History Headscratchers / TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks

** Link wasn't thinking. It was a very stressful situation where everything on the line. He saw his closest companion grabbing their most dangerous enemy while they were trying to escape and reacted on impulse to prevent it any way he could. It's Zelda's plan of "hang on to the agitated demon king for dear life" was much of a better idea.

** It's certainly hinted that the existence of the Lokomo isn't meant to be a secret to commoners. Alfonzo has no trouble being able to see Byrne, after all, and the Goron elder personally guards the tunnel to the Fire Sanctuary where Embrose lives. Anjean first dismisses the notion that she’s a sage and claims she's just there to look after the tower. Anyone she were to tell that to would assume she was just a hermit who took up residence there.

* Later games have made it explicit that the Links are innately more sensitive to spiritual and magical phenomena than normal people. That's part of why they can see and interact with things that would be completely [[InvisibleToNormals undetectable to normal people]] like ghosts and fairies.

** As far as everyone in the kingdom, the same three people who usually handle everything administrative. Before going out to look for Zelda in secret, Teacher tells you he doesn't want to cause a panic by telling everyone that the princess and chancellor have both disappeared. He probably left an order for the castle staff to continue their normal operations, and that if anything goes wrong, he along with the princess and the chancellor will take care of it. (Even if in reality, it's just ''him'' taking care of it.) Since there are long gaps of time in between each ride you give to Teacher, it's easy to assume that he goes back to the castle every so often to check up on things.

** Long forgotten or no, Zelda still has the sacred magic of her family line in her very soul. She likely slowly became aware of her powers as the game went on and had enough of a grasp on them to manipulate the Tower's turntable by the point it was needed. Given what we see others of her line do, it would be trivial for her.

** It’s certainly hinted that the existence of the Lokomo isn’t meant to be a secret to commoners. Alfonzo has no trouble being able to see Byrne, after all, and the Goron elder personally guards the tunnel to the Fire Sanctuary where Embrose lives. Anjean first dismisses the notion that she’s a sage and claims she’s just there to look after the tower. Anyone she were to tell that to would assume she was just a hermit who took up residence there.

** Alfonzo was well known as an exceptional former knight while Link is just an engineer dressed up like a fresh recruit. Alfonzo was the obvious potential threat, but he was left so injured after fighting Byrne that he was out of commission for the rest of the game. If he couldn't do more than barely survive facing Byrne, then the pitiful little rookie kid with him isn't worthy of a second glance. Why waste time crushing a little grunt when they have their prize?

** The original plan was to go to check on the tower with the legendary former knight Alfonzo as an impromptu bodyguard. She didn't take the flute because there wasn't supposed to be any real danger to her. Unfortunately, nobody could have for them being ambushed by Cole and Byrne on the way. By the time she could even get to the flute, she was left as a disembodied spirit and incapable of interacting with it at all.

** Besides obviously being a girl, Zelda is the princess of the kingdom. The guards' biggest job priority is to ensure her safety, so even the dumbest, laziest ones would know her well enough to recognize her undisguised face. The uniform wouldn't let her cover her face convincingly, so it's not a option for her.

** It’s possible the non possessed Phantoms would have allowed Zelda to possess them … Anjean just didn’t know Link would need the tears of light.
** Anjean also may have disapproved of Zelda trying to saddle Link with so much responsibility, so she butted in and told her about the puzzles as an excuse for her to stop acting so entitled. The Phantoms don’t seem especially smart, so her logic may have been that Zelda could help Link to figure out the solutions to puzzles even if he already had the muscle to properly solve them.

** It’s certainly hinted that the existence of the Lokomo isn’t meant to be a secret to commoners. Alfonzo has no trouble being able to see Byrne, after all, and the Goron elder personally guards the tunnel to the Fire Sanctuary where Embrose lives. The likeliest explanation is that the people of the Forest Realm are too preoccupied and small-minded to bother with the possibility of a sage living in the nearby tower.

