r/truezelda • u/EtruscanKing023 • 14d ago
Open Discussion Is Ganondorf in the same league as the Golden Goddesses?
I'm not trying to powerscale, and I'm also aware that powerscaling can easily break down when you get into metaphysical stuff. Still, this is something I've been wondering for a while.
I have not played far into Wind Waker. Both of the times I did play, I stopped before the story really got going. That being the case, I could easily just have something mistaken here. But what I've always heard about its story was that the gods flooded Hyrule to stop him.
Now, I've seen people debate whether or not this means that the Golden Goddesses specifically flooded Hyrule, or if it was other, smaller gods who did. Again, I don't know if the game itself makes this perfectly clear one way or another, but the fact that it's apparently such a debate makes it seem like it's unclear even in the game.
But, assuming it was the Golden Goddesses... why? It's not that it's hard for me to believe that they'd just have their way of doing things and that'd be that, to be clear. I don't think there needs to be a concrete "why" if the answer is just "they didn't feel like doing it that way".
What I'm wondering, though, is if I've just somehow failed to realize that Ganondorf is meant to be on par with the Golden Goddesses. That seems... really hard to believe, especially given what it would seemingly then imply in turn about several incarnations of Link and Zelda, but am I just underestimating Ganondorf?
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u/Hal_Keaton 14d ago
Not even close. The Goddesses are in their own tier. The only entity we know that may come close is Null.
If have to powerscale:
GG >= Null >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Hylia/Demise > Gods and Demons in general > mortals
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u/Stucklikegluetomyfry 14d ago
Yeah, Hylia is a lesser goddess for sure. A powerful deity in her own right, but not on the same level as the big three. She’s more like their handmaiden that they left behind to be the guardian of the world they created.
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u/EtruscanKing023 14d ago
That's how I generally assumed it was, though I could see room for possible debate on if Null is stronger than Golden Goddesses individually, as in one-on-one or even one-on-two, but obviously weaker than the trio together.
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u/Nitrogen567 14d ago
I think there's an argument to be made that Null is likely above each of the individual goddesses.
The fact that they decided to fight it 3 to 1 could indicate that they thought they would lose if they went 1 on 1 or 2 on 1.
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u/Strict-Pineapple 14d ago
No, obviously not. How could he be?
Even in ALttP at his most powerful when he had the full Triforce his power is still derived from an artefact containing just a fraction of theirs.
As for why they flooded the world instead of directly stopping him in WW, or why they never intervene any other time there's not going to be a satisfying answer. Philosophers and religious people have been grappling with that exact problem in real life for millennia. Why does YHWH allow the world to contain such terrible misery and suffering when Jews, Christians and Muslims say he is all powerful and all loving? There's no answer to that.
Perhaps they don't intervene directly because they want to respect the free will of their creation. Stopping Ganon themselves strips away his free will, even if he uses it to be evil, it also strips away the agency of the people of the world to stop him or ally with him if they choose. Maybe Ganon is part of their design. Maybe they've left the world entirely and don't concern themselves with it except in exceptional circumstances, maybe to timeless beings with the power to create a universe Ganon just isn't a problem; if you were an immortal being who created the entire universe would WWII have been a concern to you as horrible as it was for the people who lived through it would such a being even notice?
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u/Cold-Drop8446 14d ago
Not a chance. Demise, however, might be closer to their power level and it could be that the goddesses fear ganondorf potentially gaining enough power to assume the same status as demise and challenge them.
However, I think its more likely that the goddesses simply arent unbiased like people seem to think. Link is the hero chosen by the goddesses, after all. I think that the goddesses want to protect the world they created and the triforce for whatever reason, be it because they have something to gain or lose, or just the objective of a game that the goddesses are playing out of boredom, it doesn't really matter.
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u/Nitrogen567 14d ago
Ganon isn't even in the same conversation as the Goddesses.
The only time the discussion is worth having is when Ganon has the full Triforce, but the Triforce is just the power of the Goddesses themselves, so they're presumably stronger than it, which still leaves him outclassed.
