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midzelink · 4 years

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People of Shadow: Who Were the Twili’s Ancestors, Really?

The speculation surrounding the mysterious origins of the Twili in Twilight Princess is far from a new topic amongst fans of the series; I distinctly remember staying up late into the night scrounging around old forums in my early teens, ingesting thread after thread on the very subject, hoping against hope that someone smarter than me would at last have found the truth amidst the lies. Those kinds of analyses, the pure intrigue that leads to hours of reflection and research, has long been one of the series’ drawing points for me; that no matter how cracked and inconsistent the story Nintendo has chosen to weave, fans of the series will again and again use everything at their disposal to fill in the cracks.

If you’re reading this, it’s highly likely you’re familiar with the the two most common theories: that they were either Sheikah or Gerudo (though the evidence I’ve seen for the latter has always been shaky at best). When you get right down to it, it’s not as if who the Twili once were really matters - it’s certainly something Nintendo didn’t give more than a few seconds thought - but speculating is fun, and something on which I’ve spent much more time than I’d like to admit. Though the reality, of course, could simply be that they were no one, just a hodgepodge group of dark magic users, never before seen, I always found myself asking: If they were anybody, who would they be? Is there any in-game evidence to suggest as much? I would argue that yes, there is - and though what I’ve written here is hardly groundbreaking, it is fairly comprehensive, and with any luck, I’ll be able to convince a few of you along the way.

With all that out of the way, I would at last like to state that, if anyone, I firmly believe the Twili’s ancestors were Sheikah, and I’ve done my best to compile my reasoning for this below.

The Banishment of the “Interlopers”

Before we get into specifics, I wanted to lay some groundwork establishing when, exactly, the Twili’s ancestors were banished by the Light Spirits at the behest of the gods, as the timeline of events will be important in a moment. In Twilight Princess, we first hear about the dark interlopers and their quest for the Sacred Realm from Lanayru; there was an era of peace in Hyrule, but when word of the realm and the holy triangles within it spread, war broke out amidst the populace. From within this greed-fueled chaos arose the interlopers, “wielding powerful sorcery” - and so great was their transgression against the goddesses that they ordered the Light Spirits to seal them away in shadow forever. (If the story of a war breaking out over the Sacred Realm sounds familiar, that’s because the Hyrulean Civil War, which ended shortly before the events of Ocarina of Time, shared the same conflict; it’s entirely possible that the two wars were one and same or overlapped in some fashion, but for this post specifically, that possibility isn’t entirely relevant.)

This era of strife is colloquially referred to as the Interloper War by many, and from Lanayru’s tale alone we can extrapolate that, at the very least, the banishment of the Twili happened before the events of Ocarina of Time; the struggle was fought over the Triforce, after all, which was claimed and broken apart in all three splits of the timeline following the events of that game. It’s also important to note that Ganondorf was banished to the Twilight Realm shortly after the events of Ocarina of Time in the Child Timeline, and that this was long after the Twili’s ancestors had been banished there; so it can be said conclusively that the Interloper War could not have taken place between the events of Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess.

The Sheikah, Few and Far Between

It was important that we establish a rough estimate of when, exactly, the Twili’s ancestors were banished for one very crucial reason: to shed some light one who they likely weren’t, and who they could have been. At some point before the events of Ocarina of Time, there was a mysterious group of dark magic wielders known only as “the interlopers” that, all at once, were banished to an alternative dimension - an act that, had there been any of their tribe left behind, likely would have put a serious strain on their numbers. And within Ocarina of Time - a game that takes place after this banishment would have occurred - we learn of a tribe who suffered one such fate:

“They say that Princess Zelda's nanny is actually one of the Sheikah, who many thought had died out.”

