings became overran by the power and became beasts. So having won Gerham's support with the Byrgenwerth schism he called upon his abilities to hunt down the beast and keep Yharnam standing. At first they were able to keep a handle on things but then Maria left and with that Gerham lost his will to fight and with the initial hunters only just about able to keep a handle on things then they were all doomed. So in desperation Gerham and Laurence reached out to the Great Ones for aid and the Moon Presence answered. For in return of a host it would open up a nightmare in which it would allow those who signed a contract to basically treat the nightmare as their point of origin and so much like with Micolash every time they died in the foreign dimension (the real world) they would be wake up at home (the hunters dream). Gerham was picked and whisked away and while this helped ease the burden on the hunters they still needed a leader and this is when Ludwing stepped in and formed the church hunters. Once again everything seemed to be working or at least the line was being held and then it all went to hell when Laurence was consumed by the power he had been studying and imbuing. So he became one of the most powerful beasts ever and whilst he was eventually put down, the damage was done. With the founder of the healing church gone all those working under him splintered off into various sub groups who proceeded to great many of the most horrifying abominations that are fought along the way to ending it all.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 00:55
|
|
|
I love horror movies and books but just can't play horror games, so I really enjoyed this. Thank you for your hard work, CJacobs!
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 01:07
|
|
|
I agree largely with Hunt11. The Moon Presence isn't causing the Hunts, it is just the clean-up crew Laurence contracted basically. Here's how I think it went down, Laurence and Gehrman are both at Byrgenwerth and after the Fishing Hamlet Laurence takes a large number of scholars to form the Healing Church, with Gehrman hunting the beasts that result from the experimentation. Gehrman gets apprentices, including Maria, and for a while things are good except for all the people dying in the name of progress. Then Maria learns about the Fishing Hamlet by visiting the Hunter's Nightmare, and by association just what is creating the beasts, and in disgust throws her weapon down the well in the Hunter's Nightmare and becomes the caretaker of the patients of the Healing Church. Gehrman is distraut and creates the Doll, and the hunting gets harder as the beasts get bigger. Eventually the Healing Church needs the Hunters to go stop the Vilebloods, who are disrupting progress and killing people for their queen, Gehrman refuses but the Executioners go and slaughter the Vilebloods. Logarius stays behind and the remaining Executioners inspire/join the newly formed Healing Church Hunter's Workshop led by Ludwig, who may have been an apprentice of Gehrman or an Executioner. Although at some point Ludwig has to be a student of Gehrman. Maria dies near here, either suicide at the loss of her people or killed by an Executioner. Gehrman despairs and Laurence realises the Hunters won't be enough if things go really wrong, so together they contact the Moon Presence and in return for Gehrman becoming it's surrogate child and Host of the Hunter's Dream the Moon Presence animates the Doll for Gehrman, and will clean up any messes made by the Healing Church's experimentation that get too big. One such event was the night Laurence transformed in the middle of Old Yharnam, which eventually led to the situation where the Oto and Powder Kegs burn the entire thing down to protect the secrets of the Healing Church whilst Djura is the contracted Hunter of the Dream. Then we get to tonight, where the School of Mensis are going to cause a giant mess. So we're contracted and our job is to end the problem, in this case the School of Mensis attracting Mergo to Yharnam. Once we do so our contract is complete, but we can refuse to submit and wake up which means Gehrman must fight us, or wants to fight us, so that we will wake-up. After defeating Gehrman the Moon Presence comes down to continue the contract it formed with Laurence and Gehrman, taking you in Gehrman's place because that's the assumption, you have come to free Gehrman from the contract by taking his place. Normally you can't fight this, however if you have enough Umbilical Cords you are an infant great one in the making and thus can reject the influence of the Moon Presence. Once you kill the Moon Presence you drain it's essence and thus become a fully realised infant great one, born of Insight, Blood, Word and Umbilical Cords. None of the Great Ones are evil, they just don't really understand humans and humans don't really understand the Great Ones. Which means every time someone asks a Great One for something it goes wrong in weird ways, in the case of the Moon Presence what Gehrman likely wanted was the Doll to actually become Maria, and the Doll just didn't do that. Meanwhile likely Laurence wanted protection until he could attain godhood, unfortunately he ended up a beast instead and the Moon Presence didn't do anything about it. Laurence is the real villain of the entire story, as the person who pushes everything so far in the name of what I'm assuming is personal ascension until he himself failed and then Yharnam was left with this giant mess he'd created with founding the Healing Church and all the experimentation he started and so on and so forth. Basically, Laurence is a huge dick who only cared about himself and ruined an entire city because of it. