#astral clock

[katzirra]

Honestly I had no idea what to do for my own prompt, but the idea of Ovid amongst some celestial/astral clocks in his sort of nothing dimension he resides in was interesting.

And just an excuse to use some watercolors/inks I wanted to.

I've really been kind of enjoying the way I haven't used the CHARACTER as the focal point in a lot of pieces, personally.

Join my Patreon for early access to goodies like this uwu/)

[ebrietas-chan]

“When the dial is held up towards the Astral Clock, the clock will come to life and reveal a secret to its curious interloper”.

[miirshroom]

Bloodborne - Astral Clock Research and Analysis

In my first post I covered the "Where", "What", and "Who" of the Astral Clock. Now I will examine "How" and "When".

What I mean by "How" is a meta question: how might the artists behind Bloodborne have developed the idea of the Astral Clock? What cultural ideas might have been drawn together that resulted in this final form? And what I mean by "When" is a game mechanic question - the Astral Clock as an expression of time of day as experienced throughout the game critical path.

How is the Astral Clock?

The visual design of the astral clock appears to have been inspired by a particular astronomical clock. The oldest and most well-known astronomical clock is found in Prague and dates to 1410. The outer border of the top section of the clock represents the time of day according to Ancient Czech time, which rotates at different rates throughout the year as it is calibrated to show the time remaining until the next sunset. The bottom section of the clock shows all days of the year around its outermost border, allegories for each of the months in the large set of 12 circles, and depictions of the zodiac signs in the small set of 12 circles.

Another example of an Astronomical clock is found at the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg in France. It has had a number of refurbishments over the years:

First astronomical clock since 1354

2nd astronomical clock since 1574

3rd astronomical clock since 1843

Something noteworthy about this cathedral is that parts of the front facade are found on this one building found in Anor Londo in Dark Souls - there’s the rose window, the rare architectural detail of vertical spikes above the door, and the statue niches flanking either side of the door. Although the area above the rose window is different, as if a second cathedral was stacked on top of the first one. Other significance notes about the Cathedral in Strasbourg are that opposite doors of the cathedral are dedicated to the death of the Virgin Mary at the south portal and to St. Lawrence the martyr at the north portal, which could be paralleled in Lady Maria and Laurence the First Vicar. Except in the case of Bloodborne it's more like Lady Maria in the ethereal "Heavens" and Laurence in firey "Hell".

But, the astral clock does not function like a simple clock that tells the time of day or time of year. Rather, it opens a portal to send the player to a destination based on what was dialed. In other words, it operates like a Stargate.

Stargate SG-1 is a TV show that ran for 10 seasons from 1997 to 2007. The titular Stargate is a wormhole between two points in space, and the location is reached by spinning the outer ring to “dialing” a set of coordinates by locking in the symbols around the border of the gate which represent constellations. The Astral Clock face spins around to dial its destination - travelling back in time to visit a memory - which in both cases is like an old school rotary phone is dialed by spinning around the circles. 

Another kindof related thing is that when activated the surface of the Stargate appears like a rippling pool of water, and there are certain locations in Bloodborne which are reached by teleportation via stepping into or out of a pool of water.

Something to mention here is that Stargate is pretty Egyptian themed. There are these parasitic snakes and they take people as host bodies and live for thousands of years, so way back in the day a bunch of them were on earth and were basically gods to the people of Egypt. Like Ra, Osiris, Set, Anubis, Hathor, and with the first main antagonist of the TV Show being Apophis the snake-themed god of darkness. 

There’s this thing in the show that whenever Apophis shows up he gets his leitmotif played and it reminded me of this one phrase in the Bloodborne End Credits theme. A side by side comparison:

Visit Original Link

Visit Original Link

That connection to Egypt is the next element to cross-reference. I’m not sure how common knowledge it is, but with Bloodborne taking place in the 1800’s in England that was the same time period as a wave of Egyptomania. The Rosetta Stone was first made accessible for study in 1803 and researchers spent the next century using it to translate hieroglyphs and recover information about the ancient Egyptian culture and gods that had been lost to the sands of time. The Great Ones who sing their runes are framed as basically Lovecraftian Old Ones who live outside of time. And it turns out that Lovecraft was inspired by the literal timeless and mysterious Egyptian gods that were popular in the zeitgeist of Victorian England. Hieroglyphs and Egypt feature in Lovecraft’s stories “Dagon” and “Nyarlathotep”, and then a couple years after the discovery of the tomb of King Tutankhamun he was commissioned to ghostwrite an adventure story for Harry Houdini called “Imprisoned with the Pharaohs” which in Lovecraft style features the indescribably horrifying creature that the Sphinx was based on (this one I learned about from Overly Sarcastic Productions videos on Mummy Stories). The timeline of these works and events, for reference:

Rosetta Stone displayed in London (1803)

Dagon (1917) - Hieroglyphs mentioned

Nyarlathotep (1920) - Egypt mentioned

Discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb (1922)

Imprisoned with the Pharaohs (1924)

Call of Cthulhu (1928)

One of the unique features of Bloodborne is the infinite dungeon system called “The Old Labyrinth”, or the “Chalice Dungeons” where can be found the ancient civilization of the Pthumerians. Basically, the whole setup of raiding ancient civilizations is analogous to the pillaging of tombs from Ancient Egypt of 3000BCE, except that its naming convention is based on the even older ancient Sumerian civilization from around 5000BCE. The Chalice Dungeons are the source of the highest tier of Caryll Runes, which are representational runes similar to the hieroglyphs used in the Egyptian writing system.

A final point to consider in this section: for Bloodborne being a game so musical in theme and with the amount of care put into the soundtrack, the influence of music artists should get its consideration. For precedent of Japanese media taking inspiration from English-language music, see JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. After all, FromSoftware does scatter JJBA references across their games.

Firstly, there's Rush. I've brought up Rush repeatedly in connection to Bloodborne and Elden Ring. The Rush album cover for their final album "Clockwork Angels" (2012) provides an example where the expected numerals on a clock face have been replaced by abstract (in this case - mostly alchemical) symbols, and yet it is still subtly used as a clock. The clock hands point to the time 21:12, which is the title of Rush's breakout 4th album. There are also 12 symbols for 12 songs on the album.

With the power of hindsight I'm also now looking back on the lyrics of the song "Freewill" from album "Permanent Waves" (1980) and it's easy to draw comparisons between the "celestial voice" and Bloodborne's "Great Ones". As if the game is taking place from the warped perspective of a person suffering religious paranoia and seeing "Holy Horrors" and "malign Gods" lurking in every dark corner.

"There are those who think that life has nothing left to chance A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance A planet of playthings, we dance on the strings of powers we cannot perceive The stars aren't aligned or the Gods are malign, blame is better to give than receive You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill I will choose a path that's clear, I will choose Freewill" - Freewill, Permanent Waves (1980)

But rather than just describing what freewill is not, the song also describes what it means to choose freewill. Making reference to scientific knowledge, while also acknowledging that outcomes are far from certain and awareness is imperfect, but people make their own meaning through the hunt itself: "Each of us, a cell of awareness, imperfect and incomplete. Genetic blends with uncertain ends on a fortune hunt that's far too fleet".

Blondie's 7th album "No Exit" (1999) references the Sartre play famous for the line "Hell is other people" - pulling in both the nature of the Astral Clock as trapping Yharnam in Samsara with no exit and Lady Maria's contempt for the terrible things that humans do when in pursuit of a hunt. The hit single "Maria" could not be more appropriate for describing the dynamic at play between Lady Maria and the doll made in her image: "Maria, you've gotta see her - Go insane and out of your mind - Regina, Ave Maria - A million and one candle lights - (Ooh, don't you wanna make her?) - (And don't you wanna take her home?)". Also the motif of bells in the song, compared to Lady Maria being found in a clocktower belfry.

How about the lyrics for the song "No Exit" as a descriptor for the Hunter hunting all night long: "There's no sin in this: getting dressed to kill, laughing down the sun like a jackal will. With his eyes ablaze and his lips apart he's going to fill his cup with the love in your heart and drink it up till the morning starts".

Or the first song of the album "Screaming skin" with again lyrics framing existence in the terms of biological knowledge: "I'm a multicellular individual. You're way out of proportion! We've got the hemodynamic connection. Don't call me germ!"

The medical metaphor reading of Bloodborne has been investigated at length by Charred Thermos on Youtube.

I've known of the album "Communion" (2008) by Septicflesh basically since the year of its release. It's an album themed around communication with non-human entities. I mean, just look at this track list where every single song could thematically apply to either the Astral Clock, the Labyrinth of the Gods where the highest tier of Caryll Runes are found (with 3 exceptions), or both.

1. "Lovecraft's Death" - The "Great Ones" compared to Lovecraft's "Old Ones" 2. "Anubis" - Egypt, Egyptomania, Hieroglyphs 3. "Communion" - Like the name of the rune 4. "Babel's Gate" - This is the Astral Clock in its totality. A confusion of sounds or voices. 5. "We, The Gods" - Gods send their instructions to the chose few through dreams. Bloodborne is a Hunter's dream/nightmare. 6. "Sunlight/Moonlight" - The Astral clock is not a mere 12-hour clock - it can be divided into a 24 hour clock that encompasses the hours of the sun and the hours of the moon. 7. "Persepolis" - A great city that disappeared into the sands is the descriptor applied to Ailing Loran in the chalice dungeons. 8. "Sangreal" - Chalice that caught the blood of Christ (according to Arthurian myth), again the chalice dungeons are like a quest for the holy grail. 9. "Narcissus" - A tale of Narcissus and Echo. Blood Echoes. Narcissus himself speaks words and perceives them as the individuality of another person. The horrifying truth of Bloodborne is that the "Great Ones" are not some mysterious "other" - because history is cyclical in nature, the "Great Ones" are simply the stories of the NPC characters, having been distorted as they echoed across time.

