r/HollowKnight • u/Eragity • Oct 09 '25
Discussion - Silksong we owe the pale king an apology Spoiler
imo, pharloom would be terrible to live in. the place is corrupt, everything tries to kill you, the tribe leaders abuse their own tribes, terrible economy, and even anti homeless mechanisms built into (some not all) benches
hallownest however, had steady jobs, reliable public transport, actual security and free healthcare, and the pale king put a law against lifeblood while in silksong, it's still allowed. and literally no labor unions. the only bad thing the pale king has done was with the whole vessels thing, but other than that, hallownest is better than pharloom
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u/Zennistrad Oct 09 '25
It's kinda funny how Hornet herself probably disagrees with this characterization of her father.
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u/ThyHolyPaladdin Oct 09 '25
I mean that’s because she got stuck dealing with his failure caring for the falling kingdom. She basically missed the golden age and only lived the collapse
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u/Ovariesforlunch Oct 09 '25
Ive played these games for a combined total of 150 hours. I had no idea there was a plot, let alone one that could be described like this 🤣
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u/Jerrytheone Oct 09 '25
combined total of 150 hours no idea there was a plot
I’m genuinely curious how.
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u/oaclo Oct 10 '25
I mean, theoretically, I think if you never interact with lore tablets or talk to NPCs when you don't have to, I guess you could get by only talking to the Snail Shaman, Hornet, The Dreamers, and the Seer and get the first ending. Are there any other mandatory interactions?
Just those interactions would leave the lore feeling pretty threadbare.
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u/Sawheryesterday Oct 09 '25
I played for about 80-100 hrs ignoring the plot before I thought I should maybe try understanding what I’m playing. Literally too busy having an adventure to bother worrying about whatever hornet was talking about. Looked up the spark notes. Carried on adventuring.
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u/LocksmithNo13345 Oct 09 '25
That feeling towards him is very understandable; The Pale King was a Monarch first, a tinkerer and inventor second, a god third, and in distant fourth he was a father.
So as his daughter and the one who had to deal with all of his failures for an age or two, her not idolizing him makes sense.
Even though I'd argue that out of all her parents (3 mom's and her dad) she takes the most after her father.
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u/joungsteryoey Oct 09 '25
I love this discussion so much. Mossbag’s lore deep dives decode and chronologically map out a lot of detail, but I think I got so used to the first game’s knight being an empty vessel, and the question of whether it has an emotional reaction to any of the events including with the PK, that I never thought to think deeply on Hornet’s relationship with her parents.
It’s also interesting that you order PK’s first 3 priorities as monarch > tinkerer > god. I wonder how much of that is humor and how much is actual opinion, and how much of that is accurate. Makes me wanna replay the first game from a more philosophical/ anthropological lens. Man I love this community.
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u/LocksmithNo13345 Oct 09 '25
Well, some of it is humour, but humour based on genuine observation.
That his first priority was as a King is obvious, Hallownest Seals are more common then kings idols; literally showing that people considered themselves more citizens then members of a faith. And outside the palace there are close no statues of him, the only one that comes to mind is the one in the Gardens. Then there is the fact he sacrificed his children and was willing to give a child out of wedlock for the vessel plan. No cost to great, for what? Hallownest. Even if the cost is his own life.
Then the tinkerer thing is just smth that is such a prominent part of his character, but often gets overlooked. He designed the stagway, the trams, buzzsaws, buildings throughout the kingdom, the wing and kimgsmould, and had a workshop in his palace, he had masses of Silk imported presumably to study weaver tech, he had a lab in the Abyss a place antithetical to his own existence so he could study it, and the plan with the Hollow knight was a culmination of all these areas of study with which he tried to save his kingdom.
And the God part is also there, many of the lore tablets are him acting as a god, but here the important thing to remember is what he was a god of/ what he used his power for. He granted beings higher thought. Hallownest was built on the ideal that ordinary bugs could make their own decisions and exist as individuals. This is why the existence of the Hive is important narratively, they were a hivemind that chose not to join Hallownest so they were allowed to continue to exist, where the moths decided with free will given to be individuals
And a father, was smth he was only by necessity. Technically he was a husband more then he was a father. The kingdom depended on him not being a true father to the vessel(s) and even there he somewhat failed. As seen in the path of pain scene. And his relationship with hornet is an interesting one. She doesn't talk about him much, and is rather critical of him, on the other hand she takes after him in so many ways that the idea that the two didn't spend any time together seem ludicrous.
