Twitter | https://twitter.com/moxie_watts
Patreon | https://patreon.com/moxiewatts
Voice Actors:
Hylia | Lady of Lore @TiptoeTheTank
The Bargainer | Charlie
The Ancient Stormark | Real Kid Voices
Zelda Lore | The Forgotten Temple
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv-y7NTC4mo&t=332s
Zelda Lore | The Fascinating Mystery behind the Temple of Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5RYHvF12CY&t=393s
Drakenwild | I Translated ALL 13 Sky Lore Tablets. You Can Read Them Now. || Zelda Lore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dybGqmorI14
Linfamy | The Revolutionary Origins of Pure Land Buddhism in Japan | History of Japan 80
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUG4ifeWzTk
source
2 issues 1) Guardians at the Forgotten Temple: By the time the Shiekah created Guardians, the Secret Stones were in the possession of the Sages in their respective temples. 2) The primitive "Zonai" overlay on authentic Zonai architecture: We know from the Thyphlo Ruins quest lines that ancient Hylians created those ruins to honor the sages. The ancient Hylians were not capable of matching the Zonai technology and architecture. I don't know if the overlay is an act of preserving the underlying creation or hiding it.
The Tobio's Hollow Chasm is the path to the Spirit Temple and the Secret Stone is kept there, seemingly unguarded by its Sage. We also don't know how the Sages are able to protect their Stones beyond staying hidden. That there are Boss level enemies blocking access to the stones implies there is more power protecting the Stones than just staying hidden.
Firstly, regarding the Barbarian armor, I think it might be tribal remnants of before Sonia and Rauru founded Hyrule. It's got the same sort of archaic leathers look that the archaic tunic does, the body paint seems like a variation of Sonia's, and the Labyrinths establish other divinities based on sacred animals, one of which is the Lord of Boars. Boars are heavily associated to Power, which would line up for a war-like tribe. Admittedly this is all weak evidence, but hey.
Secondly, regarding the White Sky Sword: this is just a theory, but maybe the white sword is supposed to be a backup plan for the Master sword? The Master Sword gets heavily damaged, but what would have happened if Fi had died (if she even can)? The world would be without a tool to repel evil. Hence, a backup sword, tempered by the dragon talons in place of the golden goddess flames. All it would be missing is it's own spirit to become a new Master Sword.
Finally (Stay with me on this one), while I am in no place to comment on cultural appropriation, I do believe you are correct that the doors bear something similar to the Jewish Sephirot, albeit slightly modified. Interestingly, the Zonai Eye (ZonEye?) appears in the direct middle of the design, while the Sephirot has some 'middle' entities. There are three candidates for what it's position might mean, so let's run through them.
1) Da'at, the unity of all the other elements of the Sephirot, where divine light shines infinitely. While this does tie into the Zonai's (supposed) divine origins, unity doesn't really seem to be an element for them, seeing as how they don't support themes of unity. There are also themes of seeing the truth of the divine light, which corresponds to the whole 'third eye' thing the Zonai have. Rauru only opens his in times when he needs to use a great amount of his light power, which could reflect the divine nature of his light, and seeing the truth of it. Interestingly, Da'at is not always included in the Sephirot, and can be considered a void in some cases (the void left by the Zonai when they left Hyrule perhaps?).
2) Tif'eret, the balance of Kindness and Giving Chesed, and the Strong and Restrictive Gevurah. Without this balance, the divine energy of creation could not manifest. The Zonai do carry a lot of themes of creation, with their technology/magic, founding of Hyrule, and the creation of Sages and Demon Ganondorf. Tif'eret can also be seen as a lower reflection of Keter, the incomprehensible absolute divinity, which would track for a race considered deities, but are more 'physical' than them. Though the Zonai lack themes of balance between kindness and strength; Rauru can be said to possess both, but it is his arrogance that unbalances them both and throws the world into chaos. When Da'at is not present, this sephira is considered the middle.
3) Yesod, the foundation upon which god built the world. It serves as a conduit for the divine energies above to filter into the world below (Malkuth), and it is through Yesod that the world can connect with the divine above. This is also a good fit for the Zonai, having descended from above with divine energies to grace the world, and the Zonai retreated back to the heavens, likely with information and other influences from the world below. Yesod is also considered more abstractly to be representative of connection, being reflected in the connection of the Hyrulean people to the gods, and the more direct connection of Sonia and Rauru, producing the kingdom of Hyrule.
Most of this I sourced from wikipedia, so if anyone who has a deeper understanding of the Sephirot and it's implications wants to chime in and/or correct me, please do!
