#the cocoon

[funger-rips]

Fear and Hunger: Termina - Cocoon, All Overworld Sprites

[non-cannon]

While I rather firmly believe that the shade in Hollow Knight, is canon to the world, and not just game mechanics (I do tend to think that the geo bit is game mechanics though), I really feel that the cocoon is Silksong game mechanics.

The shade feels rooted in the game and the lore, while the cocoon doesn't.

The only arguments (that I can think of) for the cocoon being canon is the the fact that you can do cocoon skips and the existence of silk eaters. But I'm like 95% (I haven't finished the game and my memory is pretty shit) that the only place the silk eaters are referenced as being useful for getting your cocoon back is in the inventory, as Player information, not in game lore. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's the only place in the entire game that the cocoons are mentioned. I don't think the show up as lore at all. And the silk eaters can just be explained in game as being valuable things that can be consumed to restore silk in general.

Aside from regaining rosaries (and I'm already said I think the geo bit with the shades is game mechanics), the only thing you lose/gain from the cocoon is extra silk spools, things that aren't base game and things you could go the entire game without acquiring. Whereas the the soul vessel breaking and healing with the shade is something you have base game that affects you no matter how much you do or don't acquire.

I do like the theory that Hornet/the pale siblings have inherited some of their father's foresight and that the cocoons/deaths(/to a lesser extent the shades) are actually them foreseeing their/her deaths, and the version where you don't die is the canon one. But again, I do think the shades are canon.

To start with, shade skips exist. But unlike cocoons, the shades are not static (at least until you you get void heart, but we'll get back to that later). It interacts with you and the world (it can die to environmental hazards). It can be killed by summons (I haven't found the cog flies yet so I don't know if they can destroy a cocoon). It grows stronger as you do (It's health will increase with your health and nail damage, and it gains your spells). It can kill you (don't ask me how I know).

It exists in lore. The hunter's journal, a thing that canonically exists in game, has an entry for them. It gets the final blow on Radiance. Siblings exist. Siblings that are very clearly the shades of other dead vessels that for whatever reason can't/don't come back the way the Knight does. Both Siblings and the Shade can be killed with one blow of the dream nail. Neither give soul (unless you have both wearverlings and grubsong equipped, that combo can get you soul from any enemy).

And then voidheart tames the shade and makes it tame and die in one hit. It does the same thing to the Siblings. Voidheart is also representative of the Knight asserting their will over the void, and what is the shade if not their inner void, and what are the Siblings if not the void of the other vessels?

So, in conclusion, I feel very strongly that the shade is canon, and fairly strongly that the cocoon is not.

[odera]

Overhauled my Patreon to be more reflective of the artist I am in 2025! www.patreon.com/odera

This month is all about The Cocoon divination painting and photography experiments

[jumpyasslibra]

[beelze-bruh]

@jaamytarts gave me a disease :( this is one of the side effects

[lily-lilou]

Viren’s two awakening

So my dear friends! Time for another little theory!

What if that scene (when Viren awakes at the end of s3):

happens right after this one (in TTM):

Something like... Viren is half-dead, sleeping, slowly coming back to the living. And suddenly he awakes and sees Rayla for half a second amongst the dead.

And the next moment, he truly awakes with Claudia, not understanding what's happening because just before the scene was entirely different...

So he awakes, see Claudia and will probably end thinking it was just some kind of dream (which means he would be even more convinced in s4 _at first at least_ that “the moonshadow elf” who killed him is dead too... how angsty it would be if Runaan come to learn that piece of information from him...)

Anyway!

The timing could make sense, after all we don’t know how long Claudia has been hiding in that cave. The only thing we know is that “two days ago” Viren’s creepy caterpilar friend climbed up the wall and spun itself into that cocoon. 

But weeks could have passed before that. And if so... do you imagine the implications for Claudia? 

That could mean she must have spent an awefully long time trying to bring her dad back. Probably trying a lot of different spells with a lot of different components. If she's in Xadia, she has a lot all around her... 

But weeks pass and no improvement... 

... Pretty sure "the boot" happened only as a last resort for Claudia, after probably all these weeks of failed attempts with other ways. Because I still think she wouldn't kill someone just like that, as if it was nothing. She had to be really desperate. And despair, when you're as confident about yourself as Claudia seems to be, doesn't come in the blink of an eye, it takes time...

[mask131]

More of the Addams extended family! A series of comic strips by Charles Addams

As I mentionned previously, the Addams family was implied to be bigger than the eight characters we know already. Around them were a series of weird, creepy, recurring characters, either friends of the family or distant members.

For example, the famous Cousin It, that appears for example in picture 2, mereley as “It”. As you can see, he was originally this huge mass of hair - but later evolved into a small hairy dwarf with glasses.

Or the “Wall-Eyed Couple” that appears in several strips, such as picture 3, where Grandmama visits them. Their nature as a couple is confirmed by the fact they had a child, a two-headed boy, each head bearing the features of a specific parent. (I also think this is implied to confirm a blood link with the main Addams family because, as we saw, they have a thing for two-head beings). Also, the wallpaper of the room corresponds to the wallper of the It scene, and of a lot of Fester scenes, and is also used in many Addams mansion scenes... Does it mean they are all supposed to take place in one same building, or is it just a shared taste by all creepy people?

Picture 1 shows us a series of portraits of ancestors of the Addams family. A bearded man that looks like both the Wall-Eyed Man and Gomez. An old woman. A man identical to Uncle Fester. A man looking like Lurch (maybe Lurch is a distant relative of the Addams? Who knows! In some colorizations, him and Morticia share the same greenish skin tone). And Uncle Zander, the “black sheep”. By the way... the man she is presenting the ancestors portaits is the same man with pointy ears and nose that appeared in the “Addams feast” picture! But this strip implies that he lacks a knowledge about the Addams family... or maybe just about Morticia’s side of the family?

Picture 4 was actually the first apparition ever of the “Cocoon-thing”.

Then comes the famous “flower-haired girl” that would later inspire Ophelia, and her mother the witch. Picture 5, this strip is the one confirming their relationship - the flower-haired girl wishing to take her mother’s broom (implying she may be a witch herself). The witch, while looking a bit like Grandmama, is still wildly different - more... “dried up”, with more pointy and sharp traits, and a very different way of clothing. Same witch reappears in picture 6, where we see the aspect of the small cottage she lives in. As for the flower-haired girl she reappears in picture 8 (I couldn’t find any better quality, sorry) where a man that bears the typical “ugliness” of the Addams-family-like characters proposes to her, saying “There’s enough hate in my heart for both of us”. Note that she is standing on the porch of a wooden house, something very different from the straw-and-stone house she lives in.

Picture 7 actually shows the re-apparance of the “man with a bestial and furry” face that appeared in the “Monster Rally” illustration. I only found out later this specific strip is in fact part of a series that identify him as a sort of werewolf.

Picture 9 I originally included for the monstrous face of the man was quite similar to other beings seen near the Addams Family, but upon closer inspection I haven’t really seen anything corresponding to it. I don’t have the text that goes with the picture.

And finally picture 10, which is a recreation of the “family goes to a race” strip, but this time with just two characters, a male looking strangely like Fester but still very different, and a woman (is it me or does she appears similar to the old woman we saw among the ancestors portaits, back in picture 1?)