#would make sense since his appearance is based on his oot design

[fourspiceblend]

Ooooh, I think Takashi Nagasako is back as Ganondorf in JP 👀 the OG returns????

[tortilla-of-courage]

welcome to my TED Talk. Skyward Sword Link is the ancient hero mentioned in Twilight Princess. here we go

(for my own sanity im referring to SkSw Link as “Sky” and TP Link as “Twilight”)

so like, The Big Reason: the Hero’s Clothes. it’s probably really obvious but y’know how it be. when you first get them in Twilight Princess, Faron tells you this:

In TP’s timeline, the only heroes there have ever been in Hyrule are the ones from Skyward Sword, Minish Cap, Four Swords and Ocarina of Time/Majora’s Mask. Out of them, Sky’s outfit is almost identical to Twilight’s, sans the embroidery, and it’s honestly the only outfit that would fit Twilight. 

MC’s and FS’s Links were children, and OoT/MM’s Link wasn’t remembered as a hero because of all the time travel stuff (which is where Hero’s Shade comes in but that’s something else entirely). Even if he was, his outfit is completely different than Twilight’s, and only the child Hero of Time’s version would exist in that timeline, since the adult version of the outfit was given to OoT Link in the Sacred Realm. So really, the only option left is Sky.

They’re both around the same height and age, and the elements in their outfits are basically the same, with tiny differences. There’s the high-collared undershirt (Twilight’s is sewn closed while Sky’s is open), the chainmail, the tunic with the same base design...

We know Twilight is strong - he works at a farm, can throw goats and gorons like it’s nothing, picks up big rocks with ease... while Sky can barely pick up a barrel without running out of breath/strength in a few seconds. Twilight clearly has more muscle mass, and we can see this in the outfits’ differences. In these design notes, we can see the sides of Twilight’s tunic have been opened, then half re-stitched, and the same goes for his sleeves.

Meanwhile, Sky’s lacks all of these modifications. On him, the tunic even looks baggy, made for someone bigger than him, while on Twilight it’s really tight-looking.

Even the hat seems to have been adjusted for Twilight’s head... and also elongated, judging by the extra fabric sewed on the tip. the length difference is a bit clearer in the following screenshots. It can also be seen that Sky and Twilight’s adventurer bags are almost identical but that could just be coincidence rather than them being the same bags.

Actually, the Hero’s Shade talks about the Hero’s tunic too.

This could just be a reference of the Shade to his own outfit as the Hero of Time, since he also talks about accepting the life of the hero in another of his encounters - but if he doesn’t consider himself a worthy hero after being unable to pass on his secrets, it wouldn’t make sense for him to refer to the Hero’s Clothes in such a way (”the proud green of the hero’s tunic...”)

It could go with my theory of the Kokiri’s green clothes being inspired by the first hero (Sky, not the 25th anniversary manga’s Link), with the Kokiri evolving from the Kikwis in Skyward Sword who met him. OoT Link, growing up as a Kokiri, could have heard stories about this first hero, maybe even looking up to him (kind of like the Koroks with Wind Waker and Breath of the Wild Links). It’d make sense then for him to think so highly of the hero’s outfit despite his own situation.

Outfits aside, there’s the Double Clawshots you get in Twilight Princess. Besides TP, these only appear again in Skyward Sword - other games just have hookshots or grappling hooks.

They have really different designs in general, yes, but that could either be explained by the different art styles of the games, or that, even if they’re not the exact same pair, TP’s were inspired by SkSw’s. Considering Sky’s clawshots are a sacred gift from Nayru herself, though, they should be able to last thousands of years.

Actually, talking about Nayru, that’s where we can get some “proof” that they could be the same pair. In TP, the first clawshot you find is in the Lakebed Temple - at this point in the timeline, water is Nayru’s element (instead of Electricity like in SkSw), so one of her divine gifts being in her element’s temple (possibly put in there as an offering either by Sky himself or by his descendants time after Skyward Sword) is completely fine... But what about the other clawshot? Well, you find it in the City in the Sky. Not entirely sure why they’d leave one behind like that, but it being in what could be a modified version of Skyloft’s ruins...

