Mein Liebe, mein Welpe

Transgender furry fashion 🏳️‍⚧️

(he/him for Hitch, the mouse)

#1 Sunk cost fallacy

Ppl got invested in the pre-game fanon version of her, & then explained away everything in canon that didn't fit with it.

This goes beyond just the child issue, her entire character, personality & motivations get deadass ignored & replaced.

It's the same effect you see in the "auction 100 dollars" experiment where ppl will keep bidding even past the value of the 100 dollar bill because they don't want to lose what they bid/ bet so far.

Somewhere along the way there might also have been some ppl might've seen actual potential in the arguments that started out as flimsy ship justifications

A disabled adult who is stuck with a controlling, infantilizing parent could an interesting story, it's just not the story that is being told with this particular character in canon.

(also, wouldn't Phantom or Eva be much more fitting characters for this?)

It's one thing if ppl want to explore that scenario while being aware they're doing an AU / interpretation - like the person doing those comis where they team up with a surviving Green Prince, cause ultimately one of the function of art is to project your own feelings onto it. They just wanna tell a particular story prolly cause it's their own story, and that's ok, it's how art works.

But it's preposterous to argue that it's canon/ the canon intention. Like - there's supposed to be a big major theme in the story that never comes up in dialogue at all? All the arguments for it are flimsy, contradictory & transparently agenda-driven.

This wasn't even meant to be a mystery, nobody questions it or changes their mind about it, including Lace herself.

The story does make distinct points about her in a proper storytelling manner with lampshades, thematic pondering, etc - that she's a real person with worth and that despite what she thinks her evil is more down to nurture than nature. As well as a general point that "children aren't obedience machines" that you're arguably missing if you argue the only way she's not an obedience machine is if shes an adult.

I'd argue that GMS isn't even infantilizing, just plain controlling.

She doesn't want weak offspring, she explicitly wants strong & tough (but doesn't grok how that's incompatible with 'obedient'/ wants obedient more & is always gonna chose that), that's why she prefers the Weavers & while Lace has such a raging inferiority complex over her supposed "weakness" in the first place - because she's been told from the first that she's a consolation prize.

It's like when someone wants their inbred pug to look & act a certain way - the person doesn't want the pug to be sickly in a munchausen kinda way, they just don't care / don't think about it due to egocentrism. She wants obedience; Frailty & sicklyness are an annoying side effect of obedience.

It defo has that "abusive parents blame you even for the effect of the abuse on you" thing going on

She's also distinctly more on the neglectful than the smothering side (as reflected by Lace's desire to be seen & noticed, rather than, say, be allowed to do things on her own. She's free to roam Pharloom & do to the pesants whatever she likes. )

#2 Shipping-centricness of fandom - ppl are just not interested in anyone they aren't interested in drawing porn of

Or indeed barely interest in the source material at all, just plopping the same tropes.

This might be a symptom of how the media landscape these days is obsessed with remakes & reboots while there's a hostile environment for new stories. Ppl who really want to write some original romance novel but think no one will care slap on currently fashionable names.

#3 Disdain for young people/ ageism.

"She can't be a kid, she has feelings & interiority", "She can't be a kid because that would contradict the point that she's supposed to be her own person", dismissing the plight of an abused child (one of the most powerless groups there is) as inherently less complex or less interesting or "superficial"

Same ppl probably say hateful disdainful shit about youth generally.

To state there is no evidence in Silksong in reading Lace as a disabled individual stuck with an abusive caretaker is not true. There are several lines of dialogue that imply this. Most notably are the Exhaust Organ needolin dialogue, where Phantom describes GMS as creating them and Lace to be "spun [...] to fade, spun [...] to break", and Lace's Cradle dialogue, where she refers to herself as a "weak, wasting existence" and "a husk shaped to act as a child".

Both show two things: a conscious awareness that GMS made their bodies weaker than other bugs', and that both siblings feel distress over this. We know that Lace and Phantom's weaker bodies require silk from GMS to live and being denied of it leads to a "slow decline". It is also heavily implied that GMS wanted obedience from her children most of all, not physical strength. Why would she— given the opportunity to create a perfect daughter of her own composition— make her physically weak and dependent if she did not want her to be so?

Regardless of GMS' intention, the fact is that Phantom and Lace cannot live normal lives without silk, and she is the only source of it. It is not incorrect to say Lace is disabled and requires full-time care from someone who neglects her at best, and abuses her at worst. It is what happens directly in text. Assuming that such readings are only for ship reasons or are "transparently agenda-driven" (what agenda? the agenda of the disabled?) is a bad faith argument and misses textual evidence that can be pointed to said reading.

As for "[Lace being a child] wasn't even meant to be a mystery, nobody questions it or changes their mind about it, including Lace herself," this is only the case if one takes Silksong's text at face value and doesn't do thematic analysis of it alongside the rest of the game.

One of the very first characters the player meets is Shakra. She mistakenly calls Hornet a child. Hornet corrects her, but Shakra insists on referring to her as one until Hornet proves herself to be an adult in Shakra's eyes by completing her sidequest. Silksong opens by establishing that people will assume a character is a child when they are not, and will only change their mind after having been proven otherwise. This is important because Hornet is Lace's direct narrative foil.

It is outside characters— those who don't know Lace at all— that refer to her as a child. Hornet and the Caretaker don't know who she is at all. They make assumptions, and as shown with Shakra earlier, assumptions about maturity being wrong is established within Silksong by the time the player meets Lace. Hornet is not a saint and has to actively work to be a more empathetic person to achieve the Sister of the Void ending. She is not above making unflattering and degrading assumptions. When the only mentioned evidence comes from dialogue in a game where characters being wrong about ages is an established trend, it is hardly definitive.

Now, as for Lace calling herself one, she only refers to herself as a child in a negative sense. She puts herself down with the term, and continuously associates it with words like "broken", "ailing", and "pathetic". She sees her body as something that fails her because her mother made it to be something that requires care and dependence (as we see with Phantom, a silk creature cast out by GMS who is visibly falling apart). Childhood is an actively demeaning concept for her that she repeatedly expresses contempt for. She hates herself, so she calls herself something she hates.

