Ganondorf's Dark Ritual - A Breath of the Wild 2 Theory

[Music] in the lead-up to the era of the wild the kingdom of hyrule enjoyed a time of peace and prosperity which lasted for many thousands of years but an ancient prophecy foretold by an unknown fortune teller ushered in an end to this era of peace and the means by which this would come to be was that of a long forgotten cycle of destruction which had since faded into legend the stories tell of an ominous presence that would arise from deep below hyrule castle again and again throughout history an ancient faceless and speechless evil with only one goal in mind obliterate the kingdom of hyrule and everyone in it the rise of this entity and the attack that follows has been given the name the calamity by those who witnessed it and survived it but by the time the next one takes place so much time has passed that the event fades into legend and future generations regard them as stories and fairy tales rather than history it's unknown exactly how many calamities have taken place throughout hyrule's past as of today only two are documented but it's apparent that it happened enough times that a pattern was recognized ten thousand years every ten millennia the calamity resurges once again like clockwork and the evil presence behind these attacks has since been dubbed calamity ganon the name ganon finds its origin all the way back to an age long forgotten long before the events in the era of the wild the zelda timeline has drastically changed with the introduction of breath of the wild the newest addition to the mainline zelda series as of the making of this video it takes place so far in the future that all other adventures we've experienced in the last decades have been reduced to a single marker on this new timeline the distant past sometimes referred to as times unknown beyond this point we have the events of 10 000 years ago the first documented case of a calamity taking place 100 years ago which marks the beginning of the most recent calamity and the present which is where breath of the wild takes place and the same calamity reaches its conclusion the gap between 10 000 years ago and the distant past is one which we know the least about in fact we don't even know how much time spans between these points could be twenty thousand years fifty thousand or even more it's been made clear that the evil known as calamity ganon dates back all the way to the distant past and has stubbornly persisted over the ages making a continuous effort to bring the kingdom to its knees but whispers say that the monstrosity we see today was once a mortal man a king from the desert who went by the name of ganondorf and at some point in his life obtained a piece of the most powerful relic in existence the triforce with it he became the self-proclaimed king of evil also referred to as the demon king and allowed him to transform into a beast-like alter-ego ganon with his newfound power he attempted to rule the kingdom by force again and again but every time he did an incarnation of a hero and a princess would rise up to face him preventing his evil plans from coming to fruition every time during his first appearance in ocarina of time ganondorf was never killed but instead sealed away this temporary victory didn't last long however as it took him only a few decades to break free once again which led to the events of the wind waker and twilight princess two games taking place roughly around the same time though in their own respective timeline at the conclusion of these two stories ganondorf seems to have been felt for good by the legendary blade of evil's bane the master sword which was driven through his chest in one timeline and into his skull in the other turning him to stone this is the last we saw of the man from the desert and his fate whereabouts and whether or not he's somehow alive still have remained unknown until now the 2019 reveal trailer for the sequel to breath of the wild hints at a return of the demon king after ages of being lost to time for some an uncertainty still exists but his general appearance gerudo marked jewelry and clothing as well as parts of the music heard in the trailer all but confirms that this is indeed ganondorf back in the flesh though one might notice that he doesn't exactly look as lively as he once did rather than the tall muscular and imposing stature that we're familiar with we're instead presented with a slender shriveled up corpse bent over backwards in what seems like a state of pure agony its skin dried up and mummified two dark empty sockets where his eyes used to be and even his attire seems to have decayed with age whatever happened to the demon king he's clearly been here a very very long time hidden away in darkness deep underground somewhere but even as a corpse ganondorf seems to be anything but harmless streams of malice are seen flowing from the body in all directions like tentacles reaching out into the underground chamber meanwhile a mysterious green glowing hand wearing some sort of golden bracelet is seen latched onto his chest clawing into his flesh which is also where the malice seems to be flowing outwards from the scene portrayed here in the 2019 reveal trailer has confirmed our suspicions that calamity gannon as we saw him in breath of the wild was not the end game the swirling pig-like menace seen soaring above the peaks of hyrule castle was just another manifestation of malice