just. little things. specifically right now it’s the fact that they even managed to narratively incorporate and retroactively explain the video game Instinct To Collect. like yeah you the player collect things that sparkle when you get close because you are Playing A Game but. think about it. link, fresh out of a hundred years of sleep with near-total amnesia, instantly notices and instinctively picks up edible plants and mushrooms throughout hyrule without really knowing why. and only later do we learn that he loved to cook. he knows what is and isn’t edible and what is worth collecting instinctively because he’s used those same ingredients thousands of times before. breath of the wild you are the only game that matters ever
(I don't want to do two versions about this, so I'll put TP and LU together, sorry)
So, what does it mean? To figure it out, I'll talk about differents cultures or whatever I found to give a final conclusion. (I'm literally doing this on the fly)
Power animal:
The wolf as a power animal symbolizes intelligence, keen instinct, freedom, loyalty, and inner strength, acting as a protective spiritual guide.
So, regarding its main meanings and symbolism:
Intuition and intelligence: The central core of the wolf as a power animal, representing a profound wisdom that balances wild instinct with strategic reflection. I have not played TP, but I've heard some people saying its puzzles has their difficulty. We could be talking about the heroes of courage, but they must have their respective wisdom. Futhermore, these puzzles are also considered intuitive, where it takes some attention to the surrounders.
Freedom and autonomy: It represents untamed freedom and fierce autonomy, balancing individual independence with group loyalty. We can all agree that he is obviously an independent individual, as he had to go through a lot alone (he had Midna, but at least psychologically) and here he is. And group loyalty? Well, he is a rancher, he surely works with his mates. (Idk, I feel I'm explaining really bad).
Loyalty and family: Fundamental pillars of survival and emotional strength. He might not have parents, but he has Rusl, who he acts like a father figure to him, or at least like his relative (father, older brother, uncle...). In another aspect, there are the kids: Talo, Malo, Colin and Beth. They all idolize Link, they see him as older brother figure, which I find quite adorable. Furthermore, we also see him protecting them, literally going as fast as he can to save them. This goes tied with spiritual guidance and protection, so I'll skip that point. Well, he's actually a great guy with absolutely everyone, like with Ilia, with whom he has a great friendship and a clear romantic interest; and worrying when she loses her memory. With Midna, it's something similar, They have a relationship that develops through the game and a romantic interest. Regarding his relationship with Zelda, it's so underdeveloped that I can't say much, but we know that he cares about her too.
I'd love to speak about some other cultures, but the wolf is seen as a symbolism of evil, chaos, ferocity, danger, destruction, etc. What can I say about it? Just, don't mess with him because he's surely feral. His growls and screams are fucking bestial.
So my final conclusion: it's supposed to represent how strong he is, both emotionally and physically, how loyal and willing to help and save the others. Unlike ALttP Link/Legend, it's not difficult to see these on his game, we can notice how this description is accurate.
Leave your opinions and correct me if I'm wrong, respectfully ofc ^^
Zelda was never a strict hard medieval fantasy game. Ever.
Zelda has always played with the idea that the difference between technology and magic is basically nothing. There has never been a point in the series where advanced ancient divine technology wasn’t present. There has always been ancient knowledge unseen and magical instruments channeling it and people chasing to wield that magic. That works in basically any era or setting, and zelda is fundamentally tied to that truth. Divine time transcending wish technology is literally the initial premise behind the Triforce. Zelda has never been strictly medieval fantasy. Its also never been strictly scifi. It does not exclude speculation, imagination, aspirations, history, practical experience, scientific knowledge, religion, cultural traditions, folk tale, or mythology from its narrative. Questioning everything is always part of the games. It has never answered everything.
Zelda is absolutely bonkers. It always has been. It will never be a “hard” fantasy. There’s always gonna be some guy in a t shirt selling tvs while a lizardman in a loin cloth roasts drumsticks over a fire while some sorceress creates a mirror that can see the creation of the universe & probably gods. Thats Zelda. Its every Zelda that is like this. There are 0 exceptions. None. This is a series about timelessness that spans the scope of all creation. It even dips into plenty of “modernisms” and the Zelda team is not afraid to consider any era of human history to draw inspiration from.
