#yet another thing totk took away from me >:C

[ganondoodle]

So your took rewrite. I have a very important question regarding the Zonai. From what I hear they're supposed to be the dragon tribe I think? And that theory with Dinraal,Farosh, and Naydra. People were making theories about them being originally Zonai. Would those 3 have a important role in the rewrite??? I'm curious because I would love to see how you draw them and implement them into the lore. Also I love your demise and hylia! Love your work too so ye that's my question, apologies if I worded this wrong or seemed rude. I am not good with words ^^;;

so, with no intention to sound mean, this is a little awkward for me to answer bc i ... loathe the idea of the three dragons having been of sonau origin

i talked about it in a few rants before but i loved the dragons before bc they were something unexplained and ethereal, spirits older than time that yet still circling the skies unknown if they ever had a purpose, or if they even had to have one, just a part of this world, a mystery i loved bc it was unsolved (personally i liked the idea of them being like the last stage of evolution for the dragons from skyward sword but again thats just me) whenever i saw them i stood there and watched in awe, one of my most favorite things from botw ... or were ..

see it might have to do a little with me not liking the canon sonau at all bc of how they were handled, a big point of that being how they felt artificially shoved into every part of this hyrules history so nothing was there that hadnt been done better or touched by the sonau before already; i get that making that connection between the sonau and the dragons is very obvious and can be interesting for some but i personally hate it bc it just destroys that sense of awe i used to feel when i saw them .. they are a mystery that shouldnt ever been 'solved' or even considered as soemthing TO solve, their mystery being unsolved is what made it GOOD to me

i now have to actually work to still seem them as i once did instead of just some sonau dude eating a god damn stone, again i dont mean this to sound mean about it but i just .... it takes it all away what i once felt about them, oh ... it was just some sonau guy .. its them again .. it wasnt an ethereal ever wandering spirit of never known origins it was just some sonau guys .... oh .... oh ...no ... (good morning i am very brave and when the dragons are revealed to not have been unknown always there spirits ever wandering the world from the beginning of time which was one of my favorite aspects of botw but instead have been just some sonau dudes eating a stone destroying my feeling of awe and respect to them forever i wont cry about it ..)

so .... the dragons (Eldra, Farodra, Naydra for me as im using their german names) do play a role in my rewrite .. but not as people or having anythign revealed about them, im keeping them as i once saw them, as spirits that have always been there (they play a role to repair the mastersword as a reference to how it was forged in skyward sword)

(and the reason the stones cause someone to transform into a dragon was bc those creatures are the most magical beings to exist and the stones are made of an insane amount of spirit energy and if that all gets released all at once there is no way for it to go other than explode or if consumed to twist whatever organism is trying to take it in into a draconic form)

the sonau in my rewrite are not dragon people, tho they do worship them as they are incredibly spiritual, but an underground dwelling species (loosely based on bats and monkeys, with somethign of a deep sea vibe to them) who only appeared on the surface after their population was already beyond saving (the reason for it being that they mined the stones for their tech to such a degree it killed the land they needed to live and as they dug deeper and more intensely for more stones, now more for pure survival than anything else, they both found more of the engima stones AND the remnant of the past that warned of ganondorf, which then prompted them to breach the surface and establish contact with the ones that dwell there; they never did that before bc its hard to get there and they considered themselves to be above any other species spiritually and didnt want to messed up their structures of society - something that changed as they stood on the brink of extinction and had found the warning which then made rauru break their old rule of not breaching the surface)

(i will say that i can get behind the idea that the big skeletons you find in the underground having been of sonau that ate an enigma stone and that is how they knew it doing that for sure, it otherwise just having been part of their belief system as dragons are the most spiritual of all aside from gods)

(... i dont want to think about the reverse possibility tho .. the orignal dragons being dead and the sonau replacing them.. i dont like that even if it made sense ,,,,, ... yet another thing they replaced ... stop that ..)

im sorry if this sounds mean or dismissive but i just ... dont like the all dragons having been sonau theory at all and im kinda glad they dont seem to plan any DLC bc i was afraid it would outright confirm it, which would suck .. at least like this there is still some denialability about it (like all the clothing and dragon themed stuff being used purely for worship on their own)

thank you for otherwise liking my work tho!! i hope this isnt too disappointing for you to hear, in the end the rewrite is primarily a way for me to cope with what i dont like and implement the ideas i have had to fix it for me :C

[arkon-z]

Yes, I'm back on my bullshit about this, though it's not related to my complaints about Ganondorf being lame. TOTK spoilers abound below:

My numerous complaints about TOTK aside, I really feel like it was an insult for people to mistake Puppet!Zelda for the actual Zelda. She had been working hard for years at that point trying to rebuild the kingdom. People knew who she was and what she was like. Which means they should have clocked right away that there was something off about this Zelda that suddenly reappeared. Most of the Sages did, but poor Yunobo got done dirty by having to be the 'dumb one' and fell for the gimmick. Thanks a lot, writers.

Anyway, all that to say - they should have made actual Zelda the puppet. Brainwash her! Threaten her! Put her in genuine danger! If she's Link's motivation, then at least give him a reason to care!

