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sweet-lemonad-rose-sapphire · 2 months ago

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Link Character Analysis Pt. 2

Before Zelda’s Appointed Knight

Link’s Silence

In game, we’re told that Link’s demeanor changes significantly after wielding the Master Sword.

We are given information about this change through Mipha’s diary but, as stated earlier in her entry, she hasn’t seen Link for some time.

Another piece of information we get is through Zelda’s diary when she’s talking about her and Link’s similarities

In these two examples, they make it look as though Link’s personality changed because of the Master Sword, but I don’t believe that’s the only reason…

Yes, being given a heavy burden at such a young age can change a person, but would it really change a kid like Link THAT dramatically?

In the same entry of Mipha’s diary that talks about Link’s personality change, Mipha asks Link if something had happened, to which Link only responds by “merely shaking his head”. Sure, ANYONE could ask this question to him, but this is Mipha who asked him if something happened specifically. Mipha not only knows when someone is hurting on the outside but on the inside as well. Between baby Sidon and, later, Link who both don’t speak very much, I can see Mipha having this ability.

Something else must have happened for Link to have the strong belief that others are better off around him if he’s silent.

But the question is… what actually happened?…

Link’s Knight Training

According to Purah’s diary, Link was the youngest knight ever to be appointed into the [Royal] Guard. This is no doubt because of Link being chosen by the Master Sword.

After Link returned to the Castle wielding the Master Sword, we can be certain that the King treated him the same way as he had his daughter: forcing Link to grow up FAST!

Normally, according to Creating a Champion, knights are trained at the Military Training Camp, but Link would have likely been trained at the same level as someone going into the Royal Guard.

Unfortunately, Link would also have to get regular knight training at the same time! Yes, he might have already been ahead of most knights his age, but even with that in mind, he’d still be an “average” gifted swordsman before the Master Sword. Especially if his father had anything to say about it!

The Beginning of Link and Daruk’s Friendship

Link met Daruk sometime between finding the Master Sword and saving Zelda from the rogue Guardian, but my question is why was Link on Death Mountain anyway?

Looking at the map of Hyrule, the Military Training Camp is actually pretty close to Elden. With this in mind, we can easily assume that Link probably met him during his time there. Whether the young knights were simply training for the harsh conditions of Death Mountain or simply helping a nearby village deal with some monster problems, Link meeting Daruk during this time was probably the best outcome.

Daruk and Link are shown as close buddies, but I think that Daruk would have also been a mentor figure to Link. Daruk likely taught Link how to use Goron weapons since Daruk comments on him being “incredibly strong!”

I say that Link meeting Daruk during this time was the best outcome because it’s the first time we hear about Link speaking to someone else since finding the Master Sword. Mipha may have been a childhood friend, but he doesn’t even speak to her. Link speaking to Daruk literally speaks volumes about Link’s trust in him.

Extra Finds (aka Link and his love of food)

Link is said to eat practically anything, but according to Steen in Kakariko Village, Link’s favorite food was Swift Carrots

According to Daruk, Link ate a Rock Roast once. He says that Link enjoyed it, but described him as being “speechless”. Unfortunately when it comes to Link that could mean almost anything. But whether he liked it or not can actually be answered by just looking at the gameplay in BOTW. Whenever you hold a Rock Roast (even one fresh off the cooking pot) you are NOT given an option to eat it.

#The Link Project #botw link #botw #tloz #botw character analysis

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longlivebatart · 1 year ago

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Episode 2- Twelfth Night

Welcome to Long Live Bat Art, the podcast for art lovers who don’t see art as much as they want to. My name is Sydney and thank you for taking this slow tour through an art gallery with a casual art lover. Today, I’ll be talking about Twelfth Night by Jan Steen. I hope you enjoy.

Jan Steen was born in Leiden in 1626. Twenty years later he went to Leiden University, which is why we know his birth year- the rest of the details of his birth are a mystery. Because he was college educated, he was exposed to literature and mythology outside of his own Catholic mythology.

In 1648 he, along with Gabriel Metsu, founded the ‘Painters’ Guild of St. Luke’ in that city. St. Luke is the patron saint of artists, which makes him the prime candidate for having an artists’ guild named after him. His teachers included Nicolaus Knupfer, Adriaen van Ostade, and Jan van Goyen. He ended up marrying the daughter of van Goyen, Margriet.

