Bro really sacrificed his whole children that, given holows childhood, he did seem to care about for it.
Worst part is it couldve all been avoided had the shit ass moths not abandoned their god. Like the plae GOAT didnt even seek beef nor force himself ontp them, as seem with the mantis tribe he was more than fine to just coexist.
PK still didn’t really sacrifice himself, he sacrificed other people. Like, it’s tragic, but how much sympathy can I feel for a guy who sacrificed millions of his kids
Genuinely, the fuck was he supposed to do? Jump into the void himself? He's a mind-giving beacon, everyone would go back to being the monkey equivalent of bug. And the void would just consume him.
With how Void worked with Lost Lace and GMS’s silk. That might not be a bad idea. It would kill him sure but also give him void powers to kill the radiance. All he has to do is enter her dream realm when he is voided. Since Silk can fuse with Void. And silk is basically GMS’s soul. Pale King can generate soul aswell.. should be able to do a similar thing.
Also Pharloom’s bugs don’t need any mind-giving beacon. So they should be fine. His wife is a pale being. Could make a similar beacon if needed. But this beacon thing don’t seem that necessary.
Three things: 1, that's not how void works. It consumes what it consumes, it doesn't obtain it's powers. The void was only able to climb out because silk was alive, hitching a ride on her strings. When she was fully consumed, the silk was gone, instead of multiplying. 2, the pale king very much couldn't enter the dream realm, it's the main reason for him making vessels in the first place: he was most likely a competent combatant, so he'd be able to take her down in a fight. 3, pale king specifically gave mind, the white lady was most likely present before her and she didn't give anything mind. Giving minds isn't what makes pale beings pale, we don't know what that is. It could be glowing white for all we know.
I don’t think PK planned on making it his lifelong purpose, the Void stuff just got out of hand and bit him in the ass
Besides, PK was holed up in a dream version of his castle while his people were dying, I think they needed their king then more than ever before. They might not’ve even known he was working to cure anything because he kept the Void operations a secret
He was definitely trying his best, but the road to Deepnest is often paved with good intentions. If anything, PK is almost the same as the Soul Master with how deadset he was on using a substance he couldn’t understand to fix everything
How else were they supposed to beat the Radiance? It lives in an alternate plane of reality that they can't reach. And even if they discovered the Dream Nail (a device that requires a lot of dead bugs to harvest dreams from) and was able to reach her, it took the Knight uniting the Void to beat it. The only way to beat her (or, at the very least, delay her) was to seal her away in the Black Egg.
He ruled so well, Moths gave up their god, and when the Mantis tribe disagreed with Pk, he let them be and had a peaceful relation with them, the reason it fell wasn't even PK's fault, he was just a good long, it was Radiance's jealous that resulted in the kingdom's downfall, and even then, he sacrificed God knows how many children of his, we know he was also a really good father actually, he loves HK so much that this perfect vessel spilled, his mistake (after radiance) was that he couldn't stop loving others, why did he run away? That I do not know, my theory is that since he was experimenting with void, he noticed it's danger and ended up sacrificing his castle and himself to save the kingdom from another catastrophe in the form of void but that's just a theory, A GAME THEORY
How common is it for a king IRL or in fiction to do diplomatic peace deals with aggressive tribes and small nations instead of just conquering them with their infinitely superior army...
2 times btw. It is literally stated moths chose him, no conquering needed for example.
Please tell me how many IRL/fictional kings choose to sacrifice their own family to save their kingdom instead of using their people
Please tell me how many IRL/fictional kings give free public transport NATION WIDE. The stations were closed because of the infection.
Please tell me how many IRL/fictional kings make deals with other leaders to leave their leaderships alone while still considering them part of the kingdom and giving them full priviledge (greenpath and probably fungal wastes)
Please tell me how many IRL/fictional kingdom economies survive AFTER the deaths of the leader AND the kingdom itself.
I could keep going but holy hell lurien the watcher actually had a point
Also even then the Vessels thing only happened because he was getting desperate on finding a way to stop the Radiance without her there would literally be no problems and if she wasn't so petty and tried to talk he would have made a deal where they both get what they want and the kingdom is happy and protected by another higher being.
eh, I wouldn't say really good. He still demanded absolute loyalty from his subjects, made himself the god of a mandated state religion and tried to eliminate all natives in the lands he colonized (only being stopped by the fact they were simply better fighters than him).
