✨️ r o t u n d n e s s ✨️

The Nuance Behind Being Called "Child"

Yes, there is dialogue referring to Lace as "child," but in most cases, it's meant to represent her status as "the Monarch's child" rather than her age, whether physical or mental. Hornet in particular uses "child" to show that Lace doesn't intimidate her, at least at the start of their interactions ("Your threats are worthless, child").

Caretaker gets quoted a lot in defense of calling Lace a child, but there's a few things a lot of people seem to forget:

The Caretaker has never actually met Lace. What he says is a comment on her behavior, which he's only observed at a distance.

The Caretaker is a liar. Act 3 is started because he leaves out key details about how the Soul Snare works, therefore lying about its safety. He's no stranger to lying and telling half-truths for his own benefit.

The part everyone quotes isn't the full quote. What the Caretaker says is "Look of a child and a mind to match, but her's been up wanderin' this Citadel longer'n most. Even in its long silence, way 'fore you came and roused its ire." This shows that Lace has been around for an incredibly long time, which means that even if she was shaped as a child, she no longer is. Regardless of whether GMS managed to keep her the same physically, it's simply not possible to stop someone from maturing mentally. As my friend Savvy put it, a lot of people arguing that Lace was created with the mental maturity of a child tend to equate "mental maturity" with lived experience. Lace doesn't exist in a stagnant state of being "born yesterday," so to speak. (paraphrased from a post by @the-valiant-valkyrie, read what she said here)

Now, Lace also has her own dialogue about this, but she doesn't call herself a child. Instead, she says she was "shaped to act as a child." The deliberate use of the phrase "act as a child" illustrates that childhood is a role Lace is meant to play, not an accurate descriptor of her as a person, and we can infer it's a role she hates based on what she says about herself in this same scene:

"Life? You're too generous! This weak, wasting existence. This was not life, just a husk shaped to act as a child. [...] Head on. Climb up, up and away. You've earned your audience with the divine. Face the holy mother who would fashion so cruel and crude a daughter as me."

This shows us that Lace is failing to fulfill this role of a perfect little girl, and as such, views herself as worthless. After all, if she can no longer be what she was made to be, then that would mean she's nothing at all.

We can also draw a parallel to Hornet—another adult character who spends a large part of the game being referred to as a child, both in term of being mistaken for one (Shakra calling her "a child barely hatched" in their first meeting) and as a denotation of her status as the child of a god (Mister Mushroom calling her "Wyrm child," or the White Lady calling her "Gendered child" and "Spider's child").

Neglect and the Disability and Abuse Allegories

In addition, Lace is described as being dependent on silk. Her full entry in the Hunter's Journal says "Much Silk would have been needed to see her sustained." This would make her dependent on her Mother, and as we know, her Mother was almost entirely absent from her life. Lace begs Grand Mother Silk to acknowledge her in her needolin dialogue ("See me cut! See me serve! See me, your knight… See me, your daughter…"), and yet her Mother never gives her so much as a passing glance until the moment of her rebellion.

All of this paints a deep parallel to disabled adults in abusive homes. They're unable to leave because they depend on their abusers, and often, their disability is used to treat them as lesser and make them easier to manipulate. In the cases of neurodivergent people especially, people tend to constantly hover over or police their actions, simply because they're neurodivergent. Neurotypical people are held accountable for their actions when they make poor decisions, but of a neurodivergent person makes a poor decision, suddenly "they weren't thinking straight" or "they don't know any better." (As a neurodivergent adult, I've had both of these used against me.)

All of this is to say, disabled adults (especially neurodivergent adults) in abusive homes are deprived of agency because they're seen as "lesser" for something completely out of their control.

What We Hear vs. What We See

Another thing I wanna bring up is that the Hollow Knight series is very heavy on show, don't tell storytelling, especially in the sense that what we're told is often different from what we're shown.

Going into Hollow Knight completely blind, you're shown early on that the titular Hollow Knight is not quite what you're told it is later. The City of Tears memorial says that the Hollow Knight allowed Hallownest to stand eternal, but you've clearly seen that the kingdom is crumbling. The Abyss memory scene tells you that the Pure Vessel had no emotion to allow Radiance back out of the seal, but you can see that the Infection has ravaged the land worse than ever before (and the Path of Pain cutscene outright shows us that the Hollow Knight loved its father, meaning the plan was doomed to fail from the beginning).

