WEBVTT 00:00:11.440 --> 00:00:16.960 Wow, look at all this Hollow Knight content I  have left to talk about! It really is beautiful, 00:00:16.960 --> 00:00:22.160 isn’t it? Silksong could be delayed until  December and I’d still have plenty to discuss. 00:00:22.880 --> 00:00:27.440 But until then let’s talk about one of the  more mysterious aspects of Hollow Knight lore, 00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:33.520 the Colosseum of Fools. The Colosseum is such a  weird part of the game, and honestly I still don’t 00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:38.400 understand this place much at all. I mean, why  would people willingly get together in a crowded 00:00:38.400 --> 00:00:45.280 area in the midst of a dangerous pandemic? Come  on, Team Cherry, no one would actually do that. 00:00:45.280 --> 00:00:49.920 Overall, the Colosseum is one of the few big  mysteries left in Hollow Knight, alongside things 00:00:49.920 --> 00:00:56.400 like the Vitruvian Grub, and the Trilobite Shrine  in Deepnest, oh and the Mask Maker’s eyes, and the 00:00:56.400 --> 00:01:02.240 Lifeblood creature, and the Shade Lord, and this  random corpse in the Queen’s Garden. Also what the 00:01:02.240 --> 00:01:07.200 fuck happened to Isma? Like seriously what the  fuck!? Since the Colosseum is so cryptic, a few 00:01:07.200 --> 00:01:11.600 theories have popped up trying to explain it. So  it might be good to have a video that just lays it 00:01:11.600 --> 00:01:15.600 all out, even if there isn’t any strong conclusion  we can make about this part of the lore. 00:01:16.240 --> 00:01:20.560 The Colosseum of Fools was originally a  Kickstarter stretch goal, which promised 4 00:01:20.560 --> 00:01:25.760 new bosses and a chance to uncover the mystery of  the Colosseum. And while the stretch goal wasn’t 00:01:25.760 --> 00:01:31.600 actually reached, Team Cherry added the area into  the game right at the end of development. The four 00:01:31.600 --> 00:01:36.960 bosses were originally Zote, the Oblobbles,  and two of the regular fool enemies we fight 00:01:36.960 --> 00:01:42.400 multiple times. Of course, there is also the God  Tamer who appears at the end of the third trial. 00:01:42.960 --> 00:01:47.600 But she was actually just a Kickstarter  backer boss that was placed in the Colosseum. 00:01:47.600 --> 00:01:51.600 The original boss design was the Lobster  Lancer, but I guess Team Cherry didn’t 00:01:51.600 --> 00:01:58.480 want to canonize lobsters. I have no idea why.  They’ll canonize jellyfish and goddamn pickles, 00:01:58.480 --> 00:02:02.320 but not these majestic bottom  feeders. Honestly, it makes me sick. 00:02:03.120 --> 00:02:07.280 From an early map of Hallownest made during  development, we can see that the Colosseum 00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:11.200 of Fools was originally placed in  the Fungal Wastes near the Mantis 00:02:11.200 --> 00:02:16.240 Village. Of course in the final game, the  Colosseum is located in the Kingdom’s Edge, 00:02:16.240 --> 00:02:21.200 a more late game area. Kingdom’s Edge  was thrown into the game as sort of a 00:02:21.200 --> 00:02:26.240 hodgepodge of stuff they couldn’t fit into  the map already. For example, the Hive was 00:02:26.240 --> 00:02:30.720 originally going to be in Deepnest but ended up  getting moved over to the Kingdom’s Edge as well. 00:02:31.360 --> 00:02:35.680 We also might have a glimpse of some of the  earliest sketches for the Colosseum as well. 00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:40.640 In an interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Ari  Gibson shared a small collection of images from 00:02:40.640 --> 00:02:46.080 his sketchbooks that he used to draw concept art  for Hollow Knight. In a GameInformer interview, 00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:51.200 the author claims that this place was actually  an early concept for the Colosseum. It looks like 00:02:51.200 --> 00:02:56.560 the audience was originally going to be composed  of much larger creatures. But keep in mind a lot 00:02:56.560 --> 00:03:00.960 of these sketches contain some really weird shit  that doesn’t appear anywhere in the final game. 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:05.760 The Colosseum of Fools that we see in the game  now didn’t seem to take shape until late in the 00:03:05.760 --> 00:03:11.360 game’s development. But that doesn’t mean there  isn’t any lore to be found here. In a Reddit AMA, 00:03:11.360 --> 00:03:14.560 Ari mentioned that the Colosseum  does hide a secret of some kind. 00:03:15.200 --> 00:03:19.280 And there really is a lot to discuss here  so let’s start with the colosseum itself. 