The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

** Because Ganondorf isn't vulnerable to mere physical force. Biggoron could stomp on him all day, but Ganondorf would just jump up and give some ''very'' unpleasant payback with his magic. Only stuff like Light Arrows, the Master Sword, or other sources of sacred magic have a chance of even inconveniencing big G.

** Because if there's anything Majora's Mask taught us, it's that when tough guys who ''aren't'' Link try to take on the Big Bad, it only ends in sorrow. Also, death.

*** Actually, he says (at least in the remake) that the eruption of Death Mountain is what hurt his eyes, so he should have been fine during the [[Time Skip]].

**** Didn't Death Mountain erupt while Child Link was on his way up to meet the first Great Fairy? Maybe his eyes were hurt way back then?

* What happened to the Gerudo? They appeared in Ocarina of Time and then...poof, they're almost completely gone. Did they die out? Did they simply assimilate entirely into Hylian society after Ganondorf was dethroned? If so, why do they appear in Four Swords, which takes place after games where they are apparently extinct?

** In ''Twilight Princess'', some think Telma looks related to the Gerudo.

*** By this troper's interpretation, the "dark Interlopers" were banished long before the events of Ocarina of Time, which means they wouldn't be Gerudo.

**** Nope. It is explicit that Ocarina of Time is chronologically the first game. The Zelda timeline is uncertain, but Link to the Past definitely comes after, not before.

** On a related subject, if the Gerudo only produce one male every 100 years, how do they reproduce in the interim? The obvious answer is that they kidnap Hylian men to use as studs--which handily explains why they locked up the carpenter's sons and don't do anything to Link other than re-capture him no matter how many times he escapes--but that's a pretty disturbing concept for an E-rated game. Also in that case, how would they maintain themselves as a distinct ethnic group?

*** Magical biology. Males are Hylians, females are Gerudo. At any rate, we've got an almost-confirmation of the larger theory in-game. If you're wearing the Gerudo mask, someone in Castle Town comments that it looks like his mother.

***** It seems to work Hylian male + Gerudo female = Gerudo daughters, Hylian sons. However, Hylian male + Hylian female = Hylian daughters and sons.

****** Well, it does work in chickens...

** I have a different take on the question than those who answered previously. Not "Why did Navi leave Link?" but "Why did Navi Go Away?" If she left, it implies that she went somewhere. If she just died... Why does Link think he'll find her on this plane of existence?

** Who ever said he was looking for Navi? The game only says he was looking for a lost friend, it never said who. The game takes on a tone as if it were speaking of events yet to come, meaning the quest could be one about to begin. Link is going through the forest but doesn't appear to have any real direction or urgency. When Epona is stolen, however? That motivates him to move, and move fast. Also, at the end of the game, Link hasn't found Navi, yet the story is over. How would that make sense if this was no more than a detour, essentially making the entire game a sidequest? Link wasn't going after Navi, he was looking for his faithful companion and friend, Epona. Once he found her, he still had to fulfill his promise to the salesman.

*** So, to recap - Link noticed Tatl was a fairy, just one who spoke a lot crasser and was a lot ruder than Navi. If I thought all the fairy's were passive and friendly creatures, and one practically swore at me, I'd stare too. Plus, the bell was either Tatl or Tael spying on Link from the trees. As for a friend who went through everything with him, remember that the adventure didn't really begin until Link became an adult, and he got Epona. Besides, him looking for Navi doesn't explain why he gives up looking for her at the end.

**** Whoever says he gives up looking for her? All we know is that Link's drawing skills haven't improved during the year timeskip.

* There is a giant glass window in the temple of time, why doesn't Ganon/Link just go in through that rather then jump through a bunch of hoops?

** Because that window doesn't lead to the Sacred Realm, it leads to a tower containing the Rod of Command, which is, frankly, for all intents and purposes useless.

*** Yeah, given the freakyness exhibited by the Door of Time in ''TP'', the simple-looking little chapel Link enters in ''OoT'' is probably brimming with [[Alien Geometries]].

** As the Temple of Time is left completely untouched in an otherwise devastated Hyrule Castle Town years after Ganondorf conquered and razed it to the ground, one might conclude that the temple (including the window) is much sturdier than it looks.

* In ''Ocarina of Time'', Link is basically put to sleep for seven years. He wakes up, and is immediately able to carry hundred-pound hammers, do back flips, and generally kick ass. How is it that seven years without food or exercise had no adverse effect on his health?