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Dec 10, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 02:56
|
|
|
quote:None of the Great Ones are evil, they just don't really understand humans and humans don't really understand the Great Ones. Which means every time someone asks a Great One for something it goes wrong in weird ways  " and then wrong it predictably goes.I find this a much more satisfying answer than most of the fan theories I've seen here and elsewhere, because that's exactly what a Great One would do.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 03:25
|
|
|
Cardiovorax posted:Someone in the Youtube comments summed up the Old Blood as a Great One going "hey, let's give the humans some of our magical healing juice, surely nothing could go wrong with that It's not even that funnily enough, the Old Blood is the aftermath of whatever caused the Pthumerians and the Great Ones to have a falling out. Presumably the deal made between Queen Yharnam and Oedon? to give birth to Mergo, a Pthumerian King and a Great One at the same time. Which would basically overthrow what I believe to have been their social order, which is that the Pthumerians worshipped and assisted the Great Ones, the King/Queen was more like the High Priest than the ruler. So the Great Ones leave besides Ebrietas, who at the time may have been newly ascended. This leaves the Pthumerians to decay without the Great Ones and an immortal Queen maddened by grief from her dead son. Then centuries to millenium later the Byrgenwerth Scholars make it down and find the long decayed blood of the Great Ones which they use in their early experimentation, the Healing Church takes the chalice and gets even more into research. Loses access to the Pthumerian Chalice and then finds Isz and Ebrietas who basically freely gives her blood to help them.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 04:35
|
|
|
CJacobs posted:They do. If you pause real quick right after the fadeout from the Moon Presence intro cutscene you can see that I'm running back from the fog gate because they tried to make me fight it with like 0 blood vials and I was not having that! Ah, okay. That is more the kind of brutality I was expecting. But it at least doesn't make you fight Gehrman all over again if you die/teleport out of the Moon Presence fight, then?
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 04:50
|
|
|
Antistar01 posted:Ah, okay. That is more the kind of brutality I was expecting. Thankfully no, and between the two Gehrman is the harder fight, Moon Presence just has a mechanic that's pretty bullshit.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 04:55
|
|
|
I think it's probably fair to assume that Laurence had a part in summoning the Moon Presence, given this note in one of the rooms of the Lecture Building:quote:"The nameless moon presence beckoned by Laurence and his associates. Paleblood." The 'associate' being Gehrman, probably. There's a very slight implication that the church wasn't established until after Laurence was already dead in the real world (who knows what was going on in the Hunter's Nightmare at that point) but it'd throw the rest of the timeline out of whack so I'll just call that part a fluke.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 04:55
|
|
|
CJacobs posted:I think it's probably fair to assume that Laurence had a part in summoning the Moon Presence, given this note in one of the rooms of the Lecture Building: I think the modern Church is certainly after Laurence was already dead, but he certainly was around until the burning of Old Yharnam in my version of events. Specifically because Laurence becoming the first Cleric Beast would explain so much about why they burnt Old Yharnam down the way they did. Also Laurence is a giant burning Cleric Beast in the most modern part of the Hunter's Nightmare which is full of Oto and Powder Keg Huntsmen and Old Yharnam Beast Patients. So that's why I think he was killed in the burning. After the burning the Pthumerian Chalice was inacessable so the Choir and the School of Mensis both looked for other methods of accessing the Old Blood. In the case of the Choir they found Isz and Ebrietas who also being a pure source of Great One blood let them succeed where the early Healing Church failed; hence the Living Failures compared to the Celestial Emmisary. The School of Mensis either found another way down into the Pthumerian Labyrinth or looked elsewhere and the Pthumerians messed with them later. The forming of the Hunter's Dream has to be pre-burning because Djura was Dreaming that night.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 05:00
