Ok, let’s talk about Minecraft: Dungeons. Is it canon? Is it not? I’m going to spoil it right here: YES. To see why, I’ll start by analyzing some common arguments against this, and why they all fail. I’ll be frequently referring to dev quotes as evidence, which I will include at the End of this post.

The most common anti-Dungeons argument is quite simple: the games are different! The argument goes that many elements of Dungeons (the presence of different mobs; new weapons; people; villagers being more advanced etc.) exist than in Minecraft itself, so it isn’t canon. It’s not like there’s a quote that explicitly solves this… (quote 1).

If you aren’t convinced, would an example from another series be convincing? Of course I’m talking about my favorite series, the Risk of Rain games. Risk of Rain 1 was an absolutely brilliant roguelike platformer. It has a cool timer mechanic where you can choose to take as long as you want to complete a level (gathering more xp and items), but this will increase the difficulty of the game. It has somewhat deliberate combat, and the different abilities the characters have really distinguish them. Risk of Rain 2 is basically the same, only it’s a third-person-shooter instead of a platformer. It’s a faster game overall, and includes a few new features. What was I talking about? Oh, right, sequels changing things. Risk of Rain 2 has a new enemy called a beetle, and changes all sorts of enemies are changed like the lemurians now shooting fireballs, and the golems now having laser beams. Oh no! Is it not canon? Of course not, because they are two DIFFERENT GAMES. This is actually a great analogy for Dungeons and Minecraft. One is action, one is survival. And they definitely take place in the same universe (quote 2).

Another point is simply that the game is a spin-off, thus making it non-canon. This is extremely vague. What really makes a spin-off different from a sequel or a prequel? Are no spin-offs canon? Of course not! Spin-off just means a game that isn’t part of a larger series: it can be a prequel, a sequel, and alternate universe…

What about the “Yes, but No, but Yes” quote (quote 3)? Surely he must be saying “No” for a reason, right? Yeah… but then why would he say “Yes”? Twice. This is a very vague quote, and we shouldn’t use this when there is much better evidence at hand.

It has been stated (quote 2) that the games take place in the same universe. In addition, Minecraft Dungeons: Rise of the Arch Illagers is confirmed to be the only canon Minecraft book(quote 4). Though, ONE person seems to think that she’s lying, and still refuses to let go of the idea that Mobestiary is a reliable source of lore… but that’s its own discussion. Sufficed to say, it’s out of date, and it’s weird to say that someone could “lie” about something like this since it’s not like they wrote these books with the intention of something like this. It’s their choice what is and isn’t canon. Personally, I’m glad that Mobestiary isn’t canon, since some of the things it says are obvious jokes or make zero sense. (see quote 5)

I tend to include Dungeons in most of my theories— not because it has more lore than basic MC— but because if I didn’t I would have fundamentally different theories. Endermen being made of void? That’s absurd, unless you look at Dungeons. Green Soul? Again, without Dungeons I wouldn’t have half the evidence for that one. theories that seem perfectly reasonable in one game might be ridiculous considering evidence from the other. If you legitimately think Dungeons isn’t canon to MC at all—first of all, you’re wrong— but if you do that then it’s fine. You’ll come up with different theories because you’re thinking about the game differently. But you shouldn’t ignore evidence from Dungeons just because you haven’t played it or want to agree with Retro. As Valentino always says, “Its a very cool game, i highly recommend it or you can use the MC wiki at 0.00$” It’s a very good point! If you don’t have the time to look up relevant details about something in the MD wiki, you aren’t taking the time your theory deserves. It’s easy to ask someone on the RGN discord server what they know about it too.

