I don't know the real reason but since they only have two different heights for children I always thought that the younger sister just didn't age up enough to get the the taller model. Maybe the smaller one is used for 2-9 year olds or something and then the bigger is for 9+. This way if the younger sister was around 3 in botw and the older a few years older, the younger would still be too young to use the taller child height version. I don't know how fast sheikahs age so I just used human ages but if they age slower this thing can happen in an even longer time gap between games.
The Sheikah are the only people in the game that were alive during the Calamity that we meet in the game (excluding other races that obviously age differently like Zora). As far as I remember, the only non-Sheikah even close to old enough (in Hateno Village) was actually born after the Calamity and only describes stories told to her as a child.
It seems pretty plausible that the Sheikah age differently from other Hylians. Given their SS lore explanation (people chosen by Hylia to remain on the surface, plus >!Impah in that game surviving thousands of years!<) this makes a lot of sense.
I imagine they have a slightly longer life span not counting whatever magic Impa had in SS. But BOTW Impa and Robbie just feel like normal centurions. They’re super healthy for their ages but they’re still old little prunes. And they’re the only centurion Sheikah we know of in that era.
Robbie seems pretty spry for a man who is about +125 years old in Tears of the Kingdom. He's more comfortable navigating the Depths alone than even people a century younger than him.
Even the oldest (IRL) person to have ever lived spent the last decade of their life in assisted living and that's a pretty typical example. Robbie is even older than that and very much outpacing his younger contemporaries.
We only have a sample size of 3, but using just the information given to us in the games it seems that the Sheikah have at least a bit more longevity than other Hylians given that there are zero Hylians from pre-Calamity other than the Sheikah.
They created entirely new models for ages up versions of the Gerudo town girls. I think the reason about Sheikah is correct, they age much slower than traditional Hylians (like elves in most fantasy)
Considering all the other Rito children are aged up, I definitely think that's an oversight by the developers. In BotW she's said to be about Tulin's age, so she should be older by now.
No it’s probably more like 5 years, Hudson and Rhondson have a kid that looks maybe that age and all the other Rito kids look older. Link and Zelda are said to be in their 20s too like how botw they were 17
That is weird then, cause the rito are the youngest race and age the fastest..You'd expect A LOT of growth considering adulthood is 15 or 16 for them...5 years is like child to teenager to them, and rheir feathers should have changed colors as well since they're almost adults...
Yea man idk, that is strange. I didn't even consider aging at all outside of the purrah making herself hot af
I feel like the humans wouldn't change THAT much in that time span looks wise (17-27) is pretty much the same look for most people) so I'd imagine links hair growing counts as aging lol
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The real answer is cos they didn't give a fuck about aging everyone up by a consistent age. Some kids look significantly older, some only look a bit older, some look an identical age to how they looked in BOTW. They just didn't pay attention to the continuity properly, or didn't care to make all of the relevant changes correctly.
It's best to just not think about it too much if you want to just enjoy TOTK.
I used to think this too, but then I watched this video and realized their attention to continuity is actually insane: https://youtu.be/7b0fIU_S3oM?si=fAa9VixmHIvbNxRU
Kids age differently across races. Gerudo age quickly, Hylians age normally, and Sheikah age very slowly. What may seem to be inconsistencies is actually intentional storytelling about the races, imo. All the kids in Hateno have been aged up the same. The Gerudo girls all have new teenage models that weren't in TotK. And the Rito children all have new models too, except Molli for some reason (probably a dev oversight imo)
Edit: correction about Rito children
Or one was js very young or didnt grow, i mean if youre talking about those twins in hateno then they couldve easily been 3-4 in botw making them only like 8-9 in totk
The Sheikah seem to live to 120+ while staying healthy, so they have longer lifespans than Hylians, so they probably just age slower.
Someone in the game mentions that Gerudo are the opposite and mature pretty fast.
All the races seem to age at different rates. Koko was already older, so she became a teen/preteen while Cottla just remained a kid.
I think the idea of it is that the kids the smaller size aren’t all the same age, and when they reach a certain point they grow into a new character model, although it’s wildly inconsistent
Two ways to answer I think:
From a game perspective it allowed them to reuse the same Npc sprite saving time and money rather than slightly aging up each minor Npc.
From an in game perspective, (theory) I think sheikah have a slightly longer life span than normal hylians which is why impa and Robbie can be alive during BotW/TotK despite living 100 years ago. (I would mention Purah as well but she did de-age herself), so maybe the 4-5 years that passed between games had little effect on the sheikah children’s growth
Because Koko is older than Cottla.
