The Importance of Lon Lon Ranch: A Character Study

It’s been a while since I wrote for this series. The last character study I released was way back at the beginning of October. I had originally planned on wrapping this whole series up before Skyward Sword, but then I ended up volunteering to be the person in charge of our 25th Anniversary Zelda tribute, which took a month to put together. Now that I’ve recovered from that project, and playing Skyward Sword itself, it’s time to get back into talking about good old Ocarina of Time, which Skyward Sword was unable to uproot as my favorite game.

When we left off, we had just finished discussing the significance of the Spirit Temple, so that naturally would lend one to think that this article would be about the last Sage and the end of the game. If you’ve noticed the banner above or article title, then you know that’s not the case.

I originally did not have a Lon Lon Ranch article lined up for this series, but after considering it, I can’t not talk about Malon. She isn’t a Sage, but that doesn’t make her impact on the story or Link’s connections to Lon Lon Ranch any less important.

While Lon Lon Ranch is not a temple, it is another area that Link visited both as a child and an adult. Unlike the Forest, Fire, and Water regions though, the ranch has not changed geographically and there is no new area within it to discover. Instead, what changes over the course of seven years is the social situation.

We meet Malon very early on in the game. In fact, she is one of the first people Link meets after leaving Kokiri Forest; Link even meets her before Zelda. While Link does have the opportunity to speak with several townsfolk in Castle Town, Malon stands out because she’s Link’s age. Remember that Link has never seen an adult until he arrives in Castle Town; he’s spent his whole life living in a world of children; Malon becomes an anchor in this sea of unfamiliarity.

Malon further stands out because she helps you sneak past the Castle guards, and you have to wake up her father, Talon, in order to progress further into the Castle.

Talon is an interesting character. He is the owner of Lon Lon Ranch, but he’s rather lazy and is caught sleeping on the job more than once. This doesn’t necessarily make him a bad person; he’s just more relaxed and carefree about this sort of thing. In addition to his daughter, Ingo also works on the ranch. It’s pretty obvious that Ingo is Talon’s brother. Not only do the two look similar, but they mirror two other famous video game siblings: Mario and Luigi.

Ingo, when Link first meets him as a kid, is clearly an ambitious person. He is disgruntled that he is a lowly ranch hand, despite how hard he works. He gradually becomes more embittered by how hard he works in comparison to Talon. Furthermore, if Talon and Ingo are indeed brothers, Ingo would scorn the fact that Talon likely inherited the ranch just because he was the eldest son.

Ingo, being ambitious, is very focused on his goals, and because of this he loses sight of everything else. Thanks to Ganondorf, he’s finally able to achieve his goal, taking charge of Lon Lon Ranch himself, but it comes at a cost.

Because Talon is such a carefree person, he never grew overtly concerned about Ingo’s grumblings. He also took all of Ingo’s hard work for granted. After all, Ingo, as his brother, had always been around. Talon did not heed the warning signs, and got evicted from the ranch after Ganondorf took an interest in it for horse breeding purposes. However, just because Talon was carefree about work, doesn’t mean he was like that towards every other aspect of life. If Talon was anything, he was a family man. He obviously has a very close relationship with his daughter, and thought he had one with his brother. Not only that, but he had a romance of his own once.

Malon’s mother isn’t present in the game, and one must assume she died. What’s interesting about Malon’s mother is that when Link wears the Gerudo mask and talks to Talon, he says that it reminds him of Malon’s mother. It wouldn’t be a stretch at all for Malon’s mother to have been a Gerudo. Not only would it explain Malon’s red hair, but in a race of all women, some are going to leave and find men outside of the desert in order to have children. If this is the case, it makes the story of Malon’s mother even more interesting. She birthed a girl, so she would naturally return to the desert with her right? Perhaps she died in childbirth, but I think she passed on afterward, perhaps because of some disease or foul play. While there isn’t really any evidence for this, I get the sense that Malon knew her mother. They way she talks about her implies actual memories, as opposed to stories that Talon might have told her. While Malon’s mother had originally intended to use Talon, she ended up falling in love with him. Whoever she was, she had a lasting effect on the ranch; she even composed “Epona’s Song.”

Now while this is all very interesting, what does it have to do with anything? It all plays a part in defining who Malon is, which in turn affects Link.

Malon is a fan favorite, and for good reason. She’s a very loving person, but she’s also a dreamer. Despite this, she’s very in tune with reality, and she goes through a number of hardships during the seven years Link is away.

First of all, Malon had to deal with the loss of her mother. After her mother’s passing, Malon took on a more motherly role, to try to fill the gap. We see her most clearly in this role when Link first wakes Talon up, and Talon is worried about Malon reprimanding him. Despite her young age, she takes on a lot of responsibility. In addition to working at the ranch, she makes it her prerogative to make sure Talon doesn’t slack off too much. While Talon, may not have seen the warning signs concerning Ingo, Malon probably did. We know that she was an observant person even as a child, since she notices right away that Link is a foreigner and quickly learns that he’s trying to get into the castle (she then uses this knowledge to get Talon to come back from the castle).

