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Headscratchers for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. New entries at the bottom.

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    Rito Evolution 

  • In the Wind Waker, it's implied/speculated that the Rito evolved from the Zora of Ocarina of Time. This bugs me on several levels. Firstly, to go from fish to bird would require a lizard-stage evolution first. Where are these dodongo-zoras, and why would they evolve into lizards? What evolutionary advantage does being a reptile give? Secondly, the world was just flooded! Why would FISH-PEOPLE evolve into BIRDS?! That seems like a disadvantage considering the world is just a giant ocean now!
    • You're falling into a classic TV-evolution trap. There is no reason whatever that becoming a bird-man from being a fish-man would require an intermediate lizard-man stage. It's also important to notice that an amphibious race like the Zora would indeed be massively inconvenienced by the kind of change that would result from Hyrule flooding. You just ask a saltwater fish how it likes melting icecaps.
    • But Zora seem to live in freshwater. There's only one kind of water in Hyrule as of OoT (starts at Zora spring, becomes Zora River, ends at Lake Hylia), and I don't think Hylians can drink saltwater, so the Zora River must be freshwater. Assuming the gods flooded Hyrule with pure H2O, the Zora would have no trouble at all living in the Great Sea.
    • It's an analogy. Of course vice versa would be equally troublesome.
    • Actually, in Majora's Mask, Zora lived in the sea.
    • Those are completely different Zoras.
    • Then shouldn't they have adapted to the new water environment, rather than taking to what little land there was (as they had, before they received wings)?
    • Magic, perhaps. Back in the Old Days, the Zora and the Hyrulians were tight. It's possible that they chose to stay with the Hylians, teaching them how to survive on the sea, rather than simply abandon them to their fate. Maybe Lord Jabun or one of the Goddesses transformed them, so it wasn't a slow series of patches so much as an upgrade.
    • Possibly, the Rito were always there, just high in the mountains where Link never went- the Zora never left thier homes and stayed in the sea in Hyrule. This is probably an Epileptic Tree.
    • Or maybe the Rito aren't the Zora. Think about it, the Zora worshipped Jabu-Jabu. Jabun was on Great Fish Island. In the ruins of the island, you can see fishing boats and the remnants of a village that looks a lot like the Zoras' seaside area in Majora's Mask. Maybe the Zora just hid in Wind Waker when Ganondorf destroyed their home.
    • Eiji Aonuma confirmed the Zora-Rito connection in something called "Zelda Box" that Japan got around The Wind Waker's release.
    • Although the previous Sage of the Earth Temple, Laruto, was a Zora. The game implies/outright states that Medli is Laruto's descendant. In addition to some of the evolutionary questions raised above, though it's hard to say why fish-turned-bird people would take over the Gorons' traditional fiery volcano home. Fire + feathers = good idea?!
    • Phantom Hourglass also categorically confirms that the Rito are descended from the Zora. You can collect "Zora Scales" which the game describes as having belonged to the ancestors of the Rito. Doesn't get clearer than that.
    • Exactly when was that said? There's no such text in Phantom Hourglass at all.
    • I vaguely recall that being stated somewhere, but can't remember where exactly. Follow this link for the Treasure descriptions. The one for the Zora Scale says "It is said that a Zora dropped this rare and sparkling scale!"
    • The amphibian stage for the Zoras is that weird freaky green design they had in Link to the Past. They looked a bit like frogs.
    • Actually, the 2D Zora design is more fish-like than the 3D design, which if anything looks dolphin-like.
    • It's probably not evolution so much as they were transformed by their Sky God (much like the Kokiris were changed into the free-floating Koroks after the flood), which also explains why they have to go back to Valoo for wings — they're not natural, so they don't pass on.
    • Exactly. Zora may (or may not) be able to live in salt water (the games don't agree on this, with some having ocean-only Zora and some having freshwater-only.) but for whatever reason the Zora couldn't live in the great sea (Heck, this could've been mandated by the goddesses as a way to keep Hyrule a secret/sealed.) They didn't evolve, though, such an evolution would take hundreds of millions of years, not a hundred. Instead, it's pretty clear that they were changed by Valoo into the Rito.
    • This seems the most likely answer. If Hyrule was intended to be permanently sealed and hidden away beneath a great ocean, then leaving around an aquatic race would be risky. The goddesses obviously meant businesse when they decided the country's time had come to an end.
    • Wasn't there a tree that the gods forced the change so they wouldn't discover the old Hyrule?
    • Um, yeah. The Great Sea is described as a fishless sea. Considering what you hit if you go too far down, it makes sense that fish of all kinds (including the Zora) would scramble to find somewhere more hospitable.
      • They probably mean the more tame, non-monster-like type of fish. All the fish we see in Wind Waker are either monsters or intelligent beings. Hell, the one fisherman we meet is also the most prominent warrior of the region, his profession might as well have been called monster-hunter.
    • Except that, contrary to the salvage guys and Ganon. it clearly isn't a fishless sea. You encounter Gyorgs and Fishmen all over the place, while Orca has all those shark jaws diplayed in his house. Unless the developers are trying to say that sharks aren't fish, the "fishless sea" idea simply isn't true. Plus, those sharks have to eat something other than Link...
      • The Gyorgs are overly-aggressive monsters, not regular sharks. And, yeah, they're probably what Orca used to fish for, but they're not something most people would be prepared to reel in. As for what they eat, it could be Octoroks, monsters that fall into the sea, people that fall into the sea, All-Purpose Bait that gets thrown into the sea...Plus, they're monsters. Who says they even need to eat to keep themselves alive?
      • Oh, and the Fishmen probably aren't something most people would feel comfortable eating, especially since they're regarded as a folkloric legend or myth rather than something a lot of people know about. And beyond that, I'd imagine they're smart enough not to let themselves get caught in the first place.
    • Perhaps by "fish" they referred to the kind that you could put in a bottle in other games.
    • Possibly it means that there are fish in the Great Sea, but so few that trying to make a living off of fishing is totally pointless. The Gyorg are probably eating those, and in hard times, each other. It might make sense that the Zora would leave the water if there's really not enough fish to sustain them, unless they want to tangle with a shark every time they want to eat.
    • Evolutionary answer: Zora are already amphibious. Ocarina Zoras leave the water and walk on land all the time. Zora's Domain has more land than it does water, and their king has a dry throne. They aren't fish, they're amphibians. Now, assuming that the world around Hyrule has oceans, that is where the water for flooding Hyrule would have come from. To flood Hyrule permanently as has happened in Wind Waker, the oceans would have to rise until they covered all of Hyrule, and remain there. Zoras being predominantly freshwater creatures, the sudden onset of saltwater would destroy their lungs and kill them. Zoras being amphibious, those that survived the flood would have done so by clinging to what vestiges of land remain above the ocean after it's risen. At this point, we're left with an amphibious race that can't actually survive in the water anymore, and that isn't naturally equipped to exist solely on land. Whether evolution or Valoo happened next, their only chance for survival at that point is to adapt.
      • Zora are amphibious (survive in both land and sea), not amphibians (frog s/salamanders). They are clearly fish.

    Tetra's skin color 

  • How is it, that Tetra's skin-colour changes with clothes she's wearing? Because that's the only real change! I got about Zelda's hair-length and tried it out: You NEED that much hair to actually make Tetra's hairstyle, so her hairlength doesn't change! It's just the skin! It's like she was using "Anti-tan" and "Insta-tan".
    • Or, y'know, makeup. To cover the actual tan when she wants to look princess-like.
    • Or...the Triforce. Perhaps Tetra's parents wished to hide her lineage?
    • Why do people obsess over Tetra's tan disappearing when she becomes Zelda, but say nothing about when the same thing happens in Ocarina of Time. Sheik's skin becomes significantly lighter when she reverts to Zelda. It's not just "being revealed" it's an actual transformation.
    • Because Shiek is somebody who is in disguise; we saw what OoT's Zelda looked like as a child, and Shiek is pretty different in many ways, which makes sense because changing things like eye color, skin color, physical build, and so on if possible are a big help when hiding. But Tetra is just assumed to be what she normally looks like, just a girl who is raised as a pirate instead of a princess, and thus having tanned skin and tomboyish clothes rather than pale, powdered skin and a dress. So they give her a dress, okay, we can live with that... but where does the skin come in?
    • Maybe Tetra was just really dirty and the Triforce cleaned her up? Her hair also looked a bit shinier and cleaner.
    • Living a life at sea sure builds up a tan, let's just assume magic just undid all of that.
    • It's possible that this is a cultural concept that was Lost in Translation. Historical projections of regal, feminine beauty in East Asian history are tied to the ideal of pale, whitened skin. Nobility idled their time away through personal pursuits rather than hard labor, so their untanned skin was symbolic of their class. Her change in coloration may be representative of this shift.
      • Europe has the exact same concept, though. Besides, the question isn't "Why is Zelda pale, as a design choice?", it's "How does the tanned Tetra instantaneously become pale when her true identity is revealed?".
    • Skyward Sword proposes a possible answer to this. The revelation that Princess Zelda is the reincarnation of the Goddess Hylia explains the mystery of why all the Zeldas look extremely similar, in contrast to the varying appearances of the Links. It's possible that the reason Tetra's skin tone changes when she becomes Zelda is because her body is being transformed in order to, as all Zeldas before her, resemble the Goddess. Tetra is Zelda as she was actually born and lives, while "Princess Zelda" is Zelda as the mortal form of the Goddess, and her appearance changes accordingly. This isn't an issue encountered with other Princess Zeldas in the series, because every other Zelda has been born into royalty and tradition, and raised to be Princess Zelda, while Tetra was not.
      • This entire entry is extremely speculative, to the point of being irrelevant. Skyward Sword did not establish that every Princess Zelda is a reincarnation of Hylia; all it said was that the first one was. It also didn't establish that Zelda is supposed to look like Hylia. On the contrary, there's evidence to suggest the two looked very different.
      • Perhaps not in Skyward Sword itself, but the Zelda Encyclopedia does say quite definitively that all Princess Zeldas are actually the goddess Hylia, "eternally reborn".
    • The Encyclopedia also makes claims about Termina's existence that make no sense at all. It opens with a note telling readers to take everything it says with a grain of salt. It may be taken as canon by some people, but it's not on the same level as the games themselves. It's not possible for every Hyrulean princess to be the reincarnated goddess, unless each one dies in childbirth in order to pass her soul onto her daughter.
    • The similarity is not that 'extreme' at all. Compare Zeldas from SS, OoT and TP, - differences galore! The latter even has a completely different hair color.
    • Maybe it's just "this is what you would've looked like if you lived your entire life as a princess instead of a pirate."
      • Pretty much, this. Sheik had a tan in Ocarina of Time, which was lost once she turned back into Zelda, so I think we can pin this one on the Triforce of Wisdom altering her appearance. If it can make someone look enough like a boy to fool most people, it should be able to do something as simple as a change in skin tone.

    Flooding and sea level 

  • After the magical time-suspension forcefields holding the ocean away from old Hyrule were deactivated, flooding it, why didn't the sea level at the surface drop at all?
    • The goddesses could have summoned a rainstorm on the surface of the sea, to offset whatever water was being displaced below.

    Flooding the planet 

  • Hyrule seems like a relatively small kingdom. So why, when Ganondorf escapes in TWW, do the goddesses flood the planet? Not just Hyrule, the entire planet bar a few mountaintops? (On that note, New Hyrule is a huge mountaintop with it's own damn geography.) I mean, really, just raise the land around the place and flood the basin formed. No need to flood the whole world.
    • Well, since it's a Hylian legend, perhaps they simply had no concept of the literal size of the world.
    • But Labrynna and Holodrum, Hyrule's neighboring kingdoms, were probably flooded as well, and they were known and accessible by, at least, Hyrule's royalty. Who would think Hyrule was the whole world? Definitely not the goddesses, as the Triforce was able to teleport Link over. So why flood the world? Then again, Labrynna and Holodrum may or may not be neighbors of New Hyrule rather than Flooded Hyrule. But there is still no way Flooded Hyrule can not have trading partners and hence, knowledge of there being more to the world than just Hyrule.
    • Yeh...I always figured Labrynna and Holodrum were neighboring New Hyrule. (Though the "different timelines" theory at least intrigues me.) Well, that's the timeline for ya.
    • What stops Ganon from conquering Labrynna and Holodrum as well, especially in a world without a hero? His minions almost did exactly that in the 'Oracle' games, and Ganondorf wasn't even around to lead them!
    • Well maybe the 'the world' just isnt all that big, maybe Hyrule IS 'the world' (aside from a few other lands). Or maybe the Goddesses are just huge jerkasses...
    • The world's got to be that big, look at the Great Sea. Even if the whole overworld map in TWW was the size of Hyrule (Hyrule probably wasn't that big), there's still what we see in PH and wherever New Hyrule is. Plus, in TWW, at the edge of the map you can still see that the Great Sea goes on for much, much longer, but the King of Red Lions stops you from going further because those waters are much more dangerous, meaning it's definitely not just the other side of the map. The Goddesses are either jerkasses or there is some other reason to kill countless innocent beings (including all the fish in the sea.)
    • Actually, it was stated that PH takes place in "The World of the Ocean King"- possibly an alternate world- so its Great Sea may or may not not actually take up any space in Hyrule or its surroundings.
    • Perhaps by the time the Goddesses got around to drowning the place, Ganondorf's power and corruption had spread that far. Zelda did say in Ocarina of Time that he'd take over the entire world if he could.
    • It could be that they were simply unable to isolate the flooding to just Hyrule alone, given how massive it would had to have been to have any lasting effect against Ganon. The Goddesses were faced with a Sadistic Choice, and even they, with all their power, were unable to find a way around it...flood the entire world to stop Ganondorf from conquering Hyrule and sending it into an age of darkness that makes the Bad Future from Ocarina of Time look like an episode of Hamtaro, or let Ganondorf run free and unopposed, dooming Hyrule and everyone who lived there...and eventually the rest of the world, once he realized there were lands other than Hyrule. With the first choice, there was at least a small hope of salvation, so they reluctantly went with it.
    • We're also approaching the issue from a human perspective - time is endless from a god's. To the goddesses, having to destroy Hyrule may have been a unfortunate and necessary choice, but it's also one that will eventually be a miniscule part of the long history of the world. With centuries and millenia to come, it will move on and rebuild anew. Consider the Deku Tree statements about the forests that may come after his Koroks plant the seeds of new Deku trees - his thinking far outstrips any human conception of time.
    • Maybe the flood didn't actually involve the water level of the world rising, but the altitude of Hyrule falling. That is, maybe Hyrule was, more accurately, sunk to the bottom of the sea. This would explain why certain locations (such as the Forest Haven and Windfall/Kakariko) seem to have been kept above the water (they weren't sunk with the rest of the land). It also would imply that Hyrule is a peninsula, island or continent of its own. As noted, it's possible that locations like Labrynna are actually neighbouring New Hyrule, or alternatively that they were formed at other times due to other changes in geography. Oh, and it may also provide a mechanism - a major tectonic shift causes most of Hyrule to collapse.
    • All in all, it's not really possible to answer this question without knowing the full extent of Ganon's conquests (which forced the Goddesses to proceed with the flood plan).
    • For what it's worth, Breath of the Wild implies that Hyrule exists at a much lower elevation than the landmasses surrounding it - its northern and western sides are bordered by a massive gorge, followed by extremely high cliffs that stretch on for miles beyond the in-game boundaries. If Hyrule were flooded enough that the majority of its mountains could still exist as islands, it's feasible that the rest of the world would've been spared from the rising sea level. (Which also explains where New Hyrule came from.)

