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Minecraft's new baby mobs killed the ancient builders. Well, not literally, but because of the flower that helps them stay young forever, which sparked their innovation and ultimately their downfall. Hello, internet. Welcome to Game Theory, the show that's feeling dandy, and I ain't lying. Yeah, okay, that one was pretty terrible, but I just couldn't think of a good segue to talk about Minecraft's latest update. It doesn't have a name yet, but it's centered on the adorable redesign they've given to baby mobs. Most people aren't super excited to see them. At least I think they were. They mostly began comparing them to types of vegetables. And while I
do love me some adorable little guys, I just think it's going to make me feel bad when I use my chicken meat farm. Look at those little chicks just sitting there. Oh no. I'm still going to use it. I'm just going to feel bad about it. But there's one other problem with this idea. Babies grow up. We can't have them be cute and adorable forever. Thankfully, Mojang saw this issue and so created another item that would solve it. A golden dandelion. This new flower has the magical power to keep your baby mobs babies. But then, why are we talking about this? It's just an
item to solve a problem and justify the update. What else could there possibly be to say? Well, loyal theorists, I'm here to tell you that what may seem like a random item added to keep your new adorable mobs young forever is actually packed with lore. that this dandelion does more than just keep animals young. It holds the secret that inspired something in the minds of our favorite characters, the ancient builders, an ancient race who built the large structures scattered around the overworld. And sadly, unlocking the secret of the golden dandelion would spell the beginning of the end for them as their hunger for answers brought them to their doom. Am I about to do an entire Minecraft video
based on a single plant? You bet I am. So wake up and smell the dandelions theorists and let me show you why this teeny tiny little update has big implications on Minecraft's law. Understanding more about the ancient builders and their inevitable demise. But before we can answer the question of how this dandelion can do all of that, we first need to answer the question of why. Why did Mojang pick a golden dandelion for this magical forever cure? These guys do their research. They don't just add things to the game willy-nilly.
This thing was chosen for a reason. And so we need to figure out what that reason is. Now we've looked at flowers a couple of times on this channel. Sometimes we focused on the history and geographical locations. Other times it's about the science of the plants. But this time I actually wanted to look at the symbolism behind these plants. You see all flowers have meaning and are used to convey emotions, messages, and symbolic sentiments. This is known as fllorography. Something you may be familiar with if you've watched our welcome home videos. By looking into the florogiography of the dandelion, we can
start to see the story being told by Mojang. The dandelion's meaning comes from its rapid transformation from a golden flower to the white seeds. The main thing it represents is change, aging, and transformation. Already, this thing tracks with what we see in the golden dandelion. Feeding it to baby animals prevents them from aging. It's taking the golden stage of the plant at its most literal because that phase is supposed to represent youth. It is youthfulness and when eaten can grant that eternal youth. But if this is the meaning of a regular dandelion, why didn't they just use the dandelions that are already in Minecraft? Why does it need to be golden? Because this new plant isn't any regular plant.
The golden dandelion isn't called that because it's in the early stages of its life cycle. It is literally golden. A golden dandelion in Minecraft cannot naturally occur. It can only be made by crafting a dandelion with gold nuggets. Which means something about that gold is what is giving the dandelion this magical power of youthfulness. Fortunately, it's not just flowers that have hidden symbolism. Gold has many meanings across many ancient cultures and mythologies. Some of them would simply see gold as a symbol of abundance and wealth like in Norse mythology. But almost all of them would connect gold to the gods and their immortal divine power. Aztecs said gold was excrement of the gods. Egyptian mythology claimed
that gold was the flesh of the sun god Ra. But most interesting and the most similar to the symbolism of gold we see in Minecraft was from Greek mythology. In Greek mythology, gold was a symbol of godlike power, which makes sense to me. I know when I've got plenty of gold or money in the bank, at least I also feel like a god only for Valentine's Day to come around. I love my wife, don't get me wrong, but it's always sad to see that number go down. Thankfully, my other longtime partner, Chime, is here to help. Chime is changing the way people feel about their money. Constantly adding features and tools to help you avoid the pitfalls of traditional financial institutions and help you bank smarter and do more with
your money. For me, it was their high yield savings account that really drew me in. They offer up to 3% annual percentage yield, which is seven times higher than the national average. APY basically means how much your money will grow in a year. So, if you're earning seven times more than your savings, what takes you a year in a regular savings account will take about 7 weeks with Chime. Your money isn't just sitting there doing nothing and actually growing. Suddenly, you can afford that nice new set of headphones you were eyeing up or that pickaxe from the local villager. Plus, Chime allows you to save any small scraps of gold you might not see, like rounding every purchase to the
nearest dollar and putting those pennies into savings. They're also not going to try and steal that gold from you either because they have zero overdraft fees. And best of all, Chime is offering you lucky theorists up to $350 if you open a new Chime account using my link, chime.com/game theory, or scan the QR code on screen. You don't need gold to feel like a god, you need Chime. So, thanks again to Chime for sponsoring this video. But now, let's get back to exploring what gold means in Greek mythology. In many tales, gold was the symbol of divine and pure perfection. In the story of the golden apples of Hisperodities, the primordial god Gia gives Hera a golden apple tree as a wedding gift for her marriage to Zeus.
