#but dang what's their beef with caitha!!!

[val-of-the-north]

Interesting find regarding the Church of the Deep

While trying to build an argument for Caitha possibly being a wife of Gwyn, I accidentally stumbled upon a little detail that I was not really expecting, but that puts a few things into perspective.

The description of Caitha's Chime claims that the Archbishop concealed its existence because it was considered anathema... however, that didn't seem to make much sense to me, as the one Archbishop mentioned in item descriptions is that of Carim, whom Morne became an apostle of. The thing is, Morne was first a follower of Caitha, and the clergy of Carim (which is part of the Way of White) was taught her miracles from him with little to no problem, so her chime being hidden seemed strange.

So I did something I've grown accustomed to doing because of my time trying to read into the lore of these games: consult the original text and see if there had been an oversight. I used this resource here to do it [x]. It features the Chinese (left), Japanese (middle), and English text from all three games, I recommend checking it out if you are curious about this stuff. Anyways...

In Japanese, the kanji used for the Archbishop of Carim is 大司教 (Daishikyō), which makes sense.

On the other hand, the Archbishop mentioned in the description of Caitha's Chime is 大主教 (Dai shukyō), which is the same kanji used every time the Archdeacons of the Deep are mentioned.

So that explains the apparent discrepancy! The one who concealed Caitha's Chime is one of the three Archdeacons of the Deep, not the Archbishop of Carim. This lines up with stuff we can see in-game as well. The Cathedral of the Deep seems to have been dedicated to Caitha at some point, as it prominently features statues of a weeping woman, with many of the ones found inside the building itself having been covered up by red cloth. One of them, found in the Chapel of Cleansing, was even hidden behind an altar that depicts the Deacons of the Deep, which clearly wasn't there before.

But then, how did the localizers miss this bit? Well, you see, both of those kanjis are extremely similar as you might have noticed... and that's because they both mean Archbishop! And here lies the discovery: 大司教, used for the Archbishop of Carim, refers to an Archbishop of the Catholic Church.

Meanwhile, 大主教, used for the Archdeacons of the Deep, refers to an Archbishop of other denominations, but mainly those of the Orthodox Church.

This revelation explains a few things about the Church of the Deep, like how it's both connected and separate from the Way of White, which according to the way its Archbishop is identified, is inspired by the Catholic Church... and I mean, the fact that Sulyvahn is literally the pope seals the deal for me. It might also help explain Aldrich potentially having a wife in Rosaria, and how he was allowed to have as many children as he did. From what I was told, Orthodox Priests can get married and have children after all.

Archdeacon Royce also genuinely looks the part. The Orthodox clergy is encouraged to grow out their beards, unlike most of the other Christian faiths.

Does this imply Aldrich had a big beard as well? Or perhaps, being the... messy eater that he is, it benefitted him to be shaved clean? I'll leave the pondering to you...

When I first shared this discovery with my friend @katyspersonal, who lives in an Orthodox country, she was quite surprised, but she almost immediately came around to the idea and even told me it fit Aldrich's vibe quite well... so yeah, I'm trusting her judgment on this one lol.

And there it is, a little detail that was understandably lost in translation, but that could shape our understanding of the Church of the Deep a little better.