Because in her homeland it's a sign of respect. (No, seriously!)
We learn a lot about Shakra's cultural background throughout Silksong. She comes from a tribe of proud warriors who adhere to traditions of travel and combat. Where she's from, one's weapon is attached to one's name as a signifier of identity, and there are special rules around how one greets strangers on their travels. When meeting a fellow warrior, you say "poshanka" while presenting your battle-stance and weapon:
That stance is an important detail, because the physical way you greet someone says a LOT about your cultural principles. To give two examples: The bow is an ancient sign of deference, in which you make yourself smaller, look to the ground, and lean forward in a way that leaves you vulnerable to attack. All clear indicators of submission and trust. The handshake meanwhile originated as a greeting between warriors, in which you present your dominant hand to indicate you have no intention of drawing your weapon. An indicator of peaceful intention but not submission, as to maintain each warrior's pride.
Shakra's greeting takes the prideful aspects of the handshake to its logical extreme. In her tribe you show respect not by lowering your guard, but by raising it. This implies acknowledging the skill of your fellow warrior is considered more important than establishing yourself as peaceful or friendly. The greeting declares: "I consider you dangerous enough to feel threatened. Here is my fighting-style and weapon of choice, the two things most integral to my identity."
With this context in mind, we can connect the dots as to why Shakra lowers herself to speak to Hornet. In nature, eye-level is an indicator of size that translates to threat and authority. Having to look up at someone while speaking to them makes you feel small, establishing a difference in power. For a tribe of proud warriors who base respect around acknowledging one another as dangerous, looming over a fellow warrior so that they feel small could be perceived as a challenge to that warrior's pride.
Thus in Shakra's tribe it became common practice to lower yourself to another's eye-level while speaking, as a physical indication that you consider them an equal and intend to speak to them as such.
Id have to dig through my screenshots for all the subtle PK references in Silksong, but it is EXTREMELY funny to me that Hornet seems to view him as like...the strange relative that you're somewhat embarressed to be related to, not quite on the verge of 'full hatred' but certainly not favorable in the slightest. The two times she refers to him directly, she uses words such as 'weird/strange' (in passing reference to that side of the family tree) and 'a fool' (in reference to the kingsmoulds, which she also calls crude). It just drives home the fact that while the White Lady seems to have been a grand, majestic goddess, the Pale King seems to have been more of a distant, closed-off shut-in, someone who very much loved his people and his children and his kingdom but also really, REALLY sucked at showing it. Hornet very clearly respects those with bold personalities who are direct in confronting their problems, but the Pale King...does not seem to be that person, and thus lacks her respect.
Which makes it EVEN FUNNIER, of course, when you realize that Hornet is very much her father's daughter- we don't see much of Herrah, yes, but I doubt that Hornet's tendency for scientific curiosity, knack for crafting/inventing, her Deep Seriousness, protective drive for those beneath her, and her seeming difficulty with reading the room sometimes (cough Green Prince final confrontation dialogue cough. Hornet 'are you making a sign/are you sleeping' Hallownest cough cough) came from Herrah. Herrah was fierce and loved fiercely, but...there is a LOT in Hornet that also gives us a pretty clear idea of what the Pale King was like.
Perhaps, in Hornet's mind, she is a little too much of her father's daughter for her own comfort
I modded Silksong to have the parasite infection for an entire playthrough because I am sick in the head (it was a fun challenge) and I noticed a detail I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else. Minor spoilers and speculation on the meaning ahead.
If you get kidnapped by the slab wardens with the parasite then Hornet will scream, pass out, and when she awakens the parasite roots inside her will have destroyed the cage and murdered the guard. A lot of people know this by now probably, it's cool as fuck, but there's another minor part to this sequence. After the parasite breaks Hornet out, all silk heart silk regeneration will be fully disabled until you sit on a bench. The cage surpresses Hornet's power enough for the parasite to fully take over, and that leaves a mark on her after it's done. The parasite already works by surpressing her silk, reducing her to not being able to use it to heal or cast spells, and when it gains further power it overtakes her to the point where she cannot generate silk naturally.
There's a case to be made that the parasite feeds on silk. Greyroot is one of the few NPCs we meet who seems free of any silken influence, and in the twisted child ending the roots feed on Grand Mother Silk herself to grow more powerful. Additionally, you find the root baby parasite in Bilewater (my favorite area in the game), which is a place already filled with silk eating parasites in the muckmaggots, so another feeding on that would make sense.
Another fun way the game shows the parasite's influence on Hornet is her cocoon on death. It's wrapped in pulsing grey roots, perhaps they're feeding on the convenient bundle of silk? The root cocoon also holds my other favorite parasite detail I've never seen mentioned, and the only objective upgrade that comes with the parasite infection. Popping your cocoon will make the roots flail in an area around it, much like the witch crest heal, and this will actually deal damage in the area! I used it in the High Halls and Bilewater arenas, if you place the cocoon in the right place you can trigger it as a way to quickly deal with enemies. But anyway, that's yet another way the root parasite latches onto silk. Not conclusive proof it feeds on it, but it could be pointing towards that. More likely it just feeds on vitality somehow, and Hornet's is linked to her silk.
Anyway, so much detail was put into this parasite infection it's incredible. Game of the year I love the abortion sidequest, might talk about it even more later who knows.
Hornet and Lace don't know each other's names: a summary
Further to this comic, it is my strong belief that by true ending, Hornet doesn't know Lace's name, and Lace probably doesn't know Hornet's. Here's why!
1. No one refers to Lace by name, not even her mother or sibling.
It simply doesn't happen. We are also certain she does not refer to herself by name in third person, as there are bugs who do this in Silksong, and it's rendered in their dialogue. She also doesn't scream her name in battle like Trobbio.
