History Headscratchers / TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker

** Tetra and Daphnes could have their stones set up in a way that prevents Link from seeing them, the former because she doesn't think Link deserves that privilege and the latter because there isn't a lot for Link to see. Link not calling on either of them could just be because he doesn't want to rather than it being forbidden, and if all three stones are capable of contacting each other, then Tetra wouldn't know that Daphnes also has one unless he were to use it to call on the one she has.

*** It's possible that Volvagia, like much of Hyrule in that future, had been corrupted by Ganon's power. It's quite possible that, in the time before Ganon tainted Hyrule, Volvagia was, in fact, similar to Valoo, if perhaps less welcoming of visitors.

** The ocean is supposedly covering most of the world. If such a small percentage of water is suddenly missing, you just wouldn't notice.
** The Great Sea's islands are basically the mountaintops of Hyrule. Because they're supported by the sea, only the actual Hylian land is completely submerged.
*** What does that have to do with anything?
** Maybe it wasn't just raining in Hyrule during the final battle. Perhaps the Golden Goddesses made it rain on the surface of the Great Sea, as well, to compensate for the displacement.

** Did you miss the part about Medli and Makar not being chosen for their respective roles? They don't need to host thematic ties to earth or wind; the only reason they're sages is because they're the successors of the original sages, which were a Zora and a Kokiri. This is like asking how you could be descended from someone who lived on one country even though you're a natural-born resident of another country.

** I'm pretty sure Medli isn't supposed to be ''pale'', because what we see isn't skin tone; it's just the color of the feathers covering her skin. Feather don't become tanned or pale based on how much sun they receive.

** IIRC, Rauru, the sage of light, was the one who kept link in stasis in the sacred realm for seven years. He wasn't present to do that in Wind Waker. Even if he was, he probably saw that this era's Link was old enough to wield it and defeat Ganon without having to age him first.
** If I had to guess, it's probably because it was weakened at the time he pulled it out. In the process of re-powering it, he proved that he was capable of handling it despite his youth. The fact that this incarnation of Link was TheUnchosenOne and had to literally fight for the right to wield both the Master Sword and the Triforce of Courage (as opposed to simply receiving them BecauseDestinySaysSo) may have had something to do with it as well.
** Desperate times call for desperate measures. The Master Sword probably realized it wasn't getting anybody better anytime soon.
** But [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Fi's asleep...]]
** Maybe she's a lucid dreamer.
** Given what happened the ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime last]]'' time they vacuum sealed the hero for safekeeping, the sages (or whoever is responsible for that bit) probably made some tweaks to the system. Either that, or TWW Link is an incredibly small and young-looking sixteen-year-old.
** The boys of Outset Island are given copies of the Hero of Time's clothes when they reach the age he was when fighting Ganon, so we can assume that either this Link is OlderThanHeLooks, or the Hero of Time was YoungerThanHeLooks - either way, both Links are around the same age and are mature enough to wield the Master Sword.
** [=OoT=] Link is generally thought to be around 16 or 17 years old post-timeskip at which point he is referred to as ‘adult’ Link, ''Twilight Princess'' Link is also placed at 16 or 17 and has an actual job and owns property so we can infer that Hyruleans probably come of age at 16 or 17 years old. WW Link’s actual age is never mentioned in-game but at least three other sources, also published by Nintendo, claim that he’s 12 which obviously does not constitute an adult by Hyrulean standards. WW Link, however, is from a culture where boys come of age at 12 so even though he’s young the fact that he’s come of age could technically make him old enough to wield the Master Sword.
** Link was sealed in sleep in ''Ocarina of Time'' because he hadn't yet proved himself worthy to be the Hero of Time before he tried to remove the sword, since gathering the Spiritual Stones were meant to be the keys to the ''Triforce'', not the sword itself. In ''The Wind Waker'', on the other hand, the Pearls and the Tower of the Gods were designed specifically to test the worth of any new hero that may have appeared, in order to determine whether he was worthy of pulling the Master Sword from its pedestal. Hence, Link didn't need to be put to sleep or anything - he'd already been deemed worthy by the gods to take it.
** [=OoT=] Look wasn't sealed away because he was too young to wield the Master Sword. He was sealed away because he was too young to be the Hero of Time. WW Link and all the others are not the Hero of Time, so this isn't a problem for them.
** ^ Wielding the Master Sword is what goes hand-in-hand with being the hero, and "of Time" is just to differentiate one Link from the rest. As is mentioned above, Link couldn't take up the sword in ''Ocarina of Time'' because he hadn't proven himself prepared to be the hero (by some logic, despite everything he'd already done). In ''The Wind Waker'', collecting the pearls and completing the Tower of the Gods were effectively in order to prevent what happened in ''Ocarina of Time'', by testing and preparing the new Link to accept the role as the hero.
** A bit out there, but perhaps [=OoT=] Link was sealed away not necessarily because of being unready, but because certain events NEEDED to play out in order to awaken the Sages and unseal their temples.
** Crazy idea: Rauru's aware of the other timelines. And the 'Fallen' timeline is what happens when child Link tries to take on Gannondorf with the Master Sword.
*** The "Fallen" timeline is what happens if you fail against Ganon in the final battle of ''Ocarina of Time''.

