I recently posted a poll here on YouTube asking whether or not Hornet was made of Void.
And 60% of you said “yes”.
So today, I am going to explain why 60% of you are completely fucking wrong.
Now, I don’t blame anybody for thinking this.
In fact, in my Zote video, I flat out said that Hornet was made of Void.
Let this be a reminder that any Hollow Knight lore video you watch on YouTube is probably
going to have missing evidence or a few flawed conclusions.
This shit can get fucking confusing.
So please don’t take anything I say as gospel.
That being said, Hornet is 100%, definitely, irrefutably not made of Void.
This issue has caused so much debate that it’s starting to turn into a meme.
So just call me “Pewdiepie” because it’s time for this meme to die.
Let’s start off with the most obvious observation that might lead one to think that Hornet is
made of Void.
She’s black.
“THAT’S RACIST!”
But this doesn’t actually prove much of anything.
Several characters in Hallownest have black portions of their bodies, so to just say that
they are all made of Void might be a bit drastic.
We need more concrete proof.
Another characteristic worth pointing out is that Hornet’s shell does not have a mouth.
This is a feature she shares with the Vessels, beings we know are composed of Void.
But while their shells do share this design, it isn’t because of a relation to the Void,
but a relation to the Pale King, who is also lacking a mouth.
Hornet, the Knight, the Hollow Knight and the Vessels are all children of the Pale King.
Yeah, this guy fucks.
But there’s a lot to unpack here, so I’m just going to start off by explaining why
Hornet is the Pale King’s biological daughter.
In Deepnest, Hornet tells us that Herrah is her mother.
She says:
“We do not choose our mothers, or the circumstance into which we are born.
Despite all the ills of this world, I'm thankful for the life she granted me.”
The phrase “life she granted me” shows that Herrah was directly involved with Hornet’s
birth.
There is more evidence for this thanks to Midwife, in that her name is literally Midwife.
A midwife is someone who helps a mother through childbirth.
So it’s safe to say that Midwife was Herrah’s actual midwife during Hornet’s birth.
It’s a little on the nose for Team Cherry, but I’m not going to complain.
In fact I wish more characters had names more closely tied to their character arcs.
The White Lady also has dialogue confirming Hornet’s origins.
She says that Hornet has the striking reflection of her mother.
Hornet and Herrah do share the same shape for their heads, showing a connection, but
“striking reflection” might be a bit of a stretch.
You gotta remember that the White Lady is blind.
The White Lady also points us to who Hornet’s father is.
She says:
“I never begrudged the Wyrm's dalliance as bargain.
In fact, I feel some affection for the creature birthed.”
The White Lady’s dialogue here is a bit archaic.
She is basically saying she was okay being cucked by the Pale King, and that she has
affection for Hornet despite Hornet not being her own child.
The word “dalliance” here is what proves all of this.
A dalliance means “a casual romantic or sexual relationship”.
And I doubt that the Pale King was having a romantic relationship with Herrah, since
he’s like a fucking God and she is just a common beast.
I don’t know if you’ve ever read any Greek mythology, but let’s just say Zeus wasn’t
exactly taking any of the humans out to Olive Garden.
There is also this line from Midwife that emphasizes Hornet’s connection to the Pale
King.
When talking about Hornet, she says:
“Pale gift to the Nest and the Beast, fair trade for sacrifice made.”
She calls Hornet “pale”, a word usually tied to the Pale King, or sometimes just Higher
Beings in general.
The Pale Ore is used to forge strong weapons.
Also, in a Reddit AMA, Ari Gibson said that the Pale Ores are related to the Pale Beings.
Godseeker refers to the White Lady as “pale mother”.
There is also the delicate flower.
It is described as having a pale glow, but we don’t know if it is tied to the Pale
King in any way.
Regardless, this pale attribute Hornet has, along with her visual similarities, all point
to her being the biological child of the Pale King.
I think some of the confusion here is that Hornet is constantly referred to as a gift.
This sort of implies that Hornet was given to Herrah after she was already created.
But I think this is just saying that the Pale King’s gift is… you know… his dick.
