History Minecraft / TropesGToL

* HelloInsertNameHere:
** Any mob can be given a custom name using an anvil and a nametag, a creative-only spawn egg, or console commands.
* HeroicMime: Steve never speaks, and neither does the alternate main character Alex. Might have something to do with [[TheAloner no one else being there to talk to]].

* HitAndRunTactics: Before sprinting and knockback-enhancing enchantments were added, the standard way to kill a creeper with melee weapons was "hit it, then step back out of it explosion-triggering range for a few seconds, then repeat". It's then become possible to run at them, knock them out of range, then do it again without much fleeing.

** It is possible to harm yourself with your own arrows, either by firing them upwards, having them recoil off an enemy currently experiencing MercyInvincibility, or simply ''outrunning your arrows'', which got much easier when bows became hold-to-charge instead of instant-fire. Also, casting a fishing hook straight up and letting it hit you can also cause damage.
** This can happen to the skeletons as well, if you have another hostile mob in the way, the skeleton will be attacked by it if its own arrow hits the mob. Skeletons can even duel each other if one were to shoot another. It's also the only way you can get records out of creepers.
** Ghasts love to fly out of range of your arrows and shoot fireballs at you that aren't affected by gravity. It's possible to kill them by hitting their fireballs back at them, and this in fact is [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill complete overkill]] (Ghasts have 10 HP, and a reflected fireball does 1000 damage to them). There's even an advancement for it called "Return to Sender".
** Splash or Lingering Potions cause an area-of-effect radius. They have a really short range compared to other projectiles, so throwing one at point blank is bound to get you in the radius too.

** [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] by the "Who's the Pillager Now?" advancement, which calls for killing one of the crossbow-wielding Pillagers with a crossbow.
* HolidayMode: On Halloween, zombies and skeletons may spawn wearing pumpkins on their heads. During Christmas, chests and large chests [[https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/File:Xmas_Chest.png have different]] [[https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/File:Xmas_Large_Chest.png appearances]].

* HorseJump: Horses were added in version 1.6. With the right horse, it is possible to jump gaps and obstacles previously unthinkable without much effort.

* HPToOne: Poison will cease damaging you at 1/2 heart of health. If the difficulty is on Normal, so will starvation.[[note]]On Easy, it stops at 5. On Hard, it'll kill you.[[/note]] However, other tick-down effects, like wither or fire, will kill you.

* HealingBoss: The [[FinalBoss Ender Dragon]]'s arena contains many obsidian towers with end crystals on top, which heal the dragon when it gets close. This healing has no cooldown, which means the crystals must be destroyed to kill the dragon.

* HealingShiv: Arrows can be tipped in potion effects. Instant Health and Regeneration aren't excluded from this.

** The Absorption effect, which increases your maximum health by 2 hearts per tier level. The effect is only temporary; once the effect wears off , all the extra hearts vanish. They also won't come back if you get hurt too much.
** Health Boost, on the other hand, features regenerating extra hearts. They still dissapear when the effect runs out, though. Unfortunately there is no way to obtain this effect in Survival.
* HeartsAreHealth: Used for the LifeMeter.

* HeavilyArmoredMook: Sometimes hostile mobs spawn in partial or full sets of armor that can vary in material[[note]]from most to least likely: gold, leather, chain, iron, and diamond, the latter having a ridiculously small probability of happening (but still possible)[[/note]], and [[BanditMook they can sometimes pick up and wear ''your'' armor if you drop it for whatever reason]]. If they already had armor, chances are good that it'll be enchanted with a spell or two. [[UnusableEnemyEquipment Getting it from them]] is quite a RareDrop without a Looting weapon.
* {{Hell}}: The Nether. In fact, the Nether was originally called Hell, and "Hell" remained the Nether's only biome for several years.

* HellGate: With a minimum 4 x 5 obsidian frame[[labelnote:*]]The corners don't matter since [[LetsPlay/{{Yogscast}} "ten blocks is the magical total"]]. [[/labelnote]](this can be expanded to 23 x 23) and a fire to activate it, you can build a portal to the Nether.

