#i also own BOTW and have not played it. it's been two years

[rawliverandgoronspice]

THE GERUDO POST

(aka an attempt at a critique of how gerudos were handled in BotW and before)

Oh no. TOTK being right around the corner, it might finally be time for the Gerudo Post.

(aka half of the reason why I made a Zelda sideblog in the first place)

So I want to preface all of this by saying that, as you could probably tell already, I’ve always adored the gerudos. They have fascinated my small child brain when I was 7; then the obsession made its comeback when I was 14, and now, here we are, almost 28, and I’m still thinking about the gerudos. I think they might be among my favorite fictional cultures for their potential and their understated storyline. I guess growing up in a very Arabic neighborhood, coupled with being bi-culturally latinx (?? does Brazil count?? you tell me), also always made them feel like home to me –especially when I was very young and there was not a lot of cool female representation flying around that managed to involve fiercely independent PoC women, flaws and teeth included.

This whole weird-essay-thing tries to do two things. First: analyze the place gerudos have occupied in the series, their initial problematisms and their subtextual narrative arc during the Myth Era coupled with their relationship to Ganondorf. Second: tiptoe to Breath of the Wild and poke it with a stick to see what happens –and in doing that, explain why I believe a lot of their characterization was defanged in service of smoothing their past with the hylians instead of deepening the culture on its own terms, and why I’m a little apprehensive about what that might mean for TotK even though I adore seeing the best girls at it again.

Those are the uhh terms of service??

And now, we must go back to 1998.

OCARINA OF TIME ERA

There’s so many things about the gerudos that are noteworthy and rich, and they’ve made for a complex piece of Zelda lore ever since their introduction –and when I say complex, I don’t 100% mean it as praise. The very racially charged decisions made about their inclusion have been discussed at length by the fandom, especially when it comes to orientalist and Islamophobic tropes being deployed pretty thoughtlessly in Ocarina of Time (their sigil being literally a crescent moon and star originally, the parallels are pretty obviously there).

We’re talking about a band of amazon-like, big-nosed brown women from the desert ruled by a single Scary Evil Man born once every hundred years hellbent on conquering Hyrule who they apparently worship like a god, characterized primarily as thieves, decked in jewelry and orientalist-inspired harem/belly-dancing clothing, hostile to the white good guys of Hyrule (especially men), unblessed by the Goddesses and so deprived of elongated ears (this is true for OoT –we’ll come back to that), also known as a demon tribe with their deity straight-out described as evil-looking by Navi (on my way to cancel you on twitter Navi you watch out), and secretly led by evil twin witches who can turn into a single seductress and, as two mothers, raised their Scary Evil Guy king who happens to basically be the devil.

In so few words, gerudos are the future that liberals want.

It’s worth notice, also, that Ganondorf’s characterization in this game is… kind of relentlessly uncomfortable to play through, especially before the 7 year skip. The utter assumption of depraved and evil intents from every character surrounded by dialogue that does little to hide its biases in spite of having generally very little proof to back them up –even though, in the game’s context, every character is correct to call his eyes evil and the darkness of his skin a moral judgment in on itself. The scene where Zelda demands that we believe her conclusion that the sole and only brown guy in the entire kingdom is evil and will do harm, and the game straight out refuses to progress until we concede that her dreams are prophetic and that this man must be stopped at any cost even though she has no more proof than her discomfort… hits different on replay.

I’m restating all of this not to pretend I’m making a novel and thought-provoking point, but to bounce back on a tumblr post I saw a while back (that I can’t find anymore!! I’ll link it if I find it again) –and so express what it is that gripped me with the gerudos in spite of their pretty damning depiction… and actually maybe thanks to it.

There’s a surprising amount of texture to Ocarina of Time’s worldbuilding that exists folded within the things introduced and left hanging, or in its subtext –and whether on purpose or not, I believe it is why people keep coming back to this iteration of Hyrule.

What was that about the king of Hyrule unifying a war-torn country? Why did the gerudos break the bridge connecting them to the rest of the kingdom during the 7 year timeskip while still worshiping Ganondorf, and why are the carpenters trying to rebuild it against their apparent wishes? What was that about gerudos imprisoning hylian men trying to force entry into their lands? What was that about the secret death torture chambers right next to the Royal Family’s tomb and connected to the race of people who were, apparently, born to serve them?

Nothing? Oh okay… okay… okay….

The same can be said about this strange depiction of this hostile tribe, consistently described as wicked yet suddenly friendly once you prove you deserve their respect once you... defeat them, so you now have joined them? Ocarina of Time isn’t very consistent when it comes to characterizing them as their occupation (thieves) or as a proper culture, with a king and a strange system of rulership that seem to involve at least 5 people: Ganondorf, the Twinrova, Nabooru and the unnamed random woman who decides you’re now part of the gerudos because you slashed enough of them with your sword and hookshot, which, uhh ok.

They’re but a ragtag and negligible group when discussed next to gorons and zoras and hylians, but they also clearly have their own religion and at least a 400-hundred years old history (probably far longer than this) and hints of a written language of their own. I’m not sure the game itself knows what it wants them to be, beyond: intimidating and hot and cool, but also wicked and, because of Ganondorf and the way you barge in their forbidden fortress (heh) with the explicit intent to dismantle their king, in apparent need to be saved from themselves.

Speaking of rulership and the Spirit Temple, let’s have a quick tangent about Nabooru: I always found her characterization when meeting with Child Link pretty strange. I refuse to mention the promised reward, which feeds into everything orientalist mentioned above, but I always found her moral compass so extremely convoluted for someone coming from gerudo culture. Nabooru says that, despite being a cool thief herself, she resents Ganondorf for killing people as well as stealing from women and children. Stealing... from women. Nabooru. Why are you this pressed that he steals from women!!! This feels so out of place, that the only girl of that hostile culture that betrays her king and befriends you, is the one that upholds moral values that only a hylian could possibly hold.

Either way: the strange unquestioned contempt of the game for them as a culture, mixed with the occasional bouts of heart, friendliness and badassery, makes it hard not to consider their depiction as pretty biased in favor of the hylians finding them at once exotic, scary and exciting, and could hide a more complex reality you might only get one side of –especially when you know there were originally plans for Ganondorf’s character to be more gray and motivated than what the campy final version ended up being. To be blunt: even in the context of a game for children, and maybe because of that fact, it all reads like a reductionist and imperialist/colonialist reading of a more complex situation.

This might seem like A Lot coming from a game where the actual game writing can be this overall flimsy and simplistic due to the standards of the time (it’s rough, it's so rough). But I would have never dwelt on that thought about a little children’s game if not for the mainline entries that came soon after, because... ooo boy.

The sense you’re not getting the whole story was certainly not helped by the introduction of Wind Waker Ganondorf, and the chilling emptiness of Gerudo Desert in Twilight Princess.

AFTER THE TIMELINE SPLIT

(I’m skipping Majora’s Mask, not because I dislike them in the game or think they’re not worth talking about, but because it’s a parallel universe and they’re never even called gerudos and their reality seems extremely different from their sisters in Hyrule so I think it’s okay to call them tangential and not dive too deep in this particular depiction)

Here’s something I want to highlight about gerudos and how they were characterized before BotW came along: their absence. Not only their physical absence, the lack of any gerudo character that calls themselves gerudo, but their absence from the text itself.

It’s not that Wind Waker and Twilight Princess retroactively scratch them off existence: we can clearly see Nabooru’s stained glass art in WW as well as recognize them being mentioned in Ganondorf’s final boss soliloquy, and WELL there’s quite a lot to say about their imprint over the world of TP. They are there –or at least they... were there. But nobody ever talks about what happened.

In Wind Waker, there was the deluge. It’s assumed lots of people died then, and those who survived scattered across the Great Sea. Are they sealed under the waves? Have they drowned? Is Jolene, Linebeck’s ex-girlfriend in Phantom Hourglass, a distant relative of one of the rare survivors? It’s unclear, beyond the fact that Ganondorf is the only living gerudo we see in this entire branch of the Timeline split.

In Twilight Princess, the desert which bares their name is empty. The hylians never mention that it used to be the name of a tribe: they’re not even named when Ganondorf is introduced for the first time, reduced once again to a mere band of thieves. We learn his plans to steal the Triforce in OoT were foiled, and that he may have turned to war. Then he lost the war, and was executed in Arbiter’s Ground: a strange structure in the desert, a mixture between a temple, a prison and a coliseum. What looks like gerudo writing coexists with hylian symbols, which often look much fresher. This dungeon is the Shadow Temple of TP: a prison hosting the worst criminals the kingdom has ever known, now haunted and cursed. Besides the locations, the only character that vaguely look gerudo in the entire game besides Ganondorf is Telma, a character with pointed ears that never seems to identify as anything but a hylian. What happened? Who’s to say. Nobody ever says anything. Not even Ganondorf bothers to mention them the way he did in WW –and though the game’s story is quite focused on another exiled tribe seeking revenge and dominion over Hyrule as retribution, the parallel is never explicitly drawn. So who’s to say what happened there. Who’s to say.

And in A Link to the Past and the games forward? The only mention of other gerudo characters are Koume and Kotake, resurrecting their son in the Oracles games through their own sacrifice and failing to bring anything back but a monstrosity incapable of making conscious decisions. Granted, most games in that extremely weird Fallen Timeline predate OoT and therefore had yet to make gerudos up at all. Still: canonically, between the gap of OoT and ALLTP, whatever it may be, gerudos disappeared here as well.

I think there’s something subtle and a little heartbreaking about the fact that no matter what Ganondorf does, the gerudos always end up dying out. His yearning for Hyrule, its gentler wind and the Triforce blessing its lands always costs him the kingdom that he does have already.

Now, does he care? A lot of people would argue that he doesn’t, that he used them like pawns for his own ambition and saw them as servants more-so than sisters, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Nintendo’s official opinion, but… One very powerful thing about most of Ganondorf’s incarnations (focusing on the human ones) is that he never seems to reject his cultural heritage. They could have gone for him wearing more kingly hylian stuff given the whole underlying theme of envy and pride surrounding his character, but never once does he try to look more hylian, beyond the ear situation that seems to be tied to the Triforce of Power? Either way: he is gerudo. Several of his outfits reference his mothers, as well as general gerudo patterning and jewelry. His heritage is something he proudly displays, even hundred of years in the future when there is no one left to remember what it means but him. I think it’s a very potent piece of characterization, an arc that crosses over multiple game and says something pretty intense about this character’s fate and his inherent destructiveness over the things he touches –starting with the Triforce, all the way up to his very own body and mind. His mental breakdown by the end of Wind Waker, when the king of Hyrule himself forces him to give up on the thing he sacrificed everything for, takes a new kind of weight with the whole picture taken into account.

(not to excuse genocide or general egomania-fueled madness and violence, but one thing doesn’t mean the other isn’t also relevant)

Regardless of whether this is a tragedy for Ganondorf as their uhh complete failure of a king, honestly, it is undeniably a tragedy for the gerudos themselves: a once-in-a-lifetime joyful event turned into a never-ending nightmare from which there seems to be no escape, their legacy now condemned to fade to black, leaving nothing behind but a demon boar forever laying ruin upon the world.

One may say I’m taking on the bleakest explication for the gerudos’ absence when there could be others. It’s true! Perhaps the gerudos are just chilling off-screen, completely fine, not interested in whatever is happening in the kingdom nearby and their disaster child having yet another temper tantrum about not being the Goddesses’ favorite boy. It’s possible! But regardless, what little elements we do possess as players doesn’t seem to support this, even if it remains possible –and regardless of actual gerudo lives, gerudo culture is definitively a goner in every single timeline.

