Imprisoning War

The Imprisoning War or Seal War was a conflict that ensued after Ganondorf entered the Sacred Realm and laid claim to the Triforce, becoming Ganon. This great conflict is spoken of in A Link to the Past. Ganondorf's seizure of the Triforce tainted the Golden Land, transforming it into the Dark World and Ganondorf himself into a beast named Ganon. He launched an invasion against Hyrule with his new army of monsters, made up of people from Hyrule that came seeking the Golden Power for themselves. This invasion was repelled by the Knights of Hyrule, who gave their lives almost to the last to protect the Seven Sages as they cast a seal on the Dark World, trapping Ganon and his army inside and restoring peace to Hyrule.

The Discovery of the Sacred Realm
Long ago in the land of Hyrule, legends spoke of a great power left behind by the Golden Goddesses following Hyrule's creation. Stories speaking of the Sacred Realm and the omnipotent "Golden Power" known as the Triforce that resided within it spread across Hyrule over the ages, causing a lust for the Triforce's power to grow and fester in the hearts and minds of Hyrule's people until there was nothing left in many of them but pure greed. The Triforce could not judge between good and evil and thus would merely grant the wishes of its holder.

One day, a gateway to the Golden Land of the Triforce was accidentally discovered and opened by a band of thieves skilled in dark magic and their leader, a man named Ganondorf. It was a place like no other, a realm of midday golden skies rather than blue. And there, shining down upon this world from above, was the Triforce in all its glory. A long running battle then ensued between Ganondorf and his followers to the heart of the Sacred Realm in a race to reach the Triforce first. Ganondorf fought his way past and killed all of his followers that had accompanied him into the realm along the way so that he could claim it uncontested.

The Great Cataclysm
After the murders of his followers, Ganondorf stood over the Triforce and grasped it with blood-stained hands. A voice whispered to him, stating that if he had a strong desire in his heart to wish for it. In response, Ganondorf's laughter echoed across time and space and reached even Hyrule itself as he made a wish that he become the ruler of the world. This event would come to be known as the Great Cataclysm.

Thus, it was out of the Great Cataclysm that one of Hyrule's greatest threats was born: the King of Evil, Ganon, who now had the strength of the Triforce at his command. An ancient prophecy concerning the Great Cataclysm also existed however, stating that if a person with an evil heart should ever gain possession of the Triforce that a Hero would be destined to one day appear, and that Hero would defeat the evil one that unleashed the Great Cataclysm.

The Creation of the Dark World
As a result of Ganondorf's wish for the domination of the world, the Triforce caused the Sacred Realm to radically change. It began to whither and die as it was transformed into a twisted copy of Hyrule that represented what Hyrule would look like if Ganondorf ruled it. Dark clouds now permanently blackened the skies. As a side-effect of this transformation, the Triforce's magic was used to cast a curse over the entire realm, one that would cause any without protection from it to transform into a shape that would reflect what is in his or her heart. The Golden Land was now the Dark World, a place of darkness and evil.

Ganon was not satisfied merely with ruling the newly-transformed Dark World however, as he sought to return to Hyrule and conquer it as well. In time, evil power began to issue forth from the portal to the Golden Land, beckoning to men from the outside to seek out the Golden Power and have their wishes become reality through its magic.

The Invasion of Hyrule
As greedy men from Hyrule entered the Dark World hungry for the Golden Power, each of them was transformed into a monster reflecting the greed within them. As a result, Ganon's army of monsters grew to a large enough proportion that he was now capable of launching an invasion against Hyrule. Many plagues began to beset Hyrule as well, causing catastrophes for the people that would precede the coming storm.

Finally, with his army now ready, Ganon launched the invasion against Hyrule, intending to fulfill his wish to be the ruler of both the Dark World and the Light World. Ganon's army swarmed from the Dark World and flooded into Hyrule, causing mass chaos and attacking Hyrule Castle. Meanwhile, the Seven Sages searched for a courageous individual that could take up a weapon that had been crafted to combat magic as powerful as that of the Triforce's, a sword that could banish evil itself, the Master Sword. However, no hero worthy of the blade could be found.

