Zelda (Era of the Wilds)

* TotK/Casual
* TotK/Zonai
* BoTW/Casual
* BoTW/Regal
* BoTW/Triforce
* BoTW/Winter
* Light Dragon

I've been keeping watch over you all this time… I've witnessed your struggles to return to us, as well as your trials in battle. I always thought… no, I always believed… that you would find a way to defeat Ganon. I never lost faith in you over these many years… Thank you, Link… the Hero of Hyrule. May I ask… Do you really remember me?—Zelda, *The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wind*.

**Princess Zelda** is the deuteragonist of the “Era of the Wilds” series within The Legend of Zelda franchise. She is the princess of Hyrule, who led the Champions of Hyrule against Calamity Ganon 100 years ago. However, the Calamity proved to be far too powerful for them to handle and so as a last resort, Zelda sealed herself away in Hyrule Castle to keep Ganon at bay until her sworn knight and protector, Link, would arise once more and defeat Ganon.

After several years of rebuilding Hyrule, she and Link would happen upon a mysterious mummy revealed to be Ganondorf. She was transported to the past, where she would meet her ancestors Rauru and Sonia and try to come to terms with her new powers and find a way to help Link defeat Ganondorf in the present day.

## Story

### Breath of the Wild

Zelda is portrayed as an aspiring scholar and the leader of the Champions of Hyrule, in addition to being a princess. She is revealed to be over 100 years old as she met with the Champions and had a grave sense that she must stop Ganon, which she devoted to researching about ancient relic to stop him ever since.

After Zelda meets Link, she starts to become suspicious about his character and silence, after failing to open an Ancient Shrine, she gets into an argument with Link, demanding for him to stop following her.

Zelda then travels to the Gerudo desert where she is captured by the Yiga clan, who orders her to be executed. Before she is killed, Link arrives and saves her life, causing her to reconcile with him. Eventually, their renowned friendship allows Zelda to open up and reveal her legendary abilities.

However, as time went on, Zelda was unable to awaken her dormant holy powers, even after a trip to the Springs of Courage and Wisdom, much to the concern of the Champions. Unfortunately, around this time, Calamity Ganon awoke as the Malice seeping from the mummified corpse of Ganondorf took form and arose to unleash the Great Calamity on Hyrule. In the process, the Champions were slaughtered in the Divine Beasts by the Blight Ganons, who took the Divine Beasts over to attack their respective races, King Rhoam was also killed, Hyrule Castle Town was decimated, Akkala Citadel was overrun, and Link and Zelda's attempts to save Fort Hateno proved to be in vain, as Link was mortally wounded and the fort was on the verge of capitulation. As a Malice-infected Guardian Stalker moved in to finish Link off with its eye laser at point-blank range, Zelda made a heroic stand to protect him, causing her powers to finally awaken, purging the Malice from the Guardian, but at this point, it was too little too late.

With Link critically wounded, Zelda takes him to the Shrine of Resurrection to be healed, while she herself takes the Master Sword back to the grove of the Great Deku Tree to be healed as well, and then sacrifices herself to seal both her and Calamity Ganon away in Hyrule Castle for the next century.

### Tears of the Kingdom

Princess Zelda appears in the sequel to Breath of the Wild. Picking up a few years after the true ending left off, Zelda alongside Link traversed through a cave beneath Hyrule Castle, only to find a mysterious mummified Gerudo corpse with an ethereal hand touching its chest.

Just after they make this discovery, the hand falls off the corpse and a tear-shaped stone emerges from the back of the hand, which Zelda recovers. Moments later, the corpse begins to move, and as it turns to look at them, the eye sockets light up with slit pupils, just like the eyes on the Malice from Calamity Ganon. Moments later, the corpse shoots a beam of pure Gloom at Link, and though he tries to block it with the Master Sword, the beam takes out most of his Heart Containers, burns off his Champion's Tunic, and leaves his arm severely burned. Another shot that Link tries to deflect leads to the Blade of Evil's Bane shattering, with a piece only able to cut and nick the corpse's cheek, causing it to hiss with blood as the corpse voices its disappointment and contempt with how that was the best Link could do to wound him, revealing that it knows Link and Zelda by name, before unleashing a blast of Gloom that begins to lift Hyrule Castle into the air, causing the cavern they are in to collapse. Link tries to save Zelda as she starts to fall into the abyss, but fails, and Zelda vanishes as the stone she recovered teleports her away, while the ethereal hand saves Link.

