What's the deal with Broken Vessel and the Watcher Knights (plus Lightseeds and Infected Flies)

[hoary sierra]

A post for whatever questions/theories that includes any of the beings listed in the title that you wish to find an answer to__,__ such as Some of my own include the following:

1. Why does BV__'s__ have DND reveal its own thoughts while WK's don't__?__
   Answer: WK's are "discarded shells", while BV's shell is not

   1.1. Is there a reason why minds abandon corpses other than "They just did"?

2. Why can you only dreamnail BV__'s corpse__ after he's it's reanimated then killed__, as opposed to before the Lightseeds did whatever it is they do to it?__ (And why its ghost appears after)

3. The possibility of, or lack thereof, Broken Vessel containing attempting to contain the Radiance while THK/PV was still being "raised and trained to prime form"
   Answer: Nobody knows how exactly the focusing process works, so

4. Lightseeds being made of infection versus being seeds that were infected
   Answer: The information we do have strongly suggests the latter, but I believe an argument could be made for the former if you're stubborn

5. Why is there a bunch of infected flies chilling in Lurien's Spire and nowhere else__?__
   Answer: Because

6. Why do Lightseeds disappear from Basin after defeating BV__?__
   Answer: They all got used up (Or to 'show the passage of time', whatever that means)

If you have a grievance with any of the above, ping me and I'll either fix it or make note of your viewpoint in it (Unless the character limit says otherwise)
(Key: Edited, Removed, "In-game quote", 'quote')

[frozen current]

BV is just an empty shell that gets controlled by Lightseeds, I don't get point 1.
If it's refering to the end of the fight, that's probably just the lightseeds trying to still move the body, makes more sense.
For point 6 I assume it's like all of them were used in this attack

[hoary sierra]

Why are BV's thoughts ("...") when Lightseeds' thoughts are normally ("..LIGHT...", "...BRIGHT...", and "...GLOW...")?

[frozen current]

Well since the only difference is the shell I guess it's like how you can DN corpses, the shell is a hollow corpse.

[hoary sierra]

So are BV's "thoughts" the ones being read?

[frozen current]

Well what's left of them probably ?

[hoary sierra]

...or were you thinking that Lightseeds/Infected Flies can only think to the limits of the mind they're infecting

[chilly wraith]

@supple hedge pinging for help in case i'm wrong/missing info
but to answer each of these:

• ...do WK not have DN dialogue?
• because you can't DN them before the fight starts, though canonically they can be reanimated multiple times
• BV never contained nor could they contain Rad
• Lightseeds are bloated single celled organisms. It's the latter.
• the Infection doing its thing of reanimating corpses.
• doesn't this happen when the Monarch Wings are taken? regardless, it's to show the passage of time; the Basin is noted to be where Infection gathered for years.

[frozen current]

You can DN WK before the start of the fight, just not in GodHome since the fight starts instantally there.

[hoary sierra]

• I'm referring to their thoughts not being their own, as opposed to BV (Supposedly)
• Is it only for gameplay reasons, or is there a reason BV didn't have an essence ghost beforehand like the warrior dreams
• Why is it an impossibility? Was the process of channeling Rad incapable of being performed without the assistance of an outside actor? Does a vessel have to be "fully grown" to even be able to try such a thing? (When I say contain, I mean imprisoning rad inside its head even if only for a moment)
• Assuming that's true, is there evidence to suggest they didn't have a mind beforehand?
• I forgot who said it, but I heard that contact with physical infection doesn't ever lead to mental infection. Does that only apply to living beings or is that wrong?
• (That's probable, the wiki just said it happened after BV's defeat and I didn't feel like checking) If you're referring to the Lightseed's JE, "Strange air has been seeping down from above for years" could very well just be acknowledging the strange air's existence rather than stating it's downward motion throughout all of Hallownest. Since the Volatile Gruzzer's JE uses the same phrase "Horrible goo and noxious gas have started leaking down from above" and is only referring to Crossroads (Unless TC really did plan to make all of Hallownest infected at some point, in which case this is kind of just wrong). Also you can get the entry from Infected Crossroads without ever going to Basin, and if it really were talking about Basin it wouldn't make very much sense to be talking about a place you've never been to (Not enough evidence to debunk what you're saying, I just thought it was worth bringing up to see if my interpretation of the evidence is an impossibility)