|
|
|
Lord_Magmar posted:It's not even that funnily enough, the Old Blood is... *snip*
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 05:02
|
|
|
The moon presence is really easy. Its ability that takes you down to 1hp would be kinda bullshit but it gives you such a long window afterwards that it basically just gives you a chance to deal heaps of damage and gain all that HP back. It's usually enough damage to stagger it and get in a visceral attack
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 05:04
|
|
|
Cardiovorax posted:At this point, I'm just gonna be completely honest with you: 90% of everything you've said about this stuff sounds like completely empty speculation of the "Solaire is Gwyn's firstborn" type to me, and I'm personally going to stick with the comedy option because even if it's not correct, it also makes a lot less in the way of assumptions that I really just don't see confirmed anywhere half of the time. The Old Blood coming from the Dungeons is mentioned by Alfred when you ask him about Byrgenwerth. The rest is speculation, but the Old Blood really was first found in the Dungeons. Ebrietas being the source of the modern stuff is also somewhere in the various choir/church stuff but I forget where.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 05:25
|
|
|
Thanks for the great LP! I can't play most games myself due to physical disability, so I really enjoy seeing someone take a leisurely, lore-heavy, exploratory walk through a great game. Really looking forward to your trip through Dead Space, too.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 05:28
|
|
|
Lord_Magmar posted:The Old Blood coming from the Dungeons is mentioned by Alfred when you ask him about Byrgenwerth. The rest is speculation, but the Old Blood really was first found in the Dungeons. Ebrietas being the source of the modern stuff is also somewhere in the various choir/church stuff but I forget where.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 05:29
|
|
|
Cardiovorax posted:Yeah, that is actually found in item descriptions and such - Byrgenwerth scholars found it and unearthed Ebrietas either at the same or near to that time. I was more talking about all the rest of it. Eh, Isz and Ebrietas are later, the Isz Chalice discusses how it was the first Chalice found since the time of Byrgenwerth and it makes sense for that to be after the Burning of Old Yharnam which would be where the Healing Church would lose the Pthumerian Chalice they took with them when they left Byrgenwerth. Hence finding the Pthumerian Chalice in Old Yharnam. The rest of it is merely extrapolation from the stuff the game gives us to fill in the blanks, and is as valid as any comedy option. Which is to say I honestly don't give a single drat what someone wants to take from the game so long as it doesn't directly contradict anything the game says. I bring up my theories because I like discussing them and alternatives, not because I think it is 100% the way things happen. My authoritive tone is more because it gets very tiring to say in my opinion before every thing I say about this game, which I do quite often anyway because I'm aware that not everyone agrees with my interpretations. For example CJacobs got something different from the Moon Presence then I did and that's okay. Great Isz Chalice posted:"A chalice that breaks a labyrinth seal.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 05:41
|
|
|
CJacobs posted:I think it's probably fair to assume that Laurence had a part in summoning the Moon Presence, given this note in one of the rooms of the Lecture Building: Considering that Gehrman has a line about not being able to take it anymore and needing Laurence to finish things up, there is no way they weren't working together. Edit: With the lp finally finished I feel it safe to post these videos which are a mixture of quotes surrounding an important Bloodbourne characters with some amazing background art. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B7oiF1vLfg Hunt11 fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Dec 10, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 06:09
|
|
|
I think Lord Magmar has a valid interpretation of the story, specifically because of the whole 'every great one yearns for a surrogate' thing that's come up a whole bunch at this point. To the Moon Presence, Gehrman may very well have been its surrogate child. He was certainly not satisfied with this outcome, but the Moon Presence probably didn't know or care. I would say that it's clear as day that the Moon Presence was causing the beast outbreaks, or at the very least the transformation of men into beasts (as opposed to the blood mutating people in other ways), but it likewise may not have even been intentionally causing harm to the people of Yharnam. The way it embraces Jill implies that it's not inherently hostile to her, but we don't know and probably never will be able to suss out how the Moon Presence felt about the people it was watching over. Also look at this great art of Jill that got drawn!! https://twitter.com/wildtrapinch/status/1071950107409432578 CJacobs fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Dec 10, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 06:20
