Light Dragon
Part of a series on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. [View Related Entries]
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About
The Light Dragon is a creature in the video game The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Despite the dragon being spotted at the beginning of the game, its significance to the plot as well as its true identity has made it a particular favorite among the Zelda fandom.
Origin
At the beginning of the game, in the Great Sky Island area, the Light Dragon can be found circling high in the sky. After the decayed Master Sword is sent back in time through a portal, the dragon flies through the clouds separating the sky islands from the ground below allowing access back to Hyrule. The Light Dragon appears again when it is revealed the revived Master Sword is embedded within its head, and Link skydives onto it to retrieve the sword (shown below).[1]
It isn't until completing the main quest "The Dragon's Tears" that the truth of the Light Dragon is revealed.
During the quest, Link finds small pools within geoglyphs throughout the land, and interacting with them shows a cutscene of what happened to Zelda after she disappeared into the distant past. Upon unlocking and viewing the final tear, it is revealed that the Light Dragon is in fact Zelda herself, who transformed herself using a forbidden technique known as Draconification by swallowing her Zonai Secret Stone, as a means to restore the Master Sword to its full strength and have it reach Link in her own time (cutscene shown below).[2]
Spread
The revelation of the true identity of the Light Dragon took many by surprise. Several reactions were posted online proving the moment to be a tear jerker for many players. For example, YouTuber WhatIfJulia's Let's Play video showing her reaction to the scene gained over 49,000 views in three months (shown below).
Fan Art
The Light Dragon has generated many pieces of fan art in the Zelda community. Recurring themes found within the art include drawing Zelda in humanoid form but with dragon features (shown below in a piece by @keirunkun,[3] left), as well as pictures of Link interacting with the Light Dragon in different ways such as a Spirited Away-inspired artwork by DeviantArt[4] user JulianaKorner (shown below, middle) or a piece with a dragon version of Link by Nightron130Prime[5] (below right).
Fan art of Link and the Light Dragon also was popularly applied to the Would You Still Love Me If I Was A Worm? meme, with memers more often replacing the word "worm" with "wyrm," an Old English word for dragon. Examples of this include a May 26th, 2023 post by Tumblr user serakatto[6] that gained over 25,000 notes in four months (shown below, left), a June 9th post by Redditor MinervaMeowMeow[7] that gained over 1,900 points in three months (shown below, center) and a June 13th DeviantArt[8] piece by SelanPike (shown below, right).
Search Interest
External References
[1] Zelda Dungeon Wiki – Light Dragon
[2] Zelda Wiki – The Dragon's Tears
[4] DeviantArt – JulianaKorner
[5] DeviantArt – Nightron130Prime
[7] Reddit – /r/tearsofthekingdom
.png "Ganondorf's Laugh (Tears of the Kingdom)"){kind=icon}
Top Comments
ewmessinger17
Sep 02, 2023 at 11:26PM EDT
Evilthing
Sep 15, 2023 at 11:06PM EDT