I wish people would stop acting like botw & totk are different cause they wear this proudly. Thats what the series always has been, & thats always what makes it beautiful & kind of infinite and celestial and fairytale and dystopian and also disarmingly familiar and humorously contemporary.
Hyrule's Dark Age: Civilisation Collapse in Zelda I and II
Ok so I saw another post talking about the Link from Zelda I and II and whether he is either a) rolling in cash or b) completely impoverished, and while I didn't want to derail that post I DO want to be extremely neurodivergent about it, so, uh. Here you go.
Thesis: no one is rolling in cash during the era of decline. Cash itself is not necessarily in widespread use, and if it is, it's distributed much more equally than in other eras. The Royal Family do not have the power to hoard it, and therefore they are not going to be offering Link himself any massive cash rewards, regardless of how they personally feel about him.
Let me explain.
Ok, so I'll start off with the game mechanics themselves, because this is fairly straightforward: in Zelda I, your wallet caps out at 255 rupees. In Zelda II, you don't actually have a wallet at all. There is no cash-based exchange; you either get things for free, you get them in exchange for a quest, or you don't get them at all.
In practice, I think we can read into this and say that if rupees exist in Zelda I then they probably exist in Zelda II as well, though that doesn't necessarily mean that the town economy is the same as the cave-dweller economy. Additionally, if we bring both the rupees and the cave-dweller loners of Zelda I into Zelda II, then Link would probably be spending the bulk of his money on potions instead of the whole "jump into lava to refill your health/magic" strategy - latter of which works fine as a player but would probably be pretty undesirable for Link as an in-world character. An in-world Link might also have other costs: this depends a bit about how you view the setting and Link's own level of self-sufficiency, but at a minimum he needs food, clothes and some travelling equipment. So if rupees exist and merchants dealing in rupees exist... well, it's not like his basic needs go away in between the two games? If anything, it seems like he has more of them? Zelda II doesn't even give you hearts, man. But regardless: if rupees exist, would the towns trade for them?
In game, you can access health and magic refills for free, and there's no reason to automatically assume that isn't the case in an extrapolated version of canon, even if we add rupees into the mix. The modern world is very much money-based, but the medieval European world that Hyrule is based on had plenty of room for free hospitality and free healthcare, whether provided by individual people or by institutions such as the Church. Where trade did occur, it was generally based on exchange of goods/services rather than exchange of coins/tokens. If we go a little further back through history, currency did exist during the Roman empire, though it was mostly used by elites. And once the Western Roman Empire collapsed (or in fact, during its long collapse), Roman currency became largely worthless. You can't eat coins, after all. Money is only worth as much as people agree it's worth. So how much do people think a rupee is worth during Hyrule's Era of Decline?
Speaking of which.
Here's what Hyrule Historia says about the era that Zelda I and II take place in:
The proud kingdom of Hyrule had once covered a vast area of land, but the passage of the ages saw its decline, and it eventually shrank into a single, small kingdom.
The game manual for Zelda II also describes Hyrule as being in a state of ruin and turmoil:
Hyrule was on the road to ruin. The power that the vile heart of Ganon had left behind was causing chaos and disorder in Hyrule. What's more, even after the fall of Ganon, some of his underlings remained, waiting for Ganon's return.
There's a bit of debate about specifically what that decline and ruin meant, including the state of Hyrule's environment and the attitudes of the population towards the protagonist. There's a long thread over here that includes my own thoughts. But one thing I didn't focus on the time was what Hyrule's "dark age" meant for its economy.
Here's a few "real world" definitions to keep in mind:
"Civilisation" means a society built around cities. These cities house administrators, craftspeople, artists and other non-primary producers, who are reliant on an outside group of producers (e.g. farmers, miners and so on). The latter group do gain some benefits from the relationship, but they are not reliant on it to the same extent that the city-dwellers are, and in general, any wealth flows upwards, not back and forth.
The "collapse" of a civilisation means a breakdown of its administrative function and/or supply chain. Either the rural group is unable/unwilling to supply resources, or the city administrators are unable/unwilling to collect and distribute them. This may take place over a long period of time, and might not ever be 100% complete, e.g. we can still call it a "collapse" even if a monarchy still exists, albeit reigning over a smaller territory.