|
|
|
thank you for all the work you put into this cjacobs, it was a very enjoyable and informative lp something i'm left wondering (maybe it was already covered and i forgot), is pressganging foreigners desperate for healing into becoming hunters something that was routinely carried out, or was it a special circumstance thing because of the imminent hunt? and was it intentional that jill become ensnared in the hunters dream or was it a fluke that she didn't end up as crazed member of the mobs taking part in the hunt? the blood minister seems awfully specific in his talk about dreaming, but i can't quite parse who he would be in league with considering that gehrman would be the most logical but he's trapped in the dream and seems thoroughly out of touch with the waking world. and now that i'm thinking back on it, at the very beginning of the game i thought that the blood minister being blind was a cool bit of gothic horror character design, but looking back on it in light of the rest of the game it has a lot of possible implications
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 06:36
|
|
|
CJacobs posted:I would say that it's clear as day that the Moon Presence was causing the beast outbreaks, or at the very least the transformation of men into beasts (as opposed to the blood mutating people in other ways), but it likewise may not have even been intentionally causing harm to the people of Yharnam. It is strange that you would phrase it like that considering that one of the endings, where you let Gherman kill you in the dream, seems to make it very clear that everything in Yharnam is resolved in regards to the encroaching old ones and the machinations of those seeking to ascend is over. I view the Moon Presence as being a guardian of sorts in regards to making sure that no being can ascend like the Great Ones did as it knows full well the cost associated with doing such acts.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 06:37
|
|
|
GhostofJohnMuir posted:thank you for all the work you put into this cjacobs, it was a very enjoyable and informative lp There are a number of foreigners who became hunters through various means (Valtr, Brador, Yamamura, Eileen, Gascoigne) but Jill is the only one we've heard of who came seeking treatment and ended up a hunter. There's really no telling why Jill ended up getting contracted into being a hunter in the first place, maybe she just got unlucky and ended up in the wrong sickroom on the wrong night during a hunt with a particular shortage of able bodies. CJacobs fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Dec 10, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 06:49
|
|
|
Personally I'd say the Moon Presence is maybe speeding up the Beast Process specifically to help the Hunter cleanse the streets on this night, but it can't be the only source of Beast transformation because people were transforming before it set its lack of eyes on Yharnam, for example in Loran, and places other than Yharnam had beasts. Like wherever Valtr is from. So I can agree that its Presence, haha, is not helping matters but the transformations are probably going to happen regardless. Presumably the Moon Presence, like other Great Ones, speeds up the process by weaking the walls between reality and the Dreamlands. Also, correlation does not mean causation. If for example the Moon Presence's deal with Laurence and Gehrman involved empowering Hunters to clean up big beast outbreaks it would show up when a big beast outbreak occurs, but not necessarily be the cause of said outbreak. The fact that everything about the Hunt seems on the up and up until the very end when you explicitly stop working to end the Hunt but satiate your own curiosity/save Gehrman/kill the Moon suggests to me that if you had woken up you'd have completed the contract and like Djura and Eileen remembered the night but suffered no other problems. I am curious as to when why and what Eileen was called to the Dream for to be honest. My previous guess was to do with the Bloody Crow in some manner, she seems to take her fight with him somewhat personally. The two definite examples we know of are the Burning of Old Yharnam and the current night. Both of which don't require the Moon Presence to be causing the transformations, only responding to a night where it knows everything is going to go to poo poo anyway. Like for example one of the people contracting it becoming a giant beast in the middle of town, or a stillborn infant Great One encroaching on reality in a way that could destroy Yharnam, maybe. Like, my personal opinion on how it feels is it doesn't really understand why Gehrman is upset with the Doll. It gave him what he wanted, Maria as the Doll portrayed. Then after you defeat Gehrman it interprets that as you somehow taking his place in the contract, so it comes down to give you a hug and claim you as its child, which appears to involve losing a leg for some reason. When you repel it with your near infant Great One potential it decides to kill you for being ungrateful. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Dec 10, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 06:51
