[MOSSBAG] I am literally shaking and crying right now.
I can't believe MatPat has done this.
Is nothing in this world sacred anymore?
Is no work of art free from this man's grasp?
Oh god… I can't do this.
How could MatPat really say all those things about The Canterbury Tales?
What did Chaucer ever do to deserve this?
I mean, sure, that deathbed confession right at the end felt pretty contrived,
but The Wife of Bath's Tale has given us precious insight into the role of women
during the late middle ages.
He probably even thinks The Decameron is better written…
Pathetic.
Someone has to stand up against this monster.
Someone has to tear his fu--
oh shit…
he gave me a shout-out.
Um…
…
thanks!
So the Game Theorists have finally put out a Hollow Knight lore video,
and MatPat himself uttered my name with his own two lips.
The capitalization in the video is wrong: "MossBag" is supposed to be all lowercase.
I mean it's literally how I start every video… but that's okay.
I'm still cool with it.
Thanks to MatPat,
my original Hollow Knight lore video finally hit 1,000,000 views.
And more importantly, I gained over 1,000 new followers on Twitter
so now even more people can read my reviews of
each and every episode of King of the Hill.
It's also great to see a video about Hollow Knight trend on YouTube.
This community really has come a long way.
But, as cool as all that is,
MatPat's theory is… pretty bad.
Now, I may not have 11,000,000 subscribers like MatPat does,
and no, I've never given a copy of Undertale to the Pope,
but I did sent the Dalai Lama a copy of my Rick and Morty spec script,
and I am something of a theorist myself,
so I think I am qualified to make a response to this new video.
And no, this isn't some sort of take down video.
I'm already mortal enemies with VaatiVidya and Indeimaus.
I don't need a third YouTuber coming after me,
even if MatPat has defiled the sanctity of our fandom with his
completely terrible and
abhorrently offensive…
Fuck.
This isn't going well...
I should just restart the video.
Here's some context if you're just joining in:
The Hollow Knight community's reaction to this new video has been...
pretty negative.
Mainly because there are a lot of perceived flaws in the theory.
As a result, there are some people saying that the Hollow Knight fanbase is "toxic."
And yeah, maybe my initial reaction to MatPat's video could be perceived as...
... rude?
But you have to understand that being an asshole is just part of my online schtick.
It's a completely original and clever concept, I know.
But in general, I don't think this community is too toxic.
Some of us are just a little defensive about the lore, that's all.
But it is important to remember that, at the end of the day,
MatPat is just a guy who wanted to talk about Hollow Knight,
and I've got nothing against that.
It just gives me an excuse to talk about this game even more.
That being said,
I reckon it's time to get out the propane and propane accessories, boys and girls...
because we're about to burn this theory to the ground.
So if you haven't seen the Game Theorists' video yet, I recommend you check it out.
I'm going to go through all of MatPat's arguments
but I'm not going to play his whole video through,
so you'll have to watch it yourself if you want the full context.
Then, you can watch this video
and come to your own conclusion about Hollow Knight's lore.
The issue on debate here has to do with the nature of the Knight
and the whereabouts of the Pale King.
MatPat's theory is that the Knight is actually the Pale King, reincarnated.
[MATPAT] We are supposedly just another one of those failed experiments,
except... I don't think that's the case here.
If you stop and dig through the
massive amounts of secret lore hidden throughout this game,
it's my belief that we're not just some random nobody.
We are, in fact, royalty.
A king.
The King, in fact.
It's my belief that in Hollow Knight, we're playing as the Pale King himself.
[MOSSBAG] This isn't a new theory.
It's been around for a while,
but I've never really talked about it here on this channel.
There are several problems with this theory,
the biggest one being the lack of evidence.
A lot of the evidence that MatPat will present in this video
can be interpreted in ways that make much more sense
when put in a different context.
Second; there are pieces of evidence that contradict this theory.
You can poke a lot of small holes into MatPat's timeline here,
and a few bigger ones as well... with the biggest hole being that
you literally see the Knight with the Pale King, in the same room.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Let's start with MatPat's first argument:
The higher being tablets in the King's Pass, which all begin with the phrase,
"Higher beings, these words are for you alone."
These tablets are very mysterious,
and I don't think that there is really a consensus on what they mean.
One theory I see a lot is that these tablets were left here for the vessels,
as a way to teach them how to focus SOUL.
But then why did the Pale King leave a lore tablet like this in the Ancient Basin
or the Howling Cliffs?
They don't contain information that would be pertinent to them,
and some of these tablets seem to predate the creation of the vessels.
Another theory is that the tablets are addressed to the bugs
that were granted higher thought through the Pale King's beacon.
The problem with that theory is that the tablets teach you how to focus SOUL,
which doesn't seem to be a thing that regular bugs can do.
At least, not easily.
Personally I believe this explanation is the correct one,
but my thoughts on it are super speculative.
I've linked a document below if you want to check it out.
So yeah, these tablets are quite mysterious indeed.
But for MatPat's argument,
all that really matters is the fact that the Knight can read them,
even though they are stated as being intended for only higher beings.
MatPat explains that higher beings are godlike creatures,
mentioning the Reddit AMA post and the Kingsoul charm description.
I agree with Matt here.
He then mentions that pretty much only higher beings can manipulate SOUL.
[MATPAT] The tablet even says, quote:
"You shall achieve feats of which others can only dream."
Again, setting apart SOUL-users
like our Knight
from pretty much every other creature that we encounter throughout this game.
