Fridge / The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

As Fridge pages are meant for post-completion viewing, there are unmarked spoilers below.

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Fridge Brilliance:

• Terrako's time manipulating ability from Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity isn't because of advanced technology. It's infused with Zelda's sacred power, and light is only half of it. The other half is those very same time manipulating abilities.
• Tulin is a character whose appearance surprised many, with his story, background, and sudden change in personality, raising a number of questions. However all of them can actually be answered if one looks deeper into certain areas, and takes certain things into context:
  • It would naturally shock, and raise a few eyebrows, that when we come to see Tulin again, he went from a blunt, but well mannered, and well meaning individual, to an arrogant one, who believes he could do everything himself, as well as his unwillingness to listen to his peers. This is especially shocking because neither Teba, nor Saki, have displayed such tendencies, in addition to the fact that most of Teba's negative traits were quelled after his partnership with Link, thus it wouldn't make much sense for Tulin to end up like the way he did. However if Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity was to be taken into account, it's pretty easy to see why he had such a drastic shift in personality. And the reason for that? He met Revali. Put simply, as a fledgling Tulin came face to face with the Rito that those of his time revere, which is essentially a dream come true for someone like him. The fact that at this point in time he's only a child, and meeting basically the hero of the Rito, who his own father is training to be just like him, it's inevitable that he would try to imitate the champion, which we saw him actually do. This of course means that some of Revali's negative personality traits would have ended up unintentionally being adopted by the fledgling Tulin, particularly his overconfidence, as he may have perceived he needed to be like that to be someone as great as Revali was. Speaking of Revali...
  • Despite being someone who the Rito warriors were supposed to look up to in Tulin's time, he never so much as mentions him once. This of course would be quite baffling, after all, Revali is Tulin's role model right? Well that's just it. Revali isn't Tulin's role model. Link is. Link has spent far more time with Tulin. Several years to be exact. Not only training him alongside Teba, but also setting an example for the young Rito warrior, to become someone that he would look up too, at Teba's own request. One also has to remember that by the end of Breath of the Wild Link had not only succeeded were Revali failed, but also accomplished many of the same feats as him, as well as the very crucial fact that he saved Rito Village. When you take all this into account, and the fact that Teba had spoken very highly of Link, to were Link can't actually downplay his accomplishments when speaking to Tulin as a fledgling, it's not hard to see why Tulin would end up latching onto Link as someone who he should aspire to be like. It's because of these very reasons, Link was the only one Tulin was willing to listen too and accept help from, when he rejected the same kind of treatment from others. Speaking of Link...
  • The way Tulin uses his bow is bit different from the traditional sense, in that he opts to fire arrows from his bow using his mouth, while holding his bow between his feet while stay airbourne. However when you think about it, the way Tulin uses a bow is his own way of mimicking how Link uses a bow, which is likely something he developed over time, from the several sessions that he had with him. Tulin being incredibly accurate and effective with his single arrow shots, actually makes a lot of sense, when you realize he's essentially using the same technique that Link uses to shoot his targets, and his method of using the bow is actually him imitating the way Link uses a bow in tandem with the paraglider.
• The glowing arm in the prologue, which turns out to be Rauru's arm, demonstrates the three abilities Link will get in the game (sans Recall since he got it from Zelda). It can hold Link in the air just fine regardless of his weight (Ultrahand), it phases through the ceiling (Ascend), and it fuses with Link's damaged arm (Fuse).
  • Related: Rauru demonstrates that Fuse can be used on living beings to replace damaged limbs with loose substitutes (in this case, Link's Gloom-cursed arm with Rauru's severed, exhausted, but intact arm); why can you not do the same with Stal enemies' arms? Because Fuse doesn't work on anything that's already been fused. That, and Link never needing to try because he doesn't lose any more limbs in-game.
• The Garden of Time having constructs explaining the exact basics Link would need for combat and survival make a lot more sense when you learn that Zelda was close to their creators and probably planned for them meeting Link. It was somebody in the past being Crazy-Prepared in case he underwent any more memory loss after being raised from near death a second time.
  • It's also understandable why Zelda would go this far. Beyond her worries that Link might lose his memories again, she's also going to lose hers as well after the draconification process.
• The absence of the Divine Beasts is odd, given that they were dangerously powerful war machines that, if they were still in the world, would have made fighting back against Ganondorf substantially easier. However, outside of the game perspective that this would make things too easy, there are actually some good reasons why they aren't available:
  • 1) They likely don't have enough power to keep going after the first game. The Divine Beasts were massive and likely took up a massive amount of power to be able to function properly. And given that they used their raw firepower to weaken Calamity Ganon, it's possible that they just simply ran out of energy and couldn't be re-activated in time.
  • 2) We don't know if Zelda and any Sheikah researchers were able to fix the defect that made them so susceptible to corruption in the first place. Calamity Ganon, despite being a mostly mindless Eldritch Abomination, was smart enough to corrupt them to prevent them from being used against it again. What would have happened if they had been brought to bear against the much smarter and much saner Ganondorf is that he likely would have found a means to either disable them, or possibly control them again, this time without any means for the heroes to stop them. The fact that Gloom can infect a Zonai construct (the Seized Construct) means that such a paranoia is warranted.
  • 3) They were linked to their respective Champions, and when they moved on, so too did the means for the Divine Beasts to function. We don't know if the New Champions would have had the time or the will to train themselves for using the Divine Beasts, and without fixing the defects, it would have likely been too risky.
  • A related Fridge Brilliance that greatly explains why we don't see Sheikah tech, they had all been dismantled because (1) they've served their purpose, and (2) it would be among the first things people would do after a century of being terrorized by the tech in the form of Guardians.
  • However, another possible reason as to why they aren't around is because they have been dismantled and repurposed. The Sky View towers are definitely built with quite a bit of Sheikah technology, while the Yiga Clan certainly would love to plunder them for their own nefarious use, as hinted by the Shrine of Resurrection having been remodeled into a Yiga Clan storeroom.
• Why is the Purah Pad able to fast-travel to Zonai Shrines and Temples despite being different technology? Notice that the circles that mark these fast-travel destinations are blue like Sheikah technology whereas Zonai technology is typically green. It would make sense that the Purah Pad could fast-travel to these pieces of Sheikah technology, but that then raises the question of what this technology is doing incorporated in that of a civilization that predates the Sheikah. However, this also has an answer: Zelda had the Purah Pad with her when she traveled to the past and let Mineru study it, even calling out the fast-travel capability during the discussion. It is implied that Mineru reverse-engineered the Sheikah fast-travel technology and incorporated it into the Zonai shrines and temples so Link could use them with the Purah Pad.
  • This is even why she was able to use this to teleport herself and a couple of others out from Ganondorf's Gloom attack.
  • Given how much Zonai technology tends to resemble the Ancient technology from Breath of the Wild, there could be another layer to this. The Soldier and Captain Constructs resemble the lesser Guardians in both form and function, the weapons are only cosmetically different, and several of Rauru's arm's powers are essentially powered-up forms of the Runes used previously. It all adds up to the idea that Sheikah technology was derived from Zonai technology in the first place, which explains why Mineru is successfully able to integrate the fast-travel system into their existing technology in what is implied to be a very brief time period before the rise of Demon King Ganon without sacrificing compatibility with the Purah Pad: It's their technology in the first place, or close enough for them to easily understand and integrate.
• Calamity Ganon was an escalation of Ganondorf's threat into a desperate, rageful concentration of malice, which was completely and utterly destructive without much for any mind of its own at all. Then we see the Ganondorf that it came from, and he is completely batshit insane, gleefully homicidal, and utterly wrathful to the point that he attempts to wipe out all life in Hyrule, even his own allies, because he couldn't tolerate the idea of a "mere mortal" like Link besting him. There is no Freudian Excuse, no Anti-Villain intentions, no Well-Intentioned Extremist nature — Ganondorf is a walking calamity, and his attempts to escape his seal via a cycle of reincarnation started this mess in the first place.
