Sacred Realm



The Sacred Realm (聖地, lit. Sacred Land) or Golden Land is a mystical parallel dimension to the land of Hyrule that serves as the home of the sacred relic known as the Triforce. After the three Golden Goddesses created the land of Hyrule and its inhabitants, they created a parallel dimension to Hyrule that served as their departure point from the world back to the heavens. The realm was one of midday golden skies rather than blue and allowed spirits to roam free as they pleased across its plains. At the heart of this magical realm sat a mighty temple, the Temple of Light, and it was from there that the Golden Goddesses departed upon completion of their labors. However, they left a symbol of their power there at the point from which they departed: a sacred golden triangle, made up of three smaller triangles, collectively known as the Triforce. The Sacred Realm would serve as a mirror to reflect the heart of any who would enter it and come to claim the Triforce as their own. If that person's heart was pure, the realm would become a paradise. However, if that person's heart was not in balance, the Triforce would separate into its three component pieces (leaving only the piece representing the force that one most believes in) and the Sacred Realm would become a world of evil until another would come to challenge and defeat the one who shattered the Triforce, at which time the Sacred Realm would return to its former beauty.

Appearances
The Sacred Realm makes several appearances throughout the series and is mentioned by multiple characters in stories and legends. It is first seen in A Link to the Past as the Golden Land of the Triforce, which was corrupted into the foreboding Dark World by the demonic sorcerer Ganon. This story of the Sacred Realm is later expanded upon in Ocarina of Time, which explains that the realm had been created by the three Golden Goddesses shortly after Hyrule's creation and serves as the resting place of the Triforce. The evil Gerudo King of Thieves Ganondorf (who would go on to become Ganon) seeks to enter this mystical plane and take the Triforce for himself, and succeeds with the unwitting assistance of Link and Princess Zelda. As a result, the legend speaking of the Sacred Realm comes true when Ganondorf touches the Triforce with bloodstained hands and shatters it, resulting in the Sacred Realm's transformation into the Dark World and Ganondorf's transformation into Ganon. At the end of Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf is sealed within the corrupt Dark World by the Seven Sages, largely conforming to the story told in the backstory of A Link to the Past. The Sacred Realm then makes another appearance in the story of Twilight Princess, which speaks of how the ancestors of the Twili, the Dark Interlopers, attempted to break into the Sacred Realm and claim the Triforce for themselves, sparking a civil war that resulted in much bloodshed over lust for the Triforce's power as well as the banishment of the Dark Interlopers to the Twilight Realm, where they evolved into the Twili race.

A Link to the Past
The Sacred Realm is first mentioned in the opening story of A Link to the Past, where it is depicted as the mythical "Golden Land" where the wish-granting Triforce is said to reside. It is said that at a certain point in Hyrule's history, a man of great evil, the leader of a band of thieves known as Ganondorf, discovered a gateway into the Golden Land of the Triforce and killed all of his followers that were present with him so he could claim the Triforce uncontested. After touching the golden relic, the Golden Land withered and died, transforming into a dark, twisted copy of Hyrule that was meant to serve Ganondorf's wish for the conquest of the world. Meanwhile, Ganondorf himself was transformed into a horrible demon that came to be known as Ganon. From here, he launched an invasion of Hyrule that was repelled by the Knights of Hyrule. Meanwhile, the mythical Seven Sages then sealed the gateway to the Golden Land that Ganondorf had discovered, locking him away within the now-tainted Sacred Realm in a conflict that came to be known as the Imprisoning War.

Many centuries later, Ganon discovered a way to send part of his soul across the barrier between the two worlds to inhabit the body of a wizard named Agahnim, whom he then used to enact a scheme to break the seal of the Seven Sages. Under the guise of Agahnim, he came to Hyrule as though from nowhere and quelled many disasters that were besetting the kingdom using his magic. As a reward, Agahnim was allowed to take up residence in Hyrule Castle and became one of the King of Hyrule's closest advisers. Once his position was secure, Agahnim betrayed the King of Hyrule, spiriting him away and placing all of his soldiers under a magic spell that made them answerable only to him. He then ordered them to scour Hyrule for the descendants of the Seven Sages, the Seven Maidens, one of which was the King's daughter, Princess Zelda. Soon all of the girls were captured and Agahnim used his dark magic to send each of them across the barrier and into the Dark World, weakening the seal each time until only Princess Zelda remained. Although Zelda was able to escape with the help of a descendant of the Knights of Hyrule, Link, she was later recaptured by the castle soldiers and taken back to Hyrule Castle while Link was away seeking the Blade of Evil's Bane, the Master Sword. Link arrived only moments too late to stop Agahnim from sacrificing Zelda to the Dark World, and with this, the seal of the Seven Sages was at last broken, meaning it was only a matter of time before the gateway between the worlds opened completely and allowed Ganon to come forth once more at his full strength. Link did battle with Agahnim and upon defeating him was pulled into the Dark World himself along with Agahnim, who escaped to Ganon's stronghold, Ganon's Tower.