00:03:19.280 --> 00:03:23.440 The Colosseum of Fools is situated  inside the corpse of some ancient bug. 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:27.760 Both the interior and exterior of  the colosseum are laden with chains. 00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:33.200 This might be a way to keep the husk of the  bug from collapsing in on itself, as well as 00:03:33.200 --> 00:03:38.240 to support the structure surrounding it. Also  as a way to imprison bugs like the Little Fool. 00:03:38.800 --> 00:03:42.880 So it seems like this was just some random corpse  that ended up being turned into a battleground. 00:03:43.440 --> 00:03:48.880 But a battleground for whom exactly? Who exactly  are these fools, and why is it that they are 00:03:48.880 --> 00:03:54.240 murdering each other for the entertainment of  others? The Hunter asks this very same question. 00:03:54.240 --> 00:03:59.040 “What do they hope for, these warriors  fighting in the Colosseum? Are they slaves, 00:03:59.040 --> 00:04:02.080 or prisoners, or do they freely choose to fight?”. 00:04:02.720 --> 00:04:06.480 The game gives us a pretty clear  reason why bugs fight in the Colosseum, 00:04:07.040 --> 00:04:12.720 simply just to fight in the colosseum. They want  glory and the chance to show off their strength. 00:04:12.720 --> 00:04:16.320 That’s why we see characters like Tiso,  who do seem to be solely interested in 00:04:16.320 --> 00:04:19.200 fighting in the colosseum just for the sake of it. 00:04:19.200 --> 00:04:23.920 But this is where things get weird. All of the  enemies you fight in the Colosseum are infected. 00:04:24.560 --> 00:04:28.720 But in the Warrior’s Pit below, they  are all just kind of chilling there, 00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:33.840 not trying to murder us. One of them is  even enjoying a lovely soak in a hot spring, 00:04:33.840 --> 00:04:37.680 while also still wearing all of his  armor for some reason. If dreamnailed, 00:04:37.680 --> 00:04:41.840 one bug goes all Shakespearean on  us and asks “Are we all Fools?”. 00:04:42.960 --> 00:04:46.160 So what is it about these warriors  that gives them autonomy while 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:51.360 in the Warrior’s Pit? There are the traitor  mantises who took the infection in willingly, 00:04:51.360 --> 00:04:54.800 and it would make sense for the Fools  to embrace the infection as well, 00:04:54.800 --> 00:04:59.840 as it would give them more strength, but the  mantises also went mad from the infection. 00:04:59.840 --> 00:05:04.560 At least that’s what the Hunter’s Journal says.  In the Queen’s Garden we can see that they set up 00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:09.360 campsites, which I assume must take at least  some kind of self restraint and cognisense. 00:05:09.360 --> 00:05:15.040 Also Traitor Mantises show up at the Colosseum.  So did these maddened mantises walk all the way 00:05:15.040 --> 00:05:19.200 from the Queen’s Garden to the far end of the  kingdom or were they captured and brought here? 00:05:19.760 --> 00:05:23.920 The exact details of the infection have  always been pretty fast and loose. For 00:05:23.920 --> 00:05:29.120 example why exactly do characters like Cornifer  and Cloth not fall to the infection? Are their 00:05:29.120 --> 00:05:33.680 wills that strong? Cloth’s will never  seemed too impressive to me. Although 00:05:33.680 --> 00:05:38.480 the last time I said this people started  bitching at me. Goddamn simps. Yeah it was 00:05:38.480 --> 00:05:42.640 really impressive when she fucking died  to the Traitor Lord. The Traitor Lord. 00:05:43.280 --> 00:05:48.000 Why is it that we can literally just talk to  Bretta and Sly to snap them out of their trances, 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:54.960 but Myla is a completely lost cause? As for Zote,  well, there actually is a reason he never fell to 00:05:54.960 --> 00:06:01.520 the infection. In Precept 56, he clearly states  that to avoid having his dreams influence him, 00:06:01.520 --> 00:06:06.320 he simply doesn’t dream. So at least  there is kind of a reason for that. 00:06:06.320 --> 00:06:10.720 I’d like to speculate at least a little bit about  how these bugs might be able to withstand the 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:14.880 infection, but first we’re going to have to talk  about the people who gentrified this giant husk 00:06:14.880 --> 00:06:20.880 in the first place. The main culprit behind all  this appears to be the Lord Fool. Unfortunately, 00:06:20.880 --> 00:06:25.840 we aren’t going to be getting much out of him, he  doesn’t seem like the talkative sort if I’m being 00:06:25.840 --> 00:06:30.560 honest. Despite that, however, the Colosseum  is still running as if nothing is wrong. 