My theories, as well as some previews for unfinished things.
The Limits of the World of Hallownest
A huge series of posts I want to make, about ancient Hallownest, western Hallownest, eastern Hallownest, and what defines Hallownest vs the outside world. One part finished, one part with a draft finished and some spinoff posts. Two other parts unwritten.
The next two sections are a part of this.
The Ancient Sea of Hallownest
Part 1: Snail Shamans and Ancestral Power
Part 2: The Geology of Hallownest
Part 3: The Ancient Civilization
Part 4: The Origins of the Void
Theory on why Hallownest used to be sea, void came from that sea, the snails are descended from ancient sea life, and the Ancient Civilization...uh, kinda isn't related to any of that--they just came later and got good at void.
Wilds Beyond: the vision of Hallownest and its implementation in the west
Main post
Spinoff post: Native Travelers of Hallownest
Spinoff post: Elder Hu and Infection in Fungal Wastes
An even longer theory about western Hallownest. What defines its borders. How the peoples work together, and relate to areas of Hallownest that might be considered more "central" (the City and Palace). How the White Lady has placed herself in the center of it all (and perhaps put a target on her back).
Markoth and Forbidden Knowledge
The Magic of Marks in Hollow Knight
Symbols of Hallownest and its Royalty
Hallownest Symbols, the Ancient Civilization, and the Pale King
Higher Beings, Species, and Rank
It/Its in Hollow Knight: a post about pronouns, probably
Small musings:
untitled post about Kingsoul
untitled post about that higher being(????) in Beast's Den
Posted enough of these now that they need organization lol
Family, Control, Faith, Hierarchy
GMS wanted children, and the consequences touched a whole kingdom. Series about all of Pharloom society and how it's structured, and how it ties back into the family at the center
Crawbugs, the Moors, and Pinstresses
Crawbugs' place in Pharloom and how they founded the Order of the Pinstress (I asked myself if Pinstress was a bird and it spiraled out of control)
Chapels of Pharloom
Examining the history and purpose of the chapels. Beast, Wanderer, Reaper, and Architect complete. Coming for the remaining two someday
Hearts of Pharloom
I'm writing a series on the hearts, but the above post is not it. The above post is me getting excited and posting one finding early XD This tidbit is on how a new heart is being fostered in the mossy areas. Someday I'll finish the whole series...
Part 8 of a series. See the contents for other parts
Contents
GMS and the Weavers
Pilgrims’ Inheritance
Faith without a Heart
Apostasy: Family and Faith Bound into One
Interlopers?
Purity
Silk-spun Children
Daughter of Hallownest
Pharloom’s Future
Conclusion + Misc (this post)
Conclusion + Misc
GMS wanted children, and the consequences touched a whole kingdom. Daughters she desperately wanted, and daughters she didn't get to keep if they had any say in it, and daughters who stayed even as they hurt. Even contained in sleep, the kingdom operated in many of the same ways, hierarchies and attitudes brought about by her continued, even if modified. The Weavers were at the top, divine, until they couldn't take it anymore. First children were succeeded by new children, new generations, with their own hierarchies, included in a family whose origin was hidden from them.
No one was free. Service and control under GMS changed to endless service to the system for her sleep, and the control necessary by the new rulers to keep it that way. Faith stayed, even as the target was shifted from GMS to the Citadel itself.
GMS could not be kept down forever. Bugs across Pharloom fell under her control, though they were not her greatest focus. She made new daughters, "better" daughters. But she couldn't let go of her first daughters. New daughters were neglected. Old daughters were hunted down. Until she got to Hornet. Hornet, daughter of those who fled, who grew up hearing the hopes of Weavers for what she should be, one to take control of Pharloom's future. But Hornet had other influences with other hopes, to forge a better future for freedom. She grew to find that worthy cause to fight for. By the end of it, Pharloom was free, and its future was left in the hands of the bugs who lived there. Hornet could leave Pharloom, safe, and perhaps, possibly, alongside an extra silken companion...
Thank you for reading! I've never written anything as long as this and it about destroyed my mind XD Nothing left but a puddle. For now anyway. I still have many ideas for more posts in the future. And just a little bit left of this one. There's a LOT that didn't get covered in this series, and I've included some below as just a sorta short list and associated ramblings if anyone's interested
Bellhart: Bell Hermit has some interesting things to say on the pilgrims of Bellhart.
They claim a common calling, to serve the pilgrims as they make their path upwards. [...] A sweet lie, of course. They, like their predecessors, are simply too weak and fearful to venture any farther. A settlement born from indolence.
Harsh words, but I assume it's true. They are bad pilgrims. But in a kingdom like this, it's for the better. They've forged a purpose for themselves, rather than having it appointed for them. They're perhaps some of the freest bugs in the kingdom. Someone like Flick too, who appointed himself fixer of Bone Bottom and has (indefinitely?) put off his pilgrimage
Gender and (in)fertility: GMS created only daughters. From the way First Sinner says she called them daughters, to the Weavers only referring to each other as sisters, to Lace and her referencing Phantom as sister. Phantom also gets called they/them from Hornet, but that's irrelevant to my point here. Phantom, or any of them, could have any identity they wanted. But GMS seems specifically to have wanted daughters, which is interesting to me. Er, this is something that will be central to my upcoming gender/pronouns post, but still. GMS herself is like a living spool of thread, though seemingly gendered, at least to some extent with the designation mother. Maybe she wanted them all to share her identity (no matter their own thoughts)
On a related note, she has no partner. She might not be able to have natural children (partnerless, uncertain on how it would be if there was one, but I mean a tree and a worm had children so who knows). And when she made the Weavers, they all find it near impossible to have children of their own. I have to wonder if it was deliberate, another source of control, or perhaps just some side effect of the way their bodies changed from pharlids to Weavers
Silkflies: I kinda want to draw some parallels between the silk-spun children and silkflies. The silkflies are an end-product of the pilgrims being filled with silk over their lifetimes, and their ancestors' lifetimes. Turned into silkflies once they no longer could serve the Citadel in their bodies. Made into silken beings. I'm not entirely sure how they fit into it all though. Obviously they can be in automatons, and in that form they can be haunted or not. They're very abundant in the Mist. I have to wonder if the free silkflies around the map have any kind of pattern or affinities. Like are they haunted? Do they like other silk beings? I've seen some people say that Lace commands them, including the silkfly that frees Hornet from her cage at the beginning of the game. I'm not so sure since Hornet can draw them to her with song the same as Lace. I started doing some big investigation into all of it but this will take some time
Beast's nature:
They see your beauty, so frail and fine, / They see your peace, woven of faith and toil, / They forget your heart, bound in slumber and servitude, / When you wake they shall see your truth, / A beast's nature bare to all. - From "Pharloom's Folly" by the Conductor Romino
I wonder what makes GMS a beast. Another topic too big to investigate here I think. The Weavers in Hallownest got labeled beast as well. In Pharloom though, mostly beasts are spoken of in reference to unintelligent, powerful bugs, as are common at the bottom of the map. That's how it is in the Chapel of the Beast. I don't know if such a term for GMS is supposed to mean that she's vicious/violent. I wonder if it might have to do with leaning into instincts, which could be violence, but also….she's a mother. Well, violence and motherhood may go hand in hand with her
Citadel leaders: I kept having to speak of the Citadel power structure but am never sure if I can just say the Conductors were at the top, or if it should be them alongside the Vaultkeepers and Architects too. The Architects and Vaultkeepers had their own groups though to stick to, while the Conductors kinda looked after all pilgrims, so either way the Conductors had more power
Widow: I barely touched on Widow. I don't really know how to sort her. There are different theories on her origins. I don't have a decision for myself here, which makes it hard to analyze her place in the family. Tragedy. I'll come for you someday Widow
Fleas: The fleas aren't natives of Pharloom (at least not the main caravan members). They aren't really a part of what I was analyzing here (same as the skarr, Verdanians, etc). But there's a lot that can be said to compare them to the pilgrims. The pilgrims had ideals, as exemplified by Sherma, and which might be implemented in a much more real and healthy way in the future. But the fleas were already there. Sticking with each other, caring for each other, readily accepting Seth, preferring to go out with love rather than despair in act 3. The Citadel was called a paradise, and Team Cherry made the fleas call their settlement Fleatopia. Seems made for parallels to me
Punishment of First Sinner: I've struggled with some of the analysis of family dynamics. Trauma and abuse are difficult subjects, and not ones that lines from the game can be thrown at to prove so simply. They're subjects I've wanted to understand in general in life, but the situation in Silksong is...farther from things I'm familiar with. I feel like someone else can give this subject more depth. Except for First Sinner's treatment. Er, it just felt a little weird to go more in depth on this one aspect and not the rest in the actual posts. Anyway. First Sinner was the greatest focus of part 4 of the series of course, going over apostasy in faith but also how it was tied up in leaving the family (verbally at least if nothing else). And even though the Weavers put GMS to sleep, and later left Pharloom, they still kept First Sinner punished. I spoke of her being considered a threat to the authority/status of those in charge, but I think it might be more than that. At least to the Weavers. Sometimes, I think…when multiple people are hurting and traumatized from the same source, they may react differently to it. They might have different ideas of what to do about it. They might even defend the abuser. They might tie their sense of safety to the abuser. That one didn't happen here (maybe more applicable to Lace?), but… The Weavers didn't make a healthy society. They continued their status as divine at the top of a hierarchy, and fought against GMS. Maybe they even used her silk (of course they had their own, unlike the pilgrims who definitely used her silk, but who knows, GMS has more of it). They didn't separate from GMS. Even if she was asleep, their efforts were focused on keeping her that way, and besides that, I suspect they carried some of her attitudes into how they looked over Pharloom. I can only imagine if First Sinner tried to separate from it all, tried for some kind of better way, or at least a way with more distance from GMS...that the rest of the Weavers might react as if First Sinner was a threat to their very safety. The Weavers acted as they did, setting up society that way, because they knew they couldn't live under GMS. They justified their actions to themselves with that trauma in mind, even if there could've been alternative ways to pursue safety. First Sinner choosing alternative safety could look the same to them as opposing their safety. And in that light...she could be someone to fight against just as they fought GMS. And yes, First Sinner was still a threat to the status/authority at the same time. Those things are just probably wrapped up in the Weavers' sense of safety at the same time
Part 7 of a series. See the contents for other parts
Contents
GMS and the Weavers
Pilgrims’ Inheritance
Faith without a Heart
Apostasy: Family and Faith Bound into One
Interlopers?
Purity
Silk-spun Children
Daughter of Hallownest
Pharloom’s Future (this post)
Conclusion + Misc
Pharloom's Future
Sherma is the ideal pilgrim. He sings, he's softhearted, he has absolute certainty in the pilgrimage and the Citadel. But then he finally reaches the Citadel. He knew the journey there would be hard, but the pilgrimage promised reward, and the Citadel does not have it. He starts to change.
Sherma, at Hornet's suggestion to heal fellow pilgrims: Oh, that's an excellent idea, red maiden! Normally I'd think a song would suffice, but... yes, more direct action is certainly needed. And the Citadel itself shall provide the materials! Praise be to this holiest of holy places!
Contrast this with act 1, where he just sings at a pilgrim to try to help her:
This poor traveller finds her resolve waning. When I first greeted her, her voice was so hoarse I scarcely heard it! 'Tis no cause for worry, though. My song will lift her from her torpor!
The pilgrim does not recover, and becomes haunted after Sherma leaves.
Back to act 2, Sherma still has faith in the Citadel, but he starts taking matters into his own hands. And giving us heart attacks in the process! Through this further doubt sinks in, seeing more of the pain and suffering. But he does not give up hope in the promise until act 3.
Sherma, after supply delivery (act 3): Though in these dark times their promise of holy reward may never be met, still [rosaries] carry with them our fondest well-wishes.
Sherma act 3: Our great Citadel has lost its voice, and now the black threads rise up to tear its shell apart. I fear holy Pharloom is truly dying...
He's still praying and singing though:
Sherma at the start of act 3: Hoy, red maiden. 'Tis a prayer answered to see you safely wake.
Sherma as Hornet leaves for the Abyss: Now let me pray for you, dear friend, and may my hopes follow you into the deepest darkness and beyond!
Prayer after the previous lines: Maiden, strong, wreathed in red, / Shield her shell, bless her thread! / She fights for us until the end, / Please protect my dearest friee-end!
I can't say I know who or what he's praying to. Whatever remnants of holy power the Citadel held? Pharloom itself? Something more abstract? I don't know. I feel like he's come to believe in the power of the bugs themselves and their own voices. In a more real way than just singing at everything like he did in act 1. (Voices, by the way, are spoken of not just for the utility they have in the kingdom, but are often identified more broadly with a bugs' identity/self/expression, which separated into its own post.)
Sherma at the start of act 3: [Caretaker] charged me with looking after those remaining here, said he had to confer with his family down below.
Whether he wanted to or not, Sherma now is in a position of responsibility. It could've been arbitrary who was picked, but surely Caretaker noticed how Sherma was taking initiative. Maybe one of the few pilgrims to do so.
Hornet, near the end of the game: If that task is achieved, my future may take me far from Pharloom, but know I have faith that you will hold these bugs together, and see them prosper.
Sherma: Ah! In truth, I'm still only a fool, but I'll hold dearly to your faith in me. That warmth will help me to endure whatever challenges lie ahead!
Hornet clearly thinks Sherma does well in that caretaker role. Sherma is humble, but I think he's determined to try. He truly cares about people. The future of Pharloom, spoken of several times in the game...as I said in the previous post, it was not Hornet's. Hornet helps ensure freedom, but she is not for what comes next.
Hornet, to Gilly after killing Karmelita: Know, in time, these caves may see opportunity to regrow, flourish even, though that rebirth is itself a task enormous... longer than a lifetime, many lifetimes. For that task to succeed, it will fall to bugs like you to sow the first seeds.
It's of course about more than just Sherma, but all of the bugs of Pharloom. Sherma is just one who has the right mindset to keep up hope and look out for others in this journey.
I've shared these lines a couple times, but not in full:
Sherma: Our great Citadel has lost its voice, and now the black threads rise up to tear its shell apart. I fear holy Pharloom is truly dying... But I still have hope, red maiden! Though kingdoms may fall, life endures still, and we bugs can build our lands anew!
Hornet: I share your hope, Sherma. Remember though that whatever is built next belongs not to the past, but to you. Your instincts are strong. Let it be those that guide you, rather than any reverence toward a kingdom's corpse.
Sherma: Oho, you flatter me so! But it is my fellows who shall guide me, those whose voices sing out still, even in these ruined times...
This is Sherma's vision. Hornet has her thoughts, shaped by her kingdom's fall, and the long lessons she learned, but Sherma already has his own ideas. A shift of faith to the true power of Pharloom, of bugs and their own capabilities. Just as he personally grew and learned what he could do under his own power.
Sherma act 3 needolin: Huddle together... / Let's keep our spirits strong... / Brothers... sisters... / We still have our voices! / Our strength is shared... / Our bond is unbroken...
