Headscratchers / The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

New entries on the bottom.

Four Pieces

• If Lorule's Triforce has four pieces (since it is based off a tetrahedron instead of a triangle), wouldn't that mean it encompasses four virtues instead of just three?
  • Lorule's Triforce only has three pieces, as shown in the ending. The decoration on the tip of Hilda's staff is just a three-dimensional model of the real thing, not what it actually looks like.

Hylian Shield

• What is the Hylian Shield doing in Lorule? It's the equivalent of finding a Lolian Shield complete with inverted Triforce in Hyrule. It does not belong.
  • Maybe someone stole it (is "Lolian" even used in the game?) from Hyrule and left it there.
  • It's worth mentioning that "Hylian" has no real connection to "Hyrule". Hylian is the race (revealed to be named after the goddess Hylia in Skyward Sword), Hyrulean is the nationality of people born in Hyrule. So it's possible that the pointy-eared inhabitants of Lorule are also called Hylian. As for the shield itself, with its Hyrulean elements (the Triforce pointing up), the above is probably right. Alternatively, it was placed there by the powers that be, in order to help Link.
  • It'a also possible that, at some point in the distant past, there was some contact between Hyrule and Lorule, possibly between their dignitaries, and the shield was passed from Zelda's ancestors to Hilda's as a gift and subsequently hidden as one of the treasures inside Turtle Rock. After all, there would probably have to be other ways to pass through fissures than just merging into a wall, and it would have explained some of how Hilda came to know so much about Hyrule and its Triforce.
  • A Link Between Worlds was originally intended to be a remake of A Link to the Past, rather than a distant sequel. The Hylian Shield appearing in a Lorulean dungeon would’ve made more sense since Lorule was supposed to be the Dark World.
    • The designers must have been pretty dumb to make an oversight like that. Nowhere else in the game is Lorule called the Dark World.
  • For what it's worth, the shield's description says "A shield based on Hylian design," implying it was made to look like a Hylian Shield rather than actually being one. Still a pretty odd design choice, though.

Sand Rod

• What did Osfala intend to accomplish with the Sand Rod in a sandless dungeon?
  • More important than what he intended to do, how did he actually manage to reach the boss room? And why was he even climbing the dungeon, if there was nothing there?
  • He was climbing the dungeon because he wanted to follow Yuga. As for his route through the dungeon, Gameplay and Story Segregation is the easiest answer, but maybe he has some magical abilities... including going through locked doors like Darunia.
  • He said himself that he rented the Sand Rod from Ravio. Ravio knows that the Hero of Hyrule will be someone who looks just like him — hence, I think he knew that Osfala wasn't meant to defeat Yuga and thus gave him something useless on purpose, basically setting him on a suicide mission so that he could save the tool one would really need — the Bow — to give to Link, who by that point he knew was the real hero.

Inverse traits

• If Lorule's Triforce is the embodiment of the inverse traits of Hyrule's Triforce, as revealed by Ravio the coward being the Lorulean Link, shouldn't Hilda be ignorant and Yuga be weak?
  • It's doubtful Lorule's Triforce is meant to be based on flaws. While Ravio may be cowardly, Hilda foolish and Yuga very weak, that's because their true strengths lie elsewhere — Ravio was wise enough to understand the folly of condemning another world to save his own, Hilda is very driven and ambitious, albeit easily tempted by power, and Yuga is confident to the point of arrogance despite his lack of power, which you could consider a type of courage. You could look at Hyrule's trio the same way, if it helps: Link's unflinching courage can lead to foolish decisions on his part, Zelda is wise but humble and not especially powerful, and Ganondorf is very powerful but has a tendency to use cowardly tactics like the MacGuffin Delivery Service and The Man Behind the Man to get what he wants. But you wouldn't jump to the conclusion that Hyrule's Triforce is based on their shortcomings, even so. The same is probably true for Lorule; its Triforce could still be based on the virtues of power, wisdom, and courage, but with power corresponding to Hilda, wisdom to Ravio, and courage to Yuga.
  • Lorule isn't supposed to be a reversed, dark version of Hyrule normally. It's only twisted now because it's slowly dying without its Triforce. The three counterparts of the Triforce holders in it represent that loss by each lacking the virtue they should represent: Ravio should be a hero, but he's too cowardly to fight himself; Hilda should be a leader to guide her people through the darkness, but her has her wisdom clouded by desperation to make things right; Yuga should be the ultimate villain of his world, but he's far too weak on his own to act on his ambitions on his own. In each case, they seek out and use their counterparts to make up for their own deficiencies as a representation that Lorule desperately needs the Triforce not just as a mystical power-source, but as a spiritual anchor for the virtues it sorely lacks now that their version is gone.

Ravio's bag

• So uhh... what's in Ravio's bag that's "more important than life itself"?
  • Uhh... It... Y'know what? It gets revealed shortly after you defeat the final boss.
  • An image of it is on the bag.
  • Just... Rupees? Is he that greedy?
  • Well, think about how many houses you've barged into as Link to break people's possessions and take their Rupees. Link is not without greed. It follows that Ravio would also be greedy. Knowing Link as he does, because they're so similar, Ravio could have made up the "more important than life itself" thing to keep Link from taking his Rupees.

No Hero Discount

• So if Ravio had gone to Hyrule to seek a hero that could help him, why did Ravio have Link pay for using his items? Wouldn't Ravio just give Link the items so he could better help him out?
  • I'd say a subtle test of character/making sure Link really is the Hero. Rent out items, see if he puts them to good use, if he makes it to the point that he can buy the items, all the better...and of course, make a few bucks in the process. Always good to have a plan B in case it all goes to pot on him.
  • Ravio has more vices than Link. He's reluctant to lose the items that he evidently worked very hard to acquire.
  • Ravio is also trying to maintain some amount of anonymity and doesn't want his ulterior motives revealed through all of this, due in my mind to still feeling loyal to Hilda and not wanting to so drastically go against her word. It'd already be suspicious enough that he said to Link, "Great news, roomie! I've decided to open up a shop in your house where I'll be conveniently renting out all of the one-of-a-kind items that you'll just happen to end up needing in order to save two worlds! Oh, and here's this mundane piece of jewelry that also happens to render your enemy's greatest offensive tactic completely useless against you." Link would only ask more questions if Ravio just offered to give him the items for free, and after that happens, there doesn't seem much of a point to the mask.
    • I think Ravio charged Link for the weapons as a means to help restore Lorule in a way less sacrificing-another-world-to-the-same-fate kind of way. Or at least delay the inevitable for a bit. After all, working to restore all the destroyed towns and landscape would most likely cost a lot of money, as would getting the people who have taken to thievery to survive to help. But all of that is just my headcanon.
  • He comes from Lorule, where people are cheating each other and ripping each other off all the time. He comes to the paradise that is Hyrule, relatively speaking, and finds a guy who might be annoyed at his actions but is too nice to actually do anything to stop him—it's hard to imagine him being able to resist, or even fully understand the problem with what he's doing. In his eyes he's behaving like normal people behave, and Link is a total sucker.

