 |
This Article Contains Spoilers -
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers. If you do not wish to know vital information on plot / character elements in a story, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. That is all. |
| “ | If only could choose to connect themself to something grander, that curse may seem a wonder. For myself, it now seems a horror. | „ |
| ~ Pavo describing his experience of being Haunted to Hornet. |
| “ | Beasts and fiends, all here are lost to that horrid Haunting! And out from this golden corpse it seeps to plague the good bugs of the land below. | „ |
| ~ Garmond's thoughts on the Haunted. |
| “ | In the air. The water. Everywhere. Inside their shells. Twisted inside. Guts. Tightest around heart. Pulsing rhythm. Sick. Alive. Dead? Something worse. Deeper. Must look deeper. | „ |
| ~ A lore tablet in the Marrow, describing the Haunting's aberrant nature. |
The Haunted are the secondary antagonists of the 2025 indie metroidvania Hollow Knight: Silksong.
They are lesser bugs that were enthralled by Grand Mother Silk's threads, turning them into mindless thralls that attack others with no heed for their own self-preservation. As such, Hornet is forced to fend off these bugs during her journey to free Pharloom of this silk-woven sickness.
Appearance[]
Unlike the Infected, the Haunted show no visible external changes, appearing as they were before their infection. When the Needolin is played next to them, the threads infesting them will manifest and point towards the location of the silk's source: upwards during Acts I and II, and into the Abyss during Act III. As a result of the Void seeping into Silk's threads, many of the Haunted are now infected by it, displaying a greyscale coloration and emitting clouds of gaseous Void.
Characteristics[]
The Haunting manifests as a disease caused by a bug possessing silk within their bodies. This silk wraps around the organs and innards of bugs, wrapping the most tight around the hearts. Through these threads, Grand Mother Silk enthralls bugs, assimilating them into her hive mind and causing them to lose most of their higher functions. This makes bugs extremely aggressive and causes them to attack anything they see, something complemented by the fact that the Haunted no longer feel pain, fear or any sense of desire, with some bugs even being mutated into more combative forms. Being silk, the Haunting's threads are capable of reviving bugs to become its thralls once again and can sustain bugs to keep working beyond their mortal limits. One can also play the Needolin to force Haunted bugs to sing via their threads.
Despite the Haunting's mind-consuming properties, it is unable to fully overcome the base instincts of most bugs, especially duties and routines they've dedicated themselves to over the years. Many of the working bugs throughout Pharloom still carry out their duties unrelenting, while cowardly creatures such as the Bonehopper still feel compelled to flee. Some bug factions, such as the Craws and Skarrs, also display greater independence from the Haunting and mostly act as they did in life, while the Fly Wardens display enough agency to fool around and taunt their victims. What allows one to resist the Haunting is unknown, seeing as it's a physical illness: Crull and Benjin believe it's caused by either being too devout or not devout enough, while the Green Prince and Pondcatcher Reed both believe only those with weak minds succumb to it.
During the events of Act III, the Void leaches through Grand Mother Silk's threads, corrupting the Haunted. Via this dark substance, the Haunted are now much more durable and can even weaponise the Void itself, lashing out at foes with razor tentacles or pelting them with Void. This substance also corrupts the souls of bugs and drains them of life. Most threateningly, the Void appears to have bolstered the Haunting's power to the point where it can infect previously un-infected bugs with the Void, as seen by Garmond's corruption.
History[]
Eons ago, the Pale Higher Being known as Grand Mother Silk arrived in a mountainous region, displacing the land's indigenous inhabitants and founding the kingdom of Pharloom. Using her silken threads, she elevated several feral Pharlids into the sapient and highly intelligent Weavers, deeming them her divine daughters and tasking them with empowering her via worship. They were granted the ability to produce and weave silk, which they used to cast magic spells and play songs to Silk in worship.
In time, however, these Weavers tired of their servitude to the tyrant goddess, with suggestions that they discovered their beastly origins and were angered by her lies, causing them to rebel. They would use song to lull Silk to sleep before encasing her in a cocoon, setting up a religious system that lured pilgrims to Pharloom to continuously maintain the spell that kept Silk sealed. In time, the Weavers realised that this prison was only temporary and, fearing Silk's wrath, fled Pharloom, leaving the bugs that once acted as their servants to keep the operation running.
