Hyrule was close to ruin. Link, trapped in his wolf form, listened as Princess Zelda recounted what happened. The land had been conquered by a seemingly unstoppable magical force, and its residents were shrouded in the eerie veil of Twilight. All this was done by the will of an evil king. He and his beasts had stormed Hyrule Castle and effortlessly killed Zelda’s troops. Nothing could stand in his way. This king gave Zelda a choice: life or death. Zelda made the only decision that could save her people.
There was a new villain to contend with, and his name was Zant.
I continued in my quest after meeting Zelda and found all the pieces of the Fused Shadow, the weapon that Midna was to use against Zant. By this point, as I watched Link speak with the spirit Lanayru, I was convinced Zant would not be encountered until his location was discovered. I assumed Zant was the passive type who let his minions do everything.
Then Link turned around, and Zant and his ability to be proactive proved me completely wrong.
Zant was just there. He didn’t lunge at Link or make any noise. He simply stood in place and waited for Link to turn around. It was like a parent waiting for a disobedient child to figure out they had been caught. I had never seen Link so shook. Link, Midna, and even Lanayru tried to fend him off, but their efforts meant nothing to the King of Twilight. He cursed Link and Midna, and their only salvation came from another visit to Princess Zelda — whose help came at the cost of her life.
I had underestimated Zant’s malevolence and preparedness. He was an active threat and an emotionless monster. The realization that Zant gained the power of some unknown god and now had control over every situation was difficult to accept. More and more it became clear that Zant was as great a threat as any other villain, even legendary foes like Ganondorf.
Zant and Link met again in the Arbiter’s Grounds, where he revived the Stallord to try and stop him from discovering the dungeon’s secrets. Link dealt with Zant’s colossal zombie, reached the top of the dungeon, and met the sages. These sages then revealed an important truth about Zant, everyone’s ultimate enemy: He was not everyone’s ultimate enemy.
Ganondorf, the hatred that everyone now knows never perishes, was the true architect behind the attack on Hyrule. The sages explained that he was the source of Zant’s might. They also said Zant came to the Arbiter’s Grounds to break the Mirror of Twilight, the tool needed in order to enter the Twilight Realm, and hid its pieces in various locations across Hyrule.
It finally made sense. No wonder Zant seemed like an upgraded Ganondorf. He was, but only because Ganondorf made him so.
Though a setback, Zant’s breaking of the mirror was more evidence of his fraudulence. The true ruler of the Twilight Realm had the power to destroy the mirror. Zant, however, could only break it into fragments. And those fragments could be pieced back together.
As Midna explains, “Only the true ruler of the Twili can destroy the Mirror of Twilight. Zant could only break the Mirror of Twilight into shards… He couldn’t utterly shatter it. That’s proof of his false kingship.”
Reclaiming the shards was an immense undertaking for me, but Zant’s attempts to hide them proved he knew I was a threat. All he managed to do was encourage me. He was losing his poker face, and now I could sense fear. My restoration of the mirror opened a portal to the Twilight Realm, which meant I could take the fight to the coward (which I was eager to do).
Zant’s kingdom, despite its foreboding appearance and unsettling inhabitants, was little more than a pitiful gallery dedicated his ego, and I trudged through it with an appropriate level of disinterest.
The mood became tense as Link and Midna bravely approached Zant’s throne. There sat Zant, motionless but teeming with ego. He rose from his seat, and I prepared to hear the cliché villain monologue.
Then Zant made things interesting. Very, very interesting.
He could no longer hide his true feelings and motivations. Zant, the mighty ruler of the Twilight, revealed that he was nothing more than a crazed and whiny fool who, in his jealousy, succumbed to the temptations of Ganondorf. He was stripped of what little sanity he had and manipulated into destroying his own homeland and invading Hyrule (though I doubt he would ever admit to this obvious truth). He had sworn fealty to his god and was made a king for it.
I marveled at Zant’s breakdown. Here was the dreaded Twilight King, flailing and pouting like a child denied a new toy. He had been an impressive albeit typical villain, but now he was much more because he was nothing. He was no longer distinct from Ganondorf in name only. Zant had made himself into a pathetic figure for the sake of gaining someone else’s power. This act pointed to his nature: Zant only knew how to covet.
More of Zant’s personality shone through once we finally battled. He was often erratic with no real strategy to his attacks and would become flustered whenever I bested him. When forced to actually fight, he didn’t know what to do.
Zant lost the fight, but still he tried to be smug. There was no confidence in himself, just a willingness to hide behind Ganondorf. He taunted Midna, telling her that her body could not be returned to normal. Doing so was his last mistake and all the motivation Midna needed to obliterate him.
The Usurper King was finally gone. Maybe Ganondorf would have brought him back at some point, but I doubt it. I think that’s what was meant by Ganondorf’s vision of Zant at the end of his own life. Zant broke his own neck, breaking his ties with his god. The symbiosis between them had been undone, and now both lacked a link to the world of the living. There was only a Link that protected it from them.
