Hyrule's Hidden/Forgotten Geography

[PapilioTempesta]

Hello everyone! I've read a lot of threads in this forum about Legend of Zelda's confusing geography, and this may have already been posted somewhere else (if so, I'm sorry, I couldn't find it). There it goes.

It felt a bit odd when playing Twilight Princess to see that, although the whole Hyrule in general seemed fit for walking (even riding) from one province to another, a location as important as Lake Hylia was an inaccessible hole far below the floor level. I understand that it served good purpose to easy the path of the story (making Link's life just a bit more difficult...), and it leaves to our delight great landscapes such as the impressive ruins of the Hylia Bridge. But it still felt weird since all of Hyrule field is accessible and well connected, and yet both the Lake and the Desert are just two isolated locations. I'ts OK with the Deserd, after all it is supposed to be isolated... but Lake Hylia?

This lead me to think in more functional levels, rising a major question: How do the people from the Castle Town even go to the lake? Do they have to pay for a cookoo every time they want to go down? And get cannoned back up? I don't think they can summon great flying things to move around, and surely the man in the lake needs to be brought supplies of all kind, which no cookoo could possibly carry, and would need at least a cart. The Zora River is not a navigational option unless you're up in the Zora's Domain and want to go down (Or is it? It's impossible to go upriver, but maybe you could row up the tunneled channel. That would explain the stairs near the bridge, since they would work as piers).

Anyhow, the lake seemed strangely isolated to me. So, I spent some time investigating the lake area, looking for unseen access. I even crossed the long cave in the lake, exultant because I was convinced that, being it so long, at the end I would pop up somewhere in Hyrule field. Imagine my disappointment!!
What I did found was perhaps the answer as to why the Desert is (apparently) so isolated and forgotten by everyone. When you cross Hylia lake from the castle side, after passing under the huge tree, you cross another little wooden bridge before reaching ground. I first paid no attention to it, but later on I wondered what was below it. As I could not see it from there (bloody fences), I went down to the lake, close to the place where you howl for the bird to come carry you. From there it's easy to see a gorge under the wooden bridge that leads to some east-ward place... such as the Gerudo Desert!

That's what I think: back to the time when Hyrule Realm was rich and powerful (they look more like decrepit and lazy these days...), there used to be a path that connected the Castle to the Lake -maybe a road that, once destroyed, was partly used to build the cookoo jumping business-, and from the lake to the Desert through that gorge. Back then, when the kingdom was enough powerful to maintain all its great infrastructures, including the prison in the desert, which surely was operational and needed carts to bring food and prisoners to them.

So, what do you think? Do you have your own theory about Hyrule's cruel geography? Are there other illogical locations, in this game or in some other?

 

[DekuPrincess]

Hmm, this is very interesting. I hadn't ever thought about it too much, assuming it was primarily a game mechanic, and I haven't ever noticed the gorge you're mentioning and will definitely go check it out soon. As for your theory about a road having once existed, I do think this makes sense, and it could have fallen into disuse when the lake was drying up and erosion created the deep crater that the lake is in now.

 

[felipe970421]

Neat find! I have to check it later to see what I can find about that gorge, personally, I always assumed the Zora made business ferrying people up and down the river, we see the Zora tour guide effortlessly taking the boat up the river after the bomb arrow minigame, so I assumed they had this ability

 

[Terminus]

Well as far as Lake Hylia goes, the most likely explanation is that there is some kind of alternate pathway that just is not shown to Link, as :ganondorf: is actually a huge sadist and will do anything to make miserable. Or deplete his wallet.

 

[Castle]

In every Zelda game featuring Lake Hylia nobody has ever really had much of any reason to go there, much less live there. It was an uninhabited marshland in ALttP, and only one Zora resident lived there in OoT and the fisherman. In Twilight Princess only the Zora and the creepy clown guys live there, and when you first encounter the cannon guy he complains about not having any business ... I can't imagine why

Despite its lack of tourists or residents, Lake Hylia has never been as inaccessible as it is in Twilight. Which is odd considering that Twilight's Lake Hylia is the busiest out of all of them. But think about it. The Zora's have easy access and the clown guys run an amusement attraction. The Hylian's built the bridge to span the basin, so I suppose they never saw much of a reason to get down to water level. It could be the waters are considered Zora, not Hylian territory. This, however, doesn't explain the two humans who operate at the headwaters near Zora's Domain, but like the clown guys they're just a couple of exceptions, and one who works closely with a Zora assistant. Given that those two are sisters and their strongly implied family history and relevance to Lake Hylia in the past, it could be that they maintain family relations with the Zora.

As for the desert? Somehow a ridge comes to separate it from the rest of Hyrule proper. The desert has never really been considered part of Hyrule and has always been a frontier region. Direct access to it has obviously been lost, even though there is evidence the Hylians made it their domain but obviously had long abandoned it prior to the events of Twilight Princess.

 

[ZeldaFan1]

I never noticed this. Thanks for alerting me. I'll check this out.:triforce: