It's been silent for awhile here, thought I get the discussion going again.

Everyone knows that the Kokiri look like hylian children in OoT and live in Kokiri Forest. It is said that if they leave the forest they die. Link, willingly leaves the forest knowing this, whist he was still under the impression that he is a Kokiri himself. However, he must have assumed this death was a cause of the dangers that exists outside the forest. After all, the Deku Tree is the protector of the Kokiri. They would also view it as dangerous because if they get lost in the Lost Woods, not a far away destination, that they will turn into skull kids. BUT all the Kokiri, during the game's end credits, are celebrating, outside of the forest, at Lon Lon Ranch.

What is the deal?

Do the Kokiri begin to age if they leave the forest, and that's why they're said to "die" if they leave? Perhaps, if they return to the forest they will stop aging again?

Thoughts?

Yay, aliveness!

I always thought of it as, like, a slow death. It's not as though little Tido's gonna keel over from heart failure the second he passes through the threshold into Hyrule Field. It's more like, the longer they stay away from their forest, they just kind of slowly shut down. The air is different, the water is different, they're away from their family and the Deku tree... I just don't think their bodies can handle it.

The aging theory is cool, but I don't think it works. The Kokiri aren't Lost Boys- they aren't children who've stopped aging. Just perpetually young.

I was looking on some fan forums earlier this week, and a lot of people said they were Forest Spirits that just took on the form of hylian children in OoT and Koroks in WW. but then again, Fado was apparently murdered, while praying at the wind temple, by Ganondorf, and he was a Kokiri... so maybe the Kokiri and the Koroks aren't the same. I remember some subtext about them being former lost sailors. Hmmmm...

Fado also said he knew the Hero of Time... so maybe the Kokiri can live forever, but then where would Mido be? Maybe the Kokiri were just picked off over time, and Fado was only alive because he was safe in the temple?

At the same time, Fado is one of Mido's decendents... do Kokiri reproduce? They were made by the Deku Tree, but maybe that was just the first generation, the generation we see in OoT. Or maybe when they die, their "forest" spirit reincarnates into a new Kokiri.

The Kokiri confuse me.