How Big Is Ganondorf? A The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of Kingdom Investigation

Alright, let’s just come out and say it. The latest The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom trailer looks incredible. It also succeeds in doing precisely what any good trailer should do: It raises questions. Are dungeons coming back? Will May 12 ever get here? These are all good queries, to be sure, but I think there is one question that is far more important than any others and now, I have an answer.

Shortly after the trailer was published, the internet lost its mind over just how good Ganondorf looked–myself included, but that’s not important. What is important is the iconic baddie is back and ready to leave players just as thirsty as he was back in the game’s 2019 reveal trailer.

Now, much like Resident Evil Village’s villain, Lady Dimitrescu, part of love for Ganondorf comes from his massive stature. As such, I got to wondering: Just how big is he? I decided I needed to find out.

The first step to figuring out Ganondorf’s height was finding a height that had been previously established in Breath of the Wild. Thankfully, Fandom’s wiki page on Link revealed that the Hero of Time is is about five feet tall.

After dividing a full body image of Link into fifths, I was able to find out approximately how long Link’s arms and legs were, along with his overall proportions. I ended up measuring his palm length at about six inches. A quick Google search confirmed that the average man has a palm length of around seven inches, so this seemed a fair assessment for our short king.

Now came the more challenging part: Finding an object or person both Ganondorf and Link had come in contact with. While I had no such luck finding that in the most recent trailer, a quick trip back to the game’s reveal trailer from 2019 offered me a helping hand–literally.

In the trailer, we see a translucent, phantom-like hand touch both Link and thirsty Ganondorf. Based on Link’s palm, from wrist to fingertip, being about six inches, I was able to clock the phantom hand at about one foot long, or 30cm for those who use a measurement system that makes more sense.

Just before we see this hand grasp Link’s wrist, we saw it clench its fingers into Ganondorf’s chest. In the last image, I measured the distance between the start of the hand’s palm and it’s proximal interphalangeal joint (ya know, the one just after the knuckle) to be about six inches. While Ganondorf’s absolutely shredded chest I totally don’t want to place my hands on is a bit harder to accurately measure thanks to its curvature and rippling muscles, the length of his neck was quite simple, and came in at about three inches long.

Now here comes the fun part. While the most recent trailer didn’t give us a super clear picture of Ganondorf, Nintendo released official art of the baddie shortly after. Using that neck measurement–and making the assumption that mummy-Ganondorf is approximately the same size as mommy-Ganondorf–I was able to create a series of lines to estimate his height.

However, we also have to account for the fact that Ganondorf is crouching in the image, presumably to keep those glutes looking good. Fortunately, this issue had a quick fix. By tracing the crown of his head to his hips, and then adding on his leg length, we can estimate that Ganondorf is nearly 10 feet tall (305 cm). This makes him double Link’s height, and significantly taller than in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, in which Nintendo confirmed his height as 7’6″ in the Hyrule Historia.

So there you have it, Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf is big. Potentially bigger than any humanoid version of the iconic villain we’ve seen so far. Like, just to put this into perspective, this is how he stacks up against another villain known for his towering height (and impressive wingspan).

Oh and just for fun, here’s our him standing next to our beloved Lady D, who actually holds up her own quite well.

While cuffing season might be over, if you need a big boy as badly as SZA, Tears of the Kingdom’s got you covered. For more information on Tears of the Kingdom that doesn’t pertain to Ganondorf’s height or pectorals, be sure to check out our everything we know guide and combat break down. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom releases exclusively on Nintendo Switch on May 12.