The latest release in the long-running Legend of Zelda franchise, Breath of the Wild, has been met with massive acclaim and has been incredibly well deserved. The tired open-world genre has been given a breath of fresh air and has proven the quality assured by Nintendo since the '80s.

However, BotW has caused ripples in the established timeline of the games, which was already tenuous at best. Spanning millennia, each game in the series is dubiously connected to one another according to the official timeline written in the Hyrule Historia.

With over 25 years of games to cover, and with plots never intended to fully connect, Nintendo’s attempt at aligning everything was irable, but left a few conspicuous holes in the quilt.

In our 15 Legend Of Zelda Plot Holes You Completely Missed, we’re tackling some of the most curious and overlooked gaps. With that said, while many of these can theoretically be solved with information from the Historia and Nintendo, none have had their case officially closed just yet.

Gerudo Procreation

The Gerudo race is one of the most prominent throughout Hyrule, and has appeared through many iterations of the franchise. As a desert-based people, they’re a female-only clan known for their thievery.

However, their most infamous element is that they were responsible for the birth of Ganondorf, the series’ primary antagonist and... wait a minute, how did they even get pregnant if they’re all female?

While this plot point has been “addressed” (more like danced around) there is no conclusive statement for how exactly a Gerudo finds a mate. Breath of the Wild makes it clear that Gerudo women go forth from the desert to find a beau, but they're far less hospitable in Ocarina of Time, being openly hostile towards men.

There's one male in the Gerudo clan every hundred years, and he’s the king. Does that mean he fathers every Gerudo child until the next male heir is born? Or perhaps the women go to town and liaison with any gentleman that catches their fancy?

Then again, all their daughters bear distinctly Gerudo traits, so what are they-- the Asari from Mass Effect?

Shifting And Anachronistic Locations

Breath of the Wild’s Hyrule is massive and gorgeous, but it’s the world’s underlying sense of nostalgia and mystery that makes it as addicting as it is. The ruins littered about the landscape feature symbols and iconic locations from previous games in the franchise, making BotW assuredly the tail-end of the "Twilight Timeline."

The Great Plateau is the Hyrule from Ocarina, and everything beyond was the result of the territory growing. Out there, we find the Eldin Bridge and castle from Twilight Princess. We even see the ancient shrines from Skyward Sword. There’s a problem, though: they’re all in the wrong places.

The Lost Woods, heavily implied to be those from Ocarina of Time, should be south of the Great Plateau, but are instead north of Hyrule Castle. Kakariko Village is in a similar location, but no longer at Death Mountain’s doorstep. The list goes on.

Sure, this could be explained by tectonic shifts during the ages that transpired between games and, to be fair, there’s evidence of this regarding the escalation of the Northern Continent, but until it's addressed, we’re just supposed to accept that this isn’t an issue on Nintendo’s to-do list.

The Origins Of The Rito

The Legend of Zelda franchise is blessed with excellent and unique race designs that (generally) eschew the most basic versions of dwarves, elves, and the like.

The rock-eating Gorons, the musically gifted merpeople known as the Zora, and the forever-childlike Kokiri are all great examples of this. The humanoid-birds of the Rito would also make this list, if it weren’t for their confused origins.

According to series director Eiji Aonuma, the Rito of Wind Waker evolved from the Zora clan in Ocarina of Time. This is corroborated in-game, as the character Medli shares her blood with the Zora Earth Sage.

Breath of the Wild actively contradicts this, however, as it has the Rito and Zora living side-by-side. True, BotW appears to not be in the Wind Waker’s timeline, but then that leaves the question as to what evolved into the Rito if not the Zora?

What's The Deal With Ganon/dorf And Demise?

Ganon is the series' main villain. Sometimes he’s at the forefront, but other times he’s pulling the strings from behind a red herring villain-- like the criminally underused Zant. The enormous pig-like wizard/demon thing also has a human form called Ganondorf. Portrayed as the “King of Thieves," he’s a manipulative sorcerer who occasionally ends up sympathetic.

The mind-boggling part comes in the form of a “chicken-or-the-egg” scenario: what’s the real form of this entity? Is Ganon the Frieza-esque final form of Ganondorf, or is Ganondorf the human skin that Ganon wears to blend in? Nintendo claims that both forms are the “real” one, but their clashing personalities and desires make that a hard pill to swallow.

Then we have Demise. As the true villain of the franchise’s origin story, Skyward Sword, Demise essentially serves as the devil of the Zelda universe. In SS, upon his defeat, Demise curses Link, Zelda, and himself to a never-ending cycle of reincarnation as a means to achieve his vengeance.

This further complicates the now-triumvirate of evil, as the three distinct forms all have their own agendas, especially considering that Ganon’s two forms only serve their supposed ancestor indirectly.

The Sheikah Population

The Sheikah are one of the most mysterious races in Hyrule. This also makes them one of the most confusing.

Known as the “Shadow Folk,” they are a mix between ninja and technological marvels, silently guarding the royal family of Hyrule through the ages.

