A good villain can make or break a story. Across all types of stories and mediums, villains come in many shapes, sizes, and variations. Sometimes the villain is someone who killed the family of the main character. Other times it’s a corporation that is destroying the planet. Sometimes, it’s the main character themselves. But in the case of The Legend of Zelda and Ganondorf, it’s the actual manifestation of hatred and power. Reincarnated over and over again with one goal in mind, to destroy Hyrule and those who choose to protect it.
There’s something so satisfying about the idea of a villain who has simple motives. As enjoyers of gaming media, we all can name amazing villains that walk the line of morality and could actually be the good guy and justified in their cause. But when a villain is bad for the pure sake of being evil, there’s just something so exciting about it. The Legend of Zelda series paints the three Triforce bearers as the main characters, with the games going to amazing lengths to show this battle that has been taking place over thousands of years. Many iterations of Zelda and Link have fought and died – but there has been only one Ganondorf, The Demon King.
Ganondorf Rules
Any game where he “loses” is just a small setback for the guy. In the latest Tears of the Kingdom trailers, we’ve seen him go from being a mummy to being fully revived into his human form. Fun fact, Ganondorf has only been seen in his human form three times in the entire series, making his Tears of the Kingdom appearance all the more significant. Each time he shows up in human form there are major consequences to be had for Hyrule. Prior to Tears of the Kingdom, the last time we saw him in his full glory was with Twilight Princess.
Throughout The Legend of Zelda mainline games after Ocarina of Time released, we’ve gotten to learn a lot about our three main characters. I would argue that we’ve learned more about Zelda and Ganon than we have about Link, but that’s fine, he’s the quiet type. The reason up the other Triforce bearers as a point of significance is that Ganondorf himself is nothing without the other two. They are all tied in this together, and as of Skyward Sword, we know that Demise, who chose Ganondorf as his vessel, has sworn to chase down everyone in the bloodline of the heroes of Courage and Wisdom until the end of time.
Ganondorf Lives
I cannot think of a villain in video games that has such a strong reach across a series. Even in Zelda games where he doesn’t even show up, the bad guys are worshippers of Ganondorf or even trying to revive him. No matter what Zelda game you play, you’ll also have this ever lingering feeling that what you’re doing is just a bandaid to the issue.
His hatred and power is so strong that not even the Sages and Gods can stop him – even after they drowned him and left him at the bottom of the ocean. In Twilight Princess he was able to make another dimension his own but ended up succumbing to our hero. Link has to do a ton of heavy lifting and busy work to even have the means to damage Ganondorf, and then usually there’s some time traveling happening or a few Sages or Priestesses helping him out. Even with him being defeated twice in two of the timelines, he is still pursuing every hero that he can. With all of this history built up between the major players in the series, it’s hard not to feel like Tears of the Kingdom is the ultimate showdown of the entire Legend of Zelda series.
All signs point to thousands of years of pent-up rage finally spilling out into the final destruction of Hyrule, Zelda, and Link. We can speculate a lot here and try and piece things together but it really does seem like no matter what is happening in Tears of the Kingdom, the heroes will just be doomed to await and prepare for the darkness once again to burst forth and take over. Is it bad that I want Ganondorf to live forever? Who knows. But at this point, his eternal return seems more likely than ever…
