#zelda belloa

[zelda-without-a-licence-plate]

Hyrule warriors Zelda official redesign! Full name Zelda Belloa Hyrule.

I know Hyrule Warriors isn’t a canon game, but honestly that’s what makes our rewrite of it so interesting to me. It’s both very different from the original and also kind of not that different, depending on if you’re looking at a surface or core level. We’ve made it a sort of sequel to Oot, inserting it in the child timeline between Oot and TP.

More info and thought processes on this design under the cut:

One of the things that is technically different but also sort of not really: Zelda is the main villain of the story!

Seriously, she‘s a genuinely awful person with hate in her heart. It does not matter what she destroys or who she hurts, it is all justified in her relentless quest for power. Yes she is very beautiful I know-- I did that on purpose. Traits commonly viewed as beautiful, such as thinness and fairness, are not indicators of goodness, just as traits commonly viewed as ugly are not indicators for badness. I wanted to use this common bias to further demonstrate Zelda’s deceptive nature. She is manipulative and dangerous. She is evil elf Barbie. 

I initially wanted to keep the main colour of her outfits pink, to go more in on that evil elf barbie vibe, but unfortunately making her whole dress pink made me have a severe allergic reaction and break out into hives, due to an instinct that has been deeply ingrained in me ever since I was but a wee bairn and got pissed off when in disney’s sleeping beauty the pink dress won out over the blue one even though the blue is objectively better. Nintendo needs to stop putting Zeldas in pink because blue is always objectively better especially for the blonde ones.

Her castle clothes are pretty much completely invented, but her armour is slightly more based off her canon design. Just barely, but there are some elements there. When actually going into battle, she would put her hair fully up.

Lemme tell you, this Zelda goes into battle a lot. There’s a whole section on our timeline called the age of war and it’s pretty much just her running around doing whatever she wants and totally trampling anyone to tries to stop her.

Will the heroes of the Hyrule Warriors rewrite be able to stop her bloodthirsty rampage? You’ll have to wait and see...

[zelda-without-a-licence-plate]

On Hyrulian royal daughters and second names.

In Hyrule, it is one of the longest standing traditions of the kingdom that all daughters of the royal family are named Zelda, in honour of the tragedy of Zelda the First. However, that many Zeldas can lead to some confusion, especially when there are multiple generations of women of the royal family alive at once, or when discussing past Zeldas from history. And there are too many to use numerals, so instead all royal-born daughters are given a unique second name.

There are some outliers to this, of course-- the Zelda of the sky did not have a second name, as her being called Zelda was a coincidence unrelated to this tradition. No records exist of the second name of a former Sage of time, who during his reign was officially known as King Sheik. The Queen of ten thousand years ago, who first fought the Calamity with her knight by her side, was named Malon, as there were enough degrees of separation between her and the throne that they had not anticipated her becoming heir.

Other notable historical Zeldas include:

The Zelda who was turned to stone, Zelda Kiera

The Zelda who faced off with a powerful wind mage, Zelda Alika

Zelda Rosana of the era of Twilight

A disgraced rogue princess named Zelda Sceletara, formerly Zelda Ariana

A Zelda who saved a parallel world, Zelda Creta

The Zelda who extended Hyrule's borders further than ever before, Zelda Belloa.

Most recently there was Zelda Imani, the mother of Zelda Idalia, who was the mother of Zelda Cyra, the currently living Zelda who sealed the Calamity a second time.

In contrast to this tradition, for almost as long, there has been a law in Hyrule making it illegal for anyone who is not of royal blood to name their daughter Zelda. The penalty for this has varied over the centuries.

(big thanks to Setanta on the linkverse discord for helping us come up with names!!)