History Headscratchers / TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast

* So, this one is more about ''The Ancient Stone Tablets''... Basically, at the beginning of every week's adventure in the UsefulNotes/{{Satellaview}}-exclusive "[[MissionPackSequel second quest]]," the player is given an item called the "Big Bag." It's basically a bag ''three times the size of the player'', has a label on it which reads "XL," and [[BagOfHolding holds the player's entire inventory]]. My question… Where in the world does the "mysterious youth" actually ''store'' the Big Bag if the Big Bag holds everything they collect? (The same could be asked of Link in ''A Link to the Past'' (among other games), but he never officially gets a Big Bag. It's implied, in his case.)

** The real reason is that Bunny Link's sprite is pink, and thus regular Link's sprite had to have some pink because of pallete limitations. In-universe, I like to imagine he was just born that way.
** It's just one of the system's limitations. Link's uncle's hair is ''purple'' in his in-game sprite, but that doesn't mean that's its actual color. In the official artwork, Link's hair is a sort of strawberry blonde and his uncle's is black.
** Pretty much what the above troper said about system limitations. In ye olden days of video games and animation, it was hard to correctly render a lot of colours related to human phenotypes (real life skin, eye and hair colours being hard to represent other than with simplistic equivalents, such as blonde=yellow). In the case of some colours, they had to get creative: originally a dark shade of blue was used to represent "black" (true black being impossible or awkward to use, hence why Link's uncle's hair looks somewhat blue/purple in the game while it's black in the artwork), and it just became its own anime quirk over time. Likewise, Pink seems to have started as a shorthand for strawberry blonde (Louise from Literature/TheFamiliarOfZero is an obvious example, being reddish-blonde in the light novels and Anime!Pink in the... well... anime) or other reddish hues (as evidenced by Link's strawberry/brownish blond hair in the artwork). Pink=Strawberry is just another of those shorthands developed by Japanese media that became codified as a trope of its own during the 90s.
** SNES programmer here. The above statements are incorrect; there were no technical limitations that demanded Link would have pink hair, nor any that prevented him from having blonde or brown hair. Link and Bunny!Link do not need to share palettes as they are never on-screen at the same time. Most likely the reason Link’s hair is pink is that the developers thought it looked better, and nothing else. Supposedly they tried brown but thought it was too bland and went with pink instead.
** The "palette limitations" thing is most definitely an UrbanLegendOfZelda, not only do the rabbit and human Link not share a palette, the shades of pink seen in the rabbit are not the same as the shade on Link's hair.

** Pretty much what the above troper said about system limitations. In ye olden days of video games and animation, it was hard to correctly render a lot of colours related to human phenotypes (real life skin, eye and hair colours being hard to represent other than with simplistic equivalents, such as blonde=yellow). In the case of some colours, they had to get creative: originally a dark shade of blue was used to represent "black" (true black being impossible or awkward to use, hence why Link's uncle's hair looks somewhat blue/purple in the game while it's black in the artwork), and it just became its own anime quirk over time. Likewise, Pink seems to have started as a shorthand for strawberry blonde (Louise from LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero is an obvious example, being reddish-blonde in the light novels and Anime!Pink in the... well... anime) or other reddish hues (as evidenced by Link's strawberry/brownish blond hair in the artwork). Pink=Strawberry is just another of those shorthands developed by Japanese media that became codified as a trope of its own during the 90s.

* Why do Zelda and the Seven Maidens keep their /hylian forms in the Dark World? The game treats the Moon Pearl as this unique legendary item, but apparently if you're magical and plot important the Dark World's rules just don't apply?

** Doesn't matter. Even if it's a retcon, that still makes it canon. Also, keep in mind that ''A Link to the Past'' came ''first'', and that the entire "The Triforce splits if you're not in balance" spiel was ''itself'' a retcon. ''Hyrule Historia'' was merely plugging the plothole [=OoT=] introduced.

** Didn't [=LttP=] occur after [=OoT=], chronology wise? If so, then the back story of [=LttP=] is describing what the people remember of [=OoT=]. Ganon got sealed into the Golden Realm just before he acquired the Triforce. Wouldn't the seal keep the Triforce from splitting in the first place? Unless there were people in the realm to send Courage and Wisdom to, Ganon would have had all three. By the time Link beats him, he has a balanced heart and can use the Triforce without worry.

** No. The Sacred Realm itself had the Triforce split as a defensive measure. If the Triforce had been somewhere else Ganon could have grabbed it and gotten the entire thing instantly. By killing Link in [=OoT=], Ganon got the entire Triforce and kept it until [=LttP=] Link eventually killed Ganon and got it for himself.

