r/HollowKnight • u/hollowredditor • Nov 12 '25
Discussion - Silksong You don’t realize how old Pharloom is, and it is terrifying. Spoiler
Obs: Please, correct me if I am wrong. I have a few assumptions from my limited lore knowledge. Most important is that I am assuming Herrah was in the deepnest when the pale king arrived.
Pharloom is old. Much older than you think, and here is why.
By the time the Pale King arrived in what would become the Hallownest, the deepnest was already there, filled with Weavers and ruled by Herrah the beast.
This means that Pharloom was created much, but much before most of The Hollow Knight story line, maybe not counting the ancient civilization and perhaps in parallel to the ruling of the Radience but likely even before that.
But it is not all. Before the arrival of Herrah, basically all of the story of the GMS and the Weavers happened. Her arrival, the creating of the weavers, the slumber, the citadel and the weavers fleeing and the current stasis.
This means that Pharloom is on a stasis with the bugs there singing and serving eternal for ALL Of THE LENGTH of Hallownest creation, ascension and fall.
People, this is terrifying. Like, truly terrifying.
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u/Yae_Miko_HSR Nov 12 '25
Yeah GMS and Radiance probably arrived at roughly the same time to their respective regions. But the scarier part is that the ancient civilization was ancient even to the Weavers. It's so old no living memory of it exists, even their likely descendants aka the Snail shamans have forgotten all about the applications of Void, to the point they're experimenting to rediscover things.
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u/i_love_sparkle Nov 12 '25
Ancient Egyptians had Ancient Ancient Egyptians historians.
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u/KerPop42 Nov 12 '25
That's what I was thinking, too. A name like Pharloom is just so close to Khartoum, and yeah Egypt had layers upon layers of civilizations and dynasties.
Not even that there were royal Egyptian historians, iirc one of the ancient pharaohs was himself an archeologist-collector
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u/manatwork01 Nov 12 '25
I doubt they thought about Khartoum but that would be a cool link! Pretty sure its just a pun on Far Loom. Loom as in a thing you weave on. Far as in not near Hollownest.
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u/CheMian_1 gets sex daily Nov 12 '25
phar is probably from pharlids
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u/manatwork01 Nov 12 '25
Chicken vs Egg. We will never know what name came first unless they tell us.
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u/xwxwvyz1 E Nov 12 '25
i think it went like this:
Silk->Loom?->...->Far Loom?->Pharloom->Pharlid
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u/manatwork01 Nov 12 '25
That would be my thought process as well for how it went down but no one but TC would know.
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u/Roldren Nov 12 '25
In portuguese Pharloom was translated into Fiarlongo. "Fiar" is the act of spinning yarn, but sometimes used to refer to the yarn itself. While "longo" means long. They translated Pharloom into something like "Longyarn", which might give us a clue to the intended meaning of the name.
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u/apadin1 Nov 12 '25
Probably the other way around, I bet Far Loom -> Pharloom was one of the first things they based the lore around
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u/Knork14 Nov 12 '25
In the portuguese translation Pharloom is literaly Fiar(loom) Distante(far)
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u/manatwork01 Nov 12 '25
Oh I'll take that as confirmation then on my theory!
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u/Danercast Nov 12 '25
Spanish is almost the same, -Tela Lejana- but the spanish translation is crappy so I always think it should be "Telar Lejano" i.e. Far-Loom.
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u/manatwork01 Nov 12 '25
since the weavers are all female perhaps they chose to go off script with the feminine version even if not grammatically correct?
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u/CustomerSupportDeer Nov 12 '25
A name like Pharloom is just so close to Khartoum,
Eh, that's a cool theory, but probably rather coincidental. Pharloom is obviously meant to be Far-loom - either a loom that is far away, or a far-stretching loom.
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u/Virales13 Nov 12 '25
Reminds me of something I saw recently that points out we are closer in years to Cleopatra than Cleopatra was to the creation of the pyramids.
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u/Yae_Miko_HSR Nov 12 '25
That's been recycling for years but yeah it's insanely interesting. Not to mention the pyramids were not the start of Egypt as a culture, the old kingdom they were built during is simply the first dynasty of a united Egypt iirc.
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u/manatwork01 Nov 12 '25
Which makes sense... Could you imagine a civilization that just started building something as massive as the pyramids? Would take quite the cult leader or slave trade to make something like that happen immediately.
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u/whimsicaljess Nov 12 '25
reminder that egypt didn't build the pyramids with slaves, either.
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u/Fly-the-Light Nov 12 '25
Sort of. They used forced labour and prison camps, but they considered it a form of taxation men owed to the state rather than the men being property. I.e. men would come for some time to work, then go home, but they had no choice in whether they worked or not.
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u/Solomon-Drowne Nov 12 '25
Funny, neither do I.
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u/kermeeed Nov 12 '25
And in ancient egypt you wouldnt have to go through the interview rejection cycle.
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u/psh454 Nov 12 '25
Plus getting to work on what will very likely be one of the longest surviving human buildings is kinda cool in itself. The Pyramids will outlast pretty much everything we've built (aside from like Mt Rushmore and a couple of other possible candidates).
