I was just thinking about how some people say they want silent protagonists in order to self insert better as the player character. For me I rather want to have a good consistent story, no matter if the player character is pre determined or I can choose. And since Hornet talks in her game, we are able to learn more about this world and its inhabitants thoughts, which is the thing I’m nearly most interested in.
For Hollow Knight it fit lore wise that the protagonist couldn’t talk, but it also limited player expression and exploration of the NPCs.
Hornet being able to talk definitely gave us a lot more insight to the story and the world of Pharloom than HK for Hallownest.
On one hand it’s fitting as Pharloom is supposed to be a living kingdom. But the biggest plus is I don’t need mossbag to tell me the entire story to know what is going on. Hornet and other character will just tell us whilist leaving enough room for speculation and theory crafting.
I actually dig it. When playing as the little ghost, knowing it only as a creature of the void with “no will to break, no voice to cry suffering” sometimes made me wonder why I do anything at all. The protagonist felt like pure nothingness, literally an empty vessel for my will. It was a really cool way to bring the player in, put a piece of you within the fourth wall - but the narrative resonates more emotionally, and the character motivations are more legible, when you’re participating as a person in a story.
Yes, definitely. I felt that she has her own character and will, and I’m just participating in her story, not fully controlling her. The most illustrating moment is when you try to cross the border of Pharloom, but she says “No.”
About the two games, I think the Knight being silent isn’t for means of self-insertion, but for helping at building the mystery of the game. And when Hornet was a secondary character, she was pretty talkative already, and in retrospect after playing Silksong, she seems consistent in her behavior, talking only if relevant and only in the quantities that are relevant. Also better seen in Silksong thanks to her talking, she appears to be very willing to help, but she is stoic and either a bit detatched or short-tempered (perhaps due to her age?)
And more generally, going by your opening sentence, personally I think the character being silent or not depends on what the author wants to tell in the story. Decent works from what I can observe are usually those that are made in the author’s vision, and not forced to fit into someone else’s.
I think that her dialogue makes me understand the world better and thus self-insert better. It gives some motivation as two why I want to save the kingdom, but still keeping a lot of mystery and uncertainty. So I like it a lot.
Nah. She’s a very dry character and her lines are generally quite short so it didn’t phase me much. Mostly I was just happy to play out part of her story since she was one of the coolest characters from the original game.
Yes and No. No, cause I was used to not talking characters. In Dark Souls the characters also do not talk. Afair they started talking in Sekiro. Yes, cause it makes details like Shakra’s name for Hornet possible. Shakra names her “child wielding needle” almost the whole game cause Hornet never tells her her name.
Yes, definitely. I definitely had more trouble justifying running around the world doing side shit, when there was a clear and pressing goal I should have been doing.
Fair point, although I give credit to the way it tied into the grander narrative. A Hornet more focused on loftier goals and not individuals is a Hornet who’s susceptible to the call for power, and replaces Grandmother Silk, while only a Hornet who cares more about individuals and helping everyone, no matter how minor, is truly capable of resisting that impulse and finding another path.
a clear and pressing goal I should have been doing.
That is playing with cute moths, right?
Yes, exactly.
No.
