The Firelink Conspiracy
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A brief analysis of Hollow Knight
🕑 Added 2025-09-08 14:23:18 +0000 UTCThis post will be my general thoughts on the story of Hollow Knight, which is masterfully written and familiar. I did not dive deep into the game's lore as of yet, though I may do that in the future. For now, these are my notes about it, which should still prove insightful, as this is yet another story that is highly esoterically charged and follows archetypal structures.
There was once a species of Pale Wyrms that could see into the future - a concept directly inspired by Dune's Sandworms and the Spice they produced. In both cases, the wyrms represent the alchemical Dragon. Their Paleness is emblematic of light, of soul; thus, their special powers.
These wyrms journeyed through the world in search of primitive civilizations they could colonize by birthing a creature in the image of the inhabitants of those civilizations; a Pale King. This species was dying out, however; and despite its foresight, its doom was apparently innevitable. The last Pale King (which will be referred to as The Pale King for the sake of intuitiveness) was responsible for the creation of Hallownest, the ''continental empire'' where the game takes place.
The Pale King enacted the role of the great unifier, conquering all of the factions of the territory he was overseeing. He mended the relations of the various tribes of creatures and integrated all of their crude kingdoms into his (the Hive excepted), thus forming Hallownest, an earthly, eternal paradise. A vast period of peace and prosperity ensued.
Many of his subjects were granted advanced intellect; before his rule, it seems most creatures operated mostly on instinct and the law of the jungle, and hadn't developed advanced forms of communication. Their homes and shrines were rustic. Under the Pale King, enormous, sophisticated structures were built. Ornate buildings, roads and a subway system which connected the entire territory - the stagway system. The Pale King also established a common language to his empire.
It seems as though the Pale King's boon was selective and granted on a systemic basis. For instance, the Stags seem to be simple-minded beasts; the slave workers seem similarly devoid of higher thought, though perhaps they're one step beyond a common animal; the common worker has only a basic capacity to form thoughts and sentences - though they're mostly related to his work; and then, there's the higher classes, who seem to be smarter. This selective gnosis is allegorical to the class divisions of our world (a slave class, a worker class, a merchant/middle class, lower and higher nobility).
The Pale King summoned warriors from across Hallownest and beyond to compete in a grand tournament - a trial of strength through which he would select and recruit five exceptional champions. These chosen few would form an international order of knights, sworn to serve under his command and defend the realm. This event was called The Champion's Call.
Together, the five knights fought a couple battles for the kingdom's sake; most notably, they defended it against a Blackwyrm, an inversion of the Pale Wyrm - a wyrm that was contaminated by the Void, and thus, became an entity of destruction, not creation. (The Void is the primordial chaos, the darkness that seeks to consume and assimilate all things.)
Of course, the systemic colonization of the Pale Wyrms was not an act of interspecific charity. Yes, they absolutely elevated civilizations, bringing with them peace, prosperity and stability. They granted gnosis to the natives they colonized. But, in trade, they harvested their souls, like Demiurges. This is how they fed themselves; this is why they're Pale. Think of a king taxing his subjects - only, in the case of the Pale King, his tax was a portion of the souls he cultivated in his citizens. He's an archetypal Lucifer, an Antichrist; the Pale King is to the Pale Wyrm like the Antichrist is to the Demiurge, or like Christ is to God. He is the son and envoy of a higher being, tasked with enacting his will upon lower realms.
However, the Pale Wyrms are not the only higher beings operating below the earth. Most notably, a god-like moth - the Radiance - had, in the distant past, been worshiped by some of the natives of the place that became Hallownest. But as the Pale King conquered the 'continent', she was mostly forgotten, left to rest in her domain, the Dream Realm. She parallels the Pale King as his inversion. One is a god-like being of conscience (of light, of gnosis); the other, of unconsciousness (of dreams). This Radiance would clash against her rival, and their war would bring ruin upon the kingdom and its inhabitants.
Note the organic crown-like shape of her head, similar to the Pale King's.
The Radiance would spread a plague by infecting the dreams of Hallownest; the sick would lose their consciousness and be left to usher in their base insticts alone.
The Pale King devised a plan to stop the plague and seal the moth for eternity. He joined with another great being, and from their union sprang an uncountable number of eggs; the eggs would be thrown into the deep, dark waters of the Void, into the primordial chaos - a subversion of the Immaculate Conception. He willed his offspring to be hollow to the core, their bodies stripped of soul and self. Only then would they be able to seal the Radiance within them; they had to be pure vessels, pure vessels of darkness that could withstand the light of a greater being.
In order to test their contents, the Pale King observed the exit of the abyssal cave - should one of his children be sufficiently dark, it would hunger so much for light that it would manage his way out of his confinment. The first to leave the darkness was decreed pure enough - though the game's protagonist was just behind him -, and so, the king took him to his castle and instructed him with his duty. The Abyss was sealed, and a lighthouse keeper would bravely be left behind to watch over the light that neutered the darkness.
In this cutscene, we can see the game's protagonist behind his stronger brother, who'd completed the trial just an instant before. Tragically, he's left to wander in the dark by his father alongside his failed kin.
The pure vessel would be locked away forever, and his cell would be sealed by three powerful creatures - the Dreamers, who were responsible for locking away the Radiance inside the vessel through the Dream Realm as well.
But the plan did not succeed. The pure vessel faltered, for the brief moments he'd spent with his father were enough to taint his darkness with life, with self, with will, with love.
The lighthouse keeper lost himself. Over time, a handful of vessels were somehow able to leave the Abyss; one of them being the game's protagonist. He'd embark on a quest to free Hallownest once and for all; to infiltrate the dreams of the pure vessel and kill the Radiance inside it, ending the calamity (that is, in the secret, ''definitive ending''; he may simply trade places with the pure vessel - which would probably lead to yet another failure -, etc.).
In the end, Hallownest is liberated from the grip of the god-like, demiurgic beings who once held dominion over it. Perhaps now, it can be reborn.
And this is it for this post. Thank you for your continued support! I'm upset to say that the Dark Souls 2 video had to be delayed (perhaps for early next week?) for a couple reasons. One of them is quite stupid, the other somewhat serious. I bit my tongue a few days ago, and it's been badly swollen since, so I haven’t been able to speak clearly enough to record audio for the videos lol. The other is that I've been busy with work and college, busier than usual. I've been facing financial stress for the past couple months, so I had less free time to work on the channel. Hopefully the month after this one will be better. My PC is struggling with the project as well, so the editing process has been painful.
