In this video, we will solve the age-old
Minecraft mystery of why the Wither drops a nether star. And we’ll also be uncovering
the Wither’s mysterious backstory. You see, the Minecraft Wither is powered by many souls
which crystallize to form a nether star when it dies. Now we’ll also be uncovering the Wither’s
mysterious backstory. So stick around. The Wither, one of Minecraft’s hardest bosses. When killed,
it’ll drop only a singular nether star. But… why? And what even is a nether star? To answer that,
we will need to look at the origin of the Wither. And believe it or not, the Minecraft paintings
might actually be the key to solving this mystery. The Wither can only be summoned by placing 4 soul
sand and 3 wither skeleton skulls in the shape of a T. This theory begins with the Minecraft
Mobestiary, an official Minecraft book with lots of lore. And even though it’s technically not
canon, it’s the best thing we have to making a cohesive theory and story that makes sense. On the
page with the Wither, it says this and I quote: “[The Wither's] existence was theorized by
scholars before it was witnessed. Soon after, a bizarre painting began to appear, showing
a T-shaped group of brownish blocks topped by three white-eyed heads. Thus the search began
for information as to what this creature may be.” This quote alone gives us a lot to work with.
So apparently ancient scholars of the past theorized its existence due to seeing this weird
painting. So this begs the seemingly obvious but important question: who painted the Minecraft
paintings? Could it have been an evil artist who received visions of what to paint? Or maybe, in
the context of lore, it could’ve been painted by the developers themselves. Let me explain. Mojang
is sort of treated like “gods” in Minecraft and in this book. So when the Mojang “gods” released
the paintings, the ancient people of the past, known as the ancient builders, noticed the
weird wither painting. It’s the only painting not based on an actual real painting. But at
the time they had no clue as to what it was. Looking closer at the painting, there was
what seemed to be grass and the sky looked like a blood colored red. If we keep reading the
Minecraft Mobestiary, it continues with quote: “A group of settlers tried to re-create what they
saw in that painting, using four blocks of soul sand and three skulls of the wither skeleton.”
So it seems that the Wither was constructed by a group of settlers. I will now try to recreate
what I believed happened. Enjoy the story. Here we meet our group of settlers who
were very curious and adventurous. “Guys, look at this painting, it looks kind of weird,
right?” “Yeah, this green looking thing has a creepy looking face…” “Not that, I mean look at
this.” “Huh, what is it?” “I dunno. It’s weird, the grass is green but the sky is red.” “I
wonder what would happen if we built that… thing in the middle there” “I don’t think
that’s a good idea…” “Aww, it’ll be fine…." The settlers soon after discovered a secret
chiseled image in the mesa biomes which seemed to match the painting. Red chiseled sandstone
has a small chance of naturally generating in mesa biomes. “See look, this chiseled
sandstone kind of matches the painting.” “Oh wow, you’re right! These two match.”
“*sigh* Not that, look over here.” “Oh uh, yeah, right.” So with clues they had, they
hypothesized that completing the structure would summon whatever creature this was. These
settlers decided to dedicate their lives to trying to figure out what this entity was and
would try to build the structure. It’s said in the Minecraft Mobestiary that the painting
came before the actual Wither itself was built. “Hey, look at what I built.” “What the- what
is this?” “I.. uh.. I tried to recreate the painting.” “With dirt and coal? Nice try, the
actual materials are probably something a lot harder to obtain.” These settlers would go
on to be the ones who would help pioneer the Nether Portal, a revolutionary technology and
magic. It opened up a whole new dimension with completely foreign and coveted materials.
The ancient builders quickly got to work, setting up infrastructure and building the
bastions. They brought over pigs as a food source. Some pigs escaped and eventually evolved into
the beefy and aggressive hoglins, mainly due to the tougher environment of the Nether. Some of
the other pigs eventually became the piglins. If a pig is struck by lightning, it will turn
into a piglin so maybe lightning was involved in the process somehow. The piglins were used to
mine gold. Mushrooms had been brought over eons ago by the Endermen. Some of the mushrooms mutated
into the warped and crimson mushroom biomes. It’s proven in the Minecraft Mobestiary that endermen
can teleport in all dimensions. This would explain why many endermen live in the warped forest
biomes, since the endermen have already been here for a long time. Let’s return back to our
good old settlers. What got them excited was that the Nether was red just like in the painting.
The settlers eventually figured out that the brown blocks used were soul sand, a block which contains
the souls of the dead. The final ingredient missing now was just the wither skeleton skull.
