Tumgik
#room of a thousand fountains
skullinacowboyhat · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
Excerpt from the Jedi Temple Records: [Object identified. Article X2544. Location: The Room of A Thousand Fountains. Bust portraying a young Mirialan Jedi. Plaque reads: Jedi Master Mai Shan, former Member of the Jedi Council and Consular of the Order. Killed in action protecting her former Padawan, Knight Nuri Antos, 17 ATC. Curator notes: Busts of lost members of the Jedi Order are typically placed in the Archives or the Grand Hall. However, upon investigation into the former Master's journals, it was discovered that she had given an express wish for her statue to be placed in the Room of A Thousand Fountains. Though only speculation, it is rumored she shared an intimate relationship with former Jedi [redacted] and that the chosen location was one of their cherished hideaways. End of statement.]
172 notes · View notes
gentlespace · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
The Jedi Orders Last Day
A collab project with a bunch of friends exploring the last few moments before Order 66 (from the perspective of oc’s or other non-main character jedi)- you can find the ao3 collection here for the rest of the works. They are beautiful and sad and so so good!!
My piece focuses on a group of friends sneaking out for a midnight trip to the room of a thousand fountains unaware of the danger just out of sight…
131 notes · View notes
Physically I am here, but in every way that matters I am in the Room of a Thousand Fountains
82 notes · View notes
adragonsfriend · 6 months
Text
Accidental Star Wars Fungi Headcanon???
Ok so i'm doing Big Edits for Yoda's chapter of This Story Can Kill You, and it's set in the room of a thousand fountains, aka the giant garden on a city planet, so I got to writing about plants.
I fucking love writing about plants--like so much, you don't even know--it's addictive, they should put a warning on it idk--
Obsessions aside, I started talking about grass and moss and clover and then I was like fungi are here too. So then I was like mycelium and symbiosis obviously. And then I just wrote a line all casual, as one does,
Their roots are tended by fungi gardeners in a relationship half as old as the Force itself.
Based on the vague idea of the Force coming from life. But then I was like i need to fact check that to be satisfied with it, because I am not an evolutionary biologist but I am a nerd.
and like according to wikipedia numbers,,, I was wrong,,,but not that wrong:
Life started on earth ~3.7 bya (billion years ago), and fungi emerged 1.2-1.5 bya o, and the first plants about 0.8-1.0 bya. The first land plants and land fungi, as well as this specific symbiotic relationship (probably) evolved out about ~0.5 bya. That's about a seventh as old as life, not a half, but it's still a significant fraction.
Anyway the head canon part of this comes from the fact that “half as old” sounds better than “one seventh as old,” and obviously none of these numbers are technically relevant to SW anyway. Fungi themselves are about half as old as life itself, so let's say water plants and water fungi had a similar relationship to their land versions on whatever planet first developed life in the SW universe. Then the relationship would be about a third as old as life going by a proportionate time line, and the title of the chapter is literally "A Poet at his Work," so Yoda can be afforded a bit of poetic license and say half. He's cool like that.
How does Yoda know about how old the fungi are? The Force told him obv. He couldn't give any answers about it that would make a biologist happy he just knows the Force things fungi are neat and likes to share facts about them. He also probably wouldn't give those answers if he could. He would say something cheating and the fungi prefering to be mysterious anyway.
Side note: Also in the process of these edits I have learned that giant sequoias (eg the real big tall trees it takes like 10+ people to hug) don't have tap roots??? (tap roots are the biggest root a lot of trees have and they typically grow like straight down looking for water, unlike other roots that are much closer to the surface) Apparently their stability is achieved with super wide but shallow root net works instead? I mean I've been to a giant sequoia forest and there sure are a lot of roots to trip on but that's still insane to me.
