While it can be argued as coincidence that Zelda and Link’s incarnations all share the same name (with the exception of Hylia and Tetra), with what we know of Impa and the Sheikahn roles in protecting Zelda throughout time, I can not believe her ‘name’ is by chance.

Impa is the one Sheikah chosen out of her tribe to act as Zelda’s personal protector and nursemaid in most of the games she appears in. She (in all her incarnations) is one of the only two canonly recognized member of the tribe we ever meet (the other is Impaz, not Sheik.*) while the rest remain hidden. While Kakariko is stated to be the Sheikahn village, we see no one else dwelling within that looks like they could be a Sheikah during the events of Ocarina of Time.

The Sheikah are known to have many prophesies that they pass down generation to generation. They know of certain events that should happen at certain times - but they don’t know all. So an Impa is likely sent to serve Zelda directly when a time of known prophesy is at hand. This would explain the absences of an Impa in some of the games (while the total death of the tribe would explain it in others, depending on the timeline post-OoT).

Even if Impa is named ‘Impa’ at her birth, she is likely given this name because she has been chosen by signs present at her birth to be the one trained for the role and then sent to aid Zelda. In this regard, given what we know of the Sheikah and their dedication to their duty, it can easily be extrapolated that Impa is more a title than actual name. The one who bears it giving up their individuality in history to the greater service of the Royal Family and Zelda in particular.

Of the three timelines, only one ends up preserving this role: the Downfall Timeline. Impa appears in all of the Downfall Timeline games except A Link to the Past and Link’s Awakening. She is the nursemaid and protector of Zelda, as well as a source of ancient tales and prophecies to aid Link in his quests. 

In the Adult Timeline, while we see signs of the Sheikah’s former presence in Wind Waker in the Forsaken Fortress (it has the Sheikah Eye decorating it at points), and the piece of Gossip Stone that lets the King of Red Lions speak to Link bears the Eye as well, there is no Impa. This could very well be because the Sheikah - who were already close to dying out in Ocarina of Time - did not survive the Flood. It could also be that even though they did survive the flood, they could not trace Zelda’s bloodline to the Pirate Queen Tetra. However there was no evidence of their continued existence in Spirit Tracks, so until another game takes place in that timeline, best guess is that they died out.

In the Child Timeline, there is an old woman who is one of the last of the Sheikah. She bears the name Impaz and said she was named in homage to the town’s founder: Impa (a different Impa who lived before the events of Ocarina of Time). Her role and duty as the last remaining resident is to wait for the “messenger to the heavens” and give him the Ancient Sky Book. Her duty was not to serve Zelda directly.

There is also one other possible Sheikah or part-Sheikah in Twilight Princess: Madam Fanadi, the fortune teller. She shares only the distinctive red eyes of the tribe, but has apparently tattooed the Sheikah Eye to her forehead (or has a very good makeup artist) - likely because it is a symbol known for helping one see through illusions. There are good odds she is half-blood Sheikah (at best) due to the tribe being almost extinct: we know all but Impaz left the Hidden Village (old Kakariko) and breeding outside the main lines with Hylians would at least keep the blood alive.

*Due to Sheik being a cover for Zelda, s/he does not count as a Sheikah for the purposes of this discussion.

thoughtprovokinginanity:

In Ocarina Of Time, shouldn’t the red tunic have kept him warm? From/about lava = warm in cold situations, right?

Actually, if the Goron (red) Tunic kept him warm, it wouldn’t have protected him from the heat of the volcano. The Red Tunic actually kept him cool enough to walk close to lava so he wouldn’t die from the extreme heat.

The Zora (blue) Tunic let him breath underwater. But it did little to keep him warm.

sengis:

• who gave Link to this culture of perma-children to be raised
• why did they think that permanent children would be suitable guardians
• why did they fail to mention that Link wasn’t a Kokiri, thus leaving him open to bullying and also identity issues later on
• is this literal entering of the…

1. Answered later in the game.

2. Answered later in the game.

3. Because telling him would have been worse than not telling him.

First off, Mido bullied ALL the boys. If you didn’t notice, at least one other had been bullied into cutting the grass outside Saria’s house for Mido. The rest of the Kokiri did not bully or make fun of Link and, in fact, were very open and willing to talk to him implying they all got along fine save for Mido. And Mido’s bullying was more based on the fact that Link was Saria’s ‘favorite’ when Mido had a thing for her. The ‘half a man’ jab was the easiest thing to pick on an thus it was used the most.

 If Link and all the other Kokiri knew he wasn’t a Kokiri, he would be more likely to be ostrasized by the community because he “wasn’t one of them” not just “half a man”. He would also have been more likely to strike out on his own before he was ready and quite possibly lead to him getting killed by idk… a stal-child after nightfall? 

