Over the holidays we’re reposting some select features from the past 12 months. A mix of talking points, interviews, opinions and more NL staff and associates, you’ll find our usual mix of thoughtfulness, expertise, frivolity, retro nostalgia, and — of course — enthusiasm for all things Nintendo. Happy Holidays!
We know surprisingly little about the game currently called The Sequel To The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild. [Oof, it’s Tears of the Kingdom, past-Kate! We’ll forgive you for not knowing the name of the new Zelda game before it was announced, though. Carry on! – Ed] But that won’t stop me from wildly speculating about it anyway, based on all the trailers we’ve gotten so far and all the things I know about Zelda games!
You probably clicked on this feature because you are also I love wild theories, so welcome to my equivalent of a shed covered in newspaper clippings and red string. Today I’m specifically focusing on a new feature I’ll call “Link’s Strange Hand”, which could be a major new mechanic in BOTW2. We just don’t know!
Let the speculation begin.
Theories of the hand, part one
Link to Skyward Sword
Skyward Sword is, canonically, the first in the Zelda timeline. The breath of the wild is at the very end. But we’ve seen in some announcements that BOTW 2 will include parts of Hyrule being blown up into the sky, although we have no reason to why. The beginning of Skyward Sword is about how the goddess Hylia sent a selected part of Hyrule to the sky, which later became Skyloft — the place where the first Zelda and the first Link were born.
Is it possible that the timeline is… a circle? Real The Legend of Zelda is the cycle we are all trapped in until the end of time? Hmmmm. Similarly, it could be that Breath of the Wild 2 is actually set in the full past…
It’s interesting how this relates to Link’s hand. For starters, Link uses his right hand in BOTW and the BOTW 2 clips we’ve seen so far, which ties in nicely with Skyward Sword — Link’s sword hand has been changed from the canonical left hand to right to better fit the motion controls on the Wii. Second, his new arm is completely black with tattoos that look a bit like someone we’ve seen before…
That’s right, Skyward Sword’s antagonist and servant of Demise, Ghirahim, also has completely black arms and strange tendrils like branches. Demise will later be reincarnated as our old friend, the Triforce bugger Ganon(dorf)… so who is Ghirahim? Is that Link from the future? Hmmmm…
Demise’s eventual death in Skyward Sword locks him into the Master Sword, which serves a dual purpose: one, making the Master Sword full of evil (which seems bad!) and two, trapping Fio in there with him. Let’s dive into it a little more…
Big fi-turn
Master Sword in Skyward Sword personifies Fi, a spirit who really likes to tell you things that are very obvious. Fi is Somehow present in Breath of the Wild, as Zelda mentions that there is a legend of a voice in the sword, and later – when Link is nearly killed – Zelda hears the Swordmaster speak, telling her to take Link to the Shrine of Resurrection.
There are also audio and visual cues quite similar to those in Skyward Sword scattered throughout the game, such as when Link picks it up towards the sky after completing the Trial of the Sword. In this clip, around the 1:03 mark, the sword lights up just as Fi is about to speak and makes her signature sound. That must mean something.
If Fi and Demise are still inside that sword (or even if it’s just Fi!), it could be the start of another great battle between good and evil — one where Link is once again trapped in the middle.
Probably this detail is more about the sword than the hand holding it… but maybe the evil power of the sword caused the hand to become strange.
Melty Master Sword
Of course, we’d be remiss not to mention the melted Master Sword. The malice that seeped into Link’s hand also seems to have affected the master sword, rendering it useless in the process. It’s unclear if Link will have to go on a quest to repair/restore it or if he’ll just use his wiggly sword from here on out, but we’re guessing the former (especially since we haven’t seen him actually use a sword in any of the clips so far).
But if Fi is inside the sword, we can’t imagine she’s having a good time while she’s all melted. Does this endanger the sword? Is Fi broken forever? Does the sword still work? We just don’t know.
Sick titbits, Bruv
The most noticeable detail of Link’s Weird Arm is undoubtedly its tattoo-like design, which echoes a lot of images from previous trailers and games. As I’ve already described, it’s similar to Ghirahim’s own hand design, whatever that means.
For now, we’re left to wonder if this sleeve is actually a tattoo or if it’s part of some curse/power that Link gets in the game. We probably won’t see Link actually get the tattoo, but it’s still a new look for him.
Namely, the patterns — the kind of digital things that look like tree branches on Link’s shoulder — look like something out of Twilight Princess. So now is a good time to re-release the HD remaster on Switch? We need to refresh our memory!
Nail It
An interesting new feature of Link’s cool hands are the long fingernails. While long nails are relatively common on female video game characters (along with high heels and absurdly small armor, usually), it’s extremely rare to see a male character with manicured nails. In Breath of the Wild, and trailer for BOTW 2, he has regular, unsightly, short nails, so what happened here? Do nails mean anything? I certainly think…
It’s not His Hand
There’s an important detail in the 2019 trailer: The seal on Ganon(dorf) is a disembodied hand that holds him in place. Malice (manifestation of evil) oozes from under the hand. The arm is adorned with runic-looking metal bracelets, similar to all the markings we see left by the unknown Zonai race from Breath of the Wild.
The seal snaps, and Link’s right hand glows a lovely mint green, as magical-looking swirls surround him. Later in the trailer (but maybe before the events I just described?) an ethereal hand grabs his (normal) left hand as he falls, and we see a split-second scene of the hand grabbing Ganon(dorf) while still attached to – presumably – the hand’s owner . It’s interesting that even in this past scene, when the seal was created, the hand looks completely old and dry, with long, witchy nails.
We don’t know whose hand this is. But we know it’s not Link’s. He just borrows it. And she was at one point strong enough to seal the greatest evil…
…it is Ganon‘s Arm?
In the tapestry we see in BOTW, the hero who seals the evil is a redheaded blue-green figure covered in Zonai-like spirals.
What if the hero wasn’t Link, but Ganondorf? His origin is somewhat heroic: born as the only male in 100 years of the female Gerudo lineage, Ganondorf was a red-haired male capable of great power, leading him to become the embodiment of a goddess, Dino’s favorite. In Skyward Sword, he is revealed to be the embodiment of Demise’s hatred for Link and Zelda, the hero and the princess…but what if he was once a hero too? A hero corrupted by power and hatred?
What if it’s his hand? It would go with the teal color, and we never see the face of the hooded figure the hand belonged to… So why not Ganon?
Also, growing up in an all-female tribe would probably lead to really pretty nails.
That bomb wraps up the first page of crazy theories… Go to page two to find out more about my wild color theories and whether BOTW Link is the reincarnated (or pre-incarnated? The timeline is weird) Hero of Time.
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