Little nitpick but the Pale King was by no means the emissary of the Radiance. They were different forms of light-associated gods competing with each other for the worship of Hallownest’s bugs, the Pale King by granting them free will and the Radiance by forcing the bugs to worship her through the Infection. The whole reason why the main conflict of the story happened is because the Pale King converted the Moth Tribe to worship him, causing the Radiance to be forgotten.

Wait a minute this isn’t mossbag

Good video, but one criticism: The Pale King was never an "emissary" of the Radiance, nor associated with it in any way. The Pale King was the one who granted the bugs sapience and higher thought, not the Radiance. I think the best way to compare them is that while they both represent light, the Radiance is a blinding sun, while the Pale King is a gentle moon. The Pale King was the ideal balance between light and dark, at least from his subjects' perspective, but when the Radiance threatened his kingdom with her light, he delved deep into the dark to try to stop her, losing his morality in the process.

I would say in Hollow Knight it's more of a fight for dominance between two different kinds of Light (Pale King and the Radiance), in which one of the sides tried to use the pure primordial Darkness as a weapon and it backfired on both of them

Mistaking the Pale King for an emissary of the Radiance is a grave error in this analysis. What we know implies that the Pale King was a wyrm, a 'higher being', that decided it wanted to make a kingdom. It gave sentience and civilization to the bugs in what became Hallownest, and was so glorious that it was worshipped as a god. Even by the moths, who previously worshipped another higher being, the Radiance. Everything we see about the Radiance *except* the mere existence of the moth tribe suggests it has nothing to do with order and is more about an insect's instinctive response to light, which moths are known to be drawn towards. Finally, a note on Godseekers and 'becoming gods' in Hollow Knight: Considering how every boss, even pathetic ones, are called 'gods' by the Godseekers, it should not be thought to have any particular significance in that world. It seems it is enough to be notable to qualify as a 'god' here.

>new Max Derrat video >look inside >alchemy

I love Hollow Knight so much It came out of nowhere and took everyone by surprise

Enjoyed everything, but I disagree with one point. I don't think the Pale King was ever associated with the Radiance other than to try to keep her from taking over his subjects whom he had given sentience to. I could be wrong, it's very possible I missed a tablet or dialogue or a dream nail somewhere

6:08 I AM SHOCKED to see a reference it Mata Nui Online. I have always felt like everyone forgot about it. It feels like there is almost no online discourse on it.

