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I agree with a lot of points in this video, but the constant coming back to the idea that none of these quest lines really tie back into each other in a satisfying way could be very easily solved if you see the constant examples of sexual violation/violation of autonomy as what link these stories together into the message of the game. There's a massive elephant left in the room after the explanation of Annalise's story bc the fact that she is so blatantly symbolically raped by Alfred is left out. Her story is so intertwined with Alfred it does her entire story a huge disservice, which is where a lot of my critiques lie with this video bc it doesn't exactly stop with Annalise. Bloodborne constantly shows women being violated by male figures (Queen Yharnam and the Pthumerians, Mother Kos and the church hunters, Geherman and the Plain Doll/Maria, the Mensis ritual and the One Reborn, etc) and every single time these instances are severely punished, none of these institutions that used the exploitation of women to further their insight or ascension or any goal is ever rewarded, and is also where we see Bloodborne's imagery at its most disturbing. It also explains why it's endings are so bleak, because even you as the player get absolutely nothing out of the hunt and the nightmare, its pointless on purpose. The fact these quest lines just kind of end suddenly like its said in the video is true but entirely intentional, at every turn it tells you upholding the violations of the systems that have been forced into place will destroy you and everything around you and trying to survive inside of it is impossible too. It's why we see so many powerful women in the hunt like Maria and Eileen loose in the end as well, no one can survive when were all affected by the cycle of the hunt, ie, the suffering of women for the gains of men.

Regardless of my disagreements on some points this still was a very good video n I enjoyed it a lot, thanks for posting and opening an actual conversation about these themes earnestly 👍^-^

I can at least answer the question of why pregnancy is a theme. Just as the humans of Yharnam covet the power, wisdom and insight of the Great Ones, the Great Ones likewise covet the mortal ability to create new life. When these two forms come together, disaster ensues, as both enact cruelty on the other out of covetousness for what they lack. The humans torture, kill and mutilate great ones, and the great ones violate and mutate the humans. These two incompatible spheres are tragically irreconcilable. When beasts seek to be angels, and angels seek to become beasts, what is there to do? Souls games are full of such existential meditations.

Reminds me that meme "ork is practically illiterate, can only understand surface level themes or religious oppression, not see deeper commentary of female experience in modern life and how it relates to past prosecution by the church"

One of the things that frustrates me about the Souls community is how many people trying to explain the lore don't have sufficient background knowledge of literature, art and history etc. to understand the complexities and themes that FromSoft is packing in. VaatiVidya is good but we need like, university scholars. Tenured professors. I want an academic Journal of Souls Lore. Souls games are high art in a way that video games generally are not.

For me as a woman Bloodborne isn't just about one thing but a culmination of.
I think it shows us the horrifying parts of being a women thru history and now , while also showing us the implication of life and it's creation. I also love how they potray the women that bore those children, essentialy the gods treat them like nothing but wombs, yet they can not be without them, so in a way the women are the gods and when we drink their menstrual blood we are literally drinking life since this is where life comes from.
Sorry if this is written weird English is not my native language.

What I think Bloodborne is about is:
Addiction, specifically the current opioid addiction epidemic, expressed through the real life historical context of pain killers and surgery via metaphor (see charred thermos).
PC hunter has a surgery, gets addicted to the pain killers, and has to fight it. Expressed through destructive behavior, finalizing in 3 possible endings of waking up from a bad trip, perpetuating the cycle, or accepting it as part of yourself that you will always have to contend with.

Wrapped in a candy shell of H P Lovecraft and Robert Louis Stevenson...and maybe a little Dracula/ Bram Stoker

looking for a straightforward story that’s upfront abt its themes in a fromsoft game is a losing battle lmao!!
but for me, bloodborne is a game about the loss of autonomy, especially through the lens of  the abuse of women. the healing church is the central figure in the entire story of bloodborne, with them stealing ebrietas’ autonomy and using her for blood ministration being the catalyst for everything that happens!! her being a “daughter” is very specific too, as the church abuses women a Lot: the queen, ebrietas, kos, amelia, and even the nuns!! and i think annalise stands apart in her themes Because she isn’t part of the church, and directly opposes it. her pregnancy is of her own free will, and isn’t viewed as disgusting or scary, unlike yharnam, arianna, or yosefka (imposter yosefka is just another extension of the lost autonomy, with her literally body being taken over). in bloodborne, it’s the forced and unwanted pregnancies that are horrific. adella,  amelia, and even eileen to a certain extent are women who had their autonomy groomed out of them and work for the church’s interest themselves, even when it hurts and kills them. the doll is also part of all this themeing, literally being an object made without autonomy. the squid ending has her basically becoming the hunter’s mother, again another unwanted pregnancy and birth, and woman without autonomy (made even worse by the fact that she’s a replica of maria). so i don’t think the pregnancy stories contradict each other!! they’re all part of the same narrative of religious fanaticism and control vs autonomy

4:56 there exists a fantastic series linking bloodborne to ether’s use as an anaesthetic. It’s called An Agony of Effort by Charred Thermos.
It’s not directly related to Reagan’s war on drugs but it certainly touches on the societal shunning of addiction.

