Hollow Knight The Grimm Troupe Lore Explained Script

Goddamn. That’s an amazing title screen. Grimm Troupe is finally here, and with it comes some new lore for us to try and decipher. Not only do we have Grimm and his lackeys to discuss, but there’s also more lore for the Pale King, and some new developments with some of the current residents of Hallownest. The new lore this time around is somewhat uplifting, but mostly just incredibly depressing. Then again, given Team Cherry’s track record, are we really that surprised? This is the Grimm Troupe Explained.

So what is the Grimm Troupe? Well, it appears to be some sort of traveling circus. They appear in game after the Knight lights the Nightmare Lantern, which doesn’t appear until the Knight uses the dream nail on the corpse of a nearby bug. This use of the Dream Nail is important because it establishes the connection that the Grimm Troupe has to the Dreamworld.

The Hunter’s Journal entry for the Nightmare King contains a quote from Seer. She explains that at some point in the past, the Dreamworld was split. This split was between dreams and nightmares, with the nightmares being sent to a new realm, which we’ll call the Nightmare Realm. This Nightmare Realm is where the boss fight with the Nightmare King takes place. You can tell from the dreamcatcher particles that surround Grimm that the Essence of nightmares is different from the Essence that makes up dreams.

Going back to Seer’s quote, we can see that she mentions the Nightmare’s Heart. This heart can be seen in the Nightmare Realm. In fact, you can hear it beating as the Knight makes its way to the chamber where it fights the Nightmare King. This Nightmare Heart, or the Heart of Grimm as it is also referred to as, is the true power of the Grimm Troupe. So what exactly is this thing? 

Is he a higher being like Wyrm, Root and Light? Is he just the nightmare equivalent of the Radiance? Well, the White Lady mentions that the clan and the master are one when talking about the Grimm Troupe, which does kinda sound similar to the Radiance’s hivemind. And there’s the fact that they both use dreams in a unique way. The Radiance uses them to control bugs, whereas Grimm uses them as a way to fast travel between kingdoms. Finally, they are the only two bosses in the game with full screen title cards. So there are definitely some similarities here, but to say that the two are on the same level of power might be a bit of a reach. 

But there is one thing we do know about the Heart of Grimm. In order to continue its existence, a ritual must continuously take place to maintain its strength. And that’s where the Knight comes in. It’s likely that The Grimm Troupe’s ritual has happened many times before and will possibly continue to happen in the future. The ritual is supposed to take place in the remains of a ruined kingdom. This is laid out plainly by Grimm in his Hunter’s Journal entry and in his dialogue when the Knight meets him. The ultimate goal of the ritual is for the current Troupe Master Grimm to die, and be replaced by the Grimmchild, who will become the new Grimm. Grimm explains that this is all done to “prolong the heart of Grimm”.

It is the duty of the one who begins the ritual, in this case, the Knight, to feed the Grimmchild the flames, or nightmares, of the dead kingdom which must be collected from the Grimmkin. The Troupe Master and the Nightmare King must also be defeated. 

We know all this because apparently the Grimm Troupe wrote a poem about themselves, which appears in the Hunter’s Journal. As a work of art, I’d say it’s a little too derivative. But in terms of lore, it’s a goldmine. The Hunter’s Journal entry for the Grimmkin Master reads “Feed the child, burn the father”. This shows that the current Troupe Master must be killed so his flames can be fed to the Grimmchild.

There’s more evidence for this in the Hunter’s Journal entry for the Grimmkin Nightmare, which reads “Dance and Die and Live Forever”. The dance refers to Grimm’s first fight with the Knight, “die” refers to the death of the current Nightmare King, and “live forever” refers to the prolonged strength of the Heart of Grimm through the successful incubation of the new Grimm Troupe Master. The Nightmare King’s dream nail dialogue during the fight also mentions “In dreams...born anew”. So yeah, the Heart of Grimm is basically cheating death through this process of constant rebirth through the Grimmkin. That’s some pretty weird shit. I don’t know what kind of drugs they have in Australia, but Team Cherry must be getting the good stuff.

