What if the Wild's era Rito are actually the Fokka and Fokkeru from Zelda II: Adventure of Link, whom as a reminder are NOT evil, but the King's appointed guardians of the Triforce of courage?
That is an extremely good theory! I think I'll save this week's headcanon post until next week so I can put the spotlight on this. Which makes this an honorary...
Headcanon of the Week!
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I had already come to the conclusion that Rito likely existed before and separately from the Wind Waker Rito. So the Fokka/Fokkeru being related to the Rito who were loyal to the king during an era of prosperity makes so much sense!
Now the real question is: Can Rito spit fire like a Fokkeru or is that some kind of enchantment or biology that make Fokkeru special?
They both appear to be somewhat altered from both the other Rito we've seen and from each other.
That all of the Palace enemies are guardians from long ago is kind of insane to me. Are they undead? In a magical stasis? Are they unaware of time passing around them, or are they acutely aware of the decades and centuries as they pass? And I can't forget about the king's weird chimeras. Are those ethical? Did they have to do a bunch of weird experiments to make those or are they a Triforce wish?
The Encyclopedia (which I take with a handful of salt) says the Fokka were bred from birds by the king to guard the Great Palace. Meanwhile, a Fokkeru is "a bird soldier bred from flame." Yeah, that doesn't sound ethical to me. And there's the Thunderbird and all the others to consider as well. I'll leave it up to interpretation if the reader thinks the Encyclopedia is making stuff up or not, but either way, I think the Rito would be a good starting point for whatever the process was to arrive at these guardsmen.
It's not the first time the royal family had their hands in that kind of stuff. The species of creature you take the ball and chain from in Twilight Princess might also be the result of experimentation. Zeltik made an interesting video about that theory.
I hate to think of the dark side of the royal family that I associate so heavily with Ocarina of Time rearing its head during the Golden Era of Hyrule, but I keep coming back to it.
I digress.
Fokka/Fokkeru being Rito. I think it's quite likely that even if they aren't literal Rito, they are closely related. I hope that they are literal Rito instead of something darker, but we will probably never know for sure.
What are your guys' thoughts?
Feel free to send me more asks like this. This was awesome!