The origin of the Minish

[Vaati The Wind Mage]

The minish are these tiny thumb sized creatures who appear in The Minish Cap.
The topic is how they came into existence and how they vanished as there is no trace of them in Four Swords and OOT

 

[Vaati The Wind Mage]

Pretty sure Minish came into existence around Post-SS period and then appear to have spread widely before vanishing in Four Swords. The Question is how they vanished and for what debatable reasons

 

[CrimsonCavalier]

The topic of the Minish is always one I use to further my point that the games really aren't connected. The world during the events of The Minish Cap has nothing to do with, and no similarities to, the worlds of other Zelda games. To me The Minish Cap just seems so out of place, like it was truly meant to be a stand-alone game.

Anyways, who knows. There's no real explanation anywhere that I can think of that describes what happened to them. For all we know—if the Zeldas are really in one continuous timeline—the Minish are still around. There has been no mention of them since, but that also means there has been no mention of them dying off or anything. What I gather from that is that they're still around.

 

[PalaeoJoe]

Well I think that most races and species don't have a unique origin. We know that Farore created "all life forms that would uphold the law", I think this clearly means that all animals and plants including the many races of Hyrule came to be at the same time. There may be exceptions to this but there is no reason to think the Minish are an exception.
On the note of where they went, well they can't be seen by "adults" and have not been relevant to any stories later in the time line so we just don't see them. There is no reason to think they are extinct.

 

[DeactivatedUser2]

I don't believe they've vanished ; rupees, hearts, and other miscellaneous items can still be found by cutting grass, after all


The typical age of adulthood in Japan is 15, and considering that in BotW Link is at least 100, we're definitely not gonna learn anything from the 19th main series game if the protagonist can't even see the specified race

 

[Devon Thurgood]

The backstory of the minish given in minish cap is fairly similar to the events of skyward sword. Beings came down from the sky with a legendary sword (which looked a lot like the master sword) and something called the "light force". Since the light force is found inside zelda i think the lightforcw is the power of Hylia. You know those weird stunps that can shrink people down? I think the minish are just skyloftians that accidentally got shrunken down and evolved as tiny people. As for the sword.... yeah the licori blade is a real mystery.

 

[Tibari]

The Picori Blade / Four sword is not the Master Sword, we can all agree with that. So maybe during the TMC/FS/FSA events, the master sword couldn't be found?
The sword doesn't comes from Hyrule, and the Minish who brought it came down from the sky, so maybe they were on Skyloft, but in my opinion they are a divine race who watched the world and decided to help, going out from their divine dimension.

But in BOTW they don't exist anymore, since there is no more hearts in the grass... maybe they returned in their dimension, or there was a Minish genocide?

 

[el :BeoWolf:]

"Not visible to the eyes of adults, they delight in making humans happy by hiding helpful items and Rupees under grass and rocks all over the world." -Figurine description- The Minish Cap
Some of the Links are in their late teens, which depending on who you ask is an adult, so that seems to be one reason we don't see them.
Along with that, they're small, and really good at hiding, so even when Link is a child they probably hide when him or anyone comes around.

 

[Pen]

But in BOTW they don't exist anymore, since there is no more hearts in the grass... maybe they returned in their dimension, or there was a Minish genocide?

Has it ever been confirmed that Recovery Hearts are the results of the existence of Minish? I always just thought of Recovery Hearts as a gameplay mechanic, not really relevant to the story at all. Maybe I'm wrong though.

 

[Tibari]

I'm not sure is this is a theory of if the game tells us this...

 

[DeactivatedUser2]

The Picori Blade / Four sword is not the Master Sword, we can all agree with that. So maybe during the TMC/FS/FSA events, the master sword couldn't be found?

I think it's likelier nobody was worthy of wielding the Master Sword during FS and MC (as well as the prologue of MC) which can be shown by the fact the hero in FSA was unable to wield the Master Sword and had to resort to the Four Sword in the original script.

 

[Devon Thurgood]

The Picori Blade / Four sword is not the Master Sword, we can all agree with that. So maybe during the TMC/FS/FSA events, the master sword couldn't be found?
The sword doesn't comes from Hyrule, and the Minish who brought it came down from the sky, so maybe they were on Skyloft, but in my opinion they are a divine race who watched the world and decided to help, going out from their divine dimension.

But in BOTW they don't exist anymore, since there is no more hearts in the grass... maybe they returned in their dimension, or there was a Minish genocide?

One of the minish say that they making people happy gives them sustenance. Im gonna take that litterally and say the minish feed on the happiness of the people. So what if there was something like say... a war that wiped out happiness? Threw the world into depression? The minish were literally starved for happiness, and died off.

 

[DeactivatedUser2]

The problem is the Minish also hid currency in bushes as well, and, even though hearts are nonexistant and expendable items are far more limited in the locations they can be found, there was still a purple rupee found near the ruins of the Temple of Time in the demo, meaning they may exist in some form.

 

[Tibari]

This purple rupee in BOTW shouldn't be from the Minish as it wasn't in grass but in the ruins, It may just be a rupee some people had before all of this became ruins.

 

[Justac00lguy]

I've always thought the Minish were a part of the Kokiri branch. So Kikwi > Minish > Kokiri > Korok. I have a theory somewhere, maybe I'll post it if I can be bothered.