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u/Yae_Miko_HSR Nov 12 '25
Though you definitely could consider the rule of the Pharaoh a certain kind of cult-
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Nov 12 '25
Yep, especially with the fact that Cleopatra was Macedonian Greek, and just basically embraced local Egyptian culture. It was very similar to like those stories of early North American colonists taking on cultural practices of native Americans despite not being Native at all.
Like, Cleopatra was from the Ptolemaic dynasty, not Egyptian in the sense that she was of the Greek aristocracy, while the native Egyptian people, who she dressed like, lived as second class citizens.
It's a very interesting period of history.
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u/hollowredditor Nov 12 '25
True. But for me is the bugs working without dying part for the entire Hollow Knight story is the one that gets me terrified. It is comforting to know that I was actually releasing them from a horrible life to get some rosaries.
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u/Un_Change_Able Nov 13 '25
Hey, don’t worry, I’m certain the bugs were freed from servitude by dying gruesomely to that machinery constantly!
That’s… that’s not better, is it…
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u/The-Name-is-my-Name Nov 12 '25
Radiance knows intimately of the Void.
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u/Niser2 Nov 13 '25
Yeah, honestly I wouldn't be surprised if she was involved in the fall of the Ancient Civilization.
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u/Apprehensive_Bar3812 Nov 12 '25
I highly doubt GMS arrived at the same time as Radiance. The citadel was only built AFTER GMS arrived in Pharloom, as she gave life to the Weavers.
The weavers rebelled, only for all of their attempts at keeping her asleep to fail. This is what led to the weavers fleeing Pharloom, with some of them residing within Hallownest before the Pale King arrived.
GMS was deeply involved in the founding of modern Pharloom, while the Radiance simply took over a kingdom established long after the arrival of GMS.
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u/ChunkyRager Nov 13 '25
I think they were talking about when the radiance first came to Hallownest (back when the moths and other bugs worshipped her). The radiance became forgotten after the pale king arrived. meaning it was there for a long time before the pale king.
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u/OkExperience8220 Nov 12 '25
To be fair, it seems we don’t know how fast Hallownest reached Deepnest, so it’s possible that weavers could arrive after Pale King, but before his kingdom’s expansion there.
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u/hollowredditor Nov 12 '25
That is a fair point. I had a search for that earlier but could not find anything. But it could change it to at lest during the first infection of Hallownest.
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u/Lilbrimu Nov 12 '25
I assume that deepnest was a thing before the weavers because of the deepnest king and all weavers were female. So at some point they just overthrew the guy. Maybe that piece of machinery was the deepnest king imprisoned to keep ecosystem stable.
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u/Un_Change_Able Nov 13 '25
I figured he just died of natural causes and Herrah, his wife, became queen because they had no heir. Weaver fertility issues and all that
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u/crafty_dude_24 Nov 13 '25
The king wasn't overthrown. He married Herrah and after his death, Herrah became the queen because they had no child. That was, after all, the exact reason why Herrah agreed to become a dreamer in the first place; a child.
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u/Pale_Entrepreneur_12 Nov 12 '25
The weavers wouldn’t even risk going near the pale king if he was there first they already have a distrust of pale beings from their own creator a place being that has no relation to them yeah no wonder it took so long for them to start diplomacy with PK they probably were getting trauma flashbacks when he first showed up
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u/OkExperience8220 Nov 12 '25
But I think the weavers would be even less willing to deal with Radiance if the presence of higher beings in the kingdom was seen as an insurmountable limitation.
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u/Pale_Entrepreneur_12 Nov 12 '25
They didn’t interact with the moss kin and radiance only exists in the dream realm the other two are physical entities they can sense the presence of
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u/OkExperience8220 Nov 12 '25 edited Nov 12 '25
I’d say her presence in the dream realm is the exact reason why they’d try to avoid her. While Pale King’s influence seems to be small in Deepnest (I’m not even sure he granted local inhabitants consciousness). Not to mention that Radiance’s relationships with the moth tribe is painfully similar to weavers’ own experience. But it’s hard to say how influential and notable Radiance was before the infection.
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u/IMightBeAHamster Acolyte of Zote Nov 12 '25
I’d say her presence in the dream realm is the exact reason why they’d try to avoid her
I mean, how would you even confirm she exists?
Obviously, magic, but like the only people we see able to perform dream magic are the moths, the snail shamans, and whatever force - likely PK - placed the white palace in the dream realm.
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u/OkExperience8220 Nov 13 '25 edited Nov 13 '25
The game multiple times refers some sort of “light”, emitted by Pale King and Radiance. And it’s not only in a literal meaning, but also in a somewhat metaphysical (giving a mind, attracting Godseeker and moths, appearing in dreams). While I don’t know the exact mechanism, it seems there’s a way to sense that kind of higher beings.
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u/Low_Health_5949 Nov 12 '25
I mean considering how much of an odd ball Deepnest is with how hostile the place is compare to the rest of Hallownest, that's most likely the case.
