Hollow Knight ► 15 Hidden Design Secrets

***Spoilers, obviously...***
Some of Hollow Knight's hidden secrets, finer details, and other in-universe observations that I haven't seen too many people talk about, even despite this game has been out for almost four years. Or at least, these are things I never noticed. that might just mean I'm oblivious. But that won't stop this video from existing so suck itttttttttt.

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MUSIC by Epidemic Sound
► ES_Credo

Written, Voiced & Edited by Rusty

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[Rusty._]

If you're just getting started on Hollow Knight, here are some my favorite recent vids from the community:

[IMakeVeryDumbVids]

About the rain: When you meet Quirrel in the city of tears, he says that someday, he'd like to see the source of all the rain. The last time you meet him is at the blue lake: his journey is complete.

[hekirb]

"Nosk can't copy any ally of the knight because he has none"
Well, looks like the knight considers hornet an ally after entering the pantheon

[flanger]

Ok here's a fun one.

In the Abyss, there is actually music in the background. It is very slow and very low pitched.This is actually the same lead as the main theme of the game.

[bulanforever]

Hey, here's a fact about Soul Catcher, Shaman Stone, and Soul Eater

They all represent opening shells, the Catcher is the snail with the least space, as if something is still living inside

Shaman Stone is halfway, something is coming out, something big and powerful!

Soul Eater, it's empty, shown to be an abyss for holding something that can be collected

I hope this makes sense and doesn't make me sound like an idiot

[gkguido]

Another cool one for ambience and music:

At Queen's Station, you can actually hear the stag bells and voices of crowds of passengers in the background. It is very faint but it is there, as Quirrel mentions. You can hear it best through headphones.

[ruthlesslistener]

Some things I also noticed when replaying the game were as followed:

1.) The designs on the background gates/fences appear to depict the resident god of the region. In the City of Tears/Hallownest proper, the King can be seen in the filigree, in Greenpath the fences have Unn's designs wrought into them, in the Resting Grounds, Radiance's crown and arches feature prominently, and in the Queen's Gardens the filigree is...a little harder to make sense of, but it appears to be the White Lady. Interestingly enough, even in architecture that seems to match with the Pale King (like that one area in Greenpath that looks like the Forgotten Crossroads), his sign doesn't show up, which makes me think that that was a sort of territory thing or marker for the different tribes that lived in that region/their gods

2.) The White Palace starts out very open and lush with foliage, and slowly becomes more and more cramped, dark, and tunnel-like the closer you get to the Pale King. Many things can be taken from this, but I'm going to assume that it's supposed to represent the union between the Pale King and White Lady of sorts, with 'her' part of the palace being big and open and full of plantlife, whereas areas associated with him are very dark, to the back of the palace, and cramped, like worm tunnels (likewise the Path of Pain, his mental flagellation for caring for the Pure Vessel, is almost all a dark tunnel, with thorny vines everywhere rather than the lush leaves and huge twisting branches visible from the normal White Palace). I found it a cool detail thematically because it kinda makes you feel like you're venturing deeper and deeper into the dragon's den (so to speak), but it could also be an interesting potential read on their characters/personalities when one remembers that the King, according to Lemm, was an exceptionally reclusive figure, whereas the White Lady joyfully speaks to who she presumes is Ogrim and overall seems more open to the idea of socializing, as would fit with 'her' area of the Palace

3.) Similar to how the wind stops when you get the Monarch Wings, when you are about to fight Hornet in Kingdom's Edge, the wind starts to gust from her back, into the eyes of the Knight. This gives her a distinct advantage in the first part of the fight, as the ash-choked wind would presumably be an irritant to any assailant no matter if they're vessel or mortal bug, and since the wind appears to be blowing from the corpse of the Wyrm, I'm going to assume that's supposed to tie into the whole 'daughter of Hallownest' shtick she has going for her (though I have no idea why any remnant of the Pale King would help her, other than the fact that she appears to be taking his place in judging the purity/capability of the new vessel; perhaps that is also why she has his leitmotif)

4.) The titles of dream bosses and certain npcs (such as Lost Kin, Soul Tyrant, the Last Stag, and Millibelle) also change when the Knight learns more about the world they're in. For example, though they recognized that the Broken Vessel was related to them in some way (being able to identify them as a vessel in the first place), they had no idea who they were until after they watched them reach out for them and realized that there was still some scrap of their sibling in there, after which the title becomes 'Lost Kin'. Likewise, the Soul Tyrant doesn't earn that title until after they've seen all the bodies of the people he's killed, Millibelle changes from 'the banker' to 'the thief' after she steals your money (and isn't it amusing, how their solution to getting their money back is to literally beat it out of her), and the stag's title changes from 'The Last Stag' to 'The Old Stag' after he tells the Knight that he's hopeful more of his kind is out there

5.) Before you kill a Dreamer, the candles around them are lit; after, they are put out. Though Monomon doesn't have candles around her tank, Quirrel keeps up this trend by telling you that the Madame's life has 'been extinguished'

6.) I may be wrong, but fitting with the first point I made, the imagery of the King in the Soul Sanctum appears to be less prominent/incomplete when compared to the rest of the City of Tears, which fits very well with the fact that the Soul Master ended up going against the King's wishes and going on with his cruel experiments in search of his own immortality

7.) The 'egg' that the Knight hatched from looks more like a seed pod; it has a nearly barklike texture to the surface and trailing vines that look like they're actually a part of the surface, not stuck through, like the Pale King hooked his eggs up to IVs or something. This makes sense because, well...their mother is a tree. So if anyone's still like 'haha how the hell did the king make the vessels', it appears that he went the usual old route of fucking the tree (somehow.), letting her grow the eggs into a seed pod, and then sticking them in the Abyss to slorp up that sweet, sweet void juice. God I hate having to type all that.

