The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword / Tropes M to Z

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Tropes A to L | M-Z

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M-O

• Machete Mayhem: Like in The Wind Waker, the Bokoblins in this game have machetes with rectangular blades. They use it not only for offensive action but also for defense, thanks to their size. Link has to swing his sword from the correct angle to bypass their protection.
• Made of Good: The Gratitude Crystals are made of crystallized gratitude.
• Magic Music: Link accesses the Goddess's trials and messages by playing songs on a harp, accompanied by Fi singing. Zelda is also implied to have used the harp to open portals and gateways before passing it on to Link.
• Magitek: Fi gives off this vibe, with a voice reminiscent of a Vocaloid and constant use of percentages, like a magical computer. In fact, there is a lot of it going around, such as the ancient robots powered by time travel crystals.
• Make My Monster Grow: The Imprisoned is a result of this (and later, the Bishōnen Line, meaning that this monster is the weaker of its forms)!
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right: During the endgame, Link manages to permanently kill Demise in the present by harnessing the power of the completed Triforce. In response to this, Ghirahim, Demise's sword, decides to incapacitate Zelda and use a nearby Portal to the Past to rewrite history by enacting the ritual to sacrifice Zelda's divine essence in order to bring back Demise in the past. Ghirahim actually succeeds at resurrecting Demise, his plan only foiled by Link following Ghirahim to the past and defeating Demise himself.
• The Man Behind the Man: The Imprisoned/Demise is this for Lord Ghirahim. Not that Ghirahim keeps it a secret that he's not the one in charge. Relatedly, The English translation implies that Demise is this for Ganon as well by way of the latter being an incarnation of the former's hatred.
• Man-Eating Plant: Deku Babas return again, along with the tougher Quadro Babas which are harder to slice due to how they alternate between opening their horizontal lips and opening their vertical ones.
• Manly Tears:
  • Link after Zelda puts herself to sleep for thousands of years to strengthen the seal on the Imprisoned.
  • A humorous subversion is made with Groose, twice: the first time when Link informs him that Zelda's okay after he follows him down to the Surface, he sheds humorous, un-manly tears. The second time, after Zelda wakes up from her thousand-year sleep, he full-on blubbers like a baby.
• Matchmaker Quest: In both cases, the quests are open-ended but earn the same reward of Gratitude Crystals regardless of outcome.
  • Cawlin asks you to deliver a love letter, but the girl's interested in someone else. You can either deliver it, or dispose of it by giving it to the weirdo in the bathroom that needs paper. It ends badly for him either way, with him being rejected if it goes to the right person, or him getting haunted by the ghost if she is the one who receives the letter.
  • In another sidequest, you have the option to either return the affections of the Item Check girl or turn her down cold. Leading her on will have her give you the reward, while rejecting her will have her overprotective father reward you, unaware you were the boy she was so addled by.
• Maybe Ever After: The game ends with Link and Zelda reunited, with apparently both of them deciding to stay on the surface, instead of returning to Skyloft, and starting a new life together. But in spite of this, as well as the strong hints of mutual romantic feelings between the two going way back prior to before Link's journey began, a Relationship Upgrade is... not quite confirmed, merely ending with them holding hands with the Triforce between them on the Goddess Statue.
• Meaningful Name: The meaning of Ghirahim's name is twofold: It comes from Ghayra (an Arabic word referring to a person disliking that another shares a right or goal with them, in this case the search for the Gate of Time in order to reach Zelda) and Ghira (a Sanskrit word that refers to one being "the terrible", as in fearsome). The last syllable (-him) provides an analogy with the name of Aghanim from A Link to the Past, as both villains serve as Big Bads but serve a Greater-Scope Villain (Ganon and Demise respectively).
• Mecha-Mooks: Lanayru Mining Facility and Sandship, as well as parts of Sky Keep and the overworld area Lanayru Gorge, have highly-advanced machines that attack Link upon sight: Beamos (which appeared in prior games as a standard laser-shooting statue, but is portrayed here as a futuristic laser turret), Armos (another classic Zelda enemy that is portrayed here as a bulky robotic statue), and Sentrobe (a flying drone that shoots missiles and releases flying spheres that self-destruct over time if they're left unchecked).
• Megamix Game: Though the game doesn't bring back previous games' locations except Faron Woods from Twilight Princess (which makes sense, since it's chronologically the first entry in the series), it still revisits other kinds of content seen over the course of the series' history, as part of the latter's 25th anniversary: Items ^note of which the only true new item is the Beetle; the rest is a mix of omnipresent items like bombs and arrows and tools specifically brought up from certain games, like the Bug Net from A Link to the Past, the two Clawshots from Twilight Princess and the Whip from Spirit Tracks, mechanics ^note retrieving sacred tears in an alternate dimension as done in Twilight Princess, saving with bird statues like in Majora's Mask, single-floor dungeons and accessing them via downstairs like in the very first game, unlocking new regions with ancient stone tablets like in Spirit Tracks, etc, plot devices ^note chasing and storming a large sea ship like in Phantom Hourglass, completing a quest across all mainlands to assemble a mystical song like in Link's Awakening, retrieving your stolen gear item by item like in Oracle of Ages, etc., and copious amounts of Mythology Gag referencing previous games in the series.
• Men Can't Keep House: Inverted. Pipit's mother, Mallara, is a horrible housekeeper, who stands around idly while her house is covered with dust. She mentions that Pipit keeps it clean for her, and the player (as Link) can clean it to earn Rupees and Gratitude Crystals.
• Mercy Mode:
  • This game gets a Super Guide for those who are having trouble.
  • After losing to a boss, Fi offers additional hints about how to beat it.
• Metaphorically True: Fi tells you that the environment in which the final boss is faced disables your Skyward Strike. This is correct; a different, lightning-charged projectile attack that can be performed in that environment, though activated and utilized in much the same manner, is distinct from a Skyward Strike.
• Metapuzzle: Sky Keep, the game's final dungeon, not only features puzzles (or, in two cases, Mini-Boss gauntlets) in its individual rooms but also presents a metapuzzle involving the entire layout that is built upon said rooms. In some of them (including the lobby), there are lecterns from which Link can alter the rooms' placements by way of a 15 Puzzle. Since their respective entrances and exits are each placed at specific sides, Link has to work out the way from the room where he's currently changing the placements to another room with a lectern, so he can go there and continue adjusting the room's placements and ultimately get access to the rooms holding the fragments of the Triforce. The room themselves are thematically tied to all previous dungeons in the game, so there's also an All the Worlds Are a Stage component in the whole dungeon.
• Meta Twist: Since The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, the dungeon boss is usually fought with the dungeon item, so when Ghirahim shows up in the first dungeon of this game, and is fought in a pure sword fight, it comes as a shock. It comes as an even bigger shock when you fight him again in a different dungeon. A double shock because Zelda villains usually loom in the background, never encountering you until the finale. Lastly, bosses are never fought in the overworld prior to this game, yet Skyward Sword has a whopping four outside of dungeons (including the Final Boss).
• Metroidvania: This is the closest the Zelda series has gotten to being Metroid-like, with Save Points rather than free-saving and fewer safe towns. Considering the latter originally took many cues from the former, it's quite appropriate that the opposite would eventually happen.
• Mickey Mousing: A musical cue punctuates every hit you land on an enemy with your sword.
• Military Academy: The Knight Academy educates its students in swordsmanship and Loftwing training in order to protect the city of Skyloft. However, since Skyloft is a floating city far from anything that could actually threaten its inhabitants, the Knights of Skyloft's main job is to rescue anyone who falls off.
• Milking the Giant Cow: Ghirahim does this to keep in line with his FABULOUS persona while expressing his anger over Zelda being snatched from his grasp.
• Mini-Dungeon: Pirate Stronghold, where Link has to find clues to track down the next main dungeon, the Sandship.
• Minigame Zone: Fun Fun Island has a free-fall minigame onto a spinning wheel with Rupee spaces of different values. Falling through rings on the way down will add multipliers to whatever Rupee value you land on, and falling through all five rings and landing on the highest Rupee-value space will get you a Piece of Heart as a prize.
• Minecart Madness: The Shipyard in the Lanayru region has a mine cart that Link rides across a winding series of tracks. The first time he traverses it while looking for the whereabouts of the Sandship (and also has a rematch against Moldarach in the process), while the second time he does so as part of a challenge to win a Piece of Heart.
• Missing Child:
  • Zelda disappearing after a storm knocks her down through the clouds kick-starts the plot. Though he gets reassurance that this was all part of Hylia's plan and she's still alive shortly after, her father is still obviously worried about her and is clearly overjoyed when he reunites with her at the end.
  • Partway through the game, a little girl called Kukiel is suddenly nowhere to be found. Her distraught mother begs you to help search for her, especially once rumors start going around that she was playing with a strange man when she was last seen. Thankfully, the "strange man" is completely harmless, and she was just staying at his house overnight because of the monsters outside. The next morning, she's back home safe and sound.
• Mole Men: The Mogmas, the large-armed inhabitants of Eldin Volcano.
• Mobile Shrubbery: Octoroks await their preys or enemies within seemingly-normal bushes, effectively acting like the Deku and Mad Scrubs from Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.
• Moment Killer: Ghirahim appears to love destroying any happy moment between Link and Zelda. First, he knocks Zelda out of the sky with a black tornado just as she's about to give to Link what appears to be a love confession. Then he kills the second reunion (the first being halted instead by Impa) they make at gate of time by charging in and attempting to kill both Impa and Zelda. And then he shows up after the Imprisoned is killed and Zelda is released from her self-imposed seal to cockblock the two again by kidnapping the poor girl and running off into the Gate of Time.
• Money for Nothing: Downplayed. Your max Wallet size is 9900, yet nothing costs upwards of 1600, the game's various mini-games are a rather easy way to farm money, and you can't buy the materials to upgrade your equipment in bulk (you can buy materials once the day/night cycle unlocks, but only one at a time, and RNG determines which ones are available each night).
• Money Sink: The game has both Beedle's shop (in which most items are very expensive, and in the case of the pouches the price increases upon each purchase) and the products and upgrades from the Bazaar. And until the very end, you're almost always in need of something — which is also why your wallet is able to get so much bigger. Unlike any of the other console Zelda titles, it's actually possible to go through an entire 100% Completion campaign and never once have your wallet filled to capacity.
• Monster Progenitor: The ancient Demon King Demise is the origin of all demons in the Zelda series. This seems to be a common feature among demons, since Batreaux also seems to summon monsters with his presence. During nighttime in Skyloft, Keese and Chuchus appear and the Remlits turn feral. Once Batreaux becomes a human, the monsters stop appearing and the Remlits remain tame at night.
• Mood Dissonance: The game features a scene where Ghirahim has finally kidnapped Zelda, is about to use her soul to revive Demise, and has summoned a massive army of monsters to hold Link back while the ritual is in progress. In the midst of all this, he performs an extraordinarily goofy, giddy dance◊ around the unconscious Zelda, presumably from excitement over the prospect that his master will finally be revived. Granted, this is all perfectly in character for Ghirahim, but the context of the whole scene makes it stick out like a sore thumb compared to all the other times he has acted so crazily.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • The Ancient Cistern switches from a serene area filled with bright gold colors and pretty plants to a sinister area filled with dark purple colors and zombies. To make it more specific — you go from a golden Buddhistic heaven area and then descend into hell.
  • The Silent Realm, where if Link gets spotted, the calm ambience is replaced by a cacophonous, Silent Hill-inspired industrial musical piece as the Guardians try to shatter his soul.
  • At the beginning of the game, after a terrifying nightmare foreshadowing the game, Link's woken up by the sound of Zelda's Loftwing giving an ear-splitting caw, sending him tumbling out of bed. It then spits her letter directly into his face and just leaves.
  • When Groose follows Link to the surface, it's very lighthearted as he tries to adjust to the strange new land and then tries to take over Link's role as the hero. Then suddenly the Imprisoned escapes, the tension is racked up, and after beating him, you have to leave Groose suffering a Heroic BSoD so you can continue your journey.
• Mook Maker: Batreaux is an (in-universe) unintentional example. He's a pretty nice guy, but that doesn't stop his demonic aura from attracting monsters to Skyloft and making all the Remlits turn evil at night.
• Morphic Resonance:
  • Batreaux's human form has a hairstyle that resembles his horns as a demon.
  • Demise retains the same black feather/scale things in his Imprisoned form.
• Morton's Fork:
  • During the Gratitude Crystal sidequest, Cawlin has a crush on Karane but is too shy to say it to her face, and so asks you to deliver a love letter. Here the quest branches off in two directions: you can either give the love letter to Karane, in which case she ultimately ends up with another student and Cawlin is upset, or you can give it to the disembodied hand living in the knight school's bathroom, in which case Cawlin is upset and is later haunted by the appendage in his sleep.
  • During another sidequest, you have to lead Peatrice the Item Clerk along with having feelings for Link. The sidequest only has two endings; admit Link likes her back which means he's now two-timing Zelda, or utterly and completely crushing her spirit by saying she's "just a shopkeeper" to him, there's no third option to let her down gently and you can't keep her from falling for Link to begin with without dead-ending the sidequest before getting the rewards.
• Motif: Rhombuses appear in numerous places. This is most obvious with Ghirahim, but every main character has at least one piece of diamond-shaped jewelry.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Koloktos, a six-armed Buddhist-style automaton, and a four-armed type of Stalfos called a Stalmaster. Both are fought in the fourth dungeon, Ancient Cistern.
• Multi-Mook Melee: Invoked by Ghirahim when he tries to stall for as much time as he can to ensure he can complete the ritual to revive Demise before Link can catch up.
• Mundane Made Awesome: The cutscenes where Link learns a new melody on his harp, with Fi dancing in the air and Link shown floating in the sky while Loftwings fly around him definitely count.
• Mundane Utility: A horizontal Skyward Strike beam is an excellent way to cut large swathes of grass quickly.
• Musical Gameplay:
  • Just like in The Wind Waker, whenever you strike enemies successfully, a musical sting plays. Special mention goes to the Ghirahim battles, because the stings are played by actual orchestra instruments.
  • Though Skyward Sword isn't the first Zelda game to feature dynamic background music (Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess used it before), it is the first in the series to have dynamic recorded music. Twilight Princess was originally going to have orchestrated music, but having dynamic orchestrated music was too difficult back then. But Nintendo found a way to do it with Skyward Sword, and it works great. Examples: As you pass from the present to the past in Lanayru Desert and related areas, the music seamlessly gains more percussion and a stronger melody. Dungeon music also starts out bare but has instruments added the farther along you are to completing it. The Bazaar has a similar effect with the instruments changing between different vendors. And the Sky theme gains percussion when Link is near enemies.
