Note: This text was recently recovered from archaeological site KD-3 and translated from Old Hylian by professor Jacora at Kakariko University. Little is known of Ganondorf's reign, despite the best efforts of historians and archaeologists. The popular conception of his reign is one of cruelty and tyranny, but as all written records from that time period were composed by his enemies, it is likely that the accounts of his atrocities were exaggerated, or outright fabricated.
It also appears to confirm the long-held suspicion that it was the Nohansen branch of the royal family that brought madness into the bloodline, and it offers tentative support for the theory that it was assimilation and intermarriage with the Hylian population, not conquest, that resulted in the disappearance of the Gerudo as a distinct ethnic identity.
By the time you read this, I will be dead.
Men say that history is written by the victors, and for once they tell the truth. In the years to come, when my body has long since become food for the worms, sages and scholars shall condemn me as a tyrant and a murderer, as a usurper and a kingslayer. But these men are liars.
Know that I never intended to do evil. Know that my actions, as bloody and heavy-handed as they were, did not emerge from nothing. Know that the suffering and death I have inflicted upon the people of Hyrule is nothing next to the centuries of despair and misery my people have suffered at the hands of the Hylian race.
The Hylians will tell you that all the peoples of Hyrule live in peace and harmony, that it is a land free of strife, bigotry, and prejudice. This is not true. It is not true now, nor has it ever been true. The Hylians hold themselves about the other races, believing that they possess some special connection with the Goddesses. The Zora they consider lazy and decadent, the Gorons they think brutish and stupid, and it is my own people, the Gerudo, for whom they reserve the deepest loathing. To them we are naught but a race of thieves, whores, and murderers. We are not permitted to settle in the verdant lands of Hyrule. Instead we are condemned to the desert wastes, forced to eke out a meagre existence by tooth and claw. And because of the vagaries of fate, because every Gerudo is born a woman, we are forced to lie with the Hylians in order to ensure the continuation of race. But would any Hylian take a Gerudo to wife? Would any Hylian acknowledge a child born of such a union? No, they would never do such a thing. So if we are thieves and whores, know that it is because the Hylians left no other path open to us.
This is why I have done what I have done. Because they hurt us, and continue to hurt us.
The harsh, deserts wastes of my homeland torment the stupid and destroy the weak, and by the time I had reached twenty years of age I was already the strongest warrior and most powerful sorcerer amongst the Gerudo. And yet my heart wept at the continued oppression of my people. I told myself that the blood shed by the Hylians must be avenged, that we had the right to return the atrocities committed against us, but my dreams of revenge remained just that – dreams. It was not until I first met with the king of Hyrule and looked into his eyes that I became sure of my purpose.
I do not know how history will remember him, but king of Hyrule was a man consumed by madness, paranoia, and cruelty. His terrifying presence hung over Hyrule Castle like a great, black cloud. This was a man who saw conspiracy in every corner and treason in every whisper. All it took was a single gesture, a single word spoken out of turn, to incur his wrath, and those who had misfortune to displease His Majesty would find their heads stuck on a pike gruesomely displayed above the Castle Town gatehouse. And in the dungeons beneath the castle, it is said, the king inflicts torments upon his victims so vile and wicked that no words can encompass their depravity.
There is a story I have heard, that early one morning the king of Hyrule once left a jewelled goblet sitting on the ledge of a fountain in the middle of the town square, and despite the obvious value of this item it was still there at the end of the day. No one dared to steal it, so terrified they were of the king's fury.
When I spoke with this...this creature, I beheld the death of my people. The degradation and humiliation we Gerudo have suffered would be nothing compared to what this monster would bring down upon us.
I was strong, yes, but against the Kingdom of Hyrule my strength was as nothing, and it was in my desperation and despair that I conceived of a plan as bold as it was blasphemous. Only with the holy Triforce, the last gift of the Goddesses to their creation, could I save my people. With its power I would carve out a new homeland for the Gerudo amidst the lush fields and forests of Hyrule where they would be safe and secure forevermore.
But the gifts of the Goddesses are not so easily obtained.
The Triforce lay in a realm beyond our own, one accessible only through a gateway located within the Temple of Time. Instead this Temple of Door is massive stone gateway known as the "Door of Time" beyond which lays the "Pedestal of Time" (Hylians are not terribly imaginative when it comes to naming things) that holds a sacred relic known as the "Master Sword." This "Master Sword" is, according to legend, a blade that cannot be wielded by anyone "with evil in his heart." What foolishness! Far too often the lines between good and evil are blurred, the distinction erased, and a sword cares not whose flesh it cuts. But this sword, it is written, is the final key to the Sacred Realm where the holy Triforce lies.
The locations of the Sacred Stones were not hard to discover; indeed, the library within Hyrule Castle provided me with all the information I required. One was held by an entity known as the "Great Deku Tree," while the other two belonged to the rulers of the Zora and Gorons.
In haste I set out for the Kokiri Forest, and after several nights of travel I came upon the "Great Deku Tree," which was most certainly a curious being. A living tree, ruling over a strange tribe of children...I thought this little more than an oddity at the time, not knowing that the seeds of my doom had already been planted there, in those deep, dark woods.
