Wind Waker Ganondorf REALLY sticks the landing, I think most people just misread him. He's older, yes, but he isn't wiser. He just seems so because he's calmer and less immediately violent in his ambitions. But compare how he describes his actions to his actual actions in Ocarina of Time. He's just justifying himself. He's had time to brood and stew in his rage and hatred and has re-written his own history to make himself look like the aggrieved party. But as soon as he is denied for a 3rd time, his mask breaks, and all he has is his rage, which causes him to lash out and try to murder children. Children, importantly, who didn't succeed in stopping him - it was the old King of Hyrule who did that. Upon losing, his justifications all went out the window, and all he had was that rage and hatred he always had, and the need to lash out against anything when denied what he believes he is owed.
I really think a future Ganondorf could lean into him at least trying (on-screen) to make the Gerudo's lives better, but then descending more and more into power for its own sake as his plot progresses.
I firmly believe Ganondorf is more compelling as an ambitious and flawed man who initially wanted what was best for his people, while still harboring personal ambitions for himself, but as the reincarnation of Demise, it was inevitable that curse would warp his personality little by little until he merely became Demise reborn. A tragic monster, but a monster nonetheless, and as much a victim of the cursed cycle as Link and Zelda.
@@E3AloeLi he said nothing of redemption. Just a man who inevitably becomes demise incarnate. I personally wouldn't mind he's pretty bad to start but has a streak of good when he is younger, but life experience and koume and kotake raising him harshly stamp out what good he does have. Remember in oot there a 380-400 year history with koume/kotake that's unknown. Given a king is born every 100 years, they would've been in a position of power (most likely) to raise them or "advise" them to commit heinous acts, with the sole intention to sending them on dark paths. Hell they could've known about demise and intentionally manipulated and tried to mold previous kings into being a proper vessel for demise in attempts to bring him back. Ganondorf was their success. Remember, their big thing in oot was brainwashing.
He's not a reincarnation of Demise. Demise is the source of evil, and Ganondorf is evil. Every character who is evil have Demise to thank for their evilness.
Friendly reminder for commenters that Demise's hatred can manifest in multiple forms besides Ganondorf. Vaati, Bellum, and even Malladus also follow the cycle of hatred chasing the Hero's Spirit and Hylia's descendants.
Good vid :) IMO a great reason for Ganon's intense hatred would be some kind of betrayal. Maybe Ganon believed he was deserving to be a great leader, and when his people (and loved ones) rose in opposition to him, he felt betrayed and gave into hatred. Additionally you could have Ganon suffer a tragic loss because of his friends' "betrayal".
I think Ganon can have sympathetic REASONS without necessarily being sympathetic himself. Give him the "good intentions that set him down the road to hell" is what I'm saying. Anyway, thank you for making a statement on how to improve Ganon. He definitely deserves better. I personally think he should have "POV cutscenes" that take place from his POV instead of focusing on Link (or Zelda) all the time.
He should be written as Megatron from the Transformers franchise by having a humble background at first, only to become ruthless and powerhungry as time goes on and he leads the Gerudo into becoming a dominant tribe within the Zelda world until it turns him into a powerful warlord with his eyes set on remaking a chaotic world in his subjective perception of peace and perfection.
I love Ganondorf, my perfect depiction is a man that had a corruption arc. He was good but has lost his way and has fully embraced his tie to demise. Then he can be smug and I can have the human part of him I want.
I wouldn't say Ganondorf was good. The Gerudo were thieves. It can be argued they might have been assassins as well based on their designs. Not to mention, they have evil witches in their ranks.
@@Lwiis64 Yeah, but it is noted in Ocarina of time that the gerudo robbed and killed to survive but ganondorf robbed and killed becuase he enjoyed and he preyed upon women and children. Maybe a recon, add Molduga and those sort of monsters into ganondorf's story and basically his kingly duty is to kill and/or tame those things, like we see in the ganondorf assault scence where the gerudo has the molduga under their control. The monster hunting drives to seek more power and gave him a addiction to violence.
Ganondorf was not born as hatred and malice incarnate. He was born a regular flawed person like anyone else, who's extremely ambitious and hungry for power. The triforce of power amplifies this and he gives way to absolute corruption.
@@MauricioLSB Demise was utterly destroyed in SS with his remains absorbed by the Master Sword. Ganondorf is the incarnation of Demise's hatred, not his tool or puppet. He is the current demon king. It has never even been implied that Ganondorf is Demise's tool.
While I have a lot of issues with TotK Ganondorf I did actually feel like he came close to justifying his goal of a world of darkness. Cause in TotK its pretty clear that Ganondorf respects power, he believes that if you are powerful you should use it, that peace makes the world weak and pathetic and he overall enjoys defeating strong enemies. I don't think TotK Ganondorf is perfect as he has basically no backstory and I think his immense power feels unjustified in the story, but personalitywise he fits someone that would want a world of constant war and struggle.
Ganondorf in TotK is basically a social Darwinist. Which is not a bad starting point on paper (not exactly original either), but unfortunately he was just executed horribly.
The best way to make a villain compelling is to give them a motive that players might actually see as a viable answer to the current problem. Take for instance Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear Rising. Raiden ALMOST agrees with him at the end, even getting to shake Armstrong's hand with a pat on the back (but ultimately decides to fight him to the death). That's because Armstrong has compelling motives that people might genuinely think are right from a certain perspective. Now how do we do this for Ganondorf?