• Musical Spoiler: The melody of the Goddess' Song, the game's main theme, is Zelda's Lullaby played backwards, foreshadowing the fact that Zelda is the Goddess.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: The Final Boss of the game, the ancient Demon King Demise, finally released from the seal placed on him by the goddess Hylia, invokes this against Link, Zelda, and their descendants, that the armies of the Demon Tribe are cursed to forever do battle with the gods and their creations. In the English version, he states that an incarnation of his hatred will continuously be reborn to seek revenge against them. The English version implies that Skyward Sword is the Great King Of Evil Ganon's Origins Episode by way of this.
• My Defense Need Not Protect Me Forever: A villainous version occurs when Ghirahim explicitly states that the hordes that he summons are meant to stall for the time he needs to sacrifice Zelda's soul, and Ghirahim himself goes One-Winged Angel and stalls for more time as he duels Link for the third time.
• My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That: Fi can do exactly that. Played straight when if you go through Peatrice's subquest by returning her love, she notices the effects of Peatrice's looks on Link and Peatrice's love for him, advising Link to avoid touching the subject with Zelda. In a roundabout way, Fi does this when she decides that any good news about Zelda's fate is likely to lift Link's spirits.
• Mystical Lotus: The Ancient Cistern, a temple based around Buddhism with a prominent idol resembling the Buddha in the center of its main chamber containing the Sacred Flame of Farore, has both actual lotus plants in its waters and lotus artwork on its walls and ceiling. Even the key is painted to look like a lotus when inserted into the lock.
• Mythology Gag: We made a separate subpage for them.
• Myth Prologue: The game opens with the tale of how the Goddess Hylia sealed away the demons that destroyed the surface and created Skyloft to keep humans safe. By the time the game takes place, people think that the surface - as in, the ground - is a myth.
• Namedworld and Namedland: Upon landing on the surface world for the first time with Link, Groose decides that it needs a name. Even the background music isn't impressed with his suggestion:
  Groose: This place needs a name. Yeah... a name fitting for this rugged, adventurous wilderness. From now on, we'll call it... Grooseland!
• Near Victory Fanfare: Scaldera and Tentalus share both the same boss theme, and the same fanfare that is heard when Link incapacitates them so he can inflict them damage with the sword. In the case of Bilocyte, Variable Mix is used for when the boss has little health left and all that remains is to deflect its projectiles back to it.
• Nemesis Weapon: Demise wields a sword that looks like a bigger and spikier version of Link's iconic Master Sword. Moreover, both swords are inhabited by spirits that serve the ends of the swords' masters. Whereas the Master Sword's spirit, Fi, mostly just gives advice, Demise's sword spirit actually serves as his Dragon.
• Never Say "Die":
  • Averted. The villain is even named Demise!
  • During your rematch with Ghirahim, he implies much more than just killing Link, and tops it off by saying that he'll dye the strings of fate with Link's blood, with the word "blood" bolded in red text for emphasis.
• New Game Plus: Hero Mode, which doubles the damage and health of enemies and removes normal heart drops. To compensate, not only do bugs and treasures carry over from the original file, but the Goddess Sword starts off with a full-strength Skyward Strike, including shorter charging. Have fun picking off Bokoblins and Stalfos from a distance.
• Nice Day, Deadly Night: Skyloft, the only place with a day-night cycle in the game. At daytime it's entirely peaceful, but it's filled with monsters at night. Even the Remlits, cute lemuresque kittens, turn into fierce beasts after sundown. None of the monsters is particularly dangerous though.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Impa leaves Link behind after lecturing him on Eldin Volcano. While this gives him a chance to redeem himself in her eyes after his earlier failure to be there when Zelda needed help, it also means that when Ghirahim attacks, Impa has to fight him alone and is quickly overwhelmed. Only Link's timely arrival prevents Impa from being defeated and Zelda captured.
  • It ends up being a bad idea to leave a functioning and extremely conspicuous time portal out in the open like that. A rare example of the hero falling victim to Rule #41 on the Evil Overlord List.
• Night of the Living Mooks: The Ancient Cistern houses Cursed Bokoblins; these Bokoblins cling to life solely through their hatred of the world (and, according to Fi, their attachment to their outlandish undergarments). They can be driven away slowly with the Sacred Shields, but the only way to kill them is by landing a Sword Plant onto them while they're knocked down.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot:
  • Scervo, the robo Stalfos pirate onboard the Sandship, and serves as the mid-boss. That's right — a pirate robot who's weathered and decayed enough to look like a mechanical zombie.
  • You fight another one, Dreadfuse, in Sky Keep, the Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
• Nintendo Hard:
  • Especially in comparison to the previous 3D games, which have a reputation for being mostly easy (the many Tactical Suicide Boss battles in particular). The emphasis on precise sword play, enemies inflicting damage in whole-heart increments (Link actually starts the game with six hearts, instead of the usual three), and the fact that your shield can be broken after repeated use.
  • In Hero Mode, there are no heart drops until you get the Heart Medallion, so for a significant portion of the game, the only way to restore your lost health is through potions, fairies, or sitting/sleeping away the damage (and there are no chairs or beds in dungeons). Even better, enemies deal double damage throughout the game, making dodging and defending crucial.
  • The Boss Rush in Hero Mode is just plain nuts. You want to get the indestructible Hylian Shield? Be prepared to face 8 consecutive bosses, each dealing double damage (2-4 full hearts per hit), with no heart potions available or any way to regenerate hearts during or between fights. Your skill at damage avoidance is your only protection. You can, however, drink a fully-upgraded Guardian Potion right before activating the rush, and you will be invulnerable through as many fights as you can manage while it's still in effect.
• No-Gear Level:
  • A late-game segment of Eldin Volcano has you blown off course by an eruption and captured by the Bokoblins. While you immediately get back the Mogma Mitts, the rest of your items are taken and scattered across the region, forcing you to sneak around bokoblins to get them back. Naturally, your best offensive tools are in the very last cache of items you find.
  • To a lesser extent are the four trials in the Silent Realm, where you must collect items while avoiding harm by the local Guardians or the various scouts which will alert them.
• No Hero Discount: Despite everyone in Skyloft knowing that you're saving Zelda (or at least that you're on a VERY important mission) you have to buy your potion, your equipment, and pay for their upgrades.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: Played straight, with one exception. After completing the Very Definitely Final Dungeon, Zelda stumbles and nearly falls when she awakens from her sealed slumber and Link catches her in an embrace. After the ensuing Fade to White, they hold hands as they walk to the front of the temple to greet Grannie and Groose.
• No Item Use for You:
  • The Cursed Medal considerably increases the drop rate of money and treasures, but you can't open your Adventure Pouch to use items like your bottles or shield.
  • The Boss Rush mode of the game disables the use of all items in your pouches except for a shield.
• No Longer with Us: If Link talks to Silva after taking the Mogma Elder Guld to to plow the pumpkin patch at Pumpkin Landing, he will say that the elder was "launched up" "beyond", which Silva takes to mean that Guld has died and that he must take up the leadership of his race.
• Non-Indicative Name: The Lanayru Mining Facility is a refinery, whose function is to polish the samples of Timeshift Stone that have been previously mined from the outside (specifically Lanayru Mine). The oddest aspect is that the Japanese, Spanish and French versions of the game correctly name the dungeon Lanayru Refinery. The German and Italian versions name it Lanayru Factory, which is equally valid.
• Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits: Falling from Skyloft will result in a knight catching you and bringing you back to where you were, followed by a quick lecture on being careful. Everywhere else, you'll reappear at the ledge with no damage at all. Since your Sailcloth lets you avoid any Falling Damage, this makes some sense. What doesn't make sense is how you get back up.
• Non-Standard Game Over:
  • If The Imprisoned manages to reach the Sealed Temple before you can defeat and reseal it.
  • Once you get the boss room key in the Ancient Cistern, you have to get out of that pit before the falling Buddha statue crushes you. Should you instead try and take on all the Cursed Bokoblins in the pit, the camera cuts out of the pit and Link is heard gasping and then screaming as the statue lands in place.
• Noob Cave: The waterfall cave in Skyloft, which you have to traverse to free your Loftwing.
• No Ontological Inertia: It's not clear whether killing the final boss eliminates any of his minions, but this trope definitely happens if you help Batreaux become human; all the bats and slimes in Skyloft disappear, and the Remlits no longer become violent at night. If you talk to Human Batreaux on the bridge at night, he effectively states that completing this quest made the monsters vanish.
• No OSHA Compliance: Lanayru Mining Facility is unusually dangerous for non-Hylians. The workers used to be robots before their extinction, and due to the lack of maintenance the dungeon became even more dangerous ever since.
• No Sense of Personal Space:
  • Ghirahim does this to Link in his first two pre-boss battle cut scenes by appearing behind him and putting an arm on Link's shoulder while leaning his head towards Link's ear. Link is obviously disturbed by the act.
  • Faron also does this to Link when he meets up with her for her piece of the Song of the Hero by leaning very close to him while lifting his chin up with her hand.
• No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom: The game has this within the surface regions (Faron Woods, Eldin Volcano and Lanayru Desert) due to their dungeon-like structure. When Link reaches a new area, he has to tackle all sorts of obstacles and puzzles to reach the next dungeon, but the geography makes it so he's unable to take any alternate routes along the way (indeed, the shortcuts are available after Link takes the long route the first time, so they act more like Doors to Before instead of being quicker alternate routes). This contrasts with the Sky areas, since only Skyloft, the Lumpy Pumpkin and the Isle of Songs are required destinations, and the first two still have plenty of side content. The main story only gives leeway once the first six dungeons are conquered and The Imprisoned is defeated for the second time, letting the player tackle the three locations for the Song of the Hero in any order, and the final dungeon (Sky Keep) being very non-linear.
• Not the Fall That Kills You…: You can fall from Skyloft, for at least a few seconds, whistle, and land on your Loftwing, and you're fine. Possibly justified — Loftwings wouldn't be very useful if they killed their owners when catching them. They might match their velocity to their riders' as a matter of course. More ridiculously, Link can fall from the cloud cover all the way to the ground, and as long as he pulls out the Sailcloth just before the end, he slows to a safe velocity and lands gently, with no damage to his legs or arms.
• Not the Intended Use: Skyward Sword's final boss continues the proud tradition of final bosses being distracted by harmless items. Namely, Demise can be distracted by the bug-catching net.
• Not What It Looks Like: When Link first meets Batreaux, it initially appears that he's kidnapped a little girl and she's screaming in horror, but as soon as Link goes to attack him, Batreaux begs not to be hurt and quickly explains what's really going on.
• Now, Where Was I Going Again?:
  • Sparrot will give hints on either the next plot device or the location of treasure (though the two are often one and the same) for the same rate, and this game's Exposition Fairy, Fi, will remind you where to go if asked.
  • On the file select screen, it gives a brief description of the last major thing you accomplished, where you are, or where you need to go next.
• NPC Roadblock: A bunch of women chatting after laundry was done blocks the residential area of Skyloft during the game's Prolonged Prologue.
• Obscured Special Effects: During The War Sequence, the dark lighting and thick fog allow the game to render a relatively small number of enemies at a time while maintaining the illusion that there are loads more offscreen.
• Obviously Evil:
  • The Big Bad, Demise. He looks to be eight feet tall and built like a rhinoceros, skin mottled grey and black, a river of hair like fire coursing down his back, flaming red eyes, a massive black sword — yeah, friendly fellow.
  • Subverted with Batreaux, who is a giant winged demon, lives in a creepy-looking house accessed by shoving a gravestone with a devil-head symbol on it, seems to have kidnapped a screaming child, etc. but is actually a nice guy, a total wuss, and he and the child were having a "who can scream the loudest" contest.
• Oculothorax: The boss Bylocite consists of four giant eyeballs on stalks, and a fifth giant eyeball with a mouth and wings, also on a stalk.
• Official Couple: Pipit and Karane, if the right actions are done in their matchmaking sidequest. There's also an optional Romance Sidequest with Item Check Lady Peatrice. Whether or not you become a couple is your choice.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • A brief one at the beginning. After Link wins the Bird Statue, Zelda sees him and excitedly jumps off the edge of Skyloft. The look on Link's face as he swoops in to catch her says it all.
  • And then again when he skydives to the Sealed Grounds, only to see Groose diving down on top of him. And he doesn't have a sailcloth.
  • Groose when seeing the Imprisoned.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: Plays during part of the intro movie, then more distinctly and dramatically during the last two boss fights.
• Ominous Pipe Organ: Ghirahim's leitmotif mixes in a pipe organ. Rather than one of the big booming ones, however, it's a smaller, more playful one, which serves to emphasize Ghirahim's similar Psychopathic Manchild demeanor.
• Omniscient Morality License: Hylia definitely gets this, once you realize that the goddess deliberately set up this entire game as a ludicrously convoluted training exercise to get Link ready to wield the Triforce. Her incarnation Zelda explicitly rejects this notion, apologizing to Link towards the end of the game. It may have been necessary, but it was not right to use and manipulate Link that way.
• One-Hit Kill: For a Zelda game, there's a surprisingly high number of examples:
  • The giant boulder in the Earth Temple.
  • Being hit by one of the Guardians during a Silent Realm challenge. This doesn't actually give you a Game Over, but it uses Link's death animation where he struggles to stand up and the game forces you to start again, so it's similar.
  • The advancing wall of lava in an underground tunnel in the Fire Sanctuary will also result in an instant game over if it touches Link.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: The Silent Realms are a series of No Gear Timed Missions where Link must collect the fifteen Sacred Tears scattered throughout each realm. If he runs out of time or is found by a Watcher, the Guardians of the realm will awaken and chase him down until he collects another Sacred Tear, which resets the timer. If they manage to land even a single hit on him, his spirit will dissipate and you'll have to start all over again. As a result, each Silent Realm is an incredibly stressful experience.
• One-Man Army: After spending the whole game kicking asses, Link fights entire armies of Bokoblins, on his own, before defeating Big Bad Ghirahim in a duel to save Zelda. Of course, the enemies are made significantly weaker for the most part to maintain this effect, but it works.
• One-Time Dungeon: Sky Keep is the last dungeon of the game. Once you complete it, you can never visit it again, because the entire island with the Goddess Statue on top crashes down on Earth. Thankfully, there are no permanently missable items there whatsoever.
• One-Winged Angel: During their third and final battle, Ghirahim assumes his true form. In this state, he's muscular, taller than Link, and his skin is so tough that even the Master Sword can't do more than knock him around without actually hurting him... unless Link attacks the weak spot in his chest.
• Only the Worthy May Pass: During the second act of the game, each dungeon is preceded by Link completing a item-gather challenge in the Silent Realms^note Themselves designed to be tests, as you are only endangered by the Guardians if you fail to collect the items within before enduring the dungeon itself to find the Sacred Flames. Then in the third act, Link must search out the Song of the Goddess from the dragons. While two of the dragons are nice about it when Link encounters them, Faron forces Link to gather the notes of her song after flooding her forest to rid it of strong monsters. Then once that is completed, Link must do a fourth Silent Realm run before entering Sky Keep and gathering the pieces of the Triforce together. Justified, as Link needs to develop Courage, Wisdom, and Power in balance to use the complete Triforce and the challenges are specifically designed to help him do that.