Going back to the White Lady’s line “I never begrudged the Wyrm’s dalliance as
bargain.”
The phrasing here implies that it was the dalliance that was bargained, not the actual
child.
So in other words, the Pale King was offering sexual activity in exchange for payment in
the form of Herrah’s help.
Unfortunately, whenever one topic of Hollow Knight lore comes up, it ends up being tied
to another topic.
In this case, since we’re talking about Hornet’s birth, it would be worth talking
about how the Vessels were created.
So let’s turn our attention to the other side of the Pale King’s family tree: the
family he created with a literal tree.
We know that the Vessels, or at least the creatures that became the Vessels, were born
in the Abyss.
We have the Pale King’s dialogue where he says that the Hollow Knight was “Born of
God and Void”.
Hornet calls the Hollow Knight “our birth cursed sibling".
Note that Hornet says “our” here because she shares a relation to the Vessels through
the Pale King.
It doesn’t have anything to do with Void.
The lore tablet in the Pale King’s throne room also mentions a cursed progeny, or a
cursed offspring.
The Kingsoul charm description says it opens the way to a birthplace, which is located
in the Abyss.
Finally we also have the words of the White Lady.
If you talk to her while wearing the Kingsoul she will say:
“If its curiosity wills it, it should seek out that place.
That place where it was born, where it died, where it began...”
She then also calls the Knight her spawn when talking about Grimm.
And then there is also her dialogue where she admits her shame in participating in a
deed and implying that this deed had to do with propagating herself, or in other words,
breeding.
From the lore tablet in the Ancient Basin, it seems pretty obvious that this shameful
deed was the creation of the Vessels.
All of this evidence proves that the Pale King’s and White Lady’s children were
born in the darkness, but the White Lady also says that the Abyss is where they died.
Also, Hornet calls the Knight “ghost” multiple times throughout the game.
This “death” probably occurred when the Void became a part of the Vessel’s bodies.
But how did this happen?
There are several eggs in the Abyss, one of which is completely black with void tentacles
connected to it.
Did the Void fuse into the egg before birth?
Or did the Void enter the bodies after they were born?
Or maybe after they died.
I don’t think it matters too much how this happened, just that it did happen.
There is evidence to support the idea that Void is capable of combining with living creatures.
We have the royal husk in the Queen’s Garden.
Its Dream Nail dialogue reads:
“Too long spent together.
We become as one.”
This bug is found holding the Love Key, which is used to enter the Tower of Lover, where
the Collector is located.
I think this Dream Nail dialogue is saying that this husk gazed into the Collector so
long that the Void within the Collector gazed back into him, resulting in the Void we see
around the husk’s corpse.
So what does this tell us other than that Team Cherry are big fans of Nietzsche?
Well the phrase “become as one” hints at the possibility for living creatures and
Void to combine in some way.
Now let’s take a minute to talk about the idea that the Vessels are the artificial creations
of the Pale King.
We know that the Pale King is capable of making such things, given the Kingsmoulds and the
Wingsmoulds.
But for the Vessels to be constructs, we have to completely ignore all of the evidence I
just presented, and there is more evidence to counter this view.
Why is there so much regret involved in the creation of the Vessels if they were just
constructs?
Why all the mentions of children and progeny?
If the Pale King built these things in his workshop, where did the shells come from?
There isn’t any explanation for how they got made.
Also, the Dung Defender was surprised to see the Knight, proving that he thought only one
Vessel existed, the Hollow Knight.
This is just speculation, but judging from the thousands of shells found in the Abyss,
it seems unlikely that the Pale King would have been able to create all of these Vessels
and transport them to the Abyss without one of the most loyal members of his Pale Court
finding out.
Alright, let’s summarize the nature of the Vessels and why Hornet is most likely not
one of them.
The Vessels are the spawn of the Pale King and the White Lady.
The eggs they were born from were placed in the Abyss, resulting in their bodies becoming
hollowed out and replaced by the Void.
They consist of an outer shell created by the Pale King and the White Lady, as well
as an inner shade, composed of Void.
Hench the phrase “Born of God and Void”.
So the creation of all of the Pale King’s offspring involved the act of dirty, possibly
kinky, bug sex.
