#totk discussion

[navisakura]

People love to talk about the Frostbite armor and say it’s “Links sluttiest outfit” but like have y’all SEEN the Charged set?

The low rise pants? The top draping over his shoulders and barely covering his titties? The exposed midriff? The fact that he’s got his dogs out? The bracelets? THE ANKLET?!

And like yeah there’s the backless thing and the skirt is cute but like the Charged set is also backless?

Also when people draw him in this it’s usually only with the shirt and they choose to completely ignore the bell bottom ass pants and flats but with the charged set THE WHOLE OUTFIT IS SEXY

I will say that the blue nails stand out more and that’s pretty slay but like Charged set will always be superior in my eyes and I need more people to draw him in it please and thank you

[moonglide]

Identity of Ancient Hero and Princess

Theory/Headcannon:

Calamity 1: No Tech Vanilla Addition occurred a generation or two after demise was sealed under the isle of the goddess. The second one (with tech, all goes well) occurred a generation or two after the totk imprisoning war where ganondorf was sealed. Sonia and Rauru had to have kids running around in the background, or else the blood of the goddess wouldn’t have continued. I think that the link and Zelda that sealed Calamity 2: Hyrule Engineering are related, and descendants of Sonia and Rauru. It explains how the ancient hero looked like a zonai, but wasn’t one (zonai/hylian hybrid) and (while this could happen otherwise, but it’s still a point for the theory) how the Zelda of that time (according to the mural) had darker skin than most Zeldas throughout the games. Who was a hylian queen who also had darker skin? Sonia.

And we know the link/zelda wombo combo that sealed Calamity 3: Guys, I Think We Fucked Up

If anyone finds any major problems with this theory, please tell me

[arkon-z]

TOTK is a good game and it's got a good story to boot. But the thing is, that story doesn't connect very well to BOTW. It really does read like a sequel fic of someone who loved the source material but really wanted to gush about how awesome the Zonai were. I'm not a game dev or writer, so maybe this is just my inexperience showing, but with two delays, you'd think they'd have enough time to polish up the story.

[cwazytvthings]

Just some more Totk thoughts:

I love the game and I love exploring but I'm finding it hard to complete. Not because it's difficult or anything, the gameplay is fantastic. The reason why It feels hard to complete is because I'm not vibin with the story. It's been out for what two months now? And I'm just playing at a snail's pace because I can't get into what we were given.

I really wished they delved more into the sheikah tech instead of leaving basically none of it behind. Including the sheikah monks, divine beasts, ancient flames... they're just all gone. They had so much left untold, like if we don't get a dlc I'm going to be really disappointed. I also can't stand the heavy focus on Link and Zelda because it always leads to a ship war. Like, link is supposed to mirror the player yet I feel so disconnected from him. I also dislike how the cliche, "Zelda is strong because she needs to love someone." Like why couldn't we just get a strong female character who attained her power from realizing she is more capable than what her father thought?

Also don't get me wrong, Zelink is cute but It takes away from the story when everybody is basically shipping "you" and Zelda lmao. In my opinion, Link is the player, and it just throws a lot of stuff off when people are telling you to go save your girl. Botw and Totk did this and that's where I feel like I'm old school and just kinda want Link's "love interests" to be anonymous. (I.e. ocarina of time, twilight princess.) I'm a major story person so yeah, this game's plot bothered me a lot. Might honestly just go back and replay wind waker or oot, hell might even replay Botw. I genuinely miss the ancient sheikah stuff. And as I've said before, Totk feels like a disconnected story atm.

Like it feels as though it takes place in an alternate timeline because yeah, time passed but damn, no way y'all moved a whole Sheikah tower for the heck of it; Sheikah technology should have at least been preserved in a museum somewhere no matter how dangerous one might have previously thought it was. Also don't get me started on Ganondorf. I've also said this before; his story is lackluster. Boss fight is cool af but story... it's so empty.

Sorry ik this is an incoherent ramble and mostly just personal biases but yeah, just wish the story was a little stronger. Everything feels absolutely thrown off.

