Our story begins in the distant past.
If you're
too young to remember 2014, just ask anyone,
the world was a very different place. Kids
used to spend their free time at a place called
Radio Shack. Famous actor Shia Leubouf famously
decided he wanted to stop being famous. Bill
Cosby made his way back onto TV, but this
time it was exactly for advertising Jell-O.
But yeah, other than that, and the ISIS invasion
of Iraq and that whole Ebola thing, and Ferguson,
2014 was a pretty good year. But the most
important event of 2014 happened on November
18th when two Australians going by the names
William Pellen and Ari Gibson launched a Kickstarter
for a little game called Hollow Knight.
Of course we all know about the final product
that was created during the 829 days between
the launch of the Kickstarter and the release
of the game. But what about the content that
was left out? A lot can happen in 829 days.
That's like 11.51 Kardashian marriages.
Well
the first thing I do when I start working
on a video is to check the wiki, that way
I can just copy paste it into my script.
Okay,
let’s see here.
Oh wait,
fuck!
Dammit!
Bingo!
This is Hollow Knight Cut Content.
Now at the time of writing, the latest content
pack Team Cherry has released is the Grimm
Troupe,so it’s always possible that some
of the stuff mentioned here will get added
into the game in a future update. Team Cherry
has dropped the trailer for Content Pack 3,
Gods and Glory™. And it looks good. Could
use more Bretta tho. But again, we don’t
know what all is coming this time around,
so it’s possible Team Cherry might throw
some cut content back into the game. So if
you see something in this video that actually
is in the game, please double check before
you go to the comments section and call me
a stupid asshole. I get enough of that at
home.
In Team Cherry’s early Kickstarter updates,
they showcased a variety of content that didn’t
make it into the final game. Spooky dungeons,
giant bosses, whatever the fuck this is supposed
to be. Most of these features actually pop
up in the Weird and Wonderful World trailer
that was dropped during the final week of
the Kickstarter. This video has some pretty
neat stuff in it, so let’s just start here.
Ten seconds in, we can already see a cut enemy.
This guy first appeared in the third Kickstarter
update, going under the name Blundering Oberlisk.
It was described as being a careless and clumsy
herbivore. So yeah, he just runs into shit,
I guess. So why did Blundering Oberlisk get
the axe? Well Team Cherry briefly mentioned
the enemy in an interview they gave on the
Roundtable Live Podcast.
“And I think pretty much every enemy and
boss that we conceived that went anywhere
past sketches that once Ari created art for
it, we used it. No actually, there are a couple
of enemies that we didn’t use, maybe. That
weird charging thing with the big nose?”
“Yeah, that never really had an area anyway.
There were a lot of enemies that ended up
on the cutting room-”
[Extremely Edgy Emo Music]
“That weird charging thing with the BIG
NOSE?”
“Yeah, that NEVER REALLY HAD AN AREA ANYWAY.”
♫All around me are familiar faces.♫
Here’s the next interesting scene from the
trailer. A Shrumal Warrior is holding a spear
that has an infected tip, and he’s talking
like a mad man. You remember the Shrumal Warrior,
right? The guy who sounds like Owen Wilson.
I also wonder if there was originally a plan
for a mushroom village, with more mushroom
NPCs. In the final game, the closest we get
is the fungal core. But the only thing interesting
there is this dead guy who complains about
the Pale King. Anyway, I think maybe this
scene was meant to show how the infection
messes with the mind. I mean, if you look
at this guy’s dialogue, he does not sound
okay.
Here we can see that there used to be a backstepping
mechanic at some point. That would have been
nice. At about 30 seconds in, we can see the
Knight using an ability called the Tyrant’s
Fist. This is clearly an earlier version of
the Desolate Dive. They probably changed it
after the spell system was more fleshed out,
because, you know, you don’t really need
magic just to fist things.
During the fight with the Gruz Mother in the
Forgotten Crossroads, we see an interesting
statue. The statue is of three beings, but
the one on the right has been broken. The
two remaining statues clearly represent the
Pale King and the White Lady, the King and
Queen of Hallownest. As for the identity of
the third one, well, I’ve actually got good
news.
