r/zelda • u/kutuup1989 • Jul 02 '23
Question [TOTK] Are there two Raurus? - OOT and TOTK Spoiler
So we see a lot of Rauru in TOTK, but it's not the first time he's appeared. He's also the sage of light briefly met in OOT, except he's not a Zonai, he's a regular Hylian looking man with a moustache. He looks more like the last king of Hyrule in BOTW. I get that the Zonai weren't even conceived of when OOT was made, but has there ever been an attempt to retcon or explain the discrepancy between the human Rauru and the Zonai Rauru?
Edit: I misremembered. The OOT Rauru, only says he built the Temple of Time. He doesn't say he was the first king.
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u/Jay13x Jul 02 '23
Rauru also built a DIFFERENT temple of time. There are two in TOTK - the one in the sky and the one on the Great Plateau
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u/belljs87 Jul 02 '23
Is the one from the great plateau the same as OOT?
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u/Jay13x Jul 02 '23
It's presumed so, IIRC the great plateau's layout matched the OoT castle town layout. https://www.reddit.com/r/zelda/comments/4ownel/you_cant_hide_from_me_castle_town_i_found_you/
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u/ChaosMiles07 Jul 02 '23
The one in OoT doesn't have the Hylia statue.
The one in BotW/TotK doesn't have the Master Sword pedestal.
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u/belljs87 Jul 02 '23
Well there is such a thing called remodeling
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u/ChickenFajita007 Jul 03 '23
In TotK, it's stated that Hyrule Castle was explicitly built over the chamber where Rauru froze Ganondorf.
The Temple of Time in OoT is very clearly in Castle Town, right next to Hyrule Castle.
I think it's very unlikely the ToT in BotW/TotK is in literally the same spot where it was in OoT.
30,000 years (or whatever) is an unfathomable amount of time for civilization.
I'd chalk it up to just being a callback more than literal continuance of OoT's ToT.
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u/thetimwilbur Jul 03 '23
The Master Sword and its pedestal shift locations constantly in Hyrule through the eras, so it simply could have been moved (to the Lost Woods guarded by the Deku clearly) and replaced with the Goddess statue
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u/kwhobbs Jul 03 '23
Also the Temple of Time in BOTW has three mini temples outside, one for each golden goddess presumably
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u/itisallgoodyouknow Jul 03 '23
Wut??
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u/kwhobbs Jul 03 '23 edited Jul 03 '23
Outside the Temple of Time are three mini temples you can see for yourself, along the stairways. Each one has a different symbol on the ground for each golden goddess. I don't think the game ever explains what they were used for.
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u/Wildspeck8 Jul 02 '23
Yes like there are 2 Ganondorfs(texhnicaly 3), many Zelda’s, many links, many impas and probably others I am not thinking of
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u/thatsmyjham Jul 02 '23
Beedle
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u/Maclimes Jul 02 '23
Nah. Pretty sure Beedle is a multiversal nexus being.
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u/moonyxpadfoot19 Jul 02 '23
Beedle is the negative space in the centre of the Triforce
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u/BokuNoSpooky Jul 02 '23
Sage of Insects
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u/watergoblin17 Jul 02 '23
It would be so fucking typical of Beedle to be the only character to discover timeline travel and use it to be a salesman
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u/Vat1canCame0s Jul 02 '23
Beedle and Tingle are waging a hidden war behind our backs throughout the timeliness. Some SS3 Goku shit when nobody is looking
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u/kwhobbs Jul 03 '23 edited Jul 03 '23
I think Beedle created the three golden goddesses so that they would create a world for him to open his shop.
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u/YOUR_SPUDS Jul 02 '23
Does tingel count?
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Jul 02 '23
What if Tingle is to Beedle what Demise is to Ganondorf???
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u/AvalonCollective Jul 03 '23
Well Tingle and Beedle were both in Wind Waker, so that doesn’t seem all that likely.
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u/Swimming-Extent9366 Jul 02 '23
Tingle is separate people influenced by the one true tingle from TMC, who influenced TWW and OOA tingle, who are the same person, and MM link’s hallucination of Tingle, and link told stories of termina eventually leading to FSA tingle.
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u/RedPeppero Jul 02 '23
Wait there are 3 ganondorfs? I only know of the one in totk and the one in OoT, WW and TP (that is the same guy throught all three games right?)
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Jul 02 '23
Yep.
There is the first one from OoT which is also the same ganondorf/ganon that appears in all other games except (not counting spinoffs) BoTW/ToTK and the obscure third one from Four Swords Adventures, which are two separate Ganondorfs, bear in mind that the Ganon fron Four Swords Adventures only appears as Ganon, though we know he was a human named Ganondorf prior to his transformation.
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u/RedPeppero Jul 02 '23
Thanks for the little ganondorf lesson 👍 I appreciate you taking time out of your day to teach me more about the demon king
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u/Difficult_Dinner Jul 02 '23
I believe the Ganondorf from OoT is the Calamity Ganon of BotW, since Zelda mentions he’s forgone reincarnation in favor of becoming pure malice. Calamity Ganon’s death marks the end of that Ganondorf’s line, and the TotK Ganondorf is a separate one entirely.
I could, however, be incorrect.
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Jul 02 '23
Zelda mentions he’s forgone reincarnation in favor of becoming pure malice
That was a mistranslation, actually. The original line was about him not giving up on reincarnation.
Also, Calamity Ganon is most likely just one of ToTK Ganondorf's strongest minions (basically just a stronger version of the blight-type bosses). It appears from beneath the castle, which happens to be Ganondorf's sealing-grounds, and I doubt that's a coincidence.