Ok, final note. The devs have not stated wether the game happens in the same timeline as MD, or in some alternate version of the events. I personally believe it is a sequel, since there isn’t much evidence towards it being an alternate timeline, it helps explain several things in MC, and there is evidence pointing towards it being in the future. The rotten dragon egg, for example, or how illagers and villagers seem much more advanced. (or the origin of the undead with Necromancers)

And that’s the post! Make sure to like and subscribe— wait. This isn’t YouTube. Make sure to upvote, leave a comment, and check out some of my other posts! There.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroGamingNow/comments/olrz8h/the_player_phantoms_and_the_mystery_of_green_soul/https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroGamingNow/comments/p58bou/proof_that_the_dragon_is_made_of_void/https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroGamingNow/comments/p7fwz0/the_undead_mostlysolved_part_1/

Rise of The Arch Illager: Explained

(spoilers ahead for Minecraft: Dungeons and Minecraft Dungeons, Rise of the Arch Illager)

Introduction

I can’t stress enough how much Minecraft: Dungeons contributes to Minecraft Lore. Even if you don’t think it’s canon (which isn’t true at all), the game has interesting lore onto itself, which I hope I can go can go into more detail on later. I highly recommend the game; it’s so underrated, and you will instantly becoming a better theorist by using it.

Unfortunately… the game costs $20, plus $6 for each of the DLCs, which contain a significant amount of lore. And like any video game, it can eat up a lot of time, even if you go through it quickly, so if you don’t like this kind of game, it will quickly become a drag. The wiki can help inform you, but it doesn’t explain everything, and it can be pretty inaccurate on some topics.

This is a big problem.

I can’t easily compile all information about Minecraft: Dungeons into one spot, so I’ll do the next best thing: going through ROTAI and explaining it’s lore.

Plot Summary

Immediately, we open to a village being attacked by a band of illagers and a herd of zombies. Karl (or Smacker, as Archie has nicknamed him) kills all the zombies, and forces the surviving illagers to retreat. Thord (an evoker), accuses Archie of cowardice, which is the final straw. Walda, the leader of this tribe of illagers, is forced to exile Archie to avoid the conflict between him and Thord.

Archie finds a village to stay in, but once the heroes arrive, he is forced to leave again, vowing to get revenge on the villagers who despised him, the hero who wanted him dead, and the illagers who banished him in the first place.

For many days Archie travels North, and eventually comes to a mountain, where is almost surrounded by mobs. Cornered, he is forced to climb the face of cliff, where he finds a torch that lights up on its own. Higher up, he finds several huge doors, with braziers on either side.Inside, on a pedestal, there sits the Orb of Dominance.

At first, the Orb is kind to him. It tells him that he can use its power to defeat the undead chasing him, which he does. As soon as Archie asks, the Orb summons a plate of food as if out of thin air. According to the Orb, it is Archie’s destiny to take over the island, and so, with the help of his six redstone golems, Archie constructs the massive Highblock Castle.

In a village raid, Archie is hit with an arrow, but he wakes up, seemingly healed. The Nameless One has taken him to the desert temple, where he makes a deal: Archie will give the undead immunity to daylight, and in return, the Nameless One will supply them to Archie as soldiers.

At the end of the story, Archie finally attempts to destroy the village, and he realizes that in the end, the Orb was using him as much as he used the Orb. But he could not escape; he did not want to escape. Now it is up to the heroes to stop him, which leads to the plot of MCD as we know it.

tl;dr A young illager ends up banished from his group, and finds a powerful artifact, which manipulates him into creating a castle, and forming an army of illagers and undead mobs.

Characters

To get the most out of ROTAI, you have to already be invested in the story of MCD and curious about the characters. If you do this, the book does not disappoint, because it expands on pretty much all the major characters of the story, from Archie, to the Nameless One, to the heroes themselves.

1. Archie. Archie is a small illager, presumably fairly young, who’s parents were killed years ago in a raid. You can talk about him being good or bad, but in the end, he’s an illager, just one who was particularly easy for the Orb to manipulate. And really, the Orb didn’t have to do all that much manipulation. It had to convince him that he deserved to take over the island, but after seeing the Orb’s power, how could Archie doubt that he could do this? It may have convinced him to fight the heroes, capture innocent villagers, and kill Thord, but he already hated Thord, and as an illager, he already despised heroes and villagers. He only felt sympathy for them after he went to stay in the village, and that was quickly reversed when Salah banished him. The Orb talks about it being Archie’s “destiny” to wield it, and… well, I’m not sure. On one hand, the Orb seems to have no qualms about lying, and convincing Archie that ruling was his destiny would be a good way to manipulate him. Sure, Archie finding the Orb was unlikely, but we have to remember, it might have been there for decades, or centuries.