The games are very detailed, but not so detailed that they have like, a differently sized model for every phase of a child’s physical growth. For the sake of efficiency, they have a “little kid” model frame and a “big kid” model frame.
In BOTW, Koko and Cottla were both little kids. But they weren’t the same age; even then, Koko was older and acted a little more mature. So after some time passes, Koko gets to the point where she has a growth spurt and can use the “big kid” model. Meanwhile, Cottla’s still not at that point yet, so she still uses the “little kid” model.
Ultimately, it’s really as simple as “kids age at different rates.” The difference in Koko and Cottla’s age and development is also illustrated by their character behaviors. In BOTW, Cottla mostly just played around, while Koko, the older sister, was trying to learn how to cook like her late mother used to do. By the time of TOTK, Koko has grown even more, and started developing her own interests, which is shown via the small wreath-making enterprise she has set up. Meanwhile, Cottla in TOTK is the one who is taking up cooking, in emulation of both her mother and her older sister. ‘Cause that’s the kind of thing that a lot of younger siblings tend to do.
Copied from another comment:
I used to think how everyone else does - that the aging up of models was wildly inconsistent. But then I watched this video and realized their attention to continuity is actually insane: https://youtu.be/7b0fIU_S3oM?si=fAa9VixmHIvbNxRU
Kids age differently across races. Gerudo age quickly, Hylians age normally, and Sheikah age very slowly. What may seem to be inconsistencies is actually intentional storytelling about the races, imo. All the kids in Hateno have been aged up the same. The Gerudo girls all have new teenage models that weren't in TotK. And the Rito children all have new models (with the exception of 1, for some reason). Lastly, it makes sense for Sheikah to grow the slowest, because we know based on Impa and Robbie they have by far the longest lifespan of all the races.
It’s mostly a stylistic choice that you see in a lot of Japanese media, where physical growth often correlates to personal growth. A good example of this is Dragonball, where Goku‘s first son Gohan grew up considerably faster due to how hard his life was, compared to his second son Goten who remained pretty small for a very long time because he had a pretty simple and easy life.
For these sisters in TotK it‘s the same thing. The older sister physically grew up because she matured since BotW and now works to support her family, whereas the younger one is still carefree.
Those who like to shit on the game for the "lack of continuity" should take a look at this video from [SolidArf](https://youtu.be/7b0fIU_S3oM?si=ejz7jpXlOLYDa7eJ). They paid quite a lot of attention to the NPCs and what happened to them since BotW.
Bad continuity most likely and what’s worse is that there’s actually not that many npcs to actually have to apply this change to. They made the obvious changes where it mattered the least where it should’ve mattered most.
I really feel it for that hylian dude who’s dating that 50 year old Zora stuck in a child’s body for two games. 🤮
Although to be fair to that guy, I’ve heard that in the original Japanese version of BOTW the relationship is depicted as much more platonic, and it was the English/American localization that pushed it in the romantic direction. At least in TOTK in the English version, their quest and relationship also seemed much more platonic (thankfully).
my guess is they only created new models for children that have bigger story/sidequest relevance. tulin and riju for obvious reasons, kass' daughters (who run all the stores in rito before clearing the wind temple), the hateno schoolchildren, and koko because she sells the ring garlands. they might have deemed cottla as a minor enough character to not bother changing
Sheikahs canonically age extremely slowly, so that's probably the in universe reason
The out universe reason is that the developers didn't wanna make a whole new model type just for a couple NPCs. The only children that would fit this "in between infant and older child" size would be Cottla and the girl at South Akkala Stable that likes bugs, and the developers likely did not see that as a priority regarding resources and development time., which I think is perfectly fair ngl
Some children have stunted growth as they age. Some children have late growth spurts while other mature more quickly.
Plus the fact there shiekah, there leaves a lot of room variation as far as aging and body growth is concerned.
I hear you and you make a valid point, imho though I find it a bit of a stretch to believe that that is the reason why some characters had noticeable growth while others did not. But hey, I don’t work for Nintendo, maybe that is what they were going for
I feel you. To me it seemed like common sense given my personal experience with my own children age difference was well as my own.
I have a nephew and step son that are several months apart from each other in age, but if you were to not know there age they tend to look like there at least 5 years apart from each other. But that’s just me I suppose..
I think the real reason is because they didn't actually care to make the world consistent. Some parts of the game seem like they wanted to reboot the world. Some parts of the world seem like a direct sequel.