** It was a ''magical'' sleep. Plus, we know Rauru was clothing him (see the earrings that weren't there before?), so he may have also been feeding him.

*** And to me, it brings up [[Nightmare Fuel]]. Rauru has been stripping Young Link ''naked'', who knows how often. And he's a priest. There cannot be ''any'' good implications to that.

*** Oh my god.... ''Link:'' "Why do I have a cuckoo-shaped tattoo on my butt?" ''Rauru:'' "Because I was bored."

*** It actually doesn't follow that Link had that waiting for him. Link was protected by the Goddesses and the Deku tree. I mean if you could stay in the Lost Woods for days on end in-game with no ill effects, why would you be affected by a few more?

** Yeah, all throughout the 3D ''Zelda'' games, it seems like some of the designers have really been itching to introduce some horror elements to the series. Especially with the mask system in Ikana, the whole thing with the music box and the well made me think that pretty late in the design cycle a REAL undead soul mask with a fourth Link transformation got cut from the game. I suspect that early concepts for Ikana Castle and the Stone Towers were much, MUCH darker.

*** This Troper always had the theory that Fado was the one responsible for the stuff that happened to people who enter the Lost Woods. The only reason she doesn't do anything to Link is because he's an old friend

** He was dying and needed medicine fast. He gave you a mushroom which he found while poaching so he could stay alive (he looks really weak when you meet him), but by the time Link gets back to the woods, he's already either dead or turned into a stalfos. Maybe the lost woods (which turns people into stalfos) was what was making him weak.

**** Now that's just plain vitalist. Dead people have rights too!

** Maybe Gandonorf's just channeling all the necromantic energies into his own projects?

* In [[Oo T]], the Ocarina of Time does next to nothing other than be a prettier Ocarina. And yet in MM, it let's you travel time. And what does Link do with the Fairy Ocarina after he gets the Ocarina of Time, anyway?

** "Next to nothing"? Did you forget that it's the key to opening the Temple of Time? Or how Zelda uses it to send Link back at the end of the game?

** The "whatever happened to Saria's ocarina?" question was asked many times but never answered. The Manga offers the explanation, that it was stolen by Ganondorf (who, somehow, confused it with the Ocarina of time) and latter smashed by him in rage.

*** It sparkles? ([[The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker|Some]][[Twilight Princess|times]])

*** ..Giant's Knife is useless, what are talking about?

** The thing that bugs this troper about the question of where Saria's ocarina went is the unspoken certainty that the fairy ocarina went anywhere. Is it not possible that Link just hung on to it without using it again because the ocarina of time had more powerful magic? You may as well ask [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|why Lon Lon Milk doesn't go sour if you take it into the future.]]

** I think what the OP means is that the Ocarina in MM allows you to actually go back in time, but in Oot it has no such time-travelling powers, because THAT just bugs me...

** I always figured a teleporting mail-crate system. They drop it in an open space with nothing alive on the floor under it, in the house of the recipient, unless you specify that it needs to be in the yard and you can pick it up.

** Cows are secretly ninjas.

* Where on earth are Sheik's ears? That's one thing that stumps both sides of the gender wars - if s/he's just Zelda, then Zelda has long pointed ears and thus Sheik should too. But if s/he's a Sheikah, then Impa has long pointed ears as well, and thus so should Sheik! Unless s/he's just tucking them in to those head bandages and/or cowl? (Which seems... impractical.) ...Or is actually a Gerudo dressed as a Sheikah?

** The question where Sheik's Hylian ears are is a good one... I guess they are under his/her hair. Probably. Or (s)he's constantly frowning, causing them to hang down (in some media, the ears of the Hylians also indicate their emotional state... not that those media were canon).

*** Why is that a necessary deception? Sheikah have long ears the same as Hylians - just look at Impa! Whether a Hylian in disguise as a Sheikah or an actual Sheikah, Sheik should have long ears.

**** The ears are most likely under both the bandages and the hair. It is both an aesthetic and functional approach. As to the "necessary deception", the game speaks for itself. Unless you want Ganondorf/Ganon to succeed in destroying the world.

* At the end of [[Ocarina of Time]], Ganon is beaten in the 'future', then Zelda sends link back into the 'present', to live those seven years he missed.... which will still be under Ganon's tyrannical rule, won't they? Back in kid-Links time, Ganon still has the triforce, and won't be beaten for another seven years.

