bubala jano did you know that books are still a thing like people not only still read books but actually make books too shocking I know I didn't realize this until fangamer announced a whole new holo night Wanderers journal that would be released alongside the new physical collector's edition of the game this journal is written from the perspective of a new character a ladybug named Elena on their website team cherry explained that this new book would be an epic tome of exploration investigation and lore team cherry has also worked closely with the authors Kari Fry and Ryan Novak to ensure that everything the book would be totally accurate well Kari and Ryan were incredibly generous and sent me an advance copy of the new journal they also sent me a packet of hot dogs for some reason thanks Kerry Fry's artwork really does justice to re Gibson's in-game sprites I mean just look at this drawing of fluke marm that Hall of God's description is starting to make more sense now and all of this artwork is accompanied by Ryan's descriptions of all of the varies friends and foes found in holo night and the amount of lore in this book is staggering first of all this book does a good job at covering most of the lore in the game there isn't much on the end game bosses but the book does go through each area discussing most of the bosses and enemies as well as theorizing about numerous miscellaneous background objects if you're new to hollow Knight lore this is a great read but even lore experts like myself can find a few new tidbits of lore so this book introduces a lot of small pieces of information for example sleeping under whispering roots can give bugs vivid dreams this book also tells us that leg eater is confirmed blind but at the same time this book also gives us information on big events like the timeline of the infection spread through hallow nest I will go through this new information chronologically from where it is in the book for the most part but I will jump around a bit to where needed I'm also going to skip that random chapter on the manatees not sure why that was even in there first up we have an explanation for the hot springs according to Alan uh these Springs are the result of heat seeping up to the surface through underground vents of all the ways that the knight can collect soul in the game the hotsprings have always been the strangest to me according to Ellen ah the hot springs restore the body and soul but I always thought the knight had to pull soul from somewhere else maybe there is soul in the water sort of like how there is soul in the air according to the deep focused charm so I guess by sitting in the water of the night absorbs the soul through osmosis or something the journal makes a note of these strange plants calling them pale ferns now anytime something is called pale we immediately have to think of the pale beings in the kingdoms edge we can see something similar to the pale ferns growing out of the ground there are also these strange vines that expand outwards these seem to be sprouting from where the worms corpse can be found as for why anything like this would be growing in forgotten crossroads I have no idea is this from the white lady I only seem to think that it's just natural so maybe that's the case the journal mentions that the temple of the black egg was fashioned from the shell of an ancient bug now if that's the case then this thing was fucking massive how does a creature that big even exist well I guess the characters in the game are bugs and humans are canonically at least five times bigger than bugs so I guess it's not that big of a deal what is a big deal is how exactly they got the black egg through that door another ancient bug mentioned in the journal is the one found at the top of kingdoms edge some people have been saying that this corpse is the corpse of a worm but we don't know exactly what kind of creature this was maybe it was just a worm but with an O instead of a why have you ever wondered why the grub father has all this random shit in his burrow like seriously masks shards pill or Pokemon dildos from etsy.com well apparently this is a common practice among grubs they like to collect shiny things and hide them in their burrows what I find more interesting is that Alona was apparently finding these grubs and choosing not to free them what an asshole next up apparently all buzz are said to be attracted to the resting places of powerful beings now this kind of makes sense we see one near the white lady's cocoon thing and we also see one at the lake of on but we also see them in the back crown of mar musa rena so you're telling me this oversized kickball of a boss is supposed to be as powerful as the white lady i suppose it's possible wait does this mean benches or powerful beams too now I think it's time we get into a meteor topic the timeline for the infection that afflicted how nest and the surrounding areas has always been incredibly vague but in this book we are actually given a few hints about how things might have progressed there are two sentences stating that the fungal wastes have only recently become impacted by the infection Elena also claims that deep nest has only recently been hit by the infection and that the weavers had only recently left the kingdom she also claims that the doors to the city of tears were closed in an attempt to keep the infection from spreading into the capital the first outbreak of the infection ended with the ceiling of the hall night inside the black egg according to the dung defender despite this effort Halla nest was eventually brought low implying that the infection was still somehow influencing the kingdom from the hunters journal entry for the light seed it appears as though the infection had been seeping down into the ancient basin for quite some time implying that there was infection coming from somewhere up above there is a line from midwife that hints at deep nest infection happening shortly before the events of the game she says that few would seek her services in recent times due to the infection as for the weavers having left holliness recently there is still one Weaver hanging around but I don't know if that really proves anything we can see that young Weaver's did end up getting infected so maybe the weavers left