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Where does Ganon/Ganondorf go from here?

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Day off work today and had nothing to do (except putting up the Christmas tree), so have just spent the last couple of hours just reading this forum and other Zelda dedicated ones. It very quickly became a Ganon oriented one, as I feel that he's always a good talking point.

While Link and Zelda are very much essentially always the same throughout all the games...the same cannot be said for Ganon. He's changed and evolved/devolved throughout the entire series. From demon pig to eloquent, charming, yet sinister man. From cocky to almost humble, then back to cocky again. An incarnation/reincarnation of the Satan of the Zelda universe himself, to mindless beast. And now, most lately in Breath of the Wild, practically reduced to a force of nature. Evil in the way a hurricane or tornado is. It does feel as though he's been exhausted. So the question is...what now?

Personally, I adore the character. A Zelda game without the main antagonist of the series itself always feels like a lesser experience. A less important game. I firmly believe the series cannot and probably will not ever contemplate continuing without Ganon/Dorf. He's here to stay. But at the same time, I think we need something new with him.

Above all else, though, I think we need to return to Ganondorf for a bit. Ganon isn't nearly as compelling, no rampant force of evil ever is. That's why I always found Dr. Jekyll to be infinitely more interesting than Mr. Hyde. Most people don't get the true meaning of that story. Jekyll is not an innocent victim, he willingly releases Hyde for his own enjoyment. He revels in the mayhem Hyde creates until it threatens his own cushy life, and Hyde starts taking over completely. Not too dissimilar to how Ganon takes over completely in the Downfall timeline, and Ganondorf ceases to exist.

So, what are your thoughts? Should Ganon be ditched for a while or should the series continue with its main villain? And, most importantly of all, how should he appear in his next appearance? Personally, I'd like to see another wise version of Ganondorf, like we got in Wind Waker. A Ganondorf who is aware of his own flawed nature, and somewhat tortured by his connection to Demise (something which he should be 100% aware of). Ultimately, though, Ganondorf must remain evil.
 
I do like Ganondorf and even though he hasn't been in too many games he feels as if he's in most of them because of how etablished and inportant his character is.

I liked the idea of Calamity Ganon but BotW didn't do it justice at all, so I wouldn't mind a return of Ganondorf because whenever his Dorf form does appear in a game it's usually quite well done.

As for where the Dorf can go next, i really don't know. The OoT, TP and WW versions of him were all great but all different so it feels as if he has ticked all boxes...

The only thing i can think of and would like would be to give him more of a traditional warlord approach.

Like Genghis Khan, a brilliant strategist with a mind for war who has crippled and conquered other lands and has now come for Hyrule.

I think that approach would be a little refreshing, his goals would be the same as every other appearance but it could still make things feel quite different.
 

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A Ganondorf who is aware of his own flawed nature, and somewhat tortured by his connection to Demise (something which he should be 100% aware of).
How? Ganondorf never seems to be aware of any connection between himself and Demise. In fact Ganondorf, in my eyes, doesn't really fit the perfect description of what should connect a reincarnation of Demise's hatred. Demise said his reincarnations would share his hatred. What did Demise hate? The gods. Ganondorf, on the otherhand, never expresses a hatred for the gods. He just has a resentment towards the Hylians because their land is ideal, while his ancestral land is harsh.
 

Dio

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Ganon is an overused and abused character. I think it is better to not appear than have a poor or mediocre appearance and most of his appearances have been mediocre. That said apart from Midna in some games he is one of the best characters in terms of development. His best incarnations are all in his human form and personally I think it is actually Hyrule Warriors that does him the best.

Where do we go from here? Well Ideally Ganon should never be used just to appear as a generic baddie or else he becomes almost as bad as malladus or bellum. If you don't know his character from other games and all you have to go off is his pig Ganon or Calamity Ganon form then he appears to the player as just a generic evil. We have come a long way since Zelda 1 and Nintendo SHOULD be able to do better than that. If you want to bring out the Satan of Zelda it should be for a big and meaningful appearance.