Additionally, as Hornet is presumably incapable of breaking the fourth wall to read the boss title splash, she can't have learned it that way either.
= Hornet has no canonically established way to learn Lace's name.
2. No one Lace interacts with calls Hornet by name.
Lace doesn't really interact with anyone except her mother, her sibling at least once, and the various bugs she murders, who aren't exactly going to be good conversationalists. The few bugs who use Hornet's name, Lace does not have known encounters with.
GMS either doesn't know Hornet's name or doesn't care, referring to her as merely a Weaver in half part, or part Wyrm, in her choral commandments etc. She doesn't seem a very name-using god in general.
= Lace could not have directly learned Hornet's name from someone who knows it.
3. Lace is unlikely to be able to overhear anyone calling Hornet by name.
While she certainly stalked Hornet extensively, bugs who use Hornet's name are rare, as name use seems an affectionate or friendly gesture in HK. She would also have to either be close enough to overhear without being spotted, or have some unconfirmed surveillance ability.
While it seems plausible that Lace has some butterfly related spying ability, butterflies are not shown near to Hornet during relevant dialogues involving her name, except for those in lamps, which may or may not count.
= It's not impossible Lace could have eavesdropped Hornet's name, but it seems unlikely unless she has butterfly-related spying powers.
4. Many journal titles are provided for the benefit of the player, regardless of whether Hornet knows them.
Several boss titles, creature names and so on are provided for Hunter's Journal purposes even when Hornet has no way of knowing them; this is for player benefit, and Hornet cannot be considered to actually know the names.
You could say Hornet makes some of these up, and this can suit well enough for whimsical names like Furms, or descriptive ones like Sandcarvers. However, I cannot imagine Hornet would make up a false name for an actual individual person. A descriptive title, certainly, but not a name. If the journal title were written by Hornet, she'd probably have chosen White Knight, which is how she refers to Lace when talking to Caretaker.
= The journal having Lace's name in it is not evidence for Hornet knowing the name.
Tldr: due to these women being initially too busy shit talking each other, and then being too busy experiencing harrowing events, they have never introduced themselves to each other. Hornet has no known canonical way of learning Lace's name, and Lace's ability to learn Hornet's is purely hypothetical and dubious even so.
Conclusion: local women too occupied beating the shit out of each other and then undooming themselves from the narrative. They don't know they fuckign names
Silksong is a game about many things: religion, community, our inner nature, free will. But one of the most prominent themes that stood out to me when playing, one that I’m surprised isn’t talked about more, is motherhood. This is a game of mothers and daughters, and the burdens placed on both.
This write up includes big spoilers for both Hollow Knight games, and generally assumes you are familiar with both games. Also, I'm not a critic or expert or anything, this is just my informal thoughts and observations.
Part 1: Introduction
I can pinpoint the exact moment I realized how important motherhood is to Silksong. It’s an optional conversation in Act 2, when you turn in your meat for the Huntress in Putrified Ducts. We learn that the Huntress wanted meat to distract her frenzied newborns once they hatch. Typically, they would eat her alive, consuming their own mother for strength. Huntress, with shame, wants to find another way. She asks Hornet: “Is that shameful? A mother who would not sacrifice herself for her children to grow sssstttrong? Is it wrong to want? To witnesss their first flight, their first hunt. To see them kill, and grow?” Hornet responds with what might be my favorite line in the game: “Your choice is your own, tall mother. You won't be judged by me. I've seen enough sacrifice. I've no love for the act.”
It’s a brief exchange in a quest that some players will never encounter, and yet to me it clicked so much into place. This feels like a key pillar of the game’s themes, this idea that mothers feel an obligation to sacrifice themselves for their children, and Hornet’s rejection of it. It is seen in the main story as well as side content, and it even echoes back to the original Hollow Knight game, with two prominent mothers (Herrah and the Pale Lady) appearing in the Red Memory sequence to offer their own two cents.
This theme makes a lot of sense. Many people have drawn the parallel that if Hollow Knight pulled heavily from Dark Souls, Silksong pulls heavily from Bloodborne. Instead of crushing isolation, empty ruins, and exploring the history of an order of knights, you’re walking around chapels and finding twisted experiments. The combat is also more aggressive and tool reliant, like Bloodborne’s compared to Dark Souls, and Lace’s fight in the Cradle is visually reminiscent of the white flowers in the Hunter’s Dream. So it’s worth mentioning that Bloodborne also has a ton of connections to motherhood, womanhood, menstruation and childbirth. I won’t go into detail about that because it’s not the purpose of this post (and I’ve never played Bloodborne myself), but it’s worth a google if you’re interested. The relevant point is simply that Silksong takes clear visual, narrative, and ludic inspiration from Bloodborne, a game where ideas like the mother wound play a vital thematic role.
Part 2: The mothers
But let’s take a step back and look at the mothers in the game. The most obvious is Grandmother Silk, the primary antagonist and maternal figure of the story. Grand Mother Silk is a higher being and the creator of the Weavers, the race of powerful warriors that Hornet’s mother belonged to. She is therefore Hornet’s grandmother. Maybe that seems obvious, but that meaning behind her name was lost on me until recently! Silk not only created the Weavers, but also created beings entirely out of her silk, Lace and Phantom. Phantom was eventually abandoned, but her love for Lace continues all the way to her death, and the relationship between Lace and Grand Mother Silk is perhaps the most important in the game: Lace frees Hornet at the start of Act 1, likely as an act of rebellion against Silk, and Silk later refuses to let Lace die which creates the apocalypse of Act 3.