Avoid the problem by wishing

• It's minor, but something kinda bugs me about the plot/ending: Hilda goes to all this trouble in order to get Hyrule's Triforce, with the intent to replace Lorule's destroyed one. Okay, that's all well and good... But the problem arises in that she knows doing this is probably going to doom Hyrule as Lorule once was. But, she says herself, when speaking of Lorule's Triforce, that it can grant wishes; ie, she's aware the united Trifoce can do so. So, why wasn't the plan to unite the Triforce and just wish for Lorule's own Triforce to simply be restored? Now, her plot allowed Link and Zelda to do that on their own, but it seems odd that Hilda, who isn't really evil, just desperate, doesn't seem to have considered this!
  • The idea of having the Triforce, the power of the gods, before your grasp can affect your mind and judgement. Just ask Ganondorf and his initial intentions.
  • The fact the Triforce can grant wishes does not equate to it being able to grant any wish, it might have some limitations. So, it is able to restore another Triforce, but it might have been unable to, and then what? Lorule was on the verge of collapse, they didn't have the time to waste. Furthermore, what if Hilda didn't have a balanced heart? Two of the Triforce pieces would fly away eslewhere, most probably back to Hyrule, and she'd lose even more time tracking them down.
  • I'm inclined to believe this. I mean, it would follow, if you could just wish for another Triforce, everyone would have one, or something akin. She may have assumed the "no wishing for more wishes" genie corollary. I mean...I would think beseeching the Gods for another Treasure of the Gods might be kinda blasphemous, or something.
  • Besides, Hilda wouldn't even have been able to do much even if she was sane enough to ask for Zelda's help. Zelda only had one piece of the Triforce; Ganon had the Triforce of Power, and I don't need to explain why attempting to resurrect him is a bad idea. The Triforce of Courage wasn't even physically around, so it's not like Hilda could have just went and asked Zelda to use the Hyrulean Triforce (Maybe work with her to find a way to form it without causing too much damage, but even then, it would have involved resurrecting Ganon).
  • Maybe so, but she ended up pretty much doing that anyway, resurrecting Ganon and all that. Seems like asking for help from Zelda and Link would only make things easier for all of them. I guess what the game expects us to accept is that Hilda became blinded by the Triforce's power...but that still doesn't make much sense to me seeing how she only wanted it to restore her kingdom and aid her people. With Ganondorf, King of the Gerudo or no, he was still jealous of the aura of prosperity that seemed to surround the kingdom of Hyrule and how ignorant and unappreciative people were of it; thus, it made sense for him to be blinded by the Triforce and for these feelings of jealously to mask any ulterior motives he may have initially had in terms of aiding his people. With Hilda...Well, it was kind of her peoples' fault that Lorule's Triforce is gone, so even if she is jealous of Hyrule's prosperity, that jealousy isn't at all justified.
  • I prefer to assume she wasn't blinded by power, just because that's every Zelda villain's motivation and it's really gotten old by this point. I think it's quite reasonable to say she was simply too desperate to think of the better option. Maybe she didn't trust Zelda enough to cooperate, or maybe she trusted Yuga a bit too much. It's possible that after she assembled the Triforce, she might have cooled off enough to try the Deus ex Machina plan, but with the stakes as high as they were, it was too risky at that point. (There's also no guarantee she'd be virtuous enough to avoid the defense mechanism; if it split again, it might stay in Lorule, but in a worst-case scenario it'd return to its Hyrule bearers and she'd be back to square one.) However, this would work a lot better if it was stated that the Triforce of Courage could only be summoned in a time of crisis, or something.
  • Speaking sort of from personal experience here...I, for one, know how hard it can be to request help from someone who's already better off than you, especially if you already feel a little bit envious of them. You're afraid that all that prosperity has left them too stuck-up to be willing to help you...Hilda always struck me as having a few insecurities of her own - indeed, with the sorry state of her kingdom, why would she expect someone like Zelda to be willing to help her? It's filled with monsters, crooks, ruins and thieves, after all. Not to mention, she also doesn't seem old enough to be running any sort of kingdom responsibly on her own, and with someone like Yuga probably influencing her plans from the start, as Ravio's diary would imply, it's no wonder things turned out like they did.

Oren as Ruto's descendent

• It's strongly implied that Oren is Ruto's descendent. How can this be possible? Ruto is a sea Zora, and Oren is a river Zora.
  • The distinction may be a racial one, rather than a species one; if this is the case, then they could easily be interfertile.
  • The bigger problem is that Ruto somehow had a human descendent in one of the maidens from LttP, and then the same thing happened in reverse for Oren.
  • It is possible that Ruto had multiple descendents branching off into different family trees. Oren and the human sage might just be cousins, both descendents of Ruto.
  • In the Oracle games, a Zora states that the sea and river Zoras are related. Apparently they split off at some point in the Failure timeline, since the river Zoras only appear in that timeline. And presumably the more aggressive river Zoras eventually wiped out their more peaceful cousins.
  • Ruto having a human descendant shouldn't come as very surprising at all seeing how eager and willing she was to get together with Link. But still, if she and Oren were related, that would mean that she and her descendants crossbred enough times for one of them, the Maiden in A Link to the Past, to appear completely human, only for said Maiden, or one of her descendants, to get together with King Zora or one of his descendants, thus marrying back into the Zora royal family and allowing the bloodline to continue more and more until Oren, who for all intents and purposes is a Zora, is born years later. So...the Zoras, or at least those descended from Princess Ruto, must have a real penchant for crossbreeding.
  • While the original intent in A Link to the Past may have been otherwise, I think it's safer to say new Sages are successors and not literal genetic descendants. I think Sagehood can pass on to any worthy successor when the current sage dies. This is why Ganon makes a habit of capturing rather than killing sages: he discovered that dead sages don't permanently solve his problem. Better to trap them in a crystal or painting or what-have-you than to give someone unknown to you the opportunity to awaken as a new sage.
    • Its a nice thought... but blatantly false. Even before LBW, it was stated that the Maidens were intended to be direct descendants of the OOT Sages, it was just a retcon, nothing more. And LBW clearly drives home the point that these sages are direct descendants of the originals. It doesn't even make sense to suggest otherwise. If they were merely successors, then you could just pick anybody with the right qualities and they'd have to "awaken" as a sage, you wouldn't be able to know who they were before awakening. These Sages are by birth alone, its simply not possible any other way. The Maidens are a retcon and Rosso is somehow descent from both Hylians and Gorons. Oren isn't really all that complicated, the River Zoras are distantly related to the Sea Zoras.
  • That could be true, but the only instance that would suggest this to be at all likely is, as was aforementioned, A Link to the Past, and that was only because an overall series continuity hadn't yet been established. Really, the case of Ruto and her descendants/successors is the only issue here, since we're never shown how, in what capacity, or even with whom Gorons reproduce.
  • Twilight Princess implies that the spirit-like Sages tasked with executing Ganondorf were killed and replaced by the Ocarina of Time sages when Ganondorf took over in the adult half, and the OoT Sages definitely aren't descendants of them. So it may not have to be by blood if that isn't an option. Gulley definitely couldn't be a blood descendant of Saria, since Kokiri don't age or reproduce.
  • According to the dubious Hyrule Encyclopedia, the Kokiri actually do age of they happen to leave Kokiri Forest... apparently. It's a potential loophole to explain where Gulley came from, anyway.

