#endermen theory

[xesnox]

@illwilledomen had pitched this idea to me on insta a little while back, so here’s my personal interpretation on some of the Enderlings! The concept art for this isn’t the best but I think people would see the vision.

Lore, warning badly written, I’ll get back to it later.

The endermen were the first, and therefore act as a kind of umbrella species to the other end-humanoids.

The enderlings are a subcategory of what is known as a secondary enderman. A secondary enderman is a humanoid that did not originate from a human person, meaning they were born an enderman, not made one. Even if they originally appeared human, they were always biologically intended to appear the way they do now, were born in the end, and have completely adjusted to the environment within the dimension. Meaning they can for an example sustain high radiation levels without any long term damage.

There are different types of secondary endermen, but the enderlings specifically mark a time within history where thought to have been long lost gods returned to their people.

The hosts eventually grew bored of watching their creations. No longer did they start wars or build funny creatures, they just sat around doing nothing. Sometimes one or two of them would break down, but such a thing wasn’t interesting.

The Testificates were unlike the artisans had been. They didn't start wars, the people of the cult tried to, sometimes, but their most powerful people preferred to reside within mansions too far from civilization to cause any real trouble. And they had no plans on letting the old artisans out of their celestial time out corner just yet.

So they decided to see what would happen to the increasingly desperate becoming, hopelessly religious grouping of former protectors would they give them children that were, to them, objectively disturbing to look at. The concept had been funny to them.

They were gods, they didn't understand the concept of human suffering, or the moral and ethical implications of splitting the human race into multiples whilst they believed they were living through their darkest hour, it was all just play. Like watching a show that had gotten so boring overtime they wished for conflict.

Atleast that’s what scholars think.

The enderlings are deformed humans, biologically. It might’ve been radiation, it might’ve been some Devine beings doing, whatever one chooses to believe. They’re a hypothetical species that hasn’t been sighted in over two millennia, we only have verbal accounts to go off of.

I hadn’t thought of the enderlings much in terms of Ancient Ruins before so this interpretation was a little harder than usual. The species is now largely extinct, but other secondary Endermen still exist, I also feel it is important to mention that there are different types of endersent! This isn’t every single one, it’s just the one that fits this biological niche.

If you have any questions ask me, I’ll try my best to answer.

[tompiexd]

I've been thinking about this. What are the Ancient Builders in their deities' eyes? And I've come up with these:

Action: Although she couldn't know what a human would feel, but to her eyes, they're like flowers. To her, every flower is beautiful and has "goodwill" in it. Take poisonous flowers, for example—they're cruel, harmful, yet, with the right use, they can make good medicines.

A flower is beautiful only when it's healthy. A flower only blooms when it's happy. Maybe heroes are like that too. And she wouldn't want for her flowers to be withered.

Knowledge: Golems. If there's anything that reminds Knowledge of the Heroes—it would be the Golems. They're useful, curious, and love to learn. All Golems have a purpose, one way or another. With kind words and with the right guidance, the Golems are the most powerful creatures one could think of! Think about it. If one Golem couldn't beat their enemy, maybe two could, and if two couldn't, maybe five could. You definitely wouldn't survive with a thousand Golems coming after you!

There's only one thing though... Knowledge has a rather bad memory and is forgetful. He couldn't remember the inventions he himself had created!

Foresight: The Heroes. She has been watching them ever since ages of time. When they were first brought to the Overworld. The Heroes are a special kind of species to her—one that's different from the rest of the Overworld, and it would be a lie to say that they weren't her favorite! She couldn't tell why, they just are, and she'd like to know more about them. Heroes are strong creatures. She knows they're more capable than the way they look. Don't let their small sizes fool you!

They're her favorites. Though she's a rather strict person—she'd admit it, but such perfect creatures wouldn't make mistakes, right? And she despises mistakes.

Ender: Weird creatures, indeed. But we are talking about the Ancient Heroes here, not the current ones, yes? It'd prefer not to talk about the current ones.

What would it say now... Ah, right. They are simply its creations, beautiful creations which fell into the wrong hands. Such poor things, to be suffered so much by the ones they'd grow their trust in. Though, despite Ender wasn't a "kind" one in the other Hosts' eyes, it'd believe itself to treat the Heroes better than how they had treated them—the Ancient Heroes.

It gave them a new home and new purpose. Though not perfect, Ender could be sure that it was far better than what the other Hosts had to offer. Perhaps, when all of this is over, it could put them, and itself, to rest once and for all.

[xesnox]

The “Endermen were once human” theory still works, actually.

