#trying to convince himself of it. ESPECIALLY with how he begs vaati to just wait and listen to him

[fourswords]

ezlo followed vaati out of the minish world immediately after vaati stole the cap and so when he gets back after the adventure, after everything is said and done, he's going to have to clean out vaati's room. i think about that sometimes. it was never explicitly said within the game but in the manga vaati does live with ezlo and i think that the same would go for the gameverse side of things as well because "apprentices living with their masters" is a pretty common thing. so vaati had a room. and ezlo is going to have to clean it out. because vaati dies at the end of the game. and it's just. head in my hands

[fourswords]

a reason i really love the minish cap figurines despite their ridiculous difficulty to obtain is because of how they add even more characterization to every single little thing within the game. hell, vaati's figurines tell an entire story of their own:

Minish Vaati: Before he became a sorcerer, he was a simple Minish. He had always been entranced by the evil that lives in the hearts of men…

Sorcerer Vaati: When the young Minish donned Ezlo's magic cap, he took this evil form. Now, he searches for the light force in his quest to become all-powerful.

Vaati Reborn: The sorcerer Vaati took this form after draining the power of the light force from Princess Zelda. The evil beams from his eyes are devastating.

Vaati Transfigured: Once Vaati's body has been shattered, this dark form rises up, all that remains of the evil sorcerer. Only the sacred Four Sword can defeat him.

Vaati's Wrath: This is the embodiment of purest evil, the final form of the power-mad Vaati. Its mind is consumed with a hunger for destruction. Find its weakness.

like. the pronoun switch from "he" to "it" in this context is genuinely kind of chilling. i think a lot about vaati and ezlo and i really do wonder what ezlo must've thought when faced with what vaati became. because on one hand, he absolutely and thoroughly denounces him throughout the game for his misdeeds. on the other hand, the fact that ezlo says that "vaati was only a boy" when he first took him on as an apprentice and also repeatedly begs vaati to just wait a damn second during their encounters in the game (the "why won't you wait?!" in the flashback is definitely something that makes me have a head-in-my-hands moment) is really kind of. telling. to me. because ezlo declares vaati to be evil SO annoyingly often that when you look at it from the context of their shared backstory, it almost starts to sound like ezlo is just constantly trying to convince himself that vaati is past the point of no return. especially when he has lines like "You haven't changed in the slightest." (like he was hoping for some sort of change) and "How...could he?!" (when realizing that vaati turned everyone to stone near the end of the game—even after everything, there's still disbelief within him) and "Hyrule Castle has grown dark... Perhaps this repulsive scene... is just a reflection of the evil lurking in the heart of my former student. ... ... Ah, what have I created? But don't worry about me, Link!" (which is clearly a "how could i have been so blind" internal ordeal happening. it's actually been happening throughout the entire game). and even though the figurine refers to vaati's final form as "it", ezlo still calls him "he" even after the battle is done and he's seen the absolute nightmare that vaati became. it's interesting to me.