Secret Sheikah Ninjas in the Legend of Zelda. An almost completely unsubstantiated Legend of Zelda theory.

(This is a re-edit of an older post. Available here.)

The ninja-esc warriors of the Sheikah Tribe have long been an important fixture of the Legend of Zelda universe. But they’re also a mysterious element. Breath of the Wild (BotW), and its sequel, Tears of the Kingdom (TotK), were the first games to depict the Sheikah civilisation.

Yet, besides a brief flashback scene in Breath of the Wild, neither game features the Sheikah’s signature ninja warriors. There are old warriors, ancient Sheikah monks, rogue Yiga ninjas, and Link can get a Sheikah ninja costume. But the actual Sheikah ninjas are curiously absent.

So where are they? My head canon answer is (almost) completely unsubstantiated, and the evidence I do have will initially seem like an unrelated train of thought. But I think it makes the setting even better. In Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom there are Secret Sheikah Ninjas everywhere, operating behind the scenes.

Royal Authority in Tears of the Kingdom

During the 170 hours I spent playing Tears of the Kingdom, a thought crossed my mind. How has Zelda re-established royal authority? Most Hyrulians have no memory of the old monarchical state; Calamity Ganon destroyed it one hundred years prior. They’ve spent their lives in self-governing communities.

Every in-game settlement has a local ruler and political system. There are elders, chiefs, and mayors. Some towns have local royalty and others are democratic. So why are they taking orders from Zelda?

A few people might be royalists and others might be deeply religious (Hyrule’s religion is closely intertwined with royalty), but I doubt that would be sufficient to re-establish an absolute monarchy. In a land as big as Hyrule (encompassing deserts, rain forests, tundra and an enormous volcano) there would be dissenters.

A world in which people and communities have been self-governing for a century is not a world in which someone could rock up and say, “Hey guys, let’s create a centralised monarchy with me at the centre,” and expect everyone to go along with it.

Maybe that’s why Zelda is still a Princess and not a Queen. She’s been acknowledged as royalty, and a descendent/reincarnation of the goddess Hylia, but is not recognised as Hyrule’s ruler. The Kingdom doesn’t exist anymore, it’s just a place called Hyrule with various kingdoms and republics that owe her no fealty.

Indeed, the people of Hateno, where she lives, seem a little disinterested (except for the children, who’ve been indoctrinated at the school she built). They almost never talk about or mention her. And why should they care? Hateno is a democracy!

But even if Hyrule’s monarchy hasn’t been restored in Tears of the Kingdom, it seems to be in its way back. Some people follow Zelda’s orders without question. There’s a stable where the local Well was sealed on her orders, without explanation (it was full of monsters).

Then there’s Lookout Landing, a large fort in the centre of Hyrule from which she operates a survey core – making detailed notes on Hyrule’s present condition – and is training a large body of troops… is she planning to conquer Hyrule? I joke.

Anyway, the original question resurfaces, how has she acquired this limited authority? Some personal loyalty is probably involved, but again that’s not enough. The scale of Lookout Landing, the support of far away Hudson construction and the obedience of the Stable Association, implies there’s more going on.

Selectorate Theory

I’m going to take a brief detour into political economy here. The Selectorate theory of power suggests that dictatorial government is based on bribery. With adequate wealth, a would-be ruler can buy the support of important actors. This, ultimately, determines their political behaviour. The YouTube channel GCP Grey has a great summary of the theory.

Applying real-world political economics to a video game is, maybe, a non-starter. But Zelda does understand the treasury’s political importance. In Breath of the Wild, people who snuck into Hyrule Castle were called treasure hunters. In Tears of the Kingdom, they’re called thieves. And the castle’s treasure has undoubtedly augmented Zelda’s forces.

One of her chief TotK soldiers, Hoz, was described as a mercenary in Breath of the Wild. If I were to guess, I’d say the handful of TotK soldiers who are wearing Hyrulean armour are royalists, and the rest of the soldiers are just being paid.

The Castle treasure is probably also being used to pay Hudson Construction, who’ve been contracted by Zelda to rebuild Hyrule. It could have also paid for a buyout of the Stable Association, which would create a source of royal revenue.

I don’t think that the Lookout Landing fort is located beside the castle for sentimental value either. The recent Switch 2 edition voice memories explain that it was established to investigate the Gloom. But it has a clear military function as well. It’s the headquarters for the Monster Control Crew and it has soldiers stationed in the castle ruins to guard treasure.

In short, Zelda understands the political importance of treasure and, to the extent that monarchical authority has returned in TotK, the treasure is the reason. The question is, how did Zelda secure this treasure in the first place?

Why is the Yiga Clan more proactive in TotK?

On an initially unrelated tangent, why didn’t the Yiga Clan cause more trouble in the century before the BotW started? Why didn’t they kill Link in his sleep or destroy the Stable Association? Why didn’t they mess with local leaders or attack Robbie at the Akkala Ancient Tech Lab?

In Breath of the Wild, they’re completely occupied by the Gerudo and limit themselves to attacking travellers. But in TotK, with Hyrule rebuilding, the Yiga Clan is suddenly very active. They’ve occupied the Depths and the Great Plateau and they’re actively setting traps for Link. And they’re doing a lot more besides.

They don’t even bother staying hidden. The Yiga Blademaster Station is on a major road.

So why are they more proactive in TotK? It could be a response to Zelda’s monarchical designs. The fact that Hylians seem to be joining them could be due to the Yiga opposing the emerging monarchical state that those particular Hylians oppose. This would, naturally, augment the Yiga Clan’s numbers and allow them to expand.