** Didn't I read somewhere that WW was set a hundred years after [=OoT=]?
** I've always said that it sort of depends on how old Ganondorf is during the events of Ocarina. Considering that Gerudo seem to be able to live for hundreds of years (Kotone and Kotake are 380 or 400, after all) meaning it could be set something like 300 years later.
** ''Twilight Princess'' was the game actually stated to take place roughly a hundred years after ''Ocarina of Time''. ''The Wind Waker'' gives the impression it's been longer than a century - everything from the language to written history has been completely lost by the time the story starts. Ganondorf escaped by way of a breach in the seal over Hyrule, and considering that it was the goddesses themselves who originally entrapped him, it likely took awhile to weaken. Ganondorf is a BigBad with plenty of time, after all - the Triforce of Power makes him effectively immortal by WordOfGod.
** [[AllThereInTheManual Hyrule Historia]] (or at least [[http://www.glitterberri.com/hyrule-historia/page-123/ this translation of it]]) suggests that ''TWW'' takes place hundred'''s''' of years after ''[=OoT=]'', so there you go.
** The King of Hyrule himself mentions that "hundreds of years" have passed since Hyrule was flooded alone.

* If you've agreed to go rescue Mila, talking to her father after making the agreement will sometimes lead to him asking if you want a reward for the rescuing. If you say yes he will reply that he needs to test you first and throw a red rupee into one of his china vases, then he'll tell you to go retrieve the rupee. This seems like a setup to a mini game or somesuch but nothing of the sort happens, meaning the only way to retrieve the rupee is to break the vases...which just makes him angry and causes you to be fined. Speaking to him again after he throws the rupee, regardless of whether you broke the vases or not, only prompts him to say how worried he is about Mila. There is absolutely NO point to this "test" thing AT ALL, so WHY was it even in the game in the first place?
** Trying to find some way to distract himself that doesn't involve [[DrowningMySorrows Drowning His Sorrows?]]
** I remember reading once amidst the beta information for this game something that suggested Maggie and Mila were originally held in separate parts of the Forsaken Fortress from each other and Aryll, and that you were perhaps supposed to rescue the three of them separately. This may be why you can volunteer to save them both to their fathers, leading to the scenario in question, even though doing so in the final game ends up going nowhere since Tetra's pirates take all the credit.
** They did something similar to this in ''Majora's Mask'' - at Zora Cape, there's a spot with a bunch of jars and a Zora who suggests that you try to break them all in one throw with your boomerangs. If you manage to do it, he gives you 100 Rupees, but then takes 10 away to replace the pots, which he also does if you break them whether you win it or not.