• Opening the Sandbox: The sandbox is opened after you open all three portals; getting the Clawshot also opens up a couple more opportunities.
• Opponent Instruction: During the first battle, if Ghirahim manages to steal Link's sword, he'll tell him that he'll never land a hit if he continues telegraphing his attacks.
• Orange/Blue Contrast: The game exaggerates it for the Silent Realm in order to emphasize how alien the alternate dimension is. The lighting is primarily blue as long as Link is safe, but if he's spotted and the Guardians awaken, the color scheme shifts to bright, harsh orange and stays that way until they're deactivated.
• Orchestral Bombing: The game's soundtrack is composed largely (but not entirely) of orchestral music. Hajime Wakai (Wind Waker) and Koji Kondo are in charge of compositions, with Mahito Yokota (Super Mario Galaxy and sequel) as the orchestration director. While the overworld themes are surprisingly low-key (with the exception of the Sky theme), the boss themes in particular are particularly bombastic. The overall theme, Ballad of the Goddess, starts with a solo Harp of Femininity (appropriately enough), and after about 45 seconds launches into epicness.
• Orbiting Particle Shield: The second Ghirahim fight has him using particles of power as a shield to prevent Link from swinging his sword just in any direction.
• Origins Episode: Among other things, this game explains the origins of the Master Sword, the Hylian crest, and Link's costume.
• Our Hydras Are Different: Staldras are enemies resembling three-headed snake skeletons; their name is a portmanteau of hydra and the "stal-" prefix associated with skeletal Zelda enemies in general.
• Our Monsters Are Weird:
  • The boss from the Earth Temple, Scaldera. "Made of lava" is the most adequate descriptor, but even that doesn't do the creature justice, being a four-legged lava sphere covered in rock and bearing one small eye.
  • The game really seems to be taking this up to eleven in relation to series standards. One especially weird boss, The Imprisoned, is nothing but a massive mouth and legs covered in black feather-like scales. Only on later battles, he gets more body parts as the game progresses, and at the end, he turns into a humanoid creature only about twice as big as Link.
  • Bilocyte: It's a parasitic living mass of eyestalks protruding from the whale-like Levias in tentacle-like forms.
• Out-of-Genre Experience: While the game has elements of the stealth genre in the Silent Realm segments, the true example of this trope is the visit to the Eldin Volcano during the Song of the Hero quest, where upon entry the volcano explodes, Link is captured and all his items are taken from him. He has to slowly sneak around the newly instated enemy camp and retrieve his items and has to use the ones he gets back to help him get the other ones as if they were gadgets like in a true stealth-action game.
• Outscare the Enemy: Ghirahim pulls this when he throws his entire army at Link in an attempt to stop him interrupting the ritual to resurrect Demise.
  Hear me, my hordes! The spell will soon be complete! The demon king returns! Until then, you WILL keep that whelp from interfering with my ritual. I don't care if the whole lot of you get lodged on the end of his blade. You will buy me the time I need! Do not fear him... Fear my wrath if you fail me!
• Overflow Error: Cutting the bamboo stalk in the Clean Cut minigame on Bamboo Island 65 times resets the counter to 1.
• The Overworld: The Sky, which you have to traverse by giant bird. As in The Wind Waker there are small floating islands strewn out among the clouds. The Surface, on the other hand, blurs the line between overworld and dungeon, by incorporating puzzles and more dangerous enemies than expected of traditional overworlds, though they still serve as areas that connect to dungeons.
• Oxygenated Underwater Bubbles: They appear within underwater sections of the game just so that Link can catch his breath without actually going to the surface, since his swimming ability in this game does not allow him to breathe underwater.
• Oxygen Meter: At first, it is barely of note until you get the Water Dragon's Scale (Link automatically floats upward when he's not focused on swimming). It resembles the Sprint Meter in blue instead of green. Staying underwater depletes it, using your spinning attack depletes it faster, and whatever you do, don't inhale the purple-colored bubbles (they're toxic). Running out of oxygen will quickly drain hearts until Link surfaces or drowns. There is a potion that slows the rate Link consumes oxygen, as well as a potion medal that prolongs the effects of potions (including the air potion); using the two at the same time makes the difficult Tadtone quest (which takes place underwater) much more manageable.

P-S

• Painful Pointy Pufferfish: The Froak enemy is an airborne pufferfish-like creature that roams aimlessy around. Froaks can inflate their bodies, revealing massive spikes that will damage Link by sheer contact. They're also explosive if attacked while their spikes are in or if hit into a wall.
• Palette Swap:
  • The first few enemies Link faces in Lanayru Mine and Lanayru Desert are electric versions of monsters he met in Faron Woods and/or Eldin Volcano: Electro Spume, Thunder Keese, Yellow ChuChu, Technoblin. Afterwards, he finds more unique enemies.
  • The primary bestiary in the sixth dungeon, Fire Sanctuary, consists of dark-purple versions of enemies (Cursed Spume, Dark Keese, Dark Lizalfos), and the boss Ghirahim takes a form that has some parts of his body turned black. Notably, the dungeon is still fire-themed. Cursed Bokoblins are not examples, however, having a zombie theme, and thus a different model and behavior.
• Parasites Are Evil: The sky spirit Levias has been infected by Bilocyte, the ocular parasite. Under its influence, the deity turns malicious, summoning lightning storms wherever it goes and attacking Skyloftians on sight.
• Parental Abandonment: With the exception of Pipit, Zelda, and Peatrice, all of the Knight Academy students have no on-screen or even mentioned parents.
• Past-Life Memories: Zelda's role in the Goddess's plan is to purify her body in ancient springs, which awakens memories of her past life as Hylia herself. She uses this knowledge to instruct Link on how to finish his quest and to maintain the seal over Demise so he will have time to do so. However, it's also made clear that these memories are something of a burden for her, and she expresses sincere regret at some of the choices she made in her previous life and how they negatively affected those around her. Specifically, Zelda, as Hylia, orchestrated Link's entire quest so he could become strong enough to destroy Demise. This included making sure her mortal reincarnation was close to him so he would be personally motivated by the fact that she appeared to be in danger, leveraging their Childhood Friend Romance to manipulate him into doing what Hylia needed. Zelda is horrified by this in the present and breaks down crying while explaining the whole thing to Link.
• Patrolling Mook: The Watchers awaken Guardians in the Silent Realm when they spot Link.
• Permanently Missable Content: There are minor examples in the form of Silver Rupees (worth 100 Green Rupees each, though there's plenty of ways to earn cash):
  • There are 3 Silver Rupees hidden within the "nostrils" of the shark-shaped Pirate Stronghold, which require the Beetle to reach. However, once you complete the stronghold and open up its mouth, the nostrils will have moved much higher up and be out of the Beetle's range, meaning that you will never be able to reach the Rupees anytime after that point.
  • In the room in Sky Keep based on Fire Sanctuary, there's a Silver Rupee in an alcove near the room's upper level, also requiring the Beetle to reach. You can't return to Sky Keep once finishing it, so the loot is lost if you don't grab it while exploring.
• Perpetual Storm: The Thunderhead located due west of Skyloft is a massive cloud system with constant thunderstorms. The storms stop once Levias is freed of his infection, however.
• Personal Space Invader: Chuchus' sole method of attack is to attach themselves to Link, requiring the player to struggle free of them. Several other enemies such as Arachas are also prone to this.
• Phallic Weapon: Gendre-inverted, as the legendary Master Sword is revealed to be literally female—specifically, a spirit named Fi.
• The Phoenix: Furnixes are red-and-gold birds found in the Lanayru Desert, with long tails and the ability to spit out fireballs.
• Pillar of Light: Used as beacons for the various parts of the overworld. Also marks the entrances to the surfaces from the sky.
• Pivotal Boss: Kokoltos during the first phase. Its base is attached to the floor, so all its attacks are performed while it stands still. In the second phase, it frees itself completely, allowing it to walk as it attacks Link.
• Plant Mooks: In addition to the series-classic Deku Babas, the game also has a yellow-colored variant called Quadro Baba, which has four lips instead of two, making it harder for Link to attack it.
• Plant Person: The Kikwis, which are half-animal, half plant. They can hide underground by making their bushy tails pass for bushes.
• Player Death Is Dramatic: Every time Link dies, he'll fall to the ground and struggle to breathe for a few seconds before going limp.
• Player-Guided Missile: The Beetle, acquired in the first official dungeon, is a mechanical insect drone that can be flown around to explore an area, collect treasures/rupees/hearts, hit switches, cut ropes, and (with upgrades) carry and drop bombs onto enemies.
• Player Tic: This game seems to be addressing the common Zelda tic of rolling everywhere by instead having the A button merely make Link sprint faster (which drains Link's stamina meter, so the player can't keep it up indefinitely). Shaking the Nunchuk during a sprint still engages a Roll action, though that drains his stamina even faster, making it inadvisable for speed.
• Playing with Fire: Scaldera, which is capable of spewing large, powerful fireballs at Link during battle.
• Plot Coupon: The three Ancient Tablets to access the areas of the surface, the three Sacred Flames to empower the Goddess Sword and turn it into the Master Sword, and the four parts of the Song of the Hero to unlock the whereabouts of the Triforce.
• Point of No Return: Link's companion Fi will warn the player that there is a zero percent chance that they will return from the final boss arena unless they are able to vanquish said final boss. This game is very polite about this, as if Link dies fighting the final boss, he'll reload at the entrance to the arena, allowing him to go back and stock up on potions, fairies, or other equipment before trying again.
• Poison Mushroom: Rupoors make an appearance in the digging minigame. The look on Link's face (seen in the page image) when you pick one up is priceless.
• Portal to the Past: The Gates of Time connect the present era to the ancient past. And on a much smaller scale, the various Timeshift Stones throughout the Lanayru Desert reveal just how fertile the desert was in the ancient past (within their area of effect, at least).
• Possession Implies Mastery: Averted. Link can use a sword and fly his Loftwing because he's been training to do so for years before the player enters the game to control him. And on a meta level, thanks to the Motion Plus control, Link's swordsmanship (at least in terms of posture) is just as good as that of the player.
• Post-Defeat Explosion Chain: The Moldorm has its back as a weak point, so when Link attacks it (by using the Mogma Mitts to scratch it) the backmost part of its body will rapidly explode piece by piece. By the time Link delivers the third hit, the explosion chain will occur more slowly and reach its head, finally killing it.
• Post-Final Level: The two final battles are fought in the past-era version of the Sealed Grounds, rather than the Sky Keep which serves as the final dungeon.
• The Power of Hate: In the Japanese original, it is stated that the Greater-Scope Villain Demise is fueled by his hatred of the Godesses, and that even with his death, his monster army will carry on his battle for him. The English version instead implies that Ganon is the manifestation of the hatred of Demise, who curses the descendants of the first Link and Zelda to forever fight an incarnation of his hatred.
• Precursors: A race of Ancient Robots can be found in the Lanayru Desert. They are all old and worn away. Once you strike a nearby Timeshift Stone, however, you return the local area to the state it was in hundreds of years in the past, where everything is still working. Their joints, and almost every single device within the premises are powered by electricity. This could justify where all of the Schizo Tech in the Zelda series originates from.
• Precursor Heroes: As the first Hero to wield the Master Sword and fight beside an incarnation of Zelda, Link is this to every other hero in the franchise. He has his own precursor in an ancient hero who was also chosen by the Goddess Hylia, though all that's known about him in-game is Hylia gave him some sort of gift, leading to the creation of the Wing Ceremony (and given Fi's comments on the unreliability of oral traditions, it probaby doesn't bear much resemblance to what really happened). The prequel manga, if taken as canon, further reveals that Link's precursor was the first Hylian to bond with a Loftwing and that he helped create the Goddess Sword by reforging Hylia's divine blade so mortals could wield it.
• Pre-Final Boss: Ghirahim has to be defeated one last time (in the past version of Sealed Grounds) before Link can challenge the actual final boss (Demise). Also a case of You Can't Thwart Stage One, since Link's original plan was to defeat Ghirahim quickly and avoid having to face Demise at all.
• Prequel: So far, this game is the earliest in the series timeline according to the creators and Hyrule Historia. While it is implied that these are not the earliest Link and Zelda, they are thus far the earliest to appear in-game.
• Prized Possession Giveaway: Ledd is a friendly Mogma who hunts treasure and dearly keeps a Bomb Bag, telling Link that he cannot imagine being without it when a pair of Lizalfos steal it in Earth Temple. After Link defeats those minibosses and asks Ledd to lend him the bag for a while to explore the dungeon and look for Zelda, Ledd says no... because he decides to gift it to him as a token of their friendship.
• Product Delivery Ordeal:
  • One of the tasks assigned to Link during his part-time job to pay for the broken chandelier of Lumpy Pumpkin's bar consists of transporting a pile of pumpkins to a storage area located outdoors in the bar's island. Link has to make his way there while carefully keeping the pile's balance, and for that he has to move forward carefully when the pumpkins are in line and sideways when the upper pumpkins are leaning to a side, potentially falling down if he isn't careful.
  • During the quest for the Triforce, Link is asked by the owner of Pumpkin Landing to deliver a large bowl of hot Pumpkin Soup to Levias, who wanders around the interior of the Thunderhead. However, when Link arrives to the spot where he's supposed to deliver the bowl, Levias appears and is shown to have been corrupted by a parasitic monster known as Bylocite, thus forcing a Sequential Boss battle. Only after Link wins the fight, Levias will return to normal and receive the soup he likes so much.
• Prolonged Prologue: Word of God is that the developers tried to avert this, and many scenes were cut to trim it down. In practice, however, it still takes over an hour for the average player to set foot on the surface, and another hour or two to reach the first dungeon. Most of the time in the sky is dedicated to showcasing Link and Zelda's close relationship due to its importance to the plot.
• Proportionately Ponderous Parasites: The game's local Space Whale harbors a parasite the size of a building, defeated by throwing its attacks back at it.
• "Psycho" Strings: The "Guardians Awaken" theme, which is heard when Link accidentally draws the Guardians' attention while collecting Sacred Tears in the Silent Realm.
• Public Domain Artifact: Amber and Dusk Relics are shaped like magatama.
• Puny Parachute: The Sailcloth. Zelda even challenges Link to get as close to hitting the ground as possible before pulling it out.
• Purple Is Powerful: The Master Sword, with its purple hilt, is much more powerful than the previous Goddess Swords.
• Purple Prose: Beedle's "real persona", which he assumes only outside of work hours. It comes with an implied British accent.
