On: The Kokiri

   Something that’s always bothered me in Ocarina of Time are the Kokiri. A race of children created by the Great Deku Tree, they live out their lives in the fashion that regular children would in such a setting. You have the leader, who seems like a bully, that merely takes that stance as a father figure, or perhaps an older brother to his fellow Kokiri. The mother, or older sister, figure, who protects her friends and keeps watch over their home. These things would be the natural flow in any society of children. However they’re still a mystery to me.

   These children seem to be curious, they seem to seek the unknown. The Know-it-All brothers are a testament to that. They sought knowledge, and they found it. Children, when interested, are insatiable in their curiosity and capacity for searching. But they won’t leave the forest. They say that they will die if they leave the forest. But come on. In every group of children is the one that wouldn’t care. That would be so curious, he was just pulled in and had to find out. Would he really die? Or would he merely age. Every time they leave the forest do they begin to age ever so slightly? Was it once that a child left the forest, and became so entranced by the outside world that he spent long enough to hit a growth spurt? Maybe the Great Deku Tree used to allow them out of his anti-aging magic, but as adults they were no more than the average Hylian? Was it him who kept a mental barrier on the children, keeping them within his protective gaze? One could argue That Link himself is the embodiment of curiosity in this group. But he’s meant to be the purest form of courage in the whole of Hyrule. So why would he be something different to the Kokiri? Then you could imagine that Fado, the little girl with the poufy blonde hair at the end of the trail of bridges over Kokiri forest, is the embodiment of curiosity. Later in the game, if you enter the Lost Woods and turn immediately left, you find her standing in the lit clearing. She tells you that anyone who gets lost in the Lost Woods gets turned into a Stalfos. Return, and you find a Stalfos in her place. Was she the curious one, who instead turned to the corners of the Lost Woods, only to lose herself and be trapped as a monster?

   That certainly would stifle the curiosity in any of the others.