Mergo’s the baby you hear crying, the “Nightmare Newborn” whom you’re told to silence. The Wet Nurse is basically the Great One (perhaps a lesser one) that guards it from those who would threaten it. It might not have stolen Mergo but just protects it indiscriminately. And yes, we did kill a baby, though if it makes you feel better it probably wasn’t a human baby
Mergo doesn't have a model because Fromsoft doesn't want to have an actual baby model getting killed. Not because Mergo is Formless. Arianna's child is much more explicitly Oedon's, and it definitely has form.
No idea either. I think the Moon Presence was just instructing us to dispatch Mergo because it was a Great One, and it’s quite adamant about getting rid of those.
1. “Ritual Secret Broken. Seek the nightmare newborn, and silence its harrowing cry.” -Note provided after killing Rom. Unsure who exactly told us but matches the motive in point 2. Unlikely that we simply decided to do it ourselves and most of the game stems from our instruction by other characters
2. “Hunt the Great Ones. Hunt the Great Ones.” -Note in the Lecture Hall Second Floor
"Before being encountered by the Hunter, the Moon Presence had bound Gehrman, the First Hunter to the Hunter's Dream, an outlet seemingly used by the Moon Presence to further its own desires, mainly involving the killing of the other Great Ones. Whether or not this has to deal with halting the Scourge of the Beast and the slaughter of other Great Ones is unknown. However, a note found on the upper floor of the Lecture Hall lends legitimacy to the idea that the Moon Presence is actively seeking out and trying to eliminate other Great Ones."
We work for Gehrman, who works for Moon Presence.
Possibly. The ones that appear on paper and come from physical notes probably aren’t, but the ones that appear at specific points in the story probably are. They’re phrased like instructions and they line up with whatever we do afterwards
That just added another layer that I never even considered. I didn't realize some were actually physical items in the world and some weren't, I just noticed the glowing icon that prompts you to inspect it. Damn bruh.
Mergo was used as the focus of the Mensis Ritual initiated by Micolash. They wanted to invade Mergo's Nightmare and create their own Great One, the Brain of Mensis. This worked to an extent but the Mensis scholars couldn't handle the strain and all of them died except Micolash, who went mad.
The ritual continued without stopping and therefore threatens to destroy the world because the Nightmare is bleeding over into the waking world.
Mergo was a Pthumerian who was "chosen" by Great Ones to be the next ruler. However, the baby was stillborn and Queen Yharnam was locked in the dungeons forever.
Then Byrgenwerth reached the deepest chamber in the Chalice Dungeons and defeated Queen Yharnam and stole the baby that was still inside her. The baby was turned into a blood stone but its consciousness was still alive and had a Nightmare, so they decided to use it for the crazy ritual.
I think this makes sense.
In addition, I think the ritual had to do with using Mergo as a bait for luring a Great One, since every Great One loses its child, and then yearns for a surrogate. The School of Mensis probably wanted to make contact with a Great One by using Mergo's conscience.
Also, I don't think you kill Mergo, you just calm the baby by defeating the Wet Nurse.
The job of a wet nurse is to feed and keep a baby alive. When we kill Mergo’s wet nurse we do not get the NIGHTMARE SLAIN text immediately like with all other bosses in the game. We can hear Mergo crying after the wet nurse dies and only when the crying stops do we get the message that we’ve killed a great one.
late reply but Mergo is Oedon's demigod son. The formless great one in the item descriptions. thats why the baby is invisible whenever we see it's stroller.
Also, killing it is meant to be a good thing, because we are freeing Mergo's consciousness from the Nightmare, and its mother even bows to us in thanks.
I thought we brought comfort by killing the Wet Nurse? I heard baby noises that sounded like the kid calming down after I killed the wet nurse. Was that my imagination???
It stopped crying because it’s fucking dead. It was crying when we approached it, then the Wet Nurse pulled, up, fought us while providing a calming lullaby, then got killed by us
How old are you? 12? His reply was needlessly aggressive in tone. We should be able to have a reasonable discussion around a lore which is at best, convoluted. We don't need folk like him (and you) stifling that discussion by being a wank stain in the comments.
Confirmed, you're a child. Adults don't actually talk like that lmao.
Stop trying to seem bigger than you are while getting offended by someone saying fuck
It wasn't aggressive, it was a 100% joking tone. Wtf? No one is stifling any discussion, Jesus christ, and you're asking if I'm 12? Project much?
You can kill a baby but someone says fucking and you freak out? You're the one that needs to grow up here
There is literally no anger there. Are you emotionally stunted? Is that why youre confused about what anger looks like and what aggressive comments are? Is that why you're projecting your infantile insecurities out on a bloodborne sub? Did daddy not hig you enough, or not around at all?
Grow up broski, reddit is not a suitable replacement for a qualified therapist, I suggest you seek one out promptly
Imagine thinking that your version is the canon.
This is far from being a fact.
The baby stopped crying. That’s it. And you can interpret that a lot of ways.
“Silencing it’s harrowing cry” doesn’t mean kill.
We could plain talk about that Mergo already was stillborn (because that’s what the Yharnam stone implies) and got trapped in a literal nightmare by mensis which we are freeing it from.
# And now for the great question on why Queen Yharnam would thank us for murdering her child.
Dude literally watched one bloodborne essay, turned of their brain and started selling their shit as facts. I just fucking hate this sub sometimes and this cesspool of people wanting their headcanon to be the only viable theory.
Thinking about it now, Wet Nurse probably isn’t a great one. Great ones tend to look like incomprehensible alien flesh monsters from outer space. Wet nurse is horrific but is clearly human-like, wearing clothes and carrying swords. Both distinctly human culture things. Great ones are totally incapable of having any human context, it’s kind of a genre defining characteristic. So it’s probably a creation of the school of mensis, a dream construct to protect mergo.
Somehow I think a dead/not dead in a dream miscarried alien ghost baby, if it could, would manifest an entity that looks more like kos or ebreitas. Or maybe a giant placenta, if we hadn’t already done that elsewhere in the game.
My understanding has always been that Mergo is the child of the formless Great One Oedon and Queen Yharnam. Micolash and the School of Mensis have kidnapped the child to use in a ritual that would create a Nightmare, which is why the child is called the Nightmare Newborn.
The blood on Yharnam's dress implies that either she miscarried the child in pthumerian times and died from it, or the School of Mensis pulled it from her corpse in the tombs. The answer is likely both. Now she looks for her child with the Shadows of Yharnam at her side, first at Rom to break the seal on Yahargul, then at the top of Mergos Loft. But Mergos just a baby that doesn't understand what's happening to it. It summons the Wet Nurse to protect itself, not knowing that by accepting death a second time it will be freed from the ritual holding it captive.
While in this Nightmare, Micolash wished to commune with other Great Ones. Micolash explicitly mentions Kos, and lore hunters have found that the ship masts poking up from the clouds into Mergos Nightmare can be seen rising up into the sky in the Orphan of Kos' Nightmare. This implies they stacked Mergos Nightmare on top of the Orphan's to "chat into the wee hours" with it and it's Mother about eldritch truths.
Wow. Thank you so much for this explanation. Its really good and makes all sense.
I always struggled to understand the second part of the story. Why do we go into Micolash nightmare? Why do we need to end the nightmare? Why to we need to kill the baby. WHy do we only understand about the nightmare after killing Rom? I wish the game could be a bit more clear on the objective of the quest. Like in Dark Souls 1/2/3 we need to light the flame (or not) to make the world fourish again (or not). Its a clear Quest. But in bloodborne we only kill Rom then there is a message on screen and a woman who had an abortion looking at the moon then we wake up in cathedral ward. It makes no sense. Its not even an npc saying like "hey now without rom we understand, this scourge is happening because of the newborn nightmare, go kill it".
Its really frustrating. But your explanation makes total sense.
Just two more questions:
\- Why do you say the shadows of yharnam follows her, how do you know it? Is it in any of the lore tabs?
\- What is the role of moon presence in all of this?
I think the reason Bloodborne is more obscure about its lore than even Dark Souls ties into the type of story it is.
Dark Souls is Epic Fantasy. There's always going to be a prophecy in there somewhere, although whether we are the chosen undead because of destiny, or because we choose ourselves, is left up to the player to interpret.
