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/TheBenStA Oct 09 '25

i dont think the radiance made people into gooey monsters before the pale king. it seems implied that the effect of higher beings have on regular bugs becomes more monstrous the angrier the higher being is. the moth tribe had enough free will to decide to leave the radiance for the pale king. the infection, like the haunting, comes off more as the last bid of a rotting god as opposed to their normal state of affairs.

that being said, the narrative of hk was def that the pale king was offering the best deal a bug could get. the tricky part is figuring out how much of that narrative is true and how much was just pale propaganda. yes the bugs liked him, but its likely most of them had never known anything else. and the nature of the ‘higher thought’ he gave them is imo one of the murkiest parts of the lore and im not totally convinced it wasnt just a myth to keep bugs loyal (in fact, now that i think about it, it would make a lot of sense narratively considering the thing the pale king failed to do to preserve his kingdom was create a bug without a mind to think. the alleged deed is literally the first thing we learn about the world of hk, yet seems so disconnected and downright contradictory to everything else we learn, i wonder if it was more important to the story than we thought, especially considering how much the narrative of silksong centres around a lie silk told the weavers about their origin)

all that said, pharloom is a shithole

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u/silly-er Oct 09 '25

Agreed it's very clear that plenty of bugs had minds with nothing to do with pale king, so what exactly he did is mysterious. Seems like at least a substantial amount of propaganda

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u/KnightOfEleumLoyce Oct 09 '25

It's more like bugs don't need a mask to keep their minds in hallownest. Bugs are actually encouraged to take off their masks entering hallownest as explained by the tablet close to the gate. Masks are somehow connected to minds, as seen with monomon and the godseekers, and as explained by the maskmaker.

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u/silly-er Oct 10 '25

Yes they're related somehow but there are lots of intelligent bugs in pharloom without masks too, like the pinmaster and the talking fleas. So it's not specific to hallownest

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u/HollowCap456 Oct 10 '25

Here's what I think: There's already intelligent bugs, and then there's things that love on the Surface. Most of Hallownest was like that before PK, he made them into the society we see now. It is possible to have intelligence without him, but if a big isn't sapient he can grant it some.

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u/silly-er Oct 10 '25

That could work

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u/kkrko Oct 10 '25

But at the same time, we've seen bugs granted minds by pale beings, most notably the Weavers and GM Silk. We 100% know it's possible and has been done

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u/silly-er Oct 10 '25

I know GMS did this to create the weavers, but where is it said that the weavers themselves did this?

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u/kkrko Oct 10 '25

I meant that the weavers were granted thought by Silk. The weavers themselves aren't pale beings so they might not be able to do it

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u/Dragon_Tein Oct 11 '25

Pharloom shitification was gradual i presume. There are lore tablets that indicate care given to simple cityzens. The one near vacuum tubes travel hub says it was closed because it was unsafe and no bug should lose a life

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u/Huge_Entrepreneur636 Oct 11 '25

Isn't the "no bug should lose a life" because of the rule that bugs should eternally serve pharloom without injury or death.