I seriously enjoy every other side plot over the main one 💀

[ladye-zelda]

I saw your tags from the post a while ago about how the small details in totk Make up for the main story, and while I agree, I gotta say that the things some people say about the story being bare bones or whatever (and BOTW’s story to that extent) just…doesn’t make sense to me. Because I think the problem is with the execution rather than the writing. Like, BOTW was even more bare bones,because it was just a bunch of exposition. Not to say the story wasn’t good because it absolutely is, but it was minimal, imo. Anyway I said all that to say that I personally do think that totk has the better story, but the execution is worse and I think the open world format hurts it. And I think if people could look past that they could see how good it is. But of course that’s all just me. Neither game’s story is particularly great but I love them both. Anyway I did not intend for this to get so long but what do you think about that? I’m just curious 🙂

Sorry this took me a while to respond anon, I was trying to think of a way to respond XD

Yeah, I can definitely agree that the open world aspect hurts the story of Tears. I was thinking about this earlier, and I think Breath of the Wild's story worked because it is so barebones. The developers were able to develop the story around the gameplay, which has always been Nintendo's adjective for both of these games (and probably all of their games, though I am not too much on an expert on that in all honesty) first and foremost. And it worked, for the most part.

I do believe there can be no "perfect" Zelda game, and especially not one that can appease all Zelda fans (even the games that everyone praises to be perfect has their haters, though I guess hate is too strong of a word). I think the main downfall of Tears of the Kingdom was that it couldn't live up to fan's expectations and wants for the Zelda franchise. Tears of the Kingdom was always meant to be BotW+, since the developers had so many ideas for Breath of the Wild they had to make a second game in order to fit all of those ideas, which led to them repeating the same gameplay mechanics as Breath of the Wild.

Don't get me wrong, TotK's gameplay is good since it what made Breath of the Wild good as well, but because it's exactly like Breath of the Wild is what made it sour in the minds of players. I guess for the players who played other kinds of games in between Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom allowing them time to do something else, it isn't so bad. But for the players who play nothing but Zelda games or who were late into getting into the Zelda franchise (such as myself) it can be a little... repetitive (and I'm mainly talking about the quests, shrines, and the same mechanic of unlocking a terminal in a dungeon found in both botw and totk). Hence why I was so drawn all to the other world discoveries not unlocked by doing a side quest, which I think is the greatest improvement TotK brought imo.

In terms of TotK's story... I don't hate it exactly, but I will say I will prefer BotW's better. I still kind of need to analyze the story of TotK fully for myself to draw any real conclusions for me; my biggest problem is how it completely erases BotW's story from it's story. Sure, half a dozen years has passed in between games (both in-game and irl) but surely the impact of defeating the Calamity would've left something... bigger. Like, wouldn't word have gone around that Link was the one to have defeated the darkness looming the castle? They could've at least acknowledged him directly instead of pulling a Tony Hawk and saying "oh you have the same name as that guy who defeated that evil some time ago". I will give them the benefit of the doubt, but then again everyone knows Zelda and he has never her side so, ???. Sorry, didn't mean to rant there. It was kind of a frustration I felt along with many others while playing the game. Main story-wise I don't have any real issues other than you're seriously telling me that there was another ancient civilization before the previous civilization that had even more ancient technology? It kind of pushes my suspension of disbelief (and once again repeating things from BotW).

Anyways, thank you for sharing your opinion anon! Once again I am immensely sorry it took me this long to come to it; tldr in my opinion I prefer Breath of the Wild's story over TotK's. You do make a lot of good points that I agree with, but I think it boils down to personal preference over which game is better due to how similar the games are, which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on opinion.

Thank you so much for reaching out and discussing this with me!

[sonocomics]

Have you started playing totk yet?

I remember reading and watching an old comic dub of your comics for botw so I was wondering

Also if your wanting to know what video it's this one

https://youtu.be/aGw7bow3i58

I have not. Honestly I probably won't for a while

I tend to wait on bigger games until later.

[skullvis]

Oh no….tears of the kingdom storyline extremely extremely disappointing…

(Disclaimer: you can disagree with me this is subjective I’m not going to argue with anyone who likes the story to say it’s bad…I’m just. SUPREMELY disappointed by it and think it did a terrible job building on botw storywise.)

(Game play wise ToTK is a fucking masterpiece but so was Botw AND its story was cool and interesting)

[arkon-z]

Now that the shine has worn off, I can look over TOTK with a more critical eye. Spoilers below the cut.