The Pale King was a decent ruler but ultimately, like all pale beings, he seeked dominance over actual rulership and that need for control and power lead him to always need more and it made living in his kingdom when you didn't bow down to him a fight for your survival.
It was never stated that he demanded absolute loyalty, just to follow the laws of the land
In a world where gods are actually real and affect your life and soul directly in certain ways by ruling over an area, having one as the ruler of a nation is kinda an obvious point.
Not once has he been shown or even implied to have done any sort of genocide or oppression on other races. He made peace deals and treaties with literally every single tribe/kingdom nearby. Just cuz the Weavers were understandably mistrusting of another Pale Being living near them, doesn’t mean he was hostile towards them. He negotiated trades and services with Deepnest, enough that even the standard documentation of the City Of Tears was changed from rocks to silk paper, and silk threads were seemingly rather popular in the capitol of Hallownest. Eventually even Queen Herrah begrudgingly trusted him enough to be put in an eternal sleep and used in a magical seal in exchange for Hornet.
The moths all abandoned their original god specifically because they saw what Pale King had to offer, and deemed it objectively much better than what The Radiance had to offer (i.e. free will and a much more humane Pale Being to look after them than the jealous and petty creature the Radiance seemed to be)
Last I remember, there is no proof that worshipping PK was obligatory within Hallownest, we simply know that the kingdom worshipped him, no proof he demanded worship, and he didn't eliminate natives as the power of his army would be more than enough to wipe out the mantis tribe and deepnest if he wanted, alongside any other species who opposed him, but instead he made peaceful agreements, not even lashing out when deepnest destroyed the tram he tried to build
I mean...what were the Pale King's mistakes in ruling Hallownest? The only thing I could say is his fault is the millions of vessel corpses in the abyss, however, it could be argued that it was a "I have no clue how to deal with this, so I'm going to obtain a being that can hold it, so a mix of void and pale being, and it needs to not have an identity or thoughts or anything like that, so it needs to be void and pale being from the start.
The reason it didn't work was because the Pale King was a pretty good father to the vessel he thought would be the best for the task, I think the abyss climb was a test of strength and endurance, and all of the children were his own...and they were essentially aborted as they tossed the eggs into the abyss...if that means anything to you, it doesn't to me, but I know there are people out there to whom it does mean something. But he didn't steal other people's children and the White Lady knew what was going to happen and she didn't seem to object much more than the Pale King, as they both show regret, WL by binding herself and PK by sealing the Abyss. So they knew it was messed up, but couldn't think of anything else, and when it didn't work, well...there wasn't much else they could do but hide away and hope to ride out the storm.
That is all true, and that’s what makes The Pale King a bad ruler, a tragic and complex character. But a bad ruler. If you’re gonna kill a bunch of your own children, at least commit to it enough to not mess it up.
And it’s clear they felt bad enough about to hide away instead of comforting their kingdom in its final days. They know they did an objectively awful thing.
And sacrificing any chance of rebuilding? PK couldnt bring any citizens into the dream realm but from what we see of the Pale King's pre Infection reign nobody was really suffering or under any significant duress other than the inate tedium that comes with a society, so I wouldn't be surprised if the White Palace is full of knowledge that PK could have used to rebuild Hallownest after someone takes care of the Radience or she gets over her temper tantrum. And another thing I just remembered, it's been theorized that the child plan would have never worked as how else could the knight we play as have a will, something they're implied to have thanks to charm descriptions, and thanks to what we see of his experiments with void, I doubt the child thing was anything close to his first attempt.
The Pure Vessel tied the Radiance down, weakened it for a time, and bided time for the Knight and Hornet to grow. And while he wasn't hollow his strength and mentality of acting hollow and being nearly hollow made him resist for a far long time
Then another Vessel Knight who became the Shade Lord went into the mind of the Hollow Knight using her being trapped in her mind as a way to tie her down onto a battlefield and kill her with the power of the Void which probably was strengthen by all the Siblings.
Like the Vessel project worked he just miscounted the amount of Vessels he needed and probably out of hopelessness didn't think he could kill her due how hard it was just to seal her and not knowing about the existence of the Moth making the Dreamnail.