No matter the falsity of the promises the Citadel gave...Sherma believes in the people. He believes in their voices and strength, and does not throw off the bonds of siblinghood. As much as the origins of such siblinghood were based in a system of hierarchy and descent from a forgotten heart. Sherma has stuck to ideals, now grounded in reality but no less strong, and that will see him and Pharloom's bugs through to the future.
Voices hold power in Pharloom. All of society hinges on keeping Grand Mother Silk asleep, after all. But more than that, voices are treated almost as the identity of bugs themselves.
A quick rundown on the power and importance before the rest of it. Honestly there's not much to say on its power to make voice distinct from song. It is song that keeps GMS asleep, and song is performed both with instruments and voice. One interesting mention:
Hornet, on Widow: By voice and claw it aided, perhaps guided, the thread that strung the town.
Widow used voice to help manipulate silk. Perhaps not surprising with the other ways Weavers used song (the doors into the weavenests, probably the bellway mechanisms).
Of course again the number one thing is keeping GMS asleep. All of Pharloom tries hard to keep the pilgrims singing, and voice/song is incorporated into everything.
Pious Isamor: ...Dear [pil]grim... Dark it seems now... [l]et these word[s] become your guide... Hear our voice... Let it [?] your own! Give... of yourself... for great Pharloom, for... first-children who bequeath it to us... for our salva[tion] sure to come!
Second Sentinel, before fight: D-defence of the sacred Citadel, and the voices that fill it-t-t, is the eternal duty of the sentinels.
Cogwork statues: We would hear the song of the Architects, at the core of our Citadel. They who sustain our realm, its walls, its floors and its voice, even as others fall silent.
The voices must be encouraged, pilgrims supporting each other. The voices are defended. The voices made to sustain for eternity, well beyond their bodies' failure.
Choral Commandment: Last edict of the Conductors. "And lo, is eternity sustained. By Architect's claw, we welcome that final form, of dial and rotor, and soul gladly given. The perfect, unfaltering voice."
Choral Commandment: Tattered decree of the Citadel. "Bug of voice grown hoarse or shell fallen frail, you have been selected for duty most sacred. Become our light, our guide in darkness, that others worthy may climb to join the holy song."
Needolin at the silkfly creation device: To serve... beyond shell... / To devote... eternal... / ...Must we? / Why... this pain? / Remember my voice... / Please...
This grows closer to what I'm trying to get at. Essentially their very souls are extracted, held in small silken form. Voice may continue from such, but...these bugs find themselves begging for their voice to be remembered.
To pivot a bit to GMS, and the union she brings:
Unravelled silk heart: ...Their voices... Their song... / ...Their memory... / ...Bind their shells... / / ...Bind their souls... / ...Bind them all... / ...Raise them... Up... / ...To devote... Eternal... // ...One mind... One union...
Pavo, on his time caught in the threads: It is difficult... Upsetting even to think. Strange, sad memories, not my own, and my own thoughts smothered amidst the tangle. If one could choose to connect themself to something grander, that curse may seem a wonder. For myself, it now seems a horror.
INACCESSIBLE CONTENT, Haunted Bellhart needolin: ...Your glory... / ...Your grace... / ...We hear it... / ...Divine...voice... / ...Divine...light... / ...We are yours...
INACCESSIBLE CONTENT, Widow needolin: The last... The last... / Eternity... Alone... / Hear her heart! / Hear her voice! / The gift, of strength and Silk... / For you, holy mother... all for you...
Those last two are not cut content, they are in the game, but can never be accessed. Needolin dialog that can only be heard...before Hornet gets the needolin. To me this pushes it above cut content into canon, though tenuous.
GMS wants the bugs' voices and song and memory, in union. In such state the bugs hear her voice…her memories and thoughts overwhelm their own. What are their voices, to GMS? What does it mean for the bugs to hear her voice?
All bugs sing in Pharloom. Even those from outside like the fleas and Shakra, or bugs with their own societies like the skarr. They sing when they're haunted, Hornet's needolin revealing the threads that bind them as they let out their innermost thoughts and feelings. They sing when they're not haunted, by their own will, most of the time sharing their thoughts. It is an expression of who they are, their identity.
Choruses in Underworks needolin: ...WE...ALL...TOGETHER... / ...SERVE...BEYOND SHELL... / ...LIGHT...SEE US... / ...REMEMBER US... / ...WE WERE MANY... / ...WE ARE ONE...
Fourth Chorus needolin: WE... ARE... ONE... / WE... ARE... MANY... / VOICES... TOGETHER... / SACRED... TOIL... / SONG... HOLY... / SACRED... LIGHT... / UNENDING... UNYIELDING... / STRONG... STRONG...
Choir elite needolin: Our voices will be heard!
Conductor Ballador needolin: Dear devout... have we failed? / Remember their voices... / Now only silence... / Only our sickness... / Only our song...
The bugs want to be known and recognized, remembered. Not just for what their voices can do in the endless service Pharloom asks of them. I think it's this same want that is expressed in the memory lockets and the chapels.
Mort, on a memory locket: Memories only weigh us down, but some pilgrims still cling to them with unseemly devotion.
Memory locket inventory description: Keepsake containing a precious memory.
Pilby's funeral needolin: Fallen brother... / Your journey ends... / We carry your memory... / Fellow pilgrim...
Chapel of the Wanderer needolin: ...Remember... / ...We walked... / ...We climbed... / ...We fell... / ...Once we wandered... / ...The lands revealed...
Memory is a huge subject in Silksong that's too big to get into here. But clearly the bugs find it important, during life and after death. And they specifically want their voices heard and remembered.
Sherma act 3 needolin: Huddle together... / Let's keep our spirits strong... / Brothers... sisters... / We still have our voices! / Our strength is shared... / Our bond is unbroken...
Sherma, act 3: Our great Citadel has lost its voice, and now the black threads rise up to tear its shell apart. I fear holy Pharloom is truly dying... […]
Hornet: Your instincts are strong. Let it be those that guide you, rather than any reverence toward a kingdom's corpse.
Sherma: Oho, you flatter me so! But it is my fellows who shall guide me, those whose voices sing out still, even in these ruined times...
Sherma looked to the Citadel itself as holy, the focus of pilgrims' faith when the prior heart of it was forgotten. That voice is gone, same as GMS's voice in their lives (er...as long as they stayed unhaunted, or unvoided in act 3). But the bugs themselves still have their voices, still valued, still able to express who they are. Now able to sing for themselves and each other.
Part of a series. See the contents for other parts
Contents
GMS and the Weavers
Pilgrims’ Inheritance
Faith without a Heart
Apostasy: Family and Faith Bound into One
Interlopers?
Purity (this post)
Silk-spun Children
Daughter of Hallownest
Pharloom’s Future
Conclusion + Misc
Purity
Next I'd like to examine the ways bugs were made to serve. I did touch on this earlier, in all the hierarchy and lack of freedom Pharloom has, but I specifically want to compare the Weavers and common bugs and put it in the context of family dynamics.
Needolin where you find the snare setter: ...Is it done? / ...Our runes... Our Silk... / ...To bind her... tight... / ...To keep us free...
Rune harp in Bilewater: Flee, sisters. Flee until your strength exhausts, so far you may escape at last her silken sight. To start anew, to sustain, free of web and service eternal.
Lore tablet in Weavenest Atla: This low, her gaze escaped. Prepare, sisters. Weave hope anew. That we might break free this accursed web born of our naive foundation.
Mask Maker on the Citadel: Devised by your ancestors that monstrosity, and their wicked, clever minds. A system, or a web they'd likely call it, a way to keep their mother sealed in slumber, and themselves free to lavish in their false rule.
The Weavers were not free under GMS. But it wasn't just that they wanted to escape her; they wanted to escape the burden made from their own system. That burden was passed on to common bugs. Most of the burden fell on those lower in the hierarchy.
Lore tablet: Oath of the Whiteward / While song must be sung, none may falter. / Infirmity. Sickness. Death. / All are banished from our Citadel.
Lore tablet in the Cradle: Due to unacceptably high injury and unsanctioned deaths, Ventrica travel shall henceforth be denied to all. For Pharloom eternal, a bug who serves must never die.
Chorus in Underworks needolin: ...WE...ALL...TOGETHER... / ...SERVE...BEYOND SHELL... / ...LIGHT...SEE US... / ...REMEMBER US... / ...WE WERE MANY... / ...WE ARE ONE..."
Silkfly machine needolin: To serve... beyond shell... / To devote... eternal... / ...Must we? / Why... this pain? / Remember my voice... / Please...
I don't want to get too into the nature of the work here. Bugs aren't allowed to stop or get sick or die. Some in the Slab were locked up for the sin of sickness. Bugs must be sustained eternally through silk, or through becoming silkflies, serving eternally in a body of metal. In service to the Citadel, and to bring about eternity. It's no wonder many couldn't take it.
Underworker needolin: For the light, unseen... / These halls kept clean... / Rest and fade... / We... were chosen... / See us faithful! / Shells bend, shells break... / Through duty, purity... / The sacred toil...
Segment of Pharloom's Folly: They see your peace, woven of faith and toil,
Confessional statue: By the grace of Pharloom eternal, may you never tire. Toil, and be forgiven.
Mergwin: I saw many a courier gorge upon this fatty snack. Where are they all? Have they abandoned their holy toil?
Service itself is made holy. Purity is maintained via constant work. This factor of purity intrigues me as GMS herself references it:
Lace silk heart: ...Better a child spun mad... than none… / ...Better a child spun frail... than none… / ...Better a child spun pure... than them… / ...One to wish our waking... /// ...From our Silk... A child born loyal…
Lace is held up to be pure, in contrast to the Weavers. I can only imagine the standards GMS had which the Weavers didn't hold up to. And which will hurt Lace too.
Pious Isamor: [P]ilgrim! [C]ast aside those many sinful hopes for rest [an]d reward... remain pure... within our midst... [a]sk for nothing! [...] Stay vigil[ant] [?]ys, for tho[se] wretched pilgrims [who] dare relen[t to] their base desi[res]... Left unpunish[ed] thin our pure chorus... [Th]eir seductive sin [will s]pread like flame...
As spoken of in part 2 I think Pious Isamor is from the time of the Weavers, pilgrims serving under them. The pilgrims were asked for entirely one-sided giving, never to stop or slow down. And while the pilgrims were later promised reward after the Weavers were gone, the system of purity and toil stayed in place.
I desperately want to analyze all this on the level of toxic cycles, generational trauma kinda thing. I feel I'm not quite qualified, but even so. GMS gave the Weavers terrible conditions to live under. They hated it enough to trap her in sleep, and work to keep it that way. But they also reproduced some of GMS's behaviors, passing them on to the pilgrims. And they all applied them to each other, to keep working and keep pure, and punishing those who fell short. First Sinner tried to leave the family (at least in words if nothing else), but no one past or present would allow that, branding her a sinner. I can't say I know who First Sinner is/was as a whole person, or what she planned to do, but I'd like to imagine it was different than what the rest of the Weavers brought about in the kingdom.
Segment of Pharloom's Folly: They forget your heart, bound in slumber and servitude,
GMS herself now is described as in servitude. Now my sympathy for her is pretty low. But I can't imagine this is healthy. The Weavers didn't find freedom in all this, and punished (or continued punishment of) one of their own who might've done something better/healthier. They ended up leaving, but still their mindsets—well, I get to that in the Hornet-focused post.
Maybe it still was better than it was before. GMS was controlling, and in the present has brought about the Haunting. Pharloom under the Weavers, and then Conductors...no one was healthy or free, but at the very least they had enough freedom for their own thoughts. I imagine what it would be like in a world where not only do you have to endlessly serve, but your very mind, soul, and memory is subsumed into the ego at the top. In that light the Pharloom the Weavers created...I could imagine is preferable. But still ultimately bleak and unsustainable.
Part of a series. See the contents for other parts
Awkwardly numbered, and yes posted after parts 5 and 6, because... Well, I've done this thing that's happened before, that by the time I finish something big, my mind has turned into so much mush that I can't assess the state of my own work. Only thought in my mush head: it's done, time to post. But uh once my brain recovered I had to realize it was still just a first draft. I slowed down to edit more as I was rolling the posts out, but eventually I realized I'm really missing some things in here to drive home the big points I want to make for the overall series, emphasizing all the themes and all that. And it's easier to make this odd insertion into the contents than rearrange/do massive edits on what I've already posted XD;;; (I'll be going back to make a proper introduction too at some point I think, but that will just be an edit to the first post). There will be a 4.5B
Contents
GMS and the Weavers
Pilgrims' Inheritance
Faith without a Heart
Apostasy: Family and Faith Bound into One
Interlopers? (this post)
Purity
Silk-spun Children
Daughter of Hallownest
Pharloom's Future
Conclusion + Misc
Interlopers?
I've said much by now on the pilgrims' place in Pharloom. Inheriting a system of rule and hierarchy and faith, and further a place in a kingdom-wide family as successors to Pharloom's first children...even without knowing the mother at the top of it all.
But how about something more direct? That is, all of this designation of their place in family is through the intermediary of the Weavers. In other words, what is family to GMS, and who is included? What are the bugs of Pharloom to her? What does she want from them?
Unravelled silk heart: ...Their voices... Their song... / ...Their memory... / ...Bind their shells... / / ...Bind their souls... / ...Bind them all... / ...Raise them... Up... / ...To devote... Eternal... // ...One mind... One union...
Widow, before she notices Hornet: They shall join... Union upon your thread... A gift, for your waking. A world strung to serve...
Bell Hermit: Power existed in these lands even before [GMS] bound them beneath her.
Hornet: This land's grandeur, the devotion of its bugs, and the curse that befalls them. The signs are clear. Your kingdom is in the thrall of a creature beyond bug, one of that higher caste.
Hornet: You were mortal bugs, caught beneath a being pale... Devotion or destruction... these are the only fates my kind allow.
Eternal devotion, union. A kingdom bound beneath. I wouldn't say these things point to the bugs being like children, including the one direct example of GMS's speech (for the silk heart). Same as some other aspects shared between common bugs and her children, such as the imposition of religion, I can't say these words aren't how she speaks of her children. But the focus isn't like how she speaks of Weavers or silk-spun children.
First Sinner: ...She called us daughters... Called us divine... She lied...
GMS directly called the Weavers her daughters and divine. I am doubtful she called the bugs children, and calling them divine seems out of the question.
Bell Beast silk heart: ...Child... Weaver... / ...Child... Spider... / ...Arrived... At last... / ...Our Silk... / ...Our strength... / ...Our nature... / ...We feel it... / ...Rise... Rise... // ...Come, child... Witness our waking...
First Sinner needolin: I did not wane! / I did not forget! / Sustained by fury! / Cursed by Silk! / Cursed with Silk! / Cursed to know… / The sin... the truth...
Lace silk heart: ...From our Silk... A child born loyal…
Clawmaiden needolin: ...Your Silk... / ...Your strength... / ...Ours by birth... / ...Ours by right...