Split Triforce

• Why is the Triforce even split in this game? The ending of A Link to the Past clearly shows it together.
  • Given that that ending is one of the only times we see the Triforce being used to make a wish (and this is the only time we have a direct sequel showing where it went afterwards), it is entirely possible (and likely in this context) that the Triforce operates like the Dragonballs: get your wish, and the wish-granter, its job done, splits back into component pieces that must be gathered again before any further wishes can be made, so as to prevent wish-abuse and minimize risks of falling into the wrong hands.
  • This is actually what happens in The Wind Waker. After the Triforce granted a wish, it split apart and scattered across the world again. Link made a wish to the Triforce in A Link to the Past, so the Triforce split apart. Remember, you don't see the Triforce anymore in ALttP after Link makes his wish.
  • But in Skyward Sword, it remains intact after Link uses it for a wish. Either it's an inconsistency, or the Triforce disappearing in The Wind Waker was a consequence of the wish; which was, notably, to make Hyrule disappear forever.
  • Alternatively, it split after granting Link's wish because, on one hand, it had just been gathered after having been split, so it had to grant a wish; on the other hand, the one making that wish didn't have the three virtues in balance, favoring Courage overly much, so as soon as the wish was granted, it split again like it always does when touched by someone who doesn't favor all three virtues equally.
  • It says in the paintings in Hyrule Castle that Ganon somehow got his hands on the Triforce of Power and that the Triforce of Courage is MIA, so it's clear SOMETHING happened between the end of Link to the Past and the start of this game.
  • It's actually weirder than that. The Oracle games happen after A Link to the Past, with the same Link, and the Triforce is still united and under the care of the Royal Family, so it was clearly not the wishing that split it. My personal theory is that somewhere down the line, the Royal Family decided that they should split the Triforce again, before rumours about it started causing mayhem once more, and so the pieces were sent to the usual chosen ones (even though Ganon was dead/sealed at the time).
  • Even if the royal family had decided to split it, why would the Triforce of Power go to a corpse? Ganon is Killed Off for Real in ALttP, remember.
  • The previous comment of Yuga being weak is completely ridiculous. There are more kinds of Power than physical. Open your mind.
  • Compared to Ganondorf, he's weak, and it's supposed to be that way. Even without the Triforce, in Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf was still able to create the monsters that terrorized the Kokiri, Gorons, and Zoras - all Yuga does throughout the first half of the game is capture people in paintings and create mook soldiers from paintings. And while there are many different types of "power", the Triforce of Power is clearly meant to correspond to great capabilities of strength, whether they be physical or magical, neither of which Yuga himself is capable of.
  • My personal guess is that there's a missing game/reincarnation event that we've not seen, much like the events of the Deluge War in the Adult Timeline, the War of the Bound Chest between Skyward Sword and Minish Cap and the Ancient War before Skyward. Ganon was killed in A Ltt P and the Triforce ended up under the care of the Royal family. After the Oracle games Link and Zelda died of old age as people are wont to do, and a few centuries late Demise's curse kicked in again and Ganondorf was reincarnated - much like what happens after TP leading to the events of Four Swords Adventure - Link and Zelda would have followed him in being reborn. As usual it ended up with Link and Zelda victorious but with the Triforce split once more and Ganon sealed away again. Cue another few hundred years passing by and Link and Zelda are once again back as Ganon is about to be released starting the plot of A Lb W.
  • A Link Between Worlds was originally intended to be a remake of A Link to the Past, rather than a distant sequel. It’s because of this that there are some continuity errors between the two games. The Hyrule Encyclopedia explains this as the Triforce turning into three birds (which was already loosely alluded to at the end of the Linked Oracle games) and flew off from Hyrule Castle, explaining why it has to be recovered in this game.

Zelda not seventh sage

• In Link to the Past, there were seven sages, including Zelda, who was the seventh sage. In Link Between Worlds, there are seven sages, but Zelda isn't one of them. What's with the discrepancy?
  • It can easily be explained by assuming the royal family branches between games, and one of the Sages (probably Seres or Osfala) comes from the branch that didn't inherit the crown. The power of the Sages is hereditary, but not necessarily goes down the same path as the crown does.

Sages possessing

• So, why exactly did the Sages have the Triforce of Courage? It doesn't seem to have anything to do with them particularly.
  • They were keeping it safe, nothing more. Probably waiting for the next hero to come so they could deliver it.
  • Also, remember the ending to Zelda II? Maybe that old man was also a descendant of the Sages.
  • In Ocarina of Time, it was said that the Chamber of Sages was located inside the Temple of Light in the Sacred Realm, which is also where the Triforce was hidden back then. It could be that the three Triforce pieces are designed to return there if their bearers die with no one else there to claim them or something. That could have happened to the Triforce of Courage at some point, and so it was left in the care of the sages and their descendants until a new hero appeared.
    • This seems to be the best answer. The Triforce of Power was being held by Ganon (who was trapped in the Dark World with his piece), and Wisdom is always passed directly from Zelda to Zelda, but there wasn't a Link to inherit Courage yet, so the Triforce fragment went to the Sacred Realm for safekeeping. Once the current Link proved that he was worthy of wielding it (in this case, by rescuing the Sages), they were able to give it to him.

