So, I got two people asking about my thoughts on the Master Sword, so I’m talking about the Master Sword.
So, to begin, I guess I should start by pointing out something we already know: only the Hero can wield her. This is because Sky went out of his way to forge the Master Sword, and himself alongside her.
So, if she can only be wielded by the Hero, who can she tell when it’s her twink that’s trying to pull her?
Simply put, I think that Fi is bound to the Hero’s Spirit, and that’s what she uses to figure out whether or not it’s the Hero coming back. And once she’s identified Link as the Hero, she sort of, latches on.
I want to reference another theory I saw about Fi being bound to the Hero’s Spirit and something something she also died in the Downfall Timeline, but I can’t find it. If anyone knows what theory I’m talking about I would appreciate help locating it.
But here’s the thing, this sort of bond runs deep. Like, these are two beings with separate spirits but who’s very souls have become intertwined, which helps them act as one, but does come with a downside.
So, this was in reference to ACIF, so I’ll use examples from there for the next bit.
When you pull the Master Sword, she ties herself to you. Once she’s recognized the Hero she intertwines their souls and binds them together. They act as one, each an extension of the other. And some Heroes notice this more clearly than others.
Knight (and kinda Wild) are pretty magically inept. They don’t use magic in their games, not really. So when Knight pulls the Master Sword in Chapter 10, all he feels is this thrumming. He can feel the magic as Fi reaches out to him, but he doesn’t recognize it. Contrast to, say, Warriors, who isn’t great at magic but isn’t magically inept (he does use some magic in his game), who did recognize the magic as he pulled the sword, but maybe didn’t realize what it meant. And then Hyrule, who is very magic comparatively, and the scene were he pulled the sword in the canon comic, he knew exactly what was happening.
So, in the chapter I just posted (Chapter 12), what is Warriors talking about with a sense of longing for the sword?
Simply put, he’s not longing for the sword, he’s longing for the piece of himself that resides within it.
This is what I meant by downside. While the Hero wields the sword the two are one. Their souls are intertwined together and connected. So putting her back means you have to separate the two souls back into separate souls. And, I don’t think they always succeed.
Basically, when a Hero puts the Master Sword back, they don’t separate cleanly from her. There is a part of the Hero that remains with Fi. (And a part of Fi that remains with the Hero.) I think this also connects kind of to the sort of, listlessness in some of the sequels where the Hero keeps adventuring without Fi. In Majora’s Mask we don’t really get to see it much since Time is still a little messed up with other stuff, and Wind is too young to have noticed yet. But in Hyrule Warriors there is the Great Sea DLC, where Warriors doesn’t even hesitate to throw himself back into the fight.
It’s also why I don’t think Sky likes using any other sword. Being the first Hero, and the one to forge the Master Sword, he’d have a stronger connection with her than the others. Which means two things: 1. He gives up slightly more of himself than the others when Fi went he put her back, and 2. He can’t make the same kind of connection with another sword like he does with Fi, and so he doesn’t want to use them.
So for the person asking if Warriors is the only one to notice this, no. Every Hero who wielded the Master Sword notices that something is off or missing. That being said, most Heroes don’t know why this is. Sky knows, and I think Time has figured it out. Hyrule absolutely knows. But most of the rest of them don’t. Warriors knows it has some connection to the sword based on the longing, but Twilight has probably sorted it into the ‘I miss Midna’ explanation.
So, TL;DR I suppose: The Master Sword is bound to the Hero’s soul and they don’t separate when the Hero puts the sword back, so a part of the Hero remains with the sword, leading to a sense of longing and listlessness when they don’t fully understand what happened.