Let’s discover the mysteries surrounding Ganondorf’s power in Tears of the Kingdom and his return in Breath of the Wild’s sequel.
With a focus on the Japanese versions of Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild, this video delves into the two central concepts of 妄念 “mounen” and 輪廻 “rinne”, as used in Buddhism, to shed light on the motivations behind Ganondorf’s actions.
輪廻 “rinne” is the word Demise uses in Japanese to refer to the cycle that the spirit of the hero and the blood of the Goddess are bound to. 妄念 “mounen” is the word that Zelda uses to describe Ganons/Ganondorf’s obsessions.
Judging by the way Demise speaks in Skyward Sword, it’s also possible that he was already aware of the concept of “rinne” , the cycle of reincarnation, prior to the events of the game.
All translations in this video were completed by me. As in the complex nature of translations, there is no perfect one to one direct equivalent. There are multiple ways to translate (and interpret) text. This video showcases my translations and interpretations. Another may choose to translate differently!
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Lets go! 💪🏻💪🏻
Man this video really makes me even more excited for Tears of the Kingdom. Hopefully others will share this video to the Zelda community because videos like this sheds light on the other games that the English localization just can't tell the story in a similar way!
Wonderfull as always !
Hopefully they fix 4SA taking place after TP and let this be the same ganondorf from oot and TP in the child timeline. Imagine the rage he would have being trapped for 10k plus years. Neither alive or dead.
Fifth
Great video as always my good sir😊🥰👍💯💕💞💖
I know what you're doing is amazingly difficult and I totally respect that. I wish there were more channels like yours out there. But I'd be lying if I wasn't hoping for more new, less review.
Also I still think "Ganon" is a mindless force of ~~nature~~ Demise's Malice not inherently tied to a single mortal with large amounts of jyaki.the child timeline had a ganondorf the 2nd this is probably like ganondorf the 8th.
Honestly your content is so good! Much better than a "top ten zelda bosses"
Your videos are GOAT
Honestly you're the only good zelda theory YouTuber aside from monster Mace…
But you're so much better! I really hope you get like a million views and more subscribers someday
Keep up the great work I love your vids your one for the only few who reads and translate the Japanese version
it’s only 100 days to go till the release date and I can’t wait hopefully we get more vids to keep me hyped till may 15th
Ganondorf ?
More like Canondorf…
I'll show myself out don't worry
Amazing vid as always. Japanese translations make lore videos so much more interesting.
For the English dub, I think Charles Dance of Games of Thrones would be the perfect voice for Ganondorf!
If Tears of the Kingdom is all about breaking the endless cycle of death and rebirth the Bringer of Demise placed upon the sport of the hero and those who shared the Blood of the Goddess since Skyward Sword, I pray to Hylia that Zelda does not die! Because I would throw myself off the bridge if that happens. Let alone devastates Link not because of his feelings for her nor his duty to safeguard the Princess of Hyrule as her appointed knight. But because the promise he made to Urbosa to look after her “little bird” on the deceased Champion’s behalf. BOTW Zelda is my favorite because she is more relatable to any of us, she has been through a lot, and I want her live her life to the fullest as she dreamed of being a scholar like her mother.
Your Zelda theories stand far above any others I've seen. Most people come up cool ideas about how things are connected but are ultimately fueled by pure speculation. Your theories however feel like a natural conclusion drawn after understanding fundamental aspects of the Zelda Lore and its cultural inspiration.
By the time you were ready to reveal that you were going to divulge Ganondorf's relationship to the Lost Woods, I was already convinced and could almost picture how you would do so because of how thorough and detailed you were building up to it.
A normal theory would start with a claim like Ganondorf can't travel the Lost Woods and here's why. Then it would proceed list off some common tropes of the canon like people turning to stalfos so that's what would happen to Ganondorf. And it would have no explanation for why Link is able to like you did.
All I can really say is great job once again and thank you for this treat.
Fantastic video, as usual. You are probably my favorite Zelda channel, despite not milking your channel with video after video, just for views. Respect.
I don't think Ganondorf has learned to harness malice on purpose. I think he's been detained indefinitely by the spiral spell-hand, and Calamity is a consequence of its inability to detain the curse, being the collective result of a millennia of slowly seeping malice. This is why Calamity had to cobble together body parts from Sheikah technology: It's true body is not dead, and therefore unable to truly revive (it cannot clone itself).