He means outside of the mass infanticide, because that honestly isn't what people hate on the Pale King for. It's usually for made up stuff like "He forced his followers to worship him" (when the Mosskin still worship Unn to this day) and other similar points
yeah but context is what really matters, its not like he just decided one day to do that, it was his last last resort option he came up with out of desperation, because it was either attempting the vessel thing, or let the entire kingdom become zombie's
oh don't get me wrong the pale king did some really shitty things, but from all we can tell he was at worst distant before the infection, the worst things he did only happened during the whole zombie plague situation
The thing is that wouldn't have happened if the Radiance didn't exist or wasn't such a terrible Goddess and had a proper talk with the Pale King as he has shown to be fine with other Gods, letting them be worshiped, and even give them stuff. Like the Pale King would have either let her rule over the moths again, give her another group of bugs to rule over, or make learning about her be basic education so she can be forgotten.
He cared about his kingdom and the people who followed him
He did kill thousands of his own kids, but Honestly I always saw that being something he felt that he had to do to save his citizens from the infection
And he still had positive relationships with the factions that didn't fully or at all join him like mantis tribe and the hive
Honestly as far as monarchy goes, the pale king is the best case scenario
I've always been a defender since day 1. In fact, I was surprised when I found out many people see him as unapologetically evil.
The only bad thing he did apart from the Vessels (which was a desperate move because otherwise the entire kingdom was going down) was that the Maggot's journal implies that they were enslaved ("forced to do menial labours"), but we don't know whether the King knew at all, or if it happened during his reign, or even if it was slavery at all. Also Unn seemed distrustful of him, but it's not like they were openly antagonistic towards each other. Anything else I've seen people mention about him are bad faith interpretations ("he forced people to follow him!") or plain wrong ("he destroyed anyone who didn't follow him!").
Other than that, he was amazing: his kingdom was technologically advanced compared to the other civilizations, with which he made treaties and was in good terms (he gave one of them a child, and potentially convinced the other to raise said child, though that could've been Herrah). He didn't have any troubles with sharing the lands with other Higher Beings, to the point where he wedded one. From what I know there wasn't really a cut-clear or massive class difference like there's in Pharloom for example (other than potentially the maggots), and he never forced anyone to follow him: most of them just did because he's just that guy. Yes, he was naive to think his reign would be eternal, but honestly naivety isn't the worst thing you can judge someone for.
Literally most if not all troubles with Hallownest started with one, and only one Higher Being: the Radiance. She was the one who was angry with her followers deliberately forsaking her (and well, if your own creations decide to follow another guy rather than you maybe that speaks more about you than them), and while it's understandable that she didn't want to be forgotten (and thus, killed), she took it too far by causing the infection. I don't know, if she's the Goddess of Dreams she could've tried to use that to contact Pale King in a dream and say "hey dude, my followers started following you and that's literally killing me, can we make a deal?". Pale King is no stranger to negotiating with other Higher Beings, and with how spiteful Radiance's dialogues are (as well as some of the infected enemies), I'm convinced she was the one who never tried the diplomatic route.
And we finally get to the vessels. Yes, it was horrible, and it went horribly wrong, but it was also the only option at the moment. We know Radiance can be destroyed, but we have no reason to think that Pale King had the knowledge and tools to know you had to get to the Dream World (which is really unintuitive, that to stop the Goddess of Dreams you have to fight her right where she's the strongest) and use the Voidheart (which again, he had no reason to know about its existence) to command the Void and destroy her. So the only option they saw was making a being that was truly Hollow so it could contain the source of the Infection. He didn't make a million children and forsake them just for the heck of it: he knew they only had one shot, so rather than just trying vessels one by one it's more efficient to make a crapton of them and assess which one is the most apt to the task. He likely didn't know at the moment vessels could not be hollow, but even so, and once again, they were desperate, so they went with whatever they had at the moment. Which went horribly wrong.
And it's not like he chose not to care, because it's heavily implied he regretted everything he did. He made a statue for the Hollow Knight, in memory of their sacrifice, and inscribed some runes at the Abyss entrance that talks about the grief about the vessel's sacrifice. And while we don't know why he hid his entire Palace in the Dream Realm, I seriously doubt it was to run away from the Radiance and save himself. Because if you want to be safe from the Goddess of Dreams, the very first thing you should think about avoiding is getting into her realm (and yes, we know that's how you kill her, but PK had no reason or way to know). At least try to run away from the Kingdom first. So he either hid there to die out of grief, or tried to experiment more with the Void in his workshop looking for a solution, dying in the process. We can't really know.
No, the Pale King was not innocent, or a saint: he did horrible things, and in the end failed to save his kingdom, but he was not evil, spiteful, or (that) incompetent. He just found himself in an impossible situation and did the best he could with what he had. At least more people are starting to share my point of view. It only took around 10 years and another kingdom that was infinitely worse, but better late than never.
