Purah

About

Purah is a character from The Legend of Zelda series first appearing in Breath of the Wild, where she looks like a child despite being over 100 years old after taking a reverse aging rune. She appeared again in the game's sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, where she resembles an adult. The character's new design became an increasing subject of fan art, memes and other fan content, with fans often simping for her, following the game's release in May 2023.

Origin

On March 3rd, 2017, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was released on the Nintendo Switch. The game features a roughly 124-year-old Sheikah character named Purah, the director of the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab, oldest living Sheikah and older sister of Impa. Purah appears as if she's a child despite her age after experimenting with an anti-aging rune. The character became popular in fan art and content relating to the game following its release (examples shown below).

Spread

Age of Calamity Design

Purah appeared for the second time in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, a non-canon Musou-style game in the Legend of Zelda series. Purah is designed as an adult in the game with a red streak through the front of her hair. She became the subject of fan art following the game's release on November 20th, 2020 (examples shown below).

Tears of the Kingdom Design

On May 12th, 2023, the sequel to Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, was released. The game again features Purah, but this time designed as an adult (cutscene featuring Purah shown below).

In the days following the game's release, Purah became notably popular in fan art, memes and content online as fans of the game expressed their love of the character's new design. On May 13th, 2023, Twitter^[1] user @Kwistinya posted a piece of art that gained over 6,000 likes in two days (shown below, left). On the same day, Redditor /u/aurahack posted fan art to /r/tearsofthekingdom on Reddit^[2] that gained over 1,100 upvotes in the same span of time (shown below, center). That day, Twitter^[5] user @RickyRexx posted, "I’d like to thank Tears of the Kingdom personally for making Purah a fucking baddie like she was in Age of Calamity," garnering over 6,000 likes in two days (shown below, right).

On May 14th, TikToker^[3] @tryingtoedit50 posted a fancam-style edit of Purah footage, garnering over 1.1 million views in a day (shown below). On the same day, Polygon^[4] published an article about TOTK players being "obsessed" over Purah.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References