r/truezelda • u/LapisLazuliisthebest • 17d ago
Open Discussion [OoA][OoS] Seasons and Ages worldbuilding
When talking about the Oracle games, a lot of people prefer Ages due to having more story. OoA having more story is true. It has a more active villain, and more backstory for the characters. but few people take time to acknowledge Seasons.
What OoS lacks in story, it makes up for in worldbuilding.
Both games introduce the Oracles. Maidens, who possess powers of each of the three golden goddesses.
Both Din and Nayru live in a country outside of, but related to, Hyrule. Both have a Maku Tree, who serves as their personal Guardian. Both also have items that allow people (in this case, Link) to use their powers, in case anything happens to them.
Farore, the Oracle of Secrets, is the oddball. It's not clear what her function is, outside of letting Link transfer items from one country to another. She also lives inside both Maku Trees.
After that, both Nayru and Din diverge in who they operate.
Nayru is rather simple. She sings to keep time flowing, and keeps the Harp of Ages locked away in her own house. The Harp itself, has three songs to learn, two from Nayru and one from some random musician, with the finale song making the previous two obsolete.
Compared to Ages, Seasons shows more power delegation. Din dances to maintain the natural flow of the seasons. But the Rod of Seasons is not kept with Din. Rather, there is a whole Temple of Seasons dedicated to the four seasons, and is the place the Rod if kept.
Whereas the Harp has three songs, with the last one making the previous two obsolete, the Rod controls the four seasons via a quartet of lesser Season Spirits.
This actually makes sense if you think about it. changing Seasons probebly requires a lot more hard work. You have to change the temperature, the weather, and the stage in which plants grow. So, it makes sense there would be four lesser spirits to delegate these jobs to.
Controlling time is less of a hassle. You just have to keep time moving forward every second. Okay, yes, time travel is a lot more versatile in the Zelda series. You can move forward faster, slow down time, and even travel backwards, but these are only done in exceptional circumstances.
A "Goddess of Time" is referenced in MM, although it's unknown if this is Nayru, Hylia or a completely different figure.
However, it is worth noting that, pre development, Oracle of Ages was originally not going to have "past and present" as it's theme, but rather, day and night. That being said, Veran, in Nayru's body, does freeze time in the past to create an "endless day", implying the day and night cycle are under the jurisdiction of time.
It is possible that there is a spirit of day and night in the Zelda universe, much like the seasonal spirits, but who knows? It could just be the Goddess of Time controlling the day and night cycle. The song of Time in MM allows us to skip to the next dawn or dusk.
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u/Nitrogen567 17d ago
The Oracles introduce lots of cool stuff, and I'd love to dive more into what connection the three have to the Goddesses, if any. It seems crazy to think there would be nothing there, but technically there's no confirmation on it.
Now that we've had the Goddesses show up in a Zelda game with a speaking role for the first time in Echoes of Wisdom, I could see a world where maybe that happens.
What I really want is to see more of Labrynna and Holodrum. It's so rare to see a glimpse of the world outside of Hyrule that isn't like a parallel world or something. I'd love a game that starts in Hyrule, but lets us globe trot our way over to these neighbouring kingdoms.
Since they most likely predate the timeline split, I'd also love to see what they're up to in other timelines.