By letting all the children and him believe he was a Kokiri, he had no reason to search for any reason beyond himself as to why he wasn’t like the others. It helped keep him humble while also building a drive to prove himself just as good or better than the other boys - this is evidenced by the fact that he is the only boy who dresses like the girls AND has so much farming/building/foraging equipment in his house. He learned to do the ‘jobs’ of both the boys and the girls while still knowing that he’d never measure up in Mido’s mind for lack of a fairy.

Link was able to grow up in a society that was clearly a ‘mock up’ of what he would encounter later in life in an attempt to prepare him for things to come. The Kokiri had no need for a shop or the use of a monetary system - and yet they had one. On top of that, the shop was sized for an adult (the shopkeeper had to jump just so see over the counter). It was clearly not intended for eternal children to use exclusively, and yet the Kokiri know nothing of the outside world. So there are clearly no visitors to use the shop. It, and the ‘houses’ were there only to give Link something that would breed familiarity in how the rest of the world operatated.

This could only work if Link was convinced he was a Kokiri, a little bit ‘lesser’ than the others, and willing to work hard to earn his way through life. If Link had known he wasn’t a Kokiri, he’d have more of an incentive to ignore critisisms - even valid ones - because he’s a ‘Hylian’ and therefore anything said shouldn’t apply to him since he was ‘different’ and possibily ‘better’ since he could leave the forest without dying and a slew of other ‘bratty’ things that come from a lifetime of resentment rather than the ultimately harmless bullying of a single kid.

4. IDEK, man. Maybe it was supposed to be some lesson on not being able to save everyone or some shit.

5. IT WAS SELF DEFENSE I SWEAR!

6. Clearly he had to get the skin for that nose from somewhere.

historyofhyrule:

Someone got a response from Nintendo of America’s customer service about Hyrule Historia. It’s kind of whatever. I don’t think it means much and I’d rather take it as a challenge to get it through that we really want this book in English! We do, right? Let’s go for it!

This is important to my blog and my over-analytical tendencies as a fan of this series.

ordonpumpkin:

Ah, yes, that’s true, about general dubiousness; the brain-washing seems kind of like an exception to me, because they’re made out to be on the same level as Ganon in terms of evilness; they’re unsympathetic characters whose intentions are pretty clear as just being selfishly out for ruling the world (or at least supporting Ganon to do it).

Possible trigger warnings below for discussion of dub-con situations!

So maybe I just mean dubious sexual consent? I don’t want to imply the Gerudo are sunshine and kittens, but I think they’re anti-heroes more than villains. They have a very Catwoman-like set of morals; sex and sexuality are no problem for them, going by their flirtatious manner of speaking to Link, and the revealing tops despite the harsh desert sun. So I think it feels very strange for them to resort to something like dub-con sexual relations for the sake of procreation. Even if they seem to have a kind of bitterness towards outsiders, I think it’s more of a response to the King of Hyrule denying them any land and resources from the much more plentiful lands outside of the desert. Once Link is given the pass to travel around the camp by the second-in-command, the Gerudo open up and speak to him like he’s one of their own; Nabooru has no qualms about treating Link like he’s a good guy. So even if there’s a bit of nationalism/xenophobia between the Gerudo and Hylians, using fellows sexually seems to be against their characterization.

Especially since they are relatively sexually liberated in the context of the game! Using fellows for babies, not having any mention of lasting relationships, showing off a lot of skin (again, compared to the Hylian ladies, who are covered neck-to-ankle), flirting shamelessly, and probably having a lot of situational lesbianism (taken from real life scenarios of all-women’s groups, and the context of the game showing no gentlemen around the camp!)—these things all add up for me to ladies who understand the idea of sex for pleasure, and the idea of consensual sex for pleasure, so even the initial distrust of Hylians doesn’t seem enough to push them over into that kind of behavior culturally. In fact, for them, being fairly feminist in their behavior, I would go so far as to say they would abhor that kind of thing in a widespread way!

Ganon, of course, might be a different case. Since he was raised more by the witch sisters, that kind of cultural “training” might not have been a part of his life. It would be an incredibly lazy narrative move to make “sexual predator” a part of his characterization, but it doesn’t strike me as totally impossible. It even fits pretty nicely into his role as holder of the Triforce of Power, but maybe I’m just being biased about not wanting that kind of thing in the media, you know?

Also! I hope you don’t think I’m trying to fuss or argue! I just generally have a lot of feelings about Zelda, and I really like these kinds of discussions. So I followed you because wow dang what a perfect blog.

