#Zelda theories

[pocketseizure]

I love the theory that Sonia was originally from Lurelin Village ☀️

[zeldadeservesabreak]

“Where did all the Sheikah tech and shrines go?”

… is one of the most annoying questions I’ve seen repeated over and over again by people and theorists. Because the answer is quite literally in your face the entire game if you just pay attention to the details.

There’s actually 3 very obvious reasons for the shrines and towers disappearing. And since I get this question a lot, I’m gonna answer them here:

1. They were repurposed by Robbie and Purah.

This is the most direct answer with evidence you can clearly see. Purah and Robbie are still tinkering with stuff, and the Purah Pad is a perfect example of this. It is very clearly still Sheikah technology. It looks and acts just like the Sheikah Slate, but it’s more refined and streamlined. So it’s pretty apparent that since the events of Breath of the Wild she and Robbie have continued their studies and made improvements on the tech.

Additionally every one of the sky view towers houses guardians underneath. This is very clear in the little cut scene that plays out when you activate one for the first time. Guardian legs pop out, and then apply the appropriate gear to you before launching you into the sky. If you pay attention to Link’s reaction as well, the first time this happens in Lookout Tower he is visibly FREAKED OUT by this. No doubt a reflexive defensive reaction to his time fighting Guardians in the last game.

So the tech isn’t entirely gone. It’s been repurposed.

2. It was dismantled on Zelda’s orders.

This is not explicitly said, but it’s heavily implied. Zelda has been traveling with Link since the first game and helping to rebuild Hyrule. Part of healing from a calamity is removing evidence of that calamity so that people can move on with their lives and not be reminded of the thousands that died.

This is also probably because Zelda feels guilty about the role she played. After all she was the one who unearthed the guardians in the first place. She set up the very same guardians that eventually got possessed by Calamity Ganon and DESTROYED THE WORLD.

Also, having finally stopped the calamity it is in Hyrule’s best interest to remove technology that could still be beneficial to your enemies. The last thing they need is another calamity happening that reactivates all the dead Guardians… again. (More on this later)

You can find evidence of this in many places where shrines once existed now only exist an empty patch that resembles the shrine’s shape. These patches are clean, do not disturb the landscape much at all, and it seems much more controlled and surgical compared to what I’m about to talk about in the next section. I believe these patches are where Zelda’s construction team are responsible for dismantling the shrines.

So it’s pretty clear to me that healing the land from the calamity by removing them and any other Sheika tech/shrine would be a priority.

3. Ganon’s Gloom destroyed the rest.

This is also not explicitly stated, but is pretty clear when you examine the facts. Gloom is extremely dangerous. Far more dangerous than the calamity’s corruption. Gloom saps your life away and is the reason all weapons in Hyrule just suddenly decayed when the upheaval happened. It’s so powerful that it literally decayed the Master Sword! The most powerful weapon in the Zelda franchise got instantly destroyed by gloom from Ganon’s initial attack.

So taking this evidence and extending it further… what’s something Ganon would want to get rid of? How about something that could be used against him? Like, say…. The divine beasts and the guardians… or how about a magical shrine that could resurrect a fallen hero?

His calamity form was destroyed by the technology initially, and while he took his revenge by possessing them the next time, the divine beasts were eventually ripped away from his control by Link and the sages were able to fire upon him yet again. So that tech is dangerous and Ganon isn’t dumb. He’s not gonna risk the same mistake happening again.

And there is evidence of this as well. If you travel around Hyrule, in many of the places where Sheikah shrines once existed you will often find bandit camps or giant gloom infestations with sink holes into the depths.

So what happened to the divine beasts and the rest of the Sheikah shrines and tech that wasn’t repurposed or dismantled? Ganon’s gloom destroyed it.

Conclusion.

I know that it’s frustrating that there aren’t many reference to these things by NPC’s. It could easily have been handled by a couple lines of dialogue by a few random characters here or there. But to be honest I look at this as just another puzzle left by the developers.