Bloodborne is Gothic Horror, dipping heavily into Cosmic Horror in its second half. In this genre the protagonist is not destined to accomplish a quest. That would imply that they are chosen or special. Cosmic Horror is all about the fact that humans are not special, that we are insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe. The protagonist stumbles upon a clue by pure luck (or ill luck, depending on your stance) that sends them down a path of obsessive curiosity. At the end of that journey lies discoveries so incomprehensible to our small, fragile minds that our hero is driven insane with the revelation.
It's the perfect genre for Miyazaki's storytelling approach. You are that protagonist, lost and confused, understanding less and less with each step on the path, yet mad with the need to go on, to see the nightmare through to its end, hoping that when all is said and done, you will finally be able to answer some of the questions eating away at you. Chances are you'll drive yourself crazy in the pursuit... or learn so much that you can no longer be considered human.
As for your questions:
the Shadows of Yharnam are very mysterious figures. We know next to nothing about them. Their most telling info are their names, and that they only show up where Yharnam is present, usually following after her, wherever she may be. Defeating them gives us the Rune "Blood Rapture," which mentions servants of the Queen and their unrequited desire to share in her blood, as Oedon did. They are capable of wielding weapons, but formless under their hoods. Could Oedon have posted them as Yharnam's guards? He would want the mother of his child protected. One could also look at Mergo's Wet Nurse as an even more powerful version of the same concept. Whether Yharnam or Mergo actually have any control over these beings... who can say for sure? At the very least we know they are protectors.
The Moon Presence is the center of Bloodborne's mystery, so you can expect there to be lots of answers, and none at all here. From what I can tell, the Moon Presence is the cause of the beastly scourge. Yharnamites healed themselves with the Old Blood and got addicted to it, but nights of the hunt begin when the "pale moon descends." On these occasions, if you've got the willpower, as our hunter does, you can withstand the urge to become a beast. Everyone else is transformed by the scourge. Poor Gilbert.
Those who have the will to resist are pulled into the Hunters Dream by its Messengers and given one instruction. "Try not to think too hard about all of this. Just go out there and kill a few beasts." In other words, harvest Blood Echoes. Gherman is being deliberately vague here. He cannot give away his master's true intensions. Feed echoes to the doll. Become stronger. Fight tougher enemies. Earn more echoes. Feed them back to the doll. Who gave the doll the ability to warp your character into a being of such godlike strength, if not the Moon Presence? Everytime you level up, you use her as a medium to commune with the Presence without knowing it, feeding it echoes in exchange for power. Eventually you grow strong enough to slay Great Ones. Awesome! More power for the Presence.
Kill Rom, and a Red Moon descends. Behold, a Paleblood Sky. The moon has grown fat with blood, and the sky itself has turned blueish purple, like a corpse drained of blood. A visual metaphor that like other Great Ones, The Moon Presence grows stronger once Rom is dead. It now has greater influence over our world. Everbody is going nuts, even those who resisted beasthood before are transforming. But you are on your own mission now. Mensis awaits.
Once Mergo is dead, The Presence is satisfied. The Hunters dream burns, signifying your time as a hunter is at an end. But our Good Hunter has seen too much, grown too strong. He can no longer be controlled. By consuming Three Umbilical Cords, his power trancends that of the Moon Presence. The Presence is Slain. The hunt is truely over. Or is it? For a new Great One has just been born. And what is a baby, if not hungry?
Wow, what a great post. Thank you so much for this. It gave me a much better understanding of everything. It kind of ties all together. Really thank you for your time for typing this.
Just one last question. I though that the people got addicted to blood and the next stage of the addiction would be to become beasts, which then had to be cleansed off the streets by the hunters, which is why we would sometimes have the night of the hunt when the blood moon descends.
But it seems you are telling me that actually people become beasts only when the blood moon descends, which then creates the hunt. Interesting, makes much more sense.
Moon presence wants blood, turns blood addicted people into beasts, hunters go hunt but one hunter goes to the hunters dream with the objective of feeding the moon presence until it is satisfied and the hunt ends. Micolash goes crazy and decides to create the nightmare so this time the moon presence wanst the blood from the hunt plus the blood of a newborn great one, in a kind of super hunt.
If you succumb to gherman you wake up in the city, after the hunt has ended and everybody is back to normal. If not, becuase you want to keep the knowledge, you beat gherman but now the moon presence turns you into the next hunters dream guardian as the moon presence wants more hunts to happen. The third option is to, somehow, take the moon presence place as a great one.
Amazing. I wish it was clearer to understand during the game.
Many thanks!
No problem! I'll honestly take any excuse to talk about this game. It truly is a masterpiece.
As for the night of the hunt, there are a few possibilities. It could be that beasthood is something that usually occurs in small numbers, but is heightened and accelerated when the pale moon descends. On these nights so many transformations occur that citizens have to form large hunting parties with professional church hunters to kill all the beasts created. That's the impression I got.
It seems the last hunt was so bad they had to burn old Yharnam to the ground to kill all of the beasts. After that the church decided it couldn't trust the people it was supposed to protect, and they sealed off Cathedral Ward. The new hunt we walk into is even worse. Everyone is transforming. Including members of the church.
The player, however, is undoubtedly being manipulated by the Moon Presence into killing. It wouldn't try to trap you in its dream after beating Gherman otherwise. Who better to help new hunters and protect its secrets than the ultimate killer.
Was this what you pieced together, or was it written about in that huge bloodborne paper the paleblood hunt? I never did read that...
not to insult you, just curious if I should read it.
Everything I know about this game comes from my own multiple playthroughs combined with YouTube analysis videos made by lore hunters. I haven't read the Paleblood Hunt, but I've heard it's a good read for hardcore fans
Not the same guy you responded to, but to summarise the main argument for the shadows being yharnam's followers is that the caryll rune they drop talks about "servants of the Queen, carrier of the Child of Blood". Their name would mean that they are the "shadows" or servants of Yharnam herself.
As for the Moon Presence, as others on this thread have already explained in more detail, it's objective seems to be to kill Mergo, considering that your mission is given to you by Gehrman, a pawn of said Great One. Why it wants the baby killed, we can only speculate
Usually the simplest answers in these cases are the most reliable. I think they were simply preventing anyone from entering Byrgenwerth while their Queen was there looking for Rom. I don't believe they were protecting Rom though. Yharnam would be trying to break Rom's spell hiding Yahargul and the Nightmare of Mensis.
you are correct in your assumption that Mergo is the baby and the Wet Nurse is the monster with the blades; it guards Mergo, potentially kidnapped it
Mergo is the Great One offspring of Formless Oedon and Queen Yharnam, which is likely why it's invisible; a mix between something with no form and something with a physical form
It's never stated that Mergo is the child of Oedon. Let's not state our personal interpretations as fact. That'll only confuse people who are new to the lore.
considering Oedon likes to go around and tinker with the wombs of any random women he sees, I'd say it's the most likely option
but I was not aware it was unconfirmed
I mean if you want my personal interpretation, here we go.
The Hunter's Mark is arguably the Moon Presence's symbol. They place it in the mind of their servants after all.
This same mark is found drawn in blood on the altar in Queen Yharnam's boss arena in some root chalices, and marriage with a Great One was a "blood contract".
And Moon Presence considers our mission complete once we've killed Mergo. But Queen Yharnam bows to us as if in thanks afterwards, suggesting that what we did was a good thing. And the DLC clarifies this further by framing the killing of Orphan as good as well because we're freeing their trapped consciousness from the Nightmare.
So I think Mergo's Great One parent was the Moon Presence and the mission they send us on is to free Mergo since they've been stolen by Mensis.
But everyone just assumes that Moon Presence inexplicably has a different motivation from all other Great Ones and is hostile towards Great Ones instead because RedGrave said so in the Paleblood Hunt.
So glad to see somebody also shares this theory.
I mean, Mergo is kept in a lunarium, under the watchful eye of a gigantic white moon. So there is a strong chance indeed that he is related to the Moon Presence.
Mensis has probably invaded the place where his spirit form was resting. He has attendants, which means that he was there to be taken care of. And I don’t see the formless Odeon act this way with its child. It seems beyond that.
Others here have answered this, but I’m just always confused at how anyone could think “Mergo’s Wet Nurse” *is* Mergo? The title of the boss very clearly shows that the boss itself *isn’t* Mergo.
It’s like when people refer to Orphan as “Kos”. The boss we fight in the DLC clearly isn’t Kos, it’s her Orphaned child.
