If we want to understand Mister Mushroom, then the obvious place to start is with Schrödinger’s
Equation.
One of the most prevailing theories in the realm of quantum mechanics is the many world
interpretation first postulated by Hugh Everett III.
The seeming collapse of the wavefunction of a photon first demonstrated by the now infamous
double slit experiment is no longer an issue, because the superposition is extended beyond
the particle to include the measuring device and the human observer.
Team Cherry are clearly fans of Everett’s work, as Mister Mushroom is definite proof
of the many worlds interpretation being true in the world of Hollow Knight.
Now video games having multiple or parallel universes is not a unique concept.
Dark Souls I uses it as a clever excuse to allow for a canonical explanation for PvP.
Dark Souls III uses it as a lazy excuse to reuse characters for the sake of fanservice.
Undertale uses it as well, but I’m not touching that game with a ten foot pole.
But Mister Mushroom is a bit more unique.
Just to catch anyone up who doesn’t know, Mister Mushroom is this weird NPC that shows
up in various places throughout Hallownest.
His location is hinted at by this strange lore tablet located in the Kingdom’s Edge.
The tablet begins by saying “We speak the path of the Master Herald, he who would signal
an Age's end.”
Mister Mushroom will only appear after the Knight has destroyed the three Dreamers.
So the ending age in this instance would appear to be the end of the stasis over Hallownest.
After interacting with Mister Mushroom with the Spore Shroom charm equipped in every location,
he will literally rocket into the sky like how I assume Elon Musk gets around.
He then appears after the game’s credits as the words “To Be Continued” are thrown
on the screen in giant letters like this is a fucking JoJo reference.
[Funny Meme Music]
Now the fact that “To Be Continued” only shows up with Mister Mushroom implies that
he is connected to a future game from Team Cherry.
And as we start to analyze his dialogue, we’ll see that this makes like 40% sense, which
is pretty good for Hollow Knight lore.
So basically you can encounter Mister Mushroom a total of seven times in game.
Each time, he is basically ignoring us and appears to be talking to somebody else.
Now, mushrooms in Hollow Knight exhibit a shared mind, meaning they can talk to each
other in a manner similar to telepathy.
So it makes sense that Mister Mushroom could be talking to somebody else.
Once we meet Mister Mushroom for the final time, he finally does talk to the Knight,
giving a flowery speech about journeys and destinations and all that garbage.
But what is more interesting here is how he has conversations with creatures we cannot
see.
Who exactly is Mister Mushroom talking to?
Well, I would say we know with a good deal of certainty what at least two of these conversations
are actually about.
Let’s start with the first conversation.
Mister Mushroom mentions that the person he is talking to was able to save their friend,
and also mentions that this person isn’t hungry anymore.
This is a pretty obvious reference to Hungry Knight, the first game ever made by Team Cherry.
Hungry Knight was made during Ludum Dare 27, a popular game jam event.
William Pellen and Ari Gibson used this game jam as a way to practice working together
on games, and Hungry Knight was the result.
In this game, you play as the Hungry Knight, who has to eat cherries to stay alive so they
can bring their friend back from the dead by collecting masks.
But apparently, this character we see in Hungry Knight is somehow talking to Mister Mushroom
from Hollow Knight, which in turn, would mean that the Knight and the Hungry Knight are
in the same multiverse.
Now before you shit my pants and try to tell me that this completely breaks the entire
lore of Hollow Knight, let me point out that Team Cherry does this type of stuff in other
parts of the game as well.
Let’s take a look at the Shrine of Believers.
In the Spirit’s Glade, the Knight is able to access a hidden area, full of strange tablets.
The text on these tablets are actually messages from Kickstarter backers, who backed Hollow
Knight in 2014.
Some of these are pretty interesting, like the references to Dark Souls, because you
guys remember Dark Souls, right?
This one is a stolen quote from H.P.
Lovecraft.
This one just says “The Collective lives on.”
This one talks about a guy named Baron Robert Apples who was the first of his kind to enslave
a Gantrus.
What the fuck is a Gantrus?
Let’s see here.
Uhh…
Umm….
I’m just gonna…
Anyway, this area is guarded by this solitary moth spirit who explains that these utterings
are from a group of people united in a mysterious cause who exist in another world.
This implies that the Hollow Knight kickstarter and our very reality are actually a part of
Hollow Knight canon.
This means that technically King of the Hill and Hollow Knight are in the same universe.
So basically what I am saying is, expect a Bobby Hill lore video very soon.
Getting back to Mister Mushroom, we have a pretty good idea about what his third conversation
is referring to.
He is talking about how the dead have no use for wealth and how this person is providing
for a big brood.
This is a clear reference to the other game Team Cherry created before working on Hollow
Knight: Tomb Cat.
