Fun facts: the gloom roots point towards hyrule castle, and zelda disappears from the blood moon cutscene if you defeat the phantom saboteur. Also should we keep in mind the mini statues at the great plateau entrance and lookout landing? I love this video so much! I love how much effort you put into it along with other people
Fun fact the goddess statue wasn't in the forgotten temple during the memories. rauru takes the sages there to give them the stones and we see the door open with no goddess statue. In a later memory he's getting a status update from the other sages and the spot where they are standing is where the goddess statue would stand in the present. The goddess statue was moved there later
@@MoxieWatts I'm still puzzling over that one I have some people I've been combing the game for details with and our best guess is the platue but the details are too long for a RUclips comment
@@MoxieWatts I would suspect right where Ganondorf was sealed, deep within the depths, since it's a place of strong concentrated power with the Darkroots that spew Miasma. It's the only place possible, because why would Ganondorf and Rauru along with the Sages all be in the very place Ganondorf was sealed? What was he doing there when confronted by Rauru and the other Sages? I would like to believe the remnants of Demise being present there, even though he was sealed within the Master Sword in the past timeline, but the other Demise in the present and future timeline of Skyward Sword was sealed within the grounds when the wish was made to eradicate him with the power of the Triforce when the Goddess Statue returned to where it once was before it was raised into the sky by Hylia. This would explain why Ganondorf was where he was under Hyrule Castle, or rather... before Hyrule Castle was ever built on those grounds. Much secrecy was kept about Hyrule Castle's place and why it was built there, and why would they have generations of the Hylian Royal Family telling each member to NEVER go to near the place that leads deep into the depths of the castle. Over hundreds of generations they're always told to never go deep below Hyrule Castle, Zelda even mentions it right at the very beginning of Tears of the Kingdom.
The big telltale sign of the Goddess statue being moved in the present is the second level landing where the statue’s shoulders (at least, im remembering shoulders) are is broken and chipped out so that the statue can fit where it sits.
@@VitaminSwann0 What's also interesting to me is that you can see concept art of what the room looked like before the Goddess Statue was shoved in there by looking at page 51 of the Collector's Edition Artbook. There's also an interesting crest engraved into the wall (obscured in-game) that has many elements from the stained glass art seen in the Zonai throne room.
The tears also look like part kf a YinYang symbol which is the epitomy of light and dark. Like you said in the video, light can not exist without dark and the other way around. So when the bargainer tells you that the thought of just good and evil is naive. Thats why there are dots of light in the dark and dots of dark in the light.
So to me, visually and gameplay anyway, the bargainner statues are evocative of the poe collector from ocarina of time (he replaces the gaurd in the hyrule castle gaurd house/might actually be the gaurd but cursed) these guys all have one eye which is hooded in visually similar way to the bargainner statues. Poes have always been around in zelda but historically have been depicted as somewhat different from a dead person's spirit (i.e. dampes ghost is ocarina of time is called a ghost - not a poe. In windwaker they seem to straight up be a different species) I'm curious how poe collectors and the historical versions of poes might fit in to your theories.
Really not liking the fact that the subtitles stray away from the video so many fucking times. Its honestly annoying. Its hard to tell what's being said when the captions are in a whole different conversation. Edit: For the entirety of the Sheikah Tech part of the video and part of the Gloom segment, the subtitles were on off their own adventure talking about something completely different. It was so hard to focus on the video.
the time sfit stoneis ye even i omage had ben thinking that as i to cam a corss a mine fo hileya to but i also found that some fo the miesis hav books at them talking abuot wet thayb wer usis for
Nah I personally don’t like the over simplification when comparing past timelines to totk, especially when talking about the Zelda games which carry on motives from other games
I can't necessarily come up with a good explanation of why Sheikah tech from ages past are missing, because there was a lot of Sheikah tech, and dismantling them to make new towers just doesn't quite sit right with me. We're almost forgetting about the 5th Divine Beast that was present in Breath of the Wild, one that was meant for Link to pilot. But this Divine Beast was deep underground the Shrine of Resurrection. But when we visit the Shrine of Resurrection in Tears of the Kingdom, there's literally nothing of the shrine to speak of, all of the stuff have been stripped clean, and then you got a hole at the back of the shrine which leads down to a Misko Treasure, but before that you find a small pool of water that heals you. Also deep in The Depths in that exact location you find the Spring of Resurrection. Between there and the surface, the Divine Beast should have been found since nobody but Link found it, as it was completely unknown to everybody else, and yes I know it was part of a DLC for BotW, but it was still the 5th undiscovered Divine Beast. As for their disappearance, one might think that with Zelda going back into the past altered the events somewhat that probably erased them, this was a predefined moment in time that always happens no matter what, because as The Upheaval was taking place, new shrines never before seen suddenly appeared as if out of nowhere, just as how the sky islands became visible and some of them came falling down, and in the places where most of those other Sheikah shrines were from before opened up into chasms. Also don't you find it strange how some of the Sky Islands and ruins that crashed down on the surface have this weird stone pattern to it? Some parts of the surface end up taking on this weird stone pattern as if they were merged with the surface, almost like they've glued in place after landing in certain places. Normally when something falls from the sky high up, they create some sort of large impact around the area, but these ruins don't seem to do that, except for maybe one exception, the Ring Ruins, some of them crashed into surface pretty hard, while others broke apart a little and still remained floating only closer to the surface. The only floating piece you see is in Kakariko while everything else around there is on the ground. There is that small floating island just outside of Kakariko if leaving West side, the way that one is positioned makes it seem like it was intentionally placed at that specific height, but I may just be speculating on that part.
Robbie literally made an arrow head that disintegrates shiekah tech. That’s probably how they got rid of it so a take over wouldn’t happen again. The event of botw are precisely why the tech was forbidden after the 10k calamity.
27:00 Princess Mononoke on the surface, Laputa Castle in the Sky up in the air and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind for the Depths. Playing BOTW and TOTK is like living out childhood fantasies.
I thought that TotK was completely separate from the rest of the series too, but I remembered a tiny detail in Skyward Sword that made me pause. The tall Guardians with the claymores look like armored Zonai. Their silhouettes look similar and they have metallic ears with earrings on their ends similar to how Rauru has many piercings on his ears. It just could be a coincidence but it’s fascinating regardless
Regarding the Sheikah tech, in the Champions Ballad we received the one hit obliterator from a console that manifested entirely from blue energy. Perhaps the divine beasts and guardians and everything else was recalled back to the source of that blue energy. Specifically to prevent it being hijacked again. The small amount left over in the form of towers and at the akkala tech lab may be a calculated risk.
I like to believe that in the 7 years between BOTW and TOTK, Zelda had them disassembled so Purah and Robbie would have plenty of supplies to play with and so Ganon couldn’t take them over again
@@MoxieWatts yeah a lot of people look at this game and I hear them say there’s not a lot of story between breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom but I disagree. I feel like there’s so much to dissect. But I love that your videos are long to because you get to cover a lot.
There are two things i'd like to add onto the whole "shiekah stole the eyes of the bargainer" theory: The stolen eyes are located on the surface, near where the old shrines used to be, creating a potential link to the shiekah. Also There is mention of the yiga clan members' souls being stolen by the statue in a notebook made by a yiga member. I think it wouldn't make sense for the statue to simply steal souls of passing travelers, but if the shiekah did steal the eyes at one point, then it would make sense that perhaps the statues still hold an ancient grudge against shiekah people Just some food for thought.
Maybe the theory that the ancient Sheikah were using Souls/Poes as fuel for their technology really is true, and they used the Barginer Statue's eyes as an extraction medium? or a reference point for collecting souls?
I feel like the idea is that BOTW and TOTK take place incredibly far in the future of the other games. Meaning that the other games are now the Legends that have been told. So for once we are seeing the truth of events rather than the Legends of Zelda that have been told. Also, just a note, but Ganondorf definitely becomes possessed by Demise, just referred to as the Demon King, same role in Skyward Sword. He even says that Rauru tried to control his power with the secret stones. Which brings up an interesting idea. That the sages actually use demonic power to seal the demon king. Or that perhaps the demon king was also a member of the goddess race meaning there could be others. Almost even suggests that Link may carry this same blood line. After playing through everything I think this rationalizes all of the references to the old games that seem slightly off. They are legend and like all old stories they change over time.
I 100% agree! I think that this is maybe Nintendo’s way of soft-resetting the series, but in the best way possible. All of the references and misspellings of old stuff from the series is just the way that those stories influenced the Hyrule we see now. Especially with how Ganondorf’s meeting at the castle is SO SIMILAR to OoT, but still has obvious differences.
I was almost laughed out of the room for suggesting this. My theory was that everyone we see in skyward sword is actually from the zonai race with the hero who defeated demise being the one depicted in the heroes aspect, but since skyward sword is the legend the stories where changed to something hylians are familiar with. That way the new forming of hyrule would make sense to me.
I'm just gonna say it: this is one of the best video game theorist channels. Channels like yours bring such a fresh light to this genre. You're actually passionate about what you're talking about and aren't trying to come to conclusions based on incredibly far reaches. But you still heavily speculate but in a way that's honestly enjoyable. popular (cough cough cough) game theorists simply cannot do it like channels like you guys. keep doing what you do
The massive "roots" that go all over the underground could be a form of mycorrhizal networks following ancient dendritic roots. The weird "moldy" like stuff is the actual mycelium from the large fungi everywhere. The huge, chasm-spanning roots could come from a previous Great Tree/Deku Tree, as we've seen some form of a one in nearly every title since OoT.
I am now curious if the reference to "bad air" that was in A Link to the Past is recontextualized by this in a deliberate way. For the unfamiliar, the Bug-Catching Kid in Kakariko is ill in that game (only recovering once Link makes his wish on the Triforce during the ending), and when you speak to him he says "They say I got sick because of the bad air coming down off the mountain", referring to Death Mountain, which has the world's only open entrance to the Dark World, and precisely to where Ganon's Tower is found. This whole thing is, originally at least, a reference to the medieval-age miasma theory of disease, where it was posited that "bad air" was what made people sick, and not the microorganisms we learned of later only after invention of the microscope. TotK is of course associating it with Ganon's demonic powers instead.
