The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild headscratchers page

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Wafer The Mask Does Not Laugh Since: Oct, 2021

The Mask Does Not Laugh

20th Dec, 2021 10:14:52 AM

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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild headscratchers page Videogame

I found this absolute wall of text on Headscratchers.The Legend Of Zelda Breath Of The Wild. Placed in a folder because it's long:

Hylia's Bloodline and Hyrule's Royalty

I haven't found what's supposed to claim this but I see talk of how Zelda's father, who is explicitly mentioned to have the title of "King", isn't of Hylia's bloodline. As Hylia's incarnation is always Princess Zelda that would indicate that her kin should be the side of the family with the literal divine right of kings. So unless there's something important here I'm missing how in the world did Zelda's mother, who was of Hylia's blood which was why losing her was so crippling to this incarnation of Zelda and assumedly the naturally born crown princess/Queen of Hyrule, get outranked by some schmuck she married and who does this glorified Prince Consort think he is to declare himself King while acting as Zelda's regent until she comes of age to rule on her own? "King" as a title can't belong to anyone not of the direct ruling bloodline after all, as in a Kingdom it outranks its sister title of "Queen", since consorts/spouses aren't permitted to have titles higher than the actual ruler's. On a similar note if being protected by a religiously powered matriarch is so fundamental to Hyrule in the first place (And as the local deities of worship that can be confirmed to exist are almost all female) why is it a Kingdom instead of a Queendom in the first place?
- You're looking way too far into this. The simplified way that the royalty in this game works is the same one that has been portrayed not just in other Zelda games, but across most realms of media and fiction in general - the idea of Prince-consorts as opposed to true kingship seems almost strictly limited to the real world. And that's even if the thing about Rhoam being from outside the line is true.
- Original poster here: This is the headscratchers page, no need to be so rudely dismissive about answering since this is where fridge logic is meant to be put and nothing is considered "too far" as long as you can see how the question came up. Why comment if you aren't actually addressing the question being posed in the first place for that matter and instead just attacking someone for asking it? Most other Zelda games just plain don't talk about the royal family beyond Zelda herself so there's no need to question if her father has the right to be called king, as their competence isn't in question and neither is her own (Unlike here where her father outright tells her that her people think she's the "Heir to Nothing" like an abusive asshole and encourages the only heir to the throne to act more like a priestess than a studious princess) so the fact this game did want to go into royal politics for a change doesn't make me out of line. And just because mainstream media doesn't like to do it's research most works that do want to make royal politics a major plot point, like Zelda tried here, do go into this sort of thing plenty often. Only part I'd grant would be "too deep" is the notion of a patriarchy existing in a world where the major religious and cultural foundations are primarily presented as female-focused with confirmable magical existences, and that contradiction has always been a part of the game's setting. And as I said in the first line I don't know if it's true so the least you could have done was find what could confirm or deny it, as obviously that's my main concern here.
- First of all, let me apologize for coming off as rude, since that wasn't my intention. It just seemed like you were getting a bit too...upset, if I may, about something that's been a common part of royalty's portrayal throughout most of popular culture. Having nearly completed the main story and collected all of the memories, I've yet to come across anything indicating that King Rhoam was from outside the line, but even if he was, what I meant with my earlier response was that, in the game's universe, he would probably still be considered a genuine "king", as opposed to prince-consort, because that's how it typically works in fiction. So his line to Zelda about her inheritance probably wouldn't be seen as that level of disrespectful, in-universe - I didn't want you to get that worked up about it, and I'm sorry if it came out wrong.
- OP again: Alright, it just rubbed me wrong that it didn't seem like any other questions got that sort of treatment without any meaningful expansion/explanation on anything added to it even though this one isn't the only one with parts that can be difficult to check by the nature of the game, like the timeline debates, or one based on honest confusion. But with monarchies hardly being a fictional concept as Great Britian's royal family is easily one of the most well known existing monarchies to date (regardless of how vital it is for their current system of government) and seeing it used as an excuse for sexism's a Pet Peeve trope of mine as well... you'd figure people should know or at least infer by now as despite easily being the world's best known monarchy it openly has no King at present and hasn't in ages (with the Queen's husband indeed only ever having the title of "Prince") that not all Kingdoms need a King to function you know? Though his telling his daughter to her face that the people she knows should be looking to her for future guidance have no faith in her like that in such brutal phrasing was still an awful parenting move on his part considering it couldn't help her with anything and just further hurt her self esteem all because she tried to act like princess in her situation should.
