The Withers Disease Theory

[main nexus]

The Withers Disease

[main nexus]

The Wither is one of the single most powerful mobs seen within Minecraft. It is built from four blocks of soul sand and three Wither Skeleton Skulls. This in particular is a peculiar choice of blocks due to the power that they have. It is well established that soul sand is one of the single most dense sources of soul energy. This is hinted by the presence of how many soul powered objects there are, such as Soul Campfires, Soul Lanterns, and Soul Fire. This shows that the Wither is made up of a dense concentration of soul energy, proven by the usage of soul sand. This is likely compressed into the Nether Star, an immensely powerful object used to provide effects through a beacon, also colored the distinctive cyan of soul energy.

Wither skulls are a different element of the Wither entirely, coming from the Wither Skeletons found in Nether Fortresses. The Wither skeletons are abnormally tall and lack a nasal slit on their skull. They also possess an excess of ribs on their skulls as hinted by the "Ribs" armor trim. These features leads me to believe that the Wither Skeletons are possibly not entirely of human origin.

The Wither skeletons possess the effect known as "Wither', which is a degenerative effect that behaves similarly to poison, but with the added features of being able to damage undead mobs and fully kill the player. I theorize that the Wither Skulls are what give the Wither the ability to deliver the Wither effect to mobs . This raises the question of why do the Wither Skeletons possess this effect? I believe that the answer to the possible origin of this effect may be in a little known object known as the wither rose.

The wither rose is spawned whenever the Wither kills a mob within the overworld of Minecraft and gives the wither effect to any mobs that come into direct contact with it. I believe that the reason for the wither rose and why it is able to transmit the wither effect is due to the wither effect being a representation of a disease. One of the primary bases for this is Minecraft: Story Mode. Although Story Mode is officially not canon to the main Minecraft games, I do believe elements of it could have been brought over, such as Wither being a type of sickness to those who interact with the Wither. The contagiousness of such a disease is backed up in vanilla through the wither skeleton and wither rose, which have the ability to pass this effect over to mobs who interact with them while still possessing it. It can be assumed from this that in canon, Wither can be transmitted through organisms. The wither roses would be used as a source of the wither disease, being able to cause plague among civilizations in the overworld.

[main nexus]

A possible reason for wanting to spread a plague among the overworld may be due to the very nature of the Wither (entity) itself. It is known through the Expanded Wither Theory that the Wither (entity) would spread the beginning stages of Alchemy in the nether, leading to a process very similar to primary succession. The Wither would spread decay through soul sand, the decayed matter with souls still within it. Using this energy, the tears of Ghasts would slowly regenerate the matter with ignition, releasing the soul energy. This radiation of energy would slowly convert matter into what we would call netherrack. This allowed for life in the form of Crimson Fungi to form and through alchemy, gold to form in the Nether. The usage of wither roses may have allowed this alchemic process to speed up organically, infecting lifeforms to create soul sand and begin the Alchemic process.

This alchemy and succession is the primary motive of the Wither (entity), to spread this version of biodiversity upon the plains of existence. This leads into the idea that the Wither is likely not a fully sentient being until he is created from the soul sand and Wither Skulls. When created, it shows a degree of sentience by not attacking the undead and Ghasts, showing its liking for the decayed and diseased. All the while promoting alchemy through not attacking the Ghasts. However, the base nature of the Wither (entity) shows once created, with the base natures of it taking hold and killing all living organisms, using their souls to create a wither rose to speed up the process of alchemy and nether succession. The purpose of the Wither Skeletons is to also spread this through the means of protecting the Wither and transferring wither disease. It is also possible that the Wither (entity) without a body could spawn wither roses in a possible pre-nigredo nether, but this is speculation.

[main nexus]

In the boss fight with the Wither (entity), upon reaching half health it spawns three wither skeletons and arms itself with Wither Armor (an armor formed by the wither through energy). This proves a source of who created the Wither skeletons. But the question remains, why are they in the Nether Fortresses? I theorize that the Wither Skeletons seen in the fortresses are likely the mismatched bones of Wither (disease) victims that were cremated. This can be supported by both the loot tables of Wither Skeletons and the existence of Lava wells within the Fortresses.