before the sickness could claim the adults now this is where things get weird ellen:oh states that the hive is unmarked by the spread of the infection this can't be true there are several reasons to believe that the hive was hit by the infection first of all all of the enemies explode with that same orange particle effect that regular enemies do and don't say that shit is honey honey doesn't take on a gaseous form if it did I'd be smoking it right now characters like the mantises and dung defender give off white particles when hit because they aren't infected the bees do not do this second the whispering route in the hive uses the phrase light familiar and light is usually to the radiance third the hive husk which can only be found inside of the hive has the same orange tint in its eyes which confirmed to the infection has at least reached some of the bugs in the hive and finally we have team Kerry confirming that the hive was infected in a reddit AMA after the death of Queen Vespa so why does this passage say that the hive was unmarked by the spread of the infection while there are two possibilities the first possibility is that I actually know the lore better than team cherry this is entirely possible I am pretty smart i watch Rick and Morty the other possibility which i think is more likely is the team cherry knowingly left us in the book we have evidence that team cherry has altered some of the wording on these very pages so I don't think they overlooked this but why would team cherry do that you ask well this book is written by character in the world of how honest which means that she is looking at the world through her own limited perspective let's be real of course team cherry wouldn't hand us a whole smorgasbord of mouth-watering new lore on a silver platter at least not without making us work for it I don't think everything we find this book should be taken as canon as some of these claims are just elinoz musings about how oddest maybe team cherry should have put an asterisk next to that totally accurate remark but that doesn't mean we should throw this whole book away as far as I can tell this is the only blatantly wrong statement in the book and it still offers interesting insight into the lore simple things that I had never even thought of so while this book might have at least one lore inaccuracy I still think we can glean some information from it well with that out of the way let's move on to the crystal peak now this is an area of the game that I've neglected in my videos but honestly there's a lot to talk about here the biggest question regarding this area revolves around the crystals basically there's a strong connection between these crystals and the radiance first the journal entry for the crystal eyes husks mentions that there's a hidden power within the crystals they can be used to fire searing beams of light and they also apparently sing this is also mentioned by milla who claims that she can hear the crystals singing and then she can almost make it out and we all know what happens to her after that the journal entry for the crystal guardian also mentions that it can only see light inside of its crystal prison and that it shoots blazing beams of light the word blazing has only used three other times in the entire game and each instance refers to the radiance and during the enraged Guardian fight we can see that it has dream nail dialogue that is written in all caps this appears to be the radiances voice since her dream no dialogue is also in all caps a lot of the dream no dialogue for the enemies in this area reference light and the whispering route mentioned something about a refracted light and now we have L&S saying that this refracted light is mesmerizing so I think we can safely say at this point that the crystals in the crystal peak are somehow connected to the radiance is light it's not clear whether the energy found inside these crystals are from the reigns's light or some other source the deep focus charm implies that crystals might be able to draw in soul somehow I'd recommend you check out this lore doc from metal if you want to read more about this theory but what does the crystal peek have to do with the radiance well it all has to do with hallow nests crowd this is one of the most interesting pages in the book Elna describes the glyphs in this area is giving off a radiant light she says the glyphs were likely from a civilization that predates how honest she mentions how some of the glyphs seem to display winged creatures which sure she also theorizes that these glyphs were made because the civilization wanted to be remembered by future civilizations now there is a lot to break down here these glyphs remind me of seals of binding and we know that these seals can be used to preserve something of great importance so I guess it makes sense that it could be used to preserve the memory of a people the seer talks a lot about the importance of being remembered the radiance also mentions that she will not be forgotten the moth race was known for tending graves after all and when the pale King arrived the seer explains that the moths sealed the radiance away by forgetting about her so being remembered is a big part of both tribes tradition so this statue was possibly built by the moths before the pale King arrived there's also a developers note that says this lingering statue is what led to the outbreak of the infection the fact that this is lingering implies that it was built before the pale Kings arrival however the statue itself contains a pale or and is resting atop a cliff that features a design common in Halla nests architecture so maybe this monument was made after the radiance was sealed away and those hushed whispers of faith that seer talks about are referring to the same people who built this monument in secret ellen:oh claims that the seer is helping the knight to strike back against the radiance for causing the infection but in the game all that is ever stated is that the seer is looking for the wielder a figure her people have been dreaming about for a long time not sure how Alona would know more than us on this matter I guess she can actually talk unlike the knight so maybe she just straight-up asked her now this next bit is something that makes so much sense I can't