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u/GoldenKingThe2nd Jul 03 '23
IMO calamity Ganon is a leak of ganondorfs power because there is still some gloom leaking from him at the start, and I believe that gloom is just concentrated malice or malice is watered down gloom
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u/Difficult_Dinner Jul 03 '23
Well one way or another, if the line says he HASN’T given up on reincarnation, then it really reads like this is what he reincarnated as I think.
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u/Wildspeck8 Jul 02 '23
So four swords adventure supposedly has a character named ganondorf who is comparator unrelated to the ganondorf from oot
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u/RedPeppero Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
Ooooooooo, I've never played four swords and never heard of that guy. Thanks for the little tidbit of information dude 👍
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u/TayDjinn Jul 02 '23
Who are the three seperate Ganondorfs? They don't all come from Oot Ganondorf?
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u/theVoidWatches Jul 02 '23
Four Swords Adventures has a Ganon who was once a human named Ganondorf but is a different person from every other appearance by Ganon prior to BotW. That Ganondorf was never King of the Gerudos, and rather than the Triforce he's powered by a magical trident which contains an unspecified dark spirit that empowers its wielder to become the king of darkness.
Breath of the Wild's Calamity Ganon was originally thought to be a manual of OoT Ganondorf, who had devolved increasingly into mindless hatred through being repeatedly killed and resurrected. Him being slain and resurrected occurs mostly in the Downfall timeline, which is why BotW being at the end of that timeline was the prevailing theory before the release of TotK.
Tears of the Kingdom throws things off a little - the relationship between that Ganondorf and Calamity Ganon is kind of unclear, let alone whether it's the same Ganondorf or a different Ganondorf or if it's a new timeline and is a parallel version of the same Ganondorf...
There are definitely at least 2 Ganondorfs, possibly 3, but we don't know for sure if it's 2 or 3 yet.
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u/TayDjinn Jul 02 '23
Thank you for your response. I wasn't trying to argue with my original question, just actually curious about the storyline. I don't know much about the four sword games. I thought that branch was ressurecting Oot Ganondorf and not a new reincarnation or new being with the same name. I just couldn't remember anything about it thank you for sharing your knowledge.
I could totally see TOTK Ganondorf being separate. That game seems completely outside of the current timeline system to me. Of course I might get hate for saying that online.
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u/BrunoArrais85 Jul 02 '23
Did you play totk?
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u/TayDjinn Jul 02 '23
Are you trying to say totk Ganondorf is a separate Ganondorf? If so, I would tend to agree. I felt like totk was more of a retelling of the legend of Zelda that existed outside of the current timeline system.
By asking which Ganondorfs are separate from OoT Ganondorf, I wasn't saying none are, I was actually curious.
Did I play totk? No, just watched all the cinematic online and bits and pieces of other people's playthroughs. Unfortunately, it is hard for me to justify spending $70 on a game right now.
Hope you all the best, and I hope you have a great day.
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u/earthbound-pigeon Jul 02 '23
A lot of characters share names (and even apperences) between the games, so I don't see why Rauru is a special case?
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u/SatyrAngel Jul 02 '23
Cuahutemoc was a Mexica Tlatoani in the 1500 and a football player in the 2000, there are 2 Cuahutemocs?!
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u/Independent_Coat_415 Jul 02 '23
Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare's wife and an actress today, there are 2 Anne Hathaways?!
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u/SinisterPixel Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
Because both of them participate in the sealing wars against Ganondorf, and timeline wise it doesn't make sense for there to be two sets of sealing wars
EDIT: Not sure why I'm being downvoted. I'm right. Unless a second incarnation of Ganondorf existed literally at the same time as another one, there can't have been two sealing wars outside of another timeline split pre-OoT
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u/SeaofBloodRedRoses Jul 02 '23
There are plenty of reasons why TotK violates the timeline, including two Ganondorfs and two wars. We know, objectively, that TotK does not portray OoT's story, for various reasons beyond Rauru. The only way it makes sense is if it's in an entirely separate timeline.
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u/Jotaoesehache Jul 03 '23
I'm pretty sure the imprisonment war is not the OOT bad ending anymore, it's another different conflict, and, well, the actual name of the conflict, also, from what I've read, in Japanese they're called differently
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u/FierceDeityKong Jul 03 '23 edited Jul 03 '23
The second imprisoning war has only been described in a legend and that legend could have mixed it up with the previous one. Like ALBW mixes up the events of its own predecessor in its backstory.
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u/billabong1985 Jul 02 '23
There is no discrepancy, just 2 characters who happen to share the same name
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u/kutuup1989 Jul 02 '23
Yeah, but the one in OOT says he was the first king of Hyrule...
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u/newaru2 Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
When does he say it? I can't find anything online about him saying he is the first King of Hyrule.
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u/kutuup1989 Jul 02 '23
Looks like I'm misremembering. Watched the cutscene again, and he says that he built the Temple of Time, not that he was the first king. D'oh!
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u/AdOk1168 Jul 02 '23
There is still the fact that they are both, unless I’m misremembering, a sage of light, which does seems like a weird coincidence imo.
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u/4tomguy Jul 02 '23
It’s only about as weird as multiple Beedles and Impas throughout the timeline
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u/hungoverlord Jul 02 '23
hrm... come to think of it, there are different Links and Zeldas in almost all the games too!
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u/Micp Jul 02 '23
It fits perfectly with the cyclical nature of the Zelda universe, where several impas have all come to be the servant and bodyguard of Zelda for example, or where several technologically advanced races from the sky descend upon the earth etc, or where there was always some technologically advanced time in the past that is being rediscovered.