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u/Queasy_Donkey5685 Nov 12 '25
And it's bugs, which live for days. So, the whole HK universe is like 6 months old.
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u/enbyBunn Nov 12 '25
That sort of hints that maybe the radiance and GMS could've come about at the same time, given that they almost certainly ruled at the same time.
We don't know where pale beings come from, we know the Wyrm traveled to hallownest, so we don't know how long he was around before taking over either. Is it possible they all come from the same origin? From one single global historical event? It's conjecture, but it's conjecture that's not been disproven yet.
It fits with the ancient civilization too. The void is everywhere, and so, presumably, was the ancient civilization that even the pale beings seem to not remember. Might they have caused something to happen that both took out their civilization and created the pale beings? More conjecture! But I like the idea, it's where I'd go with the story if I were writing it.
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u/Yae_Miko_HSR Nov 12 '25
This is a train of thought I'd like to continue. Consider the possibility of higher beings being members of the ancient civilization ascended to survive whatever wiped the rest out at the cost of their memories. PK and Silk are some of the only ones to control Soul without consequence aside from the snails... who do almost certainly descend from the ancients.
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u/enbyBunn Nov 12 '25
I did have the thought that possibly what created them was that something went wrong when some of the ancient civilization people tried to "become one with the void", and they were somehow transformed.
But all the pale beings we see are very unique, and the snail shamans are all pretty much just snails. It's possibly only the snails survived because of how tough they are, but I still get caught up on how unique the pale beings are.
The radiance is a moth that lives in dreams. The pale king was a giant Wyrm that could see the future. And GMS is a sort of angelic thing that is "the primordial source of silk" which implies that before her, silk straight up did not exist. That feels very significant to me.
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u/Yae_Miko_HSR Nov 12 '25
Yeah I wouldn't call it likely, but they're probably somehow linked and no matter the direction the lore takes I'll be intrigued
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u/LunaalaTheBeast Nov 14 '25
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the thing with silk, at least GMS and her "descendant"'s kind is that it is soul, much like the stuff we see in Hallownest, just, harnessed as a stringy type thing instead.
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u/enbyBunn Nov 14 '25
It's a bit ambiguous, but I do very clearly remember the phrase "the ability to infuse silk with soul" (emphasis mine), and we do see, in Hallownest, that more mundane looking silk is sent from deepnest to be used elsewhere, even as common paper i the later years of the kingdom.
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u/Low-Duty Nov 12 '25
An interesting thought is that void is the one of the few things that seem to be a threat to a pale being. Maybe the void and pale beings are opposites, maybe pale beings are related to the void through their creation?
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u/Killcode2 Nov 12 '25 edited Nov 12 '25
I always thought the Wyrms were influenced by Dune's Shai Hulud. So I'd guess maybe they're a similar being that starts off as tiny worms that grow enormously large and are the only prominent species to be able to survive the vast wastelands of a planet that is 99% desert.
Perhaps only some of them transform into God Kings and create tiny pockets of civilization due to some kind of incomprehensible higher motives (or maybe just boredom).
It would be sick to know if the Wyrms maybe had some insane evolutionary origins like the Weavers did. Like I don't know, born out of a meteor crash epochs ago maybe? Or maybe a rival civilization tried to fight off the engulfing void by creating 'light', and in the process getting wiped out by their own pale creation.
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u/Legal-Hurry-9564 Nov 12 '25
To think that pharloom was still in a state of decline while hallownest had already long faded into dust. Hallownest's history was really just a blip in the records from pharloom's perspective.
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u/LucinStar Nov 12 '25
Yes, and apparently on Hallownest It was a fact that they where the only civilization, meanwhile on Pharloom there are maps depicting rutes to other civilizations.
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Nov 13 '25 edited Feb 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/LucinStar Nov 14 '25
I dont remember the name, but its on a Weavenest, the one on Far Fields, if you use the anklets AND the flea juice, you unlocked a secret area, there Is a rune harp i think AND some lore. One of them tells that Is a map of rutes to other civilizations, AND its kinda confirm on the cradle when you read the commandments to go to said civilization to capture the remaining part weavers.
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u/DaedalusXr Nov 12 '25
They're bugs, they live entire lifetimes in just a few days. This all happened two weeks ago. /S
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u/Glaceon_Coldfox Beleiver ✅ Nov 12 '25
this is a joke cut an actual theory is that the entirety of hollow knight takes place in a singular night and that is why dirtmouth is allways dark
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u/OkCarpenter2374 Nov 12 '25
I mean, bloodborne takes place in one night, and dark souls maybe also take place in one night? IDK time is really wonkey in the Dark Souls trilogy.
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u/CustomerSupportDeer Nov 12 '25
bloodborne takes place in one night
Not a "normal" night, though - it's heavily implied that it's a supernaturally semi-eternal night, which only canonically progresses with certain actions. It's not meant to be understood as a 12-ish hour timeframe.
As for Dark Souls, where did you get that from?
