I think we need MatPat.

That's his ponytail on his grave, not a *****ing soul

What if, we are all just extremely over thinking the whole thing...

Moon Presence and "Nightmare Slain" suggests that when the Presence appears, the player Hunter is drawn into a nightmare, as with the Nightmare Frontier and Nightmare of Mensis. I've read the suggestion that the space slug left at the end, which the pale doll takes to protect and nurture, is not literally, physically, the player Hunter. Rather, it now represents the player Hunter's *soul* within the nightmare dimension that Great Ones inhabit. The player does become an infant Great One, but that doesn't necessarily mean physically - at least at first. It means the player has gained the power of a Great One by eating the cords and slaying a Great One. Over time, that power will grow and turn the player into a new Great One or god. And who knows what will happen then - perhaps the "childhood" of humanity refers to humanity becoming the next race of Great Ones thanks to the first human fully and completely ascending, that being the player Hunter who went to Yharnam, slew a Great One, and had their internal essence transformed. This interpretation is based on the idea that there is an objective, waking reality in which the player initially begins, before the blood infusion in the game's intro cutscene. As soon as the infusion begins, the player is told they can consider everything that happens next a bad dream, if they choose. Because the game is heavily influenced by the "dreamland" stories by Lovecraft, that suggests there are indeed several layers of reality at play. The true waking world, a waking world bleeding into dreams (Yharnam full of monsters and beasts), and dream or nightmare realms fully beyond the physical world. The Hunter's Dream is not the same as the dream *like* Yharnam we explore during gameplay. It is an actual dream dimension, and it is suggested when the hunter teleports there, they are not entirely, physically, within it. This is why the player can be "executed" in the Hunter's Dream, forcing them out of it and making them wake back up in a reality closer to the waking world. That strongly suggests things in the Hunter's Dream are not what they appear to be - like an inanimate doll that walks and talks in the Hunter's Dream. So wrapping back around to the beginning, it suggests the "space slug" left behind in the Hunter's Dream after the slaying of the Moon Presence is not actually the player Hunter's physical body. Like a dream, it is inside them - a visual metaphor for the transformation that has taken place due to the player consuming the umbilical cords and then taking the life of a Great One. They are no longer human inside, but an infant Great One.

If you watch the ending you can see he would have only hit you with the blunt of the handle not the blade of the Burial Blade. Your head should still be attached even though your neck would be broken. "swift cut" my ***...

I really want to play this game, the gameplay and everything seem a lot stronger all around than Dark Souls.

i just wanted to be sure if that wasn't the nightmare

i think in the third ending the alien slug that doll picked up was the hunter itself transformed into the a Great One baby. you became such because you consumed the umbilical cords thus becoming the surrogate and killing moon essence sealed your fate.

I have an observation. In the Yharnam Sunrise ending the player "awakes" in the Cathedral Ward courtyard in front of a well but in the actual place there is no well. And we are facing the Upper Cathedral Ward. Could this have a meaning or is it for the sake of the ending cutscene ?