#If I wanted a succinct take on fictional monarchies I would not be looking for it in a series

[blue-likethebird]

Something I find irritating about the minor resurgence in discourse about totk's story and its ideological standings is the argument that Zelda games have always had uncompromising black and white morality, so any criticism of Hyrule/Rauru/Sonia is inherently futile.

That's not entirely correct. It's true that Zelda games have fairly obvious good guys and bad guys, but plenty of Zelda games have touched on the flaws of Hyrule's monarchy. For example, there's the Shadow temple and bottom of the well from OoT, the twilight realm from TP, BotW's pre-calamity flashbacks, basically all of windwaker's final act, etc. Even Skyward Sword -and as much as I love that game it does have some unfortunate 'divine right of kings' implications to it- is more critical of Hylia's plan and the effect it has on the people involved than anything totk's cast can muster up about Rauru. Zelda games having simple stories that their intended audience can grasp doesn't mean that they haven't at least attempted to touch on more complicated moral questions in the past.

I can't speak for everyone but I and most other people I see in the totk critical tags don't mean I want this children's game to provide a definitive critique of divinely-ordained monarchy when I discuss Ganondorf's complete lack of motivations or the story's refusal to question Rauru's leadership the way previous games questioned Rhoam, Daphnes, or Hylia. I know Nintendo aren't gonna bother fitting a scholarly review of fantasy imperialism between the archery and bowling minigames, but I'd be more willing to accept that if they would at least give the central narrative a shred of nuance or staying power in return.