The Plot

[Pony Princess]

So, I'm probably just an idiot, or maybe I want to read into things too much. What is the actual story of the game? What I gathered so far is like, you're the one guy who survived the thing in the first level/boss, which I don't even know what that was, and now you're going around killing everyone belonging to the religion? And something something about a "miracle" that does something to everyone? I really don't get it. Anyone feel like breaking it down for me?

[Jakethesnake12124]

Originally posted by Pony Princess:

So, I'm probably just an idiot, or maybe I want to read into things too much. What is the actual story of the game? What I gathered so far is like, you're the one guy who survived the thing in the first level/boss, which I don't even know what that was, and now you're going around killing everyone belonging to the religion? And something something about a "miracle" that does something to everyone? I really don't get it. Anyone feel like breaking it down for me?

So basically you follow the story of the penitent one, a silent protagonist who was killed for opposing the rule of Escribar, head of the church, and are dead. You awake and go on a bloody revenge story to kill the man who destroyed your order. On the way you kill the followers of Escribar and manifestations of the miracle. The story is sumarized in lore descriptions and other tidbits. Your living in the aftermath of a war between escribar and the brotherhood of the silent sorrow, a world were everything is pretty much hell.

[Pony Princess]

oh wow. Thanks a ton! I love the feel of the game's universe but I really wanted to understand what was going on to complete the picture. Thanks again!

[The Fountaineer 🖋]

At first I thought the Miracle was a sort of sentient phenomena that afflicted everyone in different ways. Apparently its basically like, the “Silent Hill-ification” of everyone in the land, turning everything into avatars of sin sorta?

[Velarune]

I've beaten the game, read every lore description on every item, seen everything the game has to offer, and yet it still doesn't make much sense. The game is very poorly explained and a lot of details are left out. It never explains what the pointy hats are about, and a bunch of characters wear them throughout the game. It doesn't explain why we dumped the blood of the first boss on our head. The list goes on and on about things that have no explanation.

The further the game went on, the more I started to understand what was actually going on. This game is basically a fetish fantasy. There's a lot of bdsm themes, torture porn, and just general weird stuff that you only end up seeing in some psychotic person's basement. There's multiple instances of people begging to be tortured and to feel pain, and they feel pleasure when it happens.

Beyond the half way point of the game is when I strongly got the impression that they crammed their fetishes into the game and then slapped on a story to create an excuse for it to exist. Which would also explain why the story is so terrible. So many people will defend this game and claim the story is the most amazing thing ever. But I can guarantee that anyone playing through this blind, without any outside knowledge of the game or plot analysis of any sort, will have no idea what is happening.

[The Fountaineer 🖋]

Theres tinfoil hats, and there’s tinfoil suits like in this post ^, lol.

You must not know a whole lot about the history of religious suffering/penance if all you can see is “fetish material”. Its a theme thats common in many paths of belief. I dunno what you mean by “torture porn”, this ♥♥♥♥ is tame compared to in real life belief systems its based off of. No offense but this post just came off as really ignorant of a few things (including BDSM but we wont get into that).

[Velarune]

Originally posted by William See:

Theres tinfoil hats, and there’s tinfoil suits like in this post ^, lol.

You must not know a whole lot about the history of religious suffering/penance if all you can see is “fetish material”. Its a theme thats common in many paths of belief. I dunno what you mean by “torture porn”, this ♥♥♥♥ is tame compared to in real life belief systems its based off of. No offense but this post just came off as really ignorant of a few things (including BDSM but we wont get into that).

Well let's see...we've got the plot dump guy that follows you around and points you in the right direction. He wears a rope thong which is also wrapped around his whole torso, and you can see how tight it is as it's digging into his body. That's not religious.

There's the lady that is tied up in a sort of silky bed and being constantly whipped. Being whipped was a form of punishment, but in this case she's taking pleasure from it. Religious stuff didn't punish people if they enjoyed it because that's defeating the purpose of being punished.

There is the guy that grew into the tree. He begged for punishment and pain and was turned into a tree. Once again, he found pleasure in that as he smiled and felt relief as his body transformed. Religious punishment isn't supposed to make the person happy.

