Legend of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom artwork may tell us more about its story

eurogamer.net:

If you are in the US and fancy going against the grain for your Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom pre-ordering, GameStop is giving away a free wooden plaque if you shop with them.

Admittedly, this in itself isn't really all that interesting. If you, like me, live in the UK then this deal is out of reach (for now at least, I will keep an eye out for it appearing at any local retailers). However, being the Zelda fan that I am, I have been taking a closer look at the plaque to see if it gives us any more clues about Tears of the Kingdom's story.

On further investigation, I noticed the artwork depicted on the plaque is the same that can be seen adorning the Tears of the Kingdom artbook that comes with the game's collectors edition, and can also be found on the game's Japanese website. So, it is clearly important.

Before we dive into my theories about what it all means (and I must stress, these really are just my theories), here is a closer look at the Tears of the Kingdom artwork in question.

The first thing that caught my eye about this design was, well, the eyes.

The eye in the middle of the design looks like a variation of the Crest of the Sheikah. This crest is a recurring motif in Zelda games, and shows an open eye looking forward with a teardrop falling from it. The open eye represents the Sheikah's quest for truth, while the teardrop represents the tribe's willingness to go to great lengths to achieve any given goal.

In this Tears of the Kingdom's artwork, the middle eye is looking down and appears to be shedding far more than a single tear, however. The near flood cascading down from it perhaps resembles the tribe's extreme sacrifices in the upcoming Zelda game.

That being said, the fact it is looking down