TOTK is an excellent game. It's an open world Zelda game done right, even moreso than BOTW, I think. But it can't decide if it's a proper sequel to BOTW or a standalone game in the same setting. Like, there's a lot of continuity, and lots of things progress as if time has passed, but some things are ignored and we're just not supposed to question it. I understand that they have to write it with the knowledge that every game is someone's first Zelda game, and they can't rely too much on a player's prior knowledge, because some people just won't have any. It wants to be a good sequel, but it just won't commit. Let's take it point by point.

Point 1 - What happened to all the Sheikah tech?

Ancient Sheikah technology is a huge, critical part of BOTW. The Shrine of Resurrection is why Link is still alive. The shrines were built to train the destined hero. The towers... were just kind of there (they had a believable explanation in HW:AOC though). The Divine Beasts were the main threat for most of the game. Ancient Sheikah tech is absolutely the driving force of the plot in BOTW. And in TOTK, all of it is gone and no one mentions it at all.

But it's still there in some capacity! Purah re-aged herself somehow, right? And there's that power switch Josha used to turn on the skyview towers; that's obviously Sheikah tech. The towers themselves seem to employ a lot of tech, so you could argue that Purah cannibalized what materials she could find to build them, and you could also argue that the original shrines sank back into the ground or otherwise deactivated once Calamity Ganon was gone. But it still doesn't explain the Divine Beasts being missing. How do you lose 4 mountain-sized animal Gundams in just a few years? What happened; did people just bury them again?

How it could have been fixed - If Purah really did scavenge all the tech she could find for the skyview towers, have her say so. You don't think she would have bragged about it? Even if it was just to take the credit for what she told other people to do? Actually, especially if she told other people to do it? You know she would have.

Also, make the Divine Beasts set pieces. Put them somewhere out of the way on the map in their respective regions and just them into landscape. Give someone a couple of lines about, "Yeah, once Calamity Ganon was gone, they just stopped working." They could be exploitable, but otherwise inactive. They'd serve as a kind of memorial and reminder of the Calamity. Which leads to my next point:

Point 2 - Why doesn't anyone talk about what happened?

I know that the story has to stand on its own because you can't rely on what the player knows going into it, but this was not the way to do it. TOTK is a direct sequel that refuses to commit. Some characters remember Link, but not all the ones you'd expect. Giving him Tony Hawk Syndrome was pretty funny, though. And while everyone talks about the Upheaval and the chasms, almost no one says anything about the Calamity.

Sure, the Upheaval is the new hotness, since it's directly affecting them in the moment, but very little time has passed between the two games. It's never said directly (this game has such commitment issues), but based on the ages of some of the kids, Mattison specifically, it can't have been more than 5 or 6 years. Even so, they should still say something. More people should be like, "Gosh, it was so nice to have some peace after the Calamity disappeared, but that sure didn't last long!" Or, "Man, just when things were going well with the peace in Hyrule, this Upheaval happens!"

Instead, they talk about it like it happened a long time ago, and the game even encourages you think the same way. The 'nostalgic hairband' and 'nostalgic fabric' nudge you to believe it happened a long, long time ago, rather than what seems to be about 5-6 years. NPCs talk about the events of BOTW like it happened in the previous decade. One of the few things that acknowledges the Calamity is the school quest in Hateno village, where the pre-teen kids demand proof of 'this so-called Calamity' because they weren't around to see it, so how do they know it happened? Like, come on. Even if they weren't born when it happened, they would have heard stories about it from their parents.

TOTK acts like it's trying to distance itself from BOTW so it can stand on its own, but it can't quite do it. It relies on so many established things that not acknowledging them feels so weird.

How it could have been fixed - stop acting like it's this disaster from a previous decade. Have more people comment directly on the situation, or remark on what life was like during the last game. They could even express frustration that they had just gotten their lives back after the Calamity and now this!

Point 3 - What about the Champions?

In BOTW, people loved to talk about the Champions. How cool they were, how much they did for their people and how much they were missed after they were killed in the Calamity. It makes sense for people to be fixated on them - Hyrule has been stuck in a kind of cultural stasis ever since the war from a century ago. Calamity Ganon is still there and thanks to his control of the Beasts and the Guardians, it is still an active threat. The people can't build new villages or explore very much because it's still dangerous. They want the Champions back because they represent hope and safety, which is something they desperately need. So during that whole century, they've become legends and the people revere them, telling their stories to keep hope alive. Everyone in the regional zones will gush about their respect Champion given the opportunity.