** The king had already touched the Triforce, so perhaps he was worried interrupting him would bring about divine retribution or cause the King to alter his wish to "and make Ganon explode." Or perhaps he was in shock, as his reaction to the flooding shows he wasn't exactly thinking straight anymore.
** Not to mention...the King of Hyrule is a ghost, so...
** Speaking of which, why does the king wish to flood Hyrule instead of just wishing to kill Ganondorf?
** That one has been brought up before. A common theory is that the goddesses (and by extension, the wish-granting power of the Triforce) cannot directly kill or destroy, only create. Creating a weapon or a deadly flood is fine, but just striking someone dead is not. Another theory is that Ganondorf's status as the bearer of the Triforce of Power renders him immune to such direct tactics.
** The King of Hyrule knew that his kingdom's time was over...Hyrule has spent the last several years buried beneath the waves, and the king knows that even if he uses the Triforce to ressurrect it, he would be doing so more for nostalgic intentions, out of a need to cling to what he lost in the past, rather than out of hope for the future of the world. Ganondorf's tirade against the Golden Goddesses about what they had done to Hyrule probably didn't help. It may not seem to make much sense in retrospect, but it's all a part of the era and philosophy of the game itself.

** Tingle and logic just don't go well together.
** The idea behind it, Tingle's idea, I suppose, is that the tower is supposedly powered by 'wonderful fairy magic' and supposedly makes the world go round...I think he just keeps those two people there to spin it in order to maintain his werido delusions.

** He's clearly kept the girls longer than necessary, and Aryll has been inside his fortress for at least two days. So it's possible that he's just keeping them until he found Zelda, because if he let his prisoners go after examining them, they could've warned her about his plans - at least in his point of view, since nobody (not even Tetra herself) knew who Zelda was anyway and what the triforce marking meant.
*** That or Ganon might know the Helmarok King is not that bright and that if he (Ganon) releases the girls the Helmarok King might get confused and bring him the same girl over and over again, so he keeps them there to "take them out of the running," so to speak
*** Plus, if he did let them go, he runs the risk of bringing attention to himself and having to deal with the pesky irritation of the people of the Great Sea knocking on his door. Better to let them think that it's just some kind of freak monster attack, and the girls are gone, until his plan succeeds. Then he could return them in the guise of a conquering hero who slew the Helmaroc King, returned the land of Hyrule, and single-handedly saved the world.

** I actually noticed the same problem when I was playing the game the other day. I think that the developers either forgot to take directional details into account, they didn't think the players would be paying attention or have the knowledge that the entrance to the tower faces to the south...or it was easier to animate them moving in such a straightforward direction. After all, from where Link and his boat were, all he would be able to see of them flying north from the tower...would be the tower, and they probably didn't think it would look that interesting.
** You could also view it just as them having to fly all the way around the world in order to reach Dragon Roost again.
** Maybe, but if you tried sailing the same way, you wouldn't find yourself in the northmost row; you're forced to turn around. Perhaps if there's a buffer zone that's too dangerous to sail through, but not too dangerous to fly over, and the Great Sea exists on a [[VideogameGeography toroid world, or, at least in this case, a cylinder connecting the north and south rows with said buffer between]], then that makes sense.
** I see what you mean...Speaking outside the context of this question - as the obvious answer is just an error or oversight - the Great Sea is said to cover the entirety of Hyrule, meaning that whatever lies beyond the borders of Link's sea chart is a part of the oceans that surrounded the kingdom before the flood. This indicates that the King of Red Lions would seemingly have no power in those realms even in his boat form, he has no idea what dangers may lie waiting in them for him and Link to come across, and he ''does'' know that there's nothing Link needs there and that the world above Hyrule is already large enough as it is.

** Maggie's hair is actually brown, and Ganondorf wasn't looking for girls of a certain hair color. He was only looking for young girls with long, pointed ears. Tetra's mother, as shown in her portrait in the cabin on Tetra's ship, also had brown hair, so it's certainly plausible.

** You need to calm down; you're taking some of the events in question ''way'' too seriously. Link surviving after being catapulted into the Forsaken Fortress is intentionally reliant upon RuleOfFunny. In the vein of those old slapstick cartoons, it's ''supposed'' to be outlandish and absurdist. The fact that he survives being thrown into the ocean is for narrative convenience; there's no reason for the bird to lower Link into the water gently and let him drift away on the waves, and SoftWater is recognized as a trope here for a reason. As to how he avoided drowning before the King of Red Lions found him...contrary to popular belief, most human beings are likely to float on the surface upon entering a body of water, and the cutscene clearly showed that Link was floating on his back in relatively calm seas; plus, the King of Red Lions says he was watching him the entire time, so there's no reason to think it would've taken that long to rescue him.