The Seal of the Sages
The King of Hyrule eventually convened the council of the Seven Sages as well as the Knights of Hyrule that served to protect the Hylian royalty and commanded them to seal the gateway to the Dark World shut in order to stem Ganon's invasion of the kingdom. Both groups would play pivotal roles in the hope of reaching this goal, with the Seven Sages bearing the responsibility of creating the seal itself while the Knights of Hyrule would protect them as they did their part to halt Ganon's invasion of the kingdom.

The Knights of Hyrule took the full brunt of the attack from Ganon's monsters, and while they fought courageously to the end, they were nearly wiped out entirely as they did their duty. Their lives were not lost in vain however, as they bought the necessary time for the Seven Sages to create their seal, trapping Ganon in the Dark World and halting the invasion. With this, the war was ended in a victory for the Light World, though it had come at a very high cost. The people of Hyrule rejoiced nonetheless at the restoration of order and peace to their kingdom, thanks to the efforts of the Seven Sages and the Knights of Hyrule. Ganon and his army were trapped in the Dark World until the events of A Link to the Past.

Ganon
The individual responsible for unleashing the Great Cataclysm and the primary instigator of the Imprisoning War, Ganondorf, known as Ganon after his theft of the Triforce, was once the leader of a band of thieves that resided in Hyrule. He and his followers were skilled in the dark arts; One day, they discovered one of the gateways to the fabled Golden Land. After a deadly race to the heart of this Sacred Realm in which he slew all of his own followers, Ganondorf seized the Triforce as his own with the blood of his followers literally on his hands. His wish to become the ruler of the world caused the Golden Land's transformation into the Dark World as well as his own transformation into Ganon.

Once he laid his hands on the Triforce, he became the King of Evil. Using the Triforce's magic, he cast a spell over the Dark World that would cause any venturing into it without protection to be transformed into a shape reflecting what lies in that person's heart. He also used the Triforce to lure greedy men from Hyrule into the Dark World in order to transform them into monsters for his army. Once he had built a large enough force, Ganon proceeded to launch his assault on Hyrule with the intention of ruling both worlds with the Triforce at his command. His schemes were put to a halt however through the sacrifice of the Knights of Hyrule and the magic of the Seven Sages when a seal was placed on the gateway to the Dark World, preventing him from being able to return to the Light World.

King of Hyrule
Not much is known about the sitting King of Hyrule at the time of the Imprisoning War, apart from certain details concerning his actions during the conflict. It is said that when Ganon's army invaded from the Dark World and began attacking Hyrule Castle that the king called the Seven Sages and the Knights of Hyrule together and ordered them to seal the gateway to the Golden Land as a means to stem the invasion. Beyond that, not much is known about his reign or what other actions he took during the war, but it appears he was the chief architect of the plan to seal Ganon within the confines of the Dark World in order to restore peace to the kingdom.

In the stories of the Imprisoning War, he is referred to as the "Lord of Hyrule". As is the case with the Royal Family at the time of A Link to the Past, it is implied that he too ruled from Hyrule Castle during his reign, as Ganon's beasts were said to have targeted it during their invasion of the kingdom. As there is still a sitting king at the time of A Link to the Past, which supposedly takes place centuries after the Imprisoning War, it is thought that both the King of Hyrule in the present as well as Princess Zelda are descendants of the unnamed king that led Hyrule through the Imprisoning War.

