#now. the real question. do i make linked universe mudoran hero a girl. because i am tempted

[powdermelonkeg]

By Hylia, TELL ME about your Mudora theory!

THIS POST CONTAINS HEAVY SKYWARD SWORD SPOILERS

I MEAN HEAVY

READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

The Book of Mudora is an item you get in A Link to the Past.

Looks a lot like Hyrule Historia, doesn't it?

The Book of Mudora is, according to the ALttP manual, "a collection of Hyrule legends and lore," that contains stories about the Triforce. In-game, its use is in tranlating the game's Hylian script.

Unlike all other Zelda games, its script doesn't translate into Japanese or English, instead having three unique glyphs depending on which localization you play.

But why? Why is this particular script so unintelligible?

My theory is that Mudoran Hylian is the very first iteration of Hylian, from before even Skyward Sword.

As far as language goes, plenty of languages tend to start out as logographies (hieroglyphic systems) before they turn into simpler, easier to write markings. Look at the Latin alphabet, for example.

The Proto-Sinaitic pictures up at the top got progressively simplified into the Greek alphabet, then turned into Archaic Latin. The reason Roman Latin looks so crisp and clean is because they started carving these letters into stone. The serif (the little stroke at the ends of the lines) is a chisel mark.

Given how similar Mudoran Hylian is to Egyptian hieroglyphs, we can make that connection and say that Hylian started out the same way.

HEAVY SKYWARD SPOILERS BELOW

Skyward Sword has a LOT of architecture in it. Despite it being the first Zelda game, before Hyrule was ever established, we find ruins of ancient civilizations.

A cistern so good at purifying water that the impurities of it creates the world’s first redead-esque monsters. It contains mechanical wonders like Koloktos and the elevators, and marvels of plumbing and watercourses all throughout.

Colorful palaces capable of channeling LAVA. The kind of structural integrity this would have to have, and the Fire Sanctuary is almost completely untouched by ruin!

Factories! Circuitry! Usage of stones that literally CHANGE TIME, as an integral mechanic!

Even Skyview Temple has a working water system, despite everything, and contains the best item Zelda’s ever come out with.

The civilization that came before Hyrule was ADVANCED. Insanely so. Using everything from AI to magic, these people knew how to fully take advantage of the world the goddesses left them, perhaps even through use of the Triforce.

Back to Mudora.

Although plenty of stuff on the surface uses Skylian text, mostly as easter egg content from the Zeldevs, you can find a lot of designs in Lanayru that capture interest.

Particularly this marking on the ground at that one roller coaster island in the sand sea.

The swirly marks here aren’t seen anywhere else, to my knowledge, and they look a lot like the cover of the Book of Mudora.

Now, why Mudora? Why is it called Mudora?

It doesn’t mean anything in English. And it’s the same name it has in source Japanese.

ムドラの書 | Mudora no Sho

Which, I checked; also doesn’t mean anything different from English.

Here’s the thing. The Surface is nameless. We know it’s later called Hyrule, and that’s derived from Hylia; if it was named that before, Impa or Fi would have called it such. And it had to have had a name before the tragedy of war struck it down.

So, my theory is that Mudora is the name of the world before the Battle of Demise.

When the demons broke free of the ground, Mudora must have been THRIVING. Automatons! Port cities! Dragon nobility, the Triforce itself being a well-known treasure! All of that lost in the destruction that followed.

When Hylia sent humanity skyward, it was her last resort. Almost everyone had perished in the war.

Demise even brags about that conquest.

But...that time also had a hero.

Originally, I thought that this was a time loop; that the legends were about Link and Zelda, just post Gate-of-Time and passed down through legends. However...

By the time you get there, Skyloft is long gone.

They wouldn’t have known about you.

So the first hero, the original hero, was the champion of Mudora. We don’t know what happened to them, but we know that, from Demise’s dialogue, the two never faced each other.

They may have lived a hundred years before Demise, for all we know.

But they existed.

#loz #zelda #my MUDORA THEORY HI #I HAVE BEEN WAITING TO TALK ABOUT THIS #skyward sword spoilers #THAT TAG IS VERY IMPORTANT #skyward sword #mudora #now. the real question. do i make linked universe mudoran hero a girl. because i am tempted #theories #worldbuilding #headcanons #analysis #ask bee #THANK YOU FOR ASKING I LOVE THIS