• Puzzle Boss:
  • Almost every enemy, even the weakest ones, has some kind of trick that prevents you from just randomly whacking at them — the common Bokoblins will actively parry your strikes, and the humble Deku Baba can open its maw horizontally or vertically, where striking it at the wrong angle yields only your sword bouncing off its hard exterior with no effect.
  • Enemies that can only be defeated using items that aren't as easy to replenish show up a lot sooner (this now includes shields, since they break).
• Quicksand Sucks: Link can keep from getting sucked into the quicksand of Lanayru Desert if he sprints across it. Also, the Timeshift Stones can change it back into the solid, grass-covered ground it once was Before the Dark Times.
• Random Drop: Aside from the usual rupees and/or hearts that defeated enemies drop, they also sometimes drop monster loot (claws, fangs, etc.) which the player can use to upgrade Link's equipment at Skyloft's bazaar. The New Game Plus gives you all of the loot collected in the first playthrough at the start, allowing you to get better equipment earlier to compensate for the increased difficulty. Some items, like the Gold Ornamental Skull, are especially rare, and unless you have a Medal that makes enemies drop items more frequently and do a lot of grinding, it's unlikely that you'll ever find more than two or three of them throughout a single playthrough.
• Puzzle Box: The Boss Rooms in the dungeons can only be accessed when Link opens the associated boss doors with uniquely shaped artifacts that have to be correctly placed into the keyholes. Doing this will require maneuvering the artifacts and finding the exact position for them to fit in.
• Random Drop Booster: There are several, such as the Treasure Medal which makes gear upgrade items appear more often; the Bug Medal, which is the same as the Treasure Medal, only they are used to increases a potion's potency; and the Cursed Medal, which is a combo of the other two, only with the drawback of being unable to open your Adventure Pouch^note meaning no shield, potions, or boosted ammo capacity until said medal is dropped off at the Item Check. The Treasure and Bug Medals can be obtained in Beedle's Air Shop, while the Cursed Medal is a milestone reward as part of a long side quest.
• Reality Is Unrealistic: Most gamers don't know that the goofy-looking Loftwings Zelda and the citizens of Skyloft ride on are based on real (though smaller but still quite large) birds called shoebills that are native to Sudan, instead chalking it up to them being purely fantastical animals.
• Reality Warping: A Timeshift Stone/Orb can revert everything - and everyone ^note Excluding Link himself, of course. - within its Area of Effect to their past states, and a Goddess Wall can generate a variety of items based on what you draw.
• Real-Time Weapon Change: Accessing your Item menus does not pause the action, so if you need to switch an item in the middle of a fight, you'll have to do so quickly. It's the second game in the series to feature this, and is followed by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in the same.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When Link catches up with Zelda in the Earth Temple, Impa forbids him from speaking to her, sending her away before delivering a caustic speech about Link's shortcomings. She criticizes him for being late and forcing Impa to rescue Zelda herself and openly questions if he's really worthy to be Hylia's chosen hero. Before taking her own leave, she tells Link to try harder if he wants to prove her wrong.
• Recurring Boss:
  • Ghirahim, who first appears as the boss of the game's first temple, and by the end of the game has been fought in three separate battles.
  • The Imprisoned, which is also fought three separate times. Four, if you count the final fight in its true form as Demise.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Ghirahim wears a big black collar/cape cross with crimson patterns and gold trim, though he dismisses it when he's fighting Link — in addition, his body turns from pale white to a sinister crimson-black hue more and more throughout the game. His final boss form is a fire-shaded black Chrome Champion, and his master Demise is shadow-black with flaming hair.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Some enemies, such as Keese, Staldras or Moldarachs, have eyes that turn red just before they attack.
• Red Ones Go Faster: Link's Crimson Loftwing is said to be the fastest in Skyloft.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Link (red Loftwing) and Zelda (blue Loftwing). Also Ghirahim (red/black sword spirit) and Fi (blue sword spirit).
• Redshirt Army: To hold Link off during the ritual to revive Demise, Ghirahim summons one of these. The majority of the Bokoblins are easily killable, not even blocking. Ghirahim even acknowledges that they're all probably gonna die on Link's sword, but he needs enough time to complete the ritual and warns what he'll do if they fail. And almost all of them are red, the weakest versions (and a One-Hit-Point Wonder to your fully-upgraded Master Sword).
• Red String of Fate: Discussed and played for drama: Ghirahim claims that he and Link are bound by a "thread of fate" (this trope exactly in the Japanese script), while pulling his usual antics of invading Link's personal space. Inverted, however, as Ghirahim believes the string means they're destined to fight each other and promises to stain it red with Link's blood.
• Reforged Blade: Played With. The Goddess Sword was never broken, but it isn't strong enough to complete the task it was designed for, so it gets tempered in Sacred Flames and then blessed by Zelda/Hylia, turning it into the Master Sword. Played straighter in the manga, where the sword was originally a divine weapon that needed to be broken and reforged so mortals could use it.
• Regional Redecoration: The Lanayru Desert was originally a lush coastal area, before it dried out over the centuries, which you see when Link activates a Timeshift Stone.
• Reincarnation:
  • In this game, Zelda is the mortal reincarnation of the Goddess Hylia.
  • Ganondorf is implied in the English version to be the incarnation of Demon King Demise's hatred, causing Link and Zelda's successors to an eternal cycle of war between good and evil.
  • The Big Bad's final speech all but explicitly states that "the spirit of the hero" — namely, Link — will eventually reincarnate as all of the other Links depicted in the franchise.
  • Although it is never elaborated or explored, there is a hint that implies Link to be a reincarnation of an older hero from the time of Goddess Hylia; namely Zelda mentioning that the Wing Ceremony was based on an event where Hylia personally delivered the sailcloth to her chosen hero. It is not clear if such an event even occurred given that Fi admits that the stories told in Skyloft are greatly distorted over time. Hyrule Historia includes a 32-page prequel manga that expands and gives its own interpretation of this ancient chosen hero.^note The canonicity of the manga is heavily disputed, with proponents noting that the manga only covers the vague backstory of Skyward Sword instead of the actual game, and opponents noting that it was written by Akira Himekawa, who is known to take several liberties with the source material, and that manga stories are usually non-canon. It should be noted that there's nothing preventing the existence of a previous Link before Skyward Sword if Ocarina of Time's backstory retcon on A Link to the Past was anything to go by.
• Reincarnation Romance: The backstory of the game reveals that Link and Zelda's spirits are eternally bound by the goddess Hylia's promise to her chosen hero. Unfortunately, the Dying Curse of the Demon King Demise means that they are also fated to be plagued by the monsters spawned from him until the end of time.
• Remembered I Could Fly: A pair of Mogmas plot to break into the Earth Temple like a heist movie, but then they ditch that when they remember that they can just dig underground to get to the temple.
• Remixed Level:
  • The game has Silent Realms, where Link is forced to collect 15 tears scattered around the level, which has new obstacles, such as fences blocking off pathways.
  • Faron Woods is revisited many times over the course of the game, and areas such as the woods proper, Sealed Grounds, and Skyview Temple all go through different changes over the course of the game. Eldin Volcano is briefly remixed as well when the Bokoblins imprison Link and the Volcano erupts.
• Rescue Hug: When Zelda wakes up from her thousand-years-old slumber, she falls down, but Link catches her just in time in what looks like a tender hug.
• Rescue Romance: Would be played straight if it wasn't because the two have known each other for years and are pretty clearly crushing on each other before the game starts. Neither of them has declared their feelings by the time the plot starts, though.
• Reset Button: The Sandship dungeon gets destroyed during its respective Boss Battle. Not five minutes later, the robots tell you they already completed repairing it at the shipyard. Justified by one of the robots saying they could only repair it so quickly because of Nayru's flame.
• Resting Recovery: The game primarily uses sleeping in bed as the means of advancing between day and night, but it will also restore Link's health in the process. Curiously, this isn't limited to Link's own bed. You're welcome to sleep in any bed, in any house, that doesn't already have someone sleeping in it.
• Retcon: The Master Sword's origin was subjected to numerous retcons prior to the release of this game. In A Link to the Past, the Master Sword was created by the people of Hyrule as a failsafe weapon in case evil claimed the Triforce, but it was never used at all until ALTTP Link pulled it out to stop Ganon from breaking out of the Dark World. Ocarina of Time retconned it by revealing that its Link had actually wielded the Master Sword to seal Ganon away in Dark World in the first place. All of this got retconned away when Skyward Sword revealed that the Master Sword was once the Goddess Sword wielded by SS Link who also reforged the blade into the Master Sword to destroy Demon King Demise, Ganon's forebearer as Demon King. Even this official backstory could be subjected to future retcons given that Skyward Sword teased at the idea of a predecessor Link before SS Link.
• Reverse Shrapnel: Ghirahim will occasionally summon rhomboid blades in a ring around himself, which then fly toward Link one at a time and must be deflected or dodged. Later, he creates a similar ring around Link himself, who must use the right kind of Spin Attack to take them all out or they'll simultaneously converge on him.
• Rewarding Vandalism: Breaking the chandelier in the Lumpy Pumpkin earns you a heart piece... And a job to pay off the damages you've just incurred. Eventually double-subverted, since completing all the (rather trivial) jobs given by the owner of the Pumpkin earns you another heart piece, and you can't get either one without breaking the original chandelier.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter:
  • The Remlits... during the day, that is. You can make them stay cute at night too through a sidequest.
  • The Kikwis also count.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: The ancient robots. Scrapper has a crush on Fi and Skipper has a crew that loves him and a family.
• Ring Menu: The game has two rings, one for weaponry such as bombs and the bow, the other for miscellaneous equipment; however, the design in this case invokes an Interface Spoiler, as both rings have an identifiable number of slots, unlike in Twilight Princess. You have to physically point the Wiimote at what you want to select.
• Ring-Out Boss:
  • The first phase of the final fight against Ghirahim works like this. You have to knock him back off the edge of several Floating Platforms and initiate a (not so) "Fatal Blow" to deal damage.
  • Also used against Scervo and Dreadfuse, who you have to knock to the edge of their respective planks to damage and eventually defeat.
• Rivals Team Up: This is what eventually happens between Groose and Link.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: The final climax of the game is a Tranquil Fury version of this. After Ghirahim kidnaps Zelda to use her divine soul to revive Demise, he throws all of his minions to stall Link while he's taking care of the ceremony. When Link is done rescuing his Implied Love Interest and Childhood Friend, none of the aforementioned bad guys are counted among the living.
• Robotic Undead: Captain Scervo is a skeleton pirate robot who serves as the miniboss of the Sandship, and fights similarly to the skeletal Stalfos. Why it has an undead look is unexplained in-game, since other robots in the game are far cuter in appearance.
• Robot Girl: Fi is meant to resemble one, particularly with her autotuned voice and habit of using percentages and calculations. That said, she's most likely not an actual robot, nor is she simply a "hologram" projected by the sword.
• Robot Names:
  • The regular ancient robots are said by Fi to be mass-produced, therefor not being assigned a name. They are all part of the LD-301 series. The more important characters among the robots have their own name and are part of other series.
  • Lanayru, the thunder dragon and protector of the ancient robots, comments on your name as being boring and gives you your own series number — LD-*player's name*-16 — which you automatically do not like.
• Robo Speak: The Ancient Robots do not finish a sentence without mechanical sounds such as "vrrt, zoop, vweep". You can even find a sign that says "The grass is dying! Let's keep Lanayru green, Vzzt!"
• Rock of Limitless Water: The town of Skyloft has a magic island spring that floats just above it and supplies the river with an infinite amount of water.
• Rolling Attack: Ampilus in Lanayru Desert roll rapidly into Link and are able to electrocute him if they hit him. A well-timed Shield Bash or tricking them into clashing against a wall will stun them, allowing Link to kill them.
• Romance Sidequest: A minor case. One of the girls in the bazaar will develop feelings for Link, if you play your cards right. It's your choice whether to reject her or not.
• RPG Elements: In addition to upgrades via Item Crafting, this game introduces medals which give various beneficial effects when carried around (overlapping with Inventory Management Puzzle thanks to Link's limited pouch space) and enemies that can inflict Status Effects, such as draining Link's stamina or preventing him from using weapons and items, to the Zelda franchise.
• Rule of Seven: The game combines the trope with Rule of Three, as Link embarks on a journey across the first three dungeons (Skyview Temple, Earth Temple and Lanayru Mining Facility) to find Zelda's whereabouts, then the next three dungeons (Ancient Cistern, Sandship and Fire Sanctuary) to upgrade the Goddess Sword into the Master Sword, and finally the seventh dungeon (Sky Keep) to find the three fragments of the Triforce and destroy The Imprisoned. Seven dungeons in total.
• Rule of Symbolism: The Ancient Cistern has a deep symbolic relation with Eastern folklore, subtly referencing the events of the story The Spider's Thread. To a lesser extent, there is also a religious allegory in the process to enter that dungeon (Link must cure Faron by delivering sacred water to her).
• Rule of Three: A series staple (the whole Triforce mythology; Link, Zelda, and the Big Bad's respective roles).
  • Terrestrial Hyrule has three main areas: Faron Woods, Eldin Volcano, and Lanayru Desert. There's loads of variation within those areas.
  • In Lanayru Desert, you need to activate three power nodes to activate the main generator and access Lanayru Mining Facility.
  • The Triforce is also exemplified by the three main areas of Hyrule corresponding to each part both geographically and thematically. You also have to collect all three pieces of it in the Sky Keep.
  • There are three Sacred Flames you need to collect to power up your sword, and three Silent Realms to visit in order to get an item to get to those flames.
  • You need to find three dragons to teach you parts of a melody.
  • You fight Ghirahim three times. Same for the Imprisoned, though technically you fight him a fourth time after his return to his normal form, Demise.
  • Demise becomes vulnerable to attack after three back-to-back shield bash parries.
• Running Away to Cry: Groose at one point is paralyzed with fear as he watches Link reseal the Imprisoned. He afterward concedes that Link is more of a hero than he is. If Link follows him outside afterward, he can be seen running to an isolated corner to cry over his cowardice and uselessness.
• Sacred Flames: In order for Link to power up the Goddess Sword into the Master Sword, he has to temper it with the three Sacred Flames associated with Din, Nayru, and Farore, which according to Hyrule Historia are manifestations of the Force, the essence of life itself. In addition to overall making it stronger and more powerful, each flame empowers the sword with a unique characteristic. Farore's flame sharpens the blade, Nayru's flame expands Fi's dowsing ability, and Din's flame causes the sword to give off a holy glow that repels certain enemies.
• Saharan Shipwreck: The Sandship, which used to be a seafaring vessel until the seas dried out and filled with sand. At least, until you activate the Timeshift Stone on board, restoring both the ship and the ocean around it to their former glory.
• Same Content, Different Rating: The game was rated M in Australia (M being the equivalent of ESRB's Teen), despite having lower ratings like ESRB E10+ and CERO A everywhere else.