believe I never noticed it before in the cast off shell where the Kings brain is found there is this strange object Helena theorized is that it might be some sort of egg and looking at it now I can't believe I missed this this was probably what The Pale King hatched out of after molting his worm form if this is true then this puts to rest the whole idea that the pale King took on a third form after his death in the white palace since there's no broken egg anywhere near him Elna also mentions that arcane eggs are jet-black which I guess makes it even more likely that they are made of void I know I've said before that black doesn't equal void but shut up another small detail we got was an explanation for what these things are Elna believes that they were used to extract soul from bugs and inject them into other bugs that could explain why the room is filled with follies and mistakes which were the results of experiments with soul gone wrong the machine itself also contains the spell twister charm which reflects the desires of the soul sanctum for mastery over Souls the journal also says that the Blue Lake is filled with blue-hued minerals explaining why the lake is a perfect place for quarrel drown himself we also get confirmation that bar Doon is a caterpillar not sure that was in question but it's not confirmed anywhere else we also learned the fog Canyon was once a part of green path this isn't stated anywhere in the game from what I can tell but it is alluded to with green path music lightly playing in the fog Caden region of the world map Alana also takes a stroll into the abyss and somehow survives she gives us a very interesting description for these strange egg looking objects claiming that they are colorless she also says that it seems they were broken from within by a powerful force the comet that stands out most of me is the claim that the eggs are colorless I always thought these eggs were just completely black Elin also makes note of the sea avoid saying in acts with a mind of its own so if the sea acts with a singular mind then that means that the sea avoid isn't full of a bunch of individual void tendrils but instead is the collective mind of the void itself that kind of weakens my theory that the void tendrils were created by the ancient civilization but at the same time Ellen also calls the void murky water what the fuck kind of water has she been drinking Elna also claims that the abyss lighthouse was built atop a natural spire it certainly does look like they just stuck the lighthouse part onto a pre-existing structure but does that mean that this thing formed naturally this design is the same that we see in the background of the main room in the abyss where the vessel shells are also underneath that we can see a pattern very similar to the one where the void tendril entry can be found if all of this is naturally occurring it would tie in to elder bugs common about the rocks down in the ancient basin possessing a will of their own there is one strange detail regarding how Elaina interacts with the lore tablet right outside of the abyss basically Elna says that she is unable to decipher the tablet now these tablets are very unique in that they say higher beings these words are for you alone from dev notes ama's and the king cell description it seems as though higher beings is a phrase reserved for characters like the pale king the radiance and the white lady but it seems a bit odd to me that these tablets would only exist for the benefit of like three people there are a total of five lore tablets that use the phrase higher beings one in the howling cliffs three in the Kings pass and one in the ancient basin it isn't really clear who these tablets were made for but there is a clue when the second lore tablet in the Kings pass the tablet says let all bask in your majesty for only this kingdom could produce one such as you so according to this lore tablet how unless somehow produces higher beings I don't think the pale King was making godlike creatures since he seemed to be interested in ruling how honest unopposed this has led me to believe that the phrase higher beings is referring to bugs that the pale King has granted higher thought to through his beacon so what does this mean for Ellen ah why can't she read the tablets I'm pretty sure she's an intelligent bug she probably even watches Rick and Morty maybe this tablet can only be read by bugs that were specifically granted higher thought through the pale Kings beacon so bugs like Alana tea so cloth though and corna fur would be unable to read it since their intelligence is not native to howl honest I'm pretty shaky on this though so feel free to tear my reasoning to shreds and that's about it for new content there are quite a few things to think about with this new book it adds a little bit of information to the world of how honest giving us more thoughtful descriptions of background objects and environments no one in game says shit about holliness crown so it's nice to hear at least one bugs perspective on it I do wish Eleanor would have told us a little bit more about her own past she kind of lacks the backstory we see an other traveller such as Oh cloth and tea so but I guess she's just trying to be objective I'm sure people wouldn't be too happy if I started talking about my first marriage in the middle of my analytical lore video now like I mentioned before it appears as though there is a mistake in this book and it's entirely possible the team chair left the mistake in the book since Alana is a character from the world of how honest who doesn't have all of the information this means we have to take her claims with an air of caution despite this most of the information in this book seems pretty reasonable for the most part enough raises a lot of things as poss abilities with a claim about the hive being the only objective claim that I think is downright false regardless it's great to be able to hold a physical book about Halle Knight in my hands and it looks great on any bookshelf - of course there is one final piece of lore to discuss team cherry has finally listened to our cries and given us confirmation of one of the most heated debates in Halle Knight lore discussion that's right pickles are finally canon just like in Rick and Morty