The Hollow Knight People

Lace gijinka! She’s so pretty dmeehdheheujs

She’s giving French

sometimes I wonder out of all of the tribes that do not have a higher being, only the mantises managed to not get infected.

The bees make sense why they succumbed, vespa was dead so they latched onto the next best thing. The mushrooms are a similar case.

But deepnest?

I feel deepnest also has a warrior culture and I feel that Herrah is a strong enough leader and has people who respect her enough that she could have pulled off a quarantine like the mantises- though I can see why a larger territory would become an issue

My only explanation is thar while deepnest valued strenght it also valued the arts, what with the weavers and whatnot. And with the arts and dreams being interlinked it made them rather susceptible to the infection.

What do you think?

I think that the reason why Deepnest fell is not because Herrah and her kin weren't strong enough, but because the Radiance specifically targeted them after Herrah chose to become a Dreamer. I think there's some dialogue in game hinting to it, iirc? But I could be misremembering, so don't take my word for it. Either way though, Herrah was essential to the plan that sealed away the Radiance, and so the Radiance retaliated as such. In terms of being involved in the war, they were pretty damn involved, and, well...that damned them

The mantises, on the other hand, stayed neutral during the entire fight. Sure, they might have had a treaty with Hallownest, but they were no means friendly with the residents. And given the fact that the Traitor Lord and his followers willingly took the Radiance's infection into themselves, its likely that Radi knew they were sympathetic to her cause/easy to manipulate and simply chose to bide her time so that she could maximize the amount of followers she got out of it. Better to have half of them come to her than to force compliance and lose the whole tribe

it's been too long since we've given you a new preview image apotheosis apotheosis apotheosis

waiting for you to get back

Pale King and White Lady Hollow Knight

I love this couple so much

It's that time of a year when I rewatch a playthrough. A game where every frame could be an art by itself.

doodles to honour my sufferings in the 5th pantheon

finally beat it and got those sweet 100% achievements

everybody say thank you christopher larkin

Ghost from Hollow Knight is disabled, and here's why

Obligatory disclaimer, of course, that this is just a theory. It may not even be what the creators intended! But it’s special to me, which is why I want to share if. And I think that a well crafted theory with textual evidence is far better than any inflammatory thumbnail by a YouTuber with enough charisma to overcome his utter lack of reading comprehension. 

So, to start, I’ll explain the particular disability. Put simply, being filled with the primordial darkness soup has detrimental effects on one’s health. It takes the place of blood, but it’s more viscous, which means that the heart is constantly working overtime just to pump it properly. 

So, what are the symptoms of this? Well, the most prominent one is this: Ghost is able to fully recover their health simply by sitting on a bench. If you’re wondering how that could possibly be linked to a heart condition, it’s actually based on my own experiences with POTS, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. It’s a health condition that’s affectionately known as “can’t fucking stand disorder” or less affectionately known as other, more explicit things when it’s causing me trouble. 

To get personal about my experience with POTS: I get dizzy standing up, or standing too long. I use a cane to support myself, and I need to drink what amounts to salt water to raise my blood volume. The blood volume is important, for reasons I’ll get into later. 

So, on the surface level: they’re disabled because they need benches to recover. But bear with me, because I think it goes a little deeper and a little weirder. Here’s my theory.

Ghost was intended to be invincible. They don’t take contact damage. Every time they take damage, it’s actually just them flinching and their heart rate increasing.

I know, it sounds insane, but I promise that there is evidence to support this. The first piece is the Pale King’s ambition. He created everyone in the dead baby pit to be invincible, right? The perfect vessel to seal away the Radiance, no voice to cry suffering. But then we also know that the Hollow Knight themself wasn’t perfect. They were weak specifically because they wanted to be loved. They were weak because they had a heart, they had emotions, because their traitorous heart pumped blood too fast and it made them vulnerable, because they felt fear. It’s poetic, in a sense.

Diversity Loss! The dead baby pit created in a fruitless effort to save the remnants of a crumbling kingdom is made up of disabled bugs who were subject to a fuckshit eugenics experiment, yippee!

Another interesting piece of supporting evidence is the existence of Lifeblood. The heretic Joni pioneered its use, and there’s some weird implications that maybe this wasn't the best idea, but hear me out for a second. What if it’s literally increasing blood volume of our protagonist to give them some protection from the symptoms of what is effectively a goopy heart disease? The name is quite literal, actually.

The final piece of evidence? Look at the effects of the Fury of the Fallen charm. This one is like adrenaline overdose, complete with pulsing visual effects meant to set you on edge. While this charm is equipped, the knight won't even perform their idle animations. It's a small thing, but I think it is definitely meant to indicate that they're too pumped with adrenaline to have the focus to do this little things. All of that energy is dedicated towards not losing control, one way or another.

Overall, like I said. It’s not something I can prove, but it is backed up by some canon evidence. And it adds to the tragedy, I think, of a scared bug with a bleeding heart.