Tears of the Kingdom: True Ending Explained

the moment his health bar just kept going past the end of his name until the very end of the screen gave me absolute chills

Important note. I don't think Zelda changing back was actually random light magic. What they were doing was reversing time. Link's arm was the same way, reversing time to set it back to the way it was before. We see Zelda has the secret stone after the transformation as well. Link, Rauru, and Sonia were just sending the dragon back thousands of years until it reverted to its original form.

I laughed SO HARD when Ganondorf was like “haHA this isn’t even my final form” and his health bar just kept going as he powered up 💀

I'm a 40 year old man, with a 40 year old man life. I just wanna say this game blew me away even more than BOTW did, and thats saying a lot. This game made me cry real tears of sadness when Zelda swallowed the stone, and real tears of happiness as I plummeted through the sky to catch her. I honestly can't fathom how they managed to do this to a grown man, but I'm really glad they did. Most games come and go, but this game, this story in particular, this is going to stick with me for a long time. What. A. Game! 11/10

My only gripe with the story is we never saw the child of Rauru and Sonia. We know they have one as Sonia feels a blood connection with Zelda meaning those two had a kid who would eventually lead to the birth of Zelda. I wanted to see the baby

Talking from a gameplay standard can we talk about how much Link caring for Zelda came in. You couldn’t see your hearts, you could see your stamina, you couldn’t see your map. All that was on screen in terms of HUD was R to dive to Zelda. It doesn’t matter how Link is doing, it doesn’t matter if he’s in danger. All that matters is Zelda is falling. He’s not going to let her be alone again, he’s not going to let her fall again, he’s not going to let her die like he did with the champions.

The only gripe I have with the story is that I thought Purah should've been the Sage of Spirit. She even has a similar owl-goggle thing to Mineru, AND she appears in the final cutscene when the Sages pledge their allegiance to Zelda! Not to mention the ties between the Shiekah and Zonai cultures hinted at through BOTW and TOTK. It would just make so much sense to the point I feel like that was the original intention before something got changed

I like how King Rauru and Queen Sonia are much similar to Link and Zelda... just like how the pair is a metaphor of the Silent Princess flower. Especially how her ancestors acted like the kind of parents she needed since her father King Rhoam has given her so much cold & harsh challenges towards his own daughter. They would have like to meet Zelda’s appointed knight and lover if not Ganondorf’s ruthless conquest in the Imprisoning War.

I was expecting Mineru to pass her secret stone onto Purah before passing on. It makes narrative sense as the two are similar in many ways and share an obvious connection based on the masks they both wear. I thought that was the whole reason Purah was even there in that final scene. Missed opportunity in my opinion.

What surprised me about this game is how little the Triforce is referenced explicitly, but rather expressed as character traits within the triad of protagonist (Link always having the courage to overcome any challenge regardless of the circumstances), deuteragonist (Zelda's growth in wisdom as she is literally flung into the past and has to grow on her own without Link), and antagonist (Ganon's pursuit of power, his rise to power, and when power consumes his very being). It was a big departure from what we saw with Zelda's bow of light in the previous game, but I do appreciate the fact that Tears of the Kingdom tries to explore well beyond their traditional plot devices. The way they paid homage to works like Laputa and Nausicaa was the highest form of compliments I've seen between fellow creators.

I think the finger taunting is actually a call back to his Twilight Princess counterpart, who also does a finger taunt. (At least I think he does, it's been a looong time)

When dragon Ganondorf exploded my jaw dropped, it was so badass. I’m just sad now that i’m done and don’t really have anything left to do, unless I want to grind out the last bit of side quests. At least I enjoyed my time!

One small detail that I noticed is that during the scene where Zelda is being transformed back into a human, there is the ticking of a clock that's mixed into her theme. It sounds extremely similar to the ticking that you hear when using the recall ability. That makes me think that a big part of what's happening in that scene is recall being used. Which would also explain the restoration of Link's arm. Probably obvious to some but I thought the inclusion into the actual soundtrack of the game was awesome attention to detail.

Actually, Link's arm wasn't just damaged by Gloom; it was straight up replaced with Rauru's arm after it was beyond saving. The coloration isn't scarring or anything, it's a perfectly healthy normal Zonai arm, so it's actually really weird that it returns to his old Hylian arm.

Headcanon, but thought I should mention it - Calamity Ganon's boar form from the end of BotW might've been shooting beams down into the ground and into the air because he was trying to hit the Light dragon, but didn't know where she was.

You forgot how it started with Link not being able to catch Zelda in the beginning, and then in the end her being caught by him finally as they’re falling!

With just how incredibly influential the Triforce is in the Lore, its absence still makes me believe that this series could have a 3rd game in it.

Link loves Zelda

I just finished the game like 10 minutes ago, and dude this was the best ending to any zelda game ever, really makes you wonder what will be next in the series, as much as I would love a sequel to the sequel of BOTW, I wonder if the next game will take place many years after TOTK ending, during the "true ending" I legit thought link was going to talk for the first time, luckily it didn't happen, and dude Ganondorf was so good this game, I went into the ending thinking Zelda was going to die because someone said she sacrificed herself as a dragon to save link from being killed by Ganondorf, so after seeing that ending, it was amazing for me, and the soundtrack throughout the entire ending was fucking amazing, this is easily game of the year there's no way it's not

Literally one of the funnest boss fights I had with him haha. He needs a buff weirdly enough. He can accidentally get stuck in the wall and you can speed run him accidentally in that stage.