The Secret of the Zonai Tribes 

So freakin’ excited to see this! Thank you for the credit! Really nicely done!

I’m surprised you didn’t talk about the miners set when talking about the depth’s courage zonai, the headpiece of the set is the same shape as the statue’s face found in the depths. Including the miners armor with the zonai armor and barbarian armor cleanly wraps up with one zonai set from each tribe!

Great video man! Ty for the credit and glad my art was a good jumping off point for your theory since I absolutely loved it!!! I totally forgot about the labyrinth quotes referring to the three different tribes, and definitely makes sense. Can’t wait to see more!

its interesting how ganondorf says they arent present, not dead or anything. Definitely will see a return

I believe the Zonai are the "God Race" that Hylia talks about in Skyward Sword. Hylia, the Goddess, refers to the ones who created the Triforce as the "Old Ones", and not by their names nor "specific" status. By this she doesn't even refer to them as "Goddesses", but Gods, and of old (hinting vagueness of knowledge of them). She also explains to us that they are a "race" of them, and not just 3 entities. If symbolizing the characteristics of Boar (Power), Owl (Wisdom), and Dragon (Courage). This would mean these 3 attributes are the metaphysical and physical displays of the Gods themselves, i.e. the Zonai. If looking through the lore, then it's clear that ToTK is telling the accurate legend, of The Legend of Zelda series. Din: Created the Earth = Zonai (Boar) were the rulers of the Surface. (Hyrule) Nayru: Created the Skies = Zonai (Owl) were the rulers of the Sky Realm. (Heavens) Farore: Adhere to the laws of both Nayru and Farore = Zonai (Dragon) were the tribe that lived in the landscape underground "In The Depths", and possibly the Depths were once "Hyrule". Hidemaro Fujibayashi mentions that ToTK's backstory is of another Hyrule that was founded after the previous one was destroyed and forgotten. It is possible that the Zonai (Dragon) were the ones that stayed the final fight of whatever catastrophe or "calamity" that destroyed the previous Hyrule. Another note to make that is Farore was responsible for creating all life i.e. "Mortals" into the World. By this interpretation. Perhaps the Zonai (Dragon) created the Hylians, the Zoras, the Gerudos, and the Gorons. Note, each of the races' statue featured in "The Depths" are of the races we see in BoTW & ToTK. What if the Zonai (Dragon) are responsible for the life that exist in the world of Hyrule, today? The Zonai (all 3 of their tribes) terraformed the "World" that would be Hyrule. Hyrule Kingdom was destroyed, and a new one was refounded by new groups of Zonai, but this time, rather than all 3 congregating, it's only 2. The (Boar), and the (Owl) = The Surface, and the Sky Realm. I believe the entire Legend of Zelda series happens in the new, refounded Hyrule. Mainly because of Hylia existing during that time, the Goddess Statues "which is also featured in the main chronology", Ganondorf, the Master Sword, the Great Deku Tree, and the races of Hyrule which are all from the main chronology. The previous Hyrule that was referenced by Hidemaro Fujibayashi which I suspect to be "The Depths", was a Hyrule that we have never seen *OR* was the Old Hyrule from OOT, and TWW Underwater Hyrule. So either or can be "The Depths". If it's the latter? Then perhaps Skyward Sword is not a prequel to OOT, but a Prequel to the newer franchise that would be BoTW, and ToTK. Skyward Sword can be the near ToTK's backstory, can be either before or afterward since the "refounding" of the Kingdom of Hyrule. All in all, they are going to make a 3rd and final game to add to the Trilogy. The first Zelda game represents (Courage) to explore an uncharted world = *BOTW* The second Zelda game represents (Wisdom) to discover the Ancient Past and the truth of the World of Hyrule = *TOTK* And lastly, the third and final game to the arc (Power) will show us how something is conquered, or we fight to conquer or defend. Maybe perhaps we will finally see the *Ancient Hero* and the Princess of *10,000 years ago* fight the Calamity, and we will even play as them = Post 2024 - Zelda title All in all, great Zelda theorizing you did my friend, and an immaculate job on the editing portion, I would love to know your "secrets" behind it. ;)