When Pale king came to Hallownest, he gave people minds, technology, education and overall quality of life. When GMS came to Pharloom she destroyed whole ass kingdoms, forced people into labor and ruined eco system
Actually, Pious Isamor (the hidden statue) seems to indicate that the conductors are responsible of how bad things really got:
“ our stark Citadel of stone”
“See... Citadel's simple stone, bare an... dorned”
“Pilgrims... all...
Siblings... serving...
Devout... unwavering...
All... are equal”
It seems like during the weavers’ rule the citadel all looked like the underworks, as in made of simple stone.
It wasn’t until the weavers fled and left the conductors in charge that the citadel became golden, and began to target Verdania, Cora Tower and likely the Pale Lake (is likely that during the weavers rule the citadel was in a Cold War / uneasy peace with them) not to mention the rosaries and the experiments in White Ward.
Nothing like a truly dogshit country to show up so we can see how goated the Pale King was.
theres a reason why the spiders were secluded in the worst part of hallownest and one of them only got to touch the Pale Staff while forcing his Paleness hand.
I mean it’s a lot easier to defend him when WL (his wife and someone who he did everything in tandem with) literally says that her goal was to make a better world
Because GMS (and those who followed her) showed us what it looks like when a kingdom doesn’t respect its people as unconditionally worthy of dignity. A defect that the Pale King never, to my knowledge, displayed.
Like his one bad thing was in extreme desperation in trying to defeat a Petty God who was torturing and killing his citizens just because she was a failure of a Goddess that her people left her.
Like if the Radiance just talked to him he would probably make a deal that let's her get worshipped again and everything would be fine.
Like without the Radiance the Pale King's empire could very much be eternal under his rule with happy citizens.
The thing is being a good king that needed a angry petty Goddess of Light and Dreams to destroy his kingdom is something to be prideful about.
And if anything his dealings with Uun, Weavers, and other tribes kinda shows he is humble
Cant spell Wyrm without the W
Cant spell Grank Mother Silk without the L
Can’t say Grandmother Silk without “M” in “Mid”
Every letter in ”mid” is in GMS name
Was the Grank there
the pay per use benches are trembling
The prerecorded confessions are also pretty evil.
I can excuse police brutality but I draw the line at paying 40 dollars to sit my ass down
Imagine if that happens in a major city to prevent the "homeless"
Silksong will be their inspiration
“Oh wait, we did!”
The pale scrungle was misunderstood.
After learning what really mismanaging a kingdom looks like, many of us realized we were simply unfamiliar with his Pale Game
Make Hallownest Great Again⁉️
https://preview.redd.it/hec2rv07e19g1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ae669e8fb64e3a243e9165600ad02c0bbcb3aa82
MHGA!
I am sorry but our glorious King did not even need to move a single muscle to everyone to see how He was simply better
Damn straight and I’m one of them. GMS ain’t shit compared to the Pale King
I don’t think PK being comparatively better makes him good, GMS and the Weavers would make any other ruler look like a saint
Look at how relativly good the state of the kingdom is (apart from the infection) long after he was already dead!
The infection he made his lifelong purpose to eradicate, mind you. He was a hero. I just couldn't see it.
Bro really sacrificed his whole children that, given holows childhood, he did seem to care about for it.
Worst part is it couldve all been avoided had the shit ass moths not abandoned their god. Like the plae GOAT didnt even seek beef nor force himself ontp them, as seem with the mantis tribe he was more than fine to just coexist.
the moths made my king look bad
Their fault fr fr.
My goats the mantis lords would never.
PK still didn’t really sacrifice himself, he sacrificed other people. Like, it’s tragic, but how much sympathy can I feel for a guy who sacrificed millions of his kids
Genuinely, the fuck was he supposed to do? Jump into the void himself? He's a mind-giving beacon, everyone would go back to being the monkey equivalent of bug. And the void would just consume him.
With how Void worked with Lost Lace and GMS’s silk. That might not be a bad idea. It would kill him sure but also give him void powers to kill the radiance. All he has to do is enter her dream realm when he is voided. Since Silk can fuse with Void. And silk is basically GMS’s soul. Pale King can generate soul aswell.. should be able to do a similar thing.
Also Pharloom’s bugs don’t need any mind-giving beacon. So they should be fine. His wife is a pale being. Could make a similar beacon if needed. But this beacon thing don’t seem that necessary.
