All Ganons EXPLAINED in The Legend of Zelda (1986-2023)

this video is sponsored by hellofresh food we all need it but do we really have any idea what we're doing the other day I'm pretty sure I ate nothing other than pizza and I wonder why I have trouble with energy not to mention most of us are out in the world eating out every meal and that's not easy on your health or your wallet but fortunately for people like me hello fresh is the hero we need they deliver healthy less than a week old farm fresh ingredients alongside extremely easy to follow recipes in a box to your door so that you can whip up some pretty awesome meals all of which are healthier for you more affordable than daily fast food and much quicker and less stressful than shopping at a grocery store they were kind enough to send me pork tostadas onion crunch chicken and firecracker meatballs all of which I have cooked and enjoyed but my favorite was the meatballs because beef is my first love and listen not to humblebrag but do you see how professional I look in these shots I 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villain of them all and one of the most well-known in gaming as a whole not only due to the fact that he did originate from the first game in the 80s but also because he's just plain cool and ironically is one of the famous chosen three who received the power of the Triforce at several different points in the series this depth makes him stand out as a unique villain and in this video I'm going to explain the lore behind every appearance of Ganon throughout the series oh and spoiler alert obviously the first things that I'm going to tackle are a couple of burning questions that some of you no doubt have the first of which would be what is the difference if any between Ganon and Ganon Dwarf what a great question I'm so glad you asked Ganondorf although not present in the series until the fifth game in the French franchise Ocarina of Time actually comes before Ganon as far as lore is concerned what I mean by that is that Ganondorf the Gerudo human being was first and then transformed into Ganon via the power of the Triforce of power now this is slightly theoretical and you're more than welcome to disagree with me because of that as is your prerogative when discussing things not directly confirmed in game but my understanding is that Ganon is the Demonic Beast form that Ganondorf transforms into when augmented by a great power source such as the Triforce or the Twilight or malice and this explanation for ganon's existence is what I'll be branching off of for the entirety of this video the second burning question that you may have is what do I mean every cannon in the series isn't there just one well yes but also no most ganons are actually the same yes just split up by different timelines and appear differently depending on multiple different factors however one Ganon in particular is actually a straight-up reincarnation and therefore another Ganon entirely you see in the child timeline which we'll get back to at some point later in the video Ganondorf is killed straight up but then another Ganondorf is born at some point in the future and eventually transforms into another Ganon and subsequently gets sealed away at the end of four Swords Adventures that being said each appearance whether the same Ganon slash dwarf or not will be covered in full detail so just hang tight the last question to tackle before getting into the nitty-gritty would be the question of whether or not Ganon is the literal Reincarnation of demise's hatred which as many people will remember is the beginning of the seemingly endless cycle of Good vs Evil that we see happen in every Zelda game my answer to that is no Ganon is not the literal incarnation of demise's hatred at least not directly he's more of a byproduct see a lot of people including me formally assume that Ganon is the demon that demises Eternal hatred manifests as but that explanation doesn't allow for the existence of other demon Kings and Lords such as malidis or Majora which also embody the hatred of demise instead I now believe that demise simply cursed his hatred into a reincarnating existence in the exact same way that link or the spirit of the hero reincarnates and similarly to the spirit of the hero will always reincarnate as an individual that may then become augmented and turn into a demon this automatically explains every major demon in every major antagonist such as vati or Ganondorf or the other Ganondorf because once one of them dies another will eventually reincarnate due to the curse just like another link will eventually reincarnate due to the blessing if you will yet another similarity and parallelism between hylia and demise but that's enough talking about not Ganon and ganon's own video so let's move on according to prophecy that was set in place an unknown time ago by forces currently unknowable the desert dwelling Gerudo people give birth to a male child only once every hundred years and once of age that boy is by default to become the king of the Gerudo this was the age-old custom of the grudo until one particular boy was born in crowned King and his name was Ganondorf he was born long ago before the events of Ocarina of Time and is introduced to us in-game as the the Gerudo King who apparently swore allegiance to the king of Hyrule however as Zelda correctly predicted this Allegiance was fake and ganondorf's true intent was to find and seize the Triforce for himself which was under the protection of the royal family of Hyrule and that's the only backstory to Ganondorf that we had all the way until his appearance in the Wind Waker when we finally were able to realize the deeper reasoning behind his actions which put simply he did out of jealousy as the ruler of the Gerudo he knew firsthand of all the hardships that come with living in the desert and he wanted the land of Hyrule for his own because of this however instead of acting nobly and perhaps collaborating somehow with the king of Hyrule to alleviate the harsh living conditions of his people he instead sought to usurp the Throne of Hyrule forcefully and take its omnipotent Triforce for his own no matter his reasoning though he eventually did discover the