When TotK first released and I played through a good chunk of the game, I was under the strong impression that there were 3 distinct Zonai tribes. Those that lived on the Sky Islands, those that lived on the surface and those that lived in the Depths. Sky/Wisdom, surface/Courage and Depths/Power. I believe that Rauru/Mineru were inhabitants of the Sky Islands and descended to the surface, the Ancient Hero as depicted through their aspect was from the surface and the last tribe lived in the Depths. My reasoning is, look at the differences between the Ancient Hero's Aspect and how Rauru/Mineru look. Rauru and Mineru both have 3rd eyes while the Ancient Hero doesn't, and the Hero has a tail that Rauru/Mineru don't have. I think that the 3rd Zonai tribe is the statue depicted in the Depths as you state at 11:50. It's my thought that there may have been a civil war between the tribes and the Depths tribe and surface tribe were both wiped out, leaving only the Sky tribe, and Rauru/Mineru were the last living ones.

Hey my friend, quick correction: the Designer Note quote from Creating a Champion was from Makoto Yonezu, senior lead landscape artist; not Eiji Aonuma.

Before TOTK, I thought the Zonai would have been a third branch of the Sheikah. One that was sworn to the Spirit of the Hero and utilized a green magic. As opposed to the Sheikah's blue magic and Yiga's red.

I love these lore videos, keep doing what you are doing 🎩

Here’s my take on things. The Zonai were created by the gods to aid them in their efforts shortly after the world was fully formed. When Demise and the demons attacked they fought in the war but suffered catastrophic casualties, possibly to the point where they were close to extinction. With no hope of rebuilding their society and culture they instead taught and helped the other races of the world, especially the Sheikah, by giving them some of their technology and magic. The Sheikah inherited the role as the servants and the protectors of Hylia while the remaining Zonai themselves were given one last mission. With Hylia’s ability to see the future she knew that the Zonai would be needed much later and that they had to survive. Using the second hidden time gate in the Faron Woods they were transported tens of thousands of years into the future and arrived in the Faron Region. Hyrule at this time had been completely destroyed by some sort of cataclysm and its people had regressed to primitive barbarism. The Zonai would then spend centuries restoring civilization and culture, all while their numbers continued to dwindle. We know thanks to Rauru being Zelda’s ancestor that Zonai can interbreed with Hylians and that’s what I believe what happened. Mixing with Hylians could have created several distinct subspecies that ended up becoming separate tribes. I believe that Rauru and Mineru were some of the last if not THE last pure blooded Zonai with the rest of them having died off after potential centuries. Multiple wars, disasters and tragedies could have diminished their numbers even further until they all unanimously agreed that they were fated to go extinct. And so with the death of Rauru and his sister what remained of the Zonai eventually got buried and forgotten. I think the Sheikah are also partially to blame for this because of the fact that they used the Zonai technology to create their own technology which caused so much fear of the ancient powers and the past that people intentionally hid it away. What do you all think?

The only difference are the Zonai themselves and the Hylians who clearly had adopted the ways and traditions of the Zonai...seriously, just look at what they are wearing in the flashbacks, and the knowledge that some of the "Zonai Ruins" are now known to have been made by Hylians in Zonai fashion, but weatherproofed.

That was fantastic! I like it! Thanks!

Great thoughts, it got me wondering; would the language allow that Raru didn’t mean he was the chronological 1st King, but high supreme king. That there are 3 kingdoms / races of the land hyrule and he believes himself “high”/ 1st king. Reestablishing the once again new kingdom of hyrule.

