Insight.05: Provost Willem - Fear the Old Blood

“We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. Fear the old blood.”

This exceedingly famous maxim is the philosophy that serves as the starting point for all tragedies in the history of Yharnam, the intersection of gothic horror and Cosmic Horror constructed by FromSoftware. In this article, we will conduct an extremely detailed dissection and examination of “Provost Willem,” the head of Byrgenwerth, the indirect father of the Healing Church, and a tragic seeker swallowed by madness in the chasm between human evolution and Cosmic Horror. His footsteps perfectly embody the arrogance of medical science and the dark side of eugenics in the Victorian era, as well as the philosophy of “unknown cosmic terror and human insignificance” that underlies the Cthulhu Mythos.

1. The Quest into the Abyss and the Dawn of Byrgenwerth

Deep beneath Yharnam, in the darkness of the multi-layered Pthumerian Labyrinth, it all began. Provost Willem and the young scholars who followed him discovered the “holy medium” (the Old Blood) within that underground maze known as the tomb of the gods.

[Facts and Background] As a fact explicitly stated in the game, Willem’s purpose lay in pure academic inquiry. He made it his supreme imperative to accelerate human evolution and reach a higher plane of thought and existence. His own surviving words, “We are thinking on the basest of planes,” illustrate his fundamental sense of impatience. Furthermore, Byrgenwerth had two loyal servants sworn to him, one of whom was “Dores,” who later became the graveguard of the Forbidden Woods. This corroborates the fact that Willem thoroughly rejected external interference and immersed himself in heretical studies within an isolated environment.

[Philosophical and Historical Considerations] In the game’s worldview, which is likened to the Victorian era, Byrgenwerth is a symbol of an academy where science and mysticism fused while remaining undifferentiated. According to compelling theories from the community and circumstantial evidence, the character design of Willem is heavily influenced by the shadow of “Wilhelm Wundt,” the real-life founder of experimental psychology. The historical fact that Wundt’s beloved disciple, Oswald Külpe, broke away from his mentor to establish his own laboratory (the Würzburg School) serves as a perfect metaphor for the schism between Willem and Laurence. Willem balanced philosophical speculation on the origins of life with ruthlessly cold scientific dissection, confronting the truth of Cosmic Horror: the actual existence of transcendent “Great Ones” in the universe that defy human comprehension. However, rather than bowing down in fear, he began to seek a path to reach their equal heights through the use of intellect.

2. “Fear the Old Blood” — The Schism of Ideologies and the Metaphor of Quicksilver

The Old Blood possessed miraculous properties capable of curing any illness. However, Willem sharply perceived the fatal pitfall lurking within its essence.

[Integration of Facts] The most important pillar of Willem’s teachings was the warning to “Fear the Old Blood.” He encouraged his disciples to seek Insight and ascension through methods other than relying on the Old Blood. However, despite his severe warnings, his beloved disciple Laurence was captivated by the possibilities of the Old Blood, defecting from Byrgenwerth to establish the Healing Church. The widespread popularization of this “Blood Communion” among the masses ultimately triggered the spread of the Scourge of the Beast, which would ruin Yharnam. The pendant clutched by Vicar Amelia is engraved with this very maxim to “fear the blood,” illustrating the ironic fact that the Healing Church, despite knowing Willem’s warning, reduced it to a mere formality and operated the organization in a manner that directly contradicted it.

[Consideration of Causality and Hidden Sins] This parting of ways was not merely a conflict between master and disciple, but a divergence of two madnesses: Willem, who preached “internal evolution through the mind and eyes,” and Laurence, who believed in “external evolution (or healing) through flesh and blood.” What is particularly noteworthy here is the theory that, in contrast to the fact that the cause of the Scourge of the Beast lies in the Old Blood, the path to the Great Ones (Kin) sought by Willem is tied to “quicksilver.” Quicksilver has been a mystical substance in alchemy since ancient times, while severe mercury poisoning simultaneously causes hallucinations and mental derangement. The “Paleblood” (or Kin blood) shed by Willem himself and the Kin he created serves as a metaphor for this quicksilver; it can be interpreted that as a result of avoiding blood (the Beasthood of the flesh), they fell into another form of madness caused by quicksilver (the transformation of the mind into Kin).

The following table compares the decisive differences between these two ideologies and the fates they brought about.

Considering that the Healing Church later caused a tragedy that engulfed all of Yharnam, Willem’s fears were entirely correct. However, the path of Willem, who rejected the blood, was also by no means one of sanity.

3. The Limits of Human Intellect and the Acquisition of “Eyes on the inside”

“Disillusioned by the limits of human intellect, Master Willem looked to beings from higher planes for guidance, and sought to line his brain with eyes in order to elevate his thoughts.”

The vessel of human reason was too small to comprehend the abyss of the cosmos. Willem confronted this ruthless fact and reached a state where a kind of nihilism and fanaticism intermingled.

