If there are people that see in The Legend of Zelda games nothing more than simple stories about saving a princess, then there are also those that see things that probably aren't even there, especially in timeline discussions which can reach ridiculous proportions. So instead of making a complicated diagram explaining why Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland covers the Imprisioning War, I'm going to travel another road.

Shigeru Miyamoto himself said that Princess Zelda was named after the writer Zelda Fitzgerald Patrick, so I did some digging to see what else might've inspired the creation of Zelda these past 25 years. Some of these might be official or obvious and others farfetched or coincidences, but let's take a look anyway.

The Legend of Conan

If you recognize this song , Riders of Doom, written by Basil Poledouris for Conan The Barbarian (1982) but never seen the movie, it's probably because Nintendo has used this several times when advertising Zelda. The first time in an Ocarina of Time advert , after that in Wind Waker's E3 2002 trailer and more recently with Twilight Princess' unveiling ; well known for making grown men cry.

Someone in Nintendo of America is big fan of Riders of Doom, but the similarities with Conan don't stop there, take a look at the sword Schwarzenegger wields in the first movie and compare it to the Master Sword, especially the Twilight Princess design (on the right).

Maybe this sword shape isn't that unique or rare to find, but bearing in mind that Yusuke Nakano who's been working on Zelda's illustrations and design since Ocarina of Time said in an interview that the late Frank Frazetta (responsible for the covers of many Conan books) inspired his work, it's hard not to see a connection. One last coincidence: the helmet of Rexor, one of Thulsa Doom's henchmen, looks a lot like Midna's. Makes you think.

Legend

If you ever watched Ridley Scott's 1985 movie Legend you certainly noticed that it has a few hints of The Legend Zelda, but ultimately, The Legend of Zelda has a few hints of Legend (asides from the title). In all honesty, Legend is a very simple fairytale, similar to many that can be found in books, movies or cartoons, but let's take a look anyway. Jack, Legend's hero is a simple boy that lives in a forest but is forced to take up sword and shield and embark on journey to save a princess and the world. In one scene, a sleeping Jack is awaken by Oona, a fairy that looks like nothing more than a ball of light and meets Gump, a violin playing child-like elf. I'd be lying if I said I didn't immediately think of Navi and Fado from Wind Waker, or that I smiled a little when Princess Lily said "let me dazzle you with my wisdom" and the quest called for a champion "bold of heart and pure in spirit". In the end, the Lord of Darkness is defeated by using plenty of shiny objects, carefully positioned to reflect light towards him, something that should ring a bell considering it's the kind of puzzle that's common in Zelda and that Light Arrows are also used to defeat Ganondorf, the Dark Lord.

Black Cauldron

The Black Cauldron is a Disney movie also from 1985 based on The Chronicles of Prydain books. Like The Legend, it's a relatively run-of-the-mill fairytale adventure movie, so the elements it shares with Zelda are most likely due to the fact that they're elements common to the fantasy genre itself. The movie follows young Taran, a farm boy in green garbs who dreams of becoming a warrior and is plunged into an adventure that will pit him against the evil Horned King. During his quest he finds Princess Eilonwy, who is followed around by a golden sphere of magical light (think Fairies in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask) and a magic sword that allows him to defeat the Horned King. I don't expect these to be anything more than coincidences, but still, it's probably the closest thing we have to a Zelda movie.

The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up

It's impossible to ignore the similarities between Link and Peter Pan, especially his Disney rendition. Asides from the fact that they both wear a green tunic and cap and have pointy elf-like ears, in Ocarina of Time Link is a child that (supposedly) cannot grow up, who's accompanied by a fairy, uses a short sword and plays the ocarina. Peter Pan is a child that cannot grow up, who's accompanied by a fairy, uses a short sword and plays the pan flute. That was pretty much copy and paste! Of course there are also plenty of parallels between the Kokiris and the Lost Boys, all of them eternal children (although in the books, the Lost Boys leave Neverland and grow up) without parents who live in a forest.

This isn't the last I'll speak of the Kokiris but we'll get to that later.