• Sand Is Water: Many rivers of sand flow across Lanayru Desert, and it's even justified because you're using crystals that revert their surroundings to their past state. Most of the desert was once an ocean. It's also exemplified in the Lanayru Sand Sea, where the effect of the Timeshift Stone in Skipper's boat transforms the vast ocean of sand into water as you move along. Played straight, however, with a scorpion the size of a bus that can instantly burrow itself in the sand and move around, which you unbury with a reverse vacuum cleaner.
• Save Point: The game features bird statues that serve as save points. The statues also double as warp points between Hyrule and Skyloft or as Escape Ropes in dungeons.
• Scary Scorpions: Moldarach is a positively humongous scorpion that dwells in the sands of the Lanayru Mining Facility's rotunda. Its most notable features are the eyes that are within its pincers. Another is fought as a Degraded Boss in the Lanayru Shipyard later in the game.
• Scary Stinging Swarm: Deku Hornets and their nests can be found in Faron Woods. If they aren't caught or chased away with the bug net, they swarm around Link and sting him. Their nests can be shot down with a slingshot, or grabbed with the Beetle and dropped on enemies.
• Scenery as You Go: Some sections of the Lanayru Mining Facility qualify, with Timeshift Stones in moving minecarts restoring platforms from the past as it rolls along. The game even takes it that one extra step with ancient enemies who come back to life whenever a Timeshift Stone passes by. Taken further in Lanayru Gorge, which demands platforming, combat, climbing, grappling, and switch-activating as you go. All in one run.
• Scenery Porn:
  • Just take a gander at this.◊ It helps that the visual style was directly based on the paintings of Paul Cézanne. As shown on the E3 demo, the player can spend a good time just admiring the scenery from above thanks to the Beetle item.
  • This presentation video showcases that, not only is the world freaking huge, it's also impossibly gorgeous.
  • The effect is enhanced by a noticeable filter in the background, which makes things far into the distance look like an impressionist painting. It is beautiful.
  • The scenery is also much more detailed and interactive. For example, you can stab pumpkins and fling them at other denizens of Skyloft.
  • There are a handful of seats that, when used, the camera will zoom out and let the player simply look at the scenery. If an NPC is standing nearby, he'll usually talk to Link in the meantime.
  • The game's aesthetic design is so impressive that a fan can meticulously analyze a dungeon (spoiler warning) and point out the allegory to a 1918 Japanese short story by visual presentation alone.
• Schizo Tech: And unlike previous titles, the tech is contemporary and not only in ruins. Special mention goes to the wooden sailship with electric generators and a cloaking device.
• Schmuck Bait:
  • In the Ancient Cistern, there are Silver Rupees in the Buddha statue's palms. Trying to get them causes the hands to close on you. A lesson in greed from the Buddha, perhaps? You can easily snag these, however, through the use of the spin maneuver.
  • When you first enter the Lumpy Pumpkin, you see a nice shiny chandelier with an even shinier Heart Piece on it (as well as a couple of Rupees). Yet there are multiple warnings not to shake stuff lest you jar the thing loose. If you do, you get the Heart Piece and the Rupees, but also trigger a multi-stage sidequest where you must do odd jobs around the place to compensate the owner for the vandalism.
  • In the Thrill Digger area, you can shoot Rupee ore to yield Rupees. If you shoot the black Rupee ore, you get Rupoors instead.
• School Setting Simulation: The game features the Knight Academy, which is located in Skyloft. Being a boarding school, it serves as Link's home during the prologue of the game, though he has to return there at key points during the course of the adventure. It includes a gym for him to practice with his sword, and some sidequests take place there as well.
• Schrödinger's Gun: Link must revisit each of the previous areas in order to collect the parts of the Song of the Hero. These can be done in any order, but no matter what, you always reach Eldin Volcano right as it erupts and Faron Woods right before the Imprisoned makes its third jailbreak and after the Water Dragon floods it.
• Scolded for Not Buying: If you leave Beedle's shop without buying anything, he will activate the trap door to kick you out. There's a twist though, if you sleep in his bed until morning first, he won't kick you out when you try to leave.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Ghirahim's master is "The Imprisoned" (aka the Demon King), which breaks out of its can at certain points throughout the game and Link is required to seal it back in.
• Sealed Evil in a Duel:
  • Zelda, after traveling into the past shortly after Hylia's battle with Demise, voluntarily seals herself in a crystal to maintain the seal imprisoning him. Her slumber in the crystal lasts thousands of years until the present day, when she finally awakens after Link destroys Demise for good.
  • The Master Sword, the iconic weapon of the series, is this. The sword's spirit Fi takes it upon herself to seal Demise's soul within herself. In the English version, Demise manages one last parting shot by placing a curse on Link and Zelda that dooms them to face an incarnation of his hatred whenever they are reincarnated, which is implied to be the series Big Bad Ganon.
• Sea of Sand: The Lanayru region is a massive desert mostly covered in quicksand where Link will rapidly sink if he doesn't keep moving. the Lanayru Sand Sea is even worse, to the extent that it can't be safely crossed on foot, and instead must be traversed with a specially-equipped speedboat.
• Second Hour Superpower: Once you finish the tutorial and get used to a regular sword, the game gives you the Goddess Sword and its Skyward Strike ability.
• Second Place Is for Winners: There is a Boss Rush challenge pitting you against all bosses you've fought up to the point by which you unlock it (excluding Levias for technical reasons, but including a Multi-Mook Melee sequence from the endgame in case it was unlocked prior) in the main storyline, which you can quit after defeating any of them. Quitting after winning 4 boss battles nets the player a Piece of Heart, while quitting after winning 8 nets the player the classic Hylian Shield, which is unbreakable (it averts the Breakable Weapons trope, unlike the other shields) and thus the best prize in that minigame, and much more valuable than whichever prize you get afterwards, including the 9900 Rupees you get in the New Game Plus for winning all 11 battles plus the Horde sequence in-between (though you can just go through the challenge again with your new shield and get that, too).
• Self-Healing Phlebotinum: The Sacred Shield and its upgrades regenerates its durability meter over time.
• Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains: The heroic Link, Zelda and Groose are modest in their choice of clothing. In contrast the main villain removes his cape before his fights, and likes showing off his body. Furthermore, the final boss wears nothing but something that looks like a sarong.
• Sequel Logo in Ruins: Or rather, prequel. The game's logo has pristine font, but behind it is the Hylian Crest and Triforce covered in foliage and moss, a reflection of the fact that this game takes place After the End following Demise's ravaging of the surface world.
• Sequence Breaking: This game is rife with them.
  • The Back-in-Time glitch ^note A recurring glitch since the GC Zelda outings, enabling the player to access game areas in the Title Sequence, and with SS, to save and load at the same time to get spawned in usually out-of-bounds... or otherwise interesting areas. is back.
  • Another glitch that can be performed with Back-in-Time, Reverse Bitmagic, allows the player to trigger certain scene "flags" in Skyloft during BiT and apply them to the currently-loaded area in a save file. The example allows you to skip getting the first key in the Ancient Cistern, while more recently, bits have been found that allow you to skip the Sand Sea, or that allow you to go to the various Silent Realms during your first visit to their respective areas. The various RBM techniques discovered shaved more than two hours off of the game's any% world record.
  • One can easily skip 99% of the Zombie Basement of the Ancient Cistern dungeon, via various tricks, to get to the rope leading to the way out of this floor, mere seconds after entering it from the "elevator": a glitch back-flip, getting knocked on the top of the wall, getting thrusted by an enemy attack, or while attempting a fatal blow.
  • Better yet, you can clip through walls thanks to your trusty clawshot physics. It has been used by someone to clip through the floor of a room within one of the Fire dungeons, then again clipping through lava to the exit.
  • You can skip the first section of the Levias boss fight by dropping a bomb behind where Bilocyte spawns on Levias' back; while it doesn't damage him, it causes him to react to the failed attack and starts his first boss form. The catch? Bilocyte is now invisible.
• Sequential Boss: With the exception of Scaldera and the Imprisoned, every boss has two phases. The miniboss Stalmaster has two as well (it only uses two arms in the first, and all four of them in the second). As a special case, Ghirahim in his third and final fight has three phases: One where he has to confronted in Ring-Out Boss form, followed by one where he uses revamped versions of his classic attacks (plus a new one that can be deflected in Tennis Boss form), and finally one where Link has to shatter his enlarged weapon to expose his weak point.
• Serrated Blade of Pain: The Final Boss uses a dark copy of the Master Sword with a black-colored, serrated blade.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: How Beedle talks when not running his shop.
• Set Piece Puzzle: The game takes it further by having several "alternate interface" puzzles. Most of them involve the Boss Keys, which need to be rotated a certain way before they can open the door to the boss. One of them combines this with the usual Dungeon Crawling by having you rearrange the whole dungeon like a sliding puzzle.
• Sex Is Violence: Ghirahim, whose dialogue, sound effects, and battles strongly evoke this trope for him. He licks his lips before summoning his sword and also licks the blade at times.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: The third arc of the game involves seeking out the Triforce for the purpose of using it to destroy Demise. Once all that is accomplished, Ghirahim pops in, takes a time portal back into the past, and resurrects Demise there, thus forcing you to fight him the traditional way and rendering to the entire third arc completely pointless.
• Shaped Like Itself: In-universe. Fledge gives you a gift. He helpfully explains, "It's an Adventure Pouch. It's for... adventures."
• Shield Bash: One of Link's moves to counter a blow, also able to expose the enemy to attack or reflect projectiles at the attacker.
• Shield-Bearing Mook: The game gives these to the huge Moblins; one with a wooden, one with a banded shield. The ones with wooden shields can be chopped up or blown out of the Moblin's hand, but the only recourse for the banded shields is to climb them and jump over. For that matter, thanks to the MotionPlus based combat, nearly all enemies have ways to defend themselves from your attacks. Even the lowly Bokoblins are surprisingly able at blocking your sword. Each enemy also has different ways of getting past its defenses.
• Shielded Core Boss:
  • The Koloktos battle consists of repeatedly stripping away the colossus's arms to expose its central core, which is the only part that's vulnerble. In its second phase, it ups the ante by closing a gate over the spot, forcing you to pick up one of its fallen BFSs to smash through the barrier and deal damage.
  • Ghirahim uses this tactic in in his final battle. Since the rest of his body is now impervious to damage, you destroy the armor surrounding his core with Fatal Blows. Once he summons a large claymore as his weapon, the only way to finish him off is to chip away and shatter his weapon with repeated sword strikes, then deliver a thrust attack to his exposed core. Get thrown off rhythm and Ghirahim will simply repair the blade with a snap of his fingers.
• Shifting Sand Land: Lanayru Desert (and by extension any area attached to it) in the present. When a Timeshift Stone is activated, the current area regresses into its past version, becoming Eternal Engine. Even in its scorched present time, there are enemies that attack Link with electricity, so it's advised not to come here with the Iron Shield.
• Ship Level: The Sandship that protects Nayru's Flame is this and a Ghost Ship, though not simultaneously. The 'ghost ship' parts involve the fact that several bits of the ship are smothered in quicksand, It regresses into a standard Ship Level when the Timeshift Stone is tripped - complete with Technoblin crew.
• Ship Tease:
  • The developers really push for Link/Zelda in this game, although the No Hugging, No Kissing makes it a little bit frustrating too.
  • Shortly before the game was released, they drove the point home with a trailer officially entitled as the romance trailer.
• Shock and Awe:
  • Several enemies in the Lanayru region use electricity-based attacks. Even one variation of the Bokoblin, the Technoblin, uses an electroshock weapon similar to a stun baton. They even electrocute you if they block your swings. The prevalence of electrical attacks means that for the first time in the series, there are situations where the wooden shield is preferable to the traditionally superior iron shield, as the former does not conduct electricity. (Of course, once it's available and you can afford it, the Sacred Shield family resists both fire and electricity and throws in curse resistance and gradual auto-repair to boot, rendering both of the other families of shield obsolete — as long as you don't actually break it, because it's not as durable. And the Wooden Shield can still lodge Bokoblin arrows for you to use yourself, which the other shields can't.) Also, the debut of Thunder Keese means that Keese are now yet another example of Fire, Ice, Lightning, although Ice Keese don't actually appear in this game.
  • Demon King Demise electrifies his sword and can use electrical attacks. So can you when fighting him.
• Shockwave Stomp: The Imprisoned is so big and powerful that it does this simply by walking casually.
• Shout-Out:
  • The ball segment in the Earth Temple plays out almost exactly like those from Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2, while the collection of the fragments of the star-shaped key that opens said dungeon is portrayed in a similar way the Star Fragments are in the aforementioned Galaxy games. In fact, reviewers have noted that the game has many stylistic similarities with those games in terms of level design and music, though the ball is the most explicit tie.
  • Later in the same dungeon, Link gets chased down a corridor by a boulder.
  • The game is loaded with references and similar mechanics to Nintendo's other franchises, from Super Mario Bros. (The Gust Bellows is a wind-based version of FLUDD, the aforementioned ball segments and Star-like key fragments, badge-like items that alter the player character) to Metroid (The dial-turning puzzles resemble similar ones in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, the use of a similar checkpoint system, existing areas become more open as you gain new items, the Dark World having a surreal remix of the current area's theme like in the Dark Aether areas in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes) to even Wii Sports Resort (The controls for many of the items, including the sword, were taken from that game, with modifications to suit the gameplay).
  • The fourth dungeon, the Ancient Cistern, is based on a Japanese story, "The Spider's Thread". Read the plot summary here.
  • Whenever an enemy is defeated or Link squashes a bug, a thin, ghostly shape will float up into the air and fade away.
  • The potion shop owners, Bertie and Luv, have a baby that looks a lot like Captain Olimar.
  • Koji Kitagawa, one of the developers of Skyward Sword, said in an Iwata Asks interview that the Ancient Robots were modeled after the Dogu clay figurines, a commonplace treasure from the Jomon period of Japan.
  • The Loftwings were modeled after shoebill birds. Also, Link's Loftwing shares the colors of the Dyna Blade.
  • The way that Link swings his sword around the eye in Skyview Temple to make it dizzy is similar to how you defeat Mr. I in Super Mario 64.
  • In the lead-up to the fight with Tentalus, Link has to get to the top of the ship, up a series of ramps, with barrels coming down the other way. It's a nice callback to Nintendo's early history.
  • When Link initially meets Lanayru the Thunder Dragon, he thinks his name is boring and due to hanging out with robots too long, half-jokingly wants to call him LD-Link-16. Fittingly enough, if you count Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons as two separate games, this Link is indeed the 16th.
  • Skipper's room contains a portrait which recreates an iconic scene from James Cameron's Titanic (1997).
  • Gratitude Crystals have the same shape as the Star Bits from Super Mario Galaxy (though only orange, rather than multiple colors). In turn, the Star Bits are shaped after the konpeito candy, which are popular in Japan.
