The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sees Link lose his memories entirely after a centuries-long slumber following the Great Calamity. To recall his lost past, Link must journey across all of Hyrule and find familiar places to jog his memory, triggering a short cutscene showing interactions between key Breath of the Wild characters in the years and days before Ganon’s return.
Most of these scenes involve Link and Princess Zelda as they come to terms with Zelda's evil-sealing abilities, though others show the pair in more intimate moments with the four champions tasked with helping defeat Ganon. It’s in one of these scenes that a Reddit user highlights an interesting parallel.
In a post to the r/Breath_of_the_Wild subreddit, user Brightfury4 makes a connection between two unlockable memories previously thought unrelated. In one, Link receives an injury on his right arm when he and Zelda are ambushed near Death Mountain and Zelda expresses her fear of Calamity Ganon’s return. In another, taking place an unknown amount of time later, Mipha is seen healing Link’s same arm atop Divine Beast Vah Ruta as she reminisces about when she and Link first met. As Brightfury4 points out, it’s very possible that Mipha is healing the same wound that Link sustained in the previous memory.
Though these memories do take place after one another, due to Breath of the Wild’s open-world nature, they are rarely acquired in the correct order. It’s no wonder, then, that it took players a while to realize that these events may be linked. As Zelda points out, it’s not a serious injury that requires immediate attention, and so the memory of Link and Zelda exploring the wilds between these two memories doesn’t necessarily break the theory.
Some commenters appreciate the attention to detail, though others point out that, as Mipha says, Link has a penchant for getting himself injured and there’s no guarantee that the injuries are the same. As user Lyalla highlights, developers likely didn’t want to spend time modeling Link with a different injury, and, because players don’t know how much time has passed between memories, it’s difficult to know if they’re related. Nonetheless, it’s a fascinating find.
Still more Reddit users take the leap of logic into Breath of the Wild sequel theories. Slated for release in 2023, the footage that fans have seen shows Link with a blackened right arm, causing commenters to wonder why this particular arm is always getting hurt. Some suggest that it’s because Link’s right arm isn’t his sword arm, while others point out that, as of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Link is a right-hander. Whatever the case, fans can be sure the dominant hand discourse will continue to permeate the Legend of Zelda fandom for quite some time to come.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is currently exclusive to Nintendo Switch.