Hollow Knight: Silksong’s Protagonist, Hornet
Descent into Pharloom
This game has a lot of bugs. I don’t mean glitches, but literal bugs – roaches, ants, spiders and everything in between. Team Cherry’s much anticipated sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong, has been released to the delight of gamers worldwide. Fans had been waiting for this game for six long years, which was reflected in its release, where the game was so popular that it crashed Steam just minutes after its release.
We follow our main character, Hornet, a warrior kidnapped from her homeland. The game opens with her trapped in a cage, carried by a strange procession of garbed bugs marching towards an unknown destination. Who are they, and what do they want from her? Before we can find out, the scene is interrupted by our protagonist plunging downwards after the bridge carrying them breaks.
Once Hornet awakes, we find ourselves in the land of Pharloom, a kingdom where devout bugs make pilgrimage, braving dreary caverns, lakes of lava and dust storms to ascend to the holy Citadel. However, we are not interested in religion; our goal is to find out who brought us here and why.
Silksong is rife with content; filled to the brim with many mysteries concealed behind breakable walls, hidden bosses and even a secret true ending. The combat is fun and fluid, with Hornet’s moveset being more comprehensive and agile compared to the knight in Hollow Knight. The world is a lush metroidvania, full of equally startling and beautiful landscapes, filled with wonder and danger alike. This pulls gamers in, inviting them to continue exploring the vast world of Pharloom.
While Silksong provides many, many hours of great combat and gaming content, what intrigued me the most was the different depictions of motherhood in this game. While Silksong explores themes like colonialism and the exploitation of religion, it also puts motherhood, in all its glory and gore, at the forefront.
Silksong invites us to think: Is motherhood solely defined by bloodlines and the act of creation? Or is the essence of motherhood something more ephemeral, a duty of care that extends beyond mere ancestry?
Let us take a close look at the many forms motherhood takes in Hollow Knight: Silksong.
The article contains heavy spoilers from this point forward!
Grand Mother Silk, Lace and Phantom
Motherhood is conventionally perceived as soft and tender, arousing images of babies swaddled and cuddled close, a smiling woman holding a young child’s hand, in our mind’s eye. Grand Mother Silk portrays motherhood as something more grotesque: A divine being spinning children from silk, creating shells akin to a child, but not quite.
Lace is first encountered in Deep Docks, where she confronts Hornet and threatens to “pluck the flickering life right out” of her. As the game progresses, we learn of her nature as a bug fashioned entirely from thread by Grand Mother Silk, the main antagonist.
Hornet and Lace battle in The Cradle
We learn that their relationship is hardly maternal; Lace grows to resent her creator, which is revealed when the player plays the Needolin, an instrument that seems to show glimpses of each character’s inner thoughts and past.
Lace appears to be in conversation with Phantom, her sibling, also born from silk. Phantom’s fate is even more tragic, as she, too, was created by silk, though she was left to decay and fray as the years passed.
The Needolin dialogue reads as such:
She spun us to fade.
She spun us to break.
Why us, sister?
Why us?
It’s clear that Lace harbours bitterness towards her mother and creator, who brought her into existence and abandoned her. However, Lace desperately craves her mother’s validation as she pleads with Grand Mother Silk to see her as a worthy knight and daughter. This parallels many real-life mother-daughter relationships, where children often feel like they fall short of a parent’s expectations. If only they’d perform better, work harder, would they be seen and valued?
Hornet Challenging Grand Mother Silk
There’s something haunting about the reimagining of birth as fabrication in Silksong. Pregnancy itself is a long, arduous process; nine months spent in the womb, ending in a bloody birth which bonds a mother and child for life. Fabrication, however, is much more sterile and mechanical: more reminiscent of an inventor and invention, like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Grand Mother Silk craves connection and children, but creation without care is defined as cruelty in Silksong. When children are spun to serve and then abandoned, it’s clear that being created is not the same as being loved and nurtured.
Grand Mother Silk and the First Sinner
What can we say? Grand Mother Silk has a bad track record as a mother.
We encounter the First Sinner in an area of the game known as The Slab, a prison placed close to the Holy Citadel to house its criminals. The First Sinner is locked behind a door, which can only be unlocked by the Key of Apostate (the religious undertones are very obvious here).