Ganon is powerful but he is also a master manipulator. I would like to actually see this side of him rather than hear of it for a change. It would even be good to have him manipulating the main character or a main character in the game who is not necessarily a villain but is manipulated into doing bad things.


How? Ganondorf never seems to be aware of any connection between himself and Demise. In fact Ganondorf, in my eyes, doesn't really fit the perfect description of what should connect a reincarnation of Demise's hatred. Demise said his reincarnations would share his hatred. What did Demise hate? The gods. Ganondorf, on the otherhand, never expresses a hatred for the gods. He just has a resentment towards the Hylians because their land is ideal, while his ancestral land is harsh.

Ganon appears to hate or resent the Gods too. When he declares 'Your Gods destroyed you!' in Wind Waker he makes it sound as though he does not accept them as his Gods or he would have said 'Our Gods'.

Hyrule Historia makes it sound as though he figured out Links time travel antics and would therefore understand why he obtained the Triforce of Power. In the English version of the game he claims to be chosen by the Gods however. Not sure if this is the case in the Japanese but since HH came out after SS and Demise then it makes sense for them to change that and make Ganon's and Demise's goals and motivations align more.
 

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Ganon appears to hate or resent the Gods too. When he declares 'Your Gods destroyed you!' in Wind Waker he makes it sound as though he does not accept them as his Gods or he would have said 'Our Gods'.
Not necessarily believing in them doesn't mean he hates them. I always looked at it like he is indifferent toward them. He doesn't worship them, but he acknowledges they exist since he does believe the Triforce is a real divine relic endowed with their power.
 

Dio

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Not necessarily believing in them doesn't mean he hates them. I always looked at it like he is indifferent toward them. He doesn't worship them, but he acknowledges they exist since he does believe the Triforce is a real divine relic endowed with their power.

He obviously believes they exist but I am suggesting the fact he doesn't worship them or accept them as being his Gods indicates that he dislikes them. It could be indifference but Demise was never thought of back then. Any future Ganons we see would likely have the same motivations more explicitly mentioned or implied as that is the direction Nintendo want to take him.
 

Spiritual Mask Salesman

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He obviously believes they exist but I am suggesting the fact he doesn't worship them or accept them as being his Gods indicates that he dislikes them. It could be indifference but Demise was never thought of back then. Any future Ganons we see would likely have the same motivations more explicitly mentioned or implied as that is the direction Nintendo want to take him.
One could say he doesn't worship them or accept them just by cultural upbringing. The Gerudo seem to have their own deity that they worship.

But I do understand your point, that Demise was obviously not thought about before SS, and from here on they can kind of make Ganondorf have some more obvious goals that are similar to what Demise's goals were.

All I'm saying is that when Demise was shoehorned in the hate curse didn't really line up with what we knew about Ganondorf.

That said, perhaps the next version of Ganondorf should really solidify him as Demise's reincarnated hate. Make his goal even more sinister, he doesn't just want to take over Hyrule, he wants to kill the gods.
 
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I think it's time Ganon sat out, and we just get a fight with Ganondorf. I want him to have more of a fighter/bandit appearance like in Ocarina of Time.

I would like to see some of the ideas from Twilight Princess fleshed out, namely a horse battle followed by a 1-on-1 duel.

BotW had the issue of the game becoming easier with item acquiring, and the final battle felt anticlimactic.

I want a final battle against Ganondorf that's the hardest battle in the game. Make one of his attacks take out eight hearts.

I believe that stunning Ganondorf with a light arrow while on horseback with the slow motion aiming of BotW would be cool, but I want his horse to go rampant after doing so and try to knock you off your own. We haven't seen Ganondorf's horse ever really be useful, so that would be a welcome change of pace.

As for the final duel, I think Ganondorf should be faster and more aggressive than a Darknut with armor removed in Twilight Princess. He should make use of sword techniques that are similar to the Hidden Skills in Twilight Princess and parry attacks often. Taking a page from Roy's battle in Super Mario World, I think it would be interesting if the battle arena narrowed as the battle progressed to make dodging harder. That would make for a tense final showdown.
 