    Fado 

  • Fado. Where did he come from? Kokiri can't breed (and are too innocent to if they could) apparently, so he isn't a descendant.
    • Presumably, he came from the Great Deku Tree, but didn't become a Korok because he was too busy being a sage.
    • Alternately, perhaps there's a global Deku tree network (as indicated by the seedling sidequest in TWW) among which the Kokiri/Korok forest spirits circulate.
    • They are not blood related. I would assume that once a sage dies, the power of the sage moves on to someone else who is connected with their element. The sage power lays dormant until the person dies or it is awakened. It would explain why in each game the sages are completely different in race.
    • On the other hand, perhaps they do breed...but they only do it for the sake of preserving their race, and are otherwise oblivious to the perverted nature of such. A little creepy? Perhaps. But then again, chances are fairly high that most of them are Really 700 Years Old.
    • If the Deku Sprout and this game's Deku Tree are the same character, it's probably logical to assume that he created both Fado and Makar, making them something like very distant brothers. That is a blood relation and the sagehood could probably be passed through that. Although it's also implied that the sages were killed long before Wind Waker began, maybe even before the kingdom was flooded. If that's the case, it's possible that the last Deku Tree created Fado, but this would probably still make them close enough to be considered blood relatives of some kind. In any case, Fado calling Makar his descendant might have been just a weird choice of words on his part, if he's really that much older than Makar, he might have just figured that "descendant" and "several hundred years younger brother" are pretty much the same thing.
    • Maybe the Kokiri and Koroks both reproduce asexually, like trees that self-pollinate and drop seeds. Or, I always assumed that there were a few stages of reincarnation between the Kokiri and the Koroks, and Makar is Fado's distant reincarnation.
    • Please, someone, anyone, correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I don't recall Makar ever being referred to word for word as Fado's blood descendant...Am I right about that? Fado only mentions that his successor has the "blood of the sages" running through his veins, which could just refer to that person's ability to act as a sage, not their lineage to a previous one, and Makar desires to take up his duty as a way of easing his "ancestors'" regrets, which could just refer to Fado and him being related in the bigger picture, as in, one's a Kokiri and the other is a Korok, thus, both are technically related in some way. In a similar way to how his predecessor could foresee the Hero of Time's future when he was presented him as an infant, the Great Deku Tree of this game could possibly have done the same with Makar, foreseeing his destiny as a sage and thus giving him the same violin the previous sage had used when Makar was born.

    Poe and Jalhalla 

  • This might be nitpicky, but how is it that when you're fighting Jalhalla a single Poe can reform into the main body?
    • It must be that mask. The mask causes the growth and all that; the extra Poes are just there for backup.
    • You also notice that when all the Poes are destroyed, the mask is still alive.

    Medli's scale 

  • So did Medli just get a raw deal with her scale or something? She has wings, so she's completed that ritual. But they're hidden most of the time and only work for gliding short distances or with strong winds, unlike other Rito who can just straight up fly, even long distances.
    • We only see Medli flying in places where there are certain hindrances to her doing so. Besides, she's the only female Rito seen in the game. It's possible female Rito have different wing anatomy than males.
    • It's noted very early in the game that Medli simply hasn't gotten good at flying yet, likely because she's a child and therefore only got her wings recently. That's why the Rito initially dismiss the idea that Medli was the girl who was seen getting abducted by monsters and jailed on top of Dragon Roost, because she shouldn't have been able to fly there alone. They didn't know that Link helped her enter the Cavern or that she had the Grappling Hook. As for why it seems to take her so long to get good at flying compared to Komali, it likely has to do with her role as Valoo's attendant. She wouldn't have as much leisure time to practice flying as other Rito children, and her job wouldn't involve a lot of flying the way the adult Ritos' jobs would.
      • Most likely this. Medli is first and foremost a priestess (and a very diligent apprentice at that), and so she's likely never put much effort into becoming a strong flier like others. Wereas most Rito seem to spend a great deal of time either flying on duty or go to the Flight Range in their free time, Medli seems to have spent most if not all her waking moments studying and training as an attendant. Thus could also explain her comparatively pale complexion (in that she doesn't spend much time outside)

    Bird and Earth, Plant and Air 

  • Can someone please explain to me why the BIRD-girl is the sage of the EARTH temple and the little root PLANT thing is the sage of the AIR temple? Shouldn't it be the other way around?
    • Because Medli and Makar weren't chosen as sages based on their attributes. They don't need to host thematic ties to earth or wind; the only reason they're sages is because they're the evolved successors of the original sages, which were a Zora and a Kokiri. The same way that you could be descended from someone who lived on one country even though you're a natural-born resident of another country.
    • It could also be a deliberate symbolic aspect, emphasizing Balance. That while the Rito are birds of the air, they still need the earth to land on and build their homes, and while the Koroks are seeds of the Earth, it's the wind that scatters seeds to permit new growth. Showing the Yin and Yang balance of things, reminding the races that they need the other element just as much.
    • While westerners are used to the four classical Greek elements, eastern people often use the five Chinese elements, of which Wood is a part of, but Air/Wind is not. And this Wood elements often includes attributes from Wind (think back to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and how Ganon's Fortress Forest area was entirely focused on wind puzzles). So, that's why Makar is the Sage of Wind. As for Medli being the Sage of Earth, while the Rito are in fact birds, they also have a deep connection to a mountain spirit, Valoo, to the point they can't even fly if not for his intervention. They may be descended from the Zora, but they're kinda slotted in the niche normally reserved for the Goron tribe as the earth/fire people. Now, why the previous Earth Sage was a Zora rather than a Goron (other than the writers wanting to have the Rito be descended from the Zora specifically), that's a real headscratcher.

    Tetra's age 

  • How old is Tetra meant to be? I have no idea.
    • I'd say around 12.
    • I recall that glasses pirate saying something along the lines of, "looking at Tetra you wouldn't believe she's about 30 years old." I believe it was towards the beginning of the game.
    • That same pirate (Who's not the glasses one, but the one blocking her room) then says he's just kidding. She's probably 12, like the above person said.

    Number of Islands 

  • If the world of Wind Waker is a flooded Ocarina of Time, how are there 49 islands? Especially towards the center where Hyrule Field used to be, and if the ocean isn't really as deep as the underwater Hyrule castle suggest then how in the world did the tower of the gods manage to stay underwater?
    • Hyrule always tends to look a little different in between games. The kingdom you explore in this one definitely isn't identical to how it looked in Ocarina of Time, so it's evident that it changed some in the intervening time. Beyond that, it clearly doesn't take "mountains" to form islands above the water level — just look at how tall Dragon Roost is, and keep in mind that that's implied to have been Death Mountain. With that in mind, the smaller islands toward the center of the map could just be lesser mountains and hills.

    Conductor's baton 

  • How on Hyrule's flooded planet does a conductor's baton signify different notes? I understand the necessity of having magical music, and the idea of having Link "conduct" the wind is kind of neat and artistic, but conducting does not work that way at all, people.
    • The hero is probably pointing out what the wind will do. Like pointing up means "You'll go first group A", then he points to the left to say "then you'll go, Group B". Once they're all organized, the hero conducts them properly. Plus, dude, he does proper conducting during the prayers.
    • That explanation doesn't make any sense, and no, he actually does not. Conducting is about tempo, not about the tones of the notes. You can't conduct to the left and have that signify a C# and a right signify a Bb.
    • Maybe he's conducting for the gods or something. Remember when you play a song, Link conducts a second time after you input the notes, and music plays in the background. The music could very well be the gods controlling the wind, or whatever it is the song is for.
    • Maybe 'conducting' in the Zelda-verse means something different from what it means in our world. All it literally means is 'to direct in an action or course', 'to direct (as a leader)', or 'to serve as a channel or medium for a force'. Link does all three of these with the Baton: he directs the winds into new courses, he acts as the leader/director for the winds by commanding them what to do, and he acts as a medium for the forces of the gods of the wind by using the baton.
    • There can be a lot more to conducting music than just controlling the tempo. (Which Link is able to do regardless, since 6/4 songs play faster than 4/4 ones, and 4/4 ones faster than 3/4 ones do.) Conductors can also indicate the volume of each note (something Link can also do) or other factors of how they're produced. In-game, a note is still played regardless of Link's input, so by waving the baton, he's conducting in the sense that he's signifying how that note should sound. (Even if it sounds like a completely different note, that's still considered conducting.)
    • Perhaps the notes are simply for Link's/our convenience. That he's actually conducting the wind as a cue akin to how it works in our world, but the sounds are to make it easier to recall the particular sequence.

    Medli's skin color 

  • Related to the gripe about Tetra's skin color above, I'm confused about Medli's skin color. The rest of the Rito have dark/tan skin, yet she's pale as the moon. Is there any good reason for how pale she is in a race of dark-skinned bird-people, other than to signify that she's significant and important?
    • IIRC, Medli is the only female Rito ever shown. Perhaps Rito girls just have a lighter skin tone than the males? By this point, they are based on birds, which tend to have different color schemes in their feathers between the males and females.
    • Alternatively, Medli is more pale because she's spent much more time indoors, as an attendant to Valoo. She's spent more time learning (after all, she understands ancient Hylian, plays the harp, etc), whereas most Rito are outside more on their duties.
    • 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. Feathers don't become tanned or pale based on how much sun they receive.
    • If Breath of the Wild's portrayal is to be taken into consideration, the female Rito being primarily white-feathered as youths (in the case of Medli and Kass's children) while the males only resemble miniature adults (Komali and Tulin) is apparently standard for the tribe.

    Master Sword sealing wielder 

  • So is there any particular reason the Master Sword didn't seal Link when he pulled it out like it did to Ocarina of Time's Link?
    • The reason the Hero of Time was sealed away is given as he wasn't old enough to be the legendary hero, with the Master Sword as the judge, according to Rauru and Zelda. If we compare his canonical age of 9 to Toon Link's semi-canonical age of 12, Fi might've just decided that those four years made enough of a difference to make Toon Link worthy of the mantle. It helps that she didn't have a place to seal him like she did in Ocarina of Time, and that The Wind Waker's plot unfolded only because Fi chose to seal the Hero of Time away in the first place.
    • The sword's true power is stated to be slumbering at the time Link pulls it from its pedestal, meaning it's probably not in such a state that "only one may wield it." Notice how Link clearly winces in pain when you do awaken it at the Earth and Wind Temples, suggesting that's the moment at which the sword "chose" him. Clearly, he must've been stronger than the Hero of Time was as a child at that point since he shakes off the pain almost instantly. Meaning there was no reason for Fi to seal him away.

    Timeline 

  • How long after Ocarina of Time is this supposed to take place? It seems like it has to have been quite a ways after, given how the Zoras and Kokiris have turned into the the Ritos and Koroks, and the intro states that "none remain" who remember what happened to Hyrule. If it was only 100 years like I've seen a lot of people guessing, it would be fairly likely that the characters we see in-game are at most great-grandchildren of the characters we see in Ocarina, so it seems weird that they'd have little accurate info on what had happened — I mean, Triumph Forks, really? But on the other hand, it can't have been too much longer afterwards either; Ganondorf seems to have gotten quite a bit of Character Development and become Older and Wiser, so I doubt it would seriously take him that long to come up with his plans in this game. Plus, since Tetra is Zelda and has the Triforce of Wisdom, that makes it seem fairly likely that Ocarina's Zelda couldn't have left too many descendants, as too many generations later would make Tetra having the Triforce of Wisdom a complete Contrived Coincidence.
    • The "100 years" notion doesn't amount to more than baseless conjecture, like you said. A single century is far too little time for everything that transpired between Ocarina of Time and this game, let alone the additional time that people would need to forget all about it. King Daphnes tells Link and Tetra that "hundreds of years" have passed since Hyrule was flooded alone, which is a much more plausible timeframe. As to your evidence against it being that long, wouldn't Ganondorf's development be more believable the longer he had to reflect in between games? I don't see how that disproves the notion... And regarding the number of heirs that Zelda had, her descendants could have made it a point to limit the number of children they had for the purpose of not losing track of the Triforce of Wisdom and not making their family a huge target for Ganondorf and his minions.
    • Considering the Hero of Winds was never destined to become The Chosen One, the only real coincidence was that she happened to come across someone with a family member/friend who was also targeted by the Helmaroc King, whose only criteria for kidnapped girls — long ears — applies to just about the entire population of the Great Sea. In other words, not much of a coincidence.
    • We aren't dealing with a society that has access to detailed records. We're working with descendants of people who survived both the reign of an unopposed Ganondorf and flood large enough to wipe Hyrule from existence. Old Hyrule is completely lost to them and whatever knowledge they have of it are from word of mouth of whoever happened to be settle nearby what would become their islands and what few scraps of records that could be recovered after both disasters. After a few generations, all the survivors of old Hyrule would die out and take their experiences with them, resulting in the vast majority of knowledge of the old kingdom with them. Knowledge is extremely easy to lose unless a large organized effort is made to keep it preserved. Something that the desperate refugees that would become the founders of the Great Sea's civilization almost certainly didn't have the time or resources to do until time and distance eroded the vast majority of their history.

    Lenzo and pictures 

  • I'm aware that Orca and Sturgeon probably had what it took to defeat a Darknut, but how did Lenzo get his hands on pictures of Laruto, Fado, a Great Fairy, the Fairy Queen, Jabun, the King of Hyrule, and Ganondorf?
    • Because he says before selling them that he received them from someone else. Most of them were probably taken in an age long past, when it would've been a lot easier to gain an audience with their subjects. Besides, some of them aren't even that difficult to pictograph, like Jabun and the Great Fairy. Link can't do it because it's a video game and there's a cutscene playing whenever he meets them, but Lenzo mentions having travelled around a lot during his youth and could've happened across at least those two in the process.

    Figurine descriptions 

  • Who writes the descriptions for the figurines in the Nintendo Gallery? The most logical answer would be Carlov, but it seems odd that he would include the rumor that he sculpts figurines in his underwear, and he would have no way of knowing about the rarer enemies or major plot developments such as Tetra being Princess Zelda.
    • Given that the descriptions also mention the Octorok's perfect attendance record [no longer valid, as of Twilight Princess, I might add], I think it's fairly safe to say that the descriptions are purely out-of-universe, and in-universe the figures come with no more label than a name.
    • The HD version indeed alters the Octorok's description, taking out the "perfect attendance".
    • I think the entire concept of the Nintendo Gallery is meant to be looked at as being at least somewhat out-of-universe - the thing about Carlov spreading a rumor about himself sculpting in his underwear doesn't seem that strange when you consider he refers to pictographs of himself and Manny in such ways as 'mighty handsome', among others...not to mention, he has effigies of the Keaton Mask, All-Night Mask, Bunny Hood, and Goron Mask, as well as several bottles of Lon Lon Milk. It seems as though Carlov writes the discriptions, but since he's at least somewhat out-of-universe, it doesn't register in his mind that he's sculpting himself as he is still a component of the in-game continuity...Either that, or he just doesn't seem to care.
    • It's a magical camera. Look, it's able to capture the light from parts of the pictographed person or creature that a normal camera would not, and convey that information to Carlov. And if you take a picture of Link's grandma, you get a figurine of her and one of Aryll. Or, for that matter, taking a picture of one pirate gets you the entire set of figurines. In-universe, this camera is storing a ton of metadata. (Which is probably why, as conjectured in the Let's Play of Beyond Good & Evil, the Picto Box can only store three pictures.)

