#Minecraft lore theorizing

[odiabonecessario]

I've already said it but I'm still unsure if Withers were that much of a threat in the past

Assuming the loot we get in Nether Fortresses and End Cities were from humans before us, I don't know exactly how they wouldn't be able to defeat a Wither. I can imagine some explanations like Wither's strength in lore not being 1:1 with their in-game strength, older Withers being bigger and harder to kill than what we know currently or even that it was spawned merely by accident which could also mean there were more than one Wither at the time

Honestly, it could be all of these but something still doesn't fully fit in my mind and I can't really point my finger to what's bothering me. I mean, we kinda have some confirmation of Withers being a threat at some point with disc 5 but I don't exactly know if it/they're The Big Bad

[x-crowmancer-x]

Hey, wanna see how much I sent to my friends about the Purgatory Finale? :D

[lilacandladybugs]

Biome makes the sky change???? No mobs?? It has its own sound design? TREE MONSTER MOB? PARTICLES????? YOU CAN SILK TOUCH THE HEART? minecraft lore theorizers what are y'all gonna do with this

[kadextra]

I guess this guy woke up at 5am to theorize about lore and threaten quackity in minecraft. honestly based of him

[loudn-mcyt]

The Skyblock-Hardcore Cycle Theory

With Skyblock Kingdoms season 2 on the horizon, I think it's a good time to write something explaining a theory that began with the finales of SBK season 1 - the cycle of worlds, alternating skyblock and survival/hardcore, that could be occurring within Skyblock Kingdoms, at least for some characters.

Some spoilers for season 1 finales below the cut. Let's begin.

To start, let's recap what happened in VikingPilot's season 1 finale, which is the most relevant to this theory (and the basis for the theory as a whole). The end of Skyblock Kingdoms season 1 was, simply speaking, the apocalypse. A short while before the end, blocks (and one person. Hi Nukeri!) began to fall from the sky. The vast majority fell into the void below - and we know from LeonSBU's finale that they weren't falling past the void into Limbo, since he was able to successfully escape to Limbo using chorus fruit. So that's our first mystery - what was happening to the blocks falling from the sky?

Now, as the next few weeks passed, the blocks began to fall faster. and faster. and faster. And then, eventually, they began to actually land on the islands, burying the builds that had been created.

Different characters responded differently to this - Leon, as mentioned before, escaped into the dimension of Limbo past the Void. Several other members fled away from the islands - Anathra and AcornBandit flew off on their airship, Marma1ade and AvidMC escaped to Avid Adventures using Marma1ade's void magic, etc.

But not everyone managed to escape. Vintage Applesauce, who had known about this ahead of time through her deal with the dark god Olm, had prepared a bunker for herself and Rubyco, though she ended up occupying that alone. The two M1gs at Skyblock Kingdoms at the time - 621 and 526 - were buried together while fighting to the death at Bamboo Kingdom. And Viking - who was, at this point, Yellow, a fragment of the soul of Dominion!Viking that had been split in the past by a powerfully magic Book - ended up buried at the site of the ritual he created (in part due to the manipulation of the possessed Vintage).

This is where the theory finds its legs - because in both M1g and Viking's finale videos, getting buried alive was not the end. (it was also not the end of Vintage's video, but she is not shown leaving the bunker/cave she had prepared). Instead, there is something that happens afterwards - in both videos, we see a regular minecraft world. In M1g's video, we see 621 digging his way out from underneath the dirt. And in Viking's video, we see a new world loading screen, followed by a short clip of Legundo popping into a survival world, declaring it an "awful seed", and deleting it - a joke to close out the series.

But we are mcyt fans, and so jokes are just lore that hasn't happened yet. So the SBK community discord (come join! it's great there!) started rotating the end of the video, starting with these messages from ace1diots:

This is what put the initial concept in all of our heads - what if every skyblock world was eventually filled in to become a hardcore/survival world, and every hardcore/survival world, when deleted, fell into the void to become a skyblock world? We all immediately began to rotate this idea, starting with more jokes:

Moving into theorizing about specifically Vikingpilot's lore (which is a whole part of this conversation that I may put in a reblog because this post is long enough already dear god)

And beginning the trend of being very emotional about cycles and the inherent love of creation:

It was after this that we kicked into theory high gear. Specifically, we began to consider how this cycle influenced the Void - SBK's Void was hungry, but largely benevolent, as shown in Marm's void magic, or how it sought to protect people from falling into Limbo. But many minecraft worlds have a Void, and not all of those Voids are helpful. So why was that?

From there, we also began to discuss how structures in minecraft came to be, all of the remnants of those who came before you in the world that you come to shape in your time there:

To be capped off by the crowning jewel from Mr. Pilot himself:

This is the key to the theory, to me. It's not just a cycle, but an additive cycle. The world ends, yes, but it renews, it adds something that was never there before, built out of the love of the many people who came before.

And finally, we did what we do best: we celebrated creation, and life, and love, and made an apocalypse into a new beginning.

Having this idea firmly established, we then began to apply it directly to Skyblock Kingdoms, what had come before and what will come later - and now that SBK season 2 is coming up, what will come soon.

So that is the Skyblock Cycles theory, as I have chosen to call it here. A theory that minecraft worlds are constantly in conversation with themselves, and with each other. That those worlds must end for a new world to be created, each built on the care and love for the last, the lasting marks of the stewards that came before. Skyblock worlds rise above the void, to eventually fill in with blocks falling from the sky, becoming other worlds whose bedrock floor keeps the void below at bay, until that world once more falls into the void, leaving only the traces of the things that have been built by the hands of others. An endless cycle, each iteration adding to the world, creating new structures, new environments, new items, shared between those who came before and those who come next.