  • Link was also drastically taken off-guard in the prologue and thrown against a powerful foe with a corrupting Gloom before he even realized what was going on. That Bag of Spilling is for once justified by straight up getting ambushed and attacked in a horrific fashion; it's no wonder Ganondorf thinks so little of Link for the rest of the game by failing to do a damn thing against him.
  • Ganondorf's Slasher Smile after killing Sonia works in two ways to show how different he is from his counterparts from Ocarina of Time, The Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess. On one hand, it just looks so ridiculous and it's hilarious to see Ganondorf of all people with that face. But on the other, it shows how much of a pure evil monster this version of Ganondorf is.
  • All this is capped off in the final fight against Ganondorf, where he turns into the Demon Dragon, a colossal being of darkness that flies around Hyrule Castle, with no mind or sense of self, intent on nothing more than destruction, which is essentially what Calamity Ganon is.
• The different mechanics between Malice and Gloom reflect their progenitor, Ganon, as both the Calamity and Demon King. Malice rapidly drains health but has no other effects—like the Calamity, it is a mindless destroyer that acts quickly but can be recovered from. Gloom is slower-acting (draining one heart in the same time Malice can drain several) but much more devastating, causing Maximum HP Reduction that can only be healed by sufficient light or food specifically made to counter it—like the Demon King, it forgoes immediate destruction in favor of being far more dangerous in the long run.
  • In addition, just look at their names. Malice is active and direct harmful intent. Gloom, as in sadness, is more of a long-term thing that affects morale and willpower. Lines up very well with their in-game effects.
• The Ancient Hero who defeated Calamity Ganon 10,000 years ago being at least part Zonai makes a bit more sense when looking into the series' history. The Zonai were a race of people who highly resembled rabbits, and this wouldn't the first time an incarnation of Link would be associated with the animal.
  • Not to mention, whose arm did Link fuse with to replace his? King Rauru. In the end, he did get revenge against Ganondorf for murdering his wife.
• Why did Ganondorf decide to kill Sonia for her secret stone when there were five he could’ve taken, since the stones weren’t given to the sages until after his conquest was underway? Ganondorf showed himself to be extremely prideful and egocentric during his final battle, so it would be in character for him to respond to Rauru effortlessly shutting down his initial campaign by wanting to hurt Rauru as personally has he could while accomplishing his goal, i.e., murdering Sonia and rubbing it in Rauru’s face.
  • Additionally, the one thing Ganondorf seeks above all others is a challenge to test his might against so that he may overcome it and prove himself superior. Killing Sonia would galvanize Rauru to focus on him and attack him with his full power, holding nothing back, so Ganondorf could test out his new abilities in a battle to the death now that they each possessed a Secret Stone. The other 4 stones were hidden securely away by Rauru, and there's no indication that Ganondorf was aware there were others besides the three displayed before him. Killing Rauru would defeat the entire point of wanting to force him to attack using his full power, and Zelda doesn't have quite the emotional connection shared between Rauru and Sonia that would cause Rauru to lose himself to anger and give Ganondorf the fight he wanted, making Sonia the ideal target.
  • Alternatively, Ganondorf may have discovered that Sonia has the power to manipulate time and feared that she would be the biggest threat to his plans, because she could theoretically turn back time to prevent Ganondorf from ever getting a secret stone, similar to how Link stopped Ganondorf's scheme in the Child Timeline. While the player knows Sonia's power over time isn't that strong, that wasn't a risk Ganondorf was willing to take, which is why when he killed Sonia, he made sure her death was instant so there would be no chance for her to undo it. This allowed Ganondorf to kill two birds with one stone, as he just eliminated the biggest obstacle to his ambitions and obtained Sonia's secret stone in the process.
• A subtle example of Gameplay and Story Integration, on the Great Sky Island Rauru mentions that he made all of the Shrines of Light and filled them with spiritual light and the Lights of Blessings that purify Link of Ganondorf’s Gloom. Later on you see him create/become the seal that was on Ganondorf from the very beginning of the game and Rauru has the same spiral runes floating off himself as uncompleted shrines (as in the ones where Link hasn’t taken their Light), implying that part of the seal was continuously pumping holy light into Ganondorf to prevent him from using his powers.
• The four modern Champions/Sages use elemental powers in the same vein as their predecessors, but in different ways. Their powers correlate well with their personalities, positions and backgrounds:
  • Tulin was shown to have control of the wind as a young fledgling in Age of Calamity, enough so that it impressed Revali, who encouraged him to keep practicing. Tulin was able to create a small vertical gust of wind to lift him a few feet into the air before tumbling, meaning that the feat was too difficult to achieve at the time. In the interim between then and Tears of the Kingdom, he had plenty of time to train his control of the wind, and likely adapted it into a form he could better control: horizontal gusts.
    • Better yet, the difference between Revali's Gale and Tulin's gale also reflect their personality. Revali's Gale propels himself upwards, putting him above everyone else as fitting for his immense ego. Tulin's meanwhile, propels another person forward, signifying both his desire to better himself while supporting other people and his more level-headed temperament compared to Revali.
  • Riju's power is the most similar to Urbosa's, controlling lightning to shock a target. As this is a power that is seemingly passed through the Chieftain bloodline, it would make sense Riju can use it since she's Urbosa's direct descendant. Unlike Urbosa, whose lightning has an area-of-effect style that is released during a charged attack, Riju can only strike correctly when assisted by Link using an arrow, and can only hit a specific target instead of all enemies in the lightning field. Riju is still learning how to master her powers, thus she needs some support with aiming.
  • Yunobo is interesting as he inherited Daruk's Protection, which would imply that he would use it here, but he does not. Between Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, Yunobo founded a booming mining company to help the city, and became a little less cowardly. His fiery rolling technique is perfect for breaking the rocks while mining, and his improved confidence would turn him into a more offensive fighter. It could also be interpreted as him moving out from under his grandfather's shadow by embracing his own special technique, building on his cannonball skills he had built over the time of fighting Rudania to make it his own.
  • Sidon's water powers manifest as a barrier, in contrast to Mipha's healing magic. Since he lost her when he was still young, he did not have a chance to learn more about healing from her (assuming it was not an exclusive skill of her's). To compensate, and to reflect on his protective and encouraging behavior, he creates a watery barrier to prevent the need to heal oneself.
    • It also forms into an attack when Link attacks. For as kind as he is Sidon shows no hesitation in fighting, while Mipha was shown to be concerned about her allies first and foremost. Sidon isn't as gentle as his sister but still has her compassion, so he helps both offensively and defensively to try and make as clean and successful a victory as possible for the people he cares about.
    • There’s also another (depressing) angle to this: healing only helps if you get injured first, and even then if the attack didn't kill you immediately. Sidon would much rather the people he cares for not get hurt at all rather than losing them because he couldn’t heal them for whatever reason.
    • There's a well known saying from the medical community in the real world, "Prevention is better than cure", which seems to ring true here. Mipha cures others, but eventually met her demise in the Calamity, while Sidon's power is focused on prevention, and he's survived both the Calamity and the Upheaval.
• How did Master Kohga survive what was believed to be a definitive death (falling down a shaft leading a great distance down into the Depths with a giant spike ball on top of him)? Three possibilities come to mind:
  • 1) Maybe the giant spike ball was rotating the entire way down and landed with Kohga on top.
  • 2) He remembered he could teleport, fly, and control the giant spike ball at the last minute.
  • 3) He is this game's version of Team Rocket, and thus has Joker Immunity enabling him to survive things that would be fatal to someone else. His final scene even has him blasting off Team Rocket style... via a large collection of rockets!
