#Urbosa’s diary

[proxycrit]

Day 42– GERUDO SHELTER

Bularia’s irritated, Riju’s exhausted, and plots are to be had with the gutted insides of ancient war machines.

(This totk rewrite au is called Familiar Familiar! It all starts when Zelda doesn’t get sent back in time and the butterfly effect devolved from there.)

((Wanna support me? Check out my patreon, with my throw away sketches and references! Remember to use web or android folks, apple charges 30 percent tax.))

[hotstreak2k3]

No worries! And I’m sorry that I couldn’t reply back as well. I was on a camping road trip to Utah. It really has beautiful scenery!

Anyway, it would be interesting to see that part. Not because Urbosa is my favorite champion nor my favorite Zelda character. But her relationship with Princess Zelda is very special to most people like me.

She always looks up to the Gerudo Chief as a mother (since Urbosa and Zelda’s mother are good friends. But it hasn’t been explored much).

Having Zelda reading that would give her the encouragement to be more confident and given more growth within her.

Can you do a short comic where Zelda read Urbosa’s diary since Link made a promise to Urbosa to give it to her and watch over her on the Gerudo Chief’s behalf?

Thank you for the suggestion! Sorry for not replying so soon.

that would be interesting to explore the emotional and fragile moments of Zelda from my pov...I want to do some research first! We will see! Thank you.

[glitterbuns]

It's a very random question, but I always thought he looked pretty old to have a 16 year old daughter (considering the fate of Hyrule depends on continuing the bloodline of the Goddess, I would assume they wouldn't wait a lot to produce an heir/heiress...)

[parasprite]

[distantkairi]

I'm convinced some people did not bother to read the botw diaries at all with what they think about Zelda and her relationship to Link so here:

Zelda's Diary:

Urbosa's Diary:

Later, after the champion inauguration (I am running out of image allowance here):

Daruk's Diary:

Mipha's diary, at risk of starting controversy:

[caseys-soup-corner]

Yeah he's baby... but you're off on his age by four years...

Revali is canonically 17. 21 would be past the age of his fledgling marks falling out, the red marks on his cheeks would have fallen out by age 20..

Also hiiii hello heyyy, sorry for bumping in like this.

Omg Revali’s only 21??? He’s baby??? Asshole baby???

[ladyurbosa]

It still genuinely irritates me how dirty Urbosa was done in both BotW/TotK. Mipha has an entire court and statue dedicated to her near Zora's Domain, Revali has a landing named after him in Rito Village, Daruk has his head carved into the side of Death Mountain, and what does Urbosa get? Nothing aside from a mention or two in Riju's diary and an OPTIONAL side quest to craft her scimitar and shield in TotK.

[silentprincessofhyrule]

i always found it weird how so many npcs in totk don’t remember link.

yeah i know i’m not the first person who’s made a rant about this before, but this just really annoys me.

like, what do you mean you don’t remember link, the guy who sealed the calamity? the guy who sealed the 4 divine beasts threatening to destroy your home town?

link, the guy who went all across hyrule helping citizens, the guy who also built terry town? it just makes no sense that some npcs just refer to him as zelda’s knight and don’t know his name, or some just forgot him!!

also, consider this: if everyone remembers zelda, (who hasn’t been exploring hyrule as long as link ever since 100 years ago) then why don’t they remember link? i’m assuming link stayed by zelda’s side as zelda’s chosen protector during post botw to totk. it just dosent make sense.

and don’t get me started on how totk dosent even acknowledge that botw existed. yeah there is some little easter eggs/mini references to botw (like the divine beast helmets) but you know what imo is one of the biggest ‘fraud’ things of all?

how do people not remember the divine beats or sheikah tech at ALL????

this is something that really makes me confused. how in the hyrule does nobody remember those 4 big animal looking robots trying to destroy your land? how does nobody remember the scary creepy guardians scattered all across hyrule? oh, and what about the shrines and those humongous towers all across the land? absolutely nobody acknowledges these things!!

the champions!! practically everybody in botw remember urbosa, mipha, daruk, and revali. however in totk… it seems like they’re forgotten. mipha is out of the question though because she got an entire court built in her memory in totk, but that’s it. during my playthrough of totk, they DID make some references to the champions but it was small. really small. daruk was referenced in the yunobo quest, and his statue in the mountains is still there. urbosa got a mini mention in rijus diary, but that’s it. and now there’s revali. i don’t know if revali was mentioned at all…

in the end, totk itself is a really good game. personally, i don’t really like how the story was handled, this is just 1 aspect i didn’t like.

