Tragic Details You Missed In Bloodborne

FromSoftware's Soulsborne games have some of the deepest and most interesting worlds in the games industry. Their maps are often intricately pieced together with numerous shortcuts, connections, and hidden details scattered throughout. What really makes the games special to fans, however, is the esoteric way that players are given information about them. Rather than using cutscenes or lengthy dialogues with NPCs that explain every intricate detail of the world and its history, FromSoftware opts to make players do the legwork themselves. To do this, players have to piece together clues and scattered details lifted from short dialogues and item descriptions that take a communal effort to figure out. One of the most beloved and complex games from FromSoftware is none other than "Bloodborne."

Even without digging into the lore or history of "Bloodborne," it is oppressively dark. The streets of Yarnam are filled with people either driven insane or corrupted into terrible beasts that prowl and hunt for any survivors. Then, as players dig into the hints carefully placed throughout the world by the game's developers, they discover ever darker details and the tragic stories of the people who live in Yharnam. There is so much to piece together, however, that it is unlikely for any one player to find every story detail on their own, so here are the tragic details you probably missed in "Bloodborne."

Gehrman, the First Hunter is a wheelchair-bound old man that players interact with in Hunter's Dream. As Gerhman's name states, he is the world's first hunter that dedicated his life to stopping the scourge infecting Yharnam. He is responsible for developing most of the tools and tricks that are available to players throughout the game and offers hunters guidance when they talk to him. However, his tragedy begins with his love of a woman named Maria, another hunter. Gehrman trained her how to properly hunt beasts, but never told her how madly he was falling in love with her. Then, Maria became trapped in the Hunter's Nightmare, leaving Gehrman with no clue as to what happened to the woman he was obsessed with.

Maria's disappearance drove Gehrman crazy with grief. To try and cope, he even made a deal with a Great One, the eldritch gods partially responsible for the events in Yharnam, to bestow life to a doll for companionship as well as to create Hunter's Dream. However, the doll proved to not be enough for him, and it did not take long for him to eventually hate it for the corruption of his morals that it represented. Gehrman also discovered that he was unable to ever leave Hunter's Dream, leaving him eternally trapped with the reminders of his lost love and his biggest regret. If the player listens closely as he sleeps, they can hear him begging to be set free.

The Great Ones in "Bloodborne" are multi-dimensional creatures with an alien appearance that have god-like powers over the world of Yharnam. They were responsible for introducing the plague to Yharnam in a desperate attempt to find surrogates for their children, so most view them as a universally evil species. There is one offspring of the Great Ones that players come across during their playthrough, however, that has one of the most tragic stories in the game. That would be Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos. Players find Ebrietas being held captive by the church after being abandoned by her kind. Ebrietas is a massive slug-like creature covered in a strange fungus with skeletal wings and a mass of tentacles on her back, making her a deeply disturbing boss. 

By looking through the lore, players can piece together that Ebrietas is being held captive by the church and used as a subject for worship as they harvest her blood for experiments and dangerous medical procedures. Players can also discover that Ebrietas is actually trying to help humanity by communing with the highest-ranking members of the church to try and help them recover from the plague and the consequences of their experiments with Great One blood. The leaders of the church never listen and the player has to kill Ebrietas anyway just because of what she is. It's an unfortunate end for a misunderstood creature.

Arianna is a prostitute that can first be met in the Cathedral Ward. After defeating three bosses, the player can send her to a safe place to try and protect her from what is happening in the city. Depending on the choices made by the player, Arianna's story can have a few different endings but keeping her alive takes considerable effort. The most tragic story for Arianna occurs if the player never asks Arianna for her blood. If the player follows this route, they find Arianna doubled over in pain after killing the boss Rom, the Vacuous Spider. 

It is unclear at the time what is ailing her, but she makes it crystal clear that she is suffering a strange pain that won't cease. Then, when the player kills Micolash, Host of the Nightmare, Arianna disappears, with only a trail of blood left as evidence. Following the blood leads to the Tomb of Oedon where Arianna can be found sobbing in a chair after having given birth completely alone. However, her baby was corrupted by the Great Ones and is a Celestial Child. The baby lays on the ground crying, still connected to Arianna by its umbilical cord. The player is then left with two choices. They can kill the baby (and Arianna in the process), or they can leave her alone to revel in her despair at being used to foster the monstrous child.