GMS recognizes her nature in Hornet. Her silk. All the Weavers have that same silk. The silk-spun children obviously are made entirely of the stuff. The Clawmaidens, uh- I don't even know XD But they're early automatons and I wonder if they somehow were modeled directly off of the Weavers and their haughty attitudes. Just included as an example of a focus on silk.
Surgeon journal entry: Their procedures with Silk may have prolonged life within the Citadel, but they unknowingly gifted many minds to the monarch.
Caretaker: Just think of'em greedily shoving the Silk into their shells [...] Then think on how long it's all gone on...
Hornet: […] The Silk has seeded deep into this kingdom's shells, generations deep... No wonder Pharloom's bugs proved such easy prey for that haunted thread. It had only to seek for itself to reach them.
The pilgrims do not naturally have silk. Not inside their bodies, as has been happening for a long time under Citadel rule. In this light, the bugs couldn't've been haunted so easily in the past. Perhaps they could be part of such unity if they wished it, or in some lesser unity. Yet the other dialog at the beginning of the post, on Pharloom being bound, or caught, or enthralled. Those things still described Pharloom when GMS was awake.
What is the difference between the Weavers becoming Weavers and the pilgrims being ensnared by thread? If the pilgrims weren't haunted in the past but still bound beneath GMS, would there have been a difference?
For one the pharlids are unintelligent bugs, who were greatly changed as they became Weavers, shaped by GMS's will. But I do think the silk is the greater association. Even with everything the pilgrims did with silk on their own, using it in battle, putting it into their shells, it didn't come from them. They needed an external source.
Hornet: They hunt me for my nature. For the Silk produced within my shell.
Seamstress: Ahh ha! Truth, no doubt! In Pharloom, yours is a rare skill, prized beyond measure, to channel one's soul within a thread. Soul and Silk inseparably linked. It is a skill almost lost from Pharloom. Those old Weavers shared it, but they're long dead now.
I believe that that more than anything made the Weavers daughters to GMS. She put some of her own nature in them. That's why Hornet is recognized by GMS, and none of the other bugs are, no matter how much silk they have in them.
At the very least, it made the Weavers the first children. I've considered whether the other bugs could've been secondary children during GMS's time, and it's just a hierarchy of some children being better than others. It's possible, but I'm not so sure. For one, the way I think the generational counting works as I was going over in the last post, I think they would've started counting from around when the Weavers were handing over control of Pharloom (more on this in a minute). More importantly, GMS was ready to let all of Pharloom die to protect Lace from the void. And she had been concerned with hunting down the Weavers that fled, both from feelings of betrayal and wanting family back. Also, uh:
Lace silk heart: ...Better a child spun mad... than none… / ...Better a child spun frail... than none… / ...Better a child spun pure... than them…
GMS's whole mindset in creating Lace was that she would not have children without doing so. The Weavers had left the kingdom. She seems to be comparing Lace to them, to say she's more pure. I guess you can say she also didn't have the common bugs of Pharloom when asleep and she'd be angry at them for abandoning her too. I just don't think that's anywhere near as strong.
So. I've spent quite a few words before this post talking about the bugs as successor children. I am not undoing it. But more considering how the Weavers brought the bugs into the family. Part of me wants to consider that as lesser, like the bugs are just interlopers in the family, with the way GMS doesn't consider them children. But then I could ask why GMS is the gatekeeper for such, when the Weavers are family members. In the same way, for instance, that parents have limited control of their own children's choice in partner or having children. Not like the bugs are the actual children of the Weavers, but the whole designation of children seems generational to me. Weavers as first children, and then each generation of bugs as second, third, etc. Though the way I'm phrasing it (second children, third children) would more point to them being the next generation of children of GMS, rather than of the last generation of children… Well, all of this is getting pretty speculative anyway XD As I was saying in the last post, this numbing system is extrapolated from text in the Slab, so I can't say this is particularly strong to base so much of it off of just that when all these phrases aren't used in game. Even as I still think there's enough evidence to call them part of the family on some level.
Rune harp in High Halls: Last words of the Weavers. "Sisters, spiders, the burden is passed. These simple bugs shall bear it full. Never to cease. Never to silence. We shall die, and wait, and pray, that one may come of silken strength enough to weave us free."
Weaver effigy: Carving of Camora, Weaver of healing. A prayer is etched upon it. "Weaver, heal my sons, their fearful hearts, their limbs that shake at the climb to come. We pray, gift but a glimmer of your strength, that when we stand before your divinity, you see bugs shed free of fear."
The Weavers pass on their burden. Rule over the kingdom, and duty to keep GMS asleep. The designation as children. ...And their divinity itself.
Choir clapper (only found in High Halls arena) needolin: Bow your heads in reverence! / Prostrate your meagre shells! / Tremble before our masters! / Know our lords divine!
Twelfth Architect needolin: ...To mend...Unending... / ...To serve...Eternal... / ...Always an Architect... / ...From these thoughts...Creation... / ...From these memories...Skill... / ...Designs...Divine...
Chapel of the Architect needolin: Our hope... / Build... Craft... Pass... / Always another... / Always eternal... / Can it end? / Designs... divine...
Twelfth Architect on the cogwork heart: That heart is an inspired form, conceived by the first of my line for a knight of cog and blade.
Twelfth Architect after Hornet gets the melody: Impressive-industrious... eternal... You have seen a glimpse, Bug-Red, of us-s-s, how once we were. The minds of Architects inspired. What majesty we did create...
wiktionary definition of inspired: (religion) Infused with power or knowledge granted from a supernatural entity; possessing inspiration from the divine.
Vaultkeeper journal entry: High caste bug, responsible for delivering sermons and leading prayer for those beyond the walls of the Whispering Vaults.
The conductors were regarded as divine themselves. The Architects do not directly call themselves divine but they keep saying their work is divine. I believe the use of inspiration is in that religious sense, as if their own minds carry divinity, or they channel divinity as they work. The vaultkeepers, uh. They seem to be religious leaders, and their leader is called pontiff, but I don't find any reference to them being divine themselves.
At the very least the conductors have taken this status that the Weavers had, divine and at the top of the hierarchy. The Weavers derive their divine status from being GMS's daughters. I can't say I know how the Citadel's leaders justify it for themselves. But with how long-lived they are, I wonder if the conductors (and possibly the pontiff) are/were from the first generation of bugs which the Weavers handed power to, making them second children. Or at least of the earliest generation still alive. For the Architects it's more complex. I believe from the way Twelfth Architect speaks, the architects were made sequentially, so that there was always just one architect at a time. And for complex reasons I wrote about previously, I think each new architect takes on the memories of the old ones. In this way the divine mind itself was from the past, probably all the way back to the start of conductor rule.
Twelfth Architect on cogwork heart: In it, I see my predecessor’s talent, immense, now lost-forgotten. I could never create-copy a work s-s-so fine.
On architect's melody: From my mind-vault, the imprint has f-f-faded. With many things it is like this… remembrance, dimmed…
Close to death: The skill to construct an Architect… That was taken by t-t-time. I am the last-final.
Introducing itself: I am an Architect. Only an Architect. To build-automate is not choice. It is our nature-directive-c-c-c-cage.
Twelfth Architect speaks of things getting worse over time. It doesn't think itself as capable as earlier architects. It can't remember. Its existence on its own is limited, only an architect, ordered by directive to create, but it channels the divine. And that inspired mind, passed from architect to architect, will end with the twelfth.
Chapel of the Architect needolin: Our hope... / Build... Craft... Pass... / Always another... / Always eternal... / Can it end? / Designs... divine...
Eternity itself hinges on this, keeping an architect of divine designs. Or it did.
Twelfth Architect: The core remains to sustain the song, but no more Architects to tend-toil or build anew. S-s-strange... 'For Pharloom eternal,' states the d-d-directive-cage. But how can eternity sustain without an Architect to serve? This seems e-e-error. An end? An error... welcome?
Choral commandment: Last edict of the Conductors. "And lo, is eternity sustained. By Architect's claw, we welcome that final form, of dial and rotor, and soul gladly given. The perfect, unfaltering voice."
Twelfth Architect is uncertain of eternity without itself, but the hope is the continued existence of automatons will sustain eternity regardless.
I go over all this with Twelfth Architect wondering if its situation is at all similar to the bugs. The bugs have lived generation after generation in a hierarchy controlled by those at the top of the Citadel, divine status conferred upon the conductors, even as the conductors are no different in species than the rest (er, of course there are different species in Pharloom but there's not a divide like where all Weavers were divine—presumably whatever species the conductors are is elsewhere in Pharloom) (it's certainly true for the vaultkeepers and Scrounge). For Twelfth Architect, I assume memory got a little worse each iteration, whatever inspired mind was trying to be kept fading each time. The bugs went through several generations, and I wonder if each generation was considered less divine, or if only the ones at the top ever got such a word applied to them.
Conductor Ballador: The mantle of rule, claimed greedily from Pharloom's fading first children, those bitter Weavers... it was yoke, not crown. Now, in our Citadel's silence, we share their truth. Only one monarch's claws ever clutched this kingdom, though we raised our voices to cry otherwise.
Either way, it's ending. The Weavers considered their rule a burden. Conductor Ballador found it to be too. Eternity didn't happen, no matter how much silk they took or mechanisms they built. One way or another, the bugs will acknowledge GMS, whether they tried to hide her or never knew of her.
Part 6 of a series. See the contents for other parts
Contents
GMS and the Weavers
Pilgrims’ Inheritance
Faith without a Heart
Apostasy: Family and Faith Bound into One
Interlopers?
Purity
Silk-spun Children
Daughter of Hallownest (this post)
Pharloom’s Future
Conclusion + Misc
Daughter of Hallownest
Hornet is taken to Pharloom against her will. An outsider who has never been there, but one with ancestral ties. And that of course is the very reason she was there. GMS would have it no other way.
Despite being in Bell Beast, this silk heart seems to address Hornet. Or possibly some other Weaver retrieved from outside Pharloom, but the sentiment is the same towards any Weaver-descendant I'm sure. GMS feels all the aspects of her nature in Hornet, one she designates child.
All across Pharloom, bugs have opinions of Hornet's place there.
Seamstress: Your poise! Your form! Are you hunted? Pursued? The Citadel would see a fine prize in you. [...] These are bleak times, but a powerful stray like you could certainly cause some change.
Seamstress repeatedly refers to Hornet as a stray. Perhaps in the sense of wanderer, or someone lost from home (Hallownest), but I almost wonder if it's like a runaway who could be claimed by somewhere (Pharloom).
Widow: Ohhhh! She is here! The rare birthling! Precious child of Wyrm and Weaver! Spawn of those who dared to flee. She has found her way home... at last.
Widow says outright that Pharloom is Hornet's home.
Weavers in their spires before being bound: Daughter of a distant land... / We who remained have waited long... / Bind our strength to yours... / Reclaim the future of our haunted kingdom...
The Weavers address her as being from somewhere afar, but their next words make it clear she doesn't just belong in Pharloom, she is one they've been waiting for to be its future. This is not a new message to Hornet.
Weavers in Red Memory: ...Show us your craft, child...: ...Show it splendid, as only we can teach... ...Prove yourself more Weaver than Wyrm…
Herrah: ...Ignore them, daughter... their whispers... ...Greater, grander... Weaver, guardian, queen... Those are their desires... not your own. Certainly not mine... ...Only if you resist them, you might see it, another hope... beyond...
Hornet has great power in Pharloom. As weak as she was when she arrived, several there recognize her power and what it might mean for the kingdom.
Mask Maker, hearing of Hornet's battle with GMS: Ha! I'm not surprised! It's always the way, aye? Your ancient kind, vying for dominion, and us mortal bugs squashed unseen underneath.
Caretaker, uncertain why Hornet's helping people in act 2: But it ain't your place now, is it? I see well what you are, Weaver'n more! It's below your station! You ain't no common sort meant for carin' on us low folk. […] So what're you hopin' for, eh? Planning to usurp, to perch above us all as queen? Build up our hopes only to string us all in your own beastly web? Such is the way of Weavers and gods both...
Pharloom is used to difficulty under GMS, the Weavers, and the bugs who then came to power. It's not a surprise some like Mask Maker and Caretaker do not have high expectations of Hornet.
Hornet is many things.
Eva: Lady, you are a multitude within a single shell. A being truly unbound. To aid your growth has proved a grand task, even for one as limited as me.
Mask Maker: Your mask... It reads clear enough, Old One. Watcher, hunter, monarch even, though you may reject that station. A complex visage, perhaps, yet still to my sight it looks unresolved.
Hornet: If you see a transitional state, it is one I have accepted. My mask has remained defined through lifetimes uncounted.
Mask Maker: Aye. Rigid I'm sure, but your kind rarely develop evenly, and the lifetime of bugs are poor measure for one like you. Could be there's more growth awaiting you yet...
Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that Hornet contains the potential for many things. Things others have hoped for her, and things beyond. Not like Hornet has never been anything. Princess, sentinel. Those two were true in Hallownest, but not Pharloom (oh how hard she tries to avoid being sentinel again). A sister. But we'll get to that one later.
Hornet can go down different paths in the game. The cut ending Strung to Serve (okay I'm cheating that's not a real path anymore), where GMS gets her wish I suppose, and she has a Weaver back under her control. Such a thing can't come to pass in the game as it is now, but I feel it worth mentioning just to highlight GMS's wishes for her, whether to bind Hornet in service or maybe steal all her strength.
Hornet may become Weaver Queen, taking GMS's power and her spot at the top. And all the horrors that come with it I suppose. The ending is vague, on how it affects Hornet, but there's more silk than ever before spilling down from the Cradle, Hornet suspended in the center. Possibly asleep as GMS was, possibly not. And her body starts transforming (in the cut ending too) (urge to ramble about the implications but I'll save it for another post). We don't get to see what happens next. I find this ending interesting, as Hornet does take on some of others' expectations. I don't know about Caretaker's fears that she would subjugate everyone, but somehow despite Hornet's own wishes she changes. At least that's how it seems to me. Even in a playthrough where Hornet doesn't help that many people, she doesn't speak of her goals as wanting to rule over Pharloom. She speaks on her goals in practical terms, to get to know why she was kidnapped and stop the source. Nothing about taking over.
Hornet as the Silk and Soul wish is about to start: I'll not deny some part of me desires that outcome [taking GMS's place]... Dominance, it seems, is baked deep in my blood, as too, no doubt, for the one up top.
...Okay, she does say she desires it on some level. Is it Hornet giving in to some instinct in her, as she fights GMS? Flooded with power and turning to domination? I still find myself dubious.
Hornet, to Caretaker: You have conceived a method, I take it? A way to see a monarch... removed? And me left free from claiming her station?
Hornet speaks as if killing GMS herself would necessitate taking her place. Perhaps because it takes binding her power, likely the only way accessible to Hornet to kill a higher being. And it shapes her destiny into Weaver Queen.
Of course, there's another possible route in this game.
Hornet, after Flick compliments her contributions: Was this kindness? I must take care to learn of this land and claim what advantage I can from it. Answering requests like yours can often fit those ends.
