10 Things You Never Knew About Zelda: Twilight Princess
3. The True Identity Of The Hero's Shade
The Hero's Shade is an armoured skeleton in Twilight Princess who teaches Link hidden skills. Shade explains how he was a great warrior of Hyrule but laments that he wasn't remembered for his heroism. He says the skills he teaches Link can only be passed down to one carrying the Hero of Time's bloodline. Since the ghostly swordsman implies Link is his descendant, it wasn't long before fans hypothesised that Shade is Link from Ocarina of Time.
Shade's backstory is vague but a lot of this theory is sound. Since Link reversed time at the end of Ocarina of Time, the future timeline was reset, meaning no one except Zelda and the Sages remember him as the one who defeated Ganondorf. Because the events in the sequel, Majora's Mask, occurred in another dimension, Hyrulians would again be oblivious that Link saved a world once more. It makes sense that Link could grow up to become bitter and depressed since he wasn't remembered as a hero.
For years, this idea was deemed nothing more than apocryphal. But when the Hyrule Historia was published in 2011, it validated that Shade is indeed the Hero of Time and Link's ancestor.