Tales of the Golem | Minecraft Deep Dive

The minecraft world is full of life there are trees grass and animals spiders come out at night fish swim in the sea the richness and diversity is so great that we may start to think of life as a given because of how common it is

But that idea is not true in fact far far more the minecraft world is composed of inanimate material stone water ores lava despite the abundance of life most of the world is not living containing instead raw materials but what if there was a way to simulate life take

Inanimate material and arrange it in such a way that it replicates many of the elements of living beings without being truly alive such a being would be quite useful would it not it could do chores or serve as a protector keeping the owner out of harm’s way these beings

Do exist in minecraft they’re called golems however it’s easy to overlook the wealth of complexities surrounding them the story of the golems while often untold is fascinating as long as we’re willing to look for it welcome to deep dive a series where we have been slowly uncovering the secrets

Of minecraft tonight we’re going to take a look at the golems and in the process we may learn something interesting about the history of the world this video will be best if you’ve seen my previous deep dives especially the video about the illidars as we’ll be looking at the time

Period right before that if not i’ll do my best to keep you in the loop with that out of the way it’s time to get going join me for a dive beneath the waves the idea of the golem precedes the game of minecraft by over a thousand years

The origin of the term is hebrew and many writings about golems exist in the jewish tradition while specifics differ depending on the story they all share one central trait a human creates an artificial creature from clay and then somehow breathes life into it the most famous account is that of rabbi judah

Low bin bisalel also known as the maharal of prague it is said that he created a golem out of clay to offer protection to the jewish community the golem was very strong and performed physical labor but as time continued the golem became deranged threatening the people it was designed to protect this

Forced the rabbi to remove the life force from the golem returning it to inanimate clay once more legend says that judah low store the remains of the golem in the attic of the prague synagogue ready to be activated again should the need arise Now let’s return to minecraft much like the jewish golem story we’re going to begin sometime in the past before the appearance of the player the ancient builders had long been extinct and the overworld was filled with villages scattered about the villagers lived a peaceful lifestyle despite their knowledge of weaponry and armor they

Didn’t go to war with other villages instead these villagers were pacifists preferring to work and trade with one another it is here that we find our first minecraft golem the iron golem its huge metal body appears intimidating but the villagers do not fear it in fact the golem is quite friendly towards them

Giving flowers as gifts the world outside the village was dangerous with undead enemies roaming the land at night they came and attacked the villages it’s here that we find the true purpose of the golem to serve as a fierce protector of the village it was an extremely

Powerful friend a swing of its arms dealt massive damage flinging the enemy away for all of the timidness of the villagers the golem was equally intimidating towards those who dare disturb the peace but things were changing in recent times they had emerged a much more potent threat than skeletons and zombies there

Was a group of villagers who were beginning to break away from the established traditions they didn’t follow the norms of the village they uncovered their hands and roamed the world these outcasts were constructing tall outposts the purpose of which was unknown to the villagers whatever it is

They were doing out there it was changing them their skin had become gray and ragged but the villagers dared not to the outpost and learn for the outcasts did not share the pacifism of the villagers instead they had developed new technology crossbows which allowed for powerful attacks at a long distance

And they would not hesitate to use them on the villagers as many an unlucky villager discovered these ex-villagers were clearly a threat to the stability of the village and the sworn protector agreed sensing their growing evil the iron golem attacked any outcasts on sight although skirmishes occasionally developed the outcasts knew

That despite their ranged weapons they were no match for the iron golem it could kill one of them with two swipes of its rugged arms it’s implied that the villagers knew how to construct iron golems they’re capable of summoning them when gossiping or panicking the recipe is fairly

Straightforward four iron blocks in a t-shape with a carved pumpkin on top doing this animates the golem creating artificial life a swarm protector is always just a few blocks away no matter how dire the circumstance for the outcasts it must have been quite frustrating that such timid and weak

Beings had this tough of a defense mechanism of course these outcasts were once villagers themselves and they knew the recipe for the iron golem perhaps a golem of their own would help turn the tide but an issue quickly presented itself their iron golem seemingly aware of their evil intentions turned on them

Attacking and killing the outcasts on sight but the outcasts were not ready to give up hope just yet they’d proven their intelligence by inventing the crossbow would it be possible for them to create a golem that didn’t attack them and would instead do their bidding they knew the recipe for the iron golem

But to create their own they would need more than simple steps to follow they would need to understand the golem to attain a deeper level of knowledge anyone could follow a recipe even the bumbling villagers could do that but knowing how the recipe worked was a different matter altogether it allowed

