welcome to my TED Talk. Skyward Sword Link is the ancient hero mentioned in Twilight Princess. here we go
(for my own sanity im referring to SS Link as “Sky” and TP Link as “Twilight”)
so like, The Big Reason: the Hero’s Clothes. it’s probably really obvious but y’know how it be. when you first get them in Twilight Princess, Faron tells you this:
In TP’s timeline, the only heroes there have ever been in Hyrule are the ones from Skyward Sword, Minish Cap, Four Swords and Ocarina of Time/Majora’s Mask. Out of them, Sky’s outfit is almost identical to Twilight’s, sans the embroidery, and it’s honestly the only outfit that would fit Twilight.
MC’s and FS’s Links were children, and OoT/MM’s Link wasn’t remembered as a hero because of all the time travel stuff (which is where Hero’s Shade comes in but that’s something else entirely). Even if he was, his outfit is completely different than Twilight’s, and only the child Hero of Time’s version would exist in that timeline, since the adult version of the outfit was given to OoT Link in the Sacred Realm. So really, the only option left is Sky.
They’re both around the same height and age, and the elements in their outfits are basically the same, with tiny differences. There’s the high-collared undershirt (Twilight’s is sewn closed while Sky’s is open), the chainmail, the tunic with the same base design…
We know Twilight is strong - he works at a farm, can throw goats and gorons like it’s nothing, picks up big rocks with ease… while Sky can barely pick up a barrel without running out of breath/strength in a few seconds. Twilight clearly has more muscle mass, and we can see this in the outfits’ differences. In these design notes, we can see the sides of Twilight’s tunic have been opened, then half re-stitched, and the same goes for his sleeves.
Meanwhile, Sky’s lacks all of these modifications. On him, the tunic even looks baggy, made for someone bigger than him, while on Twilight it’s really tight-looking.
Even the hat seems to have been adjusted for Twilight’s head… and also elongated, judging by the extra fabric sewed on the tip. the length difference is a bit clearer in the following screenshots. It can also be seen that Sky and Twilight’s adventurer bags are almost identical but that could just be coincidence rather than them being the same bags.
Actually, the Hero’s Shade talks about the Hero’s tunic too.
This could just be a reference of the Shade to his own outfit as the Hero of Time, since he also talks about accepting the life of the hero in another of his encounters - but if he doesn’t consider himself a worthy hero after being unable to pass on his secrets, it wouldn’t make sense for him to refer to the Hero’s Clothes in such a way (”the proud green of the hero’s tunic…”)
It could go with my theory of the Kokiri’s green clothes being inspired by the first hero (Sky, not the 25th anniversary manga’s Link), with the Kokiri evolving from the Kikwis in Skyward Sword who met him. OoT Link, growing up as a Kokiri, could have heard stories about this first hero, maybe even looking up to him (kind of like the Koroks with Wind Waker and Breath of the Wild Links). It’d make sense then for him to think so highly of the hero’s outfit despite his own situation.
Outfits aside, there’s the Double Clawshots you get in Twilight Princess. Besides TP, these only appear again in Skyward Sword - other games just have hookshots or grappling hooks.
They have really different designs in general, yes, but that could either be explained by the different art styles of the games, or that, even if they’re not the exact same pair, TP’s were inspired by SS’s. Considering Sky’s clawshots are a sacred gift from Nayru herself, though, they should be able to last thousands of years.
Actually, talking about Nayru, that’s where we can get some “proof” that they could be the same pair. In TP, the first clawshot you find is in the Lakebed Temple - at this point in the timeline, water is Nayru’s element (instead of Electricity like in SS), so one of her divine gifts being in her element’s temple (possibly put in there as an offering either by Sky himself or by his descendants time after Skyward Sword) is completely fine… But what about the other clawshot? Well, you find it in the City in the Sky. Not entirely sure why they’d leave one behind like that, but it being in what could be a modified version of Skyloft’s ruins…
We could also mention the Hero’s Bow in all this. Its description even mentions the hero of legend, supposedly the same hero the outfit Twilight wears belonged to.
It looks quite similar to the bow you use in Skyward Sword. There are obviously design differences (it’d also mean Sky never upgraded it during his adventure), but they share key elements.
TP’s bow shares a few more key elements with Majora’s Mask’s bow than with SS’s, such as the little branches near the edges, but MM’s is way smaller (mostly to fit that Link, but yeah) and Twilight wouldn’t be able to use it. Though, it should be noted MM’s bow is also referred to as the Hero’s Bow, like in TP, so it could be the same bow in all three cases.
(Wind Waker’s bow is also called the Hero’s bow - and looks a bit more like Skyward Sword’s than these other two but that’s another timeline,)
Anyways. The ones guarding the Hero’s bow in Twilight Princess are the Gorons. Now, why would the Gorons have it? It’d mean this Hero of the past would have to have been close enough to them to trust them with it. The first Link to pop to mind with that is usually OoT Link.
But, when he gets sent to the past by Zelda after his adventure’s done, it’s to before he ever goes to Death Mountain, and before he becomes sworn brothers with Darunia. I’m not saying he couldn’t have gone and befriended them later, but I don’t know if, with that being the case, all the future generations of Gorons would refer to him as a Hero even hundreds(?) of years later if he didn’t physically defeat any evil, or even consider his bow a treasure. And if they did, I don’t think they’d just call him the Hero of the past, considering he was relatively “recent”.
Another one of the heroes in this timeline who has had some contact with Gorons is Sky. Granted, it was only with about… 4 or so of them, but him (or one of his descendants idk) giving the Gorons his bow for safekeeping would make sense considering they’re 1) one of the first species he ran into on the Surface, and 2) helped him a bit during his adventure. And coming from the very first hero (one of the founders of Hyrule, even), it being treated as a treasure by the Gorons even thousands of years later seems to make a bit more sense
It could also probably tie with one of the Clawshots being in the Lakebed temple. Maybe that clawshot was given to the Parella, who would later turn into the Zora? Maybe all the races Sky ran into during his adventure got a “gift” of sorts once Hyrule was offiically founded, maybe to unify all the races currently living there? And the other Clawshot could stay behind in Skyloft with the Loftwings, that could have turned into the Oocca. Who knows
snowghoul
theartofmadeline