We could also mention the Hero’s Bow in all this. Its description even mentions the hero of legend, supposedly the same hero the outfit Twilight wears belonged to.

It looks quite similar to the bow you use in Skyward Sword. There are obviously design differences (it’d also mean Sky never upgraded it during his adventure), but they share key elements.

TP’s bow shares a few more key elements with Majora’s Mask’s bow than with SkSw’s, such as the little branches near the edges, but MM’s is way smaller (mostly to fit that Link, but yeah) and Twilight wouldn’t be able to use it. Though, it should be noted MM’s bow is also referred to as the Hero’s Bow, like in TP, so it could be the same bow in all three cases.

(Wind Waker’s bow is also called the Hero’s bow - and looks a bit more like Skyward Sword’s than these other two but that’s another timeline,)

Anyways. The ones guarding the Hero’s bow in Twilight Princess are the Gorons. Now, why would the Gorons have it? It’d mean this Hero of the past would have to have been close enough to them to trust them with it. The first Link to pop to mind with that is usually OoT Link. 

But, when he gets sent to the past by Zelda after his adventure’s done, it’s to before he ever goes to Death Mountain, and before he becomes sworn brothers with Darunia. I’m not saying he couldn’t have gone and befriended them later, but I don’t know if, with that being the case, all the future generations of Gorons would refer to him as a Hero even hundreds(?) of years later if he didn’t physically defeat any evil, or even consider his bow a treasure. And if they did, I don’t think they’d just call him the Hero of the past, considering he was relatively “recent”.

Another one of the heroes in this timeline who has had some contact with Gorons is Sky. Granted, it was only with about... 4 or so of them, but him (or one of his descendants idk) giving the Gorons his bow for safekeeping would make sense considering they’re 1) one of the first species he ran into on the Surface, and 2) helped him a bit during his adventure. And coming from the very first hero (one of the founders of Hyrule, even), it being treated as a treasure by the Gorons even thousands of years later seems to make a bit more sense 

It could also probably tie with one of the Clawshots being in the Lakebed temple. Maybe that clawshot was given to the Parella, who would later turn into the Zora? Maybe all the races Sky ran into during his adventure got a “gift” of sorts once Hyrule was offiically founded, maybe to unify all the races currently living there? And the other Clawshot could stay behind in Skyloft with the Loftwings, that could have turned into the Oocca. Who knows

[pessimisticshape]

Analyzing Ganondorf's warbrobe : Oot

After studying Concept art for Oot Ganondorf I've noticed some interesting things about his choice of clothing and what they say about him.

Thanks to BoTW we know that some of the jewelry worn by people have magical properties that can offer protection from the elements and increase physical defense.

Since that's the newest addition to I'll start there:

From the Hyrule Historia

"Likes topaz jewelry. Has several pieces arranged all over his body." page 148

From Botw we know that Topaz is used to increase electric resistance and also that the Gerudo desert is lousy with electric type monsters. It's strange, in Oot there are no electric creatures to fight as the desert in this game was little more than a guided tour. It makes you think, was the use of jewelry for buffs and resistances always a plan but there was just never a right time for them in previous Zelda games? It might also explain where the Gerudo electricity motif came from as BoTW was the first to really explore the Gerudo culture and living conditions. The blistering day and frigid nights and infestation of electric based monsters.

In the real world, it was believed by ancient Romans that topaz protected it's owner from danger while traveling and wearing it on the left arm would protect from curses, cure lunacy, and ward of the 'evil eye'. (This is ironic since Ganondorf would very likely be the evil eye...)It was also once believed to increase body heat. Maybe in the world of zelda, topaz has many of these properties and that's why GD wears. If not then, atleast GD believes they do, which shows that he is somewhat superstitious. Being a magic user he could also unlock these abilities within gemstone using magic. It's also kinda cute that he expressively likes topaz...