** Developers’ notes and concept art also reveal to us that the trains used in New Hyrule don’t have an external power source — rather, they run using energy they get from the Spirit Tracks, sort of like a subway system. If anyone wanted to get a new rail system put together, they wouldn’t just have to build new tracks but also find something else to use for fuel and then figure out how to incorporate it into the trains they have, or else build new trains.

* Why does the Spirit Track leading past the Trading Post require you to get [[BrokenBridge the bridge fixed]], while all the other ones that go over water provide their own support? (And if it's just because there was loose wood covering the track, why would you need a professional bridgebuilder to move it out of the way?)

[[folder:Chancellor boss]]

** Early in the game, though, there's a guard who complains about the chancellor being so big-headed and arrogant, but that Princess Zelda is 'so nice' that she pretty much lets him get away with it, implying that she could really do something if she wanted to... yet as we learn later, Zelda actually wants to investigate the disappearing Spirit Tracks and is upset that Chancellor Cole won't let her. Not to mention, the disappearance of the kingdom's railway system is clearly a pretty big deal, and even if people didn't believe the whole bit about the 'sealed demon beneath the ground', it should be clear to them that the tracks have some magic to them. (Explain to me otherwise how they would be able to '''DISAPPEAR'''.) Since this is all true, couldn't Zelda just demand that a bunch of guards escort her to the Tower of Spirits in light of this national emergency?

* Here's the one thing that annoys me in ''Spirit Tracks'': if all those people want me to get ice, cuckoos, fish, wood or whatever to them, why it's ''me'' that has to pay for the cargo?! What kind of business plan is that, where the freight pays for the transport instead of the client?
** You get pretty force gems as reward. You know, the ones that are made out of actual Life-Force. If that's not one payment, I don't know what it is!
** Yes, but the problem starts when you reach the place where you have to buy the produce and you have no money to pay for it. Also, the force gems are not currency, but some sort of unintended consequence of the person's gratitude. Oh, and gratitude isn't currency, either.
** I prefer to think of Link's non-profit transport business as a very elaborate community service/PR project. Not only does it repair the Hyrulian infrastructure, but the goodwill ensures a number of actual paying jobs after the whole Malladus business is taken care of. Besides, it's not like Link has to worry about fuel or repair material costs for a magical train.
** Again, the problem is: that produce costs. If they at least bothered to give me the money to buy those cuckoos/ice/fish/wood...
** Actually, this game is full of Money Sink Mechanics. Maybe it's because Hyrule is still in the process of being built, but everybody and their mothers charge you money for ''breathing''.
** They'd probably charge you for all the freight that you tend to lose due to sun damage, collisions, and enemy attacks if they gave you enough for the full "pallet" that you buy. You'd think that even if you can't convince people of Malladus's return that they'd at least recognize that you're the only engineer crazy enough to operate with the tracks disappearing and cut you some slack, but '''nope'''.
** It should be noted that once you've completed the force gem related quests, every subsequent delivery of cargo is paid for based on what you deliver, and does turn a profit if you do a good job. Also, the first force gem you find was generated as part of a story quest, and was explained to Link then. Every subsequent delivery Link bought without being payed for was likely a string of deliberate goodwill gestures on his part intended to repair and reboot the tracks as much as possible.

* How did Anjean fight Byrne, if she's riding a wheel-chair? Did she expect the spirits to ascend and miraculously make her young and athletic again?!
** The lady may look old and frail, but she's got enough magic to keep the seal on Malladus functioning and teleport both Link and Zelda effortlessly. She's far from weak.
** Upon giving it some thought, the best I can come up with is something akin to Yoda's fight in Episode II: She uses magic to temporarily levitate and reinforce her body.
** Take a look at Byrne as he's preparing to fight her — he's the one who dismissed his duel with Alfonzo as hardly a fair fight, yet when Anjean turns to face him, he just readies his gauntlet without any reservations. That obviously means she's capable of something, and given her expression of hope that things will be different this time, it can be presumed that Byrne knows that from experience. In fact, given how much he describes his opponents as 'only human', I'd wager the Lokomo tribe as a whole may be better, more capable fighters than some of their appearances would let on.
** Also, it's possible that Anjean is only using her wheelchair to play up her "frail old mystic" schtick.

