Legend of legacies: The impact of Hyrule’s history in The Wind Waker — Part two: King Hyrule

Ganondorf was a monster. Yes, he was a threat due to obvious reasons, such as his use of dark magic, psychotic personality, and tyrannical ambitions, but the greatest reason was the obsession that fueled him. Obsessions can quickly go from being useful tools to harmful weapons, and the truly tragic thing about it is that the danger isn’t exclusive to a sinister mind. Obsessions can take even good people in the wrong directions and often with tragic results. The King of Red Lions, King Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule, though a good and noble man, shared Ganondorf’s longing for what was gone, and it almost cost him dearly.

(This is part two of my series about The Wind Waker and the effect history has on its story and characters. Click here to begin with part one.)

A king bound by duty

King Hyrule only wanted peace, but his vision of peace for the longest time was that of his old and decaying country and of the return of its hero. It’s unclear when this king ruled over Hyrule, but it is safe to assume that he was one of the last few who attempted to stop Ganondorf and his conquest. He had a close connection with the goddesses and the other divine rulers of the world, and he was charged with the duty of protecting the secrets of the kingdom beneath the waves while also keeping watch for the arrival of a new hero.

This meant that the king waited. He waited a long time for destiny to finish setting things in motion. All the while, his anticipation came along with subconscious expectations.

For what could have been centuries, the king had been looking for his ideal version of the hero, but he first learned of Link by observing his brave deeds within the Forsaken Fortress, probably by means of Tetra’s Gossip Stone. The king would have seen the potential, the courage, and the uncanny resemblance to the youth who had saved the land long ago.

The king found and rescued Link after the boy was cast (far) into the open sea by the Helmaroc King and brought him to Windfall Island. After Link came to and was done being astonished at the sight and sound of a talking boat, the king, who introduced himself as the King of Red Lions, explained what kind of terrible evil Link was daring to challenge. The journey would be rough, but if Link held to his courage, he would be able to rescue his sister. The King of Red Lions offered Link his aid, and he directed him to seek out the Goddess Pearls in order to obtain the power to defeat Ganondorf.

The king pointed Link in the right direction, placed his confidence in him, and offered a goal that the hero could reach. Now, he did truly believe in Link, but his hope did not properly rest in him the way it should have. He did not see the future in Link. This boy’s bravery was admirable, but the King of Red Lions still sought the Hero of Time. He knew the legends of the hero reborn, but he misunderstood what that meant. What he was after was essentially a reincarnation of the Hero of Time so the hero could have a repeat performance of his battle with Ganondorf. Multiple times throughout their adventure, the King of Red Lions made reference to the hero of old and alluded to how this new Link was not him. When the king spoke to Jabun, the water spirit asked if he had found the Hero of Time. The king answered, saying that, unfortunately, he had not. The boy he had brought with him had no connection to the ancient hero. But, the king at least did see Link’s potential to be brave.

Duty threatened by desire

His confidence in Link was well placed, but it was still unfortunate that he failed to see how this boy was a new hero meant to fulfill his own destiny, not simply a stand-in for the Hero of Time. The spirit of the hero was not bound to one individual who would repeatedly return. It was bound to the immense courage that is only seen once in a generation. Link was the new bearer of this courage, but he had no statues built in his honor or legends passed from one generation to the next. The King of Red Lions wanted to work around what he saw as a setback, so he sought to essentially make Link become a replica the long-gone hero.

The past had a firm grip on the king’s mind, but at least it was for vastly different reasons than Ganondorf’s. As the Great Deku Tree explained to Link, the goddesses had placed a destiny on the King of Red Lions to seek the hero who was fated to save Hyrule. The King of Red Lion’s mind would only naturally lean toward witnessing the return of the Hero of Time, but that is not what the goddesses said. A hero would come, but heroes can come in all shapes and sizes. The king failed to see that though, so he continued to push Link toward his own goals, and ended up, unintentionally, using the boy.

The urgent need to find the hero weighed heavy on the king’s heart for ages.

The king’s obsession to see the Hero of Time return to save the kingdom almost cost Link his life. The King of Red Lions hoped to never tell Link his true identity, wanting to see his destiny fulfilled by Link and then depart without the need for more revelations. The problem is, this strategy to tell Link only minimum details left the boy ill-prepared for his first encounter with Ganondorf. Had the King of Red Lions been more open, taken his time, and prevented his zeal from moving things forward, he might have realized that the Master Sword had been robbed of its power to repel evil. But the salvation and resurrection of his nation were at hand, and that impulse, the drive to do his duty as the king of a forgotten kingdom, only helped Ganondorf’s cause by allowing the King of Evil to locate Princess Zelda.

Such a failure surely had an impact on the King of Red Lions, who Link and Tetra (now revealed to be Zelda) learned was King Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule. This weight of defeat was evident by his growing acceptance that Link was meant to be a new hero. Once Link restored the Master Sword’s power and found all of the pieces of the Triforce of Courage, he was deemed a hero by the goddesses and worthy to wield the sacred power. Awestruck by the goddesses’ acknowledgment, King Hyrule praised Link as a true hero, dubbing him the “Hero of Winds.” The Hero of Time was gone, truly gone, but the Hero of Winds was able and willing. The king could put his trust, his full trust, in this youth.

Planting the seeds of the future

King Hyrule now understood his folly and accepted that the future would not and should not be created in the past’s image, and this realization was shown by the greatest gift he had given Link thus far: hope. The king outsmarted Ganondorf and made a wish upon the Triforce before the evil king could touch it. The king of light and the king of darkness were shown to be different by what King Hyrule wished for, which was for the old kingdom to be washed away and for the children to have a new, hope-filled future.

The king was unable to defeat Ganondorf in the past. With this wish, he guaranteed that the past would not hold the future back.

Daphnes knew that he was blinded by his dream to restore his land and people, and he knew that made him the same as his mortal enemy. He would not allow his legacy to be that he cost his people their hope. In the end, all he could do was “scatter the seeds of the future.”

Being tied to the events and the world of the past, if that connection is not balanced by the joy for what the future may bring, can be a haunting experience. Though not explicitly stated, Daphnes was a phantom during the events of Wind Waker. He was in many ways, like Ganondorf, a haunting memory of the past. His own failures also haunted him, and all he could do was dwell in those failures until a hero emerged. Luckily for him, one did, and this hero helped Daphnes find the peace he needed.

Next time, I’ll explain how a balance between living in the now and being reverent of the past, despite it being a hard balance to keep at times, can make all the difference in the pursuit of a bright future.