A very geeky lore question!

[HolyScarab]

Yes I know this will probably seem like a very very weird peculiar and trivial question but it's still bothering me a bit...
We all know the world of Hollow Knight is a bug world with the occasional supernatural entities yet what always troubled me was that throughout the game in the background you can see actual skeletons of larger bugs... Thing is insects don't have skeletons, at least not endoskeletons, they have exoskeletons only with a few pseudo-endo ones in the head region! So... Are these proper bugs or is the world of HK not really a bug one?
And yes I know it's a fantasy world not bound to our logic or science but this seems really out of place especially when the game is called Hollow Knight, implying the absence of any internal structure...

Anyway I hope we can have a brief and positive open-minded discussion going on here!

[batteran]

At first, I don't remember seiing full endoskeletons in the game. Have you a screen?
Also, the arcanic eggs and abyss and lore around theses suggest very ancient civilizations before the Pale King and even Radiance. Probably the bugs in theses ancient times are a bit different. I remember I read somewhere that an exo-squeleton is not viable pass a certain size, because biological reasons. So, the ancient bigger bugs will need an internal skeleton to be viable.

[HolyScarab]

Originally posted by batteran:

At first, I don't remember seiing full endoskeletons in the game. Have you a screen?
Also, the arcanic eggs and abyss and lore around theses suggest very ancient civilizations before the Pale King and even Radiance. Probably the bugs in theses ancient times are a bit different. I remember I read somewhere that an exo-squeleton is not viable pass a certain size, because biological reasons. So, the ancient bigger bugs will need an internal skeleton to be viable.

Here's a screenshot: https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/916000/ss_9287ad02c8484cbcaed8dc10d61e3bcbe85313e1.jpg?t=1533930721
As you can see the body is exoskeletal yet the limbs are fully endoskeletal...

As for the size limit of exos that's actually very debatable, we know of some arthropods reaching more than 2 metres in length (eurypterids) and there was a millipede nearly the length of a car (Arthropleura). Some studies in insects have shown that the exoskeleton does not increase in thickness with a bigger size in a way that would make a giant arthropod too heavy to move, in fact exoskeletons made from chitin and strengthen through sclerotization are far far lighter than our bones if compared. Another study showed that if we take the combined mass of all the bones in our limbs and make them hollow and exoskeletal our limbs will become stronger and we will have better muscle leverage and more attachment points for said muscles.
The ONLY limit to exoskeletal growth is molting since a human-sized arthropod would need at least 2 months for the new exoskeleton to completely harden, yet the coconut crab takes well more than 3 months hiding in a burrow when it molts and we know of other crustaceans which have almost 3 times thicker exoskeleton and they have solved the molting problem by simply molting once every 6-7 years, in which case waiting for the new skeleton to harden can well exceed 4-6 months if you're gonna stick with it for years!

Also knowing that the heroes in Hollow Knight are bug-sized (one of the uses a needle) and judging by the huge skeletons in the background those "giants" should be no bigger than a rat and we, right now, have terrestrial arthropods larger than rats and in some cases even small dogs!

[anaphylactic god]

dont you think its just what their artist choose ? becouse you cant tell a story with empty chitin husks alone.
as i heard, devs first created all the levels and only then make lore to tie them all together.
They took main character model straight up from their previous game "hunger knight"

[HolyScarab]

Originally posted by anaphylactic god:

dont you think its just what their artist choose ? becouse you cant tell a story with empty chitin husks alone.
as i heard, devs first created all the levels and only then make lore to tie them all together.
They took main character model straight up from their previous game "hunger knight"

I was just wondering about the reasons not critisizing them or how they're supposed to make their world... I just can't stand it when people don't do any research before creating something. Trust me I know people in real life who think insects have a spine

[Inquinimaris]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1575212702
This one have a human-like arm bones.

...OH MY GOD.

[HolyScarab]

Originally posted by Imanodesu:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1575212702
This one have a human-like arm bones.

...OH MY GOD.

Like totally!

[Barrockz]

Originally posted by Imanodesu:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1575212702
This one have a human-like arm bones.

...OH MY GOD.

Yeah, these things are arms ,because some of the bugs evolved to humanoid creatures, i think so

[Inquinimaris]

Originally posted by Barrockz:

Originally posted by Imanodesu:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1575212702
This one have a human-like arm bones.

...OH MY GOD.

Yeah, these things are arms ,because some of the bugs evolved to humanoid creatures, i think so

Or humans gone. There's no life beyond Hallownest, isn't it?

And the insects will survive nuclear war.

...OH MY GOD.

[Crowley42]

That bug in the picture isn'r really a bug, it is some Void entity we know ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about. Besides, many creatures in the game are a combination of a bug and something else entirely, look at Grimm, it is half-bat yet has a carapace like shell. Same for this one, it looks like a bug but it has bones and what looks like a spinal cord.

But to be blunt I think you are just giving it way too much thought and the artist just thought "Yepp, bones look sinister so this bug will have bone-arms"