** No. The Sacred Realm itself had the Triforce split as a defensive measure. If the Triforce had been somewhere else Ganon could have grabbed it and gotten the entire thing instantly. By killing Link in OoT, Ganon got the entire Triforce and kept it until LttP Link eventually killed Ganon and got it for himself.

** The real reason is that Bunny Link's sprite is pink, and thus regular Link's sprite had to have some pink because of pallete limitations. In-universe, I like to imagine he was just [[YouGottaHaveBlueHair born that way]].

** Pretty much what the above troper said about system limitations. In ye olden days of video games and animation, it was hard to correctly render a lot of colours related to human phenotypes (real life skin, eye and hair colours being hard to represent other than with simplistic equivalents, such as blonde=yellow). In the case of some colours, they had to get creative, which is why [[YouGottaHaveBlueHair blue hair]] became a trope: originally a dark shade of blue was used to represent "black" (true black being impossible or awkward to use, hence why Link's uncle's hair looks somewhat blue/purple in the game while it's black in the artwork), and it just became its own anime quirk over time. Likewise, Pink seems to have started as a shorthand for strawberry blonde (Louise from LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero is an obvious example, being reddish-blonde in the light novels and Anime!Pink in the... well... anime) or other reddish hues (as evidenced by Link's strawberry/brownish blond hair in the artwork). Pink=Strawberry is just another of those shorthands developed by Japanese media that became codified as a trope of its own during the 90s.

** This is just an educated guess, but maybe use of the sword beam is some sort of RoyaltySuperpower-esque thing? Something that's reserved only for knights and other highborn heroes? Looking at the overall series continuity, in ''A Link to the Past'', much ado is made about Link being one of the last in the line of the Knights of Hyrule. In ''Skyward Sword'', the first incarnation of Link is a Skyloft Knight. In ''A Link Between Worlds'', there's more evidence than not that Link is a descendant of the one in ''A Link to the Past''. And in ''Breath of the Wild'', Link is both the son of a knight and the royal bodyguard of Princess Zelda. These four heroes are the only ones who have been able to use the sword beam, as opposed to the Hero of Time, who was of an unknown background, his descendant in ''Twilight Princess'', who was an ordinary farmhand, and the Hero of Winds, who was a complete nobody before he rose to become a hero.

* Why did Link grab the Moon Pearl? He had no way of knowing he would need it: at that point in the game, he thought his quest was (1) get the pendants, (2) get the Master Sword, (3) kill Agahnim. There was no expectation that he would spend 2/3rds of the game in the Dark World -- [[DiscOneFinalDungeon that's]] [[InterfaceSpoiler just]] [[YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle metagaming]]. Heck, the stupid thing doesn't even serve a purpose in the dungeon we're given it (and the only other example of THAT I can think of is the Raft in the first two games)!
** Because Link is a KleptomaniacHero, and has a tendency to nick anything that isn't nailed down, looks shiny and/or enchanted, or might be of value to someone at some point.
** Because I'm fairly sure there is at least one point you can access the Dark World at by that point and the people there tell you you need it to not be a defenseless pink bunny?
** As the above troper states, one of the two people you can talk to the first time you access the Dark World as a way to access the Tower of Hera, mention the Moon Pearl as a way to protect yourself from the effects of The Golden Power. Then in the first room of the Tower, Sahasrahla ''tells'' you to retrieve the Moon Pearl so that The Golden Power won't turn you into a bunny.
** This. The purpose of the Moon Pearl is to protect the bearer from the Golden Power. Link's ultimate goal at that time is to kill Agahnim, a wizard who is seemingly infused with the Golden Power. Bear in mind that Agahnim is supposedly some great wizard, but his sole powers seem to be firing an energy ball, firing another type of energy ball, going Palpatine on yo' ass, teleportation, and sending people into the Dark World. At the very least, that last point would have been a consideration to anyone confronting him; and at the most it could be that the Moon Pearl's power protected Link from Agahnim's deadly "Cause Subject To Sneeze Out Every Internal Organ Through Their Left Nostril" spell. It's not coded into the game (And hey, it's actually possible to skip the Moon Pearl), but it's a possibility. Actually, going back to the possibility to skip the Moon Pearl, I'm not joking when I say you can do it. The game seems to carry on whether or not you pick it up, and it's possible that a player not particularly savvy to how the game operates would think "eh, I've just been through the Dark World, and I doubt I'm going back there again, I don't need the Pearl" only to find that they're stuck as a bunny after the first battle with Agahnim. You can skip most of the treasures in every dungeon, and a few of them aren't actually required to complete the game (Both Mails for instance). In the Light World, you can skip the Bow and it's never actually required until the Dark Palace. The only dungeon item you ''require'' before Agahnim is the Power Glove. Collecting the Moon Pearl may appear as metagaming, but so is collecting the Bow and the Ice Rod (Which is useless up until Trinexx, where it becomes a [[GuideDangIt goddamn requirement without anything as much as hinting to it.]])
*** The Bow is by no means optional in the first part of the game. Without it, you can't finish Eastern Palace, as it has a room with a "kill all enemies" door and a Red Eyegore in it.