SPOILER ALERT

I think the key to understanding what the game is really saying lies in one of its three possible endings, the hardest one:
"This ending is often considered the ‘true’ ending, as it involves transcending the Hunt and becoming a Great One."

The game, at its core, seems to be telling us one thing: we are the cause of the violence. We witness the horrors, we partake in them, and we are no better than those we claim to fight. The evidence is everywhere: Gehrman suggesting we "use the Doll as we please," or the fact that we consume the blood of women, whether with or without consent. Queen Annalise’s demand for blood mixed with the seed of hunters who butchered her kin is a stark metaphor: forced pregnancies during war. But crucially, those perpetrators are not faceless villains. They are hunters, just like us.
The fight with Queen Yharnam, which plays out like domestic abuse: she is bound and suffering, her child’s cries piercing the encounter. She raises the knife both to defend herself and to slash her own wrists, as though her torment drives her toward taking her own life. And we engage in this fight as an optional encounter, violence chosen for no reason beyond the fact that we can.

In the end, the cycle closes with us becoming the very "gods" we fought against: monsters who sanctify violation as a blessing, only to rip the child from the womb.

The message is brutal but clear: we are the source of the horror.

Charred thermos medical metaphor. Go

24:09 this is it. This is the meaning you're looking for. The thing that Bloodborne is trying to say isn't about Birth, it's about the sanctity and the horror of birth. We're only ever shown what happens when a birth goes wrong in Bloodborne. The mother didn't consent to the pregnancy, the mother had her child taken, her body was used by others as a means to an end, she used herself as a surrogate for a child that was meant to be someone else's, the baby is born wrong, the baby is not born but created by Men who believed they could replicate the miracle of birth.
I think that the birth imagery and theming in Bloodborne is, however horrifically, meant to be in reverence and appreciation of women. The game is saying that without them, there is no humanity, and if you have no respect for them, maybe you weren't human in the first place. The only children we see willingly conceived in any sense are the Imposter Iosefka's and Anelise's. And we don't even get to see either of them! The imposter is, if you consider the true ending to be true, killed for a part of her body (not very feminist of you). And Anelise's pregnancy may come to term, but we don't need to see it, because we know what a good, healthy baby born out of consent looks like. Bloodborne isn't about happy mothers and their healthy babies, it's about mistreated mothers and their fucked up babies.

Tldr: Bloodborne's pregnancy theme is about respecting women and the miracle of childbirth, and if the miracle of childbirth is done as an act of disrespect, you have failed to respect women.

There's a lot of thoughts I had getting here on reading Bloodborne as a commentary on gothic horror and the Victorian society/values that underpin the genre.

But having grown up around groups that 100% pressed on young girls that having kids was an expected thing that was good and natural for them...

Maybe it's deep enough to just say "yeah it's kinda fucked up" in regards to narratives that treat pregnancy as an expected, sacred process that women should go through regardless of how they think on the matter.

Can totally get that feeling shallow, but it would've been deeply controversial as a take at my highschool.

To me, Bloodborne is about the terror of being born into a world not of your choosing. A world where you are either deeply yearned for or desperately feared before you are even born. You have no say in the matter, yet you're forced to play the hand you're dealt and deal with past mistakes of others(the beast plague, the fishing hamlet, the research hall and all that nonsense).

The Moon Presence makes Gehrman its surrogate, yet its relationship with him is parasitic. It traps him in the hunters dream. The same is true of Kos, she imprisons her own child, in the hamlet, to create the Hunter's Nightmare, a space of torment for those who wronged her. These are the actions of parasites, entities that harm even their own offspring. This suggests a kind of body horror tied to birth itself, being born into a world not of your choosing, a fallen and corrupt world that exploits you for a higher, but possibly false purpose, a world with its own motives to yearn for children. Like the Hunter, we are born into systems that feed on us and use us.

I think this game says alot about birth, but I think it says more about what comes after.

You don't understand Bloodborne; you experience it.

I think if you are looking for broader themes look for parasitism and use. TTORZ's comment talked about this too. How women are used like machines to give birth (either in Pthumerian culture where Queen Yharnam is forced to give birth or self-determined like Analise). The biggest theme is obviously Great Ones "use" humans to birth their children because their anatomies are too distinct. Ariana and fake Iosefka probably resemble two sides of that coin as well. Where one accepts Great One pregnancy and the other rejects it. Adela is probably just a comment on purity like you said. Men "use" women to give birth and discard them just as the Great Ones. Parasites use their hosts and discard them. Babies aren't the only parasites of women, you can expand the concept very easily to men. It can be far larger than just traditional forms of parasitism.

