"We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood... Fear the Old Blood."

It's time ya'll. https://twitter.com/KynaBlackstone/status/1280042714541649920

So, I've been playing Bloodborne finally, even though it is ten hundred percent my shit and boy howdy is it more than I ever wanted from a video game.

Minor critiques first: FromSoftware's design philosophy is very obtuse. The Git Gud crowd is also shite.

But that's expected

So, I’m not here to talk about how gameplay wise it’s amazing. I’d be jerking off hbomb’s video on it.

I’m also not here to talk about horror of it. Talking simulator already covered a bit on that.

I’m going to talk instead on how the hunters read as marginalized people

So some context:
I grew up as a queer woman in Utah. That’s going to color this.

But the protagonist, you, are a foreigner coming into Yharnam looking for a way to save yourself with a blood transfusion.

And Yharnam reads as London to me, and others

As such, it colors the world at large as “English”

And everyone In town first hates you because you’re In foreigners clothes. But even after you get the hunters clothes, you’re still hated and hounded. I theorize this because hunters are useful undesirables in Yharnam.

Let me further explain:
Lady Maria: Cainhurst citizen, an outsider
Father Gascoigne: last name implies he’s from France, outsider
Djura: Powderkeg Heretic, heretic implies outcasted from the order he was part of.

Mind this list is not comprehensive, but does paint an interesting picture. It also says a lot about how English and white society who feels it can explain away things and feel superior about it.

But on its own, it doesn’t have that.

It relies on the underclass to save it.

And it hates that underclass as well, as we have seen time and time again.

Yet if it were to eliminate the underclass of hunters in Yharnam, the entire society would fall to the monsters around it and in it.

This also is interesting because Bloodborne being inspired by infamous fuckboy writer H.P. Lovecraft’s work. Which also has some very interesting queer theory readings.

Maybe white society as it is isn’t prepared for the unknown and unknowable.

And that if it wants to survive, it needs to embrace its diverse and queer elements. Or it will backslide into monstrous bigotry.

Anyway, that’s my thonk, it’s very queer theory reading with an intersectional influence.

Hope you like it

"A corpse, should be left well alone. Oh, I know very well how the secrets beckon so sweetly. Only an honest death will cure you now. Liberate you from your wild curiosity."

You thought I was done?

(I mean so did I but there is more!)

Okay, so in the previous part of this thread I posited how Hunters are marginalized people in a very White English society.

Now I'm also going to examine how capitalism in such a society turns us into monsters that we must hunt.

Each hunter you interact with you need to fight.
Ludwig, Maria, Gasconge, Djura, Gerhman. I had to double check to see if you fight Eileen, and yes you do!

You are all pitted against each other because in story they have turned monstrous or suspect you of the same.

Which astounds me.

They assume you are the monster and you see them as the monster you need to hunt. Because they have forgone parts of their own humanity and you are too.

But you are doing this to be useful to the upperclass that is locking itself away on the night of a hunt.

I want to repeat that part. YOU ARE BEING USED BY THE UPPERCLASS WHO SHUT THEMSELVES AWAY ON A NIGHT OF THE HUNT.

The people you are killing who hate you in the streets? They're poor unfortunates who have been turned by the issues plaguing Yarnham.