#tldr i do think that they are Compelled By Ganon To Do Evil. lol

[blueskittlesart]

Hi hi lore question! Do you ever focus on the enemies in the games? Like how the -blins and -fos are sentient and have their own villages and cultures (to my knowledge, as far back as TP but I never had any of the earlier games). How these guys live and serve Ganon even though they should be all rights be separate societies. Is there anything in the game lore or storytelling that shows how this came about or how they interact with each other?

(side note but the TP mini boss in the yeti house seems to be a normal lizalfos that got corrupted and transformed by proximity to the mirror imo)

i haven't focused too much on it but i think it's definitely interesting!! in earlier games, the only enemies who specifically served ganon were the -blins, which were at least visually implied to be somehow related to him because they were all pig monsters like him (this was before the gerudo lore was added.) but there were also some instances of races that are now pretty ubiquitously friendly being hostile--most notably the zora in alttp behave just like menial enemies and will attack you if you come near them, even after you talk to their king. so there is some precedent for these creatures to not be necessarily EVIL so much as they are hostile.

I honestly don't remember very much about tp so i'm gonna use botw/totk as my jumping-off point here just because i'm more confident about it, but in those games the description/general vibe of the monsters sort of shift from "race of nonhuman creatures who are Evil and serve ganon Just Because" to "creatures specifically created by and for ganon, who rely on ganon's power to sustain themselves and are seemingly compelled against their will to carry out ganon's will." because you're right that if left to their own devices, the monsters in these games will generally just kind of. exist in their own little societies. but the second they so much as SEE you, regardless of if you're bothering them, they go into attack mode. the existence of the blood moon and the dialog we get about it suggests to me that these monsters are specifically creations of ganon--the blood moon is supposedly "when ganon's power is at its peak," and it causes "the aimless souls of slain monsters to return to flesh." the fact that ganon can revive these monsters when his power is heightened suggests that 1. they were created by him in the first place and 2. they are under his control in some way. Zelda also makes reference in a few cutscenes to an increased level of monster activity being a sign that the calamity is approaching, implying that ganon is creating more and more monsters as his power grows in preparation for his eventual return. so, at least in botw/totk, I don't think the monsters can really be treated as independant races that just so happen to be hostile, since their existence seems to be contingent upon the existence of ganon and they appear to be constantly under his control to some degree. imo the fact that they form packs that resemble societies is probably just a result of having a lot of downtime in the hundred years link was asleep, and maybe a base instinct that understands strength in numbers.