#isn't a valid criticism when we bear in mind my aspec ass tends to only be attracted to strangers in vague aesthetic senses

[ganymedesclock]

what would be your favorite thing to see in a zelda game?

So my influential first Zelda Game was The Wind Waker, and while I’ve enjoyed many elements of games since then, if there’s one big thing I feel like was never topped... it’s Wind Waker’s version of Ganondorf.

Ganondorf is never, I would say, depicted as dumb (even his ostensibly ‘mindless beast’ versions are noted to show strategic cunning or there’s at least the implication of charisma or calculation.

But I’ve always really liked the sense of Ganondorf in his Wind Waker boss fight where it’s what a friend of mine has called “a duel of contrasting schools”. Wind Waker Ganondorf is a huge physically powerful dude and in contrast against a shrimpier-than-usual Link this stands out... but in practice what makes him a more dangerous foe than other hulking powerhouses you’ve faced in that game is that he shows an unbelievable amount of speed, grace, and agility. 

It’s been years since I’ve played the game but the image of Ganondorf, his great dark sleeves flying as he moves, attacks, and parries like a martial hurricane is embedded in my memory and I really feel like nothing since then has carried that same sense. Twilight Princess Ganondorf has many of the same qualities as a bossfight in his final phase- he hangs at scrutinizing distance only to suddenly rush you- but he presents all heavy and stomping and this was extended even further in Skyward Sword with Demise, who is not Ganondorf but clearly metatextually designed as ‘a counterpart to him’- Demise has some cool specs in his flowing, ‘raw elemental’ vibes but in practice he’s just, the biggest toughest dude and his lightfootedness is kind of an afterthought when he’s wielding Ghirahim in the form of a spiked club.

(which, like. I’ve joked before how this is horribly degrading for Ghirahim. Demise is agile but you defeat him by Skyward Striking him to death. You’re incapable of landing a skyward strike on Ghirahim because it is a MASSIVELY telegraphed movement. Ghirahim- who in his own hands, forges heavy but elegant swords to use as shields rarely, and far more commonly wicked lightweight sabers)

This is partially me coming from a background of, for eight years of my life, I did martial arts, and advanced pretty far at it. I’ve seen quite a lot of people, some of which just happened to be born with larger bodies than mine. They pulled the genetic straw to be big fellas and they even invested in that big body and got pretty strong.

In practice, in martial arts, the people you’re really scared of aren’t the strongest nearly as often as they’re the fastest. I went to a good school- some of our guys routinely took home first place trophies at national-level tournaments. And most of the cream-of-the-crop people in our school, were not huge guys- they were powerful, but that power was condensed and streamlined and wielded with speed and efficiency. 

And there’s more I can say of why Wind Waker feels like the best form of Ganondorf we’ve seen yet- I can talk for hours about the notes of complexity given to his rage and remorse and how the two interplay with each other, the aching emptiness of his speech about the wind and his confirmation at the end, that here, as was at the beginning of his life, the wind is against him- the sheer gravity of this guy as a bastion of a truly forgotten age and people, when Hyrule so often in games lies ‘dead’ but adored and mourned and idealized and even the ‘ignorant’ do not let the dirt from their shoes fall upon its grave- in Wind Waker, Ganondorf is the last known survivor of the Gerudo, looking upon a world where without assuming any monstrous form, there is still no one on the face of the Great Sea that looks like him.

But to boil it down, dammit, I want to actually feel like Ganondorf is a learned man and someone who is dangerous not merely by being a big angry bruiser but a big angry bruiser who carries his vendetta like a whetstone and passes its face over all of the edges of him until he gleams with sharpness. This is a man who orchestrates coups and springs ambushes and commands forgotten and forsaken arts of sorcery. I don’t wanna see him rushing me highlander style, or his gear loadout being determined by “well, he’s, bigger than Link, so he can use bigger heavier swords.”

And if we’re gonna get supernatural monster Ganondorf more than Ganondorf the human dude who is also an apocalypse-tier wizard, then, like... I’ve always stood by that the horror of the werewolf concept isn’t “that a man is replaced by a monster” but rather running from what you think is a vicious animal only to hear it unlock the door to keep following you.