Botw 10k Hero - Tumblr Posts

Thinking about The Original Attempted Calamity Hero and Ganondorf again and the implications of the Calamity even existing in the first place.

(Warning, this post has spoilers for basically all of the Zelda franchise and is pretty long, if there's a game or thing you did not read but would like to like the manga then please turn back, or stick around if you don't care lol)

I know there's a lot of theories about him floating around, that either he was half Gerudo, part of the Zonai tribe or at least half Zonai and Zonai raised or even Ganon himself because for some reason something might have happened to that era's Link, but that's a fairy better released at another day. But can y'all imagine being the guy back then? I don't think we discuss this enough to be honest.

So far, almost all of Ganon's incarnations have been at least somewhat mortal before BOTW, with the exception of obviously Demise who was a deity, and the whole thing with the Four Swords Adventures portion of the timeline that kind of itches at me that it has time travel involved though that's yet another fairy, but almost every single one of them started as a human even if they do get more and more animalistic over time. What with Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker's Ganondorf being by far the most human, but during the second part of Ocarina of Time and later on Twilight Princess they descend into Beast Form, which is a power boost yes but definitely a downgrade as it doesn't leave him as sane or cognitive, given that at the end of Twilight Princess Ganon returns to human form to fight Link rather than remain in that form. It's telling that he much prefers being human to being a feral boar.

Then we have OG Zelda's Ganon, the general downfall timeline Ganon that is, from A Link to The Past to Oracle of Seasons/Ages to A Link Between Worlds to the very first Legend of Zelda and Link's Adventure, it's clear that Ganon has fully descended into a feral state and that whatever bit of humanity there and cognition as a result was, he very rarely talks in LTTP, in a LBTW he's at his most coherent when Yuga fuses with him, by the OG Zelda he doesn't speak at all and twice in that time frame he had to be revived rather than come back on his own like his more human like iterations can if they wait and chill for a couple hundred years. He's basically no more than a feral animal, he isn't interested in ruling Hyrule, he's very darn interested in destroying the hero and making Hylia herself suffer and definitely doesn't care about burning Hyrule to the ground and killing anyone in his path if that does the trick, whatever sanity there was is too far gone.

Stick with me here, I'll get to the point.

It's an interesting descent and detail to pivot and follow after. It's obviously a result of Demise's corrupting divine fury and curse, you know what's technically a similar case? Zelda.

I think we can all agree that Zelda isn't Hylia, she's Hylia brought to earth or at the very least her vessel if we go by Breath of the Wild, because Zelda praying for herself wouldn't make any logical sense otherwise even if by order of her father, with no memories or rememberance of what she was, just that she is the holder of Hylia's divine power and her will and responsibility to protect the people and specially the Triforce/Light Force the Original Three left behind. No Cost Too Great you could say in the words of the Pale King from Hollow Knight, the only time she remembers in full is in Skyward Sword, it's confirmed that Zelda gets Hylia's knowledge and maybe even her memories after praying in the springs and it doesn't matter if she's just a vessel to her power or a reincarnation or if this is a Cú Chulainn situation where she is Hylia yet isn't (Schrodinger's Deity?), and her behavior shifts a bit then, not by much but it's definitely noticeable if you look at the text.

What if it's a similar case for Ganon? Zelda is what you get when you don't have the memories, when you take something barely comprehensible with a though process you can't even begin to understand with an intense capability for emotion that's practically suffocating and compress it into a mortal form to start again as a blank slate and it mostly remains that way. Ganon is what you get when the memories slowly seep back in as well as the intense, overwhelming, all consuming divine rage and fury and wish for vengeance seeps into a mortal vessel that very obviously can't fully hold it, couple that with Demise's curse and you have a cocktail for disaster, Ganon was doomed from the start just by being Demise's vessel, man never stood a chance. Though there's no way to say wether he fought against the influence or not, that's something we are unlikely to ever know since we only play and read from Link's and Zelda's perspective.

