in another few hours the sun will rise☀️

The thing about Ganondorf is that he has always been a very one-dimensional character, with the exception of his depiction in Wind Waker. In a way, this isn't surprising; the Zelda series has always very much been about Good vs. Evil, and in games in which question those assignments (e.g. the description of the Fierce Deity's mask and Majora's attitude toward you in the final battle), or which provide background lore which questions the de facto Good status of the heroes (e.g. all the blood on the royal family's hands over the eras), the series as a whole has always been pretty set on Link and Zelda Good, Ganon(dorf) Evil.

Which, you know, was fine when Ganon was this huge pig monster you had to take down, but becomes a whole lot less fine when they make him a human-esque man with dark skin. (I won't say brown skin, because he has never really been brown . . . Ganondorf is always green. Like the Gerudo are brown, for sure, but Ganondorf himself is green. He's like cousins with the Grinch. Maybe his heart just needs to grow three sizes.)

I think that, regardless of what is done with Ganondorf's character, the issues with racism are always going to be present because of that, especially in games like OoT where the Gerudo as a whole were depicted as thieves and criminals, and where the only named Gerudo character who is supposed to be good is still depicted as a thief, just a Noble Thief. Like we have definitely taken steps in the right direction in games like BotW and EoW where the Gerudo are portrayed as being good overall, but yeah, there are always going to be issues when the main villain of the series is a dark-skinned man who is presented as being unambiguously evil, especially with the lore from Skyward Sword making it so that he could never make another choice, could never ever be redeemed, because he is an incarnation of Demise's hatred. Like . . . that sure was a writing choice, huh.

And like I don't think that Nintendo intended anything malicious by this. I don't think Aonuma or the other Zelda writers are rubbing their hands together like, "Hohoho, hehehe, hohoho, let's do more racism with Ganondorf!" And I don't think that the SS lore even necessarily makes things drastically worse, but more just like . . . no matter what shreds of humanity he might have as shown in Wind Waker, there's really no hope for him. There's nothing we're ever going to have to make us see him as a tragedy rather than just a villain that needs to be taken out, because ultimately, he's really just a literal demon king so who cares anyway, right?

And that's fine in a way, it's fine for the Zelda series to be one not too terribly concerned with having complex villains. I mean, it never has before. But again, it's disappointing when this is a primary, recurring character; when we had teases of it with Wind Waker (even if it was just teases); and when there could be fascinating stories to be told there if only they'd give enough of a shit to do it. Particularly since it isn't as if Ganondorf is a self-insert character like Link, they could do a lot to develop his character while still keeping him a villain and they just choose not to.

Like, for instance. In Wind Waker, the only game to ever even attempt to flesh him out at all, he more or less confesses that he despised living in the desert. He says that they were ravaged by burning wind during the day and frigid gales at night. He says "we" and "ours," meaning that he's including the rest of the Gerudo in this hatred he had for the desert climate, which he goes on to say made him covet Hyrule's wind, thus giving him a motivation for wanting to conquer Hyrule.

The thing is . . . we never see any other Gerudo express hatred for their desert home. Oh sure, there are some Gerudo in BotW who will complain about the weather here or there (don't we all sometimes complain about the weather of our home?), or who will express moving permanently from the desert to go live with their husbands, but the latter doesn't seem to be because they hate the desert, but rather because their husbands aren't allowed to live there and they want to live with their husbands. And the Gerudo in OoT never, to my recollection, express hatred for the desert. They seem to love their home. I mean, their king conquers Hyrule for seven years and they do fuck all to leave the desert. You'd think they would have invaded Hyrule, too, if they hated the desert so much, but they don't. This seems to be a hatred unique to Ganondorf.

So then we have to ask ourselves, why? Ganondorf says that he (and the Gerudo) suffered from the winds that plagued the desert. But I just don't think that's true. I mean, for people who aren't accustomed to living in the desert, yes, the desert can be harsh. But that's true for the climate of any place you aren't accustomed to. To use my home country as an example, if you take someone from Texas and plop them into upstate New York during the winter, they're not going to be able to handle it. Vice versa, if you take someone from upstate New York and drop them into Texas during the summer, they're going to have a rough time. Where I live personally, we have extremely hot summers and extremely cold winters, and yeah, I don't enjoy the extremes! But I can deal with them, because I've lived here most of my life and so I have the architecture, the clothes, and the knowledge to know what to do in those extreme temperatures.