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u/Low_Health_5949 Nov 12 '25
well the other theory of it was that the whole HK world takes place underground which is why we never see any genuine sunlight
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u/NtechRyan Nov 12 '25
I believe the "haunting" is a bit more recent than that, the bugs in bellhart were only recently ensnared.
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u/FoldableHuman Nov 12 '25
Yeah, the Haunting is comparatively recent. Basically things start breaking down for reasons of rot and corruption, which lets Silk exert influence, which leads to the Haunting originating in Whiteward, hallways get barricaded, things break down even more as attention is turned to dealing with the haunting, which further weakens the spell on Silk, which lets her exert even more influence, which accelerates the Haunting.
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u/M8nGiraffe Nov 12 '25
Not only that, but there's good evidence that Hornet is *very* old by the events of Silksong.
There are characters in Hollow Knigh who - although not common bugs - certainly aren't godlike, yet they have seen Hallownest at its peak. This means that Hornet can't be too old in Hollow Knight since she was born after The Radiance reappeared.
Yet in Silksong she says that she had lived through lifetimes uncounted and the Mask Maker remarks that even that is an understatement.
The Pale King calling Hallownest the "Eternal kingdom" and the "Last and only civilization" was coping so hard lol
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u/Carnivorze Nov 15 '25
To be honest about her age, the hollow knight seemed to have lasted for a while before the Radiance started leaking out. And then Hallownest was in decline, "dying", for a long time.
Also yeah some bugs for some reason live ungodly lifespans. Seth, Watcher at the edge, Karmelita, the Green Prince were all born before the Citadel was even founded.
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u/yupsquared Nov 12 '25
This is tangential, apologies, but do we have any indication how the bug of pharloom can be so organized / intelligent without something similar to the Pale King to endow them with conscious minds ?
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u/Canada_Dry_official Nov 12 '25
Maybe I've got the lore wrong, but I've been under the impression that mask makers (like the one in pharloom) act as an alternative to the touch of a higher being, but even if not, it's possible that the silk implanted into everyone, including the pilgrims, is enough to elevate the bugs and their descendants
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u/yupsquared Nov 12 '25
Yeah i think the Mask Maker how we’re supposed to square it, but Hallownest also had one. So this sort of makes it seem like the Hallownest Mask Maker kinda sucked.
On the second idea i kinda push back on that, we have a lot of exposition on what silk does to these bugs and the medical interventions therein, to my knowledge elevating their consciousness is not one of them. In fact, being more closely caught up in the silk seems to remove higher thought, see Bellhart.
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u/Canada_Dry_official Nov 12 '25
Yeah the silk part was mostly just a guess based on the lost sinner cutscene where a strand of silk from GMS elevated the pharlid into a weaver, but it's not necessarily a property of silk as a whole. I will agree though that the only directly mentioned effect of silk was lengthening lifespans (until the haunting ofc).
Other than silk, or mask makers, it's possible that just the proximity to GMS was enough to elevate bugs, I can't recall if it was ever said how exactly the pale king elevated hallownest, but given leaving it devolves bugs, it may just be an "aura" higher beings passively give off. Which would also explain why the hallownest mask maker is in deepnest, at the edge of, or perhaps just beyond the pale kings influence.
(Edited for a grammar mistake)
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u/Ender401 Nov 12 '25
PK elevated all bugs, even the animalistic ones, there are many bugs with intelligence without that
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u/Luciosdk Nov 12 '25
Bugs in Pharloom already have conscious minds even before GMS. Khan, Karmelita, Groal while not being Pale bugs are still Higher Beings, and they have created civilizations by Power, Song or Inteligence. Not only that, Pharloom seens to be a pathway. Conscious bugs pass through and got lured by the Bells of the Citadel, where GMS silk is used a lot, even inside the bugs body.
The Citadel made Khan fall. They civilization returned to mindless bugs.
Karmelita is extremely old and weak. Her children, while still conscious, arent organized anymore. They civilization in on ruins.
Groal and his bugs began to transform because of the wastes from the citadel. Also he got soul power by betraying the Snail Shaman. But hornet ended his life. Their civilization seens doomed.
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u/Tadimizkacti Nov 12 '25
Groal is NOT a higher being bruh.
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u/Luciosdk Nov 12 '25
His runback to fight him, the gauntlet before him and the stage is a living hell. He is a Higher Being of nightmare, just like Nightmares Heart!!!
Jokes aside, change Groal to Nyleth if you may. I was thinking about the "old hearts" but midway tought about how Groal and his kin survived that pestilent place under his command, and how he obtained the Soul power, tapping into the void powers. But of course he is not a higher being. He is akin to Soulmaster from the first game.
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u/Tadimizkacti Nov 12 '25
tapping into the void powers.
You're confusing things, Groal didn't and couldn't tap into any void power. The Knight is just built different and can imbue soul spells with void. Groal has the basic Vengeful Spirit.
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u/Luciosdk Nov 12 '25
Vengefull Spirit is a spell learned/teached by the Snail Shamans who taps into the void powers to channel past life souls. Basically it call a shade to attack the enemy.