For the user to make substitutions and adjustments and perhaps even create new recipes was there a way to create a new type of golem so they began to experiment they gathered iron and pumpkins and constructed iron golems placing them in sturdy cages for observation the t-shape was intriguing

Could they simply swap the materials and make a new type of golem perhaps the scarecrows were an early attempt the shape matched the t-shape of the iron golem regardless the outcasts were failing despite their best efforts they could not seem to create a different type of golem it was becoming

Increasingly clear that these outposts were not sufficient for true experimentation they were quite exposed and an experiment gone wrong could wreak havoc on the surrounding area the group needed a home base a centralized location where they could try things safely so they began construction on a huge mansion deep within the dark forest

They would no longer need to worry about food indoor farms would provide sustenance they wouldn’t need to sleep out in the cold ornate bedrooms provided shelter any knowledge they found could be written in books and placed in vast libraries equipment could be forged items could be stored but all of this

Paled in comparison to the largest benefit of all the ability to experiment freely the first order of business was to create a place where iron golems could be built and then examined in the basement of the mansion prisons were constructed with redstone operated doors an outcast could quickly build an iron

Golem and then flee out the door trapping the golem but this proved to be inadequate the iron golems had long arms which could swipe through walls to combat this arenas were constructed with observation balconies up here the outcasts would be completely safe from the golem these rooms were also useful

For observing the reaction of the golem to various other mobs despite capturing the occasional villager they could never seem to find a way to get the iron golem to attack them as time passed the outcast slowly began to understand the requirements for golems a pumpkin was necessary so they began to grow pumpkins

Alongside their melon farms while it may first seem as if these pumpkins were grown as food the outcasts did not have consistent access to eggs and sugarcane required to make pumpkin pie no these pumpkins were made for their golem experiments they had more than enough food already but for some reason a

Normal pumpkin didn’t work it had to be carved a task which the skilled lumberjacks were able to do there’s a mysterious room with a single carved pumpkin found in the mansion while we don’t know exactly what they were doing it appears as though this was one of their attempts at understanding the

Golem recipe yet despite these minor improvements in understanding they were still pretty lost they had not yet deduced why the pumpkin must have parts of it removed why did it have to be carved all of this hard work caused the outcast to become closer to one another and they

Were beginning to form a combined identity they were no longer scattered ex-villagers instead they developed their own culture this included unique clothes as well as their own signature architectural style furthermore they were all focused on the same goal of recreating the golem so they began to think of themselves as a unified group

Of illagers in other words they now had a collective face the illeger symbolized this by making a flag a banner representing the group as a whole this face legitimized them to the outside world bringing life into their group and they carried their flag wherever they went and suddenly it dawned on them the

Important component of a golem construction was not the t shape nor the material it was the face just like their own society without a face the golem was little more than random blocks but the face is what converted the inanimate components into a truly unified whole it legitimized the

Golem and it breathed artificial life into an otherwise stagnant design with this newfound discovery the illidars returned to their experimentation the iron golem had a face similar to that of the villagers which it swore to protect and oblong had a large nose and a unibrow would it be

Possible for the illidarist to build a parallel golem that looked like themselves instead as a way to process these ideas they began to construct massive effigies of themselves out of wool perhaps this would somehow help them discover how to construct a golem for themselves there was an interesting subtlety in the

Design of these statues that’s worth mentioning they were not accurate representations of the faces of the illagers the big difference was the shape of the eyebrows while the illagers had two slanted eyebrows these statues had a single long unibrow this wasn’t just some minor mistake the illegal flag

Clearly has slanted eyebrows so we know the illagers were capable of doing it correctly this implies that the slight difference in the shape of these statues was intentional something to note is that this unibrow has the same shape as the two beings which the illagers knew rather well the villagers of course but

Also the iron golem this makes me think that the illagers believed that this slight distinction was important with respect to the construction of the golem and after countless experiments the illidars finally pulled it off creating a golem of their own this golem was the ravager Before we continue we need to think about why the ravager is a golem and not something else altogether there is an extremely high degree of similarity to the villagers iron golem first both are very large and bulky mobs each of them has knockback resistance a trait which

Is quite rare in the minecraft universe on the other side both the ravager and the iron golem have a powerful attack which flings the victim into the air their attack is also strong enough to hit through a solid wall but the similarities don’t end there both mobs

Have the exact same total health at 100 points they’re also physically similar the shape of their heads are identical with the large nose as well as the aforementioned unibrow the motion of their limbs is another connection the iron golem’s arms swing as if on pin joints the ravagers do the same the tops

Of their legs stick up unnaturally high compared to the body amongst all quadrupedal mobs and minecraft the ravager is the only one that looks like this furthermore iron golems will never attack villagers just as ravagers will never attack illagers yet all of this pales compared to the smoking gun both iron golems and

