Devil's Advocate Part 1: Was the Pale King a Good King?

Today, the Pale King is blamed for being excessively extreme in his mass sacrifice of his own children just to find the perfect vessel, for his inability to accept that his kingdom would not last forever, and for literally angering the goddess of his world, marginalizing her and causing his religion and faith in her to practically die out. Point by point, I'll defend why the Pale King was a good king, and everything he did was totally justified.

p1: Taking into account the game’s lore, neither the White Lady nor the Pale King ever liked the idea of subjecting their children to a process of natural selection to determine which vessel was best suited to contain the Hallownest infection. What many people mistakenly claim because it is not canonical but merely a theory is that the children were put through the Path of Pain to see which of them would survive, and this is false, no child was trained or treated in a way that would enable them to pass through the Path. The most accurate theory is that the Path of Pain served as training for the Hollow Knight (the first vessel) and was not, as such, a massacre of their children. 

What is certain is that they were thrown into the abyss where the Shade Lord lived, and the first one to make it to the top would be chosen as the Hollow Knight, in this case, only two succeeded (the Hollow Knight and the little knight, who is the game’s protagonist) to serve as a VESSEL emphasis on VESSEL for the infection. The children never had emotions, a soul, or anything that gave them an identity, they acted solely for and toward their purpose. If those corpses and ghosts of the children were anywhere other than the Abyss, the story would be the same. Furthermore, if they had all lived and tried to confront the Radiance to contain the infection, they would have died in a far worse way, and if they had developed emotions well, we’ve already seen what happened to the Hollow Knight. In the end, the plan worked quite late, but it worked. The Little Knight managed to contain the infection, dying in the process, so the Pale King was right. Plus, they supposedly blame him for treating the Hollow Knight with affection, and that’s why it wasn’t left vulnerable to the infection. And I’m like, bro, excuse me why is it a problem for a father to treat his son like his own damn son? What a contradiction they go around saying he didn’t feel anything for his children, and when he does, they say he doomed the kingdom  and that he shouldn’t have done that. Give it a rest.

p2:  My question is, how could that guy not want to be in charge when the only other people with enough power to take the reins were: the White Lady (who does nothing without her husband), King Nightmare Grimm (who kidnaps people and is literally called KING NIGHTMARE), and Unn (who does nothing). The King freed Hallownest from Radiance’s slavery, gave them infrastructure, cities, an economy, and a society and on top of that, it was safe. All of this was threatened by a jealous goddess who wanted everything and tried to exterminate the people when they stopped worshipping her, and that’s when the king really stepped up. Hallownest exists because of the king, and there has never been anyone capable enough to take the reins of the kingdom and actually do something, so it’s totally normal that he wants to stay in power as long as possible especially since the people wanted him there. IT’S JUSTIFIED, AND YET THEY DARE TO CALL HIM A TYRANT WHEN HE PROTECTED THEM, FED THEM, DEFENDED THEM, AND SACRIFICED EVERYTHING TO DEFEND THE KINGDOM EVEN TO THE POINT OF DYING IN THE PROCESS. So, his stance is justified.

p3: I can't understand why people defend Radiance. Literally out of envy and whim, she tries to exterminate all forms of life even the character we meet on the Green Path, who identifies as a faithful follower of Radiance, contracts the infection and dies. Radiance never cared about the kingdom or its people; she only wanted them to worship her excessively, and later her fury was so great that she didn't even care about that anymore. We’re talking about a comparison where a president literally faces off against Christ and WINS. But this “god” is a maniacal, genocidal moth who, at the end of the day, proved she deserved to be marginalized, forgotten, and sealed away. If the Pale King hadn’t shown up at some point, Radiance would have finished him off.

  Before the infection made effectafter: