The Complex Puzzle of the Wither | Deep Dive 

Imagine being trapped in soul sand for so long then some guy wearing boots he got from trading with piglins walks over it and you are suddenly free

when you walk on soul sand without the enchantment (Soul Speed), the trapped souls grab you, make you slower and plead for freedom from this prison that is hell. When you have Soul Speed, you free them. The better Soul Speed, the faster they are freed.

My soul is fading away to be used as energy for the hellspawn that wants to kill everything , nothing a bucket of milk can't fix

I always figured Piglins stayed away from soul fire and such because they have a heightened sense of hearing compared to the player, and can hear the damned's screams of agony coming from the cyan flames. Minecraft is *dark.*

Builders: My soul has been trapped in this hellscape for what feels like eternity Steve: Haha bubble elevator go brrrr

POV: You found the Enderman video in your recommended and now you're down a rabbit whole watching the whole series

The most terrifying part is that the player character knows about the wither since they carve it into carved red sandstone.

If you run across soul sand with soul speed boots and subtitles on, you'll see that the sound is officially called soul escapes.

Another great puzzle *_"How Mojang recorded the panda death sound"_*

Notice how the Wither glows Blue at the beginning of the fight? That could be soul energy.

Something I notice about the souls released from the Soul Speed; they smile. They begin in despair and are freed, thus the enchantment may actually be some kind of liberating enchantment and the souls give you speed to return the favor as opposed to slowing you down.

I don't exactly know how the "soul energy" works, but the new minecraft warden may help answer a lot of these questions. I say this because within it's large, open chest cavity it appears to have blue faces in it, similar to the souls released from soul sand. So maybe the warden is actually related to the Nether and not the End, or it's related to both dimensions, but my point is that this new mysterious mob could finally debunk certain questions behind Minecraft's lure.

You don’t know how much the little diagrams, passionate narrator and overall amazing theories do to make it seem like a real documentary

ok but i feel like i’m watching a real documentary when i watch your videos man, keep up the great work :]

RetroGamingNow: Tonight we'll take a look at one of the TWO bosses. *Sad Elder Guardian noises

Man I sure didn’t ask youtube to recommend masterpieces like this to me but I sure do apreciate it

"Undead Mobs used to be alive." *every 60 seconds, a minute passes.* Edit: this reply chain is amazing.

I have exams in a week, 8 assignments due, and a few practicals. But this video seems to be more important.

15:10 We know there's some kind of zombification virus in the Overworld that the player is immune to (as well as the villagers but to a lesser extent). Maybe the construction of the first wither also created the virus. It's not hard to imagine that the effects of the virus would be similar to the actual withering effect after all, just a bit weaker. But that would also explain where the virus came from, why nether stars were never mass-produced (because suddenly everyone who worked with them started becoming zombies), and why no cataclysmic effect happens after summoning a wither: the virus is already out there and the player is immune to it. Adding more virus to the atmosphere doesn't mean anything to the people who are immune to it.

The fact that wither effect makes soul energy makes sense. This is because when a wither kills a mob with its wither effect, it’s health is regenerated. Soul energy must be like experience is to players and illagers.

It’s interesting that the chiseled Nether brick has a skull pattern. Details like that always throw a wrench in the works when you’re building timelines. Then there’s the aggression between Piglins and Wither skeletons. Love that bastions are made from blackstone (basalt deltas) whereas fortresses are made from Netherbrick (smelted netherrack). Both mobs have their own banner patterns. Pigstep for Piglins, maybe Disc 11 for the Wither Skeletons? Do they wield stone swords for the higher damage/durability as compared to gold? Why are only WS heads a natural drop? If they’re the same race as us, why are they taller? Why do they, when equipped with a bow via commands, always shoot flaming arrows? Was there a Nether war in the not so distant past? How absolutely epic would it be for a Wither Skeleton to cinematically walk down a hallway towards a character, slowly emerging into the light, dragging a stone blade behind it as it rasped through its empty jaws, “must...defend...fortress”?