• Why does Master Kohga immediately recognize Link if he's disguised as a Yiga Clan member during their final bout, when previously he would be briefly fooled by it? Well, given how he's in a place that few normal people, including the Yiga themselves can access, Kohga likely realizes that only someone as skilled as Link could find the chasm under Rito Village, meaning he'll know it's an imposter immediately.
• The final fight with Ganondorf is designed to be a Mirror Boss. He uses all the same weapon types Link can, he's able to backflip to avoid attacks much like you do, his phantom copies mirror the functionality of the Sages' Vows, and he even has his own equivalent to the Flurry Rush. So what does Ganondorf do when you deplete his health bar for the second time and back him into a corner? Much like any player who's low on hearts, he quickly (and desperately) grabs something to eat.
  • The tactics used to battle Ganondorf in the final fight also serve as a mirror to how Link himself should battle him.
    • The first stage is effectively a more difficult version of Phantom Ganon and can be cheesed in the same way (bomb arrows and strafing his blows).
    • The second stage acts as a mirror to Link with the Sage Avatars as Ganondorf summons a horde of Phantom Ganons to overwhelm him until Link's comrades join the fray.
    • The third stage is a one-on-one fight with Ganondorf being immune to the Flurry Rush technique and offering his own in response. The best way to tackle him? Parrying. Ganondorf doesn't fight with a shield, so Link can parry his blasts back towards him as he did in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time or Link can simply rush him the same way Ganondorf did in the first stage of the fight. As Ganondorf mirrors Link, Link can land blows by mirroring him.
  • This also makes sense from a lore perspective as well.
    • The first phase, Ganondorf is toying with Link since, despite making his way to the Depths after surviving their first encounter and making his way through a Gloom-infested gauntlet of monsters, he still doesn't see him as a serious threat.
    • The second phase, he knows that Link is either a powerful warrior, a clever fighter, or somewhere in between and tenacious all the same. Thus, he wears Link down with numbers as well as might just like how Calamity Ganon did with the Guardians. This means that, if it weren't for the Sages, Link would either focus on Ganondorf too much and get blindsided by a Phantom or he'd be focusing on the Phantoms and get blindsided by Ganondorf.
    • The third phase, he does not relent, because now he knows that Link will give him the fight he waited over 10,000 years for. As for the "no shields" thing, obviously a Blood Knight like Ganondorf would see shields as cowardly and thus refuses to use them even though that denies him a useful tactic that would stagger Link long enough to get some hits in.
    • For the whole battle, he's mocking Link, desperate to get a rise out of him the way he got a rise out of Rauru after killing Sonia. Even his symbolic Spiteful Suicide is also meant to be a major middle finger to Link since there's no way a tiny Hylian like Link could stand up to a massive dragon, even with the Master Sword. Of course, this also plays into how his pride ultimately leads to his downfall, since he clearly didn't account for Link to have allied with a dragon of his own (Zelda as the Light Dragon) nor the possibility that he wouldn't have any control over the draconification process (exposed weak spots in safe zones across his Gloom-riddled body).
• The weak spots on the Demon Dragon's body seem like a convenient way for Link to harm a creature explicitly stated as immortal. But consider that prior to transforming, Ganondorf had just taken a massive beating from Link, enough that he had to steel himself to even stand upright. Draconification isn't a healing process, it's a transforming process, one that magnified Ganondorf's injuries into much more exploitable gaps in his defense. In contrast, Zelda wasn't injured when she transformed, so the Light Dragon lacks any visible weak spots.
• The title Tears of the Kingdom may be read as a pun - the homophone "tiers of the kingdom" - referring to the map containing Hyrule's three levels of Surface, Sky, and Depths.
• Zonai are shown to have a third eye that opens when they are using their powers. The eyelid is adorned with a metal rim with 3 eyelashes. Rauru and Mineru as we see them also have a white teardrop painted on their nose ridge as if the tear is emerging from the third eye. Now remember the symbol of the Sheikah, a symmetrical eye with 3 eyelashes, and a teardrop below it. It actually represents Rauru or Mineru's eye as they are using their powers against Ganon. The Sheikah inherited their knowledge and powers from the two last Zonai, and kept on carrying out their mission to keep Ganon locked away until the destined day when Link will oppose him.
• There's actually quite a bit of brilliance in how each of the bosses and their respective plagues work against their respective Sages/Champions, and how it only proves how downright dangerously cunning Phantom Ganon seems to be, since he seems to be the one instigating these disasters while Ganondorf sulks away:
  • The Rito are besieged by a blizzard, which not only means hazardous weather that grounds them, but also means that even those who are willing will have to deal with worsened vision and frigid conditions during flight. To makes matters worse, because the Stormwind Ark is set in a place that's too high up, most Rito (including Teba) simply cannot fly up high enough to reach the source of the problem. Even if Tulin (the only one who can plausibly get up there) had managed to get up there by himself, he'd still have to face off against Colgera, who has the benefit of both flight, numerous aerial attacks with its backspikes, the ability to portal directly underneath Tulin, and the ability to conjure tornadoes that are vastly bigger in size compared to the fledgling. It's an incredibly lopsided matchup that would not have likely ended well if Link hadn't come along.
  • The Zora have to deal with the sludge that harmed King Dorephan. On top of being toxic, the whole ordeal (given that Phantom Ganon disguised as Zelda) seems to be tailor-made to prey on Sidon's only real weakness; his fear of losing the people he cares for. After all, a sludge that only he has the ability to delay, but also him being the only person other than Link who can fight well enough to find the true source of said sludge? That kind of psychological attack is extremely well-crafted to put him into a terrible situation where there isn't any good solutions.
    • If Mucktorok was the monster King Dorephan faced, then it's small wonder he lost. The monster is his direct counter. From what we know he relies mostly on his size and strength in a fight, but Mucktorok can't actually be beaten by brute strength alone. Without some other counter to its sludge abilities and giant shark, Dorephan could have made the mistake of trying to grapple with the sludge monster and been poisoned by it. And since Dorephan probably fought alone, he wouldn't have had anyone to throw Splash Fruits or use any water magic to clean the sludge out of his body. It's a minor miracle he made it back to his hiding place. This means that even if Sidon had managed to come up against Mucktorok by himself, he still possesses many of the same weaknesses as his father, on top of not really having any ranged attacks to help close the gap with Mucktorok.
    • If the Sludge Like was the monster King Dorephan faced, then he'd still have problems. For one thing, Like Likes are insanely durable except for their tongues, which they only expose sporadically. There's also the fact that they can eat equipment and the only way to get them back is to defeat them. Couple those issues with how it can tunnel under ground, spray sludge everywhere, and even cover itself and its tongue in sludge along with how small it would still be compared to King Dorephan, and he'd still run into some issues. He could use his King's Scales to clear the sludge since those give weapons and arrows the power of water, but by that point he's peeling off his own skin.
  • The Gorons ironically enough are actually well suited to killing Marbled Gohma, given that the beast is very vulnerable to blunt force attacks. Yunobo in particular is well suited to fighting it in normal circumstances, due to his fiery rolling attack and inheriting Daruk's Protection, as well as his increasing competence and emotional stability. As such, Phantom Ganon likely had to take a different approach by turning Yunobo against his people through brainwashing, because the reality was that the Scourge was a bad matchup against Yunobo if he could figure out a means to get inside the Fire Temple. Moragia was likely another attempt to keep Yunobo out, since deliberately choosing a being that was too high for him to reach with his attacks meant that he wouldn't have been able to progress any further alone, and due to his size wouldn't have been able to operate the small Control Stick on the nearby Zonai plane and launch himself at Moragia at the same time.