Team Cherry did an interview on PC Gamer back
in August of 2017 where they talked about
designing the map of Hallownest. In this article,
Team Cherry actually provided pictures of
old versions of the map. One map in particular
is full of information about Hollow Knight’s
development. But what exactly does a map tell
us about this statue? Well, we don’t actually
give a shit about the map right now, but in
the margins of the paper that the map was
printed on, we can actually see a sketch of
these three figures in an identical pose.
And we can see that the figure on the far
right looks almost exactly like the Hollow
Knight.
So what the fuck does this even mean? Well,
it could mean that the Hollow Knight’s adult
form was originally the design for another
Higher Being. The fact that it’s broken
makes me think that the Higher Being is an
earlier version of what eventually became
the Radiance. What’s also interesting is
that the mandibles shown here look a lot like
the structures found in the Dream world. We
don’t know when the moths ended up in the
game, but maybe it wasn’t until later in
the game’s development. But it’s interesting
to think that the Hollow Knight was at one
point the true antagonist of the game.
About a minute in, we see something quite
strange. Before using the Vengeful Spirit
spell, the Knight has a white circle that
rotates around it. Later on in the trailer,
we can see an item in Sly’s Shop called
the White Crystal Ring. So was this White
Crystal Ring a power up that allowed the player
to charge the Vengeful Spirit attack? I don’t
think there’s any way to confirm this, but
it’s still pretty interesting.
Next, we see a pretty crazy ability: Dream
Diving. So if the Knight uses the Dream Nail
on an NPC, it slices the poor bastard’s
head open, allowing the Knight to enter the
Dream Well. The Dream Well is where a bug’s
hopes, fears and dreams reside. Team Cherry’s
plan was to use Dream Diving to give the player
unique challenges involving stuff like running
away from a horde of invincible flying nightmares
or fighting off a group of creatures without
using the nail. These areas would also give
the player unique items and reveal secrets
about the NPC’s past.
There is actually a video showing off the
Dream Dive ability on the Elderbug. The Dream
World here looks pretty empty. I guess the
horde of invincible flying nightmares is off
today. At the end of the video, the Knight
comes across a younger version of the Elderbug.
The name of Elderbug’s younger self has
become one of the most divisive issues in
the Hollow Knight community. Is it Babybug,
maybe Childbug? Maybe his name was Elderbug.
You know kinda like how people name their
kids Gertrude.
I’m kinda bummed that this feature isn’t
in the final game, but I agree that removing
this feature was probably a good idea. Ari
Gibson explained why this feature was removed
in the Reddit AMA Team Cherry held back in
August 2017.
“We did experiment with a full dream diving
system, but it ended up feeling really disjointed
and distracted from exploring the world. The
time we saved making dream levels went into
more fully fleshing out Hallownest.”
It would have been cool to have these little
challenges separated from the main game to
try out, but then again, we already have the
fan-favorites White Palace and Colosseum of
Fools for that!
Speaking of things that people love in games,
the next scene with cut content shows the
Knight swimming underwater. A different gameplay
mechanic like this would have been really
cool. Also, it would have made more sense
if the jellyfish in the Fog Canyon were put
in here. In the final game they just sorta
of float around in midair like the own the
place. Assholes.
Anyway, the next thing we see in the trailer
is a giant fucking spider. Now that’s badass.
Just look at this thing, it’s huge! When
you look at all the bosses that are actually
in the game, they are all pretty small. There’s
nothing like Kraid from Super Metroid for
example. I’m not saying that there needed
to be, but it would have been cool to see
how Team Cherry handled it. Now, I’m not
sure if Team Cherry had much planned for Deepnest
at this point, but this makes me curious.
Was this boss, or any boss for that matter,
intended to be a boss in Beast’s Den?
Well. Obviously there was. What else would
be making this noise?
