Hollow Knight

And the folly of eternity

Key art for Hollow Knight, featuring the main character The Knight

Hollow Knight is a very well known indie metroidvania developed by only three people, and one that is beloved by many. The combat, platforming, and exploration are some of the best parts of the game, featuring some of the single best bosses I’ve ever fought in any video game. The praises I could sing for this game are numerous, and I would recommend this to absolutely anyone who is a fan of video games, but for this article I want to focus on a particular aspect of the game's lore and story.

For those unfamiliar, this game has very in-depth world-building, being very comparable to Dark Souls in the way that it tells its story through character interactions and environmental details. For the purposes of this article, I’ll summarize only what you need to know, but if you’re curious then you should definitely watch mossbag’s video (don’t worry, watching this is optional (but very funny)):

Normally, I would put a major spoiler warning here since I am covering the events of the story, however, most of the lore is focused on events leading up to the game rather than the plot of the game itself. A good chunk of the game can be spent simply exploring and piecing together the lore yourself, but even then it can be very hard to get a complete picture and you will almost certainly be left with some unanswered questions. Because of this I will go ahead and leave you with a minor spoiler warning here and a major spoiler warning when I focus on the actual events that happen while you’re playing the game.

Minor spoilers ahead

To start off with the summary, the game of Hollow Knight takes place in the underground kingdom of Hallownest, and all of the characters are bugs of various shapes and sizes. Of the different types of bugs, there once existed a powerful species of Wyrms, massive creatures capable of (probably magical) foresight. One of these worms died and reincarnated into a much smaller form called The Pale King. In this form, The Pale King established the kingdom of Hallownest, encouraging the many other denizens of the underground to abandon their old ways of life so that he could grant them higher thought. Among the many tribes seen in-game, there was The Moth Tribe, who had worshiped a god of dreams called The Radiance, but andonded them to worship The Pale King instead. Eventually, The Radiance would be entirely forgotten, leaving them almost powerless and The Pale King free to rule his kingdom. But thanks to his foresight, he knew that his kingdom would fall one day. Having been spurned by their own tribe, The Radiance began to invade the dreams of bugs, causing a cruel infection that took away their higher thought and kinda turned them into zombies (it doesn’t always kill you right away, but it can reanimate your corpse).

In order to combat this infection, The Pale King and his wife, the White Lady, had a bunch of children and cast them down into a place called The Abyss (inside of which lies a mysterious… thing called The Void) to become vessels. The Abyss is a mysterious place with quite a bit of its own lore, but the main thing you need to know is that when The Pale King’s and White Lady’s eggs were cast down into it, their children would hypothetically become hollow enough to seal The Radiance inside them. This process of “hollowing” mainly removed their ability to feel any sort of emotion, have any sort of a desire, and left them unable to speak or think. In essence, if The Radiance was trapped in a completely hollow vessel, then they would have no dreams to leak out through, and Hallownest would beat the infection and last forever.

It is through this combination of The Pale King’s children and The Void that The Hollow Knight is produced, who goes on to have The Radiance sealed inside them, before being sealed themselves inside a giant black egg to sleep eternally. However, it doesn’t work, and The Hollow Knight wakes up as The Radiance spreads their infection once again. With his only plan having failed, The Pale King locks himself away in his palace, before further sealing that palace away in the dream of one of his guards, leaving all of his citizens and his kingdom at large to slowly crumble away into a shadow of what they once were, entering a stasis as nearly everyone left in the kingdom slowly succumbed to the infection. It’s after this point that the game actually begins, with our main character, The Knight, making his way into Hallownest through a well in the only safe place left, a small town called Dirtmouth.

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

The main story of the game features a lot of different quests and side characters with their own stories, including 5 different endings for the main plot of the battle against the infection. But the most important thing for this essay, is that during the course of the story The Knight learns that they were one of the vessels who was cast down to The Abyss to be forgotten. By the time you find a way to enter dreams, and make your way to The White Palace, The Pale King has already died, his final thoughts being “No cost too great…”

As you go through the game, you find The White Lady who tells you that The Hollow Knight failed because of an “idea instilled”. She doesn’t specify what that idea is, but there is evidence to suggest that it was a father-son connection between The Pale King and The Hollow Knight before The Radiance was sealed inside them. However, the player is given a choice, they can either enter the dream of The Hollow Knight to kill The Radiance themselves, or they can defeat The Hollow Knight and draw The Radiance into themselves to become the new vessel, trapping themselves in the same way The Hollow Knight was trapped in order to fulfill The Pale King’s wish of preserving Hallownest eternally, even in it’s stagnant state.

But there is an important question raised by this possibility, is The Knight truly hollow, and could they succeed where The Hollow Knight failed? The White Lady suggests that they could, but certain actions seem to contradict one of the specifications laid out by The Pale King for a pure vessel: “No mind to think”. There are other requirements, but I’ll save those for later discussion. The game doesn’t give a clear answer as to whether or not The Knight is truly hollow, but based on how the game portrays The Pale King, it’s clear to me that a consistent message is present regardless of whether The Knight is truly hollow, that pursuing an everlasting kingdom is folly.

