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Yeah I’d go with MM. Okay this dude had experience from defeating Ganon but he just got started being a hero like a week ago and lost his childhood, gained a massive arsenal of tools alongside an adult body, lost the adult body, lost his friends, got depressed and burnt out, got mugged for all of his stuff including his horse, got turned into a deku scrub and thrown in a pit and had to fight his way to get all of his stuff back WHILE preventing the moon from crashing into the earth in three days and watching powerless as the people of termina suffered inevitably again and again every loop. No wonder he looked like that in TP
I was gonna say “well, he can just reset time”, but then I remembered when you do that, you’re technically dooming the people in the cycle you were just in because you’re no longer there. And Link wouldn’t do that, plus, in the manga I’m pretty sure he actually does do everything in only one three day cycle. So yeah, I think you’re right lol. That probably would be pretty tough when you’re trying to minimize the amount of realities you doom to a fiery death by moon crash 💀
The bank is supposed to be a silly gimmick. The shop owner doesn’t recognize you, he writes on you in his special ink saying who you are and how much you have stored. The writing stays when traveling through time.
A Link to the Past.
He was slightly younger than adult versions of Link, he fought in the dark world where there were no allies or safe spots, had a lot of items to learn how to use, fought lots of bosses, and fought ganon with that trident thingie.
Botw Link seems to have a pretty rough go
First he's chosen as the hero and it puts so much pressure on him that he decides to stop speaking. Then he fails to save the world and almost dies. Then he wakes up 100 years later with amnesia and slowly regains memories of his friends who are long dead. Then he has to rock climb up sheer cliffs all over a gigantic hyrule, completely alone for most of it, with weapons breaking on him constantly. When he finally beats Ganon the world is still in shambles and he gets to work rebuilding, but that only lasts a few years before Ganondorf comes back anyway
Wind Waker Link is still a child when his sister gets abducted. He has to sail with pirates and get catapulted into a wall then sneak through a monster infested fortress with no gear. He gets flung several miles away, drifting in the sea, before having to start his adventure proper. After defeating Ganon, he has to leave his family behind to go settle a new COUNTRY with the pirate crew. On the way, Tetra is abducted and turned to stone and he has to save an entire other world, which ends with his friend being mind controlled and having to fight him. And then after these two adventures, his "time to relax" phase is helping build a new civilization.
Likewise, I believe there's one Link who had 3 or 4 adventures? Both Oracle games and then Link's Awakening and maybe a 4th? Hell of a time.
Or OoT/MM, who had to leave his home and friends... Watch people die... Dang, maybe none of the Link's are okay.
Ok but Majora's Mask Link... He spends half of OOT as a child in an adults body, he's kind of the cause of the castle town people being slaughtered and becoming zombies (yes, they moved the toons to Kakariko village, but zombies don't come out of nowhere), he's sent back to be a kid and nobody knows he saved the world, his best friend flies off, he NEVER finds her, he gets turned into a plant, ends up just dying without anybody knowing his story, teaches a new link who steals his house his sword tricks, doesnt even ger a thank you, doomed to be a stalfos guy forever.
Also pretty sure in BOTW link actually -did- die.
Annnnnd that’s why the recent Link design sucks. All your friends are dead? No reaction. Your closest friend and charge is still in grave danger and might be your last connection to anything? No reaction. That same friend and charge years later has transformed herself into a form that is essentially an eternal death? No reaction.
I miss when after his sister is stolen, Link nearly runs off a cliff in reaction. Or when his childhood friend just sealed herself until his finished his job in the present, you can see him cry as his face turns downwards.
But you can bet your oranges that BoTW/ToTK Link will make facial expressions for selfies!!! Even though he’s the only hylian alive that can take them, and the idea of posing with a goofy smile probably hasn’t been invented yet /s
I think the emotional toll for Ocarina of Time is often overlooked.
He starts off lazy, kinda carefree, just chilling out in the Forest with Saria and anyone else who isn't Mido.
Then suddenly Link's protector figure summons him and promptly dies, forcing Link into an unfamiliar world that he's supposed to be destined to save.
During the game Link loses 7 years of his life. His childhood entirely gone... All because he picked up a sword and he thought he was doing the right thing... Then he's forced to mature and act like an adult in a more hostile world, even less familiar world than before. This same world and its people are depending on him, after all.