Nothing in your argument actually gives any proof that Lace is a child. It only gives evidence for Silksong being a game about child abuse, and that Lace was subjected to it. A character not being a child and having experienced child abuse are not mutually exclusive, as the original Hollow Knight also addresses regarding the titular Hollow Knight. Assuming people think she's an adult because they don't care about children makes duplicit assumptions about strangers and ignores the fact that many adults were abused as children.

To state there is no evidence in Silksong in reading Lace as a disabled individual

If you scroll upwards and read my post again, you might notice that I never made any such a statement;

My statement was that there is no evidence or suggestion for Lace not being a child.

And therefore also for any corollaries like "she's an adult, and therefore when she's called a child it must be for a diffrent reason, like giving her shit for being disabled"

That is just factually true: She is consistently referred to as a child from start to finish (this fact being hugely emphasized & hammred in every single interaction) while the idea that she is an adult is never so much as brought up as a possibility.

Nobody ever ever says that she is an adult, questions if she is really a child, gets criticized or punished with a narrative cost for calling her a child, nobody changes their mind, makes some observation casting doubt upon it (like saying that she doesn't really act like one...), we never see her don any symbolic markers of adulthood or desire to do so...

The whole disability reading is entirely irrelevant for & completely orthogonal to it as there is no contradiction - that is, it is possible to be disabled and a child.

For the record, while her situation is a purely fantasy thing with no real life equivalent that ppl can project many things upon, I have absolutely no issue or objection to reading it as analogous to disability or chronic illness, I if you asked TC if you can see/read her as disabled they'd prolly say "yup, sure, why not?"

It's a perfectly plausible, salient reading & I can see how you might argue that it's even explicitly textual with how she outright describes herself as "ailing" ie, sick.

That is, an "ailing child", both sick and a child. Lots of children are sick, many sick people are children.

It is also heavily implied that GMS wanted obedience from her children most of all, not physical strength. Why would she— given the opportunity to create a perfect daughter of her own composition— make her physically weak and dependent if she did not want her to be so?

She wants obedience and strength (though she certainly wants obedience more- strength is a subsidiary wanting them to be her "mini-ms"/ego xtensions), and not getting how they are incompatible is pretty much the central contradiction of her character that ends up becoming her undoing time and time again.

We know she wants strength, it's why she is excited about Hornet's arrival, because she sees her as sharing "...our strength... our nature". (she wants the Weavers & is seen as preferring them over the constructs cause they're strong.)

Widow also describes her creation of them as "the gift of strength... and silk"

What GMS made when given the opportunity to create whatever she wants are the Weavers, the first generation of which might have been created as adults (in the flashback, First Sinner turns from a Pharlid into her fully grown form), & who are just about the strongest creatures we see that still count as mortals aside fro exceptional individuals like Karmelita. (Karmelita, meanwhile, is probably whom I'd consider the strongest mortal we have seen yet)

Though of course even here her obsession with obedience already shines through in that she chose to infuse mortal creatures with her "nature" rather than have offspring normally, & then concealed this from them. (the reason is plain when you consider that producing bodily ofspring could've resulted in someone like Hornet: Someone who can beat her in a fight & might defy or even usurp her.)

Meanwhile, at the time when she created the silk constructs, the Monarch was at her weakest, most restrained and most humiliated, unable to even move, shut up in her own fortress, and being treated as glorified oil well by the Conductors.

At that point she was heavily restricted in what she could make, and explicitly dissatisfied with the results, decrying Lace as "frail" and "mad" - a clear negative, which she only accepts because it's "better than none".

She needs a minion to get her out of her predicament ("one to wish our waking"), and beggars can't be choosers.

Obviously, Lace being told from the moment of her creation that she's a) an inferior consolation prize and b) someone's replacement (& hence likely to be replaced herself at any moment if she doesn't demonstrate perfect obedience) pretty much ensured that the poor kid would wind up supremely fucked in the head.

Still, GMS isn't really the clingy, overprotective, infantilizing type, but rather overdemanding, elistist, egocentric/"narcicisstic" type.

Both those flavors of abusive parent can be extremely controlling, undermining & possessive - but there are differences.

Lace isn't emotionally smothered, but neglected and ignored - rather than being restricted in the name of "protection", she is left to roam Pharloom as she pleases, mistreat the commoners in any way she likes and used as a soldier. And as a result, her issues center around wanting to be seen, not about, say, wanting to be allowed to do things on her own.

Rather than being hit with the "Poor baby you can't do anything on your own let me do everything for you" stick, we see Lace basically getting herself cut to ribbons within earshot of GMS' cocoon just to get a reaction out of her... and doesn't get it.

Rather than wanting dependency out of some munchausen attention ploy or martyr complex, GMS has no use for a for a 'defective' child & trats her as unworthy of her & never good enough (which we also see in her discarding of Phantom when they got old) - resulting in Lace's lack of self-worth & viciousness in competing for her attention - until she realizes she'll never get it and snaps.

One of the very first characters the player meets is Shakra. She mistakenly calls Hornet a child.

This it is transparently played for humor / treated as a joke. (as can be seen through the use of exaggeration and hyperbole "...just barely hatched!")

But actually it might be very illustrative to compare this. How do we know Hornet is supposed to be an adult despite this?

a) Hornet immediately corrects the misconception, stating that she hasn't been a child in a long time.

Lace, meanwhile, agrees & describes herself as a child.

And no, the argument that she's "pretending" doesn't hold up. She does it even in her own private thoughts, and even after she betrays GMS.

If they wanted to portray it as a "pretense", they would show the discrepancy in her thoughts (mind-reading often used to show a mismatch between a character's actions & true thoughts), or they would have her drop the "act" after she betrays GMS.

b) Shakra has pretty apparent reasons for being mistaken: She isn't familiar with Higher Beings (Hornet is described to heal more quickly & more perfectly than mortals, probably very "fresh", unmarred look), and she explicitly doesn't know what species Hornet is and hasn't ever met another. She couldn't have: Hornet happens to be a crossbreed between two near-extinct species that probably couldn't even have mated if her father hadn't chosen to take on a smaller form.

