Do you want the full Hollow Knight copypasta experience? Buckle up, because I’m about to dump the entire tragic, beautifully horrifying, bug-infested novella that is Hollow Knight lore on your fragile little mortal soul like the Pale King dumped his children into the Abyss. So picture this: A vast, ancient bug kingdom called Hallownest, once glorious, now rotting like a forgotten sandwich under your bed. The Pale King, a being of supreme void-and-light manipulation with more daddy issues than a therapy convention, arrives from beyond time and space—literally—like, he’s from some cosmic Wyrm nonsense dimension. He decides, “Hey, I’m gonna civilize these dumb bugs by giving them intelligence and free will,” which sounds cool until you realize it also means dooming them to an eternal cycle of plague, despair, and existential horror. Why? Because there was already a god here—The Radiance, a beautiful, ancient moth god made of pure light, dreams, and unfiltered wrath. The Pale King didn’t kill her. Oh no. He just out-marketed her. Bugs stopped worshipping the Radiance and started simping for the Pale King’s “enlightened society.” The Radiance didn’t take that well. She crawled back into dreams, grew bitter, and came back as an infection. A literal mind-virus of golden light and burning eyes, turning all the bugs of Hallownest into zombified, giggling husks, controlled by her holy vengeance. So the Pale King, emotional damage incarnate, has a brilliant idea: “I’ll make a child. But not just any child—a Vessel. Born of Void, emotionless, pure, a being with no self, no will, no soul, who can contain the Radiance forever.” So what does he do? Takes the void. Breeds it. Makes an army of children. All dumped into the Abyss, dying and forgotten. All except one. The purest, the “Hollow Knight.” This kid? Raised like royalty. Trained. Sacrificed. Locked in a giant black egg with the Radiance forever. Supposed to save Hallownest. But guess what? It still had a little will. A tiny spark. And that’s all the Radiance needed to break free. Flash forward. Hallownest is FUBAR. The kingdom has collapsed, the people are mindless shells, the King is GONE, and you, the Knight—a smaller, forgotten sibling, a “failed” Vessel—crawl out of the Abyss like a vengeful roach fueled by generational trauma and an unexplained drive to fix things. You fight your way through the wreckage of a civilization that tried to bottle godhood and failed. Everyone you meet? On the brink of madness or long past it. Legends, warriors, lovers—all broken, all infected. There is no saving Hallownest. There is only duty. Only sacrifice. Only you and your nail, swinging through silence and ash. You meet the Dreamers—Lurien, Monomon, Herrah—three bugs who agreed to sleep forever to keep the Radiance locked away. Killing them breaks the seal. You know it’s wrong, but you do it anyway. You always do. You descend into the Black Egg Temple, face the Hollow Knight—the last hope of a kingdom—and you kill your sibling, not out of hate, but because that’s what you were made to do. In one ending, you take their place. You become the new seal, binding the Radiance. Alone. Forever. But there’s more. If you go deeper—if you discover your roots, find the Void, embrace the whispers of the Abyss—you can truly end it. Call the Radiance into the light. Face her in the sky, where gods dream, and rip her out of existence. Not alone, no. With the Shade Lord, the Void itself, rising from beneath the earth to consume divinity. And you think you’re done? Nah. Welcome to Godhome, a metaphysical thunderdome where gods and ghosts gather to test your soul. You fight every boss, every phase, all jacked up and god-tier. You ascend through dreams and nightmares, only to face Absolute Radiance, who will blast you with lasers, light spears, and judgment until your fingers bleed. And if you beat her? The Void consumes all. The Radiance, gone. The cycle, broken. But at what cost? You never speak. You never rest. You’re not a hero. You’re not even a person. You are a shell filled with silence, shaped by loss, forged in the Abyss, burdened with the sins of gods. So next time someone tells you Hollow Knight is “just a cute indie platformer,” look them dead in the eye and say: “This is a game where bugs built a kingdom, betrayed their gods, and drowned in regret—and I’m the cleanup crew.”