8.) The Knight has a very brief animation for falling into acid where they panic-flail their arms and legs while reaching for the platform, which means that they can feel pain and fear. Which I find interesting, but not really all that surprising, given the fact that it seems to be implied in the game that they are not actually fully hollow; while the Pale King claims that void hollows people out, he is very much wrong about a lot of things in-game, and multiple npcs comment specifically on the Knight's will (including the White Lady, who urges you to replace the Hollow Knight!). This is further supported by how the only endings that show a decisive end to the Radiance are the ones where the Knight breaks from the King's plan and confronts the Radiance directly, in Dream no More and Embrace the Void, which imo implies that they were not hollow, merely empty of thought

9.) The Kingsoul in-game costs the most charm notches, at 5, and pairs the best with Glowing Womb, which uses the soul generated by Kingsoul to create hatchlings that kill themselves to fight your battles, doing...pretty shitty damage to them while also negating the benefits of the Kingsoul charm, which I found really fucking hilarious given the fact that it's mr 'no cost too great, I'm going to use my children to fight my battles's' dedicated charm (arguably, both the Pale King and the White Lady's charm now that I think about it, since each half makes one whole. Which is, quite franky, worse)

10.) In the Pantheons, all the 'true' adult gods have a specific arena, with two pillars in the background, only Godseeker watching, and arenas very heavily designed to their elements. These true gods are, of course, Nightmare King Grimm, the Pure Vessel, and the Radiance; though I don't think there's really any deep lore tied to it, I found it cool that there was an arena change to show the difference between what Godseeker considers a god (aka, anything strong enough to satiate her power kink), and what we know are actual gods/Higher Beings, like Grimm (or the Nightmare Heart posessing him, whatever your interpretation), the Radiance, and the Pure Vessel (who we know is a true god by virtue of their parenthood and by them being raised to 'prime form'). And though all the different bosses have arenas that look like their boss areas in-game, that two-pillar only-Godseeker format really highlights the changes made to fit them, which I find really cool

Just...the art and story direction in this game, man. It's fucking astounding. I can probably come up with more if I just wander around and look at shit, too, which is really outstanding considering the fact that I got Hollow Knight nearly a year ago now. But all the little details and cues they work into the environmental art is beyond amazing, and I can't wait to see how it compares to the art direction for Silksong, especially since Pharloom already has a far more chaotic feel of a kingdom than Hallownest (which is technically dead, yeah, but relatively well-organized compared to everything we see in the demos and the trailors)

[Romalac]

"Did you catch that the wind in the Ancient Basin dies down when you get the Monarch Wings?"

That was actually the only one on this list that I (somehow) had never noticed before, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention sir!

[aborikin]

I will add one thing that I think noone has pointed out:
In Godhome you can fight Winged Nosk, but this time it imitates Hornet. This means that the knight remembers Hornet as an ally. This also means that the knight isn't truly hollow and can still form memories and feelings.

[rongpirson]

you didn't even mention the fact that the city of tears has a poorer side and a richer side, as seen by the architecture, characters, and enemies on each side

[kolupsy]

Also a comment on Nosk: if you dream nail the dead people on the way to the boss, first you become a little scared because it is all very strange and that’s a cool detail, but also one of them says “Brother” or something, which is probably their last word before dying, when they saw the illusion of their brother

[Zotemann]

What blows my mind much more, that the background often reveals, that you’re in the opposite side of some areas, or between some areas through tunnels or something. Like in the path between the junkpit and the nailsmith, where you can spot the fungal wastes respectively the royal waterways in the background. This happens quite often in subareas

And the soultwister represents the shell of the soul master incl his cloak

Also things related to Nosk:

1. Nosk appears much earlier in the area above the hot spring when you’re coming through other ways than the room of the mantis lords! This doesn’t happen if you have defeated the lords already !

2. Nosk changes it’s strategy in the pantheon of hallownest to something the knight is related to: hornet ! I really dig that detail

[franklyfrancis]

As an aspiring artist, Hollow Knight has always been one of my biggest inspirations for my work.

I mean, who could resist marveling at the alluring charms of the Flukemarm...?

Edit: A commenter on my post has since enlightened me to my broken and twisted sense of what is and is not “alluring, ” and I am now set to be married to a Carver Hatcher (love you, Debby) within the year.

[AzuRemilia]

A fun fact relating to the Fog Canyon:
Its theme is Greenpath's theme, watered down. Makes sense- the place is surrounded from 2 sides by a form of Greenpath. But actually, Wanderer's Journal actually confirms that Fog Canyon was in fact, a part of Greenpath

[yeethittter]

Fun detail: In Paintmaster Sheo's fight he's painting Godmaster

I just noticed this today and got really happy

[ryanhamelmusic]

even after playing 75 hours of this game i still didnt realize any of these. damn team cherry did a good job, holy shit

[milorussell]

I just love that the start of broken vessels theme is all broken chords, signifying that the knight has to attack it due too the infection that started possessing it. But as the fight goes on, the music becomes a lot smoother and shows that the broken vessel is just like the knight but met an unfortunate end

[thegreatphantus]

Regarding #14: It took me forever to realize, but this also applies to the Mantis Claw. There's a bunch of them in the background and the player "takes one".

[gawain]

Another ambience thing is the giant teeth scattered around the Hunter's cave. First time I saw those, I thought to myself 'oh this is totally gonna be a boss fight' and left, only returning later (after hornet and a bit of fungal wastes), only to find out what it actually was later.

[TheAdvertisement]

3:35 “Safe haven” lol.
6:50 Yes! This one I actually figured out myself, it’s so cool how you’re simply lured by yourself, because the knight has no one important to it.