Now before I am torn to shreds as this is a highly debated topic in the lore fandom, let me explain.

Although I do not think that this is something we’ll ever get a solid answer to, I do think I have enough of a basis to make an arguement in favor of this idea.

1 ). Who built the end cities? loot tables both in dungeons and in the base game consist of weapons and armors designed for human use (for obvious reasons.).

(Loot table from the broken citadel)

Note the illager-artifacts and undead armor options.

A lot of the broken citadels loot is identical to desert temple loot.

(Loot table desert temple & lower temple)

We know the desert temple is nameless territory, which was the, one, or one of many ancient hero societies, who practiced necromancy.

-Together with a few other places in the overworld, using a vanguard for reference, as they, unlike the necromancers, have no reason to be anywhere except around nameless.

Vanguards are Nameless’ personal royal guards, they cannot be summoned by anyone but them.

Though lot of the places in question are also established to be made or inhabited by testificates, using minecraft legends for reference (this portion of which is established to be canon by a developer in an interview within the “story of the illagers” video on YouTube.): the illagers originally came to be through allying themselves with the heroes during a time of war, to protect their own people (and the heroes.): in game you are able to summon warrior (early Illager) soldiers to fight for you.

Using both this and the alliance between nameless and Archie in dungeons, structure & loot table overlaps in both base game and Minecraft dungeons, aswell as the prophecy nameless mentions in ROTAI it’s more than safe to assume that the heroes and illagers in particular have had a long time mutually beneficial alliance.

Now why am I yapping about illagers and necromancers when this theory was supposed to be about the endermen?

Because there are heavy indicators that atleast 1, if not both of them, built the end cities.

First of all, green light: I’m not one for exclusive indicators, I think they are reductive, especially if too plentiful, after all trade / barter is a thing.

But particularly green lit candles (copper) are pretty established to be an indicator of nameless. Just as cyan light is established to be connected to soul energy.

We see the same lime green appearing in the broken citadel.

(These light sources also appear to be in the shape of an emerald, the orb on nameless’ staff is said to be an enchanted emerald.)

There is also a reappearing pattern in the end city & broken citadel, which resembles the flow armor template from the trial chambers.

The furniture within the end structures is larger, not because they’re made for endermen, but because they’re made for ancient heroes like necromancers, which are significantly taller than the player (modern hero.).

(I’m running out of pictures to use (thanks tumblr): see above, any nameless kingdom mob towers over the player in height. Including base game mobs like husks (also mentioned in ROTAI) being significantly taller than both the player and normal zombies.)

2). The stronghold.

Going off of the first point, the stronghold- particularly the one we see in dungeons, is heavily implied to be a structure initially built by heroes, then primarily used and redesigned by illagers. There’s green candles, and an entire with-lever accessible floor for the drowned necromancers.

Portions of the structure also appear to be far older than others, with the blocks varying in erosion, similar to secret pathways we find in other structures also implied to have been used bidirectionally.

For the base game; the stronghold loot includes "otherside" (music disc), which otherwise only spawns in ancient cities (and monster rooms but I won't get into those). The ancient city is a very clearly collaborative structure between the two societies, with redstone mechanisms like the ones in the desert temples, a shit ton of candles, a number disc (generally thought of as being recorded by a hero, unless you'd like to argue disc 11 & 13 have testificate origins.), amethyst shards (used to duplicate allays, which the ancient heroes most likely had an abundance of, see Minecraft legends), and recovery compasses (useful for necromancers / people with respawn abilities.), but are also overbuilt and fixed up by dark oak structures and outposts (Illager influence.) there are identical wool rooms to the woodland mansions and cyan & blue carpet is used around the structure.

The stronghold is therefore implied through loot ties to be a later structure of the same society.

3). End portal

The textures of the endstone used within the end portal and the end stone texture of the end aren’t exact, although this doesn’t mean much you could argue it is altered sandstone.

Though the much more likely explanation is that the ancient heroes were holders of the orb of dominance, which would’ve clearly had a goal to return to the end and would’ve most likely had the ability to hand over materials (like end stone) to their holders.

Why do I think they were holders? Although legends is a legend, if we view it from the perspective of a story that was told to the villagers by a hero (with historical basis), we know that the heroes knew about the orb of dominance, at the very least. Realistically, fighting against the piglin hoards and defeating the seer (former orb holder) would’ve made them the next, as the orb obviously somehow ended up in the overworld. Nameless already has an orb that works similar to the orb of dominance, calling them “twins” in ROTAI, so it’s not too far fetched of an idea to consider. They also recognize the orb, its origin, and power. The fact that nameless knows what the end is, and that it is a place “far beyond” (which aligns perfectly with the end being in between realms, rather than a realm of its own.), is incredibly suspicious to me and I’m surprised nobody else has pointed this out.