The loot tables of Wither skeletons have a 1/3 chance to drop coal, which stated by a dev (someone link me it in DM's) was due to the Wither Skeleton being charred. Connecting the pieces, the Lava wells do not have a glorified purpose in the Nether fortresses. Lava is abundant in the nether, so why would there be a need for it? I suspect the need would come from an excess of corpses caused by an outbreak of Wither (disease) in the cramped conditions of the Nether Fortresses. The wells would be constructed 5 blocks down, enough to house two people. These corpses would then be placed inside of the wells to burn and melt from contact with the lava, eradicating Wither from accumulating. This explains why Wither Skeletons look so different from regular skeletons; they are constructed from the charred, scrapped bones of diseased people within these wells. This also explains why there is a lack of bones within the well, as they were all used to create the Wither skeletons.

Further evidence for the presence of humans within the Fortresses is the fact that regular skeletons spawn as well, but far rarely. This hints that the people who did not contract Wither were few and far between, and likely died of other causes.

It is likely for the Wither (entity) to have originally used the Wither Skeletons as a way to infect more people with Wither (disease) within the densely populated Fortresses after the original inhabitants had mostly died out, using the still-infected bones of the diseased to attack any who come into it, and transfer the disease to them, further spreading the alchemic process and succession if any people were to investigate what happened.

The Withers Disease Theory

[stark vapor]

The Wivid-24

[remote halo]

Well the explanation is very good and makes up for any lack of evidence, I like it. Gj 🙂

[obsidian void]

Blue wither

[main nexus]

yes

[misty swift]

I like the idea of the bodyless wither entity being able to spawn wither roses and wither skeletons, maybe it was something it could do way back in the pre-nigredo nether but as time went on it lost power and now it needs a soul-fueled vessel.

I also really like the idea of wither skeletons being constructed from charred and scrapped bones of diseased people, I think it even has evidence in MCD from the Wither armor, which is stated to be "crafted with the parts of slain enemies" might be a nod to the actual formation of wither skeletons

[main nexus]

Ah!

More evidence

To think this is an entirely vanilla based theory lol

[remote halo]

blue?

[misty swift]

also, the ribs armor trim could also imply that the wither skeletons were smart enough as to make armor that matches their "withered" form

[remote halo]

pre-nigredo=?

So you mean wither skellys aren't burnt reanimated corpses but in actuality ppl who have decayed alive to their now black bones?

If so then wouldn't the armor just be crafted out of wither skeletons which's origin is still unknown tecnically?

[remote halo]

Good point, how intelligent are wither skeletons anyway?

[misty swift]

No I meant about the "true" wither entity behind it all being able to somehow summon wither roses, I later read the part about skeletons so I don't think pre-nigredo wither skeletons were possible

[misty swift]

Well, normal skeletons appear to be just as intelligent as any other undead, basically just follow orders from their necromancer commanders, unlike necromancers who can actually perform speech and complex tasks on their own. But nether fortresses don't have any "wither necromancer" so it could be that they are smarter than normal skeletons, it could even explain their targeted hatred towards piglins

Like, wither skeletons are capable of running their fortresses

[stark vapor]

They were Big brained in life

[main nexus]

got you

I removed the mention of wither skeletons

[main nexus]

@misty swift There is a nasal slit on this armor

That is new

And possibly evidence that the wither skeletons are just jumbled bones, this one happened to have an intact face

[misty swift]

good observation

also notice how normal wither skeletons have just one pixel in the nose

[main nexus]

Correct

part of a nasal slit

[misty swift]

so maybe the other hole is filled with coal or bone or something

[main nexus]

Likely some random part of bone

[misty swift]

I still don't know how the wither itself has no nosehole but a beard and hair

and eyebrows

[main nexus]