of which its source can be traced back to the corpse we see here deep underground this revelation has brought forth numerous theories and speculations as to what this all means the main consensus as of right now is that ganondorf might have been sealed by this green hand a long time ago in the distant past since then the gerudo king has been trapped frozen in time his only option being to release malice to slowly accumulate over time until enough of it is built up to release another calamity on the world above as for the hand clutching his chest theories vary greatly some claim it's an incarnation of an ancient hero others still think it might be a sage a twilight even zelda's mother has been theorized in some cases but one prevalent theory is that this hand belonged to a member of an ancient race called the zonai the zonai are by far the greatest mystery found in breath of the wild the little exposition we have describes them as a savage warlike tribe who predominantly lived in and around the farren region long ago the reason why so little is known about them is because they've since completely disappeared off the face of the earth all they leave behind is some of their architecture from megalithic structures to some stray walls statues and pillars and this sudden disappearance remains a total mystery to this day had this been the extent of it there would have been very little reason to believe that this mystery would ever be solved but when the sequel to breath of the wild was announced this all suddenly changed throughout the underground caves and tunnels depicted in the trailer zonai architecture is seen scattered about from their iconic pillars to a large stone bridge wall decorations wall paintings and an impressive entrance way decorated in their recognizable style there's no doubt that these are indeed of zonai origin which is the biggest reason why people have associated this green glowing hand to this mysterious tribe we're not here to dispute the connection between the zonai and ganondorf's body in fact given the little evidence that we do have we actually fully agree with this idea what we're here to do is to challenge the idea that the scene laid out before us this room the green hand the corpse the spiraling energy the malice leaking out is not a seal but rather a deliberate act by ganondorf to prolong his existence in the world it's easy to see why people would conclude that the demon king is under some sort of seal he's been sealed numerous times in the past three of which he was in his human form ganondorf and not his alter-ego ganon so to think that this is simply yet another seal in which he finds himself trapped is only logical given the track record there were even some early theories claiming that the green particles coiling around the demon king's body spelled out the phrase seal ganon but other theorists have since refuted and debunked this idea which relies on being a little too lenient with your comparisons but when we look a bit closer at the scene at hand there is something very odd about it the entrance to the room as well as the bridge leading to it is decked out with imagery of ganon the cave-painting zelda studies depict the gerudo king on horseback surrounded by some of his own followers weapons drawn as if riding into battle the room that holds the body has large decorated spires pointing towards a platform in the center on which his body rests if this was indeed a seal what's with all the ganon imagery the decorations and the cave paintings heralding him as some sort of leader there's evidence to suggest that this giant underground lair was not built as a prison for the demon king but instead in his honor this could mean that instead of being sealed without his consent he was instead placed here on this altar willingly this sounds crazy we know but before you dispute this let's first explain why we think this might be the case starting with the motive because who in their right mind would want to place themselves in such an agonizing position and allow themselves to be turned into a lifeless dried-up corpse willingly what benefit could that bring well my friends this is where we dive into the territory of the lich among fantasy media we find many types of undead creatures from zombies to vampires mummy skeletons ghouls the list goes on among these undead entities we find the lich originating from the old english lich meaning corpse it was first introduced as a fantasy creature in the 1976 fantasy role game dungeons and dragons they are described as a powerful magic wielder such as a mage wizard or warlock who at some point in their mortal life transformed themselves into an undead being and as far as fantasy creatures go liches are among the most dangerous and notorious ones out there what sets a lich apart from your typical zombie is that they are extremely intelligent having kept all their memories and knowledge from the time when they were still alive and because they are practically immortal they are able to continue to study and gather knowledge for thousands upon thousands of years without ever having to worry about aging death illness or any other problems the living have to deal with so has ganondorf become a lich in order to answer this question we have to compare the two side to side and see if we can find any correlation the rules surrounding glitches may vary between different types of media obviously writers are allowed