#especially ss zelda

[veggiecorner]

go go fight it out

[laniardraws]

This is what his first boss fight looked like to me

Based on that one jojo meme (under the cut) except Link doesn’t have the swag

[carrotsnake]

my tinfoil hat totk theory is that this scene

garnered so much rage from gamer boys that nintendo added it onto their list of things to improve on from skyward, and this is why every npc sucks on link’s knob like it’s corn on the cob

[scootatwoni]

The strongest warriors are those that love botw but don't ship zelink (me its me I'm the strongest warrior)

[phoenixcatch7]

Loz headcanon I will defend to my dying breath:

Links soul gets reincarnated, right? He's the only soul that does that, weird doppelganger shopkeepers notwithstanding because they never remember anything. Not even zelda reincarnates, her legacy is her bloodline and it's magic. Ganon turned up after hylians has come to the surface.

His soul bonds carry over, as we see with the master sword. She can identify him no matter how many eons pass. The triforce is never with anyone but link.

Now loftwings were said to be soul bound to their rider, right? They come during a ceremony at the foot of the goddess statue and live with their rider for the rest of their lives, able to come when called over vast distances.

Now links loftwing that goes unnamed in canon (linked universe chose the name Crimson) is a very unusual bird. Zelda goes out of her way to talk about the exceptionally rare red colouring and how loyal and feisty it is.

Gee, I say, a uniquely red with white mount that is incredibly feisty and loyal to link known to ride like the wind, able to come to him across any distance, that seems to almost reincarnate alongside him whenever possible.

Link's loftwing was called epona and she's followed him through life and death to stay by his side.

[geekeryisafoot]

I don't know what it is that the BotW and TotK soundtracks lack, but they lack something. Baring a few songs, nothing really hits the way older Zelda tracks do. I remember humming along subconsciously when sailing the ocean in Wind Waker and my mom laughing at me, I would linger in Zora's domain in Twilight Princess just to hear the music, the godess realm tracks in Skyward Sword were beautifully eerie and nerve-wracking and a major part of what made them so terrifying, I listen to the Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword soundtracks while working and pause every once in awhile just to soak it in. Hell even Spirit Tracks had me humming along with the overworld theme

I've been listening to the Breath of the Wild soundtracks while working and it was just... background noise. Almost nothing had me humming along, nothing was making me stop work for a moment to seep myself in the music or memories. While the Twilght Princess soundtrack is making me do that nearly every song. I'm sure nostalgia is a major part of this, but it just makes me sad to have lost whatever it was that made the music so so iconic

[elibean]

Iiii still don’t like this zelda. She’s fine, it’s just, I like SS Zelda so much more, she had so much more life to her

[rawliverandgoronspice]

I think what chronically upsets me about TotK is that. So much of it could have been so good with so little change.

I am into Zelda as a sacrificial, wondrous and silenced creature who must literally carry the blade of the hero as a wound inside her forehead and silently wait to be humanized again --and the injustice of a kingdom built on such a premice doomed to repeat itself, especially if the kingdom was founded on such dubious grounds to begin with. I am into Ganondorf forcing the present to reckon with the past through the most violent clash, forsaking everything that made him a person while sinking down into petty vindictiveness until no connection and no humanity remains, even though independance was what he was trying to protect in the first place. I am into Link as somebody trying to hold onto his most important connection to the world he once knew being used to force him into a conflict that has ultimately nothing to do with him (sure that's SS again but, it could have been explored even further). I am into Rauru as this self-important, self-made king who used his own association to godhood to live out a power fantasy that refuses to ever be acknowledge as such, maybe compounded by the fact he is one of the last of his species and feel, himself, the crushing weight of their fading heritage?

I don't know, the Tears of the Kingdom or something????

But, it all tragically depends on one crucial thing, which is to allow hylians to be wrong sometimes.

And it's wild to me how all of this incredible potential to comment on the series' history and the characters' role in it is just. Flattened into nothing, because Good must be Good and Evil must be Evil, and Hyrule must be righteous at literally every cost --even if it means nervously rewriting their own history through convoluted logic that rejects conflict and depth and vulnerability at every turn.

[the-moon-files]

Who do you think you could beat in a fight? like no weapons, not power gloves/bracelets, just bare hands and a dream.

BARE HANDS AND A DREAMMMM

who let u be this funny kota lmao

Tbh, me v. anything stronger than a chicken or a chuchu, they winning.