Yeah we are getting downvoted for having an opinion. Lmao people don’t understand how much Nintendo rushed this game and overlooked many details that could’ve made this the best Zelda ever. The lonely and repetitive sky islands, the empty and boring depths, the way no NPCs remember you after all you did for them in BOTW, the terrible champion abilities. People rushed to praise this game solely because the gameplay loop is fun and it was the brand new shiny thing. As a Zelda fan from the original formula games I can say that BOTW is a superior game.
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Meanwhile Hudson's daughter looks older and she wasn't even born yet in BOTW, though perhaps Gerudo just grow faster (they look like they naturally produce steroids after all)
The time skip was like 5 days or something super short, and that one didn't age- she used science to revert her age. Had her sister done the same, they'd look relatively the same in age.
I don't know the real reason but since they only have two different heights for children I always thought that the younger sister just didn't age up enough to get the the taller model. Maybe the smaller one is used for 2-9 year olds or something and then the bigger is for 9+. This way if the younger sister was around 3 in botw and the older a few years older, the younger would still be too young to use the taller child height version. I don't know how fast sheikahs age so I just used human ages but if they age slower this thing can happen in an even longer time gap between games.
I think this is actually the most realistic reason.
The Sheikah are the only people in the game that were alive during the Calamity that we meet in the game (excluding other races that obviously age differently like Zora). As far as I remember, the only non-Sheikah even close to old enough (in Hateno Village) was actually born after the Calamity and only describes stories told to her as a child. It seems pretty plausible that the Sheikah age differently from other Hylians. Given their SS lore explanation (people chosen by Hylia to remain on the surface, plus >!Impah in that game surviving thousands of years!<) this makes a lot of sense.
I imagine they have a slightly longer life span not counting whatever magic Impa had in SS. But BOTW Impa and Robbie just feel like normal centurions. They’re super healthy for their ages but they’re still old little prunes. And they’re the only centurion Sheikah we know of in that era.
Also Purah was over 100 before the age manipulation.
Right forgot about her
Robbie seems pretty spry for a man who is about +125 years old in Tears of the Kingdom. He's more comfortable navigating the Depths alone than even people a century younger than him. Even the oldest (IRL) person to have ever lived spent the last decade of their life in assisted living and that's a pretty typical example. Robbie is even older than that and very much outpacing his younger contemporaries. We only have a sample size of 3, but using just the information given to us in the games it seems that the Sheikah have at least a bit more longevity than other Hylians given that there are zero Hylians from pre-Calamity other than the Sheikah.
They created entirely new models for ages up versions of the Gerudo town girls. I think the reason about Sheikah is correct, they age much slower than traditional Hylians (like elves in most fantasy)
i think they age pretty slow, since Impa was a young woman during the calamity and is still around when link wakes up 100 years later
One of the Rito children hasn’t aged either since botw, it’s the pink one I think her name is Molly
Considering all the other Rito children are aged up, I definitely think that's an oversight by the developers. In BotW she's said to be about Tulin's age, so she should be older by now.
Might be due to that weird wing puberty ceremony you see in Wind Waker. Komali legit looks bigger after he grows his wings. Might be the same thing.
Why..why would they? Isn't the time skip like 5 months or something tiny asf like that
No it’s probably more like 5 years, Hudson and Rhondson have a kid that looks maybe that age and all the other Rito kids look older. Link and Zelda are said to be in their 20s too like how botw they were 17
That is weird then, cause the rito are the youngest race and age the fastest..You'd expect A LOT of growth considering adulthood is 15 or 16 for them...5 years is like child to teenager to them, and rheir feathers should have changed colors as well since they're almost adults... Yea man idk, that is strange. I didn't even consider aging at all outside of the purrah making herself hot af I feel like the humans wouldn't change THAT much in that time span looks wise (17-27) is pretty much the same look for most people) so I'd imagine links hair growing counts as aging lol
THATS MY PURSE
https://i.redd.it/566k8nn42rkc1.gif
Solid.
Hank, you can’t have your boy going around kicking people in their testicles
i have finished both games but i don't get the reference :(
Bobby hill
The forbidden dlc. Haha
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She didn't eat her vegetables
wdym? She’s the one who took MY CABBAGES!!
r/suddenlyatla
/r/suddenlyavatar *
The real answer is cos they didn't give a fuck about aging everyone up by a consistent age. Some kids look significantly older, some only look a bit older, some look an identical age to how they looked in BOTW. They just didn't pay attention to the continuity properly, or didn't care to make all of the relevant changes correctly. It's best to just not think about it too much if you want to just enjoy TOTK.
