#Zelda Encyclopedia

[lennsart]

Ok ok ok so

I've bought the Zelda Encyclopedia because I am in a hyperfixated rampage about LoZ. And on one hand it's the best thing ever, because special interest is going brrrr.

But ! But.

I've bought in french. Because I... Am french.

And I don't know if the english version has troubles, alright ? But THE FRENCH VERSION IS A BADLY TRANSLATED HELL and I need to rant.

Keep in mind that I didn't study the book. I've skimmed through. And I'm already holding my head in my hands in a dramatic 'losing my mind' posture.

But anyway ! Here's the defendant :

This is the book I'm talking about, and all the pictures that follow come from this book.

Follow me into translation hell !

Note : I actually usually prefer the french translation in Zelda ! They do a good job at translating things that make sense, leaving things as they are when it isn't needed, and I often find the translated characters' names prettier. (Example : Makar, the korok from Wind Waker, is called Dumoria. I have NO IDEA why it changes so much but it sound so much better in my opinion !) So this is not VF hate. This is genuine uncomprehension as to WHY IS THE BOOK LIKE THIS.

Now, you don't need to go far into the book to have a problem with it.

First few pages. Like literally before the actual content of the book. Presentation of the games. Easy enough, right ? Not hard to beta read, RIGHT ?

WHAT DO YOU MEAN "THE MINISHIP CAP". WHAT DO YOU MEAN. IT'S NOT LIKE THE TITLE IS WRITTEN ON THE PICTURE ABOVE. How did it happen ?? The name doesn't even change in french, help

"Miniship cap" I already want to quit and it's my INTRODUCTION to this book.

We can divide the mistakes of this book in three categories :

- Lore mistake

- Translation mistake

- Wtf mistakes

I would place "Miniship cap" in the WTF category, for obvious reasons. (HOW???)

The first two categories are easily justified : they asked someone to reread the book and the person wasn't very interested/didn't know Zelda well. But it makes the book LIE

Example of lore mistake :

The title here is " The Ancient Temple, marked by the loftwings".

THE L O F T W I N G S.

This is the ancient temple in Twilight Princess. This is supposed to read OCCAS ! SKYWARD SWORD WASN'T EVEN RELEASED YET !! LOFTWINGS DIDN'T EXIST !

Why did this happen ? Well, in french, Loftwings are called "Célestriers" (mix of the words "céleste", celestial, and "destrier", which is apparently the same in english but I've never seen it before, it's a horse usually or an animal you ride). And Occas ? Are called "Célestiens". People that lives in the sky, basically.

So yeah, Célestriers, Célestiens, I SEE the mistake, ok ?

But still. Uncool. Boo.

Now, example of translation mistake :

The first sentence here is a description of a picture, it reads "Aryll is abducted by Helmaroc King on Ganondorf's orders".

Why isn't this shocking to you, english reader ? Because Helmaroc King is the ENGLISH name of the big bird. In french, there are no "roi Helmaroc" ("roi" means king). It has been translated.

But maybe the book doesn't know, right ? IT'S NOT LIKE THE NAME IS WRITTEN ON THE NEXT PAGE, RIGHT ?

THERE. LE ROI CUIRASSE. THIS IS THE BITCH I KNOW ABOUT. I'M LOSING MY MIND

But again, alright, I guess someone didn't think to translate the name. Some characters's names aren't translated (example : french Skull kid is called... Skull kid. I am thankful for that), so maybe they just didn't THINK to check if there was a translation.

Even though. It was on the next page.

AND I WAS GOING TO LET ROI HELMAROC SLIDE. I WAS.

AND THEN I LOOKED AT THE SAME FUCKING PICTURE I TOOK OF THE BOOK.

First thing I underlined, "Mélodie", is a typo of Medli's name in french, which is "Médolie". I get it, it's an anagram, I've read it Mélodie my whole childhood, OK French Zelda Encyclopedia. OK.

BUT "ÉPÉE MAÎTRESSE" ?? NO.

THE MASTER SWORD IS NOT FUCKING CALLED "ÉPÉE MAÎTRESSE". MAÎTRESSE IS WHAT YOU CALL YOUR TEACHER WHEN SHE'S A WOMAN AND YOU'RE TEN, OK ?

(Actually, "maître" and its feminization "maîtresse" do mean master. But it's. It feels wrong. It's not the in-game name, and it feels wrong.)

THE MASTER SWORD IS "ÉPÉE DE LÉGENDE", OK ? LEGENDARY SWORD. THERE IS NO ÉPÉE MAÎTRESSE.