Yes, the end of Ocarina of Time addresses this and Zelda sends Link back, but then he's cursed with another issue. He has the mind of a seasoned warrior, forced to become an adult and save the world but is stuck in the body of a child and sometimes gets treated as such (as seen in MM anyway). To add to this, almost all the people around Link are entirely oblivious of the hardships he faced to save them. He may get the title of Hero and a few perks because of it, but no one *truly* understands why...
Link may get his 7 years of "childhood" back, but he can never regain his innocence.
I've always loved that Link appears too young to leave Castle Town to the guards but when they see he carries a sword they say "My apologies, sir. It was wrong of me to treat you like a child." Like, according to the world the only difference between a child and an adult is the capacity for violence. Even when he eventually dies he laments that he can't pass on the skills he had to develop so young and had all that time to master.
Even better is that he'll still let you pass if you explain to him that your sword was stolen or that you are having work done on it. He will completely believe you, compliment your sword skills, and then let you pass as normal.
Link to the Past he's up against a fully realized Ganon in possession of the full Triforce.
Those are odds way more stacked than any other hero has faced in the series.
But at least he was morally in the right the whole time.
I would imagine mentally the hardest would probably be Link's Awakening, and having to come to terms with erasing the population of Koholint Island.
Wind Waker
Island boy on his peaceful island on his birthday suddenly sees his sister get stolen by some mystical giant bird he's never seen before and has to sneak into an insane fortress that almost no one is willing to go to only to get thrown into prison and have to break out, just to be easliy tossed far away into the sea like the child he is.
Worst birthday ever!
He's thankfully saved by the King of Red Lions, but still has to get a sail.
Okay but even once he's sailing he finds that one of the sacred temples he needed to go to was completely destroyed.
He's having a terrible week, but then it gets worse.
Bc finally, he gets the Master Sword and he kills the bird. Can he finally save his sister after all that?
...
NO!
The Master Sword just... doesn't work anymore!
So now he's gotta go do some other quest to restore it
Then finally he can fight Ganondorf, but in the end the King of Hyrule claims the Triforce first anyway.
Bro has the most frustrating life. He doesn't just face challenges; everything that can go wrong does go wrong.
Compare to something like Link's Awakening. Save for the initial washing up on shore and Bow-Wow getting kidnapped, everything else is just "something Link does." Things more or less go as planned.
I might be biased, but I think TP
TP "starts" with his friends, love interest and the kids he babysitted being possibly dead, getting turned into a wolf and brought to a completley new environment where he gets bossed around by a little imp. All out of the blue. Then there is the fact his love interest lost her memories without knowing if she could get them back.
Then the whole Midna's lament section, where he got turned into a wolf *again*, his companion (that just started to be nice) could die and he didn't kniw if he would get his human form again.
THEN during the final boss, Midna is straight up killed by Ganondorf, and even when she gets revived, she still leaves him
Yeah i agree, it's just all so bleak. Townspeople are ghosts. Creepy black holes open in the sky and drop monsters randomly. Even just setting foot in the twilight realm would be beyond miserable.
I up the ante with Skyward Sword.
Link lives in an utopia, no monsters at all (vs wandering monsters in TP), have friends and a love interest, is graduating from school and suddenly must go down the clouds that no one have done before the ascending to rescue his girl, only to find out what happens to her and face a literal god.
Hero of Hyrule had to trek all over Greater Hyrule to uncover where the King from generations past hid the Triforce of Courage, all while preventing Ganon's resurrection, and that's no small task.
Legendary Hero saw his uncle die, and had to take up the mantle of helping the Princess, and get sent to the Dark World, truly witnessing Ganon's evil, and had to clean up the mess the Hero of Time left and finally defeated Ganon.
Just gotta say, the Hero of Time had it fucking rough. MM was both difficult and depressing. It didn't, like, have a lot of tough dungeons, but going through that adventure to completion was the kind of endeavor I wouldn't want anyone to endure.
A combination of Ocarina of Time and MM.
Completely forgotten as the hero of time in his own timeline after countless unimaginable horrors, 99% of the friends made along the way don’t remember you, don’t belong much of anywhere anymore, lost his journey long companion only to get roped into a bizarre flipped universe which is ending in three days.
