#that’s what you call doomed by the narrative

[wheelercurse]

I swear I am not an optimistic person, I am not the kind of person who believes thinking positive will give you what you want. And many times I don’t think I will get what I want. In general I am a very skeptical person or the ones who don’t believe it until they see it.

But I am not lying when I say that I’m so confident in byler. And that confidence doesn’t come from a blind optimism or just because I want to think positive. I am that confident because literally I don’t see another logical outcome. And it’s not because I am looking for clues in the background, it’s literally in how the story is written, and I don’t mean only in s4. When you see the full picture, the whole arcs of these three characters it doesn’t make sense another outcome. And yes I know that queerbaiting exists, but I compare it with other cases and it’s already breaking some patterns.

#even with that love confession I don’t think mlvn has a possibility because it was built on Will’s lie #it hadn’t occurred without Will the second love interest #that’s what you call doomed by the narrative #yeah it would be homophobic that they used Will’s feelings for fix a straight ship #but also it wouldn’t make sense #no one writes the second love interest lying and that used as a solution #less in a show whith a friends don’t lie theme #and there’s not a good reason to complicate the plot that way #like it wouldn’t be shitty writing it just wouldn’t make sense at all #and I am that sure maybe because I am also a writer I know about these things #and I don’t know I trust my critical thinking more than this guys lmao #these*

[lotus-pear]

lore accurate teen soukoku. the worsties ever

#rewatched fifteen w my bestie bc she finally reached season 3 and i forgot just how insufferable these two idiots are💀 #literally calling each other slurs in one scene and then holding hands in the next #what the fuck is wrong with them /gen #anyway this accurately sums up their dynamic to me. toxic besties. gossip gals. teenage girls. whatever that dynamic is called #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #bsd #dazai osamu #osamu dazai #nakahara chuuya #chuuya nakahara #soukoku #skk #lotus draws #also my friend is literally insane bc she was like “chuuya n dazai are satosugu coded but if like stsg actually had BEEF w each other” #LIKE WHAT😭😭 #THE ONLY THING THEY HAVE IN COMMON IS DOOMED BY THE NARRATIVE YAOI #sobbing you guys shouldve seen the face i fucking made at her. i was so disappointed

[kimwexlersponytail]

The only thing that kept me going was knowing you were here.

#bcsedit #better call saul #mcwexler #jimmy x kim #kim wexler #jimmy mcgill #been seeing a lot of people saying that they don't deserve a happy ending after everything and though i get why that's being said #i disagree with the idea that they must be punished by the narrative in the form of an absolutely devastating end where they both die or #are broken down even further because they're Bad People and they Deserve It...their relationship is the heart of the show and #i don't believe that the writers spent over half a decade building this relationship up just to leave everything hanging in the balance #we can argue all day about jimmy and kim being Good or Bad but they love each other. they do. and bcs is a love story #do i believe that they're going to live happily ever after and get a fairytale ending? no of course not but i don't see a doom and gloom end #for them either. narratively speaking jimmy has been in prison all this time and who knows what kim has been up to all this time #i just don't think it would be narratively satisfying if the ending was about punishing them i really don't #i think it's going to be bittersweet for sure but there's no doubt in my mind that it'll be full of heart.... #but god all of the takes about jimmy not deserving to meet up with kim in the gene timeline are just making me root for it even harder #and i really hope the world turns back to color the moment he sees her and idc how many people think it's cheesy <3 #and you know what someday maybe they'll finally get their house. #mine

[vivitalks]

settle a debate between me and my roommate

(whatever your vote please explain your answers)

#lord of the rings #lotr #boromir #stuff #fellowship of the ring #full disclosure we aren't totally sure what it means to be doomed by the narrative #especially because as you may have seen. it is actually a made up term and not a real literary concept at all #i mean i guess it could be one but it originated on tumblr SO #anyway state your cases especially if they support mine #and no for legal reasons i cannot bias voters by revealing which side of this debate i'm on #happy new year from tardis 2.0 aka the compound or MARs or whatever the fuck this apartment is called

[loudmound]

this excerpt from a doom eternal review is at the core of what i think made 2016's storytelling several steps above what eternal was trying to do and why i'm so pissed off at how disastrously they flew off the rails.