Now, MatPat does say "pretty much every other creature,"
so I can't say he's wrong,
but there are examples of creatures that can manipulate SOUL
that aren't higher beings.
Two examples of this would be the snail shamans
and the scholars of the Soul Sanctum.
The snail shaman gives the Knight the Vengeful Spirit [spell],
and another SOUL spell can be found near another shaman in the Overgrown Mound.
The higher being tablet in the King's Pass teaches the Knight how to focus SOUL.
We see the word "focus" again in the Ancestral Mound,
where there is a whispering root that gives the Dream Nail dialogue,
"…Spiral focus…"
I think this is referring to how the shaman can focus SOUL to cast spells,
just like the Knight.
The word "spiral" probably refers to the spiral of the snail shell
the shaman is wearing.
Now, the nature of the snail shamans is a little sketchy,
seemingly tied to the void somehow,
but I don't think they are higher beings.
However, the bugs of the Soul Sanctum are definitely not higher beings.
They were able to learn how to manipulate SOUL through diligent practice and study,
but as a result their minds have begun to swell and ache…
so it's not really an ideal situation.
(YOU DON'T SAY)
In the Soul Sanctum,
there's a lore tablet that also mentions their desire to attain a "pure focus,"
and while they may not have been totally successful,
these bugs have proven that they were capable of manipulating SOUL.
And the specific focus ability that the Knight learns from the lore tablet
is not specific to just this vessel.
During the Pure Vessel fight,
the Hollow Knight uses a move that's described in the game's code
as being a focus ability.
So this ability doesn't appear to separate the Knight from the other vessels.
But ultimately, I don't think this really hurts the point MatPat is trying to make:
that being that the Knight is a higher being.
[MATPAT] So not only are we reading tablets reserved for higher beings,
but we're also using skills reserved for the godlike creatures of the world
on par with the Pale King.
Does it really sound like we'd just be some failed experiment
cast into the depths of this world?
[MOSSBAG] I think it's possible that the Knight is a higher being in some regard,
but that doesn't mean the Knight has to be a reincarnation of the Pale King.
The Knight, the Hollow Knight, and the other vessels
are the offspring of the Pale King and the White Lady.
There's a lot of evidence for this.
There's the White Lady, who literally calls the Knight her "spawn;"
the line "Born of God and Void," from the birthplace cutscene,
alludes to the vessels being born from the White Lady and the Pale King,
but then being corrupted by the Void;
and there's the fact that the Pale King and the White Lady had a quote-unquote…
"Union."
[♪ 'Let's Get It On' by Marvin Gaye ♪]
I don't think MatPat is arguing against this point,
but calling the Knight a "failed experiment"
could lead people to believe that the vessels
really aren't the Pale King's biological children.
Granted, Grimm does call the Knight a "craft,"
but this is possibly just referring to how the vessels are a combination
of the spawn of higher beings
mixed with the influence of Void.
Another big piece of evidence for this is the fact that
the achievement you get for defeating the Hollow Knight
with Hornet by your side is called "Sealed Siblings."
This confirms that the Knight and Hornet are siblings,
and we know that Hornet is the daughter of the Pale King
since the White Lady mentions that the Pale King had sex with Hera the Beast.
[♪ 'Let's Get It On" by Marvin Gaye ♪]
Not only does this strengthen the argument
that the vessels were the literal children of the Pale King,
but it also pretty much confirms that the Knight specifically
is a child of the Pale King.
Which, by the way, debunks MatPat's whole theory.
… So I guess we could end the video now.
[♪ 'Obstacle Course' Yoshi's Island SSBU Ver. ♪]
As I was saying,
being the literal children of two higher beings would suggest
that the Knight and all the other vessels are also higher beings as well.
This is hinted at for the Hollow Knight at least
in the hunters journal entry for the Pure Vessel,
which mentions that it has a "holy shell."
So I don't think this attribute separates the Knight as being unique
compared to the other vessels.
This is an argument you're going to hear me use a lot in this video.
A lot of the connections MatPat makes between the Knight and the Pale King
can be explained by remembering that the Knight is the Pale King's child.
The reason we should interpret it this way
is because the game explicitly tells us that the Knight is the Pale King's child,
while there really isn't anything telling us that they're the same person.
After this argument, MatPat brings up the very beginning of the game:
The "Elegy For Hallownest."
MatPat first mentions that the poem itself isn't about Hallownest
but is instead about the Pale King.
[MATPAT] You don't know it when you start the game,
but this poem is about the Pale King.
[MOSSBAG] So this poem is called "Elegy For Hallownest"
but the poem itself seems to be addressed to a person,
so it's not a stretch to think that the poem is
actually talking about the Pale King.
Hallownest is the Pale King's kingdom,
and everything that Hallownest offered to travellers was because of the Pale King.
The two are so closely entwined that the poem is pretty much saying the same thing
regardless of if its addressed to the personified version of Hallownest
or to the Pale King himself.
MatPat then goes into what the poem means when it says that the Pale King
"tamed savage souls and redeemed base instincts."
[MATPAT] In the beginning of the game's lore,
all bugs were basically a hivemind controlled by the moth god, Radiance.
The Pale King was the one who expanded the minds of bugs,
giving them individuality and sapience,
showing them, as the poem says,
"a world that they had never dreamed."
[MOSSBAG] There really isn't any evidence that the Radiance's control was widespread
before the Pale King's arrival.
I'm not saying it's impossible,
but another possibility is that the bugs didn't have individuality or sapience
because they were living in a wasteland
similar to what we see outside of Hallownest.
