fic notes: untangling the monsters of BotW

Okay so there's probably a limit to how much you can talk about the monsters in BotW(/LoZ games in general) like they're part of the natural world since they're in effect Ganon's minions and not actually native to the ecosystems they're found in. How much of their behavior is programmed/commanded directly by Ganon and how much is natural? Do they even exist when Ganon's inactive? Age of Calamity shows monsters acting as units, cooperating with and/or tolerating the presence of other species, responding to orders, and otherwise acting in ways you maybe wouldn't expect if they were just doing what came naturally, but the canonicity of AoC is another thorny issue. So for the purposes of this can of worms masquerading as an essay, I'm going to assume that Ganon is suffering from Acts of Princess in BotW's present day and is not exerting direct control over any of the monsters you encounter. What, aside from hostility towards Hylians, do they have in common? Where do they differ? How smart are they really, and how do we even quantify that?

( Also, I'm ignoring the Stals because that is just way too much. )