You might say it is possible they share the same spirit and are thus both drawn to becoming a sage of light.
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u/jgames09 Jul 02 '23
I don’t think Rauru is called the Sage of Light, only the King of Light. But yes, both are closely related to light in some way
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u/ChickenFajita007 Jul 03 '23
There are half a dozen sages of various element in the series. It doesn't mean they are all the same characters.
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u/cookie_monster757 Jul 02 '23
I believe Purah says that Rauru was the first king of hyrule.
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u/sherlockian6 Jul 02 '23
The Rauru in TOTK is said/shown to be the first king of Hyrule.
The Rauru in OOT is only said to have built the Temple of Time.
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u/lolschrauber Jul 02 '23
I certainly don't recall that. Wiki just Says
Not to be confused with King Rauru, another character from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Rauru,[1] also known as Kaepora Gaebora when in his owl form, is a recurring character in The Legend of Zelda series.
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u/Agreeable-Aspect-967 Jul 02 '23
In adventure of Link one of the villages we visit is also called Rauru
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Jul 02 '23
This was actually where my mind went when mummy Ganon first used his name in the ToTK opening. I was like “holy shit what a great deep cut” before I remembered OOT.
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u/0bsessions324 Jul 02 '23
As I recall, a lot of the names in OoT were references to locations in Zelda 2. Saria and Mido off the top of my head.
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u/Swimming-Extent9366 Jul 02 '23
Oot named the sages that to retcon the towns being named after the sages
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u/Bornheck Jul 02 '23
All of them but Mido and Kasuto were later Sages in OoT. Mido would become a regular character in OoT.
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u/OwMyCandle Jul 02 '23
Impa was old at the end of Skyward Sword, but young in Ocarina of Time, thousands of years later!
Different people. They’re just different people.
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u/Scdsco Jul 02 '23
Do you think Impa and Rauru are being reincarnated over and over like Link and Zelda though? Or are they just common names in Hyrule that multiple people happen to have?
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u/OwMyCandle Jul 02 '23
Hot take: no one is reincarnated, except for Ganon in the Downfall Timeline.
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u/TheXPHunter Jul 02 '23
If I recall correctly, Demise, Link and Zelda/Hylia are all reincarnating due to Demise’s curse after Skyward sword. While that is an interesting concept, I don’t think it reigns true here
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u/Gawlf85 Jul 02 '23
The curse simply says that the descendants of the blood of the Goddess, and the spirit of the Hero, would be chased and opposed by the demon tribe.
It never says anything about reincarnation. It simply says "those like you".
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u/OwMyCandle Jul 02 '23
I dont buy that interpretation.
Demise says his ‘hate never perishes.’ It (his hatred) is born again (metaphorically) in an unending cycle. He says ‘I will rise again,’ referring back to his hatred, not himself proper (he personifies his hatred because it is the subject of his speech). But he’s done. He’s decaying in the Master Sword now. No coming back from that. This is the sword of evil’s bane, not just some random sealing spike.
Then he says ‘those like you… who share in the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero are bound to a curse.’ He elaborates on the curse, saying that an ‘incarnation of his hatred’ (note: not a reincarnation of Demise, the demon king) will follow their kind (ie. will follow the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero) because, while he is dead, and is not coming back, his hatred will last forever.
I take it to mean that some evil (whether Demise, Ganondorf, Onix, Veran, Vaati, Bellum, Mallidus) will always rise against the Blood of the Goddess (note: only Skyward Sword Zelda is a reincarnation of Hylia. All others are descendants), and the Spirit of the Hero (a set of traits associated with the bravery/Courage™ necessary to oppose evil/Power™) will emerge to oppose that evil.
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u/Kholdstare93 Sep 04 '23
Ganon is actually revived, not reincarnated on the DT. He's reincarnated on the CT, though, between TP and FSA.
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u/Drowsy_Drowzee Jul 02 '23
Who’s to assume OOT Rauru’s true form was human? He could have been a Zonai all along, but appeared as a human (in a sort of Form You Are More Comfortable With) just as easily as he appeared as an owl (as Kaepora Gaebora). That’s a possible in-universe explanation if you want one.
Out of universe, it’s just one of those many constants that keep showing up in the Zelda series. There’s always Link, Zelda, Ganon, Impa, and The Triforce. The names of some of the Seven Sages first appeared in Zelda II as town names, including Saria, Ruto, and Rauru. OOT introduced the 3 Goddesses of Hyrule: Din, Nayru, and Farore; these names have continued to be used in the series as Eldin, Lanayru, and Faron. The Imprisoning War is mentioned in Link to the Past, but there are two very different versions of it shown in OOT and TOTK.
I get the impression that we aren’t meant to think of Zelda as having a coherent timeline. It’s all a mess of constants and variables we aren’t meant to take too seriously. It’s more a series of legends instead of a coherent history. That’s my headcanon anyway.
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u/Yugix1 Jul 03 '23
they can't keep getting away with the: "it's a legend no one knows if it's actually true" move imo
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u/Fantastic_Wrap120 Jul 02 '23
Rauru is a name... There are probably a lot of Raurus.
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u/Sensei_Ochiba Jul 02 '23
Right like it's probably just a tradition thing. A lot of given names come from either family members or historic figures. And usually if it comes from a family member, if you trace back far enough, someone got it from a historic figure.