[Angery roar]
And don’t try and tell me that it’s just
Herrah snoring, Team Cherry! Spider don’t
snore! I should know! I just googled it.
Holy shit, this trailer just keeps going,
doesn’t it! After the spider boss, we see
an unused NPC, a giant snail. It looks like
this is an entire village of snails, and the
shells look like little houses. God, I wish
this place was in the game. I know the character
design doesn’t really fit with the game’s
atmosphere, but I don’t care, this guy is
awesome.
Remember that old map of Hallownest I mentioned?
Well, it looks like there might have been
an area in the Resting Grounds originally
planned for the snails. Of course this could
just be a reference to the Snail Shamans.
It’s a toss up, really.
Next, we see Sly’s Shop. I mentioned the
White Crystal Ring earlier, but there are
some others items here too. They are just
proto versions of items that ended up in the
game. The most interesting one to me is the
greed charm. This shows us that the charm
system has existed since the early days of
the game’s development.
Now, Team Cherry must have known that the
snail was fucking cool, because he shows up
again, and plot twist, he has a kid, I guess.
I just love the expression on this guy’s
face. He’s just so fucking done with this
kid. And this is so weird that the other snail
has a smaller dialogue box. In the final game,
there is almost no instance of multiple characters
talking at once, other than maybe the Dreamers.
I am bummed these guys got the boot, but the
artwork for the shell is still in the game,
so who know! In a Kickstarter update posted
in February 2017, Team Cherry mentioned that
two new backer designed bosses, dungeons and
a new village would be added to the game later.
If this upcoming village is entirely new,
it’s gonna have to be pretty good to get
me to forget about these guys.
♫Memories♫
♫Like the coooooorn!♫
And that’s it for the trailer. But there
are a few other bits of cut content scattered
throughout the Kickstarter page. First let’s
look at the stretch goals Team Cherry set
during the campaign. The first met stretch
goal was the White Palace. This stretch goal
promised two boss battles, the Dusk Knight
and the King’s Golem. According to Ari from
the Reddit AMA, the King’s Golem turned
into the Kingsmould enemy, but he’s not
sure what happened to the Dusk Knight.
The second stretch goal was the addition of
four more sidequests that included 2 more
bosses within the game. The first sidequest
was titled “A Nailsmith’s Obsession”.
This sidequest basically would have dealt
with what the Nailsmith would have done after
finishing all of the Knight’s nail upgrades.
In the final game, the Knight is simply given
a binary choice to either straight up murder
the Nailsmith as requested or leave him alive.
If the Knight leaves him alive the Nailsmith
will somehow find his way to Nailmaster Sheo’s
house, where the two develop a deep love for
one another. And that’s it. Not much of
a sidequest, but at least now we know what
the Nailsmith’s obsession was.
[Suggestive music impling that I am taking
about sex]
Art!
Another one of these additional sidequests
was the Hive. The Hive was described as being
a city inhabited by an ancient and proud race.
At the heart of the city would be a sad truth
as well as a boss encounter. Of course, the
real sad truth is there is no boss encounter.
Honestly, the Hive is a bit of a let down.
It is definitely the most underdeveloped area
in the entire game. I mean, come on! Even
Cuphead had a bee boss battle. No wonder Cuphead
won Best Debut Indie Game, presented by Schick
Hydro at the 2017 Game Awards.
Team Cherry has admitted that they would like
to add more to the Hive. Ari mentioned in
the Reddit AMA that they might add another
NPC or put in little homes for the bees to
live in. On top of that, Ari also mentioned
a connection between Hornet and Vespa, the
dead Queen of the Hive. The original idea
for Hornet was that she was going to be the
Child of Three Queens. She was birthed by
Herrah, queen of Deepnest, raised by the White
Lady, the Queen of Hallownest, and trained
by Vespa, the Queen of the Hive. It’s from
Vespa that Hornet received her current name.
