The final room of the Forest Temple looks like a special museum exhibit. Twink wanders up to the square platform, plushly carpeted with a Triforce symbol and surrounded by velvet ropes on poles, and examines the six paintings on the walls. They’re identical depictions of a spooky haunted forest road. Twink is quite sure Ganondorf Glamour, Inc. is behind this and it will become some stupid-ass puzzle, but even knowing that he wants to yell at no one in particular about how tacky it is to have six fucking duplicates of the same painting in the same room. Ghastly or no, Twink has come to expect a little more of Ganondorf than a boss room that looks like Goth Thomas Kinkade threw up on it.

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When Twink, shaking his head in disgust, tries to leave the platform, five incredibly phallic metal spikes poke up out of the ground to fence him in. Now that’s more like it. Twink turns around to face none other than Ganondorf himself. Well, shit. I guess he wanted some more personal feedback on the job he’s done here than Twink filling out a comment card. After a moment, however, Ganondorf pulls off a mask to reveal a…I don’t know. It kind of looks like a dog head, but I know Ganondorf is supposed to be a pig of some kind. Pigdog? Works for me.

Well, hello.

The Evil Spirit from Beyond PIGDOG GANONDORF rears up on its horse, no doubt purchased from Ingo, and charges into one of the paintings. Dammit, Twink just knew that was coming. So, in the first phase of this fight, Pigdog Ganondorf charges off into one painting and then can be seen charging back in two random other paintings. Twink can just hang back and let the right Pigdog Ganondorf emerge, but if he does so he’ll shoot purple lightning at Twink, which he would rather avoid entirely. So instead, he keeps his bow trained on one of the two paintings and waits for the boss to emerge via a purple portal, hoping he picked the right one. Proving that he maybe had a little good karma left over from racing horses and shooting Rupees, Twink manages to, via total dumb luck, pick the correct painting three straight times. This just makes him even angrier at the rank stupidity with which he was guided through the Forest Temple.

For phase two of the fight, Twink and Pigdog Ganondorf engage in a rousing game of light ball tennis, as enjoyed versus Agahnim in A Twink to the Past and of course in Wind Wanker. I find it kind of annoying here because the phallic poles that so amused me a moment ago now are a real hindrance to a clear camera angle, and Pigdog Ganondorf also keeps floating around like Shion’s head untethered from its body. Pigdog Ganondorf likes to mix it up with his shots, so some of the volleys last for five or six strikes before either Twink or the boss has been smacked. It’s not all that difficult, and that’s coming from the person who just got lost for two hours in a completely symmetrical dungeon. When Pigdog Ganondorf is close to dead, instead of shooting a glob of “light” (wink) at Twink, he surges forward in a spear motion with a bunch of multicolored sparklies around his body. Twink, too overcome by unexpected rainbow power to move out of the way, almost dies to this hit, but thankfully the next tennis round finishes off the boss.

As Pigdog Ganondorf is consumed by blue flame and sucked into a purple vortex in the floor, the real Ganondorf seems to speak through its dying body. “Hey kid, you did quite well…” he admits. “It looks like you may be gaining some slight skill… But you have defeated only my phantom… When you fight the real me, it won’t be so easy!” I’m glad he cleared this up, because Twink was totally convinced that this was the real Ganondorf and his adventure was over. Dipshit. Ganondorf also chooses to complain to Twink about how incompetent his minions are, like Twink is his Executive Vice-President at GGI and they’re having a three-martini lunch at Lon-Lon Ranch. “What a worthless creation that ghost was!” he bitches. “I will banish it to the gap between dimensions!!” He does so, and Twink is left in blissful silence. Knowing what he’s about to go through, he takes a moment to soak up this peaceful solitude before grabbing his Ass Container and hopping in the portal back to the Chamber of the Sages.

When Twink reappears on the Triforce symbol in the center of the chamber, he is facing Saria on her Sage of the Forest platform. “Thank you…” she says. “Because of you, I could awaken as a Sage… I am Saria. Sage of the Forest Temple…” NO FUCKING WAY. I totally thought the Sage of the Forest Temple would be Ruto. Jesus.

