#(of course I had to reply) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

katyspersonal · 5 months

Note

who do you think fucked up worse…gehrman or maria?

This is an interesting question, and I kind of didn't think of it before! Time to take a closer look at their crimes I guess. Some of these will be held on the possibilities and 'safe assumptions' though and addressed for the full picture!

1) Both were involved in Fishing Hamlet massacre!

With Maria, we can conclude as much because she discarded her weapons in the well at the place specifically. Her version in the Nightmare realm, a Hunter again, is supposed to be what punishes her, and she is focused on keeping Kos/OoK away from rummaging through. Considering the nature of the Nightmare, as well as the Doll who has spiritual connection with her, it should come from her guilt and regrets rather than.. I dunno, discarding the hunt over natural 'character development' and just picking a cool place to forsaken her past!

Gehrman sleeps better according to the dialogue Doll has after you kill OoK and free it's soul, so if it tortured him so, I think it is safe to say he had to be personally involved too rather than stay back while his students did the job:

They both were involved with Byrgenwerth, following their quest for obtaining the eyes of the dwellers from their skulls, and I suppose cord of OoK?

The thing about this point is that the description is written as though it was Gehrman's curiosity which ruined Maria's "idealisation" of him, or WOULD ruin it had she learned of it! This makes me wonder whether she was really involved in Byrgenwerth all that much, or whether she was aware of the real purpose of Fishing Hamlet massacre beforehand? Her goal, within the Nightmare, is stated to mercy-kill us so we don't allow that curiousity corrupt us to the point of "rummaging through corpse" and similar things, further supported by her visceral attack being an embrace if it is lethal!

I am just saying that here the balance might slightly shift towards making Gehrman 'worse' than her. Maybe she was not aware that it all was not just killing "monsters" but also a pregnant mother with her divine baby, but "well you didn't ask :/". Maybe Gehrman deceived her to use her aid. Maybe he didn't think it would be a big deal for her seeing that Maria was also interested in evolution through talking with Great Ones, and assumed she'd be just as callous about which means to accomplish the goals with?

2) Both were grave-robbing, or at least okay with that!

This one is a little less obvious, but Tomb Prospectors were not the first to go to the Chalice Dungeons! ...It were actually Willem, Dores and Gatekeeper lol:

BUT ALSO it were Old Hunters! We can see the remnants of it by Old Hunter Vitus being one the summons in Chalice Dungeons, hear Gehrman encourage us to go into the Chalice Dungeons to become stronger as via "tradition" of the Old Hunters,

and the fact that one of the things that torture Maria (again, remember that Nightmare Realm is Hell that punishes) is a Chalice:

(A video ( x ) for a better look at the Chalice from a figure)

I'd say that it is not very nice to disturb the undead Pthumerians just struggling in remains of their civilisation! Interesting thing: we can conclude they are even staying there to protect the Great Ones or their remains!

There has been some sort of civil war between ancient great-ones-respecting Pthumerians and who late became Cainhurst nobles! Maria, ironically, fell onto the side of "entitled guys" descendants! But yes, I could see why bullying zombie guys to get more history and archeology relics from them might not seem like much for her at start. Experience in the Fishing Hamlet likely retroactively ruined this period of her life for her: delving into Chalice Dungeons was likewise 'not leaving the corpse alone'. The remaining Pthumerians were right having some honour and dignity. So, that came to haunt her in the form of Pthumeru Chalice. Gehrman is.. well he's here too I guess dfshfdhs

3) Both knew a little too much about Laurence's shady business and did nothing?

Old Hunters used to be friends with Healing Church's Hunters and even had their workshops located close to one another! Gehrman was friends with Laurence and Ludwig, who are both quite strongly involved with Moon Presence (Ludwig's sword and guidance, Laurence's affiliation being known since Byrgenwerth times), as well as the key figure in creation of Hunter's Dream:

This was most likely a bait-and-switch, seeing how the cord itself is still in the real Workshop, and not in the grasp of Moon Presence (unlike, say, Wet Nurse taking Mergo's cord)! I think the purpose of creation of the Hunter's Dream was to "buy time" for the research conceived by the scientists! Remember: Gehrman was known to have "madness of curiosity" that Maria resented, or at least would resent had she known! He might have been fully aware of what Laurence wanted to do and support it! My point here, that with such proximity, he must have known of all Laurence's crimes and agreed with them!