Hornet, after helping Bellhart: I have seen the scale of suffering wrought across Pharloom, Pavo. And I will admit, fulfilling these requests may do little to affect the cause... Even still, I have found it a rewarding task. To aid another... The small warmth of it, I had almost forgotten.
I think Hornet has been away from people far too long, in a kingdom as dead as Hallownest. She speaks as if all of the helping's just practical and not altruism at first. Then again she kinda spoke like that in Hollow Knight too ("I won't risk my life in there" *throws self into Black Egg and gets sealed sibling'd*). Annnnd at the end of this game too (to Lace's face: "Oblivion may take you, child. My own life, I shall not sacrifice." and yet in the journal entry: "This one... the dark shall not take.").
Anyway. Hornet helps more and more bugs, getting to know them and their struggles. Getting invested. Until another path becomes clearer.
Hornet, on the impending battle: Dominance, it seems, is baked deep in my blood, as too, no doubt, for the one up top. And yet, another part resists... A part, over time, I find myself siding with more… That part wishes not to claim a monarch's mantle, rather it would see my freedom regained, and this kingdom's bugs unshackled from their pale chains.
Caretaker: […] For all your helpin', I been seein' it clearer. You've still got the monarch in you, alright, and the glare of a Weaver, but the ambition... that's wild different from both.
Hornet carries this ambition through to the end. Not just to defeating GMS, but to save Pharloom from destruction in the aftermath no matter what it takes.
Hornet, to the White Lady in Red Memory: I knew the wish, and the price to achieve it. And now, across these many ages, I have only come to know it better... Strength... in mind, in care, in claw. Strength enough that I may live to see a world better than our own, or to craft a world as I desire. That was the wish, of my mother, of my mentor, and of you...
I share this quote, though I'm not sure it's exactly Hornet's wish. To craft a world as she desires, that can take many forms. The form of a queen, perhaps. The White Lady, Vespa, and Herrah were, after all. Hornet does not wish that for herself, not here in Pharloom anyway. To see a world better than the one she lives in? I think so. Mm, regardless of how aligned Hornet is with the three queens, her own journey had led her to deeper understanding, enough to know what beyond cruelty could drive the White Lady's actions. Perhaps Hornet imagines it for herself, having taken three hearts of Pharloom to get to this point, to bank on a better future. But I digress.
Hornet, about to enter the final battle: I have survived the fury of your land. I have borne its barbs and its blades, and I have seen wonder behind its dangers. But always, child, I remain a daughter of Hallownest. And the void below all things, that darkness I will fear no longer...
After everything, what is Hornet? After all this time, getting to know Pharloom, in struggles and joys, having overcome to see to the very end….she does not claim Pharloom. She remains a daughter of Hallownest.
Perhaps she mentions such a designation to emphasize her connection with void. After all, her siblings in Hallownest are void. And she got the everbloom from the White Lady, someone in Hallownest too of course. But the void is beneath all things as she says, Hallownest and Pharloom alike. I don't quite think she calls herself daughter of Hallownest for these reasons.
So many had hopes for her in this land. The Weavers wanted her to reclaim its future. Even negative expectations from Mask Maker and Caretaker would have her dominate. But she does not. She will see the land saved, but she does so for freedom. And she is not its future. That belongs to others.
This ending is Sister of the Void. Even after I just said I don't think she's Daughter of Hallownest for her relation to void, the sibling relationship is still important. But for Pharloom? Ghost and the shade have nothing to do with the kingdom, beyond the Abyss below it.
Hornet doesn't get a fancy title like Weaver or Queen. She is just sister here. I see it as repudiation of the connection forced upon her. Hornet is not GMS's daughter (or granddaughter). She is not a daughter of Pharloom. Maybe a bit anticlimactic for this grand ending to have a more mundane title for her, one which she already could've had, but. I feel like Hornet's nature is still unresolved. Transitional. Her physical form stays the same. The resolution and transformation, again, is for others.
(I do feel her approach to the void/siblings changed a bit in this ending, but it's a topic for another day. Point is, they are not of Pharloom) (also not to say Hornet didn't have character development, just not on such a level that she'd change her entire self in dramatic fashion)
I have to wonder for Lace. For all Hornet did, bringing hope to Pharloom, even to some of the most stubborn like Caretaker...Lace stayed without hope, feeling it was all pointless and wishing all into oblivion alongside her. In the end, Lace was freed no matter what she thought of it. We don't get to see her story further. Or Hornet's story further. ...Well, except that Lace's pin joins Hornet's needle in the start menu, and the surface menu style unlocks. That sounds like a win to me.
Hornet was born free of this toxic family, at least comparatively so, as her people still held much baggage. Pharloom threatened to draw her back in, but she saw things through to the end, and...GMS is dead. I'd like to imagine Lace leaves Pharloom behind, with a freedom she'd never had before.
Part 5 of a series. See the contents for other parts
Contents
GMS and the Weavers
Pilgrims’ Inheritance
Faith without a Heart
Apostasy: Family and Faith Bound into One
Interlopers?
Purity
Silk-spun Children (this post)
Daughter of Hallownest
Pharloom’s Future
Conclusion + Misc
Silk-spun Children
It's finally time to speak of Lace, Phantom, and all the other silk-spun children. I admit I'm a bit intimidated, wanting to do Lace justice, superb character that she is. But I will try.
First, a timeline. As much as can be gleaned anyway. Lace is relatively simple (and vague), but Phantom is trickier.
Lace silk heart: ...Better a child spun mad... than none… / ...Better a child spun frail... than none… / ...Better a child spun pure... than them… / ...One to wish our waking... /// ...From our Silk... A child born loyal…
Lace was created after GMS felt betrayed by the Weavers, after she was put to sleep. I thought maybe the above line could extend to all of the silk-spun children, but I'm not sure. Lace is always described as a child, and often as mad, manic, etc, so this quote may be Lace-specific.
Caretaker: [...] her's been up wanderin' this Citadel longer'n most. Even in its long silence, way 'fore you came and roused its ire.
Hornet, to Seamstress: [The Citadel] is long lost... generations lost, a gilded tomb, drowned in Silk dregs.
Lace has been around for a while. Probably at least since the start of the Haunting, generations ago. Hard to tell when you have some bugs like Conductor Ballador around with silk extending their lifespans. We can assume Lace is at least several generations old, and possibly as old as when the Weavers were in charge (not long after GMS went down to sleep). I think she's much younger than the older side of that range though.
Phantom journal entry: Mournful creature tasked alone to expel the Citadel's choking refuse. Their talent with a longpin is unmatched. / Though grey with age, their frayed form suggested a being strung from Silk, one who welcomed a decisive end in combat over a slow decline.
Phantom is in the Exhaust Organ. Phantom has been there alone and has aged to the point of being grey and is showing clear wear. This may mean Phantom is much older than Lace, but not necessarily. Phantom's needolin dialog indicates that they're discarded and forgotten. Meanwhile Lace calls her own existence wasting (post Lace 2 fight), and Hornet thinks Lace would need large amounts of silk to be sustained (journal entry). I think Lace is getting maintenance unlike Phantom.
Phantom is tasked to the Exhaust Organ...presumably there for a long time, until they are fraying with their age. That task is what gives me trouble for timeline placement. I can't imagine when GMS would ever task Phantom there, unless it was so long ago that GMS was still awake. It would be weird to assign Phantom after going to sleep, because the organ would be in the control of Citadel authorities (not GMS). Also, the tank Phantom is seen in in the needolin memory is built into the building. I feel like this is an ancient job. But Phantom's needolin dialog also indicates that they're discarded and forgotten (will be gone over later). Meanwhile Lace calls her own existence wasting (post Lace 2 fight), and Hornet thinks Lace would need large amounts of silk to be sustained (journal entry). I think Lace is getting maintenance unlike Phantom. It's possible in this light that Phantom is comparatively young.
I'm thinking about the wraiths too. If they were silk-spun children, I wonder what they might've done when they were alive. I wonder if there was a large succession of silk-spun children before Phantom (and probably Lace), all being worked until they frayed apart, and Phantom is just the latest/youngest. If they were assigned to the Exhaust Organ, the job could be old enough to have been started in GMS's time while keeping each silk child much younger.
This is all still quite speculative, and I can think of other scenarios, but I fear this would get way too long without properly starting on the actual topic of this post series. I still wanted to establish at least some semblance of a timeline as it feeds into the characters' experiences and mindsets. Anyway, I've rambled long enough.
Lace silk heart: ...Better a child spun mad... than none… / ...Better a child spun frail... than none… / ...Better a child spun pure... than them… / ...One to wish our waking... /// ...From our Silk... A child born loyal…
GMS was affected deeply by abandonment and betrayal by the Weavers (not to say she wasn't horrible). She finds Lace to be flawed...frail, mad. But preferable to nothing. The nothingness she was left with after the Weavers. Mind full of thoughts about how Lace would be more pure and loyal and actually wanting her, unlike the Weavers.
But that's GMS's perspective.
Lace needolin, in front of Phantom: She spun us to fade... / She spun us to break... / Why us, sister? / Why us?
Lace 2 needolin: Why her... Mother... / See me cut! See me serve! / A child, too broken... / I will not fade! I will not take! / See me, your knight... / See me, your daughter...
Post Lace 2 fight: Life? You're too generous! This weak, wasting existence. This was not life, just a husk shaped to act as a child. […] Face the holy mother who would fashion so cruel and crude a daughter as me. After all... it's you that she wants... is it not?
Lace is painfully aware of her fragility in body and position. Her own silk needs constant maintenance. She's getting it, but she knows it's not automatic. She's seen Phantom. Maybe she even saw other siblings die.
Maybe it doesn't need saying, and it was mentioned earlier in this post, but it's almost certain the wraiths are the remnants of other silk-spun children:
Wraith journal entry: Anguished spectre of lingering thread. Despite its ephemeral nature, strong strikes can dispel the Wraith for a time. / Not a bug but a projection of another's will cast in smog and Silk.
Hollow Knight Sibling journal entry: Fragment of a lingering will.
The parallels with the shades are very strong. How many children gone, to be left with so many wraiths? A dozen, at least? In the present, we only know of Phantom and Lace being left after so many others. But why?
Phantom needolin: Show me strength, spider... / Forgotten... / Discarded... / Silk stretched thin... / Shell stiffened... / Claws quivering... / Free me from this fading fate... / Free me!
Why is Phantom there, all alone in a difficult, unending job, discarded and forgotten, wasting away until they would someday become a wraith? Why would Lace alone be sustained, when every other silk-spun child that we've seen has not? Or at least not sustained enough to survive in the long run, while Lace is still pristine.
Lace knows it. She must.
Lace 2 needolin: Why her... Mother... / See me cut! See me serve! / A child, too broken... / I will not fade! I will not take! / See me, your knight... / See me, your daughter...
Lace positions herself as child, daughter. A designation surely given to her by GMS. To Phantom too, once, I'm sure. Lace does call them sister (some people think Phantom could be speaking in that needolin dialog, but ultimately doesn't change the point here). But if Lace is the only one remembered, do the other children matter at all to GMS? Why create them if they would then be discarded?
One could ask the same question when it came to the Weavers. GMS wanted daughters, but the daughters didn't like the treatment, defied GMS, and left. GMS did not discard the Weavers, but she didn't treat them well either. Phantom still works dutifully at the task given to them. Maybe that was good enough for GMS. As in, she wouldn't give most of the silk children any more positive attention than she gave the Weavers, and also has no special reason for negative attention (like the Weavers' betrayal), so they get forgotten
Honestly, I think GMS changed over time. I think long ago she created silk children for certain tasks and let them waste away. Probably even when she was still awake. I don't have hard evidence for this, only the stark difference in treatment between Lace and everyone else. Again, even as I've repeated it a million times in this post:
Lace silk heart: ...Better a child spun mad... than none… / ...Better a child spun frail... than none… / ...Better a child spun pure... than them… / ...One to wish our waking... /// ...From our Silk... A child born loyal…
The betrayal hit GMS so hard that I feel it drove this change. The want for a child who would fix everything, fulfill all her needs...
Caretaker: Look of a child and a mind to match, but her's been up wanderin' this Citadel longer'n most.
Humble Pilgrim (in Songclave): [...] I swear I heard the laughter of a child! [...] Surely though, no bug so young and lively could survive within those heartless halls? […] It almost sounded like they were enjoying themself…
Lace: She can thrash, and waste, and know her pathetic, broken child caused the mortal wound.
Lace: Face the holy mother who would fashion so cruel and crude a daughter as me.
Lace journal entry: Manic fencer who delights in battle.
Lace is described repeatedly as a child. Not just in the fact of being GMS's daughter, but one whose body and mind indicate youth. Made to fulfill this very particular role of eternal daughter. An impossible one, I think. Several question Lace's state of mind. Mad. Cruel. Manic. I don't think Lace can stand up to the expectations.
GMS doesn't stick to her own hopes for Lace either. That is, as much as she wants a daughter, as much as she would go to these lengths to ensure that she had someone in the role of child...it wasn't enough for her. She could not let the Weavers go. She poured her feelings out as she created Lace, that Lace would be better than the Weavers. But Lace couldn't erase GMS's feelings. Lace couldn't delete that betrayal. GMS still obsessed over getting the Weavers back. Even the Weavers' descendants must be returned to her, no matter if violence was needed in the attempt. One of the part-Weavers does die, and I guess that's a preferable outcome than letting them continue to exist out there, or at least an acceptable risk. Eternally repasting these lines but:
Lace 2 needolin: Why her... Mother... / See me cut! See me serve! / A child, too broken... / I will not fade! I will not take! / See me, your knight... / See me, your daughter...
Post Lace 2 fight: Life? You're too generous! This weak, wasting existence. This was not life, just a husk shaped to act as a child. […] Face the holy mother who would fashion so cruel and crude a daughter as me. After all... it's you that she wants... is it not?
Lace feels keenly how much she's being overlooked in favor of Hornet, at least she feels that way. She feels flawed down to the core, to the point that she can't even be called life. I can't help but think how much she feels she could be forgotten any time, frailty on full display like Phantom. I've seen others speculate that she'd rather kill Hornet than let her reach GMS due to these feelings, and that seems likely.
Lace 1 needolin: Bring chaos... / Bring ruin... / Welcome, Spider. Welcome! / Feel pain, so pure! / Feel freedom false! / Let fate's bindings choke you away!
Lace at the start of act 2: Spider, dear. Why must you remain so distressingly... optimistic? The power that waits above, you cannot conceive, her who would snuff that hope with barely a glance.
Lace repeatedly speaks to Hornet as if Hornet's goals are hopeless, as if Hornet can't dream of standing up to GMS. ….I think these are Lace's own feelings. I think Lace feels there is no hope. No freedom. Bound by fate. Or bound by GMS herself, trapping her in this role of daughter and knight. She defies GMS by trying to kill Hornet, but I get the impression that she still feels like GMS is a force that can't truly be fought against, not in a way that matters. Not in a way that would allow her the freedom to live. She could just defy GMS just enough to keep the competition away, to continue to be seen by GMS and not forgotten.