Steen was inspired by not only history and mythology but also by real life, especially those who tend to poke fun at real life. He painted a few pieces about Rhetoricians, who were actors in the theater. That isn’t surprising, considering that his uncle was a Rhetorician in Steen’s home town. There’s a few pieces of other evidence that Steen drew from theater and actors rather than real life- several of his paintings show so-called doctors who often make false diagnoses. These doctors are shown dressed in the way of a century before, which makes a valid argument for being a man dressed in a costume of a doctor rather than an actual medical professional.

Steen likely didn’t have very many students. In fact, only a single painter is speculated to have been one- Richard Brakenburg. But despite the lack of direct students, his work influenced many others.

He was prolific. According to Tobias van Westrheene he painted 500 paintings, and Hofstede de Groot said 1000. Because of how many he painted, 350 of them survive.

And apparently, the Dutch have a proverb about Jan Steen that I won’t try to pronounce. But the English translation is ‘a Jan Steen household’, which means more or less to have a messy house. Which, savage. That’s what my legacy would be, though. But it probably doesn’t refer to Steen’s actual lack of housekeeping, but the lived-in interiors of his works instead.

Arnold Houbraken was a so-called biographer who admitted that his ‘research’ came solely from Steen’s paintings when he wrote that Steen’s paintings were drawn from his life, just as his lifestyle was like his paintings. Houbraken’s assessments must be taken with a mountain of salt, seeing as how most of his biographies of other painters have been proven to have been largely made up or drawn from the artist’s work rather than the artist. There may be truth in the notion that you can only make art of any kind from your own experience, but you are not your work and you’re not always the same person as who you choose to base art on.

Now, onto the painting.

If you took a prior look at this artwork and decided I was insane for trying to describe it, you might be right. But it was such an interesting work I figured I had to try.

It’s a table at a large dinner. Nine adults and two children are clustered at it, some standing and some sitting. There are four adults in the background at the extreme right of the piece, all seated.

The center of the painting is dominated by a woman reclining on a chair, her right arm over the back of it and looking over that shoulder to look at a child. The reclining woman is wearing a white bonnet she’s untied to be loose around her head. Strands of her dark blonde hair are shown curled over her forehead. Her face is relaxed and she’s smiling softly. Her cheeks are rosy in good health, or maybe just a lot of wine. She’s wearing a white garment that’s more revealing than I thought was permitted back then- you can see the skin of her throat, some of her shoulders, and cleavage. She’s wearing a bright orange corset, and a long dark mustard skirt that looks like it’s made of velvet or a similar material. It has the look of it when you stroke it the wrong way in parts of the skirt. The skirt is draped over her lap and legs, which are spread open slightly, though no skin is shown. She’s wearing pointed orange shoes a few shades darker than her corset.

As a brief aside, if you listened to the episode on Vermeer’s The Milkmaid I described a box on the floor behind the titular character. I thought that the box would contain warm coals to heat the food or room. The same kind of box makes an appearance in this painting. That's what I love about making this show- I'm learning new things.

Her left foot is against the floor and her right one is in a box- this one with no top and only two closed sides. There’s a bowl in it, probably holding warm coals as I thought before. It looks like they were used to warm toes, not food or rooms.

The woman is also wearing an overcoat that looks like velvet, as well. It’s a warm light brown on the outside and a cream on the inside. Her right arm is bare from just below her shoulder down to her wrist, and she’s holding a tall white decanter that looks like ceramic with small pink flower details, probably containing alcohol going by the glass with amber liquid in it in her left hand. Her left arm is bare the same as her right and her hand is holding the glass in such a way that the liquid is tipped towards the side, but has no chance of spilling. It’s half-full.

She has a white cloth napkin spread over her lap. The end near her knees and closer to the viewer is folded under itself, and the end near her stomach is folded over. The folds are shadowed.

There’s a man to our right of the reclining woman, her left. He’s wearing a flat red hat with black feathers, but it’s almost on the side of his head. It’s being held up because his head is drastically tilted the opposite way. It looks like he’s holding some kind of awl or other pointed thin metal tool in one hand and using it to puncture some kind of taut fabric or leather covering on the jug he holds tucked under his other arm. He’s smiling widely. He’s older- he’s bald and has a short white beard and mustache. He’s wearing a black shirt with a high ruffled white collar that reminds me of portraits of monarchs in England. He has brightly colored fabric draped over the arm closer to the viewer, his left. It’s tucked under his belt. It’s striped with mustard yellow, deep orange, and dark brown. It reminds me of Mexican serapes. Maybe the technique or just the fabric made its way from Central America all the way to Holland. The Dutch were prolific traders, they were so close to the water.