Like so many aspects of the Zelda franchise, it’s often left to you (the player) to piece together clues and small details to form your own conclusions to things. Environmental storytelling is very much a huge part of both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom’s world building. To me the fact that there are so many clues about what happened is an indication that the developers did understand that people would question this.

The problem I’m seeing is that after asking the question “where did all the Sheikah tech go?” people are either too unimaginative or very unobservant, and don’t bother trying to ANSWER that question.

The answer is in the game. It’s all around you. You’ve been walking over it, around it, and diving into it (quite literally) while you’ve been playing.

[1000emotions]

theories about legend and hyrule (and the downfall timeline in general) based on canon facts/theories

1. legend and his zelda are siblings, which is hinted at in alttp

2. one of the official zelda books (maybe hyrule historia? I forget- pls lmk) says that hyrule is thought to be legend’s descendant

3a. If #1 is true, then hyrule would also have some of hylia’s blood which could explain the blood curse, because ss zelda (hylia’s mortal form) was used to revive demise

3b. an alternate theory is that because hyrule didnt have the master sword (which is supposed to be ganon’s seal), hyrule ended up sealing ganon within himself instead

4. also i read a fanfic with a really cool theory about the downfall timeline’s creation: in this timeline, 10 year old link picked up the master sword but he wasn’t put to sleep, so ganondorf got to the sacred realm and became ganon early, and 10 year old link tried to fight him and was defeated. the gods/fi set time backwards so that they could put link into the 7 year sleep, causing the child and adult timelines, but the downfall timeline went on as well

if anyone knows which fanfic has that theory or whoever authored it, please let me know!

[chaotomatic]

TOTK Trailer things I noticed, the master post <3

Welcome back gamers today I will be going insane

Post 1 of (3)

These towers?? They're not sheika towers. They look like they may be made of wood and are decorated?

Glowing stuff. seems to be leaning up on a hillside. It's most likely this glowing grass we see later in the trailer here

This grass isn't on a particularly steep hillside though, so it might be in patches everywhere. Also- these seem to be murals? Like, it's not in a pattern, it's like a giant something painted a drawing in the grass.

When the lightning flashes, there's a goddamn TYPHOON in the sky. It is STORMING

MUSHROOM AREA?? Malice is EVERYWHERE. The enemies are covered in malice and the fungus seems to be releasing spores? I dont know what else that particle effect coult be. The blue stuff at the bottom looks...collectable. My personal theory is that these could be "tears" you could collect? They float around almost like how wax floats around in Sky Children of the Light, so maybe I'm just biased.

That. That is a goddamn hydra. Dragon. Thing. Nothing like Dinral or Nayru at all, so not a dragon in that sort of sense. This thing is so fucking cool i cannot wait to kick its ass

We get a really good look at this shield, he seems to have a new bow too, but I'm not exactly a weapons expert for BOTW so I could be wrong. This is definitely Sheika-esque, but it's not what we're used to. Maybe this is something from the Sheika 10,000 years ago? Who knows.

The moon is shown to be almost exclusively red. (This blood moon is fucked up bruh) And it looks as though it will stay that way for the whole game, although again I could be totally wrong. The sky's normal (besides the islands) during the daytime. The whole "Night time is more dangerous" thing from BOTW has a chance to be intensified a LOT here.

Especially when the moon is throwing hands and blowing Hyrule up. that's not good. In all honesty, the "blowing up" part is likely part of a cutscene, but its funny to think about. Also I don't think the malice is coming DIRECTLY from the moon, but the moon (or Ganon THROUGH the power of the moon) is summoning these rockets of calamity to fuck shit up.

I. Don't know. What this is. Help.

another glimpse of the glowing grass, but I don't know if this is the same hillside as the one at the very beginning of the trailer or not.

REDEAD REDEAD REDEAD REDEAD WHAT ELSE COULD THAT POSSIBLY BE

Also the first little glimpse of a king bokoblin? Freaky.