A "dark age" is the result of a collapse. The city population decreases significantly (either due to deaths or migrations), which usually means a sharp drop in literacy rates and written records of the time.
As above, cities are not necessarily a good thing, and dark ages are not necessarily a bad thing. The pyramids of Egypt were built upon massive amounts of slave labour, and so were all the theatres, temples and bathhouses of ancient Greece and Rome. This is not to say that slavery instantly disappeared when each of those empires fell, but it is true that a lot of exploitation is built on mass armies, mass surveillance and an arbitrary, centralised system of money and valuation - none of which is possible in the context of a collapse.
Going back to Hyrule in the Era of Decline, then.
Once upon a time, during its Golden Age, the Kingdom of Hyrule had covered a "vast area of land". Back then, the Royal Family had monopolised the power of the Triforce, and had used their wealth to build gigantic labyrinths and palaces filled with treasure, traps and monsters. There was probably a pretty big, pretty complex administrative function in place to manage this sprawling empire. A money-based economy makes a great deal of sense in this setting.
As of Zelda I and II, however, the situation looks quite different. Hyrule is a shadow of its former self, with only a fraction of its "Golden Age" territory (per my previous analysis linked above, it's the top right corner of the BotW map, and is stuffed with far more towns than is really reasonable for that amount of space). There's still a Royal Family, and they still have at least part of the Triforce, but they're helpless against Ganon and his army. So helpless, in fact, that they need a 10-year-old foreigner to rescue their head of state from the enemy's lair. Regardless of whether we stop there or go further and consider the environmental impacts of Ganon's takeover (e.g. the malice and gloom of BotW/TotK, or SS's description of sweet springs being choked and forests being burned by the demonic incursion): it's pretty clear that the Royal Family are operating from a position of weakness. Maybe rupees are still worth something, at least based on the rupee ore they're made from (as per the most canon of all Zelda games: Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland), but there probably aren't a lot of new rupees being mined/minted/however you get rupees, and there's probably a lot of non-rupee trade happening instead.
Conclusion (because I've been typing for way too long in a single sitting and I NEED to stop): 255 rupees is a perfectly rational wallet size for Zelda I Link to possess. Also: down with fantasy capitalism.
There's a moment in Twilight Princess that I just played through and it's worked its way into my brain and I need to talk about it. Unfortunately screenshots just can't capture it, because the motion and pacing are so important. But bear with me.
Link has just safely escorted Ilia, Telma, and Ralis to Kakariko village. Ilia, the girl he's heavily implied to have feelings for, does not remember him. He leaves the inn where she and his other friends are staying and has a conversation with Telma. After she scurries off to talk with Renado, Link turns to enter the inn again. Facing the door, he hesitates. It's only after a short pause that he senses Rutela's spirit behind him. No, there is a moment where he intended to go inside and see his friends, then of his own volition, he chooses not to.
That hesitation means the world to his characterization. Why does he hesitate? I have an idea. He wants so badly to see Ilia. For the duration of his quest to this point, he had no idea if she was safe or not. For all he knew, the girl he loved could be dead. In this moment, he needs to be with her, catch up, make sure she's okay. Then he remembers. She doesn't know him anymore. At her core, she is still Ilia, but she isn't his Ilia. He doesn't want the pain of spending time with her when he knows she won't value their time together like she used to. And that hurts.
Headcanon of the Week: The Hero of Legend redesigned his dungeons for the next hero (feat. Eastern Palace analysis)
Headcanon of the week archive
Basically, I think the A Link to the Past Link set up new puzzles for the A Link Between Worlds Link.
Relation to canon: I think it's canon-compliant. This is kind of a new theory I just thought of, so I don't yet know if anything contradicts this. (I'm not saying it's a new theory in general. Someone else has almost definitely thought of this before me.) Let me know if you can think of things that contradict this idea.
Why I like it: I think of the Hero of Legend as being a puzzle-lover. He has some of the hardest puzzles in the series. Looking at you, Oracle of Ages. And someone has to switch up the dungeon layout between ALttP and ALBW, so it may as well be him, right? I think he'd enjoy taking a crack at dungeon design.
