I love the direction that Cadence of Hyrule took with the Gerudo: mechanics and salvagers who live in a desert strangely littered with dusty engines, gears, and metal detritus. Their village looks somewhat futuristic, their homes include blueprints and books on tables, and their swords are replaced with wrenches.
It’s nice to see a timeline in which the Gerudo are responsible for cool tech. Where did all those engine blocks come from?
I very much like the Groose ancestor angle too, not just because I think it makes sense given his part in thwarting Demise, but since it looked like he flew off that way at the end of SkSw anyway.
I like to think especially that he headed a settlement out in the desert and other than Cawlin and Stritch, I think some others who went to the surface and settled in Groose's camp specifically probably included the scrap dude Gondo (and his mother), Karane and Pipit. They all kinda have features that are Gerudo adjacent in my opinion, and the fact that Gondo hints his family line is already connected to the desert and his dad repaired a robot (and the robots have gear motifs) it seems fitting. Groose and Gondo alone would be understanding and salvaging old parts that they found and making stuff.
But even in Twilight Princess, the gears and tech are still very present in the Gerudo portions of the structure and culminate in the spinner item too. Stuff that mechanically reminds a lot of Groosenator type ideas.
In OoT you get chain pulleys and large gates and plenty of metalworking evidence from the Gerudo. You find many switches and blocks boast the Gerudo symbol and seem to imply that they are at least the manufacturers of these various mechanisms or their parts.
In Majora's mask, they have a fortress that's mostly metal construction and they appear to have boats with engine capacity.
In Cadence, as mentioned, the Gerudo are super mechanically focussed and Ganondorf -- as a bored young menace -- even makes his pipe organ out of the scrap in his room.
It's a throughline that is arguably consistent through a few of the games now, gear based tech / mechanics / metalworking and the Gerudo are pretty intertwined. Their association to lightning (electricity) doesn't go astray either.
The OoT > WW throughline is perfection to me and they both combine to be one of my favourite things of all time, a perfect mix of sorrow and delight and wacky bullshit. Top tier Zelda. Peak of the franchise.
What gets me is ganondorf probably spent YEARS seething over oot link, completely unaware that link did not get the hero treatment.
He was sent back in time to a time that doesn't know what he did. He's a kid again, but he can't BE a kid again. He turned into the heros shade, unable to rest until he passed on his teachings to tp link.
Ganondorf cursed the gods, and I really wonder if Link ever resented them too.
I have done so much fanfic and rp and feral mouth foaming over exactly this because like yes I think it's only natural that he does experience certain resentments at points in his life, especially as a man who also ultimately ends up having regrets about how the rest of his legacy panned out.
A lot of my Hero of Time reads-- especially writing him-- always played with the feelings of development being interrupted a lot, or of being discarded and then looking for purpose, or having a duty and identity that becomes obsolete to a large degree and how he goes on with that and learns to reconcile his definition of self with what and who he has been. I think he's great fodder for exploring drafted veteran metaphors, especially that sense where it's very difficult to return to civilian life and support dries up, and there's great difficulty in moving forward with life afterwards.
I think the particular situation of being far more connected to the ethereal-- fairies and forest and otherworlds and time-- are unique with him, in the fact that he was incredibly tied to culture and an identity that was very much not Hylian (though still Hyrule aligned) and quite alien from the Kingdom itself and the things that people were generally exposed to. But critically, he was also very aware of being different within that sphere, and of being set apart somehow.
And in that I think he's very interesting when compared Ganondorf, because they have a very same-but-different kinda thing on.
Being outsiders to Hyrule, occupying very non-normative roles within their groups, one displayed and venerated as a boy king (and all the pressure that entails but especially during a time marked by intertribal wars) and one hidden away and somewhat bullied for lacking a fairy (and so a sense of legitimacy) who has an incredibly limited idea that there even really is anything beyond the forest. Both are growing up under the watch of beings deeply familiar with magic and mysticism, and guided by them in a parental way, and both Link and Ganondorf go on to be incredibly potent magic wielders in their own manifestations of it. Like most of Link's personal power outside of quests or Sages is granted to him specifically by Great Fairies, who at least in OoT bolster his magical ability and teach him spells, which ties pretty directly to where he's personally come from and his connection to the land. And quite as you would expect that Twinrova (and maybe other spirits unseen as well, whether connected to the Demon tribe or not) have done with Ganondorf, where arguably I would say a lot of his magic of the era seems to resonate with necromancy (not in a negative way necessarily either but death associated magic) and summoning, and importantly the Lightning magic (and topaz he wears being now significant to that) which is very desert tied.
