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The thing that disturbed me The most about this game is that when you kill a like like and it drops a weapon or bow it implies someone was eaten by a like like.

The Cass situation I chocked up to him visiting other Rito tribes like how Yona explains how she technically wasn't from Hyrules Zora Domain.

The ancient hero is probably one of the first Zonai Hylian hybrids, since Calamity Ganon is probably a product of imprisoned Ganondorf, and by the time he was imprisoned, the last Zonai were Rauru and Mineru, I believe that the ancient hero is Rauru and Sonia's either son or a little more distant offspring, and probably the first one to fight off Calamity Ganon after Ganondorf's imprisonment. That's the only way the timeline of BOTW and TOTK fits in my mind.

There are pillars with three soldier ghosts and those are underneath calamity memorials zelda created on the surface, so these are souls lost to the calamity and are probably trying to aid link in his fight by giving him undecayed weapons and once you take the weapon they go away,their purpose fulfilled.

I’d bet they changed miasma to gloom for two reasons: it was too close to malice which was confusing, and miasma is associated with plagues and pandemics which is a touchy subject even in 2023.

I think the bargainers statues are not evil. Their jobs is leading lost souls to the after life. In a Yiga journal it says that when one of the Yiga approached it they died instantly which referring that Yigas are actually lost souls. When Link approach it nothing happens because Link is not a lost soul

I was playing tears of the kingdom and had barley explored hyrule for literally 5 minutes and those creepy hands got me it completely caught me off guard

An interesting thing about The Ancient Hero form is it's very reminiscent of Twilight designs, almost like a combination between it and the Zonai

the three ghosts are located under each of the monuments that Zelda made to honor those who lost their lives in the calamity.

You know, one thing that came to my mind about the Ancient Hero is more about their tail. The only other humanoid species I can think of that has a tail (that isn't a monster) are the Pikori, who also have elf-like ears, snouts, and rather animalistic feet. So, my theory is this: What if the Ancient Hero was actually a sort of missing link (pun not intended) between the Zonai and the Pikori? Both come from the sky, both are close to the gods. By the time Minish Cap came around the Zonai were long gone? Who's to say they couldn't have evolved into the Pikori? The Ritos evolved in only a couple centuries, so what's a few millenia?

Another thing that was creepy for me is that the first set of underground statues you are sent to photograph/follow don't look like any current race - they are sort of badger/mole/people. Who were they and what happened to them? The king gleeok arena in the depths is a square with a statue at each corner: the ones corresponding to the Gerudo, Zora, Gorons, and Rito. The badger/mole/people aren't included. Why not? (The arena presumably could've been made to be a pentagon instead of a square.)

The bargainers are my biggest interest so far. If you look at their 4-eyed face, their nose forms a scale along with the eyes, indicating they would weigh the merit of souls, like the Anubis weighs the hearts of the dead. Not sure this indicates their fair judgement of all souls or if they are indeed judging while saying they don't. A second point being the face on their backs. After visiting the forgotten temple one and taking lots of pictures, to me, that face is actually that of a Bokoblin! If we ignore the quite angry looking eyes, the triangular pig snout and wide mouth with few fangs is very similar to a Bokoblin. Why the angry stare though? It really goes against their neutral nature. And as for their name, it seems they are callen Majin in japanese, so I've seen it also translated as "demon". Either way, the name bargainer mostly reduced the mystery, unlike the horned statue that although less mysterious, is still quite creepy.

The Gloom/Miasma can also be something else...blood. Ganondorf's tainted blood, to be exact.

I'm a fan of my friend's theory about the ancient hero: he looks like a combination of the zonai and hyrulians, so he might be a child/descendent of Raru and Sonia

Some have speculated that the Ancient Hero really IS Zonai after all. The theory originates from the Rito and that though the fact remains that they're all birds, they aren't all based off of the _same_ bird. Some like Kass look like a Parrot while Penn looks more akin to a Pelican. Now taking this back to the Zonai, we have only seen two, Rauru and Mineru. Both resemble Llama's or goats in appearance, Mineru even has rabbit-like ears, but that's all we have to base the Zonai off of. The Ancient Hero almost seems to resemble a Lemur but with some canine-like features as well. Who's to say that the Zonai weren't as diverse as the Rito are? Perhaps they're even more diverse than we think. We simply don't know enough about the Zonai, though Ganondorf reveals that they are extinct with the two siblings having been the last of them but not how it came to be that way. My speculation is that it was the original Calamity, although that would throw the Ganondorf = Calamity Ganon theory way off, but remember that is not confirmed, only implied (at least to my knowledge).