    Mila reward 

  • 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 some such 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's absolutely no point to this at all, so why is it even in the game?
    • The test is more likely meant to see if Link is an honest and reliable person, not whether he's good at guessing games. You probably wouldn't want to trust someone with the salvation of your daughter if they can't even resist destroying your property for a bit of pocket change.
    • From an out of universe point of view, it's been speculated based on content found in the game's files that the rescue of Maggie and Mila was originally going to play out differently than in the final product, with Link having a more active role in saving them rather than his part being hijacked once the pirates showed up. The test Mila's father gives to you could be an artifact of that dropped storyline that they forgot to remove from the final product.

    Ganon and Daphnes at the end 

  • 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.
    • Because he's too shocked, enraged, and crazy over how his victory is being stolen out from under him to think straight. He was inches away from getting what he'd fought and toiled for centuries to achieve, and to have Daphnes appear at the last minute was too much for his mind to handle, as him Laughing Mad afterward can attest to. Basically just a really prolonged Oh, Crap! moment.
    • The king was already touching the triforce by the time Ganondorf noticed him. Presumably he knew if he just charged at him it would just hasten the process of the king making his wish. Ganondorf literally freezes with his hand outstretched toward the triforce and doesn't move while the king makes his wish, so it's probably the same principle that would make someone panic and freeze while someone else is being held at knifepoint in front of them. Any sudden moves and it would be over regardless.

    Tingle Tower 

  • What does Tingle Tower do? What is the purpose of a large wooden tower with a top that rotates by two people pushing it?
    • It's all a part of Tingle's weird delusions. As he puts it...
      Tingle: Good-bye, Mr. Fairy! Please come to visit me at Tingle Tower again, where wonderful fairy magic makes the world spin and spin!

    Fishman and Ice Arrows 

  • A minor query - amidst the information he offers for Star Island, the Fishman mentions an arrow that can freeze anything and that if you had it, you could even use it to freeze "that big monster" in the Forsaken Fortress, so you could pick it up and toss it...I was assuming he was referring to the Helmaroc King, but he's already been defeated by the time you're able to get the Ice Arrows. So was this comment pertaining to something that was Dummied Out of the final game...or maybe he was referring to a different monster?
    • Maybe Fishman just isn't up on current events and doesn't know you've dealt with the Helmaroc King already.
    • Maybe so, but it still seems odd for them to put that in, if it's something that has no purpose whatsoever...Pretty much every thing else the Fishmen say has at least some use it can be put toward, even if only for beginners.
    • IIRC he actually said "those big monsters" referring to the Moblins, who you can freeze with the arrows then smash them with the hammer.
    • No, he specifically says "that big monster in the Forsaken Fortress". What I'm thinking it may have meant (unless he was just off the mark, which I wouldn't exactly put past him) was that the Ice Arrows, and the Iron Boots, by extension, were originally meant to be obtained before the battle with the Helmaroc King - the bird uses a gust attack during the battle which you would've offset using the Iron Boots, and the Fishman mentions you could "give [the frozen monster] a whack", like with a hammer, after you've shot it with an Ice Arrow. Maybe this was a beta strategy for the battle, perhaps?
      • The Iron Boots require the Fire Arrows in the final version. But it did always bother me that you can go to the Fairy Queen as soon as you get the Ballad of Gales, but she tells you 'you have something important to do' and sends you away without your magic arrows. That decision did, however, prevent speedrunners from doing Barrier Skip in the HD version, so... years ahead of their time?
    • I think it might just be wild speculation on the Fishmen's part. They spread rumours, like the N64 games' Gossip Stones, not carry delusions of omniscience (OK, maybe they have the delusions...). It just so happens that the rumours tend to be true, helpful tips to the Hero.
      • Except that every other bit of information by the Gossip Stones and the Fish-men was accurate. Clearly they tell facts, not lies. Why would this one be any different?
      • I don’t know what game you were playing to reach this conclusion. There are several examples of advice given by the Fishmen that is at least partially misinformed: they imply that Zunari will reward Link for stopping Mila from breaking into his safe (in reality, it’s Mila who rewards you), that the way to obtain the Magic Armor is by winning him over with flattery (actually, you get it by trading for two new items in the trade sequence), they don’t notice that the Forsaken Fortress has been abandoned until two dungeons after it’s happened, and they constantly refer to the Triforce shards as “Triumph Forks”. All of these hints have a certain ring of truth to them — like the hammer+ice arrows strategy — but they’re all muddled slightly by some falsehood that’s been miscommunicated or just made up.
    • A simple answer could be that the “that big monster” part is a mistranslation from the Japanese version, and was intended to refer to the Moblins in the fortress, not the singular Helmaroc King.

    Pirates and Nayru's Pearl 

  • How were Tetra and the pirates planning on getting Nayru's Pearl even if they somehow managed to get into Jabun's cave with that huge ship of theirs? The Water Spirit was reluctant to even give it to Link himself, and that was when Link was accompanied by someone Jabun has presumably known for centuries. How would they have even gotten him to come to the surface of the water?
    • 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.
    • Considering Tetra allowed everything to proceed perfectly so that Link could steal her bombs and get into the cave, I assumed that was her intention all along. She stole the bombs from the Bomb Shop because she knew Link wasn't the kind of person who could do it himself, and once she became aware that Link was listening in on the theft, she agreed to stay the night on Windfall in order to allow him to get back to Outset first. It was never her intention to try and steal Nayru's Pearl from Jabun, and she was probably smart enough to realize that it would've been a fruitless effort to try.

    Vibrating Master Sword 

  • Why does the Master Sword start vibrating when Tetra notices it in the Forsaken Fortress? I've heard people say that it's because it could sense that she was really Princess Zelda, but that still wouldn't give it a reason to vibrate in her presence before Skyward Sword came out, and that was almost ten years after The Wind Waker. They ended up removing the detail from the HD version...Was that because they knew it didn't make sense, or because it was actually some sort of glitch that wasn't supposed to be there to begin with?
    • Even before Skyward Sword explicitly gave it a consciousness, it's still usually been implied to have powerful divine magic in it. Tetra's true identity is also implicitly connected to divinity so it probably just resonated with her, especially having been locked away, unused for centuries.
    • What's more, it was Twilight Princess that established that the Master Sword was forged by the ancient sages. Zelda had a connection to the sages as early as A Link to the Past, and was said to be their leader in Ocarina of Time. The combination of these facts does form a basis for her connection to the sword without considering the events of Skyward Sword.
    • The sword vibrating definitely isn’t just a fluke or a mistake, because when Tetra notices it isn’t the only time it does so. When Link re-enters the tower where Aryll is being held, he’s visibly nervous until he looks to his left and smiles in relief. If you look closely, the sword starts to vibrate in that moment, too, presumably to reassure him and tell him it’s OK to step forward. When he looks that way and smiles, he‘a looking over his shoulder at the blade in its sheath. And this is present in both versions of the game.

    Ganon and Link's sister 

  • I know he's evil and all (or just misunderstood, as this game seems to imply)...but Ganondorf's only motive behind kidnapping young girls with long, pointed ears is so he can examine them to see if one of them is descended from Princess Zelda. So why doesn't he just let Link take his sister, if he knows she's not the one he's looking for?
    • Ganon didn't know yet that Link came for his sister. At first glance he saw a kid dressed like the Hero of Time and thought this guy had come to kill him like the previous Link.
    • He also might know the Helmaroc King isn't that bright, and that if he were to release the girls, the Helmaroc King might recapture them repeatedly, which would be a waste of time.
    • 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.
    • And to be fair, "He's evil and all" is also a pretty good reason on its own. Just because Ganondorf has a specific motivation behind his actions rather than being mindlessly vile and cruel, that doesn't mean he's soft enough to care about some little boy sneaking into his fortress to rescue one of the girls he's captured.
    • At this point Ganondorf has been wrapped up in his plans and brooding about his failures for centuries. He was evil enough before, at this point he probably has the most miniscule possible regard for the lives of other, (to him) insignificant people.
    • Besides simply not caring, by the time he saw Link, the boy has broken into his fortress made his way close to his keep. That alone is enough to have him marked for death from the Demon King. The only reason Ganondorf didn't have him killed in a more definitive way was that he (correctly at the time) judged him as a non-threat. To him, Link was just another common thief unworthy of the Demon King's attention. Judging him nothing more than an annoying pest, Ganondorf ordered the Helmaroc King to toss Link out to sea like garbage. He didn't bother to order it to finish the job and make sure Link was dead because he considered the boy completely irrelevant at the time.

    Valoo, Quill, and Komali 

  • Just where were Valoo, Quill, and Komali going? The only places due south of there are the Private Oasis, Ice Ring Isle, and the Angular Isles. Certainly not home; that's north-by-northeast. The Great Deku Tree is south-by-southeast, and Jabun is either southwest or east-by-northeast. I cannot think of a single reason outside of possibly "It looks cool for them to be heading away from the tower in the direction of the opposite side of the ring from it" for them to be flying in that direction.
    • Valoo might have wanted to update the other two spirits about what had transpired with Ganondorf at the fortress. The Great Deku Tree and Jabun both showed an interest in Ganondorf's hold over the world, with the latter specifically asking the King of Red Lions about the whereabouts of Princess Zelda's heir, and both of them live on islands located to the south of the tower. In the Second Quest, Valoo's last line before flying off is translated as "We are counting on you!", so maybe the "we" refers to him and the earth and water spirits.

    Valoo and Volvagia 

  • Has anyone come up with an answer yet to the age-old question of how Valoo is friendly, not to mention got the honor of being named the sky spirit, when it's more than implied that he's descended from such a nasty fire-breathing blight as Volvagia?
    • 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.
    • That's a good point. Before Ganondorf revived him, we're only told that he was terrifying because he ate Gorons, who have all left Death Mountain by the time The Wind Waker takes place. And the only ones claiming that he would be a blight upon the rest of the world are its natural prey. If we assume that Volvagia is as self-aware as Valoo, then it could also be a simple case of them having different temperaments.

    Hero's equipment 

  • Which hero did the Hero's Shield belong to originally? Its description states it was used by "the legendary hero himself", 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 Shield is said to be a family heirloom of Link's, who is explicitly said to not be related to the Hero of Time.
    • With the design of the Small Shield in The Minish Cap, I think what's implied is that people of Outset Island conflated the deeds of the hero of The Minish Cap with the Hero of Time, assuming that he time-travelled to appear in both games. Therefore, the shield could theoretically have been passed down through Link's family (if we assume he's related to Link from The Minish Cap) while still having been used by the legendary hero.

    Ganon and saplings 

  • Why does Ganondorf want to keep the forest saplings from growing? If what they can do is pull up more land from beneath the waves and unite the different islands of the Great Sea...isn't that exactly what Ganondorf wants?
    • Ganondorf wanted the oceans to disappear so he can conquer Hyrule - the one that he's familiar with - so he can get what he wanted and probably say "screw you" to the goddesses that FLOODED the world in the first place. The exact reason why he wants the saplings destroyed is never really stated in-game, but I would assume that he's trying to prevent the Great Deku Tree's power from spreading, or to prevent a new Hyrule from being created altogether. Why make a new Hyrule if there already is one right beneath the waves?
    • But Ganondorf has no idea if and when he'll be able to get his hands on the Triforce again at this point, and so it doesn't make much sense that he would try to kill the trees before they've even grown - I can understand a part of it is to keep the Great Deku Tree's influence from spreading, but couldn't he just let them draw up land and then wipe them out?
    • The Korok saplings are grown from the seeds of the Deku Tree. In Ocarina of Time, the Great Deku Tree and Kokiri Forest were said to provide some form of protection to Hyrule that managed to keep the forces of evil at bay, to some degree. Ganondorf doesn't want a new Hyrule to be raised if it's all under the protection of not one but eight Deku Trees for him to have to contend with.
    • There's also some philosophy to consider. The Great Deku Tree hopes that by planting new forests, he can encourage the people of the Great Sea to one day join together and create a better world for themselves. This is the exact opposite of Ganondorf's nihilistic views; he thinks the people of the Great Sea are worthless, without drive, promise, or ambition...He scoffs at the notion of any hope in their future, because in his own words, what could they possibly hope to achieve? As far as he's concerned, his vision for the future is the only one that will do any good, so he's not about to let anyone else think otherwise.

    Great spirits and modern Hylian 

  • Of all the three spirits, how come the Great Deku Tree is the only one who knows how to speak modern Hylian? He's definitely the most permanently rooted in his place, and his only company seem to be the people-fearing Koroks. Wouldn't it have made more sense for Valoo or Jabun to speak it, since they were the guardians of modern Hylian-speaking peoples?
    • Keep in mind, you do have Medli translating for Valoo, and the King of Red Lions for Jabun. Perhaps Valoo and Jabun can speak modern Hylian, but they found it more convenient to speak their own tongue and have someone translate.
    • Jabun's figurine states that he can only speak ancient Hylian. Valoo's, however, says only that he has a habit of speaking Hylian, but it is still rather telling that he never speaks the modern tongue at any point in the game. Also, this fails to explain how the Great Deku Tree could speak Link's language, as well - who was there for him to have learned it from?
    • The Koroks hang around human settlements, pick up the language, and teach it to the Great Deku Tree. That, or humans occasionally visit the Forest Haven.
      • Perhaps the Koroks and the Great Deku Tree have a limited form of Hive Mind, in that as one learns things, it's passed along to the rest. Both to facilitate communication (easier to have one Korok go out and learn something than need each individual to relearn the same skill), and also to more effectively carry out the growth of new forests (each able to relay where they are and where they've been, etc)
    • The Deku Tree may be rooted in place, but he’s also the most easily accessible of the three spirits. All you need to do is make your way up the river and into the Forest Haven and boom, you can chat him up as you wish. Valoo may be the guardian of the Rito, but he doesn’t live amongst them. Anyone who wants to speak to him as to undergo a perilous journey up a mountain to do see. We’ve no evidence Jabun was a guardian over anyone, and he’s perhaps the most difficult to speak to, since it’s entirely up to him whether to surface and grant someone an audience.

