Minor Character Feature: Koume and Kotake, A.K.A Twinrova

Main characters, whether heroes or villains, are always fun to talk about.  There’s a lot to discuss, and I’m sure I will at some point.  But today, I’d like to feature someone a little less prominent, the Twinrova sisters from the Legend of Zelda series.  Ok, they’re not overly obscure, but they’re certainly not the main villain, even in the Oracles of Ages and Seasons games.  Here’s some background on them.  I'm not very good with the whole spoiler thing, so I'm just going to mark it all.  You'll probably survive if you read it though.

 

 

*Begin Spoilers Here*

Koume and Kotake are a pair of, for want of a better term, old hags who are also very powerful witches.  Koume specializes in fire magic and Kotake, predictably, specializes in ice magic.  They are first encountered in Ocarina of Time, where they serve as one of the last bosses you face in the game.  You reflect the attacks of one onto the other, and eventually bring them down, at which point they do something rather unexpected. The two ugly witches on their broomsticks fuse themselves together, revealing their true(?) form as the relatively beautiful Twinrova, who wields both magics.  Apparently, Twinrova was the surrogate mother of Ganondorf.  Crazy times.  They crop up again in Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons, proving to be the force which sets both games into motion, though the ultimate BBEG turns out to be Ganon, as usual.  Still haven’t defeated that guy...

*End Spoilers Here*

So far, they’re fairly standard characters.  You fight them, they die.  Out of the bosses in OoT, however, they are perhaps the best characterized, as you see them throughout the dungeon, and they have a somewhat wicked sense of humour, always laughing as they fly around.  They argue and they bicker, and as Twinrova she actually winks at you.  They are by far the most entertaining boss of the game, and they’re a real challenge in the Oracle games.  No other boss, except perhaps Bongo Bongo, the phantom bongo drum player, makes you laugh as much.

lol wut?

One appearance of the Twinrova sisters makes them one of the most interesting minor characters out there, and that is their appearance in Majora’s Mask.  It’s not particularly spoilery.  In Majora’s Mask, which takes place shortly after OoT, the sisters run a potion shop and a swamp boat tour service.  Why?  I dunno.  Do they seem bothered that you thrashed them a year or two ago.  Nope.  In fact, they’re happy to have a customer and don’t seem to recognize you at all.  Still definitely witches, still definitely Koume and Kotake.  But everything’s fine.  They’re just nice ladies who run small businesses in the swamp.  It’s really surreal meeting them like that, but it just makes me like them even more, because they’re the most... human of the OoT bosses you encounter.  In fact, they’re the only human boss in OoT other than Ganondorf, so that makes sense.  You actually connect with them, and you feel a little sad to see them go every time.  They are an excellent addition to the Zelda universe.  Now I really want to go fight them...

Ahh!  Where's my mirror shield?