Laputa

City in the Sky, Twilight Princess' seventh dungeon is very reminiscent of Laputa from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. Both cities are islands that float way up in the sky and like Laputa's inhabitants who were mostly educated people who made use of advanced technology, the City in the Sky was once populated by a race that used technology and machinery very far ahead from anything seen in Hyrule. Hayao Miyazaki also portrayed Laputa in Laputa: Castle in the Sky, take a look at this scene from the beginning of the movie and this picture from A Link to the Past's manual:

Prince of the Sun

On the subject of anime movies, Wind Waker's art style is somewhat reminiscent of Isao Takahata's 1968 Horus: Prince of the Sun (also known as Little Norse Prince or Little Norse Prince Valiant) where Hols, a boy from a seaside village sets out on a quest to defeat the evil wizard Grunwald. To defeat the wizard, Hols needs to wield the Sword of the Sun, which needs to be reforged from its current rusty state.

It all sounds somewhat like Wind Waker and you could even squint a bit and see some Twilight Princess where you use the Sol (which means sun) to power-up the Master Sword. Tenuous connections, homage at best, but it's still noticeable.

Majora's Brazillian Mask

This fellow on reddit noticed that there's an island in Brazil called Maraj� whose natives were called Marajoaras, which obviously sounds a lot like Majora. A quick Google search shows that Marajoaras' pottery and yes, masks, are evocative of Majora's Mask's deeply disturbing and unique art direction. The user also notes that you can see similarities with Twilight Princess' Fused Shadow. Other South American cultures also have some work similar to what we can see in Majora's Mask, but I found this particular case interesting.

Let's not forget the hit song from the Zora Indigo-Go's New Wave Bossa Nova of course, as Bossa Nova is a genre born in Brazil. By the way, the name Indigo-Go's probably comes from the band Indigo Girls and the Go-Go's, the latter being a New Wave band.

Straw Millionaire

Common to many Zelda games are the quests where you start with one small item and through subsequent trades throughout your travels you'll end up with something much, much better. This one isn't exclusive to Zelda, but it's certainly a tradition in the series by now. For example, in Wind Waker, you start by getting a sail from Zunari's empty shop and through a lot of trading and decorating you'll get a Heart Piece and the Magic Armour. The Zelda team responsible for Link's Awakening said in an Iwata Asks that Kensuke Tanabe came up with this idea inspired by a Japanese folk's tale called Straw Millionaire . In this fable, a poor hard-working man travels with nothing more than a piece of straw and by acts of kindness he trades a series of objects and ends up married and a millionaire.

Bestiary

This one I bet you didn't see coming: Octoroks are based on a cephalopod mollusc called octopus. Seriously, look it up.

Moving on, in the very same Iwata Asks , by looking at design documents from the original Zelda the staff is reminded that Ganon was based on Zhū Bājié or Pig as he's known in English from Journey to the West, one of the greatest and most influential books in Chinese literature. Pig is, kind of like Ganon, a half-man half-pig monster.

Other enemies have some curiosities about them, for example, Kargaroc and the Helmaroc King obviously come from the roc, a legendary giant bird of Arabic myth and Poes (you know, the ghosts) most likely got their name from Edgar Allan Poe, master of the creepy and macabre, but many believe it comes from the Chinese word "po" which means spirit. When you defeat a Poe in Ocarina of Time, it leaves its spirit behind in a form that resembles a flame, similar to the classic Japanese representation of a human soul or hitodama.

Considering that Zelda comes from Japan it comes as no surprise that its creatures have big roots there. Koroks, the "forest spirits" from Wind Waker are most likely inspired by the kodama, a spirit from Japanese folklore that lives in trees. You might know kodamas from Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke.

Ropes, which you probably just call snakes, (or at least some of their sprites) resemble a tsuchinoko, a legendary Japanese snake shorter than a regular one with a flat and large belly and a mouth that resembles a grin, sometimes featuring an orange belly. I'm probably stretching it here, it's most likely just a snake, but I can't help but seeing some similarities.

In Ocarina of Time the first mask you get is the Keaton Mask, part fox part Pikachu, but in Majora's Mask if you wear the mask and cut down moving grass in specific places a Keaton will appear. The Keaton is a 3-tailed speaking yellow fox and will ask you five questions, which answered correctly, will earn you a Heart Piece. This creature is obviously inspired by the kitsune, foxes in Japanese legends with formidable intelligence and magic powers, but also often portrayed as tricksters. The kitsune were said to be able to grow up to nine tails as they grew older and wiser, the one we see in Majora's Mask has three. In Minish Cap, Keatons were enemies that stole Rupees from you.

The red Bokoblins seen in Skyward Sword's first demo are also clearly inspired by the Japanese Oni, often called demons or ogres and their appearance in the game pretty much matches the descriptions from Japanese stories. Fierce Link from Majora's Mask is called Oni Link, although that's where similarities end.