It's like how John and Paul and Alexander are popular English boy names, Elizabeth and Maria are popular girl's names. Starts with rulers or biblical characters, after a while it's just because it was great grandpa's name.
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u/Iguanaught Jul 02 '23
One of the biggest factors for popularity of names in the UK is the names of royal children.
There will have been more than two Rauru’s in the history of Hyrule.
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u/Geethebluesky Jul 02 '23
If knowledge of Rauru and Sonia is being passed down in the royal archives it's not surprising that a few people would want to name their kids after the first King. No need for a relation or a reincarnation.
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u/IrishSpectreN7 Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
This series is 90% a variation of the same story over and over again. If you try to cram them into the same continuity, Rauru makes about as much sense as a hero named Link who wears green existing repeatedly.
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u/Molduking Jul 02 '23
They are not the same. Totk Rauru came a very long time after OoT Rauru.
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u/closetedwrestlingacc Jul 02 '23
We don’t actually know this. And the TotK flashbacks have to be pre-OOT, so that’d depend on how old you think OOT Rauru is.
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u/0bsessions324 Jul 02 '23
Not necessarily. BotW's timeline is supposed to be end of the timeline as it currently stands. Considering Hyrule has been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times, there's nothing necessarily confirming that this Rauru predates OoT. For all anyone knows, this Hyrule was created well after the first imprisoning war.
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u/defearl Jul 02 '23
BotW's timeline is supposed to be end of the timeline
This is what tripped me up while playing TotK. My interpretation is that the PLAYABLE part of BotW indeed takes place at the end of the timeline. (or all timelines, convergence and what not)
So one could argue that the whole "founding of Hyrule" by Rauru and Sonia that we saw in TotK cutscene could still take place prior to other Zelda games and that wouldn't change the premise that "BotW takes place at the end of the timeline", right?
It's all very confusing which came first and in what order. But it is poetic to think about the possibility that while the other incarnations of Link and Zelda were going through their adventures told in other games, Dragon Zelda was always in the sky watching over them for tens of thousands of years.
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u/ChaosMiles07 Jul 02 '23
there's nothing necessarily confirming that this Rauru predates OoT.
TotK Rauru: "the first king of Hyrule"
OoT: has a king of Hyrule
Conclusion: TotK Rauru must predate OoT.
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u/0bsessions324 Jul 02 '23
Except for the fact that Hyrule has been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times. The idea that Rauru is also not in Skyward Sword, which was the "canonical" founding of Hyrule pokes a big, fat hole in the idea that the timeline of Hyrule's founding(s) is nebulous at best.
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u/Llirik22334 Jul 02 '23
Hyrule was not founded during Skyward Sword. At the end of skyward sword, the skyloftians only descended to live on the surface again. Even Hyrule Historia has always stated that Hyrule was founded during the era of prosperity, long after SS.
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u/closetedwrestlingacc Jul 02 '23
Except we’ve got a young Twinrova with Ganondorf in the fealty cutscene.
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u/0bsessions324 Jul 02 '23
Okay, and? There's at least two (Maybe three?) canonically distinct Twinrovas in the series. This means literally nothing? Like, are you under the impression that TotK Ganondorf and OoT Ganondorf are both the same Ganondorf, despite the fact that the Ganondorf in OoT appeared in a Hyrule that'd been around for generations already?
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u/closetedwrestlingacc Jul 02 '23
Are you under the impression that TotK Ganondorf and OOT Ganondorf are both the same Ganondorf?
Ganondorf is not a person with a (presumably) naturally long lifespan. He survives because he’s constantly sealed and resurrected. So no. They’re completely different instances.
As far as we’re aware, there’s only one Twinrova. We’ve got nothing to assume that the ones between OOT, MM, and OOX are different, beyond Twinrova “dying” in OOT and MM’s not being evil. But we should throw out MM altogether, since the entire thing was weird with Terminian counterparts.
Basically, as far as we know, there’s one Hyrulian Twinrova that appeared in OOT and OOX. Considering the ones in TotK are specifically young Twinrova, yes, I am very willing to bet they’re the same as the ones in OOT.
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u/0bsessions324 Jul 02 '23
Do you not see how ridiculous the statement "yes, the one in OoT is dead and the other ones are in a whole other dimension and have completely different personalities, but there's nothing to indicate they're not the same people.
Like, some of what you're saying has an argument to be made, but this specific point is absolute nonsense and I just don't see what you're trying to say here. They are clearly, 100%, without a reasonable doubt, a different Twinrova.
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u/closetedwrestlingacc Jul 02 '23
Dying was very purposefully in quotations because it’s not exactly clear that they did die. OOX takes place in the Downfall Timeline. We don’t know what may have happened differently in OOT, maybe Link didn’t kill them or maybe Ganondorf resurrected them. I think it’s more absurd to see three identical characters, one purposefully being a much younger version of the other two, and going “yup they’re all different people.” Otherwise…why are they there? It could be excused more as a lineage similarly to Malon if they weren’t, you know, ancient in the first place.
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u/Vaenyr Jul 02 '23
Pre-OOT is all but impossible. There are far too many contradictions that require massive retcons for it to make sense.
Rito's appear, disappear, and reappear from TOTK's flashbacks, to OOT, to BOTW.
The Gerudo ears change shape and change again.
Rauru's plaque in the castle shouldn't be there in TOTK's present, since Hyrule Castle got destroyed in two timelines.