[supple hedge]

I'm not gonna read all that

[hoary sierra]

Can the WK's DND before the fight starts to be taken as canon? If so that brings up a lot of other questions

[supple hedge]

But I'm happy for you

Or sorry that happened

[frozen current]

Do they have the same DND before the fight starts ? I wasn't paying attention-

[supple hedge]

They do

Anyway the reason BV doesn't have an Essence Ghost before you beat it is because its mind is still under the Lightseeds' (and by extension Radiance's) influence, not unlike FK or SM (the other Dream Bosses)

In defeating it you liberate its mind and it "moves on"

Which is what the Essence Ghost represents

Again, this is not different to the other Dream Bosses

[hoary sierra]

Are you saying its mind was in the Lightseeds/Radiance before they were reanimated?

[supple hedge]

No

The infection, by its own definition, enslaves the mind of the host

As soon as the Lightseeds came to inhabit BV's discarded shell its mind was enslaved

This is why BV remembers how to use a nail, as Ellina explicitly states in WJ

It's the same as any other infected retaining the skills it knew in life

Though in BV's case it's probably more accurate to call it a vestige of the mind than the actual mind

[hoary sierra]

My question is why wasn't its mind already liberated before being reanimated

Is it because they need to be enslaved first?

[supple hedge]

Why isn't any infected's

Husks are reanimated corpses

By your logic they should be impossible to infect

[hoary sierra]

uhhhhhhhhhh

I might've missed something

[supple hedge]

The mind is tied to the body, it doesn't just disappear once the body dies

Seer says it exists in the space "between body and soul", and there are several instances of minds persisting after death or even imprinting inanimate objects

[hoary sierra]

I know the mind persists after death, my question is why didn't LK appear before being infected by Lightseeds

[supple hedge]

I literally just explained why

As for the second point, the reason BV having contained Radiance is an impossibility isn't because you need a "fully-grown" Vessel to attempt it (otherwise TK wouldn't have been able to do so in THK/SS), but because it wasn't the chosen Vessel, and THK has been containing her since the time it was sealed so there wouldn't have been any opportunity for it to have replaced it. That's not to mention that BV wouldn't have been able to even enter the Black Egg without the Dream Nail, and that it just doesn't make any sense.

The only way to swap Vessels is to destroy the one currently containing Rad and quickly have another one Focus her in, as we see TK do. Neither THK nor BV were destroyed in this way, and nothing indicates there was ever a Vessel chosen prior to THK either

You can't seriously be claiming that BV went into the Black Egg, killed THK, focused Rad in, gave up, put her back in THK, walked out, through the SoB, magically recreated the Dreamer seals and then went back to AB

[hoary sierra]

One of these days I'll be able to word a question properly...

Why does LK not appear before BV was infected with Lightseeds? I know why they didn't appear after BV was defeated, and I understand the logic in LK appearing after defeating LK. My question refers to before any lightseeds jumped into BV (Unless you already knew what I was saying and were instead stating they were in an infected state when you first meet them)

[chilly wraith]

this is very important, as the infection is said to break the minds of those it enslaves on top of reanimating people who are already dead

[hoary sierra]

I was thinking more along the lines of just after PV was selected and before they were sealed in TBE

[chilly wraith]

no references to a backup vessel exist anywhere, and the diagrams of a Vessel using Soul on the King's Pass tablets are not canon

[hoary sierra]

Who all needs to be present in channeling rad while she's free?

Also sorry, but I really need to be somewhere. I'll explain my idiocy more thoroughly later

[chilly wraith]

well, from what we know, THK only

[hoary sierra]

Well if, assuming you're saying that PV focused Rad into itself by itself, a vessel is capable of channeling Rad into itself on its own, and a vessel somehow learned how to, what's stopping them from doing it (even if they die immediately after doing it)?
I'm not asking for proof of BV trying to contain Rad so much as asking for evidence against it

[chilly wraith]

if they have the skill to overpower the current vessel, who in this case is THK

[hoary sierra]

Well what if there was no current vessel, i.e, before PV was sealed inside TBE?