Okay, this got away from me, but the implications here are really interesting!
Yooo
Well done🎉
can i add that with the addition of the glider set we now have a boar and a owl outfit…
i dont think the zonaite outfit is a good match for the dragon and the three weather effect outfits are based of THE dragons
Never would I thought hear someone say "Mommy Hylia". xD
I would believe that the Mother Goddess Statue falls over as a result of the Upheaval, it caused a large earthquake felt across the lands as Hyrule Castle was raised into the sky, and the result of this quake toppled the statue, revealing the hidden door that was behind the Goddess Statue. As we seem to know, the Goddess Statues are capable of being moved by their own divine powers associated with Hylia, this much is known by the fact the Horned Statue was moved from Hateno to the underground caves of Lookout Landing Royal Family bunker passageway. Either the horned state moved itself, or was moved by the power of Hylia's Goddess Statues, which are also capable of being moved around either by themselves or another power. We also happen to know that deep below the in the depths we also find Bargainer Statues in those exact locations below the Goddess Statues. There is also the one goddess statue we find in the Bunker also, and another located in a Well which you might have come across while exploring in the Akkala region next to the East Akkala Stable in search of all 58 Wells, why these two are here are such abnormalities that are in weird places and never before seen, it's as if someone put them there or they moved themselves there using their power.
I still strongly believe the connection of the people with Lurelin Village is connected to the Zonai in some way of the ancient past long forgotten, my belief is that the people of Lurelin are the last remaining descendants of those Hylian-Zonai-like tribe or civilization if you want to call it that. These people chose to settle in a remote quiet area and came to become what's now known as the Fishing Village. They decorate their homes and boats with Zonai-like paints and symbols, and the fact that there are certain few people who can read Ancient Hyrulean and Zonai texts, and even keep books on how to translate them like the ones Turo and Paya read to uncover the mysteries of The Ring Ruins, you even have Wortsworth who can translate Ancient Hyrulean texts from the 13 chamberlain ancient tablets that you have to take pictures of. Some of these textbooks came from Turo, and Impa who also had ancient text books too, as she also somehow had ancient textbooks relating to Dragon Tears, The Geoglyphs and The Forgotten Temple.
Something I would like to point out that the time between Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom seem to be about 7-8 years approximately, and when you visit the Forgotten Temple in Breath of the Wild you see that it's covered in a lot of rocks and such, but when you later go back and visit the sample place in Tears of the Kingdom, it does look like it has been excavated some more since, which may or may not add to the theory of why the Goddess Statue was toppled over. As a combination of my previous theory, someone had obviously been to the Forgotten Temple and removed or completely destroyed the remaining Guardians that was placed throughout the Temple, and cleaned up the other remaining rubble in the temple, perhaps they also tried to dig around the Goddess Statue to clean up that area, digging out more rocks that piled up behind that statue, but then decided it was too much work to to and left it, which also somehow contributes to it's being toppled over when the Upheaval happens, making it become toppled when we discover it again. The dirt and rocks that someone dug around the statue caused it all to become loose and unstable. — Or even perhaps whoever was digging around the statue at the time caused it to topple over because the dirt and rocks became unstable, and then immediately fled the scene of the crime so as to not take the blame for the statue being toppled over, and there's only one person I can think of creating such a chaotic mess…. and that's Addison of Hudson Construction, why else would he haphazardly go around Hyrule putting up signs of Hudson with no proper support structures? Because he's so useless! (this is just me obviously joking and memeing here.) but really someone would've had to of been digging around Mommy Hylia Statue that contributed to it falling over. — Also have to consider the fact that going to the Springs of Power, Wisdom and Courage and offering up the Claws of the 3 Dragons to move the Mommy Hylia Statue speaks of the power of being able to move other things like a 500ft statue.
Now if the zonai aren’t a barbaric jungle tribe, then we still don’t know who the barbarian set belonged to. Maybe it was crafted by humans, like typhlo ruins.
I think the original mother goddess statue cracked when it was dropped on demise and after some amount of time passes it breaks apart due to something like freezing and thawing. The pieces were then recarved into the ones we see now. Meaning they were all once part of the original statue.
There is also the spiral design that is found on the bird (Rito?) statues, located in the Typhlo Ruins, also found painted on the interior walls of the sand ship.
Speaking about your theory about the moving Temple of Time. On the same video, I talked a bit about my theory that there were multiple Temples of Time, and they were connected by portals. Now we have a builder king, named Rauru, who uses owl imagery, and makes use of portals as doors for his Temples of Light.
