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summertimemusician · 1 year

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Thinking about The Original Attempted Calamity Hero and Ganondorf again and the implications of the Calamity even existing in the first place.

(Warning, this post has spoilers for basically all of the Zelda franchise and is pretty long, if there's a game or thing you did not read but would like to like the manga then please turn back, or stick around if you don't care lol)

I know there's a lot of theories about him floating around, that either he was half Gerudo, part of the Zonai tribe or at least half Zonai and Zonai raised or even Ganon himself because for some reason something might have happened to that era's Link, but that's a fairy better released at another day. But can y'all imagine being the guy back then? I don't think we discuss this enough to be honest.

So far, almost all of Ganon's incarnations have been at least somewhat mortal before BOTW, with the exception of obviously Demise who was a deity, and the whole thing with the Four Swords Adventures portion of the timeline that kind of itches at me that it has time travel involved though that's yet another fairy, but almost every single one of them started as a human even if they do get more and more animalistic over time. What with Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker's Ganondorf being by far the most human, but during the second part of Ocarina of Time and later on Twilight Princess they descend into Beast Form, which is a power boost yes but definitely a downgrade as it doesn't leave him as sane or cognitive, given that at the end of Twilight Princess Ganon returns to human form to fight Link rather than remain in that form. It's telling that he much prefers being human to being a feral boar.

Then we have OG Zelda's Ganon, the general downfall timeline Ganon that is, from A Link to The Past to Oracle of Seasons/Ages to A Link Between Worlds to the very first Legend of Zelda and Link's Adventure, it's clear that Ganon has fully descended into a feral state and that whatever bit of humanity there and cognition as a result was, he very rarely talks in LTTP, in a LBTW he's at his most coherent when Yuga fuses with him, by the OG Zelda he doesn't speak at all and twice in that time frame he had to be revived rather than come back on his own like his more human like iterations can if they wait and chill for a couple hundred years. He's basically no more than a feral animal, he isn't interested in ruling Hyrule, he's very darn interested in destroying the hero and making Hylia herself suffer and definitely doesn't care about burning Hyrule to the ground and killing anyone in his path if that does the trick, whatever sanity there was is too far gone.

Stick with me here, I'll get to the point.

It's an interesting descent and detail to pivot and follow after. It's obviously a result of Demise's corrupting divine fury and curse, you know what's technically a similar case? Zelda.

I think we can all agree that Zelda isn't Hylia, she's Hylia brought to earth or at the very least her vessel if we go by Breath of the Wild, because Zelda praying for herself wouldn't make any logical sense otherwise even if by order of her father, with no memories or rememberance of what she was, just that she is the holder of Hylia's divine power and her will and responsibility to protect the people and specially the Triforce/Light Force the Original Three left behind. No Cost Too Great you could say in the words of the Pale King from Hollow Knight, the only time she remembers in full is in Skyward Sword, it's confirmed that Zelda gets Hylia's knowledge and maybe even her memories after praying in the springs and it doesn't matter if she's just a vessel to her power or a reincarnation or if this is a Cú Chulainn situation where she is Hylia yet isn't (Schrodinger's Deity?), and her behavior shifts a bit then, not by much but it's definitely noticeable if you look at the text.

What if it's a similar case for Ganon? Zelda is what you get when you don't have the memories, when you take something barely comprehensible with a though process you can't even begin to understand with an intense capability for emotion that's practically suffocating and compress it into a mortal form to start again as a blank slate and it mostly remains that way. Ganon is what you get when the memories slowly seep back in as well as the intense, overwhelming, all consuming divine rage and fury and wish for vengeance seeps into a mortal vessel that very obviously can't fully hold it, couple that with Demise's curse and you have a cocktail for disaster, Ganon was doomed from the start just by being Demise's vessel, man never stood a chance. Though there's no way to say wether he fought against the influence or not, that's something we are unlikely to ever know since we only play and read from Link's and Zelda's perspective.

The Calamity and Malice is the result of when that divine fury breaks out, when there's a break in the already spilling over and cracked goblet. But it couldn't have broken on it's own you know? We see that cursed enemies were always a thing in Zelda games and as far back in the timeline as Skyward Sword it already existed, remember that corrupting and harmful 'water' at the Ancient Cistern's basement? The cursed enemies and dark crystals there? Possibly a leftover of Demise's power after the original break through the surface as seen in the First Hero's manga, a prototype of Malice, hence why Ghirahim was sniffing around there for a way to bring him back, it's the only other place in the franchise after BOTW we see a prominent number of cursed enemies, and the Malice is clearly a thing that can learn and evolve, it can possess enemies and technology, it can revive the dead and control it and possess people too and create beings from it (remember the Phantom Ganon in OOT and PH guys), but it's not a discernible pattern, we didn't know much about it at all until recently and that right there? Is some terrifying lovecraftian/ancient mythology thing.

