Djinn
and Tonic
The shield in ALTTP looked fundamentally different as well. I'm not too surprised to see different designs on the shields since the art team takes a slightly different direction per game anyway. And at the time WW came out there only time a Hylian shield appeared was OoT. So there was no precedent to keep an iconic design alive for the shield in the game. Just that there be some kind of upgraded shield that has some elaborate symbols on the face.
The bird depiction on the face I think is along the same lines. Just following ALTTP from having some wings included into the general abstract design. Nothing was set in stone. It evolved from random wings in ALTTP, to a bir-like thing in OoT which at the time had no real basis or meaning either to something more mythical looking with wings again. Which from a story point of view is not too out there a concept, people have been painting and adorning shields with depictions of mythical figures, animals, and creatures for centuries. Sometimes for luck or protection, sometimes as a talisman for defense or even as a part of a religion. Regardless of the changes from game to game, the thing on the face always had some kind of wings on it.
From an in game story point of view it could be many different reasons why it is not a loftwing. The people living on the great sea seemed to have totally forgotten all of their history and know nothing of Hyrule or the mythology surrounding it. So knowledge of Hylia and the loftwings was likely also forgotten. That leads it open to having whatever the creator wants when decorating a shield. Current era folklore might take precedence but we know almost nothing of what the Great Sea people believed in or thought about. The design is really hard to tell because it is such an abstract figure, it could be a winged person, a bird, or a dragon. All of which are known to exist in the great sea so it can be hard to see where the inspiration comes from.
I see no evidence to believe there is any connection between loftwing and Rito at all. In fact the only times in the series when we are told that a group evolved into another group, we are given the example of where they came from and it involved the direct intervention of a divine being. The Deku tree with the Koroks and Valoo with the Rito. From there fans have been debating for years and years about how X species from a game might have evolved into Y species from a different game on their own. But even in WW where that happened it was not on their own. A deity did it to help them better survive on the sea, not because of real world natural selection and adaptation.
The bird depiction on the face I think is along the same lines. Just following ALTTP from having some wings included into the general abstract design. Nothing was set in stone. It evolved from random wings in ALTTP, to a bir-like thing in OoT which at the time had no real basis or meaning either to something more mythical looking with wings again. Which from a story point of view is not too out there a concept, people have been painting and adorning shields with depictions of mythical figures, animals, and creatures for centuries. Sometimes for luck or protection, sometimes as a talisman for defense or even as a part of a religion. Regardless of the changes from game to game, the thing on the face always had some kind of wings on it.
From an in game story point of view it could be many different reasons why it is not a loftwing. The people living on the great sea seemed to have totally forgotten all of their history and know nothing of Hyrule or the mythology surrounding it. So knowledge of Hylia and the loftwings was likely also forgotten. That leads it open to having whatever the creator wants when decorating a shield. Current era folklore might take precedence but we know almost nothing of what the Great Sea people believed in or thought about. The design is really hard to tell because it is such an abstract figure, it could be a winged person, a bird, or a dragon. All of which are known to exist in the great sea so it can be hard to see where the inspiration comes from.
I see no evidence to believe there is any connection between loftwing and Rito at all. In fact the only times in the series when we are told that a group evolved into another group, we are given the example of where they came from and it involved the direct intervention of a divine being. The Deku tree with the Koroks and Valoo with the Rito. From there fans have been debating for years and years about how X species from a game might have evolved into Y species from a different game on their own. But even in WW where that happened it was not on their own. A deity did it to help them better survive on the sea, not because of real world natural selection and adaptation.
