Gully

Like imagine you are Pale King, a dragon equivalent of Hollow Knight world, you most likely did not meet anything that you couldn't kill if it caused problems. You can see the future, your empty husk of a corpse can radiate enough power to drag Godseeker from who knows where.

Then your citizens suddenly get ill, but it is no normal illness. They overheat, they bloat with boiling hot strange fluids, their dreams and thoughts are warped. Illness is capable of hate, and it hates you.

You try to find a cure for it, you cannot. You try to seal it, you cannot. You finally try searching for its source, you find it. It is the Sun, and it is filled with hate.

Honestly I think this is the point that Pale King reached out to Weavers. From Silksong we know that they trapped and sealed, even if it was when they had her trust and barely. A gargantuan mechanism playing at a kingdom, just to barely trap a single Higher Being.

They did something Pale King never ever needed and he needs that perspective. So, he reaches out to them trying to explain it in terms they can understand and asking for help. They demand offspring as payment, not just Hornet but capability to have children. Most likely granted with help of White Lady. There's too many baby Weavers for people known to have difficulties with having children.

From here on they most likely cooperated on the basis of Weavers trying to develop plans to seal Pale King and Pale King overcoming them. Around this time Monomon probably started to get involved because of her, presumably, vast knowledge and Lurien because why not.

They most likely through many many many trial and errors, which most likely involved creation of explosive jellyfish we all hate, found that best course is through a vessel tainted with Void to contain the Higher Being, and seal keepers to hold the seal strong, together with the most effective seal schematic.

This is most likely where Vessels started being produced. To hold the Sun they needed a vessel of extraordinary power, which they couldn't succeed in making one. So, Pale King started throwing eggs filled with his unborn children to Abyss. And he waited for one to make it up to the top, after all they all were empty to his senses.

(Side note but really. Pale King didn't throw off "impure" vessels. He grabbed the first one that made it to the top and ran away from his shame. And no, he couldn't have known Pure Vessel wasn't empty because even Knight can't get a thought out of them and Knight can read mind of Radiance.)

Then they water and plant Pure Vessel so they grow. Three Dreamers are chosen, Herrah demands a child as the price. Hornet is conceived shortly before Radiance is sealed. Building of Black Egg Temple, writing of runes, implementation of the Seal and all other power intensive things were most likely done by Pale King and White Lady.

While he is cautious about some things he doesn't read afraid like he does with Shadow Creeper. Then we get Hornet's entry on Gloomsac in Silksong.

Both feel afraid of those Abyss creatures that are heavily related to Void for reasons they can't quite explain. Which is a general staple of the genre.

This also helps me make sense of some things. Such as why Shade Lord has eight eyes. Which is most likely a reference to octopi and their number of arms.

Another inspiration for Void seems to be the chaos/nothingness before all things that is quite common in mythology, which I am unable to speculate much on because it doesn't fit in my area of interest. If you are knowledgeable about it please speculate.

This points to Knight not harming her physically for the duration of entire fight, just destroying her pride in her skill.

It gets funnier that she calls Knight too weak in her Dream Nail dialogue, which most likely happens before she notices that Knight isn't actually trying to harm her.

Hornet: You are so weak none of your hits hurt me.

Knight: Stares at her as if she is stupid

Hornet: Oh. Was that noise of my pride shattering?

It gets even funnier with her trying to backtrack at Memorial encounter.

Another supporting thing for this is Hornet's strength from the second game. Firstly, I am not of the opinion that Hornet was much stronger, if at all, than her first game self when she beat GMS. Honestly Hornet is weakened for much of the game even.

GMS is a Higher Being, something in ballpark of Pale King and Radiance is always described as nature compared to Pale King. Not common bugs. Pale King's efforts are described as a folly similar to me trying to punch out a hurricane or blow out the sun.

But. But consider. From Silksong we know that Weavers had problems having children until Herrah's deal with Pale King. It is entirely possible that Hornet is like the first baby Deepnest Weavers had to raise in a long time.