Because we clearly see it puppeteering scattered pieces of Sheikah Tech in the form of the Blights, possessing the Divine Beasts and the Calamity Ganon form in BOTW, Tears of the Kingdom shows us how Ganondorf's corpse is still around and clearly was revived, like a lich being corrupted from it's own energy. It's not Ganondorf doing anything anymore, it's the curse, it's Demise's Will, and as his corpse has not fully perished yet it likely is but a puppet to it.

It was not a pattern anyone could have predicted much less the hero back then, would he and his Zelda have an inkling about the pattern of Ganondorf always reincarnating and maybe have tried to do something about it early? Absolutely, heck maybe Ganondorf was even sane enough to fight back and try to go off script. Would they have predicted that some kind of freaky kill switch would actívate to keep his reanimated corpse going only powered by the original curse Demise set up, which is basically fueled by pure divine will for vengeance on the one with the spirit of the hero who bested him not once but twice and the goddess that twarthed him at every turn from throwing that little green glad bastard at him with a sacred sword to seal him to basically sabotaging the Triforce so divine beings cannot use it and fury so strong it transcends time and space if we count games like Cadance of Hyrule and Hyrule Warriors (which we are doing here by the way) being a thing and presumably happening in different worlds? Absolutely not.

Honestly I see people compare BOTW and AOC Link to the guy back then and how they should have done better in game and that BOTW Link failed not living up to the standard he set up and how he stopped talking under the pressure and I'm just, y'all ever pause and think he wasn't anymore prepared than you people? Maybe I'm remembering it wrong due to sleep deprivation, I haven't slept well in months and woke up in a cold sweat at 3am to start writing this down but just- He didn't have Shrines to prepare him, he didn't have the Divine Beasts back then to weaken the Calamity before they were built by the Sheikah with presumably Zonai aid (and oh boy to I have thoughts and headcanons on that) and that would have taken time, it was basically just him, Zelda, the other races and Fi as the Master Sword (or heck even without her, we all know it always takes any Link time to get the Master Sword in the games, he likely didn't pull her out straight away like how presumably BOTW and AOC Link did) holding the fort against Malice enhanced monsters and likely revived undead because we know even while sane the previous Ganon's were definitely not above doing that.

So it was most likely a Phyrric Victory, the few times we hear about things that happened to previous heroes, is that we either don't know what happened to them at the end of the story (which is extremely concerning if you ask me because something should have been recorded right? They should have at least recorded how Zelda got her powers to give other Zelda's a better point of reference that just stay in a spring and pray to yourself apparently) Or that they just straight up died (The Hero's Shade being OOT Link, The First Hero being left behind rather than being able to ascend with the other humans to Skyloft, OG Zelda's previous Link most likely being killed in an attempt by Ganon's cult to revive him or to seal him away again), and we don't hear what happened to him or Zelda or the original Champions. History is written by the victors after all, Hylian history has a tendency of erasing details, take from that what you will.

TL;Dr My headcanon is that him and his Zelda were unwittingly cataclysms to the Calamity being unleashed in the first place, and that's why we don't hear much about what happened to them and, since 10000 years have passed there was likely a lot of time for erasure and cover up to happen by the crown. And that the man himself would be very proud of his descendants for being able to deal with at least part of the problem he unintentionally caused and surviving even with worse odds in spite of being better prepared unlike him who most likely died even if BOTW Link and AOC Link should get at least one sucker punch in if they're told that wasn't even the original goods they thought they dealt with as a treat if we go the LU route, in this essay I will-

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wildcardjoey · 1 year

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so, I've had this theory (or theories, rather, that play off each other) for a while and have been working out the kinks and decided to finally put all my thoughts out in writing.

First off, the hero of ten thousand years ago, the sheikah, and the royal family. No one seems to notice that they had the idea for the divine beasts and gaurdians and prepared them in advance. They were expecting Ganon to manifest as he did, when he did. They were prepared for an event that had happened before.

But how could this have happened before? We've seen what happens to an unprepared hyrule. Without the gaurdians, you're still left with a monster of astronomical power that is no longer in this scenario being restrained. If ten thousand years ago they were preparing for a repeat of an even that occurred 20,000 years ago (a ludicrous number, but we'll get to that later,) then it must have been stopped in the past, so how was it stopped then?