The tree is planted in the garden of Hesperades in the far western edge of the world. And the apples are said to grant the eater the divine power of immortality. So right here we have a clear representation of what gold means to the Greeks. This is why the golden dandelion is able to keep babies young forever. It's a form of immortality, eternal youth. Gold is what grants the dandelion its power. It also has another connection to the Greek myth of immortality. Keeping baby animals young was the main feature that was highlighted for this update. But there's something else the golden dandelion can do in Minecraft. Planting an oak, birch, or cherry tree sapling within two blocks
of a planted golden dandelion increases the chances of that tree growing a bees nest with bees inside it. And in Minecraft, bees nests are how you get honeycomb. Honey is one of the divine foods in Greek mythology. In Homer's poems, he refers to a substance called ambrosia, the nectar of the gods. But a lot of modern interpretations believe this to be honey, as it was nectar and golden. So, a golden dandelion that increases the chances of bees nests appearing means a higher chance of being able to get your hands on the nectar of the gods. This golden plant was a ticket to that divine power. But then, where did it come from? Typically, when I see a magical item that grants immortality
and can't be found naturally in the world, I immediately jump to the ancient builders, particularly the tribe of scientists who were experimenting with creating life and reviving the dead. But I noticed that the golden dandelions also never appear in any of the ancient builder structure loot chests. Typically, we can tie something to the ancient builders when the loot chests in places like nether fortresses, the ancient cities, or ocean monuments contain these items because they built them in the first place. But golden dandelions don't. The only place you can get them is from a wandering trader. We haven't really talked about this guy before, mostly because there hasn't been much to say about him, but that all
changes today. We've discussed in the past how after the events of Minecraft Legends, the ancient builders brought the idea of trade and commerce to the villagers, which is why you can't trade with them in legends. They just give you items. But in modern Minecraft, they want emeralds for their goods. A wandering trader is a special type of villager who will come and trade with you anywhere in the overworld, typically selling slightly different items to the villagers. Wandering traders are more than just tradesmen, though. Unlike villagers, they don't have a home, which puts them at great risk when the sun goes down. In a world operated by trade, there's a lot of potential to make money
if you're willing to venture outside the safety of the village, but also a lot of risk. Don't worry though, they are also resourceful. In order to avoid zombies and skeletons at night, wandering traders drink a potion of invisibility. This is fascinating because given their infinite supply of them, it means they have the ability to create potions for their own personal use. They even drink a bucket of milk when the sun comes up to negate the invisibility effect. So, not only do they use potions, they know how to counter them. So far, the closest we've gotten to this with normal villagers is the cleric, who are only able to make bottles of enchanting. But none of them have been able to make and
sell regular potions. So, how is the wandering trader doing this? Well, just take a look at how hostile mobs behave in front of the wandering trader. Like most villagers, the wandering traders avoid most hostile mobs. That is except for the witch. Witches are not hostile towards wandering traders. And actually, there's a lot of similarities between these two the more you look. Both of them are potion users. Witches can heal themselves and throw splash potions at you in battle. The wandering trader also sells things like glowstone, dust, sugar cane, gunpowder, and water bottles, ingredients used to brew potions, and items that are dropped by a witch upon death. The wandering trader and the
witch are absolutely working together to make, use, and sell potions and create other magical items to sell, just like the golden dandelion. And when the wandering trader eventually wandered into the territory of the ancient builders and offered to trade this magical item, the ancient builders were amazed by its power, granting eternal youth. And they began to wonder, what if we could make it more than just eternal youth? You see, eternal youth is not the only meaning of immortality in Greek mythology. While a lot of Greek mythology speaks of immortality in the same way as the golden dandelion's power of agelessness, another way to interpret immortality is the inability to die.
