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Duilena — Day 8 - Pale King and White Lady by-nc-nd

#white_lady #pale_king #inkdrawing #traditionalart #inktober #fanarttraditionalart #hollowknight #hollow_knight #hollowknightfanart #hollow_knight_fanart #hollowknightart #hollowknight_au
Published: 2021-10-08 20:21:49 +0000 UTC; Views: 1963; Favourites: 7; Downloads: 0
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Honestly, the Pale King lore in my AU is the most interesting part of my AU because it was only half my idea.

    In my AU/headcanon lore, Wyrms aren't just regular gods, but are the most powerful, and most ancient gods in the universe. They are the only gods that don't age or need to survive on essence.

    When the Pale Wyrm changed into the Pale King, that wasn't reincarnation, but an attempt to prolong his life. He'd gotten injured, and created Hallownest while he was dying.

    So his obsession with making Hallownest last forever was somewhat an act of defiance, since he believed that he deserved to live forever, so instead he tried to make something that would. He wanted followers who would worship him forever.

    Wyrms all depend on their foresight to make decisions. They see which choice is best for them, and pick it. But as he's nearing his death, the Pale King's future sight gets less reliable, and goes less far into the future. So he starts to become irrational, lose his temper, and make terrible choices, simply because he can't tell that his actions have consequences when he can't foresee those consequences.

    In fact, he never would've tried to kill, and therefore enraged The Radiance if he'd been able to see far enough in the future to see the infection.

    To a Wyrm, mortals and other gods are predictable and boring. the only beings that they can't predict are other Wyrms. Wyrms are also so old that any other being's lifetime is short and meaningless. So they're very prideful and narcissistic. Once the Pale King is dying, all the other Wyrms stop considering him to be one of them, and cast him out. He however still thought of himself as a Wyrm, and expected all of the mortals and gods to still see him as such.

    He looks down on everyone around him, even though he's not much more powerful than the other gods in Hallownest. Even the White Lady only has value to him in how she can be useful to him. He doesn't ever really listen to her or consider how she feels.

    The reason why he came to Hallownest was because of the void. He wanted a vessel for the heir to his throne because of how long lasting the void is. He wanted to throw his eggs into the Abyss, and take whoever had enough strength to climb out. However, in all futures he could see where he proposed this to the White Lady, she was horrified, and declined. He foresaw that somehow waiting to ask her until later would be more likely to get results.

    Then he foresaw the infection. The Radiance had been smart, and chosen to make the infection happen when he was almost dead, when his future sight was really weak, but he still ended up foreseeing it. He ended up using the infection to convince the White Lady to agree to the vessel plan.

    Cause here's the thing, I don't think the Hollow Knight was meant to be in the black egg forever. The Radiance would die from being forgotten if she couldn't get the infection out, considering how few moths remain. This also meant that The Hollow Knight didn't need to be pure, just good enough for long enough. I think there was a plan that never happened in game to set The Hollow Knight free once The Radiance was dead (this is already too long, I'm not getting into that yet).

    By the time this happened, PK would've died, so The Hollow Knight would take the King's brand and start ruling Hallownest. He deliberately made sure Hollow had the same worldviews as him, and would carry on ruling Hallownest the way Pale King wanted him to.

    But, because of his pride, and encouraging the Hollow Knight’s pride, his plan failed, and everything crumbled. In his last few years. he started throwing blame at everyone else, refusing to take any accountability. He blamed the Hollow Knight for messing it up, and destroyed all records of Hollow, aside from the fountain. He blames the White lady for saying no to creating vessels in all the futures where he’d asked her sooner, saying that if they’d had an older, more mature vessel, the plan would’ve worked.

    The White Lady is, of course, outraged that he’s blaming her for something he foresaw her doing, never even bothering to actually ask her until he knew she’d say yes. Now that his future sight is weakening, he doesn’t know what to say to stop her from realizing how much he’s lied to her over the centuries.

    She leaves to go live in her gardens, locking herself away, saying that getting caught up in the Pale King’s plans was the worst mistake she could have ever made, as she was now reaching her old age, and had wasted her life with someone who didn't even value her as a person.

    Eventually The Pale King uses the last of his power to take his palace into the dream realm, and dies sulking on his throne about how his perfect kingdom and his perfect plan were all ruined, and how it was everyone else's fault.

So yeah, no wholesome happy couple. Just unwholesomeness and unhappiness.

Also I used the concept art of White Lady for her design in this picture.

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Comments: 2

Hello3707 [2021-10-28 21:43:01 +0000 UTC]

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

QAoA [2021-10-15 06:47:18 +0000 UTC]

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