This article contains heavy late-game spoilers for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.After Breath of Wild, fans are given an experience that feels brand-new yet completely different at the same time in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Once again, fans are asked to fight down hordes of Bokoblins, gather familiar and new items such as the muddle bud, and even chase down mythical dragons. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom made it known rather early on that it would feature at least one of the beautiful, scaley creatures flying around Hyrule, and fans were hoping that it would serve more purpose than BOTW's own dragons.
Luckily, for those Zelda fans hoping that TOTK would make the mythical beasts much more prominent, the dragon players chase across Hyrule for most of the game plays an extremely important role with the overall narrative. It holds many secrets, and almost all of them are staring fans right in the face. Once the true secret of the Light Dragon is made clear, there isn't really much debate on what Tears of the Kingdom is truly about anymore.
The Identity of the Light Dragon in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Sometimes, the best games are the kind that require more than one playthrough to fully see the big picture it presents to players. With Nintendo looking at an easy Game of the Year contender with Tears of the Kingdom, it is understandably no different. One detail that may surprise fans once they revisit the game is that once Link gives up the corrupted Master Sword, the Light Dragon appears as if time has been changed almost immediately.
For a majority of the game, many players have no idea who the Light Dragon is and why they fly around Hyrule. Once fans have already run into a good number of the Dragon's Tears, the identity of the dragon is revealed to be Princess Zelda, who gave herself up to allow the Master Sword to repair itself with her sacred energy. One of her last actions as her own sense of self drifted away was to cry in her sadness, which is where Tears of the Kingdom gets its name.
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's 'Find Princess Zelda' Quest
At the start of the game, fans are given the quest "Find Princess Zelda," which serves as an over-arching quest that can't easily be cleared. It serves the same purpose as Breath of the Wild's "Destroy Ganon" quest. Finding the princess, however, will happen naturally as fans make their way through the main story. This quest may be a bit of a tease in players' adventure logs, as Zelda is revealed to be much closer than fans might expect.
The way Tears of the Kingdom uses the existence of the Light Dragon mixed with its time travel narrative is a wonderful and pleasant surprise. The quests dealing with the Dragon's Tears, Princess Zelda, and the Master Sword meet in such a way that it's ironically considered a tearjerker by many fans. While its possible that some fans could have the plot twists ruined for them by finding the Dragon's Tears out of order, it still serves as a unique twist to the tried and true trope of Link having to save Princess Zelda.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's story isn't perfect. After all, fans have done all they can to poke fun at the fact that the words "secret stone," "Demon King," and "Imprisoning War" are repeated over and over to where it's become a bit annoying. However, how Tears of the Kingdom handles time itself is most definitely worth praising. With the level of detail that's gone into TOTK, it has proven to be an excellent successor to Breath of the Wild.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was released on May 12, 2023, and is available exclusively on the Nintendo Switch.
