Breath of the Wild’s Sacred Landscape
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, first released in 2017, gave the player a post-apocalyptic Hyrule. A once linear progression in the Legend of Zelda games was suddenly broken into a wide open map for players to explore and wander through. It hearkened back to the first of the Zelda games, where the player was dropped into a world of caves and temples, and it was up to them to explore and learn about the world on their own. Breath of the Wild is similar - it wakes you up in a massive open map and leaves the player to explore and make their own way through it.
In the east of Hyrule is a landmark called the Lanayru Promenade. The Lanayru Promenade has led to several theories regarding the world of Breath of the Wild, with many analyzing its architecture to find its connection to previous games. We’re going to take a slightly different approach, because when we explore the Lanayru Promenade, it gives us insight to the sacred landscape of Breath of the Wild.
Breath of the Wild opens up a different kind of Hyrule than has been experienced by players before. Previous Zelda games, while giving players a big world to explore, was often empty despite the large amounts of life alluded to. There were only a few small cities, typically only populated by a few families. Much of this was due to limitations in game development, and a lack of importance on any kind of background characters. The post-apocalyptic nature of the Hyrule in Breath of the Wild led a certain weight to the loneliness once endemic of development restrictions. Now, the vast emptiness of the world was eerie because it reminded players of the life that once could have been in the place of these locations. Instead, empty husks of villages and ruins of a world that once was is all that remains. The people who do exist are scattered and low - a consequence of the mass war that ravaged a century before.
A few YouTube theory channels have speculated on the history of the Lanayru Promenade. The art embedded in the architecture leads to Zelda theorist to contemplate on where it fits in the history and mythology of Hyrule. For me, the Lanayru Promenade is fascinating not because of its architecture but because of its place in the world.
The Lanayru Promenade rests on a main body of water - one of the only bodies of water on the map that goes nameless. Despite the pathway of the promenade looking very much like a road but not marked on the map like a road. The brick is clearly old, far older than the ruins of the previously lived-in Hyrule. It marks the place as special, something unique and special.
It’s also featured in several of Link’s recovered memories. In order to understand the relationship of these memories to the importance of the the Lanayru Promenade, we should first review the history of the Triforce in the world of Hyrule.
In the beginning of the world, three goddesses created Hyrule. At the point they left the world, they left behind them three golden triangles - the triforce. It was said that anyone who touched the Triforce would get any wish granted to them. The key is, the individual must have equal parts of Wisdom, Power and Courage in them. If not, the triforce breaks. This story leads to most of the stories of the Zelda games. In most of the games, when the triforce breaks, each element (Wisdom, power or courage) gets embedded in someone who best embodies that element. Our main character, Link, gets courage. The antagonist, Ganondorf power. And Zelda gets Wisdom.
The importance of Wisdom to Zelda is more heavily present in Breath of the Wild, despite the Triforce not really being present in that story. Instead, her role in the game allows her to demonstrate her wisdom, instead of us just assuming her intelligence based on the triforce piece. The fact that she is a scholar allows us to see her wisdom in practice - we see her struggle to use her intelligence and skills to help Hyrule as we recover the various memories around Hyrule. Her role as scholar is constantly put in competition with her role as a spiritual leader. This contrast echoes the idea of religion vs science that is found in more Western countries.
In one of the memories, Zelda voices her frustration at her inability to connect to her spiritual side, while also giving attention to her scientific scholarly side. At this point, she looks up at Mt. Lanayru and talks about the Spring of Wisdom, her last ditch effort to awaken the spiritual power she was supposed to have within her. She mentions that the spring only allows people of a certain age or older to pray at the spring. This alludes to the fact that there is a tradition of going to the Spring that is already in existence.
A different memory shows us the trip back from the mountain after Zelda fails to achieve what she needed to at that Spring. In this memory, Zelda and Link are walking along the Lanayru Promenade, after going to the mountain spring. In this memory, we see that the Promenade is already in ruins - showing us that the promenade was well established before the Calamity that ruined other buildings and areas of Hyrule.
Now, there’s a kind of road that exists between Kakariko Village and Mt. Lanayru. This road does not appear in any form on the map, but walking it shows a clear path in the environment. Stretched from the Fairy Fountain in the back of Kakriko Village, the road weaves to the Lanayru Promenade, goes along it, and then weaves up the mountain, ending right at the Spring of Wisdom.
