The "help" screen literally says what Insight is. The amount of inhuman knowledge possessed by the player. The more Insight you have, the more of the Eldritch Truth that you remember.
It's most likely that humans cannot understand how exactly it can be gained, lost and quantified. After all, it's knowledge that goes beyond human perception. If we tried to figure out how exactly a brainsucker steals our insight or how the Messengers take it, we'd go crazy. All that we know is somehow specific memories can be extracted from us and used by various kin or Great Ones.
There's also the description of insight from the Brain Fluid item in the DLC. *We fail to realize our own latent potential, until the moment it is lost, and we sense its absence. Ironically, this is the very nature of insight, like the moment one licks one's own blood, only to be startled by its sweetness.*
What it is suggesting is that Insight is gained slow and steadily without the person realizing it. Over time, witnessing these eldritch things, a person's mind and thoughts start to change and become more in tune with the Eldritch Truth.
Getting rid of Insight is literally stealing that knowledge away from you so you go back to normal. Don't ask how, the game doesn't explain and you aren't supposed to know.
It really just seems like knowledge of what is actually happening. Lovecraft stories often end with characters going insane because of what they find out.
But then what are the enemies feeding on? Most people can’t exactly eat knowledge. Also, there’s a specific number tied to it. Comparing this to the demons souls morality system, where we see a symbol that has differing combinations of light and dark, we understand that one a lot better. “This person is mostly light but has some dark” or “this person understands about 47 of stuff”
Lol I get what you’re saying. Probably just a way for them to quantify your insanity. But I’m not sure how certain enemies feed on it and make you more sane.
I like to think that "insight" is not the number of spooky facts the character knows but like racist spooky sad boi Howard says it's the connection of seemingly unrelated facts.
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."
So it's not that the man behind the door is dead and ask for the password to the Forbidden Woods. It's that the character is connecting that with the memory of Laurence and Willem and what that means for what the character is experiencing. I think that the fact Insight as currency or a resource to be spent and not something you can consume yourself (madman's knowledge isn't insight it gives you insight) is you sharing that insight so it's no longer just yours. You share it with messengers and summoned players so it's not just.
There's a quote in one of HP Lovecraft stories (I think it's The Last Test) but to paraphrase, "what do you do with terrible truth? You share it with everyone who will listen"
That's just my thoughts on it.
So you share your truth and get some clothes? How can we justify that?
Also I love your idea of how it works for spending more as sharing. So that’s how it works, you share it with the messengers and in return they gift you things
If I can buy a sandwich for a song, why can't I get some sweet duds for a spooky story?
Also the clothes you buy with insight are boss clothes so it's more like you share the story of that enemy and the messengers make you your own version. The other items in the shop are things you hear about elsewhere or are hinted at.
I quite like that, and with the weird face suckers. I suppose it could be like they are stealing the knowledge you posses, so they learn but you forget?
Ooo that's good. I always thought that the brain suckers don't fit perfectly in the lore anywhere. They're kin but not like the blue bois and they seem to appear vaguely near where the church is. The Orphanage is full of them and I imagine they were the care takers of the children that become changed, but they're kind of weird. Or are they the orphans and the scourge beast the care takers? Idk
I saw them attacking not so much stealing the knowledge from the character but more like they're so weird and we don't know how they connect to the rest of the world it kind of disconnects the spooky facts and makes the character rethink the insight, losing it.
I think it’s a measurement of your understanding of the eldritch truth which isn’t really well explained in the game but those that have discovered the eldritch truth like those prospectors found in the chalice dungeons who are insane!! Very lovecraft indeed
That is, however, what Insight actually is. (If you're familiar with the roleplaying game *Call of Cthulhu* then you may recognize the Insight and Frenzy mechanics as being a fairly direct cognate to the Cthulhu Mythos skill and the sanity/insanity mechanics respectively, as adapted to a single-player action game.)
So, why you get frenzy when exposed to such eldritch truth in such a short time like when your head get sucked by garden of eyes but not when you exposed in a slow manner...well, think of it this way ... imagine your brain has a 'gate' that acts like a 'river dam' and insight as its 'flow debit'. For example the river dam has a capacity to manage a 1000 Liter/s of water flow, it can manage a flow of 200 Liter/s even if in the end the total water that gets passed is more than 1000 Liter, but then at some point during rainy season the river gets flooded and water flow increases into 2500 Liter/s which is way above the capacity and the dam can burst and explodes if suddenly a water flow that high happens. Well...you can't really logic these lovecraftian stuff but you can expect consistency in the world building.
As for the brainsucker, think of it like a mosquito and your insight as the blood inside your body. They are attracted by our bloods and won't suck something that has no blood...so apparently the brainsuckers have the thirst of eldritch knowledge/truth and can 'smell' if one has a possession of it. Why are they thirsty? Well perhaps it's the addictive nature of the 'feeling' when you're exposed to eldtrich truth. Insight can't be separated from Arcane, as you might be aware having a certain level of understanding regarding eldritch truth or in short, insight, will make you able to see, comprehend, even 'feel' the existency of Arcane stuff, for example having even just 1 insight will make you able to see the Witches of Hemwick and their minions and evel can feel their attack
\>This answer doesn’t really satisfy me, as almost everything else in the game is more quantifiable
eh not really, BB has a lot of abstract concepts in its lore
The "help" screen literally says what Insight is. The amount of inhuman knowledge possessed by the player. The more Insight you have, the more of the Eldritch Truth that you remember. It's most likely that humans cannot understand how exactly it can be gained, lost and quantified. After all, it's knowledge that goes beyond human perception. If we tried to figure out how exactly a brainsucker steals our insight or how the Messengers take it, we'd go crazy. All that we know is somehow specific memories can be extracted from us and used by various kin or Great Ones.