Lace rebels a little harder:
Lace, in the Abyss: Letting you live was my rebellion, spider. I've denied my mother your silken strength. I've won. She can thrash, and waste, and know her pathetic, broken child caused the mortal wound. Rejoice! And let it all come down.
Hornet: I will not. I have already stood the sentinel for one dying land. That role... I will never play again. While I live, and possess the strength to resist, this kingdom, and the bugs within it, shall not fall.
Lace: Hahahhaa! Spider. Spider. What a marvellous specimen you are! You fight and fight, heedless as the world crumbles around you. Pharloom and her bugs will be crushed to dust, and still you'll be vainly swinging your blade.
Even with this act of defiance, Lace still feels like everything is hopeless. Yes, Lace's situation in the Abyss is a very difficult one that any reasonable person would find near impossible to get out of. But I feel like Lace was already ready for herself to be a hopeless cause. She knew it deep in herself when she spoke to Phantom, knowing she would fade someday. She knew it when she told Hornet her existence was pathetic, a non-life. She saw GMS about to take Hornet down with her (or perhaps desperately take Hornet's strength to avoid that fate, but regardless), and she jumped in to stop it. I don't even know if she would've known the implications of what was going on (how would she know the Abyss, the void?), but she saw the fight reaching a conclusion she didn't want. And she'd rather die than be cast aside. She'd die, violently defying her mother, than fade away while not being good enough. Death was always the outcome for her, and she'd prefer to relish in the world's destruction on her own terms. And won't put stock in meaningless, impossible hopes.
Lace before the final fight: Take the final plunge, spider. Join us in my drowning palace, and let oblivion swallow us all.
She's fine with Hornet who she just saved coming back to die too. Lace is already dead in her own eyes. May as well have all join her.
GMS is another story. I almost don't care to mention more of her and her perspective, because we've seen her this whole time be neglectful or outright harmful to all her children. But she never didn't want to have them. And at the end of it all, she still wants them. The only one thing she can have left, fallen into the void, without any of the Weavers, with the rest of the silk-spun children faded away. She has her one, rebellious child. She would destroy all of Pharloom for the chance to still have this one child. Even if she wouldn't treat her right under other circumstances.
I'll end on Phantom:
Phantom journal entry: Mournful creature tasked alone to expel the Citadel's choking refuse. Their talent with a longpin is unmatched. / Though grey with age, their frayed form suggested a being strung from Silk, one who welcomed a decisive end in combat over a slow decline.
Phantom needolin: Show me strength, spider... / Forgotten... / Discarded... / Silk stretched thin... / Shell stiffened... / Claws quivering... / Free me from this fading fate... / Free me!
Phantom feels trapped, just like Lace, though the two occupy different positions. Phantom does not leave their job. They see their slow decline. Surely they've seen the wraiths and know how this ends. They do not see a future for themself. None where they can recover like Lace. They don't hold such a favored position with GMS to be upkept, as fickle as that position might be. They wish for freedom in the only way they know how. I can't see them as that different from Lace in this regard, only that Lace was in a position to take greater action, whereas Phantom only had opportunity walk in in the form of Hornet.
Part 4 of a series. See the contents for other parts
Contents
GMS and the Weavers
Pilgrims’ Inheritance
Faith without a Heart
Apostasy: Family and Faith Bound into One (this post)
Interlopers?
Purity
Silk-spun Children
Daughter of Hallownest
Pharloom’s Future
Conclusion + Misc
Apostasy: Family and Faith Bound into One
Even with all the ways that Pharloom changed over the years, it does not escape its origin. Not just as far as who rules it, and the Haunting that caught up with them. The whole system of hierarchy grew out of GMS at the top, the Weavers a step below and still divine, and the rest of the bugs below them all. The new rulers continued this, with their own modifications to the social structure. The first children are still remembered by some, with the pilgrims being successor children, who all speak of each other as siblings without even knowing who is the parent at the top.
I don't know how else to emphasize the pilgrims' place in a broad family except to launch into talking about First Sinner.
Journal entry: Ancient Weaver condemned for a transgression lost to time.
needolin: I did not wane! / I did not forget! / Sustained by fury! / Cursed by Silk! / Cursed with Silk! / Cursed to know… / The sin... the truth...
At defeat: ...She called us daughters... Called us divine... She lied...
Words on the outside of the cage: Penitent, First of the First. / Guilty of the sin of apostasy. / Penance by constriction. / Absolution denied.
First Sinner is under so much security. In the Slab. Behind the Key of Apostate, which Hornet has to find all the way in Putrified Ducts (surely the jailers have other copies though). In a secret area through the ceiling. In a big cage bound by chains and seals. Constricted into a spire for all of time. First Sinner is considered just that threatening to Pharloom and everything it's built on.
And yet, why should she be? Would her apostasy not be related to calling GMS a liar, rejecting her designation as divine daughter? Pharloom bound GMS in metaphorical chains, never to be released, and for the most part forgot her. EVERY SINGLE BUG in Pharloom is an apostate from this angle, Widow the only exception. Why keep First Sinner locked up? Should she not be celebrated? Should she not be the trailblazer that made Pharloom possible, as it came to exist during GMS's sleep?
Weaver effigy, found in the Slab: Carving of Atla, Weaver of time. A prayer is etched upon it. "By grace of your example, and our history held full in mind, our song is yours, as your name is sacred. Weaver Atla, may you be praised eternal."
I believe the weaver effigies relate to the weavers they are found near. @bugslaststraw wrote about this a while ago, compiling information on the various weavers we can find around Pharloom, bound into spires (much good info for all the weavers in that whole post). They think think First Sinner may have persisted so long, to stay strong enough to fight, due to association with time. They think she may have been worshiped after imprisonment, in secret. I had thought so previously but now I think First Sinner and her relationship with other weavers and bugs might be different. I do think there's reason to associate that effigy with First Sinner. The mention of history tracks with how First Sinner shows us her memory of the origin of Weavers, and her needolin dialog referencing how she didn't forget. Time may indeed relate to how long her strength persisted, as well as relate back to memory. But I think that she may have been worshiped before imprisonment and not after.
Because…after all this time she's still imprisoned. She was imprisoned long ago. She was imprisoned still during the Weavers' rule when GMS was asleep. She was still imprisoned during the Conductors' rule. If this was only about GMS, there's no reason why First Sinner shouldn't've been freed the second GMS was put to slumber and the Weavers in charge. Why was First Sinner still a sinner? Why was her apostasy still threatening?
The Weavers derived their authority and divine status from GMS. That system of authority was never thrown off. Their status as daughters was never severed, not fully, as they were still called first children. Their place as targets of worship? That one is trickier. Most bugs barely remember the Weavers, or at least don't mention them. But there is continuity in the religious structure of Pharloom, even as it changed over time. The bugs still make pilgrimage to the top, even as Pharloom's heart has been removed from the equation. I wouldn't be surprised if the Weavers were still worshiped in the intermediary period of their rule.
And again, during that time, First Sinner was still locked up and called an apostate. An apostate for a religion that continued without GMS, even as First Sinner's sin seems to revolve around GMS. At least I think so. For those memories she showed us, calling GMS a liar. First Sinner calls the Weavers' daughterhood and divine status lies. I can only guess she did or said something to try to cut herself off from that. The Weavers, even with their rebellion against GMS, kept their status, where First Sinner would throw it away. In that way I think she was a threat to the authorities in every era. The Weavers and the later rulers of the Citadel rely on this system of religion and authority to keep the whole populace in line.
Small tangent. The weaver effigy associated with First Sinner is found in an area beneath where she's locked up, on the dead body of a penitent. That penitent has needolin dialog:
...Your light... / ...Forgive my silence... / ...Too weak... to return... / I failed you...
The area has a window looking out of the Slab towards the Citadel and its light. The needolin dialog suggests to me that this penitent was still part of the overall religion, looking towards either GMS or whatever Citadel authorities in their era, wishing they could return and keep singing. This is odd in light of the effigy. Either the effigy is unrelated to First Sinner (meaning it's about some other Weaver who's still part of the religion), this penitent was locked up before First Sinner's apostasy (contradictory to the name First Sinner so I don't think so), or the penitent was a worshiper of First Sinner who kept up the worship after the apostasy but had a change of heart before their death. Or maybe the effigy was confiscated and a random penitent found it later. I don't know. I don't really have conclusions here, but I wanted to mention it anyway.
Again I want to emphasize the family angle. First Sinner couldn't just leave the family, to be her own person free of the silk and status she never asked for. She had to be called and apostate and locked up. The rest of Pharloom enforces this control on a daughter who can't leave the family. Those bugs who again themselves also have a place in the family as successor children
Words on the outside of First Sinner's cage: Penitent, First of the First. / Guilty of the sin of apostasy. / Penance by constriction. / Absolution denied.
The messages in the Slab describing the sins of the penitents...all of them are numbered. Eighth of the Twelfth. Second of the Fourth. Fourth of the Fourth. Twelfth of the First. First of the First. Nothing is known for sure about any of these penitents, except for the First of the First. First Sinner of the First Children? I don't know what else that could mean, the two firsts, but First Sinner is the title we know her by, and first children the title we know that's imparted on all Weavers. But in that light, might all those other numbers count not just which sinner among them, but also their generation? Generation of children after the first.
No one in Pharloom ever speaks of second children or any subsequent generation in that exact phrasing. In a practical sense there may be no need almost all the time. There are so many generations of bugs alive at once, especially with silk-extended lifespans. More useful is to speak of pilgrims as a group without dividing the generations. But recordkeeping when it comes to individuals is more doable. I do think all those messages about sinners in the Slab may be a vague reference to their place in the generations, referring back to the Weavers as the first.
Beyond the generations of children, I do think pilgrims/Citadel bugs concern themselves with ancestry at least some. It's on display too for all those messages to go out and capture Weaver-descendants, counting how much Weaver they are. It's in the names of many. Second Sentinel. Twelfth Architect. Fourth Chorus. These might be constructs, and not generational (though I believe the Architects are one at a time), but there still seems to be importance placed on counting those in one's line. So I think being so specific about counting the generations (and numbering the sinners within each generation) is not out of the question
One last piece of evidence. First Sinner's cage is covered in seals. Obviously GMS would be able to make such. But even the cages the jailers use if Hornet gets captured in-game have seals on them. I doubt that's a product of the Haunting. The Citadel regularly uses silk, including things like thread storm that the Grand Reeds attack with. That's a Weaver technique. Seals too are used by Weavers, like as seen in Hollow Knight. I feel the Weavers passed on such techniques to the Citadel bugs during the transfer of power, including seals for the cages. Though for First Sinner herself, I think the Weavers locked her up personally.
Part 3 of a series. See the contents for other parts
Contents
GMS and the Weavers
Pilgrims’ Inheritance
Faith without a Heart (this post)
Apostasy: Family and Faith Bound into One
Interlopers?
Purity
Silk-spun Children
Daughter of Hallownest
Pharloom’s Future
Conclusion + Misc
Faith without a Heart
One thing that struck me as I was analyzing texts, months ago, was how the pilgrims spoke of the point of their religion.
Chapel Maid: The bugs of the Citadel, at the summit of our land. They veil themselves in service to their faith, or perhaps as slaves to something greater...
It bothered me that time and time again, as the pilgrims speak, they speak of faith and service, but almost never what that service is about. The target of worship. If a target is given, it's often the Citadel itself. The quote above, though by Chapel Maid who knows greater truth of GMS...indicates that faith and "slaves to something greater" are two different things, implying that faith is decoupled from GMS.
They see your beauty, so frail and fine,
They see your peace, woven of faith and toil,
They forget your heart, bound in slumber and servitude,
When you wake they shall see your truth,
A beast's nature bare to all.
- From 'Pharloom’s Folly' by the Conductor Romino
Faith and toil, but with a forgotten heart? Faith somehow persists without one.
Cardinius: Within our vast store, always more there is to know, the old methods of prayer, to this land, to its rulers, and to the strength at its heart.
Prayer. To the land. To the rulers. To GMS. But those are called old methods. To the land and rulers? Perhaps there are new methods of prayer. Prayers to GMS? I don't think those exist in Pharloom's current era.
Sherma, first meeting: I am Sherma, a pilgrim just like you. I hear the call of the great Citadel just like every other devout soul.
Sherma in Blasted Steps: The great stone steps, the winds lifting us up like the voices of a choir, and just beyond it all is our pilgrimage's end. The great Citadel at last!
Sherma about to go to Whiteward: And the Citadel itself shall provide the materials! Praise be to this holiest of holy places!
Sherma about to return from Whiteward: Fear not on my behalf. My fellow pilgrims are all praying for me, and thereby no harm will befall me!
Sherma in act 3: Our great Citadel has lost its voice, and now the black threads rise up to tear its shell apart. I fear holy Pharloom is truly dying…
Sherma, the greatest example of what a pilgrim is supposed to be, absolutely certain of the power of song, certain of his ability to reach the Citadel, certain that he needs nothing but faith. In act 1 anyway, and still trying in act 2. All of Sherma's dialog points to the Citadel being the source of what is holy, and not some great being at the top. And what is the goal of the pilgrims?
Mort: The lands in every direction punish us, but such is our test. Above it all, the Citadel shines, our destination and our reward… I'll make it there, you'll see. I've easily earned my place in such a paradise.
Loam: And when us works enough, thems see it... Hrrr... thems see it, and us gets us holy reward…
Needolin of pilgrim enemies: My faith... my reward...
Sherma at Grand Gate: Red maiden! Dear sister! At last, our great pilgrimage is at its end! Our faith never wavered, and now here awaits our glorious reward, the shining Citadel! Where all sing as one!
The pilgrims expect to reach the Citadel and be rewarded. As far as I can tell that's it. They speak glowingly of the Citadel and having its bounties. Sherma says it explicitly that his journey is ending as he reaches the Citadel, and not instead as he approaches the Cradle, as the Cogwork Statues would tell it (highlighted in the last post).
The pilgrims have to contend with the Citadel not being all it should've been though:
Sherma at Songclave: Fear, and pain... why were these things allowed into our paradise? Have my brothers and sisters not yet earned their holy reward? [...] Fear not, brothers and sisters! If we work hard and keep our faith, the Citadel will provide for us... I have no doubt!
Scared Pilgrim (act 2 Songclave): This Citadel's grand promise has been strangled away by cursed thread, but at least the great bell here grants us some sanctuary. […] The Citadel chose us, granted us a little more living.
The faith is being strained. I'll get to what happens as such feelings progress in a future post.
Things were different under the Weavers (again I think Pious Isamor was from that era):
Pious Isamor: [P]ilgrim! [C]ast aside those many sinful hopes for rest [an]d reward…
I can only conclude the thought of reward, in the post-Weaver era, was to help keep the pilgrims on task. Keep them working, keep them striving, keep them in their faith that maintains the whole system. A system that needs something without GMS, and then without the first children that were previously regarded as the Citadel's highest caste, to be worshiped. Not to get too into it, but dialog indicates that many hope for clean air and water and food, and even speak of the Citadel as lacking starvation (suggesting real or feared starvation elsewhere). The Citadel being rich and adorned in contrast with everything else I'm sure made it seem amazing.
