Examining Draconification - A Story Lost In Time

- IMPORTANT UPDATE - After receiving a lot of comments saying that the Goddess Statues in each Spring refers to these dragons as female, this is only true for the English translation of the game. I just got done playing through the game again, traveling to each Spring and progressing the Mother Goddess questline on my second switch account in the Japanese version of the game. The Japanese version never uses gendered pronouns when referring to any of the Dragons. I translated all of the text within their questline myself and they are only ever called, "Golden Spirit" "Red Spirit" and "Blue Spirit". Other times, they are called, "A [Insert Color Here] Spirit in the form of a long Dragon." The English localization of Tears of the Kingdom has taken creative liberties at the expense of Lore seekers once again. This isn't the first time they've outright changed something in the Zelda series that conflicts with the original version's intentions. I appreciate your comments, I truly do, don't let this discourage you from discussing the video, I just wanted to clear up some potential misinformation is all. Also, as an additional note, people have said that the comparison between Rauru and Mineru isn't a large enough pool to draw from to come to any conclusions on the differences between male and female Zonai, which is a fair argument. One important point of comparison that I forgot to mention is the gruff of hair on the sides and underside of Rauru's chin, or his "goatee" if you really want to go there. All three dragons have this gruff under their chin while Mineru has zero facial gruff. A recent (as of writing this edit on May 21st, 2024) discovery has been made about the Dragons that either further backs up this theory or takes it in another direction. A glowing outline of a Triangle, much like a piece of the Triforce, has been found on each of the Dragon's backs!

I dont think the master sword has anything to do with the Light Dragon helping us. The Dragons seem to cary out the wish of the person they used to be. Zeldas last Wish was to help Link meanwhile Ganondorfs last wish was to destroy the world. He doesnt just randomly fly no he tries to kill us like Ganondorf wanted.

In BotW, Calamity Ganon tried to corrupt Naydra. I think he knew their role in protecting the springs and tried to take them out to secure his dominance. Maybe they were originally sages who gave power to the Master Sword, like the sages in Wind Waker, and they became dragons to ensure the Master Sword would never lose its power. They may have been ancient Zonai who might even have had contact with the goddess Hylia. In fact, in Skyward Sword the Master Sword needed power from the three elemental dragon spirits to become the Master Sword. Maybe the Zonai sages took over the role of the original ancient dragons to help the Zonai hero who needed to restore the Master Sword to banish Calamaty Ganon 10,100 years before BotW.

Personally, a more compelling idea I've seen regarding why the Light Dragon helps Link and why the Demon Dragon is still set on destruction and outright hostile, even if the process of draconification robs someone of their memory and self, is that the reason for why they underwent the ritual is somehow imprinted and preserved in the dragon's consciousness. Ganondorf was intent on destroying Link, Hyrule, and the world, so the Demon Dragon is hostile; Zelda wanted to help Link and protect Hyrule, so the Light Dragon comes to his aid and circumnavigates Hyrule

There is second reason why Zelda my have retained some of her memories. Once Zelda descends past the cloud barrier she encircles Hyrule, flying a path that takes her past all of the geoglyphs containing her memories. Perhaps this was the true purpose of the geoglyphs, to help Zelda's dragon form to remember who she once was and what her mission was.

I hope we get DLC for tears of the kingdom that explains the draconification of the servants of the springs. That would be the best DLC we could possibly get.

I'm so happy the Dragons got more lore in this game, they were one of my favorite aspects of botw. My first memorable moment playing video games as a whole was when I first left the great plateau and crossed the bridge of Hylia on a newly caught horse when I heard sudden music. I turned the camera around only to see an absolutely MASSIVE dragon peacefully flying alongside me as we "raced" across the bridge. It truly took my breath away, and Farosh was always my favorite of the Dragons since then.

The idea that Rauru didn't pay attention in history class is very funny to me. Meanwhile Ganondorf was probably digging through all of Rauru's old unread textbooks.

I will say for the zelda thing, i always believed that it was because she loved/cared for link so much even in her draconification she remebered him just like how ganondorf should have lost all his memories but was a dragon set on destruction

A dragon is still a beast even if it is mindless. It has instincts and the light dragon’s instincts were to help Link. That was her wish before she turned into a dragon.

I always assumed they were just very loyal servants to din, nayru and farore respectively. In order to continue serving them of all time they became a dragon.

The only way Ganondorf would know about draconification was already explained in game and I hadn't thought about it til now! So, if you translate all the old hyrulean texts, there is one that talks about "ghost stories". We know that Ganondorf created the puppet Zelda and he not only used it once in that one memory bc the translated text mentions the ghost that appeared by night was seen various times walking by but had no shine in her eyes, almost dead-like. He could've used the puppet not only to infiltrate but also to gain more info in libraries too.

One minor correction: The goddess statues at the springs do directly use "she" pronouns when referring to their respective dragons, so they're all 100% confirmed female aside from the Demon Dragon. Everything else is sound though

And the Compendium entry for the Light Dragon describes it as "a spirit" in dragon form. We know it's not just "a spirit" and is in fact Zelda, but Farosh, Naydra, and Dinraal are also described as "spirits" that have taken the form of dragons. With the Zonai also being described as "godlike", my theory has been that the Hylians who saw the Zonai descend to Hyrule from the skies thought that these were the gods returning to Hyrule and worshipped them as such, and that Farosh, Naydra, and Dinraal are names that were given to the attendants of the springs who then underwent draconification, not those Zonai's actual names

I just now thought: the scale of the Demon Dragon’s death is likely evidence of the sheer power of the secret stones. Most notably because the explosion that destroyed the Demon Dragon wasn’t 100% made of gloom/malice. In fact, it kinda looked like a divine punishment, it was so massive. Edit: said “I’m fact”, meant “In fact”

It really does seem like the elemental attack armors belonged to whoever the dragons used to be.

I believe the reason why Zelda and Ganondorf were able to keep sum semblance of self was that moments before they became a dragon they had very strong emotions/desires that impacted their dragons personality like helping link and destroying the world

The dragons are called spirits, so I believe the dragons are a sort of basic incarnation of a person's soul, taking a massive form due to the Secret Stone That said, Zelda's spirit, due to being descended from Hylia, has a nature of fighting evil, and Ganondorf's spirit has a nature of destruction, leading to the Light Dragon helping, maybe recognising Link from the Master Sword, and Demon Dragon just trying to destroy the closest thing

Ganondorf may of known about Draconification because the stone themselves may possess the ability to "impart knowledge" on their users. Ganondorf makes mention in the castle that "there must be a limit to the knowledge the stones can give to the sages" because they don't know who he or The Demon King are, even though they too have stones and are using them. So it may be that these stones actually contain knowledge of the Zonai themselves and Ganondorf was able to access that history and knowledge after using the stone.

I don't think either zelda or ganondorf maintained their minds in any way in dragon form Rather I think the dragons' actions are a manifestation of the nature of their power. Ganondorf is the demon king, with powers of evil and destruction, so his dragon acts destructively. Zelda has "a sacred power to dispel evil" so it is in her dragon's nature to fight evil, including the demon dragon, and the light dragon is smart enough to know helping link was the best way to achieve that