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I love Ganondorf as a character. I think he was best represented in Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker. Simply a desert man who had devoted himself to the pursuit of power, no matter the cost. I liked him in those games. beast Ganon always felt a little lame and cliche to me, unsuspecting hero battles an impossible beast. I did like in OoT how we saw both sides of Ganondorf/ganon. I think that in Zelda switch, I would want to see normal Ganondorf. I think he would be really interesting in the BotW engine.
 

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Ugh. Literally wherever ninty decides to take him.

That could be conceivably anywhere so brace ourselves for whatever cringe comes next.

This is the same company who did this to Samus /me points at Other M
and did Demise to Ganon (which utterly obliterated his character) and then just turned him into a menacing cloud. :dry:

Any possibility you can think of, ninty will come up with something far more hair brained.

Ganon is actually the result of Koume and Kotake's attempts to grant Ganondorf the size, strength and fortitude of a Moblin - or he tried to steal some ancient Moblin treasure and got cursed or something.

Ganon will appear in the next game as some angsty emo teenager, dress like [strikethrough]Girahim[strikethrough] some Final Fantasy reject, act as Link's rival for Zelda's affection and get all mopey and try to take over the kingdom because he's jealous [strikethrough]for[strikethrough] of Link. The game will end when teen emo Ganondorf's angst reaches 9000 and he morphs into a Ganon form that looks like a cross between Trevor Noah and Sonic the Hedgehog. The game will end when Zelda goes all compassionate on his pig-@$$ during the epic showdown with Link, talks him down, and they win the day through the power of friendship.

The next game will make a big secret about Ganondorf's motivations for scouring the land looking for something, only to reveal it to be the shards of the Girahim sword he's being compelled by Demise to track down and reassemble to awaken Demise. Link will fight Demise until he turns into a menacing cloud that turns Hyrule all post apocalyptic because Dragons Dogma and DraQueXII and Xenoblade: Chronicles and a dozen other games already did that and the rest of the game will have you reassembling the three magic macguffins (because who has time for four dungeons amirite?) to turn calanondisedorf back into a not rampaging cloud and win.

Of course none of these things will ever happen... ninty will come up with something far dumber :dry:
 

Vanessa28

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For me personally I want Ganondorf to return as the Dorf he used to be. That fight you had with him in TP (the final part) was pretty epic. Ganon is cool as dope but I like the Dorf in his human form way more. He is evil and creepy but his talks still makes some sense. So yeah bring the Dorf back!
 

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Honestly, what I'd like to see is a Ganondorf struggling against Ganon- the beast he eventually becomes overpowering him. I'd like to see the game where Ganondorf finally becomes Ganon. The Dorf doesn't seem a far cry from it in Twilight Princess. He's still cunning, but his unbridled rage and hatred is apparent in that game. I'd like to see the time come where Ganondorf's greed and time after time of getting his butt beat by the spirit of the hero finally causes him to snap and become the beast Ganon from the later games.

He doesn't have to become a mindless rampaging monster (if that were the case he might as well turn into a menacing cloud :dry:). Some cunning can be left in Ganon, but there'd be no denying that he is a monster now inside and out.
 

Vanessa28

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Honestly, what I'd like to see is a Ganondorf struggling against Ganon- the beast he eventually becomes overpowering him. I'd like to see the game where Ganondorf finally becomes Ganon. The Dorf doesn't seem a far cry from it in Twilight Princess. He's still cunning, but his unbridled rage and hatred is apparent in that game. I'd like to see the time come where Ganondorf's greed and time after time of getting his butt beat by the spirit of the hero finally causes him to snap and become the beast Ganon from the later games.

He doesn't have to become a mindless rampaging monster (if that were the case he might as well turn into a menacing cloud :dry:). Some cunning can be left in Ganon, but there'd be no denying that he is a monster now inside and out.
That sounds interesting. Ganondorf struggling to become Ganon. That's never done before and it sounds interesting!
 

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