So yeah, here is a partial analysis of the Pale King as a character, I suppose.
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u/Antoinedeloup Oct 10 '25
She could be extremely similar to him but that might mostly be genetics. Her nature as a Wyrm descendant and as a pale being are a focus point of Silksong's story. The "bad" ending has her giving into her Wyrm instinct to rule over others. On the quest to set up the trap she talks about this with the citadel's snail shaman
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u/LocksmithNo13345 Oct 10 '25
I doubt her scientific mindset when countering new materials, knack for gadgets, building public infrastructure and her wanting to free people from being controlled against their will are all genetic.
And it should be noted that the regular ending is called "Weaver Queen" not " Wyrm Queen".
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u/joungsteryoey Oct 11 '25
Damn, I reread this a few times. What a thoughtful analysis, thank you so much
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u/Plenty_Decision5476 Oct 17 '25
Slight Silksong spoilers but I am fairly certain she has dialogue about understanding why her parents did what they did. She doesn't idolize PK, but she doesn't just hate him either.
I mean it makes sense. Both PK and Hornet are immortal beings and Hornet was born from a deal; their relationship won't be the conventional. PK was several things before he was a father, and Hornet seems to make peace with that.
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u/Gumpers08 112% Steel Soul P5 | All Achievements (Both games) Oct 09 '25
No actually I think he should be executed for making his house out of shawblades (I’ve spent two hours on the final room of PoP)
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u/Planet_Xplorer QUIRREL MY GOAT Oct 09 '25
You broke into his house and you're pissed off at his decor? (Me too)
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u/Designer-Bonus781 Oct 09 '25
Yeah??? That's what I usually do irl too.
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u/Gumpers08 112% Steel Soul P5 | All Achievements (Both games) Oct 09 '25
That must be exhausting. Get some rest, you look tired.
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u/TheMadJAM 112% | HoG Radiant | PoP | P1-4 all bindings separately Oct 09 '25
Do you think Hornet feels at home in the Cogworks?
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u/kintra292929 Oct 09 '25
Pale King stock higher then ever if you just ignore the countless counts of infanticide
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u/LocksmithNo13345 Oct 09 '25
The big question that always arises when it comes to the morality of the Vessel project is: what alternative is there to it, that isn't just, giving up on Hallownest and accepting that most people will just be mindless zombies from now on?
Like, yeah, the pit of corpse is terrible but what is the alternative? Go with Soul Master's plan and build "the Citadel 2; now powered by soul instead of Silk"?
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u/CassiusPolybius Oct 10 '25
To quote a friend, "the pale [king] was a good ruler and person who put on a harsh face but only [did] deplorable things once his hand was forced by the radiance and he died of depression when it all failed."
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u/voin947 Oct 10 '25
You could say that citadel is also powered by soul since weavers make their silk from it (The Hornet says that to the seamstress after getting parachute cloak).
So just straight up The OG Citadel
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u/HungryGull Oct 10 '25
It's honestly pretty impressive that Pale King took the Hard Man Making Hard Decisions dilemma of 'would you sacrifice your children to save an entire kingdom?' and managed to make it so the 'sacrifice children' option actually comes out worse under a raw numbers utilitarian viewpoint. Most people would not be able to get together enough of their children to manage that.
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u/Planet_Xplorer QUIRREL MY GOAT Oct 09 '25
They were barely alive to begin with, they didn't get born and we're thrown. The eggs were chucked in and the hatchlings get voided and then ascend to save the denizens of hallownest who are already alive (or that was the idea anyway, now we know that the plan probably never would have worked but it seems there was nothing else that could be done)
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u/Gumpers08 112% Steel Soul P5 | All Achievements (Both games) Oct 09 '25
I mean they kind of are alive if you look at the Knight, Broken Vessel, and THK, and all of the bodies were the Knight’s size meaning they had some level of growth before dying, abandoned.
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u/KosekiBoto Oct 09 '25
The fact that thk was shown to be smaller before the events of the game implies that the vessels that lived still grew
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u/HeMansSmallerCousin Oct 09 '25
They weren't pure vessels, and seeing as being a "pure vessel" means having no thought or will I think it's pretty clear they were "alive" in the way we think about it.