In many ways, it's the same with Lace. You're told by the Caretaker she was made to be a child, and you're also told by Lace that she was made to act like a child, but you're never shown that she's a child. Instead, you're shown that Lace resents the role she's made to play, and that she wants to be seen for more than what she was created to be.

Becoming What You're Made To Be vs. Choosing Your Own Path

The bad endings in both Hollow Knight games involve following the path you're told to.

In Hollow Knight, the bad endings involve Ghost taking the place of the Hollow Knight, perpetuating the cycle of temporarily sealing Radiance—an action which we know will inevitably fail because there is no true "pure vessel."

In Silksong, the bad endings involve Hornet either fulfilling the desires of the Weavers and taking the place of Grand Mother Silk in Weaver Queen, or being consumed by a parasite and birthing a far worse threat in Twisted Child.

The good endings of both games involve choosing another path. Ghost can only defeat Radiance by embracing its true nature, defying the idea that it's meant to contain a threat alone, and instead destroying it with the help of its siblings (Hornet and Hollow in Dream No More and all of the Siblings in both Godmaster endings). Hornet can only free Pharloom by choosing to defy the desires of those around her and forging her own path.

Lace, too, breaks free from the role she's told to fill! By directly rebelling against Grand Mother Silk, not only does she finally make herself seen, she definitively refuses the role of "subservient and loyal child" that she's been forced to occupy for untold centuries!

The series as a whole places a strong emphasis on the idea that what you're told to be isn't your only option. Nobody's locked into being one thing forever. Even if the odds are stacked against you, you can choose your own fate.

I think the thesis statement of the series is best illustrated by Herrah's dialogue in the Red Memory:

Anyways, as you might know, I'm pretty lax on people's takes of Lace and her probable age since I heavily believe her nuance benefits her story, and I also have strong opinions of the thematic implications of both interpretations. I can try to list off everything here and as well as address the arguments you've made(and hopefully organize it nearly as nicely as you did lmao)

The Nuance of "Child" with Lace's Story

Now there is absolutely a ton of cases where Lace is addressed as a child, from Hornet, to the Caretaker, to her mother, to Lace herself, to even a random ass pilgrim in the Citadel. Even moreso than the actual children in the game. This overuse of the term does leave a lot to be discussed, however, whether this descriptor is accurate or serves as an opening to questioning or debate

So first, let's address the Caretaker.

1. Observations

It's not confirmed how long bro has been chilling in the Citadel, or even if he has been around before or after Lace was(likely the former considering he was able to identify a weaver since they've long since departed, along with him recognizing the Citadel as quiet) but he has indeed kept a far distance from her throughout the time he's studied her it seems, and it's likely that they never interacted directly. That pretty much seems reason enough to determine that Caretaker's information of Lace is less than reliable

However, an interesting counterpoint to this is how he interacts with Hornet. Throughout their conversations, Hornet has done little to disclose information of her nature and backstory to the Caretaker, but he, as subtly implied during his introduction, seemed to truly know exactly who she was. That she's ancient, that she's partially weaver, that she's related to another monarch, and the inner turmoil that ails her about her desire vs the instincts that claw at her from both sides of her genes.

And this was all from talking to this random traveler for like 5 minutes consecutively, let alone observing someone from a distance for decades, possibly centuries. This does bring more context for the introspection of the validity of Caretaker's studies, but it's honestly up for debate at this point

2. his Treacherous Traitorous ass

Now it's no secret Caretaker's not the most honest dude. Bro's a bit of a troller, I mean the implications of the dialogue in his intro spoke enough–

"Oh, so you ask funny questions as well as cutting bells free, eh? You certainly ain't a pilgrim, but you're clearly not of the Choir either. No! I know exactly what you are..."

...

"A bell-ringing lout! A weirdo!"

Oooh sneaky stinker

But exaggeration of this subject's title aside, the most Caretaker has plainly done in terms of dishonesty is withhold information from Hornet of the trap he was tryna set. Granted, the information in question was extremely crucial and shifted the state of things entirely, and Hornet possibly could have benefitted from the info. But perhaps Hornet wouldn't have agreed to it then. Maybe he knows that. Maybe that's why he kept his mouth shut

It's vital to remember neither Caretaker nor the other shamans are evil; they did what they did as an attempt to help, and then fled and hid when it didn't work out. They pulled a PK if you will lol

(Also I'd like to briefly mention that I'm surprised Hornet didn't already know that the trap Caretaker set was bound to the void. I mean she evidently didn't, as shown by her outrage when she confronts them, but she apparently aided in its construction, and she was easily able to clock Caretaker as a shaman long before his reveal in Act 3. Plus she knows a void spell when she sees one, as seen with her interaction with Sula)

But anyways, what I'm saying is that Caretaker wouldn't gain anything from fibbing about Lace's age, so though it's very possible that he was misinformed from his studies, it's unlikely that he would lie about this kind of thing intentionally

3. the Substance Behind his Dialogue

“One to keep far from she was, least for us mortal sorts. Look of a child and a mind to match, but her's been up wanderin' this Citadel longer'n most. Even in its long silence, way 'fore you came and roused its ire.”