1. Actually let there BE a current problem: show (on-screen) that Hyrule itself is corrupt and leaving the Gerudo out to dry. 2. Make Ganondorf want to put himself on top to challenge the corruption... at first. He would eventually descend into pure megalomania with no care for anyone but himself.
@quillion3rdoption In the Japanese version, I saw someone make a case for the way he spoke about Hyrule being weak, as if they let themselves go soft from all this peace-time. That might be a good place to start. Ganondorf has power and he believes that he can be a stronger ruler to bring prosperity to the Kingdom (and mostly himself)
@@Boomblox5896 It would work better if the "weak" Hyruleans were fat corrupt nobles sitting in their estates using their authority to exploit everyone. Fire Emblem Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn do just that.
The biggest dropped ball in all of writing Ganondorf was not letting him fully engage with Breath of the Wild’s meta narrative, and, in turn, throwing all of that out the window in Tears. So much of Breath of the Wild’s flashbacks are spent on Zelda feeing like a failure in the series’ grand narrative. It is known that other Links and Zeldas have existed, it is known that Ganon has been slain before, and Zelda struggles with her ability to live up to the legend. Imagine an intelligent Ganondorf when that is the throughline. A Ganondorf who knows he’s been beaten over and over again. Who knows destiny is just screwing with him at this point. In some incarnations, Ganon even remembers the past games. It can go in so many different directions. Pure hatred for those that keep stopping him. Maybe a sense of familiarity and even revelry, as if he’s encountering old friends again. Or maybe he’s utterly sick of the cycle, but resigned to playing his role. I’d have taken any of that more introspective Ganondorf over the generic conqueror Tears gave us.
Maybe that's why I'm so interested in there also being successors to Ghirahim in the same way that Ganondorf has always been a successor to Demise. No matter what form he takes, Ganon always winds up battling Link with some kind of weapon, either being weapons he created/manifested himself like in Ocarina of Time or taken from others like in Twilight Princess. The weapons themselves could be more sympathetic than their own master, having been forced to battle the Master Sword and lose with every single cycle in existence. Why not have it reach a point where the most recent sword demon wants the curse of Demise to be broken, for the cycle to end, even more than Ganondorf ever will. They could even turn back on Ganon with that same betrayal, instead fighting alongside Link and Zelda.
I would like the reason for Ganondorf being so hellbent on the conquest of Hyrule to be him believing in the law of the strongest. He believes himself to be the most powerful in all of Hyrule therefore he should rule. It perfectly fits with the character we know without braking any established lore.
Maybe his inability to lead the Gerudo should be both the source of his insecurity and obsession with strength, and the reason why his minions are monsters instead of soldiers and people he leads
Ganondorf felt more empty and like a non-character than he ever has before in TotK, and there's a lot more to why that is than you covered in this video. In every other game he appeared in, he was cunning and he had presence. In both Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker, you (Link) actually have a confrontation with him midway through the game, and he completely wrecks you. In Ocarina of Time, he then reveals that he tricked you into giving him what he wanted. In Wind Waker, he reveals that he knew you'd go for the Master Sword, so he took the liberty of killing the two sages that keep it powered up. That's not all he does in Wind Waker though. He's actively trying to stop you at every turn. You don't see him destroy Greatfish Isle, but you see the aftermath, and then he plunges the entire world into an endless night that terrified me as a kid. In Twilight Princess, he makes Zant do all the hard work. While Ganondorf himself doesn't appear until the very end, he still feels imposing when he does. He has a four stage boss fight with some pretty lengthy cutscenes between each phase. You do the first two phases in a grand throne room, and then he destroys the entire castle and kills Midna. He feels powerful and regal. Even in Hyrule Warriors, you come face-to-face with him before he's even the main antagonist and his plan is decently cunning. Contrast all that with Ganondorf in TotK. You meet him once at the beginning of the game and then he disappears into a dark hole for the rest of the game. Link doesn't have a mid-game confrontation with him and he doesn't do anything directly over the course of the game. He spends the entirety of the game in the fantasy equivalent of a healing tank. And what's his plan? In the past, he feigns loyalty to the king like he did in Ocarina of Time, but it never goes anywhere and the way he achieves his goal has nothing to do with his false fealty. In the present, his plan is... get the Gorons addicted to drugs? Cover Zora's Domain in mud? The stuff he does to the Gerudo and Rito is pretty threatening, but it doesn't seem to advance any sort of larger goal. In Wind Waker, he destroyed Greatfish Isle to try to stop you. In TotK, he messes with the four tribes because... he's evil, I guess. For some reason his lack of a goal really stood out to me in TotK in ways it never did in any of the previous games, and I think it's because he lacks his intimidating presence until the final battle and his clever mind. He has no plan, he doesn't do anything until you come to him, his boss fight, while great in a gameplay sense, takes place in the most boring arena you've ever fought Ganondorf in, and he abandons his entire goal at the last second so there can be an awesome dragon battle. More than ever, he felt like he was just there to be a final boss.
Well......Depending on how you play the game, you can have a mid-game confrontation with him in the throne room after defeating the Phantom Ganons he has stationed in Hyrule Castle. He appears to Link and the Sages, and shows them his plans using his stone before leaving to go back to his hole.......Not that it necessarily FIXES him, if you hold to the notion he needs fixing.......There's no denying it, though.....The way they wrote him in this game seemed to be "being evil just for the sake of being......evil" versus some of their better offerings......