Sources (all wikipedia)
plants
fungi
specific fungi-plant relationship: mycorrhiza
land plants & land fungi emerge
Anyway is there a fungus side of tumblr? i feel they should explain everything I'm getting wrong here
i'm gonna go try and find some fungus people brb
Edit: (15 min later) ok I've harassed (politely asked) four different fungus people so we (just me) are really just waiting to see if I was funny enough in their asks to be noticed
7 notes · View notes
ddeck · 10 months
Text
Tumblr media
sigh. jedisona bandwagon is real and it got me. toby, its all on you
150 notes · View notes
bibxrbie · 4 months
Text
My radical hot take about the 'Happily Ever After - Padme and Anakin raise Luke and Leia on Naboo AU' that everyone keeps dreaming about, is that Luke should still be a Jedi. Not one of those 'exceptions made, he still lives with his mom and dad, and being a Jedi is the equivalent of attending boarding school' Jedi people write about. No, I'm talking given to the Temple at four years old, raised communally by other Jedi, who becomes someone's padawan, and decides later in life if he wants to make contact with his birth parents. I'm saying he should be a Jedi, who's dedicated to the Jedi, who loves being a Jedi, and would always choose to be a Jedi.
42 notes · View notes
sinvulkt-art · 4 months
Text
The Dark Wyrm
Tumblr media
Here is my gift to MillionLights on ao3, as part of the Vaderkin creative exchange 2024 organised by @vaderkin-is-a-lightning-rod
Once I’ve read your prompt, the picture wouldn’t leave my head, so here it is!
27 notes · View notes
padawansuggest · 7 months
Text
So like. Speeder camping. Like you buy one of those truck bed tents, but for a speeder truck, and idk where I’m going with this but I need someone to take Obi-Wan (kiddo aged) camping in a speeder truck all ‘see, this is normal camping, you passing out in the woods for a day and walking back to town… is not camping’ and now he’s decided this new person is parent shaped. He goes to them when he wants bbq and to sit on a fishing boat bored as hell while they tell him bad jokes and somewhat horrible stories. Someone take him camping and let him have a fun time and also get a real tent and sleeping bags and blankets and s’mores. Let him have these things he’s so smol.
50 notes · View notes
Text
time travel AU where everyone who got killed by darth vader gets sent back in time
just a bunch of jedi including younglings, a handful of rebels who pissed him off enough, padmé and sabé, a bunch of imps, and a whole tribe of tuscans waking up together after being choked out or cut up by laser sword
I can’t figure out when would be funniest for them to arrive
13 notes · View notes
Text
If you became super rich and could design your own house, but could only add THREE unnecessary/random/expensive home additions (like how people will have bowling alleys, movie theatres, closets with museums of shoes, car display rooms, spa rooms, wine cellars, etc. in their mansions) - what three would you choose?
#I think I would have: an indoor pool (but like heavily customized with a faux weather system so I could get the feeling of swimming in#rain or fog or snow etc.). a very small arcade consisting only of skee-ball and DDR machines. and an old Library Room with authentic#historical furniture/interior design to store old books/tapestries/study room equipment/whatever other antiques I'd collect. It'd be#like some fully intricate movie set or something that would feel completely like stepping into another world/time.#Though I might would trade out the arcade for a roller skating rink.. i DO love skating....#And I wouldve put rock climbing gym because I love indoor rock climbing but.. as I understand it they have to change out the rock things#on the walls every once in a while so that you can have new routes and it doesnt get boring. and I'd rather have an activty room thats like#self sustaining and doesnt require me to hire some person to come switch things around once every month. Otherwise I would#totally do that instead.#I'm also personally not counting ''craft'' type stuff like having a pottery room kiln sort of thing because#that doesn't count as 'unnessecary' to me. since stuff like that would not at all be just a hobby I 'happen to#do sometimes for fun'#but would definitely be a career sort of thing. Like if I had the money for a fully stocked sculpture room and and a sewing room#with a good machine and etc. then I would literally be professionally selling pottery and designing clothing and etc.#so I wouldn't count it as 'just a random side room I dont need' etc.#The same way that if I played tennis professionally or as a very intense hobby that takes up most of my life/time#then I wouldn't count having a tennis court in your house to practice in as 'unncesscarry' etc.#wow that is the worst I have ever spelt that word ghbjh#Un Cess Carry#ALSO would obviously have an underground bunker of some sort with food and emergency supplies which also does not count as unnecessary to m#since it's literally like... survival.. And I thought most health organizations literally reccomend that even#the common person has a small 'go bag' prepared in their house. and like an evacuation plan in case of fire or other things#It WOULD be an unnecessary rich person thing to have a full on undergRound village or something stocked with 9000 guns and#whaetever. but I think just a basic emergency room with basic supplies could still be counted under the 'not unnecessary' requirement.#Like I would say that a sprawling courtyard of flower gardens and fountains and hedge mazes that takes up like a hundred thousand#dollars a year in maintenance would count as one of the three 'unnecessary and expensive' things. But having a small garden in the#back yard with a few planters in a little greenhouse or whatever would not. The 'excessiveness' of the thing matters lol#ANYWAY!!!#Just curious what other peoples Three Main things would be... hrrmm
10 notes · View notes
skialdi · 10 months
Text
Tumblr media
✨ Chu ✨
I drew myself and @raedoodles some self-indulgent star wars flavored fisuke (Fisk and Isuka). This au is so so much fun. Oh also this drawing is based on a screenshot from the Scott pilgrim cartoon.