Even if they did survive... Hyrule still won its unification war.

(I won’t mention Skyward Sword as they are not really a thing there, except for a butterfly that seems to suggest the Gerudo Province was a thing before the gerudo people –I don’t know what to do with this honestly– and the whole Groose situation, which, I’m not sure what to make of either beyond the fact that he may have gotten cursed by opposing Demise? And then went on to start the gerudo tribe, which ended up being an all-women group for some reason? Maybe? It’s not confirmed? I feel like it’s more of a fun tidbit than a central piece of the gerudo puzzle, so I’ll leave it there like I would a cool rock I brought back from a walk and that I don’t know where to put in my house)

Then, Breath of the Wild happened and changed things.

BREATH OF THE WILD

(Additional short note, but: while I won’t mention Four Swords Adventure, since it’s a weird one that almost nobody has played and severely messes with the Timeline, we kind of see the beginnings of what is about to happen in Breath of the Wild in this game –gerudos coming back without much explanation, then distancing themselves from Ganondorf to become friends with hylians because he was too hungry for power and now they are nice and have good reputation because they are our friendsss)

I was actually so happy to learn gerudos were making a comeback in a mainline Zelda game, and this got me more excited about Breath of the Wild than basically anything else the game involved. And getting to explore the Desert once again, meeting this new batch of impossibly tall buff girls, getting more about their language and their culture, Riju and the rest of the little girls are adorable, the grandmas are so cool, the sand seals??? sign me the fuck up??? And above it all, hanging around Gerudo Town at night and feeling as warm and cozy as little me liked to imagine how freeing it would feel, to stay there and watch the desert behind the safety of their walls in OoT… This was great. I loved it.

It was a huge compensation for the criticism I’m about to make, but did leave me with… questions regarding how their culture was going to be handled moving forward.

I’ll start with something small yet deeply revelatory, then work my way from there.

So... gerudos’ ears are pointy now.

This is pretty significant. Lore-wise, it’s been said that the elongated ears of hylians are there so they can better hear the voices of the gods. It’s considered a sign of holiness in-universe. There's a bunch of really thoughtful analysis on tumblr over that whole Ganondorf ear situation, which is a mess but also very interesting, but the short answer is: I think the absence of pointy ears was a clear design choice to originally signify them as Less Good. Even when Ganondorf gets pointier ears, they never get as long as hylians’. Worth noting: not every non-gerudo character has pointy ears: gorons, zoras and ritos (among others) do not possess this trait, and there are even some humans that have regular rounded ears in the series –though they always seem to be of lesser relevance, if not downright peasants in Twilight Princess. Pointy ears always tended to implied a strict hierarchy in the series: basically, the more pointy, the more Protagonist you become.

(also their eyes becoming green instead of the traditional yellow/golden, which looks more wicked and demonic --and cooler also tbh)

The pointy ears imply two things. From within the game, this could be interpreted in two ways: either that gerudos… converted, for a lack of a better term, and are now considered holy through their worship of the Golden Goddesses and/or Hylia, or that their mingling with hylians through tens of thousands of years had them acquiring this trait out of sheer genetic override (though they have kept their mostly-women birth rates, their big nose, darker skin –for the most part– and red hair). Probably a healthy mixture of both. Design-wise, it signifies something quite simple to the player: they are on hylians’ side now. They are good guys. We can trust them, even if they still have a little spice in them. They aligned themselves with us and against Ganon in all of its manifestations (even if he’s but an angry ghastly pig being parasitic to everything it touches in this iteration). They are on the side of Good, definitively, and will fight evil by our side.

On that note, I think it’s worth bringing out another major change from their initial iteration, which is their overt friendship with Hyrule as a whole, and with the Royal Family in particular. Despite not allowing any voe inside their walls (we’ll come back to this), their relationship with hylians is pretty neat. They have booming trade roads, travel and meet with the rest of the cultures, and are fierce enemies with the Yiga clan, who are renowned for being huge Calamity Ganon supporters. The tables certainly have turned. I want to bring out, in particular, Urbosa’s friendship with the queen and her role as the cool aunt taking care of Zelda and protecting her from evil (to be noted: I am not familiar with Age of Calamity so if I’m mischaracterizing her in any way, please let me know). The gerudo sense of sisterhood has been extended to the royals they used to fight against. I would go on and say the cultures peacefully coexist, but I think that what we’re looking at here is a case of vassal behavior, just like we used to have from zoras (in the non-Fallen Timelines) and gorons. This is a huge departure from gerudos being openly rejecting of Hylian culture in their initial iteration, and something that is worth returning to later.

Okay. Now it’s time to mention the weird obsession BotW gerudos have with romance. I didn’t take notice of my issues with their writing until I realized how prevalent of a theme that was. Now, the reason given for gerudos to refuse entry to males (of every race) has much more to do with preventing young gerudos to make mistakes than anything else, and is actively being put into question by the younger generations –which would make sense. But the amount of NPCs that either lament their lack of match, talk about their husbands (because they marry now apparently) or are invested in romance, and a very limited understanding of romance at that (heterosexual, closed, etc), makes for much more of the population that I initially expected. There’s no mention of what’s going on with their males, if there are new males being born and either exiled or abandoned, or if Ganondorf being technically still alive have have cut them off male heirs. Either way: no more kings, only girlbosses chiefs.

To have the gerudos so interconnected with Hyrule, not only through trade but through extremely coded romance where they have to make themselves palatable to a future male partner and enforce fidelity, was… a choice. The extremely brief and skippable mention of gerudos sometimes going to Castle Town in search for boyfriends in OoT became half of their personality traits in this game. We went from a race that was fiercely independent and mocking of the unworthy men who tried to mingle with them, to… this. Now I’m not saying some of the sidequests aren’t cute, or that I didn’t like the wedding, or that the grandma near the abandoned statue of Hylia (so she was worshipped at some point) clocking us and talking about her love life wasn’t one of my favorite gerudo conversations. I’m saying that the vibes have definitively changed. For the better? I’m not sure.

I once stumbled upon an article that said that Breath of the Wild gerudos were a huge improvement compared to their original introduction, because they were no longer presented as evil and hostile thieves groveling at the boot of a single man, but as a full culture allied with the protagonist and actively involved in the story, while still getting their Cool Girl Badass moment (again can’t find it anymore, I’ll link it if I stumble upon it again). I see where this comes from, but I honestly can’t help but consider it a reading that assumes something pretty major (though through no fault of their own, as the games tend to hammer this down as hard as they can), and that being hylians as the unquestioned anchor of Good.

Which, in spite of what the games want me to believe, I… feel uncomfortable taking at face value.

To me, regarding how gerudos are being incorporated in that goodie narrative, this is kind of a case of surface-level feminism trumping over colonialist/imperialist concerns. It becomes more important to perform the aesthetics of being cool and friendly and independent than scratching at any deeper problem that would risk making people uncomfortable. This is kind of Green Skin Ganon all over again: oh wait, isn’t it a little icky to have the evil bad guy being brown while faced by the most aryan-looking ass heroes of all time? Okay, then let’s take the brown guy and make his skin green so we don’t have to feel bad anymore that the conflict has racial undertones!! Solved!! There’s nothing questionable about changing a PoC's features to make it more monstrous and less human, right?

To me, it’s kind of the coward option: instead of accepting the messy reality those initial choices created (and their interesting nuances if taken at face value), let’s just… rewrite the PoC culture’s history to make it feel less uncomfortable for the white heroes. In many ways, it is an extension of what hylians have always done: scrubbing the weird and messy things about the past and shoving them deep down into the spooky well and far into the desert prison and away in alternate hellish dimensions, and then make up a very simple story where they get to feel good about themselves –except this time, it’s the fabric of the games, the literal reality, bending backward to make it happen. Which, in my opinion, makes it much worse than before. Now, there’s no conversation. The fabric of reality is changing their own history so that there is nothing to discuss anymore. Ganondorf was always evil incarnate. He never had any point. It was always 100% his own fault, his own hubris, his own fated wickedness. He was always demonic (and green, very important –having a flashback to people on twitter accusing artists restoring the TotK green skin to the original brown of wanting to make Ganondorf black, and like….. how do I put it gently…..)

And, above all else: gerudo are to distance themselves from his legacy so they can stay in the club of the Good and Just and Holy.

Because here’s the messy thing: as much as I love seeing the gerudos again in Breath of the Wild and as much I love for them to have survived the Era of Myth (??? somehow ???), this… kind of changes Ganondorf’s character arc. No longer do we have the story of a king who wanted more, either for his people, for himself or both, and led his culture to its destruction in his search for absolute Power, while remaining ironically incapable of maintaining what little he already had. This starts from him kneeling to the king of Hyrule in OoT and leads to the deluge, Arbiter’s Ground, his own mothers dying for the sake of his failed resurrection. Breath of the Wild changes this: now, the gerudo were apparently fine without him? They apparently did their own thing and became suddenly and inexplicably disconnected from his actions? I know it’s kind of implied they side with hylians at the end of OoT, but it’s honestly never really explored why they would cheer for the death of their king while never seeming to resent him before except for Nabooru –there are mentions of brainwashing for those who resist him (as well as “other groups in the desert”, tho they are never mentioned again), but it’s hardly a proper plot point for the majority of the tribe, aaaand they still die by Wind Waker in the Adult Timeline, in spite of their potential alliegance…

(again, this shift towards submitting to Hyrule actually started with Four Swords Adventure, getting crisper with each iteration)

There used to be this polite blur regarding Ganondorf’s relationship to them, how much he used them and how much he acted in their name (with arguments for both sides), and I think this messy and debatable question mark was one of the most compelling aspects of his character. Gerudos rejecting their relationship at a near-cosmic, reality-bending level, removes a huge layer of complexity to both parties… all for the benefit of making hylians come out cleaner out of this whole exchange, their moral grayness barely a whisper in the distance.

I’ll kind of go on the record and say that I suspect the addition of Demise to the canon to serve a similar purpose (at least in part): if Ganondorf becomes but the manifestation of a demonic curse, and is no longer an extremely messy character brimming with agency and drive, forcing the heavens to reckon with said agency in a way he was never meant to access, born from a complex set of circumstances from which we clearly get only a limited and biased perspective, then it becomes extremely clear that he’s a Bad in a way that isn’t worth exploring further. Even if he does have some points, he is a Bad. It’s what matters most. Not to say I even hate what this angle can bring to the table or that I want him to become Good (I don’t –I’ll talk more about why I dislike most takes on him being a helpless victim to the curse), but once again, who benefits from adding another Unquestionned Baddie to the equation to rest upon? Not him, and not the gerudos, that’s for sure.

So. Why did I, me, personally, like the gerudos in the first place?

Beyond the inherent coolness factor of their culture and the fascinating mysteries of what is merely suggested, I think… I think I loved gerudos because we were obvious outsiders. Because their rejection of Hylian culture was so sharp and extreme, their value system so different, and their writing, their religion, their relationship to power and hierarchy and worth wanted nothing to do with hylians. They didn’t need hylians, beyond them having potential resources to steal. In fact, the threat of hylians influencing their culture was such that the entry to the Fortress was forbidden to everyone (I don’t think men were ever singled out, by the way, even though they are mocked relentlessly). I think there was something inherently hopeful about this semi-matriarchy resisting the outside world, and especially its notions of what girls were meant to be –it was 1998, and every other girl character in OoT, besides Impa and Sheik that?? is another can of worms entirely, is either helpless or someone to save. For them to reject this narrow vision of femininity was, in my opinion, much more radical than what we got in BotW. Less nuanced, more problematic perhaps? But also much more powerful. Gerudo Valley is home, not to a town, but a Fortress.