Three things: 1, that's not how void works. It consumes what it consumes, it doesn't obtain it's powers. The void was only able to climb out because silk was alive, hitching a ride on her strings. When she was fully consumed, the silk was gone, instead of multiplying. 2, the pale king very much couldn't enter the dream realm, it's the main reason for him making vessels in the first place: he was most likely a competent combatant, so he'd be able to take her down in a fight. 3, pale king specifically gave mind, the white lady was most likely present before her and she didn't give anything mind. Giving minds isn't what makes pale beings pale, we don't know what that is. It could be glowing white for all we know.
Pale King had no knowledge to go and directly confront the Radiance?
I don’t think PK planned on making it his lifelong purpose, the Void stuff just got out of hand and bit him in the ass
Besides, PK was holed up in a dream version of his castle while his people were dying, I think they needed their king then more than ever before. They might not’ve even known he was working to cure anything because he kept the Void operations a secret
He was definitely trying his best, but the road to Deepnest is often paved with good intentions. If anything, PK is almost the same as the Soul Master with how deadset he was on using a substance he couldn’t understand to fix everything
How else were they supposed to beat the Radiance? It lives in an alternate plane of reality that they can't reach. And even if they discovered the Dream Nail (a device that requires a lot of dead bugs to harvest dreams from) and was able to reach her, it took the Knight uniting the Void to beat it. The only way to beat her (or, at the very least, delay her) was to seal her away in the Black Egg.
That just means he had good architects
He ruled so well, Moths gave up their god, and when the Mantis tribe disagreed with Pk, he let them be and had a peaceful relation with them, the reason it fell wasn't even PK's fault, he was just a good long, it was Radiance's jealous that resulted in the kingdom's downfall, and even then, he sacrificed God knows how many children of his, we know he was also a really good father actually, he loves HK so much that this perfect vessel spilled, his mistake (after radiance) was that he couldn't stop loving others, why did he run away? That I do not know, my theory is that since he was experimenting with void, he noticed it's danger and ended up sacrificing his castle and himself to save the kingdom from another catastrophe in the form of void but that's just a theory, A GAME THEORY
Aren't there a ton of lore bits that mention how prosperous Hallownest was in its glory days? PK was just like that.
How common is it for a king IRL or in fiction to do diplomatic peace deals with aggressive tribes and small nations instead of just conquering them with their infinitely superior army... 2 times btw. It is literally stated moths chose him, no conquering needed for example.
Please tell me how many IRL/fictional kings choose to sacrifice their own family to save their kingdom instead of using their people
Please tell me how many IRL/fictional kings give free public transport NATION WIDE. The stations were closed because of the infection.
Please tell me how many IRL/fictional kings make deals with other leaders to leave their leaderships alone while still considering them part of the kingdom and giving them full priviledge (greenpath and probably fungal wastes)
Please tell me how many IRL/fictional kingdom economies survive AFTER the deaths of the leader AND the kingdom itself.
I could keep going but holy hell lurien the watcher actually had a point
SARUMAN THE PALE
Massive pale king W.
Can't spell Wyrm without a W.
Can't spell pale king without "king".
https://preview.redd.it/xqxlvaoip19g1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3c96343208b6500cf9c5edaabd75b7818cec6ccd
https://preview.redd.it/84sgwndvb39g1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ff421659b1eae0354cb32b4dde567335539bca9b
Yeah, I knew what I was doing
Putting the W in Wyrm
There's no L in worm
Though there is one in Pale King
But that's not my legal name
Glory to hollow nest
I thought he was based before it was cool.
Release the hollow files
The pale king visited the grim trope multiple times
The Grimm Troupe isn’t even problematic tho, they feed off of nightmares of dead civilizations, not children
Grimm Troupe 1 - 0 American Government
*666--0
Pale King actually knew what he was doing
Glory to the pale king administration
I was a pale royal supporter before Skong
I was always saying that he was really good King, just abysmal father
Funny enough, his whole Plan failed by getting attached tò the Vessel
Also even then the Vessels thing only happened because he was getting desperate on finding a way to stop the Radiance without her there would literally be no problems and if she wasn't so petty and tried to talk he would have made a deal where they both get what they want and the kingdom is happy and protected by another higher being.
eh, I wouldn't say really good. He still demanded absolute loyalty from his subjects, made himself the god of a mandated state religion and tried to eliminate all natives in the lands he colonized (only being stopped by the fact they were simply better fighters than him).