Zelda wakes up to find herself in a much more peaceful Hyrule, discovering that she traveled into the past thanks to the stone, and meets up with the very first sovereigns of Hyrule, the Zonai King Rauru, and his wife, the Hylian Queen Sonia. Seeing that Zelda is in need of help and understanding of the power of the stone that she possesses, Rauru and Sonia take her in, dress her similarly to Sonia in a Zonai dress and other accessories, and help her gain a better understanding of the Secret Stone she now had access to the power of, having sensed their own powers as the Sages of Light and Time in Zelda.

It was during this time, however, that Ganondorf attempted to attack Hyrule with a force of Molduga unleashed by his Gerudo vai warrior women. Zelda supported Rauru alongside Sonia with empowering him to where he took out the entire Molduga force with a single attack. This causes Ganondorf to rethink his plans for conquering Hyrule.

To that end, he approaches Rauru and Sonia under the guise of pledging an oath of fealty to them. Rauru accepts, though Zelda has her concerns about the decision. She later takes some time to mention Link to Rauru and Sonia, impressing them with Link's heroics back in Zelda's time period.

However, fate finally stepped in to ensure history remained on track as, one night, Zelda asked to speak with Sonia in private. When Sonia and Zelda were alone, Sonia asked Zelda what she wanted to discuss, only for Zelda to call Sonia far too trusting as she drew a Gerudo dagger and threw it at Sonia, only for the dagger to be stopped in time before it even touched Sonia's long blonde hair. Sonia then turned around and revealed she knew that the "Zelda" before her was a phony, a puppet of Ganondorf, as the real Zelda then appears to reveal they were on to the plan the whole time, having used her powers to stop the attempt on Sonia. After sending the dagger back to her doppelganger, Zelda watched with Sonia as the fake Zelda vanished in a swirl of Malice and Gloom while giggling wickedly, revealing that it was really Phantom Ganon. As Sonia and Zelda look around for where Phantom Ganon went, Ganondorf seizes the moment, and mortally wounds Sonia from behind, catching her by complete surprise. As Sonia falls, whimpering in pain and agony, her Secret Stone of Time swings upwards to where Ganondorf snatches it before Sonia collapses, which Zelda discovers shortly, horrified to see the Hyrulean Queen having been assassinated as Ganondorf smiles psychotically and cackles maniacally.

As Zelda tends to Sonia, Ganondorf uses Sonia's Secret Stone to become his Demon King self and unleash his Gloom-empowered forces all over Hyrule to lay siege to it. Rauru arrives shortly afterwards to discover his wife's condition before Ganondorf mocks him for thinking he could trust Ganondorf after he pledged fealty to him, and it cost Sonia her life. As Ganondorf continues to taunt Rauru, saying that he will die knowing he failed to keep Ganondorf in check, Rauru nearly attacks Ganondorf in a blind, heartbroken fury, before Zelda calls him back, reminding him of his wife needing him. As Ganondorf attempts to attack them, Rauru blocks with his shield, and Zelda uses the Purah Pad to teleport herself, Rauru, and Sonia's body to safety before Rauru's shield failed.

Later, as Rauru mourns his wife at her grave following her burial, he announces to Zelda his intent to go after Ganondorf with the other Sages to stop him. Zelda warns him that his efforts will be in vain as she saw Ganondorf's mummified corpse back in her time revive when Rauru's sealing magic failed. Understanding that knowledge of destiny Zelda brought back with her, Rauru tells Zelda that she and Link will be Hyrule's last resort to stop the Demon King back in her time and wishes her the best before he departs to gather the Sages and face Ganondorf.

After Link sends the Master Sword back to Rauru's time to allow Zelda to heal it over the millennia, despite knowing the risks and some hesitation, she swallows her Secret Stone and gives up her Hylian form to become a Light Dragon, with which she is then able to heal the Master Sword, restoring it back to full strength by the time she returns to her present, with her last words before transforming as her eyes change from human to dragon being to Link to protect everyone before she fully assumes her draconic state, crying several tears that rain down over Hyrule as she takes to the skies.

