Ancient Hero's Aspect: Explained

About the thumbnail: There are comments about the old thumbnail, which may cause confusion. It used to show some of the aspect when worn by Link, but I changed it to just the armor piece in the menu. I made and pinned a comment addressing the original one, but have since deleted it and will replace it with this. (changed 6/26/23)

The hero doesn't have to be "the" Link though. Windwaker Link, of course, was just named Link, he was really just some random, albeit very brave, kid.

I think an important thing to note about the appearance of the Zonai is that we literally only have a sample size of two individuals aside from the aspect of the hero, and those two individuals are siblings, so they’re bound to look similar to each other.

You know, I don't think the ancient hero is Zonai in origin. Down in the depths, there are these chains of statues that if you follow them, guide you to the major mines and Zonaite foundries found below each major settlement. Each statue chain accurately depicts each race found in the region above. However, the guiding chain in central Hyrule do not at all look like Hylians, or Zonai. What they do look like however, is the ancient hero

I think a lot of people are missing a much less complicated explanation here: Nintendo made this mural for BOTW depicting characters in an "ancient" art style for contextual reasons, all the fans said in one voice "That's not a traditional Link, it looks more like a Gerudo male" and so Nintendo said "Oh crap, better squash that theory for good by creating this species no one's ever heard of"

My favourite theory I've heard is that there were two types of zonai people, those who went to the sky, and those who lived within the faron region. In the game the ruins around thyphlo and the faron rainforest are referred to as older than the sky ruins. I think that the ancient hero may be a part of the zonai that stayed on the surface or from before they left the surface when they still had more animalistic features.

THEORY: The Zonai King Rauru had a third eye. The sheikah later took this idea of a third eye and incorporated it as a symbol in all their designs including the tears drop. In BOTW the tear drops of the of the sheikah devices transferred data / information into the sheikah slate. In TOTK the tears drops (of the dragon) transferred memories.

It would've been amazing if the ancient hero's aspect allowed for all the sages to use their respective helmets. Personally would've really loved that since only having one at a time is honestly quite a bummer and not so significant

I find it interesting that even though he is clearly Zonai in ancestry on some level, he lacks the dragon-like scales that Rauru has. Granted, Mineru seems to have no visible scales either.. but I think it does show that there can/will be a lot of variation within the species as a whole? I do question now if Rauru and Mineru's hair color hasn't changed due to age, whether or not any specific hair color is actually associated with Zonai. But this Ancient Hero definitely has to have some sort of Hylian blood in him. Definitely has skin, not signs of fur like Rauru and Mineru's ears (perhaps the only fur they have, I think they have skin otherwise). Also missing the burdened third eye.

I wondered if it was a child of Sonia and Rauru . Was just thinking about the Calamity Tapestry and if it was something we’d actually seen in BotW or TotK

The thing that baffles me most is how he was alive 10,000 years ago, far after Rauru and Mineru's time, and they were seemingly the last two Zonai to exist. His skin and hair color almost remind me of Ganondorf, so maybe he is a male gerudo? But then why the zonai shaped face? I really hope we get some dlc that explains it

Also the waistguard is a representation of the 3 animals tied to the different aspects of the triforce that the Zonai seem to use. Owl, Dragon and Boar

One idea I have is that they might be related to whatever those unknown figures seen in the depths are. They seem to vaguely resemble them, and the statues probably aren’t completely accurate since the Zora, Rito and Goron statues found in the depths look bizarre and almost unnerving, almost reminiscent of something out of Majora’s Mask or Twilight Princess I hope they answer all these burning questions in the DLC, I’m worried they’ll be vague or still leave loose ends if we even get one, but it’s at least helped knowing that BOTW did have a scrapped DLC that became TOTK so it’s likely that whatever DLC we get will be more thorough considering many of the loose ends in BOTW probably would’ve been tied off.

I have a bunch of theories. One thing I noticed just today comes from two odd details that could connect to something greater. So firstly, the only “emitter” Zonai device that isn’t based on one of the dragons is the beam emitter, which is a unicorn. Similarly, in BOTW, the 5th divine beast, the Master Cycle Zero, is a unicorn, and doesn’t have a sage representing them, nor a helm. These seemed like weird little pieces on their own, but then I realized, there’s a somewhat horse-like creature that’s said to be related to an ancient sage and has vaguely Zonai-like patterns covering its body, and that is one of the few things depicted by the ancient Sheikah in the ancient observatory, of course being the Satori. So, maybe there’ll be some backstory on the Satori in the future. Like, maybe, similarly to how the divine beasts seemingly came from the sages’ masks, the master cycle was based on the mask of the original form of the Satori.

He might be the son of rauru and soina

My theory is he is the secret child of Rauru and Sonia, or that child's descendant, and also an unconnected hero who stumbled into his role much like Wind Waker Link did. A regular Hylian with Zonai blood who comes out of hiding to take up arms against a calamity in the absence of a "true" Link. I would LOVE to play a game that explores his story, and just the First Calamity and the ancient Sheikah in general.

I'm EXTREMELY cautious to say he's the decendent of any sort of Zonai. I recognize he's wearing Zonai armor, but so do Hylians of that time. The biggest denouncers of him being a Zonai are the digitigrade legs, the lion-like big cat eyes and tail, the pointed ears instead of rabbit-like ears, and the lack of a third eye or eardrop marking over his nose. I'll admit Rauru and Mineru could be hinding a tail under their long gowns, but their legs are plantigrade as hell. The red hair is also quite odd but I'm not going to rule out other Zonai having it, but even then I noticed neither Mineru or Rauru have eyebrows. My best guess is that this is a hybrid of multiple races or more likely a brand new race we've never seen before. I'd expect like how BotW had a few clues to the existence of Zonai, this is our clue towards something coming next game (if there is a next game). I really do like the idea that this is related to the Barbarian tribe from Faron though!

I feel like not a lot of theorists have been seeing connections to Twilight Princess in TOTK, so I loved this video! I thought it was a great connection to make and it really makes sense. Keep it up! I'd love to see more videos like this!

Really hoping DLC will elaborate on the ancient hero.

it supposed to be Rauru and Mineru to be the last kind of the Zonnai, but, the farone region Zonai are depicted as older than the king Rauru... so peobably, the Ancient hero is from that tribe of zonai and went kinda "forgotten" qhen Rauru and Sonnia created hyrule... the ancient hero is also mentioned as the 8th heroine in gerudo, since they couldnt accept a man to be the hero