I've already established that most most Ganondorf incarnations are wearing Amber jewelry save for TP, who might be wearing Topas exclusively but I'll get to him later. Historical was used for religious objects and talismans. It was believed to bring mental and emotional strength. Many ancient burials grounds contained amber jewelry and objects with their dead as to protect them in the afterlife. The only people we see wearing amber jewelry in Oot is Nabooru and Ganondorf, two high ranking Gerudo. We can assume that amber is reserved for important Gerudo.

Interestingly in some places unfossilized amber, resin, was burned as an incense. When heated and mixed with nitric acid it produced a musky pinewood smell. Egyptians used to put cones of scented wax on their heads to melt throughout the day and perfume themselves, maybe that's what the Gerudo are using them for.

Next is what he's wearing:

"Wears a leather leotard over a black bodysuit. Wrapped in fabric featuring Gerudo designs. A leather guard covers his shoulders and neck. He's also wearing jewelry." Hyrule Historia, pg. 149

I did some reading and came to the conclusion that it would be counter productive for living to wear leather anything in a desert. During the day atleast.

Leather does not offer much ventilation and the sand and heat can prematurely age it. The same goes for the extreme cold nights. It can cause leather to dry and lose it durability, or so I've read, that topic is a bit of a debate in the leather enthusiast community. It can act as an insulator when properly layered.

He's also wearing a leather guard on his neck and shoulders and what looks like leather knee pads so all that leather might just be protective gear for riding. Notice how this leather is darker than the other pieces he is wearing, this might be boiled leather. In-game the Gerudo don't wear any leather that we can see but we know they have metal armor as seen with the IronKnuckles. Maybe this armor is specifically just for Ganondorf. A sign of office. Maybe metal armor is just not practical in the desert heat.

GD is also wearing a thin black bodysuit. Bodysuits are usually made from stretchy, expandable materials but can be made from cotton. Cotton is praised for its breathable and moisture wicking properties. Its difficult to tell but in the concept art you can see that the material making up his bodysuit has a shiny texture to it. In his Super Smash Bros Ult. appearance it's more noticeable that his bodysuit is not skin tight like the concept art.

While it's hard to know for sure, we can assume the body suit it made of some sort of cotton, one that when processes has a silky sheen to it. Maybe Supima or Sea island.

In most fantasy tropes magic users forgo heavy metal armor as it affect the ability to do magicks. Given that we see a few other GD incarnations wearing Robes it can be assumed that LOZ follows this tropes. For all we know GD has other clothing that he wears and this just so happened to the most practical for him to be wear at the time. He is a bandit thief king so it would make sense for him to wear armor that's flexible and makes little noise. Although I can't imagine a man that size being stealthy.

If you go by the imagine we can see that originally Ganondorf was show to lean more toward Gerudo scimitars when acting as a brigand /highwayman. Given the gerudo's occupation in Oot, that could be where all their jewelry comes from. The Gerudo only stole from those that had excess but it's stated that whatever Ganondorf's methods are for thieving put him at odds with his people. Maybe he attacked the poor and weak? Or he was more of a cutthroat?

Interestingly when he takes over Hyrule he doesn't change his clothing, he only adds more jewelry and that carpet-cape. He surely has the means to and there is no other concept art of him in any other attire for Oot so its safe to say that these clothing have more meaning to him than not. Although i completely understand that the limitations of the Nintendo64 and gamecube played a big part in the designs of the characters

Also fun fact, in Creating a Champion, page 191, it refers to the DLC Phantom Ganon Set refers to his Oot pants as "long underwear". Make of that what you will...

https://nintendoeverything.com/nintendo-artists-on-coming-up-with-the-design-for-ganondorf-in-zelda-ocarina-of-time/

https://twitter.com/nintendoeurope/status/883276598249758720