[ALL] Are all the series' villains connected to Null in some way?

[u/zackie103]

I was thinking about the role that the non-Ganon villains play in the series and how they are related to the curse of Demise. I'm convinced that Ganon(dorf) and his incarnations are the sole bearers of the Demise curse, and the other villains are something separate entirely. What if the common factor is Null?

Demise, along with Vaati, Majora, and others, could have been independently empowered and manipulated by Null as its tools to aid on the destruction of the world that the goddesses created. Demise could've been most prominent because he's either the most powerful of Null's tools, or he was the only one who was determined enough to put a curse on the Hero, while the others were just defeated and never heard from again.

Something that adds weight to this line of thinking is the need for different methods of sealing or defeating each villain. The Master Sword could've been designed specifically for Demise and his spawn, the Four Sword for Vaati, the mask for Majora. Since Null was introduced as the original primordial evil, I hope the series will be able to use that as narrative fuel for explaining the origin of non-Ganon foes.

[u/Nitrogen567]

Nah, I don't think so.

Null doesn't create. It only returns to the void. It's not until shortly before Echoes of Wisdom that it adopts the Tri's ability to copy things, but even then that's not creation.

Creation is completely antithetical to Null. It doesn't make sense for it to be responsible for any of the antagonists origin.

[u/zackie103 → u/Nitrogen567]

Null can't create, but it could influence others to create or destroy on its behalf.

[u/Nitrogen567 → u/zackie103]

I don't think it would want to influence others to create.

Destroy, maybe, but it seems to me that what it's actually after (returning existence to the void) is a bit beyond normal destruction.

It would more likely influence whatever being it was influencing to take action to release it, which we've never seen.

I just don't think Null being connected to any of the enemies across the series makes much sense. It's not really implied in any way either.

[u/gulpshinto]

Why do non-Ganon enemies need a connected origin? Like, we already know Vaati's origin and motivations from Minish Cap, how does tacking on Null add to that?

[u/zackie103 → u/gulpshinto]

Null is the first example that we know, of an original primordial evil in the Zelda universe. Even if there's no real hard evidence yet to support this idea, I just find it narratively interesting to consider the idea that all of this is to keep an eldritch horror from undoing the world, with Link, Zelda, Ganon, and the others being pawns in said cosmic game.

[u/Astral_Justice]

In my mind, the demon realm is one of the creations that can and did naturally arise from the void, but it couldn't exist before Null was contained because it consumed everything indiscriminately. So, indirectly the Goddesses and Null are both responsible for demons existing.

[u/Nitrogen567 → u/Astral_Justice]

Given everything we know about the Demon Tribe, I've thought this was the best explanation since Echoes of Wisdom came out.

I think it's likely the Dark Realm predates Hyrule, and got caught up in it's creation, which is why the two are connected.

[u/Astral_Justice → u/Nitrogen567]

It also gives an easy out to avoid more complicated origin stories for other realms throughout the series, like Termina. While the world containing Hyrule is important because it was made specifically to trap Null, other worlds like Termina have emerged naturally from the blue creation energy in the void because Null is no longer roaming free to eat it. The Still World is Null's partitioned section of the void where the only thing he can eat is whatever chunks he managed to pull in from Hyrule (a pointless effort because of the Tris that simply create perfect echoes of everything that has fallen in a rift).

[u/Nitrogen567 → u/Astral_Justice]

I think for worlds like Termina and Lorule, since they have such a strong connection to Hyrule, it's likely they're byproducts of the creation process.

But for places like the Twilight Realm, I absolutely agree.

[u/Logical_Leaps]

Null was introduced as the original primordial evil

I don't think this is true. NULL was all that existed, they weren't evil. Relatively they are evil to the Hylians and I guess the Golden Goddesses but NULL craving the void doesn't make them evil.

There is a lot of nuance on Gods in how they stand. Like typically Hades is considered evil in Greek but often in stories doesn't really do anything evil. Hades is associated with a negative aspect of Human life so he is evil to them.

