A glimpse beyond The Veil, Torn Asunder

Holy shit, I just noticed that I hadn't posted this one.

Obviously,

Massive Spoilers ahead:

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     In issue 1 of The Veil, Torn Asunder we begin with our main character revealing his innermost desire. He says that that more than anything he wants the truth of his reality. The Truth above all.

 He confesses to us that he has been running away his whole life, hiding in drink, flesh and other assorted debauchery, and that he at one point even deserted from the army. These days when he isn't trying to find out the truth of existence in the musty old tomes of Yharnam's libraries he instead wanders its streets thinking about his past, frequently lingering on the moments after battle where the horrors surrounding him made him believe that there was no meaning and no truth to be found in life.

     But in contrast to this there is also another memory; a moment in his life where he witnessed a monster peering through a fracture in reality, and it is this improbable event that has in subsequent years come to seem more real than anything else. It is this that has spurred him on in his quest for the truth. And somewhere along the way to the end of the first issue he is given the Tarot reading which will guide the rest of the narrative.

     Now, though it might seem as if the Tarot deck doesn't have a place in Bloodborne, it of course does. In fact, the Tarot cards are in some way already present as The Caryll Runes, and there are pages and pages of discussion on the Bloodborne forums over which Tarot Card corresponds to which Caryll Rune, which ones don't fit or seem left out, but this is somewhat irrelevant as Ales Kot, for the purposes of this story, employs them only as they are originally used; as a guide which reveals some of what the future holds.

     The reading as it goes is: all upright; The Tower, the Moon, and in the end; the Star.

If you have any knowledge of Bloodborne at all, these cards will undoubtedly already summon up some associations, but again, this is not so much about what's already in place as it is about what Ales Kot makes of it. The Tower card traditionally means destruction, even though the tower here isn't ablaze. The Moon card signifies occluded things, deception and the hiding of truth. The Star points to enlightenment and contentment.

     Also, by the end of the issue the man has begun to come into contact with an entity that appears to manifest throughout various elements, both living and not. He smiles as he recognizes that this is some sort of echo of his vision beneath the water, a sign that shows him he's on the right track.

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     Issue 2 is appropriate for the Tower Upright as it is both about destruction and awakening, both figurative and, in this world that has layers of dreaming, very much literal. Though we don't know it yet, we start in echoes of the past, and then the man awakes inside a dream.

     The man finds himself on the streets of Yharnam, now clearly under the light of the Blood Moon, which means that the story and world have progressed ahead to the time when the game's protagonist is already tumbling down the rabbit-hole of insight, and stumbling around pants-less, is after a while confronted with a sight that will provoke a profound change in him.

     The Darkbeast Paarl and the One Reborn do battle.

It is interesting to note that in this issue that I have deemed the Tower card, the monster that shows up is the One Reborn who is most associated with the Tower Card on the forums, and that just like the tower in popular depictions of the card, he is struck by lightning, here present as the Darkbeast Paarl.

     And then something happens; the man seemingly disintegrates.

Now, it's very hard to understand the correct sequence of events of the Veil, Torn Asunder, because this moment, the start, the middle, and the aftermath, are spread out over the first 2 issues (and maybe also part of the third). Maybe this is because Ales Kot was too enamoured with the loose structure that Eileen the Crow's story provided and he wanted to use it here again, but I feel the story would've been better served with a more linear approach. Because unlike for Eileen in the Song of Crows, for the protagonist of The Veil, Torn Asunder, time only flows one way... or it should anyway.

     Upon witnessing the monsters the man's body disintegrates, or seems to disintegrate, burning up until only a familiar shape remains; an echo of the form first glimpsed in the water.

Metaphor and literal destruction both; the gaining of knowledge burns the man down, mind and body.

It's very hard to figure out how this could happen but it seems obvious that the key lies with the open-mouthed shape we have been seeing throughout the story. It is because of the nature of this entity that the man will gain the ability to cycle through various moments in the Bloodborne stories.

     As I have stated, this whole sequence is a dream, but the thing about dreams in the world of Bloodborne is that they aren't just dreams. They aren't less than the reality that engenders the dreaming. They are just other, different realities, pocket dimensions that can be slipped in and out of, given the right catalyst.

     Back in his room the man ponders, but the smell of shit and blood and stained sheets intrudes on his senses and he realizes that he needs to face reality. Issue 2 ends with whatever is left of the man's life in shredded tatters, blood coating the surface of the room he's in, and dripping from the edge of the razor he holds. His private story destroyed, now there's nothing to hold him back from his work, his quest for truth, and the only way left is the way forward.

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Issue 3 has as its Card the Moon, which is most commonly associated with deception and illusion,  and as we ended last issue with the destruction of his life, his story seemingly truncated in lovers' blood, and though he needs to face what is happening, because this is a character who has only ever run away from everything, he runs away again, and somehow he runs farther than he ever could have.

He becomes unmoored from his reality, and he becomes a witness to the burning of beasts in the streets of Yharnam.

He sees Hunters fighting the Cleric Beast.

He meets and talks with Eileen the Crow as she trudges trough the forest in A song of Crows.

