#possible possession

So, just gonna say this right now. I'm not making excuses for the things Vaati has done. He is a legitimate Villain and has earned the right to be feared by his opponents. I'm simply sad that so very few people have seemed to consider this angle (I think I found 1 vague comic). With that being said, let's get started.

I honestly don't think that Vaati had meant for things to happen as they did. And I'm not just talking about being defeated. Wishes are powerful things and we were never told the specifics of his, only the results. And as many a cautionary tale has taught us, wording is EVERYTHING when it comes to wishes. I think our impatient rage ball had no idea just what he signed himself up for.

I think his wish might have been to no longer be prey.

Which, for a minish, is a completely understandable wish. There is literally nothing that couldn't kill them with very little effort. The problem with this wish is that it is extremely non-specific. And there are very few things that are less likely to be prey than, say, an apex predator like a demon.

From there, it's actually very easy to see how this would progress. Now a newly made demon, his confidence soars but part of him still knows he's vulnerable and, therefore seeks to gather more power, specifically one of the only powers still capable of taking him out.

Also, the fact that he didn't just slaughter those in his way says a lot more about who he was and who he became than I think a lot of people might realize. Being a Mage with the power of wind means he's actually far more terrifying than Nintendo is likely to ever show us because of the rating system. Air is everywhere, which means nearly unlimited resources for him to manipulate at will. Some of the off the bat ways he could have just ended Link, Zelda, and even Ezlo include but are not limited to: creating an air-vacuum around their faces causing suffocation, expanding the air in their lungs and forcing them to explode in their chest, and even turning pebbles into sniper bullets via wind manipulation. And that's just assuming he didn't care if they actually suffered and was going for efficiency. Then again, if Nintendo hadn't nerfed him from the get-go, we as the players would not have had a chance in hell.

Vaati himself even admits that his personality has done a 180. I believe his exact words are “Because of you I have gone from being a meek, miniscule nothing to the greatest sorcerer alive.” And, let’s be honest, what we find out from Ezlo is subject to bias because, chances are, Vaati didn’t confide in him. If he had, and Ezlo still hadn’t seen this coming, then he is clearly not nearly wise man that everyone tries to make him out to be. For all we know, Vaati’s facination with “the cruelty of man” might very well have been their capability for coming out on top despite being smaller and weaker than the monsters they face. Not to say that men aren’t cruel, they most certainly are. Also consider that some of his other examples of how not-prey behave aren’t all that much better. Cat’s and birds sometimes play with their kills. Also, this might just be the supernatural fan in me, but that kind of language sounds an aweful lot like someone who’s had the very nature of their soul changed and/or possessed. Again, I’m not saying Vaati is innocent. Far from it, If he had been possessed, I’d say enough of his own personality remained to effectively say HE assimilated IT, not the other way around.

Now, to look at the actions he took with this line of thinking in mind:

He cursed Ezlo and left him relatively unharmed in a safe environment. Ezlo was only put in danger by his own actions of chasing after Vaati. I think (and you can feel free to disagree, I encourage it) he liked Ezlo enough not to kill but feared his interference enough to curse him (at least, that's my take on it). His actions only became overtly harmful after Ezlo had shown up again with what he might think is a lacky, attempting to stop him.

He cursed, not killed, Zelda. He recognized her, not Link, as a threat from the get-go and made a move to neutralize her, but made no moves to kill her until it became a necessity of getting what he sought after. I don’t think he gave a damn about her after that, one way or another.

As for Link, I think he honeslty hadn’t cared about the brat with a shield until he became a problem. Had Link stayed out of it, the only victims might very well have been Zelda and the King. He didn’t want to rule. He only wanted power. He wanted to be THE scariest thing there so that, perhaps, he no longer had to fear anything. Of course, most of this becomes a moot point around the end of Minish Cap when Vaati goes through multiple transformations and allows his rage to consume him, fully becoming a demon with the full intent of destroying this brat and everything he holds dear.

Well, maybe. The whole kidnapping maidens thing is suspect. Yes, Nintendo did it because it was an easy, classic story. At the same time, though, when you think about his first romp as an OP sorcerror, you’s think he’d immediately take out the kid with the sword who looks a little too familiar. Nope. He takes the girls, who, if I’m not mistaken, are shrine maidens. Shrine maidens with the specific job of keeping him sealed. Keeping them within sight at all times. He knows these girls are capable of sealing him again should he be overpowered and keeping them where he can watch and eliminate them at any time could have very well been his strategy, hidden behind insinuation and inuendo. Because, even if the brat defeats him again, with these girls gone, he might think he still has a chance of not being seal away again.