There's important context you're missing simply because you haven't heard other pieces of this OST - that deceptive resolution is the first and only resolution that motif gets in the entire game. It's a persistent motif carried through as the theme of the main character, and it really punctuates the tragedy of the entire ordeal.

This is not a fight you win. This is not a victory, this is simply the end to all of the suffering.

For the original Hollow Knight, Chris did use digitised instrumentation, but for silksong he had access to a full live orchestra and my god if he didn't make use of it, some of the tracks in silksong are pure magic. Lace and Choral Chambers would be my recommendations from the second game

Doug, you would have a field day listening to the soundtrack in its entirety. The entire OST is riddled with an amazing use of motifs and musical connections through parts of the game. Some top notch game scoring.

There is a cool twist with this battle, that being that you are not actually fighting the Hollow Knight itself, but rather the Radiance contained within him. The Radiance is gaining more power over the Hollow Knight due to a flaw (it'd take a good while to explain this"flaw"), and is thus leaking out and taking control of the vessel. The orange goo is a sort of infection of this Radiance

Once the emotional music starts kicking in during the later half, you will notice the Hollow Knight, as a result of your character weakening the Radiance, is able to regain some control of itself. This is why you'll notice him periodically stabbing itself. He's trying to assist your character in the fight.

This explains why the emotions start really kicking in with the music. It's actually a tragic end to the original hero, the Hollow Knight

It's great to see you've gotten to Hollow Knight! I heard in one of your videos that you love choral music, so I would recommend "Choral Chambers" of Silksong.

Sealed Vessel is both a final boss theme... and a funeral dirge for an innocent victim in agonizing pain.

The fight is even more emotional when you realize the reason he's stabbing himself is because he wants you to win. He's been hijacked by a malevolent force.

In the gameplay you saw the player character absorbs the radiance from within the hollow knight and takes its place as the vessel to contain it, which is the standard ending of the game. By discovering additional secrets within the game it is also possible to obtain a ‘better’ ending in which the radiance is defeated for good, which is where the remaining portion of the track not seen in the gameplay video plays

I've been wishing for Doug to react to Hollow Knight for sooooo long! 😀
I hope he will do the full OST reaction too!

Man you have a good ear. You were one of the first "reaction video" channels I started listening to, and now after having watched a lot of others, I've come to appreciate your ear, your theoretical knowledge, and your enthusiasm. Glad you're here Doug!

one thing to note is that chistopher larkin looooves leitmotifs and recurring themes, and so this song, which plays for the basic form of the final boss, ends up hitting much harder once you've gone through the game. because it takes the major musical themes of the game and gives them a whole new context making for a delightful bit of musical storytelling

This track portrays perfectly the feeling you get while experiencing the fight. You can see how mid-fight the hollow knight starts to stab himself as he doesn't want to fight the main character, he was created to hold the infection within itself, although he eventually failed, and tries to end it all

The game is difficult, but I have never seen someone make a full play through and call it a “bad game”. Usually they praise it as top tier. The story, the fights, the visuals, and even some humor.

Hi Doug, in response to your question about what happens to our hero, it's basically this:

The Hollow Knight is a vessel (the most perfect one, according to the king) for containing The Radiance, which is, so to speak, an entity that rules over others. That is why, in battle, you can see how, literally, the Hollow fights to destroy what is inside it with the last breath of knighthood it has left. The peculiarity of one of its endings (the one considered bad) is that the "curse" is not broken and it is the turn of another vessel to continue its legacy, which is why it is chained again in that kind of prison until another one comes along to take its place.
The game deals extensively with the themes of loneliness and decay at the beginning, and then we start to form connections with the beings of the world. Good and bad experiences alike.

i hope he hears the sound track from greenpath, straight up banger

19:00 this is the first ending not the true ending.

In this ending, you the player character (also called the Knight) who is also a vessel defeats the Hollow Knight and absorbs the Radiance. This turns you into the new vessel meant to seal the Radiance into the future. That is why the Knight is shown being chained uo at the end.

In the true ending, you go into the Dreaming at the end of the Hollow Knight fight and defeat the Radiance itself.


19:39 Hollow Knight is a metroidvania. It is in the same genre as retro games like Metroid and Castlevania which is why it takes on the 2D platformer style.

No mind to think.
No Will to break.
No voice to cry suffering.
Born of god and void.
You shall seal the blinding light that plagues their dreams.
You are the vessel.
You are the hollow knight.

That's what their father Said to the hollow knight (the boss), they were siblings (the protagonist and the hollow knight) but only a pure hollow vessel can contain the infection, they are born of a god, their father and he throw the eggs to the void so they Born Made of void, so they don't have mind, Will or voice, so they can seal the infection (the blinding light) forever, because the infection spreads if there Is a Will, a mind or a voice to suffer or cry, any emotion, mind, voice or Will Is what the infection needs to control someone... But no one Is hollow enough to do so, not even the protagonist... But what if... What if there Is a way.. a way to be 100% hollow, a perfect vessel to contain the infection Made of the light itself..?

The other siblings of the protagonist and the boss are all dead trying to escape the void, the ones that survived weren't hollow enough to escape the indection, others died by another creatures trying to survive and escape, but no one survived, the only two who live are the protagonist and the hollow knight which Is infected by the light.
Also the hollow knight starts stabbing itself when in the song the scream appears, he Is trying to help the protagonist to contain the infection because he knows he can't contain it anymore and he Is starting to be controlled by the virus.

“What happened?” You just relieved your brother from his suffering, and took on the burden for yourself.

The hollow knight was supposed to be a pure vessel which could contain the radiance. But it cracked, and the radiance started leaking out, infecting everyone in the kingdom.

Your job is to either destroy the hollow knight and take its place, sealing yourself away with the radiance, or to destroy the radiance itself.

Keeping the radiance sealed has the same kind of feeling as Atlas holding the heavens from the earth.

I love that more and more are appreciating music from video games like pieces of art, because I still feel like so many people write them off. Also, good call blind listening first and adding context with gameplay on a second hearing :3

I still remember the feeling of entering the chamber and seeing Hollow Knight chained up and looking at us with its orange eyes, starting the fight and then, suddenly in the middle, the intimidating music turns into a full-on funeral march as our literal sibling starts stabbing itself. My heart completely dropped, it probably made me die because it shook me. I'm still not sure if the stabbing is Hollow Knight's last attempt to help out, or if it's the doing of the being within controlling it, but both make me so so sad!