In the Link's Awakening Manga, the revelation at the Southern Shrine is so stark that it actually leaves Link horrified enough that he attempts to abandon the quest, building a boat and attempting to leave with Marin, only to realize that after a few days, that his boat isn't getting any further away from the island. Effectively forced to return, Link is comforted by Marin when she says that life on the island is like a pleasant dream that one day, she feels she needs to wake up so she can one day see the world, and encourages him to proceed forward on his quest.

Not long after, the Owl appears, telling Link that Marin knows that Link waking the Wind Fish will bring about the end, and that she accepts it.

Marin knew. She always knew. And that renews Link's determination to finish things.

If you look closer at the map, with the “eyes” filled in, it looks similar to link’s face from the Original TLOZ. There is also a pool of water near link’s eye. The dungeon is literally link’s face crying at the realization of Koholint being all just a dream.

I've developed a headcannon that the ghost you return to their house was actually another outsider that ended up on the island. Perhaps they too were an adventurer that attempted to wake the Windfish, but after discovering the truth of the island, they couldn't bring themselves to go through with it and instead lived out the rest of their life on the island.

The new version of the theme of Face Shrine is magnificent. I literally broke out into tears when it started playing.

Finding out all of Koholint is a dream is one of the darkest moments in Zelda

Took a look at your Playlist section. Just wanna say you are the KING of playlists and video organization. I wish more YouTubers put that sort of time and effort into make their videos easy to find and watch.

one detail i love about the south shrines music in the remake is, the song plays normally.... until you begin to read the relief.  then the strings kick in and the dream becomes a nightmare.
and the added strings makes it sound like you are looking in an abyss with no bottom. and as long as you are inside the south shrine until you leave and re-enter, those strings will remain playing.

the strings only start when you begin to read the relief.

and this effect can be repeated as many times as you enter the southern face shrine.


also fun fact: this remake came out on my birthday of 2019. another fun fact: the original on game boy was one of the first games i ever played and beaten, and i can complete it in its entirety from memory.

To answer the question on the nightmares being evil and all.

Yes they are, it's just if we think dream logic, the nightmare monsters are parasitic just by what they are (Meaning this is how they live and how they survive) and the Wind Fish is suffering because of that.

It's just Link showed up, is caught up in this mess and if he's to get back to the real world, he's gonna have to finish his quest even if he REALLY doesn't want to wipe out the whole island.

Case in point, he tried to bail in the Manga.

Tragically though, when you put down the final Nightmare it cries over the fact that it's over for them. Not a curse you Link moment or anything. More curling up in a ball and sobbing that it's over.

Link has to FACE his destiny.
This theme puts a tear to my eye, every time. Even knowing the truth beforehand, it still hits me.

There's the interpretation by some fans, that if Link doesn't wake the Wind Fish, the spirit of the hero would stop reincarnating... meaning Hyrule would lose its strongest defender.

The Face shrine's theme of facing the truth is in perfect contrast to the catfishes maw's theming of lies and deceit. The Shrines lay out is a mix of large and expansive rooms and small tight corridors that mirror your own mental struggles to cope with the truth. The music alludes the the bitter sweetness of finally knowing the truth and the dread of having to cope with that truth. Even the dungeons main obstacle the elephant statues are too large for link to handle. He lacks the strength both physical and emotionally to move forward. The dungeon item being a better power bracelet signifies the strength one needs to move forward after learning the truth. The fact that you can just stumble onto the dungeon item alludes to the fact that one can stumble onto the strength they need with out knowing it.

The boss being a face named facade fits perfectly. A facade is a false face of covering. Facade is the last false hood that must be over come in order to reveal the truth and in his dying words the truth is revealed. A harsh truth. Link is a threat to everything on the island. A destructive force outside the whims of the wind fishes dream or the malice of the nightmares. That theme of link being a destructive force and the consequences of his actions carries over into the next dungeon.

I love how much zelda music does with the motifs. A lot of people sleep on zelda music cause it's not grandiose like other games, but the subtlety and small nuances is the exact place it shines. The more you dig into it, the more you get out of it. It's really insane.

Something about the Face Shrine's eyes I like. When you fill in the two lower eyes of the shrine, all that is left are the two indents up above replacing the role of the eyes. And on the left eye is a stream of tears, like as you progress through the dungeon, the neutral face is replaced by a crying face.