This was a game where you raid pyramids for money so that you could take care of your
young.
These two references are the most obvious.
In fact, in his final encounter, Mister Mushroom hints at these games again.
He says:
And if those stops can't be lovely things, wouldn't you say?
Transcendent plateaus, distant sandy lands, vast ancient kingdoms.
Yours was not the first, nor will it be the last, but it's a unique and special thing
nonetheless.
Transcendent plains, distant sandy lands, and vast ancient kingdoms seem to relate to
Hungry Knight, Tomb Cat and Hollow Knight respectively.
This dialogue also reinforces the idea that Mister Mushroom is some kind of traveler,
moving through the lands created by Team Cherry.
But of course, this is where our tracks stop cold.
Mister Mushroom still has five more dialogue entries we need to analyze.
And I’m sure you’re a super busy person with very little free time to waste, so let
me just say that we are about to enter pure speculation territory.
I have spent the last three years of my life thinking about this shit, but at the end of
the day, this dialogue is just too open ended to really nail down.
Now there are other games that have been produced by William Pellen and Ari Gibson separately.
Through his job at an animation company, Ari Gibson worked on classics like de Blob, Megamind:
Mega Team Unite, de Blob 2 and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender.
Now it’s been a while since I’ve watched Shyamalan’s breathtaking film, but I think
there is something to do with Sokka’s girlfriend becoming the spirit of the moon because the
previous spirit of the moon was killed when the fire nation attacked.
And in conversation six, Mister Mushroom says to trust the moon.
So maybe he is talking to Sokka?
“It’s a giant mushroom.”
Megamind is all about how our perceptions of heroes and villians often lack nuance,
and tend to change over time.
This theme lines up pretty nicely with conversation four.
As for William, he worked on several video games by himself in his free time.
The two most popular games like this are Return to Booty Grotto and Lulanda.
Unfortunately, neither one of these games seem to be related to Mister Mushroom at all.
But of course, William has come up with several games that we only know a little bit about.
When he was a kid, William would make game manuals for his own game ideas.
What if Mister Mushroom is actually talking to characters from these games William designed
back in the 90s like Castlemania III or Shadowmaster: Quest of the Past.
In fact, William actually designed a board game called The Egyptian Game.
In this game, you had to find a sphinx's nose while avoiding evil Mummies and…
Sonic?
Now this is clearly just a Chutes and Ladders rip off.
But this game is all about finding a nose, and in conversation two, Mister Mushroom mentions
“if you have a keen nose, use it”.
This is an oddly specific reference.
Also he says to beware of those who are hunting you.
ie the mother fucking mummies and the mother fucking Sonic.
So in this instance, Mister Mushroom would be talking to whoever played this board game
that William made when he was a child, which makes a lot of sense if…
if you… think…
Okay this might be a dead end.
Let’s rethink this.
We have five conversations left to figure out, but they don’t seem to be referencing
any games William and Ari worked on separately.
Perhaps these are references to games that Team Cherry didn’t actually work on.
But how would we ever figure out which games these would be?
I mean, just think about how many games exist today.
There must be at least 30.
Well, it would make the most sense to look at games that we know Team Cherry took inspiration
from when making Hollow Knight.
This includes Zelda II, the Adventure of Link, Faxanadu, Paper Mario, Pikmin, Mega Man X,
Super Metroid, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, and Ori and the Will of the Wisp, er…wait.
If we dig through these games hard enough, maybe we can see some connection between them
and Mister Mushroom’s dialogue.
As it turns out, conversation six actually kinda lines up with the story of Castlevania:
Aria of Sorrow.
We, of course have the moon, where Dracula’s castle was sealed away in 1999, as well as
the double crossing Graham who actually is only interested in becoming the reincarnated
Dracula which he thinks is possible because he was born the same day Dracula was destroyed
and that…
I’m sorry, what was that?
You have no idea what the fuck I’m talking about?
Well… maybe you need a little context.
The lore of Castlevania begins in the year 1094.
Leon Belmont is a hero of knighthood, but one day his fiance Sara was kidnapped.
Leon learns from his bedridden friend Mathias Cronqvist, that his love has been stolen by
a malicious vampire going by the terrifying name, Walter.
Unfortunately, by the time Leon finds his beloved, Sara has already been tainted by
the vampire, so she sacrificed her soul to enchant Leon’s whip, turning it into the
Vampire Killer.
So Leon kills Walter, but it turns out this whole thing was orchestrated by Mathias, who
then becomes a vampire himself and flees into the country, becoming known as Dracula.
In retaliation, Leon Belmont swears that the Belmont family will hunt down vampires for
as long as the game franchise is profitable.
And so Dracula keeps trying to wipe out humanity as the Belmonts keep bitch slapping his ass
back into his coffin for another prolonged hibernation.