1. You pointed out 2 different kinds of Zonai, one who represents peace and engineering and the other represents war and primitivism. Such a reference was present in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption at the planet Bryyo. A golden age occurred when the “Lords of Science” came together and constructed technological masterpieces that shared knowledge to races beyond the planet. However, this golden age would not last, for the “Primals” mourned their primitive traditions and developed a bitter resentment toward the masters of technology. This led to the all-out war that rendered Bryyo uninhabitable. All that remains are the ruins and the Primals who attack Samus on site while venturing deeper into the planet’s ruins.
2. Metroid Prime 3 features a setting called Skytown, Elysia. A deserted Chozo colony that was left behind. The colony is now inhabited by robots that not only share the knowledge of the planet’s recorded history, but continue to resume their work. Pointless now their masters are gone, but admirable to continue to function for the sole purpose they were built for. Sound familiar?
3. With references of religious history, regardless of any name you call God, divine intervention is no exception for Shinto followers and Buddhists despite the prejudice between each other. Two mighty typhoons occurred on the Mongol invasions of Japan. Mighty warships from Mongolia of the Yuan Dynasty sent by Kublai Khan to invade Japan, only to be thwarted by nature itself. 1274 and 1281 A.D., the Mongols attempted to invade mainland Japan and managed to pillage Tsushima, Iki, and Hakata-ku. Both invasion attempts failed by a divine influence. The Japanese came to know it as “kamikaze” or “divine wind.” It was believed that if a naval invasion is built in the size the likes of which the world has never seen, a divine intervention is plausible. However, when the Second World War raged on, the belief was dismissed when on June 6, 1944, the Allied armada crossed the English Channel to Normandy. The invasion force was larger than the Mongol invasions, and even bigger than Normandy was in Okinawa, and much bigger, the invasion force of mainland Japan later in 1945 just before the war’s end.
In Tears of the Kingdom, the Imprisoning War broke out. The tribes banded together, even the Gerudo who claimed responsibility for the birth of the Demon King and vowed to make amends to right their wrongs. The Kingdom of Hyrule believed that no matter whatever form Ganon assumes, he would be defeated and sealed away. Only… the Great Calamity occurred and wiped out the kingdom. Even when sealed, the damage was already done. Even when the Calamity was defeated by Link and Zelda, Ganondorf returned as a mummified corpse and unleashed chaos upon the land.
Tears of the Kingdom could also imply Japan’s history of religion, prejudice, prophecies, and misinterpretations as the times, both ancient and modern, have come and gone. Whether the past is not what it seems or the future is not what some would’ve envisioned it. Divine influences can shape history, not just man.
The Ancient Hero’s Aspect could be what the Faron Barbarians looked like, a warlike and more primitive subset of Zonai.
Rephrasing one of my last replies from the previous video, it turns out I've made a much bigger and more shocking discovery than what I previously realized. Not just the fates of the leviathans, but further beyond and in a much deeper rabbit hole… I'll fill you in on some more when you upload something that brings up the subject matter.
It's a rabbit hole so deep that even (Smash Ultimate) Zelda's dress poofs like a parachute slowing her descent within it.
great luck to you in trying to even link botw and totk lorewise, its a wild west now
This could be a stretch, but regarding the use of Jewish mysticism in the architecture in the world of Zelda might be tied to Monolith Soft’s contributions to the world building. Monolith Soft Xenogames are quite known to use themes from Gnosticism, Jewish Mysticism, and Philosophy in their games.
To touch on your mentions of potential cultural appropriation, it should be noted that Kabbala style imagery has its roots in Alchemy practices dating as far back as ancient Egypt, and has been used through out many belief systems and over the years such as varying Gnostic beliefs for example. It has been prolific enough in varying cultures and spiritual beliefs that I think one would be hard pressed to assert whether it has been appropriated from a given culture or not, as the symbol in question is bordering on generic by this point.
Either way, good video and good research.
Yes!!!!!
Thx 🙏🏾 moxie for this amazing video.
I’d imagine the Hylians built the ruins in Faron just like they built the typhlo ruins, per the hidden monument.
Good vid. 👍 On the Tree of Life (Sefer Sephirot) diagram, I'll note that it and much of other Kabbalistic practice were exported into European occult traditions a long time ago. Notable Western magicians who utilized it have included John Dee, Mme. Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley, various members of the Golden Dawn order, and Samael Aun Weor. This might be the tradition that Nintendo drew on rather than its original Jewish roots, but of course we cannot know without them explaining it and I really doubt they're going to do that. If it's the Hermetic tradition that they're drawing on, I would have to say that softens any case for cultural appropriation a bit as those traditions go back to the 1400's. Then again it can maybe be looked at as another product of European imperialism, too, in that the occultists of the west have always felt privileged to draw from, absorb, and alter any tradition they please.
