WW-Wii U The Construction of Dragon Roost

[Shadsie]

Today, to comfort myself during profound pain, I got my Game Cube moved to my berdoom so I could play a little Wind Waker wihle I rest. I was running through the Dragon Roost dungeon and noticing that, for a place of lava and fire, there are an awful lot of structures made of wood. :hmm:

That big ladder you climb up on the outside cliffs where you have to avoid a jet of flaming plasma I could excuse becuase it looked like it could either have been made from wood or from metal (in which case, why isn't Link burning his poor little hands and feet climing it)? However, there are many structures, ladders and platforms hanging from chains that are clearly meant to be made of wood.

In proximity to fire. Or at least, lots of dry heat that would cause any self-respecting piece of wood to catch fire and burn right up in a situation in real-world land.

Is this stuff petrified wood or what? Or magical wood?

It's just one of those weird "Hyrule logic" things that you aren't supposed to try to make sense out of, I suppose, but was anyone besides me amused at it?

 

[LordFire]

I noticed that when I was playing the game as well. It's either some kind of magic wood or a Hyrule logic thing that you're not supposed to make sense of.

I didn't pay it too much mind, although I was kind of surprised when that ladder went through a pillar of fire...

 

[Hylian Knight]

Actually yes I was amused by it to when I first saw it.

I think it's 1 of Hyrule logic things like you describing.

 

[Ronin]

I recall wondering at this when I first played through Dragon Roost, but then got used to the idea because it wasn't supposed to be all that realistic. But you reminded me of that point, and I scoff at my previous opinion.

 

[Katelynn]

Eh, just Hyrule Magic. Nothing major. . . I ignored it and kept on playing the game.

 

[Xinnamin]

The only time I actually noticed this was with the ladder. I kept thinking "how the heck has this ladder not disintegrated yet? And even if it was feasible for it to maintain it's shape, there is no way it should continue to support the weight of a pre-teen boy". I guess when you play games where you can cut all the ropes off a bridge and break it into splinters only to have it respawn perfectly stable when you leave and re-enter the room and yet not give it even a second thought, things like fire resistant wood just completely slip under the radar.

Or maybe Valoo decided for some reason he just really liked wooden structures and decreed with a godly roar that "WOOD SHALL FOREVER BE THE PRIMARY CONSTRUCTION MATERIAL ON DRAGON ROOST AND I AM STRONG" and used his fancy shmancy guardian deity majicks to create wood that would never burn because he got tired of setting trees on fire every time he sneezed :/

Hey, Nintendo logic, anything could be the "canonical" explanation :bleh:

 

[Djinn]

There might be something to that explanation actually. It is sometimes thought that the dungeon of Dragon Roost Island is actually the old Temple of Fire, a sacred space to the goddesses and the Sage of Fire. The ancient sages are said to be the ones responsible for the construction of the many temples and all the strange and mysterious devices found inside. The fire temple of OoT had a few structures within it that never should have survived the heat as well.

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

If they are perfectly capable of producing the gigantic structures within the Water Temple, all the many mechanical devices in the Temple of Time, or the mechanical traps and invisible walls in the shadow temple. The Temple of Time in TP was at first a ruin in the forest but stepping through the Door of Time Link could travel back to a period when it was still functioning. With all these other strange and magical feats around Hyrule, it might not be out of the Sages power to produce items for the fire temple that are fairly fire proof. The Gorons themselves were capable of producing a simple red tunic that had the ability to protect an ordinary Hylian from the heat and ash filled air of Death Mountain. While the Zora can create a tunic that can allow a Hylian to be capable of breathing underwater. These being otherwise common everyday objects created by normal people living in Hyrule, not even legendary sage creations. So it does seem possible that the people in Hyrule are perfectly capable of producing common items that can withstand an area they are built for. Such as a wooden implement for a temple built into an active volcano.

 

[Shadsie]

I think Nintendo may have made it that way just to mess with heads. "Hey! Let's make things made of wood even though this is a fire temple and it makes no logical sense! It'll really show the player that he/she is in a different world/that this place is magic!" It honestly slips under the radar and is more "Huh?" than the obvious thrust/weight problems with flying with cuccoos, for example (that's obviously a bit of cartoon-style fun). Wood in with the lava may have been a way for the Nintendo folks to make players think and wonder a little.

I suddenly had a thought to something in a book series I once read... something that would explain Hyrule's amazing fire-resistant wood perfectly. Some time ago (and they're still on my bookshelf), I read a book trilogy titled "The Ghatti's Tale." It was a sci-fi/fantasy mix that followed the adventures of a woman and her feline mind-link bondmate. The planet was one with these native psychic cats that chose to bond with certain people and those people became judges/arbiters settling disputes around their country as living lie-detectors. There was an neighboring country on the planet that didn't employ the cats because the people there remembered and still practiced the human-to-human psychic powers their spacefaring ancestors had. They were interesting books. The country that neighbored the protagonists' was also famous for its "arborfer" - ie. special old growth trees that can be cut and shaped like normal wood when the wood was still fresh and alive, but would harden into a stone/iron-like substance when the wood fully died/dried out. The stuff was fairly rare and the trees were dwindling by the time of the story's setting, but a lot of the world's older things were made of arbofer.

Those kind of trees growing in Hyrule would explain everything. Yet, I doubt anyone at Nintendo has read that book series.

 

[Taggerung115]

There might be something to that explanation actually. It is sometimes thought that the dungeon of Dragon Roost Island is actually the old Temple of Fire, a sacred space to the goddesses and the Sage of Fire. The ancient sages are said to be the ones responsible for the construction of the many temples and all the strange and mysterious devices found inside. The fire temple of OoT had a few structures within it that never should have survived the heat as well.


If they are perfectly capable of producing the gigantic structures within the Water Temple, all the many mechanical devices in the Temple of Time, or the mechanical traps and invisible walls in the shadow temple. The Temple of Time in TP was at first a ruin in the forest but stepping through the Door of Time Link could travel back to a period when it was still functioning. With all these other strange and magical feats around Hyrule, it might not be out of the Sages power to produce items for the fire temple that are fairly fire proof. The Gorons themselves were capable of producing a simple red tunic that had the ability to protect an ordinary Hylian from the heat and ash filled air of Death Mountain. While the Zora can create a tunic that can allow a Hylian to be capable of breathing underwater. These being otherwise common everyday objects created by normal people living in Hyrule, not even legendary sage creations. So it does seem possible that the people in Hyrule are perfectly capable of producing common items that can withstand an area they are built for. Such as a wooden implement for a temple built into an active volcano.

I concur.

 

[Danigo92498]

It's a secret to everyone...

 

[r2d93]

This is amusing. But i'm going with Hylian Logic lol there are plenty more unrealistic things in these games

 

[MiniMouseofPyru]

It seems that all of the wood is just normal wood. Rito's don't seem to be magical, nor do I think they would petrify the would.

 

[Lexi Z]

Ha, yeah, there are a lot of such questions that come up when playing Zelda, but hey, if a baton can control the wind, then I'm sure something else could somehow...maybe blowing the wind perfectly to keep the wood from catching fire Hylian logic....

 

[Linkwolf]

Maybe it's made to look like wood but it's steel.

 

[Princess Majora]

It is just wood, and it doesn't need to make sense. Wind waker has TOON Link, so it doesn't need to make sense, just like in Cartoons!