#brooding mawlek

[linterteatime]

I present to y'all... More bugs in human-ish/gijinka form! because that's what I do and will do forever because there are many bugs and like I'm not complaining tbh I love doing these but damn there are a ton of bugs in thi-

[flame-shadow]

Colosseum of Fools Dating Sim

Who are your top picks?

[tonythr]

Sometimes you are so sad you turn into a game construct, and that's ok

Part of the reason I love Hollow Knight is that you never know when a certain phenomenon is a part of the game's actual lore or simply a gameplay convenience, but most of the time it's up to you to decide anyway. Like, yeah, I know that looking too much into what should be just a game mechanic and/or a simple animation effect makes you more of a clown than a lore master, but, honestly, at this point the entire fandom wears rainbow wigs and squeaky red noses in order to forget about the pain of no Silksong, so no one has the right to stop me from having fun with some observations I made and how they might be intentional lore pieces. So yeah, what I'm trying to say is that this theory might be a bit of a stretch, but I think it's neat, so I'm gonna post it anyway.

Now, here's the question: what do you think these two have in common?

Both are very sad because they lost someone who was close to them.

2. Both give the Knight a Mask Shard when they die.

My theory here is that these two things are connected.

Now, Mask Shards are weird, lore-wise. The locations where they are found don't always... make much sense. Like ok, aside from the two that I mentioned above, we have ones that are found on top of ancient black statues — this implies that those shards are connected to (and probably were made by) the Ancient Civilisation.

We also have some shards that we get from various NPCs (Sly, Bretta, Seer) — those also make sense, since there's nothing wrong with those weird bugs possessing some ancient artifacts. But then we have Mask Shards that just kinda... float there.

No ancient pedestals. No reason to suggest someone actually owned them. No reason for them to be there aside from the game wanting to reward the player for something.

This is also true for some of the Vessel Fragments.

Although the fountain one is exceptional. The fragment is actually a part of the Pale King's statue, but it detaches once the needed amount of geo is reached. It looks like this statue actually 'gives' it to the Knight once it puts enough geo in the fountain. It could be something that has to do with PK's magic, or with the whole 'sacrifice' theme that's going on with him. Anyway, it's not hard to come up with an explanation for how that one works. What is more interesting is how these shards and fragments are created.

Because apparently this mf can just materialize them out of thin air.

Now, I KNOW this is probably just a nice animation to emphasize how cool of an award a mask shard is, but it also wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that what happens here is Grubfather actually manipulating Soul to create this shard for the Knight. I mean, Grubs do possess some sort of 'holy strength' that was never properly explained to us (that's why I'm hoping to see some grubs in Silksong), and one of the two charms created from their power is something that straight-up gives the Knight extra Soul. If we don't count the Shaman charms, which were used only to extract and use Soul more efficiently, the only other charm that does that is Kingsoul, the embodiment of the union between two Pale Beings. So yeah, the Grubs are totally OP, and Grubfather probably does create a Mask Shard out of Soul here.

Which only proves the fact that both Mask Shards and Vessel Fragments are made out of Soul. I mean, come on, the Knight literally consumes them just like it consumes each of the spells and the Soul of its enemies, AND it takes Soul to restore broken masks. I think it's safe to assume that those ancient masks that the Knight is using to strengthen its shell are made out of Soul, or at least some material that is heavily tied to Soul in some way.

Another fact is that those masks and vessels have big connections to the Ancient Civilisation. Aside from the obvious things like the fragment/shard statues that I mentioned earlier having clear similarities to the Soul totems, there's this whole thing with the engravings on those masks and vessels having a bunch of connections with magical secrets of the Ancient Civilisation...

What I'm getting at here is that the bugs of the Ancient Civilisation probably knew the secrets of manipulating Soul and used those secrets to create masks (for protection) and Soul Vessels (for containing Soul), as well as Soul Totems. It means there is a way a Mask can be created out of Soul, aside from what we see the Knight do when it heals (which is an interesting process, btw - when a mask breaks, the Knight can restore it using Soul, but it can't create new masks to have infinite HP, so the masks it collects must have unique properties that prevent them from being completely destroyed and instead allow them to be recovered after breaking). And maybe that process was already shown to us.

Ok, now I'm actually talking about my theory again. See, the reason I think there's more to these two moments than just a simple reward being given to us by the game is because there's some overlapping philosophical (symbolical?) motifs that connect Brooding Mawlek and Grey Mourner AND possibly give us a glimpse into the secrets of Soul discovered by the Ancient Civilisation. I'm talking about what Soul itself might represent as a sorta metaphysical concept (I don't know how to say that properly... Just bear with me pls).

In the world of Hollow Knight, there are many philosophical concepts that give depth to the nature of various in-world phenomenons. For example, the Void is heavily tied to regrets, perhaps dark memories that keep us from moving forward. That's why it makes sense that, ultimately, Pale King faced his demise at the hands of the Void - he sacrificed thousands of his own children in order to save Hallownest and failed anyway, so there is no way he could avoid (pun intended) being overwhelmed by his regrets about this whole thing.

The Soul is the power that contrasts the Void.