Point being is they're very mirrored.
And regardless of alignments and whatever else, I've always kind of seen the Great Flood as something of Ganondorf's personal Majora's Mask. Both he and Link, being unsatisfied with a result of OoT, have a period of personal upheaval that is very personal and transformative, where they are forced to reflect on themselves and who they're choosing to be and why. What they really value, why they represent what they do-- I think it's safe to say they go through a very similar process of re-evaluating everything and how no matter who or what they've been, nothing lasts and things will change.
Very much kinda following into Wind Waker where you have this overarching, if grim, acceptance of the impermanence of things and how time stops for nobody (and the irony of that for Link too)-- something something the flow of time is always cruel. Like, ultimately, through Ganondorf's struggle and eventual acceptance of this himself in Wind Waker and all the myriad of emotional and philosophical soul searching (and raging against) that he does, I like to again think that this probably provides a good springboard for what the Hero of Time also might go through, being thematically mirrored as they seem to be.
I have a lot of feelings (and AUs and general headcanons and versions and thoughts) about the Hero of Time in particular and how he and Ganondorf generally stack out in the grand scheme of things.
Actually this is a weird comparison but like it's just popped into my head and I'm just gonna roll with it like
You know Toy Story 4 Woody?
His whole arc of like, coming to terms with having a very important job to do in terms of what's best for Bonnie? And he's been through the ringer, he's been the Favourite toy. He knows his shit. He knows what he can do, he knows what to do in a crisis, he's got insights that the others may not have from being that role in Andy's room.
Well, let's say Andy's room is Hyrule.
And he was very important to Andy, and very loyal to Andy-- read: Adult timeline Zelda-- at first he's also quite a novelty to Bonnie-- read: Child Timeline Zelda-- and especially helpful in the transition of things from A to B. But he loses importance and influence pretty quickly and he finds it difficult to integrate into the new room, and ultimately he's very alienated and left behind even though he arguably still offers very crucial (if maverick) support. Like jumping into Bonnie's backpack and the whole forky thing.
Bonnie doesn't really need Woody directly, but Woody is still there behind the scenes keeping shit together.
Kinda like how Link informed the King of Ganondorf's plot and took the Ocarina off into the forest for safe keeping, and... Whatever else he goes on to do after Majora's Mask.
Anyway yeah no I think he's got big and sometimes very complex feelings and I think he winds up just as conflicted and left behind as Ganondorf himself, tbh.
Also to further the unhinged toy story woody comparison, the Toy Story 4 vibe with Bo applies to Malon if you squint.
Like if in the Adult timeline he would have preferred to stay and explore life on the Ranch with her and Epona, say. But he had to go fulfill his role.
A bit like Woody choosing not to go with Bo under the car at the start, that leads to separation.
And then how Toy Story 4 leads to him redefining how he perceives loyalty and how he can best help fulfil kids and toys by uniting them as like a lost toy vigilante. But he gets to stay with Bo.
Like Link doesn't need to be a Hero as defined by his connection to Zelda anymore. He can connect people on his own.
Feeds into the whole Twilight Princess Link is a descendant of Malon and the Hero of Time or at least Ordon being both a ranching community and probably the old Kokiri village thing as proof of a legacy Link and Malon had.
I will now yell about Fi and Ghirahim as symbols of their respective creators, please stand by:
So, the biggest slap addition the lore that Skyward Sword gave us was (Her Grace) Hylia and (the Bringer of) Demise. Entities who, regardless of confusing localisation choices, exist as two sides of the same coin and are locked into a mutual karmic cycle.
They reflect each other like a mirror, and also represent an antithesis of each other, seemingly existing as consequence to one other. They were presented as the penultimate deities of the physical and metaphysical realms of their world since the advent of its creation by the departed Golden Goddesses; twinned yet opposite, and each both inevitable and necessary.
It goes right down to the blades that Demise and Hylia would level at one another. The spirits of each are a representative of the principles and philosophy championed by their creators.
