Awesome / Hollow Knight

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Challenge the sun.

Who knew that a bleak world full of little critters can have some fantastic moments even in the darkest times?

---

• Some Flavor Text of charms are written in a Purple Prose manner to evoke badassery with their provided benefits:
  Thorns of Agony: Senses the pain of its bearer and lashes out at the world around them.
  Sharp Shadow: Contains a forbidden spell that transforms shadows into deadly weapons.
• When the CHALLENGE prompt appears, you'll know that the Knight will be facing an awesome duel as it readies its nail. It happens three times: against the Mantis Lords, against the Radiance, and in the Eternal Ordeal.
  • Beating the Mantis Lords doesn't cause them to explode into shreds of carapace and goop the way most bosses do. Instead, they return to their throne and bow to the Knight. For the rest of the game, any mantis that encounters you in Mantis Village will also bow to the Knight, no longer hostile. It's surprisingly powerful to realize you've just earned the respect of an entire Proud Warrior Race.
    • Speaking of, the "Sisters of Battle" version in Godhome. It starts normally, but when you defeat the first one, she initially slumps to her throne while the other two get up. However, the music fades away as the first Mantis gets back up. They look at each other, crack their knuckles with a battle cry, and all three jump into the fray while a more intense version of their boss theme kicks in.
  • The intro against the Radiance can be an awesome Wham Shot in itself. Without context, it would be quite odd as to why the Knight would brandish its nail against the sun in the distance. As it turns out, the "sun" is a sentient being, which proceeds to unfurl its wings and teleport close to the arena.
  • The "Dream No More" ending wherein the Shade of the Hollow Knight assists you for the last time, holding the Radiance in place, while the Knight unleashes the Void Heart and transforms into a Shade. You have a brief period to control the Knight and make it lash out the darkness at the Radiance's face, until it gets swallowed by the Void below.
    • The prelude to that scene, where you race to the top commanding your many siblings and the void itself to give the Radiance the final blow and seal her away once and for all.
    • The Godmaster DLC can up this scene even further. With the "Embrace the Void" ending, there is no shade of the Hollow Knight to assist your playable Knight in the last phase against the Absolute Radiance. While the Knight's shell cracks and a shade takes its place, it becomes the Void Entity, whom the Godseeker even refers to as the "God of Gods". It is a massive being of Void with a spiked head, four arms, eight glowing white eyes, and a series of flailing tendrils that trail behind it. When it took the might of two Void beings to even defeat the Radiance, this new entity emerging from the playable Knight manages to be even stronger as it defeats the Absolute Radiance alone, shredding her with absolutely no effort at all. What entails afterwards can double as Nightmare Fuel however, since the Void is quickly unleashed upon Godhome.
• The Knight getting their own statue in the Hall of Gods.
  Inscription: Not bug, nor beast, nor god.
• Both of Grimm's boss fight introductions. When you fight him physically in his tent, he bows to you as an equal before beginning the fight (which you can return by looking down). When you use the Dream Nail to fight Nightmare King Grimm, the arena is also much more sinister. He bursts forth from a large cocoon in the background, and the entire screen flashes black with his name colored red.
  • This also brings to mind the other bosses who are positively Graceful Losers on their own, who bow their heads down after you defeat them. The Nailmasters in the Pantheon fights are examples of this.
• Some of the scripted story scenes with Hornet:
  • How she does a Big Damn Heroes moment by saving the Knight from the crumbling Cast-Off Shell. Note that she saves you even after you defeated her a while ago, a sign that she truly cares for you and just wants you to succeed.
  • Hornet pulling an 11th-Hour Ranger moment by pinning down the Hollow Knight so that you can Dream Nail it to fight the Radiance from the inside.
  • Once you defeat Hornet in Kingdom's Edge, she will acknowledge the Knight's strength and will, letting them through the Cast-Off Shell. Her dialogue is also a Wham Line as it is:
    Then do it, Ghost of Hallownest! Head onward. Burn that mark upon your shell and claim yourself as King.
• On your way to find Monomon, you are faced with her guardian, Uumuu. On your own, you're completely unable to damage it... and then in comes Quirrel, who proceeds to move at blinding speeds to avoid its attacks, and create openings for you to attack by slashing open the giant jellyfish's bell. As Hornet points out in his prequel comic, he has the reflexes of a warrior that his amnesia can't hope to erase.
• Cloth, a cowardly cicada you encounter throughout the game. In your final meeting with her in the Queen's Garden, she decides that she has had enough of being a coward and will follow your brave example. When you are caught off-guard by the Traitor Lord and his posse, she shows up to crush a traitor mantis and fights alongside you for the entire bossfight. Even though she ends up impaled by the Traitor Lord (one of the largest and most terrifying bosses in the game, by the way), she gets the last laugh by crushing his skull in with her club as her final act.
• Fighting the Pure Vessel. Initially turned away from you, when it senses your presence, it shatters its own armor, and lets loose a silent scream, and then it begins its onslaught. In addition to using souped up and faster versions of its future self, it is capable of using both void and soul, making it one of the toughest fights around. The Pure Vessel is actually the uncorrupted Hollow Knight, and it shows why it was chosen to seal the Radiance.
• Beating the game in Steel Soul Mode for nothing but the challenge and the achievement is a pretty awesome feat to accomplish in-game.