Necromancy?

[visual furnace]

Okay, so, this theory isn't very complicated, just a bit weird until you actually understand why I'm making this. Just hang on, and you'll get what this all means.

Necromancy is the magic of raising dead creatures, or just organic matter from the dead. In the case of Minecraft, necromancy has been around since the early days. Not necessarily actually raising people from the dead, but the people that were most probably raised from the dead were always there in the form of zombies, skeletons, and later husks, and strays.

Later, with the release of dungeons and the book: The Rise of the Arch Illager, we found out who actually made these zombies and skeletons in the first place. We can say pretty certainly that the inhabitants of the Nameless Kingdom were the ones that created the undead.

So, last night, I was just thinking about how there were zombie villagers, but no zombie illagers. I came up with the most logical solution, which is that illagers are immune to necromancy for some reason. And then something popped into my mind: it must be totems of undying.
This discovery might actually be more important that you think, since this can explain a lot about the relationships illagers have with the undead in vanilla Minecraft.
Let me explain. The fact that totems of undying were there before dungeons could mean that before RotAI, the illagers were already "befriended" with the undead.
Two of the most logical reasons are listed below.

1. The Nameless People were envious of the illagers having a way to get by death without the downsides necromancy might have
2. The Nameless People helped the illagers with the creation of Totems

Take this as serious as you want, but just know, the relationship between illagers and undead might track back longer than you think.

Just note: I didn't add the MCL or MCE tags, but there might just be a chance these two games are still involved, I just didn't use any of them to explain my theory, so I don't think it's necessary

But you can definitely refer to any canon source to back up / refute my theory

[visual furnace]

Necromancy?

[urban hare]

• The SSVs have alot of undead, but no necromancers that create them. The SSVs are full of soul energy, which is probaly the energy needed to do necromancy. We also know from the Nameless One that necromancy is conected to the night. The only thing in the night which we know can infouence the undead is the moon, which light is similiar to that of soul energy. There also undead everywhere in the OW, except im areas in which they are quickly killed or decomposed before animation (deep dark ane mushroom island), even small islands with no spwaners and probaly no necromamcers. Thiss means that there is probaly in the SSVs and in the ow some kind of "naturaly necromancy", which raises the dead naturaly. The nameless Kingdom and possibly other independent necromancer(s) (groups/states) have gained their abilities through observation and study of natural necromancy

• In Rotai there is a page in which the Nameless One threatens to turn Archie into a husk. Thiss confirms the in-lore existance of illager undead and villagers and illager zombies also having multiple varriants

• Rotai confirms that the undead and illagers are not friends and activly fighting eachother. Archie and Thord for example were fighting in a battle against the undead at the start of the novel