art it's beautiful it stopped the pokin it has been used to tell some of the
greatest stories ever told but today we're going to talk about a classic the
Vitruvian Man this work by Leonardo da Vinci has become one of the hallmarks of
the Renaissance era it symbolizes the architecture of nature
found in the proportions of the human body but this isn't a fucking art class
it's a hollow night lore video so what does the Vitruvian Man have to do with
anything well hidden deep away within the city of tears there's a very
interesting drawing called the Vitruvian grub this is one of the biggest
mysteries in hallo nest so what does it mean honestly I don't have a goddamn
clue but hey that doesn't mean I can't make a wildly speculative video about it
this is the Vitruvian grub possible ties to Isis alright so when you start
playing hollow night for the first time you'll probably stumble into this room
in forgotten crossroads here you'll find the grub father weeping over the loss of
his children the player can find these grubs trapped in glass jars all
throughout the map after you find one of his children and return to him the grub
father will give you a reward so yeah the grubs are just a cool side
quest that the player can do while playing the game but who captured the
grubs in the first place well turns out was this forearmed motherfucker the
collector the collector can be found in the Tower of love in the city of tears
and after beating him the player can find a map that holds the location of
all the remaining grubs the player has left to find now there's a lot going on
with this guy that we'll get to in a second but first I wanted to talk about
the Tower of love itself this appears to be an abandoned location that was
repurposed by the collector the tower of love is hidden away only accessible from
kingdoms edge the walls of the area are covered with cushions and even the key
to the areas covered in padding this whole place gives me an Eyes Wide Shut
vibe how in a secret elite meaning up and engaging in lewd sexual acts
this is all pretty speculative but I do appreciate the subtle world building
team cherry does here another interesting piece of information is what
the corpse of the bug holding the love key in Queen's garden says when hit with
the dream nail it says to long spent together we became as one now if you
look at this guy's eyes you can see black streaks a feature commonly found
on bugs that died close to the abyss where void resides I think this means to
tell us that the bug actually spent some time with the collector who itself is a
void creature how do we know that the collectors made a void first off its
body is all black and liquidy and goopy when defeated it melts down into the
floor and when hit it gives off the same black particle effects that the siblings
do and like the siblings the collector does not give the player soul when hit
then of course there's the mold found in the workshop in the white palace this
mold is used to create a humanoid shaped figure with four arms this mold was used
to create the Kings molds that guarded the white palace the collector was
probably created here as well even though it might not have been
intentional so yeah the collectors origins begin at
the white palace which raises a ton of questions why was the collector created
it's possible that the collector was an early attempt at creating a void
construct gone wrong who just escaped the white palace and travelled upwards
into the city of tears another theory is that the collector was specifically
created by the pale King to capture the grubs at the very least there is
something about the collector that separates it from other void creatures
the collector is the most expressive of any void creature found in the game for
example one of the collectors dream nail dialogues is my love my love protected
at last this type of deep emotional connection isn't seen in many void
creatures other than maybe the hollow Knight or arguably Zoo or Hornet if you
think that there made a void as well also the collector doesn't respond
differently after the knight has obtained the void heart which means that
the collector must have an independently strong well itself so what exactly is
the collector trying to do if this is the case
first let's look at the rest of its dream no dialogue the collectors other
two lines are a safe space for you and you and you and it must be saved from
these lines of dialogue it seems like the collector is capturing grubs and
other creatures in order to protect them protect them from what exactly well this
is where shit gets weird so let's say you defeat the collector and rescue all
the grubs cool you go to the grub father who is eternally grateful and gives you
the final reward the grubber flies elegy awesome but if you choose to return to
the grub father after resting on a bench then you will discover that the grub
father has actually eaten his children now that's a fucked up shit right there
look team cherry I don't know if the practice of eating ones children is
common in Australia but here in the United States it is not so maybe the
collector knows that the grub father was going to eat his children and so it
captured them as a way to keep them safe if that was the case though the
collector might actually be wrong even though the grubs have been eaten you can
still hear them inside the grub father stomach so they're not dead yet also the
achievement the player gets when freeing the last grub is called metamorphosis so
this whole thing might just be biology the last reward given to the player is a