  • The Gerudo face a tricky challenge, because not only does the sand shroud increase the sandstorms they usually have to deal with, but their primary enemy are Gibdo, who are very vulnerable to elemental attacks...in a location where the only form of elemental attacks is the inexperienced Riju, who likely wouldn't have mastered her lightning powers soon enough to help her people. Combined with the physical sturdiness of the Gibdo in a culture where melee weaponry is the most common form of attack and the Gloom brought by the Upheaval decaying all weapons past the point of any useability, and the Gerudo were basically stuck against the worst kind of opponent possible. The Gerudo could outfit their weapons with elementally infused materials, but the only ones they would have available are gemstones, which have too much monetary value to use, and Lizalfos parts, which involve fighting monsters that are all about moving quick and jumping around which would likely take up too much time that could be used fending off Gibdos. In addition, even if Riju had managed to get to the Lightning Temple, Queen Gibdo is not only more dangerous, but also has the ability to fly, further putting Riju at a severe disadvantage.
  • This also puts into perspective why Rauru and the Sages were simply not able to win against Ganondorf, even not factoring in his boost in power. Rauru and the Sages might have been powerful, but their opponent is basically the Gerudo version of Link. Even not factoring in fate, the reality is that Ganondorf is just as versatile and skilled as Link in multiple forms of combat, which makes him downright deadly against the far more specialized foes he faced off against in the Sages, as he can outfight them by pinpointing their weaknesses in their fighting styles. Rauru in particular might have been his most formidable opponent in terms of raw power, but Rauru is also a spellcaster who needs a lot of time in order to use his powerful spells properly, something that the agile Ganondorf would have never let him do.
• Following from the above, the Temple Scourges also have a psychological aspect to them.
  • The Rito pride themselves not just in their archery skills but also in their ability to fly, since being able to either gain the high ground or escape a sticky situation on command would be useful to anyone. By creating a blizzard that takes that away as well as any viable source of food, the Rito are left in a hopeless situation.
  • The Zora thrive on the clean water that flows from the peak of Mount Ploymus to the rest of Lanayru. By hitting that water source with what's basically an oil spill, the Zora are forced to watch a lot of their people suffer a slow and painful death. This comes up full force with Sidon as stated above since his sister died a hundred years in the past trying to save their home, and for all he knows his father will meet the same fate.
  • The Gorons are rugged rough-and-tumble people that ooze grittiness from every orifice, not just in battle but in their day-to-day lives as well. By giving them something that reduces them to lazy drug addicts looking for their next fix, the ones that managed to avoid it have to live in an empty shell of their former home under the heel of someone who started as their beacon of hope.
  • The Gerudo are fierce warriors honed by the harsh climates of the desert as well as the beasts that dwell in it. By forcing them against an enemy that not only attacks from a never-ending sandstorm and has forced them underground but is also immune to any non-magical attacks in a land where gaining such power is difficult to come by, the Gerudo must either choose to accept their fates or continue fighting a battle they already lost.
  • This also plays into the fight against Ganondorf and the Sages since, at that point, Ganondorf had just murdered someone they had a personal tie to and threatened their homes with endless waves of monsters.
• Phantom Ganon showing up after you've defeated a Gloom Spawn is unusual, but in truth could be interpreted as it recognizing that Link is much more dangerous than Ganondorf realizes. The prior post regarding Phantom Ganon's cunning shows that Phantom Ganon is not unaware of Link and other dangers like him, and is capable of independent thought and action. With that in mind, because it doesn't have Ganondorf's egotism and prideful behavior, it possibly understands that Link might be weak now, but that he can become a problem if allowed to wander unchecked. This is especially true for the Gloom Spawn infecting the Great Deku Tree; since he's the only way for Link to find the Master Sword, it makes sense for Phantom Ganon to take it away as well as lie in wait for a trap.
  • Furthermore, it, rather than Ganondorf, is the one responsible for sowing troubles across the land. Given how egotistical Ganondorf is, if he were to conquer Hyrule he likely would just charge headlong into each region with his monster army in tow. Phantom Ganon, on the other hand, likely realizes that, just as how Link can grow stronger given time, the regions can amass defenses and countermeasures if given the chance, and so it dons the Zelda disguise and deliberately throws the regions into disarray, most prominently in Lanaryu and Eldin where it directly causes problems by attacking King Dorephan and brainwashing the Gorons respectively. The fact that it uses the Zelda disguise is another chilling display of cunning: It is aware that Zelda is highly respected across the kingdom, and wreaking discord wearing her face will cause confusion (like in Kakariko) or distrust (Zora Domain).
• It's stated that consuming a Secret Stone to turn into a Dragon would cost you your sense of self and identity. After Ganondorf does it out of desperation and becomes the Demon Dragon, this also rings true in its name which carries no mention of Ganon at all.
  • Secret Stones are said to enhance the magical abilities a person has, making them far more powerful than they would be without it. Ganondorf's Secret Stone caused him to embrace his demonic side, and by swallowing it, he essentially gives up what was left of his humanity so he can become a complete demon.
  • Furthermore, Ganondorf used his Secret Stone to create an army of monsters that would do his bidding. So it only makes sense that the Demon King swallowing the stone transforms him into the ultimate monster.
  • Going off of that point, it also explains the Breather Boss nature of the Demon Dragon fight. Ganondorf was incredibly tough to face as a dark Power-focused mirror of Link. He then sacrificed his Wisdom in order to attain more Power, but said Wisdom is what made his Power dangerous and difficult to overcome; having turned into an Almighty Idiot, not only does he expose lethal weak points, he drags Link to the surface, nullifying any Gloom accumulation Link had suffered (especially since Ganondorf's pure gloom would have destroyed those hearts permanently, otherwise) and showing himself to the Light Dragon, who immediately attacks him, frees Link and works with him to finish the Dragon off.
• Many have mourned the removal of Hearty materials, especially the Hearty Durians. However, a lot of the new Surface crops and critters are stated as having appeared due to climate change and given the amount of time between last time and now which included Hyrule's revival efforts and the Monster Corps being active, it's likely that the Hearty Durians are no longer in abundant supply and may likely be endangered due to consumption by the wildlife and combatants cooking up Hearty meals.
  • The Great-Horned Rhinoceros also do not return in this game. Previously they were common in the Hebra area, to the point where the South Tabantha Snowfield was a popular spot for players to hunt and sell high-quality meat. Not only does the snowfield now have less animal spawns in general (which might also have something to do with the nearby Gleeok) but the Great-Horned Rhinoceros are completely gone, resembling the endangerment and extinction of real-world rhino species to poaching.
• When you're heading to fight Ganondorf, you pass through the chamber Link and Zelda were investigating in the opening. You then drop down through the Imprisoning Chamber. On the floor at the bottom is a torch, lying there seemingly randomly. It's the torch Link and Zelda had been carrying at the start.
• The labyrinths this time around are split into three parts— first you explore the labyrinth on the overworld, then you have to explore the labyrinth directly above it in the sky, and then you plunge into the Depths for a boss fight against a Flux Construct. It all serves to test your wisdom (your knowledge on how to find your way through each labyrinth), your courage (as you have to bravely traverse Gloom-filled labyrinths, and you have to not fear heights while doing the sky labyrinth, because you have to dive head first right from the sky into the Depths after) and power (as you have a boss fight to cap it off to test your strength).
• Koltin's whole goal was to become a Satori, which he believed could only be done when you eat enough Bubbul gems, much like the process of Draconification. You can potentially meet him before you do any of the Dragon Tears missions, meaning that Koltin's goal was, in a way, foreshadowing Zelda's plan in the end.
• Gerudo have been an entirely female race for thousands of years, in the past a single male was born to them every hundred years, but that stopped after Ganondorf's time. Now if this was because Ganondorf was still technically alive, does his death mean that the Gerudo are going to start having sons again? It must be quite the shock to them after over a 10,000 year absence.
• Ganondorf taunts the pair at the start of the game: "Rauru put his faith in you... and that was all you could do?" To the player, it seems this line could be directed at either Link or Zelda, but both are just as oblivious as the player as to why. As they progress through the game, several things become apparent:
  • One, it becomes clear that it was directed at Link, though it isn't because of feeling threatened by the Master Sword. Instead, it's because Ganondorf was looking forward to meeting a powerful opponent and was genuinely disappointed.
  • Secondly, the player also learns why Ganondorf immediately recognizes Zelda but had to look at the Master Sword first before identifying Link. He already has met Zelda in the past and has only heard of Link thanks to a loose description from Rauru. It also explains why he says her name with such contempt, because one of her attacks made him look the wrong way during a battle, allowing Rauru to imprison him in the first place.
• Link could stumble upon Zelda's fate as the Light Dragon well before setting foot in even one of the Temples, yet no matter what he never clarifies that the "Zelda" everyone else has been seeing was actually a fake. Perhaps that's some of his old stalwart knight persona slipping through, since telling everyone that Zelda was sent back in time to the Imprisoning War where she met the first King and Queen of Hyrule along with the Demon King and became a dragon to save Hyrule would make him sound like a madman.
  • Even after discovering Phantom Ganon's machinations as the Fake Zelda, Link still refuses to tell anyone that the real Zelda is a dragon. While it seems very strange, there is a simple explanation for Link's silence: it would deprive Hyrule as a whole of hope. Finding out that the Princess of Hyrule is now a mindless beast roaming the skies with (seemingly) no way to turn her back would throw the kingdom and her allies into absolute chaos and despair, making the land all the more susceptible to Ganondorf's conquest.
  • In addition, maybe Link looked at his heroic friends who seem the type to be willing to sacrifice themselves to save the world—and had just obtained Secret Stones—and didn't want to give them any ideas.
• The Gibdos have always looked like a fairly stereotypical Egyptian mummy, wrapped in bandages with at most a section of their faces uncovered. In this game though, there's no real sign of bandaging, just dried-looking flesh and exposed bones. Rather than man-made mummies, the Gibdos here look like the subjects of natural mummification, such as the kind you'd find in, say, a desert.
• Why does eating a Secret Stone turn you into a Dragon while also leading to Death of Personality?
  • It's likely due to its function as an amplifier got compounded as it suddenly found itself more stuff, in this case is the inside of the user's body to amplify. The amplifying of everything inside and out, resulted in a massive explosion of power. The massive amplification gave the one who ate it a body to compensate for it, in where the mind is likely overwhelmed.
  • It also acts as a Drama-Preserving Handicap. If there are no costs to becoming a Dragon, the people who wear them are more likely to eat them. The initial battle between the Zonai Sages and Ganondorf could've ended with Hyrule burnt to a crisp in the battle between several dragons, considering how much damage the clash between the Light and Dark Dragon caused as a baseline.
  • It is also meant to protect Zelda's sanity by preventing her from going mad from isolation for 10,000 years. As she is trapped in the past, she cannot intervene in history as the Light Dragon and interact with anyone. If she is conscious, she might be tempted to cut out the middle man that is Link and just deal with Calamity Ganon along with any other threat Hyrule faced herself.
• The pictures on the wall in Link and Zelda's house in Hateno (other than the champion portrait) all relate to various parts of the journalism quests that Link follows with Penn at the stables. You can see paintings of the Dondons, Zelda's golden horse, the goatherd at Tanagar Canyon, Magda working at the flower preserve ... even a group making rice bowls for a cooking class!
• Lynels are found in the Depths beneath Stables. Makes sense, stables are where both humans and animals find lodging, while Lynels are an unholy combination of man and beast.
• How did the new Sages know to come to Link's aid in Gloom's Lair? Well Link does receive the message "The power of the Sages cannot reach you here" inside. It's likely all five sensed Link's presence disappear and rushed to find him.
  • And how did they get down there safely without Paragliders of their own? Tulin can fly, Sidon has his water shield, Yunobo is just ridiculously durable to begin with, and Riju could ride on Mineru's back and take advantage of the construct's protection from all falling damage.
• Zelda was the first Sage to pledge a Vow to Link. The scene of him obtaining Recall closely resembles the Sages' Vow scenes: Link approaches a secret stone and encounters an ancient Sage in a mysterious mist-covered location, a Sage holds hands with him to transfer over a glowing power, and his/Rauru's hand gains new bling with the Sage's symbol on it. The differences from the other Vows are that Link can use Recall on his own instead of needing a follower to do it, there isn't an option to upgrade Recall, and it's not called Vow of Zelda, Sage of Time (which is much wordier than the other hand abilities and would give away major spoilers). The Time symbol even appears on the loading screen alongside the other Sages' symbols once you've defeated Ganondorf.
  • There's one other key difference as well. Each of the other five Sages declares they will fight at Link's side to the very end. But Zelda gives her power to him without so much as a word... because she had already implicitly made that promise.
• There is actually some correlation between the game's title, Tears of the Kingdom, and one of the MacGuffin in the game, the Tears of the Dragon. Due to the events in BotW, Zelda is the last remaining member of the Hyrule royal family, so in a sense, she is the kingdom. Then we find out that she turns herself into a dragon to help Link via The Slow Path. So in a way, both Tears of the Kingdom and Tears of the Dragon mean the same thing: Tears of Zelda.
• The Bargainers and their Above Good and Evil morality serve as a small but notable explanation as to why in Ocarina of Time, Koume and Kotake apparently get to ascend to heaven when they die despite having served as Ganondorf's Co-Dragons. The Bargainers don't care about morality; all that they care is that when people die, their souls are to be sent to the afterlife. Thus, despite all their villainy, Koume and Kotake aren't explicitly Dragged Off to Hell, and instead are merely pulled into afterlife.
  • This especially makes sense if you think that reincarnation is a global rule for life-after-death in the setting, and not just something because of Demise's curse on Link and Zelda. It takes a special kind of evil to be kicked out of the wheel of reincarnation, and as much as Koume and Kotake enabled Ganondorf and served his evil, that alone probably wouldn't have been enough to do it, so they got to continue reincarnating (heck, with a Freeze-Frame Bonus, we even see them in this game in one of the flashbacks).
  • It's also mentioned that the Bargainers will kill any Yiga that approach them. This seems odd with the above statement of being above good and evil but there is still a reason; the Yiga are also seemingly affected the revival of the Blood Moon- they would have been cheating death for at least a hundred years by being resurrected every few weeks when killed, so they'd be well past their natural time in the mortal world, just like Poes. If anything it drives home their Above Good and Evil status even more - if it's past when you should have moved on, they'll make you move on, whether you're still living or not.
• There are two sets of lava falls in the Depths outside of the Eldin region. The one underneath the Hebra Mountains has obvious signs of geological activity through the hot springs, but there don't seem to be any signs on the mountains in northern Necluda, but in actuality there are in the form of craters, including Oakle's Navel, the lake next to Breman Peak, and the Meda Mountain Chasm. It also plays into real-world science, since hot springs are formed when water is heated by magmatic hot spots below them. It also explains why there's a lake in Hebra that won't freeze you to death: It's being heated by the magma.
• Many players expressed surprise or disappointment at how a lot of familiar characters from Breath of the Wild don't remember Link or his actions in the previous game. But think about it: aside from the fact that it's explicitly been a few years at least since then, a lot of stuff Link did outside the main plot was rather minor, usually being in the form of bringing them an item they wanted. They might remember that one time a traveler brought them an elixir or Molduga Guts, but not enough to recognize his face several years later.