When Link prepares to face Ganondorf after helping awaken the descendants of the Sages in his and Zelda's time period in Sidon, Riju, Yunobo, and Tulin, upon nearing his defeat, Ganondorf takes drastic measures, and does like Zelda with swallowing his own Secret Stone to become a Demonic Dragon to kill Link with. Zelda intervenes in her Light Dragon form, and together, they are able to finally slay the Demon King for good when Link destroys Sonia's corrupted Secret Stone with the Master Sword, causing Ganondorf to vanish in a massive explosion of light. As a final gift before they ascend to the afterlife to join King Rhoam, Urbosa, Mipha, Revali, and Daruk, Rauru and Sonia use the last of their power to restore Zelda to her Hylian form and fully heal Link's arm, allowing them to reunite and return to the business of seeing to Hyrule's restoration with their friends, citizens, and other residents of the kingdom.

Some time later, after Zelda has changed from her Zonai attire back to her original outfit she was wearing at the start of the game, she, Link, and the Sages' descendants, along with Purah, meet with Mineru as, with her duty complete, she prepares to depart to the afterlife to join Rauru and Sonia. After offering some final words of wisdom to Zelda, and watching as Riju, Sidon, Yunobo, and Tulin, pledge their loyalty to Zelda to help her keep Hyrule safe and peaceful, Mineru departs to join Rauru, Sonia, Rhoam, and the Champions, while Zelda is joined by Link and the new Champions as they stare out over Hyrule to make the dreams of the late Zonai and first Hyrulean Queen a reality.

## Appearance

Zelda appears as a youthful woman with long, blonde hair, braided at the top. For her royal attire, she wears a blue and white dress, which is what she wears when she is performing her formal duties as princess. When she is not occupied by her role as princess, she wears more casual clothing, her most notable outfit consisting of a blue and white shirt, black leggings and shoes for travelling purposes. She keeps her pad in a stash wrapped around her waist.

In Tears of the Kingdom, she has cut her hair to a shorter length and wears a small cape when travelling underneath Hyrule Castle. When she travels back in time and meets her ancestors, Rauru and Sonia, they provide her a white dress, similar to the one that Sonia wears. She also wears earrings, wristbands and a headpiece that appear to be made from Zonaite material, and a necklace that would later carry a Secret Stone upon becoming the Sage of Time.

As the Light Dragon, she appears as a slender, white asian dragon with long horns and yellow eyelashes. Much of her defining traits carry over to this form of hers such as her blonde colored hair, but the most unique trait she gains in this form are her eyes, which consists of turquoise coloring and green irises.

## Personality

Much like her past incarnations, Zelda is known for her wisdom and keen intelligence, often acting as a guidance for Link and the Champions of Hyrule. She is a benevolent princess that does whatever is necessary to protect her kingdom and stop Ganon's forces from conquering it. One of her defining traits, however, is her fascination for ancient history on Hyrule, its culture, civilizations and technology. It's for this reason that she possesses a vast amount of knowledge on Hyrule.

However, because of her role as the princess of Hyrule, she finds it difficult for herself to balance between her duties and enjoying her own personal hobbies, especially given the pressure from her father. The death of her mother also made it very difficult for Zelda to truly be happy with herself and not see the true potential of her role.

When she first met Link, she was initially cold towards him and thought very little of him, being very envious of how he was able to awaken the Master Sword, while she still struggled to awaken her own powers. However, when she got to learn more about his own personal struggles, she was able to relate with him. As a result, she began to treat him in a much more affectionate light and form a close friendship with him.

Of all the people that Zelda has met and known, she seems to trust Link the most, viewing him both a friend she can be at comfort with and a hero that values those around him.

## Trivia

-She is voiced Patricia Summersett in English starting with *Breath of the Wild.*

-She was 17 to 117 years old by Breath of the Wild, and around biologically 20 to over 10000+ years old by the end of Tears Of the Kingdom.

-Her kingdom is Hyrule.

## Quotes

Wake up Link. Open your eyes.—Zelda's voice, *The Legend of Zelda: Breath of thew Wind*.

Link. You are the light - our light - that must shine upon Hyrule once again. Now go.—Zelda after awakening Link

Link...! PROTECT THEM ALL!—Zelda transforming into the Light Dragon.

## Theme

* Breath of the Wild

* Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity