Why Aren't Temples Places For Worship?

[Terminus]

Most of the temples in the series seem ill-suited for worship (Temple of Time excluded). Unless avoiding traps, slaying monsters, and solving puzzles based on fantastically elaborate mechanical constructions is integrated as part of Hylian religious ceremony...

Well it's not too far out of the question that there would be tests for "Holy Warriors" in Hyrule or something. But aside from the Temple of Time (and to a lesser extent the Desert temple in OoT) very few places seem to be decent for that kind of activity, save for the entrance rooms. The rest would be extended security for important weapons and relics.

 

[OcarinistOfTime]

well, Temple has three definitions. Outside of the regularly accepted place of worship, it can also be the home or meeting place of a fraternal order or it can just be a building built for a single exclusive purpose. I may be stretching her but perhaps since the Hylian races never really seem the most religious of people these temples are just devoted to the things they do value. Like the Fire Temple in OoT is often thought to be a mine of some kind and the Gorons love eating them some rocks (they are rock people, correct? Making their diet some form of cannibalism.) So maybe the Gorons just worship the art of extracting rocks from Earth to eat. They don't really seem to be the most complex minded people.

 

[Collbard]

I tend to think that each of the temples serve a sort of divine purpose, but not necessarily for worship. I'm mostly speaking about OoT because I just completed all of the temples. Most of them require some tools to gain entry to (all except for the Temple of Time and Spirit Temple), which indicates that they are not only ancient, but not in use. I believe the Forest Temple completely predates the existence of the Kokiri, at least in that area. In fact, and I'm not sure if there is anything to really confirm or disprove this, but I imagine that all of the temples in OoT were constructed around the same time in order to connect them all to the Temple of Light in the Sacred Realm.

 

[Ocarina_Player]

I think either the temples were long abandoned or their purpose was not to be a place of worship but to hold back a certain evil. The Fire Temple in OoT seems to only exist to keep Volvagia imprisoned. However the Water Temple in TP seems like it normally is used for worship but because of the problems caused by Zant and the Twili they couldn't use it. And perhaps they are only used on certain occasions and Link just happens to catch it not on a holiday.

 

[g-whiz]

I think of them less as temples in the Western sense and more as large elaborate shrines.

I don't know about you guys but most churches (our "temples") I've been in were one big room with a few small side rooms. Nothing even sort of resembling what you get in a LoZ game.

Skyward Sword supports the Shrine idea though because Zelda had to purify herself at Skyview and the Earth Temple early in the game. That made me think of Final Fantasy X where you went around praying at the various shrines/temples to get a new Aeon and you had to solve a puzzle at each one.

In Twilight Princess, someone at the castle does complain that they can't pray at the spring in Lake Hylia before you clear out the shadows but they talk about the spring not the Lakebed Temple.

All of that said, I think the temples are meant to house holy/divine objects and powers rather than act as places of worship specifically.

 

[Ocarina_Player]

The Lake Bed Temple is clearly for Zora, and the Zora said they couldn't use it because it was overrun by monsters. So that is normally used as a gathering place. But I think you are right, they are not temples in the way we think of churches, but probably shrines to house some important artifact or seal something evil.

I like it better when the game shows some variety and doesn't have a dungeon be a temple, but something different, like a mine or a ship or whatever.

 

[sunny123]

This is my first post to this site, but I wanted to post because this is actually something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I've been playing most of the games in Japanese, and I started wondering about the whole "temple" thing when playing Twilight Princess (TP), whether they were meant to be used as places of worship or for something else.

But it IS the exact translation from the Japanese word. For example from OoT, We have the Shadow Temple, known in Japan as 闇の神殿 which transliterates to Yami no Shinden and translates to English as Dark Temple. There's no other way to take "Temple" than as "Temple". Then with SS,we have Skyview Temple, known in Japan as 天望の神殿 which transliterates to Tenbō no Shinden and translates to English as Prospect Temple. Again there's no other way to take "Temple" than as "Temple".

With that out of the way, I agree with everyone regarding the Sanctuary bit. Whether or not people prayed in the temples wouldn't be relevant considering they all look dangerous and tend to be inhabited (or run over) by monsters.

Actually, "神殿 (Shinden)" can also be translated as "Shrine," and I think it actually fits better. I started thinking this as I was playing through TP and again while playing Skyward Sword (SS). I think "Shrine" fits better in meaning in a lot of cases, even though in a lot of cases "Temple" sounds a lot better in English. My "theory," if you will, is that these "temples" were not meant as places of worship but as shrines to hold some holy relic until the hero of legend came to retrieve it. I seem to recall that the villagers in at least one of the games talked about something like this, but I don't remember which game or games or any of the details.

I think of them less as temples in the Western sense and more as large elaborate shrines.

I don't know about you guys but most churches (our "temples") I've been in were one big room with a few small side rooms. Nothing even sort of resembling what you get in a LoZ game.

Skyward Sword supports the Shrine idea though because Zelda had to purify herself at Skyview and the Earth Temple early in the game. That made me think of Final Fantasy X where you went around praying at the various shrines/temples to get a new Aeon and you had to solve a puzzle at each one.