* If we have an actual passenger car for the train, why are we only allowed to carry one person at a time?
** Because those passengers are total nitpicks, who'd probably just start a fight with every other passenger that comes along.
** They all seem to be in agreement of Link's ''absolute dedication'' to the train signals, though.
** More likely, they didn't want to program a way to keep track of how many passengers you were currently holding, where each one was going, how happy each of them was, and so on. It's probably for the best, too — as a player, having to keep track of multiple passengers would make the escort missions even more annoying than they already are. From an in-universe perspective, Link's primary duty isn't running a passenger line, and he doesn't have a set schedule or a map of where he's coming and going. He just offers people rides as they request them — if someone needs a lift to Whittleton or Papuchia Village, for example, they probably don't want to sit and wait for Link to drop some other passenger off at Goron Village or, worse, the ''Ocean Temple.'' Probably better to just sit comfortably at home and wait for when he's available.

** The same guys who ran it in the Child-age of ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'' after Ganondorf burned the castle down. Really, this is Hyrule, land of incompetent guards and pocket-civilizations, where the ruling monarch is either called King or [[PrincessesRule Princess]] — you expect its administration to make sense?
** It's not like there was much of anything going wrong that anyone at the castle would know about, since it seems that whenever an issue comes up, it's immediately solved by a certain, green-clad, mysteriously anonymous train engineer.

* Exactly who thought that installing Phantoms was a good idea? Given that ''WW'' Link was the only person in New Hyrule to ever deal with them and how much they did to him, I sincerely doubt that he would readily recommend them.
** Weren't they there before any of the descendants of the people from old Hyrule came?
** It's heavily implied that the "power" that helped the spirits finally sealing Malladus was Tetra's Light-Force, since it seems to be the key to break the seal. Also, Light Arrows being the thing that defeated him. The only people known to ever use Light Arrows are Link and, especially, Princess Zelda. So I guess, Malladus' defeat and the creation of the tower and the tracks occured roughly a week or so after the pirates first arrived on the continent. It was probably populated by the remaining hires of Hyrule a few months later, given that everybody states that the tracks and the tower have seamingly been there forever. Ah, anyway, to get down to the point: Anjean states that the Phantoms of the tower were originally animated by good spirits, rather than evil ones. Link probably thought "Hey, if the good guys are controlling them and not a life-force sucking monstrosity: Sure, why not?"
** They're on his side for a change, he can vouch for their strength, and he probably had the Lokomo sword in his day too, so they had a contingency if they did live up to his nightmares. And it's only him who ever saw them. Tetra would take his word, but he'd be hard-pressed to explain it to everyone else, given they're notably different.
** Here's an idea — assuming the Spirits of Good are on the same level in the Hylian pantheon as the Ocean King, that is, they didn't create their respective realms, but they do what they can to watch over them...Then perhaps after the events of ''Phantom Hourglass'', the Ocean King brought up the Phantoms he'd encountered to the other members of the pantheon and how, if used for good, potentially efficient they could be. Thus, the spirits, after constructing the tower, could have expressed interest in this idea and so chose to implement Phantoms as a security system.

** It's probably also because no one knows how to build new tracks. The ones in place currently are magical deviations that the spirits themselves installed, at a time when humans clearly weren't as civilized. It's something like ''The City of Ember'', in that regard, where everything's been around so long that no one even knows how it really works or how to fix it or make more.
** Developers’ notes and concept art also reveal to us that the trains used in New Hyrule don’t have an external power source — rather, they run using energy they get from the Spirit Tracks, sort of like a subway system. If anyone wanted to get a new rail system put together, they wouldn’t just have to build new tracks but also find something else to use for fuel and then figure out how to incorporate it into the trains they have, or else build new ones.

