#Why's Gold commonly associated with Magic?

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dry crater
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Gold is highly associated with Magic.
It is used in crafting Golden Carrots, a food item that gives the most saturation and is the ingredient in brewing a Potion of Night Vision.
It is used in crafting Golden Apples, It and its enchanted variant can give very powerful magical effects when consumed.
It is also used in crafting Golden tools, and although they are fragile and unreliable compared to Iron, Golden tools have the highest chance of acquiring powerful and rare enchantments compared to all other materials.
Why's Gold so associated with magic? Here's what I think is the answer.
It is all based on the Mythology of Magical Beings being vulnerable to Iron. Let me explain.

Iron is extremely useful in both Minecraft and Irl, It is used in crafting weapons, armour, and tools. In game its also used in building Iron Golems and Iron Doors.
And in real life exists Mythologies telling stories about Magical Creatures such as Fairies, Elves, Spirits, and Demons being weak and vulnerable to iron, So much so they refuse to ever use it, Instead opting to use the inferior Bronze and Gold as substitutes in weapon and armour making, To make up for Gold and Bronze's inferiority, These creatures would enchant the items with magic to far surpass even Iron.
Maybe that's the reason why Gold is associated with Magic, maybe its because its all based on the Mythology of Magical Entities using Gold (and Bronze but Bronze isn't in Minecraft) as a substitute to Iron and enchanting their items with magic to make up for its weaknesses.

worldly flare
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Well... I think that gold's magical properties can be separated in two

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One is its ability to take on enchantments better than other materials, which is likely due to it being a more malleable material, making it easier to carve powerful runes into it

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The second its ability to seemingly give helpful energy, in golden carrots, golden apples, and glistering melons, which we have determined is specifically radiance energy

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The energy associated with the sun and the radiance enchantment from MCD

midnight grove
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maybe bc of the space origin?

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bc gold doesnt originate from earth, it came here from asteroids which got it from stars

worldly flare
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maybe

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Like... it's charged with the energy of those stars dying?

midnight grove
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they dont get formed by dying stars

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well, it gets created by star rests which collide so i guess you are kinda right

warm drum
midnight grove
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yes but gold can only come to us from space

grizzled marlin
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and you need a nuclear reactor

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wait! you know that coo coo theory that there was a radioactive heatwave here on earth thousands of years ago? nutcases say this explains why rocks look weird, well what if thats true for minecraft

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yes, the ancient glowsquid builders made a bomb that melted all of their structures, making that crazy terrain found in minecraft and also creating a lot of gold

warm drum
grizzled marlin
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yeah, people point to mountains that look somewhat conical and cool features of natural erosion and claim that hey are evidence of an ancient civilization ruined by a nuclear apocalypses

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these are the same folks who believe Atlantis exists

dry crater
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And also, Iron (at least the stuff our ancestors used) came in meteors due to the fact normal Earth iron was too deep underground for ancient humans to dig out, Thus they had to use the iron that fell from the sky, causing the myth of Iron being divine, subsequently resulting in it being depicted as the weakness of magic entitites

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Whereas, Minecraft iron is absurdly common.
Maybe its Gold that came in meteors? I dunno I'm just spitballing here

grizzled marlin
dry crater
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Yeah, of course obviously but ancient humans couldn't mine the normal iron and had to use the iron that came in meteors

grizzled marlin
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sure, that was Man’s first taste of iron, but iron extracted from peat and algae was very common

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that’s how northern europeans got iron, they fired peat found from fens into iron

dry crater
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Yeah but how sure you that they did this during the time when Mankind was still using meteor iron?

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For all we know, they did it after several centuries of Mankind still using sky iron

grizzled marlin
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i’m not, but i’m sure someone does

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but that someone is one google search away…

dry crater
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Huh, interesting.
But surely these sources of iron were not everywhere nor did they supply large quantities of iron

midnight grove
stuck pelican
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personally my theory on gold and yellow is that it represents power or the sun

flint bane
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Gold is extremely conductive and resilient to change (i.e. you can melt gold over and over again, crush it and twist it and it will still be of the same quality - can't oxidise either). Therefore gold could not only channel energy, but resist damage from it as well and even if it was damaged could be hammered back to its original shape.

dry crater
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Interesting theories.

stuck pelican
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actually there a lot of evidence I think that points to gold being related to power

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for example apples, carrots and watermelons all have a golden/glistening variant but each do somewhat different things

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golden apples don't only give you health, but make you healthier with absorbsion and resistance + fire res from the ench version

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golden carrots either let you see in the dark or make you invisible

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and glistening melons make instant healing potions

worldly flare
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Mm

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I suppose golden carrots in night vis potions would be one example of them having non-healing-related powers

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(aside from enchantability)

stuck pelican
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the trend to me is that its Power over Healing that gold gives

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if we bring MCD to the mix we got Totems of Shielding

worldly flare
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yeah, but that's not purely gold

stuck pelican
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gold makes a significant part of it

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if we want to argue that then we should first decontruct the concept that the golden items are tied to sayings like 'carrots give you good eyesight' and 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away' on top of likely a few other references

worldly flare
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oh, no...

