I think that the name of Soul Sand and Soul Soil in Minecraft need to be switched.

I have not been playing Minecraft for very long, only for about two years, but ever since I’ve stepped my first blocky stub into the Nether and encountered these blocks, the names of them have always irrationally bugged me.

Soul Sand and Soul Soil.

Soul Sand is a block that is found naturally in the Nether, Minecraft’s hellish – and my personal favorite – dimension that doesn’t have access to the sun. Its main characteristics are gray, brown blocks that sink you down and slow your movement when you stand on them. Also, that it visually looks like there are screaming faces on the blocks.

Soul Soil shares many of the same physical features, though instead of the screaming faces it has a swept texture to it.

Soul Sand’s main use is to grow Nether Wart, a magical fungus that somehow manages to grow on Soul Sand that is used in potion making. Nether Wart is unable to grow on Soul Soil, and instead Soul Soil’s main use is making basalt generators.

This is the part where I’m sure that most people understand where I’m getting at. The word “soil” implies that there is some sort of nutrients to it, while “sand” brings to mind extremely small bits of rocks that have been eroded away and deposited on places like beaches. Nether Wart needs to feed off of something, something that tends not to be there when you describe something as “sandy.”

Now does this at all matter in any way? No, of course not, except to me. The ecology of Minecraft makes absolutely no sense. If you wanted to make a food web in most, if not all, of the biomes you probably could not get very far. I’ve thought about doing it before, but forced myself to give up once I realized how frustrated it would make me. Even in this example Soul Sand isn’t actually full of nutrients that’s helping the Nether Wart to grow, but most likely it’s just full of souls. Somehow. And that’s what the Nether Wart is feeding off of.

Even within the biome in the Nether there are fungi that grow there, replacing things like grass, small bushes and flowers, and even trees in the Nether, and those don’t grow on Soul Sand like Nether Wart, or even Soul Soil. These grow on a different block entirely called Netherrack, which doesn’t seem to be nutrient-rich in souls either, so how do things grow there? 

The obvious answer is that it’s just a video game and that it doesn’t matter, which is fair, but the reason I care is because it does affect my gameplay. These small irritations, the Soul Sand and Soul Soil having names that don’t make sense for what they do or the lack of biodiversity in the biomes, make the world feel very empty and unrealistic to me.

Minecraft is a sandbox game, and because of that you can have many different playstyles, from Builder to PVPer to Redstoner. I’m an Explorer. My favorite thing to do is to explore the world, the different biomes, to map them out. The landscapes of Minecraft can be beautiful, but they are also very often lifeless and static. 

In the same game where fireflies were removed because they discovered that in real life if frogs eat fireflies, they get sick, they have Soul Sand that produces nutrients enough to grow mushrooms – and Soul Soil that doesn’t.