Triforce and upon attempting to touch it split it apart into the three pieces of power wisdom and courage which rested within Ganondorf Zelda and Link respectively for seven long years he searched for the other two pieces while sitting at top his stolen Throne of Hyrule and eventually link brings both himself and Zelda to ganondorf's front door after being defeated by Link in combat Ganondorf calls upon the power of the Triforce of power within him and transforms into a hideous demon introducing the world to the monster known as Ganon the effects and Legacy of which we have yet to escape to this day it's also worth mentioning that ever since ganondorf's Reign Over the Gerudo and transformation into the Demon King Ganon the Gerudo people have officially sworn off all males assumedly including their own it's confirmed that there have been no Kings since Ganondorf but it's unknown as to whether or not there have still been other Gerudo men born but back to Ganon as a side note for what it's worth I think that Phantom ganons are named Phantom Ganon instead of phantom Ganon Dwarf even though they directly look like Ganondorf instead of Ganon because Ganon is also the term we use for Magical doppelgangers of Ganondorf if you will that's really neither here nor there but I just wanted to take a moment and explain my thought process since technically Phantom ganons are you know ganon's at least in name but back to Ganon Ganon as you know following the events of Ocarina of Time the timeline splits into three separate ones the adult which follows the events pictured here the child which follows the events pictured here and the Fallen which follows events we don't see actually since it's more of an alternate reality where Ganon manages to defeat Link in each of these timelines we see Ganon again but notably in vastly different appearances in the adult timeline he appears again as a puppet something unable to move on its own in the child timeline he appears as a four-legged beast and is the only time he appears this way in the entire series aside from breath of the wild and in the Fallen timeline he appears similarly to his original Ocarina of Time appearance as a two-legged humanoid Pigman monster thing now I happen to believe that the differing appearances are no coincidence at all and allow me to explain in the first place I don't think the Ganon transformation is reversible at least the Ganon that Ganondorf transforms into I think the only times we see Ganondorf transform into Ganon and then back into Ganondorf are specifically occasions where link is able to kill Ganon such as at the end of our creative time or Twilight Princess in both of these circumstances Ganondorf still had the Triforce of power in his possession which likely prevented him from completely dying after link does something like this now I know some of you will immediately think about the ending scene of Twilight Princess where Ganondorf still having the Triforce of power inside him still ends up dying but I've already concocted an entire theory about that subject exactly which I will not explain here for lack of time so if you're interested check out my video on that exact subject which will be linked below anyway if we think about it this way as in if Ganon is a permanent transformation unless defeated this would automatically explain each differing appearance puppet Ganon from Wind Waker strangely appears as a lifeless puppet and after being defeated it's revealed that it truly was not Ganondorf after all and in fact the real Ganondorf had been chilling on top of the giant chandelier thing controlling puppet Ganon the whole time so let's imagine for a moment that since Wind Waker takes place after the events at the end of Ocarina of Time in the adult timeline where link kills Ganon that form can no longer be transformed into because of this Ganondorf who has been making several Phantom ganons in the game creates a final Phantom Ganon that transforms into puppet Ganon which Ganondorf controls directly instead of actually transforming into it himself by contrast in the child timeline which takes place before Ganondorf was ever able to transform into Ganon in the first place at the end the Gerudo King calls upon the power of the Twilight to accomplish several things such as possessing Princess Zelda and after being squeezed out of her transforming into dark Beast Ganon which by the way is the only other four-legged Ganon aside from the Ganon in breath of the wild who's also referred to as the dark Beast Ganon almost as if to imply that they are different Transformations because they transformed due to different power sources Twilight and Malice and the reason he transformed into more of a beast in Twilight Princess is in my opinion the same reason that link transforms into a wolf in the same game it's due to the exposure to Twilight since both link and Ganondorf have triforces in their systems and Link transforms into a wolf exposed why not Ganondorf into a wolf Pig thing and after his defeat is Ganon he de-transforms into a ball of pure energy does battle with midna then appears in Hyrule Field as Ganondorf once again with dark Beast Ganon dead and gone at this point never to be seen again later on in the timeline following ganondorf's death at the end of Twilight Princess another Ganondorf is born and I know four Swords Adventures lore is kind of messy because of this but hey it's Canon and it's on the timeline right here so it's got to have some sort of explanation which is that demises hatred once again reincarnates as another Ganondorf but this time he transforms into Ganon via unknown means it can be assumed though that he transformed because he obtained the Trident but like I said it's unclear since you really don't see Ganon or Ganondorf at all in the game and the Triforce is nowhere to be seen anyway in the alternate reality called the Fallen timeline Ganondorf transforms into Ganon but is actually able to kill link however due to link having already awakened the sages and according to the intro of A Link to the Past Ganon was stopped by the Sage's aka the wise men and sealed away within the sacred realm along with the full Triforce which implies that he also retrieved the Triforce of wisdom