  • Malena, a Gerudo woman whose husband is sick, does mention that an adventurer helped her in a similar situation a few years prior, having no idea that the person she's saying this to was the one who helped her before, lending further credence to this.
    • In this case though, this is at least fair because as far as anyone knew the one who showed up and helped them out around the city was a blonde Hylian Vai instead of a Voe, save a few people who knew but didn't tell on him because of his help. It's unlikely Riju or anyone he helped would be in any hurry to clarify that, since it might make Link look bad to say he's snuck into the town in the past, instead of being a special exception in the present.
  • Tellingly, the characters that do remember Link are the ones you did major things for: the ones connected to the main plot, Hudson and Rhondson, Purah, etc.
  • And as for why they don't recognize him as the one who defeated the Calamity? Nobody was really around to see when that happened, and aside from those involved in the main plot, they didn't get any real indication Link was working toward that. They just know that, one day, the Calamity around the castle disappeared and Princess Zelda came back. And it's not like Link is concerned with taking credit.
• The abilities granted by Rauru's arm have a lot in common with the Sheikah Slate runes of the previous game:
  • Ultrahand is, of course, a counterpart to Magnesis. Both are the first abilities you get and allow you to move objects around. However, while Magnesis is specifically metal objects, Ultrahand works on just about anything.
  • Recall is a counterpart to Stasis. Both are abilities related to affecting time and are given a yellow coloration. But while Stasis merely stopped an object, Recall makes it actively rewind.
  • Ascend is a counterpart to Cryonis. Both are situational, but when they come up, they become very convenient for getting past obstacles. But while Cryonis was usually used to cross water, Ascend is for vertical movement.
  • Fuse being a counterpart to the Bombs is a bit more of a stretch, but it's through this ability that you get bomb arrows to achieve the same effect, and you use it to make your weapons stronger, bringing to mind the feel of sheer power the Bombs had.
• Related to the above point: While the Sheikah Slate runes can have direct combat applications (most obvious with Bombs), the powers from Rauru's arm are more indirect, which makes a lot of sense. Rauru, for all his incredible power, was still a gentle and virtuous soul at heart, and he was more focused on cultivating the kingdom and making things better, compared to Ganondorf who was an unrepentant conqueror. The ways he achieves that - lifting things so others don't have to, sticking them together to make something greater, rewinding the time around an object to undo a mistake, and speeding up construction so people can get things done more quickly - are all in character for him. Ascend is kind of an odd man out given that there's no way to weaponize it even indirectly, as its only function is to pass through platforms and ceilings, but then again, it could be seen as a roundabout way for Rauru to quickly get to places without causing damage to his surroundings or overexerting himself.
• Sidon has always been one of the more accessorized Zora, presumably due to his status as royalty, but in this game he's gone all-out. He has new anklets and adornments for his head-tail, a fancier belt and cravat, a jewelled pendant and unique gloves, and most notably a significant wide collar wrought in metal around his shoulders, which also gives him a sheathe for a Lightscale Trident at his back and secures firmly around his torso. Considering how little Zora wear, it's quite extravagant... and it's probably not a coincidence that Sidon's decked out in impressive new duds in the wake of his engagement. It is, after all, a royal tradition for Zora princesses to craft armour for their intended as a betrothal gift.
• Frozen meat sells for more than regular meat; it can be preserved and saved for later if need be.
• The fact that the Yiga are without any of their unique weapons can easily be chalked up to the fact that they've exhausted their resources, and thanks to the Gloom, they probably deteriorated anyway. Now with no choice, they rely on the Eightfold weapons that the Sheikah would typically use.
• What happened to the traditional position of Sage of Shadow established back in Ocarina of Time? Simple, really: Ganondorf hijacked it when he murdered Sonia to steal her stone.
• Zelda's title as a Sage retroactively explains her difficulties in the backstory of Breath of the Wild: Her father continually pushed her to manifest the power of light, which she only managed to do at the very end when they had already lost, only managing to avert complete annihilation with it; now, she's revealed to be the Sage of Time. In other words, she was, in large part, unable to manifest the power her father demanded of her specifically because Light was never her primary magical affinity in the first place.
  • It also explains her archaeological obsession: Archaeology is the study of the past, which is an aspect of time; Zelda was instinctively pursuing her true calling all along.
• The Yiga Clan gear requires Lizalfos tails to fully upgrade. Lizalfos are actually adept at disguising themselves by blending into the environment, so that's the same kind of stealth the Yiga Clan would love to utilize.
• Gloom is so vulnerable to light that very few of Ganondorf's forces can thrive in the sky ruins at all. While King Gleeoks can simply be considered so powerful they can withstand the effects of sunlight in such altitudes, Colgera and Mucktorok have other reasons why they manage to survive at such heights.
  • Colgera blankets the Stormwind Ark with a massive blizzard storm that is so incredibly thick as to shunt sunlight out of the ark, keeping Colgera safe until Link and Tulin confronts it.
  • Mucktorok uses its sludge not only as a weapon but also protection, not just from attacks but also from sunlight. This can explain why without its sludge, its only option is to run away until it can recover its strength to summon more sludge; even if it could attack outside its sludge, its powers would be weakened anyway.
• If you manage to find the underground passageway beneath Hyrule Castle that connects the castle to Lookout Landing, at some point you will come across a plaque that mentions that Hyrule castle is built partly as an additional seal for the Demon King, and indeed the Imprisoning Chamber itself is found deep beneath the castle. This thus serves as some explanation to the emergence of Gloom after Calamity Ganon's rampage; the sheer amount of damage Calamity Ganon inflicts to Hyrule Castle essentially weakens the seal, allowing Gloom to slowly manifest again, not to mention that soon after being unsealed, the Demon King hoists up the castle, thus breaking the lid wide open allowing Gloom to ravage the land.
• Even though Purah is now about the same age she was in Age of Calamity, she's much more serious than she was in that game. That's because Purah lived through the Calamity, where Hyrule was ravaged and many of her friends died. No doubt a traumatic experience like that must have had a sobering effect on her.
  • There's also the fact that most of the people Purah was with seemed to only barely tolerate her perky attitude during that timeframe (outside of Robbie, who can't really act out as a rockstar like he used to in the present day). So it's possible that Purah simply phased out her excitable nature because no one else really played along, and it made situations more awkward.
• Unlike the other Dragon themes, the Light Dragon has an exclusively female choir that plays when Link approaches it. That's because we know for certain that its true identity was that of a woman, whereas it's ambiguous who the other dragons may have been.
• Why doesn't Zelda remember anything from her time as the Light Dragon after turning back to normal? Because her transformation back was caused by Rauru and Sonia amplifying Link's Recall ability to undo the transformation. It's likely that Zelda doesn't remember being a dragon because her memories were undone along with the transformation itself.
  • This also might've been intentional on their part, as (crossing with Fridge Horror) a thousand years as a mindless dragon might not have had the... "best results" on the poor girl's psyche. Reverting her memory to before then ensures that Zelda truly returns as the same princess we know and love.
• The Lucky Clover Gazette replaces the stable right next to Rito Village. Who better to gain news and information from than the people who can fly all over the entire kingdom? (This is likely how Penn was recruited.) It's also a subtle reference to Wind Waker, where the Rito were postmen.
• Similarly, there’s also a Sky View tower right next to Rito Village. They probably agreed to let it be constructed there because they could use it as an easy takeoff for high altitude.
• Why does Rauru immediately distrust Ganondorf during the Show of Fealty Dragon's Tear memory? Well, if one really looks at him at face value, Ganondorf's attitude and words while speaking to Rauru really don't do much to instill sincerity towards the King of Hyrule. He first makes a subtle crack at Sonia by implying that her "admirable lineage" doesn't compare to the god-like Zonai, and he insensitively notes how Rauru and Mineru are the last of their kind without taking their feelings into account. That alone demonstrates how little Ganondorf actually respects Rauru and how he envies the throne he sits on and the power he holds.
