hi it's me roozevelt! Welcome to my video on Gnoses,
Descenders, and Xingqiu's Story Quest. Yes, Xingqiu's Story Quest. Because there's an item we received
during that quest all the way back from the beginning of the game that may have held the truth
of the Gnoses. Let me explain. Back in the Sumeru interlude, Scaramouche deleted himself from Irminsul, erasing
everyone's memories of him. But Nahida preserved the memories of Scaramouche using a fable she created. So in
theory, fables and fiction can preserve the secrets of the world. So this is about Xingqiu's favorite
work of fiction. "Legend of the Shattered Halberd" is a book written by a mysterious author named Mr.
Nine who also later wrote "Flowers for Princess Fischl." Both are central to early game characters,
similar to how "Pale Princess and the Six Pygmies" is a huge part of Lisa's Story Quest. "Legend of the
Shattered Halberd" is a part of Xingqiu's Story Quest and "Flowers for Princess Fischl" is essential
to Amy's character stories and voice lines. Amy or as we know her, Fischl, basically roleplays as
the titular Prinzessin der Verurteilung. In "Legend of the Shattered Halberd," there are nine realms. The gods
went to war, and the realms were razed by the God King, but eventually sprang life a new, but
with the realms disconnected from one another. In the present, we have two main characters: Mir,
a young man looking for answers about his father, and an unnamed spirit who possesses the body of an
imperial envoy. The spirit is the daughter of the Celestial Emperor or the God King, and a princess
of judgment. The two are collecting nine Ominous Swords forged from cursed meteorites. But these
meteorites are actually fragments of the titular Divine shattered halberd that was created by the
God King. The princess needs to collect them to save the world from catastrophe. So the volumes we
have are just snapshots of this epic journey, and I made a video where I retell the plot in more
detail. With illustrations! In the final volume we learn that the spirit Mir traveled with is the
Last Divine Halberd created to pierce the God King, as he created her knowing he'd one day go nutssss
and destroy the world again. So the takeaway from this is that the halberds are not just literally
weapons or meteorites, but also sentient beings. Characters with names. Given the nature of fable
and fiction within Genshin, I've wondered for a while if Shattered Halberd holds some secret truths.
Especially since it contains some choices names. For example, in the book ,there's a cursed sword
that once burned the world to cinders and it's going to do it again. It's called Laevatain and
in Norse mythology it's the only sword that can slay Víðópnir. Víðópnir is a bird that sits atop
another bird on top of the world tree. Funny enough, in other sources there's a nearly identically
described bird, and it may be the same one(?), and it's called Veðrfölnir. You know, like the Visionary.
So I've wondered what might Shattered Halberds be representing, potentially. I've thought perhaps
Celestial Nails, which are weapons or instruments dropped from the heavens. I've also wondered if the
fragments are memories or Spirit fragments like the case with Liloupar and collecting her memories.
But there's another idea that's floated around for ages and that I've only mentioned briefly in
previous videos. It's that the Ominous Swords are like Gnoses, and the princess collects the swords
or halberd fragments just as the Tsaritsa collects the Gnoses. I've never explored this in more detail
because I always got caught up on a small detail that I couldn't reconcile. If halberds are sentient
beings, and halberd fragments are gnoses, how could a gnosis possibly be a sentient being's fragments?
Oh. Well. I guess Gnoses are exactly that. Huh. Anyway Skirk revealed the Gnoses are the remains
of the Third Descender, so suddenly this old idea hits very differently. And now I can't stop
noticing parallels. Let me explain just how well some things work... and some mind-boggling and
contradictory implications. As a disclaimer, this is just speculation. I'm of the opinion that many
stories and books in Genshin (particularly those by Mr. Nine) have multiple layers and there's likely no
single correct interpretation. This is just one. So with that onward we go. So let's delve into some of
the comparisons and how the halberds may represent descenders, and the swords made from a halberd
represent the Gnoses. First, the Ominous Swords made from the halberd fragments are very powerful but
also hella cursed. The Gnosis is also described by Skirk as being cursed, and that's why she advises
Neuvillette to get rid of it. Given how much Skirk says about the remains being cursed, that seems like a
pretty defining feature of the Gnosis. Secondly, of the swords we know of, there's like one of flame
and one of mist, so they may be able to carry an elemental alignment like the Gnoses do. And third,
the Divine Halberd from which these swords are forged from is mistaken for a meteorite. You know...
like a falling star. There's even more looking at the Last Divine Halberd, the princess. In the story
The princess pretends to have forgotten her name but Mir suspects she's withholding it. This is
because knowing someone's true name gives you power over them, similar to what Liloupar told us. And
here's a minor detail you may have forgotten: so everyone calls you Traveler or your nickname, right?
