What about Ganondorf? He's certainly not a weak little Poe or Moblin.
He had divine, or powerful demonic, relics in each instance, just like Vaati has the Minish Cap and the Light Force.
What I mean is, why couldn't he just be abducting them to stroke his ego? He did take Hyrule Castle as his own in TMC after all.
It's still a complete shift of motivation. Something happened to him, or else he'd of kidnapped Zelda to steal the remaining bits of her Light Force, not just for ego-stroking. Every action Vaati takes may have an ego-stroking element, but they also have a practical purpose for boosting his power.
We're not exactly put in a situation where he'd really be talking to Link though.
It's the same situation where he should be giving witty banter.
How would changing the castle itself alter the sky though? Even then, if Vaati's just good at distorting things, why couldn't the site of the final battle just be incredibly distorted to reflect Vaati's sheer power at that point? If Vaati can create mobius strips and people like Zant can change the world around them, I don't see why the location of the final battle couldn't be created or put together by Vaati.
Either way, the difference is that in the third phase, he's constructing a space from scratch instead of distorting already available space. To me, that suggests something is different.
Ghostly wings typically serve no function though, and angels aren't exactly ghosts either.
I specifically brought up "cartoon angels" for lack of a better term; you know, how in Looney Tunes, when they blow up they get angel wings and a harp?

He's possessing a bird with a piece of fruit; that itself doesn't exactly stick to physical possibility, and Daphnes has magical powers, explaining why he could alter the boat.
What I mean is that Link isn't doing anything with the bird that is physically impossible for the bird to do. It's not comparable. Besides, isolated by itself this would've been a valid point, but it's just one of many, many, many ghostly traits Daphnes possesses, and absolutely nothing implying that he is physically alive.
The Triforce doesn't have to be present for someone to be the master of it; see Ganon in ALttP. Daphnes clearly wanted to stick around and tell the kids one last thing before sending them off.
Ganon kept it in a room just behind him, I wouldn't really consider that proof of anything. Daphnes clearly dismisses the Triforce; even if he did keep possession of it, it wouldn't mean anything one way or another, because he still has Goddess-given right to stay in the living world.
However, Vaati would have just been killed about three minutes ago after giving an angry "I can't lose to a mortal!" speech. His calmness, smug laugh, and the timing of the lightning bolt make it feel more like a "Lol I troll you" moment.
I don't see why they're mutually exclusive, given Vaati's personality and behavior throughout the whole game.
The Triforce also grants wishes, but people lose the Triforce/the Triforce pieces when they die.
The Minish Cap does not "serve you as long as you live" though. We can't assume it works by the same rules as the Triforce whatsoever.
I just figured that Vaati had a magical pocket of his own or something. Also, if the Minish Cap had become one with Vaati and stayed a part of him even after death, why would he lose it after the third phase?
Because he was defeated, duh. This isn't the first time villains burp out relics they've fused with when they die.
Except his body doesn't shatter or break at all; Vaati clearly wills his transformation, changing his body into the flying eye while flaunting his power.
His body is glowing and pixellating while he says this though. I always got the impression that his body was dying, but then he said "fuck that" and willed himself into his second form.
While he is said to be a being of pure hatred and evil, Ganondorf was known as the evil incarnation of darkness in OoT yet wasn't dead, and Sharp, Flat, and possibly Dampe just muddle the whole issue. Also, didn't the description of Poes in the translations thread merely define them as the spirits of people who hated the world up till their deaths?
Also, no other enemy in the series has demonstrated an ability to immediately become a super Poe or something along those lines.
No other enemy has had relics like the Light Force and the Minish Cap when they died; stop trying to weasel out with these shoddy analogies.
Ganondorf being known as an evil incarnation of darkness only exists in the English Translation, it's kind of a Woosleyism; even if it wasn't, he technically IS an evil incarnation of darkness, since he turned himself into a big motherfucking demon.
A spirit that hated the world up to their death and a spirit composed of darkness aren't metaphysically any different from each other.
I'm certainly not trying to be like Lex and I apologize if I sounded similar to him. I just don't see any reason in the game itself to believe that Vaati died before Link defeated his final form. The stuff leading up to that just seems like general "Tremble at my power you filthy peasants/final form/lol jk this is my real final form" villainy.
Either way, there's in-game basis to go either way if we disregard the figurines, and guess what? The figurines said so, and they're canonical.