* Does New Hyrule have the pickiest train passengers in history or do they simply not recognize that it's sort of difficult to follow all traffic signals while ''under tank attack''? [[DudeWheresMyRespect Where's Link's respect]]?
** It gets even worse when you realize that Link is the only engineer brave enough to still use the tracks and therefore could charge his passengers a ton of money if he wanted to. They should be grateful about the fact that they are getting rides ''FOR FREE''.
** By that logic, Teacher has the right to bitch at you, at the very least. He pays you 300 rupees per trip, and takes like six of them over the course of the game.
** This so hard. I wish there was some sort of button one could press to turn Link around and have him shove the Engineer's Certificate in his passengers' faces. "Hey, do you have one of these? No? THEN SHUT THE HELL UP AND LET ME DRIVE."
** [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Oh geez, I wish that button was in.]]'
** All humor aside, you're free to stop the train while you're dealing with enemy attacks, so you don't have to risk missing any of the railway signals. If the passengers complained about you stopping the train too, then this complaint would be a bit more palpable.

** The same way Ganondorf and Aginham did. Hyrulean politicians have suffered from ''thousands of years'' of not being able to notice that sort of thing, why start now?

** Because the bridge is badly damaged and doesn't seem to be a part of the "normal" Spirit Tracks. If you don't want to see how well your magic train floats, you'll need a repairman who knows what he's doing on the task.
** Keep in mind that most tracks that extend over the water (save for those within the Ocean Realm, which I presume would be designed for that) that you see in-game are the result of Force Gems you gain from transporting passengers...aren't they? Since they may not have been there before the tracks started disappearing, obviously there wouldn't be a need for people to build bridges for other means of travel alongside them, whereas the broken bridge appeared to be the previously only way of moving between the Forest and Ocean Realms.
** Take another look at that bridge when it's broken. The parts actually holding up the tracks are completely intact. Its the wooden additions -- which appear to be there so that people can walk alongside the tracks -- which are broken. It's only impassable because the wooden parts fell onto the tracks and are blocking the train, the tracks themselves are perfectly fine.

** [[FridgeBrilliance Like the train stations, they become invisible when you're far away from them.]]

** [[UncomfortableElevatorMoment Uncomfortable train car moment.]] I wondered this too, especially since I can't bring myself to slog through the last of the Spirit Tower, and I spend all my time aimlessly wandering around the overworld. Presumably they're sitting in there as I thunder down the target range for the 5th time that day and sit in front of the snow realm blizzard maze watching that one armoured train pace back and forth for hours on end.
** We've seen how some of the citizens of New Hyrule behave - very close-minded and ignorant in regards to things outside their own realms. Even assuming Anjean doesn't do something to render herself and Byrne invisible to other passengers, all they would probably see if they glanced a few seats down is an old woman in a steam-powered wheelchair and some sleepyhead with a ponytail and a weird metal arm. At most, Byrne might raise a few eyebrows if someone were able to tell he'd been injured, but it doesn't seem like they'd be ''too'' out of the ordinary in terms of what you'd see on a train ride through a place like New Hyrule.

** They just want to kill Link, but are restricted to the tracks. They can't kill Link when he's in town so they don't even bother. They don't care about destroying the train, they just want Link to die in a crash. That's how I interpret it. Or GameplayAndStorySegregation.
** That just give me the funny mental image of Link walking back to the station after purchasing something in Castle Town, only to find that a Phantom Train hit his while he was away, and all that's left is a big pile of burning wood and twisted metal.
** Remember, the original train is presumably destroyed when the tracks just disappear. When the Phantom Trains start appearing, Link is already riding a magical train. Maybe it becomes intangible whenever the engineer leaves it.
** I like to think that the Phantom trains "turn off" and become dormant when Link is not on the rails. They only activate when Link is present on the Spirit Tracks.
** Or each station (or at least the important ones) is more complex than it appears in-game, with sections of track apart from the main one that arriving trains can turn in to and stop at, which are safe from the monster trains.

** Because [[AWizardDidIt a wizard]] [[RunningGag burned the tarp.]]
** Or perhaps it melts due to some form of radiation that comes from being in sunlight...Radiation can go through a tarp, can't it? If so, the Gorons probably wouldn't know what radiation is or have a way to prevent it, so they just say, "It melts in sunlight, so move quickly."

