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Tear Jerker / Hollow Knight

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"No cost too great..."
The Pale King

There are more than a few moments that tug on the heartstrings.


  • Dirtmouth, when you first arrive. The town is described as fading, and only one being resides there, the Elderbug. Over time, the town starts to fill up with other bugs, but depending on what the Knight does, several will leave again (or die), such as Bretta if the player defeats Zote's dream form enough times, having grown disillusioned with Zote and having had her perception of the Knight shattered.
  • The Brooding Mawlek's Journal entry suggests that this creature is an extremely social one – in other words, an extrovert. The reason why it is so aggressive? It wasn't able to mingle with its own kind. The Brooding Mawlek that you encounter in the Forgotten Crossroads is all alone by itself.
    • Its description in the Hall of Gods also calls the Brooding Mawlek as the "Lonely god of the nest".
  • The Hunter recalls his younger days as he talks about Funglings. What starts off as a heartwarming and casual narration suddenly turns grim as the Hunter subtly tells you that he is now the Last of His Kind.
    When I was young, my brothers and sisters and I would hunt each other in the nest. Now I hunt alone.
  • The White Lady, completely blind to the world (literally), simply sitting and waiting within her home for so long, the Great Knight defending her has perished.
    • And what's more, you are her creation, but she does not speak affectionately to you, as you are merely an empty shell filled with the Void, created to combat the Infection.
    • If you wear the Defender's Crest while talking to the White Lady, she will recognize that foul potent smell and mistake you for Ogrim. She becomes extremely happy at the thought of Ogrim and Dryya reuniting again as comrades within the Great Knights. But to make things worse, the White Lady isn't aware that Dryya died outside protecting her from the mantis traitors. What's the worst part of this scene? The Knight cannot tell the bad news because it has no voice to speak...
  • Bugs who travel westward from the Howling Cliffs are stated to lose their memories (possibly even their sentience). For bugs of Hallownest, this means their only options are to stay in a kingdom that is rapidly falling to ruin, exposing oneself to the Infection and possibly being corrupted by it, or leaving and losing all of one's memories.
  • When you first enter the Crystal Cavern, you meet Myla, a sweet miner bug with a stutter who loves to sing while she digs. However, over the course of the game, Myla slowly succumbs to the Infection. First, you can no longer hear her sing as you walk in, as she's just standing there, swaying back and forth while mumbling her song's lyrics to herself. Eventually, she'll completely succumb and become hostile, and if you kill her, you're treated to lovely sound of her screaming in agony as she dies, and she'll never come back. Dream Nailing her in her hostile state reveals that she's still singing her song in her head...
  • After you defeat the Lost Kin, it bows down to the player Knight. Also, the prompt that appears is "Accept" instead of the usual "Listen". This scene itself is a reminder that both of the bugs are siblings in the first place, or that they share a common bond, even if the Broken Vessel / Lost Kin had to be killed by the Knight in order to obtain the Monarch Wings.
    • Even before that, as the Broken Vessel is defeated, the infection explodes out of it, giving the Broken Vessel a brief moment to die as an ordinary bug. You can even see for a short while that this vessel tries to drag itself and approach its sibling Knight just before dying, seemingly pleading for help.
  • The fate of the first Hollow Knight. It succeeds in absorbing the Infection, but it is unable to contain it, and it starts to leak into Hallownest, corrupting everything around it, turning everyone into mindless zombified Husks, including a friendly bug you meet early in the game. As you grow closer to defeating it, it starts to stab itself with its own nail: the reason why it even does so is unclear, which somehow makes it worse.
    • The fight itself is this. At first, it's a classic final boss fight with Ominous Pipe Organ music. The Hollow Knight rapidly leaps around the arena and skillfully wields its nail. As the phases go on, the music turns into a funeral dirge and the Knight is barely even able to lift its nail. It keeps collapsing to the ground and its only attack just involves being blindly flung around by the infection. By the end, it feels less like a boss fight and more like euthanasia.
    • The reason the Hollow Knight was infected. It would be understandable to think that it could have contained the Infection indefinitely, but it had "an idea instilled" by the Pale King as he raised it to adulthood: one of the possibilities being a bond with its father. This "impurity" was all the Radiance needed to sink its hooks into it and corrupt the Vessel when the time came to seal it away. In other words, the Hollow Knight failed potentially due to it daring to feel emotion for another being.
  • When the Knight ends Herrah the Beast's dream curse, Hornet can be found kneeling at the base of her plinth, in mourning. The Knight just killed her mother. Hornet recognizes that it was necessary, which softens the blow.