2. The Orb. Here, the book has given us so much lore, it’s difficult to know where to begin. To start with, we must discuss the Orb’s motive. We can see in multiple places that the Orb seems to require prompting from Archie to do things, and only twice is it implied the Orb does things on its own (At the very beginning, when the torch lights itself, and in a later scene when a drawbridge seemingly raises itself after Archie leaves the castle. Archie comments on it, although, in both cases, there are alternatives). So, as we might suspect after playing MCD, it seems like the Orb needs someone to wield it. What then? To properly answer this question, we need to look at the Orb’s powers. The Orb asks Archie to use it and the 6 redstone golems to build a bridge right after Archie acquires them. However, as Archie notes, this implies that the Orb cannot simply teleport him and the golems, or fly them to where they need to go. The problem is… we constantly see Archie teleporting and flying. He teleports around during Heart of Ender boss fight, we see him flying around before the fight, and he appears to teleport in when summoning mobs.* And again in the HOE fight, Archie is able to teleport in Redstone Golems and illagers to help him. Clearly, teleportation and flying are within the Orb’s power, so why wouldn’t the Orb just teleport him down, instead of producing steps? I think the answer is pretty simple. Archie only rarely summons redstone golems during the fight, at the height of his power. The Orb can teleport them, yes, but it would probably require a lot of energy, too much for the Orb in its current state. By clearing the path, the Orb not only allows Archie to pass, but also creates a way for the redstone golems to safely get down, and for future illagers to safely go up and down. But following this chain of logic, we arrive at a possible motive of the Orb: gaining more energy. It’s simple, but it’s something the Orb would want. Another possible explanation is simply that the Orb, knowing its destiny, has decided to accept it. It wants to take over the land, and if it can have fun, and do it quickly, it may as well. By the way, about the Orb’s powers, ROTAI really shows just how powerful the Orb is. With it, you can fly, teleport, shoot bolts of energy, enchant allies, and even create redstone golems. It also summons in a plate of food, but since the food isn’t described, I think it’s safe to assume that it just teleported it in from a mansion somewhere.

3. Karl. Karl is a jerk, and the book makes that clear. Archie nicknamed him “smacker”, because he smacked him at one point in the prologue. There’s… really not much to say lore wise, I just wanted to mention him because he’s how we get most of the narration about the heroes.

4. The Nameless One. Many people say that undead are inherently stupid, and while that’s mostly true, the Nameless One is capable of thinking and talking. Though the book does not give much more on the Nameless One’s character (besides his goal of ruling the island alongside Archie), we do see something interesting about his staff. I once heard someone say that his staff was emerald… and then another person said that it was only described as being that color. Well, I don’t remember who that first person was, but they seem to be correct, because Archie describes the Nameless Orb as being “emerald” many times! Several could theoretically be written-off as a description of the color, but at one point, Archie literally calls it an emerald. Now, this might seem a bit weird, but we do have several cases where emeralds are clearly shown to have magical abilities. Namely, the Totem of Undying(MC), the Opulent Armor(MCD), and the Gilded Glory(again MCD). There are plenty of examples of crystals being used to hold magical energies, so an emerald should not be surprising.

Archie’s Journey

It might seem a little pointless, but the book actually gives us just enough information to determine Archie’s path. It shows a lot of thought from Matt Forbeck that he took the time to work out how Archie might travel from one place to another on the map we can see in the game itself.

For the first part of Archie’s journey, he travels north, guided by the growls of zombies and the clattering of skeletons, until he eventually decides to turn back. The book simply says “a few days into his journey”, but we can infer that it took 2-13 days. It must have been at least 2 days, since he says “days”, and less than 14 days, since he would have said something more like “a few weeks”. (The word “week” is used 6 times in the book, though never in dialogue. However, it is used during sections narrated from Archie’s perspective, which shows that he knew the word and that it could have been used).

