Why the Shadow Temple's Music in Ocarina of Time is so Uncomfortable

the perfect atmospheric song in a video game doesn't exist [Music] all right i gotta level with y'all i don't like this track out of all the temple themes in this game this is the only one i don't have saved on my phone because it's not the kind of music you just sit down and listen to for a good time now obviously that's not the point of this song it's meant to make the player feel uncomfortable not at ease and hey on that it definitely succeeds so once again let's start talking about the shadow temple and it's rather disturbing music if you enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up and consider subscribing for more content first let's talk about what the heck is going on at the shadow temple i'd say this is the most unlike of any other dungeons in the game whereas the forest temple was very in keeping with its lush green aesthetic before phantom ganon and his ghosts and stalfos took up residence there here you can tell this place was designed from the ground up to house evil spirits oh you think darkness is your ally you merely adopted the dark i was born in it molded by it i didn't see the light until i was already a man but then it was nothing to me but the brighton betray you because they belong to me the other temples feel like actual temples whereas this one feels more like a true dungeon which coincidentally it is the legend of zelda encyclopedia states quote the shadow temple located in the kakariko village graveyard it is a place where the chica entrusted with the lives of hyrule's royal family have historically taken enemies of the royal family to be interrogated or worse because it stands as a symbol of hyrule's dark history it is taboo for the royal family to speak of this temple and its horrific purpose now this is pretty much the only time in the game that we are shown any indication that hey hybrid might also do some evil deeds and even if you don't have access to the zelda encyclopedia shortly after entering the temple you get this message shadow temple here is gathered hyrule's bloody history of greed and hatred one interesting theory regarding the shadow temple is that it's used as a sort of lightning rod for darkness by focusing all of the evil and despair in hyrule here it won't bother the rest of the land this is similar to the story the ones who walk away from omelas which tells the story about a utopia the people there are happy but the entire thing is built upon one child who is suffering in unimaginable darkness and misery once every person living in an omelette comes of age they have to go witness the child and know that everything they have enjoyed thus far is due to this one child's suffering then they are given the choice continue living in omelas and know that they are benefiting from this child's pain or leave their seemingly perfect life behind but know that they'll have a clean conscience in the story many of the people end up staying either refusing to give up their comfortable life or justifying it by believing that they're putting the needs of the many over the needs of the few now do i think that's what's going on here no but it's a hell of a story isn't it more likely the shadow temple is a trading ground for the shika who serve as agents and spies of hyrule allowing them to train their sneaking skills in the darkness but it also serves as a prison for anyone the shika have targeted while working for the hyrule royal family it's hard to miss the incredible amount of torture devices in the temple come on down to the torture device emporium we got your smooshers we got your smashers a fan of french cuisine well we got a guillotine and not for the faint of heart we've got a saltire prop your enemies up on that and skin them alive actually it's important to note that this is the only dungeon in the game that i think the definitive version is in the original release as we discussed in the fire temple video you do have to find a rare 1.0 version of the game but there were patches of blood in various places in the temple and these were unfortunately removed in subsequent versions and in the remaster for the 3ds the textures of the floor and walls were altered so instead of link literally walking on the skulls of what one has to assume is just thousands of people all of the catacombs of paris or the capuchin crypt in rome you get mud with some bones a bit more realistic but not as visually striking in my opinion also the changes to the mini boss dead hand are extremely disappointing instead of these bloody stumps for hands that some have interpreted as tiny blades my man is wearing mittens and i don't know what they've been using for their skin but they look pearlescent and not in a good way one thing i will praise about the redesigns of the shadow temple is the fairy ride at the end instead of a generic crow which is often associated with death we do get this pretty rad skeleton with the red shaw holding the bells this is a bit of an obvious reference to karen the ferryman on the river sticks in greek mythology and we can see ghosts floating by us as we take the ride this was a good use of the increased power that the 3ds had and actually adds to the temple another great addition in the 3ds is the eyes on bongo bongo's drum keeping very much with the shika's repeated motif of eyes if i could i'd cherry pick these design choices back into the original but as it stands i like the og version just a little bit more even if you do have to spend an extra 30 minutes taking your boots on and off again alright that's enough for my analysis on the temple's architecture let's talk about the music the shadow temple's theme is certainly one of the more complex