This loyalty to her daughter, even when it is not reciprocated, is the exact sort of selfless affection this world seems to expect of mothers, and it’s one that Silk not only leans into, but seems desperate for. She formed the Weavers and, according to the First Sinner, “called us daughters”. She sought out all weaver descendents after they fled Pharloom to try and bring them back to her. When all else failed, she formed “artificial” children out of thin air, and made their forms perpetually childlike. She wanted daughters, she wanted young ones that would never grow old, never leave her. Being a mother wasn’t just the most notable part of her character, it was practically all she cared about. Even her sinister desire for control over all of Pharloom reads less as a typical tyrant and more as a desperate parent. Still evil, but more emotional than calculated. If you really want to read between the lines, you could argue that the reason there is a space in the middle of grandmother in the name “Grand Mother Silk” is because she isn’t just Hornet’s grandmother, she is also the Grand, the almighty, Mother to all. And yet… is she a good mother? Practically everyone she has called a child has ended up feeling abandoned, betrayed. First Sinner calls her a liar, Phantom calls herself discarded. Even Lace, the child she protects to her dying breath, says in the Cradle (when playing the 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…” Despite caring so much about being a parent, none of her children actually feel loved.
Another notable example is Greyroot, who is not necessarily a mother (they appear to be genderless, or at least not given an explicit gender in the game) but is willing to sacrifice anything, including their own life, to facilitate the birth of their child. In a sense, Greyroot’s quest forces the role of mother on Hornet, who can either extricate the child from her body or go on to reach one of the game’s bad endings, in which she too is sacrificed and petrified to birth a new root-like being. It’s clear that the true ending of the game involves Hornet going to Yarnaby to remove the child from her, and I think it’s interesting that not only does Hornet go up against an all powerful mother, and tell another that she “has no love for” maternal sacrifice, she also explicitly rejects the role of motherhood when it’s forced upon her. And rightfully so! Not only should motherhood never be forced on anyone, but this specific case is clearly incredibly perilous for all the people of Pharloom. It is one of the many instances in this game in which mothers giving themselves up for their children is portrayed as an unequivocally bad thing.
A good mother, the game shows us, is present. Active. Not simply a source of power or sustenance, like Huntress’s meat or Grand Mother Silk’s threads, but a guide, leader, and protector. The Bell Beast (referred to as a mother in the hunter’s journal) is joined on her journey around the bellways by her adorable Beastlings. The Moss Mother lives among the smaller beings of Mosshome and attacks Hornet when she begins killing them. Hornet even admires the creature’s tenacity: “Motherhood is an instinct that can push creatures beyond what seems their normal limits. It turns even weaker beasts like these into formidable foes.” Skarrsinger Karmelita (who refers to the Skarr people as her children) is a leader who is so beloved she is practically worshipped, except that unlike the Weavers she is actually present among her people and loves them. She performs for them, guards their land and way of life, and takes pride in them: “...How we hunted... How we sang... My children, I saw you glorious…” These are mothers we are meant to admire, not because they die for their children, but because they live for them.
Part 3: The daughters
So what is left behind in the aftermath of a mother’s sacrifice? Well, in many cases, it’s an orphaned child, left to fend for itself. Just as important as the burden of the mother in this game is the burden of the daughter. Phantom, falling apart and yearning for death in the Exhaust Organ. First Sinner, chained up for countless years in the Slab. These children of Grand Mother Silk were once loved, but once that love left them they were without purpose, without place. If not a daughter, what are they?
If you do not complete Huntress’s quest in Act 2, then her children are still born. The sacrifice does happen, her children consuming her meat and then scurrying off. But that doesn’t mean the home is empty when you return to her. If you bring the quest items to the hut after these events, you’ll find a child left behind. A runt. This runt tells you that it was too small, too weak, to participate in the feast, and it’s now in need of your generosity to survive and grow strong like it’s siblings: “Usss too will grow?... Sharps claws... hard shell... like siblings goness…”. If you play your Needolin for the runt, it sings: “Why so small? Why so weak? To grow... and be… To feed…” The runt would be protected and nurtured to full strength if its mother had lived, but because of the sacrifice Huntress made, it is left all alone without the ability to hunt. True, Hornet can still help this little child, but she seems saddened by the fate of Huntress herself: “It was a common fate that found her. Too common, perhaps…”
The runt is far from the only child who is lost without their mother. When you find the Savage Beastfly in the Chapel of the Beast, it is slamming its head against the wall of the boss arena, and its needolin dialogue includes the line “Ancestor's echo, rumbling cry!”. When you defeat the Savage Beastfly (good riddance), you find the ancestor it was referring to: a much larger, long dead creature of similar shape behind the wall it was trying to break. This “savage” creature was really just trying to get through to its ancestor.
Think of the daughters in the game that we actually come to know and talk to. I talked about Lace and her cry for Grand Mother Silk to notice her, but another important example is Shakra. When we find her master, peacefully lying dead under a waterfall, the warrior-turned-cartographer says “The fiercest of my tribe, here she lies. I called her master, true, but she was mother just as much, more by far than the bug who bore me.” To Shakra, her true mother is not the one that brought her into the world, but the one that she actually came to know, the one that she actually lived alongside. And while we don’t know the fate of Shakra’s original parents, she does comment on the fact that her master lived as long as she did: “Ended by age... My tribe would call that shame, but I see only strength unbeaten.” Perhaps this is an indictment of the idea that true warriors should fall in battle, but that strikes an interesting parallel to the idea that a mother should give everything for her children. Just like how some think it is cowardly for a warrior to grow old, some (like Huntress) think that perhaps it is selfish for a mother to grow old. Shakra and Hornet clearly disagree.
And of course Hornet disagrees, her situation is very similar to Shakra’s. We see this in detail in what is perhaps the emotional climax of the game.
