Master Kohga - A Deconstruction of Villainy

I don't know if I'm gonna sound completely insane when I say this but I think Master Koga is a far better written villain than Ganondorf in tears of the kingdom and as far as I'm concerned it's not even close there are three reasons for this first Master Koga has more compelling and more developed motivations than Ganondorf at least in the English translation apparently in other translations Ganondorf had more developed motivations but whatever second we as the audience have much more of a relationship with Koga we interact with him a lot more than we ever do with Ganondorf I much prefer a villain who is active who is present in the story than a villain who just sits around in a castle waiting for the hero to show up third and most importantly koga's character and role in the story has been expanded in a lot of really intelligent ways since his first appearance he's not just a good villain he's an improved villain his story has developed in a really sensible way since the last game in its very satisfying to see back in breath of the wild I was very disappointed with Master Koga I thought the yiga clan themselves were a really cool new group of antagonists they had this far-reaching backstory where in the distant past they had once been part of the sheikah and fought alongside the kingdom of Hyrule to defeat Calamity Ganon but after their shared Victory instead of being praised or rewarded for helping save the world they were treated with suspicion forced to abandon their technology the yiga clan very understandably resented this unfair treatment resented the people of Hyrule so they split off from the sheika swore their allegiance to Ganon and fought Forever After to destroy the kingdom they felt had betrayed them they nursed to this resentment and hatred for thousands of years until it became the foundation of their culture they had hated Hyrule for so long that it became their cultural identity their Central purpose in life but there was still Humanity within them inner conflict and opportunity for change Dorian one of the guards in kakarika Village was born a member of the yiga clan but he chose love and family over ancient resentments and departed the clan his story demonstrated that the yigate weren't just Mindless drones just evil minions without character or conscience each of their Clan's members must make a choice to continue serving Ganon the yiga clan were at least a somewhat complicated villain too meaning that they were both despicable and sympathetic at the same time they have sympathetic motivations their bitterness towards Hyrule Kingdom makes sense but their actions are still despicable with Ganon they serve a source of murder destruction and death they serve the apocalypse they murdered dorian's wife as punishment for his perceived betrayal they are terrorists they are a twisted and corrupted version of the sheikah tribe I've always really liked how the sheikah are portrayed trade in each game there are often these secretive and mysterious magic wielding ninjas who fight tirelessly and skillfully for the cause of good who are totally loyal to Princess Zelda but in breath of the wild we got to see their dark reflection in the yiga clan got to see that magic and skill Twisted to serve evil instead as a long time fan it was really exciting so in breath of the wild when I finally reached to the yiga Clan's headquarters and I encountered their leader I expected to find a character who was as compelling as the evil ninja Clan he commanded but instead I found kogai clownish buffoon he's like a Saturday morning cartoon character his character doesn't contain any of the Menace or moral complexity of the yiga clan story he's just a joke he accidentally defeats himself by summoning a giant iron ball that then rolls over him and sends him falling stupidly down an endless pit the whole encounter was really disappointing to me however in tears of the Kingdom I like him a lot more I think a big part of it is that his character is presented in a very different way here in breath of the wild the developers kept him hidden away for most of the game so I built up all of these expectations about how cool and menacing his character was going to be which led to a lot of disappointment when he turned out to be a big idiot instead but in tears of the Kingdom he's not hidden at all you can find him really early in the game and then you'll keep encountering him over and over again over the course of a really fun series of side Adventures I found his goofball clownish qualities a lot more fun and endearing when I knew what to expect from him his goofiness works much better as a buffoonish recurring loser type villain whose every scheme blows up in his face than it does as the hidden and mysterious leader of the violent doomsday cult terrorists and more than that Nintendo have made such smart decisions with his character character in this game to show you what I mean let's follow his character's story between games after his defeat in breath of the wild Koga fell down this seemingly bottomless pit except this isn't a bottomless pit by Miracle or magic Koga survived this fall and then he found that he had descended into what might as well have been an alien world The Depths are these massive Caverns hundreds of feet beneath Hyrule where strange flora and fauna grow and wear incredibly ancient and advanced ruins of the zonai civilization rest Koga was probably the first living person to enter the depths in thousands and thousands of years he was the first person to explore this space in Millennia he explored he excavated he discovered ancient zonai Mechanical Devices technology unlike anything to be found on the surface he experimented he learned to craft vehicles with the zonai devices boats and fly machines bulldozers tanks and even helicopters in defeat completely by accident he found a new power and a new kingdom in defeat he discovered the yiga Clan's Renaissance under his leadership the clan underwent a massive expansion