For @milkcartkid!The Entire LU Crew Finally Makes An Appearance Here

For @milkcartkid ! The entire LU crew finally makes an appearance here

*downs four mugs of extra strong coffee with a sigh* So, that new trailer huh?

Too sleep deprived to go full theorist, so instead I'll compile all of the instances/triggers I can remember for each of the Link's journeys to distract myself from from Skyward Sword because boy having patience with the emulator controls is actually driving me batty. But if I lived through Minish Cap, Zelda I, OoT and Majora's Mask then I can probably do this.

Spoilers below I suppose?

Skyward Sword Link/Sky looking for Sun after she fell from the Cloud Barrier even though he had zero idea what was going on because she's his best friend and his main childhood friend and literally killing a god for her after he hurt her with lethal intent.

Minish Cap/Four Swords (Adventures) being fully intent on vibe checking Vaati for turning his best friend into stone, stealing the Light Force from her and then kidnapping and almost marrying her against her will and succeeding, came to care for Ezlo and the Minish later on as something of a happy incident, because they've basically been with Link through all of the journey and I feel like Link helped Ezlo heal from Vaati's betrayal as a result (my headcanon is that even if the doorway is closed, him and Ezlo still kept in contact and Ezlo taught him tricks of the Minish Trade in magical items)

OoT Link lost the Deku Tree, his father figure at the literal start of the darn game, and went to fulfill his last words by meeting the princess, who then asked him for help and Link being Link wouldn't refuse (that's a fairy for another day, I have so many thoughts on these boys), then Saria, his literal childhood friend and adopted sister, being taken by Ganon and to likely a lesser extent Ruto, who I feel he would come to see as friend even with the whole marriage thing. He also cares for Navi, the entire point of Majora's Mask is that he went looking for her at the end of the game, and he came to care for Sheik who is later revealed to be Zelda so of course he was going to kill Ganon and either succeed or die trying (well, did die trying in the Fallen Timeline Branch which was technically the 'True' one, before Majora's Mask, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess were a thing and no I will not let any of you forget that technically the Hero of Time was always meant to die but kicks it in different ways depending on the timeline, give this man a BREAK, he may as well be the Odysseus of The Legend of Zelda at this rate, the powers that be keep screwing him over yeesh).

Wind Waker Link wasn't even related to the Hero's Spirit, Ganon just fucked around and found out with the wrong kid's little sister that Wind Waker Link basically made the fates and gods bend with the force of his fury to get Aryll and later on Tetra back into making him the hero just so he could throw hands with Ganon, friendly reminder he's one of two Links that actually kill the guy, and the plot of Phantom Hourglass is also related to getting his new bestie Tetra back.

Spirit Tracks Link literally only became the Hero because his Zelda asked and they became close friends and likely remained close by the end of the game, plus his mentor and likely one of his main caretakers in his youth was basically mortally wounded during that whole deal, 'nough said.

A Link to the Past Link mainly helps Zelda because it's his uncle's final request, but then later on they actually are show to be close enough for him to invest himself on her safety even without that motivation, see A Link Between Worlds and also the Linked (hah) ending of OoA and OoS. He likely also was willing to help Zelda with the wish because, even with the awful prices and freeloading and lying, he came to care for Ravio as a friend and to a lesser extent Hilda too as she was his main guide through Lorule. Plus Marin, who really was an emotional gut punch for everybody I think (read: I played Link's Awakening as a kid and whenever I go visit a beach and a friendly seagull comes by I immediately get flashbacks, I don't know how they are in y'all's places but where I'm from they're shockingly chill).

The Original Zelda's Link aka Zelda one and Zelda II's main motivation was to find the princesses, though that one is slightly shakier because we have no idea if any of them knew each other before the world basically became an apocalyptic scenario or if it was just to vibe check Ganon again, find his vibes lacking and save the land again so it could start to heal.

Twilight Princess Link had the village children (one of them basically being like his surrogate little brother in Colin) and childhood friend taken by Ganon's minions, man had no idea what was going on or even WHO Ganon was before the game mind you, he was just a farmer herding goats in Ordon, he was just determined to get his family back no matter the cost, then he came to care for Midna and the plight of her people and what Zelda was going through and was specially close to Midna, the real thing that set him off against Ganon enough to go in with lethal intent was when he thought Ganon had killed Midna, so not only was he the source of the suffering of most of the people he cared about, but he also was under the assumption one of them DIED while he couldn't do anything about it, it's no wonder he snapped so hard and was just READY to obliterate Ganon.