But do you remember that in We Will Be Reunited your sibling uses the actual character name? If you
play Aether, for example, Lumine calls you Aether. To my recollection, no one else even knows your name,
except for Paimon and Dain after that scene. So perhaps traveler like the princess is withholding
their true name. There's actually a lot of parallels between Traveler and the princess. This
princess in "Legend of the Shattered Halberd" is not only a halberd, but is also actually the Prinzessin der Verurteilung. She's Fischl. She's literally Fischl. So Fischl appears in both of Mr. Nine's books, although
Mr Nine explains that he reworked her character in "Flowers for Princess Fischl." For example, in "Flowers,"
she's a traveler of worlds. In Amy's voice lines she's LARPing as Flowers-Fischl and compares
herself to you quite a few times as an outlander, even down to the fact that you both have familiars -
Oz and Paimon. But she isn't the only one who does that. In Inazuma there's an NPC named Sumida who
asked if you're just like Fischl and a traveler of worlds. You're actually kind of taken a back by the comparison. Also side note fun fact: some of you might recognize Sumida because I recently
mentioned her in my Holy Blade video. It's funny because this Fischl reference is almost directly
after the reference to the sword found by Kaeya's grandfather, which may also be about the Traveler
as a Descender as a Holy Blade. HMMM interesting. This was my contractually obligated Kaeya mention.
Anyway, there are a few other minor connections. For example, Liloupar makes a comment about us being a
prince or princess from a far away land. And in one of Fischl's stories it says that Fischl and Oz are World
Beasts who will swallow all dreams. In retrospect this now reminds me of how Canotila describes
Traveler as a beast who could swallow the world. So despite the fact that these comparisons are
with Flowers-Fischl, Halberd-Fischl is still also the Prinzessin der Verurteilung. Besides that, this is
the most direct connection between halberds and Descenders you can probably get without being too
obvious. So halberds being Descenders is starting to look pretty compelling, to me personally. It does
get slightly deeper though when you throw in Holy Blades. In my video about the Holy Blade, I made an
argument that a Descender is comparable to a Holy Blade, mostly because Rene said so. If the Third
Descender could also have been a Holy Blade, just like Traveler, the Gnoses are thus fragments of a Holy
Blade. Now, the Ominous Swords are notably able to drain intellect. This specific wording reminds me
of a feature of the Holy Blade of Narzissenkreuz, which was used to literally split the mind from
the body. And also it'd be kind of on the nose that they're both swords and there's this duality
of holy and ominous or cursed or evil. There are a few details that I'm still trying to reconcile.
Previously I've drawn comparisons of the God King and the Primordial One, especially given that in
"Shattered Halberd," the war between the gods feels reminiscent of the war of the Second Throne, and
how it was similarly destructive. The problem here is that the halberds were created by the God King.
If it were a one-to-one metaphor, this shouldn't be the case, and the God King and the halberds should
more or less be equals. This could simply be a matter of Mr. Nine changing up the details to Irminsul-proof it, though. Or he's just taking some fun creative liberties! But there's one great
struggle I'm having and that's with the First Divine Halberd. This is the hardest to speculate
on but also the most interesting, in my opinion. Obligatory speculation crack theory warning.
The last volume of the book has a line that reads: "the First Divine Halberd, Irmin, once pierced
the Axis Mundi and connected the nine worlds. Now, its replicas had proliferated across the heavens."
There is obviously a very big red flag here, but I will get to it, let me just break some things down
first. Taken in isolation, and keeping in mind the equivalence of Descenders and Holy Blades with
a will that rivals a world, the language makes a lot of sense. Instead of cutting, the Holy Blade
is piercing the Axis Mundi. And instead of severing, it connected the realms. Now, thinking about the
actual world or realms is rather challenging for me. The book has nine realms but according to Enkanomiyans,
in Genshin there are three: the light, human, and void realms. And we can only really assume that the
human realm was created by the Primordial One AKA the usurper, the Heavenly Principles, the
First Descender, by beating up the dragons and using the eggshell it was born from to separate
the microcosm from the universe. But perhaps the book realms aren't really comparable to the Genshin
realms. In "Shattered Halberd," there are nine realms and nine Ominous Swords, so perhaps the nine realms
are actually more representative of nations. Like seven gnoses for seven nations. And remember the
timeline: long before the seven nations, there was a unified civilization. So perhaps connecting
the realms here compares more to the creation of the unified civilization, and this is when humanity
spoke directly to the celestial envoys and seelies guided society. Then the war of the
gods that disconnected the realms in the book was the war of the Second Throne. This is when
the unified civilization fractured and Enkanomiya sank Sal Vindagnyr disappeared, and the celestial nails
turned rainforest into desert, and lush mountain to desolate snowstorm. With that interpretation, you
can start drawing a comparison between the First Descender and the First Divine Halberd. And perhaps,
then, the replicas of the First Divine Halberd that proliferated through the heavens, represent the
Primordial One's Four Shades. Speculation reminder but I want to take this specific idea even further.