* Why is the stained-glass window of Tetra depicting her in her young age? Why aren't there any pieces of art depicting her as an adult? It just doesn't make sense to me. For that matter, how come no one seems to acknowledge Link's status as the Hero of freaking Winds? You know, that guy that saved the entire Great Sea from Ganon's rule? There's not even a statue of the guy anywhere to be seen. That's just disrespectful if you ask me...
** It could also be that Link, modest as always, strongly opposed their building anything so grand as a statue to him, so they had to find a more discreet way to thank him. So they decided that to honor the guy who'd defended their princess in times of peril, the guard's uniform would look like his clothes, essentially giving the impression Hyrule Castle was guarded by an entire army of Links.
** Don't you know? [[Videogame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker Tetra's actually 35!]] Seriously though, it could just be that it is her grown up, but she's OlderThanSheLooks. It may also be that the time of her arrival in New Hyrule, when she was young, was a momentous occasion, thus the glass depicts her young.

** You forget, these are largely populated by people with minds similar to those that forgot that Hyrule existed in less than a hundred years (as WW is only one hundred years after OOT).

[[folder:Zelda spinning train]]

* Usually when you are in the Spirit Tower you tell Anjean which way you want to go, and she'll spin the train around to face the proper direction. Okay, that makes sense. Then Anjean becomes occupied elsewhere, and suddenly ''Zelda'' can spin the train around. Um, how? Unless occupying a Phantom's body, Zelda is utterly intangible and unable to even cast a spell.
** She's seen Anjean do it multiple times. Maybe she learned from it.
** Also, she ''does'' cast a spell. During the FinalBattle.
** My theory is that neither Zelda nor Anjean operates the turntable, but rather the spirits, or their energy that remains in the tower, is responsible. Obviously Anjean, being their servant, would be capable of communicating with or controlling this latent power, and Zelda can as well due to the fact that she's a spirit herself and hosts some of the very same power in her blood.

** Because the laser's main target is Zelda, in her Phantom armor - as you may notice, the laser seems to render her unable to move at the speed she would be able to otherwise. So Malladus does what he can to slow Zelda down, while Cole sends his ghost rats after her so he can use her as a puppet to attack Link.
** And because Link's that [[MadeOfIron awesome]].
** you also have to consider that Malladus JUST got revived, and is most likelly not used to his new body, or to being alive in general, think of it like if someone just woke up from an extremely long coma, and just like that they start walking around and shooting [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FrickinLaserBeams lasors]].
** Zelda's sacred power is kind of irrelevant to this discussion, by the way. The issue wasn't that it made Malladus unstoppable in a "He's so powerful now!" sort of way. All her sacred power ensured was that the spirits wouldn't be able to seal him away again once he adapted to the vessel.

[[folder:Rail Map]]

* Exactly how is it that Link obtaining a Rail Map causes the lost Spirit Tracks to reappear? And if it were that simple, why were the four of them hidden inside the Tower of Spirits, instead of just having Anjean hold on to them? Did the spirits really think it was a good idea to keep their only fail-safes against something going wrong enshrined within one of their most potentially catastrophic targets?
** Because Anjean is (possibly) restricted to her steam-powered wheelchair and can't reach them herself, and they might have hidden the Rail Maps because the Rail Maps also include paths to where the most dangerous monsters reside. If a normal person obtained the Rail Map and opened the paths to the temples then people would probably try to enter the temples and end up getting killed by something like Stagnox or Cragma, if they even manage to make it past all of the deadly traps and other monsters.
** Well, the boss monsters weren't installed inside the temples until Cole's plot started rolling around, and this still fails to explain why the spirits who built the tower didn't give the Rail Map to Anjean instead of splitting it up and hiding the pieces in separate rooms.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Safe zones]]

* What's the point of safe zones in the Tower of Spirits if Phantoms are normally able to enter them and the tower is owned and operated by the Spirits of Good? Who would have need of them, then?
** Perhaps the safe zones are areas still protected by the spirits, like the safe zones of the Ocean Temple in Phantom Hourglass. So the spirits can allow 'good' phantoms to pass and block 'evil' ones.
** I imagine that the safe zones repel demonic influence. Since the Phantoms are all controlled by Malladus' dark magic now, they cannot enter. Like with the Temple of the Ocean King before it, these zones are probably the Tower's natural state. Unfortunately, Malladus' minions cut off the power supply to the Tower which allowed evil to corrupt it to the point where only small pockets of divine protection remain.
** I think that it was a fail safe put in by those that created the Tower. They knew that Malladus was powerful; maybe he could return and want to take revenge? They couldn't predict the future, so they chose to play it safe and install pockets of divinity.