In TOTK, you're lucky if you even find one of them mentioned by name in a book.

Again, this is not what people are like. You don't spend a century talking about a local hero and then forget them all at once. There are some sideways hints in certain lines of dialog, like maybe an NPC mentions the weapons of their people's Champion, but no direct names. It's TOTK pretending that many years have passed by making it seem like the people have moved on. But they shouldn't! The Champions are heroes! Everyone talked about them, there were memorials* and songs; some of the older NPCs even remembered them. Not nearly enough time has passed for people to forget them like that. Link himself should be a little upset that no one is even talking about them anymore - he remembers the Champions. They're one of the few things he does remember from his previous life, to say nothing of the fact that he freed their spirits from their respective Beasts. It's insulting in every respect, especially from a meta standpoint. Nintendo went out of their way to hype up the Champions for BOTW in all their marketing, then killed them off before the game started and to have everyone just stop talking about them is so bizarre.

How it could have been fixed - I know this is for the sake of newcomers to the series. TOTK is going to be someone's first Zelda game, and you don't want to alienate them by assuming they know who the Champions are. So what they should have done was still have the people talk about the Champs, though it doesn't have to be as much. In addition, there should be one or two NPCs in town who will mention them directly, and they should have a dialogue prompt for Link to ask about them. This is not hard; both games do this everywhere. It's all you need - a brief history lesson on these important characters from the previous game to satisfy new players, and an acknowledgement of them to satisfy returning players.

Actually, you could do the same to help out with point 2. Each of the towns should have one or two NPCs who mention something about how things have changed since Calamity Ganon was defeated. Link can ask for more info, and it's the same deal - bring new players up to speed, satisfy returning players who wonder why the hell no one is talking about the previous century of plot. And they could have some fun with it too! They could talk about this 'incredible hero who saved Hyrule' and when Link says 'that was me btw', they just scoff and insist that there's no way some short, skinny guy like him could be the hero.

--

That covers most of the issues I had with continuity between the games. My thoughts on the rest of TOTK's story will have to be in another post.

*Urbosa got done dirty in BOTW. Mipha and Daruk both got statues, Revali had a platform named after him, but what did Urbosa get? Nothing, unless I'm not remembering it.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Actually I think we should all collectively work harder at misunderstanding TLoZ canon and simping for Ganondorf and I'm not even kidding.

[nattousan]

@vampire-wizard-solidarity you have it exactly right, and i don't want to derail but I'd love to hear you comment on what I and many of my friends perceive as a conservative emphasis on het relationships in the game and the active narrative discouragement of anything that could even suggest the possibility of any gay shit going on in hyrule.

At least in my playthrough, I noticed a lot more npcs talking about their wife or their husband/kids which in itself wouldn't be enough to raise my dander but coupled with the whole Lady Yona disaster, it puts a bad taste in my mouth.

Its giving the same vibes as those "get a wife and procreate" propaganda animes that show how cool or nice it is to have children/be married. Even themes that were present in BOTW like the Gerudo town's "Voe and You" class assurance that absolutely NO lesbianism happening here seems weirdly prominent as well. Not to mention that for Gerudo town specifically, Bolson is just allowing his only daughter to be taken away and never to be seen again bc TRADITION. Like yea he's sad about it but he doesn't even try to fight it bc rules are rules!

Im rambling but I wonder if anyone else picked up on this.

a lot of people have already pointed out how totk has a lot of themes of imperialism and generally leans conservative ideologically, but what i think is interesting is how totk subtly redefines what a “researcher” is.

zelda wants to be a researcher in botw, and what this means in the context of botw is largely someone who works with sheikah technology. she wants to figure out ancient sheikah tech, she has an interest in botany and otherwise nature and biology (the whole silent princess and the frog thing), robbie and purah, the two characters who are the closest to us seeing what a researcher in the context of botw is are basically inventors. in totk, however, the main researchers who are presented to us are all historians.

this is an interesting pivot, because in botw zelda is not really interested in history. if anything, the one who’s deeply concerned with history is rhoam, wanting to preserve historical tradition and his uncritical reliance on said tradition and historical precedent is what leads them to their doom. in botw, zelda is narratively opposed to history, if anything, all the ancient tech backfires on them and traditions fail to awaken zelda’s power. zelda’s urge to be a researcher is in wanting to understand the world around her, not just blindly follow ancient plans but rather have agency within them.