32 notes · View notes
spokewar · 5 months
Text
"the average Jedi kills 10 people a year" is actually a statistical error and Obi-Wan Kenobi, who has been murdering people since he was 12, should not have been counted
10 notes · View notes
americankimchi · 7 months
Note
Do you think you can help me find a star wars fic? Qui-gon lives after tpm bc Obi-wan saved him by using all his force. Qgj wakes up mad and will not see Obi-wan or cut his braid bc now Obi-wan is mentally disabled. In the end o66 happens but Obi-wan and anakin die together and Ani doesn't turn to the dark bc he didn't want Obi-wan to hate him, I read it years ago but I can't find it
i feel like i know exactly what fic you're talking about but unfortunately i can't for the life of me remember the title or the author
i've tried every combination of tags and search parameters on ao3 and it's not popping up. i'm starting to suspect the author either deleted their account or turned their works private because there are a handful of other fics i vaguely remember from them and i'm not seeing them in the tags either
unless i'm mixing up authors. i actually might be. it's been a While
11 notes · View notes
adragonsfriend · 6 months
Text
A Gardner, at Work
This is my (much improved imo) revision of Chapter 2 (aka Yoda's chapter) of This Story Can Kill You. It used to be titled, A Poet at his Work. This version is also now up on ao3 if you want to read it there. Any way, please enjoy:
A scree-bat launches itself from a branch, opening flimsi-thin wings to flutter over to a berry bush. It lands easily and chitters with happiness. Its sharp teeth puncture the skin of a purple fruit, round with juice, and sugar spills over its tongue. 
The Room of a Thousand Fountains is an oasis in the Force, and from Coruscant’s barren durasteel towers.
These days, the arching canopy of its trees and the trickle of water over the land provide the only true shelter in the Temple. Always, there were pockets of distress or anxiety here. The daily fluctuations no one is immune to. But beneath those was always the foundation of goodness wrought by a thousand years of difficult, personal work done by a collective of individuals seeking the sun. 
Under the soil—there are layers of earth here, deep enough to turn a patch of space on a city planet into real water system—an eight-legged chanit marches, holding a grain of sand in its first set of legs. It follows a string of its fellows, thousands long. Each carries a brick for the base of their colony. 
The foundation is still there, those individuals working as hard as they ever have, harder even, to be the beset of themselves. 
Dozens of species of moss, clover, and grass cover the ground. They spring up easily from the right soil, and with enough water. Their roots are tended by fungi gardeners in a relationship half as old as the Force itself. 
But after two years of war, even the Jedi Order can begin to buckle, hairline cracks appearing in the structure. Others in the Order are aware of how war clouds the Force. Each of them are aware of their own struggles. 
A single betnek tree grows taller than anything else in the garden. Its bark is smooth, its leaves wide. It holds a taf-hawk's nest in its branches and shelters a Jedi in its shade. After it traveled from Ryloth through deep space as a seedling nearly eight hundred years ago, its tap root reached through the soil of the gardens until it broke through the stone base of the Temple. 
It is Yoda alone whom the Force allows to reach out and touch the cracks, trace the way they’ll develop, see the way the whole will shatter if left unattended. 
