For the longest time, the only major source of Hollow Knight lore we had was… Hollow Knight. Other than some supplemental material, and a few comments from Team Cherry themselves, Hollow Knight was this singular work that defined itself and its world in its own terms. But now another game has come along, Hollow Knight: Silksong, taking ideas from Hollow Knight, expanding on them and recontextualizing them. And any time a work comes along like this, there’s a chance for retcons.
In the strictest sense of the term, a retcon is any time new information is introduced in a work that changes the continuity established in a previous work. For example, if Silksong established that Hornet was the one who locked up the Godseeker in the Royal Waterways, that would be a retcon, since it changes our understanding of the events of Hollow Knight, where it’s never stated who locked up Godseeker. But when people usually talk about retcons, they’re referring to retcons that contradict previously established lore. If Silksong stated that the White Lady was actually Hornet’s mother, that would be a retcon that directly contradicts lore established in Hollow Knight. In this video I want to go over both general retcons and retcons that contradict lore from Hollow Knight.
Due to the vague nature of Hollow Knight’s storytelling, it can be difficult to pin down explicit contradictions, but there are a few candidates worth investigating. That’s why me and my trusty steed, horsebag, who has been with me since my very first video, are going to be digging deep into the lore of both Hollow Knight and Silksong to uncover the retcons Team Cherry snuck into the game and see how bad they break the lore, if at all.
Are you ready, horsebag?
horsebag: Yes.
Okay.
Retcon #1. Herrah and the Weavers
I think the most surprising retcon I noticed on my first playthrough of Silksong was that Herrah the Beast was actually a Weaver, and by extension, Hornet was half Weaver. In the original Hollow Knight, the Weavers felt very distant from the other bugs in Deepnest, living in their own den separate from Herrah. The Weaver corpses say the following when dream nailed:
…Herrah…
…For protection…
…Princess…
…For bargain made…
So it was clear they had some sort of connection to Herrah and Hornet, but nothing in the game ever explicitly claimed that Herrah herself was a Weaver. Of course, there were people in the community who made that connection. But I think the reason I never thought this is because Herrah doesn’t look anything like a Weaver. The only real similarity they have is the eye pattern, but that pattern is also shared by the Stalking Devouts and Deephunters, and I’m pretty sure they aren’t Weavers.
Additionally, the mushrooms in the Fungal Wastes call Herrah a common beast with no mention of her being part of a strange race of foreign spiders with magic silk powers. While it’s true the Weavers were elevated from common bugs, it doesn’t really make sense to refer to them as such. While the mushrooms could be wrong, they seem like one of the more knowledgeable factions in Hallownest. I mean these guys all express their thoughts openly in a shared mind. They’re brain is like a giant live stream chat. They’re clearly on an intellectual level we simply couldn’t comprehend. It’s also worth noting that Midwife, probably the most knowledgeable character on Deepnest lore, talks about Herrah and the Weavers separately, without ever making a connection between them.
So while no one ever walked up to the Knight and said Herrah isn’t a Weaver, it wasn’t exactly clear she was supposed to be one, especially with the way her body looked.
A few theories have popped up to try and explain why Herrah looks the way she does. One theory is that Herrah actually evolved from a Drapemite instead of a Pharlid. But I doubt this, mainly because Hornet specifically mentions that she sees a similarity between herself and Pharlids. But she’s got bubkus to say about the Drapemites other than they breed in the dark. And given the fact that the Pale King shines light all around him, I don’t think Herrah would match this description.
The second theory is that Herrah’s body became deformed due to conceiving Hornet. We know that conceiving a child is incredibly painful for a Weaver, so perhaps Herrah’s body is the final result of any Weaver who goes through this process.
But if Team Cherry always meant for Weavers to struggle with having children, then why are there so many Little Weavers running around Deepnest? You could say that the Little Weavers just look like Weavers and are a separate species. Or you could say that Little Weavers aren’t the children of Weavers, but are literally just Weavers that are shorter than their sisters. Remember how I said the vagueness of Hollow Knight lore leaves a lot of wiggle room open? This is what I’m talking about. These explanations don’t seem very likely, but nothing in the game necessarily disproves them.