Part 4: The Red Memory
Hornet was born of a mother’s sacrifice. Herrah, a weaver who fled Pharloom and settled by Hallownest, agrees to help the Pale King seal the Radiance within the Vessel, but only if he gives her a child. This baby, referred to in Hollow Knight as “the gendered child”, grows up to be Hornet. This sacrifice forces Herrah to, in her own words, “lay forever in duty”, comatose until she is killed by the player to help defeat the Radiance once and for all. She seems to have no regrets, saying in Hollow Knight “...Bound... For brood... For child...Fair bargain made...Give all...For her…”. She knew the sacrifice she was making, and is happy to have done it. The result, however, is that Hornet never truly knew her mother, with the White Lady saying of them that “the two were permitted little time together”.
That’s about all we know before Silksong, and many assumed that Herrah wanted a half-wyrm child so that she could possess greater strength than a simple weaver. The Red Memory, however, complicates this theory greatly. Here, we flash back to Herrah’s “little time” with baby Hornet, and the mother spends this brief moment telling her to resist the urge to seek out strength: “...Greater, grander... Weaver, guardian, queen... Those are their desires... not your own. Certainly not mine…” She even seems to want Hornet to break from the Weavers entirely: “ ...Only if you resist them, you might see it, another hope... beyond…” In light of this new information, it makes more sense that Herrah wanted a half-wrym child not so that she may be a stronger weaver, but so that she can remove herself from the weaver’s pursuit of power entirely. She wanted a child with agency.
While Herrah might be Hornet’s mother, it’s clear that she was more greatly influenced by (and perhaps named by) Hive Queen Vespa, the wasp-like warrior that gifted her the pin she fights with and taught her to protect herself. Vespa was the one who actually enabled Hornet to grow into a warrior, much like how Shakra grew closer with her master than with her original parents.
That’s not the only mother Hornet knew, however. While she shares no blood relation to the White Lady, the two clearly share a fondness, and she is the only character in the Red Memory that Hornet actually speaks to. When the White Lady says that she must seem “uncaring, unrepentant” for her role in the sealing of the Radiance, for her birthing of countless offspring, doomed to be either discarded or used as a tool, Hornet instead shows empathy: “You are wrong, Lady... 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 find it interesting that the mother Hornet says this to is the mother that has outlived all of her children. She clearly understands and accepts the cost that was paid by so many in order to combat the Radiance, but it’s not entirely clear if she agrees with it. When faced with the notion of making a sacrifice like her mother’s in order to take on the void, she refuses, telling Lace that “My own life, I shall not sacrifice” and that “the void below all things, that darkness I will fear no longer…” What is clear, however, is that she sees strength as something greater than physical power. She describes strength “in mind, in care, in claw”, a far more nuanced view of it than the Huntress’s runt, abandoned and alone, who sees strength as nothing but “sharp claws” and “hard shell”. Despite her original nature as a power hungry weaver, she has been taught to value compassion. A lesson that cannot be taught to the runt, or Lace, or any of the children who are left without guidance and care. It is through this compassion that Hornet is able to actually save Pharloom.
Part 5: Conclusion
It is no coincidence that so many of these characters are women. Hornet is, after all, the “gendered child”. I think it would be a mistake to simply see this as a commentary on sacrifice, or parenting, or nature vs nurture. There is a distinctly feminine throughline to this entire game, and many characters with an explicit mother/daughter relationship (I haven’t even talked about the Broodmother or the Forge Daughter). Fatherhood, on the other hand, is almost entirely vacant: the Pale King seems intentionally absent from the Red Memory, and the Father of the Flame, perhaps the only character with an explicitly masculine title in their name, is not a character at all but an inanimate totem, a propped up, immobile husk used for worship.
So why? Why fill this game with mothers and daughters, some good some evil, some living some dead? What makes motherhood thematically distinct from other types of parenting?
Obviously I’m just some guy, and by no means do I think I’m an expert on motherhood. But I do think the game powerfully portrays the void that a lost mother leaves behind, and seems fixated on the physical toll that motherhood exacts. The mothers in this game perish for their children, willingly or not, and in some cases wind up betrayed by them. There’s a clear parallel between situations like the Huntress or Cursed Ending and the real life dangers of childbirth. Child bearers can, and do, die to bring children into this world. This is a sad reality, and it’s not one that Hornet denies, nor should we. The point, I think, is that it should not be idealized. By putting too much value on a mother’s willingness to harm themselves, we create a social expectation that is not virtuous at all. It warps our perception of motherhood into something not about nurturing but about martyrdom, it grades a woman's parenting on a scale of self-destruction.
Not only does this harm mothers such as Huntress, who feel obligated to sacrifice their lives when they don’t want to, but it harms the daughters left behind. Some go out and find guidance elsewhere, such as Hornet or Shakra, while some are left without protection or care, such as the runt or Phantom. The Savage Beastfly bangs its head against a wall trying and failing to reach its elder, just like how Lace wanders the citadel, laughing and fighting in an attempt to gain the notice of her all powerful mother. While Hornet carries with her the identities of the wyrms, the weavers, the people of Hallownest, the warriors of the Hive, Lace is lost with no connections or communities to anchor herself to. The result is that she sees herself as hardly alive at all, since she is simply a being woven of thread: “This weak, wasting existence. This was not life, just a husk shaped to act as a child.” She sees herself as, quite literally, a marionette being controlled by dangling strings. Hornet pushes back, telling her that “Yours was life”.
And Lace truly is alive. She is not like the Father of the Flame, a creation that exists to have meaning extracted from it without any freedom to live on its own. Perhaps that’s what Silk wanted for Lace, but it certainly didn’t turn out that way. As was always the case for Grand Mother Silk, her creation grew to rebel against her and find a path for itself.