In comparative mythology the Axis Mundi can be anything representing the connection between
Heaven and Earth: the center of the world, for example, or even a world tree. And we do have a bit
of a world tree with Irminsul. So I wonder if this goes back to the idea that a Holy Blade can destroy
or create a world or universe. Perhaps piercing the Axis Mundi was cutting the strong will of
the old world - ruled by dragons - and creating a new one, whose laws are dictated by Irminsul. Remember,
Teyvat basically runs on ley lines and memories, and stars and constellations (which are potentially
the fruit of Irminsul) dictate the fate of everyone and the world. And perhaps ley lines
are just reflections of said constellations or vice versa. Either way, they seem intrinsically
linked, so perhaps the First Descender had created Irminsul when they arrived. And that explains
the naming convention of Irmin, Irminsul. But there's there's a little snaggle in all of this.
Teeny tiny detail. It's that major red flag I mentioned. We already know of a specific character
named Irmin, and that's King Irmin, the King of Khaenri'ah. For those of you not familiar with my content, I've
spent an egregious amount of time thinking about who King Irmin is based on "Shattered Halberd," so it
may be understandable that the mere suggestion of the First Divine Halberd Irmin being linked to
the First Descender or the Primordial One short circuits my brain. Because here's the thing: King
Irmin, or at least his kingdom, did connect the realms, and this is implied to be a root cause of
the cataclysm. So Nasejuna says that the Dahri or Khaenri'ahns built a facility to connect the realms. In
an abandoned note, the writer attributes Khaenri'ah's prosperity to spying upon the secrets beyond the
skies. And this is echoed in the Evergloom Ring where some underground people caught a glimpse of
the outer universe, and even tried to travel there and bring pieces back. So here, piercing the Axis
Mundi could have been literally puncturing the false sky or that eggshell. But more metaphorically,
maybe this piercing was penetrating Irminsul to learn the truth of this world, one that is hidden by
Irminsul. The Silver Twig speaks of a sage who gained cosmic knowledge from a tree and followed its
roots to the underground kingdom. Perhaps that sage was King Irmin, and that could be the simple
connection between the names. Regardless, these are two very wildly different interpretations, with the
First Descender and King Irmin. But if we go really hard on the copium, maybe Mr. Nine is squishing
two characters together. Like how when you're 10 and you make an OC named Serena Videl Lunartemis,
and she's a moon princess with a power level over 9,000 but she's definitely not Sailor Moon
or Goku! I mean, Mr. Nine kind of does that anyway with his world building. He made the Asura, who are
figures in Dharmic religions, come from Jotunheim, which is a realm from Norse mythology, and it's all in a
book with a Liyue setting, so why why the heck not?! Okay, sorry, uh, but seriously. The last important
thing here is the potential implication about King Irmin if the Halberd-Descender thing holds any
water. Is, uh, Mr. Nine... trying to imply that the King of Khaenri'ah was a Descender? The only explanations
I can come up with are creative and desperate, at best. And the only Descender I can think of that
would fit the description is maaaaybe the Second? Keep in mind we're still in Crazy Town USA right
now. Like Khaenri'ah was probably established around the time of the Second Throne's war, and I think it's
Neat that the Goddess of Flowers describes the war as destructive, but also breaking the shackles.
And this wording is very similar to the breaking of shackles in an abandoned note. None of this
is any evidence nor is it new or groundbreaking information, so for now I'll just add it to
my running list of who is King Irmin is anyway because if I make a video for every possible
angle about King Irmin I'm eventually going to have to to get it right... right? You may have noticed
I didn't actually even try to guess who the Third Descender is. Truth is I have no idea and this
garbage book didn't even help me with that. So here's my guess. It's none other than Serena Videl
Lunartemis herself. I'm just kidding. Capitano is the Third Descender. This has nothing to do with the
book. He's faceless because his body was used to make the Gnoses, and now he's actually a ghost
in a suit of armor. And he's going to Natlan to resurrect his body since Natlan has the final Gnosis,
and the theme there is the Ode to Resurrection. I'm also kidding about that. or am I? okay now that
I'm done psychologically unraveling thanks so much for watching! uuuh I clearly lost my mind
towards the end there. Please like, comment, and subscribe. Leave a comment with your own theories
about "Shattered Halberd," or Capitano personally suplexing Celestia. And have you checked
your smoke detector batteries recently? okay BYE