#stormy shouts #the review is called 'doom eternal is a dizzying catastrophe' if you want to read it for yourself #eternal's narrative suffers not only in part due to the crunch the devs were under #but also a severe lack of confidence in those that took up the helm of writing—because they don't consider themselves writers! #they don't understand what makes a story good #they just threw all the cool shit they liked at a wall and hoped that would be acceptable #and obviously... it wasn't #it's a story that refuses to take itself seriously while also demanding that you as the audience take it seriously #own your fucking ridiculousness and be earnest goddammit. campy shlock is not inherently a bloated fuckshow

[bravevolunteer]

thinking about the spare springlock suit that michael gets trapped in in sl. what do you guys think it was :)

#worst options are some sort of spring bonnie or fredbear prototype. of course #like there definitely could've been more but ?? there's not really any hints as to what it was so i'm just inclined towards pain as well as #The Themes And Motifs Of It All you know DFJHDSFK #yes it was most likely just some random suit but to me that's just free real estate #spring bonnie 'they thought i was you' sins of the father following his call being doomed to never escape #OR fredbear and the GUILT of it all the inverse where he is now trapped and terrified evan Haunting The Narrative (the plush and cameras in #the private room!) as well as night 4 also being heavy on the michael and circus baby dynamic! #how could i possibly choose you know #just thinking about him escaping and seeing what it was. im normal #⁂ ･ﾟ: i was looking for a job‚ and then i found a job‚ and heaven knows i’m miserable now ➛ ooc

[just-some-guy-joust]

Lyf is a NARRATOR doomed by the narrative unraveling in front of them, unable to do anything but continue to watch and describe as horror unfolds, as it goes from distant past to a very near and real threat they speak on, documenting the tragedy laid out before them and they will be the only one to ever know what happened. We don't even know if they survive the end! Lyfsweep

<3

#so much lyf love today c: i love it here #-R #curtain call #do you know what its like. to love an obscure blorbo in something thats ALREADY obscure #and now! look at all these people as excited about them as i am! #i love it here #even if they lose this was worth it #doomed by the narrative showdown

[wall-e-gorl]

thinking about anne again. i just think itd be so fun if she had a crush on some princess-type who did not give a flying fuck about her at first. she gets a lot of stares, from being big, from being a horse (espc once leaving home), from being just pretty (espc at home), so someone who doesnt spare her a second glance is rare and intriguing.

#anne #(anne my centaur barb) #i just think itd be fun. a gridd|ehark dynamic but less violence and doomed narrative #just imagine would you #a snobby outwardly-asshole lady. made of sharp edges and expensive perfume and snide comments and so much arrogance #and then her girlfriend comes up and shes the biggest horse youve ever seen and she doesnt wear a shirt and shes calling the lady sugar? #and the lady is suddenly smiling for the first time in this whole conversation?? what? and the big horse lady apologizes and says that- #-'her and the missus are due elsewhere' and she pays the unhaggled price of whatever snob was trying to haggle down and they leave?? #hello what just happened? #wouldnt that be so fun #you cant tell me its not cause it is

[skelingtonsderek]

Yknow before this whole plague thing and economic explosion happened I used to take solace in thinking that perhaps there was only so much misery to go around and that I was using up some of it so others didn’t have to endure the type of hardships I have and now I catch myself being confusingly hipster about it like “well I experienced great personal and systemically caused despair Before it got popular”

#me talking to me: my mutual on tumblr you need to chill #what makes you an interesting and unique person is not a series of depressing facts #but how you have elaborately set them all up to bespell and ensnare unsuspecting sailors #I’ll call you Ishmael if you moby on my dick until we’re both doomed by the narrative #unhinged monster journals publicly

[fellhellion]

obsessed w whatever is going on w cecilia and cove in step 3. bitches who have been in love w each other for nearly a decade and WHO KNOW IT’S MUTUAL. AND HAVE NEVER SAID ANYTHING ALOUD. GUYS WHO HAVE NEVER DATED ONE ANOTHER BUT HAVE BEEN IN THIS SINCE 13.

#like!!! they KNOW they like each other #thats not the narrative tension here! and its facinating! like i know for cece personally it was very much rooted in the fear #that they would date but possibly ruin their friendship if it went bad and she wasnt willing to risk losing her best friend #so she just NEVER TOLD HIM. BUT HE KNOWS. AND SHE KNOWS HE KNOWS. LIKE #YOU AUTISTIC MFS! #and its so funny because both sets of parents think the problem is them not being able to admit it when!! they KNOW!!!!! #also sidenote this is why the shiloh moment (serendipity i think it is??) is such a godsend because it's a wakeup call for cecilia #she sees HERSELF in shiloh #stop waiting for predetermined doom!!! you are not bound to ruin!!!!! you CHOOSE how you maintain your relationship #so like yeah i totally know whats going on w cece. no idea whats up w cove. <3 love that autistic mf <3 #tunes talks ourlife #wait hm add on. i think cove knows that shes attracted to him i dont think he knows its LOVE.

