Research and writing process of chapter 19 - The Goron Mines

The second dungeon of Twilight Princess is finally reached, and of course there is bound to be a lot of lava, excrutiating heat, Goron elders and a fiery battle with Darbus to top it all. In this article I'm going to tell you a little more about my thoughts and theories I've come up with before, while and after I wrote this chapter concerning not only the mines proper, but Goron culture and history in general as well as some minor goodies here and there.



The Goron Mines

Now, I've written a somewhat different journey through the mines than the one the game is guiding us through, principally because I've always found it rather cumbersome and even a little annoying to have to fight my way over the magnetic walls and ceilings all the time (so slooowly), shoot crystals and beamos or switch between cranes that drop me in the middle of a horde of bulblins. Instead, I've focused more on the actual term ''mine'' and, after a little research on the layout of existing mines as well as the Goron mines from the game, I created a design that follows the realistic build-up of an active volcano all while incorporating a mining site big enough to be called the most important one in all of Hyrule.

So here is the map from chapter 18:

(DR)

This could be Death Mountain from the top!

It is a simple and somewhat crude map (I'm still a rookie with Photoshop and have never been good in drawing maps in the first place), but it does its job in showing where the different important rooms are as well as giving a glimpse into the daily mining activity of Gorons in my version of the story.

This is the topmost floor of the Goron Mines, mind you. The black dots on the left and right side named ''shaft'' are exactly what they invoke, shafts with built-in, manual elevators to get to the lower floors of the mine. There are four floors in total, the bottom-most being the widest in diametre set deeply into the mountain range around Death Mountain, with resources including raw materials not only from igneous rock, but also from sedimentary rock (copper, chalk, gold, tin, flint, glass sand to name a few) and metamorphic rock (rubies, moonstones, sapphires, jade, onyx, lapis lazuli...).

Concerning the middle lava vent, I've designed it after having taken a look at the inside of a volcano. As you can see here, the main vent goes straight up towards the crater, and the mines where chapter 19 is taking place is situated just beneath the crater, with the main vent still and inactive to form a lake of lava. Daylight is shining through the crater and falls into the main hall, and when it rains, the lava steams and hisses. Side vents, or secondary vents, create the lava rivers that flow through the volcano's crust and eventually out onto the surface.

Lava for Death Mountain

Lava, as you all know, is incredibly hot. Temperatures range from 700 to 1,200 °C (1,292 to 2,192 °F) and some lava types can even reach 1,600 °C (2,910 °F). This particular lava type is known as the mafic or ultramafic lava. I've chosen to fill Death Mountain with this lava type because of its high content of magnesium oxide, which lets this lava become very liquid and mobile, almost to the point of being watery. The secondary vents forming lava rivers then flow at a greater speed, just like in the game.

The Well of Life and a Goron's meaning of Life and Death

This theory came to me while cutting metal for an iron fence. I was thinking on how a Goron was conceived and born but could not remember Nintendo ever enlighting us on that matter. In Majora's Mask, we have an unhappy Goron baby wailing and screaming the heads off of the other inhabitants of Snowhead, and Twilight Princess has several Goron children roaming the outskirts of Death Mountain, Kakariko as well as Castle Town. So Gorons do indeed have children, but how?

What is also worth mentioning is that the Goron race has never had the honour of counting a ''female'' Goron among their number, at least not that I can think of. They are all referred to as ''he'', they have beards and male names and mostly look very masculine in general. So the first and foremost method of creating offspring, which needs a female and a male part, is therefore discarded.

Darbus (non-cursed form)

What has always intrigued me was the notion of patriarch. The word comes from the greek patriarchēs, meaning "chief or father of a family", and Dictionary.com defines him as ''the male head of a family or tribal line'' or ''a person regarded as the father or founder of an order, class, etc''. In the Goron tribe of Twilight Princess, the patriarch is indeed a leader and a defender, the strongest of them all who protects them and has a major impact on decisions. And Darbus certainly looks like he's a patriarch! 