to take some creative liberty here and there and the lore has been expanded multiple times but there are some key requirements that have to be met in order to be classified as a lich one of the most important ones being that besides being a powerful magic wielder liches are masters in the art of necromancy even when they were still alive as a matter of fact transforming oneself into a lich is considered extremely difficult and requires an expert understanding of dark magic without the knowledge of necromancy it would be impossible to achieve this transformation and ganondorf is definitely no stranger to this he's had a wide array of undead at his disposal since his very first appearance all of which are described as being reanimated through the use of magic even when housing his powers into others like zen who was a nobody before he met the demon king impressive feats of necromancy are on display time and time again but by far the most impressive display of necromancy by ganon has to be the blood moon which through the use of his malice resurrects every last one of his deceased minions on a country-wide scale in one fell swoop it is one of the most powerful forms of necromancy ever displayed in fantasy so yes ganondorf is a necromancer and a powerful one at that but this isn't enough to be classified as a lich another key detail is that their soul is bonded to a physical object also known as a phylactery this is how they are able to stay sentient even though technically they don't have a brain anymore the phylactery is also their one and only weakness destroy the phylactery and it's game over for them as such protecting their phylactery is one of their highest priorities this is one thing we cannot prove indefinitely as of right now as we don't have enough information about the upcoming sequel but if ganondorf does indeed have a phylactery it would present a new and unique way to defeat the gerudo king once and for all instead of sealing him away once again or getting stabbed by the master sword which has proven ineffective in the long run given the fact that he's back once again perhaps the only way to truly deal with the demon king is not to destroy his body but his soul as well a phylactery can be anything really many different types of objects have been used from jewelry to staffs to gemstones and as for ganondorf the possibilities are endless the jewel on his forehead which is seen glowing even when his body seems to be dormant the entire room he resides in or even hyrule castle as a whole which may sound ridiculous but there is practically no limit to what a phylactery can be an entire building or even city can serve this purpose as described in the dnd manual it would definitely explain why he moves the entire castle with him aside from that like i said the possibilities are endless liches have bounded their souls to a comet a bloodline another lich as long as it's something physical it can serve as a phylactery now before moving on to the next and final chapter in this theory let's first go over some of the smaller details about a lich and see how they stack up against ganondorf powerful wizard check a corpse or skeletal-like appearance check flaming eyes check a strong motivation to want to live forever either because of unfinished business hatred or wanting to outlive your enemies check check and check it is worth mentioning that not every lich is inherently evil but in many cases they are associated with a type of madness i mean you have to be at least a little bit mad to want to live the rest of eternity as a walking corpse and this too fits perfectly with the way ganondorf is described if you remember the quote from king rome at the very beginning of the video he states that ganondorf was born into the kingdom but that his transformation into malice created the horror we see now but what exactly does that mean transformation into malice we know it's something that transpired at the tail end of the distant past long before the events of 10 000 years ago the one part of hyrule's history where we know very little about but there is one passage in creating a champion that does mention this event as well it describes that quote ganon having lost his reason becomes calamity ganon a pure incarnation of hatred and malice for the royal family of hyrule and the chosen hero having lost his reason definitely hints that ganon or ganondorf having been struck by some sort of madness which lends itself perfectly for his decision to become a lich additionally right before the fight with dark beast ganon zelda says that he has given up on reincarnation and assumed his pure and raged form however it has since come to light that this was actually an incorrect translation from japanese to english in the original japanese version she says that this form was born from his obsessive refusal to give up on revival the complete opposite but no matter which quote you regard as the correct one both apply to ganondorf's decision to transform himself into an undead immortal being yes his obsession and hatred is what motivates him and fuels his refusal to die and keep coming back but the english text is not incorrect either technically he isn't reincarnating anymore instead it's still the same body which he may have purposely frozen in time in order to persist in this world and this leads into the final chapter because so far we have yet to cover one essential aspect since how does