If the burden of the mother is an expectation of sacrifice, then the burden of the daughter is an expectation of compliance. They are expected to be one thing, and one thing only: the runt must grow to sharpen its claws, Lace must remain a subservient child. The Broodmother’s children are born into the role of jailer and never stray from it. The First Sinner is literally chained up for breaking from what it is told. The daughters that come to actually find themselves are the ones that grow away from their mother into something larger than the role of a child: Shakra finds her tribe of warriors, Hornet leaves the weavers behind. This is what Herrah wanted for her, she wanted Hornet to grow into something different, something new, like Herrah had done when she broke away from Grand Mother Silk.
Hollow Knight: Silksong is a game about breaking the cycle of female subjugation. In this harsh world full of suffering, mothers are expected to be ever-suffering while daughters are expected to be ever-loyal, both locked in stasis and incapable of growth. Even Grand Mother Silk, the villain of the game, is literally trapped by her children when the Weavers enclose her in a cocoon. The one who breaks this cycle, really, is Herrah. She births a child of two worlds and beckons her to find a new life for herself. Hornet does so: she becomes loyal not to a single person but to people, communities, ideals. She learns from and trains with many people, and then gives her help freely to all who need it. Through this she learns deeper truths about herself, the role of compassion in strength, and the value of a life. She bemoans the sacrifices of mothers, seeing the suffering it creates and the lost souls it leaves behind. And only because of this is she able to understand Pharloom, uncover its secrets, and save it from the void. Think of how much more we can accomplish with mothers who actively help their children find themselves, mothers more like the Bell Beast and less like Grand Mother Silk. When the Huntress lives to Act 3 and actually lives alongside her children, the runt is allowed to know more than base impulses, allowed to think of more than just survival.
Fun fact: there is only one line in the game, as far as I can tell, in which Hornet explicitly refers to herself as a daughter. Given how defined she is by her ancestry, it’s surprising that she only uses the word once, even when talking about her past or her Weaver blood. What is the context in which she uses the word? She does not use it to call herself a Weaver, or a Wyrm, or to connect herself to Herrah, the White Lady, the Hive, or any other influential figure in her life. She tells Lace, right before the final boss, that she is “a daughter of Hallownest”. A product not of a single sacrifice, but an entire people. She is, like all mothers and daughters, greater than one bond.
penitent, first of the first. guilty of a sin so grave her name is taken from her, for no mantle can describe her better than first sinner. even we have no other name to call her, no way to show kindness other than to bind her to a different shell.
widow, twisted and fanatical, devoted to her god, only after having her mask—her identity—destroyed, her silk pinned and useless, a weaver in nothing more than name, and even that is barely known. are her coverings the remnants of her own silk? bound and matted and useless, but still hers? or a random shawl stolen from bug, a cloaking so common for a being once so revered? …which is worse, really?
the idea of first sinner being the actual first being to devise rune weaving is… devastating, honestly. a prodigal daughter, her contributions to the art of weaving immeasurably great, stricken down for the sin of apostasy. your talents will not save you from your impudence.
and if widow really is one of the weavers that returned to pharloom after the radiance’s infection… man. like yes i get the weavers sealed gammy silk and she probably wasn’t super thrilled about that but… the sheer disdain she must have felt, to exert whatever twisted, misbegotten influence still dormant in her subjects, just to hunt down each and every last daughter, and all of theirs as well, for sinners of their ilk do not deserve the holy gift of silk, and each second they wield it is a slight too great to bear. imagine fleeing from every home you’ve ever known just to have every aspect of your identity destroyed and to be cast as a puppet, on strings you no longer have the power to control
my lore knowledge might not be 100% bc team cherry loves to be cryptic (affectionate) lol but these are just my thoughts from what i gathered, and ik weavers arent perfect innocent babies who never did anything wrong, but still, something about the contrast between the absolute cruelty shown to her first daughters and the determination she shows in saving lace, going so far as to destroy her own kingdom and giving up her life and silk… its just crazy man. and still, lace lived miserably in the shadow of her mothers love. don’t even get me started on phantom omg
The life cycles of the higher beings of hollow knight: A slightly in-depth analysis
I'm not much of a lore analysis guy, but these two lines of dialogue in the first game stuck out to me when I first played:
Now obviously this is referring to the corpse of the wyrm and the creation of the pale king, but that's a very strange form of growing- isn't it?
I shrugged it off and didn't give it much thought after the fact, but when the second game released I was left with many more questions after this conversation with the mask maker:
Now this is interesting- higher beings can choose to stagnate? Is growth not natural to them? Perhaps they need some sort of external push to grow???
Though I have a lot of thoughts on the matter, I'll try to simplify them into something easy to understand: Higher being life cycles are like that of a butterfly, but never ending.
They can go forwards or backwards in the lifecycle I think, and a "death" will usually result in the creation of an egg!
Part 1: The egg
The best example of this phenomenon is the egg we see located within the cast off shell: The wyrm dies, an egg is formed... not too hard to comprehend.
Though I think it's also important to note that eggs most likely don't just form from a death per se, but can also be created through more ... traditional means of reproduction (AKA two higher beings or a higher being and a mortal bug mating and creating an egg) .
