"Though this is not the end. My hate... never perishes. It is born anew in a cycle with no end! I will rise again! Those like you... Those who share the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero... They are eternally bound to this curse. An incarnation of my hatred shall ever follow your kind, dooming them to wander a blood-soaked sea of darkness for all time!"
The incarnation of hatred and evil named "Demise" in Skyward Sword was defeated, but he made the point that darkness and hate will have many incarnations in the future. One of those future incarnations is Ganon. That doesn't mean Ganon is a resurrected Demise; it means he is another form of the same enduring evil.
Consider that it is similar to Final Fantasy 4's Zeromus. He claims upon defeat that he will rise again and again in other forms. The point being, both Zeromus and Demise represent specific incarnations of an amorphous "hate" and "evil" which plagues the world. And it is upon great heroes to face that burden on and on forever. As long as there is evil, there will be heroes to overcome it. A classic trope in fiction and real life.
So, even though Demise was defeated, he was only one incarnation of the evil in the Zelda world. That evil had other forms before and will have new forms in the future. That's the eternal struggle between good and evil in Zelda.
Hmm, I wonder if when he says "an incarnation of my hatred shall ever follow your kind", they meant to imply that if the bloodline of the goddess ended and the spirit of the hero never manifested again then the cycle would stop and the world would be free from another incarnation of Demise's hatred.
Almost the opposite of "as long as there is evil, there will be heroes to overcome it", where instead it's "as long as there is good, there will be evil for them to overcome". I suppose that's just another side of the same coin though. The enduring proverbial point then being that there will always be good and bad, and they will always be in opposition. The whole endless cycle itself being a representation of that idea.
Except the whole bloodline thing makes it less abstract than that. Which brings me right back to wondering what would happen if the bloodline ended.
Accepting that it couldn't, for whatever nonsense reason, then what causes a new conflict in the cycle to begin? Since Link is always younger than Ganon, I'm assuming the manifestation of hatred always comes first, and then the hero follows it. So what causes the manifestation of hatred to come about when it does? Is the cycle bound by some particular schedule? Does the state of the world matter? Is the state of the bloodline relevant at all, beyond merely existing?
In any case, it's a fun little way to tie all these games together. Totally unnecessary for enjoying these games personally, but neat nonetheless.
Yeah, the closest thing I can think of is a curse. Like, "you are cursed, and it will follow your bloodline forever". Which, to me, is not a matter of the evil coming about due to Link or his bloodline, but whenever evil arises, his bloodline will be cursed to always have to face it. The classic hero's burden.
Skyward Sword presents the rise of Hatred as an inevitable part of a cycle. So, there are legends about its return, and in response, the rise of heroes. The curse seems to just confirm that this particular bloodline bears the burden of facing that evil.
It seems like not all generations see a rise of evil, but each generation is ready for that possible fight. Link's uncle in Link to the Past tries to take it on after Link's father died, but he wasn't the one meant to rise to face the challenge. The family as a whole serves to help keep the darkness at bay and potentially have their children sacrifice for that cause.
Log in to comment