Honestly it's so sad we didn't see everyone's favorite species the Oocaa in Tears of the Kingdom

​@@guymry I literally just started watching, and from what you said up to the 50 second mark I think that you might've had the same interpretation of the game that I did. I will comment again when I finish watching, here's hoping my comments don't randomly get deleted.

So I just finished the video and I think that we have fairly similar ideas about the game’s story concepts and ties to Skyward Sword. There are some nitpicks that I have with your theory as well as some personal embellishments I would add from my own ponderings. I’d like to discuss them with you if that’s possible, but KZfaq comments are hardly a good place for that considering how often completely innocuous messages have been getting deleted lately. I was wondering if you would be up for having a discussion on Discord or another platform?

Why would you say this? WHY would you say this?! I'm going to be haunted by this possibility in my sleep for the rest of my life now

It’s so nice of you to take meth with your friend before listening to his conspiracy theory.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

That’s just this and FNaF’s whole thing at this point. XD

The Rito not being the WW Rito is like one of the easiest plotholes to explain. The WW ones were magically evolved zoras due to the flood. BotW Rito are just naturally occurring.

Totally. Zelda lore is kinda unique where it somehow manages to straddle the line between there being concrete answers a somehow creating a fertile bed for imaginative speculation that isn't just crazy, but might be legit. Almost like a puzzle that doesn't just fit together one way but it's not just chaos either. You can literally solve the "puzzle" a few different ways

@@zachhiggins1668 Exactly. And like... that's basically the fun of studying history anyway, since we can never truly Truly know what happened. And there's never really one answer, since every person's perspective can be so different. Like there's for sure a true version, but the fun part is reasoning and trying to figure out if it works! Then sometimes someone comes along with new evidence and it completely changes everything!

This is close to my own position on the story, at least regarding TOTK Gamondorf = Demise. I dont think that Zelda becoming Hylia makes as much sense unfortunately because its pretty clear Demise’s musings on Zelda compared to Hylia that she is a shadow of her former self and was absolutely an ascended being of sorts. I really doubt that Demise is supposed to be an unreliable narrator in regards to this description.

That would contradict how Demise described her. He felt it'd be an insult to Hylia to compare her to a "mere sack of flesh" that Zelda is in SS. He likened Hylia to a magnificent being beyond comprehension. That is definitely not BotW/TotK Zelda.

I also considered the idea that Rauru and Sonia’s kingdom could’ve been the first *attempt* at Hyrule, which was tragically destroyed before it could really flourish. After that first Imprisoning War, the remaining peoples of the land were so devastated and the land so ravaged, they set aside the idea of a kingdom until after Skyward Sword. Maybe the king who would become the owl spirit and Sage of Light in Ocarina chose, or was given, the name Rauru to honor the memory of the original king. A way of taking TOTK Rauru’s legacy and saying, “We’re going to try this again. We’re going to resurrect what you began, and make it flourish.”

ALSO, I just really love the idea of TOTK Zelda watching over Hyrule’s entire history, being secretly present in all of the games-maybe even being the source of all the light-based power-ups or assists Link receives just before the various final battles. Each mortal Zelda inherits/is blessed with the Light Dragon’s energy, which can manifest as light arrows or as direct attacks by Zelda herself (as in Windwaker). Conversely, it’s so chilling to think of TOTK Ganondorf lying beneath Hyrule through its entire history, just waiting to finish what *he* started-the total destruction of the world of light. It’s a very “as above, so below” kind of structure, with the sleeping Light Dragon in the sky balancing the dormant Demon King in the Depths.

I believe it has to do with the many references to The Wind Waker like the new rendition of Dragoon Roost Island serving as the official theme song for this new Rito, Kass's daughters singing said song themselves creating a direct connection to the original Rito who lived in the Great Sea and the constant ambiguity regarding their origin in the Era of the Wild giving credence at Nintendo's willingness to leave it possible for this new Rito to have descended from the ones of the Era from the Great Sea.