Lastly, I'm including "TRIPtych" (1999) by The Tea Party. It's an album that I've been familiar with for a long time, and by chance I ended up finding it again when browsing through physical CD's at my parents house. It's only with context of this research project that I recognized that Astrological clock from Prague. This too is an album themed around clocks and zodiac, where the 12 songs on the album presumably each correspond to a zodiac sign - but that's an exercise for the listener to determine. With what small amount that I know from them it hadn't occurred to me that the band's music would be considered occult and alchemical in nature until I saw them play at a local music festival a couple years ago and singer Jeff Martin made a joke about "black magic" before starting into the song "Temptation" from the preceding album "Transmission" (1997). Particular songs of note on TRIPtych would be "Underground" with lyrics about searching for sound, "Heaven Coming Down" which was the hit single nominated for a music award and also through the lens of occultism has had comparison made to Thelema, "The Halcyon Days" about a soul that burns in the cthonic realm of the dead after having a dream shattered, "Samsara" about being unable to reconcile the teachers of dreams with the pain and suffering of life, and "Chimera" which points to how it might not even be Bloodborne where this album is fully leveraged - it's Elden Ring where Radagon is connected to the concept of a chimera via the Leonine Misbegotten being tagged as "RadagonChimera" in internal game files.

I do not expect that these are all of the musical inspirations relevant to Bloodborne. These aren't even all of the ones that I personally have noticed in Bloodborne - just the ones most relevant to the Astral Clock. Although if there's one other reference that I think really ties the whole music-themed narrative together with the Faustian bargain between First Hunter and Moon Presence it would be the 1974 cult horror movie The Phantom of the Paradise.

When is the Astral Clock?

The main gameplay loop of Bloodborne takes place over the course of a single night. The sky changes after various checkpoints: “Evening” ends after defeating Father Gascoigne and entering Oedon Chapel, “Sunset” ends after defeating Vicar Amelia and touching the skull of Lawrence, there is a normal full moon in the sky during the “Nightfall” time period until defeating Rom the Vacuous, and then the “Blood Moon” continues until sunrise.

As a baseline for calibration I have checked the time of sunrise and sunset in London, England on the day of release for Bloodborne - March 24, 2015. Sunrise was at about 5:30am and Sunset at about 6:30pm. This gives some general parameters for how the Astral Clock may be split as a 12-hour clock.

Evening (4:30pm - 6:30pm)

Ends with defeat of Father Gascoigne

Sunset (6:30pm - 8:00pm)

Ends with defeat of Vicar Amelia

Nightfall (8:00pm - Midnight)

Ends with defeat of Rom the Vacuous

Blood Moon (Midnight - 5:30am)

Ends with end of game

Yharnam Sunrise (5:30am)

Also accounting for the positioning of the hands of the clock, after the beginning cutscene concludes the player enters the streets of Yharnam at about 4:30pm at the “Beast’s Embrace” rune then defeats Father Gascoigne around 6:30pm. What follows is the sort of twilight time of day that occurs just as the sun is setting - I’ve placed the defeat of Vicar Amelia at about 8:00pm on the basis that there is a mysterious unnamed Caryll Rune at this location and I am inferring that it’s representative of a decapitated head placed on an altar.

What I am most certain of is that the “Moon” Rune at 12’o’clock Midnight is representative of the Blood Moon rising. After this point in time the player do be communing with a sequence of the most bizarre and eldritch looking bosses in the game, in which the last boss would be Mergo’s Wet Nurse if the Yharnam Sunrise ending is selected. The span of time between midnight and 3’o’clock am is sometimes referred to as the “Witching Hour” where all kinds of weird stuff happens.

Closing Thoughts

Revisiting the question of “What is the Astral Clock” from the previous post, but this time digging deeper. Previously I said that it is: a clock, a set of 14 runes, a locked door, and an origin story for Lady Maria. With a higher amount of confidence, I would now say that the Astral Clock records a History of Yharnam, that it is a time machine, that is is a gate to the Abyss (more on that to follow), and that it is an “Oedon” - a mixed-up "singing place" which in Greek is called an "Odeon".

Next post discussing the 11'o'clock to 5'o'clock runes complete now

[whisperskat]

Astral Clock...