“There are two types of skeletons” strays: am I a joke to you?

The wither producing wither roses reminds me of golems giving flowers, except in a twisted way. The wither rose could be more symbolic, like showing death or corruption manifested into a flower, like a flower on a grave. That made me think of a cool concept. Imagine a wither rose field? That would imply that a wither has killed hundreds of beings, now leaving only flowers as their remains. There are poppy fields which grow over war zones due to the soil being churned by explosives, like a subtle reminder of a disaster. That would be a cool build

"There are two different skeletons the wither skeleton and the normal skeleton." Strays: AM I A JOKE TO YOU?

When you have 10 Million Subscribers, I will call myself an OG.

In Minecraft dungeons, you can harvest souls from defeated enemies. And there are items that can harness these souls. Such as the harvester, and the corrupted beacon. This further proves your theory. Especially the parts about soul energy. And the nether star within a beacon, being a concentrated source of soul energy.

I think that the souls sand sucks life out of creatures living on it, hence the skeletons and fossils. This would prove where the energy came from and also solve the fossil problem. This also tells us why you walk slower on it as it sucks out your energy. However soul speed counteracts that effect, causing the release of the energy.

Notch and Jeb like: - Wow, i didnt knew that

a huge flaw with this theory is just the misinterpretation of the way wither roses work. Yes, Withered Skeletons are the only mob that *can* spawn on wither roses. No, this does not mean Withered Skeletons spawn *on/from* wither roses. Withered Skeletons can spawn on any block, as long as it exists within a nether fortress, or soulsand valley. and since we can see nether fortresses in places other than soulsand valleys, that means that it must be something the fortresses share *with* soulsand valleys. (perhaps the soulsand in the netherwart room within the fortresses, but that may be too small for the entire fortress to be spawning them. (another unrelated issue is the notion that blazes have anything to do with soul energy, we've already seen that souls are blue, and blazes are yellow. I think it would be more fitting to say they're some kind of fire elementals that the builders found a way to harness and mass-produce.)

If you are so interested in soul energy, I recommend minecraft dungeons. Technically, it is part of the minecraft universe and features soul powered weapons which often do more damage than regular ones. I don't know if I'm too late or not, but at least future viewers will know that soul energy is a confirmed thing.

Another theory: soul sand slows you down, and is shorter than other blocks. Maybe the soul sand is trying to drag your soul into it which is why it's slowing you down. Almost like quicksand

There are two different skeletons The stray: allow me to introduce myself

One of my favorite little details in Minecraft is that where Chiseled Sandstone has an etching of a creeper, Chiseled Red Sandstone has one of the Wither. It probably doesn't add anything to the lore, but I still think it's cool.

Dude I have been looking so long for a RU-vid channel which goes really in depth into minecraft lore, and finally i have found it, keep up the good work.

I always thought the piglins are scared by the soul fire because it's the only thing they remember from, and directly connect to their old masters. The memories of how their masters looked (I'd propose the player is a descendent of the ancient builders) might have faded away, how their masters did things, conducted operations, and built massive citadels might have disappeared, but the only traces of their masters' legacy on the nether are in the form of extensive mining operations drilled into the piglins, and the soul fires their masters meddled with (Probably with disastrous consequences, which is all the more reason to be afraid). maybe it has something to do with the apocalypse even. This also shows you a glimpse into how effectively the ancient builders controlled the piglins. The value of gold is so ingrained in their psyche that they cannot even understand how it was likely embedded into them by the ancient builders to exploit them, and the soul fires bring out a primal fear for their lives in the piglins, even after so many generations of the ancient builders becoming nothing but dust and dirt.

The builder’s knew the wither was immune, but they wondered how, after killing it and making a beacon they figured out it could make the wither immune to soul sand, speed breaks the soul sand spell, it makes you slow to get your soul to power up the wither

Welcome back everybody! This is a tricky one...I'm really interested in hearing your thoughts! Also, what should I do next?