As we all know, Impa is the only Sheikah present in Ocarina of Time - I would argue not quite the last, if Impaz in Twilight Princess is any indication - but regardless, they are so few and far between that the general populace had one point believed them to be extinct. Things weren’t always this way; at the very least, we can extrapolate that there were a great many Sheikah around the time of time of Skyward Sword, and even within the context of Ocarina of Time, Kakariko Village was in relatively recent history a Sheikah village that was closed off to the common people. What truly happened to the Sheikah that drove them to near extinction is anyone’s guess, but I would argue that it was likely a combination of two things:

the Hyrulean Civil War, which lasted very, very long, had many casualties, and the Sheikah (being in service to the Hyrulean Royal Family) were likely at the forefront of this, and

on top of this, perhaps before or even coinciding with the Civil War, a not unsubstantial number of the Sheikah broke off from their tribe, betrayed the Royal Family, and tried to claim the Triforce and the Sacred Realm as their own.

Of course, this relies on the assumption that the Sheikah could ever, under any circumstances betray the Royal Family - betray Hylia, the goddess whose bloodline it is supposedly their sworn duty to serve. And though I will not be touching on this quite yet, I did want to bring it to attention, as it is overall a crucial piece of the puzzle - but we have some more ground to cover first.

(As for what I meant in the beginning of this segment when I said who they likely weren’t, I was specifically referring to the Gerudo, a people who many others speculated could have been the the Twili’s ancestors. While it’s true that the Gerudo people have mysteriously vanished by the era of Twilight Princess, they are very much present in Ocarina of Time - and we have established that the banishment of the Twili’s ancestors occurred before the events of that game.)

Beings of Shadow, Enter the Twilight Realm

When all is said and done, the coincidental timing of both the banishment of the interlopers and the dwindling numbers of the Sheikah isn’t quite groundbreaking evidence of anything; after all, it would not be completely out of the realm of possibility that the Hyrulean Civil War had been entirely at fault for their dwindling numbers. However, given what we know about how twilight affects ordinary denizens of the world of light, I would argue that Sheikah may have been the only group of people capable of becoming the Twili, and it is for this reason that I feel assured in my conclusions:

“Twilight covered Hyrule like a shroud, and without light, the people became as spirits. Within the twilight, they live on, unaware that they have passed into spirit forms...”

This twilight - the very glow that transforms the unawares citizens into spirits and Link into a beast - is the very same “light” that pervades the Twilight Realm, and it can only be assumed that any ordinary light dwellers banished there would also become as spirits. Yet in the case of the Twili’s ancestors, this emphatically was not the case; they were able to persist, evolving over time to become the Twili we know and love today. When Midna is explaining to Link the history of her people after the duo enter the Gerudo Desert, she says this:

“What do you think happened to the magic wielders who tried to rule the Sacred Realm? They were banished. They were chased across the sacred lands of Hyrule and driven into another realm by the goddesses... Its denizens became shadows that could not mingle with the light.”

And after Link retrieves the Master Sword, breaking the curse that Zant placed on him:

“This thing is the embodiment of the evil magic that Zant cast on you. It's definitely different from our tribe's shadow magic...”

It’s clear that the Twili and their ancestors had and continue to have a very strong connection to shadow. We know that anyone from the world of light who enters the twilight becomes as a spirit; not even wielders of the Triforce are exempt from its effects, though it does, admittedly, affect them in different ways. (Zelda is the one clear exception to this, an anomaly which I go over in this post - a short and recommended read before continuing.) Just as the Twili, a people of shadow, cannot mingle in the world of light, people of light cannot mingle in the world of shadow - but the Twili are hardly the only people in the series to have a strong connection to the shadows.

"Have you heard the legend of the ‘Shadow Folk’? They are the Sheikah...the shadows of the Hylians.”

The Sheikah, time and time again, are referred to as people of shadow; Impa awakens as the Sage of Shadow, and the accursed Shadow Temple lies on the outskirts of her hometown of Kakariko. We know that the twilight affects all whom it touches in the world of light - “light and shadow can’t mix, as we all know” - but what if the light dweller in question were a Sheikah? How could a realm of shadows snuff out the light of one who is already a shadow?