Knights of Hyrule
The protectors of the Hylian royalty renowned for their bravery, the Knights of Hyrule were the primary military force defending Hyrule during the era of the Imprisoning War and sacrificed a great deal to preserve its freedom. Not much is known about their order or how it was formed, but their primary purpose was to serve the Royal Family of Hyrule and to defend the country. When Ganon seized the Triforce and attacked Hyrule after forming a great army of monsters, the knights were the main source of resistance to the chaos he wrought upon the kingdom. When the King of Hyrule formed the plan to seal Ganon and his army within the Dark World, they were assigned the role of protecting the Seven Sages from harm as they cast the seal on the portal to the Dark World. As a result, they took the full brunt of the beasts' attacks and subsequently perished almost to the point of complete extermination. They had however succeeded in their ultimate goal of giving the Sages the time they needed to cast the seal, so their lives were not lost in vain.

Their bloodline was not entirely destroyed, however, for one of their few remaining descendants, Link, is featured in A Link to the Past and becomes the legendary Hero spoken of in the prophecy of the Great Cataclysm that would reverse the Cataclysm's effects by taking back the Golden Power and restoring both the Golden Land and Hyrule to their former beauty.

Seven Sages
The Seven Sages, also known as the Seven Wise Men, were a group of powerful sorcerers skilled in magic that served the Royal Family of Hyrule around the time the Imprisoning War broke out. Not much is known of their history, such as their group's formation or even what their names were, but what is certain is that they were primarily responsible for ending the Imprisoning War by placing a seal on the gateway to the Golden Land, therefore locking Ganon away within the Dark World and protecting Hyrule from further harm. Before the formation of the plan to seal Ganon away, they were said to have searched for a courageous individual that could take up the Master Sword and confront the evil that was threatening Hyrule. Despite this search, the beasts of Ganon's army were wreaking havoc, and the King of Hyrule acted by convening the Sages' council, where he ordered them to place their seal on the Dark World. They succeeded in this endeavor largely because the Knights of Hyrule sacrificed their numbers to defend them while they created the seal. In the end, it was the combined efforts of the Sages and the knights that saved Hyrule.

The descendants of the Seven Sages, the Seven Maidens, appear in A Link to the Past, and have inherited their status as Sages in their own right in the present day. The town elder of Kakariko Village at the time of A Link to the Past, Sahasrahla, also claims to be descended from the Sages as well as the lost old man that gives Link the Magic Mirror on Death Mountain. During the events of A Link the Past, the dark wizard Agahnim intends to send each of the Sages' successors, the Seven Maidens, across the barrier between the worlds and destroy the seal placed on the Dark World by their ancestors.

Trivia

 * The name of the Imprisoning War seems to be a play off of the end result of the conflict, which resulted in the "imprisoning" of Ganon inside of the Dark World; Meanwhile, the alternate name for the war in Japan, the "Seal War", seems to be a reference to the seal cast by the Seven Sages that trapped Ganon in the Dark World and ended the war.
 * In the American manual for A Link to the Past, Ganondorf is given the surname "Dragmire" as well as the alias of "Mandrag Ganon" meaning "Ganon of the Enchanted Thieves".
 * The American manual for A Link to the Past makes the claim that the Hylian people were responsible for the creation of the Master Sword, while its Japanese counterpart states that the sword was ancient and had been crafted at the direction of the goddesses ; It was later revealed by Princess Zelda in Twilight Princess that the sword was crafted by the wisdom of the Ancient Sages, falling more in line with the Japanese manual's version of the sword's origins.
 * The story was heavily truncated for the manual of the Game Boy Advance version of A Link to the Past and did not include such important details as Ganon seizing the Triforce or the search for the Master Sword. These details are still provided by in-game text, however.
 * The American version of the story has the sages forget where the Triforce is hidden.
 * In regards to the games nominated to possibly be the Imprisoning War, one highly cited reason for the differences between the nominated games and the story of the Imprisoning War is that so much time has passed between the time of A Link to the Past and the Imprisoning War that the story has been altered or changed over the centuries, resulting in the differences.