[vampire-wizard-solidarity]

this is a public service announcement to all revali fans: i invite you to join my campaign for the belief that mipha and revali are like, besties. there is no textual evidence to support this however i would like to dedicate the rest of this post to basically form a manifesto for this dynamic.

first it's important to acknowledge that botw and all champion related materials are kind of underbaked and don't elaborate on possibly any idea related to the champions enough to create Analyzable Depth, so when talking about these characters there's always an element of identifying either potential/setup for these characters and kind of trying to extend this. engaging with these characters kind of inherently means doing, in at least some part, the job of the writer and low key Making Shit Up. i acknowledge this and also embrace it and i suggest you do too.

so, mipha and revali: they are low key parallels, or at least play parallel roles to each other. the champions could be 'divided' into whether they relate more to zelda or link, and coincidentally link gets the boys and zelda gets the girls. daruk and urbosa are the older figures who take on a low key parental role to link and zelda respectively. daruk hangs out with link and gets him to loosen up a bit (source: his dlc diary) and urbosa is the one who cares for zelda and understands her deal the most (source: every single time urbosa is on screen). revali and mipha are, then, the peer character meant to 'challenge' link and zelda respectively.

revali challenges link's status as 'the chosen one', whether he really deserves this title and status etc by being the only champion with no inherent authority who had to work his ass off for any status he does have. mipha challenges zelda's role as a princess, by being also a princess with special powers who's practically perfect at everything zelda sucks at (being good at her power, getting along with link, having a loving family, having her people have complete faith in her, being mourned extensively after her death etc). revali and mipha further foil each other: revali is the most Outraged by the entire situation, whereas mipha is the most complacent. revali bases a lot of his beliefs about the situation largely on misunderstanding and projection, whereas mipha possibly has the most understanding about everything (about her entire role in this, about how special princess powers work, about link and generally the people involved). having these two characters interact and like, talk about things is inherently an interesting concept because of this.

furthermore, i believe they could bring out sides in each other that are largely unseen in most contexts. mipha is generally quite passive and quiet, despite having the most understanding she doesn't proactively voice it nor tries to actively 'enlighten' anyone. the one time she does try the apocalypse happens and even then she isn't like 'ok we are on borrowed time zelda lets debrief u need to unlock ur powers stat' shes just kind of like oh ok. guess the Very Important Conversation That Could Solve Everything has to wait. revali, on the other hand, doesn't shut the fuck up, and never even considers that he's wrong or working off of wrong premises. despite this, both of them have sides to them that are not like this: revali acts like a pompous asshole, but from his dlc scene and journal we can infer he has a bunch of underlying insecurities and also does Genuinely Care. and mipha, again from her dlc scene, has some older sister snark that comes out when she interacts with sidon, she's actually willing to be proactive with him and not overly coddle him.

with mipha's whole thing as the understander i think she'd be able to catch onto revali's shit almost immediately and see through his facade. at the same time she's not the type of character to actively try and fix him, i actually think she'd express her understanding in a kind of cheeky, snarky way, 'match his energy' so to speak, because she knows that's something that would actually ruffle some feathers (heh) and get revali out of his comfort zone. for revali, on the other hand, i think it'd be a very disarming experience to be actually called on his bullshit by a peer who seems to actually get him and not buy his whole pompous asshole thing. i also think he'd kind of project his own feelings of being upstaged by Some Guy onto mipha, an actually competent princess who also has to step back just because she's from the wrong royal family. their kind of opposite personalities and perspectives are able to complement each other, coming together to a perfect equilibrium of 'yes there are things that are very unfair about this but there are reasons for the way things are and we kind of have to accept that'. it is kind of beneficial for both of them to hear about/engage with the others' perspective.