Those bugs don't have minds, as it would be a weakness out in the wild,
but when the Pale King showed up, he established a kingdom
and expanded the minds of these bugs.
He also drew the attention of the moth tribe,
who were at the time worshipping the Radiance
but ended up yeeting her out of their memory,
causing her to be sealed away.
The infection and the hivemind might have been the result
of the Radiance's imprisonment.
As the Moss Prophet explains, "To stifle that light is to suppress nature.
Nature suppressed distorts, plagues us."
This implies that the infection is a byproduct
of the Radiance being sealed away.
This makes more sense to me than the Radiance already having bugs
enslaved in a hivemind, and then the Pale King just strolled in and saved them.
I mean if you look at what is happening in this animation…
it doesn't really make sense, does it?
If the Pale King can just cure infection like this,
then what's the point of all the stuff that happens later with the vessels?
[MATPAT] It's important to note, too, that this isn't just a poem about the Pale King
but it's directed to the Pale King.
"Your name."
"You the challenge met."
And then what do we see appear on screen just moments later?
Our Knight.
It would be one thing if the poem was just about the Pale King,
but the fact that it's directed at him
just seconds before we actually see our character
makes it seem like the designers
are drawing a parallel between this king of legend
and our first appearance on screen.
We are the "you" in that poem.
[MOSSBAG] … Except there's a whole other cutscene in between this poem
and when we see the Knight.
By this logic, this means that the Hollow Knight is the Pale King.
I mean technically we do see Zote moments after this poem.
A few thousand moments, maybe… but the principle still applies.
But even if the intro cutscene with the Knight appeared right after the poem,
I still wouldn't find it very compelling.
I mean, we are entering Hallownest,
and the poem is talking about Hallownest
or at least the person who built it,
so why does the Knight have to be factored into this at all?
Let's move on to Elderbug.
There are a lot of places you can look to find information about the Pale King…
The Elderbug is not one of them.
As you'll see, I don't think MatPat's interpretations of Elderbug's dialogue
makes any sense.
MatPat argues that Elderbug's dialogue about dreams
hints at the Knight being the Pale King.
[MATPAT] The usage of the word "dreams" is important,
since at the beginning of the game, not knowing the lore of this world,
we all assume it's just our knight pursuing the dream of wealth or fame,
just like the Elderbug says.
But late in the game we get ourselves an item called the Dream Nail,
which is how we unlock memories of the past,
and ultimately defeat the Radiance inside the mind of Hollow Knight.
It's also the tool that allows us to find the Pale King's White Palace.
It is a place that is literally hidden in dreams.
So like Elderbug says, we are seeking our dreams
in perhaps a very literal sense,
which is especially true if we are playing as the Pale King.
[MOSSBAG] The Knight goes to a lot of different places in the dream world,
so I don't know what makes the White Palace so special.
This interpretation also ignores the rest of the Elderbug's dialogue.
Elderbug goes on to warn about the infection below, and finishes by saying,
"Perhaps dreams aren't such great things after all."
This dialogue makes sense if we link it back to the Radiance.
The Radiance's infection begins by plaguing the dreams of a bug
until their will becomes enslaved.
In fact, the achievement unlocked for beating the Radiance is called
"Dream No More."
So I think this line makes much more sense if we interpret it as being
a warning about the Radiance.
If we interpret those extra lines using MatPat's reading,
then the Elderbug is telling us not to go to the White Palace, I guess?
Now, it's worth noting that the Elderbug mentions dreams again,
when you dream nail him after giving him the Delicate Flower,
remarking, "Perhaps dreams aren't such bad things after all…"
I think this just shows how the Knight has restored hope in Elderbug,
similar to how it restores hope for Hallownest…
or something like that.
MatPat's next point has to do with the Elderbug's dialogue
if you initially ignore him at the start of the game,
and then come back.
He'll mention that he thought he saw a ghost.
[MATPAT] If we are indeed the Pale King returning to a land that we once abandoned
we would indeed be a ghost from the past.
It's another potentially really clever play on words that I appreciated.
Am I reading too much into this?
Maybe, but again this is clearly a team who has themselves a literary flair,
and who like to make you really think about the words that they're using.
[MOSSBAG] So MatPat's reading too much into this.
Now, to be fair, the word "ghost" might actually be hinting at
the Knight's true nature.
The word ghost is only used nine other times in the game,
all of which are from Hornet when talking to the Knight.
Hornet calls the Knight a "ghost" because it is the dead shell
of a child of the Pale King and White Lady
that has been hollowed out and animated by Void.
So maybe Elderbug's dialogue is alluding to that,
but I still think this is just a common expression the Elderbug is using.
The next part of MatPat's video has to do with how the Knight is recognized
by a few different people as being related to the King.
First up is the White Lady:
[MATPAT] During one of your interactions with the White Lady,
AKA the Queen,
she outright says to the Knight,
"Is it more than just a vessel?
I feel like once again I am in the presence of my beloved Wyrm."
Wyrm being another name for the Pale King.
[MOSSBAG] This dialogue only appears within a certain context
that MatPat fails to mention.
This dialogue is triggered after the Knight collects the Kingsoul charm.
This charm is described as symbolizing a union between two higher beings,
and pieces of this charm can be found in the possession of both the White Lady
and the Pale King's corpse.
So part of this charm literally came from the Pale King,
which means it's no surprise that the White Lady thinks of him
when the Knight has it, and only when the Knight has it.