|
|
|
The Bloodborne comic actually reveals how the Old Yharnam outbreak happened. Healing church priests were poisoning the water supply with a murky powder that caused the blood to coagulate, eventually inflicting the ashen blood sickness that makes the specific brand of poison beasts unique to Old Yharnam. This is presumably an intentional recreation by the Church of what happened to Ailing Loran, the chalice for which makes reference to something similar:quote:There are trace remains of medical procedures in parts of ailing Loran. Whether these were attempts to control the scourge of the beast, or the cause of the outbreak, is unknown.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 06:56
|
|
|
Yeah, the outbreak was engineered by the Healing Church so people would take the Healing Blood, which unfortunately just made things worse not better over time. My point is that the actual night probably started with Laurence's transformation, which is something worth having a huge Hunt over, instead of merely cleaning the streets of beasts.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 07:32
|
|
|
quote:I think Lord Magmar has a valid interpretation of the story, specifically because of the whole 'every great one yearns for a surrogate' thing that's come up a whole bunch at this point. CJacobs posted:The Bloodborne comic actually reveals how the Old Yharnam outbreak happened. Healing church priests were poisoning the water supply with a murky powder that caused the blood to coagulate, eventually inflicting the ashen blood sickness that makes the specific brand of poison beasts unique to Old Yharnam.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 11:44
|
|
|
One last video. Thank you all very much for helping me survive one of the hardest years of my life. Sincerely, thank you. You mean the world to me.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 12:35
|
|
|
Cardiovorax posted:Sure. The parts about secret Pthumerian agents who have lived underground for 10000 years etc. seem a bit far-fetched to me, though. I mean, the Pthumerians are alive down there, that's the entire point of the Chalice Dungeons, they've eternally expanded the Chalice Dungeons according to the Hintertomb Chalices. Also you can fight Pthumerian Descendents and Pthumerian Elders as chalice dungeon bosses, as well as Queen Yharnam herself. The Shadows of Yharnam are Queen Yharnam's personal bodygaurds, they're using archaic meaning for the term shadow, and the boss fight is in a place known as the Forbidden Grave. Which given it's not hard to work out the Forbidden Blood taken to Castle Cainhurst came from Queen Yharnam, makes that potentially her grave and thus a place to find her bodygaurds. Now, it's not necessarily true that the enemies I assume to have Pthumerian Origins are actually Pthumerians, but given the Pthumerians all seem to have pale skin, gaunt figures and silver hair I'm inclined to believe that the Bell-Ringers, Witches and Sackmen are all plausibly Pthumerians. Which can explain why Yahar'gul was functioning but the Mensis Scholars were all mummies, they made the trip to Mergo a long time ago and the Pthumerians took over Yahar'gul whilst they were in the Nightmare. Not necessarily the correct version of events but a potential one.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 14:13
|
|
|
Lord_Magmar posted:Now, it's not necessarily true that the enemies I assume to have Pthumerian Origins are actually Pthumerians, but given the Pthumerians all seem to have pale skin, gaunt figures and silver hair I'm inclined to believe that the Bell-Ringers, Witches and Sackmen are all plausibly Pthumerians. I'm not really convinced that the infinite, never-the-same-twice, monster-filled labyrinth isn't actually just another Nightmare realm, too. That just doesn't scream "real place" to me. One that you can get into through some places in the physical world, but it's not like there isn't a literal door straight into the otherworldly portion of Byrgenwerth, either.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 15:28
|
|
|
