Calamity Ganon - A Deconstruction of Villainy

This video is made before the release of TOTK is it?

Calamity Ganon is, put simply, magical power combined with his hatred that has been emanating from the mummified Ganon underneath Hyrule Castle.

If I recall correctly, the whole "Given up on reincarnation" line is supposed to refer to Calamity Ganon's desire to create a proper body for its current incarnation. The prior form looks like an unfinished cyborg creature because its body weren't fully formed yet. In other words, Calamity Ganon gives up on reincarnation because it was still in the process of reincarnating when we defeated it. It didn't stop the cycle, it just put a premature end to this current form.

Edit: I checked the Creating a Champion source book, and this is indeed the case. Its primary motivation in BotW was reincarnation above all else.

In the way he is so much like doctor Willy and a bit of sigma from the megaman series both characters throughout time always come back from the dead and they’ve both become into this frustrated versions that are trying to improve but always end up getting killed

(spoilers for totk )

my theory on why ganan becomes human is that in the brgging of the game when he is releced thats him winning after thousand of years of losing to zelda and link being set free means that he beat raru and thats is why is human again

I mean... You bring up the Beast and how it shouldn't have been named so explicitly because it ruined the mystery... But like... You knew it's a Zelda game, right? If you see a boar bigger than a normal boar, you know who you're dealing with already. Every game he has ever been in except for Windwaker, he has turned into a boar-like monster, as you point out for his "final form". But the spooky Beast you see the first time... It's clearly a boar-shaped monster.

Interesting thing about Ganon's "giving up on reincarnation." That's a translation error in the Western localisation. The original Japanese says quite the opposite, that he's assumed his pure, enraged form in one last-ditch effort to reincarnate.

So, after playing both games and watching both of your essays a few times, based on what we see in TOTK and look back to see where Calamity Ganon came from, my theory is Ganondorf had so much offset power that Calamity manifested out of it, despite the seal. This would be one of the only things that could make sense to me, given how TOTK almost feels like a soft reboot but isn't, and the fact the second game does happen some years after BOTW.

What are the chances, im playing botw to get my brother off the plateau and this comes into my related tab

Possible light TOTK spoilers:

It's funny, when you mentioned about how ganon uses the hero's progress against him, when i kept finding that the bokoblins were mining zonite in the depths and just about every monster in the depths dropped zonite when defeated, the whole time i was thinking "oh crap, Ganondorf is going to use zonite against me and knows it's potential for zonai devices"

And i was super disappointed that i saw nothing to payoff that. Like why would the developers purposefully have enemies mining zonite underground and then do nothing to explain why? Unless i missed something on that playthrough

One missed opportunity of TotK was to use the time-travel plot to retroactively explain Calamity Ganon as being Ganondorf's endless attempt to resurrect after failing in TotK and finding a way through time to do it... but in doing so he became a complete shell of what he was. Sadly that's not what the implications are, but I really would've liked that.

In TotK Ganondorf seems to have no trouble waiting around. Just make him über confident that he doesn't feel the need to be proactive 😅

Sorry, but I have to disagree on the exposition of the main villain. This game is gigantic, I don't wanna have to investigate or hunt for clues as to the origin of the villain. If I have to do that, I'm just gonna skip it. I'm not a completionist. I like to have a comfortable gaming experience that doesn't exhaust me. Just give me all the information I need to know upfront about the villains origins and I will go from there. For me, it was plenty compelling knowing that it was the same Ganondorf from ocarina of time, twilight princess, and wind Waker. I liked knowing how those games are connected. I already have to hunt for other stuff in the games, I don't wanna have to hunt for pieces of the main story.

It's actually because I found it exhausting that I really wasn't a huge fan of this game. Sorry, I know that's an unpopular opinion but I just didn't really like it that much. I prefer more linear game experiences in the Zelda franchise.

In my opinion, from a story perspective, Calamity Ganon is far better than totk Ganondorf minus when ganondorf reawakens. Calamity Ganon shows far more power than ganondorf exluding when Ganondorf shatters the master sword with two hits. Ganon caused far more damage and impact overall to Hyrule. Also very funny comparing the blights being killed to ganon losing his favorite toys

Do some of the voice actors in Zelda games voice in dark souls

also in windwaker when you pull the master sword he basically says “yeah you got that dull ass blade i’ll give you that… but you also just freed all of my monsters you incel”

Would have been great is they didn’t say Gannon or tell you anything about him, no backstory and no context, so that when you go into the actual boss fight and see the face of the beast up close, it hits you like a brick of realization.

I've heard a theory that all of the Ganons in the timeline were just more completed reincarnated Calamity Ganons and all of the other Ganondorfs were influenced, controlled, or possessed by a Calamity Ganon, with the Wind Waker Ganondorf actually freed from Calamity Ganon's possession, influence, or control, (hence, his inability to transform into a Ganon, opting for a literal Puppet Ganon instead) yet would not let go of the past because that corrupting influence which groomed him all his life, so it was all he knew but at least remembered his original goal for his people, probably the very worry which allowed Calamity Ganon to influence him in the first place. Eventually, the Calamity Ganons became less human, and more beast, and eventually more mindless until we get the Calamity Ganon from previously time before 10K years before BotW.

