The tradition of making dolls out of the bulb of the hōzuki plant explains their connection to the Winter Lanterns even better. Thank you for bringing that up, it's a pretty significant piece of information.

it's such a stupidly powerful enemy, but still fun ^^

I don't see any results about chinese lanterns made into dolls on google....

@@protonjones54 they're talking about the flower being made into dolls not the lanterns...

Cages and dolls you say? Very interesting...

Your eyes were yet to open.

Ironicaly,if you fight these enemys with high insight,you became more vulnerable to frenzy, so yeah, ignorance,like you said , is truly a bless

I know they are farmed for gems but I always just sprinted past hoping not to be grabbed fuck those things, but. A fully upgraded, fully charged R2 from the Kirk hammer takes em out nicely. Pancake time!

I know how that feels, managed to go down all the way to the bottom bonfire in Blighttown without dying on my first DS1 playthrough, simply because I took my time since I heard _things_ about the place.

Same tbh, they were no trouble for me

Same Zullie. I had no clue insight was linked to frenzy build-up. One of the many mechanics in Soulsborne that isn't explained, only passed on from one unfortunate player to another.

@@itsmichaelakin5421 yeah, each additional Insight reduces the Frenzy resistance, the only way to notice this is to spend a lot of insight in the shop, then the frenzy resistance bar will show up on screen (i think)

During my first playthrough, a friend told me to keep as much insight on me as possible. I hate the Winter Lanterns more than any other Fromsoft enemy ever because of my one friend

@@somestuff9143 oh, so that's why the frenzy bar and beast meter show up when you spend insight! Beast meter correlates inversely with insight as well. The the less insight you have, the easier it is to fill up the beast meter. That also explains why the beast meter bar pops up every time you ring the beckoning bell.

@Zullie the Witch You said the enter lanterns were a corruption of two of the characters allies but I only see 1 ally which is the doll. What is the other one?

"~chuckles~ I'm in danger."

Even more terrifying is that in order to hear them you NEED a certain amount of insight. So if you want to be prepared you need to weaken your frenzy resistance.

@@HannyaBoi sweet!Did not know that.Thx

Learning that there's some in the Hunter's Nightmare made me hate that part of it even more tbh

Bro just hearing the humming made me tense up

Or the doll is evil and is making copies of herself and then infecting them with Kos parasites

I wouldn't say "Own fear". Being that the idea is that *You* are the Hunter, *You* decide what those fears are. If anything, I consider the Doll as a "Caretaker" of sorts, a being created and given life in the dream proper. Perhaps even the first "Creature" of a Dream. Winter Lanterns are trying to copy the Doll, but due to interpretations, they don't get her "Right". The Lanterns serve their functions: Caretakers of the Dream. But because they're a gross recreation of the original, they don't see the Hunter as "Ally", more like a "Nightmare" of their own.

What about Gehrman? isn't he the hunter's friend and mentor?

What about Gehrman? isn't he the hunter's friend and mentor?

@@Lepoetism have you played the game?

Brainsucker gets stunlocked to death by hunter's torch. Paper tiger.

The Well Sharks are just hiding, out of sight. Waiting for the foolish Hunter to forget about them as they suddenly rampage and oneshot them with their dive attacks.

@@natk8541 Yeah, but the Arcane ones just need to get one good hit in and that’s it.

Cursed chalice Amygdala: h e h.

The two hell hounds are the real Villain of this game

I’ll actually take those two instead cus The brain suckers became easy once U use the blades of mercy. And the chime maidens just go offline

Yeah. Who's my best little nightmare abomination?!

@@MasonTheCourier perhaps you haven’t played the chalice dungeons where the chime maidens summon infinite enemies until you kill it. First you have to find it and then sometimes you’re blessed with two! And if you’re really unlucky they’re accompanied by a host of other regular enemies. They’re the most pain in the ass in the entire game.

@@pillarsofnosgoth1132 see I purposely ignored the chalice dungeon maidens cus those things are abominations. I was mainly talking about the main game

Chalice chime maidens with infinite spider spam are the ultimate nightmare. But winter lanterns are a close second.

You can include also The One Reborn and the cramped coffins, and Rom and her spiderlings.

