With last month’s trailer for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, a lot of talk has sprung up about Fi and her musical theme. With all this talk, I thought it would be nice to talk about Fi’s Theme, where we’ve heard it in Zelda games since Skyward Sword, and what its inclusion in the Age of Imprisonment trailer may mean.
After Zelda is torn from the sky early in Skyward Sword, a floating spirit appears to Link outside his bedroom, beckoning him to follow. When Link first sees this spirit, we hear a sweet, improvisatory melody performed by the shakuhachi, a classical Japanese bamboo flute. As Link follows the spirit toward the Statue of the Goddess, synthesized woodwinds begin playing low drones and a piano plays colorful chords to accompany the repeating shakuhachi melody. I find the drone and piano chords particularly interesting because they resemble the traditional role of the shō in the gagaku music of classical Japanese courts. The shō provides aitake — tone clusters that create a bed of harmony — adding color to the soloistic instruments. By combining shakuhachi and shō aesthetics, the music tells us that the spirit guiding Link represents something that is equal parts elegant and ancient.
When Link enters the chamber under the Statue of the Goddess, the spirit speaks and introduces itself as Fi, the spirit of the Goddess Sword. As Link comes to know Fi, her theme is fleshed out with further accompaniment in the form of harp arpeggios and beautifully lush chords played by bowed strings. “Fi’s Theme,” the track that accompanies the Goddess Sword exposition, introduces another section of music to contrast the shakuhachi melody. The melody of this second section is carried by the koto, the zither-like national instrument of Japan. The inclusion of the koto and the warm string chords further the idea of elegance that you come to expect from Fi and her ballet performances. (It also gives our ears the space to rest after hearing Fi’s Theme on repeat for the last five minutes!)
The final time we hear Fi’s Theme in Skyward Sword comes after Link defeats the big, bad, evil guy: Demise. As Link, Zelda, and Groose prepare to return to their lives, Fi beseeches Link to end their “necessary companionship” and rest the Master Sword in its pedestal. The bittersweetness of Fi’s farewell is encapsulated in the piano’s high, wistful performance of Fi’s Theme in “Fi’s Gratitude,” accompanied by slow, ebbing-and-flowing chord vamps in the strings and winds. The track concludes with a major chord before looping, ending the sadness of the track on an uplifting note.
Since Fi began her slumber in Skyward Sword, we’ve only ever heard small fragments of her theme. In the The Master Trials DLC for Breath of the Wild, for example, we hear a portion of her theme after unlocking the Master Sword’s full power.
Fragmented versions of the theme are also heard in two pivotal moments in the Master Sword’s journey in Tears of the Kingdom. The first occurs at the beginning of the game when Fi supposedly prompts Link to place the Decayed Master Sword in a floating ball of light (from 0:09–0:30).
The latter occurrence mirrors this scene, depicting Zelda retrieving the sword in the ancient past and hearing Fi speaking to her. Recognizing Fi’s theme even in its fragmented forms was very exciting, and left me wanting to hear it fleshed out more in the musical style of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.
I was as pumped as everyone else when I heard Fi’s Theme at the end of July’s trailer for Age of Imprisonment. Just as the fragments of the Zonai construct come together at the end of the trailer, so too are the fragments of Fi’s theme brought back together, giving us the most complete version of the theme since Skyward Sword. It feels like a natural progression from the fragmented versions of previous games, and even with her C-3PO-esque over-communication in Skyward Sword, the hint of her inclusion in a new (canonical!) story is exciting.
I’m reluctant to say whether I think this is a red herring or not, but the musical and visual fragments coming together seem to suggest Fi will awaken from her slumber to fight against the Demon King Ganondorf in a new mechanical body. Regardless, I think we will definitely see more interactions between Fi and Zelda, giving stronger meaning behind the journey of the Master Sword in Tears of the Kingdom.
