Trying something new! I recently discovered the music analysis channel @12tone and was inspired by the thorough series of additional notes posted in a pinned comment under every video. Since there are always things I have to leave out of a given episode of Translationborne, I thought I’d try taking that approach myself. If you have any thoughts about this as a new policy going forward, please let me know! Now, let’s get to those extra thoughts/clarifications: 1. I don’t really talk much about the shared opening lines of the various Brain Fluid descriptions, but they contain some translation choices that I really enjoy. “Greyish” makes more sense to me than the literal “dim”, and is so appropriate as to make me curious again about the possibility of the translators having seen the actual art. Alternatively, this could have been a change made in LQA, which is a step that involves playing the game while checking to make sure the translations make sense. 2. The other translation choice I’m fond of from the opening lines is the handling of “プルプルと弾力がある” (purupuru to danryoku ga aru), which if you get even more literal than my on-screen translation is something closer to, “Has an elasticity that’s all like wibble-wobble”. I’ve commented previously on how the Japanese language incorporates onomatopoeia/sounds into speech more than English does, and this is another great example of that, as well as how a literal translation would completely throw off the tone of the description. I think the official “wobbles and bounces” does a good job of capturing the odd, onomatopoeic feel of the original without getting overly stiff and wordy like the version I read aloud in the episode, “possesses a wobbly elasticity”. 3. The idea of an older or younger sibling is deeply ingrained into the Japanese language, to the extent that even with twins, one will be linguistically marked as older and the other younger. This contributes to sentences like “Once, an older brother aspired to be a medical worker” sounding fine in Japanese. It’s pretty weird in English, though, so I appreciate the translators’ solution of framing the sentence around the younger sister in the official, “Once, a young girl had an older brother”. 4. Something I really wanted to bring up in the episode but that I couldn’t find a way of working in without it feeling like an unnecessary tangent is that the potential double reading of “見える” as either “mieru” or “mamieru” seems to me like the Japanese equivalent of the English-language pun “Insight”. Both involve a play on the concept of vision to symbolize an interaction with the arcane. Since the Japanese term for “Insight” is instead “啓蒙” (keimou), or “(rational) enlightenment”, and doesn’t involve the pun on inner sight/eyes on the inside that the English word “Insight” does, I think it’s all the more interesting to think of “見える” serving a similar role in Japanese. 5. I’m aware that “〜にみえる” is a valid grammatical form in Japanese. However, it tends to be used to mean that something “seems like” or “appears to be” something else, and in the context of the sentence in Bloodborne, I don’t think this meaning applies. The main point is that the way the sentence is written strongly suggests to me that “mamieru/to humbly meet” is the relevant sense of the verb, so rather than get too bogged down in grammatical edge cases in the episode, I thought I would focus on that. 6. Sharp-eyes viewers will also note that the official English seems to drop “dreamlike” as a descriptor for the “Eldritch Truth,” and that it puts the idea that the siblings were fortunate/blessed into their perspective, rather than match the apparently neutral phrasing of the Japanese. I thought about bringing this up in the episode, but the problem is I don’t have a lot to say about it besides pointing it out. I have no idea why “夢のような” (yume no you na/dreamlike) wasn’t included as a modifier to “the Eldritch Truth”. I suspect that the rephrasing of the literal “The siblings were fortunate” to the official “…for which they considered themselves blessed” was done both to maintain the air of mystery and to make the sentence work better as a whole, but that’s just a guess. Anyway, make of this information what you will. 7. While it’s not relevant to the point I make in this episode, there’s an important aspect of the Graveguard set that I think is worth addressing here. In the Japanese, the phrase “主に従って” could mean either that Willem’s servants “obeyed their master” or that they “accompanied their master”. Depending on how you interpret this, that could mean that Willem was present in the underground labyrinth. In a previous episode of Translationborne (35 to be specific), I missed this double meaning, so I try to point it out now whenever I can. However many people went into the labyrinth, though, the part about “encountering the Eldritch Truth” doesn’t change. 8. The example sentence at 5:33 in the video comes from the Monocular, if that wasn’t clear enough from the sentences chosen. 9. On the subject of ambiguity concerning whether Brain Fluid is the cause or result of internal eye formation, there’s also a potential double-meaning in the English word “makings”. Senses 3 and 4 of the online Merriam Webster dictionary are as follows, “3: something made (especially : a quantity produced at one time) 4 a : Potentiality-often used in plural (‘had the makings of a great artist.’)”