So, I sent an e-mail to IdleThumbs. (Bloodborne)

I've been thinking about this subject for a while, and it's that Bloodborne may be Miyazaki's way of providing social commentary on the state of things. It blew my mind, and I went ahead and sent the email to them because I figured they'd get a kick out of it, but they're also intelligent guys who'd be able to tell me why I'm blowing things out of my ass if I am, hah!

I'm going to go ahead and post the email here though, because I really do enjoy the thought that Bloodborne may be an elaborate social commentary.

So after playing Bloodborne and having a discussion with my friend about "how can this be reality", we started discussing the oddities of the world and realized the entirety of the game is more or less commentary on how Miyazaki views the world.

You could probably spend hours dissecting each of the decisions he made and where he made them with the game, but I'll just rattle off the examples that immediately came to mind.

If you haven't finished the game yet, and want to avoid spoilers, go ahead and skip this email, because I'm going to be spoiling quite a few enemies and other various things in the game.

SPOILERS AHEAD.

• One of the only times you'll encounter the "crawling zombies" is in the sewer. This could be the poor, who are in the gutter of society. They literally can't get back on their feet, and can't climb out of the sewer they've found themselves in.

• Certain NPC's turn into wolves later in the story, including a very specific NPC: The first guy in the window you can talk to, when you first start the game. He's near the very first lamp you find, and he's a very kind soul who only offers to help. He eventually turns into a wolf and breaks through the window, either saying that no one is safe from corruption and even the kindest men can fall victim, or that deep down we're all beasts inside.

• You have the option of sending NPC's to either the Clinic, or the Cathedral. If you send them to clinic, they get experimented on and turned into abominations, or killed. If you send them to the Cathedral, they're safe, implying we shouldn't forsake our beliefs and heritage for progress and science, lest we become unspeakable horrors. 

• The Amygdala (giant aliens hanging off the buildings). You can only see them if you have enough "insight", and they're the secret gods whom the cult of the village seems to worship. They're invisible until you have enough "insight to see them for what they are", and they can kill you if you get too close to them. I saw this as a representation of big business/corporations, whom are nameless, faceless giants, that most people can't see for the buildings they're in. They have incredible power and manipulate things from the shadows, while being worshipped by those whom don't seem to realize or accept the horrors they are.

• The giants "guarding" the graveyard, and path to the church. They'll continue to patrol the area and guard it, until you get too close, then they'll attack you. Once you get enough "insight", however, they sit there, almost as if they're sleeping. I took this to mean either the government, or some other organization that's supposed to protect us, but once you have enough "insight" you realize they're sleeping on the job.

• The college, and the nightmare frontier. You can only access the "nightmare frontier" from the college, through it's exit. I understood this as leaving college you finally entered the horrors of the real world, and everything was much harder, and twisted than you ever thought it could be. You face giants who throw rocks at you which can almost kill you in one hit (prominent people in industry who can destroy your career before it starts) and warped leeches in poison water (toxic people in your life who will cling to you and ultimately destroy you) as well as a literal giant brain that can cause you to "frenzy", which will nearly instantly kill you (this could be a few things, such as thinking you know everything, or knowing things you shouldn't)

Then, we have the games 3 endings, which I interpreted as the corporate structure.

• You submit to the elder, and accept things as they are. You forget the truths you have seen, and return to the reality you know and understand. Everything that you saw and did was just a bad dream, and you wake up, with everything being normal. (Salary man/Average joe, no ambition and just accepting things the way they are.)

• You defeat the elder, and a horror you've never seen before descends upon you. It pulls you in, and cripples you, leaving you bound to the "dream". You can no longer escape, and are forced to take on the role of the old hunter: you guide fledgling hunters on the hunt, and at the end of it, you "release them from the dream", letting them believe it was all just a nightmare. You perpetuate the cycle because you are unable to break free. (Becoming a higher ranking employee, but being "broken down" by the higher ups, and losing hope.) 

• If you consume 3 umbilical cords, when the horror goes to grab you, it's rejected. You then fight (and defeat) the horror, and end up becoming a fetus of the "great ones" (the alien species). (This would be you succeeding at all costs and becoming high ranking in the company, with the ambition to change what they failed at, but eventually succumbing and ending up as one of them in the end.)

With that, there's really no "good ending" to the game, just variations of a bad ending. When I started thinking about this stuff critically, it kind of blew my mind that Miyazaki could've (possibly) put a "story" behind the story. He isn't a young man anymore, and this could be his way of venting his frustration at the business culture and structure of things in Japan, but also his fears of how the world is changing around him and not quite being able to come to terms with it, wishing for the more traditional style of things.

Of course this could (and very well is) just me reading far too much into a videogame, but I thought you guys may find it interesting. Love the show, thanks for reading.