These bugs established the Citadel Caste and would gradually grow corrupt and greedy, misusing their power and exploiting the pilgrims they were tasked with guiding. Most of all, the Citadel Caste began to hunger for silk, which had become a precious commodity in Pharloom not only for its magical properties, but also for its newly discovered life-sustaining powers. The Conductors tasked the physicians of Whiteward with inserting silk into the shells of the bugs of Pharloom via torturous experiments in order to forcefully bestow immortality upon them, incinerating the countless unlucky victims that did not survive the procedure. The silk-laden ash would then be exhausted through the Exhaust Organ into the neighbouring regions, polluting them whilst sending the silk dregs to Greymoor for recycling. Via this method, the Conductors effectively ensured that all bugs of Pharloom had silk in their shells, whether via surgery or ingestion from the widespread pollution.
The events that followed are rather murky, but it's heavily implied that after the Conductors commissioned the Cogwork Core to automate worship, the turnover of pilgrims reduced thanks to their callousness, resulting in the spell keeping Grand Mother Silk dormant weakening. Enraged at being sealed away, Silk would attempt to re-assert her dominance over Pharloom, using her threads to possess bugs and unite them into her hive mind. Thanks to the Citadel Caste's actions, nearly all of Pharloom's bugs were saturated with silk, allowing Silk to ensnare all of them with relative ease. With her newfound cronies, Silk commanded her minions in the Citadel to hunt down her Weaver kin and bring them to her, allowing her to absorb their power and rejuvenate herself. Many Weaver descendants thus met their doom this way, with Hornet being one of the targets of Silk's wrath for her precious half-Wyrm ancestry. In the mean time, the Citadel became nearly devoid of life thanks to the chaos Silk had wrought, with Lace also having her fair share in clearing out the land of its living inhabitants. Despite this, the bugs of Pharloom mostly acted as in life, albeit mindlessly.
During the events of the game, Hornet comes across many Haunted bugs and other bugs that succumb to it later on. She saves the town of Bellhart from being claimed by the Haunting, though many of its residents succumb to their injuries, and later comes across the Citadel filled with the corpses of bugs. Grand Mother Silk senses Hornet's arrival and revives these dead bugs, sending them to take down Hornet. Throughout her journey, Hornet also learns of the Haunting's origins and becomes determined to end its curse after witnessing the suffering it has wrought on Pharloom.
After assembling the Soul Snare with the Caretaker's help (as well as the four souls needed), Hornet ensnares Silk during her climatic showdown and plays her Needolin to activate the trap and seal her away. Just then, the Void erupts from the Snare and begins engulfing Silk: a part of the design the Caretaker intended to destroy her once and for all. Silk attempts to bring Hornet down with her but her hand is cut off by Lace, sending the two into the abyss instead.
As a result of her child being taken, Silk resists the Void's corruption and begins to thrash violently, bringing ruination to Pharloom. The Void also leaches through her threads, further infecting the Haunted with the Void, which eats away at their already deteriorated souls. Even bugs that initially resisted the Haunting, such as Garmond, fall to it. Fortunately, after Hornet receives the Everbloom and dives into the Void to end its corruption, Grand Mother Silk dies in a moment of self-sacrifice, using her last remaining silk to send Hornet and Lace back to the surface, killing her off, while the Knight arrives just in time to save Hornet. Thus, Silk's threads snap all across Pharloom while the Void, called back by the Knight, recedes, ending the curse of Pharloom once and for all.
Trivia[]
- The angle of the threads visible on haunted bugs when using the Needolin is set by the game calculating the angle between the current room and an anchor point on the map. In Acts 1 and 2, this anchor is located at the very top of the Cradle.
- In Act 3, the anchor is located significantly below the lowest point of the Abyss. However, haunted bugs in Act 3 who are affected by the Needolin no longer have visible threads attached to them, instead, this anchor is used to calculate the angle of the animation used when an enemy becomes black-threaded.
[]
 Villains
| ||
|
Hallownest The Infected Grimm Troupe Other Pharloom The Citadel Caste and its associates Silk Beings Others | ||