In a time when most Jedi favor the saber, Yoda meditates. He fills the cracks with vines, moss, and mortar made of gentle joy. He lifts columns and braces roofs with woody sprouts until they heal on their own. To pockets of fatigue, he offers the high trickle of streams over layers of silt and loam and sand and home, so that war weary jedi find healing. His work is never ending. Often, he loses ground. Still, he centers himself in the Force and stands, as mighty as betnek tree and as subtle as moss, a bulwark against the evil prowling outside his home. 
This is what it means to be the grandmaster of the Jedi Order. 
Other duties, Yoda has as well. Sometimes, individual Jedi come to him, for advice, comfort, or simple company. 
None in the Temple burn like the presence sitting across from him now.  
Several minutes ago—Yoda does not keep time when he meditates, he listens, and knows where to grow, when to move—Anakin Skywalker settled in the grass, not a meter away from him. 
At first, he had merely watched. Yoda had not opened his own eyes, but he’d felt the gaze on his face. 
Now Anakin lends his great strength to bolster Yoda’s efforts to heal the temple, and yet distracts him at the same time. Anakin’s presence is a strange thing. In meditation like this, it should be almost perfectly open. And it is. The most obvious emotion is a strong thread of anxiety battling with an urgent curiosity. These, Yoda is certain, concern Anakin’s purpose in finding him. 
He has caught the sound of Anakin’s breath catching as he decides whether to speak, no less than three times since sitting down. He takes a moment to wonder what is causing his normally decisive great-great-grand-Padawan to hesitate so. Does he fear judgement? Question whether there is someone else he should be speaking to instead? Is he seeking a tactful way to bring up an emotional topic? Yoda cannot guess. 
Continuing to observe without comment, Yoda finds everything he might have expected.  
There is a separate strain of curiosity, focused on the purpose of Yoda’s meditation, and a vague investigation of it. Stronger than that, there is worry and protective anger, first for his injured padawan, and second for the course of the war. A faint anxiety and shame at being observed, common in those who shield themselves habitually. 
In all his life, Yoda has never yet found exactly what he expected in another’s mind. Always there is some strain of thought or feeling he could not have foreseen, an idle reflection, a seemingly inexplicable reaction. Like the surface of a pond with fish in it, a mind should have ripples, indications of movement deeper than casual observation can reveal. Anakin’s mind shows none of these. 
Yoda observes all of this, but does not turn to suspicion. 
For his patience, the Force lays an impression at his feet the way a loth cat might deliver live, squirming prey to its growing young. Kittens must learn to kill somehow.  
It is only an impression, not a true vision. Slipping into Anakin’s mind would be easy, it whispers. Powerful, he may be, but as disciplined as Yoda, he is not. As subtle as Yoda, he is not. Much to learn, he still has. Anakin would try to stand, try to run, but Yoda’s attack would bring him to his knees. Human blood would run from his nose and ears, staining the ground red. Anakin would collapse, his strength gone, and Yoda would not have lifted a finger. It would be easy then, to riffle though his thoughts, finding not only the hidden secrets, but the method behind this strange shield. No one would deceive Yoda again.  
But no one would know him either. 
Yoda shudders from his spine, and the cold falls away like a poor cloak. He passes the impression back to the Force, untouched. Either Anakin will speak, or his secrets will remain his own.  
He is Yoda, not some loth kitten baring its teeth for the first time.  
Yoda who is older than the tree whose shade he rests beneath. Yoda, who knows the Force as the only friend that will outlast him. The Force has deep roots, and it has grown strong in him. He does not care for blood, red or otherwise. 
Sitting under a tree, conscious of all its leaves, sitting in the grass, conscious of how its every blade itches, sitting near Anakin, conscious of how he still hesitates, sitting a hundred yards from a group of younglings, conscious of their laughter, sitting in his own bones, conscious of the ways they ache, the cold cannot touch him. 
He turns his attention to the impression. It means something, or the Force would not have shown it to him. More clouded than ever, the Force may be, if a cruel vision is all it can offer him, but purposeless, it never is. Perhaps, the subject of an attack, Anakin will be. Perhaps, need Yoda’s protection, he will. Or perhaps he only appears as the subject by proximity, and there is someone else in need. Time, only, will bring understanding. 