[[folder: How did Link survive the first attempt at the Forsaken Fortress]]
* There are at least three problems with this that stand out. One, how did Link survive getting catapulted into a wall several hundred meters away from the Forsaken Fortress? Realistically, he should be a bloodstain on the wall after such a collision no matter how you interpret it! Two, in the event that Link is discovered he gets thrown into a prison cell. Why? Why don't they just kill him? He's defenseless? Are the Moblins somehow against killing an intruder? That's not what happens on the second attempt! Three, when Link gets snatched by the Helmoroc King and thrown across the sea HOW DOES HE SURVIVE?!? There is no way that he could possibly have survived such a fall and that doesn't include how he manages to get rescued in time before drowning. These do not add up and I don't understand how he could have possibly avoided death.
[[/folder]]

** One of the sailors on Windfall pretty much Lampshades this, remarking on how close-minded and disinterested the islanders are in terms of what lies beyond the shores of their home. Indeed, there are at least two people, the gossiping woman, who merely assume that Link is just new to Windfall, the Killer Bees are among many characters who make fun of his green clothes, an elderly woman finds the sight of his talking sailboat "startling", Ms. Marie even mentions that she can tell Link will become a famous, noteworthy individual someday, and...well, a lot of the other people there are sailors, who have probably seen equally strange things as Link while sailing on the high seas. Eventually, once you come to complete sidequests and do favors for a lot of these people, they don't even care if Link seems a little strange - instead, all of them come to appreciate him for it.
** Let's also not forget that some of the people living on Windfall are just as wacky as Link is. Case in point; Link collects 40 easy-to-find pieces of jewelry, and gives them to the island's schoolteacher. As a reward, she gives him ''his own private island''.
*** Well to be fair, just because they are easy for Link to get, doesn't mean the average citizen would be able to get it as easily. I imagine a bokoblin would be more of a threat for the average citizen than a relatively well-trained swordsman. Heck, Orca being able to kill a Darknut to get the Knight's Crest is considered a huge feat, yet Link is able to get 10 times as many...so yeah.

** Presumably they're still growing in, and she simply needs training and time to grow before she can fly properly. Nobody ever said it was an entirely instant deal, just that the scale triggered the process.
** Prince Komali. He can fly rather decent distances and helps save the protagonists at one point of the game, carrying a person from Ganondorf's lair to the Tower of Gods. So I think the original poster still has a point, he got his wings well after Medli.
** But he is royalty, so [[WildMassGuessing maybe royal Rito have accelerated...]] [[BuffySpeak wing... growth... capabiltiies]].
** Medli hasn't used her wings much. Komali flies around all day. So it's safe to assume she doesn't have much developed wing strength.
** The only times we see Medli flying are A.) In the middle of the dried-up spring with bizarrely-changing atmospheric currents, and B.) Inside a tomb-like temple with stagnant air that probably wouldn't be a very helpful aid in flight. Plus, we've never actually seen other female Rito besides Medli, so it's possible her wings not being as pronounced as others of her tribe is just a difference between genders.