Then we have Pale King, whose sight encompassed the entire kingdom. Who most likely enjoyed watching his citizens be happy. Who most likely watched people raising children. Who has future sight. His marriage ring is one half of a near limitless energy source.

I propose that dynamic would be exact opposite of what people usually depict. Whatever Hornet does he is totally unsurprised by it and totally loves it. This is the guy who somehow got attached to as far as he knew brainless zombie of his child. Non-zombie child will be loved.

Then we have Herrah who most likely have never seen a child for most of her life, who is mortal, who doesn't have future sight.

Everything related to Hornet will be surprise, a demigod baby is going to tire her out.

Look at their horns. They are much more substantial and robust than their normal form. Knight has many parallels with Pale King and this is one of my favourites. Void is Knight's true nature and their kingdom.

Their Shade Lord form continues this trend with their main horns growing even more and gaining extra horns on side.

In Silksong it is acquired from a kindred soul, a friend Hornet deeply respects and understands. Someone Hornet clearly needed, someone who can understand her treatment from her Aunts.

Eva is a mythical thing, she is an artificial life form that was created for Weavers to have their own god. She is a failed attempt that needs her iron coffin to stay alive. She has better Sight than most bugs and helps Hornet become more powerful and in tune with herself.

Her conversations with Hornet are full of lore and deepens our understanding of Hornet's character.

At the end of questline she request for Hornet to bind her to maybe grasp smallest bit of freedom.

It is easy to understand why binding her improves Hornet's ability to regenerate Silk, as Higher Beings can seemingly regenerate infinite amount of Soul and Eva being a failed attempt at creating a Higher Being, her binding improves Hornet's ability to regenerate Silk. It makes sense even though it is limited by the Game Mechanics, in lore version would be pretty much always active.

In Hollow Knight... game continues being frustratingly cryptic.

Salubra is one of the many traders we meet through the game. She isn't anything special outside of being an npc, therefore having a unique origin. She doesn't know people in the town are dead. She gives some lore drops but they are vague at best.

Their relation to Knight is Salubra being horny for Knight and that's that.

How the ability works is a mystery. It is called Salubra's Blessing when you gain it but I couldn't find an icon for it in the inventory.

Honestly it has two explanations.

Godseeker is right and Hallownest is randomly filled with gods, which would be hilarious actually. Pharloom attacks Hallownest, they get routed by jumpy guys then a Primal Aspid randomly kills Big Bad Yarn.

Knight is feeling good after being kissed and they pull from their random centuries worth Soul stock they must have as Vessels are capable of fitting a God inside themselves, Soul stock limitation is purely a game play mechanic.

Honestly contrast here is absolutely hilarious. Also if there's a Salubra Blessing icon please show it to me.

1)So you know how Shade entry in Hunter's Journal is immediately available? The wording of the entry is vague enough for my interpretation of it.

Shades are as far as we know are related to regrets. Now imagine Knight, still very young and not long has passed since they hatched. They got out of Hallownest and someone finds them. Finder goes if not friend why friend shaped and adopts or befriends Knight.

Knight is still young and doesn't know of their immortality yet, so years pass and Finder gets old and older until Finder dies.

Knight is immortal and they felt healthy the entire time, Finder's death affects them badly. They continuously think what they could have done.

Regret wells up within them and they cry Void. From it raises their Shade, their regrets manifest and a life they could never return to.

They don't exactly understand what is going on, but they can sense they are not whole anymore and that their insides are like broken jagged shards. They understand that Shade must die for them to feel whole at some level, so they attack.

2)A funnier headcanon would be Knight being a scholar. It is quite clear in the game that Knight is magically knowledgeable and talented. They do a lot of random things that player really cannot interact with that is magical in nature.

Most basic one is their ability to devour Soul, how do they do that? Did they learn it or was it something innate? What does it feel like for their opponents? Etc.