  • The Seer is the last living moth: all the others have died by the time the game begins. While that is sad enough, her situation gets worse. Thanks to a combination of how they contributed to Hallownest's fall (due to their worship of the Radiance) and the moths' guilt towards turning against their original god, she's given up on the moths' legacy. When the Seer is done giving the Knight the tools to solve the problem she believes her people are responsible for creating, she openly asks the Knight, and the player, to forget that they existed, thus killing the moths forever.
    Seer: Don't remember us, Wielder. Don't honour us. We do not deserve it... Aahh... I'm sorry... Light... Radiance... I... remember you.
  • Cloth is a large, hammy cicada who you meet multiple times over the course of the game, with her demeanor growing increasingly somber as the game goes on and she finds more and more dangerous, horrible beasts and recognizes her own fear of them. Eventually, she can be inspired to bravery and will help you fight the Traitor Lord...only to kill him and be killed by him. Talking to her Ghost reveals that she seems to recognize that her work is done, and disappears even if you don't Dream Nail her.
    • The other outcome is even worse. If you don't save her at Ancient Basin before slaying the Traitor Lord, she'll show up in Dirtmouth and vow to leave Hallownest (itself almost a death sentence). Dream Nailing her here will reveal that she's actually a Death Seeker trying to "reunite" with a possibly dead loved one, and is traveling Hallownest trying to find ways to be killed in combat, but wasn't brave enough to go through with it. This makes her one of the only ghosts to recognize that she's actually dead.
  • Several bugs had close friends who perished in the ensuing century after the Pale King's disappearance. In particular, the Grey Mourner's lover was killed an unknown number of years ago, and her final act is to entrust the Knight with a delicate flower to place at her grave. When done, the Mourner is finally able to pass away.
  • Quirrel. He was once a student of Monomon the Teacher, but after she sealed herself in a dream state, he wandered away from Hallownest, losing all of his memories in the process. When he returns, either by chance, or by Monomon subliminally calling on him to assist the Knight in breaking the seals, he begins to regain his memory of his former life, though only enough to be exhausted by the length of time he's lived. Once he aids the Knight in defeating Uumuu and allowing them to put an end to Monomon's dream, he disappears entirely.
    • The last you see of Quirrel is at the Blue Lake, sitting quietly. It's one of the few places in the game where, after listening to someone, you're prompted to sit with them, for as long as you wish. Once the player leaves the screen, they'll return to see Quirrel's nail in the beach, and no sign of him from then on. It's implied by the achievement that you receive (Witness: Spend a final moment with Quirrel.) that Quirrel believed his journey over, and committed suicide.
    • Another interpretation of Quirrel's fate is just as sad. It's implied in the comic that his mask (originally Monomon's) was the only thing keeping him youthful, and after Monomon's defeat, he states that he's starting to feel his age, with his voice becoming more hoarse. So it's a good possibility that after his last conversation with the knight, he simply withered away from rapid old age.
  • While the Mistakes and Follies in the Soul Sanctum were mass murderers, it cannot be denied that they were originally Well Intentioned Extremists who were harvesting SOUL to escape the Infection. They suffered an unquestionably tragic fate: degenerating into blob-like creatures that constantly hungered for SOUL. Their Dream Nail dialogue is equally pitiable, particularly the quote below concerning their plan.
    Mistake/Folly: ...Did it work?...
  • On the surface, the Dung Defender is a jolly, Large Ham warrior who fights for the glory of the kingdom. However, later on in the game, you find out that he's Ogrim, one of the five Great Knights, and they were unable to fight the infection off. If you use the Dream Nail on the White Defender (Ogrim's dream fight), you can see that he misses the rest of them terribly, and he would like to reunite with them again. What makes it sadder is that he's unaware that some of the Knights were already dead, meaning that he'd never have a chance to reunite with them.
    Hegemol... I miss your humour...
    Ze'mer... I miss your stories...
    Dryya... I miss your wisdom...
    Isma... I miss.. I miss you...
  • Everything about the original Hollow Knight / Vessel. It was chosen to contain the plague and in doing so save Hallownest from certain doom. As noted by the Pale King in the cutscene in the Void, the vessel supposedly has no mind to think with and no own will that can be broken. It is a theoretically empty being with no other purpose than to seal away the plague. When you meet your predecessor in the temple for a final fight, it is evident this did not fully go according to plan. Barely functioning due to the plague leaking out from its body, the vessel does attempt to fight you, but eventually starts turning its blade on itself implying it's very much aware of its miserable situation and wants to help you end it.
