Favorite tidbits of Zelda development lore;
The whole concept of MM being a countdown to the apocalypse came from the team being given one year of development time.
The idea for Deku Link spawned from Eiji Aonuma's nightmares.
Pivotal decisions that defined what OoT became only happened because Yoshiaki Koizumi really wanted his adult Link character model to be used and seen.
We owe Koizumi's wife our lives for telling him to make Link hot.
The reason Twilight Princess got made instead of the sequel to Wind Waker they initially intended was because Miyamoto wanted Link to ride a horse and they couldn't make it not look stupid with Toon Link's tiny little legs.
The original Zelda was going to be sci-fantasy where Link could travel to the future and the Triforce was computer chips.
Midna only exists because Miyamoto thought staring at Wolf Link's ass in third person was boring so he asked the devs to make a little goblin character who could ride him.
They put Tetra on Wolf Link's back as a placeholder before they designed Midna.
"Majora" isn't based on any preexisting word with a thematically relevant meaning. It's literally just a portmanteau of a dev's name and a movie he liked (Takaya Imamura+Jurassic Park).
Should also add that Wolf Link and specifically the scene of Wolf Link in a prison cell also came from Aonuma’s nightmares.