Ive only Just started going to the gym, i have very little muscle that isnt from carrying groceries, so hands down, not many things i would realistically fight in botw/loz games in general

If ur talking abt the Links tho?? Uh, none. 💀

Im not that delusional (yet), i mean i guess if u wanna get creative with it, I think, personally,

I could beat some of them in a drinking game lol

Like maybe Sky, Hyrule, Four, Wild, and (to his lightweight dismay) Legend, just bc im not a lightweight so thatd be funny

But general strength? Nah probably none of them

But u wanna hear my delusional takes on this, like if i would just swing regardless of actual strength discrepancy,

Weirdly enough, Hylia? LMAO

*

(Warning, Hylia bashing, if u like her a lot for whatever reason and are going to feel the need to comment in her defense, pls find another post to do that on, this rlly isnt that serious)

*

Alright, let me explain, let me explainnn

So i saw LU blogs defend this better than me, but basically Hylia (not Zeldas) is like lowkey another root cause for problems in Hyrule, she kind of encourages this endless cycle of abuse of "heroes" or mortals, to enlist in this eternal battle against Demise/Ganon, when he's technically immortal, and she should be fighting him herself.

Or at least not making mortals (who can Die) fight for her, especially with the setup being a SINGULAR MORTAL. like not even an army of mortals

(Like i get it, its for stupid-plot-not-rlly-thought-out-reasons so the games get to exist, but suspend ur disbelief pls, assuming this is now a real universe that ive got dropped into)

There are other reasons, like how she possesses every Zelda lowkey against her will, or without her permission to be in her body at least, and that she sort of? I thought, like? Wants to to be with Link every time? Feels kinda creepy?

Idk that one may not be true, but there are way cooler blogs out there that have a nicer receipt list of beef with Hylia, pls find them

But most importantly, if u take nothing else away from this, its that, someone out there, in the depths of LU tumblr, gave reasonable, logical, justifications about how Legend could take down Hylia on his own.

She's basically all magic, so if she suddenly had no more magic in this scenario, im betting that i could at least tackle her and turn it into a bar fight lol

Revenge for all the Links u could say,

I actually thought abt making a fic that had smth like this premise, but eh, ive got so much to write abt rn i havent taken it on

Plus, hey, who doesn't wanna fight God a little?

Hope that answered ur question! Or at least was entertaining!

Sorry if u rlly like Hylia for whatever reason and i just shat on her for like a small paragraph, idk, just unread it or smth

(Im still watching a playthru of SS, but i think i also could specifically take Ghirahim in a arm wrestling contest, ok thank you, good night)

Peace out,

🌙

[jayietheriverwarrior]

I've been picking at this one for a while between working on other things, and I'm honestly really happy with how it turned out. :D It's so different from my usual style, I never draw people or horses, and the sort of animated style of it and more stylized shading is so removed from what I usually do, but I think it turned out really good. :D

I bought the new Zelda game Echoes of Wisdom the day it came out, and while I hadn't been wild about the chibi style and top-down camera view going in, I was still excited about getting to play as Zelda, and I ended up enjoying the game despite those initial hesitations far more than I expected. :D The story was engaging, the flexibility of echoes and various ways to use them was a ton of fun, and even with the chibi style the game had some truly gorgeous moments.

But even though I didn't end up minding the chibi style while playing the game nearly as much as I thought I would, I still just wanted to see what Zelda's design, outfit, and horse would look like in the more anime-ish style of BOTW/TP/SS/TOTK, so I decided to try my hand at drawing it, despite the fact that I haven't drawn humans or horses in literal years. XD I think it turned out pretty good in view of that. I liked aspects of Zelda's main adventuring outfit in the game, especially the ponytail, but something about the cut of the skirt (or were those pants?) was bothering me, so I spent most of the game in the blue dress you can get from a Zelda amiibo, and that's the dress I most wanted to see in this style, so that's what I drew her in despite it being a super side option in the game itself. :P Ah well. It's pretty, and I regret nothing.

I used that promo shot of BOTW Zelda standing all dramatic as a reference. I used her chibi design from EOW as a base, then for the details the chibi didn't show (like eye color/detailed face shape/etc.) I kind of mixed and matched from various games. She's got a narrower face and eyes than her BOTW design, but not as narrow as her TP design, it's kind of a mix of those two looks, with some SS Zelda thrown in for flavor. She's got the bright yellow golden hair from the EOW chibi, with the blue eyes of most of the Zelda designs (minus BOTW which is more teal-ish?). I think it works well for a Zelda design overall without looking like a carbon copy of any one Zelda design, if that makes sense.

Overall, I'm really proud of how this turned out. :D

[elstreem]

Enjoying smoothies under the sunshine, with friends.

I finished Echoes of Wisdom recently and it was very fun! As someone whose very first Zelda games were the Oracles duology, it made me so happy seeing some nods to it (froggy ring!) and just overall it was fun with a bite of challenge.

