POE (THE LEGEND OF ZELDA)

A 'Poe' is a ghost enemy in ''The Legend of Zelda'' series of video games, and a ghost of concentrated hatred toward the world that freely roams graveyards and other haunted locales in Hyrule, as well as the overworld and other dark places. They always carry their signature lanterns.

Contents

''Ocarina of Time'' and ''Majora's Mask''

Flat and Sharp

The Poe Sisters

Big Poe

''The Wind Waker''

''Twilight Princess''

Poe Imps

Poes

Jalhalla

''Ocarina of Time'' and ''Majora's Mask''

In '' and '', they fly around until they spot Link, at which time they will charge at him, spinning their lanterns. Targeting Poes in these games will cause them to become temporarily invisible, although they will become visible every once in a while. Their lanterns remain visible when they vanish, allowing the player to at least dodge and keep track of the invulnerable enemy until it reappears. Attacking a Poe while targeting it will cause them to run away, often going through walls in the process. When a Poe is defeated in these games, its physical body disappears, and the lantern it was holding drops and breaks, revealing its spirit. The Poe Spirit appears as either a purple flame with a sad face, or a green flame with a happy face, and disappears after a while. Before it disappears, Link can put the Spirit in a bottle, which is primarily used to sell for Rupees but can also be consumed, which can have strange (and usually negative, though not always) effects. Poes are less common in ''Majora's Mask'', but are worth more when sold.

Flat and Sharp

In ''Ocarina of Time'', the ghosts of the royal composer brothers named Sharp and Flat tell Link about the Sun's Song and other music-related things after he defeats them in Kakariko Graveyard (Flat and Sharp fight like regular Poes). They explain their origins as composers of the Royal Family and were researching a song that controls the sun and a song that controls the moon and combining their knowledge they had composed the Sun's Song as a way of controlling both (since it has the power to turn day into night and night into day) and were going to reveal their findings to the king when they learned of Ganondorf's treachery and they died with their secret. They are among the few characters in the game that recognize Link when he is an adult. In ''Majora's Mask'', the Composer Brothers have a more direct role in the plot. Sharp had "sold his soul to the devil" and had imprisoned Flat in Ikana's Graveyard. When Link frees Flat, he tells Link about his brother's curse and reveals to him the Song of Storms, which has the power to uplift curses and is used to defeat Sharp later on. Sharp had been haunting the spring that the river in Ikana Canyon flows from (that the Music Box House needed to keep the undead-repelling song playing). Sharp attempts to kill Link with an unholy song (which is actually the Song of Healing backwards) but Link plays the Song of Storms and Sharp is purified and the river flows once more. Sharp then realizes the error of his ways and reveals that he knows how to get into the Stone Tower Temple but first tells Link he must see the king in the ruins and to lay his soul to rest as his final request.

The Poe Sisters

There are four Poes known as the 'Poe Sisters': Joelle, Beth, Amy, and Meg. In '', these Poes are the sub-bosses of the Forest Temple. They stole the four flames necessary to use the elevator in order to enter the lair of Phantom Ganon, and Link must defeat them in four separate battles to relight the torches. They are also fought as a mini-game in ''.
In '', two unnamed Poe Sisters serve as the mini-bosses of the Explorer's Crypt. One carries a lantern, leaving a trail of fire as it flies around, while the other carries a sword that it charges at Link with. Each of them are first seen in rooms that gradually darken, eventually casting Link back to the dungeon entrance if he is too slow to flee the room. They then appear in rooms next to the room they had cursed, where Link fights one of them. Finally, they fight together, forcing Link to not only attack them, but also relight the lamps they extinguish, lest he be expelled back to the dungeon entrance.
The Poe Sisters are named after the four main characters of Louisa May Alcott's ''Little Women''.