The Player becoming a Great One in the end is because the Doll is now inhabited by a Great One itself and is helping/guiding the player to become its surrogate child, as most Great One's surrogate children die. The same Great One also manifests as the Bath Messengers. The Winter Lanterns reflect the Doll's appearance because it's the same Great One manifesting through various physical forms, and that's why they cause so much Frenzy- the player cannot handle the truth that it is literally being groomed by a Great One to go through the events of the game, eliminate the Paleblood Moon who intentionally kills off Great Ones' children, and be reborn as one themselves. The game states that Great Ones will oppose one another for reasons both understandable and beyond our comprehension. Paleblood Moon Presence has some sincere interest in killing other Great Ones off and seems to employ Hunters to that effect with great success, though almost all of them would have no idea they are used for such a purpose.

the moon presence and werewolves?? i always noticed they had pleasingly similar designs

1. I love the term emissariettes 2. Of course the overall head is most reminiscent of the Brain as you said, but I love this in relation to the discussions about why it looks the way it does. Naturally people are speculating that it could be because the messengers and the doll are the players’ only allies and this inversion makes them more unsettling, which is valid although I think if this were the primary reason for their design, those details wouldn’t be so hidden and on the enemies that players are least likely to stop and look at. Of course, that’s just my opinion. If I had to guess, based on everything I know about the game’s lore as well as Miyazaki tropes, I would definitely have to posit that they were in some sense cobbled together by the Brain out of Dolls and Messengers from previous cycles of the Hunter’s Dream/Nightmare. (Djura and Eileen‘s dialogue I would say clearly confirms that they are pretty much universally experienced by Hunters during their cycles.) This also ties in with the pinned comment about the Japanese lantern flowers being made into dolls. In a broader sense, and I hate to sound pretentious but more in the context of “textual criticism” (basically identifying and dissecting patterns in art) I would say this has to do with the Miyazaki trope that “this has all been done before” and how what appears in the beginning to be an all-important quest is something that has actually been done over and over (e.g linking the fire) with deleterious effects and why the more remarkable endings in Fromsoft games tend to be the ones in which the player chooses to break the cycle rather than continue it by completing the quest as originally instructed. In this sense, if the Winter Lanterns were in fact cobbled together out of previous Hunters’ dolls and messengers, it would be very much in line with, say, the concept of the Soul of Cinder.

@@Rakshael You keep saying this in comments but most of it is made up out of whole cloth.

Same...These dam things do a great job of triggering a fight or flight reflex lol. The next closest thing I could think of was my first encounter with the "Skulls" in metal gear solid 5.

@@thewheezychannel9473 Oh God, the skulls were fucking creepy the first time around. You see them and they shamble like zombies, then you get in range and they come at you like a bat out of hell 😨😰

@@JM64 it's all fun and games until the zombies start pulling rifles out of their hands and out run your horse 0_0

One word: shark

@Warrior Of Mankind That game doesn't get the love it deserves, but yes those bastards were creepy... they'd say all this horrible shit while sneaking past them "shove bamboo shoots under his fingernails" and stuff like that

I remember they dropped really good bloodstones too, farming them felt especially great because we get to kill those motherfuckers, but if I felt too confident, boom, dead.

You farmed them? Good God man. The horror!!!

@@darkoale3299 With high Insight and parrying their grab attack, you can i-frame the Frenzy with the riposte animation. Hit them when they start running at you and shoot right before they grab you. There, you killed it and survived Frenzy :D

I never farmed them, but it was a good feeling when I panicked, and accidentally saved my life with a parry. A trick I now always pull out against them.

@@htlchtlc sorry if I'm being slow and not getting the joke but as far as I remember you can't dodge Frenzy stabbing, you either break line of sight or use sedatives but no dodging can save you from it

Thanks Sasuke (From Part 1), very Cool!

Hesitation is defeat, right?

Yeah, they're still very mysterious. The name doesn't really help much...

Yes please!

There's also a resemblance to the original Souls executioner, Smough. Specially if you look at the actual holes for his eyes at the base of his "neck"

@@espelhogamer to me they look more like fat official from DeS, or that one from the DS1 artbook, the one riding a boar.

What intrigues me is that they are maybe the only enemy in the game who can block, indicating their purpose is specifically to fight hunters and/or other humans

Bump on this, yeah, I'm really interested in both of them; and what's more, I noticed that the Nightmare squid-executioners have masks which resemble those of the Yahar'Gul attires; given that you can find the executioners not too far from 2 robed dudes on the way to Yahar'Gul, I assume they likely are all connected in some fashion.

💀💀💀

they’re easy to beat tho just parry em

@@forloco6508 i knoww,i beat them all up on every playthrough after knowing that

Now they just need to figure out how to make a poisonous swamp that is standalone enemy that also causes that games instant death status (curse, frenzy, terror, etc.)