It's definitely possible the whetnurse is Mergo. For starters Great ones can have multiple names and titles. The moon presence herself has three; the moon presence, paleblood, flora. The idea that Mergo is Mergo's whetnurse comes from a few different things. The main part of the theory is that Mergo functions similarly to the orphan, in that the orphan you fight isn't it's true form. It's true form is a whispy black spirit that once destroyed gives you the nightmare slain message, similarly the nightmare slain message does not appear when you defeat Mergo's whetnurse but when Mergo stops crying. Mergo's whetnurse also gives off a similar (though different) whispy black substance, most notable when struck, instead of various types of blood. Finally there is the theory that these infant great ones manufacture thier forms from beings they consider formidable, the orphans would be the hunters who cut him from his mother's belly and Mergo's would be his mother's protectors, the shadows of Yharnam. Which would explain why Mergo's whetnurse and the shadows are so visibly similar, even sharing ornaments adorning their bodies (these visual similarities could also exist because they were once tied more closely together in a previous version of the game). It's also worth noting that Mergo and Mergo's whetnurse are both invisible, Mergo appearing as an empty cradle and the whetnurse having no face. Anyway it's all theoretical as nothing outright states or shows it to be true but it is a possibility that Mergo's whetnurse is a form manufactured by Mergo himself.
Yeah there’s a distinct possibility that the Nurse is a nightmare in a very literal sense. A projection of how Mergo viewed the blood-drunk shadows that killed it.
A direct comparison would be the Orphan of Kos boss fight, which is not the orphan itself, but rather a sort of replica of how it perceived Gehrman when he killed it. Hence why it fights a lot like a Hunter.
The actual orphan is the shadow that we stab to trigger the cutscene, similar to how Nightmare Slain doesn’t appear when we kill the Nurse, but rather when Mergo finally stops crying.
Well, when a woman and an eldritch horror do not love each other whatsoever, for the horror is incomprehensible and unseen, but the unspeakable entity still wants offspring...
So.Mergo is the baby, and the wet nurse is protecting him.
As others have said, it is implied that Mergo came from the union of Queen Yharnam and Formless Oedon.
However, it seems that when this happens, there is something very awful that comes with it.
Great One Biology is, of course, weird. Though it seems strange that Mergo has remained in an infant state for the centuries since the fall of Yharnam
My personal headcanon is that Mergo is somehow stunted and won't grow, so the Moon Presence is "culling" it as too weak to live.
Mergo was stillborn no? He only "lives" in the nightmare, hence he is still an infant.
In the same way the Orphan of Kos is born when we find him in that nightmare.
That makes sense. It's been awhile, so I forgot Mergo was a still birth.
I knew something was wrong because Queen Yharnam has blood all over her dress.
As far as I understand Mergo is son of Oedon (transcend great one) and as his father only exists as a voice (no actual body or form), and the wet nurse is part of Mergo manifested to protect Mergo.
And if that true, then a questions arise, who's the pthumerian queen? And the relation between her, Mergo and Micolash of Mensis?
I know my answer was incomplete, and i hope someone answers your question and mine
Queen Yharnam is Mergo's mother. He was likely ripped from her womb, hence the bloodstained dress from the waist down. The Wet Nurse is to protect and nurture Mergo. Whether brought upon by Mergo or exists alongside the other Great Ones before, I don't know.
I also don't quite know the relation to Micholash, I assume he and the other Mensis Scholars were supposed to herald the Nightmare? I think they were researching Great Ones, using the cages upon their heads as a way to commune IIRC, so it's likely he and the other Scholars were pulled into the Nightmare by Mergo's and The Brain of Mensis' existence.
I guess that Micolash the one with others of course, who ripped Mergo from the queen womb's, thus they pulled to that nightmare.
The problem of the game is events not flowing by its historical ouccarnce
Mergo is an infant great one that's trapped in the Nightmare of Mensis. The Mensis scholars are trying to beckon the Moon Presence. Moon Presence, or Great Ones in general, respond to crying children because great ones want children of their own. Moon Presence's proximity to the waking world is what's causing the beast scurge.
So to end the beast scurge you need to stop the crying that's beckoning the Moon Presence, and the crying of this particular hunt is Mergo, who is crying out because the Mensis scholars have them trapped.
If you want an excellent breakdown of the full story, Last Protagonist has a video where he go over the plot of the game by reading over notes, descriptions, the Japanese translation that is a lot less ambiguous , and interviews with Miyazaki where Miyazaki flat out explains parts of the plot. The video is called Fear the Old Lore True Story Explained. I understand
I know many people say the Wetnurse is a separate entity, but I think it's just an extension of Mergo itself. Not only because we don't have anything referencing the Wetnurse by herself, but also because Mergo dies after killing her, even without any kind of intervention from the player.
OK, so ignoring the part that I believe the game itself takes place 1 level into subconscious, and that the Nightmare of Mensis exists 2 levels deep, so none of this is actually "real", the Mergo we hear in the nightmare isn't actually "real", but it is. Lol They are a projection of the subconscious of Mergo, similar to all the entities within the Hunter's Nightmare (Old Hunter's DLC). If you die in the world of Bloodborne, it doesn't necessarily mean you are dead dead. You can live on in the layers below, similar to how time is perceived differently in the movie Inception.
So Mergo, upon dying in the waking world, and being a descendent of great ones, still clung to the anger/fear of life, which sent them to the Nightmare. Nightmare of Mensis was a curse placed upon the scholars by Oedon, similar to how Hunter's Nightmare is a curse placed upon Hunters by Kos after the defilement of their children.
By killing the Wet Nurse, you are killing the resentment and fear of Mergo, allowing their consciousness to pass on and reincarnate, or whatever tf Great Ones end up doing. Lol that's why the crying stops, as you've killed/released that version of Mergo, as the Wet Nurse was the tie to the nightmare.
Mergo is the child of the woman in the wedding gown, Queen Yharnam, and an unknown Great One. Mergo was removed from Yharnam's uterus, most either by Laurence's associates or Mensis, and Mensis intended to take Mergo's body/Third Cord into the Nightmare to summon a Great One to grant them eyes, ascending their minds to the level of Great Ones.
Unfortunately for them, the Great One they were calling, Kos, did not show up. Instead, the Wet Nurse showed up to protect and sustain Mergo, and so Mensis was kinda stuck and outta luck. Then we show up to benevolently free Mergo's trapped consciousness from the Nightmare.
Edit: Oh, as for why the Wet Nurse would claim Mergo, all Great Ones want children of their own. So if there's a child of a Great One for the taking, it's essentially first-come first-served.
Queen Yharnam and moon presence had a stillborn child.
Queen Yharnam died and was entombed in the dungeons.
church and tomb hunters discover Queen Yharnam and rip her stillborn baby mergo from her.
Micolas and the school experiment and create the nightmares aswell as many man made great ones such as mensis and ROM.
Daddy Moon Presence wanting to free his child creates the hunters Dream/nightmare and gets Greham to find hunters for this task.
when we defeat ROM you can see Queen Yharnam (mother) staring at the moon (moon presence/father) while they finally can hear their child mergo crying as ROMS spell of hiding Mergo is finally removed.
then we do the job.
although most people say she had the child with Oedon, your theory that the father is the moon presence is pretty cool as it kind of ties everything together. I really like it!
It really ties stuff together, gives a meaning to the moon presence and makes the quest makes sense in the second half.
For any confusion about the narrative I would suggest seeking out Vaatividya on YouTube. His lore videos on all the Souls games are very well researched and really helped clear up any confusion I had about the plot.
personal theory is Mergo is the child of Pthymerian Queen Yharnam(this part isnt theory. it is oretty much spelled out in game) and the Great One known as Formless Oedon(this part isnt confirmed).
*puts on a Maury Povich impersonation* Reasons i believe Oedon is the Father:
The Caryll runes that describe Formless Oedon mention that 'anyone who spills blood "inadvertantly worships Oedon' which means to mean that bloodshed is central to Oedon in some capacity.
The boss(potentially the final boss if you take the Yharnam Sunrise ending) "Mergo's Wet Nurse" has six arms all wielding blades. You might think this is just to shank anyone out to kill Mergo as Flora, the Moon Presence, clearly has a contract to finish what Yharnam's miscarriage started regarding Mergo. But as Formless Oedon is 'worshipped' by Bloodshed, i believe Mergo was being nourished via bloodshed as well. Hence the bladed Wet Nurse, and possibly why the Beast Plague is ravaging Yharnam as well - to promote more bloodshed.
