The Hyrulian Pantheon: The Hylia Problem

The subject of the goddess Hylia is a confusing mass of tales at this point, yet to be delved into and sorted out by theorists of the fan community. Before Skyward Sword even starts we are told a legend about her, passed down by the Hylians of Skyloft, which tells of her duty guarding the “ultimate power” from the demonic hoards rising from the earth. It shows her putting the remaining Hylians on an outcropping of earth and using her power to raise both it and the ultimate power into the sky. She then drove Demise, leader of the hoard, into the earth and sealed him there.

 
After hearing this tale we enter into the world of Skyloft, a floating island dominated by a gigantic statue of the goddess. No one seems to know her name, or the name or form of the ultimate power she guarded, but they worship her all the same It seems that she was their chief goddess for some time rather than the three golden goddesses, who the people didn’t really know much about.

 
In this chapter, we will tackle the nature and purpose of the Goddess Hylia, addressing the conundrum she and her tales present to the Hyrulian Pantheon. First, as this is the first thing we discover about her, we will look at her relationship to the Triforce and the three goddesses. Then we will examine her relationship to time and its flow, her role in creating the cycle, and lastly her relationship to Demise and place in the Hyrulian Pantheon.

 
These are the first words we hear on the Triforce and Hylia:

 
“They did all this in their lust to take the ultimate power protected by Her Grace, the goddess. The power she guarded was without equal. Handed down by the gods of old, this power gave its holder the means to make any desire a reality. Such was the might of the ultimate power that the old ones placed it in the care of the goddess.”

 
Remember that this is the legend as it was passed down over generations by the Hylians themselves. We know the goddess protects the Triforce, and they understand the Triforce only as an ultimate power that grants the holder anything he wishes. It’s kind of like a genie’s magic lamp to them: the ability to have one wish, one desire, no matter what it is. They understand that there are “gods of old” but seem to know little to nothing about them.

 
Of note in this tale is the idea that the Triforce was given to the goddess for her to protect. This leads us to think that the goddesses themselves gave Hylia the Triforce, which would be counter to the idea that it was an accidental creation left behind when the goddesses left the world to govern itself. If it is true that the goddesses gave her the Triforce, then this means that they created it on purpose. Zelda tells Link her theory on why the goddesses left the Triforce behind:

 
“It’s impossible to know the true reason why the old gods created the Triforce. But I have a theory of my own. The gods created the Triforce, yet they specifically designed it so that their own kind could never use its power. Somehow, I think that may have been their way of giving hope to all the mortal beings of the land.”

 
I call this Zelda’s theory rather than Hylia’s because of a few contradictions in it. We know that at this point Zelda has all of Hylia’s memories back. A few moments before, she had said: “The old gods created a supreme power that gave anyone who possessed it the ability to shape reality and fulfill any desire. They called it the Triforce.” This is a much more accurate description of what the Triforce does, and the first time it is directly called the Triforce. This is obviously a memory from Hylia herself, and not from Zelda.

 
However, in the above quote she says two things that are contradictory to this and to the legend told by the Hylians. First, how could Hylia know what the Triforce does and what it’s called if she can’t use it? The goddesses must have told her when they asked her to guard it. However, in this statement she says “It is impossible to know why the old gods created the Triforce.” How could she not know why the goddesses created the Triforce if they directly gave it to her to guard?

 
The only answer is that the goddesses did not ask her to guard the Triforce. Someone else did. But who were they? The answer lies in the specific phrasing and imagery used in the moment we are told the goddess was given the Triforce to protect.

 
The goddesses are called “the gods of old” but rather than calling them the “old gods” in the next phrase, like Zelda did in explaining the Triforce to Link, the legend says that “the old ones” gave her the Triforce to guard. When this is said, we are being shown an image of the ancestors of the Skyloftians praying around the Triforce. These could have been the original “people of Hyrule” spoken of in the old, old legend from a Link to the Past who are said to have forged the Master Sword.

 
The English manual to a Link to the Past said that after Ganon entered the Golden Land and obtained the Triforce, the people of Hyrule and the Seven Sages created a sword resistant to magic, which could even repulse powers granted by the Triforce. Although the Sages tried to find someone brave to wield the Master Sword, they never found such a person, leaving the Sages, with the aid of the knights of Hyrule, to seal away Ganon instead. (Note how similar this sounds to the opening legend of Skyward Sword where Demise is sealed, and Hylia is looking for a hero to wield the Goddess Sword.)

