Skyward Sword: The Demons, Sheikah, and Dark Tribe

Alright, by this point you probably know I’ve written a lot about the Dark Tribe. It’s kind of hard not to when they’re so incredibly cool, but I’ll admit it’s getting a little excessive. This article is the next logical step after the ones I’ve written before and probably the last one I’ll write for quite some time; Skyward Sword is out now, and I’ve had plenty of time to think about the storyline and lore and see how much it actually applies to my pre-release theories about how the game would relate to the Dark Tribe and the Sheikah, which I had thought used to be the same tribe.

Sad thing is, after playing Skyward Sword, nothing in particular immediately fit. It’s like every other Zelda game to come out since ever: Every expectation we had about plot connections just kinda didn’t happen. It really seemed like Nintendo was going to do differently with this game (and as I’ve discussed, the fact that they didn’t is one of my core disappointments with the game), but now, if anything, Skyward Sword has reaffirmed the fact that Nintendo will probably never address any of its backstories by giving them their own games. Everything will be left open as a legend, because after all, it’s The Legend of Zelda. I might even be willing to admit that’s a good thing.

That said, as always we can draw connections from the facts presented, even if those connections aren’t major and cannot be 100% proven. So allow me to go over Skyward Sword’s storyline and show you what I’ve found that connects — or may connect — with my personal Dark Tribe and Sheikah theories.

Well to start, clearly Skyward Sword does not establish any affiliation between the Dark Tribe and the Sheikah. Actually, the Sheikah are pretty much hardly ever discussed. The name itself only shows up at the end of the game after defeating the final boss, when Impa kindly confirmed what every Zelda fan already fricken’ knew:

This chick is clearly a master of beating around the bush. Anyway, Impa’s quote isn’t anything new. The only new piece of information it provides is a little history as to why the Sheikah serve the Royal Family of Hyrule. They are the chosen guardians of Hylia, who is Zelda, who clearly will start up the kingdom of Hyrule — or at least her descendants will — will her holy bloodline.

This doesn’t confirm nor disprove anything I’ve said about the Sheikah, really. My theories stated that I thought the Sheikah were going to be a splinter group of the Dark Tribe, but that they broke off and added the teardrop to the eye symbol (which I claimed was a symbol of the Dark Tribe) as they entered servitude to the Royal Family for their sins (and were probably lead by an actual Sheik, hence the name). Well… while this clearly is not the reason they came to serve the Royal Family specifically, their reasons for serving Hylia are still completely unknown and unconfirmed, so nothing has really changed, although as I will get into, their affiliations with the Dark Tribe may be far less possible.

Prior to Skyward Sword releasing, I said that the villain of the game will be the King of Darkness who rules the Dark Tribe, who will be Ghirahim’s master. The King of Darkness would wield the Trident and in some way his power or title would transfer to Ganondorf.

……Huh.

Well we didn’t get a “King of Darkness”, but we did get another “Demon King”; another person with the same title as Ganon (who is frequently identified by this or similar titles, especially in older games and Japanese translations). As I previously explained by going through Four Swords Adventures backstory, Ganon (at some point) inherits the Trident and using its power becomes the new King of Darkness. Well Skyward Sword has Demise fall, and literally curse Link and Zelda with the eventual emergence of Ganon. It doesn’t matter how you choose to interpret that curse. Whether you think Demise reincarnates as Ganondorf, just is Ganondorf without truly dying, or is simply a power Ganondorf inherits, it doesn’t matter. This change of hands of both Demise’s power and title fits perfectly with the King of Darkness storyline in Four Swords Adventures. I think there’s plenty to say that Demise truly is the King of Darkness that we knew before.

Something I didn’t cover too heavily in my original Dark Tribe article was the Japanese translations, but looking at them now, they’re… um, kind of important surprisingly. The original reference to the Dark Tribe comes from Agahnim in A Link to the Past, who references a “Tribe of Evil” in the English version. The Japanese term is “mazoku”, which usually means a demonic or evil race following a king. Hold on. A demonic race you say? While the actual phrasing used in Japan for the Dark Tribe in Four Swords Adventures specifically is a lot less specific than that, Ganon’s title of “The King of Darkness” in Japan is actually “Daimao”, or “great demon king”. So again, we have our Demon King Ganon, with his Demon Tribe. Even better is how consistent that term, mazoku, is used to apply to Ganon’s forces of evil. Agahnim uses it in A Link to the Past, it appears during the tale of the Seal War, and is also used by Ganondorf in The Wind Waker in reference to Link releasing his power by drawing the Master Sword in Hyrule Castle. Demise is the Demon King ruling his Demon Tribe, and later in time his successor, Ganon, inherits the same title and also rules a tribe of monsters using similar terms… Although I’ll admit I don’t know the Japanese phrasing used for the demons in Skyward Sword, I do think this is pretty telling. I didn’t cover the demonic aspects of the phrasing before because I thought they were irrelevant, but clearly they’re a lot more important than I previously thought.

Now if you read my old article, then you’re probably already screaming at your monitor about all the inconsistencies I’m still ignoring. Yes, I also discussed how the Dark Tribe of Four Swords Adventures, the Dark Interlopers of Twilight Princess, and the villains of Skyward Sword all must be the same, and there are now a number of holes in that theory. For one, Demise isn’t sealed within the Mirror of Twilight or Dark Mirror or anything resembling either. Regardless of this, there is a number of important features of the storyline in Skyward Sword which match up with the backstories of the Dark Tribe:

1. Demise and his Demons seek the Triforce. This is their goal. The Dark Interlopers sought the same prize. The Dark Tribe and the Demons mark the only times in the entire Zelda series that an entire group sought the Triforce, as opposed to just Ganon; no other villain has sought the Triforce throughout the entire series.