• When Link faces Phantom Ganon who is pretending to be Zelda, it stands at the top of the Triforce symbol on the restored sanctum floor. What part of the Triforce is at the top? The Triforce of Power, the one that Ganondorf possessed in previous games.

Fridge Horror:

• All throughout BoTW, a mindless Zelda is wandering Hyrule’s skies.
  • All while Ganondorf is sealed under Hyrule Castle. Don't think too hard about that.
• The game's premise and background information provides this for the sister game, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. Underneath Hyrule Castle lies the mummified body of the Demon King, still alive after 10,000 years and by the game's start, the seal restraining him has begun to weaken enough that his corroding essence has started to leak out into the world above, causing Link and Zelda to investigate. The events of Age of Calamity are eventually revealed to be an Alternate Timeline caused by the time-traveling Guardian Terrako going back to allow the Hyrulian forces to stop the Calamity before it happens — however, despite them eventually being successful in this task, that was only against Calamity Ganon, and not the Demon King who was the source of his endless revivals. This means that the mummified Demon King still exists underneath the castle in Calamity's altered timeline and will eventually likewise break free of his seal, meaning that the Surprisingly Happy Ending of that game is under threat from an even greater evil after they apparently pulled off a miracle, and this time, there is no prophecy forewarning them of the returning threat.
  • Alternatively, given that they also now have more resources and powerful champions, including the reformed Yiga Clan, at their disposal, and given that Zelda will likely have the benefit of being able to actually pursue her studies and understand the mysteries of the world, it's entirely possible that they might be able to find out about it much sooner, and plan how to deal with Ganondorf's return. They have at the very least 100 years before the seal completely falls apart, which is not a small amount of time all things considered.
    • That is, assuming the reason that the seal was broken was due to time, and not Rauru breaking the seal willingly when he senses Link and Zelda arriving in the Imprisoning Chamber. Not to mention the fact that to keep the timeline intact, Zelda will have to go back in time once more in order to be the Sage of Time - and it's likely that Link will also have to send the Master Sword back in time as well.
• If the Light Dragon is the result of Zelda swallowing a secret stone, then what are Dinraal, Naydra, and Farosh? Did they swallow a stone for noble reasons, or did they do it for the sake of pure power?
  • Despite being stated to lose all sense of self upon becoming a dragon, there was still a semblance of Zelda's desire to help Link, driving her Dragon's form to conveniently aid him in the final battle. If Zelda's consciousness still existed and was really locked away in that form, how much self-awareness was she able to retain while living for over 10,000 years and witnessing all Hyrule events from the sky, both the good and the bad and not able to do a thing about them until the fated reunion with Link?
    • This can be countered by the fact that, when she returns to her true form, she has no real memory of being a dragon beyond having some semblance of awareness that it had happened (comparing it to being asleep), meaning something such as her subconscious or desire to help Link was in control as the Light Dragon. However, this would also mean that, had Zelda never been returned to her true form, eternity as the Light Dragon would be close to nonexistence to her.
    • It also seems logical to consider that without a consciousness to return to, Zelda probably would have no chance to regain her humanity and would be stuck as a non-sentient Light Dragon for the rest of time.
    • There's also the disquieting thought from this that if Zelda's soul was stuck in the immortal dragon's body, another Zelda could never be born in the future (similar to how no male Gerudo had been born for 10,000 years because Ganondorf wasn't "technically" dead). This would have boded extremely ill for the next cycle of the Hero, Princess and Demon King, so it's even more fortunate she was able to be brought back.
  • What does this mean for all the other dragons in the series? Valoo and Onox are among the few dragons that still have a sense of self.
  • Logically there must have been dragons before Zelda, since otherwise, how would the Zonai have known what happens when you swallow a sacred stone? Though this leads to additional Fridge Horror that the first person to experience it probably had no idea what they were getting into.
    • The three leviathan skeletons in the Depths (mirroring the skeletons on the overworld) look more serpentine and might possibly be previous dragons, in which case at least one of them if not all three were once mortals who swallowed a secret stone, and at some point ended up being slain.
  • The Goddess Statue at the Spring of Wisdom in Breath of the Wild explains that Naydra used to be an attendant to the spring since ancient times and watches over the spirits of the land as the spirit of Mount Lanayru, which makes sense now that all three dragons regularly fly into and out of The Depths in Tears of the Kingdom, a place that's full of wandering spirits like Poes.
• Sometimes, you can spot two Bokoblins wandering about on a horse and carriage. As Bokoblins are not capable of such feats of engineering, it raises the disturbing question of how exactly they got their hands on it...
  • Bokoblins are shown to be capable of building forts and tree houses, setting traps, making their own weapons, and taming stone taluses, which they then build forts on top of. Bokoblins are not mindless, or at least do stay as such, they're clever enough to figure out carts. Given the many resources Hudson Construction have been leaving out for free including carts, they probably took them from there.
• In this title, there's a positively terrifying overworld boss that has gained speedy infamy, the Gloom Spawns. They're hidden in otherwise-innocuous puddles of Gloom, are incredibly fast, and extremely tenacious. But the worst part of it all is, they're not just after you. An NPC dialogue outside Eldin territory remarks that these things are lying in wait for anyone who approaches. Now, bear in mind, even for Link himself, one of these can choke the life out of him in seconds...
  • In one area of the game, you can see the result of this with frightening transparency. Just to the west of the Great Forest is a small landmass in Lake Mekar, Mekar Island. A tiny, circular break in the lake with a single dead tree upon it. Upon arriving, you'll find a derelict campsite, and immediately after will be accosted by a Gloom Swarm hiding behind the dead tree. The only safe place is at the single treetop where they just barely can't reach...and littered around the tiny island are small heaps of bones.
    • Not to downplay the previous point, but even in Breath, Mekar Island is already a place of death, since not only the bones were already there back then, but if Stal enemies were to pop up there they pop up in hordes. Of course, this begs another question: If anyone did set up a camp to explore such a derelict, foreboding place, why?
• The boss fight for the Spirit Temple has us fight a corrupted Zonai Construct. This means that whatever vulnerability that allowed Calamity Ganon to corrupt Sheikah technology also applies to Zonai technology. The technology the kingdom of Hyrule is starting to rely on a lot. Ganon better be dead for real this time.
  • Mineru's Creator Constructs were designed to be inhabited by her spirit. They may have lacked whatever possession-proofing the rest of Zonai tech contains; which the Shiekah also neglected or were unable to add to the tech they based on Zonai artifacts due to a lack of access to Zonaite.
• At least Zelda was an Almighty Idiot for the last 10,000 years. On the other hand, Mineru's spirit inhabited the Purah Pad, and considering she reaches out to Link when he comes upon Dragonhead Island, it's possible she has been fully conscious the whole time. How do you spend 10,000 years by yourself?
  • Mineru describes herself as "slumbering" when explaining why she didn't reach out to Link immediately, suggesting that she wasn't conscious the entire 10,000 years, at least.
• While the game really just glosses over it, Link's new arm is some mild Body Horror if you think about it. Imagine waking up to someone telling you that they performed major surgery on you without your knowledge or consent, and that surgery replaced one of your limbs with something not just foreign to your body, but visibly inhuman. Even if it was needed to save his life, it would still be a pretty disturbing experience.
  • If you leave Link standing idle, one of his animations in this game is to lift his right arm and examine the hand.
• Although Link’s first experience with how the new towers work is played for laughs, imagine it from his point of view. He enters a chamber and four Guardian arms come out of the ground to grab at him. His expression says it all — he’s having clear flashbacks to fighting the Guardians in the last game.
• As the Hylian royal family are descended from Sonia and Rauru, this means they must have a child offscreen. And that child has just become an orphan.