Once the Grimm Troupe quest is completed, wearing the fully upgraded Grimmchild charm while talking to the White Lady will trigger new dialogue. She mentions the “scarlet heart” after seeing a “familiar flame” within the Grimmchild’s eyes, implying that the Heart of Grimm now resides inside of the Grimmchild. Brumm also mentions that the members of the Grimm Troupe are just “vessels for the flame”. This would explain why the White Lady says that the Knight and the Grimmchild are similar. They both act as vessels used to contain powerful beings.

But although the White Lady describes the Grimm Troupe as all and one, there is one within the ranks who does not want to participate in the Ritual. When collecting the last set of flames, the Knight can find Brumm in Deepnest, where he confesses his desire to banish the Grimm Troupe. Brumm explains that the Grimm Troupe are trapped in servitude to Grimm, and that the endless song of Grimm’s survival should be silenced. Confessor Jiji mentions that completion of the Ritual may cause suffering, but Hallownest doesn’t really seem to change even if the Ritual is completed. The White Lady doesn’t even give a fuck if you help out Grimm or not, so long as the Knight still stops the infection. So in reality, the only people who potentially suffer from Grimm’s shenanigans are his servants. Aside from Brumm, there’s also is Divine, the Grimmsteeds, the Grimmkin and the Grimmchild, who all reside within Grimm’s Troupe. In fact, even Troupe Master Grimm himself seems to be a slave to the Heart of Grimm just so it can live forever.

It’s at this point that the player has a choice to either go back to the Howling Cliffs and banish the Grimm Troupe or return to Dirtmouth, and defeat the Nightmare King. That’s right, it’s like a choose your own adventure book, except that one choice is clearly far worse than the other one. There is no good reason to banish the Grimm Troupe, outside of getting an achievement. 

If you choose to banish the Grimm Troupe, you miss out on fighting the Nightmare King. And while the Nightmare King is frustrating as fuck, he’s definitely one of the best bosses in the entire game. So what do you get for banishing the Grimm Troupe? Well, you get a new charm that replaces the Grimmchild charm, causing you to lose custody of the Grimm Jr.

♫I will remember you.♫

♫Will you remember me?♫

But the worst part is when Brumm comes to Dirtmouth under a new name, Nymm. Confessor Jiji mentions that the Grimm Troupe hide their true identities in “forms dreamed” whatever that means. Maybe Nymm was Brumm’s original name before somehow joining the Grimm Troupe. Dream nailing Nymm reveals that he has no recollection of his past at all.

So why is having Nymm in Dirtmouth so bad? Well, Nymm brings along his accordion bug thingy and starts playing a carnival-like rendition of the Dirtmouth’s theme. So now, you’ve got Salubra making endless moaning and laughter sounds, Zote constantly running his mouth just off screen, and now this asshat has to play his fucking music right next to the goddamn bench. Any sort of the ambience or mood that Dirtmouth once had is now completely gone. I mean, no offense to Christopher Larkin or anything. His music is god-like and I masturbate to it all the time, but this is not worth missing a boss for.

Brumm’s desire to betray his Master is a cool idea and all, and I think it might have been included as a way for people to get a 106% completion file without having to fight the Nightmare King Grimm, cuz you know, he’s hard as fuck. But still, it seems a little weird to me.

Before we move on, one last thing. Grimm seems to draw some strong inspiration from vampires. During the fight, he turns into these things, which are close enough to bats. And he sleeps from the ceiling, like bats do. Also, the black, white and red design is pretty similar to Dracula as well. It’s also interesting that Hollow Knight is a metroidvania game, and now clearly has elements that the two series are related to, vampires and fucking flying jellyfish monsters.

Another cool Halloween reference can be found in the game’s code. For all of Brumm’s dialogue inside of the tent, his text entries are titled under “Igor”, not “Brumm”. Igor is the name of an assistant who appears in several Frankenstein and Dracula films. Then there’s the carnival theme, which is another scary trope. Also, Grimm’s name is obviously a reference to the Grim Reaper. So yeah, a lot of different themes were thrown together to create the Grimm Troupe’s design and lore. 