I think, eons and eons before BotW, the Sheikah thought that they had found a way to stop the reincarnation/revival of Ganondorf, by imprisoning him physically, rather than deleting him in the Master Sword, like Demise.
Demise could reincarnate, but because his soul was detained in the Master Sword, he could only reincarnate as a mindless, vengeful body. In BotW, Ganondorf cannot reincarnate a body, so his malice must either manifest itself as a dark beast or find a host body.
Demise eh?? dang i JUST finished skyward sword for the first time several hours ago lol.
shame he was a pretty easy final boss tho..
There's a slight misunderstanding of the context of Zelda's words. Ganon did give up on a reincarnation to assume the form of Dark Beast Ganon: he was in the midst of making a new body (a physical reincarnation) when Link arrived, and so he fought him in an incomplete state. When that failed, he gave that body up to embody pure Malice as Dark Beast Ganon. It's not the greatest choice of words, and it led to a lot of confusion, but it isn't inaccurate; it's merely poorly worded.
Beautiful video, thank you sincerely for your content! <3
Such a very very very awesome, inspiring and informatively interesting video, I so very much loved and enjoyed it.
Great job and well done, keep up the great work, I got a mega ton of the much needed inspiration for the liminal spaces/Zelda inspired story/series I’m working on writing.
The story I’m writing is liminal horror and lovecraftian/Eldritch horror with slight elements of fantastical dream-logic fiction and analytical psychological/parapsychological horror.
The plot elements of my story/series are:nostalgia, memory, philosophy and Liminality.
The themes of my story are: hauntology ( as in the rosy retrospection/bias of the past and nightmares/hauntings of lost media given form.
I absolutely love getting getting inspiration from the Zelda series and Japanese mythology, folklore, spiritual teachings and urban legends, they’re so cool and fascinating to learn about.
I’m going to be incorporating elements of it into my horror/mystery and surreal-dream fiction story/series.
I also absolutely love Japanese horror, I’m incorporating elements of that into my story as well.
My story/series will have a combination of cultural Japanese elements and retro American elements.
This is the first video of yours I've seen and I'm subbing right away. The amount of digging you did into the etymology (I hope that's the correct word here) of both the English and Japanese was amazing to listen to. Great job
This was a real eye opener , a lot of things actually make sense now.
But I must correct you on one aspect of the demise curse.
Demise didn't lay a curse , fear leads to hatred which brings him back through the cycle.
It is an actual self-fulfilling prophesy , and nobody caught that.
Very well put-together video! Probably some of the best Zelda content on YouTube and it clears up a lot of misconceptions. I feel that the translations you have helped bring to light gives Ganondorf his agency back. I always thought Skyward Sword really robbed Ganon of his character, instead of being a single man that would go on to be thr largest menace of Hyrule he's just a reincarnation of a generic demon and was thus fated to be evil. But this really helps clear things up, the way I see it, Ganondorf is his own individual not tied with Demise at all but rather is a being who shares the same hatred of the goddesses as Demise, continuing the cause of the Demon tribe. I like the idea of his refusal to give up on his goals and desires being the reason he constantly comes back instead of it just being Demise's curse keeping him alive.
(Part 1)
Regardless of how it plays, Demise’s curse was set into motion when Twinrova created Ganondorf, making them his surrogate mothers. In Ocarina of Time, the climatic final battle led to the possibilities that occurred in the series. The two timelines which Ganondorf was defeated by the Hero of Time and the “what-if” scenario in which the Hero of Time was defeated by Ganon. Now there have been many debates about the nature of the Zelda timeline. One of which is that the Child Timeline is the true canonical timeline while the others are canon in their own right, but expanded upon the lore. (It’s really up to the player what’s canon or not.) Picture this… what if Demise’s curse actually ended in both the Child and Adult timelines?
In the Adult timeline, things ended with much more than just defeating Ganon. In Wind Waker, Ganondorf was brutally stabbed in the head and turned to stone by the Master Sword wielded by the Hero of Winds then all of the original Hyrule is washed away, Bellum appears stealing the Life Force from many beings until it met its end when Link annihilated it with the Phantom Sword, and Malladus attempted to resurrect itself using Zelda as a host with Cole’s help, but after thwarted by Link, Zelda, and Byrne, it uses Cole as its host instead. Link and Zelda are triumphant and wasted Malladus using the Lokomo Sword, ending the eternal struggle against the demons.
