#The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

[echoesofwisdomcountup]

586 Days since Tears of the Kingdom Released. This area is so beautiful. But I never found the Lord of the Wild in totk 😔

Linktober day 9: Secret

[demiboydemon]

[cokoakeostuff]

Finally they are complete

This is kind of a "timeline order", but here it’s sorted by height too!

Teens and wild, he is short lol.

I'm so hapyyy > More info about them

[wing-locked]

[echoesofwisdomcountup]

587 Days since Tears of the Kingdom Released. Yes this is Breath of the Wild art BUT WHY COULDN'T WE HAVE HAD WOLF LINK IN TOTK. why nintendo. why did you take our dog from us.

linktober day 2!!! friend / companion

ohh how i love you wolfie.. they make me so happy

[mochiobonio]

" the gloom hands do get a bit quirky at night "

got a commission from someone on twitter to draw sidlink with gloom hands and frostbite and i was like "HOLD UP, LET ME COOK"

[bellymoonlight]

Through time, the Hero of Time receives the power of Queen Sonia

Read comic

[sebastianlynx]

aliya will

@aliyawill

[echoesofwisdomcountup]

87 Days Since Echoes of Wisdom Release.

588 Days since Tears of the Kingdom Released.

Nintendo should give us more games where Link and Zelda journey together. I love them both so much.

Knight of Hyrule?

Even if I would like there to be more games where we could play as Zelda, I do not wish her to replace Link. It would be amazing if they could save Hyrule together and you could switch between them whenever you want!

[battyccino]

mob boss/modern au Kohga

[eddysmash2407]

Link got a little something for Zelda 🗡️🎁🎄

(The Legend of Zelda)

[asktheritochampion]

Are you aware that in a forgien language not seen in hyrule, tebasaki translates to "chicken wings" just thought that was amusing

[hs-loner2006]

I agree with your take. I’ve always found it so interesting how even in their “loss of self” states, the dragons still possess clear motives, they aren’t completely mindless like they were initially made out to be. Dinraal, Naydra, and Farosh all stay within the boundaries of their respective springs, which is something they would certainly forget after Draconification. Zelda still carried the Master Sword with her and finally let it go when the time was right, again, something she would certainly forget after Draconification. The game makes it clear that although you lose your memories that formed your self, your last will right before transforming still remains.

About Zelda’s memory loss, assuming she was still conscious for a brief moment after turning into a dragon, I imagine it was the combination of the terror from her transformation (like you said) and the possible explanation that dragons lose their self and consciousness, (with the only thing remaining being their last will) so they can endure the eternal loneliness of the future.

In the present day of Tears of the Kingdom, although the individual of Zelda may be gone, her last will and her love for Link most certainly isn’t.

So one take on TOTK’s ending I’ve seen quite a bit of is the idea that it deprived all dramatic weight from Zelda’s sacrifice and that she should have suffered the consequences of her choice (I.e. stay a dragon forever or come back as a dragon human hybrid). This strikes me as a shallow reading of the text and another example of how some people think punishment (or in this case “dying for a cause”) is the only viable ending for someone who made the choice Zelda made. It really rubs me the wrong way given all the development and tragedy she faced in both games. What are your thoughts?

There is something beautiful and tragic and meaningful about the stories etched upon our skin by powers beyond our control. I don't think the people that wish for Amputee Link or Dragon Zelda think that 'dying for a cause' is the only reward for sacrifice. It comes from the truth that most of us don't get to recover from the consequences of our actions the way characters in a story can. Which I absolutely get (one of my earliest fics was written to call out anime fanservice). To escape with no scars or signs that anything awful happened can feel unrealistic or like cheating in a world where we must bear the consequences of our actions. But is that really what happened?

First off is the Doyalist framework the story has to exist within. This is a video game for a major franchise that, while they are excellent at re-writing and ignoring their own canon, still needs to be available for future stories to be told through it. After all the emphasis botw placed on the 'goddess bloodline', if they were to kill Zelda, or even render her sterile, that puts a huge shadow over any future games they could make. You don't kill Harry in the Order of the Phoenix. The stories of Hyrule are far from over, even if this would be a satisfying end point for the timeline. Heck, there's no guarantee Link's not going to wake up in his underwear in a damp cave a third time, tbh. That's the reality of why Zelda had to return to her old body.

But does that mean that totk is a bad story? Does it render Zelda's sacrifices meaningless? Do these sacrifices only have meaning if she came back visibly changed?

I don't think so. Because the sacrifice was never about her body, it was always about her sense of self. "To become an immortal dragon is to lose ones' self" was the sacrifice that was demanded and that Zelda offered.

Guess what? She did have to leave Link to face Ganondorf without her. Zelda did lose all sense of herself for uncountable years. Zelda's memories, her sense of self, was stripped away from her and scattered across all of Hyrule.

It was only because Link loved her enough to collect the pieces of who Zelda was, only because he was able to understand them through the gift of Rauru's arm, and only because both Sonia and Rauru consigned themselves to living as spirits for as long as Zelda was a dragon, that Zelda's sense of self was returned.

It may feel like cheating, or maybe unearned, that Zelda got her body and sense of self back with no visible changes. But how many times have other people stepped in to help shoulder the consequences of your actions? How many times did your parents step in when you made a mistake, to give you another chance?

You ever leave the fridge open as a kid, and accidentally spoil all your food? In a family where money is tight, Mom and Dad might have to sacrifice eating full meals for a while so that their children can eat. That sacrifice is a form of love. If the neighbor hears about it (thin walls) and brings over some casseroles they took from their food stores, that took a few hours to make, does that diminish the parent's sacrifice for their kids? The consequences of that sacrifice, going hungry, have gone away because someone else stepped in.

The mistake was Rauru and Sonia's, letting Ganondorf in and not being strong enough to stop him. The sacrifice was Zelda's, her mind/memories/self. The intercessors are Rauru, Sonia, and Link, unwilling to let Zelda bear the full weight of her sacrifice.

Yes, we live in a world where we often do not get to walk away from the consequences of our sacrifices/choices unscathed. But we also live in a world where, every once and a while, we do get to walk away with only internal changes. Almost always because other people were willing to sacrifice too. Your parents? your siblings? Your friends? Your god?

Zelda's hylian body is a reflection of the sense of self she regained. Of her agency as a character instead of as a mindless dragon/a living sacred site. Zelda's character arc ends with her accepting the sacrifice demanded of her by reclaiming her responsibility towards the people of her Hyrule, taking up the mantle of power and leadership once again. The fact that other people step in to blunt the weight of that sacrifice does not degrade how Zelda changed to get there or what she went through.

It's actually the conclusion of Rauru, Sonia's, and Link's arcs that they also sacrificed to support Zelda. Her arc pulls all the others to their conclusions. Zelda is the narrative gravity of totk. I can't call that bad writing.

[sedat3dmaiden]

gonna say smth that seems controversial?? — i didn’t really care that zelda got shafted in totk/ was not expecting her to be playable and i genuinely think ppl were being delusional if they were, and i don’t think her not being actively present hurts her character arc from botw. it’s the way her character from botw gets completely retconned into a damsel-type character that carries over like none of her previous personality that really hurts her implementation in totk imo

[blueorchid1707]

He's so peculiar

[demiboydemon]

My thought was that she says it to him because it’s such a comforting fact to her and she thinks it will be comforting to him when he’s sad, too. She wants to share the good news 🐸

Cute but maybe slightly sad idea: maybe it’s how her mom comforted her in the past and it worked so well she thinks sharing frog facts is how you help sad people

Over 7,000 species of frog and Zelda wants Link to try all of them