#((as seen in the cutscene when you first encounter broken vessel))

[abyssembraced]

Higher Beings are, by nature, completely immune to the Infection. They're on equal standing with the Radiance, after all, and a god can't rip away another god's will like the Infection does to normal bugs. The most it can probably do is weaken the god by stealing away all their worshippers (like what happened to Unn), but it can't actually infect the god itself.

Hornet, being half Higher Being, likely has at least an innate resistance to the Infection, if not a full immunity.

The Hollow Knight is exempt from this because they were trying to contain the Radiance herself and the entirety of the Infection. Had it just been the standard dose of Infection, they would have been totally fine, but they were fighting against so much more than that.

The others who are immune to the Infection are Void creatures, due to being made of the Radiance's sole weakness (mind you, while they can't become infected, a strong enough burst of concentrated light will kill them); and bugs who are completely hollow, since there isn't anything for the Infection to actually grasp onto and control with them.

(Keep in mind though that an immunity to the Infection does NOT inherently mean the ability to end it entirely or to stop/kill the Radiance)

Of course, there are other non-Higher Being, non-Void, non-hollow bugs who have been able to resist the Infection, but the ones above are the people who are completely unaffected by it without any input or effort on their part.

[ganymedesclock]

So like, how would you succinctly describe how you interpret/write Ghost?

To elaborate on what I said here, I keep several qualities in mind when writing Ghost.

They are an experienced traveler. We don’t know how long they spent beyond the kingdom, but, they are recognized as a kindred spirit by people who are very experienced or traveled despite seemingly being fairly young, or at least in a kind of undead-child-limbo state where their years haven’t affected them much.

Their body language is very orderly and composed. They are not incapable of making mistakes, or struggling or failing- if anything they are likely used to this- but the implications of the Shade system suggests that they hold themselves to a high standard and that failure weighs heavily on their mind.

While this is more personal headcanon than anything, I feel like they would be sparing with any form of communication available to them. It isn’t merely that they’re silenced by lacking a voice- they also seem to be quite a taciturn and stoic soul by preference.

(I kinda like to think that if they were in a situation where they were talking using some workaround or another, the result would come off a bit like Garnet from Steven Universe- brusque, authoritative, not mincing words, and even potentially rude or cutting, but more warm and verbose around people they are closer to)

They are relatively young, or again, in a kind of limbo that means the passage of time hasn’t brought age. They doze off easily if left on the benches. There are things they haven’t experienced and a kind of innocence to their curiosity for the world. I can see them, subtly, having a streak of those kids who perceive themselves as extremely mature and wise but then... they can have some fun splashing around the hot spring. 

Understated but very present is that Ghost definitely has an angry streak and a hunger to prove themselves. They don’t care so much about petty reputation (they don’t seem inclined to do much to attack or punish Zote when he lies about them to Bretta) but are drawn to try and prove themselves in the eye of the Hunter, or in the Colosseum of Fools. Even very early on, when Elderbug cautions them about the numerous dangers of Hallownest, the overall trajectory of the game suggests they don’t pay him terribly much mind, or meet it with a kind of ‘challenge accepted’. And again, the Shade system suggests Ghost takes failure very harshly- believing they can’t afford to fail or should be above it or, likely, a complex tangle of sentiments. 

They can certainly have something of a haughty and cold streak that rears its head towards certain people- they don’t seem to hate Zote but they don’t think much of smacking him around in the Colosseum, either, to say nothing of their less than reverent treatment of PK’s body or Millibelle.

At the same time, though, it is hard not to see them as very motivated by loyalty to those they love, and interpersonal curiosity. Your only option in the game to leave Zote for dead happens before you talk to him- so, basically, as long as Ghost has listened to him even once, they don’t want him to die. They follow Hornet into Greenpath the moment they spot her. The cutscene in the City of Tears, with the slow pan up Hollow’s statue and the image of it “weeping”, as well as the way that almost the first thing we see in-game is Hollow screaming in pain, the boss title of the Lost Kin, and even the shift from judgmental (“False Knight”) to compassionate/tragic (“Failed Champion”) when Ghost realizes that he was trying to protect the other maggots.

To pull this all to a central thesis: Ghost is a complex bundle of emotions kept under a heavy lid. Young, brittle, lonely; haughty, proud, and vicious- curious, compassionate, and earnest. Reserved, superficially proper, they seem to have a strong self-identity as a knight (I’ve talked before about how the game’s noncanon prototype has Ghost address the player directly in a way that seems to illuminate their thinking for the main game).

They also seem genuinely curious about history. Quirrel and Lemm have a lot of dialogue, and while Lemm is an optional encounter, the text for the Void Idol is given by him, and not from a conversation Ghost and Lemm have ‘in canon’ which would imply Ghost visits and listens to him more than we are necessarily shown in-game. Many characters also make sidelong comments into Ghost’s inquisitive nature and their desire to ‘dig deeper’. (visit the Snail Shaman after obtaining Desolate Dive, for example)

In a more trivial sense, I operate on the read that the first half of the Hunter’s Journal entries reflect Ghost’s perspective, while the second half can be attributed to someone else, usually the Hunter- and the tone of those entries further seems to betray Ghost’s thought process. They have several habits that rear their head in those entries:

They are curious about weapons and consider them important. They note the relative uncommonness of great nails, consider Ogrim skilled (and his white defender form, gallant) and despite disrespecting Zote, note that he seems to have made his weapon himself and the name he calls it by.

