One of the peculiarities of Twilight Princess has, to me, always been that Zelda was completely unaffected by the twilight that covered her kingdom; you could try to chalk it up to the Triforce of Wisdom, but not even Link or Ganondorf were granted such refuge. Ordinary denizens of the world of light become as spirits, Link becomes a sacred beast, and Ganondorf loses his body and most of his power, having to resort to using Zant to accomplish his goals - yet Zelda is, for all intents and purposes, absolutely fine.
But inevitably, when you spend as much time over-analyzing ever single detail of every single scene again and again as I have, you’re eventually going to come to your own conclusions - and in this case, those conclusions took the shape...of a single Sheikah eye on the back of her cloak.
It’s one of that those things that could mean nothing - Zelda’s ability to maintain her body could simply be thanks to the mercy of Zant, or, a more likely scenario, the power of Plot Armor. But it is important to note that the Twili’s ancestors excelled in shadow magic - a trait they share with the Sheikah - and that wielding this magic they had been able to stave off the transformative effects of the Twilight Realm, enough so that they were able to (mostly) maintain their human-like forms, even after centuries or perhaps millennia of exposure to the harsh anti-light of the realm of shadows. One cannot help but wonder, then, if Zelda’s cloak isn’t simply a fashion choice; that it is only by its protection that she is able to walk freely beneath the twilit veil.
All in all, whether it means something or it means nothing, it certainly ties nicely into my belief that the Twili’s ancestors were Sheikah - an idea which I would like to revisit and expand upon in the near future.
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(Or: A Needlessly Comprehensive Deep-Dive into the Myst-EAR-ious Duality of Round-Eared Humans and Long-Eared Hylians, a Very S-EAR-ious Write-Up)
As some of you may remember from a few months back, I made an off-hand comment about my ideas surrounding the disparities between the different types of ears we see in Hyrule’s human citizens, and my desire to further expand on that at a later date. No, that was not a joke, and yes, I am finally Doing the Dang Thing. So! Let’s get started.
Long-time fans of the series will know that Hylians are a race of humans in the world of The Legend of Zelda with long, elf-like ears. Hylians most always dominate the land of Hyrule in nearly every installment in the series, with round-eared humans only making their first appearance in Link’s Awakening, a game that - spoiler alert - was all a dream in the first place. And though plain old humans again appear in the lands of Holodrum and Labrynna in the follow-up Oracle games, it is very in keeping with the theme of this blog that their most notable appearance happens to be in Twilight Princess.
Though it is never remarked upon in-game, Link is the only Hylian in a village filled with humans, such as Ilia and Rusl, leading the player to assume that he was not Ordon-born. Other notable examples include Ashei, who hails from the mountains, and even the inhabitants of (New) Kakariko (though only three in number) are all mere humans. The Hylians of this game seem to be centralized around Castle Town, with notable members including Telma, Shad, and Auru of the Resistance, and naturally, Zelda herself. Yet as I’ve already stated, the fact that there are two different sets of ears among the humans is never even a topic of conversation; it makes you wonder why the developers bothered to make the distinction at all, and indeed, plenty of fans have never even noticed that such a disparity exists. I certainly didn’t notice when I was ten years old, playing through Twilight Princess for the very first time - but we’ve come a long way since then, and I am delighted to finally be able to tell everyone why I think this disparity exists, and how it has bled into other aspects of the series. Let’s back away from Twilight Princess for a moment; all good theories have a beginning, and this one is no different. To understand where this all began, we must look thousands of years into the past, to Skyward Sword. More specifically, this all started...
...with this guy.
Yes, Beedle. That Beedle. But before we can even jump into how he relates to any of this, we must travel further back still, to the very opening cutscene of Skyward Sword.
In this cutscene, we hear a very dumbed-down tale of how Demise invaded the surface world that was ruled over by the Goddess Hylia; to protect the sacred relic placed into her care by the Golden Goddesses, Hylia rends a piece of land from the earth and sends it skyward, leaving the Goddess Sword and the Triforce with it. Together with the remaining peoples of the Surface, she seals Demise away, and millennia later the events of Skyward Sword transpire. The entirety of this cutscene is not in and of itself very important, but I would like to draw everyone’s attention to one particular line uttered by the narrator during this sequence:
“To prevent this great power from falling into the hands of the evil swarming
the lands…
The goddess gathered the surviving humans on an outcropping of earth.”
It is worth noting here that - though the word “Hylian” itself only appears in reference to the shield which bears its name - Skyloft is comprised entirely of people with long ears. Keeping these things in mind, let’s go back to Beedle.
