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I guess this is why witches live in swamps and never have blaze powder to brew their potions. They use the moonlight soaking into the swamps around them

some dude: lets add a squishy big dude to make sticky pistons Retro: And I took that personally

Here's my theory about slimes growing underground: So; lapis lazuli: that ore is used when it comes to enchanting items and books. What if those lapis lazulis are the reason why there's a random slime chunks underground? Since they're necessary when it comes to enchanting, maybe they emit magical powers too?

Oh and an interesting thing about slimes is when they're small they have NO ability to harm you unlike magma cubes that still can hurt you even while being small

I would go with occam's razor that the simplest explanation is the most likely one. In this case, the slimes are just slime molds, soft-bodied organisms that like to live in warm, humid places like swamps or caves (water & lava combining produces a lot of steam, so it's probably like a sauna in a lot of those caves). Warm areas with a lot of water are ideal for a slime- an organism that is composed mostly of water, and much more so than us vertebrates are. As for the moon? Perhaps they are simply drawn out of the caves or through cracks in the ground, oozing onto the surface to bask in the magic. They could feed off of it, or use it to run any kind of metabolic process, or they just like the light. Magma cubes, in this instance, could just be slimes that evolved to live in the nether, incorporating magma instead of water into their anatomy. By incorporating blaze powder with the slime, they became resistant to fire. Makes sense, considering that magma cream from the magma cubes is used to brew fire resistance potions.

I'd personally like to posit that the magma cube is made up of two separate parts. The main one is the magma cream itself. This is the "brain" of the whole thing or the single celled body. This is also the cubical part of the body which becomes visible when the magma cube moves. The other part of the body (the one we see most often) is just a shell made to protect the body from the harsh environment of the nether.

My only thought on the random generation is that enchanting also has a random element to it. Maybe we can derive something from that parallel?

I question myself why skeletons and strays hated you. Yes there are zombie variants, and they obviously want you eat your flesh, but why would skeletons bother killing you? Do they also want to eat the flesh of players? Or maybe these skeletons were once inanimate but then risen by a curse or something. Edit again: oh right. I was thinking about it because I haven't heard of anyone making theories about skeletons. There are theories about the ender dragon, the wither, the creeper, the phantom, etc. But not the skeleton

Ngl the slime/ magma cubes have always interested me ever since I started playing Minecraft. Haven’t finished the video yet but I’m sure it’ll be very cool and very interesting. Thanks for making this.

Not sure if anyone else mentioned this, but the moon is traditionally viewed as a portal to the fae world in many European myths and legends, so that could explain the greater presence of magic during a full moon

Your theory is really interesting! I'd love to see some of your thoughts on Ghasts as well. I think they are an interesting mob and might have some lore behind them too, such as why Ghasts are always sad (they drop ghast "tear" which has a regenerative effect), and some interesting things about the achievement when you bring ghast "home" to the overworld and kill it.

As sad as this may or may not sound, I live for these deep dives. They always make my day.

4:47 I was having a panic attack seeing how low the health was

What I See - Sticky Piston What Retro Sees - LORE

I just realised, this channel reminds me of what I used to like about Game Theory, except you don't have clickbait and bad jokes and you're more than willing to admit flaws in the theory. Thank you RetroGamingNow :)

i'd love to see a video on lightning and its effects on certain mobs

Quick theory: (This is vastly oversimplified but I don't have time to further explain planetary formation) It is know that in planetary formation collisions between objects occur a lot. Rock that makes up our modern moon can be found on earth due to these collisions. Is it possible that moon rock itself is magic and slime chunks are just a part of the world that has this rock embedded in it from when the minecraft world was forming? As for why moon light is needed to spawn slimes on the surface, maybe light reflected by the moon carries some of its magic to the minecraft world.

I have an unrelated theory, which I hope you at least consider. When the wither boss sound appears, and you have subtitles on it says "Wither released" which might mean that the withered souls get released to the overworld, and turn into all types of undead mobs (except zombie and skeleton variants)

I think the swamp also has magical properties, that could also explain why witches has huts there, they also need slime balls to do potions (although we still need to know from where they get blaze powders without direct access to the nether). About the ghasts, taking the Mobestiary logic that they're more like a mechanical mob rather a biological one, what if the ancient builders (or the endermen) made them with some purpose of studying magic before they became hostile. They kinda look like the moon, and taking what you said about the blaze powder also being in ghasts (11:40), that could mean ghasts was made in some attempt to artificially recreate the moon, in a place that don't have any. Adding more to what I said, maybe they are what powers the Nether with magic, seeing that they're literally everywhere. This way, having the requirements to spawning magma cubes

ley lines irl are lines between high energy or "magical" spots on earth. the spots often have temples or other structures... maybe the slime chunks are like these irl spots?