The settlers at the time though had no clue as to what it was. And in the painting, the
wither skull's eyes are glowing white. Using the paintings once again as our guide,
the settlers noticed the painting of a skull being lit on fire. This could burn and charr a
skull, making it turn black. This is said in the Minecraft Mobestiary on the Wither Skeleton page
that quote: “they have been scoured by fire.” These settlers found an evil magician who used
advanced magic to resurrect a dead friend, turning him into a skeleton. In the Minecraft Mobestiary,
it is said here on the Skeleton page that quote: “...skeletons are ancient adventurers
raised from death by an evil sorcerer.” This makes me wonder if this “evil sorcerer”
was also the one who created the mob spawner, perhaps the one who made the blaze spawner in the
nether fortress, but that however is a story for another time. They used the information from the
painting and lit the skeleton’s skull on fire. It became a charred black, looking like what
we would call a wither skeleton head. Sidenote, the painting with a rose next to it may be
foreshadowing of the Wither rose. Anyways, they used the wither skeleton heads to finally
complete the structure they saw in the Wither painting. This was it, they would finally, after
all these years, figure out what would happen. “This is it my friend, the moment of truth…” These ancient builders wanted to make sure
they copied the painting exactly. Since the structure in the painting is built on grass, it’s
likely that the wither was built in the overworld on top of grass. Just saying though, the red
sky should have been a big red flag that this was a terrible idea. Just sayin’. But their
curiosity got to them. We learn what happened next with quote: “They found terrible
success. With a scream and a burst of fumes, a glowing monstrosity appeared before
them. All was quiet for a few moments, until it let forth an almighty explosion. And so
the battle had begun.” The monster was summoned, letting out a massive explosion, and the
Wither started destroying everything. And once the damage was done in the overworld,
the Wither then went back to its home: the Nether… The ancient builders constructed a Nether fortress
as a defense against the Wither. But wait, if you think about it, the Wither is actually
not that strong-I mean a small group of players with the proper gear could easily take it out.
But my guess is that since this undead mob had never been seen before, they were scared and
so they prepared for the worst. Fun fact, wither skeletons will only spawn in
nether fortresses, and nowhere else. Withers will sometimes spawn wither skeletons
only when they reach half health and become charged. This leads me to believe that the Wither
had gotten to half heath by the time it reached the Nether. Since skeletons are players risen
from the dead, perhaps wither skeletons were players risen from the dead by the Wither. These
skeletons however were corrupted or something, making them slightly taller. Anyways, the blazes
were probably machines that were quote: “seemingly programmed to protect Nether fortresses from any
intruder.” So maybe at first the blazes worked together with the players but they eventually
went rogue and attacked the ancient builders. Let’s briefly mention the wither rose. Whenever
the Wither kills a mob, it will drop a Wither rose. Why is that? It may be its way to reproduce
and pollinate. Similar to how the wardens help the sculk spread. The wither effect is an infectious
disease or life force which attempts to suck the life out of whatever it touches. The Wither helps
spread this withering effect, I guess in the form of a flower? Like how bees pollinate flowers,
withers pollinate these flowers by killing other mobs, how sweet, right? But since wither
roses don’t naturally generate on grass, I guess the Wither didn’t last too long aboveground.
You might be wondering what happened to the Wither if it seemingly caused so much chaos. My current
theory is that the ancient builders evacuated the Nether dimension and destroyed all of their
portals, leaving behind the ruined portals. They successfully trapped the Wither in the nether.
The piglins were given freedom but were left to fend for themselves. A fact most Minecrafters
don’t know is that piglins attack both the Wither and Wither skeletons. This leads me to believe
that the ancient builders armed the piglins with their golden tools and used them as a
last ditch effort to help kill the Wither. The piglins would eventually succeed. The Wither
met its end after decimating the remnant bastion. This is why bastions look like a ruined mess with
missing blocks, you can thank the Wither for that. Its nether star, one of the most powerful items
in the game, was ironically left to despawn. This would explain why beacons never naturally generate
or why nether stars aren’t found in any chests. Now it’s finally time to figure out what nether
stars are and why Withers drop them. The Wither is powered thanks to its collection of many souls,
kind of like the Warden where you can clearly see multiple souls. But unlike the Warden which just
drops a sculk catalyst, the Wither will drop a single item, the nether star. The nether star
is a densely packed collection of many souls, all crammed into one item. Crystallized souls,
if you will. Ghast tears probably contain souls too which I talked about in my video called “Why
Ghasts are Sad.” The soul sand containing many souls powers the Wither. This dense collection of
souls has a lot of soul energy. Soul energy and souls are represented by the color cyan and can be
seen in soul fire and soul lanterns. In this case, the nether star has so much energy that
it can be used to create the beacon. And as you can see, both the nether star
and beacon have a cyan tint to them. And so, the curiosity the settlers had when they saw
the paintings created by Mojang eventually led to the Beginning of the end for them
since it unleashed a monstrous beast which terrorized the world. It’s quite ironic
how all of this destruction started from a seemingly innocent painting. Even if the
Wither wasn’t an actual extinction level threat, it greatly spooked the ancient builders. They
would from now on be a lot more cautious. “There is something to be said about the curiosity
of explorers that leads them to try anything, even if it ends in their doom.” This could
not be more true and pretty much sums up the ancient civilization of builders, who ultimately
lead themselves to their own doom. The Wither was only one of the events which led to the
ancient builders’ downfall however. So the Wither was constructed due to the curiosity of a
few settlers after seeing a mysterious painting, the Wither terrorized both the Nether
and Overworld, and finally met it’s end due to the piglins. Withers are powered
by many souls which crystallize to form a nether star when it dies. I hope you
enjoyed this Minecraft story AND theory, SUBSCRIBE if you liked it, and
thank you so much for watching!
