Rewriting Twilight Princess: Fulfilling Lanayru’s Legend

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was a fantastic game, filled with epic battles, an enormous world, and a…horribly flawed storyline. Each week we’ll be looking at one of these flaws to determine what went wrong and why, as well as to discuss ideas of how the tale could have been rewritten to fix these problems and strengthen the story as a whole. …Preferably without drastically departing from the original storyline of the game, but I make no promises.

One of the most memorable and freakiest scenes of Twilight Princess, if not of the Zelda series as a whole, comes after you’ve at last rid Hyrule in its entirety of the Twilight. Upon meeting with Lanayru, you’re treated to a tale of ancient times, when evil ran rampant in its pursuit of the sacred power of the Triforce. This story gave me chills the first time I saw it, and continued to do so even after I paused the game to go watch the scene on YouTube a couple dozen times (I was a timeline theorist! DON’T JUDGE ME).

(Editor’s note: TOO LATE)

Looking back on it, though, I do have one major complaint related to this scene. I have nothing bad to say about the Legend! Nothing at all! I thought that thing was brilliant! But…I do have a problem with the expectations that it raised and, unfortunately, never lived up to.

The Game We Got

After defeating the Twilit Bloat, our Hero returns to Lanayru’s Spring and meets with the revived Light Spirit. There he hears a story of how, long ago, the ancients envied a sacred power and went to horrible lengths to obtain it. The Dark Interlopers rose up, using evil spells to conquer the Sacred Realm – until the Light Spirits themselves were sent forth to stop them. The Interlopers were defeated, but Lanayru confirms that their dark magic lives on in the form of the Fused Shadows. He also warns Link to beware this power he’s been gathering, and to never underestimate the darkness within them…

The Problem

I feel I need to say this again: in my opinion, NOTHING is wrong with the Legend itself. That thing is a work of pure genius.

The problem is that, in the game world, Lanayru has a specific reason for telling Link this story. By now the Hero has found two of the three Fused Shadows he’s been looking for. Just one more and he will resurrect a great and terrible power – the very power that the Light Spirits were initially sent to seal away. Both Faron and Eldin have specifically told Link to seek out these artifacts, which means that Zant must be really bad news. Even so…the Fused Shadows are dangerous. Lanayru’s point of telling this tale is to ensure that Link realizes just how powerful this dark magic is, as well as to warn him of its corruptive influence.

And Link never needs to know this.

The in-game purpose of this Legend is solely to give a warning that is never built upon – in fact, it seems outright ignored as the game goes on. Just one aspect of the game ever supports the peril that the Fused Shadows represent: Fyrus, whom Link fights before ever hearing this tale. The further into the game we get, the less we see these relics as a threat – even when Midna first tries to use them all together, her struggle against their power lasts for only a few seconds. After that she has complete mastery over them, and you’ve no reason to fear them again.

Look at one of the stories that Twilight Princess has been compared to countless times: The Lord of the Rings. In both tales, we hear a legend of an epic battle that took places centuries ago. Each backstory tells of people who held an ultimate power of evil (the Fused Shadows and the One Ring) and the destruction those beings caused with that power. These tales give a lot of relevant information about how the villain came to be in his current state – Sauron was defeated and his physical form was destroyed, while the Dark Interlopers, who we later learn to be Zant’s ancestors, were cast down by the Light Spirits.

How these legends play into and affect their respective stories in the present day, however, is completely different.

The story of Sauron’s defeat is well known by Aragorn, and it becomes an essential part of his character – as a direct descendant of the man who chose to keep the One Ring rather than destroy it, he is constantly afraid that he too, if confronted by the same choice, would fail. For a character with so much in his favor, the ancient story of his ancestor’s corruption serves as his restraint and keeps him human: we see the weakness of fear inside him because of this tale.

And what’s more, Aragorn eventually does have to deal with the temptations of power. In the movies we see him being tempted by Sauron, but in the books it is so much more pronounced, and such events occur several times as the tale reaches its climactic finale. But in both book and film, we see the same result: Aragorn is confronted by the choices that he has always feared…and where his ancestor failed, Aragorn succeeds, thereby solidifying his right to rule the realm of men as a new age begins for Middle-earth.

You can’t even begin to compare the impact of Lanayru’s Legend to that. Link and Midna never need fear the Fused Shadows’ power, because they are easily dominated. Makes you wonder: are they really that bad? They’re powerful, sure, no argument there – but are they evil? It’s hard to say, as Midna uses them against evil with great ease. The inconsistency between the use of the Fused Shadows and Lanayru’s warnings about them ends up cheapening the Legend as a whole, turning it into little more than a poorly-executed red herring – a terrible shame for such a shocking and memorable moment as this.

Proposed Solution

The warnings held by Lanayru’s Legend had two major opportunities to come into play, both of which could have really driven home the danger and the power inherent in these artifacts. It isn’t hard to identify when these opportunities are, either – there are only two characters that really have a chance to be affected by them, as only two characters ever have them: Zant and Midna.

Zant

We’ve already discussed Zant in great detail, even going so far as to reimagine the Palace of Twilight boss battle to make his descent from ‘confident, powerful warlord’ into ‘desperate-to-the-point-of-insanity clown’ more believable. But while we said that there should be a seventh, final stage to the Zant fight, we never went into specifics – because I really wanted to come back to it for this. This is the prime time for the Usurper King to take the artifacts he’s stolen and start drawing on their power.