Dammit Caretaker you broke the internet. Now let's talk about this, specifically the part addressing the probable timeline of Lace's history

The long silence he mentions is likely referring to the Haunting, taking place after the Golden Age of the Citadel, which lasts for several generations according to Hornet's conversation with the Seamstress after she sees the Citadel for the first time. It's also likely the time period of Lace's creation, since GMS was confirmed to be semi-conscious by then and would have enough power to spin a lifeform, let alone puppeteer several corpses at once. The timing isn't specific however, being that Hornet's arrival to the Citadel and its corpses’ reawakening took place like… 30 minutes before they had this conversation, so there's a lot to be debated here

He says that Lace has been wandering the Citadel longer than most. Who is “most” in this case? The Pilgrims? Most of em don't last 5 minutes before getting haunted or receiving impromptu acupuncture from Lace's pin. Does he speak of the Choirbugs? Did they join the Citadel recently to involuntarily offer themselves as fresh puppets, or do only their aged corpses remain from an era long forgotten? It's not clear. Does he mean the Conductors? The Vaultkeepers? The Architects? Not likely, but eh, I've seen some theories based on that. Definitely not the Weavers, their betrayal and subsequent departure is what contributed to the reasoning behind her existence in the first place.

I like the argument you and Savvy put about lived experience, and how that inevitably affects mental maturity to a degree with physical age, and though there are instances in a similar sense with characters from other media such as Peter Pan, it's definitely something to keep in mind in discussions like this. However if you're bold, you could technically attempt to argue the longevity of Lace's lifespan thus far. You could say that Phantom and Lace's spun-days were sequential, with Lace being a recent replacement after Phantom aged out.

Me though, I like the interpretation of Lace being old, and Phantom's silk fraying out from neglect seems more likely, with the whole silk sustenance thing and all. That's why I don't personally interpret Lace as a child in the literal sense, but with what I've mentioned above, it's not a take made out of bad faith at all

But anyways I'm rambling– that was just one character, we haven't even touched upon the others

Let's see uhh, there's that random ass pilgrim I mentioned before, who said they've heard the laugh of a child from above. Their input may well be damning evidence pointing to Lace's age, but you could also argue that they're confused since they've likely never seen her up close and her voice is high-pitched

There's Lace herself, who describes herself as a child at times in a relatively neutral sense, even in her mind, but it could be referring to her relationship she has with her mother, or at least the relationship that she was created to have, however artificial it may be. The only exception to this is when she describes herself as a “husk made to act like a child”, which is very interesting considering the wide potential of what that thought process can be associated with. From a surface point it could seem like she's denying her childishness outright or revealing it to be an act, but looking at it further it could also be representative of vulnerable people who diminish their worth for not keeping up with their high, sometimes impossible expectations, which is something that both children and adults who are disabled and/or require extra assistance also struggle with.

There's also GMS, but uhh… hm… yeah obviously lmao

And then ofc there's her correlation with Hornet, who is also called a child by several npcs, despite clarifying clearly that she isn't one. What's interesting though is taking into account which characters do so and for what reasons.

There's the White Lady, who, like– practically raised her in the palace

There's Mister Mushroom, who's more ambiguous due to their unclear lore but it's implied at the very least that he's ancient, due to his talks of meandered journeys throughout previous wonders and kingdoms before Hallownest. It's stated that ol’ Herald and Hornet have met before, and he might have even witnessed the contract behind her birth

There's GMS… well again, it's GMS lmfao

The only exception from this pattern appears to be Shakra, who mistakes Hornet as a child– no, a BABY who already wields a weapon, and her funny lil nickname for her doesn't change until she learns her real name(from other bugs. Dammit Hornet–)

But hopefully I've done okay so far with explaining how the interpretation of Lace's age based on the evidence that the text provides is, though simple, not baseless. But I'll get more into that later

The Wide Spectrum of her Symbolism and Representation

I already blabbered for WAY too long on the first part so I'll try to sum this up best I can–

Basically, from what I've gathered from the game, Lace's story seems to be very much based on self-worth, and the consequences of basing your entire existence around someone else's by necessity, and the emptiness– and also guilt– of being unable to fulfill that purpose, even if it's by no fault of your own.