It isn’t until 1999 that the epic Demon Castle Wars take place and it is believed
that Dracula is finally destroyed once and for all.
His giant castle is sealed away inside the darkness of an eclipse and the Catholic church
tries to erase all memory of Dracula or the Belmont family.
This brings us to 2035, when the events of Aria of Sorrow finally take place.
Two childhood friends, Soma Cruz and Mina Hakuba are going to the Hakuba Shrine to witness
the first solar eclipse of the century.
But they end up actually traveling into the eclipse and arriving at Dracula’s castle.
Soma learns that he has the power to control monsters, and starts on a quest to escape
Dracula’s castle and learn a little bit about himself along the way.
To do so he leaves Mina behind in a protective barrier created by Genya Arikado, who is actually
Dracula’s son Alucard in disguise.
You see back in the 15th century Dracula fucked doctor but then she… you know what, nevermind.
It’s a whole thing.
Anyway, Soma meets a cast of colorful characters who also happen to be running around Dracula’s
castle, such as Genya, Yoko Belnades, Hammer, and Julius Belmont.
But there is one character, Graham Jones, who believes he is destined to become the
next Dracula.
He doesn’t mention this when Soma first meets him, and Yoko even warns Soma to be
weary of Graham.
So yeah, a lot of this tracks to what Mister Mushroom actually says.
Mentioning that the person left a girl somewhere, telling them to trust in something, but not
a certain man, mentioning the moon.
Not sure why you would trust the moon, but you know what let’s just ignore that.
So that just leaves us with four more conversations to figure out.
As for conversation two, the comment about not relying on your eyes and using your nose
might be a reference to Pikmin, because Captain Olimar’s eyes are never fucking open and
he’s got a giant ass schnauzer.
And there are numerous natural predators to the pikmin.
Such as the Bulborb, the Waterwraith, the Smoky Progg, the Scuttlebug, Celine Dion,
the Albino Bulborb, the Puffstool, the Fiery Young Yellow Wollywag, and of course, the
Bike Bulborb.
As for conversation five, it mentions coming back up because things down below are dangerous,
and that they could come back up and wander around aimlessly.
Now this sounds like the general experience people have while playing a Metroidvania,
so I could see this being a cheeky reference to Metroid or Super Metroid, since those games
start from the top and then go downward.
Also, maybe I’m just stupid but it’s really easy to get lost in these games.
Conversation four uses both the words “hero” and “time”, so let’s just say that’s
a reference to Zelda.
That just leaves one final conversation from Mister Mushroom.
“It’s not by tools that you’ll triumph, it’s through your smarts, your speed, your
determination...”.
Now this is so nondescript and vague that this could be talking about anything, Paper
Mario, Mega Man X, or maybe even one of these weeb shit games.
So to recap, these are the characters Mister Mushroom might be talking to.
But to be honest, this whole thing seems a bit weird.
Would Team Cherry really try and shove their own character into the lore of other games?
Like, is that even allowed?
It’s one thing when Dead Cells includes a picture of the Knight in their game, but
to have your character actually talk to characters from another universe?
What if JK Rowling decided to tweet that Harry Potter did blow with Patrick Star?
You know what?
Fuck the entire notion of fiction.
From now on I’m sticking to real stuff like true crime podcasts and professional wrestling.
But of course, there is one other explanation for Mister Mushroom’s additional lines of
dialogue.
Perhaps Mister Mushroom is reaching forward through time to talk to characters from games
Team Cherry hasn’t even made yet.
So in this case, it would literally be impossible to know what Mister Mushroom is talking about,
because these games don’t exist yet.
Of course there is Silksong, which could theoretically line up with either conversation five or seven
since they reference things like hunting, gathering and tools.
Aside from that, we are aware of one other game Team Cherry might be working on.
Another Hollow Knight YouTuber known as Relyea made a video discussing the discovery of a
trademark filed by Team Cherry for the phrase “Fearless Fox”.
And after doing a bit of sleuthing myself, I discovered that foxes actually have noses.
So this could be a reference to conversation two.
But that’s where our leads drop dead.
Maybe Team Cherry will go back and make “Castlemania III”, or “War of S.P.O.R.E.
II” or maybe they’ll finally make “Ultra Dangerous Guys 64”.
So I guess I’ll have to make a follow up video to this in 30 years once Team Cherry
has made two or three more games.
And so this video comes to an end.
Mister Mushroom is definitely supposed to be some kind of Easter Egg character that
makes references to other video games, and in doing so, proves that Hollow Knight is
a part of some kind of multiverse.
And who knows, maybe the Knight will be able to travel to different parts of the multiverse.
Maybe it will make a cameo in Fearless Fox, or some other Team Cherry game.
Maybe it will even help the Avenger’s by climbing inside Thanos’ asshole.