Zelda: Twilight Princess' Strangest Mystery… Solved?

[Music] in the courtyard of peach's castle in super mario 64 lies one of gaming's most heavily debated mysteries a simple star statue with a blurred plaque on the plinth reading depending on who you ask the simpler eternal star or the more enigmatic l isreal2401 the latter is connected to the idea that somehow luigi is unlockable in game the l representing the second mario brother and the 2401 being some sort of hint on how to find him of course this isn't true but the mystery of the statue remains the legend of zelda is perhaps home to more gaming mysteries than any other series some being urban myths like the triforce in ocarina of time but others being things which seemingly just don't fit into the series lore like the bizarre carvings found in twilight princess hd's castle town like mario's eternal star the walls of castletown in the original twilight princess were decorated by blurry textures vague outlines of what appears to be people but completely impossible to decipher due to the quality this isn't really a mystery it makes sense for castletown a medieval settlement with ornate stone walls to have carvings of perhaps important or influential figures maybe historic battles royals or religious events but unlike the eternal star these textures were updated years later in twilight princess's wii u remaster and it's fair to say that the new textures were strange one of the earliest videos on this channel was talking about these new carvings which i compiled as best i could into this image the carving is split into three roughly equal sized panels each depicting different scenes the first panel on the left shows what appears to be a goron perhaps darunia from ocarina of time holding up his left hand in front of him is a group of three people a man a woman and a child who appears to be link judging from his hair shield tunic and cap and the closest match being child link from ocarina of time in the background is the triforce the omnipotent artifact left by the goddesses which the goron and the group seem to be discussing or worshiping the next panel gets stranger we again have a woman perhaps the same one holding an urn and by her side is childlink again however flanking them on either side are bird people who look uncannily similar to the wind waker's rito with large beaks wings and pointed heads and finally we have link standing next to the man from the first panel in front of an oka the strange sky-dwelling people who built the ancient city in the sky and a zora holding a spear safe to say there's a lot to unpack here child link isn't out of place as this is the child timeline following on from the timeline in which link as a kid warns zelda of ganondorf's plan ultimately leading to his execution but the rito had only appeared in the adult timeline as an evolution of the zora until breath of the wild years later they're not seen prior to twilight princess like they would have had to been to appear on these carvings even with the rito aside just what's being shown here child link alongside an unidentified man and woman talking to darunia with the triforce behind them or link with the man an oka and azora everything seems so deliberate here yet from what we know of zelda lore it just doesn't fit or makes sense it seems to be telling a story involving the hero of time that we've never heard or experienced before events important enough to be immortalized on the walls of castletown their appearance here is not only significant in universe but outside too a designer must have deliberately drawn and implemented these carvings in the game as their entirely new textures completely different to the blurry originals someone somewhere knows what these carvings are and what they're meant to depict back when these were first discovered many people myself included thought that these events could be some sort of clues to what might happen in breath of the wild known at the time as zelda wii u especially after series producer a.g explained that twilight princess's hd remake was a sort of origin point for the new zelda and after playing the hd version you might have some oh i see moments when playing zelda wii u but while it did involve the return of the rito tribe interestingly alongside the zora just like in the carvings breath of the wild didn't make the events depicted here any clearer the man and woman are still unidentified as is the story the carvings are trying to tell the fact that a young link probably the hero of time appears here is interesting too as the hero of time's inclusion in twilight princess in the spectral form of the hero's shade is a mystery in itself perhaps these carvings are clues to the unseen end to this link's tale for years this carving's been the center of a bunch of theories that the man is ganondorf or that the rito and goron are some sort of depictions of ravali and daruk but the main takeaway was the appearance of the rito alongside the zora which many assumed meant the rito must have also evolved in the child timeline similarly to how they did in the adults but were just never seen in game but the reasons behind why these events were shown on the walls of castletown who these characters are and the story they're meant to tell remained a mystery just a bizarre unexplained addition to the hd remaster until last month when the user evan d zero posted on the zelda subreddits new information regarding these carvings twilight princess's hd remaster was actually handled by tantalus media