Cadence of Hyrule is actually an interesting case, because not only does Link go looking for Zelda when she's trapped in an eternal slumber and then comes to care for Cadence, Zelda actually goes looking for Link too if he's the one trapped, that actually gives them away as pretty close be it as friends or something else.

Hyrule Warriors, boy is it also a complicated one. Warriors Link is a soldier willing to break rank to defend his country rather than to wait around with his fellow trainees, so him and his Zelda weren't close at all before, but I can see them becoming close when Zelda breaks out the Sheik identity as there's more chances for them to fight and interact side by side and then heal after the War of Ages is over, plus Lana and Linkle, though realistically speaking, Warriors Link would probably care about all of his comrades in battle on sheer virtue of not only their time spent on the battle field but also of the after, it's easy to relate to someone who knows what it's like to suffer through the same experience, though it's very likely he'd be the closest to Zelda, Linkle and Impa after all was said and done. They'd all have pretty similar nightmares I think.

And finally BOTW because I honestly cannot remember if Link in AoC actually lost someone close to him or if it's a Hyrule Warriors situation. Boy where do I even BEGIN with this dude (I say, as BOTW has been existing rent free in my head ever since the final TOTK Trailer dropped, honestly an achievement as usually that spot is reserved for Twilight Princess and Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask), okay. First he lost his childhood friend in Mipha when the Calamity first struck, and then the other Champions whom I feel he grew close to with time (yes even Revali), likely his family as we see concept art of a sister and a father, Zelda and finally Hyrule, his life and memories, his entire identity as a person though thankfully he was nudged into getting parts of it back. And is probably going to experience that same trauma all over again in TOTK.

Any other instances and I'll add here but Tl;Dr : All of the Links (except maybe the First Hero, Hero of Men and 10.000yrs Ago Hero, though that one is unlikely if you ask me) probably have a lot of separation/abandonment issues plus very big problems with failure (see Skyward Sword Link, no thanks to you, IMPA. And also BOTW Link who probably has the worst of the bunch) or just failing people in general, and as a result are extremely protective of whoever they consider their person and most likely always need to reassure themselves they're still there and are very dedicated to them as a result, in this essay I will-

Our prayer to the goddess

You know how blupees poof out of existence after a while of running? I say they can blink from place to place.

@lazyowl said hopefully one of the blupees would follow Legend home, and i think one of them definitely should.

Sleep Deprived Linked Universe Au concept that I think could be neat, everything is the same but the Chain or a Chain Member (Wild, Sky or otherwise) is like the Sky Children/Moths in Sky Children of the Light. Or where we drop one of the children of light or a moth with the Chain as a substitute for therapy which I really think they could use.

Or secondary Sleep Deprived LoZ/LU Au concept: everything is the same, but either one of the Chain members is like the Vessels in HK, or we straight up drop the Pure Vessel in BOTW when Link/Wild emerges from his 100 year power nap (goodness I wish that were me) after having his brain scrambled like an omelette and they and Link unwittingly imprint on each other and adopt one another as found family, which helps them deal with their respective traumas, bonus points if Wolfie/Twilight/TP Link is also there and unwittingly part of the found family, and if it bleeds over into LU the Chain has to suddenly cope with the fact this eldritch bug being from another world entirely meant to be a vessel for a maddened deity basically adopted one o their own as a sibling. Could also somehow throw Ghost or Hornet in there later on.

I will not elaborate further.

what do u think totk is gonna b about

OH WOW I AM SO SO SO GLAD YOU ASKED!! HERES THE ESSAY I TOTALLY DID NOT HAVE PREWRITTEN ABOUT THIS SUBJECT!!

so arguably the biggest mystery left unsolved at the end of botw is the origin of ganon as we now know him -- "calamity ganon." in all other games (and by extension all known previous incarnation cycles) where "ganon" was the primary antagonist (incl. all ganon and ganondorf variants) ganon was something real, physical, and ALIVE. a man or a boar-monster, usually, but always something that was bound by the laws of nature to some degree and could be physically killed. botw departs from that formula (and by extension botw's CYCLE departs from the usual governing laws of its own universe--i'll come back to this point) by showing us a ganon that is far less human than any other known incarnation of demise. even in name, this incarnation of ganon is given no personhood--it's a calamity, a force of evil with no origin and no complex thought beyond a need for destruction.

The thing is, for all the game wants the player to understand this ganon as nothing but a mindless, monstrous force of evil, it also makes a point to identify this force as GANON, incarnation of demise. seasoned zelda fans will relate the calamity back to ganondorf the human king at the first mention of its name. anyone familiar with the cyclical lore or even just the basic formula of zelda games will recognize the cycle's steps being played out in such a way that the calamity plays the part of the king of evil. for those who don't make the immediate connection, urbosa's final line after the player frees her in vah naboris cements the calamity's former personhood: "it was written that calamity ganon once adopted the form of a gerudo." it's a deliberate hint to new players that the form we see ganon take in this game is not his true one.