Link ventured into what was once the Golden Land and found it to be a mirror image of Hyrule itself, though twisted and evil due to Ganon's evil influence. Before finding the Moon Pearl of the Tower of Hera, he discovered that those who came unprotected by the Moon Pearl's magic would be transformed into a shape that reflected what was in his or her heart, an effect of the Triforce's magic that spread across the Dark World. Using his courage and the power of the Master Sword, Link scoured the Dark World and rescued each of the Seven Maidens, who had been locked away in dungeons across the Dark World by Ganon himself and given to his loyal monsters to be guarded. With the aid of the Seven Maidens, Link was able to break the seal on Ganon's Tower and entered, where he fought his way to the top and did battle with Agahnim once again. After the Dark Wizard's defeat, it was revealed that the wizard had only been a vessel for Ganon's soul, which then fled to the Pyramid of Power that sits at the heart of the Dark World (taking the place of Hyrule Castle and theorized to perhaps be the Temple of Light itself). It was here that Link faced off against Ganon and destroyed him utterly with the Master Sword. He was then introduced to the Essence of the Triforce, which explained that now that Ganon was gone, his Dark World would vanish entirely and the Golden Land would return to its original beauty upon the wish of a new master, Link. Link touched the Triforce with a wish in his heart to undo all of Ganon's evil, and the Triforce granted his wish, which in turn returned the Golden Land to its former glory.

Ocarina of Time
The Sacred Realm makes its next appearance (and first under that name) in Ocarina of Time, which supposedly takes place many centuries prior to A Link to the Past. Many gamers consider this game to chronicle the events spoken of in the backstory of A Link to the Past, as the game's creators stated that they made this game with the Imprisoning War in mind and wanted to make the Imprisoning War a playable adventure. As such, the game begins at a time when the Sacred Realm has never been successfully opened and the only known gateway to it resides in a mighty temple known as the Temple of Time. The game also shows the origins of Ganondorf, the thief spoken of in the backstory of A Link to the Past that would go on to become Ganon, where he is depicted fittingly as the leader of a band of thieves, the Gerudo, residing in the desert of Hyrule, namely Gerudo Valley. Ganondorf somehow learns of the legends of the magical Triforce and lusts for its power, until his mind is twisted and warped to the point that he is not beyond committing murder to obtain it. He travels to the land of Hyrule in search of a way into the fabled Sacred Realm so he could haul the Triforce. Gamers first see the Sacred Realm in the tale of Hyrule's creation told by the Great Deku Tree to the game's hero, Link, where it is shown as a magical place that serves as the home of the legendary Triforce and has not been visited by any in living memory since the departure of the Goddesses back to the heavens. The Triforce is shown to be shining down upon the Sacred Realm from above in this story as well as a later one told by Princess Zelda to Link, awaiting the time when one worthy of its power would come to claim it from its hiding place.

After threatening each of the leaders of Hyrule's races in order to obtain the Spiritual Stones (necessary keys to open the portal to the Sacred Realm) as well as pledging false allegiance to the King of Hyrule in order to discover the whereabouts of the Ocarina of Time (another key to the Sacred Realm), Ganondorf betrays the King of Hyrule and attacks Hyrule Castle, hoping to get his hands on the Ocarina of Time, and though he conquers the castle, he fails in his ultimate task to obtain the magical instrument, which Princess Zelda leaves in the hands of a boy from the forest named Link. Link, who has by this point aided each of Hyrule's races in recovering from Ganondorf's evil magic and obtained the stones, uses the Ocarina of Time alongside the stones to open the Door of Time within the Temple of Time and to claim the Master Sword that sleeps behind it within the Pedestal of Time. However, Link is too young to take up the mantle of the fabled "Hero of Time", and as such is placed in suspended animation within the Sacred Realm's Temple of Light until he matures enough to properly handle the Master Sword. Meanwhile, Ganondorf enters the Sacred Realm through the portal Link has opened and makes his way to the Temple of Light, where he touches the Triforce with tainted hands and causes it to shatter (in accordance with an ancient prophecy regarding the Triforce's separation) as well as causing the Sacred Realm to wither and become a world of evil and despair, the Dark World seen in A Link to the Past. Only the Temple of Light remains uncorrupted by Ganondorf's invasion of the Sacred Realm and his hauling of the Triforce.

