Wow, look at all this Hollow Knight content I have left to talk about! It really is beautiful,
isn’t it? Silksong could be delayed until December and I’d still have plenty to discuss.
But until then let’s talk about one of the more mysterious aspects of Hollow Knight lore,
the Colosseum of Fools. The Colosseum is such a weird part of the game, and honestly I still don’t
understand this place much at all. I mean, why would people willingly get together in a crowded
area in the midst of a dangerous pandemic? Come on, Team Cherry, no one would actually do that.
Overall, the Colosseum is one of the few big mysteries left in Hollow Knight, alongside things
like the Vitruvian Grub, and the Trilobite Shrine in Deepnest, oh and the Mask Maker’s eyes, and the
Lifeblood creature, and the Shade Lord, and this random corpse in the Queen’s Garden. Also what the
fuck happened to Isma? Like seriously what the fuck!? Since the Colosseum is so cryptic, a few
theories have popped up trying to explain it. So it might be good to have a video that just lays it
all out, even if there isn’t any strong conclusion we can make about this part of the lore.
The Colosseum of Fools was originally a Kickstarter stretch goal, which promised 4
new bosses and a chance to uncover the mystery of the Colosseum. And while the stretch goal wasn’t
actually reached, Team Cherry added the area into the game right at the end of development. The four
bosses were originally Zote, the Oblobbles, and two of the regular fool enemies we fight
multiple times. Of course, there is also the God Tamer who appears at the end of the third trial.
But she was actually just a Kickstarter backer boss that was placed in the Colosseum.
The original boss design was the Lobster Lancer, but I guess Team Cherry didn’t
want to canonize lobsters. I have no idea why. They’ll canonize jellyfish and goddamn pickles,
but not these majestic bottom feeders. Honestly, it makes me sick.
From an early map of Hallownest made during development, we can see that the Colosseum
of Fools was originally placed in the Fungal Wastes near the Mantis
Village. Of course in the final game, the Colosseum is located in the Kingdom’s Edge,
a more late game area. Kingdom’s Edge was thrown into the game as sort of a
hodgepodge of stuff they couldn’t fit into the map already. For example, the Hive was
originally going to be in Deepnest but ended up getting moved over to the Kingdom’s Edge as well.
We also might have a glimpse of some of the earliest sketches for the Colosseum as well.
In an interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Ari Gibson shared a small collection of images from
his sketchbooks that he used to draw concept art for Hollow Knight. In a GameInformer interview,
the author claims that this place was actually an early concept for the Colosseum. It looks like
the audience was originally going to be composed of much larger creatures. But keep in mind a lot
of these sketches contain some really weird shit that doesn’t appear anywhere in the final game.
The Colosseum of Fools that we see in the game now didn’t seem to take shape until late in the
game’s development. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t any lore to be found here. In a Reddit AMA,
Ari mentioned that the Colosseum does hide a secret of some kind.
And there really is a lot to discuss here so let’s start with the colosseum itself.
The Colosseum of Fools is situated inside the corpse of some ancient bug.
Both the interior and exterior of the colosseum are laden with chains.
This might be a way to keep the husk of the bug from collapsing in on itself, as well as
to support the structure surrounding it. Also as a way to imprison bugs like the Little Fool.
So it seems like this was just some random corpse that ended up being turned into a battleground.
But a battleground for whom exactly? Who exactly are these fools, and why is it that they are
murdering each other for the entertainment of others? The Hunter asks this very same question.
“What do they hope for, these warriors fighting in the Colosseum? Are they slaves,
or prisoners, or do they freely choose to fight?”.
The game gives us a pretty clear reason why bugs fight in the Colosseum,
simply just to fight in the colosseum. They want glory and the chance to show off their strength.
That’s why we see characters like Tiso, who do seem to be solely interested in
fighting in the colosseum just for the sake of it.
But this is where things get weird. All of the enemies you fight in the Colosseum are infected.
But in the Warrior’s Pit below, they are all just kind of chilling there,
not trying to murder us. One of them is even enjoying a lovely soak in a hot spring,
while also still wearing all of his armor for some reason. If dreamnailed,
one bug goes all Shakespearean on us and asks “Are we all Fools?”.
So what is it about these warriors that gives them autonomy while
in the Warrior’s Pit? There are the traitor mantises who took the infection in willingly,
and it would make sense for the Fools to embrace the infection as well,
as it would give them more strength, but the mantises also went mad from the infection.
At least that’s what the Hunter’s Journal says. In the Queen’s Garden we can see that they set up
campsites, which I assume must take at least some kind of self restraint and cognisense.