He sees a Blood Moon over Byrgenwyrth and the streets of the Hypogean Gaol, and he sees the burning of Old Yharnam.

And he comes upon a scene of The Death of Sleep and shares a pity-filled look with the transformed child carried by the Nameless Hunter, who in this moment doesn't yet have the insight required to see both the madness around her, and in her arms.

But our protagonist does see the monsters. His insight in his reality has grown to such an extent that he can see the Elder Horrors that permeate his existence. Of course, given the Lovecraftian nature of the world of Bloodborne, madness walks hand in hand with the seeing, and so, he becomes truly unhinged. But you could also put it that since running away is what he does, what he's always done, he runs away from the knowledge he has gained and that he instead takes his refuge in insanity.

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And so we arrive at issue 4; The Star.

The Star is the card signifying spiritual enlightenment and contentment, and in the case of our main character it signifies the stage where he achieves his heart's desire; the attainment of his much sought-after ultimate truth.

     In the asylum our character lies, sheltered in insanity, having halted his quest for truth. But he is not the one to decide the direction nor the end of this story (or is he? Tum Tum Tum TUUUUUUM), and he is visited in his cell, first, by illusions seeking to perpetuate his private tale, then by the entity that has haunted him throughout the story, this time clothed in the skin of a dead man.

     The entity goads him on, and he is reminded of what knowledge means in the world of Blooborne, that it is gained by the seeing, and accumulation, of eyes, and he is told precisely what it means to cover those eyes up. 

     To be willfully blind in this universe is to choose to just be yet another in an innumerable succession of blind thralls, all in slave to an unfathomable design.

     It is at this point that the man begins to question what the entity wants from him specifically, why he has been pushed in a direction of the entity's design. He realizes that he himself has nothing to offer, nothing to say or reveal, no hidden knowledge to impart.

But then, intuitively, revelation dawns.

     Because of his unique point of view; a life lived, guided only by constantly running away, a constant escapism into anything but the thing he needs to confront, he understands the motivations of the unknown force that has guided him here. He understands that the only thing he's actually giving it is window to look through, a story to follow. Something to distract it from its own reality. He understands that there's nothing he really can offer, nothing except divertissement, and that all that he is, for this entity that dons dead men like clothes, is entertainment.

     At this point we realize that the narrative has become a Meta one, that it's been one all along, that the entity that keeps looking in on our protagonist is probably us, staring with open mouth at the horrors we witness, or that at the very least it is Ales Kot himself, the writer, trying to coax out a story out of a subject whose sole drive has been the discovery of the ultimate truth of his world. And problematic for both subject and writer, the ultimate truth that comes out of this, is that this particular revelation does not stop at the boundaries of the world of Bloodborne, and that it goes beyond its confines to make the audience, the world at large a part of the reveal. All of a sudden Yharnam has becomes a small place in quite a large tapestry.

The man realizes he is in a story, that he is a story and that the entity wishes him to continue on, to put on a show, as it were. But the man denies the formless watcher, and, not without some malice, acts according to his nature. He runs away again, by gauging out his eyes, and since this is Bloodborne, and eyes are here the symbol of knowledge, he takes away his knowing and the possibility of progress, and so denies the entity both the continuation and the conclusion to the story, who leaves and rears away from him.

Then, throughout this section Ales Kot, via our narrating protagonist, addresses us pretty much directly, berating us,for escaping into fiction, while all around us our world is being torn apart by awful forces. Take your pick: corruption, climate change, war, famine, pandemic, any and all, all these destructive forces and yet here we are, hiding away in our stories.

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"The truth is I spent my whole life running and called it conquest'."

A line from our protagonist that hits quite hard with me, a reader who doesn't venture outside much, adding books to my shelves only when I 'conquer' them, finish them. I constantly need to escape into stories, into fiction; books, comics, tv or games because I can not handle the world outside.
I read books, and I finish games, all to avoid interacting with the world. Behold my library and you can only glimpse but an inkling of the things my mind has seen. but the truth is that all I do is run away. Escapism rules supreme.

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A small thought here at the end. Part of a larger section that I scrapped because it didn't seem to add up the way I wanted, but there's a small chance there's something here anyway.

In this way it initially seems as if the Carryl runes did not actually have a place but it does bear noting that where in the previous 2 volumes (issues 5 to 12) the end of every issue was closed out by the same Caryll rune each time, and that in this volume every issue is instead closed out by another one: The Formless Oedon rune.

A secret symbol left by Caryll, runesmith of Byrgenwerth.

The Great One Oedon, lacking form, exists only in voice, and is symbolized by this rune.

Those who memorize it enjoy a larger supply of Quicksilver Bullets.

Human or no, the oozing blood is a medium of the highest grade, and the essence of the formless Great One. Both Oedon, and his inadvertent worshippers, surreptitiously seek the precious blood.

Could Formless Oedon be in the meta way suggested in the story, be the creators that work on the stories of Bloodborne. Could the shade with hollow mouth be a form taken on temporarily to work their will? The artist's will made /almost/ physically manifest?