Pumpkins in Minecraft are oddly overpowered.

I know, it may seem like an odd statement to make, but trust me when I tell you that I've been thinking about this for a while now, and the more it runs around my head, the more sense it makes.

In order to explain myself better, I'm gonna divide this essay into 3 sections:

1. Pumpkin Pies and Pumpkin farming.
2. Carved Pumpkins: Golem summoning.
3. Carved Pumpkins: Talking to Endermen

Can you already make more sense of this idea? Let's get into it.

VIDEO HERE: LINK

A pumpkin is one of the 400 items you can find in the Minecraft inventory. Not particularly hard to get, as it requires only grass blocks with air above (clear of any plants such as flowers or grass), and it can generate whether or not that grass block has a layer of snow. Though they only have 1⁄32 chance to generate on each chunk (which makes them rarer than diamond ores), they are one of the most powerful items, usable in all 3 dimensions, and for several different purposes. When playing last year, I realized that these little orange boxes are so bloody OP. Why?

Pumpkin Pies and Pumpkin farming.

Pumpkins can be used to craft pumpkin pies, by placing sugar, eggs and of course, a pumpkin, in whatever setting you want.

They seem to be a useless food item for most players, and they will only craft it to get the "A Balanced Diet" achievement in Java edition  Some psychopath even put in on the D level on a tier list

However, it was mentioned (or well, ranted) by redditor u/coltranepop, that this food can be easily the best one in this blocky game. Based on what they said and what I found myself:

• Pies restore 8 hunger points (or 4 meals, visually), which means you need less than 3 to completely fill your hunger bar.
• Pies require only 3 farms: a sugar cane farm, a pumpkin farm and an egg farm, which are fairly easy to make, even if you're just starting to play. (ironically, an automatic pumpkin farm is a bit harder to make than the other 2)
• they are stackable, meaning you can carry up to 64 pies on a single cell, and up to 1728 pies if you're using a shulker box
• You spend way less time gathering materials and crafting 1 stack of pie, than you do getting 1 stack of any type of meat or golden carrots
• You need to plant pumpkin seeds only 1 time, and every time you remove one, the stem grows another one, so it's an infinite generator built into the game mechanics.

and u/coltranepop even mentioned this:

"Pumpkin Pie has made me one of the richest people on the vanilla Minecraft server I play on. Due to all of the excess pie made by my Pumpkin Pie factory, I decided to start selling the pie at only 8 Iron for a stack or a diamond for 4 stacks. Being in one of the best located buildings in the city I live in, it was incredibly successful, with people flocking to buy all the pie they can due to the amazing price. As a result, I have created a monopoly on the entire food industry on the Minecraft server, furthered by myself opening more Pumpkin Pie stores throughout the entire server in all kinds of different towns. I have even franchised my Pumpkin Pie stores to other people on the server. Now, nearly every single player on that Minecraft server eats Pumpkin Pie as opposed to other, “better” foods, such as steak and cooked porkchops"

As you can see, pumpkin is already overpowered, but there's more

Carved Pumpkins: Golem summoning.

Whether you are summoning an iron or a snow golem, apart from , well, iron or snow blocks, you need either a carved pumpkin or a Jack O' Lantern.

This means that what gives life to these mobs is the pumpkin itself, not you (in a sense), and not even the materials.

These mobs tend to be powerful, the snow golem, spreading snow everywhere they go, producing infinite snow even if you remove it over and over again. The Iron golem, even capable of defeating a warden (as it has been proven on several snapshot reviews) and able to defend a village from raiders, like illagers, pillagers, ravagers or witches, among others.

It is also important to point out that these mobs are not robots. They do have feelings and personalities. The snow golems will try to escape if you try to trap them, and the iron golems will try to kill you if you hit them; and sometimes they will offer a rose to villagers.

Pumpkins create not only consciousness. They create life.

Carved Pumpkins: Talking to Endermen

Ok, this one is the reason I actually wrote this essay. I was watching RGN 'A Deep Dive Into My Minecraft Enderman Theory', which proposed that even though Endermen (yes, the plural of Enderman) have purple eyes, the ender pearls and the eyes of ender are green.

There is a theory which states that Endermen were, maybe not humans like Steve or Alex, but definitely beings as smart and capable as them. The Dragon, decided to capture and hypnotize them with her magic, also known as Dragon Breath (the purple powder that kills you when fighting against the dragon; and that you can collect to craft lingering potions) and that's the reason why Endermen eyes are also purple (instead of green, as it appears they should be), and the reason they seem to have lost their ability to build things, but they are still able to pick up some blocks and constantly screw up my plain terrains.

Where pumpkins (specifically carved pumpkins) come into play, is that when a player wears one, they are able to look at the Endermen directly in the eyes without making them angry.

It has also been theorized that Endermen are trying to talk to the player, because some of the sounds they make are very distorted "Hi", "what's up" "hey" and "look for the eye", which makes carved pumpkins important as well, as they could potentially provide a safe way to talk some more to the Endermen, and even a chance of truly freeing them from the dark magic that the dragon put on them

So a block as simple as a pumpkin, threatens in a way the most powerful mob in the game, the Ender Dragon.

Bonus: Other cool things related to pumpkins

In Java edition: Zombies, zombie villagers, skeletons, wither skeletons, drowned, husks, strays, and zombified piglins have a chance of wearing a carved pumpkin if they spawn during Halloween (October 31)

If a mob wearing a carved pumpkin is killed using a tool enchanted with Looting, there is a chance that the mob drops the carved pumpkin.

Wandering traders can sell a pumpkin for one emerald.

You can also find pumpkins in pillager outposts and taiga villages.

When placed, a carved pumpkin automatically faces the player. Could this be that the pumpkin itself is alive, and that's why it looks at you? --

All my research can be found on description of the youtube video at https://youtu.be/zR5TB2ZW41E and also below.

thanks for reading, have a nice night.

Research:

Original post by u/coltranepop:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/c3i27h/why_pumpkin_pie_is_the_best_food_in_the_game/https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Pumpkin

Minecraft Wiki:

https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Pumpkin

RetroGamingNow - The Minecraft Iceberg Explained (I'm sorry for the mistake, this was actually the video I was watching):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRAAOuJP_7Y

Update about Endermen Sounds on Minecraft Wiki:

https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Enderman#:~:text=On%20November%2013th%2C%202011%20endermen,What's%20up%22%20backward%20and%20distorted

Steveee - Warden vs Iron Golem:

https://youtu.be/39CISwfIhSY