While I haven't finished Dark Souls 3 (I still have Nameless King, Halflight, Midir, Gael, and Soul of Cinder left) I found myself drawn back to Bloodborne, the game in this greater series that I've actually beaten in its entirety (actually, technically not, as I haven't done a ton of the chalice dungeons and never beat Queen Yharnam, but can you blame me for getting bored with those?)
Anyway, I've started a new character with the intention of seeing how I feel about a Bloodtinge-build (I've done a Strength, Skill, and two Arcane characters - Arcane's my favorite so far.) I've been diligent about doing everything I could before fighting Amelia and setting the world state from evening to night (except Hypogean Gaol, because I remember Paarl being a pain and want to be a little beefier before I face him.)
Anyway, during the Evening stage of the game, the Cathedral Ward has a number of Church Giants who are the type of enemy you're really meant to avoid rather than fight, as they have a ton of HP and hit like trucks. There are four that I can think of in the big path that leads from the plaza overlooking the bridge where you fight the Cleric Beast up to the Grand Cathedral.
What's interesting about these guys is that when Amelia dies, they become non-aggressive, sitting in place and seeming to mourn her.
It got me thinking: what exactly makes this night (to borrow a phrase from Passover) unlike other nights? We know that the Hunt is something that happens regularly (I'd guess every full moon) but probably most of them don't involve the Vicar of the entire church turning into a massive beast.
My interpretation is that the reason this particular Hunt is so nasty is because of the Mensis Ritual, in which the School of Mensis are trying to create their own Great One - with the One Reborn being perhaps the horrible product of this failed attempt. Their ritual is trying to draw the power of the Moon to Yharnam, and thus is exacerbating the werewolf-like Curse of Beasts.
So where is Amelia in all of this? What is her purpose?
In the Hunter's Nightmare, we find and eventually fight Laurence, the First Vicar. Laurence is of course a huge part of the story, and founded the Healing Church. Given that, it would seem logical that the Vicar is the leader of the Healing Church - essentially its Pope (but presumably in the world of Bloodborne, despite its quasi-Victorian setting, there's more gender equality than the modern Catholic Church. So score one for the Healing Church?)
It is a little odd, then, that she's all alone in the Cathedral when we find her. Granted, there are tons of Church ministers guarding the cathedral, so this might simply be video game mechanics demanding that there be an open boss arena in which you can fight her and not worry about "trash mobs."
We know that there are two big organizations affiliated with the Church that seem to be its upper echelons - the Choir and the School of Mensis. The School of Mensis (presumably led by Micolash) is clearly fundamentally evil - in a series where "villains" are often a matter of interpretation, it's not hard to think that a group that kidnaps people and fuses them into horrifying Lovecraftian monstrosities is pretty bad. The Choir, in my mind, seems more likely to be misguided. As Vicar, is Amelia a member of the Choir?
Given their spies within the areas controlled by the School of Mensis (including the Nightmare of Mensis,) it seems that there is a schism. The Choir I would guess is more affiliated with the actual operation of the Church whereas I imagine the School of Mensis is more of an off-shoot cult.
So while the Choir certainly has plenty of sins to answer for - like controlling everyone with alien blood that gradually turns them into monsters - my sense is that the Church itself is kind of falling apart in the light of what the School of Mensis has done. Amelia is probably unaware of the Mensis Ritual and desperately trying to cling to her own humanity when we enter - and ultimately fails to do so.
So when the Church Giants go into mourning, perhaps that is to mean that the Church is utterly screwed at this point - there's no successor to Amelia and the entire grasp of control they have over Yharnam has slipped.
Indeed, consider that when we go to Upper Cathedral Ward - which is meant to be the headquarters of the Choir, I assume - we only find a handful of white-suited Church hunters, and the actual building that should be their headquarters is overrun by beasts and mind-suckers.
Which is to say that I think the most likely interpretation of what, exactly, has happened is that the School of Mensis has basically destroyed the existing order of Yharnam and killed themselves in the process (hence the hall of skeletons in head cages.) Assuming that the madness ends at the end of the night, the people of Yharnam are going to have very little left standing that they can rebuild.
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