The sages of Twilight Princess...

[ashwinder]

...all seem to be a bunch of ghostly old men. This is the first of the 3d zeldas to have such uniform all male sages, I wonder who they were in life (presuming they were ever anything but ghostly old men). As all the OoT elements are accounted for by the TP sages are these the same sages as ocarina but some how older and uh... male?

On the subject what is with the sages of Zelda?! Do they live for ever in spirit form (which is what is implied in Ocarina) or did they disappear with old Hyrule, as in WW there are completely different sages. Yet even in WW there is a hint of the old sages in the stained glass of old Hyrule, do they still exist? Confusing!

Sorry for the many strands in that rant but overall I just want to know what people think about the sages, are they immortal, why are there so many, and why do they seem to change all the time?!

[HyLorian]

Well, there are certain differences between those sages. The sages in TP for example were also mentors of Zelda and advisors to the king. Though adhering to their respective element, they are quite different from the ones from OoT. OoT's sages were ancient protectors of the land and Raura was one of the builders of the Temple of Time. They are also seen to reside in the Sacred Realm instead of living with the Royal Family. The sages from the Wind Waker are different from the previous two. There were only two of them, and their role was solely to retain the Master Sword's ability to repel evil.

What may confuse you is that they are all called "sages" while they each have a separate role. The only ones we see that are immortal are Rauru and the TP sages. The ones from TWW are ghosts, and as seen in OoT,MM,FSA and TMC, anyone with regrets or unfinished business can become a ghost.

[ashwinder]

But isn't it something of a coincidence that the sages in TP all represent the same elements (even with the same symbols) as in OoT? I guess when I was first playing OoT I presumed that the sages were the same as those in OoT but that they had lost their 'earthly' forms (including sex and race) and merely become the generic ghostlike entities  seen in TP.

If you're right and the sages of TP are distinct from those of OoT then do you think the TP sages were ever living beings? If not what exactly are they, spirits, gods, something else?

[Wolfos]

If you're right and the sages of TP are distinct from those of OoT then do you think the TP sages were ever living beings? If not what exactly are they, spirits, gods, something else?

Just something that came in my mind lately. What if the sages of TP are the same wise old men of the AlttP intro. The water sage got killed in a cutscene in TP, that could refer to the fallen sage on the image of the intro of AlttP, just a guess though.

[Hyruleansoldier]

The thing is, the TP sages introduced themselves as being responsible for both protecting the Mirror of Twilight and acting as tutors for Princess Zelda.  The OoT (and TWW) sages were the protectors of the Temples, the Sacred Realm and the Master Sword (in TWW).  That does not give much room for overlaps, and I doubt that they would all be the same kind of sages in charge of ALL of the above things.  There's only so many responsibilities one can have ^^

[ashwinder]

The thing is, the TP sages introduced themselves as being responsible for both protecting the Mirror of Twilight and acting as tutors for Princess Zelda.  The OoT (and TWW) sages were the protectors of the Temples, the Sacred Realm and the Master Sword (in TWW).  That does not give much room for overlaps, and I doubt that they would all be the same kind of sages in charge of ALL of the above things.  There's only so many responsibilities one can have ^^

I see what you mean and yet I'm not convinced; same number, same elements, same symbols, surely there must be some kind of connection between the TP and OoT sages?

[Hyruleansoldier]

Are you familiar with the term "mindfuck"?

I think this might be a good example.  Some links/references are deliberately put in by Nintendo to make a point, but others just serve to make us think and wonder, theorize over possibilities to feed the community with food for thought.

I think it would have worked better if the TP sages didn't have the different symbols on them, since there didn't seem to be much differences between them (them being ghost-like and we didn't get to see them as having distinct identities).

It's hard to be sure.  We ought to come up with a theory how they might really be connected to the sages and why on earth (or in the heavens ) they would have those symbols...

[Art1st4786]

Well, if you think about it this way, the sages we know from Ocarina of Time didn't become sages until the Adult timeline when they needed to be awakened by the Hero of Time.  Twilight Princess takes place a hundred and some years after the Child timeline.  Since it was the Sages that we see in Twilight Princess that sent Ganondorf to the Twilight Realm, and not the ones we know from Ocarina of Time, there's always the possibility of these sages being present somewhere (offscreen, mind you) during the Child portion of Ocarina of Time.  Basically, two sets of Sages depending on what happened during the events of Ocarina of Time.

[Lexxi Aileron]

They seem to be spiritual avatars, which makes sense since the sages seem to act as "spiritual figures" according to TP.

I think the sages can take on many different roles depending on the situation.

In ALttP- they serve the royal family.
In OoT- they serve the royal family and guard the seals in the elemental temples in different regions in Hyrule.
In TWW- they serve the royal family and pray to maintain the Master Sword's power.
In FSA (maidens)- they serve the royal family guard different regions in Hyrule.
In TP- they guard the Mirror of Twilight and tutor the royal family.