* AHellOfATime: While the Nether is still an unfathomably [[EldritchLocation weird, creepy]] and [[DeathWorld hostile place]], the scenery can sometimes be really breathtaking, especially if the ProceduralGeneration strikes gold, the exclusive resources mean that there’s always something to show for your travels. [[BloodKnight And for the more bloody minded]], [[TheLegionsOfHell there’s always]] [[EldritchAbomination an enemy to fight.]]

** The random biome generation will do this occasionally (although it tries not to), leading to Deserts beside Tundras, or Frozen Oceans in the middle of regular ones. Mods turn this up to eleven, occasionally generating volcanoes in frozen wastelands.
** Packed and Blue Ice never melt for any reason, not even in [[LethalLavaLand the Nether]], so with enough ice you can create your own ''literal'' Hailfire Peaks. You can even pour lava directly onto the ice just fine!
* HairRaisingHare: A rabbit variant is as a hostile version formerly called [[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail "The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog,"]] but now just "Killer Rabbit." Fortunately, it no longer spawns naturally.

** Exaggerated with the Ender Chest. Ender Chests even work across dimensions, making it possible to transport items from one realm to another and destroying the chests won't destroy the items! Any item that is placed in one of these chests can appear in another Ender Chest no matter how far away the chests are or they're in completely different dimensions! On top of this, even if every Ender Chest placed in the world is destroyed, the items will still be in the hammerspace of the chest once you make a new Ender Chest. And if you carry an Ender Chest in your inventory...
** The Exploration Update added Shulker Boxes, which are like regular chests, except that when you break them, the items remain stored within. You can also place Shulker Boxes into Ender Chests to reduce all those boxes into a single inventory space, though you can not place a Shulker Box within another Shulker Box.
* HarderThanHard: Hardcore mode, which is the same as Hard mode, but when you die, you're spawn in Spectator Mode. Parodied with 3D Shareware v1.34, the 2019 April Fools' joke update, where players constantly lose health if their world is set to "Obligatory nightmare mode".

** Harder difficulties increase the frequency of monster spawns. This also means increased frequency of RandomDrops, allowing you to gather materials such as gunpowder from Creepers, bonemeal from Skeletons and Ender Pearls from Endermen faster than otherwise.
** On easy mode, Villagers don't come back at all on death. Villagers have a 100% chance of turning into a zombie when killed by one in hard mode, which can make zombie sieges spiral out of control, but also give a lifeline to save the village if every Villager dies thanks to zombie curing. This is especially useful since cured villagers give very good trade deals.
** The number of waves in Raids depends on difficulty, 3 waves in easy, 5 waves in normal and 7 waves in hard. Evokers only come after wave 4, meaning Totem of Undying only renewable on harder difficulties.

* HauntedHouse: The woodland mansions have this sort of vibe going on with it, considering all the strange rooms, the ghostly Vexes also appearing, as well as the [[{{Necromancer}} Evoker]] and the [[AxCrazy Vindicators]] stalking the halls.
* HauntedTechnology: Although most of the music discs are alright, there are two of them that are somewhat... unnerving when played: The "13" disc plays haunting sounds when played and the "11" disc plays back the sounds of a person fiddling with a flint and steel, coughing, flicking through a book and then the sounds of him running almost as if he's being chased by... something, before it abruptly cuts out. The disc also looks damaged to the point of being unplayable, yet works fine anyway, showing its paranormal nature.

** Of course, a gold pickaxe can [[FastTunnelling bore through stone at an incredible rate]], but only stone. And it still breaks easily. Gold armor looks pretty and shiny, but the protection they give is not much better than leather armor and it breaks just as fast. However, gold armor is still better than having no armor at all. Gold armor and gold swords have their weaknesses compensated by having a much higher chance of getting strong enhancements compared to other tools made out of other materials, making gold-based items a GlassCannon.
** Gold-plated food. Golden Apples are [[TooAwesomeToUse one of the most coveted items in the game]], being used to make horses breed, cure zombie villagers, or give the player not only several drumsticks' worth of hunger satisfaction but also regeneration for a short time. A twice-plated ("enchanted") Golden Apple also grants fire resistance, damage resistance, and a limited feather-fall effect. Golden Carrots are also used to breed horses, or give the player regeneration, and are used in potions of night vision. Glistering Melons are pretty much only used in potion-brewing, and aren't edible.
** The game's highest-tier resource, Netherite, is an alloy made of Ancient Debris and gold.