Hylians were worth being resisted.

In Breath of the Wild, their refusal to let men enter their town is kind of boiled down to a fading tradition over-focused on romance, a meek little game of chase. Their entire goal seems to be finding a hylian to settle down with. Say what you will about the single man and the many girls (never explored and completely open-ended in its implications, btw), but at least it wasn’t… that. At least it opened the way for different ways for people to exist and imagine culture and civilization, outside of the heterosexual couple, the christian-infused patriarchy and its trickling down implications. What I want to say is: let my girls tell hylians they ain’t shit!! That they aren’t the end all be all of reality! This is what made gerudos so compelling in the first place! Where is that bite now? Where is that self-definition?

It’s gone, because hylians need to be Good. So we tee-hee at the creep running laps around the town, we disguise ourselves to breach their trust and infiltrate their town (though there is nuance to be had there, gender be complicated etc), we watch them pine after shitty dudes and take classes to become the perfect approachable woman and make love soups with ?? strange ingredients honestly, and we witness them get very friendly with the Royal Family they used to conspire against, dying to protect the princess against the manifestation of their ancient king reduced to a raving puddle of Bad Boar.

Hyrule, unified against him.

TEARS OF THE KINGDOM

For posterity’s sake: this post was made before the game was released. I’ll probably update my thoughts on a separate thing later on.

I don’t think gerudos allying with the hylians and burying their own legends about Ganondorf as deeply underground as they can until it blows up in their face is a bad setup at all. It’s actually pretty juicy, and there’s a ton of fascinating stuff that could happen here –even some involving gerudos taking a firm stand against him while still reconnecting with their past and the choices they made once. This is my hope with the title of the game: Tears of the Kingdoms. Let’s examine them all, account for the damage, and decide how we move forward from there with the full knowledge of where we come from.

What I am afraid of (and I already made posts about that) is the scenario where gerudos rallying against Ganondorf, which I expect will forcefully try to take back his place as their king, is used for cheap feminist points that completely fail to examine, well. Everything mentioned above. Where reality bends itself out of the way of the Goddesses, and hylians’ responsibility in any of this mess, so that everything bad is 100% Ganon’s fault and so he must be cast aside and torn away from the Cool Gerudo Girls and this is 100% justified and deserved because we are Independent Women Who Take No Shit from No Men (unless they are the king of Hyrule or any random hylian they wish to marry apparently).

I’ll say this here because it’s been burning my mouth every time I see discourse about Ganondorf and the gerudo: gerudos declared him as their king. To make a really bad comparison that I dislike: he didn’t run around to assemble girls and make a cult around himself, he was born with the cult already formed around him (and it’s not a cult, it’s just a different mode of governance –hylians also revere the Royal Family like gods, don’t they?). This heavily changes the dynamics at play. Not to remove any agency from him to do a little invasion about it, but chances are the ancestors to BotW’s gerudos fully expected him to behave in this way, at least to a degree –in OoT you see very plainly that they value physical prowess, feats of thievery, witchcraft and general violence. It’s more complicated than him being a Bad and making the poor helpless women go along with the plan uwu –even taking the brainwashing into account, AND Koume and Kotake counting as gerudos too, even if they might not be not fully innocent in shaping the culture and the man himself. If manipulation and forced servitude is the explanation given, I’ll be genuinely mad –because, once more, all the nuance and messiness would be flattened for the sake of making Ganondorf Bad and the gerudo Good (= on hylians’ side).

It bears to be said: I think feminism stances that require, not to criticize (which is fair), but to fully dehumanize and bestialize men of color to make any sense are uhhh bad, and it's worth questionning who they end up serving in the end.

The flip side of this would be to make Ganondorf a poor little meow meow that was secretly controlled by the evil Demise all along, and... I’ll be real. I really don’t think it solves our problem at all. It might even make it worse.

My problem with how gerudos have been handled thus far, being mostly connected to how they behave in relation to hylians Good, is that they’ve been systematically defanged not to threaten the status quo as much as they used to. I think it’s pretty clear why I’m not a fan of Ganondorf being a mere victim of cosmic circumstances; I have a post that goes more in depth about this, but to simplify: my man has legitimate grievances. To make him a mere puppet to Evil Incarnate would, to me, be just another attempt to erase the despotism of the Goddesses, the unjust hierarchy of the world, what hylians have historically done to the races they were in conflict with (looking at the Yiga for the most recent example…)

I’m not saying his fight is clean or even legitimate, that he isn't driven by his own sense of self-importance above anything else, or that he should win (he has no plan beyond domination and victory, that's not a future). But I think there’s something really important about having someone being willing to fully consume himself and everything around him for the simple fact that someone should resist the order of the world. Even if that makes him a heartless, cruel, and egomaniac demon-pig. Even if there’s no Hyrule left to rule. Even if his own people despise him, or are long gone and forgotten.

Is it a little heart-wrenching? Uhh yes to me yes most definitively. This is why Wind Waker Ganondorf hits so hard, and remains (I think) his favorite entry in the series so far. But… I still find this fate of eternal resistance more resonant and empowered, and far less grim, than if Hyrule’s lore absorbs his hatred and rage, gives it to another entity that would be Badder (= more opposed to hylians and the goddesses), and scrubs it off anything icky and uncomfortable, rendering it completely domesticated and non-threatening to hylian domination; rubbed of his skin color, of his complexity, of his own emotions, even made... kind of sexy now, in the same way his sisters have been made before him? I am very, very afraid of him being turned from furious and an unapologetic subject in his own legend to a "redeemed" (according to whom??) and palatable object in somebody else’s, that you now end up having to… save from himself.

Again, I want to trust that Tears of the Kingdom can walk that line and preserve everything sharp and contrasting and profound and thrilling about this fascinating setup. I don’t expect a philosophy course, this is a game for children –but it doesn’t mean Nintendo didn’t do an astounding job with similar setups in the past. Again, I’ll invoke the Wind Waker conflict, but Twilight Princess did a lot of great things as well (Zant’s speech, if you can get past the weird stretches and stumping and NNHYAAAs, is pretty fantastic) –and the subtle writing of Majora’s Mask is also proof enough this series can be complex without being impermeable.

So this is where my hope lies. Not really with BotW’s writing, which, I’m sorry to say, but I found to be below what the series has done in the past (I have no problem with the setup and how the story is explored, I think it was a great idea, but wasn’t ever sold on the actual writing the way I may have been with previous titles –it felt… very tropey to me overall, with a couple of highlights). But Nintendo has shown to know how to write compelling stories for children that know where to sprinkle its darkness and how to preserve its hope, and this is this side I’m relying on for this delicate storyline moving forward.

And now? Now… I suppose we wait and see.

(thank you for reading my impossibly long essay what the actual hell, at least I got it all out of my system, see you in part 2 for when TotK comes out I suppose aaa)

[ganondoodle]

so i sort of half accidentally did the end of totk on monday, i had over 130 hours and slightly over 50% of the game done and did the second to last fight with 3 hearts left and no way to heal but fairies after i gave up multiple times thinking the game might be trying to force me to fight a certain way xD

so im still playing it and am aiming for the 100% but i dont think theres gonna be much more to discover story wise the game is really fun and has a lot of detail and love put into it that you can really see, the music is fantastic as well, some of the characters get more love which is great but the story is … well disappointing but not surprising, especially in its treatment of ganondorf, who still feels incredibly flat as a character, which was to be expected but also … you cant fault people (including me) for faintly hoping theyd do something more interesting tho i will say the end fight is really well done and i cant think of a way to top that in terms of epicness xD

anyway, some unfiltered thoughts and opinions in no particular order (keep in mind i know its viddy game logic uwu but still some things can really destroy the immersion; and also i like to think too hard about the stuff i care about so take this with a grain of salt, i never expected the story to be world changing but i want to remind you that i am criticizing it bc i love this franchise)

--what the hell happened to all the sheikah tech?? botws story gets mentioned a few times but never is it mentioned what happened to all the tons of tech lying around everywhere? if they dismantled the towers for purah to build her new ones around i guess thats fine, but all the srhines? the titans ??? THE SHRINE OF LIFE??? its all gone, esepcially the shrine of life irks me bc the cave is still there and its still called by its bame but its nothing but a cave in a vague shape of how the buidling was it absolutely drives me crazy bc its so dumb?? even if it all stopped working for some reason why would you dismantled it all and even then where did the material go?? why would you dismanlted an neitre building like that anyway?? if you want to have a cave there just have it be half collapsed, if all sheikah tech has gotten useless just leave it there but overgrown?? and why is all of purahs tech still working then? zelda doesnt seem to care about it anymore either even tho shes been so obsessed with it for so long? the titans how would you even MOVE them?? you CANNOT tell me that all this tech that survived tens of thousands of years just went poof within a few years; and sometimes it even feels .. insulting? like you know how much robelo cared for cherry and now shes tiny and just serves as a way to buy fotos for your collection? the fact that the shrine of life is fully gone but the cave is vaguely shaped like its interior and where the bed used to be is a healing pool of water too? like idk if im just insane but it feels like 'haha lol remember what used to be here? get it? the water heals you like the bed in the shrine of life and lol there was the stairs HAHA remember? its gone now for no reason.lmao.' to be clear i like having some mysteries and all but that is just …. so weird? when i discovered the shrine of life i was so taken aback i didnt know what to do, it really broke my immersion, by alot even, it just makes it feel even more like all sheikah tech was replaced by much cooler (tm) sonau tech

--what happend to the sonau people? we only know that rauru and mineru are the last two remaining ones back then but … what made them die out like that? this is by far not as important to me as the issue with the sheikah tech but still feels like a point that could have been mentioned

--as much as i like the open world and how free you are to do things your own way but, regardign the dragon tears i think they should have been locked more behind story progression, i got all of them rather early on and it made it a lil frustrating to play through the other story parts bc you know the truth but you cant tell anyone and everyone around you is acting like a dumbass running after fake zelda while the real one is floating around above you, and i know thats partly my fault for getting them all so early but it still felt like some could have been more well hidden or locked or something since theres no hint to when it would fit to do which one; i expecpted impa to travel to each one but it seemed like she appeared on only a few here and there- additionally i fully expected her to be more important, that she would have an actual involment trying to help zelda undragonfy but that turned out to be very wrong lmao

--why are the enemies in the underground mining sonanium? ganondorf didnt seem itnerested at all in any of their tech, only in the mystery stones (only one too, he didnt seem to want any more of them either) they dont use it for anything? at least the ones on the surface collected stuff they could eat or use for fighting?

--did mineru really build herself a robot body just to fight ganondorf for a bit and then leave? as the last of the sonau, even tho long dead too, why wouldnt she tell their history and knowledge or something and instead if just helping a lil in the fight and then go poof (i half expected purah to be a surprise sage since the spirit one would have fit her i think)

--the zelda being the white dragon plot point lost alot of weight to me when it was just .. resolved like that in the end, i know she spent thousands of years like that and all but it seemed like a much heavier decision that later on felt a little less flat after fidning mineru even tho i felt like i didnt care at all at first bc of the way i found out ,and i half expected there to be an extra mission to try and find her soul again since that apparently gets lost when you do the whole dragon thing, but in the end that wasnt a problem at all, two ghosts and link (somehow naked again) blasting her with some magic(tm) and boom shes back and well and fine woohoo it was a non problem after all i didnt expect her to stay dragon since that would mean the end of the legend of zelda basically, but still it took away alot of the weight of her decision to me? like i get undragonfying her before the end would be difficult since you can get material off of her but still i hoped for something other than boom it resolved itself and i thoguht and worried about it for nothing honestly a post game or even another title where the main focus wouldnt be desstroying yet anyother one note evilest guy of them all and isntead the goal is to bring zeldas soul back and undragon her or something would have been a cool idea tbh tho i know its unrealistic

--did ganondorf think turning himself into a dragon would end the world somehow? did he mean the lil evil goo clouds he spit at you in the last fight to end the world? and how come that he was vunerable to fight? none of the other dragons could be hurt and for an 'immortal' dragon he sure went down fast also how did the stone get back on his forehead? you need to eat it to dragonfy yourself and zelda doesnt have her stone out either (i know viddy games logic but still) (on another note, gan shoving half his arm in his own mouth felt really cursed to watch)

--into WHAT exactly wanted gan to reshape the world into?? only destroying it is such a non reason if you want to rule it? theres nothing left to rule if you kill everything in it?? he just gonna play cards with some bokblins or what -i really wanted to fight ganondorf on the surface, not in his lil miasma incubation cave again :(

--so …. why he evil? are we really doing the and WHOOP suddendnly theres the eviliest guy of the world and he hates your guts for some reason thing again? no tension with the gerudo that seemed to follow him in the lil cutscene we see and the ones that went on raurus side? no actual origin? does he have ANYONE to talk to normally or did he just surround himself by monsters all the time or abadon everyone that once followed him once he got his power up?? you can make any design or fight as good as it can possibly be but in the end its still gonna feel hollow if the character has no character besides evil even the fake zelda wasnt actually him and just a lil puppet made of miasma so even him fucking with people is a little less interesting when he was actually just marinading in his lil goop cave, and the lil hand wink he gives you at phase two can only do so much lmao

--ganondorf is cool and all, but tbh he feels more like the evil miasma goop guy than anything else --why are the old sonau ruins in hyrule so different from the rest? like we know now that they arent actually a civilization from the sky alone but were even in the underground too, and all of their ruins have that blocky white style to it, the supposedly sonau ruins in phirone for example, albeit they share the dragon theme the style on the outside is very much different? and the ancient ruins from the other races dont match it either --are the sheikah descendants of the mixing of sonau and hylians? the white hair and third eye theme would fit to the only alive sonaus we see having white hair (fur?), the literal third eye and their affinity to techonology similar to the sheikah, and zelda having both light and time powers would make sense if its yet another descendant thing, but that would mean zelda was at least part sheikah .. (ngl white haired zelda might look pretty neat actually) but also … it didnt seem like sonia and rauru have been together all that long and no mention or even hint to them having children … which given that both of them die would be an important thing to mention no?

--why cant you do anything with the dongos but feed them????????? i wanna ride them :(

--where is kashiwa????????????????? they talk about him like hes a lost legend

--putting in all the amiibo stuff is cool and annoying at the same time, i spent 5 hours fighting my way throguh the underground to follow treasure maps and found 3 nigh identcal link hats from past games in a row, then two other parts of similar, then two aiimbo weapons and then jsut yesterday another one from a bigger quest that i expected more of; getting the armor sets of past games is cool if you want them but if i did i would have just gotten the amiibos back in botw, my inevntory already feels super bloated with all the new and old armor sets and now the amiibo stuff as well even tho i have like .. half of it all atm (and dont go and argue 'oh so complaining about more content for free???' yes. yes i am.)

--whats with this game and making link almost naked? rauru saving you from death? naked. (annoying) survival shrines? naked. weird teleport to alternate ghost dimension to blast zelda with magic power tm to solve all problems? naked.

--(added in edit) im glad dorephan didnt die!! i fully expected him to have died offscreen or something to make way for everyones favorite fish

--(added in edit) so are definitely other lands besides hyrule if yona came from there, also lol

--the story feels, espeically once you see the last cutscene, very …. uncomfortable to me if dare to think about it more than just taking everythign as its said to you, like … the oh so perfect descednants of the gods(what) marry a normal hylian lady and sourround themselves with perfetly obedient faceless servants of the other races so the perfect and good kingdom tm is born and oh suddendly theres an evil brown man (makign him grey doesnt change the implications, if anything, it makes it worse bc they wont even stand for it and instead are trying to hide it behind uuuuh no no its fine hes blue actally kinda way) from the desert that attacks the perfect good kingdom and king, then he swears alliance to them only to betray and murder da queen right away to get his hands on a super power the perfect and good king held and would have never never used it in a bad way nono and now they need to defend it by all means and at the end woohoo zelda has now again the perfect kingdom with no opposition except the yiga who are (as much as i love them) mostly played for laughs or .. well, evil(tm) as epic and cool the dragon fight was, zelda being the slim tiny white/gold/blue dragon and ganondorf being the evil spiky big black and red dragon and them literally being called white/black dragon feels like wow they arent even trying to hide the black and white storytelling huh (i know its a design trope to the bad be black(color) and the good anything else and spiky vs round and soft blah blah but that doesnt make it any better .. maybe even worse? idk)

the way nintendy was keeping stuff a secret and hinting around so much made me feel like it would finally be a little more nuanced and then it turned out to be even flatter than before and all that secrecy(?) was only to keep dragon zelda plotpoint a secret, something that was resolved no problem in the end anyway (i didnt need zelda to stay dragon but .. it all just lost so much weight the way it was done at the end)

-- (added in edit) master koga is the best character and no one can beat him, the most joy i felt was seeing him again and i am not joking, i wish i could talk to him normally tho without him being able to see through my yiga disguise :( im so glad he didnt die tho bc if he actually went to gan he would 100% be dead within seconds

--(added in edit2) i forgot to mention but was just reminded that link getting his arm back felt super weird too, so really everything that meant major changes got reversed basically ... coool ...back to status quo i guess, couldnt he if he wasnt missing it at least have it be discolored somehow? or scarred? any reminder? zelda too even, could she also have some sort of scar or similar due to her transformation ??

--(added in edit2) so where did the mystery stones even come from? gans and zeldas are gone after dragonfying i guess so ...what?

so in summary, im not eloquent enough to properly analyse all the problematic/questionable stuff and put it into the right words, but these are my random thoughts just spilled out, theres gonna be things i missed, forgot, or gonna think about later, maybe ill add it maybe not

again take it with a grain of salt, the game is still one of the most fun games i have ever played, my problems with it lie majorly in the story, its still very much worth playing!

[themarydragon]

So my friend sent me this link to a youtube video about why the TotK lore isn't interesting. I couldn't get through it without a ten-screen discord rant (on my PC monitor, not my phone) so I thought I would put some thoughts here.

I don't delve too deep into TotK story but there are def some spoilery statements below, consume at your own risk.

The initial assumptions here seem to be that (1) BotW was more respectful of "The Lore" than TotK, and that (2) TotK made some unforgiveable sins that BotW absolutely avoided.

Both of these are completely false. And I am NOT saying that neither BotW nor TotK shat upon accepted lore. They did. There is no recovering the Hyrule Historia timeline, objectively. Instead I contend that the truth is the precise opposite: Nintendo has NEVER actually cared to try to make LoZ games have ANY amount of continuity.

Take the slide at the 5 minute mark of the video linked, above, in which we see the Master Sword was created specifically to be used against Ganon, and then the 7 sages set out to find somebody valiant enough to wield it (this is from the user manual of A Link to the Past, from the SNES, which also was about The Imprisoning War). Which, if you're playing the home game, you know got ret'conned TWELVE YEARS AGO by Skyward Sword. He's using the slide to explain why it was ridiculous that Ganondorf was able to shatter the Master Sword in the prologue to TotK, which tells me they didn't pay much attention to the mechanic in BotW in which the Master Sword "runs out of power" if you use it too much. If Ganon is an aspect of Demise (again from Skyward Sword, far more recent lore than the slide being used in the vid) then the secret stone he's wielding is amplifying DEMISE (WAY stronger than just some dude), which is why he's able to shatter the blade - but still isn't enough to destroy the sword. His entire complaint about the Sword being broken suggests to me he either didn't play Skyward Sword or has forgotten it existed, and has DEFINITELY forgotten the 'weapons breaking' mechanic started in BotW.

He makes another complaint later about there not being an explanation for the disappearance of the Divine Beasts. Which, sure. I wondered what happened, and figured the 5ish years since then made it old news nobody was talking about it anymore. I get why that might have been a breaking point for somebody else. But it's not just a TotK problem; BotW didn't address it, either. We see the Divine Beasts being dug up by the Sheikah in Rhoam's flashback - how did they get buried? The towers shoot out of the ground, how did THEY get buried, after the last calamity? Who put the guardians underground? How? HOW, if nobody is allowed into the tunnels under Hyrule Castle? It didn't get explained for BotW, so why is that an unforgivable sin in TotK? They give more than a passing suggestion that Purah has repurposed the guardians - just LOOK at the Skyview Towers. The jumpscare for BotW players when you get grabbed in the Lookout Landing tower TELLS YOU where the guardians went.

There is a significant section in which video creator is quoting an interview I haven't seen (and don't give two shits about), and I think it needs to be said: what is in the game is canon. What is in the interviews from other people is, by definition, not game canon. If it was meant to be game canon it would be in the game. Neil Gaiman talks about this when people ask him for clarification of his stories, go check his FAQ if you want a really good delineation of canon from somebody with way more clout than me.

So let's just look at the lore he's defending from BotW. The map is wrong. Straight up wrong, from all the earlier Zelda games. Nintendo cannot decide where the Lost Woods should be, much less Spectacle Rock. The Temple of Time, which again is mentioned early on as a clear homage to the lore, is in the wrong damn spot. If this is the new Hyrule formed post-WindWaker (as indicated by the existance of Rito), the Temple of Time should have been destroyed. And why do the Rito and the Zora both exist? According to WindWaker, the Rito evolved from the Zora, who couldn't live in the salt of the sea. Which is a pretty big jump from the original game that had Zora in the ocean, and the two games following THAT in which they were straight-up monsters. I don't want to get into ALL the ways BotW breaks from the established lore, but there's a LOT. They don't mention the fucking Triforce ONCE, ffs, that's sort of a big damn deal.

I get there was a canon timeline published in Hyrule Historia. I bought that book for that exact reason. And, as someone who has loved this franchise since I got that first golden cartridge in 1987, I looked at that timeline once, laughed at it, and moved on with my life. BotW de-canonized that timeline already, in a LOT of ways.

So saying that TotK is evidence that Nintendo no longer cares about continuity or lore, and by NOT villifying BotW (or TP or SS) for the exact same problem is disingenuous at best. Saying that TotK is just nostalgia-baiting is ignoring the BotW map (Lake Saria, anyone? Ranch Ruins, anyone?) in general, as well as all the game-specific loot that had NO other reason to be there but straight-up nostalgia. The only reason for Zelda to mention the other heroes in the blessing we hear in the first memory is to (1) destroy the established timeline (skyward bound, adrift in time, or something about twilight, all in a world where Rito exist), or (2) prey on our nostalgia. TotK isn't any worse for putting the WW shirt and the Awakening armor into the game, in terms of wrecking the timeline or trying to feast on our nostalgia.

I'm not going to try to hypothesize what this person (or all his commenters) didn't like about the game, or why they're so willing to overlook all these problems in BotW to villify TotK. And everybody is welcome to like to dislike a game for whatever reason they want, IDGAF, you do you. What I AM saying is that for someone who's upset about the lore, he really doesn't seem to actually be aware of how inconsistent it's ALWAYS been. If TotK is the game that taught you that Nintendo isn't trying to follow their own lore, then I don't think you have been paying attention to the lore for a good long time.

tl;dr this is still my favorite series and if you hate that it breaks its own continuity then you've been asleep for the last 12 years of lore drops my good dude.

