#so the choice for Ganon was obvious

[sage-nebula]

I recently (as in a few weeks? a month? who knows) updated all my animal names in Stardew Valley, and I've been pretty happy with how it all shook out, so I wanted to go ahead and make a post sharing them in case that they can spread joy to others in the same way they've spread joy to me. This is especially true with regards to the barn animals, because unlike the coop animals the barn animals can give birth, and as such there are lineages without the barn animals that I tried to reflect in the names. And so, without further ado . . .

The Piggos

-- Ganon

-- Waddles

-- Swinub

-- Pilowsine

-- Mamoswine

-- Spoink

-- Grumpig

-- Lechonk

-- Oinkologne

-- Tepig

-- Pignite

-- Emboar

Unfortunately, no lineages among the pigs. I just bought all of them. :( But there will be lineages among the other barn animals, I promise.

The Sheep

-- Amphy

--- Child: Flaafy

---- Grandchild: Mareep

-- Cloud

-- Snow

-- Dandelion

-- Dubwool

--- Child: Wooloo

-- Lanolin

-- Cotton

-- Poff

-- Puff

The Goats

-- Eustace

-- Ronald

-- Doris

-- Edith

-- Albert

--- Child: Margaret

-- William

--- Child: Maud

-- Gogoat

--- Child: Skiddo

-- Edgar

--- Child: Ethel

The Cows

-- Marble

--- Child: Brownie

-- Chocola

--- Child: Chip

-- Almond

--- Child: Blondie

-- Vanilla

--- Child: Bean

--- Child: Latte

--- Child: Pudding

---- Grandchild: Pop

-- Miltank

The Dinos

-- Shieldon

-- Omanyte

-- Lileep

-- Anorith

-- Dracovish

-- Kabuto

-- Cranidos

-- Tirtouga

-- Larvitar

-- Tyrunt

-- Archen

-- Amaura

The Ducks

-- Louie

-- Huey

-- Dewey

-- Quaxly

-- Quaxwell

-- Quaquaval

-- Ducklett

-- Swanna

-- Psyduck

-- Golduck

-- Daffy

The Chickens

Void:

-- Ghost

-- Hornet

-- Hollow

-- Wyrm

-- Vessel

-- Knight

Blue:

-- Cojiro

-- Revali

-- Fyson

-- Harth

-- Kass

-- Cree

[betterbemeta]

@rawliverandgoronspice said:

#the conservatism of totk is staggeringly obvious #its values advocating for an impossible inhuman reality where people don't get to act or feel beyond their prescribed role #nor have personal or even communal feelings about said role #when botw was all about this very conflict #duty and personhood and responsibility and the shadow of the past burdening the future #Choices all the way down

I think what's happened here is that BOTW also had a conservative tone to it... but:

established these themes you mention almost by accident, as a product of explaining why all of these cool weapons of the past Failed (but are available now) and why Zelda didn't Solve It from the start (but needs our help now) and it all relies on Link to save Zelda (but she didn't need saving yet in the past, etc.)

made the miscalculation that after 100 years, Hyrule isn't actually there anymore to 'revive.' People have been living without it (contrast: OOT or TP where only a few months to ~7 years passed) for generations in relative peace and Rhoam's ghost disappeared before he could actually direct Link and Zelda to 'make a new kingdom' like Daphnes does at the end of Wind Waker.

Zelda in Breath of the Wild must fail at first to explain why Hyrule fell so it's in the state Link navigates later. Zelda's powers being unavailable are the source of the conflict you describe: about duty and personhood and responsibility and burdens. But at a critical moment the divine legitimacy suddenly develops, revealing a solution to a near-hopeless situation.

Zelda embraces those suddenly-developed powers completely, despite suffering about their absence before. She doesn't for example, decide to use the chance her powers gave her to harness a personal interest in ancient technology to take control of the Guardians away from Ganon. Awakening her powers means pursuing a very specific solution: one she even seems to 'get' from the Goddess/Master Sword answering machine. So it may not even be her 'decision' or 'plan' at all, but instead the right answer beamed directly from heaven.

It's like a negging situation where Zelda is told she is not good enough up until she is in crisis and most of her support network is gone... only then is given this One Golden Option that proves why This Power She Despaired Over And Could have Rejected Was So Important After All-- a message that justifies her father King Rhoam's cruelty to secure this golden option. That way the King can present as a regretful but still justified and noble ghost instead of a jerkass ghost.

so the conservative message in BOTW is more 'have faith in the system's role for you, because only it can save everyone in a crisis.' But to establish that message, the 'reasons why someone might lose faith in the system's roles' part had to exist.

And TOTK is almost like an over-correction of that oversight as well as how BOTW leaves the land in a 'peaceful' state but without Hyrule's Authority or Zelda's Divine Legitimacy-- 'if you could choose to leave the system's roles behind when there is no crisis, here's why you shouldn't. In fact, it's predestined you can't.'

[blackautmedia]

Tears of the Kingdom and the use of Hands

It's frustrating how well Tears of the Kingdom incorporates repeat imagery of hands in some form. It has a lot of this great concept with it, but never really capitalizes on it or uses it in any thematically interesting way since the storytelling is so underwhelming.

