#whereas adella is one of the Few people who will go out of her way to care for and look out for the good hunter

[butchladymaria]

Sorry for ranting but that post really resonated with me,thank you! it aways seemed so weird how everyone was ignoring these themes and focusing only on what they considered badass about the lore. When playing i could clearly see facets of the suffering that afflicts mainly women on each female character,like the old lady who mistakes you for her kid and gives you sedatives to make you forget,implies that "your fathers blood" is to blame when you atack her and remarks that "you were aways the brave one" when the player has no woes to share... it instantly reminded me of stories from older women about what life was like with abusive husbands and sedatives being prescribed freely due to their stress at home with no way out. Adellas negative levels of self esteem due to church brainwashing (that mirrors Adelines) and the presence of the female rivalry that is instilled in many of us,Ariannas entire questline and the questions it makes the player ask themselves in the end, and finally the doll and Marias whole THING,especially if seen through the lens of a lesbian or GNC woman! like how can people be so blind and not realize how womanhood is a core theme here?? I get disagreeing with individual analysis but to outright deny that there is something there is bonkers to me

okay but seriously, all of these insights are SO important!!! the women of bloodborne are so much more complex than people seem to give them credit for. the old woman and adella especially so clearly have biases. but what really gets me is how realistically those are portrayed: tools of the power structure they were born into which serve to separate and isolate each of them in their subjugation.

this got Insanely long… under the cut it goes!

i mean, seriously though. the women of oedon chapel are very different, each from a different marginalized background of their own. in addition to what you described, the old woman lives in central yharnam — which the church has essentially thrown to the dogs. arianna is a so-called “vileblood” who is forced to the margins of society because of that and her (presumed) identity as a sex worker. adella has been groomed within the church (a word which specifically implies a process beginning in childhood) to see herself as nothing but a worthless vessel for “lowly blood”. these women are all subjugated by the church in different ways, and in an ideal world, they would realize they have much more uniting them than they do separating them.

which is exactly why the church has invented scapegoats to prevent that from happening. the church tells the old woman that it isn’t them who has reduced her home to ruin and likely sent her son to die in the hunt; they tell her it’s foreigners and their tainted blood. the church tells adella it isn’t their fault of that she is treated worse than dirt and has no one to turn to when she is abducted and nearly murdered by a branch of the church itself no less; they tell her she deserves it, because she’s only worth how much she can be bled out for others. they tell her it’s the fault of “vileblood” taint turning the world mad, not their own poisoned healing and insane experiments. i mean seriously — the parallel between arianna’s (implied) “vile” blood and adella’s self-described “lowly” blood is not lost on me.

and arianna, who is wholly innocent yet painfully aware of how isolated she is in that chapel, is left to stumble into a sewer and left with nothing but madness and isolation and the wretched thing she birthed when she is raped by a god and forced to bear its child… and based on how we see the upper ward of the church positively crawling with the exact monsters that she was forced to birth, i’m willing to bet that this is exactly what the church wanted.

bloodborne illustrates how prejudice is ultimately used to subjugate and silence all but the upper echelons of the powerful; and how it is the most vulnerable in society who are left to suffer the worst of it, utterly alone and alienated from their would-be allies. it shows how a class of the oppressed can be so purposefully be driven apart, so their oppressors remain unchallenged. it shows how even those like adella who play a crucial role in their grasp on power are still treated like scum. their oppressors enable, orchestrate, and weaponize the pain these women suffer and force them to bear it all alone.

and as for maria & the doll — again, i COMPLETELY agree. lesbianism aside, maria is undeniably, fundamentally gender nonconforming, especially when compared to the other NPC women. the relationship between her and gerhman is something i plan to go more in depth on in a later post — but i will say that i actually see gerhman as more of a paternal/protective figure. that is to say: i think gerhman in the text represents the gender role of men as a protector of women taken to its natural conclusion; not as a role made for service or assistance, but rather for ownership of the woman under protection. he’s an incredibly tragic and twisted man. i want to poke him like bug under microscope etc.

i am so glad my post resonated with you!!! these are honestly the kinds of conversations i want to have with other fans — because they’re so damn INTERESTING to me to pick apart!!!

tl;dr: The Girls Should Unionize.

#soooo glad this is all Fictional to the Funnie Werewolf Simulator and has Noooo Real World Parallels 😄😙🤩 /s #bloodborne #rape mention #this is why alfred and adella are fundamentally not the same btw #both hold bad views and are absolutely blood racist? 10000% #but adella has been groomed by the church to have no one to turn to but them likely from childhood much the same way any abuse survivor is #what she Needs is to have her worth as a human validated outside of that abusive power structure #what alfred needs is like. a goold ol slap in the face imo #like this man is just frothing at the mouth to do Genocide from the second u meet him. he isn’t exploited or abused #at least as far as canon implies #hes just violently blood racist #& cares more about murdering some lady who had to watch her kin slaughtered than uhhhhh checks notes #doing Fuck All to actually better the lives of the vulnerable people around him #whereas adella is one of the Few people who will go out of her way to care for and look out for the good hunter #sorry this is kind of an alfred hate page #why would u make him your blorbo #isnt his whole Point that bigots can be very nice and unassuming to those who they presume share their violently bigoted opinions #their bigotry has been instilled for VERY DIFFERENT REASONS. #adella was taught this so she could be more easily degraded into having absolutely 0 identity or self worth #alfred is bigoted because it Serves His Interest. #by acting on it through violence and propagation he is reinforcing the status quo and the power he holds within it #adella only snaps when she believes (!!!for bigoted reasons!!!) that the good hunter has been tainted #like at least imo she probably is expected the good hunter to beast out? because i think with all the talk of like #‘foreigners and their tainted (vile?) blood are to blame for the scourge’ that we hear from like…. #Everyone? #even the damn huntsmen enemies? #it seems pretty likely to me #and even that Drastic action of having to take someones life fucking breaks her down even further #oops. like all of these tags are just a huge tangent . i should just make a post about this too #mine