Father Gascoigne was a holy man from another land that traveled to Yharnam to try and help the locals there combat the monsters destroying their city. He took a wife named Viola and they had two daughters together and lived in the city. Gascoigne's efforts as a hunter quickly became legendary, but he also started succumbing to a condition known as the Bloodlust. Bloodlust is an ailment that causes hunters to become addicted to killing to the point where they forget anything else and become like the monsters they devoted their lives to eradicating. 

As Gascoigne's Bloodlust progressed, his family would play a music box at the end of the night to help remind him to come home to them. If they didn't, he would stay out all night, mercilessly killing any living thing that he could find. Eventually, however, Gascoigne succumbed fully to the Bloodlust and did not return home. Viola then left their house with the music box to go find him and bring him home to his family. However, the player can find her corpse, and the music box, near the area where the bestial Gascoigne hunts. It is unclear whether Gascoigne killed Viola or if it was a beast, but either way, her death is tragic and finalized Gascoigne's transformation into a fearsome monster of Yharnam. Gascoigne is an iconic boss, even making it into the fan-developed "Bloodborne" de-make, and his tragic story is a big reason why.

Aside from killing Gascoigne and retrieving the music box from Viola's corpse, players can also find both of their daughters. Upon first meeting the youngest daughter, she asks the player to find Viola after the player tells her that they killed her father. When the player finds Viola's corpse and tells the little girl that her mother is also dead, the player can either leave her in her hiding spot or tell her to go to Oedon Chapel where she should be safe. Regardless of the player's decision, she is never seen again.

When the player then returns to that same location, they can talk to the oldest of the two sisters, who asks them to help track down the younger one, saying that they can identify her by her white ribbon. Unfortunately, the player only discovers how the younger sister died, as they find the white ribbon stained red inside of a giant pig in the sewers beneath the city. When the player returns this to the oldest sister, she decides to flee the city, but players later find her corpse with a suitcase of her things nearby. The death of the two daughters brings an end to the horrible tale of Gascoigne's family, who all died as a consequence of him going to the city to try and help others.

Ludwig was the first hunter from the Healing Church and founded their workshop to train other hunters. Like all hunters, he dedicated his life to helping others for little in return. But, like many other hunters, he eventually fell to the plague that he was trying to eradicate and was twisted into a horrible monstrosity. His corrupted form resembles his body being morphed with a horse and his own sword as a terrifying amalgamation, but some of his humanity has managed to remain deep within his psyche. This is a massive testament to Ludwig's power, as keeping a shred of his humanity alive despite succumbing to the plague is an incredibly difficult feat. 

However, when the player eventually kills Ludwig, that piece of humanity manages to speak out to the player — if they are wearing clothing from the Healing Church, that is. The conversation centers around Ludwig asking the player whether or not his sacrifices were worthwhile, and if the cost of his humanity stopped the spreading of the plague. The player then has two equally painful options. They can either lie to Ludwig by telling him that he had a great impact on the city, or they can tell him the truth and let him die in misery knowing that he failed in his life's purpose.

The Oedon Chapel Dweller is a strange character that many players think is an enemy when they first meet him. He is a deformed human with incredibly long arms and massive hands, who sits on the ground in a strange position. When the player talks to him in his chapel, the dweller asks them to send other survivors in the city to him so that he can protect them. It is understandable to be skeptical of his intentions, especially in a game like Bloodborne, but the players who help the lowly chapel dweller see that his intentions are actually pure. He simply wants to help others and keep them safe if he can. 

However, the characters that players send them eventually begin dying off. The player can talk to the chapel dweller each time a character dies and he always expresses extreme regret over his failure to protect them. Eventually, all of the characters will die. This sends the chapel dweller into despair as he blames himself completely for the deaths. If the player talks to him after the chapel dweller is the only survivor in his chapel, he tells the player that he can only blame himself and that he failed to do the one good thing he tried to do in his life. This fate is especially heart-wrenching because of how rare it is for a character in "Bloodborne" to have purely good intentions.

When the player first meets the Lonely Old Woman it is a very negative first impression. She is immediately cold and rude toward the player while also being xenophobic, like many of the residents of Yharnam. Eventually, the player realizes that the Lonely Old Woman is really just scared. She's all alone in her home, is especially vulnerable because of her age, and is surrounded by monsters that could easily kill her. It is only when she is sent to Oedon Chapel and starts taking sedatives that she begins feeling safer and more open to helping the player. 

