Orphan of Kos: the Child of a Dead Great One
The Orphan of Kos is the final boss of The Old Hunters, a child of the Great One Kos found screaming beside its mother's corpse. Killing it ends the curse behind the Hunter's Nightmare. Here is what the game states and what players read into it.
The Orphan of Kos is the child of Kos, the dead Great One lying on the shore of the Fishing Hamlet, and the final boss of Bloodborne: The Old Hunters. Its trophy reads "Defeat Great One: Orphan of Kos." The hamlet's surviving priest begs for it in his prayers: "Mercy for the poor, wizened child." (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
Who the Orphan of Kos is#
The Orphan is the child the hamlet mourns. Voices from the huts repeat "Mother is dead, her baby, taken", and "Scales are suffering, the grief of Kos." The priest who wanders near the entrance cries "By the wrath of Mother Kos... Mercy for the poor, wizened child," and calls down a curse of blood on Byrgenwerth's hunters "and their children, and their children's children, for evermore." (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
The game doesn't explain how a Great One came to have a child, or what the hunters did with it. The villagers say it was taken. The hunter finds it back on the beach beside its mother, inside the Nightmare. (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
The fight on the beach#
The Orphan sits by Kos's corpse at the far end of the coast, past the lighthouse. It looks like a tall, thin, pale child with a fixed scream, and it doesn't react until the hunter comes close. (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
It fights with a fleshy mass on a cord, swinging it like a club and tearing off pieces to throw. The game never names it. Nearly every player reads it as the Orphan's placenta, which fits a newborn taken from its mother. Partway through, the Orphan grows wing-like membranes, turns its weapon into a long blade and calls lightning down from the sky. (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
Its drop is the Kos Parasite. The item says "when the carcass of Kos washed up on the coast, its insides were teeming with tiny parasites unlike any found in humans", and that it "is said to stimulate phantasms inhabiting a lumenwood." (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
What happens after it dies#
Beating the Orphan isn't the end. Its spirit stays beside Kos's body. Killing it ends the encounter with a "Nightmare slain" message, the same message the game shows after Mergo's Wet Nurse. (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
The priest's words then change: "Ah, sweet child of Kos returned to the ocean... A bottomless curse, a bottomless sea... Accepting of all that there is... And can be..." In the Hunter's Dream, the Doll notices that Gehrman is sleeping peacefully for once. The full plot is in The Old Hunters story. (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
The curse and the Nightmare#
The Old Hunter Garb says hunters drunk with blood "would pass on to the Nightmare, every last one of them". Simon the Harrowed, dying, makes the link to the hamlet: "This village is the true secret... It feeds this Hunter's Nightmare... So our forefathers sinned?" Killing the Orphan ends that Nightmare, which is why the fight is read as the DLC's answer to the curse. (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
Players disagree on who made the Nightmare. The priest prays for a curse, and the common reading is that Kos, or the Orphan itself, laid it on the hunters as punishment. Another reading is that the Nightmare is the Orphan's own, a place where the dead child was trapped, and that killing it frees the child to return to the sea. Neither is stated. (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
What the game never confirms#
The Doll's line about Gehrman is often taken as proof he was part of the raid on the hamlet, or at least knew of it. It is an inference. Lady Maria is the only hunter the text ties to the village, through the Rakuyo she threw down a well there "when she could stomach it no longer". (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
It's also unclear whether the Orphan was alive when the hunters came, or born from its mother's body later. Its look suggests a newborn, and the villagers say the baby was taken, but nothing records when or how. See the Great Ones for how the Orphan fits with the others. (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)
Frequently asked questions
- Who is the Orphan of Kos?
- The child of Kos, the dead Great One on the beach of the Fishing Hamlet. Its trophy calls it a Great One, and it is the last boss of The Old Hunters.
- What is the Orphan of Kos holding?
- A fleshy mass it swings like a club and later like a blade. The game never names it, but almost every player reads it as the Orphan's own placenta.
- What happens after you kill the Orphan of Kos?
- Its spirit lingers beside Kos. Once that is destroyed, the game reports the nightmare slain, the hamlet priest says the child has "returned to the ocean", and the Doll notices Gehrman sleeping calmly.
- Is the Orphan of Kos the hardest boss in Bloodborne?
- Many players rank it as the hardest fight in the game. It is also the only boss whose trophy is silver rather than bronze or gold.
Sources
- GameBloodborne: The Old Hunters, FromSoftware, 2015 (expansion)
Spotted a factual error or a primary source we missed? Email a correction. Every flagged claim gets reviewed.
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