[Integration of Facts] The conclusion he derived was that in order for humanity to catch up with the thoughts of gods (the Great Ones), it was necessary to remake the very structure of the physical body. That is the concept of “lining the brain with eyes.” In Willem’s teachings, the physical eyeballs that reflect the outside world were rather an obstacle that averted one’s gaze from the truth. This ideology was later inherited by “The Choir,” the highest-ranking members of the Healing Church who continued the lineage of Byrgenwerth. The text for the “Blindfold Cap,” a piece of equipment used by The Choir, states, “The eye-covering indicates their debt to the teachings of Master Willem, even though their paths diverged.” This attire boasts the highest Arcane defense among all headpieces, proving from a systemic standpoint that they close off their physical sight to protect themselves from Cosmic Horror. Furthermore, Willem took great pride in the “Caryll Runes” created by his student, the runesmith Caryll. The text for the Rune Workshop Tool states, “Provost Willem would have been proud of Caryll’s runes, as they do not rely upon blood in any measure.” This technique, which transcribed the inhuman sounds of the Great Ones into runes, was a revolutionary method of gaining supernatural power by etching them directly into the brain without relying on blood whatsoever. In particular, the “Eye” Caryll Rune is a relic symbolizing the very truth that Willem himself sought and explored, and he possesses it himself.

[Philosophical and Mythological Considerations] This motif of “gaining true sight (inner sight) by becoming blind” is deeply connected to the prophet Tiresias and the poet Demodocus in ancient Greek mythology. In exchange for losing their physical eyesight, they were granted supernatural knowledge and perception by the gods. Physical sight is bound to the material world (the world of Beasthood), but opening Eyes on the inside is the only means to access the logic of the cosmos (the dimension of the Great Ones)—here lies the culmination of Platonic idealism. Additionally, it is worth noting that the design of the “Eye” Caryll Rune closely resembles the “Elder Sign” (a design featuring a burning eye in the center of a distorted pentagram) devised by August Derleth, a writer of the Cthulhu Mythos. This suggests that Willem’s quest was entirely an approach toward forbidden knowledge (Necronomicon-esque truth) within Lovecraftian cosmology.

4. The Tragedy of the Fishing Hamlet and the Great Sin of the Scholars

While Willem’s quest was cloaked in sublime philosophy, its reality was extremely bloody and devoid of ethics. His obsession with “eyes” would eventually trigger an irreversible great sin. That is the massacre and inhumane human experimentation conducted in the remote “Fishing Hamlet,” which is revealed in the DLC.

[Considerations from Facts and Circumstances] Behind this gruesome incident was the presence of the corpse of the Great One “Kos,” which washed up on the shores of the Fishing Hamlet, or perhaps the existence of its child. The scholars of Byrgenwerth invaded the village to unravel the ecology of the unknown Great One and the secret of the “eyes” they possessed. They (along with the earliest Hunters, including Gehrman) committed a madness-filled atrocity: physically cracking open the skulls of the villagers to literally and physically search for whether eyes had grown inside them.

This event strongly reflects the eugenics of the Victorian era and the madness of inhumane human experimentation conducted in the name of medical research. In the medical community of that time, there was a dark side where grave robbing and the murder of the poor were tacitly approved to obtain corpses for dissection. Even as Willem preached to “fear the blood,” he did not possess a shred of hesitation in shedding the blood of innocent people and cracking their skulls for the sake of academic inquiry seeking knowledge and evolution. This hypocrisy and arrogance are the true sins of Byrgenwerth. And due to this great sin, the Orphan of Kos cast an eternal curse upon Byrgenwerth and the Hunters. The reason Willem became a target, and why subsequent Hunters continue to be trapped in the Avici-like hell of the “Hunter’s Nightmare,” lies in this original sin of “a massacre cloaked as pure academic inquiry.” Provost Willem, who sought the truth, had completely lost his ethics as a human being in the process.

5. One Third of Umbilical Cord and Rom, the Vacuous Spider

To line the brain with eyes and elevate the plane of thought to be equal to that of the Great Ones—as the ultimate means to this end, what Willem frantically sought was the “One Third of Umbilical Cord.”

[Integration of Facts] The text for the “One Third of Umbilical Cord” reads as follows: “Every Great One loses its child, and then yearns for a surrogate… Provost Willem sought the Cord in order to elevate his being and thoughts to those of a Great One, by lining his brain with eyes.” Another text clearly states that he knew it (the cord) was the only option for humanity to match their greatness. The Great Ones possess the nature that they all lose their children, and then yearn for a surrogate.

This quest of Willem’s culminated in the creation of a single monstrosity in the Moonside Lake that spreads beside Byrgenwerth. That is “Rom, the Vacuous Spider.” The text for the Lunarium Key contains the following decisive description: “In his final years, Master Willem was fond of the lookout that faced the lake, and the rocking chair that he kept there for meditation. In the end, it is said, he left his secret with the lake.”