Spot-on analysis! 👍 Just to add on what you said about how TOTK Ganondorf doesn't really have an overall plan, aside from being evil to be evil, the crises he causes are more like minor inconveniences than an actual problem (aside from the Gerudos and I suppose the Rito). In BOTW the stakes were higher because the Divine Beats were threatening the villages, the champions had all been killed, the guardians had turned against their creators and Zelda was battling Calamity Ganon by herself and there's no telling how much longer she can keep going since she'd already been at it for 100 years. In other games like OOT and WW, you see for yourself the danger of Ganondorf's power and it gives you more incentive to stop him. This is especially true in WW where he is able to destroy Greatfish Isle and create the Endless night while not even at full power. From a player's perspective, if he can do all that with a large portion of his power still sealed, what can he do at full power? Back to TOTK, yea we see how powerful he is when breaks the Master Sword, disables Link's arm, lifts Hyrule Castle and spreads the gloom, but after that, then what? His overall presence is basically gone from the game until it's time for the final battle. While the player knows he's still out there, none of the other characters aside from Link and Zelda know that he exists. And the crises he causes only affect 4 regions of Hyrule. The people in the other towns are rather oblivious to the events going on elsewhere as opposed to OOT and WW where Ganondorf's actions affect all of Hyrule and The Great Sea respectively
That’s a good idea. Male Gerudo who’s not Ganon. But make him not evil and make Ganondorf not show up. If Ganon showed up one would have to die or they’d have to fight and that’d be boring.
I like that. We have a a bunch of stories where Gannon gets sealed away, now I am imagining a man who would have been Gannon, but is not because Demise is already locked up in a past incarnation. The entire game the player is expecting him to go evil, and he just doesn’t.
Sauron I think is a good model. Only a few contrarians like to roll with "Sauron did nothing wrong." Originally Sauron was a smith. And he loved ordering things just right to make the world a better place. What drew him to evil was being able to enact his plans without having to follow pesky rules and regulations. And then people kept getting in his way instead of helping. And so he had to crush them, and do all the evil stuff he does. But his purpose went from "order things to make the world a better place" to "order things" to "get power to order things" to "get power" and so anything that wasnt him in charge had to be destroyed. but he'd been at it so long that he basically was incapable of actually ordering things in a way that wasn't brutal cruel and terrifying.
What would make a sympathetic Ganondorf intersting to me would be leaning on the rebirth/curse concept. In actuality, we've only seen one or two iterations of Ganondorf that survive into other games from time schenanigans with being sealed away and revival rituals. What I want to see is a new birth of Ganondorf where he struggles with the hatred inside him instead of choosing it. Imagine, a young boy born to the Gerudo, told by his family and loved ones that he is the destined male Gerudo born only once every 100 years and that it is his responsibility to be great for his people. While these pressures are being placed on him, he keeps feeling these violent impulses and intrusive thoughts that make him want to be cruel to people, but he doesn't understand why. Doesn't this sound like a character with a complex and troubled backstory just waiting to be explored? Imagine if Link and Ganondorf were born in the same generation for once, instead of a man looking down on a boy, what if they were contemporary rivals coming into conflict from seeking different goals in their journeys across Hyrule. What if there was a game in which Link's manifestation of the Triforce of Courage wasn't just to be brave enough to fight monsters, but to be brave enough to help someone else fight their own demons? To be brave enough to befriend someone destiny and the goddesses tell you is pure evil? With a pure heart, the Triforce can grant the purest of wishes, and what purer wish is there than to save a friend even from themself? This is why Demise's curse persists, because of hate after all. Hate can only be defeated by love, and that kind of sentimental ideal is what the Zelda games have leaned on for years. I want a sympathetic Ganondorf who isn't sure that Power is what he wants, because I want a compelling conclusion to Demise's curse. And because of multiple timelines, you can still have your cake after eating it and bring back big dumb pig Ganon whenever you want.
I often tend to view Ganondorf under two different lenses. When he is Ganondorf, he is being corrupted by Demise's hatred, and driven towards the will to dominate, rule and conquer. But he's nonetheless still "human." He still has a world he cares about, in his own messed up kind of way. He doesn't usually seem to enjoy the idea of the world just being destroyed. He's more of a Sauron archetype to Demise's Morgoth archetype. Ganondorf is characterized by a will to rule and dominate, not a will to destroy everything. Which doesn't do much to render Ganondorf less horrible. He may delude himself into thinking he had reasons. Or maybe they're not delusions at all. Maybe that was the original reason why he pursued power. But that doesn't matter. Whether he ever had any good intentions or not, is irrelevant, because he will inevitably be corrupted by Demise's curse. But what remains important to Ganondorf is, as mentioned, the human element. He always has a sense of dignity about him. A sense of being above certain things. He's generally more "polite", formal, respects challenges, seems to enjoy doing more "human" things in general (even if it's just playing the organ.) The other lens however, is Ganon, which to me tends to be a representation of Demise's corruption fully guiding his actions. And it's no coincidence that whenever Ganondorf is transformed into Ganon, he's at his most destructive, vile, cruel, selfish and inhuman. But at the same time, they usually tend to be his least intelligent, most regressed incarnations in some respects. As Ganondorf often tends to be a greater threat when he has his intelligence in good order. There's only really one case, I believe, where Ganon has outshined Ganondorf in terms of accomplishments, and that would be Calamity Ganon. But then again, that's hardly a "ordinary" Ganon. Either way, I think it's important for any incarnation of Ganondorf to have a human element to them. Otherwise, they just become a sort of generic dark lord. And note, that does not mean that Ganondorf should be sympathetic. Although I personally disagree that he *can't* be sympathetic. I imagine some incarnations might be. Others not so much. Zelda has always been in a good position to reimagine itself throughout multiple different releases. It's practically the one thing you can expect from Zelda. Reimagining. I don't see why Ganondorf has to be fundamentally irredeemable or unsympathetic in each and every single one. What's important, is that he remains the antagonist, and fundamentally a force in opposition to Link and Zelda - and that even if his goals might be sympathetic or understandable, they must ultimately remain wrong. And there's a big difference between being sympathetic or understandable, and being right or wrong. Ganondorf tends towards conquest and domination. Even if his destruction might have, what is by him considered to be good or justifiable reasons, that does not make him right. I feel like that's what a "sympathetic" Ganondorf should be. A person who might genuinely believe in what he says, but is demonstrably and clearly wrong.