I personally would suggest the Great Plateau and OoT's Hyrule (or at least a part of it) are the "same", meaning Hyrule castle of OoT would be at the spot where the bomb shrine of botw was located in. When Ganondorf Dragmire created his Dark Castle we see a reddish substance flowing out of the casm beneath, that would be the Malice or Gloom of Corpse-dorf. After OoT, the castle on top of the seal from Rauru that holds Ganondorf is finished in construction, relocating Hyrule to what I would call "Greater Hyrule" (thats why Hebra's snowy mountains, Death Mountain etc line up pretty well with Twilight Princess). I would say that Hyrule castle wasn't really destroyed by Ganondorf at the end of Twilight Princess but hardly damadged. That castle got restored easily to its former glory until Four Swords Adventure, which depicts a stylelized version of it. In FSA Ganon the Second drains Hyrule of its magic, weakening the seal even more. The weakend seal lets malice pure out to a far stronger scale than before and reawakened some consciousness in it, thus forming the first Calamity (the calamity has some consciousness, it wouldnt be capable of making plans like in botw). Calamity after Calamity acours weakening the seal more and more but never destroying it or Hyrule castle, until TotK where it is fully destroyed, reviving Corpse-dorf. The knowledge could be just forgotten for everyone except the Royal family, turned into myth if you want so, if we take to account that Koume and Kotake exist in TotK's past and OoT, that alone would be around 400years between those events, 500years until Twilight Princess and at least 900 years between Ganondorfs seal underground and FSA, alternatively the Shiekah could have silenced the knowledge outside of the royal family by force, leaving only the royal family with that knowledge. I would also like to point out that the amplyfied powers of Rauru due to his sealing stone and his absorbtion of Ganondorfs magic could have maded that seal this strong easily, he essentialy used two secret stones at the same time "You bind my heart and steal my magic. You plan to hold me here...". Hope I could give some solutions.

I don't think totk devs really cared about this lore making sense. The story and storytelling was such a letdown, that it would make sense to assume that they gave less of a damn for the lore. Making theories about Zelda is fine but totk was so bad that I just can't bring myself to make theories. None of the lore in totk makes sense. Yes we can make sense out of it by reaching and coping but I don't like doing that. We need Aonuma out, especially because of his dodgy comments regarding totk criticism.

Also I'm sorry but the twilight princess Castle town texture was actually made up by the localizers because they thought it was cool, there's even an interview and everything

​@@DonutSwordsmana shame we lost the cool patterned decal in those architectural spots too.

Not that that's particularly relevant to this theory anyway, which is remarkably convincing lol

Adobe Premiere Pro!

Would be very weird for the queen of hyrule to hide that kind of secret from her king who is also the sage of light.

@@DillonMaynard but u have to admit they have no symbology representing the triforce anywhere except with Sonia they don't know about it I'm almost leaning towards gannondorf not knowing about it either he never mentions it or anything this is either so far into the future the triforce is lost or it's the beginning of a new cycle hence why u have the snake eating it's own tail

Ok I'll go one by one explaining why your points don't really break the theory, also sorry for the huge text. 1- "Hylia was known and still worshiped in the era of the Zonai as we can see by the existence of a Hylia statue in the Zonai Temple of Time, and the Forgotten Temple which uses architecture borrowed from Skyward Sword" • Yeah, he never mentioned in the theory that Hylia didn't existed before TOTK Imprisoning War, she was around even before the Zonais showed up, Demise sent his demons (as stated in Skyward Sword) after sometime that Ganondorf was imprisoned, and without the Zonai, Hylia needed to step up and protect the Hylians. 12:31 - 13:15 2- ''The Spring of Courage is also clearly meant to be Skyview Spring, and if it had a giant Zonai dragon built over that would have had to have happen after the Skyview Temple decayed away." • Ok, first the spring that is meant to be the Skyview Spring in Botw and Totk, is the Spring of power, the one in Akkala, the Botw Spring of Courage never appeared in Skyward Sword. • But regarding the Dragon Structure if you finish the ''Investigating Typlo Ruins" sidequest in TOTK, there is a monolith that states that all that Zonai ''dark grey ruins'' were built after the Imprisonig War as an homage to Rauru and the Sages. • Kinda off topic but, the only structures that are pretty strange are the Labyrinths, the Labyrinth part is made with the white zonai ancient stones, but the outside is made with the Hylian's stones. But maybe the Zonai, of the Zonais era just worked together with the Hylians to build the Labirynts for no big reason. 3- ''Moreover Skyward Sword says the desertification of Lanayru happened because of the Robots mining timeshift stones which was an order given to them by the Lanayru dragon which was a direct servant of Hylia'' • He never said that the desertification didn't happened, he says that before it was a grassland it was a desert, the desert that we see in the Dragon's Tears. Then Rauru and Sonia's daughter created the robots and timeshift stones to make the desert a grassland 14:55 - 17:48 4- "Similarly Sonia mentions Zelda has a sacred sealing power, and shes referring to the power she got by being a direct descendant of Skyward Sword Zelda who is Hylia reborn." • As stated, in the theory he never said that Hylia didn't existed before the Zonai, and Zelda came from the future, so it doesn't matter if Hylia didn't became Skyward Sword Zelda yet. 5- "Also The Stormwind Ark has a origin story in TotK" • Ok, first of all it is a song that has been passed since ancient times, more than 10.000 years, which means that 99% chance that the lyrics lost a lot of meaning along the time. • But also the lyrics are: "Once, a god fell from heaven, stilling the Hebra winds. The heavens grew lifeless, just as the air below thinned. With the world in upheaval, we pledged to help the lord. A line of ships soaring, built as a passage skyward. The god ascended to heaven, leaving behind an ark. Its winds brought us new life, thanks to its great, divine spark." • This just make more sense with the theory that Hylia lifted the Islands from all the races after Demise's awaken in the Ancient Battle. 20:50 - 22:27.

