What does Hero of the Village mean in Minecraft?

Villages are one of the most powerful structures in the entire game because they give players access to villager trading systems, with many of Minecraft's best seeds being considered great for placing players near one or more villages at spawn. Given how important these structures are, defending them from threats is an important part of the game.

And there is another benefit to protecting villagers besides keeping them alive to trade with. This additional benefit is the Hero of the Village Minecraft status effect, but what does the effect do, and how can players get it?

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What does the Minecraft Hero of the Village buff do?

The discounts from the effect are quite considerable. (Image via Mojang)

The first level of the effect grants a 30% discount on all trades and lasts for 40 minutes. The effect has a level cap of one on Bedrock, so 30% is as high as the discount goes, but the effect caps out at level five on Java. Each subsequent level of the effect grants an additional 6.25% discount, resulting in a maximum Java discount of 55%.

If players use Minecraft's console commands to get a higher level of the effect, the discount goes up to 98.75% at Hero of the Village XII, resulting in all trades being a single emerald.

This is not the only advantage that Java has over Bedrock when it comes to the Hero of the Village effect. Java players are also showered with gifts of appreciation by nearby villagers. These gifts are all related to the Minecraft villager's trades. The best gifts are cooked food from butchers, redstone from clerics, tipped arrows from fletchers, and wool from shepherds.

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Getting Hero of the Village

Getting the Hero of the Village effect is as simple as it is difficult. All players need to do to achieve this effect is defeat a Minecraft raid. These are dangerous attacks on villages by dangerous illagers that occur when a player enters the radius of a village with the bad omen effect.

This effect is bestowed upon players when they kill the flag-bearer of illager raiding parties and lasts for an hour. This effectively banishes players from villages unless they drink milk to cure the effect or are willing to take on the raid.

If a player defeats the resulting raid, they will be given a level of the Hero of the Village effect, with subsequent raids providing additional levels, as mentioned previously.