A few weeks ago, two close friends and I gathered together for one of the greatest quests and greatest challenges in Minecraft: We summoned the Wither. We were prepared, we thought. And we were totally, utterly destroyed. It’s one of the most epic and meaningful gaming experiences I’ve had. Because we unleashed a terrible ancient evil upon the world. And we lost at a game for five-year-olds.

The Wither, Minecraft, Ancient Prophecy And Games For Children

Summoning the Wither is no easy task, as surely most of you know. Soul sand is easy enough to come by, but wither skeleton heads aren’t. Still, we had found three of them, and made our choice. We spent hours preparing—fashioning diamond weapons and armor, enchanting it (not highly enough), farming arrows, enchanting bows, making potions. We thought it would be enough.

It wasn’t. We summoned the Wither in an ancient castle I had built, in the open grounds of the courtyard. We had a base underneath the keep, well protected, stocked with more diamond weapons and bows and armor. We had looked up some basic strategy; we knew the Wither could fly and could smack you around for a lot of damage.

Alas, the Wither smacked us around right quick. Despite having the best equipment any of us had ever had in Minecraft, we never got it below 75% health. We didn’t coordinate our arrow fire, and it healed too quickly and picked us off. Its explosions destroyed our precious gear, and then our extras. We lost almost everything. We lost before it flew away, and then it flew away. We gave chase with stone swords and a handful of arrows. Needless to say, it was to no avail. But I learned a lot.

Even Easy Games Are Hard

First thing I learned: Even easy games are hard. Minecraft is not, generally speaking, all that difficult. It can take a lot of busywork. It can be hard to survive when you first start out and don’t understand the game, and sure, even as a veteran you’ll die sometimes. But it’s no Dark Souls. But the Wither is a different matter. It’s clearly the Emerald Weapon of Minecraft—entirely optional (but then, what isn’t?) but far harder than the Ender Dragon, and requiring truly exceptional preparations. And the right kind of preparations—we aren’t going to fight it again outdoors.

Mojang crafted an experience that, although easy enough if you know what you’re doing, is far harder than anything else in the game. And that’s awesome. I love a challenge. But that’s not the really important lesson. That lesson isn’t really about Minecraft at all.

The Power of Evil

Summoning the Wither is a mythic act. It is, pretty much literally, a demon from hell. The only way to know about the Wither in game, without looking anything up, evokes medieval folklore about demonology and lost texts: You can learn how to summon the Wither from a painting. The painting displays the creature, and its configuration—soul sand and wither skulls—is obvious, if you think about it in the right way. It’s the only in-game hint at the evil creature.

Making the choice to summon the Wither in Minecraft is akin to the actions of Doctor Faustus—and the consequences should have been obvious. Summoning a demon of the ancient world simply to satisfy our own lust for knowledge and power (that Nether Star!) is the height of recklessness. The Wither is a destructive force without parallel, except for the Ender Dragon, who is corralled in his own dimension. Only the Wither can be brought into the real world.

Like anyone who summons the Wither, we thought, in our little local multiplayer game, that we had the situation under control. We didn’t summon the Wither as an evil act. No, we summoned it out of hubris and greed and a sense that man is greater than the elemental forces of the world. As any medieval myth will tell you, that turned out to be deeply false.

Unleashing a demon of the ancient world has consequences. As we chased the Wither across the countryside, it destroyed the land. It mangled my castle; exploded part of my village; tore deep gashes in the plains, and ultimately burnt down a good chunk of a forest. And then we let it flee, as we could not kill it. It is loose in the world forever.

Of course, the Wither will despawn eventually (presumably now that I’ve wandered away to find some damn melons so I can make real healing potions). But we unleashed evil on the world, and we’ll pay the price. I turned the difficulty of my Minecraft world up to hard, permanently, to reflect the increased power of the monsters after such a force had been unleashed. And I wouldn’t be surprised if other evil things start to happen—lava flows in forests, explosions, parts of the Nether exerting itself in the real world. Of course, those things will happen because of me. But as medieval folklore tells, the one who summons a demon is very lucky to find death. It’s far more likely that they become a servant of the very evil they sought to control. Such it will be in Minecraft.

Also, I learned that you really, really need healing potions. Chalk that one up for next time.