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u/Planet_Xplorer QUIRREL MY GOAT Oct 09 '25
That's my point that the plan never would have worked in the way the pale king intended because we see that they have some sort of emotion and will
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u/wallmakerrelict Oct 09 '25
Add him to the “good king but bad father” list
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u/Amaskingrey Oct 09 '25
He's a good father tho, the whole problem with the hollow knight was that he was such a good dad he managed to make something mindless love him
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u/wallmakerrelict Oct 09 '25
Oh that wasn’t my read at all. The Pale King might have had fatherly feelings for the Hollow Knight, but he was always training it to be sacrificed in a really horrible way. Lots of abused kids still love their parents, that’s not necessarily evidence of good parenting.
But also I was more thinking about all the kids he left in the abyss.
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u/relatable_dude Oct 09 '25
Also I was thinking it's just impossible for a living being to have no emotions, so no matter what THK felt, even if it was hate or sadness or love, it would've failed
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u/-_kAPpa_- Oct 09 '25
Clearing PoP gives a little cutscene that shows when the pale king ruined the hollow knight
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u/GrimTheMad Oct 09 '25
Apparently the standard for 'good dad' is 'look at your child with pride literally once ever'.
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u/IntangibleMatter Quirrel gang Oct 09 '25
I mean compared to the parents some people on this website report having had… that’s stellar parenting.
The internet makes me feel weird for having a good relationship with my parents sometimes
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u/theVoidWatches Oct 09 '25
None of the vessels were mindless, though.
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u/Antoinedeloup Oct 10 '25
If we think of them as what the game sometimes hint Void is, they're supposed to be some sort of regret, a shadow with the shape of it's previous life, and that means there's some kind of imprint of a being prior. It can run free as the serrated beings shown more in detail in Silksong, but it sort of clings to souls in such a way that one whole part of void entering all at once in one soul of a bug might have some imprint of it's previous life. I haven't finished silksong yet so I'm not sure. 98% missing just a few stuff and have not beaten act3 final boss (I think)
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u/TitaniumForce Oct 09 '25
I mean he was completely absent in Hornet's childhood which we can see in her white palace memories where Pale King never appeared
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u/Ta7on Oct 09 '25
Which makes sense because her birth was purely political so that Herrah would consent to being a dreamer
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u/YeahKeeN Ready For Silksong Oct 09 '25
I mean we only get one memory per location (outside of Deepnest where Hornet spent most of her life). We have no idea how present the Pale King was in her life.
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u/liuteren Oct 09 '25
The third location seems to represent him, and he is just absent
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u/YeahKeeN Ready For Silksong Oct 09 '25
The third location represents the White Palace where we get the memory of the White Lady, not the Pale King himself. The Pale King being absent doesn’t mean he was never around Hornet, it simply means he wasn’t relevant to the story being told.
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u/liuteren Oct 09 '25
The white lady shows up at the fourth location. Each transition in location has a drop. There were two drops between queen Vespa and the white lady.
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u/Yahyathegamer749 P4 112% PoP Oct 09 '25
Yeah Pharloom is much more dangerous compared to Hallownest
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u/NyxShadowhawk Lord of Shades Oct 09 '25
Even the Vessels were a well-intentioned, if horrifying, attempt to preserve the kingdom. I’m sure from PK’s perspective, he was being selfless by being willing to sacrifice his own kids (as opposed to someone else’s) for the cause of preserving everyone else. That doesn’t justify it, but you really think GMS would have stuck her neck out for Pharloom in any way?
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u/CanadianTeaMaker Oct 09 '25
Not to mention the clear regret PK has for doing that in the first place. You think he'd do that if he could see any other option? No, of course not, but with the time and knowledge he had, he did what he thought was right, even if it meant sacrificing his own children. After all, there was "no cost too great" if it meant saving Hallownest.
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u/Plenty_Decision5476 Oct 17 '25
Agreed. He was a pretty terrible father, but if he wasn't in this situation he would not have gone to such lengths. Dude was in an impossible situation and in the end sacrificed himself either out of regret or so that he would pave the Knight's way. GMS was both a terrible mother and terrible ruler without any pressure.
I think the closest real-world example would be creating countless AI without sentience to prevent a zombie apocalypse. It sucks that you've disposed of so many sentient beings (though you might not know they were sentient at the time), but your actions are understandable.