00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:34.480 Of course there is the Little Fool,  who takes payments and explains the 00:06:34.480 --> 00:06:38.960 rules to anyone interested in fighting. And  there are still crowds of people watching, 00:06:38.960 --> 00:06:43.760 but obviously there is work happening behind  the scenes as well. There are people capturing 00:06:43.760 --> 00:06:49.440 and breeding the Sharp Baulders and Armoured  Squit. I can’t imagine that being very fun. 00:06:49.440 --> 00:06:54.000 I don’t even want to think about the  implications of bugs forcing other bugs to breed. 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:58.720 There also had to be people to capture Zote, as  well as throw dead bodies out of the colosseum 00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:04.000 and into the wasteland of Kingdom’s Edge. All of  this is continuing to happen while the Lord Fool 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:08.880 sits dead on the throne. It’s not exactly uncommon  for communities to continue functioning without 00:07:08.880 --> 00:07:14.080 their leader, so that’s not really surprising.  One aspect that is the most interesting to me 00:07:14.080 --> 00:07:16.640 is the helmets most of the  bugs in the colosseum wear. 00:07:17.200 --> 00:07:22.640 The Hunter makes a remark about the masks Battle  Obbles wear, asking if such an extravagance is 00:07:22.640 --> 00:07:28.240 practical. Now there are a couple points to  make here. If making these masks is such an 00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:33.600 extravagance, then why the fuck are they all  over the floors, walls and ceilings? That’s 00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:39.120 like making a minecraft house out of diamonds,  or a regular house out of copies of Minecraft. 00:07:39.840 --> 00:07:45.200 So are these masks and helmets used for more  than just mere combat. I’ve talked about masks 00:07:45.200 --> 00:07:48.960 a lot on this channel. There are a few  general points we can make about them. 00:07:49.760 --> 00:07:52.960 Masks seem to somehow have  an effect on a bug’s mind. 00:07:53.600 --> 00:07:59.680 A prime example of this is Brumm, a servant of  the Grimm Troupe. When you first talk to him, 00:07:59.680 --> 00:08:05.040 Brumm is a brooding musician about 2 months away  from joining an alternative celtic punk rock band. 00:08:05.680 --> 00:08:11.120 However, after the Grimm Troupe is banished we can  see that Brumm has a complete personality change. 00:08:11.760 --> 00:08:16.480 His name changes to Nymm, his personality  becomes much more upbeat, and he loses all 00:08:16.480 --> 00:08:22.400 memories he has about his time in the Troupe. And  most importantly, he is no longer sporting a mask. 00:08:23.280 --> 00:08:28.080 This effect is alluded to by the Mask Maker  who says that those who conceal their faces 00:08:28.080 --> 00:08:32.800 lose their sense of self. I think it’s  possible that the warriors of the Colosseum 00:08:32.800 --> 00:08:38.240 are experiencing this as well. Now obviously  these creatures are still infected. 00:08:38.240 --> 00:08:43.360 If you Dream Nail the Battle Obble it will still  give the dialogue bugs give that are infected, 00:08:44.240 --> 00:08:48.080 but maybe the masks force these  creatures to give fealty to the Colosseum 00:08:48.800 --> 00:08:52.800 sort of like how Brumm and the other Grimm Troupe  members are enslaved to the Nightmare Heart. 00:08:53.600 --> 00:08:58.480 Otherwise I don’t know why the Hunter makes this  oddly specific observation about this enemy’s 00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:04.480 mask. It’s also entirely possible that Team Cherry  just couldn’t think of anything else to put here. 00:09:05.040 --> 00:09:11.680 I mean, if you read some of these journal entries,  they are just kind of random. Like when he ponders 00:09:11.680 --> 00:09:17.280 what Elder Baldurs think about when they curl up.  Or how he admits to murdering all of his siblings. 00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:22.080 Or the Oblobble entry where he just  complains about being an incel. 00:09:22.080 --> 00:09:25.840 So there is maybe an explanation for why  the Fools act like they aren’t infected. 