The Legend of Zelda Zelda 1: What Enemies Are Considered "Ganon's Henchmen"?

[Scykoh]

Upon playing through Zelda 1 again recently quite thoroughly and reading every bit of text, I found myself wondering the question in the title. What enemies are considered "Ganon's henchmen" in Zelda 1? How do we know they are his henchmen, etc.

There are likely easy explanations given the context of additional Zelda games, but I am curious what explanations there are if this was 1986 and Zelda 1 was simply the only title out.

Here is what I know of the game from my playing/reading, and what has lead me to confusion. Initially, for whatever reason, I jumped to the idea that anything within the dungeons could be considered working for Ganon. Clearly, that doesn't make much sense considering Zelda split the Triforce into 8 shards and hid them specifically within these dungeons -- she would not hide them FROM Ganon in a dungeon under Ganon's control. This begs the question, are the enemies present in the first 8 dungeons suddenly null and void from being considered Ganon's henchmen?

Well, how bout Level 9, where Ganon resides? Is this dungeon under Ganon's control, are the enemies within allied with Ganon, or does he simply reside there?

Also, upon reading the instruction manual's bestiary, I found not a single enemy description mentioned an affiliation with Ganon. The closest anything came was a Lynel, which says (paraphrasing) it's a "guardian of Death Mountain," and that's a weak connection to Ganon at best.

There are more points to make to cover more angles, but for the sake of brevity I'm going to cut things there as I feel the basic question is there: "is there any way to discern which enemies within Zelda 1 are allied with Ganon, without resorting to assumption"

 

[AncientPoe]

Well, I'd venture a guess that anything using a manufactured weapon would be a henchman. Moblins fit here first, as well as Darkknuts and whatever those weird goat-laser beamsword things were. Also possibly most of the Dungeon Bosses, unless it's noted in some manual or something that they're some holdover guardian from ancient times.

As for other monsters, consider this analogy: Pine trees shed their needles across the ground, and in so doing they significantly raise the soil PH (acid) levels. This creates a soil conducive mostly to the growth of only other pine trees, as most other things need a much more Base soil PH to live and grow. In this manner, the rise of Ganon/dorf's strength may cause evil to permeate the land, pervading the "soil" with evil. As such, evil monsters tend to live and flourish, and slowly all that is good begins to wane and die. This could explain why so many "unaffiliated" yet still hostile monsters exist, especially in games like The Legend of Zelda, and The Ocarina of Time, where Ganon/dorf has been in power for a significant time, where you can see once peaceful places overrun by monsters (for example, in the Kokiri Forest).

I really enjoyed your question. Does my reply help?

 

[Scykoh]

I really enjoyed your question. Does my reply help?

I would argue the dungeon bosses themselves were already present within the dungeons ("labyrinths") otherwise there really wouldn't really be an obstacle keeping Ganon from the Triforce. Manufactured weapons definitely sounds like a solid correlation, which could include Moblin, Armos (although they're "Soldiers turned into stone," so could perhaps even be cursed opposition to Ganon,) Lynel (the horse sword beam guys), Stalfos, Darknut's and Goriya. Another strong connection which I didn't initially think of could be anything referred to as a demon, devil etc. While this game refers to Ganon as "Prince of Darkness," it's actually a translation error. The literal Japanese translation reads "Demon King" as we would expect out of Ganon. Wizrobe's could also be argued because they're wizards, as is Ganon.

It all is just correlations, but they seem reasonable. One other question this does raise however, what are the dungeons? Who built them, why do they exist, etc? I don't know if that could be answered even using other Zelda games as context, but it'd be interesting to know.

Edit: Forgot to add there's a bit from the manual about Gohma, one of the dungeon bosses is "Gohma: the super huge crab that lives in the labyrinths." Which hints they were already there.

