#loz lore

This was clearly a cost and time saving measure, but as someone writing a fic including many of these characters, I am interested in the implications. Do I have any idea or theories on what they are? NO!

Examples under the cut:

Malice (and gloom) is transformative, corruptive, destructive. Here's a theory someone wrote in the wiki:

As good a theory as anything else, though I'd argue that malice is the basis for all dark magic, and not the other way around, seeing as ganon is using malice that originated from his 'patron' demise, and pretty much all dark magic in loz is the same purple/black/red, implying a similar source/origin. Blood could simply be a good conduit for it.

Here's some quotes from the game and official guide too:

But the reminder of the glowing eyes in this screenshot is actually super interesting. A big glowing eye, usually red/orange, is a super common theme in the zelda series because it's an easy weakness for kids to understand. From a Watsonian perspective, however, an evil eye as a source of malice would also make total sense. Defeating the boss of a dungeon with its big red eye is typically the win condition of clearing the dungeon. Save the nearby town, take the treasure, wipe out the monsters that took over the temple or mansion or cave or whatever else. Often the bosses are gargantuan versions of smaller enemies, sometimes they're robots or suits of armour, sometimes they're revered spirits that got infected, sometimes they're allies who got possessed. Almost always, they were something else first. And the big glowing eye sprouting out of them is their monstrous form's big fat weakness.

Basic stuff, I know, but good to put into words nonetheless. Big orange glowing eye where it shouldn't be -> infected with dark magic.

And in botk we see big glowing eyes just chilling on their own, and they're accompanied by great wads of malice goop and infinitely spawning monster skulls. And they're still the weakness of the malice around them! Shoot them and everything will explode!

So, across the whole series (which is REMARKABLY consistent for loz lmao), we could argue that the eye is the core, or even the source of malice/dark magic in an area, corrupting whoever and whatever it's placed in - drawing or even creating monsters that then run amok in the dungeon.

But you know what's funny? Let's look at the cultural side of things.

All of a sudden that head gem is looking rather like an evil eye itself. And what is ganon? A powerful dark magic user. Channelling malice, summoning monsters and corrupting innocents.

Similarly, all dark mages (yiga, vaati, yuga, astor, twinrova) follow the same general dark colour scheme and a little sphere on their foreheads, usually red.

Some are just more... Obvious than others.

And with the relation to ganon so many of these evil sorcerers have, often being empowered by him directly, and ganons direct connection to Demise and his malice hatred?

I think I can fairly say that I believe that all dark magic in hyrule utilises Demise's hate. Hate is, in real life, a destructive, transformative, corruptive force. And Demise, who talks about his hate as though it is a real, physical thing, a thing that can be renewed in an endless cycle of pain and conflict as each dark mage rises up to try and conquer the land in unending succession. When hate becomes the hunt for power no matter how unethical, when something grants you that power, as long as you hold onto that hatred, it can feel like hatred is power. And it's human nature to hold on to what makes you feel powerful.

So a curse of hatred.... I don't think it's Ganondorf, necessarily, or even the other dark powers that rise over and over again. I think it's the source of those powers.

I think the black and purple malice is the source of all dark magic, and that Demise's curse was not ensuring 'interesting times', but that by giving humanity* the ability to harness power from their own negative feelings, they would, on their own, create that self perpetuating cycle into infinity, for as long as the people of hyrule exist, there will be those that turn to hatred.

Oshus may have been the first mortal man to sail from pole to pole, but he may have shipwrecked more often than he’d want to admit. Thankfully, in those early years of the new world, the Gods were active and mobile, and the Sun Goddess of the time found him somewhat charming in a brutish, foolhardy way.

Perhaps you should have learnt to swim before you tried sailing, Oshus. The Lady can’t save you every time.

A snippet from the latest draft page. This is page number 45 - short comic my foot, I can’t help myself. It’s terrible! It keeps getting longer!!!

Hylia: get his ass

Inspired by @powdermelonkeg 's post about the Great Sea having Gloom in it to explain the lack of fish and the Zora evolving into the Rito, I've decided to ramble about this topic based on some things mentioned in my fic saga The Realm Walker.

So all this comes from dialog in Wind Waker that suggests that Medli (a Rito, their original design was harpy-like) is a direct descendant of the Zora Sage of Earth, Laruto. Which implies that the Rito are descended from the Zora, evidenced further by the lack of Zora in WW. The backstory of Wind Waker is that after Link is sent back into his childhood by Zelda in OoT, a new timeline is created. Since there's no hero, when Ganondorf returns there's no way to stop him. The people pray to the gods for mercy and the gods flood the world and tell the people to retreat to the tallest mountain peaks. These peaks become the islands of the Great Sea.

Now the Zora shouldn't have a problem traversing a sea, so why would they have evolved into the Rito? Apparently the canon explanation is that the Great Sea isn't really water but I didn't know that at the time so I came up with my own reason: salt tolerance and a lack thereof. (There's also the fact that the Great Sea is full of monsters...)

Now this has some problems, the Ocarina of Time design for the Zora was used as the Ocean Zora in Oracle of Ages and the BotW design was used as the Sea Zora in the more recent Echoes of Wisdom game. There are also River Zora, which look more reptilian and are how the Zora appeared originally when the series started before OoT made them non-hostile. If I remember what I read on the Zelda Wiki correctly, the River Zora became hostile during the Downfall Timeline, blaming Hylians for the decline of Hyrule and eventually becoming outright monsters who spit fireballs at travelers.

River Zora only appear in the Downfall Timeline games, and Oracle of Ages specifically points out an antagonistic relationship between the two Zora (with an Ocean Zora calling them "vulgar"). Echoes of Wisdom states that the two Zora Clans get along well enough, but there's a rivalry of sorts between the two leaders Dradd and Kushara. (I'm going to point out here that OoA takes place in Labrynna while EoW takes place in Hyrule.)

So where am I going with this you ask? Well the fact that in both the Child (Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess, Four Swords Adventures) and Adult timelines (Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks) the River Zora don't appear and they make no distinction of Ocean or Sea Zora it would suggest that the split occurred as a result of the events of the Downfall Timeline (Link is defeated by Ganondorf, Ganondorf is sealed in not-TotK's Imprisoning War. Ganondorf returns as Ganon in ALttP, and keeps coming back/is resurrected.)

I'm also going to make note of another fact, most of the time the Zora appear, they live in a river, usually at the source of it. There are only three instances of oceanic Zora settlements: Zora Hall in Majora's Mask, Zora Village in Oracle of Ages, and the Sea Zora settlement in the Jabul Waters region of Echoes of Wisdom (Jabul Waters is divided between a river and an ocean, with the Sea Zora living in a cavern on a island much like Zora Hall in MM.) (Also as an aside, the Gerudo in Termina live near the Zora in the Great Bay Region and are pirates.) Also of note, Zora Village in OoA is the only entirely underwater Zora settlement in the entire franchise (as far as I know).

So basically where I'm going with this is that I'm assuming that outside of the Downfall Timeline, and this in the lead up to the Great Flood, that the Zora were a single people with mixed salt tolerance. Those more tolerant to salt remained Zora (and moved outside of Hyrule or became the Fishmen) while those less tolerant became Rito thanks to help from Valoo.

I also remember reading or watching something that plays into Majora's Mask, that Zora eggs need clean water to hatch, and that the chaos of the formation of the Great Sea would have prevented their eggs from hatching for some time. (This may play into things as well.) But I can't find it, may have been a Zeltik video...

(And here's some fun theory videos: Wind Waker Rito musings, Rito evolved from Loftwings?)

Personally, the Ancient Hero’s design has always bothered me, it felt odd, out of place. So, I wanted to see if I could find a way to make him more likeable in my eyes. I started thinking of what he could be. At first I thought a Hylian/Zonai hybrid, but that wouldn’t explain where the tail came from, or his digitigrade legs.

Finally, two weeks ago it hit me, a Mogma/Zonai hybrid. The statues we find first in The Depths look a lot like the Mogma of Skyward Sword, so I theorized that The Mogma lived in the Depths for thousands upon thousands of years, adapting to a darker home, or maybe it was their home all along. Eventually, the Zonai would meet this race and work with them to mine zonaite, forming a close bond.

When The Imprisoning War happened, a small group of non royal Zonai were still in The Depths, and managed to survive for 10’000 years, their numbers slowly dwindling until there was only one left. This survivor would fall in love with a Mogma, and create a wonderful being, who would become, Calamity’s hero.

I hope y’all enjoy this small passion project of mine! I was very excited to make this and seeing it finally done makes me very happy. Have fun with my little dirt goblin

Small edit: I realize now that in my excitement to finish and share this with y’all I didn’t give all the details in the drawings so here they are!

In the first drawing the Ancient Hero, who I’ll call Aspect, is excitedly chatting with his parents! The Zonai is his mother, her name has yet to be decided, and the Mogma is his father, whom I have dubbed Biggs after Biggs Jasper! I thought it would be cool if this community of Mogma’s had names after special stones and jewels. His father helps run the mines across The Depths and his mother specializes in cutting gemstones. Aspect has always been a courageous and ambitious boy, always feeling he needs to prove himself.

If so, then that means that Sky & Sun would've reincarnated regardless.

From what I understand, what the Bringer of Demise's curse actually did was make it so that whenever they do reincarnate, an incarnation of his hatred would be there to make their lives miserable.

Just basically him throwing a toddlerish tantrum & being a sore loser.

While that is true for the actual meaning of reincarnation, it's used differently I think in LOZ, the reincarnation cycle is shown as just that, a cycle, not a steady spiral journeying to enlightenment. And I hope that Hylia didn't intend to make the hero reincarnate after Sky because if the plan had gone without a hitch Demise would be defeated for good and his soul would be able to rest in peace.

There's no reason for him to keep reincarnating until he reaches enlightenment because the hero is a pure selfless soul of good. I mean Sky was able to use the Triforce in its entirety and went through the silent realm trials to grow his soul, you don't get much more spiritually balanced and, well, perfect than that. Also Zeldas don't reincarnate, Sun lived a human life and died, passing her power onto her children and so on down the timeline forming the royal bloodline. So I don't think it was Hylia's intention to keep reincarnating with the hero after Demise's defeat. And if so...that's kinda a dick move given Sky and Sun have no say in the matter; I don't think the chosen hero (First) even consented to the first reincarnation.

Which is why I prefer to think Demise threw the temper tantrum and whether intentionally or not messed with Hylia's spell to kickstart the cycle as we know. That way it's really no one's fault that events keep repeating themselves like we see in the games and everyone can be a victim to the magic of two flawed gods.

After a lot of discussion and comparing notes, we have more questions than we started.

But we found out that the Temple of Time in OoT has Hylian script from the Wind Waker era, the Skyview Temple could be in the same place as Mount Lanayru, and that we have no evidence that Demise's Curse actually did anything.