** When it was announced that version 1.8 would drastically overhaul the villager trading system, it was also mentioned that any pre-existing villagers with more than one trading offer unlocked would retain all of their offers.
** As of 1.11.1, no new bows can be enchanted with both Mending and Infinity ([[ObviousRulePatch a rule made to prevent easy, endless flight]]). However, old bows enchanted before the update will still work.

* GRatedSex: Breeding in ''Minecraft'' differs a lot from breeding in real life. They just rub faces, and then a baby comes into existence.

** The game lets you rob treasure from pyramids in the desert. Pyramids spawn in sand biomes; they have treasure inside them. Each pyramid can contain things like gold, iron, diamonds, bones, and rotten flesh, but they're also guarded by TNT traps that trigger if you step on the pressure plate. Doing so will destroy all the treasure and kill you.

* GreenHillZone: In the early days of the game's development, the player used to spawn in a bright green world. Later on, the player could appear in any biome. The ones that still are green and colorful are Plains and Forest biomes. There are different kinds of forests, though: dark oak, birch, flower-ish, jungles, taigas, and standard oak -- some of which have different environmental colors and elements.

* GridInventory: Actually an important part of gameplay, since the Crafting system uses a 2x2 grid (self) or 3x3 grid (Crafting Table).

** You can also tell a villager's home by their clothes under their professsion's apparel. Desert villagers have sandy colored cloaks, jungle wears [[NemeanSkinning ocelot pelts]], savannahs with red robes and [[CoolCrown laurel wreath crowns]], snow villagers don fur-lined parkas and earmuffed hats, swamp villagers weave clothes from plants, taiga villagers wear fuzzy coats, and plains villagers are stuck with the original, [[StealthPun plain]] brown robes.

* GuideDangIt: For a long time, ''Minecraft'' in general. The game deliberately contained no instructions. You weren't told how to make tools or other crafted items, nor were you told using a bed changes your spawn point after you die. Without an external guide, you are left to stumble around, randomly trying combinations of things in the hope that some of them produce a useful item. Fortunately, the Minecraft wiki covers everything you could think of and then some. The mobile and console versions dispense with the crafting grid and simply show you everything you can make, the Xbox 360 version eases this slightly by showing you what items are needed to craft other items and what their functions are; they still don't tell you what you are supposed to do, though. Some mods add in-game recipe books and similar guides. Today you can even buy a ''literal'' Minecraft manual from book/gamestores.
** {{Downplayed}} as of version 1.12. New games give you explicit instructions on movement and come with a recipe book that can be clicked on to serve as a crafting guide. However, things like farming, smelting, enchanting, etc. aren't explained unless it's directly involved in crafting, and some recipes aren't explained even if they are crafting related.[[note]]Repairing items via crafting, dyeing armor, and copying written [=books/maps=] are a few examples.[[/note]] Fortunately, the developers are currently working on moving all complicated crafting recipes to specific blocks, making the system much simpler for everyone.

** The food item Suspicious Stew, which inflicts a status condition (positive or negative) when eaten, can be found in shipwreck chests, as well as being available from high-level farmer villages via trading. However, there are also two other methods to obtain it that you are never told about, which also let you control the effect the stew has. To craft a Suspicious Stew, you use the crafting recipe for a Mushroom Stew with a flower added, with the type of flower corresponding to the effect the stew gives (allium gives fire resistance, lily of the valley gives poison, etc.). You can also feed a flower to a brown mooshroom and then "milk" it with a bowl to obtain the flower's respective stew. The recipe for Suspicious Stew does not appear in the recipe book, so you would never know this without looking at a wiki.

