What is the Spiritual Destiny of Hyrule?

- Analysis
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I. The Overworld Showdown

For so long, a heartbeat has echoed faintly in the depths of the Kingdom. This eerie
sound comes from a corpse that is a mere shadow of what it once used to be... that of
Ganondorf. An ethereal hand is actually stabbing his chest, directly hindering his heart beats
and preventing the blood from fully flowing in the body. Ganondorf's physical envelope is
thus rotting away down there. His life force inhibited, the demon has no choice but to
assume a spectral form. In fact, the Calamity that the heroes and princesses had to face time
and time again is none other than the demon king's soul. Against his will, he has become a
ghost doomed to wander.
As stated by Fujibayashi, the developers were inspired by the vengeful spirits such as
Taira no Masakado for the conception of this Ganon, who now is considered an onryō.
According to Japanese beliefs, it is said that the soul of a person can become separated from
the body when too much grudge and hatred brews, whetever alive or not. Driven by
vengeance, the onryō manifest themselves in the world of the living as true calamities
beyond human control, ingrained in nature to the point they were capable of causing natural
disasters, such as the lightning to strike or the earth to quake.
Even if his physical body is sealed deep underground, the soul of the demon king
remains a threat that has to be expelled, something that the princesses have always done
thanks to their sacred power. Acting both on the body and the soul by separating one from
the other, this seal has been the most effective against Ganon so far. However, if it were to
fail one day, the consequences would be just as devastating... “The history of the royal
family of Hyrule is also the history of the Calamity Ganon; a primal evil that has endured
over the ages.” Rather than trying to understand the threat it is facing for millennia, the
royal family has only been pushing it away, again and again. History repeats itself. And with
it, the demon's grudge keeps growing.
Behind this story lies a fundamental principle of Shintoism by illustrating a vicious
cycle of hatred and revenge. As a demon, Ganon gets all his power from negative feelings.
Anger, greed, resentment and despair feed his soul, like a flame that never stops burning as
long as these emotions persist. Stuck in a spiritual state, Ganon can no longer act on the
world by himself without a physical body. He's desperately trying to find a way back in the
material world each time he returns, but he has always been defeated by the various bearers
of the sealing power before even being able to reach his goal. Ironically, while these many
seals have maintained peace in Hyrule so far, they have also provoked an overwhelming
grudge towards the royal family.
So, when the sacred power wasn't awakened to seal Ganon right in time, he was able
to freely pour out onto Hyrule his hatred he accumulated for so long, a hatred that is so
powerful that it has managed to bridge into the physical world. Physical manifestation of the
emotions that Ganon left behind when he woke up, malice is naturally made out of his
lingering rage: that of finding a new body. Overflowing out of his soul but yet independent
of it, this materialized hatred brought chaos to Hyrule in his place. This gave him the
opportunity to retaliate and thus flip the situation in which he was trapped in a loop.
Because for the first time in an eternity he was able to take the lead and finally reach the one
who is pulling the strings...
Just as Ganon, the Goddess is no longer really part of the material plane. But she still
remains directly involved in the kingdom's affairs. If the demon was forced to wander as a
soul, Hylia herself chose to embrace her divinity as a fully spiritual entity after abandoning
her divine body. It's therefore from the heavens that her soul continues to watch over the
beings of the Light World, who can still call upon her within shrines in her honor. Lacking a
physical body, the Goddess Hylia has no other way of manifesting herself on earth than
through statues in her image, which act as shintai for her soul.
Shintai are objects that serve as vessels for the kami, spirits revered in Shintoism, and
which make them temporarily accessible to human beings for worship. The Goddess Hylia
has thus become a true kami that the peoples of Hyrule are praying to in their own way all
over the country. However, there are three shrines dedicated to her that stand out from the
rest. All of them have a connection with the royal family since the princesses have been
performing a rite there since ancient times. This kind of pilgrimage is reminiscent of the one
made by the various princesses of the Japanese imperial family to the Ise Grand Shrine
where Amaterasu, goddess of the sun and kami of light, is said to be consecrated.
These princesses take on the role of miko and apparently go there to preserve their
alleged bloodline with Amaterasu in order to maintain the divine right of the imperial
family. As shrine priestesses, the role of the miko once was to serve as an intermediary
between humans and kami. The miko were able to establish direct contact with these
spiritual entities, and could enter a state of altered consciousness known as kamigakari,
during which the kami were invited to possess their mortal body and communicate their
divine will.