The Pale King was a decent ruler but ultimately, like all pale beings, he seeked dominance over actual rulership and that need for control and power lead him to always need more and it made living in his kingdom when you didn't bow down to him a fight for your survival.
It was never stated that he demanded absolute loyalty, just to follow the laws of the land
In a world where gods are actually real and affect your life and soul directly in certain ways by ruling over an area, having one as the ruler of a nation is kinda an obvious point.
Not once has he been shown or even implied to have done any sort of genocide or oppression on other races. He made peace deals and treaties with literally every single tribe/kingdom nearby. Just cuz the Weavers were understandably mistrusting of another Pale Being living near them, doesn’t mean he was hostile towards them. He negotiated trades and services with Deepnest, enough that even the standard documentation of the City Of Tears was changed from rocks to silk paper, and silk threads were seemingly rather popular in the capitol of Hallownest. Eventually even Queen Herrah begrudgingly trusted him enough to be put in an eternal sleep and used in a magical seal in exchange for Hornet.
The moths all abandoned their original god specifically because they saw what Pale King had to offer, and deemed it objectively much better than what The Radiance had to offer (i.e. free will and a much more humane Pale Being to look after them than the jealous and petty creature the Radiance seemed to be)
Last I remember, there is no proof that worshipping PK was obligatory within Hallownest, we simply know that the kingdom worshipped him, no proof he demanded worship, and he didn't eliminate natives as the power of his army would be more than enough to wipe out the mantis tribe and deepnest if he wanted, alongside any other species who opposed him, but instead he made peaceful agreements, not even lashing out when deepnest destroyed the tram he tried to build
Hey if Mohg is no longer the Mohglester but is in fact Miquellested perhaps the pale king is not so bad afterall
Well, I didn't have to PAY TO SIT DOWN IN HIS KINGDOM, so yeah, all glory to the Pale King.
And if we did, itWas only once
I mean...what were the Pale King's mistakes in ruling Hallownest? The only thing I could say is his fault is the millions of vessel corpses in the abyss, however, it could be argued that it was a "I have no clue how to deal with this, so I'm going to obtain a being that can hold it, so a mix of void and pale being, and it needs to not have an identity or thoughts or anything like that, so it needs to be void and pale being from the start.
Yes the only thing is the millions of dead babies in his basement. But it is a pretty big thing, epically when it didn’t even work.
The reason it didn't work was because the Pale King was a pretty good father to the vessel he thought would be the best for the task, I think the abyss climb was a test of strength and endurance, and all of the children were his own...and they were essentially aborted as they tossed the eggs into the abyss...if that means anything to you, it doesn't to me, but I know there are people out there to whom it does mean something. But he didn't steal other people's children and the White Lady knew what was going to happen and she didn't seem to object much more than the Pale King, as they both show regret, WL by binding herself and PK by sealing the Abyss. So they knew it was messed up, but couldn't think of anything else, and when it didn't work, well...there wasn't much else they could do but hide away and hope to ride out the storm.
That is all true, and that’s what makes The Pale King a bad ruler, a tragic and complex character. But a bad ruler. If you’re gonna kill a bunch of your own children, at least commit to it enough to not mess it up.
And it’s clear they felt bad enough about to hide away instead of comforting their kingdom in its final days. They know they did an objectively awful thing.
Also adding this comment which I think does a perfect job of explaining what I mean. https://www.reddit.com/r/HollowKnightMemes/s/l75YGTv6D9
And sacrificing any chance of rebuilding? PK couldnt bring any citizens into the dream realm but from what we see of the Pale King's pre Infection reign nobody was really suffering or under any significant duress other than the inate tedium that comes with a society, so I wouldn't be surprised if the White Palace is full of knowledge that PK could have used to rebuild Hallownest after someone takes care of the Radience or she gets over her temper tantrum. And another thing I just remembered, it's been theorized that the child plan would have never worked as how else could the knight we play as have a will, something they're implied to have thanks to charm descriptions, and thanks to what we see of his experiments with void, I doubt the child thing was anything close to his first attempt.
It actually kinda did work think about it.
The Pure Vessel tied the Radiance down, weakened it for a time, and bided time for the Knight and Hornet to grow. And while he wasn't hollow his strength and mentality of acting hollow and being nearly hollow made him resist for a far long time
Then another Vessel Knight who became the Shade Lord went into the mind of the Hollow Knight using her being trapped in her mind as a way to tie her down onto a battlefield and kill her with the power of the Void which probably was strengthen by all the Siblings.
