Monstrous Hylians doing Monstrous things to Monsters.

(This is a more coherent, edited version of an early post. The original is available here.)

The good guys in the Legend of Zelda games may be doing horrifying things to the monsters. This article is more a joke than a theory, something unintentionally dark I noticed in Breath of the Wild (BotW and Tears of the Kingdom (TotK).

Whenever you kill a monster in a Zelda game, it explodes in a puff of evil smoke, normally leaving behind useful item. Sometimes it drops a rupee or heart, sometimes it drops treasure, sometimes it drops a monster part that can be used in potions.

But is that happening in-universe?

Are monsters really disappearing or is that a stylistic choice that improves performance? The cutscenes in BotW suggest it’s the latter. Memory 8 sees Link and Zelda in a field of slain monsters that, far from disappearing, just lay where they fell. They only disappear in gameplay sections. This has some disturbing implications for the item drops.

When you go hunting in BotW, the dead animals will also disappear and drop items, primarily meat. This is presumably a stylistic choice as well, meant to improve performance and avoid animated depictions of Link cutting up the animal. But if dead stuff doesn’t really disappear, Link is must still be doing the field butchering. How else could he get the perfect cuts of meat? We just don’t see him doing it.

And here’s the thing, if monsters don’t disappear, but occasionally drop monster parts… Link must be actively cutting up the monsters? If they’re not really exploding, that’s the only way he could get the parts. When a Bokoblin monster drops its horn, Link cut it off. Worse, some monster drops in BotW and TotK are internal organs, like the Bokoblin Guts, which would mean Link had cut them open.

It’s not just Link that’s doing this. Across Hyrule, monster parts are used to make potions and, in BotW, even flavouring. That’s why NPCs are willing to buy monster parts from Link. Hyrule has an active trade in monster limbs and organs.

And it gets worse. Many of the monsters are plants and animals, but some are intelligent. The various ‘Blins’ (Moblins, Bokoblins, Bulblins) wear clothes, use tools and build camps and forts. In some games, they have organisational structures, like the Boss Bokoblins in TotK and the King of the Bublins in Twilight Princess. They’ve even been known to speak and write. We’re not talking about a horde of demonic animals; we’re talking about an organised military of intelligent monsters.

Moreover, Zelda monsters have been redeemed in the past. The Zora were monsters in the early games but eventually became good guys. The Oracle games distinguish between the self-described ‘noble’ Sea Zora and the evil River Zora, but the River Zora have since been redeemed as well. And if the Zora can go from being monsters to being good guys, why not the other intelligent monsters? Perhaps the term monster merely describes any living thing that threatens the Hylians.

Admittedly, most of the monsters are, seemingly, created and controlled by Demons. Especially the Blins. In Botw and Totk, for instance, they’re tied to the demonic Blood Moon. But then again, A Link to the Past implies that the monsters used to be human (although this might not be the Blins. I reckon the anthropomorphic dog knights from Wind Waker, Dark Nuts, are the former humans since, in other games, the Dark Nuts are human).

Regardless, they could all be redeemed. In the Wind Waker, there’s a Moblin named Moe who gives treasure to a character called Maggie (although he also says he wants to eat her, so maybe he’s not completely redeemed). The famous Zelda line, “It’s a secret to everybody,” meanwhile, was initially uttered by a Moblin that was bribing Link to leave him alone.

And what do the Hylians do to these organised, intelligent and redeemable monsters who might be former humans? They use them for spare parts and potion ingredients! Worse, in BotW and TotK they use Monster Extract to flavour their food.

It’s no wonder the monsters dislike Hyrule and regularly side with Ganondorf to invade and conquer it. From what I can tell, from this rabbit hole of weird thoughts, the Hylians are the most monstrous people in the Zelda games.

The real monsters in The Legend of Zelda were the friends we made along the way.

-Dexter