Also, when talking to the White Lady with the Grimmchild charm fully upgraded,
she says this:
"Success then for the scarlet heart, and irony to use my spawn to grow its own."
She literally calls the Knight her "spawn"
so I don't think the Knight is supposed to be her husband.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm into some kinky shit,
but even I think that's too much, man.
[MATPAT] And she's not the only one who gets
kingly vibes from the Player Character.
The White Defender,
one of the Pale King's five main knights,
also has interesting dialogue. Quote:
"Your noble bearing reminds me of our dear King."
So that's two of the King's closest relations
being reminded of their dearly departed when they interact with us.
[MOSSBAG] You don't need to have the Kingsoul to fight the White Defender,
but notice how toned down this line is from what the White Lady said.
The White Defender says the Knight reminds him of the Pale King, which makes sense,
considering the fact that the Knight is the child of the Pale King.
Matt then mentions the royal retainers, and how they bow to the Knight.
[MATPAT] Ten out of ten royal retainers can't be wrong:
you are royalty, plain and simple.
[MOSSBAG] Now some people in the comments section
were arguing that they only bow if the Knight has the King's Brand,
but that's not true.
They bow regardless.
This is an argument I've seen a lot from the people who disagree with MatPat:
That most of the characters being reminded of the Pale King
when looking at the Knight
can be explained via the King's Brand.
But you can reach the White Defender
and the White Palace
without the King's Brand.
To my knowledge, the only character
confirmed to explicitly mistake the Knight
for the Pale King due to the King's Brand
is Eternal Emelitia.
But it doesn't really matter that the Knight doesn't have the King's Brand,
because you can still argue that the royal retainers are bowing
because the Knight is related to the Pale King.
There are statues of the Hollow Knight in the White Palace, after all.
Which could mean that they revered the vessels as well as the Pale King,
but there are a lot of questions surrounding the royal retainers.
If you dream nail them,
they appear to be talking to the Pale King.
They mention things like, "… We will wait… King…"
and, "…King… Your troubles… Let us…"
Another detail worth mentioning is that the royal retainers explode into essence
when they are killed,
leaving no corpse behind.
So what should we make of this?
It seems to me like these bugs are unaware
that the Pale King is dead,
and are awaiting him to take some sort of action,
but are worried about his state of mind.
The dream nail dialogue doesn't imply that they recognize the Knight as the Pale King
who has finally returned,
but again there's something weird going on with these guys.
They seem to be living in the past,
and are not really in a lucid state of mind.
So yeah, I think there's a lot of mystery surrounding these guys,
but to sum this section up:
I still agree with MatPat's point here,
that being that the Knight is royalty.
But again, that doesn't help prove this reincarnation theory,
because we know that the Knight is royalty
through it being the Pale King's child.
MatPat then goes into a discussion
about how the Pale King went from his first Wyrm form
into his second bug form.
This occurred at Kingdom's Edge,
where the Wyrm's corpse can still be found.
A fat-ass caterpillar named Bardoon explains that when Wyrms die,
they don't just die
but actually transform into something else.
[MATPAT] So Bardoon knows the Pale King spawned out of the Wyrm,
he clearly says that the kingdom is his doing,
but this line of "more transformation"
seems to imply that the Pale King's death
would only lead to yet another form.
Do we think that Team Cherry put this line in here for no reason?
I THINK NOT.
[MOSSBAG] Bardoon isn't saying "more transformation"
as in there'll be another transformation.
He's saying that death, for a Wyrm,
is more like a transformation.
Now is there anything in the game that says the Pale King can or cannot
transform a second time?
… Well, no.
But we don't really have any proof that the Pale King did transform
into a third form.
Let's look at the egg that the Pale King
hatched out of from the Wyrm.
Page 111 of the Wanderer's Journal discusses this transition:
"What happened to the Wyrm from there is a mystery;
"it doesn't appear to have died there,
"so perhaps it shed its gargantuan form
"and became something entirely different.
"Deep within the maw of the carcass,
a pale, broken egg of some sort hints at such a rebirth."
This implies that the Pale King hatched out of the egg
inside the cast-off shell of the Wyrm.
So how exactly does the Pale King's third form materialize?
We find his corpse on the throne,
but we can't go inside of him to check if there's another egg in there somewhere.
There's the egg on the right hand side of the room,
but that doesn't really seem like something a creature would hatch from.
It was probably even made before the Pale King's second form died,
since it appears to be written from his perspective.
But MatPat has his own theory about all this,
so let's table this discussion for now.
After talking about how the Pale King might have a third form,
MatPat begins to explain what Void is,
where it's found, and how it works.
He draws our attention to the lore tablet found in the Pale King's workshop.
This tablet explains that the Void is opposed to the Pale King,
but that Void contains a power to deny time itself.
[MATPAT] This quote is interesting.
Based on the clues in that workroom,
as well as the game's bestiary,
we know that the Pale King was using void to create soldiers:
the Kingsmoulds and Wingmoulds that populate his White Palace.
We also know that he was using Void to create
the vessels intended to trap the infection.
Vessels like the Hollow Knight,
which would also include our character.
But this quote is referencing him using the Void for yet another purpose.
A third purpose;
not fighting the Radiance;
not protecting his castle;
but instead fighting time itself.
He wants to use the Void to achieve eternal life.
For himself?
For his kingdom?
It's unclear,
but it once again gives credence to the idea that,
in his next life,
he would choose to rebirth himself as a Void-based creature.
One not bound by the restrictions of time.
One just like our Knight.