[[/folder]]

** You have to remember that the tracks leading into the Tower of Spirits are magical, as well as the path to the Tower being inaccessable to the player when they lack a magical train, so normal people probably don't see/can't use the Tower's tracks, as well as the Tower being in a highly secluded area that would probably take hours on foot to reach with little gain from going there.
** I don't recall there being anything stopping you from reaching the tower using your regular train, save for the fact that you're in a hurry to attend your graduation ceremony - Link, Alfonzo, and Zelda seemed perfectly content with going there later on, and if I remember correctly, the gate to the Forest Realm was still open. Also, the tracks leading the tower being magical is kind of a moot point. They're ''Spirit Tracks'', responsible for keeping a demon sealed beneath the ground. They're ''all'' magical. And even if the turntable in the lobby couldn't be used at first, with the Spirit Train being encased in stone in the center, then this still begs the question why the spirits would have a turntable constructed in the first place.

** You could probably WildMassGuess it as the sword not having power until all the rail maps are complete. Or something.
** She's pretty old. Maybe she just forgot she had it with her.
** She didn't think Link was meant to use it. Like she said: "Until now, only the spirits have wielded this blade."
** Also, she knows he's eventually going to have to face off against the Demon King ''Malladus''. He'll need all the sacred power he can get. There was no reason or need to give it to him earlier — it was just Phantoms in the Tower of Spirits, and Link had the tears of light to deal with them.

[[folder:Castle Town shortcut]]
* How did Link and Zelda get back to Castle Town after the battle with Malladus? The Spirit Train makes an appearance in the credits, so we know it was around, but there weren't ''any'' tracks in the area and who knows where the actual ''train'' was at that point, since the last time we saw it was in [[spoiler: the Dark Realm]]. We can't even tell where in Hyrule they ''were''-- the scenery looks like a cross between the Fire Realm and the sand portion of the Ocean Realm; the Tower of Spirits is visible, but you can see it from pretty much anywhere, so that really doesn't help. Anybody have any ideas?
** Personally, I figured that they might just have walked... The [[CreditsMontage credits montage]] indicates that quite some time has passed, as Teacher is back in Castle Town, no matter where you left him last. It is also possible that all of the Dark Trains vanished along with the [[spoiler: Dark Realm's entrance]], and curious people started their trains back up - Zelda and Link could merely hitch a ride back to town from there.
** It's possible Anjean fixed the train before she departed for the heavens - it'd make more sense than her stranding Link and Zelda there, and she and Byrne were last seen on the train in the Dark Realm before they show up during the final confrontation, meaning if they had found a way to get there, chances are they brought the Spirit Train with them. Given the appearance of the surrounding mountains and the proximity of the area to the Tower of Spirits, I'd say Link and Zelda were probably left somewhere in between the Forest and Snow Realms, meaning it wouldn't be too much work for them to go looking for some tracks they could use to get back to, say, Castle Town.
[[/folder]]

** while that would have been extremely cool, Anjean DID mention when she was using all of her power to keep the tower mostly in place when you first reach it, she had to focus her magic on that at all times, and most likely couldn't have afforded taking her time to poof a phantom out of thin air for zelda to use until the entire tower was rebuilt.