I would like to posit, then, that even if the Twili’s ancestors had been a mixed bag of peoples and cultures drawn together by the lure of the Sacred Realm, only a people like the Sheikah - a tribe who had perfected mastery over shadow magic, so much so that they had become one with them - would have been able to persist in the anti-light of the Twilight Realm and, over centuries or perhaps millennia, evolve to become the Twili. Anyone else would have simply become spirits upon entering the realm, doomed to spend the rest of their days neither alive nor dead.

Eyes of Red, Show Us the Truth

Now, there is one other crucial piece to this puzzle, and it revolves around one other trait that the Sheikah are known for: with the exception of Breath of the Wild (the disparity of which I have my own theories about, but I won’t get into that here), they all have red eyes. This is something that’s never really commented on in any of the games, but it’s an important enough physiological trait that Sheik, who is merely Princess Zelda in disguise as a Sheikah, also bears the distinctive eye color. Though it’s common knowledge that Midna’s eyes are also red (as are the rest of the Twili’s), this alone doesn’t speak much to a correlation between the two peoples; no, in order for this parallel to mean anything, we must first understand the significance of the Sheikah’s red eyes, and how exactly that ties back to the princess of twilight and the rest of her people.

First, let’s take a look at Ocarina of Time. When Kakariko Village is attacked just before Link heads for the Shadow Temple, Sheik has this to say about Impa:

“The evil shadow spirit has been released! Impa, the leader of Kakariko Village, had sealed the evil shadow spirit in the bottom of the well... But the force of the evil spirit got so strong, the seal of the well broke, and it escaped into the world!! I believe Impa has gone to the Shadow Temple to seal it up again...”

Anyone who has played Ocarina of Time knows that the Shadow Temple is a dark and wicked place, teeming with the souls of the undead and illusions that, without the ability to see through, would completely inhibit any progress one would try to make. As Link traverses the temple, he bears the Lens of Truth: a peculiar artifact (importantly, in the shape of a Sheikah Eye) that reveals the world as it truly is. It is a one-of-a-kind item, and without it, no ordinary person would be able to make it through the Shadow Temple, much less fight the invisible monsters that lurk within - but Impa is no ordinary person.

The explanation is really quite simple: the Sheikah’s red eyes are not merely a distinguishing, but purely aesthetic characteristic (like the red hair of the Gerudo), but are indicative of the fact that they can see through even the strongest of illusions with the naked eye. It’s the reason the Lens of Truth was crafted in their image; though one who wields the lens may not be a Sheikah, they, too, can view the world as one with this powerful artifact, seeing through artificial walls, finding invisible items...and even meeting the spirits of the departed.

Let’s go back to Midna; after you first meet her in the sewers of Hyrule Castle, slowly making your way to the rooftops and the imprisoned Zelda beyond, you encounter several spirits of Hyrulean soldiers along the way. Midna taunts you, saying this:

“It looks like the spirits in here... They're all soldiers. Where in the world could we be? Eee hee!”

As a beast, Link is now able to tap into his new “animal senses” to see that which would be invisible to his human eyes. Yet Midna is able to see the spirits as they are, naturally, without any aid whatsoever - almost as if she retained the truth-seeing eyes of her ancestors.

Before we move on, I did want to bring attention to one other thing the Twili and the Shiekah have in common - and though it’s not technically directly related to their shared ability to see the truth of the world around them, it is tangentially related in the sense that it involves illusions. Early on in Twilight Princess, there is a scene where Midna seemingly transforms herself into Colin and subsequently Ilia, taunting Link about the capture of his friends. It’s a somewhat strange occurrence that happens exactly once and is never brought up again, and it happens so early in the game that, for a very long time, I simply brushed it off and never gave it a second thought.