Also Traitor Mantises show up at the Colosseum. So did these maddened mantises walk all the way
from the Queen’s Garden to the far end of the kingdom or were they captured and brought here?
The exact details of the infection have always been pretty fast and loose. For
example why exactly do characters like Cornifer and Cloth not fall to the infection? Are their
wills that strong? Cloth’s will never seemed too impressive to me. Although
the last time I said this people started bitching at me. Goddamn simps. Yeah it was
really impressive when she fucking died to the Traitor Lord. The Traitor Lord.
Why is it that we can literally just talk to Bretta and Sly to snap them out of their trances,
but Myla is a completely lost cause? As for Zote, well, there actually is a reason he never fell to
the infection. In Precept 56, he clearly states that to avoid having his dreams influence him,
he simply doesn’t dream. So at least there is kind of a reason for that.
I’d like to speculate at least a little bit about how these bugs might be able to withstand the
infection, but first we’re going to have to talk about the people who gentrified this giant husk
in the first place. The main culprit behind all this appears to be the Lord Fool. Unfortunately,
we aren’t going to be getting much out of him, he doesn’t seem like the talkative sort if I’m being
honest. Despite that, however, the Colosseum is still running as if nothing is wrong.
Of course there is the Little Fool, who takes payments and explains the
rules to anyone interested in fighting. And there are still crowds of people watching,
but obviously there is work happening behind the scenes as well. There are people capturing
and breeding the Sharp Baulders and Armoured Squit. I can’t imagine that being very fun.
I don’t even want to think about the implications of bugs forcing other bugs to breed.
There also had to be people to capture Zote, as well as throw dead bodies out of the colosseum
and into the wasteland of Kingdom’s Edge. All of this is continuing to happen while the Lord Fool
sits dead on the throne. It’s not exactly uncommon for communities to continue functioning without
their leader, so that’s not really surprising. One aspect that is the most interesting to me
is the helmets most of the bugs in the colosseum wear.
The Hunter makes a remark about the masks Battle Obbles wear, asking if such an extravagance is
practical. Now there are a couple points to make here. If making these masks is such an
extravagance, then why the fuck are they all over the floors, walls and ceilings? That’s
like making a minecraft house out of diamonds, or a regular house out of copies of Minecraft.
So are these masks and helmets used for more than just mere combat. I’ve talked about masks
a lot on this channel. There are a few general points we can make about them.
Masks seem to somehow have an effect on a bug’s mind.
A prime example of this is Brumm, a servant of the Grimm Troupe. When you first talk to him,
Brumm is a brooding musician about 2 months away from joining an alternative celtic punk rock band.
However, after the Grimm Troupe is banished we can see that Brumm has a complete personality change.
His name changes to Nymm, his personality becomes much more upbeat, and he loses all
memories he has about his time in the Troupe. And most importantly, he is no longer sporting a mask.
This effect is alluded to by the Mask Maker who says that those who conceal their faces
lose their sense of self. I think it’s possible that the warriors of the Colosseum
are experiencing this as well. Now obviously these creatures are still infected.
If you Dream Nail the Battle Obble it will still give the dialogue bugs give that are infected,
but maybe the masks force these creatures to give fealty to the Colosseum
sort of like how Brumm and the other Grimm Troupe members are enslaved to the Nightmare Heart.
Otherwise I don’t know why the Hunter makes this oddly specific observation about this enemy’s
mask. It’s also entirely possible that Team Cherry just couldn’t think of anything else to put here.
I mean, if you read some of these journal entries, they are just kind of random. Like when he ponders
what Elder Baldurs think about when they curl up. Or how he admits to murdering all of his siblings.
Or the Oblobble entry where he just complains about being an incel.
So there is maybe an explanation for why the Fools act like they aren’t infected.
But what about the audience? Who are these people? Well, bugs that look like the audience in the
Colosseum appear in two separate places. Two of them appear in a hot spring in the Forgotten
Crossroads. They will just be talking amongst themselves, but if the Knight gets too close
they shut up and just awkwardly stare at it. If Dream Nailed, they mention the Colosseum directly,
implying that they are quite aware of it and are probably frequent visitors.
The other instance is a bit more vague. Corpses of what appear to be these bugs can be found in
the Howling Cliffs. Their head shape and body type look almost identical to the Colosseum bugs
so it’s likely that these are the same species. This bug’s dream nail dialogue refers to how
without the King’s powers, their minds have been vanquished. This ties to the lore tablet found
in this area, which tells us that if bugs leave Hallownest their minds will be lost.
So it seems these Colosseum bugs appear to need Hallownest’s power in order to have a mind,
since these ones on the edge of the kingdom have lost theirs.