Now. You've already done a flawless job at explaining the story from the perspective of an adult, and the validity of the perception of her character as such. I also love the symbolism of Lace's need for silk-sustenance as a disability! As a fellow grown-yet-still-dependant member of society I appreciate your service comrade

So therefore I'd like to move onto the other side of the spectrum of Lace's representation– kids, along with people who've had experiences/emotions relating to Lace's predicament. See, children, like adults with disabilities/neurodivergence, are an incredibly oppressed group of people in society, who often have their emotions ignored/dismissed as unimportant or inconvenient, and are set to unrealistically high standards to “make up” for their dependence.

The emotions that Lace experiences can very much be reminiscent of a child who has attempted to adjust in an environment where love and attention is conditional, and the realization is just beginning to settle in that the conditions in question were never hers to control to begin with. This naturally includes the subsequent anger and jealousy and insanity that follows.

It should also be clarified that this of course wouldn't diminish the abuse dished out by GMS or the toll that it has taken on her daughter, not by a long shot. Children can be infantilized, degraded, and objectified, and it happens on a regular basis. And it can really take a toll on your mental psyche since at that point you're ashamed of the emotions you feel afterwards but aren't supposed to, and are unsure where to direct that internal outrage and injustice towards besides your caregivers– which again, isn't an option. This should go without saying that children are not blemishless loyal dolls or hapless bundles of emotion. They're real people with autonomy and morality and dignity, and can suffer greatly if those aspects of their character are not allowed to display themselves, just like with adults.

Now of course, this probable theme of Lace hits less in the case of her being an adult, as does the theme of escaping the role of a child with her being a child herself, and this is where the conflict takes place. Choosing one interpretation may diminish the thematic substance behind the other, which could cause someone to go out of their way to invalidate the first interpretation in question, and uhh yeah you get the gist. Bullshittery commences. Not to mention the select few dingleberries who use the drama as an excuse to argue and inconvenience somebody's day. It's why I stick firmly to the opinion that Lace's nuance serves as as beneficiary to her story due to the wide spectrum of people who she can represent, and that it would be best to remain open to others’ interpretations even if we don't agree with them.

Anyways, sit tight cause this next part is interesting

The Parallels of Hollow and Lace

Now this is something that I've been wanting to discuss for a while, and have even set up a wip for it in my tumblr drafts! But uhhh remember that one glitch where all your drafts got instantaneously uploaded to your blog? Yeah. That happened. Haven't had motivation to write about it since, but now I will, since I think it's relevant and kinda cool

Anyways, I agree heavily with the take that Lace is a parallel to the Hollow Knight from the original game. However, I also think that for what “hollow” represents in the original game, there is a parallel in Silksong that works just a bit better than “child”.

Like for instance let's look back at the first game, and acknowledge what PK wanted in a vessel. He wanted a knight, yes, he wanted someone strong. Hence why he had expected his vessel of choice to crawl out of the abyss by themselves and selected the first one that finally met his standards. Of course there's the other aspect of the vessel we know he wanted. The condition Hollow wasn't able to meet because of their personhood. As stated by the dialogue here-

“No cost too great.

No mind to think.

No will to break.

No voice to cry suffering.

Born of God and Void.

You shall seal the blinding light that plagues their dreams.

You are the Vessel.

You are the Hollow Knight.”

Now cut back to Lace. GMS wanted a child, yes, she wanted someone who could reinforce her title as a Mother. But the aspect that would make Lace different from all the others, as shown here-

“...Better a child spun mad... than none...

...Better a child spun frail... than none...

...Better a child spun pure... than them...

...One to wish our waking...

...From our Silk... A child born loyal…”

There it is. “Loyal”. That's the parallel term we're looking for. Cause GMS expected pure, unending loyalty without providing a sliver of it herself as she went out of her way to seek for the Weavers while her daughter craved and served tirelessly for affection she was never meant to receive. It was only a matter of time before Lace cracked under the circumstances, no matter what interpretation of her you stick with.

