#vlinesnauce

This creature lights up the room!

           (2/3) Perhaps it wasn't only purity through absence that could seal the radiance. maybe the players' goals- seeing the good of hollownest and wanting to protect it, or wanting nothing more than to complete their given task, are somewhat projected onto the knight? Not an idea instilled per say, more of... a reshaping of that purity. The player's will played a role from the moment the knight enters hollownest proper (sort of) and like, im sort of going on a tangent here but whatever anyways            

           (3/3) the tutorial stones at the start refer to "higher beings" sort of implying the player. (though it uses second person you when it describes focusing soul hmm)  what if the player is literally a higher being? on the same spectrum of the radiance, and PK? puppeting the knight in a way and giving them a different characteristic needed to surpass the radiance besides the previously mentioned purity through absence. just something i've been pondering! i'd love your take on this concept        

Mmmmm honestly, I think it really undermines the narrative and takes away from the fact that the whole game is about the Knight finding choice by themselves and by their own will and proving, over and over again, they’re not empty in the context of the game, rather than being forced to adhere to a higher force’s calling, even if that ‘higher being’ is beneficial.

I have to disagree that the Knight is implied to be empty - it feels like it’s the opposite! There’s too much evidence in the game that points to the Knight being able to choose, and that thinking of emotion and feeling as corruption was wrong - over and over, it’s thematically enforced that embraced emotion is strength, and physical strength alone is not enough. Void Heart is the result of the Knight coming to terms with their own horrible origins and turning that into power. 

“...It refuses to trade...? It has a will... all Its own. Can refuse. Jinn will keep waiting... until a gift comes.”

“An emptiness that was hidden within, now unconstrained. Unifies the void under the bearer's will.“

“You could do it, if you had the will.

But could you raise your nail once knowing its tragic conception? And knowing yourself?... “

“Do not hesitate. The choice to reform was hers, not mine.

She knows what you would do and seems to welcome it.

Why do you hesitate? Mercy is a fine thing, but you and her agree this must be done. Be brave, friend.”

It does their implied character arc a huge disservice by implying that they can’t and were never able to feel anything, and they’re just a puppet for the player to project into.

I don’t think ‘higher beings’ was ever meant to refer to the player - I think it was meant to refer to the Pale King’s citizens, as words for the bugs he ‘civilized’ and elevated to a perceived higher level. It’s tablets meant to speak to the populace, not through the fourth wall.

So, I mean, it’s an interesting idea, I guess? But I personally feel like it goes against like, most of the major thematics and the story the game is trying to tell, so I don’t think it adds anything.