Feature: 16 Theories About Link's Weird Arm In Zelda: Breath Of The Wild 2

Arm Theories, Part Two

Sheikah Slate Who?

Link's most important possession in Breath of the Wild is his iPad — I mean, Sheikah Slate, which gives him the ability to activate towers, open shrines, and use powers like Magnesis and Stasis. Without the Sheikah Slate, you can't beat Ganon.

But Link's trusty tablet is nowhere to be seen in BOTW 2 — and yet, he still has powers. The 2021 teaser shows him using a Stasis-like power that seems to give him the ability to rewind time (more on that in a minute) but the power is coming from a glowy yellow bit on his arm/hand. When he climbs out of the weird portal that looks like it helps him go through the ground, his arm is glowing the same colour as the portal.

It's probably not too ludicrous to take a guess that the Sheikah Slate will somehow be replaced with whatever's going on in Link's limbs. The Legend of Zelda: Inspector Gadget?

The Hero Of Time Returns

We know that Link has the power over time. In Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, he is able to literally traverse time with the help of a magical instrument and a special church, but let's not forget all the time powers he has in Breath of the Wild, too: Stasis literally stops time, Link has the ability to go into bullet-time mode when he likes, and here's a snippet from the Goron Champion Daruk's journal, which could be seen as a theory about Link's own Champion power:

"Eating isn't the only thing Link and I have in common. The little guy is also incredibly strong! He said sometimes when he focuses, it feels like time slows down. Heh! I really like that guy."

Is this grasping at straws? Oh, almost definitely. But when you only have two trailers and a 5-second snippet to go on, you're going to get a lot of very strange theories based on nothing but a Goron saying the word "time".

Fun thought: I'm going to call this Sheikah Slate-like arm power "ArmOS".

Malice A(rm)forethought

We already know that Malice, the evil pink goo that infected Hyrule in Breath of the Wild, tried to creep up Link's arm in the 2021 trailer — and it looks like it got the sword, too, which Link was holding at the time. But does the Malice infect his hand, or does the magical seal-hand save him? Or is it... both?

Here's a theory: Link's arm is going to be corrupted by evil, and he combines the arm with the one that sealed evil away to create a half-good, half-evil arm. But a half-good, half-evil arm would not be able to wield the Master Sword, which answers only to good... Unless the Master Sword's half-evil bit (Demise, who was locked inside the sword, remember?) responds to the half-evil arm, awakening the dark forces within.

Or something like that.

Left Hand Free

It's only the briefest little bit of the 2021 trailer, but Link's left arm looks like it gets cool powers too. We see Link using a dragon-shaped flamethrower against some poor enemy, which appears to be some kind of ceiling worm, and though it's probably just a sort of glove and not a permanent arm-bility like the right arm, it's still cool to see how very arm-based the mechanics in BOTW 2 will be.

Ghibli-Wibbly Timey-Wimey

The Ghibli influences on the Legend of Zelda series are well-documented, and Breath of the Wild in particular bore a lot of similarities to Princess Mononoke, Studio Ghibli's fable about nature fighting back against those who would exploit and destroy it.

Breath of the Wild 2 continues this homage with Link's goopy arm, which recalls Princess Mononoke's hero, Prince Ashitaka. Ashitaka has a curse placed on his arm by a demon, which is amplified by his own anger; it appears as a black pulsing mass of worms. The curse was given to him as the result of trying to kill the infected Nago, a god of the forest, and will eventually kill him if not cured. Ashitaka manages to cure the curse by helping out the Forest Spirit and defeating the resource-hungry humans who tried to hurt it.

This doesn't necessarily mean that Breath of the Wild 2 will directly correspond to the plot of Princess Mononoke, but the arm similarity does make us wonder if there will be some kind of pastoral deity element to the story — like the Lord of the Mountain in the first game, who could be a reference to the Shishigami in the Ghibli movie, or Princess Mononoke herself, who plays an unwilling guide on Ashitaka's quest.

Notably, Zelda does have that nice new bob, making her look a lot more like Princess Mononoke... and she does have two wolf companions, which would tie in nicely with Twilight Princess' Wolf Link... Just sayin'.

