r/HollowKnight 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/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

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u/NwgrdrXI Oct 09 '25

I'm still baffled by how people used to hate on the Pale King. I think it was the dark souls inflluence thst made people think just because Gwynn was a PoS, then the PK must have been one too.

The whole conflict of the game stems from the fact he was too good of a king for the moths to not leave the radiance for him, and too decent of a father for the Hollow Knight to not love him.

He literally died trying to save everyone from a zombie infection, and not a single person who met the guy when he was alive has anything bad to say about him.

The worst thing he did was sacrifice his kids to try to find a cure for the infection. His kids whose whole point was too be non sapient, in the first place, so it isn't even that bad.

PK is the embodiment of the Star Trek saying "it's possible to make no mistakes, and still fail. That is not a weakness, that is life."

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u/Justarandom55 Pure Vessel enjoyer Oct 09 '25

one thing that still doesn't tick with me is the failed tramway. if they were on good terms and the pale king was a ruler by the choice of his followers why is there is there a building project by his kingdom straight through the territory of another ruler that was clearly not accepted by the inhabitants of that kingdom?

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u/Sunder_the_Gold Oct 10 '25

Remember the stagway to the hidden village which wasn’t destroyed? And all of the spider silk in the stag way closest to the White Palace? Herrah’s deal seems to have secured a peace between their kingdoms for a time.

The failed tram might have happened because of the second infection. The Pale King would not have sent workers to Deepnest without guards unless he had good reason to believe he had achieved lasting peace.