So, What IS the Watcher Lore?? 

What is the lore? A bunch of disembodied eyes watching a hunger games esque battle roulette occur till the end of time. Simple. (This is a joke if you couldn't tell)

I think the best thing about the Watchers originally being a synonym for the viewers is that, theoretically, WE are the Watchers so any fanon is kinda canon in a way lol

“Fans feed of of fans” *Fannibalism*

i love grain he’s my favorite character in hermitshaft and last hive

I think a notable contributor to both the popularity of watcher lore and the especially negative perception of them is Martyn’s lore. While not strictly Grian’s lore, Martyn used Evo as a springboard and inspiration for his own lord that continues to this day, especially in the Life series. A lot concepts that are basically unavoidable when looking for watcher content were created by him.

i like the idea that the watchers represent the viewers/fans bc like the watchers, viewers can be either kind or awful to the creators while hiding behind a mask/screen and suffering little to no consequences for the awful-parts, or maybe i’m overanalyzing lmao

1:13 OMG I LOVE THE “I didn’t….die?” ANIMATIC JANDHQOIWJDJSNAKKSJSHKJSB

Grian being a Watcher is technically canon. Not sure about Pearl though.

As someone who has seen a few watcher animatics but had no idea what was really going on, I appreciate this

Yes!! And the Martyn’s life series lore is also supports the Watcher lore👁️ Edit: HOLY!! THANK YOU SO MUCH! I NEVED HAD THIS MUCH LIKES! ❤️

Ok, so, i wasnt up to date of the watcher lore lol, this is something i needed, also i am the same guy who said you should have made more of these and to whom you responded to saying that something was coming, and you certainly delivered! (I am surely not watching this in the middle of the night lol :))

I think fandoms working together and mixing lore is so beautiful, such as DreamXD being a watcher, sending down Dream to stir things up for their own entertainment, or maybe mentioning other fandoms and characters in fanfiction, such as a Dsmp Viallins/Heroes au that mentions Hotguy and Cuteguy.

I'M SO EXCITED TO WATCH THIS VIDEO!! I'm actually an author of Hermitcraft fanficion, "Forgotten or Forbidden" and I'm a big fan of your videos. They are so helpful and fun and I love how this community comes to get other to make so lore!!😄 Watcher lore is the best!! I can't watch it now, but I will be back to watch this video like a recorded lecture, I'll be taking notes! LOL!

For the LifeSeries, I really wished that hypothetically, there was a session7 DoubleLife episode, mainly about Tilly and Pearlescentmoon being semi soul-bound right after session1. But even though I tried writing a story about those witnessing the events right after Smajor dies, I don't think I could even just barely expand on the world building of the space, the place where watchers can view the minecraft worlds without a consistent framework as the whole community was fluid in its fanon to begin with. Edit: I mean that it is hard to write a fanfic in this community, especially if it's to continue existing lore. I'll go back into the Sudrian Phenomenon until time passes that there can be enough material to work with, I don't wanna just make up lore from nothing.

I got introduced to Hermitcraft recently, the same year that... Technoblade died. The dream SMP is dead for me. But my soul found peace in Hermitcraft and its fanbase. You make cool projects, it inspired me to do some drawings and study the lore of Hermitcraft. Thank you.

thanks for this ezzriin! i’ve watched grian since like 2018 but have been a more casual viewer until just recently when ive gotten a little more interested in the fandom. so the watcher stuff was kind of confusing to me, i had an understanding that it originated from Evo but couldn’t really remember anything as it’s been over 4/5 years since i’ve watched it 😅 (also so obsessed with the hey runner animatic btw)

Great job, and I love that you started with distinguishing between canon, fanon, and fan lore. So much of what has become "Watcher Lore" at this point is really from the community; Evo surprisingly didn't actually focus on the Watchers =that= much, except when it was time to jump to the next version. ATUS, especially, has had a huge (and maybe disproportionate) influence. I actually saw a Tumblr post that pointed to that story as =being= the lore, only mentioning in passing that it was based on Evo. Perfect example of how certain things can get amplified by the fan echo chamber, as it were. Martyn's AU is kind of a curious halfway between canon and an alternate universe. He did kinda take over the lore side of things on Evo after Grian left, and I get the impression the Listeners were his invention. That puts him in kind of a unique position to carry the story forward as a creator of official canon, even if he's chosen to label it as an AU, canon only to his own POV, so that the other Lifers don't need to engage. Sorry, that kinda got long-winded. But yeah, great explanation, and if anyone asks "what the heck =is= all this Watcher stuff anyway?!" we can all just point them here. :D

i always thought that Grian was depicted with wings because it fit his character (like being a free bird or something like that idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). i didn't know about this lore, so thank you

Aw this video was incredible! It seems to speak to exactly the fandom headspace I’m in right now, references so much art and videos I’ve watched in these past few months as I’ve dived headfirst back into Hermitcraft and the Life Series fandom. Sharing this with all my friends!