Death is a terrifying thing, and it is common practice in humanity to find purpose in creating something that will last after your death. Art in all of its forms can act this way, from paintings to music to stories, the things we create can last for a very long time after we die (such as the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Cueva de las Manos), but they can also be fickle. If you write a book, but lose the manuscript in a house fire, it can feel devastating to have all that work be for naught. In response to that, there can be the idea of creating something that will last forever, something so pure that it could never be destroyed, something so grand that it will be remembered by all, something so powerful that nothing else could defeat it. For The Pale King, he wanted to create a kingdom that could last forever, with many tablets in the game regarding Hallownest as the “eternal kingdom”. A beautiful place where its denizens would benefit from access to higher thought, no longer bound by base instincts, and where The Pale King would forever be remembered.

But to that end, despite how much good it could have accomplished, The Pale King commits some terrible deeds, assimilating the native tribes he could, and almost going to war with those he couldn’t. In his quest to create something so grand it could last forever, he ends up almost entirely erasing what others had built, trying to erase the very existence of The Radiance from history. When his kingdom faces The Infection as it is brought on by The Radiance, vengeful from the way they were betrayed, The Pale King resorts to something horrific. Sacrificing his own children by the thousands, possibly even millions, all to trap The Radiance forever and remove the only real threat to his kingdom. And even for the vessels that managed to survive being cast down into The Abyss, they are left to live hollow, broken lives. “No mind to think. No will to break. No voice to cry suffering. No cost too great.”

Within this light, The Pale King is kind of a monster, one who will do anything and everything it takes in order to make his kingdom, one built upon the destruction of others, last eternally. But when we look at The Kingdom itself, it’s clear that Hallownest was once some beautiful. The City of Tears, despite its name, is an astonishing place to see, one filled by so many bugs who were at one point, probably the happiest they could have been. Across these characters there are Five Great Knights who all swore fealty to The Pale King. One of these knights is Ogrim, a dung beetle who loved his fellow knights and The King, almost to a fault. Through his eyes (and a few others), it becomes clear that it seems like Hallownest may have been worth trying to preserve, at least for a time. After all, as we see in The Pale King’s mind, what could possibly be too great a cost, if it meant making something like this last forever?

But by the time we see Hallownest in-game, it’s a husk of its former glory. Returning to the question of whether or not The Knight is truly hollow and capable of sealing away The Radiance for good, ending the infection in the process, we have to ask if it would even be worth it. If The Knight is not truly hollow, then the infection will leak out once again, causing all the same troubles we just tried to solve. But if The Knight is truly hollow, what would even be left of Hallownest? The White Palace has been sealed away inside a dream, with only retainers and guardsmen inhabiting it, while The City of Tears is almost entirely dead, with only three npc’s left to inhabit it, one of which is clearly going a bit insane (or was maybe always insane), and the other two are left all alone, one forging nails that may never be wielded (except by the player), and the other left to wonder who The Hollow Knight ever was, revealing that despite their sacrifice, even they were forgotten, with only the statue for people to remember them by.

END OF MAJOR SPOILERS (still minor spoilers though)

Despite how powerful he was, and how hard he tried, The Pale King could never truly hope to keep Hallownest lasting eternal, whether it be the sudden onslaught of an angry god, or the slow decay of time, nothing can truly last forever. 

End of minor spoilers

It is a scary reality, one where the future is entirely uncertain. What we create can last a long time, but it can never last forever. Things will change, both suddenly and slowly, but to endlessly pursue eternity with no regard for the consequences, can lead to devastating destruction, leaving only our children to clean up our mess.

As a post note, although The Pale King is the main thing I wanted to talk about, I also wanted to leave some honorable mentions of some of my other favorite characters, even if they didn’t leave as much to talk about (Spoilers for these characters and their respective sidequests). Ogrim is one of the best bros a guy could ask for, but one who has been forgotten by the very people he vowed to protect, isolating himself with the duty of defending the grove of his closest friend and possible lover Isma, while being forced to ask his own question of “Where will the line of Hallownest's Great Knights end? With me? Can such a thing be passed on?”. The Great Stag is incredibly old, but one who joyfully takes The Knight wherever they need to go, remembering all of the old pathways and reflecting on what Hallownest used to be. But when he finally remembers his home, the home of all the stags, he rushes there glad to see his family again, only to find nothing but corpses, as he realizes that he is the last of his kind. Quirrel is a knight on his own journey, suffering from amnesia but feeling drawn to the beauty in this place, traveling and fighting alongside The Knight against the giant jellyfish Uumuu. As you travel together, he slowly regains his memory, including his purpose, and realizes just how old he is. Despite forgetting everything, he’s thankful to have the opportunity to see everything for the first time again. In his final scene, Quirrel sits down with The Knight at the Blue Lake and shares a quiet moment with them, reflecting on his life, his final act being to leave his sword behind at the shore and disappearing. This is truly an amazing game with some of the best character writing I’ve seen, and I am glad I was able to experience it.