Here's some thoughts I've been having while playing through the game: We see the that the Zonai had collected and squirreled away a lot of important artifacts from Legend, including several masks of great power. We see the Zonai themselves wearing some headpieces, as well as Sonia and Zelda. The ancient sages all wear Zonai headgear as well. Yunobo is corrupted by what appears to be a mask with Zonai origins that is tainted with Gloom. Wot If the Zonai were the original creators of both the Fused Shadow as well as Majora's Mask? We see them having direct ties to other ancient deities in the Bargainer statue below the Great Plateau, Their race seems to have all but vanished. I think they *were* the interlopers. I think there may have been a split in their society in the ancient past, and some were banished to the Twilight Realm, and the rest sequestered themselves in the sky, beyond the Cloud Barrier, until eventually that society would die out, returning to the surface probably millennia later. Or, maybe more realistically, we're seeing another timeline split before the convergence. Instead of the Interlopers being punished in the ancient past, they were revered? But.. Why else would Midna wear a crown that looks so much like the headpieces Sonia and Zelda wear? (I also firmly believe that the Zonai are the group the Shiekah originally worshipped and revered - or maybe the first Shiekah *were* Zonai, given their symbol looks exactly like Rauru's third eye when he has his war paint).
It’s speculated amongst some Zelda theorists that the Zonai were behind some of these items of power, so your theory isn’t far off from other popular theories.
*spoiler warning* Okay, I’ve gone through the whole video and it’s a very fun “crackpot” theory. I wanted add more details I haven’t seen brought up much yet… 1) Along with your thoughts about Termina, I found it interesting that the part of the Fierce Deity set is found in the Ancient Tree Stump which is itself beside the Giants Forest. 2) I’m not sure if it’s visible in-game, but on page 172 of the Collector’s Edition Art Book, you can see the Sheika mark on the left sleeve which seems meaningful. 3) In the spirit temple, the construct to the right of Mineru will trade you *excavated* Ancient Daggers that it finds as you supply it with Zonaite. So, there is Ancient Sheika tech and remains canon in Tears, but it is buried in the Depths. 4) The item descriptions for the divine helms in TotK is very different than the Amiibo drops in BotW. The designs you wear are the same as in BotW, but it causes the matching sage to wear the super ancient Zonai version of it, instead of the mere ancient Sheika version. 5) Both Rauru and Mineru are wearing the same white tear symbol under their middle eyes and as Wiz previously said, they are effectively organic Sheika eyes. Also they only open when using divine powers in the memories. 5b) Hyrule Historia spoke of the tear in Sheika Crest and said it symbolized that the Sheika clan would go to *any* lengths to achieve their goals. That fits very well with your theory of stealing the eyes from the bargainers (or the existence of the whole Shadow Temple of course). Also interesting the both Sonia and Zelda are wearing crests and makeup to imitate Zonai features on their face, including the white tear drops.
@@teleroboticTo be fair, Impa faded away into spirit particles when she finished her purpose of protecting zelda in the Amber in Skyward Sword. The monks at the shiekah shrines end up the same way. If the divine beasts were all paired up with the souls of the former champions i could see them fading away as the champions souls ascenced
Thank you kindly for the spoiler warning 🫶🏻 I want to watch this so badly, but I haven’t beaten TotK yet. I’m 250 hours in so far, and I’m trying to take it somewhat slow. Channels like yours and many other amazing Zeldatubers got me through the last 4 years while waiting for TotK- and I want to keep supporting you all just as much. When I beat TotK, you can bet I’ll be back to watch this 💚
How about the surging theory that the secret stones are actually wrought from Triforce shards, presumably by the Zonai? 3 Zonai consumed a stone to transform into dragons and thereby seal away each piece of triforce forever?
Also, as for the trees living in the darkness… There are many species of plants that lost their ability to photosynthesize, instead parasitizing other plants or fungi. Which, they have quite a bit of the stuff. Even if you can’t see much fungi directly around it, it likely would be directly feeding on the mycelium below the visible mushrooms. For further context, in case any reader might not know, the parts of the mushrooms we can see are just the reproductive bits of the fungi, with the majority being the mycelium below. It’s a safe bet that the mycelium likely spans crossed much of the depths, giving rise to strictly parasitic plants.
A timeline split off of Skyward Sword is also something I've thought about recently, but Tears' past seems more in line to be a parallel time to Ocarina of Time, setting up the Imprisoning War and Fallen Land timeline that came out of nowhere over a decade ago from Nintendo. It seems more in line with Skyward Sword's past rather than its' present (or future, if you want to think of it that way). The Triforce was created, or formed in the present, so if it exists in the past, it manifested in a different way. But then we're still missing a Master Sword, the one in A Link to the Past which isn't in the Temple of Time, but rather the Lost Woods.
I love how every zelda game feeds our hunger for zelda lore. This game especially. No details, nothing concrete, no explanations, but so many defused hints well placed by the developers. The hole bargainer / godess thing is kind of mind blowingin it self and put into the game with no big explanation at all. A small thing that bugs me out are the symbols on the sage stones or on the sage icons in the inventory. On some of them the shika eye looked more like a humanoid holding they arms in the air.
I loved your segment on plants! I'm no biologist, but recently I've been doing a little light reading on a real-world ecosystem that functions without sunlight: the life at deep-sea hydrothermal vents. The basis of life here is not photosynthetic plants, but chemosynthetic microbes that take their energy from chemical reactions. I thought, maybe life in the Depths functioned in a similar way, but I didn't think far enough to figure out what substance could be used for this process. With it all laid out like this, it almost seems obvious: of course it's zonaite! But I never thought about what those floaty green particles were (beyond wondering if Link should really be going down there without any sort of breathing protection). This whole video is one of the best Zelda lore vids I've seen, but the section on plants in the Depths was particularly relevant to my interests.
Minor spoiler warning. The way I see it, both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are the reimagining of the overarching Zelda lore. The idea could divide some fans, but the dividing was already done before. Ranging from how the lore was revised in Ocarina of Time, to the inconsistent split that led to Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, to the origins of the Master Sword in Skyward Sword, to the unsolved-until-now mystery of Breath of the Wild. As much as I can stay tried and true to the lore from Skyward Sword to Twilight Princess, I can accept that others have a preferred era of Hyrule. Since we’re on the topic of the original timeline, I looked back on an old video from NintendoBackCrisis a few years back. A user called Lorulean Historian revised the original timeline to make it that one split occurred in Minish Cap. The what-if scenario that led to what was known as the “Downfall” timeline. The other being the canon route that led to Ocarina of Time. The latter also seeing a split, one outcome which Ganon was sealed then returned in a red wrath (Wind Waker) and another being when the Hero of Time’s knowledge thwarted his hostile scheme (Majora’s Mask and Twilight Princess). Prior to Tears of the Kingdom’s release, most speculated that Breath of the Wild takes long after the end of the Child Timeline with the others somehow converging together with it. Upon Tears of the Kingdom’s release, the Era of the Wild and the reimagined Foundation of Hyrule dismissed the connection to the original timeline and instead brought together key plot points to connect the series together in a new vision. While Lorulean Historian’s revised timeline seems to be outdated, the only thing that is outdated is Breath of the Wild’s placement. So finally, this proves my claim how Twilight Princess should remain as the end of the events that took place in the Child Timeline while Four Swords and Four Swords Adventures should’ve taken place after Minish Cap (if the player didn’t save Zelda in time) and become the start of the decline of Hyrule. So to clarify, Skyward Sword is the era before Hyrule’s beginning, Minish Cap creates a split depending on player’s actions, Ocarina of Time creates two parallel timelines with one of them shaped by the actions of the Hero of Time and the other shaped in the era without him. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are their own separate entities with the original lore used as a mere reference, but not enough to distance itself too far from the newly written history of Hyrule. To further support this, Smash Bros. creator, Masahiro Sakurai, obviously chose Link from Breath of the Wild because it was his most recent 3D appearance. However, Princess Zelda took a hybrid design from A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds. He chose this design for her to represent the entire series as a whole. Bottom line: Link represents the reimagined series lore, Zelda represents the original series lore, Ganondorf, between Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess, retains his iconic appearance, Sheik represents Ocarina of Time, Toon Link represents any and all that feature him and his cel-shaded style, and Young Link represents Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask (while also living up to the “Everyone is here” theme). So now, mysteries surrounding the timelines can ease significantly until the next entry.
You found the Bargainer through Great Plateu gate?! Bruh, I found him eyeless in Central Great Abandoned Mine and he gave me a riddle to even start the quest proper!
So if these bargainer statues Japanese names are "Demon Statues", doesn't that feel weird to have around and deal with? You'd think that Hylia wouldn't want here chosen hero to associate with demons at all. But we've met a friendly demon before, in Skyward Sword. Remember Batreaux? He was a demonic entity that wanted to become a human, and at the end of the quest he gives you, he does become a full-fledged human through the power of good vibes (and gratitude crystals). So demons clearly can fight against what appears to be an evil nature, and even evolve given the right circumstances. Another curious thing to note, I believe Wiz mentions this in one of his videos, that the draconification process matches very well with Buddhist enlightenment; becoming detached from worldly concerns. And what do the bargainer statues say? "Good. Evil. Those are the assumptions of the narrow-minded." As well, I didn't read any of their lines as malicious or evil in any way. They sounded, as the above quote implies, detached, as their only concern is to shepherd lost souls to the afterlife. So here's a theory for you. What if these Demon Statues were, in fact, once a truly demonic entity(ies)? But through some process, perhaps the interaction of the lost spirits in the depths, ascended to become something more enlightened, akin to a god?
Demon in Japanese isn’t the same as a western demon - we are seeing it through a lens of Christianity. Yokai are spirits, that can be malicious, but can also be beneficial. In the case of the bargainer statues, they seem to be far more neutral, taking pies and sending them to the afterlife instead of being stuck.
So after pondering the orb, I have come to several ideas around this. 1.) the bargainer=Buddhism. 2.) Buddhism threatened the imperial family’s legitimacy in ancient Japan. 3.) according to ancient Japan in the heian period (generally the imperial family) viewed Buddhism as bad 4.) death was considered icky. 5.) now Buddhism handles modern funerary rites and visiting graves. Also for when you have an existential crisis
As someone living in and studying Japanese I do get a little joy when watching these kinds of videos and just general people are also experiencing the "joys" of Kanji... haha anyway I love your videos and theories ^^
The ecosystem is definitely weird. Obvious explanation is that it’s a fictional world with little need to strictly adhere to real life logic or knowledge. But if we want to stretch the rules a bit… growing to such large sizes could be strategic IFF you are collecting some useful substance from the air. Whether it’s spores, moisture, atmospheric gases or some mysterious substance, if there is anything useful in the air, then there’s reason to grow to take in more air. Note that, because there’s no light, growing horizontally yields no photosynthetic benefit. Growing up, however, can expose you to different kinds of air potentially carrying useful material. In the absence of strong currents, the air in the depths may separate into layers, each with their own unique density and composition. Unfortunately, exposing massive holes in the roof of the depths would lead to disruptions of the atmosphere. This ecosystem could soon be threatened… Of course, this is purely imaginative speculation. In the absence of any massive subterranean biosphere, we can only speculate.