One of my favourite MC-fanlore are this one. :D And as I am ear-deep already reading riddiculous fanfics ,but not with the watchers or any kind of minecraft related yet , I am sure to read about how that universe shifts XD

Thank you for making this, when I entered the hermitcraft/Grian of the community I was a bit confused on the lore stuff but found some clues in to why, and this video helped put all the pieces together to fully understand, thank u :D

Its just sooo amazing that so many people know ATUS. It was my first work of fanfiction i have ever read, and i still hold it (and the ATUS Karma animatic) close to my heart. (Edit: Spelling)

I go feral for watcher stuff, i found out about Evo and decided to binge it so i could learn about watchers :]

I think it’s funny because grian hasn’t done watcher lore since evo. The one who added on to the watcher lore was Martin.

I can't believe that this is one of the most informative videos on Watcher Lore I've seen on RU-vid, this is so great! ..I also can't believe that EVO started 8 years ago and we're still holding on from fanwork and Martyn's stuff.. gosh.

i always love hearing other people’s perspectives on watcher lore and some of the things they headcanon or like that the fanon has produced. its super fun getting to discuss topics like this with my friends and seeing all the amazing art the fandom creates, whether its drawings/paintings, animations, stories, etc. its such a beautiful thing that we as humans get to experience with each other. also love the mentions of doctorsiren and atus, those definitely threw me into the hermitcraft space and surrounding fandoms so much more

this helps a lot, actually. I started watching grian/life crew at the start of secret life and lemme tell ya as a new fan it was intimidating as HELL seeing all the references to watcher lore and not knowing what's going on, or even where to look to learn.

I'm more in the DSMP part of YT fandom than in the hermitcraft part of yt fandom (notice the word fandom here, I still watch a lot of hc) but it's interesting to me how Grian being a watcher is kinda the same as how a lot of dsmp depicts Dream (or DreamXD or both) and Philza as Admins. They also have wings and are also either involved (positve or negative) or not with their own worlds. You can almost say that in hc/Grian fandom Dream and Philza are fellow watchers while in dsmp fandom Grain would be a fellow admin! (Xisuma is also often a fellow admin btw, does that make him a fellow watcher?)

This is amazing! im loving the sort of 'content shift' from all the mcyt animators :)

if you want to know more about watcher stuff, i highly recommend watching martyn's povs of the life series, and his live streams on watcher lore :D there wasn't much here on those other than grian, so here's some bits from the top of my head! i don't read fanfic but i look at a lot of fanart, some other watcher related things ive noticed are - - bigb, martyn, solidarity and pearl were also part of both evo and life series, so are sometimes also depicted as watchers/related to watchers -pearl represents the moon, opposite to grian and so is often seen as a sibling to him and so also sometimes a watcher -canary call/curse refers to solidarity dying first each season (until recently) -fans often depict members of the life series to forget previous seasons. usually grian is shown as the only one who remembers them, but some artists push the narrative that all winners remember previous seasons - martyn made the theory that ldshadowlady subbed in for pearl in limited because pearl was still grieving tilly when she should have forgotten double life. the watchers took her out for a session to correct her and make her forget. -often life members are drawn as dolls to show how they exist for the watchers entertainment -not necessarily watcher related? but all winners are given a title like "the sun" (grian), "the stars" (smajor), "the moon" (pearl obviously lmao), "mars/the ocean" (martyn and which depends on who you ask), "the earth" (scar) -grains wings aren't always a watcher reference, hermitcraft fan artists often just draw hermits with various wings to represent their elytra! -tilly is the true winner of dl :P

im so glad u made this video. i literally searched up "what is watcher grian" the other day and couldnt find a straight answer so this is exactly what i needed

Honestly, if you spend enough time in this community you just learn Watcher Lore through Osmosis. I even have written a fanfic in which the Watchers play a little role. It’s not overly focused on them, it’s an AU where Martyn betrayed Scott earlier in Limited Life, causing Impulse to win (I’m a big Impulse fan. Sue me.). It’s called Pluto on AO3 if you’d like to read. I am not a writer at all. I barely passed my English GCSE’s and genuinely hadn’t written more than D&D backstories since school ended until I got that spark of an idea for that fanfic. If this series and the fanon that has come from it could persuade someone like me to pick up a pen and start writing an actual story. I think that shows the power of this particular series.