. The use of the plural makes me think the latter interpretation more likely, which is why I ultimately kept this out of the episode, but I thought it was worth listing here as a possibility to consider. 10. It seems like it could be relevant that the Third Cord that mentions Master Willem seeking to use a Third Cord to elevate his being by lining his brain with eyes is the one dropped by Impostor Iosefka, because I was just speculating that the writhing inside her head was indeed her feeling the formation of internal eyes. Regrettably, I didn’t even consider this until after I was watching back the completed episode. 11. I ran out of time before I could make this point, but I do think it’s interesting that by mentioning the phrase, “Fear the thirst for blood,” Adeline is potentially giving us an explanation for why the adage passed down among the vicars of the Healing Church would need to have been conveyed through a special vision involving touching the skull on the altar of the grand cathedral. Because it seems like at some point the Healing Church shifted focus to obtaining blood, the old saying “Fear the old blood” would no longer serve their purpose. Instead, they seem to have propagated the saying, “Fear the thirst for blood” instead. Thus the old saying would have been lost, preserved only in the memory of the skull upon the altar, and known only to the vicars who presumably needed to keep hold of the old knowledge to achieve their purpose. 12. On the subject of Blood Saints and Saint’s Blood, it’s striking to me how the Japanese is able to make it clear every time one of these terms comes up that it’s specifically women who are the saints in question. This information is available to English-speaking players as well, because the description for the Blood of Adella clearly states “The Healing Church nuns are chosen for their merit as vessels for blood, and groomed as Blood Saints”. This wording makes it plain that nuns are the ones who become saints and produce this special blood, so I don’t think it’s a problem with the translation, but the way the Japanese handles this does make for a stronger emphasis and a slightly different experience.
For point 6, it helps definitively link the "dream" to the arcane, which is a pretty intuitive inference to make, but nonetheless, with as inconsistently as 神秘 was translated, it can inadvertently make it sound like a more distinct "school" of magic (like Arcane Mages in World of Warcraft) As for point 10, I agree, and to tie the room together, we know there's "arcane" power in Caryll runes, that is, the voices of the Great Ones. Imposter Iosefka drops the Oedon "Writhe" rune if you kill her before the blood moon, so she presumably has Oedon's voice "writhing" in her head at that point in the game. This potentially leads to her gaining the "initial makings" of eyes on the inside via the Umbilical Cord she has and might help explain why she sees the "writhing" on the inside. She herself is coming into contact with the "dreamlike" arcane and may be granting her the Insight she desires. It's truly a shame we'll never know what happens to her if we spare her in the clinic. 11. This gets compounded further when you talk to Gehrman and submit. Rather than saying "fear the old blood," or anything like that, he just says, "fear the blood." Thought tbf, there's a lot of awkwardness in trying to decipher Willem's line about かねて血 12. Not that it really matters, but I do find it interesting that subsequent vicars are "heirs" to the "purveying of ministration." Could it imply Laurence himself was a purveyor of blood? Or was he just the dealer?
@@LastProtagonist Thanks for the detailed responses! I feel like your reply alone has made it worth typing up all those extra points. I'm inclined to agree with you on the effect of the word "dreamlike" in terms of directly tying the "dream" to the arcane/mysterious divine in the Japanese, though I struggle when it comes to tying any specific dream/nightmare to the idea. Maybe I'm just overthinking it. I really like your clarification on point 10 from my original comment. I'd forgotten about the Oedon Writhe rune, but your take on that as a point of contact with a Great One makes a ton of sense to me. It mirrors a point I intend to make when I eventually get to the end of Adeline's quest, since she too discovers a rune via what seems like a form of contact with a Great One. I'll have to think more about this, but viewed in terms of the way you put it, I feel like maybe I'm starting to see why Miyazaki said he likes the impostor as a character so much, since she may well have succeeded in fulfilling the Church's dream. That's an interesting point about Gehrman, and I think you're right about how it could tie in with the distortion of the Byrgenwerth adage over time. I continue to look forward to making enough progress that I can judge it in its proper context. One of these days I'll get there! As to your final point, "purveyor" can mean "dealer" as well as "donor", right? But even so, it's an intriguing question. I've long been a fan of the idea that Laurence is the Bloodletting Beast, which seems like it should suggest a particular answer, but even if one were to accept that theory, I feel like it remains an open question whether the English name is meant to imply that he let his own blood or that he let the blood of others, and of course the Japanese is even more vague. Anyway, thanks again for the comment!