  • Pipit's name in the German version is Cucco. Which is a clever Shout-Out of the Zelda series to itself, since Cuccos have always been translated as 'chickens' before.
• Sickly Green Glow: Cursed Bokoblins have one eye that gives off a weird green glow, while the other is sunken.
• Sidetrack Bonus: The game's dowsing feature makes it easy to decide whether to move forward and advance the plot or explore sidepaths. But most of these offshoots just lead to a Door to Before.
• Sinister Scimitar: The boss Koloktos, a Multi-Armed and Dangerous ancient automaton, begins the battle fighting barehanded (at most, throwing ranged chakrams), but in the second half wields a giant scimitar in each hand. Link has to use the Whip to tear apart its limbs, and once it drops one of its scimitars, it turns out Link can just barely carry it and swing it around, and doesn't Koloktos itself look like a nice target?
• SkeleBot 9000: Scervo and Dreadfuse are robot pirates who, through a combination of humanoid frames and extensive weathering, look like animated skeletons.
• The Sky Is an Ocean: Downplayed; sky exploration is similar to exploring the Great Sea from The Wind Waker, but height actually matters when trying to get to the islands.
• Sliding Scale of Content Density vs. Width: Eiji Aonuma says that the game was deliberately made to be Denser in contrast with the Wider approach taken with Twilight Princess.
• The Slow Path: A late-coming plot twist in the game (Zelda has to be encapsulated in a crystal for some thousand years to prevent Demise from reviving) would have had a lot more emotional impact if a) she hadn't been "sleeping" the whole time or b) Link couldn't just step through the Gate of Time to the present. Played straight with Impa/the Old Woman though.
• Small, Secluded World: Skyloft. There's some sort of barrier between it and Hyrule preventing contact between them. Link uses the Goddess Sword to break through it during his adventure.
• Smashing Survival: When Moldarach grabs you, you have to shake the Wiimote and Nunchuck up and down to simulate Link smashing his sword and shield against the giant claw.
• Smells Sexy: An innocent variant can be found regarding the shawl Zelda made for Link to use in the goddess ceremony. The regular text describes and explains the purpose of the garment; then, in smaller letters (as though indicating a quieter voice), it adds, "...it smells nice too."
• Soft Reboot: While billed as a Prequel to the whole series by virtue of it being the Master Sword's origin, the game's story is ultimately closer to this rather than a traditional prequel. The game is still in continuity with the rest of the series, but much of the established lore of the series is jettisoned and/or rewritten with new revelations such as the significance of Hylia and her conflict with the Demon Tribe. Even the Master Sword's origin is established to be forged by Link alone as opposed to any sages as described by previous games. Also, many of the established races like the Zora, Gorons, and Koroks are absent or heavily downplayed in favor of introducing new ones in their place like the Parella, Mogma, and Kikwi.
• Solve the Soup Cans: Hand-Waved. Since the dungeons are a test of the hero's worth placed by the goddesses, the puzzles may not make any sense, but they are still part of the test.
• Some Dexterity Required: The motion controls get this complaint from quite a few players, especially because many enemies require Link to swing his sword from specific angles to defeat them.
• So Near, Yet So Far:
  • The very first area you visit upon completing the tutorial and reaching the surface is not only the prison for the big bad, but also right next to the place where Zelda has been sleeping for thousands of years waiting for you to defeat him. Unfortunately for you, to claim the MacGuffin you'll use to defeat the Big Bad and make it safe for Zelda to wake up, you must first travel across the surface and undergo numerous trials to strengthen yourself and prove yourself worthy to use it, with this location serving as a frequent destination. Then, your success triggers a scene when The Dragon comes Back for the Finale and the location is revealed as the site of one more boss battle before becoming the gateway to the Final Boss (albeit in the distant past).
  • The legendary, wish-granting Triforce is hidden on the Hub City of Skyloft, directly beneath the area where you retrieve the Goddess Sword, your main weapon, at the very beginning of the game. And numerous other areas have plot-relevant subsections that will have you making repeat visits. Though, again, you won't get the Plot Coupons you need to access them until you've proven yourself.
• Songs in the Key of Lock: The "Ballad of the Goddess", when played with the Goddess Harp, activates and opens the Gate of Time in Faron Province. The following three melodies open the entrance spot to the Silent Realm areas for the mainlands of the surface, tailored for the chosen hero. The last melody ("Song of the Hero") grants access to the Silent Realm area of Skyloft and also holds the key to unlock the final dungeon in the game.
• Songs in the Key of Panic: The Silent Realms are initially serene, but set a toe beyond the starting point or run out the timer on your Tears of Light gauge, and the visuals turn hellish, invincible One-Hit Kill enemies relentlessly chase you down, and THIS plays. It chocks up to "Run or Die" in song form.
• Speaking Simlish: Here and there, but especially apparent with Fi.
• Spell My Name With An S: Fi fluctuated between "Phi" and its current name (spelled closer to "Fie") quite frequently until Word of God said it was Fi.
• Sphere Factor: Link must knock out the eye of a giant statue and use it to traverse a sea of lava in the second dungeon.
• Spin Attack: Link's Giant Flyer steed learns a Spin Attack late in the game. It lasts slightly longer and does more damage, but doesn't seem significantly different from its normal attack aside from that. Link can power up his own Spin Attack by charging his Sword Beam, then using a spin rather than a normal slash.
• Spirit World: The Silent Realms are blue versions of sections of the surface where Link's disembodied spirit must pass a trial.
• Spoiler Cover: The game's cover has Link holding the Master Sword. "Link gets the Master Sword at some point" ordinarly wouldn't be much of a spoiler, but Fi is tied to the Goddess Sword, and it would be awkward to suddenly cast her aside when the Master Sword enters the story. Instead, the Goddess Sword becomes the Master Sword.
• Sprint Meter: Holding down the A button allows Link to sprint (including a short distance up walls). The same meter serves other purposes, such as when climbing vines, shimmying across ledges, carrying heavy stuff, performing Spin Attacks, or keeping out of quicksand. Drain it to nothing and watch Link stagger slowly forward, unable to take other actions for several seconds.
• Stab the Sky: It is an actual gameplay mechanic this time around; it charges energy into Link's sword for extra damage, executing Sword Beams and other techniques.
• Stalked by the Bell: In the Silent Realm trials, collecting Spirit Tears gives you only 90 seconds before the Guardians start chasing you again. The flower on the upper-left corner of the screen serves as your timer, wilting one petal at a time.
• Star-Shaped Coupon: A more minor example occurs with the key that grants access to the second dungeon. It is divided into five fragments that have to be retrieved, not unlike the Launch Star fragments in Super Mario Galaxy.
• Stealth-Based Mission:
  • The third trip to Eldin Volcano. Link has to retrieve his stolen items while sneaking through the whole main area without being sighted by the Bokoblins (since he's entirely unarmed).
  • The Silent Realm segments play similarly to the ones in Phantom Hourglass — gather MacGuffins and avoid invincible enemies. Getting a MacGuffin puts the Guardians into a sleep mode for 90 seconds, and if you're quick enough you can grab all of them without letting the timer end, but you have to avoid spotlight enemies that will wake them up if they spot you while doing it.
• Stealth Pun: When approaching the Fire Sanctuary, there are three points where vertical jets of flame block your path, until you turn them off. In other words, your access is being blocked by fire walls.
• Stock Beehive: In this game, beehives are ovoid objects composed of overlapping scale-like plates, and with multiple small holes for their inhabits to enter and leave through. Notably, their inhabitants are once again referred to as hornets.
• Stone Wall: Moblins just stand there and take an absurd number of hits on their blubbery belly/butt before keeling over. They don't even flinch when you hit them.
• Storm of Blades: One of the NA commercials involves this trope.
• Suave Sabre: Subverted Trope with the villain Ghirahim. He's a stylish, classy-acting demon who wields a saber in battle, but turns out to be very Ax-Crazy and as the game goes on, stays just a hair away from completely losing it. In the final battle, he ditches his saber for a two-handed claymore to hack with.
• Subliminal Seduction: The main theme, "The Ballad of the Goddess", is "Zelda's Lullaby" in reverse. Makes sense, as Hylia and Zelda are one and the same. Similarly, the theme of the second phase of the fight against the Final Boss in reverse sounds akin to Ganondorf's.
• Suit Up of Destiny: Link dons the iconic green tunic and pants when sent out to go save Zelda. The headmaster says it was this year's version of the Knight uniform and mentions how good the color suits Link.
• Supernatural Sealing: Link must seal The Imprisoned about three times over the course of the game using the sealing spike embedded in its head in tandem with Skyward Strikes from the Goddess/Master Sword, the seals getting more complex as the game goes on.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Several tropes from previous games are subverted here, particularly where they rely on Violation of Common Sense. In particular, in this game Link can't get away with rampant larceny and vandalism; he gets chewed out for destroying the Lumpy Pumpkin's chandelier and has to pay for its replacement, and at least one NPC will make Link pay her if he breaks her dishes.
• Surveillance Drone: The Sentrobes, which are flying security cameras with a short-range projectile launcher and the ability to launch self-propelled bombs with a timed fuse.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Despite the game taking place in a Zelda world eons before it can get familiar, it still manages to feel that way with some of its characters.
  • The Kikwi tribe is a similar quirky childlike plant-person tribe to the Koroks from The Wind Waker.
  • The one-eyed scorpion Arachas and the boss Moldarachs are very similar to the recurring Gohma enemies and bosses throughout the series, being arachnid monsters and their spawn with ocular weak points.
  • Demise, the Demon King, bears something of a resemblance to Ganondorf, the King of Evil. The English version implies that this is because Ganondorf is the incarnation of Demise's hatred upon future generations of Hyrule.
  • Rupin, the general store owner at the bazaar, strongly resembles the Happy Mask Salesman in both appearance and demeanor.
• Suspicious Videogame Generosity: In the Shipyard, an area with just 2 enemies, after going through what basically amounts to a minigame, you suddenly find a Save Point in front of seemingly nondescript room. So naturally, you get suspicious. So you go through the door and surprise! Moldarach is back!
• Swallowed Whole: The Imprisoned will do this to the Old Woman and shortly after, Zelda herself, if you don't stop it in time when it's trying to get to the Temple.
• Sword Beam: The first in a 3D home console Zelda game since Fierce Deity Link in Majora's Mask, dubbed the "Skyward Strike" (because you have to Stab the Sky to charge it up). It can deliver circular cutting waves matching whichever direction the player swings the sword, or a bullet of energy from a thrust attack.
• Sword Fight: While Link's been using a sword in every game, this game puts special focus on his actual skill with the blade beyond "use an item to make him vulnerable, then swing away," because of the improved WiiMotionPlus controls. Several bosses and Elite Mooks exist mainly to showcase this aspect of the game. It helps that nearly every aiming-based item available to you is less than automatic in Z-targeting mode (it still locks on to enemies, but still uses manual aiming, similar to Metroid Prime.).
• Sword of Plot Advancement: The Goddess Sword, which marks Link as Hylia's chosen hero and needs to be powered up in Sacred Flames to open the Gate of Time and finally reach Zelda. It becomes the Master Sword in the process, and her blessing fully transforms it into the iconic weapon used throughout the rest of the franchise.
• Sword Plant: Link does this to enter the Silent Realms. The Ending Blow retains the ability of stabbing enemies downward first seen in Twilight Princess, and is also needed to inflict damage to Ghirahim in his final rematch (though he'll still be alive after three sword plants, as he dies in a different way later), as well as Demise at the end of the final battle.
• Symbol Drawing Interface: You finish every fight with the Imprisoned by drawing a symbol with your sword in order to reseal it.

T-Z

• Tactical Suicide Boss: Mostly averted, but there are a few cases, the most notable being Koloktos, who would be unbeatable if he never used attacks that would leave his arms temporarily stuck in the ground, and thus vulnerable to the whip.
• Tagline: "The Birth of the Legend."
• Take Your Time:
  • Justified; the final boss gives Link a chance to get ready to face him, combined with the fact that you're in the past and leaving involves time travel, so paradoxes are involved to keep him from losing his patience and deciding you're not coming. Played straight in most other cases.
  • In a deconstructed example, no matter how fast you make it through the Eldin Volcano area, Impa will berate you for being too slow to save Zelda on your own. Even knowing that you can't get out of the scolding, you still feel bad if you know you took a lot of time just to make sure you got every treasure, Goddess Cube, and Rupee.
• Targeted Human Sacrifice: The reason that Ghirahim is so obsessed with Zelda is because he needs her (or more accurately her soul) to resurrect Demise.
• Tears of Joy:
  • Groose sheds these twice: the first time when Link informs him that Zelda is on the Surface, but she's okay. The second time when Zelda wakes up from her thousand-year sleep, but this time he full-on blubbers like a baby.
  • Zelda cries tears of joy after Demise is defeated.
• Tech-Demo Game: A common accusation thrown at the game is that it's more of a glorified "test run" of the controls. This is supported by the confirmation that the Wii U installment was intended to use this game's control scheme, plus Nintendo stating that the development period would be shorter than Skyward Sword.^note In the end, the developers opted to have the Wii U game take advantage of the Wii U controller instead and delay the game from its original year of release, prolonging the period to one comparable to that of Skyward Sword. Note that Wii Sports Resort was already functionally a tech demo for Skyward Sword. Eiji Aonuma admitted that they weren't even sure how to incorporate Wii motion swordplay until the development of Resort, which did test runs for the swordplay, archery, and Loftwing flight.
• Teleport Spam: Ghirahim warps between spots during battle; however, because he's going easy on you in the first fight, he'll stand around looking smug for a few seconds before attacking. In later fights, he seems to sacrifice speed for strength and doesn't teleport as often.
• Tennis Boss: A useful tactic in some of the fights with Ghirahim, not surprisingly. The boss Bilocyte and the ubiquitous Octoroks can only be defeated by playing tennis with them.
• Terminator Twosome: Happens towards the very end of the game, where Link and Groose follow Ghirahim back in time in order to both save Zelda and prevent the resurrection of the Demon King Demise.
• Textile Work Is Feminine: The sailcloth that Link uses throughout the game was sewn by Zelda. Exploring her room also shows that she knows how to knit.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: Or, to be a bit more eloquent, "That Makes Me Feel Furious! Outraged! Sick With Anger!" Ghirahim says this during his first conversation with Link.
• Thematic Sequel Logo Change: The logo contains a battered and grown over Goddess Crest and Triforce, representing the prominence of the Goddess Hylia in this game, and the fact that it takes place after Demise's scouring of the surface world before being defeated and sealed by the Goddess.
• Theme-and-Variations Soundtrack: The themes heard in the four mainlands (Skyloft, Faron Woods, Eldin Volcano, Lanayru Desert) are remixed into slower, lower-pitch versions in the Silent Realm trials.