My personal theory is that Soul energy wasn't a natural thing, but the actual souls of the builders / ender men. Soul sand is sand corrupted or taken over from the builders. Wither roses were corrupted roses, and wither skeletons were, well, corrupted skeletons. Maybe the Wither was the amalgamation of soul energy, forming into a beast that aggressively tries to extract souls from other beings.

Someone has to animate his entire series and make a story completely based on his lore

Actualy I think, that they made 2 beacons(1st one can be seen on top of the desert temple, and the second one has been given to pillagers, because in one of the woodland manisons secret rooms there is glass tank, and inside of it is some lava lava(simmilar to obsidian), that is surounding a diamond block in the middle(blue like souls))!

5:21 "I am going to call this effect soul energy" *DOOM theme starts playing*

I have something for you to look into: the lore of the nether ambience, look at some videos of them, they have some REALLY CREEPY names, there are some in ssv of people screaming, and sounds in warped forests called the torturer and the torturered, it is really creepy could there be a story around the names?

Just today I’ve only gotten so recently hooked onto these theories and they’re so interesting!

The question is though... if Piglins are so afraid of Soul Fire, why do they barter with Soul Speed books and where do they get those from??? 🤔

This is like a documentary this show is more interesting then everything on Netflix

Watching this makes me feel like I’m involved in a documentary, honestly gives me so much nostalgia that I’ve started to play minecraft again, keep making these videos❤️❤️❤️

I've compiled a bunch of theories and questions about this series so I'm just going to repost them in one on all these videos to increase the odds of them getting answered or maybe even made into videos 1. Do you think somewhere in the minecraft world there's a lost disk called disk 12? 2. something I want to know is what a respawn anchor is supposed to be because respawning is not something that actually happens in universe but with the bed its obvious that the actual in universe use is just for sleeping but the respawn anchor only sets a spawn point so what's it actually doing in the context of the world? 3. What are the differences between different forms of undeath? We see Zombies, husks, Zombie villagers, zombie horses, zoglins, zombie pigmen, and drowned who all just have decaying skin. Skeletons, wither skeletons, strays, and skeleton horses who just keep their bones then we see Phantoms who have a more ghost like appearance. Also as an addon to that what is a ghast because I always thought it was a ghost but it isn't so maybe it conveniently evolved like squids or something. 4. Something that I find interesting is that other creatures when inflicted by the zombie virus seem to become mindlessly violent but when horses and piglins become zombified they act mostly normal, with piglins specifically the only differences are they seem to not have the full intelligence of normal piglins because A they don't still trade and B they only spawn with Swords and don't use cross bows. Another weird detail is that zombified piglins are immune to fire which is a huge red flag for a couple of reasons because one normal piglins aren't fire immune but most other undead creatures are particularly weak to fire. Another undead mob that has weird contradictions to most undead mobs are the zombie and skeleton horses which also keep their normal friendliness and seem to be the least far gone of these undead mobs not only being still domesticatable but being even easier to domesticate. I originally assumed that the undead virus only makes humans violent but that is simply not true because Phantoms and the wither are also not friendly. The biggest weird detail in all of this is that other undead mobs seem to still see these creatures as natural allies with skeletons riding skeleton horses and withers never attacking anything that is already undead. 5. I think that the fox is most likely the most intelligent and possibly important mob that's completely a wild animal (meaning it has no building ability, doesn't exist in its own structure, can't trade, and doesn't have the ability to create a full society) I think that because they are one of 6 mobs that sleep (you, villagers, foxes, 3 illigers) which as you established in the Phantoms video is already important they also have the ability to do several other things that very few can do including using totems of undying, enchantments on weapons, and chorus Fruit, and also can sometimes be seen holding emeralds that weren't given to them and seem to care about them a bit more than other non food items which may have even inspired the villagers to hold a similar appreciation for emeralds although that and the rest of this is just speculation I think two possible explanations for this are that they could be some sort of ancestor to either villagers or ancient builders although it's kinda hard to place because they have the emerald connection to villagers but can do other things like defend themselves although it could be a common ancestor for both and then my second idea take a trip even further through speculation town and a bit into the early stages of creepy pasta Avenue with the possibility that they once were villagers or ancient builders (again it's kinda hard to place) who were turned by a magic enemy with the most likely culprit being the illigers but another possibility is that the illigers themselves might have accidentally turned some of there kind into foxes although that's unlikely because foxes are only hostile when something attacks it first and even then tend to prefer running away. Anyway foxes have a ton of weird and specific properties that I'd love to see your interpretations on. So those are all my pitches.

