Are They Not The Same????

Are they not the same????

(Tap for better picture quality)

🤣🤣🤣

Someone must have made this joke already but idc

Fooling them ALL

TotK theory, do NOT read until you’ve beaten the Dragon Tears quest:

We never actually see the Golden Goddesses in past games. We see effigies of them, like the three Oscars flying into the sky in Ocarina of Time, or the three identical Hylian statues surrounding the Triforce in Twilight Princess, or the three pearl-holding statues in Wind Waker.

We meet their oracles in Ages and Secrets, and help those oracles get houses in Minish Cap. We meet their agents, the Twilight Princess Light Spirits, or the Skyward Sword dragons, or the three protectors of the Goddess Pearls in WW.

Even in Skyward Sword, we only see their symbols, despite being in the time arguably closest to them.

And now, in present day, when only Hylia is still worshiped, we have Dinraal, Naydra, and Farosh. And thanks to Zeldra, we know how they came to be, to an extent.

We know they used to be mortal.

We know they had incredible power.

We know they sacrificed it for something.

A big question that’s always burned me since Skyward Sword is why did the goddesses leave?

Hylia didn’t. She stayed to help, stayed to fight until her last breath, then was reborn to try it again.

It always used to strike me as particularly cold of them that they’d ignore their youngest sister, even with all the power they clearly had at their disposal.

But what if they literally couldn’t help?

To become an immortal dragon is to lose oneself. They wouldn’t have even been aware.

Of course, why would an immortal goddess need to become an immortal dragon in the first place? Don’t they have everything?

Here’s my theory.

In TotK, we’re repeatedly told that the Zonai, when they descended, were praised as gods for their powers. And we know the Secret Stones amplify that power.

Coupled with the fact that we never see any consistent portrayal of the High Trio—

I think Din, Nayru, and Farore were Zonai.

I think they’re revered as gods because they descended from the heavens, as the Zonai were said to have been.

I think that their powers involved the terraforming they did to the world to make it habitable.

I think that Demise lived on the surface first, with the malice, with the gloom, and that the golden trio stopped his conquest of the surface peoples by force.

I think they swallowed their secret stones to keep them from being taken by Demise, since we now know what someone with even a fraction of his power is capable of doing.

I think when they became dragons, the power they shed in their wake coalesced into the Triforce.

I think Demise, when he waged war on the surface peoples afterwards, emerged from the Depths.

I think that Skyloft was Hylia knowing that the sky has always been safe, always been out of reach, and repurposing the lowest of the Zonai isles to protect them. Even though we know the Goddess Statue was on the surface originally, we don’t know where the rest of the isles came from—the Hylians rose with the statue, but spread to the other islands.

And I think that Demise telling Link that Zelda’s form pales in comparison to the magnificence of her former self is referring to the youngest Zonai sister’s former appearance. Because what a downgrade it must have seemed to him to watch one of the most powerful beings in the world, the one that sealed him away, turn herself into one of his prey.

Totk/SwS timeline ideas and headcanons (spoilers)

Post Skyward Sword by several generations— Zelda has to have a child by birth (not necessarily with Link) and those kids go on to become priestesses of Hylia. Sonia and SwS Zelda's were never alive at the same time.

SwS Zelda isn't crowned queen when she moves to the Surface (not yet called Hyrule), and tbh her character would hate that title. She takes on a priestess role that's basically the wing ceremony thing she did but more intense

This is backed by the ancient Hyrulean stelae calling Sonia a priestess by birth before she became queen

Demise's curse isn't necessary tied to Link himself, but those who share the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero, thereby cursing Link and Zelda's successors separately. Since Wind Waker shows the spirit of the hero isn't always passed on by blood, he and Zelda don't have to be the ones to have kids but Zelda does have to have a blood related child for her end of the curse.

Rauru has the spirit of the hero—he just doesn't have the Master Sword. He sees Zelda has the broken one and she talks about her hero in the future so much that they don't think that if Demise's hatred is manifesting to Sonia's blood of the goddess there should also be a hero, and just. Never go looking for it.

The Zonai thrived in the sky once the Skyloft Hylians had totally moved to the Surface — they know about Hylia and worship her because they found the remains of Skyloft, so that's why Rauru chooses to name the kingdom he creates Hyrule instead of after a Zonai deity (also because his wife is a priestess with Hylia's blood)

Sonia's Zonai secret stone is made from a piece of Zelda's crystal. The Zonai found it (she brought a shard back to Skyloft for sentimental reasons) and found it was imbued with magic they didn't understand (Zelda never knew about it, it was just an echo of her own power) but eventually learned how to harness it's power. The amber slowed time down so she didn't age in the crystal, and the Zonai figured out how to go a step further and recount the memories of objects

Hyrulean—language, people of the kingdom. Hylian— culture and/or race*. Skyloft is Hylian but not Hyrulean. Rauru is Hyrulean but not Hylian. The Sheikah aren't a subset of Hylian despite what totk says because that's a racist retcon. Sheikah, Gerudo, Zora, Rito, all of the above are Hyrulean because they agree to join Rauru. *race in Zelda is fucked up so I'm approaching this like studying the ancient Mediterranean which did not have the modern concept of race/racism but rather cultural ties. That comes with it's own downfalls and problems but I think the best way to look at this fantasy world is not in terms of modern race but in fake cultures and peoples—however, outside of the story on a meta level, modern racism and bias is extremely prevalent and can't be brushed aside

The Zora evolving into the Rito for Wind Waker was always stupid (why would fish become birds when the world floods) so we're completely ignoring that

Fooling them ALL