Positioned in three out of four corners of the map are complete skeletons of long dead beast. Each resembles the skeleton of a known benevolent servant of Hylia seen in other games. Around Lanayru tower, we see the usual uptick in scattered leviathan bones normally reserved for regions where you would find a completed skeleton.

Taking the uptick in bones around Lanayru as an implied fourth skeleton, we get four leviathans located in simmilar areas to where the divine beasts would later be positioned to strike Ganon, and many more scattered leviathans located closer to Ganon but still near the completed Skeletons.

I believe the levianthans paid the ultamate price in wounding the Calamity, the weaker ones buying time and being ripped to shreds as the greatest of them prepared a four pronged strike on the Calamity, ones that left them exhausted and costing them their lives. These events would inspire the creation of the divine beasts and gaurdians.

Why don't those three brothers know this story? Either it may have been forgotten durring the calamity, or they do know it and simply don't take it at face value. They're scientists who recognise that that story may simply be a way people in the past explained the bones that very clearly dot the landscape of hyrule, and most would not assume they simply died of natural events because similar creatures also feature as powerful beasts that aided or were aided by heroes in their religion.

The second is related to that number... 20,000 years ago. That's two entire irl recorded human histories worth of time and neither would have been when Ganondorf was sealed by the green-arm-energy-producing gold band, as the arising of the Calamity is a symptom of the seal on Ganon allowing his malice to slip out and build up over time.

A known symptom of linguistic and mythological drift is it can leave a story taking place entire exponents of time further in the past than the events that inspire them. It's more likely for the events described having taken something more like a millenia apart.

So Ganon arrises every 1,000 years? Even with linguistic drift, that seems hard to not have as a known peice of history.

I don't think so. Another known tendency of myths is events being added. The events as described in ballads and legends of the hero of ten thousand years ago always sound almost too thorough when describing how the plan is to work. It's almost like myths that are intended to describe agricultural processes, or the weather associated with when a certain constellation is in a specific part of the night sky.

The story was made up to record the plan the Sheikah had come up with to ensure future generations knew how to use them.

now without the story of the divine beasts' and gaurdians' intended purpose and the plan to seal the Calamity, you're left with "10,000 years ago the Sheikah built these machines to aid in the defeat of Ganon, but were forced to bury them when they sparked unrest due to uneasyness and distrust among the peoples of Hyrule."

With the addition of the Leviathan theory, we get "20,000 years ago, the leviathans sacrificed themselves to weaken the Calamity significantly, and 10,000 years ago the Sheikah built these machines to aid in the defeat of Ganon, but were forced to bury them when they sparked unrest due to uneasyness and distrust among the peoples of Hyrule."

Finally, with the assumption that linguistic or mythological drift, if not storytellers simply exaggerating the age, caused the much larger timescale, we have the Sheikah, following the defeat of the Calmity with the sacrifice of the Leviathans, realizing that the next time the Calamity arises will be dissasterous for Hyrule if they don't have something of equal power to the leviathans by then. They begin attempts to create this answer artificially and manage to create the divine beasts and gaurdians, as well as towers, shrines, the Sheikah Slate, and weaponry. All of this technology, however, is designed for war and appears unsettling and unnatural to most, and unrest begins to stur among the populace. The Sheikah are ordered to abandon their technology, burying it beneath the earth (something that they are specified to have done in the story and simply would not have been recorded in a myth normally) but creating a myth of a hero and the technology to ensure it is known how it is to be used when the need for it to be used arises.

But then how did Ganon know about the gaurdians to be able to control them? The Yiga snitched about the same time they defected.

#botw #loz #hwaoc #botw ancient hero #botw 10k hero

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lunaviathan · 2 years

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Okay i said i was gonna continue talking about the Sheikah Automaton au in this post so here goes-

Real quick thing for reference tho; ten thousand years is a Long Time, it’s around how far back our own records of human civilization as a whole goes, and 10k years in the past being when the botw era was at it’s technological peak means loz is Super Fucking Old But Lunav! You’re saying, we already know the loz universe is ancient! Why are you reminding us? Well because this whole paragraph is just me outlining my excuse for doing whatever i want with the aesthetics and details of the 10k setting.

So with that preamble out of the way, here’s my actual thoughts on this au:

First thing’s first, to play into the ancient civilization look i’m gonna include ancient greek aesthetics, clothing, architecture, words when i trust i have the right definition and so on (which will make for some interesting looks when combining ancient greek stuff with stereotypical medieval things)

And because i’m very proud of these, here’s the names for the 10k royal family: Queen Zelda Hythena* Hyrule, King/Prince-consort* Bosphemus Hyrule and Princess Zelda Agape* Hyrule *Hythena to sound like Athena, greek goddess of wisdom. *I can’t decide between king or prince-consort so i put both. *Agape is the greek word for love of everyone, the exact virtue you’d want your future queen daughter to have.

