New Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom lore details shared

Thanks to the massive art book for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom that came out in Japan not too long ago, new lore details are available. Reddit user livixbobbiex has been poking through the Japanese text and shared a number of tidbits.

The art book delves a bit deeper into the Zonai. A few other topics are touched on as well.

Here’s the full roundup of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom lore details passed along by livixbobbiex:

• The Zonai ruins on the surface (aka the Breath of the Wild era ones) theorized to have been made by some other group in honor/worship of the Zonai
• Thundra plateau thought to have been used for Zonai rain making rituals
• Zonai used natural lightning as an infinite source of energy
• Although the lightning stopped after Link completed the Sheikah trial, the strange weather of Thundra plateau is thought to predate the Sheikah
• Thyphlo ruins purpose was to enhance the sages’ power
• The Hylian writing was left later by people preserving the site
• The Sheikah thought to have put up the darkness shield as part of the hero trial, but may have had the secondary goal of concealing the stone slabs with sage enhancement instructions
• The Zonai towers around Hyrule may have been used as part of getting bits of the surface into the sky
• There dragon statues guard the Spring of Courage, the owl statues guard the boarders of Lake Faron, and the boar statues guard the road (though the role of the boars may have been eradicated across other regions of Hyrule).
• The power balance goes dragons > owls > boars. They represent their respective Tri Force elements still.
• The owl statues are unique as people would worship them directly and leave offerings.

These aren’t the only interesting things shared in the Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom art book. It was also revealed that the game came close to having the Tears of the Dragon subtitle. Also, we translated some pretty noteworthy comments about the Depths here and here. Once again, credit goes to livixbobbiex for the tidbits above.

Thanks to Jake for the tip.