During the holidays, we are republishing some selection feature from the past 12 months. A mix of talking points, interviews, opinions, etc. from NL staff and contributors, you’ll find our usual blend of thoughtfulness, expertise, caring frivolity, nostalgia and – of course – enthusiasm for all things Nintendo. Happy holidays!
We finally found the title of Breath of the Wild 2 (which means we can stop calling it Breath of the Wild 2) along with a brand new trailer in the latest Nintendo Direct – and it’s called Tears of the Kingdom, which has raised a lot of theories .
You know what that means, Zelda fans — it’s time for us to take our hats off of speculation again and dissect this trailer for every little piece of Zelda lore we can find. see.
We’re not going to lie here – the trailer isn’t available lots of going on. This will be difficult. But nevertheless, we will persevere! There must be something intriguing in that footage, right?
Also, make sure to browse through Your early pre-order option for the gameand check out our guide that compiles all the information about TOTK we have so far:
Kingdom Tears: Breakdown Trailer
owl guy
At this point, it’s pretty safe to say that birds and flying are two of the themes of Tears of the Kingdom. The first shot of the trailer looks like an owl. Now, we know that owls are very important in Zelda lore – Kaepora Gaebora is the most important, and his owl Sword in the sky Headmaster Gaebora, Zelda’s father in a time before Zelda was even a Princess.
Can we tell anything about this birdman from the trailer? Oh yes. Oh yes, we can. More on that later. But for now, let’s just say that whoever they are, they seem very important – they put on a lot of fancy clothes, perhaps royalty, a god or some other important role. there.
And… it looks like they have the Sheikah mark on their faces. Honestly, who knows what that means at this point. We’re not even sure Nintendo fully knows what Sheikah is anymore… but In Breath of the WildThe Sheikah is an ancient mystical race whose technology is buried under Hyrule, ready to awaken for the sake of its chosen hero (you). So this owl guy (if he’s Sheikah, and he doesn’t just have pretty lashes) is from the past. Understood.
(Some say that Owl Lad is a woman. Honestly, it’s hard to say which way.)
Moblins, Bokoblins, and Malice (oh my!)
Our next shot is what looks like a petroglyph of a fight between your standard Zelda enemies – Bokoblins and Moblins – accompanied by a spreading swirl of Malice, the hot pink villain burns from BOTW represent Ganon’s growing power over the region. Not much to say about this, except that they all carry weapons – Bokoblins have batons and Moblins seem to have some sort of double scythe.
Rito War?
On the other side of this war are people who look like Rito soldiers – the birders from BOTW – which is not surprising, since this game seems to be focused on the sky, with a lot of it. bird pictures. Interesting to note that they all wield shields that look a lot like Hylian Crest (albeit greatly simplified), without the Triforce.
But wait! That crest actually has its own name – it’s Goddess Badgefirst appeared in Sword in the sky, and then BOTW on Spirit Orbs. The Goddess Badge represents the goddess Hylia and the Loftwings that the Skyloftians fly around. This could place Tears of the Kingdom in the Skyward Sword era, as Hylian Crest (with Triforce) does not appear in timeline until Ocarina of time (afterward cap and Four Swords).
And don’t forget that Zelda To be Hylia reincarnated. Perhaps these Ritos are her soldiers?
Who died?
At the center of this war image is a fallen Rito soldier. They don’t have shields or swords, but that could be for the sake of simplicity. Who are they? Are they the first to fall? That is very important? We just don’t know.
There’s actually another person even further to the right, who appears to have a shield (but not a sword).
Magatama! Oh… Amber Relic!
Around the previous Owl are seven small spirals, similar to Magatama in Great lawyer (and Japanese historyof course) — a regular appearance in jewelry and relics, which may represent some sort of spiritual, religious or ceremonial purpose.
But we’ve also seen these before in Zelda. Called the Amber Relic and Twilight Relic, these comma-shaped materials are used to upgrade Link’s equipment in Skyward Sword. The former can be found everywhere and the latter is found only in the Silent Realm, an area designed to test Links, accessible only to Heroes.
“You have one amber relic! It’s an amber gem. No one knows why it has this shape.”
“You have one sunset ruins! This item is similar in appearance to the Amber Relic, but very different. It can only be found in certain places.”
It is interesting that there are seven such around the owl. We’ve seen the number seven in Zelda games before — most notably the Seven Sages, but there’s also the Seven Maidens in BOTW, heroines who are the divine guardians of the Gerudo race, shown represented by seven colossal statues — and a secret eighth also represents the heroine “erased from history”, though no one knows why. These maidens are also said to be descendants of seven sages, including Princess Zelda .but this story only appears in A path to the past and Adventures of the Four Swords.
Okay, the story of the seven heroines is great… but maybe that’s irrelevant here. On the other hand, the sages, perhaps to be relevant, appropriate. We already have the subject of owls, so it wouldn’t be surprising to find out that the seven relics surrounding the owl represent sages, especially since Rauru AKA Kaepora Gaebora was one of the sages in Ocarina of Time.
And maybe… those are the typical “tears” of the kingdom. Hmm.
We will not speculate on what this means. You will have to enter… INVESTMENT AREA for that (it’s on page three).
Zelda is not okay
Oh my God. Oh no. Zelda is completely horizontal.
“But wait – how do you know it’s Zelda?”
Have you ever seen any other women represented in the historical artwork of these games? No, Tetra, Hylia, Din, Farore and Nayru do not count. They are all the same person, more or less.
“Fair enough.”
Thank you. To continue: Oh no! Zelda’ is horizontal. That seems less than ideal. Of course, we don’t know why she’s horizontal, but maybe it’s something bad – you can see some threads of Malice crawling up underneath her.
Large door
Everyone loves the moment you come out of the cave at BOTW and when the sun is shining and it’s so cool. Good! Time for one of those moments, except for the big doors.
The remarkable thing here is the badge on the door – is it snakes? It looks like two chickens with very long necks. Might as well be a dragon, even though BOTW already has No.3 dragon, representing the three goddesses of the Triforce. This circle snake theme also appears later in the logo. It is probably important.
Color combination
Breath of the Wild is blue and green – like the sky and grass – with blue and orange accents to showcase Sheikah technology. But TOTK has a very yellow color, mixed with teal and pink (which can represent good and evil).
(Hey, fun fact: blue -> teal and orange -> pink are basically just a few rotations on the color wheel. What does it mean? Well, if we want to get really silly. about this, we could say that it represents the evolution of technology or the world in some way, or even a time loop that repeats over and over again. Maybe they just want a new color.)
The yellow palette makes the world feel a bit weird, as if it’s somehow dying — and honestly, since it seems like these islands in the sky have been forcefully separated from Hyrule, so We are not surprised. All that grass is probably dead.
Link’s Lucky Hand
It’s still there. It’s still unlucky. You can read more about our hand theory right here.
We are far from done! Go to page two for more info from the trailer, then to page three for the speculative area…