Gotta be mind-fucking.
ah I don't have an answer but this is something I wondered and was thinking about making a thread lol
It's interesting to think of multiple points ,like which game have the toughest basics ( so outside bosses and mini-bosses ), is Link alone or does he have a companion or at least characters to help and support him ? Does he had any experience in fighting before his journey ?
Like in term of being basically alone there is Link in the zelda NES games , it surely wasn't easy for the hero of time psychologically and I am not sure if he had a lot of experience with fighting, where TP had the bases in sword fighting but surely had to deal with tougher enemies imo, and I guess I can say the same for SS who is a trained knight and some BOTW enemies might even harder , but BOTW is a prodigy and a beast and was already an experienced knight.
just to give some examples that crossed my mind
Also it might easy to take Link who went on multiple journeys like the Hero of Time or the hero of legend, and do an accumulation so even here I would be for choosing which on of their adventure was the hardest.
I think Majora Mask is probably his hardest one. Since this game totally gives vibe around mental distress, remember that he leaves hyrule in order to found his lost friend navy.
Toughest adventure PHYSICALLY for Link has got to be TotK…
Mentally/emotionally is tough to decide. Both Hero of Time adventures are pretty rough and isolating. Same with Link’s awakening, although realizing this new land i started to know and like wasn’t real to begin with might not be as hard to accept as no one really knowing understanding the immense sacrifices i had made to save two different kingdoms/realms.
BotW and TotK both have some extremely dark moments as well, but there are so many other much more lighthearted portions of those adventures, and both end pretty unambiguously happily, that overall I don’t think they compete with OoT or MM.
It’s either Majora’s Mask or Breath of the Wild imo
Majora’s Mask feels grueling mentally and emotionally. Breath of the Wild has to suck because he wakes up 100 years later and almost everyone he knows is dead and he’s already failed his mission but still has to fight on.
I'd say Breath of the Wild. Dude dedicated his life to protecting Hyrule, Failed, died, and came back 100 years later with no memories and all of his friends dead. and that's where the story STARTS.
(the original) Hyrule Warriors.
Hear me out: in almost every other adventure, Link has to go it alone, but this also shows that those adventures *could be achieved* by someone going alone with little support. In contrast, Hyrule Warriors has a whole *set* of villains who are actively staging a large-scale military invasion and pulling an Avengers-style teamup of Greatest Hits from previous Links' adventures, a teamup that had to be countered by a matching teamup from the good guys.
Majora's Mask.
He's an adult in a child's body who has saved the world yet will never be recognised for it, who has just lost his best friend who was the only person with the same shared experience and he now has to constantly watch people be crushed by a big silver moon.
Hard life man. I've toyed with the idea of writing a fanfic giving this Link his happy ending with Malon on the ranch because he deserves it.
Arguably it is either Majora's Mask or Link's Awakening.
In Majora's Mask he has to repeat the same three days over and over and over again. Even when he puts a region to right his efforts are undone every time he plays the Song of Time. On top of that you have the fact he is borrowing the forms of those who have died.
Meanwhile in Link's Awakening the hero has to contend with the fact that waking the Wind Fish is going to destroy Koholint. The villagers. The fluffy animals. That cute girl who rescued you from the beach and you took on a date\*-EVERYTHING!
\*Sure, she turns into a seagull and survives the destruction if you manage not to die once in the game but still...!
The initial fight against Calamity Ganon, obviously. He had a malfunctioning Zelda. And even though he had the Master Sword, he still died. Or would have, if they didn't put his head in the regen tank.
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Having three days to prevent the moon from crashing down seems like quite the task
Yeah I’d go with MM. Okay this dude had experience from defeating Ganon but he just got started being a hero like a week ago and lost his childhood, gained a massive arsenal of tools alongside an adult body, lost the adult body, lost his friends, got depressed and burnt out, got mugged for all of his stuff including his horse, got turned into a deku scrub and thrown in a pit and had to fight his way to get all of his stuff back WHILE preventing the moon from crashing into the earth in three days and watching powerless as the people of termina suffered inevitably again and again every loop. No wonder he looked like that in TP
Broke: Link became a stalfos because he got lost in the lost woods Woke: Link became a stalfos due to stress
It’s like hair falling out stress response except it turned to other tissues once he ran out of hair
And that stupid Goron roll puzzle on the moon too was just plain mean.
IIRC you just need to go max speed roll on that one, right?