Maria was at least overseer of the Clocktower's Research Hall, which, again, was just beta!Choir.

This last line IS a bit confusing, because it makes it sound as though the nerds looking for the Eyes Inside and the Blood Ministers got split. Laurence and Ludwig make it weird, as Moon Presence is also an Eldrich creature and Ludwig is for sure full of eyes! What also makes it strange is that Choir, and then School of Mensis, are both upper echelons of the Healing Church, but Laurence is supposed to be above both of them.

I think this can be worked with! Let's say what if Choir formed after Laurence's death, which also happened after Maria's death, and Vicars after him were somewhat "powerless" and walked over by Choir and Mensis, only leaders in the name! But that still leaves the bit that the mentioned "division" happened after Choir was formed! Maria and Adeline, however, are locked to the existence of the Research Hall, so, the timeframe when doctors and blood ministers were 100% working together! We find the Eye Pendant that opens the access to the Research Hall in Laurence's hand, and human Skull of Laurence on the platform that hides the secret elevator to that Research Hall. Again, by the Nightmare Logic, they must be connected with Laurence's sins: he started this research, or sponsored it, or was overseeing it, and so on.

This point is not an absolute thing though, because one or both of them might be freed from guilt here. Maybe Gehrman was not as informed and agreeable as we could assume and Laurence did lead him around? Maybe Maria wanted but could not do anything being caught in the web of complicated connections, blackmail and risks for the people she cared about?

4) Both are willingly involved in questionable practices (Maria with research, Gehrman with the cycle of Dream and Hunt)

This point I feel like transcends the morality a little bit, as it touches the matter of 'it is bad if you do it, but it is also bad if you DON'T do it'. I really love Soulsborne universes for having guts to say "you can't win, just pick your poison", but I think it is still worth addressing!

It is up to interpretation in which quantity Maria is involved with the Research Hall! Nothing states whether she founded it, joined in the research later, stepped in and turned the tides (ba dum tss) of the research, or simply was a caretaker/nurse/etc of the broken mess while Research Hall was getting ready for a bit of rebranding. She can be very guilty, or she can be barely guilty but in either case if that was her "redemption arc" that was a pretty bad way to go about it. ...or was it?

Fauxsefka turns people into Celestial Emissaries so they physically can't become beasts instead, and is even stated to be a hero / heroic researcher by Miyazaki:

First, I don't do Death of the Author (in terms of interpreting media I mean, not in terms of a style of writing)! Like, nope. Never. It is just not for me. Creator's word is the final for me; Fauxsefka is the good guy in the story, apparently, and it makes sense considering the fundamentally broken place characters are in! Maria has similarities with Fauxsefka: not only both of them have Cainhurst roots, but also both of them seem to favour 'Stars' line of evolution for humans!

Whereas other patients are afraid of the horrors of the Deep Sea, a concept Miyazaki could not get over well into DS3, Adeline desires them! Other patients seems to have gotten it right, and you can see one of them also clings to Maria mentally to "not drown"; Adeline "didn't understand"! The balcony that Maria wants Adeline to go to so she can forsaken the Deep Sea and seek something "happier" holds unique kind of patients who can shoot cosmic arcane spells:

Herself, Maria is associated with these lumenflowers: their petals are all over her boss arena, and the way to her lays through a much bigger batch of flowers, where Living Failures, other 'Stars' Kin are, whose song lyrics also feature lines 'ave stellar' and 'ave Maria'!

So, how this is different from what Fauxsefka is doing, who is stated to be as much of a good person as possible within this context and with the burden of her knowledge? Fauxsefka was doing more or less rinse-and-repeat practice, with maybe a few patients not surviving the procedure but we don't know what happened: maybe that person was already at the brink of death and she tried to make them live like this.

