Hornet's route in Greenpath doesn't make any sense
Introduction
So I was playing my 12th run in a randomizer, and when I reached Greenpath, I found a "major" inconsistency which, from my research, hasn’t been discussed yet. Throughout our journey through Greenpath, we encounter Hornet five times. In the first four encounters, she is running away from us, while the final encounter leads to a battle with her. All of these encounters are marked on the map below.
Map with all Hornet encounters
Looking at this map, it would be logical to assume that Hornet took the route shown below, similar to the one we, as players, have to follow (ignoring fireball and mosquito skips).
But during the first encounter, Hornet jumps back and heads into the room on the left. From this point, her route stops making sense. Assuming that the arena is her destination, we can estimate what an optimal route from the room she just entered would look like and compare it to the actual path she takes to create all her encounters. Here they are:
Comparison of the optimal and actual path
As we can see, she made a giant loop only to jump in front of us and then run away. Setting aside the explanation that this is merely a game design decision to guide players to the boss fight and that it’s not so deep, here are my three theories to explain why Hornet might have done this.
Theory 1
As we know, after winning the fight with Hornet, we acquire the Mothwing Cloak, which gives us the ability to dash. Actually, we take it from the dead body of another vessel, presumably killed by Hornet earlier. We can assume that Hornet expected us to follow her on the first encounter, just as the failed vessel likely did. However, since we lack any horizontal movement at this point in the game, she may have awkwardly waited at the entrance of the room she jumped in before and decided to loop around and remind us of her presence.
Hornet, realizing we can't dash yet
But... Before the fight, we have dialogue (or, more accurately, monologue, as we have no voice to cry suffering) with Hornet, where she says, "Come no closer, ghost. I've seen, you creeping through the undergrowth, stalking me*."*
What does she mean we were "stalking" her? She's the one who made a giant loop to encounter us. We have no mind to stalk. Is she gaslighting us? Is this the kind of character you want to play in "upcoming"(haha) Silksong - a gaslighter?
Theory 2
Hornet at the second encounter
In her second encounter (which, I’ll remind you, is the reason for this giant loop), Hornet jumps down from the ceiling, emerging from the bushes. This suggests she can walk through the walls and ceilings made of Greenpath’s plants. This ability might also explain how she passed the bench after her third encounter, which is locked by metal gates and requires payment to unlock. So, perhaps this could explain some of her strange route choices?
The answer is no. First of all, let's look at the room Hornet enters after the first encounter:
Room Hornet enters after the first encounter
As we can see, the floor of this room consists of rocks and giant acid pools. This makes it clear that digging down is not an option here. But, even if Hornet can dig through rocks and isn’t afraid of acid drops, the path through the walls still seems like a huge deviation from her destination and an extremely inefficient route.
Theory 3
Citing the prophet mossbag: "Team Cherry had one goal when making Hollow Knight. They wanted to create a world that allowed players to get completely lost in exploration."
Maybe players aren’t the only ones who get lost in the world of Hallownest. Perhaps Hornet also got lost and ended up at her second encounter by pure accident. This theory could also explain why, of all the characters, Hornet is becoming a second playable character in the "upcoming" DLC (haha). She’s just like us— getting lost in Hallownest.
Well, while this theory does explain a lot, it goes against some facts from the lore. Hornet has been protecting Hallownest for a very long time — she’s even older than Elderbug. She’s had plenty of time to memorize the entire map. So, is she stupid? Or maybe, after all these years, she’s so old that she’s starting to experience memory loss? Maybe Silksong is not coming out tomorrow because Team Cherry is hard at work implementing "memory loss after every bench mechanic"? We have no answers...
Conclusion
Hornet is either a gaslighter, stupid, or has memory loss issues. Thank you for your attention!