The text on this page is taken from pages 36 and 37 of the Zelda Box guidebook, released in Japan in 2002.

The Developers Discuss the Great Fairies & The Fairy Queen

Haruhana: In Ocarina of Time, I happened to create very strong characters in the Great Fairies, so, with The Wind Waker, I started out by worrying about what I could do this time. [Laughs] The first thing I thought of was a ghost or an alien, something that was almost human in form, but also gave players a sense of malaise. You can see the remnants of my original idea in the fairies’ 4 arms and the colour of their skin, which doesn’t resemble a living creature’s. Not only that, but the graphics in The Wind Waker have undergone a total change from those of the previous games in the series, so I didn’t think the gaudy fairy design from the last game would fit very well and endeavored to create a design that was as simple as I could make it. Contrary to that, I also took it upon myself to make the Fairy Queen totally humanoid. The reason she’s child-size is the same reason that the bosses in shonen manga are tiny: The idea that it’s not always the biggest characters who are the greatest and most powerful. [Laughs] I relied on that concept to create my design.

Aonuma: The number of Great Fairies seems to be increasing. [Laughs] There were 3 in Ocarina of Time, 5 in Majora’s Mask, and 7 in The Wind Waker. In The Wind Waker, the story takes players around a large number of islands, so when we tried to evenly distribute the fairy fountains among them, the number ended up rising. [Laughs]

The Developers Discuss the Travelling Merchants & Korok Tribe

Haruhana: We didn’t originally intend to include the Travelling Merchants in the game. Once development reached its peak, and plans materialized for the inclusion of the merchants, someone said “The Zora and Kokiri are in the game, so why not the Gorons?” And so, it was decided. There are a lot of Koroks, and they all take their names from trees, like Oakin and Rown.

The Developers Discuss Koboli & The Salvage Corp.

Haruhana: Koboli is a bit of fan service amongst the Rito tribe. Since the Rito tribe works distributing the post, I thought it would be funny to slip in the Postman from Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask, and stuck him in close to the end of the development. [Laughs] As for Salvage Corp… be sure to give them a detailed look. They have tan lines from wearing tank tops. For that reason alone, we had to texture their skin using two colours, where one would normally have sufficed. [Laughs]

Aonuma: There are a lot of times where these minor characters will give players an important hint, and then can’t be spoken to again. I figured that if we gave characters like Koboli and the Salvage Corp. idiosyncrasies, players might want to talk to them more than once. I didn’t give instructions regarding any details like that, though, the staff did it on their own. That sort of thing really helped me during the development process, and made me truly realize that even The Wind Waker reflects how Zelda is a series founded on the ideas of the staff.