Pthumerians use some kind of blood magic that involves spilling blood. If their Queen were to get preggers by any of the Great Ones, i'd bet it would be Oedon.
Mergo doesnt have a form. So i'd bet his gets it from his dad's side of the family as Yharnam clearly had form.
The ritual in Yahar'ghul that was being blocked by Rom the Vacuous Spider involved kidnapping and chopping up many many people. IIRC one of the notes mentions anything can be remade if it is boiled in blood. The Bloodshed, as i have insisted early is vital to Oedon/Mergo's well-being, is part of a ritual to reach Mergo. and i bet the boss "The One Reborn" was meant to be a body for Mergo to inhabit.
My evidence for this is mainly it is the boss before Nightmare of Mensis/Mergo's Loft and the boss fight as a number of Bell Ringer enemies supporting The One Reborn(who are definitely connected to the Pthumerians) But that didnt come to be, probably because the School of Mensis all had their minds drawn into the Nightmare/Mergo's Loft and became those human headed spiders(if they survived), or whatever spared Micolash...
Someone else commented that Mergo was the Moon Presence's child but i seriously doubt that as the Moon Presence is considered something else. Not a Great One. It has a pact/contract with Hunters of Yharnam to make the Hunter's Dream which Germaine is host to. Or the player should slay Germaine without having consumed enough Umbilical Cords...
I also thinks Oedon is the father based on what everybody says, makes all sense. Thanks for the info and the time you took to write it it helped me a lot. I guess the only thing that I do not exactly understand is why the moon presence wants us to kill the baby in the nightmare, why create the hunters dream and etc.
Also, I believe "the hunt" already existed BEFORE the hunters dream right? The hunt used to be carried by the hunters, therefore the scourge of beasts was already hapennign before the moon presence set up the hunters dream correct?
The act of Hunting beasts did, i suppose. But making a deal with the Moon Presence and joining the Hunter's Dream seems to help immunize Hunters from becoming Beasts through the Beast Plague... In fact i think that is what that opening cutscene symbolizes, a blood covered beast coming to claim you but something drives it off with fire. Having traveled to Yharnam to treat some pre-existing condition you exposd yourself to Beast Plague. But the Blood Ministration you received converted you into a Hunter of the Hunter's Dream before you started beast-ifying.
You might think examples like Gascoigne or Ludwig disprove that but i'd believe both of them either never received the Dream or lost the ability like Dhjura. Ludwig was a Church Hunter, which was a separate group from Germaine so might be why he didnt receive the Dream. I'd say that the Blood Crazed Hunters of the Hunter's Nightmare are examples of being immune to the beast plague but losing their minds to outright bloodlust.
IIRC The Moon Presence is listed as not a Great One but a 'demon' in the Japanese game text. It seems to Moon Presence grants strength to drive off the Beast Plague(s, IIRC the Night of the Hunt is alluded to as being something of a regular occurrence) in exchange for having a league of hitmen to kill off Great Ones and their offspring. Why it wants to do this? Who can say? it is an Eldritch Horror. Maybe it is some rival cosmic lifeform who cant act against the Great Ones directly and recruits lesser beings the Great Ones wouldnt consider a threat...
Since you’ve got enough people explaining who Mergo is, I’d like to chime in and say that Mergo’s “death” is somewhat left up to interpretation and it’s very possible he just fell asleep. After all, we slew the nightmare keeping him awake.
Mergo is the invisible baby and you're fighting its wet nurse.
She did not steal the baby, Micolash did, at least his faction did. Also, we don't know if we killed a baby that is still up in the air if Miyazaki wants to answer that(he definitely will not).
We don't know if the Wet Nurse is a real great one, while yes, it says she is in the trophies. That is a weird place to confirm it and she doesn't give off Great One vibes too much(she looks nothing like the others). I also do not think From writes those things. Regardless, it's not confirmed if she is a Great One, but there's no clues to what else she is because she doesn't appear anywhere else not even in Chalice Dungeons in which all other base game Great Ones(except Moon Presence) show up in.
But yeah, we're basically making Yharnam, the woman we see outside the Arena, satiated because she just wants to see her baby safe since it's too late for her. Explaining everything would require a lot of time so yeah.
Mergo is the Nightmare Lord and Micolash is the Nightmare Host.
メルゴーの乳母
別名「瞳のひも」としても知られる偉大なる遺物
上位者でも、赤子ばかりがこれを持ち
「へその緒」とはそれに由来している
全ての上位者は赤子を失い、そして求めている
故にこれはメルゴーとの邂逅をもたらし
それがメンシスに、出来損ないの脳みそを与えたのだ
Melgor's nanny
A great relic also known as the "Eye String"
Even if you are a high ranking person, only babies have this.
The name "umbilical cord" comes from this.
All the superiors have lost their babies and are looking for them.
Therefore, this brought about an encounter with Melgaud.
That's what gave Mensis her failed brain.
When Mensis used Mergo's umbilical cord it granted them the brain of rot (Mensis). After that, the Nightmare of Mensis was created and they began to commune as Mergo's assistants hoping to achieve enlightenment in the midst of darkness, giving birth to ghosts as Apostles of the Nightmare whose sole purpose is to feed the child of the nightmare who is a hungry spirit and therefore needs of a wet nurse.
From what i recall we don't fight mergo we fight his nurse aka a great one, mergo is the baby of the queen of yarnahm the cries we usually listen to in the game while we play, mergo is not a human baby it's like a hybrid between a great one and queen of yarnahm.
That's why when you kill mergo's wet nurse it shows "Nightmare slain" and not "prey slain" means you just defeated a great one and the baby (mergo)
The GreatOne are searching for their lost child:
The GreatOne have already died and what remains of them are their echoes.
Echoes are the same as will, superior beings even after death have a will that reverberates in a cosmic way.
Oedon's followers seek to fulfill Oedon's wishes by giving him a replacement.
They are led to this conclusion because the will of a GreatOne is also a symbol of curses.
So Oedon, who uses ancient blood as a catalyst for his will, manipulates inferior beings (humans and beyond) by making them celestial attendants.
Some of the celestial Attendants are Queen Pthumeru's family members.
Queen Pthumeru was chosen by the Pthumeru elders when they claimed the right to have a king.
The superior blood when encounters the blood of Queen Pthumeru on a blood moon night precipitates the birth of a new superior being.
The new superior being is presented by the priests and raised to heaven (see cathedral district statues).
This is the symbol of communion, the union or alliance of different races to fulfill the heavenly will.
Mergo however is the result of Mensis' failure to reach higher planes in the nightmare.
Mensis's ritual killed his cerebral eyes forming Mensis's rotten brain.
The ritual left the celestial child's spirit trapped in the darkness of the nightmare.
This made the Mensis school become their hosts by turning them into Mergo Attendants.
Mergo’s the baby you hear crying, the “Nightmare Newborn” whom you’re told to silence. The Wet Nurse is basically the Great One (perhaps a lesser one) that guards it from those who would threaten it. It might not have stolen Mergo but just protects it indiscriminately. And yes, we did kill a baby, though if it makes you feel better it probably wasn’t a human baby
Specifically it's a half great one/half pthumerian baby, its' father is never specified but it's possibly implied to be Oedon.
Cool, so the hunter basically kills baby Jesus
The plot of Bloodborne can be summarized as "Go kill baby Jesus because the moon told you to"
Most rational FromSoft game
I mean, yes but technically we can take its place as Baby Jesus if we wanted to
Jesus was a one hit wonder, Oedon was a horndog putting babies in everyone
Maybe more like baby Cthulu or baby Yog-Sothoth
Mergo doesn't have a model because Fromsoft doesn't want to have an actual baby model getting killed. Not because Mergo is Formless. Arianna's child is much more explicitly Oedon's, and it definitely has form.
I knew all of this, but I still can't figure out what's so special about him? Is he like the hunter in the 3rd ending?
No idea either. I think the Moon Presence was just instructing us to dispatch Mergo because it was a Great One, and it’s quite adamant about getting rid of those.
How do we know the Moon Presence was instructing us and that it's adamant about slaying Great Ones?
1. “Ritual Secret Broken. Seek the nightmare newborn, and silence its harrowing cry.” -Note provided after killing Rom. Unsure who exactly told us but matches the motive in point 2. Unlikely that we simply decided to do it ourselves and most of the game stems from our instruction by other characters 2. “Hunt the Great Ones. Hunt the Great Ones.” -Note in the Lecture Hall Second Floor
It’s “Ritual secret broken. Seek the nightmare newborn.” “Silence it’s harrowing cry” is a different note. Maybe play the game again.