*** The Zombie Villager curing process is already quite obscure,[[note]]the only in-game hint of its existence is a rare random structure spawning under igloos in snowy biomes, which {{Player Nudge}}s players by presenting a Zombie Villager, a cured Villager, a sign that points between the two of them, a Golden Apple and a Potion of Weakness[[/note]] and even moreso is the means by which players can accelerate this. When curing Zombie Villagers, having Iron Bars and/or Beds nearby will accelerate the rate at which they revive. Creating a miniature prison cell for Zombie Villagers is likely a thought that will never occur to players since it's not a frequent action to occur, it's quite a bit of hassle to construct just to do so, and the acceleration given is quite small and hard to notice even at the maximum value.

* GiantMook: [[ShapedLikeItself Giants]] are zombies that happen to be 12 blocks tall, have 50 hearts of health, and can one-shot unarmored players on ''Easy'' difficulty [[note]]13 hearts of damage to be exact. On hard it's a staggering 37.5 hearts, enough to one-shot someone in full Iron Armor[[/note]]. Thankfully, they were removed from most modes, but remain in the game's code (they can be spawned with the /summon command), so it's possible that they could be re-implemented.

* GlobalCurrency: Emeralds are accepted at all Villages, which is odd considering how Emeralds are only found in Extreme Hills biomes, where Villages do not generate. Where did they get them in such large quantities?
* GlowingEyesOfDoom: Spiders have glowing eyes in the dark, as do Endermen and Drowned.

** The Shroomlights are bioluminescent fungi found in the Nether which grow in the canopy of the tree-like crimson and warped huge fungi and produce the same light level as Glowstone (the highest possible light level).

* GlowingGem: Amethyst crystals emit light. Although their output isn't especially high compared to other light-emitting items, full-sized ones are still noticeably brighter than candles.

* GoldColoredSuperiority: [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-Zagged]]. Gold gear is generally seen as useless due to having low durability even though gold is a fairly rare resource in the overworld, and its attack damage being about as good as wooden gear. However, gold tools break blocks faster than any other material and generally get better enchantments. Gold is also a common Nether ore and Piglins won't attack players who are wearing at least one piece of gold armor.

* GagNose: The NPC Villagers are known for their Squidward-like hanging noses, enough so that many players simply refer to them as "Squidward." Illagers and Zombie Villagers have similar appearances. The witches are even sillier, complete with a wobbly nose and a migrating wart.
* GainaxEnding: After killing the Enderdragon, you're treated to a wall of scrolling text depicting a discussion between two [[SentientCosmicForce Sentient Cosmic Forces]] discussing '''[[BreakingTheFourthWall you]]''', the player of the game. [[http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/End_Poem The discussion in question]] implies that the entire game was AllJustADream, life as we know it is merely an even bigger dream, the many mobs we fought in the game were the darkness in our hearts, and humanity's entire existence is a quest to understand itself.

** Several of these can do anything from deleting your best items on death instead of dropping you, forcing you to start getting resources again from scratch to getting you stuck on the (inescapable) bedrock roof of the Nether or dropping you out the bottom of the world. Luckily, if you are stuck, you can set the game on Hard difficulty and let the hunger meter drain to empty and let the hunger kill you off.

** The 14w26a snapshot is a possible candidate for the most bugged snapshot ever released by Mojang. Besides lots of minor bugs, the snapshot is infamous for permanently (unless using external programs) corrupting any world that was loaded into that snapshot, as well as having a big problem with chunk rendering. The biggest bug, however, happens upon entering the Nether: this snapshot is also known as the "double Nether snapshot". A glitch on Nether terrain generation will split the whole Nether into eight blocks wide strips, which alternate between normal Nether strips and strips full of air that goes all the way down to bedrock (fortresses can intersect these airstrips, however, since structures use a different, non-glitched system). On top of that, crossing the bedrock layer on top of this Nether will bring you to ''a second Nether'', just as bugged as the first one.

*** One of the classic examples of this is "mob grinders" that spawn monsters, kill them, and collect the loot all by themselves. Grinders that spawn monsters from the darkness have been around since the implementation of mobs, and the spawner block helps facilitate their use.

*** Starting with 1.8, farmer villagers were changed so that they could harvest crops and give the resources to other villagers. Enter, true automation for crop harvesting, which was only partially possible before but required the player to go in and replace the crops manually after.

