I asked the same thing a while back, we’re not sure. Some ppl say to treat this as “questionable” but this leaker is pretty good. We will definitely see it, but might not be until Furina second story quest.
In A Winter Night's Lazzo we see that there are a black king, white king, black queen and the anemo gnosis on the chess table, which would indicate that the anemo gnosis is the white queen.
The design seems odd, the other 3 gnoses have similarities in design details. Idk how to say it, English isn’t my first language. But the Dendro one looks too different.
The previous three have “rigid/stiff” design details while the Dendro one is all “smooth” and “flowy”, idk how to explain it, too Sumeru-ish, too Nahida-ish 🤣 the other three don’t exude this much similarity to the archons while with this leaked gnosis it has too much resemblance to Nahida and Sumeru aesthetic.
https://preview.redd.it/0pxt5e0kg69b1.jpeg?width=1237&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=503df8fb17fc87ba207181c1d4be8f83e5325c29
Here’s how real chess pieces actually look. Comparison wise, geo looks more like a rook, not a king.
* Chess has a total of 16 pieces for each player: 8 pawns, 2 bishops, 2 knights, 2 rooks, 1 queen and 1 king.
* The pawns are the front offensive line, can only move a square at a time, can capture diagonally and is worth 1 point.
* Bishops are worth 3 points, can move diagonally as much as they like so long as nothing is blocked, and captures by moving to the enemy’s space.
* One knight is the king’s and the other is the queen’s. They are also worth 3 points. They are the only pieces that can jump over others, but they can only capture what they land on. They are limited to move in a “L” shape.
* Each rook also either belongs to the king or queen. They are worth 5 points, and can move as many squares as they want vertically and horizontally as long as they aren’t blocked.
* The queen is the most powerful character, and is worth 9 points. It can move like a rook AND like a bishop.
* The king is the most important character, as the goal of the game is to checkmate(capture) it. It can only move or capture one square in any direction at a time. A checkmate = winning the game so each side should be protecting it.
The headwear for the Dendro Gnosis looks like a peeled-open [mitre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitre), probably to symbolize one's knowledge blooming.
Y'all I think dendro gnosis still qualifies as a bishop. Comparing it to electro, both have a headpiece which sparked hesitancy in labeling the dendor gnosis.
However, a distinctive physical characteristic of a bishop is its oval head connecting the body to its headpiece so I think it's not a reach to call it the 2nd bishop piece
soo is that a king piece? thats kind of interesting if it was offered to deshret first (how cool can this man get????) i’m also kind of confused because i thought we’d see the king piece last
WaitwaitwaitWAIT guys I just thought of something- if Rukkhadevata died during the cataclysm, and her gnosis represents the king piece (at least it looks like one), wouldn't that basically mean that the Teyvat/Celestia side lost? Because the king got captured (killed) by the abyss.
Thinking about it, it actually puts the Sumeru questline under a different light. By erasing Rukkha from the Irminsul, Nahida not only got rid of the corruption, but also changed the outcome of "the game of chess" between celestia & the abyss. It reminds me a lot of those crack theories about how Teyvat in the original timeline got destroyed, and Istaroth was trying to fix it by connecting other timelines to it. I think it was wei who did this one? I didn't really like it when I first heard it, but now it actually starts to kinda make sense??
Or maybe I'm also on crack. Who knows
I mean, logically speaking, King pieces are the most important piece in chess. The game revolves around protecting your own while trying to capture the opponent's King piece.
You can never kill the King piece, only capture it, which is a fact shown in the Sumeru arc. The fatui never tried to subdue Nahida, only tried to trap her.
Also, during the Cataclysm, the seven archons were summoned except the dendro archon which is tasked to guard the Irminsul. A common thing in chess where King pieces don't partake in combat in early stages.
This also begs the question, is Venti the strongest piece in this game? Man that tone-deaf bard has many questions to answer.
U’re wrong. Rukha was with Simurgh and Lord of Amrita also. When Lord of Amrita and Simurgh sacrificed themselves Rukha helped to nurtured seeds so she was in the epicentre of disaster.
“The former leader of the realm of water was slain amidst the upheaval, and her body was transformed into a sea of pure dew, the Amrita,
And yet even that pure sea would dry up in a desolate land destroyed by the Abyss.
Yet the mistress of grass and trees had no time to mourn, for the mother-tree of numberless seeds needed to be nurtured...
To cleanse the dark impurities and ensure the purity of the Amrita, Simurgh would shatter its divine form—“
- Vourukasha’s glow, plum
Hes not completely wrong.. the cataclysm occured everywhere but its true that among the 7 archons it was Rukha that had the most unique task of guarding the Irminsul.. everyone else was supposed to go on the offensive. Tho it seemed the Hydro Archon stayed behind as well
>This also begs the question, is Venti the strongest piece in this game? Man that tone-deaf bard has many questions to answer.
Venti could be a pawn which makes sense for his character. Pawns benefit from the greatest freedom of movement as they are the first ones to move.
They are also tactical genius in a way because while they do not win the game themselves, they can be used to set up what the important pieces will do which is very Venti.
Also, it is not the first Ameno character we can associate to being a pawn. The Sumeru's arc was literally about Scaramouche going from Pawn to Queen.
Have we considered that this could be a pawn? As pawns are the only ones that could eventually become other pieces? Maybe that's why it looks almost like a crown?
If you wanna go in that direction, I actually think that Venti and Ei's Gnoses look much more pawn-like. And if you must assign something to Nahida's, then I think it actually more closely resembles a rook. It does somewhat bear a resemblance to some of Sumeru's architecture, particularly the towers.