[MOSSBAG] I kind of agree with a little bit of this…
but not really.
I think the purpose of "denying time" refers to the Radiance,
who the Pale King is trying to stop
in order to keep his kingdom lasting eternally.
There are several bits of dialogue to look over here.
Both Hornet and the Hive Queen Vespa refer to Hallownest as being in "perpetuation."
Or, in other words, "frozen in time."
Monomon calls Hallownest "a world forever unchanging."
Both Hornet and the Mask Maker mention that the kingdom is in stasis.
And then we have the dialogue directly connecting all this to the Hollow Knight.
The monuments to the Hollow Knight and the Dreamers
mention that through their actions
Hallownest lasts eternal.
The lore tablet in the White Palace throne room reads,
"Eternity in promise and charge in progeny cursed."
This line is likely referring to how the Pale King
planned to keep his kingdom lasting eternally
by somehow cursing his descendants.
And that's exactly what he did:
the Hollow Knight is described by Hornet
as being "our birth-cursed sibling,"
and Hornet has dream nail dialogue during the Greenpath fight that reads,
"Only pity for your cursed kind."
All of this is done to hold back the Radiance.
The Radiance is alluded to as being a force of nature by Bardoon,
the Moss Prophet,
and Hive Queen Vespa.
The Radiance is the inevitable dawn
that will eventually break over the horizon.
Now dev notes aren't necessarily canon,
but there are also dev notes explaining that the kingdom is in stasis,
and that the events of Hollow Knight take place over one long night.
So to recap:
the "deny time" line from the tablet in the Pale King's workshop
is probably referring to how the Pale King planned to create a Vessel
that could be used to deny the arrival of the Radiance,
placing all of Hallownest in some kind of stasis.
Nothing implies that the Pale King was doing this to himself.
I would argue that Void could never give the Pale King eternal life;
the Void is the power opposed,
so it would probably kill him if he tried to fuse with it.
After all, we know that the vessels were killed by the Void,
since the White Lady mentions that the Knight died
in the birthplace where it was born.
[MATPAT] Making this connection even more interesting
are the eggs.
Just outside the Pale King's throne room
is a lore tablet housed inside of a black egg.
A tablet that speaks of the ancient Wyrm
becoming the Pale King.
It seems to suggest that this egg here is where version 1.0 of the Pale King
hatched into its upgraded form… as it were.
And now look at the birthplace of our Knight down in the Abyss:
a similar black egg.
Could it be where version 2.0 transformed yet again?
[MOSSBAG] I don't believe the phrase "The Wyrm becomes beacon"
is talking about the Pale King's transformation.
I think this sentence is about how the Pale King expanded the minds of bugs.
Basically, the Pale King was able to grant bugs sapience through his beacon,
but we don't really have a lot of information on this.
If I had to guess, I'd say it might be some sort of metaphysical power.
The word beacon is used only one other time in the whole game,
and it's by the Godseeker.
She says, "Even long departed,
"we feel the afterglow of the God-power that sat this throne…
"It lays heavy upon this kingdom.
"That lingering power alone was beacon enough to draw Us to Hallownest.
How bright it must have been to mortal bug stood before it."
So the afterglow of the Pale King's God-power
acted as a beacon for the Godseekers.
Is this the same concept as the beacon mentioned in the lore tablet?
MatPat appears to think "beacon"
is another name for the Pale King's smaller form,
which I guess is possible,
but it's kind of a weird name.
When I see this,
I don't really think of this.
I'm a little confused by MatPat's next point.
Like I said earlier,
there's evidence to suggest that the egg the Pale King was hatched from
is found in the cast-off shell
in Kingdom's Edge.
Here, MatPat is arguing that the egg in the throne room
is what the Pale King hatched from.
What's confusing to me is that
earlier in the video, it's implied that the cast-off shell egg
was what the Pale King hatched from.
[MATPAT] It is clearly established in the lore
that the King has the ability to transform.
In fact, the Pale King form is actually his version 2.0.
[MOSSBAG] I don't know if there was some miscommunication
between MatPat and one of his editors,
or if there was a script change or something,
but I figured I'd point this out because…
It's…
weird.
The video gets it right initially,
but then contradicts itself a few minutes later.
So it seems unlikely that the Pale King was hatched
from the egg in the throne room,
so what exactly is going on with this egg?
Honestly, I don't know.
There are a few other eggs in the game
that appear to store information similar to this one.
The egg-looking things found in the King's Pass,
Ancient Basin, and Black Egg are all lore tablets.
We also know that the arcane eggs were used to store information somehow.
Is this egg similar to those eggs in its creation and design?
On the other hand,
the floor here is similar to the floor found in the Black Egg
so maybe it's related to that.
Regardless,
it seems pretty unlikely that the Pale King was born from this egg,
given that the Wanderer's Journal does everything short of flat-out
saying he hatched from the egg in the cast-off shell.
Finally, MatPat questions whether or not the Pale King's third form was born out of
this egg in the Abyss;
the one our Knight was presumably born from.
This is where things go really off the rails.
Remember how I mentioned before that the Knight
and the Pale King show up in the same room at one point?
Well that happens in a cutscene that can be triggered
after the Knight strikes its own reflection on this egg
with the Dream Nail.
In this sequence,
the Knight climbs to the top of the Abyss.
When they get there,
they see the Pale King leaving
alongside a younger version of the Hollow Knight
that looks back before the Knight plunges back into the darkness.
After this cutscene
the Kingsoul charm turns into the Void Heart,
a charm required to unlock the four alternate endings to the game.
