Why Did the Zora Tribe Adapt into the Rito Tribe?

[Justac00lguy]

This will generally be one of my shorter theory threads but.....

With Wind Waker HD on the horizon I though it would be nice to touch on one of the many tribes that had to adapt to the great flood that happened causing the events of Wind Waker!

But one of the strangest adaptations was the Zora tribe! We all know the Zoras to be the famous sacred water tribe, they ussally guard anything to do with god Nayru and any version of the "water temple". So if you don't know already the Zora tribe are know where to be seen in TWW in fact it is well known that they are in fact the bird tribe called the Rito! Now am not actually completely certain if this has been confirmed but this is what i am working off.

Now this seems odd because you would think with a great flood Zoras would be in their element right? Well No it seems that they had to adapt! I actually do have a couple of reasons why I think this adaptation took place...

For one with the great flood happening this seemingly destroyed any connections between province's as now they were separated by a huge amount of water. This would make communication between people and tribes lost, therfore4 they needed a tribe who could safely and efficiently pass messages between islands. Now we know the Rito tribe are the lets postal service of Hyrule....But why was it the Zora tribe that had to take up this job?

Well I have a second reason....If we look at the apperances of the Zora tribe throughout the Zelda series they seem to occupy either a lake, bay, river ect. Now the Great Sea is an ocean and if we take a quick look at some sea animals we know that a lot of sea creatures would not be able to survive in rivers and vice versa due to many factors such as, water salinity, temperature, food Ect. There are many differences between a small area of water such as a lake and an ocean! So it could be that the Zora's may have had to relay on a careful balance of water temperature, salinity ect. Therfore since all the rivers, lakes were now flooded with sea water they would have had to adapt to survive.

I know my 2nd reason is maybe thinking a bit to realistically but it certainly could be a factor and it is one of the only logical reasons of why the Zora tribe essentially becmae the Rito tribe! Tell me guys what you think, why did the adaptation take place?, was it necessary? And what do you think of my theory/explanation on why I though it happened?

 

[Cfrock]

The Gods flooded Hyrule so as to keep it a secret. Having a race capable of living under the water would have threatened the secrecy of Hyrule and kinda making the whole Flood pointless. The Zora became the Rito to keep Hyrule a secret.

 

[Wolf Sage]

To avoid being extremely repetitive (sorry, minor pet peeve of mine ), I am going to have to say that I agree with DarkestLink..

Or better yet (a post of mine from another thread regarding the evolution of the Zora):

That was just one example of the many sacrifices that had to be made for the sake of the plot. With Hyrule being submerged and all, we wouldn't want to have any Zora snooping around where they don't belong, would we? Keep in mind that I mean this in a figurative sense (as, literally speaking, the Zora do "belong in an aquatic environment").

 

[felipe970421]

To avoid being extremely repetitive (sorry, minor pet peeve of mine ), I am going to have to say that I agree with DarkestLink..

Or better yet (a post of mine from another thread regarding the evolution of the Zora):

So, you think that Nintendo doesn't pay attention to continuity, yet your explanation agrees with the common belief that it was to not get any living things in the ocean?

 

[ihateghirahim]

Having Zora's grow wings to avoid seeing Hyrule? No way. What damage could them knowing about Hyrule possibly do? Ganondorf already knew. They might've been able to help. It's not like an army of fish people would be totally useless in Water World. I think it was just a dumb idea tied into the volcano whose name currently escapes me. I hope they never reappear. They are weird, and their evolution from fish to birds in two generations shall forever be among the stupidest concepts in Zelda (right next to a timeline where Link dies in the final boss fight of OoT)

 

[Cfrock]

Having Zora's grow wings to avoid seeing Hyrule? No way. What damage could them knowing about Hyrule possibly do? Ganondorf already knew.

They are weird, and their evolution from fish to birds in two generations...

The Goddesses didn't flood Hyrule so that Ganondorf wouldn't know about it, they flooded it so nobody else would. Having the Zora's swimming around would make their efforts useless. Ganondorf is described as being sealed in Hyrule and the Goddesses wanted the people to forget about things like the Triforce in an attempt to prevent greed corrupting the hearts of men anymore. Ganondorf knowing wasn't the point, it was everyone else knowing.

