A asked to try to play my flute again and this time they got such a beautiful ringing tone out of the headjoint!!! a clean sound!!! and i finally got around to ordering a student flute for them so i can teach them how to play :) so excited!!!
a boy who has a rather buzzing stomach; literally. a traditional valued boy who happens to be the biggest and most loving male wife to exist at his time period.
Were Link and Skull Kid the First Champion and Divine Beast?
Ok, so obviously I knew about the Divine Beast connection when Midna called Link a Divine Beast. I came up with this conclusion when I compared Skull Kid's role in Twilight Princess to the BOTW Champions, now I can't stop thinking about it.
Twilight Princess HD was made to promote Breath of the Wild after all.
So let's talk about it.
When I was casually thinking about Zelda again, I mind wanted to go back to the Howling Stones again, and knowing me, I decided to come up with Twilight Princess scenarios again. As I was alone with my thoughts, I started thinking more about Skull Kid and the Howling Stone used to summon him, then all of a sudden, my mind immediately went back to the Champions in BOTW.
That's when it hit me.
While the Royal Family have always been close to the other races in Hyrule, before BOTW, they have never once been desperate to actually assign someone with a task that requires beyond skill.
While Skull Kid is technically not a "proper Champion", you cannot deny how his role in TP functions very similarly to the Champions in BOTW. but it's not just Skull Kid, I believe that the Howling Stones also share a type of representation/connection to the Divine Beasts and the Champions.
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But I'm getting ahead of myself, let's break this down into three parts, starting with the Howling Stones:
While it is still a mystery as to where these stones came from, it is obviously clear that they have some sort of connection to both the Sheikah and the Royal Family due to their crests being on said stones.
It wouldn't be as much of a stretch to say that they could have evolved from the Sheikah stones in Ocarina of Time, as in BOTW, we see so much more Sheikah technology than ever, even seeing how much it has evolved overtime.
The Sheikah have always been dedicated towards bringing peace to Hyrule, so who's to say that the Howling Stones were indeed one of their forgotten relics, which brings us back to BOTW.
As we all know, the Divine Beasts were created by the Sheikah to aid the Hero and the Princess in the fight against Calamity Ganon, but due to there sheer amount of power, the King of Hyrule feared them, and abolished the Sheikah's research, leaving the Divine Beasts buried underground, forgotten for hundreds of years.
This is where the representation comes in as I believe that it can't be a coincidence how the abandonment of Sheikah research mirrors how the Sheikah are practically gone during Twilight Princess (with a few exceptions of course), with both scenarios leaving their ancient relics behind, and no one fully understanding how they work, except they did.
Learning how the Sheikah Slate was created to activate and control the Divine Beasts, is similar to how the Howling Stones work, Link cannot hear their melodies when he's human, only as a wolf.
When these melodies are played, they take Link to a nether version of Hyrule, where he would meet with the Golden Wolf, much like how in BOTW, when Link uses the Sheikah Slate to take back control of the Divine Beasts, he is greeted face to face with the spirits of the Champions.
With all that put together, it's safe to say that, in a lot of ways, the Howling Stones represent the Sheikah Slate.
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Which leads us to the second part:
The Divine Beasts
While Divine Beasts didn't exist at the time, there's no denying that there is some sort of connection regarding these Mechanical Guardians and Link's wolf form, one of these connections being the fact that all of them are real life animals.
Midna even calls Link a 'Divine Beast' as that is all her people have ever known the Hero would appear as. However given the implications that this Tale has been around for so long, it's likely that the Twili were not referring to the Hero of Twilight.
Which makes sense too as the Hero of Twilight was indeed not the first 'Divine Beast', it was none other than his Ancestor: The Hero of Time, and as the pieces come together, the more you realize how much the Hero of Time fits the role as Divine Beast far better than the Hero of Twilight.
As a Spirit taking the form of a Golden Wolf, Link can travel to many far out regions across Hyrule via the Howling Stones, teaching his Descendant the Hidden Skills he's learned during his era.
These Hidden Skills were more than just new Sword techniques, these were the abilities Link needed to fight back against Ganondorf, sound familiar?
In BOTW when the Divine Beasts are set free, the Champions give Link their unique abilities to help him across his Journey, and thanks to them, he is able to withstand Calamity Ganon.
Link traveling across Hyrule to rescue the Divine Beasts, and receiving the Champion abilities mirrors how Link in Twilight Princess travels across Hyrule to find the Golden Wolf and receive a new hidden skill, as both scenarios are the main reason Link is able to combat against Ganon.
