The Knight

"A 'W' for me and an 'L' for you!"

—The Knight, Death Screen

**The Knight** is a boss in *The Delicious Last Course*. He is one of the King of Games' five champions and the second one to face the player, after the Pawns. His battle takes place in the Hall of Knights, and upon defeating him, the Bishop can be fought.

## Description

### Appearance

The Knight is a gray anthropomorphic horse with a body shape similar to his namesake chess piece, with a round bottom and lanky arms and legs. He dons a golden knight helmet with his ears sticking out, a pink plume of his hair, and neck protection. His tunic is mostly red with gold diamonds at the bottom, with a gold seam around his hips. His armor has some round plating on the elbows and knees. His knockout animation shows him to have yellow horse hooves for feet. The Knight wields a short sword with a round golden guard in his left hand and a wooden shield in his right arm.

## Intro

As the battle begins in the hall of the knights, the Knight covers his eyes with the visor before slamming his sword on his shield two times.

## Battle

During his fight, the Knight will have his sword raised above his head and a shield in front most of the time, protecting him from attacks.

His attacks are as follows:

* **Upward Thrust**: The Knight momentarily lets his guard down, then thrusts his sword upwards. Cuphead and his friends can damage him by striking the Knight's plume with their Parry Slap after this.
* **Sword Dash**: The Knight holds his sword up sideways, then dashes across the field. He will tire out for a bit after this.
* **Wild Swing**: The Knight ducks down and puts his visor up to look and smile at the player, then lets out a neigh as he swings his sword in an upwards arc. He will tire out for a bit longer after this.
* **Taunt**: The Knight stands up straight and beckons the player with his shield arm to come closer to him. This move is always performed if the player is too far away from him.

The Knight always has his back covered by raising his sword when he is not tired. If a player happens to be somewhere behind him or close to the wall than he is after an attack, he will dash away from the player, specifically to the other side of his room. If the player is behind him after a dash attack, the Knight will quickly turn around with his guard up. He can also dash away from you out of a taunt if you happen to be behind his back and far enough away from him too. He makes some horse neigh when he dashes away from the player. If the player idles on the far side of the room without performing any actions, then during one of his taunts, the Knight will suddenly perform a faster dash attack without either winding up or tiring out.

Like the Pawns before him, the Knight can't be attacked by shooting his weak spot. They can only damage him by striking his plume with their parry. To defeat him, 20 Parry Slaps must be applied to his plume in single-player mode, 25 in co-op mode.

After taking enough damage, his helmet, sword, and shield flies towards the screen while he spins around and bucks like an actual horse that breaks into panic. During this, the Knight has his hands somehow morphed into feet and his shoes disappear.

## Gallery

Taking a wild swingThe Knight taunting the Player to come closer.The Knight before taking a wild swing with his sword.The Knight bucking like a rodeo horse when knocked out.ExteriorSword Speed Attack
## Trivia

* The Knight is the only Champion to be based on an animal, with his design coming from a horse. The other champions take their designs from nondescript cartoonish species. However, the Knight still takes his design from the knight chess piece.
* there is a glitch that the knight will appear without legs after the player dies.
* The Knight's death screen line likely references how in real chess, the knight can only move in a "L" shaped pattern.
	+ The "W" and "L" also stand for "win" and "lose"/"loss" respectively. If "win" and "lose"/"loss" were used in the death message, it would say, "A Win for me and a Lose (or "Loss") for you!"
* In real life, the plumes on some knights' helmets were made of horsehair. In the Knight's case, his plume is simply his own mane on the back of his head, as seen in his defeat animation.
* He was first revealed in the Game Awards trailer.
* His fight is similar to Jelly the Octopus, for Jelly was also a boss that could only be defeated by parrying a part of his body. In Jelly's case, it was the tip of his antenna.
* The Knight is the only champion in The King's Leap whose head does not come off at all; however, his helmet still does.

### Inspirations and Similarities

* This boss was directly inspired from the Knight piece in chess, whose piece is depicted as a horse's head.
* In chess, knights can be used to trick opponents into making miscalculated moves. The Knight follows the same philosophy, as his attacks have odd timing that could make a player misjudge when they should parry.
	+ In the Game Awards trailer, the transition into this boss fight is two explosions with chess pieces (pawn and rook, knight and bishop) flying out after Cuphead and co. wreak havoc.
* His overall design and mannerisms seem to be based on Disney's characters Goofy and Horace Horsecollar.
	+ A potential reason these characters were chosen as references could be because of the Goofy short *A Knight for a Day*.
* His taunt is a reference to Ken Masters from the *Street Fighter* series, notably his taunt in *Street Fighter III: Third Strike*, where he beckons you to come closer to him.
* His sword swing refers to the eclipse attack by Sabrewulf from *Killer Instinct*.
* His upward thrust refers to the crouch punch that Nash from *Street Fighter 5* uses.