** Mobs will not attack other mobs unless a ranged mob accidentally hits another while trying to attack the player. Even when this does happen, it does not affect if the player has ever previously attacked the mob.
** Can be exploited — Zombies can go after Villagers, but if a player is nearby, they will turn away from the Villagers they were after.

** Additionally, every creature in the ''Minecraft'' universe is confirmed to be [[BizarreAlienBiology naturally]] [[OneGenderRace genderless,]] with the only exceptions being the female Ender Dragon and the Player (whose gender is [[SelfInsertFic the player's gender]]).[[note]]The Player is not a naturally occurring Minecraft creature, and the Ender Dragon is [[EldritchAbomination implied not to be as well.]][[/note]]
* GeniusLoci: Activating a Beacon or a Conduit makes it emit a sound very similar to that of a heartbeat, giving any land or structure it’s a part of a sense that it’s actually alive.

* GentleGiant: The Iron Golems. They are neutral by nature and will go apeshit if anyone attacks them or a villager, but can be occasionally seen giving villager children a red poppy.

** The game has various weather effects and day cycles. When it rains, the sky grows dark enough for some monsters to spawn in the middle of a field and the rain also extinguishes wildfires, lets Conduits grant buffs on land, and makes the Trident significantly more powerful outside the water. Thunderstorms do the same thing but make the sky darker and the lightning bolts can strike mobs for damage (including you), set flammable blocks on fire, change pigs into zombified piglins, or make a creeper supercharged for more explosive damage to everything. When it is daylight outside, monsters can't spawn and zombies, skeletons, and phantoms catch on fire from the sunlight. When night falls, all the baddies come out to play, making exploration in the fields more dangerous.

** Endermen simply hate the water. If they are outside when it is raining, they will [[FlashStep run]] all over the place trying to seek shelter. Rainstorms are good if you want the Endermen to stay away.
* GetBackHereBoss: The Enderdragon flies away from you as soon as you LOOK at it. Good luck trying to shoot it with arrows…

* GhostTown: Very rarely, a village may spawn as a "zombie village"; where all the buildings have fallen into a state of disrepair and have no people living in them. If you arrive at night, you might get the chance of encountering (and if you have the right resources, curing) a few Zombie Villagers, but it's more often than not a completely dead and barren place.

* HollywoodDensity: The player can carry nearly 45,000 metric tons, and a 12-meter cube can be broken down and placed into a <1 m chest.

* GameGourmet: Along with having a hunger bar to determine when you should eat and when you can't, there is a wide plethora of food with which to keep it full, such as apples, carrots, steaks, cakes, pies, etc. You even have an advancement for eating one of every edible item, whether [[PoisonMushroom or not]] it is good for you.

* HumanoidAbomination: Endermen are 3-block tall creatures with very long legs and arms, purple eyes and full black skin. They're pretty thin, too. They're neutral and only attack you if you look at them.

* HauntedTechnology: Although most of the music discs are alright, there are two of them that are somewhat... unnerving when played: The "13" disc plays haunting sounds when played and the "11" disc plays back the sounds of a person fiddling with a flint and steel, coughing, flicking through a book and then the sounds of him running almost as if he's being chased by... something, before it abruptly cuts out. The disc also looks damaged to the point of being unplayable, yet works fine anyway, showing its paranormal nature.

* GenderNeutralWriting: Since the person playing Minecraft can be either gender, [[https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/End_Poem the poem]] that is revealed [[AWinnerIsYou after defeating the Ender Dragon]] avoids using gender-specific pronouns of any sort when referencing them.

** Hoes, especially Diamond and Netherite items become this down in the horrible depths of the Deep Dark, being the tools most suited to scraping out the [[MeatMoss Sculk and its sensors and shriekers]], which also gives it double duty in quickly destroying the sculk for experience and revealing any more valuable ores and minerals that the sculk may be hiding.

* GhostlyWail: Two of the so-called "cave noises" could qualify for this:
** The second "cave noise" is often stated to be the ghost of a dead Steve, but angelic singing is also oftentimes considered to be another possibility regarding its origins.
** The tenth "cave noise" is typically believed to be either a [[OurBansheesAreLouder banshee call]] or simply just a screeching violin, and as such, it's been known to ''immediately'' force certain players out of caves upon them hearing it.

