#imprisoning war

[navisakura]

*Tears of the Kingdom Spoilers*

Playing through the Wind Temple quest has given me even more love and respect for Revali in retrospect because now it’s confirmed that he was literally just a guy™️.

All of the other champions were direct descendants of the sages who fought in the Imprisoning War, except him. He had no special powers or magic passed down through his bloodline, he was just some guy who was good with a bow. He had to develop and perfect his own technique to help him in battle on his own, no other Rito had ever done it before.

Which makes the fact that he, without any noble blood or fancy magic, was able to fight alongside the descendants of the sages AND the Hero of Destiny AND the divine princess/descendant of Rauru and Sonia even more impressive. His outward confidence and ego makes sense when you consider that he was constantly trying to prove himself to everyone, that he was a strong warrior despite not being born with power.

It’s also really sad that in the end, Revali’s bloodline ended with him whereas the other champions at least got to die knowing that their family and loved ones would live on. The only things that serve as a reminder of his existence are the Great Eagle Bow and Revali’s Landing. Almost everyone in Zora’s domain remembers Mipha and honors her memory with an entire courtyard for her statue, Daruk has his face carved in a literal mountain, but Revali is rarely mentioned in TotK. (Urbosa doesn’t really have anything but shhh this aint about her) No one that knew him is still alive, except maybe the former chief owl guy?

That also begs the question of wtf was the Rito sage doing at the time of the Calamity, but honestly they probably were just some random person with no combat experience, given that they didn’t know they were a sage :P

tldr; Revali is the best champion no I don’t take criticism

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Sigh. I was told to share this, so uh. Here you go. 😅

I got Procreate! Have a Hero of Power for your troubles :3

[cutebutalsostabby]

iirc you said in another post that the time between ALTTP and OOT was either 80 or 400 years. i haven’t played ALTTP yet but love timelines - are those numbers in the game somewhere?

I think I came up with those specific figures myself, BUT I do have some in-game and official text basis for them! The reason for the 80 year vs 400 years (or even longer) options is that there is actually some pretty big inconsistency between a) various parts of the game itself, b) the official game booklet, and c) Nintendo's big ole retcon of the Imprisoning War. Or possibly retCONS if we count TotK.

(Idk if you wanted an info dump, but you're getting one lol. THANKS FOR THE ASK!! 💜)

SO. The intro cutscene.

We start by hearing of legends from long ago, about a Golden Power that resides in a hidden land. Many people tried to find it; none ever returned. One day, evil power began to flow forth (we later learn this was due to Ganondorf finding the Triforce), so the King told the sages (originally translated as "Wise Men") to seal the Golden Land away for good. The narrator then describes those events as occurring so long ago that they became legend. Sounds like a while, right?

But then within about an hour or two of gameplay, you meet Sahrasrahla. Sahasrala? Saharasala? YOU MEET MR SALSA. And he ends up telling you a story about the knights that fought to protect the sages and who were almost all killed at the time, leaving YOU, the protagonist, as the last known member of that bloodline. According to Mr Salsa, those events took place only three or four generations ago.

That's not long at all! I mean, the exact numbers may vary depending on whether it's 3-4 generations from Salsa-san's point of view or Link's, as well as whether we give that person a human lifespan or an elf one (ALTTP has some Western fantasy elements, but the later games suggest that Hylians are basically just humans with pointy ears), but that would be where my ~80 years figure came from.

One of the later bits of dialogue then mentions Ganondorf rediscovering the Golden Land after the knowledge of it was lost - which may explain the discrepancy between the intro cutscene and Sahasralah(?)'s own dialogue. (I'm taking screenshots from Youtube FYI - see cutscene compilation here.)

All good so far?

WELP. THEN WE HAVE THE GAME BOOKLET.

By "game booklet" I mean the little brochure thing that used to come with physical games up until someone decided they weren't necessary. Boo and bah humbug. But I digress.

The original booklet for ALTTP, which you can find online, says that the Imprisoning War took place centuries ago. It also adds a bunch of other new lore details, including Ganondorf's last name, Dragmire - which never actually appears in-game. Both of those things are however missing from the truncated lore dump you get in the Gameboy Advance release's booklet:

And then there's Nintendo's Fallen Hero retcon. Lol.

See, the original "Imprisoning War" from ALTTP went something like this:

Ganondorf found an entrance to the Sacred Realm (formerly "Golden Land") and went in. Much like the others before him, he was then stuck there forever. UNLIKE the others before him however, he then randomly stumbled across the Triforce, which offered him the power to make a wish.

He made some unspecified wish along the lines of "I want to take over the world". As a result, the Sacred Realm became the Dark World and started to leak evil magic and demons into the Light World (aka "Overworld").

The knights fought against the demons, allowing the sages to seal the entrances ro the Sacred Realm. Note it's unclear if they even knew about Ganondorf's existence at this point.

Sometime later, Ganondorf manages to partially break free, and sends his alter ego Agahnim out to break the seal on the Sacred Realm and merge the two worlds into one.

And then we have Nintendo's retcon, which introduces the whole idea of the Fallen Hero - as a means of clumsily tying ALTTP to Ocarina of Time. So instead of the above:

Ganondorf publicly swears allegiance to the King of Hyrule, only to later backstab him and take over the castle. He then follows Link into the Temple of Time and grabs hold of the Triforce while the latter goes to take a nice long nap. He only manages to claim part of the Triforce (Power), so his wish remains incomplete. The other parts go to Link (Courage) and Zelda (Wisdom).

Seven years later, Link challenges Ganondorf to an epic showdown and loses. Ganondorf claims the remaining parts of the Triforce and uses them to transform into the Demon King. The seven sages, Zelda included, then seal both Ganon and the Triforce away in the Sacred Realm.