6:10 actually you can tell that what they are wearing is clearly just in the same style

I think the Anchient Hero is more like Fanservice. Because we wanted Before TotK came out that Nintendo confirms tons of Zonai Stuff, but Nintendo wasn't aware of us thinking that we confused them with the Barbarians. And they had Zonai as Furries in mind, and to be honest, I prefer a Barbarian Hero instead of that Furry Thing

I’m guessing if this is true, then maybe the owl (wisdom) and dragon (courage) tribe worked together often. Considering the depths contain plenty of Zonaite and mining areas, I can’t imagine the Dragon tribe deciding on their lonesome to mine that mineral for nothing. The Owl tribe were the ones with technical know-how. Perhaps all three tribes were once cooperative like a kingdom, but just like Ganondorf unable to cooperate with the rest of Hyrule Kingdom, the Boar (Power) tribe started the war. One question though: How do we explain the difference in architecture in the Zonai Faron region and the Zonai sky islands? Iirc, the entrance of the spirit temple on the surface (with the big owl) shows a stone pillar that reveals the kind of rock they use on the sky islands which is partially covered by normal rock (like the kind we see in the Zonai ruins in Faron). The Thyphlo Ruins similarly has that normal rock in most of its structures, but when you solve the puzzle there, a chamber made of the Zonai sky island rock holds the Dusk Claymore. If your theory is true and the two tribes killed each other in the fighting, why would the normal rock be covering up the sky island rock? I know this is phrased weirdly and might seem insignificant, but I really think there’s a story there since the architecture shows differences in culture. Additionally, if these tribes existed at the same time and maybe the owl tribe worked with dragon tribe to make mining areas in the depths, we see the special sky island rock being used again. They didn’t use the normal rock we see in Faron region where the Dragon tribe could’ve first been based in (since there’s dragon motif there). This is getting long but this is my first video I’ve seen from your channel and I thoroughly enjoyed it!! You’ve earned a new subscriber and I’m very glad to see more Zelda youtubers willing to theorize about all the clues and contradictions totk has given us ❤ Keep up the good work!

Would make sense that Zelda would be a descendent of the Zonai tribe who represent Wisdom as she normally holds the Triforce piece for Wisdom.

Hey, listen, there's at least 6 tribes. If you look at the leggings of the armor sets, you'll see that the Ember, Charged, and Frostbite armor have the same type of leggings that the barbarian does.

I'll explain after I finish your video, but 12:39 Ancient Sheikah Monks, the concept art. The depths symbolize the Twilight. In addition, the depiction of "the calamity" shows the villain as a dragon, not Ganon (challenge me on that lol). My theory had always been that the current "Sheikah" were actually another race entirely who wanted power, made a union with the Gerudo and created a tribe. That tribe challenged the Zonai, won, and tried to acquire the Triforce, to be stopped by the, then established, Sages. Then they were banished to the Twilight realm. Why is the spirit temple, along with Mineru there? Well, fun fact. What did prisons use to be? Mining operations lol. In addition, we know that at the adult end of Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf was banished to this realm (read text carefully and depict the Sacred Realm as explained in ALTTP). He escaped through a fissure, and "the Goddesses" flooded the Earth. We know the Great Sea happens. My proposed theory fits BOTW and present TOTK in the Adult timeline, while TOTK Past is subsequently put before Skyward Sword, with SS being a myth that wasn't accurate. This fits the mold of Zelda being depicted as a Goddess (poetically, may I add), and depicts a "true" Master Sword, as the one carried by the Light Dragon, not the one forged by the sages, depicted in ALTTP, OOT, WW & TP. And about Hylia. Hylia was the Light Dragon. This theory permits that the "ancient sheikah" escaped the depths, came to a new Hyrule without a Kingdom. Convinced the rulers of Hyrule to build a new Castle above the location Ganondorf the First sits, in order to harness that power. These Ancient Sheikah utilized a made up curse to try and take over Hyrule, and it ended in them getting banished, the subfaction coined Yiga, and The Calamity, hence why Sheikah Technology was buried "with" the creation of the castle, despite the original castle (oot castle) being displayed with the Temple of Time on the Great Plateau. Oh, and the Forgotten Temple. That's clearly the Light Temple, which fell from the sky at some point (missing?). The Triforce, very likely, was stored there at some point. Hence them wanting to get closed to the Kingdom of Hyrule, since Zelda and the Royal Family had possession of the full Triforce at the end of Wind Waker. I agree with the three races. 1) Zonai. 2) Lomei (race of the Twilight, ancient sheikah). 3) Ancient Hylian Being that Link eventually symbolizes courage, Zelda eventually symbolizes Wisdom, and Ganondorf eventually symbolizes Power, it fits. Finally the Ancient Hero. That's probably the Gerudo mix that tried to take power from the Zonai, whom slowly became the Ancient Sheikah. Ganondorf, in this instance, is symbolic of "the one of the end" (demise), as he now has an intention to "hate the gods", and it's not just "teen demon angst". In this theory it provides clarity to why Ganondorf in TOTK became The Demise/Demon King, and why these games were created. To fix the plot holes created in a seamless simple story, all thanks to SS.