** I'm sorry, but...all of the above information is true, I know, but...isn't the reason Link takes the Moon Pearl because you, the player, tell him to? It's not like he forcibly goes beyond your control, opens the chest in a cutscene, and takes it. Why is this even a question, might I ask?
** I actually beat Agahnim without getting the Moon Pearl. The text at the beginning at the Pyramid of Power advices you to go back and get the Pearl. As a bunny, you can't actually access the first dungeon, cut down bushes, lift stones, or fight the relentless storm of baddies after you.
** The OP's point wasn't that Link *didn't* know what the Moon Pearl did (multiple people tell him by then), but rather that he didn't know he'd be returning to the Dark World soon. He had no idea yet how badly his fight with Agahnim would turn out, or that he wouldn't succeed in rescuing Zelda from the castle tower. That said, he '''most certainly''' knew (as did everyone else in the kingdom) that the Triforce was in the Sacred Realm/Dark World. With both a means to retain his form *and* a means to return to Hyrule (two things which caused most of the people searching for the Triforce to fail), Link knew he would essentially have the keys to the Power of Gold.
** Apart from needing the Moon Pearl to advance after Agahnim (and the game telling you that), the game gives you multiple hints that you should grab the Moon Pearl, where to find it, and why you should grab it. Sahasrahla tells you to get it, the creatures you first meet in the Dark World on the way to Tower of Hera tell you to grab it (and that it is in Tower of Hera and will allow you to keep your shape), and the fortune teller will tell you to grab it and that it's in Tower of Hera. Also, you do need the Bow to finish off Eastern Palace, contrary to what is posted above. You cannot defeat the Red Eye Guards in the rooms before Armos without it, and defeating those monsters is what opens the door. The game actually does an excellent job in regard to guiding you through the fact that you need to open every chest. If you don't open the big chest in Eastern Palace where the Bow is, you will find you cannot proceed in the dungeon, and it's not that long of a slog to get back the big chest. As for the Ice Rod, Sahasrahla tells you to grab it after he gives you the Pegasus Shoes. If you skip returning to Sahasrahla after beating Eastern Palace (as the game tells you to do), you will find that you cannot get into your next dungeon, Desert Palace, without the Pegasus Shoes because they are required to get the Book of Mudora in the library, so you're pretty much forced to read the text about Ice Rod before getting to Trinexx. Finally, no you cannot go to Agahnim with just the Power Glove - you need the Master Sword in order to break the barrier to the Hyrule Castle Tower (which requires all pendants, and pendants requires Pegasus Shoes, Bow, and having seen the Ice Rod hint). I suppose you could call it metagaming when you go and accomplish tasks the game tells you to because you assume that when the game tells you to grab an item those items are required. But in this genre of game, you could also just call that gaming.
** I still don't understand where this Headscratcher is coming from. Link only takes the Moon Pearl if you, the player, tell him to. This question is posed as if he went out of his way to take the thing without you controlling him.
** It's pretty straightforward to conceptualise what the Headscratcher is about. You are placing too much emphasis on the idea that you are a player who controls Link and gives him agency. Forget about that, the fact that ultimately you are calling the shots. Instead, pretend Link were the protagonist in any other medium. Why does Link the, say, lead character in a LiveActionTV series grab the Moon Pearl? What is his motivation for doing so?
** His motivation for doing so is made abundantly clear if you talk to the old man on Death Mountain after escorting him back to his home. He outright tells you, "To complete your quest, you will need the Moon Pearl, which is in the tower on top of the mountain."
** Even if we disregard player input, does he really need a good reason to take it with him or not? If I basically made a living out of exploring dungeons all the time, and I came across a chest in a dungeon that had the Moon Pearl sitting inside it, I don't think I would need a specific ''reason'' to not just leave it there. It's a shiny orb called the "Moon Pearl"; you could probably get a good deal of money from just selling it even if it turned out not to have any other use.

