User:Legacy84/Triforce Keeper Theory

The Triforce Keeper and the origins of Dark Link in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

Zelda II takes place a few years after The Legend of Zelda (TLOZ), the first title. This is one of the senior Link’s in the series being 16 years old and also one of the more veteran, having already defeated Ganon he seems to be in possession of both the Triforce of Power and Wisdom (or at least he has them safeguarded as he uses all three at the end) throughout the game. A few years after the first story Impa, the nursemaid of Princess Zelda, discovers a “birthmark” on Link’s hand which depicts the Triforce. The old lady grabs the poor boy and takes him to a lonely castle in North Hyrule where there is a door that can be opened only by secret means. Impa takes the back of Link’s hand and presses his Triforce “birthmark” on the door. Lo and behold, it opens and inside is a sleeping princess. Impa reveals that this is Princess Zelda, not the Princess Zelda that was just recently saved, but another Princess Zelda who was put into a magical sleep several generations prior. (And while we are all totally cool now with 11 different Zeldas, this was only the second game and contained a second Zelda. Gamers were likely asking themselves, “How many Zeldas are there?” Eleven! That we know of.) Ok, so the deep sleep is kind of weird, how long has she been sleeping, why hasn’t she aged, what happened to cause this Zelda to lay eternally sleeping? Well, Impa is so happy you asked. It turns out that a long time ago there lived a king and he ruled peacefully in Hyrule with the aid of the Triforce. When this great king died he was only able to pass down the Triforce in part to his son, who went mad searching for the remaining pieces (it is unclear how the Triforce was broken at this point, as in TLOZ and The Wind Waker [TWW] it is clear that each Triforce, i.e. Courage, Wisdom, and Power, can be further broken apart into smaller pieces and reassembled without discernible harm to the object, it isn’t necessarily important to theory, just wanted to mention it's possible). The prince, with the aid of a dark magician, found out that the prince’s younger sister was given the knowledge of the remaining pieces of Triforce. The princess would not reveal the whereabouts of the Triforce, however, and the magician grew angry. He began casting a spell on Zelda, but the prince realizing his folly tried to intervene. The prince is partially successful and when the magician had completed the chant Zelda fell instantly into an eternal sleep. However, the magician did not survive the curse and he died at that very moment. (Possibly Zelda reflected the spell somehow and took him out; coincidentally Link learns a spell called “reflect” in this game that is very effective against the magic using boss Carock, who looks exactly like the rendering of the magician in the Zelda II game booklet [however, a completely different theory exists to explain who the magician is rather than the generic “that guy looks like that guy” theory].) The prince was distraught and brought the princess to the castle in which Link now gazed upon her body. In the prince's sorrow he declared all female children of the royal Hylian house to be henceforth named Zelda. Of course, before Skyward Sword (SS) it had yet to be established that Zelda would be the reincarnated spirit of the goddess Hylia, so here it is said by Impa that the reason why all the princesses of the Hylian royal family are named Zelda is because of the prince’s foolhardy plot to seize the Triforce. Impa then gives Link six crystals and a scroll written in an ancient language that is indecipherable. Link looks at the scroll and he is able to read the handwriting, which essentially speaks to him. It tells him that he needs to place the crystals in the heads of six statues hidden deep in palaces throughout Hyrule which will allow the worthy warrior who completes the feat to then travel deep into the Great Palace in the Valley of Death and defeat the "last guardian." Once this "last guardian" is defeated, the scroll concludes, the Triforce of Courage will be obtainable by the Hero of Hyrule (that’s what this Link is called). So at least one king during the Golden Era (or the “Gold Era” as the timeline so eloquently refers to it) was able to wield the Triforce! Which may not seem amazing but figure that throughout the Zelda timeline there are only three times where this happens: after Hylia’s victory over Demise during the Era of Prosperity, at the time period before the Shadow Invasion, and here in the Gold Era. That’s it. (When the Triforce is originally created Hylia uses it to destroy Demise, though she is a Goddess.) So then that leads to the question of who is this king that wields the Triforce with the mastery to keep everything at peace. Well the question entails a different focus than we have had so far. How did the Triforce come be in the hands of the Hylian Royal Family at this late stage in the timeline? The four games (now five officially with the release of A Link Between Worlds [ALBW]) leading up to the Gold Era, which leads to the events of the first two titles in the franchise, starts with A Link to the Past (ALTTP). The backstory of this game portrays the events of Ocarina of Time (OOT) as a legend, and while Nintendo “officially” puts this into the “Defeated Hero” offshoot of the timeline, this offshoot of the timeline couldn’t possibly exists for several reasons (which others have sufficiently discussed around the internet). Suffice to say there is near universal agreement that the end of either the adult of child timeline (most likely the adult) ends with ALTTP, the Oracle series, Link’s Awakening (LA), and then TLOZ and Zelda II. (And while it would be rather inconsequential to the theory, I have a lot of issues with shoving ALBW in between LA and TLOZ, which again is official canon at the moment but will largely be disregarded here mainly because it doesn’t seem to belong to any timeline and is just a re-envisioning of ALTTP, although the theory still works with that title in its “official” place.) The order of titles leading to the beginning of ALTTP is really inconsequential (however it is most likely the end of the adult timeline). So, with that established, the beginning of the first game in this section of the timeline is ALTTP which would put the Triforce solely in the hands of Ganon. At the beginning of the game the introduction explains how there was a war over the entrance to the Golden Land (also called the Sacred Realm) where lay the Triforce (presumably set up at the end of OOT, really in either timeline), this is presumably the Imprisoning War which takes place during the events of OOT. In ALTTP it is reveled that eventually an evil begins to flow from the Golden Land and the king commanded the gate between the Light World and the Golden Land to be sealed by seven sages. This worked, at least for a while. Eventually the events of ALTTP happen. Ganon breaks the seal by disguising his form as a wizard, Agahnim, who is able to kill the king and remove the descendants of the sages. (Many people get hung up on the fact that all the descendants of the sages are human so how could they all be descendants of the sages. This is a misreading of the statement, it clearly says that he went after the descendants of the seven sages from OOT, but because it does not say “each” we can assume that none of these descendants are Kokiri, Goron, Zora, Sheika, or Gerudo since none of these races appear in the title, well Zoras do but they are totally different. Which would mean all seven maidens saved in ALTTP are descended from Zelda and Rauru, which is surely feasible.) However, without going into it too much, Link is victorious and the entire Triforce comes into his hands at the end of ALTTP where he sets both the Light World and the Dark World (Ganon’s corrupted version of the Golden Land) back to their former glory. Then he leaves the Triforce in the Golden Land before being whisked away by the Scared Power to far off lands on a new quest. These are the events of Oracle of Ages (OOA) and Oracle of Seasons (OOS). Link is set against a partially revived Ganon, whom he again defeats. Afterwards Link sets sail from these faraway lands on his journey home and the events of LA take place, which is really only a dream. But at the end Link ends up shipwrecked clinging to a piece of wreckage which he then fashions into a raft before he sees a seagull at the very end (a sign that land is near). Officially, that is the last time we see this Link in any of the titles. Presumably, Link makes his way home. And that’s that. However, what if Link didn’t die (as some presume) at the end of LA and what if he didn’t make his way home just to hang out with his uncle or start farming or something? What if he came back to Hyrule, married Zelda and when the king died, Zelda’s father, he became king. This is the only thing that makes sense, who else would or could possibly be the Triforce wielding king of peace so talked about in the beginning of Zelda II if not the boy who with one wish put both the Light World and the Golden Land back into their pristine form? (Ironically Link in ALBW does the exact same thing and could also easily be the Link in this theory that becomes the Triforce wielding king of peace, but that isn’t nearly as cool as the super veteran of four games Link who knows all kinds of magic and has defeated Ganon twice. The ALTTP/Oracle/LA Link fits this bill much better than does the ALBW incarnation of the character.) So then, what happens next? King Link dies as Impa says, “He is a child of man,” and his son, who is obviously a power greedy little worm, cannot inherit the whole Triforce. This is where the story in the Zelda II game booklet contradicts itself and so must be wrong. It says that the king died and his son could not inherit the Triforce, he could only inherit part of it, however the story then stops short of explaining what this means. The way that the prince appears in the story, as lustful for power, is almost certainly alluding that the piece he inherited was Power. The part that he could not inherit was almost certainly Courage as this is the piece that the Link in the game is searching for (what happened to the Wisdom Triforce is not mentioned, though an explanation exists that will be delved into later). However, as the scroll later reveals the king (well it doesn’t say explicitly, but really who else could it possibly be as the letter describes the search for an heir who could wield the Triforce as the letter writer did, could be Zelda [i.e. the sleeping Zelda] but it is more certainly her father, King Link) has hidden the Triforce of Courage until someone worthy (i.e. TLOZ/Zelda II Link) can claim it. So that is all well and good and actually follows the established story line at the time, these levels/dungeons/palaces/whatever were set up by Zelda in the first game and the King of Hyrule in the second game as tests, as ways of keeping these pieces from evil intentions. So how can the king be dead, after his son could not inherit the whole Triforce, and then he set up these obstacles? If the prince was forced to fulfill said obstacles that wouldn’t exactly be inheriting. And why does the king give up Power and Wisdom to the evil forces but go to amazingly meticulous and absolutely arduous lengths to save the Triforce of Courage? It makes no sense, except if the story is all wrong. So why would the story be wrong, this is the legend passed down to Impa, she can’t be wrong, right? Well there is one huge issue. So this prince, who was not able to inherit the Triforce and became friends with a dark magician who put his little sister into an eternal sleep, became king of Hyrule. Then, it stands to reason, there are elements of official propaganda mixed with parts of the true story that eventually got out; though the full truth was probably only whispered throughout Hyrule. If you notice there is something very fishy about the story. The prince, although not an upstanding guy, at the last second (of course) tried to prevent the magician from casting the spell to enchant his sister. Suffice to say the original propaganda story that the prince told everyone almost certainly put him in an even better light than that. He likely said that he was able to inherit the Triforce but it was the magician’s fault that it did not happen because he corrupted the prince and, moreover, if it wasn’t for the prince, who prevented the magician from killing his sister, Zelda would probably be dead. He probably even said that he killed the magician, in whatever way he could make himself look better he did. But, that probably also goes with other parts of the story. We are told that he was only able to inherit the Triforce in part, but what if it wasn’t inherited? If the king is able to wield the Triforce, he probably has regular access to the Sacred Realm and so to likely would members of his immediate family. It isn’t beyond doubt that at some point the prince had designs on stealing the Triforce before his father’s death. Resolving to take what was "rightfully" his the prince snuck into the Sacred Realm and laid his hands on the Triforce. However when he did the pieces of the Triforce rejected this unworthy owner and sought out the rightful recipients. The ALTTP Zelda (Queen Zelda) was likely already dead at this point, so the younger sister of the prince came into possession of the Triforce of Wisdom and King Link received the Triforce of Courage. So what about the Triforce of Power? This is where the dark magician comes in. The prince, in his search (before his father’s death) for a way to seize the Triforce, surely got around to some dark corners of Hyrule. The magician is Ganon’s wizard-form that he uses as Agahnim in ALTTP. There are several reasons to support this theory. First of all Ganon has done this before. Agahnim (at first, seemingly, a benevolent helper) was the magician who slowly took over power from the good king of Hyrule before the events of ALTTP, though this form was defeated by the ALTTP Link which means that Ganon was relegated to this less fair form as the dark magician. Here he is evil from the beginning tapping into the prince’s lust and greed, manipulating him to do his bidding (in the artwork for the game the magician is the prince’s shadow showing how he has possessed the prince). Ganon couldn’t bide his time, King Link, the guy who killed Agahnim in his youth is, though old, still around wielding the Triforce. Second, it is likely that without his Triforce the spirit of Ganon is toiling around Hyrule trying to gain some traction, hence why his form seems illusive until the prince gives him the opportunity to seize the Triforce of Power. He obtained the Triforce of Power at the same point Zelda and Link get their Triforces; this sets up Zelda I. Lastly, the game booklet artwork depicts the magician looking similar to Carock (Maze Island Palace boss) in many respects. However, they also differ in several ways; the magician’s face is visible while Carock's is not, they wear different color robes, though what seals it is the magician wears a necklace with an effigy of Ganon’s head (Carock clearly has a