Sorry it took some time. My early post was short. I am not as fast a typer as any of you, so I wanted to get my main idea out. In this post I present the story that I was thinking of, but I did altered it a lot with your comments Max. First I will give some comments on your posts and then provide my idea. Happy readings
Comments:First off, I like the idea of Maple being accidentally involved with some of the problems. However in your second idea she comes of as really mean and even vile. I think she should be more sneaky and clumsy in the manner.Being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
In your first idea, the Sheikah come of as really mean and even evil. The Sheikah have always been portrayed as the servants of the Royal Family, with great mystical prowess, wisedom and cunning. They are strategists who are at the disposal of the Royal Family. Gathering all four the cogs from their vaults with strong mechanical and mystical protection is a fools strategy. You need all four the cogs to open the sacred realm and bringing them together and releaving them of the existing protection and bringing then all in one place kinda increases the chances that someone evil will succeed in gathering them. Secondly it gives the impression that the Sheikah are preparing a coup on the Royal Family themselves.
The biggest problem is that it makes it seem that the so called plot twist of Ganon's reveal is already known by the player once Link sets out for the first time.
I do find your idea of nightmare visions by Zelda great, although that she goes herself might not be such a good idea as you would get a nanny chase again and her parents would use all the resources to search for her instead of keeping an eye on the Gerudo King she starts to suspect. Unlike OOT Hyrule is not overrun by Ganon yet, that she needs to hide from.
Some back story:What I advocate is that there is a bad guy. His name doesn't matter at the moment, but you could call him Ash if you want to (if this manager of ours doesn't mind being someone who wants to see the world burn
). He/she is a sociopath and because they rellish in the missery of others not much motivation is needed. He is also capable of magic (how that can be, maybe because he is of a mystical race or had the training). In the past he performed a ritual to release the demon beast Ganon, but instead he got the man Ganondorf stripped of all the Triforce's power. Ganondorf wants the Triforce once more and the bad guy wants to see the misery caused by the Demon beast. But the bad guy tells him that the cogs that seal the Sacred Realm are hidden and spread over Hyrule.
Together they hatch a plan where Ganondorf goes to the Hyrule Castle to obtain more information about the cogs and the Celestial Clocktower. While the bad guy goes through Hyrule to find the cogs through the leaders of the other races. In a forgotten part of Hyrule Castle library Ganondorf finds out that the last mystical defence against the cogs is that the vaults deep inside the temples can only be accessed by the Hero who is marked by the Goddesses in case a great evil would rise again. That is why Ganondorf recruites Link.
Link will meet the Bad Guy throughout the game. He starts of somewhat nice to Link, but as Link stops many of his plans to cause missery he becomes more and more antagonizing to the result that he even attacks Link once he gets all the cogs.
Second act stuff:The first time Link meets the bad guy is in the Deku swamp where he talks about how amusing the troubles of those Deku are. He closes by mentioning if the Deku King wants to sell their precious treasure already. In the Deku's Village Link learns about the problems of the Deku and how their King is doing nothing about it and only in his castle recieving no one. A magical stranger seems to be responsible for some of them and in one the problems Link meets Maple. Once Link solved all the main quest problems he learns that a mob of Deku has gone to the palace to dispose the king. Link goes there to create peace. He learns from the Deku King that a magical stranger wanted to buy there most precious treasure, but as soon as he found out what that treasure was he became very angry and stormed out, leaving the gate and guards in shambles. The Deku King also thinks the stranger went into Kokiri Forest as the stranger ranted about wanting the cog.
As Link continues into Kokiri Forest he sees the Deku guard post at the border also destroyed. In Kokiri Forest Link is teased by the Spirits of the Kokiri. Near the entrance to the Forest Temple Link sees Maple being plagued by the Kokiri. She is shooting spells at them and of them hits Link. Because the spells are targeted at spirits it only knocks Link of his feet or just singes him. Startled by what she has done she flies away shouting that she will get them and the cog another day. In the Forest Temple Link is confronted by Tilo who tries stop Link from progressing. Once Link obtains the cog in the Forest Temple he is spoken to by a distant voice. The voice is from the lingering spirit of the guardian (Deku Tree?).
With the Zora it is a good idea to do a kidnapping, however kidnapping the entire royal family including the king is perhaps a bit too far to escalate this early in the game. Not to mention that it would leave the Zora without a commander in chief in their civil war against the Zola. My suggestion is that the Bad guy helps the Zola to kidnap the son and daughter of the Zora King. He uses them to ransom the Cog from the Zora King. Link helps to rescue the children from the Zola. Link has to sneak into the Zola stronghold somewhere in River Valley to go to where the kids are locked. When confronted with the Bad Guy he gets some unexpected help from the Sheikah. The Sheikah have learnt that the Forest Cog was stolen and because the Bad Guy now openly tries to get to the cog the Sheikah focus is on him, missing the fact that Link is the one that got the Cog. Once Link reunites the son and daughter with their parents, the King mentions that even though he wanted to give the Bad guy the cog, he still could not do it because the cog is stored savely out of reach of everyone in the Lake Hylia Temple.
Now that the kidnapping is resolved the Zora blockade to Lake Hylia is also lifted and Link can now go there. At Lake Hylia he meets an old explorer Sheldon. He tells Link about the ancient machinery that allow the temple entrance to sink and rise. As Link goes to one of the Machines to make the entrance rise, he sees Maple trying to operate it as well with her magic. Unfortunately she is unsuccesfull and ends up breaking the machine. She yells at Link teling it is his fault that he made her break her concentration and flies off. Link returns to Sheldon. Sheldon fishes some of the required ore from the Lake and forges spare parts, which he then uses to fix the damage to the machine. Sheldon activates the machine and the temple entrance rises. Maple then swoops in to quickly enter the Temple, but is blocked by a magical barrier. She blasts it with some magic but fails. Angry she blaims Link again for her failing and tells him that she will find a spell to undo the magical barrier before flying off. Sheldon tells Link that the barrier is made to keep the selfish people out. Only those with a selfless heart may enter. Thus Link can enter. Once Link gets the cog he is spoken to by the spirit of the guardian (Jabu Jabu?)
With the Gorons the Bad Guy escalates again. What started out as a tooth-decaying disease the Bad Guy turned into a plague infecting the entire body of the Gorons. The Bad Guy offered a potion that would cure the disease if they gave him the cog. However the Gorons are unresponsive to blackmail, so he took the oldest of the goron elders to the entrance of the Earth Temple to force the elder to open the Temple for him. Link who has been helping with other problems has been granted permission by the other elders to take the mine cart tracks to the Earth Temple. At the entrance Link is confronted by the Bad Guy and again a group of Sheikah come to Link's aid and scare of the Bad Guy. Link can now enter the Temple because he had the permission of the elders to come down there and the magical barrier recognizes it.
Link confronts Maple on Goron Mountain and tells her about the disease. Maple says in her arogance that it is easily solved with a basic potion. But she confesses to Link that she is very bad at making potions. That is why she wants the Cogs. It is said that the cogs give special potion making skills. Link tells Maple that she can keep a cog if she succeeds in making a cure for the Gorons. She replies that if she doesn't get a cog there won't be a cure. So Link gives Maple an old left-over gear he got from Sheldon when he repaired the machine, claiming it is one of the cogs that he got in a dungeon. After Link finishes the dungeon Maple brings a caldren of potion with the cure for the disease. She immediately flies off without a word. When Link leaves Carbon Mines Maple confronts Link again. She is mad that Link tricked her with that fake cog, however she doesn't mind because it gave her confidence in making potions. She returns to Syrup again.
In the mean time Zelda has been having visions and nightmares about the Gerudo King and Link collecting the Cogs. As the King and the Sheikah elders are already chasing the Bad Guy they would not listen to her. Zelda sends her most trusted servent Impa to track down Link. When Impa confronts Link on his way the Valley of Death. She first wants to disable Link and take him back to Hyrule Castle. However as soon as she recognizes the mark on Link's hand she suspects that the danger may be more dire than previously imagined. She tells Link the full story of the Triforce including the part that the Gerudo King left out. Impa decides to help Link obtain the last Cog, because with the cogs powers Link may be strong enough to confront whatever evil Hyrule is facing.
Impa helps out with Link getting in good graces with the Sheikah and she even obtains the information that the fire and ice arrows needed to enter the temple have been stolen by the Gerudo and are now in the hands of Abigail. Link as a poor Hylian boy has a better chance of success to retrieve the arrows than any Sheikah has, so Impa arranges Link's access to the Gerudo Desert. In the Gerudo Desert Link confronts Abigail and her band of Gerudo's and retrieves the arrows. Link returns to the Valley of Death and uses the arrows to enter the Sheikah Temple. After Link finishes the Temple and exits, he is attacked by the Bad Guy. The Bad Guy had waited for Link to complete collecting the cogs and now he will take them from him by force. But he is stopped by Impa. The bad guy and Impa fight for a little while, before they are joined by other Sheikah. The Bad GUy snarks that he has no time for this and runs of. Impa tells a little lie that the Bad Guy has all the Cogs and the other Sheikah follow the Bad Guy. Impa then turns to Link saying that she hopes that Link knows what he is doing and the potential danger he might unleash.
Third act fallout:In the third act Link returns to the Gerudo King with the cogs, where it is reveiled that the Gerudo King is Ganon. The Bad Guy could make his appearance here as well. He may keep the guards busy, while Ganon takes the cogs from Link. After which they both escape to the Celestial Clocktower. Link would confront the Bad Guy once more inside the Celestial Clocktower before Link confronts Sykes for a final battle. Now armed with the experience of his trials and the Master Sword Link has the strenght to defeat him. Although they don't fight until the Bad Guy has ranted about how he wants to unleash the Demon beast to cause chaos and how his first attempt failed and only got the man Ganondorf. All as a stalling tactic.
Max before you had the idea of making Sykes a redeemable character. Well first I thought it would not work if he was the only antagonist besides Ganon and he should have to keep up Link's exile status from the gang. I think now with another antagonist it should be possible.
My idea is that Farin when he first encountered Link he also saw his mark on his hand and knew the meaning of it. However he thought Link was to young and in a too unfortunate position to stand a chance against Ganon. So Farin took Link in and started training him. He also gathered other gangmembers to provide a happy family for Link. But unconciously Farin always favored Link. Sykes sensed this and it fueled his jealousy. Thus when the Gerudo King Later approached Sykes as well he was thrilled. Sykes decided to help the Gerudo King because he also wanted to bring peace, he also wanted to free Farin and above all he also wanted to be reunited with his parents.
When Link and Sykes fight they fight for real, but when Link defeats Sykes Farin steps in and tells Sykes that he is working for an evil man that does not want peace and happiness, but seeks to rule everything with fear and pain. That is when Sykes realizes his mistake and shows remorse. He even apologizes to Link for being such a jerk.