[hivemindclown]

i took one look at lyra and went

#you cant fool me #silly tilly murder mystery #call to the stars #artists on tumblr #my art #doodle #fanart #the sapphics are sapphicing #doomed by the narrative #tottie how could you do this to them #eure type is uncomprehendable horrors and clumsy ladies #what a life #sapphic #eure #lyra #history will say they were best friends #gal pals #kiss the homies goodnight #historians will call them roommates #lyra kiss her already #god the situatonship is to strong #situationships

[infizero]

this image haunted my brain when i was trying to fall asleep last night so i had to make it

#serena.txt #im gonna go insane. sorry that this is what im currently thinking about but also im not sorry bcuz this is my blog #and i could not give a shit anymore about what ppl think about what i post about LOL #anyways everyone is always calling characters doomed by the narrative BITCH! YOU DONT EVEN KNOW #if we arent told exactly what their tragic fate is gonna be from the very start and it doesnt hang over the entire story like #a dark cloud of misery where both you as the audience AND the character themself are painfully aware of whats eventually going to happen to #them. and the fact that theres nothing they can do to escape it. then they are not truly doomed by the narrative #if the mere fact of the story's existence doesnt require them to suffer than they are not truly doomed by the narrative #you guys cant even fathom the level to which these two are doomed. BITCH BURR SAYS HE KILLS HAMILTON IN THE FIRST FUCKING SONG!!!!! #WE KNOW HOW THEIR STORIES ARE GOING TO END FROM THE VERY BEGINNING THERE IS NOTHING ANYONE CAN DO TO STOP IT #THIS STORY CANT HAPPEN WITHOUT THIS DUEL FUCKING HAPPENING #dont even get me started on hamilton's whole ''i imagine death so much it feels more like a memory'' shit. im gonna lose my mind #would you guys kill me if i said they're doomed yuri #<- you dont get to know if this is a joke or not

[barnbridges]

every single time i see anOTHER work in this fandom be like marion and bunny didn't even care that much i'll literally go to the author's home and like. dropkick them.

#it's part of the ironY OF THE WHOLE FUCKING THING #bro if someone questions if that pussy converted you towards god then there's SOMETHING MAKING THEM QUESTION THAT #while unseen and away from richard's gaze ghjk girlie is in the narrative #lingering #ready for the dooms #and for what if not for love #like im sorry if you name your stupid kid after him and are hang up on him after like 10 years. #she loved him #because there's no other sane and rational explication to why she'd fuck a guy who is poor does drugs and is like. not even that much #his family very obviously doesnt care about her. because it wasn't HER bankrolling his shit #every time i hear “bunny's parents probably liked her.” im like BUNNY PARENTS INVITED A RANDOM EX INTEREST SITUATIONSHIP AND THEN DIDNT EVE #NOTICE #OR INVITE ANY OF *MARION'S* FRIENDS #LIKE IM SORRY SHE'D NOT BE HANGING OUT WITH CHARLES WERE ANY OF *HER OWN* FRIENDS AT THE FUNERAL #CHARLES IS THE ONLY PERSON IN THE GROUP WHO CAN VERY LOOSELY AND LIBERALLY BE CALLED HER FRIEND #i will litrally thrash teeth on this topic #none of the irony and the fate makes sense if it was not the most plasticky thing ever to exist and also a loving relationship #NONE OF IT #none of the shit clicks #he can lie and fake and make illusions but ultimately there's always some truth to the lie #there is an undeniable sense of humanity and a desire for things that are Real #which their relationship must have been real #if julian can go around and call marion in very mean words his flaw as can richard #then it was indeed real somewhere between the very performative things #there's always a cold hard pit to every single rotten thing and that's GHJKL #idk girliepops i always do this attached to the side characters and for WHAT FOR WHOMST

[togglesbloggle]

Voltaire's Prayer

“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it." -Volaire’s letter to Étienne Noël Damilaville, 16 May 1767

I’m inordinately fond of sex, in the political sense.  It’s saved us so often from the worst parts of ourselves.