The ancient hero doesn't have the third eye at least in the aspect, but who really knows at this point if all zonai have third eyes or if none have tails.

Interesting fact about the gloom is that it’s technically less deadly than the original malice. Just in the fact that it damages you slower which goes against my initial instincts. I guess they assumed it’d be too OP if it damaged as fast or faster and temporarily locked hearts up.

10:40 He is NOT the first hero to have defeated Calamity Gabon. The calamity must have happened at LEAST twice for the Sheikah to be able to predict the event and create the divine beasts and what not.

I noticed in tears of the kingdom that you can tell the shadow soldiers are indeed Hyrule soldiers due to the helms, if you have the soldier’s helm. stand next to them and it has the same shape so if link is wearing someone’s from the army’s armor that and the helms match that means they are either the same or I’m just going too deep into a design choice

I'd say the most spine chilling thing I noticed was at the southwest corner of the map. beneath arbiters grounds- which was taken from the gerudo who seemingly no longer exist at the time of twilight princess, with all inclinations that they were dragged to it and executed or banished, as a society and culture- there is a zonai structure entitled "The Gerudo Cemetery." I found the implications of it to be the most skin crawlingly bleak of anything in the game.

I've never seen the faces on the backs of the Bargainers before! For once, one of these videos shows something I *didn't* already know. Great work!

I am such a LoZ nerd that in the evenings all I do is watch Totk content and before that Botw. Player5, Zeltik, Loogyi Bros, Limcube, Croton, Moxie Watts, Common Wealth Realm, Nintendo Black Crisis. This is top tier work and content. You should feel good about the end result. I thoroughly enjoyed how well researched and thought out the video was. I see the same content over and over from other creators. This definitely is OC.

I would say Ive literally spent a year of my life playing Ocarina of Time literally 365 days worth of playing to an obsessive point where it became a staple of my childhood and who I am, to this day the scariest thing to me has to be the redeads. Even now as Im grown up me playing as grown up Link I still feel that same terror followed by remembering its just a game and then killing them once for me now and then again for me as a 3 year old child covering his ears watching his Mom play for him.

A possible reason for Gloom being named in such a way is because of “gloomy weather”, as sunlight (and natural light in general, as seen from Sundelions and Lights of Blessing) is a direct counteract to Gloom.

I would normally edit my other comment, but this seemed like helpful information to share without going unnoticed. I noticed the actual corresponding feature for the single pillars with 3 spirits. Anywhere you find one of the monuments with a Silent Princess is where you'll find those pillars. If you stand on the monument, change the map level to the depths, and drop a stamp, it'll be right on the pillar.

It could also be because Nintendo America didn’t think kids would be able to read “miasma” or know what it means. It still would have been a better name than gloom.

I'll always remember the first time I came across those damn hands…

The Ancient Hero's Aspect seems to be more than just a Zonai. I noticed quite quickly after getting it. If you look, it has physical traits from at least 4 out of 6 (counting the zonai) of all the Hyrulean races. The face, ears, and torso are a blend of Hylian and Zonai. The hair is the same red as the Gerudo. The legs and feet are reminiscent of the Rito. I can't really see anything that's unique to the Zora or Gorons, so I might be over-analyzing it. I also can't explain the tail, unless that's supposed to be from the Zora. Since the Zora tails are on their heads though, I don't really think that tracks.

In Japanese, these Bargainers are known as 魔人像 (Majin-zou) Which means Demon statue.

They do mention the word miasma when describing Gloom in the English version, so it was a very conscious decision to change the name.