Theorizing is fun and all, but the simplest timeline solution that solves all issues is the one Aonuma has been saying openly for the better half of a decade at this point- it's just really really far in the future. All that history from the previous games has long since faded into myth, so the old timelines no longer matter and will be referenced freely as there's no meaningful difference between them as far as the people in-universe are concerned Maybe that hat belonged to a hero, or maybe it was made up, it's all effectively prehistory and nobody can confirm either way so whatever TotK's backstory is basically a total recycling of OoT's concepts without the spiritual stuff anyway, so it's obvious why they wanted to separate themselves from the old continuity so hard
19:31 I've never thought of the idea that Bomb Flower plants adapted a defense against Froxes, even though I've dropped hundreds from my pockets in the act of farming Frox parts.
Oh wow, I am so glad you stopped by my channel and subbed - I hadn't found your channel until then, and your content is amazing! Just absolutely love this. Can't wait to work my way through your treasure trove of content.
I am down for the Mogma connection. That was my first thought, when seeing the statue. I'm still split between those petrified roots in the depths being roots, and lava tubes. I'm still thinking that the timeline recombined before Breath of the Wild, and I'm pointing my finger at Shiekah seeded throut time, from the future. Over all, an awesome video!
my theory for the plants is that they are filter feeders in a way. the depths already reminded me a ton of the deep ocean and it would explain the large fan-leaves of the ferns, the tendrils hanging down from the mushroom caps and the feather like leaves on the trees. the depths are insanely dusty and murky. my theory is that the frox consume zoanite and other valuable minerals and as they go, the zoanite rich dust they stir up feeds the gigantic flora of the depths. maybe there is even an energy cycle, and the dust produced bby the frox isnt exactly zoanite but rather a processed substance containing zoanite, that eventually gets reprocessed into zoanite and deposited back into the ground. edit: nevermind they already adressed that. neat. this is a damn in depth video
My current speculation as for minerals: . POE souls (either before or after barginers have transferred the spirit aspect of the Poe) eventually becomes Luminous stone which then after pressure and time becomes it's stronger form Zonite (I come to this conclusion due to the idea of luminous stone holding spirit energy & the large amounts of zonite and luminous stone look very similar barring slight gold tones in zonite) I don't think the time stones are part of the same mineral however I do think they tie into more of the shiekah tech stuff . A side speculation I've wondered if Bomb Flowers might be assumed incorrectly and should be a fungi and the explosion we see is their way of sharing spores? . I hadn't noticed the Faces in the backs of the Barginers statues, from that perspective they look similar to the giants in Majoras mask . If we imagine Hylia as the one crying, Din would become the Sun, Nayru the Moon & Farore the lightning
A thing i think is usually overlooked is that the islands used to be on the surface, and then raised them into the sky after sealing ganon (and i assume after they did that the whole zonai civilization was mostly destroyed)
@@MoxieWatts i remember a dialog line saying something about why they made the sky islands so that ganons evil wouldnt reach link (it was a while ago so keep that in mind) Edit: Not from the islands, sorry misunderstood what you meant
@Edward_Murtinhhour_The_3rd the sky islands were raised by the sages, but also it sounds like in "show of fealty" with ganondorf that the zonai are already all but gone
@@Edward_Murtinhhour_The_3rdI think what you refer to is the great sky Island specifically. After you do a side quest up there robo boy tells you that it was created so the hero who will fight Ganondorf will have a safe space to recover. I guess zelda told rauru what happened so he prepared the island. What i don't understand is where they came from. Where they even higher in the sky before the events of totk? Cuz i don't see holes underneath them and they have entirely different flora and fauna up there so it doesn't make sense that they were on the ground before.
I'm sorry top bei so negative, as this propably took a huge effort, but am I the only one finding this Video top bei a total mess? Just a 1h+ rambling information dump from multiple people with some theories sprinkeled in every few minutes. This desperatly Misses some structure
If hylia shed her divine form to reincarnate as a mortal, who’s talking to you through the statues? I think the bargainer is a much deeper concept, changing personas based on the statue it’s in. Always the same entity.
I think the depths is simply just a place where all things forgotten, resides. All the things that are supposed to be legends. And the depths are here to confirm that they aren't just legends in totk but actual history. You see land marks around the depths that hints towards the other games as well. At the location of the heart pond where zelda used to visit, there's also a heart pond in the exact location in the depths. right besides something called Ancient Observation Deck. In my theory it's connected to "Observation Deck" which is a location in Twilight Princess (a balcony that overlooks castle square and has a direct view at Hyrule Castle. Also right below the balcony you have the Fountain in the middle of the square). I havent been back to the location in TotK to confirm that it overlooks something that resembles an old hyrule castle, but right below it, the heart pond resides, just as in Twilight Princess where the fountain is just below. might just be a coincidence though.
Ok here's my idea about the bargainer. It's underneath the Great Plateau right? And what was the Plateau in the past? Rauru's Hyrule. His castle, even. Where would the Hylians get the idea to build a massive castle over Ganondorf to hold him down unless they already did that once before? Whatever evil is in that statue was sealed under Rauru's castle
I noticed whilst exploring that the giant stem (mother root?) leading from below hyrule castle to the depths below to Ganondorf, has what looks to be ancient writing on it - not sure if it's zonai or any of the other old languages seen in the games - has anyone tried to translate it at all?
i always thought those "petrified roots" were lava tubes. tubes through which lava flowed previously, where the lava flowed through these tubes, then cooled into rock and the surrounding earth went away through various natural processes. They do look like this, but they are nowhere nearly as consistent or abundant as these seem to be. The texture always made me think of fossils, though, which is not what lava tubes leave behind. ancient plant fossils.
@@MoxieWatts aqueducts usually slope very gently downhill and are straight, but who knows how the peoples of Hyrule would do it. there are a few around which are broken, and they do appear to be tubes, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My lord it is almost impressive how little you actually said in a more than hour-long video. Essentially all of the actual content was in the last 4 minutes.
Does anyone know which song / mix of songs are played from 1:16:00 to 1:16:47 ??? I I love it so much I've been listening just that section on a loop for hours and can't find it anywhere in the OST
Oh, Moxie. If by any chance, if it is in your schedule, will you be doing a video about the ancient leviathans in BOTW and TOTK? Is so, then I have A LOT to talk about a bizarre connection with that piece of Zelda lore and another Nintendo franchise. Believe me, this will be a surprising point that not very many people seem to talk about or even bring up.
Poor hylia if this speculation is true then that means her slave,servant ,tool has been marked and guided by the forgotten God in fact isn't termina supposedly created by majora doesn't the fierce deity contain the same type of power as it. What type of effect did this god have on the spirit of the hero after all he is a god that deals with souls it would be weird if it didn't do anything in fact the fierce deity looks exactly like link. Light and dark sun and moon male and female hylia and bargainer zelda and link. she made him believe he was her servant.
What if the " golden goddesses" possessed magatama that enhanced their power of creation and used one of their magatama too create the triforce ( each magatama imbued with their power of creation and light)
@@MoxieWatts yeah but here's something nuttier, the triforce was created to steal kamisama ( the bargainers) authority as the Supreme God so that the " golden goddesses" could be worshipped more then he and with their triforce pieces they deminished his worshipers by causing a calamity that wiped out most of the civilization that worshipped him and the only worshipers who survived were the ones who lived with groups who did not worship him
So are you implying that Termina is Hyrule from the SS timeline split? That's a pretty interesting concept. Would Lanayru Sand Sea somehow become an ocean again, in this timeline, to become Great Bay? From my own observations, Great Bay Temple and the SS Pirate Stronghold do have a few similarities. Personally, I don't think the Bargainer is really as important as all that. I think it's simply a god of death, and it somewhat resembles the Poe collector from OOT, so he may have appeared in person before.
With this theory here, where would Zelda have landed, Pre-Skyward Sword or Post-Skyward Sword? What relationship does Demise have with TOTK Ganondorf and Bargainer in that case? And with that split timeline of Majora’s Mask, would the Sealed Demise have BEEN the Bargainer himself or? Honestly I really like how the conclusion of this theory is that The Bargainer is the 1 God amongst the 3, and whose eyes and tears lead to Skyward Sword and TOTK’s past, but tbh it’s a bit confusing atm for me
I've always thought it was interesting that the games decided to add a fourth goddess into the mix after they already had the three golden goddesses to work with, and with the triforce being nearly absent from both BotW and TotK, not to mention the emphasis on Hylia and lack of Demise, it definitely feels strange to THEN add a forgotten and buried Bargainer deity into the mix. Also, with the Ouroboros motif of the title and around plenty of Zonai stuff, my friend theorized that this game was going to set up a time loop, that the events of both BotW and TotK would both predate AND follow the entire timeline. Maybe Demise hasn't been properly mentioned yet because he hasn't *become* Demise yet? But seriously, this game had me so confused as to how Ganondorf has ANY connection to the moon at all? And it was never answered! As soon as he becomes the Demon King, the Blood Moon is in full raging effect behind him. Does the moon have some connection to the power of Vengeance? The kanji that appears when Ganondorf gets the Secret Stone is for Rancor (which is also the kanji for Malice, btw). Does that have any ties to why Majora uses it to enact vengeance on Termina? (or Skull Kid's vengeance on the perceived slights from his former friends the giants at least)
A 4th goddess was never intended. I believe hylia is strictly due to the developer of SS wanting to make his personal imprint on the lore. Now with his last 3 games the lore is all over the place.. they could have dived into the deep lore of the franchise a lot more before switching it up and basically erasing the original history. Also.. it’s not an ouroboros 😜
Ooh, if moving the Triforce through time causes what you described in the child timeline (the whole rebalancing the Triforce), then maybe Zelda going back to Hyrule’s founding (if totk Zelda has the whole Triforce) did a similar thing. Maybe Zelda inadvertently created a timeline where Hyrule had no Triforce? Would that be what created the secret stones? Or would that be another timeline altogether?