    • The soundtrack that plays during the fight, "Sealed Vessel", is a tearjerker in itself. It starts as a fairly bombastic orchestral piece as you'd expect from an end-game boss fight, but right when the Hollow Knight starts screaming and stabbing itself the music grows somber and quieter, directing your attention to the miserable situation the vessel has been in.
    • Completing the notoriously difficult and aptly named optional Path of Pain in the White Palace treats you to a small scene of the Pale King sitting alongside a young version of the vessel. The painful potential implications are that though the King created the vessel with no other intention than to use it to contain the plague, he nevertheless came to treat it as his child and had it by his side for a good while.
    • The fight with the Pure Vessel in the Godmaster DLC, essentially the Hollow Knight in its prime. The Pure Vessel's boss theme (a soft, holy choir rendition of Sealed Vessel) and its attacks (especially the nails erupting from the ground, which the Hollow Knight's corrupted tendril attacks echo) shows how far the Hollow Knight fell from grace after containing the Radiance.
    Pure Vessel Hunter's Journal description: Chosen vessel, raised and trained to prime form.
  • All of the Dream Warriors (except for Gorb) had horrible, tragic things happen to them.
    • No Eyes was so scared of being Infected that she mutilated and blinded herself and her children to escape it, but obviously this didn't work.
    • Galien had a Tragic Dream of becoming a Knight, and trained in Deepnest, but was eventually slaughtered by its creatures. His final words are a request for you to tell the Pale King about his valour and strength, before he leaves to join his brothers.
    • Xero was inspired by his dreams (and therefore, the Radiance) to turn against the Pale King. His rebellion failed, he was executed, and he was used an example to rebels against the King. His ghost even says that those who hope are already doomed.
    • Marmu is stuck waiting for the White Lady to come and teach her to fly (Marmu is a caterpillar). Taking this into account, Marmu was most likely a Child Soldier who died fighting the Mantis Traitors.
    • Elder Hu wandered Hallownest, attempting to give comfort to those afflicted with the Infection. He stumbled across the Mantis Village, and made the mistake of deeming them Infected beasts. He attacked them, and the Mantis Lords killed him.
    • Markoth was a warrior of the Moth tribe, but it's implied that he died in Kingdom's Edge, and his tribe Never Found the Body, leading to his name being forgotten.
  • The endings. ALL of them.
    • Ending 1 (The Hollow Knight): The Knight strikes down the first Hollow Knight, and then absorbs The Infection into itself. Then chains start to fly down, before the Black Egg seals shut thus renewing the cycle.
    • Ending 2 (Sealed Siblings): Hornet is there with you, unconscious as you absorb the Infection. The temple still seals itself shut, and her mask appears on the front as one of the binds; signifying that Hornet, like her mother, has become a Dreamer.
    • Ending 3 (Dream No More): The Knight sacrifices its life to put an end to the Radiance. Hallownest is free of the Infection for good, but Hornet is left to mourn the Knight's death.
  • The Godmaster update adds two more tragic endings.
  • Dream Nailing the Maggots who are holding a wake for the slain False Knight may yield this quote; "Wake up, brother! Help me!" Still want to fill out that Journal?
  • The fate of your failed Siblings. Unlike your Knight the rest of your siblings are all dead or have become infected by the Radiance. Some tried to do the same adventure you did and either died for it against Hornet, Nosk, or other dangers in Hallownest. Two of your siblings, the Hollow Knight and Lost Kin, got turned by the Infection and you have to Mercy Kill them. The rest? They were all left in the Abyss to rot with only their shades being left. It's been estimated that there are thousands of vessel corpses down there. The Pale King only wanted the Perfect Vessel and once he presumed he got his Perfect Vessel in the original Hollow Knight he left your Knight and all the other Vessels down there to waste away.
    • To make things even more tragic and disturbing it's implied by the White Lady that all the Vessels were her and the Pale King's children that he did some experiments on with the Void in order to ensure that one the Vessels could contain the Radiance. The sheer guilt of actively participating in such a plan were she and the King condemned thousands of her children to Void experiments to die is why the White Lady is chained up where she is in her Gardens. The worst part? The plan failed entirely and Hallownest still fell. The Hollow Knight plan was All for Nothing and all your siblings died pretty much for naught until you beat the Radiance yourself years after Hallownest fell apart. It feels a bit hollow though considering the sheer cost it took to get there.

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