Fan Essay - Blog Posts
What is with the Dreamers' Houses?!?! Part 3.7 Lurien's Spire - WHAT is WRONG with Lurien's Office?!?!
Welcome back! Do you remember the last part where I was talking about how Patriotic Lurien was with all the Hallownestian crests?
I was about to leave it off here, until I realized something strange. There are no King’s Idols in Lurien’s Spire. Mr.-Certified-Pale-King-Fanboy has no King’s Idol from which he would worship the Pale King. What kind of fan would not have an idol or picture of his king? Especially in his bedroom!
Again, I was going to leave it even after checking the Hollow Knight wiki. Tumblr/Ao3 artist Aspidike already wrote a whole comic on it after all, so why should I spend time on it?
Looking back on it, I really should have spent more time wondering why Lurien has no King’s Idols to worship the Pale King when HERRAH is shown to be more religious than him. The Spider Queen has a Shrine inside her den while Lurien doesn’t even have a single idol or a chapel!
I only began to look deeper at the lack of King’s Idols in Lurien’s Spire when I realized there is something else missing in the Watcher’s Spire. Take a look at the carpet in Lurien’s Office.
Why does Lurien have purple carpet that completely covers the floor? Even wrapping around the pillars leading up to his Office? Why when everywhere else in his Spire has RED flooring and Hallownestian seals…
And that’s when it hit me. Not only are there no King’s Idols in Lurien’s Spire, but there is also nothing of the Pale King in Lurien’s Office a.k.a where he lays slumbering.
Look at Lurien’s Office again.
No painting of the Pale King, only that of the City. No massive window of the Hallownest Seal, only open windows. There are Hallownest Seals on the banners…but no Monarach Wings.
Please, allow me to explain the importance of the lack of Monarch Wings. Take a look down below at the kinds of Hallownest Seals seen across Hallownest.
The above photo is a drawing as I suck at photoshop.
Design 1 or the Seal design is most reminiscent of the Pale King with his Monarch Wings, hence why it will be often referred to as the Monarch’s Seal in this essay.
Design 2 or the Crest design is the most often seen crest design across all of Hallownest. It is the center or base that Designs 1 & 3 form their own designs on. I often take it to mean Hallownest itself versus the Monarch’s Seal which brings to mind the Pale King.
Design 3 is the design, which to my knowledge, is only seen in the City of Tears, especially on the noble’s side of the City. Originally, I called it Plumage Design and pondered whether or not this was an allusion to the Pale King, but now I believe it is a homage to the White Lady. See the comparison down below.
Part of the reason why I am making such a big deal out of the different designs is due to the Medieval heritage the game Hollow Knight draws on. If kings, knights, and keeping your oaths to your lords is greatly important to the game, then having a coat of arms and its impact are not a stretch. We already saw this in Monomon’s portion of the essay when we realized that Monomon was the one in charge of the Teacher’s Archives. Due to the lack of Hallownestian crests (or anything of Hallownest) as well as symbols in the benches being Monomon’s mask, we concluded that the Teacher’s Archives was not part of Hallownest proper, but rather natural territory under Monomon’s direct charge.
Having three different Hallownestain crests is vital. While the standard Design 2 or the Crest design allows one to tell that the messenger is from Hallownest versus the Mosskin, Designs 1 and 3 allow us to tell if the message came from the Pale King or White Lady themselves. The common Hallownestian official might only bear the Crest Design while servants in the White Palace bear Designs 1 & 3. Though I bet the Queen’s gardeners only bore the Plumage Design.
With this in mind, let us turn back to Lurien’s Spire to see which crests he bears throughout.
These are all locations through-out the Watcher’s Spire containing different versions of Hallownestian crests. Now please compare these with that of Lurien’s personal Office and Final Resting Place.
Here is the ONLY Place I found the 1st design or Monarch Seal in Lurien’s Office… If you actually can count it since it’s OUTSIDE his office.
The two places where the Monarach Wings appear in Lurien’s Office are in two locations that are OUTSIDE his office. The first is on the Spire’s wall which is just typical City of Tears architecture while the second winged crest is on the elevator. AKA, a standard design that is easily removed from the room.
What does this mean for Lurien, the fandom’s Pale King fanboy, with nothing of the Pale King inside his office? This is supposed to be Lurien’s personal space where there would be tons of Pale King merch and references. Yet, upon closer examination, not only are there no references to the Pale King, but Lurien went out of his way to hid any references to the White Lady as well! The purple carpet extends all the way down, hiding Design 3 or the White Lady’s crest!
Forget any blacklash from an shocked fandom, the lack of references to the Royal Couple in Lurien’s Office reeks of possible danger for the Watcher. Lurien is the 3rd most powerful bug in Hallownest, right underneath the Pale King and White Lady. Such massive influence needs to be massively watched and carefully checked to ensure that the Watcher doesn’t use that power against the Royal Couple. Yet the Watcher, in his own personal office, does not have any direct reference to either of them.
We do not know how the Royal Couple would feel that Lurien went out of his way to not show any direct alliegance in his private workspace and room.
Now, I already know what you are thinking. Lurien’s canon dialogue in the Dream Realm. “For King Beloved…to sleep and serve…” It seems as if all of his dialogue is suggesting the exact opposite picture of Lurien’s Office, that he put the Pale King above everything…but the Pale King isn’t the only reason why he became a Dreamer. To quote Lurien’s last journel entry:
“Sleep beckons eternal and these words become my last. Though my gaze shall no longer fall upon this city, I will act forever in its protection. For King, for bug, for Hallownest, I head now to my rest.”
Lurien is a poet. 2) His actions are for the forever protection of his City. 3) Lurien’s reasons for acting are not solely for the Pale King, but for bug and Hallownest. This is important as it shows Lurien separates Hallownest from the Pale King in his mind.
