As the lead antagonist of Nintendo’s long-running franchise, The Legend of Zelda, Ganon is one of the most iconic villains in videogame history. While he has not been the only key antagonist of the series, he has had the most influence and is one of the few recurring villains. In The Legend of Zelda, Ganon is considered to be an incarnation of pure evil, usually to be confronted by the forces of good. Link, the hero of the series, and Zelda, the titular princess, often play a part to stop Ganon in the end. The way Ganon is characterized varies, mostly because he has existed in a number of forms. He is almost as crucial as Link and Zelda to the franchise as a whole, and if Nintendo is going to include him in future entries, he must evolve in the same way that Link and Zelda have over the years. To understand how Zelda’s greatest villain can be improved, I will analyze Ganon the character.
The monster.
To start off, it is important to distinguish Ganon from Ganondorf, his human form. While the Ganon usually refers to the character in his demonic beast form, it can be used to mean the character as a whole; however, Ganondorf exclusively belongs to his Gerudo self. The two differ in more than just appearance. Ganondorf has the mind of a man, who is ambitious and cunning. Ganon, the beast, has been described as mindless and destructive, though to what degree varies. On page 106 of the Hyrule Historia, it says of Ganon,
The man.
“The Demon King has been defeated countless times by heroes in the past. He is thought to have been resurrected after many years. […] No longer bearing any trace of the man known as the Great Thief, Ganondorf, he opposes Link in the form of a demonic beast, bereft of intelligence.”
The passage specifically describes Ganon from first Zelda title, but the same has been said about different incarnations of Ganon. What is clear is that Ganondorf was a man that eventually became Ganon, the monster, but before even that, he was something else.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is currently the earliest point in The Legend of Zelda series, and it is served as an origin story for much of the series’ lore. In it, Link forges the Master Sword and Zelda is revealed to be a reincarnation of the Goddess Hylia. Ganon is nowhere to be seen. Instead, there is Demise, the Demon King. Link eventually takes out Demise, who says upon his defeat,
“My hate…never perishes. It is born anew in a cycle with no end! I will rise again! Those like you… Those who share the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero… They are eternally bound to this curse. An incarnation of my hatred shall ever follow your kind, dooming them to wander a blood-soaked sea of darkness for all time.”
Demise speaking his cursed words.
Demise’s final words apparently set off an endless cycle of reincarnations Link, Zelda, and Ganon (who Demise is eventually reborn as, it seems). While Link and Zelda seem to be different people each time they are reincarnated, Ganon seems to retain some of his identity with each revival.
There is yet another power that connects Link, Zelda, and Ganon. After failing to obtain the complete Triforce in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, each of its three pieces, Power, Wisdom, and Courage seem to favor a different person. Courage belongs to Link and Wisdom to Zelda, and of course, the Triforce of Power is attributed to Ganon. This being the case, power is the virtue that Ganon values most, and this connection to the Triforce plays a part in his eternal struggle against Link and Zelda.
Ganondorf holds the Triforce of Power.
Ganon is doubtlessly the most important villain of the Zelda franchise, but he is not always necessary to the story as he is as the lead antagonist. Majora’s Mask, Bellum, and Yuga are a few examples, but Ganon is the most memorable, likely because he continues to return as the main villain. Even when he is rarely in the spotlight, Ganon has a tendency to play puppet master, usually as an attempt to be revived. This goes as far back as controlling Agahnim in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Vaati in The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures also seemed like he was in charge until, surprise, it turned out Ganon was manipulating him all along. It was actually refreshing to see Yuga, from The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, use Ganon for his own gain.
Zant, from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, is one of the most notable puppet villains. Sure, he was using Ganon’s power to cover Hyrule in Twilight, but he did all the dirty work while Ganon hid in the shadows. Zant was very intimidating and did not need to fall back on Ganon’s reputation to carry the story of Twilight Princess to its conclusion. After all, Link did not even come face-to-face with Ganon until the final act. The first time Zant met with Link, he made it count, and he left the hero and his companion Midna in a weakened state. The moment left such a huge impression on me that when it came time to fight Zant, he seemed completely reliant on Ganon for power. The showdown felt rather disappointing, as he was not quite the villain he had built himself up to be.
Zant confronting Midna in a defining moment of Twilight Princess.
Even when Ganon is not controlling everything behind the scenes, he sometimes gets shoehorned into the plot, usually as his followers’ effort to revive him. See the pattern? Zelda II: The Adventure of Link featured Ganon as part of the background; his followers need Link’s blood in order to revive their master. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages could have gotten by just fine without the story between the games turning out to be an elaborate plan by Twinrova to, again, revive Ganon. Ghirahim spent the entirety of Skyward Sword attempting to revive Demise, but he was far more interesting than Demise could have hoped to be. Ganon or any semblance of him could have been left out entirely, and I would not have missed him. Personally, I like Ganon, but his absence could sometimes benefit the story, as a means of letting other characters grow.
When Ganon does make an appearance, I want it to be impactful rather than predictable. I think he is at his best when he is characterized more, which is easiest to do when he is Ganondorf, when his goal is not just to destroy the world but rule it. That why I favored Ganondorf most in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Before the final battle of the game, he delivers this monologue.
“My country lay within a vast desert. When the sun rose into the sky, a burning wind punished my lands, searing the world. And when the moon climbed into the dark of night, a frigid gale pierce our homes. No matter when it came, the wind carried the same thing… Death. But the winds that blew across the green fields of Hyrule brought something other than suffering and ruin. I coveted that wind, I suppose.”
Ganondorf thinking about wind-related metaphors.
I could finally understand what would drive the king of the Gerudo to become the King of Evil. As a king, Ganondorf felt entitled to a kingdom, but the one he got was filled with strife. He thought Hyrule was the kingdom he and his people deserved. Sadly, this is the most Ganon is ever characterized beyond being simply ruthless and greedy, and it is a shame.
As mentioned earlier, Link and Zelda are often different people in each of their iterations, which means Nintendo has the flexibility to remake their personalities however the company pleases while maintaining their defining traits. Link has been both a child who has never seen battle and a highly-skilled champion. Ganon, on the other hand, is normally seen in his beast form, as seen in the most recent entry in the Zelda series, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In this story, Link and Zelda were given much more depth. Both characters had a lot going on in their lives before the game even began, but Ganon suffered from being nothing more than a destructive monster; even the name they call him in Breath of the Wild, “Calamity Ganon”, sounds less like a character and more like a natural disaster.
Calamity Ganon is a primal evil made of malice.
What I want most out of Ganon, when he inevitably does appear in a future Zelda title, is to be surprised. If he is to do that, Nintendo has to do away with the predictability that has long been associated with The Legend of Zelda series. I want to learn things about Ganon that I never even considered. I do not know what it would take for Nintendo to do that with the character, but I suppose I would not be surprised if I had an idea. I do believe that all it has to do is start with showing us less of Ganon, the monster, and more of Ganondorf the man. As the character is a central part of the Zelda universe, I think diving deeper into who he is could only be for the better.