human skull on his necklace). Carock is more similar to a red Wizzrobe, just taller. So, then Ganon, who must be in some sort of spirit form at this time gets the Triforce but he needs time to build his army back up. He also must use the Triforce to bring back his carnal form, which appears to only result in the Demon King pig form which is destroyed at the end of TLOZ. (Here the multiple Ganon theory has little traction, there is no human identity ever attached to Ganon ever again after OOT. Though his appearance in the first two games in the series is almost identical to his pig form in both ALTTP and OOT. Ganon is almost never entirely dead. His revival is prevented during Zelda II; he is said to be “completely destroyed” at the end of ALTTP but that same Link has to kill him again at the end of the Oracle series; furthermore, he comes back again in TLOZ, fully formed, and lays waste to Hyrule, completely taking it over.) So while Ganon is out of commission, using his Triforce to summon all his powers before he brings them to bear and strike again, King Link decides he needs to hide the Triforce of Courage before it too is used for evil. He leaves the Triforce of Wisdom with his sleeping daughter, who was obviously attacked by the prince and the magician straight away after the Triforce eluded their grasp. The Impa version of the story says that she was interrogated for information about the Triforce in general, but it was likely only about the piece in her possession. King Link leaves the scroll and crystals with the Impa of the day and, really paying attention to the grand strategy here showing some wisdom himself, sets off with the Triforce of Courage. His son pronounced him dead and then builds a huge tomb for him to bring legitimacy to his own reign. Everyone in Hyrule must have begun to see problems since the Triforce was gone and one of the pieces was back in the clutches of Ganon (Hyrule in TLOZ is at one of its bleakest moments). This then leads to the inevitable question of why King Link sets up these crazy obstacle courses instead of just trying to fight Ganon himself. Well, he knows that he is too old and must await the next hero, whom he also knows will eventually show up. He doesn’t want to just hand the Triforce of Courage over to evil. He probably waits for three generations or more, but in the end he is correct. After giving this new Link his final test he relinquishes the Triforce and retires to finally die after probably centuries of life. This is equally supported by the fact that there is no one who King Link would entrust this most sacred and powerful of objects to, which is partially inconsequential as other titles have shown that the Triforces will inherently find their rightful owner (i.e. Link has Courage, Zelda has Wisdom, and Ganon has Power). To further show that the enemies faced in Zelda II’s palaces were placed there by the king, it is of note that many are of the enemies in this game are never seen in any other Zelda title, including many of the most iconic and recurring enemies in the game and nearly all the bosses. These include such enemies as: Ras, Tinsuits, Moas, Mobys, Doomraddles, Doomknockers, Fokkeru, Fokkas (one of the most hated Zelda enemies ever), among others; and such bosses as: Carock, Gooma, Helmethead, Horsehead, and Thunderbird. Almost all of the enemies in the last palace are bird-like creatures. Birds are almost universally on the side of the Hylians (i.e. Link’s side) in every other single title (the weathercocks in ALTTP, LA and ALBW; the bird statues in MM and SS; the Oocca in TW; Kaepora Gaebora in OOT, Majora’s Mask, and Four Swords Adventures (FSA); the Rito in TWW; Ezlo in Minish Cap (MC); the Loftwings in SS and many others). Nearly all bird enemies are large evil birds like in MM, SS or TWW; crow-like birds like in MC; or crazy penguin-alligator hybrids like ALTTP; none are even remotely like the Fokka. (The Rito, of course are extremely similar, but TWW timeline is almost certainly removed from Zelda II. Another possibility is that the Fokka are Loftwings which evolved to take to a more terrestrial landscape. It is really impossible to say though, as there is so little information on them.) So that just leaves the last piece of the puzzle, who or what is Dark Link? Most believe it to be a manifestation of the evil inherent in everyone, including Link. Though this only makes sense if one believes Ganon set up this figment to thwart Link. This doesn’t really work if it is summoned by the venerable King Link. Which means that Dark Link is not a shadow of the Link from TLOZ/Zelda II but rather an incarnation of the essence of the Hero housed in the Triforce of Courage, and consequently, in Link himself. Dark Link is an amalgamation and embodiment of all the Links that have ever or will ever come into possession of the timeless Triforce, which means this is likely a different Dark Link than the other Dark Links seen in the series (OOT, OOA, TP, or Spirit Tracks). Seems the Hero's Shade is not the only Link to make it into other titles where he is not the main character.