OHHH SO THATS WHAT WATCHERS ARE, I NEVER WATCHED EVO BUT I READ THE FANFICS AND WAS ALWAYS CONFUSED ASF ABT WHEN PPL TALKED ABOUT GRIAN’S PAST AS A WATCHER

The most common Fandom reaction to any Situation and/or Lore: "Wow that was angsty/dramatic/sad... But what if there were even more angst/drama/sadness?"

Please make more videos like these! I’m somewhat new to the hermit craft fandom itself, and I find a lot of this stuff confusing! This video was really helpful and I’d love to see more! :)

Thanks bro I knew none of this and watched Evo ages ago but after going on Grians fandom page saw he was referred to as the third watcher and got confused

FINALLY! Someone who explained the watcher lore from a mostly fan based perspective in a way I could understand. Bam! New sub.

You can also watch Martin or inthelittlewoods for more watcher lore. He has a bunch of lore about the life series and watchers and himself. Although grian have said that canonically the watcher lore is not cannon from hermitcraft. Life series is a bit more complicated

The REAL watcher lore is the friends we made along the way.

I'm so grateful for this video! It has been hard to piece it all together by myself as a newer person in the fandom, now I know what I did and did not miss, thank you!!

I heard the aussie accent and immediately subbed ngl i just- theres a lack of us i feel

This is awesome! I love that there is so much content made by fans that connects so many other fans! Great explanation!

FINALLY!!! I've been looking for a good, short video just like this one for soooo long! thank you so much for making it!!

That video was so great ! You credited every artist, you gave definitions of words people might not know and the overall explanations were very well written ! Good job 👏 👏

Thank you very, very much for explaining this and being so thorough about it! It helped me a lot. ❤

Thanks! I needed this so much!!

Thank you so much! I have been trying to find a breakdown of the lore but could only ever find absurdly long videos on it!

Ty! this was very clear and easy to follow, which is hard to write in script, so amazing job. Also love ur art and amazing job again. (ty for providing names of the artists art used in ur video) this was wonerful!

no one i saw clarified that it was fanon so i kept seeing things about it and thought it was actual canon stuff that i was missing. thank you for clearing that up

SUCH A GOOD VIDEO!!! also when all of the example art popped up i audibly made happy noises because i recognized all of the artists bahahhah, thanks for this ezzriin!! (love your animatics, btw!)

This video actually got me so hyped abt working further again on my watcher fanfiction ive been working on for so many months, can't wait to bring it out!! Thanks so much for the interesting video !

This is a brilliant summation of both fandom in general and the watcher lore in specific. Well done!

this is awesome! great vid. By far one of your best for now. I am sure there is more to come

Thank you for this video! As someone who is new to all the hermit related content it definitely shines some light on the topic! ❤❤❤

This cleared up so much! Thank you for making this, I feel like I can finally say I understand all of this.

This is super useful, been looking everywhere for something like this :D Thank you

I keep coming back to this because my friends want to know why I have 37 animatics of the life series saved on my phone and what it’s about, so i give them this video and then spend another hour clarifying their questions and show them examples as well as send them playlists and martyns live streams. Obsessed with the series? Maybe… but it’s an amazing fandom and i’m proud to be part of it! Great explanation! i’ve been looking for a good one that doesn’t involve me stuttering and being confused for 30 extra minutes

Thanks, that was a very simple and easy to understand explanation. I also love your video style

we needed a video about it so bad !!! thanks ahah

as someone who has been a long time fan of the watcher lore (4 years now babyyyy) i love this video. so much. you manage to cram so much information into 6 minutes and give a very good explanation on how the concept came to be, how it changed through the fandom, and how it applies now + common interpretations!!! i really like your explanation on fan culture and how it leads into the fan lore as well, it was really well done & i actually had no idea how to explain it until now. great video :D

i love your voice sm! and also this video was super helpful, so thank you!

This is awesome!! Very good way to sum it up quickly, would have loved to have this when I was first learning about it all!

I love the fandom soo much. it is crazy how fans could do alot of things! Thank you for this video!

THANK YOU FOR THIS! ive been looking a video like this ofr so long!

