Spoiler Sage Succession

[ironknuckle1]

This is my theory upon how and why the sages succeeded on the AT from the 7 sages to the Sages of the Master Sword and on the Ct why the Ancient Sages were succeeded by the 7 Maidens.

Well in WW it is known through the story that Laruto,the sage of earth, and Fado, the sage of wind, were killed once Ganondorf broke out of the Sacred Realm. They are the protectors of the Master sword and its ability to banish evil. Thus it is easily understandable that when they were killed that the Master Sword would lose its power. The question though is are they proteges of the OOT sages or are they a complete different set of sages. Now in OOT their are the sages of Light, Forest, Water, Fire, Shadow, Spirit, and the leader of the sages. It can be seen that these aren't the same sages as in WW through looks and names. Now, I theorize that the sages of OOT are based off the land and the condition of the land, because each sage comes from a land that has a certain characteristic similar to the sage they become. For an example Darunia is the Sage of Fire and he comes from a volcano. So, going by this theory if the land changed so would the needed types of sage based on the condition of the land. So, the names of the sages would change along with their influence on the land along with the denominations they come from. Thus, with the Great Flood two different types of sages would be created to fill the need of a protector over these elements. Now either these sages were added on to the end of the sages creating 9 sages or they replaced former sages. Heres the hook I've found with this theory: only 2 sages appear in WW. This can be easily explained but not completely proven. It is most likely that only the two sages appear because their 2 elements have become so influential over the world. Wind takes up most of the world above the sea and allows for these far away islands to interact and trade and Earth which due to the flood has become scarce as water takes over most of the map. Earth as a commodity becomes more valuable thus giving it more influence as people don't take it for granted. The other 7 or 5 sages most likely are within the world but since they are never called upon, or killed there is no need for them to appear. So, all in all what I'm saying is that they most likely didn't appear within the game is, because they weren't called upon and only the ones that were killed needed to be seen since they needed to have a successor.

Why did Ganon kill the sages of earth, and wind specifically or was it random? Based on my theory I don't think it was random. If the sages are the protectors of the Sacred Realm and the Master Sword (at least in OOT) is a kind of key leading to the Sacred Realm. Then it can be inferred that the sages probably have some kind of connection to the Master Sword. So, if the Sages have some kind of connection with the Master Sword then with their deaths the connection could weaken the power of the Master Sword. He may have gone after these two sages because of the impending flood thinking they might have more power over the Master Sword. So, theirs my theory on why the Master Sword Sages succeeded the 7 sages.

In OOT at the end once you are sent to the CT within the CT the 7 sages from OOT don't exist. But, we learn that before OOT their was the Ancient Sages shown in TP. In TP Ganondorf breaks through his restraints and through the use of the ToP kills a sage. The events of TP happen as we all know, but the formally immortal sages has lost a member to that which they never thought could happen: death. The 7 maidens are the children of the 7 wise men as stated in the ALTTP booklet. Seeing that their are no other sages between TP and ALTTP it is most likely that the Ancient Sages are the 7 wise men. So, I think that seeing that they are not invincible they decided to create "children"(or more likely a better word for it would be proteges) to succeed them.

Heres my last theory. Assuming that any of this is even partially true then if when the 2 sages in WW are killed the Master Sword loses complete control but, in TP when a sage is killed the Master Sword seemed to not have lost anything. Here are my 2 conclusions as to why Link was still able to kill Ganondorf in TP even with a sage dead. First, the Ancient Sages aren't known to protect the Sacred Realm nor have any association to the Master Sword so it wouldn't lose any power. Second, only one sage was killed so not as much power was lost so the blade still had some power within it. So, then the blade would still be able to absorb the power of the sols and some of the other unnatural things it does. Along with this is the fact that Link kills Ganondorf not Ganon. If he had to kill Ganon it may have not worked if one sage was killed but Ganondorf is not known to be immortal. So, it could be argued that a blade is a blade and if you stab it through someone they will most likely die.