I think you're playing kinda fast and loose with your definition of "he shouldn't be a sympathetic villain." You go on to talk about how his backstory could be explored and we'd understand why he does what he does. ...That's a sympathetic villain.
Which, by the way, I would fully enjoy. I love Wind Waker Ganondorf, and I've honestly found him pretty boring since then. Troll face in TotK made me laugh, I guess.
I don't actually hate the idea of a morally gray or perhaps even good Ganondorf. The trend of making overly sympathetic villains does get on my nerves, but I just feel like The Legend of Zelda has already told the same story so many times that I wouldn't mind seeing a new twist on it. For example a game where you play as a young Ganondorf fighting against a corrupt king of Hyrule might be really fun.
I actually like how mysterious they keep him. We know almost nothing. The story that one gerudo male is born every 100 years could EASILY be a lie made up by Twinrova, to explain a male Gerudo, because the Person of Demise wanted to stay in a male form, but he liked those dusky desert thieves and their fiery red hair just like his. We haven't seen any other male Gerudo, and three major games have showed us a fully flesh-out Gerudo civilization with no males in sight, not even any mention of any in their backstories (unless one of the eight 'heroines' who turned out to be male was a gerudo. they didn't say) The more they build up Ganon, the more he seems to just be a _force._ he's like Galactus, he always comes back, and the universe acts like it needs him. When they tried sealing him away for 10,000 years, the outbreak destroyed civilization worse than ever before except maybe that time when the goddesses and king wiped all the people out with a flood
@KairuHakubi actully they are trans males pretending to be women, how else would there even be a civilization women need get pregnant for anyone to be born and beckome part of civilization.
I don’t think that Ganondorf has to be The Demon King, Ganon or Demise reborn, and it would fit with the world of the franchise if Ganondorf is a traditional/cultural name the same way Zelda is. Zelda is the name of every princess of Hyrule, and Ganondorf could be the name of every male Gerudo. There are many ways they could tell a more compelling Ganondorf story without him being completely evil the whole time; unfortunately I do think he would have to have a tragic story, which would be quite fitting for a character with many legends telling him that he’s likely going to be the bad guy, and him working against that. Whether he ultimately is overtaken by the Ganon persona or if another exists as Ganon and kills Ganondorf (maybe a moment of sacrifice to protect Link) I think it would be a lot more impactful if there was a struggle against legend/prophecy before it happens. I frankly don’t really care about Ganondorf at all when everyone knows not to trust him from the start and then woah the evil man did evil things. They could also have Ganondorf exist as the holder of the Triforce of Power in a timeline where the villain is not an incarnation of Demise. It would make sense if he tries to help and people won’t let him because of their fears of him potentially being Ganon, and he would have to find ways to help as more of a guide or advisor instead, and also leading the Gerudo.
Honestly, I disagree. Ganondorf could very well be a sympathetic, just not redeemable. It's not like he's born out of malice or anything, he's chosen by his fate just like Link and Zelda are. I also think Ganondorf is a weak Villain more often than not. Wind Waker made an attempt at making him into a character but it's just not there yet. I would like to see a well written Ganondorf, one day.
Imo I see OOT Ganondorf and TotK Ganondorf as two wholly separate characters. TotK Ganondorf grew up in the highly militaristic ancinet Gerudo tribe and as the rare male was crowned King at an early age. Being a ling by default and living in a group of people who values power and strength above all else, he came to assume that the world and all in it belonged to whoever is strongest so he detested things he found to be weak. Meanwhile OOT Ganondorf grew up centuries later in a time in which the Gerudo were weak and isolated, as a king by birth he wanted what as best for his people and believed they deserved better, but he was also a powerhungry prick who was being manipulated by his surrogate mothers Kotake and Koume who were followers of the last Ganondorf and held said previous Ganondorfs same ideals about power, so that manipulation at an early age of OOT Ganondorf already makes him more compelling and interesting.
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Wind Waker Ganondorf REALLY sticks the landing, I think most people just misread him. He's older, yes, but he isn't wiser. He just seems so because he's calmer and less immediately violent in his ambitions.
But compare how he describes his actions to his actual actions in Ocarina of Time. He's just justifying himself. He's had time to brood and stew in his rage and hatred and has re-written his own history to make himself look like the aggrieved party.
But as soon as he is denied for a 3rd time, his mask breaks, and all he has is his rage, which causes him to lash out and try to murder children. Children, importantly, who didn't succeed in stopping him - it was the old King of Hyrule who did that.
