Grimm troupe lore

[D9Hunter]

First, you should be warned that, being a lore theory, it will contain spoilers.(and sorry for the bad english)

So, after everything I've seen about the Troupe i think i kinda figured out(or at least found a possibility) about it's existing.
First of, i think we can all agree that what the GT(how i will refer to the Troupe) does is harvesting the opposite of the dream essence, which we can consider as the flames. If we were to make a comparison between essence and flames, we would come to this:
-the "source": the Radiance- Nightmare King(i will say later why not Grimm himself)
-the venerating tribe: the moths- grimmkin
-the instrument used for harvest: dreamnail-grimmchild charm
-the representant of the venerating tribes-the seer(as we know for now)-Grimm
Now let's analyze a bit. The way the essence is represented in the physical world is by Ghost. To me, the grimmkin that we fight for the flames are the exact same thing, but maybe they are not the ghosts of a single being, but a collection of surrounding flame. When we collect it, the grimmchild charm(i don't want to refer to the grimmchild as a familiar) absorbs them. Then, when we have enough, we go back to Grimm and give them to him, Therefore expanding the GT. The charm slowly awakens, like the dreamnail, slowly letting us percieving more powerful nightmares( ex: the way we can acces the kingsmould's mind only after a certain amount of essence) I admit i'm not so sure about the first fight with Grimm. Maybe a test of worthiness or a way of making the bond between us and the grimmchild stronger. Then, when about all the flame in the kingdom is gathered, and the Grimmchild fulfielded it'purpose, we fight against the Nightmare King, and therefore proving that we can face the power of the GT.
The White Lady, after defeating NK, says: ''Your companion's eyes burn with a familiar flame... Success then for the scarlet heart, and irony, to use my spawn to grow its own.I know you creature, and the form time shall bring. You may be all and one, clan and master, but this land shall never bear so foreign a king". What i can get from this is that the GT tents IN Dirthmouts, the grimmkin, Divine, Brumm and all the GT content that we've seen now lies in Grimmchild's mind. She also says that it is using the knight for this. That being said, we had to fight NK to show that we can bear the power of the GT.
I strongly believe that ,in time, the grimmchild will become a full grown Vessel for the GT, aka a Grimm(I say a vessel due to the fitting role as a container and because of the weak resemblence that the White Lady mentions when we first present her the grimmchild). Yes, the Grimm that we first fight against is just one of many other vessels controlled by the NK.
From her dialogue it also seems that Grimm want to become king over Hollownest. The I tought: ''Why THIS kingdom?'' Then i realized:that is what the GT does. When kingdoms fall, they come and recolonise it with grimmkin made out of the former inhabitants's nightmares.

That is what i came out with. I hope I am not just overanalysing while Team Cherry were like:"For this Holloween let's put there a vampire-looking boss and some masked ghosts and let the comunity make out the story"
However...please tell me what do you think, if you (dis)agree with me or if i missed anything. Again, sorry for the bad english and idea organisation, but this is my first post ever and i'm quite unexperienced.

[Enraptured]

I like your theory on the NK being a deity on the level of the Radience, one thing that I'm questioning is: So we know that being inside the kingdom of hallownest gifts bugs with sentience, (in fact, we are givin a warning about outsider bugs immediatly before we summon the GT) does the entity known as Nightmere King gift the GT with a similar kind of self-awareness?

One other thing worth considoring, is the relationship between fire and bugs, fire being a source of heat and light and death, and bugs being drawn inexorably toward the former. In the "exorcise" ending of the GT Brumm mentiones the fact that Grimm himself may be bound to the ritual in such a way as to make the actions he takes have a certain degree of inevitability to them, much like a moth hurling itself into a flame.

[Darc Vader]

On a cursory reading that all seems to make sense. The only thing I can think of is why do you fight the Nightmare King by entering Grimm's dreams? Is the Nightmare King fully an analogue to the Radiance, only existing in the dream realm and Grimm is just a fully grown Grimmchild that houses him and the Tropue? Is Grimm a name, or a title passed down from Troupe Leader to Grimmchild?

[ALL MIGHT]

i kinda agree, but i think you forgot that when u dream nail grimm, he says something about the king, or so i heard

[Darc Vader]

Originally posted by l2p noob:

i kinda agree, but i think you forgot that when u dream nail grimm, he says something about theking, or so i heard

Taken from the Wiki:

Originally posted by Hollow Knight Wiki:

Masterful! Even a vessel discarded bears fierce strength.Fine craft dear Wyrm, and perfect tool to prolong the heart of Grimm.

[D9Hunter]

Originally posted by Teerts Emases Morf T'nuoc Eht:

I like your theory on the NK being a deity on the level of the Radience, one thing that I'm questioning is: So we know that being inside the kingdom of hallownest gifts bugs with sentience, (in fact, we are givin a warning about outsider bugs immediatly before we summon the GT) does the entity known as Nightmere King gift the GT with a similar kind of self-awareness?

One other thing worth considering, is the relationship between fire and bugs, fire being a source of heat and light and death, and bugs being drawn inexorably toward the former. In the "exorcise" ending of the GT Brumm mentiones the fact that Grimm himself may be bound to the ritual in such a way as to make the actions he takes have a certain degree of inevitability to them, much like a moth hurling itself into a flame.

I'll give some tought on the second part of the comment. about the first one, I think that what NK does is some sort of combination between full self awarness,like the Pale King does,and a hivemind, kinda like the Radiance. That is because even tho brumm and divine have their own toughts, they are still bound to the GT. Also, when we banish the GT, Brumm(i think we can agree that Nymm is actually him) has no memory about his former life. T his might be because the hivemind part vanished. What I just realised thanks to you is that the self awarness that a god gives, in another one's domain it might change.
About the way the GT bug that we dreamnail to start the troupe comes here, it might either lose conciousness outside Grimm's Kingdom, and then regain it when coming into another realm, therefore having to build a Lantern Shrine to beacon the rest of the troupe to come, or it knows exactly where to go and do. By the way, can NK actually enter inside the nightmares of a bug with no concousness ?
I think I've done some sort of contradiction on the way but I hope you get what I mean.
Also thank you all for your opinions.

[D9Hunter]

Originally posted by Darc Vader:

On a cursory reading that all seems to make sense. The only thing I can think of is why do you fight the Nightmare King by entering Grimm's dreams? Is the Nightmare King fully an analogue to the Radiance, only existing in the dream realm and Grimm is just a fully grown Grimmchild that houses him and the Tropue? Is Grimm a name, or a title passed down from Troupe Leader to Grimmchild?

Well, I think that NK's name is actually Grimm, and the pysical body is just an empty shel, a Vessel. I really don't know what other example to give you, but in Rick and Morty there is an episode where they meet a beeing that hasn't it's own boby, instead using the body of multiple persons in the same time. Therefore, when you talk to one of the "posessed" people you adress them to the name the higher beeing has, no matter the body.
And literraly, when the grimmchild matures it can't be called a "-child" anymore, so that part is removed, and what is left is "Grimm".

[TheRealArmadillo]

I think its fairly safe to assume that the Nightmare king is a higher being on the level of the Radiance and the Wyrm, based on the similarities they share. For one, NK and the Radiance are the only 2 bosses in the game that have their name shown full screen when the fight begins, which while certantly not any conclusive evidence, i think it was included for a reason. The Radiance is connected to dreams while NK is connected to nightmares, etc.