[fuck-you-upmusicbracket]

Pale Green Things (The Mountain Goats)

You parked behind the paddock/Cracking asphalt underfoot/Coming up through the cracks/Pale green things/Pale green things

"The culmination of an album about songwriter John Darnielle's traumatic adolescence, "Pale Green Things" describes one of the few happy memories he has of his abusive stepfather and then, years later, his reaction to his stepfather's death, when he thinks back on that same memory. While previous songs on the album that touched on his stepfather's abuse were overtly angry or defiant, "Pale Green Things" is subdued and contemplative. It leaves a lot of things unsaid, instead allowing the narrator's feelings to be implied through his descriptions of the two scenes. There is no direct depiction of abuse, instead focusing on a moment of tentative hope and peace, a moment made simultaneously more painful and more precious by the revelation that it was a rare and temporary reprieve. The focus of "Pale Green Things" is not the pain caused directly by instances of abuse, but rather the absence of a positive relationship, and the complicated feelings that come from the glimpses of what that better relationship could have been like. Although finally free of his abuser, the narrator will continue to live with the pain his abuser caused him. But, he isn't trapped in that pain anymore, and he can also remember the good times they spent together, however rare and fleeting they were. The titular "pale green things" can only grow in the cracks of the asphalt parking lot, but their presence proves that the asphalt couldn't kill them all completely. As someone who has a complex and sometimes painful relationship with their own parents, "Pale Green Things" hits hard. I think for anyone who's been in a similar situation, of trying to sort through their feelings toward someone who hurt them badly but wasn't "all bad", it's a very powerful song. Even without knowing the context of the rest of the album, or of how the song related to the songwriter's real life, listening to it for the first time felt like getting hit by a truck. 10/10"

Divine Beast Vah Medoh (Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild)

"IDK if you've played BOTW, so I'm going to start from the beginning. I'm not the best at explaining tho, so bear with me please. Sorry its a bit long! OK to start, this is a dungeon theme. The dungeon is Divine Beast Vah Medoh, which is (was) piloted by the Rito (a race of bird people) champion Revali. Now, Revali is a bit of, what we call in the industry, an asshole. He's super jealous of Link (MC, who has a lot of trauma from being expected to BE the best so i find this ironic) and ridiculously arrogant. Once the main bad guy strikes, he rushes to his divine beast to he can help Link (which he's. not really *thrilled* about, because he wants to be the one to take down the big bad.). However, the big bad had a plan to counteract this, and poisoned the divine beasts with malice, his own special kinda evil goop. He then makes a malice monster for each champion to fight, and Revali does eventually die to it. 100 years later, Link is coming back to unpoison the divine beasts and free the champion's souls. This entire story kinda fucks me up (even if Revali isn't my favorite), but also!!! the fact that there's an SOS code in the song!!! meaning that Revali called for help because he thought he was going to die!!! and his is the latest out of all the divine beast's themes meaning he really didn't want to get help but he accepted he needed it and developed and he still died!!!!"

[gascon-en-exil]

Now that you've mentioned it, I'm curious how'd you'd rank the Zelda games minigames from best to worst

That would be entirely too many minigames to do individually, especially from memory since I haven't played most of these games in years. I can go by individual title though, ignoring the ones that don't have minigames in the usual sense (the NES games, both Four Swords games, Tri Force Heroes) and also Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom because I never actually played the latter and because my frustrations with both are on a much deeper conceptual level. I do recall BotW having some obnoxious minigames though, involving horses I believe. I'm not counting as well any minigames that offer only minor rewards that don't contribute to 100% completion, because those can be safely ignored.

Rating is out of 10 based on how obnoxious they are, with 1 being perfectly manageable and 10 being so annoying that they actively discourage me from replaying those games.

A Link to the Past - 2/10

The only really notable ones are the treasure chest game and the digging game, both of which are pure RNG and thus can be save-scummed. They're also in the Dark World so you shouldn't be strapped for money when you play them which is nice.

Link's Awakening - 1/10 for the original/DX, 4/10 for the Switch

On the Game Boy (Color) the fishing, crane, and river rapids games are all simple one-and-done affairs if you know what you're doing. The Switch remake however adds a bunch of new mechanics and rewards to all of them which makes them more annoying and time-consuming. There are rare fish to save-scum for, a realistic physics engine to make the crane more finicky, and a rapids race that requires precise maneuvering to get its best stuff. I'm not counting the Chamber Dungeons as a minigame because that's basically a separate mode unto itself...and also because they're usually pretty fun.

Ocarina of Time - 8/10

Not off to a great start for 3D Zelda. The gravedigging "tour" is pure luck, Bombchu bowling is also RNG-reliant, the treasure chest game is only not a nightmare because you can cheese it later on with the Lens of Truth, and the shooting challenges are serviceable at best. It's the fishing hole that truly lands OoT this score though, because it's the perfect storm of awful: partially luck-based, finicky mechanics, and actually physically painful at times on account of how hard and for how long you have to hold the analog stick to reel the big fish in. Oh, and you have to beat it twice, and the second time is harder!

Majora's Mask - 3/10

Surprisingly manageable and even fun in places, like the beaver races and the shooting galleries even if they require perfect scores. The horse and Goron races have issues with rubber band AI, the hitboxes in some of Honey and Darling's games can be stingy, the treasure chest game is (again) mostly RNG...but MM somehow makes all of these not so bad in their own ways, perhaps to compensate for the constant stress of the ticking clock. If I had to pick a worst one it might be the jumping minigame in Great Bay, because it takes a while to reach and the camera is liable to screw you over. The dog race is mostly luck-based, but at least it takes very little time and can be somewhat cheesed with the Mask of Truth. I am absolutely not counting the fishing hole added in the 3DS remake, because it's not required for 100% and because screw fishing in particular.

Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons - 6/10

Sort of unfair lumping them together since Ages has all the really bad ones, but these two have always been a package deal. The baseball game is hard to get down precisely and also has a fair amount of RNG, the seed shooter game also requires some exact shots, and while both have dancing minigames Ages is the only one that takes into account timing. Making all this worse are the Oracle games' randomized ring system...plus a whole lot of randomized other things (Maple, Gasha trees) that aren't exactly minigames but still make these titles really annoying to revisit. Huh...I just noticed that "Gasha" sounds like "gacha"; were gacha games even a thing in 2001, or were Nintendo and Capcom just extremely ahead of the curve?

The Wind Waker - 5/10

Has some real nuisances, like the battleship game (RNG), the Flight Control Platform (precision gliding), and sword training (endurance). Much like my feelings on BotW however, it's not really the minigames that make me dread replaying WW so much as its various other headaches - many of which were addressed in the HD remake, granted, but they're still there.

The Minish Cap - 2/10

Another one where it's not really about the minigames. The only mandatory one I can even recall was catching cuccos, and a lot of that comes down to item progression later in the game. Kinstones are the real pain in MC, but even they're not so tough to find that you have to rely on minigames to get them.

Twilight Princess - 2/10

Same rating as MC, but for very different reasons. For me it's quite similar to MM in that there are a bunch of minigames but most of them are either inoffensive or actively enjoyable, and without the in-game time limit they're less stressful too. Snow sledding, popping balloons, the Clawshot cage games...all pretty fun. The only ones that stick out in my mind as not great are either quickly handled (goat wrangling, sumo wrestling) or are just boring (bombing pots on the river). Note however that this ranking would have been higher if I'd gone solely off my initial impressions from the Wii version. Having played the Gamecube and later HD versions afterward, I can safely say that, as always, motion controls make everything worse.

Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks - 9/10

The touch screen controls are bad enough, but I can distinctly recall both of these games also having some downright awful minigames. Hourglass has fishing and a merciless shooting gallery, Tracks has the whip race and the pirate shooting game, and both have stuff like another WW-style training endurance test and randomized part prizes making everything worse. I have very few good memories of either of these games, honestly; all their good bits get drowned out by the clunky controls and the miserable optional content.

Skyward Sword - 7/10

Again, motion controls suck - but at least the HD remaster fixed most of that, and in both versions a good number of the minigames are optional even by my standards. There are still some extremely bothersome ones here though. Fun Fun Island is very much not, the minecart race isn't the most responsive and the pumpkin shooting game can be very grating until you nail the exact way to (sort of) cheese it. I actually switched this ranking with OoT's as I was writing this, because I remembered how much losing the motion controls redeems the experience of this game. Still by no means a favorite, but at least I want to come back to it sometimes now.

A Link Between Worlds - 5/10 normally, 10/10 if you count the giant cucco

Fittingly, it's LttP but more of it - including more annoyances. There's still the RNG-dependent ones, but there's also now a racing game that requires some fairly precise movements as well as a finicky baseball game. The rupee-gathering games are now more about having a stopwatch on hand, but phones can cover that. The cucco-dodging game is a real pain and bumped the rating up a full point, but note that I am never in my life attempting to survive for 1000 seconds (that's over sixteen and a half minutes!) to get the giant cucco in the end credits. Even completionists have to know where to draw the line.

[amiharana]

Passing zora fan here and I personally think you are more correct when you pointed out eldest daughter curse with regards to Mipha's age. It's easy to not notice since we never see her stand next to full grown zora women (which are probably around 7-8 feet tall) but she is VERY SHORT, shorter than Link and he's also short. Since she's so small, it makes more sense for her to not be an adult. Which isn't to say you don't grow as an adult, but an adult Zora who's still growing wouldn't be as short as her.

The way she carries herself is 100% the eldest daughter curse. Her situation is extremely similar and somewhat parallels what Zelda (who was 16 just turned 17) goes through in botw. They both have societies with high expectations, and an important magical ability. The main difference between the two was that Mipha had a considerably more loving (though not perfect) environment and was able to channel her emotions, and use her power, which Zelda couldn't do till the last moment unfortunately due to her environment. This parallel is acknowledged by Mipha trying to give Zelda advice, but getting cut off just before she can speak. I also think the way Mipha handles herself is not that of an adult, but that of a teenager who is forced to be an adult.

I know it's possible my point might be countered by the one NPC named Finley who looks like a child but "is a young woman who hasn't hit her growth spurt yet" but I 100% believe that Finley is NOT in fact an adult, but a fresh teenager who is going through the "I'm practically an adult" phase. I know the game tries to say otherwise but it's some goofy and contradictory writing in my opinion.

I'm sorry if this sounded super emotionally charged realized it might T-T I'm just very autistic about the zoras and very passionate. I'm genuinely not trying to sound like an ass. Tumblr just decided to show me your post and I wanted to post my own opinion, I apologize if I bothered you

hi anon your passion is appreciated and you did not bother me, i'm happy to see that my little post inspired you enough to write me something too, so dw :3

i don't have a particularly strong opinion about mipha's age like i do with revali, so i think you and the other anon are just going to have to duke it out on the field together about it LOL. i won't debate about the correlation between height and age as a 20 year old asian afab person, but i do think if zora genetics have any similarities with hylian/human genetics, then there could be a possibility of mipha being older and still tiny. perhaps she was a late bloomer or inherited a recessive gene/condition/etc that caused her be much smaller than the rest of her peers. seeing as that king dorephan is fucking massive and we never see her mother (as far as i know, i haven't played loz in a while), the speculations we can have on the extent of zora puberty, especially regarding mipha and sidon's genetics, is pretty limited bc the game obviously doesn't focus on biology and the details are likely kept intentionally vague to encourage players to ship mipha and link etc.

i don't have anything substantial to say regarding finley LOL i agree that nintendo was a bit messy with the localization for whatever that story was supposed to be about. i do quite like your reasoning about her still being a teenager forced to act an an adult in lieu of the Eldest Daughter Curse since i have had similar experiences and caught onto that immediately as well. that parallel between her and zelda haunts me; they could have been so close, bonding over their similar circumstances but we get that all taken away by the calamity.