From the start of the game, Link's separation from Zelda shows him reaching out and trying to grab her hand and failing to make contact, a scene that's mirrored at the end of the game when you have a moment to dive after Zelda and make the catch you failed to do at the start. The game makes sure to have a button prompt section specifically for touching her hand.

Link of course loses his arm and gets...magic emergency surgery (the disability lens of how Link is portrayed in Tears is an entirely separate conversation. Hoo wee...) and from the beginning of the game Rauru and Link are bonded together with Rauru's arm fused to Link's body. My issues with the Zonai as a race aside, this is still another part of the motif.

During multiple conversations between Zelda and Queen Sonia during the memories, they deliberately draw attention to having Sonia reach out and hold or touch Zelda's hands to emphasize the sincerity and love she's expressing. Sonia verbalizes the connection she feels not just as family but even notes how she can sense the similarities in Zelda's powers.

Honestly, for all the issues in how underwhelming Totk's storytelling is, I genuinely love these little moments with Sonia. I think they likely did it to get around possible limitations of creating nuanced facial expressions they couldn't capture easily, but I still found it very effective by helping the player relate to the sense of touch.

The completion of each temple is marked with a show of loyalty with the newly awakened sage and some variation of handshake or hand contact.

All of this makes it more of a wasted opportunity that they had a scene where Mineru is touching her late brother's hand for the first time after being in slumber for ages and they do nothing with it. You could have her tense up, maybe have her run both her hands across the top of Link's hand after getting to experience some form of touch from her brother for the first time.

There's also the fact that Mineru and Link both have the unique experience of altering their bodies and selves in service of being kept in slumber for a long period of time to carry out the responsibility of saving the world. Both of them carry the emotional weight of having to leave behind their friends, family, and the world they knew all in service of this grand plan with Zelda behind it all and yet they never capitalize on any of this. Pretty much nobody else can really relate to this situation and it'd make a great storytelling point to focus on her.

Back to the hands though, we all know the most iconic enemy in Tears of the Kingdom are the gloom spawn, which everyone calls the Gloom Hands.

The end of each shrine you're met with a Statue of Sonia and Rauru greeting you with hands held together as they stand as one.

Hands and the constant element of contact to convey significant moments would be effective in a story about community and the connection and strength that comes from cultivating it and organizing. There's also the obvious connection of unity.

TotK kind of have an aspect and theme of community care or try to lean in on that idea, but it's also messy and undermined when taken with *gestures at everything else*

I dunno. I think the repeat imagery of hands is a really thoughtful choice to convey climactic moments of these scenes. I just wish there was more actual meat to the story to give it some weight.

I've considered doing an addendum video to my Gerudo discussion talking about TotK's storytelling and maybe some of the things that come to mind with the portrayal of Ganon and the Zonai, cuz boy do they have some...implications.

[chongoblog]

Brawl Tier List (Based On The Relevance of What They Were Doing When We Meet Them In Subspace Emissary)

I'll explain some of my choices under the cut

So a lot of these choices are pretty obvious, although some are a bit iffy or require explanation of the Subspace story which can be found in trophy descriptions & The Dojo.

The first category was for characters who were engaged in the Subspace plot from the get-go and were the "good guys". In case you didn't know, King Dedede is the hero of Subspace, and if it weren't for him, Tabuu would have won, since he made the "reset badges", and his initial plan was to hold onto some people and give them the reset badges in case Tabuu used his Off Waves. Meta Knight is considered to be a good guy, even though he mostly just wanted to get the Halberd back. Fox I put into this category as well since he's first seen giving chase to the Halberd in his Arwing, so I consider that pretty engaged, even if we don't know the exact reasoning.

The second category is open and shut. They're the Bad Guys. Ganon, Bowser, and everyone's favorite winner, Wario. Technically Wario kinda defected from Tabuu and wanted to just steal all the trophies, but I'm counting him here.

Next was the "Used by Tabuu" tier. According to the lore, the entire Subspace Army is made from the power of Game and Watch (although it says the Game & Watch are unaware of this). Pikachu's electricity was being used to power a lot of the operations (most notably the Subspace Bomb Factory iirc). And it's implied that R.O.B was coerced into helping Tabuu, feeling so ashamed that he put on the Ancient Minister garb to hide himself out of shame.

The "Was Doing What You Expect" Tier is a tricky one, since some characters like Mario & Kirby weren't doing what you'd expect in their normal games, but they were fighting, which is something you'd expect in Smash, but I was kinda lenient. Pit was watching from Skyworld, which is in character. It's shown that Pokemon Trainer was looking for Ivysaur and Charizard, so we can assume he was on that journey when we found him in the Ruined Zoo. ZSS's motivations are kind of unclear about whether she knew about the Subspace Bombs and tried to stop them or if she just knew her Power Suit was there and wanted to get to it. I always figured it was the latter, so I'm putting it in this tier. Marth was defending a castle, which sounds right (I haven't played Fire Emblem). Ice Climbers were climbing ice. Monkeys were getting their bananas. Link was getting Master Sword. Yoshi was sleeping (which only gets him out of "Just Standing There" tier because he is Yoshi).