The Pale King didn’t artificially create any of his children, so he doesn’t actually
need Void in order to create a child.
So why would Hornet have any Void in her?
There is no need to drop an egg of Hornet into the Abyss, since she was not going to
be used as a Vessel.
The fact that she is the only child of the Pale King not to be placed in the Abyss is
what grants her the name “the Gendered Child”.
When the Vessels were consumed by the Void and turned into “ghosts” as Hornet puts
it, they lost their gender.
On top of that, there is strong evidence to support the idea that Hornet was born in Deepnest,
not the Abyss.
When talking to Hornet at the top of the Abyss she says this:
“Ghost.
I see you've faced the place of your birth...”
Notice that Hornet says “your birth”, not “our birth”.
And, like I mentioned earlier we have the guy from “Spirited Away” which implies
Hornet was born in Deepnest.
Now let’s jump into one of the most interesting lines used by both sides of the Hornet is
Void debate.
Hornet says:
“Though our strength is born of similar source, that part of you, that crucial emptiness,
I do not share.”
So if you were to argue that Hornet is Void, you would say that the “similar source”
is the Void but that the “crucial emptiness” is being a truly hollow Vessel.
We have evidence that creatures made of Void have the potential to have thoughts and feelings,
from both the Collector and the fact that the Hollow Knight was imperfect.
But this line can also be interpreted where the “similar source” is the power of the
Pale King and the “crucial emptiness” is the Void itself.
The Pale King’s offspring all share the benefit of his power.
Both Hornet and the Knight are referred to as being “pale”, and the Hollow Knight
is described as having a “holy shell”.
Hornet is also one of the few bugs who realizes she is in a dream in Godhome.
The only other bug that can do this is Grimm, a Higher Being.
As for the “crucial emptiness” line, the word “emptiness” is used a couple of times
in the game and are used to refer to the Void itself.
The Void Heart is described as an emptiness by both the game menu and the White Lady.
There is also the Hunter’s Journal entry for the Siblings, which mentions that the
Abyss contains a “pervasive empiness”.
In the next line, Hornet says:
“Funny then, that such darkness gives me hope.”
When Dream Nailed Hornet also says:
“It faced the void, and ascends unscathed...
Could it unite such vast darkness?...”
So Hornet is specifically referring to the Void when using the word “darkness”, since
the Void is what is united in the Dream No More ending.
The encounter the Knight has with Hornet at the Temple of the Black Egg also implies that
Hornet is not made of Void.
She says:
“I won't be joining you in this.
That space is built to sustain your likes.
Its bindings would drain me were I to join.”
This line clearly separates Hornet from the Knight.
And this line makes sense when we consider that the Knight contains Void inside of it,
while Hornet does not.
Void is the only significant quality that separates the nature of the two beings.
Alright, so now I’d like to go through some of the arguments posted in my poll.
A lot of people were mentioning the fact that Hornet gives the Knight soul when she is hit.
This doesn’t prove anything.
The Pure Vessel gives off soul despite having Void inside of it.
The only beings that don’t give off soul are the siblings and the Collector.
These enemies are composed entirely of Void.
The Vessels have shells, which is a possible explanation as to why they still give off
soul.
The Sealed Sibling achievement seems to imply that Hornet is a sibling to the Vessels.
This is true, but it isn’t the Void that makes her a sibling, it’s her shared relation
to the Pale King.
There is this idea that Hornet has some Void in her, but not as much as the Vessels.
There isn’t any evidence to support this.
The Vessels themselves are an outer organic shell with an inner Void.
There is no explanation how Hornet could only be part inner Void?
There is an argument that Hornet is a defective Vessel.
The only defective Vessel we know about is the Hollow Knight, and its defect was not
noticeable at all until later.
So we really don’t know how extreme a defective Vessel can get.
So there you have it.
Undeniable proof that Hornet is not made of Void.
But I know that there a few holdouts who still refuse to believe me.
And that’s just fine.
You are allowed to believe whatever you want.
While we’re at it, let’s pretend that the Tooth Fairy is real too,
or that Santa Claus exists,
or that the Earth is actually round.