Now, the closer you get to the works and relics of the Gods/Gods Tribe in Zelda, the more you see divine constructs that blur the line of spiritual magic and advanced technology, and are ostensibly both. This was a direction that really bloomed in Skyward Sword, taking a running start on it that games hereafter have followed. The caveat is that only certain special people chosen by Gods or otherwise given permission to use this kind of Magitech can interact with it or produce things like it (either at all, or without punishment).
Even the Sheikah, who have closely served the intentions of the Gods/Spirits of Light (Hylia and her aligned) all throughout history, make the mistake of getting too comfortable in their inspiration and cross the line into imitations. Despite the successful utilisation of, and later recovery of, certain Sheikah Tech such as the Divine Beasts to positive effect, the tragedy of both the Sheikah's Divide and the Calamity's hijacking of Hyrulean defence systems is still played as a cautionary tale of hubris and knowing one's place in the natural order of things.
The Sheikah were effectively making unauthorised knockoffs of Divine Magitech and it bit them on the arse.
Can't have shit in Hyrule.
Pretty much every significantly advanced tribe in Zelda has a stated closeness to 'the Gods'. Either by being adjacent to or descended from deities and spirits collectively known as the Gods (specifically the Gods Tribe in JP), they are still distinctly subordinate to and separated from entities such as Hylia and the three Golden Goddesses.
Confirmed to be included in this special grouping are the Zonai and the Oocca, for instance. Speculatively, the Wind Tribe are an example of people who ascended (with permission or worthiness) from the surface-- they are an arguably Gerudo adjacent tribe who may even be precursors to the Zonai or related to the Twili.
The Picori, at the very least those in their native realm, also certainly count as part of this grouping. Though it could be argued whether those descent Minish living on the surface still do.
The Sheikah, it should be noted, have never gained entry to this Gods club. Despite their proximity in worship and service to Hylia, historically, they've also done some pretty shady things-- like the Shadow Temple and the general murder and espionage stuff -- that may have otherwise excluded them from ascending like the Wind Tribe did. They walk a grey line, and they have a duty in the eyes of the Powers That Be that apparently prefer they stay put.
Not Turtle-y enough for the Turtle Club.
Another example of this Icarus flying too close to the Sun type cautionary tale, and a far more egregious offender in the eyes of the Gods Tribe, are the 'Interlopers' who would eventually become the Twili. They were a tribe of people that, while squabbling with others, tried to take dominion of Hyrule (referred to itself as the Sacred Realm/Holy Land in TP) with powerful magic that more or less gave them a winning advantage. Specifically, the Crystal Stone of Shadow (the Fused Shadow) which greatly amplified their magical power.
Banished by the Spirits of the Light whole cloth into an underworld (lit. A Realm of the Dead) that we also know as the Twilight Realm, they have been shunned from the land they tried to conquer and transformed by shadow so much, they're now allergic to the light (without sufficient mystical power to bolster themselves).
Basically, the intended message is this: any earthly people who have advanced themselves without approval by the Gods Tribe-- especially by using Divine Constructs as inspiration or means-- have therefore disrupted the order of things, and stacked the deck too much in their own favour. Even if the intent was primarily a fixation on preserving Hylia's bloodline, and by extension her sacred land, it is still possible to elevate oneself above your contemporaries (especially the capacities of the Royal Family line in Hyrule) in such a way that you impose too much independent influence upon the the natural world.
No longer following 'the way of the Gods' (the Gods Tribe law) or respecting the order of things (ala Shintoist inspiration), you are labelled a disruption to harmony and peace, and therefore seen as corrupted and pollutive, and generally negative in your impact. You will then be chased off, at the very least, unless you renege-- for fear that you will bring in demonic influences or be used by them. This has canonically happened to both the Gerudo and the Sheikah, now.
But you know who Magic Constructs on par with the Gods Tribe, except it's more eldritch and organic-looking and primordial in form? It's the other club, the one that the disenfranchised Sheikah went and banged on the door of, hoping to be let in if they started wearing cool red and black outfits and changed their name and stopped worshipping Hylia.
Yeah. It's the Demon Tribe-- who are pretty much just the inverse reflection of the Gods Tribe and its set up. Their Magitech equivalents, and what they can do, only serve to further cement this.
