Are The Zonai a Beneficial Addition to the Series?

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

We kinda just know that they’re being on levels of goddesses with stones though. That’s kinda it. Idk, I thought the Twili were more interesting with their lore of their ancestors and how their realm looked and the technology of it, Zonai tech is just shiekiah but green

Idk if we can say they are on par with the goddesses. We still don't even know what exactly the secret stones are. Are they the Triforce fragmented more than usual? Something else entirely? It's all very unclear.

The games literally tell us, even shows us, that the Ancient Shiekah were connected to the Zonai.

The Zonai tech is definitely the influence for the Sheikah Tech we see in Breath of the Wild, but there is no connection beyond that. The Sheikah eye symbol relates to Hylia, so maybe we can use that to infer Hylia was a Zonai. That's the bare bones stuff we have to work with, and whether Hylia was a Zonai is highly speculative and likely will never be confirmed given the route the devs are going with lore for the series.

 

[thePlinko]

That's the introduction I was talking about. We are given the evidence of the people; enough so that we didn't need to see them to know about them. Then we get more in the second game. How often do we get evidence for a people, in these games, before we actually meet them?

Never, because that’s stupid. There’s no depth to a civilization that only has a name attached to it. They were nothing more than theorist bait. At least Majora’s Mask didn’t pretend that the tribe that created it was any more important than it actually was.

 

[Ryuu Kage Desu]

The Zonai tech is definitely the influence for the Sheikah Tech we see in Breath of the Wild, but there is no connection beyond that. The Sheikah eye symbol relates to Hylia, so maybe we can use that to infer Hylia was a Zonai. That's the bare bones stuff we have to work with, and whether Hylia was a Zonai is highly speculative and likely will never be confirmed given the route the devs are going with lore for the series.

I'm hoping that the symbol is replicated by the Zonai, just as the Sheikah after them. I'm hoping that Hylia, and the other three goddesses, were not Zonai, and implanting the third eye is not where the symbolism began, in universe. But, it is a possibility that they may be Zonai, at this point. I don't like the possibility, but it's there.

More to the point at hand, it's still a precursor before we actually managed to meet one in the second game; where we are usually just told that there's history, despite not having evidence beyond dialogue.

Never, because that’s stupid. There’s no depth to a civilization that only has a name attached to it. They were nothing more than theorist bait. At least Majora’s Mask didn’t pretend that the tribe that created it was any more important than it actually was.

You realize we have many real world lost civilizations with little more than a name and a ruin or two. You call it stupid. I call it real world inspiration. And, if anything, the importance of the Zonai was understated in BotW, and expanded on later.

 

[Fierce Deity Link]

I think there is little continuity issues, from what I recall The Three Goddesses made The Hylians, not Zonai, and so I see some issues there.

 

[thePlinko]

You realize we have many real world lost civilizations with little more than a name and a ruin or two. You call it stupid. I call it real world inspiration. And, if anything, the importance of the Zonai was understated in BotW, and expanded on later.

Uh huh. Tell me, how many of those are ever discussed to any length in casual conversation?

Just because it exists in the real world doesn’t make it good world building.

 

[Ryuu Kage Desu]

Uh huh. Tell me, how many of those are ever discussed to any length in casual conversation?

Just because it exists in the real world doesn’t make it good world building.

Casual conversations are not the bounds of interesting story. How would you suggest making use of inspiration derived from one of these lost civilizations?

 

[thePlinko]

Casual conversations are not the bounds of interesting story. How would you suggest making use of inspiration derived from one of these lost civilizations?

Easy, I wouldn’t.

 

[Fierce Deity Link]

I'm hoping that the symbol is replicated by the Zonai, just as the Sheikah after them. I'm hoping that Hylia, and the other three goddesses, were not Zonai, and implanting the third eye is not where the symbolism began, in universe. But, it is a possibility that they may be Zonai, at this point. I don't like the possibility, but it's there.

More to the point at hand, it's still a precursor before we actually managed to meet one in the second game; where we are usually just told that there's history, despite not having evidence beyond dialogue.


You realize we have many real world lost civilizations with little more than a name and a ruin or two. You call it stupid. I call it real world inspiration. And, if anything, the importance of the Zonai was understated in BotW, and expanded on later.

