#minecraft enemies

Name: Endermite

Debut: Minecraft

Endermite is so funny. You know Endermite? No one talks about Endermite! It's never Endermite who adorns a child's T-shirt or lunchbox. Isn't that sad? No, not really, because Endermite does not do much. But something it DOES do is "be funny", and that's enough for me! Like I always say, "hee hee"!

If you think about it for even just a few seconds, you'll realize that Endermite is actually quite cool! This is a bug from another dimension. Not ACTUALLY from the End, as its name implies, but some sort of realm in between dimensions. The only way they appear is by popping up occasionally when an Ender Pearl is used to teleport, and their existence actually reveals the biggest character flaw with the otherwise-perfect Endermen...

Endermen HATE Endermites! So much! They're the kind of person to hate a very specific bug, to the point of wanting to kill it! An Enderman would say "kill it with fire!" if you showed one a photo of your dear pet Endermite. That's not cool. To be fair, Endermites ARE hostile and try to kill Endermen whenever they get the chance, but counterpoint: a bug can do no wrong.

The reasoning behind adding the Endermites in the first place was to flesh out the Endermens' teleportation mechanic, with the idea that, like players using the Nether, Endermen would use an in-between dimension to travel more quickly. This dimension was full of "bad stuff" like Endermites, which would sometimes end up being brought along to the teleporation destination. So be nice to them! They're away from home, and probably scared!

It's taken me until seeing this screenshot to realize that Endermites actually have some tail-like segments behind the main big middle one! Rather larva-like. My original interpretation of them as incredibly nubby was hilarious, but I like this a lot, too! Makes them feel like they could actually move around, instead of being sessile on a branch like a scale insect.

Once upon a time, Endermites looked rather different than they do now! They were just a retextured Silverfish, and had two black eyes instead of their current single red eye. This design only lasted a little over a month.

But that's long enough to be immortalized in toy form! Endermite merchandise is rare, but it's very cool to see the original design actually got something! A very cute little figure, posed inquisitively. Whatever is over there (points over there) must be rather interesting!

There is also this mini figure, depicting TWO Endermites lurking around a moss block, and I really love it a lot! It may not be very play-ready- unless you want to play with a toy of a living moss block with beloved pet Endermites- but it just looks nice. A little scene! Bugs among the moss. A cute tiny display piece.

Name: Creeper

The one. The only. Who doesn’t love or hate or love to hate this long green weirdo? Creepers, as you likely know, are quite prone to exploding. And this not only hurts a whole lot, but can destroy blocks, including those of your precious structures! Rascals.

Creepers are, without a doubt, the mascot of the Minecraft franchise as a whole, and that’s nice, isn’t it? This massive brand chooses to represent itself with a sad, exploding, pickle-looking thing. I’m happy about that.

But what the heck IS a creeper? Other common mobs include zombies, skeletons, and giant spiders, all classic monsters, and then there’s this thing. Well, let’s find out!

Did you know that Minecraft wasn’t always all around us? There was, in fact, a time before our world was replaced with Minecraft. But Minecraft had to come from somewhere, and everything in it created! Here we see an early attempt at a model of... a pig. Yep. The height and length aren’t quite right, are they? There seems to be a little smidge of detail that’s different from most pigs.

But why let such a weird model go to waste? This thing was given a green texture with a sad face, and BOOM! The rest is real world history, since we all live in Minecraft.

But what about some good ol’ in universe analysis? I... actually don’t need to do that! Voldemort has said that he imagines them as being made of leaves or something similar, with a texture like dead leaves, but is unsure why they explode. Good thing Dinnerbone has an explanation! They’re apparently “so nervous that they shake a lot, and then this sets them off the same way as how rubbing two sticks makes fire”. The poor things are constantly nervous to the point of shaking! No wonder they’re always so sad! Bet you feel like a jerk for vilifying them now, huh?

But that’s not all the neat stuff they do! If a Creeper happens to get struck by lightning, it becomes CHARGED, doubling the power of its explosion! You’d think dead leaves struck by lightning would just burn, huh? But answer me this: have you ever SEEN dead leaves get struck by lightning? And if so, how do you know it wasn’t a dream? You don’t.

Name: Stray Bones (?)

Debut: Minecraft: Wii U Edition

This is such an exciting post! I am incredibly excited to be talking about what may very well be... THE weirdest Mario enemy ever! Let’s jump right in right here right now!

You’ve definitely noticed by now that there is a whole bunch of Minecraft in this post. Back in our Tarantox post, we mentioned the Super Mario Mash-Up Pack, a wonderful addition to Minecraft on Nintendo consoles, which reskins absolutely EVERYTHING into characters and items from the Mario universe!

For the most part, as core-style Mario stuff tends to be, the references here are very mainstream and easy to recognize. Of course, Skeletons are redesigned as Dry Bones here! Wither Skeletons, logically, are Dark Bones (a stronger variant from Paper Mario). 

What we’re looking at here, though, is neither of these things! Here we have Strays, a somewhat recent addition to Minecraft: skeletons that roam frozen landscapes, and whose arrows inflict slowness on their target. The Dry Bones shown at the beginning of the post is the Mario reskin of a Stray (hence the unofficial, yet quite nice, name we’re using, Stray Bones). But... what is it?!

The Mario Wiki suggests that Stray Bones is based on the blue variant of Dry Bones from the Mario Baseball games. Let’s take a look...

Hmm... I do not think so! The gloves and shoes are what changes color here, but Stray Bones has totally different bone and eye color, and we can’t even see its gloves or shoes.

And that’s not even mentioning the diamond on its chest! You may recognize that as a Super Gem, the collectibles from Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. Why is it on Stray Bones’s chest?

...I have no idea! Maybe it somehow gains power from it, and that’s why its eyes are the same color? Super Gems are, fittingly, a reskin of Minecraft’s diamonds. Does Stray Bones have some association with diamonds in general, then? Again, I have no idea! If you expected me to suddenly have an idea in this short period of time, you are simply silly!