Wow, that's like a Translationborne 79.5, not an unnecessary tangent at all! Also, on the topic of Blood Saints and Saint's Blood (12), after watching this episode I feel somewhat conflicted about capitalization in the second term. Aside from (most likely) being reinforced by game mechanics it helps to distinguish an important term in the mass of text. But on the other hand, it adds a layer of meaning to these women's role, which wasn't present in the original. What I'm trying to say is, Blood Saint is describing someone being saint because of their blood, which is logical, considering the boost to Church's reputation, but Saint's Blood is describing a type of blood, which is special only because of the person it came from. I hope you get the idea) As always, thanks for your awesome work, I'm a huge fan!
@@TallarHawk Thanks for the thoughtful response! I think I do understand your misgivings about the capitalization, and you're right that it places an extra importance on the blood itself as opposed to the lowercase "saint's blood" that merely specifies where the blood is from. These are the sorts of creative decisions that I think makes translation so interesting, but it can also be frustrating at the same time😅
Hi again! Don't know if I mentioned before but I read "eyes on the inside" as a dual metaphor for diagnostic medicine (autopsies, body scans etc.), and the shamanic "x-ray vision" that allows a witch doctor to examine a person's aura/spirit. It can also symbolise the intersubjective integration of individual egos ("reaching communion" by internalising the Other).
I don't believe you've mentioned that before, and it is once again very interesting to hear your perspective. I'm particularly struck by that last point of yours, since it makes me think of how Great Ones seem able to occupy the minds/thoughts of others through runes (though I realize this may or may not be an appropriate connection on your view). How would you tie this in with the Third Umbilical Cords?
@@arukimania Sorry for the long comment; might get a bit weird in places. With respect to the Third Cords/Cords of the Eye, I believe they straightforwardly represent the development of transcendent knowledge (hence 3rd/eye - a symbol from Hinduism [ajna chakra]), extracted from traces of previous wisdom (of the Great Ones). Cord/chord are apparently back-formations of accord (agreement), so there might be wordplay pertaining to a liaison or pact (à la Faust). The last bit was a reference to an endosymbiosis theory; there's a theme of Great Ones appearing like super-organisms, hosting other organisms within them (i.e. parasites, phantasms and pregnancies) - consider how Yharnam *became* a city, or how Micolash *hosted* a nightmare - Sloterdijk's "Bubbles" talks about how peoples' "bubbles" can aggregate into foams or move to contain one another endosymbiotically. In such a sense, I think Great Ones are a metaphor for Cultures/Civilisations, retaining ancestral knowledge, including "alien" ancestors (i.e. "the West" taking after the Greco-Romans and "the East" taking after the Hindus, culturally). Runes, I think, are a reference to the idea of a language of Being ("Logos"; hence Caryll Runes being *branded* like the Darksign) that all Life and Existence are contingent upon. Great Ones share their understanding of this meta-language as a kind of boon. Moon and Eye are a reference to "moon-eyes", a feature that Nietzsche mocked Kantians for possessing (On Immaculate Perception, from Thus Spake Zarathustra). He commented on the impossibility of truly objective observation, free from the bias of one's own will/desire. It makes me believe Willem's deep desire for Apotheosis tragically prevented his Apotheosis, if you catch my drift.
@@core-nix1885I appreciate receiving such a lengthy and thoughtful reply! I'd never thought of a link between cord/accord before, but that particular link seems to match up really well with what we can see in the game. The Great Ones being super-organisms and metaphors for different civilizations seems highly applicable to what we learn about them as well. The idea of runes as a language of Being might be verging a bit on the abstract in terms of my ability to understand it, but since these are words that seem to have distinct effects on reality, in that sense at least I think I might be able to follow what you're saying. Finally, I'm not sure about the "moon-eyes" reference, not being very familiar with Nietzsche, but the idea of Willem's own desire for ascension to the status of a Great One preventing him from reaching that status definitely has a sense of poetic justice to it. Anyway, thanks again for sharing your thoughts! It's really interesting to hear what you make of the game from such a rich perspective that I know so little about.