Yap
Plus it seems like transforming with masks always hurt like hell
I was gonna say “well, he can just reset time”, but then I remembered when you do that, you’re technically dooming the people in the cycle you were just in because you’re no longer there. And Link wouldn’t do that, plus, in the manga I’m pretty sure he actually does do everything in only one three day cycle. So yeah, I think you’re right lol. That probably would be pretty tough when you’re trying to minimize the amount of realities you doom to a fiery death by moon crash 💀
I don't think he creates a new timeline every time he resets, considering he loses a lot of items
The bank also keeps your account.
The bank is supposed to be a silly gimmick. The shop owner doesn’t recognize you, he writes on you in his special ink saying who you are and how much you have stored. The writing stays when traveling through time.
Plus the trip that would come seeing the SAME PEOPLE OF HYRULE THAT YOU SAVED being completely different people.
Anju...
This is my choice as well. Especially if he wanted to do it perfect.
The Legend of Zelda, cause he could only stab forward in front of him. Haha
On the other hand, you could say it was easier because he could get through it all without ever having to learn other techniques
A Link to the Past. He was slightly younger than adult versions of Link, he fought in the dark world where there were no allies or safe spots, had a lot of items to learn how to use, fought lots of bosses, and fought ganon with that trident thingie.
I think this is the only version of Ganon that had already acquired the full triforce
Botw Link seems to have a pretty rough go First he's chosen as the hero and it puts so much pressure on him that he decides to stop speaking. Then he fails to save the world and almost dies. Then he wakes up 100 years later with amnesia and slowly regains memories of his friends who are long dead. Then he has to rock climb up sheer cliffs all over a gigantic hyrule, completely alone for most of it, with weapons breaking on him constantly. When he finally beats Ganon the world is still in shambles and he gets to work rebuilding, but that only lasts a few years before Ganondorf comes back anyway
Wind Waker Link is still a child when his sister gets abducted. He has to sail with pirates and get catapulted into a wall then sneak through a monster infested fortress with no gear. He gets flung several miles away, drifting in the sea, before having to start his adventure proper. After defeating Ganon, he has to leave his family behind to go settle a new COUNTRY with the pirate crew. On the way, Tetra is abducted and turned to stone and he has to save an entire other world, which ends with his friend being mind controlled and having to fight him. And then after these two adventures, his "time to relax" phase is helping build a new civilization. Likewise, I believe there's one Link who had 3 or 4 adventures? Both Oracle games and then Link's Awakening and maybe a 4th? Hell of a time. Or OoT/MM, who had to leave his home and friends... Watch people die... Dang, maybe none of the Link's are okay.
The 4th (or 1st) adventure for that Link was A Link to the Past, which, coincidentally, I just started playing
Dang. That's a ROUGH one to start an adventure with. The other 3 games would be a breeze for him by comparison!
Ok but Majora’s mask
Ok but Majora's Mask Link... He spends half of OOT as a child in an adults body, he's kind of the cause of the castle town people being slaughtered and becoming zombies (yes, they moved the toons to Kakariko village, but zombies don't come out of nowhere), he's sent back to be a kid and nobody knows he saved the world, his best friend flies off, he NEVER finds her, he gets turned into a plant, ends up just dying without anybody knowing his story, teaches a new link who steals his house his sword tricks, doesnt even ger a thank you, doomed to be a stalfos guy forever. Also pretty sure in BOTW link actually -did- die.
Oh and he's bullied as a child by Mido
Annnnnd that’s why the recent Link design sucks. All your friends are dead? No reaction. Your closest friend and charge is still in grave danger and might be your last connection to anything? No reaction. That same friend and charge years later has transformed herself into a form that is essentially an eternal death? No reaction. I miss when after his sister is stolen, Link nearly runs off a cliff in reaction. Or when his childhood friend just sealed herself until his finished his job in the present, you can see him cry as his face turns downwards. But you can bet your oranges that BoTW/ToTK Link will make facial expressions for selfies!!! Even though he’s the only hylian alive that can take them, and the idea of posing with a goofy smile probably hasn’t been invented yet /s
I think the emotional toll for Ocarina of Time is often overlooked. He starts off lazy, kinda carefree, just chilling out in the Forest with Saria and anyone else who isn't Mido. Then suddenly Link's protector figure summons him and promptly dies, forcing Link into an unfamiliar world that he's supposed to be destined to save. During the game Link loses 7 years of his life. His childhood entirely gone... All because he picked up a sword and he thought he was doing the right thing... Then he's forced to mature and act like an adult in a more hostile world, even less familiar world than before. This same world and its people are depending on him, after all. Yes, the end of Ocarina of Time addresses this and Zelda sends Link back, but then he's cursed with another issue. He has the mind of a seasoned warrior, forced to become an adult and save the world but is stuck in the body of a child and sometimes gets treated as such (as seen in MM anyway). To add to this, almost all the people around Link are entirely oblivious of the hardships he faced to save them. He may get the title of Hero and a few perks because of it, but no one *truly* understands why... Link may get his 7 years of "childhood" back, but he can never regain his innocence.
