The second flare dancer is supposed to be fought with the megaton hammer; you smash the ground and it immediately dispels the body.
This might be my favourite dungeon in the game. One of the best, at least. The entire thing flows in a way that most of the others don’t. The Forest and Water Temples have you getting lost looking for one more key, Shadow Temple is all sorts of obnoxious, and the Child Link dungeons are incredibly simple.
After immediately introducing its central hook and making clear where your destination is and what’s stopping you from getting there, the Fire Temple intelligently leads you slowly up to the top of the tower. You free Goron friends, learn more about the dungeon and the tricks it’s likely to pull ahead of time, and when you get the hammer you immediately get a shortcut back to the bottom floor where the door to the boss is now accessible, barring one more quick trip through the foyer.
You know where your goal is and while you don’t know where you’re going to get to it, you can feel concrete steps along the way to make an impact in the world, even if it’s just superficial. The dungeon item gets used just enough for you to feel its power, both in general, against the environment, and against the enemies; even the mini-boss, who you fight a second time specifically to showcase the strength of this awesome new weapon.
And then when you beat the temple the single most drastic visual difference between the two time periods, and the very first one you notice after becoming an adult, is gone. Goron City immediately gets repopulated, and the random explosions on the run up to Biggoron stop completely, which makes getting the sword a little easier if you haven’t picked it up yet.
I don’t know that what Child Link did in the well would have necessarily made much of an impact, unless it was Hylian holy water flooding that place, but it’s definitely a curious part of the adventure, assuming you haven’t already gone down the well the second Sheik moved out of the way and let you go back in time.
“This thing came out of the well. What if I can go back in time to stop it before it busts out? Oh, I guess I can’t…and also the well is where Kakariko just dumped a lot of bad stuff over the generations.”
It’s a side of Kakariko that kind of just got dropped in all future entries in favour of the more blatant Native American theme that’s become a core aspect of the Sheikah. But in Ocarina of Time it’s a really interesting parallel. Kakariko Village spends most of its time being a warm, inviting place, full of life, safe from harm. But it’s ultimately kind of a village of the dead. Dead that couldn’t stop living, I guess. The warp point even goes to the graveyard. It’s somewhat ironic that Castle Town got overrun with ReDeads and that the survivors all fled to Kakariko to be safe.
That reminds me: did you ever go fight the Composer Brothers? I seem to recall you just going straight into the Royal Family Tomb and I don’t remember if you fought them on your way out or not. I always thought fighting them was required to open the tomb.