Theories
The specific conflict against Ganondorf has not been canonically revealed. Few conflicts against him are plausible candidates as the Imprisoning War based on the presented facts specific to the event. Zelda Wiki.org strives to present solid sides to each aspect of the debate as neutral as possible. Each argument, however elegant has its own flaws and weaknesses more fitting for forum debate than encyclopedic documentation. In varying degrees of strength using developer quotes, in-game text, and manual quotes have suggested the Ocarina of Time, Four Swords Adventures, and Twilight Princess plots as well as the always possible Separate Event unto itself.

Ocarina of Time
Ocarina of Time tells the story of the Hero of Time and his long journey not only across Hyrule but through time itself to save the land from Ganondorf, a thief from the desert intent upon harnessing the Triforce's power and ruling the kingdom. After acquiring the Kokiri's Emerald from the Great Deku Tree, and meeting Hyrule's Princess Zelda, the young Hero, Link journeys to find the other two stones and open the gateway to the Sacred Realm where the Triforce is kept. Though he succeeds in this effort, Ganondorf attacks the kingdom, resulting in Link acquiring the Ocarina of Time as well, another of the keys to the Sacred Realm. Using these keys, the young Hero opens the Door of Time within the Temple of Time and claims the Master Sword. This action fully opens the portal to the Sacred Realm, but also causes Link to be sealed away for seven years until he would be old enough to claim the mantle of the Hero of Time. Meanwhile, Ganondorf uses this opportunity to enter the Sacred Realm and steal the Triforce. Because his heart is not balanced, only the Triforce of Power remains to grant his wish, which results in the Sacred Realm's transformation into a world of evil.

Ganondorf returns to Hyrule and becomes its tyrannical ruler for seven years, until the Hero of Time returns to confront him. To defeat the King of Evil, the Hero of Time journeys around Hyrule rescuing each of the Seven Sages that have the power to seal Ganondorf away in the Evil Realm. Along the way, he learns that he and the seventh Sage, Princess Zelda, are the holders of the other two pieces of the Triforce that Ganondorf failed to acquire. When the Hero of Time finally succeeds in saving all of the Sages, he storms the keep of the King of Evil's castle, where he battles the Dark Lord for the fate of Hyrule and the balance of the Triforce. After the Hero of Time defeats Ganondorf in both his humanoid form and as the Dark Beast Ganon, the Sages throw him back into the void of the former Sacred Realm and place a seal on it, trapping him within the Evil Realm and restoring peace to Hyrule. As a reward for his service in the battle against Ganondorf, Princess Zelda sends the Hero of Time back to his own age to regain his lost seven years, leaving only his legend behind in the aftermath that results in a split in Hyrule's history.


 * Support
 * 1) The developers of the game stated before and after its release that the game was made with the story of the Imprisoning War in mind.
 * 2) The Sacred Realm seemingly has never been opened in the continuity of Ocarina of Time before Ganondorf's incursion into it, closely matching the description of this event detailed in the backstory of A Link to the Past.
 * 3) A group of Seven Sages do indeed make an appearance in this game, and they also seal Ganondorf away in what was formerly the Sacred Realm, virtually identical to how Ganondorf's imprisonment is described in A Link to the Past.
 * 4) The Triforce is indeed stolen by Ganondorf from its hiding place in the Sacred Realm, causing the Sacred Realm's transformation into a world of evil.
 * 5) Ganondorf's origins are revealed in Ocarina of Time, where he is fittingly described as being the leader of a band of thieves, the Gerudo, that live in the desert of Hyrule.
 * 6) A civil war is said to have taken place not long before the events of Ocarina of Time, closely mirroring the statement made in A Link to the Past that the people quarreled and fought over the Triforce shortly before Ganondorf discovered the gateway to the Golden Land.
 * 7) The prophecy speaking of the Great Cataclysm states that a Hero will triumph on the eve of the Cataclysm and win three symbols of virtue before retrieving the Master Sword. Though this certainly applies to the Hero of A Link to the Past, it also seems to apply to the Hero of Time, who won the three Spiritual Stones necessary to obtain the Master Sword on the eve of Ganondorf's theft of the Triforce before using them to acquire the Master Sword in Ocarina of Time. This has caused some to speculate that the prophecy is a recurring one that is destined to repeat itself each time the evil one that unleashed the Great Cataclysm rises, until the evil one is utterly destroyed for good and all; This is further supported by the Heroes shown in other games featuring Ganondorf, such as The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, where both Heroes obtain three objects before obtaining the Master Sword (the Pearls of the Goddesses in The Wind Waker and the three missing fragments of the Fused Shadow in Twilight Princess).