* GoodThingYouCanHeal: Golden apples and regeneration potions [[InvokedTrope invoke]] this trope by making the player's health recharge faster than it typically would.

* HellIsThatNoise: The nineteen "cave sounds" that play whenever one enters a dark area can creep many first-time players out, especially once they hear about the many disturbing theories about their identities and origins.

* LavaIsBoilingKoolAid: The game has lava flow much more slowly than water to simulate its greater density. Lava's not fatal if the player can escape quickly enough, but it is ''very painful.'' However, more pain occurs when one dies in lava: everything you had on your person[[note]]Except Netherite[[/note]] is [[ContinuingIsPainful irrevocably incinerated.]] It also causes any wood in short distance from it to start burning and ice to melt, but it can (or at least could) be blocked by using snow blocks. It provides natural light as well.
** If you've drunk a Potion of Fire Resistance, you can actually swim in lava safely. It behaves like red water in that case, only with much poorer visibility. You can climb out of lava as you would a pool of water, but the fact that lava continuously sets you on fire interrupts your ability to do so.

* LedgeBats: Skeletons; be especially careful when fighting them near pits...
* LegoGenetics: Minecraft's dyes are so powerful, they can re-sequence sheep DNA. Dyeing a sheep causes it to permanently produce wool that color, and pass the color to its offspring.

** Forest map setting in classic, obviously. Likewise, the Forest and Taiga biomes in the Alpha version of the game.
** The Halloween Update introduced the forest biome, which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, as well as the rare jungle biome. True to the trope, undead creatures will take refuge from the sun by hiding in the shadows of the trees during the daytime.
** And with the current biomes, the Dark Forest plays even more into this trope, with giant Black Forest-inspired oak trees, little sunlight on the ground, giant mushrooms, and even a haunted mansion!
** The Crimson Forest and especially Warped Forest biomes in the Nether.

* LaterInstallmentWeirdness: In terms of mobs, earlier ones were more standard fare (zombies, skeletons, giant spiders, slimes etc.), with the exception of the creeper (which was created by accident). In more recent updates, more and more mobs tend to be original, with no equivalent in other media, beginning in late beta with mobs such as the Enderman, blaze, and silverfish (which are RealLife insects but rarely appear in media). Mobs added after the official release are arguably even more out there, with additions such as the Guardians, Strays, chicken jockeys, Shulkers, Phantoms, and Striders.

* IconicLogo: The grass block viewed from an isometric perspective.

* LaterInstallmentWeirdness: In terms of mobs, earlier ones were more standard fare (zombies, skeletons, giant spiders, slimes etc.), with the exception of the creeper (which was created by accident). In more recent updates, more and more mobs tend to be original, with no equivalent in other media, beginning in late beta with mobs such as the Enderman, blaze, and silverfish (which are RealLife insects but [[SeldomSeenSpecies rarely appear in media]]). Mobs added after the official release are arguably even more out there, with additions such as the Guardians, Strays, chicken jockeys, Shulkers, Phantoms, and Striders.

* IHaveTheHighGround:
** Being above your opponent allows the player to perform a CriticalHit.
** [[InvertedTrope Inverted]]: it's easier to hit in melee if your opponent is higher than you are (your attacks come from nearer the top of your hitbox with a spherical range).
** Played straight in ranged combat, as it's easier to hit a target with an arrow or potion from far above than far below.

** Taken UpToEleven with the Ender Chest. Ender Chests even work across dimensions, making it possible to transport items from one realm to another and destroying the chests won't destroy the items! Any item that is placed in one of these chests can appear in another Ender Chest no matter how far away the chests are or they're in completely different dimensions! On top of this, even if every Ender Chest placed in the world is destroyed, the items will still be in the hammerspace of the chest once you make a new Ender Chest. And if you carry an Ender Chest in your inventory...

** While swords, axes, bows, crossbows, tridents, and tools are the only practical weapons, it is possible to beat a monster to death with a torch, bed, pumpkin, [[UpToEleven or block of dirt]]. Best of all, items without durability don't even get damaged by using them as improvised weapons, though they won't deal more damage than your bare fist.