 
However, the Japanese manual states that it was forged long before the Imprisoning War occurred. Shortly after the creation of the world, the Goddesses instructed the people of Hyrule to forge a sword that would have the power to vanquish anyone who misused the Triforce. The location of the blade was already forgotten by the time of the Imprisoning War, and no hero was found worthy of wielding it. It is noteworthy that the “people of Hyrule” themselves are named and not necessarily specific sages, as is said in both the English manual and in Ocarina of Time.

 
This presents the first “Hylia Problem”: In Skyward Sword the goddess herself says that she forged the Goddess Sword for her chosen hero to wield, and Link tempers it on his adventures until it becomes the Master Sword. The original story was, however, that the people of Hyrule and/or the sages forged the Master Sword. Which story is true?

 
I believe that they both are, and that these Hylian ancestors are both the “people of Hyrule” and the ancient sages. Sages didn’t really exist, as there is no reference to a culture that fully formed at that time, however these “old ones” could have been serving the goddess Hylia and the Triforce. It could be that these people, fearing the rise of Demise who was terrorizing the earth, asked the goddess to protect the Triforce and themselves. The goddess then forged the sword for them, or helped them forge it if we’re looking at the story in a Link to the Past, and sent the island into the sky to protect the people, the sword, and the Triforce until she found a worthy hero to wield it.

 
One last note on the creation of the master sword involves Hylia’s true role in that process. If the people of Hyrule created it, under the goddesses instruction perhaps, then what role did Hylia really have? Why are the people so adamant in saying that she forged the Master Sword for her chosen hero? The only time Zelda speaks of the creation of the Master Sword, she says:

 
“In order to put an end to the demon king, Hylia devised two separate plans and set them both into motion. First, she created Fi. She made the spirit that resides in your sword to serve a single purpose: to assist her chosen hero on his mission.”

 
Hylia doesn’t claim to have made the sword. She claims to have made Fi who resides in the sword. The people could very well have forged the sword themselves, as Fi is what makes it holy and special.

 
This theory ties together not only the seemingly different accounts of how Hylia came to protect the Triforce, but also the different legends of the Master Sword’s creation. The people forged the sword, and the goddess made Fi. The golden goddesses had no part in asking Hylia to guard the Triforce. The people of Hyrule, who were perfectly capable of using it and discovering what its powers really are, are the “old ones” and the “sages” who gave the Triforce to Hylia to guard and forged the Master Sword with her.

 
The goddesses did not leave the Triforce on purpose, as Zelda herself said, but the people of Hyrule who originally found it must have created a meaning for its existence. They themselves chose to see it as hope for all mortal beings in a world of terror where they were in such desperate need of hope. This accidental creation was ruining their lives as forces of evil began killing in their hunger for it. They needed to believe that there was a good intention behind its creation, and so they decided to believe the goddesses left it behind for them. I think that Hylia knew better, which is why Zelda contradicts herself in her speech.

 
If the goddesses didn’t give Hylia the Triforce, what is her relationship to the Major Gods of the Hyrulian Pantheon? I think that this can be better understood if we look again at Demise and at the Triforce itself.

 
Zelda said, “The gods created the Triforce, yet they specifically designed it so that their own kind could never use its power.” Demise is more powerful than Hylia, hence why she could not kill him herself, clearly god-like himself. He is the God of Hate, the eternal force behind all evil in Hyrule. How, then, could he use the Triforce if Hylia cannot? I think that he is not one of “their kind”. He is a demonic God, cut of a darker cloth you could say. Perhaps he is part mortal, or perhaps he is just not the same kind of God as the others.

 
Hylia must have been cut from the same cloth as the goddesses since she could not use the Triforce. Perhaps she, too, came from the distant nebula where they came from. What is confusing is the fact that she doesn’t know them, and therefore couldn’t be a fourth sister. We don’t know what the goddess Hylia looked like in her immortal form, beyond that she was female and possibly had wings. Perhaps she was golden herself, like the three goddesses.

 
Multiple times it is said that the three goddesses are the “gods of old” or the “old gods”. Hylia must, then, be younger somehow than the goddesses. Maybe she is their child, or simply a being from the same divine place who found their creation after they had already left it. It would have been so much like its creators that no doubt a young goddess far from her home would have been attracted to its familiarity.

 
Hylia could not have been full goddess, however, because there is no record of the goddesses ever suffering injury. They are all powerful. Hylia tells Link, however, that she was gravely injured in her battle with Demise and knew that were he to break free again she wouldn’t be able to stop him. This is why she sacrificed her immortality to become human and keep the seal strong until Link could defeat Demise himself. Hylia, then, is more divine than Demise, hence her inability to use the Triforce, but less divine than the goddesses due to her ability to be injured or weakened.