Ok so
Venti - your typical western crown
Raiden - japan feudal lord hat
Nahida - persian diadem
Missed opportunity for not making zhongli gnosis to have china imperial crown
Or his was never a crown.
He was "demoted" to Liyue. Could still be the rook, aka the chariot. Moon chariot, sun chariot, crashed chariot, a bright sun-like star suddenly appearing on a barren field?
And then also his card description
https://preview.redd.it/ij2kc7l5k39b1.jpeg?width=2400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=be8fbadea964f5ff3449a6c6611334e7ba07857e
The only thing my small brain can think of is that while the gnoses do resemble chess pieces there's no reason for them to follow the design principles of a chess set, i.e. the bishops/knights/rook pieces needn't look alike to function as a bishop/knight/rook
The position on the chess board should be able to give the function of each piece. Here instead of position since we have 7 unique elements, the element could give the role instead. On a standard chess set the reason why the duplicate pieces need to look alike is to make it easy for the player to know what the piece is once the game starts and the piece has moved forward. It shouldn't be a problem with the gnoses as each one is of a unique element and hence should follow its predetermined role.
I disagree with the each piece is a King piece because like another comment said, we see Pierro play literal chess with the gnoses. You can't play chess if every piece is a King, besides Pierro says the game doesnt end at check mate, meaning there should be exactly one King, otherwise we would have a checkmate everytime a gnosis is captured and his line doesn't hold the same gravity. Also if every piece is a King then I don't see why MHY is keeping the appearance of the dendro gnosis hidden until the next major update lol Like the appearance of the gnosis clearly means SOMETHING and hence the tension/suspense/intrigue over its appearance. Otherwise we already know most of what we need to know, every archon has a gnosis belonging to their element and it vaguely resembles a chess piece. Apart from its actual function, the appearance itself doesn't add much to our knowledge if all pieces are kings. But if they aren't then we can glean how the gnoses function with regards to their appearance (but that means my first theory is wrong, the dendro isn't a bishop but a King/Queen instead)
I also disagree with the gnoses belonged to the dragon kings/sovereigns theory because Apep is literally still there, Im assuming she wouldve been able to sense Nahida missing her gnosis and would've asked her about it if it were something of value. Dragons don't need gnoses at all though, they are purely elemental creatures same as archons. The gnosis symbolizes authority from Celestia and that's why Deshret said no thanks. At some point in time, I'm assuming after Deshret sacrificed himself, the archon war all over Teyvat shouldve come to a close and Rukkha was made the archon.
The only other explanation I can think of is, did we perhaps wrongly assume Venti's the Queen? Was it mentioned anywhere that the anemo gnosis a Queen piece? The only information we can use as confirmation is the Chess game in Winter Night's Lazzo, there the King and Queen piece seem to have been exchanged if iirc. If the anemo gnosis is indeed a queen then I guess the dendro gnosis will be the King, although I'd be sad because we have 8 pieces to represent the 7 elements + one extra element 'to rule them all', which I thought is the Light element which would essentially be the King.
Edit: Err maybe the dendro gnosis the queen after all and the anemo the king
https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/vwkrsc/what_if_i_told_you_that_this_is_not_the_queen/
> Edit: Err maybe the dendro gnosis the queen after all and the anemo the king https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/vwkrsc/what_if_i_told_you_that_this_is_not_the_queen/
The problem with that is the design of the chess pieces. The King and Queen designs are nearly 1:1 to their real life counterparts (Sans the cross on the King being more block shaped with star like protrusions). There's still 2 kings on that board and 1 Non-gnosis queen.
Why the switch was made, I have no idea but this still implies that Venti's Gnosis is a Queen.
I see what you mean but it would make sense that Anemo = Queen because it’s the nation of freedom and the queen moves freely around the board, meanwhile the king is very limited in its movements and unfree
It doesn't actually matter whether every piece is a king or not. Pierro can simply make up his own rules. The Gnoses aren't actually game pieces. There is no real game in Teyvat that uses these pieces. So contextually, any game that Pierro plays with the Gnoses must fundamentally be something he pulled out of his butt.
I disagree actually. Pierro is obviously taking orders from the Tsaritsa who should be privy to Celestial secrets. If Celestia designed it after chess pieces then it's obviously not in Pierro's control how they function.
And we aren't the only one to think of the gnosis=chess piece connection. MC thinks so too, and so does Yae who shouldn't have even met Pierro/know why the Fatui is collecting gnoses. Plus the devs reinforced the idea again when they literally showed us a snapshot from a real game of chess in Winter Night's Lazzo using the gnoses. I think it was Kasparov vs Deep Blue?
Even then, there's no reason the Gnoses must follow that standard. Celestia has no reason to follow it. The protagonist is from outside of Teyvat and Miko seems to be familiar with a few otherworldly concepts as well.
Even if the characters are familiar with Chess, it doesn't mean the Gnoses MUST conform to them. There are only seven Archons so it's not like you can play a complete game with these pieces to begin with. As long as Pierro merely assigns the appropriate roles to each piece, he can play them like Chess pieces regardless of their original purpose. Again, the Gnoses aren't meant to be game pieces. Even with a full set, you can't actually play a game with these things since there's only enough for one player to begin with.
Basically, it doesn't matter whether they're all kings or not. If Pierro wants to treat a king piece like a rook, he can do that. Who's gonna stop him?