[Consideration of Causality] Rom was not a Great One from the beginning. According to compelling theories in the community, she was likely a scholar of Byrgenwerth (or a being discovered by Willem) who ascended to become a Great One through a ritual using the “One Third of Umbilical Cord” under Willem’s guidance, or through the study of Kos. However, as the price for this, Rom completely lost her human reason and was reduced to being “vacuous.” Willem succeeded in some form of communication with the Great Ones through Rom, and at the same time, by placing Rom at the bottom of the lake, he tasked her with the role of a bulwark to conceal the approaching “Blood Moon” (the true culprit of the Scourge of the Beast caused by the Mensis ritual) from Yharnam. The phrase “left his secret with the lake” in the key’s text refers to the hidden truth that he created this Great One, Rom, and confined her as a stopper (breakwater) for the ritual. The end of the evolution toward the Great Ones that he sought was the ultimate emptiness of being “vacuous.”

6. The Husk Sitting by the Lakeside — The Sorrow at the End of Evolution

At the end of his long quest and madness, the figure of Provost Willem that the player confronts at the Lunarium of Byrgenwerth is utterly miserable and beyond salvation.

[Environmental Storytelling Based on Facts] The great thinker who once stood at the pinnacle of Yharnam’s intellect and constructed the ideologies that became the matrix for numerous organizations now sits in a rocking chair, unable to utter a single word. Even when the player speaks to him, he is merely a being who points his staff toward the bottom of the lake (where Rom is) while letting out faint groans. Observing his physical body reveals that a decisive anomaly has occurred. Pale mycelium or crystal-like growths cluster from the nape of his neck and the back of his head, and he is already losing his human physical structure. Furthermore, the blood that flows when he is attacked is not human red blood, but the “Paleblood” (or gray bodily fluid) seen in the Kin of the Great Ones. Also, killing him drops the “Eye” Caryll Rune and a large amount of Blood Echoes.

[Advanced Considerations Derived from Facts] This “Paleblood” proves that he used the One Third of Umbilical Cord and is undergoing “transformation into Kin” (or mutation into a Great One) both physically and mentally. However, what should be noted is the past-tense text in the Lunarium Key, “In the end, it is said, he left his secret with the lake,” and his own abnormal state. According to some deep and sharp theories, the Willem we confront is already “dead,” and what remains is nothing more than an “illusion” or “conceptual residue” maintained by Rom’s power or his own immense Insight. Similar to the fates of Gehrman and Laurence, there is a possibility that he too is trapped in madness in a form that transcends physical death. It should be noted that while unimplemented defense motions (attack animations) exist in the game data where he uses his staff to protect himself from the player, the fact that he offers absolutely no resistance in the main game emphasizes that he exists in a dimension where he has lost even the instinct for self-preservation.

He may indeed have touched the unknown logic of the cosmos and begun to open his Eyes on the inside. However, in the process, he completely lost his human ego and ability to communicate, becoming a solitary monster who merely points at the lake for eternity amidst the ruins he himself created. The “Eye” rune obtained from him is the crystallization of the truth he acquired at the end of his quest, but the fact that he himself, having obtained it, can speak nothing, encapsulates the greatest irony in Cosmic Horror. If one pours the truth of the cosmos into the insignificant vessel of a human, the vessel itself has no choice but to collapse.

Conclusion: Blood and Eyes, the Intersection of Two Madnesses and the Price of Arrogance

To summarize the entirety of the figure known as Provost Willem, he is a character who embodies “the limits of human intellect in Cosmic Horror, and the tragic end of one who forcibly tried to surpass them.”

He rightfully feared the danger of the Old Blood and foresaw the ruin that Laurence would bring. In that regard, he was a wise man with certain foresight, keeping his distance from the Scourge of the Beast that destroyed Yharnam. However, the approach of ascension through “eyes” (Insight) chosen by him, who rejected the blood, also brought a completely different form of ruin to Byrgenwerth: inhumane vivisections, the massacre of innocent people in the Fishing Hamlet, and the complete loss of humanity.

Before the overwhelming and merciless scale of the cosmos, human intellect is equivalent to microscopic dust. Willem’s greatest sin was not rejecting the temptation of blood, but the academic “arrogance” itself of believing that he could reach into the realm of the gods with his own insignificant intellect. He never became drunk on blood, but he was intoxicated by excessive Insight and the quest for knowledge. Just as Laurence, who clung to blood, was reduced to a hideous beast burning in flames, Willem, who sought eyes, was also reduced to a vacuous Kin, growing mycelium on his brain and merely staring into the void.

In the history of madness and nightmares that shrouds Yharnam, Willem is not a mere bystander. He is the very first sinner who opened the lid of the abyss that humans were never meant to know and peered into its depths; he is the architect who designed the root cause of it all. “Fear the old blood”—the old man who left behind this curse-like maxim remains bound by his own warning and arrogance, still eternally pointing at the bottom of the answerless lake under the moonlight. His silence is the most cruel answer (Cosmic Horror) to all of humanity attempting to seek the truth of the cosmos.