@@akuatro bruh the Spring of Power is not Skyview Spring. The Spring of Courage is located right next to the Great Plateau and northwest of Lake Floria just like Skyview Spring is located right next to the Sealed Temple and northwest of Lake Floria.

@@stuffz1757 Not really, the Spring of Power looks exactly the same as Skyview Spring, also if we look at Skyward Sword map the Skyview Spring is located to the right of Eldin volcano, where in Botw is Akkala, so even if we consider geographic locations, the Spring of Power and Skyview Spring are in the same place in both games

@@akuatro the map in Skyward Sword isn't literal. The areas are much further apart than they appear otherwise you'd be able to see Lanayru Desert from Faron or Faron from Eldin, and you can't. Moreover the Spring of Power has a quarry outside of it, and a quarry only forms from subterranean geothermal activity, which is basically what the entirety of the Earth Temple from Skyward Sword is. The fact that it looks like Skyview Spring can be chalked up to a coincidence as its clear both springs have undergone a large amount of change between Skyward Sword and BOTW. Imo I think it's likely that the Spring of Power/Earth Spring went forgotten about for a long time up until the quarry outside it was discovered and then the spring probably got dug out. Imo I think the timeline would be: Hylia era when places like Skyview Temple and the Earth Temple were built, these temples possibly being built alongside some fraction of Zonai given their heavy emphasis on three eyes. | Skyward Sword/Giant Hylia statue falls to the ground | Earliest Hylian era which focused on the construction of places like the Forgotten Temple, the Lanayru Promenade, and Spring of Wisdom. | Era of Chaos is kicked off by Interloper War > | EoC rages in after Interloper War | Zonai descend to help quell Interloper War, alongside OOT Rauru they rebuild the Temple of Hylia and seal the Sacred Realm, they also build stuff like the Stormwind Ark, the Water Temple, the Zonai Temple of Time and so on. This is the Era where the room with the Secret Stones in the Forgotten Temple was built. Most of the Zonai are wiped on in the EoC | Rauru and Sonia found Hyrule, several years later the Imprisoning War happens. | Ruins like Thyploo are built after this but before everything else. The Skyview Spring is built over by the giant dragon. | Other games | 10K Sheikah era happens, this is the Era the labyrinths are built in. | At some point the Spring of Power is unearthed.

@@stuffz1757 Tbh your timeline also makes a lot of sense, I just want to keep believing that Rauru existed before Demise since the trailers. In regard of the Spring being east of the volcano, I just used as an example, I know that we can't take the map locations and names for sure, I just said that because you pointed that the Spring was north of Lake Floria, but even between games they keep changing landmarks places, like Lake Hylia being in multiple different locations. At this point I just hope that they make a new updated timeline in the Totk Masterworks, because the Totk memories made everything way too confusing lol.

Wouldnt have it any other way 😎

Oh this was absolutely an issue. We had years to wait so speculations went crazy. Expectations built for a game that was simply never planned. I think the biggest issue was “a direct sequel” just misled expressions. Not that the games perfect. I’ve got my problems with the sky and plot etc like anyone else. But I also don’t expect the lore to take the front seat either. Like clearly fuse and ultrahand are where a good chunk of development went. Kind of a side note ramble because it’s fun, but I find too often people try and connect Botw and Totk directly with the older games. When we call them the wild games for a reason. They are effectively a soft reboot so it’s allowed to play with the rules more. It’s quite literally potentially hundreds of thousands of years post WW. Tens of thousands for sure. Like the time between Botw and the rest (including the past of Totk with the zonai) can happen longer in the future the skyward sword is to twilight princess. 10,000’s of years lmao Mythology changes and the world is literally magical. The triforce is the relic of deities who said it has to follow strict laws. TLDR: I agree, I find people let their expectations taint their opinions on Totk and can’t not compare to what they thought it could be.