I love the bargainer statues since I believe they do represent the good and the bad, Grim Reapers in other words. You can also connect their payment of souls to the mythical Charon who wants payment to help you cross the river Styx. Excellent episode! 👍🏻🇸🇪

I want to believe that it was called 'Gloom' because most people in the Americas(USA/maybe Canada) don't particularly have 'Miasma' in their vocabulary unless they've done a deep dive into the European Histories.

The trio spirit soldiers are under a Plaque written by Zelda which recognizes the souls that have been lost to the Calamity. The easiest one to find is in Castle Town of Hyrule Castle. In the Depths there should be three soldier Spirits. I’ve heard a theory from another content creator that the spirits, like poe’s are stuck in the mortal plane. However they believed the soldiers are waiting to fulfill there purpose. Offering up their weapons to the Hero of Hyrule to continue their duty they could not accomplish. Once you take the weapons they disappear, likely to the afterlife. However, the strange thing about these spirits is that they will reappear/respawn after a blood moon… which brings stranger questions.

How can you dislike the ancient hero!? He looks so rad!

I have not gone through all of ToTK yet, and know very little about these bargaining statues. But they did remind me of something as they might be a reference to something else in another game. The 4 bosses / Giants of Termina In Majora's Mask you have Four bosses. Each of them wearing a mask that seals the spirit a Giant. Rather, these giants are sleeping and their 'song to order' is locked behind defeating these bosses. Now the Bargaining statues could be either reference to the bosses or to these hulking giants that sleep within the land, as they are the spirits of the mountains, oceans, forests and desserts. This reference falls apart when I am to understand there are only three of said statues? The hulking ones? Well, in true theory fashion I have a solution for that too that is just too convenient to not use. Desserts. Mountains. Forests. Oceans. Three of these locations are reachable through the depths, one is not. You cannot reach the oceans. So maybe one is sleeping there we simply can't reach this way. If this holds up we'd have to check if each hulking bargaining statue is indeed in the three different terrains. IF not, I got nothing.

When I saw those hands for the first time I honestly got creeped out, reminded me of the forest temple from ocarina lol

There was a creepy link I made explaining why Ganon's power grows under the blood moon. A blood moon in real life is just a lunar eclipse, the moon in the earth's shadow. This being the case, if the only way you can recover from gloom is by standing on the surface or only where there is enough light, then it would stand to reason that Gloom and Ganon's power grows weaker in the light. By having a lunar eclipse happen, even the reflected light of the sun is diminished. Thus Ganon's power can operate without interference from sunlight. Long story short, Ganon's power is strongest when there is no light source great enough to interfere.

My head canon is that the ancient hero is ganondorf and an unnamed zonais son... Hear me out... How did ganondorf know so much about the zonai and their powers... Why was he so set on their destruction... I think the zonai mother died in the birth, and the child hidden away... Ganondorf was told the child died, and the events we see happen continue on their path(listen to his words again from the view of a father who lost everything)... When the first calamity happens, the son, now older, rises up to end his father's evil... Common trope in fantasy. The son atoning for the fathers sins...

Fun fact: Bargainer statue in dutch gameplay is called a devil statue (duivels beeld)

I'd bet Kass the Bard will be DLC :)

I truly believe the ancient hero was a Zonai/Gerudo hybrid instead of Hylian. It would have awesome implications of this ancient hero was an offspring by an incarnation of Ganondorf.

i’ve just barely started playing totk, i’ve only gotten one temple done, and i’m working on the zora temple. but these made so much sense, even though i’ve not played totk long, all because of botw.

What if the ancient hero is zonai and gerudo mix?

NintendoBlackCrisis suggests the bargainer statues are grim reapers or psychopomps given the language they use towards the poes and merely are there to retrieve and guide poes (lost souls) to the afterlife Also, if you check many of the surface locations for the soldier spirits, most of them are graves or memorials to Hyrule's guards and soldiers; suggesting they are just truly soldiers not able to be at rest due to war trauma (thus, being lingering spirits with attachments) and/or Ganon's influence.

I think it’s interesting how the bargainer statue eyes (at least to me) look like to sets of scales. With the right and left eye being the actual part of the scale you would put weight on. Makes the undertaker idea make more sense.

