Exploring the Pale King's Anatomy (Script)

The Pale King is one of the most important and mysterious characters in Hollow Knight. His actions are directly responsible for the events of Hollow Knight, from its creation, to its eventual demise. But in this video, I don’t want to talk so much about what the Pale King did, so much as what the Pale King is. His biology, his physiology, his anatomy. And to help me out with this video, I’m going to be showcasing art from MEBI, an active artist in the Hollow Knight community who has worked on projects such as the Pale Court and a Hollow Knight inspired indie game called Tidetale. Mebi shared a lot of the ideas I’ll be discussing in this video on his Tumblr, So if you want to see more stuff like this, or other cool and interesting Hollow Knight related content, please check it out.

When talking about the Pale King, I think it’s best to start with the elephant in the room. He’s white.

We’re aware of two different forms of the Pale King. His Wyrm form, whose carcass can be found in Kingdom’s Edge, and his form of “meagre shell”. The first half of this video is going to be discussing the Pale King’s Wyrm form, while in the second half of the video, I’ll be sharing my thoughts on the new Five Nights at Freddy’s movie. So make sure you watch to that part.

Unlike most creatures in Hallownest, the Pale King’s wyrm form isn’t a bug. A fair assumption to make is that he is supposed to be some kind of earthworm. While not bugs themselves, it’s reasonable for worms to appear in a fictional story about an underground bug kingdom. We also know that Team Cherry read Frank Herbert’s Dune while working on Hollow Knight [source], which I would argue is the most well known depiction we have of giant worms in all of fiction.

Dune also focuses a lot on the lifecycle of its sandworms, explaining in great detail how their ecology basically facilitates everything on the desert planet they inhabit. Similarly, the Wyrms in Hollow Knight can completely change the ecosystem of an area by simply dying in them. 

But we could also look at the Wyrm from a different point of view, which stems from the way “Wyrm” is spelled in Hollow Knight. In almost every instance of the Wyrm being mentioned, it’s spelled with a “y” instead of an “o”. The only time the Pale King’s wyrm form is referred to as a worm is when Grimm mentions that Hallownest has been “fallowed by worm and root”. So while I do think it’s accurate to call the Wyrm a “worm”, I think it’s worth exploring the possible implications of spelling “wyrm” this way.

The word “wyrm” shows up in a lot of different fantasy settings, and has almost become synonymous with the word “dragon”. But why is that? The modern English word “worm”, which refers to things like earthworms, has its origins in the old Norse word “orm” and the old English word “wyrm”. But this word was also used for things like snakes and serpents. After all, snakes and worms do share a striking similarity at a glance, that being a lack of limbs. Old English and Nordic poems tell of men fighting giant sea serpent creatures, often referred to as worms.

The most well known example comes from the Old English poem epic Beowulf, composed somewhere between 700 and 1000 A.D., in which a creature is described as both a dragon and a worm. And a couple years in the 1950s, J. R. R. Tolkien would draw on Old English stories like Beowulf to craft his fictional world of Middle-Earth, bringing the draconic worm back with creatures such as the Great Worm, Glaurung. And, of course, Tolkien’s writings would prove to be somewhat influential with fantasy writers moving forward.

That’s all to say that I think it might be useful to consider snake and serpent like qualities when discussing the Wyrm as well. And that might be why Team Cherry chose to spell the word that way.

Alternatively, Team Cherry chose to call it a “Wyrm” with a “y” because it looks cooler.

The Wyrm corpse is located in Kingdom’s Edge, and the signs of this are everywhere, so it’s no wonder why the bugs of Hallownest didn’t expand their city into this cavern. The white ash that covers all but the lowest portions of the region originates from the Wyrm’s decaying corpse. The mouth of the Wyrm’s carcass can be found deep in Kingdom’s Edge, resting agape with sharp pointed teeth jetting outward from the body. The mouth itself is 5 times taller than the Knight. For comparison’s sake, if we assume the Knight is approximately the height of Danny Devito, that would mean Wyrm’s mouth is over 24 feet wide.

Inside the corpse, we can find an empty egg-like shell, protected by some kind of seal. This shell is reminiscent of the broken eggs found in the Abyss, but looks much softer and… gooey. The Cast-Off Shell, as we see it here, appears to only be a small portion of the Wyrm’s true size. Throughout Kingdom’s Edge, we can find strange bone-like structures winding in and out of the walls. A strong concentration of these bone structures can be found right before the Cast-Off Shell.

These bones might be the remnants of the Wyrm’s corpse. While bones aren’t common in Hollow Knight, they certainly aren’t unheard of. The word “bone” appears exactly once in the game, in the description of the Mantis Claw. There’s also the infamous bone bench found in the Ancestral Mound. There are also characters who have bony bodies, like the Hunter and a number of the large corpses found across Hallownest. Although it’s hard to say anything definitively about stuff like this.