Bonus: A conversation about dogs to make you cry

[bulbasauryeee]

^^^^^ all the of this is canon because we said so, you’re welcome gay people

i would also like to add on more evidence:

brewing- requires blaze powder as fuel, and potions are quite literally labeled as magic by the game (“ex. X was killed by Y using magic” when killed with a potion).

similarly, the dragon’s breath- it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the dragon’s breath is very hot, cause yknow, it’s a dragon, and dragons famously breathe fire. dragon’s breath is also labeled as “magic” in death messages AND is used in brewing.

ender pearls- when activated by blaze powder, they change form, almost appearing alive, and gain powerful and mysterious abilities like being drawn to strongholds and activating the portal.

undead mobs- we know that undead mobs get the inverse effects from certain potions (ie. harming portions heal them, and vice versa). they are also very sensitive to the sun’s heat. they don’t even spawn if there’s light, whether from the sun or not. we know that heat tends to create light, which can explain this. in general they seem to operate on vastly different rules regarding heat and magic than other mobs.

as you can see we’re both very normal about minecraft B)))

Apologies to everyone who reads my posts, but the hyperfixation demands this.

Soo, Minecraft lore, if youre close to me then you know that I have been theorizing about Minecraft lore for a good while. So, here is one of the first theories ive came up with that I really like:

Heat has magical properties

Now, what do I mean by this? Well, ive noticed that in minecraft, things relating to magic (like potions, xp, etc.) can be the result of a huge ammount or sudden burst of heat!

Lets start with some small peices of evidence first: furnaces (and smokers [and blast furnaces])

To explain furnaces, I need to beifly go over xp. Xp is a PHYSICAL thing in the minecraft world, it is NOT just a gameplay mechanic. This is proven by xp bottles and how the Illagers have xp bottles in outposts (the reason for that, plus illagers in general, have to be discussed for another day, but I have the feeling that they are extremley important)

Now, furnaces, what the FUCK do they have to do with magic? Well I'll tell you!

In minecraft, you need to smelt raw ores for them to be useful, doing this grants you xp. The thing I want to direct your attention too is how ONLY ores (aka raw ores I guess, you get it) give off xp when smelted. In real life, it takes ALOT of heat to melt minerals. Possibly so much heat that the magic manifests into xp?

I do think its important to keep track of where you get xp from, since it is confirmed to be a physical item

Anyways, peace of evidence #2: more ore stuff

Coal, Redstone, Diamonds, Emeralds, Lapis, Quartz, and nether gold ore, they all drop xp.

Xp = magic = heat

All of these real life ores are made with heat or can conduct heat in real life, meaning that it makes sense that they give off xp. Redstone also conducts electricity, which gives off heat obviously, so it makes sense that theyd give off xp too

And as for nether ores, theyre in the *nether*, ofcourse theyre gonna give off heat

Admittedly im not too sure if ancient debris gives off heat, whenever I find some im too excited to mine it that I dont notice if they do or not lol

But anyways, on to #3: Lightning

Lightning in minecraft is really weird. It can convert, and even CREATE mobs that it strikes. Villagers turn into witches, pigs turn into zombified piglins, mooshrooms turn a different color, and it charges creepers (admittedly the less important attribute here)

Let me spell it out here

Witches use potions, potions rely on magic

Pigs become more sentient, smarter, and they give off, get this, MORE xp when they drop

Not sure why it converts mooshrooms though, mushrooms in general are their own can of worms

Now, for my final peice of evidence: PORTALS

The nether portal, the end portal, and that structure in the ancient city that was a portal until it wasnt, they all seem to require heat to power up for atleast ONE ingredient

Nether portals are obvious

End portals were built above lava by the Ancient Builders, ofc you dont need lava to activate it but that could either just be game mechanics throwing us a bone, or the ancient builders assumed that theyd need heat to activate the portal cus, yknow, heat = magic

And that huge part of the ancient city had soul fire beneth it. I know it isn't a portal anymore, but it definitely was at some point, hence the design implementation

One thing that could disprove this is that getting rid of fire or mining things like netherrack dont give xp, but its possible that those just arent hot enough for xp to form

Anyways, thats all I have for now in terms of Minecraft lore. @bulbasauryeee likley has more details I didnt talk about since we both theorize about the game's lore together :]

[jetra4ivor]

I’ve been going down the rabbit hole of old Minecraft ARG’s and CreepyPasta stories. And somethings I’ve stumbled across is that a lot of theories about what happened to the Minecraft world to leave behind so many ruins and abandoned temples/cities is that there must’ve been a race of…

… ancient builders.

Given that season 2 of MCSM was made before the Aquatic Update, I find this history of theorizing about ancient builders to be fascinating!

Makes me appreciate the Old Builders in Season 2 a lot more given that there were theories that they existed in Minecraft Lore according to players even back then!

[cat-boi-gaming]

Scott smajor… what is he?

Scott smajor is one of my favorite Minecraft YouTuber the series I’m talking about today is the life series

so I’m going to some up the life series for y’all, so we’re on the same page.

The life series is a series created by Grian, you get three lives, a green life, yellow life in a red life. Greens are peaceful, yellow lives are aggressive to greens and reds are aggressive to everyone. Each series within the life series, has a little twist to it. Like last life with the bogeyman in the amount of lives assigned at the beginning, double life with the soul bonds, Limited life being limited by a clock, in secret life where you were assigned tasks to do things along with the bogeyman curse in both limited life and secret life. Scott as a character has a lot of lore when it comes to the life series. He’s been there since third life, and we know he’s pissed off the watchers. The thing that I’m confused about is why was he in third life at least from a lore perspective. The cast of third life had all been on the evolution server, but not Scott. So why was he there? He didn’t have a connection to the watchers for them to have pulled him into the game, so how did Scott get there? That’s the question that led me down this theorizing path.

I couldn’t really figure out a reason why he would be in third life, but I do know this the watchers don’t like Scott. The watchers have said before “he mocks us”. He refuses to do the bogeyman curse, and still wins. Scott is bright, both as a character and intelligence wise. It makes sense for the Waters to have their eyes on Scott and for Scott to have gotten their attention. The problem is pinpointing where that comes from. Obviously, the watcher his attention was drawn whenever he refused to do the bogeyman curse, but if that was the case, why was he put back? Where the watcher is trying to expand the people that they influence so they added more people during last life? Did Scott do some thing in third life that drew the attention of the watchers? Because I don’t think he was a part of the Yandry high school lore so there’s no way for the watchers to have gotten involved there, and even then there seems to be times with that pre-dates when the watchers were causing a lot of problems. he could also have gotten their attention from some of the other series that he’s done, but then why only Scott why not anyone else? What makes Scott so special that the Watchers felt the need to include him in third life

Also, what is up with that Ally blessing.