It's implied by Jiji that, when the Knight leaves behind its Shade, it starts to drain *hope* from it.

This line was probably left there to explain this game mechanic:

When the Knight dies, it can no longer fill its Soul meter to the full, until it finds and defeats its Shade. This implies that Soul represents *hope* in contrast to the Void representing regrets.

If we accept this assumption, we can see that it makes sense how:

The White Palace is shown as a beautiful, calm, hopeful place despite it being filled with thorns and sawblades (that might or might not be a metaphor for the PK's pain of trying to hide his mistakes and regrets).

The shamans' dying thoughts are often their last hopes of being free, being heard etc.

The Soul is literally what gives the bugs' bodies the energy to move.

I feel soulless when I wake up at 7 a.m.

All things considered, it's easy to see how Soul is something that might represent such things as hope, motivation, faith - all those feelings that make a person feel whole.

And when the fate forces someone into situations where those things are lost, their inner self breaks. When something separates us from our loved ones for a whole eternity, leaving us as lonely, empty shells of our former selves, our soul hardens.

We already know that masks in this game directly correspond to the person's self, their ability to define themselves as who they are. A mask is literally the core of the person's mind.

And when a person breaks, when their hope becomes eternal sadness, when the essence that animates their body becomes a solid rock, their mind shatters, leaving only a single shard of what should have been a whole mask.

Perhaps, something like that also happened to the bugs of the Ancient Civilisation? Or maybe they found a way to control that sadness, just like they found a way to manipulate the power of regrets? They look like a bunch of cool goth bugs, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was their thing.

TL;DR: ancient masks that the Knight uses are made out of Soul, and Soul is a power that represents hope. When a person experiences a feeling of strong loneliness and hopelessness, their mind literally breaks, and their Soul literally hardens, resulting in the creation of Mask Shards. The bugs of the Ancient Civilisation might have known this.

Kinda edgy.

I like it.

[sakuramoussy]

Another Hollow Knight redraw - I definitely don't like the old version, but I liked the concept of it ahaha.. I did it justice this time!

[j-cherii]

after a month of playing and completing hk’s true ending on my first game, i diagnose me with “game boss trauma” B’)

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seriously these three are prolly not as hard as they were for me, but i still get war flashbacks hearing their discount themes all over again

[tboom10]

day 13 regrettably:

dont ask a woman her age, a man his salery and tboom10 how tiso's shield works in this drawing.

also we all know what happens after probably.

its shit. i know. it killed at least some interst in the series. posing is not bad, if not a bit boring, the background is shit. everything is shit. originally i wanted to include lord fool, which didn't end up happening. the best part about this is that we all know what happend after, cuz after all, this is day 13, and if it would'v been posted on the intended day, it would've been friday the 13th. how fitting. it has a lot of ideas i like with terrible execution. it is what it is i guess, and i'll move on from it. not everything will end up as a masterpiece, and that ok. dont beat yourself up over things looking like shit once in a while, every artist suffers from it. anyway still looks like shit, but it happends, moving on.

and hey, even though todays work sucks, i personally think a lot of the rest from at least day 14-22 (where im at now) looks pretty good. and tommorows one really does look pretty alright in my humble opinion.

that being said, i'd appriciate it if this end up being one of the ones i'll remake at the end with grimm and another one (i'll probably go for 3 at the end). stay tuned for that.

edit: its probably in the top 12 most noted characters, so its probably going in the poll yay! (also fyi: if the 12th and 13th or so spot is a tie, i'll add whichever one i wanna draw more or the one i feel like needs a remake the most)

[interwovenwordsmith]

A lengthy poem (or collection of poems?) about the Forgotten Crossroads and its inhabitants. Despite this piece not being in the category of my usual writing style, it was still extremely fun to compose. Though I had to revise this poem many times, due to my messy grammar.

[cherripups]

BEGIN !

[sugaryoats]

I dropped Hollow Knight years ago because despite my love for the gameplay and visuals I hated having to go from dirt mouth all the way back to the boss arena every time I died, and that the way back was like 5 minutes. I found out recently from a friend that the game is much less linear than I thought and I actually found myself fighting Brooding Mawlek thinking it was the first boss.

[noogit9000]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I DID IT

TEAM CHERRY CAN SUCK A RANCID EGG

MY EGO HAS BEEN RESTORED

[motheline]

Hunter's Journal #26 <Brooding Mawlek>

"Ferocious but extremely social creature. Becomes aggressive if not able to mingle with its own kind."

"I hear this beast crying out sometimes as I prowl the caverns, although I've never actually laid eyes on it. Who or what is it calling for? As far as I can tell, its voice is never answered." - The Hunter

[hollow-knight-fights]

Hollow Knight Boss Fight: Round 1

[bluegekk0]

been overthinking fpk's anatomy and had a horrible realization: he's literally just a pug

(also included his pre-hibernation weight just to put into perspective how sickly looking he was before and how much chubbier he is now)

[mouse-drawings]

No Tisos were killed in the process of making this

[flame-shadow]

🖕🖕💥

[cawareyoudoin]

I just beat Nightmare King Grimm. I'll be honest, I'm very proud of myself. It only took like 40 tries in total, and I did it twice in a row today.