From Silksong we learn that not only Dream is related to Memories but Soul is also related to it which we learn via Binding process and some lore drops regards to it.

Even outside of Knight's causal Soul eating there are particular points which stand out, Spell Souls, which to be clear carry the knowledge on how to manipulate Soul to cause the spell not the ability to use the spell itself. Knight can already manipulate Soul and stranger energies at game start, Spell Souls wouldn't grant the capability but knowledge.

So, with all these Soul eating and Souls including memories and Snail Shamans(from what we learn from silksong) and Soul Sanctum commiting crimes against bugkind I imagine Knight has a lot of unrelated and worrisome trivia on regards to Soul.

So, after they finally figure out Hunter's ugly as sin handwriting they see Hunter mention he really doesn't know what Soul is. Knight reading this just travels as quickly as possible to Hunter to trivia dump and educate him.

3)Knight can teleport. I mean they can teleport even outside of Dream Gate. Grimmchild, Grimm, Nightmare King, Pure Vessel, and Radiance all can teleport. They are beings closest to Knight in terms of power, if they all can teleport only reason Knight wouldn't be able to would be game mechanics.

In a similar vein to how Cornifer can access to places he shouldn't be able to or how Flea Caravan reach Pure Lake despite nothing in map points toward anything that is viable. Which is explained away with game world is bigger what we see.

4)This is more an opinion but I do think comparing size of Hallownest and Pharloom is a rather pointless endavour. What is available to us in the games more reflects how much money and time TC had access to than anything lore related.

5)If Knight and Hornet had to design wings for Pure Vessel Knight's design would be something that is powered by countless souls and kinda hurts to look at, Hornet's design would look like fluffy steampunk, don't ask me how that looks.

6)Ritual of Nightmare Heart we see is nowhere near the standard version.

We already know that Knight can and does modify rituals of other people from Pantheon of Hallownest. My general argument for this is the Void Gate that intertwines with Pantheon entrance and more importantly existence of Winged Nosk.

Nosk originally imitates Knight in shape because it cannot read Knight's mind, and assumes that Knight would follow something in a similar shape. This isn't something special to Nosk. Pale King was unable to sense any thought from Pure Vessel, and Knight also fails in pulling something outside of minds of other Vessels with Dream Nail.

Under these conditions I am really doubtful Godseekers would be able to succeed where others failed yet Winged Nosk is in the shape of Hornet. Only logical explanation is that Knight modified the Ritual for their own purposes, which also required giving a personal touch, fear of killing their little sister.

So, I don't think murder of Nightmare King is an actual part of the Ritual, there's not many beings that can kill them and I am doubtful number of beings we knew that could changed with release of Silksong.

So, murder of a Higher Being can't be the standard procedure but a modification Knight did with potentially interesting consequences.

Honestly trying to compare stuffs from both games makes it clear that TC isn't really trying to be cryptic in Silksong. Knight is still like one of the least explained characters in both games where we have people like Pale King as competition. Yes. Mister My Role is Haunting the Narrative is competition not outright winner.

Most of Hornet's movement abilities are interesting enough something inherent to her lineage. They are called either Weaver Talent or Weaver techniques. Both the two which aren't are gifts given to her.

They are modifications to her cloak. First done by Seamstress because... she wants to? Second modification is most likely made by Hornet herself by Fayforn's down which Mask Maker(Not Lunatic Version) comments as pointing towards Fayforn putting her lot with Hornet.

One of her travel options also presents itself as an attack method, Clawline to be more specific.

Knight's movement abilities are weird and cryptic. It needs to be noted that cloaks of Vessels are their underdeveloped or misdeveloped wings. And your first expected movement ability is described as a cloak with mothwing strands threaded through it.

Does Knight take the strands and weave them though their wings? Do they rip out their dead sibling's wings for a fashionable cloak? I dunno but most likely the first one I think.

Your second expected ability is Mantis Claw, after that Desolate Dive(which also functions as an attack, mainly so even), then Crystal Heart, then Monarch Wings, and finally Shade Dash. Isma's Tear is somewhere there too. Can be found after Crystal Heart, I think.