Next are the ones who just kinda showed up. And it so happens that all five of them make a pretty grand entrance. Sonic is the obvious example here. Ness also counts since there's no implication that either he or Lucas actually live in or even near the Ruined Zoo, but then again in the dialogue-less cutscenes tying together over 30 characters, I don't think that detail was important. Falco makes a grand entrance, although you could argue that he was meant to be Fox's backup. Ike makes a grand entrance with this Great Aether. Captain Falcon literally shows up to jump out of his car, punch a robot and kill approximately 50 aliens in one fell swoop, so either there was an F-Zero track around the Island of the Ancients that we don't see and he quit in the middle of his race to do that, or he just did that. Either way there's something wrong with him.

And then finally we have the characters who were Just Standing There. Luigi obviously was minding his own business when he got got by Dedede. Peach and Zelda I almost put in the "Doing What You Expect Tier" (or at LEAST Peach since she knew Mario at least), but honestly? They were just standing there. No hate, obviously. Sometimes you just gotta Stand There. Olimar was minding his own business letting his Pikmin eat a robot before they were murdered. Lucario was vibing on top of a mountain (as you do). Lucas was just being sad. And Snake? We don't see any sign that he's on a mission. We just see that he's been on the Halberd for an undisclosed period of time before dramatically revealing himself way way later. I like to imagine he accidentally fell asleep.

And then the last tier are for the 3 characters that are unlocked after Subspace, so I don't really count them.

Anyway in case you can't tell I am back on my ADHD meds! Hope you enjoyed this. See you all for the Nuzlocke stream later.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

I absolutely love your analysis of the gerudo and Ganondorf because they put into words what bothers me about how TOTK portrays Ganondorf. That being they remove his agency as a character in favor of having some great evil against the good guys.

[Major story spoilers ahead for the end of the game]

At the end of the game, when you’ve defeated Ganondorf, he swallows the secret stone and becomes a dragon, like Zelda, fully knowing the consequences of what happens when that happens. And it’s just kinda left me with a bitter taste in my mouth? In the context of the story it makes sense, he’s portrayed as a egomaniac who just wants to destroy Hyrule. But compared to other versions of him, this one just feels more openly biased against him and the gerudo, with no reason or justification other than “he’s evil, hate him.” As far as I can tell… They never really show us that he’s done anything horrible or deserving of being feared before the show of fealty cutscene, other than not submit to Hyrule, attack them once, and generally have bad vibes. It feels forced how much they want us to hate him and the people who follow him. I’m not saying character in video games always have to be nuanced or complex but comparing like, Wind Waker Ganondorf next to TOTK Ganondorf…. 🙃 Waste of an excellent design imo.

Heyyy sorry for being a billion years late with this ask!! I was busy finishing the game!!! among other things!!! Thank you so much for your kind words, I'm super happy it resonated with you in that way!

I mean, the whole draconification plot beat doesn't really work for me. Like yeah, sure it's sad that Zelda is now a giant dragon and it's cool to have her soaring above your head while you have no idea where she actually is (a situation that isn't nearly tapped into enough in the narrative imo, like it gets obvious way too fast if you happen upon the wrong memory, etc), and I actually think the whole sequence of you removing the Master Sword from her head was the best scene in the entire game in terms of mood and emotions --even THOUGH it would have been so much better with a stronger story and stronger stakes-- BUT. How does that build up thematically?

I think what doesn't work for the Zelda side of this plot point (I'll get to Ganon next) is that... she doesn't make that choice. It's not like she's being tempted by an easy way out and decides to sacrifice herself for the sake of Hyrule or Link or whoever: she has no choice in the matter. Her powers activate (?? somehow? once and never again also, talk about dropped plot threads), she finds herself in the past, is the passive witness to a bunch of shit that only tangientially relates to her --it's like she's visiting estranged family in a foreign country and watch their drama awkwardly before being dragged into it against her will even though she was just trying to renew her passport and get back home (if there had been any callback to her relationship with her father it would have landed better, but it's just completely ignored so vOv). Then her relatives all die or corrupt or something, and she still can't get back home. What is she meant to do besides draconify? Grow old and die in the past? What would that accomplish?? Her adventures in the past are just basically about solving a shrine puzzle with a particularly weird solution --but the game treats it like a huge sacrifice when it's basically her only way out, and she lost absolutely nothing making that sacrifice (and then she... cries about the weird family drama? sure. Honestly I think it would have worked better if the tears were Rauru's, it's his bullshit everyone is dealing with right? He's the one who feels broken and aggrieved by the whole thing.)