Homer's Odyssey and Homer's Iliad refer to the gods as the deathless ones, signifying their immortal nature. This is the true nature of immortality, and as we've talked about many times, it's exactly what the ancient builders want. Their world is dying. They mined all the resources and polluted the world, causing the flooding of the ocean tribes and their inevitable demise. The ancient builders realized death was inevitable and so began trying to find ways to avoid it. They had some knowledge of life thanks to the flames of creation given to them by the hosts using lapis lazily that they harvested from piglins to create golems.
They knew souls were part of the equation, but that required sacrifice. So what if there was another way to do it? Remember these ancient builders, particularly the desert tribe, weren't just believers of gods. They were believers of science. Science was going to help them reach immortality. Although this ethos actually sounds more similar to another practice, alchemy, the science of understanding, deconstructing, and reconstructing matter. Sorry, when someone mentions alchemy, my brain immediately goes to this. Alchemy is said to have originated in China. But the first texts proving its existence were found from 3rd century BC Egypt. Again, tying us pretty well to the desert tribe of the ancient builders. Alchemy was the culmination of
many mythologies such as Egyptian, Greek, and Roman. The difference between those mythologies and alchemy was that practical science was also applied. Alchemist's main goal was to transform base materials like lead into gold. They believed that gold was a pure substance and that by creating it, you could find the secret to immortality. Some alchemists took this as literal immortality and others in a more spiritual sense that by creating gold you had reached spiritual enlightenment, found true peace and therefore conquered death. This act was known by alchemists as the great work.
But as I said some believed this was a literal immortality and their goal alongside making gold was to create an elixir known as the elixir of life which was described as a drinkable gold liquid. All of that sounds a lot like what we already know about the scientist tribe of the ancient builders. They were obsessed with creating life. And this obsession is why they created the wither, an attempt to create their own deity using the souls of their fallen comrades. And we all know how that went. The desert pyramids bore the symbol of the ark, the Egyptian symbol of life. These ancient builders were more than scientists. They were clearly alchemists. They saw the power of the golden dandelion, and wanted more. By
figuring out the golden dandelion was made from real gold, they sought to mimic that technique with a more suitable object, an apple. See, alchemists saw apples as a sign of perfection and the fruit of immortality, just like the golden apples of Greek mythology. Many illustrations have been made in alchemical books over the years depicting the practices within them. And one in particular is called epig 9 or emblem 9. It depicts an alchemist having completed the great work. He has created gold and reached enlightenment and immortality. And as he does so, he eats an apple, marking his perfection and his new immortal state. The golden apple in Minecraft gives the user regeneration, making it harder to die.
It's the next level up from the dandelion, using gold ingots to craft instead of just gold nuggets. It's more powerful, more potent. They even experimented with it further, figuring out a way to enchant these golden apples to give them fire resistance and resistance on top of the absorption and regeneration effects. You can now find both of these in a multitude of structures. Mine shafts, bastion remnants, strongholds, and desert temples. All structures that we have associated with one tribe in particular, the desert tribe of scientists, or as we will now call them, alchemists. Pottery Shards told us that this tribe of ancient builders made the mine shafts to help them mine for resources like lapis, iron, and diamonds. Bastion
remnants are piglin strongholds that were destroyed when the ancient builders went to the Nether. They waged war on the piglins to harvest lapis from them like they could in legends. And of course, desert pyramids were their home where they experimented with life, marking the temple with the Egyptian symbol of life. And finally, the stronghold, where the ancient builders spent the last of their days in the overworld before fleeing to the end. But that last part shows how despite their alchemy, despite the golden dandelion giving them hope, it was ultimately fruitless. Editor, read the room. While the golden apple does help to avoid death somewhat, it's not perfect. Death was absolutely still a threat. And so they
decided to carry on with their experimentation, using souls to eventually summon the wither, who would bring around more death than they ever could have imagined. Their greed set the wheels in motion for their inevitable downfall. Ironically, it was only after they disappeared that someone would finally figure out the secrets to eternal life, at least somewhat. The illers who used to look up to the ancient builders would continue their experimentation with souls and eventually they would create a golden statue called a totem of undying which would literally give you the same effects as an enchanted golden apple while also allowing you to survive a deadly blow. How did they figure this out? Well, during illager raids, do you know who helps the illers attack a
village? Witches. The ones who helped create the golden dandelions in the first place. But hey, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching. World premiere on Game Theory.