i too remember when dark souls invented gaming and story telling

There is a lot to like about this video; the reflection on the nature of light and dark was very interesting, especially the part about the perfect being made by union of two opposites. However, the author ignores a lot of essential evidence found within the game in order to make their own narrative more convincing. Laying out only the most important points of critique: 1. There are alternative sources and inspirations for the story and the world of the game that have nothing to do with Dark Souls and which have been confirmed by Team Cherry themselves; such as the game "Faxanadu" and the book series "Dune". The author fails to acknowledge any. 2. Hollow Knight contains the themes of the conflict between light and dark, but it's by no means the defining conflict of the game. Pale King is in no way 'herald of the Radiance'. He is a god of reason and civilisation, trying to build an Eternal Kingdom, granting his subjects higher thought and free will. The Radiance, in contrast, is a ruthless and merciless force of nature, punishing Pale King's subject indiscriminately for their monarch's actions. Them being both representatives of 'light', being radiant and inspiring devotion is the only thing they really have in common. They are two distinct entities with different origins, sources of power and motives. The story of Hallownest's fall is the story of direct conflict between the old god (Radiance) and the new one (Pale King), between Nature and Civilisation. The author fails to address that in any way, choosing to group them together for the purpose of spinning his narrative of conflict between light and dark. 3. The author of the video claims that there are only three possible choices for the player's character: prolong the stasis by taking on the role of Hollow Knight, succumb to Radiance (thus dooming the world to a tyranny of light) or embrace the 'chaos' (Void; thus dooming the world to a tyranny of darkness). They claim that the player character has to choose between these three bad endings, that the game does not provide us with a satisfactory answer and that we may only get it in the sequel. The game does provide an answer. It's a ending called "Dream No More", also known to the community as the' True Ending'. The author purposefully omits this. 4.The concept of Void as 'primordial chaos' is a big stretch. There is no evidence, nor even a suggestion that the higher beings created the world out of 'primordial chaos', that all life came from Void. There is evidence pointing out to the opposite: that it's the living creatures that produce Void over long time - Void is their regrets and grief, "the weight of life", the toll of death. Moreover, the author claims that it is 'light' that is the sole source of will, mind, reason and creative capabilities; while the in game Void seems to have a will and a mind of its own. The Ancient Civilisation (the Void worshippers) used Void for creative purposes, making roads and chambers, altars, totems and workshops. The mere fact that a civilisation was built using the power of Void makes the author's interpretation less believable, as civilisation is the ultimate symbol of order and the author eqates Void with chaos. Fianally, there is no evidence that it was Radiance that destroyed Ancient Civilisation. A few minors nitpics include: The Godseekers are not trying to become gods, but trying to find the most powerful of gods so that they can direct their worship to them; Pale King never forgot Radiance; it's the Moths that did; there are multiple groups that seems to not be created by any of the higher beings, such as Mantises, creatures of Deepnest and Bees of the Hive, challenging the author's statement. In short, the author omits key evidence and ignores the clearer and better justified interpretation of the story, working with an assumption that it's built on the exact same themes and archetypes as Dark Souls, not allowing Hollow Knight to be its own story with its own messages and meanings.

Didn’t Ari say in the same interview that certain mechanics from Hollow Knight were inspired by Bloodborne and that he had played all of the games and isn’t he also the one who came up with the story and art direction at least for the most part? Also I wouldn’t say Hollow Knight is about light and dark. The Pale King things that he can use a vessel to harness the power of the abyss to overcome the infection being spread by the Radiance which is what is turning the bugs into zombies. The Radiance was the God that was worshipped in the time before the Pale King arrived and usurped her essentially but some bugs in Hallownest started to dream of the radiance and remembering her caused them to become infected. Perhaps consider making a follow up video with this in mind?

Hollow Knight let's gooooo! See the next part about Silksong in the next episode in 2086!

Did not expect the Patrice o Neill cameo hahahaha

I think the Pale King's and Radiance's light differs from each other as they have different roots and intentions. He represents the state of order, but inside of a conscious being perspective. The autonomy of thinking, building and fighting and trying to keep our chaos and order balanced at the same time. Radiance is the state of order as everything should be since the beginning of it all, when she is around, there would be only "order" since everything would work in the most optimal way intended like unconcious bugs and animals. The void is the darkness present in all conscious beings and it has two ultimate reasons to exist: Overcome radiance's light or get rid of its darkness to embrace radiance's light. Both of these would not work in the long run because as demonstrated, no vessel fully made of darkness.

Just saying that the true ending in the base game actually has everything cancel out as the radiance is defeated and all vessels move on. Also I am pretty sure the knight itself is completely hollow so it would be able to trap the radiance and we don’t really know anything about the lord of shade or why the vessels become it, besides it being void given form.

I remember when you did your analyse on Evangelion, you said that the youtuber Tranquil Dionysian (now The Berserk Dude) expressed what you originally wanted to almost word for word. With that in mind, it's entirely possible that the developers of Hollow Knight made a Dark Souls clone by complete accident.

I love Hollow Knight so much, I wish I could replay it again for the first time. The creations of ideas that you mention reminds me a lot of an artist, Steven Zapata, and how he talks about the nature of ideas, where they come from, and many other topics about life. I really enjoy how you take your time when sharing your thoughts in your videos. Gives me time to think and analysis as the video progress. :)

Is It me or almost all dark-themed philosophical games end up being fundamentally based on Alchemy, Gnosticism and Carl Jung's works?

