The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is without a doubt one of the most popular games ever published for the Nintendo Switch. And, if you're anything like me, you're probably revisiting it to be ready for the next Zelda game, Tears of the Kingdom. With the sequel on the way, many fans are rediscovering The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and many are still puzzled by several unanswered questions regarding the game. For those who are just beginning Link's adventure in Hyrule, or for seasoned gamers who are still inquisitive about the land of Hyrule, here are 5 Obscure Breath of the Wild secrets and mysteries that have yet to be answered.
Leviathans
"The Leviathan Bones" is one of several side missions in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild that necessitates some investigation. Three brothers are debating their theories about the ancient Leviathans and how they may have become extinct at the Serenne Stable. Onya believes it was due to an ice age, Akhrah believes it was due to a volcanic explosion, and Garshon believes it was due to a great drought. Sadly, because they haven't found any Leviathan remains, their research is incomplete, and they'll need Link to send them images of the bones.
Breath of the Wild players will encounter enormous whale remains, each with slight peculiarities, at each of the bones' secret sites. The skeletons may be connected to the gigantic rib bones that protrude fro m the ground across Hyrule, although the three quest-related skeletons are the only ones with skulls attached. These skulls, and the investigators who want pictures of them, are the most important hints for fans as to what Breath of the Wild's leviathans are intended to be.
Numerous Legend of Zelda games have included gigantic, whale-like animals, and the most popular theory among Breath of the Wild fans is that the leviathan bones are supposed to represent three of these past game characters. The Eldin Great Skeleton's broad skull plate and hand-like arms, in particular, resemble Levias, a soaring, whale-like creature featured in Skyward Sword. However, the Gerudo Great Skeleton has little bones that jut up into the air behind its shoulder blades, implying that it might be Link's Awakening's winged Wind Fish. Lastly, the Hebra Great Skeleton looks like a regular whale, which many speculate may be the Ocean King from Phantom Hourglass.
While many fans debate the timeline placement for Breath of the Wild, and like the in-game leviathan researchers, who accepted the evidence in Link's photos relevant to their theories and then ignored the others, Zelda fans would go on to debate Breath of the Wild's timeline placement, many ignoring the possibility that a placement at the end all three branches could be the solution.
And some fans have pointed out that since the Leviathans were now extinct in Breath of the Wild, perhaps the Sheikah were recreating a model of them. No seriously, Hateno Lab has a strange-looking creature hung on the ceiling by their bookshelves. So perhaps this little creature resembled within the lab might have been a prototype of the first creatures who lurked in Hyrule and it's sky, the Leviathans!
Zonai Tribe/Ruins
The tribe's official in-game name is the "Ancient Barbarian Tribe," but fans have dubbed them the Zonai owing to their link to the Faron region's Zonai Ruins. And with even Tears of Kingdom new gameplay showcase, they are really called the Zonai.
Here, Link can find a ton of ancient tablets, ruins, and pillars with the same symbology. Their memory lives on in the Barbarian armor set, which is relics of the lost tribe. How they disappeared and who they were remains unexplained.
The Typhlo Ruins, located north of the Lost Woods, are a frightening and unsettling portion of BOTW. These ruins are completely dark, and Link must rely on torches or other ways to see anything. There's a shrine, a big Hinox boss, and several other interesting stuff within.
What's unclear is why these ruins exist and why they're shrouded in this thick fog of darkness. Fans speculate the darkness had a part to do with the lost Zonai tribe, which is supposedly long dead or mysteriously disappeared. Zonai ruins and iconography can be seen around Hyrule, and in the sequel trailer, but it's unclear how they connect to the Typhlo Ruins, if at all. Regardless, these ruins are creepy and unexplained canonically.
There's also a strange issue: the Typlho ruins and some Labyrinths are Sheikah trials for the Hero. We still don't know why the Sheikah are conducting these tests on Zonai ruins. Some assume that the ancient Sheikah know what happened to the Zonai, or that they once collaborated with them against Calamity Ganon.
Did the Sheikah just discover their ruins and use it for their tech? Or was there possibly something that the Zonai and the Sheikah know, but aren't telling us just yet for the next game? Well as far as what we know, that tribe will be explained and answered within Tears of the Kingdom.
Rito and Zoras Both Exist
The Legend of Zelda series' enormous landscapes and mythology contain two distinct species: the Zora and the Rito. These humanoid-looking species are rarely observed together and appear to have little similarity at first glance. The two races couldn't be more different, with the Zora spending their days in Hyrule's waters and lakes and the Rito preferring higher heights. Nevertheless, a cataclysmic occurrence caused the Zora to develop into the Rito, making the Rito the Zora race a direct descendent.
The Rito originally appeared in Wind Waker. There, the race lived on Dragon Roost Island, a vast volcanic island. Their island, like many others, is actually the peak of the Hyrule mountains. In Wind Waker, Hyrule was completely submerged under a massive ocean during an event called the Great Flood.
This is all well and good, but in BOTW, both races exist. How could they both live near to each other after the Zoras had vanished? While the timeline placement of BOTW is still debatable, perhaps there's an explanation here. The Rito, on the other hand, has undergone a thorough rework and redesign in Breath of the Wild. Rather than remaining humanoid, the Rito have evolved into anthropomorphic birds, almost descending from Loftwings back in Skyward Sword. Depending on the chronology, it's conceivable that the Rito have evolved to the point where they have distant similarities with the Zora. Alternately, the Rito and Zora may be completely separate, with no relationship between the races.
