The Mystery of Tears of the Kingdom's Missing Characters

Kass is a famous travelling bard in BOTW, there is a travelling music group in TOTK.... Why couldn't they make Kass join the music group as a final surprise member ?

I finally beat the game this month. Been avoiding all videos for spoilers. Good to be back in this comment section

Kass's disappearance in Totk was borderline character assassination. In Botw Kass was reluctant to go on his journey-he did it out of a sense of duty to his now-deceased teacher. He was torn about leaving his family behind, and his family deeply missed him. When you finish his quests he reunites with his family back in Rito Village, and he stays there with them for the rest of the game. In Totk Kass has seemingly abandoned his family to go on a journey for..some reason (we never learn why), and no-one in his family ever mention anything about him. We only learn about his whereabouts from Penn of all people, and Penn has never even met him before. His own family doesn't seem to even care.

Villa being referred to as a Hylian by other NPCs, with the character compendium referring to Sheikah as Hylian, as well as the fact that Vilia has red eyes, a distinctly Sheikah trait, what was a gag about Vilia possibly being a member of the Yiga clan may hold a little more truth

My hunch is that there was originally going to be a DLC quest that involved Penn and Kass. Though the most likely explanation is that the developers didn't include those characters because they couldn't think of a role for them. Kass and Maz Koshia are tied to the Sheikah shrines and Vilia isn't included because you don't need a disguise to get into Gerudo Town anymore.

Kass left to get milk and cigarettes and never came back, big sad

I jumped on the video the moment I saw the thumbnail. The choice of theme is really good, as is the analysis that goes with it. I missed Kass so much in Tears of the Kindom, I didn't think I'd become so attached to him :')

The mystery of Kass still baffles me. Hopefully we see him in a different game. 😢 I loved the editing though! Your standard of quality always blows me away.

8:50 Villia could also be from Lurelin. Or just simply brown-skinned. There are Hylians around hyrule who aren’t fair-skinned. We don’t see them settled in the towns but they’re at stables and traveling the on the trails.

Listen, all I ever wanted was to pet a damn dog.

As much as I miss him, I understand the choice to leave Kass out of TotK. The reason he worked so well in BotW was because of its emphasis on isolation. Link was alone in this world that had little liveliness to it, so hearing Kass's tune and getting to talk was a welcome reprieve from the loneliness. In TotK, Hyrule is rebuilding and people are connecting more than ever before. That feeling of isolation is gone, so you don't need a recurring friendly face in the wilds. Kass's auditory role is replaced with the Music Troupe, where you find the individual members to bring them together again. It would've been nice to see him as like a cameo, but it fits the different themes of TotK to leave him out.

Kass can fly, and the songs have all been sung. Vilia, from a developer perspective, has no purpose now that we can enter Gerudo Town wearing almost anything, and from lore... I'm not sure. He was Gibdo-fied perhaps? Maz Koshia could well be why the Sheikah tech just magically "disappeared". It's not beyond the scope of his abilities, and we never saw him die. A few years is nothing to him, given how long he's lived. Besides, as we saw in the Trial of the Sword, the Sheikah aren't beyond having pocket dimensions that they can teleport to.

Honestly, when I first saw the wind blow Vilia's veil aside, I legit thought "Vilia looks like Vilia is old, but has good skin care and an active lifestyle". I could see natural cause being the reason Vilia is not absent in TotK, and I can see Vilia getting manipulated into joining the Yiga clan (personally I hope that if they did, then they were either the Blade master test giver, a new recruiter or one of the NPCs inside the actual base itself... Since those Yiga in particular have the lowest chance of a player engaging them in battle). Kass, on the other hand, I think is most likely in another region of the world. Probably Labrynna or Holodrum for all we know. He seemed young and fit enough to still have several years left on him. Also, I totally headcanon Yona being from Labrynna. The game tells you she's "from another land", and while Termina has peaceful Zora just like Hyrule and Labrynna, Termina has the problem of being in anothwr world. Meanwhile, you can straight up sail between Holodrum, Labrynna and Hyrule according to dialogue from the Oracle games' postgame and linked stories.

There's a lot of story that feels glossed over and forgotten in TOTK which is sad. It had me questioning if it was in an alternate timeline or something but it seems like they just didn't include things.

I don’t miss Kass for his quests(even though they are pretty cool), I miss him for his m u s i c🎶🎼🎵

tbh kass' ost was the real draw lmao. sucks hes gone but i suppose nintendo had no more use for him so he ended up travelling outside hyrule. his stories were all for the sheikah shrines, i doubt he would have learned the zonai shrines in the time bweteen both games. wouldnt make sense

I thought that Vilia was removed because of the fact that the female outfit was so popular, it became a big thing. So to not include that outfit, they removed Vilia. Not to mention, as mentioned, the outfit isn’t needed. So they just cut it completely.

I like to think that Vilia, after playing totk and replaying botw, is actually Riju's father. With him dressing as he does within BotW so he could sneak into Gerudo Town to catch a glimpse of his daughter. With the reasoning behind the death of the previous Gerudo chef was the Yiga taking advantage of the meeting between the two. So she could spend time with her voe without ruining his cover, but with the Yiga learning this decided to act a plan. Resulting with Riju becoming the new ruler, but blaming himself for being unable to save his love and aid his daughter. Villia can only watch his daughter from afar, but his disappearance occurred after botw and before totk. With the Yiga seeing him as a threat as he aided Link to get into Gerudo Town. With Riju building the beacon in place Vilia stood in honor of her passed father? =v= Please excuse my rambling on my though.

Running into Kass throughout your journey was my favorite part of Botw, so I spent much of TotK looking for him only to be greatly disappointed. He felt like a travel companion like those of old. I wish at least Rauru stuck around like he did on the great sky island. Companions in Zelda offer a greater understanding of the world thanks to their added dialogue which makes up for Link's silence.

I still doubt that there's no DLC for TOTK, Nintendo's just playing coy. Pretty sure it'll come out on the Switch 2 as exclusive content for that console. Kass will probably play a big role in DLC