AT LEAST I HOPE.

Breathing in, breathing out... Ok. A not so important one :

"Les oiseaux" means "the birds", and yes, in english, those cuties are called "little birds" which would be literally "petits oiseaux" in french. (I know, too much vowels, I'm not here to defend my birth language BEAR WITH ME)

But in the VF ? They aren't 'birds'. They are PIOUPS. (Pronounced pyoop, it doesn't mean anything, just mimic the bird's noise)

THEY ARE 'PETITS PIOUPS' ALRIGHT ? AND I LOVE THEM. I'm just. Sad that their name isn't in the book. This is petits pioups erasure.

(After checking, the item they drop is called "plume d'oiseau", so "bird feather". The word "pioup" is just in the description of the item, so... Maybe it's just me. BUT STILL. LET ME CALL THEM PIOUPS IT'S ADORABLE)

And we're not even in my favorite category ! May I introduce :

The what the fuck mistakes

Aka : I can't understand how they let it slide.

Here I want you to read the description of the picture 6.

"Playing the Song of Healing, Link gets his normal appearance back".

Ok, this is probably a description of when Link goes from Deku Scrub back to Hylian, so I am expecting a picture of Link !

Image 6 : WHY IS IT THE CREEPY LINK STATUE.

DID THEY KNOW ABOUT BEN DROWNED ?? WHY IS THE WORST POSSIBLE REPRESENTATION OF LINK IS DESCRIBED WITH "LINK GOES BACK TO NORMAL". NO. NO I AM CALLING MY LAWYER, BOOK, YOU CAN'T DO THAT TO ME.

You know, in a book, there can be translating errors... And, apparently, there also can be "we forgot to fucking translate" errors.

Plural.

IN THE GODDAMN TITLES.

And I studied graphic design, alright. I know, TRUST ME, I know your eyes can get used to the titles and make you miss 'obvious' mistakes.

BUT THIS IS WHY YOU GET SOMEONE TO RE-READ. This is a fucking official book ! That has been published by probably very official publishers, I don't know, I haven't checked !

POURQUOI LE LIVRE EST NUL ? POURQUOI EST-CE QU'IL Y A AUTANT D'ERREURS ? COMMENT EST-CE QUE "MINISHIP CAP" EST ARRIVÉ ? OÙ SONT LES PETITS PIOUPS ? ENGAGEZ-MOI POUR RELIRE LE LIVRE LA PROCHAINE FOIS C'EST PAS POSSIBLE !!

I at least hope some of you laughed watching me losing my mind in french ; I hit the ten images limit, but I'm sure I'll find enough for a part two. I've lost all faith in this book. I'll read it thoroughly just to scream about it on Tumblr.

[*holding a knife towards the book* I won't let anything slide, you hear me ?]

[skyward-floored]

I consider it a crime that Hyrule Warriors gets as much space in the Zelda encyclopedia as all of the Tingle spin off games. I just don’t think this is fair

[loruleanhistorian]

[atwas-meme-ing]

BOTW's Confusing Timeline

First off, please take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt. BOTW is the only Zelda game I've ever beaten, and I only just beat it a couple of days ago, with a 38.something% completion. (And even at that, I don't think I could have gotten the true ending. Zelda asked if Link remembered her, and I doubt he did, because I was still missing 3 memories). A large majority of my understanding of the history of Hyrule comes from the Zelda Encyclopedia, Hyrule Historia, and stuff online. I could have everything wrong.

I've been trying to figure out which timeline BOTW probably fits into the best, and I'm pretty sure it must be the Triumphant Child Link timeline. Here's why:

Bokos

First, there's the existence of bokoblins. I did a quick google search, and bokos appear in the following games:

Skyward Sword takes place before anything else. According to Hyrule Historia, both Wind Waker and Twilight Princess take place in the Triumphant Hero timeline. Bokos, then, do not appear in the Defeated Hero timeline. So BOTW and TOTK must not be in the Defeated Hero timeline.

So, as sad as it makes me to say it, I don't believe we will see Lorule appear in TOTK. (So don't ask me how Ravio's hood ended up in BOTW. I suppose Ravio must have existed in this timeline, as well, just in a different capacity than how he appears in LBW.) I wish we could- the Dark World would be just so. darned. AWESOME! in an open-world adventure. But I doubt it will happen.

2. Witches

Another point against the idea that BOTW could have been in the Defeated Hero timeline is the absence of witches. To my knowledge, witches appear mostly in the Defeated Hero timeline (Maple in the Oracle games, Irene in LBW, the old crones that fix up potions in LTTP and Link's Awakening). Now, I know Koume and Kotake appear in Majora, but while I haven't finished Majora, I feel like it should be considered an outlier, since it takes place in Termina instead of Hyrule (and besides, it's the same twin witches from OOT).

