i love how in your ao3 stats you can see how many people bookmarked your fic/art and then compare the number to the public bookmarks... like ah yes ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) i see you, my secretive fellowmen......
In June of 2022, I was going through all of the emotions watching Love Mechanics, KinnPorsche, To My Star 2, and Old Fashion Cupcake and here I am in October of 2024 feeling all the emotions from another YinWar series (Jack & Joker), another Thai series that has me screaming every episode (Peaceful Property), and another Korean piece directed by Hwang Da-Seul (Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo) with some GLs sprinkled on top (Reverse 4 U and The Loyal Pin).
This month will now be considered Cry-tober because every day I'm crying in the club.
Fiddlesticks and Bamboozle are good friends 🥰 They like to cause havoc together, knocking trash cans and waking everyone up in the middle of the night 🙄
This is a Part 3 to these posts (1, 2) and a sort of follow up to this poll.
So, the Four Sword. The first game it showed up in was FS in 2002, closely followed by FSA and MC in 2004. MC was actually meant to serve as a prequel to the other two, and at the time of its release, it was the earliest entry into Zelda chronologically.
The origin story of the Four Sword itself actually serves as an entry in a certain genre of forging/upgrading swords in Zelda games. Other examples include the process to create the Tempered Master Sword in ALTTP and the transformation of the Goddess Sword in SS.
In-universe, preceding the events of MC, the Minish descended from the sky to help the surface dwellers fight monsters. They brought the Light Force--which went to the Royal Family--and the Picori Blade. The Hero of Men used the blade to fight the monsters and seal them in a chest--a sort of Pandora's box situation. Centuries later, Vaati happens. He breaks the sword during the festival celebrating the Minish, releasing the evil.
Link, the young Hero of Minish, gets the broken hilt of the sword and is tasked with bringing it to the Minish blacksmith Melari in Mt. Crenel. Contrary to many people's headcanons, Melari is actually the one to reforge the sword into the White Sword. Link then goes through Minish Cap. Using the gateway between the Hylian and Minish realms, the Elemental Sanctuary, he imbues the sword with the essence of the four elements to gain the ability to create temporary non-automonous copies of himself if he stands on certain magical squares. Other than that last part, it is a similar concept to the SS quest, though instead of the power-ups being themed around the Golden Goddesses, they are themed around the Earth (Purple), Fire (Red), Water (Blue), and Wind (Green). Not that important or a new observation but I think the color associations are neat.
Back on topic, there is no scene at the end of Minish Cap where Link leaves the sword in a temple or something. Nor is there any mention of him doing so in the Hyrule Historia. I'm pretty sure they kill Vaati 'till he's dead, and Zelda just wishes for Hyrule to be restored, similar to the end of ALTTP. It makes sense for Link to keep the sword, considering it was no longer acting as a lock on a chest for evil. What happened to it after MC is up in the air.
Some time later, Vaati returns. The details of the resurrection don't really matter. The fact that he had absolutely lost his mind and his memories does. He starts kidnapping beautiful maidens. These ladies later reported that a person known as the Four-Who-Are-One came out of absolutely nowhere, beat up Vaati, and vanished, leaving only his/their sword. The thankful kingdom builds the Four Swords Sanctuary around the blade, as it was the thing holding Vaati's seal. This event does not have a game attached, but is mentioned in the prologue of FSA as the precursor to FS. It is really important for a few reasons:
It is likely that the sword was passed down to at least one person after MC Link. More heroes? Who can say? I don't think it's as picky as Fi.
This is when Vaati became known as a Wind Mage.
This is also the first known instance of the sword "splitting" a person if the wording used in Hyrule Historia is correct.
In LU, this event poses even more questions. Did Four go on another adventure or at the very least a beat-up-Vaati mission before Four Swords? If he was around for the resurrection, what happened? When and why was the Sanctuary built?