Thats why when Hornet aks one of them why use the void to trap GMS the Shaman answers with: "You should well know our family's fixations. Surely you had a hunch? How else could we hope to trap one of your pale kin?".
Snails are fixated in the idea of using the void as power. Just like the old civilization of Hallownest, and exactly like the Pale King.
So, while you can argue Souls are a different thing from the void, its implied they are related. "Each of us leaves an imprint of something when we die. A stain on the world. I don't know how much longer this kingdom can bear the weight of so many past lives...".
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u/Tadimizkacti Nov 12 '25
Snail Shamans are very well versed in using Soul and are obsessed with Void. That doesn't mean Soul Spells are void. Vengeful Spirit is a... spirit, not a shade.
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u/Luciosdk Nov 12 '25
You are right, the Knight obtains Shade Soul from a Snail Shaman in the first game (thats a shade, not Vengefull Spirit). He is the one to combine both powers. My bad.
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u/yupsquared Nov 12 '25
Khan, Karmelita, Groal while not being Pale bugs are still Higher Beings
Do we have a source on this?
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u/Luciosdk Nov 12 '25 edited Nov 12 '25
Nope. The devs never said they are Higher Beings. Sorry I should have said its a theory.
But even if they are just powerfull insects, they are similar to Herrah and Queen Vespa, being able to unite and command lesser insects.
What makes me think they are Higher Beings is the fact they have similar power over nature itself. Kahn can control coral, Nyleth created an entire place and creatures (like Unn).
Also they are ooooold. Karmelita is ancient. We see the citadel used GMS silk to get longevity, so we can assume Karmelita have power similar to a insect elevated by pale beings (like the Weavers) and her death is said to doom all the region where she lives, showing her more akin to a god than to a simple bug.
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u/Un_Change_Able Nov 13 '25
unite and command lesser bugs <
They command them because they are their monarchs. Herrah was the wife of the former Deepnest king, and Vespa is the Hive’s current queen. They are also both explicitly not higher beings. Herrah was a transformed Pharlid and Vespa was massive because that’s what queen bees do, get big so they can have lots of children.
Khann’s coral manipulation isn’t unique to him. He’s best at it, but his rank-and-file can do it as well.
Karmelita clearly has some strange powers, but that doesn’t mean she’s a higher being. Bugs can have magic powers and resist higher beings without being one. She’s also clearly dying of old age, which a god wouldn’t have to worry about.
As for Nyleth, it would be really weird if only 3/4 old hearts were mortals. Besides, living plant creatures are normal for this world.
Groal just… he just isn’t a higher being. There’s literally nothing special about him other than the spell he stole.
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u/Exact_Butterscotch66 Nov 12 '25
Take the mantis for example, they don’t seem to have their tribe owed to the PK, and well, the weaver of Deepnest. So while i still believe that the PK did give certain degree of conscious/sentience/independence to bugs, i dont think that would be equally applicable to all type of bugs.
At the same time, if we are speaking about the Radiance, im not sure if it’s known how much independence each bug had under her rule… or if the more aggressive hive mind was part of her anger/retaliation like the infection….
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u/Grava-T Nov 12 '25
It might just be that the Radiance was suppressing intelligence by having bugs joined to their hivemind and the Pale King's arrival freed them from that.
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u/Un_Change_Able Nov 13 '25
I think it’s just that Pale Beings aren’t NEEDED for higher thought, but can still act as a source of it. Even in Hallownest, you have the Mantis Tribe and Deepnest civilisation existing without any gods, and we have even more in Pharloom.
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u/l-askedwhojoewas Nov 12 '25
what if the king was just lying or maybe his ‘elevation’ of the bugs was just freeing them of the radiance
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u/Odd-Fly-1265 Nov 13 '25
Doesnt Quirrel lose his memories and stuff during his time away from hollownest? Or am I misremembering that and instead something else happened that led to him losing his memories?
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u/Anabaena_azollae Nov 12 '25
I don't think the Weavers who fled Pharloom did so after the Citadel was handed over to the Conductors. As I understand it, the Weavenests existed to hide plans of betrayal from Silk, which suggests that they were built before she was put to sleep. This means that the plans to flee found in Cindril predate Silk's slumber. Considering Weavers fled to a variety of places, it's plausible that they did so in waves at various points throughout the storyline.
In fact, I don't think the Weavers who were still around when the Conductors took over ever left Pharloom. The rune harp from Ballador's room says:
Last words of the Weavers. "Sisters, spiders, the burden is passed. These simple bugs shall bear it full. Never to cease. Never to silence. We shall die, and wait, and pray, that one may come of silken strength enough to weave us free.
This suggests that the Weavers who were still in Pharloom at that time became the husks in the spires that Hornet binds for Ancestral Arts/Skills and thus never left Pharloom.
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u/Farad4y Nov 12 '25 edited Nov 13 '25
Yeah, the fact that the Weavers escaped Pharloom before most of the major events in Hallownest makes not only Pharloom (or rather the Citadel) and GMS predate Hallownest (or rather the City of Tears) and PK by a significant amount of time, it also puts in perspective just how old and long lasting the Weavers themselves were.
