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Ganon's Mysterious Origins (Revisited)

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Re: Ganon's Mysterious Origins (Revisited)

#11

Post by willis936 »

shermantanktop wrote: post #8
stephbook wrote: post #6

This went completely off the rails, it's actually kind of funny. Kind of reminds me of JK Rowling backfilling all of that stuff in the Harry Potter books (now there's Luna Love good!.) Or Nintendo retconning Bowser's sons and replacing them with Bowser Jr. Sometimes there just isn't that much thought behind a character.

Sometimes? I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure these games were generally not built with a hefty bible full of inviolable lore. Plot and continuity errors are common enough to show that. Some people are very invested in making sense of things that just don’t have a ton of intention and meaning behind them.

The timeline's always been a mess, but it has been something that has been given serious thought since at least the late 90s.

https://www.zeldadungeon.net/forum/threads/the-truth-behind-...

https://old.reddit.com/r/truezelda/comments/sejcwx/newly_tra...

https://old.reddit.com/r/zelda/comments/6866wt/addressing_th...

That's not to say that there is a capital C canon that constrains all subsequent installments to be 100% self consistent. They seem to enjoy the freedom of being able to change things to fit their vision for the next installment. I just don't think it's correct to say there's no thought at all put into the head revision of the canon.

Re: Ganon's Mysterious Origins (Revisited)

#12

Post by Tanoc »

stephbook wrote: post #6

This went completely off the rails, it's actually kind of funny. Kind of reminds me of JK Rowling backfilling all of that stuff in the Harry Potter books (now there's Luna Love good!.) Or Nintendo retconning Bowser's sons and replacing them with Bowser Jr. Sometimes there just isn't that much thought behind a character.

Early Nintendo games were sort of like Osamu Tezuka works. There were "actors" that all had the same appearance and sometimes names used across multiple works that filled the role they needed. Of the first five Zelda games only The Legend Of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventures Of Link have a connected story, and even that's questionable as the beginning of Zelda II retcons the ending of The Legend Of Zelda and rewrites the setting extensively.

Re: Ganon's Mysterious Origins (Revisited)

#14

Post by hn993302 »

stephbook wrote: post #6

This went completely off the rails, it's actually kind of funny. Kind of reminds me of JK Rowling backfilling all of that stuff in the Harry Potter books (now there's Luna Love good!.) Or Nintendo retconning Bowser's sons and replacing them with Bowser Jr. Sometimes there just isn't that much thought behind a character.

They put thought in, it just changes periodically. Like Mario used to be a plumber in Brooklyn. There was a whole TV show and movie, the old one. Then he moved to some fantasy world that always changes and he has an Italian accent.

Re: Ganon's Mysterious Origins (Revisited)

#15

Post by GabrielTFS »

hn993302 wrote: post #2

LttP officially named him Ganondorf Dragmire. Sounds like they were just giving a generic, intimidating European fantasy name. The rest of the early games are that kind of thing, enchanted woods with fairies and knights. There's not a lot that makes sense in the Zelda theming. Link is officially Christian somehow, at least through LttP. Gerudo Valley is like the Middle East in OoT, which I would say is just loose the…

> but the Fire Temple has literal Islamic chanting

...had. Nintendo swapped it out in version 1.2 of OoT and all versions afterwards. It is of course relevant that they had it in there in the first place, but AIUI they didn't know it was Islamic chanting then, given they had a strict policy on not including such kinds of references and made the change for that reason.

Re: Ganon's Mysterious Origins (Revisited)

#16

Post by shermantanktop »

willis936 wrote: post #11
shermantanktop wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes? I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure these games were generally not built with a hefty bible full of inviolable lore. Plot and continuity errors are common enough to show that. Some people are very invested in making sense of things that just don’t have a ton of intention and meaning behind them.

The timeline's always been a mess, but it has been something that has been given serious thought since at least the late 90s. https://www.zeldadungeon.net/forum/threads/the-truth-behind-... https://old.reddit.com/r/truezelda/comments/sejcwx/newly_tra... https://old.reddit.com/r/zelda/comments/6866wt/addressing_th... That's not to say that there is a capital C canon that constrains all subsequent installments to be 10…

I read through those links (ha) and I agree, they knew the overall story was interesting to players, but intentionally elevated story over continuity. That was my original point.

The same debates happen about early games made with far less intention and artistry. For those games I’d be surprised if there was much care about canon at all.

Especially when the studio which made game v1 was fired and a new studio was asked to take some random game in development and update the sprite to look like v1’s box art. And 40 years later people are arguing about timelines and character arcs?

Re: Ganon's Mysterious Origins (Revisited)

#17

Post by hn993302 »

GabrielTFS wrote: post #15
hn993302 wrote: post #2

LttP officially named him Ganondorf Dragmire. Sounds like they were just giving a generic, intimidating European fantasy name. The rest of the early games are that kind of thing, enchanted woods with fairies and knights. There's not a lot that makes sense in the Zelda theming. Link is officially Christian somehow, at least through LttP. Gerudo Valley is like the Middle East in OoT, which I would say is just loose the…

> but the Fire Temple has literal Islamic chanting ...had. Nintendo swapped it out in version 1.2 of OoT and all versions afterwards. It is of course relevant that they had it in there in the first place, but AIUI they didn't know it was Islamic chanting then, given they had a strict policy on not including such kinds of references and made the change for that reason.

The same version of OoT also put a crescent moon on the shield you get from the Gerudo area (Spirit Temple). I don't think that or the chanting were accidents.
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