In a similar way, the princesses of Hyrule have all fully assumed their spiritual duty
and so are considered “royal priestesses”, maintaining their connection with the Goddess
Hylia who is their direct ancestor. Precisely awakened by way of prayers, the sacred power
they possess is based on a spiritual bond with the Goddess: in a state of trance, they would
actually be under kamigakari with Hylia. By giving birth to the royal family, she essentially
gave birth to a line of mortals that she could somehow possess as a kami at the desired time.
Except that it wouldn't be a possession as such, but rather a kind of completeness: the
kamigari would allow the divine soul to find its divine blood back, and Hylia would then be
as one with Zelda. One bringing a body for the other, and the other offering godly powers
for one. A bond that is actually depicted through a mural honoring the two protagonists.
Above them lie two swirls whose singular shape is precisely that of a hitodama. As
manifestations of the human soul in Japanese folklore, these two hitodama respectively
symbolize the souls of Hylia and Zelda. Two souls in harmony within the same heart – that
of the princess – through which the Goddess is able to channel her sacred power, this light
that repels the darkness since time immemorial.
Directly calling upon the Goddess from the heavens, the royal priestesses are actually
shintai for her divine soul. But by acting as such, Hylia becomes accessible on earth during
kamigakari. If it's normally without any risk, this plan had a flaw hundred years ago... While
Ganon as a spirit can no longer do anything on his own on the material plane, he can on the
other hand still interact with what is spiritual. A hundred years ago, he wasn't actually after
Zelda... but rather after the divine soul she was carrying. The princess has only served as a
direct path to the Goddess. Hundred years of fierce battle between Hylia and Ganon would
thus have taken place.
An otherworldly clash that would have allowed the demon to directly confront his
eternal nemesis, who was until then unreachable in the heavens. And even if she managed to
seal him thanks to the help of Link, the fact that Zelda can no longer hear Fi's voice doesn't
bode well: the source of her power, aka the soul of Hylia herself, is in trouble...
Significantly weakened, it is only a matter of time before all the barriers she had placed
against the forces of evil finally collapse one after another, and that everything that was
powered by her blessings gets consumed by darkness.
The fall of Hylia would then offer Ganon the long-awaited opportunity to claim his
body back and thus return to the physical world. His soul roaring out of malice at each of his
returns, it's with the same roar that the demon king is declaring his true comeback. Meaning
that his soul is finally back... into his body.

II. The Spiritual Destiny of Hyrule

Now solely made of pure hatred and grudge with properties never seen before, the
malevolent aura emanating from Ganondorf's corpse is a direct reference to the Shinto
concept of kegare. Kegare is the negative energy emitted from dead, decaying bodies, as
well as all negative vibrations emitted by wicked minds or any ill-will. It's considered a
tangible impurity, a true pollution of body as well as mind capable of causing harm and
chaos to everything in contact with it.
As the living embodiment of this pollution that eats away nature and against which
Shinto is all about fighting, Ganondorf has always attempted to harm the kami in order to
interfere with the natural order of things and weaken the world. Kami are spirits of nature,
and are in fact spiritual personifications of the environment they represent. Therefore, if a
kami was somehow affected, then the location it embodies would suffer the consequences,
and vice versa.
For example, Deku Tree's death led to the decline of the forest, thus allowing
monsters to freely roam there. On another but positive side, clearing Levias from the
parasite that was tormenting him had a beneficial effect on Thunderhead, and good weather
was finally back inside it. Quite naturally, Death Mountain's condition is also related to the
guardian spirit that has watched over it since the dawn of time: Eldin's anger resulted in an
eruption, Valoo's pain in an uncontrollable hot wind, and the return of Volvagia's influence
resulted in a threatening cloud at its top. Except that, this time, the volcano is suddenly
extinct and lava is no longer flowing out of it. Not to mention the curious but significant
absence of the Deku Tree, it seems that the kami have disappeared from Hyrule, taking
away nature with them.
As surprising as it may seem, the world appears to be devoid of any lifeform.
Whereas the previous game emphasized the wildlife, with the sound of animals and nature
constantly echoing all around the world, there is now all but an ominous silence. Everything
that made Breath of the Wild “of the Wild”... seems to have vanished into this twilight.
Source of all life, the sun appears in Shintoism as the greatest reflection of the expression of
Amaterasu's power, the kami who rules over all kami in the skies. When she hid in a cavern
after a tragic event, the whole world was plunged into darkness.