^ This guy I mean. Maria, on the other hand, is in the time period where the doctors and scientists were only testing the waters (BA DUM TSSS) (ok I will stop) and it was not SO certain what was at the stake, what were the alternatives, what was awaiting the humanity. It is even possible that the beasts problem was not yet bad to the point of "you'll either become a beast, be eaten by a beast or become a Kin, humanity is DONE for!" ! This was an unethical research at the cost of real people! The weight of Maria's sin here really depends on the interpretation, though

As for the cycle of Dream and Hunt, this is complicated and lingers on one's interpretation of what the purpose of the Dream even IS! Its existence provides two things: 1) a hunter who is immortal for the night, thus can sustain the beasts with efficiency like no other, but also effect the continuity of the night ( x ) and 2) supposed sustenance to the Great One Flora of the Moon, who holds the hunt as a concept!

I used to be a bit more set on the idea that if beasts are not sustained and hunted, they will simply overpower those who are yet humans and eat them! It is a self-feeding cycle of people needing to self-defend from beasts, thus having to consume the blood as urgent means of healing and power-up since beasts are too strong, thus risking to become beasts themselves because the blood they consumed during that hunt corrupts them. So, the Hunter's Dream would be a good thing, as it'd help to 'buy time' during nights of the hunt in which not only beasts are more active but Great Ones too! While the Dreaming Hunter holds everything together, the greatest minds of the Healing Church can efficiently study the ways to end beasthood, or ANY problem of humanity, once and for all! It is just better to throw the hunting resources on the Dream, so the scientists don't worry about the beasts and can focus on research. However, I almost forgot that:

This implies that had there not been Mensis Ritual ongoing, people WOULD have the chance to simply 'wait away' the beasthood problem. That, since Rom is not stopping Mensis Ritual but just conceals it, what really makes the inner beast within everyone who consumed the blood inevitably come out is Mergo's cry that draws the Bloodmoon close!

So yeah, the point about Hunter's Dream being helpful for the research of evolution still stands, especially under assumption that the deal with Moon Presence helped to bring more Eldrich Arcane close for "feeding" her. The point about how if the beasts are not hunted they'll simply eat everyone, though, is vague. It is safer to assume that the Hunter's Dream and Research Hall both are both example of hubris of man even if approached differently. Attempts to draw in something dangerous and horrifying, but it is "justified risk" because if you manage to 'tame' arcane/blood, sure, humanity will prosper!

Like... yeah, sure, there IS dangerous and undesireable nature of man that ruins everything and might or might not still linger in humanoids' genes after Loran. But did humanity ASK any of you guys to keep trying to fix it with so many victims and sacrifices? Like, was it WORTH it?

This point is closely tied to 'knowing Laurence's bad antics and doing nothing', yeah. Maria didn't seem to like blood ministration very much, as she disapproved of Adeline becoming a Blood Saint, but she also didn't even approve of blood antics of her own clan! I am not sure what would be her opinion on the Hunter's Dream had she lived to the point when it was created, just that she herself is not willing to ever hunt, so I am leaving this point aside. Is this just blood ministration that she opposes but proximity with a Great One Moon Presence would be something she can see the potential of? Or would she and Gehrman have a pointless cat fight about whose methods are better when they are both hubris of man? In both versions they are 'guilty'! Besides:

In the end none of THIS matters either and everyone was fooled ( x ). The blood offering is a blood offering in any way; whether it is through spilling blood violently during the hunt, or offering the blood's 'red' with how celestial Kin all bleed red. Moon doesn't care what paints it red, in the end.

___________________________________

My conclusion is: both of these characters fucked up almost equally! I think the balance shifts just a little bit and Maria is slightly better than Gehrman since she had some limitations set on how far she was willing to go. Her motivation was not in "curiosity" but strictly in helping humanity, even if in unfair ways, which is apparently not the case for Gehrman?

