Demise is one of the rare non-Ganondorf villains in The Legend of Zelda. The long-running franchise which boasts 29 impressive games has mostly seen some form of Ganondorf as the final villain, with very few deviations. One such deviation came in 2011’s The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.
The villain is a brute much like Ganon, but he’s different in a lot of ways. Thus far, he’s only been in the one game. Even Vaati has been featured as a villain in more than one Zelda title, but Demise remains a one-off. Who is he and why hasn’t he shown back up any other times?
Who is Demise in The Legend of Zelda?
Demise is the final boss in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. After Link spends most of the game fighting minibosses and Ghirahim, he can finally take on the historic evil that threatens to destroy Hyrule, Skyloft, and the rest of the known world. As such, he is a daunting presence that is eventually revealed as something much more.
This villain is the original. In the timeline, Skyward Sword comes first. It was Nintendo’s way of clearing up the confusion and providing a hard starting point for this franchise. That makes Demise the very first Zelda villain rather than Ganon from 1986’s first game. He is a hulking figure with a powerful sword and flaming hair. In that way, his design is very similar to Ganondorf’s. He is one of the most challenging final bosses in this franchise.
Demise’s Place in Zelda Lore
Demise is the first villain any version of Link fought, which is very important to the overarching storyline of The Legend of Zelda. In the lore, each Link is not the same, though there are some continuations. The time jumps and setting changes make it almost impossible for each Link or Zelda to be the same iteration every single time.
Demise comes first and puts a curse on Link when he is defeated by the Hero. That curse states that his hatred will continually be reborn and that some version of the Hero and the Goddess (Zelda) will be involved in a never-ending cycle of battles. This is why villains come back after “dying” and Link has to fight some evil every hundred years or so. It’s also why Zelda is always involved.
This also explains why there are so many different versions of Link. Most of them are a different hero: the Hero of Time, the Hero of Winds, the Hero of Light, and so on and so forth. These heroes are cursed to fight an evil reincarnation of Demise’s hatred. As for why it’s Ganondorf 95% of the time and Vaati the other 5%, there’s no real answer for that.
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