Is the Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom trailer teasing a Ganondorf who’s on your side?

The final Tears of the Kingdom trailer has dropped, leaving a Goron-sized crater in the Zelda fandom as we know it. Aside from being packed with glimpses of incredible set-pieces, airborne laser puzzles, and enticing new faces (the Zonai, perhaps?) it also gave a sneak peek of something we never thought we’d see in a Legend of Zelda game – a Ganondorf who’s on your side.

Let’s be clear – the trailer also shows off a very evil Ganondorf, summoning a wave of darkness and monstrosity as they are revived to blight the land of Hyrule once more. This terribly hydrated villain will certainly be causing a lot of trouble to Link and Zelda in Tears of the Kingdom when it launches on May 12. And yet…

A brief clip in the middle of the trailer – 1:50-2:10, to be exact – shows a curious scene between Princess Zelda and a concealed figure whose face is never shown. This figure is quite clearly on Zelda’s side – and appears to be voiced by the same actor as the other, maniacal Ganondorf (Matthew Mercer, of Critical Role fame). Here’s the line of dialogue in full: 

“Zelda… We rely on your knight, and that legendary sword he carries. Our last line of defense will be Link.”

The figure then places a reassuring, dark-skinned hand on Zelda’s shoulder – a hand that looks a lot like that of the laughing antagonist shown off later in the trailer.

Even the clothing of this character matches Ganondorf’s stylings throughout the Zelda franchise, with Triforce symbols adorning his cloak, and a tusked face ornament in the center of his chest. Ganon has often been represented as a tusked boar or pig, so this seems like a pretty clear indicator that this person is some kind of alternate reality, or alternate timeline Ganondorf who wants to help you in some way.

The red jewels placed in this decorative ornament could also hark back to the Ganondorf from Ocarina of Time, or even Hyrule Warriors, with both versions wearing a kind of chestplate containing red/amber gems. In Link To The Past and the original NES games, Ganon also bears a skull on his chest, linking up matters further.

Ganon-double? 

So, what is going on here? There’s been a lot of chatter around the likelihood of time travel in this game, with previous trailers showing Link clothed in the style of the ancient Zonai civilization, alongside his more modern garb. It’s possible that we encounter an earlier version of Ganondorf who wishes to protect and preserve Hyrule, rather than destroy it, though this would fly in the face of accepted Zelda lore – that Ganon is himself a reincarnating force of destruction and power, as with Breath of the Wild’s ‘Calamity Ganon’.

What’s interesting is that Link has been shown several times in Tears of the Kingdom trailers with a corrupted arm, seemingly infected by the Malice of Ganondorf’s power. If the hero of Hyrule can be corrupted, we wonder, is there a possibility of the opposite happening? Could that contact with Link’s arm pass some of the hero’s goodness and purity back? Or, in the vein of Dark Link, does Ganondorf have his own counterpart of light to contend with?

Given how closely entwined the destinies of our three key characters (Link, Ganondorf, and Zelda) are, it looks like Nintendo is lining up an interesting, and really quite different interplay of their motivations and plans for the world, however things turn out.

Either way, Tears of the Kingdom is lining up to be a truly blockbuster game, doing what may have seemed impossible – matching the size and stakes of 2017’s Breath of the Wild, which catapulted the then-launching Nintendo Switch into an immediate success story, so much so that the console was briefly nicknamed a ‘Zelda machine’. And while there’s no Switch Pro launching to showcase this latest Zelda title, it’s clear that Nintendo has big hopes for this one.

Here are 9 cool details you might have missed in the Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom trailer