Daily Debate: Did the Backstory of Demise in Skyward Sword Justify the Cycle of Reincarnation?
Posted on March 13 2018 by Michaela El-Ters
When information for Skyward Sword was first being released and it was confirmed that it was the first game in the timeline, I remember being really excited for the origin story this game would present. The idea of learning the story from the very beginning and seeing how it would affect the rest of the lore was really neat. While I think the story overall did a great job of laying the groundwork for everything to come after, there was one component of it that bothered me.
In the prologue narrated by Fi, she describes the first conflict with Demise and his army, a great battle that eventually resulted in Goddess Hylia raising the Isle of the Goddess into the sky in order to protect the Triforce. While this backstory is fine and good, the problem I find with it is the development of Demise, which is to say that there isn’t any. Based on this prologue, he suddenly appears as the Demon King with a giant army with no rhyme or reason. If he was created as a consequence of the peace and complacency that Hyrule experienced, that could have been interesting. Or if he was once a person transformed by his greed for power, that could have been a cool approach too. Instead, Demise simply emerges from the ground as the Demon King and declares his conquest for the Triforce. This wouldn’t bother me so much if it wasn’t for the fact that his actions lead to the subsequent reincarnations of Link and Zelda, prolonging the conflict between good and evil by turning it into a never-ending cycle of violence. I was expecting something more, and I would have liked to see more development regarding how Demise came to be prior to the game’s start.
What do you guys think though? Did you like Demise’s backstory in Skyward Sword, or did you want more? Let us know what your thoughts are in the comments!
Michaela El-Ters is a Senior Editor for Zelda Dungeon. She is also an Senior Writer for Boss Rush Network, and writes blogs and streams games on Objection Network. Her favorite Zelda game changes with the seasons, but the series as a whole is near and dear to her heart.
