Herobrine

"Only God can save you now."

- Herobrine "Stop."

- From a post in the original Herobrine Creepypasta. "Wake up."

- Herobrine

Herobrine (real name: Herobrine Persson) is a widely popular creepypasta and urban legend originating from the sandbox video game, Minecraft.

He was seemingly never added in the actual game but many players claim to see him haunting them, evolving into a sort of "Creepypasta." He is popular with the Minecraft community in the fact of his creepy and rather disturbing presence, causing havoc on the player in some cases (especially in dreams, usually saying "WAKE UP").

Herobrine is an enigmatic figure by nature - his character is not explicitly defined, and although there has been much fanon surrounding the character, Herobrine is most commonly represented as a sort of sentient, omnipotent ghost and the doppelganger of Steve in Minecraft who's in-game abilities extend far more than what should be possible.

Herobrine is commonly the main antagonist in non-canon material regarding Minecraft, due to his popularity as a Creepypasta and his evil persona. He has also been widely interpreted as Notch's deceased brother due to a few comments made by Notch (although he has since retracted them).

First Sighting
The most well-known and most common rendition of the rumor is that a gamer while in single player mode found an NPC with the default skin - but with "empty eyes." Following the encounter, strange occurrences start happening in his game, such as man-made objects appearing that he did not create, such as trees missing their leaves, perfect 2x2 tunnels underground lit with redstone torches, and pyramids of sand in the ocean.

He states he posted the topic on the forum where it is removed. A user by the name of Herobrine sends him a message telling him to "stop". The player is contacted by an administrator, claiming him alongside other players have encountered a pseudo player. Upon further research, Herobrine is discovered to be Notch's brother. The player personally emails Notch asking if he had a brother. After some time, Notch responded with this short message:

"¡¡I'm The Spirit of Vengeance and Death!!"

- Herobrine

Origins and Popularity
From the original creepypasta, Herobrine creates random constructions, such as sand pyramids in oceans and long 2×2 tunnels. He also cuts off all the leaves from trees.

Herobrine first appeared in a single image detailing an encounter. It was posted on the 4chan's /v/ board, and gained very little attention. It stated how Herobrine had appeared in someone's single-player game, littering the map with various pyramids and tunnels. It is the first media to name him as Herobrine.

It was only later that Herobrine grew in popularity, when the Brocraft streamer "Copeland" photoshopped Herobrine into several screenshots to show to his chat. He had recently taken a liking to the story, and wished to be a part of it. After getting largely good reactions, he decided to stage a hoax. He has explained exactly how that took place in an email.

Copeland had played through the world as a normal lets-player would, deliberately avoiding the work-in-progress room he had set up for the hoax. Herobrine was introduced to the stream here (at 20:45). He is confirmed to be a retextured painting. Copeland then screamed and ran out of the room, promptly ending the stream.

Copeland pretended to be shaken up in the chat, and later posted a message onto the forums, linking to the video to spread it around, in the hope to get similar reactions.

After a while, Copeland removed the painting and reverted to normal textures. He proceeded to stream further, pretending to be scared. He announced that he would delete the world to never meet Herobrine again.

Later on, Patimuss made a video showing Herobrine in a user-made lava field. This Herobrine was free-standing, unlike the previous video. Due to this, it is likely he was a retextured door. The livestream went down after Patimuss ran away and saved his game, only to resume ten minutes later, where Herobrine had disappeared.

Later on, during the second stream, Patimuss can be heard talking to his wife, stating he was trolling. This flooded the livestream chat with outrage. He then faked a game crash. Copeland disliked that Patimuss outed Herobrine as a fake.

It is unknown when exactly it happened in relation to Patimuss's video, but Copeland then posted links in chat, leading to http://ghostinthestream.net/him.html. This is likely where the nickname "Him" originated from. The page features Steve's face, but with real, frantically rolling eyes in the place of his block eyes, modified to be completely black.

