#anyway hi I'm doing this to avoid working on the totk meta because the words are NOT working

[vigilantdesert]

The Gerudo and the Yiga

It is an unfortunate happenstance that my Gerudo are either from before the Yiga formed officially, or from during or after the second calamity, and therefore it's difficult to get this across, but I do feel the need to state that, for most of recorded history, the attitude towards the Yiga has been neutral. 

As I've said many times and will continue on about until I'm blue in the face, Gerudo/Hyrule relations vary wildly and, even when they're on good terms, the Gerudo attitude towards Hylia specifically is disregard at best. Hylia is a patron Goddess, and though most Gerudo are vaguely aware that she probably exists (there's giant fish gods and a sky whale that controls the wind, Hylia's not even close to the weirdest deity running around), they have no reason to acknowledge her. She doesn't protect those outside her chosen people - if she did, the Gorons and Zora wouldn't immediately be first to fall when evil approaches. The Gerudo also aren't really fond of big-G Gods to begin with. They worship their ancestors partially because they know they don't have ulterior motives, but also because they were once people who lived on the ground and who know how much of a nightmare life can be. Gerudo religion is very practical in that regard. This is all to say, they can completely sympathize with abandoning Hylia, it's the turning to Ganon that turns them off.

Many Gerudo would outright say they pity the Yiga for it, since after the first Calamity, most Gerudo knew that whatever Ganon had once stood for, he no longer did. Between the events of Four Swords Adventures and the first Calamity, it was clear he was willing to throw his own people under the bus for the barest hint of a chance to get to the Hyrulean royal family. If he would abandon his own people, what chance did the Yiga have?

 Occasionally the Yiga would go on raids against Gerudo settlements, and hostilities would rise, but they'd fade out when whatever crisis led the Yiga to look outwards was over with.

The main reason tensions are so high in the lead-up and aftermath of the second Calamity are down to Urbosa. Queen Zelda's assassination was more than a tacit declaration of war, it was invocation of Urbosa's honor. Queen Zelda was her closest friend, the Godmother of her children. Whether it was Kohga or not who actually made the attack, she was bound to revenge. Add their hand in bringing about the Calamity onto that, and it's really no surprise that the tribes spent the next hundred years taking pot shots at each other.

That's not to say either made much of a dent in the other's numbers. The Yiga are highly competent, but tend to flee whenever things go South. Because they flee, the Gerudo can't follow and their usual battle strategy is forfeit. It's the viscous cycle of mages verses martial classes, and neither will take actual progress until they get past that stumbling block.