 * Discrepancies
 * 1) It is said that the King of Hyrule commanded the Seven Sages to seal the Golden Land in the legends of the Imprisoning War. Even though it is never stated in the game, he is presumed dead, and the noncanonical manga states that the King indeed died in Ocarina of Time following Ganondorf’s assault on Hyrule Castle.
 * 2) The story of the Imprisoning War states that there was no Hero found who could wield the Master Sword, yet Link obviously did discover the sword and wielded it in Ocarina of Time.
 * 3) The Seven Sages are of all different races in Ocarina of Time despite that in A Link to the Past their descendants, the Seven Maidens all appear to be humanoid.
 * 4) Ganondorf is sealed in the Sacred Realm with only one piece of the Triforce in Ocarina of Time. In the backstory for A Link to the Past, he steals all three pieces together and makes his wish on the united Triforce.
 * 5) The Knights of Hyrule are not nearly as prominent in Ocarina of Time as they are in the original story. Only one knight is seen in a back alley, and though his dialogue indicates he was killed by Ganon, the battle waged by the Knights to protect the Sages does not appear in Ocarina of Time.
 * 6) Ganon could not figure out how to return to the Light World after the seal was cast. Two sequels to Ocarina of Time, The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess both feature Ganon's return and death.

Four Swords Adventures
Four Swords Adventures opens with a series of dark omens plaguing Hyrule, with the skies growing dark and foreboding as storms overtake them. Princess Zelda and the Shrine Maidens, worried about the seal on the Wind Sorcerer Vaati possibly weakening, call Link to Hyrule Castle to protect them while they check the status of Vaati's seal. However, upon opening the portal leading to the Four Sword's resting place, all seven of the maidens are captured by an evil shadow resembling Link as they are sealed within crystals and spirited away. Link chases his evil twin through the portal and into the Four Sword Sanctuary, where he is tricked into drawing the Four Sword from its resting place, splitting Link into four colorful versions of himself and releasing Vaati in the process as Shadow Link escapes and the now-four Links are swept away by Vaati's power. The four Links awaken to the voice of Kaepora Gaebora, a sagely owl that acts as a guardian of Hyrule. He informs the four Links of the current situation and instructs them to seek Vaati if they wish to find the Shrine Maidens and Princess Zelda. As they progress onward, the four Links discover that evil magic has brainwashed Hyrule's military into serving evil. Still the four heroes forge ahead with their quest, searching each region of Hyrule to rescue the maidens.

Along the way, they learn of the disappearance of the Knights of Hyrule, a special order of knights that serve the Royal Family of Hyrule by guarding the four Royal Jewels (the necessary keys to reach the Realm of the Heavens); Eventually they are discovered to have been killed by a foe with a mighty weapon and sent to the Dark World as the four Links free their souls and gather the Royal Jewels. They also learn of an evil relic known as the Dark Mirror, inside which a dark tribe is said to have been sealed and that has the power to create a dark manifestation of a person. It is later revealed to have been stolen by an evil entity known as Ganon, the so-called King of Darkness. Upon investigating the Desert of Doubt where Ganon, the former Ganondorf, once resided amongst the Gerudo tribe, the four Links discover that Ganondorf has stolen the Trident of Power , a powerful weapon housing an evil spirit, from its resting place deep inside the ancient Pyramid. With the Shrine Maidens rescued, the four Links make their way to the Palace of Winds to confront Vaati. There, they recover the Dark Mirror (the source of the Shadow Links plaguing Hyrule ) and defeat Vaati. They are then faced however with Ganon himself, but they are able to defeat him and buy the Shrine Maidens and Princess Zelda the time needed to seal Ganon away within the Four Sword.