The ally blessing is a blessing that has surprisingly held out through all of the series. How Scott’s ally blessing works, is, if he’s allied with a person that person will win or he will win. Well, some believe he wasn’t allied with scar in secret life he, in fact was allied with scar. He gave him that enchanted sword, and during the opposite episode on scars perspective, the way he talked implied that he had caught onto what scars task was or at least he understood that he was doing the opposite of what he was saying so when scar said I’m so glad we’re not allies Scott played along. I understand that logistically the ally blessing is just Scott being a really good player and wanting the others to win but I am doing this purely from a lore point of view.

all of this kind of swirled together until I came up with this theory.

Scott is some thing like the watchers. I don’t think he’s a watcher, I also don’t think he’s a listener, I think he’s his own thing, something separate to the watchers in the listeners, so I started calling him a whisper, since we have watchers for the eyes listeners for the ears so it’s only logical the next thing we get is whispers out of the mouth. and when you look at it from that perspective, a lot of the questions I was asking earlier kind of get solved

if he’s a whisper as I’m calling it, it makes sense for him to effectively be an opposite of a watcher or a listener, giving blessings instead of curses or breaking curses for other people in fact, Scott is the reason why the canary curse got broken. Lizzie was attacking Scott when she fell into the void and took the curse,

i’m thinking the watchers knew that Scott was something otherworldly and decided to drag him in along with grain.

I also support this with the fact that Scott is aware of the past lives, he repeatedly makes references to rats smp, witchcraft smp, third life, new life, pirates smp , and so many more. He’s very obviously not an NPC if we’re using Martin‘s lore.

but we also don’t have any conformation that he’s a player like Martin is

but we do know Grain does remember at least some of the past lives

so, using this evidence, I am suggesting that Scott falls into another category of otherworldly beings like the watchers and the listeners

But that’s just a theory

[xesnox]

do you think mojang took inspiration for their lore updates from matpat? because there ain't no way that they were all coincidences...

first, we have matpat theorizing about the ancient builders and then BAM, an update with "ancient" city in it. not convinced yet? he theorized about the wither years before wild update and, guess what? we heard wither's death sound in disc 5. [Okay this one could be a coincidence but come onn, y'know, why would the Ancient Builders built Ancient City so deep underground? they're hiding from something...it could be that they hid from the wither, and that sounds oddly like the wither theory that matpat made]

second, remember when matpat theorized how the illagers were a cargo cult that idolized the ancient builders? THAT'S WHAT WAS IN THE TRICKY TRIAL UPDATE. THEM HELPING THEIR IDOLS. [honorable mention: the illagers outpost in ancient city]

and lastly, he mentioned how the ancient builders were preparing for war against the wither- I SWEAR, THAT'S LITERALLY THE POINT OF THE TRIAL CHAMBER. THE BREEZE.

im sorry i got crazy talking about the ancient builders theory...💔

Not only that!

The default sprite you play as in legends also looks suspiciously like the one matpat uses with the black and blue color scheme. Especially considering the game plays during the nether war, which means we are quite literally playing as an Ancient Builder.

(This sprite is so cute though im gonna be honest)

The idea that the illagers got inspired by the ABs to form their evil little sect has also been confirmed by legends.

this isn’t the original game clip but one where a dev roughly explains what happened (from the “the history of the illagers” video by Minecraft on YouTube.),

in the original dialogue foresight says that the illagers wanted to help “the heroes” (ABs). Not necessarily just their own people.

If you went on to extend that idea you basically have the theory confirmed: not necessarily them being a cargo cult, but perhaps more of a religious one worshipping them as a kind of angelic savior. Definitely still copying, but I don’t know if the copying is part of the rituals they have. Seems to me like they actually know what they’re doing / copying, they’re just not that good at replicating it.

Another thing! In legends you can summon Allays like the evoker can summon Vexes.

Which also adds to the idea that the Illagers are copying the ABs, aswell as potentially implies the allays we find in cages may or may not have initially belonged to older adventurers, maybe left behind or abandoned after their summoner died.

I actually assume this was in the ancient cities, because we hear and find amethyst there, which can be used to breed allays: since the illagers have clearly been in the Ancient cities at some point I think they just collected the left over allays and brought them over to the outposts / mansions.

Also funny side note, the page on the allays in MC:L has a manual reminder to treat them like people.

Just another point on how I doubt the ABs were the greatest of people lmao.

You’re also very right in what you first mention; I don’t know what video this was in and didn’t screen record it but Agnes said that they as a developer team were “inspired by the idea that there was something below the surface, something scary that the fandom had thought up” or something along those lines regarding the ancient cities and Warden!

Which to me sounds like they were directly talking about the theories made by lore enthusiasts and that they were using them as inspiration. Which is pretty cool in my opinion!

With the Deep dark Q&A now officially referencing the ancient builders that’s atleast my best guess on what they were referring to. Sadly can’t put the clip cuz you can only put one video per post but I’ve shared it on my insta before.

There’s like so much more but most of it is just about the illager theory since the others are already pretty stable in the Vanilla game.

[odiabonecessario]

I don't know if I can even find the post from Reddit so here's a rundown of some thoughts about The End

• While it's weird that the Ender Dragon doesn't have any teleport-related power even though it shares most of the same pallet and particles of mobs from there Endermen/Endermites/Shulkers, it's possible that the reason why we can only get out of The End dimension by killing them is because its crystals have Ender Eyes, potentially connecting with The End portal

• It's also possible that the reason why the Ender Dragon egg can teleport while the dragon herself can't do it might be because the egg developed or absorbed some of the teleport properties from the End Crystals

• There's a possibility of Enderman being related to Nether portals due to the minimal size of it being the exact measure which a Enderman can fit perfectly along while also sharing the same colors and particles

as a last note, I still hope we can find more discussions of Minecraft lore

[sprucebark]

All about Piggies! (Mobile edition!)