Octorok

• There's an octorok enemy in Lorule. Lorule replaces the octoroks with other enemies. ...huh?
  • Maybe their Triforce being destroyed is what caused normal enemies to mutate into their Dark World counterparts, and the Octorok at the derby was the only one who hadn't been transformed yet?

Waiting to wish

• Why did Link and Zelda wait until they'd returned to Hyrule before they decided to use their Triforce to restore Lorule's? I know why Hilda didn't ask them to do so - she'd already put them through so much that she didn't feel she was worthy of their help - but couldn't they have just as easily done it on their own before she sent them home?
  • No, it was in the sacred realm, not with them. "It's rare we get to visit the Sacred Realm" -Zelda
  • In that case, how did it get there? Yuga, Hilda, and Link had the three pieces with them.

Irene's fate

• So what was it about helping Link to move around faster that alleviated the fate Irene ended up going through? She still ended up being kidnapped, turned into a painting, used to resurrect Ganon, and then imprisoned and guarded in the swamp in Lorule, and Link would've had to have saved her in the end whether he knew her beforehand or not.
  • She didn't know that though. Personally I read it as a You Can't Fight Fate type of thing. She thought that if she helped Link, she could avoid a terrible fate, which didn't happen. But Link still saved her anyway. Of course Link was going to save her, but she wouldn't know that right away.
  • Wrong. When she meets Link, she says her fortune said disaster would befall her unless she managed to "take care of green." It wasn't something she thought would keep her safe; it was something the fortune teller told her.
  • Maybe it was foretold that Link would die to some monster if he had to run from one corner of the map to the other constantly. Thus, Irene did save his life by allowing him to bypass so much danger.
  • Well, as one of the Seven Sages, Irene did "take care" of Link—she assisted in summoning the Triforce of Courage, which gave Link the ability to defeat Yuganon and save Lorule. And if she hadn't done that, a disaster would have befallen her and everyone else in Hyrule: the theft of their Triforce and gradual destruction of their world.

Hilda and the fusion

• How come Hilda survives the fusion with Yuga after he's defeated while both he and Ganon both appear to be destroyed? And it couldn't just be because she's not really evil and only wanted the Triforce to save her people, because that's exactly what Ganondorf's motives were, as well, yet the Master Sword proves deadly against him.
  • As has been debated many a time, Ganondorf may have started off with motives comparable to Hilda’s, but by the time you confront him with the Master Sword he’s already gone off the deep end and dabbled in dark magic to make himself a malicious demon. Hilda may have survived because she hadn’t gone that far yet; she never had the chance to do anything with the Triforce of Wisdom, and her part in the fusion was completely by force as opposed to the already-demonic Ganondorf and power-hungry Yuga.

Knucklemaster

• The boss in Skull Woods is the Knucklemaster, which you damage by hitting it after it charges you, hits a wall, and stuns itself. The easiest way to dodge its charging attack is to merge with the wall behind you. The thing is, the Knucklemaster is essentially punching the wall, and strongly enough to knock itself out for a few seconds. So why don't you get hurt when you're part of the wall...?
  • It’s not that illogical that Knucklemaster would injure itself before managing to damage a solid brick wall, especially since the Skull Woods are built entirely underground, meaning the walls are backed up by solid earth behind them. Try going outside and ramming something into a brick wall and see what gets damaged first.

Hilda's power

• Why does Hilda seem to be so much more powerful and more effective with magic than Zelda? Zelda is gifted with the Triforce of Wisdom, which is said to increase the wisdom and magical abilities of its wielder, so shouldn't she have trained herself in order to learn how to use it better? Hilda has no Trifoce backing her up and, as far as we know, no divine ancestry that would give her any latent powers, yet she seems able to cast barriers and teleport at will.
  • It could be that Zelda specifically doesn't want to learn offensive magic with the Triforce of Wisdom; maybe she's a pacifist?
  • Lots of characters have been able to cast barriers in the series. Hilda lives in a kingdom filled with monsters, former guards who worship the monsters, and discontented subjects who blame the royal family for what’s happened, all perfectly valid reasons to learn to use defensive magic to protect herself. Hyrule is a relatively peaceful kingdom with little reason for Zelda to be worried for her own safety.

Ganon's mortality

• Ganon and Yuga appear to be Killed Off for Real in the final battle, but... they had the Triforce of Power, which is supposed to grant immortality, at least according to Twilight Princess.
  • Twilight Princess also shows that the Triforce of Power can be lost, apparently, as Ganondorf loses it after Link impales him through his open wound with the Master Sword. As for this game...my theory is this - the three people who composed the creature defeated in the final battle are Ganon, who has been alive for thousands of years prior to the game, and has been fought, weakened, and defeated in many instances during that time; Yuga, who is significantly weaker than Ganon already, was not immortal before the merge, and had already been fought by Link twice early in the game; and Hilda, who hadn't been injured at all and was probably at peak strength. Chances are that when Link managed to weakened this creature to the point where it wasn't able to fight anymore, its two weakest, most fatigued components were killed off, while the Triforce of Power might've "chosen" to remain inside the currently strongest and still-most-able-bodied one, which was Hilda. That's just my theory.

Triforce of Courage inheritance

• In Twilight Princess, The Chosen One has the Triforce of Courage from the start. Here, the sages have to summon it for him, because...?
  • Because they are two different stories. in Twilight Princess, Link started out with the crest of courage because it had been passed down through his family from the Hero of Time, who had kept it with him in the Child ending of Ocarina of Time. It isn't really explained why the sages are the ones who have it in this game, but it is still a very different game in an entirely different timeline.
  • So wait, under normal circumstances it's inherited through bloodline magic (like the Triforce of Wisdom, presumably), but in the event Link dies it vanishes into the ether and has to be reclaimed by someone else? That...makes a surprising amount of sense, actually.
  • Actually wait no, if Power went to Ganon's corpse then I don't understand why Courage couldn't find a bearer.
  • Again, we don't know why the sages had the Triforce of Courage in this instance. It's probably that if someone dies without offspring, the Triforce piece remains with them unless/until someone else is there to retrieve it.
  • That would explain why Ganondorf doesn't seem to have qualms about killing Link, but it brings up the age-old problem of why he never kills Zelda and instead opts for a time-consuming extraction ritual every time. The Triforce mechanics seem like an insoluble problem...
  • Its possibly the case that Link had not "earned" his Courage yet. Once he earned his Courage, the Sages were able to transfer the Triforce of Courage to him.
  • I think everyone already agrees with that. What they're asking is why the sages had the piece in the first place.
  • Between the events of Link to the Past (by the end), the Oracle games and this one it is known that the Triforce was collected together again and kept in Hyrule Castle. Presumably at some point someone with an impure heart tried touching the Triforce and it split up (this would explain why Ganon of all people has the Triforce of Power again) and learning of this the Royal family decided to make it difficult to find the Triforce of Courage by splitting it up into pieces amongst the sages. The only problem with this is that logically Link should have the Triforce of Courage already then, but this isn't the first time this has happened. Link from The Legend of Zelda and Adventure of Link didn't have the Triforce of Courage until he passed the king's trials and earned it, which takes places after all of the above mentioned games.
  • While its accuracy in some areas has been hotly debated, it’s worth mentioning that the Hyrule Encyclopedia states that, after the events of the Oracle games, and for unknown reasons, the three Triforce pieces turned into birds and flew off from Hyrule Castle, explaining in part their odd whereabouts during A Link Between Worlds. It’s only after this game that the royal family reclaims the Triforce and uses its power to usher in the era of peace that precedes the first two games.
  • One of the running themes of the series is that the Triforce of Courage is unique among the three pieces. In this timeline, Ganon/Ganondorf is trapped in the Dark Realm after Ocarina of Time and still has Power (Hyrule Historia says that he had the whole thing at this point, and it wasn't taken from him until A Link to the Past), while Wisdom consistently goes to Zelda. But Courage has to be earned through merit if the "current" Link isn't directly descended from the previous ones (this is presumably why the Link of Twilight Princess is born with it—he's the descendant of the Link from Ocarina). We see evidence of that in The Wind Waker—the King of Red Lions explicitly states that this Link isn't connected to the original's lineage, but after Link assembles the Triforce pieces, it enters his body, and the King remarks that it means that Link has earned the right to bear it. In this timeline, then, the Sages' job is to hold onto the Triforce of Courage until the next incarnation of Hylia's Champion comes along and proves their worth, at which point they award it.

Why is it so hard to rescue the sages?

• Rescuing the sages is part of the Big Bad's plan. So, why does she place them in such dangerous and out-of-the-way locations? She couldn't have just told Yuga to "accidentally" leave them behind after the summoning? That would have allowed them to summon the Triforce of Courage immediately, which would save Hilda a lot of time and reduce the risk of Link dying early (which would ruin everything).
  • Hilda had probably been improvising at that point - she'd already lost Ravio, her ideal person for the job, and she likely didn't really have a plan for the Triforce of Courage until the last minute, when Yuga came rushing in telling her about the boy in green who'd managed to best him twice with the power to merge and emerge at will. Or, just a guess... perhaps Ganon influenced Yuga's will enough to send the sages off to remote locations instead of keeping them there at the castle, just out of habit. It's pretty clear that Yuga's already gone mad with power by the time the merge takes place.
  • Surely she must have had a plan for all the pieces before she launched her plot? Two pieces alone are useless to her; if she stalls on the last one, all she accomplishes is tipping her hand and giving Hyrule time to regroup. She must have known that the sages could summon it, at the least, else she wouldn't have made Link search for them.
  • Her plan for all the pieces was simple, at first: for power, have Yuga abduct the sages and use them to resurrect Ganon; for wisdom, simply steal the piece from Zelda's portrait; and for courage, have Ravio free the sages with his bracelet and pose as a hero so they would give him the Triforce of Courage...Clearly, though, she had no idea what a coward Ravio turned out to be and how it would never be his intention to help her with this plot to begin with. Moving on, maybe Hilda wanted to see just how much of a hero Link really was by sending him across Lorule first, or maybe she was using him to clear out the infestation of monsters that have been plaguing her kingdom, or maybe she thought it would be better to have Link fight through the enemies in her castle first, in the hopes that he would fall to one of them instead of facing Yuga and potentially killing him. She does openly admit to Zelda's portrait that she's hoping Link will survive his ordeals, hinting that she knew the risks of sending him on his journey but was still willing to do it.
  • Hm... I suppose it depends on when Ravio bailed. He only shows up after Yuga's introduction, so it's entirely possible that he fled after Hilda had already set things in motion. Regardless, if her original plan was still to have someone rescue the sages, it's still counterproductive for Yuga to scatter them. Hoping for Link to die to the castle enemies doesn't make sense either, assuming the general consensus of Triforce pieces being lost on death is true (and I assume it is, because I can think of no other reason why the villain of the week keeps Zelda alive every time).
  • What villain of the week keeping Zelda alive are you referring to...? The only one I can think of who does such a thing is Ganondorf, and he only appears in three games - Ocarina of Time, where he was just a generic evil bad guy using Zelda to bait Link to his castle, The Wind Waker, where he kept her alive as part of his bout of reminiscing over his past defeat, and Twilight Princess, where Zelda was essentially already dead by the time he had taken over, due to giving her life force over to Midna. Other villains in the series who are known for abducting Zelda usually do so for reasons other than the Triforce piece she holds, or sometimes doesn't hold, depending on the villain and game.
  • On the sage question, my guess is that unlike summoning Ganon and his Triforce of Power, the Sages had to willingly bring the Triforce of Courage from its hiding place. If Hilda had kept them around, one or more of them might have become suspicious about her intentions ("oh, just summon the Triforce of Courage for me after I've kidnapped you, turned you into paintings, and made you bring us the Triforce of Power by force, you'll be fine!") and refused to do it—and without all seven Sages working together, the Triforce of Courage couldn't be revealed. By having Link rescue the Sages one by one, Hilda essentially tricked them into thinking they were helping Link, when they were really helping her.
  • Regarding the Sages, they weren't actually placed in the locations on the edges of Lorule they wound up in. If you see the cutscene where Yuga fuses with Ganon, the effect of the fusion and the power burst it wrought sent all of the Sages' paintings flying. All seven sages portraits were sent flying and happened to merely wind up in all of the dangerous locations in Lorule after Yuga fused with Ganon, due to the burst of power that came with the fusion, and the power burst must have been so great that the portraits were sent flying great distances. The portraits were then likely discovered by some of the minions of the dungeons that the paintings all wound up flying into. The Thieves' Hideout for example involves escorting an imprisoned Thief Girl, who was imprisoned because she knew where Stalblind hid Osfala's portrait, which meant that Stalblind had found Osfala's portrait in the town there and hid it in that house. Similar circumstances may have applied to the other sages, who wound up flying into those locations where you find them, and may have been discovered either by the bosses themselves or the minions guarding the dungeons.
  • Except the fusion took place inside a castle. The paintings couldn't have been sent flying out of the castle accidentally, and if Yuga did it on purpose, then it doesn't make sense why he would have.
  • On a related note: Why was Lorule Castle even a dungeon?
  • Probably a combination of it falling apart like the rest of the kingdom was, along with Hilda hoping Link would be killed by monsters on his way to the throne room, rather than having to reveal her motivations to him and risk him actually taking out Yuga. She probably never expected him to make it there to begin with, hence why she didn't keep up the ruse any longer once he had.
  • One idea I've formed is that Yuga hadn't had time to brief Hilda on what had happened before beginning the resurrection process. Thus, he sent the sages' portraits away entirely of his own accord, to keep Link from freeing them, and was genuinely going to kill Link then and there. Then Hilda, realizing that they could use Link to get the Triforce of Courage, stepped in to hold Yuga off, under the pretense that she was on Link's side. If this were true, then it was only some unfortunate timing that kept her from stepping in before the sages had been whisked off.
  • Also, while it's risking the loss of Link as a pawn, scattering the sages in dungeons makes the false scenario look more legit. If Link just found the paintings on four walls of one completely-unprotected room, that would raise a few red flags, and the last thing Hilda wants is for Link to doubt the quest or Yuga's apparent control.
    • The problem with that is that the paintings don’t need to be scattered at all. If we assume that Hilda was in the know about the resurrection as it was happening, she could’ve stepped in before Yuga scattered the sages. There’d be no reason for Link to be suspicious of that, and even if he did have his doubts, what other option does he have than to free the sages regardless? Not to mention that he’s extremely weak and powerless then compared to when he returns at the end of the game, and when he does return, Hilda tells him all her plans anyway.
  • Maybe Hilda thought that sending Link to do hero work throughout her kingdom was just the sort of thing her downtrodden subjects might need. She is established to be a ruler who cares about her people a lot, and the only “hero” she’s known before meeting Link was Ravio, who’s extremely cowardly and not particularly inspiring at first glance. So when faced with a genuine paragon of bravery and nobility, she might’ve just let her whims get in the way of being practical.
    • Building on this—there's also a practical element in this plan, because it involves killing the giant monsters that had been terrorizing areas of the kingdom. We don't know if those beasts were being controlled by Yuga or not, but even if they were, Hilda might have been (literally) killing two birds with one stone. In addition to Link rescuing the sages and getting them to summon the Triforce of Courage for her, she was also eliminating seven extremely deadly threats to Lorule and possibly allowing the dungeons to be cleared for future use; some of them are outright stated to be temples and probably had magical significance, while others, like the Thieves' Hideout, were in populated areas and could be useful to her once the monsters are gone.