Ravagers do not exist in the world naturally think about it iron golems can be built by the player or built by villagers they’re never found wandering throughout the world ravagers are the same way a wild ravager simply does not exist instead they can be found in raids in conjunction with other illegers the

Illidars create them when they need them just like the villagers i believe that the construction of the ravager was the first major accomplishment of the illagers to successfully reverse engineer an iron golem and then use the knowledge to construct a golem of their own was no

Small feat it was a serious extension of the capabilities of the villagers with the construction of animated beings from inanimate material the illagers were now firmly established as the dominant group technologically this allowed them to assume some level of control over the villagers making any skirmishes much

Less one-sided but the illegals were not done the capability to produce a simulation of life caused them to start thinking about control over real life and death and this eventually led to their production of the totem of undying however we don’t have time to go over that story here if you’re curious check

Out the above video on the illagers which starts at this point in the timeline and explores the totem in much more detail let’s take a step back while this illager story is important there are other golems in the game namely the snow golem what makes this one strange is

That there’s no evidence that it was ever actually built before the player constructs it i cannot find any depictions of it in the world and it doesn’t spawn naturally except for the extremely rare case of an enderman accidentally building one that makes analysis of it a little bit trickier

Although we do know that it has the basic elements of a golem including construction from inanimate material and a face however it is far far weaker than either the iron golem or the ravager this instability implies that this golem is less advanced while it still attempts to guard whoever built it by throwing

Snowballs it cannot even cause damage so while it’s dubious whether knowledge of it existed outside of the player it is nonetheless a golem now let’s think for a second is there anything else in the world that may be artificially constructed and also serves as a guard or protector well the very

Word itself offers a clue what if the guardians that protect the ocean monuments are also golems it’s an idea worth considering first despite the fins these guardians are clearly not fish they survive on land indefinitely which no fish in minecraft can do while axolotls can survive for five

Minutes they still eventually die unlike the guardians another thing is that guardians seem to have a single sense they can only attack players within line of sight when they do they fire a bizarre laser unlike anything else seen in minecraft furthermore they look extremely similar to prismarine blocks

They even have the unibrow just like the ravager and the iron golem the elder guardians are also interesting because they’re the only mob in the entire game which can never respawn every single other mob has a way of spawning again even bosses like the ender dragon but this is not true for

The elder guardian a finite number exists in the world once they’re gone they’re gone forever if they truly are golems then perhaps this is because there’s no one left who knows how to build them if you’ve seen my monuments video i argued that there was an ancient humanoid species known as

The ancient builders they constructed many of the overworld structures including the monuments if our analysis is correct then it means they also had knowledge of how to construct golems and while i cannot prove it i suspect that the pumpkins we find in shipwrecks were used in construction of the guardians it

Seems to align with the research from this video as well as the deep dive series in general as with all deep dives i encourage you to make up your own opinions instead of trusting my analysis as absolute truth for those of you who’ve seen the whole series you’ll notice that i structured

This video in a slightly different way attempting to tell the story while bringing in evidence instead of the other way around however there are some parts of the story which remain unclear for example why did the illidars leave the village in the first place it may be as simple

As them thinking differently than the villagers or there may be a more explicit reason whatever it is we didn’t quite figure that out for sure another potential issue is that we don’t know what material was used in the construction of the ravagers nonetheless i felt that this hole did not outweigh the many

Other elements that are golem like perhaps a deeper question is how did the villagers know how to construct a golem since the development of the ravager ultimately came from this knowledge it seems unlikely that the villagers could have discovered this on their own given that the rest of their technology is

Much less advanced i think to truly answer this question requires a more detailed analysis on the villagers place in the world and i shall defer this discussion to a future video i want to close with an idea that we may return to in an upcoming theory let’s

Think back to the original story about the golem all these golems we’ve seen in minecraft were constructed from inanimate material became animated and then served their masters just like in the story but in the examples we’ve seen something is missing the golem never betrays its original creator like we would expect

Which leaves us with an intriguing question is there a golem somewhere in minecraft which does betray its creator is it possible that we somehow missed a golem we won’t answer that question today but it’s an idea worth considering golems are fascinating and this story led us to some really interesting places

What do you think do you agree disagree did i miss something let me know in the comments below i really enjoy seeing your theories you can also head on over to the rg and discord and the rg and subreddit to share your ideas i put a link in the description

We’re starting to approach some of the really big questions of minecraft i’m looking forward to the upcoming deep dives i’m very happy that you are all here with me on this journey we will go ahead and end with that this has been retro gaming now thanks so much for

Watching and i’ll see you all in the next video have a great day you