#wind waler meta

[void-tiger]

Disclaimer: Hyrule Historia is horseshit and I will never acknowledge it as “canonical.” Fanon Copouts and Hylian Propaganda and a source for unused ideas at best. Don’t bother mentioning it because I am deliberately ignoring it in favor of information I can take from playing the finished games and doing my own extrapolation from there.

Theory: the Rito in Windwaker are not actually evolved from the Zora, but actually commonly intermarry with other races.

See this guy?

This is Kobali.

His figurine reads as:

“Kobali

Birthplace: Windfall Island

Occupation: Mail sorter

Kobali is the third generation in a family of postmen, but rumor has it that an ancestor of his in an age gone by was also a postman…”

Which, okay. Postman Reference from OoT/MM is obvious. BUT, this guy also canonically has some hylian ancestry, since his figurine’s blurb felt the need to include both his birthplace (a human/hylian settlement) as well as that “three generations of postmen from a family of postmen” when…the Great Sea’s cast system basically regulates the Rito to “postmen ONLY!!” outside of their home mountain.

But! What other race in the Zelda Franchise also:

-has a Role for passing on messages + guardians

-have a connection to the gods that’s more intimate than the Hylian bullshit about their ears “making them closest to the gods to hear their messages” (but as a culture are largely privileged, agnostic, and superstitious)

-are second-class to hylians in Hyrule’s Cast System

-have White Hair, Dark Skin, and Red Eyes

That’s right, the Sheikah.

Dragonroost is also incredibly close by geographically speaking to Windfall Island (which is basically just a rebuilt Kakariko Village), which, so was Death Mountain to Old Kakariko (which as a reoccuring settlement in the series, Kakariko often changes location BUT even in its first appearance in LttP could be argued to still be more-or-less at the base of Death Mountain verses, say, near Lake Hylia). Which as-of OoT Impa was left with a decimated tribe, an empty village, and implications of inducting the Hylian villagers and Castle Town refugees into her village as adopted Sheikah (not just Zelda as Sheik.)

So Windfall is more than likely the result of Impa trying to rebuild her tribe…but with mixed results. Some characters seem to be Culturally Sheikah hiding in plain sight like Miss Marie (see Zeltik’s video about her for more details), but by and large the culture of Windfall (and Outset) is overwelmingly Hylian.

HOWEVER! If the Rito are any indication, Impa was at least successful in rebuilding her bloodline, who then continued to intermarry. Only the gods basically screwed the Rito’s Ancestors into being flightless while also dehumanizing them…so Valoo had compassion on them and gifted them scales for wings. (Note how every Rito adolescent is not born with wings, but still have beaks in place of more humanid features like noses and mouths.)

Sidenote: but this also explains the Goron Merchants wearing sacks over their heads and being nowhere near either Windfall or Dragonroost—Volvogia has subtext implications of being OoT’s Absent Fire Spirit (again, check Zeltik for further details). Basically the Gorons attempted murder on Volvogia when they first invaded settled Death Mountain generations ago. (The Gorons in SS also do not live in Eldin.) Ganondorf then revives the dragon and imprisons the Gorons for Volvogia to deal with as the dragon wishes. So…yeah. By the time of WW the Gorons have moved onto the Ocean King’s world and what would later become New Hyrule under Tetra’s leadership. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say Valoo has a grudge against Gorons.

Now. What does this have to do with Medli?

-we know Rito have a history of intermarriage

-we know Medli is not “full rito” as evidenced by her being the only Rito with Red Hair (styled the same as the Din Idol as well as the Gerudo) and much paler skin

And by the Timeskip in OoT? The Zora are basically extinct, save for Ruto with Link only able to revive the Zora Shop Owner and King Zora; no Zora aside from King Zora are present in the epilogue seen in the game’s credits, while all other races are, including the Kokiri who would allegedly “die” if they left their patch of Forest.

So…despite Ruto’s hope, the Zora within the cave’s pool all froze to death in the absence of JabuJabu’s magic keeping the place thawed and therefore habitable—clense the Water Temple and Lake Hylia’s levels return to normal. Subtext is that Lake Hylia drying up =/= the same cause as the Zora’s decimation, despite the close proximity of events.

Which preTimeskip JabuJabu is literally a whale fed a single fish a day and kept in a fishbowl it can’t even turn around in. No wonder JabuJabu got so ill, ate two children, then later died. Classic case of neglect. Now if I had to guess? “Sea” Zora in the Oracle Games isn’t a misnomer—the same design is also used for MM Zora who actually do live in salt water. So, the Zora in OoT are the descendants of Zora who migrated from the sea to Zora’s Domain and used a baby JabuJabu’s magic to keep their mountain spring habitable. (And they do specifically live in the mountains in OoT and TP. Zora’s Domain is Hyrule’s major water source, set in the mountains (in TP it’s at the base of Snowpeak), and rivers begin either from snowmelt runoff and/or an underwater spring. Zora’s Domain is both, especially with how easily it refreezes.

So, after OoT? The handful of surviving Zora settled either in Kakariko or on the shores of Lake Hylia—Zora’s Domain was no longer habitable but Hyrule was still their home. Eventually either Ruto (if allowed to return to her previous life after a time) or the Item Merchant intermarried with one of Impa’s Descendants eventually resulting in the sage Laruto. Add in a few Gerudo and you get Medli—primary Rito genes, but obvious Gerudo (hair) and Zora (skin) genes surfacing after generations as well.

…that, and the Earth Temple is basically thematically similar to the Shadow Temple with Gerudo Elements as well (like the Light Puzzles.) If the designs were going off of Obvious Designs, by all rights the Rito should’ve been associated with Wind as avians and the Koroks with Earth as literal tree people.

Except…

The Koroks not only gave Link the Deku Leaf (which was then used in wind puzzles and for harnessing wind), the Kokiri are also thematically associated with Wind, as is Fayore (and like the Zora, the Koroks and Kokiri used their patron goddess’s symbol as theirs as well.) Meanwhile the Rito live with a volcano (earth&fire), are under the protection of a dragon (fire spirit), and have connections to the Sheikah (shadow, necromancy) and Gerudo (while OoT technically has a “light” sage, it’s actually the Spirit Temple that uses Light at all), with the Rito also having a history of intermarriage in the Great Sea Era (Kobali), with races like the Gerudo and arguably the very few surviving Sheikah and Zora as well. (There are absolutely No Water Themes in the Earth Temple. The closest we get to water as an active mechanic is the first floor of the Tower of the Gods…which is otherwise Very Sheikah from the second story onward. But, arguably that first floor was Zora-Influenced, possibly by Laruto herself.)

TL;DR:

So. The Rito are descended from the Sheikah, the Sheikah were rebuilt by Impa using Zora Survivors and Hylian Refugees (with mixed results), eventually in the (Sheikah-Gerudo) Earth Temple with a (Sheikah)Zora Sage. Then several more generations later…Medli.