In Twilight Princess, someone at the castle does complain that they can't pray at the spring in Lake Hylia before you clear out the shadows but they talk about the spring not the Lakebed Temple.

All of that said, I think the temples are meant to house holy/divine objects and powers rather than act as places of worship specifically.

As I wrote above, I think you're right. I think that most of the temples are meant to serve as shrines instead of sanctuaries or places of worship. Don't the Zoras in Twilight Princess talk about how they were tasked with the duty of protecting the Lakebed Temple? I should go through that part again.

This is a really interesting topic! Thank you to the person who posted this and everyone who has posted their thoughts. I enjoyed reading through and seeing what everyone had to say.

 

[Farore's Chosen]

Most of the temples in the series seem ill-suited for worship (Temple of Time excluded). Unless avoiding traps, slaying monsters, and solving puzzles based on fantastically elaborate mechanical constructions is integrated as part of Hylian religious ceremony...

you know it just might be. where can we get those kindsa temples in the real world?

 

[hwrdjacob]

Cages, not tests

I think the traps are there for a reason. I highly doubt that most temples are places of worship (Excluding the Temple of Time, which seems to be based on a Midevil Church, and the Earth and Wind Temples). The traps, the Monsters, and of course the bosses... do we normally see enemies leaving temples?

I think most Temples are ment to keep things in, not keep things out. The Shadow Temple alone could testify this, as it seems to be a cage for Hyrule's "Bloody History of Greed and Hatred".

I think the traps are there for a reason. I highly doubt that most temples are places of worship (Excluding the Temple of Time, which seems to be based on a Midevil Church, and the Earth and Wind Temples). The traps, the Monsters, and of course the bosses... do we normally see enemies leaving temples?

I think most Temples are ment to keep things in, not keep things out. The Shadow Temple alone could testify this, as it seems to be a cage for Hyrule's "Bloody History of Greed and Hatred".

 

[Wilhelm Fermach]

Well, when i was thinking about things to link with the Sheikah(one of these things being the Shadow Temple), i went to a conclusion: at least the Temples in OoT seens to be each made after an element(Forest,Water,Fire,Spirit,Shadow and Light), but they're not there to actually remember us from the element, but to something that can be aluded from this element. For example, the Shadow Temple: it is related to the Sheikah(at least because of Impa awakening as a sage there), and is said to represent the story that we never knew about Hyrule(the bloody story of greed and hatred). Remembering that the Sheikah are the "Shadows of the Hylians" because of their secretive nature and considering that the Shadow Temple hides de secret story of Hyrule, we could think that the element Shadow is actually an alusion to "the things that are in the dark", the things that you can't see. Secret things. So, the Shadow Temple it's not a place to worship the Shadow Element. It's a place that is made holy by its representation of the secretive nature of things, being then associated to Shadow. So, seeing things like this, we can assume that the other temples were made to represent a quality associated to the Element that gives name to the Temple, making it a place to meditate about this very quality, making it a Holy place(thus being alowed to be called a Temple).

 

[VitaTempusN92]

The temples are supposed to be places of worship while no evil villain is in control. Though some temples are actually for evil.

In TP, the Forest Temple was like a sanctuary for the primal kokiris (what I call to the monkeys as). In OoT, the Shadow Temple was a place for evil as well as the Stone Tower Temple in MM.

Five examples of temples that were intended for good:

- Forest Temple (TP)

- Spirit Temple (OoT)

- Water Temple (OoT)

- Lakebed Temple (TP)

- Ancient Cistern (SS)

Three examples of temples that were intended for evil:

- Fire Temple (OoT)

- Shadow Temple (OoT)

- Stone Tower Temple (MM)

 

[Jirohnagi]

I need to add something. Has no one thought that these temples are in fact locations of spiritual importance because in OOT, Saria entered the Forest Temple to aid the Forest Spirits and awaken as a Sage of the Forest. Each Temple to me seems to be in the most empiric of spiritual locations for each race of people. It's only natural that a Sage of the Sheikah could only awaken in a place of secrecy and shadows Hence the Shadow Temple. The Gerudo Sages awaken in the Spirit Temple because in the desert what else is there too do but meditate upon your spirit. Each Temple is there for it's respective sage to overcome the trials within and Awaken/ascend to Sage.

 

[Doctorzuko]

Yeah I feel the same about what people on page 1 were saying, I don't think it's to be translated as like a freakin church, it's just a holy building or even has no religious connections whatsoever and is just a temple in the same way that like a dangerous indiana jones esque trap filled place is a "temple". Temples, dungeons, I think it's just all different words for a place that's difficult to travel through with enemies, traps, and locked doors.

 

[HeroOfTime]

In the first Zelda, it was called a labyrinth. Then in the second, it was palace. I'm not sure what it was in aLttP, but I think the calling it temple started in OoT.

 

[Jirohnagi]

It was still Palace in ALTTP or atleast the 2nd half of the game was.