Yoda returns to his work. 
“Why did you assign Ahsoka to me?” 
He is mending a delicate section when Anakin finally speaks, so he continues until it will stand on its own. Then he sets aside his work to focus on the moment. 
“Believe it a foolish decision, do you?” The answer is long in coming, but Yoda is patient these days. Interrupting a student’s thoughts is the surest way to halt them. Briefly opening his eyes shows him no irritation in Anakin’s posture, only his hairy human eyebrows lowered into a focused expression. Yoda closes his eyes again. 
“No. But why me?” A good answer, and a good question, but curious. Why me, rather than why her.  
“Share many qualities with you, Padawan Tano does.” 
“Recklessness and arrogance, you mean?” A spike of shame. 
“True, this may be, but insult your padawan, you should not. Insult yourself, you should not. Also, interrupt me, you should not.” He twitches his ears, amused by his own joke, but Anakin does not share in it, so he moves on, “Share other qualities too, you also do. Strength. Determination. Heart. Good things, these are, which foster in her, you will. Flaws, you also share. But the best teacher, failure is. If struggled, you had not, teach Padawan Tano, you could not.”  
“Ahsoka would flourish with any Master. How did you come to this philosophy?”  
“Many students, I have had. Much I have learned from each of them.” 
“And which of them taught you this?” 
An unsubtle edge of doubt appears in the Force even though it does not enter his voice, and Yoda is too old to call manipulation anything other than what it is. Still, the emotion is real, and doubt often has its roots in rotten places. Yoda will do the hard work of digging up those roots and allowing them to breathe rather than waiting and having to rip them out later. He answers with what for him is unusual directness, 
“Learned this from Dooku, I did.” No rejection greets his proclamation, and he continues, “Prideful, he always was. A weakness it was, for a jedi, as a weakness, it is for a Sith. Of this, I warned him. But many years, it has been, since so prideful, I was. Ignorant, I was. A weakness only, pride need not be.” This, Yoda leaves as a loose thread, and does not explain. It is worth the time taken to contemplate, “Without understanding, help him, I could not. It was believing he could do more good on his own, that Dooku chose to leave the Jedi Order.” This he still believes to be true, even if he did not agree then, and does not know what happened afterward. It is, he recognizes, the same faith that drives Anakin to insist, Ahsoka would thrive with any master. 
He allows the connection to flow into the space of shared meditation. It is met with surprise, though whether that surprise is aimed at him for having such faith, or at Dooku for having inspired it, Yoda cannot tell, 
“Problems long past, these are. Learn from them, we must, but linger, we should not. Speaking of your padawan, we were. Worry for her, you do.” 
“Ahsoka is the fifteen-year-old I march into war. She nearly lost her arm not a week ago. She did everything I instructed her to do when faced with a superior opponent and still—of course I worry for her.” Yoda suspects a truly scathing look is being sent his way. If he opened his eyes, he has no doubt he would recognize the expression as one of Obi-Wan’s. Perhaps it is one of Qui-gon Jin’s as well, perhaps Dooku’s, perhaps it is even his own. 
“Dangerous times, these are. Only so much, there is, for a teacher to teach, and a student to learn.” 
“I am well aware.” There is, if not acceptance, then resignation behind the words. It reminds Yoda of the padawan who’d stood before a ragged gathering of the council on Geonosis and informed them of his mother’s death as a footnote to his report on Senator Amidala’s safety. Then too, his presence had been strange. He’d shielded simply, but still bled an overwhelming grief. Only that grief had been, to Yoda’s eye, more worn down than raw and new. Already, there had been resignation, some older loss informing his response. 
What loss in particular, Yoda cannot guess. Perhaps something from before he’d come to the Jedi, the fear the Council had sensed from the boy on his first day in the temple cooling and hardening into reluctant surrender. 
“Then perhaps, ease your worry, it would, to visit Padawan Tano?” 
“And ruin all of Master Che’s hard work shooing me away? I think not.” 