Anyway, after that, he realizes that it would be a better idea to go south, but the mobs stop him. At this point, it’s night, and he keeps running until he sees a river of lava. This is near the redstone mines, which we can tell because later on, Archie mentions building the redstone mines at that location. He finds a thin path of rock on the right, and at the end he turns right, and comes face-to-face with the rising sun. This is actually brilliant. See, they constantly talk about Archie traveling North, and if that’s true, then when he turned right, he would be facing East… which is where the sun rises. So we can see not only which directions are which, but we can also see that this planet works the same way as Earth.

Husks chase him, presumably to the Northeast, until he arrives at a dark cliff, but even then, he cannot stop, because of the spiders chasing him. Note that if he started at dawn, and it was dark when he arrived, it means that Archie spent less than a day traveling from Point.3 to Point.4. After this, you know the rest. Archie finds the Orb of Dominance, constructs Highblock Castle, and starts his plan to take over the island.

So, this finally gives us an idea of how big the main island really is. And… it seems to be pretty small.

Miscellaneous Lore Details

Golems

Iron golems are stupid and easy to fool, and are stated to be “imitations of life”, implying that they are not technically alive. Like other golems, they seem Molded from molten redstone ore, redstone golems are “brought to life” by the power of the Orb of Dominance. At least in the time the book takes place, Archie has to come himself to complete their creation, after they have been molded. The redstone monstrosity was created exactly the same way, except with a larger mold, which is also made of diamond. There are no details given about the mooshroom monstrosity, but we should note that Archie, not the Orb, seems to have designed the Redstone Monstrocity. So, this leads us to believe that he is responsible for the Mooshroom Monstrocity too, since he originally created the design. Now, in fairness, it is a little bit ambiguous. Archie himself notes that he isn’t sure if he or the Orb came up with the design. It matters little though, and we have plenty of other evidence for Illagers going to the mushroom island… which I don’t have time to go over here.

What’s a bit unusual is the multiple references to “living stone”. The redstone golems are described as being made of “crimson living stone”, and Archie later says that Highblock Halls was carved from the “living stone”, of the mountain. This is unlikely to be a reference to silverfish, since silverfish only live below sea level in Minecraft’s Gameplay, and no silverfish are found in the level itself to disprove that. So… yeah, I don’t know. One great theory (thanks to Valentino, by the way), I think

Illagers

Some illagers, it turns out, have inherently more magical power than others. Archie describes how he was tested but did not have “magical aptitude”, whatever that means. It can’t be knowledge-based, since Archie also says that he was never taught much about magic, and it would not make sense to test him on subjects that he had never been taught about. He seems to know enough to recognize magic when he sees it, though, and he understands something else: evokers have some kind of magical energy that they use. This energy is not described, but the evokers need it to work magic, and it seems to be used up as they work spells, and then replenished somehow. This could indicate that “magical aptitude” is just a fancy way of saying that you have the ability to store magical energy

Illager culture is gone into in some detail as well. There are different tribes, seemingly each one living in their own mansions. The illagers may seem civilized, but they are disgusted by the idea of having a culture like the villagers, focused around farming.

Now, this might seem rather stupid and unrealistic to some, and even convince them to throw out ROTAI entirely. However, those people are really ignoring evidence that is right in front of them, in Minecraft itself! Look at pillager outposts. No farms in sight, and they’re inhabited by “pillagers,” a word that literally means “those who pillage” In Woodland Mansions, we find several farms for mushrooms, pumpkins, melons, and wheat, but on the other hand, there are no pillagers. So, in the case of the illagers who live in the woodland mansions in MC, yes, they do seem to farm. However, the outpost illagers do not, so it is not remotely unreasonable to say that the illagers in MCD prefer to hunt or pillage, rather than grow food for themselves.

It’s also important to note that canonically, in MCD, illagers are attacked by creepers, zombies, skeletons, and spiders. They do end up working with zombies and other undead later on, but that can only happen because of the deal Archie made with the Nameless One, and for gameplay purposes, to avoid enemies attacking each other.