Shakra's own species is obviously taller in adulthood, and at that point she had only recently left her home to follow her master - at the end of her journey she reflects on how much it's broadened her perspective & how small her home now seems, whereas near the begining she's baffled by how different Bone Bottom is from the heavily defended settlements in her home.

Also it's worth noting that while Shakra mistakes Hornet for younger, she doesn't mistake her for incompetent and instead picks up on her warrior stance right away - and expresses bafflement at this perceived mismatch.

Anyone who is knowledgeable and familiar with Weavers and/or Higher Beings immediately recognizes Hornet as being really old, such as the Shamans, the Mask Maker, Steel Seer Zi and Styx.

In the case of Lace, when can consider the random pilgrim who overhears her an unknowledgeable person who'd only have a surface (he doesn't even see her up close) - he's certainly mistaken about Lace being happy or joyful, or on her own. Her parent is nearby (and the reason that the citadel is dangerous in the first place)

But Caretaker and Hornet are both familiar with Higher Beings & also understand Lace's nature as a construct. Now you could argue that Caretaker might be prejudiced because he clearly hates the royal family that's been tyrannizing his homeland for a 1000 years or so (for starters he clearly distrusts Hornet at the start for being related to them and/or a similar creature)- still, for the same reason, none of them would have any motivation to believe in or perpetuate a lie spread by the Monarch - they go on to plot her assassination. If they wanted to show that Lace isn't really a child but keep the same disdainful tone, they could have done so with a line like for example, "Sure, it looks like a child but doesn't act like one at all, creepy!"

And in Hornet's case, not only would she be familiar with silk construts are created (though she's never seen a sentient one before - that probably requires acces to a Pale Being Sentience Beam) she explicitly doesn't consider Lace any less of a real person for being a construct (an attitude also seen with other sentient artificial creations like Eva and Second Sentinel) - if anything you might infer her to have a soft spot for constructs or unusual forms of life because of her siblings (even if you could see it as partially motivated by guilt over how she treated them in the past) and how she was implied to have ben treated as basically her mom's pet monster by her aunts. (she immediately goes "omg same" upon encountering Eva)

c) corroborating testiminonies & comparisons.

One person can be mistaken for their own reasons, ignorance flaws or bad luck; If it's supposed to be one person's error, it will be shown through the presence of other impression, especially people without the same bias.

In Hornet's case, ppl don't generally assume she's a child apart from that one incident. If anything, most NPCs describe/react to her as a fearsome dangerous person who carries herself with an air of authority.

Those not in the know generally do assume she's youthful, but more like a young adult. She's described as a "maiden" which also gets used for Bretta, who is explicitly described as young but seems to be an adult, if only just. She's considered old enough to reasonably pursue Zote (who is not himself particularly young) but young enough to have bought his tall tales due to being inexperienced & easily awed, maybe like a 19 year old might be regarded in our world or 15/16 in a historical setting.

We also happen to know what Hornet's father looks like, and if we compare them, we can see that she has about the same height & body proportions as him - whereas we see a younger version of her in the flashback when she was distinctly shorter, with less pronounced developed horns. (we also see one of her siblings (the Hollow Knight) get more pronounced/developed horns as they aged) So, the conclusion is simple: She was a kid then & now that she's the same size as one of her parents, she's an adult.

With Lace it's not a case of one person mistaking her because they're ignorant. Every single person who sees her, describes her or interacts with her (Hornet, Caretaker, that one pilgrim) describes her as looking and sounding like a child. A pretty young child, even, as the random pilgrim worries how "someone so young" can survive alone in the citidel alone, despite young warriors being so common in the sitting. (Her parent is in fact close by, the reason the citadel is dangerous in the first place)

Also, if we compare Lace with her family members, she looks childlike next to them. She is smaller than her mother (enough so that she could pick her up and carry her) She has a markedly similar face shape to her, (oval with a slight point at the top and bottom) but while her mom has an upwards oval like a mirror, Lace is a sideways oval like a football. Same face but rounder, more childlike.

Still, despite resembling her some, Lace wasn't born naturally and is not quite the same "creature type" as her mother so you might argue this is less reliable. So maybe a better point of comparision is Phantom, Lace's sibling and fellow construct.

You can't really compare their heights very well because the one time you see them together, Phantom's floating in a tank, but Lace is shown below in a way that might at least be considered a visual arragement to communicate how she's the "little" sister.

Also, their voice lines are explicitly very similar to Lace's to hint at their kinship, but with the marked difference that Phantom's voice sounds much more rough, deep and mature & doesn't have child-like teasing "nenene" type sounds.

So Phantom is probably what an adult (or elderly person) of her "species" looks like. And Phantom is never once called a child by anybody ever. If Hornet were making some mistake based on the construct's... construct-ness, it should have applied to Phantom as well. Indeed this would be the most obvious place to hint it. Instead, Hornet clocks Phantom correctly as a proud, aged warrior who wanted to go down with dignity.

It's fairly unambiguous that Lace at least looks like a young child to the other characters. Chronologically she's existed for longer (probably about since the start of the haunting, which was 'generations' ago - she could be roughly between 70 to 120 depending on if you assume modern or medieval lifespans.), but we're told in the exact same dialogue that her mind matches her looks. Fantasy immortals that age more slowly or remain temporarily frozen at one stage until some condition is met (peter-pan style) are not a new concept.

Of course, generally characters with a mismatch between looks & appearance are not unheard of either (Hornet herself kinda looks like a young adult but behaves like an experienced, jaded middle aged woman - my personal hadacanon is that she has more of a noticeable mismatch (eg. that she acts more recognizably like a stubborn old lady in a way that clashes with her looks) because she's part mortal, whereas her "full god" relatives would be more like just completely timeless beings)

It's not so often done with children or adolescents, ie. if you have a 1400 year old demon who looks like 14 or an an elf child that's technically 50 it basically acts like a child emotionally & will interact with those of the same appearance as peers, but maybe supernaturally skilled, but "1000 year old lolis" (ie. child body with adult mind) are not unheard of. Still, in that case it would need to be established in-story, it cannot just be assumed. It's not something that exists in reality, both the mind not matching and matching the body are imaginable. (there has afaik been one case irl of a kid being stuck as a toddler due to a rare mutation - & that kid behaved like a toddler, growth in wisdom, maturity etc. cannot happen without a physical aging process. on the other hand, the mind & body being more separate than in reality is a staple of fantasy.)