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was that you who first proposed that?

stuck pelican
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gold is empowering?

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yeah iirc

worldly flare
stuck pelican
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yeah

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but that's more on a meta level

worldly flare
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Mm

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I dislike it even then, those connections are kindof just a side effects of how potions and gold work

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Potions usually have an ingredient that's tied to their ability logically, even if it wouldn't give you that ability on its own

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Like sugar, and speed.

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and gold gives you healing in many cases

dry crater
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Or rabbit's foot and jump boost

stuck pelican
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in about 2 - 4 cases

worldly flare
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aye

stuck pelican
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depending on if you count ench gaps as a seperate item to gaps and totems as gold

worldly flare
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oh, you mean for gold giving healing

stuck pelican
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if you don't then there 2 points of it where gold giving healing is overt

dry crater
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I don't think Gold is mainly just healing, I think its just innately connected with Magic

worldly flare
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Well, it depends on if you count MCD, as well, with the Sun's Grace

stuck pelican
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look at the name

worldly flare
dry crater
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And healing magic just so happens to be very useful

stuck pelican
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and isn't that because of runes on the thing

dry crater
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Where's this idea of carving runes to enchant things come from? It sounds interesting

stuck pelican
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especially with bells seeming to have direct magical power in the game

worldly flare
dry crater
stuck pelican
dry crater
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But, does every enchanted item have or look like they have runes?

worldly flare
stuck pelican
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but you can also say it has a tie to the sun if you believe in magic colour theory

worldly flare
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Indeed I do

dry crater
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Well, writing runes to enchant does make sense since irl humans carved runes onto rocks for magical purposes

stuck pelican
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since they're both yellow and the sun and light is directly tied to healing, growth and life

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the sun & light are tied on all levels of mc

dry crater
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I mean, are we really to believe Gold came from the Sun?

stuck pelican
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gold is tied to the sun and light

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rather than coming from it

dry crater
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It could easily be a coincidence they're both yellow and have healing properties

stuck pelican
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that's the magic of magical colour theory tm

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like fun fact

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emeralds are secretly tied to The entity of Darkness

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guess what

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the Entity of Darkness is also tied to Green

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guess what that means

dry crater
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Is this MCD lore or book lore?

stuck pelican
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its Tied to the void via splatlings
I am not slowly going insane

worldly flare
dry crater
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Hah good point

stuck pelican
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so I suggest The Entity of the Night Skies be renamed to The Emmisary of the Void

dry crater
stuck pelican
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but yeah personally I believe colour matters but you can't chart everything out with it alone

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you gotta keep in mind the themes of the areas

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like soul is blue, but also is the ocean

dry crater
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I think the ocean is blue because of the underwater ruins and all the sea life being killed by Guardians, causing their soul energy to taint the waters

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The ruins because, well, maybe Minecraft had an Atlantis and it falling caused soul energy to also taint the ocean

turbid oak
grizzled marlin
toxic flax
grizzled marlin
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gold doesn’t melt tho…

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at least not that i’ve seen in minecraft

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plus dandelions are also yellow, color does not solely a confirmation make

warm drum
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Some things have connections by color, others not

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It really depends

worldly flare
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There are good connections in this case

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How the undead are harmed by healing potions, which are made with glistening melons, and by the sun

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And the Grave Bane and Sun’s grace, golden weapons that also play on these abilities of gold

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And there’s the name of the radiance enchantment, and how the sun could be said to give life to living things, as gold does in golden apples, glistening melons, totems of undying, and golden carrots

dry crater
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Maybe the mythology of Iron being divine and used as the weakness against evil spirits and magical beings got flipped and its Gold that's divine and the weakness against undead in Minecraft?

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Ancient humans got iron from meteorites and claimed it was sent from the heavens.
Maybe the Builders dug so deep they got gold, and claimed it was divine and originated from the Sun

worldly flare
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I... what would that do?

dry crater
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What would what do?

worldly flare
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them claiming things about it

dry crater
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Ancient folk were ignorant and scared, they needed something that they can believe can protect them.
Builders are effectively humans, so who's to say they wouldn't be scared of the spiders and (alive) phantoms stalking the night?

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Or heck, the wolves!

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Maybe, just maybe, Back in prehistoric times Gold was extremely common and the Builders mined out so much of it and used golden weapons against the ancient beasts that roam the land

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And when all was said and done, the Builders entered the Iron Age

worldly flare
dry crater
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Yeah well, maybe Gold really is divine and the Builders just thought of it as such before discovering it literally is

grizzled marlin
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Just because she and gold both have rejuvenating properties, it’s not a direct link betwixt them

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with the undead in relation to Sun, her warmth burns them, which is different from health potions which simply deplete the undeads’ health. these are two different means of harming the undead

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I don’t know what about Sun exactly causes the undead to burn, but is seems different from what health potions do