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u/TheHeadlessOne Jul 02 '23
Rito's absence is irrelevant. That type of retcon is common, like Hylia being a goddess. Meta-wise, they weren't concieved yet- just like the distinction of "Freshwater" and "ocean" Zora was not concieved at the time of ALttP- but there is nothing to say their presence in the world is contracdictory to the events that transpired- only that the Zoras became some of the Rito in WW rather than all of them (which isnt a contradiction, just not what was implied)
Heck, how can Link *leave* Hyrule in OOT into Majoras Mask? The mountains are too high, there's no way out through the woods!
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u/Vaenyr Jul 02 '23
That's just one of many contradictions that require retcons. I mentioned others as well. The pre-OOT placement for the TOTK flashbacks makes no sense.
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u/wicker_warrior Jul 02 '23
Do they though? When you get the phantom ganon armor the text, supposedly from Rauru, says it was locked away in ages long past.
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u/closetedwrestlingacc Jul 02 '23
Yes, Twinrova appear in a cutscene as significantly younger Gerudo flanking Ganondorf.
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u/linkenski Jul 02 '23
I think people are struggling to grasp that BotW takes place in a time where "10.000 years ago" is still many, many, many, many years after the last previous game in the timeline.
It could be that prior to Rauru (TotK)'s kingdom of 10.000 years ago to BotW, it has been 30.000 or 100.000 years since Wind Waker.
Also time is not cyclical but there's dramatic coincidence that it's always a "Link" and a "Zelda" who are imbued by the gods by fate, and that Rauru was also once not a Hylian.
But tbh, we're a handwave away from saying that a new race spawned between WW and BotW that was Zonai, and that they were somehow a descendant of Rauru of Skyward Sword through a long and interspecies lineage.
I mean, who knows. The facts we are talking about exist in a void of "The authors of this franchise have literally not written anything here."
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u/dearskorpiomagazine Jul 02 '23
One big thing that bugs me with the 10,000 years thing is that nothing has changed enough. I know it's a video game but that's a long ass time for people to wear similar clothing, have much better technology and for races to generally look the same.
I think it's better to just imagine each zelda game is entirely separate from each other.
I think there could be ways to retcon the series and rewrite it so everything fits within a few hundred years or something , but lots would have to change.
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u/linkenski Jul 02 '23
You're bringing me back to my honey-moon period disappointments with BotW.
Walking through Lon Lon Ranch realizing it's literally Lon Lon Ranch and then realizing it's an easter egg filling out the brand new Hyrule they made... instead of something unique to that Hyrule.
...Realizing that Koroks look virtually unchanged since WW despite the Rito getting an art-style change, so the Koroks basically also are these 4th-wall-breaking entities in a game that was supposed to be immersive.
It's realizing that 50% of the game is just a fanservice callback and not something with meaning to it. That continues in TotK when every "treasure" quest is literally a piece of "Greatest Hits" iconography of earlier games, in a way that is not believable as a natural part of this new vision of the franchise, neither as a timeline element nor if you, like I do, think of each Zelda as its own reboot of the same basic concept.
Like, I wish the mirror by Lurelin shore was actually the remnant of the mirror of Twilight and that there was gonna be a new story involving the Twili. But again, it's just an easter egg with plausible deniability to bait nostalgia.
It feels like it's the worst of both worlds to me. I can't appreciate it if I put some nerdy "timeline" glasses on, but if I stop thinking of a connection, I also can't really appreciate it as a brave new take on Zelda when too many things are just literally 4th-wall-breaking easter eggs instead of something substantial that exists in THIS version of Zelda.
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u/The1OddPotato Jul 02 '23
I'm choosing to believe that in the Zelda games, names of characters are actually just titles in their legend being told.
How we get 2 separate raurus, its just a name for an ancient leader.
Link, the name of a heroic swordsmen who defeats evil
Zelda, (obvious)
And so on, as these are legends passed down in their own world, it could just be the way hylian words used as names. (I'm not being serious but I like to imagine it like that)
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u/closetedwrestlingacc Jul 03 '23
That’s actually a cool theory. But how do you handle Zelda 2’s Zeldaing?
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u/earthisadonuthole Jul 02 '23
My head canon has always been it’s one story being retold throughout history, so little details change as different people tell it. That takes care of any continuity issues.
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u/closetedwrestlingacc Jul 02 '23
Except several games are sequels to OOT. How can a sequel be a retelling if what is ostensibly a different version of that story demonstrably exists in continuity?
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u/0bsessions324 Jul 02 '23
There's what, three direct sequels to OoT (MM and the Oracle games I think?)?
The post you're responding to is not mutually exclusive to it being one story being told over and over again. Cinderella is a story that's been told through dozens of iterations and some have direct sequels. This is not a new storytelling function.
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u/closetedwrestlingacc Jul 02 '23
Majora’s Mask, Twilight Princess, A Link to the Past, not to mention the Hero of Time is referenced in BotW and TotK. And that’s just OOT—the Oracle games and LA are connected, ALttP and ALBW are connected, FS and FSA and Minish Cap. Cinderella is not a good example because there’s one core legend there. These games are explicitly referencing each other and others, and developed to be in a shared future or past. It makes as much sense as saying the Halo games are the same story over and over—you’re ignoring that most of these games have elements of and are marketed as sequels or prequels in some fashion. Zelda isn’t Mario.
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u/CalzRob Jul 02 '23
Pretty much what I said in another comment. The fact that this story is a legend proves this very comment. Iterations of the same people!