Sorry, some of the ideas are complicated and I expressed them messily. My thoughts on "the language of Being" were just that each game contains this idea, based on religious concepts like the Dao/Dharma, that provisional reality relies on a certain order or set of rules that can be thought of like a code or language (like in The Matrix) - there's titanite runes in Dark Souls (and ink/charcoal symbolism in humanity/embers), Caryll Runes and the ghostly "inkling" of the Orphan in Bloodborne, Great Runes in Elden Ring, and in Sekiro, the Mortal Blades' after-images resemble the strokes of calligraphy brushes. These ideas also tie to Heraclitus' Logos and, following from that, Derrida's Trace, but I don't think I can do those ideas justice explaining them here. Moon eyes are referenced in V and Gravity's Rainbow (aka V2) in the name of the character Kurt Mondaugen; the "moon eyes" mentioned by Nietzsche were an attack on the empirical mindset Kant adopted, which is the same mindset at work in the scientific method. V/V2 and Bloodborne seem to criticise the callousness of Scientism for contributing to the atrocities of the 20th century (chemical weapons, medical experiments etc.) It's not so much that science is bad, it's that detaching it from context and morality often has dire unforeseen consequences. Notably, Moon and Eye are the Echo/Item Discovery runes in Bloodborne
@@core-nix1885I appreciate you taking the time to clarify these points! The "moon eyes" one in particular makes a lot more sense to me now, especially in regard to how it applies specifically to Bloodborne. However, I'm afraid I'm still a little confused by your point on the language of being. The general concept you outlined makes sense to me (particularly given your example of The Matrix), and I can see how this concept might apply to Caryll Runes in general, but I'm not sure of the connection between runes and the inky/shadowy figure of the Orphan in Bloodborne. What ties those things together for you?
You're further on in the FROMSOFT catalog than me, then! The only game of theirs newer than Bloodborne that I've finished (or even started to play) is Dark Souls III. This series keeps me focused on this one😉 I hope you're at least having enough fun to balance out the struggle!
![[#2024MAMA] BIGBANG (빅뱅) - 뱅뱅뱅 (BANG BANG BANG) + FANTASTIC BABY | Mnet 241123 방송](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EQsYfiPR9uM/mqdefault.jpg)
Trying something new! I recently discovered the music analysis channel @12tone and was inspired by the thorough series of additional notes posted in a pinned comment under every video. Since there are always things I have to leave out of a given episode of Translationborne, I thought I’d try taking that approach myself. If you have any thoughts about this as a new policy going forward, please let me know! Now, let’s get to those extra thoughts/clarifications:
1. I don’t really talk much about the shared opening lines of the various Brain Fluid descriptions, but they contain some translation choices that I really enjoy. “Greyish” makes more sense to me than the literal “dim”, and is so appropriate as to make me curious again about the possibility of the translators having seen the actual art. Alternatively, this could have been a change made in LQA, which is a step that involves playing the game while checking to make sure the translations make sense.
2. The other translation choice I’m fond of from the opening lines is the handling of “プルプルと弾力がある” (purupuru to danryoku ga aru), which if you get even more literal than my on-screen translation is something closer to, “Has an elasticity that’s all like wibble-wobble”. I’ve commented previously on how the Japanese language incorporates onomatopoeia/sounds into speech more than English does, and this is another great example of that, as well as how a literal translation would completely throw off the tone of the description. I think the official “wobbles and bounces” does a good job of capturing the odd, onomatopoeic feel of the original without getting overly stiff and wordy like the version I read aloud in the episode, “possesses a wobbly elasticity”.
3. The idea of an older or younger sibling is deeply ingrained into the Japanese language, to the extent that even with twins, one will be linguistically marked as older and the other younger. This contributes to sentences like “Once, an older brother aspired to be a medical worker” sounding fine in Japanese. It’s pretty weird in English, though, so I appreciate the translators’ solution of framing the sentence around the younger sister in the official, “Once, a young girl had an older brother”.
4. Something I really wanted to bring up in the episode but that I couldn’t find a way of working in without it feeling like an unnecessary tangent is that the potential double reading of “見える” as either “mieru” or “mamieru” seems to me like the Japanese equivalent of the English-language pun “Insight”. Both involve a play on the concept of vision to symbolize an interaction with the arcane. Since the Japanese term for “Insight” is instead “啓蒙” (keimou), or “(rational) enlightenment”, and doesn’t involve the pun on inner sight/eyes on the inside that the English word “Insight” does, I think it’s all the more interesting to think of “見える” serving a similar role in Japanese.