The Sheikah created the Divine Beasts to aid the Hero and Princess, the same way the Golden Wolf appeared to aid Link.
And on the topic of the Sheikah, we know that the melodies we hear when near a Howling Stone aren't coincidences either, they were melodies play by the Hero of Time during Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask (except for Ballad of Gales which is in Wind Waker).
If the Howling Stones are one of the Sheikah's relics, than it's possible that at some point, Impa knew of Link's Wolf form, explaining why the Ancient Sheikah would model the Divine Beasts as actual animals, and why they would name them after the Sages that helped the Hero and Princess seal Ganondorf.
From the very beginning, the Divine Beasts were always close to the Sheikah Tribe.
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But wait!! What about this Howling Stone?
I mentioned this one before at the start.
It's completely different compared to the other Howling Stones, yet it plays a melody that Link has played before: Zelda's Lullaby. Except it doesn't summon the Golden Wolf, it summons Skull Kid, who serves as both a test and your guide to the Master Sword.
So if it's not like the others, what does this Howling Stone represent?
Zelda
The Commander of the Champions
I said it before that Skull Kid is not a "proper Champion" so to say, that being said, one thing that ties the Champions and Skull Kid together is their connections to the Royal Family, with Skull Kid knowing Zelda's Lullaby, and the Champions receiving the blue garments.
It's quite possible that Zelda was responsible for both scenarios, she approached each Champion to have them pilot the Divine Beasts, and crafted the garbs in BOTW. So who's to say that Zelda in OoT did the same thing to Skull Kid to have him protect the Master Sword, leading him to learning her Lullaby, as canonically in both games, Link has never once played Zelda's Lullaby in front of Skull Kid, as he knew the importance of that melody.
The Divine Beasts are titanic war machines that once brought fear to the Royal Family, so having to choose who to pilot them takes trust, and abilities beyond skill, something that the Champions have all been able to do.
Yet when it comes to the Master Sword, a relic that has been within the Royal Family even before Hyrule's founding, the last thing you'd except Princess Zelda to do was trust a Skull Kid into protecting it.
These relics are of the most importance to the Royal Family, and both tasks for these relics are quite similar, as they required the other races within Hyrule to fulfill them, but given how the Forest Species are canonically the weakest out of all the other races, not to mention the mischievous nature of Skull Kids, it's quite odd to think that Zelda would trust the Skull Kid we all know and love with both her Lullaby and protecting the Blade of Evil's Bane.
But here's the thing: you don't become a Guardian to the Master Sword overnight, with one good look when you enter the Sacred Grove in TP, you can see how much of an effort and seriousness Skull Kid had put when fulfilling his Guardian Role.
While he doesn't control a Divine Beast, his powers are the similar reason why the Champions were chosen to pilot them. Skull Kid is an eternal forest child that can teleport, he can summon a horde of wooden Puppets that act as offence, can endure attacks without breaking a sweat, and he can manipulate the Forest.
Abilities beyond skill.
While Skull Kid himself never attacks Link in game, it's clear that he's incredibly strong, as seen in the environment, there are Monster skulls all over the arena's, as well as the implication that Skull Kid stole thirty Bombs from those who tried to attack the Grove and hid them away to ensure no one would find them.
However we know that Skull Kid has never been able to use these kind of powers during OoT and MM, but given the implications in TP, he could have found out about them shortly before (or after) Ganondorf's botched execution, which would have caught Zelda's eye upon seeing that kind of potential.
It's even possible that Impa was the one to train him, given how his powers are surprisingly similar to BOTW Impa's abilities in Age of Calamity (plus his teleportation ability leaving behind leaves after he teleports is similar to how the Yiga Clan teleports), further connecting Skull Kid to the future Champions.
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And finally, on top of it all, in the concept art for BOTW, there was originally going to be a Kokiri Champion, but was scrapped and replaced with Revali.
However in full game, the Master Sword's pedestal surrounded by different shaped rocks, in the "Creating a Champion" book, these rocks represent the various Species in Hyrule, and one of these rocks represent the Kokiri, as stated in the book.
Saria was the Sage of Forest, yes. But given how long it has been since the Kokiri's last appearance, I don't think anyone remembers what they even looked like, the Koroks in BOTW don't even acknowledge how they evolved from the Kokiri either.
But given how they still know about them, yet the only humanoid child of the forest that was still present at the time was Skull kid, it's quite possible that History mistook Skull Kid for a Kokiri.
Which leads us to our bittersweet end, as we know what happens next as shown in BOTW and TOTK...
...For the Divine Beast disappeared...
...And the Champion was slain....
The only thing left behind was their sacrifices...