• Theme Music Withholding: The game withholds the series' main theme until it is revealed that the "Song of the Hero" that you are compiling from the dragons is a variation of it once it is complete. Furthermore, Zelda's Lullaby doesn't get used for Zelda's scenes until a late-game cutscene involving her.
• Theme Naming: While most of the Skyloftians' names are based on birds, the Mogmas have names that are based off of precious metals and minerals and the Kikwis are named after various kinds of tea.
• Theme Song Reveal: The chorus of "Ballad of the Goddess" is actually the Leitmotif for another character played in reverse, revealing that this game's Zelda — and all other Zeldas — are reincarnations of the goddess Hylia.
• There Are No Bedsheets: Link simply flops on top of a bed when he sleeps in one (fully clothed), regardless of whether or not they have sheets.
• Those Two Guys: The two Mogmas (Ledd and Cobal) Link meets the first time he goes to Eldin Volcano show up repeatedly around the area.
• Three-Point Landing: Link does this from long falls, like going to the ground from the sky, or entering Skyloft.
• The Three Trials:
  • On Zelda's side, she has to visit three regions in the surface (the first two to purify herself in sacred springs, and the third to activate and enter Lanayru's Gate of Time) in order to prepare her journey to the past and prevent the return of Demon King Demise. Those three places happen to be located at the end of dungeons, but Link simply goes through them to try to meet Zelda, unaware that she has to do her destined part like Link has to do his.
  • On Link's side, there are the three first Silent Realms to obtain Hylia's sacred tools, tied to the three Sacred Flames to empower the Goddess Sword and upgrade it into the Master Sword. Afterwards, Link has to meet the three Dragons to assemble a song that unlocks the access to another Silent Realm and eventually the whereabouts of the Triforce.
• Thriving Ghost Town: Skyloft is a Thriving Ghost World with one floating island maybe 300 feet across and a few small rocks, with a total sustainable population of 41. And unlike previous Zelda games, where there were several small towns within travel distance in a larger world, Skyloft has no contact or means of travel to anywhere else. Marrying your twice-removed cousin is about the best you can hope for in this world.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: The first boss is with Demon Lord Ghirahim. He can do a Bare-Handed Blade Block on your sword, and if you don't get it out of his hands in time, he takes it for himself and starts swinging it at you. Oh, you get it back quickly, but not without him throwing it at you first. Throwing your opponent's sword always works, too.
• Tightrope Walking: You can walk across ropes. So can your enemies, but they move slower.
• Timed Mission: Every battle with the Imprisoned is a Timed Mission, with the distance from the Sealed Temple serving as the timer. You can add time to the clock by knocking the Imprisoned over or nailing it with a Groosenator charge. It can take time off the clock by dashing forward, climbing along the walls and cliffs, or flying. Each of those is progressively worse, and it is just as bad as it sounds. The Imprisoned is the sealed form of Demon King Demise, and he needs to eat Hylia's soul to reclaim his true form — this, of course, will cause The End of the World as We Know It outside of a plot-dictated event. All this is important as, after the second round, you learn that Zelda sealed herself inside the temple to keep the Imprisoned bound, and since she's the reincarnation of Hylia...
• Time-Limit Boss: Whenever the Imprisoned breaks free, you have to defeat it before it reaches the top of the pit. There's even a meter onscreen showing how far it has left to go.
• Time Rewind Mechanic: When Link hits a Timeshift Stone, its surroundings will have its spacetime regressed to an earlier state. Where sand and scorched land is in the present, there will now be grass from the past; where lifeless bodies are, there will now be resurrected Ancient Robots or Technoblins. Link has to navigate through Lanayru Desert and all its associated areas (including dungeons) by taking advantage of these stones, as there are parts that are blocked off in the past but not in the present and vice versa, and switching between both states will prove essential to avoid getting stuck.
• Time Travel: The game heavily features this mechanic in the Lanayru area: By hitting Timeshift Stones, Link can return an area in a certain radius from the stone to how it was in the past, also reviving any creatures whose remains lie in the area. So basically you can travel through time by walking into or out of the area of effect. Time travel also plays a substantial role in the main story; among other things, the finale take place ages before most of the characters were even born, and Impa is escorting Zelda around the surface at the exact same time her older self is continuing to monitor the Imprisoned.
• Time Trial: The Lightning Round incorporates a time trial for both the bosses fought, and Silent Realm trials played. In the former, time is merely a Self-Imposed Challenge, while in the latter the reward you get does depend on how quickly you can beat a trial.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: As with most series that have time travel, this one isn't without some confusion.
  • Midway through the game, Zelda travels back in time to reinforce the seal against the evil Demise. She enters a crystal to protect herself, which is visible through the doors in the Sealed Temple back in the present...though it is also visible before Zelda goes back in time, suggesting a Stable Time Loop that has already taken effect, even though it hasn't. And after Link wakes her in the present, Link has to pursue Ghirahim and Zelda back in time, with Ghirahim swearing to revive Demise in the past instead, with his defeat taking place then, which would interfere with the events that caused Zelda to go back in time in the first place.
  • Timeshift Stones create a limited field that restores an area to a past time state within it. Enemies cannot cross between the timeshift field and the present, either disappearing if they're from the present or turning into bones or scrap if they're from the past. However, Link can travel through the timeshift areas without any effects.
• Toggling Setpiece Puzzle: This type of puzzle is often brought up in certain areas of Lanayru Desert (including dungeon rooms) due to the Timeshift Stones. In the present time, some areas may be difficult to run across due to the quicksand, and certain doors may be sealed shut due to thorny wires. When a Timeshift Stone is hit, the surrounding area regresses dimensionally to the past time, getting rid of the quicksand in favor of solid ground as well as removing the thorny wires. But as a tradeoff, other parts may now be obstructed by electric fences (which makes sense, since reviving the decayed machinery will also bring back the protection measures), as well as pillars of solid ground that had eroded or crumbled prior to the present. As the game progresses, Link has to frequently interact with both eras to overcome the obstacles present in each, and sometimes make the Timeshift Stone (or even a carriable Timeshift Orb) move so he can remove any incoming obstacle as he and the Timeshift object move forward.
• Token Aquatic Race: The jellyfish-like Parella who inhabit Lake Faron are the only aquatic race in the game, and they were designed to look like primitive versions of the series-staple Zoras.
• Tomorrowland: The Lanayru Mining Facility is ridiculously advanced compared to the rest of the settings, being rife with conveyor belts, electric barriers and robotic enemies. Remember, this is chronologically the first game of the entire franchise, and the functional days of the area were thousands of years prior to the game and can only be seen by warping time.
• Too Awesome to Use: You can buy a certain potion that makes you take half damage for a while. You can also upgrade it to make you invulnerable instead. The period during which the potion lasts is rather long, and unlike the attack-boosting soup/potions from Wind Waker and Twilight Princess it is not canceled after being hit once. Once you get a certain other item, the potion duration is further increased. So you got an item that makes you invincible for a few minutes? Nope, won't use it despite its power, maybe because it ironically enough it's too good and feels a bit cheap.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Beedle, compared to previous incarnations. He lies about increasing the price of every pouch upgrade you buy, and if you look at items without buying anything, he literally sends you through a trap door.^*(Though it won't if you sleep in his bed until morning first.) Also, his membership system from previous games is gone. A strange case in that this is chronologically supposed to be one of the oldest incarnations, which could possibly mean his successors Took a Level in Kindness.
• To the Pain: Ghirahim just loves describing to Link in detail just how he will torture and kill him.
• Trauma Inn: Sleeping in beds will restore your hearts, although it's about the least efficient way to do so; there are only beds in houses owned by NPCs in the sky. Sitting down and resting regenerates your health, and seats can be found on the surface.
• Tree Trunk Tour: There is a large tree in Faron Woods, with a hollow section that must be entered in order to reach the top. Besides more common overworld foes, Link will have to fight his way through giant hornets, bat-like Keese and wall-creeping spiders.
• Trick Boss: Levias, who is revealed to be controlled by another creature known as Bilocyte. It helps that both have Boss Subtitles.
• Tricked-Out Gloves: The Digging Mitts and Mogma Mitts used for digging. Where the former can only unearth buried items, the latter allows Link to enter underground tunnels.
• Trick Shot Puzzle:
  • As Link explores the Sandship, he has to shoot at the Timeshift Stone from the main external area to regress the whole dungeon into its past form, and at first he can shoot from any angle as long as nothing obstructs. Later on, however, he needs to shoot at it from one of the inner areas of the ship, for which he has to position himself right below a grate in the ceiling and aim carefully so the arrow reaches its target.
  • Another puzzle in the same dungeon involves setting one of these up by moving a block and standing on a button to remove obstacles, then shooting through a small gap that opens up in one wall to hit a switch inside a locked room.
• Tron Lines: On the sealed Gate of Time, and to a lesser extent on mechanical enemies like the Beamos. The activated Gate of Time, however, has Instant Runes instead.
• Truck Driver's Gear Change: Happens to the boss battle theme against Koloktos once it changes to its second form.
• Turns Red:
  • Another staple; most boss battles have at least two distinct phases. When fighting Ghirahim in particular, although he begins the battle unarmed, once he tires of taking hits from Link's sword, he'll summon his own weapons and start fighting back.
  • The Imprisoned, in its first form at least, turns a literal shade of red after getting tripped up.
• Turn Undead: Brandishing the Sacred Shield causes Cursed Bokoblins to cower and flee.
• Two-Teacher School: Along with a chef, headmaster, and sword instructor, there are only two actual teachers at the Knight Academy. Justified since there's only eight students.
• Umbrella of Togetherness: Look closely at the blackboard in the classroom — there's one of those Japanese umbrella diagrams. While the names are considerably lo-res, and thus almost unreadable, but if you get close to it a dialogue box will pop up with the text "Karane + Caw...".
• Unbreakable Weapons: There's only one unbreakable shield (Hylian), available from Lanayru's challenge. All others have limited durability.
• Uncatty Resemblance: Loftwings tend to have similar "hair" fo their owners. Groose's has his pompadour, and Orielle's has her ponytail, for example.
• The Unchosen One: Groose, who learns the hard way that it's Link who is destined to protect Zelda, not him. However, he later finds another way to become a hero.
• Undead Counterpart:
  • Cursed Bokoblins are an undead variant of Bokoblin found only in the Ancient Cistern and the Sky Keep. They can not only deal damage by latching onto you, but also afflict you with the Curse ailment and can only be defeated by being dealt a Fatal Strike after being knocked down. You also have the chance to obtain an Evil Crystal after defeating them.
  • Dark Keese are a skeletal variant of the common Keese enemies. They're mainly encountered around the Eldin Volcano, and like other undead enemies can give Link the Curse ailment and drop Evil Crystals when defeated.
• Understatement: When Fi analyzes Yellow Chuchus, she warns that if you get stunned by their electricity, they will try to eat you, which she says is "unpleasant."
• Underground Level: Eldin Volcano has the underground village where the Mogmas live. Aside from some fire-breathing enemies that hide within small holes, it's a safe location.
• Underground Monkey: Certain enemies are recycled to provide elemental variants. For example, over the course of the game, you'll find regular Keese, then Fire Keese, then Thunder Keese, and much later Cursed Keese. This is also seen, to varying degrees, with other enemies like Chuchus and Spumes.
• Under the Sea: Lake Floria, a large body of water southeast of Faron Woods that goes through a lush, colorful coral cavern where the Parella race lives. Link can use his then-recently earned Dragon Scale to swim across it while keeping an eye on his Oxygen Meter (there are bubbles that replenigh it, and at one point he'll find a dry spot where a Goddess Cube can be activated). The lake is protected by Faron, who was attacked by Ghirahim and has to be healed with sacred water from Skyview Temple. After Link helps her, she'll open the path to the then-next dungeon, Ancient Cistern.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: During the Song of the Hero sidequest, talking to Golo the Goron after obtaining Lanayru's part of the song but before getting the two other ones will render the game unbeatable, and possibly corrupt it. Fortunately, the glitch is easy to avoid, and Nintendo has released a free, downloadable Wii Channel that fixes the afflicted save files.
• Unlockable Difficulty Levels: Hero Mode, which doubles as a New Game Plus since it's available after the game is cleared once and retains all enemy and region drops as well as the Goddess Sword's shortened load time for the Skyward Strike, but also doubles the damage taken from enemies and eliminates all heart drops until the Heart Medals are found.
• Unnaturally Blue Lighting: The Silent Realm is like this when Link isn't being chased by the Guardians.
• Unnecessary Combat Roll: Rolling is now conditioned by the stamina meter, making it less effective for running than it was in previous games.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment:
  • In the fourth dungeon, Ancient Cistern, you obtain a whip which allows you to retrieve items from afar. Unfortunately, it can't temporarily snag weapons from enemies, instead only stealing Monster Horns (for upgrading your equipment) from certain Bokoblins. Later on, the boss of Ancient Cistern (Koloktos) must be defeated by disabling its limbs, which allows you to pick up one of its swords (which are able to smash through pillars) and go buck wild on it. Unfortunately, you can't take the sword with you outside of the boss room.
  • And then there's a case of a boss reversing this trope on the player, and it's the first boss, no less! If the player is unable to break out of a struggle when Ghirahim uses his finger to parry your attacks, he'll steal the Goddess Sword from you and use it against you. You can get it back, of course, but you have to use a well-timed Shield Bash to knock it out of his hands unless you want him to knock you down a few hearts by throwing it at you.
  • The game plays it straight in the case of the bow. Enemies use them from very early on in the game, but it is the last item that Link acquires.
• Unusual Halo: As The Imprisoned grows in strength, it grows new appendages to aid its attempts to escape. The last of them is a spiky red and black halo over its head, granting it the ability to fly.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight:
  • Skyloftians will not react when Link uses tools and treasures that could only be acquired on the surface (except Gondo on one occasion). Similarly, while the surface-dwellers are pretty surprised to see a Skyloftian among them, they don't react when he does something unique like flying into the sky on a beam of light. Most of them don't even react to Fi, a spirit coming out of Link's sword and talking to him.
  • The Kikwis, at least, seem to be a bit scared of Fi the first time they see her.
  • The people of Skyloft are pretty phlegmatic about the numerous structural changes Link causes to the floating island throughout his adventure. It might be forgiven that they don't notice the never-before-seen door that appeared at the base of the huge statue of the Goddess, what with Zelda's dad trying to cover up her disappearance to avoid causing a panic, as the events involved fulfill the beginning parts of an apocalyptic prophecy, and the appearance of the Columns of Light that lead to the surface can be explained as something made easily visible to the player that isn't necessarily visible to the inhabitants of the game. Around the time lighthouses start shooting Frickin' Laser Beams and the Sky Keep is revealed, only minor observations are made by the people. Not until after the Goddess' statue plummets to the surface do people finally start noticing something's up.