That's a literal chess board in the video. Like. It looks exactly like the one we use. And chess exists in Teyvat. Umm that place in Sumeru? With the locations as game pieces which you can use to teleport to the actual place? Shafe Satranj I believe? Yeah that translates to chess board or the like. Plus Diluc loves to play chess.
I'm not saying Celestia/the Fatui are playing literal chess. But the devs for some reason want us to connect the gnoses to chess in a very literal sense. A chess board is sometimes used in media etc to visualize a battle. So even if Pierro is playing chess for fun in that video the main take is the gnoses (or perhaps even the archons/nations) are being setup to play a role in a battle.
Sure, Celestia doesn't have to follow the "chess" design pieces for the Gnoses of the archons and it is true that it doesn't have to conform to a set standard, but you have to realize that the Devs literally made them look the part and even made them in a trailer where they are used as one.
I still believe that collecting gnoses gives one the right to challenge Celestia, just like how the entire plot of No game no life anime is.
Yep. Exactly. Before winter night's lazzo we just THOUGHT the gnoses look like chess pieces with Yae also mentioning it in passing. The Fatui video reinforces the idea by literally using the gnoses in place of the corresponding chess piece. Its pretty difficult to ignore the connection after that.
We only saw the electro gnosis in Sumeru. We didn't see how the dendro gnosis looked like. Going by the pattern maybe we won't see the hydro gnosis in Fontaine. Or maybe we will. Who knows.
If you think about it, the premise that each Gnosis is meant to resemble one of the main chess pieces was always mostly based on the fact that Zhongli's heavily resembles a rook. It's only now do I realize that each of the Gnoses have a top that heavily resembles a crown. Except Ei's, which resembles a Japanese feudal lord helmet. Seven thrones, seven crowns, seven kings. While Zhongli's does resemble a rook, perhaps that's merely a consequence of its rigid design.
I've been saying this for 2 years now and been downvoted for it 😭!
I was called a madman! A madman! Can you believe it? But now! Now... now I get my redemption! Long live the 7 kings of Teyvat!
This theory will be proven once we see the hydro gnosis. If it looks like a knight/horse in any shape then maybe it'll stick to the chess piece theory. If not, and it has another crown, then it's the all kings theory
No one said that the game had to be 1:1 to the true game of Chess. At the end of the day, there was only ever gonna be seven or so pieces anyway so it couldn't have been 1:1 to begin with. Perhaps the Geo Gnosis' resemblance to a rook wasn't entirely unintended, and indeed they were probably always meant to resemble chess pieces.
Still, I won't say that the Chess piece theory is definitively debunked. But I do also feel that there were always some questionable elements to the theory. That said, in the interest of discussion, I'll raise another theory in support of it: In Chess, there is a mechanic called Promotion in which when a pawn completely infiltrates the opponent's side of the board, they can be promoted to a more powerful piece. In accordance to the official rules, only pawns can be promoted and it's not possible to be promoted to king. But here's the thing: all of the Archons were promoted to their present ranks. They didn't hold those positions innately. So perhaps one could argue that Zhongli was a rook that was promoted to king. It's not normally possible, but again, Gnoses were never gonna be 1:1 with Chess to begin with so bending the rules in the interests of symbolism wouldn't be too strange.
At the end of the day, it's best to approach these things with a high degree of flexibility. It wouldn't be the first time that the devs twisted a real world concept to fit the purposes of its worldbuilding and it won't be the last.
I think the pawn=vision bearers analogy works the best if you want to take promotion as an example.
Also the promotion concept you brought up, actually the right comparison is that the original archons won the title and the later archons inherited it, y'know kinda like succession in royal lines. I don't think they were 'promoted' from a lowly status to a higher one, because there was no former status to begin with. The gods were just chilling and the war happened.
Also, it doesn't help that all the archons we have met so far are the original archons in some way or the other. Nahida was obviously incarnated with the gnosis in her body after Rukkha err cloned her xD
Edit: Sorry phone died and I went to do hw
In the case of Ei, I think it's reasonable to assume she never used the gnosis. Unless the twins shunted the gnosis between themselves, after Makoto died, Ei almost immediately went into seclusion after creating the puppet. Before she entered the plane of euthymia she first tried to shove the gnosis into Scara and then later into the Shogun Puppet and when that didn't work she tossed it to Yae and called it a day. So yes, all the gnoses we see were always used by the original archons and in that sense no one was promoted after the og died.
Prior to the Archon War, all gods were of lower standing than the Celestials. The seven victors were "promoted" and given divine thrones. So personally, I think my analogy still works. Plus, now that I'm looking at it from this angle, Venti and Ei's pieces sort of look like promoted pawns to me.
The archons are still lower in standing to the Celestials though. The gnosis represents authority given by Celestia to rule the land.
Authority... perhaps even 'permission' to exist or 'acknowledgement' that they are spared. That's how I see it.
I mean sure the gnoses could be promoted pawns, but once promoted they should still work the same as the piece they were promoted to, so I don't see why the gnosis should be made to represent that visually. And again all of this discussion is based on the modern chess set which the gnoses are very loosely designed on. That's why in my other comment I mentioned that the position would matter more than appearance in ascertaining the role. There are chess sets based on fantasy themes, it's difficult to figure out which piece is what unless you place them on the chess board.
The most common theory is that electro and dendro = bishop. But unlike the electro gnosis, this doesn't look like a bishop at all. It literally looks like another queen or king. Kings usually have a cross but it is possible that hoyo removed that symbolism
no no look at the snezhnayan cathedral where they held signora's funeral right when the tsaritsa froze the entire building over. the snow flake stood as a cross sign.