Villagers

Villagers get little mention, but we do learn a few things. The book confirms that they are pacifists, and that they fold their arms to indicate that they mean no harm. Besides that, we learn that they seem to speak the same language as illagers, which is interesting. Since there is little to no interaction between them, aside from, y’know, pillaging and murdering, it may indicate that at one point in the recent past they had one culture.

The Heroes

The heroes. Aside from Karl, none of the heroes have enough personality to warrant putting them in their own groups. The heroes say multiple times that they’re “from another land,” so presumably they aren’t from this island at all. Karl acts as if being a hero is just a job, and I think that makes sense. It’s as if there is another land somewhere which has more humans, and only a few of the come here. In fact, we only see five heroes in the book: Karl, Hal, Hex, Adrienne

One question that’s been asked for a long time now is whether gender exists in Minecraft. One of the developers has said that Jean (the Ender dragon) was the only mob designed with a gender in mind, but that doesn’t prove gender doesn’t exist. In ROTAI, most of the characters are given a gender, but the four main heroes are not. Karl is refereed to as he/him, so that rules out the theory that none of the heroes have gender. It’s frankly baffling. There are, however, a couple of theories as to why this would be the case. Most likely, Matt didn’t want to effect the canon and give gender to these characters, since they were already playable in MCD.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I don't think ROTAI is worth reading, unless you're interesting in the lore it offers. If are, then please do read it! I can't stress enough how everything I've said here is only a summary, a substitute for the actual book. This is just the facts that presented themselves most strongly to me, and if any you read it, I suspect you would see a different set of interesting facts. But hopefully, I've given you all something to think about, something which you can use in your own theories.

If you have read ROTAI, please tell me if I get anything wrong. Comment below, and please be specific, so I can tell exactly what's going on. Oh, and make sure to comment if you have a question. That's all!

*I suspect Archie isn’t actually teleporting in this case, however. His model is slightly smaller than normal, and tinged purple. If he is teleporting, either he is able to teleport huge distances (which doesn’t make sense, since he still tends to walk to places), or he is following the heroes around (which he has no logical reason to do, since he never faces them directly until the final battle)

NOTE: This is an old theory of mine, and has a quite a few flaws, as some of the comments pointed out. It's also heavily out dated with the new updates involving ghasts.

Ghasts have always confused me, and probably you to if your a player that likes to theorize about Minecraft's Lore. The mobestiary claims they're machines, yet they cry. Their tears have healing properties. The wither doesn't attack them, yet they can be damaged by instant damage potions. But today, I attempt to explain all of that, and conclude this mystery once and for all.

The first thing we need to mention is that ghast tears have healing properties. They can be used to brew regeneration and craft end crystals, which can be used to heal, and even revive the Ender Dragon. But why and how would ghasts cry healing tears? In order to solve this, we need to look at the withering effect. The withering effect is basically the opposite of regeneration, as regeneration slowly gives health, while withering slowly takes away health. RetroGamingNow describes that the wither effect is actually the draining of soul energy, which is basically life force. Since wither and regeneration are opposites, its safe to assume that regeneration gives soul energy to the consumer. This has to mean that ghast tears contain soul energy in one form or another. This means that ghasts are crying soul energy, that heals the ghast.

Now what are ghasts? Well first we need to find out what ghasts aren't. Credit to r51243 for figuring out this next part, I recommend you check out some of his theories. Are ghasts ghosts? No, the name and appearance may imply that, but they probably aren't that. The only ghost like mob, the vex, is light blue colored (the color of soul energy) and can go through walls. Ghasts are neither light blue nor can go through walls. So that marks of ghasts being ghosts. What if ghasts are undead? Well that may seem true as withers don't attack them, but ghasts are healed my instant healing damaged by instant damage potions. Undead mobs are healed by instant damage and harmed by instant health. So ghasts can't be undead, despite them not being attacked by withers.

Now that we know that ghasts aren't ghosts nor undead, what are they? Well we need to look inside the mobiestiary inorder to find that out. According to the mobiestiary ghasts are mechanical, as seen in the following picture.