Beedle is, by all intents and purposes, a fairly unremarkable character in Skyward Sword. That is to say, outside of providing Link with goods throughout his adventure, he bears no significance on the plot in any capacity, having only a single sidequest that involves retrieving a pet beetle (snickers) of his, for which the player’s reward is a small sum of Gratitude Crystals. But there is one, throwaway line of completely optional dialogue you can trigger towards the beginning of this sidequest, and it is upon this line that the entire basis for this theory has been built. When meeting Beedle on his home island apart from Skyloft for the very first time, the player is given the option...
...to comment on his accent.
[after selecting “Your accent!”]
“Hmmm? The mellifluous timbre of
my voice sounds different to you?
...Perhaps a touch, I suppose...
But pray, what does it matter, hmm?”
What’s important to understand about accents is how they come about to begin with: namely, slight differences in pronunciation and rhythm of speech evolve over time as the language (in this case, some form of ancient Hylian) spreads to different locations. And of course, everyone who uses spoken language has an accent, but Link’s remarking upon Beedle’s is an indication that his pattern of speech is different from his own. In most other games, this would be unextraordinary - but in the context of Skyward Sword, where humanity has been isolated to a (relatively speaking) small outcropping of earth in the sky, it becomes extremely noteworthy. No one in Skyloft should have “an accent,” because theirs is a society and culture so small in scale that they should all have the same accent. Beedle having an accent makes sense if, and only if...
...he’s not from Skyloft.
And if he’s not from Skyloft, the logical conclusion would be that he must be from the Surface. In almost any other circumstance, this assertion would be smashed to smithereens by the sheer fact that getting to Skyloft without a Loftwing - companions blessed only to those who live in the sky - should be an unattainable feat. And yet, of all the people in Skyloft, Beedle is the only one who could have achieved such a thing...
...because his shop - which conveniently doubles as his house - is an electricity-powered flying machine. Within the context of the game, such a contraption seems almost nonsensical; if he were from Skyloft, why would he not just set up shop in a permanent location? Even if he wanted to live on a smaller island by himself, the people of Skyloft could simply use their Loftwings to reach him (which they still need to do, anyway!). Indeed, the existence of Beedle’s Shop makes far more sense...if it already existed by the time he arrived there.
Which brings us back to that introductory cutscene. The narrator states that Hylia gathered up all of the surviving humans (notice the use of the word humans here) onto an outcropping of earth and sent them skyward, and on a surface level, this seems straight-forward enough - but with the revelation that Beedle is very likely from the Surface himself, it’s very obvious that this is nothing more than a bold-faced lie. Some humans were left behind - they couldn’t all possibly have fit on such a small piece of land - and those humans were the ancestors of Beedle, in some way, shape, or form. What became of those humans is another matter altogether (one I will address briefly), as the Surface we explore in Skyward Sword is perfectly devoid of human life, barring Impa.
Now, let’s bring it back home: remember how I said that all Skyloftians have long ears? That was a bit of a white lie, though only if you count Beedle among that number. In truth, Beedle’s ears are obscured by the bowl cut of his hair - but this is true for every game he appears in, and the general consensus is that they’re round. This would make Beedle the only round-eared human in the entire game...and he, coincidentally, happens to be from the Surface.
Before I go any further, I’d like to establish a very base reasoning for the existence of long-eared qualities in the human races of Hyrule. Hylians are far from the only ones to bear long ears, what with the trait also presenting themselves in the likes of the Sheikah and, by the era of Breath of the Wild, even the Gerudo - though it is exceptionally notable that in Ocarina of Time, the Gerudo have round ears, and Ganondorf is no exception...at least, at first.
Y’see, what’s especially notable about Ganondorf is that he is the same exact character is each title he appears in, and in The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, his ears are long. This was actually something I only noticed quite recently, upon which I then fervently began scouring for information about his appearance in Ocarina of Time to try and make sense of it all, and the results are...very intriguing, to say the least. Below is a comparison of Ganondorf pre-timeskip vs. post-timeskip from the original Nintendo 64 version of the game:
As you can see, his model has changed in a number of ways, but... Well, I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.
Amazingly, his ears got longer, which is...an interesting choice from a design perspective. Of course, it leads one to wonder why - and far and above the most significant thing to happen to him in the seven years between these two appearances is his procuring of the Triforce of Power from the Sacred Realm, a relic of the old gods. Evil or no, Ganondorf had forged a bond with a god unlike any had before him, and for some reason, this elongated his ears - so much so that by the time of Twilight Princess and The Wind Waker, they are indistinguishable from your typical Hylian’s. It is notable, too, that the Sheikah (who have always had long ears) also bear a special connection to the gods, living to serve Hylia and, later, her reincarnation as the princess in the Royal Family of Hyrule.
“They say we Hylians have big ears in order to hear the voices of the gods.”
So now, keeping everything I’ve talked about here in mind, I think it appropriate to go over the series of events that likely transpired, beginning from Demise’s invasion of the surface world:
In a bid to keep the Triforce out of evil’s grasp, Hylia formulates a plan to send both it and the Goddess Sword out of harm’s way. She selects - perhaps by chance, perhaps by choice - a not insignificant number of humans to live on this skyward isle, but naturally not all of them can make the cut. These chosen humans would go on to found Skyloft, a land whose culture revolves heavily around the reverence of the very goddess who saved them and enabled them to live in prosperity (the existence of the Wing Ceremony, the Statue of the Goddess, etc.), while the humans who remained on the surface, left in a world scarred by war and ravaged by monsters, sought new lands, becoming the ancestors of people who would found Holodrum and Labrynna, to name a couple. In their reverence of Hylia, the people of Skyloft would develop long ears, as even the Sheikah had - but the humans left on the surface world...would not.
That is to say, the Hylians we see in almost every major installment of the series are the direct descendants of the people of Skyloft, and round-eared humans are the descendants of the people Hylia left behind.
Of course, not all humans fled from their homeland - though we see none in-game, it’s important to remember that we also see no Sheikah aside from Impa, though we know they are great in number. Beedle was, undoubtedly, one of these very few stragglers, and with stories of a land beyond the clouds on his mind - legends that have been passed down over countless generations - he sought to find this paradise by any means, through sheer blood, sweat, and tears (but mostly sweat, if that cycling is any indication) if necessary. In the end, he was successful, and he lives among the people of Skyloft fairly unassumingly - yet he also lives apart from them, on his own island because, at his core, he is not one of them, and never will be. He doesn’t get all of this Hylia stuff, and frankly, he doesn’t care - so long as he can chill on his own little crop of land with a full belly, a full wallet, and his pet beetle, that’s really all that matters.
And speaking of Hylia - the reason they are called Hylians is because they are the descendants of those chosen by Hylia, even if the knowledge of Hylia’s existence has largely been lost to history by the events of Ocarina of Time and beyond. (In a very similar vein, it is my belief that Lake Hylia also gets its name from her because the crater that would later become that very lake was formed...when she lifted a gargantuan outcropping of earth into the sky.) Hylians largely dominate Hyrule for so much of its history because the people of Skyloft were the ones who founded it - yet by the era of Twilight Princess, we see that a great many of the humans who had moved onto different lands have slowly but surely made their way back towards the place they once called home.
But I would be remiss to neglect to go back to Breath of the Wild; this game is a much more peculiar case, taking place in an era many millennia after any game that came before it, where reverence for Hylia is once again commonplace - so much so that statues bearing her resemblance have been erected in every town, village, and city across the country. Humans are once again practically nowhere to be seen (except, again, perhaps for Beedle), and even the Gerudo, who have now long intermingled with Hylians for the sake of having children, have inherited the trait (perhaps in part due to the fact that some of their own may worship Hylia, if the statue in Gerudo Town is any indication). In every single instance, no matter where you turn, these long ears seem to be a direct correlation to the people’s connection to the gods of Hyrule - but rather than their ears being a predetermined factor in how strong this connection may be, it seems that their faith is what influences this trait to rise to the surface, over how ever many generations or centuries that just might take. (Ganondorf Dragmire, who lives in a castle and inherited a relic of pure godly power, is an outlier and should not be counted.) As Shad so eloquently states in Twilight Princess:
“Hyrule was made by the Hylians, who, as we all know, are the closest race to the gods.”
And as long as we’re talking about Shad, I’d love to begin wrapping up this post by bringing things round to Twilight Princess once more - specifically the context in which Shad says the above quote, which is far and away one of the most peculiar instances of casual lore-dumping in the entire series. The quote in its entirety from the North American version of the game reads thusly:
“At the moment I'm absolutely entranced by the sky beings known as the Oocca. Yes, according to legend, Hyrule was made by the Hylians [...] But also according to legend, long ago there was a race even closer to the gods, and some say these creatures made the Hylians. When they created the people of Hylia, they simultaneously created a new capital, a city that floated in the heavens.”
What Shad is saying here is extremely farfetched, particularly for those of us who are familiar with the Oocca. But in truth, this was a minor mistranslation on Nintendo of America’s part; the original text from the Japanese version of the game clears actually reads much more like this, when translated correctly:
“The common opinion is that Hyrule was created by the Hylia people, the race closest to the gods, but...truth be told, there's also a theory saying that in ancient times, there was a race even closer to the gods than the Hylia people, and THEY created it [Hyrule]. And they, simultaneously with the birth of the Hylia people, created a new capital, a capital that floated in the heavens.”
So the Oocca - the bizarre, Cucco-like creatures who inhabit the City in the Sky - did not create the Hylians, but rather established the kingdom of Hyrule itself in the world that the goddesses created. But even with this mistranslation squared away, that still sounds incredibly odd, especially taking the events of Skyward Sword into account; we know that the people of Skyloft are the ones who inevitably found Hyrule, because we see the beginnings of this happening at the end of the game. Funnily enough, it seems that the very line that was mistranslated in the North American version of the game...was the result of mistranslation itself.
In-universe mistranslation, that is. Millennia of history being told, written, lost, and found, translated again and again and again, until it barely resembles its original state. What likely happened was that the Oocca, who live in the sky, were wrongly credited with the creation of Hyrule because the Hylian people who would go on the found Hyrule also came from the sky, as they were the people of Skyloft. Shad’s claim that the Oocca were “a race even closer to the gods" than the Hylians may not be entirely unfounded, however, as it is incredibly likely like the City in the Sky we see in Twilight Princess is what remained of Skyloft after its human inhabitants abandoned it; the Loftwings that the people of Skyloft had for so long relied on would go on to evolve into more sentient beings, suspending the city above the clouds long after Hylia’s magic had worn off - and Loftwings were, as the people of Skyloft believed, beings bestowed upon them as a symbol of the goddess’s divine blessing. In this sense, it is somewhat true that the City in the Sky and the Hylians were created at the same time; when the Skyloftians abandoned their home to live in a new land where they were not long after christened the Hylians, the skyward isle that they had left behind found a new purpose, and a new “city” was born.
Of course, maybe Shad was off his marbles (even if the Oocca are evolved Loftwings, there is still much about them and their connection to the Sheikah that remains shrouded in mystery), but the crux of this entire narrative is that the people of Hylia, the Hylians - at least, up until Breath of the Wild is concerned - were the descendants of the people of Skyloft, and Beedle’s eccentricities in the context of Skyward Sword are rather convincing pieces of evidence that this did not comprise all people of the formerly-known-as “Land of Hylia.” It is therefore only natural that a conclusion could be drawn about where the distinction between the two peoples comes from.
But in the end, even if this can answer the question of why there are round-eared humans alongside long-eared ones, it does not answer the ultimate question of what this distinction means. Why does a connection with and a faith in the gods elongate the ears of the people it touches? The Zelda Encyclopedia states that “in the past, Hylians were able to wield magic of considerable might,” a trait that could possibly distinguish them from your typical human being - but the canon nature of the Encyclopedia is...shaky*, at best, and downright disrespectful at worst. Link and Zelda are two Hylians we see wielding abnormal abilities, but their power can be explained with their respective pieces of the Triforce, not to mention the countless magic users in Hyrule and beyond who aren’t Hylian. Even if there was a time when the Hylians had special abilities, those abilities have long since faded. They are no no taller, no smaller, live no longer than their round-eared counterparts; they are, in every aspect aside from the length of their ears, in every way identical. To finish the quote by the unnamed Hylian man who speaks to a young Link in the Castle Town Market in Ocarina of Time:
“They say we Hylians have big ears in order to hear the voices of the gods...but I've never heard them!”
So...there you have it. I must admit that it is entirely possible that the people of Skyloft had developed long ears before their ancestors had been sent to the heavens - after all, the Sealed Temple was, in millennia past, a temple erected in her honor. Yet this would also make the story of Hylia gathering the “surviving humans” in order to save them all the more grim; could the gods be so callous as to save only those who respect their divine might? One cannot help but think of the Great Sea in The Wind Waker - for in a world populated by the descendants of those who were chosen by the gods to survive the coming floods, it is difficult not to notice that ears of the round variety are once again nowhere to be found.
And yet, when you get right down to it - though some Hylians seem to rely on their lineage as “the closest race to the gods” to maintain an image of self-importance - the difference between a long-eared Hylian and a round-eared human appears to be, ultimately...only that. And unless we see our round-eared friends return in a potentially future title, and the difference remarked upon, that will likely be how things remain.
Until that time, I will continue to do my best to fill the gaps with which we have been left - even if, at the end of the day, I’ve written nothing more than a meaningless, nine-page word jumble...about ears.
EDIT (5/9/2020): It has been brought to my attention (courtesy of @heartenvy) that there is a mild inconsistency with the narrative that Beedle could be from the Surface: namely, the “unbreachable” Cloud Barrier, something Hylia herself created to divide Skyloft from the Surface and keep its inhabitants and the Triforce safe. However, I would argue that the Cloud Barrier is not a physical barrier so much as it is a mystical one, meant to both keep its location secret (the barrier itself is completely invisible from the Surface) and to ensure the people of Skyloft remain complacent in their isolation (believing Skyloft is all there is, they remain there, and in so doing their long-forgotten secrets are kept safe). Zelda is pulled through it long before any proper portals are actually opened, and I would argue that the portals (that is, the pillars of light that appear when we place the corresponding tablets) are largely a gameplay mechanic meant to keep the story linear, as in a real setting Link would have simply ridden his Loftwing to and from the Surface and would have been able to fly anywhere he chose. It’s possible the barrier acts to keep out evildoers, specifically (which would explain why Ghirahim had to summon a vortex to pull Zelda through it, where he could reach her), or, not unlike the Isla de Muerta in Pirates of the Caribbean, Skyloft could very well be “an island that cannot be found except by those who already know where it is” - which, to me, makes the narrative of Beedle finding his way there all the more entertaining (the dude must have been, like, super determined). In any case, I stand by what I’ve stated before: that Beedle is from the Surface, as his accent and the peculiarities of his shop make too strong a case to ignore.
* * * * *
*The Zelda Encyclopedia states that Termina is a Dream World, despite Link’s Awakening having already done this and in a much more satisfying way. I can’t take anything it says seriously.
(Special thanks to @ghiirahiims for the high-res screenshot of Beedle, and shoutout to @gaybellatrix for in no small part convincing me to finally sit down and write this all up.)
I hate to send two asks consecutively but Navi from the Future has me enticed. Spill the beans.
(Additional context: I was asked for my thoughts on many things in this post, among which included what I think happened to Navi at the end of Ocarina of Time. My answer? That she was sent into the future. I must stress that this is not a theory, but a headcanon, as it is based on almost nothing in canon and in some places even contradicts it. But I digress.)
All right. So.
I don’t remember exactly when I first conceptualized this; it’s one of those things that’s been floating around in my head for quite some time, but I only started taking it seriously a few months ago, to the point that I decided it would be a plot point in a fully-fleshed out and realized novelization of Twilight Princess, if I were ever to write such a thing (I almost definitely won’t). It’s ridiculous and ham-fisted and fanservice-y, but the emotional payoff for me is worth it, so I’m willing to let all of that slide in the grand scheme of shoving it haphazardly into my ever-growing non-existent binder that would presumably be labeled “Basil’s Expanded Zelda Universe”. Now, I may not remember the when, but I definitely remember the why - so now that I’ve got all that prattling out of the way...
...let’s actually talk about Navi.
Her departure is as abrupt as it is heart-wrenching, and it’s to be assumed that Link feels the exact same way that the player does. He doesn’t know why she left or where she disappeared to, as his entire journey in Majora’s Mask is built on the premise of him leaving Hyrule in order to find her. And based on how much regret he felt upon his death - regret enough to live on in the mortal realm as the Hero’s Shade - we can assume that he never found her, for all of his searching. (All of this is a given, and isn’t exactly particular to this headcanon, but I felt it was worth saying nonetheless.)
But let’s go back to the moment she actually leaves Link. After Zelda sends him back into the past so he can live out the youth that was robbed from him, he places the Master Sword back into its pedestal, and in the moments that follow, she flies up and away...towards a rear-facing window in the back of the temple.
It’s completely inconsequential. It doesn’t mean anything. It is simply a sign that their time together has come to and close; that their journey to save Hyrule has ended, and Link no longer needs her to guide him. But if you spend as much time as I have putting the same games under the same microscope over and over ad nauseam, you start drawing connections where none should rightfully be made, and in this case, the whole why of the matter...
...is this freaking window.
It’s stupid, right? But there it is again. And it’s not just any window - it’s a portal to the rest of the Temple of Time, a temple that is filled from top to bottom with the symbol of the Sage of Light. But what’s significant about its appearance in Twilight Princess is that this isn’t how the temple actually appears in this time - in fact, it’s completely fallen to ruin - and we as the player have to go back in time in order to even access the inner depths of the temple at all. It’s never specified exactly how far back in time that is, so we’re free to use our imaginations here - like, say...around the time a specific fairy companion left her dear friend without a word or warning.
I’ll just cut to the case.
After the events of Ocarina of Time, Navi ventured into the depths on the Temple of Time, where she awaited and eventually met up with the Hero of Twilight.
Y’see, Rauru was aware that something awry would happen - was happening - in the depths of the temple he himself had built, a small piece of a much larger puzzle that would take at least another century to come into view. As a Sage, he Knows Things - and in Knowing Things he was able to know that Navi had at least one more role to play in saving the Hyrule of tomorrow. Navi never had any intention of leaving Link at the end of their journey; she didn’t want to say goodbye, and in a way I suppose that’s why she never did. When Link - her Link - drew the Master Sword from its pedestal and slept for seven years, Rauru was able to talk to her throughout all that time and inform her of what was going to happen and what she needed to do. Because, as it turns out, if not for Navi’s help, Link and Midna would have never been able to make it out of that place alive...and Hyrule would have, once again, been doomed. (I’m fuzzy on exactly what role she plays in helping them, but I’ll figure something out soon enough; I always do.)
So, she leaves him. The Hero of Time. In the sword chamber. And she doesn’t say goodbye, because she doesn’t want to, and it’s painful, but it won’t be forever, right? Once she finishes what she has to do, she can go back and be with him again, explain why she left, why she had to leave. Except...
...something goes wrong.
And she can’t go back.
After Link and Midna retrieve the third fragment of the Mirror of Twilight, they’re forcibly removed from the temple - they don’t belong in this time, after all - and once the door to the past closes behind them, it closes for good. And Navi...gets swept up with them.
She’s a nervous wreck, of course. So much about Hyrule has changed in the years she’s been gone. (”I’ve seen the future before, but not like this!”) But, nervous and fretful as she is, she’s also quite resolute, and no matter how much time has passed, there’s still something she needs to do. Or, rather, someone she needs to find. She bids the Link of this time farewell, and goes on her way.
Sometime shortly after the events of Twilight Princess, we know that Link returns the Master Sword to its pedestal in the ruins of the Temple of Time; we see as much in the final credits. I’ve always liked to think that, when he did so, he got to see the Hero’s Shade one...final time. For all the regrets the spirit had eased - Hyrule was safe, now - there was still...one thing he had left to reconcile. It was here that he last saw her, after all. Of course he would find his way back to this place. And maybe - maybe she would, too. Maybe...
How do Gorons reproduce? What the shit even are the Oocca? Just how gay IS TP Zelda? Also which depiction of Hyrule is your favorite? Which Zelda would win in a fight with the other Zeldas? Why does Tingle exist?
Well, I sure set myself up for this one, huh?
Gorons are inorganic, sentient rock-like creatures who reproduce asexually! When a Goron reaches adulthood, a piece of the rocky outer “shell” on their backs can be loosed, and - after being “incubated” in lava for a considerable amount of time - will form a whole new Goron, while the Goron who spawned the child becomes their parent (or “father,” as most Gorons throughout history present masculinely, despite having no biological sex) . @puppet-limbo also sent an ask about this, so here you go, dude!
The Oocca were Hylia’s first, and only attempt, at creating organic life, where before Farore had been the only one to do so. The Golden Goddesses were rightfully horrified by them and forbade Hylia from trying to make anything else, but their direct connection to Her Grace combined with their extreme intellect secured their place in history as the “race closest to the gods.” (Credit to @kokiri for this one!)
She’s so gay she literally gave her life to a woman she met three times because she was that touch-starved. That’s, like, peak lesbian pining, dude.
My favorite depiction of Hyrule is, strangely enough, the small glimpse of the forgotten once-great kingdom we catch in The Wind Waker. It’s incredibly eerie stepping into this relic of the past that we, as the player, recognize, but just imagine how Link must feel upon seeing an entire country buried at the bottom of the ocean that he’s lived upon his entire life. Also, the moment it “unfreezes” and comes to life is pretty sick.
Adult Timeline OoT Zelda with seven years of intense training and Sheikah abilities under her belt would decimate everyone else, easily. But barring that...TP Zelda can shoot an arrow at a moving target from a hundred meters away while riding bareback on a horse, so she would absolutely be next in line as far as ass-kicking capabilities go.
Tingle’s existence is proof that the gods have abandoned us.
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I do! In my headcanon, Zant and Midna are cousins, and were actually inseparable when they were kids. Midna is older of the two of them, and they grew apart when she was old enough to recognize that he was “beneath” her (pre-game Midna was a real snob, lemme tell you), which planted the seeds of doubt and mistrust that would allow Ganondorf to mold him into the evil man he would later become. But throughout all his atrocities, he could never truly hate her - he only cursed her when he could have killed her, and it’s even possible that Ganondorf’s “killing” Midna was the biggest reason Zant severed his bond with the Demon King in the moment when it mattered most (more on that here). Post-game, Zant eventually turns back up in the Twilight Realm as a swirling mass of destructive spiritual energy, his soul having gone mad without a body to call home (Midna had destroyed it, completely and utterly) - but with Midna’s help he’s able to return to normal, and he bends over backwards again and again to prove that he’s more than the hollow shell of an usurper that the ghost of Ganondorf manipulated him to become. He can never wash his hands of all the blood he’s spilled, but gods be damned if he’s not going to spend the rest of his life trying (heck, Midna has some amends to make, herself), and, eventually...the two become thick as thieves again. Imagine that!
Re: Zant being beneath her - his latent magical abilities were weak even by a typical Twili’s standards, but especially so for one born of the royal family. He was always an outlier, in that sense, and was treated poorly for it, which is why in-game he’s seen having such disdain for the so-called “do-nothings.” Despite this weakness, he dedicated so much of his time training and practicing because this was something he wanted so badly (picture, like, Rock Lee overextending himself practicing nothing but taijutsu), and eventually his powers were recognized, enough so that he could throw his hat in the ring for the crown. Unfortunately for him, by that point his heart had long been darkened by Ganondorf’s influence, and he was cast out once more. Oops!
In a story where Link is either fully or selectively mute and uses sign language (which, let’s be honest, is the best interpretation of his character), Midna and Link’s dynamic becomes quite interesting:
Midna, being a descendant of a relatively small group of people who were banished from Hyrule long before the events of Twilight Princess, would almost definitely know an entirely different sign language, if she knew signs at all. For her to be familiar with Hyrule’s signs, that would mean that at least one of her ancestors would have a) not only needed to know them, but also b) be proficient enough in them that that information would then be recorded and passed down, largely unaltered, for centuries if not millennia, and chances of that happening are slim to none at best. (The fact that the Twili even speak Hylian is bizarre in and of itself, but that’s another topic for another time.)
So, picture this: Midna, on an pilgrimage to the World of Light to undo her curse and save her people, finally stumbles upon the divine beast spoken about in legends amongst her pepole. She watches him transform right before her very eyes, and follows him fully with the intent of using him to do her own (nefarious) bidding. And it works! She does all the talking - because he can’t speak, for crying out loud, he’s a gotdamn wolf - and she doesn’t mind that, because she doesn’t have to hear him complain, outside of the occasional growl. They go through the motions: meeting Princess Zelda, going back to Ordon, crossing the curtain of Twilight back into Faron, reclaiming the spirit’s lost light - and now he’s back to his old self again, and she braces herself for him to open his mouth and say something, anything to her...
...only he doesn’t. And now, suddenly, it’s a huge inconvenience.
He moves his hands about, but gods, what is he saying, what does any of it mean? And this goes on for weeks, as they travel across Hyrule to the provinces of Eldin and Lanayru. A lot of their communication is huge amounts of guesswork, the occasional nods and some vague gestures (frequently resulting in Midna getting very frustrated), but somehow, they manage to work together to retrieve the three other fragments of the Fused Shadow...
...and then Zant happens, and everything changes.
It’s quite easy to recognize that Zelda’s sacrifice marks a turning point in Midna’s story: her voice grows softer from that point onward, no longer laced with arrogance and a disdain for Hyrule and its inhabitants, she begins to treat Link with more kindness, she opens up more about who she is, etc. - but I like to think that it also marks a huge turning point for Link and Midna’s relationship in particular, for one reason and one reason alone. And she doesn’t notice it at first - after all, Link is a wolf again, and wolves don’t have hands - but when they finally make their way through the Lost Woods and retrieve the Master Sword, maybe Link makes an off-hand comment about helping her find the Mirror of Twilight. Maybe he jokes about being able to transform into a wolf whenever he pleases, or maybe he doesn’t say anything at all, till the two of them go back to Castle Town, on the hunt for clues to the Mirror’s whereabouts - but in any case, she soon realizes...that the things he’s doing with his hands make sense. “Thank you.” “I'd love to do that, but I can’t.” “Horses are people, too.” “What should we get to eat?” For the first time since they’ve met, they are now able to properly communicate, and that changes...well, like I said, everything.
Y’see, Zelda was a princess of Hyrule, learned in many things, and she definitely knew sign language - and while Midna wouldn’t know to quite the full extent exactly how their spirits were bound together until much later on, her first indication that the other princess wasn’t fully gone was...this. This gift of knowledge, a mere fragment of Zelda’s former self, but there all the same. It’s interesting, especially, to put this into the context of the game, because Midna’s initial reaction to Zelda pouring her own spirit into her body to save her is one of abject horror, as if she believes it would simply be exchanging one death for another (“No! Link! STOP HER!” / “Zelda... I’ve taken all that you had to give...though I did not want it.”) - yet after defeating Zant in the Twilight Realm and reclaiming the Fused Shadow, she says that she will be able to return the “cherished power” Zelda bestowed upon her, meaning that somewhere along the line, Midna did indeed realize that Zelda was still very much alive.
I just...really love the idea of Link and Midna beginning their relationship on such rough footing, only for the two of them to then bond so deeply and in such a short amount of time, with Zelda at the epicenter of it all. There are so many layers to the relationship all three of them have, and I will never, ever tire of poring over every cutscene and line of dialogue in order to scrape away and discover what lies beneath the surface.
What do you think happened to Skyloft after the events of Skyward Sword? Any miscellaneous thoughts about the Twili? The Picori? The Kokiri? What the hell is the Lost Woods and why does it do what it does? And why does the Lost Woods turn people into Skull Kids and Stalfos? What do you think Navi's fate was in the end of Ocarina? If you've seen majestically-fangirling 's posts about Zora anatomy, then you know how much of a nightmare it is, so thoughts? Favorite color? Also how are you today?
Hoo boy! This is a real doozy. Let’s break it down, shall we?
After the people of Skyloft moved the Surface, their home - which had been slowly crumbling apart for millennia, à la the smaller misc. islands we see floating about the sky - would eventually go on to become the home of the Oocca, who were able to keep the skyward isle afloat for much longer than was originally intended with their advanced technology. Further, the piece of land that Skyloft was formed from created the very crater that later became Lake Hylia, and it is from Lake Hylia that we are able to reach the City of the Sky in Twilight Princess. (Also, somewhat related: the Wind Tribe we see in Minish Cap were descended from a group of Skyloftians who kept their origins close to their heart, and eventually sought to return to the sky from whence they came, going so far as to master wind magic in order to do so. Huzzah!)
Twili don’t need food or water in order to survive! They sustain themselves with their own magical power, as this was a necessary adaptation given that the Twilight Realm has no plant or wildlife. When Zant tells Link and Midna that the Twili had resigned themselves to a “miserable half-existence,” this is the sort of thing he was referring to - sure, they can survive without food or water, but sometimes, and especially in the early days, the specter of hunger and thirst hung over them like a thick pall. They also don’t cast shadows (Zant does after his binding with Ganondorf, same with Midna after Zelda’s sacrifice) or are affected by warmth or cold (they can feel it, it just doesn’t really faze them), and the reason only Midna and Zant are shown to be wearing clothes is because there is little to no material to make clothes from within the Twilight Realm (see again: no plant or wildlife), so only members of the royal family and other “important” Twili get access to the stuff. Everyone else makes do with shadow clothes! (More on that here!)
I gotta admit I don’t have much on the Picori/the Minish, except that they are a type of fae who probably exist to some extent in (most of) the games. They like to hide Rupees and other trinkets for people to find around Hyrule, but by the era of Breath of the Wild, their numbers have dwindled dramatically due to the Calamity.
The Kokiri are also a type of fae (whose outfits resemble the knight uniforms of Skyloft for a very specific reason, but I won’t get into that here) whose destiny varies wildly depending on the timeline we’re looking at; in the Adult Timeline, where Link vanished and the gods destroyed Hyrule as all knew it, we know that they grew to be much more reclusive, taking on their “true” forms à la the Koroks. But in the Child Timeline, where Twilight Princess takes place, the Kokiri were able to watch the Hero of Time grow up, and through him were able to get a feel for what the outside world had to offer. Y’know how in Peter Pan, all the Lost Boys eventually need to go back home so they can grow up and lead normal lives? The Kokiri decide, on their own time, that they wanna be Just Like Link, so they go out into the world and Become Real People, which is why we don’t see hide nor hair of them in Twilight Princess. And speaking of Twilight Princess, our friendly neighborhood rancher Fado claims he’s named after his great-great-grandmother on his grandpappy’s side. Ohoho!
The Lost Woods are a place where all Lost Things wind up! Hylia tries to seal away the entrance to Termina entirely after trapping Majora there? Portal in the Lost Woods. OoT Zelda tries to seal away the Temple of Time in the Child Timeline so no one can use it to enter the Sacred Realm, after learning of what happened in the Adult Timeline? Bam, now it’s in the Lost Woods. In an old, old headcanon of mine, this was the place where the line between the Real World and the Dream World (the Dream World which is Totally Real, I swear, it’s how Link’s Awakening was able to happen at all) was as thin as it could possibly be, which is why the woods are as mysterious as they are - anyone who wanders there risks the possibility of losing themselves, as the Dream is very alluring but very misleading. Kokiri and their fairies, being fae, are immune to these effects - and Link is immune, too, having called the forest his home for so long.
This is gonna be the most ridiculous thing on this entire list, but Navi actually got sent into the future at the end of Ocarina of Time, which is why Link was never able to find her. They do reunite eventually, but only after he had a daughter with Malon whom he named after her...and after he died and became the Hero’s Shade. Oof. (Look, I swear to the gods, I’ll explain the “sent into the future” thing in a separate post if someone really wants me to, but it’s really, really dumb. Nonetheless, I’m gonna die on this hill.)
I actually haven’t seen that post, but I just found it and I’ll give it a read! Zora anatomy is definitely, uh, out there. (Read: fish tiddies.) But at least they’re weird enough that I can excuse the existence of this human-zora hybrid child! Right?
Lastly, my favorite color varies depending on my mood, but I usually just stick to saying teal - and I’m doing pretty good! Writing all this up definitely gave me a serotonin boost, at least.