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Adventure Time

Call me crazy, but I got big Adventure Time vibes from the very first BOTW 2 trailer. In Adventure Time, our hero Finn has long, blonde hair, a penchant for going on quests and saving princesses, and most importantly, a missing right arm. It gets torn off in an episode where Finn meets his absent father, and never grows back — although it does later get replaced by a magical grass-limb, then a robot arm, both of which give Finn cool powers.

Sound familiar? Uh, yeah it does. That's Link's whole business! But what can Adventure Time tell us about BOTW 2? Probably nothing — although we wouldn't say no to Link getting a magical shapeshifting dog companion.

What's All This Glowy Business?

As I hypothesized in our Everything We Know About Breath Of The Wild 2 mega-feature, I reckon the colours of all the glowy things in the trailer may be a clue. Here's what we know:

1. The sword glows blue
2. The hand glows yellow
3. The arm glows teal
4. There's also a glowing yellow orb of some kind in the new teaser

Blue in the Zelda games means Wisdom. That's the part of the Triforce that Zelda possesses, and it's governed by Nayru, or Naydra the dragon in BOTW, who has ice powers. Interestingly, Naydra is the only one of the three dragons that is infected by Malice in the game. If the Master Sword glows blue, does that mean that Wisdom and/or Zelda are involved somehow? It's also worth noting that characters designed to impart wisdom — like Navi and Fi — are blue, which could be why the sword is blue as well.

Red (or pink) means Power. That's the Triforce bit that Ganon(dorf) has, although he's hoping to get more by killing Link and/or Zelda. This is governed by Din, or Dinraal the dragon in BOTW, who has fire powers. Malice is red/pink because it comes from Ganon's evil influence, probably.

Yellow is a bit harder to pin down. It usually represents the desert and/or lightning in the Zelda games, but in BOTW, it could also represent Courage, as the final dragon, Farosh, is the equivalent of Farore, the Goddess of Courage — and Farosh has lightning powers. Of course, the Triforce of Courage is the one that Link possesses, so it would make sense for his powers to be yellow. Not sure what the yellow orb that Link approaches in the teaser is, but it could be tied to his own powers. Plus, that pattern on Link's toga-shawl thing looks a lot like a dragon...

Oh, and fun fact: The Zonai tribe, the mystery people who used to live in the Faron region who left behind ruins and ancient shrines, worshipped the Spring of Courage, and the dragon Farosh. The mystery deepends.

And what do you get when you add blue (wisdom) and yellow (courage)? You get teal. Interesting, no?

Is Link Dying?

Usually, if you turn up to a hospital with a totally black arm, it's a sign of severe frostbite, or some other Very Bad Disease. It's not a good sign! Could it be that Link's arm is a sign of something slowly taking over his entire body? Are we going to have a time limit? Link did actually die in BOTW — I mean, he woke up in the Shrine of Resurrection, not just the Shrine of Having A Nice Long Nap — so it's not like the developers are afraid to kill him.

That's No Triforce

The first time I watched this snippet, I thought, "Link's got the Triforce on his hand! Nice!" But on closer inspection, it's not the Triforce at all. In past games, the Triforce has appeared on the back of the hands of those who possess one of its fragments, which I've always thought was a bit weird — why the hands? So it's easy to assume that the glowy-thing here is the same deal, especially as it's the same bright yellow as it's been in the past.

But look closer, and you'll see that it's actually a sort of swirly pattern, potentially reminiscent of the Zonai tribe's motifs. What does it mean? I not sure I can even begin to speculate on this one. The Triforce definitely exists, because it's right there on the non-melted part of the Master Sword (and various other art assets in BOTW), so this isn't some kind of precursor to the famous triangle... But perhaps it's something that works alongside the Triforce?

We actually don't hear about the Triforce at all in BOTW, until Zelda uses it to defeat Calamity Ganon

If the Triforce represents Wisdom, Power, and Courage, perhaps this mysterious symbol represents a fourth important virtue. Maybe, er... Friendship?

I think that's about all the speculation I can do on one single arm and about three minutes of footage, so hopefully at least one of these theories turns out to be true, and this wasn't a total waste of my time and brain!

Of course, let me know your theories in the comments, and feel free to expand on mine, too!