5. I’m aware that “〜にみえる” is a valid grammatical form in Japanese. However, it tends to be used to mean that something “seems like” or “appears to be” something else, and in the context of the sentence in Bloodborne, I don’t think this meaning applies. The main point is that the way the sentence is written strongly suggests to me that “mamieru/to humbly meet” is the relevant sense of the verb, so rather than get too bogged down in grammatical edge cases in the episode, I thought I would focus on that.
6. Sharp-eyes viewers will also note that the official English seems to drop “dreamlike” as a descriptor for the “Eldritch Truth,” and that it puts the idea that the siblings were fortunate/blessed into their perspective, rather than match the apparently neutral phrasing of the Japanese. I thought about bringing this up in the episode, but the problem is I don’t have a lot to say about it besides pointing it out. I have no idea why “夢のような” (yume no you na/dreamlike) wasn’t included as a modifier to “the Eldritch Truth”. I suspect that the rephrasing of the literal “The siblings were fortunate” to the official “…for which they considered themselves blessed” was done both to maintain the air of mystery and to make the sentence work better as a whole, but that’s just a guess. Anyway, make of this information what you will.
7. While it’s not relevant to the point I make in this episode, there’s an important aspect of the Graveguard set that I think is worth addressing here. In the Japanese, the phrase “主に従って” could mean either that Willem’s servants “obeyed their master” or that they “accompanied their master”. Depending on how you interpret this, that could mean that Willem was present in the underground labyrinth. In a previous episode of Translationborne (35 to be specific), I missed this double meaning, so I try to point it out now whenever I can. However many people went into the labyrinth, though, the part about “encountering the Eldritch Truth” doesn’t change.
8. The example sentence at 5:33 in the video comes from the Monocular, if that wasn’t clear enough from the sentences chosen.
9. On the subject of ambiguity concerning whether Brain Fluid is the cause or result of internal eye formation, there’s also a potential double-meaning in the English word “makings”. Senses 3 and 4 of the online Merriam Webster dictionary are as follows, “3: something made (especially : a quantity produced at one time) 4 a : Potentiality-often used in plural (‘had the makings of a great artist.’)”. The use of the plural makes me think the latter interpretation more likely, which is why I ultimately kept this out of the episode, but I thought it was worth listing here as a possibility to consider.
10. It seems like it could be relevant that the Third Cord that mentions Master Willem seeking to use a Third Cord to elevate his being by lining his brain with eyes is the one dropped by Impostor Iosefka, because I was just speculating that the writhing inside her head was indeed her feeling the formation of internal eyes. Regrettably, I didn’t even consider this until after I was watching back the completed episode.
11. I ran out of time before I could make this point, but I do think it’s interesting that by mentioning the phrase, “Fear the thirst for blood,” Adeline is potentially giving us an explanation for why the adage passed down among the vicars of the Healing Church would need to have been conveyed through a special vision involving touching the skull on the altar of the grand cathedral. Because it seems like at some point the Healing Church shifted focus to obtaining blood, the old saying “Fear the old blood” would no longer serve their purpose. Instead, they seem to have propagated the saying, “Fear the thirst for blood” instead. Thus the old saying would have been lost, preserved only in the memory of the skull upon the altar, and known only to the vicars who presumably needed to keep hold of the old knowledge to achieve their purpose.
12. On the subject of Blood Saints and Saint’s Blood, it’s striking to me how the Japanese is able to make it clear every time one of these terms comes up that it’s specifically women who are the saints in question. This information is available to English-speaking players as well, because the description for the Blood of Adella clearly states “The Healing Church nuns are chosen for their merit as vessels for blood, and groomed as Blood Saints”. This wording makes it plain that nuns are the ones who become saints and produce this special blood, so I don’t think it’s a problem with the translation, but the way the Japanese handles this does make for a stronger emphasis and a slightly different experience.
For point 6, it helps definitively link the "dream" to the arcane, which is a pretty intuitive inference to make, but nonetheless, with as inconsistently as 神秘 was translated, it can inadvertently make it sound like a more distinct "school" of magic (like Arcane Mages in World of Warcraft)
As for point 10, I agree, and to tie the room together, we know there's "arcane" power in Caryll runes, that is, the voices of the Great Ones. Imposter Iosefka drops the Oedon "Writhe" rune if you kill her before the blood moon, so she presumably has Oedon's voice "writhing" in her head at that point in the game. This potentially leads to her gaining the "initial makings" of eyes on the inside via the Umbilical Cord she has and might help explain why she sees the "writhing" on the inside. She herself is coming into contact with the "dreamlike" arcane and may be granting her the Insight she desires. It's truly a shame we'll never know what happens to her if we spare her in the clinic.