Oh, oh! Maybe the Ancient Hero is a combination of multiple races! Gerudo hair and jewelry, Hylian physique, Zonai skin, Rito-inspired feet, Zora-inspired tail, that sort of thing!

Miasma is such a menacing name ngl

I think the b.statues were some type of giants or titans, before world changed as you can see one pretty much creating a coridor underground.

14:58 not to be ominous or anything but the armour has a mini secret stone in the forehead like ganondorf did 😱

Very insightful

In the netherlands we call gloom miasma as well...

also do notice once you've beaten the game, another sage power shows up, it could be either ganon's power (obtained by smashing his secret stone,) or Zelda's.

I'm gonna be honest- I didn't really enjoy the video as it felt VERY basic, but that had to have been the SMOOTHEST transition to a RAID shadow legends ad I've ever seen. Kudos for that.

I saw the statues as a small easter egg to the giants from Majora's mask. same build, same faces around the same place.

Btw every giant root of gloom points towards hyrule castle, or ganondord

Cool detail about bargainer statues. They return souls, ie poes, to the afterlife, right? Well look closely at their faces. Their eyes bear the shape of scales. In egyptian mythos, scales are used to weigh the hearts of the dead to determine their eternal fate. However the statues in TotK state that there is no good or evil in wandering spirits, and they all simply get sent along to the afterlife. So perhaps this is a bit of a design change during development; or perhaps I am simply over thinking a few details.

The faces on the back of the bargainer statues makes me think of the giants from Majoras Mask.

I normally see shoki or miasma in animes in the context of some supernatural nocive cloud of bad energies (shoutouts to InuYasha and many other shows), so it seems like a more complex meaning in their culture. I suppose it just doesn't really translate well even if other languages use the word miasma, but I wouldn't have just used malice once again as they are different.

for the ancient hero, the requisites to be the Chosen hero have always been that the person in question has to have a soul and heart full of Courage, and be chosen by Hylia and the Master Sword, there's never been anything about the Hero needing to be Hylian or a male, perhaps this hero was one of the new non hylian chosen ones, or like you said, someone between Zonai and Hylian, after all Rauru and Zonia must have been some of the last interspecies marriages and probably had a child to keep the royal lineage alive, but who knows!

I'm glad I didn't notice the Barginer's body while playing as the shock would've killed me.

“Offer Poes” - um…idk if I want to

These days, a miasma refers to a dense fog or bad smell.

I was thinking about the Bargainer Statues the other day and I thought that maybe they are reaaaally ancient goddess statues that have been forgotten to time. I dunno tho

Also when you are using ultra hand to build stuff kass’ music plays in the background very lightly nobody else has ever noticed that besides me but next time you’re building something turn the volume up you can hear his accordion playing

ngl the ancient hero kinda gives hint of the Shieka tribe experiments to make a hero.

3:49 in Spanish it was translated to "Aura Maligna", which means "Evil Aura". This is the same term used in some animes and rpg to refer to a black and red energy. Gloom sounds just silly

I had a scary thing I was in the depths and I just watched something kinda scary so I was like on edge and then I heard the like screech of that aerocuda(I had to go on my purah pad to find it lol) and it dropped the bomb barrel on me and my heart skipped a beat (when im on edge I'm scared easily) so yeah....

When you find a large platform with three spirit soldiers, you will find a monument dedicated to the fallen soldiers on the surface

Shoki in german is Chocolate or a chocolate Drink❤😂

Miazma as in Tunics Miazma the substence that sucks your max health and zombafied all rune seekers before you? Wow.

that moment when the spirit of the hero travels through the master sword.

I feel like the “ancient hero” and its likeness to both zonai and Hylians would infer that the hero who fought the calamity may have been the descendant of Rauru and Sonia

The ancient hero could be a Lynel or a lynel hybrid. They were depicted as guardian spirits in previous iterations and they more or less match the description, if you think of the outfit as Link, being infused with lynel powers, which is how the items are described in lore.