This makes sense why the piglins also hate the wither skeletons. They have a natural aversion to souls, seen in their fear of soul fire, and so naturally they also don’t like wither skeletons, which are full of soul energy.

I literally just found this channel and went on a small channel binge of all the iceberg vids. I go to his channel page to watch another deep dive and this was uploaded??? That in itself is a conspiracy worthy of a deep dive video

Mojang watching this be like: 👁👄👁

Another interesting thing, the desert temple perfectly fits a fully sized beacon in the top floor with whole for the beacon itself on the top! With your theory of the builders, this would make sense as to why the temples were constructed

Fun fact: when you use soul speed on soul sand, in the subtitles when you jump it says "Soul escapes"

The generation of the nether fortresses isn't random at all, they generate in "lines" in the world's North/South axis Maybe that's an important point?

"Zombie and endermen are so différent, i don't see how they would fit with these shapes" Smash Bros Ultimate : hold my hitboxes

14:22 I would like to point out though, that even though we never see a beacon or nether star, we do see the implied use of beacons through the desert temples. Notch said during an interview some time ago that desert temples were designed with hollowed pyramids in order to house fully built beacons.

There is something I really think it's worth mentioning: the desert temple's second floor is made in a perfect shape to build a beacon into it and on it's top there is an opening to the ray of light. So whoever built those temples knew about the wither and had plans to use it's nether star

8:00 there a little problem here, in french (i sometime play in french because i am one) the wither effect is called "décomposition" than mean "decomposition". So the wither effect shoud be like transforming into a "bait for bacteria" so you are getting eaten alive...

You’re theories are so interesting, you do a really good job of pushing these theories, im super excited to see what else you will put out

This channel makes me look at minecraft at a TOTALLY DIFFERENT WAY. Keep it up!

I think 1.19 is both confirming and completely overthrowing your world history model at the same time. I am really hoping for a deep dive timeline update after it launches.

Retro: stalagmites The biome: full of basalt

At first I thought "oh, I haven't seen this one" but than I realized "no, he just has a sleep schedule as bad as mine"

I don't know if someone has already mentioned or not, but when you excavate the soul sand you can actually hear a breath like sound

It's so addictive to watch all of these deep dive videos

I just realized something, the wither fires two types of skulls, a black skull, and a blue skull, maybe the black skull is to steal soul energy, and the blue skull is the wither concentrating a lot of soul energy into one single skull and firing it, maybe that's why the blue skull is able to break obsidian and crying obsidian, two of the hardest block in the game? Edit: I think I'm the 2100th comment on this video Edit 2: Wow thanks for the likes, this is the most likes I've ever gotten on a single comment

i’m literally obsessed watching your theories tf this brings me back to the times where i question about mobs and read about it in them minecraft books

He always says, “an event that’s beyond the scope of this video” I want to know what happened!

What if the Wither Skeletons were actually undead Endermen. They have some physical similarities, being the only two mobs with long limbs and being three blocks tall. It could also explain the origin of the withering effect, with the combination of soul energy and ender pearls.