 
Now, with an understanding of Hylia’s relationship to the goddesses, Demise, the Triforce, and the Master Sword itself, we can look at one last very important subject: the nature of Hylia’s powers.

 
She can create life in a sense, as she created Fi to live in the Master Sword. She is shown to have wielded it herself in the fight against Demise after the Hylians were sent to the sky. I wonder if the creation of the Dark Master Sword was in response to this, and if Demise didn’t create Ghirahim in an attempt to counter Fi. This would explain Ghirahim’s imperfections. He has wild emotions and is insane, which is very counter to the analytical nature and sound logic of Fi. If it is true that Ghirahim and the Dark Master Sword were created in response to Fi and the Goddess Sword, it makes sense that Ghirahim would be the opposite of what the goddess created, and perhaps imperfect himself as his creator and master is not as divine as Hylia.

 
In addition to her ability to create life, the goddess Hylia has something to do with time. This, I think, is the most fascinating part about her powers. Somehow she could look through time and know that Link was going to be born, what he would be like, and what she needed to do to help him. Every time you learn a new goddess song she says “I am the one that guides you from the edge of time.”

 
Think about it. If Hylia is the true Goddess of Time spoken of in Majora’s Mask, it would make sense that she gave up her divine form and can still hear Link’s prayers in Majora’s Mask. She could look “from the edge of time” before Skyward Sword happened, see Link’s prayer, and make sure that the song of time has different properties in the land of Termina. It would also make sense that Zelda would know about her, and that she would be watching over Link in all of her incarnations. He is, after all, HER chosen hero.

 
All of this could be done from the edge of time, before she gives up her immortality. This would also explain why we do not see the goddess of time or any depictions of her, as memory of her would fade more with the passage of time. The people learn of the three goddesses and the Triforce, and the goddess is now human. They begin to focus their worship on the goddesses of the Triforce that saved them, and less on the goddess who is no longer directly present in their lives. The royal family, descended from her, would not forget, but the people very well could. After some time, even the royal family could forget where they came from as well.

 
One last thing that Hylia being the Goddess of Time reborn explains is Princess Zelda’s premonitions. Of course the reborn goddess of time would have visions of the future and other special abilities. A great example is the moment when she allows Link to see her message in the past when he first touches the Ocarina of Time.

 
Hylia is the Goddess of Time, and a major god in the Hyrulian Pantheon on par with Demise. At first her existence seems to cause many inconsistencies with legends and lore we have previously learned in the Zelda Myths. Some of these include the creation of the Master Sword, the nature of the Triforce, the solitary existence of the Golden Goddesses as the deities of Hyrule, and Farore or Nayru as the Goddess of Time. Further inspection, however, reveals that Hylia in fact answers the mysteries in all of these topics and shows us new things to discover and question.

 
There is only one more thing that Hylia did that we have not discussed: her role in the creation of the Cycle. Zelda says:

 
“That brings us back to you… To face Demise and give the land hope, the goddess, Hylia, needed someone with an unbreakable spirit. That someone is you, Link. But spirit alone wasn’t enough. You had to overcome many trials and awaken the hero within yourself so that you could wield that supreme power. And so Hylia… I mean, so I… I knew that if it meant saving Zelda, you would throw yourself headfirst into any danger, without even a moment’s doubt…I…I used you.”

 
She almost forced Link to become the hero whose spirit Demise will always fight. She started the bloodline of the goddess. Were it not for her actions, Demise would not have anyone to struggle against for eternity. But Hylia is divine and her creations, the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero, will live forever much like she would have and like Demise will. In a way this was the Goddess of Time’s first mistake. But, also, in a way she is the one we all need to thank for the Legend of Zelda which is so dear to so many of us.

 
PREVIEW OF ARTICLE 10:
This is finally the end of our discussion on the Hyrulian Pantheon. We have talked about Hyrulian Cosmology, their major gods, minor gods, demi-gods, spirits, and evil gods. We have also tackled the monkey wrench that is Hylia, and revealed that she is the key that solves so many problems. Now we need to talk about Hyrule’s divine mortal heroes—Link and Zelda themselves.

Author: The Wolfess

Jennie Marie, also called The Wolfess, is getting her Masters of Fine Arts in Poetry at Eastern Washington University. She is the author of a three-book Zelda fan fiction, The Doppelganger Trilogy and does freelance articles for Zelda websites. The Wolfess has written such articles as Zelda Wii Needs An Anti-Hero, Skyward Sword’s Art Style: Straddling the Line or Walking a New Path, and a ten-part series on The Hyrulian Pantheon currently running at ZeldaDungeon.net.