This was actually a very good explanation!! Thank you :D

I needed that introduction to the Watcher Lore, thanks

this is super well done, good job :]

Brought me back to last life when you mentioned ATUS… that was one of my very first fics i ever read!! I found it through multiple video links and im so glad the curiosity took over, cause fanfic has honestly made my life better :)

This was really cool and well done, ezzriin!!! ❤❤❤

This clears up a lot for me! I never got into the EVO smp or any of that really, but I watch a lot of Hermitcraft and what not. Never really knew what the Watcher stuff was all about and now I have a pretty alright understanding of the basics. Thanks for the informative vid!

I read some fanfiction where grian is a watcher, but he hides it saying he's an avian

THANK YOU SO MUCH IVE BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THIS FOR LIKE FOREVER I APPRECIATE THIS SO MUCh

so glad to see evo content!! it started my love of minecraft and its such a good series

THANK YOU FOR THIS OH MY GOSH 😭I've always been confused about the Watcher Lore, and finally I get it now!

Oh, this explains so much, ty! I was very confused since I am new to the hermitcraft Fandom, and I see references to watchers listeners and other servers and rps confusing me on what's true and what's not. Sadly, I do not have time to watch every episode of all these series and seasons to figure out, so thank you for clarifying some of my confusion on the matter!

In a 6 minute video you spend half of it explaining something that if you're on the internet you probably already know

Something to note: Many people have mentioned Martyn's continuation of the Watcher lore in both Last and Limited Life. However, what people aren't mentioning is that in Martyn's last video of Last Life, the Watcher mentions that Grian was never supposed to be on the Life series server, he was "just supposed to watch." I've always seen this as Grian somehow escaped the Watchers and became a player again, thus becoming a member of 3rd Life. Side note, I also don't really connect Hermitcraft to the Watcher lore since there hasn't ever been any references to the Watchers in Hermitcraft, but if you do count Hermitcraft, then you can just say that Grian escaped the Watchers before Season 6 of Hermitcraft instead of before 3rd Life. Up to you :)

Tfw I was looking for something about this topic last night! I kept wondering about the Watcher lore mention from different comment section of the animatics- thank you!

this is such a good video oml !!! ❤❤

Thank you so much for making this! As a fairly new Grian/HC/Life Series enjoyer, I was very confused by all the fanart of Grian being purple and watcher-themed. Time to make some fanart now :)

Thank you someone finally made this 😭🙌

ATUS was the first fanfiction I ever read (and the animatic was also a first for me). And now I've written a fic with over 40k words that started a sort of community?? it's absolutely insane that that one amazing fanfic was my very first taste of something that would become such a big part of my life! And I am still, ofc, obsessed with watcher lore

AHHH this is so well madeee!

thank you for introducing me to as the universe shifts. I literally can't think of anything else and it consumes my whole life :D

This is so well edited though! It's really impressive and very enjoyable to watch. Also great summary and commentary on this whole ordeal, although I was hoping you'd mention the Life Series part of it all because of Martyn's lore

Yes Yes Yes! I am always in for watcher content and I thank you because I know it can be hard to follow at first. So I'm sure this is very helpful to many!

Wonderfully explained! Very articulate :)

FANTASTIC ELI5 breakdown of fandom, canon, and fanon. you did a wonderful job here.

Ty for making this

I really liked the Evo series, and I'm glad you covered this. Also, Grian has the Watchers, Pesky Birds, Chicken Man, and generally being a skilled flier. No wonder he's drawn with wings all over

ezzriin you're a legend for this

welp i probably needed this video 6 months ago when i was obsessed with watcher lore yet SO confused how it worked- this is still such a great video tho and everything is explained so well ^^

Thank you so much for making this video, I remember when I got into the fandom properly I was so INCREDIBLY CONFUSED by what the hell is going on with the watchers. I'm glad now new people can at least have some type of launching point to have any idea about it

Thanks for making this! Regardless what becomes fanon or canon, it’s nice to see where the origin of the watchers started.

This really helps with my fic I'm writing! It's about if Grian and C!Tommy swapped bodies, and I wanted to add watcher lore, but I didn't have the best understanding! Thank you for the help!

very helpful!! rlly wished i had when i first joined :>

This is literally the video I have been looking for

Thank you very much for this video! I've only been in the community for a few months and I was wondering where the whole thing with the watchers was originated from., and since I speak Spanish as my first language, a lot of information is out of my reach, and as you say, there are so many interpretations of it that I was no longer so sure of anything! Really useful thanks x'D!

OH MY GOD IM SO HAPPY SOMEONE MADE THIS VIDEO 😭😭 (I was so close to make a full on video essay based on different AUs)

I needed this so much so much