And now onto the actual subject of this au: Link is a guard for thirteen year old Zelda commissioned by the royal family, originally they were just going to give her a normal hylian guard but Zelda insisted.

-and the king and queen also saw an opportunity to test the limits of the Sheikah’s skill, but not in a ‘see if they’re worthy’ way, more like a ‘keep an eye on this concerningly powerful group’ way.

Side note; Link is purposely designed to be very short as to not intimidate thirteen year old four foot something Zelda, but this ends up just being comical cus she inherits Hythena’s Tall GenesTM when she hits her growth spurt

When Zelda first ‘got’ Link she was so consistently unnerved by his blank mannequin look that she started dressing him up in her most over-sized clothes, eventually the servants took pity and just started putting him in clothes that actually fit, Zelda was ecstatic and even managed to weasel her way into getting him a wig and hat to complete the look

Before this Link didn’t really have a name, sometimes people called him ‘the little guard’ or ‘the little one’s guard’ or something like that, but the name Link caught on and stuck once he had the getup

I just realized i haven’t mentioned how Link works mentally At All so i’ll fix that

At first he is just a machine, about on par with the Guardians but with more personalized functions (Ex. Follow Zelda’s commands unless they include X, follow the king and queen’s commands no matter what, bow to these people, and so on) but his programming also included problem solving and self teaching functions so they wouldn’t have to send him back every time he bumped into a a situation he didn’t have a protocol for.

-And so this mixed with Zelda’s habit of thinking aloud to make for Link developing increasingly complex conversational skills as to follow what she was saying and make sure she wasn’t planning anything dangerous and if so how to redirect her without upsetting her too much

(Small side note: Ancient Sheikah tech pretty much had it’s own version of binary like from star wars, Link can only speak in this but understands hylian fluently)

And of course more conversation skills = understanding the concepts being talked about, which dominoed directly into sentience after awhile

okay it feels abrupt to end here and i do have more things to talk about, but they’d be spoilers and i want to see if this goes anywhere before i show my hand

#loz au #botw #botw2 #botw au #Zelda #Link #sheikah tech #botw 10k hero #botw ancient hero #botw 10k princess #Lunav rambles #sheikah automaton au #that's all i can think to tag #i feel like there should be more #tapestry hero #botw tapestry hero #i knew i was forgetting something

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emily-e-draws · 9 months

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obsessed with the ancient hero lately. he’s just a little guy

#totk spoilers #loz #totk #botw #ancient hero's aspect

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theribbajack · 8 months

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"Both of you, faithless fools who would dare to take up arms against the king of earth and sky!"

The words "Zonai Ganondorf" entered my head and I haven't been sane since. Perhaps in the Zonai version of the legend, the warlord "Gannon" sought after the secret stones, and the incarnation of Hylia draconified herself to stop him alongside the Ancient Hero.

#my art #totk #ganondorf #ganon #zonai #totk spoilers #tears of the kingdom #demon king ganondorf #calamity ganon #botw #breath of the wild #tloz #legend of zelda #at this point zelda lore is like elder scrolls lore #ten contradictory versions of a myth and they're all true at the same time #i want to draw the ancient hero but actually zonai instead of a catboy or whatever that was we got #i really wanted to give him the boar snout here since the demon dragon has it #but it just didn't work and always looked silly #his neck pendant did not intentionally look like a bokoblin but it totally does whoops

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writingnocturne · 10 months

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From This Life to the Next

Ancient words tell me we were destined to meet.

For eternity, our souls are bound; yet this life feels as though it is the only world.

I know not what fate I have set for myself, but the sacrifice must be made.

It is my mission for your tears to fade.

Recalling something you once said to me, I promise we shall meet again.

In another life, our hands shall touch.

If battle awaits, even still, I will accept it.

Just as you protect them all, I will fight for you.

This is one of my contributions to @zelinkcommunity's Zelink Week 2023! Day Six: In Another Life

I did something a bit different for today! I figured every memory that for the prompt was a little too spoiler-y, so I did whatever this is instead. Remember to check out all the other great work posted for today!

{ For this week, I have been posting a little peek at art/writing for memories in Call of the Forgotten, a TotK rewrite I am working on (there will obviously be direct and indirect spoilers for TotK). They follow the Ancient Hero and Princess during the time of the First Great Calamity. If you haven't given them a look yet, I recommend doing so! }

Art Information: (Check out my art blog @nocturnalfandomartist!)

