What are the Bargainer Statues? - Tears of the Kingdom Theory

Hyrulian soldiers holding onto existence to preserve a weapon that might be used to save the kingdom that they couldn't is such a good story element. Reminds me of the dead soldiers in Hyrule Castle in TP

Quick note, the Great Plateau Bargainer statue actually can talk to you through the temp of ruin’s Goddess statue before you drain the water. It says that it’s trapped under the water if you do so.

One thing I find interesting is that the poes are described as "spirit orbs." Which basically confirms the idea that what the Sheikah Monks were giving Link was the same sort of "stuff" as poes. And Hylia was using it. So...that's interesting.

There is only one other deity in BoTW and ToTK that has four eyes like the Bargainer: The Lord of the Mountain, Satori. Similar to how Hylia and the Bargainer have several statues across Hyrule, Satori has several cherry blossom trees as sights of worship. Both the Bargainer and Satori can help Link get special armor sets that make him resistant to types of damage. Both seem like morally grey beings, which might be the reason they have four eyes, because having two eyes might symbolize that you can only see the world as good vs evil.

Re: Hylia and the statues, in Shinto, gods can create secondary copies of themselves called bunshin, which are separate entities but also still part of the main god, so the statues are all likely similar things, bunshin of Hylia and potentially others

An interesting detail is that the bargainer statue under the Great Sky Island Temple of Time's goddess statue is the only one to be quite obviously skewed, as if it had toppled over at some point. This seems to imply that when the goddess statue was moved into the sky its corresponding bargainer statue got physically affected as well. Edit: For full accuracy I should mention that the bargainer statue linked to the Spring of Power's goddess statue is also skewed. But this one is also special in being the only bargainer not directly under its goddess statue. The Depths under the Spring of Power is solid rock with the bargainer a little ways away for some reason.

I never would have put together that the groups of 3 soldiers in the depths were directly beneath Zelda's memorials 😭

"Good... Evil... That's the futile perspective of narrow-minded beings." The bargainer statues are the most formidable adversary possible: The enlightened centrist.

My take is that the bargainer statues are supposed to prevent poes from being a problem. When they build up too much, aren’t gathered by a bargainer statue, then they become problems. The enemy poes are ones that make it back to the surface.

My big question is why they have an evil face on their back. The one under the forgotten temple is fully shown and is just massive

Though it's rare, you can get dark clumps from killing evermeans in the depths

I've noticed that the art style featured on the depths armor set is very similar to the illustrations on the back of Wind Waker Ganondorf's robes.

Love to see Tears of the Kingdom Theorizing starting to ramp up!

I've had a personal theory about these statues, especially after spotting that giant face on the back of it. Really glad you pointed that out too, not seen too many people talk about it We know that the zonai culture worshiped 3 animals, the dragons, the owls and the boars. This fact being even further stated in totk with the labyrinths being overseen by 3 voices who claim to be the rulers of these animals (who these 3 are is another question). Now the dragons are easy to understand, their statues are all over the place and the dragons themselves are almost god like so they would be worshiped The owls, i've come to believe that these are infact referring to the satori line of creatures as all of these have owl faces. Design wise they also come off as angelic with a mysterious power, so i can see how these too would be worshiped like deities as well So what about the boars, thats where the bargainer statues come in as i think the boars are infact the giant face on the back of these. To me, the face looks like a bokoblin, which does usually have boar like features in their design. So i think that perhaps before ganon happened, the bokoblin line of creatures might have been seen as like guardians of the underworld perhaps taking on the guise of these bargainers. This kind of role would be adequate reason to be worshiped. But when ganon came, he took control of them and they became just monsters. This could also be why the zonai culture sought to erase all the boar statues they had built as i'm thinking perhaps the boar faction of the zonai was infact the barbarian tribe from faron, and why the barbarian armor has what looks like a bokoblin skull on it There's still a few wrinkles to iron out with this, like why the bargainer statues actually look like robed figures if they're bokoblin style creatures, why the ruler of boars still seems to be a respectable voice and why the ancient hero has all 3 symbols on his outfit (seriously i dont get that one, the boar faction should have been long since exiled by then). But i still believe i'm onto something with this

That demon face design looks an awful lot like the pig Ganon. Also, a group of dark magicians brings to mind the interlopers of Twilight Princess. Also, a fun detail: the pointed hat of a witch or wizard is said to funnel magic from the heavens into the head of the person, hence the conical funnel-like shape.

I’m glad you covered this one so early on! Realizing that something that WASNT Hylia could speak through the Goddess Statues felt almost frightening when I first encountered it. It casts doubt on if Hylia was even the one we spoke with in the first place, even as far back as BotW. But having heard your analysis I am starting to see the statues perhaps less like “the actual person”, and more like, a conduit. Like, a phone or computer screen. The Goddess Statue ISN’T Hylia, but it IS a way of getting in contact with her. Perhaps the same can be said of the Bargainers. The Horned Statue seems to be the only one who is an actual being trapped in that physical location. This is all muddied, however, by the fact that the Goddess Statues aren’t fully aware of each other, or even that they speak of each other as separate entities. The fact that any statues, let alone the 3 representing Power Wisdom and Courage, refer to the Forgotten Temple’s as “the Mother Goddess Statue”, makes it seem far more literal. And besides, what would Hylia have to gain by restoring a statue so isolated and hidden that it’s literally in a “Forgotten” Temple? Is giving Link that replica of the Goddess Sword really so important? The statues sounded almost distressed about it, as if Hylia herself had “fallen, and couldn’t get up” lol. While a god who wished to watch over and bless their people may have reason to want temples and methods of communing with them to be intact all over the land, the Forgotten Temple is quite literally… forgotten. While it was once a place of worship, it no longer functions as such. Therefore, if it was just Hylia wanting to connect to “her people”, the Mother Goddess Statue would serve very little purpose. Like you said towards the end, maybe the devs just didn’t put that much thought into it and just wanted a quest where you went to all 3 springs and got a reward lol. Hard to say. But it certainly does have bizarre lore implications that I don’t see a fully satisfying answer towards

I love that the bargainers are essentially the psychopomps of the Zelda world (psychopomp being the general term for any entity who ferries souls between life and death, including the Grim Reaper but also Charon, Hermes, the Egyptian underworld gods, and the Valkyries of Norse mythology). Honestly I'm not sure what their deal is, or if they even have one outside of being psychopomps, but they're still so so cool regardless. Also I find it notable that the bargainers are the ones who look closest to Poes in previous games, while the poes in this one are more akin to Will O' the Whisps, the little balls of flame/light known in Celtic folklore as spirits (tho as I recall they aren't strictly spirits of the dead, necessarily, or at least not always). Having this kind of appearance does lend a lot of credence to the statue's description of them as "pitiful beings"; it's like Link is gently picking each one up and handing it to the statue, like releasing a firefly into a quiet meadow.

For the yiga story, they probably had someone get sniped by a black boko or something and didn't realize it (its dark) and then the soul from them was immediately taken by the bargainer. Makes sense to me

Maybe I misremembered something but I thought one of the bargainer statues mentioned that the reason they needed Link to gather poes was because the statue at Lookout Landing was stolen from underground and the power of the statues still underground to return poes themselves was weakened. Same with how the sacred spring goddess statues sensed the mother goddess statue was toppled and won't take the light blessings until you fixed it. In a game all about coming together, of course having one entities in a chain being removed would have major disruptions until restored or replaced.

bro jumpscared me at 4:19. i thought my phone was loading