MuraRengan
Banned via Warnings
For the longest time, in the Zelda series, Ganondorf has played the villain. However, in nearly all his games he is seen as just your average maniacal villian bent on domination of Hyrule. He's never really much had a personality or a good motive for wanting to take over Hyrule, which would make him a pretty boring villain. But, recently I started thinking about the Windwaker Ganon, and I realized that this version of Ganon sheds a lot of light on Ganon's life, personality, and his motive for wanting to take over Hyrule (well only in the linear story starting from OoT to Phantom Hourglass) and if you actually examine his words in two speeches given in Windwaker, it kinda hints that he actually had a good motive behind his ambitions.
Ok, lets first look at this speech given shortly before the last boss fight. Ganon has kidnapped Zelda/Tetra, and she is under a sleeping spell. Ganon has read her dreams.
Do you sleep still? Wait! Do not be so hasty, boy... I can see this girl's dreams... Oceans... Oceans... Oceans... Oceans... Oceans as far as the eye can see. They are vast seas... None can swim across them... They yield no fish to catch... What did the King of Hyrule say?... That the gods sealed Hyrule away? And they left behind people who would one day awaken Hyrule? How ridiculous... So many pathetic creatures, scattered across a handful of islands, drifting on this sea like fallen leaves on a forgotten pool... What they can possibly hope to achieve? Don't you see? All of you... Your gods destroyed you!
First of all, you need to know that this game goes on in the distant future from OoT, the game makes this clear many times in the initial telling of the Legend that this Ganon is the same Ganon that Link defeated and sent to the Sacred Realm and specifically when you meet the King of Red Lions. Now, imagine being in Ganondorf's shoes. He was sent to the Sacred Realm by the seven sages. At this time, the kingdom of Hyrule still existed. However, now the entire land of Hyrule is not sunken under the ocean, and now on the above ground, civilization exists on only scattered islands. The islands are small and inhabit only a handful of people each and the ocean is very vast, meaning not much travel. Now, we don't know exactly when Ganon escaped from the Sacred Realm, but it was probably long after Hyrule was sunken by the gods. Clearly expressed in this quote, Ganon does not like the new world, he feels that civilization's progress is inhibited by the endless oceans and the small communities living on simple islands. He clearly prefers the old Hyrule.
Also, you can see from this note that Ganon is not overly bent to destruction. When Link first approaches him, he tells him to wait, and not to be hasty so that he won't awaken Zelda. First of all, it's amazing that Zelda's still alive, because Ganon makes it perfectly clear in a later quote that he could've simply killed both of them and taken the triforce. But the fact that he didn't means that in resurrecting the old Hyrule, he's not thinking only of himself, he's thinking of all the people, and even of Zelda and Link. So he clearly thinks that reviving the old Hyrule would be a change for the better for everyone, and considering his consideration for his enemies, he probably wasn't that bad of a guy.
Now, on to the next quote. In this one, Ganon sheds light not only on his ambitions, but on his experiences with his country way back in the OoT timezone.
My country lay within a vast desert. When the sun rose into the sky, a burning wind punished my lands, searing the world. And when the moon climbed into the dark of night, a frigid gale pierced our homes. No matter when it came, the wind carried the same thing... Death. But the winds that blew across the green fields of Hyrule brought something other than suffering and ruin. I coveted that wind, I suppose.
Ok, for me, when I first read this quote, I thought the reference to "my country" was a reference to Hyrule, because I just didn't think hard enough. Ganon is making a comparison to another country, the one the he was the king of: Gerudo Valley. Recall, people who've played OoT, that Gerudo Valley was in a desert, to this must be the counrty that Ganon was talking about in the beginning of the quote. In OoT, it is said that Ganondorf is the King of the Gerudos. In the game itself, you may not understand how literal thia statement was. Ganon actually WAS a king who ruled over a country. So all this time the villain Link's been fighting is royalty. But one must wonder why a king would turn to evil, in the game OoT the Gerudos are not evil, ony Ganon is. If we look to the quote, we see that Gerudo Valley was not a very prosperous place to live. A "burning wind" shows that the days in the desert were unbearably hot and dry. A "frigid gale" shows that the nights were unbearably cold. Now notice the context in the real world, all of our deserts have hot dry days, and severly cold nights, so in making this game the script writers really did a good job of using a minor feature from OoT, Gerudo Desert, made years before Windwaker, to give Ganon some history and a reason to want to take over Hyrule. Also, in this quote Ganon emphasized that these unbearable conditions brought death to many of the inhabitants of Gerudo Valley. So Ganon's subjects, the people that he ruled over, were dieing, and he, as the king, had to do something. Ganon also reflects on how the winds of Hyrule did not bring death, and he states how he coveted that wind. So, Ganon's entire plan to take over Hyrule was devised because he wanted to save the people of his country from death. While this may be an extreme means of doing so, it shows that Ganon had genuine love and concern for his people, so his mindset wasn't evil at all, however; his actions, in relation to the people of Hyrule, were. But there was not much else he could do to save his people, and it was his kingly duty to try to save his people, so his only choice was to take over Hyrule, or die. And, in all truth, I can't say that I blame him.
Now lets examine Ganon's motive in Windwaker. We have the entire notion that Ganon dislikes that endless ocean that now replaces Hyrule. He knows that though the people may be content, if he were to bring back Hyrule that the people's lives would be much better. He feels this way because he remembers how prosperous the land of Hyrule was back when it was still at the surface. However, his ambition would change everyone's lives very drastically. Currently, water covers 98% of the entire world, and he intends to remove all of it. That's a BIG change, which is probably the only thing wrong with his plan. This kind of change would destroy people's entire way of life, however, the game itself never mentions this. All in all, Ganon's motive is justified in my eyes, he didn't intend on killing anyone, and was thinking of the entire world in his goal. However, some could see him as someone stuck in the past, for holding on to a centuries' old ambition that has already failed once, but really, how interesting can life BE on an island. Inevitably, I think the resurrection of Hyrule would've been for the best for everyone.