Tears of Kingdom majorly expanded their mythos with them being the gods who interbred to create Hylians. (Zelda shares this in mural scene reading). Zonai have very Atlantian vibes, and Plato says Atlantis existed and where, but its a lost civilization. So I agree with you.

 

[Ryuu Kage Desu]

Easy, I wouldn’t.

Wow. I guess that precludes every other time the franchise included an ancient lost civilization.

Of the top of my head, that's Skyward Sword, Minish Cap, Wind Waker, Spirit tracks, Majora's Mask, possibly Link to the Past, and likely Twilight princess. Do the abandoned Sheikah sites after Ocarina of time count, with Impa supposedly being the last one, at the time? Or, how about the original game, where everyone are literally living in caves, and the whole land seems to be abandoned to the monsters? I won't even count Link's awakening, being a dream, despite many theories in psychology telling us that the content of dreams are ultimately tied to our realities, in some way or another.

Tears of Kingdom majorly expanded their mythos with them being the gods who interbred to create Hylians. (Zelda shares this in mural scene reading). Zonai have very Atlantian vibes, and Plato says Atlantic existed and where, but ots a lost civilization. So I agree with you.

I've always thought more Aztec, though I can see some Atlantian as well. Now that you mention it, Atlantis is more common in the average zeitgeist, compared to the other lost civilizations I've had in mind, And have been for a long time. Seems like almost everyone has a theory about the place/history/myth.

I'm glad I'm not the only one here that agrees that having a lost civilization, that isn't a one off thing, adds depth to the world.

 

[thePlinko]

Wow. I guess that precludes every other time the franchise included an ancient lost civilization.

Of the top of my head, that's Skyward Sword, Minish Cap, Wind Waker, Spirit tracks, Majora's Mask, possibly Link to the Past, and likely Twilight princess. Do the abandoned Sheikah sites after Ocarina of time count, with Impa supposedly being the last one, at the time? Or, how about the original game, where everyone are literally living in caves, and the whole land seems to be abandoned to the monsters? I won't even count Link's awakening, being a dream, despite many theories in psychology telling us that the content of dreams are ultimately tied to our realities, in some way or another.

Majora’s Mask is the only one that even comes close to being similar, and even then it never pretends that the ancient tribe in question has any more to it than it actually does like BotW does.

 

[Ryuu Kage Desu]

Majora’s Mask is the only one that even comes close to being similar, and even then it never pretends that the ancient tribe in question has any more to it than it actually does like BotW does.

I invite you to take a second look. The Nation we explore the ruins of throughout Skyward Sword. Ruins in Minish Cap where the Wind tribe are said to have moved from. The entire Hyrule Kingdom in Wind Waker. The sky people connected to the Tower of the Gods in Wind Waker (though this one may be in game or theory; I'm simply going by memory here). The Lokomo from Spirit Tracks. The Eastern Ruins in Link to the Past suggests there was some purpose to the place, and now it's abandoned (This one, to my memory, doesn't even tell us who built the place. It's just an ancient ruin, just because.). The sky islands and the Ooccoo is questionable because the Ooccoo look/behave more like they are squatting in the remains left by someone else, rather than living in homes they built; but more definitivly, that's crumbling too.

I don't know. The people who are said to have helped build Hyrule, possibly the Sheikah, Hyrule itself, the nation that made it possible to forge the Master Sword, and the people who kept an entierly different Demon King (Malladus) at bay? These seem like majorly important groups, to me. Seems like history that important and heavy would leave footprints for more than one game. And, honistly, the people who founded Hyrule would seem to fit in nicely.

The group from Majora's Mask doesn't even have a connection to Hyrule's hystory. They basicilly get a pass because that game is offically self contained. (I say offically because there are theories about Termina being part of other places we visit in other games, but that's an asside.) The Twili are similar, but worse in this aspect, in they are contained in a different realm, but we are only told that there is some great devistating history, that we never see any remains of.

We were able to see that the Zonai were important to Hyrule's history in Breath of the Wild, and it wasn't a one off thing. We got even more in the next game, expanding on the previous game gave us. That's double the game that any of the others gave us to get to know that lost civilization.

But, you've already expressed dislike of the entier trope, that is deeply ingrained within most of the series, of lost civilizations, so I doubt any of that matters. Ultimately, the lost civilization is as important as we are told they are.