And while I've never lived in a desert, I have to imagine that it is the same for the people who live there. Architecture in desert climes is built to deal with desert weather. People who live in the desert will have clothes suited to dealing with that. (We're pretending this is a world in which the Gerudo are not dressed in orientalist Spirit Halloween costumes.) Like I have a hard time imagining someone who grew up in a climate their entire life, let alone a fucking king, suffering that badly in the environment they were born and raised in. Like it just does not make sense. It's not as if the Gerudo were suddenly ostracized to the desert; while we know they aren't considered part of Hyrule (likely as a part of the Hyrulean civil war) during the OoT era, it still seems to me they've lived in the desert forever. So the idea that they'd suffer miserably in this land that is their literal home just does not make sense and doesn't even line up with what we see of non-Ganondorf Gerudo in OoT.

So Ganondorf, and only Ganondorf, hates the desert in which he was born and raised and wants to conquer Hyrule so that he can live there instead. (Instead of, you know . . . maybe just abdicating his right to rule the Gerudo and moving to Hyrule as a private citizen . . . you could argue that wasn't an option for him since Hyrule was so bigoted against the Gerudo, but like, we never see that presented as an option that's shut down, so I can't say that it's hard canon that he couldn't do that.) And it's like, okay . . . why? Was he somehow just magically not acclimated to it? Did he really hate the weather in the desert just that fucking much?

Well, I'm sure the answer is "yes" to the people who wrote him in Wind Waker. And you know, fair enough. But given what we have from Skyward Sword, that he's an incarnation of Demise's hatred who is reborn time and again to kill Hylia's descendants and also the Heroes, maybe the hatred he had for the desert was actually spawned by Demise.

And like, here's where things kind of suck. Because this takes some emotional agency away from Ganondorf, right? Because this isn't really his hatred, it's Demise's hatred that is reborn in him, and over the millennia corrupts him into Calamity Ganon (until TotK tries to undo that because people wanted Ganondorf back blah blah blah let's not talk about it). But I don't think Demise is like, an entity inside Ganondorf that is talking to him. I don't think Ganondorf has any fucking clue who Demise is, or that Demise's grudge was reborn in him to essentially ruin his life and also the lives of the Gerudo because of what he ends up doing. I think it's more like this feeling, these feelings and intrusive thoughts he can't shake. Not thoughts like, "Go conquer Hyrule Ganondorf, the desert sucks ass Ganondorf," but more like this persistent anger and malice that he can't shake, and that he decides can only be sated by killing the royal family and taking over Hyrule, and then even THAT isn't enough because, I don't know about you, but he didn't seem super happy to me in OoT's bad future. Like did you see his fucked up castle? I just don't think a happy person makes that kind of home.

But then, if we look at Demise's hatred like this, then doesn't it almost make it seem like a mental illness? If so, that opens a whole other can of worms about how like, great, now we're depicting mental illness as being a literal demon curse that you're born with and can never escape from, that's awesome. I don't think that was Nintendo's intention at all, but if you consider that Ganondorf could have totally been a normal guy if he wasn't born with this ancient demon's grudge inside him, then it starts to kind of veer that way and I'm not sure that's any better than him just being Evil for the sake of Being Evil.

But the issue is that we're not really given anything else to really work with. The one thing we have, from Wind Waker, is that he hated the harsh desert environment, and like, look . . . I'm not saying it's impossible for people to hate where they come from, or to even want to move somewhere that they feel has better weather. Plenty of people from cold climates move to warmer climates and vice versa, after all. But for Ganondorf to talk about the desert like it was inhospitable? Like everyone who lived there suffered? I don't know, man. It just doesn't square to me.

And then we have Skyward Sword, which says, well, it wasn't ever really Ganondorf the Man, but Demise's Hatred that just so happened to incarnate into Ganondorf the Man, and then he couldn't be killed because he got the Triforce of Power so then he stuck around forever, except he was apparently a brand new Ganondorf as of TotK, but we're not going to talk about that because it just makes me really frustrated so we're leaving that here.

It's just really annoying. And I do think part of it is that, if you look at some of the motivations that would be readily there for the taking, I guess Nintendo would feel that it risked making Ganondorf too sympathetic and could make the player feel like the bad guy for fighting him.