So, if we ignore the draconification precedent builds up to zero thing thematically beyond cheap drama that reveals nothing about neither the characters nor the world, I think Ganondorf's case is a little more compelling because he does make a choice here: dying as he tries to achieve his weird lofty goals (and fail), or postpone his victory eternally by sacrificing his objectives but reject death and defeat --while also barring himself from victory. In a better crafted story, this could be utterly excellent and it feels very Ganondorf to me. BUT, my beef with that plot beat isn't that he chooses the second option, making him kinda active for the first time in the entire game (and makes an appropriate hideous smile: *loved* this second one, the first one didn't land for me but this one really captures the ecstatic insanity and transcendance and desperate madness of the act --I have nothing against Ganondorf offputting smiles and cackles when they feel earned, and the Sonia one just... doesn't to me, it just feels like weird rigging and mesh deformation choices getting out of control).

My problem is that his existence as a dragon contradicts everything we knew about dragons before --both for him and for Zelda. I thought the big issue with draconification was that you'd lose yourself to the act entirely, and would become this sort of organic landmark of infinite power and eternal life but without will to act on your precedent goals and understanding of yourself. But the second the big man becomes an evil dragon, suddenly Zelda zips in to the rescue (apparently remembering who you are? understanding she's meant to fight Ganondorf? I mean, this kind of works emotionally as a climactic ending and the power of love or whatever, again it would have worked better in a better story), and Ganondorf is still very much into destroying the world as well as you and Zelda.

Also, he's very definitively mortal (and he has the stone on his head again? And so if you destroy it you destroy his immortality? why???)

So... What I dislike here is the suggestion that he was somehow so evil and rotten and bad that all of these rare moments of interesting worldbuilding and ambivalence gets completely swallowed in the bossfight logic, making his choice (and Zelda's) completely meaningless in retrospect.

also: let Zelda remain a dragon you cowards, that way Hyrule gets any sort of chance to escape and reimagine its horrying eternal monarchy instead of re-establishing it even harder than before!!!

[pinche-pendejito]

There’s just something about how totk Zelda and Link both canonically have time powers but they’re opposites in the most tragic way.

Link can slow down time, giving him the ability to take the time he needs to make choices and take more accurate shots. He can flurry rush to hit you faster than you can react. His abilities make him more capable and impressive, giving you the player more confidence and safety when you’re fighting.

Zelda on the other hand is _tortured_ by her powers. In botw we see her struggle for 100 years straight doing nothing but fighting Ganon. Her powers keep her alive but at the cost of her safety and well-being. This is more obvious in totk tho with her (MASSIVE SPOILERS) getting sent back in time thousands of years and having to live out those thousands of years as a dragon, knowing her pain will eventually bring the greater good. Her powers don’t make her safer, she’s actually more secure when she’s not using them. Her powers actively torment her over drawn out periods as the people she cares about age and the land shifts to become unrecognizable.

They’re soulmates but they’re destined to be opposites. Zelda is caught in time and Link can affect time but never enough to actually reunite them. It just makes the time he’s taking to save her feel longer. The very powers that Hylia has given them to bring them together (Link’s time power thing with the pot lid and a guardian is what led him to being made a royal guard per Daruk’s diary) are also exactly what keeps them apart _constantly_. They must be so angry. They must be so tired. They must be so bored of waiting and watching the world slip past while the two of them stay separate.

The triforce is a curse and nothing more.

[loz-untold-myths]

UNTOLD MYTHS: Stone Fate

A multiplayer adventure of The Legend of Zelda... Because I am delusional.

This was my first LoZ fanstory idea! I made it a few years ago, and it is definitely my favorite out of them all. I was almost hesitant to share it.

Program: Ibis Paint X

Time Elapsed: 12 hours, 9 minutes

Beginning Story

Link is a young boy, 12 years old, who was raised among Koroks in Lost Woods by the Great Deku Tree. Similar to Ocarina of Time, he was left in the woods amidst a great battle in Hyrule. His best friend is a girl named Lya, who he met near the edge of the woods when monsters began to try to enter the forest. Link helped her scare them off with bomb plants, and she showed off a bow she made herself. Nothing like small children bonding over the destruction of enemies...

On the day of a festival the Koroks celebrate around the pedestal of the legendary Master Sword, things suddenly take a turn for the worst. A mysterious figure known as The Demon Lord arrives and curses the Great Deku Tree, threatening the woods to face a fate of decay. Link and Lya venture for a way to save their home, and must rely on one another to do so.

What they do not foresee is the King of Hyrule finding an unwanted opposition when the legendary sword is drawn.

Other Details

At this point in Hyrule's history, the cycle of Demise's Curse has grown so persistent that Ganon reincarnates similar to Link and Zelda rather than forcing himself to be revived by the Triforce of Power. However, the Triforce pieces naturally appear to the three victims of the cycle upon their birth anyway.

Lya is not Linkle or any version of a girl Link (which she is often assumed to be). It is quite obvious who she is supposed to be, I would say, and the choice of a green color scheme is just so she matches the colors of the woods like Link does.

Link has a few Koroks he's specifically close with. Link's closest sibling is Saron, a shy and worrying Korok who often has to play as Link's voice of reason.

The Koroks have their own small language of carved drawings. Messages written in them are scattered around Lost Woods with warnings and advice.

