these names all mean and/or relate to the color associated with each generation of lilsimsie's not-so-berry challenge!! so, if you need help brainstorming the name for your next heir, here are some ideas!!
Excuse my apparently quite rude looking face, but I wanted to say happy Pride month to all of Bugaria! It is absolutely splendid to see so many bugs celebrating themselves and others even when they are all so different! I give my highest respect to all those who celebrate this month.
My favorite genre of hollow knight post is when people apply entomology to team cherry's nonsense. Like hornet having Pedipalp's. It makes me happy in my bug brain.
(If you want a rant about entomology and hollow knight keep reading)
Also, I think hornet is a tarantula specifically for a lot of reasons but mostly the mandible to horn relation, directly proven by the Dung defender. This guy even has hair between the legs which some really do have.
Those are 110% mandibles, and this is nearly really consistent with every equivalent bug hollow knight has with the exceptions of the Bretta as she is 100% beetle, but she does not have horns but mandibles and is directly based on a beetle with no hollow knight stylistic changes.
The only other examples which directly go against this being Elderbug and Zote. However, my guess is that they are the same species perhaps, these species of beetle which horns that look like mandibles of those species. Additionally, I would guess due to the prominence of their mouth their Maxillary Palps are more extended/prominent while having very underdeveloped mandibles.
If I wanted to get very specific, I would guess their lower labium is larger and stronger than their upper labium. This could mean they have a diet of almost exclusively soft fruits like plums or pears, as less developed mandibles means they can't handle hard foods at all. I think this fits the overall pathetic-ness of these two bugs so I would also guess the horns are just for attracting mates.
I know this is unrelated tangent and I shall call this species Fortissimus miles zotes. This is me just making sense of these two with what had been established with how hollow knight shows bugs, and I Grantee these two are not based on an any bug.
Now from there it seems these mouth parts are admitted from many creatures in exchange for highlighting their actual horns such as with the nail masters. I believe they are Ox beetles, almost entirely due to the horns, primary the longer middle horn screams Ox beetle to me.
But what was the point, well it was to show mouth parts, when shown in hollow knight beetle with the exception of Bretta, Zote and Elder Bug, mandibles are placed in the same place as horns when shown, but what does this mean for hornet?
Well, we are directly told she is a spider. Despite not looking much like a spider, or better to say for this discussion, stylistically lacks regular spider dictions. As I think I've shown I am looking at style of hollow knight as not literal. But using what I've shown hornets head shape is perhaps not horns, but fangs instead.
Mandibles and spider fangs serve very similar purposes on their respective creatures so why they wouldn't be subject to the same dictations as horns. Not to mention they go outward, Stright up. Tarantula fangs are different from other spider fangs; most spider fangs point towards each other while Tarantula fangs point Stright down. If you asked me what if Hornet was a non-Tarantula spider I would guess she would look something like the one in blue. With horns that point to each other.
You also see my second point two eyes. Yes, Tarantulas have the same number of eyes as other spiders, but these eyes are closely packed together which is way sometimes, like in Humans Be Gone this is shown as one eye, and in the style of hollow knight likely would be too fine of details to fully depict. so, they could be simplified into two eyes.
Now, finally Hornet does not make a web. The closest we get is her spike attack. But Hornet or Midwife does not even mention webs at all, which is strange for a clan of spiders to not even mention a Hornet web at all, I could see Midwife at least mentioning Hornets first web as a cute little web as a cute story but no.
If you don't know Tarantulas physically can't make webs, they don't have the ability they have webs and use them for hunting, but Tarantulas don't make webs. Hornet rather obviously uses her web as a utility in combat, and I don't even have to explain this.
She also is nibble and in SilkSong she is always assonated with being a hunter, Tarantulas are known for being the hunter spider. They move more than other spiders, eat more than other spiders, and are stronger than other spiders. Considering the deeplings are not bosses and hornet is, we assume this is still true. The whole part god thing also matters.
Now this is not flawless, there are some flaws with this theory.
1. size, hornet is not that big, Tarantulas are also known as the big spiders in nearly entirely case.
2.Hair, Tarantulas are very hairy, and hornet has been shown on many, many, many time to be smooth with little to no hair. The only counter point being entirely based on BS about maybe that comes from the Pale Blood she has, but that is based on nothing but hunches I have from the Pale King being hairless.
3. the biggest, counter point is, we already have a Tarantula, Hex
Who looks nothing like hornet. The only counter I have is this is a backer character not designed by team charry. So, I take them with a large grain of Sait.
Also yes, I know team cherry likely know zero about entomology and did not intend for all this. But I had fun thinking about it and I wanted to see what people think of it. If you have any counter points / more evidence, feel free to share. Or if this impacted how you will draw hornet, I would love to see! And yes, I'll see if SilkSong either supports this or disproves it and I'll make a fallow up.