They are very interested in knights and orders thereof, as can be noted in both Ogrim’s entries and the city guard. 

Highly motivated by their siblings- they seem to be the one who name the Sibling enemies (Hunter’s entry suggests he has never seen them himself), and the Broken Vessel / Lost Kin, not to mention acquiring the Abyssal Shriek by using Howling Wraiths to ‘give voice’ to stone faces in the abyss.

[ganymedesclock]

What do you think is the relation between Light and Void? They are opposites in many ways, like how Ghost can gain Essence only from ghosts, and Soul energy only from living enemies. But both energies still seem tied to what I'd call 'spirit', because essence affects dreams, while soul is self-explanatory. They seem like complementary powers that have similar effects when overflowing, like you see with Godmaster DLC endings compared to the Infection.

So this might seem like a rabbit trail, but, roughly, here’s my thinking.

What Hollow Knight tells us that Silksong’s basic premise confirms is that there are two mutually true statements:

Hallownest is surrounded by wastelands

Contrary to the Pale King’s words in the Howling Cliffs, there are other kingdoms beyond these wastelands

This intrigues me because it’s fair to presume Pharloom has other gods to its name, or at least had at one point, which IMO, would seem to suggest they still have gods. We have yet to see a dead god that truly leaves behind no lingering seed of their presence. Unn is absent according to the tablet her children leave behind but she still has a physical body; she is a weak god, not a dead one. Radiance, when killed in the Dream No More and Embrace the Void endings, dissolves into Essence. And Grimm and Radiance can be refought after their boss fights that ostensibly kill them, even if it’s in a dream. The Pale King is dead- his corpse can be found- but the Seer, who isn’t proven inaccurate about anything else she says- cheerfully wonders if he’s watching Ghost.

Even, seemingly, the “Blackwyrm” Ogrim alludes to- there is some manner of enormous, jet black creature with blue eyes that can be seen in both Godhome and the lifeblood abyss dream. 

Let’s assume for a moment that Pharloom is also going to be surrounded by the wastes. Let’s assume- since we have no reason not to- that Hallownest is standard; a kingdom containing all manner of flora and fauna, surrounded by an empty, nearly-lifeless no man’s land. After all, assuming the Pale King is the author of the whispering lore tablets, since they speak in his voice and the author states indirectly they are a Higher Being (”your great strength marks you among us”), we know he traversed the void himself before arriving at the edge of the kingdom to leave behind his Wyrm body. And he claims “there is no world beyond”. It would suggest even if he’s wrong (many other bugs, from Quirrel to Cloth to Zote to Cornifer, suggest or outright state the existence of other kingdoms that they’ve traveled to) he views the world as empty.

This would seem to suggest that life exists by clinging to specific habitable zones created by gods. Possibly, Grimm’s adherents, being oddballs, occupy a travelling bubble of life and safety created by his power- it would explain why, when dream nailed, the two giraffe weevils resting outside his tent are thinking about how the roads are dark and cold, but their master is always guiding them.

That said, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Light and Life are synonymous. While many beings allude to the Void as death, that’s not the full picture. Lifeblood- the substance most directly conflated with “life”, appears to be abyssal in origin. There are artificial void beings- the Kingmoulds and Wingmoulds, among them- and natural ones as well. The snail shamans appear to have been long ago born from the void itself- the shamans you free from the Crystallized Mound and the Soul Sanctum both dissolve into shadow just like the Collector. And what’s more interesting is that Lemm’s remark on the description of the Void Idol tells us that there were bugs that worshiped the void.

Void does not appear by its nature antithetical to light. In fact, the truth seems to be more interesting- void appears primed to devour light when the two come into contact. It seems to take a lot of light and a weakened void for the former to triumph- see the Broken and Pure vessels. And at their pinnacle, Pure wields the power of holy light, effectively and without hurting themselves.

Roughly, what I think is going on is that Light is roughly the energy of a god; they are beings made of Light, who radiate it, like living suns. This is worth noting, because at least Hallownest as we saw it does not appear to have any natural sunlight- outdoor regions are perpetually overcast and dim, and the majority of the kingdom is underground. All light comes from either artificial lighting or a natural glow that seems to pervade certain areas.

The gods radiate light, and, in that light, life flourishes. In the sense of Essence, that’s described as “fragments of light that dreams are made of” but several sources, most noticeably the cut full text of the Elegy for Hallownest, suggest that dreams are not exclusively a gift of the gods. Seemingly, all living beings have dreams.