Upon losing, his justifications all went out the window, and all he had was that rage and hatred he always had, and the need to lash out against anything when denied what he believes he is owed.
I really think a future Ganondorf could lean into him at least trying (on-screen) to make the Gerudo's lives better, but then descending more and more into power for its own sake as his plot progresses.
Great take (ww the goat)
Wind Waker Ganondorf is a liar. He gets the Triforce several times, and he never uses it to move the Gerudo out of the desert
I firmly believe Ganondorf is more compelling as an ambitious and flawed man who initially wanted what was best for his people, while still harboring personal ambitions for himself, but as the reincarnation of Demise, it was inevitable that curse would warp his personality little by little until he merely became Demise reborn. A tragic monster, but a monster nonetheless, and as much a victim of the cursed cycle as Link and Zelda.
As much as I love redemption arcs. For a villain like him I want a corruption arc for him
@@E3AloeLi he said nothing of redemption. Just a man who inevitably becomes demise incarnate. I personally wouldn't mind he's pretty bad to start but has a streak of good when he is younger, but life experience and koume and kotake raising him harshly stamp out what good he does have. Remember in oot there a 380-400 year history with koume/kotake that's unknown. Given a king is born every 100 years, they would've been in a position of power (most likely) to raise them or "advise" them to commit heinous acts, with the sole intention to sending them on dark paths. Hell they could've known about demise and intentionally manipulated and tried to mold previous kings into being a proper vessel for demise in attempts to bring him back. Ganondorf was their success. Remember, their big thing in oot was brainwashing.
@@ShadowSkyX Twinrova being Demise worshippers is an idea I've come up with too.
He's not a reincarnation of Demise. Demise is the source of evil, and Ganondorf is evil. Every character who is evil have Demise to thank for their evilness.
@@stuffz1757 Demise is the source of MONSTERS, not of evil. Demise isn't causing evil Light Worlders like Ganon, Twinrova, and Vaati to be evil.
Friendly reminder for commenters that Demise's hatred can manifest in multiple forms besides Ganondorf. Vaati, Bellum, and even Malladus also follow the cycle of hatred chasing the Hero's Spirit and Hylia's descendants.
Good vid :)
IMO a great reason for Ganon's intense hatred would be some kind of betrayal. Maybe Ganon believed he was deserving to be a great leader, and when his people (and loved ones) rose in opposition to him, he felt betrayed and gave into hatred.
Additionally you could have Ganon suffer a tragic loss because of his friends' "betrayal".
I think Ganon can have sympathetic REASONS without necessarily being sympathetic himself. Give him the "good intentions that set him down the road to hell" is what I'm saying.
Anyway, thank you for making a statement on how to improve Ganon. He definitely deserves better. I personally think he should have "POV cutscenes" that take place from his POV instead of focusing on Link (or Zelda) all the time.
He should be written as Megatron from the Transformers franchise by having a humble background at first, only to become ruthless and powerhungry as time goes on and he leads the Gerudo into becoming a dominant tribe within the Zelda world until it turns him into a powerful warlord with his eyes set on remaking a chaotic world in his subjective perception of peace and perfection.
I love Ganondorf, my perfect depiction is a man that had a corruption arc. He was good but has lost his way and has fully embraced his tie to demise. Then he can be smug and I can have the human part of him I want.
I wouldn't say Ganondorf was good. The Gerudo were thieves. It can be argued they might have been assassins as well based on their designs. Not to mention, they have evil witches in their ranks.
@@Lwiis64 Yeah, but it is noted in Ocarina of time that the gerudo robbed and killed to survive but ganondorf robbed and killed becuase he enjoyed and he preyed upon women and children. Maybe a recon, add Molduga and those sort of monsters into ganondorf's story and basically his kingly duty is to kill and/or tame those things, like we see in the ganondorf assault scence where the gerudo has the molduga under their control. The monster hunting drives to seek more power and gave him a addiction to violence.
Ganondorf was not born as hatred and malice incarnate. He was born a regular flawed person like anyone else, who's extremely ambitious and hungry for power. The triforce of power amplifies this and he gives way to absolute corruption.
Plus he is demise's tool
@@MauricioLSB Demise was utterly destroyed in SS with his remains absorbed by the Master Sword. Ganondorf is the incarnation of Demise's hatred, not his tool or puppet. He is the current demon king. It has never even been implied that Ganondorf is Demise's tool.
History is full of people who sought power for a noble (if often misguided) reason, but fell in lust with the quest for power itself.
While I have a lot of issues with TotK Ganondorf I did actually feel like he came close to justifying his goal of a world of darkness. Cause in TotK its pretty clear that Ganondorf respects power, he believes that if you are powerful you should use it, that peace makes the world weak and pathetic and he overall enjoys defeating strong enemies. I don't think TotK Ganondorf is perfect as he has basically no backstory and I think his immense power feels unjustified in the story, but personalitywise he fits someone that would want a world of constant war and struggle.
Ganondorf in TotK is basically a social Darwinist. Which is not a bad starting point on paper (not exactly original either), but unfortunately he was just executed horribly.
@@XanderVJ Ashnard in Fire Emblem and Senator Armstrong in Metal Gear Rising are both pretty much how I'd imagine a "better done" TotK Ganondorf.