They also exist within the Nightmare Frontier. Since you can see Mergos Loft (I.e. the nightmare of Mensis) from the Nightmare Frontier as well the ship masts from the Hunter’s Nightmare, the Frontier always seemed to me to be the “dream plane” that other Nightmares and dreams can take place in. Basically largely featureless crags and swamps sparsely populated by nightmares with the occasional spill over when nightmare creatures manage to wander out of their associated nightmare. Hence why you find the winter lanterns and some Loran silverbeasts in there.

@@TheCrewExpendable @TheCrewExpendable both the nightmare of mensis and the nightmare frontier always seemed to me to be an almost perfected version of a man made nightmare the fact we see Maria in the hunters nightmare but only after Maria in the fishing hamlet do I remember seeing any they seem to be directly caused by humans messing with old ones/nightmares

The Player becoming a Great One in the end is because the Doll is now inhabited by a Great One itself and is helping/guiding the player to become its surrogate child, as most Great One's surrogate children die. The same Great One also manifests as the Bath Messengers. The Winter Lanterns reflect the Doll's appearance because it's the same Great One manifesting through various physical forms, and that's why they cause so much Frenzy- the player cannot handle the truth that it is literally being groomed by a Great One to go through the events of the game, eliminate the Paleblood Moon who intentionally kills off Great Ones' children, and be reborn as one themselves. The game states that Great Ones will oppose one another for reasons both understandable and beyond our comprehension. Paleblood Moon Presence has some sincere interest in killing other Great Ones off and seems to employ Hunters to that effect with great success, though almost all of them would have no idea they are used for such a purpose.

@@Rakshael Jesus Christ dude, quit spamming this.

I usually just bait out the grab then dodge behind and visceral. Slapping on some frenzy resist clothes (ashen hunter set I think, the boring gray one) makes the buildup totally manageable. Heal on visceral rune is just icing on the cake. Can usually kill two before you even need to heal.

@@rainbowkrampus ashen hunter is primary fire resist

@@rainbowkrampus hence Ashen

An even riskier but cooler method is to have low frenzy resistance (around 130), then parry the lantern during its grab and do a visceral. If your frenzy resistance is low enough, you'll reach the full bar during the visceral animation and you won't take any damage, because you're invincible during a visceral attack

@@theedethproof8147 frenzy as well. also, fire DEF, while frenzy RES. different stats.

I thought the same

I've always liked this interpretation as well, they're meant to intimidate the player by twisting what to us is familiar and safe. After all, they're only found in the nightmare areas.

So you'd see your family or friend as a hideous monstrosity? That's fucking terrifying.

Thanks! I hate it

@@spacefaringyoshi exactly

ds3's jailers would like to know your location

I always enjoy seeing you around, beloved knight of Carim.

This is the fith time I saw you this year!

Who?

@@Izzmonster The jailers of Irythil dungeon. Damn do I hate these guys.

So true! I want to see a video on that shitter

The Labyrinth Sages are the most terrifying enemies I've ever encountered in a video game. They're scarier than anything I've seen in horror games. The twitchy, unrealistically fast movement and their overall design, paired with their gut-wrenching screams is pure nightmare fuel. Also them being called "Labyrinth Sage" and knowing how knowledge works in Bloodborne, has me thinking they lost their mind and became that way, because they tried to comprehend what's happening in Bloodborne's universe. But trying to comprehend something incomprehensible just lead them to become mad. The Sage's Wrist and Sage's Hair they drop, states that they were sacrificed by the healing church in their search for truth. I don't know if that implies they once worked for the church or what, because their clothes look ancient, as if they've always been in the Dungeons.

They are a pain, but are somehow manageable (except the corpse carrying one). The Hellhounds on the other hand come in pairs and WILL stunlock the shit out of you

@@chrisjanzen7748 damn, i really wanted that the Chalice Dungeons were more than a place you just go for gems, theres so much potencial in there

They are also in a part of the Fishing Hamlet but it makes sense since it it's in the Hunters Nightmare

The Nightmare of Mensis also has a lot of them guarding a bridge

yeah, dex weapons suck

Dex has nothing to do with it. I used dex weapons in my recent playthroughs and as long as you’re carrying a weapon that thrusts, then that thrust attack interrupts their moves/grab attack. Plus, with high dex, clawmark runes, and a good knowledge of parry windows, you can visceral the crap out of most enemies and deal a staggering amount of damage.

You can "parry" the grab

Agreed

Still better singers than Lil Pump

That's a really good idea. What interest do they have in replicating the doll though? I thought the doll was just Gehrman's random creation

@@aclkeba maybe they learned the doll is alive in the dream, so thinks its a path to accending?

