#sorry to diehards that know way better about lore than me ive spent most of my life only watching zelda content and am not that deep in it

[nebuvoid]

Playing BOTW/TOTK again is reminding me of a hope I had from the first TOTK trailer, and I'd like to ramble a bit about it.

By now we know that when Zelda falls into the abyss she zip zooms back into the past but. Back then I had this slim hope that Zelda would finally get her chance to shine on her own, especially with how BOTW went out of its way to depict her as something more than just The Dignified Princess.

So what I imagined was this. Zelda falls into the abyss. So does Ganon. Each of them use their magic to not turn into soup upon impact when they land. I saw it a sort of mirror to Zelda being trapped with Ganon in the castle in BOTW. Except this time Zelda isn't just a sitting duck. This time we play as Zelda exploring this new underground map while hiding from Ganon and coming up with a plan. What I loved so much about the trailer was its mysterious and spooky atmosphere so Zelda would initially be doing a lot of running and hiding like you do when you first encounter the Gloom Hands.

While finding structures of old civilizations and information about the mummy Ganon Zelda would also gradually learn how to fight from necessity, building her own weapons from what's around her with her own ingenuity. Zelda is smart and curious, she's more than capable! Meanwhile a severely injured Link is found by Purah and can't go after Zelda right away because he needs to recover (again to mirror BOTW), perhaps get a sick robot Sheikah arm. He won't be joining Zelda in the underground until the last act (you get the idea.)

Of course thinking of the depths now, a whole game that only spans that endless darkness would be boring so perhaps there would be dark spooky areas but also many that are just as lively and full of flora fauna as the above ground. You could easily have some giant lightroots on the ceiling that act like little suns. Basically a whole new map that's just as big, vibrant and interesting as Hyrule, but with no repeats or even reshuffeling. The zonai, or their relics anyway, are still present, as are the mysterious blue crystals we first see. Maybe there's no horses but more dondons to ride. Maybe even some whole new tribes of people like those frog? statues we see in the depths. Mole people. Bug people. They could tell Zelda about legends of old, of some dark gloom coming from the ceiling ever since they can remember. The more I ponder on this the more ideas I'm having.

There was so much potential to do something that goes against the usual LOZ formula... Maybe my idea is too farfetched but while dragon [REDACTED] was very cool and TOTK's story does have some aspects I like, it left much to be desired. I doubt they'll ever split from GANON-BAD ZELDA-OUT OF REACH LINK-HERO but I can still imagine at least. (Good boy Ganon that fights against his fate when!!!)(That was another hope I had when Ganon's hydrated design came out...)