a quick aside bc i know a bunch of you are revalink fans: the dynamic of revali and link one sided rivalry meanwhile mipha is great friends with both of them is really funny, and also opens a door for revali to develop a better understanding of link and give him a chance. i don't go here i am a miphzel girlie however this is something to consider.

now: would they actually like each other? the answer for mipha is simple because like, i think she just kind of likes everyone. for revali it's a little more interesting and i think it's important to bring up the way he views zelda: he talks about it in his diary, but basically there is an element of him looking down on her there's also a distinct sense of pity ("It's not that I dislike the Princess. She tries her hardest. It's simply not good enough"). there are a few reasons for why there's a pity present where it is not for link, part of it is pretty much explicitly stated with how he views zelda as earnest meanwhile link as emotionless. i, being me, read botw as a very deliberately gendered story and will assert that in my reading, part of the reason why he has a distinct rivalry with link and does not with zelda is because link is also male.

part of it is because the roles of the hero and the princess are inherently gendered, and revali wants the role of the hero, the role he thinks is being taken away from him. he understands the role of the hero as the main fighter, which is what he wants to be, and he doesn't have the same interest in whatever role the princess plays in defeating ganon. part of it is the fact that revali is a teenage boy, and link is also a teenage boy. the way he provokes him and tries to enter an adversarial relationship with him reads to me as like, the kind of bickering you do with specifically a peer you view as a challenger, in this case the role they're both aiming for is the 'knight', in the case of link literally, and in the case of revali more symbolically, as the top archer and 'protector' of his village.

now this is where we veer off into the 'Making Shit Up' part of analyzing botw champions, namely there's a lot of interpretations one could come up with using the implications of this aspect of his character, to name a few: he potentially does still hold a kind of respect for the authority of royalty, namely princesses; he is a feminist; my personal favorite: he has some aspects of toxic masculinity making him pursue rivalry with other men, while not viewing women as rivals in the same way. either way, one think is clear: he doesn't react to princesses with the same antagonism he does to knights.

so, what we have here: he values 1. competence 2. sincerity 3. people who cannot rival him for his status or any status he wants. mipha checks all three.

furthermore, now that we have established that revali is a kind of 'knight', and mipha is a princess, and they both foil link and zelda respectively, they are, like link and zelda, a knight and princess pair, ergo their potential friendship is in itself a foil to link and zelda. with link and zelda, we have a very complacent, passive knight and a princess with a propensity for projection who is very vocally not happy with the situation. and with revali and mipha, we have a knight with a propensity for projection who is very vocally not happy with the situation and a very complacent, passive princess. the first pair's dynamic leads to conflict between the two of them, and who survive despite their incompetence. the second pair's dynamic, in my pitch, leads to closeness and friendship, and who die despite their competence. Are You Seeing This.

so yeah. i have mostly focused on their synergy and narrative foilage instead of the specifics of their potential dynamic, although i do have opinions on that too, however i have omitted those largely bc of what i have discussed in paragraph one. this is not a pitch for you to subscribe to my personal interpretations of these character's personalities, it is a pitch for you to make them interact. more.

TL;DR: the potential dynamic between revali and mipha is scrumptious because they're literally foils to each other and to link and zelda and we should all be exploring it more

[critical-birb]

No matter what anyone says I refuse to ever beleive that either Mipha or Revali from Botw/AoC were adults.

Have you seen how small they both were?

The only blood relatives of Mipha we see, Sidon and Dorophan - are fucking enormous as adults. Even the regular sized Zora are considerably taller than Mipha as adults.

Even disregarding the fledgling markings theory stuff with Revali - dude is tiny compared to the other Rito. No other Rito (other than the actual children) is as short as him, in the past or in present.

Yeah, perhaps they were both just short - but it seems significantly more believable to me to conclude that they were teenagers.