- For all we know, both of Zelda's parents might be descended from Hylia's line. An awful lot of time has passed since the Skyward Sword era, and unless the line of Hyrule enforces a strictly one-child-per-generation rule, it's bound to have branched out countless times. Rhoam may be the de-facto king, and married to a member of a cadet branch. Apparently being a woman is a requirement for the powers of the blood of Hylia to fully manifest, so only his wife was taught the procedures.
- I can find no mention that he isn't a descendant. I think we can assume, as with European nobility, a lot of inbreeding was happening. The King probably married a distant cousin who happened to be a priestess. This sort of thing happened all the time to keep blood-lines "pure", and that's before we add in descended from Gods into the mix to have some sort of actual reason to do it. Of course this then raises further questions; if there is a large body of nobility all tangentially related to each other then losing Zelda's mother shouldn't have been the death blow to her teachings the King and Zelda believe it to be.
- Because she's smart enough to know that ruling the kingdom is nothing like sitting on the throne and ordering minions around while gloating in their ego on their high title; The Good King or Queen takes care of their people and make their place safe. After all, she holds the Triforce of Wisdom. So she brushed all her responsibilities as a ruler to her husband even though it means he'll get the glory and status in the process.
- Issue with that would be that the title of "King" couldn't be given to him under any circumstances barring him overthrowing his wife if she was the by blood rights ruling party because that's not how royal titles work period and it is factually wrong to depict them as such and was the core point of my initial complaint/confusion. In order to be King, Rhoam would have to have more royal blood than the Queen does in the first place, so you missed the point about how having the title "King" over "Prince" or "Regent" isn't possible if she was the primary and acknowledged descendant of Hylia instead of him, which is why the focus of most attempts to make sense of this are instead focusing on looking into where his blood right is called into question. Also with the implications that holding the Triforce of Wisdom wouldn't obviously make her best qualified for and the one who would be actually preforming the duties you are at the same time suggesting she delegates away to the man who would still be required to have a lower title than her own by basic law and common sense sounds incredibly confusing at best and overtly sexist at worst as why wouldn't she want her subjects to know who exactly in HER country deserved their respect exactly and by whos authority they lived under?
- One thing I'd like to note is that Rhoam very closely resembles Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule from The Wind Waker (who, by the way, also seemed to possess mystical, divine powers - did anything every say that Hylia's powers only went to the females?), as well as various other Hyrulean kings across the series, just with a longer beard and hair and a pointier nose. The resemblance suggests that they're related through more than just marriage.
- As a common thread seems to be that whatever helped make the idea that Rhoam wasn't Hylia's descendant seems to have been a rumor more than an actual in game claim or a particularly hard to find diary entry so thanks everybody for helping clear that up! Being a Daphnes Expy does make him being at least one of Wind Waker Zelda's descendants does seem very likely (or something similar if this can't connect with that timeline at all) instead of Nintendo just dropping the ball where their research or world building was concerned and falling into harmful/sexist traps regarding royal politics just when they decided to try and go that extra mile for this series. At the very least Zelda's lack of spiritual connection could easily be attributed to just taking after him too much as, even though him being a guy made it a less important issue, he certainly seems less attuned with his bloodline's magic or their piece of the Triforce than Daphnes was and provide a reason for how if her mother was less "pure"/directly connected to Hylia she was supposed to have been in charge of this area of Zelda's teachings.
- As I understand your remarks, you've basically made three distinct arguments: (1) A man cannot become a king by marrying a queen; (2) A king always outranks a queen; and (3) All monarchies operate according to uniform rules of heredity. All three are historically false. Argument (1) is false because there exist two different ways of becoming king by marrying a queen: the king jure uxoris ("by right of [his] wife"), who becomes king in fact as well as name by marrying an heiress or a queen regnant; although these men did not wholly displace their wives, they did acquire the right to rule on their wives' behalves by what English law would later call coverture, the woman's property being automatically administered by her husband. There are a number of examples of kings jure uxoris in the Medieval period: Fulk, Count of Anjou, as king of Jerusalem via Melisende, daughter and heiress of King Baldwin II; Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat, and Aimery, King of Cyprus, as kings of Jerusalem via Queen Isabella I; John of Brienne (later emperor of Constantinople) as king of Jerusalem via Queen Mary (Isabella I's daughter by Conrad); Emperor Frederick II as king of Jerusalem via Queen Isabella II (Mary I's daughter by John); Philip IV, King of France, as King Philip I of Navarre via Queen Joan I; Emperor Sigismund as king of Hungary via Queen Mary; and Albert V, Duke of Austria, as king of Hungary via Elizabeth of Luxemburg, daughter and heiress of Emperor Sigismund. Kingship jure uxoris more or less died out by the time of the Renaissance and the Early Modern Period. Around this time we see the rise of the king consort, as women were accepted as queens regnant suo jure; their husbands might be granted the title of king. The existence of the king consort simultaneously demonstrates that both arguments (1) and (2) are false. Examples of kings consort include Philip IV of Burgundy as King Philip I of Castile via Queen Juana I; Philip of Spain, King of Naples (later Philip II of Spain), as king of England via Queen Mary I (Philip's father, Emperor Charles V, had donated his kingship of Naples to Philip in 1554 as a wedding gift, so that the Spanish prince would be equal in rank to his fiancée, Queen Mary, at the time of their wedding); Francis II of France as king of Scots via Queen Mary; Henry Stuart, Lord Dudley, as king of Scots via the same Queen Mary; Infante Pedro of Portugal as King Peter III of Portugal via Queen Mary I; Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry as King Ferdinand II of Portugal via Queen Mary II; and Francisco, Duque de Cádiz, as king of Spain via Queen Isabella II. There are also a handful of cases in which a queen regnant shared her authority with her husband as co-ruler without being legally displaced by him, such as Prince Louis of Taranto as king of Naples via Queen Joanna I; Philip, Count of Évreaux, as King Philip III of Navarre via Queen Joan II; Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, as King Władysław II of Poland via Queen Jadwiga; Ferdinand II of Aragon as King Ferdinand V of Castile via Queen Isabella I; and William III, Prince of Orange, as King William III of England via Queen Mary II. Władysław and William continued to reign after their wives died. Argument (3) is false because each monarchy operates on its own individual rules. In England (and by extension, the modern UK), male-preference primogeniture meant that a female could inherit the crown if there was no male with a superior claim (e.g., Mary I, Anne, Victoria, Elizabeth II), and also that the line of succession can pass through a female dynast (e.g., the current Prince of Wales and his sons). In France, however, the legal fiction of Salic law forbade a woman from inheriting the crown and also forbade the line of succession from passing through female dynasts (i.e., if a king's daughter had a son, he would have no rights of succession through his mother). In the Holy Roman Empire, Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary, the crown became elective (although in many cases, election was merely a formality). In Wallachia, any male with royal blood was eligible to succeed, even if he were illegitimate. In the Ottoman Empire, any male of the dynasty could become sultan through a rather vague process of dynastic consensus, resulting in uncles succeeding their nephews on occasion. Furthermore, all of these rules operated only so long as it was advantageous to the most influential and most powerful that they operate. When these rules were inconvenient, people could and did flout them. The Norman Invasion (1066), the Anarchy (1135-1154), the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453), the Wars of the Roses (1455-1487), the War of the Castilian Succession (1475-1479), the War of the Burgundian Succession (1477-1482), the War of the Portuguese Succession (1580-1583), the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1715), the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), the '45 Rebellion (1745), the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778-1779), and the Carlist Wars (1833-1840, 1846-1849, 1872-1876) — to name only a few prominent examples — were all results of disputes over succession.This is to say nothing of civil wars or usurpations of monarchs already ruling. Of course, all of this is moot because (A) there is no evidence whatsoever that King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule is not king suo jure, and (B) we know very little about how the House of Hyrule determines succession. As far as point (A) is concerned, Rhoam bears a physical resemblance to the King of Hyrule (AL), the King of Hyrule (LP), King Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule (WW), King Daltus and King Gustaf (MC), and the deuterocanonical King Harkinian (LZ animated series and comic series, but less so his appearances in FE and WG), and, like Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule, appears to use Hyrule as a cognomen or surname. All of this circumstantially suggests that he should be interpreted as exactly what he appears to be. With respect to point (B), we know only that the royal family apparently practices male-preference primogeniture during the Golden Age in the Downfall timeline (the Prince of Hyrule and the Princess Zelda in AL), and that it is possible for a princess to be "queen-in-waiting" (TP trading cards and Prima guides). Presumably this means she is the legal ruler in reginam promovenda, pending some the completion of some ceremony or other condition before coronation as queen, and we further assume that this is the case of other princesses whom we might otherwise expect to have acceded as queens (the Princess Zelda in the Adult era of OT, Tetra in WW and PH, the Princess Zelda in ST, and the Princess Zelda in BW, although it is also possible that some of these princesses could be regents pending the arrival of another dynast with a superior claim to succession). We simply don't know how the crown is passed, and there's certainly no reason to assume that the English rules of succession apply.