Eventually, the Lonely Old Woman will even start giving the player sedatives as well to try and return the favor of helping her. However, if the player accepts too many sedatives from her, she will leave a note saying that she went out to try and find more. She'll return safely with one, but if the player accepts that sedative from her, she'll go out to get more once again. That time, when the player returns to the chapel, the chapen dweller will tell them that she is dead outside. There, the player can find her corpse surrounded by an incredible amount of blood. The player can then loot one last sedative from her body, and the situation is made even sadder by the fact that she was killed so close to making it back to safety in the chapel.

The Orphan of Kos was introduced in the Old Hunters DLC. He can be found on the coast by the fishing village in the Hunter's Nightmare that was destroyed by Healing Church hunters after the Great One Kos washed up on the shore and began corrupting the villagers there. He is incredibly tall and resembles a human skeleton with a thin membrane-like cape that can also be used as wings. The boss uses its own placenta as its weapon by shaping it into a massive club. When the player first finds him, he is staring out at the ocean mournfully, possibly longing for the sea where his mother once lived.

The Orphan's story is made even more tragic when considering his existence in the limbo dimension that is Hunter's Nightmare. When Kos was found on the shore by the Healing Church's hunters it is known that they desecrated its corpse in some way. It is not entirely clear what they did, but it seems likely that those same hunters also killed the Orphan either before it was born or quickly after. This then sent it to the Hunter's Nightmare, trapping it in limbo before it even got the chance to live. 

One of the most tragic events in "Bloodborne" is also one of the most subtle. When players first arrive in Yharnam there are still many citizens living within the city, although they are all hiding behind the closed doors of their houses. Players will hear them behind the doors as they walk through the streets, or they can interact with them from outside. When trying to talk to the citizens, players are often met with anger, xenophobia, or even peeks into the individual's slow descent into insanity. 

As the player progresses through the game, they can check back in on the villagers throughout the city to see how their night has progressed, although they never warm up to the player's foreign hunter. However, they will eventually go silent. This is because they are all killed or succumb to the city's plague and join the rest of the beasts prowling the street. This instills an incredible sense of loneliness in the player as they realize that they may very well be one of only a few remaining humans in the city, which has left a big impact on Bloodborne's player base. It is at that point that players realize they aren't fighting to save the people of Yharnam anymore, as that is largely impossible. They are fighting to punish those behind the tragedy that they couldn't prevent.

Adella the Nun is another character that players can try to save from the horrors of Yharnam. She can only be found after the player is kidnapped by Snatchers, as she was a previous victim as well. When she is found, Adella is the last of a group of women taken by the Snatchers, and she is found crying in a corner begging to not be taken as well. The player can talk to her if they wear a piece of clothing from the Healing Church, upon which they can guide her to safety. If she goes to Iosefka's Clinic, she is transformed into a Celestial Mob, but if you send her to Oedon Chapel her story gets even sadder.

This is because once she is saved, she gets an unhealthy attachment to the player's character. It's likely she was raised in the sheltered environment of the Healing Church, where she was denied any affection from other humans, so the good deed that the player did for her is one of the few she has ever received in her life. This obsession can drive her to kill Arianna out of jealousy if the player accepts Arianna's blood and interacts with the prostitute too frequently. Then, Adella descends deeper into insanity and eventually attacks the player to help "free" them from Yharnam, forcing the player to kill her.

When the player first finds the Afflicted Beggar, he is covered in blood and surrounded by corpses while seeming to feed on the body of a small child. If players don't immediately attack him, however, and talk to him instead, he is very friendly and asks the player to point him toward somewhere he will be safe. If he is not sent anywhere, he disappears and cannot be found again — though he transforms into a Celestial minion at Iosefka's Clinic. If he is sent to Oedon Chapel, however, he starts killing the other NPCs there, as they go missing. The beggar rewards the player with Beast Blood Pellets after each character is killed. 

The Afflicted Beggar's actions may make him seem unsympathetic. After all, killing innocent people is never excusable. However, his motivation for doing so makes his character a bit sadder and more complicated. It is revealed that he is only killing people because he doesn't feel that he has any other choice. He is afflicted with being an Abhorrent Beast and believes that it is a disease. He even believes that other beasts are still human, and he thinks killing innocents is the only way to treat his disease.  This put him in the terrible position of having to kill his fellow survivors to treat himself, making his decision much more interesting and conflicted.