Below the face, there are a jumble of characters and letters. after removing all non-alphabet characters, the following message is revealed:

“ It has been reported that some victims of torture, during the act, would retreat into a fantasy world from which they could not WAKE UP. In this catatonic state, the victim lived in a world just like their normal one, except they weren't being tortured. The only way that they realized they needed to WAKE UP was a note they found in their fantasy world. It would tell them about their condition, and tell them to WAKE UP. Even then, it would often take months until they were ready to discard their fantasy world and PLEASE WAKE UP. „

The message keeps telling the viewer to "wake up", implying they're living in a fantasy world, and this text hidden in the page is their "note". The above text is from another creepypasta, entitled "Wake Up".

The stream proceeded later with no further Herobrine sightings. Copeland continued to adamantly state Herobrine was real for about a year onward. The wiki asked Copeland several questions regarding the event, which are located here.

Since the stream, there has been a huge increase in his popularity, propelling Herobrine to meme status, and making him an icon of the community. There are several mods, animations, pieces of artwork and constructions of Herobrine that have been created.

Canonical
Herobrine is Notch's dead brother, somehow embedded into Minecraft. While this is the "canon", this is also completely false in reality, as Notch has no brother.

Ghost aside, there are two plausible canon theories remaining.

Herobrine shows a lot of characteristics of being a form of virus, such as manipulating game worlds, deleting threads and sending messages through the Minecraft Forums. Perhaps also hacking into Notch's email and Twitter to reply on his own existence. Or, Herobrine is simply a figment of the user\s imagination. All users the user talked to, including Notch's email reply, could simply be the creation of the player's mind. This would also explain Notch's rejection of the canon, as showing the story is all in the user's head.

Herobrine is near-certainly inspired by Slenderman, who is also the inspiration behind the Endermen.

Community
The most popular theories among users is that Herobrine is a ghost. Other theories can involve him being a higher being, a demon, a bad omen, or the suggestions in the canonical explanation. However, most of these are written as if Minecraft itself is reality, rather than from the player controlling the avatar within the game.

Canonical
Herobrine is a human entity, with exactly the same skin as "Steve". However Herobrine has bright white eyes that glow in the darkness, as if they are a light source.

Community
Herobrine can sometimes be seen holding tools, such as pickaxes. This stems from the widespread community belief that Herobrine was a miner. Usually, his hands are empty.

Herobrine is often portrayed by the community as a dead miner, killed long before the player's arrival. His appearance, however, does not suggest either of these are the case. But with Minecraft's abandoned mine shafts and strongholds, as well as mining being a large part of the game, the game itself has shaped public perception of the character to suit this persona.

Canonical
Herobrine is said to have the ability to run in Minecraft. This is indicated by the original source. The Brocraft stream portrays him as almost always stood up straight, with arms to his sides, watching the player. He is not seen to physically move within the Brocraft stream, but he moves location during the stream. It is unknown if Herobrine can swim, use minecarts, boats or Nether portals. Like most ghosts, it is likely he simply has no use for most methods of transportation.

Community
Much like angered Endermen, Herobrine is widely believed to move via teleportation. Nearly all of the community actually reject the canon, describing him as running.

Herobrine can fly and glide. Which is to say, moving in directions without physically moving, while not moving upwards. This is usually evident in retreating back into fog.

Herobrine is often portrayed with his head crooked or twitching. This is likely due to him being seen moreso as a virus/creepy entity in Minecraft, rather than a ghost.

Canonical
Herobrine is able to build and destroy in Minecraft. The original image states the player found long 2x2 tunnels, small pyramids in the middle of the ocean and trees with no leaves. The full extent of Herobrine's building capacity is unknown, but the given examples indicate Herobrine has awareness of shape, and can differentiate materials from each other.