@@aclkeba for secks

@@aclkeba There are implications that other hunters used the Doll to strengthen themselves during Hunts. The School of Mensis wanted to harness that power for themselves, but their attempts at replicating the Doll have proven unsuccessful.

@@AchillesFeel all those mouths 😩

The Player becoming a Great One in the end is because the Doll is now inhabited by a Great One itself and is helping/guiding the player to become its surrogate child, as most Great One's surrogate children die. The same Great One also manifests as the Bath Messengers. The Winter Lanterns reflect the Doll's appearance because it's the same Great One manifesting through various physical forms, and that's why they cause so much Frenzy- the player cannot handle the truth that it is literally being groomed by a Great One to go through the events of the game, eliminate the Paleblood Moon who intentionally kills off Great Ones' children, and be reborn as one themselves. The game states that Great Ones will oppose one another for reasons both understandable and beyond our comprehension. Paleblood Moon Presence has some sincere interest in killing other Great Ones off and seems to employ Hunters to that effect with great success, though almost all of them would have no idea they are used for such a purpose.

@@Rakshael and where exactly is that stated? Like when did someone remotely say that she was "inhabited" by a great one, an unknown great one that no one knows of and just suddenly appears out of nowhere just as the hunter transforms inhabits the doll for unknown reasons cause since it's a dream it could very well be in its normal form Your theory is quite nice but it's way too far fetched to be the answer

That doesn't even slightly fit the lore of the game. Stop spamming it, please.

Imagine Gascoigne seeing his family in the winter lanterns ... no wonder that most hunters lose their sanity sooner or later

@@Rakshael Actually, the lore implies just this. - Every hunt, it would appear that Moon Presence, or 'Flora' would employ hunters for population control and evolution. - Yes, it is specifically stated that great ones tend to lose their children, which is most likely in due part to Moon Presence, and their efforts to make the HUNT a regular occurrence. Those previous points would indicate the correctness in gods fighting among one another, which is why their children are killed off, in some vague attempt to have a pro-dominant, alpha deity. But that isn't true, either. Moon Presence might've potentially enacted the hunt in order to prevent themselves from waning, depleting in power, to the point where they might lose divinity, becoming mortal because of the lack of spiritual energy being recycled back to them. This would go hand-in-hand with the lore, stating that gods lose their children. If the god dies, their entire line will go with them, moreover-- a weak god cannot procreate viably, due to the fact that they cannot protect their offspring. We know that the Orphan of Kos was the offspring of perhaps one of the more benevolent and kind of the great ones, and, if we respect the idea that Moon Presence orchestrated the hunt in most of its existence and history-- Flora is responsible for the hunters, Ludwig, Gehrman and some others, going after that goddess. The entire DLC all but screams "Gehrman is the father!" to your face, when you look at the events that are narrated through the environmental story. First, you arrive in Yharnam, a city that has clearly seen better days. Beasts everywhere-- Blood-drunk hunters, at odds with themselves, possibly at war with the FIRST hunt in the entire lore. This might've been the canonical beginning, but, the DLC is 100% a dream, a recollection of a past, not the happenings of a present. The implication is that, somewhere, somehow, beasts came about, which drove the men insane, and the men would slaughter the beasts, which would render the beasts pretty much subdued and scared. This might've been near the END of a hunt, where the 'Heroes' won. The beasts had lost, and the fearful hairy monsters would be brought to extinction. This might've even been AFTER the first hunt, at a point where hunters had more experience-- hell-- and better gear. It goes without saying, the lore doesn't even TOUCH the doll to any degrees that matter, beyond, maybe a single reference. So, she isn't likely to be the inhabitant of a great one... necessarily. The second DLC Scenario happens at the church's unethical grounds. A place where people, willing or unwilling, were locked up and experimented on. The purpose of this area was to replicate a god. Literally, the point of human experimentation was like their attempt at building Captain America. They wanted to create BETTER hunters, or-- they just wanted to create an idol of worship. Regardless of your opinion on that fact, you meet Amelia, or a vision of her, before she saw the unethical practices of the church, then decided that her actions that supported the church were too unbearable. She got rid of her weapon and ended her life. Now, you fight her corpse, which inevitably begins an Act-3. Before you even see Amelia, note: The prior boss is called "Living Failures," on account of the church experiments, creating something powerful. They're failures because they did NOT successfully turn into the idol they hoped. If we play the main game; it's clear they held a god of sorts, beneath their own structure. Below the ground, out of sight, Ebrietas would be held. A theory, but only just, claims that Ebrietas is the daughter of Kos. The true offspring. Another theory, but still only that, claims that Ebrietas was a successful experiment, which would make the most sense, given the Living Failures are what the church did wrong-- why would they STOP at the failures, and not manage to create ONE successful god? They even collaberated with this god, slowly perpetuating Bloodborn's main plot. Ebrietas was a part in the 'present day' hunt even occurring. The third Act sees the player follow in the shadows, the implied location, of a large hunt, which is probably where a LOT of the canonical events happened, prior to your arrival, some long moments later. This third act didn't just happen during a hunt, it was the closing moments, the hours that closed the hunt, as the sun rises. If we believe Ebrietas is a successful god that the church created, it immediately contradicts the need for this theory, the theory implying that the Church tried a different method, other than LIVING FAILURES GLITCH, to create a powerful deity. The theory which insists that Gehrman necro-banged Lady Kos, which is how the orphan was born. But, if we assume Ebrietas was simply captured, not created, we can ground ourselves into the implied reality of the final boss of the DLC. Doll still irrelevant. Gehrman's cry is modified to be shoehorned into Orphan's opening cutscene. It could've been any scream, more blood-chilling, or freaky... but, we got that. There's no bloodborne characters with a less original voiceline than Orphan has. None. Take it with a grain of salt, I still don't see how the doll ties into anything here. Gehrman narrates the boss' ending. "Some... something... Sea... Some thing," which might've been an uncanny line, used to imply that Gehrman killed the bastard, personally. Orphan was probably crying for his father, who killed the creature because its inception was unethical and immoral, both. This, if not the experiments, locking people up and perhaps introducing a new series of mental disorders, did not push Maria to KILL HERSELF, then the impregnating a goddess, brink-of-death or literally true-dead, obviously did. Doll was modeled after Maria, before or after her death, which, if we want to grasp for ANY reason for the doll to be ANIMATE, we can say that Maria possessed the doll. Soul, not memories... body, not mind. Love of Gehrman, but no romance. She's a doll, dude. Laurence's role in the DLC plot? Doll has ZERO importance whatsoever. He got cocky, thought that "BLOOD THAT HEALS PEOPLE? GIVE EM' A POP! DO IT! DO IT, FEED PEOPLE THE BLOOD!" Before he was literally called a fucking "Vicar" and then eventually mutated into a giant beast-man. He died.