[[folder:Flute location]]

* Did anyone else think the location of the Flute (Ocarina) was a GuideDangIt moment? Because I didn't think it was very clear where it was, and I searched all over Hyrule for months before I caved in, bought a guide, and found it.
** We did get a single hint as to where the flute was, since Flute Boy told us that he had buried it "with some flower seeds". If you focus on only digging up areas around the stump that have flowers, it's pretty simple to find. But if you didn't catch that hint the first time, you're pretty much screwed.
* Speaking of the Flute, WHY was the Flute Boy pulled into the Dark World in the first place? Was it an accident or was he really a significant threat to Aganihm's plans that it warranted his need to make him disappear?
** I recall his dad tells of how he went off to Death Mountain in search of the Golden Power, and never came back. He presumably went through the portal at the peak and then got stuck on the other side. In his confusion he tried to find his way home again, so headed back in the direction of Kakariko.
[[/folder]]

** The calamaties that befall Hyrule are caused by Ganon's evil spreading throughout the land once he takes the Triforce. When you defeat Agahnim in the Dark World, a faint image of Ganon appears and turns into a bat which flies to the Pyramid of Power; when you confront Ganon there, he reveals that he was indeed Agahnim. So: Ganon's evil curses Hyrule, then Agahnim (AKA Ganon, which the people of Hyrule didn't know) comes and dispells Ganon's evil. So basically yes, he's "dispelling the spells he cast in the first place".

[[folder: Dialogue stopping time]]
* Why does everything in the game stop moving whenever you talk to someone or read something? Do enemies just follow some sort of honor code that forces them to stand by until you're done?
** This is the TalkingIsAFreeAction trope in the video game medium - similar to the way characters in an opera can sing an aria without any time apparently passing in the action of the story.

[[folder: Geronimo!]]
* What is it that makes Link jump into pits sometimes, like if the player makes him do it, or their controller is broken?

[[folder:Religious references]]
* So [=NoA=] forced the localization to remove religious references like church, priest or even ''temples'', yet the name "Tower of ''Hera''" was a-ok?
** Yeah. Probably because "church", "priest", and even "temple", to a certain degree, are all relatively mainstream religious terms whose respective faiths are in full force. Maybe there are still people who continue to worship the Greek gods, but especially in America, anyone who hears the name "Hera" is much more likely to think "myth" rather than "religion". It's not as strong a connotation as the other three.
** Anyway, even Nintendo must think they were being overzealous by censoring "temple", since they have allowed it to appear in most games since''Ocarina of Time''.
** How many people in the Americas worshipped Greek gods in TheNineties? You can argue "Pagans" except pagans by and large prefer Norse deities.

[[folder:Link's living arrangements]]
* Why does the house Link and his uncle live in have a) only one bed, and b) no bathroom or outhouse?
** Bathrooms not making it into fiction is so common that it's [[NobodyPoops a practically omnipresent trope.]] Most of the houses don't have the amenities that actually living in them would require. (Fewer beds than people comes up all the time in the series: some houses don't even have beds at all.) The game includes a few details for immersion, but didn't quite go all the way. Though from what we saw in the darkened room when Zelda was speaking telepathically, Link's uncle apparently finds that wooden stool to be the most comfortable place to spend the night!

[[folder:Zelda and Maidens In The Dark World]]
* Why do Zelda and the Seven Maidens keep their hylian forms in the Dark World? The game treats the Moon Pearl as this unique legendary item, but apparently if you're magical and plot important the Dark World's rules just don't apply?
** I'd assume that the crystals they're all trapped inside have something to do with it. Either that or their physical appearances just happen to be exact reflections or their true selves, so that they stay the same in the Dark World.
** The Dark World's transformations aren't inevitable: the Moon Pearl is one way of resisting it, but it isn't necessarily the only way, or even the only one of its kind. The series also has other examples of characters with special powers being resistant or immune to transformation. (Such as Zelda keeping her human form in the Twilight, instead of becoming a spirit.) Maybe one of the powers they inherited is a resistance to polymorphing, or maybe Moon Pearls are a really popular jewelry choice among the descendants of sages!
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fake swords in the Lost Woods]]
* Even after claiming the true Master Sword, Link continues to mistake the replicas littering the forest for the legendary blade when you come across them. To say nothing of being fooled at all after the first time. Does he keep forgetting that he has the Master Sword stowed to his back all the time?
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Master sword sleeps again...]]
* At the end of the game, Link puts the Master Sword back in its pedestal in the Lost Woods... even if he has already traded the Master Sword away to the Faerie Queen for "something better in return." How did he get the Master Sword back? Or did the Faerie Queen just upgrade it, like the dwarves had done? (And if that were the case, why would she describe it as if it were a completely different sword? She could have said "I will empower it and give it back to you" instead of "I will give you something better in return.")
** She meant it as one would mean the phrase "become a better person". She didn't say she would give you a separate thing than the thing you threw into the water; she just said she would give you something better than what you originally had, which she did.
[[/folder]]