#zelda is hylia!

[maythevoidnotscreamback]

My opinion given form: Zelda’s True Identity is Hylia and always has been

I’ve been thinking about how Rhoam and everyone else, Zelda too if unconvincingly, is so freaking adamant that “prayer will unlock her Sealing Power” when we see the lie in the second-to-last memory of BotW. And I’ve been wondering… why? Why is almost everyone adamant about this, especially when she’s been doing it for over a decade with nothing but grief and despair to show for it?! 

I mean, she’s a frickin’ scientist! She must’ve heard the phrase “to do the exact same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a mark of insanity”. So why?!

I theorize that it’s because of who Zelda is that it doesn’t work for her. She’s the Spirit Maiden, the Princess of Destiny, the Goddess Hylia reborn. Which means that, just like Link, certain rules don’t apply to her that it might with anyone else. The Power of her Line might truly be ‘unlocked’ through prayer, (that is, if an unintentional game of Telephone hasn’t been going on for generations {I.E: one daughter had trouble with accessing her power and her mother taught/showed her how but being a child she hadn’t realized that she was a rare exception; that she hadn’t needed to teach her own daughter(s) how to access their power who’d she’d then tell they had to do the same when the next generation came about} until ‘thought’ became ‘fact’) but that might only apply to those of her Line who aren’t the one whose Soul is the originator of said Power. Why? Well, I imagine that trying to pray to yourself for a power you most likely already possess, (that you were born with, you just have no idea or remember how to use it) would be quite stupid, not to mention impossible.

Basically, the analogy I'm gonna use is: Before Calamity (or the Day of the Burning Fields) struck poor Zelda is standing out in the freezing cold with nothing but a flimsy white dress to protect her, knocking on a locked door belonging to a house that has all the lights on. Thing is, she’s been told all her life, maybe even by her mother too before her death, that she has to wait until the owner answers to be let inside. What she doesn’t know, due to various popular beliefs regarding reincarnation about remembering Everything in the Inbetween but forgetting once reborn, is that the house belongs to her and the key to open the door is within her knocking fist, the key the only reason she’s not died of hypothermia, but she’s too numb to feel it and too cold to unclench her fist. It’s only because of Link coming along and trying all he can to warm her back up, neither noticing something drop at their feet while Zelda struggles against him in her ignorant stubbornness, before he finally collapses once everything is almost said and done because, despite being a man and a helluva lot more dressed and prepared for the weather, Zelda has been in the cold for so long she doesn’t feel it enough for it to affect her anymore, not to mention that Link had been using a lot of his own energy trying to help her, to keep her alive, especially once she stopped fighting him. It is only when she goes to help him in return that she sees the key needed to get inside the oh-so warm house and decides ‘damn the rules’ to save him.

“But what about After Calamity when Link wakes up” I hear you cry, “he prays to Hylia for more Stamina or Health in exchange for four Spirit Orbs and She responds! If what you say is true then that’s Zelda!” I hear you continue. “And?!” I’d reply. Who’s to say it isn’t Zelda in her capacity as Hylia?! She can telepathically contact Link every Blood Moon and at other various points depending on how you play the game. Not to mention that she admits that she watched every step of his journey even though she was busy holding Calamity in the castle. Like, just because going to the statue doesn’t trigger a Voice-over doesn’t mean that it can’t be Zelda. Hell, it could be that it being a statue, or the spoiler of what happened to her during TotK, is causing a type of ‘interference’ that makes her sound different or that ‘logic’ says is impossible. And that’s without looking at the whole... thing regarding the Hero’s Shade in Twilight Princess! The Hero’s Shade is meant to be MM!Link but if he and TP!Link are both meant to be the same person as carriers of the Hero’s Soul then that should be impossible, right? 

Wrong! 

It works if one uses the idea that the Soul of the Hero is meant to be the template that fashions “Link”. I am fully of the HC belief that just like Zelda originates from Hylia and Ganondorf originates from Demise, that ‘Link’ originates from the Fierce Deity/Kishin. The way I see it, the Hero’s Soul is meant to be a snake and each ‘life’ it lives is the skin it sheds once over. In the case of the Hero’s Shade and TP!Link it’s that said ‘skin’ had too much baggage to dissolve into the ether, to which happens once his ‘regrets are resolved’, as the others before it had. That could be what happens in BotW and TotK. Zelda’s body and soul have been separated in both games (if differently) if you think about it, so her acting as Hylia once in the Spirit Realm or what-have-you wouldn’t be all that implausible, if I may say so.

It’s just that various people, in life and fiction, have made mention that the more one Believes in something the more power it has. So, the whole thing where, in previous games, the Divinity/Religion/Lore of Hyrule had Three Golden Goddesses who created the world before SS messed with it by adding Hylia as a Lesser Goddess, as the original Guardian/Protector of the Triforce before she gave up her Divinity to reincarnate as a mortal alongside Her Hero, a Goddess who had apparently been there practically from the beginning and been forgotten until some point before BotW where she seems to be the only Goddess known to be worshiped by almost everyone in Hyrule is so sad. Hell, the Temple of Time, the biggest building on the Great Plateau even Before Calamity, has Her statue while the other buildings, as seen in AoC, only have pews even though they’re meant to be dedicated to said Golden Goddesses. The Goddesses that’re supposed to be above Hylia; maybe even created her as they created the Triforce and Hyrule.

