The Orphan of Kos is a victim, whose death is tragic || Bloodborne Analysis

[sovigndev]

The thing crawls out of its dead mother’s womb then immediately begins beating you to death with the thing that killed her. That’s the most metal thing I’ve ever heard

[wahatda]

Correction: It doesn't just curse the people that killed Kos. It also curses their children. And their children's children.

[monroerobbins]

“It’s not right, it’s just necessary”, THAT is a killer line

[chungushumungus]

My favorite part of the orphan is that as it looks into the moon, it weeps, initially high pitched and then immediately becomes much more deep and adult-like. Perhaps signifying the corruption of its innocence or how it was immediately taken away from its mother and used for whatever the academy used it for.

[godricktheminecrafted]

THAT’S A FISHING HOOK?

I JUST SPENT 3 YEARS THINKING IT WAS JUST A REALLY SHARP PLACENTA

[samfivedot]

Watch carefully when the Orphan calls the lightning down and you'll see the blast is centered on Kos and radiates out from her corpse. He's trying and failing to revive her.

[ruberose]

There is no making things right. Only better than they were.

[Nazo-kage]

I did notice a bit of metal with the orphans “weapon” but I never put together that it was a fishhook.
I just assumed that Elder God biology means ‘don’t assume there ISN’T metal there’

The big irony is that by the sheer fact that one of the boss is named ‘orphan of Kos.’
Means that they were one of, if not the only outer God with the ability to have children without human intervention.
Meaning by killing it, they literally caused the the hunt.

[jbark]

It's like the Orphan tried to bring out the scariest thing it could think of and settled on Gehrman, but it's warped through the eyes of a frightened infant that doesn't understand what's happening or why.
The eldritch nightmare of an eldritch nightmare.

[Khelzugah]

I remember when me and some friends first played trough this and encountered Kos, ones initial reaction was to ask:" Why there is a guy crawling out of the jelly fish?"
And ignoring the shock of that, it got me to think, why does the Orphan looked so... human. I mean, mother Kos also has some features that come close to being human, but the child could be mistaken for an old men from a distance.

I personally like to think that it is because of the father. Not literall speaking mind you. The orphan is born from suffering, in a metaphorical sense. So of course it looks like those who brought said suffering to it and his mother. Let it be the carelessness of the fishermen, or the madness of the scholars. For me humanity is the father of the orphan of Kos.
So it isn't just an orphan by nature of having a dead mother, but also because its father abandoned it.

[fyzxnerd]

It's sad that you're under threat of demonization, I find your work wonderful. Dark topics, thematic implications, deeply rooted pain in art and satire of the human existence. Please, carry on with my thanks.

[-lukario-]

Ahh, sweet child of Kos, returned to the ocean... A bottomless curse, a bottomless sea. Accepting of all that there is and can be...

[mrjellyfish]

One thing I like about the Orphans design is that it much more closely resembles a classical angel than any of the other eldritch horrors encountered. There's definitely deeper religious subtext there that I cannot figure out cause I am really bad at media and design analysis.

[giankao_art]

Skyen just one thing. you can hear German cry in his wheelchair in the hunter's dream, weeping while remembering the horrors he did in the fishing hamlet with his comerades. The cry you hear in the hunters nightmare are Germans.

He remembers.

He is suffering.

That's why you free him when you kill the nightmare, that's why the doll thanks you.

[abovearth]

"The Orphan of Kos is a victim chose death is tragic."
Bro it's fucking birth is tragic that's a record no other Fromsoftware character managed to beat.

[chester]

A theme seen in the old ones in this game is: they can only have a child after their death.

[Shipstealer]

“This too is Hunter’s work, but bares no honor.”

[darklord]

There is some lore missing here that puts more context to this in an interesting way. The Kos Parasite item description says that Kos "washed up dead on the shore" and that the parasites within her were what caused the villagers to transform, attracting the scholars (back then belonging to Byrgenwerth as the church did not exist yet).

It is unknown if Kos was killed by the villagers, the parasites or just died of old age, but it's interesting to think that the Hunter's Nightmare came into existence through an accident.

I mean, think about it. Kos dies through unknown means, is washed ashore, the parasites start mutating people and Byrgenwerth sends its hunters to sack the village, dragging people away to experiment on them and killing those to far gone. The dead and dying of the hamlet cast a desperate blood-curse on Byrgenwerth and their successors (the same curse you hear from the guy walking around as you exit the clocktower) and given that Great Ones are sympathetic to humans and can listen to curses, the Orphan listened to the blood curse and cast it on Byrgenwerth, dragging them and their descendants into the nightmare.

Also an interesting thing is that this kind of gave rise to my theory that Simon, the Harrowed hunter, is in fact none other than the son of Laurence.

Let me break it down:

- Simom tells us that the Nightmare is where hunters go "when drunk with blood." This is good enough of an explanation at first since we do see many blood-crazed hunters just massacring beasts left and right without reason. But wait. Hang on. There are several people who AREN'T blood-drunk. Maria, the patients tied down, Yamamura, Brador...Simon himself? So why is HE here? We know Maria was part of the search, the patients are most likely aspects of the villagers or their descendants, Brador was a church assassin and most likely also involved, Yamamura...I actually can't explain him, maybe he was the son of a traveler and a Yharnam person, but Simon has seemingly no explanation in his past.