11. This gets compounded further when you talk to Gehrman and submit. Rather than saying "fear the old blood," or anything like that, he just says, "fear the blood." Thought tbf, there's a lot of awkwardness in trying to decipher Willem's line about かねて血
12. Not that it really matters, but I do find it interesting that subsequent vicars are "heirs" to the "purveying of ministration." Could it imply Laurence himself was a purveyor of blood? Or was he just the dealer?
@@LastProtagonist Thanks for the detailed responses! I feel like your reply alone has made it worth typing up all those extra points. I'm inclined to agree with you on the effect of the word "dreamlike" in terms of directly tying the "dream" to the arcane/mysterious divine in the Japanese, though I struggle when it comes to tying any specific dream/nightmare to the idea. Maybe I'm just overthinking it.
I really like your clarification on point 10 from my original comment. I'd forgotten about the Oedon Writhe rune, but your take on that as a point of contact with a Great One makes a ton of sense to me. It mirrors a point I intend to make when I eventually get to the end of Adeline's quest, since she too discovers a rune via what seems like a form of contact with a Great One. I'll have to think more about this, but viewed in terms of the way you put it, I feel like maybe I'm starting to see why Miyazaki said he likes the impostor as a character so much, since she may well have succeeded in fulfilling the Church's dream.
That's an interesting point about Gehrman, and I think you're right about how it could tie in with the distortion of the Byrgenwerth adage over time. I continue to look forward to making enough progress that I can judge it in its proper context. One of these days I'll get there!
As to your final point, "purveyor" can mean "dealer" as well as "donor", right? But even so, it's an intriguing question. I've long been a fan of the idea that Laurence is the Bloodletting Beast, which seems like it should suggest a particular answer, but even if one were to accept that theory, I feel like it remains an open question whether the English name is meant to imply that he let his own blood or that he let the blood of others, and of course the Japanese is even more vague.
Anyway, thanks again for the comment!
Wow, that's like a Translationborne 79.5, not an unnecessary tangent at all! Also, on the topic of Blood Saints and Saint's Blood (12), after watching this episode I feel somewhat conflicted about capitalization in the second term. Aside from (most likely) being reinforced by game mechanics it helps to distinguish an important term in the mass of text. But on the other hand, it adds a layer of meaning to these women's role, which wasn't present in the original. What I'm trying to say is, Blood Saint is describing someone being saint because of their blood, which is logical, considering the boost to Church's reputation, but Saint's Blood is describing a type of blood, which is special only because of the person it came from. I hope you get the idea) As always, thanks for your awesome work, I'm a huge fan!
@@TallarHawk Thanks for the thoughtful response! I think I do understand your misgivings about the capitalization, and you're right that it places an extra importance on the blood itself as opposed to the lowercase "saint's blood" that merely specifies where the blood is from. These are the sorts of creative decisions that I think makes translation so interesting, but it can also be frustrating at the same time😅
Really excellent video and analysis. Will be watching the rest of the series for sure.
I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the video! Thanks for commenting, and I hope you're able to get something out of the rest of the series too😃
Love it! The extra info is always appreciated!
Glad to hear it on both counts! Thanks for the comment.
Hi again!
Don't know if I mentioned before but I read "eyes on the inside" as a dual metaphor for diagnostic medicine (autopsies, body scans etc.), and the shamanic "x-ray vision" that allows a witch doctor to examine a person's aura/spirit.
It can also symbolise the intersubjective integration of individual egos ("reaching communion" by internalising the Other).
I don't believe you've mentioned that before, and it is once again very interesting to hear your perspective. I'm particularly struck by that last point of yours, since it makes me think of how Great Ones seem able to occupy the minds/thoughts of others through runes (though I realize this may or may not be an appropriate connection on your view). How would you tie this in with the Third Umbilical Cords?
@@arukimania
Sorry for the long comment; might get a bit weird in places.
