Rito



The Rito are the race of anthropomorphic birds that inhabit Dragon Roost Island, the volcanic island located in the Great Sea in The Wind Waker. They have yet to make an appearance in another game. The Rito serve the role of mailmen, as they, because of their ability to fly, are most suited for that job. A big part of their island is used as Post Office.

The Rito are said to not always have been creatures of the sky. The Grappling Hook is a remnant of those days. The Rito (still) aren't arboreal by birth. They need to get their wings from the Sky Spirit, Valoo, by visiting him and receiving a scale from him. this also seems to serve as a sort of coming of age-ritual.

The name Rito seems to be a play on the Japanese word "tori" which means "bird". They also might be inspired by the Watarara, a much more birdlike race that appeared in the manga of Ocarina of Time.

Zora -> Rito Evolution Theory
Every new Zelda game causes new discussions about the storyline to arise. The most prominent debate The Wind Waker caused is the one about the Zora-Rito relation. In the game, Link meets the spirit of the former Sage of Earth, Laruto, who is a Zora. She asks Link to find to find "the one who carries on her bloodline", as that person is destined to become the new Sage. This descendant turned out to be a Rito girl, Medli. This fact, along with the parallel to Fado and Makar, whose races are explicitly said to be related, the closely similar culture of both tribes, the absence of Sea Zoras in a setting in which they should be plentiful, that the Rito were confirmed in-game to not have always been aerial creatures, and the appearance of the Zora Emblem on the clothing of several Rito, lend to the theory that the Rito evolved or were transformed from the Zora.

There are some arguments against this theory. The main point is that the Sages presented in A Link to the Past and Four Swords Adventures are supposedly the descendants of the Sages in Ocarina of Time, though it is not known if these would be the original sages or the ones that Link awakens in the game. Furthermore, other races have been absent in games that displayed their confirmed habitats; this is claimed to be merely an "inconsistency" used by the developers to make the story and development less complicated. Finally, people have questioned the idea that an aquatic race, which has previously been shown to be able to live in the sea, would change into a birdlike race when the whole world is flooded. This is countered by the claim that the Goddesses may have enforced this change to keep Hyrule a secret; however, the Fishmen are still allowed to roam the sea, and are confirmed to have some small knowledge of Hyrule. Finally, if interbreeding between species is possible, the Zora symbol on the Ritos' clothes could be explained by their mixed heritage.