 

[AncientPoe]

Right, I forgot about Wizzrobes. My earlier reply would have been longer and more thought out, but I had to leave for an event. To go one further from 'manufactured weapons', I'd say anything that is sentient. Also, one might argue that Beamos may be either faction. It all depends on the game you find them in. For instance, two can be found flanking the entrance to the Keep proper in Ganon's Castle, but then again they are also a major installation in the Tower of the Gods, a trial specifically left for the sole purpose of determining the identity of The Hero. One explanation may be that they are an ancient technology left over from ancient Hylians (explaining their presence in such places as the aforementioned Tower and also in places like the Lanyru Mining Facility) that were discovered and repurposed or "hijacked" by Ganondorf and his minions. "Waste not, want not," or so the saying goes.

As for dungeon bosses, it's touch and go. Some are direct minions like Phantom Ganon, while others are directly stated to be servants of good or guardians (like most of the bosses of the Temples in The Adventure of Link). Others, I would imagine, are simply "unaffiliated" as previously mentioned. You could say bosses come in three categories: Minions, Trials, and Enthralled Monsters. The third of course would be normal creatures of evil (mostly) who were drawn to the force of some sleeping power that had been squirreled away in some forgotten temple. Twilit Diababa is a perfect example.

Minions are well represented here: many bosses (especially from OoT) are directly stated to be either a direct curse, or otherwise engineered by Ganondorf in his rise to power. Queen Ghoma, Volvagia, Bio-electric Barinade, King Dodongo, the Sorcerer Sisters/Twinrova, Morpha, and many others are all specifically mentioned to be products of Ganondorf's power (or in Volvagia's case awakened by him and then set upon the Gorons). However, it should be noted that not all minions are minions of Ganon. The bosses in Link's Awakening are all elements of Nightmare, and Goht, Gyorge, Twinmold (MM Version) and Odolwa are all created by the power of The Mask. But since you're talking specifically about early games that only featured Ganon, I should probably limit myself to those games. (sorry, this is too much fun.)

You can probably safely bet that in addition to anything sentient or with a manufactured weapon, anything found in Dungeon 9 (Ganon's Lair) is a minion. Whether it acts of its own accord, under command, or is itself just a creation, his keep would be full of his personal minions. That means Like-Likes, Bubbles and even Keese (since later iterations of Ganon actually spawn these things, it's a safe bet).

 

[Salem]

I would say any of the "humanoid" enemies in the game like what you guys mentioned, Moblins, Wizzrobes etc, but also Goriyas Darknuts, for this game, I don't recall if any over world enemies ever appear in dungeons and vice versa, so I assume the ones in the dungeons take orders directly from Ganon, and Moblins are like the ones that get dispatched while the Goriyas are like the guards or something.

 

[Farore's Chosen]

Moblins
Wizzrobes
Darkknuts
Goriyas
Lynels
Stalfos
the bosses
and the Zolas used to work for him I guess.

I've always personally believed that things like
Octorocks
Leevers
Peahats
Tektites
Ropes
Keese
are local wildlife

the weirder enemies like Patras, Like-Like and Wall Masters are probably minions he created with his magic

 

[FortuneDeku987]

I would guess all of the enemies of Link in Zelda 1 are Ganon's henchmen?

 

[Seth]

Outside of Ganon's lair, the final dungeon, I think the enemies in all the other dungeons are not Ganon's henchmen but rather protecting the TF pieces. Like it was stated above, if they were Ganon's henchmen Ganon would already have the TF, it's in the next room over!

As far as the over world, I consider most of the enemies to be working with Ganon more or less.

 

[AncientPoe]

What about redeads and other undead monsters?

 

[Scykoh]

What about redeads and other undead monsters?

Zelda 1 doesn't actually have redeads. The only "undead" type enemies would be Ghini, which are the ghosts only found in the cemetery area. I'd guess they're unaffiliated with Ganon considering they only come from the gravestones in the area. The others are Stalfos, if you consider those to count, and Gibdo. Both of those enemy types as far as I know are only found in the dungeons, and (while I'm not a history buff) I think in olden times these types of labyrinths / dungeons were often used as resting places, to hold corpses. That could be a very easy explanation for Gibdo's and Stalfos, including the Stalfos' weapons (their bodies could have been left with their weapons)