00:09:26.400 --> 00:09:32.320 But what about the audience? Who are these people?  Well, bugs that look like the audience in the 00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:37.200 Colosseum appear in two separate places. Two  of them appear in a hot spring in the Forgotten 00:09:37.200 --> 00:09:42.560 Crossroads. They will just be talking amongst  themselves, but if the Knight gets too close 00:09:42.560 --> 00:09:48.320 they shut up and just awkwardly stare at it. If  Dream Nailed, they mention the Colosseum directly, 00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:52.240 implying that they are quite aware of  it and are probably frequent visitors. 00:09:53.120 --> 00:09:58.720 The other instance is a bit more vague. Corpses  of what appear to be these bugs can be found in 00:09:58.720 --> 00:10:05.120 the Howling Cliffs. Their head shape and body  type look almost identical to the Colosseum bugs 00:10:05.120 --> 00:10:10.240 so it’s likely that these are the same species.  This bug’s dream nail dialogue refers to how 00:10:10.240 --> 00:10:15.680 without the King’s powers, their minds have been  vanquished. This ties to the lore tablet found 00:10:15.680 --> 00:10:20.320 in this area, which tells us that if bugs  leave Hallownest their minds will be lost. 00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:25.920 So it seems these Colosseum bugs appear to need  Hallownest’s power in order to have a mind, 00:10:25.920 --> 00:10:28.560 since these ones on the edge of  the kingdom have lost theirs. 00:10:29.440 --> 00:10:35.280 So what does all this mean? Well, I’m not really  sure it means much of anything for the Colosseum. 00:10:35.280 --> 00:10:39.520 But it does tell us that these bugs are  capable of avoiding the Radiance’s infection, 00:10:39.520 --> 00:10:42.720 but not capable of keeping their  minds when they leave Hallownest. 00:10:43.360 --> 00:10:48.720 That seems odd considering how well known the  Colosseum is outside of Hallownest. How do bugs 00:10:48.720 --> 00:10:53.760 outside of the kingdom like Tiso even know about  it? Who exactly is spreading this info around? 00:10:54.400 --> 00:10:57.200 At this point I want to mention a  theory that has been around for a while. 00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:01.520 Basically the argument goes that  this creature is actually a wyrm, 00:11:01.520 --> 00:11:06.640 similar to the Pale King. And the Lord Fool  is some kind of reincarnation of the Wyrm 00:11:06.640 --> 00:11:11.120 similar to the Pale King. That would give us  an explanation for who the Lord Fool actually 00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:17.040 is as well as explain how there might be some sort  of magic mumbo jumbo causing the bugs here to act 00:11:17.040 --> 00:11:22.720 like they aren’t infected. I briefly mentioned the  Wyrm corpse idea in the Wanderer’s Journal video: 00:11:23.360 --> 00:11:27.280 Some people have been saying this corpse  is the corpse of a Wyrm. But we don’t know 00:11:27.280 --> 00:11:34.354 exactly what kind of creature this was. Maybe  it was just a worm with an “O” instead of a “Y”. 00:11:35.760 --> 00:11:41.200 Well that was insightful.This thing probably  isn’t any kind of wyrm. You can see what appear 00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:45.840 to be little claws that this bug might have  used to move around with. As far as we know, 00:11:45.840 --> 00:11:50.960 wyrms like the Pale King’s original form didn’t  have limbs to speak of. Honestly, I’m not even 00:11:50.960 --> 00:11:57.200 sure if they had eyes either. Or buttholes. Also,  where is the egg the Lord Fool hatched out of? 00:11:57.840 --> 00:12:01.520 Why didn’t he try and build his own  kingdom or at least take over Hallownest? 00:12:02.240 --> 00:12:07.520 So I’d say the chance of this thing being a  wyrm is extremely low. Then again, the sample 00:12:07.520 --> 00:12:12.880 size of Wyrms we have to compare this creature  to is only one, so maybe there are different 00:12:12.880 --> 00:12:18.320 variations of Wyrms out there in the world.  However, Grimm refers to the Pale King as a worm 00:12:18.320 --> 00:12:23.840 in the normal sense, so I really doubt wyrms  would ever deviate this much from that formula. 