Fictional universes are oft defined by what their positive affect feels like and what their negative affect feels like. This is the palette that the story is written using. In the videogame Silksong, the negative affect is a hollow, pointless, loneliness. Every character is a bug, crawling through the dirt, creeping out to see you briefly before they continue attempting to do something with their pointless lives.
Oh... you've come to hide down here too, then? 'Tis a fearful world out there. If you can keep quiet, I don't mind you joining me.
They spend the game in religious devotion, attempting to climb to the citadel where they can meet their God. But most die along the way, or go mad and just start to kill anything nearby.
The currency in the game is rosary beads, to be used for prayer.
You end up killing a lot of these mad pilgrims and taking their Rosaries.
What is the positive affect drawn in? It's a kind of serenity.
Surrounded by nature.Here's a nice lady cooking a stew that you can help her with.
So between the pointlessness and despair, is an occasional "ah, everything is just fine as it is" of feeling at-home. [...]
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First published:
November 27th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bGFgiZxK5Z9XGczWM/despair-serenity-song-and-nobility-in-hollow-knight-silksong
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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