47:28 I'd say one mistake is the assumption "Demise is destroyed forever." The devourer was always a mere incarnation of Demise. The irony of Skyward Sword was the "inevitably of events". "Demise" the beast, is always sealed under the Temple of the Goddess, because "Demise" the Demon King is always defeated in the past and lays his curse down that the Goddess, Hero, and their descendants shall always be hounded by "an incarnation" of his evil. A good thing to remember is that an incarnation is not a direct one for one recreation. That would be a reincarnation. Which is something we never see in the Zelda time line at any point. Tropes are reused, archetypes re-emerge, but we never see an actual 1 for 1 reincarnation of a character, even an evil one, such as the Main Boss monsters. Even the many incarnations of Ganon are all different. Either from where they come from, from where they obtain power, or how they become the new Demon King. The cycled started and had its first incarnation in the very game in which the cycle was introduced. The idea of inevitability becomes stronger when you consider the Time Stones and their disappearance from the series after Skyward Sword. The hero couldn't have won without the ability to reach back into the past of the desert. This is a crazy powerful ability that makes sense to vanish after it has served its final function. The zonia stone is actually extremely weak by comparison, because it doesn't outright break time for every existant being around link, it only alters time in a specific window, a very small window and doesn't reset time to a long dead and forgotten era.
I noticed that the outfit the bargainer statue gives you actually has the demonic face on it. The face has similar characteristics of a boar which is the animal that represents the tri force of power. The Zonai also do this to, most prominently with Mineru with her owl shaped head piece. The same could be said for Rauru because of his necklace, but I can’t figure out if it represents another animal. The tri force of wisdom is associated with an owl, which implies that there is a link between the zonai the tri force. But this makes sense because the zonai are incredibly smart so if by any chance they did possess a piece it would be wisdom. If I had to guess who has the courage piece I would think it’s the surface dwellers(hyllians, Zora, etc…). One the other hand, the zonai could of had the triforce in their possession also and something happened and they lost a piece. My thoughts though are that the god of death/cycle(bargainer statue) stole a piece of the triforce(power) and soon used it for some odd reason. Later the goddesses punish him by taking his eyes, sealing him, and creating the secret stones. Eventually, they giving them and the two remaining pieces to the zonai under the agreement or impression they will use the secret stones to protect it. With this power they developed into the extremely advanced civilization they where. Sorry for my jumbled thoughts and I’m not super familiar with the lore. Edit: ok so Sonia has a dress piece with a dragon face on it. I think it goes to show that Zonai symbolize the triforce of wisdom, Hylians(along with other species) with courage, and the bargainer(creature of the depths) is power. Perhaps this could explain the reason why we only see the whole thing very little and mainly during botw with Zelda activating her powers and saving link. I think this may be because she had atwo of the pieces because of the relation to Sonia/Rauru and then an evil creature possessed by malice/gloom near her allowing her to have some sort of connection to third piece
it also has similar characteristics to a bokoblin i think the necklaces are just meant to be tribal XD I think the triforce is within Zelda ~ Encyclopedia pg 14 (i think link gave his piece to zelda after ganondorf was eradicated) IM ADHD and i got jumbled thoughts too I like the idea of the representative tribes of a single race triforce idea its really good if i sound jumbled its because i was listening and typing (using a read-outloud text thing )
that first part of the gloom theory reminds me of the toxic jungle from nausicaa of the valley of the wind. it could just be another reference to the studio ghibli family of movies
This simply no way that this takes place in an alternate timeline from breath of the wild as They refer to the previous game numerous times in journals and zoras domain having walls all over the place with botw events written on them.
Does this theory just spoil the bargainer statues or does it spoil a lot of the main story because I’ve found all the statues but I’ve only completed the wind temple so I want to watch this so bad but gotta know how long to put it off
This probably is why the yiga wrote that when they went to the bargainer statue their souls would be sucked out. It’s because they’re descendants of the Sheikah
The only thing I disagree with the is merging of the timelines due to striking Ganondorf in the chest and the head. I do realize that these are crackpot however, that one is a bit of a stretch. They are pretty much the final blow for any boss in any game. That’s the main way to make sure they are finished right? Just because the adult and child timeline have different final blows and this game has one and the other was sealed somehow merged the timeline? It’s a little much. Plus they are in 2 separate eras, the child timeline would be merged first from the sealed. Then the final blow in the present? It’s all too confusing for no reason to say the least.
So I appreciate people like you that make this content, I really opens up everything that this game has and that can be speculated. And on the topic of demise, I was thinking the same when the final trailer dropped and we played aaaaaaand oh wait no demise y tho? 😅 but, I also watched the forgotten temple video recently, and it got me thinking, and this is just my thoughts: what’s the possibility that TOTK precursors SS, and the demise we see there is the same as we seen of the calamity seeping out through Ganondorf after Rauru seals him? They were both sealed for thousands upon thousands of years so it’s a possibility? But also the sky islands that the sages, Zelda and Mineru created could be the same in SS. Some of the Hyrulians could have settled there to continue living in safety and introducing why we have a population in the sky. I have so many other thoughts on what possibilities the game has offered but then again as you stated in the opening of the video, Nintendo could have retconned the timeline entirely 😫
The "lizard people" statues don't look all that reptilian to me, they look like Skyward Sword's mogma with more developed legs. The head and arms especially match and it's not unreasonable to think the mole-folk would not only branch out from eldin, but possibly evolve to have more proportional bodies over time. They could also just be zonai. We don't see the two in Raru and Mineru, who are siblings after all. It's entirely possible that the zonai have a much wider range of appearance than we might expect (tho I do think it's unlikely, just a possibility)
Maybe I’m thinking to simply but Zelda going back to the beginning of Hyrule reset the entire timeline. Now everything that happened before is “Legend”. Legends are a combination of truth and fable. That’s why you find many artifacts from games past and why Sheika devices aren’t found (aside of one construct on the lab). The Zonai were likely the original Sheika however the shift in time altered that time period. I think TOTK was meant to be a reboot. Everything we find in this game isn’t necessarily lore but legend.
Soooooo funny story about that lynal Coliseum was getting my ass kicked running out of arrows and materials to fuse .....so I used ancient arrows 😮😮😮😮😮 and got majoras mask easy peessy lemon squeezey by banishing them to the shadow realm
Yknow, you keep mentioning the “lizard people” of the depths as seen in the statues and mural in Lookout Landing. But how do you know they’re lizards? The depictions in sculpture and murals are all somewhat abstract so it’s rather hard to tell what they may have actually looked like.
I really like this video, it's rather really good. The only thing that sticks out to myself as kind of silly is anything trying to relate itself to Majora's Mask. Hyrule and Termina are completely separate and have nothing to do with each other. The only thing Majora's Mask has in common with all other Zelda games is that it's a Carl Jung like relevance in terms of archetypes.
I've been waiting for a Moxie video! Beautiful as usual. Although, the voice actor for the bargainer sounds inexperienced and contrived oof. Work on sounding creepy.
tbh i got a bit upset when they didnt explain where ANY of the sheikah tech went. like that was the biggest question i had besides how all the islands and stuff just keep floating up there. edit: i never even noticed the second faces on the statues, HOLY SHIT.
What if theres a giant garbage heap of Sheikah tech far away from Hyrule that Zelda had made in case the Calamity returned but instead Demise' essence escaped the Master Sword and is over there crafting a new body for himself with Sheikah tech.... ah shiiid here we go again!!
How did you get that dark zelda thing? Also, what is it? It looks like it is in tears of the kingdom, but i have never seen it? Very confused. Also, imagin if the game was meant to be tears of the kingdon, as in ripping, and we have been saying it wrong the whole time. 😂
Thank you for watching!
This is my favorite theory I've done yet.
Fun facts: the gloom roots point towards hyrule castle, and zelda disappears from the blood moon cutscene if you defeat the phantom saboteur. Also should we keep in mind the mini statues at the great plateau entrance and lookout landing? I love this video so much! I love how much effort you put into it along with other people
The translation was hilarious by the way
It's a great theory
Had a fun theory cross my mind, but it's got me falling down a rabbit hole lol.
Lmao I think I love u queen of the depths it tis my chosen realm as well
Fun fact the goddess statue wasn't in the forgotten temple during the memories. rauru takes the sages there to give them the stones and we see the door open with no goddess statue. In a later memory he's getting a status update from the other sages and the spot where they are standing is where the goddess statue would stand in the present. The goddess statue was moved there later
omg i did notice this! which makes my theory about the forgotten temple true!
i wonder where Demise was sealed...
@@MoxieWatts I'm still puzzling over that one I have some people I've been combing the game for details with and our best guess is the platue but the details are too long for a RUclips comment
@@MoxieWatts I would suspect right where Ganondorf was sealed, deep within the depths, since it's a place of strong concentrated power with the Darkroots that spew Miasma. It's the only place possible, because why would Ganondorf and Rauru along with the Sages all be in the very place Ganondorf was sealed? What was he doing there when confronted by Rauru and the other Sages? I would like to believe the remnants of Demise being present there, even though he was sealed within the Master Sword in the past timeline, but the other Demise in the present and future timeline of Skyward Sword was sealed within the grounds when the wish was made to eradicate him with the power of the Triforce when the Goddess Statue returned to where it once was before it was raised into the sky by Hylia. This would explain why Ganondorf was where he was under Hyrule Castle, or rather... before Hyrule Castle was ever built on those grounds. Much secrecy was kept about Hyrule Castle's place and why it was built there, and why would they have generations of the Hylian Royal Family telling each member to NEVER go to near the place that leads deep into the depths of the castle. Over hundreds of generations they're always told to never go deep below Hyrule Castle, Zelda even mentions it right at the very beginning of Tears of the Kingdom.
The big telltale sign of the Goddess statue being moved in the present is the second level landing where the statue’s shoulders (at least, im remembering shoulders) are is broken and chipped out so that the statue can fit where it sits.
@@VitaminSwann0 What's also interesting to me is that you can see concept art of what the room looked like before the Goddess Statue was shoved in there by looking at page 51 of the Collector's Edition Artbook. There's also an interesting crest engraved into the wall (obscured in-game) that has many elements from the stained glass art seen in the Zonai throne room.
Well, the past 48 hours has felt like Christmas.
I’ve been obsessed about the bargainer statues forever.
yeah everyones finally done filming and now we are uploading.
@@teleroboticsame!
The tears also look like part kf a YinYang symbol which is the epitomy of light and dark. Like you said in the video, light can not exist without dark and the other way around. So when the bargainer tells you that the thought of just good and evil is naive. Thats why there are dots of light in the dark and dots of dark in the light.
Finally, I've been waiting for an upload for what feels like as long as zelda has been waiting.
is hard ~~lots of filming and editing...and research
So to me, visually and gameplay anyway, the bargainner statues are evocative of the poe collector from ocarina of time (he replaces the gaurd in the hyrule castle gaurd house/might actually be the gaurd but cursed) these guys all have one eye which is hooded in visually similar way to the bargainner statues.
Poes have always been around in zelda but historically have been depicted as somewhat different from a dead person's spirit (i.e. dampes ghost is ocarina of time is called a ghost - not a poe. In windwaker they seem to straight up be a different species)
I'm curious how poe collectors and the historical versions of poes might fit in to your theories.
