#< my tag for loz rambling/''meta'' if anybody else is interested...

[thegeminisage]

my latest idle musing zelda question for you: i was thinking about the song of storms paradox and wondering if you have a theory to explain it. my half baked theory is that after child link gets sealed away, sheik does child link disguise to set that up for adult link to learn, prob in concert w whatever training and protection impa is providing. but then again that's a lot for sheik/impa to like... predict, you know? but then AGAIN again, i wouldn't put it past the sheikah to have seen what happened after the master sword was pulled, and start thinking a few steps ahead to make the hero's work doable once he emerges. :D

okay here is the thing. hi. sorry it took me so long to answer i've been in december hell. HERE is the thing. there are 2 answers to this question. answer #1 of course is that it didn't come from anywhere as per the nature of the paradox. the goddesses or whoever the fuck deigned it existed and allowed link to discover it. thats kind of a boring and frustrating answer though SO. i will give you Mine Own Theory

this answer is also kind of boring/simple, but for me it's the only thing that makes sense. it also requires a bit of story and gameplay segregation and also a bit of story and gameplay integration. let me start rom the top. here is what we know about the song of storms in oot:

makes storms. duh.

no one has played it before in the timeline. it first appears chronologically in ocarina of time. so link didn't get it from a past life or anything

it plays in the windmill in the past AND the future

windmill guy is PLAYING IT HIMSELF ON HIS INSTRUMENT. this is so important! he has an instrument that he is actively using and we hear the music ONLY inside the windmill. this isn't as bulletproof as malon's singing - it doesn't get louder when you get closer to him - but this can be explained away by memory limitations or oversight by the devs. he's clearly playing SOMETHING and this is the only music we hear.

for some reason when HE plays it nothing happens. but when WE play it: storms. this is also crucial

here is my theory: the windmill guy made it up. i mean, we literally hear him playing it before we ever learn the song in the future?? given enough time and a musical ear you could pluck that out (so to speak) on an ocarina. future link heard the story and went back and played it out but past link without this knowledge could EASILY have picked up on it himself, and maybe did the first time, to start the "cycle" of the paradox.

the reason the song doesn't work for windmill guy and does work for link is because windmill guy's phonogram thing is just a thing, but both of link's ocarinas are magical. actually, i feel like only the ocarina of time is magical because only the ocarina of time can open the door of time. in fact, the only song you learn on the fairy ocarina that does anything magic is the sun's song, which is technically optional. in a playthrough where you don't learn that song until after you get the ocarina of time, link's fairy ocarina is just an ordinary ocarina. it can't call epona. it doesn't do any warping. you can't learn the song of storms on it. zelda's lullaby only summons fairies because they recognize it. navi herself facilitates communication with saria. i guess TECHNICALLY the fairy ocarina can fix signs and stuff, but compare that to the ocarina of TIME - a POWERFUL magical artifact that was ancient even during the era of skyward sword.

almost all of the magic songs link learns are on this ocarina. PERHAPS NOT A COINCIDENCE. sure, you can sequence break this like with the sun's song and the fixing signs, but i think the song of storms existed long before link played it and it only MADE THE STORMS because the ocarina's magic reacts to the force of will behind the music. it's not necessarily the melody that has the power, but the instrument, and the player of this instrument wields it with varying degrees of skill and power, not unlike a knight wields a sword. windmill guy wanted a song that went around. what makes a windmill go around? wind. what's stronger than regular wind? storms. link plays the music, either knowing or hoping that it will cause the windmill to go bonkers, and the world around him obeys, because that's what magic does: commands reality.

bonus crackpot theory: if anything, the shifting nature of the timestones the ocarina was carved out of would allow IT to pick up on a tune lost in a sea of time, and perhaps link, by then the ocarina's very proficient user, would be sensitive enough to pick up on it and manifest it himself. if the spirit of the sword can speak to people, why not the spirit of the ocarina?

but yeah. i think the guy himself made it up, and was the source of his own misery all along. link just facilitated the entire thing because he's the one with the magical instrument. maybe a little too simple but to me it's the ONLY thing - aside from pure paradox - that makes sense