They might not be wearing anything - I theorise, as they fuck with players heads so much they can cause frenzy, they might just put on the illusion of something that should confuse the player, thus, their lower body is clumsily imitating the doll - maybe even specifically to lure the player to them ( alluring song ) so they devour him/her as their prey. Maybe everyone who sees, them would see them as someone else they know.

If their whole existence and sight causes frenzy, they could just be horrible memories from the hunter. Or only the "brain" exists and we imagine the doll.

I just figured they're literal nightmare creatures, appearing in nightmare segments of the dream, and as such they draw on and distort things familiar to any hunter who crosses their path because that's how some nightmares work. Sure the doll and the messengers are only ever helpful to the player but their origins and motives are so shrouded in mystery that continuing to be suspicious of them is a reasonable response. Draw upon and amplify those negative feelings and you get a nightmare beast that assaults the mind just as readily as the body.

the first time i played this game, i heard the singing before i knew where it was coming from and i was scared out of my mind. i think i gained an IRL frenzy meter in that moment 😂

to me, they're the equivalent of Royal Revenants in Elden Ring. though there's a counter for those dreadful creatures, I am still shitting myself whenever I see one same thing applies to these twerps.

Do you ever run out of the estus equivalent in BB? I haven't played it but I heard that you get it from killing enemies and apparently they drop less the more you go through the same area. Is there a merchant you can get it from too?

@@akiraigarashi2874 don't worry about it. You might get close to running out but trust me you won't. And, yes there's a merchant from the start with the heals (blood vials). But, the price doubles as you progress through the game. Good luck on your journey through Yharnam, Hunter.

@@akiraigarashi2874 Blood vials are expendable items, so it IS possible to run out of them, but you can just go back to an earlier area and kill enemies there cos they drop with decent regularity regardless of how many times you do it.

So the thing that looks like everyone's waifu is vulnerable to thrust attacks? Nice.

Also, unlike the Winters Lanterns, the Aristocratic Jailers carry lanterns.

I've heard someone say that these games are built around the idea that if you get hit, it's your fault. Now I understand why this type of enemy is so frustrating - context.