Femininity as Horror
Rather than simplifying women into archetypes, Bloodborne uses gothic and cosmic horror descriptions to explore how femininity shapes individual identity and societal structures. In doing so it transforms themes often associated with women into some of the most philosophical and creepy narrative elements, creating a world where the feminine is not merely represented but becomes the very fabric of its mythos.
What makes Bloodborne so different is that it does not show femininity with weakness or sensitivity, but it ties femininity to transformation, resistance, and knowledge. The most powerful beings in the game’s cosmology (the Great Ones) embody traits traditionally associated with motherhood, but still remain incomprehensible and godlike, similar to the real female experience where womens natural cycles of womenhood are naturally complex and incomprehensible to a common eye. Female coded figures like Mergo’s Wet Nurse or Ebrietas are created to be "scary" not because they are feminine, but because they represent power beyond human understanding. the game acknowledges the pain, loss, and exploitation attached to female experience of pregnancy. Many of the women you meet throuhout the game are trapped by expectations, by systems, or by literal monstrositys (greater ones.) when I replayed the game again after reading the stories of the women like adella an Arianna who use their own blood for the hunter. Because they are believed to have blood with special properties due to their connection (Or possible connection) to the Great Ones. (and of course more reasons like being a healing church vessels,blood saints, and other religous reaons. but im not going into that.) these women are binded to these idealogies of being a vessel to help, similar to Queen Yharnam who became a surrogate for the birthing of mergo.
The female experience isn't shown as anything pretty throuhout the game. Every woman in the game suffers in some manner, but the essences of it that pregnancy most prominently is depicted as grotesque. suffrage with eldritch truth
Women are the connection between the human world and the Great Ones. The Umbilical Cords are literally “third cords” of Great Ones and are the key to understanding the truth. The symbolism ties directly to: lineage, inheritance of knowledge, failed birth, transference of power. The metaphor is clear, the path to cosmic awareness goes through the realm of femininity.
In Bloodborne’s lore, no human is really capable of bearing a Great One’s offspring. But the game uses women’s bodies to visually and subjectively express the failure.
Mindscape Theory
Hunters dream is represented as a manifestation of the hunter’s consciousness, fully shaped by fear, desire, and memory. Hunter’s Dream is psychological rather than physical. its resemblance to the abandoned workshop in the real world backs up this theory, the perfect duplication suggests that the Dream is reconstructed from Gehrman’s memories rather than copied from any physical location. The Dream is not the workshop itself but an idea of the workshop thats been preserved in Gehrman’s subconscious and reproduced through the influence of the Moon Presence. The Doll represents comfort, purpose, or idealization. Gehrman symbolizes guilt, regret, or the burden of duty. The Workshop is the mind’s “safe room” away from traumatic reality. Killing Gehrman symbolizes the Hunter breaking free from old identity constraints, like shedding previous traumas or expectations.
Cycle of Rebirth
Hunter’s Dream is not seen as a prison or refuge, but a space where hunters undergo a transformative cycle of death, growth, and eventual rebirth. the Dream functions like an incubator, preparing the hunter for evolution beyond human limits. (like the great ones) instead of trapping the hunter, the Dream refines them, and guides them to a Great One ascension through repeated cycles of death and awakening.
Cosmic Horror
Great Ones motives are beyond morality, and their interactions with humans often produce madness, and transcendence.
Humans are to Great Ones what vermin is to humans. insight stat supports this idea as players “perceive” more truth, their world grows more grotesque. (amygdala etc) is hunters dream a Prison, or Freedom?
The prison which is Hunter’s Dream is like a cage, a beautifully crafted but an inescapable loop controlled by a higher being (moon presence.)
the Hunter is being conditioned to the Dream and it becomes a containment system, keeping the Hunter in a loop oof fighting, learning, and growing stronger without ever fully breaking the system that binds them.
but it also can be freedom. paradoxically, the Dream also represents freedom. It is a place where the Hunter can transcend the physical limitations of Yharnam and delve into realms otherwise inaccessible to the waking world. knowledge is freedom in this world, as the hunter gains insight from progression you begin to learn and figure out the truth of the system that is binding the hunter.