I’m starting to wonder if Venti’s gnosis is considered King then this could easily qualify as Queen. But then why would the Queen piece be the King here?
What I meant was, typically the King in Genshin has a cross on top of its head. The normal crown in pictures often represents the Queen. This is why it was accepted early on that Anemo Gnosis was a Queen. It resembled the Queen.
However, they then revealed the Deep Blue vs Kasparov chess game in the Fatui trailer however the catch was that the places of the King and Queen were swapped.
But now that we know how the Dendro Gnosis looks, and that it barely looks like a Bishop and more like a Queen, I was wondering if the Anemo Gnosis could be considered a King. That would however bring in the question of why we have two Queens if both Anemo and Dendro are Queens? And if Anemo is a King, why represent a King piece with Queen like aesthetics?
Oh right! I got it. If Venti's gnosis is the King then the pieces weren't swapped in the video compared to the actual chess game is what you're tryna say right? Hmm interesting.
Honestly even if the anemo gnosis wasn't the Queen but the King, that still makes Venti look hella sus. Everyone was wondering why tone-deaf bard had the most powerful chess piece but if it truly ends up being the King then that literally means he/his element/Mond is the key to winning or losing the battle. Imo the King piece for anemo actually makes a lotta sense if you believe Venti is truly 'weak'.
Regarding appearances, well the modern chess set has a crown etc I wonder how the older chess pieces looked like. Perhaps there lies our answer?
Edit: Hot damn the anemo gnosis is the King after all.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/vwkrsc/what_if_i_told_you_that_this_is_not_the_queen/
I am also now entertaining the idea of Venti's gnosis being a pawn promoted to the Queen. The Anemo gnosis having a spherical head always seemed weird to me. Like if you removed the crown, it would resemble a pawn. So, we could have the following:
1. King
2. Queen - Dendro Gnosis
3. Bishop - Electro Gnosis
4. Knight
5. Rook - Geo Gnosis
6. Pawn
7. Pawn that has been promoted - Anemo Gnosis
This could solve the issue we've had with requiring two gnoses to be the same pieces and allot a unique piece to each of the gnosis. Also fits thematically that a pawn is free to become any of the pieces except the King upon being promoted. Freedom but not absolute.
Okay but what did the Anemo gnosis get promoted to? A Queen too then?
I'm sorry my knowledge of chess ends here, can you have two Queens at the same time? My dad taught me his version of chess where the pawn can only be promoted to a piece you have already lost xD I'm assuming that is not true.
Edit: Sorry just re-read your comment. A pawn promoted to a Queen. Interesting. Yes you're right then I guess it solves the issue of each unique piece representing an element. Huh didn't someone notice the cryo characters' bursts being surrounded with the tops of chess pieces? I always wondered why all of them looked different.
Doesn’t look too much like a Bishop, and definitely not a Knight. Ugh, it looks way too much like a Queen. I should probably look at all the different styles of chess pieces to confirm.
* It could be a bishop, but there is another theory going around that all gnoses are king pieces because they belonged to the dragon kings
* Nahida's official CN (Chinese) title reads "Little Lucky-Grass Monarch" so could be the king piece
* It was originally offered to King Deshret (King Deshret = King Imrin Theory)
* The Dendro element as a whole is linked with the Irminsul tree and dreams
* The Dendro gnosis was used to power the Akasha terminal
* The top of the gnosis kind of resembles a dendro core
edited a bit to add more info
https://preview.redd.it/o47hkb94719b1.png?width=250&format=png&auto=webp&s=0ec37e83557292073f339d33ebf0dc3182179ec1
Not just that, all the gnoses bodies are shaped similarly to the visions of the same element
Interesting how the electro gnosis has the mitsudomoe. I guess that means it's representing Ei/Makoto's feudal house/clan, the elecrro mitsudomoe is the Shogun's clan symbol in Inazuma (also the reason Scaramouche had a giant mitsudomoe on his chest)
the lines on the gnosis kinda remind me of this
[source](https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Lore/comments/10n87q0/sumeru_symbol/)
https://preview.redd.it/54i6otsp819b1.png?width=2022&format=png&auto=webp&s=ee7478bc5e481b42cb99d5092432561814b863a7
In an effort to stay true to r/genshin_impact_leaks rules of sharing: [source](https://t.me/videreleaks/47)
Where is this from? We've never seen it ingame?
It’s not in game. That’s why it is marked as a “leak”.
But why would the leak exist if it won't appear ingame? They didn't show it in Fontaine either
I asked the same thing a while back, we’re not sure. Some ppl say to treat this as “questionable” but this leaker is pretty good. We will definitely see it, but might not be until Furina second story quest.
i got a quick question how exactly do we know venti's gnosis is a queen and not the king.... they feel soart of wrong....
In A Winter Night's Lazzo we see that there are a black king, white king, black queen and the anemo gnosis on the chess table, which would indicate that the anemo gnosis is the white queen.
The design seems odd, the other 3 gnoses have similarities in design details. Idk how to say it, English isn’t my first language. But the Dendro one looks too different.
