I actually enjoyed playing Skyward Sword a lot, despite the common complaints I liked Fi as a companion and the motion controls (I even remember setting up the Wii to show them off to my extended family during a thanksgiving get-together, only to then feel embarassed when Ghirahim showed up and was all sexy and queer-coded), and while I did think the game stretched on too long with revisiting the same areas repeatedly, and the lack of a real connected overworld, I still enjoyed it overall. Also some of the strongest dungeon designs in the series, IMO.
But I was talking about it with my fiancee the other day, in anticipation of Tears of the Kingdom, and how the part that disappointed me the most, especially its place in the series overall, was that it was hyped as being The Beginning Of The Zelda Timeline (a concept I also kind of roll my eyes at, at least as an established canonical thing), and the origin story of so many iconic elements of the series, but... then all the stuff it introduces just Already Existed, which is a really boring "origin". Like, Ganon's curse was actually Demise's curse, and Demise already existed as an Evil Demon before - the Master Sword is the sword of Evil's Bane because of this ritual done to empower it... but before that it already existed as the Goddess Sword, a magic sword that was stored away for the prophecied hero.
And then Elaine pointed out that Ocarina of Time... was also trying to be the origin story, at the time. It gave explanations for various things that were taken for granted in other games, but those explanations put them in the world as things that were shaped by the culture that existed at the time, before being elevated to magical or legendary status.
Like, first and foremost, it's an origin story for Ganon, the big bad evil wizard/demon/whatever that was the main villain in most of the previous games - but instead of just being an evil sorcerer, you see him as the king of the Gerudo, a desert culture of bandits, and how he learned magic from the witches there, and see him seize more power from the triforce until he ultimately assumes the monstrous form of the other games, and swears to return.
But it also gives an origin story for the triforce, and the creation myth of the world at large, with three goddessess representing different virtues and kinds of power bringing the world to life, then leaving the triforce behind as a representation of their power.
There's also small connections, too, like how Link's iconic green tunic is actually the standard outfit of the forest spirits, and only became legendary (at least as it's treated later in Wind Waker) because they happened to take in the young hero at the Deku Tree's command. Or how some of the sages share names with the towns in The Adventure of Link, suggesting the towns were named after those legendary figures.
Did these things need to be explained any more than they were before? No, but the ways that OoT introduces these things makes them more interesting, now Ganon is a person that came from a place and had connections to other people before he became the avatar of evil, and there's room to speculate on his motivations beyond simply being evil (which Wind Waker of course did), now the goddesses that created the Triforce have names and are differentiated and characterized by the gifts they bestow and the spells connected to them in OoT (which the Oracle games played with, having central characters named after goddesses).
I'll admit I'm heavily biased toward finding it more interesting for mundane, everyday people and concepts to be elevated to legendary status over divine might and prophecies and It Was Always Going To Be This Way - I'd rather see someone become a hero because anyone could have saved the day but this person rose to do it, than simply because they were always going to be the one to do it - but the origins given for things in Skyward Sword are just so much less interesting. They're arguably transformative, but in many cases instead of transforming something grounded in the material, mortal world and culture into something magical and legendary, they transform something magical or divine into another magical or divine thing that fulfills the same role.
Demise was a demon that was so powerful and evil that even in the preceeding wars, he couldn't be defeated by the Goddess Hylia, only sealed away as an evil that would plague the land in the future. By the end of the game, he is defeated by Link and the Master Sword, but he also curses hyrule with his grudge, so he's now... a demon so powerful and evil that even when he's banished, he will still reincarnate to the plague the land in the future. The Goddess Sword was a magic sword, created by the Goddess Hylia and sealed away in a temple where only the true hero could draw it when it's needed to defeat evil, and by the end of the game... it's still that, but stronger.
Man, I've been at this for a while and getting tired of typing but I feel like I should be wrapping this up like an essay where I have to examine every angle of my thesis statement.......... but it's not, is it? It's just a rant that I felt like making before I actually start Tears of the Kingdom.
So, uh... yeah there's probably more I could say to compare Skyward Sword to Ocarina of Time, and other things I think make the series lore actively less interesting (Goddess Hylia) or could be interesting but are underutilized (Fi being part of the Master Sword), but... instead I think I'm going to eat lunch and play Tears of the Kingdom and see what that does.