  • It's heavily implied the ancient Zonai Hero Link can appear as after completing all the shrines was said child. If this is the case, it adds an extra level to him stepping up to become hero of the ancient times and defeat the first coming of Calamity Ganon, he'd know very well what it actually was, and have very personal reasons to step up to the challenge.
• Calamity Ganon's Hyrule Compendium entry in Breath of the Wild states it was trying to incarnate a new physical form for itself... but what would have happened had it succeeded in doing so and/or killed Link during the final battle? Would it have gone into the Zonai ruins under Hyrule Castle to free its progenitor, or just kept razing Hyrule without him?
• The journals found within the Yiga Clan's bases in the Depths reveals that the clan has gone through its own share of hardship while navigating the Depths, namely one talking about how all members are required to carry Sundelions to deal with Gloom affliction. In a base's journal west of the East Gerudo Chasm, they acknowledge that Gloom can drain life force, which then begs the question... how on earth did Gloom get splashed onto their bases in other parts of the Depths? Including the wooden spikes?
  • The relay base found at a lake southwest of the Kohsustu Lightroot has the first volume of the Base Construction Manual, which explains why the clan's bases are so heavily fortified: They weren't trying to keep out Link or other humans, they're meant to keep out monsters, meaning the clan of assassins - despite their worship of Ganon - are just as vulnerable as Link is in the Depths, with the only thing saving them is their strength in numbers or their own survival skills.
• In Skyward Sword, Demise was stated to be the source of all monsters and also later confirmed to be the original incarnation of Ganondorf. After stealing a Secret Stone for himself, Ganondorf is now reunited with a measure of his power, gaining the ability to spawn or re-create monsters directly himself under certain conditions, where previously he used existing groups or his evil drew them towards him.
  • This goes one step further as to why Ganondorf seems possibly even stronger here than his past incarnations with the Triforce of Power were: the Secret Stones are outright stated by Mineru not to grant any kind of external power, they amplify the inherent qualities of the user. In short, for Ganondorf, the reincarnation of Demise, using the Sacred Stone might have just unleashed the power of the original Demon King within him.
• While the Deku Tree was infected with Gloom, the entire Korok Forest was drained of life, including the Koroks themselves. Does this mean that they were actually dead or was it like with Naydra when she was infected with Malice and they were made to suffer in silence along with the Deku Tree?
  • This also means Hestu and the Koroks that weren't looking for help dodged a bullet just by being their usual Cloudcuckoolander selves.
  • The Deku Tree being corrupted is probably the reason for the new backpacking Koroks—they could be refugees. Think about that the next time you launch one into space.
• Probably counts as an Ascended Fridge Horror: It's mentioned in BotW backstory that after the ancient people of Hyrule repelled Calamity Ganon with the help of Sheikah technology, the paranoid king of Hyrule of that era outlawed Sheikah technology, ultimately splintering the Sheikah tribe into two: The loyal Sheikah tribe who agreed to abandon technology, and the resentful faction who defected and eventually became the Yiga clan. While Breath doesn't touch into it much, this becomes an important reason in this game why the people who are better-adapted to using Zonai technology are the Yiga: Among the technologically-blind allied races, the number of people who knows anything about Zonai tech practically can be counted in one hand (Purah, Robbie, Josha, and if you count the incorporeal people, Rauru and Mineru), whereas the Yiga clan has extensive knowledge on how to build sophisticated contraptions such as vehicles and trains all their recruits on the how-to.
• Gloom Spawn can be found in the Depths near the massive Dark Skeletons, the remains and bones of a large, possibly draconic creature. It gives the implication that however they died, the Demon King himself must have had a hand in doing so.
  • The Demon King being responsible for killing these giant dragons certainly is not an impossibility. Recall that in BotW, Malice, which comes from Calamity Ganon, who in turn is a weaker offshoot of Ganondorf, is strong enough to corrupt Naydra. A full-powered Demon King likely is capable of worse thing, including killing immortal beings such as dragons. It's only because Ganondorf is, for all intents and purposes, unmotivated and bored out of his skull in TotK that he doesn't bother to take down Dinraal, Naydra and Farosh, especially since they are also minding their own businesses and thus very unlikely to catch his attention.
• According to the steward construct who guides you during the "Legend of the Sky Island" sidequest, the Temple of Time, and by extension the entire Great Sky Islands, were deliberately raised to the sky to protect and seclude Link, who has been prophecized to arrive there, so that Ganondorf and his minions cannot reach him while he recuperates from his ill-fated run-in with mummy Ganondorf. This is a sensible plan, given that Gloom cannot thrive in the sky ruins since sunlight readily illuminates them. There's just one problem: Two of the temple scourges nevertheless managed to reach the sky-borne temples (Colgera in the Wind Temple and Mucktorok in the Water Temple) and three King Gleeoks manage to thrive in the far reaches of Hyrulean skies, meaning that the sky ruins are not completely safe from Ganondorf's influence. Thus, Hyrule is actually lucky that Ganondorf and his minions didn't manage to reach the Great Sky Islands in time to kill Link before he recovered. In addition, there also was a secret stone in the Temple of Time, so Hyrule is doubly lucky that Temple of Time somehow has evaded Ganondorf's notice at all. King Gleeoks being stationed in remote sky islands may also have been due to Ganondorf suspecting that an injured Link would be taken to as far a place as possible in hopes that no one would find him, so the fact that Isle of Awakening wasn't anywhere near such corners is another fortune.
• After the Upheaval, Phantom Ganon was free to spread fear and wreak havoc with no one to oppose it while the Yiga Clan scoured the Depths for Zonai technology with not a single person in Hyrule the wiser. This had to have taken weeks or even months to accomplish given the scope of Hyrule, which begs the question: How long was Link out of commission?
• If it doesn't Squick you out enough that wolves and foxes drop meat if slain (instead of something more appropriate and common with canine enemies in video games like pelt) same as the game's predecessor, there's nothing in-game to distinguish flesh dropped from wolves and foxes from the meat dropped by the likes of boars or deer, animals more commonly hunted for food. So if you come across a dog you want to feed in hopes of them leading you to treasure, there's nothing stopping you from feeding those unsuspecting dogs the flesh of their less domesticated cousins...
• In Breath of the Wild, Calamity Ganon was a malevolent force of nature that wanted to reincarnate itself into a proper body so it could wreak havoc on Hyrule. If Zelda hadn't kept it sealed in Hyrule Castle for 100 years, what would've happened if Calamity Ganon gained a physical form, and Rauru's seal on Ganondorf broke? Would there be two incarnations of Ganon in coexistence?

Fridge Sadness:

• Zelda's fate as an immortal dragon, without her sense of self, personality, or any way to speak, it really gives a new meaning to the Silent Princess flowers that bloom throughout Hyrule. Unsurprisingly, a whole garden of them even blooms at Link's feet upon viewing the final memory.
• The diary of Dorian's late wife in the Kakariko Village Well. Since Dorian explains that she was killed by the Yiga Clan in Breath of the Wild, it's the only way for the player to ever get a glimpse of her personality. True to how her children speak of her, she really was a sweet woman with a strong love for her family and makes her fate with the Yiga more tragic as it was done to punish Dorian for leaving the clan.
• Even years after Calamity Ganon's destruction, Hyrule is still a wreck, with ruins scattered all over the place. Despite the people of Hyrule being united, progress in restoring the kingdom is quite slow. Ganondorf's resurrection might have just undid whatever progress has been done, making it much more difficult to move on from the chaos he's wrought. On a hopeful note though, these same events led to the unsealing of the Zonai technology and all its benefits, and the return of the position of Sage and their corresponding powers. If Hyrule can manage to take proper advantage of these things, they are poised to begin another golden age.

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