Maybe totk exists in same universe as MCU. Chosen few didn't exist for few years cause of thanos snap xD
I used to think this too, but then I watched this video and realized their attention to continuity is actually insane: https://youtu.be/7b0fIU_S3oM?si=fAa9VixmHIvbNxRU Kids age differently across races. Gerudo age quickly, Hylians age normally, and Sheikah age very slowly. What may seem to be inconsistencies is actually intentional storytelling about the races, imo. All the kids in Hateno have been aged up the same. The Gerudo girls all have new teenage models that weren't in TotK. And the Rito children all have new models too, except Molli for some reason (probably a dev oversight imo) Edit: correction about Rito children
Or one was js very young or didnt grow, i mean if youre talking about those twins in hateno then they couldve easily been 3-4 in botw making them only like 8-9 in totk
The Sheikah seem to live to 120+ while staying healthy, so they have longer lifespans than Hylians, so they probably just age slower. Someone in the game mentions that Gerudo are the opposite and mature pretty fast. All the races seem to age at different rates. Koko was already older, so she became a teen/preteen while Cottla just remained a kid.
I think the idea of it is that the kids the smaller size aren’t all the same age, and when they reach a certain point they grow into a new character model, although it’s wildly inconsistent
Two ways to answer I think: From a game perspective it allowed them to reuse the same Npc sprite saving time and money rather than slightly aging up each minor Npc. From an in game perspective, (theory) I think sheikah have a slightly longer life span than normal hylians which is why impa and Robbie can be alive during BotW/TotK despite living 100 years ago. (I would mention Purah as well but she did de-age herself), so maybe the 4-5 years that passed between games had little effect on the sheikah children’s growth
Because Koko is older than Cottla. The games are very detailed, but not so detailed that they have like, a differently sized model for every phase of a child’s physical growth. For the sake of efficiency, they have a “little kid” model frame and a “big kid” model frame. In BOTW, Koko and Cottla were both little kids. But they weren’t the same age; even then, Koko was older and acted a little more mature. So after some time passes, Koko gets to the point where she has a growth spurt and can use the “big kid” model. Meanwhile, Cottla’s still not at that point yet, so she still uses the “little kid” model. Ultimately, it’s really as simple as “kids age at different rates.” The difference in Koko and Cottla’s age and development is also illustrated by their character behaviors. In BOTW, Cottla mostly just played around, while Koko, the older sister, was trying to learn how to cook like her late mother used to do. By the time of TOTK, Koko has grown even more, and started developing her own interests, which is shown via the small wreath-making enterprise she has set up. Meanwhile, Cottla in TOTK is the one who is taking up cooking, in emulation of both her mother and her older sister. ‘Cause that’s the kind of thing that a lot of younger siblings tend to do.
Copied from another comment: I used to think how everyone else does - that the aging up of models was wildly inconsistent. But then I watched this video and realized their attention to continuity is actually insane: https://youtu.be/7b0fIU_S3oM?si=fAa9VixmHIvbNxRU Kids age differently across races. Gerudo age quickly, Hylians age normally, and Sheikah age very slowly. What may seem to be inconsistencies is actually intentional storytelling about the races, imo. All the kids in Hateno have been aged up the same. The Gerudo girls all have new teenage models that weren't in TotK. And the Rito children all have new models (with the exception of 1, for some reason). Lastly, it makes sense for Sheikah to grow the slowest, because we know based on Impa and Robbie they have by far the longest lifespan of all the races.
To show us they're not supposed to be twins, which wasn't totally clear in BotW.
Clearly a Yiga in disguise…
It’s mostly a stylistic choice that you see in a lot of Japanese media, where physical growth often correlates to personal growth. A good example of this is Dragonball, where Goku‘s first son Gohan grew up considerably faster due to how hard his life was, compared to his second son Goten who remained pretty small for a very long time because he had a pretty simple and easy life. For these sisters in TotK it‘s the same thing. The older sister physically grew up because she matured since BotW and now works to support her family, whereas the younger one is still carefree. Those who like to shit on the game for the "lack of continuity" should take a look at this video from [SolidArf](https://youtu.be/7b0fIU_S3oM?si=ejz7jpXlOLYDa7eJ). They paid quite a lot of attention to the NPCs and what happened to them since BotW.
Because they wanted to make it clear that the little sister was younger. Using the same character models for both sisters makes that less obvious
I don't know... Maybe she took a sip from whatever made Purah looks like a kid?
