THEORY (SPOILERS) In godseekers endings... the Pure Vessel gets a happy ending!

So, first of all I'm going to establish that, for simplicity's sake, I'm going to refer to the player vessel as "Player" and the vessel in the black egg as "Vessel" (with a capital V) since both are called the Hollow Knight and Pure Vessel, and I don't want to be confusing.

So, as we know, the King created a whole boatload of vessels, attempts at hollow knights, to try to contain the Radiance. The king winds up selecting the Vessel, and the Player is a rejected vessel. The king trains and raises the Vessel to be the hollow knight, and places it in the black egg under a seal to contain the Radiance.

However, we also know the Vessel isn't pure like the king had thought. It has a will of its own. We know this for several reasons. 1. The Vessel could be infected by the Radiance, indicating it is not perfectly 'hollow'. 2. The Vessel made eye contact with the Player when leaving the abys, demonstrating empathy for the failed siblings. 3. The Vessel made eye contact with the King in the white palace, demonstrating some sort of attatchment to its "father." 4. The Vessel has thoughts when you dream nail it, thoughts like "do not think" and "father?" indicating that it wants to perform well for the king.

In the normal endings, the Vessel winds up destroyed, and its place is either taken by the Player, or the Player and other siblings sacrifice themselves to absorb the Radiance into the Void in the dream world. Neither of these endings left me satisfied, because although the Radiance is stopped(?), neither the Player nor the Vessel get to live out a "happy ending," per say.

But with the godseeker endings, I feel like the Vessel gets its happy ending after all. After a life of servitude and struggle, it is free. This is because the Player has opened the seal on the black egg, but defeated the Radiance without fighting the Vessel (which is presumably destroyed fighting the player in the normal endings.)

In the endings, we see Hornet react to something, and hear the Vessel's chains and footsteps, then see a part of it and see it stick its nail in the ground. I think it puts its nail in the ground as a way of signifying that it is done fighting, or at least, doesn't want to fight Hornet, its half-sibling. This is purely speculative, but I'd like to believe that it befriends Hornet the same way the player does, and goes on to live a fullfilling life. We know it can age like bugs do, which would indicate it being alive, and we know it has a will, so it could enjoy this life. Who knows? Maybe it goes about the kingdom questing and exploring like Quirrel or the Player did; maybe it returns to the abys and commits itself back into the Void for some well-deserved eternal rest. Or maybe it lays down the nail forever and spends the rest of its days making art with Sheo and the Nailmaster. Either way, I really like this idea of the Vessel getting to excersize its free will for the first time in its life.

Submitted December 11, 2019 at 12:33AM by StevenTheSquare https://ift.tt/38pSMh3