So a patriarch is a chief, but can he also be an actual father? The rooster in the flock of chickens? The one responsible for the race's continued existence? Pater is latin and means father, and I have always believed that patriarch derivated from that. However, because of a man's very obvious lack of the body parts needed to conceive a child, and because of the (until proven wrong) lack of women in the Goron race, I had to find a way to make Darbus a father without a female counterpart. And I found my answer while looking a little more closely at a Goron.

They are made of rock, more precisely of two different rock types: the yellow-ish skin almost looks like ochre sand, whereas the grey rock on their back and arms could be of a different kind of rock. Two different minerals, fusioned together to form a live being? Hmm.

This is how the idea with the Well of Life came to be. It states that a Goron is made of two different, magical kinds of lava that flow deep within Death Mountain. Lava is plastic, like clay that forms pots, and since Gorons are made of rock, touching lava should not affect them that much, so it should be pretty easy for a strong Goron like Darbus to form a body out of lava with his hands which then becomes solid. It is still a very delicate procedure, and not every Goron should be capable of doing it. Giving this task to the ''patriarch'' then truly makes the most sense. He is, in other words, the one to shape a new being of life, and one immediately thinks of God shaping Adam - and later Eve - out of dust in the creation myths of Abrahamic religions, and in the Norse myths, Norsemen believed that the God of Gods, Odin (who was also named Allfather), and his two brothers Vili and Ve, created the first man and woman, Ask and Embla, out of two fallen trees, one an ash, the other an elm.

Gor Ebizo

The notion of death among the Goron tribe also plays around the Well of Life. Gor Ebizo seems like the oldest still living elder (for, you know, he truly looks like he is) and it will not be too long before he bades the world farewell. In our world, the common Christian burial rite reads ''[...] earth to earth; ashes to ashes, dust to dust.'' and refers to those believing in it being born from dust, and returned to dust after we pass away. So it is only plausible that when a Goron dies, his body is returned to the lava that he was shaped of, to nourish the Well and have parts of his body be reborn in a new child. For I argue that there is only a limited amount of Lava of Life in Death Mountain, so there can't be a too great amount of Gorons in the world anyway. But as long as the Lava of Life exists, and as long as there is one Goron capable of forming a being out of it, then the race will endure. 

Din's creation of the Gorons; a try at a myth

Having two or more gods interact with each other is interesting, funny and dramatic. One doesn't have to look further than the Norse gods and all the nonsense they've done because of beliefs, challenges or quarrels with each other. So I decided to try and create a short myth in my own story as well.

The Well of Life, as explained in chapter 19, was put there by Din after the world had been created.
The Goddess longed for a race of her own that was stronger than the animals and humans that Farore, Goddess of Courage, had put into their world to live in. And so she asked Farore to teach her how to create life. Farore wasn't really keen on having the Goddess of Power create a race, by fear that those people might endanger the others. So she agreed, but allowed Din to create just one single being that would, in her belief, be unable to have descendants because of the lack of a counterpart. Din agreed, and with her aquired knowledge thus created the first Goron, gave it a lot of muscles as well as a bulky and heavy shape to look - and be - strong and intimidating. And to trick Farore, Din gave her life-giving powers a material form, here lava, and placed it inside the volcano Death Mountain where it would look just like any other seam of lava, before teaching her first Goron how to make other Gorons from it.

The dwarves collecting Kvasir's blood

As a little side-note: giving a material shape to knowledge or any other intangible thing is pretty common in myths. In Norse myths, for example (and here I should finally tell you that I read Kevin Crossley-Holland's Penguin Book of Norse Myths very recently, thus all the references), there is one particular myth called ''The Mead of Poetry''. It tells of a god named Kvasir who is basically the ''psychiatrist'' of gods and men. He listens to their problems, tries to find answers for or with them, and is all in all very wise and eager to help with good advice. Kvasir, however, is killed by two dwarves who collect his blood and add honey (gross) to make the mead of poetry out of it. And whoever drinks the mead is said to become as wise and poetical as Kvasir.