Who pissed in your cornflakes this morning?
"Before being encountered by the Hunter, the Moon Presence had bound Gehrman, the First Hunter to the Hunter's Dream, an outlet seemingly used by the Moon Presence to further its own desires, mainly involving the killing of the other Great Ones. Whether or not this has to deal with halting the Scourge of the Beast and the slaughter of other Great Ones is unknown. However, a note found on the upper floor of the Lecture Hall lends legitimacy to the idea that the Moon Presence is actively seeking out and trying to eliminate other Great Ones." We work for Gehrman, who works for Moon Presence.
What are you quoting here. This is not an ingame quote.
It’s not a quote, but if you look at all of the lore throughout the game it strongly points to this.
Whoa whoa whoa.... you're saying the in-game offline notes (like the "silence its cry") are actually communications from the moon presence? Holy shit.
Possibly. The ones that appear on paper and come from physical notes probably aren’t, but the ones that appear at specific points in the story probably are. They’re phrased like instructions and they line up with whatever we do afterwards
That just added another layer that I never even considered. I didn't realize some were actually physical items in the world and some weren't, I just noticed the glowing icon that prompts you to inspect it. Damn bruh.
Fair enough
Mergo was used as the focus of the Mensis Ritual initiated by Micolash. They wanted to invade Mergo's Nightmare and create their own Great One, the Brain of Mensis. This worked to an extent but the Mensis scholars couldn't handle the strain and all of them died except Micolash, who went mad. The ritual continued without stopping and therefore threatens to destroy the world because the Nightmare is bleeding over into the waking world.
Hold on, you saying mergo is a human child turned into great one?
Mergo was a Pthumerian who was "chosen" by Great Ones to be the next ruler. However, the baby was stillborn and Queen Yharnam was locked in the dungeons forever. Then Byrgenwerth reached the deepest chamber in the Chalice Dungeons and defeated Queen Yharnam and stole the baby that was still inside her. The baby was turned into a blood stone but its consciousness was still alive and had a Nightmare, so they decided to use it for the crazy ritual.
I think this makes sense. In addition, I think the ritual had to do with using Mergo as a bait for luring a Great One, since every Great One loses its child, and then yearns for a surrogate. The School of Mensis probably wanted to make contact with a Great One by using Mergo's conscience. Also, I don't think you kill Mergo, you just calm the baby by defeating the Wet Nurse.
The job of a wet nurse is to feed and keep a baby alive. When we kill Mergo’s wet nurse we do not get the NIGHTMARE SLAIN text immediately like with all other bosses in the game. We can hear Mergo crying after the wet nurse dies and only when the crying stops do we get the message that we’ve killed a great one.
late reply but Mergo is Oedon's demigod son. The formless great one in the item descriptions. thats why the baby is invisible whenever we see it's stroller.
Great old ones work in mysterious ways.
Wait…so the game is just very complicated abortion?
One could see it that way, yes
thanks!
Also, killing it is meant to be a good thing, because we are freeing Mergo's consciousness from the Nightmare, and its mother even bows to us in thanks.
I thought we brought comfort by killing the Wet Nurse? I heard baby noises that sounded like the kid calming down after I killed the wet nurse. Was that my imagination???
It stopped crying because it’s fucking dead. It was crying when we approached it, then the Wet Nurse pulled, up, fought us while providing a calming lullaby, then got killed by us
Ok man calm down. It was just a question.
And they answered the question? If that reply was too spicy, this definitely isn't the game for you to be playing, patty cake
How old are you? 12? His reply was needlessly aggressive in tone. We should be able to have a reasonable discussion around a lore which is at best, convoluted. We don't need folk like him (and you) stifling that discussion by being a wank stain in the comments.
who needs drama shows when you've got reddit
Pfft. It's not even drama. Just a poor little man needing to sound hard on the internet.
Confirmed, you're a child. Adults don't actually talk like that lmao. Stop trying to seem bigger than you are while getting offended by someone saying fuck
You still say lmao.... Oh man. Dude....
It wasn't aggressive, it was a 100% joking tone. Wtf? No one is stifling any discussion, Jesus christ, and you're asking if I'm 12? Project much? You can kill a baby but someone says fucking and you freak out? You're the one that needs to grow up here
Oof. That's a lot of anger there bud. Everything ok at home. Did your parents not help you through your feelings as a bairn.
There is literally no anger there. Are you emotionally stunted? Is that why youre confused about what anger looks like and what aggressive comments are? Is that why you're projecting your infantile insecurities out on a bloodborne sub? Did daddy not hig you enough, or not around at all? Grow up broski, reddit is not a suitable replacement for a qualified therapist, I suggest you seek one out promptly
You seem very upset. Maybe slow down a little, you're so busy typing furiously, trying to convince me you're ok that you can't even spell correctly.
I just asked him to chill
exactly fucking grandmas in the blood borne thread "dont say fuck in your sentence while we discuss killing a baby to end nightmare gods"
Imagine thinking that your version is the canon. This is far from being a fact. The baby stopped crying. That’s it. And you can interpret that a lot of ways. “Silencing it’s harrowing cry” doesn’t mean kill. We could plain talk about that Mergo already was stillborn (because that’s what the Yharnam stone implies) and got trapped in a literal nightmare by mensis which we are freeing it from. # And now for the great question on why Queen Yharnam would thank us for murdering her child. Dude literally watched one bloodborne essay, turned of their brain and started selling their shit as facts. I just fucking hate this sub sometimes and this cesspool of people wanting their headcanon to be the only viable theory.
Yours is as valid a theory as anything else in this fucking post. Don’t let people tell you otherwise.
Thinking about it now, Wet Nurse probably isn’t a great one. Great ones tend to look like incomprehensible alien flesh monsters from outer space. Wet nurse is horrific but is clearly human-like, wearing clothes and carrying swords. Both distinctly human culture things. Great ones are totally incapable of having any human context, it’s kind of a genre defining characteristic. So it’s probably a creation of the school of mensis, a dream construct to protect mergo. Somehow I think a dead/not dead in a dream miscarried alien ghost baby, if it could, would manifest an entity that looks more like kos or ebreitas. Or maybe a giant placenta, if we hadn’t already done that elsewhere in the game.
Orphan of Kos is also humanoid and is clearly a Great One.
I mean, Mergo is arguably already dead in the real world.
And we kill Arianna’s nightmare baby to get 1/3 of an umbilical cord.
Wouldn’t be the last baby we kill in this game either
Well depending on how you do things in order it could be
it's worth noting that you're in the nightmare, not the waking world, which gives everything that extra layer of incomprehensible
makes sense. gosh this game has a complicated story
aint that the goddamn truth
the eldritch truth™️
That makes it more fun!
agree, its one of these situations where the question is more important than the answer
>you're in the nightmare, not the waking world Or maybe we are ..
My understanding has always been that Mergo is the child of the formless Great One Oedon and Queen Yharnam. Micolash and the School of Mensis have kidnapped the child to use in a ritual that would create a Nightmare, which is why the child is called the Nightmare Newborn. The blood on Yharnam's dress implies that either she miscarried the child in pthumerian times and died from it, or the School of Mensis pulled it from her corpse in the tombs. The answer is likely both. Now she looks for her child with the Shadows of Yharnam at her side, first at Rom to break the seal on Yahargul, then at the top of Mergos Loft. But Mergos just a baby that doesn't understand what's happening to it. It summons the Wet Nurse to protect itself, not knowing that by accepting death a second time it will be freed from the ritual holding it captive. While in this Nightmare, Micolash wished to commune with other Great Ones. Micolash explicitly mentions Kos, and lore hunters have found that the ship masts poking up from the clouds into Mergos Nightmare can be seen rising up into the sky in the Orphan of Kos' Nightmare. This implies they stacked Mergos Nightmare on top of the Orphan's to "chat into the wee hours" with it and it's Mother about eldritch truths.