Part 2: The Larva
To preface, the term 'adult' here will be used IN HIGHER BEING TERMS ONLY. According to this theory, all of the characters listed below would be 'adults' by mortal bug standards, given that all of them have most likely lived several bug lifetimes. (so no, grimmchild is not an adult yo they were born like a day ago 😭)
I do not want ANY lace age discourse or age discourse in general on here. Go away, shoo, begone!
anyways
There are a lot of larva examples available, so I'll just be going through the main ones
1. Hornet
Now hornet is a very interesting case, given that she's a demigod and not full higher being. But as depicted in the weaver queen ending, she does have the ability to ascend to adult status, but perhaps due to her partial godhood she needs an extra push and can't just decide one day she feels like ascending to godhood or something...
this partial godhood is probably also why we see her had a more normal development process compared to the other higher beings on this list.
2. The Pale king
Probably the most straightforward example on here, after hatching from the egg, he took on this form and it has remained his form in order for him to rule over the mortal bugs effectively- how would he get anything done if he was stuck as a giant wyrm all the time?
And though he has at times made himself appear larger and grander than he actually is, it's clear that he chose this form purposefully and has stuck with it.
3. The Knight
Another good example of a larva having been stagnant in their form for god knows how long
and despite being the same age as (if not older than) the pure vessel , they have still kept their original form. Is this a conscious choice, I wonder?
I doubt they're truly aware of their own nature until very late in the game, and at that point we see their development in full (though it's hard to really know if it's truly them ascending or not given the fact that they're a vessel).
4. Lace
Whether lace is truly a higher being is a bit debatable due to her being completely made of silk, but then again so is her mother (aside from the metal bits). Given that she was created to be a child by a higher being by some sort of magical means to give thread life (maybe in a similar fashion to the vessels?) I'd say she counts.
Compared to her creator, it's very plain to see that she is definitely in a larval stage, and chances are she may not have the ability to grow at all- at least while her mother is still around.
It appears that she was created not with the expectation of growing and flourishing, but rather to be stuck in this form and forever loyal to grandmother silk. That's depressing as hell, yo.
5. Grimmchild
The grimm life cycle is probably the wackiest here given that they're sort of vessels for the nightmare heart... but once the entire ritual thing is complete and the grimmchild possesses the nightmare heart, I'd say that it constitutes as a larvae.
Part 3: The Pupa
I'm gonna be real with you guys I do NOT have many examples of the pupa, but I'll try the best I can to explain it....
The best and most prominent example of this is with hornet during the weaver queen ending of silksong
She's in a giant ass cocoon of sorts, and within we find hornet who's been there for god knows how long.
We then see her start to grow more arms before the screen abruptly cuts to black, probably indicating she's about to wake up from her slumber and become a fully realized higher being.
I suppose the cocoon when hornet dies in game could also be argued as the pupa stage, where when she dies she moves forward in the cycle, but probably to a lesser extent? idk it feels like a bit of a stretch...
Okay I know this next one is gonna seem weird.
And I PROMISE it's not just because he looks like a cocoon in this specific sprite...
but let me explain:
Grimm, but specifically during the process of the ritual- can be seen as a pupa in the life cycle.
Now the term pupa itself if used very loosely here to refer to a transitional state in the ritual or whatever the fuck, so take all this grimm stuff with a grain of salt because the ritual in itself if a whole other can of worms i'm NOT getting into.
Part 4: Adulthood
there are many, MANY examples I could use, but for now I'm just going to do the notable/ relevant ones.
1. Cast- Off shell
Aka the wyrm form the pale king took on prior to becoming who he is today. Would it be possible for him to return to this state if he wanted to?
2. Pure Vessel
Out of all the vessels, the pure vessel is the only one (that we know of) to fully 'mature' into this form.
"Deepest silence in holy shell,
Given nail and named a Knight,
Bound by chain and egg and spell,
Hear Our plea! Reveal thy Light!"
– Prayer to the Vessel
As suggested by this journal entry, the Pure Vessel had some sort of external force helping/ training it to be able to reach the state it's seen as in game- not a feat they'd be able to manage simply by aging.
3. The Shade Lord
Genuinely don't even have a good explanation for this one... it appears as thought the knight sort of just skipped the pupa stage and went straight to being a higher being.
Given that this was a choice they made, it helps to back up the part of the theory that states some sort of action must be done or help must be given in order for one to ascend to godhood.
Part 5: Death
Eventually, every cycle must have it's end. But how does this end come about? One of the reason's I'm about to give doesn't have much evidence, so take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt.
1. Choosing to die
Like how many aspects of the cycle are voluntary, i theorize that if a higher being desired it, they can simply just die.
The only support I really have for this is the image shown above, where the pale king can be seen dead on his throne. Though some people argue that it was the void that killed him, the lack of void staining on his eyes compels me to believe otherwise.
2. The void is involved
Simple enough- who knew an all- consuming force could kill gods as well?
3. The god is already in a weakened state
blah blah she was sleeping for a while I'm running out of brainpower dude
Conclusion
this is just a theory I made up for fun so don't take any of this like as gospel but uuuh if you got this far thanks for reading!
^chart proving this entire essay could've been an email
The contrast between the rulers 02: Let's talk about how the Pale King didn't go by "Great Father Mind"
[Act 3 spoilers]
So. The Pale King and his Evil Discount Knockoff, Grand Mother Silk.
Both Rulers; Both Pale Beings, Both Parents, both as creator gods of sorts and in the regular sense of having direct children.
All of these are archetypical positions of authority that are thus often psychologically & symbolically linked. What's a god but the big parent in the sky? A god can affect entire worlds, a ruler entire countries, but most people's sphere of influence is usually as big as their families, where they might be gods or kings of smaller domains. We're in the fantasy genre so kings must not necessarily be taken as like actual politics but its a shorthand to make personal problems cosmic because they feel cosmic. Your personal world is your whole world. Your family drama won't cause a real civil war, but it can feel world ending.
