The "Fake" Zonai Tribe Origins SOLVED (Tears of the Kingdom Theory/Lore)

I’m hoping to lean more into theories in the future to try and help the community solve some of the darkest secrets of Zelda’s past… So let me know what you thought of this one and what you’d improve, make sure to leave a comment Thanks for watching ❤

This what I always thought when I first saw Sonia and Rauru together. The Zonai culture transcends one race and became a culture of two thus the human side of the culture would split off and continue on. Also love the idea of them making helmets to look like ganandorf as like a mocking of him.

maybe the zonai werent supposed to be as deeply explored by the games, but the players became so fascinated with them that the zelda team elaborated further on their story, resulting in two types of zonai

Ganondorf comments that he finds it strange that none of the Sages have info imparted to them by their Secret Stones. It seems strange that he would mention this, unless his Secret Stone allows him this power. We see him awaken immediately after Zelda's Time Stone activates, which introduces the possibility to me of this: Ganondorf, by tapping into the power of his Secret Stone, unknowingly "recalls" what he is actually a revisioned version of the past. Rauru's Castle in both BOTW and TOTK is no longer around. By using the memories to place its position atop the area where the Chamber of Resurrection was, we see that even Zonai architecture can naturally weather away. Given this, it's more than possible that both the Geoglyphs now being "carved" by the ancient Hylians and the fact that the Sky Islands weren't around in BOTW point to the fact that Zelda did to some degree alter the past. In the Hebra Labyrinth, we can even see comments made by a Survey Team member that they don't recall the mural in front of the maze having been there before. While the implications that TOTK is a "bootstrap" paradox seem obvious (hence the carvings before the Sealing Chamber), its also plausible that the blocked murals had in fact displayed different events. This would also explain why previous sites for Shiekah Towers now seem untouched (due to having been built in different locations) and why the Skyview Towers weren't in the background when the Castle was rising; the timeline has been slightly altered. Knowing how Recall works, this doesn't even mean that the timeline has been split; it's just been written over. Zelda knowing that Calamity Ganon can sieze Ancient technology means that she would have been able to warn Mineru of this, whom would have recommended a "self-destruct" protocol once the Purification Unit sensed a loss in power from Ganondorf. We know that Vah Rutah loses power after the Castle's seal had been eroded by Calamity Ganon; perhaps this is the "canon" reason why there's hardly any Shiekah tech left.

My theory - mostly speculation I admit - is that, in a past far distant from the pre-story of Tears of the Kingdom, there were three tribes of Zonai, each one phenotypically, culturally, and magically distinct from one another. The Wise sages of the Owl Tribe (Rauru, Mineru) taller, big ears The Couragious heroes of the Dragon Tribe (Ancient Hero perhaps?) shorter, more pointed ears And the Powerful warriors of the Boar Tribe ("fake" Zonai barbarians perhaps) probably roughly Hylian proportions given their armor style Each of these spawned a "cult" as it were, prior to dying off. The Dragon Tribe's cult became the Hylians, and the Owl Tribe's cult became the Sheikah. I believe that the ancient Zonai ruins in Breath of the Wild are those of the Boar Tribe, and that their cult would become the Gerudo. I think it's possible, if not probable that Ganondorf's bloodline is descended from the Boar Tribe, as Zelda is from the Owl Tribe, and presumably Link from the Dragon Tribe. I'd also like to think that each tribe was entrusted with a piece of the Triforce, and that those were split apart into 10 Secret Stones, 3 of which were swallowed by representatives of each Tribe, becoming the Immortal Dragons.

YES. So here we have the “original” Zonai race, with Rauru and Mineru being the last of them, and those who were adopted into the way of the Zonai as a tribe of people, the barbarian tribe. Well done on this video dude

This is basically my thought process as well, the carving of a hylian wearing the charged set, them modifying Typhlo ruins and other things clinched it. The Hylians essentially inherited the remnants of Zonai civilization, they were the "Zonai" after a fashion.

I was SO hyped about the Zonai tribe being in TotK, but then they just... weren't in the game. We see two of them and they're both dead. What a letdown. Like, imagine, if Minish Cap didn't actually have the Minish in it. Plus, aside from Rauru shooting a laser out of his head that one time, they're portrayed as peaceful tinkerers rather than the badass warlocks hinted at in BotW.

It's actually funny to think we thought the zonai for a barbarian war mongering tribe but it turns out they were so technologically advanced they were even above the sheikah and they were revered as gods

The Hylians' “Zonai Civilization Renaissance”, if you will. Zonai persistence as a culture, rather than its race.

I wished there was a side quest to explore the origins of the fake Zonai, Tauro could've been our companion in it.