Then deprived of its warming and benevolent light, demons and other ghosts
managed to settle there freely, leading the world to fall into such anarchy that its inhabitants
started to wither away. For if human beings thrive during the day, it is the supernatural that
rules at night. But there exists more dangerous moment than the darkest hours of the night, a
moment when the border between two adjacent worlds becomes so thin that it can easily be
crossed: ōmagatoki (twilight). It's at dusk, when the sun sets and the sky goes dark, that the
world of humans intersects with the otherworld.
 Twilight is the hour when dark things cross over into the living world and evil spirits
wake up to move about freely there. In reality, forces of darkness are able to rise as soon as
the sun is obscured by any means, as soon as its light is at its weakest. As he awoke
precisely at dusk hundred years ago, Ganon knew it was the right time to strike. No wonder
why the castle also falls under a permanent twilight sky the closer we get to where his soul
resides. This would actually be weakening Zelda's ability to hold him any longer as he was
making a new body for himself.
However, if overshadowing the sun makes it possible to dwindle Hylia's power on
earth, it doesn't really eradicate it since She and the sun were never directly targeted... up
until Ganon finally reached Her Grace herself hundred years ago. A sword that she handed
down to the spirit of her chosen hero, an instrument that her bloodline inherited, and a
crown of light, formed by seven hitodama that attest the extent of her spiritual power. Of all
these attributes that were given to her figure in ancient times, this crown remains the very
expression of the power of Hylia's rule through her descendants. As the spiritual ruler and
watcher of this land that bears her name, Hylia is the kami of the Light World.
Therefore, if her golden soul were to be shattered into many pieces, everything she
represents, personifies and embodies would be shattered too: the Light World itself would
be disturbed. On the one hand, the spiritual realm would slowly crumble as it collides with
the physical world. On the other hand, darkness would be able to fully grow on the surface
despite the presence of the sun, its protective light no longer being around. Hyrule would
thus be under ōmagatoki at any time, day or night. Dealing with the lack of technology that
he could once again corrupt to form an army, this more powerful than ever Ganon will most
likely target Hyrule's inhabitants – as the fate of this poor rat might foreshadow the fate that
awaits them all –.
If Shintoism puts so much emphasis on the purity of the body through various rituals
such as misogi, it is because the physical matter, which naturally serves as a support to the
soul, is easily contaminated by kegare. Without Hylia's light that was until now repelling
any evil influence to pollute anyone directly, the living beings that thrive in Hyrule are now
entirely at Ganon's mercy. All of them, without exception. But there still is a way to escape
to his malice. Whether it is getting old, sick, injured, or corrupted, the Zonai have obtained
an immunity to any problem that hits mortal beings through their spiritual enlightenment.
Thus, not only did this allow them to contain the evil as its source for countless years, but it
also gave them the ability to fight the malice inside Link's arm, making him to be as one
with the Spiritual Realm as a consequence.
In fact, Link is now hosting a benevolent spirit that alters his body, giving him
abnormally long fingernails specific to the spirit that was previously sealing Ganondorf. But
if the hero finds himself protected by this spiritual power, what about the rest of the
population? Strange figures appeared everywhere in Hyrule. They all are very reminiscent
of the geoglyphs made by the civilizations that inspired the Zonai tribe. Visible from afar, a
familiar glow emanates from them. As if to show the presence of a strong spiritual energy
similar to what happens on Satori Mountain when the Lord spawns, could these geoglyphs
contain the souls of those who once were supposedly living nearby?
Just like the ancient Sheikah who managed to extract ancient energy in all states of
matter, the Zonai have been successful in mastering the essence of soul itself, which can
notably be found in its natural state in luminous stones. The Goddess Hylia didn't randomly
choose them as her new servants. Since they draw their power from stones that precisely
glow when there is no light, the Zonai naturally appear as the only ones than can defend a
world deprived of its sun.
 Even if the luminous stones can be found all other Hyrule, there exists a place where
they are particularly abundant. As an obvious reference to the many legends of the
underworld, that famous realm of the dead that would be located under the earth, the depths
of the kingdom hide the largest deposits of these stones in crystal form that are in fact
believed to be... “souls of the dead”.
Set up by the blows of fate and the will of Hylia, the vanishment of the Sheikah
technology opened up to the surface this underground region. As shrines and towers were
most likely acting until then as barriers between the world above and the world below, their
sudden absence will quite logically cause both worlds to intersect.