His pants are beige, almost a khaki color. They have a vertical band of darker brown on one hip from his belt to his ankle. His socks are dark gray and he has dark brown leather shoes in the same style as the reclining woman, though his are more squared at the toes. The shoes show the sides of the foot, only covering the soles, toes, and heel.

To the left of the image and the right of the reclining woman is a small child standing on an end table that’s carved on the front drawer. The carving is detailed but not terribly ornate- it has swoops and an oval design around the keyhole. There’s a three-armed candle next to the child with a snuffer extending from the metal plate underneath. The child is holding a glass in both hands and has just finished drinking deeply from it- the glass is still to his lips but his head is bowed. Perhaps he partook in alcohol as well.

The child is wearing a white undershirt that looks like a long nightshirt and stops above his knees- the lower half of his legs are bare. He’s wearing cream socks that have been pushed down and brown shoes that are in the same style as the velcro shoes you put on little kids- there’s a smaller gap on the sides but not as drastic as the adults’ shoes.

He’s also wearing a mustard overcoat with white fur at the collar. His hair still has the fineness of childhood. It’s long and dark blonde. Maybe he’s the son of the reclining woman- she has a fond expression on her face as she looks at him. He has a white paper hat on his head that looks somewhat like a chef’s hat. There’s another slightly older child behind him who’s tugging on his overcoat. This child has a basket upside-down on his head and a flushed face, maybe from more alcohol.

This child is wearing a forest green overcoat. He has a light blue fabric draped over his shoulders, like what you do with a sweater if you don’t feel like tying it around your waist. This isn’t tied, though. His legs are bare like the first child’s, and he’s wearing the same kind of socks and shoes.

Behind the child in green is a man in black clothes who has some kind of pointed metal receptacle on his head. It's like a big funnel. He also has a flat piece of leather carrying spoons tied around his waist. He’s holding a large metal serving spoon towards the man next to him, and what looks like a huge metal spatula against his shoulder. For all I know, it’s an instrument. He’s holding it like he’s playing a violin. He must be a fan of kitchen implements that could possibly be instruments. The man to his immediate left is more stern- he has a long metal thing in his mouth, maybe he’s taking a draw from some kind of tobacco or something like that.

The man to his left is also wearing black, with a white bib that extends over his shoulders and a black hat with a wide brim. The next figure looks like a nun- she’s wearing black with the covering over her hair and the white piece separating it from her face. The rest of her outfit is black as well. She has her hand on the stem of the glass the first child is drinking out of- whether she’s giving it to him or trying to take it away is unclear. She has a slightly amused expression on her face.

The next woman must be a server of some kind- she’s holding a black tray of food over her head. It could be waffles or cookies, I can’t tell. She’s smiling. Her arms are pale where they’re exposed by her clothing. She’s wearing a black top with a white dress underneath.

The next man has longer curly hair that’s graying. He's wearing black, as well, with a white collar. I thought it was odd that a few figures are dressed so darkly and the first four so vividly. But this man is turned slightly to talk to the musician on his left. The musician is standing in front of a painting in an ornate gold frame. The painting is a dark landscape, with a slim tree on the left of the image and dark details I can’t make out in the rest, with a sky with an orange glow emanating from the middle.

The musician is playing a fiddle. He’s wearing a brown bowler hat and is talking to the man with graying hair I described before. He’s young- his face still has a boyish look to it and he doesn’t have any facial hair. He’s wearing a deep green coat and a blue-toned shirt underneath with the lapels showing. In front of him is a woman looking to her left. Her arms are folded on the table with her right arm laying over her left. You can see a hint of orange fabric peeking out from under her coat, which is green-toned with white fur down the front, at her collar, and at her wrists. She’s smiling softly.

