#like.... how does everyone respond now that calamity ganons been sealed away

[leafmutual]

breath of the wild 2: electric boogaloo where we get to play as link AND zelda as they go around fixing hyrule and tying up the loose ends that didn’t really get tied during the first game. nintendo hire me

[c-aureus]

How I think Hyrule would respond to Zelda's return, after the end of BotW.

Wall of text incoming.

TL;DR: I think they'd be very cruel.

Please remember that these are all only my interpretations and opinions, and should be treated as such.

A while ago, I made a post saying that I do not believe that Zelda or Link should be in any way 'happy' after the end of BotW. Imo, they've both lost too much for that, and I worry that the sequel will not give this grief or loss the focus it deserves.

Now, I plan to expand on that, by explaining my interpretation for how i believe Hyrule would respond to her after her return, which would only further compound their misery.

Now, I'd like to preface this by saying that I actually like BotW Zelda as a character a lot, and that I'm very sympathetic to her.

However... well.

The consequences of her failure are simply too big to ignore imo.

Firstly, as a general overview: Zelda was the ONLY person capable of stopping Ganon. Without her Divine sealing power, there was simply no way for Hyrule to survive Ganon's assault, no matter the preparations, or skill of the warriors. The best example of this is the Champions and Divine Beasts. They were all the best of the absolute best, and yet none of them were able to survive Ganon's assault, simply because they were not Divinely favoured to succeed, the way that Link and Zelda were. Even despite their incredible skill, prowess and dedication. There are other examples too, notably the fall of Hyrule's military outposts, and the annihilation of central Hyrule's civilisation and infrastructure.

To put it simply, with Zelda's power, they won. Without it, all of the preparations were for naught, and everyone would die. Zelda herself even says as much in a cutscene in AoC.

(Also, as a side note, in all of those levels in AoC where you relieve the Akkala Fortress, Great Plateau, and Hateno fort, remember that in BotW, they all fell, and the soldiers would have been slaughtered.)

So, in light of that...

The fact that Zelda only unlocked her power after it was already too late means that I don't believe that the shattered remnants of Hyrule's civilisation would be kind or sympathetic to her.

Link and Zelda were literally born by divine influence to protect Hyrule from Ganon. And, well...

Again, my point comes down to the fact that Zelda only unlocked her power after it was too late for the Champions, Link, and thousands of other Hyruleans who had either already been killed, or who would later die in the aftermath.

Now, again, I'm HIGHLY sympathetic to Zelda here. Indeed, she had lived her entire life with this Sword of Damocles hanging over her.

However. The sword fell.

And, crucially, Zelda avoided it, whilst it went on to kill literally thousands of others. They all died for Zelda's failure, whilst she herself survived.

Furthermore, those 'lucky' ones who did survive had to live in BotW Hyrule, which, if I'm being honest, is an absolute wasteland. So, so much was lost in the Calamity, the land was overrun by monsters, and even the tiny remaining pockets of civilisation suffer. I could go on for hours about how infrastructure, agriculture and trade were all annihilated, but I'll try to refrain for brevity's sake.

The long and short of it is that Hyrule is fucked.

I think my worry about this comes from BotW's post credit scene where Zelda tells Link that she thinks that if everyone works together, they can rebuild, and make Hyrule better than it was before.

And, this line really annoyed me. Because, quite simply, Hyrule has simply lost too much to rebuild. Infrastructure, agriculture, trade, population... Hyrule would be reeling for generations after Link and Zelda's death. To expect any kind of quick recovery is just... foolish beyond words.

(Another side note: I'm extremely grateful to AoC showing just how developed Hyrule is pre-Calamity. It helps give scale and scope to the devastation in BotW even more.)

So, Zelda's naive optimism here annoyed me. However, far more than that, there is another issue that this overlooks:

Namely, I cannot fathom why anyone in Hyrule would want to follow her, or would accept her as their sovereign.

Now, this is going to get extremely cruel to Zelda, and that saddens me, because I like her. This is just what I think the realistic response would be to her, given the circumstances, because people are cruel and like easy targets of blame. There are many examples of this kind of blaming behaviour in history, if anyone wants to look, lol. So apologies in advance:

BotW tells us through the memories that Zelda's reputation is AWFUL Pre-Calamity. Rhoam says that the people call her 'Heir to a Kingdom of Nothing' etc.