Why do the sages give Link the Triforce of Courage?

• Seriously, why? It appears to do absolutely nothing on its own, except for making Link a living MacGuffin like Zelda. There's no point to it unless they're purposefully trying to assemble the Triforce, but being proactive is for losers, so that's clearly not the case.
  • Because Hilda won't let Link into Lorule Castle without the Triforce of Courage. Link and the sages don't know that she's got her own agenda for using it and that she plans on wiping Link aside in order to steal it from him. Also, it's been theorized that the Triforce of Courage may give Link protection against certain types of powerful attacks and magic, such as the kind Yuga would be capable of using in a fight.
  • I forget, does Hilda explicitly say that Link needs the Triforce of Courage to enter the castle? If that's the case then yes, it makes sense that the sages would give it to him. (Maybe he told them at some point and we just didn't hear.)
  • I'm not sure...To be brutally honest, I've never played the game myself before, but I thought I remembered her saying something along those lines.
  • Apparently she doesn't, she just says he has to rescue the sages. Presumably she knows they can summon Courage, since she's clearly researched the Triforce, but there's still no reason for them to do so.
  • Exactly what the Triforce of Courage does to the one who wields it may be somewhat obscure, but there can be no doubt that it does something. And anyway, if you were helping someone to prepare for a battle against an enemy wielding a fragment of raw godpower, wouldn't you want to give them a fragment of the same kind of power, if you could?
  • Also, if the sages thought that Hilda was still on Link's side at that point, they probably figured that the benefits of giving her, Link, and Zelda access to two Triforce pieces against Ganon's one would've outweighed the risk of him getting all three pieces if Link failed.
  • It's worth noting that some of the Sages, if you rescue them last, will specifically say that the Triforce of Courage is necessary for defeating Yuga; Rosso declares "You'll need it to defeat Yuga," and Queen Oren remarks "It will be essential in your battle with Yuga." So it seems like they believe the Triforce is required for the battle, but players might not see that depending on which Sage they restore seventh.

Is the new Triforce lore inconsistent with Ocarina of Time?

• While not explicitly contradictory, the phrasing of the legend in Ocarina of Time, which casts the Triforce as an almost accidental remnant of clockmaker-style gods, doesn't really jive with the idea of it being a Cosmic Keystone, at least for me. It's possible one or both legends were simply wrong, but that feels a little unsatisfying.
  • Nothing in Ocarina stated the Triforce was accidental, and many other games imply it was very much on purpose. The only line that so much as implied it as accidental was saying "at the point the golden goddesses departed the world, three sacred triangles were left behind." Yes, that could be some sort of accident, but it could also be one last gift to their creation. The rest of the games (especially Skyward Sword) definitely point to the latter.

Trans-dimensional summoning mechanics

• Yuga summons Ganon in Lorule, not Hyrule. How does that work exactly? Ganon is in Hyrule. Is the summoning ritual so powerful that it bypasses dimensional boundaries?
  • It evidently is.
  • There was also apparently some sequence of events that had taken place between this game and its predecessor that hasn't been covered in another title yet, since Ganon was killed off in A Link to the Past. Then Twinrova revived him in the Oracle games as a mindless beast, but Link went and killed him again. Yet here in this game, Yuga is able to either revive or unseal him using only the power of the seven sages, meaning there had to be something the sages did to seal him away in the first place.
  • Also, the whole point' of summoning is to bring a distant person/object closer to you. So Ganon being in another realm is no issue whatsoever.
  • Maybe being in Lorule made it easier to summon him than if the ritual had taken place in Hyrule. The seal on him could've been keeping him from returning specifically to Hyrule; thus, it wasn't designed to keep him cut off from any other dimensions. Sort of like if you're locked out of one certain house, but can still go and enter any other house that isn't locked.