However, I think it’s pretty safe to say that what we’re seeing here is a demonstration of illusion magic - Midna is not literally shapeshifting into Link’s friends, as if she had this ability, she could simply return herself to her true form at any given moment. This is significant because there is a fairly notable example of something identical to this in the very game I mentioned earlier in this segment; in Breath of the Wild, the Yiga Clan, a group of Sheikah who swore allegiance to Calamity Ganon, consistently over the course of the game demonstrate the ability to use illusion magic, posing as weary and lost travelers on the road, waiting to ambush Link and take him by surprise. And though the Yiga may not technically be Sheikah anymore, they were at one time - and I find it exceptionally hard to believe that such a technique would be exclusive to the Yiga and the Yiga alone.

Echoes of the Past

I would, of course, be remiss to not touch on the various architectural and technological similarities between the two peoples. On their own, they aren’t very substantial pieces of evidence - but if we have already accepted the fact that the Twili’s ancestors were, in fact, Sheikah (which, for the purposes of the rest of this essay, I will now do), then it is worth it at the very least to take a look, to paint a somewhat fuller picture of the story.

Take, for instance, the runes in the above photo, adorning the wall behind the throne in the Palace of Twilight. Similar runes adorn the cloak that Midna wears while in her true form, and other miscellaneous places scattered throughout the palace. It is not that much a stretch to say that the large emblem in the center is somewhat reminiscent of the iconic Sheikah Eye, though distorted and changed over time as it may have become. An eye that is unmistakably Sheikah in inspiration even appears on the back of the Fused Shadow, and it is for this reason that I chose that image to head this essay to begin with. But eyes aside, by far the most significant comparison once again returns us to Breath of the Wild, and the Sheikah as they were ten thousand years past.

The ancient-yet-highly-advanced Sheikah technology scattered across the once mighty kingdom of Hyrule in Breath of the Wild simply oozes Twili, from the harsh, blue aesthetic to the angular similarities between the script of the Sheikah and the runes of the Twili. And while it is worth mentioning that this is decidedly technology, and not magic, there is an argument that can be made in the world of fantasy over whether there is in fact a significant difference; looking at the image below of a room in the Palace of Twilight, floating platforms decorated in patterns resembling circuitry, it’s not hard imagine that this is nothing more than highly advanced tech, remnants of a history they left behind.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t especially matter whether either is a case of expressly magic or technology; all we can extrapolate from this information is that the Sheikah who had been banished to the Twilight Realm likely had some rudimentary knowledge of their tribe’s lost technology, had they been banished in an era when it already was lost - or, at the very least, had the same design sensibilities. Whatever the case, it is worth is to try and acknowledge the potential connection, as there is much that can be gleaned by examining the world around us and its history - even a fictional one - and to that end, I would now like to begin wrapping up this unnecessarily long piece of persuasion by doing just that.

Those Who Do Not Learn From History...

...are doomed to repeat it, as the saying goes. Taking everything I’ve written here into consideration, it’s not hard to construe a conceivable timeline of events that could have led to the birth of the Twili, and the eventual invasion of the world of light headed by Zant. Long ago, in an age ravaged by a war over a lust for the Sacred Realm, a sector of Sheikah betrayed the Hyrulean Royal Family, split off from the main clan, and sought their own power - and if the story of a Sheikah betrayal sounds at all familiar, that’s because it emphatically is.