I'll say this though, NOW I am hooked on the idea of Maria and Gehrman being petty "rivals" ideologically (for as long as they could before Maria's own demons caught up with her). Especially since neither approach is better than the other and they are both cringe loosers! Again, lost comedy gold over Fromsoft making Gehrman's tender and warm feelings for her before and after her death plain. What is not lost, however, is the fact that the two should just kick Laurence and go home :pensive:

#bloodborne #lady maria of the astral clocktower #gehrman the first hunter #again: blaming laurence is a solid strategy #honorable mention: even more of maria's blame might be lifted depending on how strong gehrman's influence was on her #we don't know when he started training her. maybe it was since very young age? so a lot of her actions as a hunter were unwise #again it depends because as of now she is a grown thinking woman and could have processed it BEFORE pregnant mother got killed-#-and her child stolen!#so I am on 'maria's agency' side here!#I think it is more like gehrman FEELS as though he 'ruined' her with the hunt #like you know how sometimes when we feel guilty we become illusioned about how much impact we had on another person's actions and feelings #we need to be TOLD that it was that person's choices in the end because we might feel like we 'controlled' them #and of course his guilt would be amplified and impossible to reason with considering she took her own life!#(as far as we can assume)#ask replies #bloodborne observation #bloodborne headcanons #analysis

83 notes · View notes

randomnameless · 2 months

Note

I mean… fire emblem shouldn't be taking in consideration when making points about representing real world issues or using it as a crutch for sociopolitical arguments irl. One of the best examples in this franchise of "culture bias" and "covet bigotry" is Fates, where Hoshido is too pure, too good, and Nohr is the bad, bad, evil barbaric nation. And this goes so far as to make birthright's story a more watered down version of blue units vs red units story from shadow dragon.

In 3H now the good, pure nation is Fodlan, and those who surround it are either filler to make the worldmap look prettier, or barbarians that like to hunt the good guys for sport (Almyra and Sreng, and possibly Dagda), with Brigid being a repetition of the noble savage trope. Just bc there's a poc guy that wants to unite people and get rid of prejudice in story, doesn't mean that the developpers agree to that or support that.

(Also, let's not talk about Hopes and how Claude's altruistic dream turns out to be unifying two different nations and make the cohabit by force with him as sole leader of both. AKA the typical fire emblem trope of uniting different countries under one ruler, something that's not progressive in the slightest)

Mmh,

Speaking on eggshells here because Fates isn't really my area of expertise, but basically, iirc you can thank Pat for scrubbing the worst of Hoshido!

Fates' best route is Revelation (rip izana) where both countries accept to set aside their differences to work together, meaning that, obviously, Hoshido wasn't only "blue unit land" against Nohr's "red units".

Even through Birthrout, you can catch here'n'there, even in the Pat version!, how Hoshido isn't roses'n'daisies, it's the land where Mikoto takes her niece "hostage" ffs as a measure against Corn's kidnapping (you can't tell me she never guessed Azura was Arete's kid!), where Ryoma (idk if you were the same anon as back then?) as the crown prince ignores the plight of the nohrians and why they were attacking Hoshido because life in Nohr sucks and they're starving (idk if, much like the Leonster/Thracia conflict, Hoshido refused to trade with them and let them starve instead), the fuckery with Mokushu and Shura's backstory, or Hoshido being Misogyny Land (tm).

Heck Birthrout has you march on Nohr's capital city iirc, and fight in the streets - it's in Birthrout that Corn's obsession with taking revenge/defeating Garon leads to Elise' death - so it's not the the "blue unit waltz on red unit lands, routs the enemy and calls a day".

So I don't think the Fates writers really wanted to push the "pure unproblematic land" card with Hoshido compared to Nohr, but rather depict them as both flawed - in different ways - and needing to work together.