So I wanted to draw these three just enjoying their smoothies and talking as friends. I did want to push my skills further and decided to paint this rather than use line art - which, hm...well, it's better than what I've done, before, but it's still not what I want my art to look like. I especially feel unsure about the balance of colors...still need to study on that.

some details that might be spoiler-y, so I'll put them below the cut:

I don't think it completely comes across, but I intended Link to have this rather shy feel to him, I have this idea he's not used to using his voice to talk again and gets a little self-conscious about it, but Zelda puts him at ease. Also, headcanon that Link loves Floral Nectar in his smoothies since Suthorn Village sells it, so I assume it's made there and the taste reminds Link of home. I gave Zel a grape smoothie because it's readily available so I like to think she also has fondness for grapes for helping her in a pinch.

And yeah, if this happens after the game Tri can't be there, so feel free to interpret whether Tri is really there or just in spirit.

I also gave both of them scratches here and there because they had to be roughed up after everything they'd been through.

One last thing I want to talk about in EoW - I loved that it has the three goddesses come back, since Skyward Sword, BotW and TotK focused heavily on Hylia, so it was nice seeing the other goddesses come back. Not that I minded Hylia, I know some people have strong feelings about the establishing myth Zelda has set up with SS, but I did miss the other goddesses. Again, my first games were the Oracles duology, so I'm very fond of Din, Nayru and Farore (I know, I know, again, debatable if the Oracles are the same as the Goddesses or just women that were named after them, but I always chose to see it as the Oracles being aspects of them made manifest).

Other stuff I choose to see as throwbacks to Oracles were the River and Sea Zora both appearing, and of course the Smog boss fight. Annoying as ever, that cloud, but it feel sweet scoring victory with my Octoroks ahaha.

[all-hail-trudos]

The way Zelda redditors behave like BotW is going to be the template for future titles is absolutely hilarious. They are convinced that Nintendo is done with classic Zelda elements forever. TotK proves it! Never mind that they can barely agree on whether this even deserves to be called a new game or overpriced DLC. Or that Nintendo themselves have said that this was a very big experiment, where they let a team comprised of mostly younger devs run the show, and the director of BotW has actually left the company to go work on Infinity Nikki of all things. I don't know what the future of Zelda is going to look like. I can't see Nintendo just walking back everything they did in BotW. (And they better not. Skyward Sword is the worst mainline Zelda title, and BotW was the exact opposite of the hand holding the series had gotten really bad for). However, we can guarantee one thing for sure. The open-air game concept that specifically defined Breath of the Wild and its direct sequel Tears of the Kingdom is not simply going to be the new template for the series.

I could leave it there with a "because Nintendo said so" but it's midnight and I'm already making bad decisions, so I'm going to go one further and back this up with a second supporting argument. That's not how Nintendo as a company works. That's not how they've ever worked. They stopped doing rational, clear iterative upgrades when they followed up the Gamecube with the Wii. The Zelda series itself has constantly been one of self reinvention. Ocarina of Time is incredibly special in that Breath of the Wild is the first time they've so clearly broken away from the model it set. But when you look at the rest of the series, it's obvious BotW was the biggest experiment, but not even remotely the first. Majora's Mask turned the main gameplay concept on its head by putting everything on a Very. Tight. Timer. When you hit midnight of the third day, that was it. Rewind or die. All your progress was reset except for your sword (iirc), your masks, and your rupees if you put them in the bank (because the banker was a time traveler?). Wind Waker flooded the whole continent and had you sailing around on a boat, using a proto-physics system to fill your sails. The wide open world of OoT was gone altogether, and Princess Zelda didn't show up until halfway through the game (we won't talk about what they did to Tetra). Twilight Princess made the game super linear and made Zelda herself almost secondary to the plot. Actually, TP almost feels like the most direct callback to OoT with the doubling down on horse mounted combat, an art style that looked more like it next to whatever WW was doing (but which would ultimately age a lot worse), dungeons that also felt more directly inspired, and a combat system that was a little less fluid and reactive. But it also had Link temporarily become a werewolf, and gave us an egregiously underappreciated Spaghetti Western shootout that came out of nowhere and was all together too brief. Then Skyward Sword came along, which was the least reinventive of the bunch mechanically, but which did at least try to turn the classic narrative on its head. Also Zelda went from being barely there to being a driving character in the narrative. And she walked so BotW Princess Zelda could run. That said, imho, you can see why they leaned so much harder into experimentation with their next game that nearly skipped a whole console generation, because by SS the series tropes were getting a little too strong. The series was actually drifting into iterative territory, and that's not the typical Nintendo way. Especially not with one of their two core in-house franchises.

(Please don't bring up Pokemon here. I know it's Nintendo's third core franchise. But please remember, Zelda and Mario are solely owned by Nintendo, while Pokemon is at this point is at the center of an entire corporate conglomerate, which Nintendo is only part of).

