Ethical Difficulty

[Pixelis]

Is dream-nailing the ghosts wrong? I always thought I was just liberating them from the mortal plane or something, sending them to bug heaven, but I'm listening to Marissa sing and I feel really guilty all of a sudden. Maybe I wasn't paying attention when I got the dream nail, but what exactly does it do to the ghosts? Does it cause them to no longer exist or does it send them to heaven?

I know this isn't really that important but I'd feel like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ person if it turns out that all those other ghosts I dream-nailed suffered some negative effect rather than a positive one...

[rynn]

you are freeing them im pretty sure, the ghosts still think they are alive and that everything is normal. dream-nailing them just puts them to rest

[slavik]

i think they will live within dreamnail, as a part of it
sorry for my bad english

[Pixelis]

Originally posted by Aecx:

you are freeing them im pretty sure, the ghosts still think they are alive and that everything is normal. dream-nailing them just puts them to rest

aha, oh good. i was worried i was ending their entire existence or something

[Fearless knight]

I think dream nail devour ghosts, like frostmourne

[Umbra-Arcturus]

Originally posted by Such doge wow:

I think dream nail devour ghosts, like frostmourne

Or the Soul Reaver.

[HexaDecimatoR]

They're stuck in the material world, you're freeing them.

[spees]

I remember listening to her song, knowing that i would dreamnail her when she was done..
she only gives you like 30 essence so it's hardly worth it..
i still felt bad though..

[Pixelis]

Originally posted by Occidental Douchecharge:

hahahahahahahahaha
Are you serious?
Wait, you are serious...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

what?

[Tat011]

The answer is we don't know since we don't know what ghosts are and neither do we know what dream nailing them actually does

[OnyxTortoise]

Actually we DO know. Quoting the seer:

Originally posted by seer:

Sometimes dreams take the shape of those who have passed away. Such dreams are bountiful sources of Essence!
You should search carefully near graves and other monuments. Why, I believe I saw an interesting gravestone here in the Resting Grounds.
If you do decide to disturb those dreams though, be prepared for a fight...

This means they're not ghosts. They are not beings at all. They're just residual memories or dreams that have taken form.

[Ben Hurr]

Except for the part where they all talk to you, and in some cases actively resist you dream nailing them; that should be enough to give you pause regardless of what they actually are.

[OnyxTortoise]

A humanoid robot is not a person and yet somebody could create one that could talk and resist certain actions done by a human.

A chat bot could talk to you as well and yet you would have no qualms about deleting him from your HDD.

[Omoikane]

Originally posted by Ben Hurr:

Except for the part where they all talk to you, and in some cases actively resist you dream nailing them; that should be enough to give you pause regardless of what they actually are.

A warrior who knows only to fight will leave residual data that knows only to fight. Hence the battles.
I don't get these moral problems.

[Tricolored Crow]

You use the dream nail to absorb them. They are the collection of their lifetime hope, memories and dreams. You play as a void construct, created by the Pale king to quell the Radiance, which also seems to be a construct of dream/memory.

As memories are forgotten, lost to the void, hope will also eventually run out, leaving the ghosts to their unknowing eternal despair. As you meet the dream warriors, they are oblivious to the fact that they have died or even to the passage of time. Its when they realize after beating them that all that they have protected has already been lost. They then give themselves up to the void, as the ID is the last to be lost.

They are the "Dream points", and you are laying them to rest, becoming part of the abyss that is the void.

Now the real question is, is why does the dream nail teleportation work? That would mean that we are already inside of a dream ourselves. As we sleep on the benches, do we wake up when we fail? Trapped in multible layers of dream? Unending devotion and mindless progression of the void that eats all that one dreams?
Is hollow knight the one that makes the dreamer forget their adventure?

Or well, the Kingdom is in ruin unless the memories that haunt it is removed.

Hollow Knight in that case advocates German restoration, as they have wallowed for too long in memory, blaming themselves because "we were nazis"....or well, actually letting go of ones guilt to progress from the stagnant wasteland.

[Krpa]

We're a vessel. (lorewise)
We don't feel, talk or care.
We got 1 mission to finish. ;)