The Hyrulian Pantheon: The Major Gods
Posted on May 09 2012 by Mases Hagopian
Hyrule’s major gods are the Three Goddesses: Din, Nayru, and Farore. They form a three part union of perfect balance, symbolized by the Triforce and central to Hyrulian culture. Din’s primary role is the Goddess of Power, Naryu’s is the Goddess of Wisdom. and Farore is the Goddess of Courage. These three concepts are the center of Hyrulian religious belief.
A person cannot have power without the wisdom to know what to do with it and the courage to actually do it. They cannot be wise without the courage to do what they know is right and the power to be successful in that endeavor. Likewise, they cannot be courageous and powerless to do anything or unwise and do stupid things with their courage. People must possess all three virtues to be successful in life.
This is never better portrayed than by the Triforce itself. It is a perfect three-part balance of these three virtues. The creation myth details the creation of the world and, simultaneously, the creation of the Triforce. To Hyrulians, the world cannot exist without the Triforce. Hyrule as a country is called the land where the power of the gods lies.
I have always had a theory about the Triforce. I don’t think that the Triforce was an intentional creation. The Goddesses made the world, and then they left it to govern itself. Ocarina of Time says that the Triforce was left at the point where the Goddesses left the world. What they had created was so much a part of themselves that they could not leave it without leaving a part of themselves behind, a sacred relic of pure balance that also possesses a shred of their power, each with a separate essence. There is no evidence to suggest that they purposefully created the Triforce or have any real involvement in their creation. The only instance of direct involvement in the world of Hyrule beyond creating it is flooding it in the Wind Waker’s opening legend as a last resort to prevent the creation from destroying itself.
Farore’s Triforce is primarily filled with courage as courage is hers to command. Its holder defends life, as she was the one who created life. Nayru’s Triforce is filled with wisdom, and its holder shares wisdom with others as Nayru provided wisdom and law to the world. Lastly, Din’s Triforce possesses power, and its holder rules the world and the land itself, for it was Din who had the raw power to create the physical land and the shape of the world.
There’s more to the Three Goddesses than merely the Triforce and its virtues, however. We will talk about each goddess separately, starting with Din and ending with Farore.
Din, Goddess of Power:
Din is perhaps the most mysterious of the Goddesses. We don’t have as much information about her as we do about Nayru and Farore because her champion remains unknown due to Ganondorf’s theft of the Triforce of Power. Without a featured champion, we don’t spend as much time finding out about how she influences her champion and the world. Just because Ganondorf possesses her Triforce doesn’t mean that Din is an evil Goddess. It only means that Ganondorf admires power and rule above all things.
In an interview with Miyamoto on page 2 of Hyrule Historia, he says that the original guardians of the three parts of the Triforce were Link, Zelda, and Impa. He says that the triforce of power came to be associated with Ganondorf later in time, but that originally Impa was its guardian. At the time, Impa was not a Shiekah, so we cannot look to their culture to see what this could say about Din. We do know that Impa was an old woman who imparted knowledge and gave guidance to the hero and to the royal family. This could associate Din with knowledge as a form of power, rather than just might of various kinds. Please note that knowledge is not the same thing as wisdom. One can have knowledge, and all the power you can glean from that knowledge, and still not be wise.
Some speculate that Din is the Gerudo Goddess of the Sand, and this might be supported by the fact the statues of the Goddess of the Sand in Twilight Princess is holding large flames, Din’s element. One could also say that the Oracle of Seasons, Din, looks remarkably Gerudo. However, these are relatively trivial facts and don’t lend real support to that reading. The Oracle also has red eyes, but no one suspects that she is a Sheikah.
What we know for certain about Din, other than being the Goddess of Power, is that she is very closely associated with fire. Fire, as an element, can provide life just as easily as it can provide death. It is wild and destructive if uncontrolled, but can be controlled if the person creating or managing that fire has the knowledge to do so. One could say that we have more hope of controlling a wildfire than we do of controlling the water of a flood or a hurricane since controlled burns happen all the time in farming.
Fire is also associated with passion. In Oracle of Seasons, Din is portrayed as a dancer in a traveling troupe, and she is very passionate, “fiery” even. The Oracle and the goddess are two different people, but characters in games and in myths are not named after main goddesses lightly.
We also know that Din crafted the physical earth with her strong, fiery arms. It makes sense, then, that whoever possesses the Triforce of Power becomes the ruler of the world, for it is the duty of a ruler to manage the physical world under his power as well as the people. This is why Ganondorf becomes the Evil King, ruler of the world, upon stealing the Triforce of Power. Din’s Triforce, her essence left behind in the world, provides the ability to rule the earth if not the wisdom to do so justly. Fire must always be tempered by knowledge, and if it gets out of control one must have the courage to subdue it again.