The evidence situation is, we're told her mind matches her body in the same breath as we're told about her chronological age (as if to clarify which one it is right away), & then there is never anything to suggest that information was false.

No dialogue questioning it, contradicting it, nobody changing their mind. It is possible for this information to be presented to be later proven false to make a point or tach a lesson, but for that to be the intention it would need to like... actually be proven false. There is never any point of Lace saying she's an adult or somebody else telling it to her. Her fake confident facade has completely collapsed, exposing the truth of her (a very nihilistic, self-hating chracter) but everyone still refers to her as a child.

This is why this argument seems so insincere to me (and why I find it hard to explain it with any other reason than shipping agenda or people repeating talking points from people with shipping agenda) - it seems aimed at "exlaining away" every individual piece of evidence, but never forms a logically coherent whole. The explanations "could" be plausible if you take the quote they're supposed to explain in a vacuum, but when you try to put it togeher, it contradicts and falls apart.

I saw it happen in real time, from the moment the trailer came out the shippers didn't even consider & were looking for reasons to explain it away.

Generally the art style is fairly abstract and many characters look like cartoony creatures whose age, gender and attractiveness level we can only discern from how others react to them (and perhaps their voices)

With most our only source is how Hornet adresses them, if she calls them sir, madam, miss etc. or in some cases child or young one.

The way she adresses Lace is identical to how she adresses other children like Nuu and Runt. (certainly weakens the cae that she’s calling Lace a child to be dismissive if she doesn’t even treat actual children dismissively. Or are you gonna argue everyone else she calls a child are secretly adults too?) I don't see the same arbitrary scepticism with regards to whether Yarnaby is a "Madam", Zaza is a "sir" or Lugoli a "they". When all we'd seen was the slap scene in the trailer lots of ppl assumed Nuu was an adult man, but when Hornet comes & calls her "child" & Creig "young lass", everyone just accepted that Nuu is a little girl.

Somehow this didn't happen with Lace. The reason for the discrepancy is clear: Shipping. I saw this happen in real time, ppl explicitly saying "guys is our ship ok?" after the trailer. Their talking points became widespread beyond just shippers but it seems disingenuous to pretend that it has nothing to do with it.

In a vacuum, with no context, if you saw only the trailer, it's already a bit forced to assume it's an insult, but not implausible. However it falls apart when you try to fir it into the broader story.

I mean, Hornet is supposed to be sympathetic to Lace after the 2nd fight & makes a point to affirm to her that she's a real person. Why would she keep insulting her past that point, especially by saying something that, if your theory were true, would be the cruelest possible thing to say, tantamount to saying "your abuser is right about you"? It's like misgendering a trans person on purpose or calling someone with severe body dysmorphia "fatass". It doesn't fit together into a consisent whole.

Plus, it's circular logic. It's supposed to be an insult (unlike identical ways of adress with Runt, Nuu and Gilly) because Lace is an adult, but she's an adult because the "child" is just an insult. It's not even said in an insulting way. She doesn't say "brat" or "you're acting childish", just child. child is not an insult, it's a life stage.

Sure she could be mistaken about something while being generally well meaning, it happens all the time, but then you would expect this to be shown. When someone's shown as wrong there's usually hints both about the truth, and why they're wrong. (more on that later) - it would be as simple as having 1 line where Lace says something like "oh sure you act like you care but you still streat me like a child" - there's no such thing. (again, Lace never disputes being a child.)

The Lost Lace journal entry, the last-word on Lace's character, final coda/epilogue of the story that is meant to underline its themes & hint at the future, still describes her as a child. Yet we're supposed to have understood that she isn't one? That's not how storytelling works!

There's a difference between thematic analysis and just making things up to suit an a -priori conclusion such as a ship - same difference between real historical/political analysis and conspiracy logic. Saying theories should be based on something & be logically consistent couldn’t be further from being „surface level“

Look at the points it's actually making. "This one, the dark shall not take", which communicates that "Hornet is starting to think of Lace as family & plans to take care of her" (communicated through the protective sentiment & the clear parallels to how her siblings did end up 'taken by the dark') and "She intends to prevent the tragedy that took place in Hallownest from repeating" (stopping the apocalypse, and in doing so without having to kill/sacrifice a child.) - for both those points its important to emphasize that Lace IS a child, hence the entry does that.

Contrast the entry after the 2nd fight, when we're supposed to understand that "Lace is a real, worthy person despite being a construct", the journal entry does heavily underline this, reflecting the evolution of Hornet's thinking and how she has learned a lesson since the 1st game.

Look at the context in which we receive thattalk from Caretaker: That dialogues triggers after you defeated her in the cradle. It's a "reward" for defeating her & more information given once your interest is piqued, & after the big secret about her artificial origin has just come out. It's framed as a straight exposition dump, not a mysterious incomplete hint.

d) Shakra changes her mind (and is thereby shown to be wrong). She likely stuck with the nickname as long as she did cause Hornet didn't introduce herself, but within the first few meetings she's treating Hornet as a capable, respected comrade & friend.

By contrast, we see nobody change their mind on Lace, or even question it or ponder it. Everyone who considers her a child at the start considers her a child at the end. If they're supposed to be mistaken to teach a lesson... where's the lesson? Who learns it, or pays a price for not learning it? Where is it articulated, shown, portrayed?

e) We're given plenty of independent evidence that Hornet's an adult

Martial prowess would be a signifier of adulthood in our world, but we can't count it here because child warriors are common in the setting. Doesn't find anything unusual about Skarr or Verdanian children being fighters and even finds it commendable that the kiddos of those places are so badass. (we ight surmise that Deepnest was likely the same) - its worth noting that unlike human youth, these fantasy insect kids in question have sharp claws & other natural weapons.