    Time gap 

  • About the time gap between Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker: At the end of OoT Ganon was sealed by the Master Sword and the Sages. Somehow he escaped , terrorized Hyrule and then was sealed again when the Goddesses flooded the world. Then he escaped again, and finally Wind Waker's Link drew the Master Sword to defeat Ganon, thereby re-empowering him. But doesn't this mean, Ganon's power was still sealed by the Master Sword, when he was about to take over Hyrule? So the Hyruleans probably had the Sages, two parts of the Triforce, the entire population of Hyrule, and yet they couldn't defeat a weakened Ganon, because no Chosen One was available?
    • To start, the Hylians didn't have two Triforce pieces. The Triforce of Courage had been split apart and scattered across the kingdom when the Hero of Time returned to his childhood at the end of Ocarina of Time, and Ganon of course had the Triforce of Power. But to answer your question, Ganondorf was only able to escape the seal the goddesses had placed on Hyrule by assuming his human form and leaving a presumably large amount of his powers still buried beneath the waves when he breached the surface. Since the key that was keeping Hyrule locked in its timefreeze was the Master Sword, when Link drew it from its pedestal, the flow of time resumed, the seal keeping Ganondorf restrained was severed, and he gained his powers back once again. In short, the bulk of Ganondorf's power wasn't sealed by the Master Sword directly, it was sealed along with the rest of Hyrule, with the Master Sword being the key to unlocking it.
    • This is a quirk of the localisation process. In the original, Ganon says the Master Sword was sealing his "demon tribe", AKA all the Moblins and Darknuts down there in Hyrule. He's talking about the time-lock made by the goddesses, not the original seal made at the end of Ocarina of Time (which didn't require the Master Sword to be anywhere, the seal was made while the sword was still in Link's hands).

     What's with Cyclos? 
  • When you encounter Cyclos on the Great Sea, he berates you for not fearing the gods and prepares to draw you into a cyclone. Then you shoot him three times, and he commends Link for being able to even see him and teaches you a very useful song. It was mentioned on Dragon Roost Island that Cyclos was originally mad because his tablet at the Wind Shrine had been destroyed, but his own dialogue suggests that he was instead simply waiting for someone worthy of using his power. What's up with him?
    • This may be going into Wild Mass Guessing territory, but Zephos asked you to "knock some sense into him." It's possible that, despite you not fearing the gods, Cyclos respects the fact that you then have the skills to back up that fearlessness.
    • The way their interaction is written comes off as a deliberate allusion to Greek mythology. One of the myths of Heracles reads that he was journeying across a desert when he became so frustrated with the heat that he shot an arrow at the sun. The sun god Helios was so impressed with his audacity and mettle that he let Heracles use his sun chariot to get around more easily. Swap out the desert for the ocean and the sun for a cyclone, and boom, you’ve got Link’s confrontation with Cyclos in a nutshell.

     Quill's Logic 
  • I know it was the pirates' fault (sort of) that the Helmaroc King was brought to Outset Island, but how does Quill know that the bird specifically mistook Aryll for Tetra when he kidnapped her? Even he points out that both of them have long ears - how does he know the bird didn't just see a long-eared girl and decided to try kidnapping her regardless of who she was?
    • It is a somewhat logical assumption. The first time we see the bird is right after Quill sees it, and it's carrying Tetra. It's not too farfetched to think that, after having dropped her, it might go after the same quarry again. On the other talon, Quill himself mentions that it's taking long-eared girls from all over, so... maybe he's just playing up the guilt factor a bit so they'll take Link along. He doesn't really know Aryll was mistaken for Tetra any more than he knows she's the one Ganon's been after all along.

    King of Red Lions sailing 

  • As soon as you meet him, the King of Red Lions admits he's useless without a sail. Then how in Sam Hill did he get Link from the Forsaken Fortress to Windfall Island? Did he really cruise all the way there?
    • Perhaps he encountered a Big Octo and was swallowed then spat out in Windfall.
    • Since it is actually possible in-game to move the boat slowly without using the sail by pressing down "R", I think it's most likely that he cruised all the way there. What causes the boat to move at all without a sail is another matter entirely (but he is a magic boat...)
    • It's actually possible to move forward on a boat by moving the helm back and forth quickly. It goes very slow but especially on such a small boat it's easily possible. Since the King of Red Lions can move his head it's believable that he could move his own rudder too
    • In the in-game time, it takes about two and a half days to cross one quadrant by sail-less cruising. Forsaken Fortress is three quadrants away from Windfall Island, meaning Link's been out for seven and a half days...assuming he woke up just after the King arrived.
    • We don't really know how far Link was thrown after his little visit with Ganon. Considering how far he gets thrown in some other cutscenes, it's possible he was tossed relatively close to Windfall.
    • The Wind Waker HD also ups the cruising speed of the King of Red Lions, making it more plausible for him to have reached Windfall within a decent time.
    • It taking several days to reach Windfall is also given some credence in-game, by the fire. On your first night after being thrown from the Forsaken Fortress, the moon is always in the same phase it was in on the night Link infiltrated the fortress and got thrown out, suggesting at least seven days have gone by since he was thrown into the sea. (Of course, the real reason for this is probably that the developers forgot to factor that first nightfall into the game's day-night cycle, but still, this explanation works fine as an in-universe one.)
    • Considering the King of Red Lions is able to reach the Tower of the Gods from the Triangle Islands just about instantly later in the game (he had to have gotten there in time to keep Link from drowning, after all), it's likely he has some faster method of travel that Link isn't able to take advantage of. As a potential explanation, Hyrule Warriors suggests that the King of Red Lions is actually an alternate form of King Daphnes that he can transform into seemingly on command. If that's also the case in The Wind Waker, he might've assumed his human form for the purpose of carrying Link to Windfall and then swapped back to his sailboat guise before Link woke up.

    Mila's clothes 

  • When you see Mila after being rescued, she's wearing a dress made out of sack cloth. One can understand why her father might (since he sold everything, including most likely his fancy clothes to the pirates) but there would have been no reason for Mila to get rid of her dress, fan, and accessories. That, combined with her pride and focus on her image would have made more sense for her to keep her fancy dress but have it slowly turn to rags throughout the course of the rest of the game.
    • They were kinda booking it out of Forsaken Fortress. It's not unthinkable that her opulent clothing got damaged/destroyed on the way out. I mean look at the barb wire around those hammer posts alone...
    • She might have sold it to buy food.
    • Or maybe Tetra just made her father hand over her fancy dress in exchange for returning her, as well.

    Windfall Islanders' perception of Link 

  • How are the Windfall Island people so oblivious to the fact that Link isn't just an ordinary kid? A kid who can control the wind direction, change night to day and back again, carries around a HUGE glowing sword, can shoot special arrows (including light arrows), and wears an obscure looking mask. A few, such as Zunari, seem to realize there's something more to this kid in hero's clothes carrying a giant sword, since he sells Link the magic armour, which may be useful later in the game.
    • Weirdness Censor. It's a congenital Link trait.
    • An obscure-looking mask that used to belong to the local teacher who can't even get a group of youngsters to school? Point on the rest, though.
    • The changes in wind direction are easy to shrug off. If you saw some kid pointlessly waving a stick around, and then suddenly the wind started blowing in a different direction, you'd probably chalk it up to the weather sooner than assuming that said kid somehow caused it. The Song of Passing probably doesn't speed up time for everyone, just for Link, meaning no one else would notice anything amiss. You're never forced to wear the Hero's Charm or use your special arrows in front of people, so there's no canonical reason for them to be aware of them. That just leaves the fact that Link carries a sword with him, which the islanders could just shrug off as being the norm wherever he comes from, which it kind of is.

    Girls kidnapped from different regions 

  • Very near the beginning of the game, Quill says that girls have been taken from "all regions" of the Great Sea. Yet, when we get to the cell, the only girls in it that aren't your sister are from the same island, and... exactly how many islands are there in the Great Sea where girls might be kidnapped from? Three? I mean, assuming Dragon Roost Island is one...
    • There's also Greatfish Isle, before it was destroyed. If we're to believe that Ganondorf literally disposes of the girls after he's...examined them, as creepy as that sounds...Well, it's possible that the only reason Mila, Maggie, and Aryll were able to survive for so long because Ganondorf put off the examinations while he was busy trying to stop Link from gathering the pearls.
      • Oh man. Alternatively... well, remember that the room that the cell is in can be flooded. Maybe he only usually does that when the cage is sufficiently full of non-Zeldas. Horrifying thought, I know.
    • Okay, speaking of the girls that were kidnapped, I sincerely need to ask: What in the world was the Helmaroc King thinking when it took Maggie, aka the girl with black hair? Sure she has the long ears of the Hylians, but her hair color isn't even yellow and that was what Ganondorf was looking for in all this. Is the Helmaroc King colorblind or something?
    • Contrary to what some outside sources like to claim, Ganondorf wasn't looking for people of only a certain hair color. He was only looking for young girls with long, pointed ears. There have been several royal family members who didn't have blonde hair — including Tetra's mother, whose hair was the same color as Maggie's — so it's not out of the question that she could have been Zelda's heir.

     How many Beedles? 
  • Are the twelve different shop ships on the Great Sea all run by the same Beedle? If so, how is it that you can walk out of one of his shops, travel halfway across the ocean by cyclone, and end up in view of another of his shops just as soon as you plop down?

     Laruto and Medli's ancestry 
  • Why do people seem to think that Laruto, and Medli by extension, is descended from Princess Ruto? Just because they share a similar name? Since Ruto was a princess of the Zoras, wouldn't it be more logical for Prince Komali to be descended from her as opposed to Medli?
    • Royal dynasties aren't always infinite, as history has proven. A different family could have taken over at any time.

    Divine intervention contradicts Ocarina of Time's backstory 
  • In Ocarina of Time, the Deku Tree says the goddesses left the world after they created it, and the Triforce was the only remnant of their power left behind. This implies they're clockmaker or hands-off gods and don't perform divine intervention. Which makes sense, since if they did, they could just zap the bad guys themselves instead of needing to rely on a chosen hero. Yet this game claims that they responded to peoples' prayers with direct intervention, which seems to contradict the creation myth established in Ocarina.
    • Well maybe the goddesses need a lot of belief to be able to do stuff like this and the mass worship before the flood was enough to allow them to do this. (we know next to nothing about how the goddesses powers work so it is possible.)
    • I think the gods were said to have departed for "the heavens" - it's likely that they were still capable of looking after the world they had created.
    • Then why all this The Chosen One business? Why couldn't they just snap their fingers and obliterate Ganon if he's such a problem for them?
    • This question has been brought up several times regarding different games in the series. One theory is that the Golden Goddesses can only create, never destroy. So they can create a Sword of Evil's Bane or enough water to flood an entire world, but they can't just erase someone from existence.
    • Or maybe they just can't harm Ganondorf directly because he holds the Triforce of Power.
    • I'm willing to buy that the Triforce of Power grants Ganondorf some protection (though in that case it seems weird that he can be harmed by one of their creations, which is presumably less powerful than a Bolt of Divine Retribution), but that still raises the question of why he's so resistant to their indirect powers too. If they can only create, why can't they create a prison for him (and keep remaking it when he inevitably breaks out)? Why can the sages seal him in the sacred realm but divine intervention can't? Why do they do something as dramatic and collateral-damage-filled as the great flood (which did seem to weaken him, so he can be affected by divine magic even with the Triforce) instead of taking a more guided missile approach? Why don't they do anything to stop him when he shows up a third time in The Wind Waker? Supposedly the goddesses do have some investment in Hyrule and will perform direct intervention if necessary, but they're incredibly inconsistent about it. But now we may be getting into territory that's more suited to the headscratchers for the franchise as a whole...
    • You're probably right about it being more series-wide at this point...but even so, it's probable that the Golden Goddesses don't have such a specific ability as, say, creating a magical prison cell to house a single criminal or striking him with a bolt of sacred lightning. We also do not know the relationship between these three sisters - it could be that Din is someone who simply admires power and the people who possess it, such as Ganondorf - I think most people can agree that Ganondorf is a pretty admirable dude, even if he is a villain. Since he is technically her "chosen one" in this regard, it could be that Nayru and Farore circumvent this by choosing agents who posses their own respective virtues - Link and Zelda - to act as representatives of their wishes in the mortal world. In this way, the three of them could maintain a sort of competitive balance, with Din acknowledging Ganondorf for his impressive feats of strength and Farore and Nayru choosing Link and Zelda to work together and stop him, while still teaming together to fix things on their own if something doesn't go as planned and the balance is upset. (Such as by Link vanishing from existence in the Adult Timeline, thus leaving no hero to "compete" with Ganondorf.
    • None of the heroes are the goddess' chosen, though, unless there's a Retcon I'm not aware of. According to Ocarina of Time, the Triforce pieces embedding themselves in the three heroes' souls was an accident caused by activating the defense mechanism specifically for when someone not chosen tries to use the Triforce. Even if we do accept the chosen theory, well... You could say that Ganondorf demonstrated power and strength in his attack on the castle, but to actually get the Triforce, all he did was wait for the idiot hero to open the door for him. That seems more like a show of wisdom than power to me. It's certainly possible that the goddesses are in conflict or playing both sides (personally, I like the interpretation that they're purposefully trying to perpetuate the cycle, because it's deliciously meta), but at this point we're getting into Wild Mass Guessing territory. Personally, though, it seems weird to me that Din would admire power to the point that she would be willing to throw her prized creation under the bus for it. Although given that she only created the land itself, maybe she doesn't care about civilizations. (And though this is getting more into the "extent of the goddesses' power" headscratcher, Skyward Sword demonstrates that the Triforce, at least, is totally capable of killing people, and in a pretty precise way at that — though, interestingly, not in a way that contradicts the theory that the goddesses can only create.)
    • Getting back to the main point... Perhaps we should just agree that the Zelda mythos is intrinsically nonsensical if you think about it as a whole, and it varies Depending on the Writer? Ocarina of Time used clockmaker gods because it made for a better story there, The Wind Waker used active gods because it made for a better story here.
  • It's possible that they were hands-off during the time that Ocarina was taking place, but then after Link made a huge mess of the timelines with the Ocarina they decided that the hands-off approach wasn't working and decided to return to being active.
  • Or maybe they all just want mankind to do it themselves? Seriously guys. Three Goddesses who created the land. Limited power or no, it's not unlikely that they wanted the people to solve their own problems. One guy gets ridiculous, a hero stops, and everything continues. Maybe they only interefered now because they realized, "Oh crap, it's gotten really bad and the hero ain't showin' up!" With that done, they likely took a more active stance in watching over their world. When Link takes the Master Sword, all is made right and they have no need to do anything as the people can take it from here.