I get that some people didn't enjoy BotW. I can sympathize with the people who did not want more like it and who were consequently less than thrilled by TotK's arrival. But bemoaning the fall of the franchise and saying Nintendo is going to be like Ubisoft, EA, and all the other trend chasing studios out there is really going too far. Nintendo has spent too many years baffling investors to start doing that now. Yes, Tears of the Kingdom exists. No, it's not proof of the trend. It was a planned sequel (itself an enormously rare concept in Zelda history). You can't make a planned story and gameplay sequel to a game and just throw away the concept you're following up on. That would be an enormously bad idea. (Worse, even, than trying to make your sequel game stand on its own for new players and erasing nearly all memory of Link from the same people he helped save. I love TotK so much, but I am not blind to its flaws, what few there are).

ALSO yes Echoes of Wisdom has Zelda stacking beds into a diy staircase. NO that doesn't mean we're seeing a return of this apparently beloathed systems-based physics gameplay in 2D fashion. If there were physics, the beds would have fallen over. That's like calling Minecraft or Dragon Quest Builders a physics based exploration game just because they have objects you can stack. That is the dumbest take I've seen come out of a community that is profoundly skilled at coming out with dumb takes.

[fieldsofbran87]

Okay post number 2 I’ll actually explain myself.

Every time I think about Impa I go bonkers but ESPECIALLY when I think about Impa and Ganondorf/Demise. These two are having a full on SAGA off screen and Nintendo is just too afraid of the raw energy their dynamic would bring. They would steal the show if let loose. Zelda and Link’s soulmate bond would pale in comparison to their absolutely fucked up 8D chess eternal rivalry. They’ve been playing the “too different to ever be friends, too similar to hate each other” game for centuries and it’s high time we addressed it lmao

Despite having about one scene of on-screen interaction and no dialogue together, Impa and Ganondorf are pretty clearly set up to be narrative foils. Impa is the servant of the goddess, the protector of Zelda, and guide to Link. Ganondorf is the rebel, the Demon King, and the opponent of the Princess and the Hero. Impa is defined by her selflessness, time and again devoting her life to serving Hylia and the Royal Family, even at a price for herself. Ganondorf, in contrast, is characteristically selfish; seeking to fulfill his own goals at the expense of others.

The Sheikah and the Gerudo are foils too. Both suffer the subjugation of the Royal Family, and both are the only other two human races besides Hylians. However, the Sheikah for the most part conform to their roles, serving the Royal Family, (therefore labeled as “good” by the Hylian narrative), while the Gerudo actively resist that regime (and are hence labeled as “bad”).

(The Yiga Clan is also a very curious facet of this issue, but that’s a whole other can of worms I don’t really feel equipped to discuss right now.)

Impa and Ganondorf are also tied together through their game appearances. Impa does not appear in a game without Ganon, and while Ganondorf sometimes appears without Impa, two of those occasions are Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. The same man as OOT, who has already met her. (FSA idk what’s going on there lmao. She wanted a break and that’s valid.) Timeline wise, they also return together after SS, both appearing in OOT after not being present during Minish Cap or FS. Intentionally or not, if one of them is there, the other will be too.

Impa and Ganondorf are undoubtedly paired together in the cycle, although less explicitly than Zelda and Link. They balance out the four, with Link and Zelda being destined always to find each other and work together, whereas Ganondorf and Impa are destined always to work against each other. Ganon attacks the kingdom, and Impa facilitates the resistance.

For all their differences, Impa and Ganondorf often operate in very similar ways. Throughout many of the games, they’re both working behind the scenes; nudging the heroes or their minions in the direction they want like chess pieces on a board. Ganondorf is more explicit in this (ex: Zant, Vaati, etc) but it’s important to remember that Impa is more than a passive side character. In Skyward Sword, she is directing Zelda down the path that leads to pretty much every major event in the game, and in Ocarina of Time, she raised Sheik and almost certainly sent him out to find Link. (Honestly, as much as Zelda is Hylia-incarnate, Impa is really the one pushing the Goddess’s agenda.) From these roles as orchestrators, they share a level a power over the narrative that the other characters don’t possess. Power that exists to contradict the other.

There’s also the scene in OOT where Impa escapes with young Zelda, pursued by Ganondorf, and it’s entirely possible they duked it out before the drawbridge bit. If so, then Impa’s escape implies a level of combat/magical power that is reasonably comparable to Ganondorf’s. I think it’s reasonable to say that Ganondorf likely outweighs Impa in raw strength, but she holds her ground surprisingly well. Ex: surviving the Calamity, escaping the castle in the OG game, also probably surviving the initial fight with Demise as Hylia’s guardian.

The icing on the cake to all of this is that when developing the lore, Impa was originally supposed to be a bearer of the Triforce with Link and Zelda. I checked the Hyrule Historia after seeing a post about Impa initially wielding Power and it’s true. She was originally supposed to be a guardian alongside Link and Zelda, not Ganon. And I just… oh my gosh the implications of that.

