The Void Between Gods

A Spiritual Reflection on Hollow Knight

by Jashae Slaughter

Team Cherry just announced their long-awaited sequel, Silksong; with it comes a surge of attention to the world of Hallownest. Fans are excited. Critics are lining up. But not everyone is rushing back into the darkness.

I won’t be playing Silksong.

Not because I think it will be bad, but because what Hollow Knight revealed was enough. It left me asking questions I still haven’t fully shaken. And now that the door is being opened again, it feels like the right time to talk about what I found behind it.

What is Hollow Knight really about? That question haunted me from the moment I first saw myself, a small, voiceless figure wandering a dying kingdom. Was I a wandering warrior, looking for adventure just over the mountain range you glimpse at the beginning? Or was I returning home to the sleepy town of Dirtmouth, now twisted beyond recognition?

The more I played, the more questions unfolded.

When I died, why did I curl into a black ball with eyes, like some kind of shadow ghost? Why did some of the charms I collected draw on such dark power? Like the thorny vines that shoot from your body when hit. Or the one that makes you leak black goo with every strike. And speaking of that goo, what is it? Is it part of me? Inside of me? Or something else entirely?

The further I ventured, the darker and more religious the game became. But this year, I'm not going to sit through something this spiritually unsettling without trying to get some answers. So I started digging.

It began with YouTube explainer videos. Teenagers with microphones and opinions, happy to deliver the lore in bulk. Then came the spoilers. And the endings. Bleak, beautiful, and sad. Still, none of it hit me quite like a fan-made animation by an artist named Saddist. It depicted the Hollow Knight and its siblings being experimented on, one by one, by the Pale King. The visuals were raw. Grieving. Horrifying. And suddenly everything clicked.

I wasn’t a bug in a mask. I was the mask. I was made of void. And that changed everything.

The first cracks appear when you realize you’re not the hero. Not really. You’re not even a person. You are a Vessel. You are made of nothing. You are filled with void. You have no voice. No will. No soul. Just the shell of a purpose someone else forced on you. You weren’t born. You were created. Why? Because something godlike had to be stopped.

That godlike presence is the Radiance—a divine, moth-like being who once ruled the minds of the people of Hallownest. She governed their dreams. She was their light.

But then the Pale King came.

He offered order. Civilization. Progress. And the Radiance, in time, was forgotten. But divinity does not fade easily. It rots. It festers. And it waits.

When she returned, she infected everything. The bugs of Hallownest went mad. Dreams became disease. The world broke down.

So the Pale King tried something new.

He created children from the Void. Vessels. Most were failures. One was called pure.

That one became the Hollow Knight.

The Pale King called the Hollow Knight pure because it had no mind of its own. No attachments. No desire. No self. It was an empty tomb with a heartbeat. A prison for a god.

But the tragedy is that the Hollow Knight wasn't truly hollow. The King, in raising it, had loved it. And in that love, something broke. The Vessel had learned to feel. And that was enough to doom the plan.

When you arrive, you are not the chosen one. You are a failed experiment. A leftover. And yet, you are the only one who might still end the cycle.

If you kill the Hollow Knight without using the Dream Nail, you take its place. In one ending, you are locked in darkness, alone. In another, Hornet joins you. Perhaps she sacrifices herself. You are sealed together.

Is that victory? Not really. It’s just a new seal. The wheel keeps turning. You didn’t break the system. You just became its next gear.

That’s when I started to wonder: Is the game trying to tell me something?

The Radiance exists in dreams. She demands worship. She infects minds with light. She punishes forgetfulness. She destroys those who don’t submit. That sounds a lot like religion. But not like God.

There’s a lyric from a Christian songwriter, Chris Tomlin, that echoes in my mind:

I've heard a thousand stories of what they think you're like... but I've heard the tender whisper of love in the dead of night.

That is the voice of the real God. Not this jealous, parasitic deity who grows stronger by consuming minds.

Many people think this kind of toxic control is what Christianity is. They mistake trauma for truth. But the God of Scripture is not a tyrant. He is not distant. He does not demand empty worship or destroy the weak. He comes close. He dies. He bleeds to rescue. The Radiance is not a picture of God. She is a warning.

Eventually, you descend to the bottom of the map. The Abyss. The birthplace of the Vessels. The source of the Void. It is terrifying.

You are surrounded by blackness. Shadows that twist and lurch. The bodies of failed siblings lie all around. The ocean itself reaches for you.

It is here that the truth is revealed: you are not separate from the Void. You are the Void.

And in the true ending, you summon all of it. The full strength. You use it to pull the Radiance from her throne and drag her down. Not into judgment. Not into redemption. Into annihilation.

You destroy her utterly.

There is no healing. No rebirth. No renewal. Only silence.

It seems to suggest that darkness is preferable to light, that death is more stable than worship, and that nonexistence is safer than belief.

Yes. The game hides its nihilism behind beauty. Every ending leads to the same conclusion. In one version, you are sealed in a tomb. In another, you are absorbed into the Void. Or you are sacrificed in someone else’s story. In any case, there is no heaven. There is no resurrection. There is no hope. Only quiet.

For someone who believes in a God of love and truth, this story isn’t offensive. It’s heartbreaking. Because it shows a world where no good god exists. Where worship is infection. Where love is a flaw. Where silence is mercy.

The developers may not hate God. But they clearly fear what happens when gods go bad. They understand the pain of control. Of systems that erase grace. And in that sense, they are right. Because false gods do hurt people.

But what if the answer is not escape? What if the answer is a God who listens? A voice that still whispers in the darkness?

Hollow Knight aches with longing. But it has no answer for that longing. Its world is nostalgia with no return. Hunger with no feast. Wounds with no healing.

People ask, "Why would God do this to someone?" But the answer is simple: God didn’t do this. You did.

The game pretends to seek answers. But it refuses to hear them. It leads you through suffering, then abandons you in silence. Victory tastes like failure. Completion feels like betrayal.

And that is where the lie breaks down.

This is not how the story should end.

The Vessel is not empty. It is filled. The infection is not sealed. It is healed. The Radiance is not merely slain by the player. She is overcome by Christ in all His glory. And in place of silence, a still small voice calls your name.

That is the ending we carry. That is the hope the game could not give. And maybe that’s why we keep asking questions. Because somewhere deep inside, even in the Void, we know there must be more.

But there’s something else worth reflecting on here: for all of the game’s poetic themes and mythic grandeur, its underlying philosophy is surprisingly hollow. It gestures toward deep questions of identity, purpose, and transcendence, but has no real theological or philosophical framework to guide those questions toward anything lasting. It borrows the language of spirituality but strips it of meaning. In the absence of conviction, all that remains is atmosphere. And in the absence of meaning, all that remains is void.

Maybe that’s ironic. Maybe it’s intentional. But when I find myself in that kind of story—a world built like a cathedral but echoing with nothing—I’d rather the game just be a game. Not a statement it can’t finish. Not a sermon it doesn’t understand.

As the next chapter arrives with Silksong, buzzing with hype and expectations, I won’t be picking up the controller. But I’ll be listening. Watching. Remembering what I learned the first time I stepped into Hallownest. And praying that those who return do not forget the questions that still remain.

Jashae Slaughter is a writer, worldbuilder, and the creative tactician behind the Apocalyptiverse — a sprawling superhero-meets-cyberpunk universe told through novels, short stories, comics, and experimental media. He uses his podcast The Xeroforhire Podcast as an audio chalkboard: “...a place where you can sit in on my brainstorm sessions, hear the raw concepts I come up with (some for me, some for anyone), and watch creative projects take shape in real time.”  Learn more at www.xeroforehire.com