 

[TheGermanLegend]

In OOT at the end once you are sent to the CT within the CT the 7 sages from OOT don't exist. But, we learn that before OOT their was the Ancient Sages shown in TP. In TP Ganondorf breaks through his restraints and through the use of the ToP kills a sage. The events of TP happen as we all know, but the formally immortal sages has lost a member to that which they never thought could happen: death. The 7 maidens are the children of the 7 wise men as stated in the ALTTP booklet. Seeing that their are no other sages between TP and ALTTP it is most likely that the Ancient Sages are the 7 wise men. So, I think that seeing that they are not invincible they decided to create "children"(or more likely a better word for it would be proteges) to succeed them.

Heres my last theory. Assuming that any of this is even partially true then if when the 2 sages in WW are killed the Master Sword loses complete control but, in TP when a sage is killed the Master Sword seemed to not have lost anything. Here are my 2 conclusions as to why Link was still able to kill Ganondorf in TP even with a sage dead. First, the Ancient Sages aren't known to protect the Sacred Realm nor have any association to the Master Sword so it wouldn't lose any power. Second, only one sage was killed so not as much power was lost so the blade still had some power within it. So, then the blade would still be able to absorb the power of the sols and some of the other unnatural things it does. Along with this is the fact that Link kills Ganondorf not Ganon. If he had to kill Ganon it may have not worked if one sage was killed but Ganondorf is not known to be immortal. So, it could be argued that a blade is a blade and if you stab it through someone they will most likely die.

I agree with the WW-Part but there are some mistakes with the TP-sages. First of all they were never directly referd to as the ancient sages. But Rauru and Kaepora Gaebora from OoT both were. This also means the ancient sages are! known to protect the sacred realm. Rauru even lives there.

Ages ago, we ancient Sages built the Temple of Time to protect the entrance to the Sacred Realm...

The next problem I have with your theory is that you say the TP-sages and the wise men are the same. If your timeline looks like this: OoT/MM-TP-ALttPBackstory-ALttP than there were only 5 wise men left during the ALttPBS.(6 in the TP backstory and one of them was killed). But we all know 7!!! wise men/sages sealed the SR in the ALttP backstory

 

[JuicieJ]

I agree with the WW-Part but there are some mistakes with the TP-sages. First of all they were never directly referd to as the ancient sages. But Rauru and Kaepora Gaebora from OoT both were. This also means the ancient sages are! known to protect the sacred realm. Rauru even lives there.



The next problem I have with your theory is that you say the TP-sages and the wise men are the same. If your timeline looks like this: OoT/MM-TP-ALttPBackstory-ALttP than there were only 5 wise men left during the ALttPBS.(6 in the TP backstory and one of them was killed). But we all know 7!!! wise men/sages sealed the SR in the ALttP backstory

For once, I agree with everything you said.

 

[DuckNoises]

The events of TP happen as we all know, but the formally immortal sages has lost a member to that which they never thought could happen: death. The 7 maidens are the children of the 7 wise men as stated in the ALTTP booklet. Seeing that their are no other sages between TP and ALTTP it is most likely that the Ancient Sages are the 7 wise men. So, I think that seeing that they are not invincible they decided to create "children"(or more likely a better word for it would be proteges) to succeed them.

There is one noteworthy distinction that makes me skeptical that the Maidens of ALttP are direct children of the ancient Sages shown on top of Arbiter's Grounds in TP; in ALttP, the Maidens are referred to as descendants, but it is usually implied that there is a long time period in between. Remember that the time between the events of the Imprisoning War and the Maidens was long enough for the tale to have "become legend," as stated in the opening cinematic. These are the references I could find for the Maidens:

You must also rescue
the seven maidens who Agahnim
sent to the Dark World. As
descendants of the seven
sages, they have power that
will surely aid you.

Kidnapping those maidens must
be part of the wizard's plot!
I'm sure he is trying somehow
to use the power of the
descendants of the seven
sages...

Both of these are taken from the GBA version of ALttP, who would be more likely to make references to newer sages. Unless the ancient Sages continue to live very abnormally long lengths of time, there must be unmentioned Sages during the time of the Imprisoning War that are the Sages referred to in ALttP. However, Nintendo hasn't been particularly clear about when the Imprisoning War actually takes place. So, depending on your placement of the Seal War, each person's perception of which Sages are the ones mentioned in ALttP could be different.