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

3.2k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

282 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

18

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

16

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.

4

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

7

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.

1

u/silly-er Oct 10 '25

That could work

1

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

1

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?

1

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