charm called the grabber fly z elegy which talks about the grubs moving on
into the next stage of their lives so it seems as though the grub father is
actually sacrificing himself and acting as a cocoon for the grubs to transform
into grubber flies the Gerber flies would then burst out of the grub
father's body which wouldn't be the first time we saw that in hallow night
it's all just a part of the beauty of nature but of course the collector might
not know this so maybe it thinks capturing the grubs is the only way to
protect them there is something a bit unsettling though if you listen to the
collector before reaching the room where you fight him you hear some strange
things
now that's just creepy seriously listen to it with horror music
playing
not only that but you can hear the grub gagging at one point why is it that
these cute little creatures are involved in one of the most fucked up plots of
the game it's so weird so let's just say that that is all there is to the
collectors motive where does that lead the Vitruvian grub
well the collector seems to find nature beautiful and believes that it should be
protected maybe the Vitruvian grub is just a drawing the collector made to
represent its obsession over the form of the grub body but that's kind of a
boring answer I think it's time we start speculating wildly what if there's
another motive behind the collectors actions what if there's another layer
beneath all of this what is it about the grubs specifically that the collector is
so infatuated with the grub flies the elegy mentions that the charm imbues
weapons with the holey strength now this is interesting
while the grubs are actually more powerful than we could possibly imagine
let's look at the Vitruvian grub again what's the deal with this symbol in the
middle of the drawing it's not visible on the grubs in-game what could it mean
well the symbol shows three circles connected together maybe this is
supposed to represent a Holy Trinity the number three has already been
established as being an important number in the game seeing as there are three
dreamers required to combat the radiance in other words this design on the grub
stomach is telling us that the grubs do indeed contain some sort of sacred power
within them but what about the surroundings of the grub in the
Vitruvian Man drawing the man is surrounded by a circle and a square this
was done to show the architectural properties of the human body when I
think something different is going on here first off they kind of look like
crop circles you know the kind left by aliens now I don't think we're supposed
to believe that grubs are actually aliens despite the compelling evidence
that points that way but I do think this is meant to represent how grubs might be
otherworldly or at least very different in nature from the rest of the bugs in
the game but there's another interesting thing about the design that surrounds
the Vitruvian grub as I'm sure you've noticed
there are 46 circles drawn in this picture and that's the exact number of
grubs that can be freed in the game what if this drawing is some sort of
representation of the location of the grubs when we compare that the Truvia
grub to the world map there's an easy connection we can make right away these
three dots in unison can line up with the three grubs found in the Tower of
love but after that it really doesn't make any sense but I do think this
surrounding design is telling us that the grubs are scattered across the land
even if the Vitruvian grub isn't a 100% accurate map but this raises another
question why is it that the collector leaves the grubs in various locations
instead of just taking them back to the Tower of love this is a collector just
hiding them in spots that thinks no one will find is it because they have to be
positioned in a certain way if so is this by the collectors will or is the
collector actually following instructions left for it maybe the
collector was told to capture the grubs and the Vitruvian grub is some sort of
instruction on how to do it I suggest this because the collectors dialog only
points it wanting to preserve the grubs but it just seems like more is going on
here is it possible that the pail King wanted the grubs captured did this holy
power hidden within the grubs scare the pail King is this another example of the
pail king trying to smother out other powerful beings if all that's the case
then we might have just fucked everything up by freeing them all so
yeah is the collector just absolutely insane and became obsessed with the
grubs for some arbitrary reason is the collector aware of this holy power that
might be hidden within the grubs could it be that the pail King is actually
responsible for all of this is it even possible to know the answer at this
point whenever I think about Holland I'll or I always end up remembering
Zelda maii's precept 50 maybe it's better not to linger on mysteries for
too long is this team Jerry's Way of telling us not to get too worked up over
every little bit of dialogue I mean we craft entire theories off of characters
turning their heads slightly for fuck's sake
I think the Vitruvian grub is a really cool mystery team cherry has added to
the but maybe there is no answer for its
existence yet and that's all I've got let me know in the comments if I miss
something or if you have any theories of your own as to what's going on with all
this I hope team cherry gives us more
information about the Vitruvian grub and upcoming content but then again I
already feel that way about ten other fucking things in this game