Herobrine seems to solely target human players. He did not seem to interact with any other mobs nearby in the Brocraft stream, some of which were spiders and zombies. His canonical relation to further mobs added since he appeared is a complete mystery. His interactions with other mobs is not mentioned in the original image. While there is a chicken present in the image, Herobrine does not seem interested in it at all, and is solely focused on the player.

Community
Herobrine has, on occasion, interacted with other mobs. He is sometimes able to take control of passive animals, and revive/spawn undead mobs.

Herobrine seems able to drastically change his environments with no viable source of resources to do so. Most expansions to his abilities involves cobblestone placing, dungeon building, using redstone torches and setting traps. He exhibits all the symptoms of a Creative player in the game.

Herobrine seems unable to enter the Nether, or the End.

Variations
Herobrine's intentions vary, but they usually fall under two categories. One variation is based on pure community interpritation, while the other, based on the canon.

Canonical
In the Stalker variation, he stalks the player, disappearing if approached. This variation is derived from his origins.

Community
In the Vengeful variation, he tries to ensnare the player in traps, presumably to steal their items. He waits for people to enter his dungeons, then either seals them inside, or teleports behind them, presumably killing them. Some rarer variations of this particular version says he breaks the player's creations, and steals their items from chests. This variation is likely inspired by griefers and trolls.

Impact
Notch has tweeted that he does not have a brother (besides an estranged half-brother). However, the Mojang members have constantly teased the community by adding "Removed Herobrine" every time they make an update, fueling the fire more so. Herobrine also has his own Mod, where he usually torments the player with blood-curling screams and making them seem delusional by ordering chickens and other usually friendly mobs to attack the player. In this mod, he also makes giant, Glowstone "E"s on occasion. Herobrine is also added as plug-ins for some multiplayer servers, making other players believe he's actually real.

Mohang Reactions
Mojang has occasionally shared their views on Herobrine. Here are some of them:

Notch
"The Herobrine stuff is awesome and kind of scary at the same time. It really shows how little control a content producer has over the content."

- Notch

"I've publicly told people there's never been any such thing as Herobrine, and that I don't have any dead brothers, and that letting too many animals die in lava is a fool proof way to summon him but that you don't need to be afraid of him. He only means well, he's looking out for you, trying to warn you of the dangers you can't see. There certainly are NO physical manifestations of Herobrine that will sneak out of your computer if you leave Minecraft running at night, looming over you as you sleep with his pale eyes inches away from your face, as he tries to shout at you to wake up. Sometimes you wake up with a jolt, and he's gone, and all that lingers is the memory and faint echo of his wordless screaming. Of course it was just a dream. There's no way a morally dubious ghost with a god complex could at any point decide to haunt the children who play my game "for their own good", as there is NO SUCH THING. etc etc"

- Notch

"Getting loads of tweets and emails about Herobrine again. I don't have a dead brother, and he never was in the game. Not real. Never was."

- Notch

"Also herobrine is not real please stop asking argh"

- Notch

Kappische
"Ok ok. To be honest, there has never existed a Herobrine. It was just a rumor started by some douche and then someone probably created a mod."

- Kappische

When asked if he would like to update his stance, Kappische replied:

"Yes..but he is watching me!"

- Kappische

Carnalizer
"I don't always have an opinion about Herobrine, but when I do, it tends to end up on a wiki."

- Carnalizer

"I don't have an opinion."

- Carnalizer

Trivia

 * Despite having no appearance in Minecraft, Herobrine has appeared in many forms of fan-made media such as songs, mods, reviews and videos.
 * Herobrine's eyes act as a light source in the dark.
 * When asked about audio player implementation in the wiki, and limits of what could be uploaded, C418 replied to Herobrine claims relating to disc 11. He stated that he cannot say a lot about 11, but that it is not anything to do with Herobrine.
 * He is the true main antagonist of Animation VS Minecraft, the 5th entry in the Animator VS Animation series by Alan Becker.
 * WatchMojo ranked Herobrine as #7 on their Top 10 Video Game Urban Legends list.