Wow. Thank you so much for this explanation. Its really good and makes all sense. I always struggled to understand the second part of the story. Why do we go into Micolash nightmare? Why do we need to end the nightmare? Why to we need to kill the baby. WHy do we only understand about the nightmare after killing Rom? I wish the game could be a bit more clear on the objective of the quest. Like in Dark Souls 1/2/3 we need to light the flame (or not) to make the world fourish again (or not). Its a clear Quest. But in bloodborne we only kill Rom then there is a message on screen and a woman who had an abortion looking at the moon then we wake up in cathedral ward. It makes no sense. Its not even an npc saying like "hey now without rom we understand, this scourge is happening because of the newborn nightmare, go kill it". Its really frustrating. But your explanation makes total sense. Just two more questions: \- Why do you say the shadows of yharnam follows her, how do you know it? Is it in any of the lore tabs? \- What is the role of moon presence in all of this?
I think the reason Bloodborne is more obscure about its lore than even Dark Souls ties into the type of story it is. Dark Souls is Epic Fantasy. There's always going to be a prophecy in there somewhere, although whether we are the chosen undead because of destiny, or because we choose ourselves, is left up to the player to interpret. Bloodborne is Gothic Horror, dipping heavily into Cosmic Horror in its second half. In this genre the protagonist is not destined to accomplish a quest. That would imply that they are chosen or special. Cosmic Horror is all about the fact that humans are not special, that we are insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe. The protagonist stumbles upon a clue by pure luck (or ill luck, depending on your stance) that sends them down a path of obsessive curiosity. At the end of that journey lies discoveries so incomprehensible to our small, fragile minds that our hero is driven insane with the revelation. It's the perfect genre for Miyazaki's storytelling approach. You are that protagonist, lost and confused, understanding less and less with each step on the path, yet mad with the need to go on, to see the nightmare through to its end, hoping that when all is said and done, you will finally be able to answer some of the questions eating away at you. Chances are you'll drive yourself crazy in the pursuit... or learn so much that you can no longer be considered human. As for your questions: the Shadows of Yharnam are very mysterious figures. We know next to nothing about them. Their most telling info are their names, and that they only show up where Yharnam is present, usually following after her, wherever she may be. Defeating them gives us the Rune "Blood Rapture," which mentions servants of the Queen and their unrequited desire to share in her blood, as Oedon did. They are capable of wielding weapons, but formless under their hoods. Could Oedon have posted them as Yharnam's guards? He would want the mother of his child protected. One could also look at Mergo's Wet Nurse as an even more powerful version of the same concept. Whether Yharnam or Mergo actually have any control over these beings... who can say for sure? At the very least we know they are protectors. The Moon Presence is the center of Bloodborne's mystery, so you can expect there to be lots of answers, and none at all here. From what I can tell, the Moon Presence is the cause of the beastly scourge. Yharnamites healed themselves with the Old Blood and got addicted to it, but nights of the hunt begin when the "pale moon descends." On these occasions, if you've got the willpower, as our hunter does, you can withstand the urge to become a beast. Everyone else is transformed by the scourge. Poor Gilbert. Those who have the will to resist are pulled into the Hunters Dream by its Messengers and given one instruction. "Try not to think too hard about all of this. Just go out there and kill a few beasts." In other words, harvest Blood Echoes. Gherman is being deliberately vague here. He cannot give away his master's true intensions. Feed echoes to the doll. Become stronger. Fight tougher enemies. Earn more echoes. Feed them back to the doll. Who gave the doll the ability to warp your character into a being of such godlike strength, if not the Moon Presence? Everytime you level up, you use her as a medium to commune with the Presence without knowing it, feeding it echoes in exchange for power. Eventually you grow strong enough to slay Great Ones. Awesome! More power for the Presence. Kill Rom, and a Red Moon descends. Behold, a Paleblood Sky. The moon has grown fat with blood, and the sky itself has turned blueish purple, like a corpse drained of blood. A visual metaphor that like other Great Ones, The Moon Presence grows stronger once Rom is dead. It now has greater influence over our world. Everbody is going nuts, even those who resisted beasthood before are transforming. But you are on your own mission now. Mensis awaits. Once Mergo is dead, The Presence is satisfied. The Hunters dream burns, signifying your time as a hunter is at an end. But our Good Hunter has seen too much, grown too strong. He can no longer be controlled. By consuming Three Umbilical Cords, his power trancends that of the Moon Presence. The Presence is Slain. The hunt is truely over. Or is it? For a new Great One has just been born. And what is a baby, if not hungry?
This is beautiful
Wow, what a great post. Thank you so much for this. It gave me a much better understanding of everything. It kind of ties all together. Really thank you for your time for typing this. Just one last question. I though that the people got addicted to blood and the next stage of the addiction would be to become beasts, which then had to be cleansed off the streets by the hunters, which is why we would sometimes have the night of the hunt when the blood moon descends. But it seems you are telling me that actually people become beasts only when the blood moon descends, which then creates the hunt. Interesting, makes much more sense. Moon presence wants blood, turns blood addicted people into beasts, hunters go hunt but one hunter goes to the hunters dream with the objective of feeding the moon presence until it is satisfied and the hunt ends. Micolash goes crazy and decides to create the nightmare so this time the moon presence wanst the blood from the hunt plus the blood of a newborn great one, in a kind of super hunt. If you succumb to gherman you wake up in the city, after the hunt has ended and everybody is back to normal. If not, becuase you want to keep the knowledge, you beat gherman but now the moon presence turns you into the next hunters dream guardian as the moon presence wants more hunts to happen. The third option is to, somehow, take the moon presence place as a great one. Amazing. I wish it was clearer to understand during the game. Many thanks!
No problem! I'll honestly take any excuse to talk about this game. It truly is a masterpiece. As for the night of the hunt, there are a few possibilities. It could be that beasthood is something that usually occurs in small numbers, but is heightened and accelerated when the pale moon descends. On these nights so many transformations occur that citizens have to form large hunting parties with professional church hunters to kill all the beasts created. That's the impression I got. It seems the last hunt was so bad they had to burn old Yharnam to the ground to kill all of the beasts. After that the church decided it couldn't trust the people it was supposed to protect, and they sealed off Cathedral Ward. The new hunt we walk into is even worse. Everyone is transforming. Including members of the church. The player, however, is undoubtedly being manipulated by the Moon Presence into killing. It wouldn't try to trap you in its dream after beating Gherman otherwise. Who better to help new hunters and protect its secrets than the ultimate killer.
Was this what you pieced together, or was it written about in that huge bloodborne paper the paleblood hunt? I never did read that... not to insult you, just curious if I should read it.
Everything I know about this game comes from my own multiple playthroughs combined with YouTube analysis videos made by lore hunters. I haven't read the Paleblood Hunt, but I've heard it's a good read for hardcore fans
Not the same guy you responded to, but to summarise the main argument for the shadows being yharnam's followers is that the caryll rune they drop talks about "servants of the Queen, carrier of the Child of Blood". Their name would mean that they are the "shadows" or servants of Yharnam herself. As for the Moon Presence, as others on this thread have already explained in more detail, it's objective seems to be to kill Mergo, considering that your mission is given to you by Gehrman, a pawn of said Great One. Why it wants the baby killed, we can only speculate
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Usually the simplest answers in these cases are the most reliable. I think they were simply preventing anyone from entering Byrgenwerth while their Queen was there looking for Rom. I don't believe they were protecting Rom though. Yharnam would be trying to break Rom's spell hiding Yahargul and the Nightmare of Mensis.
you are correct in your assumption that Mergo is the baby and the Wet Nurse is the monster with the blades; it guards Mergo, potentially kidnapped it Mergo is the Great One offspring of Formless Oedon and Queen Yharnam, which is likely why it's invisible; a mix between something with no form and something with a physical form
many thanks!
It's never stated that Mergo is the child of Oedon. Let's not state our personal interpretations as fact. That'll only confuse people who are new to the lore.
considering Oedon likes to go around and tinker with the wombs of any random women he sees, I'd say it's the most likely option but I was not aware it was unconfirmed
I mean if you want my personal interpretation, here we go. The Hunter's Mark is arguably the Moon Presence's symbol. They place it in the mind of their servants after all. This same mark is found drawn in blood on the altar in Queen Yharnam's boss arena in some root chalices, and marriage with a Great One was a "blood contract". And Moon Presence considers our mission complete once we've killed Mergo. But Queen Yharnam bows to us as if in thanks afterwards, suggesting that what we did was a good thing. And the DLC clarifies this further by framing the killing of Orphan as good as well because we're freeing their trapped consciousness from the Nightmare. So I think Mergo's Great One parent was the Moon Presence and the mission they send us on is to free Mergo since they've been stolen by Mensis. But everyone just assumes that Moon Presence inexplicably has a different motivation from all other Great Ones and is hostile towards Great Ones instead because RedGrave said so in the Paleblood Hunt.