Trying to keep this from being too tl;dr by cutting out all but the previous reply!

First of all, I don’t mind discussion in the least. So please don’t think I consider it an undue ‘fuss’ or ‘arguement’. I, too, have a lot of feelings about Zelda and is why I started the blog. Getting my thoughts in order takes time so I haven’t updated the Kokiri stuff yet despite having replayed the area a dozen times just to write down all the dialouge I can.

Getting back to the discussion at hand…

Continued Trigger Warnings for discussion of Dubious Consent

I actually don’t think they would ‘use’ or think to force Link once he joins them. At that point he is no longer an outsider, he’s one of them. I apologize if I implied that in any way. I think he was at risk up until the point he got a membership card. Once that was over with, he was one of the Gerudo, a ‘sister’ of the tribe, if you will. At that point he would be given all the same consideration as any other member.

I also agree that all signs point to sexual liberation on a scale that isn’t seen elsewhere in the worldset. They are proud of their bodies and not afraid to show it. (They may also have developed a more natural immunity or adaptation to the effects of the sun that allows them to walk around with less covering than others would need).

I don’t, however, believe that sexual liberation means they are less likely to use coercion in the needs of procreation. Sexual pleasure is one thing, propagating the species is another entirely. Finding boyfriends doesn’t have to mean “looking to get pregnant”, it could just mean they’re looking for male companionship on the same level as they’re able to get from their fellow women in the tribe and unfortunately cannot find there due to their low male birth rate.

As far as social taboos go, due to the xenophobia displayed by Hyrule’s Government, and based on how forcefully and swift they imprison tresspassers, I don’t believe there would be many who would frown on issues of dubious consent toward outsiders. There is likely to be something against full out rape (which for the sake of this discussion I will define as obviously non-con without any level of dub-con because that can get tricky fast), but convincing a prisoner to sleep with them at some point before their fate is decided - and without any false stipulations as to how this might effect their sentence - would not be beyond a few of them, IMO. More so amongst those who live on the border than those who live further into the desert because the effective racism/class-ism/etc between countries and peoples would be more pronounced.

It is obvious, I think, that the Gerudo do try not to let it get to the point of such dubious consent with their prospective baby-daddy’s because of how the Carpenters ran off looking to join them. It’s very likely that the Hyrule Government has done a lot of anti-Gerudo propaganda in living memory (10-17 years after the unification war is not enough time to have that forgotten even if they did eventually bow) so the Gerudo had to have been doing something to make their way of life and the prospect of joining them tempting enough for people to run away to do so. But with how poorly they’re treated by the government of Hyrule, I find it more likely that when it comes down to trying to get pregnant, they will not hesitate to grab men and do their damnedest to get him to say ‘sure’. As with all things, the man in question would determine how easy or not it would be to do so.

All that said, that kind of pressing need is not likely to come up often. The Gerudo are both nomadic and very long lived. Their birth rates would probably be very low already and the need for more members of the tribe via birth would only be pressing during extended periods of war or just after. Otherwise, they can be pretty relaxed in building relationships in their travels with a possible goal of having a baby from it.

Ocarina of Time being within that time frame of War/Shortly After, the likely hood of the Carpenters and Link being held for ‘convincing’ is very high. I am not trying to say that they would have forced themselves on the prisoners, because they obviously didn’t care enough about the Carpenters running away once released, but coercion was likely to be attempted before they chose to release the prisoners and let them go on their own.

As far as preferences in entertainment media, I like mine with a bit of edge so reading dub-con and even non-con into how a society interacts with another is not something I mind doing. I don’t think it makes the society as a whole a ‘villain’. In terms of my original answer, I didn’t mean to imply dub-con/non-con as a way of life, just a possibility that people overlook when discussing how the Gerudo propagate.

ordonpumpkin:

hyruleculture:

thezeldaoflegend:

….but how do they reproduce?

The Gerudo Culture is not an essay I’m ready to do yet - however…

Short answer: There’s a reason they imprisoned the Carpenters and Link instead of kicking them out of their territory. You can do the math, I’m sure.

There’s a Gossip Stone outside of the Temple of Time (if I remember correctly) that says they’ll pick up boyfriends in the Castle Town, so it seems like they set up affairs with Hylian men when they want/have to reproduce, and once they confirm their pregnancies, they go back to the desert to rejoin the tribe and completely cut off the relationship with the Hylian man.

Or that’s what they’re supposed to do!

I think locking the carpenters up was just a way to deal with them while they decided whether they should be killed for intruding in their territory, rather than being a part of sex that would have been filled with dubious consent.

Yes.

