Some actual final thoughts on #HollowKnight. Having finished it, I was looking for some reviews/criticism to see how other people responded to some of the game's ideas and if they were in line with me, but I couldn't find what I wanted!

Bit of a thread, sorry.

1/16

I think two of the most interesting things Hollow Knight does are:

1. Relationship between player and player-character
2. (Partial) inversion and reframing of "light" vs "dark"

SPOILERS from here on out.

2/16

The player-character is revealed to be an "empty vessel", intended to save a dying world from an infection/idea that affects minds. Something without a mind or will is needed to combat it. The game doesn't make a big deal of it, but I like the fuzzy idea of the player as...

3/16

an external actor driving the character, either as programming (which is explored in a lot of other games) or as some more nebulous, semi-stochastic force. It's also a neat way of folding in the silent protagonist.

4/16

It's interesting in how it contextualises different playthroughs of the game as different versions of the same story - the player is essentially a different random seed for this blank slate PC. It works nicely with how open the game is too.

5/16

The mythology underling the world comes down to a familiar duality of two forces: The Radiance and The Void, but they don't represent good and evil neatly and Radiance is the one that's closer to evil. Here, The Radiance is the idea that a bug should only be a bug -

6/16

you are an animal who should have instincts, not thoughts. This is an idea so compelling in the world that it consumes all of the citizens of Hallownest and destroys civilisation. (I'm still not sure what the connection is between "The Radiance" and "The Infection"...

7/16

other than one being a slightly ill-fitting physical manifestation of the abstract other.) So here light isn't presented as illuminating, but as blinding and incinerating - erasing and overwhelming subtlety and detail.

8/16

Void, on the other hand, is presented as formless but mouldable, something that has changeability and allows one to shape oneself. It envelops (here comforting) and gives rise to life rather than taking or consuming it.

9/16

It's also possible that void is the result of toil and death - rebirth. I like that all this fits in with the world being an underground kingdom of insects. They live in darkness, they're safe in darkness - it makes sense that darkness would be their "good".

10/16

Hollow Knight doesn't quite commit to this duality the whole way - areas of the world are lit with a light that isn't malign, light is used to necessarily quell the void in some parts but is harmul to the PC in others. It's a little inconsistent, but that's OK.

11/16

There's an underexplored idea questioning whether sentience was a good thing for all these bugs. It's granted to them by a god but the game makes it clear that the society they built was unequal, classist, fractured and exploitative to the point of cannibalism.

12/16

I like that the traditional framing of light vs darkness should be priming you to ask those questions but the game doesn't quite follow through - the infection is unambigously bad and tied to Radiance, some bugs are reanimated husks possibly due to infection?
13/16

Anyway, I wanted to find some criticism to compare notes with, but so much discussion of the game is focused on combat (which the game's DLC invites you to focus on tbf), strategies, speed runs, the size of the game, playtime etc. All of this is great but...

14/16

there's a tendency to divorce "lore" from everything else in the game. Safe, separate, optional. This thread is a "theory" that can be confirmed, not just an "interpretation". If you separate out lore completely then you don't leave a space between for theme or meaning.

15/16

I hope I just don't know where to look, so if anyone knows, please god tell me where I can find it. I've seen enough YouTube videos discussing whether or not a game adequately rewards you with stuff for...playing it.

16/16