Didn't expect you to paly this but it's so cool to see you work on it! How I look at the three primary powers here, Void, The Radiance, and the Pale King comes down to three types of consciousness. The Radiance is Collective Hive Mind like some insect species. Pale King was more individual consciousness. Giving higher consciousness to insects. While the Void is what you say. Chaos Matter that can be organized by, for lack of a better word, Demiurge. A craftsman. Forming a Golem. Aka Programmable Consciousness.

I've written a whole series of speculative fiction-books with a kind of sandman as protagonist, and he is a master of dreams. I didn't know about Neil Gaiman's Sandman until several years into the writing, and my hero certainly looks like he's been inspired by Gaiman's sandman. The truth is that my sandman was inspired by the combination of the old fairy tale and the 1950's song about Mister Sandman in combination with the Chinese classic Journey to the West that has a similar figure, so two creators can definitely make a very similar final product without having heard about each other's work. My guess is that both these game creators got their inspiration from the old myths.

This is the earliest i've been to a Max Derrat video, and while i never played any souls games nor Hollow Knight, it was most intriguing seeing how the forces of light and dark are not as clear-cut as ive thought. On a similar note, this reminds me of a game i played recently called In Sound Mind (definitely check that out peeps) that had a chapter that basically was "Alan Wake-like" and the dev who contributed the most to that chapter didn't play Alan Wake until after the similarities were discovered. He basically got mindblown, to the point i'd call it "divergent evolution"... or was it convergent? Either way i couldn't help but see the parallels

The Patrice O'Neil clip was priceless xD

I made the pointing wojak face in excitement when I heard you said "Light, dark or something else entirely?" I love Dark Souls, Hollow Knight, Fear and Hunger, Noita and Bloodborn. I have books on alchemy, occult and other mythos. I love your videos Max, you're channel is almost like made around my special interests. Love you

10:00 It also kind of relates to the concept of a Tulpa. It's kind of like a thought or concept in your mind that you manifest to reality.

Cool video but void actually is a very small part of the story most of the lore is about the fight between the pale king and the radiance it's more of a political story than a light vs dark story there's more than 6 different kinds of gods: soul higher beings: pale king and white lady higher beings like unn Essence higher beings: like the radiance Void higher beings: like the lord of shades Lifeblood higher beings: like the abyss creature Flame in dream higher beings: like Grimm my personal opinion is that these types of higher beings are paired 2 by 2 Void and soul (interaction soul spells and void, the vessels and the death of the king cause of void)(gods of the land and material soul and void are liquids that contain powers in the real world) Nightmare and dream(this is straight up confirmed by the seer)(the gods of the mind and dreams) Lifeblood and plant unn like powers (that I don't really know how it's called)(creators of life through mind)(gods that don't really care about the struggle between all the other parts) Void was the complete master of the land of hollownest during the age of darkness the ancient civilization was then slowly relegated in the abyss unn took control of half (more or less) of the map the radiance took another part in the peeks and the resting grounds when the pale king on his own decided to make a mess invade the reign of all of these civilizations then he practically digged his own grave unn didn't really react but the radiance killed his kingdom and the void killed him so y'know it's not that white and black the pale king was fuckin around and found out

Great video man - I can't wait to hear your take on Silksong! (if it ever comes out lol)

13:20 I get an incredible sense of dread whenever this song starts playing in the background. It's kind of amazing.

AskYourUncle published a video "Assassin's Creed Revelations Is Better Than You Remember" 14 hours ago, Max Derrat published a video "Hollow Knight Was Deeper Than You Remember" 13 Hours ago.... Like the Onion Knight said "Mmmmhhh.... Mmmmmhh".

Nice touch playing Id's theme from Xenogears there plus the music from Berserk botrh great choices.

I'm always happy to have a wild Patrice appear. 2:17

6:07 When is the bionicle lore video coming?

