Riffin' On's Take on Ocarina of Time Lore

Interestingly enough, we begin Ocarina of Time at the very source of life for the entire kingdom of Hyrule, Kokiri Forest. This setting, in the Lost Woods, home to the protagonist Link, is a mythic place not unlike Eden is to modern religious practitioners- those of the kingdom of Hyrule know of the existence of the “forbidden forest” but are naturally deterred, by existence itself, this deterrence somehow a byproduct of the sheer existence and dominion of the Great Deku tree in Kokiri forest, from ever entering the place, and may not suspect it to be inhabited by…what are essentially lost boys. You see, Link and his companions from his home village apparently…never grow up, or weren’t intended to. They exist on the fringes of life as we know it, life in the kingdom of Hyrule, but are in some sort of timeless weird area between existence and nonexistence not unlike Adam and Even in the myth of the garden…before their mortality was established and their destinies sprung forth spontaneously from the implication of the knowledge of right and wrong…in such an instance you must strive to do right, obviously, and as thus are materially bound to some yet to be glimpsed plan.

As we are on the precipice of an epic game, the Great Deku Tree is in crisis…and Link is truly on the cusp of his mortal crisis in that he’s about to be brought into the world, and made more human in that he will age and live a normal life…this common crisis will be echoed in the events in the kingdom of Hyrule creating a spectrum of continuity between mythic lore, represented by the state and dominion of the Great Deku Tree, the figurehead for nature, who is apparently tasked with “maintaining the order of the world” by the goddesses themselves, ecological health, and the state and quality of governmental rule in civilization, in addition to the general well-being of society. The great hero will be the enlightened nobody, enlightened, that is, by the peril which has seized the kingdom itself- this wild boy from the fringes of the civilized world, raised by a tree, Link. When the conception of Eden, or paradise, becomes poisoned, as happens with the Great Deku Tree, eventually the rot manifests both in the ecological state of the land that the kingdom was erected upon, as well as in the power structures of society…in the quality of life of the individual even. This rot forces the spiritual and utter psychological maturation of the heroic protagonist who takes on the role once performed by the Great Deku Tree, becoming the master of their own personal world.

That Link is a “lost boy” could mean many things…dramatic interpretations could see it as meaning that he has to earn some sort of chance at a future by carrying out a task the goddesses themselves thrust upon him in a place that may be outside the confines of normal existence… others could see it as simply meaning that the singular heroic experience thrust upon the shoulders of great people throughout human history has been the call to create an effective bridge between the source of life and the life itself, restoring order to the world/allowing for the prosperity of civilization to continue to trend positively…a bridge not unlike the rainbow bridge to the castle erected in the late stages of the game.

That every life lived will be “about” cultivating a worldview that explains for something as precious as the existence of the kingdom itself, and sees the world entirely in terms of a sustainable natural order…much like the one the Great Deku Tree enforced when Link was still a child. For Link to be able to become an adult, the Great Deku really does has to die off, even if only temporarily.

It’s not so much that the fall of the Great Deku Tree opens the door to Ganondorf manifesting in the kingdom and making selfish power grabs but moreso that the existence of Ganondorf was fundamentally incompatible with the existence of the Great Deku Tree. If the Great Deku was rooted in a universal truth the Goddesses themselves are affirming with their love and action, Ganon was rooted in a dark truth that was mutually exclusive with what this love knew to be true and possible. It was a different reality entirely, and from what we know to be true, a far less believable and real kind of reality. And yet it happens, nonetheless…

Which really explains the sheer shock in this narrative. The goddesses themselves, the all-knowing…the figurehead of the Source…even they seem to fall in meaningful ways to Ganon. That it’s Link who must triumph victorious says something profoundly true about life- if you’re after some sort of semblance of salvation, you’ll have to slay the dragon personally. No one can save you, and the words of no other are enough…you need to become one with the words in a way that is both deeply visceral and highly unlikely/difficult to manifest…it demands a miracle.

Ganon is a service, once you deeply understand the storyworld. He is a delusion, but how many of us maintain a perpetually lucid and cheery, informed perspective on life at the level of the mechanics of universe? It requires a master to do as much, and even then….

And still, if we don’t our ignorance breeds suffering. Eventually that suffering grows dire and scathing. It truly becomes something toxic, and that stuff goes out and imprints people…sometimes outright making villains out of them, or taking them on wayward paths. Derelicts are found in the kingdom in a plethora of ways…some are responded to wisely, lovingly, others aren’t. Terrible and tragic situations unfold with permanent consequences… and eventually the culmination of this is Ganon, and the great sages eventually think to seal him off in the Twilight Realm when he refuses to stay dead… but we can begin to see now why this isn’t a satisfactory resolution, and perhaps why the events of Twilight Princess ever happened…

He’s the accumulation of the merit of the human spirit, Ganon, and the ignorance of human perspective. He seeks to gain by taking from others. He sees the world as finite and to be plundered. Even when he hijacks the power of the gods, he uses it to pillage from others rather than ever create value…once he takes over a kingdom, everything withers until essentially nothing but the vultures remain, and even they look particularly famished…he systematically makes stupid decisions and is always doing sad boy stuff like waiting for the hero to show up and challenge him some day, only ever fending for himself all the while, and leaving but a few crumbs for his dark minions...

He has the heart and discipline of the best of our champions, and the operating system of an ogre…and yet he is distinguished and high class and he is well trained in the sciences… he’s a man of the world…he just doesn’t know Love or Infinity.

Which, it turns out, is the only way to defeat him. He’s essentially a shadow God playing on the notion that even though God is infinite, he has a clearly defined personality, lest he cease to be infallible/all-powerful. It’s a profound thing to see played out in a game.

In regards to social commentary, the Zelda franchise has a lot to say about the idea of societal dominion and where it intersects with what religions teach is the fundamental truth of reality. If we are all equals in God’s eyes, how can proper government be anything other than respecting the ways of the various peoples of the kingdom, and setting them up for success as much as possible? Zelda was enlightened by the act of ruling as she was a truly good princess…she saw the goddesses in the various ways the kingdom and its different people and cities carried on effectively…and she knew how to contribute without asserting an excessive amount of authority.

Also, too, she could always turn to the goddesses for advice on how to rule, or respond to situations in the kingdom. That was how she ruled…it was very different than Ganon. That she was female and Ganon chauvinistically male…was also relevant. Zelda had seen it play out time and time again where the goddesses gave special items or powers to the people to ensure peace and prosperity in the kingdom…she probably had a sense that some of this was generated on the spot, and that it was a thing of “they’re always going to have to ask before there’s a clear and actionable solution”…

She didn’t exactly assert her personal will in her capacity as a leader in a problematic fashion. It was a different template for governmental leadership, but not one unfamiliar in the annals of history… why had it fallen out of relevance around the times that this game was being released, probably wondered the creative team developing the game. When one considers the great flood in Windwaker or the apocalyptic event preceding the events Breath of the Wild… the lore of Zelda seems to come from a place informed by the conventions of Grail Myth which seem to indicate that the only practical response to perceived threats from natural disaster is to cultivate the awareness that natural weather patterns arise from God incarnate and to work this understanding into our habitual patterns of behavior and response in a dynamic and responsible way. Only the Grail King can bring placidity…and the Grail King need rule the society, truly. It’s a “we’re all in this together” kind of thing, as savage as it sounds.

Zelda, as a ruler, was the effective embodiment of it, as well as a reminder of how soft that it can really appear…it could be right under your very nose and you could miss it! We should take assurance in that she was the product of her lineage, and that her lineage was raising her right….we should take assurance that perhaps Ganon is more of a service than a believable threat…he could be a representation of a toxic mass delusion almost everyone has… to not realize what really is going on here in this thing called life…

To be so wrong about it that it opens your heart up to malice, suffering, and darkness…

In Kokiri Forest, in the beginning, we are on the cusp of losing something if merely to time itself…the innocence of youth. But somehow this doesn’t leave us entirely, instead transforming into “the heroic quest”. What does this say, philosophically about the wonder of childhood and the potential available to human adults? Is the imperative which forces personal maturity spiritual in nature… is it about asserting some sort of natural order that we once reaped the comforts of deeply and consistently across childhood? Do the personal roles change but the experiences, in some meaningful way, stay largely the same?

It should be noted that Ganon really does rightfully possess one-third of the Tri-force…the tri-force of power. Why is this? Well, it’s possible that some of the worldly concerns of Ganon regarding gain could be rather healthy in regards to the social mission in life… there are a lot of people out there in the kingdom who don’t feel fundamentally rooted in the love of the Goddesses from which Hyrule sprang forth, and this is arguably the singular source of personal satiation if we understand anything of the psychology of the human creature.

Ganon, while a thing of delusional and dangerous perspectives, is a living entity nonetheless, and he shares a common nature with everyone even if it seems he’s the one big bad departure. His behavior simply doesn’t reflect the reality of his being, and until that happens, there will always be the threat of darkness, both small and existential, in the kingdom, as well as situations which go against the very grains of nature. Nature itself will have our backs, there will be a resurgence not unlike what the Great Deku used to do before Link had to become enlightened and enforce it himself upon the land which surrounds him, himself, but even when nature can’t have our backs, we can rely upon ourselves.

Such is the liberation of the warrior’s path.

Still, though, the water temple is pretty hard…

*Coming up next time; exploration of the Lore of the Shieka, as well as an exploration of how their transgressions are arguably the source of some of the largest threats to the kingdom that have ever been known, implying that they must act with moral impeccability to truly succeed at their job, and this is perhaps why Zelda was working with them as Shiek…*

To the heart of the Tree of Life itself.