The two characters parallel each other in some ways that get increasingly unsubtle and in-your-face as the story of Silksong progresses - they are associated with order over chaos, they had some fixation on the concept of eternity, they didn't make their creations from scratch but rather uplifted pre-existing creatures (which we actually see the Grand Mother do in "First Sinner"'s flashback ), and they both typically talk in the Royal We. - but always in flashbacks, lore tablets, indirect speech related by others... they never speak directly. In the King's case, because he's dead. In the Grand Mother's case, she's too eldritch, drawn in this very abstract style, very 'monster-like'. The Pale King might have been quite monstery too, in his Wyrm days, but he deliberately took a more bug-like form to interact more directly with his followers.
But they are contrasted as much as paralleled, like inverse mirrors.
One thing of note about them is that Grand Mother Silk is, of course, known as the Grand Mother (& shown in flashbacks the weavers in general often called her "mother" as does her fanatical follower Widow in the present) whereas everyone calls the Pale King the "Pale King" - the one time we see him introduce himself in his own words, in the lore tables, he calls himself "King and Creator" - probbly what he would have said if you asked him who he is. He's the King - but "Creator" is just as important to him, he didn't just rule the place, he built it, we're told he personally designed buildings, public transports etc that he was an architect and an inventor.
This preference in address/ difference in self-concept reflects their priorities:
Grand Mother Silk is a mother before she's a Monarch;
The Pale King is a King before he's a father.
If they had to choose, it's clear which one they would pick. This is made very clear by which one they're willing to throw into the void to save the other.
The Pale King sacrificed literal heaps of his own children to his plan to save his Kingdom.
The Grand Mother was willing to plunge Pharloom into the void to protect Lace.
The kicker of course being that both of them still end up losing both. They can keep neither and all the ugly acts are in vain;
The other kicker is that the additional layers of complexity here.
Because, despite being a Mother first, Grand Mother is actually a rather shitty mother. Lace is a twisted, screwed up person (which she directly attributes to her mother) and she hates her guts, to the point that she's willing to see both herself & Pharloom be destroyed to spite her, and even Great Mother's destructive efforts to save her don't change that one bit. The semi-maternal relationship she had with the weavers was likewise terrible: They turned against her, and she nearly wiped them out.
The Pale King's offspring all turned out heroic, resolute & resourceful, though, in some part despite him (certainly Ghost) - they also met horrible fates. In the timeline of the "sealed siblings" ending, his actions get them ALL killed. Every single one. The three "main" ones all laying in a tomb of his making.
Hornet & Ghost have messy, knotty feelings about him. In Hornet's case, Silksong's whole character arc is about sorting out the knot (final conclusion being that she doesn't hate him, not really, (though she sometimes felt like she should) she's understood him more as she got older) - As for Ghost, well. They knock him off his throne with considerable force, enough to shatter the remains of his face. Then they plop themself down on his throne. Then, a sad melody plays that combines both their leitmotifs. It's the one chair they never slouch on. I'd put that down as as "messy & knotty" as well. (but also not as simple as just hating him)
The Pure Vessel seems to have been the closest to him & totally devoted from what we can tell, but certainly in a way that indicts him a bit as well with how it reeks of desperation (they had nothing else to latch onto in their doomed, deprived existence) - Still, they loved him and persevered to the end of their strength in a hopeless task on that account. Besides the path of pain scene, the other snapshot we get of how he would have interacted with them is the worldsense lore tablet. It sounds like he's reasuring them... but also kind of himself. "don't worry, hallownest will be whole again... it will all be worth it haha... " They both REALLY wanted to believe it, & maybe ironically there was a sense of felowship in that.
All certainly seem to feel a strong sense of expectations & obligation, a need to "measure up", especially those he got to raise. (but his one interaction with Ghost where he didn't even see them also had a slight bit of that effect) Hornet had Herrah as a counter-influence to say "go find your own path!". (indeed Herrah stands out as an A grade parent even with just her one flashback scene, the total opposite to Grand Mother's possesiveness. WE don't know what she was like as a ruler but we know her approval rating was great and her absence was said to have "cost the nest greatly". So she was maybe an example of someone who was a good ruler AND a good parent. )
The Pure Vessel meanwhile... ("Do not think. Do not speak. Do not hope. Do not do no do not.") - I think that was him passing on his own flaws, (in a way that can be compared to the Lace situation) however, he cracked when he couldn't live up to his follower's expectations. What haunted him most in the end, besides what he did with his family, was the thought of his expectant followers patiently waiting for him to find a solution he didn't have.
And Hornet, a good chunk younger, was then defined then by his cracking & his failure and the mopping of his mess, & grw up not trusting the part of her that comes from him. ("We're fools, we're monsters..." also not entirely unlike lace)
Although there is a huge difference between inadvertedly passing on the pressure or guilt that one puts on themself, and just plain cruelty begetting cruelty.
The defining thing about Grand Mother is that she's crude and bestial in a shiny holy exterior; The King had an actual sense of obligation & duty. So much it crushed him. He really was noble, I think. There's a reason the Dung Defender liked him so much (& the appreciation was mutual, he got a charm with special honors and all. He saw loyalty as a gift to reward or a reaction to inspire, not something to demand absolutely) & he thought that Ghost was a lot like him in terms of their "noble bearing".
Though at the same time, it's indicting that Ghost was capable of "evolving beyond him" because they were out from under his influence, even if it's fighting for survival in a desert. They weren't so limited by his ideas of what he thinks they are or should be as the Pure Vessel was.
