CW: Basically 100% conclusion and heavy lore spoilers
So I was studying about sustainability and this came to my mind. Silksong implicitly calls out for a lot of sustainability concerns if you squint hard enough. I decided to squint harder and make the best list I could from the stuff I remember about Pharloom. It's kinda crazy, and makes you think.
Environmental Sustainability
Environmental Sustainability: doing the things we want now without harming the things future generations want to do
- Bilewater and Verdania weren't environmentally sustainable. Or it was Citadel, because she expanded without caring about them.
- Sands of Karak the Citadel tried, but Sands of Karak is eternal, and now it was the Citadel that got kicked in the ass.
- Although the Citadel fucked up with many parts of Pharloom, some parts still managed to thrive and evolve, like Shellwood, Far Fields, Greymoor, Hunter's March are pretty fine. There is still hope.
- I don't know, but it seems the architecture of Pharloom is really dangerous with the numerous cases of giant boulders falling down on everything. In fact, it was all built out of stone at the start, and then they added all the golden fluff.
- What are rosaries made of that they're everywhere? That's probably using a shit ton of environmental resources to manufacture, and then future generations won't have any more rosary prime matter to do their things! I guess it doesn't matter since the Weavers are all dead.
Economic Sustainability
Silksong is not much of a game about money, I have 5000 rosaries right now, but I'll try.
- Everyone wants more rosaries, so looks like everyone is poor. This is more evident when there is a bunch of robbers everywhere stealing rosaries.
- Some insects like Jubilana are rich and don't share anything. Although Jubilana rose honestly.
- I saw a theory that the Weavers in the start handed out rosaries for free. Although it's a good act, this would probably crash the economy.
- I don't think capitalism aligns with sustainability
Social Sustainability
The Citadel made some pretty questionable social decisions. Pharloom has a lot of socially questionable creatures.
- The brilliant medic got exiled.
- The brilliant cook got exiled.
- Although the brilliant medic and cook were unethical, the Citadel was also doing experiments with insects in the Whiteward, without anaesthesia. Now, I don't like whataboutisms, but still.
- In Act 1, all the Bellhart bugs are threaded by Widow. This was stated to be painful, and some bugs died.
- In Act 3, the entire Bellhart gets wrecked, although still functional. And the Far Fields guy dies from starvation because a giant boulder fell on his shop (how did he even escape). This may not mean anything at first, but it shows that some people are more vulnerable than others based on geolocation.
- As an addendum to Widow, another questionable bug is the demon child guy, but they are kinda ungovernable in a land that is already ungoverned.
- The Citadel implanted a false sense that wanderers will achieve something when they reach it. And most of them die before.
- The Snail Shamans just singlehandedly fucked up the entire kingdom, making everyone's life worse, infecting some with the Void, and some even turning into masses.
- Let's not talk about the crazy sin system of the Citadel.
- Despite all of that, and with the kingdom's decay, everyone is helping each other, so i guess, monarchy bad anarchy good?
Environmental shows that the Citadel clearly didn't care about the world crumbling apart when expanding, they just wanted dominance or something and started growing indiscriminately like a cancer, which is obviously nonsustainable. Economic is just game design I guess. Social could be very deep if I dived into the lore, but from the list we can see that Pharloom has gone all over the place with sapient bugs commiting horrendous things to others, shunning, and the Citadel being an ass as always, which goes against the sustainability principle of well-being and equity. As I said in the last item, there is still good in this world, and therefore hope.
And Hornet couldn't do any of that without the help of many incredible bugs of Pharloom, which proves the last sustainability point: It only works if everyone is participating on it.
A lot of the things overlap with real converns in the real world, so, maybe, Team Cherry is warning us about something... Also, if you squint very very hard maybe you can see some imperialism in both games. Take this information as you wish. Goodbye and until next time!