Earlier this evening I was looking for a post I once read on the Zelda Universe forums about how Demise and Hylia represent cyclical and linear time. I still haven't been able to find it, but I know it was made by someone named Octorocker. As I was going through this person's writing, I managed to find an awesome essay about the nature of "malice" in Breath of the Wild (link).
This is a fantastic post, but I felt weird as I read it because I know in my heart that I'll never be able to write anything like this; these types of ideas would simply never occur to me. I was having trouble trying to figure out why this is, but then I realized that the answer is right in the introduction of the essay:
I present to you the second in the Book of Mudora series, so-named because it shall endeavor to present a comprehensive analysis of the Zelda series, which shall be consistent with itself, which shall be consistent with the games, which will explain the games, and which reason does not reject.
Specifically, the bit about "which shall be consistent with itself, which shall be consistent with the games" is the problem. In order for this sort of theorizing to be possible, one has to start with the assumption that everything everyone says in the games is true and correct.
And I have a lot of trouble doing that. It's not that people are deliberately lying to Link, but rather that they're passing along incorrect or incomplete information. This is why I'm not super into Zelda theories – I take it for granted that most of the information presented by the games is inconsistent because it often takes the form of biased opinion, unquestioned hearsay, or wild speculation.