    Extent of the goddesses' power 
  • Accepting the premise that the goddesses do perform divine intervention, why did they have to drown Hyrule? Why couldn't they just zap Ganon with a Bolt of Divine Retribution? Even if the Triforce of Power protects him from divine magic (somehow), why couldn't they empower another chosen one to take him down? Just what are the limits of their power, here?
    • They couldn't just "send another hero" because the spirit of the hero, which was first achieved in Skyward Sword, has to be reborn on its own. Since the Hero of Time no longer exists in the Adult Timeline, that means his spirit couldn't reincarnate either. It's implied that the King of Hyrule made an attempt to stop Ganon and failed, forcing the goddesses to flood the kingdom as a last resort to destroy not only Ganondorf, but also his sole motive. Years later, when the Hero of Winds departed from Outset Island in order to save his sister from Ganon, the King of Red Lions came across him and, recognizing the potential there was in Link's courage, decided to train him to attain enough spiritual growth to be considered worthy of drawing the Master Sword.
    • But...they're gods. If they created a "spirit of the hero" once, they can do it again. Why are they powerful enough to create a massive flood, but not that? And why can't they attack Ganon directly? Drowning Hyrule seems a rather Pyrrhic victory, since in a way it's also destroying their life's work. Although Ganondorf implies in the ending that they didn't even bother to protect the survivors, so maybe they're just Jerkass Gods who like the neverending Link/Ganon/Zelda legend and did it all For the Lulz.
    • They didn't create the spirit of the hero. Hylia chose a random boy from Skyloft, threw her mortal incarnation below the clouds in order to rouse him into saving her, and guided him in his quest to attain growth of spirit. Subsequently, Demise's curse ordained that an incarnation of his hatred would be reborn alongside those with the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero, and that they would be destined to clash whenever and wherever they meet. Meanwhile, the trials implemented in The Wind Waker were the goddesses' way of creating a new "spirit of the hero" in Link. And about Ganondorf's rant in the endgame...What he was saying was, for all the evil he had done, his intentions were to rule Hyrule, not destroy it, as the gods had probably thought. He's pointing out how ironic it is that through trying to stop him, they actually caused more damage to Hyrule than he ever would have wanted to.
    • Why didn't they do the whole trial business to create a new chosen one back when Ganon first reappeared, then?
    • I don't know for sure...though I'm of the opinion that Daphnes Nohansen himself may have been a sort of failed hero from before the flood...It would make sense given how regretful he is in the endgame, wishing he could have a chance to "do things over", the fact that he alone resigns himself to the fate of seeking out a new hero and training him, his knowledge of the trials housed in the Tower of the Gods...etc, etc. This shines a new light on his relationship with Link - he wants to see him triumph in all the ways the king himself had failed. It's also implied that only someone with enough courage could serve as a successor to the Hero of Time, meaning the gods couldn't simply train just anyone to do it.

    Why didn't the goddesses drown Hyrule in Ocarina of Time
  • The goddesses decided to perform the great flood when Ganon reappeared to stop him from destroying Hyrule, okay... So why didn't they do that in Ocarina of Time, where he very explicitly does destroy Hyrule? Are the goddesses slow on the uptake and only realized they should do something the second time around?
    • Because they knew Link would rise to stop Ganon once he had awoken from his seven-year sleep. Flooding the kingdom would be pointless in that instance.
    • That is, unless we're talking about the ALttP timeline, where the Hero of Time dies and everything goes pear-shaped. His victory wasn't predestined — and it's a pretty Pyrrhic victory even so. He doesn't actually fix anything, he just prevents it from getting any worse. Hyrule does end up being rebuilt, so presumably Ganon would have done something even worse in Wind Waker's backstory if the goddesses hadn't intervened, but... still. They're willing to create a great flood to save Hyrule, but including "oh by the way pulling the Master Sword is a really bad idea" in Link's special destiny dreams is too much effort?
    • Even in the instance of the Hero of Time falling to Ganondorf and sparking the existence of the Decline Timeline, the sages were still able to seal Ganon away, although what's implied is that the seal was significantly weaker and cost more bloodshed. Also, this meant that even though Link had died, the spirit of the hero still remained and could still be reborn in that timeline...All hope was not lost.
    • So basically... the goddesses are outside the normal scope of time and so are able to look at the big picture, therefore they know Hyrule will be rebuilt, the reincarnation cycle will continue, and everything will be fine, even if the Hero of Time fails to defeat Ganon? Okay, I can accept that (though they're still pretty cold)... But then why don't they stop Zelda from sending him back in time, if making the hero's spirit Ret-Gone is even worse than seven years of Ganon's rule? Again, they can flood the planet, but giving a single person some kind of message is beyond their powers?
    • The goddesses only seem to have acted because people prayed them to. These "people" who are able to call the goddesses into action are probably the Sages and royal family, who got desperate when no hero appeared and Ganon was rampaging. These conditions never repeated themselves in the rest of the series. During the 7 year gap in Ocarina of Time there was only one active Sage, the royal family was reduced to a child, and both of them believed the Hero of Time would save them. After Link's defeat in the new A Link to the Past backstory, the Sages somehow managed to banish Ganon on their own, so they didn't need to resort to more desperate measures. Praying to the goddesses for a literal Deus ex machina was a last resort, something they did when absolutely all hope of solving this mess on their own was lost.

    Is Ganondorf's stated motivation inconsistent with Ocarina of Time
  • Here, Ganondorf says that his Freudian Excuse was that he wanted the fertile land of Hyrule for himself because living in a desert really sucks. Yet in Ocarina of Time, after he successfully takes control of Hyrule, he burns it to the ground, wasting its natural resources. He also does absolutely nothing to help the Gerudo — and assuming he's aware of his mothers' actions, he actively harms them. Was the Freudian Excuse speech just a total lie he pulled out to make himself look better?
    • I believe his intentions were originally as he stated them to be, but after obtaining the Triforce of Power, his imbalanced heart and bitter, foolish mind weren't able to use its powers properly or responsibly - he let his anger, jealousy, and hatred for the Hyruleans get the better of him and sought to make their lives miserable before considering bettering those of his people. Spending countless years floating through the void after being sealed away, rampaging through Hyrule in his beast form almost to the point of destroying it, and watching as it was buried beneath tons of seawater, however, made him realize how foolish he had been in the past and, presumably, made him come to regret those foolish choices, even though he knows that he's come too far to stop himself.
    • And also, Ganondorf's true intentions even as they're expressed in The Wind Waker are open to much interpretation: it's unclarified whether he wanted to actually have his people migrate into Hyrule after taking it over, or if he just wanted the kingdom for himself, or if he just wanted to destroy it outright.

     Not so kind after all 
  • Tetra's figurine describes her as quite kind beneath her bossy exterior, and while we see bits of this more generous side of her as the game goes on...there's still the fact that she took away every Rupee of a man's fortune away from him and left him and his daughter living in the streets. How in any way is that supposed to be looked at as being any sort of a good person? She couldn't have left him with anything?
    • When she's described as "actually quite kind", what that probably means is "once you get to know her." Note that she agrees to bring Aryll safely back to Outset at no cost to Link, despite noting that she'd normally be charging a hefty fee for such a service — she makes an exception because of how Link has grown on her at this point. She's still a good person because she has a moral compass and is loyal to those she considers her friends, but she's not someone who would pass on an ideal opportunity to make a pretty penny. Do note that her worst crime is taking the fortune of a man who was already offering it in exchange for his daughter's safe return. It might not be nice, but it wasn't anything more than taking what someone else was willing to give.
    • More importantly, Tetra wasn’t even present when Mila was returned home to her father. She would’ve been back at the Forsaken Fortress with Link or down below the ocean in Hyrule. It’s likely that taking their entire fortune was the fault of her crew members and that she would’ve gone for a more reasonable payment had she been there, especially given the stance she took about Outset Island and Nauru’s Pearl earlier.
    • Alternatively, Mila's father went poor because he spent all his money on other rescue attempts, such as search parties. He might have willingly paid the pirates everything he had left out of gratitude without thinking it all the way through.

    Triforce of Courage and time travel 
  • The ending of Ocarina of Time shows that the Hero of Time retained the Triforce of Courage when he went back in time. But if splitting the timeline made the hero's spirit Ret-Gone, why didn't that apply to the Triforce of Courage as well?
    • The three Triforce pieces are the basis of the world's stable existence - there could very well be some unwritten law preventing them disappearing completely due to something like time travel. In this case, the Triforce of Courage did the only thing it could think to do - shattering into eight separate pieces - in order to keep itself from leaving the adult era like its wielder had.
    • Where does it say the Triforce is the lynchpin of reality? (I haven't read Hyrule Historia so there are probably a lot of details like this I'm missing.)
    • A Link Between Worlds. Lorule was crumbling apart in that game because it had lost its Triforce.
    • Ahh, right, I forgot how retcontastic this franchise was. Still, while I haven't played A Link Between Worlds, that seems to imply the Triforce can be lost; there are no magic safeguards in place. Courage still should have disappeared when the Hero of Time took it back to his timeline.
    • If you haven't played it, then I won't spoil the whole thing, but there was more to the Triforce being lost than just that...Let's just say, a greater power was behind it. Far greater than a simple instance of time travel.

     The King's true form? 
  • What exactly is the King of Hyrule as we see him in game? Is he some sort of ghost or apparition, possibly one that's grounded spiritually to Hyrule given he only appears in human form there? If so, how could he have gone with Link and Tetra at the game's end even if he had wanted to? Or is it possible that he's actually still alive, and that the Golden Goddesses gave him longevity in order for him to seek out the new hero? And if so, how while controlling the King of Red Lions could he not be aware of what's happening in Hyrule simultaneously (such as with Zelda's kidnapping)?
    • He's a ghost, and is possessing the ship most of the time. He can't know what's going on in Hyrule Castle because he isn't there at all, he's inside the boat. When the boat goes down to Hyrule, he leaves and appears in his true form, leaving the boat lifeless. He could leave with Link and Zelda at the end by going back into the boat, in case he can't take on his human form outside of Hyrule.

