#im like super mega impressed that ur so deep in the lore tag that u saw that post

[lost-kinn]

so your tags on this post: post/183013875752/hey-i-absolutely-100-agree-with-the-idea-that I know this is pretty old but if you might still be willing to expand on how the infection is tied to the Pale King's idea of knighthood that would be cool?? or direct me to where you did if I missed it? thank you!!

oh!!! thank u for asking!! no i don’t think that i ever didwrite that meta, mostly because it’s a Very Big Meta and even when i tried to write it in response to this ask, i wasn’t able to because it was Too Big. haha. but i did my best here, so i hope this answers your question, mostly.

the original tag was “i have other thoughts on how theinfection works but that banks on a weird theory of the radiance specificallytelling the pale king fuck you and fuck your cultural concept of knighthood”which is—technically right, but rephrased now that i’m expanding on itproperly, it goes more like:

The Radiance’s infection is a method of controlling the waysthat people think in the same way that the Pale King seems to beobsessed with controlling the ways that people think. The Pale King primarilyruled through propaganda and manufacturing ways of thinking among thepopulace, which then accordingly influenced the way his citizenship behaved ina way that benefitted him and his rule over them.

Knighthood is the most obvious example in the game of theways that the Pale King wanted to control the ways that people thought in orderto control the way that people behaved by extension—literally, if a knightbelieves they have to die for a cause, then this makes them much more amenableto the Pale King’s agenda as a ruler than if the Pale King had to manuallyforce the knight to do as he wanted.

In the same way, the Radiance’s infection quite literallychanges the way that the Pale King’s citizenry think in her attempt to reclaimthe people that the Pale King stole from her using his very own methods.

(Slightly more expanded train of logic under the cut.)

1) All governance/rule requires a) “consent of the governed”and b) physical force to enforce that rule. The population has to agree to havesomeone rule over them, and demonstrates their agreement with theircooperation. (Without sufficient consent, governments require physical force tostay in power.)

2) Consent can be manufactured. Despite the fact thatconsent is supposed to be something that one gives freely of their own accord, consentcan also be created through propaganda, cultural norms, education andeducational institutions (Yes I Am Salty Why Do You Ask), religion (see: TheRadiance’s Whole Deal, the entirety of the Godmaster/Grimm Troupe DLCs),“reformation programs,” therapy, medicalization of undesirable behaviors, andother methods of modifying the way that people think.

3) Real “power,” in Hollow Knight, lies less in thephysical force to enforce a rule and more in one’s ability to manufactureconsent and modify the way people think. Taken another way, you can forcesomeone to behave in a certain way through force, but if you modify the waythey think, then they’ll behave in those ways of their own “free will.” Inother words, real “power” lies in one’s ability to modify the way that peoplethink, and accordingly then how they act.

4) The Pale King is an absolute fucking pro at manufacturingconsent, and stole the Radiance’s followers from her via this exact method (promisingsomething that the moths wanted in exchange for them ditching the Radiance andjoining his kingdom). Exhibit A is Hallownest, which is practically anabandoned laboratory of the tools he used to manufacture consent. Most of thePale King’s “depiction” over the course of the game are abandoned propaganda(King’s Idols, the wishing well, the mystique of the White Palace) he used toencourage people to revere him, adore him, and otherwise “willingly” hand overtheir free will to him (e.g. those court dudes in the White Palace who donothing but bow to the player when they pass). Exhibit B is the fact that manyof Hallownest’s survivors still seem to think the Pale King is the bee’s knees,despite never having ever seen the guy in person and the fact that he seems tohave left everyone in Hallownest to die.

5) Knighthood, as an entire cultural concept that seems tounderpin a lot of Hallownest, is: “A knight defends and even dies for the sakeof someone else, and the knight says thank you for it.” Which is fucking bonkersfor yonkers when you think about it. From this standpoint, all knights actupon their own free will, but their “free will” has been specificallyconstructed through manufactured consent—they are being “controlled” from theinside. That is to say, in Hollow Knight as a game and story, allknights are hollow, and even actively aspire to hollow themselves out to betterchannel their lord’s will (The Hollow Knight being The prime example of this, in that the Pale King took this entire line of thought of manufactured consent and tried to make it very literal with a Science Child that was completely empty so that he could fill it with his will and his will alone).

6) Knighthood as a manifestation of manufactured consent isbad because it leads to whack shit like The Hollow Knight, and other knightfigures, who still continue to think (and accordingly behave) in the ways thatthe Pale King taught them to, even though Hallownest has fallen. This goes upto and including several instances of knights passively or actively harmingthemselves for causes that no longer exist (e.g. Ogrim, Hive Knight, The HollowKnight, Quirrel, etc).

7)  The Radiance’sinfection is a very literal, manual version of “manufactured consent”(literally, the infection is inside their minds and bodies and make Hallownest’sold citizens behave in a way that benefit the Radiance, and not the Pale King).The warfare between the Pale King and the Radiance throughout the course of HollowKnight is a war for not just physical land and real estate, but the mentalreal estate of the citizens that live in that land. She’s using the samemethods that the Pale King used, but more physically manifested via the literalbody horror of people having their bodies ruined and minds broken. Again,that’s what the Pale King was doing, really, but the Radiance’s version ifgrosser, more aggressive, more overt, and also her version is literally hermethod of taking back her own land from the Pale King who stole it from her viamanufactured consent in the first place. AKA, “@ The Pale King: Fuck you andFuck your cultural concept of knighthood.”

UHHHHH that was the very fast version!!! I tried to write the entire thing out in an official meta and it didn’t work!!! It kept expanding and I was getting into the 6k mark and I was rapidly realizing that trying to write about this particular topic would lead me to talk about Godmaster, the Grimm Troupe DLC, Mr Mushroom, Unn, basically any other depiction of gods, the moss prophet, the seer, Dryya, Ogrim–literally any knight figure you can think of–for god’s sake, there’s an entire novel to be written about the Hunter as a rejection of all of these ideas and embracing nihilism over a false pursuit of glory and everlasting legacy.

I hope this extremely fast version made sense. I can try and finish the longer version if you’d like, but I know you’ve been waiting for a while for a response already, haha.

#lore #talk #protectorprincess #im like super mega impressed that ur so deep in the lore tag that u saw that post