"Gameplay" notes.

If it were a proper game, control would shift between the two characters in single-player. They would be able to split up, but some areas would require one helping the other up or combining their abilities.

(#loz stone fate) (#loz untold myths)

Lya gives Link her ocarina, so he can get her attention from far away. In single-player, this would call her over if the two were separated too far.

Update!

The first peek has been posted! Check it out!

Destined Encounter

[gay-jesus-probably]

Random fun fact, the first time I played Breath of the Wild, I zoned out during King Rhoam's exposition, but made the mistake of still hitting the button to advance dialogue while not really reading. I was under the impression he was still going on about Ganon and Zelda, like he hadn't just already told me all that in a cutscene.

Then I tuned back in only to realize wait, fuck, he just told me to go somewhere, and gave me directions. I did not read those directions. There is no back button. Aaand then he vanished forever, and I learned that the directions had not been copied into the quest log.

...Yeah, so my first playthrough I wound up blindly stumbling my way towards Kakariko, horribly lost, saw the obvious road between the dueling peaks and decided that since it didn't point directly towards the quest goal marker on my map, it was the wrong way, and the only intelligent choice was to climb over a fucking mountain to take a straight line from the Great Plateau to Kakariko.

It... took awhile. Like, my first blood moon hit while I was still wandering around on the goddamn mountain. Though I did get to enter Kakariko via paragliding directly into Dorian and Cado like a total badass, so that was pretty cool. Also I really like the mental image of Dorian and Cado standing guard like always, then suddenly the legendary hero of Hyrule comes falling out of the sky onto their heads, horribly dishevelled from like a week of mountain climbing, furiously complaining about goddamn ghosts not repeating their goddamn directions. I see BOTW Link as being very chaotic, kind of a dumbass, and mostly just not giving a fuck about anyone's opinion.

Anyways so I found out later that there were several guardian stalkers on that mountain meant specifically to stop idiots like me from doing what I did. And I still have no fucking idea how I avoided them, beyond sheer stupid luck. That one decayed guardian in front of the bomb shrine killed me like five times in a row somehow, if I'd encountered a guardian stalker that early, I would have been FUCKED.

[only-by-the-stars]

For the character ask meme, I feeeeeel like Mipha would be an obvious one, so if you've already gotten her, then uhhhhh Revali or BotW Impa? :> (also, hi. I hope you're having a good day 💘💓💞)

nobody has asked me for her, actually! so I'll do both her and Impa!

Mipha:

First impression: the first time I saw her was in the memory where Calamity Ganon rises up, so I was basically just "ooh, a Zora, she's pretty!"

Impression now: AKJEBFKSFNKJDSFNHLKHKJHDHF I LOVE HER SO MUCH I CANNOT EVER BE NORMAL ABOUT HER, BEST CHAMPION, LOML <333333333333333333333333333333333

Favorite moment: every time I get to fight as her in AOC :3 and also when I get to save her from Waterblight ;~; and when she and Sidon have that cute moment on Vah Ruta ;o; I honestly treasure any time she's onscreen, but those are my favorites

Idea for a story: UMMMM I HAVE A MILLION

Unpopular opinion: she is NOT boring and her character is NOT only about her love for Link and she is NOT written worse than the other champions, people just wanna be mean about her because of stupid ship nonsense/prioritizing male characters (especially the rude ones because they assume those characters are inherently deeper) and in fact I think she's the best written Champion, because she has a family and friends that remember her in BOTW and that you also see in AOC and she thinks about more than just Link, thank you very much. underrated as hell and it makes me so mad. >:E

Favorite relationship: oh, too many choices! I obviously love her and Link in a very shippy way, but I also love her relationships with her family, and the little friendship she strikes up with Daruk, and what little we see of her interacting with others in side missions (there's a cute one where Riju helps her in the Domain, for example), and non-canon obviously, but I love writing her interacting with anyone I can put in there. :3

Favorite headcanon: I have a million bajllion after all the time I've spent writing her and fleshing her out, too many to list here :3;;;

BOTW Impa:

First impression: mainly that she was an exposition lady? she was nice, but sadly didn't really do anything aside from that. :/

Impression now: HOWEVER. I absolutely ADORE her in AOC!!! They really gave her personality, and I love her interactions with Purah and Zelda and Terrako, she is so so so much fun!!! it was really sad going back to little old lady Impa in TotK. :/

Favorite moment: Any time she is encouraging Zelda is so sweet! ;~; and any time she and Terrako clash, it's so funny xD I also love that side mission where she has to clean up Purah's mess with some Guardians, and she's just "-_-" the entire time xD

Idea for a story: I want to write more of my version of her from my favorite fic of mine! and just more with her in general. Like I still have some unused zine pitches that would be fun...

Unpopular opinion: some people don't like her youthful version cause it's so different from past younger Impas, but I love her! I like OOT Impa too, don't get me wrong, but I found AOC Impa super fun.

Favorite relationship: Her and Zelda!