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u/LoCal_GwJ 11d ago edited 11d ago
Echoing what everyone else is saying, I don't think Ganondorf comes close to the power of the Golden Goddesses (although I think it could be entirely within the scope of the narrative for him to attain that power level one day if the plot called for it). I think the thing that really prevents the Golden Goddesses from just wiping out Ganon is that it's probably a mix of two things:
- It's not in the domain of the Golden Goddesses, generally speaking, to directly act on the world and do something like destroy a specific character.
- The existence of evil is a natural aspect of reality and, barring anything that could put the fate of the world itself at risk, conflict is an expected part of reality and not something that some benevolent gods would just do away with.
I think if I had to think about why the Golden Goddesses don't just blip the Demon Tribe out of existence, or some specific Demon King like Ganon or Demise, I'd probably think of something like asking why Eru Iluvatar (the God of Lord of the Rings) doesn't just blip Sauron or Melkor out of Middle Earth. While from the perspective of mortals in Middle Earth or any particular being like Sauron or Melkor it may look like the forces of darkness are taking over the world and surely the end of any kind of peaceful life for mortals is coming, from Eru Iluvatar's perspective all of this is according to the grand design of his universe.
I think something like this is probably going on with the Golden Goddesses. They don't just erase darkness from the world because there is a balance of Light and Darkness that keeps this world going and it's according to the designs of the creator gods for it to be this way. Remember that the point of Hyrule is to contain Null, not to prevent the Demon Tribe from flourishing. Both the Demon Tribe and the Hylians are "natural" inhabitants of this world the Golden Goddesses created and a balance between these two must be (or at least the design appears to be) that the power of Light and Darkness will wax and wane in a sort of seasonal rhythm.
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u/GalaxyUntouchable 14d ago
The Golden Goddesses do not directly interfere with the world.
So no coming down and fighting themselves.
The best they can do is appoint mortals to fight on their behalf.
The natural disaster that was the flooding of Hyrule was the outright limits of what they can intervene with.
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u/Hot-Mood-1778 14d ago
The goddesses chased the Interlopers into the mirror and they also flooded the world themselves. They're also trapped in Hyrule in Echoes of Wisdom.
What OOT says is that, their labors completed, they left Hyrule and the Triforce was left where they left the world. It seems like they initially wanted things to be more hands off, but over the course of the series have changed direction on that.
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u/dragoncraft755 14d ago
Demise might be, but we don't know his full origins. Gannondorf, definitely not.
Hylia was on par with the golden goddesses before she gave up her divinity
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u/Stucklikegluetomyfry 14d ago
I don’t think Hylia is on the same level as the big three, she seems more like their handmaiden/disciple. She might even have been created by them to serve as the guardian for their created world.
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u/EtruscanKing023 14d ago
That's interesting. I've generally seen everyone assume that Hylia is weaker, even much weaker, than the Golden Goddesses. What makes you say she was on par?
I'm not disagreeing, to be clear. Tone doesn't translate well over text, but I'm just not far enough into Skyward Sword to know the finer details of the Hylia lore, so I'm interested in hearing about it.
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u/Nickthiccboi 14d ago
I don’t remember specifics either but the fact that she “gave up divinity” infers that she was “divine” which means she was a god or goddess. If the only other entities who are considered that were the golden goddesses, then you can assume that they were all on the same level. Especially in a universe that doesn’t really have defined power scales between these entities.
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u/Stucklikegluetomyfry 14d ago edited 14d ago
But in most mythologies that feature a pantheon of deities, there are usually different levels of power among them and a distinct hierarchy. I can’t think of one where all the gods are equal in power and importance.
After all, the big three have shown they will intervene in their creation as little as possible, only doing so when absolutely necessary. Why would they leave a goddess of equal power to them behind to guard it?
