As I was playing the Old Hunters DLC for Bloodborne, I came to realize something interesting about the theme of it, and certainly of the themes of the entire game, and that is the illusion of purpose that the hunters have and how the oppression and dire circumstances they are in drive them to keep fighting even though, if they just took a moment to think about what they were doing, they could see the insanity of it, similar to Djura. The hunters are employed to clear the scourge of beasts, to kill this never ending horde of monsters and because of the blood they use to help them in this, they themselves either become monsters, and if not they simply eventually die or go mad and get caught up in a never ending hunt of a nightmare. I think this even says something about the player too. If you keep fighting and fighting endlessly it can lead to an ending where you get stuck in the Hunter’s Dream, or even get “reborn” as a Great One, which is not something you actually choose and it’s arguable if that’s even a good thing. But if you finally give in at the end and let yourself die, you get to wake up the next morning, having survived and still being human.

The thing is, in the heat of the moment, all you can think about is to keep going, to keep progressing, to keep fighting because you have to kill the next hideous monster, but there’s no real end to them, ever. In the process of this eventually the purpose itself becomes only to fight. It’s not even about solving anything or saving anything, but just simply looking for more battles to fight because each battle is it’s own purpose. This is very clearly illustrated in the Chalice Dungeons whose only reward really is more powerful monsters, tougher fights, and tools to make you stronger in those fights. You can keep going on and on but the only real ending is actually stopping, being satisfied with what you have done and walking away. If you don’t it simply goes on forever, just like the hunters in the nightmare who spend every moment hunting.

I feel like the creators wanted to show the player this and confront them with a question about the value of continuing on endlessly instead of moving on. Several NPC storylines go along with this theme. Djura, who made the arguably right choice to stop. Eileen, whose story ends with her being either seemingly fatally wounded or losing her mind. Alfred who ends up committing suicide once his purpose ends, Simon, Brador, Henryk, Gascoigne, all of them die, turn into monsters themselves or continue to kill to fulfill their purpose.

In fact, those hunters who cling to their purpose the longest without questioning it are the ones who in the end become the most monstrous both literally and figuratively. Ludwig has obviously killed many, many beasts, that is to say transformed humans, and aren’t mass murderers called beasts and monsters already? At the end of his road not only must he have killed countlessly, he himself even became a monster in physical form and continued killing. Djura is one of the only examples of someone escaping the cycle, and shows that is IS possible to walk away, but very few can soften their hearts enough to actually do it. As much as I think the gameplay of Souls-like games is about learning the importance of not giving up, I feel like this game is trying to get you to look at yourself as a player participating in it’s world, and what that could mean.

So, I was talking about how Hunters would get so caught up in the danger and the job right in front of them that they couldn’t see anything else. They couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Djura is the only example of stepping back and looking at the whole picture, or at least, the portion of the picture he could see. Thing is, it’s not just the Hunters. You see, there’s a way of thinking when it comes to devoting yourself to something, whether academic, artistic, or whatever, that is to work for the sake of the work itself, because working for the sake of recognition or reward or what have you has problems as you can actually reach points where you feel done, and stop improving, or even worse, you can get that recognition or reward and feel like everything has lost it’s meaning since you’ve achieved that goal. So, working for the sake of the work is much better than this, as you won’t stop improving and learning. However, even this has problems as shown by a different group of people in this game.

The scholars of Byrgenwerth, the members of the Choir, and Yahar’Gul were all working for the sake of their work. Though they had different goals, were blinded by different things and were looking at different things, they all had the same problem. In the Scholar’s case, they were blinded by their pursuit and hunger of knowledge. It consumed them and they eventually became transformed madmen. A sort of beast who hungers for knowledge instead of blood. The Choir too were focusing only on how they could get closer to being Great Ones as quickly as possible and damned everything else around them for their own goals, essentially dooming an entire city. Yahar’Gul and it’s sect obviously caused some sort of disaster killing tons in the process of achieving their goals towards ascending to the dream world. Thing is, none of these people took a moment to ask:

“Why are we doing this?”

“What does humanity actually gain from this?”

“How will we grow from this pursuit?”

and “What kind of long lasting consequences or results will this have?”

And you see, I think those are very important life questions that any person should ask themselves, the players who are playing the game included. I think the better thing to do is not work for recognition, not work for the sake of work, but work for the sake of humbly improving yourself and humanity. Achievement is great, but being absorbed in one thing and becoming blind to everything else around you can be problematic. This game shows multi ple examples on multiple fronts of how bad things turn if everyone is doing that. It ain’t pretty. So, I think the game itself is asking us those same questions. It’s just up to the player to answer, consider, or even ignore it if they so wish.

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