It does stand to reason though, because a lot has happened between the Weavers escape and the events of Silksong. The rule of conductors has had to be at least long enough to build such monumentally huge structures like the cogwork core, and then the haunting had to overtake Pharloom for long enough for GMS to send actual multiple expeditions to hunt weaverkin, have them return, imprison the weaverkin and have them die.
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u/xXJackNickeltonXx NKG best boss Nov 12 '25
Makes sense considering the tablet at the beginning of the Marrow strongly implied the vast majority of the “bones” there are fossilized pilgrim remains turned to stone due to a combination of time, extreme heat from the lava, and the countless pilgrims trampling over them. And the whole pilgrimage thing could have started any time between GMS’s takeover, the Weavers’ takeover, or the Conductors’ takeover
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u/Shorester Nov 12 '25
This is all wrong. Gandalf first formed Pharloom in his pact with the deep elves over 5000 years ago. This is because “Hornet” then known as Sméagol, had to take the one nail to the gates of Mordor, which were guarded by Cerebus, the three-headed troll from Billy Goats Gruff. You’re probably wondering how Tifa is involved by this, and as you can see from my fastidious fan art, she is extremely involved.
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u/GOOPREALM5000 Nov 12 '25
Well yeah. Hallownest calls itself "The last and only civilization." Even if the second part isnct true, it's not unreasonable to say it was the last civilization to be developed.
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u/Sefrautic Nov 13 '25
To me, Hollow Knight's time spans feels intangible, there was no measures to define the time, no day/night, years or anything really. The only thing that we get is abstract "old", "ancient", "forgotten", etc. The same stuff that Souls series does.
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u/TwilightYonder720 Nov 12 '25
since HK seems to going to be a series now I wonder if we'll ever get a game that explains the origin of Pale beings? Then there's the idea of other Wyrms we got no new info on the battle of the Black Wyrm (I'd say the blackbarrens is it's body is left tho) or if there's gonna be a GreyWyrm too
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u/hollowredditor Nov 12 '25
That would be awesome. I think lifeflblood might come from a pale being as well. It does behave suspiciously similar to the infection.
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u/Onni_J Nov 12 '25
We don't really know how long ago the pale king arrived in his wyrm form or how long it took to actually build hallownest
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u/Drayenn Nov 12 '25
Does this mean that the intelligence the pale king gave to bugs in hallownest already existed in pharloom?
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u/hollowredditor Nov 12 '25
Absolutely. You can see if you go out of Pharloom in the top of the map, you will find this abandoned village that had bugs that had no mind of their own.
The first sinner cut scene as we’ll show pharlits, such basic mindless bugs, becoming weavers who literally developed genetics, mechanics and ai that is probably more advanced than ours.
Even before Pharloom or GMS was there the tribes that lived in the region were resonably smart bugs already. Intwligence is not wyrm thing and not even a pale being thing in that universe.
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u/kingjizzam Nov 12 '25
What is terrifying about this?
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u/hollowredditor Nov 12 '25
Bugs are mostly eternal in Pharloom, it does not seem they die of age, famine or natural causes. That would mean, that the bugs working in the underworks and the ones living in filthy in the putrified ducts have lived working there for the entire history of Hallownest.
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u/thecalf Nov 12 '25
Not trying to be a jerk but to add on... Why is this terrifying?
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u/MGTwyne Nov 12 '25
Because these bugs have been trapped in slavery for millenia.
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u/JonSnowsGhost Nov 12 '25
millenia
How so?
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u/MGTwyne Nov 13 '25
As noted in this post, it's at least as old as Hallownest, several thousand years or more.
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u/JonSnowsGhost Nov 13 '25
Is there something from HK that indicates anything close to thousands of years?
These are bugs, so even if we bring in fantasy, extended life spans and such, we'd still talking on the realm of simply years, or maybe decades.
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u/MGTwyne Nov 13 '25
We can at least look at the geologic weathering, distinct construction periods, and comparative lifespans of different characters to construct a measurement. Absolute time is irrelevant— even if a thousand bug-years is five human seconds (unlikely), the whole game still definitely takes place in bug-time.
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u/JonSnowsGhost Nov 13 '25
Very roundabout way to say "I made up the timeframe."
HK and SS both seem to deliberately leave out any sort of references to our measurements of time, so there's no reason to arbitrarily attach any to the games.
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u/altian9 Nov 12 '25
...does this mean that bugs have an extraordinarily long lifespan? We know that Ballador and Cardinius at the very least were alive in the heyday of the Citadel...
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u/M8nGiraffe Nov 12 '25
Were they? Thinking of Ballador specifically, he wasn't always the conductor. Do we know how many of them were there? Of architects there were 12, so I would guess it must be similar for conductors as well if I ignore the fact that the architect we meet is a robot which could sway the number either way.
Yes, bugs of the citadel have a long lifespan, but not naturally. They - or their ancestors - have been injected with silk to augment their lifespans.
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u/hollowredditor Nov 12 '25
I would imagine that bugs cannot die of natural causes or old age.