Favorite headcanon: I like to think her not being present in certain memories in BOTW was an oversight, NINTENDO >:/ because she specifically states that she was friends with them back then, and we see in AOC that she really was, so where was she??? hence why in my Mipha protagonist BOTW retelling I have her be present in some of the memories with the group because that's something else that needs fixing.

(I am having a lovely day, thank you! :3 hope you are too!)

[yiga-hellhole]

here is the rant of the day

i think people who are disappointed with zant being an "incompetent" madman who, at the end, is ditched for ganondorf as the final boss and his last moment being the neck snap, are definitely onto something, but also maybe discrediting his actual weight in the story. so here goes a ramble about MY onions

so, yes. what made zant amazing for 90% of the game is that he was a completely new villain, who frequently displayed his prowess in magic and did absolute bullshit for little to no other reason than to break midna's spirit. he was scary. he was great. and then at the end he turns out to be mundo silly, awful at combat, and a lackey to ganondorf

and at first glance this is disappointing. but i think it also builds up

what twilight princess crafts is an incredibly power-hungry man who, through some dark miracle, *gets* the power, and achieved what may once have been a noble goal (free the twilit people and bite back at Hyrule for treating them like prisoners and their home as their personal trash dump), but executed so twistedly that any good has turned rotten. not just because of ganondorf's corruption, but because it was always more about revenge and power for him, and not a true justice

and that paints his motives decently well i think. then, what we have to know, is that zant is an unstable, selfish, childish figure. he is incredibly clever, but if it doesn't go as he wants, or if it doesn't go as he expects, his composure shatters at the drop of a hat. this is before and after acquiring the smidge of the triforce of power that ganondorf gave to him. the only reason we didn't see *much* of it before the finale, is because EVERYTHING was going according to plan, or at least, to the degree he could easily deal with it. even when stealing the Fused Shadows back from midna after the water temple, you already see him crack a bit in his composure, when midna questions him. he gets mad easily. he lashes out easily. and he slips up easily. but at that moment he so vastly overpowers anyone in the room, it's completely not a threat to him. only when link and midna manage to get to the castle does it become abundantly clear to him that he's met his match, and it is even MORE clear that he never actually received combat training, and has to wildly whip out everything he has up his sleeve in the hope that it kills his opponents. a powerful, powerful idiot at his core.

then there's the issue of ganondorf "appearing out of nowhere". also not entirely true! for most of the game it's made abundantly clear, which he even confesses before Lanayru, that his power is not that of the twilight people: it is his "God's". at that point it should be obvious that, this is a Zelda game, it's gonna be Ganon. and if he's involved, he's always going to either backstab or pat his goonie on the back so he can shoot his shot at killing the hero for this cycle. and considering this was Zant - who HIMSELF wanted to become King, and likely wasn't going to give up that throne should his God manifest physical form, simply doing away with him was the most convenient course of action. discarding Zant wasn't just a choice the game developers made because they wanted Ganondorf to be the boss, it is completely in line what Ganondorf would *want* to happen, as a character.

and that brings me to the neck snap.

singlehandedly the most badass thing to happen to any villains in zelda games

but i digress!

so let's look back to the throne room scene of zant's death. the one where he brags that even if the heroes should kill him, his all-powerful god will simply resurrect him right back. the two are bound by soul through their shared use of the triforce of power, and he is absolutely CONVINCED that ganondorf values his services and will reward him.

ganondorf does not. he mocks his lackey, and sits right down in the throne that zant fought for, the spot of the twilight and hyrulean king of evil.

and zant picks the absolutely most narratively interesting moment to show his face again. when link properly defeats ganondorf, his access to the triforce of powers begins to fade. however, because part of that triforce has been dedicated to someone else as well, he still continues to live, though weakened. when staggering and pleading for more power, the only way he can reach out to the source of his power is right where he had given it: his soul bond to our very own Zant. his spirit, too, was being kept "alive" by the triforce, and so long as one of them lived, the other could, too.

given that what was keeping him alive was noncorporeal, i don't think link could have actually killed him himself. the shard of triforce was still bound to him, and ganondorf was pleading to it for more power, to keep him alive. and zant, hovering there after knowing that his God had used him for his own gain, and abandoned his promise to revive him and grant him the title of twilight king, heard that plea, and decided that the only proper response. was a, "FUCK YOU! DIE!"

and that made zant the only villain, to this point, to kill the bearer of the triforce of power. a response of pure vengeance, pure spite, killing HIMSELF only to make sure it drags that jacked old man down to hell with him. it perfectly rounds off his character, by giving him a selfish act of vengeance to perform one last outrageously powerful act that only he could do.