Zelda turned 17 the day the Calamity started. She had been 16 up until then. We don't know Links age - but he's shorter than her, by all accounts he could well be 15/16.

This is, at it's core, a game for kids. Like any kids media, the hero's are usually....well, kids. It helps the young target players feel empowered, like they could also be a hero.

Looking at it from an adult perspective, of course you're like surely not - surely they wouldn't send four children off to war?

I firmly beleive that Link, Mipha and Revali are all around 15-17 (or race equivalent - since Zora seem to age slower than everyone else).

I mean, in Botw you get Fyson who is played off as being a teenager/young adult Rito who's mom wants him to take over the family buisiness, who hasn't even 'left the nest' at the beginning of Totk - and even he looks significantly older and taller than Revali.

Miphas diary talks about her starting to look up to Link as he grew older - which personally to me suggests the age he's at, he's outgrowing her physically - her own equivalent age could well be a young teenager and she's watching a boy who she met as a child now almost mature into a young man. It would explain her father's immediate hesitation to let her pilot a divine beast in the first place.

I know it's because Urbosa and Daruk were leaders and Mipha and Revali technically weren't - but we know Zelda asked Dorophan's permission for Mipha to pilot the Divine Beast, and it was mentioned in Revali's diary that she spoke to the Village Elder before asking him. Sounds an awful lot like asking a parents permission because they're too young to decide for themselves, if you ask me.

They're teenagers. Youngsters. Little guys, even, your honour. I am convinced of this fact.

[proxycrit]

Day 48. The Lightning Temple Remains

Well, that source of history’s lost forever, but at least the gibdos are shrivelling in the sun, the ghosts are put to rest, and Riju found a cool rock.

(“I put the future in your hands. Do better than us, little thunder bird.”)

(This totk rewrite au is called Familiar Familiar! It all starts when Zelda doesn’t get sent back in time and the butterfly effect devolved from there.)

((Wanna support me? Check out my patreon, with my throw away sketches, unfinished ideas, and references! Remember to use web or android folks, apple charges 30 percent tax.))

[comixandco]

The four Sages were called back into the past by Terrako and they remember it happening

Tulin got to meet his hero, Revali, and decided to be just like him, adopting his idol’s brash personality and drive. He practises Revali’s Gale and eventually comes up with his own way to show off his mastery of wind, and when trouble hits his home he rushes to fix it on his own to prove how strong he has become and because, like Revali, he can’t stand idly by while he knows there’s still things he can do.

For Yunobo, when he goes back and meets his ancestor Daruk, he is a very timid and reactive Goron. He needs a push from others to come up with ideas and carry plans through, and when bad things happen to him his first instinct is to use his fire magic as a shield, to wait until the threat has passed by or somebody else has come to save him. But when he is sent back in time to Divine Beast vah Rudania, for the first time he has to be the one doing the saving. Daruk encourages Yunobo and is proud of him from the moment they meet, and it’s this support that gives Yunobo the confidence to help fight against Calamity Ganon, and to start YunoboCo when he gets home.

For Sidon, meeting his family from 100 years ago is bittersweet. He is proud that he was able to protect his sister, and it’s a comfort to know there is a version of him who will grow up alongside Mipha because of his bravery and fighting prowess. But as much joy as he got from seeing her, hugging her, and hearing her voice again, it just reminds him of how unfair her death was, of just how young she was when she died and how he is now older even though he’s the younger sibling. And at the end of the war, when he’s returned to their original time, he has to readjust to her absence all over again, and in light of that is it really a shock he’d have her statue moved further away from his home? And it also explains why he’s so desperate to protect Yona from the sludge.

Riju in AoC still a new ruler to her people, despite her accomplishments in BotW, she still feels guilty over the temporary loss of the Thunder Helm and isn’t sure if she can lead the Gerudo. She has a lot of confidence but is quick to falter when things go wrong. Urbosa treats Riju as a capable fighter despite her young age, and teaches her that she should never give up, to keep trying even when her resolve falters. There is always something you can do, even when it’s just stalling for time until help can arrive. Urbosa guides her in mastering the Thunderhelm, and possibly begins teaching her to summon lightning herself after Kohga attempts to steal it, and at the end of their time together Urbosa tells Riju she’s certain she’ll lead the Gerudo well. Riju treasured her time being mentored by Urbosa so much that she considers what Urbosa would do during the Upheaval in her diary in TotK.