Nayru, Goddess of Wisdom:
Our first glimpse of Nayru, Goddess of Wisdom, is in the creation myth told to us by the Deku tree. She is portrayed flying through the sky, bringing blue and clouds and sun into being as she provides the “spirit of law” to the world. Knowledge is very prized in Hyrule because of her, as it was in ancient Greece as well. The Greeks are known for their love of knowledge, naming it the most desirable of virtues. Plato’s dialogues are great to read if you’re interested in what a world of pure knowledge would be like. This was an ideal also aspired by the Greeks.
Ironically, the leader of the Greek pantheon is Zeus, who is the King of the Gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky, weather, thunder, law, order, and fate. Nayru is also most certainly associated with the sky and water, which would make sense if you think of rain. This is why I think she represents the Hyrulian Sky Goddess, and is similar to Zeus in her functions. Din is more like Zeus’s wife Hera, who is the goddess of heirs, kings, and empires (as well as childbirth and women, but Din has her secondary functions as well). We will call Din the Goddess of Government, like Hera, and Nayru the Goddess of the Sky, like Zeus.
Nayru is the bringer of law and order through wisdom and knowledge. How often is it that her champion, Zelda, holder of the Triforce of Wisdom, sets the events of fate in motion due to her wise words. So often she imparts knowledge to Link, and thereby sets his fate and the fate of the world in motion.
Nayru is very much like Zeus in some ways, and yet very different as well. Zeus is a backstabber, killing his father for power and marrying his sister, is often portrayed having affairs with various women in various forms, and has temper tantrums. Zelda makes her mistakes as well, but none on the level of Zeus. However, the goddesses’ absence from their creation, contrasted with the Greek’s almost human gods, might have something to do with Nayru’s better behavior.
Odin, the leader of the Norse gods, is the Norse god of wisdom, poetry, and magic. He later became known as the god of war as well. This reflects the Norse love of war and valor, as seen in Viking culture. The Greek’s goddess of wisdom was Athena, and she was also the goddess of war (sister of Ares, the god of war). Nayru has no known associations with war, but Zelda does seem to get Hyrule into plenty of them.
Farore, Goddess of Courage:
Last in our article, but by no means least in the Triforce, is the goddess of courage. The Deku Tree says that Farore, with her rich soul, gave life to all the life forms in the world. They were created to uphold the law laid down by Nayru. Farore’s champion, Link, is destined by the Triforce of Courage to defend and protect those life forms. Partnering with Zelda and using knowledge as a tool, the legends that we hold dear detail the many things he does to protect life in Hyrule.
Obviously, Farore is a goddess of the earth and plenty. There is no single god in the later Greek pantheon to represent this, but early Greek mythology depicts the mother of all the gods as Mother Earth, who they called Gaia. Out of her all things were born, including all of the other gods. Gaia begot Rhea, and Rhea begot Demeter, who is the goddess of the seasons in the time of Zeus.
The Norse pantheon has Jord, goddess of earth. She is one of the wives of Odin and bore him Thor, eldest son of Odin and the God of Thunder and Battle. Thor is one of the most celebrated gods in the Norse pantheon.
Earth goddesses are goddesses of plenty and of life. They are often associated with birth, since the earth is what gives life to everything. Farore, in this way, is not only the goddess of the earth, but also a fertility goddess as it was she who gave life to everything in the world.
Some think that she may be the goddess of wind spoken of in the Wind Waker, or the goddess of time spoken of in Majora’s Mask. We’ll tackle these other gods in the next article, Minor Gods.
To review, Hyrulian culture is centered around the Three Goddesses, and the idea of perfect balance. The Triforce was created when the goddesses left the world to govern itself, removing themselves from interaction with the world. The Three Goddesses are Din, Nayru, and Farore. Din, most related to Hera, is the goddess of power, fire, and government. Nayru, most closely related to Zeus or Odin, is the Goddess of wisdom, water, and law. Lastly, Farore, most related to Gaia or Jord, is the goddess of courage, nature, and fertility (life).
PREVIEW OF ARTICLE 4:
We will take a look at all of the other, less important gods worshiped or spoken of in Hyrulian mythology and speculate as to their actual identity.
Author: The Wolfess
Jennie Marie, also called The Wolfess, is getting her Masters of Fine Arts in Poetry at Eastern Washington University. She is the author of a three-book Zelda fan fiction, The Doppelganger Trilogy and does freelance articles for Zelda websites. The Wolfess has written such articles as Zelda Wii Needs An Anti-Hero, Skyward Sword’s Art Style: Straddling the Line or Walking a New Path, and a ten-part series on The Hyrulian Pantheon currently running at ZeldaDungeon.net.
~~~Recent Content Updates~~~