I think I have never arrived so on-point to a video release. Less than a minute!

At first when Retro said “Join me, for a dive beneath the waves” and the camera approached the Slime, I assumed the Slime would JUMP over the camera instead of standing still. The video was well put together and I enjoyed it! :)

If your parents ask you what you're watching, you can label this video as a Biology class.

3:48 I was not ready to see that, gave me goosebumbs

What if slimes spawn deep underground because that's where blocks that have a capacity to hold magic power, like obsidian or emeralds, spawn more often? And the deeper you go underground the hotter it becomes which would connect heat and magic

This is literally my fav series lol!

If 'magic' is a form of energy and we know that heat is also a form of energy. Their relation implies some sort of method by which heat is converted into magic or... quite possibly they are the same thing! Why does an enchantment table, ender chest or even a nether portal, all seemingly magical things, require Obsidian, a block with high concentration of heat? It may imply a very strong connection between the two forms of energy!

my theory on magma cubes is that they are another form of golem, the thought is that the ancient builders wanted to protect the treasure found in they're bastions so they studied slime and in order to build the magma cube,these cubes will copy the duplication power from the slime along with a few more perks with it like fire resistance and the ability for small cubes to do damage. After construction of the cube they placed a spawner inside of the bastion usually in rooms heavily populated with gold

I've just realised that the magical blocks are always animated! Soul Sand, Magma blocks. Does that mean Prismarine is also magical? It fuels a conduit! It must be magical as well. Please make a video about magical blocks in Minecraft.

The sun is probably magical like the moon as well. In your theories, you seem to establish that magic in Minecraft is very connected to heat. Potions requiring heat, the nether being filled with souls (which burn hotter than regular fire) and transforming pigs from the heat, and the comparison between experience and real life energy. With that, it's easy to see that the sun is magical as well as the moon, since well, it's a giant ball of heat. Maybe that would be an interesting future video, to see how the sun and moon are connected by their magic properties.

Actually this could also mean that the magic in minecraft is actally radioactive, since Basalt biomes have sounds of those nuclear meters meaning they're probably highlry radioactive, and Basalt biomes are a *hotspot* for Magma cubes. So what if all minecraft magic is really just nuclear energy or something? Just a thought.

Your theory is well and good, and I think you're really on to something with the composition of slimes all the way to their parallels with magma cubes, but I'd like to propose slight tweaks for your consideration. Ok, so Moon cycles in Minecraft function analogously to Moon cycles in real life, but instead of raising tides, they bring about some dormant magical essence (in lack of a better term) of the Overworld, a magical catalyst as you put it. When such "magical essence" is brought about in a region where there is water with plenty of microorganisms (i.e. swamp water), it not only coalesces them into a single gelatinous organism, but imbues it with some rudimentary consciousness. We already know that magic and atmospheric events can change a creature's intelligence and personality (take lightning effects on pigs and villagers), so I don't think it's a stretch to have the Moon do something similar. Also it would explain their green colour: it comes from algae and phytoplankton. As for slimes which spawn underground in slime chunks, their magical source could be the heat from underneath, or perhaps Overworld's dormant magical essence is simply stronger at lower altitudes (which may help explain the deepslate and the Warden in the future).

There’s a point you didn’t mention, that might hate something to do with underground slimes... Heat. Not just heat in general, but lava. Lava can only spawn deep underground... So can slimes... Maybe the lava has something to do with he amount of magic? I mean, you find random underground lakes and lava lakes, therefore its hot and humid enough for slimes to spawn. Idk that’s my thought.

Your theory's are sooo interesting and are very easy to understand I love them all I love how u work very hard to find out all these things keep it up friend

i mean, the only thing undergrounds that would provide magical power would be ores, redstone, coal and diamons drop exp once mining them, so maybe all the magic from the ores forms enough energy for slimes to spawn?

