Highlights

  • The Secret Stones in Tears of the Kingdom reveal a unique dragon transformation process with mysterious origins and implications for the series.
  • The draconification process allows bearers to become immortal dragons, raising questions about their ties to Zelda lore and divine power sources.
  • Speculation around draconification's potential influence on future Zelda games suggests a significant reshaping of the series' history and lore.

One of the most unexpected twists revealed in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was the Secret Stones' draconification process, yet their introduction goes beyond the game's story and raises more questions than it answers for the series ahead. While the Zelda series has a long-standing history of magical MacGuffins that become essential to Link during his adventures, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's Secret Stones played an integral and well-crafted role in its story thanks to their unique draconification process. But between their mysterious Zonai origins and Tears of the Kingdom's recontextualization of Zelda lore gives these stones depth that's worth exploring.

The draconification process itself can be summarized as the bearer of a Secret Stone needing only to swallow it to be transformed into a mindless, immortal dragon. While players get a few opportunities to see this process during Tears of the Kingdom's story, the dragons it produces are not the only ones that appear in the game. In addition to the numerous dragons seen throughout the series beyond Tears of the Kingdom, answers for how or why draconification is possible and what it reveals about the Zonai and their Secret Stones could prove important for speculating how this could influence the series moving forward.

Link looking at a Secret Stone in Tears of the Kingdom art
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Why Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's Secret Stones Should Return in the Next Game

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's Secret Stones are incredibly unique items that have storytelling potential beyond their first appearance.

The Secrets Behind Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's Secret Stones

Zelda TOTK Draconification

Unfortunately, the origins and true purpose of the Secret Stones are kept predictably vague in Tears of the Kingdom as part of the Zonai mystery. While the Zonai are perceived as god-like in Tears of the Kingdom's history and the Secret Stones are claimed to be treasures of the gods, this suggests that either the Zonai created the stones themselves or that an even higher power above them did. This deliberate uncertainty, combined with the stark contrast between the Zonai's goat-like appearance and the stones' dragon transformation, might suggest that the latter is closest to the truth.

This potential connection makes sense considering how often Zelda's dragons have played key roles alongside deities such as the three Golden Goddesses, especially when both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom featured Dinraal, Farosh, and Naydra. Moreover, Tears of the Kingdom establishes that the Secret Stones amplify the wielder's power instead of granting it, meaning the stones possess an innate power that individuals can channel.

But despite these stones changing between bearers, as seen when Zelda receives Rauru's stone or Ganondorf steals Sonia's, the draconification process itself remains the same, even if the transformation's outcome varies with each bearer.

The ultimate implication of all of this seems to indicate that Zelda's dragons are the closest if not the true form of its various deities, something which might put the Secret Stones on the same level as Zelda's main divine power source, the Triforce. Just as the Triforce grants a mortal wielder their greatest wish, the Secret Stones' draconification is potentially a parallel to this and a new addition to Zelda allowing mortals to sacrifice their sense of self and transform into immortal, god-like dragons. If this is true, these new Secret Stones and their draconification process could significantly reshape Zelda history whenever dragons have appeared.

How Could Draconification Influence Future Zelda Games

Though each Zelda game retains a certain degree of separation from all others, the series' cyclical narrative has often caused significant speculation about how characters, items, and features from one game might impact another. The Secret Stones' draconification process may be the latest twist, prompting fans to reconsider the lore around Zelda's dragons with questions ranging from the potential mortal identities of Dinraal, Farosh, and Naydra to why the likes of Wind Waker's Valoo haven't lost their minds, unlike other dragons. However, with its place in Zelda's timeline complicated by its time travel, draconification may be something only Tears of the Kingdom explored.