Of course, real world worms don’t have bones. But real world snakes do. Perhaps these bones we see winding throughout the Kingdom’s Edge are the Wyrm’s spinal column. These bones sticking out of the walls in the Hornet arena resemble the ribs found on snake skeletons. 

If we look at Ari Gibson’s sketchbook, we can even find an interesting drawing with that same toothed Wyrm mouth with a long rib cage underneath it. It’s not clear what this image is actually supposed to be. It might be some kind of statue or memorial, given the images found around it, such as this Lava Fountain. But it’s still interesting that we can find the Wyrm mouth and a ribcage so close to one another in concept art for Hollow Knight.

If we look at the inside of the Wyrm’s carcass, we’ll notice a few other interesting things. We can see that the floor in this room, and possibly the ceiling are also made up of these same bone-like structures seen throughout Kingdom’s Edge. Tendrils can be seen hanging from the ceiling, with a large concentration of them found at the back of the mouth.

Finally we have more sharp, jagged objects in the foreground. Although I don’t think there are ribs. Instead, these might actually be teeth.

Littered over all of Kingdom’s Edge are these objects. While no one in Hollow Knight comments on them, they are internally referred to as teeth in the game’s code. This is also the case for the objects I mentioned inside the Wyrm’s mouth. While internal file names aren’t canon, we really don’t have any alternative explanation, so I’m going to assume that’s what these are. This implies that the Wyrm actually grows new teeth, making it similar to a Polyphyodont, so sharks, crocodiles, snakes, Timothee Chalamet.

Considering the Wyrm was burrowing through rock, it makes sense that it would need to grow new teeth. The teeth we find are in all various sizes, perhaps grinded down from chewing through rock or breaking off the Wyrm before fully growing, being left behind all across the region.

It’s not exactly clear how the teeth grow on the Wyrm’s body. We can also see what might be teeth on the outside of the Wyrm, near where its main set of teeth are. The Wyrm’s teeth might move up through its mouth until it reaches the front and is then pushed out by the next set, with the discarded teeth going on to litter Kingdom’s Edge. Alternatively, the teeth could start from outside the body, and then go inward, which might make them better at moving forward through rock. And in this case, the teeth we find might have been pushed out the Wyrm’s butt.

Howeve,r it’s not just teeth that the Wyrm can grow. It might also be growing these strange branches. Again, no one ever comments on these things, but from what we can tell, they mostly seem to be branching out from where the Cast-Off Shell can be found, extending out from the far right portion of Kingdom’s Edge. This even remains consistent with the room added in the Godmaster update. All of the branches are coming up from the bottom of the room, which lines up with the relative location of the Wyrm corpse.

I think these might be the result of the great amount of energy still left inside the Wyrm corpse after its death. As the Wyrm decomposes in Kingdom’s Edge, it releases energy back into the environment. These branches take that energy and spread out all across the cavern. The white grass found in this region might also be a result of the Wyrm corpse’s presence. This exact type of grass can also be found in the White Palace, perhaps due to the Pale King residing here in his bug form.

Another example of the potential energy left by the Wyrm corpse is the strong wind billowing from the corpse before obtaining the King’s Brand. There really isn’t any explanation for this wind other than the Wyrm corpse is somehow making it.

The last detail to mention with the Wyrm is the egg-like object found deep in its maw. This is most likely where the Pale King’s bug form was birthed. Bardoon tells us that death for a Wyrm is more like a transformation. And this egg is evidence of that

The resulting creature of that transformation retains the most striking attribute of the Wyrm. Its massive teeth have now taken the appearance of a crown. The architecture of the White Palace and the Pale King’s throne room also feature rib cage like pillars, perhaps echoing back to the Pale King’s previous form.

As for the rest of the Pale King’s body, we get three short glimpses of him throughout the course of the game, and a fourth encounter in which his glowing white figure can be seen in the background. The Pale King’s likeness also appears in a few places throughout Hallownest. So we have quite a bit to work with here.

Let’s start with the Pale King’s cloak. What’s interesting about this is that we can compare it to the cloaks the Knight, the Hollow Knight and the rest of the Vessels wear. From looking at the corpses in the Abyss Birthplace, we can assume that the vessels are born with these cloaks. But what exactly are they? People aren’t usually born with cloaks. 

A lot of parallels are drawn between these cloaks and wings. There are a few characters whose wings look like cloaks, such as Grimm, whose Grimmchild form uses their cloak as wings. There’s also Sly, who uses his wings briefly when standing up at one point. The Mantis Tribe also have very similar looking wings to what we see on the Vessels. 