I guess the only big question left is with regards to the first prince/princess of Hyrule. We know Zelda is descended from both Rauru and Sonia, but we never see any hints or mentions of the child/children who would have to exist for Zelda to exist. Sure, you could argue that they were away or whatever, but there's literally no mention of them anywhere at all, which raises questions no matter how you look at it.

a suggestion, if I may: there's one set of Zonai ruins present in botw that we can find in totk, that shows the real Zonai stonework was covered up with the stonework we were familiar with in botw. this to me indicates that this was done intentionally, to hide the traces of real Zonai work. gone was the sleek and shiny white stone, indicating an intelligent and elegant culture, instead replaced with jagged and rough dark and dirty stonework, making for a more primitive vibe, to go alongside aggressive warrior armor. as well, the original temple of time was raised into the sky and the original castle dismantled, the history buried, and a new one built in its place. my theory is, Rauru and Sonia's plan for their future was their child, a child that has to exist for Zelda to have a blood connection to both of them, and that child became King/Queen after their deaths, and it was someone (the child, Rauru before his death, or Zelda/Mineru and the sages when they decided to send the temple into the sky) that in order to keep things safe and ready in who knows how many years until Link had need of them, to erase Zonai from the world as much as they could. so, they gave Mineru's books to what would become (or already was) the Sheikah who continued to serve the royal family, who's texts would become what Impa consults throughout totk, buried anything they could to protect the truth, and anything they couldn't dismantle or outright needed to be there for Link was then altered to look dangerous, primitive, and war-like to deter people from looking and messing with things too soon. you'd go hunting if you thought you were on the trail of a brilliant and technologically advanced lost civilization, but only the nerdiest of nerds (ie, someone like Zelda) would want to poke around ancient ruins to explore lost history. so they made sure to hide absolutely everything a treasure hunter would want, while leaving a bunch of red herrings for the nerds to occupy themselves with, so the real treasure and their purpose would stay hidden until they were needed. as well, I'll bet many of the old armors having clothes that magically fit Link is due to Zelda knowing his measurements (she did have clothing made for him after all) and informing the people of the past before she draconified so that they could make armor for him. including the warrior armor said to be "for the Zonai". it would both give a finder the belief that the Zonai were normal Hylians, and if that finder was Link/knew of Link (like the Sheikah) it would eventually be found and worn by the awaited hero it was actually made for. here then, is where I also start to wonder what involvement the strange race found in the depths get involved. clearly Rauru and Mineru had access to the depths, as did the ancient Gorons (well, all of them really but especially the Gorons). whatever that race was was likely known to them, and could be the ones who kept things going, placing armor sets in special places underground until they eventually died out too. that has a lot less evidence for unfortunately, but it makes sense, at least to me.

I want a Zelda game where the three timelines merge. Where each timeline has a different look to it. One that has the realism of twilight princess, one with the cartoony look of Wind Waker and the third with the old school top down aesthetic. Make it like 4 games in one. Each of the three timelines can be switched between and then once they merge then it goes to the BotW/TotK aesthetics.

This isn’t something I really thought about but I think you nailed it! There’s also all of the Zonai structures in Faron where the Hyrulean ceramics cover their original Zonai structures and act like veneers.

Without even watching the video: Fake Zonai, the humans who served King Rauru. They made the Typhlo ruins and deitified the Zonai in the form of statues and clans.

What's hilarious to me is absolutely nothing in BOTW suggested a link between the Barbarian set and the Zonai.

"zelda's lore has always been an afterthought" You are an incredibly brave man, TT, speaking truth the fanatics. I'm going to sub for this breath of fresh air.

Fakenai time i suppose. I dont think theres much interesting to discuss about the hylians who took after the zonai, they likely just gradually became the Hylians of today, but their ruins are still worth looking at. If the lomei labyrinths are zonai (which honestly I doubt they aren't), that implies that ancient hylians could traverse the sky at one point, which raises the question of when did these things actually disappear? The fakenai being heavily into lightning is also a important thing, given lightning is mostly associated with emotions such as anger, but there isnt a whole lot we can say about that. The fakenai still have some interesting topics but at this point I think the topic is definitely low priority for a lot of people, given theres not much really to say. Unless we delve into the ancient hero, I'm not delving into that rabbit hole in a comment this long already.

This seems confirmed to some degree in the Thyphlo Ruins side quest, where you find out it was built by the Hylians as a memorial of the Imprisoning War. I figured they'd be the Hylian citizens like those guarding Rauru. We don't see much of Rauru's kingdom but they definitely had a distinct culture. Something worth noting is that in the internal files, each character has a "race" defined, and Sonia's is not "Hylian" but "Ancient Hylian". I think the façades on the Faron ruins that are now coming off also demonstrate this. Presumably later historians just knew there was some connection to the actual Zonai and called them that. Though, the Lomei Labyrinths, even in the sky and depths, are the "BotW Zonai" style yet seem to be tied to the "TotK Zonai"… the labyrinths are definitely meant to be even more of a mystery. Also, small note, Zonai doesn’t mean "mystery" in Japanese, it's that the Japanese name "Zonau" (ゾナウ) is a pun on "nazo" (謎) which itself means "mystery". At that point it was just the name of a location so the localization team changed it basically because they could. Another fun fact: It doesn’t make a difference in Japanese or English, but some other languages had to slightly change the name of the "Zonai Ruins" location between games because BotW's name didn't reflect it being the name of a group of people (i.e. an adjective), just a place name (i.e. a noun)— the localizers presumably had no reason to know about the developers' concept of there being a people called the Zonau.