  • The potions couple and Gondo, the scrap shop man, need items from the surface to create their respective wares, but do not demonstrate any unusual knowledge of the surface or express surprise at your acquiring the items.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them:
  • In the first boss fight against Ghirahim, if Link fails to counter his motion-sensing hand motions, he'll take the Goddess Sword off of Link and fight him with it. Ghirahim will eventually throw the sword at Link, giving him time to pick it back up, but Ghirahim will run back to take the Goddess Sword again if Link doesn't pick it up fast enough.
  • During the boss fight against Koloktos, Link must yank off its arms then pick up one of its enormous scimitars and slash the statue with it, as they're the only weapon strong enough to tear through its armor.
• Vagina Dentata: Deku Babas (carnivorous plant enemies that attack by biting) are now able to open their jaws vertically as well as horizontally, giving them the appearance of this trope.
• Variable Mix:
  • Music in dungeons adds or drops instruments as you move from room to room. Most notably, when entering the radius of a timeshift field, the music becomes more lively and complex. Battle music fades in when you approach an enemy and gains drums when you lock on.
  • Special mention goes to Groose; any time he's on screen, the music currently playing includes his Leitmotif.
  • Multistage boss battles also provide variable themes, usually adding instruments or otherwise increasing the intensity as you pogress.
  • The music in the Bazaar changes depending on what shop you are at.
• Vent Physics: Link gets the 'sailcloth', a small square of fabric that miraculously works as well as a parachute. It has the side bonus of lifting him high into the air whenever he steps over an air vent.
• Verbal Tic: The Kikwi Tribe in Faron Woods, capping off sentences with their own name or some variant of "kwiii."
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Sky Keep serves as the ultimate destination, available once you learn the Song of the Hero and complete the final Silent Realm. The cinematic reveal of the location of this dungeon helps a lot, and its inner gameplay presents a novel set of puzzles that take advantage of its variable shape. However, the last two bosses aren't found here, as they'll only appear after you've completed it (namely in the past-era version of Sealed Grounds).
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • You can reject Peatrice's advances in her sidequest and get the gratitude crystals from her dad instead. You'll feel like absolute crap if you do, though. Especially since there's no way to let her down gently, or tell her Let's Just Be Friends. You either return her feelings completely and promise to cheat on Zelda or call her "just a shopkeeper."
  • The Remlits of Skyloft are this game's model of Cucco with a few bits of cruelty potential:
    • If you encounter them in the daytime, they will come at you affectionately, but if you have a weapon out and aimed at them, they will run and cower in fear of you.
    • Should you encounter them at night, they will attack before you give them a few good flays and then run away and cower before attacking again. If you've completed Batreaux's sidequest, they'll behave the same as in the day.
    • You can also toss them off the edge of Skyloft, but they'll just fly back with their ears. Remlits can also be thrown into water; they'll usually just swim to the closest shore.
  • You can kill butterflies and dragonflies with your sword if you aim your swing right. And you can kill insects on the ground by standing on them, throwing objects such as stones at them, or using your items.
  • There's a sidequest involving Cawlin, who will want you to deliver a letter to Karane. Instead, you can give the letter to a ghost hand in a toilet, betraying his trust, and making the ghost haunt him.
  • Go ahead, keep cleaning Pipit's mom's house for her. It's not like she's spending her food money and her son's tuition on your services, which makes him angry, right?
• Video Game Stealing: It's possible to steal horns from Bokoblins with the whip which is presented much more realistically.
• Villainous Legacy: The game reveals that the monster armies are the legacy of Demise, the Demon King who swore to Link and Zelda that they will do battle repeatedly for all eternity. In the English version, they are cursed to be plagued by an incarnation of his hatred forever, manifested in Ganondorf (and perhaps others).
• Voodoo Shark: Faron the Water Dragon floods Faron Woods just in time for you to get her piece of the Song of the Hero. Her explanation for all of this? She was trying to drown all the monsters in the area, and she can't just give you the piece, so she tests you by having you collect tadtones. This explanation not only fails to point out that you saved her life, but at no other point is Faron Woods ever stated to be overflowing with monsters.
• Walk It Off: One of the ways to regenerate health is... sitting in a chair.
• Walk Like an Egyptian: Ghirahim performs a dance based on this while performing the ancient ritual to free the Imprisoned in the past era by offering Zelda's sould to it.
• Walk the Plank: A variation; Link fights Scervo on the Sandship, and makes him walk a narrow corridor until he falls off the end. The same goes for the similar Dreadfuse in the Sky Keep.
• The Wall Around the World: The impenetrable cloud cover that separates Skyloft from the surface. It apparently only applies to humans, as items that have fallen to the surface are the center of some sidequests.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: The first time you meet Ghirahim in the Skyview Temple. Flailing your sword won't get you far, and trying to use the item of the dungeon that hosts the battle (the Beetle) is useless.
• Warp Whistle:
  • Bird Statues act as one of these, as you're able to warp to any activated statue when entering an area from the sky, a la Majora's Mask. It doesn't apply to those found in dungeons, though you can use them to immediately leave the dungeon.
  • Using the Zelda and Loftwing amiibo in the HD version allows Link to immediately warp into the sky while on the surface without the use of Bird Statues, and using it again will warp Link to spot he first used it in, even if it's inside a dungeon.
• The War Sequence: Late in the game, Link goes through a whole army of Bokoblins, Moblins and Stalfos just to save Zelda from being sacrificed. The sheer number of them is impressive alone, but it also makes a showcase of how far the player has come.
• Waterfall into the Abyss: There is a waterfall in Skyloft that goes from a small pond in the corner of the floating island and empties out into the unknown world below.
• Waterlogged Warzone: The final battle takes place in a thunderstorm on an infinite plane of ankle-deep water. The boss is damaged by sticking your sword in the air and waiting for lightning to strike your sword, then attacking.
• We Have Reserves: When Ghirahim sics a huge army on Link, he shouts to his minions that he doesn't care if they all dive onto Link's blade, as long as they buy him the time they need. He also mentions they shouldn't be afraid of being killed by Link, but of what he will do to them if they fail.
• Wham Episode:
  • Link finally catches up to Zelda, and instead of simply saving her/seeing her get captured, he's reprimanded by Impa for being too late and not being strong enough to watch over Zelda, as well as having to watch his childhood friend disappear, yet again. Ouch.
  • When Link catches up to Zelda once again, this time after proving he has enough strength to help Zelda, you'd expect a happy reunion, but what does he get? A stab in the back when Zelda confesses she manipulated Link with his feelings for her, as well as the awfulness of having to watch Zelda seal herself in a crystal for goodness knows how long. The look on Link's face says it all.
• Wham Shot: You get one of these each time you imbue the Goddess Sword with one of the Goddess Flames; though their meanings are all different, each is surprising.
  • After imbuing the sword with Farore's Flame, the mark of the Triforce appears on the back of Link's hand with the Triforce of Courage glowing, the first time the Triforce has ever been seen or mentioned in the game thus far.
  • After imbuing the sword with Nayru's Flame, the Triforce appears on Link's hand again, but now the Triforce of Wisdom also lights up, which is unusual because Link is almost always only associated with the Triforce of Courage. This serves as a hint that his connection to the Triforce in this game is different than the usual.
  • Finally, after receiving Din's Flame, the Goddess Sword transforms into the Master Sword, revealing that it and the Goddess Sword were the same weapon all along and the game has actually been chronicling the creation of the most iconic weapon of the franchise.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Despite Captain Skipper's wish to be reunited with his deactivated family and restore his ship, and despite his ship being shown to be fully repaired after the related boss battle and the end credits, it's never made clear if, and how, Skipper managed to fulfill his wishes.
• What the Hell Are You?: By the end of their final battle, Ghirahim is so perplexed over how many times he has lost to Link that he is no longer completely certain that Link is entirely human:
  Ghirahim: This... This is preposterous. Driven to my knees by a simple child of man? Laughable! No matter how many times we clash, I can't prevail! You think I can't defeat you? You think I can't win?! Boy...what are you?
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • When you enter the Lumpy Pumpkin, the camera centers on a chandelier that holds several Rupees and a Piece of Heart. Kina tells you not to try to retrieve them. There are signs posted upstairs telling you not to slam around too much up there, lest the chandelier fall. So is it any wonder when Pumm and Kina become furious with Link when he knocks it down, anyways? Even the other patrons feel bad for him, knowing how deep he's just gotten himself in it.
  • If you leave Beedle's shop without buying anything, he'll angrily point out how hard it is to keep the shop airborne with an extra person aboard and drop Link through a trapdoor in retaliation. This becomes annoying if Link didn't have enough rupees to buy something (which is entirely possible, given how expensive Beedle's wares are) or if he did buy something and just stepped outside without actually leaving to refresh the inventory. Thankfully, both of these pitfalls can be avoided by sleeping in the shop's bed until morning, which refreshes the inventory and somehow cools Beedle's ire.
  • Impa gives Link one at the end of the Earth Temple, pointing out that Zelda was captured because he wasn't fast enough to protect her and questioning whether someone who makes mistakes like that is really worthy to be chosen by the Goddess. If the player feels she's being too harsh, they can turn it around on her later with an Ironic Echo.
• What the Hell, Player?:
  • Smashing things in the Lumpy Pumpkin Inn will eventually cause the chandelier to collapse (it has a Piece of Heart and 7 Rupees on it), which the bartender will call you out on. This opens up a line of sidequests in which you work off the cost of the chandelier, ending when the owner buys a newer chandelier, this one more elaborate but unmarred by items of any kind, and gives you another Piece of Heart.
  • Opening random cupboards gives the message "You really shouldn't open other people's cupboards without permission," though the game doesn't mind if you open your own cupboard, which contains a mysteriously self-replenishing 5 Rupees. But this also gets subverted; opening Zelda's cupboard without permission earns you a Piece of Heart, and no reprimanding message.
  • The old lady in the kitchen will yell at you if you break a nearby vase or barrel, while the item salesman's mother will charge you a random amount of Rupees between 10 and 30 if you break her vases or dishes.
  • If you leave Beedle's shop after perusing his merchandise but not having made a purchase, he will berate you for the extra physical effort he must exert while you are aboard his shop, and promptly drop you down a trap door.
• Where It All Began: Skyloft is the site of the final dungeon. In addition, that very dungeon is in fact the missing piece of the Sealed Grounds, the first place Link lands on the surface and the site of the final battle with Girahim.
• Windmill Scenery: Two windmills with seemingly mysterious purposes can be found in Skyloft. They are in fact crucial to locating the Isle of Songs.
• Winged Soul Flies Off at Death: Everything you kill, even bugs, explodes in a flash of light and smoke, leaving behind a purple ghostly afterimage. For monsters the image appears as a skull.
• With My Dying Breath, I Summon You: The final confrontation with Ghirahim takes place as he's working a ritual to free Demise from his imprisonment. Ghirahim continues his ritual during the battle and finishes it just before Link can deal the finishing blow.
• Wizarding School: Link and Zelda attend one early in the game, complete with a flying school-sport (only on birds instead of broomsticks). It's more of a Knight School, but the basic archetypes are there.
• Work Off the Debt: You can break the chandelier of the Lumpy Pumpkin to get a Piece of Heart. Doing so will piss off the owner, starting a series of sidequests where he makes you work to repay the chandelier.
• World in the Sky: The inhabitants of Skyloft think their world is this, but they're really just a Floating Continent above a more normal world.
• World Tree: Link grows a tree through the use of Time Travel that has a cure-all fruit, which he uses to cure the Thunder Dragon's ailment.
• Would Hurt a Child: Downplayed. Link and Zelda are both about seventeen, but they're essentially infants in comparison to the Big Bad and The Dragon, immortal beings who have been around for thousands of years.
  • Ghirahim refers to Link as "Sky Child" — sometimes in the same breath as sadistic promises to torture him to death. As for Zelda, Ghirahim plans to feed her soul to Demise as part of a resurrection ritual, a process that is implied to be extremely painful for her.
  • Demise not only consumes Zelda's soul to resurrect himself, he tosses her lifeless body aside without a second thought, and only Groose's intervention protects it from injury. He also takes it for granted that Link will perish in their battle; his only expectation is that Link might make the fight interesting before he dies.
• Wrong Assumption: Groose thinks he is the hero who will save Zelda and Link is just a sidekick who did most of his dirty work for him. He's hit big time during the first battle with The Imprisoned that it couldn't be further from the truth.
• Yellow/Purple Contrast: One of the dungeons, the Ancient Cistern, uses yellow colours and a well-lit environment in the upper parts, giving an aura of purity and goodness. However, the deeper parts of the dungeon are littered with undead creatures and poisonous water, using purple colours and dim lighting to emphasise a feeling of death and decay. The dungeon boss, Koloktos, follows the same theme. It is a golden divine-looking automaton, but when Ghirahim corrupts it, a purple substance invades Koloktos’ body and instantly turns it against Link.
• You Are a Credit to Your Race: Big Bad Demise has nothing but praise for Link when he raises his sword to him, recalling that the humans when he was sealed did little more than run and cower behind their Goddess. This extends to after you beat him, when his last words are shocked compliments towards Link for fighting with such power for a mortal. His habit of complimenting you makes him come across as less evil than his minion Ghirahim, even though he himself is the God of Evil.
• You Are Too Late: Impa's words when Link reaches the Earth Spring right before she and Zelda are about to depart: "The truth of it is you were late. You were late, and you failed to protect Her Grace."
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: Despite Link's efforts, he can't prevent Ghiraham from freeing Demise.
• You Have Researched Breathing: Like in many other Zelda games, Link can swim on top of water just fine. To dive underwater, however, he needs to be granted the gift of the Water Dragon's Scale. This isn't like Zora Mask from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and the Zora Armor Link from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess which allow Link to also breathe underwater — Link has a gauge that he must keep track of so that he doesn't drown while underwater.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!:
  • The first part of the game consists of Link traveling from dungeon to dungeon looking for Zelda, only to find out that he'll need to look for her in the next dungeon.
  • Link gets the Triforce and uses it to finally stop the Imprisoned for good. It looks like it's the end, except Ghiraham still has another plan up his sleeve.
• You Shouldn't Know This Already: There's a point where you need to complete Farore's symbol by drawing a circle. You may well already know the symbol from previous plays or other games in the series, but drawing a circle won't work until Link checks a nearby carving.
• Zerg Rush: Ghirahim sets a horde of Bokoblins, Bulbins and Stalfos onto you to slow you down from preventing the resurrection of Demise in the past. He also specifically mentions that they are not meant to kill or even stop Link, because they incapable of doing so, and are only useful to slow Link down.
• Zip Mode: The game substitutes rolling for an actual dash button. However, it's not infinite and drains the stamina meter. Certain locations have Stamina Fruit that refill the stamina meter, allowing Link to run along certain routes continuously.

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Master, I calculate that there is a 0% chance that you will find any more tropes on this subpage. I suggest you look for more in the YMMV, Trivia and Character tabs.