Magic

[misty swift]

maybe not hair just weird shading, but the eyebrows are odd

[main nexus]

its likely it perfected its form upon gaining a body

Lacking the damage of the wither skeleton skulls

[misty swift]

or moving bones to form more facial features

[main nexus]

True

It just doesn't want to almost be falling apart

[misty swift]

that could also explain why the ribcage looks like anything but a ribcage

[main nexus]

Considering wither skeletons are made of whatever the hell they could find in a glorified dumpster

[main nexus]

Forged out of soul sand

[misty swift]

yeah, makes sense considering soul sand is likely made out of dead matter

and in MCD it does have small bones laying around

[main nexus]

One sec

There

Documents

[minor mirage]

i want to say that humans don't exist in minecraft

only villagers illagers and pigmen

[main nexus]

They exist

it is painfully obvious they exist

[stark vapor]

Mah man You didn't play Dungeons

[minor mirage]

i did

[main nexus]

The thousands of dead human corpses across two full dimensions:

[minor mirage]

it said in the minecraft dev book that humans dont exist only people (us)

[stark vapor]

Dungeons have a lot of humans and being a hero is considered a not so popular job

[minor mirage]

in legends all villagers are skeletons have the noses

[minor mirage]

players

[stark vapor]

Not really canon

[main nexus]

We have evidence of skeleton villagers

[minor mirage]

its from the devs

[stark vapor]

It Talks about the gameplay

[minor mirage]

and lore

[stark vapor]

Not lore

[main nexus]

the skeletons seen in vanilla and dungeons are NOT villagers

[minor mirage]

like how endermen are not evolved people

[minor mirage]

then what are they

they cant be us because only we can be us

[stark vapor]

It's not us

[minor mirage]

and why would the legends ones have noses

[stark vapor]

Just the species we are

[minor mirage]

then what

[minor mirage]

but the book said they cant be human

[main nexus]

They are an ancient human civilization that mostly died out

[main nexus]

They cannot be the player, but can be human

[stark vapor]

Or just dead people in general

Reanimated by necromancy/natural causes

[minor mirage]

"Steve and Alex are placeholders for players, and there are no other human characters in Minecraft. Only human beings (the

players) may look like humans

There are a few exceptions: in Minecraft: Education Edition we added more villager skins to help with tutorial NPCs, and in Minecraft: Story Mode, the concept is that all characters are

‘players on a server"

[stark vapor]

(basically the 80% of the Nameless one kingdom)

[minor mirage]

they have to be villagers because it says Only human beings (the players) may look like humans

[misty swift]

then what about the undead? they surely weren't villagers

[minor mirage]

i dont know

they could be villagers just without the nose

[main nexus]

The undead are not humans

They are shambling corpses meant to resemble humans

but are not functionally humans

[minor mirage]

then were do they come from

[main nexus]

This line is likely urging against having more human characters, but not human-like npc's

[stark vapor]

Humanoids is the correct word

[main nexus]

Ancient humans that existed before the player came to be

[misty swift]

well they do have flat heads, like the player which is meant to be an in-universe human

Also keep in mind that the Jeb book is a vanilla gameplay design book, it is not a lore book much less a book that has authority over the minecraft universe as a whole.

[minor mirage]

its not ment to be a lore book but it still dose have some

"We never want to explain the endermen to our players. They are the silent observers, and their mysterious behavior of moving blocks should remain a mystery. Notch added the endermen as a nod to the Slenderman meme, but they have since then grown to become a core Minecraft lore element.

This well-kept secret is that they are trying to bring about the collapse to all dimensions, by displacing blocks that are key to the world’s existence. They do this one block at a time, hilariously slowly. But...they have eternity on their side."