they spread across the depths building outposts setting up supply lines Excavating zonai ruins exploring and experimenting crafting deadly new mechanisms Master Koga became the ruler of the depths in all but name he transformed himself and his clan into a deadlier new version of themselves this is such a smart decision by the developers they took what was a pretty typical and generic Disney style villain death of falling down a big hole and mixed that in with this new setting that they added in the sequel in a really logical way it makes so much sense that Koga would be ruler of the depths he's had years to explore and expand and experiment with zonai technology down there it's such a satisfying development between games the yiga clan were already a dark reflection of the sheikah using the sheika's familiar magic for dark purposes but now they're a dark reflection of Link's Powers as well the same way he uses zonai technology to craft vehicles for himself so do they encounters with the yiga clan are so much fun in this game because not only are you confronting a dark version of your own vehicle crafting Powers not only are you having to thematically overcome your own greatest strength but the yiga clan are so much better at it their vehicles are also creative I got excited every time I encountered another clan Outpost in the depths because I knew I was gonna get to see more cool examples of things that could be done with the ultra hand power encountering the yiga's Creations gave me so many new ideas for making vehicles of my own I had no idea I could build an actual battle tank until I saw theirs again it makes so much sense from both a story and a gameplay perspective it's such a smart decision I'm so impressed by how the yiga have transformed between games because of all this when I finally encountered Master Koga I wasn't disappointed at all like in the previous game I was really excited I was like hey here's this dumb again dude you did a great job you turned an embarrassing defeat into a very impressive villainous expansion way to go man happy to see you I want to watch that first encounter together because I do think it's really fun hmm no no no no no please [Music] anyone [Music] [Applause] foreign [Applause] [Applause] please okay first of all why doesn't this character have any voiced lines Nintendo is so weirdly cheap sometimes they spend millions of dollars developing the game but they can't Splurge to give Koga any properly voice acted lines it's really disappointing how quiet all of his scenes are his animations are fantastic I think you could even say that his animations themselves are really loud in a way you get so much personality and energy from those animations but then they're paired with this awkward silence punctuated by occasional grunts it's so bizarre but back to the encounter itself this is one of four encounters you can have with Master Koga something interesting about these is that they are completely optional you can play the entire game and never confront Master kogo you'd be missing out of course because all of these encounters are really fun and they're some of the best boss fights in the game a lot of Tears of the Kingdom's best content is totally optional I think that makes it a little more exciting or sad satisfying to complete knowing that I'm the one in control of the adventure when and where and how you complete the master Koga side quest is totally up to you the pace of the side Adventure is in your control you can complete it as quickly or as slowly as you want it perfectly matches and enhances that sense of player Freedom that is at the center of Tears of the Kingdom's game Design This is a great example of a game's narrative perfectly matching its gameplay I actually really enjoy coca's goofiness and cartoonishness in this game I've already mentioned how I feel that Nintendo did a good job presenting his character differently this time around but also the Legend of Zelda series has always had a lot of goofiness this Series has always been this bizarre mix of very serious and Melancholy elements interspersed with just total silly craziness for example everyone always talks about how Majora's Mask is the most surreal and the strangest and the thematically darkest of all the Zelda games but also it's the game that introduced tingle this freaking middle-aged loser dressed up in green spandex obsessed with fairies to a degree of mental unwellness floating around on a bubble and drawing Maps like what the heck is this guy he doesn't fit into the somber atmosphere of this game at all or in Twilight Princess which is another game that has a more mature or dark aesthetic but it also has all sorts of quirky weird and hilarious Side characters like there's this grotesque beer-bellied clown man in Lake hylia who shoots you out of his brightly colored chicken cannon or there's a whole questline where you engage in a financial hostile takeover to replace this snooty shop with the gaudy and ridiculous mallow Mart where everyone sings and dances to the same obnoxious and insanely catchy theme song I think this is part of what separates Nintendo from other developers even in their most serious games they always have this truly weird and childish sense of humor that manages to squeak through somewhere those weirdos at Nintendo know how to mix in just the right amount of silliness and eccentricity into their games and that's Master Koga he's this Goofy and bizarre and childish Nintendo brand of humor I really like it it adds a lot of charm and fun to the game I also think Koga is inherently more compelling just because we already have a relationship with him we have a history together we have a sort of back and forth a rivalry with him that is missing in the audience's relationship with Ganondorf imagine if Nintendo had followed through with their crazy three branch timeline and lit Ganondorf in tears of the Kingdom be the exact same character as he was in those previous games with the same memories and history imagine if our