As far as anti-authoritarian elements of the human experience go, sex is right up there with curiosity and the search for truth- maybe even more so.  When a new tyrant comes to town, shutting down the universities and the libraries is only the second thing they try.  The first thing is to regulate human sexuality to within an inch of its life.  Rules for marriage, rules for courtship, rules for which genitals may touch and where they may touch and when they may touch.  Rules for who and rules for whom.  Rules for which kinds of sex must doom characters in literature, rules for which things may be described as sexy, rules for which things may be described in a sexy way.

Of course they do!  If you’re trying to bind a large polity together under a common ideological narrative, to render people predictable enough to quash dissent and legible enough to exert power through them, the last thing you need is a bunch of folks running around being horny about stuff without permission.  Nature gifted us with a great capacity for reason and community; we have the innate opportunity to learn about ourselves and our neighbors, and to form complex societies based on that understanding.  It was Aristotle who first called us the political animal, and the fruits of that extraordinary capacity will always be within our reach, if only we can come together within a shared understanding.  The invention of the city is the great triumph of our species, and with it we conquer the universe.

But also this extraordinary, reasoning mind has been sculpted from the raw clay of a biology that’s anchored in sexual reproduction, and this ends up being very, very funny.

The problem isn’t so much that the sex instinct exists, per se.  It’s how it’s implemented.  Like most biological forms, the full complement of 86 billion(!) neurons in your brain aren’t encoded in a particular configuration; the brain is much too complex to be described so precisely in the only ~725 megabytes or so of human DNA.  The particular shape of your brain is in there somewhere- the lobes and subregions responsible for vision, memory, cognition, all that- but only up to a point.  The genius and fundamental limitation of genetics is that, below a certain level, the genes instead describe a process for the production and reproduction of specialized cells, and simply constructs them in such a way that they can be relied upon to order themselves as they go.

This is all well and good when we’re talking about kidneys and livers, but the fact that you can encode any kind of specific behavioral instinct in a brain this way is nothing short of a minor miracle.  Think about it!  Spiders don’t have a ‘spider web’ gene, the gene is for ‘proteins that come together in self-assembling electrochemically sensitive gelatin tissue which, when complete, encodes patterns that operate organ systems such as legs and spinnerets in such a way as to reliably create silk webs.’  This is absurdly impressive, and also completely insane.

What I’m getting at is, powerful behavioral instincts in a complex animal aren’t precise instruction manuals by which we pursue evolutionarily advantageous behaviors.  Sex and eros are prior to logic or language, let alone strategy.  Sex is a double-thick electrical wire discharging lightning bolts right through the middle of our cognitive centers, installed in the brain by a surgeon wearing mittens.  It’s an untethered firehose whipping chaotically through the cathedral, unpredictably spraying golden reliquaries with substances unmentionable.  It’s the first and greatest anarchist.

I really can’t overstate my gratitude for this.

Obviously this results in any number of deeply goofy outcomes by way of kinks and odd sexual practices- it gets tangled with pain centers, with random bits of anatomy and proprioception, with our taboos and aversions, with our greatest terrors or our greatest yearnings or just arbitrary stimuli from adolescence, and of course it gets enmeshed so often with our notions of power and submission.  It imbues these things with a fascination and potency out of all proportion with their mundane meanings.  And ultimately, you end up with human pleasures and human values that diverge so far from banal evolutionary imperatives as to be all but unrecognizable.

Even when this process somehow manages to propagate through the brain in such a way as to drive behaviors that are legibly aligned towards some adaptive constraint- e.g. heterosexual mating practices resulting in biological reproduction and careful childrearing- it’s still madness.  Love and sex penetrate deeply across tribal and national and racial boundaries, across economic interests, across battle-lines and enmities.  We become traitors, apostates, emigrants, and artists.  Declare a law, and in short order some hot-headed young people come along to break it in the name of sexual passions you could not possibly have seen coming.  Divide your neighborhood into us and them, and by the time the ink is dry on your proclamation there will be a forbidden relationship across the fence.  There is no social order, no ethical system, no theory of human nature that can entirely withstand contact with the full spectrum of human sexuality, because sex and eros are always going to be exactly as bonkers as the complexity of the human mind and culture will allow, plus a little extra just to be sure.

This isn’t always a delight, of course.  Many prohibitions exist for a very good reason, and the chaos of human sexuality makes no exemptions for true evil.  Some of us end up really, truly victims of this process.  But for all the dangers, the chaos at the root of all this isn’t oriented towards evil.  Chaos just means chaos, essentially arbitrary and hence absurd in character.