Looking at Impa through the lens of not necessarily someone who was destined to wield Power in canon, but someone who conceivably could is so fascinating. It makes her connection to Ganondorf all the more potent, not just as foils, but as two people who could just as easily be each other as oppose each other. In Ocarina of Time, for example, it’s not hard to picture an Impa who took a similar path as Ganondorf. Her people have been brought to the brink of near extinction, mostly thanks to the Royal Family. It’s entirely conceivable that she might find herself drawn to the Triforce just as much as Ganon was, seeking not coveted wind, but the undoing of so many lost lives.

All of this just sets the ground work for an absolutely fascinating relationship, and it drives me nuts that the games never explore it. Impa and Ganondorf both share a great deal of ambiguity regarding their intentions, motives, and overall feelings, and focusing on the two of them would open the doors to aspects of their character we haven’t seen. Being non-Hylian, older, and typically more world weary than Link and Zelda, they have a perspective on the cycle that is intriguing, and almost certainly not as positive. I think that would be neat to see.

Demise and Impa also have some interesting potential, especially considering how much time they spent in proximity. Like she spent centuries guarding the Imprisoned, as well as the sword he was sealed in. Did they ever speak? Did she know him from before he was sealed? Did he respect her skill and power the way he respected Link’s? There’s so many brain worms there.

Anyway, I have so many more thoughts on these two but honestly they’re better expressed via creative writing lmao. I can’t even begin to describe the absolutely insanity that their interactions would be. They’re like mortal enemies and begrudging friends and bitter exes and strangers in the same sad situation and hot messes all at once.

[jullbnt]

Hello again :D I could be wrong, but I think Skyward Sword has the Zelink romance you're looking for! Or at least it's heavily implied!

Hello!! Oh yes Skyward Sword clearly has it and that’s what I love most about it!

The thing is, SS is one of my least favorites in the series :/

I found the game a bit tedious and the motion controls really made SS Link look like an idiot haha (especially after TP’s amazing combat). Also the time travels make no sense it drives me crazy!! I can elaborate on this point if anyone is interested but I will spare you this rant for now ^^

(I’ve been thinking about this lately because of a project I’m working on, and may have a few ideas to fix it. I’ll tell you more about it someday if I ever manage to make things coherent)

So to sum up yes I love SS Link and Zelda!! But I’m not nearly as obsessed with their game as I am with others ^^

Now if the question is "will I draw these two someday", the answer is definitely yes :))

(Also I think Zelink is implied in BotW/TotK as well, but they’re not my favorites either)

[loz-furbies]

Skyward Sword Zelda

Design

Now for something completely different since Zelda is a commoner this time! I think the outfit works well, it’s not too busy but it also has plenty of memorable details (I especially like the sailcloth around her shoulders) and the green and pink ribbons in her hair. And while the overall design is very different from the usual Zelda looks, the blue cloth on her waist at least reminds me of the “aprons” a little.

Mixed feelings about the white dress, the Hyrule crest collar is great, but everything else in the dress is really simple and basic so it feels a little out of place. However I like the white dress when she’s depicted with botw Zelda in her white dress, it’s a nice contrast how one has long flowy sleeves and the other has no sleeves at all.

Character

Skyward Sword Zelda has a charming and playful personality, making her super likable, and overall she really feels like an ideal girl-next-door type. As Link's childhood friend she's incredibly supportive of him, but also not above calling him out for being lazy or lightly teasing him. And she can be quite stern and gutsy when needed, as seen when she puts Groose and his cronies in place when she finds them bullying Link.

To some extent Zelda does feel a bit too much of idealised manic pixie dream girl to the more down-to-earth MC-kun that is Link. A considerable amount of her lines are spent on speaking positively of Link too, and we don't get to know much about what else she has going on in her life besides Link and the Plot.

A notable example of this is her status as a student of the knight academy, why is that not touched at all? Why was her role to give a trophy to the flight competition winner and not take part in it herself? Even if she's at a different stage from Link in her studies, shouldn't she still have something to say about their shared goal? I've seen some fans attribute the fact that she made it through a dungeon on her own to being a knight student, but I'm not giving the game credit for that.

We do get to know that she was interested in the surface even before the events of the story, and apparently has a knitting hobby judging by the items in her room. Which... okay I've been a bit too hard on her, as it's incredibly rare for any of the Zeldas to have a hobby at all and I do give SS Link points for his wood carving hobby too. It's just that so many of her lines are spent on gushing over Link so I guess I would have needed more stuff that's specific to her alone to balance that out.

Once she finds out about her role as the reborn goddess she becomes more serious and gloomy, but is still very much recognisable as the same character. Which has not been a given in the history of Zeldas with multiple personas, so good for her.

We don't get to know a lot about how regaining an unspecified amount of memories of her previous life has affected her sense of self, but I figure it has had at least some effect since she sometimes switches to first person, notably when apologising to Link about involving him in the grand anti-demise plan (which at least to me clearly isn't SS Zelda's fault). Though there's not any question if the goddess persona had somehow taken over, since the greatest line of the game "I'm still your Zelda" exists.