The Calamity and Malice is the result of when that divine fury breaks out, when there's a break in the already spilling over and cracked goblet. But it couldn't have broken on it's own you know? We see that cursed enemies were always a thing in Zelda games and as far back in the timeline as Skyward Sword it already existed, remember that corrupting and harmful 'water' at the Ancient Cistern's basement? The cursed enemies and dark crystals there? Possibly a leftover of Demise's power after the original break through the surface as seen in the First Hero's manga, a prototype of Malice, hence why Ghirahim was sniffing around there for a way to bring him back, it's the only other place in the franchise after BOTW we see a prominent number of cursed enemies, and the Malice is clearly a thing that can learn and evolve, it can possess enemies and technology, it can revive the dead and control it and possess people too and create beings from it (remember the Phantom Ganon in OOT and PH guys), but it's not a discernible pattern, we didn't know much about it at all until recently and that right there? Is some terrifying lovecraftian/ancient mythology thing.

Because we clearly see it puppeteering scattered pieces of Sheikah Tech in the form of the Blights, possessing the Divine Beasts and the Calamity Ganon form in BOTW, Tears of the Kingdom shows us how Ganondorf's corpse is still around and clearly was revived, like a lich being corrupted from it's own energy. It's not Ganondorf doing anything anymore, it's the curse, it's Demise's Will, and as his corpse has not fully perished yet it likely is but a puppet to it.

It was not a pattern anyone could have predicted much less the hero back then, would he and his Zelda have an inkling about the pattern of Ganondorf always reincarnating and maybe have tried to do something about it early? Absolutely, heck maybe Ganondorf was even sane enough to fight back and try to go off script. Would they have predicted that some kind of freaky kill switch would actívate to keep his reanimated corpse going only powered by the original curse Demise set up, which is basically fueled by pure divine will for vengeance on the one with the spirit of the hero who bested him not once but twice and the goddess that twarthed him at every turn from throwing that little green glad bastard at him with a sacred sword to seal him to basically sabotaging the Triforce so divine beings cannot use it and fury so strong it transcends time and space if we count games like Cadance of Hyrule and Hyrule Warriors (which we are doing here by the way) being a thing and presumably happening in different worlds? Absolutely not.

Honestly I see people compare BOTW and AOC Link to the guy back then and how they should have done better in game and that BOTW Link failed not living up to the standard he set up and how he stopped talking under the pressure and I'm just, y'all ever pause and think he wasn't anymore prepared than you people? Maybe I'm remembering it wrong due to sleep deprivation, I haven't slept well in months and woke up in a cold sweat at 3am to start writing this down but just- He didn't have Shrines to prepare him, he didn't have the Divine Beasts back then to weaken the Calamity before they were built by the Sheikah with presumably Zonai aid (and oh boy to I have thoughts and headcanons on that) and that would have taken time, it was basically just him, Zelda, the other races and Fi as the Master Sword (or heck even without her, we all know it always takes any Link time to get the Master Sword in the games, he likely didn't pull her out straight away like how presumably BOTW and AOC Link did) holding the fort against Malice enhanced monsters and likely revived undead because we know even while sane the previous Ganon's were definitely not above doing that.

So it was most likely a Phyrric Victory, the few times we hear about things that happened to previous heroes, is that we either don't know what happened to them at the end of the story (which is extremely concerning if you ask me because something should have been recorded right? They should have at least recorded how Zelda got her powers to give other Zelda's a better point of reference that just stay in a spring and pray to yourself apparently) Or that they just straight up died (The Hero's Shade being OOT Link, The First Hero being left behind rather than being able to ascend with the other humans to Skyloft, OG Zelda's previous Link most likely being killed in an attempt by Ganon's cult to revive him or to seal him away again), and we don't hear what happened to him or Zelda or the original Champions. History is written by the victors after all, Hylian history has a tendency of erasing details, take from that what you will.

TL;Dr My headcanon is that him and his Zelda were unwittingly cataclysms to the Calamity being unleashed in the first place, and that's why we don't hear much about what happened to them and, since 10000 years have passed there was likely a lot of time for erasure and cover up to happen by the crown. And that the man himself would be very proud of his descendants for being able to deal with at least part of the problem he unintentionally caused and surviving even with worse odds in spite of being better prepared unlike him who most likely died even if BOTW Link and AOC Link should get at least one sucker punch in if they're told that wasn't even the original goods they thought they dealt with as a treat if we go the LU route, in this essay I will-