AAAAND SCENE! thank u for reading :3

[plum-pitt]

Brief bit of context before jumping in, i wrote this lil guy years ago with intents of making a oneshot or brief multi chapter fic of it, and it never got past the planning stage. It doesn’t contain any totk lore for obvious reasons, mainly that it was conceptualized damn near 3 yrs ago. I found it while looking thru my notes earlier today and decided i’d clean it up a bit and post it on my tumblr like a sad little orphan baby with the rest of my deranged ramblings. Its a Breath of the Wild AU that borrows the everything’s great and everyone’s alive concept from Age of Calamity(if only to ruthlessly tear it to shreds), but not much else, so don’t worry about spoilers or confusion with that game’s lore or anything. With all that said, enjoy

So i suppose this is for anyone who thought Age of Calamity went just a *little* bit too well. So, hear me out, a what if scenario where AoC was all just a wish fulfillment fantasy created from Links fragmented subconscious being affected by Ganon’s Malice, in a last ditch attempt to pacify the hero and slowly kill him from the inside? And in order to break free Zelda uses what little remained of her power to manipulate the illusion just enough to give his subconscious a chance at fighting back? Well dear reader, i bring you (the vague conceptal ramblings of) a harrowing tale of this poor boy living the life he always(?) wanted, having to watch it crumble all around him, trying to fight reality every step of the way, and finally coming to accept the harsh truths of his reality and finding hope in its future.

We open in the castle sanctum with Zelda and Link standing in the center of the room. Zelda hands him the sheikah slate with an almost apologetic look on her face, only for Link to discover a peculiar set of photos, the very same photos Link used in the failed future to rediscover his memories of the past. She then tells him that he must head to the Great Plateau and investigate, explaining she has reason to believe the visual data is linked to that location and that her duties with rebuilding do not allow her to do so herself. Link, of course, agrees and sets off immediately, but as he leaves the room, the scene focuses in on Zelda’s face in the final moments, twisted with guilt before fading out.

The scene cuts back to the present with Link back at the plateau, except, something is… off. Structures from all corners of Hyrule are scattered haphazardly across the terrain, mixed in with decimated ruins completely overtaken by nature. The time of day and the weather fluctuate erratically as he wanders, and thick, hazy fog that his legs refuse to carry him through envelops countless areas, paired with an ever present feeling of eyes boring into his back. Eventually he finds the ceremonial grounds that should have been in Hyrule field, now half destroyed and covered with moss and decaying guardian shells, also the site of the first photo on the slate. In a flash he finds himself experiencing the subdued ceremony memory, where he is appointed as Zelda’s knight, except, this isn’t his memory. It isn’t right. Just like that he is thrown back into his body, and the ceremonial grounds that were once in front of him had vanished completely.

After such a rattling experience, despite the job he was given he finds himself looking for the place he entered, only to find it too had vanished, leaving him no choice but to keep looking for the other locations in the photos. Each time he encounters a new memory location, he has another vision, and with each one, the land further warps and distorts itself around him. Vaguely familiar faces begin to fade in and out of the spreading fog like phantoms, almost taunting him as he progresses, while the feeling of eyes watching him only grows more and more intense. These strange visions don’t line up with his memories at all, yet the foreboding and heavy feeling in his gut leaves him feeling more anxious and confused with each passing moment. Eventually, after he sees them all lose, sees himself die in Zelda’s arms, sees her go to the castle to face Ganon alone, he finally arrives at the entrance to the Shrine of Resurrection. There he sees himself, mutilated and deathly still, laying in the chamber, and collapses to his knees, the yawning feeling of dread and emptiness hitting him full force.

He looks up once more and finds himself in an empty, eerie lost woods with an unresponsive deku tree and nary a korok to be found. His eyes catch immediately on the master sword, decrepit and broken like everything else in that place, sat lifelessly in the pedestal he had just pulled it from not a month earlier. The feeling of being watched increased tenfold, making him turn around only to see the cloaked form of… himself. But, no! This couldn’t be him. This person had countless burn scars the same ones as the corpse in the shrine marring nearly every inch of him, long unkempt hair spilling out of his oversized hood, and a wild undead glint in his eyes. Link is given barely a moment to take in the appearance of his stalking shadow before the figure’s weapon is drawn and he’s flinging himself at him.

Imagine an epic, symbolic ahh fight scene where these mfs duke it out, that i’m too lazy to describe. The dynamic i’m imagining is that our POV Link is a manifestation of the Malice’s temptation. The one who wants to stay in the happy dream provided to him by the Malice invading his mind, pacified by the fake memory. The Link he’s fighting (let’s just call him Wild cuz LU brain and also it makes shit easier) is the part of his brain that wants to move forward, accept his true past, and face the future. Each time Wild lands a blow on POV Link, he’s bombarded with more memories that bring him closer to true clarity and acceptance, knocking down his resistance to the truth. Conversely, every time POV Link lands a blow, his resolve to fight the temptations of this fake happy ending weaken. The fight stretches on, and for a moment it looks like POV Link might win, but Wild being a shifty fuck manages to turn the tide and land a killing blow.

In that moment, our POV Link finally feels clarity, enough to accept what he knew in his gut all along. That none of this was real, and that the one he’s been fighting all this time was none other than himself. Still, he can’t help but feel mournful over this happy dream, even as it literally falls apart all around him. In this moment of weakness he looks up at Wild, the grief written across his eyes drawing a look of sympathy from his other half, before the cloaked figure spoke in a gravely timbre

“We can’t run from the truth anymore.”