WE NEED THE "HOW THE CIVILIZATION DIED OUT"

"Today we'll take a look at one of the two boss mobs." Don't worry, I also forget Elder Guardians are a boss mob.

I really REALLY like this theory, the Builders also definitely built at least one Wither due to the carvings on red sandstone. One thing I noticed that you didn’t mention is the power source of beacons. You use multiple precious metals to make it stronger or to work at all. You can use gold and netherite, staples of the Nether, but you can also use emeralds, iron and diamonds, objects with seemingly no connection to soul energy or the Nether in general. On a related note, what is the purpose of pyramids? Pyramids made of precious metals and gemstones make beacons more powerful, and is also the only (?) location where you can find Enchanted Golden Apples, possibly the only instance of enchantments being used on food items. Very good video!

Wow, all these Minecraft deep dives are so amazing! You have definitely earned my subscription 🙂

I loved the video again, I again will request this, but the golems. They seem mysterious to me.

When the wither charges up, it’s the same color of the Vex’s

“A player could finish the game without ever seeing one” *spawning into 2b2t and immediately being wrecked by sixteen withers*

In case it hasn't been mentioned, Wither Skeletons can be spawned by the Wither on Bedrock Edition. 3-4 can be spawned when the Wither is at half health on normal or hard difficulties. I just saw this on the wiki which is why I am mentioning it now. If someone already mentioned it, then thanks and sorry for the repetition.

Bruh imagine being Sweden and making an Indie Block Game and then A Couple years later There are people making theory about your gane

I like how you're thinking about this, but I think MatPat's theory seems much more cohesive. You said that the wither creates wither roses and roses into wither skeletons, but why do wither skeletons spawn in fortresses in the first place? Could it be that they're the ancient builder's skeleton remains that absorbed the soul energy?

In the Illager video, it was mentioned that Illagers experiment with life and death. Is it possible that they created the wither rose? This would provide an explanation for the seemingly useless flower-filled room in a Woodland Mansion. When they did this, likely by using the totem of undying, perhaps the "soul energy" from failed prior experiments fueled the power of the wither rose, spawning wither skeletons, and the cycle is completed by their ability to spawn withers.

It could be that the origin of soulsand valleys was a sort of hurriedly created burial ground for the ancient builders that had died because of their zombification; since the survivors knew how dangerous their undead bodies would become, it'd make sense for them to try and get rid of them far away from their overworld bases.

I love these videos!! I can tell you put in a lot of thought and work into making them and I appreciate that. I can't wait for the video about piglins!!

I'm wondering about ghasts It's been confirmed by the achievements that ghasts aren't native to the nether So what are the ghast?

All of this Minecraft lore has immensely deepened my appreciation for this game, thank you for your work!

I think the power of the stored souls in soulsand/soul soil is what allows bubble elevators to propel you up so quickly.

the reason why soul sand creates bubbles on the water is that the souls are trying to escape (gotta give credit to a friend of mine from discord)

ah yes, minecraft's version of hell has argent energy as well. can't wait to see the day mojang adds a Big Friggin Sword to the game.

When subtitles are turned on, the noise that happens when you walk on soul sand with soul speed boots is called "Soul escapes."

The best part of all of this is that there is a high possibility that the developers and designers creating this never thought of a story, just setting. It's all visual storytelling, and the reason why it works is because the past is vague and unknown, allowing the devs to not think too deep.

“The only other ghosts we see are the vex” Ghasts: am I a joke to you?

This reminds me of asdfmovie "Hello wither skeleton" "I USED TO BE A COW!"

Has anyone ever told u that ur wisdom is enthralling and profoundly captivating? Geez dude u honestly got a gift :) at times it feels like ur reaching but then I take the time to think about those moments and try and counter ur claims only to end up with ur conclusions being the absolute best :-) I have a profound amount of respect for u and wat u do. Glad I'm a sub :) thank you o7

dude, the music you have composed is BRILLIANT. you have talent man.