[chilly wraith]

this isn't a useful question

[hoary sierra]

Because there's no way to know or because the initial question it's based off of is stupid?

[supple hedge]

There was no Vessel sealed before PV, we know that. So this whole thing is just a pointless hypothetical

BV never sealed Rad, it was never in the BET

The only Vessel to seal Rad ever, prior to the events of the game, was THK

BV had no way of entering the Black Egg

It wasn't the chosen Vessel

It was left for dead at the bottom of the Abyss and later happened to escape

[hoary sierra]

Does a vessel have to be in TBE to channel Rad if she's free?

[supple hedge]

It doesn't matter

Evidently you can't channel Rad from just anywhere

TK focuses her in right out of THK's body, we don't know how PK managed to locate/seal her in THK in the first instance but to claim a random Vessel could have walked out of The Abyss and randomly start channeling Rad is frankly ridiculous

Also the burden of proof is on you, and no evidence exists to suggest that there was a Vessel that temporarily contained Rad prior to THK or that that's even possible

Surely if a Vessel had done this the infection would have disappeared for a bit and PK would have wondered what the fuck was going on, but nothing in the game hints towards such a possibility

[hoary sierra]

Do you have any idea where I should look to find how the channeling process works? (I mean like a google doc or something, I have some ideas of where to look in-game. Although to be frank I doubt I'll look to deep into it anytime soon)

[frozen current]

I'd assume PK had something to do with getting Rad here for THK to focus since Dream Powers and all that but we really don't have any info on that.

[supple hedge]

We don't have any information on it

So unfortunately the answer is no

[hoary sierra]

While on the subject of the Infection up and disappearing, what happens to the infection vines in the DNM ending? Is it anything special or did TC just not feel like making the cinematic properly?

[supple hedge]

The infection vines return to their natural colour because Radiance (the heart of the infection) is dead and the infection no longer exists as a result

[hoary sierra]

In the EtV ending we can see that pretty clearly, but in the DNM there's just no vines (Unless my resolution/eyesight is just bad)

More than likely just a dev oversight, just thought I'd ask while it was on my mind

[frozen current]

Yeah I think in EtV they just wanted to make it clear that defeating Rad did stop the infection, since they made that DLC after.

[chilly wraith]

i mean it already is clear, it can't exist without her

[chilly wraith]

the only things we know are:

• it requires a Vessel to Focus her
• focusing her, causes her to be pulled into an isolation section of the dream realm which is (theoretically) cut off from everywhere else in the realm, making it impossible for her to escape or otherwise subvert the isolation

and/or that the mind that contains her is of Void which ideally lacks Essence, besides that which stems from her.

[frozen current]

Void which lacks essence.
No mind to think.

[chilly wraith]

i mean considering that Essence/light/assimilation of organic matter is the only thing that can alter Void's behavior...and that Essence is literally described as "the fragments of light that dreams are made of" it's probably what he actually meant

[frosty relic]

we simply don’t know enough to draw any conclusions

[pliant iris]

They reanimate the bodies in a similar way to the way the false knight maggot controls the armour

[hoary sierra]

Watcher Knights' DND seems to imply the flies are piloting the husk, but BV's seems to imply it was re-animated. Looking back my best guess is that it's just a difference between Lightseeds and Infected Flies, and the flies flying out of the Watcher Knights' husks as opposed to plain infection coming out of BV further supports that.
But then that raises the question of "what's the deal with Broken Vessel?", since infection is supposed to be non-physical (In terms of your mind being infected, it would still hurt you if you touched it) but BV's mind appears to have been re-animated by physical contact with the infection.

[chilly wraith]

i mean Watcher Knights show that a full-blown mind isn't necessarily left on a corpse, because their shells specifically were discarded

in contrast to BV