Owl Skips

Kaepora Gaebora likes to chat. Speedrunners don't have time for that.

Walk Around his Speech Trigger

You can simply walk around the owl triggers in the following locations:

  • Hyrule Field, near the entrance to Lake Hylia
  • Hyrule Field, near the entrance to Gerudo Valley
  • Lost Woods, if headed to Goron City rather than Sacred Forest Meadow

Perform a Ground Jump/Superslide/ESS

Performing either a Ground Jump, Superslide, or an ESS through the owl's text area will prevent the owl from interacting with Link. Once you are outside the owl's interact range, it is safe to release the trick and continue onward.

These tricks are used to skip the following owls:

  • Lost Woods, when heading for Sacred Forest Meadow
  • Zora's River, before having obtained the bomb bag?

Note that this can even be done with the very slow recoil ESS off rocks or torches, but is probably slower than talking to the owl anyway.

Alternating Two Weapons

Discovered by SwordlessLink

Owls can be avoided by rhythmically alternating between either two C-button items or a C-button item and a sword (Note that this will not work with all C-button weapons). Quickly swapping items will prevent you from fully wielding one of the items, preventing the owl from interacting with Link.

This trick requires precise timing and rhythm, rather than speed or button mashing, and is generally considered a hard trick to pull off. The best chance of being able to do it is with a sword and Deku Stick. It is most useful on the owl outside of Kokiri Forest, because in the early game won't have explosives for ground jumps or superslides, and there is nothing to get an ESS off of.

Sign Owl Skip

Discovered by Rattleman

The owl that sits in a tree near the stairs to Kakariko Village can be skipped without the use of any items at all, thanks to a sign next to the stairs. If you get close enough so that the action icon changes to "Check", you can avoid triggering the owl's speech.

  1. Backflip or sidehop into the sign's "Check" action range
  2. Perform one of the following to escape both the sign and owl's interact range.
    • Edge along the wall until you are out of the check trigger
    • Pause and unpause to allow you to buffer a backflip or sidehop to avoid reading the sign.
Last updated 04/16/2014 – mzxrules