The upgrades that affect the Knight’s cloak are also very telling. The description for the Mothwing Cloak mentions that it is threaded with mothwing strands. The Monarch Wings also seem to fuse with the cloak. After the Knight consumes the upgrade, the cloak takes on a more-wing-like appearance, with ethereal monarch wings extending out from it during use.

If these cloaks are supposed to be wings, it seems they don’t work properly and need Monarch Wings in order to function. This would be similar to the adult mantises who have wings but can’t fly. Perhaps being born in the Abyss caused all the Vessels’ wings to just not work properly.

We can see from his silhouette found in the White Defender fight that the Pale King also had his own pair of Monarch Wings. Although we can’t see for sure, it seems like the wings we see here are the Pale King’s cloak we see in other cutscenes, just extended outwards, probably working the same way it worked for the Knight. In this pose, we see a resemblance to the Hallownest Seal, a marker found all across Hallownest, including in the spot where the Knight finds the Monarch Wings. So the bugs of Hallownest might have envisioned the Pale King as a winged creature.

But enough about the damn cloak. Let’s talk about what we all came here to see, what’s under the cloak. Unfortunately, we never see that ingame. But going off of the Pale King’s offspring, he might have simply had a thin, black body. Since the Pale King is roughly the size of Hornet, we can just put his head on her body and see that the Pale King is just a weird looking gremlin under there.

It’s worth noting that The Knight, Hornet and the Hollow Knight all have slight differences with their bodies. The Knight and Hornet both have stubby arms and feet, while the Hollow Knight has segmented ligaments, as well as fingers. Hornet does seem to have some kind of hip as seen in promotional art for Silksong, while the Knight is just a pudgy little fella. 

Some of this might be for practical reasons. It would be pretty difficult to finger the Knight. But Hornet is roughly the size of Quirrel, and that boy got the digits. 

The Pale King fountain in the Ancient Basin appears to depict four nub-like segmented arms. If this statue is accurate, then it would mean the Pale King is sort of halfway between the Knight and the Hollow Knight. Although none of the Pale King’s offspring have four arms from what we can tell.

I would like to think that the Pale King has fingers. He seems like the kind of guy that would have fingers, you know?

While his body’s exterior shell may be black, it’s entirely possible that the Pale King’s body is constantly illuminated by Soul. We can see how the Hollow Knight’s black body shines white while using Soul attacks. Perhaps the Pale King is just always like this, explaining why he was described as “bright and radiant in visage.”

Let’s just make one more comparison between the Pale King and his kids. The Vessels in Hollow Knight have weird eyes. If we look at the most recent art of the Knight, we can see that the eyes are sunken, appearing hollow. We can also see this with the Hollow Knight. These eyes look quite similar to the ones found on the corpses Quirrel passes in the Hollow Knight prequel comic. It’s also pretty similar to the eyes Chica has in the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie. Hornet’s eyes don’t contain this detail in any art. This is also true for Quirrel, so I think this is how regular living bug eyes are supposed to look. The Pale King is interesting because his eyes are also sunken like the Vessels, but a unique pattern can be seen along the rim of the eyeholes. We can see somewhat similar patterns in the Cast-Off Shell and around the Pale King’s throne room, but it’s not a particularly strong similarity , and it doesn’t really help understand why it looks like that.

But that’s not the only weirdness regarding the Pale King’s eyes. We get exactly two depictions of the Pale King having four eyes instead of just two. We can also see in this depiction of the Pale King that he has quite the dumpy.

So the Pale King’s eyes are a bit weird, aren’t they. We can see a few additional examples of creatures with multiple pairs of eyes throughout Hallownest, such as a few of the large, ancient husks scattered across the Kingdom, as well as enemies found in Kingdom’s Edge like the Primal Aspids and Oblobbles. It seems the extra eyes are usually found on more ancient and wild creatures. So in this case, the extra eyes may convey how ancient the Pale King likely is.

I hope you enjoyed this more speculative dive into the Pale King’s anatomy. A big thanks to Mebi for sharing his observations with me. I’m always so busy talking about the Pale King’s infanticide, I forget sometimes about the other important details, like what his naked body looks like.

Songs used:

Dung Defender - Hollow Knight OST

Hornet - Hollow Knight OST

Kingdom's Edge - Hollow Knight OST

Resting Grounds - Hollow Knight OST

Godhome - Hollow Knight OST

Pale Court - Hollow Knight OST

Haunted Foes (Flukemarm/Markoth/Troupe Master Grimm) - Hollow Knight

Royal Hollow Knight Theme - Hollow Knight

The White Lady - Hollow Knight OST

Reflections - Hollow Knight OST

Truth, Beauty and Hatred - Hollow Knight OST

Queen's Garden - Hollow Knight OST

Hollow Knight - Hollow Knight OST