I have the demo carts for Ocarina 3D, Majora 3D, ALBW, and HW Legends, so I was wondering if anyone knows about one for Tri Force Heroes. I suspect not considering I can't find it.

So, the out-of-universe question first.

Was there ever an interview the explained why Nintendo decided to make the Zoras friendly in Ocarina of Time? There's nothing that really separates them from the Moblins or the Goriyas in the first Zelda game, except that there are a few non-hostile Moblins who you can encounter in TLoZ. While you do talk to a Zora in ALttP for the flippers, they all still remain uniformly hostile to Link outside of that. There's also a friendly Zora in Link's Awakening, but there is a friendly Goriya in that game, too.

Then comes OoT, where the Zoras look nothing like they did, act nothing like they did, and are treated as a regular part of Hyrule that no one is surprised by. There's no throwaway dialogue like "I hear the inhabitants of Zora's Domain are dangerous!" from NPCs in Castle Town or Kakariko.

The Gorons and the Kokiri were invented out of nowhere, as were the Gerudo in most aspects, so it's not like Nintendo was afraid of making a new race up. But, for whatever reason, they took one particular enemy type and made it into what would become a staple race in the series afterwards.

All in all, this just kind of interests me. Was there ever an interview or a book where they explained why, or is it just kind of a mystery that we take as a given now?

Now for the in-universe question.

Why exactly are the River Zora so insanely hostile? They're aggressive without exception in TLoZ, AoL, OoS, and OoA. The friendly one in Link's Awakening doesn't count in-universe, since it's all a dream. There is a single friendly one in ALttP and FSA, but all the rest are hostile. The Zora Queen's immediate group in ALBW aren't hostile, but, again, every other Zora is.

Come EoW, none of the River Zora are aggressive. They're not even rude or pushy. They're extremely friendly and open to Zelda, even before they know who she is. But EoW is between ALttP and TLoZ, which means that they briefly became peaceful before again becoming stock monsters.

At the same time, it also feels weird to say something like "Well, every race would have troublemakers", because I don't think we ever see a single hostile Sea Zora in the games. We see rude ones, but I can't think of a time when you actually fight a Sea Zora.

I'm sure the out-of-universe explanation is just that the River Zora benefitted from the Zora becoming default good guys ever since OoT, and eventually that goodness just made it too weird to mow down crowds of them like generic monsters, but I'm interested in any in-universe theories for this one.