The man seated on the left of the four seated figures is wearing a blue hat that’s darker on the underside of the flat top. His face is pale and he has a small beard extending solely from his chin. Almost like a long soul patch. Not a great look. His face is blank- maybe he’s bored. No one seems to be talking to him. To the right is a figure you can barely see between the women in front of him. He has slicked black hair that’s covering both sides of his forehead in a curve. He’s wearing black clothes with a white collar, though his is buttoned up. The next man is seen in profile. He’s wearing a black hat and has long curly brown hair that falls just past the front of his shoulders. He has a thin pencil mustache. Also not a great look. His shirt is a green-yellow, more of the latter than the former. He has a wide white collar. And the last figure is a woman with her back to the viewer. This woman is wearing a thick black shawl with white trim over a red-orange dress. She has some kind of necklace on, as well. You can only see the back of the necklace- it’s not a chain, more of a thin leather strap. It has a short orange tassel at the very back of her neck. She’s sitting in a sturdy wooden chair that has been carved to have gently twisting legs and a high back with a gap in the middle that shows the person sitting in its back.

Now that the figures are done, let’s move on to the rest of the painting. The background is what looks like a dark wooden wardrobe behind the last four figures. You can see two posts of it extending upwards, with oval decorations topping them. It’s against a green wall- it’s darker behind the wardrobe, then the corner is further into the painting space and is lighter because of the window. The window has a sheer curtain tied back on the left of it. The window is closed and is separated into four sections of glass- two on the left and two on the right. The glass is broken up by black pieces, like lead in stained glass.

In front of the window is an empty birdcage, or maybe a chandelier for candles. Either way, it’s rounded, open, and metal. It’s dangling by a chain from a wooden beam on the ceiling. On the extreme left of the background is a stone fireplace, maybe. Some of the stone is gray and carved, some of it is brown and polished. Onto the foreground.

The floor is checkered with wide black and white marble tiles. You can see the veins in the material. There’s an empty jug on the left near the children, and two pans. One is a brighter metal than the other. The brighter metal one is also deeper, with a spoon resting in it. The darker one is more of a skillet. On the right of the image are eggshells broken on the floor. There’s a whole egg, too- blue-toned in color. The table in the middle ground is covered with two tablecloths- the top one is white, but the under one is more reminiscent of a carpet. It has orange, brown, and mustard floral designs on it, and it’s stiffer like a carpet, too.

The table holds dessert- plates, a single orange, and a cake on a stand. Last, but certainly not least, is what looks like a spaniel mix standing in front of the table. He’s white with brown markings on him that are smaller near his feet, and his tail is up and alert. He’s standing and looking off into the distance to the right of the painting.

Now for my thoughts.

The skin, the fabric, it all looks like you can see what it would feel like just by looking at it. Like the velvet of the reclining woman’s dress. There’s also smooth metal, soft paper, and wiry fur.

It seems like a fun party, with alcohol flowing for both the adults and the children. Other than the four people on the right, but maybe they’re just taking a short break from the revelry. There are also a few people with non-hats on their heads. Which just reminds me of those stereotypical college frat parties where someone ends up with a lampshade on their head. Drunk people, man. The same throughout history.

I also love the way Steen captured the liveliness of this celebration. Music is playing, people are laughing, and all around a good time is being had. That’s what makes this piece so interesting- the joy the subjects are experiencing. I can’t help but smile when I see this piece. It looks like a gathering of loved ones that truly enjoy each other’s company.

People have always had fun, and it’s great to see that depicted in art. Lots of people think that the past was so much harder than it is today, which it probably was. But there were times where they were just as happy as we are. Life wasn’t misery after misery, they had celebrations as well. And just as happiness brings people together today, it did the same back then. And seeing a piece of art like this, it just reminds me of that. Looking at this piece of art is like looking in a window that can see into the past, showing the viewer a glimpse of what life was like. And life is fun.

Because that’s what it boils down to- fun. Sure- sometimes you can have bad days, even bad weeks. But there’s always something to look forward to, some small kernel of future or even past joy that you can use to keep yourself going.

Here’s my challenge for you- find one thing to be happy about today. It can be a memory, it can be a quiet moment at the park where you see a dog chase its own tail, fully believing that this time he’ll get it. If you do that, you might realize something- big joy and small joy is the same. You can land a multi-million dollar job or have a great day in another country, or you could have a cool drink on a hot day or spend some time with a friend. Joy is joy.

If you liked this episode of Long Live Bat Art, please consider telling a friend and reviewing to help the podcast grow. A link to the transcript of this episode is available in the show notes below. And you can follow me on Twitter at Long Live Bat Art. That’s Long Live B-A-T Art. Thank you for listening to this episode, and I will see you in two weeks.

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