The Zelda series has a variety of unconventional, non-Ganon antagonists. We’ve seen the likes of the Majora’s Mask, Zant, Vaati, and Yuga, who range from purely chaotic to carefully calculating, albeit with equal ill intentions either way. In Cadence of Hyrule, Ganon/Ganondorf is once again the main antagonist, but for a while, we are led to believe it is actually a new enemy — a young bard known as Octavo. It turns out, though, that Octavo is not as evil as we thought.
What’s interesting about Octavo is that he’s the first “villain” in the Zelda series who is arguably a good guy. Well, mostly the good guy. And in Octavo’s DLC, we get a true look at his attempt at playing the hero and how it pans out. It leads to what is essentially a double twist regarding his character, and let’s just say that, speaking as a Crypt of the NecroDancer fan, it was incredibly fitting for him and a welcomed callback.
We are first introduced to Octavo in the opening cutscene of the game when he is playing his lute for the King of Hyrule. We then see him hypnotize the King to acquire the Triforce, though it unsurprisingly splits into three parts. Nevertheless, he manages to claim the Triforce of Power and fuse it with his lute.
Crypt of the NecroDancer fans all collectively and immediately knew what threat he posed, while Zelda fans knew this meant Link and Zelda had their work cut out for them. The Golden Lute is immensely dangerous — both to others and the person wielding it — as is the Triforce of Power.
Initially, this is all we know about Octavo. The simple setup leaves no room for doubt about who the enemy is and who we’ve gotta stop. But as we bop our heads along to the beat in Hyrule, the well-spoken bard lets it slip in our fourth dungeon encounter with him that he’s actually aiming to fight Ganon, and the four bosses we’ve been killing off one by one have been created specifically for that purpose.
So hold up. Am I the bad guy? This whole time, Octavo has been preparing to do his part in the fight against Ganon — he even acknowledges that “We’ll need an army when the time comes to face Ganon.” And here I am, tearing down his instrument-based champions and army of rhythm-controlled Bokoblins, Wizrobes, Stalfols, and Iron Knuckles. Damn, I can honestly say I wasn’t expecting this twist, especially in a game like Cadence of Hyrule, which is pretty light on the storytelling. It got me questioning my morals.
We’re suddenly filled with doubt after hearing Octavo tell us about his intentions. Shouldn’t we be helping him, not hindering him? Plus, when we see Ganondorf playing an organ in Gerudo Town for ourselves, the reality is clear. Octavo somehow knows that Ganon — who is practicing wielding the power of music — will threaten Hyrule one day. He is preparing for that moment.
We were initially led to believe that Octavo was the Zant of this story, but he’s actually more like Dr. Emmett Brown from Back to the Future, trying to stop the terrible fate of Ganon before it even happens. Yes, spoiler alert, we travel between the present and future in this game — which is a perfectly familiar mechanic for a Zelda game.
Once we finally face Octavo, he tells us that we’ve thwarted his plan, but his composure allows him to quickly calculate a new one. “I prepared my champions to face Ganon, but things have taken an unexpected turn […] Perhaps I require a new champion. Let’s find out if you are the Champion of Hyrule!” Then we face what is honestly the hardest boss fight in the game — harder than Ganon in my opinion. He throws all sorts of tricks at you that require matching his wits and thinking carefully about every beat.
He’s no match for you though, and in his defeat, he exclaims how much of a mistake you’ve made causing him to lose his Golden Lute, which disappears into a mysterious portal that appears after the fight.
It’s unclear what happens between defeating Octavo and our next encounter, when we find him injured after failing to defeat Ganon in the future. It’s possible that, as the Golden Lute plummeted into the portal, Ganon once again claimed the Triforce of Power. It looks like Octavo caused a self-fulfilling prophecy of Hyrule’s downfall in that case, as him splitting the Triforce to begin with led to this happening.
Fortunately, it was always Link, Zelda, and Cadence’s destiny to defeat Ganon, as the power of the Triforce was ultimately needed to land the final blow. But interestingly, in the DLC for Octavo, we learn of an alternate reality in which Link, Zelda, and Cadence never arrived. In this reality, it is Octavo who faces the future and the fate of Hyrule.
The enemy who destroys Hyrule, and who Octavo must conquer, is not what he was expecting though.
After creating the four instrument-based champions and testing their might, Octavo travels to the future in Hyrule Castle to face the fate he’s been shown by a fortune teller — that he will meet his demise at the hands of Ganon. We know that in the alternate reality with Link and Zelda, this is indeed the case, but interestingly the story plays out a little differently once Octavo reaches Hyrule Castle in this future.
Instead of facing Ganon as he came prepared for, he actually must face himself: his future self, corrupted by the Golden Lute. It’s just like the NecroDancer from Crypt of the NecroDancer, in which a bard met the same fate when discovering a magical Golden Lute. Octavo becomes Hyrule’s NecroDancer.
This twist is perfect not only from the perspective of a Crypt of the NecroDancer fan, but narratively speaking too. We go from thinking Octavo is the bad guy to learning he actually has good intentions and that these intentions were always doomed to be corrupted, as he tried to fight fate and trifle with the Triforce of Power. He did defeat Ganon as he set out to, but in doing so became just as much of a tyrannical ruler of Hyrule. Poetic irony.
Fortunately, past-Octavo is still thinking clearly when he fights his future self and declares that this is never what he wanted. In a final act of intelligence and goodness, he manages to defeat his corrupted self, reset time to before he saw his fortune, and stop this terrible future from ever occurring.
Although simple, I really love this arc. It comes full circle, though it has an air of tragedy, honestly. All Octavo wanted to do was stop Ganon. But perhaps it’s because his aims stemmed from self-preservation after seeing his demise, rather than out of altruism, that he was always doomed to fail. It acts as a reminder that, in the Zelda universe, the fate of Ganon is inextricably tied to Link and Zelda, and has been since the beginning. It will always be them who lands the final blow. Any other heroic hearts are unfortunately forever sealed out of the possibility of defeating Ganon.
Despite that, there is always room for those who wish to help our heroes. Even though Octavo didn’t get to defeat Ganon, he unquestionably pushed Link, Zelda, and Cadence to prepare for that final battle with each dungeon boss. He ultimately set the wheels in motion by splitting the Triforce between Link, and Zelda, and himself and unintentionally bringing Cadence to Hyrule, who would then help to awaken the two and prepare them for their destiny.