[hero of mist]

in the child timeline, ganon would be sealed away ,thus the sages could get their awakening call without link killing a dundeon boss. the sages in tp could be the same sages from oot in a way.

[Art1st4786]

in the child timeline, ganon would be sealed away ,thus the sages could get their awakening call without link killing a dundeon boss. the sages in tp could be the same sages from oot in a way.

If Ganondorf was sealed away in the Sacred Realm in the Child timeline, then the events of Twilight Princess would never have happened, if you think about it that way.

[Ezlo's Apprentice]

I think the term "Sage" has just been overused so often it's opened the way for all sorts of confusion. Missing from Lexxi's earlier list are the sages of Phantom Hourglass, on the Isle of Ruins. Ooh, wait, there's six of them again... Tired story device, much?

As far as I'm concerned, for the most part, all of the Sages we have seen so far in the series have been unrelated. The only clear relation that is made is between the Wise Men and Maidens of ALttP. Trying to link up the others is far too bothersome.

[Hyruleansoldier]

I think the term "Sage" has just been overused so often it's opened the way for all sorts of confusion. Missing from Lexxi's earlier list are the sages of Phantom Hourglass, on the Isle of Ruins. Ooh, wait, there's six of them again... Tired story device, much?

"Sage" is just the term for a wise person, scholar, or otherwise gifted person.  Apart from that it's also used as a title often, which is why we're dealing with so many different kinds of "sages/Sages" in the series already.  I guess every game needs a couple of those -- preferably 6 of them

[bastian]

I'm of two minds about it:

A) The TP Sages ARE the ghosts of the awakened Sages from OoT, but as ghosts have lost all distinctive qualities to their form (gender, race) which makes perfect sense to me.

B) The "ancient" Sages were NOT awakened in this timeline (which makes perfect sense) so six different sages were recruited when Ganondorf was wreaking havoc with no Link to defeat him.

B makes more sense to me. If Link was not there to defeat Ganondorf, then the Sages would not have been awakened, so we have some different Sages (Wise Men).

[Uber_Challenger]

Hmmm...I think that the sages from OOT are different from the ones in TP. Let me elaborate.

First of all, the six sages of OOT, obviously meaning Saria, Darunia, Ruto, Nabooru, Impa, and Rauru, all (with the possible exception of Rauru, as Link never encountered Rauru in person as a child and as such Rauru might have been a sage all along) were rescued from the Temples and awakened as sages during the adult part of the game, which as we know eventually leads to WW, and in the opinions of some (including myself), LOZ and AOL, but not TP. TP comes during the child timeline, where all of those sages (again, with the possible exception of Rauru) were just people, Saria being just a close friend of Link's who lives in the Forest, Darunia being another friend of Link as well as king of the Gorons, Ruto being another friend of Link's and daughter of King Zora, Nabooru being a newer friend of Link's and one of the leaders of the Gerudo, and also Impa, yet another friend of Link's and Zelda's caretaker. Of course, the 3 goddesses could have had them predestined to arise as sages in 7 years, but the fact still stands that they were only known as sages in the adult portion of the game (and thus the adult timeline, which did not include TP, I don't think). And since TP takes place in the timeline where those individuals were NOT sages, there is a strong probability that the sages of TP and OOT were different beings.

Just my thought on the matter.

[nobleknightdaniel]

they are diffrent sages because they all look alike and are to afraid to fight ganondorf  and they also opened the twilight realm which they couldn't do in the ocarina of time and one of the sages dissaperd so they are not ghosts

[bastian]

Still, it's sort of a catch-22 . . . which events which happen during OoT do not affect the other timeline? And where do these OTHER sages come from? If our OoT sages were NOT awakened, how did these sages come to exist?

And I don't think you can take the cutscenes about Ganon's imprisonment in TP as literal. I don't think we're expected to believe that that's what the Sages looked like at the time of his imprisonment. That's just what they look like "now" at present time in the story, so we just see them like that in the "past" scenes. Just like we see "clones" of Link as the Twili in THAT cut scene. OBVIOUSLY all the Twili do no look like clones of Link.

[supdogq1]

maybe their searching for ganondof...............idk 

[Hyruleansoldier]

Bastian has a point with the cutscenes thing.  At any rate it may just be a generic shape they've chosen to appear in -- we know Sages have certain abilities, and like Zelda could transform into Sheik, so that is an interesting fact to be considered.

[ashwinder]

Personally I think they are the same sages as Ocarina as odd as that seems. I think after however many thousands of years that elapsed between OoT and TP the sages have lost their earthly forms, almost as if the sages whilst alive were just carriers for some kind of Holy spirit that would live on after them. Their bodies would, with time, become little more than a memory of the past while their spirits would appear uniform. Also what if the spirits that the sages of OoT carried were in fact ancient and had inhabited many bodies before (like those in WW?) so they would look nothing like Saria/Darunia et al. I call this the parasitic sage theory