The Pale King tried to make something that couldn't love, but they loved him anyway, probably because they felt love from him, & saw something about him as worth loving. He still put them in the egg. (To find they couldn't save the kingdom precisely because they wanted to save it. The tragedy continues. But at least it was the "the love was there" kind of tragedy. Lace had nothing. If we must suffer, I would prefer suffering with meaning, you know? )
The Grand Mother tried to make something that couldn't betray her. She betrayed her anyway, because she didn't feel loved, and because she wasn't worth loving. (Grand mother pulled an apocalytic tantrum to save her anyway... and it worked, kind of, in the sense that Lace lived, but i dont think shell ever forgive her or be thankful. & i think she cares about being adored, not about lace for her own sake, so thats a loss to her. )
Also of note is what else each ruler gets called; When the Pale King isn't called the Pale King, he's usually referred to as the "Wyrm", simply a descriptor of what kind of creature he is, or used to be, before he became a king. It's usually used to show that a character either is on a more equal basis to him or that they're not terribly reverent of him. It's used by other powerful beings like the Mushroom Hive Mind, Grimm, Mr Mushroom etc. or just beings that are very old & mysterious like Mask Maker and Bardoon.
As for Grand Mother Silk, only the weavers, her once favored children, actually get to call her "Mother"; "Pale Monarch" is the title for the plebs. She's sometimes called Pale Beast, referencing what creature she is (like the Weavers are sometimes called "beasts") but more commonly also has a monicker used by disenters like Chapel Mind, "Her on top". Sort of like how Trump gets called "orange man" or Merkel "Mutti". Many policians or Kings have some epithet like that that they're called by their detractors. The existence of such an epithet is, of course, reflective of a low approval rating. Ppl are afraid to say the wrong thing in public, in case "her on top" gets wind. You can't criticize her out loud. You might get thrown in The Slab if you do.
notably, Hornet almost always calls her "Pale Monarch", despite being a weaver.
I would say that, by this choice, Hornet (who comes from a place that valued chivalry & duty & all that shit, & having spent all her life protecting those duties even when she could do little but struggle in imptence as everything crumbles) is pretty much deliberately shaming her for not doing her bloody duty to her subjects. Hornet ends up picking up the slack & does what she didn't, taking care of the pilgrims etc during the quest chains. In the 1st descent in act 3 she very deliberately goes: "Monarch, would you really torch your own Kingdom??"
But in the Grand Mother's mind, she doesn't have a sense of duty. Her idea of being the monarch is that she owns the place and can do with it whatever she pleases. "They are ours, bound forever..." (flashback from the silk heart in the whiteward)
And: This is the exact same attitude she has towards Lace (As well as Phantom and the Weavers), whom she deliberately created to be fragile, loyal and dependent on her.
In other words, a very fundamental fact about Grand Mother Silk is that she's a shit parent for the exact same reason that she's a shit monarch. What she's doing to her Kingdom is exactly what she's doing to her daughter: Wanting to control every aspect. Treating it like her belongings.
& that's why when she loses everyhing it feels like a just punishment, consequences coming to roost. She is a villain. She's not without "human" qualities like real attachment to Lace (the last thing we see her do is save her), but in the end the bad of her far outweighs anything sympathetic. The fucking Underdocks. The fucking Whiteward. The Slab. Little Pilgrim :(( she had it coming.
Then what of the Pale King?
Is he a good King for the same reasons he's a good parent?
Well. If we had to live in Hallownest and Pharloom I think all of us would pick Hallownest, just because pharloom is such an extreme over the top hellhole, but most would hesitate to call him a "good parent" with no qualifies. Dead Baby Pit and all.
For him, the two sides are genuinely in conflict, and it breaks him.
He's trying to be a good King, and that causes him to "sin" as a parent.
He is a tragic hero. If a straight hero is someone who has exactly the abilities & qualities to solve the plot (like either of his younger children in their respective games), a Tragic Hero is someone who has exactly the kinds of flaws that cause everything to blow up & go to hell despite their best intentions.
Ironically I'd say that, while Grand Mother prioritized the parent over the monarch, she was actually the worse parent out of the two.
Lace is twisted, sadistic, self-destructive, selfish, "cruel and crude", in her words, she really hates herself, and she really hates Great Mother, too. & it's really made clear that lace isn't chosing to be an asshat, she never knew anything else & may have had better inclinations that could have been nurtured (cf. Caretaker's comments about how she sort of tried to be the Citadel's protector)
It is allso worth observing that Grand Mother is a worse ruler in terms of Pharloom being a hellhole, but it seems to have lasted way longer, been much bigger, had more advanced tech (despite her wiping out the weavers noahs flood style halfway through), and she seems to have utterly vanquished all her rivals - although that might be tied to her just more powerful rather than any real achievement on her part. Though we don't know how powerful the King was before he took his smaller form; He was near death when he arrived where Hallownest is now.
Still, I don't see Grand Mother instilling any ideas in disposable weapons; She might have beat the Radiance. She appears to have discarded Phantom without a twinge of guilt. Insofar as he failed for not being asshole enough, its to his credit.
She might think she's a better ruler, in terms of her "who has the biggest pile of gold" type view on it and would probably consider him small potatoes. A british empire era lord would consider her impressive, maybe.
Hallownest was just a blip in terms of how long Pharloom (or Grand Mother's reign of terror over it) lasted. Although I think any jealousy the Pale King might have felt at the raw stats would turn to disgust after seeing the cost. He wanted Soul Master's shit shut down. He didn't suceed at it tho.
That's a good way to contrast them: Hallownest went to shit because the Pale King failed; Pharloom went to shit because Grand Mother suceeded.
That's the essential difference between a villain and a tragic hero right there.
if we cannot win, it's better to fail at being a hero than to suceed at being a villain. But it hurts, ohh it hurts. A sucessful villain isn't tormented by guilt, though she may throw an apocalyptic tantrum when she doesn't get what she wants.