Simultaneous wishing

• In the ending, Zelda and Link both make their wish on the Triforce simultaneously. Just...what? That's an option? How does that work? If one passed the virtue test but the other one didn't, would it still split? What if their wishes were contradictory? Why has this never come up before? Is this supposed to be an intentional thing, or is this like a weird glitch that overloads the Triforce's parameters? I also feel like this goes against the spirit of The Wind Waker's claim that whoever touches it first gets the wish, although it's not an explicit contradiction.
  • Chances are that since their hearts were both pure and they both made the same wish, the Triforce and the gods knew their intentions and just made it work, not a big deal at all. If the situation were different, I don't see how two people with different wishes would manage to touch the Triforce at the exact same moment as each other, in which case, the mechanic that occurred in The Wind Waker would kick in as normal.
  • So the goddesses did it? Hm... Taking their stated goals into account, it occurs to me that allowing multiple people to contribute to the wish would make so much more sense as the default. If the whole point of the defense mechanism is to prevent people with imbalanced virtues from using the Triforce, that implies that the correct method of reassembling it would be to get the three bearers to compromise and agree on a single wish that would be in line with all three virtues. They'd become more well-rounded people and the world's obsession with balance would be fulfilled. Beating people up to steal their pieces doesn't accomplish that, and effectively renders the defense mechanism meaningless from a philosophical standpoint. Perhaps the writers have decided to shift the Triforce mechanics in this direction, and the mechanics will be elaborated on in future games?
  • Well, if you'll notice, Ganondorf in The Wind Waker seems to have grown some, philosophically, from the man he was in Ocarina of Time, which was probably due to losing the Triforce the first time. He's perfected his skills with dual swords, has grown smarter and wiser by reminiscing over the mistakes he made in the past, learning and improving from them, and even coming to regret them some, and he isn't afraid of charging Link and the Master Sword head-on, relying only on his brute strength to get the job done. As opposed to Ocarina of Time, where he spends the entire first half of the game sitting back, waiting for Link and Zelda to gather the stones for him, and does very little by himself.
  • The simplest possibility: they didn't touch the Triforce simultaneously. Two things very rarely happen simultaneously; one was probably very slightly ahead of the other and thus "won." The Triforce doesn't shatter instantly, after all (cf. end of Link to the Past); there's time for someone else to also touch it. Whoever "won" got their wish, but since Link and Zelda had the same wish it made absolutely no difference.
• Above all else, Zelda has never been confirmed as having the balanced heart necessary to use the Triforce in the first place, meaning Link's wish is the one that restored Lorule. If Link hadn't been there and Zelda tried touching the Triforce by herself, it probably would've split apart like in Ocarina of Time.

Nothing to fear

• If Ravio wanted to get Hilda to give up on stealing Hyrule's Triforce, why didn't he just try talking her out of it from the get-go instead of running away to Hyrule? Even if he's afraid of Yuga retaliating, his bracelet nullifies the threat of being trapped as a painting — and it's implied that Hilda is more powerful than Yuga anyway as he waited until he had Ganon's power before he turned on her.
  • After beating Yuga for the first time, talking to Ravio shows that he is surprised that Link can get out of the paintings, and comments that he should try getting turned into a painting himself. But even then, he comments that he is worried he wouldn't make it out of the painting.
  • That was all just Ravio playing stupid to fool Link into thinking he was uninvolved - he knew the bracelet would protect Link from Yuga by using its magic to repower itself, or at least must have suspected it, since that's why he gave him the bracelet in the first place. I’m
  • Ravio is attempting to remain anonymous and doesn't want to give away the hint that he is intentionally helping Link as he is the Hero of Hyrule. Since he was too scared to face Yuga and Hilda's scheme and prevent it on his own, he mentions in the ending of the game that he went to Hyrule in order to find a hero there who could stop Yuga's scheme. When he found Link, he eventually realized that Link is the hero of Hyrule and that he can potentially stop Yuga's scheme after he learns of what happened to Seres, so he inadvertently decides to help Link, while playing stupid to remain anonymous and not give away the hint. This is also why he puts on a bunny costume and masks his face to hide his true identity as Link's Lorule counterpart, all the while describing himself as a traveling merchant to hide his true intentions.
  • He may not have known what to expect in Hyrule, but considering Hilda's plan, he could reasonably expect it to be a better Lorule, basically what Hilda wants Lorule to become; not much to fear going there. I also feel he could have been scared she wouldn't listen to him until it was too late, or that he would say something wrong/she would take it the wrong way, and just make things worse.

How did he get back?

• How did Ravio get back into Lorule in the endgame? His journal says that he was afraid he wouldn't have enough "power" to make the trip to Hyrule and back, which is proven to be true as his bracelet is depowered when he gives it to Link later on - even after Yuga inadvertently repowers it, Link keeps it on throughout the rest of the game, and in the end, before the confrontation, Ravio just leaps into the fray without any indication how he crossed the void.
  • I'm guessing it's in reference to a similar, albeit smaller goof in A Link to the Past. After defeating Agahnim, Link called on the Flute Boy's bird to carry him from inside Ganon's Tower to the Pyramid of Power, even though both locations are in the Dark World and the bird can only travel in the Light World. Ravio's bird, Sheerow, does have similar animations to the Flute Boy's bird, so maybe the game was implying Ravio found some way for Sheerow to carry him back to Lorule.

