girl help i'm lost at sea ♥

i'm kinda surprised i haven't seen anyone else describe the everbloom as perhaps a negative symbol for hornet rather than a positive one. the circumstances under which she accepts it from the white lady are kind of crazy.

White Lady: …Alas… spider's child… White Lady: …For our ways you will think us harsh… You will think us uncaring, unrepentant… White Lady: …And so we must seem, for such is the cost of our wish… Hornet: You are wrong, Lady… Hornet: I knew the wish, and the price to achieve it. And now, across these many ages, I have only come to know it better… Hornet: Strength… in mind, in care, in claw. Strength enough that I may live to see a world better than our own, or to craft a world as I desire. Hornet: That was the wish, of my mother, of my mentor, and of you…

"I knew the wish, and the price to achieve it. And now, across these many ages, I have only come to know it better…" she just kind of...accepts that her siblings were collateral for what the white lady wanted to achieve...it's a statement of understanding. you could say this is about how she herself was treated by her mothers, abandoned by herrah, perhaps trained harshly by vespa, etc...but what exactly is the thing the white lady did that could cause her to seem cruel and unrepentant to hornet? her participation in the vessel plan...

and just compare to how the white lady speaks to little ghost:

The second I find preferable, and would seek your aid in its occurrence, replacement. I implore you, usurp the Vessel. Its supposed strength was ill-judged. It was tarnished by an idea instilled. But you. You are free of such blemishes. You could contain that thing inside.

i shouldn't have to say this but we already know they were never perfectly hollow, or they wouldn't have rescued hornet, whose fate they have no reason to care about. the white lady in every word she speaks to them denies their personhood and tells them they need to take hollow's place - the regrets she expresses to both siblings aren't sincere ones because she doesn't actually change her behavior at any point. the only regret she seems to have is for choosing hollow, weak and tarnished as they were.

and then the white lady describes the everbloom to hornet so:

White Lady: Witness, the first light. The only means we possess to resist that void with which our family is forever linked.

the means they possess to resist the void with which their family is forever linked. i wonder why the void would be displeased with this family it's forever linked to?

i wonder...

anyway, the way i see the void is like, it's a manifestation of your regrets and guilt - little ghost doesn't take 2 damage from very many things in hollow knight, making it extremely notable that siblings do 2 masks. it's only when they come to terms with the circumstances of their birth and their abandonment that they can touch their siblings peacefully...

hornet similarly feels a great deal of guilt. from her pov, both little ghost and hollow died that night - and i personally see her as feeling like she was responsible for it. she led little ghost here, and her needle pierced hollow's skull. she isn't privy to what happens in the dream realm. all she knows is the infection is gone, and two corpses were left behind. i really do think she feels like they blame and resent her.

and i see her fear and dread of the void, and her extreme avoidance of it, and the way it hurts her and reaches its tendrils for her, and the lengths she goes to to procure a means to hold it off - as her avoiding those feelings of guilt and shame and grief. it's only when the everbloom, the thing she's using to avoid confronting it, is destroyed, that she can come face to face with her siblings again and know that they do not hate her. that they've always loved her.