Idk If I've Said It Before, But Another Aspect About Hollow Knight's Lore That Compels Me Is That Its

idk if i've said it before, but another aspect about Hollow Knight's lore that compels me is that its a tragedy, but it's told through the story of the victims. The Pale King is a sterotypically tragic character in that the road to his damnation was paved by his own love, hubris, and damnation, but we don't deal with that downfall directly, and the game offers no sympathy for his situation. Instead, the characters who drive the story are the ones who would normally be the silent casualties accompying the downfall, or the victims of the protagonist's fatal flaw. We're given a story where for once, the focus is not set on the agony of the main character, but of the lives of the people he hurt, and we are privy to that pain and anger and sadness that was inflicted on the voiceless victims. We see the story unfold from their perspective, we watch them deal with the aftermath. And while they were discarded by the main plot of the tragedy of Hallownest after it was all over and done with (that being the fall), their pain isn't depicted as any lesser just because they were forced to be silent. Obviously they too are tragic characters, but they were forced into such circumstances because of their father's hubris and inability to concede defeat, and we see the refuge of his actions change the whole world despite it all, specifically because they loved their sibling too much to let them go.

Idk. It just hits different when you read it from that perspective, especially since it really drives home the fact that no matter how much the Pale King regretted his fall from grace, his emotions meant nothing because it still lead to his children suffering when they didn't deserve it. Hollow Knight is a story about the shadows of what many others would consider to be the main characters, and I love it for that

(Radi might also be a tragic character, as someone who was betrayed by her own people and then came back a monster when trying to chase her own glory, but we don't know enough about her side of the tale to say for sure, but I can say for certain that she makes a terrifyingly good antagonist)