Lorule and the Dark World

• Aside from being a clever reference to A Link to the Past, why does Lorule take after Hyrule's Dark World, rather than the actual kingdom? If that's the case, then what would Lorule's Dark World resemble? Maybe Hyrule as it appears in the Light World?
  • It's all about decay. In ALTTP, when Ganon acquired the Triforce, the Sacred Realm (according to Nintendo) became the representation of what was in Ganon's heart. Since Ganon's heart was corrupt and withered, the realm took on that appearance. When the Triforce in Lorule was destroyed, since it was what was keeping the realm alive, it would stand to reason that said realm would then begin to wither, collapse and decay. In a nutshell, just as a dying tree takes on a certain appearance, so would a dying Hyrule. Or Lorule.
  • What I meant, though, is why does Lorule share so many of the Dark World's features? A lot of the dungeons are the same, with only two or three of them being switched around. If it's supposed to be a sort of mirrored version of Hyrule, why does it look so much like the Dark World?
    • Maybe all alternate versions of Hyrule take on that look. Hyrule is set up to be the "best" realm, a place of beauty and splendour. Lorule is, at the time of the game, the antithesis of beauty and splendour. It's dying, and would probably look withered. Likewise, the Dark World took the form from what was in Ganon's heart, and he pretty much is the opposite of Hyrule's ideals. He wants to destroy the beauty and splendour. Also, perhaps Ganon's presence in Lorule shaped it somehow? We don't know what it looked like before Yuga's plot was underway, so maybe the presence of Ganon could somehow shape the kingdom. Without a Triforce, it might have shaped itself from an entity of power, in this case, Ganon. This way, both realms have a reason to look the same; they both are shaped from the same thing.
    • In truth, there isn't a story answer for this, but there is a technical one. A Link Between Words, was began as, and indeed spent a significant chunk of it's life as, an A Link to the Past remake. For at least 60% of the development cycle, perhaps even more it was nothing but a remake, the same game, basically, just updated with the cutting edge graphics and 3D mechanics of the 3DS. Somewhere along the way, when the game was pretty far in development, someone, somewhere had a change of heart or a strike of inspiration. Perhaps they thought with the OoT remake already made and the Majora's Mask remake in progress that another remake of an even older game was just not a good idea for whatever reason. Regardless A Link Between Worlds became it's own separate game at a fairly late point in development, probably a point where a lot of the maps, assets and and dungeons were nearing completion and there just wasn't enough time - or desire to put in the effort - to completely redo the game. As such Lorule looks like the Dark World because it IS the Dark World, or rather was, and was rebuilt and repurposed somewhat later in development.
    • I always saw them as one and the same. Seeing as Hyrule's Sacred Realm connects to Lorule, it's not a stretch to say that Ganon's wishing while trapped in the former managed to fuse them. Lorule was thus prevented from further decaying due to the presence of Hyrule's Triforce, which was now sustaining both worlds. Ganon engaged in a bit of his own redecorating and experimenting as in the lore of Link to the Past, such as switching the locations of Turtle Rock and the Ice Palace and turning Lorule Castle into the Pyramid while the inhabitants became animals (explaining their love of animal masks). Beating Ganon and wishing to undo his destruction fixed Lorule and re-split it from the Sacred Realm, but now without a Triforce its decay spiraled on until this game's events occurred.

Rauru

• In Ocarina of Time, unlike the other sages, Rauru was implied to have always been a sage - he's never given a backstory, he only appears outside the Sacred Realm as Kaepora Gaebora, and Word of God is that he built the Temple of Time over the ruins of the Sealed Temple. The guy would have to be astronomically old to have accomplished that...so where is he in this game? Shouldn't he still be alive? Why did he leave the Sacred Realm to sire a descendant? (Who I'm assuming is Osfala?)
  • Rauru is called the "last of the ancient Sages"—presumably, there was an original set of seven who came into being between Skyward Sword and the other games, but by the time of Ocarina, he's the only one left. We know that the Sages aren't immortal: in Wind Waker, Ganondorf summons monsters who kill the Sages of Earth and Wind, and in Twilight Princess, he personally executes the Sage of Water at the Arbiter's Grounds. In Rauru's case, it's possible that after centuries—or even millennia—of fulfilling his duties, the gods finally decided to let him die, or at least Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence. As for where Osfala came from, my best guess is that Rauru either started a family before becoming a Sage, and those descendants live on, or he was preserved from aging during his time in the Sacred Realm and, before finally moving on to the next world, he was able—or even ordered—to go out and father a child.

Lorule Castle Throne Room

Why does the throne room in Lorule Castle have Ganon heads up near the ceiling? (You can see one of them when Hilda throws up the Triforce of Wisdom.) Also, why does the entrance to the throne room (on the outside) have those claws on either side of the doorway, which look like those entrances to the boss room in many of the dungeons in A Link to the Past? Had Hilda perhaps resorted to Ganon-worship? Well, she did believe that Ganon's power was necessary to save Lorule, so perhaps.

• It's also possible that Yuga-Ganon used the time that Link was out rescuing the Sages to redecorate a little; if that was the case, Hilda likely went along with it because she realized that irritating the very large and powerful monster in the castle with her was a bad idea. Fridge Brilliance kicks in when you remember that Yuga's whole schtick is filling the world with "beauty"—and since he views himself as the most beautiful lifeform in existence, naturally he'd start modeling the castle after himself!

Lorule Castle

• Why is it even a dungeon? There's no in-universe explanation for it. Neither Hilda nor Yuga get anything from further testing Link, because he already has the Triforce of Courage.
  • Hilda was probably hoping that Link would fall to one of the other monsters in the castle, allowing her to claim the Triforce of Courage without risking him making it to the throne room and actually succeeding in taking Yuga out.
  • It's also possible it just got infested with monsters and there was nothing Hilda could do about it. Given the state of the rest of the kingdom, it wouldn't be too surprising.

Why go through with it?

• It’s obvious that Hilda’s ancestors didn’t know that destroying their Triforce would destroy the kingdom until after it was gone...but even so, they had to have known that it was a very sacred and holy relic, all the same. Couldn't they have played things safe and told everyone that they had destroyed it, but without actually doing so?
  • Easy, they were idiots.
  • Considering Hilda's extremist tendencies, it's possible her ancestors had decided that stopping their subjects from destroying each other was more important than maintaining any sense of reverence — especially when the thing being revered was the cause of all their problems in the first place.
  • Lying about it and keeping it hidden is a temporary measure at best. It's only a matter of time until information leaks or someone just stumbles upon it and the conflict resumes. We're talking about a conflict that has gone on for ages, any half measure would work for a few generations at most. And they really had no reason to believe the Triforce was required for the world to keep on existing at all, so why would they show such restraint? Hindsight is 20/20.

Absence of sages

• How come none of Hyrule’s Sages have counterparts in Lorule? The Fridge page suggests this is because with no Triforce, there’s no need for the sages. But what about the actual characters? The lack of Triforce couldn’t have caused them to not be born, and Gulley’s parents, Seres’ father, and Irene’s grandmother all have their counterparts in Lorule — meaning the lineage of the sages must still exist there.
  • Hard to say. Perhaps the specific individuals died in the chaos, or tried to flee Lorule as it fell apart. Or a butterfly effect kept them specifically from being born.
  • In Ocarina of Time, it's remarked that in times of crisis, the Sacred Realm—and possibly the Triforce itself—puts out an "awakening call" to the individuals fated to become Sages. It's possible that, when Lorule's Triforce was destroyed, the Powers That Be in charge of that call either lost their ability to reach out to the destined people or abandoned Lorule entirely as punishment. So while the lineage of the Sages still exists, the actual ability to awaken them doesn't, meaning the people who would be Sages can't activate their powers or title.

---