The beginning of the video, talking about how Team Cherry never played or knew much about Dark Souls, yet the games have such incredible similarities, reminds me of Dennis the Menace. Two entirely unrelated people who knew nothing of one another, in different countries, both created Dennis the Menace on the same day in history. Both Dennis characters were freakishly similar, too.

So deep that nobody can find Silk Song, no matter how far down they search...

It's awesome to hear yet another perspective about this incredible game. I'm thrilled you covered Hollow Knight!!

Ok but what about the Grimm Troupe 😆

At an insect's scale, it would be a gas, not a liquid as we know it. Any of our liquids are like tar to them. They get stuck in it, it is sticky. Only the larger insects can maneuver around it. Gasses are tangible things that insects can see and interact with, even the air has substance to them.

Insightful as always.

Yep, and thank you for talking on this.

One of my favorite youtubers talking about one of my favorite games. Hell yeah

The union of opposites motif reminds me of genesis from the Preacher comic books. Pretty funny mix of (somewhat shallow) philosophy and bonkers “time to fist-fight god” energy, I’m not sure how fitting it is to your dissections but it’s got some neat moments

02:18 That Patrice O'Neal reference got me completely off-guard and I loved every second of it. 😂😂😂😂

Thank you for doing this game justice. I’ve watched a ton of Vaatividya content and have wanted the same level of quality for Hollow Knight videos and it’s been exceptionally disappointing for mossbag to be the “hollow knight guy.” I love this game so much and it deserves better

Brilliant timing for this vid’s release.

That Mata Nui Online/Bionicle reference is as ancient and mysterious as the void itself

I just played Hollow Knight for the first time this year, so good timing

Deeper and hollower.

always thought this game deserves the level of appreciation and analysis that games like the souls series gets, great video!

The Xenogears BG music near the end gave me a surprising kick of nostalgia... if you haven't already you should make a video on that game/series... EDIT: Nevermind, found it and watching now

1:07 you misquoted here. He said he "actually hasn't played MUCH of Dark Souls.." which mean he's definitely played SOME of it. Which means he at the very least knows how dying works and how save points work.

I remember one of them saying they played bloodbourne

Hi Max, great analysis as always. Out of curiosity, have you ever considered playing and/or analyzing the games of the Korean developer Project Moon (namely lobotomy corp and Library of Ruina)? They’re all set in a shared setting which borrows heavily from various schools of mysticism (notably Kabbalah), psychoanalysis, and classical literature. The developers really show their research and the games thematically seem right up your alley. Cheers!

where did you get the idea that the pale king was an emissary of the radiance??

Never thought I would see Patrice o'neal in one of your vids.😂

Yes, yes, yes! I'm in the process of becoming a Jungian analyst and have been saying this about Hollow Knight since I played it. Kudos, good sir. Kudos!

I seriously don't know when will Silksong is coming. It's been a long time since they announced that game.

The Void sounds a lot like the Backyard from Guilty Gear...

I believe the interpretation at 7:17 is mistaken. The Mask Maker is talking about Hallownest's expansion into the kingdom of Deepnest. This is corroborated by his placement at the end of the unfinished tramline.

8:48 dom aught to be feeling mighty goofy right about now

I always thought that the player character knight being a "pure vessel" was a way of telling the story through gameplay. The player goes into the game without knowledge of the story or lore and makes intuitive decisions over the course of the playthrough that lead to them discovering how they ended up in Hollownest in the first place.The point of this is that the player character and the actual player have the same thoughts and goals in a real way that you don't even realize it until the story's been told.

Hollow Knight feels as deep as I remember...

oh boy! i cant wait for mossbag's debunk video!!

Splendid explainations! I love it when the themes in fiction are explored through real life traditions

I’m curious what you believe about the god home ending in relation to the light and dark dilemma, because in that ending, it seems like the radiance is just completely destroy, not locked away or diminished, but it seems like it is dead, never to rise

what was anime guy bare knule boxing at begining everyone lives underground

Of course it's a deep game. It takes place far underground. All joking aside, the timing of this video is wild bc last night I kept thinking how I want to play Hollow Knight again while listening to the soundtrack. Gonna take this as a sign lmao. :)

Here comes max, the goat. Love your videos, man.