Back in game canon, the seal on the sword that was holding Vaati eventually broke, leading into the events of Four Swords. Which are actually difficult to describe and not really necessary to explaining the sword. Just one interesting note that I mentioned in a previous post: there is a theory that the game takes place in the Sacred Realm, wherever the Minish came from, or some other dimension. If this is true, the Sanctuary should contain some sort of portal. Story-wise, the important thing is that the sword is left in the Sanctuary at the end of the game.
According to the Hyrule Historia, the next main appearance of the Four Sword (FSA) took place in the Child Timeline after TP.
FSA opens similarly to FS, and the Links go through various levels to free maidens, find items, and collect Force Gems. I've mentioned these before, but these gems are said to be fragments of the Light Force from MC that have been absorbed into the land. (Implications for Dot in LU? This Zelda can chuck Balls of Light at people, so she is probably doing okay.) Some gems are attached to like-likes, some of them came to life and you have to throw hands with them, but most are found in the exploratory levels. You need a certain number of them to upgrade the Four Sword so it is powerful enough to defeat Vaati and Ganon. There is more of a story here than in FS, I swear. Once the Links win, the sword is returned to the shrine in this game as well. This is the game the manga is very loosely based off of; their events are wildly different. (I like many people enjoy the personalities in the manga, so considering this would have to be LU Four's third or fourth adventure, it may be fun to explore how he/RGBV understands this split in relation to the previous ones?)
So, status quo restored, in the Child Timeline at least. The Adult Timeline sword probably drowned with everything else. The Downfall Timeline however, has some stuff going on.
First, there is the Palace of the Four Sword in ALTTP. As many people know by now, this is a dungeon that is not original to the game, as it was part of a Anniversary Edition of ALTTP and FS that were paired together. On the FS side of this deal, you got the Realm of Memories and the Hero's Trial, while ALTTP gave you this strange dungeon where you have to face previous bosses, collect the four swords, and fight four Shadow Links. Whether these are meant to be reflections/remnants of a previous wielder of the Four Sword or the Hero of Legend himself is unclear. This entire dungeon is in the Dark World as well, meaning that it was likely located in the Sacred Realm before it was corrupted (this can also tie into the theory that FS takes place in there). It is connected to the Dark World version of Hyrule Castle, the Pyramid of Power, which has some implications, I'm sure. Also, completing the dungeon automatically gets you the credits and end titles which is, again, interesting if only on a meta level. It is unknown if the Hero of Legend keeps the sword, but I like to think he does.
There is also a potential connection to Tri-Force Heroes. In this game, you go to Hytopia to do things, and if you have the correct number of players, it probably means that Link just teamed up with other people to do the quest. Whether or not all of you are somehow the same person, holders of the Hero's Spirit, or just other people known as a "Hero" is a bit ambiguous. Technically, at least one person is the Hero from ALBW. In LU, that is Legend; in LOZ canon, it is the Hero of Legend's direct successor, the New Hero of Hyrule (the Hero of Hyrule is a few incarnations after him, confusingly).
The three heroes are Green, Red, and Blue--the colors of the Golden Goddesses, hence Triforce Heroes.
However, if you do not have the correct number of players for TF, you have the options to switch your consciousness between 3 Doppels. They are essentially life sized dolls with stone-like faces. Somewhere in Hytopia, there is a forgotten fourth Doppel. It is greyed out and very creepy. It may be as simple as a failed version of one of the others. It might also be the missing Purple. This implies that the Hytopian Doppels potentially have some sort of thematic or direct connection to the Four Sword. Perhaps the Hero of Legend did keep the sword, and it inspired scholars in a kingdom he visited who were not able to perfect the vision. If not him, perhaps whoever had the sword in between MC and the Four-Who-Are-One visited the area. Maybe purple was too heavily associated with Vaati or not deemed fashionable enough. Who knows?
As of right now, there is no mention or concrete reference to the Four Sword beyond this.