** The ([[TheWorfEffect allegedly]]) badass swordsman Alfonzo was all the protection she thought she needed, or she simply didn't realize the gravity of the situation until the tower blew up, Alfonzo and Link got curbstomped, and she got zapped by Cole. And since Cole was able to sever her spirit from her body, she was afraid Cole and Byrne could do her worse than that (notice how scared she is when confronted by Byrne in the glyph room).
** That's all well and good, but she admits later that she didn't know the flute had any sacred powers, so why would she think it capable of protecting her even after the levity of the situation became apparent? At that point, it's just a family heirloom, nothing more. (Also, I don't believe she knew that Alfonzo happened to be Link's mentor until they got back to the station.)

** Notice how she's the "princess" rather than "queen" despite the fact that her parents aren't even hinted at? That's not just for tradition. It means she's not been officially crowned yet, therefore she doesn't have her full authority. Until Zelda comes of age, she's basically regulated to ceremonial duties. Cole, as Chancellor and royal adviser, is the guy with all the practical power for the moment, which is why she couldn't directly act against him.

** Early in the game, though, there's a guard who complains about the chancellor being so big-headed and arrogant, but that Princess Zelda is 'so nice' that she pretty much lets him get away with it, implying that she could really do something if she wanted to...yet as we learn later, Zelda actually wants to investigate the disappearing Spirit Tracks and is upset that Chancellor Cole won't let her. Not to mention, the disappearance of the kingdom's railway system is clearly a pretty big deal, and even if people didn't believe the whole bit about the 'sealed demon beneath the ground', it should be clear to them that the tracks have some magic to them. (Explain to me otherwise how they would be able to '''DISAPPEAR'''.) Since this is all true, couldn't Zelda just demand that a bunch of guards escort her to the Tower of Spirits in light of this national emergency?

* Here's the one thing that annoys me in Spirit Tracks: if all those people want me to get ice, cuckoos, fish, wood or whatever to them, why it's ME that has to pay for the cargo?! What kind of business plan is that, where the freight pays for the transport instead of the client?

** Take a look at Byrne as he's preparing to fight her - he's the one who dismissed his duel with Alfonzo as hardly a fair fight, yet when Anjean turns to face him, he just readies his gauntlet without any reservations. That obviously means she's capable of something, and given her expression of hope that things will be different this time, it can be presumed that Byrne knows that from experience. In fact, given how much he describes his opponents as 'only human', I'd wager the Lokomo tribe as a whole may be better, more capable fighters than some of their appearances would let on.

** More likely, they didn't want to program a way to keep track of how many passengers you were currently holding, where each one was going, how happy each of them was, and so on. It's probably for the best, too - as a player, having to keep track of multiple passengers would make the escort missions even more annoying than they already are. From an in-universe perspective, Link's primary duty isn't running a passenger line, and he doesn't have a set schedule or a map of where he's coming and going. He just offers people rides as they request them - if someone needs a lift to Whittleton or Papuchia Village, for example, they probably don't want to sit and wait for Link to drop some other passenger off at Goron Village or, worse, the ''Ocean Temple.'' Probably better to just sit comfortably at home and wait for when he's available.

** The same guys who ran it in the Child-age of ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'' after Ganondorf burned the castle down. Really, this is Hyrule, land of incompetent guards and pocket-civilizations, where the ruling monarch is either called King or [[PrincessesRule Princess]] you expect its administration to make sense?

* Exactly who thought that installing Phantoms was a good idea? Given that WW Link was the only person in New Hyrule to ever deal with them and how much they did to him, I sincerely doubt that he would readily recommend them.

