Top 10 illogical things in Minecraft

Minecraft is a survival game, and part of that progression requires players to be able to intuit how they need to advance. They inherently know that stone is better than wood for tools, and iron is better than stone, and this informs how one is meant to progress through the game.

However, not everything in Minecraft makes that much sense, with some of the sandbox title's features being downright bizzare in their implementation and implications.

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the writer's views.

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The 10 most illogical things in Minecraft

1) Eggs are very strange

A baby chicken popping out of a thrown egg (Image via Mojang)

Minecraft's chickens function very differently from the ones that exist in the real world. In game, they produce eggs that are all viable for hatching into chicks, but randomly. This means that all eggs are both fertilized and unfertilized until they are thrown, a true Schrodinger's egg. There is even a chance to get several baby chickens from one egg.

Obviously, eggs outside of this blocky reality work a little differently. They do not have a random chance to contain a chick; otherwise, a trip to Waffle House could turn out quite grim. Eggs either contain a chick or they do not, and we know which is the case. This strange behavior is truly one of the game's most illogical features.

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2) Saplings grow crazy fast

A player growing a tree with bone meal (Image via Mojang)

This one is pretty simple. Minecraft's trees grow much faster than their real-world counterparts. A sapling in the game will only take anywhere from a single minute to half an hour to grow into a fully grown tree, and players can even use bone meal to grow them instantly.

Needless to say, real-world variants obviously do not grow this quickly, with most species taking an average of 20 to 30 years to fully mature into ready-to-chop trees.

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3) Lava and buckets

Lava in a bucket in an item frame, not burning (Image via Mojang)

This Minecraft head-scratcher is a classic example of how the game's world can be pretty inconsistent and strange. Buckets can be used by players to scoop up lava source blocks, to use as fuel in auto smelters or to start fires. However, if players accidentally die near a lava pool and this same bucket falls into lava, it will be instantly incinerated.

If the bucket can be destroyed by lava, how can the player use it to transport the substance around? This strange relationship between buckets and lava is absurd and defies explanation.

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4) Underwater air pockets

Six doors creating a small underwater air pocket (Image via Mojang)

There are a few blocks that, when placed underwater, will cause a small area of air to form as they cannot be waterlogged. The best remaining example of this illogical feature is the game's many doors. If placed underwater, a 1 x 1 x 2 block area will become breatheable in, allowing players to infinitely explore the ocean's floor.

Obviously, it makes no sense at all that placing a door creates a bubble of breatheable air, but this quirk is an iconic part of the game now for Java players.

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5) Only some things obey gravity

Falling sand next to floating sandstone (Image via Mojang)

Some of the best terrain on Minecraft's best seeds is naturally generated floating islands. They can inspire incredible fantasy builds, but they should not exist. It makes no sense that sand, gravel, and other blocks made of loose material obey gravity, but all other blocks do not.

In fact, this makes these falling blocks more similar to mobs than blocks in a lot of ways, an even stranger implication, especially as players smelt sand to make glass. If sand is like a mob, does that make glass a food, for example.

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6) Step 1: Punch a tree

A player punching a tree (Image via Mojang)

Every Minecraft player knows that one of the first things you do when spawning into a fresh world is chop down a tree to make a set of basic wooden tools to gather some starting resources. But this is a crazy thing to be able to do in reality. The player's character is able to shatter entire logs by striking them with their bare fists only a handful of times.

This kind of action would shatter human hands long before the tree saw any noticeable damage. So the casual nature with which characters in the game are able to do it is both absurd and terrifying.

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7) Superhuman strength

Players can carry a lot of stuff (Image via Mojang)

There is some contention around just exactly how strong Minecraft's Steve and Alex are. However, one thing remains true no matter what the actual number ends up at: they can carry more than two thousand cubic meters of iron and still sprint 40 yards in just over six seconds. This is a feat of strength that is genuinely crazy. It makes no sense that players can move this much material around all at once.

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8) Diamond is a bad building material

Diamonds are an iconic item, and for many years, they were the best resource that players could use to make tools, weapons, and armor. However, this makes no sense using real-world logic. While, yes, diamonds are incredibly hard, the way their crystal structure is set up makes them incredibly weak from particular angles.

That means that if a diamond helmet was struck by a sword at a particular angle, it would probably go shatter the helmet. The same would happen to diamond tools and weapons, with real-world variants easily being destroyed by their normally seen as more frail golden counterparts.

This means that while diamond gear is a great choice for defending a Minecraft survival base, it would fare considerably worse as a means of home defense.

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9) Infinite water

Two infinite water sources (Image via Mojang)

This Minecraft trick is as classic as it is nonsensical. If players place two water source blocks in one of two ways, they will create a pool of water that can be taken from infinitely. These two configurations are a 2 x 2 block hole, with the source blocks going in opposing corners, or a 1 x 3 block line, with the source blocks going on the end.

While having access to infinite clean drinking water through the placement of two water buckets would be incredibly useful in the real world, it is unfortunately only possible within Minecraft's blocky landscapes.

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10) Any water will stop a fall

One of my few successful MLG water bucket attempts byu/iiEco-Ryan3166 inMinecraft

Speaking of gravity, that is another part of the game that makes no sense in several aspects. Water acts as a kind of cushion in Minecraft, completely nullifying all fall damage no matter how little water or how far a fall, similar to the upcoming Minecraft wind charge.

While it makes sense that water would help survive a moderate fall, in reality, it can become harder than Minecraft's colorful concrete when struck by a falling object with enough speed and force. So while using a water bucket to jump off of a building on a server works, players should make sure not to try that one out in the real world.