Thank you for reading! Check out the first concept doodles of the First Calamity here! Obviously, this is all very incomplete; but most is planned out thoroughly! If you have questions, just ask!

Program: Ibis Paint X

Time Elapsed: 3 hours, 33 minutes

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misiumoon · 1 month

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heheheh

#link #link totk #totk #totk spoilers #legend of Zelda #link legend of Zelda #ancient hero #botw #breath of the wild #tears of the kingdom #art #fanart #my art

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nintendo-b1tch · 4 months

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Haha, I’m suffering because of this detailed motherfucker 🫠

My version of the ancient hero from totk

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kamabokobun · 5 months

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:3c

#wip #guy who has only played botw/totk makes loz au this can only go well #loz zelda #ancient hero's aspect #<- well. kind of. lol

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skyloftian-nutcase · 5 months

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Y'ALL I had the most wretched train of thought

(spoilers for totk; also I haven’t fought Ganondorf yet so no spoilers in the notes pls!)

The Zonai existed during Skyward Sword, even predating the game. The people of Skyloft and the Zonai have had a few run-ins, some peaceful and others not. At one point, prior to improving their technology, the Zonai tried to steal loftwings to better travel to different sky islands. Least to say, Skyloftians did not like that. They have an uneasy peace and keep their distance far from each other by the time of Skyward Sword, but Link and Zelda are familiar with their existence.

When the cloud barrier disappears, it allows the Zonai to go back to the Surface as much as it does the Skyloftians. It takes them a few years to manage it and establish a settlement, and they eventually run back into the Skyloftians on the Surface. Link and Zelda are married with kids by now, and Zelda is the leader of the Hylian settlement. The Zonai discover that Link is responsible for the cloud barrier's disappearance (Zelda is proud of Link for defeating Demise so she'll let him take all the credit; also, she doesn't need nor want to tell a ton of people she's a goddess reincarnate, especially to a tribe her people have historically not had the best relationship with).

In thanks, the Zonai give Link a gift: a Secret Stone.

The Zonai tell Link that this special magical stone is one of several that are gifts from the goddesses. The Zonai do not know all their properties, only that they enhance whatever abilities the user has. Link figures this will enhance his fighting prowess, and though he is appreciative of the gift, he doesn't think it'll make much of a difference to him.

And then the nightmares come.

Link starts getting nightmares of varying scenarios. A knight fighting a giant monster, facing down an army of mechanical beasts. A child struck down by a demon king. A man with a fairy fighting a demonic beast. Link sees his children, he sees what Hyrule grows to, he sees Demise come again and again, and he sees the Heroes who have to fight him.

Demise's dying words weren't a hateful monologue spat out in spite. They were a promise, a curse.

With this knowledge, Link goes to Zelda, and the two try everything they can to figure out how to stop this. The visions drive Link to near insanity, preventing him from gettin more than one to two hours of sleep for weeks. Zelda goes to the Zonai to ask more about the Secret Stones (she wants to give it back, honestly, but is afraid that it would be viewed as a rejection of the gift, and given the history of conflict between their tribes, she doesn't want to go that route). The Zonai know very little of the stones, though, and Zelda doesn't get much. Link, on the other hand, learns about them from the dragon servants of Hylia. He is told that the stone, when combined with its user, can make the wielder immortal.

Link doesn't care about immortality. But he does care about stopping the demon king, in every era, in every place, in every time. He does care about protecting his descendants, his people, the whole world.

The dragons warn him that he will never be the same, that he may never actually be able to interact with his family again.

After months of haunting visions of destruction and death and pain, he finds himself willing to make that sacrifice. If it means he can protect Zelda and his children, he'll do it.

So one night, he flies on his loftwing to an island in the sky. He hugs his loftwing and kisses him goodbye. He begs his companion to look after his family. Zelda's loftwing arrives, alone. The two birds fly in circles around Link, stirring up a wind as he stares at the Secret Stone held delicately between his index finger and thumb, held just above eye level before he squeezes it in his palm.

And he swallows it.

On the Surface, Zelda drops the glass she's holding. In the sky, a dragon screams.

The Zonai learn what happens when one consumes a Secret Stone.

And the Spirit Dragon is born.

#this is what happens when I listen to dramatic music #while thinking about Breath of the Sky #and therefore thinking about Skyward Sword Link #and him intermingling with botw/totk lore and stuff #tears of the kingdom spoilers #totk spoilers #I suppose after several generations is when Sonia and Rauru get together #Zelda learns about draconification because of her ancient ancestor #Whenever the Hero is born the Spirit Dragon appears and sheds a single tear #skyward sword #skyward sword link #ss link #legend of zelda

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