Spooky and informative! My favorite.
YESSIR
I've been waiting for thiiiiiiis!!!!! Thanks moxie!!
Man you always have the coolest crackpot takes
Love your work
tysm homie
Do you think there could be a connection between the secret stones and the amber/dusk relics from SS?
That was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the tears because they have the exact same shape as the relics from SS
Perhaps...Maybe a lesser form of it, since they are used as upgrade materials.
@@MoxieWatts I was thinking either that or they were just made to resemble them
Really not liking the fact that the subtitles stray away from the video so many fucking times. Its honestly annoying. Its hard to tell what's being said when the captions are in a whole different conversation.
Edit: For the entirety of the Sheikah Tech part of the video and part of the Gloom segment, the subtitles were on off their own adventure talking about something completely different. It was so hard to focus on the video.
Thanks for shouting this out! We're taking a look now.
This is Mox now....Trust me I am in it deep. I am 50 minutes in and I see what you mean. I apologize, the script was messy and a lot was cut.
@@MoxieWatts No worries! I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to fix that.
It IS a retcon. Otherwise literally everything just repeats forever and ever like it's friggin groundhog's day, and that's just lame.
the time sfit stoneis ye even i omage had ben thinking that as i to cam a corss a mine fo hileya to but i also found that some fo the miesis hav books at them talking abuot wet thayb wer usis for
I had a stroke trying to read that.
@@Florjb0rjTheFloorboardwas just about to say the same 😂
Nah I personally don’t like the over simplification when comparing past timelines to totk, especially when talking about the Zelda games which carry on motives from other games
dont worry i have a video coming out later today that will clearly explain how i feel about this exact topic
@@MoxieWatts I’ll definitely watch it, I’m addicted to Zelda content
I can't necessarily come up with a good explanation of why Sheikah tech from ages past are missing, because there was a lot of Sheikah tech, and dismantling them to make new towers just doesn't quite sit right with me. We're almost forgetting about the 5th Divine Beast that was present in Breath of the Wild, one that was meant for Link to pilot. But this Divine Beast was deep underground the Shrine of Resurrection. But when we visit the Shrine of Resurrection in Tears of the Kingdom, there's literally nothing of the shrine to speak of, all of the stuff have been stripped clean, and then you got a hole at the back of the shrine which leads down to a Misko Treasure, but before that you find a small pool of water that heals you. Also deep in The Depths in that exact location you find the Spring of Resurrection. Between there and the surface, the Divine Beast should have been found since nobody but Link found it, as it was completely unknown to everybody else, and yes I know it was part of a DLC for BotW, but it was still the 5th undiscovered Divine Beast.
As for their disappearance, one might think that with Zelda going back into the past altered the events somewhat that probably erased them, this was a predefined moment in time that always happens no matter what, because as The Upheaval was taking place, new shrines never before seen suddenly appeared as if out of nowhere, just as how the sky islands became visible and some of them came falling down, and in the places where most of those other Sheikah shrines were from before opened up into chasms. Also don't you find it strange how some of the Sky Islands and ruins that crashed down on the surface have this weird stone pattern to it? Some parts of the surface end up taking on this weird stone pattern as if they were merged with the surface, almost like they've glued in place after landing in certain places. Normally when something falls from the sky high up, they create some sort of large impact around the area, but these ruins don't seem to do that, except for maybe one exception, the Ring Ruins, some of them crashed into surface pretty hard, while others broke apart a little and still remained floating only closer to the surface. The only floating piece you see is in Kakariko while everything else around there is on the ground. There is that small floating island just outside of Kakariko if leaving West side, the way that one is positioned makes it seem like it was intentionally placed at that specific height, but I may just be speculating on that part.
Robbie literally made an arrow head that disintegrates shiekah tech. That’s probably how they got rid of it so a take over wouldn’t happen again. The event of botw are precisely why the tech was forbidden after the 10k calamity.
27:00 Princess Mononoke on the surface, Laputa Castle in the Sky up in the air and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind for the Depths. Playing BOTW and TOTK is like living out childhood fantasies.
y e s.
I need to reach my friend Korok puzzles are Kiki's Delivery Service
true, damned you are right!!!
I'd... Actually never thought of it like that. Makes perfect sense though.
Absolutely
I thought that TotK was completely separate from the rest of the series too, but I remembered a tiny detail in Skyward Sword that made me pause. The tall Guardians with the claymores look like armored Zonai. Their silhouettes look similar and they have metallic ears with earrings on their ends similar to how Rauru has many piercings on his ears. It just could be a coincidence but it’s fascinating regardless
Regarding the Sheikah tech, in the Champions Ballad we received the one hit obliterator from a console that manifested entirely from blue energy. Perhaps the divine beasts and guardians and everything else was recalled back to the source of that blue energy. Specifically to prevent it being hijacked again. The small amount left over in the form of towers and at the akkala tech lab may be a calculated risk.
I like this take
dude that is a solid take....i like that a lot
Nice, this might be just the headcanon to cure my OCD rage about Sheikah tech's abnormal disappearance, lol
Hyrule's people were terrified of guardians for 100 years
I understand if they wanted them gone now that they are a liability
I like to believe that in the 7 years between BOTW and TOTK, Zelda had them disassembled so Purah and Robbie would have plenty of supplies to play with and so Ganon couldn’t take them over again
Your literally the only other person I’ve seen talk about the bargainer statues I’m so happy rn.
I have more that I want to discuss....there's more to it
Bro I’m in so deep halp.
@@MoxieWatts 😂
@@MoxieWatts yeah a lot of people look at this game and I hear them say there’s not a lot of story between breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom but I disagree. I feel like there’s so much to dissect. But I love that your videos are long to because you get to cover a lot.
yeah and somehow 1 hour 17 mins wasn't even enough to cover everything
There are two things i'd like to add onto the whole "shiekah stole the eyes of the bargainer" theory:
The stolen eyes are located on the surface, near where the old shrines used to be, creating a potential link to the shiekah.
Also There is mention of the yiga clan members' souls being stolen by the statue in a notebook made by a yiga member. I think it wouldn't make sense for the statue to simply steal souls of passing travelers, but if the shiekah did steal the eyes at one point, then it would make sense that perhaps the statues still hold an ancient grudge against shiekah people
Just some food for thought.
Maybe the bargainers see the Yiga as lost souls.
When the eyes cry their tears onto the Sheikah Slate at the 4 shrines, they give it special powers.
Maybe the theory that the ancient Sheikah were using Souls/Poes as fuel for their technology really is true, and they used the Barginer Statue's eyes as an extraction medium?
or a reference point for collecting souls?
@@DennisComellaI don‘t get what you mean
I feel like the idea is that BOTW and TOTK take place incredibly far in the future of the other games. Meaning that the other games are now the Legends that have been told. So for once we are seeing the truth of events rather than the Legends of Zelda that have been told. Also, just a note, but Ganondorf definitely becomes possessed by Demise, just referred to as the Demon King, same role in Skyward Sword. He even says that Rauru tried to control his power with the secret stones. Which brings up an interesting idea. That the sages actually use demonic power to seal the demon king. Or that perhaps the demon king was also a member of the goddess race meaning there could be others. Almost even suggests that Link may carry this same blood line. After playing through everything I think this rationalizes all of the references to the old games that seem slightly off. They are legend and like all old stories they change over time.
i think you are onto something
I 100% agree! I think that this is maybe Nintendo’s way of soft-resetting the series, but in the best way possible. All of the references and misspellings of old stuff from the series is just the way that those stories influenced the Hyrule we see now. Especially with how Ganondorf’s meeting at the castle is SO SIMILAR to OoT, but still has obvious differences.
I was almost laughed out of the room for suggesting this. My theory was that everyone we see in skyward sword is actually from the zonai race with the hero who defeated demise being the one depicted in the heroes aspect, but since skyward sword is the legend the stories where changed to something hylians are familiar with. That way the new forming of hyrule would make sense to me.
I'm just gonna say it: this is one of the best video game theorist channels. Channels like yours bring such a fresh light to this genre. You're actually passionate about what you're talking about and aren't trying to come to conclusions based on incredibly far reaches. But you still heavily speculate but in a way that's honestly enjoyable. popular (cough cough cough) game theorists simply cannot do it like channels like you guys. keep doing what you do
The massive "roots" that go all over the underground could be a form of mycorrhizal networks following ancient dendritic roots. The weird "moldy" like stuff is the actual mycelium from the large fungi everywhere. The huge, chasm-spanning roots could come from a previous Great Tree/Deku Tree, as we've seen some form of a one in nearly every title since OoT.
I am now curious if the reference to "bad air" that was in A Link to the Past is recontextualized by this in a deliberate way. For the unfamiliar, the Bug-Catching Kid in Kakariko is ill in that game (only recovering once Link makes his wish on the Triforce during the ending), and when you speak to him he says "They say I got sick because of the bad air coming down off the mountain", referring to Death Mountain, which has the world's only open entrance to the Dark World, and precisely to where Ganon's Tower is found. This whole thing is, originally at least, a reference to the medieval-age miasma theory of disease, where it was posited that "bad air" was what made people sick, and not the microorganisms we learned of later only after invention of the microscope. TotK is of course associating it with Ganon's demonic powers instead.
Here's some thoughts I've been having while playing through the game:
We see the that the Zonai had collected and squirreled away a lot of important artifacts from Legend, including several masks of great power. We see the Zonai themselves wearing some headpieces, as well as Sonia and Zelda. The ancient sages all wear Zonai headgear as well. Yunobo is corrupted by what appears to be a mask with Zonai origins that is tainted with Gloom.
Wot If the Zonai were the original creators of both the Fused Shadow as well as Majora's Mask? We see them having direct ties to other ancient deities in the Bargainer statue below the Great Plateau, Their race seems to have all but vanished. I think they *were* the interlopers. I think there may have been a split in their society in the ancient past, and some were banished to the Twilight Realm, and the rest sequestered themselves in the sky, beyond the Cloud Barrier, until eventually that society would die out, returning to the surface probably millennia later.
Or, maybe more realistically, we're seeing another timeline split before the convergence. Instead of the Interlopers being punished in the ancient past, they were revered?
But.. Why else would Midna wear a crown that looks so much like the headpieces Sonia and Zelda wear?
(I also firmly believe that the Zonai are the group the Shiekah originally worshipped and revered - or maybe the first Shiekah *were* Zonai, given their symbol looks exactly like Rauru's third eye when he has his war paint).
It’s speculated amongst some Zelda theorists that the Zonai were behind some of these items of power, so your theory isn’t far off from other popular theories.
So stoked that now we’ve had time to play the game, we’re getting crackpot theories. Keep ‘em coming, Moxie!