- So Simon is either a former scholar or descended from SOMEONE at Byrgenwerth. The simpler choice would be that he was Willem's student but sided with Laurence during the schism and came to Yarnham with him. But that doesn't work as he refers to Byrgenwerth, the ones who 'sinned', as his 'forefathers' so he didn't study there. Not to mention, he doesn't know what Byrgenwerth's true 'secret' is, he doesn't even think they are responsible, he calls it "The Healing Church's secret" so he wasn't a part of Byrgenwerth when this happened and only heard or read about it. Putting all these pieces together, this proves he is the descendant of someone.

- So he is a descendant of Byrgenwerth. But question, whose? Now this is where my theory takes an admittedly biased choice. Though it would be reasonable to assume that Simon is the son of just some nameless researcher who was chummy with Laurence, but I'll assume he is the child of someone important. Additionally, given his position as a harrowed hunter (essentially a spy for the church) and the fact he seems intimately familiar with dark topics that even people like Ludwig were not privy to, that would suggest to me he is the son of someone with some pull in the church and/or Byrgenwerth. But whose son is he?

- At this point, this game becomes about eliminating the unlikely and narrowing down the list of potential candidates:

- Willem could be, but doubtful. For one, Willem didn't seem interested in such things and I doubt Laurence would make the son of his most bitter rival one of his premier spies. Plus, how would that have even hapoened to get Simon away from Byrgenwerth and his father and under Laurence's influence.

- Definitely not the son of Gehrman or Micolash. Similar in disinterest to Willem (Gehrman had his doll fetish but still unlikely) but also they were quite dedicated to their goals and work and would most likely not have pursued a family. Additionally, since Micolash became hostile to the Choir and Laurence's private circle, I doubt the latter would make his son a spy.

- He's also unlikely to be a son of Maria as she killed herself while still heading the research hall as a young woman and didn't seem like a mother with child. Ludwig can also be ruled out, mainly since he was a thug and a soldier, unaware of secretive things and thus if he had any children, they'd most likely become city hunters themselves, not spies.

- Other major characters, such as the Madaras twins, Valtr, Rom (as a human), Brador, Amelia, Djura, Gascoigne, Henryk, Eileen, etc. are not even worth considering as they have either no ties to Byrgenwerth (like Brador, Valtr or Gascoigne) or the old hunters (like Amelia who is likely too young to be his mom). The only, or rather, the best candidate, is Laurence.

- My reasoning is as follows: Laurence is a former Byrgenwerth scholar, so he and his children would be and in fact are affected by the blood curse. Laurence is also the very first vicar and given his lust for power, he could reasonably be considered capable and willing to put his son into such an important position as a spy, either through nepotism or just regular pressure on his child to take up the job. There is also the fact that Simon knows and seeks secrets and calls the research hall the Healing Church's great secret. His connection to secrets, position as one of the very first Harrowed hunters and lineage all make Laurence a perfect candidate.

- Another thing to consider is this: Simon follows you through the Nightmare as you make your march of death through Laurence's former cronies alk the way to the fishing hamlet where Brador kilks him. He stops in several areas and gives you suggestions, such as killing Maria and telling you that Ludwig was a 'poor brute.' But there is one crucial part he does not approach, that being the corrupted cathedral and Laurence's resting place. Could this be due to either sorrow for his father or fear of the new monster his loved one has become? Either way, it's curious that Simon, a man with such intimate knowledge of the church and its secrets, misses the one dude most responsible for the entire beastblood curse as well as the clear HQ of the Church. He also never mentions any vicars or the Church's leadership at all, only talking of the Church as this massive, seemingly sentient entity.

But then how did he end up in the Nightmare? Well seeing that the only sane people in the Nightmare are dead in the real world (plus the Good Hunter who got here by mixing blood-drunk eyeball with Amygdala and downing it) it is likely that Simon is dead. But how and why? There can be a number of reasons, but his dialogue suggests Brador as the sole culprit. He mentions Brador coming after him 'again and again' which foretells the several Brador summons that attack you later on in the fishery area. Ah, so clearly Simon had been killed over and over again by Brador right? Well no, as there is one crucial detail here:

SIMON IS NOT A DREAM HUNTER, HE CANNOT REVIVE AFTER DYING!

This is why, like Maria before him, once he fully dies, he stays dead. My guess would be, once Laurence, his father, was killed by church hunters under mysterious circumstances (likely they hushed it up, lest people be frightened that a cleric was turned into a beast) he began to look into the Healing Church's secrets to find out why. During his investigation, he got into the fishing hamlet's case and this alerted Brador who hunted him down and killed him as per his duties, likely as his loyalties were now not to Simon's father but the second vicar (maybe Amelia). Awaking in the nightmare, Simon followed the Good Hunter's trail of butchery while still searching for answers, until an alternate version of Brador tracked him down and killed him here too. And with his dying breath, he passes on the key to Brador's cell and his bow blade, all but begging you to finish his task and lamenting how the sins of the forefathers cannot be born by him and other descendants.

A sad, tragic story, but so are most in Yarnham.

Thank you for reading my long post and I hope you enjoyed my theory!

[mopeysadcloud]

"Sweet child of Kos, a bottomless curse, a bottomless sea, accepting all that ever was and can be."

[Saltboi]

*"M-m..Mother, Where are you... it's so cold and I'm scared.... scared of the monsters with swords and scary voices..."*