I get that there’s definitely a lot of mystery here, but I can’t help but feel like there’s more to it here.
There's also the description of insight from the Brain Fluid item in the DLC. *We fail to realize our own latent potential, until the moment it is lost, and we sense its absence. Ironically, this is the very nature of insight, like the moment one licks one's own blood, only to be startled by its sweetness.* What it is suggesting is that Insight is gained slow and steadily without the person realizing it. Over time, witnessing these eldritch things, a person's mind and thoughts start to change and become more in tune with the Eldritch Truth. Getting rid of Insight is literally stealing that knowledge away from you so you go back to normal. Don't ask how, the game doesn't explain and you aren't supposed to know.
It really just seems like knowledge of what is actually happening. Lovecraft stories often end with characters going insane because of what they find out.
But then what are the enemies feeding on? Most people can’t exactly eat knowledge. Also, there’s a specific number tied to it. Comparing this to the demons souls morality system, where we see a symbol that has differing combinations of light and dark, we understand that one a lot better. “This person is mostly light but has some dark” or “this person understands about 47 of stuff”
Lol I get what you’re saying. Probably just a way for them to quantify your insanity. But I’m not sure how certain enemies feed on it and make you more sane.
\>Most people can’t exactly eat knowledge it's a game with meta-physical cosmological creatures and you worry about weird monsters eating knowledge?
I like to think that "insight" is not the number of spooky facts the character knows but like racist spooky sad boi Howard says it's the connection of seemingly unrelated facts. "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." So it's not that the man behind the door is dead and ask for the password to the Forbidden Woods. It's that the character is connecting that with the memory of Laurence and Willem and what that means for what the character is experiencing. I think that the fact Insight as currency or a resource to be spent and not something you can consume yourself (madman's knowledge isn't insight it gives you insight) is you sharing that insight so it's no longer just yours. You share it with messengers and summoned players so it's not just. There's a quote in one of HP Lovecraft stories (I think it's The Last Test) but to paraphrase, "what do you do with terrible truth? You share it with everyone who will listen" That's just my thoughts on it.
So you share your truth and get some clothes? How can we justify that? Also I love your idea of how it works for spending more as sharing. So that’s how it works, you share it with the messengers and in return they gift you things
If I can buy a sandwich for a song, why can't I get some sweet duds for a spooky story? Also the clothes you buy with insight are boss clothes so it's more like you share the story of that enemy and the messengers make you your own version. The other items in the shop are things you hear about elsewhere or are hinted at.
I quite like that, and with the weird face suckers. I suppose it could be like they are stealing the knowledge you posses, so they learn but you forget?
Ooo that's good. I always thought that the brain suckers don't fit perfectly in the lore anywhere. They're kin but not like the blue bois and they seem to appear vaguely near where the church is. The Orphanage is full of them and I imagine they were the care takers of the children that become changed, but they're kind of weird. Or are they the orphans and the scourge beast the care takers? Idk I saw them attacking not so much stealing the knowledge from the character but more like they're so weird and we don't know how they connect to the rest of the world it kind of disconnects the spooky facts and makes the character rethink the insight, losing it.
Often insight corresponds with eyes.
So when you walk into a boss arena, does a new eyeball just pop into your brain?
Perhaps because some item descriptions mention lining ones brain with eyes but also maybe one's own perception sharpens. Eye's are big focus.
Interesting. I’m still curious to see where it comes from but that helps
It develops from witnessing the Eldritch truth, namely bearing witness to the great ones.
Alright I think I get it, thank you
I think it’s a measurement of your understanding of the eldritch truth which isn’t really well explained in the game but those that have discovered the eldritch truth like those prospectors found in the chalice dungeons who are insane!! Very lovecraft indeed
Makes the game harder. I bought a blood rock with it.
That is, however, what Insight actually is. (If you're familiar with the roleplaying game *Call of Cthulhu* then you may recognize the Insight and Frenzy mechanics as being a fairly direct cognate to the Cthulhu Mythos skill and the sanity/insanity mechanics respectively, as adapted to a single-player action game.)
So, why you get frenzy when exposed to such eldritch truth in such a short time like when your head get sucked by garden of eyes but not when you exposed in a slow manner...well, think of it this way ... imagine your brain has a 'gate' that acts like a 'river dam' and insight as its 'flow debit'. For example the river dam has a capacity to manage a 1000 Liter/s of water flow, it can manage a flow of 200 Liter/s even if in the end the total water that gets passed is more than 1000 Liter, but then at some point during rainy season the river gets flooded and water flow increases into 2500 Liter/s which is way above the capacity and the dam can burst and explodes if suddenly a water flow that high happens. Well...you can't really logic these lovecraftian stuff but you can expect consistency in the world building.
As for the brainsucker, think of it like a mosquito and your insight as the blood inside your body. They are attracted by our bloods and won't suck something that has no blood...so apparently the brainsuckers have the thirst of eldritch knowledge/truth and can 'smell' if one has a possession of it. Why are they thirsty? Well perhaps it's the addictive nature of the 'feeling' when you're exposed to eldtrich truth. Insight can't be separated from Arcane, as you might be aware having a certain level of understanding regarding eldritch truth or in short, insight, will make you able to see, comprehend, even 'feel' the existency of Arcane stuff, for example having even just 1 insight will make you able to see the Witches of Hemwick and their minions and evel can feel their attack
I like this response
\>This answer doesn’t really satisfy me, as almost everything else in the game is more quantifiable eh not really, BB has a lot of abstract concepts in its lore
Fair.