It's hard to ignore the evocative nature of the Moon Presence as the source of the Beast Plague, but if that's the case then the entire plot involving Mergo is basically a red-herring. If the Moon Presence's goal is to preserve the Hunt then what advantage does it have in giving the player any kind of concrete goal to reach towards? One possibility that just occurred to me is that the Moon Presence, if it is the source of the Plague, simply didn't know about Mergo. It's entire M.O. is to bind Hunters to the Dream until they go insane and get sucked into the Hunter's Nightmare, at which point another Hunter gets contracted and the hunt continues. But the Player changes the game by actually uncovering the Mergo conspiracy and successfully slaying a number of Great Ones and Great One-empowered agents. In doing so, you acquire enough Insight and Blood-power to not only defeat Gherman but to oppose the Moon Presence directly. I'm not super-satisfied by that because it sort of turns the entire game into a wild goose chase. I rather prefer the idea that Mergo is the catalyst causing the Plague, and Laurence and Gherman contacted the Moon Presence to engineer some insurance that, should they personally fail to stop it, there would be a provision for Hunters to continue fighting the plague. But, of course, there was a significant degree of mutual misunderstanding on both sides that lead to Gherman being trapped as the Host both of the Hunter's Dream and the Hunter's Nightmare. In the end, this misunderstanding leads the Moon Presence to its own demise, as it fails to understand that with Mergo slain it's services are no longer necessary. Strange Matter fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Dec 10, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 15:46
|
|
|
In light of Da Moon trying to treat Jill as a replacement surrogate child, I can only interpret that headbutt as it trying to do the belly fart thing: "oh, new babby!" *pffffbpbpbpbpbpbpbt*
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 15:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 17:05 |
|
|
CJacobs posted:Thank you all very much for helping me survive one of the hardest years of my life. Sincerely, thank you. You mean the world to me. Thank you, CJacobs- for your dedication, musical choices, and for getting the best ending. Yes, becoming a little squid critter is, in fact, the best ending. If you had taken Gehrman up on his offer, you'll wake up, as he promises, with the rising sun, but having forgotten everything you've seen... and if you fight him without taking the Umbilical Cord unto yourself, the Moon Presence takes you instead, and you become the new Gehrman, the new keeper of the dream. Both of these options continues the horror of the Hunt in perpetuity, but the former is actually worse than the latter because you don't even know why. Jill's long, long night was filled with a lot of terror and heartbreak, the kind that can only come from an Hide Miyazaki joint, but with suffering comes knowledge- the knowledge of why this is happening (well, all of that's debatable), and also the knowledge of your monstrous foes... or rather, that they aren't actually monsters. Some began as humans who made some bad decisions or don't even fully understand what's happening to them because they were either not told, or were sold a line by the church... and some were never human, but have understandable motivations all the same. The Great Old Ones wanted love from humans, but failed to understand what love is or how to get it, and thus either spread only suffering or suffered themselves when humans got the wrong idea and through greed, malice or apathy tormented them- the tragedy is not that there is no love, but that there is no understanding. And achieving that understanding is worth something- recall Micolash's horror when he was killed. It was not that he would die, or was already dead (which I suspect he knew anyway), it's that he would forget. But Jill chose something different, not a cleaving to any of the philosophies she had seen, but her own choice- not so much a combination of all three approaches to godhood, but something none of them would ever consider (although plainly somebody did consider it, if the note we found in the nightmare academy is any indication). And the reward for this choice is something new coming from all of this death and suffering: becoming a Great Old One. Not some Vacuous half breed sitting around in a white void, or being poked and prodded by a false Church trying to figure out how they tick, or some poor half formed thing on a beach being consumed by vengeance... but a true Great Old One, and even more remarkable, one that has the experience of actually being human. Sure, she had to shed her humanity to get there, but as people like Laurence teach us, "humanity" is relative... and provided she remembers her experiences, there is a chance at least that she won't make the same mistakes that Oedon and Kos and the Moon Presence did... and that chance is really the best one can hope for at this point. (And is certainly better than being stuck in a wheelchair or waking up wondering how you got to a city full of dead people and why you came there.) resurgam40 fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Dec 10, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 16:18
|
|
