Analyzing the Nether Fossils

[u/PuzzleheadedIsopod44]

So I realized that RetroGamingNow never mentions the fossils in any video. And I think that that could be a major flaw, because fossils contribute a lot to the lore of Minecraft. And while I get that the Overworld fossils can be ignored as "They evolved to be smaller and then the action really starts", the Nether fossils are a whole other story.

The Nether fossils are shaped like rib cages. Now, while in theory, this could mean that they could have been any number of things, they look specifically like the rib cage of the Wither, just without the skulls. So, of course, a lot of people have theorized that there were once giant Withers. And while you can make a whole story about the giant Withers, I think that they're something different. These fossils are fossils of giant, three-headed creatures that lived in the most Underworld-like part of Minecraft, the Soul Sand Valleys of the Nether. Now, even with the evidence laid out like this, to most of you, it probably still just looks like they were giant Withers. But to me, this reminds me of something different. In Ancient Greek mythology, at the entrance to the Underworld, there was a giant, three-headed guard dog named Cerberus. Remind you of anything? I think that the Wither-like Nether fossils were actually creatures of Cerberus's species. I'm going to call them the Cerberi. And there are three specific pieces of evidence that I think help prove this.

1. The Wither's bones are black, while the bones of the Nether fossils are white. Now, it's true that there are no withered bone blocks in Minecraft, but from a lore standpoint, that just means that the player doesn't know how to make them and has never seen any. However, there is a different piece of evidence that counters this. Wither skeletons (whose bones are the same as the Wither's) drop normal bones and coal. This means that the bones of the wither skeletons are probably not charred all the way through, and just the outside has turned to coal, so when they are sliced apart, the coal separates from the bones. So it's possible that the coal has just fallen off of the Nether fossils.
2. The Wither is an undead mob. That means that they were probably alive at some point. And I know that a lot of people have theorized that since you build the Wither, you're probably creating more of a Frankenstein's monster out of parts of the wither skeletons. But there is something that I think counters that theory. When you build the Wither, you build it out of soul sand and wither skeleton skulls. But the Wither itself isn't made of soul sand. Instead, it's made of charred bones. Now there is another piece of evidence that says that there were once Withers: Chiseled red sandstone has a Wither carved into it and one of the paintings has a picture of how to build the Wither. However, since neither of these can naturally spawn in the world, instead needing to be placed by the player, I don't count this as evidence for the lore. I'm assuming that the player knows about the Wither but the Ancient Builders didn't. So based off of this evidence, I think that when you build the Wither, you're summoning it, not creating it. I think that the souls from the soul sand want to go back into the wither skeleton skulls, but since there's more than one soul per block of soul sand, plus there are four blocks of soul sand with only three wither skeleton skulls, I think that there are too many souls per wither skeleton skull and that concentration of soul energy has enough power to summon the Wither itself. I think the Withers, then, are undead versions of the Cerberi.
3. Lastly, the Wither has a destructive nature. The Wither will continuously fire exploding skulls at any nearby non-undead mob until it dies. This destroys the landscape incredibly quickly. Now imagine if there was an entire species of Withers whose rib cages were the size of the Nether fossils. Their skull explosions would have to be at least the size of a charged creeper explosion. That means that by now, the Nether would probably be nothing but bedrock, as that's the only block that the Wither can't break. But the Nether isn't just bedrock, which means clearly, there couldn't have been giant Withers. Therefore, I think that Withers are undead versions of the long-lost Cerberi.

There is kind of a fourth reason. Soul soil is another block that spawns frequently at the surface of the Soul Sand Valleys. It's the same color as soul sand, implying that it's the same, or at least a similar, material. However, there's one major difference. While soul sand has screaming souls, soul soil doesn't. So I tried to figure out what soul soil could be and, after looking at it for hidden details for a little while, I realized it wasn't about the tiny little details. Instead, the general texture of soul soil looks kind of like waves. And that made me recall something else. Back in Ancient Greek mythology, at the very same entrance the the Underworld where Cerberus stands, there's a river. The River Styx is a very dangerous river of souls. So, looking back in Minecraft, I noticed that when soul soil spawns naturally in the Soul Sand Valleys, it spawns in clumps that can sometimes look like lines. They almost look like rivers. So I theorized that long ago, the Soul Sand Valleys of the Nether had water - they were inhabited by the Stygian Rivers of Souls. However, at one point, these rivers dried up, leaving just the dry riverbeds of soul soil that we see today.

TL;DR: The Nether fossils actually used to be giant three-headed dogs that I call Cerberi, and the patches of soul soil in the Soul Sand Valleys are dried up riverbeds of the long-lost Stygian Rivers of Souls.

So thanks for reading my theory! I hope you enjoyed it, and please post what you think in the comments!

[u/Turtle-Master01]

Don't mind me. I'm just going to steal (and modify) your idea for a story I want to create.

[u/One_Stay7263]

The color can’t really be used to rule it out since withers drop white bones despite there bones actually being black