Yeah, and every encounter with a warrior in the same game I believe (or maybe majora's mask?) you damage them untill they flee the room. I don't think you ever kill a human in those games. Maybe Ganon, but he comes of as a man-pig hybrid. Although I'm not sure how the knights in Link to the Past fit into this, surely those are human soldiers you're killing...
Another data point: What happens with the highway bandit in Breath of the Wild? They eventually teleport away, they don't explode into a poof of death.
> Another data point: What happens with the highway bandit in Breath of the Wild? They eventually teleport away, they don't explode into a poof of death.
Except if you hit them with an Ancient Arrow, which completely disintegrates them like any other type of enemy. That's what I did the first time around in the Yiga Clan Hideout.
Also I guess quite a few of the series' villains are human or humanoid, but most tend to become a monstrous form before you actually kill them.
> a few of the series' villains are human or humanoid, but most tend to become a monstrous form before you actually kill them.
That's a good point. I can think of Zant (from Twilight Princess) at least dies in his humanoid form, although <spoiler>Ur'f abg xvyyrq ol gur cynlre, ohg ol Tnabaqbes</spoiler>. There's Ganondorf in Twilight Princess and Wind Waker. In the former, <spoiler>ur genafvgvbaf vagb n uhzna ng gur ynfg cunfr bs gur svtug</spoiler> and in the later <spoiler>ur bayl nccrnef nf n uhzna</spoiler>.
In the case of both Wind Waker and Twilight Princess however, it's already established in series canon that he is not entirely human.
Yeah, Ganondorf is part demon in most of his appearances, and is clearly not a typical 'mortal' human in any game.
I think Zant actually kills himself though, as the last act of spite against Ganon for something or another.
For other examples:
Both Astor (Age of Calamity) and Chancellor Cole (Spirit Tracks) get taken over by their demon king rulers before their final battle (Ganon and Malladus respectively).
Vaati becomes his one winged angel form in all games where he's a major villain or final boss.
Master Kohga gets killed by his own idiocy at the end of his boss battle.
And Yuga takes over Ganon, before getting killed in that sort of merged form instead.
At that rate, the only 'human' who doesn't do this is Lady Maud from Tri Force Heroes, and she's neither particularly threatening nor actually dies after the battle.