Specifically, if you could suggest that the Gods Tribe's main objective is maintaining a status quo of shared prosperity that provides an ordered and peaceful existence through conformity and tradition, the Demon tribe is an ever churning well of opportunity where winner takes all. It is a hierarchy built on brutal meritocracy, honed by constant challenges and hard won continuation-- survival and status fought for and maintained by individualistic influence and innovation.
Many various little bastards exist in the Demon Tribe. Bosses in charge of sub-tribes of monsters are commonly seen, but they have their minor Deities ad Spirits, too. The head honchos are called Demon Kings (plural, because it doesn't describe a single position, but rather just very powerful Demons who have clout). Demise is both a Demon King, namely the most powerful one, and also the 'Chief' of the Demon Tribe; just as, in this case, Hylia could be considered the 'Chief' of the Gods Tribe. So, Demon God-King, really.
While Demise is incapacitated by Hylia's seal, his role as the Chief of the Demon Tribe is actually the position that Ghirahim fills in for as his (literal) right hand man-- the very extension of his arm, as his blade.
Both the Master Sword (Fi) and Ghirahim himself are, perhaps, some of the most advanced forms of this sort of Magitech we've actually ever seen.
Ghirahim goes above and beyond in his role, even going so far as to cultivate his full persona as a Demon in his own right in order to maintain his authority as the effective Regent while the big boy is incapacitated. He disguises his true form and nature, and with a surprising level of autonomy and self-transformation for what he is, sets about attending his duties with great devotion.
He seems to have an incredibly intuitive and flexible mode of operation. His sentience is full of creativity, emotionality, and genuine potential that he has the capacity to explore and shape with great freedom, for the construct that he is.
He is flamboyant and attention grabbing, highly expressive. He entertains great personal indulgence, even going so far as to toy with Link in a manner that borders on vicious training for a while. Though in part due to his undeniable sadism, Ghirahim almost can't help himself but to continue to test and push against the potential as a swordsman that the Hero has, inadvertently cultivating its growth.
This depth of identity and adaption he's capable of was either an intentional part of his design, or specifically not prevented by it-- both of which stand to represent something of Demise and Demonkind. The lengths to which Ghirahim is allowed to wield himself when not in his creator's hand is remarkable and, though he is shown to be unable to override actual commands from his master, it stands in an interesting contrast to Fi.
Where Ghirahim is able to radically redefine his own presentation and function to best suit his Master's needs in a way that mimics the organic, Fi's evolution is far more linear and streamlined, never really deviating from systematic updates. Though the sword itself is subject to physical restorations, Fi's personal appearance is unchanged and reflective of her true shape, indicating that her tempering in the Sacred Flames is either a slow return to previous form or a pre-programmed and permanent upgrade set into motion by Hylia. It is also an evolution that is entirely dependant upon the actions of others, largely lacking the individual agency and flexibility that Ghirahim possesses.
Not to suggest that Fi is any less devoted to her purpose, however.
She is, quite unlike Ghirahim's aspect of individual advancement, wholly geared toward a model of mutual enhancement with a partner. She is built with a singular and clear objective in mind, perfectly designed to suit the needs of the one wielding her as a supplement to their ability, rather than an autonomous servant. She defers entirely to her Master's decisions at all times, though does make informed suggestions, and does not appear to be able to relocate the physical sword on her own. Many of her abilities are things that must be directly requested of her.
Even when she is given to performance, such as her singing or her ballet, these are seemingly dispassionate affairs that are precisely executed, preprogramed displays for Link's benefit. Absolutely nothing, not even particular inflections of emotionality, must risk the distortion of her relayed messages and guidance to Link-- these displays may also be something analogous to morale boosting rewards or a really weird form of reverence to the musically inclined Hylia. Either way, Fi is highly logical and presents herself foremost as an instrument and a tool.
She does not indulge in a persona or otherwise engage in anything not directly tied to her assigned mission-- she does not get distracted or indulge personal whims as Ghirahim does. But critically, a large part of her design is geared towards an awareness of her surroundings. Fi has a visible consciousness for the living things around her at all times, contrasting to Ghirahim's seeming negligence of them and open disdain.
Fi's orderly efficiency and lack of cultivated personality to detract from her purpose make the fact of her construction obvious. Unlike Ghirahim, her true nature and her task is almost painfully undisguised. She exists in a simple sincerity, almost austere, seemingly unwilling or unable to seek function beyond her designation without being updated by another. However, her concentrated application seems to achieve concentrated results, strengthening both herself and her wielder in a near impenetrable mutual reinforcement.