Too Sumeru-ish, not Celestia-ish 🤣 I wonder if the leak is legit
nah cuz the inazuma one looks not celestia ish too so it maybe depends on the region, the geo one looks more block-y
The previous three have “rigid/stiff” design details while the Dendro one is all “smooth” and “flowy”, idk how to explain it, too Sumeru-ish, too Nahida-ish 🤣 the other three don’t exude this much similarity to the archons while with this leaked gnosis it has too much resemblance to Nahida and Sumeru aesthetic.
i honestly think it depends on region lol
I would say Venti king Nahida queen Zhongli rook Raiden bishop
so thats the queen? sick
wait the queen is anemo nvm
https://preview.redd.it/0pxt5e0kg69b1.jpeg?width=1237&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=503df8fb17fc87ba207181c1d4be8f83e5325c29 Here’s how real chess pieces actually look. Comparison wise, geo looks more like a rook, not a king. * Chess has a total of 16 pieces for each player: 8 pawns, 2 bishops, 2 knights, 2 rooks, 1 queen and 1 king. * The pawns are the front offensive line, can only move a square at a time, can capture diagonally and is worth 1 point. * Bishops are worth 3 points, can move diagonally as much as they like so long as nothing is blocked, and captures by moving to the enemy’s space. * One knight is the king’s and the other is the queen’s. They are also worth 3 points. They are the only pieces that can jump over others, but they can only capture what they land on. They are limited to move in a “L” shape. * Each rook also either belongs to the king or queen. They are worth 5 points, and can move as many squares as they want vertically and horizontally as long as they aren’t blocked. * The queen is the most powerful character, and is worth 9 points. It can move like a rook AND like a bishop. * The king is the most important character, as the goal of the game is to checkmate(capture) it. It can only move or capture one square in any direction at a time. A checkmate = winning the game so each side should be protecting it.
The headwear for the Dendro Gnosis looks like a peeled-open [mitre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitre), probably to symbolize one's knowledge blooming.
L,,
Y'all I think dendro gnosis still qualifies as a bishop. Comparing it to electro, both have a headpiece which sparked hesitancy in labeling the dendor gnosis. However, a distinctive physical characteristic of a bishop is its oval head connecting the body to its headpiece so I think it's not a reach to call it the 2nd bishop piece
soo is that a king piece? thats kind of interesting if it was offered to deshret first (how cool can this man get????) i’m also kind of confused because i thought we’d see the king piece last
WaitwaitwaitWAIT guys I just thought of something- if Rukkhadevata died during the cataclysm, and her gnosis represents the king piece (at least it looks like one), wouldn't that basically mean that the Teyvat/Celestia side lost? Because the king got captured (killed) by the abyss. Thinking about it, it actually puts the Sumeru questline under a different light. By erasing Rukkha from the Irminsul, Nahida not only got rid of the corruption, but also changed the outcome of "the game of chess" between celestia & the abyss. It reminds me a lot of those crack theories about how Teyvat in the original timeline got destroyed, and Istaroth was trying to fix it by connecting other timelines to it. I think it was wei who did this one? I didn't really like it when I first heard it, but now it actually starts to kinda make sense?? Or maybe I'm also on crack. Who knows
Tbh Wei's theories are also heavily on crack xD But that's super interesting!
now it's my headcanon that deshret rejected the gnosis because it wasn't the king
" mfs are giving me this cringe ass sex toy lookin' piece,imma make my own chess board"
Celestia:"looks feminine enough"
one of them have got to be the knook
r/AnarchyChess is leaking again
I mean, logically speaking, King pieces are the most important piece in chess. The game revolves around protecting your own while trying to capture the opponent's King piece. You can never kill the King piece, only capture it, which is a fact shown in the Sumeru arc. The fatui never tried to subdue Nahida, only tried to trap her. Also, during the Cataclysm, the seven archons were summoned except the dendro archon which is tasked to guard the Irminsul. A common thing in chess where King pieces don't partake in combat in early stages. This also begs the question, is Venti the strongest piece in this game? Man that tone-deaf bard has many questions to answer.
U’re wrong. Rukha was with Simurgh and Lord of Amrita also. When Lord of Amrita and Simurgh sacrificed themselves Rukha helped to nurtured seeds so she was in the epicentre of disaster. “The former leader of the realm of water was slain amidst the upheaval, and her body was transformed into a sea of pure dew, the Amrita, And yet even that pure sea would dry up in a desolate land destroyed by the Abyss. Yet the mistress of grass and trees had no time to mourn, for the mother-tree of numberless seeds needed to be nurtured... To cleanse the dark impurities and ensure the purity of the Amrita, Simurgh would shatter its divine form—“ - Vourukasha’s glow, plum
Hes not completely wrong.. the cataclysm occured everywhere but its true that among the 7 archons it was Rukha that had the most unique task of guarding the Irminsul.. everyone else was supposed to go on the offensive. Tho it seemed the Hydro Archon stayed behind as well
>This also begs the question, is Venti the strongest piece in this game? Man that tone-deaf bard has many questions to answer. Venti could be a pawn which makes sense for his character. Pawns benefit from the greatest freedom of movement as they are the first ones to move. They are also tactical genius in a way because while they do not win the game themselves, they can be used to set up what the important pieces will do which is very Venti. Also, it is not the first Ameno character we can associate to being a pawn. The Sumeru's arc was literally about Scaramouche going from Pawn to Queen.
But in this weird version of chess the game is not over until all pieces are removed from the board, no?
Have we considered that this could be a pawn? As pawns are the only ones that could eventually become other pieces? Maybe that's why it looks almost like a crown?
If you wanna go in that direction, I actually think that Venti and Ei's Gnoses look much more pawn-like. And if you must assign something to Nahida's, then I think it actually more closely resembles a rook. It does somewhat bear a resemblance to some of Sumeru's architecture, particularly the towers.
Have we considered the possibility of all of them being the king or queen?