“Then rest, you should.” Reluctance appears stark in the Force, and manifests aloud as a tangent, 
“Obiwan and I are not at all alike.” It is statement and question at once. The statement doubts their similarity, and the question asks if Yoda thinks they were a poor pairing. Yoda addresses the statement, 
“Oh? Devoted, clever teachers, you both are. Deep grief, you both feel. And doubt yourselves, you both do. More similarities, I see, than differences.” 
“I am not—” Anakin stops himself abruptly. “I do not see similarities so easily.” 
A taf-hawk ruffles its feathers and climbs the edge of its nest. It does not look before it leaps. There is wind beneath its wings, as trustworthy as a branch, as safe as its nest. It climbs several meters before looking down. There are two wingless figures below, one green and barely twice its own size, the other pink and many times larger. It wheels about, looking for smaller prey. 
Yoda, Anakin and the taf-hawk are one for a precious moment. It ends as Yoda says, 
“To a traveler walking the path, every root and stone is distinct. To the taf-hawk, the path is a stripe across the ground. Yet good to travel, land and sky both are.” Often, when younglings come to Yoda for advice, he leaves them stymied by metaphors and platitudes, without instruction save the request they think on his words before asking for help interpreting them. 
Yoda can recall a much younger Padawan Skywalker coming to him for such help only twice, but each time listening to fables full of nature and animals with rapt attention, something both cheated and wistful in his gaze. It was as perfectly attentive as Yoda had ever seen him. The response now—even to a short metaphor—is the same. A series of images pass flicker quick across his mind, 
Gears full of sand, ground to a halt. 
Endless open desert, unwalked. 
Danger, beware. 
Fire. 
An old woman’s face, expectant. 
A girl’s face, defiant. 
Then the images pass on like a warm breeze, and Yoda can see them only in his own memory. It is impossible to pin down the meaning of any of them individually, but a theme is clear, and it is this he responds to, rather than their previous string of conversation, 
“To teach is to care, and to care is to risk loss.” Anakin’s resignation is strange and old, and the one thing in his mind not perfectly aligned with Yoda’s expectations. He has no doubt it is the most real, truthful feeling he has sensed from Anakin today, “Nonetheless, great joy, I have found it can bring.” There are no plants among the images, Yoda notes. 
“...Yes. Yes it can.” Yoda can tell when Anakin stands by the sound of his robes and the way his feet disturb the grass, “Thank you, Master Yoda.” His presence remains stagnant, but the Force rings with truth like a bell. 
Life in a desert is sparser, venturing out at night, growing in dense, hardy shapes. Still, it grows, as water moves in reservoirs, under the slow, waiting ground. 
Then, from near invisible foundations, durasteel walls rise up around Anakin, closing off over a nearly-but-not-quite-honest expanse of emotion, meeting seamlessly. It is quieter, in Yoda’s mind, without the company. Quieter even than when he began the day. Certainty is a quiet thing, even when the Force echoes it many times over, as it does now. Yoda is certain that Padawan Tano is in good hands. 
He returns to his work, sitting absolutely still. A gardener.
4 notes · View notes
potatoesandsunshine · 8 months
Text
you had to be there (talking to atton about my lightsaber in the cockpit of the ebon hawk)
0 notes
shaevilux · 1 year
Text
People knock on Rhoam for being a bad dad cuz he's distant and stern to little Zelda and say how Rauru is the goat (heh) for taking her in like his own daughter. Like Zelda had her real parental connection with Sonia and Rauru. But frankly that's a little reductive.
Rauru literally descended from the heavens, married a priest, started a kingdom. Man didn't really know much strife yet. There's no looming threat of calamity or prophecy yet. Things are peaceful. Things are fine. Things are great. Zelda dropped in during this time, talking about a doom that's going to happen tens of thousands of years in the future.
This sad, lost princess.
Of course any reasonable person would take her in and calm her and tell her she is fine and listen and support her.