“I always believed that you would come,” Saria goes on, like Twink has any interest in coming right now. “Because I know you…” It’s like the writers thought there would be people who just picked up this game when Twink became an adult, and now feel the need to explain all the relationships from his childhood to the people that didn’t see them. Sensing Twink’s deep need to apologize to her because she’s going to be stuck in the Chamber of the Sages with Rauru the Pedophile, she continues, “No… You don’t have to explain it to me… Because it is destiny that you and I can’t live in the same world.” For once, then, destiny is on his side, if it means one fewer girl jockeying for position to get in his pants.

Saria adds her power, whatever that is, to Twink’s, and gives him the Forest Medallion. By the way, these medallions are so tacky–they look like buttons you’d buy at the dollar store. The Spiritual Stones were way better bling. As the scene in the Chamber of the Sages fades out, some phantom narrator–probably fucking Blathers–says, “Saria will always be…your friend…” Look, if she wants to go shoe shopping or something, Twink is totally up for that, but we all know she wants to be more than friends. Poor Twink. It’s hard being such a catch.

For no reason other than narrative convenience, Twink returns from the Sacred Realm to find himself in front of the corpse of the Dicku Tree. There is a tiny sprout in the ground, and Twink kneels down to take a closer look. Right as he does this, the plant goes SPROING and out pops a sapling, except rather than being slender or willowy, it’s a fat little thing with beady eyes and a creepy smiley face. Twink leaps back screaming because he’s a girl. “Hi there!” the horrifying plant says cheerily. “I’m the [Dicku] Tree Sprout! Because you and Saria broke the curse on the Forest Temple, I can grow and flourish! Thanks a lot!” Hang on a second, Saria didn’t do shit to break that curse. That was all Twink. Saria has no right taking credit for the shitshow performance Twink put on back there.

PREPARE YOUR ANUS

The new Dicku Tree has inherited a sacred duty from the dead Dicku Tree: telling Twink interminable stories. “Hey, have you seen your old friends?” he asks, because they owe Daddy money–with seven years of interest–and they’d better not think the enterprise changing hands changes that. “None of them recognized you with your grown-up body, did they?” As we established earlier, they did not, because they’re stupid. But the Dicku Tree Sprout feels the need to laboriously explain this to Twink: “That’s because the [Cockiri] never grow up! Even after seven years, they’re still kids!” And for some odd reason, Twink alone did grow up. Why is that, you ask, if you’re a moron? “Well, as you might have already guessed,” the Dicku Tree Sprout says, because even he realizes dogs know this, “you are not a [Cockiri]! You are actually a Hylian!”

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!

“I am happy to finally reveal this secret to you!” the Dicku Tree Sprout adds, like this wasn’t telegraphed ahead from basically the first two minutes of the game. But it’s not enough to just tell Twink he’s not a fairy boy–he also has to know why he came to live in Cockiri Forest and turn tricks for the Dicku Tree. Over some flames that make the whole story look like a Burger King commercial, the Dicku Tree Sprout explains that, before Twink was born, there was a war in Hyrule, more than likely between the Hylians and those dickhole Gerudos. “One day,” DTS says, “to escape from the fires of the war, a Hylian mother and her baby boy entered this forbidden forest. The mother was gravely injured… Her only choice was to entrust the child to the [Dicku] Tree, the guardian spirit of the forest.” I imagine Twink’s mom wasn’t too happy when she saw the Dicku Tree blow his “La Cucaracha” horn for the Cockiri children to line up and present their day’s earnings.

Home of the Whopper!