I think the ancient hero's aspect is just a mesh of both Link and King Rauru. just mixed into one.

Actually, the ancient hero from the Calamity before BOTW and that the armor is based off of in TOTK cannot be the first hero to face the Calamity. There's nothing supporting that idea, because the Calamity 10,000 years before BOTW, Hyrule was prepared for the Calamity's return with the Guardians, meaning that there had to have been at least one other Calamity before. I surmise that there were at least 3 or 4 other Calamities before BOTW, including the one with the ancient hero. Hyrule had to discover the pattern of the Calamity returning every 10,000 years, and it happening one time wouldn't have been enough to make that assumption. If the ancient hero was the first hero to face the Calamity, how did Hyrule know of the Calamity's 'return', and why did the Sheikah create the Guardians to help fight the Calamity, a threat that they (Hyrule) would have never faced up until that point. My theory is that the Calamity with the ancient hero was at least the fourth Calamity Hyrule faced. After facing the Calamity 2 times, Hyrule could see that it took 10,000 years for it to return if they were keeping records, and the third time would have solidified the theory that it occurred every 10,000 years and the fourth one is when the Guardians are created and the ancient hero is the one to wield the Master Sword against the Calamity.

In german the Bargainer Statues are called "Magierstatuen" which means "wizard statues" translated...

You ruined the bargainer statues for me i never once thought of them as more then a face now i get Shadow of the Colossus vibes when i get near them

Yeah, if they come out w a new LoZ series, or if they keep this one going, then I'm sure they can have fresh content for decades to come! Basing the next games on the first, original hero. Maybe even at the end of THAT series, Link and the original hero meet up, and maybe the hero doesn't get a long w Link, maybe they have beef or etc.. jus a random rant I guess

I think the ancient hero is a mixed appeareance of Zonai and Hylians and since the there were more Hylians than Zonai later on the future generation became pure Hylians

I always thought the bargainer statues were the fossilized Guardian Deity's from Majora's Mask

One of the bargained statues actually says that they have been waiting for eons, which is literally billions of years...

Maybe The Ancient Hero was a human sized Minish and the gold part represents his Secret Zonai Stone that made him human sized there was concept art showing a tiny house in BOTW's concept art?

You know your stuff

We seen those hands before in wind waker

Who are the way marker statues in central hyrule depicting? they look like lizard people or if not the aincient hero with similar facial structure and animal feet.

I think Rauru is actually a bad dud(e) too. as Ganon implies before Rauru seals him away, he said that that it was clever use to seal away his enemies while Rauru was sealing him away for how ever long it was. could it be this was what he did to anybody trying to stop him from becoming Hyrule first king? but because Ganon's power was too strong, Rauru sacrificed his life too? maybe the other "Zonai", in the shrines were Rauru's enemies. As Ganon said before fighting link; he would crush any opposition in order to rule, also saying it was what a king must do. (either that, or don't listen to Ganon.) I'm also using my sister's account.

just gonna be funny, I'mma guess the soldiers are link's past deaths, he is the "silent knight" after all.

Apparently and i forget where i read it but the bargainers statues are based on the true form of the goddess

Any spanish speakers here say “eso tilin” when using Tulin’s ability?

The soldier shades all resemble soldiers from OCARINA OF TIME!

Huh, it IS called "miasma" in Russian dub...but it's closely translated in general, in botw quest logs were Link's diary

I looked everywhere for Kass was so sad I couldn’t find him

welp, I'm calling it Miasma now. I never liked Gloom as a name, and Miasma just feels better. In particular, the line Zelda says towards the beginning that's like "This Gloom getting thicker down here" or something, and I hated that line. I just *know* that the line is going to be better if I replace "Gloom" with "Miasma" the next time I come across it.

I need to check the compendium.

In russian, the barganairs statues are called mage statues... Dunno how that can be useful

The bargainer statue stole the souls of some yiga clan members

Also there is ONE bargainer statue that doesn't correspond with a Goddess Statue on the surface (the Plains Bargainer Statue).

The bargainer statues must be connected to the giants.

The shadow soldiers only have weapons you've found and broke the decayed versions of.