20 MORE Tears of the Kingdom Master Works New Lore & Story Secrets

Here are 20 more new Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom lore and story secrets from the comprehensive 464-page Master Works book!
Currently available only in Japanese, this book offers an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look into Nintendo’s design process. There's a ton of stuff to look at and details to explore that have largely remained unseen by the gaming community.
This video explores the untold story arcs and cut content from Tears of the Kingdom that are examined in depth within Master Works. It covers deleted cutscenes and story elements surrounding key parts of the game, including Rauru, Ganondorf, and the Imprisoning War. These details, in my opinion, add significant depth to the game’s narrative, enriching the story beyond what was shown in the final release.
All Japanese-to-English translations featured in this video have been completed by me. As always, remember that translations can be subject to interpretation, and others may choose to translate the text differently. These translations are not intended to be definitive but represent my interpretation of the original text.
Here's 25 more Secrets and Lore from Master Works if you're looking for more:
• 25 NEW Zelda: Tears of...
Many pages from the history section of the book is written in a speculative manner in Japanese. My purpose with this video is to include and share those details.

[@a.jthomas6132]

Hearing more about the Imprisoning War (or ‘Sealing War’ in Japanese) from the Master Wars… makes me wished the Zelda team and Nintendo would make a Torna-esque TOTK side story where players get see more of Zelda’s journey in the distant past. Hopefully they would consider it after the release of the Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (very excited for this 2D Zelda game). I wondered if Ganondorf intend to use the Chamber of Six Sages to fulfill his goals as you mentioned in his motivations video before being sealed by King Rauru himself.

[@slateoffate9812]

I hope when Master Works is fully translated, someone will put all of this together in an in-universe chronological order. I WANT TO KNOW ALL THE THINGS!

[@Dyundu]

Fantastic as always! Thank you for posting this! If you’ll permit me, I’d like to copy over a point I tried to make elsewhere-Sonia being the “ancestor” of Zelda may not be as canon-breaking as we might think at first glance. _Zelda II_ has a “First of all Zeldas” in its backstory, and that got retconned eventually into a “First of all Zeldas within this kingdom/timeline/etc.” Sonia is probably just the first royal Hylian after the refounding.

[@pointystories582]

I wish this was in the game itself...

[@moagilah8519]

This imagine a world filled with small hints to all this similar to from soft games

[@chrispork1443]

So if Sonia was to be the ancestor of all Zeldas, what does that make her relation to the Zelda of Skyward Sword, the first Zelda, the mortal reincarnation of Goddess Hylia, and who was believed to be the progenitor of the bloodline of the Goddess?

[@gammaraysummerhead]

They released a new time line update somewhere, where it was shown that BotW and TotK are their own timeline, disconnected from all others.

[@chrispork1443]

@@gammaraysummerhead That’s not the case; they are stated to be so far into the future that all previous Zelda games have faded into myths and legends, not a separate rebooted universe.

[@dreamer1292]

thats just how they designed her doest mean she is the ancestor to ALL zeldas, yall reading too much into something that is just meant to convey a feel rather than be an actual truth

[@chrispork1443]

@@dreamer1292 I guess it was meant to be a metaphor.

[@javiervasquez625]

​@@chrispork1443 Exactly what dreamer said, there's no way Sonia predates all the Zeldas without confirming Aonuma and the Zelda team have to every brain cell they had left in their attempt to "reinvent" Zelda with the Wild games.

[@becodeku]

would it had killed the devs for adding "Temple of Light" and "Chamber of Sages" to location names in the game? my god

[@javiervasquez625]

I can see why they didn't given the fact that the actual Chamber of Sages from Ocarina of Time is outright stated to exist inside the _Sacred Realm,_ which is a different plane of reality to Hyrule. It wouldn't have made sense for a location called "Chamber of Sages" to exist within Hyrule itself without contradicting the established lore.

[@masterpig9485]

​@javiervasquez625 Totk's very story already contradicts established lore so I don't think they're very concerned about that

[@javiervasquez625]

@@masterpig9485 Still, the Sacred Realm is not located in Hyrule, hence why Aonuma and co. didn't take the decision of conflating the lore surrounding the Ancient Sages from Ocarina of Time and A Link to the Past with that of the Sages from Rauru's Hyrule.

[@ShepherdsCreek]

This is exactly the content I was hoping for from masterworks!

[@JaidynReiman]

Wait, what? "Sonia was designed to be the ancestor of all the Zelda's" So much for refounding theory...

[@slateoffate9812]

Maybe the Wind Waker Rito just took a metric fuckton of creative liberties with the art style? With Laruto and Koboli, I initially thought the Rito were the result of hylians and zora reproducing together, but now? I wonder if Sonia being before all the Zeldas includes Skyward Sword?

[@zakzerak7191]

thats so bs it just doesnt work at all. we have literaly skyward sword zelda. sonia looks the least like any zelda in the series. the devs honestly fcked up wtf

[@slateoffate9812]

@@zakzerak7191 Maybe they designed Sonia with that in mind but ultimately scrapped that detail?