totk, however, is obsessed with ancient plans. the only real moment where zelda gets to geek out in totk is her getting all giddy about finding out more about the divine origins of hyrule. all the researchers in the game are concerned with finding out more about the zonai. since all the mentions of ancient sheikah technology are scrubbed from the game purah and robbie read more as strange outliers, the sheikah slate is no longer, now it’s the purah pad, a product of purah rather than something larger. the whole game is literally about following an ancient plan, a plan most characters don’t fully understand as they sign up for it. totk’s main story is built on confusion, on the characters not knowing what’s fully going on but having faith in ancient sages telling them what to do. in botw, following ancient plans you don’t fully understand was the thing that doomed you. in totk, following ancient plans you don’t fully understand is the gimmick.

that juxtaposition between the two games has an ideological through line: botw posits that progress is necessary. mindlessly relying on tradition doesn’t work. prophecies are omens, not instructions. history must be learnt from, not repeated. the ancient sheikah aren’t a group to be emulated, but rather to be learnt from, considering their machinery backfired and the royal family betrayed them. totk, however, is obsessed with the mythical history of hyrule, a time where everything was idyllic until one bad man showed up, a time we must emulate in order to win. i already talked about how the past in totk is zelda’s life pre calamity but better here, but that also plays into the idolisation of that era and its royalty. in botw, even the myth of the first calamity preserves the fact that the yiga clan has origins in the royal’s family persecution of the sheikah, even the time when they successfully held back the calamity is tinged with mistakes that still affect the world ten thousand years later. in totk, ganondorf’s origins are nebulous. nobody provoked him, nobody did anything wrong, he’s just evil because he is.

a lot of right wing ideologies are hinged on preservation, but more than that: the belief in the nebulous mythical past in which everything was better. “make america great again”, the fascist’s idolisation of ancient rome which is represented largely inaccurately, look at any conservative rhetoric and you’ll see people complaining about how things nowadays are ruined or are being ruined, how in the past things were this way and they’re not anymore, which is bad. the belief in the fact that in some past period we were great and are not anymore, and the strive to emulate that past is a trait highly typical of right wing ideologies. and in totk the past as a great era is an idea presented completely uncritically, the narrative is entirely controlled by the game and doesn’t dwell on any of the inconsistencies in this idea.

now, obviously, not every story in which a great ancient era exists is fascist, right wing or conservative. but to me what’s interesting specifically in totk is this shift between the two games: botw is critical of the past. it’s critical of arrogantly repeating history, it’s critical of having blind faith in great relics of the past. totk isn’t. totk idolizes the past, totk tells legends and tells you to believe them without any doubts. botw believes researchers are those who seek to understand the world, innovate it and solve problems without relying on ancient ways. totk believes researchers are those who discover ancient instructions, ancient ways and relay them to great men in the present to be followed. the four mainline regional quests in botw are about discovering four ancient relics that are terrorising the land and fixing the mistakes of the past. the four mainline regional quests in totk are about discovering four ancient legends are true, and receiving instructions from an ancient sage on what to do.

totk is not simply neutral, it is ideologically conservative in stark contrast to botw, because of the things it chooses to leave uncriticised, notably the things botw was very poignant about examining critically. the way totk redefines what is a researcher is indicative of this, indicative of the way it chooses to idolize or present as an unexamined good that which was nuanced in botw. totk isn’t just conservative in the sense that it presents uncritically a “good king” and “evil conquerer”, it goes deeper, it’s notable because botw was starkly opposed to the thematic axioms totk presents.

i just think it’s very interesting that they made a sequel to botw, and completely redefined or otherwise ignored botw’s thematic core.

[ganondoodle]

with every thing i learn about what the directors of totk said in interviews it all just gets worse huh?

the thing about the shiekah tech just vanishing and nobody caring enough to look into it was already rough and now i learn they said that -after botw zelda wondered if hyrule as a kingdom was still needed but then totk happens- just sounds like she wondered if hyrule as a kingdom still needed to exist in the way it had been (which would be an interesting change for once and also make sense for her character) and then they took her back into the distant past with the super good guy king of a godly race to teach her the lesson what her place is and that yes, their monarchy needed and good and really given to her by "gods" and what if big evil black man shows up again

i dont have the energy to get into it further but needed to say soemthing about it bc it keeps bothering me :(

[creativesplat]

Growing up together: A very quick doodle!