One last thing to emphasize the change in religion:
Bone scroll of a fallen pilgrim: My dear companions, all are gone now, devoured, scorched, fallen to exhaustion, or worse, seduced by the Haunting.
Crull: The Haunting? Oh, we's got that all worked out. Benj'n and me are a right pair of philosophers when we bend our minds to it. It's faith that gets you. It's all caused by being too devout!
Benjin: Yeah! Or maybe not bein' devout enough!
Crull: Or maybe it's safest not to think about it at all. Har har!
The irony that GMS was the original heart of the religion but now could be spoken of as if her threads would seduce a pilgrim from their true calling. Would a pilgrim's devotion make them more or less susceptible to the haunting? ...Well, the answer's irrelevant here. I only bring it up to point out how much has changed.
Hornet, as Songclave comes into being: These poor bugs, all are victims of the Citadel and its insidious attraction. This place draws them up, into its maw, only to consume them, utterly.
Caretaker: Aye, inside and out, s'nothing but a grand, gilded lie. Well, at least these few stragglers can enjoy a moment's safety. Poor fools…
As Hornet and Caretaker speak it, perhaps it's inevitable either way for a pilgrim. Be consumed by the Haunting, or consumed by endless service to the Citadel.
Part 2 of a series. See the contents for other parts
Contents
GMS and the Weavers
Pilgrims’ Inheritance (this post)
Faith without a Heart
Apostasy: Family and Faith Bound into One
Interlopers?
Purity
Silk-spun Children
Daughter of Hallownest
Pharloom’s Future
Conclusion + Misc
Pilgrim's Inheritance
All this isn't just about GMS and her progeny, as I spoke of in the last post.
Rune harp found in the Citadel: Sisters, spiders, the burden is passed. These simple bugs shall bear it full. Never to cease. Never to silence.
Conductor Ballador: The mantle of rule, claimed greedily from Pharloom's fading first children, those bitter Weavers... it was yoke, not crown. Now, in our Citadel's silence, we share their truth. Only one monarch's claws ever clutched this kingdom, though we raised our voices to cry otherwise.
(It must be noted that, as in the line above, the Weavers are often called first children. This will come up repeatedly.)
And this longer exchange:
Hornet: The bugs of your land, I have watched them, climbing towards their absolution without the flicker of a thought to what it means.
Mask Maker: Aye. But isn't it always such for those snared to serve your higher caste? Our mortal mob did once act some defiance, unawares maybe, but successful in part, goaded towards it by Weavers' will'n all.
Hornet: You speak of the Citadel? Its former function has failed, but I can still sense its purpose, some. It is church and cage both.
Mask Maker: Aye. Devised by your ancestors that monstrosity, and their wicked, clever minds. A system, or a web they'd likely call it, a way to keep their mother sealed in slumber, and themselves free to lavish in their false rule.
The pilgrims of Pharloom, up to the highest authorities of the Citadel, took on the task from the Weavers to keep GMS asleep. But it's more than just a matter of rule and duty. The pilgrims take on a particular role.
Pious Isamor: ...Dear [pil]grim... Dark it seems now... [l]et these word[s] become your guide… Hear our voice... Let it [?] your own! Give of yourself for great Pharloom, for [the] first-children who bequeath it to us... for our salva[tion] sure to come!
Pious Isamor needolin: Pilgrims... all… / Siblings... serving... / Devout... unwavering… / All... are equal…
Pious Isamor is a statue seemingly animated by silkflies. It's found in a hidden location in the Whispering Vaults, probably some storage room. Those on the Hollow Knight wiki speculate it used to be in a prominent spot in Choral Chambers (removed from a base that was left in place). From its dialog it clearly was supposed to be talking to pilgrims, telling them how they should be in the Citadel. I think it was from the time of the Weavers. From the talk of first-children, to other of its dialog saying the Citadel is bare and unadorned, to indicating equality between all the pilgrims...those things aren't true in the present. There's high stratification in Citadel society, and plenty of adornment.
Twelfth Architect: Long before the c-c-creation of the core, the sentinels ventured, even beyond these walls, to see all bugs brought-forced safe to serve the Citadel.
(can't help but use this line any chance I get) (I dunno if the sentinels were in the Weaver times but they at least were early on in bug rule)
What I wanted to point out here is...even in the time of the Weavers, there were pilgrims. They came to the Citadel. They worshiped the Weavers (see: weaver effigies, containing prayers to weavers). And they called each other siblings.
And the Weavers...they were called first children. Children of GMS obviously enough. But if there are first children, does that not imply there are subsequent children? Would it not be the pilgrims, who are all siblings to each other? Sure, sibling is not an unusual term to call people in a religious sense, but I think it's both in this instance. The family role that GMS bestowed upon the Weavers is in turn bestowed, expanded, to encompass all of Pharloom and its bugs.
(I don't think Lace, Phantom, or other silk-spun beings could be the second children, but I'll discuss why later.)
Hornet, to Twelfth Architect: I bear the lineage of Weavers, along with other strands, equally strange.
Twelfth Architect: Then on your r-r-request, Bug-Red, as directive demands, for Pharloom's first children, a-a-a-and our kingdom-eternal, I shall c-c-craft.
Cardinius: Fool! Demanding of a Vaultkeeper. Hers is impudence enough to bring death... If she did not carry the scent of Weaver-spawn.
Hornet: So you know something of my ancestry, learned bug. If it gains me favour here, then I'll expect your service in full.
Cardinius: Bleg! Dead! Dead, your vicious kind are meant to be. Better methinks to stay as such… Gkkkt. But this one was taught. It shall fold its claws. It shall pass its knowledge, as much as is gleaned. Only to a first child must a Vaultkeeper defer.
There has always been a hierarchy in Pharloom. Between GMS and Weavers, with GMS at the top. Between the Weavers and other bugs, with the Weavers worshiped, and it is clear from the dialog that they and their high station were remembered still by a few. (I believe Second Sentinel may also remember, if only because it asks Hornet for orders immediately upon waking as if she was an authority.) Even in the Weavers' long absence, they hold the highest rank in the Citadel.
Of course, the Weavers have still been gone for the most part. Without them, the pilgrims stratified greatly, with the Conductors on top. It's not just a straight vertical hierarchy though.
The pilgrims have a degree of upward mobility...somewhat literally of course lol. They start at the bottom of Pharloom, making their way up to the Citadel. Then some of those bugs can reach a higher level, being trusted with weapons (I had so much to say on weapons that I had to make a separate post on it and the Order of the Pinstress).
Chorister journal entry: Disciple of the Choir, elevated above other pilgrims, and forced to cowl their face forever more.
Perhaps some of those could even be elevated to Conductor, if there ever was such an open position. But beyond that I'm not sure what else a pilgrim could be.
See, there are many many bugs in the kingdom that seem to have little to do with this whole pilgrimage.
Loam: Surely you did come from above! Me time has come at last! Me work is done. You come to bring me up! Up, up! Hrrr!
I can't imagine Loam was ever a pilgrim. To reach the Citadel and expect holy reward, only to be taken away to the Underworks and promised a second time? I don't think they've ever seen the Citadel. Have the other underworkers? Have the roachkeepers of Sinner's Road?
Sign near the squirrms: Bug born of Pharloom. You have been chosen. May our Citadel's holy gilding harden your soft shell. Stand eternal as our arbiter, that no bug bearing sin shall step within our sacred halls.
The squirrms are baby versions of the judges. From birth they are intended for this one job. There never was a pilgrimage.
Hornet, in the Slab: Will you tell me of those who guard this structure? They are servants of the Citadel, are they not?
Old Penitent: Servants...? They too are penitents. In a past age, that caste committed their own sacrilege against the Citadel. A sin long forgotten, but so grave that their offspring and the offspring of their offspring carry the guilt with them still. To serve here is their only hope of absolution.
Scabfly journal entry: Foul creatures birthed into servitude. Their plight elicits no sympathy from me.
I'm sure it doesn't matter what supposed sin was committed. The slabflies perform a useful service to the Citadel. They're as likely to be absolved as Loam is to be taken up.
Forge Daughter: Sent from our Forgehome we were, at request of those holy bugs above.
Hornet: The Citadel dwellers? The veiled bugs? They ordered you here?
Forge Daughter: Yes! An age ago that. Such is duty! We Forge Daughters live to hone the craft, and aid the line. By the Citadel's patronage, and our long duty upon these docks, our Forgehome would swell in holy esteem.
Forge Daughter, in act 3: There is no choice! Not for us. We cannot leave, not ever. We are a Forge Daughter, fixed to this forge and its service. Ours is a duty lifetime bound.
There's not just one Forge Daughter, but a whole line of Forge Daughters. We don't get to know where Forgehome is, but "those holy bugs above" suggests to me that this Forge Daughter has never been there in the Citadel. They've been assigned to their duty and they never leave. They emphasize it even in as the world may end to void.
Twelfth Architect: Bug-Red. Do you ask-need our service? We shall create, as is our d-d-directive. To serve, for Pharloom eternal.
On seeing the cogwork heart: That heart is an inspired form, conceived by the first of my line for a knight of cog and blade. In it, I see my predecessor's talent, immense, now lost-forgotten. I could never create-copy a work s-s-so fine.
Realizing it will die soon: The skill to construct an Architect... That was taken by t-t-time. I am the last-final. The core remains to sustain the song, but no more Architects to tend-toil or build anew. S-s-strange... 'For Pharloom eternal,' states the d-d-directive-cage. But how can eternity sustain without an Architect to serve? This seems e-e-error. An end? An error... welcome?
needolin: ...To mend...Unending... / ...To serve...Eternal... / ...Always an Architect... / ...From these thoughts...Creation... / ...From these memories...Skill... / ...Designs...Divine...
Twelfth Architect is a bit different in that it's artificially created, and animated by a silkfly that would've come from a pilgrim. But I'm not sure if it's truly distinct from the situation of many bugs. Born into a station and given a duty one can never stop.
Twelfth Architect: A gleaming order, cogwork sentinels, so impressive-majestic in function they were charged-b-b-bound to the highest holy duty.
Second Sentinel, act 2: Defence of the sacred C-c-citadel, and the voices that fill it-t-t, is our eternal duty. [Hornet points out the pointlessness amidst vast decline] Eternal, is the Citadel. Et-t-ternal, is the devotion of the sentinels. While its shell is f-f-functional, this sentinel will hold true to its duty.
After Hornet emphasizes there is nothing left in act 3: While voices still fill the g-g-great chambers... the sacred task of the sentinels continues. To defend... To p-p-protect.
Second Sentinel doesn't seem that much different to me compared to someone like Forge Daughter. The duty continues. No matter what. No matter how pointless.
Twelfth Architect continued too, until it could not. It found its end welcome, seemingly surprising itself in that thought. But no matter how welcome, it never stopped its duty until it physically could not function.
Moorwing journal entry: Winged mite-beast, bred large to catch workers who once tried to flee their tasks.
Twelfth Architect: Long before the c-c-creation of the core, the sentinels ventured, even beyond these walls, to see all bugs brought-forced safe to serve the Citadel.
Even if anyone in Pharloom wanted to do anything beyond their assigned station it's not like they would be allowed to.
I'd like to point out the repeated use of the word caste. It was used above by the Old Penitent to describe the slabflies. It was used by Mask Maker to refer to higher beings.
Vaultkeeper journal entry: High caste bug, responsible for delivering sermons and leading prayer for those beyond the walls of the Whispering Vaults.
Pinstress act 1/2 needolin: The flurried dance of blades swung swift… / Warriors proud in battle's midst… / An order lost of maidens fair… / Lethal talents beyond compare… / I remember you... My sisters passed… / You were the finest... bravest... caste…
Hornet, to Grindle: The creature that haunts this place is stirring, little thief. The Citadel's caste now roam the halls. You would do well to leave soon, if you mean to survive.
Hornet to Lace at the start of act 2: The signs are clear. Your kingdom is in the thrall of a creature beyond bug, one of that higher caste.
And these aren't all the examples. It was used in Hollow Knight too. I made a post about it previously. To quote myself:
“Caste” is a category. Something having to do with one’s place in society, something you’re born into. Mask Maker brings this up upon seeing Ghost with King’s Brand, something to mark them as King, the top rank of a society.
Some quotes from Hollow Knight:
Mushroom people near Deepnest: This border bounds the twisting, scratching things. Their dead sire, once of honoured caste. Their sealed mother, but the common beast. No peace with them we make.
Mask Maker (Hallownest) on the Ancient Civ: It is the ancient caste that made attempt at such vast rule. Hallownest’s ruin reflects well those fared attempts.
Caste is more than just a social thing. It's also a term with a specific definition in biology:
a subset of individuals within a colony (society) of social animals that is specialized in the function it performs and distinguished by anatomical or morphological differences from other subsets.
For example, in real life, ants would be said to have different castes. They have queens. They have workers. They have soldiers with huge heads and mandibles to match. Each ant is raised in a certain role, affecting their body and behavior, and it won't be changed.
I believe Team Cherry might be influenced by this concept and implemented it in the worldbuilding. Not the physical determination of role per se (though, for instance, the skarr do have great physical differences between different ant types determining their jobs, and someone of Forge Daughter's size and presumable strength may be desired for metalworking), but as kingdoms of intelligent bugs with complex societies, stratifying the society in a manner similar to such biological determinations, and yes, calling to mind real world caste systems.
All this is getting a bit above my paygrade (of $0). Point is, this is a highly stratified society with very little choice. I almost wonder if the pilgrimage is the only source of social mobility, where the pilgrims can hope for a good life if they reach the top, and maybe they could even become part of the power structure. Maybe.
Cogwork statues, the ones guarding the elevator to the Cradle: Pilgrim of Pharloom eternal, you rare chosen who hath ascended to this final threshold, listen to our wish, deliver it, that you may rise above and see your pilgrimage end. […] Pilgrim of Pharloom eternal, regale us with our Threefold song, that you may rise above and worship before our kingdom's divine heart.
Conductor Ballador: Would you see her, pilgrim? Up there at our Citadel's crown? Reach those heights we'd hoped to hide and bow before this land's true ruler.
Cardinius: The Weaver-thing would claim our sacred melody?! How grim the age we survive to see... Vile sacrilege for it to pass to an outsider… Only our pontiff, lived long and low within our vault, they held the melody, jealously, covetously... A learning for the highest Vaultkeeper, and them alone.
Twelfth Architect: At the height of our core, there is means-s-s-system, near complete... Constructs old-built to sound our song. They need only be set to functional form.
The whole point of the pilgrimage, as indicated by the cogwork statues, is a holy one. As it should be by the name. The pilgrims will arrive and worship at the top. And yet, it seems that pilgrimage is incompletable. The elevator was guarded by the Cogwork Dancers. The Conductors hid the way. The highest Vaultkeeper kept their melody only for themself. I'm uncertain for the Architects, but I have to wonder why the constructs on the top of Cogwork Core were in that state. Twelfth Architect seems to indicate they were made a while ago, and yet they are merely "near complete"? When Hornet visits, they don't even seem incomplete as much as they just need music sheets put in order. I have to wonder if there was some deliberate act (by a past Architect?) to keep them at the last step before completion.