one actually become a lich in the first place the ritual involving the transformation into a lich varies sometimes a blood sacrifice is performed other times it involves a potion or brew which is to be consumed by the user there's definitely some wiggle room within the law but as we've discussed before the one performing the ritual must be a powerful magic wielder have expert knowledge on necromancy and bind their soul to a phylactery but there's one more crucial detail that must be met and that's that a lich can't be created against their will i.e it's something that they must do willingly or else it just doesn't work so let's take a closer look at the scenery setup in the reveal trailer for breath of the wild 2. as we've discussed earlier the cave link and zelda are exploring has imagery of ganon all over the place which hints that this cave might have been built for him and perhaps at his command this is definitely something that isn't uncommon for ganon to do he's a somewhat egotistical ruler and insists on putting his imagery up anywhere he calls home or conquers from his enemies as such it's not much of a stretch to think that the room his corpse resides in was made by his design as well a place where he would complete his transformation into malice as described by breath of the wild stories from the distant past the room definitely screams ritual it has an altar to hold his body spires pointing towards the center and with the recent trailer for breath of the wild it's now become clear that the floor of the altar has some sort of ancient scripture written on it this may seem trivial but a common trait of the lich ritual is that there's often runes or scripture involved in the soul binding process not to mention the green energy spiraling upwards too has elements of an unknown script to it a counter-argument to this scene being a deliberate act by ganondorf would be that the gerudo king seems to have been in a state of serious pain and agony his corpse is bent over backwards arms out to the side mouth wide open as if screaming in pain as well as puncture holes littered across his chest and hands but this doesn't necessarily disprove a deliberate act just because this ritual was out of his own free will it doesn't mean that it was a pleasant experience in fact the transformation into a lich never is and when we take a closer look at the corpse there's one thing that just doesn't add up there doesn't seem to have been any restraints on his body at all no ropes shackles or chains or anything that would have held the demon king in place it's hard to believe that ganondorf the king of evil would allow himself to be killed without resistance in twilight princess he was chained to a giant rock during his execution and even this didn't hold him back isn't it also strange if he was killed while standing up on an altar in the middle of this ornate room with a pyramid structure right above him as if by design again not restrained in any visible way a brief shot in the trailer shows a flash on the wall revealing a silhouette of ganondorf in what is presumably his final moment before he died not only does this confirm that he was killed in this room but here too no restraints are visible on his body eliminating any possibility that restraints were there but removed afterwards the scene laid out here could very well be depicting the moment ganondorf transformed into malice and achieved immortality by mummifying his body and from the perspective of ganondorf this absolutely makes sense though ganondorf definitely has a longer life span than that of the average gerudo most likely because of the triforce of power he does show signs of ageing after countless failed attempts to rule over hyrule his intense hatred for the kingdom and its royal family caused him to go mad and he decided to achieve immortality by any means so that he can set his malice free upon hyrule in an endless cycle of destruction for all eternity ganondorf may have been reduced to a corpse a shell of his former self but from his perspective he's in a better spot here than he's ever been he's immortal safely hidden away and nobody even seems to know that he exists he can wreak havoc on the world above with his malice without ever being in danger of being killed or sealed away all the while keeping all of his memories his intelligence and knowledge from his past life though his appearance may be a sight for sore eyes this is by far the most dangerous form of ganondorf in the entire series and if you think ganondorf wouldn't be crazy enough to willfully mummify himself to prolong his life the sheikah monks who lived 10 000 years ago did the exact same thing they purposefully placed themselves on an altar starved and mummified themselves all for the purpose of extending their lifespan long enough to test the hero destined to fight the next calamity if the sheikah were willing to go that far imagine what ganondorf would be capable of speaking of the sheikah monks because of the way the trailer is portrayed we were quick to conclude that ganondorf's body springs back to life because some sort of seal was just lifted from him either intentionally or by a mistake from lincoln zelda but as we've just demonstrated this doesn't have to be the case at all perhaps ganondorf's always been able to move he just doesn't because he has no reason to he has his malice to do that and in between calamities he's essentially in