And if you pay attention, the correlation is even there in the opening cutscenes! Including the scene with the Radiance usurping Hollow's mind, confirming their personhood within

And the scene with Lace freeing Hornet from her cage, which was a rebellion on her part, perhaps her first major one

Kinda cool right? It's why I think Hollow and Lace work fine as parallels under any interpretation of Lace or the situation that she was in

Anyways uh, for this next part, I'm gonna get a little bit personal. I usually prefer to keep real life stuff out of analyzing video games as much as I can, but hopefully this will help with understanding my perspective somewhat

The Wider Impact of her Story

Now funnily enough, I'm an adult, and I have a disorder and am dependent on care, along with the fact that I commonly get mistaken as a teenager, as do many people who sympathize with Lace's plight. However, at first I thought that Lace was a child, and yet her story has impacted me so profoundly, since her experience was extremely reminiscent of that I've had in childhood.

See uh… I was put in a pretty weird spot. To summarize, I've got one parent, and the partners they've had throughout the years were ✨️ass✨️, so they were heavily dependent on me for emotional comfort. Therefore, I felt obligated to give it, and pretty much bankrupted myself emotionally to support them. But no matter what, it never seemed to be enough, since as a child, I couldn't make THEIR problems disappear. When I played Silksong for the first time, the tragedy behind the reasoning of Lace's creation, that she was made for a specific purpose and expected compensation for fulfilling that purpose that she would never receive under her terms, is what stood out to me most.

It's why I was initially confused by the backlash, and questioned why Lace's story couldn't be interpretive in that sense. Even later, when her association with childhood shifted from literal to symbolic, I still found myself impacted by her story, specifically the plausible outline of the effect that emotional abuse and negligence has on children, whose bodies grow up but their minds lag behind.

That's because I'm one of those people. I'm stunted. A late bloomer, if you will. Though I'm articulate and verbally cognitive, there are aspects of my emotional intelligence that have remained stagnant since childhood, and I experience emotions related to certain situations at legal drinking age most people experience when they're like 13. I don't mean that as an insult to myself, it's just the way I am, and discovering and acknowledging that has helped me process things and therefore aided me in my recovery from the emotional(and also verbal and semi-physical yikes) abuse that caused this. This also helped me with getting a decent grasp on Lace's character and interpret her as someone who's coped poorly(yet to the best of her ability) to the situation she was in by stacking the tiny shreds of her confidence she had left atop a foundation supported by the fighting prowess she'd mastered over generations and decorated with a cocky, giggly villainess demeanor

That's why uhh… all the talk of everyone with an interpretation of her being a child or stunted emotionally apparently all having come from a place of ignorance and bigotry?

… Yeah. That stung. And it's made me reevaluate myself and my recovery for a while. Was I truly a bigoted dumbass for acknowledging myself the way I did, and developing an interpretation of a fictional story semi-based on my own experiences? This right here is what I've been trying to warn people about, but listeners are few and far between, since anyone who interprets the story that way holds a reputation to many others of being lesbophobic misogynistic assholes

… who do exist. I know that now. Before I wasn't aware of the extent of the actual harassment of Lacenet shippers and whatnot, and thought people were highkey being dramatic about it. I know better now. I've witnessed some ✨️buffoons✨️ in action for myself and I've come to completely understand people's defensiveness about that and it's a shame that a small portion feel the need to retort by saying stuff that's genuinely harmful to a part of the community(unknowingly likely, I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt)

But back to Lace herself, this is pretty much why I'm exceptionally uncomfortable with “child” being used as an obstacle to her character development or a tool of insult or degradation. You probably noticed that I haven't mentioned Hornet's dialogue addressing her directly and you're probably seeing where I'm going with this. No shade to anyone that goes by that rendition of her dialogue of course, but I just much prefer her nickname of "child" for Lace to be a reaffirmation of her personhood rather than a something she would use to insult or intimidate her, since to me the appeal of their dynamic stems from the fact that Hornet treats Lace as a person instead of a monster or a convenient tool, and she's likely one of the only ones to do so.

And yeah, to a degree, I also feel somewhat uncomfortable too from the suggestion that Lace can only forever be a child JUST because that's what she was made to be, rather than childish aspects of her showing themselves as the result of her mother's extensive abuse, but you've already done a fantabulous job at explaining the flaw behind that logic Blaze, so I don't think I gotta go into that too much

Oh yeah, one more thing. Immaturity is a subject brought up a lot in these kinds of discussions, but eh honestly I'm gonna dismiss that here. The way bugs behave in the Hollow Knight franchise doesn't necessarily reflect on their age, and it's not really a good argument to make in favor of or against the take of Lace being a child(especially since either way in her case, her feelings are pretty much entirely understandable and justified)