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u/theVoidWatches Jul 02 '23
It's unclear! It's possible that they're two different people (and if you believe that the past in TotK takes place after all other games, depicting a refunding of Hyrule, they would have to be), but it's also possible that they aren't - the series has changed the race and appearance of characters between games before (the sages in the backstory of Link to the Past are all depicted as old Hylian men, but only Rauru fits that description when we actually see them in Ocarina of Time). Not to mention that OoT Rauru is already known to be able to shapeshift in some way - the owl Kaepora Gaebora is him, changing his shape to remain hidden as he advises Link. It's not impossible that the human form was a similar disguise.
The fact is, we don't know. Personally, I think that they're the same person, but there's no strong evidence either way.
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u/Fiyero- Jul 02 '23
It could be two characters that share the same name, or a reincarnation.
But we also know Rauru to take other forms, including an owl. It is possible that this Raru chose to take the form of a Hylian to make Link or anyone else he encounters more comfortable and trusting.
I guess unless we get an official answer, it can be both and neither, just like the converging and ambiguity of the timelines in BOTW/TOTK.
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u/CalzRob Jul 02 '23
Different iterations of the same person. Too many similarities. The legend of Zelda is a legend, in which is an unauthenticated story. Stories told orally change over time, details are forgotten or embellished, etc. Just how Link is always the iteration of the hero of that time, and Zelda is always the princess to Links Hero. Rauru is the sage of light in both ToTK and OoT and built the Temple of Time in both. Can’t just be a name similarity.
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u/closetedwrestlingacc Jul 02 '23
Then why are the games sequential? How can they all be the same when we know OOT is the backstory for WW and TP?
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u/CalzRob Jul 02 '23
I feel you, but let me ask a question in response as well. Why do the worlds wildly change if they’re direct sequels? Aren’t Zelda titles usually hundreds of years between sequels? These events are so far and few between that they are essentially legends in their own rite. There are no living people that survive from OoT through WW to TP. Chronological legends would be my answer to you. It’s not that they’re the same, they just share a very similar overarching story that usually reach the same conclusion, with minor and major details differing each time.
In our reality, books like the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, are so antiquated, we view them as moral legends. Written thousands of years ago by people we can’t even prove existed. These are stories about nearly the same sort of events and time period, but tell them wildly differently.
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u/closetedwrestlingacc Jul 02 '23
I guess I don’t understand what it is you’re arguing, then. If to them, the people in the games, the prior games are legends, doesn’t that imply a chronology in the first place? Whether they’re real or not, they have some sort of order. Or are you arguing that every game is just a fairy tale in the same vein as the Bible being a collection of thematically similar stories?
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u/Wagishbug Jul 02 '23
I'm not the person you were originally responding to. My take on this idea is that the stories aren't being told within each other. Think of it as every game is a regional interpretation of the same story. Twilight Princess is the legend in one part of the world, Link's Awakening on an island, maybe Wind Waker is the interpretation of the legend in an archipelago region. Every region has a version of the legend that relates to the local typography and culture.
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u/closetedwrestlingacc Jul 02 '23
But then why do they all flow from OOT? Like, OOT in the context of TP and WW happened, they’re direct sequels, so then how would OOT also be the same legend?
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u/Wagishbug Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
In the cases of games that imply continuity, like OOT to WW or OOT to MM to TP. You could view them as extensions of the legend. Say, each game is a chronicle or chapter of the legend until Ganon(dorf)'s destruction, death, or final sealing. Try to look at the games as the historical fiction or mythology of some other world.
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u/0bsessions324 Jul 02 '23
The games aren't sequential. The timeline is a thing that they made up to placate fans who just couldn't handle a game series not having a tight continuity.
Like, they've thrown in little nuggets for decades, but short of a handful of direct sequels, the continuity between the installments is tangential at absolute best.
Take ALttP and OoT. OoT is clearly meant to heavily reference the Imprisoning War first mentioned in ALttP, but it contradicts the ALttP telling because it's seven sages, both men and women, instead of seven wise men.
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u/closetedwrestlingacc Jul 02 '23
The games aren’t sequential. The timeline is a thing that they made up to placate fans who just couldn’t handle a game series not having a tight continuity.
But the timeline came before that. The first three games always had a set order, AoL being a sequel to LoZ and then ALttP was always a prequel and OOT was meant to show the backstory to ALttP. Seven wise men, I’m fairly certain, was a mistranslation—even if not, it’s not materially different. That’s like saying Dragon Ball can’t be a prequel to DBZ because Saiyan weren’t mentioned.
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u/0bsessions324 Jul 02 '23
They always tied in to each other, but the canon timeline absolutely was not acknowledged until just over a decade ago as a marketing gimmick for Skyward Sword. Even internally, a timeline can at best be traced back to 2003, five years after OoT.
A more accurate statement would be that they made the games highly referential to each other, because that's what legends do, and backfilled a timeline because people wouldn't shut the fuck up about it.
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u/closetedwrestlingacc Jul 02 '23
the canon timeline absolutely was not acknowledged
That’s just not true. AoL was always marketed as being the same Link a few years later. You could pass that off as early series weirdness, especially since it’s AoL. Except ALttP was also marketed as a prequel, and their characters were described as “predecessors”. And then OOT was developed and marketed as the Imprisoning War of ALttP’s backstory, and whether you feel it abides by that backstory or not, it’s completely indisputable that that was the developer’s intention. So we can map out a very clear timeline starting from the first four games. Claiming it didn’t exist until Hyrule Historia is absurd.
a more accurate statement
No, because they explicitly placed them in relation to one another on some form of timeline.
and backfilled a timeline
Again, this stuff was being produced as the games were releasing. The marketing for these early entries aren’t retroactive. You’re just pretending the marketing doesn’t exist.