The Entelodont are hypothesized to be the predecessor to all of the pig-types in the Minecraft universe. The Entelodont are based off the Entelodontidae, which were a real thing in this world! (Wikipedia link)

Not much is known about the Sarolin other than they are a race that evolved underground. They evolved large ears and a disadvantage to seeing in the dark, resorting to echolocation similarly to bats. It is theorized that the Sculk drove them out of the Ancient Cities like a plague, though there is currently nothing to prove this. It has been presumed the Sarolin created the Wardens, while others have theorized the Sarolin have turned into Wardens, or that Wardens evolved separately to protect the Sculk. The Sarolin were thought to be completely extinct prior to the discovery of Kheroc. It is currently unknown how Kheroc has lived for supposedly thousands of years, nor is it clear if the Sarolin have always looked like this or if this is unique to her.

The Eirlin are speculative, as no pig species within the End have formed their own civilizations.

Tusklins are from Alex’s Mobs.

Enderbara are technically from the Habitable End Mod - though we conceptualized lore with @leaf4e for new design, which they textured (As seen below). The Enderbara and Enderwarthogs evolved separately from Endermen taking Pigs to the End and interspecies hybridization eventually resulting in the two.

Enderbara have shells to protect from projectiles and predators, heavy rock-like shelling on their feet to keep them from floating away in the low gravity of the End, and multiple eyes to help them detect predators and see in the darkness of the End.

Enderwarthogs are from AdventureZ.

Boarlins and their many variants - Illagers, Zombie Boarlins, Ravagers, Iron Constructs, etc - come from the Village of Pigs resource pack.

Phygs (left) and Taegore (right) are from the Aether mod[s].

It was previously speculated that there was some sort of cataclysmic event in the Overworld. This cataclysm caused some Pigs to turn into Creepers. In search of trying to solve this event, Boarlins unintentionally created an undead virus - in turn creating Skeletons and Zombies.

Many Boarlins went to the Nether in search for a cure to the virus, unintentionally spreading it there. Their travels brought many resources with them, including various animals such as the Ghellies for transportation and pigs for food, and building material in hopes of long-term residence and research. Among these animals, Pigs lasted the longest due to being omnivores. The Ghellies, utilized for transportation, were forced to adapt to the hot climates of the nether, becoming the Ghasts we know today. Feral after centuries of being abandoned by those who brought them, Ghasts have proven nearly impossible to domesticate. There are some recorded cases of success, but they are too few to provide any reliable insight into replication. Much like the Ghasts, the Pigs left to their own on the Nether became feral and territorial, becoming the Hoglins we're familiar with.

These travelers no longer saw the point in returning to the overworld due to both dimensions having the virus and the Nether being deemed the safer of the two, and eventually evolved into Piglins.

This information has now been updated upon further research:

The Blight is a microorganism that comes from the Aether after the Sun Spirit was killed, returning Night to the Aether. It rapidly infects its host and spreads to their offspring, resulting in a sped up evolution process toward violent tendencies. The Blight, however, is weak to Sunlight exposure, and will kill its host when exposed to sunlight for prolonged periods of time.

When the Blight spread throughout the Aether upon the Sun Spirit's death, it was brought into the Overworld - rapidly spreading and evolving. The Blight is ultimately the cause for the evolution of Creepers, as well as: Zombies, Husks, Drowned, Skeletons, Strays, Bogged, Zoglins, Zombified Boarlins, Zombified Piglins, and is partially responsible for the creation of Wither Skeletons.

Whilst the Boarlins in the overworld discovered a temporary cure for the Blight with Golden Apples and Weakness potions, the Piglins were less successful. It is speculated their attempts at curing their Zombified brethren resulted in the Wither Skeletons as the Blight evolved and mutated, and in turn the Wither.

[askdacast]

Life Series SMP/Eyes and Ears AU Thematic Discussion + Theorycrafting (pt. 1)

WARNING: Extremely long post

Kachow what’s poppin fellas, I’m back at it again talking about boomer block Youtubers and their surprisingly in-depth improv series. Now that the Life Series’ 5th season has finally concluded, I’m back on the lore train and poor Scar is left to suffer the consequences, and Martyn’s concluded yet another lore stream, I decided to compile a long master post of lore notes and theories about what we have so far.

Obviously all the ‘lore’ of the Life Series is purely unofficial; Grian has not approved any of it as being actually official/set in stone for what he intended the series to be. Most of it has been us in the crazy fandom extrapolating their really good storytelling, and also “semi-canonized” by Martyn in what he calls the Eyes and Ears AU (and this post assumes you are familiar with it). As someone who’s been a fan since the beginning way back in 3rd Life, I’ve pretty much hopped on the lore train since the beginning as well (if casually) and enjoying all the different extrapolations/analysis/angst written around the players. Rather than just theorizing lore details in a vacuum, however, I’ve always liked imagining the lore based around the reoccurring themes, symbolism and arcs we’ve seen across the series. I’d been bouncing my various thoughts and theories around these themes for a while, and finally I decided to compile my notes together.

This post is basically my imagining what the Life Series/Eyes and Ears AU story is “about,” as if it were a fleshed-out, long-running and story-driven tv show. Initially this post started as simply a gigantic “Eyes and Ears Theory,” me trying to sus out my own theories/ideas of what the Life Series’ mysteries were based on Martyn’s lore. However, considering that Martyn is ALSO writing the lore on the fly, and I have some details I would interpret differently or change, this ended up less a ‘theory’ and more ‘me writing an entire AU/interpretation of the Life Series as a whole.’ My intention is NOT to ‘correct’ Martyn’s lore, nor to claim my theory as the ‘right’ interpretation; rather, this is my personal interpretation of what the Life Series story is about, based on information shown in the original SMP and in Martyn’s AU.

