#at this rate i should make a document of my theories or a masterpost

[katyahina]

Healing Church and Byrgenwerth used to be the one! (sort of hidden lore?)

Oh boy, I am really happy I got this ask! Will answer in a legit post if you don't mind. Yeah, this one is a little hard to unravel, but in fact plenty of the hints are here. So, we are bouncing from this bit about Alfred's dialogue:

(I will be using retranslations excerpts from Last Protagonist's document ( x ) as usual)

However it is important to notice that those who delved in the dungeons THE first are Willem, Dores and the gatekeeper! Something you can only learn if you pull an unlikely parkour in the Forbidden Woods and get an obscure item:

So from now on we enter the ‘blink and you'll miss it’ territory! 1 - ‘Eye’, the rune that is indeed a voice of Ebrietas, was also a symbol of the research for the Arcane Truth (eyes on the inside) that Willem pursued. 2 - Meanwhile, Isz Chalice that resulted in Choir finally meeting Ebrietas is a cornerstone of the Choir. 3 - MEANWHILE, Choir happened after Research Hall (in fact, happened on its ‘ruins’) - whereas Research Hall was something that belonged to the Healing Church... *takes deep breath* MEANWHILE, in early days of its existence, Healing Church was pursuing research for the arcane and eyes inside IN the Research Hall!

1:

2:

3:

As for the Choir forming where Reseach Hall once was, it is also obvious enough from THE game - Orphanage in ‘reality’ is exactly where Lumenflowers Garden in Hunter’s Nightmare is, and you can see the entrance from the balcony too - one that had beds in the Nightmare version, but no longer has it in ‘reality’!

Okay, you get the drill! So this is what we can conclude with the most probability:

Willem, Dores and the gatekeeper delved into the dungeons (ones that were not sealed yet, for one reason or another) and discovered signs of the cosmic Kin, Ebrietas most specifically. Caryll was able to decipher the sound from one of them, as they ARE linked to Ebrietas herself, thus Eye rune was discovered and the start for seeking eyes on the inside began! This might or might not been exactly what given the hunch to seek Fishing Hamlet (since they are some ancient Pthumerians leftover secluded civilisation), but in either case they got curious. After Fishing Hamlet, Research Hall happened and the patients started to dive deeper (figurally and literally lol) which resulted to closer connection to the cosmos/stars!

❗ A small interruption; Kos (or some say Kosm) isn’t necessarily FROM the cosmos; her actual Japanese name is Gos ( ゴース , Gōsu) as in like, ‘ghost’. Ebrietas, however, is properly called Daughter of the Stars (Hoshi no Musume), not ‘cosmos’. But ghost in reference to Kos’ actual name most likely refers to the phantasms. My headcanon is that Kos has something to do with the folks that DID initially abandon Ebrietas after she, so to say, gave them everything they needed, so helped them to ascend:

A potential explanation of her humanlike face?

Back to the Healing Church history!!! So, patients try to reach for the stars/cosmos for salvation, ok? (Interesting pair with the fact that pointy hats of Keepers of the Old Lords are said to look upwards as a proof of some sin) For one reason or another, Research Hall as it is known gets re-purposed, and instead they decide to teach orphans! My guess is that children - PARENTLESS children specifically - are the easiest way to summon Great Ones since Great Ones do want to find a (surrogate) child. So they will more likely speak with the kids that seek a parent, right? But Choir already exists as they decide to find Ebrietas already, and they do!

Still existing connection with Willem is also likely because petrified spider Ebrietas weeps at is most likely Rom herself! Byrgenwerth is said to be floating between Nightmare, making Rom guarding the lake her astral body, but her second body is in the dungeons! Queen Yharnam is, likewise a character who appears in the Lake (astral plane, and Nightmare too) as a peaceful person, but is hostile in the dungeons! So I think whatever happened to Rom split her in two, and perhaps similar thing happened with Queen Yharnam! But Byrgenwerth does have like... half of Rom at least... you know?

(Translation from here ( x ))

Winged God, Voice and Terror probably being Wet Nurse, Oedon and Flora respectively! Either way first Ebrietas cares about Rom to cry over her fate (?) later, then Rom is retracted in Byrgenwerth by Willem, but Ebrietas interacts with the Choir, which IS upper echelon of the Healing Church, so by the logic of what most likely happened to Rom, Willem was able to interact with the Choir, and very closely so, not just ‘hey remember that old man that once taught us stuff, lets copy his hat’.

Speaking of the hats!

Here is this guy right? And the whole altar seems to depict the process of the Blood Transfusion like what happens to Paleblood Hunter at the very start - there is a dream about beast, so they already had a hunch as to why Old Blood should be feared! Naturally, this statue could’ve been depicting Laurence rather than Willem, but... Not only that’d be a little off brand as Laurence is clearly more interested in what advantages Old Blood can give (moreso than ‘eyes’ it seems), but here is also a very interesting detail about Laurence’s status:

(Note from this ( x ) article, same I took Ebrietas’ real title from)

So basically, Laurence is unambigiously titled with the status that means ‘a person who REPLACES the person who is an ACTUAL leader of the church while they’re off duty’! So there MUST be an actual pope/bishop! And... honestly, I see no potential figure other than Willem - and Laurence is his vicar. Maybe Willem was also the first pope... but also the last. My personal headcanon is that Laurence’s last display of respect to Willem was to prohibit ever appointing another pope/bishop so now everyone in charge are ‘vicars’.