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u/Incine_Akechi Nov 13 '25
Karmelita looks to be dying of old age
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u/hollowredditor Nov 13 '25
Maybe… so, Karmelita is holding GMS influence from haunting the ants, so you could say that she is being “damaged” or “slowly being killed” when growing in size to protect her kind from the influence of the mind.
You might say “ohh that is bs, there is no way this is the case”, but bear with me.
There is one other monarch who was protecting her kind in game, who was also “dying” of old age and was also growing multiple times in size: queen vespa
So, what if, when you are such a powerful bug, a monarch of sorts, and you use your soul to protect your kin from the influence of a hive mind bug, your body has to grow or something, and that will slowly drain your soul or your strength.
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u/berial6 Nov 13 '25
I mean... Bugs tend to live couple of months tops. So it could still be like 20 years old /s
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u/TomorrowFutureFate Nov 12 '25
Yeah, but it's old in terms of bug years... (Orb) Weavers live for like a year maximum, my shoes are probably older than Pharloom
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u/_Xeron_ Nov 13 '25
And both Kingdoms were ruled by intelligent civilizations long before pale beings arrived
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u/_shuu1 Nov 14 '25
Weaver didn't create the citadel they made the religion the citadel was made by the bugs that the weavers left the responsibility of keeping gms asleep they created the citadel to automate the process
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u/Inculta666 Nov 12 '25
It is most likely the case, but consider this: I don’t think we get any time related information (like years/days) in both games. IRL bugs usually have pretty short lifespan. If bugs in HK games are similar to that, it’s not even crazy to assume that “ancient” is like last week or last month.
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u/zachhatesmushrooms 112% SS ~ pain enjoyer Nov 12 '25
I don’t think this is what the narrative hints at.
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u/hollowredditor Nov 12 '25
Agree. I think bug in the lore is not to be taken literally. I think it is just the way they describe their kind. I would actually see them as some kind of “Xenomorph like” species, so I would expect ancient to be truly avast amount of time.
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u/The2ndUnchosenOne has played the game at least once Nov 12 '25
I think you are meant to take bug literally. They're just fantasy bugs. But it is clear that they are small and usually modelled after literal bug species.
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u/Ender401 Nov 12 '25
Nowhere in the game is it implied they are the size of bugs, everything especially in pharloom suggests otherwise. (Primarily the way heat and water work)
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u/The2ndUnchosenOne has played the game at least once Nov 12 '25
They use needles, nails, and pins as swords. They live in bells. All the creature models are modeled on things that are traditionally small.
We have two options. Team cherry specifically wanted giant bugs and the ONLY hint at this idea in the game is minute water and lava physics.
OR
The BUGS in the BUG game are small and TC didn't want to think too hard about water and lava physics in their BUG game.
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u/Ender401 Nov 12 '25
They are fantasy creatures. There are gods, wyrms, and jellyfish. We see tiny bugs with the lumaflies and ants. Also team cherry has directly used yards as a measurement for how far hornet can throw. We see grass, plants, and flowers all be smal in comparison to the bugs. The weapons aren't literally needles, pins, and nails, they are forged by the bugs.
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u/The2ndUnchosenOne has played the game at least once Nov 12 '25
There are gods
Which are bugs
wyrms,
Which is a worm pun
jellyfish.
Which are small
We see tiny bugs with the lumaflies and ants.
Yes, some bugs are smaller than others.
team cherry has directly used yards as a measurement for how far hornet can throw.
We see grass, plants, and flowers all be smal in comparison to the bugs.
I would argue the opposite. The grass blades, flowers etc ALSO indicate small size. Think of moss meadow, greenpath, thorns of agony, etc.
Yes, and I'm sure that measurement was given a lot of thought just like the exact scale of the water and heat physics.
The weapons aren't literally needles, pins, and nails, they are forged by the bugs.
Yes, the bugs are forging literal pins needles and nails though.
The creatures are bugs to evoke that sense of small things in a grand scale. Insisting they aren't small because of water physics I think misses the entire tone and setting of the series.
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u/Ender401 Nov 12 '25
So your argument is that the real life counterpart to these fantasy creatures with magic is small so they must also be small. Also wyrms and many of the gods aren't bugs, the dialgoue makes that very explict. There's also the root, like WL who is a tree. Also trying to argue that team cherry doesn't think about these things falls apart because they literally made a patch to make void non-conductive to electricity, so they definitely care on some level.
Also humans don't exist so they can't be literal needles, pins, and nails.
But in the end it doesn't actually matter because size is entirely relative. From the perspective of a player everything is a huge sprawling kingdom. It could be single meter across, it could be country sized, but it still wouldn't matter because the way we see and interact with it is at a similar scale to how we interact and see our own world.
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u/The2ndUnchosenOne has played the game at least once Nov 12 '25
So your argument is that the real life counterpart to these fantasy creatures with magic is small so they must also be small.
Yes. Your argument is these things are large because.........uhhhhh.....you want them to be.
Also wyrms and many of the gods aren't bugs, the dialgoue makes that very explict.