This cutscene is arguably one of the most important moments in the game,
showing the Pale King at one of his lowest points
choosing to sacrifice his children to the Void
in order to create a pure vessel.
There's a lot of dialogue and symbolism surrounding this event,
and none of it hints at the Pale King becoming the Knight.
Let's look at the Kingsoul again.
This charm symbolizes the union between two higher beings.
In other words,
this charm represents the children of the Pale King.
When talking to the White Lady with this charm,
she will tell the Knight to visit that place where it was born,
where it died,
where it all began.
She's referring to an area in the Abyss
described as a birthplace by the Kingsoul charm.
In this location,
the Knight finds its birthplace:
an egg, connected to Void tendrils.
After experiencing the birthplace cutscene,
the Kingsoul turns into the Void Heart.
This is symbolic of the children of the Pale King and White Lady
becoming corrupted by the Void itself.
That's what the Pale King means when he says
"…Soul of Wyrm. Soul of Root. Heart of Void…"
The Knight acquiring the Void Heart
symbolizes how it has come to terms with its past.
In fact, the achievement you get after this cutscene
strongly implies it's a scene from the past.
The Void achievement reads,
"Remember the past and unite the Abyss."
The White Lady also remarks on this, saying,
"Truly, it has been transformed by the revelations it found."
In summary,
this scene is showing a memory from the Knight
when it was discarded into the Abyss
by the Pale King.
So in other words,
it's completely impossible
for the Pale King to hatch out of this egg
if what we see here is a memory.
And like the achievement said,
the cutscene allows the Knight to remember its past.
Now, MatPat didn't mention this cutscene at all in his video;
however, he did leave a pinned comment addressing the issue.
He says that he cut the part talking about this scene from the video for both time
and because it was "too complicated for the tone he was looking for in the video."
For his first point,
videos on YouTube can be much longer than 20 minutes
so that's no excuse, in my opinion.
I get that The Game Theorists is a big channel with employees;
schedules;
semi-annual office blood rituals;
overhead;
low toner;
shit that I mostly don't have to worry about.
But if your format is forcing you to cut
crucial information out of your videos,
which are trying to provide persuasive arguments,
then you need to do some retooling.
As for his second point, I agree.
It does complicate things,
especially considering it debunks his entire video if he can't counter it.
But it's not that big of a deal
since MatPat tackled the counterargument
in this pinned comment.
So let's see what he's got.
First he says that the Pale King is "transparent" in this scene,
which might hint at him not really being there.
I have no idea what MatPat is talking about here.
The Pale King does have a glow around him in this scene,
but the Pale King has been described as being a light
or giving off a light by Seer,
the Archive tablets,
the Throne Room tablets,
the Last Stag,
and Eternal Emelitia.
So the transparency argument is debunked by…
having eyes.
Then MatPat says that because the birthplace cutscene is a dream sequence,
technically anything is possible.
Which…
…um…
[JUSTIN] I give it to you, you got me there.
[MOSSBAG] I mean, sure,
anything is possible.
Hell, maybe Ronald McDonald was there too,
but the Knight suppressed that memory
so much that we just can't see him.
There are a lot of different ways to interpret something,
but the best interpretations
are the ones that line up with what we know
about the rest of the game's lore.
If we just assume that this is the Knight remembering its own past,
like the achievement message strongly implies,
then there aren't really any problems with this cutscene.
But if we think the Pale King later turns into the Knight,
then this whole scene becomes a complete mess.
This is the moment the Knight has a huge revelation about its true nature.
How exactly is this scene revealing to the Knight
that it is the Pale King?
You'd think that this moment would at least hint at it,
and not completely contradict it.
Why does this scene exist at all?
What's the point of it?
The weight of this entire scene is neutered by MatPat's theory.
It no longer becomes an emotional moment
showing how the Knight was discarded
just like the other thousands of vessels,
but instead this scene becomes an eyesore;
a loose end to a theory that sounds cool on the surface,
but doesn't resonate with what we see in the game.
But I've been talking for way too long.
Let's get back to MatPat.
He then mentions how the nursery song in the White Palace
is the same song we hear when the Knight is next to its shade.
He then mentions the journal entry for the shade.
[MATPAT] The description of these shadows reads,
"Echo of a previous life.
"Each of us leaves an imprint of something when we die.
A stain on the world."
So the sound that accompanies our Knight's past life
coincides with the same sound
from a nursery housed inside the Pale King's palace?
The existence of a connection between our Knight and the Pale King
seems undeniable.
[MOSSBAG] I think there's a much better interpretation for this.
After the Pale King chose the Hollow Knight as the Vessel,
the Hollow Knight likely lived in the White Palace.
We even see that this is the case in the Path of Pain cutscene.
So chances are the Hollow Knight was kept in this crib.
The Hollow Knight is, of course, similar to the Knight
in that it is a child of the Pale King and the White Lady,
and it also has a shade similar to the Knight.
Connecting this nursery song to the Pale King
to say he became a Void creature
is a much bigger leap.
And it also has another problem that I will get into shortly.
But first,
let me play another section of MatPat's video.
[MATPAT] It's almost as if the King laid the groundwork
for him to be reborn as Void,
died,
was hatched of Void from the black egg in the Abyss,
was taken back to the Palace to be raised
and was eventually sent away from the kingdom
to avoid succumbing to the infection,
only to be called back when he was older
and when the Hollow Knight started losing control.
[MOSSBAG] Okay,
let's take this piece by piece.