So what is calamity ganon? what turned the newest human incarnation of demise so deeply inhuman? what happened to the human that calamity ganon once was? why, when the calamity struck, did it rise from underneath hyrule castle, with pillars full of armed guardians ready to aid it in its destruction? these questions are what i expect will be the main focus of totk. as for their answers, i only really have my own speculation, backed by some evidence from trailers and botw, which i'll outline now because that's the whole point of this post.

botw is 10k years removed from the last known instance of an incarnation cycle, a fact which is crucial to its story and worldbuilding. while there's no official source on how long periods of peace usually last between cycles, it's obvious from context that botw has gone much longer without a new cycle than any previous game before it, if only because of how much information about the cycle itself has clearly been lost to time. this lack of information is what causes a majority of the problems link and zelda face in botw. But it raises a question for those of us who follow the lore and have noticed the discrepancy: why was hyrule able to forget this information in the first place? Why was there such a long period of peace when the cycle ought to have continued? there's no other instance in centuries of documented hyrulian history where enough time passed between cycles for the idea of the TRIFORCE to be lost to time. how did it happen before botw? the answer, I think, lies with the hero and princess of 10k years ago.

there's a LOT we don't know about the hero and princess who came before botw, obviously. and I believe their story is going to be incredibly important in totk, given how it was teased in botw. we can assume, from context, that the incarnation of demise that this hero and princess went up against was the gerudo incarnation of ganon mentioned by urbosa. What botw tells us about this cycle is that ganon was powerful enough to need legions of guardians and four divine beasts ALONG with a presumably fully-realized hero and princess to defeat him, but that, with these resources, the hero and princess triumphed. what is not confirmed, however, is what exactly HAPPENED to ganon after his defeat. one could assume that he died, because hitting a human man with a sword enough times will usually kill him. however, there's another important piece to the puzzle when looking at loz cycles: zelda and her goddess power. the thing i'm going to be focusing on here is the fact that throughout botw zelda's power is referred to specifically as a "sealing power." it's significant to me that the concept of SEALING surivived when so many other crucial pieces of the cycle did not, because, in multiple previous games, "sealing" ganon does NOT mean he dies. in both oot timelines in which link DOES NOT return to the past at the end of the game (defeat & adult), the official explanation as to ganondorf's fate is that he is "sealed" in some form, either in the sacred realm or the twilight realm. (if you don't know what those are don't worry it's not important, what's important is that he is sealed.) alttp and twilight princess, follow the aftermath of these two timelines, in which ganon has been "sealed" but not killed. in both stories, ganon (specifically the SAME INCARNATION OF GANON AS OOT) eventually frees himself from the confines of the seal and continues to terrorize hyrule. so "sealing" is not necessarily synonymous with defeat or death, and it doesn't reset the incarnation cycle for demise's spirit, it just keeps the current incarnation dormant for a while.

i hear you saying, "blue, why the fuck does any of this matter? ive been reading for so long!" and i am sorry. i promise i will get there. the important point at this point is that SEALED does not mean DEAD or even DEFEATED, and that zelda's power in botw is exclusively referred to as a SEALING POWER. we can assume that this terminology is left over from the hero and princess from 10k years ago, because, by virtue of a 10k-year period of peace, most everything that botw hyrule remembers about the cycle appears to be left over from only that previous cycle. What this means is that, upon defeat 10k years ago, human ganon was not killed, he was sealed. and as i've already mentioned, there's a precedent in these games for a sealed ganon to come back to terrorize a new cycle's hero and princess. I think it's pretty obvious that the mummified gerudo skeleton seen in the totk trailers is that sealed ganon from 10k years ago. but those trailers take place AFTER link and zelda defeat calamity ganon in botw, so why is he still there, sealed but not dead?

the most obvious explanation to me is this: calamity ganon is not ganon. botw's blights give us proof that ganon is capable of somehow reproducing itself in smaller, less powerful doses to deal with immediate threats without having to leave its shelter in hyrule castle. if you recall, calamity ganon's first phase underneath hyrule castle is essentially a rehash of the blight fights, with ganon cycling through attacks previously used by its blights (and adding some new ones into the mix, obv.) One thing that struck me when fighting it, though, is that the fight lacks one signature mechanic that's been a staple of ganon battles in the zelda franchise since at least alttp: sword pong. in almost every game involving a fight with an incarnation of ganon, there's an attack pattern in which the player and ganon have to deflect a ball of energy between each other via their weapons until one of them eventually misses a swing and gets hit. calamity ganon doesn't have this attack in his arsenal, which is strange to me because it's an iconic move for loz final battles. the only ganon battle i can think of which DOESN'T involve this mechanic is oot's shadow ganondorf, a PROJECTION of ganondorf rather than the real thing.

can you see what i'm getting at here?