What we’ve uncovered in this unmarked road is a pilgrimage path - a marking on the map of Zelda’s allusion to the many people who have come to seek an experience at the Spring of Wisdom. Its connection to Kakariko Village allows us to see the how people can come from there on their walk.
More importantly, the path from Kakariko Village to the Spring of Wisdom also follows the structure of many pilgrimage trails in our physical world. Several pilgrimage trails around the world play into a revealing of drama to the landscape.
On the Pilgrimage trail to the Oracle of Delphi, after crossing a large path, the pilgrims turn a corner to be suddenly faced with the beauty of the oracle. The path plays into the drama of the landscape in order to control a revealing of the pilgrimage site to the pilgrim - the landscape becomes an integral part in the pilgrimage experience. Similarly, many pilgrims on the way to Durham Cathedral in England would first walk up a large hill, where suddenly the cathedral would come into view. This hill became Mt. Joy, due to the excitement and happiness at getting the first glimpse of the cathedral - the object of the pilgrimage in the first place.
The pilgrimage to the Spring of Wisdom in Breath of the Wild plays with the drama to the landscape twice. The last of this is at the end of the trail, when the pilgrim finally turns and is, at least, greeted with the Spring of Wisdom. But the first experience of this is on the Lanayru Promenade. When walking from the village to the mountain, as the pilgrim turns to the end of the prominade, the sacred mountain finally comes into view.
Pilgrimage as an event is always a really fascinating thing to look into, as it unites the people experiencing it with their history and mythology, which is only possible through the pilgrim’s experience with the landscape.
We tend to think of landscape as this untouched wilderness - something inherently apart from human touch. But landscape impacts and influences humans as much as humans impact and influence landscape. The nature of landscape is a constant process of becoming, because we are constantly being formed by it, as we form it. So the landscape of Hyrule is just as much landscape when it is a pristine mountain, as it is with rubble from a village, a not-destroyed village, or a built shrine. Pilgrimage, through its use of our constant process of becoming with the landscape, puts us in touch with the sacredness of everything around us.
Pilgrimage also unites the division between myth and ritual. The ritual process of the pilgrimage brings in the mythology, and unites us with it. The Spring of Wisdom is tied, intimately, to the myth of Hyrule’s creation and the mythology of the Triforce. The ritual act of praying at statues, and in particular in the Spring of Wisdom, unites Link to the myth of creation and the mythology surrounding the goddess Hylia.
But its difficult to talk about the Lanayru Promenade without also talking about the destination of the pilgrimage trail: Mt. Lanayru. Mt. Lanayru is by no means the largest mountain in the landscape of Breath of the Wild, but it is a sacred mountain. Sacred mountains are found in different religions and regions of the world, like Mt. Olympus, Mt. Sinai, and Fuji.
Historian of religion Mircea Eliade talked about mountains as place of revelation and inspiration. This is fitting for the Spring of Wisdom - a place where Zelda is to pray at in order to receive her own spiritual power. It is also a place others journey to receive their own inspiration. Eliade also spoke of mountains as a place for gods and demons. This is an aspect of mountains that becomes really important for the player.
Mt. Lanayru is the only location on the map where the player must save one of the dragons.
This becomes an important memory and ritual for the player, and through it the shrine becomes accessible. The saving of the dragon is the ultimate connection between place, memory and myth. The three dragons are tied, also, to the myth of the three goddess: each dragon carries a version of a goddess’s name. The dragons are important spirits only revealed to the player - no other character in the world can see them. The saving of the dragon through the defeat of its corruption is also a unifying memory among the community of players - like a mythic performance echoed by all players.
Mt. Lanayru is the only place where this kind of performance takes place. Its also the only place for collective experience of pilgrimage that’s present in the game.
The Lanayru Promenade is an interesting location because it reveals how intricate and beautiful pilgrimage can be, even in a digital world. It has an interesting connection between the fairy fountain in Kakriko village, a shrine surrounding money, and the Spring on Mt. Lanayru, a shrine surrounding wisdom. Its continued existence being sculpted in the landscape implies a special route for the Sheikah, one that leads to not only the sacred mountain but also a shrine. The dramatization it embodies helps to impact the connection of landscape to person through the performance of pilgrimage. Through the interaction with it, with the Lanayru Promenade, with the shrine, and with the mountain itself, we become a part of the story, an integral part of the mythology of the game’s world and the mythology of the game itself.