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So everyone knows about the "Listen" vs "Speak" prompts in Hollow Knight and Silksong, but here's something else I noticed.
When given a choice in Silksong, Hornet defaults to "Yes" whereas in Hollow Knight the Knight defaults to "No"
For Hornet this makes sense. She has an incredible drive; it's her nature to pursue and conquer challenges and, in her words, "claim what advantage (she) can" by helping others.
But for the Knight?
That's all it's own will
THE PALE KING THINK PIECE:
The Pale King is a tragic character, not a villain. Why do I believe so?
1) I believe, that the vessel plan was literally the last hope and he tried everything else before.
Why? Well, the Dung Defender talks about not being able to defeat infection with claws, which implies they tried:
“We knights defend against the physical, but a formless enemy. How to defeat such a foe? Our King tried in his own way. A cruel means it was... And still, eventually, we were brought low.”
Well Radiance was literally hiding in the Dream Realm, to where PK, presumably, had no access too. Otherwise he would have taken his loyal knights and went to fight the Radiance.
2) Pale King was NOT a fan of sacrificing living bugs
In the Soul Sanctum we come to understand that something horrible has happened there through the lore tablets, scattered around.
In the end, after defeating the Soul Master, we learn that Pale King actually opposed the whole “experimenting on the living bugs” thing in the last dialogue:
“In my dreams I could see it. The Kingdom's salvation, the cure for the plague... the answer was in the soul that animates our bodies. But the King... why?! He opposed everything I did... His jealousy... his madness... by standing against me he robbed me of my immortality!”
We could also assume that perhaps the one who gave the Soul Master the idea to experiment on the living bugs might have been Radiance herself, as she is usually is synonymous with light and here is the Dream dialogue for Soul Tyrant:
“You promised I would live forever!
Did their souls bring me closer to the light?
That voice...Was it never there...?”
Like who promised? What light were he getting close to? Hmm
3) The Pale King had no idea the vessels were alive or (and) convinced himself that they weren’t
He made void constructs before, they weren't alive, as the Hunter’s Journal for them calls them “constructs”.:
And the eggs were dropped into the Abyss, not the born children, we know that because the whole Void Heart cutscene start at an egg in the Abyss, from which the Knight hatched:
The Knight uses the Dream Nail to access the memories from the Abyss egg, because, you know, that’s where they came from.
I think, originally, PK didn't think the vessels were alive. Then he raised one of them and, probably, understood that the Pure Vessel was alive and he felt immense regret and shame upon inacting the plan. I believe the Path of Pain memory is hidden by PK for PK (no one else is supposed to see it). I think that the “secret sealed” is actually the fact that PK understood that Pure Vessel was alive and impure.
And the “harshest punishment” is also there for Pale King himself as some form of self-flagellation. That he must pass through this punishment before viewing a cherished memory of his child. Which he is ashamed of, because, as we know, the vessel was “tarnished by an idea instilled” - the love for their father.
If he was a cruel and unfeeling why would he hide the memory? And why would he and the White Lady raise the Pure Vessel as a child and not a construct? They surely loved them as there is a children’s room hidden in the White Palace with a crib and Lady-shaped shadow.
I think that they went through the whole “vessel plan” as the last resort and had to continue with it even after they understood that they were sacrificing not a construct but a child. And that all the others that hatched were living children too…
But there way no way back, the bugs of the kingdom were dying, they HAD to seal Radiance.
That’s why there is a statue of the Hollow Knight in the City of Tears. It was, probably, made after they were sealed. At that point PK understood he is sending his child to be sealed. So he built a fountain to honour all who sacrificed themselves for the Kingdom, his child among them. If he thought the Hollow Knight was actually Pure, well, fountain would have been called “the Pure Vessel” and not “the Hollow Knight”. That’s his child…
4) I don’t believe PK was a megalomaniac ruler
We know from Silksong that Pale beings desire to dominate and rule. And don’t really care about the means they use to achieve their worship.
Hornet:
“I'll not deny some part of me desires that outcome... Dominance, it seems, is baked deep in my blood, as too, no doubt, for the one up top.”
And yet we see no evidence that PK was like that.
There are multiple living characters that have a warm recollection of the King. We can dismiss the White Lady, that’s her husband, but Dung Defender seems to have adored the King and only speaks highly of him. All royal retainers call out to him in their Dream Dialogue, Monomon writes a beautiful poem about him, common bugs made the Idols themselves (or modified theirs?), not bought them from some sort of “Pale King gift shop”:
Relic Seeker Lemm:
"Hallownest's king was an elusive figure, deified by the citizens. With the king rarely seen, worship was offered through these idols."
"If you look closely, each of these idols is subtly different. There are fine engravings about them that take some time to decipher. I suspect each was tailored to the owner. A personalised symbol of the king's omnipotence."
So I don’t think that he asked for his statue in the Ancient Basin to be made and especially for it to be made taller than he is (there is an idea in the fandom that he had an inferiority complex because of this statue). Maybe the Royal retainers made it to please their king. Because if he wanted to be worshipped badly, he would have made a billion statues of himself and yet there is only one and it’s at the literal bottom of the kingdom.
5) The Pale King and the Radiance
I don’t think PK intentionally made the Moth Tribe worship him, as there is no evidence of that… All the only living moth talks about is their guilt of abandoning their goddess.
Seer: “They were content to bask in that light and honoured it... for a time. But another light appeared in our world... A wyrm that took the form of a king. How fickle my ancestors must have been. They forsook the light that spawned them. Turned their backs to it... Forgot it even. And so this kingdom was born from that betrayal. But the memories of that ancient light still lingered, hush whispers of faith... Until all of Hallownest began to dream of that forgotten light. [...] Don't remember us, Wielder. Don't honour us. We do not deserve it... Aahh... I'm sorry... Light... Radiance... I... remember you.”
In the end, what I’m trying to say, that he is never MENT to be a villain. Because we see how Team Cherry portrays those they made to be the villains of the story - it’s very obvious with the Citadel and Grand Mother Silk.
The Pale King was a deeply flawed character who fucked up royally while trying to fix everything… I think he understood too late that the vessels were actually alive and that’s what killed him: guilt.
That’s all, thank you all for coming to my TED Talk.
Face shaped tangle of roots
Quick doodle of the lord of shades :3
has anybody noticed that garro (spirit in the spirits glade) looks a bit like the enemies in the coral tower/watcher at the edge :^o similar color, head shape, armor, weapon too....
speaking about watcher at the edge, the dialogue of garro kind of reminds me of how the watcher at the edge presumably 'stood strong in the midst of a (sand) storm'....
Probably just coincidence, but oh well! :-D
⋅.˳˳.︵‿︵‿୨🖤୧‿︵‿︵⋅.˳˳.
Ze'mer ˳.˳.X.˳the Traitors' Child
⋅.˳˳.︵‿︵‿୨🖤୧‿︵‿︵⋅.˳˳.
Ahhh Le'mer, you could not know of tragedy as complete as che's, true lovers stripped apart, two worlds that could not meet.
My favourite love story inside the Hollow Knight's lore.
me: i'm cosplaying hornet
them: who is she ?
me: well she's a spider but with only 4 appendages, her mother is a spider kinda and her dad a wyrm which a new type of bug invented by the game
them: o-okay--
me: -and she was raised by a wasp, the spider lady, a bug who is a tree, and a tribe of different spiders with really big heads and she has thousands of half-siblings