First, MatPat says that the King "laid the groundwork
for him to be reborn as Void."
There is no evidence for this.
I'm guessing MatPat is basing this off of
the "deny time" section of the workshop tablet,
but again I don't think the tablet is referring
to the Pale King's desire to become a Void creature, at all.
Next, he says that the Pale King died.
[♪ 'For The Damaged Coda' by Blonde Redhead ♪]
(RIP glowing fork man)
Damn.
I actually completely agree with MatPat on this one.
This calls for a celebration.
[♪ 'Celebration' by Kool & The Gang ♪]
He then says the Pale King was
"hatched of Void from the black egg in the Abyss."
I don't think that is the case.
We see that the first transformation of the Pale King
was from an egg inside the Wyrm corpse,
but for his second transformation
he somehow died in the White Palace
and turned into an egg larger than his own body,
and then the egg was somehow transported to the Abyss
despite the fact that the gateway to the Abyss was sealed.
Now, in his pinned comment
MatPat pointed out an issue that I think is valid.
He asked how exactly were the vessels even able
to escape the Abyss in the first place.
This has been a pretty big question in the lore for a while now.
In a Reddit AMA,
Team Cherry mentioned that they weren't sure how it happened.
So yeah, they're pretty much useless as usual.
This issue can kinda counter my argument here;
if there are multiple entrances to the Abyss
then of course they could get the egg back down there.
I still don't buy that explanation
but I do have a theory about how the vessels escaped.
In the bottom right corner of Deepnest,
there's an area that has clearly been influenced by the Void
and not far from there
we can see that several vessels have been captured by Nosk in its lair.
So there might be some hidden passage
between the Abyss and Deepnest
that the vessels were able to navigate through.
Next
MatPat says that the Pale King was
"taken back to the White Palace to be raised."
So who exactly raised the Pale King?
Was it the White Lady then?
That's likely her silhouette on the chair, right?
Does this mean the White Lady is in on the plan too?
Because if that's the case,
I have a few issues.
First of all,
why doesn't she recognize the Pale King immediately if she literally raised him?
Why does she call the Knight her spawn?
But my bigger issue here
is what the White Lady says when the Knight first meets her.
She says,
"One arrives.
"Far it walks to find me.
"Did it seek my aid?
"Or did the path carry it by chance to so pertinent a place?
"It is true.
"True, that you were awaited.
"No. Perhaps that is inaccurate.
True one like you was awaited."
Pay attention to how she talks.
The White Lady is indeed waiting for a vessel to come find her,
but not any one vessel in particular.
She says "one like you was awaited."
She is looking for any vessel,
not a specific one.
If she was in on the Pale King's plan,
then why wouldn't she be looking for him specifically?
And if she isn't in on the plan,
what's the deal with her silhouette on the chair?
MatPat finishes by saying that the Pale King was sent away
to avoid succumbing to the infection,
and then was brought back when he was older.
I don't really have any issues with this section
but I do have a broader issue with the theory that I'd like to talk about.
According to the Hollow Knight game manual
the Pale King went into hiding as his kingdom fell to ruin.
Relic Seeker Lemm mentions that the Pale King's palace
disappeared without any sign of struggle,
and in the Wanderer's Journal
Ellina mentions that it appears as though the Pale King took the White Palace
and his court with him when he fled.
So if MatPat's theory is true,
then how does this information fit with the lore?
Is the game manual just completely wrong,
and what's the deal with the White Palace disappearing?
If the Pale King didn't use it to hide in,
then why is it even in the dream world?
How exactly did the Pale King get out of the White Palace
if it had a seal on it?
MatPat doesn't really address any of this,
even though it's probably the most relevant pieces of information related
to what actually happened to the Pale King
after the Hollow Knight was sealed.
Moving on,
MatPat explains how the line
"No cost too great"
that the Pale King says when you dream nail him
could be referring to how he sacrificed himself to become the Knight
and take on the infection himself.
The line is also used at the beginning of the birthplace memory,
so the first time the Pale King says it,
it's definitely referring to the creation of the vessels.
But I'm not against the phrase being recontextualized to mean something else,
I just don't think there's enough evidence to really prove that.
MatPat then gives more evidence for why the Knight being a reincarnated Pale King
makes sense.
[MATPAT] The Knight being a reincarnated Pale King
would explain how a nameless, faceless knight
is so easily able to accept the King's Brand item
which outright marks him as a king.
[MOSSBAG] I don't think that's the case.
The King's Brand is guarded by Hornet,
which makes me think that getting the brand itself isn't hard,
but Hornet doesn't want others getting to it
unless they can prove their strength like the Knight did.
We also have Hornet saying this
when she hints for the player to go to the Kingdom's Edge:
"Seek the Grave in Ash
and the mark it would grant one like you."
"One like you" implies that vessels in general
are able to receive the mark,
and that makes sense.
Midwife also calls the King's Brand
a "bright mark of relationship,"
which I interpret as saying that the mark's bearer
is a relation to the Pale King.
On top of that,
the vessels are the children of the Pale King
so, since he's dead,
any one of them should be able to become the next king.
Also MatPat keeps referring to the Knight and the Hollow Knight using male pronouns
but in game they are never given genders.
In fact, Hornet is called "the gendered child"
just to signify how the rest of the Pale King's children lack genders.
I assume MatPat is just using male pronouns for convenience,
but that's no excuse to misgender these poor bugs.
They have it hard enough.