It is perhaps of no coincidence that, despite Fi's seeming inflexibility and clinical pragmatism, she also expresses something of a fondness for Link at the end-- in many ways, mirroring her Divine creator. She does this very robotically, by correlating her collected data time spent together and their completed task with what she's observed of human happiness.
Skyward Sword seems to argue that Ghirahim's main flaw is spreading himself too thin, or trying to be so many other things, that he falls short as a sword in the end. It suggests that his sin, like others in the franchise, is getting too big for his boots scabbard and letting his pride become his downfall. His individualism gets presented with a great cost, as he has only enhanced himself in ways that seemingly do not apply when he returns to his primary function as a sword. The emotionality he has, such as the frustration and cockiness and bloodlust he indulges, are also shown to lower his successes-- reducing the sense of his efficiency and precision beside the ever level, measured Fi.
When he returns to Demise's hand, Ghirahim is already weakened and spent. Despite all he's done for his Master's revival, Demise is left to fight with a paling version of the blade that once fatally wounded Hylia-- not unlike a Master Sword in need of restoration to its full power.
There's a legend regarding Gorō Nyūdō Masamune, widely regarded as the greatest swordsmith in Japanese history, and Sengo Muramasa, who is famously known for creating unique and terrifically sharp blades that are considered cursed.
It starts when Muramasa challenges Masamune to see who can make a finer sword. When the work is done, they go down to a river, and place the blades in the water with the cutting edge towards the current.
Muramasa's sword, which he named Ten Thousand Winter Nights, cuts everything that floats its way-- leaves, fish, even the wind that happened across it. It is so sharp that nothing escapes unscathed.
Masamune's sword, named Tender Hands, is placed in the river and cuts the leaves that go by so seamlessly, they reform on the other side. Fish swim up to it and seem to be repelled by its aura, avoiding death. The wind kisses the blade gently with a pleasant whistle.
Muramasa isn't impressed by this. He thinks the blade is useless, barely cutting anything at all, and starts to remark on the lack of skill. Masamune smiles at the criticism, but merely compliments that Muramasa's sword is indeed quite sharp.
A monk who had watched all this from nearby approaches at that point, bows, and interjects with his own observations.
Though he too observes that Muramasa's sword is technically very finely made, he notes that it's a bloodthirsty, wicked blade. It cuts anything in its path indiscriminately, he says, and would just as soon cut a butterfly in half as remove somebody's head.
Masamune's sword, however, was the clear winner in the monk's opinion-- a gentle blade that did not needlessly cut that which was innocent or undeserving, tempered by grace. It is a benevolent sword, and so far finer made.
In popular culture, Muramasa's blades have held onto their violent reputation. There's a superstition that they can compel their wielder to murder. It has even been said that, once drawn, they can't be sheathed again until their thirst for blood is sated-- even if it has to drink from its own wielder.
They also had a weirdly consistent habit of maiming or killing members of the Tokugawa Shogunate, and so became an anti-Tokugawa symbol synonymous with the rebellion. So that's fun.
But Masamune was considered to be a very calm man, who was controlled and reserved and quite spiritual. Muramasa, though, was depicted as an aggressive man, who was a bit wild and kinda unpredictable. As far as the folk stories go, Muramasa is depicted as having been quite envious of Masamune. Unlike Masamune, who approached his craft as the art of achieving clean death, they say Muramasa needed to transfer his unhinged energy into his blades to keep from being overwhelmed by it himself.
Because their natures bled into the swords they created, it was believed that Masamune and Muramasa imbued them with purifying and demonic power, respectively.
Just as with Demise and Hylia and the swords that they created-- as inspired by such a legend-- the spirits inside of them represent their natures, as well.
Ingo’s transformation from the underappreciated backbone of the ranch to an absolute ruff-wearing cantaloupe of a man is also pretty interesting (if you’re the kind of person who absorbs the Zelda series through your skin like a frog to live).
I’ve bolded the key points for skimmers.
Granted, the manga has it that Ingo just gets brainwashed by Twinrova into being a staunch follower of Ganondorf. That’s not canon, but it’s not informing any of this thinking, either way.