[@abdieljove2011]

Refounding theory is dead. The timeline in Master Works heavily implies this Ganondirf comes before OOT Ganondorf too. Let it go and move on at this point lmao

[@dreamer1292]

@@abdieljove2011 it doesnt at no point in the book oot ganondorf is referenced or mentioned and the book still says that after totk ganondorf there was no record of other gerudo kings. its still ambiguous as to wheter its refounding or not

[@Obeliiix]

Very interesting video. Nothing on the weird zonaï-ish hero yet?

[@fallatiuso]

You know, a connection to think about i haven't seen anyone touch upon yet. As far as i know there's only been one "Zelda" with darker skin like Sonia before: Petra. In which case, i wonder if Sonia is actually a descendant of Petra's then. Being only the ancestor of all Zeldas that came after her, in a vast time-gap we haven't seen, instead of at the _beginning_ beginning before Wind Waker.

[@javiervasquez625]

@@fallatiuso That would contradict Spirit Tracks where _Tetra's_ (not "Petra's") descendants already have fair caucasian skin as they rule over a brand new landmass they call Hyrule miles and miles away from the the old kingdom where both the Master Sword and the latest incarnation of Ganondorf were left to be buried by the Great Sea, without any sign of either the sword or Ganondorf been salvageable from all that sea water trapping them for eternity. The reason why Sonia is tanned skined is due to her been a Zonai-Hylian _hybrid_ just like all the tanned skined Hylians we see guarding over her during Zelda's memories of her time in the past.

[@v7ave]

Why is all of this in a book about the game? I wish we could've discovered all of these details in the game itself. Why do they not put these things in the games?

[@javiervasquez625]

@@v7ave Because Nintendo is a _game developer_ first and a storyteller second. To them, an expanded and engaging narrative is secondary to your entertainment having fun playing a videogame.

[@Epok17]

6:48 is why everyone shouts their special moves in anime?

[@poenpotzu2865]

I think Bleaxg explicitly states understanding the meaning of the word and screaming out loud evoke power. Plus I think this trope is all over the word. The very idea speaking out spells by muttering lost arcane runes to cast powerful magic.

[@a.jthomas6132]

Any you have learned the Master Works about Kotake and Koume?

[@skistorm739]

Kotodama? how digimon in digimon survive can be called digimon i like because words can have power aka language or script and a program language of digital data can be language and when kotodama distorted aka corrupted data to a digimon and thizs spiritual power alter reality explain a similar but different how digimon use information manipulation can alter the real world. This just must theory, its not Zelda related just randomly throught of it

[@Zeoko0]

Wow

[@RyuuKageDesu]

Ancestor of all Zeldas, you say?😁

[@javiervasquez625]

I know right? 😅 As many have pointed out, it's probable Aonuma was merely been metaphorical about it without _actually_ intending to say Sonia does in fact predate all the Zeldas we've seen across the timeline without contradicting everything we know about the established lore. Either he's using figurative speech or he's lost all his brain cells (i'm pretty much sold on the former alternative).

[@RyuuKageDesu]

@@javiervasquez625 Oh, I've been theorizing that Rauru's Hyrule is the nation that fell before Skyward Sword from the moment I finished the Dragon Memories.

[@javiervasquez625]

@@RyuuKageDesu That doesn't make any sense, no offense.

[@ThizbeSylvan]

she was designed to look like the ancestor of all Zelda's but was put in the game where she's the reincarnation of all zeldas

[@RyuuKageDesu]

@@javiervasquez625 It does make a crazy amount of sense, and has a lot of explanation power. It doesn't work with some commonly held fan theories, but the games are the primary canon.

[@XanderVJ]

1:00 You have to be freaking kidding me! I swear to god, I'm going back to the thing I believed in the first few weeks after TotK came out: that they had de-canonized all Zelda games prior to BotW and they were starting from scratch. I stopped beliving that when Fujibayashi said in an interview that no, that the previous Zelda games were still in continuity, and that the Hyrule from the Wild era was essentially a third Hyrule after the previous two were destroyed. But I'm starting to believe Fujibayashi just made up that reply on the spot out of panic.

[@javiervasquez625]

Yeah, Aonuma now has completely lost track of WHAT THE HECK they are doing if he's willing to indulge the notion Sonia is THE ancestor to *ALL* the Zeldas despite the explicit contradictions to the lore seen across the entire series to even entertain such a notion. If it's indeed the case that Sonia preceeds all the Zeldas across the whole timeline, then screw it: I AM DONE caring about the "story" in this franchise.

[@Dyundu]

This is not the first time we’ve seen a “definitive first” Princess Zelda. Z2 had that element as a back story, and it got retconned too. Sonia might have just been the first royal in the kingdom’s refounding.

[@Luzox1]

First