I will also bring up this bit:

(I talked about nature of Frenzy a bit more detailed in this ( x ) post, but TLDR; Frenzy is tied to the thirst for blood and hunt hence it resulting in one’s blood solidifying in literal spears (weapons), and even scholars aren’t safe from it - notes like ‘Hunt the Great Ones. Hunt the Great Ones.’ and ‘Three Eye Cords’ in Byrgenwerth suggest they got a hunch that they need to kill Great Ones to get their infants’ cords for eyes inside. Pretty much this is why consuming blood helps to calm Frenzy.)

So yes, in my opinion Occam’s Razor suggests that Byrgenwerth started to research for the eyes inside, that was causing Frenzy here and there, and they invented blood-based medicine, which inspired Laurence to become more interested in Blood Ministration than ascension through Arcane! Willem though, knew it was a dangerous path, as Byrgenwerth + early Healing Church established the adage.

Also, in this post about Frenzy I bring up that the prayer Amelia reads is also read by a white hunter in Research Hall (and by a hunter in black garb but only in Japanese), however Research Hall version MISSES ‘seek the old blood’ bit - it is JUST ‘beware of fraility of men’ sentiment, nothing about the power consuming the blood will give you.

So yeah! In the conclusion. Seems like Healing Church became a thing - and blood ministration too, as it proven to be effective against the Frenzy people who perceive too much Arcane enlightenment face, but Willem with his ‘inner eyes’ idea has been around - at least until Ebrietas herself was found and formed the bond with Rom! My theory as to how Laurence split from Willem is the moment where Healing Church deems Byrgenwerth a forbidden place!

So as we know, Alfred is a deluded fanboy of Logarius and Healing Church (not a protege as translators made it sound, he simply follows his teachings), so he believes whatever they say! We remember that Maria affiliatee of the Healing Church and Byrgenwerth herself is a subject to the weird vilebloods’ blood/fire magic (however she doesn’t like it), we also remember this shit:

And we ALSO remember that armours very similar to those from Cainhurst knighst but lower on polygons are in dungeons:

(Makes me think these losers kept trying to reclaim their lost heritage from Pthumeru until Gehrman finally informed them that beasts are too fast for heavy armour and showed these losers how to do trick weapons and proper attire - perhaps Maria was the first, and those who remained in Cainhurst stole her new drip... But I sidetrack.)

Either way, it makes no sense Healing Church is in enmity with Vilebloods, right? It makes me think that nourishing animosity towards Cainhurst was a planned action of Healing Church in order to justify Cainhurst massacre, and under guise of ‘purification’ steal the cord of Great One infant Annalise was pregnant with - the cord that served to conjure Hunter’s Dream! I talk more about this theory in this ( x ) post but tldr; Annalise was a redhead whose hair is now demelanized whereas Arianna’s hair turn from more vivid yellow blonde to white after she gives birth, both are vilebloods, also Annalise now has to hide her face under mask whereas Flora who has open guts and is implied having lost a baby has terribly distorted face, so perhaps GO infant being aborted results in the face horribly distorted by grief! Nevermind this bloody trail leading to under her skirt...

(I also heard that in earlier versions of Bloodborne before patches/DLC, the cord you pick in Abandoned Workshop actually WAS said to be brought by Executioners from Cainhurst and later that description was cut out. So if anyone has a visual proof of this - please, please, PLEASE I am BEGGING you, show it to me!)

So they needed to explain why Cainhurst was bad? And perhaps it went like this:

- Uhhhh hold on but why Cainhurst is bad because of using blood, were not YOU Byrgenwerth guys who discovered the blood to begin with?

- E-eeerr... Someone betrayed us!

So Byrgenwerth became a scapegoat to blame, massacre happened (possibly after Maria’s death, I doubt she’d allow Healing Church to do THAT), and now they needed to deal with the ‘traitors’ to save the effect of ruthless ‘salvation’ of Healing Church - at the cost of Laurence betraying Byrgenwerth, however Willem was also there when the plan of Hunter’s Dream was made.

And we ended up having three factions of the Healing Church - the ‘normie’ Healing Church that specifies on blood ministration (led by Laurence and currently, by Emilia) and two upper echelons of it that still pursue ideas of ascension through eyes on the inside (Choir and School of Mensis).

Yeah, we kinda came from more or less solid evidences to more vague/speculative ones, and to get the idea better I needed to turn to other, connected ideas but that’s the beauty (the pain) of Bloodborne lore - everything is connected! It is basically me gluing shards of a once whole object Miyazaki scattered because he drinks tears of lorediggers but yeah… I kinda throw such points casually because for me all this thing is already a no-brainer and internalised xd