One thing that concerned me is when ganondorf USED the secret stone, he looked even more like Rauru than before... could this mean the barbarian race was, if we can agree the zonai are even more ancient than the gerudo, is where ganondorf first came from, then he migrated over to the gerudo? Makes sense that the barbarian tribe was eliminated bc they were becoming corrupt.. I Would like to think nintendo INTENTIONALLY kept things vague to have us theorize and also connect some dots in future games. VERY COOL Video though btw! Amazing insight and thought went into this!

This makes a lot of sense, I just wish Nintendo would have just told us about any of this stuff.

Wow i love this theory so much. This is my new head cannon

If the ''Power/Boar'' Zonai (Barbarian) tribe lived in the Faron region then why did they worship the dragon diety?

One satisfying approach is to consider that the ancient hero IS Ganondorf. But! There is a big but, he is not directly the Ganondorf which you think about! He IS the first Ganondorf. He IS the corrupted ancient hero. Let me explain to you. Forget about Demise and forget about the timeline. It has never been really consitant nor convincing. I personaly take all of this more like a mythology, an allegory permetting to understand the Zelda universe. All of this should not be taken literally as the "Gospel truth" but you can still pick carefully some elements sounding relevent to help you to stick the pieces together and have a good big picture. In fact all Ganondorf are in the lineage of the very first Ganondorf or somehow are a reincarnation of the first one. But, who is the first Ganondorf? We have no good answer about this. We could clearly imagine (taking into acount what you explained in your 2 corresponding videos) that the ancient hero was in fact from the "boars" Zonai tribe and that he was the choosen champion to try to save the Zonai kingdom from the "evil". He has many attributes that let us think to Ganondorf because the very first Ganondorf IS the corrupted ancient hero (even his tail makes us think about Ganon). He has fought the "evil" and thought he won but the "evil" had a last trick... He have been wounded by the "evil" which has imbued of Malice his dying body and took his spirit in corrupting him. He was no more the ancient hero but become the "evil" puppet's. Like it was said by Demise he will be reincarnated. And so his first vessel will be the corrupted ancient hero, Ganondorf. One remaining question is why the "evil" has already the form of a boar on the "Calamity Ganon Tapestry"? The "evil", Calamity ("a monstrous creature imbuing pure hatred - or, Malice") was already Calamity Ganon or simply Ganon but who is really Ganon? We can't really tell and Demise is not any good material to use in order to make a good corellation to understand the BotW and TotK arc. I think that we have to be a little creative for this one because the story is not already written. The hypothesis that satisfies me the most on this one is that Ganon is the result of an experiment which gone wrong. I think that it could be correlated with the draconification of a member of the "boars" Zonai tribe and that somehow "evil" interfered in the process. It is possible that the Malice itself attempted to take the power of a secret stone and in the process killed the zonai which gave to the Malice its apearance of an ethereal dragon with a boar head because of the spirit of the poor zonai killed. We can even imagine than some zonais tried to awake the "evil" on purpose and that the zonai was sacrified in order to to welcome the Malice in his body. Calimity Ganon form immitate his enemy's spirit. Many times in Zelda we can see that Ganon took the appearance of his "defeated" enemy's spirit. As if every time he was using his enemies weapons against themselves (As if it was a sort of lesson given as a consequence from a past mistake? "Malice" in Japanese is called "Resentment". It makes me think about the Homunculus from Fullmetal Alchemist). Calimity Ganon takes the mechnical appearance of the Sheikah technology as the "Blight Ganons" and as the robot "Calimity Ganon" in BotW and of course the boar appearence in the very end as "Dark Beast Ganon". He takes also the form of a dragon in TotK. Of course Ganon itself in many games is taking the appearance of a boar. As if it was his purest form, as if it is the most predominant part of his spirit. Or simplier, it could have always been his true form. In this case, "boars" Zonai tribe revered Ganon and the ancient hero has decided against the will of his tribe to fight this evil god. Anyways, it doesn't matter which theory you find more convincing, it is evident that there is definitely a strong link between these 3 things: Ganon's boar form, the "boars" Zonai tribe and of course with the ancient hero. *_So, to conlude it could very be the story of two tragedies:_* - The first one being the tragic accident of an experiment which gone wrong (or simply the story of a zonai sacrifice on purpose in order to awake a deeply buried "evil") (I also keep in mind the story of the 8th heroine whose statue was moved probably because of a shameful part in the history of the Gerudo not assumed by the tribe. This could be also strongly linked to this first tragedy.) - The second, the vain sacrifice of the ancient hero who became the puppet of "evil". As if this curse was the demon's reward to the ancient hero for daring to defy the god of evil.