Wait… Did the golden goddesses become dragons just like zelda?
The mother goddess statue was likely toppled by the upheaval. That's what was seemingly implied
Hey Mox, great video, as always.
I have to warn that below is a grammatical and incoherently formatted monstrosity of text that I wrote with like an hour of sleep, and I may be forgetting or imagining things. Readers beware. tldr; hero's aspect makes no god damn sense and it bugs me.
I'm commenting mostly because I can't get a certain something off my mind.
It's the Hero's Aspect Armor. It doesnt… Make sense?
Namely, the notion that it's either a Zonai, or Gerudo/Zonai hybrid. Firstly, hybrids don't apparently work in that way in the Zeldaverse. You get an either or situation, not a mixture, afaik. If a Zora and Hylian have a child, you pretty much roll the dice as to what their offspring are, either a Zora or Hylian, for example.
Basically, hybridized races don't actually exist as they do in the real world.
So having established(?) that, it wouldn't make sense that the Hero of the first (known to us) Calamity was a Zonai, and it couldn't have been a Gerudo male, as Urbosa suggests that ever since Ganondorf was sealed (as we now know, by Rauru) there hasn't been a Gerudo male born since. The reason a Zonai doesn't make sense to me, is that as far as us (the players controlling Link), is that as of the time of Ganondorf's sealing, at least 20,000 (Calamity reawakened every 10k years[?]) years ago (although I'll argue way longer for very dumb reasons) the only known Zonai by anyone were Rauru himself, and his older sister, Mineru. Which just raises the question of where this alleged Zonai hero came from?
I've come to a number of conclusions and I honestly just want some feedback from some people on it.
1) Unreliable narrator. Basically, we could have incorrect facts about the whereabouts of the remnants of the Zonai race and the nature of the Calamity, or when this particular Calamity occurred. We've either been misled intentionally by something/someone or there's been a purposeful and intentional omission of the actual history of Hyrule as it's known by the era of the Hero of the Wilds. If the King of the era of Prosperity was willing to put an entire subrace of Hylians to the sword for their creations in the form of Guardians and Divine Beasts out of fear, I can't imagine he'd be above purposely crafting a glamorized or inaccurate narrative for the tapestry the Shiekah make.
2) The Hero's Aspect is basically Hyrulian propaganda. Hear me out. If there are no (known) Zonai once Mineru and Rauru are no longer around, how could a Zonai fight a Calamity? There shouldn't be any left to do so. Ganondorf hadn't been sealed during the prominence of the Zonai initially, so there's no Calamity building strength or to fight during that time, and by the time Ganondorf was sealed, there were no Zonai left to fight the Calamity. But there are fading legends and whispers of a godlike goat people race from the heavens that used the mysterious green ore that's found sparingly around Hyrule, and it's fashioned into a stylized armored second skin for that era's Hero to use to fight the Calamity alongside the Guardians and Divine Beasts, adding to the hero's skillset and power, bolstering it further. After all, the Shiekah of that era, while not at the Zonai's level of technological sophistication (or with limited to no access to Zonite) it wouldn't be incredibly hard to believe they'd be incapable of creating it.
3) The Hero of the Wilds is the original hero of the depicted first (known to us) Calamity. Farfetched, right? Well, if this were a series other than the Legend of Zelda series, a series somewhat known for it's time-travelling shenanigans, it would be. But there's a possibility that there may be a future story in TotK (via DLC) that leads Link into sealing away that Calamity, and it doesn't officially start until you're awarded the Hero's Aspect. I'm not exactly sure how it would kick off, but given the timeline tomfoolery in this game, I'm not going to completely discount the possibility.
4) The most boring answer. It's just an armor piece that's based off the Hero in the tapestry, and it was included as a fun Easter egg, and Impa mentions it to call back to the tapestry.
Really enjoyed your contributions to the captburgerson discussions and your last video about the bargainer. Plus that post you made about the whole surface map being a construct was like woah hits bong can't wait for more heavy speculation
Just found this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0n1Q0CV-3A lots of similarities to the Zelda lore and implications that may be related
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❤❤❤
Whoa I have just seen how many subscribers you have now. I remember when you had way less(about 6 months ago) so well done 🎉
Funnily enough, my first thought when seeing the Forgotten Temple’s plot relevance was that the Guardians in BoTW were an attack force sent by whatever subconscious drive Calamity Ganon had. An instinctive fear of what lay there. I have no real evidence for this aside from conjecture and a gut feeling. Ironically, Age of Calamity supports your theory, with the ancient untainted Guardian placed there. Mayhaps the ancient Sheikah placed them there as added protection before they fell out of favor with the royal family. The site gets buried out of misplaced fear, only to be excavated by the next generation when those fears are forgotten.
