Minions or Monsters?

In my opinion there are two basic kinds of enemies: the minions of greater evils, or indigenous monsters that roam the land. Take for example Moblins and Deku Babas. The Moblin is the an enemy in the game that obviously works for the greater evil, mainly Ganon/dorf. Not only does it say in the manual of the original game that they are the mainstay of Ganon's forces, but Ganon resembles a Moblin moe than any Zelda enemy. Deku Babas however are merely monsters corrupted by evil who don't take orders from anyone.

The purpose of this thread is to clarify which ones are which for those who are curious. I will start a list of enemies who I believe are minions, and explain why I think they are. Anyone else can do the same, or debate my list. There won't nesseccarily be a list of enemies who are only monsters.

I have not decided if it is right to call an enemy a minion soley on it's use of a weapon or armor? Does using equippment mean it works for a higher evil? I'm not sure yet. Also, I don't want to include main characters.

Moblin: The manual of the first game proves this, so there's no debate there.

Darknut: The name is obviously derived from Dark Knight, which is a figure of many games as a knight who works for evildoers. They also use more equippment then eny other enemy: sword, shield, platemail, helmet.

Armos and Iron Knuckle: In the original game, Armos were Hylian knights turned to stone by dark magics. Their appearance has changed somewhat, but we know the death armos actively searches for enemies to squash, and the Iron Knuckles from OoT work for Kotate and Koume.

These two are similar because they usually require touch to activate, and Nabooru was enslaved and tuned into an Iron Knuckle. So maybe these enemies are enslaved minions.

Stalfos: In OoT, Stalfos ae said to be fallen warriors brought back by dark magic. They use similar equippment to Darknuts, so they may be fallen Darknuts.

Lizardmen and Liza/Dinofos: In AoL, there is an area with a tall fence that many Lizardmen attack you from. I think there may be a camp behind the fence, which means they may be intelligent enough to work directly for evil. Lizofos are weak enemies, but use strategy such as tag teaming opponents, dodging long ranged attacks after being hit a few times, and jump attacks. There is a debate on how smart they are then, but this may still qualify them for minions.

Wizrobe: Wizrobes have used various spells during the series: shockwaves, teleportation, ice and fire blasts, summoning, and force gem absorbtion. This means they are definitely intelligent, and their high numbers in Ganon's lair in the first game could qualify them for minion status.

Gerudo: They do change their allegiance, but it's obvious that they served Ganondorf at one time.

I think that the Gerudo only served him because he was king though. They weren't really minions.

Iron Knuckles
They are just golems being controlled by Ganon and other evils and are thus minions.

Armos
In TMC they were built by people to protect the temple. This would make them more of a trap than a minion. This only applies to TMC though.

Originally Posted by silver arrow

Armos
In TMC they were built by people to protect the temple. This would make them more of a trap than a minion. This only applies to TMC though.

Yeah, the Armos in TMC were created by Minish I believe. They are the exception to the rule.

Well, the only places we see Armos anywhere in the series is if something is being guarded--temples, Towers, caverns, etc. It wouldn't be a far stretch to say that they're just defense mechanisms placed there to protect certain places.

Originally Posted by LionHarted

Well, the only places we see Armos anywhere in the series is if something is being guarded--temples, Towers, caverns, etc. It wouldn't be a far stretch to say that they're just defense mechanisms placed there to protect certain places.

That goes along ith my idea that they were enslaved since the originals were petrified Hylian soldiers according to the manual.

Well, they don't even have to be enslaved; they're already in the temples and already protecting them. They'll attack Link because he's intruding--they need no other reason.

Just about every single creature that attacks you (sans the armos) can be considered evil beings, notice in TMC how everyone refers to the monsters outside of the city.
Even the octorocs could be considered evil minions according to TP, because they don't appear until after Vaati breaks open the chest which of course contains evil.

Of course Business Scrubs existed in TMC before the chest was opened, so we can infer that the Deku Scrub race in general are not shadowspawn but just succeptible to evil.