Breath of the Wild is an anomaly in many respects; it seems to defy all expectations of what we understand about the timeline, reviving a people (the Sheikah) who, for all intents and purposes, died out long ago - but it paints a very important picture of what the Shadow Folk had to endure serving underneath the Royal Family of Hyrule, a picture that elucidates precisely why such a betrayal would conceivably take place. The story of the Yiga Clan is, ultimately, one rooted oppression - and though I could go into great detail about the nature of this oppression here, and quite frankly the justification for their cause, I’ve already done so in this post, which I would again encourage be read by anyone who cares about the subject. Very basically, the Yiga were right - having been cast out and mistreated by the very family they served, they did the only thing they could, and turned against them. Glimpses of this mistreatment are riddled in previous entries of the series, but no more jarringly than in Ocarina of Time’s Shadow Temple: a place that likely was once a sacred place to the Sheikah people, reduced to nothing more than a haunted torture chamber recounting Hyrule’s “bloody history of greed and hatred" under direct orders by the Royal Family. In Twilight Princess, Zant specifically refers to Link as “one of the light dwellers who oppressed [their] people” while talking to Midna at Lanayru Spring - and though I would not go so far as to say that Zant was completely justified in his actions, perhaps he had a point. Perhaps the story of the Twili’s ancestors isn’t one of a an evil, mindless group of powerful interlopers who sought power for power’s sake - but one of fierce retaliation. One of a group of people who had soiled their hands with the blood of the Royal Family one final time and said enough. I believe that the Twili’s ancestors were Sheikah, and I will continue to believe it until proven otherwise; for all the reasons listed above, and also because, frankly, if I were a Sheikah, I would betray the Royal Family, too. It happened once - so it will happen again - and again, and again, until the cycle of violence and oppression is studied and learned from, and the truth comes out.

But then, so long as history is written by the winners, it will take more than the red eyes of a Sheikah to parse the truth from the lies.

#twilight princess #ocarina of time #sheikah #twili #yiga #breath of the wild #midna #impa #loz meta #legend of zelda #tloz #loz #analysis #this is actually a heavily revised and edited version of an essay from earlier last year #but that was back when this blog was new and also it was bad #i'm a lot happier with how this one came out!#text #mywriteups*#myposts*

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voicey · 7 years

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To my friends who encouraged me love you 💞 Tag your friends though ! #mywriteups #justmindthoughts #instaquotes #friends #loveyoubff

#instaquotes #loveyoubff #mywriteups #justmindthoughts #friends

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geek-girl-writes · 5 years

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Sometimes, I feel love is putting a loaded gun into your mouth, pulling the trigger, and hoping you survive.

Sometimes you do. But mostly, you don’t.

Thomas came into my life like a whirlwind of a tornado. One day we were strangers on the internet; the next day we were texting about how’s and why’s of alien encounters. I made a really clever joke, and he one-upped it and left me speechless. I remember thinking at that moment-- I can get used to this.

He had pimples where his stubble should have been, and his eyes were so light you had to squint to make out what color they were. Which was okay, really—because it meant that if you wanted to see them; really see them, you’d have to pay attention.

I liked paying attention to him. It was the only time when I didn’t feel like my insides were on fire, and my organs were going to melt, and my heart was going to burst.

There was something about him, something cocky, something shy and self-conscious—a rare kind of vulnerability that only boys carry—and if I could, I would’ve have bottled it, and get drunk on it every day.

A month later, he wrote me a poem—about flowers, and oceans, and eternal love. It was cheesy but there was a promise of forever. The implication that one day we would run away to meet on an island. I would wear white, and he would be dressed in black. We would kiss, and hold hands, and we would recite this poem.

It was a poem about future. About forever. About us.

“Forever”— That night I lay in my bed, and tossed it around my tongues.

One syllable, and so much longing. So, much promise.

He asked me—“Would you like to be my girlfriend?”

I laughed and said—“I already feel like one.”

Sometimes, I hate teenage hormones. They make the highs higher—you’re on the top of a roller coaster that only goes up—but the lows. The lows damn nearly kill you.

So when he broke up with me after three months, I felt like I was eight all over again. Begging my mom to take me to the circus—“But I want to the ride the Ferris Wheel!”—and her reluctant hands waving me goodbye, as I rode up and up, and regretted every moment that led me here.

When I couldn’t text back because he had blocked me, I squeezed my eyes shut, and counted till ten. I waited for the Ferris Wheel to come down.

I counted till ten, and then I broke down.