This makes more sense when you look at older
maps of Hallownest while the game was still
in development. You can see here that the
Hive is actually connected to Deepnest. In
the final game, the Hive is about as far away
from deepnest as you can get, which makes
this seem less plausible. But, Ari didn’t
know if this was still the direction they
were taking the character, so it’s very
possible that this connection between Hornet
and the Hive is still canon.
Another one of the sidequests was the Secret
of the Stagways, which promised to shed some
light on the history and fate of the stags.
I’d say this sidequest did make it to the
final game with the inclusion of the Stag
Home and the hatched egg hidden within.
The last side quest is pretty interesting.
It’s called the Lantern on the Black Shore.
The description for this event says “Travel
beyond the City of Tears and re-ignite an
ancient flame.” I assume that this lantern
is the lighthouse found in the Abyss, and
the Black Shore is the Lake of Void. The boss
encounter for this side quest might have just
turned out to be the Radiance, but I’m not
sure. Now since we’re talking about the
Abyss, I figured we should talk about the
unmet stretch goal for the Abyss. The Abyss
expansion would have added four new bosses
to the Abyss. Now as we know, the Abyss has
no bosses, even though there are creatures
there who appear to be alive.
Ari Gibson filled us in on what the Abyss
expansion would have been in the Reddit AMA.
He said that the part of the Abyss the player
finds is really just the Abyss shore, and
that the player would have traveled into the
Lake of Void to experience the true twisted
world of the Abyss. Some have wondered if
Team Cherry will revisit the Abyss in future
updates, but Ari dismissed the idea in an
interview he gave on The Creative Hustlers
Show.
“We could go and do all that but that just
means we’re going to be making Hollow Knight
for the next four years while we keep adding
to it. And what we really want to do is do
all the Hollow Knight that we’ve promised,
and the little extra bits that we just really
can’t help ourselves from doing, close that
book for a while and work on something completely
different. Another game, but obviously something
that is its own world. And then, you know,
maybe we’ll feel like returning to it in
ten years or something and then the Abyss
might be calling.”
The next stretch goal was to bring Hollow
Knight to Wii U. So yeah, this has been completely
dropped and now Team Cherry is working on
porting the game to the Nintendo Switch. I
think that this is great. Hollow Knight is
going to get a lot of attention once this
happens seeing as the Switch has no good games.
What’s that? Supper Maario Iliad? Pfff,
don’t make me laugh.
There was also an unmet stretch goal to bring
Hollow Knight to the PlayStation Vita. But
there hasn’t been any news on that. I guess
you’ll just have to stick to… uhh… whatever
games people play on Playstation Vita.
One last stretch goal that was not met was
for the Colosseum of Fools. It would have
added four new bosses and would uncover the
mystery surrounding the Colosseum. We got
a little light on this from, guess who, Ari
Gibson. He said that 2 of these bosses are
Zote and the Oblobbles. The other 2 bosses
eventually became enemies. Ari also said that
the Colosseum still held a mystery, but still
no word on that. I do get a gladiator vibe
from this new trailer. Maybe the Colosseum
will tie in with the new Gods and Glory™
update. But who knows.
Anyway, one thing I should mention is that
the Colosseum of Fools was originally planned
for the Fungal Wastes. Lorewise, it makes
a lot more sense to me that it was placed
in an area of the game full of uninfected
mantises who believe in the value of strength.
I can’t say I really have a good explanation
for the lore surrounding the Colosseum now
that it’s in Kingdom’s Edge. But I will
share a brief summary of my thoughts.
[Oh look, mossbag is stealing another joke
from the Simpsons. How original]
Another bit of content Team Cherry teased
during the Kickstarter was a battle with Fierce
Dryya, who had gone crazy after the death
of the Queen of Hallownest. Of course, in
the final game, Dryya is dead and the Queen
is still alive. Now, out of the Five Great
Knights talked about in the game, the player
only gets to fight one of them. Twice. But
some have speculated that the other Knights
could come as dream bosses. However, Ari Gibson
dashed all hopes in the Reddit AMA when he
said that the Five Great Knights would be
explored more in the future, but not necessarily
through dreams.