I found this notion of ''materialized wisdom'' very appealing, which is why I included ''materialized knowledge of Life'' in the Gorons' creation myth as well.

One more thought concerning the Well of Life placed inside Death Mountain is the ambiguity of both names. The first obviously invokes flowing life and creation, whereas the volcano named ''Death Mountain'' clearly states the exact contrary. Since the Well of Life is non-canon, but the fruit of my own imagination, I was rather unsure at first about the whole concept, but I decided to leave it like this. It is actually rather interesting to think about why the Gorons could have named their birth site ''Death Mountain''. Could it be that they intended to scare away curious outsiders who were looking for this mythical well?


The Goron elders

Gor Coron

Gor Liggs

I've already said so in the author's note of chapter 19 that I care a lot about Gor Liggs. But there is a thought process behind his wisdom and him being the cleverest and wittiest among the other elders.

Gor Liggs tells Link of their creation myth, but also states a very important fact: Gorons are rather dim-witted, and this would have led to the extintion of their race. Fair Nayru, Goddess of Wisdom, intervened by gifting Gorons the ability to become wiser the older they got. And since Goron elders grow even older than the ''common'' Gorons because of their former activity as a patriarch, they tend to be the wisest of the entire race, hence their status as leaders.

Gor Amoto

But why is Gor Liggs the brainy and not the others? If we take them in the order of oldest to youngest, we have Gor Ebizo as the oldest, then Gor Amoto, Gor Liggs, and finally Gor Coron, with Darbus being the Patriarch who will one day take the position of leader among the elders.

Gor Coron is a rather young elder and still has to ''collect'' his wisdom, which is shown on several occasions throughout chapter 19. Gor Amoto is older but still has enough wits to make clever comments, whereas Gor Ebizo is so old that his senility has mostly clouded his mind. Him and Gor Amoto often reply to Link's comments with confused looks, displaying thus their slowed process of comprehending, whereas Gor Liggs almost always answers quickly and wisely. That being said, it is only logical that Gor Liggs is the one who's in perfect mental shape, having already collected a good amount of wisdom but senile stupidity still being a long way ahead.

And as a last note concerning the elders: among themselves, they use their common names like Coron and Amoto, discarding the prefixe ''Gor'' which almost certainly means ''elder''. Link either refers to them as ''Elder'' or uses the prefixe when naming them, and I as the writer am and will always use their full title when writing prose. It is a certain respect I feel I owe them that I as the writer should not shorten their title for the sake of repetition, even when reading Gor here, Gor there might be a little unnerving at times.

A Goron's only physical weakness: cold

This short theory is not only supported by real facts, but by Nintendo itself. Majora's Mask has Gorons who live on a mountain called Snowhead, and when spring should be blooming, everything is frozen and beneath a thick layer of snow instead. The Gorons are not looking and feeling very well, and their chief Darmani has set out on a desperate quest to slay the monster keeping the village in this eternal winter, the Masked Mechanical Monster Goht. But he died trying, and before long the Gorons will succumb to the cold.

In science, the term ''frost weathering'' comes to mind. This process is inducted by water seeping in very small quantities into the pore spaces of rock and then freezing, taking in more space than before. Ice inevitably attracts more water from surrounding pores, making it grow and accumulate further. Eventually, the ice weakens the rock and breaks it. Sandstone is the most vulnerable to this process, as it is very loose in the first place and tends to act almost like a sponge for the water to seep into it freely.

You can see this process especially on roads after a long winter. The asphalt or concrete has broken up here and there to form nasty potholes, and a particular road I know leading from my home village to the next bigger town has construction works in spring every year to repair the cracks and holes the ice has caused.