But hey, there’s some more lore stuff to talk about in this content pack, the next big piece being the Path of Pain. It is now possible to re enter the White Palace, where a new platforming section can be found. The lore tablet at the beginning of the area informs the player of the painful suffering that will occur. Ari Gibson did the original layout for the White Palace, so if he did the Path of Pain as well, then goddamn, this guy has really gotten good at causing suffering. He’s should become a dentist or something. This section of the game features the Sealed Vessel theme, which plays when the Knight is trying to get the Void Heart. The song was really fitting for that section, but here, it kinda gets ruined by the fact that we end up hearing it for so fucking long.

I spent an hour trying to get through this section. And then I experience a bug at the end where I couldn’t exit the room with the Kingmoulds. A lot of people experienced this bug, and Team Cherry has since patched the game. I didn’t wait for a patch, so I just did the Path of Pain again on my Steel Soul file. It was fucking brutal, but I finally made it into the next room. I was really excited to see what my reward was going to be. And what was it?

Incredible. This is huge, guys. Now there’s a lot going on here, so let’s run this scene down play by play just in case you may have missed something. The Pale King and the Hollow Knight are looking off into the distance, and then they look at each other, and then the scene ends.  That might not seem like much, but in terms of Hollow Knight lore, this is like the fucking holy grail. 

First off, this is clearly a memory, since we know that the Hollow Knight is currently locked up inside of the Temple of the Black Egg. This fact alone is huge. The exact nature of the White Palace hidden away inside of the Kingsmould in the Ancient Basin has been debated for a long time. There are basically two schools of thought on the subject. Either the White Palace stored here is the actual White Palace, meaning that everything inside the White Palace is real, including the Pale King’s withered body, or the White Palace merely exists as a memory or dream, meaning that the real White Palace might have looked different, and that the Pale King might be somewhere else.

This new cutscene seems to lend credence to the idea that the White Palace is completely fabricated from memories, but I don’t think we can say for sure yet. I mean, yeah, this is a memory, but it’s clearly different from the rest of the White Palace. After all, there’s a tablet that says it’s a memory right at the start of the Path of Pain. So this does seem to separate it from the rest of the area.

So let’s talk about this scene. When does it take place? I think the best bet is to say that this takes place right around when the Hollow Knight was chosen by the Pale King. The Hollow Knight doesn’t look any different from the cutscene we see in the Abyss, so it hasn’t grown up to the size it later reaches. A pretty popular theory that attempts to explain why the White Palace is filled with a fuckton of buzzsaws is that it served as a test for the Vessels, to see if they were good enough to be used for sealing up the Radiance. 

This theory does seem to make sense with this new content. Maybe this scene takes place right after the Hollow Knight has completed the Path of Pain, proving its worthiness to the Pale King. I don’t really know if I buy into this theory, but it’s interesting nonetheless. Regardless, I think it’s safe to say that this scene takes place pretty shortly after the Hollow Knight was chosen to become the Vessel.

So, what exactly is going on here? Well, it kinda looks like the Pale King and the Hollow Knight are sharing a moment. Honestly, I’m getting a pretty strong Lion King vibe from this. Sorta like a father-son moment. 

[Cats in the Cradle intensifies]

Maybe the Pale King truly cares for his creation. He knows that the Hollow Knight has to be used to seal away the Radiance, but he can’t help but grow attached to his child. The White Lady mentions that the Hollow Knight was tarnished by an idea instilled. Could this be that inception. It also makes sense with the Hollow Knight’s cut dream nail dialogue where it says “father?”. Maybe the Hollow Knight wonders why its father could forsake it. It thought he loved it. And of course the Pale King loved his child, but what could he do. His people needed him. After all, no cost too great.

♫And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon♫

♫Little boy blue and the man on the moon♫

Honestly though, this actually made me really sad. Everyone likes to say that the Pale King is an asshole, and while that may be true, this is a really humanizing moment for him. I feel like I understand him a little better now.