30:00 Something even worse is that one of the owl statues near the shrine states "THE WIND FISH SLUMBERS LONG... THE HERO'S LIFE GONE..." which implies that while Link is trapped on the island, he is dying; he cannot even choose to "retire", and must either let himself pass away or let the island be obliterated. Presenting a character that is elsewhere presented as unambiguously altruistic as being forced to save himself at the expense of others is pretty horrible

A funny thing is the remake actually moves the boss key chest to the right, presumably because in the original it was not just possible but LIKELY for the player to "solve" the puzzle by accident by picking up the pot in front of it and throwing it straight ahead as we typically would in this scenario

I heard that this song inspired the theme of the ice dungeon in Deltarune Chapter 3, and I gotta say, it really fits with the whole “Incredibly horrible truth you face”, like you shouldn’t be here but it’s a bitter pill that must be swallowed in the end

One of the things that struck me when I reached Hyrule Castle for the first time in Breath of the Wild is how the main melody that plays eerily reminded me of the melody heard in Southern Face Shrine. I don't know if it's a coincidence, but I took notice of it right away.

@CaptBurgerson I’d like to add that Catfish‘s Maw is where the turnaround of the story is set up, when Link and the player are at the deepest point of this mysterious world, both figuratively and literally. You literally have to dive to get in, and the dungeon is a fish, Link has to be getting swallowed whole and to survive the belly of the beast. Plus, the main mini boss pulls you further into the belly, he has a real feud with Link, pulling him deeper into the beast - a first in the game and fittingly, he guards the hook shot. The music is also special, the tense atmosphere adds to being totally hooked, absorbed by the adventure and is giving an unsettling vibe, hinting at that a grave danger is around the corner, yet not yet seen, until Catfish’s Maw boss the Slime Eel destroys the walls and ground and - while dying - speaks to Link - the first time that a boss speaks while dying and the first time that a boss hints at Link that his quest, this island, are not what Link believes… The unsettling feeling continues and no player could ever drop the game after this boss fight: This whole dungeon is already the (subconscious) beginning of the turning point that continues in the next two shrines - this turning point started in Catfish‘s Maw, right when Link was at the deepest point of this world, a unsettling change is underway… I hope you appreciate these thoughts.

I feel like we don't appreciate how Link finds out about the truth, not at the very end, but at the beginning of the end with two more dungeons to go. Like you are FULLY AWARE that continuing this quest will obliterate the very people you're trying to save. The boss monsters even tell you this, rubbing it in your face after you defeat them.

I played the OG version of LA back in the late 90s and the southern face shrine, with its very dark-sounding version of Ballad of the Wind Fish, really freaked me out as a kid lol

I also really like how it's implied that the monsters are a result of Link's experiences prior to him coming to the island (his fear of LTTP!Ganon coming back, the trauma of a kid having faced what he faced in LTTP). His fears materialized due to the island being a dream of a god-like creature. So Link knows that he can't really stop, saving the island, even if he wanted to stay; the monsters in his past are horrifically powerful, especially when they have materialized in a dreamscape. And anyway, if he didn't complete the quest he would be giving in to his fear, something that Link, the embodiment of courage, could never do.

So he's basically caught in a horrible situation of having brought these monsters to the island, and wanting to save the people of the island. But the only way to do that is to end the dream, which will erase the island from existence.

Onionsan on image 9...
gone, but never forgotten

Oh yes, this is where it started to change my way of thinking as a kid. 4:30

Personal anecdote:   I was a young kid when I first played the game,  and I kept getting stuck on this dungeon specifically.  I had the game in english even though it was available in German  (My Dad thought it was a good idea to help me learn english at a young age - he wasn't wrong!) and was JUST shy of being able to understand the "where the eyes have walls" hint,  so I kept. getting. stuck. in this one dungeon,  put the game down for a month or three and then start over again.
I have to emphasize - I did understand the reveal in the south shrine.  So for YEARS I 'knew' that it was all a dream, but not how Link would get out and how that would go for the island.  Heck I didn't even know what the windfish looked like.

Then the DX version came out and I had to get it of course - in German this time,  and once I got to that point with the hint (now being in my early teens and a LITTLE smarter than when I first got the game) it IMMEDIATELY clicked that there had to be a bombable wall somewhere and I was able to finish the game with only some minor stumbles  (It took me a WHILE to realize I could just move the rooster statue now - HOW are you supposed to figure that out?  SERIOUSLY!?) and the ending was all the more emotional for me due to HOW LONG that twist had been 'simmering' in my head.

It's my favourite Zelda,  nay,  my favourite Video Game of all time.