Now, I wouldn't say the nations of Fodlan are good compared to the rest of the filler nations that make up this verse's world - after all it's Adrestia who starts hostilities against Dagda'n'Brigid and Adrestia who most recently flattened Brigid and made it its vassal! - but in a sense you're right calling them filler, the FE series in general don't spend a lot of time to depict nations in general, they're just "the place character X is from" and for all of its, hm, reknown writting, Fodlan is following the trend, Albinea is no less different than Cheve (wait, we have one map set in Cheve! kill that) so bar flavor text, they're effectively just "filler".

I disagree about Sreng and Almyra being filler though, if Sreng could be seen as a ref to the Thracia situation or Norh/Hoshido fight for ressources, Almyra?

Is basically Verdane all over again - with the dubious honor of having a Verdanite Lord who, unlike Jamke has some relevance to the plot bar his introduction, but most important, seems to appreciate and want to emulate/import the values/methods of his country to the cast/main plot.

Can you imagine FE4 where Jamke suggests to kidnap Deevtar to seduce lure Andrei in a trap and rekt him?

Of course not.

Just bc there's a poc guy that wants to unite people and get rid of prejudice in story, doesn't mean that the developpers agree to that or support that.

I guess they agreed with the "get rid of prejudice without dealing with the dragon in the room" idea, but the main issue I mentionned and talked about in the other anon reply was the how, and what, doylist wise, it conveys.

"I'll unite people and get rid of prejudice by busting open your country to my people who are as prejudiced as you supposedly are, and I will bring you new values"

That's... not a good way to bring people together lol.

Even in FE16 I found Claude and Almyra's writing a bit odd : why asking Timmy first to stop shunning Bob when Timmy started to avoid Bob because Bob keeps on stealing his lunch money? Shouldn't you ask Bob first to, uh, not be an ass?

In Nopes?

Bob ruins Timmy's house, hits Timmy's toddler sister in the face and still steals his lunch money - but now, Bob has the nerve to tell Timmy that he's doing this to "help" him.

Also, let's not talk about Hopes and how Claude's altruistic dream turns out to be unifying two different nations and make the cohabit by force with him as sole leader of both. AKA the typical fire emblem trope of uniting different countries under one ruler, something that's not progressive in the slightest

Hmmm,

I don't know if you played the older games (FE1 to FE10), but as far as I remember, bar Archanea verse, we have different rulers for each countries and the world is never an unified entity -

And even then, Marth doesn't unify the world by making people "cohabit by force", as forced as it is, everyone gives him their crown.

Sanaki doesn't tell Elincia to suck it as she annexes Crimea in FE10, ditto with Innes and Joshua, or Ced and Ares in Jugdral... I can see Leif's unification of Thracia falling under that criteria, but even then, it's not so much by force than Travant making suicide by cop because he wanted the peninsula to be united and understood he couldn't be the one to do it.

Uniting the continent by force is, on the contrary, what red emperors do, and in traditional FE games, red emperors are defeated.

To return to your main point :

I mean… fire emblem shouldn't be taking in consideration when making points about representing real world issues or using it as a crutch for sociopolitical arguments irl.

Of course, and I totally agree!

The FE series has always been, as its core, a series where a "rightful ruler" returns home to rule "rightfuly" and better than its predecessors, by acknowledging what they did wrong and what they can do now.

That being said, a game is never written in a vacuum : that's the doylist side of various discussions : "What were the devs thinking, was what their reasoning when they decided to make the game this way?"

In 2004, real world persons believed that putting Devdan in their game was okay.

You can give them some flak because different cultural references between Japan and the US world (hell, western world at this rate because damn if Devdan hit "international" racist stereotypes boxes!) - and yet, can you really suppose the devs wouldn't have known, in 2004, that those stereotypes are harmful to real life people and Devdan was basically an insult?

But Devdan was just a living (as much as a fictional character can be alive, but you catch my drift lol) stereotype, the issue was just with Devdan existing.

It was 2004, 15 years later, we expect of IS - not your backwater company! - to never ever fall in the same pits, right?

(well, we had FE13 with the Feroxi main characters who love to fight being dark skinned... so the Devdan dev might still have been there :/ )

FE Fodlan, let it be for design or even names, took some inspiration from RL (it was funny upon release to catch all those links and nods!), and while i appreciated the aesthetic, it was bound to create another "Devdan" issue.