One of the biggest pieces of content cut from
Hollow Knight was an area of the game called
the Forest of Bones. Team Cherry mentioned
this area in an interview on the Roundtable
Live podcast when discussing the origins of
Hollow Knight’s map.
It was like… we just had… The idea was
that you’d have, like, a middle area, and
then you had three arounds around it, which
is why the original area is called Crossroads
in the final game. And it was gonna have,
like, Fungus Land, Rain Land, Boneland or
whatever.
Boneland was going to be a massive part of
the game, with burning tar falling from the
ceiling and an area called the Holy Grounds
hidden deep within. From the Reddit AMA, William
tells us that ants were originally planned
for this area. Which would have been fucking
awesome.
From the Roundtable Live podcast, as well
as an interview Team Cherry did with PC Gamer,
we have a little bit better idea of what the
Forest of Bones’ development was like. The
area initially started in the top right corner
of the map. Apparently, Ari didn’t like
the idea of an area with lava being at the
top, so they moved the Forest of Bones down
to where the Ancient Basin ended up being.
According to William, it would have been a
large, maze-like area that would eventually
lead to the Monarch Wings. After that, the
player would have had to then light torches
in order to open a gate.
Let’s take a closer look at this map, and
see if we can figure it out. The player would
have had to enter from Deepnest. The only
other area connected to the Forest of Bones
was the White Palace which connected to the
City of Tears via a one way elevator. The
first thing the player would have had to do
was probably reach this area right here and
get the Monarch Wings which is indicated on
the map by this white circle. After that,
a lot more of the area becomes unlocked.
The player would then be able to reach these
yellow objects, which I assume are the flames
that William mentioned in the podcast. After
these were lit, the gate here would open up,
allowing the player access to this enclosed
area. From there, the player would have to
reach this green circle, which I assume is
the King’s Brand. Then, the player could
reach this location, which is probably the
Holy Grounds.
Also the Abyss and the White Palace would
be accessible at this point as well. If the
player has the Shadow Dash, they can go fight
this backer boss over here. There’s also
a nail art up here for a Nail Art called Skyward
Slash. I think this is a village. This looks
important but I can’t read this shit. I
think it says… Kingmoo? And yeah, that’s
pretty much it. Oh and there’s a snail!
♫Memories♫
Now let’s talk about the Holy Grounds. This
little area on the map has a picture of a
broken Dream mask, which is kind of weird,
built either way this must be the location
of the Dreamer for the Forest of Bones. So
which one is it? Well, the word above the
mask here says Hegemol, which was actually
Herrah’s original name. This is kinda confusing
especially since the Holy Grounds have Monomon’s
mask plastered everywhere, not Herrah’s.
The reason for this is because all of the
Dreamers had the same mask very early in the
game’s development.
Okay then, so who are these fuckers? They
kinda look like Vessels. Okay, this is probably
gonna sound fucking crazy, but follow me on
this guys. In September 2015, Rock Paper Shotgun
published an article that featured pictures
from Ari Gibson’s sketchbook. This is cool
because Ari’s sketches are where most of
the artwork and character designs for Hollow
Knight came from. These enemies we see in
the Holy Grounds can actually be found in
this sketchbook. The sketch details the animation
for one of these enemies spawning into the
game. Not only that, but there are notes too.
These notes detail how a boss fight with the
Dreamer would have worked. It says that the
boss fight would be incredibly difficult and
that the Dreamer could roar to summon minions.
So in other words, these guys are minions
who help protect the Dreamers. So yeah, this
whole thing sounds pretty weird. Between this
and the broken statue in the church, we can
definitely tell that Hollow Knight’s story
was once quite different. It seems like Team
Cherry hadn’t quite decided what the Vessels
were yet.
Moving on, we also have pictures from Ari’s
sketchbook of some of the artwork for the
Forest of Bones. This first drawing shows
off these things called “Bone Vines”.
We also see these weird looking structures.
Here’s a picture of one labeled “Ore Pillar”.