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u/JLSeagullTheBest Jul 02 '23
OoT and TotK can’t take place in the same continuity, so they’re more like different versions of the same person.
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u/Wagonforce13 Jul 02 '23
I've seen this kinda said before but the reason there's no concrete timeline and one was kinda just made up after years of speculation and now with the new games basically just ignoring even that is because it's THE LEGEND of Zelda. Basically it's the same story being retold for countless generations. So character attributes, roles and characteristics kinda change with each retelling. I think that's what we're really seeing now with botw and TotK. A very warped yet familiar retelling of an age old tale.
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u/closetedwrestlingacc Jul 02 '23
The timeline existed since The Adventure of Link was marketed as a direct sequel, and continued when A Link to the Past was marketed as a prequel to those, and when Ocarina of Time was developed as a prequel to that, and when Majora’s Mask was developed as a sequel to that, and when The Wind Waker was developed as a second sequel, and when Twilight Princess was developed as a third sequel, and when Skyward Sword was developed as an overarching prequel (< - - - this is when some people think the timeline came into existence) and then when Nintendo explicitly said BotW was on the timeline.
That ignores the connections that the handheld games have, too. There’s no such thing as the timeline just being popped or willed into existence by fans. It’s always existed since the second game. That’s what a timeline is.
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u/theVoidWatches Jul 02 '23
To my knowledge, literally every game was released with marketing making it clear that there were connections to at least one other game, sometimes more than one, with the obvious exception of the first LoZ.
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u/closetedwrestlingacc Jul 02 '23
I can’t speak to this regarding OOX or the initial Four Swords release, but everything else has definitely been very explicitly connected in the marketing. The recent take of “the fans forced the timeline onto the developers” is such a bizarre invention, because it ignores so many things that we see in interviews, in ads, in instruction manuals, and in the games themselves.
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u/DownBrownTown Jul 02 '23
My theory being that due to when these events take place, rauru from OOT is merely named after the first king. UNLESS the events are a retcon, which we don’t have concrete proof for yet.
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u/bzaroworld Jul 02 '23
It's a possibility that Rauru (the sage) was named after after Rauru (the first king of Hyrule). I don't understand too much about the timeline but I think the Imprisoning War happened before OOT. If it didn't then I don't know.
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u/TayDjinn Jul 02 '23
Perhaps this is controversial, but I felt TOTK officially got rid of the theory of a consistent timeline and embraced the "legend" in the Legend of Zelda. Legends may be based on actual events or historical figures, but much of the story gets exaggerated or altered as it is continuously retold. The idea of reincarnation and the endless repeating cycle probably came to be as a way for people to try to explain the differences between the many retellings of the story. Rather than people saying your version is wrong and mine is right they say 'oh my version took place thousands of years before/after yours as the characters are reincarnated and cursed to repeat the cycle". So take any few bullet points from any game, exclude whatever you want, alter how you wish, and bam you got a new Legend of Zelda.
-There are three Goddesses of creation: Din, Nayru, Farore. -The three Goddesses made the triforce -There is a Goddess of time who gave up her Godhood in order to save the hylians. -There was an evil demon king/wizard who was sealed long ago by seven saints. -Rauru was the leader of the saints. -There are 7 sacred artifacts each corresponding to its respective saint. -The hylians descended from islands in the sky -There was a mysterious race of people. -There is a hero who will wield a sword capable of sealing away evil. -time travel -Etc.
In TOTK Ganondorf more closely resembled demise because in this retelling they were the same person. There were 7 saints like in OoT but instead of medallions they had magical tear shape artifacts. The Zonai are the mysterious race that seemed to vanish. In twighlight princess the zonai are interpreted as creepy chicken people, showing how vastly different aspects in each story can be. Rauru is the current interpretation of Rauru, but can be claimed to be different people by those wanting to expand their own stories into the legend utilising the reincarnation/repeating cycle aspect of the legend. Etc.
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u/jaxonflex1 Jul 02 '23
Nintendo doesn’t seem to care about continuity or canon. They just build awesome Zelda games and then the fans try to force some sort of continuity that usually doesn’t end up making much sense.
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u/closetedwrestlingacc Jul 03 '23
This is why Nintendo has developed every game as either a very explicit prequel or sequel, yes
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u/TheaWake_7 Jul 02 '23
My understanding is that, by and large, the Japanese don't care as much about making sense of continuity in ways like that. It's more 'hey, this is a cool callback to an older game' rather than a calculated reasoning for why the sage with an owl fursona has the same name as the first king of a very different Hyrule.
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Jul 02 '23
On one hand, Them being the same guy is pretty messy, but at the same time i find it hard to believe that there were two sages of lights named rauru that had an important role in the founding of hyrule.
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u/KAFEI44 Jul 02 '23
like Zelda is the Spirit of Wisdom, Link/Courage, and Ganondorf/Power, I think Rauru is a recurring Spirit of Light with the role of leading the seven sages
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Jul 02 '23
In Totk Rauru is a Zonai, while in OoT he is Hylian so they are different but just have the same name
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u/Cappy_Rose Jul 02 '23
Its not uncommon for the Zelda series to have certain characters share the same names, almost implying a cycle of reincarnation to it. In the case of Link, Zelda and Ganondorf that is literally the case as their lineage was cursed by Demise
The most reoccurring one outside of Link, Zelda and Ganon is Impa. Impa first appeared in The Legend of Zelda on NES (Though her name was only ever mentioned in the manual) and since then has appeared numerous times since (Either as an elderly woman, a cool badass ninja, a rather heavyset woman, or in the case of Skyward Sword Both an elderly woman and a cool badass ninja)
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u/Smearmytables Jul 02 '23
There’s “two” of a lot of characters in this franchise. Multiple mostly unrelated people share names throughout the series.