[stark vapor]

They never wanted to explain the Endermans yet added more enderman-like creatures in Dungeons

[minor mirage]

never wanted because its a secret

[main nexus]

Voidborn creatures

[misty swift]

see this quote is in the anecdotes part of the book at the end, which is a completely different part from the rest of the book that talks about gameplay features design

[stark vapor]

The Enderman is a Voidborn creature

[main nexus]

Correct

[misty swift]

almost half of the book is contradicted by other canon media anyways, like named characters and mobs with gender

[stark vapor]

There we go we explained the Endermans before Mojang did

[main nexus]

Lol

Just a bunch of pawns of the Heart of Ender

Like how Wither Skeletons are pawns of the Heart of Nether

[stark vapor]

The what

[main nexus]

Synonym of the wither

[stark vapor]

Ah

Dang you gived me an idea of a Vhoe type of creature

(that would be the wither storm if story mode wasnt such a cursed thing)

Like this but more Black and white

[remote halo]

Holy hell, wtf is that?

[remote halo]

(how is it cursed and how does that look like a wither storm?)

[stark vapor]

A sorcerer kid burning because his sister's ring that protected from the fire in the hell he lives got lost

Dark Souls lore

[remote halo]

oof

I hope he finds it again xD

burning alive is not cool

no swag in that

[minor mirage]

your right its hot

[stark vapor]

Cursed because story mode is the Black sheep of the franchise

And wither storm uses a command block as a source of power

[stark vapor]

A Knight puts him out of His misery so good ending i guess

[remote halo]

well only if he was longer not in hell then he was in hell

[coarse narwhal]

Why did you use every tag

[main nexus]

I did not

[coarse narwhal]

Okay fine but why did you select every game tag when it only effects the base game and MAYBE story mode

[fallen tree]

Not maybe, it uses story mode

[coarse narwhal]

well yeah but my point still stands

[minor mirage]

story mode is not canon at all

[main nexus]

I was thinking

Could Nether be a type of corruption

[misty swift]

Yes

[main nexus]

So we have void and nether corruption competing over the overworld

[misty swift]

Actually

I could share an interesting theory I got recently

[main nexus]

Go for it

[misty swift]

Ok so, remember the alchemy Opus Magnum?

Nigredo Albedo and Rubedo

The Rubedo is when in real life alchemy one creates the philosopher stone, a big red funny rock

In the Minecraft context I believe this big red funny rock is both netherrack and all the crimson life forms

Now, I say life forms in plural because of MCD, where crimson vegetation is very diverse

I believe that the pre-nigredo Nether had lots of plants and fungus, those were killed of by the nigredo, which in alchemy is described as basically destroying a material for the generaron of a "superior one"

I think the killed flora of the pre-nigredo Nether was "reborn" from the soul sand valleys and forced into "crimson" as some sort of homogenous device of the Rubedo, a "superior" thing for the Decay/Wither entity

So

The interesting thing is warped fungi, I think we all agree that warped fungi is corrupted and have plenty of evidence for it .

Now, crimson vegetation also grows on top of warped nylium, just that in a lower amount, and the same happens backwards

One could think warped growing from crimson as ig there is corruption in the environment, or a void entity or endermans or whatever. However, this also happens if you grow them in the overworld, and it doesnt get faster in The End, so this is not something from the environment but rather... Crimson fungi corrupts itself

In fact, the MCD flora I mentioned before has parts of it that are warped and others that remain crimson

What I'm trying to say is that I believe corription is the true 4th step in the MC "Opus Magnum", crimson vegetation exists with the propuse of corrupting itself and spread corruption around, which is what the Void wants to do.

Decay, the wither and the undead, are The Beginning.

The Void and corruption are The End.

These two entities might be just two faces of a single coin, two *Twins" ,as the Nameless one says, who plot together a single scheme

And maybe this is why both forces tried so hard to take over the overworld many times

[coarse narwhal]

thanks for ignoring me completely and furthung clogging up the channel

[main nexus]

Because tags don't matter that. Please quit whining about it.

[minor mirage]

they do tho

[coarse narwhal]

they literally do

when I'm trying to find a Minecraft dungeons theory I use the Minecraft dungeons search tag

[main nexus]

It aint the most trivial thing

[coarse narwhal]

yes it is

they exist for a reason don't misuse them