But for now, it doesn't seem to make any sense. Some fans say this is just because it has been 10,000 years. A portion of Zora may have developed into Rito, while another portion remained Zora.
And although the Zora and Rito are linked in one game, this does not imply that they are in another. Until Breath of the Wild reveals additional information, the Rito will be regarded as descendants of the Zora race.
False Blood Moons & Hino
A crimson moon is already a terrifying occasion in BOTW. This occurrence is said to occur when Ganon's strength reaches its height, and its in-game impact is to revive all killed opponents. The sequence is creepy, and the phenomena itself is disturbing. Everyone is aware that Red Moons respawn defeated opponents and occur on a timer. Yet, there appears to be considerable ambiguity about the precise circumstances for ordinary Blood Moons, and much more so with emergency or panic Blood Moons.
Nevertheless, after playing Breath of the Wild for a while, some players find that not all Blood Moons are caused by time. While others have attempted to compute the explanation behind a random Blood Moon event, the most accurate response comes from a reddit user Clarifying the Time System, Blood Moons, and Lord of the Mountain Spawns.
Blood moons are also used to reset internal state when some subsystems are running out of memory or become unresponsive. Such blood moons do not follow the regular schedule and are commonly referred to as "panic blood moons".
A common misconception is that blood moons help replenish system memory by resetting enemy kill flags. This is however total nonsense, because enemy kill flags are just GameData flags, and all GameData flags are loaded at bootup, inserted into a sorted list and stay in memory forever.
Panic Blood Moons occur when the game is running out of memory or when some tasks are taking too much time. Contrary to a widespread theory, they are not used as a generic error handler or a fallback for "unhandled events". Panic blood moons can only occur in specific cases.
Even without inspecting the code, the fact that the GameData configuration files are never loaded again after init implies that the game is not unloading flags. Not to add that constantly unloading and reloading flags would be wasteful and ineffectual at freeing up considerable memory: the whole GameData Manager only needs 15 MB.
Parts of the actor system and the Placement Manager are reset when there is a panic moon. When it invokes Demo011 0, it also revives foes and other respawnable items, much like the usual blood moon code. So the conclusion is that only Nintendo knows which of the seven panic circumstances is the cause of the terror.
Therefore it appears that there is a minor explanation for why random Blood Moons occur, however other fans claim that it is a false blood moon that speeds up due to Ganon's power, all because this moon never follows the time cycle of Breath of the Wild. But whether people believe this is because of gameplay mechanics or because it is engrained in Zelda mythology is a hotly debated issue.
On top of that, Hino, who can be located in the Duelling Peaks Stable, appears to have a weird reaction to the blood moon, almost seeming to revere it. He'll rush about yelling about the blood moon, describing it as "glorious" and exclaiming, "arise, monsters!" (zoom in on him) What's the issue with this guy? Several fans thought that he may have been infected with malice. He might well have gotten his hands on it because malice is associated with the blood moon, etc. And yet malice injured him, so he left it alone, only to grow infatuated and lose a few screws in the process.
Yet it's pretty common for Zelda games to have a random character that gives off eerie and frightening vibes, and perhaps Hino is simply that, a character behaving out of character.
8th Heroine
Link can stumble across seven huge statues of Gerudo soldiers in the Gerudo Desert region of BOTW. The seven women are called the Seven Heroines and are revered by the Gerudo people.
Yet, if you look at the map of the region, you'll see an open place where something appears to be missing. During the quest "The Eighth Heroine," Link can uncover an abandoned statue and sword high in the Gerudo Mountains. If, as many assume, this is a missing statue from the set. So, why is it out of the circle? What happened to the heroines that caused the Eighth to be exiled or banished?
Some fans believe it is due to Gerudo's misremembering of the events in Ocarina of Time. The Heroine Statues are all labeled 'SEVEN SAGES,' in Gerudo text and their crests appear to be Gerudo stylizations of the Sage Medallion insignia also seen in OoT. The assumption is that the Gerudo have forgotten who the Sages were and hence thought they were Gerudo. This is corroborated by the mythology that the Heroines saved the world, as well as everything else described.
The Eighth Heroine, on the other hand, was never among the others and never carried a sword. Both the sword and the statue, as you can see, are cut from the stone exactly where they are, rather than being built like the rest. This is the Eighth Heroine leaving her sword in the stone and departing from the others. This may seem familiar because LINK did something similar at the conclusion of OOT. He lay down the Master Sword and set off in quest of finding Navi. Likewise, if the Hero's Shadow from TP is OOT Link, despite the fact that he was never acknowledged as a hero... then the Eighth Heroine, unlike the others, is all but forgotten, just like the Hero within the Child Era timeline.
While there is a small flaw in this theory, given that the placement of Breath of the Wild among the timelines is yet unknown. And since there is an added sword and we are only sticking to Breath of the Wild's timeline, using no other previous game as a reference, perhaps the eight heroines represent the eight races, Hylian, Sheikah, Gerudo, Zora, Goron, Korok, Rito, and Zonai, who allied together for something protracted in the past in Breath of the Wild's timeline, perhaps 10,000 years before the previous Calamity.
Alternatively, the 8th heroine might very well be the person shown in the Tears of the Kingdom trailer, but all of this remains unresolved, so my fingers are crossed that we receive some answers for the next Zelda chapter.
And with that, we'll conclude our examination at 5 Obscure Mysteries in Breath of the Wild. I know many dedicated Zelda fans have known these secrets for years, but it's always a good idea to refresh yourself and others before Tears of the Kingdom. What do you believe the next Zelda game will reveal? Thank you for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.
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