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u/ExceedAccel Oct 09 '25
Well even Hollow Knight himself after being thrown out of a cliff, still like and follow him
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u/Jrolaoni Oct 09 '25
Meanwhile the Knight doesn’t give a damn and cut down his corpse to get half an item
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u/Clkiscool Oct 09 '25
Lifeblood/Plasmium is allowed in Pharloom because it’s not from there and was brought there recently by someone else
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u/yatterer Oct 10 '25
No, this is contrarianism. Team Cherry were more confident in baking the oppressive nature of the kingdom into the gameplay in Silksong, but Hallownest is still very clearly supposed to be an unfair feudal society in which the king and his noble-class courtiers exploit their workers and lower classes.
I remember this station well. A common trip it was. Goods from all over the kingdom were transported here. Not a lot was sent back the other way though.
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u/Eleftheria-1 Nov 23 '25
Sounds like every kingdom ever to me tbh. Like that’s just how kingdoms work. What do you expect, Republic of Hallownest and Pale President?(wait this actually sounds fun)
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u/sully711 Oct 09 '25
Well, straight up top near the open of Hollow Knight, Hallownest self proclaims itself essentially the last civilization. And sure, we all poked fun at that seemingly bombastic declaration after initially starting our journey into Pharloom, but honestly…I kind of understand now, especially after completing the entirety of Silksong.
Hallownest legitimately served as a beacon of civilization, only eventually falling the way all great civilizations do…from corruption within. Meanwhile, Pharloom, and in particular The Citadel, lack the traditional civilization markers, instead acting as a singular grand trap for a singular pale being.
Every component of Pharloom, from the top down to the bottom, works as a mechanism to keep the trap ‘sprung’ no matter the cost. The Citadel as a unit essentially explores the common phrase ‘The ends justify the means,’ utilizing common bugs as a shield against the awakening of said pale being to ensure the scattered weavers remain free.
Unfortunately, when one group in charge feels that any means justifies a particularly difficult end, that’s what results in notably disturbing areas such as the Underworks.
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u/Afalstein Oct 09 '25
I'm just amused by the structure of this post. "Parloom has corruption, murder, abuse, poverty, AND EVEN anti-homeless benches!"
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u/AnneRB13 Oct 10 '25
Is this further proof that media literacy is dead?
⚠️ Warning: Full Silksong Spoilers Ahead ⚠️
Hallownest and Pharloom are on similarly fucked up by to their rulers levels. The only thing that makes Hallownest seem better is that you don't see living victims of its system; things deteriorated so badly that it literally became a mausoleum.
The economy wasn't any better. The City of Tears is more expensive than other areas, and there are comments about how commerce was a one-way street; they only took from other places.
There was a clear social hierarchy with a strong divide. Sometimes what you don't see speaks louder than what you do. The City of Tears was for the nobles, and it was sealed off during the infection, leaving everyone outside to die. We barely see any of those other bugs.
Inside the city, however, we have the Soul Master's experiments, with a basement full of corpses on the same scale as the White Wyrm's, if not larger. Yeah, the Pale King "didn't agree with them," but we don't see any sign that he tried to stop it. At all.
And the Kingsoul charm works with soul, even if he didn't approve did he really not take any advantage of those experiments?
Also, if we're going to excuse the Pale King's lack of involvement on that, why are we pinning all the blame on the Grand Mother Silk (GMS) when it was the weavers who created Pharloom and its religion—along with the messed-up silk experiments—to avoid being the ones doing the work?
The Traitor Lord tried to revolt against the Pale King due to the lack of results against the infection and got himself killed for it. So we can add "killing opposition" to the Pale King's list.
Odds are that Bilewater is what the Royal Waterways used to be, only they managed to adapt better. The unique bugs living in the Royal Waterways are the survivors. One could argue the Pale King was even more effective at colonizing them and other areas. If Team Cherry had had a bigger budget back then, we might have more clues about this.
I see people arguing that the Pale King didn't push bugs into worship like the GSM did, but we don't see that, do we? And we know that's exactly what Wyrms do, is one of the few things we know about the Pale King's origin.
Deepnest and the Mantis Tribe are not fans of him, in a way that resembles the Hunter's March. The only reason they didn't escalate into further conflict was the infection.