Anyway moving on to the question;

I only consider 4 events related to NULL. The Interlopers and Majora's Mask. ALBW likely is a show of what happens to Hyrule without the Triforce as well. EOW obviously being the fourth.

1. The Interlopers use an ancient magic, this seems different to Ganondorfs. The Golden Goddesses actively used the Light Spirits to seal them away. The events in which the the GGs interfere other than flooding Hyrule all seem related to NULL IMO.

2. The mask filled with some sort of power, the ancient tribe worshipped, which has been theorized to be the interlopers. The Goddess of Time helps Link against Majora, the only example of a Goddess helping Link in the series directly (other than Hylia in SS). This likely being Nayru is another example of the GGs going against something related to NULL then.

Basically its a set of people who abused NULL's power that the Golden Goddesses stopped. So I guess my claim is that the Golden Goddesses only interfere in mortal affairs when NULL is somehow involved.

[u/Dr_C527 → u/Logical_Leaps]

I would add that in SS, the backstory includes that Hylia is given the task of being the protector by the GGs. One could argue that mortal affairs are left to others while the issues of existence itself are handled by the GGs.

[u/sanzako4 → u/Logical_Leaps]

I don't recall the Goddess of Time helping Link in Majoras, but it's been some time last I played that game. Is it when he recovers the ocarina of time, or later?

On the other hand I do have a theory that the GG's intervention in Wind Waker is related to Null. Since the ToC is shattered in that timeline, this weakened Null's seal, and with Ganon making trouble once again, it was a matter of time that the worse come to worst. The flood was a way to weaken Null the only way the GGs know: making more matter and making it fall from the sky, literally. That it also stopped Ganon was a plus. 

[u/Logical_Leaps → u/sanzako4]

I don't recall the Goddess of Time helping Link in Majoras, but it's been some time last I played that game. Is it when he recovers the ocarina of time, or later?

Its the reason you win. The Goddess of Time helps you by letting you go back 3 days. The Ocarina only manipulates time because of her.

On the other hand I do have a theory that the GG's intervention in Wind Waker is related to Null.

And with that I now have a reason for every GG intervention being related to NULL. Thank you.

[u/reverse_chrysopoeia]

Demise and the Demon Tribe thrive on chaos, not annihilation.

[u/henryuuk]

No, not at all

The only connection all the Demons/Demonfolk have to NULL is that NULL's "sealing" within reality itself allows the demonfolk to even exist within the "nothingness" between reality, from which they then "invaded" reality itself.

The irony being that demons seem to be drawn to trying to end reality to let the "dark realm" go back to its state of "chaos" that they experience as "natural" (as opposed to the (for them) completely unnatural "order" that the golden goddesses plonked down in the middle of it all), but if they actually ever managed to do so completely then NULL would be unleashed and he would continue to devour and erase them across the "demon realm".

NULL is a force beyond "good and evil", to the point that the only reason that the "battle between good and evil" has been able to be waged for all this time, is because the golden goddesses took him out of the equation

[u/Cloudhiddentao]

Most of the villains are connected to the Demon tribe - Demise, Maladus, and Ganon are all demon kings, Majora’s Mask was the creation of an evil tribe who used dark rituals (probably in the same vein as the interlopers).

I don’t think any of those are related to Null.

Null doesn’t want to rule the world - he wants to consume all of reality. Who would work towards that end, or worship such an entity? That doesn’t seem to be what demons are working towards.

I think you can also see this based on the levels at which these entities operate. Null is a being on the same level as the golden goddesses - he’s a cosmic entity than can change reality (in this case by eating it), just as the goddesses can form new realities.

The demons seem to be on the same level as Hylia, or even lesser. They’re not reality changing beings themselves - they’d need to rely on the Triforce for that. But that seems to be their goal, to modify reality, rather than unmake it.

We also know that Null is incapable of creating anything - he can make echoes of things, but only with the power of the Tris. So he couldn’t have created demons.

[u/TRNRLogan]

I think it's simply the case that since Null was sealed Evil was able to form. Not because Null was evil, but because he isn't around to prevent anything from forming.

So they aren't really related issues imo.