Like for instance, if his motivation in OoT was because the Gerudo had been completely cut off from Hyrule as a result of the civil war, and there was no hope of negotiations because they kept getting blocked or refused, and so his motivation was like, fine, if you refuse to acknowledge my people as people and give us open trade and whatnot then we'll just take what you have BY FORCE, then we'd all be like, well, the king of Hyrule was being shitty by not negotiating, right? The Gerudo deserved to be treated fairly.

Or if, in TotK, his motivation was like, what fucking right do these goat people have to descend from on high and just assert themselves as rulers of this land, this is pretty fucked up, I don't think Hyrule should be conquered by people who aren't even fucking from here, this is imperialist bullshit and Sonia you're really on one for just letting this happen all because you like goat D, what the fuck, then again we'd be like, you know, the man has points, why ARE the goats suddenly in charge?

And I think that introduces more nuance than Nintendo wants to have in these stories. Fire Emblem is more the series they try to have nuance in, and we all have seen how that goes. (The Fodlan discourse . . . it haunts us . . .)

But again, it kind of sucks. I think stories that explore Ganondorf as more of a character are more interesting to me. And I would like for him to be more fleshed out in the OoT remake, but let's be real, after TotK, it's pretty obvious Nintendo has absolutely no intention of doing that. We'll be lucky if he even gets to be brown in the OoT remake, because good lord do they love making him green. (Although would the optics really be better if he actually was brown . . . I'm not brown myself so I feel like I'm not qualified to talk on that, but like. Hm.)

(I'm sorry the quality of that picture is horrendous I can't do any better unfortunately u_u)

Have you ever dreamed of owning your very own molduga horde to unleash upon Hyrule's unsuspecting borders?

🏜️🪱😈👉🏰😱

Well, good news citizen of not-yet-Hyrule!! Because you can now own your very own molduga sticker that will strike fear in the heart of your enemies!

I have 20 of these little fellows in my house, waiting to be relocated!!

5/20

Each of them is 10$ in an effort to raise money for the Sameer Project!

You can donate the amount you want to the Chuffed campaign, and then send me the proof through the form below so I can prepare your voracious little guy and send it your way by the end of March (as well as a little bonus doodle of your choosing...)

(Banner art by Bam) 📢Let’s Re-Animate an entire episode of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series📢

Yu-Gi-Oh! Reanimate 2 is a collaborative non-profit project where every participants will reanimate a shot of an episode of YGO The Abridged Series (with the courteous permission received from LittleKuriboh himself) in however they desire!

We’ll be recreating Episode 77 -   Loopy In The Sky With Duel Disks. It will include the ending credits based on the 2nd YGO Duel Monsters end credit.

This project is open for all animators of any skill (student, hobbyists, professionals. That also mean those who don't have much experience can apply, just as long as you have proof that you can do the work). Each animator can work with any medium they want: paper, digital, stop-motion, CG, pixel, etc, as long as it lines up with the shot given! Shots are assigned first come, first served and shots will begin to be distributed on September 15th 2025. There are over 250 shots in this episode, so there’s plenty of shots to go around. If you know anyone who might be interested in this, spread the words! Thank you and HAVE FUN!

Submission (OPEN!)

Fill in the application HERE: Yu-Gi-Oh! Reanimate 2 Application - Google Forms Bonus point if you can tell me about your familiarity with Yu-Gi-Oh! Any links to websites that have little, to none, of your own work will not be considered. No AI allowed too. If you’d like a particular shot, feel free to request it! (It’s yours if it’s open)

Shot Submission Guidelines:

SPECS: 1920x1080, 24fps, mp4/mov uncompressed. Email your finished shot to [email protected] with your shot number (OP#) or (SC#) as the subject. *Please keep your animation non-offensive. Extremely sexual, racist, hurtful materials are not allowed (if you aren’t sure, we can discuss your idea through mail or on Discord group for approval).

This project has no affiliation with Kazuki Takahashi or any entity officially connected to the YGO franchise in any fashion. This is purely a free, fan-based project for animators. Not to mention, 2026 will mark not only the 10th anniversary of YGOReanimate being hosted for the first time, but it also marks the 30th anniversary of Yu-Gi-Oh! AND the 20th anniversary of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series. Thus, ideally, we're aiming for 2026 release. If you have any more questions, please don’t hesitate to send ask or email [email protected]. Check the FAQ to see if your question has already been answered. - Phui Jing Ling

YGOReanimate 2 is getting close to completion and is estimated to be completed this July - September.

To those who miss out applying for it, you can still apply HERE as backup in case we have dropouts!