in the game there are four parts to it and arguably more if you break them up further first let's start with the bongos [Music] this is probably my favorite part of the music mostly for what it does thematically the final boss of the dungeon is the dark spirit bongo bongo which true to his name plays the drums and throughout the entire dungeon's theme you hear this drum beat in the background keeping you company the whole way until you reach his lair and if we've learned anything about koji kondo's music for ocarina of time it's that he loves using samples and hey this is the sample he used for this track [Music] next we have the dueling chanting voices this is easily the most striking part of the song you have two voices one with a very low pitch and one much higher now both of these were done using a synth but made to sound like actual chanting however both of them sound so unnatural they're not quite human and i don't think this was due to a limitation of hardware either i think it was intentional the lower of these two voices one could certainly claim sounds like a demon [Music] contrasting with this is the higher pitched voice [Music] the stark contrast to the demonic voice gives me strong vibes of an angel granted this angel doesn't sound quite happy in fact i'd argue the way a lot of the angel's voice drops in pitch at the end makes the singing sound rather melancholy these two voices together add a great sense of unease to the dungeon next we have these quick staccato strings that fade in and out and they give me real harpsichord vibes not to go super into it but the harpsichord is kind of like the prequel to the piano you don't have to read it but it has great moments of character development the harpsichord hits 16th notes rising in only half steps four times before doing a trickling back half steps are extremely dissonant and not super pleasant to the human ear adding more to the listeners discomfort the final section that makes up the shadow temple's theme is a lot less cohesive than anything we've talked about in the series so far they are effectively just unsettling noises dispersed in the midst of the song first we have what i'm going to call a hot air escaping sound mostly because as we discussed in the fire temple video this sound was featured in later versions of that temple's theme which is what i grew up playing so for some reason it's hard for me to not associate it with the fire temple since that's the first one you play and when i heard it in the fire temple i always assumed it was a pocket of hot air bursting through a crack in a rock [Music] next you have a dripping of water sound don't have much to add to this the shadow temple is probably pretty dank so a dripping of water effect works and this theme is also used at the bottom of the well which would make an awful lot of sense seeing as it was just drained then there are harder to explain sounds first we have this [Music] at first i thought this sounded kind of familiar for some reason i went and checked the mario 64 piano i figured it's spoopy maybe that's what this sounds like but no it's not and then i went to listen to the bowser lap for mario 64. now this is a stretch but i definitely believe that koji kondo who also designed the music for mario 64 could have been inspired by this laugh either way this is extremely unsettling but nothing even compares to the sound that comes shortly before the song repeats the intro we hear something a force that gets louder and louder seemingly coming towards us before suddenly fading away wildly enough this is extremely similar to the sound the wall masters make as they're falling towards link this is almost certainly on purpose as it can easily trick the player into thinking there is a sudden sense of danger making their mind feel fear much like link traversing the shadow temple probably feels himself all of these additional sounds keep the player off base honestly it's almost like a noise track by having all of these sudden outbursts interspersed with the rhythm of the bongos and the melody of the dueling voices it adds to the discomfort you get while delving into the shadow temple and there you have it just like the water temple video i definitely have much more appreciation for this temple after doing the research at the very least i'll confirm that i actually really like the design of this temple itself it feels extremely fitting for what the temple was originally designed to do it's fairly linear and the rooms off to the side can all be justified and yeah it's really unnerving which is dope but hey we're almost done with our run-through of ocarina of times temples there's only one more to go which coincidentally also has a focus on the impermanence of life so tune in next time for the exciting conclusion of my analysis series on music in the ocarina of times temples thank you very much for watching this video if you enjoyed please consider subscribing for more content and if you haven't already why don't you check out the rest of the videos in the series and if you'd like to chat with us about the legend of zelda join our discord and head over to our twitch where we have a series of weekly shows but for now thank you so much again for watching and until next time have a wonderful day you

Channel: Save Data

Views: 1,161,960

Keywords: Shadow Temple Music, Shadow Temple Theme, ocarina of time soundtrack, ocarina of time, ocarina of time shadow temple music, bongo bongo, shadow temple theory, shadow temple explained, shadow temple ocarina of time, shadow temple ocarina of time explained, shadow temple ocarina of time music, shadow temple

Id: 1H68zNGvit0

Length: 12min 1sec (721 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 10 2020