Totality in Yharnam

As we play Bloodborne, just like in real life, we are preoccupied with everything around us that sometimes we forget to look up. Starting in Central Yharnam, lost and confused, trying to make sense of the situation we are in. Yet, nothing has caught my eye more than the sun and its partner, the moon. Perhaps it is my thinking back to Solaire’s words: If only I could be so grossly incandescent. I keep staring, gazing, really basking in the wonderful bright hues the sky has. It takes you to another world, one where you’re having a sunset picnic, and fills you with such passion. I make my way, slaughtering Cleric Beast, Father Gascoigne, BloodStarved Beast, The Witch of Hemwick until I meet Vicar Amelia. She is clutching a golden pendant while reciting a passage; she too falls before us. Once Amelia falls, we walk out of the Grand Cathedral only to see it is now night and the moon is out, however, it’s not til later we learn that it is a Full Moon. We learn of this when we get to Byrgenwerth and slaughter Rom, The Vacuous Spider, which then, the Blood Moon arrives.

A Blood Moon is a more common name for a Total Lunar Eclipse. The Moon does not produce it’s own light, although it shines due to it’s surface reflecting the Sun’s rays. Eclipses of the Moon happen when the Sun, Earth and Moon align in a straight line. In a Total Lunar Eclipse, the Earth’s umbra, or shadow, completely covers the Moon. In addition, the Moon must be a Full Moon for a Total Lunar Eclipse, Blood Moon, to occur. The Moon is still visible during a Total Lunar Eclipse because the Earth’s atmosphere refracts sunlight and indirectly lights up the Moon’s surface. The Earth’s atmosphere blocks parts of the sunlight’s spectrum leaving only the longer wavelengths; because of this, a totally eclipsed Moon usually looks red. A Blood Moon can also be yellow, orange, or brown in color as a result of the different types of dust particles and clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere.

It’s hard to say about the implications of the Moon Phases in Bloodborne, given that the DLC/expansion can add and modify theories but let us wonder (peer?). Full moons are traditionally associated with temporal insomnia (inability to sleep), insanity (lunacy and lunatic) and lycanthropy. A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope is a human with the ability to morph into a wolf or a wolf-like creature who has been afflicted by a bite or scratch, or by a curse.

In Bloodborne we see most of the humans transformed to beasts or beast like creatures. We are seeking to quell the nightmare newborn, least we all turn into beasts, as per the lore note, and the expansion briefly mentioned a curse to our children. “Curse the fiends, their children too…and their children forever true…

Some full moons have developed new names in modern times thanks to the media like the “Blue Moon”, “Blood Moon”, and “Super Moon”. The “harvest moon” is the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox (September 22^nd or 23rd), and the “hunter’s moon” is the one following it. It’s interesting to note “Hunter’s moon” since in BB we smell like the Moon and we are “hunters”. (Some more things to think about given how Fromsoft loves to have various meaning and wordplay for us to think about.)

Many religious people believe that a Blood Moon foretells an apocalypse. There are several prophecies foretelling that the moon will be turned to blood in the endtime. “Joel 2:30-31 states: ‘And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.’”

It is hard to say if the Blood Moon is the beginning of the end in BB as it is ultimately up to us to forget the dream or transcend the hunt.

There was a Blood Moon on April 4, 2015 and there was another one on September 27, 2015. The one that occurred on the 27th was also a Supermoon. A Supermoon is a full Moon or a new Moon at its perigee, or closest point to Earth. With all of these Celestial events happening, I wonder if their presence will impact the expansion, The Old Hunters. Revealed in screenshots, we have a highly couth and suave Hunter with an Astronomical Clock in the background, with a multitude of Runes where Zodiacal Signs may have been.