YESSIR
*spoiler warning* Okay, I’ve gone through the whole video and it’s a very fun “crackpot” theory. I wanted add more details I haven’t seen brought up much yet…
1) Along with your thoughts about Termina, I found it interesting that the part of the Fierce Deity set is found in the Ancient Tree Stump which is itself beside the Giants Forest.
2) I’m not sure if it’s visible in-game, but on page 172 of the Collector’s Edition Art Book, you can see the Sheika mark on the left sleeve which seems meaningful.
3) In the spirit temple, the construct to the right of Mineru will trade you *excavated* Ancient Daggers that it finds as you supply it with Zonaite. So, there is Ancient Sheika tech and remains canon in Tears, but it is buried in the Depths.
4) The item descriptions for the divine helms in TotK is very different than the Amiibo drops in BotW. The designs you wear are the same as in BotW, but it causes the matching sage to wear the super ancient Zonai version of it, instead of the mere ancient Sheika version.
5) Both Rauru and Mineru are wearing the same white tear symbol under their middle eyes and as Wiz previously said, they are effectively organic Sheika eyes. Also they only open when using divine powers in the memories.
5b) Hyrule Historia spoke of the tear in Sheika Crest and said it symbolized that the Sheika clan would go to *any* lengths to achieve their goals. That fits very well with your theory of stealing the eyes from the bargainers (or the existence of the whole Shadow Temple of course). Also interesting the both Sonia and Zelda are wearing crests and makeup to imitate Zonai features on their face, including the white tear drops.
6) Have you ever considered that maybe the Shieka tech is just missing because it’s fulfilled its purpose? 🫠
I kid.
the last one.
I wanna do a follow upo on this idea but i want more observations like these!
Good stuff here
@@teleroboticTo be fair, Impa faded away into spirit particles when she finished her purpose of protecting zelda in the Amber in Skyward Sword. The monks at the shiekah shrines end up the same way. If the divine beasts were all paired up with the souls of the former champions i could see them fading away as the champions souls ascenced
Moxie videos always go so well at 3am, awesome topic to discuss guys!
(AND IT FEATURES DANIEL! (😍)
What a lovely video, I'm so happy that the Zelda community is on fire with speculation again
Same ❤️
43:42 i saw an amazing video about this being called a dragon break. Zelda going back thousands of years forces a joining of the timeline.
I see you used a term from the Elder Scrolls game. Are you by chance a fan of the Elder Scrolls games?
Thank you kindly for the spoiler warning 🫶🏻 I want to watch this so badly, but I haven’t beaten TotK yet. I’m 250 hours in so far, and I’m trying to take it somewhat slow.
Channels like yours and many other amazing Zeldatubers got me through the last 4 years while waiting for TotK- and I want to keep supporting you all just as much. When I beat TotK, you can bet I’ll be back to watch this 💚
How about the surging theory that the secret stones are actually wrought from Triforce shards, presumably by the Zonai? 3 Zonai consumed a stone to transform into dragons and thereby seal away each piece of triforce forever?
If you hit the "roots" they make a hollow, wooden sound. I think they're ancient roots from previous Deku Trees.
Also, as for the trees living in the darkness…
There are many species of plants that lost their ability to photosynthesize, instead parasitizing other plants or fungi. Which, they have quite a bit of the stuff.
Even if you can’t see much fungi directly around it, it likely would be directly feeding on the mycelium below the visible mushrooms.
For further context, in case any reader might not know, the parts of the mushrooms we can see are just the reproductive bits of the fungi, with the majority being the mycelium below.
It’s a safe bet that the mycelium likely spans crossed much of the depths, giving rise to strictly parasitic plants.
A timeline split off of Skyward Sword is also something I've thought about recently, but Tears' past seems more in line to be a parallel time to Ocarina of Time, setting up the Imprisoning War and Fallen Land timeline that came out of nowhere over a decade ago from Nintendo. It seems more in line with Skyward Sword's past rather than its' present (or future, if you want to think of it that way). The Triforce was created, or formed in the present, so if it exists in the past, it manifested in a different way. But then we're still missing a Master Sword, the one in A Link to the Past which isn't in the Temple of Time, but rather the Lost Woods.
I love how every zelda game feeds our hunger for zelda lore. This game especially. No details, nothing concrete, no explanations, but so many defused hints well placed by the developers. The hole bargainer / godess thing is kind of mind blowingin it self and put into the game with no big explanation at all.
A small thing that bugs me out are the symbols on the sage stones or on the sage icons in the inventory. On some of them the shika eye looked more like a humanoid holding they arms in the air.
Yeah we are…working on that. The language might mean something.
Thanks for having me, it was fun talking about some plants ^^
AS ALWAYS!!
@@MoxieWatts Love ya man!
I loved your segment on plants!
I'm no biologist, but recently I've been doing a little light reading on a real-world ecosystem that functions without sunlight: the life at deep-sea hydrothermal vents. The basis of life here is not photosynthetic plants, but chemosynthetic microbes that take their energy from chemical reactions. I thought, maybe life in the Depths functioned in a similar way, but I didn't think far enough to figure out what substance could be used for this process. With it all laid out like this, it almost seems obvious: of course it's zonaite! But I never thought about what those floaty green particles were (beyond wondering if Link should really be going down there without any sort of breathing protection).
This whole video is one of the best Zelda lore vids I've seen, but the section on plants in the Depths was particularly relevant to my interests.
@@cryptidbunny8791 thanks, so happy you liked it! :D
Minor spoiler warning.
The way I see it, both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are the reimagining of the overarching Zelda lore. The idea could divide some fans, but the dividing was already done before. Ranging from how the lore was revised in Ocarina of Time, to the inconsistent split that led to Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, to the origins of the Master Sword in Skyward Sword, to the unsolved-until-now mystery of Breath of the Wild. As much as I can stay tried and true to the lore from Skyward Sword to Twilight Princess, I can accept that others have a preferred era of Hyrule.
Since we’re on the topic of the original timeline, I looked back on an old video from NintendoBackCrisis a few years back. A user called Lorulean Historian revised the original timeline to make it that one split occurred in Minish Cap. The what-if scenario that led to what was known as the “Downfall” timeline. The other being the canon route that led to Ocarina of Time. The latter also seeing a split, one outcome which Ganon was sealed then returned in a red wrath (Wind Waker) and another being when the Hero of Time’s knowledge thwarted his hostile scheme (Majora’s Mask and Twilight Princess). Prior to Tears of the Kingdom’s release, most speculated that Breath of the Wild takes long after the end of the Child Timeline with the others somehow converging together with it. Upon Tears of the Kingdom’s release, the Era of the Wild and the reimagined Foundation of Hyrule dismissed the connection to the original timeline and instead brought together key plot points to connect the series together in a new vision. While Lorulean Historian’s revised timeline seems to be outdated, the only thing that is outdated is Breath of the Wild’s placement. So finally, this proves my claim how Twilight Princess should remain as the end of the events that took place in the Child Timeline while Four Swords and Four Swords Adventures should’ve taken place after Minish Cap (if the player didn’t save Zelda in time) and become the start of the decline of Hyrule. So to clarify, Skyward Sword is the era before Hyrule’s beginning, Minish Cap creates a split depending on player’s actions, Ocarina of Time creates two parallel timelines with one of them shaped by the actions of the Hero of Time and the other shaped in the era without him. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are their own separate entities with the original lore used as a mere reference, but not enough to distance itself too far from the newly written history of Hyrule.
To further support this, Smash Bros. creator, Masahiro Sakurai, obviously chose Link from Breath of the Wild because it was his most recent 3D appearance. However, Princess Zelda took a hybrid design from A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds. He chose this design for her to represent the entire series as a whole. Bottom line: Link represents the reimagined series lore, Zelda represents the original series lore, Ganondorf, between Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess, retains his iconic appearance, Sheik represents Ocarina of Time, Toon Link represents any and all that feature him and his cel-shaded style, and Young Link represents Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask (while also living up to the “Everyone is here” theme). So now, mysteries surrounding the timelines can ease significantly until the next entry.
I like this idea. I have to probe Lorulean about this.
You found the Bargainer through Great Plateu gate?! Bruh, I found him eyeless in Central Great Abandoned Mine and he gave me a riddle to even start the quest proper!
So if these bargainer statues Japanese names are "Demon Statues", doesn't that feel weird to have around and deal with? You'd think that Hylia wouldn't want here chosen hero to associate with demons at all. But we've met a friendly demon before, in Skyward Sword. Remember Batreaux? He was a demonic entity that wanted to become a human, and at the end of the quest he gives you, he does become a full-fledged human through the power of good vibes (and gratitude crystals). So demons clearly can fight against what appears to be an evil nature, and even evolve given the right circumstances.
Another curious thing to note, I believe Wiz mentions this in one of his videos, that the draconification process matches very well with Buddhist enlightenment; becoming detached from worldly concerns. And what do the bargainer statues say? "Good. Evil. Those are the assumptions of the narrow-minded." As well, I didn't read any of their lines as malicious or evil in any way. They sounded, as the above quote implies, detached, as their only concern is to shepherd lost souls to the afterlife.
So here's a theory for you. What if these Demon Statues were, in fact, once a truly demonic entity(ies)? But through some process, perhaps the interaction of the lost spirits in the depths, ascended to become something more enlightened, akin to a god?
i must ponder on this
Demon in Japanese isn’t the same as a western demon - we are seeing it through a lens of Christianity. Yokai are spirits, that can be malicious, but can also be beneficial.
In the case of the bargainer statues, they seem to be far more neutral, taking pies and sending them to the afterlife instead of being stuck.
Thank you for adding to this idea!
So after pondering the orb, I have come to several ideas around this.
1.) the bargainer=Buddhism.
2.) Buddhism threatened the imperial family’s legitimacy in ancient Japan.
3.) according to ancient Japan in the heian period (generally the imperial family) viewed Buddhism as bad
4.) death was considered icky.
5.) now Buddhism handles modern funerary rites and visiting graves. Also for when you have an existential crisis
As someone living in and studying Japanese I do get a little joy when watching these kinds of videos and just general people are also experiencing the "joys" of Kanji... haha anyway I love your videos and theories ^^
i am learning japanese too... I'd love to live there but I have no idea how to even begin that process. How did you do it?
@@2yoyoyo1Unplugged Working holiday visa and then got a job and a work visa...
Im unsure if they 12:41 are lizardfolk--they seem more like minotaurs to me. The SS comparison also works imo
The ecosystem is definitely weird. Obvious explanation is that it’s a fictional world with little need to strictly adhere to real life logic or knowledge.