How of most of these function aren't really explained in any way. Knight somehow manipulates energy of Crystal Heart to push themselves quickly, and I have no idea on regards to other two.

There are things that point towards Monarch Wings being a portion of Pale King's power used in an early experiment to contain the Infection that didn't go well(wind in the area, abundance of Infection, taking it somehow weakening the Seal) that are also tangible real wings? How Knight uses that for double jump? Dunno. Why they can't fly using it? Most likely game mechanics.

Shade Cloak is gotten by Knight doing... stuff in forbidden soup. Why did they need forbidden soup when they can clearly go into shade form without it as can be seen from Shade Soul animation? Dunno.

I think you see what I mean by Knight being cryptic...............

It's interesting to see the contrast in Hornet's travel abilities and general way to reach good ending in Silksong. Hornet needs to reach out and help people and be given help in return for the good ending but most of her ability to explore is self dependent.

There's also the general seeming uselessness of upgrades. She relearns things she already knew as we can see from the first game. Upgrades are honestly easier and better to read as Hornet regaining her lost strength due to Cage Seal and being able to exert herself more. Similar to how until a broken bone fully heals you won't be able to do things you were able to before but Hornet has a magical healing source.

Knight is opposite in regards to this. For achieving good they need power, and this power comes from themselves, their nature of Void and becoming a god of it. In contrast most of their traversal abilities comes from outside and alien sources of various origin. Also they are really cryptic. Annoyingly so. Do you guys think that TC holds their lore notes in their office?

Knight's abilities as far as I can understand are mostly things they newly gained, most likely. Shade Soul throws in a wrench in this comparison but there's her cloak upgrades. So, yeah. Both games contrast each other here too.

Firstly background. It is done for Hornet to retreat an Everbloom using Dream's relation to memories and general ability to pull things from it. Hornet says it is only possible because of Weaver heritage but she is talking out of her ass here.

Snail Shamans comment of wrenching her Soul open most likely is related to Seer's comment on Dream being between body and soul. (Unrelated but capitalisations in these games drive me mad. Soul is capitalised by its users. Pale King refers time as Time and void as VOID. What do they mean TC?)

Then they request enormous power, power maybe equal to Monarch which honestly supports my opinion that GMS was weak. Unn pulls out civilizations out of Dream, Pale King hides away White Palace, Godseekers build a grand ritual and stuff their civilization into a single mind and power equal to GMS just clarifies a memory? Interesting to note.

Then Hornet goes around murdering powerful ghosts or makes people ghosts and gathers their power and essence as everbeating hearts. Snail Shaman's then use these hearts to cast a spell that sharpens the memory of Everbloom for Hornet to grasp it.

It is quite interesting to note how sequence progresses from weakest of her mothers to strongest. Herrah is a mere Weaver, Vespa was head of a small hive mind and something I reckon to be in same category as Bardoon and Fayforn, and White Lady is a Higher Being.

Spell's purpose was to sharpen memory of Everbloom and it seems White Lady was the only one who showed her of it. For this purpose it makes sense sequence only showcases her mothers, and not everyone she ever loved. Seeing Herrah and Vespa brings her closer to memory flower that was held by her other mother.

Then Hornet seemingly directly converses with White Lady, which makes sense. Higher Beings are related to Dream at some level and something pulling at a memory of her most likely made White Lady aware of the sequence.

General things people use for this argument are bugs outside of Hallownest seeming less coherent than Hallownest bugs as can be seen from Quirrel comic, Quirrel's memory being gone, and Hornet commenting that Knight being forged of two voids to be so powerful.

Most of which is inconclusive and debatable. Bugs outside Hallownest being less coherent seems fully wrong with what we learned of pre-GMS Pharloom. While ecosystems seem to need powerful bugs to exist it seems there's no need for a Higher Being to grant thought.