    Why did Daphnes reforge the Triforce of Wisdom? 
  • Right after Daphnes explains that the wisdom piece was split in two to prevent Ganon from getting it, he not only reforges it but leaves it in the possession of someone who can't defend herself. He was practically asking for Ganondorf to come and take it! Why didn't he leave it broken? Why didn't he give it to Link for safekeeping? Why did he lock Tetra up in a room he has no way of monitoring? Even if he was absolutely certain that the holding room would be safe (which would be pretty naive of him to begin with), there is absolutely no reason to use it! Keeping Tetra and the Triforce piece with the one person who can actually defend them is a much better plan. I've heard a theory that he was intentionally trying to bait Ganondorf into reassembling the Triforce, which is the only way this makes sense.
    • While it may seem stupid in hindsight, leaving the Triforce of Wisdom with Zelda really was the smarter option - the alternative would be for Link to bring it along with him in his quest to awaken the sages, which would put Ganondorf on his trail and hinder his progress toward restoring the Master Sword's lost power, especially since Link has literally nothing that can damage him at this point. Daphnes leaves Zelda and her Triforce piece in the basement of Hyrule Castle because it's the one place that Ganondorf wouldn't already know about beforehand and to give Link more time to get done what he needs to do, without Ganondorf coming after him. Thus, in the worst case scenario, the king's motives really were to bait Ganondorf toward Zelda, but only as a better alternative than baiting him to Link.
    • I don't know; if I was Ganondorf, stopping Link would be a much higher priority than capturing Zelda, regardless of what MacGuffins they had. It'd be pretty stupid of him to be so distracted by a MacGuffin that he ignores the fact that Link is repowering the Master Sword. I always assumed it just took him a while to recover from Valoo's attack, by which point Link had already repowered the Master Sword. I suppose Daphnes couldn't have known that in advance, but it's still a pretty shaky plan. And this still doesn't answer the question of why Daphnes doesn't break the wisdom piece again.
    • Yes, but if Ganondorf goes after Zelda's Triforce, even though the payoff is the Master Sword being restored to its full power (that is, assuming either of the bosses don't kill Link first), then Link will eventually have to reassemble the third Triforce piece as well, thus bringing it directly into Ganondorf's clutches in due time - notice how in the endgame, the power within the Master Sword didn't even matter at first, since Ganondorf almost claimed the Triforce anyway before the king intervened. As for why he didn't split it, well, that would still draw unwanted attention to Link; what's implied when Ganondorf discovers who Tetra really is is that even separate, two fragments of one Triforce piece must still hold considerable power, if he was that jovial over finding only one.
    • But if he was purposefully keeping Link alive so he could get the last piece (and if Daphnes knew this and was banking on it as you're implying), it wouldn't matter what MacGuffins Link had, Ganondorf would still have to leave him alone. I mean presumably he could beat him up and steal the wisdom piece, but that doesn't really leave them any worse off (the wisdom piece appears to be useless on its own, given what always happens to its bearer). It seems smarter for Ganondorf to kill Link and assemble the Triforce of Courage himself. (Given the Hero of Winds' status as The Unchosen One, I would assume anyone can assemble it if they find the pieces.) As for the last bit, I interpret that scene differently — I think he assumed that, since she was Zelda, she had the full wisdom piece. The most power the fragment seems to have is that it pings Ganondorf's Detect Magic ability; it certainly didn't do Tetra any good.
    • Overall, the king's plan was to keep the Triforce of Wisdom away from Ganondorf's clutches for as long as he could possibly guarantee, and so leaving it sealed in the basement of Hyrule Castle was the only way to ensure that - the fact that Ganondorf was able to find the secret entrance eventually is irrelevant. Sure, Link could've taken it with him, but whether Ganondorf killed Link to get it or not, he still would've gotten it, and only because Daphnes made it easier for him to do so.
    • Okay, but why involve Tetra? Why not take the physical Triforce of Wisdom and seal it in the chamber? Heck, why not chuck it into the sea? That worked pretty well for Courage. It really annoys me that he treats Tetra with the same amount of dignity and agency as a bag of oats, when that's completely unnecessary.
    • Perhaps there was simply no way to get the Triforce of Wisdom out of her at that point...Only at one point in the series, in Twilight Princess, has a person been shown extracting a Triforce piece from within themselves on their own, without any other pieces nearby - in that case, Zelda had been transferring it from her body to Midna's, as opposed to simply extracting it from herself and leaving it there, and had also apparently been safeguarding the piece for most or all of her life. This means she likely would've learned how to use and control its power, whereas Tetra had just received the completed piece and didn't know how to manipulate it. Also, leaving the Triforce piece inside Tetra at least ensures that Ganondorf will have to take an extra step by taking it out of her before he can claim it as his own, whereas if they left it unguarded in the chamber, he could just pick it up and it would be his.
    • Except that the Triforce of Wisdom was clearly already extracted some time before The Wind Waker. Given that Daphnes has a piece, I'd figure he'd have some idea how to do it. He also could have just... not given it to her in the first place if it was such an issue. As for using Tetra as a speedbump on the off-chance it would slow Ganondorf down, What the Hell, Hero? He had no way of knowing Ganondorf was going to play nice and let her outlive her usefulness, and the extraction ritual doesn't seem to take him much time anyway. If he breaches the inner sanctum he'll get the piece no matter what (which is still useless until he gets Courage, so actually not that big of a deal), so involving Tetra is a pointless risk no matter how you slice it.
    • ...There's also this...
      King of Hyrule: The gods placed upon your ancestors the task of protecting [the Triforce of Wisdom] from evil's grasp. You, too, must abide by the laws of the past...and so the time has come for me to teach you the fate into which you were born, the very reason that you live.
    • Except the royal family is complete crap at protecting the Triforce of Wisdom. I guess Daphnes, being a product of an earlier and more innocent time, would be stickler for such clearly ineffective rules, but why doesn't Tetra object? She doesn't want to be a princess, and she doesn't seem to care about her "fate" or her ancestors.
    • This is starting to seem less like the answer to a headscratcher and more like a list of complaints...If Tetra didn't care about her ancestors or what she was apart of, she would've gone back to being a pirate at the end of the game instead of going on to found New Hyrule in Spirit Tracks.
    • Well, she certainly didn't seem to care that much at the end of Wind Waker or the beginning of Phantom Hourglass; remember when one of her crew used... it was either her title or her style, and she said to stop it? Perhaps somewhere along the way, she learned to care about it, but in the meantime, she's Tetra, pirate captain.
    • She gets mad in Phantom Hourglass because a member of her crew insists on referring to her as "Princess Zelda" when it's not her real name. Really, no one in either game had a right to refer to her as such - yes, her name would have been Zelda had she been born a princess in Hyrule, but she wasn't. Her name is Tetra. Just changing her appearance so she looks like a princess doesn't make her a different person, and insisting that people call you by your real name is not the same as not caring about your lineage or ancestors.
    • Why would she care, though? The entire point of The Wind Waker is that things have changed and the old traditions have faded into irrelevance. If you were living a perfectly fulfilling ordinary life and out of the blue someone told you you had this magical destiny and had to give up your ordinary life to fulfill some nebulous duty to your heritage, would you? Certainly some people would, but I wouldn't automatically assume so.
    • Yes, but there is a difference between learning to let go of something whose time has come, the moral of the game, and returning to live a normal life even with the knowledge of your part in such an amazing legacy - remember, most islanders, save for those on Outset, have all but forgotten Hyrule even existed, and none of them seem even interested in getting to know others in different parts of the world or reunifying themselves...They all just go about living their normal lives without a care in the world. But Tetra was very clearly affected when she found out what she was a part of - imagine, for a moment, if you found out that you were the last in the royal line of a long-forgotten kingdom, especially one that had been forgotten in such a way. She knew that Hyrule may have died, but that its impact and its legacy could still live on and manifest itself elsewhere, and she ensured that it did (depending on your interpretation of the game) when she founded the new kingdom of Hyrule in Spirit Tracks...So, the bottom line is, you may not have cared if you found out you were a part of something like that, but you and Tetra are not the same person. She feels differently than you, that's all it is.
    • That's all well and good, but it's tangential to the original point. Even if Tetra wanted to become a queen, why would she be willing to become a living MacGuffin? I have a hard time believing someone would be so submissive to a legacy they just learned about that they would be willing to let themselves be so casually brushed aside, especially when they're as strong-willed as Tetra.
    • "Why would she become willing to become a living MacGuffin?" Because she's still a good person at heart, and doesn't want to see innocent people slaughtered by Ganondorf, people that, as descendants of those who once lived in Hyrule, she may now feel personally responsible for, even if they may not know it. Really, honestly, what are you expecting her to say at this point? I think you're just looking at Tetra's spunky, snarky exterior and assuming that that persona is all there is to her, which it's not, and really only serves to demean her overall character; it's learning about a new side to the character that we've seen only hints of before.
    • I don't see her prior behavior so much as a "spunky, snarky exterior" but rather a willingness to take an active role in her own fate. Just look at how she immediately jumps to Link's aid in the final battle — that's clearly someone who isn't willing to just sit on the sidelines. Even if she did decide that being warehoused was for the best (which would take some convincing, since even a cursory examination reveals flaws in the plan), I still would have expected her to discuss the plan and explicitly agree to it, yet she's silent as the grave while Daphnes dictates her fate for her. That's what seems inconsistent to me; it reads like the writers turned her into a completely different character so they'd have an excuse to turn Zelda into a Damsel in Distress again.
    • In short, it seems as though Daphnes intentionally hid Zelda and the Triforce piece in the castle together, if only as a means of baiting Ganondorf away from Link. Could he have told Zelda that this was his ultimate intention? Yes, of course. But leaving her there was still safer than having her come along with Link, and he was also banking on the very small possibility that Ganondorf wouldn't find the entrance before Link made it back to Hyrule. Was it somewhat jerkish for him to do so without telling her? Yes, to a degree, but also, this is the fate of the world we're talking about. He was going with the best possible course of action, and telling her the possible outcome of it would've just made her worry more - remember, her life was in danger from this point forward no matter which path she took. Was it in character for Tetra to willingly stay behind? It very well could be - she's just undergone a major revelation about the world and her part to play in it, and it's entirely possible that this is how she would normally react to it. Yes, she was strong and independent as a pirate captain on the high seas, but that was also a vastly different and even insignificant role to play compared to the one she's facing now. Who is anyone to say that it isn't how she should be taking it?
    • Also, the King of Hyrule probably didn't expect Ganondorf to have a way into Hyrule to begin with. Yes, he managed to escape, but who's to say doing so left him without a way of getting back? The king was sure the gods wouldn't let Ganondorf in through the portal at the Tower of the Gods, and he and Link don't find out about the portal in the Forsaken Fortress until later.
    • Something to keep in mind, the Triforce pieces in addition to combining into a reality warping artifact grant some pretty awesome powers individually. Tetra by her own merits is very smart for her age but hotheaded and impulsive. Given King Daphnes isn't just magicing the Triforce of Wisdom fragment of out of nowhere he probably came to the conclusion that completing it would both keep the stray fragment from being found where ever it was hidden in flooded Hyrule by Ganondorf and would grant the most recent of his descendants a little more balance so she wouldn't get herself killed or captured. Of course he made a pretty serious error in assuming that anywhere in the sunken kingdom was safe even somewhere sacred but still it wasn't an unreasonable move.
      • We're still confusing "smartest move" with "smartest available move" with regard to where Tetra was hidden, though. Ganondorf is already living on the surface of the Great Sea — the King of Red Lions knows that nowhere up there is going to be safe enough for Tetra. In comparison, the sunken kingdom has remained untouched at the bottom of the sea for centuries, and as far as the heroes know, there's only one operational portal and it can only be opened at the whim of the gods, who aren't likely to do so for Ganondorf. This was the case of even the best option available being an incredibly risky one, but it was all they had to work with, given the circumstances.

    Why does Link need the Triforce of Courage? 
  • Maybe I just missed something obvious, but I didn't understand why Link needed the Triforce of Courage in the end. Was it necessary to open the portal again? That seems bizarre, given that it wasn't necessary before. It also seems like a supremely stupid tactical decision, since it just brings another Triforce piece closer to Ganon. Is there any official explanation for this beyond plot contrivance?
    • It's possible that it's part of Daphnes' plan: get the Triforce pieces back together than then gank the wish right out from under Ganon's nose with his ghost powers. It probably seemed inevitable that the Triforce was going to come together eventually, so most of his machinations involve keeping it away from Ganon until the circumstances are right for him to sneak in and use the Triforce to demolish the old Hyrule completely.
    • So he lied about needing it for the portal just so Link would collect it? Alright, that makes sense.
    • It's also possible that a Triforce piece is needed in order to gain access to Hyrule - after all, the initial time was because Link had cleared the trials inside the tower, and everything was designed that way - Link was only supposed to get the Master Sword, and then leave. The second instance, was amidst what was basically a crisis, and Tetra and the King of Red Lions did collectively possess a piece of the Triforce, so the gods chose to allow it. But by the third, they're tired of basically giving out all-access passes for what is supposed to be a well-hidden secret to a young boy with no relation to the Hero of Time, so they refuse to open the portal again until he proves he's what he says he is and has reassembled the Triforce of Courage himself.
    • "and Tetra and the King of Red Lions did collectively possess a piece of the Triforce, so the gods chose to allow it." That...seems like a bit of a stretch, especially since one piece was on the other side. And if the gods get so huffy about something as minor as someone using the portal, why don't they try harder to stop Ganondorf...? This paints them as some pretty bizarre Blue-and-Orange Morality Eldritch Abominations.
    • Ganondorf had his own portal, the one composed of darkness that you can unlock and use for yourself later on in Ganon's Tower. If the King of Red Lions' dialogue is anything to go by, not even the Golden Goddesses knew about it - obviously, they wouldn't have let him use the one near the Tower of the Gods just because he had a Triforce piece.
    • Well, I guess this gets more into the "why don't the gods try harder to stop Ganondorf" headscratcher, but I meant more like why don't they just drop a boulder on him or something. Granted, this does assume the gods actually want Ganondorf gone, which might not be true. He was definitely waiting for Link to take the fight to him, so he wasn't a direct threat at the time. Maybe the goddesses care more about getting the Triforce reassembled than stopping Ganondorf, and purposefully pushed Link towards it for that purpose?
    • Perhaps, but it's more likely they simply wanted to test Link one last time, since Hyrule proper was never intended to be explored in its entirety...or at least, the small portion of it seen in-game. If the plan from the beginning had been to drown Ganondorf and Hyrule together, then the Golden Goddesses would've done that during the Great Flood - the Triforce wouldn't have been necessary. They may have wanted to bring the Triforce together in order to resurrect Hyrule from beneath the water once Ganondorf was defeated, with Daphnes only changing his mind after hearing Ganondorf's diatribe about how much damage the goddesses themselves had inflicted, all in the name of preserving peace in the world.
    • As mentioned above the Triforce pieces aren't just there to be keys to the reality bending power of the completed triforce, they grant some pretty serious power individually. For example, the Triforce of Courage let an otherwise ordinary hylian child take quite a number of stabs or slices from the wielder of the Triforce of Power without dying. Given a backhand from this Ganondorf was enough to knock an average human unconscious for at least a few minutes he's packing some very serious strength that would have impaled Link easily if he hadn't been magically enhanced by the Triforce.

    Flight Control Puzzlement 
  • What is with the Bird-Man Contest? Sure, for Link, it's an amazing feat worthy of its reward, but Quill and the other mailmen fly several region-lengths just as part of their jobs. Komali, who gets his wings during the story, also apparently does some serious distance flying. Given that Obli's record in the contest is just barely possible for Link with the Wind Waker, the Deku Leaf, a full Magic Meter, and good timing, it should by rights be impossible for him if it had instead been set by a real Rito. My best guess is that actual Rito consider the contest beneath them and don't participate. Some still like to watch, though.
    • One of the Rito, when spoken to on Dragon Roost Island towards the latter part of the game, says he's going to go to the Flight Control island for a break, before doing just that. Maybe the Rito don't treat it as a proper distance competition, as they are able to fly much further with ease, but a place to goof off a bit and have fun? Seeing how far they can get by gliding without flapping their wings, or trying to fly with their eyes closed to see if they can avoid the updrafts, that sort of thing.
    • It’s possible the updrafts are what make the course a challenge to the Rito. Getting caught in a whirlwind could result in them getting tossed and thrown about — like what happens to Revali when practicing at the Flight Range in Breath of the Wild - rather than gaining altitude like Link does using the Deku Leaf. Hence, it’s not a contest of how far they can fly; it’s a matter of flying skillfully enough to avoid the turbulent updrafts as they move around the course.

     How fishless is this fishless sea? 
  • Ganondorf and the leader of the Salvage Corp both label the Great Sea as yielding no catchable fish, but how true can this really be? Lenzo clearly calls Outset Island a fishing village, and I'm quite sure that Orca's figurine states he gave up his dream to become a swordsman and started working as a fisherman instead - this indicates that the sport does exist, however unconventional the fish they catch must be (Gyorgs, Octoroks, Seahats, etc.). Not to mention, what are the islanders living on without any fish to eat?
    • They must be referring to conventional types of fish. They're implying the Great Sea is hostile and dangerous because the only fish you can catch are the ones that are actively trying to kill you. While Gyorgs, Octoroks, and Seahats are all presumably things people can live off of, they aren't something any normal fisherman would be equipped to capture — hence why the only fisherman we see is one who used to be a trained warrior.

     Tetra's aim 
  • What was Tetra aiming for when she launched Link into the Forsaken Fortress? Was it the window? Because Link wasn't even anywhere near the window when he smacked into that wall, and it couldn't have been the door leading inside, either, because if he'd missed the wall, the arc of the shot would've caused him to overshoot the ledge leading to that door and sent him over the fortress into the water on the other side. I've played through this game more than half a dozen times and I still can't figure out where she was trying to get him to.
    • No one said Tetra was a master of physics. She probably just aimed for the general location of the window and opened fire.
    • If Hyrule Warriors provides any indication of what the typical MO of the crew is, Tetra was expecting Link to hop out of the barrel and jump off of it to the window ledge.

     What happened to the boat? 
  • At the end of the game, Link is shown being rescued along with Tetra by the pirates, we see the credits roll, and then he departs with them in the now-lifeless King of Red Lions. Where did the boat come from, though? Where was it after the final battle? Did the gods bring it back, and if so, why? The king's wish was apparently to wash away everything pertaining to Hyrule, and the boat certainly had a connection to the ancient kingdom. And if they were that specific to be able to bring a simple boat back to the surface, why couldn't they do the same thing with the king himself?
    • It's entirely possible that the King of Red Lions we see in that last cutscene is a replacement boat. You'll notice that you can see the grain of the wood on the figurehead, rather than with its magic counterpart. Link likely had the new dinghy commissioned in a fit of nostalgia. If its their only project at the time, a competent shipwright wouldn't take more than a month with a 10-footer like that, give or take a few days for the detail on the figurehead.
    • It's possible, but it doesn't seem likely. If there were some sign of a shipbuilder in the game who could've done the job, maybe it'd be a bit more believable, but just suggesting that there's one out there somewhere for Link to have found and asked, especially when he didn't have a boat in order to do so? Not to mention, Link has no knowledge as to the dimensions of the King of Red Lions to be able to give to the shipbuilder, should one exist, and yet the boat seen in the epilogue appears identical to the original in every way. And as for the grain of the wood on its figurehead, that could just be due to its inanimate nature, rather than a new construct entirely, a sign, like its eyes, that the boat is no longer alive.

     Ganondorf's vulnerability 
  • Ganondorf's immunity to weapons in this game brings up a few questions, since when Link goes to attack him in the Forsaken Fortress, and we hear a sound like swords clashing. But in Ocarina of Time, Ganon can still be damaged, although not killed, with the Biggoron Sword and the Megaton Hammer, and in Twilight Princess with the Ordon Sword and as Wolf Link. When exactly did he gain skin that held like steel against weapons in this game?
    • I think it's a more mundane answer that Ganondorf used one of his own swords to deflect Link's attack.