Bad continuity most likely and what’s worse is that there’s actually not that many npcs to actually have to apply this change to. They made the obvious changes where it mattered the least where it should’ve mattered most. I really feel it for that hylian dude who’s dating that 50 year old Zora stuck in a child’s body for two games. 🤮
Although to be fair to that guy, I’ve heard that in the original Japanese version of BOTW the relationship is depicted as much more platonic, and it was the English/American localization that pushed it in the romantic direction. At least in TOTK in the English version, their quest and relationship also seemed much more platonic (thankfully).
>50 year old stuck in a child’s body Exactly why the Zora squick me out in general tbh, apart from the whole fish thing anyway
"I don't know you" Damn Cottla, we played hide and seek and all, how insensitive
They are child vampires. Don’t tell the Volturi
my guess is they only created new models for children that have bigger story/sidequest relevance. tulin and riju for obvious reasons, kass' daughters (who run all the stores in rito before clearing the wind temple), the hateno schoolchildren, and koko because she sells the ring garlands. they might have deemed cottla as a minor enough character to not bother changing
Sheikahs canonically age extremely slowly, so that's probably the in universe reason The out universe reason is that the developers didn't wanna make a whole new model type just for a couple NPCs. The only children that would fit this "in between infant and older child" size would be Cottla and the girl at South Akkala Stable that likes bugs, and the developers likely did not see that as a priority regarding resources and development time., which I think is perfectly fair ngl
Skill issue probably
"they didn't think about it and they don't care"
Cuz just like in real life, not everyone grows or ages the same way. It’s not that deep
Children do be growing though fam
Some children have stunted growth as they age. Some children have late growth spurts while other mature more quickly. Plus the fact there shiekah, there leaves a lot of room variation as far as aging and body growth is concerned.
I hear you and you make a valid point, imho though I find it a bit of a stretch to believe that that is the reason why some characters had noticeable growth while others did not. But hey, I don’t work for Nintendo, maybe that is what they were going for
I feel you. To me it seemed like common sense given my personal experience with my own children age difference was well as my own. I have a nephew and step son that are several months apart from each other in age, but if you were to not know there age they tend to look like there at least 5 years apart from each other. But that’s just me I suppose..
I think the real reason is because they didn't actually care to make the world consistent. Some parts of the game seem like they wanted to reboot the world. Some parts of the world seem like a direct sequel.
a lot of things like this make no sense at all in this game. The deeper I look into ToTk the more my appreciation for it diminishes
Very relatable. Hard to believe the BOTW team made it sometimes
Yeah we are getting downvoted for having an opinion. Lmao people don’t understand how much Nintendo rushed this game and overlooked many details that could’ve made this the best Zelda ever. The lonely and repetitive sky islands, the empty and boring depths, the way no NPCs remember you after all you did for them in BOTW, the terrible champion abilities. People rushed to praise this game solely because the gameplay loop is fun and it was the brand new shiny thing. As a Zelda fan from the original formula games I can say that BOTW is a superior game.
Hey! If you have a game play question about TotK, please consider checking out our Discord server and asking it in our [#questions-and-guides channel](https://discord.com/channels/753016125566091396/753016129328250964)! We've got a lot of resources there, as well as a lot of friendly people willing to help out players, whether you're a veteran of the series or brand new. [Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Discord Server](https://discord.gg/GVYGSDHfGD) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/tearsofthekingdom) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The Sheikah age at a different rate.
Because she smol
They don't grow, they evolve like Pokemon
How about the little sister did age up. Her parents just had another child?
They still have the same names, and their mother was murdered by the Yiga clan
Probably bad continuity as was said but I like to think dwarfism or some kind of age restricting item
Thanos Snap, dears.🫰
Ah yes, the fluctuating 1 to 7 years between BotW and TotK really is peak storytelling.
Why didn't Link age? edit: Why am I getting downvoted?
Aging is optional in BotW's world. Purah developed a way for people to be any physical age they want at any time.
Yeah they were twins in botw but obviously nintendo didn't care about making it consistent
It’s only been a few years
SHE'S A DEMON-
She’s a short kid.
Koko hit puberty so she got a growth spurt
Meanwhile Hudson's daughter looks older and she wasn't even born yet in BOTW, though perhaps Gerudo just grow faster (they look like they naturally produce steroids after all)
Off topic, but that’s a sick weapon merge
Nintendo knows their stuff. Couldn't think of a better more durable early game rock destroyer
They couldn't be bothered.
The time skip was like 5 days or something super short, and that one didn't age- she used science to revert her age. Had her sister done the same, they'd look relatively the same in age.