00:12:25.040 --> 00:12:30.560 So to recap, we’ve got a Colosseum that is  operating entirely on its own despite both the 00:12:30.560 --> 00:12:36.160 death of their apparent leader and the onset of  an infection. The crowd is completely impervious 00:12:36.160 --> 00:12:42.080 to the infection, both inside and outside the  Colosseum. The bugs fighting inside the Colosseum 00:12:42.080 --> 00:12:47.600 are infected, but do not show signs of aggression  when outside the arena. At least some of these 00:12:47.600 --> 00:12:53.120 bugs are wearing crafted extravagant masks that  don’t seem entirely practical on the face of it, 00:12:53.120 --> 00:12:56.720 but maybe have something to do with  controlling them. But of course, 00:12:56.720 --> 00:13:01.840 we are missing one important detail. The fact  that all of this is happening within Hallownest. 00:13:02.400 --> 00:13:07.840 The Colosseum was probably around during the days  of Hallownest’s glory, judging by the language 00:13:07.840 --> 00:13:12.960 used in the game manual. We also know that  one of the previous champions of the Colosseum 00:13:12.960 --> 00:13:18.640 was the Pale Lurker. Her dream nail dialogue shows  how much she cared about the King, and she even 00:13:18.640 --> 00:13:23.600 kept a King’s Idol in her camp. Of course,  it’s possible that she just found the King’s 00:13:23.600 --> 00:13:29.600 Idol and became obsessed with the King, without  actually being part of his military force. But 00:13:29.600 --> 00:13:35.120 all in all it seems like the Colosseum of Fools  existed without any protest from the Pale King. 00:13:35.120 --> 00:13:40.400 But there is one more aspect of the Colosseum we  need to discuss, and that is this room right here. 00:13:41.520 --> 00:13:45.520 This is the room where the Knight’s shade appears  after the player is killed in the Colosseum. 00:13:46.160 --> 00:13:51.600 The room itself is actually called the shade  trap room in the game files. This raises a 00:13:51.600 --> 00:13:56.720 pretty big question. Why did the bugs of the  Colosseum find it necessary to create this room? 00:13:57.360 --> 00:14:02.240 Did other void beings fight in this Colosseum?  Pretty much all we can do at this point is 00:14:02.240 --> 00:14:07.760 speculate. So let’s start with a pretty fun  one. What if the Hollow Knight was trained here? 00:14:08.640 --> 00:14:13.840 We know the Hollow Knight was trained to prime  form. Maybe this happened in the Colosseum, 00:14:13.840 --> 00:14:17.040 and a shade trap was built in case  the Hollow Knight was defeated. 00:14:17.680 --> 00:14:22.240 This might also be evidence that the Colosseum  has been around way longer than even Hallownest. 00:14:23.120 --> 00:14:27.760 It seems as though the Ancient Civilization was  far more acquainted with void than the anyone 00:14:27.760 --> 00:14:32.640 from Hallownest, considering they literally  worshipped the void. And it seems possible 00:14:32.640 --> 00:14:38.160 that this civilization was capable of giving  void form. So this room might be a remnant clue 00:14:38.160 --> 00:14:43.120 of just how old this place actually is, when  maybe void creatures were more commonplace. 00:14:43.840 --> 00:14:48.320 Another more interesting idea is that void beings  are actually more common than we might think. 00:14:49.200 --> 00:14:54.160 I’m about to jump into some Silksong spoilers  here, so if you are worried about a few bosses 00:14:54.160 --> 00:14:59.040 of the game getting spoiled, you should skip  ahead in the video now. As far as we know, 00:14:59.040 --> 00:15:02.560 void can only be found in  the Abyss. But in Silksong, 00:15:02.560 --> 00:15:07.440 we know of at least one character who might  be a void entity, Steel Assassin Sharpe. 00:15:08.240 --> 00:15:11.600 This character has an attack  where his nose turns into a whip, 00:15:11.600 --> 00:15:16.000 and it looks suspiciously like the void  tendrils we see in the Abyss. We don’t know 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:21.440 where this void could have come from, but maybe  it exists somewhere else in the world, and void 00:15:21.440 --> 00:15:26.240 creatures would actually come to the Colosseum to  fight. That’s a pretty out there idea, for sure, 00:15:26.240 --> 00:15:31.760 but the inclusion of this shade trap might  indicate void being more ubiquitous than it seems. 00:15:32.640 --> 00:15:37.520 And that’s about all there is to talk about with  the Colosseum. In terms of what mystery is still 00:15:37.520 --> 00:15:42.320 hidden there, the only two theories I have are  either how the bugs there used masks to control 00:15:42.320 --> 00:15:46.800 the fighters, or that the Pale King might have  used the Colosseum to train the Hollow Knight. 00:15:47.520 --> 00:15:52.433 So thanks for watching and before you go, be  sure to sign this petition to 00:15:52.433 --> 00:15:53.533 canonize lobster.