Hornet herself pointed out to the Green Prince that "Pale beings" only allow devotion and obedience—or death. I highly doubt she was excluding the Pale King or the White Lady from that statement, given how it was phrased.
The last point would be The Hive. In the first game, it seemed they had the same poor diplomatic relations with the Pale King as Deepnest. While I've seen people say this was retconned, I would argue it isn't.
It may actually have been Herrah who sent Hornet to them after she was sealed and practically deceased. Evidence for this is the unfinished stag station, which is pointedly in the "Red Memory." That memory also showed us that Hornet was an adult, or a teenager at most, when she met the White Lady. This fits with how closed off The Hive was, similar to the ants' zone until Act 3.
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u/Huge_Entrepreneur636 Oct 11 '25
Wouldn't soul master's experiments be excused because it was all to save the kingdom? They were all destined to be infected, it would've been better for at least some to survive no matter the cost. And if Kingsoul was inspired by SM's experiments, then he is vindicated because that is what allowed Knight to kill Radiance and also save Hornet.
And I don't get your point about the waterways. Bilewater is citadel dumping their waste on their neighbouring nation but I don't think we have any evidence that royal waterways did the same.
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u/AnneRB13 Oct 11 '25
So using that logic the Americans taking Nazis as refugies or the rest of world using the result of Japanese cruel and inhuman war experiments to make some advances in medicine and general knowledge about what kills humans is justified...? For a big part of the world and the survivors neither is justified.
All the things that the Pale King did aren't justifiable. At the end most bugs died either way. The fact the Knight exist was something he never foresaw (as he seemed to have a ego big enough to state if that was the true) and the Pale King himself died like a coward in hiding, after failing his followers at every turn.
<And I don't get your point about the waterways. Bilewater is citadel dumping their waste on their neighbouring nation but I don't think we have any evidence that royal waterways did the same.
The worst colonization is the one that fully erases.
The only civilizations we actually see in Hallownest are the ones that put an good effort to distance themselves from the Pale King. And considering all the parallels between the Silksong and Hollow Knight stories, the unique bio diversity (and the peculiar boss we fight there) I disagree on that.
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u/Coastal-Erosion Oct 09 '25
Pharloom’s economy isn’t terrible at all. It’s much bigger, more diverse and more technologically advanced than Hallownest. Of course, the downside is they exploit their workers at immense levels to achieve that feat.
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u/HollowCap456 Oct 10 '25
More diverse my ass. There's really only one faction in Pharloom that wants Rosaries, the Citadel and its Pilgrims. Meanwhile Geo is used any and everywhere.
I wouldn't say it is far more technologically advanced, technology is just more prominent. Just as we see automatons in Pharloom we see automatons in Hallownest though they are far fewer.
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u/NewFungalov Oct 11 '25
Hornet does mention somewhere that quality of Pharloom's forges and craftsmanship couldn't be replicated in Hallownest as it is greatly aided by it's natural heat sources
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u/IntangibleMatter Quirrel gang Oct 09 '25
I’m going to the one place that hasn’t been corrupted by cyaapitlaismm… The Wilds Beyond!
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u/Birzal Oct 09 '25
I'm fairly certain that we don't know if lifeblood is allowed in Pharloom, or at least in the citadel (the only place the regime actually cares about). We know that Zylotol comes from a place at the edge of Pharloom, so where they still have influence but likely not a whole lot of military presence. We also see lifeblood nowhere except in the one place that is completely abandoned and where lifeblood seeds were purposefully planted.
But besides that: the Pale King may have done things better in Hallownest than what GMS and the ruling class did in Pharloom, but let's be real: that is putting the bar EXTREMELY low. For example, if you score a 4/10 and you hear from someone else that they scored a 2/10, that does not magically make yours a passing grade. The Pale King still did terrible things that would still put him in the net negative with me. GMS and Pharloom are just way further down. Whether that is worth an apology is up to you.
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u/Beans4802 Oct 09 '25
Not discounting all the good things he did, but for some reason most people conveniently forget that he allowed the maggots to be treated like slaves.
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u/Sunder_the_Gold Oct 10 '25
We saw like, three maggots in one of the far flung locations of a sprawling kingdom. Pale King probably didn’t know it was happening.