We don’t know much about the Pale Ore found
in the final game. Ari Gibson said in the
Reddit AMA that they were related to the Pale
Beings. And that actually makes sense. The
Forest of Bones was filled with giant corpses.
And as they piled up in this hot area, they
might have turned into ore with superior properties.
There’s also this dope lava fountain and
I guess this might be the entrance to the
Holy Grounds. And that’s about all the information
I can find on the Forest of Bones. But why
did it get removed in the first place? Team
Cherry gave two reasons as to why they cut
the Forest of Bones. The first reason was
that it would have taken a really long time
to finish. The second reason they gave was
that they thought it would be too much for
players to handle. Those are pretty good reasons
I guess… Goddammit.
During the Kickstarter, Team Cherry announced
a new pledge tier that allowed donors to make
their own dungeon and boss. They mentioned
ideas like a robot graveyard, and even showed
off this drawing for a dungeon called Carnival
of Crustatins. Yeah, I know, it’s super
weird. But what’s cool is the description
up in the corner. It mentions organ music,
hanging lights and tents, all things that
made it into the game with the Grimm Troupe
content pack. Not this juggling crab boss
thing tho. Sorry Crabello.
♫All around me are fam-♫
There are also a few charms that got left
out of the game. Back in February of 2016,
Team Cherry posted an article announcing the
inclusion of the charm system in Hollow Knight.
In this post, we see a couple of charms that
did not make it into the final game. Two of
these cut charms are identified as as the
Vengeful Swarm and the glass charm Unending
Greed. Vengeful Swarm was a charm that would
spawn hatchlings when the Knight would take
damage. So it’s sorta like a mix between
Thorns of Agony and Glowing Womb. Unending
Greed is clearly just the original version
of Fragile Greed.
There’s also some charm designs leftover
from inside the game. There’s a dulled out
version of Dashmaster. And this one kinda
reminds me of Carefree Melody.
Now let’s talk about some of the unused
content that got left in the game. First off,
we have this unused sprite sheet of a small
enemy. Pretty fucking lame, but hey there
it is.
Moving on, user kcghost released a mod for
Hollow Knight back in July that gave the player
access to some rooms that were left in the
game. Unfortunately, these rooms were removed
from the game with the Hidden Dreams update.
So this mod no longer works with the current
version of the game. But don’t worry, you’re
not missing out on much.
Some of the rooms are just untextured areas.
There are also some pretty strange rooms that
feature tight pathways, one of which stretches
on for quite some time. These two rooms look
a lot like the underwater room from the trailer,
as well as the room where Unn can be found
in the final game. This really long ass room
is very similar to the room with Unn in it.
But I wonder if this area was supposed to
be filled with acid. Maybe the Knight reaches
the bottom of this room, where Unn would give
it the ability to swim back up. Otherwise,
it’s pretty difficult to get out of this
area. I don’t know, just a theory. There’s
also some cut rooms from Crystal Peaks, but
there’s nothing really that exciting about
them. I’ll show them to you anyway, but
I don’t have anything to say, so I’m just
gonna play some royalty free jazz music.
[Royalty free Jazz music intensifies]
Here we have a room filled with moth statues.
This area was shrunk down and hidden within
the Glade of Hope in the final game. But even
in this earlier version, there is still a
ledge for the Knight to stand on so it can
dream nail this statue. It doesn’t do anything
here, but the statue in the finished map takes
the Knight to the Shrine of Believers.
There’s also a test room for the Dreamers,
which contains a static guardian that we can’t
interact with. He’s just sorta chilling.
Kinda looks like he’s about to flash us,
the fucking pervert.
The last room is the most interesting. It’s
the only cut room with an interactable bench.
And it’s full of string and needles which
look exactly like the needle that Hornet uses.
What’s even more interesting is that the
exit in this room leads to the room in the
Ancient Basin where the White Palace once
stood, but since there’s no adjoining exit
in this room, the player gets stuck. Is this
cut room supposed to be Hornet’s room? Or
is it just to show that the White Palace had
some sort of connection with the Weavers?