One last disclaimer: I am ONLY drawing on lore details from the Life Series, Martyn’s lore streams, and Minecraft EVO, and also references to the iRL creators. I am not drawing on any story from other SMPs such as Pirates or Empires; there may be some Hermitcraft references here and there.

This is going to be very long, and a multi-parter, because I can’t summarize to save my life. And I promise I’ll come up with a proper name for my series of posts another time. If you’ve stuck around to read, I thank you.

Part 1: The Overall Plot + Understanding the Watchers

Recap of official lore details

Although Martyn hasn’t given specific details on the Watcher + Listener species (he hasn’t come up with a name yet), we know the following details for sure (from EVO, lore streams etc.)

Watchers + Listeners + The Council are all deity-like beings of the same species, and they all consume human emotions

The Council are the upper ranks/possibly leaders, whereas the Watchers + Listeners are separate factions

The Watchers are at LEAST two high-ranking members of the species (the two dots being outcast from the wider circle, as is their logo)

The Watchers were behind Minecraft EVO, where they gave all the players tasks (much like Secret Life) and eventually ending in them fighting the Ender Dragon separately

While the Watchers may not have been evil in EVO, they certainly became so AFTER, when they began to crave more negative human emotions, viewing them as “tasty” (Martyn’s words), s p i c y

They first kidnapped Grian at the end of EVO season 1, turning him into a Watcher to possibly have him join their ranks, but he’s gone rogue after realizing what their plans for the Life Series were, and plans to rescue his friends from them

The Life Series was the Watchers’ ploy to trap the players in an infinite death game where they betray and cause each other pain, all to harvest their negative emotions. Grian, in defiance to this, takes control as the ‘game master’ to make the whole thing…well, a game, so that his friends can enjoy, have fun and ease their anguish. In Martyn’s words, this is like “pouring ketchup all over the Watchers’ sundae.”

The Listeners (EVO season 2) are an opposing faction to the Watchers who disagree with their methods, although why is unknown. They’ve attempted to contact some players (e.g. Jimmy) before back in EVO in order to oppose the Watchers, but it’s not known how successful they were. They’ve also tried to swap in players in the Life Series before (e.g. subbing Lizzie and Gem for Pearl and Cleo in Lim. Life) in order to sneak them in and try to subvert the game. The Watchers kidnapping Gem for Secret Life is partially in retaliation to the Listeners. The Listeners may not be good and may have nefarious intentions also, it is as yet still unknown.

There’s potentially a third faction, the Speakers, but very little is known about them and Martyn doesn’t want to elaborate on them yet.

Okay, but what are the Watchers even after?

"Accept your fate."

From here on out is my real conjecturing/theorizing. The main question on my mind has been why are the Watchers doing what they’re doing? Obviously Martyn has confirmed that they are malicious deities who find negative human emotions tasty, but this raises further questions. Why exactly do they desire such emotions, or need them to survive (if they do, anyway)? Why do they favour negativity, when the other members of their species consume a wide range of emotions? They were confirmed to be outcast in some way from the other factions for this ploy, so what does that say about them then?

The whole species fundamentally do not understand human emotions (or perhaps do not even possess them)

This seems to me the most logical conclusion. These are powerful deities who can create miniature worlds/dimensions, life, and time to an extent (death loop). They should theoretically be self-sufficient, so I doubt that their consumption of human emotion is for survivability reasons (i.e. I don’t think Watchers will literally die if they don’t consume emotions, the same way humans die without food). What seems more likely is that human emotions bring them some benefit to their intelligence or power that they’d otherwise be quite non-functional without. (Think like the demons in The Promised Neverland, who regress to feral natures/lack of sapience if they don’t eat humans)

The Watchers’ powers and their lab-rat experimentation on the players gives a huge vibe of not being able to understand human emotions in an involved way, but only from a distance. They know methodically things like murder and betrayal cause panic and anguish, so they enforce these experiences through the game, mechanics like the Boogeyman, the Secret Tasks etc. But they don’t really know internally why these emotions come about the way humans do. Being above time, they probably don’t understand why the funny small animals have so much attachment to their transitory experiences and memories (more on this later).

world's angriest pumpkin

The Watchers are Losers, Actually

Going further, don’t you think the Watchers have a very misanthropic mindset all around? “Anguish and panic are s p i c y.” They conversely have a complete disgust for positive emotions, and can’t stand Grian making things fun for everybody. It almost feels like they have the mindset that only things like hatred and fear are exciting, bringing motivation and life to the humans, whereas things like happiness and fun are ‘useless’ because they don’t bring about the same results. Let’s also not forget their name – Watchers – and that Martyn’s confirmed them to be symbolically based off us, the audience. It’s almost like a commentary of the worst of the entertainment industry, of an audience who crave watching anything and everything to satisfy their own desires, even at the expense of the privacy and safety of the entertainer. Given the current state of the internet and social media, I don’t think I need to elaborate how awful things can get.

In other words, I believe the main motivation the Watchers are eating humans emotions is because they WANT to understand and ‘take into themselves’ such emotions. I don’t think they’re totally emotionless – Martyn does portray them with moments of glee and anger. But their understanding of emotions is superficial (self-centered, if you will) at best. As deities with no needs, being above time, they have nothing to be afraid of and nothing to feel sad or anguished over. It’s a boring, dull and empty existence. And that’s precisely why they’ve set up the Life Series game: by kidnapping a few humans and putting them through the artificially constructed wringer of panic and betrayal, they think they can create a human farm of such rich, complex and exciting emotions, all for themselves to enjoy at their own pleasure and fill the void they have.

(Listeners’ side note: If all that is the philosophy of the Watchers, it’s probably not difficult to see how/why the Listeners oppose them. The Listeners likely disagree that negative emotions are the most optimal state of humans, and unlike the Watchers do not think human suffering is just tasty popcorn one can eat at one’s pleasure. Their name – Listeners – implies they’re a more sympathetic faction, as in they listen to one’s troubles and heart rather than take delight in suffering at a superficial level. But if they are the same species, it’s very likely they have the same lack of instinctive understanding of human emotions that the Watchers do, and this could cause…problems.)