[u/Emergency-Bid-7834]

definitely not. Eow doesn't even attempt to imply a connection like this, and the games have no connections either.
The non ganon villains being incarnations of the curse are even then just a theory, as SS is very vague when it comes to how it works.

[u/zackie103 → u/Emergency-Bid-7834]

EoW's story always kind of felt like it dropped Null out of left field, and I got the impression that it was framing this force as the first source of chaos and evil in the universe, what with the world being made to seal it away.

There aren't any hard connections established, true, but the idea is based around each villain having an aspect or a "Shard", to use a Cosmere term, of something more fundamentally evil. And right now, Null is the closest thing to that.

[u/Cinta_Raso]

I love the idea of Null being the common thread, but I hope each villain keeps their own motives 

[u/FunnyDislike]

While i can't really prove it, i do think that the demon tribe was deliberately created by the golden goddesses and the battle between light and dark is required to either keep the seal on Null active or some other mechanism.

Something about those golden goddesses always seemed off to me.

[u/oongaa]

No because Null is a retcon that was just created to make EoW feel important to the timeline

[u/Intelligent_Word_573 → u/oongaa]

I don’t think Null was necessarily created to feel important to the timeline as Nintendo often creates the gameplay first and fits it in the timeline later. With EoW they started with the Echo mechanic and sometimes storytellers like the villain to use the protagonist’s mechanic. I suppose they could have made a villain who just wanted the echo ability for power alone but I like when they try to make the villain’s motivation the opposite to the protagonist (in this case creation vs destruction).

I know they had the small bootcamp about Zelda lore when crafting EoW’s story but in some ways it feels harder to make the game not important to the timeline without telling a worse story.

[u/Impressive_Salad1]

A slight misconception. Null wasn’t necessarily a primordial evil. It was just the literal embodiment nothingness, and is treated quite distinctly from others. Null is treated more like a force of nature that needed containing.

Beings like Demise, Majora’s Mask and others are treated as explicitly dark, malevolent and evil, compared to Null’s… emptiness.

[u/warpio]

Yeah I've replayed ALBW recently, and the plot of that game with what is happening to Lorule does make me think of Null. Like, the world is literally being eaten alive by the void, with the land breaking up into chasms, and all because Lorule lost its Triforce. You can very easily put together how the golden goddesses came to Lorule and protected it from Null in the same way they did for Hyrule, leaving behind Lorule's own version of a Triforce... Then when that world loses its Triforce, the protection against Null starts to rapidly weaken, resulting in those chasms, which then start to seep into Hyrule in the form of small fissures in the wall (through which Link travels between the two worlds). It makes a lot of sense to me for Null to be directly involved in the ALBW plot.

[u/Astral_Justice → u/warpio]

And the games are adjacent in the timeline so it kind of makes sense that two newer(ish) games have a more connected narrative

[u/TRNRLogan → u/warpio]

ALBW is definitely the game that makes the most sense to have Null involvement retroactively. Although obviously Yuga and Hilda didn't know about Null

[u/LoCal_GwJ]

If you're going to separate Ganondorf from something like Malladus by invoking Null, I think it probably will make things simpler honestly to just assume "Demise's curse" itself isn't DEMISE'S curse and is a recurring phenomenon of the world which itself could be perpetuated by Null in some way.

I think it's actually kind of elegant given how TotK illustrated the Ganondorf vs. Calamity Ganon dichotomy to suppose that Null being sealed within Hyrule has a negative side effect of generating Demon Kings periodically just like Ganondorf being sealed below Hyrule Castle had a negative side effect of generating Calamity Ganons.

As an analogy, think of Ganondorf as Null and think of Calamity Ganon as any Demon King. When you defeat Calamity Ganon, you are simply destroying a manifestation of a higher level phenomenon and eventually that phenomenon will recur and generate a new Calamity Ganon.

This describes how the Demon King relationship works. You destroy Demise and eventually Malladus shows up. Malladus gets sealed and Ganondorf later shows up. Ganondorf gets killed and ANOTHER Ganondorf shows up. THAT Ganondorf shows up and gets killed, and then ???