Forever—he had said.

So, I didn’t even feel ashamed when I texted his ex. I didn’t feel ashamed of asking her to tell him, that I miss him. Tell him, I am going to disintegrate. Please.

I. Begged. His. Ex. For. Godsake.

When I look back, I want to put my foot inside my mouth and scream and scream, and scream until my voice runs hoarse. I never want to hear my larynx cracking ever again.

She replied back, and I remember it so distinctly because it had felt like my ribcage cracking—“He said to wait.”

“Okay.” I had texted back.

I waited. And waited, and then I forgot to wait. My throat no longer clogged randomly. I could watch movies, and not gloss over them. I stopped breaking down in showers.

I would go through our texts, and it started hurting less. I started noticing guys. I started noticing that there was a difference of broad shoulders, and Adam apples, and insanely long legs, between 15 and 16.

The butterflies started crawling out of their graves inside my stomachs, and the Ferris Wheel lurched and moved. I was coming down, I was going up. I was healing.

I forgot how it feels when people leave without a goodbye. I forgot about him.

So of course, that’s when shit hit the fan.

Sometimes, I feel love is a game of Russian roulette.

Spin the cylinder.

Pick a God and pray.

Pray. Pray. Pray.

I prayed, and when he came back I pulled the trigger.

Because love is like that. Love is shoving the trigger in the hands of this person you love, and hoping they wouldn’t pull it.

When he texted me the lyrics, after six months of nothing—

What is love

Baby don’t hurt me

Don’t hurt me

No more

I texted back—

Is it just our bodies

Are we both losing our minds

Is the only reason you’re holding me tonight

’Cause we are scared to be lonely

I wish I could look back and say “I was brave. I blocked him and moved on.”

But I didn’t. I stayed, and stayed, and stayed.

And then—I left him.

Because fuck it, but love isn’t supposed to feel anything like a gun going off.

#love #heartbreak #loss #relationships #breakups #breakup #rants #stories #hate #writeup #mywriteup #writerblr #writers of tumblr #storytelling #fuck my ex #i still miss him tho:(#i hate this feeling #i HATE this

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kratika-chirpingbird · 5 years

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Like * Comment * Follow * Share MORNING❤️❤️ . . . Kratika Goyal© #Quotes #quoter Kratika #kratikagoyal #mywriteup #mywritings #quotesbykratikagoyal #_chirpingbird #wordporn #spilledink #poetsofinstagram #morningmotivation #welcome #writers #writersofinstagram #booknerd #bibliophile #writersofindia #bookstagram #ttt #writingcommunity #wordart #words #blogger #writersblock #prose #tumblr #wattpad #positivity #poetess #writersofig (at Jaipur, Rajasthan) https://www.instagram.com/_chirpingbird/p/Byb0Yfblp1J/?igshid=54is1bfttnq8

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thesilentthoughts-blog1 · 7 years

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Credits @sharad_tiwari12 ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ Follow @the_silent_thoughts ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ #illustrator #poemoftheday #womenempowerment#reasons #mywriteups #writerscommunity #musings #together #storytelling #relationshipquotes #chocolateday #writersofinstagram #sleep#poetrycommunity#poetsofinstagram #instadaily #wordporn #poemsporn #thescribbledstories #thewritingspook #scratchedstories #terriblytinytales #theanonymouswriters

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farahblogs · 3 years

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You fell in love, how do you fall out of love?

You like someone, why do you dislike them?

You call someone your whole world,

How come you get rid of them so easily?

You said that you can't live without them, how come you are living, breathing all fine without them?

You make someone feel so special, how can you ignore them?

What is it?

How can that be possible?

Even if it is possible, what are the phases that this person goes through?

I don't know how exactly people fall out of love but one thing I am sure about is that,

They say, "I love you", just out of habit as they already know that they don't.

The day they finally say, "let's end it" is not the day they felt and said, but they have felt it a long time back and from then they have been deciding how to say it.

