Remember at the start of The Wind Waker, when you returned those three missing pet piglets to their rightful owner? Only to return to your home island later on, of course, and find that two of them actually ended up as dinner?
It seems that there is someone else in the game who also has cruel intentions towards our little bacon buddies, this time on Windfall Island. Well, maybe not, but there’s a strange discovery in The Wind Waker which makes it look that way.
When you enter buildings in The Wind Waker, you can break all the pots and vases you like (as is tradition in the series), though bombing people’s homes and establishments is perhaps a step too far as the game doesn’t normally allow you to equip bombs indoors. That is, unless you take advantage of the “Use Bombs Anywhere” glitch.
This glitch is only accessible in the original Wind Waker, as it requires the use of the Tingle Tuner (which was replaced by the Tingle Bottle in the HD version). You must equip your Tingle Tuner to the button of your choice, and then press this button and the Start button at the same time. Your game will pause, while the other button input will be suspended. While in the item menu, assign bombs to the same button your Tingle Tuner was used. Upon exiting the menu, you will receive the usual message that you can’t call upon Tingle at the moment, but Link will also now have a bomb in his hands.
This glitch in itself is fun to play around with, but things get interesting if you use it in the Windfall Island Bomb Shop.
As YouTube user mariofanclub demonstrates, you can destroy the barrels at the back of the Bomb Shop by throwing a bomb over the counter. (You can also bomb these directly if you use the glitch during your return to the Bomb Shop after obtaining the bombs from Tetra’s Ship, as Bomb-Master Cannon will still be tied up and you can go behind the counter yourself.)
If done correctly, pigs will come running out of the destroyed barrels.
From a programming perspective, it’s unclear why the pigs are trapped in these barrels. It could just be an oversight, or it could be that they were intended to roam free as pets in the shop at some point.
From a lore perspective, I’d say Bomb-Master Cannon looks pretty guilty here. If he’s planning to eat those pigs, then their living conditions are questionable. Perhaps pigs are actually the secret ingredient when manufacturing his bombs. Or, he had another, shadier business on the side and was preparing to ship those pigs to the highest bidder. Considering the extortionate prices of his wares, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was greedy enough to secretly engage in the black market outside of opening hours — running a legitimate business just isn’t enough for this guy.
(Image source: Zelda Wiki)
See? I can do this theorizing thing just as well as anyone else in the Zelda community.