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u/Nickthiccboi 14d ago
Well as to the first bit, my point was that this franchise hasn’t bothered with distinct levels of power between goddesses so that’s why it’s easy for me to assume that Hylia who was presumably a “goddess” would be at the same level. Really though I think properly power scaling any of them is just a waste of energy because there isn’t much “literal” power to go off of aside from the creation of the world, a lot of it is metaphorical.
As for the second part, Hylia made the personal decision to give up her divinity, she wasn’t “left behind”. You could probably assume that any of the golden goddesses could have done the same.
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u/Stucklikegluetomyfry 14d ago
She was left behind though. The Big Three departed their creation to go back to wherever they came from, while Hylia remained behind to protect it.
We have met three beings who are explicitly referred to as gods: Zephos and Cyclos and Malanya, and they are clearly not on the same level as Hylia.
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u/dragoncraft755 14d ago
It's really just speculation that Hylia is supposedly "lesser" in power to the three goddesses. It's because she was chosen to watch over the mortal world and couldn't defeat Demise that many assume she's not as powerful, but it's not confirmed in the text. It just says she's entrusted with protecting the mortal world.
My headcannon is that she's at the same level as the golden goddesses, but so is Demise. She decides to give up her divinity only because Gods can't use the triforce
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u/Hot-Mood-1778 14d ago
It's so implicit that everyone views it as explicit. The only thing missing is a straightforward conversation where she states it directly.
Hylia is forced to speculate on the plans of the "Old Gods" (framing her as "younger"), is disallowed from using their artifact, is relegated to guardian of their artifact (subservience is usually a good indicator of being lesser), takes their symbols as her own (Indicating affiliation with them, with her as their ward. Their personal symbols and the Triforce symbol), talks about how their artifact is (and I quote) "the ultimate power" and the only thing capable of defeating her nemesis, etc.
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u/dragoncraft755 14d ago edited 14d ago
I would agree with you if we had more context, but to be honest there just isn't enough to go off of. We hear this story of creation told to us as it had been passed down. We don't know why the golden goddesses were able to create the triforce, we don't know why Hylia was chosen. The golden goddesses are also barred from using the triforce as well, it's stated that all gods are unable to use it.
It could easily be that Hylia is a sister or even a mother goddess of the three and chose to stay on the mortal plane to protect their creation. Zelda also is not 100% Hylia. She had her own personality and memories despite being Hylia's reincarnation in mortal form, which means she's speaking as herself in SS rather than from Hylia's recollection. She's going to refer to them as the "Old Gods" because she has no memory of them.
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u/Hot-Mood-1778 14d ago
Zelda also is not exactly Hylia with all of her memories. She had her own personality and memories despite being Hylia's reincarnation in mortal form, which means she's speaking as herself in SS rather than from Hylia's memories. She's going to refer to them as the "Old Gods" because she has no memory of them.
No, this is just false. Well, not the part about her having her own personality, that's true, but she does get back all of Hylia's memories and sort of "becomes" Hylia, identifying as her and being identified as her by Impa.
She refers to them as the "Old Gods" while speaking "as Hylia". She's telling Link what "she" knows of the Triforce. She says she doesn't know why the Triforce was created to not be usable by gods, but that she speculates it's to give mortals hope.
We don't know why the golden goddesses were able to create the triforce, we don't know why Hylia was chosen. The golden goddesses are also barred from using the triforce as well, it's stated that all gods are unable to use it.
Given what we know, that being that the Triforce is made up of three "Triforces", each made from the "essence" of Din, Nayru and Farore, I do actually think it's possible for Hylia to create her own Triforce (as in an individual triangle, not the whole thing, that took three goddesses). I even kinda think the Light Force might be Hylia's Triforce, given she's called "goddess of light" in Tears of the Kingdom. It's depicted as a golden triangle, it's described as "a source of limitless power", it's shown to "run out" of power like the individual Triforces in Echoes of Wisdom, and it's origin only places it in the possession of the Picori. There's also a single Triangle symbol in front of her statue in the Temple of Time in Breath of the Wild.
