Minecraft Piglins fuck me up. Like, they’re one of two/three seemingly sentient species, but there’s clearly something wrong with them.
They’ve got bastions throughout the nether, huge buildings that at one point were clearly lovingly constructed. Not only were these buildings functional (apartment complexes, hoglin stables), but they created art. Not just carvings, but music. Not even villagers have created music discs, only piglins. Piglins also had access to the overworld at some point, they have a number of items (carrots, water bottles, string, iron) that could only have been obtained from the Overworld.
But… something happened. At some point in the past, something happened, and Piglins lost the ability to maintain their buildings. The buildings fell into ruins, and even though the Piglins stayed with the ruins, they couldn’t salvage them. They just wander the broken hallways.
What happened? Well, we don’t know for sure. But… Piglins are afraid of Zombie Piglins. Even though Zombie Piglins won’t attack them, Piglins still try to get away from them. Despite this, Zombie Piglins don’t appear infectious. Piglins don’t even turn into them when they die. Instead, Piglins turn into Zombies when exposed to the Overworld. The Overworld infects them, and unlike Zombie Villagers, there is no cure.
It can’t have always been this way, Piglins would’ve needed to be able to access the Overworld at some point to get materials. But something went wrong. And here you are, exploring the ruins of a society and left wondering what happened. Or maybe more importantly, are you next?
The Minecraft website actually gives us an interesting hint about the fate of the piglins. In the page on The Nether Update, it says this:
The piglins used to have access to netherite, but they overharvested it, and all that’s left is this crude debris that’s useless on its own. But what do you need to make that debris into actual ingots? The same thing that piglins will give anything they have just to get a bit more of.
The way piglins used netherite in the past was unsustainable, and now today’s piglins are willing to give away riches they’ll never be able to get more of just to keep the ruins they live in today from crumbling any further.
[ID1: tweet by Adam Kaewe Manalo-Camp, @adamkeawe , reads: “Missionaries thought Hawaiians were lazy bcus by noon Hawaiians were surfing, doing art, socializing. What they didn’t see was that Hawaiians started the day at dawn&were so efficient&organized that they were done planting, harvesting, and cooking for the entire day by 9am.” /ID1]
[ID2: tags read: “#what’s even the problem with being supposedly ‘lazy’ if there’s no work to do… #like they clearly weren’t starving to death or living in squalor so there was obviously nothing else they NEEDED to do #so why do more??? #i know the answer is ‘the people saying this were christian missionaries’ but still” /ID2]
to add a little more background to this, ancient native hawaiian’s days started at sundown; they measured their days&kept track of time primarily using the moon, so the appearance of the moon, not the sun, marked the day beginnings. this makes the night sleep match up with the break that happened with the peak of the sun in the sky, which would be the worst time to be doing agricultural work. missionaries also wouldn’t have considered many things that they did– pounding kapa to make cloth, for example– “jobs”, those things would have been considered crafts or art. it’s also probably worth noting that located so close to the equator, days in Hawai'i are roughly the same length&temperature year-round, so this schedule never needed to be interrupted or adjusted, for the most part. by the time missionaries came to Hawai'i, they found a system that was fully established&self-sustaining without need to prepare for barren seasons like winter, &that lack of fear+contentment with the land was likely almost offensive to the missionaries who showed up, who were specifically Calvinist Christian.
I am Silver Tongue, I am an artist. I have many characters and you can check out my art in the art tag. I occasionally practice witchcraft though I don't do anything too complicated. I am girl 2 and don't know what else to put here.