I think the entire reason Tulin was added to the DLC was because the TotK team had already decided that Tulin was going to be the Sage of Wind, and that since the other sages were going to meet their Champions Tulin had to as well.

At some point in the years between Botw and TotK Teba, Tulin, Sidon, Yunobo, Riju and Patricia were summoned back in time by Terrako to aid the Champions during the Calamity, and even though those events took place in a parallel timeline and had no bearing on the world they returned to, the Sages’ personalities at the beginning of TotK are because of their experiences during the Calamity and the bonds they made with the Champions.

[multbasa]

Thinking about Sidon and how old he might be, there are actually a couple of clues in Breath of the Wild.

Link's childhood friends from Zora's Domain remember him very clearly even though it was over 100 years ago:

"We used to swim together when I was but a child... Remember? Well, it has been 100 years since then. And now I'm over 130 years old."

–Rivan

"What is the Big Bad Bazz Brigade password? Fluffy white clouds! Clear blue...[Zora] [...] The only people who know that password are members of the Big Bad Bazz Brigade!

–Bazz

"We...used to play together all the time."

–Gaddison

Sidon, on the other hand, only has a fuzzy recollection:

"I recently remembered something...a fuzzy memory from my early childhood. There was a swordsman that came by every so often and spent a considerable amount of time with Mipha."

–Sidon

Rivan states that he was a child when he, Bazz, Gaddison and Link all played together as part of the Big Bad Bazz Brigade while Sidon says he recalls a "swordsman" in his early childhood.

Link was skilled with a sword from a young age and Bazz mentions that Link taught him sword fighting, but to call a Hylian child of 4 a "swordsman" is quite a stretch. Therefore, he must be recalling Link after he had the Master Sword when he would visit Mipha which was at least 3 times according to her diary since he acquired the sword.

Also Link must have been part of Bazz's brigade when he was a child because he did not visit the domain so often after getting the Sword according to Mipha's diary which states that it was ages between two visits. Sidon also recalls that Link spent so much time with Mipha when he was there that he felt Link was stealing Mipha away from him, so Link wasn't running around with Zora children saying things like "fluffy white clouds, clear blue Zora" when his responsibility as the chosen hero was heavy on his shoulders. Link was skilled in combat since he was 4, so he likely trained with Bazz while they were both kids as well since he had more time and freedom to do it then rather than later.

Therefore I assume that Rivan, Bazz and Gaddison were all part of the same generation along with Mipha and Kodah (another one who knows Link from his time in the domain), so I don't think it is a stretch to assume that they would be of similar ages.

In my previous post about Zora lifespans and ages, I used the developer note for Paya's age to determine Link's age since she was made to be around his age: 18-20 years old. We know Link is at least 17 and born before Zelda because he ascends Mt. Lanayru with Zelda on her 17th birthday, and only those of 17 or older may ascend the mountain.

I also determined that the Zora may grow at half the rate of Hylians, so 40 years old would be about the same development stage as a Hylian at 20 years old. Mipha, who is an adolescent actively growing to full size as she was never considered unusually small for a Zora, would have been a similar development age to Hylians of 15-17.5 years old which places her around Zelda developmental age at the time of her death which falls in line with what Urbosa says about her, Zelda, Link and Revali:

"Zelda, Revali, Mipha, and Link are so young. They are Hyrule's future. Daruk and I hope to help them see that future."

–Urbosa's diary

I placed Link at 19 years old in my last post simply because it was right in the middle of Paya's age range, so I'll use that number again to simplify my math since him at age 4 would have been a nice 15 years before the Calamity.

If Mipha was at least 30 but no older than Rivan whom I considered about 35 at the time of the Calamity, then she would have been 15-20 years old when Link was 4 assuming that he is 19 at the time of the Calamity.