** It's heavily implied that the "power" that helped the spirits finally sealing Malladus was Tetra's Light-Force, since it seems to be the key to break the seal. Also, Light Arrows being the thing that defeated him. The only people known to ever use Light Arrows are Link and, especially, Princess Zelda. So I guess, Malladus defeat and the creation of the tower and the tracks occured roughly a week or so after the pirates first arrived on the continent. It was probably populated by the remaining hires of Hyrule a few months later, given that everybody states that the tracks and the tower have seamingly been there forever. Ah, anyway, to get down to the point: Anjean states that the Phantoms of the tower were originally animated by good spirits, rather than evil ones. Link probably thought "Hey, if the good guys are controlling them and not a life-force sucking monstrosity: Sure, why not?"
** They're on his side for a change, he can vouch for their strength, and he probably had the locomo sword in his day too, so they had a contingency if they did live up to his nightmares. And it's only him who ever saw them. Tetra would take his word, but he'd be hard pressed to explain it to everyone else, given they're notably different.
** Here's an idea - assuming the Spirits of Good are on the same level in the Hylian pantheon as the Ocean King, that is, they didn't create their respective realms, but they what they can to watch over them...Then perhaps after the events of ''Phantom Hourglass'', the Ocean King brought up the Phantoms he'd encountered to the other members of the pantheon and how, if used for good, potentially efficient they could be. Thus, the spirits, after constructed the tower, could have expressed interest in this idea and so chose to implement Phantoms as a security system.

** Because he's eccentric! and doesn't understand human fashion, like wizards and muggles.

** Its canonical-ness is up for debate, but the ''Hyrule Encyclopedia'' provides some details that help clear up the confusion. According to it, the only inhabitants of the land at the time the spirits departed after sealing Malladus were the Lokomo, who are described as consisting of many people rather than the six sages and Byrne seen in-game. The New Hyruleans don't know anything about the sealing of the Demon King because they weren't there when it happened, due to arriving later -- the most they have to go on is what the Lokomo might have told them.

** Also, she knows he's eventually going to have to face off against the Demon King ''Malladus''. He'll need all the sacred power he can get. There was no reason or need to give it to him earlier - it was just Phantoms in the Tower of Spirits, and Link had the tears of light to deal with them.

** Possibly because bolts of divine light don't leave physical injuries or wounds. Electrocution would be a more likely injury to have sustained - Link is electrocuted if shot with a light arrow during the final battle of ''The Wind Waker'' - but even in that case, Malladus would've bore the full brunt of it, anyway, as he was inhabiting Zelda's body at the time.

* Instead of destroying Byrne and then taking over Cole's body to fight Link and Zelda, why didn't Malladus just possess Byrne? He's bigger and physically stronger than Cole, has a huge metal Hookshot on his arm, and as a Lokomo, he would probably have ''some'' sacred power in his veins for Malladus to feed off of...Not as much as Zelda's of course, but certainly more than Cole would have.

** By that point, Malladus' plot had gone completely off the rails, pun intended. He was angered beyond belief that Byrne protected his only suitable vessel and promptly killed him for it. When Cole dared to order him to take her body again when it wasn't possible, Malladus had enough and just swallowed him up instead. Taking a body besides Zelda's would kill Malladus quickly anyway, but he was so angered by that point that he didn't care anymore and just grabbed the closest one to him in hopes of [[SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum bringing the whole world down with him]].

** Apart from GameplayAndStorySegregation, it's possible their wounds were too deep for the potions to heal - most of the damage Link sustains is only done to him a little at a time, meaning it's a bunch of smaller wounds that a potion to heal easily. Or the bulk of their wounds were caused by magic (we know Byrne's was, having been attacked by Malladus), which the potion might not be capable of healing, or it won't work on them because they're both members of the sacred Lokomo tribe.

** Notice how she's the "princess" rather than "queen" despite the fact that her parents aren't even hinted at? That's not just for [[EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses tradition]]. It means she's not been officially crowned yet, therefore she doesn't have her full authority. Until Zelda comes of age, she's basically regulated to ceremonial duties. Cole, as Chancellor and royal adviser, is the guy with all the practical power for the moment, which is why she couldn't directly act against him.

** Since the Lokomo Sword is ([[SarcasmMode presumably]]) inanimate and it ([[SarcasmMode presumably]]) doesn't have a will of its own, it ([[RunningGag presumably]]) stays with ST's Link until he either puts it in a safe place or gives it to his descendants.
** Oh...I didn't mean it like, does the sword do something to get rid of itself on its own? I was just asking if maybe the spirits had it destroyed or did Link enshrine in within the tower, or something like that, since it is a legendary artifact, and Link has never really seemed to keep any of the legendary-tier swords he obtains after his adventures are over. That's all I was wondering.