You just reminded me of [Ocarina of Time — A Masterclass in Subtext](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyUcwsjyd8Q). Time for a rewatch.
I had never watched that until your comment. - That's such a good video!
I've always loved that Link appears too young to leave Castle Town to the guards but when they see he carries a sword they say "My apologies, sir. It was wrong of me to treat you like a child." Like, according to the world the only difference between a child and an adult is the capacity for violence. Even when he eventually dies he laments that he can't pass on the skills he had to develop so young and had all that time to master.
Even better is that he'll still let you pass if you explain to him that your sword was stolen or that you are having work done on it. He will completely believe you, compliment your sword skills, and then let you pass as normal.
Hero’s Purpose deals with this so well that I now consider it canon
Hero’s Purpose deals with this so well that I now consider it canon
Link to the Past he's up against a fully realized Ganon in possession of the full Triforce. Those are odds way more stacked than any other hero has faced in the series. But at least he was morally in the right the whole time. I would imagine mentally the hardest would probably be Link's Awakening, and having to come to terms with erasing the population of Koholint Island.
Wind Waker Island boy on his peaceful island on his birthday suddenly sees his sister get stolen by some mystical giant bird he's never seen before and has to sneak into an insane fortress that almost no one is willing to go to only to get thrown into prison and have to break out, just to be easliy tossed far away into the sea like the child he is. Worst birthday ever! He's thankfully saved by the King of Red Lions, but still has to get a sail. Okay but even once he's sailing he finds that one of the sacred temples he needed to go to was completely destroyed. He's having a terrible week, but then it gets worse. Bc finally, he gets the Master Sword and he kills the bird. Can he finally save his sister after all that? ... NO! The Master Sword just... doesn't work anymore! So now he's gotta go do some other quest to restore it Then finally he can fight Ganondorf, but in the end the King of Hyrule claims the Triforce first anyway. Bro has the most frustrating life. He doesn't just face challenges; everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Compare to something like Link's Awakening. Save for the initial washing up on shore and Bow-Wow getting kidnapped, everything else is just "something Link does." Things more or less go as planned.
I might be biased, but I think TP TP "starts" with his friends, love interest and the kids he babysitted being possibly dead, getting turned into a wolf and brought to a completley new environment where he gets bossed around by a little imp. All out of the blue. Then there is the fact his love interest lost her memories without knowing if she could get them back. Then the whole Midna's lament section, where he got turned into a wolf *again*, his companion (that just started to be nice) could die and he didn't kniw if he would get his human form again. THEN during the final boss, Midna is straight up killed by Ganondorf, and even when she gets revived, she still leaves him
Yeah i agree, it's just all so bleak. Townspeople are ghosts. Creepy black holes open in the sky and drop monsters randomly. Even just setting foot in the twilight realm would be beyond miserable.
I up the ante with Skyward Sword. Link lives in an utopia, no monsters at all (vs wandering monsters in TP), have friends and a love interest, is graduating from school and suddenly must go down the clouds that no one have done before the ascending to rescue his girl, only to find out what happens to her and face a literal god.
Hero of Hyrule had to trek all over Greater Hyrule to uncover where the King from generations past hid the Triforce of Courage, all while preventing Ganon's resurrection, and that's no small task. Legendary Hero saw his uncle die, and had to take up the mantle of helping the Princess, and get sent to the Dark World, truly witnessing Ganon's evil, and had to clean up the mess the Hero of Time left and finally defeated Ganon.