Like the Vessel project worked he just miscounted the amount of Vessels he needed and probably out of hopelessness didn't think he could kill her due how hard it was just to seal her and not knowing about the existence of the Moth making the Dreamnail.
He really doesn't need it. Look at the story in its entirety and he really didn't do anything that bad.
I mean...child genocide is still pretty high on the list of bad things even looking at the whole thing
He means outside of the mass infanticide, because that honestly isn't what people hate on the Pale King for. It's usually for made up stuff like "He forced his followers to worship him" (when the Mosskin still worship Unn to this day) and other similar points
yeah but context is what really matters, its not like he just decided one day to do that, it was his last last resort option he came up with out of desperation, because it was either attempting the vessel thing, or let the entire kingdom become zombie's
"The sacrifices he imposed on others... all for nothing. "
~Hunter's Journal
The hunter eats people, I don’t think he’s someone of a high moral standard
Kinda shooting the messenger there, the truth of his statement is independent of him eating people
oh don't get me wrong the pale king did some really shitty things, but from all we can tell he was at worst distant before the infection, the worst things he did only happened during the whole zombie plague situation
Not genocide as they all had a second chance
As exploding ghost enemies
Ah, a disciple of John Kramer I see?
The thing is that wouldn't have happened if the Radiance didn't exist or wasn't such a terrible Goddess and had a proper talk with the Pale King as he has shown to be fine with other Gods, letting them be worshiped, and even give them stuff. Like the Pale King would have either let her rule over the moths again, give her another group of bugs to rule over, or make learning about her be basic education so she can be forgotten.
He really was playing the long game
Yup that’s me! I’m in this summoning and I like it 😎
My glorious wyrm
He cared about his kingdom and the people who followed him He did kill thousands of his own kids, but Honestly I always saw that being something he felt that he had to do to save his citizens from the infection
And he still had positive relationships with the factions that didn't fully or at all join him like mantis tribe and the hive
Honestly as far as monarchy goes, the pale king is the best case scenario
He was only hated because we had nothing that’s actually bad to compare him to
I've always been a defender since day 1. In fact, I was surprised when I found out many people see him as unapologetically evil.
The only bad thing he did apart from the Vessels (which was a desperate move because otherwise the entire kingdom was going down) was that the Maggot's journal implies that they were enslaved ("forced to do menial labours"), but we don't know whether the King knew at all, or if it happened during his reign, or even if it was slavery at all. Also Unn seemed distrustful of him, but it's not like they were openly antagonistic towards each other. Anything else I've seen people mention about him are bad faith interpretations ("he forced people to follow him!") or plain wrong ("he destroyed anyone who didn't follow him!").
Other than that, he was amazing: his kingdom was technologically advanced compared to the other civilizations, with which he made treaties and was in good terms (he gave one of them a child, and potentially convinced the other to raise said child, though that could've been Herrah). He didn't have any troubles with sharing the lands with other Higher Beings, to the point where he wedded one. From what I know there wasn't really a cut-clear or massive class difference like there's in Pharloom for example (other than potentially the maggots), and he never forced anyone to follow him: most of them just did because he's just that guy. Yes, he was naive to think his reign would be eternal, but honestly naivety isn't the worst thing you can judge someone for.
Literally most if not all troubles with Hallownest started with one, and only one Higher Being: the Radiance. She was the one who was angry with her followers deliberately forsaking her (and well, if your own creations decide to follow another guy rather than you maybe that speaks more about you than them), and while it's understandable that she didn't want to be forgotten (and thus, killed), she took it too far by causing the infection. I don't know, if she's the Goddess of Dreams she could've tried to use that to contact Pale King in a dream and say "hey dude, my followers started following you and that's literally killing me, can we make a deal?". Pale King is no stranger to negotiating with other Higher Beings, and with how spiteful Radiance's dialogues are (as well as some of the infected enemies), I'm convinced she was the one who never tried the diplomatic route.
And we finally get to the vessels. Yes, it was horrible, and it went horribly wrong, but it was also the only option at the moment. We know Radiance can be destroyed, but we have no reason to think that Pale King had the knowledge and tools to know you had to get to the Dream World (which is really unintuitive, that to stop the Goddess of Dreams you have to fight her right where she's the strongest) and use the Voidheart (which again, he had no reason to know about its existence) to command the Void and destroy her. So the only option they saw was making a being that was truly Hollow so it could contain the source of the Infection. He didn't make a million children and forsake them just for the heck of it: he knew they only had one shot, so rather than just trying vessels one by one it's more efficient to make a crapton of them and assess which one is the most apt to the task. He likely didn't know at the moment vessels could not be hollow, but even so, and once again, they were desperate, so they went with whatever they had at the moment. Which went horribly wrong.