- The short version of the above is: "Yes, a man can become a king by marrying a queen. No, this does not automatically mean he rules instead of her. No, there's no reason to assume that King Rhoam shouldn't be king."
- The issues with the above come from saying we have no reason to assume Rhoam isn't the by-blood king when we really do, which is what lead to the king debate. If he married into the royal family taking his wife's surname in a case like this would most likely be the expected practice, so his name doesn't seem to prove much of anything here. Looking like kings of the past could also be just as indicative of him coming from one of the supposed side families as he is lacking in the royal family's ability to use Hylia's magic which seems a lot more important for this than appearances. Hylia's bloodline being central to why "Princess Zelda" is always a princess (As opposed to just having the prophecy say a descendant of Hylia is needed to seal Ganon) seems to indicate their connection to this Goddess is why they are the ruling family, a lot like the legends about the Japanese ruling family being descendant of the Goddess Amaterasu in a variation of the divine right of kings, so it seems like decent reasoning to assume he's more likely to have married into the family than his wife did. Had Hylia's power come from a "side family" it seems odd he wouldn't have had any other alternatives for Zelda's teacher after the Queen died, as mentioned above, when if the power was kept within the direct royal family this element of the story makes more sense. Also it's unclear if Hylia's power really is gender locked since no other goddesses power in this series seems to be restricted in this way, as two of the three holders of the Golden Goddesses' triforce are male, and since Wind Waker's king was adept at least at general magic, given how he animated the King of Red Lions and created the Pirate's Charm, Rhoam completely lacking in this area sticks out more as an oddity.
- In point of fact, no, we really don't have any reason to assume that Rhoam is not king suo jure. There is no evidence saying this. There is no reason to assume this. Your suggestion that he might have adopted his wife's name — which has no precedent in history that I am aware of (the closest being the examples of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine and the surname Mountbatten-Windsor, neither of which support your argument) — is both begging the question and a violation of Ockham's razor. There is no reason to assume that his surname "Hyrule" means anything other than his dynastic kingship of Hyrule, so you are positing complexity without need in order to explain why he has it. Your talk about his apparent lack of magic powers is irrelevant; of the eight kings of Hyrule we know of (Harkinian, AL, LP, OT, Daphnes, Daltus, Gustaf, and Rhoam), precisely one of them (Daphnes) has displayed magical abilities without use of the Triforce — and there is absolutely no indication that his magic has anything to do with Hylia, given that it is possible for Hyrulians to learn magic via study (AL) or to use it via talismans (LP, OT) — , so there is no reason to believe that magic has any strong correlation to Hylian kingship. If anything, the ability to use magic makes Daphnes the odd man out.
- I would also like to point out that Hyrule was both founded by a woman and named after a goddess. It's very likely that despite being called a 'kingdom', it is very likely that queens were the higher ranking royalty, especially considering that only women could inherit Hylia's power.
- You mean they used the wrong word and use of "kingdom" has become a case of The Artifact as the series has gone on? Since there is already a word for this concept in English, as pointed out in the question that led to this. A queendom would be a realm controlled by a queen first and foremost, much the same way kingdoms are for kings which is why ruling queens in a kingdom are technically considered "queen regent" when "regent" is a title for someone serving in the place of the "proper" ruling party.
- You're mistaken. A ruling queen in a kingdom is called a "queen regnant," to make clear that she is reigning in her own right and is not a queen consort, a woman who has the title of queen because she is married to a king; it is possible for one woman to be both a queen regnant and a queen consort (e.g., Isabella the Catholic, Mary of England, Maria Theresia). "Queen regent" refers either to a queen consort who exercises royal authority in a kingdom on behalf of her husband the king (who is absent or incapacitated) or to a queen dowager (wife of a previous king who is now dead) who exercises royal authority in a kingdom on behalf of her son the king or her daughter the queen regnant (who is absent, incapacitated, or has not reached his or her majority).
- Is it really that hard to believe that a fictional kingdom just has a different hierarchy/titles/rules for succession? There's never been much but practically everything we've ever heard about the Hylian royal court across all games doesn't jive with historical monarchies. At this point it's more ridiculous to try and shoehorn the Hyrule family into our understanding of real-world royalty than it is to just start theorizing how their monarchy works from scratch.
