Blind the Thief
Blind the Thief was not always the monster seen within the Village of Outcasts. He was a typical Hylian, born and raised in Kakariko Village by his poor widowed mother. Neither Blind nor his mother knew who his father was for reasons that will later become evident.
Blind had another name, a real name given by his mother, but it was lost to the sands of time. He acquired the nickname Blind because of his photosensitivity, that is to say exposure to light would cause him terrible migraines and sometimes even seizures. As such, Blind didn't play outside very much and was unable to make many friends, at least not those of the well behaved variety. Most good kids would be safely tucked in bed when Blind would venture outside to play without fear of the sun hitting his eyes.
Staying inside a lot allowed Blind to spend copious amounts of time reading books. He was most enthralled by stories of the Gerudo, a female race of thieves. He tried emulating their methods, starting with pickpocketing but moving on to more daring escapades as he gained more experience. He found that plying his trade during the night hours allowed him great success for he could move around almost unseen. His mother would be none the wiser because she also plied her trade at night, not because of sensitivity to light but out of necessity to make ends meet. Yes, even in Kakariko Village, the profession for which work is always available helped put food in Blind's belly, much to the consternation of Sahasrahla, the foremost sage of Hyrule and Elder of Kakariko Village who fled when Agahnim rose to power.
When Blind was 16 years old, his mom mysteriously passed away leaving him completely alone. She was buried at a nearby shrine. Though Blind had grown up poor, his mother did manage to fully own her house within the village, paid for partly with her nighttime skills and partly through blackmail. None of the men in Kakariko wanted their wives to find out about their pleasure seeking, and they would pay great sums to keep it that way. Some speculated that Blind's mom may have been poisoned to keep her silent.
The house was deeded to Blind, sixteen being the age at which young men could own property. Having no relatives and no means to support himself legally, Blind upped the ante in terms of thievery. He managed to bring together the few friends he had in order to form a gang of thieves. The gang was ruthless in their methods but extremely successful. His home now became the gang's hideout, nobody suspecting the young man of being a robber. He had spread the rumor that a rich uncle had left him a considerable inheritance.
Blind loved a girl within the village named Nayru after the Goddess of Wisdom. Although only 13, she was far more womanly in both body and mind than most within the village. They would sneak out together at night and explore the Lost Woods. When he was with her, stealing became but a distant memory for his thoughts were only of love, and he would never want to corrupt one so beautiful. They would certainly kiss whenever they went out together, but nothing more physical than that. It all came crashing down one night when her father caught her climbing out the window to meet Blind. They were then forbidden to have contact with one another. Not until she was 16 would she legally be allowed to move out from her parents which she then vowed to do.
Blind promised to wait for Nayru, but without her gentle influence, he became even more absorbed in thievery. He hated the world for growing up poor, for making him essentially blind during the daytime, for taking away his mother and now his one true love Nayru and for all that and probably much more, he was out to seek his revenge, one rupee at a time.
There was a legend about a Golden Land where unimaginable fortune existed. Not only gold but the power of the Goddess Nayru, the namesake of his own true love, was supposed to permeate this land. He thought that if he could obtain this power, he would also be able to obtain his one true love without waiting for the calendar to hit an arbitrary date. Blind, through voluminous reading, determined a method whereby he could enter this land. When he did, he was immediately transformed into a hideous monster, a reflection of the evil that had entered his heart through thievery and the murder that thievery sometimes entailed.
He went to Kakariko Village and discovered that it was now called the Village of Outcasts. He thought the name fit and reclaimed his house there as a new hideout. A Gargoyle Statue provided a perfect hidden entrance to what he now called Thieves' Town. A new and more ruthless gang was formed. The thievery and murder continued at an accelerating rate. He knew that he could never return to Kakariko Village and marry his one true love while in the form of a monster, though he reasoned that if he returned to Hyrule, he would regain his old form. The problem was that although he knew how to enter the Golden Land, which he discovered was now named the Dark World, he could not figure out how to exit.
Blind now devoted himself to three causes: locating the Triforce of Wisdom, learning magic in an attempt to regain his true form within the Dark World, and summoning Nayru to the Village of Outcasts. He figured that she would be even more beautiful, if that was possible, within the Dark World as her outside appearance would reflect the purity of her heart. These goals would not be reached quickly nor easily.
Time continued to pass by slowly and Nayru eventually hit the age of adulthood. She was now 16 and knew that Blind would soon return to her. She waited and waited but in vain did she wait. She had not heard from Blind for a couple of years but thought he may have left for Great Bay in search of the Gerudo, a people he was obsessed with. He had long spoken of Great Bay as an area the two of them could settle down in and have children. However, she warned him that the Gerudo, if they still existed, hated outsiders and especially male outsiders. Maybe Blind had instead made his home within the Lost Woods, waiting for her at their special spot.
Nayru set out for the Lost Woods but it had been a few years since she had been there and true to its name, she became lost. It was a very dangerous area, and normally she would never travel alone, but her heart ached for Blind. After being absent for several days, her family became extremely worried. A search party was mounted but nothing came of it. Nayru was either dead or had been enslaved. It didn't matter which for slaves in those parts lived for a year or two at most if they were "lucky" and escape was virtually unheard of. Most wouldn't call it luck because slavery for men entailed working in the mines for 18 hours a day and for women it entailed providing "entertainment" for their masters. It seemed that what his mom did freely, his one true love would be forced to do until she displeased her master and was dispensed with.
Word traveled from the Light World and into the Dark World, for it seems that was the only direction word could travel, eventually reaching the ears of Blind himself. He was devastated. He had finally determined how to temporarily switch his form through magic and was now focused on obtaining the Triforce of Wisdom, the blessed object created by the Goddess Nayru herself. He set all of that aside to mourn his precious love.
Blind sought out Ganon, hoping the power that he possessed would allow him to return to the Light World, and either rescue Nayru or, more likely, provide her with a proper burial. Vengeance would be his one way or the other. Ganon agreed to help him in his quest but first Blind had to work for him. He wanted him to guard the Titan's Mitt lest it fall into the hands of Ganon's archenemy, a fellow Hylian by the name of Link. Ganon also reasoned that the Titan's Mitt would lure Link to Thieves' Town, allowing Blind to kill Link. Once Blind would provide Ganon with Link's dead body, Blind would be shown how to return to the Light World. Blind already knew how he would trap Link, by taking on the form of irresistible beauty: the sight of Nayru when Blind first laid eyes on her that one magical evening in Kakariko Village. This leads to the events as told within A Link to the Past.