Ultimately while I think SS Zelda gets close to the line of being too much of a perfect fantasy waifu, she doesn't cross it and remains incredibly charming.

Role in the story

The game has a very slow beginning, where a lot of time is spent setting up Link and Zelda's relationship and ordinary life. And while the characters are the biggest draw for me in these games, I think there would have been room to condense the story a bit. Even if you really like the characters, in a video game you can reach a point where you're just hoping them to get on with it so you can actually play the game, which isn't exactly helpful if you're supposed to like the characters. But if you don't get frustrated with the slow start, Zelda is set up extremely well as someone you'd want to save.

After the setup she falls into a tornado, and the first part of the game is spent chasing after her and trying to figure out what's going on with her. You get more information about her bit by bit, so she clearly remains as the goal. Once you do catch up with her, it's after she was just rescued by Impa, who chides Link for having been too late to do anything himself. For me this worked just fine because I was really bad at the game, so her criticism was perfectly fair, but I wonder how better players felt about when the plot mandates that their perfect performance is judged to be a failure?

Eventually both Zelda and Link travel to the past, where Zelda explains herself as the reborn goddess and commits to her duty to seal Demise's curse for thousands of years, which changes the game's objective from trying to solve the mystery around her to a more clear rescue mission. Sealing herself to magic sleep is Zelda's big moment and the the game really plays it up, and to great success because that scene is beautiful. After that she doesn't really do much though, like because her darkness-sealing moment happens in the middle of the game (and chronologically before the main part of the gameplay since we're in the past here) and the grand finale darkness sealing is done by the Master Sword, there's not a lot of room for Zelda and she ends up with more of a victim role.

It is also kind of disappointing how Zelda gets damseled twice in the same game. I guess I can kind of see that since Link and Zelda's relationship is such a big part of the story, it makes sense that her life would be at risk when the stakes need to be at their stakiest, but I really wish they could have thought of something else than have her be woken up from her magical coma for five minutes before getting immediately kidnapped for the bad guys' evil resurrection ritual.

The end credits show snippets of Zelda's life after she fell to the surface, met Impa and started following her duty. Which was of course great but also a somewhat odd place to put it, and made me wonder if it was originally supposed to be shown somewhere during the story but got cut. And then they just put it in the credits since the scenes were already animated. But in any case it's nice to see more of Zelda's journey, even if strictly didn't offer any new information.

Relationships

As usual Zelda's most important relationship is with Link, and this time there even is more to it than a single line that they're childhood friends. Or they are childhood friends, and while in general I'm a big hater of this trope being so common in Japanese media, at least here it's used with a purpose, as the Goddess' master plan involved specifically preparing a hero who'd go to the ends of earth for her reborn form.

I said about Link and Zelda in Spirit Tracks that their relationship doesn't get any specific development and is more just about that they went on an adventure together and you have to imagine that they grew closer during that. Meanwhile in Skyward Sword they clearly know and care about each other as people and it's not just about like, general human empathy towards someone in trouble, which certainly makes their relationship more interesting.

So as I complained earlier, a lot of Zelda's lines are about Link. She gently teases him for being a sleepyhead, goes out of her way to arrange him time to practice for the flying competition and knows to send her loftwing to wake him up, asks his opinion on her ceremonial costume, asks him out to fly together which is totally written to look like a date, and so on. Some of her behaviour comes out as so flirty that it makes me think if she's all astonished at Link for being so oblivious. And she states multiple times that she wishes that Link will be the one to win the flying competition, so she can do the celebration ceremony with him, or how amazing he was when he managed to do that. The last point was brought up so many times that it just got really heavy handed, and I do think that some of it should have been cut, but just as it was entering actual cringe territory, an alternate explanation emerged that she actually wanted to talk about these ominous premonitions she's had, but had trouble bringing it up and was stalling for time.

Also it's just beautiful how the whole sleeping thing goes full circle, with Link being the notorious sleepyhead in the beginning, but Zelda requesting that it's Link's turn to wake her up as she's about to enter her magic sleep. Really shows that she has a lot of trust in him.

Meanwhile Link doesn't talk outside dialogue options as usual, so you don't get as much from his side, but his expressions when he looks at Zelda in many scenes tell a lot about how he cares about her.

In general their relationship skirts around being a romance but doesn't fully confirm anything (or at least that I can remember). After Link wins the flying contest, a scene where it looks like Zelda is about to kiss him is set up, but instead she pushes him off the ledge to complete the ceremony. And maybe she was just so coy about the "date" in the clouds because it was all about trying to gather courage and find a good moment to bring up a difficult topic, and Link's determined responses how he'll certainly save Zelda are totally platonic? But like, obviously a scene that teases a possible kiss is put in for a reason and the game ends with a shot of their loftwings flying together after Zelda tells about her future plans to live on the surface and asks what Link wants to do, so I'd say you need some serious anti-shipping goggles to ignore what's being implied.