The vibe I get from all this is that Team Cherry wasn’t 100% sure what they were doing with the Weavers when they added them to Hollow Knight. So some of the details we learn about them in the first game don’t really slot in smoothly with what we learn in Silksong. I’d say Herrah being a Weaver contradicts the mushroom lore tablet, and the fact that Weavers struggle to have children contradicts the Little Weavers in Deepnest.
Retcon #2. The Snail Shamans
The Snail Shamans were one of the more mysterious aspects of the original game’s lore. There was only one still alive by the time the Knight arrived, and one of the few capable of using Soul for combat. In Silksong, three more Snail Shamans were introduced, and we learned a lot more about the Shamans’ nature. We even got instructions on how shaman spells are created. One of which, Anguished Aura, involves living pilgrims being hung to drain. Oh, you rascals, don’t let me catch you doing that again, okay?
There’s one aspect of their lore that feels a little bit like a contradiction from the first game. And that’s their relationship with the Void. It’s not exactly clear how much the Snail Shaman in Hollow Knight knows about Void. He refers to the Knight as having an empty face. And when speaking to the Knight after it acquires the Shade Soul, he mentions that the Knight’s “essence” has melded with the spell. So he seems to be aware of Void in some sense.
But when the Knight obtains the Abyss Shriek, the Snail Shaman says that the Knight is drawing its new power from a place his “kind” never thought to look.
But in Silksong, the Caretaker creates a trap that can seemingly open a portal to the Abyss. And then he and the other shamans are acting like of course the Snail Shamans are fixated with Void. Of course they would cast a spell that could open a portal to the Abyss itself. Not only that, but apparently Hornet should know this information intimately as well.
Silksong makes it sound like it’s in a Snail Shaman’s nature to tinker and experiment with Void. And if the shamans are interested in Void, then surely they’d know about the Abyss. And given that the Ancient Civilization appears to have existed in both Hallownest and Pharloom’s Abyss, the Shamans should know about them too.
So then why doesn’t the Snail Shaman know about this room in Hallownest’s Abyss? The only explanation I can think of is that Hallownest’s Snail Shamans literally couldn’t find Hallownest’s Abyss because the Pale King sealed off the entrance. Otherwise, it feels like this line contradicts the new lore from Silksong. Especially because Snail Shaman says “my kind”, implying he means all Snail Shamans. If he had said “my family”, it could maybe be more believable that Shamans in a different kingdom knew more about the Void and the Abyss.
A few side notes while we’re talking about the Snail Shamans. The one in Hallownest mentions that he is bound to the Ancestral Mound. But we see multiple shamans in Silksong move around, so it doesn’t seem like Shamans 100% have to stay in their own shrines. So perhaps the shaman in Hallownest is only honor bound to stay where he is. He’s not literally bound there.
Also, the fact that the Shamans in Silksong describe their relationship with Void as a fixation makes me think the Shamans are definitely not Void beings. So when they explode into black balls in Hollow Knight, that’s probably not because they’re Void. I guess they just kinda do that.
Retcon #3. Vespa & the Hive
Silksong confirms that Hive Queen Vespa was involved in Hornet’s life, and by extension, the affairs of Hallownest, even being the one to give Hornet her needle, made from a hitherto unmentioned material called Hivesteel. This retcon appears to be a contradiction compared to how Vespa and the Hive are depicted in Hollow Knight. When the Knight listens to Vespa, she says that the Hive plays no part in Hallownest’s attempt at perpetuation. The Hive also sealed itself off from the rest of Hallownest, seemingly desiring to separate itself from Hallownest’s affairs entirely.
So given all that information, it seems odd that the Hive actually did have contact with Hallownest, and not only that, but the princess of Hallownest herself traveled to the Hive and trained with their Queen. I get why Herrah and the White Lady are invested in Hornet, but why Vespa? Who invited her? If we’re roping in other powerful beings in Hallownest, why not get Unn in on the fun? I’m sure she could teach Hornet some cool stuff. Or just… spit at her.
