Hollow Knight size discussion

[LightSoul8]

So, there's a lot I want to assist with for Hollow Knight, but I learned my lesson with Dead Cells, so I'll just start with the most fundamental discussion for HK: size. I could go back and forth about how Hollow Knight's bugs and objects aren't equivalent to the real world, but that's been done countless times already, so I want to talk about..

This post

This is a Reddit post where someone uses the official statement of Hornet throwing her needle thirty yards along with the scene where Hornet throws her needle through the Black Egg Temple to calculate the size of the Temple, and then uses that to determine the sizes of The Knight and Hornet. They determined that The Knight is about 1'1.5 (or 34.29 centimeters) and Hornet is about 1'7.6 (or 49.75 centimeters). That's still well within Small Size (Type 2 Type 1 for both), but they'd still be a decent big larger than what was previously assumed. Also, The Knight could be used as a ruler for every single character in the game.

Admittedly, as the Reddit post points out, the sizes could be somewhat bigger or smaller, but it's still easily the best size calc that we can get for this verse. If it's approved (or better yet, improved to be more accurate), Hollow Knight would get some absolutely massive buffs (metaphorically, anyways.)

I'd really like to know what you guys think about this.

 

[Arceus0x]

HOLY...WHAT A FIND!

 

[Arceus0x]

I think using black egg temples is wrong and we should just use the max distance in the boss fight since i'd say that's the most obvious variant.

 

[Arceus0x]

Actually nvm we should probably use the black egg calc, or... at least recalc it.
30 yards is a lot and i did some math and basically, using the boss fight, both hornet and knight would be 3m-7m which is, as you can guess, ridiculous. So ig just a second look at the black egg calc.

 

[Serlock_Holmes]

Will this raise the verse?

 

[Arceus0x]

Will this raise the verse?

duh

 

[Serlock_Holmes]

H

duh

Hope so.

 

[Arceus0x]

H
Hope so.

all we really need is a recalc of this here

 

[LightSoul8]

all we really need is a recalc of this here

Once we get that recalc, there are a bunch of really interesting feats to look at:


-Redoing the False Knight bridge feat

-Four normal Moss Chargers (which can be used for scaling of basic enemies) creating and controlling the Massive Moss Charger (which scales to False Knight)

-Hornet launching herself through the BET for a speed calc (because HK desperately needs them)

-The God Of Gods/Void Given Focus destroying Godhome

-The Radiance spawning the Infection (which is responsible for the AP of all infected enemies and bosses), The Knight w/ Voidheart defeating her, and possibly The Hollow Knight containing the Infection within itself for an extensive period of time

-The Knight breaking cracked walls and this Husk Guard breaking an area open

-The power of a single spell and the combined power of the SOUL that the Soul Sanctum has collected from each corpse within it



There's a lot more-and I haven't even mentioned the revisions of Powers And Abilities needed for EVERY profile-but I hope that this shows that there's a lot to be improved here, and hey, it gives us something to do while we wait for Silksong to release.

(Also, just as an aside, I'd hesitate to give Hornet abilities that have been revealed from Silksong because Silksong is still under development and because we don't know where it will be in the HK timeline.)

 

[koopa3144]

Following, I agree with the size upgrade.

 

[LightSoul8]

So, there's a pretty big problem with getting a Hollow Knight calc done that I don't really know how to amend: the only HK calc-er that we have is @Wokistan, and they haven't been seen since June. I could try doing some calcs myself, but I don't know how. Does anyone know any ways to help get this done? Because if we can't, Hollow Knight probably won't get any changes.

 

[Armorchompy]

Nothing says that's Hornet's max throwing range, the reddit calc just assumes it but it doesn't really make sense to think that's the absolute furthest she can throw it with accuracy.

 

[EliminatorVenom]

Yeah, I'm with Armor here. Besides, even if said calculation was indeed the maximum throwing range of Hornet's needle, it isn't enough proof that her throw across the Black Egg Temple is a max-range throw.

As much as I am advocate for big HK characters - to this day I believe that the Knight is child-sized, for example - I disagree with the thought process behind this.

 

[LightSoul8]

Nothing says that's Hornet's max throwing range, the reddit calc just assumes it but it doesn't really make sense to think that's the absolute furthest she can throw it with accuracy.

