Stuff in Zelda you didn't realize until much later.

[Sheikah_Witch]

Sometimes, there are things we encounter, maybe as kids, in Zelda that can be hard to understand or realize at first glance. We walk around with that presumed knowledge, until later, when we realize that we've been wrong on a certain instance or detail all along.

Has anything in Zelda evoked this feeling for you? Was there something you thought you knew until you realized that' oh, wait a second, it's THIS way'?

For example, as a kid, for the longest time, I thought that the reason that you collected the medallions in OoT was for the rainbow bridge to appear, in a literal fashion. I though the medallions sort of melted together and made this magical bridge. I didn't know that they're supposed to be more symbolical. I also thought it was mega dumb, since Link should just toss a plank of wood on the other side and hookshot there instead.

 

[Spirit]

I wouldn't say this is an example of me being wrong but I honestly really didn't notice that Link was left handed until the Wii when left handed people were left out of TP and Skyward Sword.

I think it may be because my aunt was a lefty and I knew a couple of others who also were so it was a normal thing to me that I didn't notice or read anything into Link being a lefty.

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

the most notable thing I can say is not realizing that the gamecube games were follow ups to ocarina of time, so all those references to it were completely lost on me until after I did play oot and revisited those games later

and of course certain details of wind waker that I didn't understand simply b/c I was too young, like when ganondorf told link he broke the seal when he pulled the master sword, I thought he was talking about an actual seal [the animal] and got confused, ha

 

[MW7]

The biggest thing for me is being stuck for years in Link's Awakening as a kid because I had no idea magic powder was in the game, let alone used to light torches. I was stuck in the second dungeon for forever.

I also think of two minor details in Ocarina of Time. For probably 30+ playthroughs of Ocarina of Time I thought that the game was harsh for making you go all the way back to the Lost Woods for Saria's Song when it was nowhere near Castle Town or Goron City. Then I realized that the torch in Darunia's room can be used to carry a deku stick around to the lost woods warp and light a bomb flower before you get the goron's bracelet making the trip much faster. It is a mechanic used nowhere else in the game, but igniting a bomb flower with a deku stick is used in master quest.

Similarly I assumed all keys had to be found and used, but then I read online and learned that you can choose to skip any key in the water temple because the center room has a second entrance on the middle floor that is opened with a lit torch letting you bypass the locked door on the bottom floor.

In Wind Waker it was many years later that I realized that you can place the pearls on the triangle islands as you get them rather than waiting to place them once you have all three. I also didn't realize that you could do parts of the triforce quest at virtually any time as soon as you have the required items. This made the triforce quest more enjoyable for me as I could do it as I went along doing other things and didn't have to focus on all 8 in a row at the end.

 

[Chevywolf30]

That OoT one about the stick in Darunia's room I figured out just by dumb luck. I tried looking for some Triforce pieces whenever Tingle first sent the chart, but to no avail. Also, I didn't realize that autojump was a thing whenever you got to a ledge. Resulted in a lot of confusion on the part in WW at Dragon Roost where you throw the bombs to knock down the statues into the lava.

 

[TheGreatCthulhu]

The significance of the Anju & Kafei sidequest in Majora's Mask.

The entirety of it.

Most of that went over my head as a younger, much more naive, Great Old One.

 

[Shroom]

I made a thread about this a while ago I think, but I never noticed that the master cycle was based on a horse/unicorn. I just thought it was a random shape for months, but nope, it's like the other divine beasts and is an animal too.

 

[Dizzi]

When i was younger i thought tje skullta guarding the entrance to the well was a different new monster do i never did tje well til i was older....

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

I think I've brought this up before, but my 3 year old mind didn't put 2 and 2 together that Zelda was Sheik. I thought Sheik just disappeared like normal and Zelda was just suddenly there, lol. A few years later when I replayed the game and could read the text I was like ooohhh!!!

 

[Greenie]

When I was a kid I somehow believed that you had to wear the Kokiri Tunic inside of the Forest Temple otherwise Link would die. I guess I assumed this because the Death Mountain area wanted you to wear the Goron Tunic; therefore I must have concluded that each tunic was color coded for a specific region and not wearing the right one would result in death. As a child I was a big scaredy-cat so I wasn't willing to take the perceived "risk" of wearing the wrong tunic, even though it would have only take two seconds to confirm that I was incorrect.

 

[Fraxinus]

The ending of the Wind Waker when King Daphnes said he lived "bound to Hyrule" and how that made him the same as Ganondorf.

As a kid I took that literally, and thought there was some sort of spell that physically bound them to Hyrule. And then I interpreted it a bit further by thinking that's why Daphnes took the form of a boat on the Great Sea.

I now realize it was a metaphor for living in the past; Hyrule is the past. Daphnes couldn't move on from Hyrule, and neither could Ganondorf. And that is why he told Link and Zelda that he wanted them to live for the future.

 

[twilitfalchion]

For the longest time, I didn't understand that you had to play Saria's Song for Darunia to progress. I kept playing Zelda's Lullaby and nothing happened. I was around 11-ish at the time, so I didn't think to use a guide online and ended up not figuring it out until I got a Prima guide for OoT3D later.

 

[Chevywolf30]

It's Midna not Minda.