In the Child Timeline, Ganondorf’s plot to seize Hyrule fails, but he survives his execution with the appearance of the Triforce of Power. When he was casted into the Twilight Realm, the anguish of the Twili became the fuel of his power, allowing him to transfer it into Zant.
Prior to this, the ancient demon of neglect and envy, Majora, contained its entire being inside the infamous Mask. Whoever wears it, becomes it’s puppet to bring ruin and destruction to Termina. It’s true form wasn’t revealed until the Hero of Time faced it in combat. Against the odds, Link (with or without the Fierce Deity Mask) annihilated Majora, causing its influence to leave the Mask permanently. Zant, while the smokescreen of Ganon’s conquest of Hyrule, desired the rule over the Twilight Realm while allowing Ganondorf to return to Hyrule by enshrouding the kingdom in Twilight. Ganon succeeds in seizing Hyrule Castle, but unlike himself in OOT, he never made a priority to seize the complete Triforce. With Zant slain by the Sol-infused Master Sword and the ancient Twili magic in Midna, Ganondorf remains the prime source of Midna’s curse. After losing possession of Zelda’s suspended animated body, he assumes a significantly inferior form of Dark Beast Ganon. After Zelda obtains the Light Arrows from the Light Spirits, she and Link face Ganondorf in a fierce battle for the fate of Hyrule. After the climactic one-on-one sword showdown, Link plunges the Master Sword into Ganondorf’s chest. After briefly declaring that “the history of Light and Shadow will be written in blood”, Ganon loses the Triforce of Power and dies. To prevent the tragedy to repeat itself, Midna (restored to her true form) shatters the Mirror of Twilight, ending the eternal conflict between light and dark, as well as proving her true leadership. (And Four Swords Adventures’ placement at the end remains up to debate whether the fans want it canon or not. Don’t the sales charts for that game tell anyone?)
Honestly, you deserve more recognition.
You're doing great work here. Providing the original texts and context is so helpful.
(Part 2)
Of the 3 timelines, the Downfall Timeline is the biggest example of Demise’s curse in the cycle of death and rebirth repeated time and time again. This also marks the point which Ganon no longer bears the identity of the Gerudo king. Instead, Ganon becomes a mindless entity as shown in the end of Oracle of Seasons/Ages. Other evil forces appeared to continue the cycle: Agahnim, DethI, Onox, Veran, Twinrova, Yuga, and Dark Link. So Hyrule remains in a doomed future in that tangent.
Breath of the Wild doesn’t appear to have a specific place at the end of any timeline. However, a common debate claims that Breath of the Wild has no connection with the known timelines. Instead, it uses the lore of previous titles to make the game’s events relevant with Skyward Sword having the most references. (After all, BOTW is a fresh new take on the series. A soft reboot.) Ganon appeared time and time again. 10,000 years prior, it became better known as Calamity Ganon. 100 years prior, it laid waste to Hyrule. Present day, he was sealed away seemingly for a short time. Now with Tears of the Kingdom, Ganon returns as the corpse of Ganondorf, bringing Hyrule in much worse ruin than ever. While Ganon’s role in TOTK is unknown, but the themes of ancient dread and sacrificial rites seemingly bear a loose reminiscence of “The Mummy” (1999). It could be possible that Ganondorf wants to use Zelda as a sacrifice, but the lack of her sealing power may make it impossible because resurrecting Demon Kings require the sacred force residing in Zelda. This Zelda spent the past 100 years containing Ganon with this power to the point of completely exhausting it. Instead, Ganondorf might have another use for her. Only time will tell.
the clear fact that the royal family and whoever the prophet was that told them "the power to oppose ganon lied beneath the ground" 100% interpreted that wrong is so crazy to think about now, knowing that Ganondorf is under hyrule castle.
Good video, with well informed delivery. Breaks down basically every reason why I expect to hate this story and hope its as sparse as BotW.
This whole video was incredibly enlightening! The part about the Lost Wood reminded me how some people have gone through the Tears of the Kingdom trailers and found the Lost Woods, or at least the very large distinct-from-afar Great Deku Tree, to be missing in the backgrounds of certain shots. Given the context that it may be for the purpose of hiding things the Un-enlightened or spiritually corrupt should never get access to, having the great protector of such a place vanishing would be devastating.