So what does all this mean? Well, I’m not really sure it means much of anything for the Colosseum.
But it does tell us that these bugs are capable of avoiding the Radiance’s infection,
but not capable of keeping their minds when they leave Hallownest.
That seems odd considering how well known the Colosseum is outside of Hallownest. How do bugs
outside of the kingdom like Tiso even know about it? Who exactly is spreading this info around?
At this point I want to mention a theory that has been around for a while.
Basically the argument goes that this creature is actually a wyrm,
similar to the Pale King. And the Lord Fool is some kind of reincarnation of the Wyrm
similar to the Pale King. That would give us an explanation for who the Lord Fool actually
is as well as explain how there might be some sort of magic mumbo jumbo causing the bugs here to act
like they aren’t infected. I briefly mentioned the Wyrm corpse idea in the Wanderer’s Journal video:
Some people have been saying this corpse is the corpse of a Wyrm. But we don’t know
exactly what kind of creature this was. Maybe it was just a worm with an “O” instead of a “Y”.
Well that was insightful.This thing probably isn’t any kind of wyrm. You can see what appear
to be little claws that this bug might have used to move around with. As far as we know,
wyrms like the Pale King’s original form didn’t have limbs to speak of. Honestly, I’m not even
sure if they had eyes either. Or buttholes. Also, where is the egg the Lord Fool hatched out of?
Why didn’t he try and build his own kingdom or at least take over Hallownest?
So I’d say the chance of this thing being a wyrm is extremely low. Then again, the sample
size of Wyrms we have to compare this creature to is only one, so maybe there are different
variations of Wyrms out there in the world. However, Grimm refers to the Pale King as a worm
in the normal sense, so I really doubt wyrms would ever deviate this much from that formula.
So to recap, we’ve got a Colosseum that is operating entirely on its own despite both the
death of their apparent leader and the onset of an infection. The crowd is completely impervious
to the infection, both inside and outside the Colosseum. The bugs fighting inside the Colosseum
are infected, but do not show signs of aggression when outside the arena. At least some of these
bugs are wearing crafted extravagant masks that don’t seem entirely practical on the face of it,
but maybe have something to do with controlling them. But of course,
we are missing one important detail. The fact that all of this is happening within Hallownest.
The Colosseum was probably around during the days of Hallownest’s glory, judging by the language
used in the game manual. We also know that one of the previous champions of the Colosseum
was the Pale Lurker. Her dream nail dialogue shows how much she cared about the King, and she even
kept a King’s Idol in her camp. Of course, it’s possible that she just found the King’s
Idol and became obsessed with the King, without actually being part of his military force. But
all in all it seems like the Colosseum of Fools existed without any protest from the Pale King.
But there is one more aspect of the Colosseum we need to discuss, and that is this room right here.
This is the room where the Knight’s shade appears after the player is killed in the Colosseum.
The room itself is actually called the shade trap room in the game files. This raises a
pretty big question. Why did the bugs of the Colosseum find it necessary to create this room?
Did other void beings fight in this Colosseum? Pretty much all we can do at this point is
speculate. So let’s start with a pretty fun one. What if the Hollow Knight was trained here?
We know the Hollow Knight was trained to prime form. Maybe this happened in the Colosseum,
and a shade trap was built in case the Hollow Knight was defeated.
This might also be evidence that the Colosseum has been around way longer than even Hallownest.
It seems as though the Ancient Civilization was far more acquainted with void than the anyone
from Hallownest, considering they literally worshipped the void. And it seems possible
that this civilization was capable of giving void form. So this room might be a remnant clue
of just how old this place actually is, when maybe void creatures were more commonplace.
Another more interesting idea is that void beings are actually more common than we might think.
I’m about to jump into some Silksong spoilers here, so if you are worried about a few bosses
of the game getting spoiled, you should skip ahead in the video now. As far as we know,
void can only be found in the Abyss. But in Silksong,
we know of at least one character who might be a void entity, Steel Assassin Sharpe.
This character has an attack where his nose turns into a whip,
and it looks suspiciously like the void tendrils we see in the Abyss. We don’t know
where this void could have come from, but maybe it exists somewhere else in the world, and void
creatures would actually come to the Colosseum to fight. That’s a pretty out there idea, for sure,
but the inclusion of this shade trap might indicate void being more ubiquitous than it seems.
And that’s about all there is to talk about with the Colosseum. In terms of what mystery is still
hidden there, the only two theories I have are either how the bugs there used masks to control
the fighters, or that the Pale King might have used the Colosseum to train the Hollow Knight.
So thanks for watching and before you go, be sure to sign this petition to
canonize lobster.