Sans titre

Well first off, I think the fandom does the character a grievous injustice the majority of the time, which is exceedingly frustrating considering that he’s one of the few characters in the game to have any nuance at all. The majority of the fandom either goes out of their way to demonize him (by far the most common sentiment, which is infuriating), or they make him way too sympathetic and/or try to excuse/write off/defend/redeem him for the horrible things that he’s done in the events of the game. Both of these stances ignore that the character is layered like an onion and deserves to be treated as such.

I’m gonna address the demonizing thing first, because it’s more common in fanfiction which is where the majority of my followers found me, and is also where the mass of my experience can be found. Demonizing PK as “ruthless, evil baby killer” ignores the fact that he was put into a no-win situation as king of a kingdom that was entirely reliant upon him (whether by his choice or not is unclear, canon makes it obvious people are inclined to follow wyrms but we do not know for sure if this is something he wanted or just incidental). His own dialogue and actions show us that everything he did, he did with a heavy heart. He did not do these things to be cruel, he did not do these things thoughtlessly, and he certainly did not do these things and forget about them.

PK in essence was presented with next to no options to defeat an enemy that was willing to stop at nothing to get what she wanted; she was willing to kill countless people, with no thought for what all she harmed and damaged along the way. He was king and responsible for those people’s lives. He had to do something.

We don’t know what he knew going into the vessel plan. Based on Monomon’s studies, and the Pale King’s own, we can assume that he probably tried other options. We have wingmoulds and kingsmoulds to show us that he absolutely was experimenting with void before he reached the conclusion of sacrificing his own children. He had to have come to the conclusion that this was the only option that he had. Based on the seal on the Abyss, it’s one that he regretted, found disgusting, and if you take his death in White Palace to be from guilt (which I do), it’s one that he never forgave himself for. “No cost too great.”

Vessels by design are supposed to be empty. I do not think this design choice was to be cruel. I think he tried to design them not to feel not only to protect them from Radi but also to protect them from experiencing what he was asking of them. And I truly, 100% believe that by the end, he realized he’d failed. That Hollow was not empty. He just had no other option, his grand be-all end-all plan was relying on their success.

(Note: My headcanon is that World Sense is PK’s apology to Hollow, in his own way. I also headcanon that PK foresaw Hallownest being saved in one of / all of the endings, and all of them involved Hollow having to be sacrificed. I believe that he died of guilt for doing what he thought he had to.)

So with all of this in mind, though: How can you demonize him for a choice that he made, that was a no-win situation? Is it a wrong choice? Probably. Were there better options? We’ll never know. What we do know is it is not one he made lightly. He knew his acts were monstrous. He did not go into these decisions thinking himself a hero. He locked himself away afterwards and it ate away at him slowly. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. He lost everything in an attempt to save his kingdom from dying to the Radiance. Whether you like him or not, you have to acknowledge the fact that he did think that his plan would save his people. That his end goal was a good one.

(And I will not get into arguments about colonizing / conquering / etc. I do not think this is usually a source of discourse, but when it does come up, it’s usually in defense of the Radiance, who is as guilty as he is of the same damn shit. @ruthlesslistener wrote a post on that subject that I’m sure I’ve reblogged. There’s no point in me repeating it.)

So with that in mind, you might be asking yourself, “So are you not a PK apologist?” And the answer is no. He’s done fucking horrible shit and I am not sorry at all for him. I do not pity him. I do not think he deserves forgiveness. I do not think he deserves to be redeemed. There’s a big difference between understanding the reason a character does something and agreeing with it. Most of the time, when people try to redeem him, it is either erasing the whole baby pit thing (either by time travel or just simply saying it Never Happened), or altering Hollow’s perception of that act (as if they are the only one who was hurt by that act). In the case of the former, you are no longer writing the Pale King. You are writing a wyrm shaped guy. The choices he made exist for a reason. Wiping them out, without good cause, drastically alters his character. I understand people think he has a cool design/character motif, he does. But that’s not even the tip of the iceberg of what makes him an interesting character.

He isn’t a villain.

He isn’t a hero.

And he would not want you to redeem him. He sure as fuck didn’t try to redeem himself.