Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf
Image: Nintendo

Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Jim pleads the case for just a little more Ganondorf action...


The reveal of Tears of the Kingdom's Ganondorf has to be one of my favourite all-time moments as a Zelda fan. We all collectively lost our minds over a 0.2-second clip of him shouting and then lost them in a different way altogether when we saw the accompanying key art minutes later — nothing forgives decades of tyranny and bloodshed quite like some killer pecs, after all. I was chuffed to have the gorgeous Gerudo back in my mainline Zelda games and thoroughly grinned throughout Link's final battle with him.

Yet, now that I have had the chance to take a step back from those hypnotic biceps and luscious locks, I see that things aren't quite as perfect as I initially believed. I've realised that the Zelda series still doesn't know what to do with its big bad.

If you are still yet to tackle Ganondorf in Tears of the Kingdom, then you might want to turn back now. I am not going to describe every single beat of the baddy's journey in detail here, but there will be a fair amount of late-game stuff (narratively speaking) on the table, so only read on if you don't mind the odd spoiler here and there.

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf

Ever since Ganondorf first appeared in his Gerudo form in Ocarina of Time, he has been the dark, brooding type. Whether he's pouting away behind the King or nursing a gaping chest wound in the Twilight Realm, it seems that the purpose of old 'dorfy has been to exist in the background so that our little Bokoblin minds don't get too distracted from the job at hand. This worked well enough in the early days — nobody really thinks that OoT could be improved with a little more polygonal Ganondorf, do they? — but now that the head of the 'Gerudoes Against Link' fan club has beefed up and got a voice of his own, I expected Hyrule's biggest threat to be a little more present.

For the longest time, Ganondorf's appearances have been given the same narrative structure in mainline Zelda games: evil and power-hungry in Act One, absent in Act Two, then surprise! he's back for the final battle. This format isn't used all of the time (he pops up in flashback at the mid-point of Twilight Princess before shockingly reappearing as the big bad at the end), but, as one of the series' three main players, he is surprisingly absent for the most part.

Tears of the Kingdom went some way to fixing this. Yes, he still bookends the game's plot in its opening and closing moments, but the Dragon Tears memories make it feel like he runs throughout the entirety of Link's adventure across Hyrule. In my first few hours of TOTK, I couldn't move without some reminder of what the Demon King was up to back in the day, be that killing off members of the royal family or precisely training an army of seals. Yet, as I approached the final showdown and saw the hench silhouette of Ganondorf sitting below Hyrule Castle, it suddenly struck me: what the heck has he been doing here all this time?

I knew for a fact that Link had spent the past 100+ hours pulling off sick skateboard tricks, learning the intricacies of house construction and attempting to build huge statues with flame-producing rude bits. Had Ganondorf really just been sitting here waiting for me ever since he woke up all crusty all those hours ago? Sure, controlling the Gloom Hands and preparing to take roll call every time a Blood Moon is scheduled must take some preparation, but I can't believe that he had spent the rest of the time just twiddling his thumbs wondering which Regional Phenomena Link was onto now.

This is where Tears of the Kingdom's Ganondorf and I fall out. If a Zelda game is ever going to convince me that the Demon King really is up to no good and my actions as Link are the be-all and end-all for Hyrule, then I want to be reminded of what he is up to. The Dragon Tears are great, but they only document what was going down thousands of years ago — if I'm going to feel any sense of agency from my Zelda villain, then I need to see what's happening now.

What if upon completing a Temple or hitting a main story beat, we got a 'meanwhile'-style cutscene that showed Ganondorf regaining his power, raising an army and (presumably) hitting the gym? All of a sudden, Link's actions matter. You can't just forget about the end goal of the big boss because he's right there, getting swole.

The game tentatively does this with the mysterious 'Zelda' figure that seems to be causing havoc wherever she goes, but, once again, it's a case of "surprise! Ganondorf was behind it all along!"' instead of actually showing that the villain is up to something. Darth Vader, Thanos and Voldemort don't pick up their villainous vibes just by rocking up to the final battle; that idea is grown from seeing them commit dark deeds behind the scenes while the heroes are busy trying to save the day.

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf

The Zelda series has come close to achieving this in the past. Despite only appearing in a couple of cutscenes, you can feel Ganondorf's presence in The Wind Waker from his mid-point reveal right up to his "and I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling kids" final monologue. It helps that this take on the antagonist shows that Ganondorf has a more complex plan than simply destroying the world, but seeing it unfold as the adventure continues sure does make the final showdown that bit punchier.

This is a franchise that has never been all that deep on storytelling, but if Ganondorf is going to continue to develop from pig-man to big-man, then I would really like to see his character depth grow too. TOTK's Dragon Tears are a step in the right direction, but whichever version of the big bad comes next, I'm hoping that he's not afraid to pop up every now and again to remind us all of how hot evil he really is.

Would you like to see some more Ganondorf in future Zelda games or is he better off staying in the background? Leave us your thoughts in the comments below.