And in the grand analysis, we are so lucky to have this thing moving through our communities, this ridiculous madness that guarantees that there will be cracks in every wall and slips exploding cigars in the pockets of the powerful few.  Not in everybody as individuals, of course, and not everybody the same amount; asexuality is certainly one of the outcomes that all this mad gallivanting through our brains can produce.  Sexuality would never be so predictable as to guarantee its own existence, after all.  That’s part of what makes the joke so funny.

But all of us, regardless of sexuality, get to live in a world where the grand anarchy of sex is constantly driving home this lesson that no category is inviolate and no law is perfect.  That we should not and cannot take ourselves too seriously, or forget that we’re animals.  That we don’t exist only for the sake of others, or within their understanding.  That cities are made of cooperation, grace, and forbearance- not conformity or mere compliance.

People sometimes worry about immortality.  In the political sense, I mean.  They worry about eternal dictatorships and unconquerable gerontocracies.  This fear isn’t entirely unjustified; death has often played a role in progress and liberation.  But as long as enough of us are still getting horny without permission, still falling in love in stupid ways, I think we’ll be okay.  Romeo and Juliet don’t have to die at the end to make a difference in the world, as long as they’re brave enough to get weird with it.

[weaselandfriends]

Post-postmodernism in Pop Culture: Homestuck’s Revenge

I recently saw an excellent video essay titled Why Do Movies Feel So Different Now? by Thomas Flight. Though the title is opaque clickbait, the video is actually about major artistic zeitgeists, or movements, in film history. Flight describes three major movements:

Modernism, encompassing much of classic cinema, in which an earnest belief in universal truths led to straightforward narratives that unironically supported certain values (rationalism, civic duty, democracy, etc.)

Postmodernism, in which disillusionment with the values of modernism led to films that played with cinematic structure, metafiction, and the core language of film, often with more unclear narratives that lacked straightforward resolutions, and that were skeptical or even suspicious of the idea of universal truth 

Metamodernism, the current artistic zeitgeist, which takes the structural and metafictional innovations of postmodernism but uses them not to reject meaning, but point to some new kind of meaning or sincerity.

Flight associates metamodernism with the “multiverse” narratives that are popular in contemporary film, both in blockbuster superhero films and Oscar darlings like Everything Everywhere All at Once. He argues that the multiverse conceptually represents a fragmented, metafictional lack of universal truth, but that lack of truth is then subverted with a narrative that ultimately reaffirms universal truth. In short, rather than rejecting postmodernism entirely, metamodernism takes the fragmented rubble of its technique and themes and builds something new out of that fragmentation.

Longtime readers of this blog may find some of these concepts familiar. Indeed, I was talking about them many years ago in my Hymnstoke posts, even using the terms “modernism” and “postmodernism,” though what Flight calls metamodernism I tended to call “post-postmodernism” (another term used for it is New Sincerity). Years before EEAAO, years before Spider-verse, years before the current zeitgeist in pop cultural film and television, there was an avant garde work pioneering all the techniques and themes of metamodernism. A work that took the structural techniques of postmodernism--the ironic detachment, the temporal desynchronization, the metafiction--and used them not to posit a fundamental lack of universal truth but rather imbue a chaotic, maximalist world of cultural detritus with new meaning, new truth, new sincerity. That work was:

Homestuck.

That’s right! Everyone’s favorite web comic. Of course, I’m not the first person to realize the thematic and structural similarities between Homestuck and the current popular trend in film. Just take a look at this tweet someone made yesterday:

This tweet did some numbers.

As you might expect if you’re at all aware of the current cultural feeling toward Homestuck, many of the replies and quotes are incredibly vitriolic over this comparison. Here’s one of my favorites:

It’s actually quite striking how many elements of the new Spider-verse are similar to Homestuck; aspects of doomed timelines, a multiversal network that seems to demand certain structure, and even “mandatory death of parental figure as an impetus for mandated personal growth” are repeated across both works. The recycling and revitalization of ancient, seemingly useless cultural artifacts (in Homestuck’s case, films like Con Air; in Spider-verse, irrelevant gimmick Spider-men from spinoffs past) are also common thematic threads.

As this new post-postmodern or metamodern trend becomes increasingly mainstream, and as time heals all and allows people to look back at Homestuck with more objectivity, I believe there will one day be a rehabilitation of Homestuck’s image. It’ll be seen as an important and influential work, with a place inside the cultural canon. Perhaps, like Infinite Jest, it’ll continue to have some subset of commentators who cannot get past their perception of the people who read the work rather than the work itself even thirty years after its publication, but eventually it’ll be recognized for innovations that precipitated a change in the way people think about stories and their meaning.