     Only female heirs? 
  • Ganondorf seems only to be going after girls in his search for the descendant of Princess Zelda...How does he know for sure that her last living descendant is a girl? He could've spent the rest of his life searching and wouldn't have found anything if Tetra's mother had happened to have a boy instead. (And I know that Demise's curse or the magic of Hylia's bloodline may somehow ordain that all descendants of Zelda I are female, but Ganondorf doesn't know that.)
    • He's done this rodeo enough times to know that it's never going to be a Prince and a Bard opposing him, it's gonna be a wise Princess and a brave Swordsman. After being resurrected and fighting Links and Zelda who-knows-how-many-times, and he's always fighting a Princess? Safe bet that this go-round will feature a princess, too.
    • ...Except...he hasn't done this that many times. At this point in the timeline - the Adult branch - Ganondorf has only encountered Link and Zelda once before, in Ocarina of Time, and he hasn't been killed and resurrected once at this point, either, only sealed and then managed to break free. And there's no indication that he could hold knowledge of the events of the other two branches, meaning one encounter with his nemeses isn't enough for him to logically base his entire propaganda for finding their descendants on that unless he's just been driven mad with paranoia at this point. (Which I wouldn't really put past him.) But still, not many previous encounters, only one.
    • He knows a hero on green garb and a princess Zelda will come up to oppose him. He even calls Tetra "Zelda" when she's finally found. The king also seems to know that the lineage of Tetra comes from the royal family in the female line (he asks her if her mother gave her the Triforce pieces not a generic parent). How he knows that? He seems to know a lot about the Triforce, maybe he knows about the legend of the hero and the princess too, from the same source.
    • Well, he could've been watching his descendants through the Pirate's Charm. He can see where Link is and what he's doing through it, so before Tetra gave it to him, it's reasonable to say that the king could've been watching over her, too. (Although this brings into question the point of Jabun asking whether the King of Red Lions had "found" the descendant of Princess Zelda, if the king had known who she was all along.)
  • Along the same lines: why does Ganondorf assume that Zelda's heir will be a young girl? Why not a long-eared baby, a long-eared mother of three, a long-eared crone...?
    • Because a long-eared mother of three or old woman would have already passed the Triforce of Wisdom onto one of her children - Twilight Princess implies that it's In the Blood and is passed on automatically. Ganondorf probably wasn't expecting that Zelda's heir would only have a fragment of it, so he figured that if he found the youngest link in the bloodline, she would have it inside her by default.

     The Prologue 
  • When the story of how the Great Sea came about, it mentions "the great evil that all thought had been forever sealed away by the hero once again crept forth from the depths of the earth". Is this referring to Ganondorf? If so are we to assume he escaped from two different imprisonments (first from the Sacred Realm, where he was stowed following his defeat in Ocarina of Time, then once again to the surface after the world was flooded)?
    • Obviously yes.

     The Korok Ceremony and Farore's Pearl 
  • Why did the Great Deku Tree initially claim that Link had to wait until after the ceremony was over before he could give him Farore's Pearl? As is shown later on, all he had to do to retrieve the pearl for Link was shake it down from his crown - the entire process took all of about 5 seconds.
    • Maybe he didn't want to risk putting more Koroks in danger by sending them to rescue Makar from the Forbidden Woods. And since he knows Links have a talent for clearing perilous dungeons, he figures this guy is the best one for the job.
    • Well, I was referring to before they all found out Makar had fallen into the woods, when it was just a 30-second ceremony that would've stood in the way.
    • Maybe the ceremony is somehow integral to empowering the pearl. When someone takes out a cake, you don't go, "Why did they have to go to the store and get ingredients when all they had to do was open the oven?"
    • ...Interesting analogy, but it ultimately doesn't hold up; as thanks for saving Makar, the Great Deku Tree gives Link the pearl straightaway, before going through with the ceremony.
    • Since there didn't feel like a time crunch before the bad news, the Great Deku Tree probably felt it was better to get the ceremony out of the way before handing the boy a bobble. Think of it like saying, "I'll get you the keys from my room, but let me finish the last bite of this sandwich first." There's no real rush for anyone so why not afford your host the request? Of course things change obviously as we find out.
    • It may have been his way of covertly testing Link. If he is, in fact, a worthy successor to the mantle of "hero".
    • What the Deku Tree says is that he feels something terrible may happen if they don't make haste and do the ceremony. And his intuition was technically right — the "terrible thing" turned out to be Makar getting trapped in Forbidden Woods, which might not have happened if they had picked an earlier time for the ceremony. Of course, it worked out for the better this way, since this gave Link a chance to prove his worth as well as bond with the Koroks. And once Link and Makar come back, the ceremony is no longer as urgent, so he might as well hand over the Pearl while Makar takes a moment to get his bearings and prepare his song (remember, they were teleported immediately to the Deku Tree after Makar's rescue.)

     The guards must be crazy...or nonexistent... 
  • Why is Link allowed to free Tingle from the Town Jail without anyone on Windfall Island finding out and getting mad at him? Even if he wasn't the one who stole the Picto Box, it doesn't mean people would be okay with him just walking free. This is even made worse in the HD remake, where one of the townspeople openly asks you to free him in order to advance in the main quest of the game.
    • It's possible that Tingle wasn't put in jail for any sort of criminal offense, so much as simply to shut him up and keep him someplace where he isn't bugging the townsfolk.

     Father's letter 
  • Among all the other things Komali has to make him upset... Apart from serving to introduce Link to the concept of delivering letters to people, why did the Rito Chieftain think writing a letter to his own son would help boost his morale?
    • Just trying a different avenue to communicate with his son. It's probably tough for the Chieftain to try and talk to his son when he won't look him in the eye, so writing his words down would in his mind make it easier for both of them to get the message across.

     Ferris wheel 
  • Maybe this is only due to my lack of skill when it comes to windmill functionality, but there's a guy on Windfall Island, named Kreeb, who says that the Ferris wheel is powered by the wind. But even if the wind is blowing in the right direction, the Ferris wheel won't move unless you hit the power switch in the back - even Kreeb refers to it as a "power switch". My question is, if the Ferris wheel harnesses the power of the wind to spin itself, and there's nothing else that it needs to provide power for like an actual windmill would, then why does it even have a power switch? And what sort of "power" is the switch supplying?
    • My instinct is that it's not actually supplying power; it's more of a lock so that it doesn't turn when the lock is set. When the button is up, the windmill mechanism is locked in place; when the button is pressed, it's unlocked and can turn if the wind is right. But if the wind isn't right when the button is pressed, the lock is allowed to set again. It's just called a "power switch" to give you the general idea, I guess. No, I don't know why they don't just call it a "lock" instead.

     How Does The Great Sea Even Work? 
  • So the Great Sea came about because the Goddesses flooded Hyrule to stop Ganon from doing his thing while the people fled to the mountain tops which became the islands. Question: where did those mountains come from? Did they sprout out of the ground spontaneously during the flooding or has Hyrule always been surrounded by forty-nine separate mountains? And for that matter, how does New Hyrule in Spirit Tracks work? Was Hyrule and all of those mountains just conveniently in some really wide and deep valley while the rest of the world was okay or did they just find a country sized plateau to settle on?
    • The answer to the first question depends on how deep the ocean is and how its size matches up with the Hyrule seen in other games; as well, the Koroks have been planting magical, island-expanding trees every year for quite some time, which would've aided in this process of finding enough land for people to settle on. Please note that most of the game's island are notably quite small, meaning the mountaintops they originated from probably would've been few and far between. As for New Hyrule, it could be that it was just an abnormally large plateau that existed before the Great Flood, or maybe the gods lowered Hyrule's elevation somehow or increased the elevation of other landmasses to spare most of the non-threatened world from the destruction caused by the flood.
    • If you play Ocarina of Time, you notice that Hyrule is almost completely surrounded by what seem to be random stone walls. The in-game purpose is obviously to keep you from straying off the map, but it also stands to reason that this is a simplified indicator that the country is actually supposed to be nestled between mountains. There are other clues to this effect too. The very fact that there's a "Gerudo Valley" implies that there are mountains surrounding it that can't be explored; Zora's Domain and Zora's Fountain are almost certainly part of a mountain, if they really are supposed to be the source of all the kingdom's freshwater (as obviously the water can't be flowing upwards); et cetera.

     What part of Dragon Roost Island is Dragon Roost Island? 
  • On Dragon Roost Island, on the way up to the big room where you meet the Chieftain, there's a postbox. If you mail a letter from it, it says that it's "near Dragon Roost Island." Not "on"?
    • Yes. Even if it's right there on the island, someone still has to go out to the postbox and collect it. You might think they could put the postbox inside the mail center to alleviate this problem, but that would mean less of a profit for them, so they just choose not to do it. (Although, having the postbox outside near the shore is more convenient for players, I suppose, when you keep in mind that you only ever have to send anything twice throughout the entire game.)
    • Not really, considering that one time is on Windfall Island, which has its own postbox, and the other time is when you're mailing something for the Mail Center part-timer, so you have to go out to it. That said, it's not too bad, and I don't mind the postal fee. (Though pity the non-Rito who had to use that particular postbox before you cleared out the boulders and pushed down the block.) The question is more about terminology; the postbox is on the island, yet it says it's near it.
    • Who knows, really? Maybe the Rito, when designing the postboxes, didn't want to go to the trouble of changing one word that only one postbox would be programmed to say, when there's a group of others programmed with something similar enough to work. Things like this aren't uncommon in real life, in this troper's experience.

     Pirate's Charm 
  • Why does the King of Red Lions not tell Link immediately that he's speaking to him through the Pirate's Charm? He does announce himself at one point later in the game, but the first several times he contacts Link, the game never makes clear that it's actually him. From an in-universe perspective, I understand that Link would recognize his voice once he heard it, but as a first-time player, I'd gotten to thinking that it was actually Gonzo talking to Link in Tetra's place - the item's description only says that Tetra can speak to you through it, so I didn't know to expect that the king could do it, too.
    • Possibly they were counting on players recognizing his manner of speech, which tends to be much more eloquent than just about any other character. Maybe there was also some Verbal Tic of his that was exclusive to the Japanese version, like was the case with Ruto's dialogue before fighting Morpha in Ocarina of Time. As for mistaking him for Gonzo, the Pirate's Charm emits a deep-sounding voice clip each time it's used, whereas Gonzo's voice tends to be a lot more oafish-sounding.

    How long were Link and Tetra floating in the sea? 
  • Having just re-watched the ending of the game, something was off. I couldn't place it, until i realised: When the camera focuses on the pirate ship, it show Medli and Makar waving at Link and Tetra. Given they were in the Wind and Earth temples specifically so that the Master Sword would be strong enough to defeat Ganondorf, how did they get there so fast? The time between landing the final blow on Ganondorf and surfacing on the Great Sea can't have been more than, say, 10 minutes? How did the Pirates get to Headstone Island and Gale Isle in that timespan and manage to track down Link and Tetra?
    • Remember, Medli and Makar can both fly, and they probably left the temples once the flood started, which gave them more time to meet up with the pirates while Link and Tetra were fighting Ganondorf and listening to Daphnes's final words - odds are the sword could hold onto its power for at least a bit longer after the sages' prayers had ceased, especially since the gods knew what was happening and were actively trying to give Link and Tetra a future, as per the king's wish. That, and we don't really know where Ganon's Tower stands in relation to the waters above it.
    • And even without the literal Deus ex machina on their side, they were probably out longer than the time it took for them to breach the surface, especially since it's implied that the sound of Komali's wings is what woke them. There would've had to have been more time for Komali, Medli, the pirates, and Makar to all have gotten together and came across them.
    • From a practical standpoint, showing Medli and Makar on the pirate ship was probably the devs’ method of assuring the player that they escaped the temples and didn’t die in the flood, even though it doesn’t make complete sense for them to have met up with the pirates afterward. If they hadn’t shown them at all during the epilogue, they would’ve had another Link’s Awakening situation on their hands — where players would continually assume that they probably died just because it wasn’t explicitly shown that they didn’t.

     Rescue 
  • How did Quill or Komali (whichever one rescued Tetra) manage to wrest her from Ganondorf's grasp so quickly and easily? He had her in a chokehold so tight that it knocked her unconscious, but then one of them swooped in and snatched her free like it was nothing. And how were they able to carry her, too? Neither of them have talons or anything, and Tetra wasn't conscious to hold onto them.
    • Possibly a combination of distraction (Quill's sudden arrival to swoop in and get Link), impact force (Wings+Body mass to the head), and pulling Tetra free directly, rather than her struggling to free herself. As to carrying her, I would presume the Rito do have some form of talons or gripping capability with their feet that we don't see due to the artstyle.
    • We can also assume that Ganondorf's grip on Tetra loosened when Valoo showed up; you can see her shift slightly in his hand right as the rumbling starts. As for the Rito carrying her despite not having visible talons, maybe she retained consciousness long enough to cling to them until they returned to the King of Red Lions, then gave out once she was safely on board.

     Zora = Earth? 
  • Going off of a previous question about Medli and Makar, why was Laruto, a fish, chosen to be the Sage of Earth?
    • This game's sages don't seem to have as strong of a connection to the elements they're named after - Laruto and Medli are Earth Sages in the sense that it's their duty to pray to the Earth God, just as it is Fado and Makar's to the Wind God.
    • On the other hand...Breath of the Wild does establish its Zoras as being an incredibly spiritual people, as Link needs to seek out a Zoran priest to preside over a wedding at one point. And the Earth Temple is clearly centered more around death than earth itself, so maybe the royal family decided that a very spiritual person like Laruto would be best-suited to pray there.
    • Perhaps the Sages were also chosen to show the symbolic connection of all things. That the water rests upon the Earth, nourishing and shaping, while the trees need the Wind to spread and flourish.

     Valoo the Omniscient 
  • How did Valoo know that Link would be at the Forsaken Fortress and would need rescuing from Ganondorf?
    • Maybe the King of Red Lions sailed to Dragon Roost while Link was fighting the Helmaroc King to ask for some backup in case something went wrong.
    • Valoo being omniscient (or something resembling that) is also a distinct possibility, considering he also knew about Jabun going into hiding on Outset Island and that Ganondorf had cast a curse on the Great Sea. Mayhaps being the Sky Spirit enables him to hear news of things that are carried on the winds from afar, as an explanation. (Might explain how Jabun was able to preempt Ganondorf's attack in the first place, because Valoo literally caught wind of it and warned him.)

     Light arrows 
  • What were the light arrows doing inside Ganon's Tower? They were presented to Link by Zelda in Ocarina of Time, and Ganondorf had already been sealed away by the time he was returned to his childhood. Did he manage to steal them from Hyrule Castle after he escaped? If so, why bother hiding them inside his castle, instead of snapping them in two or tossing them into a pit?
    • Given that they are one of his few weaknesses, and that they were made by Zelda, it stands to reason that the Arrows might just be beyond Ganondorf's ability to destroy. In that case, it makes sense to steal them and hide them in his Tower to minimize the odds of someone else getting their hands on them.
    • As mentioned above, the Light arrows are almost always summoned and presented to Link by Zelda's magic, and the ones in this game do look distinctly different than the ones from Ocarina of Time. After taking Tetra captive, Ganondorf might've found a way to force-summon the arrows out of her, and then hid them in his tower for Link to find. (Or maybe Tetra summoned them herself when Ganondorf showed up to capture her, but they weren't enough to hold him back.) Ganondorf's portrayal in this game centers around him being glued to upholding tradition and wanting to test the new hero's abilities, so it is in character for him to forego being pragmatic in this instance and let Link seek out the things he needs for their encounter.