[heliianth]

actually bc im never gonna shut up abt it while im still on this im gonna ramble abt botw and totk and maybe how i wouldve written a sequel . & i will pay u money to listen i promise

my favoritest of totks ideas are what it expands from botw. botws whole atmosphere is drowned in quiet mourning. something bad has happened but it was a long time ago. it still hurts but theres nothing to be done now but move forward. something is still missing but all you can do is find something else. nobody has resources to rebuild and you can hear deafening echoes of better times but the alternative is giving up. you are in this frozen state of not quite moving on and not quite in despair. like the numbness stage of grief. and the pivotal element of all of that is that link is alone. like, oppressively alone. its the primary vehicle of conveying this mood. and its interesting because this can be read not only as what link is experiencing through the player but what zelda is feeling as she holds back ganon. its an interesting contrast to have zelda mature faster than link in the flashbacks, only for link to pull her the rest of the way by growing himself

and the reason why i so strongly adore the light dragon aspect of the plot is because it shows how attached to everything zelda has gotten. arguably, zelda held back ganon in botw because she loved link. in totk, she becomes the light dragon because she loves hyrule, which had previously been so unimaginably cruel to her. the crux of her character is learning that attachment is good. loving is good. you deserve to leave an imprint on the world in a shape of Your choosing instead of being another factory print on a paper. on a surface level, shes making the same choice, but the motivation and growth behind it is really powerful

i could waffle for literally ever about all that and the point is that totk takes these ideas and implements them really well through in-game worldbuilding and specifically zelda turning into the light dragon. i would occasionally get extremely emotional just seeing how things have expanded because it feels like the world is finally moving on. theres a catharsis in seeing hyrule finally heal after knowing its desolation so intimately, especially because the state of the land itself is such a strong parallel to the arcs of the two main characters, so you get the sense that not only can people move on, link and zelda specifically have started to as well. thats my favorite part

thats why i think its an odd choice that they decided on a time travel plot. if zelda HAS to be the one getting saved, if she cant be a companion in some way either via sheikah facetime or spirit tracks shenanigans or whatever, there are lots of ways to do this without her being magic fruit snacked ten bajillion years into the past. why spend all this effort intertwining her and link with the land, only to remove her from the equation and have no further growth? in botw its understandable that hyrule is stagnant and only changes when link does because zelda is stagnant and link is doing the one changing during the game. in totk its the opposite. there are lots of ways to do this with out Having to play as zelda (though honestly that would be the way id go about it)

also a lot of my own ideas have to do with the wasted potential of a place like the depths???? what the hell do you mean theres this mind bogglingly big cavern underneath the entirety of hyrule which mysterious people used to live in and it has almost no story relevance beside being a cool setpiece???????? I FEEL INSANE?!?!??!?!? there are so many good ideas in totk that never get expanded dude FUCK

i think no matter how much i speculate and draft my own preferences of how i wouldve liked totk to elaborate on the things it introduces i cant ever bring myself to present them like they couldve realistically happened and gotten thru the nintendo writing room simply bc of the games format. if it were up to me doing certain story missions would radically change the open world as events happened in real time and thats not the MO of the game's design philosophy. honestly totk's biggest enemy is the memory system and i need to kill it with fire

[buddys-ramblings]

I’m just gonna name some of the things I’m interested in, hopefully to prevent the posts over here getting too stale

Key:

Red = hyperfixation

Orange = knowledgeable interest

Green = regular interest

Blue = non-knowledgeable interest

Object Shows - Love these things to death. I even have my own (hypothetical) one. Just, no spoilers for any non-BFDI, non-II, non-ONE shows, please.

Smash Bros. - How fast the hours I have on this game went from 20 to 180 should tell you something.

Nintendo in general - I love Nintendo. I always have and I probably always will.

Worldbuilding - I’ve been doing this in such a specific way for so long that I just feel kind of empty without a world in my head. Hopefully at least one of mine can become an actual piece of media. Though, I have my other blog for this, so don’t expect too much of it over here.

Writing - As in, creating fictional stories. Any other kind of writing is 👎 in my opinion. And my creative writing is kind of garbage, so don’t expect me to make it public and tell you about it anytime soon.

Pokémon - Ah, yes, the longest of Buddy’s known hyperfixations at four years straight, five years total. How much I care for the electric rat varies from day to day, but I’m pretty sure I’ll always like the franchise.

The Legend of Zelda - Or more specifically, the Breath of the Wild subseries. I beat BOTW in four months, which is a record time for me. I’ve beat the Wind, Water, and Lightning Temples in Tears of the Kingdom, but nothing beyond that, so no spoilers, please.

My Singing Monsters - Ah, yes, the fourth longest of Buddy’s hyperfixations, at 16 months. Though I’m not hyperfixated on it anymore, I still try to log in every day and the occasional song gets stuck in my head.

Plushies - I like the idea of owning plushies, but I feel like I’m wasting money on them because I never do anything with them.

Bugsnax - I really like this game, I totally recommend it if you’ve got a spare 30 bucks.

Minecraft - Ah, yes, the third longest of Buddy’s interests at two years. I like Minecraft and everything, but I kinda stopped keeping track of updates around after the Nether Update. Remember when Update Aquatic was the new cool thing? Good times.

SCP Foundation - I used to be annoyingly obsessed with this fictional organization a few years ago, but now I’m less interested. I’m trying to get back into it, though.

Digimon - Ah, yes, the second longest of Buddy’s hyperfixations at three years straight, four years total. As much as I love this franchise, I’ll be the first to admit that I know nothing about it. I only finished the first season of the anime (which I don’t remember because it was years ago) I watched and thoroughly enjoyed, but didn’t finish, seasons two and three, and I lost interest in season four when I saw that the Digi-Destined didn’t get partner Digimon. I also finished Fusion (which I also don’t remember because it was more years ago).

Splatoon - I’ve only ever played the smallest amount of Splatoon 1, but I’m hoping to rectify that this September. Hopefully there’s just as much, if not more time in between Splatoon 3 and 4 than there was between 2 and 3.

Fire Emblem - I started gaining interest when I realized that I knew literally nothing about Fire Emblem, especially compared to the other 1st party Nintendo games. I’m specifically interested in the 3DS games and more specifically in Fates; yes, that Fire Emblem Fates. The one with Corrin in it. The anime swordsman that nobody likes.

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

One random funny shipping trope I like occasionally is when the same person ends up dating two members of the same family (either at the same time (dating the parent and their kid) or at different times (dating the parent/ancestor/elder and then dating the child/descendant/younger at a later date)

Some notable examples from my brain:

Urbosa x Botw Zelda's mother + Zelbosa

What can I say? I first saw the former on Twitter and loved the fanart/au ideas of this ship. Frankly, I like it on its own whether as an au where they got married/became partners, or even if it's a homoerotic friendship with unrequited feelings (on Urbosa's end at the very least).

As for the latter, it kind of just struck me when I first watched that memory in base botw where Urbosa is holding Zelda as she sleeps (tuckered out from surveying) and talks to Link about her. This scene really set Urbosa up as a comforting presence to Zelda, and the knowledge that Urbosa displays sets her up as someone just inherently close to her (or at least someone who has been watching her all this time)

Under the framework of this post though, I love to imagine that Urbosa either has/had a secret thing with Zelda's mother, watched over her diligently and tried to position herself as a helpful presence, and then once Zelda properly grew up and started to get older, feelings (on Zelda's side first) started to grow more uncertain. I'd like to think under this framework that once Zelda becomes an adult and comes to terms with these feelings, she becomes embarassed around Urbosa😂

Or, as someone I know once said "Don't you think it's funny? Urbosa had a thing with the mother and the daughter!"

I also can't help but think back to this post I saw on my for you page about how a "MILF" should specifically be a woman old enough to be your mother. So like. It's also funny to imagine like, a sweet childhood friends situation with past!Urbosa/Zelda's mom, but then Zelda being so down bad for a MILF with eventual Zelbosa

Botw Zelimpa + Zelpaya

Now, I've shipped Zelimpa in botw since Age of Calamity released. Real princess and her number one bodyguard kind of situation seemed to be going on there (for the record, I watched the trailer and played chapter 1 of that game). As for Paya/Zelda, I didn't really think much about it until I (1.) got into botw Zelimpa and (2.) went through Paya's diary in botw and it hit me that Paya could very plausibly be into both Zelda as well as Link.

Under the framework of this post, I really can't help but think of them like parallels to the movie Hook (Paralleling Peter/Wendy and Peter/Moira). In this case, it's funny to me to imagine Zelda having this deep bond and relationship between Impa during AoC era, and then 100 years later (post botw) when she finally meets Impa again, Impa introduces her to Paya. And while Zelda sort of slowly falls for Paya as they hang out and get to know each other and talk, the feelings hit Paya like cupid's arrow (I love you bi crisis Paya).

Nanago + Goyuu

This one sorta came about because (in addition to both of these ships) I like those aus where Nanami is Yuji's adoptive parent. And so it's funny to imagine a situation in which Nanago are exes and/or divorced, and then like years later Yuji and Gojo have one of those chance meeting x romcom romances where they both find out after the fact that Gojo was once with Nanami, but it ends up being Nanami who's the most annoyed and bothered about this situation in the end

Nanami really wishes his adoptive son would dump his ex's ass😂

Rigurd/Siguriddle + Hayariddle

This one's a bit different just because Hayato is Sigurd's reincarnation rather than Sigurd being Hayato's ancestor, but it’s close enough. And it's close enough because this is actually arguably pretty close to UR canon?😂

Like Riddle has an entire King and his most devoted servant/secretary thing going on. There is so much implying that Riddle was probably in love with him, if not that they actually were involved as a couple. And then after his lord (Sigurd) dies, he dutifully makes sure that his beloved's soul reincarnates properly. And then he watches over and protects Hayato (said reincarnation) as he grows up, sets his plans in motion and inserts himself into Hayato's life when Hayato turns 17, and then grows attached to him enough that when he finally ressurects his dear lord after centuries, he chooses his reincarnation over him. And if the ending of that manga tells me anything, it’s that Riddle really did get the King and his reincarnation 😂

Vintaker + R!Ciel/Undertaker

I haven't actually read far enough into BB to know a lot of details, but all I need to know is that the Undertaker may have been implied to be involved with generations of phantomhives, that he did canonically hang with Vincent, and that he's like the Sebastian to R!Ciel. Funny to imagine him involved with the father, and so too his precious dead heir that the undertaker went through the trouble of trying to bring back

Lansoni + King Sonic/Galahad

If you follow me you may have already seen me posting about them but regardless

Satbk is the only continuity where a version of Shadow (Lancelot in this case) is arguably Silver's (Galahad's) dad. I will be completely real with you it is so funny to imagine King Arthur "Sonic" Pendragon being involved in a relationship with two of his knights, both of which just so happen to be father and son. Shenanigans abound. It's funny to imagine

[tourniqitty]

i know some people hate the LoZ timeline and for very legitimate reasons, but i actually would find the games less interesting lore-wise if there was no attempt to establish one, was nintendo's method messy as hell, absolutely, but i see it as more of a foundation than anything else

like i get nintendo's reasoning that these are meant to be legends that are being passed down and it works in an irl way as well, since the games have been going for nearly 40 years so in a way its like the legends are being passed down from each generation of players and their respective consoles, but up until botw the games have been very formulaic in every stage of development and often times the story on its own is not that interesting (OoT and Wind Waker exlcuded in my eyes; i also haven't played every LoZ game so i'm sure there's others) which is why i enjoy the timeline and trying to find all the ways each legend connects to the other

i also understand that nintendo likes to be very referential, but i don't think that means the games can't connect in some way to one another, and while botw and totk could've handled the story it was trying to tell a lot better i still find them very compelling along with being able to explore hyrule to the degree that we can in these two games it just adds so much more to the lore of this series

[powdermelonkeg]

Hey do you think it's possible to fix how time travel works in skyward sword so that this link can be the first hero who fought demise in the distant past? The one from the legend I think Zelda tells us (but maybe it was someone else, my memory isnt that great).