But this doesn't apply to other signifiers of adulthood like:

She consistently acts in ways we would associate with maturity, such as being responsible, discerning, knowledgeable, sceptical, composed, masterful and in-control

She often refers to her long experience, like how a stereotypic old lady would talk, "in my long life I have seen much XYZ..."

She can buy booze at Creige's bar

She was widowed several times - ie. she is mature enough to have a relationship that lasts until her partner dies, and a senior citizen would be considered an appropriate partner for her.

She tried & failed to have her own children (but couldn't because she's infertile)

she gets trusted with positions of authority (WL effectively left her in charge went to go do penance as a hermit in the woods, and that was looooong ago.)

There's nothing like this for Lace, not even trying to do adult things but being stopped.

She is always completely focussed on trying to get her mother's attention & her fear of losing her mother's love, barely has any sense of self outside having internalized her mother's negative view of her (to the point of becoming suicidal when she realizes she can't "win"), at the beginning she still has an overawed view of her mother (describing as an an invincible fathomless being, & legit struggling to process that Hornet isn't scared of her) and seems to copy her actions & parrot her opinions ("one needs grace to stand before the divine"), when she doesn't get what she wants she acts out impulsively, she doesn't question or hold back her emotions, nor does she analyze or pick up on things beyond the surface (Hornet deduces her whole backstory & motivation whereas Lace never realizes that Hornet is anything other than just another Weaver mutt), she doesn't seem to know how to interact with people beyond putting on an unconvincing copy of her mother's suprvillain act, in the choral chambers scene she slinks of & lets her mother handle it when she fails to intimidate Hornet, she doesn't think about politics or the big picture at all, only her own emotions - she never considers consequences before she acts.

Yes it is possible for an adult to act immature, but first we'd need a reason to think that she is an adult in the first place. (an adult would also probably be criticized for it, like having someone say, "geez how old are you" or "you're acting childish")

The narrative also doesn't hold her responsible to the same degree as adult characters. We know she's a murderer and in act 3 she finds the widespread destruction of Pharloom very funny and says she wants it all to burn (Exhibit A for "no thought of consequences")

Widow is in the exact same situation as Lace (a sadistic evil minion, but became that way due to being controlled by her mother), but while the story wants us to feel sorry to her to some extent, she unrecemoniously gets a blade through the face. Whereas Lace is treated not as a vile repugnant villain, but as a sad victim we're supposed to want to save.

Why the discrepancy? Because Widow is an old woman, whereas Lace is a child and therefore can't be blamed as much for not knowing better, especially if she was raised (very badly) by villains.

In general, compare Lace to her older sisters, the Weavers. Aside froom Widow, they also get fed up with & betray their mother, but their concerns are adult concerns: To gain freedom, to have their own families, to seize political power, to question or maintain the legitimacy of their religion... they also betray their mother with a sophisticated plan. Lace just snaps and acts impulsively because she can't take it anymore, without a thought of consequences - which is normal and expected for a child, especially a child that was neglected and abused.

"a husk shaped to act as a child".

Notice how the emphasis there is yours.

The important word in the actual line is "husk" not "child".

Eg. Lace is upset because she views herself as an object/robot that only acts like a child rather than actually being a child. The angst is in feeling she is not a real child, not in being something other than a child, certainly not an adult playing pretend - that whole concept never comes up in the whole game.

An Object pretending to be a child, not an adult pretending.

It's pinnocchio angsting about how he'll never be a real boy & not worthy of being Gepetto's beloved legitimate son.

If Frankenstein's monster refers to himself "a husk meant to ask as a man", he's upset that he's not a real man, not that he wants to be a small boy or a woman. Man is just a descriptor - furthermore, it signifies that he wants to be a real man, but feels unworthy of it.

Though Lace is certainly not using the word "child" without reason, since she's not only upset about just herself not being real but her relationship to her mother - she feels she's just a plaything for GMS to occupy her until she gets back her real daughters, the Weavers. (unbeknowst to Lace, the Weavers actually felt the exact same way - that they're just tools, not truly beloved daughters. "She called us daughters.... she lied". GMS is just not a very good parent & consistently behaves in ways that make her children feel used rather than loved)

It's also the same consistent logic/context issue I mentioned before. If you took the sentence in a vacuum I suppose you might argue that it's unclear if it means child as opposed to adult or child as opposed to object.

But in the context where it appears, the meaning is clear, because of Hornet's reply: She doesn't say, "you don't have to pretend to be something you're not" or "you're an adult", she says, "You ARE alive/real" (as opposed to "just a husk") & she is affirming this is referring to Lace like any other child.

Nor does Lace's response suggest that Hornet got it wrong. She doesn't say "that's not what I mean", she dismisses it as a platitude because she can't really believe it & it's coming, as she sees it, from "mother's favorite".

Childhood is an actively demeaning concept for her that she repeatedly expresses contempt for. She hates herself, so she calls herself something she hates.

This, too, is circular logic.

There is nothing inherently demeaning or insulting about being a child. (that's rather point #3 of my original post) .

It's just a stage of life. Somebody being a child is just a neutral fact. Children are no better or worse than anyone else, they're just young.

The only way it's demeaning is if you refer to someone as a child when they are not. (indeed, treating a child like an udult is usually unfair or harmful) Hence, circular logic. It's assumed to be an insult because she's assumed to be an adult, and then the idea that it's demeaning is used to argue that she's not an actual child. But this requires a lot more extraneous assumption that if she's simply calling herself a child because... that's just what she is & it's more appropriate than any other descriptor.

It would be another thing if there was for example a line that shows Lace having a negative view of children in general, but there's no such thing.

If somebody says "I am a pathetic, broken man" in a self-hating rant, you wouldn't think they see "man" as an insult or that they're really a woman, unless they're previously established to have gender issues through other evidence. The important word is "pathetic", not "man".

I'd even argue that "child" is something Lace wants to be seen as. ("See me cut, see me serve... a child, too broken/ "see me, your daughter", "sh'll always know it was her pathetic broken child that caused the mortal wound")

Not as a child opposed to an adult, but as a child as opposed to a tool, a husk, a broken object. A child has emotional needs. A child is owed love, care & attention from their parent. A child is supposed to be protected - not used as a disposable tool or obedient slave.