There's a lot more examples. It's easy to see the things in this game from a different perspective if you actually took the time to look. But instead you decide to try and insult a person, which only makes me wonder if it's even worth trying to continue this discussion. The tin foil hat comment makes no sense since I wasn't spouting anything to do with conspiracies or being paranoid in any sort of way. There's also nothing in what I said that shows any form of ignorance since I wasn't stating anything in a factual or knowledgeable way.

[The Fountaineer 🖋]

Originally posted by Fenixx:

Originally posted by William See:

Theres tinfoil hats, and there’s tinfoil suits like in this post ^, lol.

You must not know a whole lot about the history of religious suffering/penance if all you can see is “fetish material”. Its a theme thats common in many paths of belief. I dunno what you mean by “torture porn”, this ♥♥♥♥ is tame compared to in real life belief systems its based off of. No offense but this post just came off as really ignorant of a few things (including BDSM but we wont get into that).

Well let's see...we've got the plot dump guy that follows you around and points you in the right direction. He wears a rope thong which is also wrapped around his whole torso, and you can see how tight it is as it's digging into his body. That's not religious.

There's the lady that is tied up in a sort of silky bed and being constantly whipped. Being whipped was a form of punishment, but in this case she's taking pleasure from it. Religious stuff didn't punish people if they enjoyed it because that's defeating the purpose of being punished.

There is the guy that grew into the tree. He begged for punishment and pain and was turned into a tree. Once again, he found pleasure in that as he smiled and felt relief as his body transformed. Religious punishment isn't supposed to make the person happy.

There's a lot more examples. It's easy to see the things in this game from a different perspective if you actually took the time to look. But instead you decide to try and insult a person, which only makes me wonder if it's even worth trying to continue this discussion. The tin foil hat comment makes no sense since I wasn't spouting anything to do with conspiracies or being paranoid in any sort of way. There's also nothing in what I said that shows any form of ignorance since I wasn't stating anything in a factual or knowledgeable way.

Because whats more likely, that theres a hidden story that you simply don’t understand/haven’t had explained adequately yet or that the devs just said “♥♥♥♥ it, torture porn” and made a whole game about it. Thats why I said it sounded tinfoil suit-y. I just think you’re looking at it from a very shallow out of context angle.

And yeah, you’re not *supposed to take pleasure from punishment, but some people do.The parts of your brain that feel pain are closely associated with pleasure, and thus historically, emotionally and thematically speaking some people derive pleasure from pain. It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with gratification, moreso relief or absolvement of guilt though, and as far as I’m aware (gotten 95% so far) there isn’t any outright statements or implications that any character enjoys whats happening.

Its like if you looked at my artwork out of context for example and said “well, I dunno why this guy constantly draws people bleeding and holding swords, I think he just likes violence”. Theres a lot more factors that go into it

[Pony Princess]

Originally posted by William See:

It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with gratification, moreso relief or absolvement of guilt.

Bing bang bong. The concepts of religeons requiring self-abuse or self-mutilation (generally ritually) is pretty common throughout history. While a penitent flagellant might suffer from the pain and experience no pleasure from it, they might beg for more abuse because they feel the torture is a way of cleansing their soul.

[azhi.dahaka]

Originally posted by Fenixx:

There is the guy that grew into the tree. He begged for punishment and pain and was turned into a tree. Once again, he found pleasure in that as he smiled and felt relief as his body transformed. Religious punishment isn't supposed to make the person happy.

Yes it is, at least in some cases. Aquinas, for instance, clearly speaks of the fact that, though punishment is prima facie something unpleasant, it is however pleasant inasmuch as it provides relief from the angst of sinfulness, as the previous poster rightly suggests. The tapestry of traditional religious feelings is rich and diverse and, provided that one can reasonably be said to obey God's commands in a meaningful way, pretty much anything goes, I would say.

[The Full English Breakfast]

Originally posted by Fenixx:

Originally posted by William See:

Theres tinfoil hats, and there’s tinfoil suits like in this post ^, lol.

You must not know a whole lot about the history of religious suffering/penance if all you can see is “fetish material”. Its a theme thats common in many paths of belief. I dunno what you mean by “torture porn”, this ♥♥♥♥ is tame compared to in real life belief systems its based off of. No offense but this post just came off as really ignorant of a few things (including BDSM but we wont get into that).