Also since I brought it up for Spirit Tracks, Link and Zelda hold hands in this game too.

Impa is in the game as well in the role of Zelda's bodyguard, guide and friend, and this time offers a more meaningful relationship with her than her previous incarnations. Impa is fulfilling her job at assisting Zelda do hers, but they also clearly care about each other. We don't get to see them that much though, so their personal relationship isn't defined too well. Like Impa acts as a servant and refers to Zelda with "your grace", and Zelda just goes along with it and we don't know if she tried to establish a more equal relationship. In one of the end credits snippets we see Zelda doing this cute happy skip when she's walking with Impa and it looks like she's having fun, and these four seconds are probably their most casual scene together.

It's also really sweet when it's revealed that the old woman who helps the cast in the present timeline is actually Impa, so Zelda gets one more chance to meet her. Or it's kind of funny how they saying their goodbyes in the past but Impa reassures that they'll meet again, and after some time travel from Zelda's perspective the reunion in present time is literally just a few minutes later, and then Impa actually dies and they're separated for a second time. But obviously it was about how Impa had been hanging in there for thousands of years so she could still help Zelda and Link with their duty.

In any case Zelda and Impa's bond is clearly strong, even if we don't see the details. It also makes me think of how different this is from BotW Zelda's situation, and how things might have turned out for her if she had a mentor how knows what to do and also is emotionally supportive.

Groose primarily acts as a rival to Link, which includes being a romantic rival for Zelda's affections. He's not any threatening at it at all though since his feelings are clearly one sided, but it's not exactly clear what Zelda thinks about him. He is introduced when he has hidden Link's loftwing so that Link couldn't take part in the flying competition, and Zelda immediately jumps in to take Link's side. After that Groose's character development happens while Zelda is away, and next time they meet Groose behaves in a more respectable manner and Zelda appears to be happy to see him.

Like everyone else in Skyloft, she also has her own loftwing buddy, and much fuss is made about how everyone is soul-bonded to their bird. None of this really shows up about Zelda's relationship to her loftwing, who doesn't even get a name, though to be fair neither does Link's. In general I think the loftwings were hugely underdeveloped considering how much time you have to spend on one flying around.

Zelda also has a father with whom she actually gets to interact with, but I don't get much anything out of that except that they have a normal/good relationship.

[phoenixcatch7]

Okay you know what actually yeah. I was tired but I had a point.

Why. On earth. In zelda fics. Do people not shut up about everything being hylia's fault forever and ever.

Like, the one deity out of a dozen odd who got cursed into this right alongside Link. All the focus on one great all being power who then gets blamed or blessed for everything that ever happens. It's just... I don't know, it just seems like a culturally Christian thing. Not even that - American catholic.

Especially Legend omg when people write him he never shuts up about how everything bad that's ever happened to him is all hylia's fault and she's doing it on purpose with no thought to her poor beleagured hero. He sounds like someone who grew up in an American conservative household who turned out to be queer and never bothered to unpack any of it and acts like he's now atheist.

But even then you could do something interesting with that!! The common headcanon that Legend is hylian royalty - of course that family would put immense worth and worship on hylia as her descendants, she who founded their kingdom. And maybe legend could feel bitter about not inheriting the magic, or the throne, or whatever meant he grew up away from the castle. Give him some unexamined religious trauma! Heck, he could bond with Flora over disappointing your family's expectations or something! They could work on unpacking it together! If you must make it part of his character at least think about why!

Because that belief is wrong, because hylia is literally the one deity we can pretty safely understand is not all seeing, all knowing, all being.

Every time she has a voice, a role, we see her make mistakes or be tricked and have regrets.

Skyward sword, she's literally zelda. She's a young protective warrior goddess (she used a sword and lead armies to battle against demise) who was created by the Three to guard the triforce and keep watch over hyrules lands. By the time ss starts she's already made several tough calls, not limited to yoinking hylians into the sky. When she was zelda she hated every second of leading Link around and even then!! It all hinged on him being completely willing! He was never forced to do anything, she didn't even have her memories with the plan until after she'd fallen to the surface! Their relationship was entirely genuine and she very nearly overestimated her own willingness to go through with the plan! And even then she still managed to get kidnapped lmao. That's not what happens when you're in charge of fate.

And in botw and totk - she's in her full divine form, her full divine powers, she's ancient and magic and worshipped in every corner of the kingdom. And (spoilers!) she loses contact with one of her own mf statues. Not just any ten apples high chibi statue you see in the towns, no, it's The Big One. She's got no idea what happened to it, but she's (rightfully) worried, and asks Link to check it out. And in an entirely separate instance, her OTHER big statue in the ToT gets overridden!! By a triangle head! And ol creep in the deep is the one who releases the statue! It's been what 20k years of power and worship - if she's not all powerful then she never will be.