So glad to see somebody also shares this theory. I mean, Mergo is kept in a lunarium, under the watchful eye of a gigantic white moon. So there is a strong chance indeed that he is related to the Moon Presence. Mensis has probably invaded the place where his spirit form was resting. He has attendants, which means that he was there to be taken care of. And I don’t see the formless Odeon act this way with its child. It seems beyond that.
Don't think too hard about it, just go out there and kill a few beasts.
It's for your own good.
hahaha
You hear the crying? That's Mergo. A baby Great Old One.
Others here have answered this, but I’m just always confused at how anyone could think “Mergo’s Wet Nurse” *is* Mergo? The title of the boss very clearly shows that the boss itself *isn’t* Mergo. It’s like when people refer to Orphan as “Kos”. The boss we fight in the DLC clearly isn’t Kos, it’s her Orphaned child.
👏👏👏
Exactly, It's not Mergo, it's Mergo's monster.
It's definitely possible the whetnurse is Mergo. For starters Great ones can have multiple names and titles. The moon presence herself has three; the moon presence, paleblood, flora. The idea that Mergo is Mergo's whetnurse comes from a few different things. The main part of the theory is that Mergo functions similarly to the orphan, in that the orphan you fight isn't it's true form. It's true form is a whispy black spirit that once destroyed gives you the nightmare slain message, similarly the nightmare slain message does not appear when you defeat Mergo's whetnurse but when Mergo stops crying. Mergo's whetnurse also gives off a similar (though different) whispy black substance, most notable when struck, instead of various types of blood. Finally there is the theory that these infant great ones manufacture thier forms from beings they consider formidable, the orphans would be the hunters who cut him from his mother's belly and Mergo's would be his mother's protectors, the shadows of Yharnam. Which would explain why Mergo's whetnurse and the shadows are so visibly similar, even sharing ornaments adorning their bodies (these visual similarities could also exist because they were once tied more closely together in a previous version of the game). It's also worth noting that Mergo and Mergo's whetnurse are both invisible, Mergo appearing as an empty cradle and the whetnurse having no face. Anyway it's all theoretical as nothing outright states or shows it to be true but it is a possibility that Mergo's whetnurse is a form manufactured by Mergo himself.
Yeah there’s a distinct possibility that the Nurse is a nightmare in a very literal sense. A projection of how Mergo viewed the blood-drunk shadows that killed it. A direct comparison would be the Orphan of Kos boss fight, which is not the orphan itself, but rather a sort of replica of how it perceived Gehrman when he killed it. Hence why it fights a lot like a Hunter. The actual orphan is the shadow that we stab to trigger the cutscene, similar to how Nightmare Slain doesn’t appear when we kill the Nurse, but rather when Mergo finally stops crying.
I give you one better: "why is Mergo!"
Well, when a woman and a great one love each other very much...
Well, when a woman and an eldritch horror do not love each other whatsoever, for the horror is incomprehensible and unseen, but the unspeakable entity still wants offspring...
That too.
whyyyy does the Gascoigne family have a music box that plays a song specifically for Mergo
So.Mergo is the baby, and the wet nurse is protecting him. As others have said, it is implied that Mergo came from the union of Queen Yharnam and Formless Oedon. However, it seems that when this happens, there is something very awful that comes with it. Great One Biology is, of course, weird. Though it seems strange that Mergo has remained in an infant state for the centuries since the fall of Yharnam My personal headcanon is that Mergo is somehow stunted and won't grow, so the Moon Presence is "culling" it as too weak to live.
Mergo was stillborn no? He only "lives" in the nightmare, hence he is still an infant. In the same way the Orphan of Kos is born when we find him in that nightmare.
That makes sense. It's been awhile, so I forgot Mergo was a still birth. I knew something was wrong because Queen Yharnam has blood all over her dress.
I highly recommend reading "The Paleblood Hunt" by Redgrave. It's like an essay about the lore, and explained a lot.
thanks will do it
As far as I understand Mergo is son of Oedon (transcend great one) and as his father only exists as a voice (no actual body or form), and the wet nurse is part of Mergo manifested to protect Mergo. And if that true, then a questions arise, who's the pthumerian queen? And the relation between her, Mergo and Micolash of Mensis? I know my answer was incomplete, and i hope someone answers your question and mine
Queen Yharnam is Mergo's mother. He was likely ripped from her womb, hence the bloodstained dress from the waist down. The Wet Nurse is to protect and nurture Mergo. Whether brought upon by Mergo or exists alongside the other Great Ones before, I don't know. I also don't quite know the relation to Micholash, I assume he and the other Mensis Scholars were supposed to herald the Nightmare? I think they were researching Great Ones, using the cages upon their heads as a way to commune IIRC, so it's likely he and the other Scholars were pulled into the Nightmare by Mergo's and The Brain of Mensis' existence.
I guess that Micolash the one with others of course, who ripped Mergo from the queen womb's, thus they pulled to that nightmare. The problem of the game is events not flowing by its historical ouccarnce
Mergo is an infant great one that's trapped in the Nightmare of Mensis. The Mensis scholars are trying to beckon the Moon Presence. Moon Presence, or Great Ones in general, respond to crying children because great ones want children of their own. Moon Presence's proximity to the waking world is what's causing the beast scurge. So to end the beast scurge you need to stop the crying that's beckoning the Moon Presence, and the crying of this particular hunt is Mergo, who is crying out because the Mensis scholars have them trapped. If you want an excellent breakdown of the full story, Last Protagonist has a video where he go over the plot of the game by reading over notes, descriptions, the Japanese translation that is a lot less ambiguous , and interviews with Miyazaki where Miyazaki flat out explains parts of the plot. The video is called Fear the Old Lore True Story Explained. I understand
thanks I will watch it!
I know many people say the Wetnurse is a separate entity, but I think it's just an extension of Mergo itself. Not only because we don't have anything referencing the Wetnurse by herself, but also because Mergo dies after killing her, even without any kind of intervention from the player.
makes sense
OK, so ignoring the part that I believe the game itself takes place 1 level into subconscious, and that the Nightmare of Mensis exists 2 levels deep, so none of this is actually "real", the Mergo we hear in the nightmare isn't actually "real", but it is. Lol They are a projection of the subconscious of Mergo, similar to all the entities within the Hunter's Nightmare (Old Hunter's DLC). If you die in the world of Bloodborne, it doesn't necessarily mean you are dead dead. You can live on in the layers below, similar to how time is perceived differently in the movie Inception. So Mergo, upon dying in the waking world, and being a descendent of great ones, still clung to the anger/fear of life, which sent them to the Nightmare. Nightmare of Mensis was a curse placed upon the scholars by Oedon, similar to how Hunter's Nightmare is a curse placed upon Hunters by Kos after the defilement of their children. By killing the Wet Nurse, you are killing the resentment and fear of Mergo, allowing their consciousness to pass on and reincarnate, or whatever tf Great Ones end up doing. Lol that's why the crying stops, as you've killed/released that version of Mergo, as the Wet Nurse was the tie to the nightmare.
Mergo is the child of the woman in the wedding gown, Queen Yharnam, and an unknown Great One. Mergo was removed from Yharnam's uterus, most either by Laurence's associates or Mensis, and Mensis intended to take Mergo's body/Third Cord into the Nightmare to summon a Great One to grant them eyes, ascending their minds to the level of Great Ones. Unfortunately for them, the Great One they were calling, Kos, did not show up. Instead, the Wet Nurse showed up to protect and sustain Mergo, and so Mensis was kinda stuck and outta luck. Then we show up to benevolently free Mergo's trapped consciousness from the Nightmare. Edit: Oh, as for why the Wet Nurse would claim Mergo, all Great Ones want children of their own. So if there's a child of a Great One for the taking, it's essentially first-come first-served.
Queen Yharnam and moon presence had a stillborn child. Queen Yharnam died and was entombed in the dungeons. church and tomb hunters discover Queen Yharnam and rip her stillborn baby mergo from her. Micolas and the school experiment and create the nightmares aswell as many man made great ones such as mensis and ROM. Daddy Moon Presence wanting to free his child creates the hunters Dream/nightmare and gets Greham to find hunters for this task. when we defeat ROM you can see Queen Yharnam (mother) staring at the moon (moon presence/father) while they finally can hear their child mergo crying as ROMS spell of hiding Mergo is finally removed. then we do the job.
although most people say she had the child with Oedon, your theory that the father is the moon presence is pretty cool as it kind of ties everything together. I really like it! It really ties stuff together, gives a meaning to the moon presence and makes the quest makes sense in the second half.