    The Rito's design 
  • If the Rito are Zora evolved into birdfolk, why oh why do they look like more like Hylians with beaks?
    • Likely for the same reason the Zoras looked like Hylians with dolphin tails on their heads.
      • Huh? No they didn't, Zoras looked more like aliens than Hylians. Their only similarity is that they were humanoids.
      • And the Rito look almost equally as different. The Zoras in Ocarina of Time look human, but with scaly blue skin, dolphin tails on their heads, and fins on their arms and legs. The Rito look human, but with red eyes, beaks in place of noses, dark skin, white hair, wings on their arms, and oddly small feet.

     The Mailboxes 
  • Are they...alive?
    • Seeing as that would raise some weird questions with regard to the Rito and their mail service, the most likely answer is probably not. They're just machines that are designed to speak to people, eat their mail, and bounce and dance around if they sense someone nearby they have a package for.

     Pirate's Charm II 
  • How exactly does the Pirate's Charm work? When Link first uses it, Tetra says she can see him through it, but that he can only hear her voice. Later you find out the King of Red Lions can talk to you through it too. Speaking to Niko after you've gotten the bombs reveals that Tetra has her own stone that she uses to communicate with Link, which presumably means that the King of Red Lions has a completely separate one, as well. But if there are three of them and they're meant to allow for communication between different people, why is it Link can't see or contact either of the other two stones, and how did Tetra not realize there was a third stone?
    • 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 (or doesn't know how) 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.

     Understanding modern Hylian 
  • If Valoo and Jabun can only speak ancient Hylian, that would imply that they can’t understand it either...right? If that’s the case, how is the King of Red Lions able to communicate with them when he appears to only do so speaking the modern tongue?
    • Some people can understand another language when its spoken, but don’t have enough practice and experience reproducing it articulately. For Valoo and Jabun, who are basically demigods, it might be beneath their station to speak butchered Modern Hylian. Since the Koroks have to go everywhere to plant seeds, and they have a much more paternal relationship with the Great Deku Tree, the latter has experience speaking Modern Hylian (and probably went through an embarrassing transition phase when trying to refine trenomenes)

     How do Maggie and Mila not recognize Link? 
  • They both clearly notice him both times he shows up to rescue Aryll from the Forsaken Fortress, but when you go back to Windfall afterward, they act as though they’ve never met you before, with Mila even describing the events of her capture as if Link doesn’t already know about them. How many little boys with green clothes and floppy hats have they met before that his appearance wouldn’t stick in their minds, let alone the fact that he saved them?
    • It's not the most ironclad answer, but the best one is that they didn't get a close enough look at him for any of his features to stick that well. The first time they saw him was from across the room they were being held in, through the bars of their cage, in the brief time before he was caught by the Helmaroc King. And while he was able to approach their cage the second time, they still kept enough distance that it's not implausible they wouldn't remember him that well — especially once the pirates turned up to take them back to Windfall.

     Seagulls 
  • Tetra recognizes a window with seagulls flocking around it as the part of the Forsaken Fortress where Aryll is being held captive. How does she know that Aryll had an affinity for seagulls?
    • The journey from Outset Island to the Forsaken Fortress would have taken several hours, at the very least. Link presumably told her about it on the way there. If they were going looking for Aryll, then anything about her that could help locate her would be of greater benefit being known by the whole group.
    • Aryll is also surrounded by seagulls in the moments before her kidnapping, when she calls to Link from the other end of the suspension bridge. Tetra could’ve noticed that and surmised from it that they had a tendency to flock around her.

     Is Makar directly descended from Fado? 
  • And if so, how can that be? All things considered, the game is pretty vague about it - there’s mention of “the blood of the sages” and Makar needing to ease the regrets of his ancestors - but if he meant that literally, this game and Ocarina of Time implied that the Koroks and Kokiri are both born from the Deku Tree, and that at least the Kokiri were perpetual children. So how could Fado have sired a line of descent that linked him to Makar?
    • Perhaps it's less bloodline in Makar's case, so much as a sort of spirit line (So Makar is born from the same spirit as Fado, or kinda reincarnated from Fado's soul)
  • The very fact that all Koroks and Kokiri are born directly from the Deku Tree in the first place means that the Koroks most likely have a different cultural concept of "ancestry." Nobody can actually be anyone's ancestor in the genetic sense, so it's likely that they would simply consider all Kokiri people to be "ancestors" to any and all Koroks, because as a collective, they are the people from whom each of the modern Koroks inherited their culture and traditions. Makar just happened to be the most suitable Korok, physically and spiritually, to be Fado's heir and to be linked with his soul. It's like how technically anyone descended from the bloodline of the Knights of Hyrule could have been the next Hero in Link to the Past, but it still ends up being Link who actually does it.

     Escaping the Great Flood 
  • According to King Daphnes, the inhabitants of the Great Sea are descended from those the goddesses "chose" to escape to the mountaintops when Hyrule was flooded, implying it was a selective process and that not everyone was given the opportunity. But at the same time, Hyrule wasn't actually flooded in the Great Flood; as seen in the game, it has its own pocket of air underneath the water that keeps it safe. Building on that, the kingdom was apparently frozen in time until Link drew the Master Sword, meaning whoever didn't ascend to the mountaintops would've been in stasis with everything else and therefore safe from starvation and such. Based on these two things, wouldn't there still be people living underneath the water during Link's journey?
    • That's assuming the "unchosen" people just stayed and waited to drown — after all, they didn't know that Hyrule would end up in a time-sealed air bubble. It's likely that anyone who didn't receive divine guidance on where to go simply made their own efforts to flee to other lands. Daphnes might have also just been speaking poetically and considering Hyrule's population as a whole to be "the goddess's chosen people."

     The Kokiri turning into the Korok 
  • It's implied that the Kokiri where turned into the Korok by the Great Deku Tree himself as a way to "protect" them, which seems a little vague. But with this in mind, Did he consult the Kokiri before putting them through this transformation? what exactly did the Great Deku Tree see that warranted turning them into the Korok? And couldn't he simply give the Kokiri the abilities of the Korok while letting them keep their more humanoid forms?
    • Not sure where you're getting the impression that it was a forced or willing transformation. When you meet the Koroks, the Great Deku Tree said that they "took on" their current forms when they came to live on the Great Sea; the Word of God is that they assumed them as a result of leaving Kokiri Forest, like they did at the end of Ocarina of Time. In either case, there's no mention of the Deku Tree because directly, willingly involved, which is what this question hinges on.

     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.
    • 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 Rule of Funny. In the style of those old slapstick cartoons, it's supposed to be outlandish and absurdist for comedic effect. 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 Soft Water 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.
    • Why the Moblins don't kill Link on sight is the only thing I don't have an exact answer for. I'd chalk it up to them not knowing what to do with this random kid they've found sneaking around the fortress. They know their boss is collecting human girls for some reason, though, so they might've chosen to throw Link into a cell and let Ganondorf decide what would be done with him.

     Niko's Second Trial 
  • When Link completes the second trial on the pirate ship, Niko says he never got past it himself. But in the cutscene before the trial he's clearly seen leaping onto the entrance to the treasure room, with the only way to get there being to make it past the trial, so is he just selling himself sort or did he literally only just then pass it for the first time when Link was there?
    • Part of the test is that you need to complete the course before time runs out and the gate closes on you. Niko didn't pass that requirement, because the gate doesn't even open for him until after he finishes the course in his demonstration. He may be able to swing across the room just fine, but he just can't do it within the time limit, so he can't say he's ever fully passed the test.

     Ganondorf's Viewpoint On Gods 
  • Didn't he kinda have a point? Now granted he's absolutely part of the problem since he won't stop doing evil things, but isn't he right to criticize the gods since they thought flooding the world and erasing Hyrule was a better plan than doing, well, anything else?
    • This issue has been debated in at least two previous entries, but saying he's "part of" the problem is a massive understatement; the goddesses flooded Hyrule and let people seek refuge on the mountaintops precisely because of Ganondorf's actions, and his actions alone. They've probably known since the events of Skyward Sword took place that he's never going to stop lusting after Hyrule and the Triforce, so they tried to give people hope for a new world in which they could finally be free of his destructive obsession. Ganondorf is meant to be seen as wrong because he's too glued to the past to see any promise of that future.
      • It does seem reasonable that they'd want to try and do something more permanent to stop him based on that logic but, why outright destroy Hyrule? Sure Ganondorf is pretty dang powerful, but he's still just a guy - isn't there any course of action somewhere between "do nothing" and "flood the earth" that would have stopped him?
      • But they didn't destroy Hyrule. The kingdom is still perfectly intact thanks to the bubble that keeps it contained beneath the seawater and the time-lock the Master Sword held it in. And going off of Ganondorf's interpretation of Tetra's dreams and dialogue from the Deku Tree about the King of Red Lions, it seems the true intent of the gods was to seal Hyrule and Ganondorf away until the King was able to find a new hero, then have him and Zelda's heir defeat Ganondorf and use the reunited Triforce to resurrect the sunken kingdom. It's not until the end of the game that the King has an epiphany about Ganondorf's motivations and reasons that it's better to destroy Hyrule completely rather than bring it back to the surface. In doing so, he allows the islanders who've long since forgotten about it to continue living in a peace that no one in his kingdom had ever been able to enjoy for very long.
    • Crosses into WMG, but it feels like the goddesses were trying to teach a lesson to the people of Hyrule. The entire main conflict of the game is about a conflict about past and future, and how obsessing with the former can impede the latter to flourish. Ganon is all about obsessing with Hyrule's past, and so is the King of Hyrule at first, until he eventually learns his lesson and changes his way. Back when Ganon returned, the people of Hyrule just relied on the legends of the past, praying and waiting for the Hero of Time to come back and save them instead of taking up arms and fighting for their future. So, when the goddesses interviened, they saved the people, but took away that which made them complacent, their past glory and kingdom, so they could grow from the trials. By finally forsaking the remains of the kingdom for the future of Link and Tetra, King Daphnes finally embraced the lesson.

     Zelda in the basement 
  • King Daphnes opts to seal Tetra inside the secret basement of Hyrule Castle to hide her from Ganondorf, knowing she won't be able to get out until Link restores the Master Sword and finds the Triforce of Courage that lets him go back to Hyrule — or unless Ganondorf finds her before then. What was Daphnes expecting her to eat during that time? Would the gods have procured food for her when she needed it? Or was he just not expecting Link would be gone that long, despite all the unknowns he had to account for?
    • While it's not very endearing on the part of the King, the basement chamber does seem to have a constant source of water, so even if we assume that the gods and the Triforce of Wisdom did nothing to help her, she would actually be fine until starvation did her in, which could take as many as one to two months. That's more than enough time to get through the Earth and Wind Temple, and overworld travel would be a snap with the Ballad of Gales, so the only unknown the King would need to account for is the hunt for the Triforce shards, which doesn't end up taking more than a few days of in-game time.
    • In addition, maybe there’s still some temporal distortion going on in Hyrule, even without the time freeze. That would explain why the time of day there is always the same.
    • Another, less-arbitrary possibility is that the pool of water in the basement has fish living it, which Tetra caught and ate when she needed food. It’s probably sourced in some way from the huge lake surrounding the castle, and they mention a couple times that the Great Sea doesn’t yield any fish to catch—logically, then, there should still be fish down in Hyrule to contrast that.

     Valoo: Too stupid to move his tail? 
  • Valoo the demi-god sits atop Dragon Roost island. He's been in a huge rage and won't calm down. We find out the reason is a monster keeps doing painful stuff to his tail. Later in the game we see he's perfectly capable of getting up, flying, and spitting fire like a dragon should, so why is he just sitting around huffing and throwing a tantrum instead of just pulling his tail out of the hole and/or wrecking whatever is down there injuring him?
    • Before defeating Gohma, you can see that there's a separate layer of bedrock that Valoo's tail is sticking through after coming through the ceiling. And by the way you have to swing on his tail to loosen the bedrock and knock Gohma on the head with it, it's implied that's what's keeping Valoo from taking flight and escaping her torment. Since Gohma destroys the bedrock along with her armor after the first phase, and it's plainly not there anymore after the fight, Valoo would be able to leave and make appearances elsewhere in the game after that.

     Triforce buried in the sea? 
  • Even with the whole treasure-at-sea motif, it seems a bit stupid that the pieces of the Triforce are buried in the sea instead of being in the dungeons that hold the charts for them. It just seems like an unnecessary extra step to make Tingle relevant, since he's the only one that can decipher the charts. If the whole bit is about proving your courage then getting your way past the dungeons more than proves that. While DESTINY would prevent it from ACTUALLY happening, it seems a bit silly that a random treasure hunter could stumble upon a piece of the Triforce just by randomly dipping their hook.
    • For what it's worth, the HD remaster updates things so that some of the shards are now found in places where you originally only found the charts that led you to them. But beyond that, it's important to remember that the shards were scattered when the Hero of Time was sent back to his childhood in Ocarina of Time, which was well before the Great Flood took place or most of this game's dungeons would've existed, and it's implied this happened by the will of the Triforce or the gods themselves rather than it being ordained or performed by the royal family — since you'd think, in that case, Daphnes would have some idea where the pieces were. And finally, since all but one of the dungeons had been taken over by Ganondorf by the time of the story, you can't really deny that random places throughout the sunken Hyrule weren't a better hiding place.
    • As for random treasure-hunters stumbling upon the Triforce pieces, the game won't let you pull up sunken treasure unless there's a light ring present, which requires you to have found and opened the corresponding treasure chart. And given you can only access Hyrule through the larger light ring at the Tower of the Gods, it's likely that the rings tied to the sunken treasure are more than just a gameplay mechanic, and that through them is the only way one can pass the barrier that keeps Hyrule sealed away.

     Why couldn't Fi tell the King of Red Lions what was wrong with the Master Sword? 
  • If she's displayed a willingness to influence the events of other games, why not this one? She ought to have noticed when the sword lost the sages' blessings, and King Daphnes is implied to have unlocked the power of his bloodline already like Zelda did in Breath of the Wild. Why couldn't she just contact him telepathically, or do anything else that could save Link from embarking on a suicide mission?
    • Fi might've realized that King Daphnes was one of Hylia's line... If she'd seen him. But he doesn't appear in person until after the failed assault on Ganondorf, and we've no reason to believe she could sense his lineage while he was masquerading as the King of Red Lions.
    • For a darker take, it's possible that this is a case of Gods Need Prayer Badly. The blessings of the Sages of Earth and Wind might have been the thing keeping Fi alive—she couldn't tell King Daphnes, or anyone else, about the situation because she was dying. The lack of the prayers may have rendered her completely comatose or too close to death to communicate at all.
    • What’s more, we don’t strictly know that the powers Daphnes has are from Hylia’s bloodline. It could be base-level magic he learned or a bestowal of powers by the three Golden Goddesses.

    Why hasn’t Tingle escaped already? 
  • In the HD version, Tingle knows that the Pictobox is hidden in the tunnels behind his cell, so he must’ve been back there and seen it before. If that’s the case, why hadn’t he used any of the rat-triggered trapdoors to escape his imprisonment before Link freed him?
    • He could have been worried that rather than a way out, the traps would only dump him off somewhere even worse than the cell, where no one was likely to find him. Or the route connecting the traps to the outside is too narrow for Tingle to fit through but still large enough for Link.

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