In the Hidden Stag Station that was added
in the Hidden Dreams update, we can see that
the thread is still there.
Alright, so there’s all the boring stuff
out of the way. Now it’s time to talk about
cut dialogue! And trust me boys and girls,
Team Cherry cut dialogue from this game almost
as much as the Schick Hydro 5 Sensitive Razor
cuts away unwanted facial hair while helping
to protect your skin from irritation. So we’re
about to go head first into some deep Hollow
Knight lore. If you don’t have a good understanding
of the lore, then, well... I’m not mad,
but I am disappointed.
Now I wanted to start off by talking about
the Elegy of Hallownest. The first four lines
of this poem appear at the beginning of the
game. But the rest of the poem can only be
found by digging into the game’s files.
In fact, the Elegy of Hallownest isn’t even
a complete poem. It literally just stops midway
through one of the lines. And yet, everyone
and their fucking grandma uses this poem when
they talk about Hollow Knight lore. So can
we really consider these unused lines as canon?
At the end of the day, what were are really
trying to figure out is what is written in
the Hollow Knight lore Bible. That’s more
important than figuring out what is canonical
within the game, if that makes any sense at
all.
Anyway, there’s this dialogue from the Moss
Prophet. Here, we get a little insight into
what pisses the Radiance off. She doesn’t
like it when creatures change form, which
is probably referring to how the Pale King
transformed from a wyrm. She’s also against
stealing soul which is probably referring
to how the Knight gains soul from hurting
other creatures. And then she talks about
how the only crime a God can commit is by
dying. Is she referring to how the Pale King
might be dead? Or is she just saying that
she refuses to die herself? She caps things
off by talking about how the empty ones must
be destroyed. Myla has similar dialogue in
the final game.
Now the most cut dialogue we have is for the
three dreamers. In the final release of Hollow
Knight, the three dreamers talk in brief sentences
and their dream nail dialogue is even shorter.
It’s kind of hard to understand in the final
dialogue, but the Dreamers have a debate as
to what to do with our little bug buddy here.
From looking at this cut dialogue it becomes
much more clear what was going on here. Monomon
argues that the Knight should be allowed to
break the seals on the Hollow Knight, while
Lurien argues that the seals should remain,
since that was the oath the Dreamers made
to the king. Herrah doesn’t seem to care,
since she’s only in it for Hornet.
For example, here’s a line that was originally
meant for Monomon the Teacher:
“We sealed that plague, and thought we’d
found an answer, but we were wrong. Our sacrifices...
what did they win us? A world sealed in stasis."
Here’s a line from Luiren:
“Remember our promise, sister! We three
vowed to protect the seal with all of our
devotion.”
This isn’t really a line from Herrah, but
more of a note about what she would say:
“More detached than the other dreamers?
Maybe ponders how the Hollow Knight (vessel)
feels after all this time. Would he make the
same choice again?First few dialogues are
very taciturn"”
There’s also a generic line about the Pale
King:
“Our King appears as bug, and I shall take
him as so. But his are traits that transcend
our kind. His is a mind beyond ours. Deity
given form.In sleep, I shall not look upon
his like again."
The Dreamers also had different lines that
they would give to the Knight when found in
the Dream world. Here’s a line from Monomon:
“Only one path I see. The Seals must break.
Will it bring destruction? Of course. It will
bring change, too. Let it. To live forever
in an unchanging world... Death, I would fear
less.”
This line is probably from Lurien:
“Remember our bond... our sacrifice. For
the kingdom’s sake... for the one we must
protect."
And again Herrah’s dialogue is in note form:
“Talks about her history: As part of the
agreement for her alliance and her role as
a dreamer, King gave her a child. Was she
allowed to keep this child or was she taken
away?"
Then there’s this huge monologue from Monomon.
Now there’s a lot here, and it’s hard
to know how much of this still reflects Team
Cherry’s plan for Hollow Knight’s story.