In the beginning of OoT we meet Talon by waking him up from a nap, and we learn pretty quickly that he’s lazy and often yelled at by his daughter for slacking off like this. Ingo at the ranch confirms again that Talon doesn’t pull his weight around there, and since Malon’s still a child, it’s pretty obvious that Ingo’s settled with the bulk of the work.
Ingo is grumpy, he’s resentful, and he complains a lot. But he does do the work, and you can find him (presumably) in the process of mucking out the stables.
Let’s examine what he does at the ranch:
Epona really liked that song… Only I could tame that horse… Even Mr. Ingo had a hard time…
Now, Epona is established in game to be a real winner of a horse. She’s fast, she’s smart, she’s got a lovely sorrel coat and white mane that seems to be quite rare or highly prized coloring. The catch is, she is notoriously wild. The only people she tolerates are Malon and Link, due in large part to being soothed by the song Malon’s mother taught her.
Ingo had to really try to crack this horse, which Malon’s observation suggests is unusual.
Epona is very young when we first see her, so it’s never really revealed if she was caught wild, or bred at the ranch with a very headstrong temperament.
Ingo’s clearly the guy that’s breaking them in, though. The most Talon is doing is… sleeping in with the cuccos. We never see any organisation of the cuccos, in terms of egg collection or poultry farming, but nevertheless, Talon has the much less physical jobs even if he was doing them. His focus seems to be cuccos, deliveries to the castle and book keeping between naps (and to be fair it’s probably a little depression related, given the dead wife).
Malon gives us a cow later on, and she’s got the egg for the crowing cucco that wakes up Talon, so I’d like to assume for simplicity’s sake that even as a kid, Malon was up at dawn most days helping Ingo with the cows and milking them. It’s never really implied that she has amazing skill in dealing with horses, just that Epona has a special connection with her specifically. Other than that, Malon is simply kind and respectful of her animals (though I’ve got no idea how she got that cow to Link’s treehouse and that’s worth investigating).
Later on, Ingo is also shown to be a competent rider. Enough that he has absolutely no qualms in challenging Link to races for wagers, and was quite confident of his ability to win.
The takeaway is, Ingo is usually VERY GOOD with both caring for and training horses, if not breeding them for the ranch.
That kind of lends to his grumbling, when he is referring to himself as ‘the Great Ingo’ and comparing himself to Talon, who is a ‘bum’. His claim to greatness may not be undeserved, at least in horse circles, and especially if he’s not getting particular credit for it, his bitterness and frustration (alongside envy, exhaustion, and dreams of recognition) would be quite deeply run.
So it seems that his friend and employer is clearly taking some advantage of him, especially after the death of Malon’s mother.
So now, let’s examine his feelings, and how he changes.
Be advised of minor totk Ganondorf spoilers ahead--
One of the things that stands out to me about botw/TotK is the many ways we are shown that a connection of people to nature and the understanding of and respect for the spirits of the land-- an incredibly Shintoist outlook-- is integral to Hyrule's prosperity.
This is true of every Zelda, but the very Ghibli-esque nature of these two showcase it in a really forefront way, in how they show a destroyed and recovering Hyrule, post Calamity. The erasure and destruction of both historical record and knowledge of important skills, as well as a seperation from the people and their big and small Gods, is directly aimed at severing such connection.
That's the philosophical heart of the series, thematically. It's also part of why Link is named link-- a link to Hyrule for the player, but also one who links people together, and reforges broken connections so that something can heal and strengthen again.
(That's relevant to the rejection of Sheikah Technology too, and the ways in which advanced magic-tech is very much shown to be something of the Heavens, rather than Earth. The themes there regarding hubris and error, such as Calamity Ganon's turning the technology against Hyrule, are kind of playing on the dangers of that sacred connection to the land being substituted.)
A huge part of the damage done to Hyrule in Ganon's assaults comes in isolating people and weakening the spiritual forces of the land, often cutting off access to holy places of Hyrulean worship or attempting to destroy or defile them.
One of the effects of this to remember when pondering new details is that some of the things in botw/Totk's lore-- such as things we're told through word of mouth especially by contemporary Hyrulean people-- are deliberately wrong, or intended as having been widely misunderstood.
