Iron Knuckle

Iron Knuckles, originally formatted as Ironknuckles, are heavily-armored soldiers which first appear in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. In both design and behavior, they are essentially identical to the related Darknut, and as such very rarely appear in the same games.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
They appear in orange, red, and blue throughout the palaces, and were presumably placed there by the King of Hyrule. They move relatively fast, and are capable of slashing their swords at chest height and knee height. They also have shields to block Link's own attacks. Each color type gains more health, strength, and attack frequency. The blue ones are additionally capable of throwing knives or sword beams, depending on the version of the game. Downward Thrusting can be done to avoid an attack being blocked by the shield, though a blue one may be too fast for this to be effective in some situations. The boss of the Island Palace, Rebonack, is an Ironknuckle that rides a metallic horse that can run on and off the screen. He is later found twice in the Three-Eye Rock Palace.

Statues of Ironknuckles can be found both right outside and in dead ends and on raised platforms inside of all Palaces other than the Great Palace, which uses Eagle Knights instead. Attacking these may either do nothing, give Link a red Magic Jar, or sometimes in later palaces, turn into a red Ironknuckle.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Iron Knuckles are encountered in the Spirit Temple as mid-bosses and Ganon's Tower as enemies. They appear in silver and black, although the colors do not signify any strength difference. The Spirit Temple has two separate silver ones and Ganon's Castle has a silver one and a black one at the same time.

Iron Knuckles are much wider and much slower than in Zelda II: Adventure of Link, and additionally wield huge axes. However, a pre-release screenshot showed a golden Iron Knuckle with armor resembling their previous design. To attack, Iron Knuckles will swing their axes at Link for massive damage, even capable of destroying certain stone structures. They can swing twice back and forth, once forward, or if Link is behind one, once while turning. Most items will not damage them. Once they have taken enough damage, their outer armor will fall off, and they will become faster, but more vulnerable. They are now able to use their axes like a shield, but will flinch when being damaged.

One specific Iron Knuckle with a unique helmet, red gauntlets, and only one phase of battle appears behind the Spirit Temple's boss door and is revealed to be a brainwashed Nabooru. In fact, in the original version, all Iron Knuckles have Nabooru-like Gerudo heads under their helmets, potentially for testing purposes as they appear to use a prototypical design. They can be seen by positioning the camera just right through the front of the helmet. In the 3DS version, all the heads were removed from view, except for the one that houses Nabooru in-story. However, the top of a Gerudo torso can be seen, and in fact is visible in the second phase of battle in all versions of the game. All Iron Knuckles, including the brainwashed Nabooru, have very deep vocal grunts despite being ostensibly female in this game.

In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest, a silver one appears in the Fire Temple, an additional black one appears in an optional room of the Spirit Temple (where it is used to reach two Gold Skulltulas and thus being a rare case of a respawning miniboss), and a silver one and a black one are also in the Gerudo Training Ground. Inside Ganon's Castle, a black one appears at the entrance and a respawning silver one appears in the Spirit wing, being used to uncover a rusted switch. All of these new encounters are treated as minibosses.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Iron Knuckles appear four times. Twice as minibosses underneath the graveyard in separate graves (a black one in the first grave and a silver one in the second), and another time as a lifeless, sword-wielding bronze suit of armor in the Curiosity Shop. On the other side of its helmet is a hole in the wall Kafei uses to spy on what happens in the shop. The fourth one is another silver one found in the battle-themed Moon challenge. The fightable ones look and act exactly the same as in Ocarina of Time, and keep the same Gerudo head in the original.

Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon
An Ironknuckle is a boss, having kidnapped most of Sakado's residents and taken them to Tykogi Tower, despite Mayor Cravendish telling him that that is "illegal." Once he is defeated with the Power Glove, his Armos minions watch him break apart, revealing a beating cartoonish heart, which is used as a Heart Container.

Zelda's Adventure
In Zelda's Adventure, Iron Knuckles are found in the Shrine of Strength as its sole standard enemy variety. They wander around with swords drawn and pointing forwards, similar to Darknuts in the first game. They lack shields, but take a very large amount of hits to defeat.

Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer featuring The Legend of Zelda
In Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer featuring The Legend of Zelda, Iron Knuckles appear as enemies. They have masks resembling their design from the Nintendo 64 games, but rounder. Iron Knuckles are depicted as being very stout and appear alongside Guards, which are smaller, and Darknuts, which are about the same size, but more muscular and with smaller helmets. Potentially in reference to their English name, Iron Knuckles have studded fists instead of typical weaponry. They move after several beats and will attempt to charge up a punch if the player character is close, at which point it leaves the straps on its back open to attack. Comically, it reveals a cartoonish eye wincing in pain for a frame of animation when damaged. They have a brown variant and a black variant known as Iron Knuckle Captain and Iron Knuckle Chieftain, respectively, with each getting progressively stronger.

In the future Hyrule in DLC in the digital release and in the base version of the physical release, Iron Knuckles commonly appear in the Gerudo Arena. The arena's miniboss is an Iron Knuckle that rides a large Bullbo-like creature, called the Iron Knuckle Knight. A passive Iron Knuckle can be spoken to in the arena's lobby, nursing off a wound they sustained from a Bokoblin attacking their back. If spoken to, they say their brother is also competing and is better at riding than them, thus potentially being the Iron Knuckle Knight that is faced.