I think that the magical energy emitted by the moon gradually seeps down through the soil, continuously moving downward, eventually congealing in small pockets as magic energy seems to attract itself. This is what the slime chunks are.

Perhaps there was some sort of event that took place many years ago, back when the ancient builders were around. Let's go with the current naritive- the builders create a wither, and are forced to flee to the nether. The wither produces some sort of slime spore, and spreads it everywhere chasing down the builders and murdering innocent sheep. The builders try to escape it by going to the nether, but the wither follows them there, spreading it there. The heat helps them grow, so many patches of magma are created. The builders escape to the end somehow... Blah blah blah... Enderman... Blah blah blah... But the wither eventually is eaten up by his own spore, which leaves it's large bones across the nether, as they are torn off my the spores. Let's think about the magma cubes. Maybe the spores came off the wither to be regular slimes, but they came in massive droves. Let's say that the blazes attacked them with fireballs, which left a blaze powder residue on the slimes. Some of the slimes evolved to cope with the blaze powder, but most of them died, and the magma blocks are their remains. But why don't blazes attack them now? Magma cubes are more common in basalt deltas, where there are no blazes, so they hung out there. Back in the overworld, the spores sept into the ground, and found a nice cozy home next to several things of lava, and eventually becoming slime. Some were dropped into the swamps by the wither, and immediately used the humidity to their advantage and didn't go underground, and evolved to feed off of the moon's magic. Maybe? What do you think?

What if magma blocks are a type of slime mould that later develops into magma cubes and the hot spots both in the nether and overworld are where these substances develop, but the reason we don't have natural slime *blocks* is because slime is far less dense than magma cream so when 'enchanted' they turn into slimes instantly rather than being a process from cream to block to cube, this is kinda supported by the fact that magma cubes don't squash and strech like slimes do Also an idea as to why these hotspots occur can probably be tied to lapiz as it also has magical properties but is found underground (maybe lapiz is some form of moonstone that fell centuries ago? But this is more a hypothesis than a theory) and as a result some of its magic leaks into other areas helping create these hotspots Side theory: magma cubes, blocks, and cream _are_ the source of blaze powder and blazes are just constructs of it hence why they're caled blazes, this is supported by the fact that the only way a blaze can spawn is through spawners which always appear in ruins of structures suggesting they are not natural occurances

I would try to explain the magic energy with radiation in the planet where the nether is underground has more radiation. Your explonation with the magma block has lower energy would mean what magma slimes would try to get blocks, because everything wants the lowest energy level possible

Minor correction At 10:06 RGN claims that the small Magma Cubes drop Magma cream, with the implication that they are the only size to do so. This is in fact completely the opposite. Tiny Magma Cubes are the only ones to _not_ drop Magma cream. I don't think this changes the theory in any meaningful way.

"in a plant or fungus, not a multicellular organism" plants are multicellular organisms boi

Slimes are one of my favourite mobs because they’re so cute.

I don’t care about validity anymore, or whether lore was actually intended for the game. We are all free to make our own head canons sometimes with other people’s head canons as inspiration or reference. Even Matpat has a point no matter how bizarre it seems Anyways, keep up the great work and I’ll stay tuned for the next video

I was literally bing watching your deep dive videos today. Great to dive beneath the waves once more.

When this guy is done with all of the theories he's gonna sum it all up into a 45 minute video

10:04 actually, the small magmas dont drop anything, and its actually the larger ones that drop the magma (part of their body) while splitting into multiple smaller ones

Dont slimes look exacly like the moon just green? Edit: and maybe there was a science experiment and blazepowder got morphed with a slime to make a magma

Omg yasss another Deep dive! I'm gonna watch this in the evening while I'm drawing or after school. Or maybe as a short movie while eating candy :D

Yes, I love when you upload! Your videos are so well put together

You have done more for my Minecraft headcannon than anyone! This series is beautiful!

Suggestiom: You should do a deep dive on the extinction event itself that wiped out the builders, and what it could've been and how/why it happened. Would be cool to see.

You have made me thing much harder about the slime then I ever thought I would. This is a very sound theory and I love how complex Minecraft seems to be the more you dig under the surface

Half of this video relies on blaze powder being magic, but there's nothing inherently magic about it. Just because the player uses it to craft certain items doesn't make the items themselves magic, because the player is just replicating them. Your mold comparison was very interesting tho, and I think it provides a much easier explanation: just that, they're molds. They grow in the swamp and in caves, places where you could picture mold growing. Looking at the magma cream, it's clear that it was once a slime ball, so some slime might've adapted to live in the nether combining themselves with blaze powder

Can you maybe do a video on the mineshafts, I have always found them interesting but I can't seem to understand them.