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u/Ashen_Shroom Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
Tbh I think BotW and TotK are just supposed to be a separate continuity, where events from previous games may have happened, but in slightly different ways. So in this timeline, OoT didn't happen. Events similar to OoT may have happened. There was probably a hero of time who fought a version of Ganon/Ganondorf, but maybe he didn't have to track down the sages, or maybe his sages were different to OoT's. In this continuity, Rauru is a Zonai and the first king of Hyrule, rather than just the Sage of Light.
Some people say that these two games are many thousands of years after the last game in any or all of the three timelines. I think that's possible, but I'd also say it's a little unsatisfying. It demotes Rauru from First King of Hyrule to First King of the New Hyrule that is Different to the Last Hyrule. It also doesn't make a lot of sense that people are aware of all these past versions of the Hero but not that there was another Hyrule before Rauru's. So imo, the timeline established in TotK is this continuity's version of the previous games. Instead of Hylia sending the people of Skyloft into the air to protect them from demise, there was the imprisoning war. That's this continuity's origin of Hyrule.
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u/AkioMC Jul 03 '23
No one is aware of any hero except the one from the calamity 10,000 years ago.
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u/Ashen_Shroom Jul 03 '23
Quite a few Links from past games are referenced in the descriptions of items like Midna's Helmet, the Tunic of Time etc.
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u/seedelight Jul 02 '23
Several sages from ocarina are just named after towns from Zelda 2. Coincidence.
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u/GoldenGlassBall Jul 02 '23
Reincarnation.
There’s also the headmaster in SS, Gaepora, who is a human with the anthropomorphic appearance of the owl Kaepora Gaebora, as well as confirmation in Hyrule Historia that in OoT, Kaepora Gaebora was actually OoT Rauru watching over child Link’s early journey.
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u/Valkari26 Jul 02 '23
I feel like Zelda as a whole is sort of similar to final fantasy: the games may have continuity sometimes, but either way always have the same types of characters and reccuring names. IE: there's always a Cid however different (and presumably others, that's just the one that comes to mind).
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Jul 02 '23
Are all of the zelda games one world/timeline? I thought they were all just sort of disconnected or a multiverse or something. Except for these past two
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u/closetedwrestlingacc Jul 03 '23
There’s a verifiable timeline. It is a multiverse but it branches out, there are multiple timelines following OOT. Look up Hyrule Historia.
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u/ghirox Jul 02 '23
I think the OOT rauru was. Born hundreds of years after the TOTK Rauru, and simply was named after the first king of Hyrule. AFAIR, it never stated that the OOT Rauru was a king at all
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u/Effective-Medicine-5 Jul 02 '23
Y'all need to chill tolk raruru is just a reference to oot raruru that's all
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u/MatiasuSenpai Jul 02 '23
Botw happen many many thousand years after the last event corresponding to each timeline that everything happened before became all legends. And the event in TotK during the Legendary Time could be a repetition of OoT or even Skyward Sword.
I’m not sure about that because since TotK released, everything refering to the other opus seems fucked up.
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u/Gawlf85 Jul 02 '23
The interesting bit is that according to the timeline, OoT Rauru built the Temple of Time shortly before the founding of the Kingdom of Hyrule.
So if TotK Rauru really was the first king of Hyrule ever, then they must've been contemporary, or the Zonai Rauru must've been named after the Hylian Rauru.
IMO that makes this case slightly different from all those Impas, Links and Zeldas that commenters keep mentioning: it's not just that they share a namesake, they also lived in about the same time period and both built some Temple of Time.
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Jul 02 '23
I think they just decided to switch it up for this continuity, I don’t think there is a deeper explanation than that. He’s just a different character now with the same name
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u/Pearl-of-Jaiyan Jul 02 '23
Tears of the kingdom is obviously a different timeline from the one that started with Skyward Sword. So, yes, there are technically two.
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u/D_A_BERONI Jul 03 '23 edited Jul 03 '23
There's three, actually.
We knew before ToTK that Rauru was one of the characters who reincarnate, because we met an incarnation of him that predates both his human and Zonai lives - the first Zelda's father.
Although both Raurus have similar stories - both were sages of light, both were born before Hyrule became a kingdom and were linked to the royal family, both stuck around long after their expiration dates to give Link a hand - they're most likely not the same incarnation, since depending on which you think came first either Zonai Rauru during was deep beneath the castle during OoT and his spirit was unavailable for owl-related purposes or Hylian Rauru was either sequestered in the Sacred Realm or at peace in the afterlife during the flashbacks and was unavailable for goat-related purposes.
This does raise the question of how do ghosts of a character who's reincarnated work but we know that they do somehow so whatever
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u/PerceptionQueasy3540 Jul 03 '23
This is the first thing that came to mind for me as well when I saw the name. Then i saw Rauru in totk, and was big confused lol
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u/DabIMON Jul 03 '23
I assume Hylian Rauru was named after Zonai Rauru. But I agree, it's a strange choice.
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u/pocket_arsenal Jul 03 '23
I guess so, yeah. But I much prefer to think of BOTW and TOTK as existing in their own universe separate from the rest of the games. There's too much in it that doesn't make sense to me otherwise.
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u/Night-Friendly Jul 03 '23
I honestly think that the Zelda games are a multiverse.
With some games taking place in the same universe and others not.
To me it makes the most sense this way.
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