- That's what I was going to say, but I'm gonna rehash anyway. First of all it's not like this is the first time we've had a Hylian King; Daphnes from WW and OoT's King, for instance, and there's no evidence for or against them being of Hylia's blood. Secondly, as the above says, it's a fictional world and applying real world conventions to it without any proof of it is kind of silly. Hyrule could easily be a "a Prince/Princess has to get married and they become King and Queen" sort of Kingdom. TBH I didn't even read all of the real world examples and arguments because bottom line... this is not the real world. There are flying tree people, giant bird people, giant fish people, ROCK people, flying dragons, and that's not even getting into monsters and Gods and such. It's not the real world, bottom line.
- Hyrule is a fictional kingdom so it likely follows different rules. Since the power of the bloodline only appears to manifest in the women of the royal family it's possible that succession is matriarchal (and the powers might even been seen as the right to rule, remember Rhoam's line about "heir to nothing"). Also remember that Hyrule fell on the day Zelda went to the Spring of Wisdom, which was her 17th birthday and the day she was seen as an adult in Hyrule (No one under the age of 17 is allowed there) so Rhoam could have been Zelda's regent. Now Rhoam could easily also be a descendant of Hylia, see above about the Royal family branching out and intermarrying with other noble families (this might even be a requirement of the royal spouse to keep the bloodline and powers as strong as possible), but since he's not a female of the line he doesn't know how to access the special powers.
- Technically speaking, we also have no reason to assume that Hylia's power doesn't manifest in male members of the royal line; as previously noted, Daphnes displayed magical talent that was never implied to be not his own (when recounting how Ganondorf overtook Hyrule, he does say "My power alone could not stop the fiend"), and the king from Adventure of Link also knew enough to hide the Triforce of Courage so well. Neither of those contradict anything we're told in this game, either, because even if Rhoam can access the divine magic of his line, he's established as being such a stickler for tradition that he would still see the duty to harness it as falling to Zelda, if he even knows that he could do it just as well himself.
- Age of Calamity contains some details that shed a bit more light on things. Rhoam's main weapon in that game is a Royal Claymore, which is explicitly stated to be the type of weapon issued to the royal family's personal guards. This strongly implies that Rhoam served in the Royal Guard, and may have even been one of Zelda's mother's bodyguards prior to their marriage (in real-world history, it wasn't unusual for younger sons in noble families to enter the military, where their rank would put them on the fast track to promotion—Hyrule's nobility might do something similar). While not an outright confirmation, this suggests that Zelda's mother was the direct heir and Rhoam married into the throne. If the sealing power is a sign of the right to rule, as mentioned above, Rhoam may fall victim to the opposite side of the coin: he can't use it because he's King by marriage, not a direct member of the royal line. If it's accepted in-universe that Zelda is the only one who can wield it as long as she's alive and has no children, this would also explain why no one else with Hylian blood is trying to unlock the sealing power in her stead.
- There's still his resemblance to previous Hylian kings, though, particularly Daphnes in The Wind Waker, who seemed to be a direct heir since he possessed the requisite powers. And Rhoam is already a king by the time of Age of Calamity when he's using the Royal Claymour. Being so adept with it doesn't mean he must have had a past as a royal guard; he could've been born a royal who chose to use it as a weapon.

Is there anything we should do about this? I've briefly touched upon this in the Headscratchers cleanup thread but even with a possible conclusion I still have no idea what to do.

Afterword Since: May, 2017

20th Dec, 2021 11:06:22 AM

Holy smurf that's huge. Maybe bring it to the wall of text cleanup?

A smile better suits a hero

Wafer Since: Oct, 2021

20th Dec, 2021 11:21:30 AM

Took your advice and took it over there. Right now I'm waiting for any responses.

PCD Since: May, 2021

20th Dec, 2021 04:37:29 PM

It looks like two people are discussing this back and forth as if in a more traditional forum thread. Is that permitted in Headscratchers? It is definitely too long as is now.

laserviking42 Since: Oct, 2015

20th Dec, 2021 04:40:21 PM

Headscratchers exists in this weird limbo between the wiki and forum sides. In my opinion, we should just have headscratchers threads where people can discuss the minutiae of their favorite works to their hearts content.

I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me

WarJay77 (Troper Knight)

20th Dec, 2021 04:47:00 PM

That's been discussed to death and won't work out logistically.

There is a cleanup thread for Headscratchers- we are allowed to remove things like bashing, first person writing, meta/off-topic questions, and more. I'm not sure if big debates are allowed there.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

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