To recap: Zant is being beaten. He’s utilized all manner of tactics and locales to try and defeat the Hero, but has continuously fallen to the Master Sword – and now he’s desperate. Broken, beaten, and still so prideful that he refuses to even consider he could lose, Zant finally snaps. In one last ditch effort, he forgoes sanity in favor of drawing on each and every power source at his disposal…

…even the very power he dismissed as worthless in Lanayru’s Spring: the Fused Shadows.

Imagine the strength Zant could unleash in this final stage. Having already been granted power by Ganondorf, increasing it even further with the Fused Shadows would only make him that much more dangerous. What’s more, as crazy as he already is, the corruptive influence of these artifacts could be the final nail in the coffin of his sanity – using them shatters his mind and turns him into an almighty berserker.

The Usurper King would be unable to control his magic, leading to waves of powerful but unfocused attacks that Link and Midna would have to dodge while they attempted to get close to and defeat him. We could even play off the ‘multiple arenas’ theme of this battle by causing Zant’s magic to distort reality itself, resulting in aspects of the all the prior stages appearing throughout the battlefield. Not only would this serve as a physical representation for just how badly he’s has lost it, but it’d really help establish this as the climax of the fight – all while showing off the corruptive might of the Fused Shadows.

Link still overcomes Zant in the end, of course, and Midna reclaims the artifacts for herself. But see, that only sets things up for the next fulfillment of the Legend…

Midna

After seeing their effect on Zant, Midna should be much more hesitant to utilize the full power of the Fused Shadows. The game we got did this somewhat right, as she does struggle against them initially, but the problem is that, in accordance with Lanayru’s Legend, it should have been a major challenge for her to gain control of them. Instead, she got tossed around a little bit, but ultimately had no trouble mastering their might.

For our version of the tale, Midna should remain wary of using them, but she knows she has no choice if they want to break through Ganondorf’s barrier. So she finally puts them on, gets thrown around a good bit…and becomes overwhelmed by their magic, which goes on a rampage.

That’s not to say that Midna goes on a rampage, though – she’s far stronger than Zant was mentally, so her sanity remains intact. I see it more as the Fused Shadows using her as a conduit with which to release their power, and she being trapped inside it until she can somehow force them into submission. This is by no means an easy task, of course, so…cue boss battle!

With Midna trapped, Link would be forced to battle the behemoth, spider-esque body of the Fused Shadows to try and free her. Midna would be no damsel in distress, though – she’s far too awesome for that. Her hair magic would constantly be ripping through the beast’s skin to strike at it, or maybe to grab Link and lift him up to where he could attack its weak point for massive damage.

And of course this would be taking place during the final dungeon; as per previous changes we’ve made, that means that the Resistance is on hand to aid the Hero in this fight. I’m not sure how best they’d utilize their skills to help bring the beast down, but you’ve got to admit…it would be a pretty great climax for their story arcs as well. Battling alongside Link and Midna against the dark magic of the Twilis’ ancestors…it fits together almost too well.

Once enough damage is done, the Fused Shadows submit to Midna’s will at last, allowing her to rip through Ganondorf’s shield. And the tale continues on from there.

The End Result

In accordance with Lanayru’s Legend, Link has to confront the corruptive powers of the Fused Shadows twice more in his journey. The first is during the final showdown with Zant, who utilizes their strength in a last-ditch effort to achieve victory against Link. By using them, the sanity of his already-weak mind is shattered, making his attacks unfocused and sporadic even as they reach divine levels of power. Nevertheless, Link and Midna still manage to overcome their magic and take the Usurper King down once and for all.

The second time is during the pair’s efforts to break into Hyrule Castle. In order to destroy Ganondorf’s barrier, Midna employs the Fused Shadows – only for them to quickly make her a conduit for their giant arachnid form, which goes on a rampage through the abandoned Castle Town. She, Link, and the Resistance all attack the beast in a boss battle, until it is at last weak enough to force it to submit to Midna. From then on she can use the Fused Shadows with impunity, until they are destroyed by Ganondorf in the endgame.

Lanayru’s Legend created a huge set of expectations for the Fused Shadows: they should have been unrivaled forces of corruption and evil. We’d already seen it once with their corruption of Darbus, but it should have been even more pronounced as the game went on. Instead such ideas were lost, ignoring two excellent opportunities to show their power and influence over their wielder. Zant had them, could have used them, and did not; Midna did use them, but overcame any dark desires inside them with a minimal amount of effort. Rather than capitalize on the terrifying power that could destroy everything Link has worked for, the story forgets about the evil of the Fused Shadows completely and moves on like their malice is no big deal after all.

Our next dilemma is really a completely different beast, but it does have one thing in common with Lanayru’s Legend: it’s an event that the writers seem to have forgotten about entirely as the game proceeds. However, whereas the Legend at least got a nod when Midna struggled to put the artifacts on at first, our next discussion revolves around an issue that they flat out ignored entirely – assuming they even realized what a large issue it was in the first place. We’ll reconvene in two weeks to discuss it (next week will be far too busy with E3, and all the Hyrule Warriors and Zelda U info that comes with it, so this series will be taking a short break for it).

Until then, this is Alpha, signing off to go do…stuff.

“Rewriting Twilight Princess” is a series focused on examining the many narrative issues of this epic Zelda game in an attempt to understand why it has garnered such negativity from the fanbase over the years. Join us each week as Tyler “Alpha” Meehan delves into each of these issues, explains what was wrong with it, and explores ideas for how the storyline could have been rewritten to salvage such problems.

Comments
Sorted Under: Editorials
Tagged With: , , ,