TGanondorf from TotK was the original Ganondorf from which the Calamity Ganons came from, preceding even OoT Ganondorf, appearing centuries after Skyward Sword during the birth of Hyrule. In OoT, there's even Gloom (or "Miasma" in every other version of ToTK) under a floating Ganon's Castle.

Love ur Boyce

Rice experiment is the answer

Honestly, I can't help but feel bad for Ganondorf.

didn't link and zelda lose in the period before windwaker?

Ganon's in this state, and the way you describe it, it more like Godzilla, than a man. And I love it.

The cage Ganon is in is reminiscent of a heart, it pulses and seems to pump Malice from it. But it is more of a tumor, encapsulated by the body (Zelda) to protect the whole (Hyrule).

He takes the form of a boar because a boar (and suids in general) have a connotation of being ravenous devourers, a symbol of gluttony, because Ganon is a glutton for power.

The problem with the idea of not mentioning ganon's name is that the moment you hint towards it, everyone will know. What could you possibly say that would hint to this character being ganon without anyone who's played these games immediately realizing what it is?

recently I've started playing zelda botw so I have to wait a while to finish this game (and probably totk) before I will watch those videos,

Calamity Ganon is a separate entity from Ganondorf. Ganondorf is still dead at the time of AOC/BOTW, and he sent Calamity Ganon up to Hyrule to keep everyone busy while he was resurrecting himself.

Je pose le 666ême commentaire !!

what

I love that botw is considered the order 66 of Zelda

W video

i want a Legend of Ganon. Where some freak-accident fumbles around the souls of Ganondorf, Link and Zelda and Ganon gets the role of the hero (reluctantly, and with great difficulty as he has to juggle being a king to his people with the rest of the world not trusting a gerudo "pretending" to be a hero), the Link carries the power of Zelda (but struggles with it because it was not meant for him) and evil Queen Zelda brings order to Hyrule (with her army. Repeat of the old war, actually).

I'd love to see this channel do a deconstruction of villainy for the elden ring bosses. Namely Mohg, Morgott and perhaps even Ranni

So that tumblr thread,
"Two beings reborn again and again, but they aren't lovers, they fricking hate each other" with a drawing of Ganon and Zelda glaring at each other, while Link holds Zelda up.
(And then smth about Link being a poor sob, thrown in their conflict)
Is actually (mostly) true?

With ToTK Calamity Ganon seems like a projection of Ganondorf who couldn't fully escape his underground actual being, and the fact that it's still this powerful really speaks to how strong the real deal is in the sequel!

I still want to see an iteration of Gannon where he learns of the curse of Demise and tries to sever himself from it.

Notice, that Zelda saying that Calamity Ganon had given up on reincarnation is a translation error btw.
In Japanese she says the opposite.
The localisation is a mess as a whole.

I liked the way you brouht up that Calamity Ganon is the first ganon to really embrace the reincarnation cycle. Individual games are fun, but addressing that more would definitely be interesting

You're theroy on the reason why he looked the way he did worked so well. I'm mad that not what happened and they never explained why he still had his human form

Unfortunate that this video didn’t age well after TOTK 😅

I like how calamity Ganon is a nod to dragon Ganon in the next game I see too much similarity

I can't help but notice that the voice acting in this game sounds like it was made by crunchy roll. Yuck.
...I miss the days if silent dialogue.
I wish they would have made one where Ganon is trying to break free from his prison, and at the end of the game you find out that Ganon wants no part of the endless cycle. He is a tortured soul who is forced into playing the part of the villain over and over for thousands of years simply because the legends became more and more exaggerated though time.

I always like to imagine what would happen if hyrule faced off against fury bowser. Yikes

It’s interesting, because what you said about wanting to piece together what Calamity Ganon is, instead of it being told to you, is almost what they did in ToTK with the origin of the light dragon.

…As long as you don’t get certain memories too early, that is.

The biggest difference between Ganon(dorf) and Link and Zelda is that, while there have been many incarnations or reincarnations of both Link and Zelda, most, if not all, occurences of Ganon(dorf) have been the same person - even the times he's killed rather than being sealed away, he gets resurrected as the same person rather than being reincarnated as a new version. So where Link and Zelda are new people who share the spirits of the Hero and the Princess (who is an incarnation of Goddess Hylia herself) most of the time, Ganon(dorf) is the same guy who's been through the wringer without ever getting refreshed by being reborn.

The Zelda Timeline is an obvious lie from Nintendo - some games can be fitted together, but the timeline as a whole just doesn't work, even before Tears of the Kingdom abandoned any pretense at being in continuity with anything before Breath of the Wild. So you can't reliably draw conclusions from details of past games, except possibly where they do fit together.

Why does everyone overlook the fact that the fortune teller Astor, deliberately deceived the king because he knew ganon could take control of the machines and was working for him?

I absolutely love how Breath of the Wild had set such a high bar for you that you've had such wonder and eagerness for Tears of the Kingdom. Only to find and realize that not only is the new Ganon is boring and stuck in a basement, but also the four divine mecha were ignored and the writers had just had to do time shenanigans to even make it somewhat coherent.