And it's not like he chose not to care, because it's heavily implied he regretted everything he did. He made a statue for the Hollow Knight, in memory of their sacrifice, and inscribed some runes at the Abyss entrance that talks about the grief about the vessel's sacrifice. And while we don't know why he hid his entire Palace in the Dream Realm, I seriously doubt it was to run away from the Radiance and save himself. Because if you want to be safe from the Goddess of Dreams, the very first thing you should think about avoiding is getting into her realm (and yes, we know that's how you kill her, but PK had no reason or way to know). At least try to run away from the Kingdom first. So he either hid there to die out of grief, or tried to experiment more with the Void in his workshop looking for a solution, dying in the process. We can't really know.
No, the Pale King was not innocent, or a saint: he did horrible things, and in the end failed to save his kingdom, but he was not evil, spiteful, or (that) incompetent. He just found himself in an impossible situation and did the best he could with what he had. At least more people are starting to share my point of view. It only took around 10 years and another kingdom that was infinitely worse, but better late than never.
one can only know what it has, when You lose it (what do You mean 60 rosaries for a bench)
When Pale king came to Hallownest, he gave people minds, technology, education and overall quality of life. When GMS came to Pharloom she destroyed whole ass kingdoms, forced people into labor and ruined eco system
- Pale King
It’s not that the pale king was good. It’s just GMS and especially the weavers were way worse
Actually, Pious Isamor (the hidden statue) seems to indicate that the conductors are responsible of how bad things really got:
“ our stark Citadel of stone”
“See... Citadel's simple stone, bare an... dorned”
“Pilgrims... all... Siblings... serving... Devout... unwavering... All... are equal”
It seems like during the weavers’ rule the citadel all looked like the underworks, as in made of simple stone.
It wasn’t until the weavers fled and left the conductors in charge that the citadel became golden, and began to target Verdania, Cora Tower and likely the Pale Lake (is likely that during the weavers rule the citadel was in a Cold War / uneasy peace with them) not to mention the rosaries and the experiments in White Ward.
So is more like:
GMS was a bad and hostile mom
The Weavers were bad rulers
And the conductors just fucked up everything more
I'm apparently one of the few people left who still thinks he's an actual monster ¯_(ツ)_/¯
https://preview.redd.it/9grc7ureo39g1.jpeg?width=735&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b96a87fc6798b6f3efa1d2d959b5f2d8a051b2c4
PK only mistake was not giving was not giving Hornet more full blooded siblings!
We have a diffrent kingdom for comparison now so Hallownest looks a lot better
Holy shit is that the Red Mi- wait wrong Fandom
Can confirm im a pale king chat bot sent to astro turf the big dawg
Karmelita clears
Nothing like a truly dogshit country to show up so we can see how goated the Pale King was.
theres a reason why the spiders were secluded in the worst part of hallownest and one of them only got to touch the Pale Staff while forcing his Paleness hand.
I mean it’s a lot easier to defend him when WL (his wife and someone who he did everything in tandem with) literally says that her goal was to make a better world
I’ve bean glazing this man (bug?) since I first played the game he’s the GOAT!!
Because GMS (and those who followed her) showed us what it looks like when a kingdom doesn’t respect its people as unconditionally worthy of dignity. A defect that the Pale King never, to my knowledge, displayed.
https://preview.redd.it/k9ltjq5o8a9g1.jpeg?width=846&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=697f4422d5580d42189ecd19aec8397f6150df54
Like he fucked up some things but by god it couldve been SO much worse
Like his one bad thing was in extreme desperation in trying to defeat a Petty God who was torturing and killing his citizens just because she was a failure of a Goddess that her people left her. Like if the Radiance just talked to him he would probably make a deal that let's her get worshipped again and everything would be fine. Like without the Radiance the Pale King's empire could very much be eternal under his rule with happy citizens.
He’s still a prideful idiot and the pale king defenders will never convince me otherwise
Maybe, but I'm also a good king
The thing is being a good king that needed a angry petty Goddess of Light and Dreams to destroy his kingdom is something to be prideful about. And if anything his dealings with Uun, Weavers, and other tribes kinda shows he is humble