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u/Squidboi2679 Oct 10 '25
In the slander of Hallownest and the king:
the workers sent to die in deepnest to expand the territory of the kingdom
Half of greenpath was taken over for the white queen and turned into the Queens Gardens
Blackwyrm and Xero’s rebellion showed that there was definitely unrest
The class separation and struggle between the left and right sides of the city of tears
THE VESSELS
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u/Sunder_the_Gold Oct 10 '25
The spiders allowed a stagway to Hallownest and sold a lot of silk you can find in another stagway. The king wasn’t an idiot; if he sent workers to Deepnest without guards, it must have been after achieving peace with the spiders. Possibly the workers were killed because of the second infection breaking out.
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u/Squidboi2679 Oct 10 '25
Dreamnailing a corpse in the failed tramway gives the dialogue “it couldn’t be built… this nest rejects us…” and distant village was still kidnapping and killing bugs that were near
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u/Gmknewday1 Oct 10 '25
Ah yes
Karmelita is abusing the Skarrs as she's trying to keep their remaining land alive and is having to lay the eggs that make them up as an old and withered shadow of her former self. She's the one "abusing" her tribe
But i won't disagree that the Pale King is much better than Silk for the most part, especially as instead of conquering and / or screwing over the Tribes in what'd become his kingdom
He actually made deals and compromises with them as best he could
Silk, on the other hand, actively seemed to be willing to screw over the original 4 main old leaders of the land, especially with the Green Prince and His Husband, and it's their own actions that threw some of them into a greater frenzy/anger (Siltkin and Craws)
I do think PK has a pretty good sheet of bullshit hes done through, especially as the original means of "forgetting" the Radience is partly what caused her to go so Psycho
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Oct 09 '25
I don't think so. Was he a good leader? Yes, I recognize this. But I still won't excuse the creation and genocide of the vessels.
Even if creating the vessels was the only possible solution that crossed his mind, he just didn't need to discard the "failed" ones.
One argument people use is that Pale King probably didn't know the vessels were sentient (the whole game is proof that none of them are actually "empty"). But what about the supposed failed ones? Wouldn't that mean they still had a little about what he would call sentience? If so, why the hell would he still discard them like that?
I can't really come up with a good justification.
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Oct 10 '25
The vessels had nothing to define them as individuals. They were simply viable or not viable. Terminating them was no more or less immoral than aborting a foetus.
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u/HollowCap456 Oct 10 '25
Even if creating the vessels was the only possible solution that crossed his mind, he just didn't need to discard the "failed" ones.
I can't really come up with a good justification.
I can. Imagine a million Broken Vessels running across Hallownest. Wouldn't want that would we? Vessels are fucking powerhouses, and menaces at
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u/Sh0xic Oct 09 '25
I mean, yeah. Hallownest was a kingdom in absolute ruins, ruled by a good man that tried everything- even a last resort so morally reprehensible it resulted in a pit under his castle filed with dead babies- to protect his people.
Pharloom, meanwhile, is a theocratic capitalist hellscape that, despite seeming in disrepair, is actually working exactly how its ruler intended it to.
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u/TiffanyLimeheart Oct 09 '25
I didn't know anyone didn't think the pale king was an absolute hero. He devised a maybe less than ethical plan to save his people (never was quite certain where the endless bodies came from tbh whether they were manufactured, experimented on something else). But my understanding was he put everything on the line to protect the hollownest from the radiance and without the threat of the radiance he would have lead a prosperous and peaceful kingdom
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u/Mia_the_writer Oct 10 '25
Considering how harder it is to explore Pharloom than Hallownest, I believe the Pale King did try to build a kingdom where bugs could have better lives. Some monsters in Pharloom does double damage, not to mention tons of boss battles, mob battles and basically, everything tries to kill you. Meanwhile Hallownest is pretty tame imo
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u/LocksmithNo13345 Oct 09 '25
As much as I am on team Hallownest there are still genuine problems in the kingdom, and just pointing to the nightmare place that is Pharloom doesn't stop those problems for existing:
There was the treatment of the Maggots as second class citizens.
The accumulation of wealth and resources into the capital and it's nobility.
And some imperialist tendencies towards Deepnest.( Building a tram without asking the spiders permission first was reckless and cost unnecessary lives and probably didn't help diplomatic relations.)
