Phantom Ganon

Phantom Ganon as he appears in The Wind Waker.
Phantom Ganon
Eye color	Yellow
Relatives	Ganondorf (creator)
Debut	The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Phantom Ganon is a recurring boss character from the The Legend of Zelda series. He is a shadowy phantom created by Ganondorf in his own image to test potential threats. Phantom Ganon has had several different forms over the course of his appearances, but the different incarnations share similar abilities: two of them have the power to shoot magical blasts (which can be easily deflected at Phantom Ganon), and all have exhibited the ability to create fake dopplegangers.

Background

Phantom Ganon's original appearance in Ocarina of Time

The first Phantom Ganon resembled Ganondorf with a horned skull for a head, and had his own horse and trident. He haunted the Forest Temple in Ocarina of Time and acted as the adult Link's baptism of fire, as he was the first boss who could be fought in that part of the game. His first attack strategy consisted of leaping out of paintings to attack Link while fake images appeared in other paintings in an attempt to confuse the hero. Link saw through the illusion eventually and slew the horse with his new arrows. Next, Phantom Ganon used magic balls on Link, but Link turned his own magic against him by deflecting the magic balls back at Phantom Ganon. Though Phantom Ganon would parry the ball back at Link with his trident, he would eventually miss and end up stunned him long enough for Link to sneak in an attack. This led to Phantom Ganon's defeat, at which point even his own creator Ganondorf shunned him, calling him a "worthless creation" and banishing him to "the gap between dimensions".

Another version of Phantom Ganon appeared in The Wind Waker. He resembled a horned version of Ganondorf with his form looking like a shadow's outline, and he wielded a large sword in battle. During his first fight with Link in the Forsaken Fortress, he teleported around, engaged Link in quick sword fights and fired the magical balls. After a first defeat, Phantom Ganon returned in Ganon's Tower to challenge Link in every room of a maze backed by his dopplegangers and now wielding some blasts that could not be deflected. He was finally eliminated when Link found the Light Arrows, as it took only one Light Arrow to eliminate Phantom Ganon.

This version of Phantom Ganon would later make an appearance in Four Swords Adventures. He first battled the four Links on the roof of Hyrule Castle, repeating the same tactics he used while fighting in the Forsaken Fortress. Phantom Ganon's presence was the first hint of the real Ganondorf's involvement in Vaati's scheme. The Links and Phantom Ganon had another rematch in the Temple of Darkness, where he repeated the tactics he used when battling the other Link in Ganon's Tower.

Phantom Ganon was later featured as a recurring boss enemy in Tears of the Kingdom. This version resembled Ganondorf's ancient corpse-like form, with his body being composed entirely of gloom and his eyes glowing red. According to the Hyrule Compendium, Phantom Ganon was created from Ganondorf's own 'flesh and blood'. In battle, he could wield a Gloom Sword, Gloom Spear or Gloom Mace as well as a Demon King's Bow. Among his abilities, he could teleport closer to Link and could also spread gloom beneath his feet. He could be fought at various points in the game, as whenever the Gloom Spawn enemy was defeated by Link, the gloom would reform into Phantom Ganon. One prominent appearance of a Gloom Spawn was in the chasm within the Deku Tree, which made the Deku Tree sick and silenced all of the Koroks within the forest. Slaying the Gloom Spawn and then Phantom Ganon within that chasm would permanently purify that area and cure the Deku Tree. Phantom Ganon also appeared in the main storyline, where Ganondorf had him take on the form of Princess Zelda in order to cause problems and give misleading orders throughout Hyrule, all for the sake of keeping the sages from awakening. After four of the sages were awakened, the illusion of Zelda lured Link to Hyrule Castle and into several enemy ambushes before revealing his true form as Phantom Ganon in the castle's sanctum. In this battle, Phantom Ganon produced dopplegangers as in past appearances, but was ultimately destroyed by Link. It should also be noted that Ganondorf used an illusion of Zelda to lure Queen Sonia into an ambush in the distant past as seen in a flashback to the era of Hyrule's founding, although it is unclear if that Zelda illusion was actually Phantom Ganon or not, as she simply dissipated after being attacked by Sonia, instead of taking on Phantom Ganon's appearance.

Trivia

• Phantom Ganon appears to be partially based on Agahnim, who was an alter-ego for Ganon. The attacks Phantom Ganon uses are identical to the ones used by Agahnim, even including later appearances where Phantom Ganon would create duplicate copies.
• In Twilight Princess, the miniboss of the Arbiter's Grounds is an enemy called the Death Sword. Only his sword is visible, and the holder can only be seen with Link's wolf senses. Although not official, the Death Sword's holder has an uncanny resemblance to Phantom Ganon (as he appears in Ocarina of Time), and his sword resembles Phantom Ganon's sword (as seen in The Wind Waker).
• In The Wind Waker, his sword is inscribed with Hylian symbols that read "Zubora Gabora". Those are the names of the two blacksmiths, from Majora's Mask.
• His energy blasts can be deflected by Empty Bottles in The Wind Waker.
• In Breath of the Wild, the four bosses of the game are (the Blight Ganons), who are described as phantoms created by Ganon, similar to Phantom Ganon. Additionally, a Phantom Ganon armor set based on the Ocarina of Time design appears as part of the second DLC pack. The three pieces of the set (the Phantom Ganon Skull, Armor and Greaves) had been stolen from Hyrule Castle by the Great Thief Misko and could be found by Link in different parts of the Faron Woods. The armor set reappeared in Tears of the Kingdom, but it was now called the Evil Spirit armor set (possibly due to Phantom Ganon having a different appearance in that game, and/or to prevent confusion with the Phantom armor set), and each piece was earned by completing one of the Lomei Labyrinth sidequests.
• A sticker of Phantom Ganon (using his art from Ocarina of Time) appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.