This means that Zora like Rivan can recall things 100 years ago when the are around 20 years old, so Sidon would have had to have been younger when he saw Link in the time leading up to the Calamity.

If Sidon was born around the time that Link first came to the domain, then he would have been old enough to remember Link around the time of the Calamity. Even if Link was 17, Sidon would have been 13 when the Calamity struck. If Link was 19 then Sidon would have been 15.

Therefore I think placing him at about 10 years old when the Calamity struck would be more likely as that would be the equivalent to a Hylian of 5 years old which would be well within an age of fuzzy recollection.

The elephant in the room is Mipha and Sidon's mother who is never mentioned even once. We know that Zora hatch from eggs because Muzu makes a reference to "hatchlings", so whatever happened to Sidon's mother could have been from even before he hatched.

If Mipha did write about her mother or her brother's birth in her diary, it would not be unexpected that the paper pages were damaged by water in the domain while it was lost for 100 years. It's surprising that her paper diary could have survived at all in the Zora's Domain—I wonder where she left it...

[edit] actually Mipha's mother is mentioned once on one of the Zora monuments about Mipha's birth, but there is no mention of what happened to her or when Sidon was born.

Anyway...I think it would make sense that Sidon was about 10 years old and vaguely recalls Link when he would visit Mipha. This is very speculative of course—all that we know for certain is that Rivan is over 130 years old and recalls when he and Link swam together as kids but Sidon cannot recall Link very much at all 100 years ago.

[nohaijiachi]

Okay, I’m going to try and be really nice here when talking about this.

First of all I love your art style you draw Urbosa adorably

But, please listen to this, shipping her with Zelda is not okay, Zelda was 16 until the day Urbosa died, and that means she is a MINOR. Urbosa in her diary states that she held Zelda as a baby, and was close friends with her mother the queen who was an adult when she had her daughter, meaning Urbosa was too. Urbosa is an adult, likely in at LEAST her forties, and is also confirmed by the creators to be a stand in mother to her. That also makes this borderline incest. Since this is the case; this ship is both pedophilia, and incest, and a minor legally cannot consent to a relationship with a man adult, that also makes it rape. It is also hugely uncomfortable to have someone raise you and then be in a relationship with them, that doesn’t happen

I am PRAYING that you weren’t aware of this or the harm involved with this ship, but I also know that there are many disgusting people out there who fetishize this stuff and find it attractive. I am PRAYING you are not that type, and if you need an alternative to ship with Urbosa, make an oc for Zelda’s mom!! They were known to be close friend and are a very cute ship

[ezlo-x]

TLOZ fan theory: The Yiga assassinated Princess Zelda's mom as a way to pull the odds in Calamity Ganon's favor.

I'm using the book Creating a Champion for evidence, which may not be the best, but in there it says Zelda's mother felt as though her divine power came naturally to her. And then in-game, thanks to Urbosa's and Rhoam's diary entries, we get the idea that she died much earlier than she was supposed to.

It wouldn't be surprising if she had demonstrated her power in some way, whether to squash down questioning of her lineage or to help with an actual issue that needed her powers.

Either way, I believe her doing so put a red, upside down, teary eyed target on her back...

I think Zelda's mother getting assassinated by the Yiga would be interesting. However if I recall, I think she just passed by some mysterious sickness? I'm going off by the journal/diary entries of Urbosa and Rhoam in the game. I also recall Zelda didn't react at all to her mother's death. It would've been nice if the Yiga were more present as a threat than being goons.

ALSO COMPLETLY FORGOT THAT ZELDA'S MOM ALSO HAD POWERS

[nagasriel]

I recently actually take a closer look at the Champions' diary and i just can't stop thinking about how they all write about deep stuff about their life (Mipha's feeling for Link, Urbosa and the Queen/Zelda, Revali's training) and then there's Daruk :

No but seriously please he's so underrated

He's just Uncle Daruk eating rocks and having some trouble with his divine beast and then eating more rocks