Okay, now we have Max Derrat and Mossbag to sacrifice to Team Cherry

Wasn't expecting to see Patrice O' Neal in a Max Derrat Hollow Knight video.

I can't tell you how much seeing that Patrice O'neal clip made me laugh!!! Cheers!!

Woo! More deep analysis of a beloved game! Thank you for bringing such 'meaty' content!

You are amazing. May what You believe in protect You !

Silk song when!?!?! I haven't been able to poop since they announced it :(

Yeah Patrice O'Neal!

Congratulations on 400000🎉 Very appropriate 😂😂btw

He may not be your cup of tea, but I really dig that you inserted a Patrice O'Neal clip here. 👍... Oh yeah, great video as well. Hollow Knight was awesome. And that Xenogears soundtrack 😊

good work

So when I reach my peak obsession phase with hollow knight the objective #1 game commentary and analysis channel makes a video on it

Bapanada!

Literally the day I start playing it lol, nice

02:17 that would be the Fair Lady, not the white Lady I must say I am somewhat annoyed by the ongoing "Compare it to Dark Souls trend" that seems to affect every game that has either a Dark Fantasy Setting, dabbles into the territory of passive Storytelling or (my favorite argument) dares to have objects in it´s game world that serve as Safepoints... the one thing in Hollow Knight that reminded me of Dark Souls was the loss of Currency upon Death and being able to reclaim it but that was it chances are one is able to draw parallels between the two titles but as you have said it is mostly found on Archetypes that have been a common sight in Videogames way before Dark Souls and even Demon´s Souls hell, one might even claim Hollow Knight draws inspiration from ICO since you safe progress by sitting down on a Bench, but I digress not saying there aren´t games that emulate the Model of Dark Souls, there are plenty I imagine since it´s a successfull game and people tend to emulate that which is successfull and sales well, but it´s also a bit disheartening when you have a game like Hollow Knight were two to three people made a valiant effort and one of the first things you hear from people is "Oh, look, it´s JuST LiKE DArK SoULs!"

Now I want to play the game.

My favorite game of all time honestly. This was probably the most unique take I've seen for a while now. This actually made me rethink some of the ways I've seen aspects of the world. So thanks.

Welp time to give Hollow Knight another play through.

You should do axiom verge

There's a lot to learn from those developer interviews, even when they're being coy or flat out lying. Miyazaki is a big fan norse mythology, I use what I know of the mythos to fill in blanks. I'm usually way off base, but the story in my head works for me

10:28 background music?

Maybe the meta aspect of a third party actor (us the player) could be a part of the "soullessness" of the playable character. Unlike the titular Hollow Knight, we don't bare any connection to the in-game world so it adds a level of detachment and literal external chaos in a sense.

Team cherry lied and the only evidence you need is the abyss watchers and the abyss knights.

The creators of the game were inspired by the anime movie "Angel egg" ( i forgot the name), which has a lot of judeo Christian symbolism, thats why Hollow Knigth has those themes and visuals.

so Elden Ring is just Hollow Knight all over again?

Would you ever do a video on infamous 1 and 2 i think that has deep implications with destiny and heroism.

You said sentience a couple times when referring to the radiance gifitng bugs with intelligence, but wouldn't what you mean be sapience?

So beautiful and atmospheric game this is

I love this games atmosphere so much Gets dark in the lore tho

Silksong when?

Thanks for this. I had already gotten the allusions to Gnosticism, but not to this level of depth and detail. I love this game. But what's going to happen now that The Radiance is gone?

Good timing , people are pissed today silksong didn't show on the nintendo direct

I knew that HK wasn't inspired by DS, and everytime people on internet brought this up, about HK being a soulslike, I always said it isn't, thanks for bringing this to a video max

here off the back end of the podcast