Like the criticisms I do agree with are, the sky is underwhelming for how much it was marketed. The depths is still my favourite part but it is odd that it’s a single biome throughout. The dungeons are a step up but really only the lightning and spirit where good as dungeons imo. Wind was neat but not the dungeon itself. The sages are annoying to use. Spoilers I do think Zelda coming back at the end is disappointing, I was so down for a game where she straight up sacrificed herself and they had to figure shit out without the royal family at all. Might be unsatisfying but it’s not like she’s dead, she’s literally an important guardian now. Wanna talk about breaking conventions of Zelda. That would do away with the royal family while still keeping “the legend of Zelda” Then you can have game post dragon Zelda and pre dragon Zelda games since you have that time gap still. I think it’s a missed opportunity personally. But ultimately Totk is an open world sandbox, I’m not torn up about Zelda coming back because I’m spending 2 minutes watching that cutscene, while I spent 100hr driving a car around the province to save your ass, I’m honestly content spending more time playing with the physics engine and seeing what man made horrors Nintendo let us create.

@@anubion42 oh for sure I agree with most of your criticisms. It’s just to me, it was obvious the creators were more concerned with creating a fun game than trying to work within an established lore which makes sense and I’m happy they did that. They have always been clear that that has always been their priority, and the whole timeline thing was intended to be a fun thing for fans to speculate. The game itself is great (imo) with flaws, like any other game, but to judge it based off of what it isn’t doesn’t seem fair to me. They purposely set the game so far into the future to leave the past connection to older games up to speculation, and I do like that. Leaving things unexpected like how thinks connect leave a fun air of mystery to things. I do want to say, I think it would have made a big impact if there was bigger consequences (link losing his arm, Zelda not coming back) but for them to make games further into the future they do need the goddesses bloodline to continue so I understand why they didn’t do that, it’s less complicated to wrap everything up in a happy ending

The game's story going in an unexpected direction is one thing. The game's story being a horrible written mess full of plotholes is another. The sacred stones being power amplifiers make no sense because Ganondorf with one stone can over power Rauru and 5 sages fighting beside him, but then Rauru can overpower him solo. This also completely disregards the dev's comment about the game's theme of "hands" and connections: you win after discarding the dead weight. Link basically does the same in the present as Rauru already did in the past. Everything involving the characters around the assassination is them just being stupid. To Sonia and Zelda not thinking through confronting Ganondorf without Rauru, to Rauru just going back to being a passive king dismissing the threat when that behavior just cost him his queen. The ending is completely deus ex machina because it is completely unearned. Everything gets returned to status quo. No sacrifices or learned lessons. Completely worthless narrative. It's not even a reward for a complete memory collection. You just get the happy ending, even without the player getting the Master Sword. The fact recall exists is the only thing that makes it work. Except it's still BS because recall working in the finale makes the opening completely illogical. There's no way recall, even with the stone, would send Zelda (that she doesn't even know how to use) all the way back 10s of thousands of years. If anything she would be rewound back to the top of the no longer existing cliff. The plot also just gave her the broken Master Sword through the Temple of Time. Neither Zelda nor Link truly triggered that instance of magic. By minimum those instances should've been done by Sonia's spirit to warrant her popping up in the finale. These are all problems with the story _presented_ and have nothing to do with the Zonai (and Zelda) being retconned after BotW or issues with the general timeline. These are solely "the game's story is bad" criticism.

@@amandaslough125 okay? I didn’t say all criticism are bad, I said most that I’ve seen. You just made a ton of assumptions here. It’s fair to feel that way but it’s not really a response to what I said

Lore are story aren't quite the same thing Many people are of the opinion that the Tears story is good, the storytelling is bad, and the lore is disappointing/at odds with the rest of the Zelda universe Most criticism I've seen about the story isn't about the story itself, it's about the story as a story experience

@@TaliesinMyrddin I guess that makes sense. Personally I thought the storytelling was great. And I can see how some people are upset about it connecting to the other Zelda games, but personally (don’t hate me, everyone) I think it’s ok if the lore doesn’t match up if that means that the game creators aren’t limited in their story telling

@@Dani-ix5bu I'm not gonna attack anyone who accepts others view things differently, I just share my own, you're good For me it's less that the lore doesn't match and more than that it feels more than ever like they don't really care about it matching up - which they've basically said they focus on the game over the story, and fair enough, but for most of my life Zelda's been able to fit pretty neatly into an overall timeline and honestly it was one of the things I loved most, and in Tears and BotW it feels more like a reboot than an entry to figure out where it fits, is all