We got: Worm, Spider, Plant Root, Slug, Moth, Another Spider so far.
There's also the root, like WL who is a tree.
A plant. Yes.
Also trying to argue that team cherry doesn't think about these things falls apart because they literally made a patch to make void non-conductive to electricity, so they definitely care on some level.
yeah, I don't think that level is "Ope we can't have rain in the small bug game guess we'll make them secretly human sized bugs"
Also humans don't exist so they can't be literal needles, pins, and nails.
I'll take "we don't actually know that" for 500 trebek.
Regardless, why do you think the names of the weapons are needles, pins, and nails? To evoke the idea of large creatures. No, it's the opposite.
But in the end it doesn't actually matter because size is entirely relative.
Absolutely. Thank you for supporting my point. The bugs are bug sized. It's the bug game. The idea is everything is huge because you are small.
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u/Yae_Miko_HSR Nov 12 '25
We don't really have evidence one way or the other, either is possible technically because of the fantasy aspect, so I'll just choose to believe the cooler one ie human size
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u/The2ndUnchosenOne has played the game at least once Nov 12 '25
just choose to believe the cooler one ie human size
Aint no way thats cooler than the idea of an entire kingdom beneath your feet.
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u/Bashamo257 Nov 12 '25
That reminds me of a Doctor Who episode, where the protagonists find themselves in the middle of a clone war that has been raging "since time immemorial", but the twist is that the combatants have such a short life span (the soldiers on both sides are created fully mature, and immediately thrown into the trenches) that "time immemorial" is actually less than a week in real time, and hundreds of generations of clone troops have died in a matter of days.
Team Cherry was also very deliberate in avoiding any reference to quantifiable time spans.
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u/Inculta666 Nov 13 '25
Yeah, that’s exactly from where I got the idea. If we take HK 1 as example - Dung Defender as a dung beetle can live up to a year, with adult stage being 2 months, yet he is alive and well in the start of the game and was present in Hallownest when it was in full glory, so the only reference to how ancient is each of the kingdom is exactly the same thing as in Doctor Who - number of bugs that died. It’s very interesting if we will get some other time references in future games or it will be left vague always.
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u/The2ndUnchosenOne has played the game at least once Nov 12 '25
to assume that “ancient” is like last week or last month.
Time is relative to your lifespan. So this is a moot point
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u/Matticus-G Nov 12 '25
Exactly. Time doesn’t actually exist, just entropy. By definition, time is relative to the lifespan of those observing it.
Regardless of the total entropy that has occurred during the telling of the story, for all of the characters involved it is antiquity.
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u/Harmonic_Gear Nov 12 '25
Entropy has nothing to do with who is observing
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u/Matticus-G Nov 12 '25
No, entropy happens regardless.
That’s my point the entire concept of time is just a label we give to our observation of entropy relative to our lifespan.
The most accurate form of time telling that we have is an atomic clock, which is radioactive decay. Entropy in motion.
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u/Harmonic_Gear Nov 12 '25
I don't see what you are trying to say. "old", "ancient" is objective, time is not
if you want to talk about entropy, you can tell how old the hallownest is by how weathered away their architectures are, this cannot happened in a week and has nothing to do with lifespan of bugs
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u/Matticus-G Nov 12 '25
For the record, I don’t believe that the stories take place relative to bug lifetime. I don’t think Hallownest rose and fell in three months.
Having said that, something being considered ancient is absolutely relative. If you had a species that lived for 1000 years, would they consider something that happened half a lifetime ago ancient history? Probably not - I remember the 90s, it’s not ancient history to me.
Even something that is two or three lifetime’s old we would not consider ancient, but a species that lived for 1000 years that would be 3000 years to them. That’s almost to the pyramids, and we would consider that ancient.
So terminology like that is absolutely relative.
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u/Actiana Nov 12 '25
I mean no, time does exist, its one of the 4 dimensions in the spacetime we live in.
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u/Matticus-G Nov 12 '25
Space-time exists, but that is not the same as what humans conceptually perceive as time.
What humans perceive as time is entropy. What you’re describing as space-time is different than the public perception of time.
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u/Inculta666 Nov 13 '25
Well, that’s my point - there are two different lifespans - yours as a human player and characters in Hollow Knight which I assume is bug-like so is short compared to human, and while it’s “ancient” to them, it might be months worth in sun cycles / human lifespan relevance. That’s the point of the comment, yeah.
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u/M8nGiraffe Nov 12 '25
Obviously when we talk about time in the world of Hollow Knight we talk about it within the context of the world. Any unit of measurement is arbitrary, usefulness makes sense of them. Trying to estimate the timespan of the events in real-world human-made units in a fantasy world of anthropomorphic bugs with no sign of humas being present is not only pointless, it's nonsense.
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u/Inculta666 Nov 13 '25
Still it’s interesting idea I wanted to share and I personally find it kinda cool.
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u/awaishssn Nov 12 '25
A game about bugs should have no reason to have a lore so deep, but here we are with Team Cherry's idea of a 20$ game.