hibernation for another 10 000 years waiting for his malice to build back up again which is very similar to monk maz koshia who also doesn't move until he has a reason to maybe ganondorf starts to move not because a seal was broken but simply because he feels threatened by link and zelda's presence this would also be textbook lich behavior it's considered extremely rare to ever encounter a lich in your lifetime they prefer to stay hidden away out of public sight since as we mentioned before leaving their phylactery undefended can mean the end for them this man has been safely hidden deep underground for millennia and here comes marching into his lair the two individuals in the world that actually stand a chance at killing him so yes there's an argument to be made that what we're looking at here isn't a seal but the leftovers of a ritual that was performed countless years ago we've assumed before that the green hand is holding the demon king in place and even that it might be extracting his life force but what if it was the other way around and it's ganondorf who's sucking the life force out of whatever this being used to be it would explain why only a hand remains and why the green energy is spiraling away from it as if slowly being dissolved this is again a common trait of a lich though they don't need to eat sleep or breathe over the course of its life it must eventually consume mortal souls to sustain the magic that protects his undead form in a recent example we saw ganon demanding a blood sacrifice from the newest addition to his line of followers the yiga clan yanking out their souls as their lifeless bodies dropped onto the fields of central hyrule an act so vile that it made the yiga who had previously worshipped ganon for thousands of years rethink their allegiance and switch sides at the last moment so could something similar have transpired many years ago it would definitely explain a lot of the spirit imagery seen in the trailer luminous stones green energy a disembodied hand which seems to be slowly disintegrating over time even the helpers that some people hear when reversing the audio could ganondorf have been consuming these poor souls for the past millennia to preserve his immortality if so one question remains whom do these souls belong to and this is what brings us full circle back again to the zonai a tribe who suddenly and mysteriously disappeared tens of thousands of years ago but not before building impressive feats of architecture including a vast underground cave seemingly devoted to a certain individual could this mean that we've misinterpreted the zonai all this time making them out as good guys enemies of ganondorf while in reality they may have actually helped him in his ritual they're described as having been powerful magic wielders magic which could have benefited ganondorf in achieving this goal of immortality perhaps even they regret this decision since which would explain why we might hear calls for help and why the green hand seems to side with link but the possible relationship between ganondorf and the zonai is a topic too big to fit into one video so this was just the first half of the story which will be continued over on my channel celtic here we'll dive deeper into the connections between the zonai and the demon king their motivations and the evidence that suggests that the zonai may not have been on the right side of history after all so if you want to go check that out the link will be in the description end card and in the pinned comment down below before ending the video i have to give credit where credit is due first of all of course a big thanks to celtic for joining me in this one like the man said be sure to check out his video as well second a big thanks to rewan link for providing the animations of ganondorf i think most of you are familiar with this work and it's amazing so be sure to check out his channel as well another big shout out goes to one of my patreons johnny peacock he's the one who brought the lich similarities to my attention and essentially set this entire theory into motion so again thank you johnny for sharing your ideas and educating me on this subject lastly i need to clarify that there have been similar theories suggested in the past there was a post by wandering salad on reddit about the possibility of ganondorf becoming a lich in breath of the wild 2 as early as 2 years ago which is when the reveal trailer was still brand new additionally rinkudo in his truth of the wild series also suggested that ganondorf's transformation into a corpse may have been intentional though he doesn't use the term lich it's still at least worth mentioning and with that i will conclude this video i will be saving the new patreon shoutouts for another time as there wasn't a lot of time left this video was literally written voiced and produced in less than 4 days so yeah i'm recording this final segment hours before the video is supposed to go up anyway i hope to see you next time this is dawn signing off and have a good one [Music] you

Channel: Monster Maze

Views: 270,713

Keywords: Breath of the Wild Sequel, Breath of the Wild 2, Breath of the Wild E3, Breath of the Wild Trailer, Breath of the Wild E3 Trailer, Breath of the Wild Sequel Trailer, Breath of the Wild 2021, Breath of the Wild 2022, Breath of the Wild 2 E3

Id: 0mDeVIslGfE

Length: 28min 16sec (1696 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 27 2021