All that aside, one has to ask: with there being Zelda's named every frickin' generation of the Royal Family, if not every female member and middle names used to differentiate who's who, then how does one find the one meant to be the Princess of Destiny? Especially if the Hero hasn't been found quite yet to say she'll be needed to fight alongside him or vise-versa, so to speak? Like, if the Queen had no problem manifesting her Power then why/how did she die before she could teach Zelda? Why did Zelda live if her Mother hadn't? I believe that, just like Link, Zelda also reincarnates and thus provided just a bit of Special Protection that works like Divine Providence. It's just that, unlike Link who only needs a proper vessel that can handle the Hero's Soul (because I'm of the HC opinion that it's said Soul that makes him and his blood special, not that he's descendant from a Special or Specific Line {not always a Knight's legacy/his own descendant}; the Sword is just meant to be physical proof of it) and what it'll have to go through, her reincarnation is meant to be through successive descendants. Her Line has to continue unless they don't want Hylia to reincarnate again to help her Hero when the Curse of Hatred manifests/rears its ugly head again. I say this because of how the Curse has been structured, "Those who share the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero..." which implies that it's a Goddess Descendant, or at least SS!Zelda's Descendant for those who're of the opinion that Hylia returned to her role as a Guardian Goddess once her current Mortal body perished (I don't agree to such, mind you, but that's just my opinion), and a person with the Hero's Spirit, absolutely no mention whatsoever of there being a blood connection between said Soul/Spirit's successor and predecessor just that the person who faces him has said Soul/Spirit, that'll face his Curse alongside one another eventually.

Because as fun as it is seeing authors attempting to make connections on how the Hero's Bloodline might've continued so that he'd reincarnate into his own Bloodline too, or at least for those who want to do a kinda angsty aside/bit for their story when said Bloodline 'perishes' or what-have-you, ("Forest of Ghosts" by Seren_Knight01 over on Ao3 is a good example) it's also kinda stupid because of how the Timeline Split goes. It sorta-kinda works for WW because of the plot point of 'Hero didn't come back' and 'Master Sword has lost its Power to Repel Evil because the Soul she's attached to has become non-existent due to the Sage of Time sending him back'. But then the same problem exists for the 'Hero Perishes' Branch. When would he have had time to sire a child? Granted, one could say 'one of his Blood but somewhere to the side' but unless that same or similar relative(s) had all been killed off in the 'Hero's Victorious' Branch it still makes it not make sense. As such, my opinion is that the Hero's Soul/Spirit is not bound to his own Line.

As it is, I have a kinda HC/Story Idea on how being the Hero is more than just being Hyrule's Saviour, at least when it comes to the Princess of Destiny, that could work for those who like the idea of Zelda and Link being SoulMates like me. It should be in my Story Idea tag mentioning Kirin/Qirin in the title if you'd like to look for inspiration for a story. Don't have to if you don't want to though. :)

All that aside, what do you think? Did anything not make sense?

[proxycrit]

Day 34– Bridge of Hylia

That gleeok is a public menace to the public infrastructure.

(This is a totk au called Familiar Familiar! Tldr, zelda doesn’t fall back in time and the two work as purah’s interns traveling hyrule together. Now with more botw influence!)

((Wanna support me? Check out my patreon, with my throw away sketches and references! Remember to use web or android folks, apple charges 30 percent tax.))

[linkvcr]

missing old comforts

[littlesakis-aubade]

Day 24 - Deity

“Please just tell me… what is it…? What is wrong with me?!”

[demiboydemon]

[snailtaco]

Oop

The scronkles

[ovegakart]

What she said.

[the-phantom-peach]

yeah whatever

*posts hylink*

〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️

tw: stylized blood below‼️

[thismousedraws]

“…this time, when all of this is over, will you come wake me up?”

[jullbnt]

Zelink ballet!! More under the cut 💜

And last but not least...

Pick your favorite ;)

[giol0vessharks]

zelda art i did with a new brush, i think i might use it from now on cuz i love it sm 😭

[clowns0up-felix]

If I can request, First (first hero) and Hylia?

I don’t really have a design for them yettt wahhh wahhh 😢😔😞 ended up drawing this without ref for their canon designs which might’ve been a teeny weeny dumb

Thanks for the ask !!

[irumalon]

My fave scene in botw.

[hylianchampion17]

Reassurance-

i posted this to instagram a week or two ago. make sure to follow me there if you wanna see way more art! i also paired this song to “destruction of Laputa” from Ghibli’s Castle in the Sky. i think it works well with this piece!!

[la-sera]

Skyward Sword Zelda (+Hylia) + Purpose for Day 1 Sepfember.

Thank you for @rebornofstars for the idea of ​​this event.

Prompt list: Sepfember 2024

[artsy-moonwalker]

She’s so pretty