But if we want to stretch the rules a bit… growing to such large sizes could be strategic IFF you are collecting some useful substance from the air. Whether it’s spores, moisture, atmospheric gases or some mysterious substance, if there is anything useful in the air, then there’s reason to grow to take in more air.
Note that, because there’s no light, growing horizontally yields no photosynthetic benefit. Growing up, however, can expose you to different kinds of air potentially carrying useful material. In the absence of strong currents, the air in the depths may separate into layers, each with their own unique density and composition.
Unfortunately, exposing massive holes in the roof of the depths would lead to disruptions of the atmosphere. This ecosystem could soon be threatened…
Of course, this is purely imaginative speculation. In the absence of any massive subterranean biosphere, we can only speculate.
Theorizing is fun and all, but the simplest timeline solution that solves all issues is the one Aonuma has been saying openly for the better half of a decade at this point- it's just really really far in the future. All that history from the previous games has long since faded into myth, so the old timelines no longer matter and will be referenced freely as there's no meaningful difference between them as far as the people in-universe are concerned
Maybe that hat belonged to a hero, or maybe it was made up, it's all effectively prehistory and nobody can confirm either way so whatever
TotK's backstory is basically a total recycling of OoT's concepts without the spiritual stuff anyway, so it's obvious why they wanted to separate themselves from the old continuity so hard
47:28 bro, you weren't able to trace the source of that because it was in our private chat xDD
BANGER
no u
Nice work here, Capt!
19:31
I've never thought of the idea that Bomb Flower plants adapted a defense against Froxes, even though I've dropped hundreds from my pockets in the act of farming Frox parts.
Oh wow, I am so glad you stopped by my channel and subbed - I hadn't found your channel until then, and your content is amazing! Just absolutely love this. Can't wait to work my way through your treasure trove of content.
I am down for the Mogma connection. That was my first thought, when seeing the statue.
I'm still split between those petrified roots in the depths being roots, and lava tubes.
I'm still thinking that the timeline recombined before Breath of the Wild, and I'm pointing my finger at Shiekah seeded throut time, from the future.
Over all, an awesome video!
my theory for the plants is that they are filter feeders in a way. the depths already reminded me a ton of the deep ocean and it would explain the large fan-leaves of the ferns, the tendrils hanging down from the mushroom caps and the feather like leaves on the trees. the depths are insanely dusty and murky. my theory is that the frox consume zoanite and other valuable minerals and as they go, the zoanite rich dust they stir up feeds the gigantic flora of the depths. maybe there is even an energy cycle, and the dust produced bby the frox isnt exactly zoanite but rather a processed substance containing zoanite, that eventually gets reprocessed into zoanite and deposited back into the ground.
edit: nevermind they already adressed that. neat. this is a damn in depth video
i try
My current speculation as for minerals:
. POE souls (either before or after barginers have transferred the spirit aspect of the Poe) eventually becomes Luminous stone which then after pressure and time becomes it's stronger form Zonite (I come to this conclusion due to the idea of luminous stone holding spirit energy & the large amounts of zonite and luminous stone look very similar barring slight gold tones in zonite) I don't think the time stones are part of the same mineral however I do think they tie into more of the shiekah tech stuff
. A side speculation I've wondered if Bomb Flowers might be assumed incorrectly and should be a fungi and the explosion we see is their way of sharing spores?
. I hadn't noticed the Faces in the backs of the Barginers statues, from that perspective they look similar to the giants in Majoras mask
. If we imagine Hylia as the one crying, Din would become the Sun, Nayru the Moon & Farore the lightning
The bargainer's eyes remind me of weights on a scale in shape.
A thing i think is usually overlooked is that the islands used to be on the surface, and then raised them into the sky after sealing ganon (and i assume after they did that the whole zonai civilization was mostly destroyed)
because of the islands being raised?
@@MoxieWatts i remember a dialog line saying something about why they made the sky islands so that ganons evil wouldnt reach link (it was a while ago so keep that in mind) Edit: Not from the islands, sorry misunderstood what you meant
@Edward_Murtinhhour_The_3rd the sky islands were raised by the sages, but also it sounds like in "show of fealty" with ganondorf that the zonai are already all but gone
@@Edward_Murtinhhour_The_3rdI think what you refer to is the great sky Island specifically. After you do a side quest up there robo boy tells you that it was created so the hero who will fight Ganondorf will have a safe space to recover. I guess zelda told rauru what happened so he prepared the island. What i don't understand is where they came from. Where they even higher in the sky before the events of totk? Cuz i don't see holes underneath them and they have entirely different flora and fauna up there so it doesn't make sense that they were on the ground before.
An entire section dedicated to Zelda mycology... This was great
Well thank you! :D
@@Drakenwildyes great work here, Draken!
@@wizcatcheslightning
I'm sorry top bei so negative, as this propably took a huge effort, but am I the only one finding this Video top bei a total mess? Just a 1h+ rambling information dump from multiple people with some theories sprinkeled in every few minutes. This desperatly Misses some structure
If hylia shed her divine form to reincarnate as a mortal, who’s talking to you through the statues? I think the bargainer is a much deeper concept, changing personas based on the statue it’s in. Always the same entity.
I think the depths is simply just a place where all things forgotten, resides. All the things that are supposed to be legends.
And the depths are here to confirm that they aren't just legends in totk but actual history.
You see land marks around the depths that hints towards the other games as well. At the location of the heart pond where zelda used to visit, there's also a heart pond in the exact location in the depths. right besides something called Ancient Observation Deck.
In my theory it's connected to "Observation Deck" which is a location in Twilight Princess (a balcony that overlooks castle square and has a direct view at Hyrule Castle. Also right below the balcony you have the Fountain in the middle of the square). I havent been back to the location in TotK to confirm that it overlooks something that resembles an old hyrule castle, but right below it, the heart pond resides, just as in Twilight Princess where the fountain is just below.
might just be a coincidence though.
Ok here's my idea about the bargainer. It's underneath the Great Plateau right? And what was the Plateau in the past? Rauru's Hyrule. His castle, even.
Where would the Hylians get the idea to build a massive castle over Ganondorf to hold him down unless they already did that once before? Whatever evil is in that statue was sealed under Rauru's castle
I noticed whilst exploring that the giant stem (mother root?) leading from below hyrule castle to the depths below to Ganondorf, has what looks to be ancient writing on it - not sure if it's zonai or any of the other old languages seen in the games - has anyone tried to translate it at all?
i always thought those "petrified roots" were lava tubes. tubes through which lava flowed previously, where the lava flowed through these tubes, then cooled into rock and the surrounding earth went away through various natural processes. They do look like this, but they are nowhere nearly as consistent or abundant as these seem to be. The texture always made me think of fossils, though, which is not what lava tubes leave behind. ancient plant fossils.
So banune and i have been looking into it and they appear to mainly be connected with water sources. We think they may be aquaducts....
@@MoxieWatts aqueducts usually slope very gently downhill and are straight, but who knows how the peoples of Hyrule would do it. there are a few around which are broken, and they do appear to be tubes, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My lord it is almost impressive how little you actually said in a more than hour-long video. Essentially all of the actual content was in the last 4 minutes.
Does anyone know which song / mix of songs are played from 1:16:00 to 1:16:47 ??? I I love it so much I've been listening just that section on a loop for hours and can't find it anywhere in the OST
They’re “Gloom’s Lair” there are several versions that play right before the final fight ^^
Thank you so much!!! @@MoxieWatts
@AbsurdZeldaTheories has a great timeline theory that unifies all the games with no splits. It is worth a look.
Listening to all this theorizing makes me feel bad about all this people.. they so much more thought into these stories than Nintendo does
I have been having SUCH a hard time sleeping! Thank you for the rest ❤
Good night!
Oh, Moxie. If by any chance, if it is in your schedule, will you be doing a video about the ancient leviathans in BOTW and TOTK?
Is so, then I have A LOT to talk about a bizarre connection with that piece of Zelda lore and another Nintendo franchise. Believe me, this will be a surprising point that not very many people seem to talk about or even bring up.
To me, it looks like the dark skeletons are dead dragons, which are supposed to be immortal, right?
@@teleroboticI was just at the eldin depths one and thought it had to be a dragon, Dinraal was passing by and they looked similar in size
yes i would like to~ banune and i are cookin'. got any ideas?
yes they do look like dead dragons...that is the part we are stuck on...
*ponders the orb*
Immortal does not equal invulnerable 🤔
Poor hylia if this speculation is true then that means her slave,servant ,tool has been marked and guided by the forgotten God in fact isn't termina supposedly created by majora doesn't the fierce deity contain the same type of power as it. What type of effect did this god have on the spirit of the hero after all he is a god that deals with souls it would be weird if it didn't do anything in fact the fierce deity looks exactly like link. Light and dark sun and moon male and female hylia and bargainer zelda and link. she made him believe he was her servant.
Yes the same dark energy. Majin.
i like this take. deeeep
What if the " golden goddesses" possessed magatama that enhanced their power of creation and used one of their magatama too create the triforce ( each magatama imbued with their power of creation and light)
dude thats actually kinda a nutty idea & i love it
@@MoxieWatts yeah but here's something nuttier, the triforce was created to steal kamisama ( the bargainers) authority as the Supreme God so that the " golden goddesses" could be worshipped more then he and with their triforce pieces they deminished his worshipers by causing a calamity that wiped out most of the civilization that worshipped him and the only worshipers who survived were the ones who lived with groups who did not worship him
So are you implying that Termina is Hyrule from the SS timeline split? That's a pretty interesting concept. Would Lanayru Sand Sea somehow become an ocean again, in this timeline, to become Great Bay? From my own observations, Great Bay Temple and the SS Pirate Stronghold do have a few similarities.
Personally, I don't think the Bargainer is really as important as all that. I think it's simply a god of death, and it somewhat resembles the Poe collector from OOT, so he may have appeared in person before.
Diamonds: no wibble wobble. 👎 Steel: wibble wobble. 👍 Note taken
Wibble wobble intensifies.
for the algorithm Poggers video bro!!!! KEEP UP THE AMAZING WORK
Appreciate it!
@@MoxieWatts I LOVE THIS SO MUCH
With this theory here, where would Zelda have landed, Pre-Skyward Sword or Post-Skyward Sword? What relationship does Demise have with TOTK Ganondorf and Bargainer in that case? And with that split timeline of Majora’s Mask, would the Sealed Demise have BEEN the Bargainer himself or? Honestly I really like how the conclusion of this theory is that The Bargainer is the 1 God amongst the 3, and whose eyes and tears lead to Skyward Sword and TOTK’s past, but tbh it’s a bit confusing atm for me
It's still a bit confusing for me to wrap my head around as well, and i intend to flesh this out further in the future.