Big Poe

Big Poes in ''Ocarina of Time'' are similar in appearance to regular Poes, although they wear orange robes instead of purple. There are ten Big Poes that adult Link can find in certain locations throughout Hyrule Field. While on foot, the Big Poes circle Link, keeping a safe distance from him, and shoot fire out of their lanterns. They do not turn invisible, but if Link fails to defeat them they eventually disappear completely, refusing to reappear until Link leaves and returns to the field. When defeated on foot, the Poe spirit is treated like that of an ordinary Poe. If Link encounters them on horseback, they behave differently. Rather than attack, they quickly fly away and disappear when they hit a wall. The player has to attack quickly through horseback archery in order to defeat it. A Big Poe defeated on horseback is treated as a true Big Poe when bottled, and as a side quest, Link can catch and sell each Big Poe to the Ghost Shop at the gates of the fallen Hyrule Castle for credit. Once Link has turned in ten Big Poes, he is rewarded with a Bottle.
The ''Majora's Mask'' Big Poes look nearly identical to regular Poes (including wearing purple clothing), but are larger. Big Poes appear as a sub-boss in the Beneath the Well dungeon and in the third night's open grave in Ikana Graveyard. It is summoned when three blue flames appear and merge together. By defeating this Big Poe located in Ikana Graveyard, Link is granted a bottle. This Big Poe attacks much like a normal Poe, although after each attack it disappears and reappears from another direction, usually from behind Link. It will also hover higher than most regular Poes, nearly necessitating the use of arrows. The bottled Big Poe can be sold for 200 Rupees at the Curiosity Shop, although one is needed to trade with one of the Gibdos beneath the well.

''The Wind Waker''

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In '', Poes harass Link by attempting to burn him with their lamps, and can jump into his body to possess him, reversing the player's movement controls. These Poes are invulnerable unless exposed to light, which causes their ethereal bodies to become temporarily solid (evidently causing them great distress, as they run around in a state of panic in this state). Poes are also shown to be ruled by Jalhalla in this game.

''Twilight Princess''

In '', a character named sold his own soul to the Poes. The Poes require the pieces of his soul to live, and can only be defeated by ripping out their souls. Due to this, there are a finite number of Poes in the game, and once one is defeated, it is gone for good (similar to the Golden Skulltulas of ''Ocarina of Time''). Technically, you can beat the game having collected only five Poes, though it is very useful to collect every Poe Soul. After returning twenty Poes to Jovani, he rewards Link with a bottle full of fairy tears. After collecting all sixty Poes, his cat, Gengle, grants you unlimited silver Rupees (200 every time you speak with him).

Poe Imps

In ''Twilight Princess'', the majority of the Poes that Jovani sold his soul to were Poe Imps. Poe Imps are smaller versions of Poes, and can only be seen as floating blue lanterns while Link is human. To see their bodies, Link must transform into his wolf form and use his sense ability. When seen in this wolf form, Poes are bright bluish-white, with faces similar to those of the Skull Kid of the same game, and carry their lanterns with their feet, wielding large scythes for attack. There are sixty Poe Souls scattered throughout Hyrule to collect, many being difficult to find.

Poes

In an event similar to that in the Forest Temple in ''Ocarina of Time'', four Poes (the only regular Poes in the game) steal the flames that open a door in the Arbiter's Grounds dungeon. These Poes are larger than Imp Poes, and wear cloaks. After being killed, the cloak remains on the floor (despite being ghosts, they have a scent that Wolf Link can track). The fourth Poe Link fights has the ability to make three clones of himself — an ability no other Poe has (except the Poe sister Meg from ''Ocarina of Time'', another parallel to the Poe sisters). They will circle around Link, and one will eventually start to shine brighter than the other three signaling he is the real one.

Jalhalla

Jalhalla is the king of Poes (and apparently Ghinis as well), and so is very large, as is with most of the series' rulers. Jalhalla resembles a gigantic version of the Poes from The Wind Waker, but has a differently shaped mask and a horribly bloated stomach. The name Jalhalla is likely based on Valhalla, the Norse heaven for heroes and home of Odin. Jalhalla himself was possibly based on Boolossus from ''Luigi's Mansion'', as both are massive ghosts that result when several ghosts merged together. The battle music when fighting Jalhalla is reminiscent of a French accordion.
Jalhalla appears in '' as the boss of the Earth Temple, and in '' as two bosses. The first boss is Jalhalla's haunted mask and the second boss is a Big Poe containing the escaped spirit from the destroyed mask.