At first, I wasn't sure if the storm was going to be relevant but you can see it a bit here again in the top left corner. Maybe something is hiding in the eye of the storm? Maybe you have to appease an entity to clear it, like in the thunder trial puzzle in BOTW.

I will be reblogging with more BS soon so stay tuned teehee

[loruleanhistorian]

'The Interlopers, The Zonai, And Man's Dark Desires': A Legend of Zelda Theory, by LoruleanHistorian

In this 50-odd page document, you will find a hypothesis, oodles of notes and quotes, and a conclusion, as well as several addendums. This research has been compiled by yours truly over the last few years, primarily before Tears of the Kingdom's release, but I have made sure to include points from the game since that time.

If you’ve an interest in the Zonai or deep diving into lore as I do, please read on.

[wynnundead]

Something I wanted to point out (havent seen anyone else say anything)

But the depths and hyrule

Are a mirror of each other

The lows of hyrule is the heights of the depths and vice versa

So im going with lorule(a known mirror world to hyrule)/twilight realm/silent realm and so on and so forth are all basically the same place just given different names

And not only that the dark realm from spirit tracks looks ALOT like the depths

The depths also has similar music to the twilight realms theme..

[villanelleskiss]

alright fuck it... here’s my BOTW/TOTK timeline theory 

(full spoilers for BOTW/TOTK do not proceed without beating the games) 

okay, so the first thing i want to mention is that i don’t believe BOTW/TOTK fits within any timeline or at the bottom of the 3. i think this is a trilogy, the first game being Skyward Sword. 

here’s my explanation: 

Hyrule was yet to be founded at the start of SS. we start off on the island of skyloft, which has a very similar appearance of the great sky island we wake up on in TOTK. and it has been shown that if you flip skyloft upside down, it will be similar to the great sky island. 

by the end of SS, we have visited several areas which are very similar in placement to the map we see in BOTW/TOTK. the eldin, the faron, and lanayru regions. Eldin being the home of death mountain, faron being the water/forest region similar to what  it is in BOTW/TOTK, and lanayru being a desert area very similar to the layout of what we know as the gerudo desert. the rest of SS map is blank, bc theoretically, they have gone unexplored. it should also go unsaid that over 10k years, there is bound to be a geographical shift, creating different valleys, mountains, hills, barrens, etc. so while it looks slightly off, with that in mind, what we find in BOTW/TOTK map does make sense. 

plus, we don’t actually see sky era Link and Zelda found Hyrule, just that they have found the surface and plan on bringing their people down from the sky. we also never see how long each era of hero/princess live, but since usually 100 years pass between each new hero being born, there is roughly 80-100 years if not more unaccounted for. we also don’t know by the end of SS if there are other sky islands, bc if there’s one, then there is probably others. possibly one’s with Zonai, bc we find by the end of TOTK that the last few remaining descended to the surface, probably not long after Link and Zelda of the sky era. 

however, since we do know that Rauru and Sonia are officially the first king and queen of hyrule, that obviously would be contradicting if Link and Zelda did, so that would mean that within the sky era, they were not able to found the kingdom and possibly passed away shortly before the Zonai descended because we find out that Sonia was a priestess of the world (bc there wouldn’t have been a queen or king in that case) and together with their powers, zonai constructs etc they were able to build the castle, the forgotten temple, zonai ruins (possibly even after what happened after rauru and sonia’s deaths) built the kingdom based upon the finding of sky era Link and Zelda.

they are not aware however of the master sword, bc since the kingdom is just being founded, they do not know it exists until Zelda travels back in time to mention it. from this point, the master sword would have likely been moved to a safer place (now known as the lost woods to be looked over by the great deku tree) 

which brings me to my next point, the ancient hero. now, i know that it is being theorized that rauru and sonia must’ve had a daughter bc of when sonia tells zelda “i sense that we share a blood connection”. but i think that is being read too much into. bc every incarnation of zelda is of the goddess hylia, which would be more of a spiritual connection... but i don’t think by saying “blood connection” is wrong even if they did not have a child. also zelda’s mother in BOTW was not a goddess descendant. plus, that would invalidate the ancient hero, who is very clearly half hylian/half zonai based upon the ancient hero’s aspect, which shows this. also it would say that Link and Zelda are brother/sister, which isn’t true. because rauru would be the chosen hero of that time, so the ancient hero could not awaken until after his death. 