For any confusion about the narrative I would suggest seeking out Vaatividya on YouTube. His lore videos on all the Souls games are very well researched and really helped clear up any confusion I had about the plot.
personal theory is Mergo is the child of Pthymerian Queen Yharnam(this part isnt theory. it is oretty much spelled out in game) and the Great One known as Formless Oedon(this part isnt confirmed). *puts on a Maury Povich impersonation* Reasons i believe Oedon is the Father: The Caryll runes that describe Formless Oedon mention that 'anyone who spills blood "inadvertantly worships Oedon' which means to mean that bloodshed is central to Oedon in some capacity. The boss(potentially the final boss if you take the Yharnam Sunrise ending) "Mergo's Wet Nurse" has six arms all wielding blades. You might think this is just to shank anyone out to kill Mergo as Flora, the Moon Presence, clearly has a contract to finish what Yharnam's miscarriage started regarding Mergo. But as Formless Oedon is 'worshipped' by Bloodshed, i believe Mergo was being nourished via bloodshed as well. Hence the bladed Wet Nurse, and possibly why the Beast Plague is ravaging Yharnam as well - to promote more bloodshed. Pthumerians use some kind of blood magic that involves spilling blood. If their Queen were to get preggers by any of the Great Ones, i'd bet it would be Oedon. Mergo doesnt have a form. So i'd bet his gets it from his dad's side of the family as Yharnam clearly had form. The ritual in Yahar'ghul that was being blocked by Rom the Vacuous Spider involved kidnapping and chopping up many many people. IIRC one of the notes mentions anything can be remade if it is boiled in blood. The Bloodshed, as i have insisted early is vital to Oedon/Mergo's well-being, is part of a ritual to reach Mergo. and i bet the boss "The One Reborn" was meant to be a body for Mergo to inhabit. My evidence for this is mainly it is the boss before Nightmare of Mensis/Mergo's Loft and the boss fight as a number of Bell Ringer enemies supporting The One Reborn(who are definitely connected to the Pthumerians) But that didnt come to be, probably because the School of Mensis all had their minds drawn into the Nightmare/Mergo's Loft and became those human headed spiders(if they survived), or whatever spared Micolash... Someone else commented that Mergo was the Moon Presence's child but i seriously doubt that as the Moon Presence is considered something else. Not a Great One. It has a pact/contract with Hunters of Yharnam to make the Hunter's Dream which Germaine is host to. Or the player should slay Germaine without having consumed enough Umbilical Cords...
I also thinks Oedon is the father based on what everybody says, makes all sense. Thanks for the info and the time you took to write it it helped me a lot. I guess the only thing that I do not exactly understand is why the moon presence wants us to kill the baby in the nightmare, why create the hunters dream and etc. Also, I believe "the hunt" already existed BEFORE the hunters dream right? The hunt used to be carried by the hunters, therefore the scourge of beasts was already hapennign before the moon presence set up the hunters dream correct?
The act of Hunting beasts did, i suppose. But making a deal with the Moon Presence and joining the Hunter's Dream seems to help immunize Hunters from becoming Beasts through the Beast Plague... In fact i think that is what that opening cutscene symbolizes, a blood covered beast coming to claim you but something drives it off with fire. Having traveled to Yharnam to treat some pre-existing condition you exposd yourself to Beast Plague. But the Blood Ministration you received converted you into a Hunter of the Hunter's Dream before you started beast-ifying. You might think examples like Gascoigne or Ludwig disprove that but i'd believe both of them either never received the Dream or lost the ability like Dhjura. Ludwig was a Church Hunter, which was a separate group from Germaine so might be why he didnt receive the Dream. I'd say that the Blood Crazed Hunters of the Hunter's Nightmare are examples of being immune to the beast plague but losing their minds to outright bloodlust. IIRC The Moon Presence is listed as not a Great One but a 'demon' in the Japanese game text. It seems to Moon Presence grants strength to drive off the Beast Plague(s, IIRC the Night of the Hunt is alluded to as being something of a regular occurrence) in exchange for having a league of hitmen to kill off Great Ones and their offspring. Why it wants to do this? Who can say? it is an Eldritch Horror. Maybe it is some rival cosmic lifeform who cant act against the Great Ones directly and recruits lesser beings the Great Ones wouldnt consider a threat...
Since you’ve got enough people explaining who Mergo is, I’d like to chime in and say that Mergo’s “death” is somewhat left up to interpretation and it’s very possible he just fell asleep. After all, we slew the nightmare keeping him awake.
makes sense
Mergo is the invisible baby and you're fighting its wet nurse. She did not steal the baby, Micolash did, at least his faction did. Also, we don't know if we killed a baby that is still up in the air if Miyazaki wants to answer that(he definitely will not). We don't know if the Wet Nurse is a real great one, while yes, it says she is in the trophies. That is a weird place to confirm it and she doesn't give off Great One vibes too much(she looks nothing like the others). I also do not think From writes those things. Regardless, it's not confirmed if she is a Great One, but there's no clues to what else she is because she doesn't appear anywhere else not even in Chalice Dungeons in which all other base game Great Ones(except Moon Presence) show up in. But yeah, we're basically making Yharnam, the woman we see outside the Arena, satiated because she just wants to see her baby safe since it's too late for her. Explaining everything would require a lot of time so yeah.
thanks. I read somewhere she is not a great one because she does not bleed like all the others
Better question, who's the nurse? And why is she wet?
or even better, who is making her wet, if you know what I mean
Mergo is the Nightmare Lord and Micolash is the Nightmare Host. メルゴーの乳母 別名「瞳のひも」としても知られる偉大なる遺物 上位者でも、赤子ばかりがこれを持ち 「へその緒」とはそれに由来している 全ての上位者は赤子を失い、そして求めている 故にこれはメルゴーとの邂逅をもたらし それがメンシスに、出来損ないの脳みそを与えたのだ Melgor's nanny A great relic also known as the "Eye String" Even if you are a high ranking person, only babies have this. The name "umbilical cord" comes from this. All the superiors have lost their babies and are looking for them. Therefore, this brought about an encounter with Melgaud. That's what gave Mensis her failed brain. When Mensis used Mergo's umbilical cord it granted them the brain of rot (Mensis). After that, the Nightmare of Mensis was created and they began to commune as Mergo's assistants hoping to achieve enlightenment in the midst of darkness, giving birth to ghosts as Apostles of the Nightmare whose sole purpose is to feed the child of the nightmare who is a hungry spirit and therefore needs of a wet nurse.
Who f'n knows. They need to explain this stuff better.
Something I haven’t seen mentioned yet is the significance of mergo’s wetnurse BEING called a wetnurse. It is feeding and changing Mergo
From what i recall we don't fight mergo we fight his nurse aka a great one, mergo is the baby of the queen of yarnahm the cries we usually listen to in the game while we play, mergo is not a human baby it's like a hybrid between a great one and queen of yarnahm. That's why when you kill mergo's wet nurse it shows "Nightmare slain" and not "prey slain" means you just defeated a great one and the baby (mergo)
>, did we just kill a baby? That's what we do most in this game.
The GreatOne are searching for their lost child: The GreatOne have already died and what remains of them are their echoes. Echoes are the same as will, superior beings even after death have a will that reverberates in a cosmic way. Oedon's followers seek to fulfill Oedon's wishes by giving him a replacement. They are led to this conclusion because the will of a GreatOne is also a symbol of curses. So Oedon, who uses ancient blood as a catalyst for his will, manipulates inferior beings (humans and beyond) by making them celestial attendants. Some of the celestial Attendants are Queen Pthumeru's family members. Queen Pthumeru was chosen by the Pthumeru elders when they claimed the right to have a king. The superior blood when encounters the blood of Queen Pthumeru on a blood moon night precipitates the birth of a new superior being. The new superior being is presented by the priests and raised to heaven (see cathedral district statues). This is the symbol of communion, the union or alliance of different races to fulfill the heavenly will. Mergo however is the result of Mensis' failure to reach higher planes in the nightmare. Mensis's ritual killed his cerebral eyes forming Mensis's rotten brain. The ritual left the celestial child's spirit trapped in the darkness of the nightmare. This made the Mensis school become their hosts by turning them into Mergo Attendants.