Here are some fun comparisons of the Eastern Palace in ALttP vs ALBW:
Already, you can see how the entrance has changed. It still has the "W" shape (see below) and the two statues, but now there is a different puzzle to access the middle door. A switch triggered by an arrow to reveal a hidden bridge (ALBW) is more showy than a button hidden under a pot that simply opens the door (ALttP), don't you think?
A comparison of the first three rooms in ALttP (left) and ALBW (right):
The middle room is mostly the same with the previous room's left and right doors leading to dead-ends.
The north room doesn't look very similar on those maps, but they're both the same ball-hazard room with the pathways going over the top.
Here is the entirety of both maps for comparison, with ALttP on the left and ALBW on the right:
Of note is that ALBW's Eastern Palace has more puzzles and gimmicks than it did in ALttP (though this is more clear through gameplay than the maps). It has more switches and moving platforms. It seems less combat-heavy, but there are added traps to dodge. It'll leave it up to the reader to decide if that means anything.
The Eastern Palace also got a redesign in Four Swords Adventures, along with a new name: Eastern Temple. The entrance and first ball-hazard room are similar to the other iterations, but the rest of it is different. Interestingly, Four Swords Adventures takes place on the Child Timeline rather than the Downfall Timeline.
Whoever redesigned it before Echoes of Wisdom did a complete overhaul. Even the entrance is different. It's just a simple room with drop-offs to the right and left. Just one door other than the entrance and no "W". Like Four Swords Adventures, it also goes by Eastern Temple instead of Eastern Palace.
This has been an analysis of the Eastern Palace, but there are many other dungeons shared between ALttP and ALBW. I like to think the original Hero of Legend worked on most of the redesigns. It seems like a nice hobby activity for him. Though it was rude of him to skip out on giving the new hero any dungeon items. I guess he couldn't part with all his junk. Unless Ravio snatched them first and then rented them out?
I really think that Twilight has a healthy amount of fear of fire.
The way the game has many instances of him being trapped between flames makes me think it is almost intentional. Intentional like having Sky staring at dark corridors before bracing himself.
So, you know, Twilight is afraid of fire and Sky of the dark. But, like a healthy amount, not a phobia, but definitely a stressor.
"A Kingdom’s Mistake: How Hyrule Created Its Own Enemy"
After the first Great Calamity, 10,000 years ago, the Sheikah's technological power was viewed as a threat by the King and the people of Hyrule. The Sheikah were then exiled. Some of them decided to no longer use their technology and live normal lives, but others still harbored hatred toward the Kingdom that cast them off. The latter Sheikah banded together and formed an alliance. After 100 years, they became the Yiga Clan and swore to eliminate those who stand against Ganon.
Are the Yiga Clan’s actions justified, given their history of betrayal and exile?
In The Legend of Zelda series, the Yiga Clan are known as antagonists. When encountering them, they often disguise themselves as travelers in order to ambush Link—they even went as far as disguising themselves as Zelda. The Yiga are enemies to the Hylians, Sheikah, and even the Gerudo. They have made several attempts to kill the princess and have even killed their own people for disobedience. In a world still trying to recover from the Calamity's destruction, the Yiga Clan remains at war with the rest of the people.
I also noticed that they chose to install themselves in the Gerudo region instead of Necluda. Given that Gerudo is Calamity Ganon’s birthplace, they might feel closer to it.
It is quite ironic how the same group of people who framed the Sheikah for their technology now rely heavily on Sheikah towers, Shrines, Guardians, Sheikah Slates, and the Divine Beasts for survival. The fact that Calamity Ganon used his malice to control all the Sheikah devices (Guardians and Divine Beasts) in order to destroy Hyrule is a major reason why the Yiga Clan believes in Ganon. It is as if Ganon supports them, giving them the justice they were never granted.
Hyrule created its own enemy by betraying the Sheikah and exploiting their culture for its own protection. The Yiga Clan are now seen as comedic relief and a lesser threat in Hyrule, but they had a reasonable reason to rebel.