Until that day, enjoy eating raw sewage directly from a sewer pipe.

(Side note: I think Umineko no naku koro ni, which was published around the same time as Homestuck and which deals with many similar themes and then-novel ideas, will also one day receive recognition as a masterpiece. Check it out if you haven’t already!)

#homestuck #spiderverse #across the spiderverse #metamodernism #post-postmodernism #pop culture

[tonythr]

Quick Slash is even cooler from a narrative perspective, and why I think the Nailsmith's story parallels the Pale King's

Cold take: Quick Slash is the best charm in Hollow Knight.

Slightly Warmer take: Quick Slash is the only S-tier charm that is great from both gameplay and lore perspective (aside from maybe Spell Twister).

The reason for this is that its existence is actually a

metaphor

Here, look at this.

So, Quick Slash is something that was created from a relatively big number of objects that were discarded and deemed imperfect, and that possess a collective will of wanting to fulfill their purpose.

You know what that reminds me of?

A large amount of creations: check.

Discarded as imperfect: check.

Still possessing a will to find closure: check.

Being a part of a larger, more powerful thing: check.

Having a common creator who is responsible for their creation and rejection: check.

So yeah, I think that Quick Slash's lore (or at least its description) is meant to parallel that of the Vessels'.

But I wanna talk about that last point: the creator.

It is heavily implied that the person who created and then later discarded those nails was the Ancient Nailsmith we see in the room where we get Quick Slash.

(Oh by the way I just realized that this stone ring thing on the right of that room is actually the furnace, neat.)

Judging from their Dreamnail dialogue, this Ancient Nailsmith was trying to achieve the same goal as the other, more famous Nailsmith we all know and love: creating a Pure Nail.

And you know who else was trying to create a perfect, Pure thing while discarding many other similar things that later gained a collective will?

That's right - it's the guy who is also responsible for creating those other discarded things we discussed earlier!

Ok, but what I really wanted to talk about here is how all of what I just said ties back to that other, more famous guy - The Nailsmith.

We don't know for sure how the story of the Ancient Nailsmith ended, but it feels like it exists there mainly to put an emphasis on the City's Nailsmith's story; to convey that his struggle is an important theme in this narrative (because ancient means important, ok?) And, I mean, the City's Nailsmith's story also parallels that of the Pale King's in the same manner, right?

The thing is, we already know how PK's story ended.

In trying to achieve perfection, to create an eternal Kingdom by making a Pure Vessel devoid of mind, voice and will, the Pale King doomed himself to be taken over by his regrets, by the vast emptiness of the futility of his struggles. But was it because he failed, or because that was where his story was headed all along?

What if PK succeeded? What if the Radiance was sealed forever? What if his Kingdom actually stood eternal, never to change, never to end? What if he realized he achieved his only goal in life?

And that's the part where we get to a story the ending of which is up to the player's choice.

To quote White Lady, only two obvious outcomes there are from such a thing.

The first is an honorable death by the fruits of his labor.

If we choose to kill the Nailsmith with the Pure Nail, he dies happy, knowing that his life's goal is accomplished and having gained all the satisfaction he could from it.

The second I find preferable, a new passion.

If the Nailsmith doesn't feel the finishing blow of the Pure Nail, he is left unsatisfied. But, while trying to resolve that unsatisfaction, he eventually finds something (and someone) that gives him a new calling, a new thing to create, a new reason to live.

And, while those are both equally valuable, equally canonic outcomes, don't you think the second one is just... better? I mean, not only does it include the achievement of the Nailsmith's goal, but it lets him live AND gives two lonely souls a partner in life! I feel like that's the thing this narrative is trying to convey. What it's trying to say about the meaning of life, about our dreams.

Maybe that was the ultimate folly of the Pale King - the inability to change. His story would've ended in the same way, regardless of whether Hallownest lasted eternally or not. He would be dead, if not by the hands of the Void, but by his own - but ultimately, by the hands of that vast emptiness of realizing that you achieved your only goal and that now all there is for you is this eternal satisfaction that slowly fades away, leaving you with nothing.

TL;DR: Quick Slash is the best because it's a metaphor for discarded vessels; perfection is overrated, try to get laid instead.

#hollow knight #hollow knight lore #hollow knight theory #nailsmith #pale king #hollow knight charms #quick slash #hallownest #pure vessel #hk vessels #sheo