** I was ''just'' thinking about that this morning while replaying the Earth Temple, which, aside from the obvious thematic discrepancy, clearly displays the telltale markings shown in every single Forest Temple to date. You can't miss them; parts of the dungeon require shining light on them to reveal things. Forest Temple = Kokiri Forest = Forest Haven = Kokiri = Koroks = Makar. Medli = Rito = Zora = ...well, not Forest or Earth ''anything''.
** You could probably justify Makar's being the sage of the Wind Temple because his race is known to float on the wind with their leaves, and the Forest Haven is where Link receives the Deku Leaf, allowing him to fly on the wind as well. As for Medli, that one's a bit more of a stretch. It might be related to the fact that Dragoon Roost Island, the dungeon/area she's most featured in is home to a volcano, possibly the former Death Mountain, which could be sort of earth related.
** Or the game designers did that on purpose, as to make it less obvious who the sages were.
** Perhaps it's meant to follow this train of logic...The evolution of Zoras into the Rito involves adapting to more earthly environments as much as it does aerial ones - fish and other sea creatures spend most, if not all of their time, beneath the surface of the water, whereas birds require periodic stops on land to rest, mate, build nests, etc. The Rito apparently had to use Grappling Hooks to move around before they gained the ability to fly, and by what we've been told, they don't seem able to grow their wings without a scale from the sky spirit. Hence, despite them being an avian race, the earth still does play a much more important role in their daily lives than it did for their predecessors, the Zoras. As for the Koroks and the Wind Temple...though they still rely heavily upon the earth itself, being a species based largely on plant life...the elements of the air are still important to them. Just as the wind is responsible for scattering new seeds across the world, the Koroks also seem to rely on it as their means of transportation following the Great Flood. Although earth and wind aren't the most pertinent elements to the Rito and Koroks...it can still be said that they've come to rely on them much more than their origin species ever had.
** This troper had always assumed it was meant to be a yin and yang deal: each side possesses a bit of the other, therefore each temple has a sage of the opposite number.
** This troper believes that the sages are making an exchange. Medli, child of the sky, goes to the Earth Temple while Makar, child of the earth, goes to the Wind Temple.

* Seriously, how old is Tetra meant to be? I have ''no'' idea.

* I'm aware that Orca and Sturgeon probably had what it took to defeat a Darknut, but how in the ''Hell'' did ''Lenzo'' get his hands on pictures of Laruto and Fado and the Great Fairy and the Fairy Queen and Jabun and the ''King of Hyrule'' and '''''Ganondorf?'''''
** GameplayAndStorySegregation. Aside from that, maybe Lenzo had a ridiculously high adventurous life when he was young.
** I don't know if he was the one who took those pictures. But, Lenzo was adventurous enough to get a picture of the Fairy Queen, who you not only needed to launch yourself in the sky with a ''tornado'' to see, but she didn't even appear to Link at first. And the King of Hyrule? Only three people have seen him. '''Three.''' Maybe it was an old pictograph that came before the gods decided to scrub all the floors in Hyrule.
** Maybe in Ganondorf's case, Lenzo or some poor schmuck made it to the Forsaken Fortress and got a picture of Ganondorf before he was tossed out.
** I'm pretty sure that somewhere Lenzo or someone around him mentions that there are times when a picture can be taken and an apparition appears. I thought that line was referring to these photos. He didn't take the pictures of the subject but rather the subjects appeared in the photos unexpectedly.
** Lenzo mentions having an uncanny knack for sneaking up behind people when they don't expect him to..Thus, it isn't too implausible to say that he managed to sneak his way through the Forsaken Fortress and snap a picture of the King of Evil when Ganondorf wasn't looking...However, I'd wager it is a bit of a stretch to suggest he dove to the bottom of the Great Sea, opened the way into the basement of Hyrule Castle, took a picture of the King of Hyrule's ghost, and lived to tell the tale, so I think it's more likely some of the more hard-to-get photos were handed down to Lenzo or purchased from someone else who took them earlier. They are sepia-toned in the original game, after all.
** I've come back here after playing through the game once more - Lenzo actually only mentions the anniversary of the day he "received" his first Legendary Pictograph, implying he got them from someone else presumably at a time when they would've been less difficult to obtain.

* What prevented Ganondorf from getting King Daphnes out of the way when he appeared out of nowhere to ask the Goddesses to destroy Hyrule? He could have kicked him, slashed him, do anything to prevent the King from using the Triforce, but instead he ''just stands there''.

** Most of the pirates don't seem to know a lot of details beyond "there's a valuable treasure here", so either they weren't aware of what Jabun was like, or else they planned on playing it by ear once they got into the cave. That said, if Jabun recognized that Tetra was actually Zelda...