Viewing this cutscene also unlocks a new entry in the Hunter’s Journal. The new entry is for the Seal of Binding, or SoB for short. I think it’s pretty safe to assume that the SoB was somehow used in an attempt to seal the Radiance inside the Vessel in the Black Egg Temple, but we do see it pop up in other places too. This seal can be found at the entrance of the Path of Pain, in the room before the memory, as well as inside of the Weaver’s Den. The Hunter’s Journal explains that the SoB is used to contain a powerful force, or to preserve something of great importance. So, it seems like an SoB was used to preserve the Pale King’s memory of this moment, and it was kept within the White Palace. As for the SoB in the Weaver’s Den, well that’s a tricky one. 

In this update we do learn more about the Weavers. A new charm can be found in the Weaver’s Den called the Weaversong. The description for this charm explains that the Weavers left Hallownest to return to their old home. And aside from the one Weaver that we can see briefly as we leave the Weaver’s Den, the place does seem abandoned. Wearing the Weaversong while talking to Midwife triggers new dialogue for her. Midwife explains that the Weavers used their looms to weave songs, shields, and even spells. Did the Weavers create this SoB using their silk? It seems possible. But if so, what were they sealing? Well, the Hollow Knight’s head can be seen in the middle of the seal, so maybe it has to do with that. Unfortunately, I think we’re going to have to play the waiting game for a little while longer.

So there’s the big new chunks of lore we got from Grimm Troupe. But there’s also a few little details worth mentioning. At one point, Grimm mentions that the Knight is a “Vessel discarded”. We already knew this, but it’s always nice to have more confirmation.

Another character introduced in the Grimm Troupe is Divine. The top half of her looks a lot like Leg Eater, but her bottom half…doesn't. If the player uses Divine to transform all of the fragile charms into unbreakable charms, talking to Leg Eater with an unbreakable charm equipped will cause him to travel up to Dirtmouth to seek out Divine. And then Divine eats him. This appears to be an example of sexual cannibalism, where a female will cannibalise a potential mate either before, during or after copulation. This practice can be seen mainly in spiders as well as mantises, and some other insects. So while Leg Eater might no longer be with us, we can only hope he was able to bone one last time.

♫I will rememb-♫

And then there’s Bretta. Basically, if you’ve unlocked the Grey Prince Zote boss fight before this update, Bretta would sit by Zote listening to him contently. Since the release of Grimm Troupe, however, her interest in Zote now dwindles the more you defeat the Grey Prince. If you are able to defeat Grey Prince Zote ten times and get the Gold Zote Statue, Bretta will disappear, leaving Zote to yarmer on to no one. Elderbug tells us that Bretta left towards the Howling Cliffs. And Bretta’s writings informs us that she has left to find a new love, since neither Zote nor the Knight were good enough for her.

So, who will Bretta eventually end up with? Well, there are many eligible partners still left in Hallownest, each more becoming than the last. Honestly, this is one of Hollow Knight’s greatest mysteries to date. Forget about that vitruvian grub shit. This is what we all need to be trying to figure out before Content Pack Three arrives.

One final thing. In the room where the Dreamshield is located, there is a statue that can be Dream nailed. It reads “Protect yourself…. You are our last”. So what does this mean? Well, it might be referring to Seer, who is the last moth.

Well, that’s about it in terms of lore, but this video is running a little short, so I figured I’d share with you my thoughts on the latest content pack. Personally, I enjoyed it very much. I know the Grimm Troupe quest stuff is just a glorified fetch quest, but my desire to learn more about Grimm never made it feel like a chore. And yeah, the bosses are really good. Grimm is fun, and Nightmare King Grimm is such a refreshing challenge. On top of that, there’s more lore in this pack than Hidden Dreams, and you know, Hollow Knight’s lore is kinda interesting I guess, so that’s always nice.

I will admit that I’m not a big fan of the whole “getting locked out of the Nightmare King Grimm fight”. I mean, in terms of lore it's a nice addition. Yeah, I just feel bad for anyone who accidentally banished the Grimm Troupe without realizing that they are missing out on fighting a new boss.

But other than that one gripe, this content pack is amazing. The lore, the loot, the boss battles, the music. It’s all top-shelf shit, my friends. But honestly, I think we all know what the best part about the Grimm Troupe update is. The Knight finally faces the right way when exiting the tram! Fuck yeah!