Why turn Grian?

All this is also why I believe the Watchers kidnapped Grian + turned him into a Watcher in the first place. Firstly, if they were going to concoct their plan to trap humans, they needed a collaborator from the humans in the first place. Secondly, and most importantly, this collaborator was going to be their only direct source of how human emotions work/feel like, and therefore what were the most optimal conditions needed to ensure their death game would generate the most pain and anguish. They picked Grian because he’s always the ‘leader’ of the SMP players, the person gathering and organizing everyone, so logically, he is the most ‘representative’ of the humans, and the one with the greatest ability to control them.

Of course, it’s also true that Grian was a little $#@% throughout EVO and actively rebelled against the Watchers’ tasks, so making him their collaborator might seem strange. Ignoring the meta reason that the ending was written to explain Grian’s exit from the series. But I figured in this case, they considered the benefits more than the costs. Grian’s chaotic nature is not unlike the Watchers’, considering how much he loves causing pranks and trouble to others. So, as a huge oversight, they think Grian is just like them: he loves to see people suffer, so they think. Additionally, the Watchers are desperate to understand how Grian gets his fellow humans to follow him and do what he asks with little effort. You’ll notice the Watchers have very direct, authoritative ways of trying to wrest control (e.g. the tasks, “do this or you fail”), and they get very petty and upset when people rebel against them (re: Scott’s refusal to be the Boogeyman, their motto is a very demanding “OUR WILL BE DONE.”) They see Grian’s charisma as yet another aspect of human emotions they fail to understand and thus WANT to possess for themselves.

Pictured above: The Watchers, coping and seething

Of course as we know, the Watchers believing Grian would help them is a major oversight. Becoming a god doesn’t just fundamentally change who Grian is, and he definitely doesn’t want to consign his friends to an infinite death loop of suffering. That being said, I don’t think Grianhas truly gone ‘rogue’ so much as taken as much advantage as possible of his ‘deal’ with the Watchers. We can guess the Watchers promised to him some kind of control/leadership over his friends’ circumstances as long as he worked for them, which led to them giving him the keys to the Life Series. In other words, so long as he fulfils their requirements of things being a death game that will generate ‘food’ for them, and lets them revive everyone each loop, he gets to decide how the games go.

And we know exactly what Grian’s done with this: he created the green-yellow-red lives system, he creates a fun gimmick each season, he inserts himself into the game as a player, all to bring out the best and most creative side of his friends rather than the worst. The Boogeyman probably is the only gimmick the Watchers added on their own initiative (re: Martyn’s POV in Last Life) in order to make things more spicy. Probably Grian’s conversation with the Watchers each time goes, “hey, I got an idea on how to bring out the most creative ways for everyone to cause pain in each other, [comes up with some bullcrap justification for the game’s fun mechanics].” I like to think the Watchers were going to make the death games even more vicious, cruel and competitive, but because of Grian’s wrangling he’s convinced them that a slow burn from joy to horror creates better results, and they tolerate it as long as they see him useful.

Memories and Emotions

There is also one BIG detail of the Watchers’ plan I’d like to mention: Martyn claims that the Watchers do NOT erase the players’ memories. At the end of each season, they consume everyone’s emotions so that there’s no more angst/ill will towards each other, and they start each season afresh. The players remember what’s happened in past seasons, but they don’t continue to hold the pain and negative feelings they had towards each other.

I don’t buy this, for numerous reasons.

For one, Martyn has confirmed the Watchers ARE capable of removing people’s memories. The one memory they have outright altered was the ex-EVO players’ (Martyn, Jimmy, BigB etc.) memory of what happened to Grian: they don’t remember that Grian was taken to be turned into a Watcher, and instead remember it as him either going missing or dying after the Ender Dragon fight. All this presumably to not give away the Watchers’ schemes and to ensure they still listen to Grian as if nothing ever happened.

More importantly, however, memories are vital to humanity’s emotional experience and mental health. I am not an expert by any means, but there are studies showing how people with amnesia, PTSD or other conditions affecting memories have flashbacks/emotional reactions to trauma they don’t remember consciously. The Watchers have (supposedly) done something far more simplistic yet fantastic by just eating up everybody’s emotions. All this, even though they see humans as emotion factories, constantly able to generate emotions just by existing, by their ability to draw and create meaning through emotional experiences, and by creating memories – the clearest embodiment of a mortal’s attachment to time (which if you remember, I believe the Watchers have no concept of).

You cannot just tell a human to stop feelingcompletely (under normal circumstances anyway), but especially not if they remember something very very traumatic.

Besides, there ARE clear instances when some of the players remember the events of past seasons and are STILL not over them! Impulse and Tango still being bitter/distrustful after Bdubs betrayed each of them separately, Cleo distrusting BigB for the same reason, Scott referencing Flower Husbands a lot, Pearl feeling betrayed by Cleo/Scott when they supposedly broke up the Gaslight/Gatekeep/Girlboss trio at the start of DL, Bdubs’ “I wanna be your favorite son” in Secret Life, the list goes on. Note that I’ve only listed negative/bittersweet instances; there are plenty more cases of the players remembering past seasons and alliances positively which the Watchers may have ignored. The point is, if the Watchers truly consumed everyone’s emotions to the point of a clean slate, they haven’t exactly been thorough. Nor do I think it’s very conducive for them either – don’t they want players to have enduring, unending, unresolved pain, the sweetest of all (to them)?