While Lurien DID say “For King Beloved”, there is nothing of Pale King inside Lurien’s personal Office. It seems like the care Lurien had for the Pale King was like the love Americans have for their flag, unwilling to let the flag touch the ground…but not going so far to have the flag inside their bedrooms…unless the love for the flag goes beyond patriotism to nationalism.
Finally, what does this lack of crests mean for Lurien’s character? I am afraid that I will have to dive into symbolism to explain as a certain Watcher doesn’t have much dialogue.
The lack of Monarch crest on the banners shows how Lurien always put Hallownest first, not the Pale King’s interests. Lurien could have snuck in one of the bigger banners with the Monarch crests, but chose the smaller banner with Design 2 to hang instead. Symbolically, this shows how Lurien’s heart with the kingdom first.
The lack of the Plumage Crests was brought about by Lurien redoing the floors, turning the red floor to purple carpet. As seen before in previous essays, the color red is associated with the nobles and the majority of the Plumage Crests are seen on the noble’s side of the City. Meanwhile, the color purple is primarily seen in Lurien’s Spire AKA Lurien’s color. Just as purple takes from both red and blue to rise to higher wisdom, inspiration, and humility, so Lurien rises above the roots to see a bird’s eye view of the whole culture of Hallownest, not just the nobles who grow (pun intended) from the White Lady.
The open windows has its own symbolism as Team Cherry could have given Lurien’s Office those magnificent Monarch crest windows. Instead, they chose to not just have no seal, but almost no window. Practically, this means Lurien can easily reposition his telescope anywhere so he can see everywhere in the City. But what about symbolism? The answer is that Lurien can see everything CLEARLY and without basis. He sees what is truly there, not what the Pale King wants him to see or expects him to see. Lurien isn’t even plagued by his own personal weakness or anger that could cause the glass to fog up. He can SEE.
Yes, Monomon. You can stop listing all the things wrong with the City. Lurien already has your list and THEN some.
Here we are at the end of this section and I cannot believe that CAREPT of all things would reveal how Lurien's loyalty is to Hallownest first, not the Pale King.
If you wish to read more of the Essay, click one of these links below.
Part 1.0: Herrah's Den : Here
Part 2.0: Monomon's Archives: Here
Part 3.0: Lurien's Spire: Here
Part 3.25: Lurien's Spire: Windows and Colors: Here
Part 3.5: Even More of Lurien's Spire. Here
Part 3.7: What is WRONG with Lurien's Spire? (You are here)
Part 3.8: Even, even More of Lurien's Spire: Secret Room: Click here
Part 3.9 Watcher Knight Boss Room! Here
Part 4.0 What We Know We Don't Know About the Dreamers' Houses: Click Here
Link to essay on Ao3: Here
If you have thoughts you wish to share, please feel free to comment or reblog! Especially with the above observation!
Thing I’ve been mulling over for a while: some really good YA fantasy novels of my childhood (Young Wizards - no one who knows me is surprised by this) really emphatically gave me tools to understand and dismantle my own “white supremacist delusion,” as Sonya Renee Taylor puts it. The construction of the cosmos in these books formed my worldview at a really early age. They have helped me, decades later, to believe deeply and truly in both my own ability to support and uphold Evil in all of its guises, no matter how ‘good’ or ‘nice’ I may inherently see myself to be - and my own power to dismantle Evil in all its guises, within myself, as well as in the world beyond myself.
I was watching this IG live video where Taylor powerfully explains how important it is to shift from seeing whiteness as something intrinsically ours to possess rather than as the result of a dehumanizing system that we can - and in fact are ethically called upon to - uproot. I understand Taylor to be saying that I, as a person assigned power by whiteness, have a duty to continually identify and reject the delusions of whiteness starting with myself.
There’s an image Taylor uses, in this video, of searching inside of yourself for the spaces where this toxic ideology of whiteness has taken hold - and to find and uproot it. And immediately I saw a climactic moment from High Wizardry, one where Dairine has a realization about how intimately entropy has its hold upon her:
She stopped, as the answer rushed into her mind from the manual. Where entropy is, it said, there its creator also is, either directly or indirectly…
I’m a product of this universe, after all, she had said to the mobiles. It’s in me too…
Her heart turned over inside her as she came to know her enemy. Not a Darth Vader, striding in with a blood-burning light-sabre, not something outside to battle and cast down, but inside. Inside herself. Where it had always been, hiding, growing, waiting until the darkness was complete and its own darkness not noticeable any more. Her Enemy was wearing her clothes, and her heart, and there was only one way to get rid of It…
She was terrified. Yet this was the great thing, the thing that mattered […]
I’d hazard a guess that many of us have a primary conditioning to see evil precisely as “something outside to battle and cast down.” I say this about evil in general; I think it’s probably extra true for the ways that white people approach the evil of white supremacist delusion. I see it a lot with the teenagers that I now teach: the actively anti-racist white kids who really want to march, to have hard conversations with other people, to change laws, to show up at city hall meetings…and who don’t understand that, while those are all good and important things to be doing, if they are all you are doing, they will not be enough. They are all ways of seeing the problem as “something outside to battle and cast down” instead of as something that is LITERALLY “wearing [your] clothes, and [your] heart.”
The good news - also from High Wizardry - is the possibility of full and complete liberation on the other side of the recognition, and the reckoning that follows. The snatches of it glimpsed within this life, the work of widening the ground… The belief (which Duane’s world offered me, and which my Christianity never did) that even the one who dreamed Evil into being can be liberated and redeemed from it…and that that, and no less, is the scope of the work.
(YW also taught me, perhaps most importantly of all, that this work is collective and done best when part of an ever-widening family / network / team.)