When someone says, "let's end it", don't even ask, why?, just finished it there.Because the person has already thought, decided and finally said it.It's not a one day thing, the person has been thinking about it for a long time.So don't bother that person anymore.

Life is like this, when we come across someone, we start liking them, they also like us.We mutually start a relationship and wish it lasted forever.But one among them falls out of love, so he leaves.One stays in love and stays there.It's okay. Don't be afraid of Love.Just learn to give it to the right person.Sometimes even when you fall for the wrong person, don't worry.Love, a feeling is enough for you to survive. - ✍️ FARHANA

#mywriteup #love #life #pinterest

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deepalidp · 4 years

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ज़िन्दगी से अब शिकायत क्या करे तुम ही जब गैर के हो तो बगावत क्या करे @deepalidp Follow more such stories on @Nojotoapp Read stories by Deepali dp on Nojoto ❤ https://nojoto.com/post/3f0eba2634caa33b72d56a72f0e8ab54/ Install Nojoto | Free App 😍 Poetry, Stories, Shayari Videos👇👇👇 👉 http://bit.ly/Nojoto_Download 👈 #writersofinstagram #unspokenthoughts #shayaris #poetry #unconditionallove #mywriteups #Nojoto #life #urdushayari #wordporn #poetsofindia #romanticshayari #mythoughts #quoteoftheday #writer #poetrycommunity #igpoets #wordsofwisdom #love #thoughts #igwriterclub #mojzamiracle #deepalidp #hindishayari #jashnerekhta #rahaterooh #mirzagalib #gulzaarshayari💔 https://www.instagram.com/p/CJlu1Mwl91a/?igshid=jjqw5yf5ujat

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smiley0708-blog1 · 4 years

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#relationships #love #selfrespect #selflove #mywriteups #writtenbyme

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shabdonkajahan · 3 years

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Still awake? Collab and complete this night musing. #latenightquotes #darknessisntafraid #YourQuoteAndMine #mereshabdonkajahan #nikhil_kaushik #mywriteups #loneliness #fear Collaborating with YourQuote Baba Read my thoughts on @YourQuoteApp #yourquote #quote #stories #qotd #quoteoftheday #wordporn #quotestagram #wordswag #wordsofwisdom #inspirationalquotes #writeaway #thoughts #poetry #instawriters #writersofinstagram #writersofig #writersofindia #igwriters #igwritersclub (at Delhi, India) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVQqcMQBA-v/?utm_medium=tumblr

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athakur09 · 4 years

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तय नहीं कर पाते हम, क्या याद रखना हैं, किसको भूल जाना हैं। आसान नहीं ये समझ पाना, की कोन अपना, और कोन बेगाना हैं। न जीने देता हैं चैन से, न चैन से मरने देता, इतना बेगैरत ये ज़माना हैं। ये किस्मत का खेल भी बड़ा निराला हैं, कभी रिश्ते बनाता, तों कभी करता उन्हें अंजाना हैं। . . . #igpoet #poetsofinstagram #poetsofig #igpoetry #poetryoninstagram #poetryonig #igwriteups #art #writeupsoninstagram #writeupsofig #poetess #streetpoetry #darkpoetry #instawritings #poems #handwrittenpoetry #handwritten #poetrywriting #mywriting #mywords #mywriteups #mypoetry #omypoetry #dailypoems #dailypost #poetryselfie #poetrygram #bleedingsoulpoetry #thewritersturf #visualpoetry (at Jodhpur - The Blue Heaven) https://www.instagram.com/p/CERWr9-jSAt/?igshid=1czp8lw2mkdp9

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midzelink · 5 years

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In a story where Link is either fully or selectively mute and uses sign language (which, let’s be honest, is the best interpretation of his character), Midna and Link’s dynamic becomes quite interesting:

Midna, being a descendant of a relatively small group of people who were banished from Hyrule long before the events of Twilight Princess, would almost definitely know an entirely different sign language, if she knew signs at all. For her to be familiar with Hyrule’s signs, that would mean that at least one of her ancestors would have a) not only needed to know them, but also b) be proficient enough in them that that information would then be recorded and passed down, largely unaltered, for centuries if not millennia, and chances of that happening are slim to none at best. (The fact that the Twili even speak Hylian is bizarre in and of itself, but that’s another topic for another time.)