Going back to Queen Vespa’s line, she specifically says the Hive took no part in Hallownest’s attempt at perpetuation. Maybe in her mind, training Hornet doesn’t fall under that classification. But Hornet does go on to become Hallownest’s protector, striking down Vessels that she deems too weak to usurp the Hollow Knight. And Hornet even uses this same word “perpetuation” when telling the Knight to visit the Cast-off Shell. So clearly Hornet sees herself as helping with the perpetuation of Hallownest which is probably why she sought training in the first place. So again, why did Vespa train her? What was her goal if not to help Hallownest? Was she bored? Was this before or after the Hive shut itself off from the rest of Hallownest?
I should mention that at one point during Hollow Knight’s development, the Hive was located inside of Deepnest. If that were still the case in the final game, this relationship might have made more sense. There is a tram that goes from Deepnest to Kingdom’s Edge, but it’s a less direct connection than originally planned. Given how everything is set up now, the only real connection Hornet has to the Hive is her name being Hornet. Which is a pretty big connection, I will admit. But everything else we know about the Hive implies they wouldn’t want anything to do with Hallownest.
So is this a contradiction? Well, we knew Team Cherry had this idea in mind when they made Hollow Knight, but they also seemed unsure themselves if it was going to be canon. So they might not have properly planned on how it would fit in with Hollow Knight while they were making the game. But depending on how you interpret Vespa’s dialogue, and when you think the Hive shut itself off from Hallownest, then mayyyyybe it doesn’t necessarily have to be a contradiction. But even if it is, it’s a really small one and doesn’t really break Hollow Knight’s lore in any meaningful way. But if we’re making this canon, I just wish Vespa would have taught Hornet the bee vomit move the Hive Knight learned.
Retcon #4. The Knight can’t control all Void
Another potential retcon is that the Knight can’t directly control the Void Tendrils that attack Hornet in the Sister of the Void ending. This seems to retcon the power of the Void Heart, which is said to unify the Void under the bearer’s will. We even see that Void Tendrils in the Abyss become docile once the Knight obtains the Void Heart.
I can think of one instance in Hollow Knight where the Knight couldn’t control Void. The Collector is seemingly immune to the Void Heart, still capable of acting of its own accord. Although this might be more of a gameplay issue than a lore issue.
Now that Silksong has confirmed the existence of the Abyss outside of Hallownest, it does raise some more questions about how powerful the Void Heart is. Would the Knight be able to control Void everywhere in the world? Or can it only control Void that’s within close proximity to it? I would think the latter, and considering it can call the Siblings during the Radiance fight, I would think it has a decent range. So in theory, it should be able to quell the Void Tendrils attacking Hornet from a distance. Ultimately, I think we have three options here.
- The Knight can’t directly control the Void Tendrils, but the Void Heart keeps the Void Tendrils from attacking the Knight. This would mean other creatures like Hornet can still be targeted.
- The Knight can directly control Void Tendrils, but for whatever reason couldn’t do that in this case, so it had to destroy the tendrils to rescue Hornet. Or
- The Knight can directly control Void Tendrils and easily could have commanded the ones going after Hornet to stop. But Team Cherry decided to have the Knight attack them because it looks cool.
I’m betting on option 3. I don’t think Team Cherry is trying to tell us anything specific about how much control the Knight has over the Void here. Instead, I think the lore might have taken a backseat to hype moments and aura.
Retcon #5. Bugs retaining sapience outside of Hallownest
In Hollow Knight, there were some aspects of Hallownest that made it feel uniquely special. The lore tablet on the threshold of the kingdom described it as the last and only civilization. And another tablet mentioned that there was no world beyond. The bugs of Hallownest were also granted higher thought by the kingdom, which would be taken away should they ever leave. So it really seemed like Hallownest was the only real kingdom in the world.
But in Silksong we see that Hallownest was very clearly not the last and only civilization. And we even see intelligent bugs living in Pharloom as well. So what’s going on here? Did Team Cherry forget their own lore?