With respect to the Third Cords/Cords of the Eye, I believe they straightforwardly represent the development of transcendent knowledge (hence 3rd/eye - a symbol from Hinduism [ajna chakra]), extracted from traces of previous wisdom (of the Great Ones). Cord/chord are apparently back-formations of accord (agreement), so there might be wordplay pertaining to a liaison or pact (à la Faust).
The last bit was a reference to an endosymbiosis theory; there's a theme of Great Ones appearing like super-organisms, hosting other organisms within them (i.e. parasites, phantasms and pregnancies) - consider how Yharnam *became* a city, or how Micolash *hosted* a nightmare - Sloterdijk's "Bubbles" talks about how peoples' "bubbles" can aggregate into foams or move to contain one another endosymbiotically. In such a sense, I think Great Ones are a metaphor for Cultures/Civilisations, retaining ancestral knowledge, including "alien" ancestors (i.e. "the West" taking after the Greco-Romans and "the East" taking after the Hindus, culturally).
Runes, I think, are a reference to the idea of a language of Being ("Logos"; hence Caryll Runes being *branded* like the Darksign) that all Life and Existence are contingent upon. Great Ones share their understanding of this meta-language as a kind of boon.
Moon and Eye are a reference to "moon-eyes", a feature that Nietzsche mocked Kantians for possessing (On Immaculate Perception, from Thus Spake Zarathustra). He commented on the impossibility of truly objective observation, free from the bias of one's own will/desire. It makes me believe Willem's deep desire for Apotheosis tragically prevented his Apotheosis, if you catch my drift.
@@core-nix1885I appreciate receiving such a lengthy and thoughtful reply! I'd never thought of a link between cord/accord before, but that particular link seems to match up really well with what we can see in the game. The Great Ones being super-organisms and metaphors for different civilizations seems highly applicable to what we learn about them as well. The idea of runes as a language of Being might be verging a bit on the abstract in terms of my ability to understand it, but since these are words that seem to have distinct effects on reality, in that sense at least I think I might be able to follow what you're saying. Finally, I'm not sure about the "moon-eyes" reference, not being very familiar with Nietzsche, but the idea of Willem's own desire for ascension to the status of a Great One preventing him from reaching that status definitely has a sense of poetic justice to it. Anyway, thanks again for sharing your thoughts! It's really interesting to hear what you make of the game from such a rich perspective that I know so little about.
Sorry, some of the ideas are complicated and I expressed them messily.
My thoughts on "the language of Being" were just that each game contains this idea, based on religious concepts like the Dao/Dharma, that provisional reality relies on a certain order or set of rules that can be thought of like a code or language (like in The Matrix) - there's titanite runes in Dark Souls (and ink/charcoal symbolism in humanity/embers), Caryll Runes and the ghostly "inkling" of the Orphan in Bloodborne, Great Runes in Elden Ring, and in Sekiro, the Mortal Blades' after-images resemble the strokes of calligraphy brushes. These ideas also tie to Heraclitus' Logos and, following from that, Derrida's Trace, but I don't think I can do those ideas justice explaining them here.
Moon eyes are referenced in V and Gravity's Rainbow (aka V2) in the name of the character Kurt Mondaugen; the "moon eyes" mentioned by Nietzsche were an attack on the empirical mindset Kant adopted, which is the same mindset at work in the scientific method. V/V2 and Bloodborne seem to criticise the callousness of Scientism for contributing to the atrocities of the 20th century (chemical weapons, medical experiments etc.) It's not so much that science is bad, it's that detaching it from context and morality often has dire unforeseen consequences.
Notably, Moon and Eye are the Echo/Item Discovery runes in Bloodborne
@@core-nix1885I appreciate you taking the time to clarify these points! The "moon eyes" one in particular makes a lot more sense to me now, especially in regard to how it applies specifically to Bloodborne. However, I'm afraid I'm still a little confused by your point on the language of being. The general concept you outlined makes sense to me (particularly given your example of The Matrix), and I can see how this concept might apply to Caryll Runes in general, but I'm not sure of the connection between runes and the inky/shadowy figure of the Orphan in Bloodborne. What ties those things together for you?
Finally 🎉
I'm still struggling through elden rings 🤦♂️
You're further on in the FROMSOFT catalog than me, then! The only game of theirs newer than Bloodborne that I've finished (or even started to play) is Dark Souls III. This series keeps me focused on this one😉 I hope you're at least having enough fun to balance out the struggle!