Players were first introduced to them in the N64 classic, Ocarina of Time. Here, there are only a handful of them left in the world, although their iconography and artifacts adorn the land, suggesting they were once quite numerous.

When that timeline makes it to Twilight Princess, there’s apparently only a single Sheikah left, yet when we get to BotW’s era, they had clearly proliferated extensively to the point where there are even rival clans.

While it’s possible that some stragglers hid in the shadows like their name suggests during the TP era, there’s no real explanation for how they returned to strength.

The Hero's Arsenal

In every single Zelda game, the player accrues an immense amount of unique weapons, items, and armor that are skillfully deployed to defeat enemies and solve puzzles.

Finally, after defeating whatever incarnation of Ganon awaits at the end the quest, the Hero rests easy with this enormous arsenal. However, what happens to all that stuff?

You’d think that they’d store this all away for the next time they needed a boy in green to defeat a pig wizard, but in similar fashion to the other enchanted tools.

Sure, that could be explained away by the amount of time that es between incarnations, but what about the games that are direct follow-ups?

After beating Ocarina of Time, the young Link still has all the stuff from his adventure, including magic spells, bows, bombs, and a sweet hammer. Yet, in Majora’s Mask, he’s down to a sword, shield, and ocarina-- the last of which gets lifted by the Skull Kid.

Sure, it could be argued that the Skull Kid took the rest of his items, but it’s pretty clear that it was the musical instrument alone.

The Triforce Wish

The Triforce is not only the most iconic symbol of the Zelda franchise, it’s also the ultimate MacGuffin for the games it’s featured in. Comprised of three pieces representing Courage, Wisdom, and Power, it was left by the Goddesses as they returned to the celestial plane. It’s said that whoever finds this sacred artifact will have any wish-- whether it be good or evil-- granted.

These wishes have been taken advantage of in multiple entries for multiple purposes, both good and evil by, unsurprisingly, Link and Ganondorf, respectively.

However, this brings up a problem in which nearly all fiction that features wishes needs to grapple with: why in the world don’t they just wish that evil stops returning to their realm so they can legitimately live in peace? Could it be that they inexplicably forget that this is going to happen repeatedly?

The Religion Of The World

Our first major foray in the religion of the Realm of Hyrule’s was in the ground-breaking Ocarina of Time. Sure, there were hints here and there, but it was never delved into with such detail as when the Deku Tree filled in the blanks.

Three Goddesses known as Din, Farore, and Nayru created the land and all who lived upon it, leaving the Triforce in their wake as they ascended to the heavens. This seems to be the widely-accepted belief system amongst the populous and is referenced thoroughly through dialogue, items, and symbols.

When Skyward Sword-- the origin story that mostly makes sense-- was released, it retconned this tale.

Here, it’s stated that there was an all-powerful Goddess named Hylia who was responsible for what the “Golden Goddesses” were previously attributed.

Hey, that’s okay, as thousands of years , some religions fade and others emerge, so it makes sense… except that at the far end of the timeline, in BotW, it appears that Goddess worship is back in business.

Of course, this was all made stranger by the fact that the earliest games in the series are filled with allusions to Christianity, but that’s another story altogether.

The Distressing Amount Of Alternate Dimensions No One Cares About

Parallel universes, also known as multi-verses, have compelling quantum-mechanical theories behind them right here in the real world and not just in comic books.

We’ve seemingly failed to prove them one way or another here, but in the medieval realm of Hyrule, they're not only proven to exist, but they can seemingly be accessed on a whim. Also, somehow, someway, this is never discussed at length by anyone or ired with any of the respect that it so desperately deserves.

Hyrule’s inexplicable glut of alternate realities and the means to access them are nary cross-referenced, despite the dramatic consequences they pose/d to the “prime” Hyrule.

Additionally, considering so many encounters with various entities from multiple realms like the Dark World, Twilight, Lorule, a place born from Link's dreams and more, don’t you think this would be a well-documented phenomena? Instead, everytime it happens, everyone is shocked.

Hyrule's Forgetfulness

The world of Hyrule operates fairly normally, except for one major problem: every few centuries, an evil sorcerer is reincarnated to cause devastation, along with a boy and princess who will stand up to his evil and stop him. This is a pretty big deal and it’s been happening for millennia.

So why does it continually take the people of Hyrule by surprise? Sure, there are legends and stories ed down, but almost none of it seems to be regarded as fact, just overblown myths, which leads to the Kingdom being generally unprepared to handle the situation when it inevitably arises.

This was somewhat addressed in BotW, where we actually get to see the King and Zelda gradually become aware that the legends weren’t just stories and were true.

This is great, the fact that they even considered them to be a myth at all is odd, however, since the previous cycle was fully aware of the cataclysmic event, succeeded in stopping it, and then did everything in their power to make sure people would continue to and prepare... but they didn’t.

It's not like it would have paid off anyway, since Ganon commandeered all the fail-safes, but still.