According to Monomon here, the kingdom of
Hallownest lasted for a very long time and
had reached a point where civilization had
stopped advancing. She also mentions that
Hallownest struggled both against the Radiance
as well as the Void. We don’t really know
the full details of the Pale King’s relationship
with the void, but we do know that the Void
tries to consume any creatures or beings around
it. The King used the void for his constructs,
but maybe his tampering put his people in
greater risk than we know. And what’s with
“we found each other after all” line?
Was Monomon actively seeking the Knight out?
Did Quirrel somehow help with this effort?
Then there’s this line, which to me, is
super interesting.
“An empty vessel to bring hope. A strong
vessel to bring stagnation. An enlightened
vessel to bring an end.”
Yeah, this is some Lord of the Rings type
shit right here. In almost sounds like some
sort of prophecy or something.
Now I can see interpreting this in two ways.
The empty vessel is the Hollow Knight, the
strong vessel is the main character if the
player gets the Hollow Knight ending, while
the enlightened vessel is the main character
if the player gets the Dream No More ending.
Another way I like to interpret this is that
the empty vessel is the first Sibling ever
made, the strong vessel is the hollow knight,
and the enlightened vessel is the player character.
Okay, I have two more lines left to show you.
These last two are kind of unique. Not only
were they not used in the final game, these
two lines were completely removed from the
game’s code after launch. Which leads me
to believe they are super juicy.
The first one comes from the White Lady:
“Two halves of a whole. You found your way...
back to me? We were so unfair, weren’t we?
To cast you out. Please, you must not hate
him. He did what he thought was right. The
Kingdom had to live...”
Okay, so this pretty much lines up with what
we already know. The Kingsoul, the Siblings
being locked away. But that last line is kind
of interesting.
Anyway, the last line comes from the Pale
King. His Dream Nail dialogue in the final
game reads “No cost too great.”. But at
one point it might have been “False one…
you can not… reach me… here”. Well,
it seems to confirm that the Pale King is
indeed hiding in the White Palace. But who
is this “false one”? He’s probably referring
to the Radiance, the false god of Hallownest,
right? Or is he?
[X-Files Theme intensifies]
Oh, wait!
Wait!
Wait a minute. As much as I
want to get into this right now, this isn’t
the right place for deep lore. I’m sorry,
guys!
The last thing I wanted to talk about was
those sketches that we have from Ari Gibson.
I showed off a lot of them for the Forest
of Bones, but there are a few more I’d like
to share with you. This picture has some pretty
interesting stuff. On the far left we can
see a giant but with ten legs wearing a Dreamer
mask. Was there a plan for the Dreamer boss
to transform into an actual enemy? I mean,
wouldn’t a fight with this fuck face be
pretty easy? I guess we’re in his dream
so he could probably do whatever he wanted
to us, right? Hit us with a train or something?
Then, there’s this guy. His mask is similar
to the mask worn by Herrah and the Weavers,
so maybe this was the king of Deepnest or
something. But part of me says this guy might
have been connected to the Colosseum of Fools.
The symbol for the colosseum also has the
six eye hole design, and this guy has that
same spiked shell that the Lore Fool has.
And it looks like this guy is presiding over
something. Also, here’s the trilobite from
Deepnest, and this confirms that something
is supposed to come out of that thing. Over
here we see an early design for the White
Lady in her little cocoon ball thingy.
Now honestly, this last image bummed me out.
This is an early design for Nosk. So there
are two obvious difference here. First of
all, he’s got fucking wings. Second, he
has a longer tail that he probably used to
attack the Knight with. Everyone in the Hollow
Knight community likes to shit on Nosk. He’s
got such great build up to his fight, and
then the fight itself is just lame. Imagine
how crazy the Nosk encounter would be if it
started the same, but then he turned into
this fucking Ridley-type motherfucker.
And that’s it for this video. Sorry it was
so short. To make up for it, check out this
blog I just posted. In this post, I compiled
all of the evidence I found for this video
into one spot. It’s pretty good to be honest.
Very dense and concise. In fact, I don’t
know why I even bothered making this long
winded video. I should just stop right now.