Still, the TotK Yiga bases are poorly guarded and could be easily overrun. That they haven’t been overrun, speaks to the continued weakness of Hyrule’s emerging monarchical state, but still doesn’t explain the Yiga’s comparative inactivity in BotW and before.

Why did no one steal the treasure?

What does all this have to do with Secret Sheikah Ninjas? Okay, there would likely have been a moment, after BotW, in which Hyrule Castle was completely unguarded. Calamity Ganon, the horrifying monster that previously kept people at bay, was gone and there weren’t yet any guards to keep out treasure hunters.

So why wasn’t the treasure stolen? The NPCs in BotW expressed a lot of interest in that treasure; why didn’t they take their chance? Moreover, why didn’t the Yiga seize it? True, Master Kohga was briefly lost (arguably a plus) but the Yiga in BotW were well-organised even after he fell down that hole.

If the Yiga had seized the undefended Castle, they could have taken over Hyrule (or at least tried to). Instead, they continued their strange pre-Tears passivity. There must be more going on, and I think the most likely answer is the Sheikah Tribe.

Secret Sheikah Ninjas (at last)

Breath of the Wild was the first proper look at Sheikah culture and society but, again, their renowned ninja-esc warrios are conspicuously absent (despite their Yiga enemies, a rebellious offshoot, having loads of ninjas).

They are a few older Sheikah warriors guarding their hometown, Kakariko, but aside from that flashback in BotW, neither game has any Sheikah warriors in their prime. Rola, who runs the Sheikah archery shop, even comments on the lack of young archers. In fact, the Sheikah don’t have many young people generally. There are some, but most of Kakariko’s people are elderly.

Nevertheless, they still make the classic ninja armour and are considered an adequate threat that, in BotW, the Yiga clan is actively spying on them. The voice memories also reveal that they’re highly proficient at defending Kakariko.

It’s also implied that the Sheikah do a lot of travelling. Pikango is a travelling Sheikah painter; Rola says she’s from Lurelin (suggesting that her husband Cado has been there); and Dorian, a former Yiga clan member who fell in love with a Sheikah woman, was able to settle in Kakariko without any of the Sheikah thinking “hey, where did this random Sheikah guy appear from?” Suggesting they’re used to new Sheikah faces.

That’s a lot of travelling for a town depicted as quiet and secluded. Then there’s Lasli, a young Sheikah woman who kept her relationship with the now-deceased Jarod (buried in Kakariko’s graveyard and thus likely a Sheikah himself) a secret, indicating that she wasn’t supposed to be seeing him and, by extension, that he wasn’t supposed to be in Kakariko.

To speculate wildly, I reckon that most young Sheikah spend their days traveling Hyrule as Ninja-esc warriors, gathering information (to keep Impa well informed) and fighting a secret war against the Yiga Clan. It was these Secret Sheikah Ninjas who protected the Great Plateau and kept Link safe from the Yiga. They probably protected the ancient tech labs and the Stable Association safe as well.

The Yiga, struggling to combat the Sheikah, may have withdrawn to the Gerudo desert largely in response to the superior Sheikah fighters. The Yiga aren’t inactive, that is, they’ve just loosing the secret war.

I’d speculate that Sheikah warriors only return to Kakariko, to raise and train a new generation of warriors (and defend the town) after traveling and fighting for several years. That’s why the warriors in Kakariko are fairly old. Dorian could settle in Kakariko without raising suspicion because they thought he was a returning warrior. This could also be the reason that Jarod wasn’t meant to be there, he was supposed to be traveling.

What happened between BotW and TotK?

The Sheikah are personally loyal to the Hyrulean royal family, requiring no bribes. They swore an oath of loyalty directly to the Goddess Hylia and their leader, Impa, was a personal friends and confidant of Zelda. Moreover, the Sheikah who do dislike the royals, simply stop being Sheikah and became Yiga.

I’d hazard, as such, that the treasure in Hyrule castle remained safe after Calamity Ganon was defeated because Sheikah warriors were immediately available to guard it. They probably still are guarding it, or acting as informal military police for the new Hylian recruits. Indeed, Lookout Landing is under Sheikah management, via Purah.

This would also explain why the Yiga clan is more aggressive in TotK. Despite the newly forming Hyrulean army, the Sheikah are overstretched (with the Hylians not yet able to pick up the slack). Previously, all of their efforts went into fighting the Yiga, now helping to rebuild the Kingdom as well.

The Sheikah are running Lookout Landing, guarding the Castle and, presumably, protecting the Stable Association. They also need to guard (and then later find) Zelda herself. A lot of TotK NPCs know Zelda but don’t know Link, implying that he often wasn’t with her (he’s probably training troops at Lookout Landing, and fighting various monster invasions). Zelda subsequently needs Sheikah protectors.

This diversion of Sheikah resources has subsequently allowed the Yiga clan to go on the offensive, despite the re-emerging kingdom. The secret Sheikah ninjas who had previously been fighting them are now preoccupied and overstretched. All the same, Hyrule is full of secret Sheikah ninjas!

Final Thoughts

Going from “How has Zelda acquired all this power?” to “There are secret ninjas in Hyrule” does feel like a weird trajectory. It might also be weird to apply a real-life theory of dictatorship to a video game (it certainly makes Zelda seem a tad evil). But that’s where my thought process has led, and honestly, I’m down for it. The idea that there’s a covert ninja war going on behind the scenes in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom makes me love these games even more.

-Dexter