[strawbkiwijuice]

always a bad day when you have to kill your bf in a dramatic sky battle to the death

[madamnerd]

I've deleted my Epilogue to my thoughts on Tears of the Kingdom post, basically because after a while, I realized that I don't quite feel that way at all, and was really only going off of what people said, so here's how I honestly feel about TotK. Spoilers ahead, so don't read if you haven't played it.

TotK is a fun game to play, and I enjoy playing it, but I have two major problems with it:

1. The game's mechanics and Zonai devices give the player unlimited freedom to the point of absolute ridiculousness. It's fun to play with, sure, but honestly I can't take it seriously as a Zelda game at all. It just looks too goofy... What I feel like they should have done is kept the concept of the Zonai as the Ancient Warrior Tribe of Faron (not bloody Ancient Aliens that practically replaced the Gods/Hylia, that was ridiculous) and made them magic users, while still keeping the Sheikah Tech from BotW... Sheikah Magitech combined with Ancient Warrior Zonai Magic... Now THAT would've been awesome!

2. The Story was shit. I'm sorry, but it just wasn't good at all... Not to mention that it makes a huge plot hole with Zelda becoming the Light Dragon for 10,000 years just so she could restore the Master Sword and return it to Link, like ??? Where was that in BotW then?

The total disregard for BotW that TotK has in general pisses me off so badly... I wanted a true sequel to Breath of the Wild, not a remake of it wiping out everything important before. Why is there still no Triforce? What the hell were these Secret Stones? Zelda doesn't need retconning like this (imo, it doesn't need it at all). Keep to the original driving force of the series, the Triforce. It's what's always been the center of the Zelda Universe.

... Maybe I'm just getting older and more set in my ways... I know that many of you out there love the game, and I'm happy for you, I am, and as I've said before, I like playing it too, it's fun to ding around with, but to me it just isn't Zelda. I know alot of older fans were really confused and let down by TotK. It was supposed to be huge, and, again imo, wound up being one of the biggest cash grabs Nintendo's put out there...

Hopefully Nintendo will learn from this mistake and combine some of the new elements with the older formula (cooking, multiple outfits, outfit dyeing, horse customization, multiple horses, ect.).

Feel free to comment and reblog. You think I'm wrong or an idiot? Go for it, tell me why. You agree with me or want to tell me something else? Go for it, tell me why. I welcome all opinions. Thank-you for your time in reading this.

[cosmicangsts]

a 3 year toxic & abusive friendship just ended y'all! he literally got mad at me for spending MY money i set aside ages ago for something i wanted ( acheron ) & today msged me an ultimatum about our friendship while putting me down, expecting me to piss shit & cry & i DIDN'T & instead stood my ground & called him out on being a controller who doesn't see me as a person with a savior complex so he DIPPED! ♡ ( not without the classic ' i'm sorry u feel that way ' & ' caring for my friend is NOT a savior complex ' & making it all about himself u best believe it was OUTSTANDING but i literally don't care i've cried so much over u )

if the new trend is a breakup at the start of every year & it means decluttering my life of incessant negativity, then honestly i am HERE FOR IT

[themarydragon]

So my friend sent me this link to a youtube video about why the TotK lore isn't interesting. I couldn't get through it without a ten-screen discord rant (on my PC monitor, not my phone) so I thought I would put some thoughts here.

I don't delve too deep into TotK story but there are def some spoilery statements below, consume at your own risk.

The initial assumptions here seem to be that (1) BotW was more respectful of "The Lore" than TotK, and that (2) TotK made some unforgiveable sins that BotW absolutely avoided.

Both of these are completely false. And I am NOT saying that neither BotW nor TotK shat upon accepted lore. They did. There is no recovering the Hyrule Historia timeline, objectively. Instead I contend that the truth is the precise opposite: Nintendo has NEVER actually cared to try to make LoZ games have ANY amount of continuity.