this is when ganondorf becomes the demon king, after demise promised would be born time and time again along with each new hero and princess, which we have seen previously throughout older iterations. through rauru, who imprisons him away and binds his magic, the calamity, is a mere mirage of the power he still contains attempting to undo his seal so he can bring chaos upon Hyrule again. the first time we see the calamity is through the ancient hero, who seemingly is using the master sword, which would have been found after Zelda mentioned it to Rauru and word passed down through the sage’s (who i also believe the divine beasts are named after). the first calamity is able to be sealed away, as it has numerous times until the events of BOTW. 

so, the events of BOTW and TOTK play out and that’s where the story for this ends. 

now, let’s address the other games. because there is a huge implication of other domains and worlds existing by the mention of it, through a character named Yona, who says she traveled from another domain, which would mean that there are other worlds. possibly with their own heroes and princesses, bc throughout TOTK we find armor that can be obtained from previous games and locations from those games as well, which, i mostly believe is just nintendo being nostalgic and wanting to honor those games, not exactly saying that they exist in this timeline.

but what if they do? what if through other kingdoms, or universes, those events all did happen and they have either been brought to us from those who have traveled from other worlds and/or universes. because at the end of the day, it is called the legend of zelda for a reason. a legend does not exactly mean it happened, but these armors and locations say, yes, they did happen and here is the proof they did. but possibly just not in this time. 

we always assume that only one hero and princess can be alive at once, which, i personally believe to be true, but what if it’s not? we know that TOTK, no other male gerudos have been born because ganondorf is still alive, but that doesn’t mean that demise couldn’t attempt to reincarnate himself through ganondorf in another kingdom or universe. with the power that we saw demise carry, he would be capable of doing so, so why not? why could these games not all occur at the same time other ones? 

(also there is the theory of the dragons in BOTW/TOTK, which has been almost basically proven to be zonai who swallowed secret stones bc how else would mineru know about it? but the zonai were also believed to be gods, so... what if they were and that’s how we got our dragons?) 

let me know your own thoughts! 

[echoequinox]

My biggest botw/totk headcanon is that Zelda is supposed to be the hero and Link is supposed to be the princess which SOUNDS like bullshit, but like...

Link being way more spiritually sensitive is what first set me off, like. Zelda spent her entire life up until adulthood desperately, DESPERATELY attempting to contact the spirits, the goddesses, trying to be the priestess she was told she was destined to be, only for it to just never happen. Only in the eleventh hour did her powers even begin to activate and not even fully allowing her to destroy the Calamity, only stop it.

Link, however, has been able to talk to not just the koroks but the GODDESS STATUES from the jump. Like, it's one of the first voices you hear when starting botw: you can talk to Rhoam, but also the statue in the ruined temple of time. The koroks make a big deal about being able to talk to them and sure it could be because they're descended from the kokiri, etc etc but it's still weird.

Another voice that feels weird is Fi's voice - one that Link cannot hear but Zelda can. She's heard Fi's voice on multiple occasions, the soft buzzing of the sword that we - as Link - cannot parse but SHE can. Also, coincidentally, immediately afterward she hears Fi for the first time, as if in response to her powers...

Additionally, light and time as motifs are kind of muddied throughout the series but one of the bigger constants is that of the two, it's primarily Link - the Hero of Time - that's capable of manipulating it and traversing between time periods. Meanwhile, it's Zelda who's the more capable at wielding the light against the darkness, a shield against the monsters.