I just realized the magnitude of the blast Rauru made back then. Mind-blowing. So, let me get it straight. You are to tell me, that the Tenegar Canyon is the "after" the memory? In this case, Dueling peaks don't look that hard to imagine being nuked, back in the calamity. Yo!
I wonder if the war like tribe was simply Hylians back when the Zonai originally landed on the surface. Something happened to the Zonai, did early Hylians enter into conflict against them?! Where did they all go, they seemingly disappeared or many of them are poes in the depths, Sonia also has tattoos/paint on her that is more refined than tribal paint, so maybe that's a sign of Hylians continuing to paint themselves, but eventually it was dropped from their culture as the Kingdom continued to develop them.
Didn't A Link to the Past talk about people trying to get to the sacred realm (the sky islands) to obtain the Triforce, makes you wonder, if Zonai not having any iconography of the Triforce, is a sign it ultimately isn't actually real but if a god-like species landed on Earth we'd create myths believing them to possess the literally power of the gods in some physical form. An early tribe race would do whatever it takes to obtain that power, including wage a war with the Zonai. Makes me wonder.
I don't think the Muslim song in the dungeon in OoT counts as cultural appropriation. There's a difference between hijacking a culture to serve your purpose and using music from a sound catalog. If anything, the sound catalog is guilty of cultural appropriation.
Don't take my criticisms too seriously though. I enjoyed the vide a lot despite my comment.
one thing that has bugged me when theorising about TotK is the fact that Hyrule Castle was said to be built by the ancient Hylians on top of the underground area where Ganondorf is sealed to protect the secret. Doesn't this rule out that the Great Plateau was once Hyrule Castle?
In our own history, we see civilizations that make pyramids and other structures, which are found years later by more primitive cultures. Those people will cover the old structures in various materials for different reasons. Some do it to protect the older structures. Some to try and imitate. It depends. You can see examples in Egypt and South America.
In Zelda, I imagine the primitive Hylians, which have a Mayan feel, did something similar with the zonai structures.
The room where the map with the geogliphs is didn't exist during the past. In the sages' vow cutscene you can see there's no entrance in the back of the secret stones room. Also, I don't think the guardians were placed there to protect the secret stones. Those were already given to the sages long before the sheikah technology was developed, and were placed each in its corresponding temple. How could the guardians be protecting the stones, if none were there since the Imprisoning war?
The one mystery I would love to find out, who are the Lomei, the people who built the labyrinths
I got one question. Why did Zelda turn into a light dragon, and not a time dragon?
I just want to add a detail to this topic: Zelda games are, since the beginning, a big fat "cultural appropriation", mostly from Christianity in the early games. Also all architecture (buildings, etc) in TOTK are inspired in some culture. I understand that inspiration and derivational work is not appropriation, even if it comes from religion. But I don't know Judaism this deeply to notice if it offends the religion… If it does, them that will be careless development from Nintendo. I believe Nintendo was a stronger research when it comes to cultural impacts these days than back at Ocarina. But what do you think? I am interested to know more when you find these answers.
That being said, congrats on your work, I love your videos and the philosophical layer it brings to the conversation, not just entertainment theories for bigger audience.
Don’t forget that Ganon took control of the guardians knowing that the secret stones existed in BotW. Perhaps Ganon was the one guarding the entrance to the forgotten temple chamber. But why?
More Moxxie lore lets gooooo!!
the river of the dead is where the Zonai Castle is on the plateau
i like to think that after sonia, rauru, mineru, and zelda weren’t around anymore, maybe the hylians potentially regressed back to how they were before
Hey Moxie I wanted to know your opinion on the Old Maps and the clothing they point to, does that have any lore implications? All the old maps are found on the floating islands so all the maps had to have been made around the time of the sages raising the islands, right? I'm not really sure how to explain it properly but if the clothing means anything timeline wise would it mean that all the events of the past games actually happened before the ancient past of Tears of the Kingdom? Would love to know what you think because you're way more of an expert about the lore than me.
when you mentioned that culture being inspired by another, it reminded me of weeaboos. and romans (greekaboos)