It's obvious there was some great interdimensional cataclysm, something happened that wiped out almost all life. The Nether is an interesting place, what exactly it is is unknown, and the same goes for the End. However it's clear that someone gained access to both. The ancient builders created great portals to the Nether, but something happened to these portals. Something caused them to sort of overload, creating an explosion of portal energy which caused the nether to leak out, but the obsidian seems to have absorbed a lot of that energy, as there seems to be something special about obsidian. What if these ancient portals had something to do with this extinction event? Both Nether and overworld seem to have been affected in some way, and the only link between them is these ancient portals. It's also possible there was some kind of an ancient war between humans and piglins, as wither skeletons and piglins will attack each other on sight. Both created strongholds to defend themselves, the fortresses and the bastions. The piglins built the bastions to defend their homes, and will attack you on sight unless disguised with gold (brutes see through this trick, as they are the more well trained warriors and guards) and wither skeletons are armed with swords as opposed to bows. What if the soul sand valleys were a result of this war? Soul sand must have existed prior, as the nether has a strong connection to death, the stone itself seems to bleed. But what if these great war zones were overcharged by the death and destruction, leading to the creation of soul soil and an abundance of soul sand? Even the fog here has the blue hue, which is likely a result of the extreme amounts of soul energy. So let's see, ancient civilization learned how to make portals from obsidian, discover a new dimension, create fortresses to protect themselves from the danger of ghasts and magma cubes, as well as to study and harness soul energy for brewing. Then they discovered piglins and likely tried to communicate with them via bartering, noting that piglins like gold, so they gathered gold for the piglins and so the piglins would return the favor by giving them various items they had made or acquired. Trading was likely how piglins got iron, as they treat protect it and use it sparingly, since it's not native to the Nether for whatever reason. However, something happened between them, and this began a war. The souls of the warriors led to the overflow of soul energy in the soul sand valleys, and the bodies were left as skeletons. This is where I think the Wither comes in. What if some of the bodies rather than being drained of energy, were infused with it? The fallen soldiers began to reanimate, and attacked their own fortresses. The humans held off these wither skeletons, and learned of their overflow of soul energy. They concocted a plan to use the soul energy to create a biological weapon, something to drain the soul energy of the piglins. The designed the Wither using all the soul energy they could muster, and built it. However, the Wither didn't act as intended. It attacked everything alive to drain the energy for itself, wiping out all the humans. From there, it likely spread the withering, gathering soul energy and creating more soul sand valleys. Some survivors may have escaped to the overworld and warned those there that the Wither was loose, and they had to find some way to stop it, and perhaps they decided to use the power of the portals to kill it, or at least trap it in the Nether so it couldn't wreak havoc on the overworld? They overloaded their portals, causing a explosion that destroyed the Wither, but it wiped out the civilizations in the overworld. The piglins were safe in their bastions, but the humans were mostly wiped out because of their focus on interdimensional travel, and so their main civilizations had portals due to the shorter transport in the nether and such. I'm gonna stop there cus this is way too long now but yeah, that's my thoughts on the Wither and shit. if you read all this please give me your thoughts, try to prove my theory wrong and see if you can find something you think is more accurate

another theory wither effect turns you into into soul sand and soil particles that accumulate in places where there were mass extinctions and actually the wither skeletons were potentially the dead bodies of endermen or something in-between the builders and the endermen

lol i love how he points out that poison is so weak, "it's different from poison as it can actually kill"

i love your minecraft deep dives, keep them coming :) your theories are so well thought out

There are two different types of skeletons Stray: Am I a joke to you?

14:40 THE biggest problem: wither skeletons spawn isn't caused by wither roses. If there's one, no guarantee that wither skeleton will spawn. That's really big issue coz theories, imo, should be based on actual gameplay, not some misreading of properties

In fact, when the wither kills a mob, it heals

Trust me this guy is going to be big in the future. We all will be called OGs. Love ur videos man keep up the good work!!