from Zelda following Link's death well actually that bit right there is a little bit of a head cannon from me what a link to the past actually says happened is Ganondorf just straight up murdered all his minions so that he alone could enter the sacred realm and grab the Triforce for himself successfully Wishing Upon it to rule the world and corrupting the sacred realm into the dark world it's a bit contradictory though in several places since it says that Ganondorf actually was able to wish upon the Triforce which means that for some reason the Triforce wish worked instead of splitting apart like it did when he tried to wish upon it in Ocarina of Time and also it implies the door to the sacred realm was open and that Ganondorf then transformed into Ganon inside the realm and was sealed within it if this were true then link would have still woken up seven years later since he was asleep at this time and likely would have you know done something about the situation since it literally is contradictory and actually seems to reference events not linked to Ocarina of Time I choose to personally explain the Fallen timeline as link being eliminated at the final battle of Ocarina of Time and then the events that A Link to the Past happens afterwards but you can believe whatever you wish As It ultimately doesn't matter much for explaining the existence of Ganon the point is his Triforce powered transformation was into a two-legged humanoid pig monster when he's defeated for the first time at the end of a link to the past the Triforce is not present within him so he actually does die completely he's halfway resurrected again in the events of the Oracle games via his surrogate mother's twin rova although the resurrection is interrupted by link and only a Mindless Ganon is revived and subsequently killed later on in A Link Between Worlds Yuga specifically harnesses the power of the seven maidens who are the descendants of the wise men aka the sages to resurrect and transform into Ganon or in this case Yuga Ganon and of course is killed once again by the hero of Hyrule and once again later on in the timeline prior to the events of the original Legend of Zelda game Ganon is once again revived by his lingering followers and leads an assault against Hyrule in order to obtain the Triforce of wisdom which Zelda has broken and Scattered across the land preemptively Ganon is once again killed by link and technically revived again in the next game Zelda 2 The Adventure of link if link dies that's a big if though but I mean hey maybe it spawns another Fallen timeline off of the Fallen timeline so the fall and Fallen timeline yeah that makes sense with ganon's many different appearances throughout the timelines explained it's time to talk about his latest appearances as Calamity Ganon and dark Beast Ganon in breath of the wild right off the bat and trust me I'm not copping out of explaining it I'm just avoiding full-on speculation by admitting that it's hard to explain the specifics of ganon's appearance here due to breath of the wild not officially connecting to any one of the previous timelines and of course theories can be made but this is not a timeline Theory video so I digress the one thing that carries over across all the timelines though is the hatred of demise and what I can say is that by the time of breath of the wild Ganon is more of an idea than an actual being that resurfaces eternally sometimes spanning 10 000 years in between appearances and that both Calamity Ganon and dark Beast Ganon and heck even the blight ganons are all made of the same goopy evil substance referred to as malice none of which are actual transformations of Ganondorf like the other ganons from the timelines but rather are puppets if you will or perhaps Phantoms that are all manifesting outside ganondorf's corpse he's been able to make Phantom ganons before but it always used to be either due to Gerudo dark magic or the power of the Triforce of power so the real question we should be asking is what is malice specifically and where does it come from I know people will immediately say that malice as a substance has ties way back to Skyward Sword in that it's heavily implied that that's what monsters are made out of in that game but ganondorf's not a monster right he's human or he was at some point so where did the malice come from well with tears of the Kingdom right around the corner I think this very question is about to get an answer and therefore Calamity Ganon will finally be fully explained we already know that it looks like malice is coming from ganondorf's Corpse but again he didn't used to ooze reddish purple jelly out of his chest so something must have changed maybe an old foe was returning from their Eternal Slumber and needs a physical body to possess but before we dive headfirst into speculation station I'm gonna go ahead and pump the brakes there thank you so much for watching and if you enjoyed the video or at least my efforts into making it please consider leaving a like as it helps the video performance greatly And subscribe to my channel if you haven't yet because really if you're still here you should be subscribed you like my videos admit it and I'll admit I like having you here too also if you're planning on picking up the game you'll want to be here trust me and you can always unsub later huge thanks as always to my Bandit crew of which I have the name of minduino to introduce you're all so wonderful and Bandit loves you very much that's all for this one so be sure to follow me on my socials and I'll see you next time this is Bandit signing out [Music]

Channel: BanditGames

Views: 145,319

Keywords: zelda, ganon, ganondorf, zelda lore, bandit games, zeltik, masked nintendo bandit, legend of zelda, breath of the wild, tears of the kingdom, zelda explained, zelda story explained, zelda theory, zelda timeline, ganon fight, ganondorf fight, ganondorf twilight princess, ganondorf ocarina of time, calamity ganon, ganondorf theory, ganondorf tears of the kingdom, ganon theory, nintendo, nintendo switch, nintendo direct, botw, totk, release date, dark beast ganon, puppet ganon

Id: gQ3co6sJC1M

Length: 16min 22sec (982 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 26 2023