Ok, lets first look at this speech given shortly before the last boss fight. Ganon has kidnapped Zelda/Tetra, and she is under a sleeping spell. Ganon has read her dreams.
Do you sleep still? Wait! Do not be so hasty, boy... I can see this girl's dreams... Oceans... Oceans... Oceans... Oceans... Oceans as far as the eye can see. They are vast seas... None can swim across them... They yield no fish to catch... What did the King of Hyrule say?... That the gods sealed Hyrule away? And they left behind people who would one day awaken Hyrule? How ridiculous... So many pathetic creatures, scattered across a handful of islands, drifting on this sea like fallen leaves on a forgotten pool... What they can possibly hope to achieve? Don't you see? All of you... Your gods destroyed you!
First of all, you need to know that this game goes on in the distant future from OoT, the game makes this clear many times in the initial telling of the Legend that this Ganon is the same Ganon that Link defeated and sent to the Sacred Realm and specifically when you meet the King of Red Lions. Now, imagine being in Ganondorf's shoes. He was sent to the Sacred Realm by the seven sages. At this time, the kingdom of Hyrule still existed. However, now the entire land of Hyrule is not sunken under the ocean, and now on the above ground, civilization exists on only scattered islands. The islands are small and inhabit only a handful of people each and the ocean is very vast, meaning not much travel. Now, we don't know exactly when Ganon escaped from the Sacred Realm, but it was probably long after Hyrule was sunken by the gods. Clearly expressed in this quote, Ganon does not like the new world, he feels that civilization's progress is inhibited by the endless oceans and the small communities living on simple islands. He clearly prefers the old Hyrule.
Also, you can see from this note that Ganon is not overly bent to destruction. When Link first approaches him, he tells him to wait, and not to be hasty so that he won't awaken Zelda. First of all, it's amazing that Zelda's still alive, because Ganon makes it perfectly clear in a later quote that he could've simply killed both of them and taken the triforce. But the fact that he didn't means that in resurrecting the old Hyrule, he's not thinking only of himself, he's thinking of all the people, and even of Zelda and Link. So he clearly thinks that reviving the old Hyrule would be a change for the better for everyone, and considering his consideration for his enemies, he probably wasn't that bad of a guy.
Now, on to the next quote. In this one, Ganon sheds light not only on his ambitions, but on his experiences with his country way back in the OoT timezone.
My country lay within a vast desert. When the sun rose into the sky, a burning wind punished my lands, searing the world. And when the moon climbed into the dark of night, a frigid gale pierced our homes. No matter when it came, the wind carried the same thing... Death. But the winds that blew across the green fields of Hyrule brought something other than suffering and ruin. I coveted that wind, I suppose.
Ok, for me, when I first read this quote, I thought the reference to "my country" was a reference to Hyrule, because I just didn't think hard enough. Ganon is making a comparison to another country, the one the he was the king of: Gerudo Valley. Recall, people who've played OoT, that Gerudo Valley was in a desert, to this must be the counrty that Ganon was talking about in the beginning of the quote. In OoT, it is said that Ganondorf is the King of the Gerudos. In the game itself, you may not understand how literal thia statement was. Ganon actually WAS a king who ruled over a country. So all this time the villain Link's been fighting is royalty. But one must wonder why a king would turn to evil, in the game OoT the Gerudos are not evil, ony Ganon is. If we look to the quote, we see that Gerudo Valley was not a very prosperous place to live. A "burning wind" shows that the days in the desert were unbearably hot and dry. A "frigid gale" shows that the nights were unbearably cold. Now notice the context in the real world, all of our deserts have hot dry days, and severly cold nights, so in making this game the script writers really did a good job of using a minor feature from OoT, Gerudo Desert, made years before Windwaker, to give Ganon some history and a reason to want to take over Hyrule. Also, in this quote Ganon emphasized that these unbearable conditions brought death to many of the inhabitants of Gerudo Valley. So Ganon's subjects, the people that he ruled over, were dieing, and he, as the king, had to do something. Ganon also reflects on how the winds of Hyrule did not bring death, and he states how he coveted that wind. So, Ganon's entire plan to take over Hyrule was devised because he wanted to save the people of his country from death. While this may be an extreme means of doing so, it shows that Ganon had genuine love and concern for his people, so his mindset wasn't evil at all, however; his actions, in relation to the people of Hyrule, were. But there was not much else he could do to save his people, and it was his kingly duty to try to save his people, so his only choice was to take over Hyrule, or die. And, in all truth, I can't say that I blame him.
Now lets examine Ganon's motive in Windwaker. We have the entire notion that Ganon dislikes that endless ocean that now replaces Hyrule. He knows that though the people may be content, if he were to bring back Hyrule that the people's lives would be much better. He feels this way because he remembers how prosperous the land of Hyrule was back when it was still at the surface. However, his ambition would change everyone's lives very drastically. Currently, water covers 98% of the entire world, and he intends to remove all of it. That's a BIG change, which is probably the only thing wrong with his plan. This kind of change would destroy people's entire way of life, however, the game itself never mentions this. All in all, Ganon's motive is justified in my eyes, he didn't intend on killing anyone, and was thinking of the entire world in his goal. However, some could see him as someone stuck in the past, for holding on to a centuries' old ambition that has already failed once, but really, how interesting can life BE on an island. Inevitably, I think the resurrection of Hyrule would've been for the best for everyone.
![Эикельманн [РУС]](/data/avatars/l/153/153661.jpg?1415225120){kind=avatar}
