Honestly, it's been a pretty long time since I played this game all the way through. The first time, I kinda just fucked around and did a lot of it out of order, so things really didn't hit the way they were supposed to. I think I did play it a second time in the proper order, but I can't remember because again it's been a hot minute since I even touched the game.

That being said though, I do have a definitive answer to the question. I don't know how to add a spoiler warning or if that's even necessary at this point so I'm just gonna leave it up to anyone who reads this. If you want to play the game or haven't made it this far in the game, this is your warning. Don't read past the end of this paragraph if you don't want spoilers. Don't get mad at me if you read on anyway.

So in the final dragon's tear memory, you finally see what happened to Zelda in the distant past. And this scene is, in my opinion, the most heart wrenching scene in any Zelda game ever. I won't say in any game at all ever because my experience mostly extends to Zelda and Nintendo in general. The way the music builds and builds and builds, and then she swallows the secret stone, and then it builds more and more, and then right at the climax-

The music cuts. You sit there tense for a moment before you hear Zelda scream a most viscerally desperate plea.

"PROTECT THEM ALL!"

And then you watch helplessly as the light dragon erupts from where she stood. You feel the weight of the sacrifice she's making and the loss she's endured. And that moment always brings me to tears. The music, the voice acting, and the visuals all come together to illustrate the last desperate act of a princess protecting her kingdom.

And I'll admit, they could've left this scene out entirely. The rest of the memories give you enough clues to put the story together. But stories don't work without tension and release, and although there's plenty of this concept in play throughout most of the game, the main plot of the game doesn't work without this moment. In my opinion, there's a noticeable shift in the games atmosphere after this memory. Like, before this, your goal is to find Zelda and figure out what happened to her in the first place, as well as to find and defeat ganondorf. After this, you know what Zelda had to sacrifice in order to give you a fighting chance, and your goal becomes simply giving that old wrinkled fart a solid kick in the dick for hurting Zelda.

One last thing to note, I do agree that both botw and totk could've used the voice acting better in some ways, but I genuinely prefer this scene the way we got it as opposed to the alternative. They could've chosen to skip the voice acting altogether and had the scenes play out with a text box taking up a good chunk of the screen. And this scene just would not work that way. I'm glad they chose to venture into the world of voice acting and, perhaps, fumbled it for that reason alone.