When Ganondorf places Ingo in charge of the ranch, Malon stays. While her father is only exiled, she once again has to deal with the loss of a parent. Not only that but Ingo’s bitterness and single-mindedness drove him to the edge of insanity, and while Talon had been the lazy one, Ingo would have no problem further taking out his grudge on Malon by giving her even more work.

However, Malon always retained some power at the ranch because she could tame the horses, while Ingo could not. This was particularly poignant in the case of Epona, who was intended to be given as a gift to Ganondorf, because Malon was the only one who could tame her. Epona didn’t respond well to Link until he showed his affiliation with Malon by playing “Epona’s Song.”

Ultimately, Malon stayed for the horses, who she cared for so much, because she feared Ingo would mistreat them if she left. This meant she rarely was able to see her father, but she knew he’d be all right without her.

Despite how these events must have hardened her, she is still heard singing, and the Gossip Stones reveal that she dreams of a knight to take her away; she hopes for the future.

So in comes Link. It’s been seven years since he’s seen Malon, but he recognizes her right away; She recognizes him too, but doesn’t say so until after he wins the race. For the most part, Malon stays off to the sidelines, while Link confronts Ingo and attempts to win Epona from him. While Link needs a horse, he opposes Ingo for Malon’s sake, who has already informed him of the events that have transpired since she last saw him.

Ingo agrees to let Link look at the horses, and even try one out that he’s already saddled up (probably in hopes that Link might buy a horse). Ingo receives the first blow to his pride when Link ignores this readied horse and easily gets Epona to let him ride her. Ingo had been under the impression that only Malon could tame Epona. Now that Link can too, Ingo must entertain the idea that he is the one at fault and that he isn’t as great as he thinks he is. He decides to reassure himself of his abilities by challenging Link to a race that he is sure he will win; he even bets that Link can keep Epona if Link beats him.

When Link wins the race, Ingo is confounded and goes into denial. He makes Link race him again, hoping to prove that he only lost to beginner’s luck. When he loses again, he realizes what a huge mistake he’s made and reveals that Epona was suppose to be given to Ganondorf. Not only has his pride received a second blow, but now he’s in potentially hot water with Ganondorf. In a panic he locks the ranch gates, hoping to trap Link inside.

Link, with Epona’s help, easily bypasses the gate, but before he does he has a talk with Malon. Besides revealing that she knew who Link was, she thanks him for helping her and is glad that everything will soon go back to normal, including Ingo who will go back to being “a normal, nice person.” Malon has lived with Ingo all her life is fully aware of his character; she remembers his good side and knows he was just temporarily corrupted by power. Once Link and Epona leave the ranch, Ingo will no longer be able to gamble or pull cheap tricks to free himself of his troubles. He’ll also have to come to terms that he is no longer the top dog.

Based on the end credits of the game, we know that Ingo and Talon made up and became friends again. I believe that after his defeat, Ingo sought Talon out for help. It took a lifetime, but both brothers were able to come to terms with each other, and Ingo finally realized that he doesn’t have to just be a work hand, or second to Talon. They’re brothers and they can run the ranch together.

The Lon Lon subplot is a good one, but like every other part of the story it must somehow relate back to Link’s own personal journey.Yes, Link is directly involved with the events of the story, but what does his own character gain from it?

For the most part I feel that the subplot reinforces Links character, the selfless part of him that’s always existed, but like his journey through the temples, his growth ultimately corresponds to key characters of that region. In this case that is Malon. Link makes a lot of friends during his quest, but Malon is the only one who doesn’t become a Sage. Her life isn’t controlled by fate; she isn’t part of some predestined saga; she’s just a girl on a ranch with a normal life.

She is a character that faces normal struggles, and overcomes them through hard work and patience. She’s not a fighter, nor does she posses magic, but she has dreams and is able to hope for more.

She symbolizes normality and Link’s hope for a normal life one day. Despite his triumphs, he still failed the last time he confronted Ganondorf, and while he’s grown, he has no way of telling how well he’ll fare against Ganondorf now, especially since he has grown more powerful since Link last encountered him. Link doesn’t know if he’ll save Zelda, he doesn’t know if he’ll save Hyrule, he doesn’t even know if he’ll survive, but maybe he will, and maybe there will be peace on the other side. Lon Lon Ranch and Malon remind him that it can still exist for the people of Hyrule and that it could exist for him as well.

The Importance of Ocarina of Time is an ongoing series where I look closely into each of the major Temples of the N64 Zelda game and analyze how each temple is important to the overall plot of the game and Link’s character.

Previous articles in this series: Forest, Fire, Water, Shadow, Desert, Milk, Milk