“The [Dicku] Tree could sense that this was a child of destiny, whose fate would affect the entire world, so he took him into the forest,” DTS continues. I like the implication that, had Twink not been a “child of destiny,” the Dicku Tree would have left him on a mountainside to die. “After the mother passed away, the baby was raised as a [Cockiri]. And now,” DTS finishes with a flourish, “finally, the day of destiny has come!” DTS just can’t stand only saying obvious, heavily foreshadowed facts once, so he repeats that Twink is not a Cockiri and was always going to leave the forest at some point. “And now…” he adds for anyone who was in a coma for that whole speech, “You have learned your destiny… So you know what you must do… That’s right… You must save the land of Hyrule!”

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!

Sorry. That’s the last time, I promise. Probably. DTS asks Twink to break the curses on the other temples so Hyrule will be peaceful again, before it gets flooded and taken over by Tingle and the Big Gay Beedles. Twink leaves the now monster-free Cockiri Forest as fast as his long adult legs can carry him, but not before Naggy can already start dropping hints about his next destination: “That cloud over Death Mountain…there is something strange about it…” Now that he knows for a fact that he’s not a Cockiri, can’t he just leave Naggy here to be the disappointing companion of some real Cockiri kid? Please?

Twink ignores Naggy’s dire warnings about Death Mountain and instead returns to the Temple of Time. At the Masturbator Sword pedestal–their special place!–he finds Sheik waiting for him, sadly not with a bottle of champagne and some chocolate-covered strawberries. “You destroyed the wicked creatures that haunted the temple and awakened the Sage…” Sheik purrs to Twink. But if he thinks he’s getting a congratulatory handjob out of this, he can think again. Sigh. “But there are still other Sages who need your help. In order to awaken all the other Sages, you must become even more powerful. You must travel over mountains…under water [FUCK]…and even through time…” Sheik instructs Twink to put the Masturbator Sword back in the Pedestal of Time if he wants to return to his original time, when he had four horrible girlfriends, no Sheik, and no pants. That doesn’t exactly sound like something Twink wants to do, but he figures if Sheik is telling him to do it, there must be a good reason. Sheik would never mislead him!

To help make this time travel less of a pain in the ass, and to give the two of them a secret song that instantly brings them to their private makeout spot, Sheik teaches Twink the second of his six-note songs, the Prelude of Light. Yes, the Prelude of Light warps Twink to the Temple of Time–just go with it. They had to give Rauru his own little song, after all, though Twink tries hard not to associate him with it. The alternate title for this song, given how often Twink and Sheik meet here, is now the Prelude of Booty Calls. Sheik points out to Twink that the Cockarina of Time and the Masturbator Sword are the keys to his time travel, promises to see him again, and vanishes.

Twink gives this time travel thing a try. As Sheik said, he must put the Masturbator Sword back in its stand, which brings him back to his childhood, with his hands wrapped around the sword’s hilt like he’s just about to pull it out. To return to the future, he just has to pull the sword out again. Now, this strongly implies that it is the act of removing or replacing the Masturbator Sword that creates Twink’s ability to time travel. That is, he is traveling between two points in time: his original removal of the Masturbator Sword and his awakening seven years later. (Yes, for gameplay reasons he doesn’t wake up to Rauru’s groping every time he returns to the future, but stay with me, here.) So logically, when he returns to the past, he is returning to the moment before he removed the sword. As we established at the very beginning of this recap, that act basically set everything else in motion, and Ganondorf never would have been able to take the Triforce and do terrible things like fire ranch owners if Twink had never done this. So, now that Twink can travel back to the past, couldn’t he just say “fuck it” and leave the Masturbator Sword there forever? Who cares if he can undo the curses on all the temples when the simpler solution is to just go back to being a kid and never let Ganondorf place the curses in the first place?

I mean, obviously, Twink is not going to do that, because his boyfriend and his horse are in the future. But it seems a little silly to introduce a game mechanic that logically renders the entire second half of the game completely pointless.

We’ll be discussing more of the time travel senselessness as it appears in the recaps. But for now, Twink is taking a much-deserved rest. In part five, Jeanne will tackle the Fire Temple, and hopefully all kinds of horrible minigames and sidequests I’ll have to go through later, because I love that shit. See you in part six!