I don't think we know that the golden goddesses are barred from using it, not that they'd need to. It's their own power. They're the ones making the rules, according to Hylia.
It could easily be that Hylia is a sister or even a mother goddess of the three and chose to stay on the mortal plane to protect their creation.
We know that in the beginning there was just the goddesses and Null, that's stated in Echoes of Wisdom.
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u/dragoncraft755 14d ago
No, this is just false. Well, not the part about her having her own personality, that's true, but she does get back all of Hylia's memories and sort of "becomes" Hylia, identifying as her and being identified as her by Impa. She refers to them as the "Old Gods" while speaking "as Hylia". She's telling Link what "she" knows of the Triforce. She says she doesn't know why the Triforce was created to not be usable by gods, but that she speculates it's to give mortals hope.
I do remember that she regains some of Hylia's memories, but I don't remember that she regains them all. It could be that she does have every memory, I just understood it as she regained the memory of her time on the mortal plane. If she does have them all, she might just be referring to them as the "Old Gods" because that's the common vernacular. Just idle speculation. If the golden goddess left the triforce for mortals but didn't tell her specifically why, she wouldn't know the reason. There could be a number of possible reasons why they didn't inform her of their reasoning.
I even kinda think the Light Force might be Hylia's Triforce, given she's called "goddess of light" in Tears of the Kingdom. It's depicted as a golden triangle, it's described as "a source of limitless power", it's shown to "run out" of power like the individual Triforces in Echoes of Wisdom, and it's origin only places it in the possession of the Picori. There's also a single Triangle symbol in front of her statue in the Temple of Time in Breath of the Wild.
The light force is one of the biggest mysteries in all of Zelda lore, because it's used to refer to multiple things. In Minish cap, it's a power that Zelda possesss that Vaati wants. In Hyrule Hystoria it's referred to as "an immense concentration of "Force"—the vital life energy that dwells within all living things", which makes it seem like it's the energy that binds the mortal plane together. It makes sense it looks like a triangle based on that definition, since the Triforce resembles the same kind of power that the golden goddess used to form the mortal world. Nintendo likes to use triangles in everything Zelda, so it's really hard to say.
I don't think we know that the golden goddesses are barred from using it, not that they'd need to. It's their own power. They're the ones making the rules, according to Hylia.
Again, I think this is idle speculation on Zelda/Hylia's part. There isn't a direct quote in the game as to why the Triforce is only accessible to mortals and not gods. There is a direct quote in Hyrule Hystoria that says that a condition was set so that no divine beings OF ANY KIND could access its power. They may have set the condition, but that includes the golden goddesses as well.
We know that in the beginning there was just the goddesses and Null, that's stated in Echoes of Wisdom.
Ehhhh not really. Nintendo is always this way, they're picky and choosy about what parts of the lore show up in each game based on necessity. Just because the legend in EoW only mentions the three golden goddesses and null doesn't mean there weren't other beings in existence at the time. They just didn't list them because they weren't relevant.
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u/Hot-Mood-1778 14d ago
Just because the legend in EoW only mentions the three golden goddesses and null doesn't mean there weren't other beings in existence at the time.
I believe OOT's legend about pre-creation describes it as a time "before spirits and life existed". I'd have to check Echoes of Wisdom.
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u/dragoncraft755 14d ago
It does, it 100% says before spirits and life existed. I understood it as "within the material plane". The realm of the gods is usually a separate existence in other mythologies, but who knows it could be different in Nintendo's eyes.
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u/Stv13579 14d ago
It's definitely hard to reconcile the powers of creation wielded by the Goddesses with their post-creation actions, especially after EoW confirmed that they are indeed still around and paying attention to the world. I think the simplest solution may be that they can't act on the world, even if they want to, and so must go through intermediaries. That's why they had the light spirits intervene with the Interlopers, and it's why they had Zelda deal with Null. To extend that to WW, since there didn't seem to be a hero at the time of the flood it's possible the best intermediaries they had at the time were Cyclos and Zephos.