Anyways, I'm curious because I think that's what we were supposed to think. That Link became the hero in the present, them went to the past, and by defeating Demise became the hero from the past.

So, for this, you've got two options, one involving Link himself being known, and the other being Link's legend. They've got different criteria, so it depends on what you're looking for.

If you want it to be Link that's acknowledged, with the caveat that you also subscribe to the belief at the end of the rapidly-fraying timeline post, then you can say that when Fi course-corrected the timeline, that that was a side effect put into motion to make sure Link still encountered the legend that would lead him downward.

However, if you want it to be the legend, provided you also want to go along with what's intended for the timeline (because I doubt they actually put any thought into all those possible splits in the chart), then you can look to the Ballad of the Goddess.

This exists, alongside the legend of the man the goddess gave a sailcloth to. And everything up until this point-

-was pre-determined. Link was supposed to win the Wing Ceremony, Zelda was supposed to hear a call for the surface, and so on.

The Ballad of the Goddess was meant to be a hint and guidance for the hero when he first starts out. He knows what his job is, what the end result should be, even with other stakes at play. So we can reason that Hylia had at least some limited future sight ability in order to generate these prophecies.

With that in mind, the above phrase that generated my whole Mudora theory could well have been the same thing—Hylia telling her people about what's to come, but either leaving out details so they think it's already happened, or time itself distorting the tale to change it from future tense to past tense as it's retold each generation. We know from Gaepora's meeting with Fi that the stories of the past are altered and missing pieces. So if you want to stay as true-to-intention as possible, I'd say go with that.

My own thoughts on this line below the cut.

Personally, it's the past tense that gets me hung up on this bit of dialogue; that the goddess gave the sailcloth back then. It throws me into speculation mode because I'm like "no, that hasn't happened yet, so that means it's happened twice!!!" which gives me a springboard to speculate what the world before Demise might have been like. It's also a line that could have been fixed with a single word.

You know, they say that the goddess promised the Sailcloth to her chosen hero long ago.

If they'd done that, there would be no room for questioning. I do kind of want to ask @sunnylaurels what the exact wording is in Japanese so I know without a shadow of a doubt that it's a dialogue error and not a mistranslation (after BotW's journal conundrum I no longer trust localizations) but-

The fact of the matter is, regardless of what's intended, I think it's more fun to speculate about an unknown predecessor to Link. Someone who tried, who failed, who was given a second chance, who was scattered to the winds of time to fulfill a purpose. It's a whole pocket where I can basically make up what I want, and the canon is just ambiguous enough to support it, which is amazing.

However, I also know that some theories, despite how they're technically canon-compliant, feel like they betray the canon to subscribe to on the basis of the Zeldevs' intentions. I know for a fact that the dialogue was intended to reference Skyward Sword Link. In a similar vein, I know that Breath of the Wild's 10k years ago are intended to happen after everything else in Zelda canon, or that nearly everything in Twilight Princess is intended to be a callback to Ocarina of Time.

I just have a serious case of "but what if THIS tho!"

[eerna]

If you had to choose, do you prefer totk or botw and why? Personally I'm fonder of botw (for a few reasons, exploring being more difficult makes it feel more rewarding, the story/memories slotted into the gameplay better, the world/themes overall feel executed more cohesively and I find the Sheikah slate abilities more intuitive) but it seems to be an unpopular opinion online to like botw more so I'm curious! This isn't a debate on which is objectively better tho, they both have some things better than each other

I agree with you completely! There are some things I prefer in TotK, but overall I like BotW better. I knew that would be the case - my BotW story is disgustingly sentimental and impossible to replicate. BotW was my first open world game I've completed, it has taught me how to play AAA video games and opened a whole new world of media for me. A game whose entire point is to be thrown into a completely foreign land, without a map and with minimal directions on how to play, which forces you to rely on your real-world instincts and knowledge, was perfect for this journey. I beat the final boss over a year after starting the game because it took me that long to explore every nook and cranny of the game, to live in that world and learn to love it, and then I felt ready to face the ending. ALSO, while TotK's themes of connection, companionship, and renewal are a completely natural continuation of the story and I wouldn't change them, I gotta confess I prefer the tragic, beautiful yearning of BotW more. There's something so majestic about a story about two kids who conquered evil a hundred times before, but then failed a hundred and first time. ALSO, I never managed to get quite as lost into TotK as I could in BotW, where I could be playing for 8 hours straight and not notice it, which is probably because I know the map inside and out (although this might be because I am now an adult and not a hormonal teenager lololol) (also because switch controllers SUCK my hands HURT SO BAD if I play more than like 2 hours. wii u pad I miss you </3). ALSO, the storytelling was very dear to me in BotW but failed this time around. I feel like TotK tried to replicate the non-linear nature of BotW, but with a linear storyline, which made plot holes abundant and kept jerking me out of the story. In BotW the plot could have been summarized in 4 sentences, but TotK is WAY more complicated and needed better development and more plot-heavy sections a la traditional Zelda. Honestly, they should have either stuck with a completely linear plot, OR added more lines of code that would ensure Link doesn't just Not Tell Everyone he finished one of the main quests until the very ending of the game.

All in all, I get that TotK blows BotW out of the water when it comes to complexity and technical achievements, but the ideas behind the game and my own personal experience with it will never be beaten in my eyes. BotW 5 ever

[full-pockets]

The more bullshittery I hear about TotK, the more inclined I am to post about my Courage Lost AU (and other unnamed AUs) just in spite that I can build a better world/lore than a bajillion dollar company can. Like not throwing random shit in the game, actually build from pre-existing lore set up in BotW, fuckin CONNECT the two games so that it looks like an actual sequel.

Also gettin rid of shit, like basically all the hand abilities. Lore wise it just doesn't make sense. How tf are you gonna a tell me Rarau had magical tech glue? NONE of the Zonai machines are glued, we never even see Rarau USE any hand abilities, his thing seems to be light magic. Which also doesn't make sense cause why do Zonai have light magic when it's supposed to be the blood of Hylia? Sonia should have light magic (it's literally her name) cause she's a Hylian who could possibly trace her ancestory back to Hylia and the light magic. I think it would have made more sense to give Rarau, these mythical 'god-like' tech inclined beings time magic. Thou the game, both BotW and by connection TotK seem to have completely done away with Hylia. We technically were never told the Goddess Statue *IS* Hylia, we as the player make that connection because that's her statue from Skyward Sword. It also seems like the land we know as Hyrule was kinda already there and Hylians like Sonia developed. Later the Zonai 'descend from the heavens and bestow power with the Hylian queen'.

Yes previous Zelda's use time magic like OoT Zelda sending Link back in time, but one could argue it was the OCARINA, not entirely Zelda herself, who used time magic. Zelda and esp BotW has been more associated with light than time. Yes she did keep the Calamity at bay for 100 years but that doesn't mean she has time magic. It means she used her own light magic to keep it from spreading more. She didn't encompass the Calamity goop in a time bubble, she just held it off.

Idk. I never felt the hype for TotK. Somethin was always off. I *wanted to feel hype cause I like BotW, I like the open world, the freedom, the story, ect... but even my first few hours playing in the tutorial area, somethin was off. Stuff wasn't making sense even then.

[batrogers]

Listing this just because, Weirdest self-imposed challenge runs I've done for BOTW and TOTK:

1. Main Memories Only (BOTW)

I think this was my first one I ever did; I had the weird niche idea of, do you get the bonus credits scene if you get ONLY the memories in the slate?

This, incidentally, meant that -- after not playing video games for 20 years (eg. N64 era) a Switch was my first ever console I personally owned and BOTW my first game -- I set myself a challenge run in which I had to do the boss gauntlet of BOTW...

...without the Master Sword.

(Incidentally, yes you do get the bonus scene which is really funny bc it definitley implies you freed the DIvine Beasts and I most certainly did NOT.)

[Below: "No Status Effects", "Weaponless", "4 Heart Run"]

2. No Status Effects (BOTW & TOTK)

Status effects here were defined as attack/defence up & weather effects. I also cut out gloom-resistance & sunny foods in TOTK, and banned upgrading the glide set to set-bonus level. Movement effects (which I generally don't use anyways) were fine in TOTK, I don't remember for BOTW. Weapon-and-environment-based weather bonuses were permitted, but the weapon ones only ever give first-level defence.

This was significantly harder in BOTW than in TOTK. In TOTK, Sidon's ability negates entirely the environmental dangers of Death Mountain and Gerudo Desert, with a level-two protection and thirty second duration. The ability to throw items is also helpful: I struggled a lot with trying to drop chu jelly and hit it *before* it turned into a firebomb instead in BOTW.

You also, incidentally, can't use any abilities while actively on fire. This made the drones up Death Mountain in BOTW a serious problem, and I am very glad I had ancient arrows to deal with them because I could NOT magnesis them instead.

In TOTK, the hardest section was the end parts of the Rito quest (level two cold), and cold damage is pretty slow. I don't think I'd bother doing that one again, but I might repeat BOTW for kicks.

3. Weaponless (BOTW & TOTK)

Absolutely the FUCKING best of them all, highly recommend if you really want a challenge. I did NOT do Master Mode in BOTW, because I needed to be able to kill bokoblins and -- guess what you can't get in BOTW if you pick up *no* melee weapons, no bows, and no shields?

That's right. You can't repair the Sheikah Slate. At all. Which means: no camera, no upgrades. It also blocks you from completing the second Kakariko Shrine (you need to finish the great fairy picture quest to start that!) and from getting the snow and sand boots (Bozai doesn't even appear until you get the camera fixed.)

IIRC I could complete 70 shrines or so, and couldn't even pull a few from the ground at all. I also could not complete a single region, because every single one required you to at least have something in your inventory, and I did not do that -- because, if you never picked up a melee weapon, bow, or shield, Link's shirtless model never acquires a baldric which had some... fascinating results LOL.

However, it's been interesting how the game changes between BOTW and TOTK doing the same thing. in BOTW, you have unlimited remote bombs. They're not very strong but they are consistent and endless and fairly safe to use. In TOTK, however, it becomes not just a resource management game but a game of risk and reward. You can't do three of the six dungeons (you need a bow for both Gerudo and Zora quests, and you need to complete all four regions to crack the castle) but you can get Mineru if you permit Zonai device use. (Which I despise using, so that's self-limiting for me.)

The other thing that changes is that the bosses that require serious damage done become a mix of attrition and risk management. If you're willing to acquire the lightning helm and Zant's helmet, you can use sapphires and topaz with impugnity.... but breaking rocks and killing talus are resource intensive tasks in themselves. It took me 15-30 bombs to down a single overworld boss. It took *ten minutes* to kill Marbled Gohma.