And most interestingly? That’s not just the light-aligned beings. Kin, when purified of the Radiance, with their spirit freed after the Lost Kin fight, still has essence to give Ghost. The Collector can be dream nailed and read. Ghost’s ascension to the Shade Lord basically predicates on their ability to enter dreams, and on having the awakened pure nail.

This is really interesting if you consider Ghost becoming the Shade Lord seems to involve aggregating a lot of essence to them. And many of the Warrior Dreams, after their defeat, talk about entrusting themselves to Ghost, watching them or coming with them or being taken somewhere by them. The Seer also remarks that “the dreams of this kingdom are starting to stick to you.”

The Elegy for Hallownest also implies both the Pale King and the Pure Vessel took the Kingdom’s dreams onto themselves.

So, perhaps, if Higher Beings can be thought of like stars, then, the heat and pressure that forges that star is by hitting a critical mass of essence. It would explain what gods get out of this symbiosis with “Lower” forms of life- to retain their power, to not fade away and gradually diminish, they need to retain believers, who will continue dreaming the dreams that sustain them. Radiance parasitically forces herself into others’ dreams by creeping through the minds of those who already knew of her, and then as her strength regained she was able to attack the minds of others- helped that she was the  god matriarch of the moths, who specialized in manipulation of dreams.

So where does this leave Void? I think that Void is simply another god’s light- albeit a particularly eldritch light, coming from the oldest god we know of.

The relics from before Hallownest’s history are all void-aligned. The Pale King and White Lady usurped the Radiance to become Hallownest’s new gods, and seemingly pushed aside Unn to do so... but it’s likely that Radiance overthrew another god- because she greets Ghost as “ANCIENT ENEMY”.

I think the Blackwyrm was the first god of Hallownest, and its stamp yet remains on the kingdom- most directly, in the form of the void totems, arcane eggs, the snails and Collector, the lifeblood cocoons, and of course, the black sea at the bottom of the kingdom, but I would expect, before Radiance’s rule drained the water away, it’s likely that sea was much higher than the Abyss.

What makes me say that? Well, Hallownest loves shells, doesn’t it? And the most common kind of shell that appears, all over the place, as high as the Forgotten Crossroads, in-game?

Ammonite shells.

Ancient sea creatures.

Flowing water would likely have bored out the expansive network of natural caverns the kingdom takes place in. And, again, the Snails would appear to be the descendants of natural void creatures. There’s certainly no ‘fetter’ on them like the Pale King imposed on the Moulds and Vessels. There are land snails. There are also sea snails.

The Abyss is heavily conflated with the distant past and this notion of primal life. The Hunter’s Journal entry for the Void Tendrils has the Hunter outright talking about how the bugs of Hallownest wondered what predated them- that the Hunter is wondering about this here would heavily suggest that the primal life of the void is that ancestor.

The Radiance went to war with the Blackwyrm, but, it’s likely the Pale King never did. The White Defender’s journal entry has Ogrim reference only a single “battle of the Blackwyrm”. That’s not a war. And the Pale King is way more willing to stick his face and hands (and children) in the void looking for a leg up on the Radiance.

This could well be a kind of generational ignorance acting here. The King came after Radiance had ruled for long enough to establish the moth tribe, and for the moths to get quite entrenched- if the Resting Grounds are only what was left of the tribe after a long decline, that’s still a rather fancy area with a lot of personalized tombs and markers. So he’d have arrived long after the Blackwyrm’s first defeat. And even the Snail Shaman doesn’t allude to the Blackwyrm- people who mention the idea of life in the Abyss mention it in words of idle curiosity and speculation. If we presume Lifeblood is tied to the Abyss, and tied to the Blackwyrm, as the creature in the background of the Lifeblood Dream and that door in the abyss would certainly seem to imply, then the closest thing the Blackwyrm has to an extant worshiper is Joni the heretic, and implicitly some others given Salubra cheerfully mentions drinking lifeblood is kind of a taboo, which, you don’t establish taboos for something that nobody is even considering doing.

Blackwyrm is a forgotten god- so faded and distant that they’re only peeking around the corners through dreams. It might well be that by the time the Pale King encountered the void, he viewed it as something without sapience entirely. After all, he perceives the Vessels as “mindless” when you could make a two-hundred point bulleted list over things that Ghost canonically does, either actively in cutscenes or implicitly in the thrust and limiters of the game, that make no sense if they’re a mindless puppet operating only on the instructions they’re given. Like, for example, sitting with Quirrel or Marissa, or walking slower in some sections than others.

The implication is the Pale King viewed void as something mindless and godless, but it was neither.

And the interesting takeaway from that? Is the idea that the Pale King may have given the Radiance’s ancient enemy an open door without even meaning to. After all, Bardoon outright says- death to a Wyrm usually means transformation. So perhaps in creating the Vessels, the Pale King was actually just imposing fetters on fragments of the Blackwyrm- and with the Godmaster endings, Ghost was the one to shatter that fetter and ascend to the emptied throne of the God of the Void- the new incarnation of the Blackwyrm.