I pleaded with the Deku Tree to hand over the Spiritual Stone, impressing upon him that it was necessary for the salvation of my people. Yet my pleas fell of deaf ears, and in my rage I cursed him for his hard-heartedness. I do not know where he had hidden the stone, and my searching turned up nothing. It would seem my plan would die a stillbirth, were it not for a remarkable occurrence. As I was wandering through Hyrule Castle one day, I overheard a conversation between the king's daughter Zelda and a young boy. To my horror, the girl had somehow learned of my plan, and was entreating the boy to recover to Spiritual Stones! I do not know how she came to know of my intentions, which I had spoken of to no one, but I reasoned that this boy might succeed where I had failed, and that I could simply let him do the work of obtaining the stones for me.
It is at this point that my tale takes a turn for the absurd, for it seemed that fate itself was conspiring against me.
The king of Hyrule summoned me to the throne room, where he then proceeded to rant and rave like a man possessed about the wickedness of my people. During our "discussion" he became extremely agitated, and failing to notice one of the steps leading down from the throne the king stumbled and fell, hitting his head on the stone floor hard enough to kill him instantly. When the guards came into the room and saw their liege lying dead at me feet, I knew at that moment that my fate was sealed, for who would believe me when I said that the old man had simply fallen over? Facing the king's men, I had no choice but to kill them all. By the time I was finished the halls of Hyrule Castle ran red with blood, with only the king's daughter and her nursemaid escaping the slaughter. I pursued them, knowing that the princess would rally the nobles against me and my people. My heart shuddered to think of the reprisals the Gerudo would suffer in the wake of my alleged regicide.
Alas the girl eluded me, but by the Castle Town gatehouse I encountered the youth I had seen earlier, and I sensed that he had the Spiritual Stones in his possession. I left him with impression that I thought nothing of him, giving him a taste of my magic for good measure, but in secret I followed him to the Temple of Time and watched in amazement as he opened the Door of Time and wrenched the Master Sword from its pedestal. The gate to the Sacred Realm was open, and through it I strode, determined to seize the power within and free my people from their bondage.
Words cannot describe what I saw past that gate...a realm of infinite dimensions, of impossible geometries! This was where eternities were born, where thoughts became reality. Secrets never known to man revealed themselves before my eyes, and at last I beheld the holy Triforce. Grasping towards the sacred triangles, I came away with only a fraction of its power, but as that power surged around and through me, I understood that the very nature of my being had been transformed and transmuted.
I had become godlike!
My mind straining against the all-devouring madness that such divinity brings, I returned to the mortal world and began reshaping it according to my will. I did away with the old laws forbidding the Gerudo to settle in Hyrule, and by my decree no race or people in this land would be held above any other. I eased the onerous taxes the mad king had levied upon the people, freed those he had unjustly imprisoned in his dungeon, and manumitted those he had enslaved. But do people call me "Ganondorf the Great" or "Ganondorf the Just?" No! The Hylians name me "Ganondorf the Usurper!" "Ganondorf the Wicked!" "Ganondorf the King of Evil!"
They say that I was the one who left Castle Town a "barren and deserted place" inhabited "only by the shambling figures of the undead." This is yet another lie, for it was an eruption of Death Mountain that caused the people to the flee the town, and which created the massive fissure that swallowed up Hyrule Castle in its entirety. Of course, the fools blame the eruption on me, which is about as sensible as blaming me for spate of bad weather.
I set about rebuilding the castle in the wake of the cataclysm, and I ordered its construction in accordance with on my personal tastes. Predictably, the people of Hyrule railed against this as well, proclaiming that my fortress "looked evil" and was "surrounded by a hellish pit of lava." It is so like these fools to pass judgement based only appearances, and furthermore, do they not recognise the defensive value in having one's fortifications located behind an impassable river of lava?
As for the matter of the "undead", I will say that I had nothing to do with that. The cause, as it so often is, is the Hylians own foolishness and short-sightedness. They let countless stray dogs wander around the city, and naturally some of these mongrels turned rabid and spread their vile sickness to the town's inhabitants. These "ReDead," as they have come to be called, are nothing than the unfortunate victims of hydrophobia, and even my most powerful magic could not cure them of the madness that consumed their minds.
And through all of this, the youth who had so foolishly opened the way to the Sacred Realm continued to oppose me. "Link" was his name, and I shall swear that he was no hero, no saviour! He was little more than a bandit and a brigand, ransacking peoples' homes and taking their rupees at sword-point. He stole horses from ranchers, stripped tombs of their valuables, and plundered holy relics from temples. A great cry went up from the people of Hyrule: "Save us from that green-shirted bastard!" I placed a bounty of ten thousand rupees upon his head, yet despite my best efforts he continued to elude me.
Then came the betrayals. The Gorons turned against me, the Zora turned against me, and even Nabooru, whom had I appointed as steward of my people, turned against me. Each betrayal was like a dagger in my heart, and in their treachery I saw the invisible hand of Princess Zelda, turning them all against me.
How, you might wonder, did my final defeat come about? I am sure that the songs and sagas will tell of the great duel Link fought against me, but that is nothing but yet another lie. The coward, lacking the courage to stand against me face-to-face, had his Goron allies dig a tunnel beneath my fortress, which he then filled with bombs and powder kegs. After setting them off, my entire fortress collapsed atop me, trapping me beneath a heap of rubble! And so here I lay, under the ruins of my once-great abode, writing out my words on this scrap of parchment. With my final breath I curse the names Link and Zelda, I curse the people of this wretched land of Hyrule, and I curse the fools who believe their lies! Know that one day I shall live again, for Ganondorf is undying, for Ganondorf is eternal! I shall tear down their fortresses, I shall poison their wells, I shall salt their fields, I shall burn their cities! I shall...