And if you use a gemstone and aren't immune, those things take out 20 hearts a pop if you're caught in splash damage.

But I could also complete all but 12 shrines in TOTK without melee weapons, which I think speaks to how broad the problem solving options are. The two games function completely differently because of the different base mechanics, and it was an absolute delight.

4. Four-Heart Run, no Fairies, no Armour Upgrades (BOTW & TOTK [just started])

This was not done as a speedrun, this was a Master Mode, I'm bored let's see how long before I get tired of dying. (I did not.) This is likely to be how tears goes too, although I can be iffy about holding onto fairies or not LOL. I usualy am not very strict, but I enjoy the challenge.

IIRC I left off the BOTW run at being unable to beat Maz Koshia (I'd finidhed everything else, including Calamity Ganon.) I imagine TOTK will be similar, once I decide how to handle the Master Sword and/or Mineru question. I only just finished weaponless, so here's to hoping!

[gust-jar-simulator]

I want to think out loud, so let's talk about my concept for Dark Link in BOTW. Specifically the playthrough I'm doing.

The thing is, I have two things I REALLY want to do in BOTW. I want to beat the game primarily with spears, because they're my favorite, so I've decided to RP the idea that after getting resurrected Link flees from man and god and becomes someone new. New name, new look. Best way to do that? Move into the Gerudo Desert. People are asking for a swordsman, not a molduga hunting spear-wielding vai.

Unfortunately the call of destiny takes no shit and no prisoners, and even if he tries to fully integrate into Gerudo culture, he is unfortunately the only person capable of stopping the horrible zappy camel mecha. So defeating that is what will unlock the main quest for me- right now I'm region locking myself to the Gerudo desert and highlands until I defeat Vah Naboris. Also, only vai clothes. For trans reasons.

After that though, there's only one full set of armor I'm at all interested in- Dark Link's set. Weirdly enough, you can only unlock it after defeating all four divine beasts, so I've got my work cut out for me. Once I get it though, I want to permanently switch over to that for fun.

My concept for this Link, and the story I'm telling about him (tagged Rewilding) involves a lot of identity fuckery on multiple levels. The function of a Dark Link, in my mind, is to make Link confront the version of himself that he's afraid of. Sometimes the thing the gods are afraid of him becoming, to better keep him in line- but sometimes it's fundamentally just him. His own personal monster. Himself.

These are two very different things.

What would the gods be afraid of him becoming? Someone who won't defeat Ganon, probably. Someone who joins him or loves him or embraces the malice because he's so fucking done with the cosmic game. Someone who refuses to play, even though refusal is never really an option. The oathbreaker paladin who rejects his princess- and wouldn't it be justified, after the way she rejected him? Ganon has material to work with, there, with Link's memories already corrupted and Sheikah tech flowing through his veins. There's no reason the blood moon couldn't whisper to him the way it does guardians and lynels and every other foul thing in Hyrule. Doesn't he deserve a break?

You get Dark Link's set right around the time you hit a plateau and have to make a choice in the questline. After defeating the Divine Beasts, you can go to the castle. Or, you can faff off into the wilderness, complete every sidequest and pick every flower. Sure your princess is waiting, but why not suck the marrow out of life and leave her on read a bit longer, y'know?

It's an open world game. These things are for frolicking in, not beating. <- (Dark Link whispering in your ear telling you to find every Korok because you might get cool loot)

That said, what would Link be afraid of becoming? I think I have my answer, and while an argument could be made that he's afraid of letting Zelda down again, failing her the way he failed a hundred years ago- if it was me, and of course in my games Link is always to some degree me, I'd be afraid of who I was and am not anymore. I'd say Link is afraid of Zelda's Appointed Knight, Champion of Hyrule, bodyguard and pissboy and unthinking unfeeling sword. I'd say he's afraid of the Hero Chosen by Hylia, and most especially the sword that defined him, deciding his fate before he was old enough to understand.

He's afraid of becoming the Hero, and even once he makes his peace with that, he's still afraid of who he was, this nebulous creature everyone relevant expects him to be. The whole game orbits around his amnesia and memory loss. While that's scary, it's scarier to realize that he's not free to remake himself in post-apocalyptic Hyrule. He should be. It's been a hundred years. It should be okay if he can't remember, nobody else does- as long as he saves the day, it shouldn't matter who he is or how he does it.

But there are people who remember him, people with expectations that aren't just save us but also be the boy we remember, and he can't do that. Not fully. You can't cross the same river twice, and he was dead. The knight never freeclimbed a Zonai ruin in the rain to test his anti-lightning earrings. The knight never considered the freedom of gender fuckery. The knight never bounced Rito chicks on his knee or indulged in cool sunset pictures. He wouldn't know how, and if he did he might not understand why.

Link came back from the dead and fell in love with the wind in the grass. The knight never had that. He is incapable of being that again, but there's songs and legends and people who see the stoic soldier when they look at a young man dressed in his underwear and a korok leaf. There's an expectation.

He's terrified because if he becomes that soldier, he'll be killing who he is now, and he doesn't want to die. In that small, unnoticeable, inconsequential way that is important to only him. He can have things that are important, now. He can be happy. Does he have to choose, between being happy and being Who Was Promised? Can't he save Hyrule and be himself? With every memory, something else is rooting behind his eyes like parasitic ivy, and as much as he wants a purpose he wants it to be his own. He'd be much happier saving Zelda without remembering her at all, but that's... cruel. And, unfortunately, he kind of does want to know. So he does, hunts down the familiar-foreign feeling of mute devotion and tries to figure out if he feels longing or horror as the memories fit under his skin like a foreign thing settling into a too-small coat.

I think if we had to fight Dark Link in BOTW, he should manifest as the Champion of Hyrule, Zelda's devoted and utterly wraith-silent knight, with environmental storytelling to indicate the guilt of the failure at Fort Hateno as well as the horror of being a soldier.

This is Breath of the Wild. Every wolf and korok in the country has seen Link's ass as he paraglides and drops into freefall to shoot bomb arrows. You've never seen a less civilized gender anarchist. He's probably got sticks in his hair, and squees at cute clothes.

The knight is clean and groomed and primped like a showdog. He doesn't speak. He doesn't emote. He kills, and kills well, and when he's not killing he follows like a shadow. He is the mortal extension of the Master Sword, and needs be nothing else. He's a thing. An ideal. A prophecy in motion, and has been since the tender age of 4. That's when kids start learning how to read, and he was learning how to kill.

Nothing, not even Ganon, horrifies Link more than someone looking him in the eye and expecting that he be the king's lifeless attack dog again. Assuming, even, that he's eager to remember and become that again. Not many people get born twice, and he much prefers a childhood of baked apples and freeclimbing to indoctrination and conformity.

Link came back wrong and he likes it that way. So, if I may be humorous about it, this version of Dark Link would be Link's personal blend of toxic masculinity made flesh. Talk about exposure therapy...

Anyway, I put a lot of thought into this and I think it would be very fun to give Zelda everything she wants- a Link who remembers her, her devoted knight who's everything he never wanted to be again.

[beardedhandstoadshark]

I think I figured out why totk feels a bit iffy to me, and it‘s not in fact the story or the map or that "Zelda‘s sacrifice isn‘t worth anything cuz she‘s not suffering for all eternity“ (seriously wtf are you guys ok). Nope, it‘s that despite all its attempts to convince you otherwise,

This is just the same game again?

Seriously, what’s really new here? Nothing‘s changed. Sure, there‘s a 6-year gap now, and 1.5 new maps, that‘s pretty cool, but what else?

The setting is pretty much the same. The gameplay is pretty much the same. The goal is pretty much the same. The story is pretty much the same. All you do is pretty much the same. But then you look at it and it tries to tell you it‘s not.

Heck, even some of the things that are new are really similar. Ultrahand is Magnet but for everything. Same as Recall. Sidon‘s shield is Daruk‘s but passive-use. Tulin is Revali but sideways. Riju is straight up the same skill but mapped to your bow now. (though tbf that one makes sense character-wise at least).

The same can be said about the games that came before it (primarily the 3D ones) but those had, imo, enough differences in everything surrounding the "old Zelda formula“ to be unique. From graphics to story to setting to even the details of the gameplay surrounding that formula, the core is the same, but the things around it are not.

They also all have their own "vibe“ in settings, so to speak. For example, just like how Wind Waker’s a pirate sea adventure, TP is a fantasy wild western, while botw has its ruined civilications and rediscovered magitech.

And then Totk also has ruined civilisations and rediscovered magitech. Just in different shapes. And green this time.

(Fun fact: "The same thing in green“ is a real idiom in German, for when two seemingly different things are actually almost identical.)

It‘s not all like that ofc, there are things that make totk unique and I‘ll elaborate on later, but it just feels like there‘s still so that… something, that could‘ve made it unique.

And while having the game play in the past might‘ve helped, I‘m not sure if it would‘ve been enough, because even then, the vibe would still be similar. You‘d still be doing the exact same thing. You‘d still have your circle of ancient magitech skills that are basically-but-not-quite the same as the previous one. You‘d still have a hundred-something minidungeons to solve that already felt the same on their own. You‘d still be in a ruined civilisation with ancient magitech setting.

It‘s like with the pre-switch 3D Mario games- the core gameplay goal is the same (world -> level with missions granting you a star each-> get enough stars to unlock boss -> loop) but the gameplay surrounding that goal, as well as the setup and "gimmick“, are always different enough to make each game unique - except for the games that didn‘t do that, Galaxy 1 and 2. You‘re not missing out on much gameplay-wise if you only played one of them. And G2 has all news maps and a story, mind you, hence why I said having those couldn‘t make totk unique enough to make it feel like its own thing either.

Same with the Oracles games; technically 2 games, yes, different plot, dungeons and map, but are they? Are they really? Or are they more like two "editions“ of the same base game, like in pokemon?

And worst thing is; there‘s parts of totk that aren‘t like that! The truly new and unique things, those are pretty cool, and DO help differentiating totk from its predecessor!

The almost "crafting“ aspect of the improved weapon system, using what you find from exploring to strengthen weapons or give them new attributes (frozen-meat shield skateboard my beloved). The main dungeons all having their unique aesthetics and mechanics surrounding the core "find 4 switches“ loop (like how the old 3D games would do unique things around a "find keys to progress“ loop to keep things fresh, something that botw failed to do and totk fixed), the gloomy eeriness of the depths juxtaposed by the ethereal gardenlike calm of the sky islands.

The treat of cold machines and murderous analytics replaced by visceral rotten flesh, erratic in its movement and droven only by hunger.

Heck, even the cutscene for unlocking maps, getting shot out the tower by Purah‘s contraptions instead of climbing it alone; not being alone this time. There‘s others with Link this time. He‘s not alone this time.

Those help shape totk into its own game with its own unique feel. And it was SO close to succeeding. But it just barely missed the mark. Because the moment you‘re on the road again, away from others and going exploring, doing wjat the game is essentially about- it becomes identical to botw again. But it doesn‘t want to be botw. That might be the real issue. The setup screams "new“, while everything else screams "more of the same“, and the game can‘t decide which one it wants to cater to.

And if that‘s what you like, and wanted out of it, that‘s great! I‘m happy you got that! But I just can‘t play a different version of the same game for another six years again all while being told it‘s a different one.

Because that‘s what totk feels to me- like Mario Galaxy 2, like every set of a pokemon gen, totk feels like another "edition" to botw of the overarching "switch games“ generation.

TLDR, totk couldn‘t decide if it wanted to be a sequel sequel or a "its own thing but can still act as a sequel to those who played the other one“ sequel, went with one leg in each direction, and tripped over both of them doing so.