the reason being nintendo were busy at the time developing breath of the wild but had heard of tantalus's great reputation for making hd remasters so because these textures are new and not just refined versions of older images the carvings were designed by tantalus rather than nintendo and in the temple of time there's one new texture in particular that's interesting a wall plaque decorated with hylian letters most of these just translate to the alphabets like they do in the original but unique to the hd remaster is the text at the bottom spelling out jack kirby crosby made this in reversed letters if it's not clear enough already jack kirby crosby isn't the name of some ancient architect who made the temple of time he was a designer at tantalus media he worked as the lead artist on twilight princess hd this little translation left by jack a little tag of sorts putting his mark on the game has been known for a while but evan d0 on reddit took things a step further by reaching out to jack asking about the game's new textures and the mysteries surrounding them jack responded with a lot of the original textures were often photos that had been manipulated into textures the one you shared there was actually a picture of some ancient ruins relief i suspect roman completely unnoticeable in the sd version but once in hd it stuck out a fair bit so often with these complex murals i would make things up we had the zelda art book and so in this particular case i used it for reference and just put stuff that i liked in i did kind of imagine a story that i would like to see happen in a zelda game though what that story is i'll leave up to interpretation i'm not sure link being a child is relevant though since link would have been a child at some point in all timelines thanks for reaching out it was a really fun project to work on and i'm very proud of the work we did on the game so it seems the complicated mysterious mural was just made up a designer with a zelda artbook on hand using pre-existing characters and artwork for reference just design the mural with what he thought looked cool he does hint that there's an implied story here of something he'd like to see in a zelda game but what it actually is is left up in the air after years of theorizing and discussion it seems that these mysterious carvings really do mean nothing right they were just thought up by a designer while flipping through books of zelda artwork they're not hints to unseen events in the child timeline secrets of the occurs evolution or unknown deeds of the hero of time it really is most likely something that just looks cool but this is most likely the case with nearly everything in zelda games they start as something which just looks cool but take on significance later on in the series significance which was never intended during their creation take adventure of link's trophy known in the japanese as the goddess statue for example a winged woman with her hands together in prayer which at the time will have just been a neat design for a statue resembling some goddess now however it means something completely different it could be a statue of hylia which should help the case for breath of the wild being in the downfall timeline but all of this was of course never intended when the statue was designed the beauty of zelda theorizing isn't always working out the intentions of the developers it's connecting the dots in the gaps left unexplored by the games and seeing how different things fit into the overall story and trying to find answers for the mysteries in the games so much of the zelda series is left up to the player's imagination which is probably what made people connect so strongly with the series when they first played when playing ocarina of time as a kid you don't know who built places like the forest temple it leaves it completely up to the player's interpretation a forgotten palace belonging to some long dead royal family the home of a coven of forest witches or part of an entire abandoned town deep in the woodland and objects like the castletown carvings are examples of this we now know that they aren't depicting a known event or deliberately hinting at secret zelda law but that doesn't render them pointless they still add to the world of zelda and they could still fit in someone's interpretation of the series storyline and despite not being designed directly by nintendo themselves there is a story implied here summarized concisely in these beautifully mysterious stone carvings and even if the true answer behind their appearance in the hd remake isn't as exciting as we thought it's brilliant to have a bit of closure on one of the game's strangest mysteries and as for the story they're depicting let me know down in the comments what your interpretation of jack crosby's carvings are thanks for watching this video if you liked it leave a like or subscribe if you haven't already for more zelda content cheers guys and i'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Zeltik

Views: 501,248

Keywords: Zelda, unexplained, theory, mystery, zeltik, top 5, top 10, creepy, scary, sheikah, next, game, e3, trailer, reaction, news, legend of zelda, breath of the wild, guide, ocarina of time, majoras mask, nintendo, switch, ultimate, strongest, tier list, ranking, twilight princess, hd, rito, carving, castle town, castle town carvings, direct, analysis, jack kirby crosby, tphd, twilight princess hd

Id: 8rKm43kUWYM

Length: 11min 39sec (699 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 16 2020