30 replies to this topic

[ganonlord6000]

I know it's been awhile since there's been any real action here, but I came across something the other day that I thought was rather interesting. It seems that someone over at ZU translated the Japanese ending of SS. There are a few differences from the NOA version which seem pretty crucial, especially regarding the curse Demise cast.

Ningen yo! Ware wo ryousgasehi, tsuyoki ningen yo!!
Human! Having been able to overcome me... You are a strong human!!
Extraordinary. You stand as a paragon of your kind, human.

... Migoto da. Daga oboeteoke. Kore wa owari de wa nai...
Splendid. But, remember... This is not over...
You fight like no man or demon I have ever known. Though this is not the end.

Ware no zouo wa... Mazoku no noroi wa... Yuukyuu no toki no hatemade rinne wo egaku.
My hatred... The curse of the Demon Tribe... They shall continously go on reincarnating until the end of all times.
My hate...never perishes. It is born anew in a cycle with no end!

Wasurena! Kurikaesu no da!!
Do not forget it! I shall repeat it!!
I will rise again!

Omaetachi wa... Megami no chi to yuusha no tamashii wo motsumonodomo wa towa ni kono jubaku kara nogarerarenu!
You people shall... You people who possess the blood of the Goddess and the soul of hero shall... forever be unable to escape from this curse!
Those like you... Those who share the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero... They are eternally bound to this curse.

Kono zouo to onnen ga... Sono konke ga kisamara to tomo ni chinerareta yami no umi wo eien ni mogaki samayoi tsuzukeru no da!!
This hatred and grude... Its evolution shall forever painfully wander across this blood-stained "Dark Sea" along with you lowlifes forever!!
An incarnation of my hatred shall ever follow your kind, dooming them to wander a blood-soaked sea of darkness for all time!

The NOA version of the curse did not seem to very clear whether it was referring to Ganon or all of the villains in the series, but I think this explains it. When will they stop leaving out key details like that?

Other parts that have been translated include the scene when Demise was revived and when Link goes to confront him. They can be found here.

Edited by ganonlord6000, 10 November 2012 - 02:27 PM.

[MikePetersSucks]

I don't think it really makes a very critical difference. Ganon is sometimes called the King of the Demon Tribe, and it's not entirely clear if beings like Bellum are part of it, etc.

Perhaps, though, it can be taken to mean that not only will his hate incarnate as Ganondorf, but basically all demons will reincarnate. You can't drive the Moblins to extinction and whatnot, so Hyrule just had to learn to put up with them.

Also, random sleep deprivation-born thought. If Ganondorf is an incarnation of the hate from Demise's human form, can Beast Ganon, Bellum, and the other non-human eldritch abominations be representative of Demise's sealed beast form?

[ganonlord6000]

True, but it does seem to fit to the series overall better than the American version. In a way, it sounds like Ganon is one part of the curse while the demon tribe is where the curse really lies.

[joeymartin64]

I'm guessing "grude" is supposed to be "grudge."

And it does seem a tiny bit more inclusive, referring to the "evolution" of the Demon Tribe's hatred or whatever (which could include pretty much everything, as MPS said), rather than singling out Ganondorf as "an incarnation."

[Fëanen]

Looking at how things unwind in Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, I'd say this makes more sense. In that setting Ganondorf, the Triforce and all related things are by all accounts sealed for good, but a mere century later Malladus comes around and causes grief for the next Link and Zelda, just like Vaati did before Ganondorf was around. Basically, I'm in agreement that the curse involves all the Demon Tribe being eternal enemies of good.

[Masamune]

This makes me think of Agahnim's Tribe of Evil comment:

After all, the legendary Hero cannot defeat us, the tribe of evil, when we are armed with the Power of Gold.
Though I'm not sue what that looks like in the original translation.

[Snow]

This makes me think of Agahnim's Tribe of Evil comment:

After all, the legendary Hero cannot defeat us, the tribe of evil, when we are armed with the Power of Gold.
Though I'm not sue what that looks like in the original translation.

Yeah, the "tribe of evil" is also referred to as 魔族 (Mazoku) in the Japanese version of ALttP. The term shows up every now and then in a couple of games in the series, actually.

[Masamune]

Very interesting. Which is what they are referred to above. So this group certainly has a long running presence in the series.

[SOAP]

I guess that finally solves the mystery of what the "Tribe of Evil" really is. They're all the villians and their followers throughout the series united by Demise's hatred for Hylia and her people. So apparently it's not a random thing that these villains appear but rather they're are all part of Demise's curse on the Hylians. Not that isn't what we kinda figured anyways but nice to see it backed up by ingame evidence.

[MikePetersSucks]

Basically. The term "Tribe" is sort of misleading, since it's not like the Mazoku in Japanese mythology are an orgganized group that associates with each other; merely that all the monsters in myth that aren't the ghosts of humanity or similar are descended from the same wicked deities.

Of course in the Shinto family tree of the universe, mankind and youkai are cousins. Watch it turn out that Hylia and Demise were twins with three mommies and Demise is just butthurt that he wasn't the favorite.

[Masamune]

One might well suspect that Hylia and Demise were meant to govern light and darkness. Of course, given the Zelda series, I doubt either of them will ever be touched on again.

[SOAP]

I'd like to think of them as being as siblings/lovers, which seems to be a common thing amongst deities. In addition to that, Hylia and Demise could be something like the Adam and Eve of the Hylian race, but Demise fell from grace somehow and now has a grudge against his former wife and their children. Kinda like the greek god Cronus was with his children the Olympians. Masa is right though. Nintendo loves throwing new bits of mythology that suits the story, only to never touch up on it again. But it's fun to think about.

