Shad

Shad in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
Shad
Species	Hylian
Hair color	Brown
Eye color	Blue
Debut	The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Shad is a young scholar who appears as a supporting character in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Background

Shad was an excitable yet somewhat pretentious scholar who lived in Hyrule and has been described as a "handsome city boy". His late father had apparently been a butler for the royal family and used to tell Shad tales about the City in the Sky. When he died, his father left Shad with several notes and manuscripts he had composed about the mysterious ancient civilization of sky people. Since then, Shad has tried to carry on his studies and find the truth about the sky people who are believed to have created the Hylians. Shad himself had come to believe that they were the Oocca. As he has frequented Telma's bar, Shad wound up becoming another member of Telma's group, who worked together to try to help restore peace to Hyrule from behind the scenes. It is likely that he has prior acquaintence with some of the other members of the group such as Rusl, Ashei and Auru. Shad apparently had no experience with the physical part of the job and instead focused on his skull of "book reading".

Link later sneaked into the bar during one of their covert meetings when they reacted to the news of Rutela's death and the freezing of Zora's Domain. Shad seemed mostly shocked at the scienctific improbability of Zora's Domain being frozen. When he met Link, Shad initially condescended him about his clothing. He later repented about his rude behavior after he learned how capable Link truly was. If Link met with Shad at the bar, he would relate what he knew about the Oocca and his desire to meet them. Shad later traveled to Kakariko Village and investigated an owl statue located beneath the village. He had already found all of the owl statues in Hyrule, but he noted that the one at Kakariko seemed to have Sky Writing on it. Shad deciphered it to learn that he needed a special word to break the seal. He also head about Ilia's condition and believed that her vague memory about a "rod of the heavens" were a clue to solving the puzzle. Link later returned to Shad with the people's Ancient Sky Book, which shocked him. Shad read the incantation within the book and was disappointed that it did not seem to have any effect on the statue. He was unaware that the incantation had actually empowered Link's Dominion Rod. He then returned the book to Link and left to try the word on the other statues.

Shad made a round of Hyrule's owl statues, but with no results. He returned to Kakariko and continued his study of the statue after letting Link know about his lack of progress through a letter. Link returned, and Shad was surprised to find that the book had even more letters. Shad immediately tried oout the word, which caused the statue to take on the same shape as the other statues. He was frustrated by the lack of answers, but Link was then able to move the statue with his Dominion Road, which revealed a hidden room containing a Sky Cannon, much to Shad's joyful surprise. Shad was excited to see all of this, although he had no way of working the Sky Cannon. He caught onto Midna's hint that she and Link had to be alone with the cannon and immediately left. Shad asked Link to give him the results another time and left him with a last piece of advice, telling him that he should bring it to a cannon expert. Shad returned to Telma's bar and went through a lot of literature afterwards, which helped him to understand more about the "riddle of the heavens". He was glad and grateful to Link for how much of his father's dream that Link had helped him to realize, and he hoped to repay the debt again somehow. Shad also assured Link of his shared desire to bring peace to Hyrule and told him that all they could do at the moment was endure.

The group later showed up at Hyrule Castle and helped to take out a group of enemies for Link. Although Shad was present, he was not shown engaging in any action, likely due to his lack of physical prowess. During the ending credits, she was shown exploring the ruins of the Temple of Time at the Sacred Grove with Auru and Ashei.

Trivia

• His name may be derived from Rgya Gram Shad, a Tiberan symbol used to mark the end of a paragraph.
• Supplementary materials describe him as being between 18 and 20 years old. This makes him the youngest member of the group. According to Telma within the game, he is around the same age as Link.
• Despite (or likely because of) his lack of fighting skill, he seems to keep a dagger hidden in his book. A similar gag was previously used for Mako in The Wind Waker.
• Shad uses various British mannerisms in his dialogue, which is likely done to show his cultured personality.