Also, calling people children or child-like when thy aren't is usually done to deny them rights.

Hornet & Caretaker are never in any position to deny Lace rights and aren't shown to have interest or rason to do so. Caretaker typically ran away from her on sight. Between the janitor and the princess, the one who has to be scared is the janitor, no matter what age the princess is.

Especially if this is a princess who has both the permission and the capacity to stab people for shits and giggles. And Hornet is at first a total stranger with no reason to want anything from Lace at all other than for her to get out of the way so she can beat up her boss.

Heck, past the 2nd fight she is sympathetic & dispenses a pep talk. She should want the opposite. If Lace was really an adult who doesn't feel like she can really be one, Hornet would have pep talked about it just like she does about Lace being a real living being.

GMS meanwhile, is denying Lace LOTS of rights, but it's not done with the logic of "you can't do things yourself because you are a child". Lace is a knight/ soldier who can roam Pharloom as she likes.

GMS certainly thinks people should obey her, but that entitlement is because of her caste. Because she is highborn royalty, and a godlike being besides. ('...ours by birth... ours by right...', 'they are ours... bound forever')

The idea that parental obedience stops at 18 (or 14, 21, 25 or whatever), & hence the incentive to paint ppl as child-like to get obedience, is a very modern conception that didn't exist in historical setting where everyone always had to obey their elders. And you especially had to obey nobility, especially a reigning monarch. You have to obey the king cause he owns the land, or cause you swore fealty to him, or cause he's sent from god, or, like the Roman Emperors or Pharaohs, cause he IS a god.

That's the situation here.

Being an adult wouldn't exempt Lace from obedience or control, heck, Widow is explicitly an old crone and still has to obey.

In medieval-like situations, the kids get put to work as soon as they can do it. Lace is a knight, an enforcer of GMS used to take back political power. She's in charge of stabbing any un-haunted pilgrims so they don't start up the sealing song again. (although a disabled/disfigured prince often wouldn't have been considered a valid/worthy heir, if you want to bring that reading into it as well. You can look at it as the sickly princess Lace kinda being passed up for her healthy, strong niece. Though it doesn't quite fit completely as GMS is immortal & not looking for an heir. Though there similar dynamic about whom she considers worthy of her tho. )

It is outside characters— those who don't know Lace at all— that refer to her as a child. Hornet and the Caretaker don't know who she is at all. They make assumptions,

See, I don't think that's true.

An outside perspective might be someone that random pilgrim (who doesn't get a close look and assumes her cheerful & defenseless), but if Hornet & Caretaker aren't insiders, who is?

I suppose there is Lace herself, but she never says she's an adult either or complain to them that they got something wrong about her.

Both Hornet and Caretaker are consistently shown to be very insightful, perceptive characters, & to understand more about Lace in particular than anybody else.

Caretaker clocks exactly what Hornet is, gets some "gotcha moments" on her where he points out things about her she doesn't fully acknowledge, has much insight knowledge about the Haunting etc.. He's also a bit of a doomer and a shifty curmudgeon, but even a shifty curmudgeon needs reason/incentive to lie or be mistaken & is going to do so in ways that line up with his agenda or bias.

Hornet is always 2 steps ahead of everyone with very few exeptions (that always have a clear reason) – she’s not the sort who would be wrong simply because she didn’t question things past the surface. There would have to be a motive. For example, while she does get fooled by Greyroot, it’s probably because she was expecting her to be more like the White Lady & some unacknowledged feelings of missing her family got the better of her.

With regards to Lace, Hornet is shown to see right through her in every single interaction (while Lace completely fails to intimate Hornet or pick up information about her - the most glaring instance being how she expects her to piss her pants when she hears that Lace's liege lord is a Pale Being, without ralizing that Hornet is one herself)

Caretaker meanwhile had much opportunity to observe her as the citadel's groundskeeper. Everything else as gospel except for the bit that contradicts their ship. If you wanna call unrliable narrator on him you gotta extend it to everything including his talk about how he thinks that Lace wanted to be the citadel's protector.

Obviously he doesn't especially care about Lace, seeing as he kinda but not really thanks Hornet for killing her, but Hornet herself has actually become sympathetic to Lace by that point & looks at her as someone who reminds her of her tragically lost siblings & some parts of her own situation.

It's perfectly plausible that their insight would be correct there.

It's not impossible for them to be mistaken, but if they were, that would be shown.

Let's look at some example where some generally knowledgeable characters are mistaken. In such cases, you can always point at why they're wrong - something that mislead them or something they gain from holding their mistaken belief - as well as evidence for the truth, lampshades or contrasts the writers use to make us get what's happening.

When a character is wrong, they either change their mind & learn a lesson, or they pay a cost, or there is a rward for someone who believed the opposite.

For example, Hornet is overly harsh towards the flies. Why would she be? Well, they locked her up & took her stuff, including her last mementos of home. She generally responds to advertisity with pride and agrssion, a consistent tendency shown in many other circumstances (the most obvious lampshade might be Bell Hermits "you too will be snared" speech) How is it shown? First, there is the over-the-top harshness of her journal entries ("the less they breed, the better", "hopefully that put an end to them", "i know they're technically victims too but I can't arse myself to care") - second, ther is how she changes her tune when she finds the unhaunted baby one and acts perfectly polite towards it, like she understood her error.

Example 2: The White Lady believes the Knight to be "without blemish" unlike their sibling. Why would she think that? Well first, the void is mysterious and no one quite understands it, and second, it's easier to send them to their death if she convinces herself they have already been dead a long, long time. How do we know she is wrong? Well, many other characters interact with them normally. In particular, both Mato and the Hunter act as father figures towards the Knight, so they are clearly capable of forming a family bond. Jinn outright observes that they have a will. There's the Winged Nosk incident and the throneroom sequence. The While Lady herself also shifts her opinion somewhat, wondering later on if they're more than just a vessel, having a bit of a moment how much they remind her of their father, & in the end she flat out admits that she can't actually read their mind. (She might've thought that no signal means there's nothing there, but, in the face of all the other evidence, the likely conclusion is rather that her mindreading just doesn't work on void beings.) - she never completely comes around to the protagonist - this is an example where the mistaken person pays a cost. One of the supposedly dead kids whom she is grieving is right in front of her, but she can't see it, so she misses out on bonding with them.