Seven years later, Link is awakened as the Hero of Time by the Sage of Light, Rauru, who explains that Ganondorf, who became the Dark Beast Ganon upon claiming the Triforce (as that was what was reflected in his heart) but reverts to his Gerudian form when he returns to Hyrule, has conquered Hyrule with the power of the Triforce and has turned it into a world of shadows where all of Hyrule's citizens now live in terror and a state of constant fear. Link is then tasked with awakening the mythical Seven Sages (one of which is Rauru himself) so they can bind Ganondorf and seal him within the void of the Dark World to spare Hyrule from further suffering. Curiously, Link never actually ventures out into the Sacred Realm at any point within the game, instead only visiting the Chamber of Sages with the Temple of Light that sits at the heart of the Sacred Realm. Thus, this marks the only location within the Sacred Realm gamers get to visit within the game outside the cutscenes showing the legends of the Triforce. With the power of the Master Sword and the assistance of a mysterious Sheikah warrior named Sheik, Link travels across Hyrule and awakens each of the Sages (Saria in the Forest Temple, Darunia in the Fire Temple, Ruto in the Water Temple, Impa in the Shadow Temple, and Nabooru in the Spirit Temple) until only one final, unknown Sage remains. The final Sage, the Leader of the Sages, is revealed to Link at the Temple of Time, where it is revealed that Sheik is in fact Princess Zelda in disguise and is the Leader of the Sages as well as the holder of the Triforce of Wisdom. Zelda reveals that since Ganondorf's heart was not in balance, he only received the Triforce of Power and has now aggressively sought the other two parts now held by those chosen by destiny, those two being Zelda herself, who holds the Triforce of Wisdom, and Link, who holds the Triforce of Courage.

After giving Link a weapon with which to battle Ganondorf, the Light Arrows, Ganondorf captures Zelda and imprisons her within his castle at the top of the keep, Ganon's Tower, and challenges Link to come and save her. Link, with the assistance of the remaining Sages, enters the castle and brings down the barriers protecting the keep, and works his way up the tower until he reaches its summit, where he does battle with Ganondorf himself. Ganondorf is bested in battle by the Hero of Time and Zelda is released from her crystal prison, but Ganondorf uses his final breath to cause the castle to begin to fall in on itself, hoping to crush the two in the rubble of the tower, though this fails as the pair escapes just in time before the castle's final collapse. Ganondorf emerges from the rubble, alive and seemingly immortal due to the Triforce of Power, and he unleashes its true power by transforming into the bestial form he takes in the Sacred Realm, the Dark Beast Ganon. The Hero of Time performs in a final battle with Ganon and bests him once again, buying the Sages the time they need to throw him back into the Sacred Realm-turned-Dark World and to seal the gateway. Ganondorf screams in anger that he will return one day to exterminate all of their descendants and conquer Hyrule again before drifting away into the void, largely fulfilling the backstory told in A Link to the Past. After this, Zelda sends the Hero of Time back to his childhood to regain his lost seven years, where he lays the Master Sword to rest and travels back to Hyrule Castle to warn the princess about Ganondorf's true nature as well as the coming events in an attempt to avert Ganondorf's coup of the Royal Family of Hyrule.

Twilight Princess
In yet another appearance, the Sacred Realm features into a story told in Twilight Princess by the Light Spirit Lanayru. When Link comes to the Lanayru Province in search of the final fragment of the Fused Shadow and light has been restored to the Lanayru Province, the Light Spirit relates to Link the story of the Dark Interlopers, the ancestors of the Twili. In this story, Lanayru shows Link images of the creation of Hyrule by the Golden Goddesses as well as the Sacred Realm itself. For ages the people lived, content in mind and body, but soon word of the Sacred Realm spread across the world, along with that of the wish-granting Triforce it contained. Lust for the Triforce's power turned friends against each other and caused much bloodshed until finally a group of powerful sorcerers, the Dark Interlopers, attempted to seize control of the Sacred Realm and take the Triforce for their own, sparking a civil war that raged across Hyrule. The Light Spirits intervened at the behest of the Goddesses, locking the Dark Interlopers away in the Twilight Realm and shattering the Fused Shadow into four fragments that were separated henceforth to prevent their misuse. Lanayru finished his tale by warning Link that those who do not know the dangers of wielding power will soon be ruled by it instead.