No, I think the Watchers HAVE been erasing/suppressing the players’ memories – they’ve just been very selective which ones. Martyn’s said that the Watchers do not care what families or connections they separate so long as they get the people they want and the plans they want. I’m going to assume the players in my theory/the Eyes and Ears AU are exactly the same as their CC counterparts. In other words: they’ve stolen Grian away from his wife. They stole Martyn away from his and his daughter. Ditto with Skizz, Impulse, Tango etc. They stole Scar away from his family. Joel and Lizzie are the only couple they didn’t separate, perhaps because they needed both for their plans, and also so they can inflict the most torture on them by ripping them away from each other, over and over again. And in order to ensure the complete submissiveness of the players to the game, the Watchers have taken away their memories of their past lives, their families, basically anyone who isn’t a fellow player in the game. The Watchers don’t erase the memories of bonds between seasons, because it’s a pain to have to teach the humans how to play all over again, but they erase any memories they find disadvantageous to keeping the game running.

They might even go one step further: while they haven’t erased the players’ memories of who each other are (so as to not cause confusion), they do try to suppress important memories. Things like how they met, the times they confided in each other after a bad day, cried on each other’s shoulder, laughed in each other’s successes, the times they hung out with each other’s families. Imagine the different alliances constantly gravitating to each other, but never being able to remember why they care about each other so much. Imagine Bdubs’ “Come on, you know you and I go way back!” when trying to justify taking Cleo’s stuff, and Cleo laughs back, even though she can’t quite remember what exactly Bdubs has done to warrant that. Imagine Joel or Lizzie trying to remember why they loved each other so much.

They fight and kill some of their friends, and protect others, because…because why again? It’s for survival value, surely, so the Watchers whisper. It’s because the strong must congregate with the strong and leave the weak to die, surely. It’s because Martyn’s always been a loner, and always will be, and should remain so. So they tell him. So they whisper, this is a deathmatch for a reason.

Grian’s Fundamental Rebellion

I think all this is the real reason Grian is rebelling against the Watchers. The most immediate reason is obvious: he wants to free his friends from this death loop. But the deeper reason as to why he’s rebelled is that the Watchers are torturing and robbing his friends of their humanity. They’re taking a tight-knit group of friends who love and would do anything for each other, and turning them against each other in a cruel and unescapable death game. On TOP of this, the Watchers have constantly messed with their heads in order to make them obedient and submissive to their schemes and the worst of their human nature, trapping them in fear, pettiness and paranoia. Of course Grian is upset. Of course he wants to save them from this fate. It’s an insult to who he knows these people to be.

This all leaves Grian in a pretty precarious position. While outwardly the Watchers want to make him a lackey as the “game master”, both he and they know he really wants to save his friends (they probably see it as their ‘cattle’ showing a bit of resistance, which once again they need to suppress). And while on one hand he’s making the games fun to ease his friends’ pain and bring the best out of them, this is just a hotfix rather than a real solution. In order to really rescue the players, Grian’s got to get them to rebel against the Watchers as well. Refuse to play by the rules, by the expectation that they must murder and kill without mercy, without any attachment to their alliances or past friendships. Make everyone like Scott refusing to be the Boogeyman, or Skizz constantly trying to be wholesome (until the bloodlust gets the better of him anyway).

Ironically in order to achieve this, Grian’s best bet is to try to jog everyone’s lost memories of each other and the things they lost, both good and bad. But ultimately, this is going to make them (in the short term) suffer more. This is where you can insert all your Desert Duo/Flower Husband/whatever alliance you like most angst. But more practically, I like to imagine when “the cameras” are not watching, when Grian knows no one will notice or catch him, he sneaks around to the different alliances, even the ones he’s not part of, to ask them how they’re doing, if they remember anything from the past etc. (in a meta sense, the players edit and cut stuff from their videos all the time; who’s to say he isn’t trying to catch a quick chat while everyone’s mining?!) It also reflects in why Grian is constantly trying to make alliances with different people instead of just gravitate to one person, he needs to check on everyone and capitalize on every single opportunity. (besides the meta reason, being that cc!Grian wants to be creative, and sticking to the same person all the time isn’t very entertaining from a content creator perspective)

One last detail about the winners: I don’t have much to say about the fragments yet, because Martyn (sneaky boi) hasn’t yet revealed the significance of the fragments nor of their healing, although he has hinted Bad Things™ will happen if a player gets too fragmented. But I do think the winners are important: with the game finished, they give Grian a very short window of time to talk to one person directly, without Watcher interference. They’re always the last to be killed/swept away/revived by the Watchers, and I can imagine there’s a brief period of time when their souls are being transferred to The Void w/e where Grian can step in and interfere. In my theory, Grian passes on some sort of clue/push to the winners, as like a subtle message about what they can do to stand up to the Watchers. I’ll detail on what I think these individual messages were in part 2. Needless to say, 3rd Life was a traumatic experience for Grian for many reasons, but the nail in the coffin was the fact that he won, and therefore there was no way for him to pass a message onto anyone.

Conclusion

Hooooooo jeepers that was long @A@; Thank you so much for your patience reading this if you made it to the end, I really appreciate it. As I said, I’ve had these lore ideas bouncing in my head for a LONG time, and with the end of Secret Life I couldn’t get out of my head the different trends/symbolism that was popping out of an improv series. It honestly speaks a lot to how genius our favorite block dudes are at improv, that they can turn their improv nonsense into a coherent narrative. I really wanted to try my hand at fleshing out such a narrative, and with Martyn constantly drip-feeding lore to the fans, I had more than enough material to not just put out guesses but construct something a full XYZ. As I mentioned, I enjoy workshopping themes and characters a LOT more than just worldbuilding or “what if this or that” details in a vacuum, hence why I’ve written all that I have, so this was a fun exercise for me all around!

Next time in part 2 I talk about Character Development™, or character specific notes and details I’ve noticed and extrapolated from what we’ve seen of each individual player, as well as what their different arcs across the seasons mean for them within the lore. Stay tuned for another wordbarf!