Now, perhaps poor parenting aside, this gives more context. Do you really believe that the 'lucky' few survivors of Central Hyrule would be kind, given that Zelda fulfilled their terrible expectations in the WORST possible manner?

No. I believe that that generation, which already disliked her, would spend the rest of their lives cursing her failure, and the death and destruction that came as a consequence. And, they would pass that down to their children and grandchildren.

This comes to another point: Zelda is (for the most part) out of living memory. The only thing Hyrule knows of her is her failure to prevent the land from being devastated. Furthermore, the 4 tribes of Hyrule might even have a decent cause to blame her for the deaths of the Champions.

(Cause and effect are tricky, but well... people are irrational. Maybe if Zelda had unlocked her power straight away, the Champions still would have died. However, perhaps they could have held on long enough for Link and Zelda to force Ganon to recall his Blights to protect himself, as he does in BotW if you attack him without liberating the Divine Beasts. Who is to say? The point is, people get hung up on these kind of 'what ifs', as I am doing right now, lol.)

I'd like to make a special mention of the Zora here, who not only have Zelda (and all of her failures and inadequacies) in living memory, but are also xenophobic towards Hylians.

We see how they blame Link in BotW, after all. I think that they would feel similarly to Zelda, who is 'technically' more deserving of blame.

From a Zora-centric perspective, Zelda may as well have stolen Mipha from them, to make her take the fall for Zelda's failures. She literally set Mipha up to die, she sacrificed Mipha on the altar of her own survival, etc.

To elaborate: Princess Zelda personally requested Mipha, the beloved Crown Princess of the Zora, to become Champion. Despite Dorephan's hesitance, he allows it. Then, Zelda fails her, and Mipha dies in the Calamity that Zelda failed to prevent, but also that Zelda manages to survive.

Like... as harsh, cruel, and unfair as this is to poor Zelda... do you think that the Domain, which is STILL mourning Mipha a century later, would just... wave that away?

Now... how much Zelda is truly to blame for the Calamity is another matter, one that I will explore in a post hopefully shorter than this one. Suffice to say, I have many opinions, and some of the conclusions are perhaps unkind to her, which only further justifies my interpretations of Hyrule's blame, and Zelda's guilt and grief.

The point is that... Hyrule would see an easy target to dump their grief on. And I I don't believe they would just let it go.

Furthermore, Zelda has no political influence anymore. She can't force anyone to listen to her, or obey her commands, since all of that was destroyed in the Calamity. Moreover, with Zelda's reputation being that of colossal failure, I doubt that anyone in Hyrule would wish to submit to her, to give her the chance to fuck everything up again.

God. I feel really horrible typing all of this out, lol. And yet, I genuinely believe that this would be the reaction to her. So, if in the sequel, everything is being rebuilt and everyone is totally happy with Zelda, well...

I'm gonna be very upset. Because, in my opinion, if all of Hyrule just forgave Zelda's failures, and ignored their disastrous consequences, that would be extremely unrealistic.

As much as this headcanon hurts, and would hurt me to see, I'd be very vindicated by it, lol.

If anyone has any opinions, feel free to let me know.

Just please keep everything civil lol. This is only a random person on the internet's opinion.

[skyumoon]

Malice Palace

Whump made at 4 a.m.

-0-0-0

They landed in wild's hyrule again, this time. Right next to the colosseum ruins, It wasn't long before they noticed the white Lynel roaring and charging straight for them.

"MOVE" Screamed legend

Everyone barreled to the side, everyone except for wild. The links watched in horror as wild played on the ground waiting for the lynel to rampage.

"WILD" Screamed hyrule

The lynel swung low, barely missing wild, he looked down and sound downward. Wild took out his royal guards sword, now adjusted by zelda to be exactly like the master sword, just not able to seal away the darkness. He swung up and sliced the lynels neck. Blood dripped as the lynel roared, wild rolled away and mounted the lynel as he switched to a savage lynel sword and struck down on the head, and jumped off to pull out a savage lynel bow with five fire arrows locked on. Releasing it, we continued this cycle until the lynel had vanished into purple and black smoke. Leaving with only a scratch, he collected the minerals, jewels, and weapons.