I've always thought it was interesting that the games decided to add a fourth goddess into the mix after they already had the three golden goddesses to work with, and with the triforce being nearly absent from both BotW and TotK, not to mention the emphasis on Hylia and lack of Demise, it definitely feels strange to THEN add a forgotten and buried Bargainer deity into the mix.
Also, with the Ouroboros motif of the title and around plenty of Zonai stuff, my friend theorized that this game was going to set up a time loop, that the events of both BotW and TotK would both predate AND follow the entire timeline. Maybe Demise hasn't been properly mentioned yet because he hasn't *become* Demise yet?
But seriously, this game had me so confused as to how Ganondorf has ANY connection to the moon at all? And it was never answered! As soon as he becomes the Demon King, the Blood Moon is in full raging effect behind him. Does the moon have some connection to the power of Vengeance? The kanji that appears when Ganondorf gets the Secret Stone is for Rancor (which is also the kanji for Malice, btw). Does that have any ties to why Majora uses it to enact vengeance on Termina? (or Skull Kid's vengeance on the perceived slights from his former friends the giants at least)
The moon shares a connection with Ganondorf and Demise, for sure.
A 4th goddess was never intended. I believe hylia is strictly due to the developer of SS wanting to make his personal imprint on the lore. Now with his last 3 games the lore is all over the place.. they could have dived into the deep lore of the franchise a lot more before switching it up and basically erasing the original history.
Also.. it’s not an ouroboros 😜
@@_itsmunah its not exact, but it does resemble two serpents eating each other from the tails, similar imagery
Ooh, if moving the Triforce through time causes what you described in the child timeline (the whole rebalancing the Triforce), then maybe Zelda going back to Hyrule’s founding (if totk Zelda has the whole Triforce) did a similar thing.
Maybe Zelda inadvertently created a timeline where Hyrule had no Triforce? Would that be what created the secret stones? Or would that be another timeline altogether?
47:28 I'd say one mistake is the assumption "Demise is destroyed forever." The devourer was always a mere incarnation of Demise.
The irony of Skyward Sword was the "inevitably of events". "Demise" the beast, is always sealed under the Temple of the Goddess, because "Demise" the Demon King is always defeated in the past and lays his curse down that the Goddess, Hero, and their descendants shall always be hounded by "an incarnation" of his evil. A good thing to remember is that an incarnation is not a direct one for one recreation. That would be a reincarnation. Which is something we never see in the Zelda time line at any point. Tropes are reused, archetypes re-emerge, but we never see an actual 1 for 1 reincarnation of a character, even an evil one, such as the Main Boss monsters. Even the many incarnations of Ganon are all different. Either from where they come from, from where they obtain power, or how they become the new Demon King.
The cycled started and had its first incarnation in the very game in which the cycle was introduced.
The idea of inevitability becomes stronger when you consider the Time Stones and their disappearance from the series after Skyward Sword. The hero couldn't have won without the ability to reach back into the past of the desert. This is a crazy powerful ability that makes sense to vanish after it has served its final function. The zonia stone is actually extremely weak by comparison, because it doesn't outright break time for every existant being around link, it only alters time in a specific window, a very small window and doesn't reset time to a long dead and forgotten era.
thats a fair analysis.
So I understand correctly, are you arguing that it's a closed loop?
I noticed that the outfit the bargainer statue gives you actually has the demonic face on it. The face has similar characteristics of a boar which is the animal that represents the tri force of power. The Zonai also do this to, most prominently with Mineru with her owl shaped head piece. The same could be said for Rauru because of his necklace, but I can’t figure out if it represents another animal. The tri force of wisdom is associated with an owl, which implies that there is a link between the zonai the tri force. But this makes sense because the zonai are incredibly smart so if by any chance they did possess a piece it would be wisdom. If I had to guess who has the courage piece I would think it’s the surface dwellers(hyllians, Zora, etc…). One the other hand, the zonai could of had the triforce in their possession also and something happened and they lost a piece. My thoughts though are that the god of death/cycle(bargainer statue) stole a piece of the triforce(power) and soon used it for some odd reason. Later the goddesses punish him by taking his eyes, sealing him, and creating the secret stones. Eventually, they giving them and the two remaining pieces to the zonai under the agreement or impression they will use the secret stones to protect it. With this power they developed into the extremely advanced civilization they where. Sorry for my jumbled thoughts and I’m not super familiar with the lore.
Edit: ok so Sonia has a dress piece with a dragon face on it. I think it goes to show that Zonai symbolize the triforce of wisdom, Hylians(along with other species) with courage, and the bargainer(creature of the depths) is power. Perhaps this could explain the reason why we only see the whole thing very little and mainly during botw with Zelda activating her powers and saving link. I think this may be because she had atwo of the pieces because of the relation to Sonia/Rauru and then an evil creature possessed by malice/gloom near her allowing her to have some sort of connection to third piece
it also has similar characteristics to a bokoblin
i think the necklaces are just meant to be tribal XD
I think the triforce is within Zelda ~ Encyclopedia pg 14 (i think link gave his piece to zelda after ganondorf was eradicated) IM ADHD and i got jumbled thoughts too
I like the idea of the representative tribes of a single race triforce idea its really good
if i sound jumbled its because i was listening and typing (using a read-outloud text thing )
that first part of the gloom theory reminds me of the toxic jungle from nausicaa of the valley of the wind. it could just be another reference to the studio ghibli family of movies
This simply no way that this takes place in an alternate timeline from breath of the wild as They refer to the previous game numerous times in journals and zoras domain having walls all over the place with botw events written on them.
And a big ass new statue in the main square depicting what sidon and link did in Botw.
Does this theory just spoil the bargainer statues or does it spoil a lot of the main story because I’ve found all the statues but I’ve only completed the wind temple so I want to watch this so bad but gotta know how long to put it off
A lot of the main story and ending homie
I love this "in depth" analysis you did here!! See what I did there! Great work!
Eiji Aonuma over here ripping out his own eyes because you told the Bargainer story before Nintendo got to.
this comment lives in my achievements folder. ty.
Let’s talk about Misko. Is he the Happy Mask Salesman?
You have met with a terrible fate, haven't you?
I cant help it oh boy that and the poe collector.
how did you get the video of dark zelda with the red eyes?
This probably is why the yiga wrote that when they went to the bargainer statue their souls would be sucked out. It’s because they’re descendants of the Sheikah
Ayo fire!
The only thing I disagree with the is merging of the timelines due to striking Ganondorf in the chest and the head. I do realize that these are crackpot however, that one is a bit of a stretch. They are pretty much the final blow for any boss in any game. That’s the main way to make sure they are finished right? Just because the adult and child timeline have different final blows and this game has one and the other was sealed somehow merged the timeline? It’s a little much. Plus they are in 2 separate eras, the child timeline would be merged first from the sealed. Then the final blow in the present? It’s all too confusing for no reason to say the least.
I'm with you. I have no idea whats going on :D
Amazing video mox! Thanks for having me :)
you know i cant function without you.
So I appreciate people like you that make this content, I really opens up everything that this game has and that can be speculated. And on the topic of demise, I was thinking the same when the final trailer dropped and we played aaaaaaand oh wait no demise y tho? 😅 but, I also watched the forgotten temple video recently, and it got me thinking, and this is just my thoughts: what’s the possibility that TOTK precursors SS, and the demise we see there is the same as we seen of the calamity seeping out through Ganondorf after Rauru seals him? They were both sealed for thousands upon thousands of years so it’s a possibility? But also the sky islands that the sages, Zelda and Mineru created could be the same in SS. Some of the Hyrulians could have settled there to continue living in safety and introducing why we have a population in the sky. I have so many other thoughts on what possibilities the game has offered but then again as you stated in the opening of the video, Nintendo could have retconned the timeline entirely 😫
The "lizard people" statues don't look all that reptilian to me, they look like Skyward Sword's mogma with more developed legs. The head and arms especially match and it's not unreasonable to think the mole-folk would not only branch out from eldin, but possibly evolve to have more proportional bodies over time.
They could also just be zonai. We don't see the two in Raru and Mineru, who are siblings after all. It's entirely possible that the zonai have a much wider range of appearance than we might expect (tho I do think it's unlikely, just a possibility)
Maybe I’m thinking to simply but Zelda going back to the beginning of Hyrule reset the entire timeline. Now everything that happened before is “Legend”. Legends are a combination of truth and fable. That’s why you find many artifacts from games past and why Sheika devices aren’t found (aside of one construct on the lab). The Zonai were likely the original Sheika however the shift in time altered that time period.
I think TOTK was meant to be a reboot. Everything we find in this game isn’t necessarily lore but legend.
35:18 people aren’t just suggesting that because they want to it’s because miyamoto says that himself.
this video was made prior to the developer interviews. Hope you understand the inaccuracy of this part despite that.
@@MoxieWatts fair enough.
Soooooo funny story about that lynal Coliseum was getting my ass kicked running out of arrows and materials to fuse .....so I used ancient arrows 😮😮😮😮😮 and got majoras mask easy peessy lemon squeezey by banishing them to the shadow realm
Yknow, you keep mentioning the “lizard people” of the depths as seen in the statues and mural in Lookout Landing. But how do you know they’re lizards? The depictions in sculpture and murals are all somewhat abstract so it’s rather hard to tell what they may have actually looked like.
I really like this video, it's rather really good. The only thing that sticks out to myself as kind of silly is anything trying to relate itself to Majora's Mask. Hyrule and Termina are completely separate and have nothing to do with each other. The only thing Majora's Mask has in common with all other Zelda games is that it's a Carl Jung like relevance in terms of archetypes.
I've been waiting for a Moxie video! Beautiful as usual. Although, the voice actor for the bargainer sounds inexperienced and contrived oof. Work on sounding creepy.
tbh i got a bit upset when they didnt explain where ANY of the sheikah tech went. like that was the biggest question i had besides how all the islands and stuff just keep floating up there.
edit: i never even noticed the second faces on the statues, HOLY SHIT.
Major props for surviving with only four hearts for so long. I'm way more cautious.
Meh. What happens I die and reload
@@MoxieWatts True.
What if theres a giant garbage heap of Sheikah tech far away from Hyrule that Zelda had made in case the Calamity returned but instead Demise' essence escaped the Master Sword and is over there crafting a new body for himself with Sheikah tech.... ah shiiid here we go again!!
How did you get that dark zelda thing? Also, what is it? It looks like it is in tears of the kingdom, but i have never seen it? Very confused. Also, imagin if the game was meant to be tears of the kingdon, as in ripping, and we have been saying it wrong the whole time. 😂