 * Support
 * 1) As indicated by deleted text in Four Swords Adventures, the original concept for that game would have included elements which might have made it the game in which the Imprisoning War occurred. Deleted text talks of Link not being able to wield the Master Sword, and more explicit references to the Hylians.
 * 2) Several elements of the backstory from A Link to the Past are present in Four Swords Adventures such as the Dark World, the Knights of Hyrule, and a new origin story for Ganon, who still lives amongst the Gerudo thieves of the desert, matching part of his description in the story of the Imprisoning War.
 * 3) Dark clouds do blacken the skies as a plague to Hyrule near the start of the game, mirroring the way similar happenings were described in the backstory of the Imprisoning War, where dark clouds and plagues were also noted to have beset the kingdom upon Ganondorf's gain of power.


 * Discrepancies
 * 1) The absence of such elements as the Master Sword and the Triforce in the final version of the game means that Four Swords Adventures is missing some important pieces from the story of the Imprisoning War that are identifying features of the war.
 * 2) The Knights of Hyrule are only four in number in the game as the guardians of the four Royal Jewels, whereas they are implied to have been large in number and to have been the primary source of resistance to Ganon's army during the Imprisoning War.
 * 3) Though some incarnation of the Dark World is present in Four Swords Adventures, it is not clear that this is the world of evil that was formerly the Sacred Realm; Rather it appears as a hazy, backward copy of Hyrule itself in which only shadows of it appear in the normal world, without any clear connection between it and the former Sacred Realm.
 * 4) Similar to the case with Ocarina of Time, the Shrine Maidens are all female, whereas in the story of the Imprisoning War, the Seven Sages were implied to have all been elderly Hylian men; Additionally, they are said to have sealed Ganon within the Four Sword in this story, not the Dark World.
 * 5) No Hero was said to have been found to take up arms against Ganon in the Imprisoning War, yet the four Links are present in the game to take on both Vaati and Ganon in this story wielding not the Master Sword, but the Four Sword.

Twilight Princess
The events of the Twilight Princess backstory bear at least a superficial similarity to the events of the Imprisoning War. Ganon invades Hyrule, but is captured and sealed in the Twilight Realm by seven sages. Upon further inspection, however, it is evident that these similarities are merely superficial. Although Ganon sought the Triforce, he did not take it by force as in the story, but had it mysteriously granted to him (and only in part). Likewise, neither the Knights of Hyrule nor the Sacred Realm are involved in the plot, as the Twilight Realm is explicitly not the Dark World. The similarities between the plot of Twilight Princess and the Imprisoning War could simply be developer homage or reused memes. Some, however, believe that the Interloper War was one of the wars fought over the Triforce prior to Ganon discovering it.

Twilight Princess Plot
Ganondorf launched an invasion against Hyrule. His army swarmed from the tainted Golden Land into Hyrule and attacked the castle. but this time, the attack was repelled by the Knights of Hyrule and the Seven Sages, commanded by the king (probably because Link warned them). The Knights fought and eventually perished during the invasion, and so Ganondorf was blind to any danger, and thus was exposed, this allowed enough time for the Seven Sages to successfully seal Ganon within the Twilight Realm and peace was found on Hyrule. It is not confirmed how Ganondorf received the Triforce, but he exhibits it during his execution and sealing scene. The mere fact that Ganon had a piece of it baffles the Sages, and they call it a "divine prank."

As a Separate Event
A common explanation for the discrepancies between the Imprisoning War story and Ocarina of Time and Four Swords Adventures is that neither game is the true story, and that because the backstory does not include Link, it cannot be adequately told in any game. Thus, these theorists place it as an event separate from any particular game, sometime before A Link to the Past.