So let's imagine we are a Goron made purely out of rock, and we have ice seep into our limbs and our sandstone chest that cracks it when it gets too cold. Personally, I would be totally freaked out!

And now some minor goodies like sketches, theories and deleted scenes

• Sketch for chapter 18 entitled ''Outwitting the Gorons!''

(DR)

I made this sketch during lunch break at work, on a piece of Teamwoerker advertising paper because I had obviously forgotten my sketchbook at home. I had worked out - while drilling holes into anchor plates - how Link would prove his strengh to the Gorons without the use of iron boots, and wanted to make a quick sketch to see it it was plausible and realistic.

The sketch shows the big round stone door the Gorons placed in front of the entrance to their mines to seal it, with the two tree trunks acting as extra supports. On the left there are two darts, one zig-zagging upwards because I had imagined Link jumping up onto the door, but I used one of the trunks instead to use as makeshift ladder.

•  Link's initial plan to beat the **** out of Darbus and retrieve the Fused Shadow

Too often do I find myself in a situation where I have a clear idea about where the chapter is heading, and then while writing I find myself adding scenes here and there or even change the entire plot by improvising. This is what happened in the Goron Mines:

Having laid out the first descriptions of my initial plan to trap a corrupted Patriarch with the use of all bombs I created as well as the use of Link's bow, a chain and the Gorons doing, well... what they do best, I've just arrived at the iron bridge and let Link stop to wait for Darbus to cross the other river. My mind is still feeling proud of the prank I've pulled on the Gorons earlier on, letting them all step on their toes miserably while feeling the imaginary cold seep into their rocky bones, when suddenly I find myself thinking ''Wait, Link does indeed have a cloak, but his boots are not protected, and iron is veeery hot when lava is flowing beneath it, common sense speaking.'' So I make him jump up, and suddenly all Gorons jump as well because they think they have to mimick Link's every move. One thing leads to another, Dangoro can't keep his balance with the heavy load he's holding, tumbles down into the river, I laugh out imagining it, then I remember the two powder barrels and have to make them explode, there's a huge noise, and Darbus is on their toes.

Cripes, that was quick. But I'm happy with how this turned out, so I leave it and insert it into the chapter. But my initial plan that I had started to describe in the armoury earlier is therefore discarded, and somehow I feel as if you deserve to know it, maybe to fill in the gap with which I might have left you unsatisfied, maybe to reveal the plan so that those of you who have been trying to think into Link's brain know what he had in mind when he said: ''Dangoro, we need two barrels of black powder, and someone take four bomb sacks as well.''

I actually have several more ideas now while writing this article. You just pick the one you like most :D

1. The black powder forms a nice heap near the back of the hall, and the four sacks are placed on either side of the heap. As soon as Darbus has tripped, he falls head-first into the black powder, and seconds later a lit arrow shot by Link lands in one of the bomb sacks. I let you imagine the rest.
2. The chain may not be enough to make Darbus trip and fall, so the Gorons place one bomb sack on either side of the area they think Darbus will step through, placing a trail of black powder from the barrels towards the sacks to light them from a distance. Once the patriarch is entangled in the chain, they light the powder with torches OR throw their torches at the bomb sacks, making them explode. Darbus loses his balance and falls onto his belly, where the Gorons attack him from all sides. 
3. Instead of attacking him, they throw the two remaining bomb sacks at his face, and if they don't detonate from the flames of Darbus himself, Link shoots a lit arrow to do the trick.
4. Instead of throwing the two bomb sacks, they throw the barrels at him, and with a burning arrow cause their poor patriarch some extra headache. 

Any more suggestions or mean ideas on how this could have been done? Why don't you tell me in the comments?