Silksong has definitely retconned the world of Hollow Knight to be bigger, with not only Pharloom, but also with places like the City of Steel and the Blackbarrens. However, I don’t think anything in Silksong contradicts what was established in Hollow Knight. First of all, Hollow Knight made it clear there were other civilizations in the world. The Grimm Troupe’s whole deal was going to dying kingdoms and consuming their Nightmare Essence. So clearly there were other civilizations out there at some point.
So why does the lore tablet in King’s Pass call Hallownest the last and only civilization? There’s two interpretations I can think of. First, it’s propaganda. We can see given the size of the Pale King’s statue in the Ancient Basin relative to his actual size that he was not above embellishing things a little.
However I like this second interpretation better. Basically, the point of this lore tablet isn’t that Hallownest is the only civilization in the world right now. But because Hallownest is eternal, it will be the last and only civilization to exist for all time. It’s more of a declaration of Hallownest’s perpetuity than a statement about the current state of the world when the Knight finds it.
As for why the bugs in Pharloom are intelligent, that’s a little bit trickier to explain. While it is true that the Pale King granted higher thought to some of the bugs in Hallownest, it’s not the only way a bug can achieve this. In fact, there are several bugs already like this in Hollow Knight. Bugs like Zote, Tiso, Cornifer and Iselda, Cloth and the Godseeker all traveled to Hallownest from somewhere else with already strongly established thoughts, personalities and desires.
So it’s possible the pilgrims arriving in Pharloom were much the same way, already having minds of their own. I had always thought the citizens of Hallownest were a species of bug incapable of achieving higher thought on their own, but Silksong challenges this as the pilgrims appear to be the exact same species of bug.
Perhaps any bug can achieve higher thought if given the correct circumstances. Sorta like how Frankenstein’s monster became intelligent by watching humans interact with one another. Or like how you’re getting more smarter by watching a YouTube video right now. Good job, you!
Retcon #6. Everbloom and Void
The Delicate Flower has changed quite a bit from Hollow Knight’s initial release to what it is now. It first got retconned in Godmaster to have the power to dispel Void in some way, which we see when Void leaks out of the Godseeker. But in Silksong, we learn that the Delicate Flower is actually an Everbloom, which is described as “the first light” and it’s the only means Hornet has to repel the Void. When carrying the Everbloom, Hornet can resist Void influence on her shell, and she can even ward off the Void Tendrils in the Abyss. Once Hornet gets the Everbloom, it’s with her until the very end of the game.
By contrast, the Delicate Flower in Hollow Knight breaks if it even grazes an aspid’s nut hair. On top of that, the Delicate Flower does not affect the Void Tendrils at all in Hollow Knight. This interaction just doesn’t make sense canonically given what has been established in Godmaster and Silksong. Why can’t I take a Void bath with my Everbloom, Team Cherry? So Silksong does contradict Hollow Knight here, but to be fair, Hollow Knight kinda already contradicts itself due to Godmaster.
This line from White Lady saying the Everbloom is the only way they can resist the Void is also a bit odd since we know the Pale King experimented with the Void at length and found a way to form it using molds and harness it in rune etched shells. The lighthouse in the Abyss also seemed to have power over Void in some way, if only temporarily. But Hornet makes it pretty clear that she doesn’t think the Pale King succeeded in having Void do his bidding and that she thinks no one can control the Void.
While it’s possible that Hornet is just referring to how the Pale King failed to create a Pure Vessel, this line might imply that the Kingsmoulds and Wingmounds were also failed experiments. Maybe this indicates that the Collector emerging from a Kingsmould was inevitable and something similar was bound to happen with every Kingsmould and Wingmould. We never actually see a still functioning Kingsmould or Wingmould outside of the White Palace Dream Realm.
As a side note, I wanted to mention Void possessing bugs. We never really saw what that looked like in the original Hollow Knight. We only ever saw dead bugs that had succumbed to the influence of the Void. And the bugs we see in Pharloom are being controlled by both Void and Grand Mother Silk’s Silk. So we still don’t necessarily know if Void takes over regular bugs like this normally.
