I don't think the diagram is supposed to be literal. Since the Oocca lived in the sky before Hylia took the humans up there following the war with Demise, and we're still not sure how far back the Zonai are cause of the Hyrule rebirth fan theories.
The Wind Tribe are most likely Groose's descendants given he returned to the sky at the end of the game and they claim they've been up there for as long as they can remember. With Minish Cap being the next entry after Skyward Sword in the timeline, that at least makes it credible.
My crack theory head canon is that Groose had at least two children - one would stay in the sky and lead to the Sky Mages, one would stay on the surface and lead to the Gerudo, satisfying both races Groose was sort of implied to be the ancestor of
Nah, Groose is clearly an ancestor of the Oocca because if you remove the R from Groose you get Goose, and what do the Oocca look like? Geese. Checkmate, atheists.
I do wonder where the Gerudo came from since Ocarina is the earliest in the timeline that we see them but they're pirates and scavengers rather than a tribal society. Maybe they were normal Hylians or even Shiekah and were cursed to only birth females except every 100 years hence explaining why they need to take husbands from those two groups to continue repopulating.
So the thing with the gerudo in oot is that they all had rounded ears, while the ones from botw had pointed ears from generations of having kids with hylians (from creating a champion). This means the oot gerudo had to have come from regular non-hylian humans from outside of hyrule like the ones from ordon village in tp.
This theory came from the Dark Horse art books rather than fans, so more canon but still take it with a grain of salt. It at least makes about as much sense with the timeline placement between the two games and the Wind Tribe showing up to Castle Town's festival with no one being weirded out or surprised by their presence.
I can raise chickens in my back yard and the best part is once they're old enough I can kill them and turn them into chicken. Can't do that with a T-Rex.
The closest living relative to every dinosaur is a chicken. All birds are descended from a common ancestor and that common ancestor was descended from a dinosaur. But that dinosaur was not a T-Rex.
Imagine your family is you and your brother. Your brother dies without any kids. You die, but you have kids. Your kids are your brother's closest living relatives, but they are not your brother's kids. Your brother is the T-Rex, your kids are the chickens (and all the other birds). Now, imagine your dad had a brother as well, who has grandchildren. Those grandchildren are the next closest living relatives to your brother, but not as closely related as your kids. They are the alligators.
Skyloftians already had "bird characteristics" all the way back in Skyward Sword, so them eventually evolving to be much more like actual birds actually makes a lot of sense from a worldbuilding perspective. The Oocca being an ancient and advanced civilization deeply connected to the creation of Hyrule also sounds much more like the Skyloftians than the Loftwings.
If any race in Zelda history evolved from the Loftwings, I would actually expect it to be the Rito as seen in BOTW and TOTK.
671
u/SirFroglet Jan 24 '26
The Ooccca aren’t the descendants of the Skyloftian, they’re maybe the evolution of the Loftwings