10 Lore Secrets in Tears of the Kingdom

Hey everyone! A few corrections: - The Spring below the Shrine of Resurrection is called "The Secret Spring of Revival", not the "Wellspring of Revival". I misremembered the correct name while writing the script. It doesn't affect the overal theory, but it's still worth pointing out. - There is 1 more hotspring in Hyrule which is not located in Eldin or Hebra. It's in Necluda and is quite obscure. This one also has lava in the depths right below it. - Calip's statement about the Zonai Ruins could be a mistranslation and/or misinterpretation. I've been told that in Japanese he doesn't state this fact. Translations aside, his use of the word "predate" could simply mean that the Zonai Ruins were discovered long before the ruins from the Sky. Not necessarily that they are older. If true, then it's a clumsy way of wording it. I think it's worth looking further into this matter in the future. Thanks so much for watching!

I’ve heard a theory that Gibdo are corpses parasitized by insectoid parasites in life that took over and controlled their dead bodies after they were… well, executed. Like Corpse Creepers in Hollow Knight, kinda? Either the parasite got in them prior to execution or burrowed its way into their dead body after they were killed, and essentially reanimated it and controlled it zombie-ant style.

My theory about the inconsistencies in architecture between TOTK and botw are that the ruins in Faron were from the ancestors of Lurelin village. The ancestors saw the Zonai as gods and tried to replicate their architecture with their own tools. It would also explain the differences between the Zonai armor sets and the barbarian armor.

One really hidden lore secret is actually in the memory ‘A show of Fealty’. The two gerudo women next to Gandondorf have greenish skin, and have the words, ‘koume’ and ‘kotaku’ inscribed on their clothing, respectively. Koume and Kotaku are the names of two sorceress who appear throughout the legend of zelda series which, collectively, go by the name Twinrova!

For the bargainer statue, I think one yiga was able to hear it say, "... Souls... Give me your souls..." and made the perfectly reasonable assumption that it meant the souls of the living. Link is the only one scooping up handfuls of souls and shoving them in his pockets. That dude might have gotten the message wrong but hey, we know at least one yiga would survive in a horror movie.

Honestly, one of my favourite YigaNotes is simply a guy complaining that they hate being stationed in scorching hot Eldin and would love to be somewhere more cool, preferably Faron. It has zero lore or story implications but compared to all the other notes giving some neat info, this one really surprises one as it is somewhat relatable.

Here’s a “fun” one: we know Ganondorf is regaining his power, but do we know how? Spoilers below! When you’re in the depths, you’ll occasionally find giant roots of solidified “gloom” sticking up out of the ground. Sometimes, these will have glassy nodules, and if you look closely, you’ll see reddish light move through them, and the root will pulsate like a blood vessel. These are the strongest in the depths immediately below Hyrule Castle. They’re also the prominent feature in the final boss arena. Speculation: Ganon is literally sucking the life out of Hyrule to fuel his resurrection. Edit: Forgot to mention that the movement of the stuff in the roots is towards Hyrule Castle’s depths

The Gibdo connection to Moths is rooted in eastern culture where they're considered unlucky omens of death and can symbolise the soul of the deceased. There's even the Deaths-Head Moth with a pattern on its abdomen very much like Skulltula.

Another interesting detail about the weapon ghosts is that they don’t appear in the Purah Pad Camera. They also, from what I heard, appear in the same place as where monuments to the fallen of the great calamity were placed on the surface. I’m assuming that means that they are helping Link because he avenged them and destroyed the Calamity

I personally believe that the Sheikah technology was intentionally disassembled and disposed of as part of the restoration of Hyrule because they knew that should gannon be resurrected in the future he had the capability to take control of it like he did in the calamity.

My mother actually made a theory on why in this game it's called Gloom, but in BotW it's Malice. She said that because of the time frame (being 3-5 years AFTER beating Calamity Ganon, the malice probably disappeared. Heck, even Zelda says that the Gloom is recent at the very beginning of the game. So, because Malice disappeared and Malice was connected to Calamity Ganon, the entirety of Hyrule thought that Gloom was a new substance, hence why they gave it that name. Malice means it was Ganon, but they thought they already beat Ganon, so why would it be Malice? I think after hearing my mom's theory, it made sense about the name change.

In Ganondorf's character description it says "He was imprisoned beneath Hyrule Castle for ages, but the magic holding him weakened when the castle was damaged during the Calamity a century ago, and his power has been steadily growing since." I hope this helps with your theories. 👍🏻 Edit: I wa looking through, and it says Yona is from another domain, meaning there are multiple Zora domains, with at least one being beyond hyrule. Likely across the sea. That would be a great dlc.

Here's a big theory i've been thinking about recently you might be interested in. You talked about the bargainer statues possibly being malicious, well one big thing you might want to check out is look whats on the back of the statue underneath the forgotten temple. This is the only statue that has its back exposed and if you look at it, you'll find a giant bokoblin face. Given that these are in mirrored locations to the goddess statues and can even speak through the goddess statues implies that the bokoblin species is more lore significant than we first thought Which brings me to my theory. We know from botw that the zonai worshiped 3 creatures which represented the triforce, these being the dragons, owls and boars. Now the dragons are easy to understand, their statues are everywhere and we have the god like dragons themselves. The owls, i'm starting to think that these could actually be referring to the satori creatures, as they all have owl faces and are almost angelic in design So what about the boar, well i'm thinking that the boar is actually referring to the original bokoblin line of races, before ganondorf took command of them and made them just monsters. They could have been seen as like the guardians of the underworld/afterlife in the distant past, hence why the bargainer statues have their face on their back. But more than that, i think that perhaps the zonai culture was split into 3 tribes, one for each animal which persisted until atleast the botw tapestry happened. One such faction would be the boar tribe still worshiping the bokoblins, but after ganon happened the tribe and all their statues were wiped out. This would be the "barbarian tribe" from faron the barbarian armor speaks about

i’m an entomology student, and finding gibdos was a treat! there are quite a few details that suggest that gibdos are more related to termites and beetles than moths, like the shape of the queen wings (both having elytra and being much more rounded and vibrating to fly rather than fluttering like the moth gibdos). they’re fascinating creatures and i’m glad someone is giving their new forms the love they deserve!

As someone who hasn't yet completed the main stories finale for the same reason you mentioned, I'm very glad that you decided to take on more disconnected lore secrets. Thank ya!

The sheikah tech being gone is actually touched on pretty early in game, when talking to you about the Sky Towers it's mentioned that the old tech was scrapped and reused to build them

I think Dondons being related to horses makes tons of sense as they share traits with rhinos, hippos, and elephants. In real life paleontology horses are more closely related to those animals and even to whales than to humans.

I got the strong sense through TotK that the shekiah tech mostly comes from studying the zonai. Even the Shekiah Eye looks like a Zonai's third eye. It kind of feels like the zonai are an alien species and the shekiah are the hylians that learned from them

I was NOT ready when I first discovered Gibdos in the underground. I just saw their wings fluttering towards me in the darkness and was properly startled when I threw a brightbloom and saw what they were

9:27 My theory about the shrine of resurrection is that it was actually left alone out of respect after the events of BoTW, however, it being left alone prompted the Yiga to move in and eventually destroy the shrine of resurrection themselves