** [[Twilight Princess]] hints, that Ganondorf was exposed by somebody, ''before'' he could start his 7 years of evil rule. Zelda probably sent Link back to, like, 20 minutes before Hyrule castle was taken over, so he could go and warn the king. Why she didn't just send him back to do this right after he first woke up in the first place is another question, but I guess not even Zelda herself really grasps the [[Mind Screw]] that is [[Time Travel]] in [[The Legend of Zelda]].

** The Forest temple is a ruined mansion-type building overrun by plants, those are horrendous to navigate even when intact, plus the actual layout is quite navigable. The Fire temple is built into a volcano, so it's understandable for it to be labyrinthine, a lot of the rooms do appear to be natural caverns too. The water temple is just a bitch, though it does appear to be the source of lake Hylia, so an ersatz temple could have been built around the source, though it still is quite poorly designed. The Shadow temple appears to be some description of torture facility, due to what can be read on the walls and the nature of some rooms, making it unlikely to be used for worship anyway, but understandable as to why it's difficult to navigate, it's one of the most linear temples anyway. It also could be noted that a winding trapped 'temple' would be much more difficult to escape from. The Spirit temple is probably the only true temple, plus its really quite easy to enter rooms of worship--the room with the large statue. In fact the layouts, apart from the water temple, are all very logical, even for temples. Add in some traps and puzzles to prevent people from infiltrating the temple and stealing... presumably the medallions etc. and add in some monsters which have either entered the temples themselves or were planted there by the architects and hey presto you've god a collection of potentially misnomered temples!

*** Right. Besides, the only reason the temples appear to be laid out weird is because Link has to run around looking for keys'n'shit.

** Here's a (non-snarky) thought: The only temple we see as a child is the Spirit Temple (the somewhat normal one). How do we know that before Ganondorf's takeover they weren't more normal (as in less traps/pits, better lighting, unlocked doors) and his minions just fucked with them?

*** I like it. It would make sense for him to alter the places where the artifacts that could be used to kill him are stored, so that any pesky heroes would be more likely to meet a grizzly fate. Going by that logic, could the whole "item you need to beat the boss/temple is stored inside" be a sort of counter-attack? After all, in WW, the ghosts of the previous incumbent sages do help you out. By that logic, could the ghosts of the sages of the OOT temples be placing all those keys/items/refils around the temples?

*** No good. The door was already open. It had to have been sometime after Link finished collecting and inserting the three stones. Which is good, because otherwise he'd just have ended up having to re-rescue the Gorons and Zora again. Plus, being sent to the later time would allow him to get corroboration from the two kings, rather than having to rely on the word of an anonymous boy.

**** No, the very first time you meet her the door is still shut, two of the spiritual stones needed to open it aren't even obtained yet.

*** Problem being, by the time you open the Door of Time the king is dead and Zelda is long gone, i.e. not where she was when you first meet her. I'm sure Link wouldn't mind running through Dodongo's Cavern and Jabu Jabu's Belly again, and as for how he gets out of the Temple of Time...[[A Wizard Did It|Zelda]].

*** This raises an interesting point, because, as the story goes, Ganondorf was exposed and captured before he started off and killing stuff, so at the very latest, he would have had to appear before Link helped the Zoras, which, at that time the door was locked. I agree with the above posting saying that Zelda influenced his return to allow for the door to remain open until he left.

** We don't know exactly how the Kokiri grow. They might just spring up, already looking like 10-year-olds, or they might have started as babies out of pods, or seeds, or something. If that's the case, the Deku tree could've easily made it look like that was the case with Link. Alternatively, maybe Saria was his caretaker specifically, and she's the only one who suspects because she knows more details about him growing up than the others did.

** My guess is that they grow like hyrulians until they hit a certain age (about 10-ish) then stop growing. It could have just been perfect timing for Link to be brought to the Deku tree while the Kokiri had just been born.

** To protect him from the war-torn world outside the forest at his mother's request.

** To disguise the Hero of Time as a Kokiri and protect him until it was time to fulfill his role as [[The Chosen One]].

 

* [[What Happened to the Mouse?|What happened to the kid in the graveyard?]] In the future, it's mentioned that he never came home one day - and that's all you ever hear of it. Was that just meant to be depressing? Something left in for a subplot? An explanation for not making a new model for him?

** Not really helpful, but: WAT. I only [[Fridge Horror|just now realized]] he isn't in the future...who said he never came home one day?

*** I forget exactly who it was, but if memory serves one of the NPCs near the house he used to live in tells you his mother moved out and the shop moved in after he disappeared.

**** And that, my friend, is why the Forces of Evil always tamper with the Gorons' food supply or effectively assassinate key decision-makers rather than making a head-on attack like they do with Hylians.

*** The Biggoron Sword has a serious drawback, though - it's heavy enough to require a dual grip, which leaves it's wielder incapable of using a shield at the same time. Considering how many enemies in-universe can exploit Link's open guard, it makes sense that the Master Sword would a blade that could be wielded one-handed.

** Are we talking about that Kokiri who sits on the shop's roof? She wasn't ''that'' creepy, was she? Apart from sitting on a roof...

*** ''"That guy isn't here anymore. Anybody who comes into the forest will be lost. Everybody will become a Stalfos. Everybody, Stalfos. So, he's not here anymore."''

*** *[[Nightmare Fuel|Shudder]]* Wait, what's this about an original storyline?

*** She was the one who stood on top of a post at the end of a bridge that connected to another post which connected via bridge to the roof of... I wanna say Saria's house, but I'm not sure. Anyway, she's just gone through seven years of at least two of her friends being missing, the Great Deku Tree being dead (and one of the aforementioned friends speculated as being at fault), and the overrun of the village by Deku Babas and Deku Scrubs. Also, it seems she's possibly witnessed the transformations of which she speaks. Maybe she's going mad... or at least has developed a dark sense of humor.

*** Would you mind sharing your source? The beta version seems very interesting.

** It's pretty much one of those "you can't prove anything" scenarios, and one of the more subtle aspects of Hyrule at this point is that the various races are still fragmented. Thus, the Hylian king would take the word of a kneeling Gerudo over that of a stout, [[Large Ham|hammy]] Goron, a somewhat absent-minded Zora, and a largely isolationist...tree.

*** Besides, it seems like the Hylians and Kokiri don't have too much contact with each other- there's no mention of the outside world in the forest, and they can't leave for Castle Town. It doesn't excuse the Gorons and the Zora, but it's possible the king doesn't actually ''know'' about the Deku Tree, and the Zora issue seems to be a very recent one. And the Gorons can't actually prove that it was Ganondorf. Hell, for all we know, he could be there that day in the castle to give his side of the story.

* So, the Kokiri are immortal, right? So why do they tease and ostracize Link for not having a fairy, refuse to let him leave the forest, and don't recognize him when he's an adult when they surely must have seen him be taken in by the Great Deku Tree and live out his life up to that point? They had to have known he wasn't really a Kokiri.

** Well, I doubt the Kokiri knew how their normal "life circle" looks like. If the Deku Tree said that Link is a new Kokiri which needs to fully grow up first, nobody would have said much. Most people do not question their deity, especially not (eternal) children.

*** At least some people from outside must have seen the Kokiri before, because Malon and another NPC in the market recognize Link as being from the forest.

* Two [[IJB Ms]], since one is very minor. First one: am I the only one to whom the designation "fairy boy" given to Link by Malon has a certain, well, racist sound to it? Second one: don't wish to sound like a hater, but I don't understand why Sheik is so popular. To me, at least, she doesn't do much in the game. She teaches you warp songs, which are slightly handy, but nothing more (with the sole exception of the Spirit Temple). In Kakariko she's getting her ass kicked by Bongo-Bongo. The sole important thing she did was saving Ruto from the Zora Domain. Heck, Navi is by far more useful than Sheik.

** I think the reason [[Sweet Polly Oliver|Sheik]] is [[Ensemble Darkhorse|very popular]] is for [[Fan Dumb|very]] [[Ho Yay|different]] [[Yaoi Fangirl|reasons...]]

** Another point on Sheik is, a lot of fans see her as awesome because she managed to evade Ganondorf for seven years. Yes, [[Offscreen Moment of Awesome|we don't actually get to see]] whatever she was doing, but hey, it's something.

** Perhaps the stone didn't know?

** They're ''Gossip'' stones. Not ''Omniscience'' stones. They repeat what they've heard, they don't know everything.

** He swallowed it.

** Fine, by why does he have a map of his own stomach inside him?

*** However suggesting that Sheik and Zelda are different people unfortunately means robbing Zelda of her hard-earned efforts she made to survive during all those seven years. But the fangirls don't seem to care, as long as they have their "bishounen" Sheik. Trust me, I'm saying this from experience.

* When Link rescues Ruto from Jabu-Jabu's belly and tells her about the letter, she denies ever writing one. So, if she isn't lying, who the hell wrote it?

* So, which Water Temple is canon?

** Um, what Water Temple? The [[Oo T]] Water Temple is canon. The MM Water Temple is in a completely different world.