Retcon #7. Hollow Knight’s “canon ending”
This next retcon isn’t retconning anything from Hollow Knight specifically, but instead retconning something Ari Gibson said in a Reddit AMA back in the far off year of 2017. When asked which ending for Hollow Knight was the most canon, Ari Gibson said:
All endings are equally canon. We’re not into ‘True Endings.’ You choose the path yourself. We’ll do our best in all future Hollow Knight content to account for all of them.
This statement has always been a bit perplexing, even before Silksong was announced. When the Godmaster update released in 2018, it brought with it not one, but two separate cliffhanger endings. How exactly do you follow up on all ending equally when these last two endings are so drastically different from the base ending while also leaving even more unanswered questions?
And now that Silksong is out, it’s pretty clear that it didn’t actually account for all endings. The Knight showing up with the rest of the Siblings, and flashing its Void Given Focused form almost explicitly confirms that Silksong takes place after the Embrace the Void ending.
The Hollow Knight and Sealed Sibling endings definitely can’t be canon, since the Knight would be sealed in the Black Egg Temple. As for the Dream No More ending, while it’s possible the Knight could have achieved the Void Given Focus form post the events of Hollow Knight, it doesn’t seem very plausible. There’s also the question of where the Hollow Knight’s shade is in Silksong. It was freed in the Dream No More ending and lost its shell, but it doesn’t appear with the Knight and the other siblings during the Sister of the Void ending.
It’s only in the Embrace the Void and Delicate Flower endings that the Knight is shown elevating to its Void Given Focus form while the Hollow Knight still has its shell. And in the Delicate Flower ending, the Knight interacts with the Everbloom in a very strange way. It’s not clear if the Knight is killed here, since the Everbloom is only ever described as being able to repel or resist Void. That said, it seems the Void itself is absorbed into the petals of the Everbloom, which probably spells destruction for the Knight.
From looking at the Godmaster endings and Silksong’s endings, I think Team Cherry knew they weren’t going to be able to have Silksong work with all of Hollow Knight’s endings. So they decided to include the Delicate Flower ending in Godmaster to establish the item’s Void-warding powers, and the Embrace the Void became the ending Silksong would follow up on. If I’m right, that means Team Cherry knew this quote was wrong for 8 years and just never clued us in on the truth. Which, yeah that sounds about right.
Even so, I think Team Cherry made the right choice here. If they wanted to keep all of Hollow Knight’s endings potentially canon in Silksong, they would have had to just completely ignore anything from that game. And while they pretty much almost did that, the Knight reveal at the end of the game was a lot of fun.
Of course, this moment did raise a lot of questions. Like, why didn’t the Knight show up sooner to help Hornet out. Having a Void God on hand to help deal with Grand Mother Silk’s Void Cocoon would have been really helpful. What exactly was little fella doing? And it’s damn near a textbook example of a Deus ex machina. A godlike force appears out of nowhere to save the day with no buildup whatsoever. But maybe let’s save that for another video.
Retcon #8. Steel Soul NPCs
In Steel Soul Mode in Silksong the player can find the NPCs Sula and Steel Seer Zi. These two characters are clearly connected to Confessor Jiji and Steel Soul Jinn from Hallownest. All four characters seem bound in service to a mysterious group known as the Masters.
We learn in Silksong that these Masters are quite cruel to their servants, who they force to watch over kingdoms such as Hallownest and Pharloom for some unknown purpose. Apparently the Masters even have the power to subjugate bugs as powerful as Hornet, punishing them through a process called compression. Sula, a bug serving under Steel Seer Zi in Pharloom, becomes fed up watching the bugs of Pharloom suffer, and tries to summon a Void being to help them escape their Masters’ rule, the Summoned Saviour. Hornet destroys the Summoned Saviour and lets Sula flee Pharloom, but Zi makes it clear that the Masters will have them hunted down. We also learn that Zi was born from something called the “home spear”, a place where Growstone, a material capable of growing shell shards, can be found.
