Talk:Hollow Knight/@comment-37641162-20181201111929

To me, the self stabbing seemed to be the hollow knight temporarially wresting back control from the Radiance and helping the player character, rather than the radiance unleashing more of the infection within him. This is suggested by the much softer, emotional music that plays starting from the first time he does this, and the amount of time an attention that the animation is given. The action of stabbing a sword into ones own chest is so visually suicidal. If the intention was to release more of the infection from their body, a more appropriate animation could've been the infection violently rupturing out of the knight's chest or something similar.

Also, its true that after stabbing themselves, THK gets access to more infection attacks, but this could also just be the Radiance becoming more desperate after realizing THK is starting to break free, and starts to actually pick them up and swing them about like a weapon. Why would THK stab themselves multiple times throughout the fight? The additional stabs to not grant any more infection based moves.