The names of the seven sages (per OoT) eventually become the names of the towns in Zelda II. Any remaining discrepancies are handwaved away as unreliable narrators.

Interestingly, TotK's Imprisoning War is much closer to ALTTP's version than Hyrule Historia's - which makes me wonder if that whole retcon is doomed to be retconned once again. Of course, the Triforce isn't present at all within TotK, but it's also a pretty compelling reason for why seven sages with secret stones couldn't win against the one guy with a secret stone. So there’s that.

But yeah, going back to that initial question: no, there's no specific figure provided for the time between the Imprisoning War and events of ALttP. Just depends on which piece of conflicting lore you feel like using lol.

[hotstreak2k3]

Zelda excited about the Imprisoning War in the opening.

And Zelda having experienced the Imprisoning War.

[amnesiamilk]

no one talking about how mineru lost her brother ? She didn’t just lose a battle . She was the sole survivor of an army , an army of her friends and family . Her sister in law murdered days prior . The survivors guilt must’ve been insane . Wait I forgot the sages so not sole survivor but still

[thatspacepirate]

[nervouswreck-96]

I was not prepared for Sonic Frontiers to have a more well-regarded story than fucking TEARS OF THE KINGDOM.

And Sonic Frontiers' story isn't even that good.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Always a bit puzzled by people saying that anyone who wanted long-term consequences for TotK Zelda's sacrifice are "edgy".

I'm not even particularly in the camp that she should have remained a dragon forever (I think this should have been Ganondorf's fate, it would have been sooo much more impactful than to explode him and move on but anyway). To be honest, I wish the rules for turning back would have been 1) clear 2) active gameplay on the player so that it feels like it's something we have earned, and 3) not make her have amnesia about it and/or at least having her gain some crucial insight because of the experience.

(also: doesn't she crave knowledge? isn't that insanely mean to have her watch over every civilization and every bit of history ever and then take it away from her? kind of dislike how totk privileges the comfort of the player's feelings over what the characters would actually want or need tbh)

To be perfectly honest, I fully expected us needing to turn her back before engaging Ganondorf so we would fight him together, especially since Zelda as a compagnon exists in the game code already (though in a very subdued state). It feels very very strange to me that all of this mechanic of Sages following us existing and yet we never have the very climactic cool Zelda-staple moment of facing Ganondorf or Ganon together (OoT, WW, TP, ST and probably more that I'm forgetting all did this in some way --even BotW had Zelda more involved than in TotK). I'm not sure Mineru was a compagnon that was needed over Zelda honestly, especially given the kind of non-insight she gives us on the zonai (even if the idea of the mecha is cool, it really could have been Zelda using her zonai + sheikah knowledge to pilot one for us or something).

But anyway: yeah, even if this isn't what I would have wanted personally, I think wanting Zelda to remain a dragon is kind of arguably more respectful of her relationship to Link, in a way, that what the game ended up doing. When she enacted this sacrifice, Zelda decided to trust him to such a extent that she lost herself, reciprocated his trust in her and his devotion to her, and now the future of Hyrule exists beyond her and beyond what Hyrule once was, but she trusts them to follow through and be happy and she will watch over them from the stars moving on. It's fine if we manage to save her from that fate, but even if we don't, honestly this sounds like a beautiful story/tragic romance to me, if you want to read it that way. Tragedy doesn't necesserily involve edginess. Fictional pain isn't always mean, or out to get you.

[deserthusbands]

cody, frowning: are you alright? you didn't sleep at all last night.

obi-wan: i got a solid eight minutes.

obi-wan: not consecutively, but it's fine, dear. you're not even that blurry.

cody:

cody: cyare, please..

[doyoubelieveinwhateverr]

Broke: Rauru would be mortified by Link's Korok torture devices and weapons of mass destruction and quickly comes to regret giving him unlicensed power over creation.

Woke: Rauru is just as unhinged as Link and is utterly delighted that his power went to someone with such "creativity".

[m5or]

Inspired by biggest thing you fought, what if the chain asked another what was their first experience in Hyrule castle? Going through the chain till they get to twilight. "hey ranch boy, what was the first thing you did in Hyrule?" "Woke up in prison."

[skyloftian-nutcase]

I've decided to repurpose the Imprisoning War because if Nintendo can use it for two different wars, then I can make up a war for it too dang it.

So yeah. The war that led to Ganondorf's soul being splintered and sealed away prior to Hyrule Warriors was The Imprisoning War. It's canon now, you're welcome. :)

[stoat-party]

“How dare they burn everything the Courier loves to ashes!”

*imagines my courier reacting to watching everything she loves burn to ashes*

“…that’s some good stuff. you got me this time todd.”

[kifaprokumiv]

Wips of my wife💜💚

raaru is also there I guess

[lifblogs]

We know how much Crosshair has hated regs. He has started fights about it, he betrayed them for the Empire because of it, but we haven’t seen that in awhile. What we have seen is Crosshair actually care about Mayday, so much so that he is enraged enough to shoot a commanding officer without a care for the consequences after he fought so hard to save Mayday’s life. We’ve seen him get tortured, we’ve seen his hopelessness with being imprisoned. And he’s been imprisoned with regs. I think seeing his character development come full circle will be Crosshair insisting they go back and save the rest of the clones on Tantiss.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Oh my fucking god??? I *knew* there was something fishy with no writers/quest designers being credited. Also: outsourcing is not an excuse not to credit the gamedevs doing hard and deserving work.

This is genuinely contemptful towards everyone involved, gamedevs and players alike.