With how little we learned about the steel society from Hollow Knight, is it even possible for there to be any contradictions here? There is one line from Steel Seer Zi that confounds me. She mentions that Sula will be hunted down by the masters for touching the dark. If we take this dialogue at face value, it seems Zi is referring to Sula conjuring the Void to create the Summoned Saviour. But we see Confessor Jiji do a similar ritual to summon the Knight’s shade in Hollow Knight. Is that not touching the dark? Did Jiji betray her masters and risk severe punishment all for some scrumptious Rancid Eggs? Nothing in Hollow Knight indicates that Jiji is on the run from her masters, so that seems unlikely in my mind.
Given that both Sula and Jiji can conjure Void like this, that’s probably why the Masters acquired them in the first place. So perhaps it’s just the intention behind conjuring the Void that matters, since Sula is clearly doing it for different reasons than Jiji. So maybe Sula touched the dark in the sense that they thought they could use Void to save themselves. This would make them similar to the Pale King in a way.
In a recent interview, Team Cherry implied that Steel Assassin Sharpe and his two allies would be appearing in Silksong at some point, so it should only be a matter of time before we learn more about the steelhearts and their mysterious masters. It’s been almost 9 years since Steel Assassin Sharpe was first revealed. Surely it can’t be too much longer… Right?
Retcon #9. Lifeblood is actually really scary
Lifeblood wasn’t discussed much in the original Hollow Knight. The Knight could smack these cocoon and gain a few blue masks temporarily. Lorewise, we knew Lifeblood was frowned upon considering Joni was called a heretic, and Salubra described drinking Lifeblood as a bit of a taboo. Which is maybe underselling how dangerous this stuff really is. Because Lifeblood gets completely out of control in Silksong. The Wormways get overrun by the stuff due to the meddling of this guy, Alchemist Zylotol, who gets a little too obsessed with it.
It gets to the point where bugs are being mutated by the Lifeblood and one bug, Zango, even gets reanimated by it, resulting in a fan favorite boss battle. Hornet mentions that Lifeblood reminds her of infections she’s seen in the past, likely referring to the Radiance’s infection.
We’re likely going to get even more lore about Lifeblood in the upcoming Sea of Sorrow update. But for now, let’s just talk about how the base game of Silksong retconned Lifeblood.
Once Hornet has at least nine Lifeblood masks, she enters a special state where her normal masks are replaced with Lifeblood masks, and she’ll keep healing masks over time. So it seems Hornet is actually getting infected with Lifeblood once she consumes too much of it. This didn’t happen in Hollow Knight. While Joni’s Blessing does replace the Knight’s masks with Lifeblood masks, the Knight can’t get Lifeblood poisoning like Hornet. You can even stack dozens of Lifeblood masks on the Knight and it just doesn’t do a thing. Maybe the Knight’s unique physiology makes it immune to Lifeblood poisoning.
If we look at Joni’s corpse in Hollow Knight I think Team Cherry always intended for Lifeblood to spread out from bug corpses, which is what we see more explicitly with Zylotol’s corpse in Silksong. So while there might be a few oddities with how Lifeblood works between the two games, I don’t think there’s any major contradictions here.
At least that’s what I would say if Team Cherry hadn’t completely retconned the name of Lifeblood to Plasmium for no reason at all. What were they thinking!?
Retcon #10. Mister Mushroom
Our boy Mister Mushroom is back in Silksong, and just like in Hollow Knight, his dialogue is as cryptic as ever. He does mention that he probably wouldn’t have been in Pharloom if Hornet hadn’t been making moves within the land, which seems to tell us that Mister Mushroom specifically seeks out certain events in the universe to observe.
There’s just one problem. How exactly can Hornet understand Mister Mushroom without the Spore Shroom charm equipped? Does Hornet understand shroomish?? Uh yeah, that’s a plot hole.
These last few items do give us more information about certain aspects of Hollow Knight, but I don’t think they contradict anything at all. As far as I can tell, these are just cool details that fit in perfectly with Hollow Knight’s lore. So these are the kind of retcons that only add new information without contradicting anything.
Also, I do plan to dive into these subjects more deeply in future videos, so be sure to tell me what I’ve missed or how I’m wrong in the comments below.
Retcon #11. Pale Flame
Whenever the word “pale” pops up in these games, it always warrants a good deal of scrutiny. Be it pale beings like the Pale King and Grand Mother Silk, or powerful items like Pale Ore and Pale Oil, there’s clearly something noteworthy about this pale property. And one specific line of dialogue in Silksong makes a connection only vaguely hinted at in Hollow Knight much more explicit.
Groal the Great can be seen using a move similar to the Vengeful Spirit attack, a move that spends Soul to cast. One of Groal’s needolin dialogues seems to describe Soul as a “swirling, pale flame”. As far as we know Soul itself can’t be broken down into any smaller elements, which means this paleness is an inherent property of Soul. This, by extension, means that the Pale Beings are closely related to Soul in some way. It’s not a stretch to believe this considering the Kingsoul can generate an endless supply of Soul, and the Silk created by Grand Mother Silk is also made of Soul. This would mean the powerful properties of Pale Ore and Pale Oil might come from Soul imbued within them.
Retcon #12. Masks
Ancient Masks are one of the few items that appear in both Hollow Knight and Silksong, so we can see how Team Cherry changed their descriptions in the menu from the first game to the second. And it seems Ancient Masks are actually constructed from Pale Ore.
Considering how similar the surfaces of the Pure Nail and the Ancient Masks look in the original game, this revelation makes a lot of sense. Silksong actually gives us a fair bit of mask lore. Pharloom has its own Mask Maker, telling us that the Mask Maker in Hallownest wasn’t some one off freak, but a member of some larger order of bugs dedicated to making masks. And the Mask Maker’s work is even respected by bugs like Hornet and Tipp.
The Mask Maker in Hallownest talks about how hiding a face can change one’s mind in some way. We see this idea built upon in Silksong. Pharloom’s Mask Maker mentions that his task becomes heavy when he’s not wearing a mask. And Hornet says she wanted him lucid for their conversation. This implies the mask was somehow altering Mask Maker’s state of consciousness. There’s also Styx, who keeps a collection of masks in his nest. The thread memory here shows that Styx questions his own identity, implying that he changes his identity when he switches between masks.
The Pharloom Mask Maker also has an ability called the sight, which allows him to read a bug’s mask. With Hornet, this allows him to see aspects of her personality, while also noting that she still has the opportunity to grow. This ability might explain the weird swirly eyes the Mask Makers have, as well as why the Mask Maker in Hallownest knew so much about the Knight’s situation in Hollow Knight.
Retcon #13. Ancient Civilization
With the existence of Arcane Eggs in both Hallownest and Pharloom, we learn that some kind of Ancient Civilization resided in both lands at some point in the past. Were these the same civilization or two completely separate ones that both came up with the idea of using Arcane Eggs? Silksong does seem to confirm that the Abyss exists underneath the entire world, so the odds of void worshipping bugs popping up in both kingdoms at some point in the ancient past are certainly there.
The most defining aspect of the Ancient Civilization in Hollow Knight was their worship of the Void. And Silksong expands on that idea, showing that the Ancient Civilization wanted the Void to cleanse them, eliminating their desires and fears. Now I’m not one to judge, but these guys sound like fucking m-rons.
And that’s all the retcons I have for you. Overall, Silksong tries its best to focus on Pharloom, and not tie much back into Hallownest. But the few times it does swerve back into Hollow Knight’s established lore territory, things can get a bit bumpy. There aren’t any major retcons that completely break the original game’s story or anything, but it does feel like Team Cherry ignored a few parts of Hollow Knight’s lore so they could tell the story they wanted to tell in Silksong. With how much lore Hollow Knight had, the fact that there are so few instances of obvious retcons is impressive in its own right.
However, I don’t want to see any more contradictions out of you, Team Cherry. You really don’t want to make me mad. Just ask horsebag.
Horsebag?
Oh that’s right, I sent him to the glue factory last year for being a horse.
Songs used: Dung Defender (Hollow Knight OST) Greymoor (Silksong OST) Moss Grotto Main Loop Hive Knight Far Fields (Silksong OST) Resting Grounds Queen’s Garden Main Loop Hornet Dirtmouth The Marrow (Silksong OST) Optional NPC Room Greenpath Main Loop Mount Fay (Silksong OST) Strive (Silksong OST)
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