Hylians especially have lost a vast wealth of cultural and religious knowledge in the Calamity, and much of their previous population and settlements. Their access to and knowledge of holy sites and objects, and their meanings or respective spiritual guardians or deities, is incredibly limited and spotty.
It isn't the first time we see cultural knowledge waning like this in the series, either. Like a bad game of telephone, this knowledge gets distorted and diluted over time until it's merely a rumour or guess, that vaguely resembles the original tale or purpose.
A great example of this is knowledge of the Triforce upon the Great Sea in Wind Waker. The legend of the Holy Relic that contains the power of the creation Gods and its wish granting properties does persist, even beyond a cataclysmic flooding of Hyrule has buried most evidence of it. So much so that its mark can adorn the doors of Outset Island, clearly still holding purpose as a warding symbol at the very least, while treasure hunters and old men rave about the lost treasure of the wish granting cutlery, the Triumph Forks.
To this point, and in an interesting meta effect of this, Jerrin notes-- regarding the horned statue in TotK-- that, there being a goddess of light, her parallel and opposing twin comes in the form of the Horned God.
Which many players probably think odd. I did, at first.
At face value, we may think Jerrin is speaking of the demonic entity residing within the statue, because that is what we are most familiar with when we think of this statue in particular.
And while the entity trapped in the horned statue certainly is a member of the demon tribe, most players are probably going to be aware of the dissonance there-- Hylia's opposing match is and always has been Demise.
The entity tells us it was sealed inside that statue by the Goddess herself, long into antiquity, as a punishment for their deals with mortals. Depending on how you wish to interpret that, and especially considering we've seen members of the Demon tribe refer to a Zelda as 'the Goddess' still, it can be taken with a grain of salt which incarnation of Hylia did the sealing.
While it has become a vessel used to seal a particular demon, I believe that it already existed. The idea of sealing spirits and demons into containers is par for the course in Zelda and Japan, and this entity says that it was sealed 'inside this statue', rather than transformed into one (such as we see done to WW Ganondorf).
The Horned Statue itself very much matches the form of the Statues of Hylia in design, which are conversely noted to be rounded down over time by touch and prayer. They're worn from worship, and the Horned Statue isn't. The demon inside gripes about how people ignore it and don't even clean bird poop off it. It's pretty safe to assume that it represents the Horned God as, what Hylians would perceive to be, an evil idol. But in that, it represents the greater concept-- the demon tribe as a whole, as represented by their leader-- rather than the unfortunate being stuck inside of it (who most people besides Link apparently can't even hear).
As an aside, TotK has given us example of other spirits and minor deities being able to communicate to Link through them, in a manner almost reminiscent of Gossip Stones (and I believe that's on purpose). When he speaks to a typical statue of Hylia, for instance, it is reinforced that he is not actually hearing the voice of Hylia-- of course. What he is speaking to is, for the most part, an animistic delegate of a kind that acts as an intermediary.
There is a kind of spiritual awareness within the statue that performs a function, like a priest performing service, but cut right back to the essence of it. I don't mean to imply every statue has had a being forcibly stuffed inside of it to fulfill this task, but rather that the voice is closer to a result of the spiritual practices themselves.
The vessel of worship, through being worshipped, gains a spiritual identity as a link to the Divine.
The point is, it's unlikely that this entity is actually 'the Horned God' that the statue itself represents. It is supposed to represent the Leader of the Demon tribe. Demise is the natural opposite of Hylia, and he is stated to appear differently through the epochs, to each who sees him.
The opening cutscene of Skyward Sword very clearly depicts him in symbolic representation with horns.
And, I do not think that it is at all a coincidence that TOTK also presents us with a pretty undeniably horny Ganondorf, who is himself a reincarnation of that spiritual wellspring of essence. One of the thing to understand about the Tear he possesses is that it, with it's basis being a Magatama, is functionally amplifying his spiritual force and manifesting his potential.
In this state, he is very much supposed to evoke and represent Demise, and his role-- he is visually geared to make that connection clear.
He has become the Horned God that this ancient statue pays homage to.
When we view the aspects of these games through the lens of the average Hylian person, versus what we know from the long running meta of Zelda and it's extra materials as a whole, it becomes really interesting to decipher these sorts of red herring details.
At first glance something may seem to be a contradiction or an ill fit, but upon further inspection, starts to hold a lot of weight as a deliberate part of the internal world build.
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