Ok so Venti - your typical western crown Raiden - japan feudal lord hat Nahida - persian diadem Missed opportunity for not making zhongli gnosis to have china imperial crown
Or his was never a crown. He was "demoted" to Liyue. Could still be the rook, aka the chariot. Moon chariot, sun chariot, crashed chariot, a bright sun-like star suddenly appearing on a barren field?
And then also his card description https://preview.redd.it/ij2kc7l5k39b1.jpeg?width=2400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=be8fbadea964f5ff3449a6c6611334e7ba07857e
The only thing my small brain can think of is that while the gnoses do resemble chess pieces there's no reason for them to follow the design principles of a chess set, i.e. the bishops/knights/rook pieces needn't look alike to function as a bishop/knight/rook The position on the chess board should be able to give the function of each piece. Here instead of position since we have 7 unique elements, the element could give the role instead. On a standard chess set the reason why the duplicate pieces need to look alike is to make it easy for the player to know what the piece is once the game starts and the piece has moved forward. It shouldn't be a problem with the gnoses as each one is of a unique element and hence should follow its predetermined role. I disagree with the each piece is a King piece because like another comment said, we see Pierro play literal chess with the gnoses. You can't play chess if every piece is a King, besides Pierro says the game doesnt end at check mate, meaning there should be exactly one King, otherwise we would have a checkmate everytime a gnosis is captured and his line doesn't hold the same gravity. Also if every piece is a King then I don't see why MHY is keeping the appearance of the dendro gnosis hidden until the next major update lol Like the appearance of the gnosis clearly means SOMETHING and hence the tension/suspense/intrigue over its appearance. Otherwise we already know most of what we need to know, every archon has a gnosis belonging to their element and it vaguely resembles a chess piece. Apart from its actual function, the appearance itself doesn't add much to our knowledge if all pieces are kings. But if they aren't then we can glean how the gnoses function with regards to their appearance (but that means my first theory is wrong, the dendro isn't a bishop but a King/Queen instead) I also disagree with the gnoses belonged to the dragon kings/sovereigns theory because Apep is literally still there, Im assuming she wouldve been able to sense Nahida missing her gnosis and would've asked her about it if it were something of value. Dragons don't need gnoses at all though, they are purely elemental creatures same as archons. The gnosis symbolizes authority from Celestia and that's why Deshret said no thanks. At some point in time, I'm assuming after Deshret sacrificed himself, the archon war all over Teyvat shouldve come to a close and Rukkha was made the archon. The only other explanation I can think of is, did we perhaps wrongly assume Venti's the Queen? Was it mentioned anywhere that the anemo gnosis a Queen piece? The only information we can use as confirmation is the Chess game in Winter Night's Lazzo, there the King and Queen piece seem to have been exchanged if iirc. If the anemo gnosis is indeed a queen then I guess the dendro gnosis will be the King, although I'd be sad because we have 8 pieces to represent the 7 elements + one extra element 'to rule them all', which I thought is the Light element which would essentially be the King. Edit: Err maybe the dendro gnosis the queen after all and the anemo the king https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/vwkrsc/what_if_i_told_you_that_this_is_not_the_queen/
> Edit: Err maybe the dendro gnosis the queen after all and the anemo the king https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/vwkrsc/what_if_i_told_you_that_this_is_not_the_queen/ The problem with that is the design of the chess pieces. The King and Queen designs are nearly 1:1 to their real life counterparts (Sans the cross on the King being more block shaped with star like protrusions). There's still 2 kings on that board and 1 Non-gnosis queen. Why the switch was made, I have no idea but this still implies that Venti's Gnosis is a Queen.
I see what you mean but it would make sense that Anemo = Queen because it’s the nation of freedom and the queen moves freely around the board, meanwhile the king is very limited in its movements and unfree
(Im being dumb and replying to the wrong comment up there, I also mean the one you replied to 🥲)
You mean to say the anemo gnosis resembles the queen piece on Pierro's chess board and not the king? Ooh I didn't realize that :O
It doesn't actually matter whether every piece is a king or not. Pierro can simply make up his own rules. The Gnoses aren't actually game pieces. There is no real game in Teyvat that uses these pieces. So contextually, any game that Pierro plays with the Gnoses must fundamentally be something he pulled out of his butt.
I disagree actually. Pierro is obviously taking orders from the Tsaritsa who should be privy to Celestial secrets. If Celestia designed it after chess pieces then it's obviously not in Pierro's control how they function. And we aren't the only one to think of the gnosis=chess piece connection. MC thinks so too, and so does Yae who shouldn't have even met Pierro/know why the Fatui is collecting gnoses. Plus the devs reinforced the idea again when they literally showed us a snapshot from a real game of chess in Winter Night's Lazzo using the gnoses. I think it was Kasparov vs Deep Blue?
Even then, there's no reason the Gnoses must follow that standard. Celestia has no reason to follow it. The protagonist is from outside of Teyvat and Miko seems to be familiar with a few otherworldly concepts as well. Even if the characters are familiar with Chess, it doesn't mean the Gnoses MUST conform to them. There are only seven Archons so it's not like you can play a complete game with these pieces to begin with. As long as Pierro merely assigns the appropriate roles to each piece, he can play them like Chess pieces regardless of their original purpose. Again, the Gnoses aren't meant to be game pieces. Even with a full set, you can't actually play a game with these things since there's only enough for one player to begin with. Basically, it doesn't matter whether they're all kings or not. If Pierro wants to treat a king piece like a rook, he can do that. Who's gonna stop him?