Even if there's a need for it Knight themselves is a Higher Being by birth, there's no need for them. There's also the fact that Vessels are alien enough that Dream Nail doesn't work on them even though they can think. What is standard for others need not be for them.

Quirrel entire situation is rather dicey. We know in Hollow Knight masks carry some amount of importance for identity of bugs. We even see Pharloom Mask Maker using his mask to somehow ease the burden of constantly making masks. Quirrel was carrying Monomon's mask for a long time, debatably wearing it. His memory loss can be due to these instead of being outside of Hallownest.

Hornet's comment always read to me like she was giving excuses on why she messed up. From Silksong we also know her judgement isn't always perfect even if given time. She trusts Grayroot. She doesn't question plan of Snail Shamans for a moment(they also roughly call her dumb for that which made me laugh). She connects her ability to pull out Pale Flower out of her memory to her Weaver heritage even though we know Seer also can do this and Unn pulled Mosskin out of her dream. It is clearly a property of Dream and its connection to memories rather than anything Weaver related.(Which is mostly likely also why we don't see Pale King in the sequence even outside of theming purposes. Godseeker comments that Pale King is completely erased and questions how could such a thing happen. We then don't see Pale King but his palace which his power lingers on.)

There is also general theming. Which do you think deserves a power up more, randomly remembering something you randomly forgot or facing the past you were ignoring and accepting it? I am of the opinion answer is clear.

So, there will be some controversial and hot takes for this fandom such as Knight is not a baby, they can think more coherently than a two year old, they know more about the world than we do, their abilities aren't as limited as they are in gameplay, they aren't flailing around hopelessly and are actually competent, they aren't weak, and some more of the same vein.

Yes, I know. Blasphemous thoughts these all are for fandom agreement is generally far away from it.

I will begin from Silksong. We have three endings that are easily categoriseable. Bad ending, Could have been better but now worse ending, and Good ending.

Our Bad Ending happens when Hornet doesn't take her time to communicate with people. She rushes through, not interacting with people, and taking down GMS quickly. At the end of this she becomes a full higher being, her identity irreparably damaged and no longer actually herself. She is now more Weaver than Wyrm like her aunts wanted.

Our Worse Ending happens when Hornet diverges from her path to better ending. There's no need for her to go through Bilewater in Bad Ending thus she wouldn't discover the Baby. It points to that this was a Hornet that was on the Good Ending path but after getting cursed she diverged. Rather than seeking help, communicating, she decided to do not so. Potentially seeking to cure herself within her power by eating GMS. She was getting better but relapsing backfired hard for her.

Our Good Ending is a bittersweet thing but it accomplishes Hornet's goals. Freeing herself and Pharloom without sacrificing herself. She reaches this Ending by stopping and communicating with people. Bonding with them and seeking help. It isn't only her own power she uses but also power of Shamans. She needs Old Hearts of Pharloom to communicate with her family to gain a way for fixing her mistake.

Hollow Knight Endings can be categorised in the same way.

In Bad Ending it happens because Knight isn't powerful enough. They kill their sibling, ending their suffering, but now they are the new prison and prisoner.

Our Worse Ending happens when Knight has enough power but decides to not fight Radiance, leading to their little sister joining them in their prison.

Our Good Ending happens when Knight has gathered enough power to cut into Radiance's prison and be an equal to them. For this communication is mostly unnecessary, you can reach it by only talking to only 4 NPCs, at least if I am not counting wrong. It is a bittersweet thing where Pure Vessel dies and their sister is left alone.

It interesting to see that theming from their fast travel methods carries over to endings too. Knight needs more power for a better path, Hornet needs to communicate with people for a better path.

Their endings reflects this, Hornet couldn't have reached Lace without help of Shamans and Dive Operator Guy, and she couldn't have survived it without Knight's help. But Pharloom is still mostly destroyed. Knight's ending happens in a similar vein if they weren't powerful enough they wouldn't have been able to reach Radiance and even then because they aren't powerful enough Pure Vessel dies.