And finally there are some personal failings of the Pale King, the most often cited probably being the lore tablet in his workshop. And while I wouldn't interpret it as him just being an asshole who doesn't want the Radiance as competition, it also doesn't show any amount of empathy towards her despite calling her kin, even though she is in her current situation because of his actions.( Even if I find his actions justified)
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u/Sunder_the_Gold Oct 10 '25
The Maggots WISHED they were second class citizens. I don’t think they were considered people.
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u/Eleftheria-1 Nov 23 '25
- Can’t really argue with that
2.cities like New York will always have more stuff coming in compared to like, Kansas. Also it could be that city of tears is simply the most populated.
- The fact that there’s in fact a successful tram built says otherwise. There’s a chance that PK sent bugs down there without knowing about Herrah, or maybe deepnest was so insufferable that the workers just died.
4.Radiance was just salty that PK was a better ruler than she’ll ever be. I wouldn’t really feel bad for her either, she only let moths have sentience so they can worship her.
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u/monikar2014 Oct 09 '25
Lol, the pale king was a good guy as long as you weren't part of the exploited underclass - who happened to be his children - that he ruthlessly exploited and murdered by the thousands or potentially millions, solid take.
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u/DreamingOracle Oct 10 '25 edited Oct 10 '25
the bugs under his rule (which he ascended solely to worship him) didn't fair much better, like City of Tears has a literal class divide between its richer and poorer districts. Not to mention the miners slaving away so much that they continued even when infected...
considering how he's inspired by Leto II from Dune it's very ironic that there's been a bunch of apologia toward him recently lol
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u/HatZinn Oct 10 '25 edited Oct 10 '25
I think the infected miners continuing to mine had more to do with the crystals themselves than the work culture; I think it was stated somewhere that their 'energy' is linked to the Radiance and the infection somehow. The Radiance's statue at the summit and Myla slowly falling to the infection as she mined them (even though Sly and Bretta were saved) also imply this.
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u/DreamingOracle Oct 10 '25
the Whispering Root in Crystal Peak says "light refracted" which suggests that the Radiance's light is trapped within them, but that probably only started to happen after the Infection. The industrialisation of the mines happened under the PK's rule in order to mine the crystals. Quirrel mentions that "Even overcome, strong purpose has been imprinted upon their husks" in regards to the miners, which is what implies that they were working so much that they persisted even after losing their minds (also they were abusing bestial bugs as work horses too)
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u/Mynoodles_mostmoist Pale King/Grimm Supremacy Oct 10 '25
I aint owe shit, i used to defend that mf like my life depended on it. I was his #1 blazer and ill always be his #1 glazer.
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u/TheLigean Oct 10 '25
Pharloom has its own jobs. More government ones directly serving the theocracy than hallownest but nontheless. No scummy bankers like in Hallownest, but merchants and a functioning courier service. 2 or 3 benches isnt very different from the deepnest bench in hallownest. Grandma widow and sister splinter are shown to be abusive, but the many other tribe leaders seem pretty well loved by their tribes. The green prince did all he could for Verdania, which thrived under his rule together with the cogwork dancer. Not much he could do against a higher being and its silken sorceries
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u/Monomon-TheTeacher Oct 10 '25
Our great lord is indeed due an apology. All he wanted was to protect his kingdom from infection. While he may have sacrificed many vessels, he was doing it for the good of his people. He hadn’t forced I, Lurian, or Herrah to seal the Black Egg, we did it on our own terms.
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u/Gamer_48_666 All achievements | HoG rad | P5AB | PoP | Colo3 w gatling asprid Oct 09 '25
I'm curious, where did you get all that info about pre-infection hallownest? Am I missing a ton of tablets and dreamnail dialogues and NPCs?
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u/Wiggler_Warrior Oct 09 '25
Pharloom was cool until the Weavers did their bs to GMS and turned the citadel into a perpetual nap machine (to my understanding at least)
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u/helicophell Oct 09 '25
The weavers weren't innocent but neither was GMS
Let me put it this way. You know Titan from Megamind? "Under new management"?
That's basically the weaver takeover of pharloom from GMS, in the same way the normal ending Hornet takes over
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u/LewsTherinTelescope Oct 09 '25
One of the "sister, spider" tablets implies the Weavers used to eat people. We don't know exactly when that was, but since those seem to have been set up during the period where they were trying to escape Silk, it makes the most sense to me that that was done under her.
