'Bloodborne': From Sacred to Profane: Vicar Amelia, Ludwig and Laurence as Sacred Monstrosities
"Let us partake in communion and feast upon the old blood..."
The Cleric Beast (聖職者獣, seishokusha kemono; Clergy Beast) is the ‘tutorial boss’ of Bloodborne, FromSoft’s 2015 Soulsborne horror masterpiece on the PlayStation 4, found on the Great Bridge.
You hear it long before you see it; its screech echoes over the city as you trigger the ladder to Gilbert’s house.
But you don’t have to fight the Cleric Beast, you don’t even need to find its arena, which is at the end of the Bridge and a dead end with no way though. You can just go about your day, or night, rather given you’re a Hunter, and miss it entirely…
(You will miss loot if you do so, along with a paid way to get access to central Yharnam…)
Cannonically, Father Gasgoine is the first boss (and he will kick your arse for it) and you need to defeat him in order to get to Oedon Chapel.
But the Cleric Beast is special; there’s something strange about it.
It’s a literal monster but not the same as the ones you saw the townsfolk burning earlier in the level, who were more akin to werewolves. Gasgoine, on the other hand, is a very human boss who can match you step for step. Until he becomes a beast…
This Cleric Beast is, obviously, old and emaciated as you can see its ribs and I wonder if it’s just escaped from somewhere.
My actual head-canon is that Laurence is the Cleric Beast, whom we can fight as an optional boss in The Old Hunters DLC.
As the Hunter’s Nightmare is hell for hunters (we can hear Eileen in the Research Hall, for example), and we fight him in the Cathedral near the Blood River, it suggests he may have died in the real world prior to this fight. The model is also very similar, although Laurence (The First Vicar) is on fire when we right him… Lots and lots of fire…
Cleric Beasts are so named because they’re the transformed form of religious priests which is easier to see in Laurence and Amelia.
As the Sword Hunter Badge, gained from defeating the Cleric Beast, explains:
“One of the badges crafted by the Healing Church. The silver sword is a symbol of a Church hunter. Ludwig was the first of many Healing Church hunters to come, many of whom were clerics. As it was, clerics transformed into the most hideous beasts.”
So what about Ludwig, the legitimate candidate for ‘Hardest DLC Boss’ in a trifecta which includes the Orphan of Kos and Lady Maria.
Ludwig, initially appears to be an exception to the rule, but he, is fact, is not.
He could be classed as a Cleric Beast as he was a Healing Church Hunter. However, his form is very much horse-like, as opposed to Amelia and Laurence, so I think his transformation is linked closer to his status as a hunter (and he melded with the horse he rode) than as a priest.
This idea of him as a hunter first also explains how he is able, even transformed, to retain an iota of sanity thanks to the Holy Moonlight Sword in his possession. Yet he will only actually talk to you if you appear to him wearing one of the many sets worn by clerics of the Healing Church.
Amelia, however, is a rare example where we get to see her pre-transformation and then fight her as she succumbs. Unlike the Cleric Beast, she is new, feminine and, simply put, absolutely gorgeous but in a horrific kind of aesthetic.
Do you see it yet? The one thing the Cleric Beats share?
They’re all becoming deer-like monsters….
Deer are particularly important in Japan, both from an absolutely adorable, cute standpoint but also from a religious one.
The Sika deer (Cervus nippon) is basically bambi with an addiction to deer snacks (senbei wafers specially made for them) and you can find them roaming the country, although most people tend to come across them in the Deer Park near Todaiji temple in Nara (where they menace pilgrims for said snacks). However, you can also find them roaming wild and at other sites, such as Itsukushima Island near Hiroshima.
Within the Japanese belief system of Shinto, deer are—like foxes—also believed to be the living messengers of kami, divine nature spirits who watch over Japan. It seems fitting then that Cleric Beasts are priests turned into monsters, still the messengers of the Great Ones and the Old Blood even after transformation.
Within the game, divinity is something possessed by the Great Ones, although they are not gods in the traditional sense. The Healing Church venerates the blood but it never tells parishioners and townsfolk what this blood truly is; the communion with arcane beings, like Ebrietas, whose bodies lie dreaming in the labyrinth.
Indeed, she should linger close to the Grand Cathedral, resting, calmly at the Altar of Despair. She, like Rom, is one of the few beings in-game who won’t attack you first. Instead, you have to hit her first, only then do you become the focus of her attention and she begins to rain down arcane spells upon you.
So if the ordinary Yharnamites, drunk on blood, turn to beasts and the clergy turn into deer-like, does this explain why you, the Hunter, become a Great One infant?
Amelia transforms, still holding her locket which is a symbol of her status as a vicar of the Church. As a Cleric Beast, she is penitant and folds her hands in prayer as she invokes the power to heal herself. She is pious, even in her other form, and it seems right to fight her within the vast, hallowed hall of the Grand Cathedral, which serves as a nexus point for various sections of the game.
Here we fight her, but also Laurence, albeit in another version of the Church, one held within a torturous Nightmare.
As she is meek and tries to save herself with prayers and magic, he burns, melting much of the arena and becoming a slick of molten suffering. He is a beast now, truly gone, and while Amelia is sacred and new, he is in agony with no memory of his sins in the Fishing Hamlet, faded and rotting away.
Clerics do, indeed, make the fiercest of beasts… The most sacred of monsters and servants to them even after their transformations. At this point, ending them and severing them from the Nightmare they exist in is the kindest thing anyone can do…