confrontation with Ganondorf in this game was the true culmination of many confrontations in the past a millennia-long contest between Hiro and villain imagine if Ganondorf had held a millennia long Grudge if he'd spent thousands of years brooding over his past mistakes and failures and in tears of the Kingdom he'd crafted a plan to finally destroy his most hated enemies but instead they chose to make him a brand new character and he doesn't have a lot of time to really establish a meaningful relationship with link their relationship is limited to a handful of cutscenes at the beginning and end of the game compare this with Master Koga our prior history with Koga gives him some more substantial motivations than he had in the previous game in breath of the wild Koga was just a clownish stooge serving an evil force which cared nothing about him or his efforts Koga was just doing what was expected of him now in tears of the Kingdom he is still kind of doing that he's still striving for the murderous Ganondorf even though Ganondorf not only doesn't care about him but I'm pretty sure Ganondorf doesn't even know that he exists which I think might be a wasted opportunity I would have been interested to see how Ganondorf and master Koga would have interacted in this game but Koga has a new motivation too he has been defeated in the past he very literally clawed his way back from a humiliating defeat to restore his clan to power now he wants revenge he has a rival he wants to prove himself he knows he won't have truly restored his honor and power until he can defeat Link in battle he has more reasons to hate link and to want to see link destroyed than Ganondorf does I really enjoyed the battles with Master Koga in tears of the Kingdom this is another really intelligent decision by the developers they tied Koga to the new game mechanics when you fight him you're not just fighting another boss battle you're also engaging with the new Ultra hand in vehicle building mechanics in a really fun way Koga always fights using Zone icon structs so you have to get creative to find a way to damage him in his first fight you can just run around him and jump into the driver's seat but in the second fight he's flying around on a makeshift fighter plane and I had to launch myself up on Springs to reach him or in the third fight you get to have some fun with bumper boats after defeating him in battle Koga flies off you have to travel across a vast section of the depths to reach Koga again it's nearly odyssian in scale it took me a really long time to reach him overcoming monster Den's yiga Clan outposts and difficult geography it's a really fun side Adventure after defeating him again Koga reveals that he and his clan are gathering crystallized charges to power some ancient and deadly machine they uncovered down in the depths an ancient and deadly machine he plans to offer to Ganondorf I'm gonna fast forward now to Link's Final confrontation with him and I really like this scene even without voice acting so let's watch it together and as you watch think about what makes this final confrontation with him different than all the others what is different about his behavior in this final scene thank you foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] complete [Music] [Music] [Music] I see [Music] in this final confrontation Koga isn't goofing and clowning around anymore the game isn't playing that silly yiga Clan theme here instead we get a much more dramatic soundtrack he's not humiliating himself he's taking this seriously and the writers are taking him seriously too he waits patiently for a link to arrive there's some genuine Menace in his behavior and his words this is the master of the yiga clan doomsday cultists thieves and murderers for the first time he's not just a clown he has finally transformed into a True Villain this is who I wanted Master Koga to be way back in breath of the wild unfortunately for master Koga I had already completed the spirit Temple before this so I had my own Mecca to match his so I kicked his butt pretty good and pretty fast this final battle against him is my only disappointment with his character this Mech battle is just a reskin of the boss battle from the spirit which was a cool fight but not nearly as creative or as interesting as koga's battles I loved the way the game makes zonai constructs in with those battles and I really wish they had done something more with that in this final confrontation but anyway after this final defeat Koga destroys himself in a cartoonish cutscene that's almost a shot for shot Recreation of the one in breath of the wild except this time instead of killing himself with a giant spike ball he blasts himself into the cosmos Team Rocket style but this leads me to an exciting theory if we assume that Master koga's death scene in breath of the wild was actually a secret teaser hinting that the sequel would take place underground which we definitely should assume because I bet for sure Nintendo did that on purpose oh yeah then I think Master koga's death scene in tears of the Kingdom must also be a secret teaser for a future Legend of Zelda game master Koga appears to rock it into outer space so I predict the next Zelda game is going to be set in outer space where Master Koga will have reorganized the yiga clan into an advanced ninja space exploration death Force then Koga is going to team up with a UFO cow abducting aliens from Majora's Mask to finally defeat his rival link with space lasers and Cyborg bovines the gameplay will be a revolutionary open world mix of Super Mario Galaxy Destroy All Humans and asteroids and it will release in the year 2029 for the super switch so look forward to that oh

Channel: FatBrett

Views: 185,233

Keywords: Legend of Zelda, Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom, Lore, Story, Explained, Character, Analysis, Kohga, Master Kohga, Yiga, Yiga Clan, Villain, Villainy

Id: aVg-W3aItN0

Length: 22min 1sec (1321 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 09 2023