Lantern

Lantern is the light source you switch to once you stop wanting torches on every wall: brighter than a torch, unbothered by water, and placeable either standing on a block or hanging from the one above it. The hanging lantern is the useful half — one under a ceiling, or on the end of a chain, lights a room without cluttering the walls.

Because it can be waterlogged it keeps burning underwater, which makes it the practical pick for docks, flooded mineshafts and anything near a river where a torch would simply pop off. Hostile mobs need darkness, so lanterns spaced through a base or along a path are mob-proofing that also survives rain, currents and a stray piston. It breaks instantly and drops itself, so moving one costs nothing.

Two variants change what the block means. A soul lantern burns colder and dimmer, and piglins refuse to go near it, which makes it fencing as much as lighting in the Nether. A copper lantern burns green, hangs from copper chains, and weathers through the copper stages like any other copper block until honeycomb locks its color in place.

Three other blocks get confused with this one. A jack o'lantern is a carved pumpkin with a torch inside, placed as a solid block and lit permanently. A sea lantern is a prismarine block out of ocean monuments — a building block rather than a fixture. A redstone lamp is the switchable one, dark until it is powered. If you want a light you can hang and forget about, this is the block; if you want a light on a lever, it is not.