Hyrule - every hyrule - is very, very polytheistic. She's not even a goddess of time to be in charge of stuff like that! There's multiple of them: Naryu, Cia (and Lana), Farosh to an extent, and many artifacts that can cause time travel, like the harp of ages, the ocarina, the big portal in ss, those time shift stones in the same game, the statue in wind waker. Please stop treating her like the magic elf equivalent of Monotheistic American Christianity God.

She was introduced in skyward sword. The game that came out before botw. She did not exist in any of the games that came before that. There was a lake hylia! In the kingdom hyrule! That's it! Her name or even existence wasn't even hinted at before that. It's actually canonically pretty unlikely any of the chain (cough cough legend) have even heard of her! And her assigned job is protector of the triforce. That's it. And she can't even use the thing. She can very explicitly as a main driving force of the ss plot not use the triforce she protects. And the triforce, shockingly, is not even in every game.

Cases that hylia often gets the most flack for (links awakening and all the trauma from that, Link failing in botw, the events of totk) hylia has absolutely zero part in. Hilariously. And she has zero power over wishes made to the triforce or who makes those wishes or what the triforce does about it.

She even gets all the blame for the cycle of the hero, the reincarnation! Which? We know exactly how that happened. Blaming her for a curse she herself is a victim to?? Demise, in skyward sword, explicitly, on screen, doing it ON PURPOSE, cursing the spirit of the hero and the blood of the goddess.

Hylia, I don't know if you've noticed, also has her own blood. Whether or not she lost that blood upon return to her divine form, she still couldn't break the curse. Link, spirit now tied to whatever demise had cooking up, is basically to reincarnate in time for whenever the Interesting Times happen. And it's demise's fault, who, again, did it on screen, on purpose, explicitly, pointing at the camera with text bolded and everything.

So why do people even blame her? I think it comes down to this:

Her name matches the kingdom. Whatever her connection to the people with the same name, I don't know, but she did found the surface kingdom as a mortal. Being named zelda at the time I wonder who chose the name XD!

Her worship in botk as a high ranking deity. Again, not monotheistic, there's temples to the Three and there's Malanya and Satori and the great fairies and the yiga worship ganon, but hylia is the most widespread for all she's basically a side character working for the new heart piece situation. Again, this is only the case in ss/botk, she doesn't appear in even aoc.

A misguided belief spread in fanfiction that in linked universe, hylia is the one opening and controlling the portals. To my knowledge, lu canon is that the portals are opened by dark link, or at least that's the working theory. I think it's assumed that hylia is the one who gathered the heroes together to combat it? If that's true? Congratulations! We have one (very plot necessary) act of hers in a fan comic. That is not canon to The Legend Of Zelda series.

An american Christian (I hesitate to say evangelican?) cultural understanding of religion. The differences between polytheism and monotheism. How one might feel if the divine was proven real on earth. Zelda is a Japanese property, it is not a Christian country. Though it draws aesthetic inspiration from western medieval fantasy it is not and never will be culturally western. The majority of ao3/tumblr users are American or at least English speaking, and that will always affect interpretation. It's giving 'be thankful to God no matter what for he always has a plan. Trust in him and your suffering will be rewarded' which is not a universal religious belief.

Something I've noticed to be surprisingly common in fandom, is where a mentor or figure of authority who is anything less than perfect or all forgiving can very quickly have their reputation ripped to shreds by the fandom. And then newer authors come, read those works, internalise that about the characters and produce new works that assume that character's cruelty to be par for the course. I will not be listing those characters or fandoms for a variety of reasons lol. But it is amazingly common and very hard to untangle, especially in larger fandoms. It's character bashing in a way near identical to cancelling people irl. It's not 'giving them depth' or 'making it more realistic' (grittier equalling realism is an ice cold take proliferated by dudebro comic authors and wrong besides.) Have some critical thinking.

Lately, I've also been running into a great many fics (not so much comics) that make hylia do some fairly heinous stuff... And then unironically blame her for it. They do remember they're the ones deciding what the characters do, right? She's not an abusive master playing with her puppets until they break, she's quite the opposite! Use the right tags (dark hylia/ooc characters/character bashing/author made them do it, idk) or dial it back. This is a growing percentage of fics and I'll never restrict content but yanno, if you're going to make hylia evil or manipulative at least understand it's a canon deviation (and do something interesting with it, I once read an amazing botw fic with evil hylia and fierce deity!).

TLDR, To summarise, hylia is canonically incapable both emotionally and physically of doing the majority of things characters in fics blame her for. Stop using her as a scapegoat especially when demise is right there. Please give your whumpees deeper characterisation than hating on hylia. Please give legend deeper characterisation than hating on hylia every time he or someone else is sad. Please remember wild can talk to hylia if he wants. Please double check anything you're not sure about :D!