It is also interesting to note that in both of their paths to a better ending if they turn back from it things become worse than it would have been otherwise.

Let's look at Godseeker endings and what they might tell us in regards to possible DLC endings for Silksong.

Godseeker endings happen because Knight finds a way to become even stronger with ritual of Godseekers. Knight progresses through Pantheons and gains more and more of the focus of the Ritual and at the end they slay Radiance while they are the sole focus. Things diverge from here depending on whether Knight has gifted Fragile Flower to Godseeker or not. Unlike the other endings Pure Vessel is alive, a much better outcome.

So, the thing is unlike us I think Knight knows what the flower is. When you try to gift Fragile Flower to White Lady(Lady Impressively Wrong) she comments that for Knight to hold it so closely they surely should not know what it actually is. WL also comments that PV must surely have succumbed to Infection. Or that Knight must be empty. Or she confuses Ogrim is beside you if you wear his charm. Or that Dryya is still alive. I think you see my point.

From these I will be making predictions for possible Silksong DLC endings. Firstly I think the ending will come from Hornet finding a way to reach out and communicate more thus getting more help. It most likely will be so that things are at least somewhat better. I also think ending is going to get modified due to Hornet doing something enigmatic that she has full knowledge of but we don't.

Biggest proof of this is the enemies that Hunter couldn't have met being included and their lower notes being either random quotes Game(more so Knight) starts to pull out of somewhere or random musings of Hunter where Game(more so Knight) puts under right context.

Another thing is that Hunter doesn't seem to be aware of what electricity is. Upper entries clearly name it in both Volt Twister and Charged Lumafly entries. Hornet also clearly names it in Voltvyrm entry of her journal.

Shadow Creeper entry is weird too, its upper entry reads as if reporting a research paper someone has read and Hunter doesn't seem the type. Actually even several research papers.

Another weird thing is that Hunter just calls insides of Lifeseed as bright liquid while upper part calls it Lifeblood.

Upper entries also seem to be partial towards honourable characters(Ogrim) while Hunter has a problem with anything related to civilization, thus honour or loyalty.

Hornet acquires Needolin by binding Widow, a relative, her kin. It comes from a culture and tradition that belonged to her. It was a talent of her people reclaimed in this distant land as she learns her origins.

Hornet plays an instrument, inviting the location or enemy or npc to sing back. It is a relation that is two way and fails without recipient being willing to share(GMS).

She fights dream bosses via singing and waking their memories of strength. She claims the power acquired in a physical medium. Then she gives this acquired power to others for help.

Her fast travel works similarly. She plays Beastling Call, inviting little fellas to take her to their mother. Someone that she has a relationship with. She travels herself with little fellas physically.

Hornet's power depends on connecting to others and mortal side of her.

Knight is, in a sense, opposite of her.

They get Dream Nail when Dreamers trap them in fear of what they would do. Seer guides them to Dream Nail but does not help them acquire it. Knight acquires it with solely their power with no kin sacrificed. It is unique relic of an ancient tradition, totally alien to Knight.

Knight, metaphorically, swings their Dream Nail at people and looks at dreams/thoughts of locations or enemies or npcs, unlike Hornet there is no exchange, Knight just takes. It fails when recipient notices what Knight is doing and raises protest, only then does Knight stop.(No, I don't think they can stop Knight, Knight is capable of looking into the mind of Radiance. Midwife is hopelessly outclassed there.)

They fight their dream bosses by forcefully intruding into their dream or disturbing the ghosts. They claim the power acquired as Essence, completely ethereal. They seek guidance of Seer for knowledge she might bear but they channel the power themselves to sharpen the blade.

Knight's fast travel method reflects this. They can return to anywhere they have been to, leaving an imprint. They do this by opening a gate to where they want to go, which is solely immaterial.

Knight's power depends on themselves. Them seeking connections with others is just something they do. They gain power from others as much as knowledge is power.