Rhoam not being able to be this kind of figure for Zelda is tragic. Just read this poor man's journal entries:
"It has been a year and three months since her mother passed. Perhaps she is held back by heartache too deep to heal. If the Ganon prophecy wasn't looming over our heads, I would tell her to take her time... To wait until she is ready. But our situation is dire and leaves no room for weakness—even on behalf of my beloved daughter. My heart breaks for Zelda, but I must act as a king, not a father. I must order her to train relentlessly at the fountain." Pg 4.
"In truth, I understand Zelda's feelings. Painfully so. She lost her mother, her teacher, before she could learn from her. Ten pointless years of self-training, without so much as a book or note to help her find her way... Those in the castle talk behind her back. And I, her only family, scold her for her shortcomings. No wonder she wishes to hide away in her beloved relic research. I'd love nothing more than to console her... But I must stay strong. She MUST fulfill her duty, just as we all must. Even if she comes to despise me." Pg 6.
"I have been told my Zelda went to the Spring of Wisdom... This will likely be her last chance. If she is unable to awaken her power at Lanayru, all hope is truly lost. If she comes back without success, then I shall speak kindly with her. Scolding is pointless now. I forced 10 years of training on her... and after all that, it seems her power will stubbornly awaken some other way. Perhaps I should encourage her to keep researching her beloved relics. They may just lead her to answers I can't provide. For now, I sit anxiously, more a father than a king in this moment. I sit and await my daughter's return." Pg 7. (He fucking dies and never gives Zelda this bit of closure uuuugggghhhhhhh Zelda I'm so sorry Rhoam I'm so sorry)
It sucks because most people remember the cutscenes (duh it's more immersive and important) and in the cutscenes of the first game Rhoam was mostly shown as being stern and mean to babygirl Zelda, who is closed fists explaining herself to him at the verge of tears. And in contrast everyone in the first royal family of hyrule in the second game treated her with such kindness and we can see how happy she was being there with them.
Rhoam was shackled by duty. By prophecy. By the looming calamity. And from the day he named his daughter 'Zelda' he shackled her as well.
And what does Zelda do with these shackles? She accepts them. She tolerates them. Because she loves her father and her kingdom and knows there's a power dormant in her that can stop the calamity that she must do her best to unlock. She does this dutifully. She does all the training, she does everything that is required.
But it still doesn't unlock. So she tries other ways. She isn't just going after the 'relics' because she's scholarly and nerdy and wants to learn about them. She does it because she's pragmatic. She knows her sacred sealing power isn't present in her. She knows she might not be able to control it or even unlock it in time.
So she tries this alternative approach. The Divine Beasts, the guardians. Ancient tech that was used to prevent the calamity of their time. And she awakened the tech. And her father chose the champions for each divine beast. And they were all prepared. And it's all thanks to Zelda.
And then... Fucking tragedy again. Ganon probably learned his lesson from the last time he was thwarted and immediately went for the tech, corrupting it and turning it against the new users. Against Zelda.
It's never really stated how fast it all turned to shit when the tech betrayed them (or maybe I don't remember) but every account points to it being almost overnight. The champions died. Rhoam died. And suddenly, suddenly Zelda unlocks her sealing magic.
I always always hate the literary trope of using tragedy to unlock a great power that could've actually stopped the tragedy from happening in the first place.
And it's no different in BOTW. I hate that Zelda had to go through all this to unlock her powers.
And then what happens next?
She's stuck in limbo (in an almost mocking parallel to Rauru in the next game with his imprisoning arm) holding Ganon back. For a hundred years.
This young woman had gone through so much only to be trapped with a calamity seeking to destroy Hyrule for a century.
Does she know her father died in the war? Does she know the champions died in battle? Would she know Link would survive in the Shrine of Resurrection? Would she know how long it would all take? The century she would have to wait?
I think she didn't. I think it all happened too fast. I think ultimately, she decided a stalemate with ganon was an agreeable outcome. I think in her mind she probably thought she failed Hyrule. When the divine beasts turned she must have been distraught. Distraught might not even cover it tbh. But at least... At least when the kingdom was brought to it's knees by the corrupted tech and was waiting for the final blow, she had the ability to ensure the final blow never came.
And oh boy I have a looot more to talk about regarding Tears of the Kingdom. But I do want to have a couple of more playthroughs of it to really formulate what I want to say.
2K notes · View notes