"Why did you do That?!" Screeched twilight as he shook wild

"They were controlled by calamity ganon, but now that he's gone. They're free to leave, but they resign their place until a traveler appears. And they won't stop until they kill them."

"THAT WAS SO COOL!"  Wind called

Four and wind stares in awe, they quickly ran toward wild to check out his fresh weapons. But they didn't notice the goop called malice itching in front. Wild snaps his head for the two in joy but that joy quickly turned to horror

"WATCH OUT!" Wild Yelled

To late, wind and four fell in. The malice stung their skin being burned as their insides were being torn. Suffocating as they closed their eyes

The links were about to rush in but wild stopped them

He reaches his hand into the malice and feels around, until he finally feels a solid thing, he grabs it with both arms so deep in that his face is close to the malice, yanks him up.

"GET HIM TO THE LAKE"

They grab wind and start rushing him to the lake, wild feels around, feeling nothing he does the stupidest thing ever. He goes in deeper, so deep that his entire upper body is in the malice. He feels four and starts to drag himself out with four clutched close.

Ever wonder how the links survive the craziest stuff? With hylia's blessing they are immune to being turned into something by curse. Like how time was able to make to the kokiri village without turning into a Deku scrub or skull kid. And how Wild was able to walk on malice with sinking and being taken over. But the other links aren't immune to something out of their hyrule, if any other link except for time got stuck in the lost woods they would become a stalfos or Deku scrub. 

Wild breathes out heavily, malice was suffocating, like concrete. He walks to the lake and jumps in, feeling the malice evaporate. He walked out to see wind and four still unconscious but no malice on them.

"Wild, what In the name of hylia was that?!" Legend practically yelled at him

Sky sent a quick glare to legend

"Malice, it can corrupt anything-"

"EVEN US?" Hyrule screeched

"Well yes-"

"Then why were able to stick in it with our a problem?" Warriors questioned

"It doesn't affect me, I guess while I was in the shrine of resurrection I was soaked in some anti malice liquid"

"Okay, but how do we save them?"

"POTIONS!" 

"That won't do anything, my horse once got corrupted in malice and I gave it some potions, it didn't do anything but buy time"

"Can you help the-" twilight was cut off

"Well yes but no, I can save one"

"Why only 1?"

"My secret, we're running out of time"

"Give both of them a potion."

The rest panicked as they rummaged through their bags for potions.  Wild on the other hand was chanting a few words. And on the spot a god Barrier was surrounding him and the 2 unconscious links

Forgive me, but i kind need help

Little guy, you don't need to do the ol' traveler chant

Well yes, daruk is right. But by now mipha would have said hi

Indeed she has been

Sorry, it just. The scent of malice is overwhelming

That would be my two problems. Who do I save?.

BANG BANG

Little guy, the big man keeps hitting my barrier

Uh- quickly who do I save

The younger one, he still has a life to live. If they're the same age then it is up to you.

I agree with urbosa for once, youths have much to see. 

I guess I'll-

BANG BANG

Alright wind, don't die on me right now

Wild held a hand over wind chest a faint blue glowed with certainty that he would be healed. The light was so blinding not even wild couldn't keep his eyes open. The barrier broke as time smashed it open wild was thrown back as it was now his will that was connected daruk's protection. so it technically isn't daruk's protection.

"What happened?" Wind asked

"You and four were corrupted" responded twilight

"GET AWAY FROM FOUR" screamed wild from the middle of lake

"The other links were confused, until a smoke of black and magenta shrouded everything insight. Wild watched in horror as he knew the outcome. He can only save one person, but that link could easily be corrupted again. And doing it too many times could kill him.

"GUYS!"

-0-0-

The links coughed and inhaled the smoke only to cough it out, the cycle continued as more malice started to form in their bodies. Until they passed out, wild swan back to the shore to check up on them.

GODDESSES DAMMIT NO

Foreign let out a demonic laugh as he ran away to joyfully murder. But four got ahold of his body and headed to the nearest sheikah village that could help him. Being kakariko, he glided to kakariko.

See, malice doesn't just corrupt you into an evil being. It enhances your bare strength but numbs your intelligence. Ever wonder why bokoblins aren't as smart as lynels? Not only are they created different but bokoblins are actually capable of dodging. But oh boy malice