• The new Hero's bow

Handle of a wooden compound bow

My dear friend RavenOverlord, who is my editor as well as critical eye and mouth concerning realism, pointed out to me that the arrow Link equips with the package bomb would either not fly at all, or just sway from its trajectory and make for a very bad ending for this chapter. Upon my confused request to precise, he explained to me that the problem lies with the bow itself. It is made out of one piece with the handle in the middle so that, when an arrow is notched, it tends to lean slightly to the side. A wooden arrow is usually very flexible, even if it doesn't look like it at first, and will wind around the handle with the force of the shot and oscillate during its flight. Skilled archers know how to shoot the arrow to hit their target precisely despite this wobbling, but when something is attached to the arrow, like a package bomb in chapter 19, things get more complicated. The arrow will bend to wind around the handle, but will likely not spring back because of the weight attached to it, and the arrow will land Din knows where.

Remodeled handle for the Hero's bow (DR)

This is why I decided to remodel the Hero's bow - or at least its handle - to that of a compound bow. These modern bows have bent handles that allow the arrow to sit exactly where the bowstring is without it having to bypass the handle. This prevents almost any kind of wobbling, and the projectile's trajectory will be a lot more precise even if there is something attached to it.

I made this drawing to show how the handle is bent, with the cross on the right marking the spot where the arrow will sit supported by the archer's thumb. I left the design of the bow very bare and simple, the laughable blades being only a placeholder for far better and cooler ones, so that everyone may imagine their own Hero's compound bow as they please.

• The use of crimsonine

Crimsonine

I had planned a long time ahead of this chapter that I would give Link something to protect him against the crushing heat of the Goron Mines. It does not really make sense that he has to wear a tunic to enter the Fire Temple in Ocarina of Time, but can enter a volcano without any kind of fire protection in Twilight Princess.

For all those who haven't played Phantom Hourglass ''yet'' and have no idea what crimsonine is: it is one of three rare metals given to three different tribes in the game as the ultimate treasure that Link has to collect for the smith Zauz so that he can make the legendary Phantom Sword, the only weapon said to be able to slay the end monster Bellum. The two other metals, aquanine and azurine, will also appear in the novel, eventually.

I've really tried to find any kind of information on the spinning of metal threads, I have searched everywhere on the net, but I haven't found anything on the process of making super thin threads purely out of metal. And I'm not talking about silk or linen lace with metal threads woven into it, for this would never work if the finished cloak has to withstand extreme heat. The fabric of the metallic threads would simply burn away, and the cloak would rip and fall apart.

So we'll have to imagine a red ingot of crimsonine being heated in a smelter and then spun somehow into a thin thread that is then woven into cloth. I know it is possible, for my mother has just bought pure gold thread for her tablet weaving, but how? I really wish I knew.

Link wearing the Goron Tunic

This red cloth is, according to me, also the very same fabric that the Goron Tunic from Ocarina of Time is made of. Gor Liggs stated that they indeed had these tunics a long time ago, but that they ''[...] discarded them in favour of these cloaks because of money and, well… fashion issues.'' I needed a reason to give Link a cloak and not a tunic. Money issues are explained because of the amount of cloth scraps the making of a tunic would leave, since it has to be cut into shape, with the re-smelting of the cloth remains costing extra time and money. And fashion issues... well I guess that some smiths and smelters might have had a problem with wearing such a ''kitchy'' garb and would have preferred something more universal. 

Crimsonine can be found in little quantities inside Death Mountain, so the cloaks and other garments such as gloves and aprons are actually pretty expensive. And while they can shield extreme heat from the wearer, they are still ineffective against lava which is so hot that it easily melts through the crimsonine. This is also supported by the fact that when Link from OoT walks in a pit of lava, he still gets burned.



I'm not quite done with the Gorons yet, there is still a lot to discover from them, but this is pretty much all I've got for these two chapters. I'd be very happy to hear your opinion on this article, what you liked, didn't like, if you have more theories and ideas for me that I could use in the chapters to come etc.

And as a last funny reference, look at what my dad brought to a family party a few weeks back:

(DR)

This is a wine bottle from France. I just had to take a picture of it xD


Disclaimer: all pictures are from Google except for those marked (DR), which are mine.