So, picture this: Midna, on an pilgrimage to the World of Light to undo her curse and save her people, finally stumbles upon the divine beast spoken about in legends amongst her pepole. She watches him transform right before her very eyes, and follows him fully with the intent of using him to do her own (nefarious) bidding. And it works! She does all the talking - because he can’t speak, for crying out loud, he’s a gotdamn wolf - and she doesn’t mind that, because she doesn’t have to hear him complain, outside of the occasional growl. They go through the motions: meeting Princess Zelda, going back to Ordon, crossing the curtain of Twilight back into Faron, reclaiming the spirit’s lost light - and now he’s back to his old self again, and she braces herself for him to open his mouth and say something, anything to her...

...only he doesn’t. And now, suddenly, it’s a huge inconvenience.

He moves his hands about, but gods, what is he saying, what does any of it mean? And this goes on for weeks, as they travel across Hyrule to the provinces of Eldin and Lanayru. A lot of their communication is huge amounts of guesswork, the occasional nods and some vague gestures (frequently resulting in Midna getting very frustrated), but somehow, they manage to work together to retrieve the three other fragments of the Fused Shadow...

...and then Zant happens, and everything changes.

It’s quite easy to recognize that Zelda’s sacrifice marks a turning point in Midna’s story: her voice grows softer from that point onward, no longer laced with arrogance and a disdain for Hyrule and its inhabitants, she begins to treat Link with more kindness, she opens up more about who she is, etc. - but I like to think that it also marks a huge turning point for Link and Midna’s relationship in particular, for one reason and one reason alone. And she doesn’t notice it at first - after all, Link is a wolf again, and wolves don’t have hands - but when they finally make their way through the Lost Woods and retrieve the Master Sword, maybe Link makes an off-hand comment about helping her find the Mirror of Twilight. Maybe he jokes about being able to transform into a wolf whenever he pleases, or maybe he doesn’t say anything at all, till the two of them go back to Castle Town, on the hunt for clues to the Mirror’s whereabouts - but in any case, she soon realizes...that the things he’s doing with his hands make sense. “Thank you.” “I'd love to do that, but I can’t.” “Horses are people, too.” “What should we get to eat?” For the first time since they’ve met, they are now able to properly communicate, and that changes...well, like I said, everything.

Y’see, Zelda was a princess of Hyrule, learned in many things, and she definitely knew sign language - and while Midna wouldn’t know to quite the full extent exactly how their spirits were bound together until much later on, her first indication that the other princess wasn’t fully gone was...this. This gift of knowledge, a mere fragment of Zelda’s former self, but there all the same. It’s interesting, especially, to put this into the context of the game, because Midna’s initial reaction to Zelda pouring her own spirit into her body to save her is one of abject horror, as if she believes it would simply be exchanging one death for another (“No! Link! STOP HER!” / “Zelda... I’ve taken all that you had to give...though I did not want it.”) - yet after defeating Zant in the Twilight Realm and reclaiming the Fused Shadow, she says that she will be able to return the “cherished power” Zelda bestowed upon her, meaning that somewhere along the line, Midna did indeed realize that Zelda was still very much alive.

I just...really love the idea of Link and Midna beginning their relationship on such rough footing, only for the two of them to then bond so deeply and in such a short amount of time, with Zelda at the epicenter of it all. There are so many layers to the relationship all three of them have, and I will never, ever tire of poring over every cutscene and line of dialogue in order to scrape away and discover what lies beneath the surface.

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