Honestly, I agree, but then we're left with three choices:

•Accept a dubious calc

•Assume they're bug-sized

•Assume they're human-sized

The third makes the most sense to me seeing how inconsistent the HK bugs' sizes to our own bugs are. For instance, grubs in the real world are between 0.375 inches to 2 inches when fully grown. But given that the HK Grubs clearly aren't fully grown (as they fully grow into Grubberflies), they should be on the low end of that size. Cloth, on the other hand, is a cicada. Cicadas in the real world range from 0.8 inches to 2 inches. Even if we use the low end of 0.8 inches, Cloth should be over twice the size of a Grub, but that clearly isn't the case. Not to mention the varying sizes of bugs; Markoth and The Radiance should be comparable in size, Mantis Lords and Mantis Warriors should be comparable in size, and The Last Stag and Nailsmith should be comparable in size, but none of them are.

I'm not surprised that this calc is invalid, but if we can't get a valid size calc, then I think we can only assume that the HK bugs are human-sized. I mean, the Mushrooms from Super Mario Bros are Amanita Muscaria (which are 20 cm to 30 cm in our world), but in Mario they're half Mario's height of 155 cm. And there are countless instances of this sort of thing in various verses, but my point stands: I think the HK bugs should be human-sized if this doesn't work. Given that the Husks are your average Joe Schmo in HK, we can put them at either 175.6 cm or 161.8 cm (the average heights for an Australian male and female respectively), and scale from there. I'd honestly be a lot more content doing that than having The Knight at 34.29 cm or even 26.75 cm (The Knight's height in that one False Knight calc).

 

[Serlock_Holmes]

If we have no proof of either shouldn't it default to them being human sized?

 

[LightSoul8]

If we have no proof of either shouldn't it default to them being human sized?

I agree

 

[Lou_change]

If we have no proof of either shouldn't it default to them being human sized?

The problem is that one there are no humans, two there is a large amount of variation for the size among the cast.

 

[LightSoul8]

The problem is that one there are no humans, two there is a large amount of variation for the size among the cast.

While there are no humans in Hollow Knight, there also isn't anything comparable to our world to scale to from there regardless. Real world bugs can't manifest plagues through dreams or extract SOUL energy from others, but the Hollow Knight bugs do that regardless.

Also, there are cartoons, video games, anime, and manga with characters of various sizes like with Super Mario Bros and One Piece. Just because they have inconsistent sizes doesn't mean that they are bug-sized.

 

[Armorchompy]

This has been discussed before, I'm still of the opinion that lacking any strong evidence bug-sized should be the assumption, given the general environmental design. I don't see any strong reasons to change that.

Also, there are cartoons, video games, anime, and manga with characters of various sizes like with Super Mario Bros and One Piece. Just because they have inconsistent sizes doesn't mean that they are bug-sized.

With due respect, I've been on this website for like five years now and this specifically might just be the number 1 most nonsensical argument I've ever heard. And I've heard bad.

 

[Lou_change]

Real world bugs can't manifest plagues through dreams or extract SOUL energy from others

Aren't those exclusive to higher beings and the vessels that were born of two higher beings and possessed by a third.

 

[LightSoul8]

This has been discussed before, I'm still of the opinion that lacking any strong evidence bug-sized should be the assumption, given the general environmental design. I don't see any strong reasons to change that.

Fair enough

Aren't those exclusive to higher beings and the vessels that were born of two higher beings and possessed by a third.

The former was exclusive to The Radiance but extracting SOUL has been done by the Soul Sanctum scholars and likely the Snail Shamans given that SOUL is needed for spells.

 

[LightSoul8]

So, I've just realized that this discussion already occurred on this thread. Given that that thread (and by the looks of things, this thread) concluded that there really wasn't much evidence one way or the other about size, should we close this thread and just keep everything the same for now?

 

[Armorchompy]

If you want, yeah

 

[LightSoul8]

If you want, yeah

Then we should. There are better things about HK to focus-pun not intended-on, like Abilities and profiles for other characters.

 

[Armorchompy]

Mhm, make sure to let me know if you make 'em, not only have I played the game but I can probably share it with a few others who support the verse