Demise’s Speech Re-Translated By a Fan

Demise’s speech at the end of Skyward Sword was a significant moment for Zelda theorists and timeline enthusiasts, giving us a lot of insight into other aspects of the series (for better or for worse). However, as some fans have shown recently, what we read in the game might not have been entirely accurate. When games are localized, lots of statements are changed for various reasons, often just so they’ll sound better or be more identifiable. Sometimes, however, interesting details are lost in translation.

User Masky on the Zelda Universe forums posted user Yamikawa’s re-translation of the speech Demise gave after his defeat, and there’s some really interesting stuff here. You can read the post here, but I’ve included some excerpts and my own thoughts after the jump. Obviously, there are many spoilers here for Skyward Sword.

I do not care if you value your life and run away. Go ahead and weep like a human during the little time left before I rule the world… But if you claim of having the courage to step into the Demon Tribe’s world, then… Come after me. I shall wait for a little while.

First off, “Demon Tribe” can now be considered their official name, and the actual Japanese term used for them — “mazoku” — as shown in the full translation, is the same one that was used for the “Tribe of Evil” from A Link to the Past, finally proving my Dark Tribe theory for certain (or really close to it). Calling it the tribe’s world is interesting, and could also imply a correlation between the Dark Realm of Spirit Tracks and the space where Demise is fought, because they have a very similar appearance.

The name of the targeted object is “Tyrannical Being”.

As elaborated on by the translator, there was no actual name given for Demise. He’s basically called either “Demon King” or “Tyrannical Being”, which is very interesting.

My hatred… The curse of the Demon Tribe… They shall continously go on reincarnating until the end of all times.

Do not forget it! I shall repeat it!!

You people shall… You people who possess the blood of the Goddess and the soul of hero shall… forever be unable to escape from this curse!

This hatred and grude… Its evolution shall forever painfully wander across this blood-stained “Dark Sea” along with you lowlifes forever!!

And here, Demise’s infamous curse, which is supposed to lead to his reincarnation of sorts as Ganondorf, is instead found to reference the Demon Tribe as a whole, not him alone. Whether this is significant or not is unclear (especially since it uses the actual word “reincarnating” and he still says “my hatred”), but it’s still a really fascinating new angle. As Masky said, it almost sounds like the entire Demon Tribe has declared war on the Gods. The “blood-stained Dark Sea” is also really interesting, although what it means is unclear. Is it referring to the Demon Tribe’s world itself? Perhaps this is the plane from which all the monsters come from.

I think this is great news. It’s always cool to get new insight on a game from sources like this, and I really appreciate the guys who brought this translation to us because it changes a lot of things. I think this has some really cool impact on the story of Skyward Sword and the series as a whole. I wish more of this made it into the English translation, but at the same time I can really, really see why it didn’t (who seriously talks like Demise does in this translation?). Major thanks to Zelda Universe users Masky and Yamikawa for bringing this to the Zelda community!

So what do you guys think? Cool news? Stuff you already expected? Or disappointing and boring? Tell us in the comments!

Source: Zelda Universe (tipped by Djinn)