Pharloom has issues, starting from the top. From its beginnings as Grand Mother Silk took the Weavers as daughters, to the hierarchy of Weaver rule, and the bugs that inherited that rule, and all the ways family, faith, and control are tangled up in that web.
This will be about family, most of all. The sense of family is pervasive not just between the Weavers and GMS, but the Weavers passed it on to the pilgrims as successor children, and all that came with it. The hierarchy, the melding of faith and duty and belonging, the inability for anyone in Pharloom to control their own destiny...all in one package.
This is going to have to be a multiparter. It's all written, but has grown to be my longest writing yet (edit: woops I kept adding to it as I rolled out the posts XD was not done. oh well). The first part is not too long so it is included in this post
Contents
GMS and the Weavers (this post)
Pilgrims’ Inheritance
Faith without a Heart
Apostasy: Family and Faith Bound into One
Interlopers?
Purity
Silk-spun Children
Daughter of Hallownest
Pharloom’s Future
Conclusion + Misc
GMS and the Weavers
We get to hear very little of how Grand Mother Silk defines herself. Most of what we hear about her comes from others. But above all, from herself and others, one thing is clear: she is Mother. GMS wanted children, and it fashioned them from pharlids. Later on she fashioned them from pure silk.
A choice. To be mother. To have daughters. A choice for a family, made all on her own, sitting in her cradle atop the kingdom.
(Obligatory clarification that who knows where she was when she acquired daughters; I just wanted to call attention to it being called The Cradle)
But that's GMS's will, her wants, her framing.
The Weavers, on the other hand:
First Sinner: ...She called us daughters... Called us divine... She lied...
Weavenest Atla lore tablet: This low, her gaze escaped. Prepare, sisters. Weave hope anew. That we might break free this accursed web born of our naive foundation.
Rune harp in Bilewater: Flee, sisters. Flee until your strength exhausts, so far you may escape at last her silken sight. To start anew, to sustain, free of web and service eternal.
Furthermore, Bell Hermit, Mask Maker, and GMS herself (Unraveled silk heart dialog) describe all of Pharloom as being bound or snared by GMS, destined to serve. Given the Weavers' dialog, I think they'd find it true for themselves. Having their bodies and minds changed, put into the role of daughters, under the eternal watch of GMS…clearly they didn't want it.
In a sense, no one chooses to be born, or who they're born to. Even putting aside that the Weavers were modified from preexisting bugs. They couldn't've had a choice before then, same as any infant. To be put in a role of daughters and watched over is a bit more iffy, though I think a healthy family could be born of that (like adoption) (and mild watching according to an age-appropriate amount). But to be lied to? And uh, be under a web of eternal service????
Lace silk heart: ...Better a child spun mad... than none… / ...Better a child spun frail... than none… / ...Better a child spun pure... than them… / ...One to wish our waking... /// ...From our Silk... A child born loyal…
GMS's reaction, too, to the Weavers leaving… Implying the Weavers disloyal and impure, not wanting her, and she needed new children to replace them. But just replacement isn't enough. She's doing whatever she can to get the Weavers back.
One of three lore tablets to retrieve weavers: Weaver, in quarter part, last of their line, staked to service. / Tracked and taken beneath the City of Steel. / Eight Choristors, twelve Envoys lost to task.
Choral commandment: Full Chamber to the kingdom of the White Wyrm. Claim the Weaver, in half part. Last of their line. Sensed strong with Silk. Resistance anticipated. Quell with rune cage.
There's even a cut ending called "Strung to Serve" where Hornet would be overtaken by GMS, presumably falling under GMS's control. This is of course not canon, but it makes me think of GMS's ultimate goal for retrieving the Weavers. I think Lace's dialog points to such:
Letting you live was my rebellion, spider. I've denied my mother your silken strength. I've won.
It's a bit vague but GMS wants Hornet's strength in some way. And personally I imagine wants to undo the slight of being defied, and go back to being in control of those she thinks of as family.
This question has haunted me since October. In trying to answer it, I dove deep, looking into the craws, the moors, any connection to the stilkin, until it ballooned into analyzing every region of Pharloom. And out of that came realizations about the Hearts of Pharloom, a project to look into all the hearts, of which I wrote 2.5 of 4 or 5 parts, and then….dropped off.
For the last month I've been trying to write an analysis of gender in Silksong. But to talk about gender, I have to talk about the vast system of control the Citadel imposes on its people in every aspect of life. And to talk about that, I have to talk about their control of weapons, and what it meant for the Pinstresses, and subsequently those the most like the Pinstresses, the crawbugs…
So yeah I'm never escaping this question. Not until I gather all my findings and post about it.
The short answer is yes* (close enough). The long answer is under this cut. So if you would like to read about the crawbugs, originators of the Order of the Pinstress, please join me for the next 4k words.
To get the silliest and least consequential part out of the way. Which I don't think needs saying but whatever. No crawbugs aren't literally birds. They're bugs like everyone else. Bugs in the same way that Widow is, who gets described as having a spine. They're heavily crow-coded. Crow's in the name (almost). They flap around. They have "beaks" (word actually used in Crawfather's journal entry). They scavenge shiny things. Their vibes impart bird upon them, so I'll call them that XD
To get started for real. I think the craws and pinstresses are related in some way. The tallcraws fight with pins. The squatcraws fight with triple throwing pins, just like Pinstress (though the design of those pins is a bit different, the fighting style matches). Pinstress, Seamstress, and the dead pinstress in Putrified Ducts all have fabric houses on top of balloon-type things, and those balloons are found all throughout Greymoor, especially the right side which is frequented by craws.
To dive deeper into it...
Ragpelt inventory description: Tattered pelt taken from the body of a Crawbug. Fragile and drab, it is considered to have few practical uses.
Creige: Course, you'll need to do some pointed persuading if you're planning to separate rag from bug…
Pelt is wording that suggests part of the body. Rag suggests cloth. This isn't the first time Team Cherry has made wings vs clothes vague in character/bug design—moths in Hollow Knight held their wings like cloaks, and I've seen it commonly both for people to think the vessels have cloaks as part of their body and not.
When Hornet collects the ragpelts, it falls from their bodies at death, drifting slowly to the ground. This is in contrast to the wishes where Hornet collects the clothes of pilgrims, where she rips it from their bodies, and the sprite updates to have the body naked. The craws' sprites stay the same during this wish. Is it mere bits of their cloth/wings tearing from their bodies? I can only guess so. The sprite for ragpelt looks more like wings to me, in its shape, and in having a different segment near the top of it where it narrows, possibly where it would attach to the body. But that's also not how the whole "cloth" looks on the craws. The edges of the "cloaks" do flap like wings, but it still doesn't explain the hood portion. I almost wonder if the crawbugs have wings, and then cloth on top of it. Crawfather is an interesting example as he has separate "wing" and "hair" sections.
Tallcraw journal entry: Rag-winged adult crawbug bearing a scavenged pin.
This indicates that their wings do look like rags. So I think it very well may be that the ragpelt truly are the wings. It still makes me ask whether they have cloth on top of that.
Craw Juror journal entry: Screeching scavenger dyed black in mourning at their land's collapse.
All the craws (the young craw enemies specifically I mean) become craw jurors during act 3. They all are dyed black. But once Hornet goes to court and defeats Crawfather, the craws go back to being undyed. Either they have different outfits, or the dye washes out easily from their wings. They live on top a lake where it's constantly raining. I'm a bit dubious on dyeing their actual bodies.
To get into what's explicitly cloth. The whole of the moors has bugs wearing cloth in a similar manner: covering their heads, and continuing down to cover some of their bodies. Note that the moors here include both Greymoor and Sinner's Road (and I think Wisp Thicket):
Benjin (found in Sinner's Road): Us moorbugs gotta eat, don't we?
Benjin: It's said the moors used to grow a bounty of fresh food, way back befores that Citadel set us about catchin' their fallin' thread.
Mort (found in Far Fields): […] just above are the dreary moors, a place once of abundance lost to falling silt and murky rain.
I talked some more about all this when writing about the Chapel of the Reaper, the connections between these regions and all the farming ties. The transition of a land of much good food, and lots of bamboo (now only found in Wisp Thicket but all the buildings of the moors are built from it), to one where almost nothing grows, only roaches.
Anyway, all these bugs wear cloth, in similar drab colors. Does it come from the same source?
All across Greymoor too are these balloons, that Hornet can bounce on, and also hold up platforms. They are sewn together. And the greatest concentration is the east side of Greymoor, where the craws live.
The pinstresses too use cloth. Obviously, Seamstress is found weaving on a loom, with many weaving/sewing type objects in her house. Pinstress and Seamstress wear hooded cloaks similar to the craws and moorbugs, though in bright colors that are not ragged. There's no reason to think these cloaks are part of their bodies. We see Seamstress modify Hornet's dress to be able to float. Pinstress is able to float with their cloak as can be seen in their fight, though they also seem to flap it a bit to gain some extra height.
The three examples of pinstresses we see all have cloth houses, and balloons beneath them, just like several platforms in Greymoor.
One thing in common between Pinstress, Seamstress, and the crawbugs are their "noses". They all have some sorta proboscises coming from their faces. For the craws though it's longer, and is a lighter color similar to their bodies. I wondered if it was really part of their faces or if it could be something extra. After all, in act 3, the juror craws change to have metal over these proboscises. But there's text addressing it:
Crawfather journal entry: Lord and justice of Pharloom's craws. Delivers death to condemned bugs with his steel-plated beak.
Seth: The sharp-faced bugs of these drizzled caves love to swoop and play, don't they?
Seems that beak underneath is real.
So what does it mean for Pinstress and Seamstress? Could they be crawbugs, or are they too different? I thought maybe they could just have more variation because they're actual characters rather than generic enemies. After all, it's true for Crawfather, who is quite unique compared to other craws. But there are other bugs out there with prominent proboscises too. Roachfeeders have them. Stilkin have them.
In fact, the dead pinstress found in Putrified Ducts looks like a stilkin, long proboscis and all, and the clothing looks quite similar.
So I had to investigate. How connected are the Moors and the Bilelands? (I'm borrowing Vog's term here, Bilelands, which she uses to group Bilewater and Sinner's Road together. I'll be using it here to refer to Bilewater and Putrified Ducts though, and I group Sinner's Road into the Moorlands alongside Greymoor and Wisp Thicket).
Right off the bat, we can see they are adjacent, and both wet. The putrid water and its maggots are all throughout the Bilelands, and they spill over into Sinner's Road and a small portion of Wisp Thicket. There are pockets of nice areas still in the Bilelands, like where Shakra's master ended up. Rainy and clean, I have to wonder if Craw Lake was similar to that once.
Also throughout Bilewater is some typical Pharloom architecture (stone statues as built into the roads, the bellway, the benches), alongside some aspects characteristic of Sinner's Road: chains, with platforms and cages hanging from them. This may not be that strange though. The area seems to have been a pilgrim route in the past, at least in the lower areas, and there are pilgrim husks to match. Perhaps goods flowed on the roads too, which could explain why cages ended up there. The Mist looks a lot like Sinner's Road, but when it clears the area is a part of Bilewater. But mm, it's the intersection between those two areas and the Citadel. It may have seen much traffic long ago.
The environments are still quite different, though both degraded. The moors are implied to be chilly (Halfway Home keeps being called warm to contrast with the surroundings), while Bilewater is warm (needolin dialog of some enemies). The moors no longer grow their bounty of food, but long ago I think it was like Wisp Thicket, with just how much its bamboo is used in every Greymoor building. Bilewater is always described as a swamp. I'm sure it was a swamp before, and it still is, even as it's in terrible shape. Even knowing how much it's changed, with the creatures adapting, I don't think it ever would've looked like Greymoor, beyond having some continuity in water supply. Bilehaven has completely different architecture, made of shells and a different type of wood.
The culture more broadly is just different. I think the Greymoor bugs have always been agricultural, in the past using some of the same tools they now use to catch and spool falling thread, farming aphids for nectar, cutting bamboo for buildings, etc. The stilkin seem to be trappers, with nets over the maggot/roach-infested waters, tripwire traps, throwing stakes, etc. They probably have some dietary overlap with the moorbugs now eating roaches, but their approach to getting the meat is quite different. Plus the stilkin are all wearing leafy clothes.
The pinstress houses, while being made like Greymoor architecture, do all have different platforms around them. Seamstress has bamboo just like in Greymoor (and not like the different type of bamboo growing in Far Fields that the ants build out of). The dead pinstress's house not only has platforms around it like are found in Bilehaven, but the exposed supports of the house are made of the same material. Pinstress's house has platforms around it made out of some unique type of material that only seems to exist there and at Grindle's hideout (local Blasted Steps material I suppose). The bottoms of the supports are visible and seem to be made of the same stuff. Seamstress's house actually has pointy spines sticking out the bottom (like giant versions of the hoker spines I suppose). I can only guess that the three pinstresses either carried just the cloth with them to set up their houses, or built the houses entirely on location (Seamstress has a loom, after all). Er, besides the fact that Seamstress brought bamboo with her.
I just wonder about it as I try to puzzle out the pinstress's origins. Pinstress's dialog admitting to being in Blasted Steps due to being able to hide from the Citadel there? I'm sure they are not native to that area. Seamstress I'm guessing is from Greymoor, due to the bamboo. The dead pinstress I'm not so sure. They don't seem to be a stilkin exactly. The bottom of their body paler and striped as opposed to solid black like the stilkin. But they have the long proboscis, a similar outfit, and even made the wreath of purity, presumably out of local materials (reed and leaf). Then again I could ask if the stilkin even need such an object (are they immune to the maggots, or are they really really good at repelling them? maybe their whole outfit repels the maggots).
Dead pinstress needolin: Must we hide? / Dear sisters... / Revered by all... / Feared by all...
That pinstress's needolin dialolg indicates that no matter their origin, their current location was one of hiding. With all the evidence, I think this dead pinstress was not a native of the Bilelands, or at least wasn't a stilkin, but still had strong knowledge of the local environment. The strongest ties for the pinstresses, as far as I can tell, are still to Greymoor. And among those in Greymoor, the pinstresses have visual similarities in body and clothing to many, but as far as their practices, they are closest to the crawbugs.
Right? With their balloons and their pins? Shared between crawbugs and pinstresses? So we can conclude Pinstress is a bird???
Craw journal entry: Screeching scavenger that roosts high in caverns and preys on passing pilgrims.
Tallcraw journal entry: Rag-winged adult crawbug bearing a scavenged pin.
Crawbug needolin: Shiny, shiny, all for us! / Our nest! Our clan! / Swoop and scratch... / Crack their shells... / Our caves! Our land! / Take their treasures!
The craws are scavengers! In light of this, is anything truly the craws? Do they steal all their weapons? Are they even associated with all those balloons?
The "watermound" they live in (the game's term, not a real English word), on Craw Lake, has dead moorbugs in it. The balloons are primarily found in craw areas, but they can be found above the windmills on the western side too, where craws aren't. Do the craws have any true association with any of this? Did they just move into a preexisting area, building nests on top of other structures?