Take the slide at the 5 minute mark of the video linked, above, in which we see the Master Sword was created specifically to be used against Ganon, and then the 7 sages set out to find somebody valiant enough to wield it (this is from the user manual of A Link to the Past, from the SNES, which also was about The Imprisoning War). Which, if you're playing the home game, you know got ret'conned TWELVE YEARS AGO by Skyward Sword. He's using the slide to explain why it was ridiculous that Ganondorf was able to shatter the Master Sword in the prologue to TotK, which tells me they didn't pay much attention to the mechanic in BotW in which the Master Sword "runs out of power" if you use it too much. If Ganon is an aspect of Demise (again from Skyward Sword, far more recent lore than the slide being used in the vid) then the secret stone he's wielding is amplifying DEMISE (WAY stronger than just some dude), which is why he's able to shatter the blade - but still isn't enough to destroy the sword. His entire complaint about the Sword being broken suggests to me he either didn't play Skyward Sword or has forgotten it existed, and has DEFINITELY forgotten the 'weapons breaking' mechanic started in BotW.

He makes another complaint later about there not being an explanation for the disappearance of the Divine Beasts. Which, sure. I wondered what happened, and figured the 5ish years since then made it old news nobody was talking about it anymore. I get why that might have been a breaking point for somebody else. But it's not just a TotK problem; BotW didn't address it, either. We see the Divine Beasts being dug up by the Sheikah in Rhoam's flashback - how did they get buried? The towers shoot out of the ground, how did THEY get buried, after the last calamity? Who put the guardians underground? How? HOW, if nobody is allowed into the tunnels under Hyrule Castle? It didn't get explained for BotW, so why is that an unforgivable sin in TotK? They give more than a passing suggestion that Purah has repurposed the guardians - just LOOK at the Skyview Towers. The jumpscare for BotW players when you get grabbed in the Lookout Landing tower TELLS YOU where the guardians went.

There is a significant section in which video creator is quoting an interview I haven't seen (and don't give two shits about), and I think it needs to be said: what is in the game is canon. What is in the interviews from other people is, by definition, not game canon. If it was meant to be game canon it would be in the game. Neil Gaiman talks about this when people ask him for clarification of his stories, go check his FAQ if you want a really good delineation of canon from somebody with way more clout than me.

So let's just look at the lore he's defending from BotW. The map is wrong. Straight up wrong, from all the earlier Zelda games. Nintendo cannot decide where the Lost Woods should be, much less Spectacle Rock. The Temple of Time, which again is mentioned early on as a clear homage to the lore, is in the wrong damn spot. If this is the new Hyrule formed post-WindWaker (as indicated by the existance of Rito), the Temple of Time should have been destroyed. And why do the Rito and the Zora both exist? According to WindWaker, the Rito evolved from the Zora, who couldn't live in the salt of the sea. Which is a pretty big jump from the original game that had Zora in the ocean, and the two games following THAT in which they were straight-up monsters. I don't want to get into ALL the ways BotW breaks from the established lore, but there's a LOT. They don't mention the fucking Triforce ONCE, ffs, that's sort of a big damn deal.

I get there was a canon timeline published in Hyrule Historia. I bought that book for that exact reason. And, as someone who has loved this franchise since I got that first golden cartridge in 1987, I looked at that timeline once, laughed at it, and moved on with my life. BotW de-canonized that timeline already, in a LOT of ways.

So saying that TotK is evidence that Nintendo no longer cares about continuity or lore, and by NOT villifying BotW (or TP or SS) for the exact same problem is disingenuous at best. Saying that TotK is just nostalgia-baiting is ignoring the BotW map (Lake Saria, anyone? Ranch Ruins, anyone?) in general, as well as all the game-specific loot that had NO other reason to be there but straight-up nostalgia. The only reason for Zelda to mention the other heroes in the blessing we hear in the first memory is to (1) destroy the established timeline (skyward bound, adrift in time, or something about twilight, all in a world where Rito exist), or (2) prey on our nostalgia. TotK isn't any worse for putting the WW shirt and the Awakening armor into the game, in terms of wrecking the timeline or trying to feast on our nostalgia.

I'm not going to try to hypothesize what this person (or all his commenters) didn't like about the game, or why they're so willing to overlook all these problems in BotW to villify TotK. And everybody is welcome to like to dislike a game for whatever reason they want, IDGAF, you do you. What I AM saying is that for someone who's upset about the lore, he really doesn't seem to actually be aware of how inconsistent it's ALWAYS been. If TotK is the game that taught you that Nintendo isn't trying to follow their own lore, then I don't think you have been paying attention to the lore for a good long time.

tl;dr this is still my favorite series and if you hate that it breaks its own continuity then you've been asleep for the last 12 years of lore drops my good dude.