May the way of the Hojo lead to the Triforce

The reason you can see the Triforce in a lot of places in Japan isn't because everyone there is a huge Zelda fan, but rather because the triangle formed by three smaller ones was the crest of the Hojo clan, a very important family in Japanese history. The Hojo clan, while "only" a regent for the Kamakura Shogunate, ran the country in practice. This insight about where the Triforce design might have came from is pretty well known by now, but it's an interesting tidbit nonetheless. Of course, there's always the Eye of Providence �

Zelda and Shintoism

We go deeper into Japanese culture and discover the impact Shintoism - the country's native religion - had on Zelda, which is not farfetched at all considering that Miyamoto is a Shintoist and imbued the series with so much of his personal experiences, like exploring the countryside and catching bugs with a net, a traditional pastime for Japanese boys. Let's start with Japan's Imperial Regalia, three treasures that symbolize the Emperor's legitimate right to the throne. We could stop right here and see some similarities already, the Triforce is formed by three distinct pieces, and to get the Master Sword you often need three treasures: in A Link to the Past you have three pendants, in Ocarina of Time three Spiritual Stones and in Wind Waker three Pearls. In Ocarina of Time, getting the Master Sword was your way to claim the Triforce, the "Power of the Gods", note the parallels between this and the supposed divine right to the Japanese throne given by the regalia. In Phantom Hourglass, you need to collect three Pure Metals (that share the same colors as the previous ones) to forge the Phantom Sword.

Slightly stretching, but also meaningful, in Twilight Princess you have to collect three Fused Shadows and three Mirror of Twilight shards. Although both objects have four pieces, Midna is already wearing a part of the Fused Shadow and a fourth of the shard is still intact in the Mirror Chamber. The number 3 doesn't seem to appear so often by accident.

Like I said, we could stop here, but we won't. One of the regalia is the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, which means grass cutting sword and hey, Link does cut a lot of grass! The Kusanagi represents valour, which I'm sure we can all read as courage, precisely the Triforce piece associated with Link, wielder of the Master Sword. So the blade of evil's bane is not only a take on Excalibur or the Sword on the Stone, which only the rightful sovereign of Great Britain could remove from its stone "pedestal", but probably on Kusanagi. The sword was found inside the body of the eight-headed serpent Yamata-no-Orochi slain by Susanoo, who first named the blade Ama-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi meaning Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven, which is oddly reminiscent of Skyward Sword.

Another regalia is the Yata no Kagami, a bronze mirror that, just like Zelda's Triforce Piece, represents Wisdom. Mirrors are very common in Zelda: Twilight Princess has the Mirror of Twilight, Four Swords Adventures has the Dark Mirror and in A Link to the Past there's the Magic Mirror, which warps Link to the Dark World. This mirror is the most important in this example, considering that using it to go to the Dark World will turn Link into a bunny because everyone in that "dimension" takes a form representing his true self. This is obviously parallel to the Yata no Kagami which is said to reflect a person's true nature.

Note that the Twilight Mirror, the Sage Medallions in Ocarina of Time and the Magic Medallions in A Link to the Past and Four Sword Adventures closely resemble a bronze mirror.

This next one I do not take credit for, the author of the blog Popular Symbolism noted in this article that there are similarities between the story of Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu and the lost old man in A Link to the Past. Legend says that, for reasons I won't go into here, Amaterasu hid in a cave and blocked the entrance with a boulder, leaving only when lured outside by the other gods, she sees her reflection in a mirror and is mesmerized by it. In A Link to the Past, you find a lost old man inside a cave with the entrance blocked by a huge rock and once you help him out he gives you the Magic Mirror that gives you the ability to warp to the Dark World.

The final regalia is the Yasanaki no Magatama, a curved jewel that can be compared to A Link to the Past's Moon Pearl (also present in Four Sword Adventures), an item that will prevent you from turning into a pink rabbit in the Dark World just as magatamas, the curved beads, protect its wearers from evil. That's not all though, Japan and many East Asian cultures share an old tale that says that there's rabbit living on the moon, it would be too big a coincidence if this story didn't have anything to do with Link's transformation.

(All images used are copyright of their respective owners)

Do you know of some other source of possible inspiration I might have missed or have some theories of your own? Chime in below!

By Jo�o Lopes