In totk specifically, the roles are switched. (Spoilers for totk from here on out) The reversal power you get at the beginning is the Sage Power of Zelda. It's the same iconography as the other secret stones that the sages give you, so it's her lending you her ability to manipulate time, as seen by Sonia in the past using Reversal as well. Meanwhile Link's main abilities draw from the Light, though that's primarily through things like using the Master Sword and he's not very magically adept.

I also heavily think that the idea of naming her the Light Dragon rather than the Time Dragon was primarily a misnomer to make you think that she was Hylia instead of Zelda (fitting with the motif of the other three dragons being Din, Nayru, and Farore). She's explained to have both time and light powers, but her primary abilities seem to be time, rather than light.

(Also it's so minor and tiny but SILENT Princess? Hmmmm??? Which of the two is silent it's not ZELDA it's LI-) (I KNOW it's her motif I KNOW it's cute and I like the idea of not being able to thrive in captivity blah blah blah but hear me out,)

All of this to say t4t masc-nonbinary Zelda and transfemme Link rights, the end

[josru]

I love how in the new Zelda trailer, the music is really coming back to some of the game's iconic tunes! All re-incorporated into what I guess is BOTW/TOTK's own music. Here's a breakdown just for my own indulgence lol

0:38 - 0:46 / The initial title drop has the OG Zelda title theme play

0:51 - 0:59 / the BOTW title theme's first few piano notes play

1:13 - 1:16 / Hyrule Castle's theme from LTTP plays as Hyrule Castle is shown

1:30 - 1:39 / Ganondorf's theme plays, very clearly hyping up his return

2:30 - 2:36 / Very short snippet of the OG Zelda title theme again

2:50 - 3:00 / Ganondorf's theme again, more subdued/changed up though

3:05 - 3:12 / OG Zelda title theme again, changed up a little

3:44 - 3:49 / First three notes of Zelda's Lullaby

Now, what does this all mean? Of course, it could just be for paying tribute to the iconic parts of the franchise, but since BOTW didn't really do that, I'm going to assume it means something. I think TOTK is about rebuilding Hyrule- a theory that many people have talked about already.

I think using bits of the well known music here and there alludes to the idea that Link is trying to help restore Hyrule to it's well known state, and that as a franchise LOZ is kind of coming full circle. I'm very excited to see where this goes

[bioalpha-official]

Not done yet, but working on a video about the new timeline, and the fact its pulling stuff from the old timeline. Basically Era of Myth and DragonBreak Timeline is a "parallel reality where the same events occur differently or not at all"

Still working on the video editing but i needed to get this done first. Video will explain it better and has a TON of evidence.

[magicalenbysarah]

I'm just now realizing how widespread fantasy ki is in video games. When Mario and Sonic characters who don't use magic can shoot fireballs or beams because of star power or chaos energy, it's because they're using energy created by motion and kiai.

Zelda uses the concept of ki with life force. Force is the energy that makes up all things, including fire, light, time, and life(which emanates from the soul). Magic is the manipulation of those elements through willpower and ritual. Happiness can create new force, which can be used to grant wishes.

Link and the knights of Hyrule cultivate extra life force to power up their physical attacks and shoot beams from their weapons. When the Hero's Shade says his techniques don't leave his and TP Link's bloodline, it doesn't literally mean only his family members can use them. It means that they require a lot of force to use and descendants of reincarnations of the Hero generally have high amounts. The Knight Clan passes down their techniques, and anyone can become a knight through training. Reincarnations of Link don't need to be related because they all have the ability to become part of the Knight Clan.

During periods of impending calamity, all women in the royal line must train their sacred force through prayer in case one of them is the reincarnation of Hylia. This is why it's so common for princesses to be named Zelda even when they aren't the "main" Zelda. Zelda is able to cast powerful magic by channeling her own divine force.

Not only do the Sheikah use force in their martial arts, they use it in their technology, calling it ancient energy.

Malice is negative force, emanated by characters with large amounts of negative emotion, such as Ganondorf or Vaati. It can also be used in spells or to create demons.