The best way to make a villain compelling is to give them a motive that players might actually see as a viable answer to the current problem. Take for instance Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear Rising. Raiden ALMOST agrees with him at the end, even getting to shake Armstrong's hand with a pat on the back (but ultimately decides to fight him to the death). That's because Armstrong has compelling motives that people might genuinely think are right from a certain perspective. Now how do we do this for Ganondorf?
1. Actually let there BE a current problem: show (on-screen) that Hyrule itself is corrupt and leaving the Gerudo out to dry.
2. Make Ganondorf want to put himself on top to challenge the corruption... at first. He would eventually descend into pure megalomania with no care for anyone but himself.
@quillion3rdoption In the Japanese version, I saw someone make a case for the way he spoke about Hyrule being weak, as if they let themselves go soft from all this peace-time.
That might be a good place to start. Ganondorf has power and he believes that he can be a stronger ruler to bring prosperity to the Kingdom (and mostly himself)
@@Boomblox5896 It would work better if the "weak" Hyruleans were fat corrupt nobles sitting in their estates using their authority to exploit everyone.
Fire Emblem Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn do just that.
The biggest dropped ball in all of writing Ganondorf was not letting him fully engage with Breath of the Wild’s meta narrative, and, in turn, throwing all of that out the window in Tears.
So much of Breath of the Wild’s flashbacks are spent on Zelda feeing like a failure in the series’ grand narrative. It is known that other Links and Zeldas have existed, it is known that Ganon has been slain before, and Zelda struggles with her ability to live up to the legend.
Imagine an intelligent Ganondorf when that is the throughline. A Ganondorf who knows he’s been beaten over and over again. Who knows destiny is just screwing with him at this point. In some incarnations, Ganon even remembers the past games.
It can go in so many different directions. Pure hatred for those that keep stopping him. Maybe a sense of familiarity and even revelry, as if he’s encountering old friends again. Or maybe he’s utterly sick of the cycle, but resigned to playing his role.
I’d have taken any of that more introspective Ganondorf over the generic conqueror Tears gave us.
Maybe that's why I'm so interested in there also being successors to Ghirahim in the same way that Ganondorf has always been a successor to Demise. No matter what form he takes, Ganon always winds up battling Link with some kind of weapon, either being weapons he created/manifested himself like in Ocarina of Time or taken from others like in Twilight Princess. The weapons themselves could be more sympathetic than their own master, having been forced to battle the Master Sword and lose with every single cycle in existence. Why not have it reach a point where the most recent sword demon wants the curse of Demise to be broken, for the cycle to end, even more than Ganondorf ever will. They could even turn back on Ganon with that same betrayal, instead fighting alongside Link and Zelda.
I would like the reason for Ganondorf being so hellbent on the conquest of Hyrule to be him believing in the law of the strongest. He believes himself to be the most powerful in all of Hyrule therefore he should rule. It perfectly fits with the character we know without braking any established lore.
Maybe his inability to lead the Gerudo should be both the source of his insecurity and obsession with strength, and the reason why his minions are monsters instead of soldiers and people he leads
Ganondorf felt more empty and like a non-character than he ever has before in TotK, and there's a lot more to why that is than you covered in this video. In every other game he appeared in, he was cunning and he had presence. In both Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker, you (Link) actually have a confrontation with him midway through the game, and he completely wrecks you. In Ocarina of Time, he then reveals that he tricked you into giving him what he wanted. In Wind Waker, he reveals that he knew you'd go for the Master Sword, so he took the liberty of killing the two sages that keep it powered up. That's not all he does in Wind Waker though. He's actively trying to stop you at every turn. You don't see him destroy Greatfish Isle, but you see the aftermath, and then he plunges the entire world into an endless night that terrified me as a kid. In Twilight Princess, he makes Zant do all the hard work. While Ganondorf himself doesn't appear until the very end, he still feels imposing when he does. He has a four stage boss fight with some pretty lengthy cutscenes between each phase. You do the first two phases in a grand throne room, and then he destroys the entire castle and kills Midna. He feels powerful and regal. Even in Hyrule Warriors, you come face-to-face with him before he's even the main antagonist and his plan is decently cunning.
Contrast all that with Ganondorf in TotK. You meet him once at the beginning of the game and then he disappears into a dark hole for the rest of the game. Link doesn't have a mid-game confrontation with him and he doesn't do anything directly over the course of the game. He spends the entirety of the game in the fantasy equivalent of a healing tank. And what's his plan? In the past, he feigns loyalty to the king like he did in Ocarina of Time, but it never goes anywhere and the way he achieves his goal has nothing to do with his false fealty. In the present, his plan is... get the Gorons addicted to drugs? Cover Zora's Domain in mud? The stuff he does to the Gerudo and Rito is pretty threatening, but it doesn't seem to advance any sort of larger goal. In Wind Waker, he destroyed Greatfish Isle to try to stop you. In TotK, he messes with the four tribes because... he's evil, I guess. For some reason his lack of a goal really stood out to me in TotK in ways it never did in any of the previous games, and I think it's because he lacks his intimidating presence until the final battle and his clever mind. He has no plan, he doesn't do anything until you come to him, his boss fight, while great in a gameplay sense, takes place in the most boring arena you've ever fought Ganondorf in, and he abandons his entire goal at the last second so there can be an awesome dragon battle. More than ever, he felt like he was just there to be a final boss.
Well......Depending on how you play the game, you can have a mid-game confrontation with him in the throne room after defeating the Phantom Ganons he has stationed in Hyrule Castle. He appears to Link and the Sages, and shows them his plans using his stone before leaving to go back to his hole.......Not that it necessarily FIXES him, if you hold to the notion he needs fixing.......There's no denying it, though.....The way they wrote him in this game seemed to be "being evil just for the sake of being......evil" versus some of their better offerings......