2. Twilight Princess’s backstory identifies that only three of the Light Spirits interfered with the Dark Interlopers. In Skyward Sword, exactly three Dragons, bearing the same names as three of the Light Spirits, help Link defeat the Demons. If Nintendo was not trying to reference the Light Spirits and specifically the backstory of the Dark Interlopers, why did they include exactly three and not also have Ordona, who was arguably especially important in Twilight Princess considering her affiliation to Link’s home?

3. Ghirahim still bears an incredible resemblance to the Twili. And despite being a sword and thus having no reason to be, he is clearly a master of sorcery, as was the Dark Tribe. Demise also seems to possess powerful magic.

But what of the Trident that the old King of Darkness wielded? What happened to that? Well remember how people thought Ghirahim would be like Fi because they shared the same jewel? Fi had her blue one, and Ghirahim had a red one? Well they were right. Ghirahim is Demise’s sword… and the Trident in Four Swords? It’s a black weapon with a fricken’ red jewel on it.

Anyway, clearly there are inconsistencies. There’s no mirror. Demise and his Demons are not discernibly sealed away (except for Demise, who sort of is, but within the Master Sword and not a mirror). Ghirahim disappears and his fate is left unclear. The eye insignia never shows up. Ghirahim never takes the shape of the Trident.

So no, it’s not a perfect connection. But I can’t ignore what’s still there. You might think I’m just sitting here trying to be right after doing all that theorizing, but I legitimately do still think there’s a connection, even after a period of complete doubt that it could be possible.

No Zelda game connects to another perfectly, and I’m becoming increasingly convinced than none ever will. We’re dealing with a series that doesn’t pride itself on deep storylines and thick history, but on cool ideas and fun gameplay. It’s a legend and it’s probably always going to be that way. Look at every plot element carried between more than one game of the series and you’ll see problems. This applies even (if not especially) to the now canonically-confirmed timeline order in Hyrule Historia. I’ve discussed that before as well.

As for how Hyrule Historia relates to my Dark Tribe theories, well that’s a bit of an odd case. Skyward Sword is the first game on the timeline, and much later, after the timeline split, Twilight Princess happens on the Child Timeline, followed by Four Swords Adventures. Putting Four Swords Adventures here doesn’t seem to have a lot of reasoning behind it. The only real logical sense I can think of in placing Four Swords Adventures here of all places is because of the thematic similarity with the story of the Dark Tribe. Actually it’s kinda interesting when you think about it like that, because every game that’s ever made any potential mention of the Dark Tribe aside from A Link to the Past is on the Child Timeline. Majora’s Mask with its “Ancient Tribe” that “sealed the mask in shadow forever”, Twilight Princess with its “Dark Interlopers” who sought the Triforce, and the “Dark Tribe” of Four Swords Adventures, who sought the Triforce under the order of their King of Darkness and were sealed away as their master’s legacy was passed on.

In that way, I think the “Skyward Sword -> Twilight Princess -> Four Swords Adventures” connection in the timeline works at least thematically, if not perfectly logically. Expecting anything else from Nintendo is frankly expecting too much (and I had to learn this the hard way).

And of course, it’s now pretty hard to draw a line connecting the Sheikah to the Demons, considering the Demons never used the eye symbol of the Dark Tribe and seem to be a hodgepodge of different monsters and species instead of Sheikah. The only character that even resembled the Sheikah was Ghirahim, who was a… sword. I don’t think connecting the Sheikah to them is impossible, but it’s certainly not clear-cut… Although the fact that the Demons were just a ton of different creatures and entities does somewhat support my original impression that the Dark Tribe was a collaboration of races as opposed to my later conclusion that they were purely the Sheikah race.

So what we’re really looking at here is another theory that can’t currently be proven and probably never will be. There are plenty of solid connections, but also plenty of inconsistencies. The connections still make sense to me and there’s enough for me personally for the theories to hold, but you might not see it that way. What seem like common Zelda inconsistencies between games to me might actually simply disprove the theory altogether. I can’t prove the connections any more than I could before.

Even if Skyward Sword depicted what we once knew as the Dark Tribe, the exact nature of that depiction is still unknown. Are the Demons the Dark Tribe itself? Did they splinter off from the Dark Tribe, or the tribe from them? Could the Dark Tribe’s attempt to seize the Triforce have been an action by survivors of Demise’s army? What role exactly do the Sheikah play in this history, if any at all? And what of the eye symbol and the Trident? There are lots of mysteries left. If we’re lucky, we might learn more about it from a later Zelda game. Still, I think we’re looking as some form of depiction of the Dark Tribe in Skyward Sword. After all, Demise and his Demons were in all probability the earliest enemies of the Zelda world, and that’s exactly what the Dark Tribe is supposed to be. What else might be revealed about them, if anything, I can only speculate.

Oh, and you know that whole theory about Fi being Nayru? Let’s just forget that ever happened, okay?

Author: Axle the Beast

Axle has been on Zelda Dungeon for several years and runs the site’s video mailbag, the Curiosity Shop, and also does other videos on the site’s YouTube channel regularly. He frequently writes articles and can also be found on Twitter, Facebook, deviantART, and his own personal YouTube channel.