Bonus list of works I was inspired by for this loredump:

Log Horizon

The Promised Neverland

Danganronpa (ironic as I’m not really a fan of this franchise, but the first game has an otherwise solid premise which I found really similar to the Life Series)

The Fate franchise (when Martyn asked “what’s Fate?” on the latest lore stream, let me tell you I couldn’t stop laughing; NO MARTYN DON’T GO INTO THE WEEB RABBIT HOLE)

Various amazing animatics from the Traffic fandom: Earth, Bang!, most of Melloz Heist’s works, and of course all the amazing fanart

Way too many conversations with my friends about fantasy species

[kats-other-stuff]

hey there! any chance you have some info on the origins of the c!boatman? like, any/all of the boatmen? (I noticed there's a multiverse thing y'all got goin on so, y'know) oh, also I heard smth abt uh, shape-shifting? with the animal crossing stuff? any idea of what that's abt? C:

Well, you came to the right person. Everything starts in the Minecraft world that Legacy of the Scythe takes place in (dunno how familiar you are with that series exactly, it’s the original Failboat lore) which is where our c!Failboat is from. Using the Power of the Scythe, he can travel between different universes, and every time he decides to insert himself into one, a version of him is magically retconned in. So every single version of c!Failboat in canon that isn’t the Minecraft version is either actually just that guy in a different art style or a splinter of him if they have free will, like in the cases of Miitopia and Rapper Failboat. That’s what I’ve gathered from the lore I’ve seen.

The shapeshifting thing I think has to do with this post I made where I theorize about how the Power of the Scythe works. In short, Failboat can shapeshift because of the Power of the Scythe.

edited to remove a stupid mistake I made

[antimony-medusa]

forgive me, as I genuinely don't want to come off as mean or anytihng like that, but per your reasoning as to why Phil is adamant about not doing lore on realm smp, I feel like some of your reasons go beyond what he has explained on stream (his own reasons being that after the mental exhaustion of qsmp he just wants a break from doing lore--since he emphasizes that he's just not doing lore "for now" and it's not a permanent thing as far as he has stated), and that it comes across more like theorizing, which in my eyes, feels a touch parasocial in a way?

you're right in that he very much prefers to have control over his own lore, something he makes very clear, but to say he's possibly been "soured on the idea of character storytelling" or that "lore" no longer is appealing to him are... I'm sorry, I don't know where this had come from, and it feels more like theory than otherwise. And it's just that, I think that if we are talking about how parasocial some audiences are and how we really shouldn't be like that, I also feel as if this should apply to a lot of other things, like theorizing on something a content creator does or doesn't do. I guess what I'm getting at here is that, would you find it parasocial to make up theories or speculate on why a content creator does or doesn't do something, even when they've already provided a different reason? or is there something here that makes this different from parasocialism that I might be missing?

Anon, if you think I'm too parasocial for your comfort, you are free to block me. To my mind, it is the nature of communication to attempt to derive meaning from language, and sometimes I attempt to read subtext under literal spoken communication, using the context of other things a person has said (which is an interesting challenge for me, as I am quite autistic). I did not intend to express that this (possibility of phil being burnt out on lore dependent on other people) is absolutely what is happening, as I do not know Phil Watson the person, and am not privy to his thoughts. In response to someone theorizing that phil's lore actions were motivated by a desire to avoid chat being parasocial (something he has not attributed his actions to), I intended to offer an alternative theory, based on what he's said about the ending of DSMP, QSMP and Origins. Which he has spoken on multiple times.

This was absolutely theorizing, but I feel comfortable that it was a level of parasociality that I am okay with, as a) this is a level of analysis that I bring to most language-based communication, attempting to draw a fuller picture by bringing in context of other things a person has said, b) I don't know if it's true and did not intend to make a statement of prescriptive fact, it's just a thing that makes me go huh, maybe this is going on, sure don't actually know though! I apologize if my lack of attachment to this idea was unclear, that was an off the cuff response where I was mostly responding to the idea of phil being "dismissive" of lore, c) I did not say this in his chat or TTS, or in person, this was a response to an ask on my tumblr blog only seen by people who click onto my blog, i didn't even maintag it. It does not affect Philza Minecraft's life in the way that people showing up to tts "dadza can you adopt me" while he's at work does, if entirely privately on a different part of the internet I post "man it would sure suck to have your storytelling efforts blown up repeatedly, I'm not surprised that he's taking a step back right now. Anyways I'm going to put the kettle on".

There's theorizing in direct contrast to someone's stated explanation, and then there's like— having thoughts about the nature of joint storytelling. It's not a worrying level of parasociality to have thoughts about people, you can consider their actions beyond the literal words they say. I have also been theorizing that Phil didn't like people calling him Dadza for the past year, based on him spamming the PARASOCIAL response and his facial expressions when it happened. Or you know, I attempted to read the social cues.

I probably should not have responded to this in detail so I apologize for dropping another essay on your dash, everybody. My word count today has been HORRIBLE because I'm spending it all talking on tumblr. When I get locked into the sprint channel for good in about two days you'll know what happened.

[rouge-fauna]

fan fact: before this drama I was under the impression that you either don't care about ccs and are only interested in dsmp lore or that you're a cc!dranti😭

lol… I mean I always planned on not talking about ccs and just sticking to lore. But then this drama caught my eye especially Dream’s comment about being autistic, because yoooo I was right (no surprise, I’m always right lol jk jk XD - though just to be clear I’ve theorized about it since 2021 as an aside) so I couldn’t help but say something. And I was going to leave it at that first post and be done, but then I sucked into watching the streams and things devolved from there lol. I also actually intended to keep All of cc things over here, but accidentally forgot to check which blog I was posting on and posted on main instead, oops… which seemed to work out okay and I’m glad I seemed to be able to reach people and help them feel a little less alone in their frustration and commiseration…

But yeah I actually only got into the dsmp by being into Manhunts first then Minecraft But… and then after watching all the Dream content I was like - I need more. So I was like- welp I guess it’s time to watch hours and hours of streams to figure what is going on in the dsmp… and that’s how I got here lol

Wait, you really thought I was a cc!dranti? What gave you that impression?

[polygonal-chaos]

I find it ironic that Minecraft lore can be theorized on so deeply by many with various pieces of evidence to support those theories but the one thing that can only be speculated on is the origin of how we, the player, got there. The only thing we know about ourselves in Minecraft is that we’re here and we have so much to do in this world.