To many people, Revali’s just seen as an arrogant jerk. He constantly hypes himself up while also berating Link, yet in the memory of Zelda recruiting him in The Champions’ Ballad, we see that even the “great” Revali feels discouraged. After being roughly whipped to the ground, trails of his own plumage floating embarrassingly around him, Revali berates himself. He angrily says that his best is “not enough.” It’s in these moments, when the avian ace is hardest on himself, that he needs to listen to Lone Alpha’s version of “Revali’s Theme.”
At the beginning of this remix, we’re greeted by a simple version of the melody associated with Revali. In the background, though, there’s a beat that’s building in intensity. As it does so, it makes me think of Revali’s keen, unrelenting mind. Even after meeting with failure and having his own feathers flung in his face, the Rito champion is examining every mistake, making the corrections that will lead to success.
After the buildup, the beat finally reaches its bursting point and explodes like a Bomb Arrow from Revali’s quiver into a distorted, electronic rendition of his own theme. This is the song Revali imagines when he’s feeling low. The constant, driving beat brings to his mind his past successes. Each blast is another memory of a Bomb Arrow that found its way lodged into the bullseye of the Rito Flight Range. Bolstered by these thoughts and this absolute celebration of his past feats, Revali flies into the center of the gale knowing that only victory awaits him.
This pattern of quieter moments that build to a detonating, hype-inducing crescendo is repeated multiple times by Lone Alpha and perfectly captures the essence of Revali. He is a jerk, but he is also his own harshest critic, and all the grief fans give him is nothing compared to his own unrelenting drive to be the best. For all the times when the melody of his confidence ebbs though, it’s only a matter of time before he identifies exactly what needs to be tweaked in order to meet with the boisterous beats of success. A century later, it’s easy to imagine the Rito warrior Teba calling over Kass, the birdy bard, to play him an accordion arrangement of Lone Alpha’s version of “Revali’s Theme” to pump him up after being brought low.
To celebrate the recent launch of Age of Calamity, we are dedicating all of our regular columns this week to the mighty Champions! Check out our Champions Week 2020 page.