The Zonai were well aware of the kingdom's fate, and would have deliberately sealed
the luminous stones' power underground, waiting for the right moment to unleash it. A plan
that would have rescued all living beings from the surface by spiriting them away, thus
preventing any corruption from Ganon.
Hyrule is now at the border between the otherworld and that of the living, frozen in a
state between life and death. Mirroring the events of Twilight Princess, the lamentation of
the kami that embodies this world now are echoing in this dusk. Mourning for her spiritual
crown, source of the heart-warming light that illuminated all people on earth, Hylia sheds
the tears... of the kingdom.

III. The Legendary Dragon

Since the dawn of time, the history of Hyrule has been intertwined with its many
legends. At first glance, they often are insignificant. But when the time comes to fulfill a
destiny, these legends always reveal themselves to be prophetic. The three dragons servants
of the Goddess all curiously share one and the same legend in their respective description:
“the dragon ascends to the heavens as the sun begins to set”. This precision is very
intriguing given the fact that all three creatures can be seen roaming the sky at any time, day
or night. To tell the truth, wouldn't this legend actually be... a prophecy?
While the surface seems to show no sign of life other than that of monsters, it is as
close as possible to Hylia in the sky that we get to see the remaining locations that appear to
be spared from the malice that is eating the kingdom away. Even if her soul is weakened,
her benevolent light still manages to shine faintly on a few islands on which some flesh and
bones birds remain safe and sound. A landscape very reminiscent of the heavenly realm of
the gods.
However, it is only a matter of time until her light fades away forever. In Shintoism,
the strength of the kami depends on human adoration. As long as people worship them with
reverence and pray with heartfelt devotion, the kami's spiritual energy will grow. Otherwise,
the shrines dedicated to them may end up falling to evil spirits. Forgotten by everyone, the
great fairies lost their strength after many years to the point they were reduced to this state.
But, Hylia's fate looks all the more grim.
Without her light to repel the darkness, she had to come up with a fail safe plan in
order to spare the beings from the surface. But now that they are gone, there is no longer
anyone down there to pray to her. A vicious circle that could doom the Goddess forever, and
with her... the Light World itself...
As the last flesh-and-blood Light Worlder, Link will embark on his greatest quest.
The same way he was able to restore the Great Fairies to their former glory by showing
them his dedication with Force-fueled rupees as offerings, he will have to bring Hylia's light
back to her through his devotion. On his path to enlightenment, he will find a Construct,
which bears a curious symbol of shimenawa. Intended to absorb any negative vibration in
order to protect what is sacred, shimenawa are also used in Shinto shrines in order to ring
the suzu bell to which they are attached. The sound of it is said to be vivifying for the kami,
allowing their worshipers to call upon them to hear their prayers.
Whereas the ancient Sheikah prepared a trial to restore the bond between Link and Fi
so that he could now hear her voice in order to understand Hylia's messages, the Zonai have
been chosen to act as the last mediators for the Goddess. They are the only ones in this
world who can still maintain her weakening light that is slowly fading away while waiting
for the hero, taking on the role of these Shinto bells that he would ring to call upon Hylia.
Truth is Link isn't walking through these heavenly ruins solely to purify himself. His
soul together as one with the Master Sword's, he has no other choice but to help the Goddess
so that she could once again bless the blade and thus free the hero from the malice. But by
reviving Hylia's soul, he'll also lead the souls of the beings from the surface towards their
deliverance. The hero's salvation... will bring the salvation of the entire kingdom. The skies
would therefore be the key to saving the surface. And the only one who can fulfill this quest
is Link, granted with a power that allows him to safely explore both worlds. The toga he
now wears has been specifically made for him in ancient times as a prophesied tunic for the
hero destined to explore this sacred land.
For that purpose, it explicitly features a dragon symbol as well as a pattern of little
triangles that can also be found on his new shield. This triangle pattern is better known as
the uroko, a famous Japanese motif thought to have protective and sacred qualities as they
are meant to represent scales... of a dragon. Link is well known for his great courage – a
virtue that the Zonai precisely chose to represent by the dragon figure – and is now wearing
stuff that mimic the characteristics of this mythical creature.
In the end, wouldn't he be the dragon from the legend who, as twilight falls on
Hyrule, will have to ascend to the heavens in order for the sun to rise again?