Why Ocarina Of Time’s Ganondorf Is So Different From BOTW’s

The villain in The Legend of Zelda series is a being called Ganon, who is sometimes referred to as Ganondorf, and there are differences in his portrayal in Ocarina of Time and the most recently released mainline Zelda game, Breath of the Wild. Ganon is the villain in most Zelda games, with some titles giving him detailed backstories, and others simply using him as the final boss. The nature of Ganon has changed throughout the series, yet his most recent form was the strangest by far. In Breath of the Wild, Ganon is an eldritch abomination, known as Calamity Ganon, and it’s unclear if he has become a thoughtless beast, or whether he still retains some of his intelligence. This is a far cry from his appearance as Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time, which raises the question of why the two entities are so different.

In terms of The Legend of Zelda timeline, Ganon chronologically first appears in Ocarina of Time as Ganondorf. The split Legend of Zelda timeline means that there are different fates for this Ganondorf, with one succeeding in killing Link, one being trapped in the Twilight Realm, and one escaping from imprisonment in the Sacred Realm. There are many outcomes for Ganon in The Legend of Zelda games and he has proven that he can cheat death in the past, so what transformed him into Calamity Ganon in Breath of the Wild?

Breath of the Wild has united all of the split timelines in The Legend of Zelda series, or rather, it ignores them. All of the events in the pre-Breath of the Wild games have been lost to time. As such, the residents of Hyrule are only familiar with Calamity Ganon, which is a magical being with the power equal to a natural disaster. The form known as Ganondorf was the human reincarnation of Zelda‘s Ganon that periodically appeared throughout the history of Hyrule. It seems that Ganon eventually gave up on the Ganondorf form, as it currently exists in its monstrous Ganon form. The being known as Ganondorf from Ocarina of Time has long since perished, yet the essence of Ganon lives on in Calamity Ganon in Breath of the Wild.

Legend Of Zelda – Calamity Ganon’s Origins Vary By Region

It’s here that the explanation becomes tricky, because the official English localization of Breath of the Wild says one thing, and the original Japanese localization says another. In the English version, it’s said that Calamity Ganon’s form is the result of Ganon giving up on reincarnation and taking on his most primal form. According to Legends of Localization, the Japanese version of Breath of the Wild states that the form is the result of his obsession with reincarnation, allowing his will to remain in the world.

It’s possible that Ganondorf will appear in the unnamed sequel to Breath of the Wild. The first trailer for the game showed Link and Princess Zelda encountering an animated corpse that is wearing Gerudo jewelry, though some have speculated that this is Astor from Zelda: Age of Calamity – not Ganondorf. There’s a chance that there could be an undead Ganondorf as the villain in the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but no one will know for sure until the game is actually released.

Source: Legends of Localization

About The Author

Scott Baird
(2512 Articles Published)

Scott has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016 and regularly contributes to The Gamer. He has previously written articles and video scripts for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz.
A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started out as a film student before moving into journalism. It turned out that wasting a childhood playing video games, reading comic books, and watching movies could be used for finding employment, regardless of what any career advisor might tell you. Scott specializes in gaming and has loved the medium since the early ‘90s when his first console was a ZX Spectrum that used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott now writes game reviews for Screen Rant and The Gamer, as well as news reports, opinion pieces, and game guides. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.

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