There's also Hornet claiming she was fooled about the void snare, & how the Snails respond that surely she must've known. How do we know she most likely knew? Well, first the Snails' reaction, but also hints like how she deduced quickly what Sula's up to & how we're shown clearly that she knew the shamans were shamans, and that she personally helped to build the trap. Plus her reaction to plasmium and every other ominous mystic force up to this point, where she had acted attracted to any source of power & knowledge. It's just unlikely that someone of her intelligence & knowledge would be ignorant of the function of something she helped assemble. Why would she pretend not to have seen it? Well, first, she really needed it to work & they had just offered her a miracle solution out of nowhere that allows her a chance to smash the system at the root for good, remain as she is and go home. Also, aftrwards, she prsumably wants to distance herself from having made a similar error as her father. (imho pretty obvious in the wingmould journal entry) - both cause as a kid she got shit for being a half-breed/ having anything in common with him ('prove yourself more Weaver than wyrm...'), and because he genuinely did fuck up in a way that had his plans exploding in his face & many innocents getting hurt for nothing.

It's also pretty clear what the Snails get out of maintaining plausible deniability: A very useful co-conspirator. they might also have been hoping for a mutual kill, leaving them with no more pesky Pale Beings to worry about. Well, probably not Chapel Maid.

Also, in all these cases, this is an important plot point, right? So it gets discussed. There is in-game dialogie referring to it. Characters pondering it, musing about it. Lines you can point to.

The Knight's intentions or lack thereof are constantly speculated about. Hornet brings up her profound sense of guilt about the void snare debacle in every act 3 dialogue.

When she talk about "returning GMS' hospitality", Caretaker calls her on it (and implicitly accuses Hornet or bing exactly the same as her - Styx or Mask Maker try to get on her good side in expctation of an ugly takover, Pinstress senses something off about her and wonders what she plans to do with all that power)...

By contrast, there is not a SINGLE line of dialogue anywhere in the game where anyone says lace is an adult, doubts that she is a child, says she doesn't or even wonders about whether she's really a child.

"Lace is an adult" is on the same level as "Hornet is void". We'r given no reason to think so, we're explicitly told the opposite, and ppl's arguments don't hold up & kinda come down to struggling to parse the abstract cartoony character designs. "But her body is drawn as black!" - so are many others, not just the vessels. "But I think it would be cool!" - Maybe. Coolness is subjective. But that has no bearing on the canon intention.

At most, something that "would be kind of cool" can be considered an AU or alternate interpretation, after all, fanwork doesnt have to be married to canon.

But to claim it's the canonical intention when we're doing serious analysis just doesn't hold up.

Sorry, but the idea that there is a Big Thematic Point that is never once discussed in dialogue just downright makes no sense. It's absurd. It doesn't pass the sniff test. Occam's razor says no. It's baffling to me that we even have to discuss this... and it's baffling to most ppl who play the game without exposure to "fandom orthodoxy" or pre-release fandom.

There are sooo many posts by ppl who look up fanworks after having played them game & express bafflement & surprise like "wait isn't Lace a child?"

That's the impression that people naturally come away with if they play the game & form their own opinions based on only what is actually in it, not youtube video essays or ship justifications.

Basically, everyone & everything in the game says that Lace is a child, & nothing & no one says she's an adult. Not ever. Not even a single time. So what reason or motivation is there to think otherwise? (well, I can think of one, but it’s shipping agenda.)

This is not a correct assumption. I do not engage with Lacenet as a pairing, and, even if I did, I wouldn't bother to age Lace up for shipping purposes. I did not address shipping at all in my initial response because it is not something I care for, nor feel holds any water when it comes to performing this kind of character examination. I will, likewise, not address any shipping related arguments in this response either, as that has no baring on any of my points nor my evidence. Shipping is an external and transformative activity that has no basis in a textual breakdown.

When I argue that Lace isn't a child, it is from a thematic analysis of Silksong as a whole. This is because Silksong is a story about people choosing different paths than what their legacies have decided them to be, and because it is thematically congruent for Lace to have been designed by her mother to be a perpetual child, and then have the ability to chose to not be one after the end of Act 3.

This is why I feel your deconstructions of my argument are on a fundamentally different angle than what I addressed in the first place. You correctly point towards evidence of Lace being designed in universe by GMS to be a child, and that she is emotionally neglected in a way that has negatively affected her development in a way that causes her to behave in a childlike manner. I am not dismissing that, nor am I looking for a summary.

I am instead positing for a thematic reading of the entire game as a whole, not a play by play of plot beats. I am not denying that Lace is called a child and nobody— not even herself— contradicts calling her that. I am saying that agreeing with that assessment that Lace, because she was made to be a child, has to be a child, fails to understand what Silksong has to say about self determined identity and rejecting parental expectations.

Now, to get this out of the way. I understand why it might have been confusing as to why I put focused so much on the disability reading of Lace. You said that you "never made any such a statement" on that reading not being true. However, in your initial post, you say:

A disabled adult who is stuck with a controlling, infantilizing parent could an interesting story, it's just not the story that is being told with this particular character in canon. (also, wouldn't Phantom or Eva be much more fitting characters for this?)

which is a dismissal of how that reading could be applied to Lace and instead should be applied to other characters. You did, in fact, make such a statement.

You claimed that "there's supposed to be a big major theme in the story that never comes up in dialogue at all", and I brought up evidence to that theme being present. The following sentence claiming that "the arguments for [Lace being a disabled adult] are flimsy, contradictory & transparently agenda-driven" made it appear you were especially hostile to that interpretation. If the "agenda" in question was a hypothetical 'shipping' one, I fail to see how those two concepts would even apply to each other. It is a fundamentally bad faith interpretation. That being said, I do apologize if that genuinely wasn't your intention and my refutation came across as harsh.

That being said.

