People are often surprised that Grian is so good at story telling, but they forget that he is one of the creators of Wynncraft. He is amazing at telling stories and this HC lore sounds awesome so far!

9:46 this bit about mumbo sharing grians soul, keeping him from fully dying also sounds awfully similar to the concept of the new “double life” series that grian made

I would definitely like to take a chance to point directly at the end of season 8 and when Grian was looking across all the stars and pondering whether they were alternate worlds. I would also like to suggest that when grian fell, that was the grian who thought he was about to fall into the void and die in season 8, instead being brought here, somewhere else, and not dying when he fell.

So that's how Mumbo is the richest hermit. Nothing's more priceless than a soul.

A part of me is honestly hoping that the rift is part of the evo watcher lore. Ever since Martyn resurfaced the grian watcher story, Im now hoping that the "rift" is just a watcher gate way that causes anomalies. Based on Martyn's last life ending, the watchers seems displeased that grian joined them in the game instead of just watching. So in turn, they opened a rift in grian's base and out of the rift came the entity(I know the entity came first, but since building take a lot of time and tell their own story, I like to think the entity came out from the rift and crawled around the server to keep a watch on grian and the other hermits[especially the ones in last life])

My theory is that he’s going for a different execution of what they did with Season 8. I’ve seen some clips of Xisuma saying that the story-driven nature was a bit too heavy handed in Season 8 (or something along those lines), so this all might be Grian trying to incorporate a story with a little bit more balance between story-driven moments and actually SMP Minecraft

Personally, I just hope Grian's haunted mansion from season 6 somehow makes its way back with the rift. It was in season 7, where Doc and BDubs used it as their starter base. Also it was in season 8 in the ship where the Hermits were in stasis chambers. It's just a simple house, but was built/rebuilt/modified by the most Hermits in the entirety of Hermitcraft.

It’s weird how Grian’s hot bar changes right before the blinding incident and the soup or blinding solution just kind of appears

If you go to 36:12 on Grian’s last episode of Season 8, Scar himself asks if the blue particles of the void are “different worlds (seasons) they’ll travel to”, which is such a big hint to this lore

Honestly if Grian is going for some crazy elaborate lore like this I wouldn't be complaining AT ALL. Idk if I'd like it more if each season is like alternate timelines he's hopping between or if it's more like the past lives Scar mentions meaning he's time traveling, but like the rift dragging pieces of other realities/lives into this season is a really cool theory!

If Grian and Mumbo are actually starting a dark lore story that plays into both base designs I am ALL for it. Can't wait to see these two face whatever's coming.

This is pretty much confirmed with the last two episodes with grumbot from a different reality coming through the rift, literally called “Grumbot Prime”

I am so glad someone is covering this! I feel like we as a community have largely noticed all these strange happenings, but we've collectively just sort of shrugged and went "Grian's planning something here!" Without really delving into the deeper ways that everything might connect. Personally I've been trying not to think about it too much because I know it will drive me crazy, but I'm very excited to see where the story goes!

the "rift crash" you mentioned due to grian getting his soul back also could be a way of setting up the 1.19 update!

A lot people probably just think that all of this is a coincidence but honestly, it might actually be true because theres no way all of these things happened for no reason and grian even said himself this season that he wanted to really add more story to his builds and although this theory seem REALLY far fetched, i honestly think its possible