#characters like ghanti being unabashed mary sues

[flurrin]

Hey, I saw one of your older posts saying how Midna isn't a tsundere, could you maybe explain that a bit more if that's alright. P.S. I don't like the Twilight Princess manga either and I liked your posts about how the manga messed up Midna and Link's character/story. The manga is just...NOT the Twilight Princess I know and love. Not even the Midlink moments can make it up for me (yes, I'm a Midlink shipper don't judge me).

Sure! For those who don’t know (and are rightly wary of googling anime terms), a tsundere is a Japanese character trope where a female love interest is mean to the protagonist because she likes him, gradually warming up over the course of the show to be nice to him even though her feelings were clear from the beginning. (Since I hate the trope, I’m going to go on a brief tangent to plug a GREAT example of a tsundere: Kurisu Makise from Steins;Gate, who is irritable towards the main character because he’s obnoxious to her when they first meet and warms up to him only when he starts acting like a gentleman and/or comes to her for help. Her behavior is also influenced by her experience with physically abusive men, which is a great detail, because it means she puts up walls between herself and the protagonist to protect herself for a very good reason.)

Midna is not this! She has a few of the trappings, of course--she calls Link idiotic, she has a little fang, she’s irritable, etc. But that’s just shallow surface resemblance, and a tsundere characterization here is not an added complexity, it actually makes her a flatter character. In the game, Midna’s character is very clearly motivated: she lost her throne and she wants it back (drive), humans are beneath her or openly against her (hostility), and at the beginning of the game she doesn’t even LIKE Link--she tolerates him because she wants to use him (baiting him constantly), and she admits to that later. Her growth FROM being this character is very important. She doesn’t get sweet and vulnerable just because she grows to like Link. Ultimately her biggest attitude change (but not the only one, if you’re checking for subtleties in the way she speaks) is just before Zelda sacrifices herself for Midna. She’s realized at this point, from Link’s interactions with the children and others, that the people of this world AREN’T stupid or evil, that they’re people just like the Twili, and worth saving, and when Zelda gives her the chance to save both worlds, she takes that responsibility very seriously for the rest of the game, but more importantly, takes on humbled language with Link (a commoner, but her FRIEND!), asking him to accompany her instead of forcing him to.

I can’t give you good examples from the manga because I didn’t continue reading and much of it is, mercifully, wiped from my brain at this point. But from what I remember, Himekawa wants Midna to already be in love with Link near the very beginning of the story, because she wants female readers to invest in that romance (because NOTHING ELSE is interesting to female readers, right) and that just doesn’t fit her character--she can’t be distracted from the horrible tragedy her people are facing that easily, and she shouldn’t be flipping between “It’s not like I LIKE you, b-baka” and “Zant enslaved my people and cursed me” it’s SUCH a tonal problem. Like my other posts says, it’s better for Midna to be monstrous at the beginning so we can see how far she’s come. It’s okay if she’s not likeable or beautiful (THEY SHOWED HER TRUE FORM ON THE FIRST FRICKING PAGE) because Link is the one we’re following, and she’ll be with him for the long haul.

I’m a MidLink shipper too (I’m a multishipper anyway), honestly I think Twilight Princess’s narrative has GREAT potential for romance, but Midna has to be a well-rounded character to benefit from that--she has her own goals and motivations and so does Link and it’s only when they start to work together that their relationship shines.