…
Let's talk about Pharloom, societal control, and pins.
The Citadel is a place that exerts control over the people of Pharloom. The people have no choice but to serve in their roles, often overworking. Faith promises them a reward, if they can work hard enough, or be lucky enough to make pilgrimage it to the top...but they probably won't. But not everyone is within that system. Peoples like the Karakians (if I can call them that), the Verdanians, the Skarr….and yes, the Order of the Pinstress:
Hornet: Then this is not a place of hiding? That Citadel up top seems no friend to the free, or the strong who'd choose to remain apart.
Pinstress: ...Aye. Well, yes. That too's a reason, though one that shames me some. Our grand Citadel learnt well from the training of Pinstresses past. Then it went and turned those teachings upon us! Despite our superior skills, our numbers have always been few, and their strength overwhelmed. Of my once revered order, only two of us remain, wormed away in Pharloom's forgotten corners, and my pin-sibling, she's lost herself to more peaceable pursuits.
The Citadel doesn't let anyone outside its control carry weapons:
Horned Pilgrim, in Bone Bottom: Sister, sister! What is that long, gleaming tooth you carry with you? Is it a weapon? […] Alas... for a pilgrim, that's sin you speak of, sister.
Shakra at Mount Fay: When I first encountered them, I had little respect for the weak, rag-bundled bugs. Too cowardly to even carry a weapon!
There are a few in the Citadel's control that have weapons, if they rise high enough in the ranks:
Chorister journal entry: Disciple of the Choir, elevated above other pilgrims, and forced to cowl their face forever more.
Reed journal entry: Disciple of the Choir, charged to maintain its perfect order, by sharp pin if necessary.
All of the Citadel bugs that cowl their faces, the ones who carry pins, have different needolin dialog than the Citadel pilgrims (though veiled bugs also include others like surgeons and not just fighters). They are set apart. The sentinels too fight. And Second Sentinel displays the same charge attack as Pinstress, a giant X across the screen. I wouldn't be surprised if that's a direct example of what the Citadel learned from the Pinstresses.
It's recounted how it used to be:
Pinstress: Your needle there might fit you fair, strange as it is'n all, but it's the pin that's the glorious weapon of Pharloom.
Pinstress journal entry: Blade maiden of a once renowned warrior sect, survived long beyond the rest of her order.
Dead pinstress needolin: Must we hide? / Dear sisters... / Revered by all... / Feared by all…
Pinstress act 1/2 needolin: The flurried dance of blades swung swift… / Warriors proud in battle's midst… / An order lost of maidens fair… / Lethal talents beyond compare… / I remember you... My sisters passed… / You were the finest... bravest... caste…
Even with the order gone, Pinstress still describes pins as the weapons of Pharloom. It seems the order was well known in its time. But it's all but gone now. The Citadel took them out almost entirely.
The Citadel tried to take out Seamstress too. Seamstress says she left the way of the pin, but clearly she still defends herself, as evidenced by the pin in Fourth Chorus. It's unknown what happened to the dead pinstress but I think it's a safe guess to say the Citadel at least contributed to their death, and the deaths of many others of the Order.
What does this mean for the crawbugs? Quoting these again:
Craw journal entry: Screeching scavenger that roosts high in caverns and preys on passing pilgrims.
Tallcraw journal entry: Rag-winged adult crawbug bearing a scavenged pin.
Crawbug needolin: Shiny, shiny, all for us! / Our nest! Our clan! / Swoop and scratch... / Crack their shells... / Our caves! Our land! / Take their treasures!
I find all this quite strange. If the crawbugs are getting everything from the pilgrims...how would they have so many pins? In a land where it's considered sinful to wield a weapon, and the authorities may even hunt you down for owning them? Where could the craws possibly even get all those pins?
Crawbell description: Nest fashioned from an old bell. Once set up, young Craws will occasionally roost within, filling the bell with shell shards and rosaries.
I wonder if primarily the craws are stealing other things like those shell shards and rosaries. But. Let's say for argument's sake they do steal all their pins. Even then, how would they learn to use them? Where would all their techniques come from?
Pinstress shows us an example of how a pinstress fights. They have two types of pins, one with a hooked end, and one with a spherical end. The latter looks like the pins the roachfeeders carry. (Judges and guardflies also have weapons with spherical ends, but they don't look as similar.)
But those pins of Pinstress are also thrown in groups of three, just like squatcraws do. I believe those are the only enemies to fight in such a way besides Pinstress. Also gotta mention the tallcraws here fighting with pins in a similar manner to Pinstress.
All across Pharloom, very few fight with pins. Lace and Phantom do. Certain Citadel bugs do. Seth does, appointed shrine guardian by the Citadel. Plinney works with pins, but we never see anyone around him using them (there are pins alongside dead bugs in the Widow arena, but that's a mystery for another time). Most bugs using some kind of weapon are instead using tools. The tools might be pin-like, but they are typically not identical to the kind seen for weapons. Once the bugs became Haunted, they started using the tools as weapons.
Pilgrim Hiker journal entry: Hard-shelled bug with a climber's pin. Their pin, once aid, has become a weapon, though the bug is unrefined in its use.
Underloft journal entry: The worker's twistpins, once tools of repair, now serve as spun projectiles.
Roachcatcher journal entry: Short, nimble bug who uses barbed bolas to keep beasts corralled and caged.
Roachfeeder journal entry: The feeder's curled pin looks designed to keep ravenous roaches at bay, and the tender from turning into the meal.
Silk snipper journal entry: Scissor-wielding bug charged to cut and spool fallen dregs of Silk for return to the Citadel above.
Thread Raker journal entry: Tall bug charged to pile Silk dregs in preparation for respooling. Their sharp rake now doubles equally well as a stabbing weapon.
I've compiled a bunch of weapon examples. The underworkers use tools. The moorbugs (center) use tools. The dockworkers use tools. The pilgrims mostly use instruments. Bugs from distinct civilizations (Skarr, Karakians) have weapons but they're not pins. Stilkin may have made their weapons for fighting and not just trapping, but still it's not pins. The pondcatchers (highlighted in green) use pins but attached to a pole to hunt. Roachfeeders (yellow), judges (magenta), and guardflies (red) I've put here for comparison to Pinstress's throwing pins…only the roachfeeders come close I think. But again, the roachfeeders use their pins to control the roaches, tools for their jobs, not intended for fighting other intelligent bugs originally.
This leaves the crawbugs as the only group in all of Pharloom associated with pins, alongside higher ranking Citadel bugs, and the Order of the Pinstress. Though these three are different types of groups—one government-assigned (Citadel bugs), one a group that any could join presumably, as long as they were skilled (Pinstresses), and one...a whole species. I can only think that as a whole people the craws have a strong martial culture. We can see examples of that in Shakra's people, in Hallownest's mantises. In the Verdanians, in the Karakians. But none of them used pins except the craws.
Bilehaven lore tablet: Hate for their light. Hate for their pins. For their waste poured thick and endless. Fill your hearts with hate, for power has now been claimed, and with it we shall punish.
Even the stilkin, as ready to fight as they are, reject pins as associated with the Citadel.
Shakra in eastern Greymoor: Heed a warning, many fierce bugs roost nearby. On the lake beyond this cave nest a ragged horde atop an old watermound. Their mastery of flight makes them dangerous. My shell will forever carry the score of their pins.
(another line here associating crawbugs and pins) (also the source of that "watermound" term)
One more thing before I reach some conclusions. I do think the crawbugs are associated with Greymoor. I mean obviously they lived there. But I had to ask the question upon learning they were scavengers how much anything at all is associated with them, like the buildings and balloons.
Crawbug needolin: Shiny, shiny, all for us! / Our nest! Our clan! / Swoop and scratch... / Crack their shells... / Our caves! Our land! / Take their treasures!
The crawbugs seem to think it's theirs, from their needolin dialog. The lake they live on/around is named after them too, Craw Lake. The "watermound" is heavily used by them, and they hold court there. It's possible they didn't make the building, but even if they didn't, it's the heart of their society now. And if they didn't make it, I don't know where else they would've come from. And even as scavengers, they're not like the snitchbugs. They have a much more organized society. I'm not sure you can say they always were scavengers (though being so crow coded, maybe they did always love shinies….)
So with all this evidence…
I think the crawbugs are the originators of the Order of the Pinstress. The Pinstresses are heavily associated with Greymoor and its architecture. Whether or not the craws made that architecture, they live there. And culturally, the overlap is extremely strong between the craws and the Pinstresses.
In my heart, Pinstress is a bird. Using slightly more of my mind, they might not be, okay. But I kinda don't care. Their exact species matters less to me than what defines Pinstress most, the order they belong to, and that is very bird in this world.
The Order may have started with the craws, and grown beyond just that species, with not all Pinstresses being crawbugs, and not all crawbugs being Pinstresses (After all, Pinstresses are referred to as sisters and there are male craws like Crawfather) (And plus the entire species of craws wasn't hunted down unlike the Pinstresses). Even so I wonder if close association ended up hurting the craws. They use pins outside Citadel control. And they are treated like garbage. The Memorium has them in cages as if they were unintelligent bugs. The Sinner's Road chefs have them pickled (granted they seem to pickle any bug, intelligent or not, no matter their origin). Creige speaks of them like they're nothing more than vermin and wants to make a scarecraw from their own body parts. But crawbugs are clearly intelligent with their own culture. They have their own language (Seth remarks that he wished he could understand), though at least some speak some of Pharloom's common language (giving Hornet a written summons to court). And yeah they have a whole court, meaning they have laws.
I have to wonder, were they more integrated with the other Greymoor bugs, and wider Pharloom (though still with distinct culture, as any region in Pharloom), but the change in the Citadel's attitudes broke them away from the rest of Pharloom? Or were they always more separate, like the Skarr, and relations worsened from there? I favor the latter just because of the language barrier. Regardless, they do have several similarities with the surrounding moorbugs, even as the relations between craws and the surrounding bugs are quite poor in the present.
…
And that's it! I hope you all enjoyed this long journey. The rest of this is just random evidence that wasn't as crucial and I didn't know how to fit in. It will be a bit rambly
Crull and Benjin's house looks like a craw's. If you made craw nests big. I can't say I know exactly what this means, as I think it's the only example of this. Maybe it doesn't mean anything, as there's at least one other example of thatch being used (on top of the windmills). So there has to exist such natural material, which the craws could also collect completely independently. But it does get me how twiggy the inside of Crull and Benjin's house looks (easier to see in the raw assets over a screenshot).
The craws wear metal crowns on their heads in act 3, that look like various objects around the moorlands. This thing in Sinner's Road (screenshot), the similar crown on roachkeepers, the spinning spiked wheels to pogo off inside the windmills, the tools used by dreg catchers. All similar things that are round and spiky. Scavenged, or part of their culture? Both? I don't know, but they sure had a lot of that on hand in act 3.
Crawfather too has barbed wire as is common in Sinner's Road.
Some other bugs have hoods. The underworkers, undersweeps. I may just have been overthinking the hood thing in my discussions earlier, when it's part of the varieties worn by the common bug.
Saw this post by @meepnesscombat just a couple days ago wondering if anyone had posted on all this. The post compares Pinstress dead sleeping on Mount Fay next to a dead craw and the posing is pretty identical.
The craws can go many places around the map to give the court summons (attached to a pin, I might add). As far as Far Fields, Shellwood, and Bilewater. So despite living on the east side of Greymoor, they clearly travel around.
When I was researching I struggled greatly to understand what the moors are exactly. The word seems to be primarily British as far as I can tell, and what moors are has come up with multiple definitions:
rocky uplands
hills
overgrazed land that's degraded
land with poor soils
land with poor drainage
peatland
marshy lowlands
wastelands
grassland
places full of heath (admittedly I barely know what heath is)
I saw definitions that said moorland is a result of massive deforestation and not a natural environment. I saw definitions saying it was good for farming. I saw definitions that said it was bad for farming. I saw definitions saying that it had to be farmed or else it would return to woodland. I saw some areas called moors that were set aside as nature reserves and banned from farming. I asked and Australian if the word was used in Australia, and they didn't really think so. The best I can understand is it's a British word with centuries-old roots that's changed throughout time and now it's just accumulated vibes of contradictory flavors. If anyone knows more properly what moors are and which flavor of moor Greymoor is I'd love to hear your thoughts. I collected ALL MENTIONS of Greymoor's environment. Uh. It is called wasted, no longer able to provide food but roaches, very wet, dreary/gloomy, chilly, and has hills. Fits some of those definitions
I can't catch a break. Today the US Gvt took my food stamps away for 3 months because I apparently had an error in what I submitted--even though they didnt tell me what all I needed.
If you could donate to help me get through the next few months, I'd appreciate it. Any little bit is a huge help when my entire food fund is gone for three months until I can reapply again.
I think what drives me crazy about people going full BUT IT WAS ABOUT PK THE ENTIRE TIME conspiracy pinboard in Red Memory and such is that it completely removes the White Lady's agency, power, and explicit complicity in the vessel plan and, presumably, her role in governing.
Like, the Kingsoul is a charm made from the union of two souls as equals. The plants and roots in the White Palace are clearly hers. She has a whole fucking station and area dedicated to her for fuck's sake. Someone had to be doing Ruler Stuff if PK was cloistered in his workshop and GUESS WHO THAT PROBABLY WAS!
But fuck me I guess we can't give any goddamn agency or development to a woman, god forbid. Does PK being a massive wife guy mean nothing to you people.
like, I wanna know where she comes from! I wanna know when she and the pale king met and at what point they agreed to work together instead of make war! clearly at least Dryya was willing to protect her until the very end, and based on her dialogue with Hornet, I think it’s safe to say that she was the real powerhouse behind the court on a day to day basis
(it also puts her in an interesting position as a public facing entity that clearly didn’t see a need to make many statues of herself. I wonder if the people of Hallownest just instinctively knew the symbol of the Queen was for the most part just found in every flower and every vine they passed by)
Yeah it really seems like if the Pale King was the figurehead of Hallownest-as-civilization, the Queen/White Lady was the embodiment of Hallownest-as-land, almost. If he's the city, she is everything that surrounds it and supports it, like he basically married the land itself (or rather someone who had the power to control and shape it) as part of their union.
I haven't read your second part of the chapels post in full yet because I've been busy with work, but I think it's really amusing that I did read some parts of the Architect section, and then immediately went to ramble about my own thoughts to my partner, only to then read a little further and see you elaborated on exactly those same ideas like questioning cogwork bugs level of sentience and sense of identity. Anyways I'm sending this to ssy: hell yes same braincell. And also wow thank you for all your insights. It looks like you have a lot of fun putting your notes together.
@fungal-wasted
🤝
I do have a lot of fun XD I've not been posting so much though cuz I just ramble to people on discord instead. You've given me the excuse to ramble here too
And glad to share a braincell XD I hadn't thought as deeply on the constructs so it's pretty fresh thoughts. Appreciation for Twelfth Architect is 4x as strong now
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