The Shard in the Ghost Ship

[CrimsonCavalier]

In The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, a Triforce Shard is located in the Ghost Ship. The history of the Ghost Ship is shrouded in legend and myth, and its location is ever changing. What we do know is that it is cursed, for the person who crafted the Ghost Ship Chart died after finishing it.

The big question, of course, is how did a piece of the Triforce ended up in the Ghost Ship to begin with? We know that the Triforce of Courage was broken up and the pieces hidden throughout the Great Sea so that Ganondorf wouldn't be able to find them. And we know the King of Red Lions did this. It makes sense that they were either located in chests hidden beneath the waves or in grottoes and caves on the islands.

But what of the shard in the Ghost Ship? How did it get there? To whom or to what does the creepy voice that you can hear once you get the shard belong to?

Remember, however, that in the original GameCube version, there was a Triforce chart in the Ghost Ship instead. In that case, the mystery remains the same: how did a chart find its way into the Ghost Ship?

I'm not sure if Nintendo has spoken officially if WWHD supersedes WW in terms of canon, but we can assume it does.

 

[Lumi]

It certainly does beg the question as to who was on board that ship. I'm sure my concept is way off target, but consider the majority of the other triforce pieces for just a sec. It's been a while since I played the game, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall at least one or two of the pieces of the triforce being dug up from the ocean floor, and the others are holed up in random buildings that are heavily guarded by those ships with the canons which are trigger happy and perpetually have horrible aim. Now, why would those ships be guarding random structures out at sea with miles of just plain nothingness? We're talking zero population here, and it's always made me wonder if there were people manning those canons that patrolled the seas. Which makes me wonder if perhaps the person on board the ghost ship was guarding the triforce shard, as well. Maybe that individual acted as a sentinel like the mini ships surrounding those vacant buildings.

In my view, it is plausible that the king of Hyrule sent these ships—or these "people"—to protect the triforce shards for the day that the hero would arrive. Remember how even the king of red lions sounded shocked that the triforce mark appeared on Link's hand? It would make sense that no one would expect who the next hero would be, where he would come from, or even when he would come. And so, the king could have instructed that the guards fire on sight of anyone who appeared near the triforce shards because let's face it—on the off chance that the hero did come upon the shards' locations, then certainly, he could bypass a few guards, right?

But what of the mysterious voice on the ghost ship? Why did that specific ship receive such a buildup and almost personal history to it? Almost as if the person who haunted the ship might have owned it once upon a time, no? Perhaps it might have been the captain himself. Or more specifically, the captain of the guard, a leader of all the other mini ships which patrolled the high seas.

Am I suggesting that the king of hyrule once had his own royal militia on the seas? Possibly. Consider the island with the ghost ship clues. It's a rather vast cave filled with seemingly unfinished projects and a certain air of abandonment. And all those ships down there... Certainly, one man could not have conducted all of them out on the ocean. But it does lead me to expect that there once was a crew, and after so many years, they all died, as did the captain, and some of them went on to continue to guard the triforce pieces, even if it meant becoming ghosts of who they once were.

As for the ghost ship? I take the name quite literally. For the members of the crew that didn't in a sense possess the canon of another boat on the ocean, the rest of them went to join the captain on his main vessel—the ghost ship. I mean, it is a rather eerie vessel, wouldn't you agree? All those screaming faces and bodiless forms in the holes of the ship... They had to have belonged to people in the past...right?

Maybe I'm way off my rocker here on this idea. I know it's certainly lacking in evidence, and I'm hardly an expert on theorizing. But for the sudden and violent scream on the ghost ship, I believe it belonged to the captain of the boat who once entertained a crew and worked for the mighty king of hyrule. For all intents and purposes, they signed over their very lives to watch over these shards, even beyond the veil of death. Still, all we can do is speculate, and if anyone has any better and more substantial theories to share (which shouldn't be too difficult haha) please do share, because now that I've gotten to think about this, I'm really curious. Still...

It kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it?

 

[NintendoCN]

Maybe the ghost ship was a pirate ship at one point which found a piece of the triforce, but before they could bury it, their ship was destroyed somehow. Which turned it into the ghost ship, with the treasure on board.

 

[CrimsonCavalier]

. . .

Interesting. I wonder, though, if that were the case, would the King of Red Lions not simply tell the captains of the other ships to cease fire, because Link is here to save the day? Or perhaps it has been so long that they don't listen to him/wouldn't recognize him in his boat form?

Maybe the ghost ship was a pirate ship at one point which found a piece of the triforce, but before they could bury it, their ship was destroyed somehow. Which turned it into the ghost ship, with the treasure on board.

I can see this. Perhaps even there was a curse on the shards? But probably not, since Link was able to retrieve them.

I think the mystery of the shard in the Ghost Ship can't be answered unless the mystery of the Ghost Ship itself is answered.

 

[DeactivatedUser2]

"If you are able to collect all of them, they will fuse together and complete the piece of the Triforce, once again opening the passage through the waves to Hyrule. Even I do not know where they rest, but this much I do know: they lie hidden somewhere in this Great Sea."
This basically concludes that Daphnes doesn't know where the Triforce Shards were to begin with, meaning it'd be impossible for him to be the one that broke apart the Triforce of Courage and scattered it across the Great Sea. Daphnes even states that it shattered upon the Hero of Time leaving, meaning the most logical conclusion is the Hero of Time did it. However, that really has no proof either, since we SEE Link go to the Child Timeline permanently, meaning he couldn't have been the one that shattered it. Basing it off of this text from the original Zelda,
"Fearing his wicked rule, Zelda, the princess of this kingdom, split up the Triforce of Wisdom into eight fragments and bid them throughout the realm to save the last remaining Triforce from the clutches of the evil Ganon."
It's incredibly likely that, shortly after sending Link to the Child Timeline, she split apart the Triforce like she originally did so as to prevent it from falling into the hands of Ganondorf upon his return, like she did during the Downfall Timeline.

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

I think the shards were probably split and hidden by divine influence instead of somebody else doing it. We can also theorize that rather than the King of Hyrule splitting and hiding them, maybe Tetra's mother did? Maybe the Ghost Ship's Captain, like in your theory, was working for her, not the King of Hyrule. Even in death they still guard the shard, and it's only when someone obtains it that they can finally pass on from the realm of the living.

 

[NintendoCN]

I think the shards were probably split and hidden by divine influence instead of somebody else doing it. We can also theorize that rather than the King of Hyrule splitting and hiding them, maybe Tetra's mother did? Maybe the Ghost Ship's Captain, like in your theory, was working for her, not the King of Hyrule. Even in death they still guard the shard, and it's only when someone obtains it that they can finally pass on from the realm of the living.

That makes sense since the ghost ship disappears as soon as you collect the shard and is never seen again.