Spot-on analysis! 👍
Just to add on what you said about how TOTK Ganondorf doesn't really have an overall plan, aside from being evil to be evil, the crises he causes are more like minor inconveniences than an actual problem (aside from the Gerudos and I suppose the Rito). In BOTW the stakes were higher because the Divine Beats were threatening the villages, the champions had all been killed, the guardians had turned against their creators and Zelda was battling Calamity Ganon by herself and there's no telling how much longer she can keep going since she'd already been at it for 100 years. In other games like OOT and WW, you see for yourself the danger of Ganondorf's power and it gives you more incentive to stop him. This is especially true in WW where he is able to destroy Greatfish Isle and create the Endless night while not even at full power. From a player's perspective, if he can do all that with a large portion of his power still sealed, what can he do at full power?
Back to TOTK, yea we see how powerful he is when breaks the Master Sword, disables Link's arm, lifts Hyrule Castle and spreads the gloom, but after that, then what? His overall presence is basically gone from the game until it's time for the final battle. While the player knows he's still out there, none of the other characters aside from Link and Zelda know that he exists. And the crises he causes only affect 4 regions of Hyrule. The people in the other towns are rather oblivious to the events going on elsewhere as opposed to OOT and WW where Ganondorf's actions affect all of Hyrule and The Great Sea respectively
That’s a good idea. Male Gerudo who’s not Ganon. But make him not evil and make Ganondorf not show up. If Ganon showed up one would have to die or they’d have to fight and that’d be boring.
I like that. We have a a bunch of stories where Gannon gets sealed away, now I am imagining a man who would have been Gannon, but is not because Demise is already locked up in a past incarnation. The entire game the player is expecting him to go evil, and he just doesn’t.
Sauron I think is a good model. Only a few contrarians like to roll with "Sauron did nothing wrong."
Originally Sauron was a smith. And he loved ordering things just right to make the world a better place. What drew him to evil was being able to enact his plans without having to follow pesky rules and regulations. And then people kept getting in his way instead of helping. And so he had to crush them, and do all the evil stuff he does.
But his purpose went from "order things to make the world a better place" to "order things" to "get power to order things" to "get power" and so anything that wasnt him in charge had to be destroyed. but he'd been at it so long that he basically was incapable of actually ordering things in a way that wasn't brutal cruel and terrifying.
What would make a sympathetic Ganondorf intersting to me would be leaning on the rebirth/curse concept. In actuality, we've only seen one or two iterations of Ganondorf that survive into other games from time schenanigans with being sealed away and revival rituals. What I want to see is a new birth of Ganondorf where he struggles with the hatred inside him instead of choosing it.
Imagine, a young boy born to the Gerudo, told by his family and loved ones that he is the destined male Gerudo born only once every 100 years and that it is his responsibility to be great for his people. While these pressures are being placed on him, he keeps feeling these violent impulses and intrusive thoughts that make him want to be cruel to people, but he doesn't understand why. Doesn't this sound like a character with a complex and troubled backstory just waiting to be explored?
Imagine if Link and Ganondorf were born in the same generation for once, instead of a man looking down on a boy, what if they were contemporary rivals coming into conflict from seeking different goals in their journeys across Hyrule. What if there was a game in which Link's manifestation of the Triforce of Courage wasn't just to be brave enough to fight monsters, but to be brave enough to help someone else fight their own demons? To be brave enough to befriend someone destiny and the goddesses tell you is pure evil?
With a pure heart, the Triforce can grant the purest of wishes, and what purer wish is there than to save a friend even from themself? This is why Demise's curse persists, because of hate after all. Hate can only be defeated by love, and that kind of sentimental ideal is what the Zelda games have leaned on for years. I want a sympathetic Ganondorf who isn't sure that Power is what he wants, because I want a compelling conclusion to Demise's curse. And because of multiple timelines, you can still have your cake after eating it and bring back big dumb pig Ganon whenever you want.
I often tend to view Ganondorf under two different lenses. When he is Ganondorf, he is being corrupted by Demise's hatred, and driven towards the will to dominate, rule and conquer. But he's nonetheless still "human." He still has a world he cares about, in his own messed up kind of way. He doesn't usually seem to enjoy the idea of the world just being destroyed. He's more of a Sauron archetype to Demise's Morgoth archetype. Ganondorf is characterized by a will to rule and dominate, not a will to destroy everything. Which doesn't do much to render Ganondorf less horrible. He may delude himself into thinking he had reasons. Or maybe they're not delusions at all. Maybe that was the original reason why he pursued power. But that doesn't matter. Whether he ever had any good intentions or not, is irrelevant, because he will inevitably be corrupted by Demise's curse.
But what remains important to Ganondorf is, as mentioned, the human element. He always has a sense of dignity about him. A sense of being above certain things. He's generally more "polite", formal, respects challenges, seems to enjoy doing more "human" things in general (even if it's just playing the organ.)
The other lens however, is Ganon, which to me tends to be a representation of Demise's corruption fully guiding his actions. And it's no coincidence that whenever Ganondorf is transformed into Ganon, he's at his most destructive, vile, cruel, selfish and inhuman. But at the same time, they usually tend to be his least intelligent, most regressed incarnations in some respects. As Ganondorf often tends to be a greater threat when he has his intelligence in good order. There's only really one case, I believe, where Ganon has outshined Ganondorf in terms of accomplishments, and that would be Calamity Ganon. But then again, that's hardly a "ordinary" Ganon.