Yeah, it would have removed the whole Light Dragon plot, but so what? What did it add to the game? A bunch of cutscenes full of background plot where Zelda loses her agency yet again. Nothing but shipping fodder and death flags.

Uh-oh, i'm on a roll now.

So yeah, let's say instead of being yeeted into the past, Zelda is captured by Ganondorf, Link's arm and sword get fucked up and it's the familiar start of the game. Rauru is there and gives Link his ghost arm, then explains that "Yeah, Ganondorf took Zelda prisoner. He's almost certainly chained her up in his evil palace and you're not getting in there with half a sword. Lucky for you, all these relics of the Zonai that suddenly appeared have what you need to repair the sword."

Link demands to go at once, but Rauru holds him back, like, "Don't be stupid. You can't just rush in there - you need backup. You'll need the same help I had when I put him away. But you'll have the Master Sword to stop him for good. Do this the right way and you'll save everyone."

So it turns out that to repair the Master Sword, Link has to get something from each of the four temples. And in turn, each of the Descendents realize that 'oh, hey, Ganondorf is back, huh? Here, have my ancestral power and help Link. Hyrule is your home, too." So the Sages still get their powers.

Meanwhile, the Regional Phenomena thing is also popping off, because Zelda is going around and wreaking havoc, because Ganondorf has brainwashed her to keep them all busy while he sets up his lair in the Depths or whatever.

Link gets all the bits he needs to repair the Sword, then he takes it to the Deku Tree to, I dunno, jumpstart its divine power. Because you gotta have the Great Deku Tree in there somehow. Side note: no Mineru. Yeah, riding a mech was cool, but if this fight is for Hyrule, then it should be focused on the current races, not the long extinct ones. So instead of a Zonai Sage, there's a Sheikah one. Hell, make it Purah! That would be fun. If you want to play nice, the Zonai Sage could pass the role on to the Sheikah Sage, or contrive another reason for them to swap places in the moment (something something Sheikah tech is based on Zonai tech).

So Link eventually gets summoned to Hyrule Castle by Puppet Zelda and he and the four Sages duke it out with her and obviously they're confused and afraid, because why is Zelda fighting them? What's wrong with her? They beat the Phantom Ganon out of her and win the fight, but just as they go to check on her, Ganondorf gives them that vision of his rule in the past, freaking them out. He kidnaps her while they're distracted and dares them to rescue her.

Okay, it's getting late and I'm tired. But look at that! Isn't that more interesting? Or at least, less contrived? TOTK felt like an anime suffering from power creep and they didn't know how to fix it, so they had to go over the top to try and bring it back in. There's a lot (and I mean A LOT) more that I could rant on, but this came to me in a flash and I just wanted to toss it out there.

Also, I would give NAMES to the ancient sages. Don't they at least deserve that much? They could've come up with a bunch of new names that would be added to the Zelda lexicon, or they could have done what they did for the rest of the game and just recycled names. No one would have bat an eye and nerds like me would have sat up and pointed in recognition like the DiCaprio meme. Here, it's easy!

Ancient Zora Sage - Rutella

Ancient Rito Sage - Komali

Ancient Gerudo Sage - Aviel

Ancient Goron Sage - Darmani

Those guys deserved better than "I am your ancestor..."

I'm gonna say it:

Astor (AOC) was a bigger threat than Ganondorf (TOTK) was, in regards to the gameplay. Yes, I know The Calamity was the ultimate threat and not Astor, but that's just lore. What matters is that when the AOC plot said, "It's time to get serious about this story now," it actually got serious. Rather than TOTK's idea of "boy, it's sure going to get serious once you hit this area and trip an event flag!"

Like, TOTK Ganondorf's idea of being 'evil' was to make a puppet Zelda and go around and mess with Hyrule, doing everything from pranking some of the stables to summoning monsters to invade the temples. And because the game is open world, it makes for some really weird tone shifts. Things ranging from "our city is being overrun by unkillable monsters" to "there's a talking chicken spreading rumors." And where was Ganondorf? Down in the core of the earth, being evil. The biggest AND ONLY threat he ever directly posed to Link was in their final fight. There was nothing in the story itself to suggest that he posed any kind of threat. Especially because he made it look like Zelda was the one behind it all.

But Astor! We saw him working with/manipulating the Yiga in his plans. He lured the gang into the Lost Woods as a trap and sent the Hollows after them, coming within inches of killing Zelda. He managed to release the Calamity early. He tore the souls out of the Yiga to re-summon the Blights! He went after Zelda himself! And when it happens, it feels impactful, because of how the story unfolds in the game play. The tone shifts; you lose access to the Champs from every game menu once they're trapped in the Divine Beasts. When the Calamity hits, the tone of the entire game shifts. You're not on some action-packed adventure fighting off the Yiga clan anymore; now the apocalypse has happened and you're still alive, trying to find a way to reverse it. And throughout everything, you know that Astor is the one behind it and he's the one you have to stop. Even with the Calamity as the greater scope villain in the background, Astor is still the focal point.

So yeah, from a gameplay and story perspective, even if Astor was a flat character, he at least acted like he was trying to destroy Hyrule. Ganondorf did fuck all in TOTK. All his action scenes were flashbacks. Lazy ass man couldn't even be bothered to trek up to the surface and destroy a village or two to show he meant business.