Dude, I always had this idea ever since I got through the labyrinth side objectives, I’m appalled such a minuscule detail went over everyone’s heads, but then again I can understand if they didn’t invest much time to play to get there or got caught up in all the convoluted aspects of this grand enigmatic mystery that is the Zonai. Awesome video and theory dude, hopefully the algorithm is in your favor and I hope other CC’s can discuss about this because it’s really solid in my opinion! 🤍🙌🏼😊

The truth is far simpler. RU-vidrs are the reason for zonai in totk. Every video after botw was about zonai to the point it was cringe just to hear the word. Nintendo wanted to capitalize and on it and changed the zonai from what was hinted in botw to give a more “impactful background” for totk. unfortunately they completely demolished the lore of the franchise in the process.

Ancient civilizations are incredibly hard to, if not impossible, to fully comprehend from what's left of their existence? I'm glad Nintendo portrayed archeology in Zelda with such accuracy to real life Great theory! Honestly I kinda like how Zonai still remain mysterious, the charm would be gone if we learned too much about them

Groose meets a Zonai gal and raised the ancient hero

3:15 Why not further into the depths?

i beg you to do a video with Moxie Watts

I still doubt that the Barbarian Armor is in any way related to the Zonai. Why should magic wielders decide to cloth themselves in Fur and Bones when they have literally no need to? My guess is that this armor is Human-made and that it comes from a Tribe that lived before the Zonai arrived, because when we encounter Ganondorf he said in the Japanese Language that in the Past there was darkness and Bloodshed everywhere and his Goal was to return the worldbto that state

Mam can we have gametheory? No we have gametheory at home. Gametheory at home:

Sorry but your assumption that mattison is 6+ years old fails to mention Gerudo having a unique aging growth that is much faster than other races in hyrule. Please investigate for yourself. English text from one goron says a couple years apart and the twins at the stable havent grown while other children have.

15:22 “war never changes” is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. War changes A LOT It can change because of technological advancement ,ethical advancement , ethical deadvancement and so much more war never change is so stupid nothing never changes As you said “war never changes” you showed us the tapestry of war changing.

theres so much wrong in this video