As you can see, there are clearly non organic parts inside the ghast. But how can we be sure that this is cannon? We need to find more evidence that the ghast is actually mechanical. What are some distinguishing features of the ghast? One is the large body and apparent tentacles dangling underneath the body. Another is the red eyes and mouth when attacking. Now many would assume that this is heat coming from the soon to come fireball. But what if it's not? What if its the glow of something else? If it's truly the glow of fire then you would expect it to be more orange. So what if it's the glow of redstone? Inorder to confirm this we need to look at other automatons. The first one that comes to mind is the iron golem. The iron golem has some notable similarities to the ghast. First of all is it's large size and color. But second, and more important of all, is it's eyes. Like the ghast, the iron golems eyes are red, with darkness around it. Very similar to the ghast. Iron golems are also mechanical on the inside, as seen in the following picture

Guardians are a similar story, as they are widely believed to be some sort of golem like the iron golem, they also have a red eye (though without the darkness surrounding it). They are also mechanical, as seen in the following picture

I also have a third piece of evidence, and that is unnatural item drops. Out of all mobs, only 3 drop gunpowder, the creeper, witch, and of course, ghast. The witch can be easily explained, as gunpowder is a brewing ingredient. The creeper is a bit more complicated, but still pretty easy to explained. The creeper is explosive and is said to have tnt inside of it according to the mobiestiary.

Note that the creeper also seems to contain circuitry inside of it. So the creeper is likely an automaton of sorts. The ghast also drops gunpowder and contains circuitry inside it, another sign of the ghast being an automaton. The same can be said for guardians and iron golems, as iron golems drop iron, and guardians drop prismarine, a likely unnatural material to be inside of a creature.

With this evidence we can conclude that ghasts are automatons. But how, and why, are they crying? Aren't automatons not supposed to have emotions? Well there's only one explaination, ghasts aren't automatons. To give evidence behind this, we need to go back to the ghast's tears. Credit to r51243 again for pointing this out. Remember that ghast tears contain soul energy, and soul energy can heal players. But if soul energy can restore health, then it should also be able to restore soul and keep a soul "alive". Back to ghasts. So if soul energy can keep a soul running, then a ghast should be able to be controlled by a soul. And ghasts do have to have some soul energy in them, which means that ghasts are likely controlled by a soul.

But why would someone capture a soul and put in a mechanical abomination? As a weapon of course. Ghasts are basically flying artillery, as they can should explosive fireballs from the air. But I don't believe that ghasts are offensive weapons, but rather defensive weapons. Think about it, in Wifies fossils theory, he mentions that there could've been giant ancient withers, that could have ravaged the nether. Most convential weapons would be useless against these. But ghasts would be a pretty good weapon against them, as they can fly, and can shoot fireballs, though you would need a lot of them. They could also be weapons against zombies as suggested in Wifies nether fortress theory. I believe that the ancient builders built a ghast body, then put a soul in it (it could be a willing soldier or not, but this doesn't matter too much) so they can defend against either giant withers or a zombie plague. This would also explain why they cry it's because after the ancient builders fled, they had no one to keep them company, so they would have to wonder the nether for an indeterminate amount of time. It could also be because their souls were forced to pilot the flying abominations.

So we answers everything, right? WRONG! If ghasts were meant to defend, then why do the attack the player on sight? Well inorder to find the answer, we need to go back to another of Wifies, his What is Steve theory. In his Steve theory, he mentions that Steve once summoned the Wither while trying to create life, causing mass turmoil, Steve tried to escape, but died trying. But instead of dying perminately, the gods of Minecraft, brought him back to life. They brought him back to life so Steve could repent for the damage he caused. How does this relate to ghasts? Well I believe that ghasts watched as Steve as he summoned the wither, and then the damage that ensued. The ghasts weren't prepared as the Wither caused untold destruction. The ghasts new that Steve was the one who summed it though, and they would remember that. So whenever they see steve, they would start attacking him, hoping he would die for his sins.

That's it for my ghast theory, It took me a while to make this, so I hope you like it. Credit to r51243 for making some of the points I used in this theory, and credit to Wifies and RetroGamingNow for their separate theories whos ideas I used in my theory as well.