[MikePetersSucks]

The Hylians being the descendants of divinity would go a long way towards explaining why they're a chosen people without making the Goddesses preferential dicks. It also makes Hylia's reincarnation into the Hylian people much more elegant since reincarnation in the Zelda-verse seems to prefer blood connections when applicable.

[SOAP]

The Hylians being the descendants of divinity would go a long way towards explaining why they're a chosen people without making the Goddesses preferential dicks. It also makes Hylia's reincarnation into the Hylian people much more elegant since reincarnation in the Zelda-verse seems to prefer blood connections when applicable.

It wouldn't be out the question. Japanese mythology often traced the literal lineages of emperors back to the gods and Nintendo likes throwing in Japanese mythology in Zelda. It could work. They are Hylians after all, so it makes sense that they're all blood decendants of Hylia, with royal family having the purest line. Suggesting they're also descendants of Demise might be harder to swallow though. I just think it'd be kinda interesting if Demise's Hatred were somehow born out of love that went wrong. Maybe Demise and Hylia had different ideas on how to "parent" their offspring race.

[MikePetersSucks]

The Hylians are Hylia's single-parent children, and the Mazoku are Demise's.

What are the race they conceived together? The Gerudo.

[Masamune]

This would make sense if Hylia herself conceived with a human man and started a new race from there. From them they created the Hylian race. Over time, we see this bloodline weaken, but it always stays particularly strong in the royal family. This, of course, only makes sense. Royalty goes out of their way to preserve bloodlines. So eventually the goddess's bloodline and unique traits (the pointy ears) were absorbed by integrating with humans. Of course, purely genetics wise, this might not make sense. But to borrow, say, a Star Trek examples, Klingon traits stay strong and dominantly obvious after a few generations of cross breeding. And, well, she's a goddess. Of course her descendants would carry that trait for hundreds of generations.

What are the race they conceived together? The Gerudo.

Now I imagine Demise is just pissed because he and Hylia kept having daughters. Over and over and over. "Did you bear me daughters, when I asked for sons?"

[MikePetersSucks]

This would make sense if Hylia herself conceived with a human man and started a new race from there. From them they created the Hylian race.

This isn't even necessary. Deities can just give birth to kids on their own, and those children needn't be full deities.

[Masamune]

Well fine, if you want to get technical! It just seemed a more convenient explanation for a declining bloodline.

[MikePetersSucks]

....Aside from there being other races the Hylians can breed with, like ordinary humans?

[Masamune]

I suppose I prefer the idea because it makes humans seem less random. In the Hyrule mythos as we have it, humans are just these guys that don't seem to really matter, but at some point crowd out the Hylians. They make up the 'mundane' element common in fantasy tropes. The spread of humans is always a bad thing in these stories. But it doesn't seem like that big a deal if Hylians are just a particular subset of humans. Then they aren't so much 'replaced' as they are just a fading breed.

To put it in Lord of the Rings terms, it's the difference of comparing elves to men or Númenóreans to regular humans. In either case, the Hylians are special. Just in a different context.

[MikePetersSucks]

What I'm suggesting in this scenario, though, is that humans are the result of interbreeding with other races. That humanity is the result of diluted Hylian blood.

[Sroa Link]

So the original japanese version implies that the "tribe of evil" is the reincarnation of Demise, not neccecarly one guy like Ganon.

[FDL]

Maybe I was jumping to conclusions, but I figured the "blood of the goddess" line heavily implied that Hylia is indeed the ancestor of the Hylians and the reason they're the chosen ones. Jury's out on where the Sheikah fit in, though, considering they have long ears and magic powers and have apparently been the guardians of Hylia and her tribe since Hyrule's pre-history.

Also interesting that the world Demise is fought in is the world of the Demon Tribe, considering every other such place we've seen was just an area that had been conquered by them in some fashion.

[Sroa Link]

You mean the final battle of Skyward Sword was in the Demon world? Where does it say that? If it is the case then it's very interesting

[FDL]

According to the rest of the translation one can find in the link in the original post, Demise says he'll wait for Link in the world of the Demon Tribe instead of saying "the world I would build" as he does in the NoA version.

[Sroa Link]

Going to the "demon world" to fight Demise involves standing in a portal in the ground, in the Skyward Sword into when they were talking about the legend they said the Earth cracked open and malevolent forces broke from the fissure, so is the Demon World underground?

[Sir Deimos]

It'd be no stretch for it to be analogous of hell. Hell is typically depicted as full of demons and beneath the ground.

[Sroa Link]

Not only that but in the original Legend of zelda didn't they say that the dungeons are just different enteries to the "underworld" I wonder if this is a callback to it.

Edited by Sroa Link, 30 December 2012 - 12:10 PM.

[MikePetersSucks]

Maybe I was jumping to conclusions, but I figured the "blood of the goddess" line heavily implied that Hylia is indeed the ancestor of the Hylians and the reason they're the chosen ones. Jury's out on where the Sheikah fit in, though, considering they have long ears and magic powers and have apparently been the guardians of Hylia and her tribe since Hyrule's pre-history.

Haven't we established that the Shiekah are effectively a clan of Hylians?

[FDL]

I mean, that's how I view them, yes. But they do seem to have a much worse lot in life than the regular Hylians do. Hm...