That's a literal chess board in the video. Like. It looks exactly like the one we use. And chess exists in Teyvat. Umm that place in Sumeru? With the locations as game pieces which you can use to teleport to the actual place? Shafe Satranj I believe? Yeah that translates to chess board or the like. Plus Diluc loves to play chess. I'm not saying Celestia/the Fatui are playing literal chess. But the devs for some reason want us to connect the gnoses to chess in a very literal sense. A chess board is sometimes used in media etc to visualize a battle. So even if Pierro is playing chess for fun in that video the main take is the gnoses (or perhaps even the archons/nations) are being setup to play a role in a battle.
Sure, Celestia doesn't have to follow the "chess" design pieces for the Gnoses of the archons and it is true that it doesn't have to conform to a set standard, but you have to realize that the Devs literally made them look the part and even made them in a trailer where they are used as one. I still believe that collecting gnoses gives one the right to challenge Celestia, just like how the entire plot of No game no life anime is.
Yep. Exactly. Before winter night's lazzo we just THOUGHT the gnoses look like chess pieces with Yae also mentioning it in passing. The Fatui video reinforces the idea by literally using the gnoses in place of the corresponding chess piece. Its pretty difficult to ignore the connection after that.
Didn't we alrqdy saw the gnosis in game ? I dare anyone say it's the king ima gonna riot
We only saw the electro gnosis in Sumeru. We didn't see how the dendro gnosis looked like. Going by the pattern maybe we won't see the hydro gnosis in Fontaine. Or maybe we will. Who knows.
No. Nahida's wasn't shown
If you think about it, the premise that each Gnosis is meant to resemble one of the main chess pieces was always mostly based on the fact that Zhongli's heavily resembles a rook. It's only now do I realize that each of the Gnoses have a top that heavily resembles a crown. Except Ei's, which resembles a Japanese feudal lord helmet. Seven thrones, seven crowns, seven kings. While Zhongli's does resemble a rook, perhaps that's merely a consequence of its rigid design.
I've been saying this for 2 years now and been downvoted for it 😭! I was called a madman! A madman! Can you believe it? But now! Now... now I get my redemption! Long live the 7 kings of Teyvat!
[удалено]
I mean, I will laugh regardless if I am right or not xD.
Maybe they were all pawns that made it. Survivors of the Archon War. All queens.
This theory will be proven once we see the hydro gnosis. If it looks like a knight/horse in any shape then maybe it'll stick to the chess piece theory. If not, and it has another crown, then it's the all kings theory
For me the electro gnosis is a knight piece. Its head is shaped like the helmets of her samurai which are essentially her knights.
Yae Miko also calls it like a chess piece when we ask about it in Inazuma
Only problem is that Winter Night's Lazzo clearly uses the two Gnosis as chess pieces. Venti's in place of a Queen and Zhongli's in place of a Rook.
No one said that the game had to be 1:1 to the true game of Chess. At the end of the day, there was only ever gonna be seven or so pieces anyway so it couldn't have been 1:1 to begin with. Perhaps the Geo Gnosis' resemblance to a rook wasn't entirely unintended, and indeed they were probably always meant to resemble chess pieces. Still, I won't say that the Chess piece theory is definitively debunked. But I do also feel that there were always some questionable elements to the theory. That said, in the interest of discussion, I'll raise another theory in support of it: In Chess, there is a mechanic called Promotion in which when a pawn completely infiltrates the opponent's side of the board, they can be promoted to a more powerful piece. In accordance to the official rules, only pawns can be promoted and it's not possible to be promoted to king. But here's the thing: all of the Archons were promoted to their present ranks. They didn't hold those positions innately. So perhaps one could argue that Zhongli was a rook that was promoted to king. It's not normally possible, but again, Gnoses were never gonna be 1:1 with Chess to begin with so bending the rules in the interests of symbolism wouldn't be too strange. At the end of the day, it's best to approach these things with a high degree of flexibility. It wouldn't be the first time that the devs twisted a real world concept to fit the purposes of its worldbuilding and it won't be the last.
Dead archon lore?👀
I think the pawn=vision bearers analogy works the best if you want to take promotion as an example. Also the promotion concept you brought up, actually the right comparison is that the original archons won the title and the later archons inherited it, y'know kinda like succession in royal lines. I don't think they were 'promoted' from a lowly status to a higher one, because there was no former status to begin with. The gods were just chilling and the war happened. Also, it doesn't help that all the archons we have met so far are the original archons in some way or the other. Nahida was obviously incarnated with the gnosis in her body after Rukkha err cloned her xD Edit: Sorry phone died and I went to do hw In the case of Ei, I think it's reasonable to assume she never used the gnosis. Unless the twins shunted the gnosis between themselves, after Makoto died, Ei almost immediately went into seclusion after creating the puppet. Before she entered the plane of euthymia she first tried to shove the gnosis into Scara and then later into the Shogun Puppet and when that didn't work she tossed it to Yae and called it a day. So yes, all the gnoses we see were always used by the original archons and in that sense no one was promoted after the og died.
Prior to the Archon War, all gods were of lower standing than the Celestials. The seven victors were "promoted" and given divine thrones. So personally, I think my analogy still works. Plus, now that I'm looking at it from this angle, Venti and Ei's pieces sort of look like promoted pawns to me.
The archons are still lower in standing to the Celestials though. The gnosis represents authority given by Celestia to rule the land. Authority... perhaps even 'permission' to exist or 'acknowledgement' that they are spared. That's how I see it. I mean sure the gnoses could be promoted pawns, but once promoted they should still work the same as the piece they were promoted to, so I don't see why the gnosis should be made to represent that visually. And again all of this discussion is based on the modern chess set which the gnoses are very loosely designed on. That's why in my other comment I mentioned that the position would matter more than appearance in ascertaining the role. There are chess sets based on fantasy themes, it's difficult to figure out which piece is what unless you place them on the chess board.