I brought up Shakra's referring to Hornet as 'child' because Hornet's maturity is put into question by the game itself. The Mask Maker refers to Hornet's fate as being "unresolved" and that her "kind rarely develop[s] evenly, and the lifetime of bugs are poor measure for one like [her]". Hornet agrees with this assessment, accepting that she is not fully grown and still can develop. She "has more growth awaiting [her] yet". This is especially important to note when using Hornet— Lace's narrative foil— to retroactively examine Lace.

Shakra calling Hornet a child is not just amusing. It is suggesting to the player that Hornet isn't mature and needs to learn to be more so. And, on a greater picture, to it establishes a theme within Silksong that people who believe themself as stagnant are capable of change. To dismiss Shakra's comment outright because of its absurdity is to look at only her first interactions, and not why Shakra changes her mind.

Shakra only calls Hornet by her name in the Sister of the Void timeline, not Weaver Queen. The Silk and Soul quest line only occurs if Hornet has both performed enough good deeds for the bugs of Pharloom and completed Shakra's Trail's End quest, which involves Hornet going out of her way to assist in the funerary rights of Shakra's master.

Hornet physically being an adult is irrelevant: Shakra's presence is the game using childhood as a sign of emotional immaturity and capability of rashness. It doesn't matter that she's incredibly old, or that she can buy alcohol, or that she's been widowed, or she's had positions of authority. What matters is that she grew as a person, and in Silksong, that is the sign of adulthood.

Weaver Queen Hornet did not mature by gaining an appreciation for her fellow bugs, and thus ends up as one of the game's 'bad endings'. She becomes a creature defined by her parents' nature and expectations. Hornet fails to grow up, and as a result becomes exactly what her family sired her to be: a Pale Monarch. Hornet's character arc is the immortal offspring of a god who believes she cannot change being changed by the people around her, and emotionally maturing in the process. This is important as a foil to Lace.

(Also, the argument that Phantom is a more grown up/mature example of a silk beast is unfounded. There is nothing to state in game that Phantom is older than Lace beyond Hornet's dialogue, and Hornet is not an infallible nor objective source. She is a stranger kidnapped to a place she doesn't know of. Them being taller could easily be explained by their body physically falling apart due to GMS' neglect. It makes zero sense that characters made of silk would physically mature like other ones would.)

Now, why does Lace not act like an adult? It's because she was never given the chance to. She is designed to look cute and childish and never grow up, an encapsulation and deconstruction of the 1000 year old little girl trope. She isn't allowed to be anything but a child. You say that GMS gave Lace the 'right' to be a knight, but her Cradle needolin dialogue shows being seen as a GMS' 'knight' is something Lace desires just as much as being seen as her daughter. "See me, your knight, see me, your daughter". This is one of the only lines in the game where Lace explicitly wants to be something. She wants to be seen as a knight, as well as a daughter. She wants to be something more than just a child.

And when she can't have that, she lashes out, leading to Act 3.

Nobody changes their mind on Lace because she was denied of the ability to make that choice. Her creator ignores her, her sibling is banished, and, if the Caretaker is to believed, she was brought into a post apocalyptic Citadel long-past its prime. She, unlike Hornet, isn't given the chance to change. She's an immortal offspring of a god who believes she cannot change and doesn't emotionally mature in the process.

You correctly posit that GMS is neglectful and starves Lace of attention and purpose. However, she is also capable of explicit malice. Phantom— who presumably didn't live up to GMS' expectations— was banished and left to die. They were neglected so badly to the point they'd rather commit suicide via Hornet than keep existing. If Lace wants to be anything else besides a child (and she does! She also wants to be a knight, which GMS also refuses to see her as), she must face the very real possibility of GMS abandoning her too. What Lace wants doesn't matter if she'll be left to die for wanting it. So she internalizes her role, and accepts that she'll be nothing more than her mother's weak, pathetic daughter.

You said that "there is nothing inherently demeaning or insulting about being a child." I agree! There is nothing inherently demeaning or insulting about being a child. However, that was not what I was saying in my initial reply. My point wasn't that childhood was inherently demeaning. It was that Lace sees being a child as demeaning. Whenever Lace calls herself one, it's out of self pity (Cradle fight) or to try and rile Hornet into killing her (pre Lost Lace fight). She might call herself one, but she does it out of spite for others— like GMS or Hornet— or hatred for herself.

Pointing out that the game uses child terminology in a demeaning way (or humorously absurd, as with Shakra, but that humor only works because Hornet is expected to feel insulted by being seen as one) is not seeing childhood as inherently negative. It's explaining why the game uses negative words in tandem with 'child'. Childhood is a neutral stage in life. However, Silksong uses childishness as a sign of emotional immaturity and potential for growth, as both Hornet and Lace are at their worst when they do not confront themselves and grow up. Hornet turns into the Weaver Queen. Lace turns into Lost Lace. The game does not have a neutral position on childhood and the consequences of being forced into it for far too long.

This is, ultimately, why calling Lace a child is a misreading of her character and Silksong as a whole. "Child" is something she was made to be. She had no choice in the matter. She was designed to be the perfect daughter, the perfect pawn, and any deviation from that is met with indifference at best (not acknowledging Lace as a knight), or life-threatening neglect at worst (Phantom being cast out and left to rot). Any other desires are impossible to achieve while still existing within the confines of childhood.

Staunchly agreeing with GMS' imposed identity upon Lace— that she is a designed to look like a child, that she is designed to act like a child, that she is a child, despite her clear self loathing over this fact— is agreeing with the antagonist of the game. It is agreeing that the circumstances of one's birth define them for life. It is agreeing that there is no possibility for a better future, that her creator was right, and that the ending of Sister of the Void is meaningless. Her arc fundamentally does not make sense if she is fated to be a child forever.

Hollow Knight and Silksong are games about how parental expectations are wrong and stifling. Why would the parent suddenly be right about Lace, when they've been wrong for every other major character prior?

If you cannot conceive how someone could see Lace as not being a child for non-shipping reasons, then you are not engaging with the themes of the work. To engage with them is to look past the way she is referred to in game analyze the character as a whole. And if you are going to assume having a "shipping agenda" is why I view the character this way, I think it is safe to say that you have an explicitly anti shipping agenda that makes you refuse to even consider that your reading might be shallow.