In some of dungeons’ weapon descriptions a time period referred to as “the end times” is referenced over and over again. We as theorists assume this refers to a time where the end portal was open, which I feel it would only be if in active use.

4). The End.

The achievement when first stepping onto the outer end islands is titled “remote getaway.”. A getaway is defined as either a short holiday, or an escape / quick departure, neither of those imply a long term stay for whoever it was that first ventured there. If it was an enderman, then the endermen do not call the end cities their home. Although it has questionable canonicity and is written by an unreliable narrator, the mobeastiary also hints at this:

In the Minecraft YouTube video “the story of the end.”, it is confirmed (already previously theorized) that the end exists outside of time and space. Which makes sense tied to the idea that it isn’t a true realm of its own. Endermen are an extension of that, as no matter their origins, as soon as they are creatures of the end they are part of its alien environment. They can teleport using the void, which is not restricted by time (and space, whole reason it’s possible to teleport), they could pop out in the nether during the nether war, or in the modern day. They’re anomalies, just like the end as a whole. The only time something within the dimension is changed is if an outside force / being of a realm interacts with it. Otherwise it remains unchanged with no future and no past. (Atleast for now, who knows what the end update will bring)

End city chests have saddles and horse armor in them, heroes are established to be remembered as predominant horse riders in MCL.

5). The story.

(This is my interpretation based off of the aforementioned theories.)

Heroes / necromancers fight the nether war, tag the illagers along with them, therefore become the next orb of dominance holders through defeating the seer & taking the orb back as part of their spoils. Wither is attempted to be weaponised against the piglin, it backfires and causes an overworld disease spread / environmental collapse. Illagers and heroes stay together in a beneficial alliance and build the trial chambers / ancient cities, try and light a portal to the realm of fate (or afterlife dimension), it either backfires or goes exactly as planned, ancient cities are either abandoned or used as an energy source central till modern day. Warden kills the wither (disc 5). Orb gets more influence, tells the now paranoid survivors to build an end portal to bring it back to the end. Portal stays open for a while (end days), heroes either abandon the illagers at the stronghold (as the next holders) or take some of them with them, establish a city in the end. City eventually falls into chaos due to the orb of dominance. Portal is closed when the illagers leave the dimension.

At this point the remaining heroes either turn into the endermen as followers of the heart of ender (or an extension of it), or the remaining city people all go ham on each other out of orb induced paranoia. It’s also possible that some went back together with the illagers.

So although we’ll never truly know if they are the same entities, as there are too many contradictory statements about the endermen in particular, we do know that they were most likely the constructors and or inhabitants of the end cities.

6). Is this actually plausible?

Maybe, I’m not sure. I think we’re at a point where the lore fandom has gotten way deeper into the details of the in game historical events than the developers, I think this topic in particular is left very vague on purpose. It could be what they’re going for, it could not be, we wouldn’t know. I feel it ties things together better narratively though. Especially considering the theory that the heart of ender may be the fourth host, I think it’s an interesting concept to consider, with the heroes being so close to action knowledge and foresight, then possibly feeling abandoned by said 3, they’d both be an easier manipulation target for ender and also work as great revenge against the hosts (which clearly favored the heroes), if they were exiled / cast out by them. Obviously this wouldn’t really affect the endermen or enderlings as characters, but as I said it’s interesting to consider from a more celestial perspective so to say.

This is just what I’ve gathered, I felt it would be nice to share because I very rarely see people approaching this theory outside of the 5 year old game theory video that is very clearly no longer accurate.

I’ll probably make a cleaned-up follow up post to this eventually, this was pretty spontaneous.

[tompiexd]

Steve: What makes YOU think us, Neo-Builders would be ended up like you? We're not the same. We're not evil.

Endermen [Ancient Builders]: ...

Ari:

[tompiexd]

controversial take: i like "endermen used to be humans" more than "endermen are aliens". look, i know minecraft dungeons pretty much deconfirmed this theory, but i just love this theory so much that it became my headcanon!!

in fact, it was also the reason why i like the endermen in the first place... 🥺

like, wdym these freaks used to be very arrogant and smart, but now they're just minding their own business, picking up blocks and being so insecure about themselves so much they'll attack you because they think you're prettier than them??