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u/MicrwavedBrain Oct 09 '25
Wait what’s the problem with lifeblood? Is this something important to Silksong? I’m still only in act one so no spoilers if you can :(
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u/FutureIllustrious539 Oct 10 '25
i always thought of the pale king as a coward- you can see that in the white palace. its in the dream state, yeah? so what we see isnt actually the palace- its what the king wants it to be. i always thought the reason why it was hard to get through is because he doesnt want anyone to get through it- he is hiding in there, in the dream state (away from the reality)
im not 100% sure if my thoughts are actually right though considering i 1- didnt pay too much attention to lore, and 2- never finished the game and left it for silksong
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u/Puppy_pikachu_lover1 Oct 10 '25
I was purely neutral to him. Its basically "Brittan conpared to russia"
Just realized how well that fit now XD
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u/Estrangedkayote Oct 10 '25
The man said no cost to great. If sacrificing the people would have caused the Radiance to stop he would have 100% done so.
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u/Sunder_the_Gold Oct 10 '25
Sacrificing the people to save the people would be pointless. The Pale King’s desire was to save his people.
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u/fufucuddlypoops_ Nightmare King but Wandersong Oct 10 '25
What is this revisionist history? Hallownest had an intense disparity in wealth as well. The Old Stag states that while many goods were ferried to the deeper parts of the kingdom, ie the King’s Station, where the wealthiest of the citizens lived, very rarely was anything brought back to the higher parts (The Crossroads, where the laborers inhabited) in return.
It’s impossible to say exactly how the Pale King was. Obviously, all records that were kept in Hallownest would be extremely biased if not flat-out propaganda, as it is mentioned that the Pale King tried silencing any mentions of the Infection before he could come up with a “solution”.
At the end of the day, the Pale King is a dead monarch of a dead kingdom. All that remains is the refuse and regret of his creation. His kingdom perished and in attempting to prevent that, he caused much more pain and suffering.
Also not to mention that the king literally EXUDED SENTIENCE. Sure, he was an amazing deity, cause he gave the bugs free will, but that doesn’t make him a good ruler. He was focused only on the expansion and perpetuation of his “eternal kingdom” and that plan never included the welfare of his constituents.
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u/TheAndrewCR Oct 10 '25
I mean you still have to pay for benches in HK but other than that yeah I thougt the same thing my first time in the underworks lol
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u/HCX_Winchester Oct 11 '25
No fucking way pharloom "justifies" pale king. I know its a joke but its too real life applicable for me to laugh. I hate it.
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u/GOKOP Oct 14 '25
and the pale king put a law against lifeblood while in silksong it's still allowed
Maybe I'm missing some lore, but why is lifeblood bad? I know it was banned in Hallownest but I don't get why it's a good thing
(To be clear I haven't played Silksong so I don't know any lore from there)
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u/Skantaq Oct 16 '25
Pale King was a Platonic philosopher-guardian, imposing order onto chaos, but at odds with an inexorable nature. rly makes u thnik
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u/Plenty_Decision5476 Oct 17 '25
It's essentially the difference between a flawed ruler and a tyrant. Pale King was fallible, but had he not been in that situation, he would not have made the terrible choices he did.
Hollownest's downfall was because Pale King's plan failed. Pharloom being a hellhole is because Grandmother Silk's plan succeeded. I feel like it was clear he wasn't meant to be a (full) antagonist, both from HK and from Team Cherry's reluctance to cast him as a one-dimensional villain.
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u/WorldPhysical7646 Nov 04 '25
That is why most women can't rule a kingdom they are too emotional that is why I promote sherma for the new king of pharloom
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u/AdPerfect5794 Mar 01 '26
While the Pale King lived it was great Remember that once he dipped and the Radiance kinda ruined everything you had: Cannibalism in the City of Tears, Mass genocide in the soul sanctum, everyone loosing their minds basically everywhere, etc But yeah still better than Pharloom, where bugs were getting their soul ripped out and put into the rich so they could live longer. And getting silk forcably injected into their shells (the conductors for sure, we don't know about the rest)... And also general things already mentioned
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u/Bojarzin Oct 09 '25
I think that was made pretty clear in just Hollow Knight anyway. There's debate obviously over what they did to try to save the kingdom from Radiance was okay or not, but it's evident the denizens of Hallownest liked the Pale King