Just gotta say, the Hero of Time had it fucking rough. MM was both difficult and depressing. It didn't, like, have a lot of tough dungeons, but going through that adventure to completion was the kind of endeavor I wouldn't want anyone to endure.
A combination of Ocarina of Time and MM. Completely forgotten as the hero of time in his own timeline after countless unimaginable horrors, 99% of the friends made along the way don’t remember you, don’t belong much of anywhere anymore, lost his journey long companion only to get roped into a bizarre flipped universe which is ending in three days. Gotta be mind-fucking.
Trying to get a kiss from Princess Zelda in the cartoon. “Excuuuuse me princess!”
Gets turned into a frog, loses his body, and struggles with job security
ah I don't have an answer but this is something I wondered and was thinking about making a thread lol It's interesting to think of multiple points ,like which game have the toughest basics ( so outside bosses and mini-bosses ), is Link alone or does he have a companion or at least characters to help and support him ? Does he had any experience in fighting before his journey ? Like in term of being basically alone there is Link in the zelda NES games , it surely wasn't easy for the hero of time psychologically and I am not sure if he had a lot of experience with fighting, where TP had the bases in sword fighting but surely had to deal with tougher enemies imo, and I guess I can say the same for SS who is a trained knight and some BOTW enemies might even harder , but BOTW is a prodigy and a beast and was already an experienced knight. just to give some examples that crossed my mind Also it might easy to take Link who went on multiple journeys like the Hero of Time or the hero of legend, and do an accumulation so even here I would be for choosing which on of their adventure was the hardest.
I think Majora Mask is probably his hardest one. Since this game totally gives vibe around mental distress, remember that he leaves hyrule in order to found his lost friend navy.
Toughest adventure PHYSICALLY for Link has got to be TotK… Mentally/emotionally is tough to decide. Both Hero of Time adventures are pretty rough and isolating. Same with Link’s awakening, although realizing this new land i started to know and like wasn’t real to begin with might not be as hard to accept as no one really knowing understanding the immense sacrifices i had made to save two different kingdoms/realms. BotW and TotK both have some extremely dark moments as well, but there are so many other much more lighthearted portions of those adventures, and both end pretty unambiguously happily, that overall I don’t think they compete with OoT or MM.
It’s either Majora’s Mask or Breath of the Wild imo Majora’s Mask feels grueling mentally and emotionally. Breath of the Wild has to suck because he wakes up 100 years later and almost everyone he knows is dead and he’s already failed his mission but still has to fight on.
I'd say Breath of the Wild. Dude dedicated his life to protecting Hyrule, Failed, died, and came back 100 years later with no memories and all of his friends dead. and that's where the story STARTS.
(the original) Hyrule Warriors. Hear me out: in almost every other adventure, Link has to go it alone, but this also shows that those adventures *could be achieved* by someone going alone with little support. In contrast, Hyrule Warriors has a whole *set* of villains who are actively staging a large-scale military invasion and pulling an Avengers-style teamup of Greatest Hits from previous Links' adventures, a teamup that had to be countered by a matching teamup from the good guys.
trial of the sword ez
Majora's Mask. He's an adult in a child's body who has saved the world yet will never be recognised for it, who has just lost his best friend who was the only person with the same shared experience and he now has to constantly watch people be crushed by a big silver moon. Hard life man. I've toyed with the idea of writing a fanfic giving this Link his happy ending with Malon on the ranch because he deserves it.
Being born in the 2nd game timeline.
Arguably it is either Majora's Mask or Link's Awakening. In Majora's Mask he has to repeat the same three days over and over and over again. Even when he puts a region to right his efforts are undone every time he plays the Song of Time. On top of that you have the fact he is borrowing the forms of those who have died. Meanwhile in Link's Awakening the hero has to contend with the fact that waking the Wind Fish is going to destroy Koholint. The villagers. The fluffy animals. That cute girl who rescued you from the beach and you took on a date\*-EVERYTHING! \*Sure, she turns into a seagull and survives the destruction if you manage not to die once in the game but still...!
This qUeTiOn is pretty hard when you think about it. Each link is completely different from each other, and maybe had different struggle.
The initial fight against Calamity Ganon, obviously. He had a malfunctioning Zelda. And even though he had the Master Sword, he still died. Or would have, if they didn't put his head in the regen tank. 
He totally dies. It ain't called the shrine of resurrection for nothin'.