The Triforce is an embodiment of Godly Force, and has infinite amounts of energy.

Other examples of Force in the series:

All sacred swords contain force.

The special meter in AoC represents force.

Many attacks in AoC use it, such as Link's special and strong move finishers.

Quotes about Force:

"The princess with the mystic aura... ...The power that was gifted to the people of Hyrule still flows within the veins of the ladies of its royal family? Interesting." - Vaati

"Every living being possesses an energy... And this energy is similar to the energy that powers the Spirit Tracks. When a person's heart is especially happy or grateful... His energy levels become particularly strong. Energy lives in the hearts of everyone, even feeble old fellows like me... [...] When you make people happy, their spirits emit energy. When this energy builds, new tracks appear." — Carben (Spirit Tracks)

"The sacred power the gods gave to the world. It's the breath of life itself." - Hyrule Historia

"I shall teach you one of the secret sword techniques used by the Knights of Hyrule... Hold the B Button to focus power in your blade. Release it to unleash the power." — Link's Uncle

[pocketseizure]

What’s the theory with miss Marie’s butler door?

The theory is that Mrs. Marie is secretly a descendant of the Sheikah tribe, and that her butler door is animated by the same sort of artificial intelligence that powers Gohdan (the disembodied face at the top of the Tower of the Gods).

Since Breath of the Wild came out, people have also been speculating that the Tower of the Gods is the last remaining Sheikah Tower, and that Gohdan and the cabana butler are expressions of the digitized personalities of shrine monks. What I love about this theory is the idea that Sheikah magic is actually super-advanced technology, as per the Arthur Clarke maxim that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

[zeldadeservesabreak]

This video is about Shadow of the Colossus and not about The Legend of Zelda, but it touches upon some questionable trends that I’ve seen in Zelda theory videos lately on YouTube.

Specifically that people are ascribing western values and intent onto eastern game design and development, and that many of the Zelda theories that came out surrounding Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom boarder line into fan fiction territory rather than actual theory crafting.

Since I’ve made it clear that I am annoyed at these fan theorists on YouTube for coming up with blatantly wrong interpretations that they then criticize as gospel, elements of this Shadow of the Colossus analysis hit home pretty hard.

You might get something out of this video, or you might not. But I thought it was relevant enough to my blog that I wanted to share it.

[1000emotions]

where (some of) the LU boys got their green link tunic

sky: school uniform😔

time: forest child outfit :)

twilight: shapeshifted into it, based on the clothes of a hero who never had to exist in his world (the child timeline) which brings up a cool theory ive seen online: that the hero that people reference in TP is actually sky or four

wind: birthday present :)

wild: we dont know if he has ever worn it in canon but i have a headcanon that he had one and wore it when he was younger and pulled the master sword :) but then he got a job and a uniform lol

warriors: oh man, this random soldier kid is the legendary hero we have to give him the outfit

also fun thing to consider: sky learning about how important his school uniform is to hyrule’s history and culture!! like imagine sky hearing about the tradition of the birthday present in wind’s era. like that must have blown his mind

[plasmuser]

You ever just. Look at the word "legend" in "The Legend of Zelda" and wonder if Link is kinda like Herakles, a hero who may have done some sick stuff but was pushed into legend territory and just keeps getting stories and tales changing depending on the area in hyrule you're in (Rito telling the story of Wind Waker, small regions giving you stories from the downfall timeline, etc) AND then you start wondering how close some of these stories are to the "true" Link and now you're spiraling into deep lore and the ruins across the zelda timeline using what little anthropology skills you've picked up to try and decipher the bag Nintendo handed you?

[hyrulepod]

Hello Hyrule!!

Today we're exploring the main bulk of the original Four Swords - all three 'Epics' of it - in our Great Fairy Tour! Show up for the sightseeing; stick around for a whole lot of theories!

We're also on Spotify!

https://open.spotify.com/show/4o4uEB00G5i1dhGKGp10NU?si=a3189d791f3646e2