Well let's see...we've got the plot dump guy that follows you around and points you in the right direction. He wears a rope thong which is also wrapped around his whole torso, and you can see how tight it is as it's digging into his body. That's not religious.

There's the lady that is tied up in a sort of silky bed and being constantly whipped. Being whipped was a form of punishment, but in this case she's taking pleasure from it. Religious stuff didn't punish people if they enjoyed it because that's defeating the purpose of being punished.

There is the guy that grew into the tree. He begged for punishment and pain and was turned into a tree. Once again, he found pleasure in that as he smiled and felt relief as his body transformed. Religious punishment isn't supposed to make the person happy.

Dude, the whole of christian religion is about, martyrdom, suffering and punishment. Jesus suffered and died for your sins, to save you from eternal hell. A lots of christian saints endured gruesome torture happily for their believes. Suffering is a form of penitence which grants forgivness and salvation, just take a look of christian self-flagellants. Blasphemous draws exclusively from that aspect and turns it into overdrive. Everybody is so much into pain in the game, because they believe the gruesome fate of the miracle can only be absolved through penitence and suffering, and they are happily doing it, because it means they will be saved. Really, no disrespect, but the whole punishment stuff is main aspect of abrahamic religions, which blasphemous is based on...

[Velarune]

I know all about the punishments and religious things. But you have to admit that it also borders on the line of going in a different direction. If you play through the game with a different idea in mind, such as a sexual theme, then it's very surprising how much stuff in this game caters to that. Take out the religious babbling and this would fit perfectly as an erotic adventure. Escribar has cast a curse over the land and sent everyone into a sexual frenzy, and it's up to you, the Abstinent Avenger, to put an end to everything. Could be fun.

[Pony Princess]

if you go through super mario brothers with communism in mind you'll discover that mario, representing the common man, stands up against the monarchy, collects his coins for re-distribution, and as he completes a level, he raises a flag with a red star.

You can also pretend that your character in Doom (1993) is a completely naked female supermodel with a gruff voice who's fighting through hell to rescue her lover, who was damned for being a lesbian.

And, of course, when playing Asteroids (1979) it's the most fun when you consider that you are a manifestation of a dreaming human ESPer who is trying to prevent giant dragon eggs from hatching in space.

[Atomic Seance]

you are heavy metal jesus

[OneWingedJehuty]

I think there's a lot that isn't explained in the game. For example, the pinned answer says that the Brotherhood of Silent Sorrow was killed for opposing Escribar's reign. Nowhere in the game is that specifically stated. In fact, we know very little related to the Silent Sorrow, especially compared to the Convent of Our Lady of the Charred Visage.

All we know is that (1) the Silent Sorrow's silence is not reversible - it is forced upon them by the Miracle like all others in this world. This is described in the prequel comic; and (2) Crisanta was part of whatever slaughtered them. Since the Penitent One's goal is to kill Escribar and Crisanta defends Escribar, it makes sense that Escribar authorized the action, but we don't know why. We also don't know why a character whose name seems associated with the Silent Sorrow (the Warden) seemed to partake in the slaughter as well.

I also don't think the world is as ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up as it is because of "a war between Escribar and the Silent Sorrow." The Miracle has had an influence on the world for centuries, according to the lore, and much of what we see in the world is entirely unrelated to what happened to the Silent Sorrow. For example, many of the creatures the Penitent One fights have an origin related to the Turned Throne and the Mountain of Ash, which happened far earlier than the beginning of the game.

It also seems clear that in Cvstodia, no one seems adamantly attempting to reverse or defeat the Miracle, or whatever entity it came from. So it's hard to say that the Penitent One is seeking to end the church or the religion. In fact, there are indicators that the Miracle is advocating or in control of all of this. Though why it would have the Penitent One kill many of its followers - like the bosses - is, again, unknown.

And I think that's okay. Not everything has to be definitively explained. It permits us the ability to disagree with each other on what's going on, and every little bit of info more we receive can help mold our opinions.

[popehentai]

i.... what? people think the penintents were getting PLEASURE out of the suffering? no, they may get a sense satisfaction from it, but they dont enjoy it, and enjoying it would defeat the whole purpose of it. Killing them, or ending the suffering, may be seen as "relief" but is definitely not any more pleasurable than pulling out a painful splinter.