I didn’t mean to imply it was the only way they did things, just one of the most obvious ways. Being marketed as an all ages (including young children) game, they wouldn’t want imply too many instances of dubious sexual implications. But considering they slipped in the Poe Collector speaking of a “different kind of business” he could run if he looked like Link, and Koume and Kotoke not being above brainwashing Nabooru, I don’t think it’s that far fetched that a fair proportion of their society would have issues with any dubious consent scenarios. Particularly in a time of war when their ‘team’ was winning (a lot of them talked up how awesome Ganondorf was for being in charge and while I have never see him as a man to do that sort of thing, he was the embodiment of Evil).

Researching between normal, everyday real life obligations.

In the Lost Woods there is another zone that I missed on the first descriptor post for this area. It’s of a small imporance to analysing the Kokiri Culture and a slightly higher one for analysing the Deku culture.

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So this long-ass picture has a point. It’s something I’d noticed in the N64 version of OoT and MM that I could never figure out the reasoning behind.

Why cherubim decorating the Fairy Fountains?

Possibly just to give them something to decorate it with that was symbolic of being ‘heavenly’ and ‘pure’. Possibly a throw back to the original N64 beta that had the Great Fairies looking more like angels.

Point is, they’re there and have been there for a while. Nintendo left this detail in the 3DS version.

They probably remembered it being in there when coming up with ideas for Skyward Sword. Obviously, because OoT was made first, this was not an intentional tie-in to Skyward Sword. But Skyward Sword might have been intentionally tied-in to OoT with the re-use of this symbology.

As far as the culture of Hyrule is concerned, however, there is a clear connection from time-period to time period. While Hyrule may only have remembered the Goddess Hylia through the name of a lake, the fairies, at least, have a bust of her adorning their fountains.

I’m sorry you find the detailing of what is actually in each area to be needless, but I cannot begin to draw and present conclusions to the fanbase until I have those details written down in an open and organized fashion. That is the main focus of those posts - which also provide details of the settings others have expressed they find interesting because they had not noticed them before. If you don’t find them interesting, then I will respect your opinion on the matter. But others do, and as said before, they provide a good system of detailed notes so you can see where I’ll be drawing my conclusions from.

As this blog is very new and I have only just started the process, I do not have any essays or conclusion posts created. Yet. Please do give me some time to get to that. There’s a lot that needs to be done first.

Thank you. 
And I will be if the timeline shenanigans seem to have an effect on the cultures presented. I will also be touching on tie-in’s and shout outs to other games that show up through the series as I get to them/find them. 

Apologies for the accompanying TL;DR in advance 

There aren’t a lot of good comparison pictures of the N64 vs 3DS versions of the various kokiri houses (including Link’s) but at least one of the shots from when the previews were put out got a decent look inside the Know-it-All Brother’s home.

While most of the content remained the same, there are some changes with the face lift. Using the two pointed out in the above picture:

The glowing candles/oil lamps from the N64 version seem to have been replaced with decorative red pots that do not glow or have any illumination to them beyond what’s in the rest of the room. 

The shelves with pots on them were there in the N64 version, but the N64 had a lot more wine-bottle shaped objects on the top shelf while the 3DS cleaned it up to only a few with some very distinctive red to the bottom halves - making it appear as though they are possibly storing health potions.

The most important thing to take away from this, though, is that while the 3DS did have the graphics cleared up, they built on what was already there. The hints about what each culture might be like didn’t change all that much from version to version. The conclusions we can draw about the culture based on evidence I am currently gathering from the 3DS can still be drawn using the evidence in the first version.

Whether or not that red decorative pot is supposed to be an oil lamp, or the number of pots on the top shelf… they don’t matter. The fact that there are shelves with pots on them remains the same. The fact that there are more decorative pots/lamps in that house than any other remains the same.

The point being: The important hints did not change.

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As of the time of this post, I am 4 people away from 100 followers. I honestly did not expect to garner a quarter of that much interest even with an affiliation boost from one of the other, more popular and well-known Zelda tumblrs. Especially not within 8 hours of such a notice of affiliation going up by them. So thank you all very much for showing your support. And thank you to FuckYeahLink for kindly getting the word out for me.

The Lost Woods

Because not all of the ‘rooms’ in the Lost Woods have any kind of structure in them, we’ll be exploring the ones that do have something worth examining.

Man I hope the cut works because this is going to be a long one…

Read More

paranoid-tendenciesxx:

I want to follow all of you :3

o7

thezeldaoflegend:

….but how do they reproduce?

The Gerudo Culture is not an essay I’m ready to do yet - however…

Short answer: There’s a reason they imprisoned the Carpenters and Link instead of kicking them out of their territory. You can do the math, I’m sure.