What makes you think it was "two generations"? There's no concrete information on the exact length of time between Ocarina of Time and The Wind Waker (at least, not that I am aware of) but I'm curious about where you're getting the impression it was merely "two generations", which would be about 60-80 years.

 

[Wolf Sage]

So, you think that Nintendo doesn't pay attention to continuity, yet your explanation agrees with the common belief that it was to not get any living things in the ocean?

Dude... please do not pick out one thing I said while leaving out the rest, thanks. Also... FYI, what I have said on numerous occasions is that Nintendo more or less just recently began to give a damn about continuity. And even after that, most connections are still shaky to say the least. That whole Zora bit is a great example of this, as the reason as to why Hyrule flooded and whatnot hypothetically could have originated from any random obscure backstory, and it'd not significantly affect the continuity in any way; that is, unless Miyamoto [et. al.] wills it. Ocarina of Time Adult timeline be damned...

 

[felipe970421]

Dude... please do not pick out one thing I said while leaving out the rest, thanks. Also... FYI, what I have said on numerous occasions is that Nintendo more or less just recently began to give a damn about continuity. And even after that, most connections are still shaky to say the least. That whole Zora bit is a great example of this, as the reason as to why Hyrule flooded and whatnot hypothetically could have originated from any random obscure backstory, and it'd not significantly affect the continuity in any way; that is, unless Miyamoto [et. al.] wills it. Ocarina of Time Adult timeline be damned...

Yes, that came out more rude than I expected, sorry about that

What I mean is, Nintendo probably knew the Rito came from the Zoras when developing WW, it's impossible to know though, so arguing whether or not they paid attention will get us nowhere

 

[ihateghirahim]

They probably just thought having the Zora's evolve into bird people was a cool idea, but they couldn't really fit it into the story. So, they just sort of put it in the game with no logical explanation. Now that they care the least about continuity, I bet they'll come up with an some random unsatisfying explanation.

 

[Justac00lguy]

They probably just thought having the Zora's evolve into bird people was a cool idea, but they couldn't really fit it into the story. So, they just sort of put it in the game with no logical explanation. Now that they care the least about continuity, I bet they'll come up with an some random unsatisfying explanation.

How can you say "they just sort of put it in the game with no logical explanation" It's not like Nintendo just throws stuff into a Zelda game and hope it works out....this is the Zelda series we are talking about! In my opinion I think I gave 2 pretty good reasons as well as Cfrock's reason! It is known that races evolve over time and adapt to different environments or major events like we see in the Wind Waker!

Plus I also do think Zelda do care for continuity......TWW had 2 sequels within 6 years of its initial release and now that we have Hyrule Historia we can see the brief connections between the games!

 

[Moonstone]

Perhaps the Zora evolved into Rito because of sea monsters. I mean, when they were zora living in the rivers, the biggest things they had to deal with were octorocks, right? Maybe the occasional sting ray.

The Great Sea not only has Sharks and Seahats, but also giant octo! And that's only near the surface that Link gets to see on his boat. I don't dare imagine what swims lower in the depths. In the air, their only real threat are the weak kargorak.

(also, I don't remember if the game states how much farther into the future it is, but it could be thousands of years. And let's not forget that Hyrule is a land with magic- so the process could've easily been sped up and manipulated).

 

[ihateghirahim]

The Timeline Strikes Again.

The River Zora are in a separate timeline altogether. They live in the defeated timeline where the Zora had an entirely different history. Therefore, the two races cannot be compared.

 

[Justac00lguy]

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

I wasn't being sarcastic I just thought the way he worded that was very harsh on Nintendo's part as he suggested that Nintendo don't care for thier games as he said "they just threw it in"

 

[Emma]

Those treasure hunter guys say that there are no fish in the sea. If that's true, that might be your reason. The biggest reason the Zora would have to keep swimming the sea is to fish. And now all there were in the oceans were monsters. No fish. If fishing was no longer possible, they might not go into the water as much. And eventually became the Rito.

 

[Woyogoyo]

This is a very interesting theory. I believe there are also salt water Zora, pardon me if I`m wrong. The bigger question is, did the Zora choose to be Rito?