What about “why do some mobs burn at day and others don’t?” That would be fun to hear

I remember in the oldest version of Minecraft Pocket Edition the Slimes used to spawn on default volume, until I noticed change on the later update that I install and play. And I remember that theirs a Slime attacking me in the cave lol

I still protest that ghasts lay eggs and glowstone are eggs

If the moon light is the magic energy used to spawn slime above ground, then why only in swamps? I think that just like a nether fortress swamps are mega hotspots containing more energy than a normal hotspot, enabling slime to spawn above ground with the presence of moonlight.

"join me for a dive beneath the waves" i ducking love this line!

I love how he always says “tonight we’re going to be looking at…” because I always end up watching these at night

Loved the video! I would like to give my take on what Slimes are: I think that Slimes are the rests of creatures/mobs that mix together because of magic, instead of reanimated matter by a curse, as are the undead mobs, I think Slimes are more like matter gaining a ""mind"" This is why the Slimes from the Nether are more like magma, as the mobs from the nether are more firey in their structure, Ghasts create a combustable projectile, Blazes are pretty obvious, and Wither skeletons are burnt skeletons, this probably means why there is a relation between Magma and normal slimes, as Magma ones would be both the remains of not fire mobs (which would produce normal slime) and the rests of fire related mobs mixed together Howhever, thsi theory is based on my headcannon that all mobs are somewhat made of magic, as they can spawn randomly on the world, and the slime would be what the remains of magical creatures become when most components are extracted (meat, bones, you get the idea)

10:06 no... this is just wrong. The smallest size of Magma Cube is the only one that CAN'T drop Magma Cream. Only the large and medium ones do. This is a pretty big oversight, and I don't know how it made it through to the finished video.

This is the first minecraft theory video I've watched that actually sees spawning as mobs being created from more or less nothing and not as "this place has had a permanent population of this mob since at least the point where the player spawned in"

I can't wait to watch this video, but before I do I wanna say that I love this channel and the Deep dive series. It's very enjoyable, interesting and cool to hear about Minecraft's unsolved mysteries and unanswered questions. The funny thing is that every time a new video comes out I get excited but end up forgetting to watch the video lol. I'll be sure to catch up on the videos I haven't seen yet. Keep up the great work RGN! MatPat would be proud! :)

The only thing that confuses me about Magma cubes is that they sort of split when they jump, revealing a hot orange core. What is that thingy?!

I really like your approach to theorizing. It's really refreshing to see someone taking the game at face value as much as possible, without resorting to real life sources or deliberately misconstruing in-game evidence so as to arrive to the most outlandish game theories™ for views' sake. At the end of the day, your theories end up seeming much more plausible than the more common clickbaity type. It's clear that your theories are well thought out and thoroughly account for whatever in-game evidence there is. All that said, I disagree with your stance on slime chunks. I find it more reasonable to interpret them as a technical artefact of the game (akin to the mob cap) than as a diegetic spawning mechanic. It seems clear to me that slime chunks are randomized like so so their (underground) encounters feel more special.

I just thought of a theory: the end stone on the end looks a lot like craters, and the nether’s fiery and hot. Plus, if you fall off the end you fall onto the overworld (I think?) so what if The End is actually the moon and the Nether is the sun? That’s just my theory.

Mojang: "Let's just make a green mob that blobs around." English teachers:

Strange thought I just had: The ancient builders must be pretty tall, because they go on to become endermen and wither skeletons!

I swear, this channel deserves way more subs.... His content is so good. Keep it going man!

This Deep Dive series is just great. I think at this point we all expect you to cover the ENTIRE game! A couple general thoughts: this doesn't necessarily have an answer, but it might be good to think about the setting of the game. It isn't exactly Earth. Some of the animals and creatures look like those in our world, but this seems to be at the very least a different reality/universe. And so we should think about whether some things in the game (like everything's blockiness) is a part of its reality or just how we "perceive" it. Second, the possibility that the Nether is deep underground (like in the world's mantle or lithosphere) is supported by bedrock being at the bottom of the overworld and the top of the Nether, the fact that there is so much more lava/magma in the Nether (as there would be in the mantle), and the fact that distance in the Nether is 1/8 of the distance in the Overworld (suggesting that it is a smaller concentric sphere inside a larger one). If the Nether is in fact below the Overworld, then maybe the "random" areas where magma blocks are found line up with areas where slimes spawn underground. Maybe the magic is in both areas. Finally, I think it might be good to think about "spawning." It most likely isn't some sort of spontaneous generation, but rather that these creatures are simply outside our field of view. Like you said in the phantom video, those creatures exist whether we stay up or not (since cats can bring phantom membranes when we sleep). If the zombies and skeletons are the remains of the "zombie apocalypse," then they would simply be roaming the world, not being created anew each night. Perhaps simply hiding during the day? I don't think this invalidates any information about mobs, I think it might just be a way for the gameplay to provide information about the mobs (slimes and witches are magical, phantoms track us, zombies and skeletons are undead). Anyway, the answer to the question about whether we want you to cover any particular topic will always be yes!

Honestly it almost feels like their should be some magic ore that spawn more often in slime chunks. That would help a lot with theory crafting. Maybe emeralds since they share a color and are vaguely magical?

The funny thing is, that at the time of this message no one has actually watched the full video lol.

Does anyone else love the new music?

Heres my theory about where the magma cubes came from When the nether portal was invented, some slimes were able to accidentally get in these portals and make it to the nether. But the temperatures in the nether are extremely hot. After exposed in the nether for some time, the slimes were forced to involve into magma cubes, in order to survive in the extreme conditions of the nether.

Judging by the idea of magma not being magma but nonsentient magmacube slime... that means that blaze powder is GROWN as part of magma slime.

Nice. These mobs are so underrated.

wow im excited for this episode RGN!

Thanks for making these videos. One of the few things I've enjoyed in a long time. I'll remember these for a good while.

I love these thank u, they help me focus at night when I’m doing work or playing on Xbox please keep these up

My theory: Notch thought adding a slime enemy that can split was a good idea (and it's gameplay instead of a lore related enemy)

They should add a thing that w can dye slimes with different colours 😂😂

Awesome video! I never realized there were that many connections. Like, I never would have thought about the magma block crafting recipe! :)

Keep making these videos :) watched them all in one day haha great content!

Him: The moonlight does something weird to the overworld Me: Yes it spawns zombies and skeletons near my base

Once I kept a slime as a pet and named it and every thing, then the world got corrupted :(

From what you've said it seems that there are an inherent form of magic to the magma cube and that could be connected to the previous civilizations of Minecraft as they are also found in and around the old Ocean ruins

I love how you can deep-dive the lore of a game with - end-poem withstanding - no text or dialogue! Great job!

Minecraft watching this: hmm interesting

Slight correction at 10:05 to this otherwise incredibly well done and hecka interesting video, Magma Cream is actually only dropped by killing any of the non-tiny Magma Cubes; a small, albeit, notable distinction between it and it's overworld cousin. Can't blame ya or anyone really for thinking Magma Cream drops occurred just like Slimeballs do. I thought the same thing for a long time as well much to my surprise when I discovered the truth.

Really good and cool episode!!! Didn't though you could find so much lore from a non sentient being like the slime!

Deep dive videos like this makes me glad to play more and more of Minecraft while learning more about the mobs and so much more!

Always love to see new Mein Kampf lore videos 👌👌👌👍🤠

These deep dives always intrigue me, I love ‘em

The magma might have formed when a wither shot his skulls towards those spots, The wither is full of magical energy so are the skulls he shoots (the blue ones containing more energy of course (blue = colour of souls)). The skulls might have given it's magical properties to the netherrack which became magma? maybe?

Blazes themselves have to be magical as well, the blaze powder allows them to float

I forgot to mention this but the addition of slimes into Minecraft is obviously based on slime creatures from other games, notably the Dragon Quest series although its design is also similar to that of a Gelatinous cube which is usually related to Slimes

10:06 - Correction: Anything *larger* than the smallest size drops Magma Cream.

My theory is that the ancient builders brought slimes with them like they did with the pigs that turned into piglins thus the nether turning the slimes into magma cubes. The reasoning is that in order to have an easy supply of slime balls for fire resistance potion they brought slimes and already had the blaze powder from blazes and warts. This is my ted talk.