You have Almyra, designed with several RL inspirations (they weren't being subtle with Claude's battalion called the Immortals lol), from design (Claude's clothes and braids!) to units (mounted archers!) to, well, names.

Okay, in itself, it's nothing as insulting as Devdan's existence. But taken with the context?

The devs wrote that Fodlan's aesthetic was supposed to be the Age of Discoveries (1500s and onwards?) so yes, during that Age, you had people who were prejudiced as fuck against people from other lands/different cultures.

But in 2019, we know that those prejudices were full of shit, and either fueled by ignorance, or just, the need to find a good "excuse" to get new lands/manpower/ressources.

Maybe the devs wanted to showcase this part of history : depict the characters being prejudiced against "foreigners" and have them later learn that their prejudice was unfounded !

But... they took the inverse path

Hilda's racist stereotypes? They're shown to be....

True through both games!

As you put it, Almyra are the "barbarians" who : attack the land the characters are from when they're at their weakest, for no reason than to get a good fight - even if it means dying which in turns create several orphans they don't give a fuck about - pillage and "rampage" in cities, let their allies die after accepting a "mutual support" alliance with them, and ultimately rave and scream at their "outdated" values and how you're going to bring them yours.

"You see those people who were derided as savages and barbarians back then in RL - and still are in some parts of the world because the early 2000s happened and in general because racism exists? - Well I'm going to base my fantasy "token barbarian country who is untrustworthy and backstabs everyone" based on them!"

I know you can't compare tomatoes to watermelons, but the Baten Kaitos franchise also has a nation who's, more or less, full of assholes, racists and imperialist pieces of shit. But the devs in those games designed each island/country from scratch, there is no nation that immediately calls back to "RL country X or culture Y"!

you can make a farfetched point about the people wearing ceremonial masks and having totems being a mix of several RL inspirations or at least being a call back to them... but they're part of the most OP people of that universe!

So why? Why, doylist wise, FE Fodlan designed with care - you can't tell me those costumes and outfits were designed in 10 minutes! - Almyra and its characters... only to have them act out as what an english book from the 1780s depicted "oriental" people ?

Unlike Devdan, the racism doesn't ooze out from the way the characters/country was designed, but what role they fit in the story.

It's not a sociopolitical commentary or representing real world but more like another jab at IS for being as prejudiced against non western/japanese cultures and civilisations as they were when FE4 was released, which is problematic in 2019/2022.

(and then you have Square Enix giving us Hyzante in Triangle Strategy, which is even more in your face with the dubious parallels)

#anon #replies #fandom woes #IS is part of the fandom as the creators of the games lol #I mentionned it in the other reply #but while only have dungeons and aesthetics #the Golden Sun Saga had places inspired by real world cultures and civilisations and never #put one under the bus to act as the token barbarians #hell the antagonists from the first game are a tribe of people who can turn into dragons #and the main antagonist is a giant rock with an eyeball #in the third opus we have aliens #but Kibombo? Champa? Ayuthay? they exist and aren't treated as bad as #Almyra is by the plot and devs #Fodlan's unification kink is another can of worms but #in the other series you are never supposed to end up with an unified continent under one leader save for Marth but it happens in the plot #hell in FE4 it's often refered as the bad ending the one where Seliph rules over Jugdral #claude wants to get rid of prejudice by being prejudiced as fuck #of course FE Fodlan being what it is this angle is never challenged directly #i think the only mention that vaguely resembles a challenge is when Hilda is kind of surprised at having to fight side by side with almyran #because they were trying to invade 3 days ago and building relationships with them is kind of hard to fathom #to which iirc claude says to let bygones be bygones #sometimes people fight r8? Dude that's not how it works #FE16 #idk if i answered to your post anon lol #But Fates is more muddled than the trailers gave us with the 'good kingdom and bad kingdom'#I know Pat's lolcalisation didn't help at all #but Hoshido isn't perfect far from that

11 notes · View notes