Have you seen TB skyens video: "The many meanings of Bloodborne?" Because in his coverage he goes through something similar to what you described. Finding all these narrative threads to unravel but not feeling quite satisfied with any of them. Not saying watching it will answer the game for you, but maybe youll be able to glean something from it.

On another note, I found this video very interesting and compelling. Good job!

I suppose I'll throw my hat into the ring: The games depict children as synonymous with pain and suffering, thus the game is giving a depiction of the negative psychological effects of childbirth as well as specifically the mismatch that is a sentient being having been saddled with emotions and impulses which do not reflect their actual desires, especially the aspect of them trying to convince themself that this new aspect (If you have a better word please tell me.) that they have is actually a good thing, kind of like someone with anxiety concluding that fear is inherently bad (a la "Adventures with anxiety" by Nicky Case) but the other way around, in a uniquely tragic post hoc justification, especially since they had never consented to having their now exploited aspect in the first place, which is perhaps also a critique of society's expectation for women to have a child, no matter what.

"What if someone said
Promise lies ahead
Hopes are high in certain scientific circles
Life won't have to end
You could walk again
....
This embryonic clay
Wrapped in fierce debate
Would be thrown away
Or otherwise discarded

Some of us believe
It may hold the key
To treatment of disease
And secrets highly guarded...."
- The Great Debate (2002), Dream Theatre

Understanding the distinctions between the three endings is key. Three Third Cords: umbilical cord stem cells. Once the Moon Presence is encountered the two options are: 1) become wheelchair-bound (alluding to spinal cord damage), or 2) consume the cords to gain the opportunity to stand and fight the Moon Presence (something like accepting stem cell therapy).  

The ways that the cords are obtained reflect different ways of obtaining stem cells:
1) The deformed nature of Arianna's child indicates that it is stillborn, afflicted by serious medical complications, or simply a reflection of Arianna's unwillingness to give birth to Oedon's child. In an ideal world she would have had access to advance screening and/or the option of abortion before having to experience the trauma of birth. But despite this drama surrounding the situation the stem cells of its umbilical cord and placenta could still be of incidental medical value.

2) Mergo is nebulous, and could go one of two ways. Either the baby was born long ago and only ghostly echoes remain here because their mother Queen Yharnam died in childbirth (hence why the child gained a wet nurse), or both mother and child died and their bodies are exhumed from the grave and dissected for research. Either way, Queen Yharnam is framed as a ghost with a regret that prevents her from accepting her death. Theoretically nobody living is harmed by taking the umbilical stem cells, just a bit callous/ghoulish to prioritize such a thing over the tragedy of the mother's death.

3) Imposter Iosefka - embryonic stem cells - her pregnancy seems to be in early stages and non-viable based on the pain she experiences. Ethically dubious to harvest embryonic stem cells (when picturing the worst case scenarios of impoverished women being coerced into terminating pregnancies to produce them), but that's nothing in comparison to the moral panic from pro-birth people (i.e. usually religious people - with whom Imposeter Iosefka is placed in opposition). People fearful of research like Iosefka's end up harming women like Arianna in the process of making it taboo to give women options to terminate pregnancies early. The right to abortion was topical in 2002, and still was in 2015, and now as of 2025 these rights are even being reversed in certain places.

4) Workshop cord - artificially cloned stem cells. The other 3 cases are just about obtaining the stem cells, but this one is more about ethical use cases. Recall that stem cells have the DNA of a specific person - which makes it all but impossible to do such research in a way that can guarantee that the identity of the donor is protected. Has that person given informed consent for the research being done? What about when it comes to practical application of the research? It is implied in this case that consent was not given, as the cord is found in the same room as the Doll, who is a presumably unauthorized clone of Lady Maria.

I think it meaningful that the true end of the game is gated behind accepting the use of the umbilical cords. Overcoming of the Nightmare Moon Presence and accepting the assistance of the cloned Doll as the player becomes an infant Great One.

Okay without sounding rude bc i genuinely LOVE this video, its fantastic. None of my female friends ever struggled with understanding the game. Like. We just kinda get it. Its an universal female experience of opression, fear and terror that Bloodborne visualizes so well. I dont think these themes or the way women in the game act need to be rational or logical. Its not like they ever had a choice in any of the desicions anyways. They are all just trying to survive a game thats been rigged against them from the start.

Anyways im gonna be spaming my friends with this video for the next 2 weeks now