If there are witches in other timelines, I either haven't found them or don't remember them.

3. Ritos

The Ritos are descendants of the Zora, and Zoras don't exist after Wind Waker. (Also, Ritos don't appear in the Defeated Hero timeline.) It doesn't make much sense, then, for BOTW to take place after Wind Waker, because how did the Zora just magically reappear after they'd gone extinct?

BUT, I see no reason why the Zora and the Rito couldn't coexist in BOTW if it follows Twilight Princess. Just because the flooding of Hyrule spurred the Zora to evolve into the Rito in Wind Waker, that doesn't mean that the Rito couldn't have spontaneously arisen as their own culture in the Child Link timeline. All that would have had to happen would be for a few Ritos to be born all at about the same time (possibly due to a freak genetic mutation in the Zora gene pool a few centuries ago?), decide that they just didn't fit into the Zora's water world, and split off to form their own nation.

There really isn't any reason they can't coexist.

4. Koholit Island

This island drove me crazy for the longest time. How can Koholit be real in BOTW when it was nothing but the Wind Fish's dream?

I have 2 theories for this:

Theory 1: The Wind Fish was given time to awaken and bring the island that it dreamed about to life in the real world.

Theory 2: Someone else, not a Link, landed in the Wind Fish's dream and, after awakening, landed on a very remote, difficult-to-reach island and decided to name it Koholit after the island in the dream. (This same person probably also traveled inland and named Goponga Swamp.)

In either case, it's still unlikely that BOTW takes place in the Defeated Hero timeline.

5. Tears of the Kingdom/Twilight Princess

Twilight Princess is probably the one that I know the least about. I've only played just a very little of it. But my understanding is that Ganondorf was executed, and now in TOTK he's being resurrected. Further, people keep talking about a connection between the Zonai and the Twili, which come from TP, as I understand.

Also, most of the special armor in BOTW comes from Twilight Princess or Ocarina of Time, with the exceptions of the Lobster Shirt (Wind Waker) and Ravio's Hood (Link Between Worlds) (there may be other armor that I don't know about). As I said before, Ravio could have existed in this timeline, just in a different capacity. The same could be said for the people of Outset Island, even though Outset Island doesn't appear to exist in BOTW, at least not under that name.

6. The Big Reason Why BOTW Could Actually Be in the Adult Link Timeline

Simply put, it's because the Hero of Time is frequently mentioned in BOTW. And if this game does take place in the Child Link timeline, how would anyone know about the Hero of Time? The whole point of the Child Link timeline is that Link erased the events that happened in OOT, isn't it?

Well, I actually do have a tentative theory about that, too...

7. A Connection Between the Timelines?

Somehow or other, BOTW is a reconvergence of the 3 timelines. Or at least of the Triumphant Child and Adult Link timelines.

Most of the armor and items are references to either OOT or TP. But they mention the Hero of Time. And there's the Lobster Island shirt. And the Ritos. And the Koroks (whoops! almost forgot them!), who also only appeared in Wind Waker, and there is really no reason for the Kokiri to have turned into the Koroks in the Child Link timeline. And there's Koholit Island and Ravio's Hood, which both come from the Defeated Hero timeline, which, as I've said over and over, isn't likely to be BOTW's timeline.

In other words, BOTW covers every timeline. Especially if you look at the DLC.

Flip over to the Tears of the Kingdom trailers (at the time I'm writing this, TOTK is less than 2 weeks away), and it is filled with references to Wind Waker. There's a boat that looks very much like the King of Red Lions, the inside of Hyrule Castle looks exactly as it does in Wind Waker, and there's some kind of a dragon in a tornado. Meanwhile, people who know more about Twilight Princess than I do have noticed lots of TP references.

So. Is TOTK going to converge the Wind Waker and Twilight Princess timelines? Were the EX treasure chests, with their references to the Heroes of Time, of Wind, and of Twilight, a hint or a foreshadowing of this upcoming convergence?

I guess we'll find out in a couple of weeks, huh?

[jiyans-wife]

Hehehehehe...they are all here now(i think- i don't know if there are more books-)

[youngtwissler]

someone come get him

hes built like a peice of cardboard

[love-toxin]

meow! so alongside sum other fics im thinkin about doing a long-form series w/ TOTK & BOTW, if that's of any interest. I've been wanting to do a series for it for years so i wanna get some feedback! i finally have online courses so my schedule's way freer to write and I wanna get some long projects worked on.

for context: I'm planning a series where the reader (you!) is a former travelling merchant, and is now building up Mabe Ranch during the TOTK timeline post-calamity!

It'll be partly nice escapist fic á la LOZ world, and partly with some romance bits with a few canon characters! I'm not sure how exactly i wanna frame it but i def have characters in mind i wanna involve (link, zelda, tauro, paya, rauru, sidon, etc), and it'll be taking place concurrent to link's TOTK adventure, but idk if i wanna do a "one true romance" ending or if I'll have the reader get cozy with several characters for funsies. either way I'm just getting started on it so it'll be in the works for awhile hehe.

but! if you have any ideas on this series I'd love to hear them! I'm really trying to get into more long-form series bc i really enjoyed writing harley's piece and I'm getting used to doing novella & novel formats, & I'd like to focus a piece on stuff that the people really really want! i wanted to write a series like this since i was a teenager & I'm having a lot of fun writing it already hehe!

so if you have a concept, idea, character, place, or whatever that you'd like to see included, let me know! it doesn't really matter how out there or mundane it is, I'd just love to hear what the people wanna read so i can make a really fun series for the lads <3 ty!!

[hurdy-girly]

LETS GOOOOOOOO

I haven’t had a chance to read through this yet but I am SO EXCITED!! For someone who has only played 2 LoZ games and finished neither (I’m procrastinating on BoTW but I’ve finished most of it and I’ve played some of the start of Link to the Past) I am extremely immersed in the lore of the franchise and now I can learn more!! I really wish I could just. Play all of the games. But they’re spread across so many consoles and emulators can only take you so far and I do not have the money to buy a single console of any sort let alone several so this is wonderful!! I can finally figure out the Actual Canon Lore!!!!! I really enjoyed reading through the BoTW creating the champion book thing so I’m hoping this will spark the same joy!

[veggiecorner]

Been hearing people say botw/totk link is a malewife whenever i refer to him as a wife but no he is straight up a wife Link is a lesbian hope this helps!

[felkithecreator]

I was thinking about what you shared re the Twilight Realm being the "Shadow World" (影の世界) in Japanese and I have a niche language question if that's ok: my online Japanese dictionary is telling me that kage/影 means both shadow and reflection, whereas in English "shadow" is more closely associated with "dark". So now I'm wondering: is 影の世界 best understood as a dark world or as a mirror world? If that makes sense? Sorry to be a language nerd in your DMs lol

No worries!! It's fun to talk about this stuff so please please ask me more if you have more questions.

I don't know what dictionary you're using - and it probably depends on context too, but from what I'm aware, 「影」 definitely is just shadow. Reflection would be 「反射」, or hansha. I've never heard anyone ever use the word 「影」 to refer to reflection, like, ever? Like, when talking about one's shadow in a casual setting kage is the word we use.

So yeah, in this instance I think it's definitely not a mirror world, and more of a dark world or literally, "Shadow World."

If it were a mirror-world, they'd probably describe it more how they describe Lorule in the Encyclopedia: 「ハイラルの裏側」 (hairaru no uragawa), or "the backside of Hyrule." The word 「裏」 ura here is the same word we'd use to be like "turn your paper to the backside" during a test, or like, the tail-side of a coin. In other words, Lorule and Hyrule are two sides of the same coin, and Lorule is specifically referred to in that kind of manner.

So yeah! Twilight Realm is definitely a Dark World, of sorts, rather than a Mirror World.

[lennsart]

Btw if anyone thought I forgot/became normal about the french Zelda encyclopedia

I'm just building up proofs, THE STICKY NOTES ARE IN

[handbooktohyrule]

†Loftwing - Hyliava regius

[katlimeart]

Made in 2024

If you’ve seen this anywhere else, I posted it back on my deviantArt when it was made.

From my large project of drawing every Zelda design, I’ve now taken to colouring them!

[h1rul3s]

Something something...Link actually being good at drawing in other to keep a record of the monsters, animals and weapons he sees/uses during his adventures.

[errorwarblesrr]

I was looking through old Wind Waker interviews and tossing them into Google translate (unfortunately it's the best I have </3) I kind of found this bit interesting

I guess I find it interesting because I feel like I see people describe Wind Waker as the opposite. Where it's a zelda world, but the main character isn't actually Link but happens to be a random guy. Here, Aonuma describes it as a non zelda world, but the main character happens to be Link.

Idk the translation could be wonky since well it is google translate so here's that original Japanese bit