Either way, I think it's important for any incarnation of Ganondorf to have a human element to them. Otherwise, they just become a sort of generic dark lord. And note, that does not mean that Ganondorf should be sympathetic. Although I personally disagree that he *can't* be sympathetic. I imagine some incarnations might be. Others not so much. Zelda has always been in a good position to reimagine itself throughout multiple different releases. It's practically the one thing you can expect from Zelda. Reimagining. I don't see why Ganondorf has to be fundamentally irredeemable or unsympathetic in each and every single one.
What's important, is that he remains the antagonist, and fundamentally a force in opposition to Link and Zelda - and that even if his goals might be sympathetic or understandable, they must ultimately remain wrong. And there's a big difference between being sympathetic or understandable, and being right or wrong. Ganondorf tends towards conquest and domination. Even if his destruction might have, what is by him considered to be good or justifiable reasons, that does not make him right. I feel like that's what a "sympathetic" Ganondorf should be. A person who might genuinely believe in what he says, but is demonstrably and clearly wrong.
Why is Ganondorf evil? Because he's the avatar of Demise, raised by two evil witches
I think you're playing kinda fast and loose with your definition of "he shouldn't be a sympathetic villain." You go on to talk about how his backstory could be explored and we'd understand why he does what he does. ...That's a sympathetic villain.
Which, by the way, I would fully enjoy. I love Wind Waker Ganondorf, and I've honestly found him pretty boring since then. Troll face in TotK made me laugh, I guess.
I don't actually hate the idea of a morally gray or perhaps even good Ganondorf. The trend of making overly sympathetic villains does get on my nerves, but I just feel like The Legend of Zelda has already told the same story so many times that I wouldn't mind seeing a new twist on it. For example a game where you play as a young Ganondorf fighting against a corrupt king of Hyrule might be really fun.
I actually like how mysterious they keep him. We know almost nothing. The story that one gerudo male is born every 100 years could EASILY be a lie made up by Twinrova, to explain a male Gerudo, because the Person of Demise wanted to stay in a male form, but he liked those dusky desert thieves and their fiery red hair just like his. We haven't seen any other male Gerudo, and three major games have showed us a fully flesh-out Gerudo civilization with no males in sight, not even any mention of any in their backstories (unless one of the eight 'heroines' who turned out to be male was a gerudo. they didn't say)
The more they build up Ganon, the more he seems to just be a _force._ he's like Galactus, he always comes back, and the universe acts like it needs him. When they tried sealing him away for 10,000 years, the outbreak destroyed civilization worse than ever before except maybe that time when the goddesses and king wiped all the people out with a flood
@KairuHakubi
actully they are trans males pretending to be women, how else would there even be a civilization women need get pregnant for anyone to be born and beckome part of civilization.
I feel like they could fix quite a lot by committing to more than 20 minutes of actual story and not making 5 identical cutscenes in the process.
I don’t think that Ganondorf has to be The Demon King, Ganon or Demise reborn, and it would fit with the world of the franchise if Ganondorf is a traditional/cultural name the same way Zelda is. Zelda is the name of every princess of Hyrule, and Ganondorf could be the name of every male Gerudo. There are many ways they could tell a more compelling Ganondorf story without him being completely evil the whole time; unfortunately I do think he would have to have a tragic story, which would be quite fitting for a character with many legends telling him that he’s likely going to be the bad guy, and him working against that. Whether he ultimately is overtaken by the Ganon persona or if another exists as Ganon and kills Ganondorf (maybe a moment of sacrifice to protect Link) I think it would be a lot more impactful if there was a struggle against legend/prophecy before it happens. I frankly don’t really care about Ganondorf at all when everyone knows not to trust him from the start and then woah the evil man did evil things.
They could also have Ganondorf exist as the holder of the Triforce of Power in a timeline where the villain is not an incarnation of Demise. It would make sense if he tries to help and people won’t let him because of their fears of him potentially being Ganon, and he would have to find ways to help as more of a guide or advisor instead, and also leading the Gerudo.
Honestly, I disagree. Ganondorf could very well be a sympathetic, just not redeemable. It's not like he's born out of malice or anything, he's chosen by his fate just like Link and Zelda are.
I also think Ganondorf is a weak Villain more often than not. Wind Waker made an attempt at making him into a character but it's just not there yet. I would like to see a well written Ganondorf, one day.
Imo I see OOT Ganondorf and TotK Ganondorf as two wholly separate characters. TotK Ganondorf grew up in the highly militaristic ancinet Gerudo tribe and as the rare male was crowned King at an early age. Being a ling by default and living in a group of people who values power and strength above all else, he came to assume that the world and all in it belonged to whoever is strongest so he detested things he found to be weak. Meanwhile OOT Ganondorf grew up centuries later in a time in which the Gerudo were weak and isolated, as a king by birth he wanted what as best for his people and believed they deserved better, but he was also a powerhungry prick who was being manipulated by his surrogate mothers Kotake and Koume who were followers of the last Ganondorf and held said previous Ganondorfs same ideals about power, so that manipulation at an early age of OOT Ganondorf already makes him more compelling and interesting.
Ganondorf is not a reincarnation of Demise, he's a guy who was just evil enough to become a Demon King.
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