I don't think botw's link and zelda have gone up against their real incarnation of demise yet. I think the calamity was one of two things: either a genuine expression of rage/escape attempt by the sealed human ganon, or a calculated attempt by him to get modern hylians interested enough in the origins of the calamity to investigate and free him accidentally. The way the pillars rose from under hyrule castle, the fact that calamity ganon smashes through the floor of the sanctum and forces link to fight in that underground chamber, it all seems to beckon you to dig deeper. we know that that mummy is somewhere under the castle. Calamity ganon was a shootoff of its power meant to lead hylians to it. this is what i meant way back when i mentioned that botw's cycle departs from the usual governing laws of its own universe--link and zelda haven't actually played out the full cycle at all. what they've done is essentially the precursor to the main event--they've defeated agahnim, or zant, or ghirahim, but the true evil of this cycle has yet to be revealed. to that point, it's worth noting that, excluding shrine mini-dungeons, botw has WAY less dungeons than your average zelda title. most new-cycle titles (by which i mean games that weren't direct sequels featuring the same incarnation of a given link) are divided into 2 sections of dungeoning - the first section having 3-4 dungeons containing prize items needed to unlock some late-game functionality, and the second half having 5-7 dungeons and being accessible only after the player has completed the first section. botw has four dungeons TOTAL (not counting hyrule castle), meaning formula-wise it's essentially the first half of a cycle. i believe totk is going to be the second half of this cycle, with link and zelda having to fight the true evil -- revitalized HUMAN ganondorf.

so now we need to bring this all back to my initial point--why was there a 10k-year period of peace pre-botw, and how does any of this effect my predictions for the story of totk?

in simple terms, i think that the reason there was such a long period of peace was because 10k-years-ago-princess sealed ganon REALLY well. she probably came the closest anyone in hyrule's history has ever come to a TRUE defeat of ganon, because she managed to keep him ALIVE so he wouldn't reincarnate and SEALED so he couldn't hurt anyone for a really long time. what this implies is that 10k-years-ago princess knew on some level about the reincarnation cycle. she understood that if she couldn't keep ganon alive and incapacitated, he would revive and the cycle would start over anyway, so she did everything in her power to stop that from happening, and she did a DAMN GOOD JOB tbh. better than anyone who tried this shit before her. there are other bits and pieces of botw's story that point to the hyrulean civilization 10k years ago understanding the potential of a ganon reincarnation, most notably the fact that they buried guardians and divine beasts seemingly purposefully for later hyruleans to find and use should a new threat ever arise. this implies that 10k-years-ago hyruleans had a REALLY HIGH level of awareness about the cycle, in direct contrast to modern hyrule's REALLY LOW understanding of it. this is really important when we start thinking about totk.

we already have a decent amount of evidence suggesting that totk will deal with the events of 10k years ago and the hero involved in them. In several trailers now we've seen modern link's arm become weirdly, creepily fused with/corrupted by the arm that was holding mummified ganon in place under the castle. i think this arm is going to serve two purposes in totk. the first is a practicality thing: from gameplay footage it looks like the arm is going to basically take the place of the sheikah slate. the second purpose i think it'll serve is to be link's (and by extension the player's) connection to the events of 10k years ago. I've seen plenty of theories thrown around about what the arm is, but my personal theory is that it's some sort of prosthetic or tech that originally belonged to the 10k-years-ago hero. the way it's holding mummified ganon in place in that first teaser trailer looks less to me like an evil influence and more like something physically holding ganon down; a seal of sorts. (and in most games both the hero and princess's power is needed to seal ganon, so perhaps this is how the hero and princess managed to keep him dormant for so long: adding a physical piece of the hero to the mix?) in any case, i think that after establishing this physical connection to the 10k-years-ago hero, modern link is going to get some knowledge and flashbacks (potentially in the form of memory-style cutscenes like botw) that will serve to basically fill in all the cyclical lore that has been lost in-universe over the past 10k years. I've talked at length about how i believe link and zelda's initial failure in botw was due entirely to their lack of knowledge of the hyrulean creation myth and the REASON behind the motions they were carrying out, and i believe that by witnessing the 10k-years-ago hero and princess's journey, modern link will be given the knowledge he needs to defeat ganon.