Hornet’s Fight with the First Sinner
We learn that the First Sinner is a Weaver, a spider-like tribe who possess the rare talent of producing silk within their shells. It is no coincidence that Hornet is part Weaver. The First Sinner was eventually found guilty of apostasy and left to die in imprisonment, presumably after betraying Grand Mother Silk.
The key to deciphering their relationship lies within dialogue which is revealed after defeating the First Sinner:
…She called us daughters…Called us divine…She lied…
As it turns out, Grand Mother Silk lied to the Weavers, claiming that they shared a part of her divinity, when in actuality they were merely bugs known as Pharlids, which Grand Mother Silk elevated. She called them daughters, when they were subjects elevated above the rest to serve and to rule in part.
Is intimacy possible without truth? Without transparency and honesty, it seems that any relationship is tainted, the very truth of its being called into question. When mothers conceal truths from their children under the guise of compassion, it warps into something tragic. Who else can you trust, if not the person who birthed and created you? It’s no surprise that the Weavers eventually rebelled.
Hornet and her Mothers
It is revealed in Silksong that Hornet has three mothers: Herrah the Beast, Hive Queen Vespa and the White Lady. Though very different, Hornet’s mothers, both biological and adopted, appear to love her deeply.
Hornet was born of the union between Herrah and the Pale King, an agreement made in exchange for Herrah being sealed away for eternity. It is clear that Herrah loves Hornet, urging her daughter to ignore the schemes of the Weaver tribe who desire to use her for their own ends. Instead, she tells Hornet to see beyond them to find her own hope.
After Herrah is sealed away, Hornet is seen training with Hive Queen Vespa, a queen bee who gifts her a finely crafted needle that she uses for combat till the present day. Hive Queen Vespa teaches Hornet to fight, telling her that “To survive our world, you must learn to sting”.
Hornet Training with Hive Queen Vespa
Finally, we see Hornet and the White Lady, the Pale King’s queen. Through the dialogue we find out that the White Lady feels apologetic toward Hornet, stating that she “will think us uncaring, unrepentant” for the way they brought her up. In the end, Hornet understands that her mothers were trying to bestow strength in every way, shape and form to her so she may “live to see a world better than our own, or to craft a world as I desire”.
That is the essence of motherhood, isn’t it? To instill the best in a child, so that they may live better, freer than the women who came before them.
As we play through the world of Hollow Knight, it seems that many characters are simply fools in a fable, playing out a tragic fate which seems so out of their control. Herrah the Beast agreed to be sealed away for eternity, only for her sacrifice to be rendered meaningless; Hive Queen Vespa’s civilization wasted away after she died; the White Lady was bound in her cocoon, helpless as her kingdom crumbled around her.
In contrast, the “true” ending (it is unknown whether any ending is considered canon) of Silksong shows Hornet’s triumph; she’s wrested herself free from the schemes and machinations of the Weavers and Grand Mother Silk, free to forge her own path, whatever it may be.
This difference shows that the efforts her mothers poured into Hornet were not wasted. They protected her, guided her and nurtured her strength, so that she may one day be strong enough to face the cruelty of the world.
More Than Blood
I could go on and on about the other mother-child relationships in Silksong: Huntress and her ravenous brood, or Shakra’s devotion to her mentor. It’s no coincidence that Team Cherry decided to highlight motherhood and maternal bonds through the many different relationships in the game.
In the end, motherhood is clearly more than blood, creation or fabrication. While these ties may bind us biologically, what’s important is the love, care and compassion that comes after. The act of being a mother does not simply begin or end with birth, but is rather a life-long duty and responsibility that demands tenacity, determination and attention.
These themes serve to enrich the world of Hollow Knight: Silksong, providing an emotional backbone that underpins Hornet’s journey. It is truly a beautiful game, chock full of fun gameplay and a story that sinks its claws into gamers everywhere. So, what are you waiting for? Dive into the world of Hollow Knight: Silksong, now available on various gaming platforms. If you’re up for it, play Hollow Knight too; spoiler: It’s just as good.
Written By: Sarah Wong
Edited By: Sherman