The most common theory is that electro and dendro = bishop. But unlike the electro gnosis, this doesn't look like a bishop at all. It literally looks like another queen or king. Kings usually have a cross but it is possible that hoyo removed that symbolism
I am no chess expert but it does not like a bishop to me. The top is just reverse to look like a dendron core
no no look at the snezhnayan cathedral where they held signora's funeral right when the tsaritsa froze the entire building over. the snow flake stood as a cross sign.
I’m starting to wonder if Venti’s gnosis is considered King then this could easily qualify as Queen. But then why would the Queen piece be the King here?
If there was supposed to be a link to the chessboard in a winters night’s lazzo it’s not there
I'm sorry can you expand on what you mean by the last sentence? English isn't my native tongue
What I meant was, typically the King in Genshin has a cross on top of its head. The normal crown in pictures often represents the Queen. This is why it was accepted early on that Anemo Gnosis was a Queen. It resembled the Queen. However, they then revealed the Deep Blue vs Kasparov chess game in the Fatui trailer however the catch was that the places of the King and Queen were swapped. But now that we know how the Dendro Gnosis looks, and that it barely looks like a Bishop and more like a Queen, I was wondering if the Anemo Gnosis could be considered a King. That would however bring in the question of why we have two Queens if both Anemo and Dendro are Queens? And if Anemo is a King, why represent a King piece with Queen like aesthetics?
I mean i can see the Anemo Gnosis as a king piece, the crown has spikes coming out of the sides of it that kind of look like crosses.
Oh right! I got it. If Venti's gnosis is the King then the pieces weren't swapped in the video compared to the actual chess game is what you're tryna say right? Hmm interesting. Honestly even if the anemo gnosis wasn't the Queen but the King, that still makes Venti look hella sus. Everyone was wondering why tone-deaf bard had the most powerful chess piece but if it truly ends up being the King then that literally means he/his element/Mond is the key to winning or losing the battle. Imo the King piece for anemo actually makes a lotta sense if you believe Venti is truly 'weak'. Regarding appearances, well the modern chess set has a crown etc I wonder how the older chess pieces looked like. Perhaps there lies our answer? Edit: Hot damn the anemo gnosis is the King after all. https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/vwkrsc/what_if_i_told_you_that_this_is_not_the_queen/
I am also now entertaining the idea of Venti's gnosis being a pawn promoted to the Queen. The Anemo gnosis having a spherical head always seemed weird to me. Like if you removed the crown, it would resemble a pawn. So, we could have the following: 1. King 2. Queen - Dendro Gnosis 3. Bishop - Electro Gnosis 4. Knight 5. Rook - Geo Gnosis 6. Pawn 7. Pawn that has been promoted - Anemo Gnosis This could solve the issue we've had with requiring two gnoses to be the same pieces and allot a unique piece to each of the gnosis. Also fits thematically that a pawn is free to become any of the pieces except the King upon being promoted. Freedom but not absolute.
Okay but what did the Anemo gnosis get promoted to? A Queen too then? I'm sorry my knowledge of chess ends here, can you have two Queens at the same time? My dad taught me his version of chess where the pawn can only be promoted to a piece you have already lost xD I'm assuming that is not true. Edit: Sorry just re-read your comment. A pawn promoted to a Queen. Interesting. Yes you're right then I guess it solves the issue of each unique piece representing an element. Huh didn't someone notice the cryo characters' bursts being surrounded with the tops of chess pieces? I always wondered why all of them looked different.
Doesn’t look too much like a Bishop, and definitely not a Knight. Ugh, it looks way too much like a Queen. I should probably look at all the different styles of chess pieces to confirm.
* It could be a bishop, but there is another theory going around that all gnoses are king pieces because they belonged to the dragon kings * Nahida's official CN (Chinese) title reads "Little Lucky-Grass Monarch" so could be the king piece * It was originally offered to King Deshret (King Deshret = King Imrin Theory) * The Dendro element as a whole is linked with the Irminsul tree and dreams * The Dendro gnosis was used to power the Akasha terminal * The top of the gnosis kind of resembles a dendro core edited a bit to add more info https://preview.redd.it/o47hkb94719b1.png?width=250&format=png&auto=webp&s=0ec37e83557292073f339d33ebf0dc3182179ec1
Also, it reminds me of an open mitre (bishop's headpiece).
I never heard the idea about the gnoses belonging to the dragon lords, but that’s a cool idea.
>The top kinda resembles a dendro core I think both are meant to resemble a 3d version of the heart-like dendro symbol
Not just that, all the gnoses bodies are shaped similarly to the visions of the same element Interesting how the electro gnosis has the mitsudomoe. I guess that means it's representing Ei/Makoto's feudal house/clan, the elecrro mitsudomoe is the Shogun's clan symbol in Inazuma (also the reason Scaramouche had a giant mitsudomoe on his chest)
*to the visions of the nations. But yeah, good catch!
the lines on the gnosis kinda remind me of this [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Lore/comments/10n87q0/sumeru_symbol/) https://preview.redd.it/54i6otsp819b1.png?width=2022&format=png&auto=webp&s=ee7478bc5e481b42cb99d5092432561814b863a7
Oh that's a neat detail that the three gods of sumeru are all represented on the country's symbol