i think one of the best illustrations of hollow knight’s tone is the fact you can choose to be kind when it gives you no mechanical benefit whatsoever - or you don’t know it gives you a benefit
for a first-time player, rescuing grubs is just as likely to be an act of compassion as it is curiosity - you might visit the grubfather first and understand that this is a father missing his children, and connect the dots with the captive grubs, but you don’t get a reward until you reunite them, and you don’t have to go back immediately to see what’s happened, but these are trapped things in jars crying and you can break the jars so Why Not
you don’t know that listening to an overgrown, dead snail shaman or freeing one from a crystal prison from where she’s trapped will get you something
there is no mechanical benefit to sitting and listening to Marissa or listening to Quirrel all the time, especially at the end
you can just walk straight past Hornet if you want
there’s no benefit to listening to Myla
if you are a first time player/going in blind you don’t know that delivering the flower gives you shit, you’re just asked to take it to the grave of someone’s lover
the Stag Nest in Howling Cliffs isn’t something you can use as a station, you can only go there from other stations and not call the stag there because the bell doesn’t work - it is effectively useless to you on a mechanical level
the charm you need to unlock the second and third endings is absolutely, mechanically useless compared to the charm you use to transform it, it’s your heart that gives you strength rather than the pale king’s legacy, an endless wellspring of soul
@hallownest put it pretty much perfectly with a discussion we had in the past:
i think it says a lot about the knight themself that there aren’t really any options to be cruel to people, but there are so many ways to be kind