[[folder:Temples and Hyrule]]

* Shouldn't the Earth and Wind Temples have entrances/exits that would lead Link to Hyrule? The King of Red Lions refers to the barrier around Hyrule Castle as the reason why you can't reach them from below the sea, but I've explored both temples many times before yet have never come across even an indication of a second exit inside either of them, and the road beyond the barrier only leads from the castle directly to Ganon's Tower, as we find later. Additionally, wouldn't keeping those implied second exits run the risk of someone from the Great Sea discovering what's beneath it? As in, they go into the one of the temples, for whatever reason, come across said exit point (which I know isn't there in-game, but the story at least implies that it is), and travel through it to discover an expansive kingdom frozen in time.
** Since the Earth and Wind Temple could not be entered without a powerful magical artifacts that came from inside a volcano and freezing ice mountain, there's little worry about random bystanders exploring inside. Not to mention they'd be less equipped than Link and then would be killed by everything living in there.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Aryll and the new clothes]]

* So can Aryll see the Hero's New Clothes in the Second Quest? When you "show" them to her, she starts off by saying that you always wear the same old outfit and could use a new look, implying that what she sees Link wearing is just his blue pajamas. But immediately after that, she says that she guesses what he's wearing is pretty neat, anyway, which would seem to imply that it's something new to her. So...which one is it supposed to be?

[[/folder]]

** For the same reason Americans from southern states don't keep slaves, Germans don't kill Jews and Italians don't try to conquer the world: People (and dragons) are not their ancestors.
** There is a very large difference between the way human beings act and the way a dragon like Volvagia does, and so comparing the two is not entirely viable. The Nazis were a large group, composed of people who were more than just Nazis. There were people who supported them and people who opposed them. Volvagia is a singular dragon, who is monstrous and we can assume has little to no purpose nor desire beyond destroying things and killing and eating people. If he had offspring, that offspring would presumably not have the brainpower, nor the innate desire, to side with humanity and serve as a guardian spirit.

* Which hero did the Hero's Sword and Hero's Shield belong to originally? They both have the word 'Hero' in their name (the shield's description even states it was used by the legendary hero), and with how focused the villagers living on Outset are on traditions and the legends of the Hero of Time, you'd think this 'hero' would be the Hero of Time. But the Hero's Sword has very little in common with the Kokiri Sword, and the Hero's Shield is said to be a family heirloom of Link's, meaning it couldn't belong to the Hero of Time. They do both look similar to the Smith's Sword and Small Shield from ''The Minish Cap'', which seemed to borrow a lot from ''The Wind Waker''...Was this just meant to be a retcon where blurring of the lines of history caused the Outset Islanders to merge Link from ''The Minish Cap'' with the Hero of Time?
** They're the Hero's Sword and Hero's Shield in the same way Link's clothes are the Hero's Clothes.
** For the clothes and sword, sure, but the description for the shield says it was used by the legendary hero himself. Link's grandmother refers to it as a family shield. The King of Red Lions states later that Link bears no relation to the Hero of Time, and such would be impossible anyway since the Hero of Time vanished from the Adult branch of the timeline at the end of ''Ocarina of Time'', leaving no descendants.

** Maybe he's like Nurse Joy?

** Giant pigs that can take away as many hearts as the final boss can. I hear they're nutritious.

** Magic.
** Maybe lots and lots of sediment moved by currents built up into underwater mountains that poke above the sea level due to tidal deposits? Really quickly?
** The same reason the mountain ranges around Hyrule change quickly and often- Gorons. Since they eat rocks, mountains only have a limited lifespan. Since they're made of rocks, when a Goron dies it creates new landmass (A Medigoron would be more than enough to create a decent-sized island). Since [[FridgeHorror the Gorons probably grew large on rocks after Ganon's defeat, and there are very few of them left during Wind Waker, it can be assumed that quite a few Gorons drowned during or after the flood.]] These Goron bodies would attract sediment and dirt, which would eventually attract plant life and other rocks and the like.
** You may also be able to assume that when the gods flooded the kingdom, they ''made'' mountains for the civilians to try and escape to. If we're to assume the Deku Tree in this game is the Deku Sprout from [=OoT=], the land it was planted in had to have been raised into a mountain, unless he was replanted or something.
** Perhaps some of them are leftover from the floating islands in ''Skyward Sword'', and were lowered down to sea level by the Golden Goddesses after the Great Flood was over. Let's also not forget that the Koroks have been going out every year and planting saplings with the power to pull up new land from beneath the water. It's possible that many of the islands seen in-game were much smaller, too much so for life to be sustained upon them, so the Great Deku Tree sent out his children to do their work and make the Great Sea more habitable by making the islands bigger.