[MATPAT] It would explain how,
just like the Pale King snapped the bugs out of their collective stupor
during his lifetime,
our Knight, as you go through the game,
is doing exactly the same thing;
waking up bugs from the infection
and getting them to return to a life in Dirtmouth.
[MOSSBAG] To be fair,
the Knight only saves two bugs from the infection:
Sly and Bretta,
and these two are very rare exceptions.
The Knight isn't able to cure any of the other infected bugs we see.
You'd think that would be easier than fighting them off.
And of course we can't forget
if the Knight really can snap bugs out of the infection so easily,
why can't we save Myla?
Did we really fail her that much?
She really deserved better.
[♪ 'For The Damaged Coda' ♪]
(POV: You discover that mossbag can read your mind--)
On top of that,
the Pale King couldn't snap bugs out of the infection either.
That was the whole point of the Vessel,
it was the only way the Pale King could deal with the infection.
[MATPAT] It would explain how only you and the Pale King
are seen to use the Monarch Wings item.
[MOSSBAG] That's true,
but the Monarch Wings could probably be worn by any vessel
as long as they had a cape for the Monarch Flies to morph into.
[MATPAT] And if all of that wasn't enough to convince you,
in cut dialogue that was datamined from the game,
if you dream nail the final boss,
the Hollow Knight himself,
it will say this:
"…Father?…"
Doesn't get much more explicit than that.
[MOSSBAG] Okay, so first of all,
this is cut dialogue so it really should be taken with a grain of salt.
Now I am guilty of doing this a lot myself
and it's a bad habit that I do need to break.
Second,
just because the Hollow Knight is thinking about its father,
that doesn't mean it thinks that the Knight is its father.
Love for its father would probably be the only thought the Hollow Knight could have,
so it would probably think that even if the Knight wasn't there.
Look at the jellyfish in the Fog Canyon,
or the flukes in the Royal Waterways.
They think about Monomon and the Flukemarm respectively,
without being in the same room as them.
The rest of the video is just recapping the theory,
with one additional section discussing why the Pale King left Hallownest.
[MATPAT] He studies the Void
so that he's eventually able to be reborn with its power,
hatching down in the Abyss,
getting cared for in the safety of the White Palace,
and then being released out into the lands beyond Dirtmouth,
a place where canonically bugs lose all of their memories.
This self-exile for a period of years is probably for two reasons;
One, his own protection from the Radiance;
and two, losing his memory helps make him purely hollow.
No memory,
no desire,
no past life.
He's now an empty vessel
so that should it come down to it
he can now be the one to take on the Hollow Knight's place.
[MOSSBAG] I don't really have any problems with this section
that I haven't brought up already,
other than that it begs the question of
how exactly the Void Heart fits into all this.
Hornet mentions multiple times that the Knight needs to pursue the deeper truth,
and learn of the tragedy of its own conception.
She then commends the Knight on accepting the Void inside itself.
There's nothing about coming to terms with
being the next reincarnation of the Pale King.
Why is such an important part of the story
completely glossed over for a different theme
about the Knight coming to terms with the Void inside itself?
And that's really my biggest problem with this theory:
it just doesn't congeal with the lore you see in the game.
Sure,
you could argue that the Elderbug refers to the Knight as a ghost
because the Knight is literally the Pale King returning to Hallownest
after years of self-exile.
You could argue that the Pale King was planning
to turn himself into a Void Creature in an attempt to deny time and live forever.
And you could probably even find a way to interpret the birthplace cutscene
so that it doesn't debunk the entire theory.
(lol)
But do all of these things really feel like what the game is saying?
Or do they feel like someone is looking too hard to justify their own theory
despite what evidence,
or lack thereof,
they find in the game.
Now I'd like to reiterate:
my intention with this video isn't to attack MatPat.
Remember that pinned comment I mentioned earlier?
Well, since I first wrote this script,
MatPat has replaced that comment with another one
providing a detailed critique of his arguments
originally written by Sumwan.
If you don't know who Sumwan is,
she's done a lot for this community
helping update the Wiki to include detailed and sourced lore sections,
and she's also helped me with my videos
by proofreading my scripts,
so she definitely has a strong understanding of the lore.
(Sumwan has big chad energy, ngl.)
Seeing MatPat display her detailed rebuttal in a pinned comment
is really cool,
and it shows that MatPat is open to criticism about his theories.
So yeah, those are just a few of the thoughts I had on MatPat's video.
If you're a fan of MatPat,
and didn't really know the lore of Hollow Knight going into this video,
then hopefully you can see why our community got a little upset.
This theory really is beyond saving.
Even the Pope couldn't resurrect it.
...
That's what the Pope does,
right?
If you're a fan of me,
or just Hollow Knight in general,
then hopefully you can see that MatPat isn't trying to disrespect this game
or mislead people.
He's been very receptive to the criticism
and you can tell this video clearly has a lot of love put into it.
I mean, fuck,
I wish my videos looked half as good as this.
I just now figured out how to use overlays in Sony Vegas.
Look at this:
… Pretty cool, huh?
If you're not a fan of me,
or Hollow Knight,
or MatPat…
Then what the fuck are you doing here?
Why'd you just watch this whole fucking video???
All in all, no harm no foul,
and I'm sure that the animation
showing that Hornet was made of Void was just an accident.
Otherwise I take everything back.
So in conclusion,
I guess this is a really roundabout way of saying this,
but I suppose the whole point I'm trying to make here
is that VaatiVidya and Indeimaus are a couple of
bitch
ass
mother
FUCKERS--