“…Why not? Can’t we just have this? Don’t we deserve a happy ending? After everything?”

“We do, and we can find it outside this place. But only if you have the will to get us there.”

“….Okay.”

With that exchange, our POV Link finds himself fading away with a small, hopeful smile as he metaphorically rejoins with his other half. Leaving just one, reunited Link left in the clearing, smiling up at the sky as the illusion begins to completely break down and collapse under his wholehearted resolve to escape. From one of the fissures in the sky, he hears Zelda’s echoing voice call out to him, and he takes a moment to thank her for the wake up call and apologize for the wait. Ending it off by saying he’d be there soon, before he too fades away. The golden light where he once stood, gently floating upwards toward the fissure in the sky.

Was this any good? Fuck if i know dawg I wrote this my junior year of highschool and just cleaned it up for shits n giggles. But hey! Let me know your thoughts on this strange blend between outline of a oneshot and actual oneshot. Or if you’d wanna flesh it out more and write it for yourself, then by all means do so! Just uh, credit me ig? Oh and send me a link cuz i wanna read the hell out of it.

[chatty-moogle]

The Story You Want To See: Princess Zelda’s Narrative Arc in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Spoilers for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

A piece about reviewer interpretations of Zelda's role in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, as analysed by someone who has played neither BOTW or TOTK. (1,219 words)

Unlike many gamers, what I (as a bystander with no interest in any of the Zelda games besides maybe Majora’s Mask) was most curious about with regard to Tears of the Kingdom was how it would treat Princess Zelda in the wake of Breath of the Wild.

You see, although I haven’t played Breath of the Wild, I do know that quite a few people praised Zelda’s portrayal in that game. They argued that while still a princess requiring Link’s rescuing, Zelda being made the focus of the main story (as doled out through flashbacks) and having been locked up in Hyrule Castle with Calamity Ganon by her own choice gave a subversive twist to that game. As summed up by Critical Distance’s Chris Lawrence in a Twitter thread on June 17th, 2021: “…In BOTW, Link may be the playable character, but Zelda is the protagonist—the flashbacks deal principally with her character development, not Link’s. […] The entirety of BOTW […] is about Zelda’s struggle to achieve autonomy.”

I wondered: if Breath of the Wild subverted the typical hero-and-princess story and put the evil to rest, then how would Tears of the Kingdom, which comes after this destruction of the status quo, treat this newly-liberated princess, a damsel no longer in distress?

Fans said that the obvious next step was for Nintendo to give Zelda a more active role in the sequel; as a playable character or deuteragonist, perhaps, but either way, she needed to be able to enjoy the freedom won at the end of the previous game. To return to Chris Lawrence’s thread: “If Zelda is once again damselled and needs to be rescued by Link, the sequel isn’t reflecting the growth of Zelda’s character over the previous game. In other words, the sequel is failing to justify itself as a narrative continuation of the first game.”

So I skimmed through the many glowing reviews of Tears of the Kingdom, hoping to find out what had become of Zelda. At that point, I noticed something odd: reviewers seemed to have strongly conflicting interpretations of Zelda’s part in the narrative.

Many reviews were positive on the story, and some specifically cited Zelda’s role in it as a highlight. Gamereactor’s David Caballero apparently declared that “it is literally the legend of Zelda this time around” (quoted in TOTK review by Gamereactor’s Alex Hopley), and Gamespot’s Steve Watts concurs: “But more than the Sages or even Link, this story truly belongs to Zelda”. The Gamer’s Jade King expanded on this in her review, stating that “[although] Zelda isn’t playable here, […] all the discoverable memories scattered across the open world focus on her arc”, and therefore “she is still given room to shine and comes across as inquisitively capable in recruiting new allies and setting the stage for Link to vanquish evil once and for all”. Checkpoint Gaming’s Luke Mitchell likewise observes that “while [Zelda] isn’t present for your adventuring, the main questline gives you the opportunity to unlock memories, uncovering more about Zelda and her connection to Hyrule”.

But a handful of other reviewers had a very different perspective. Two specifically noted that the premise of the game involves saving Zelda: Eurogamer’s Edwin Evans-Thirlwell wrote that “Zelda […] is still fundamentally a damsel in need of rescuing”, while IGN’s Tom Marks flippantly remarked that the game is “about stopping some evil jerk (welcome back, Ganondorf) and saving Princess Zelda as usual” while pronouncing the story to be “so dang cool”. The Verge’s Ash Parrish and Press Start’s James Berich were rather more critical, stating that “Zelda, though teased as playing a more active role, has been, once again, utterly sidelined — this time in a particularly egregious way”, and “Zelda’s characterisation definitely feels like a step back from her appearance in Breath of the Wild”, respectively.

So what actually happened in the game? After looking up some spoilers on Screenrant, I’m still not too sure myself. It seems that much of the main story sees Link searching for Zelda after getting separated at the start, during the course of which the player unlocks flashbacks showing what befell the princess. These flashbacks, in turn, explain that Zelda got transported into the past, and due to various reasons ended up sacrificing herself in order to ensure that Link is able to defeat the big bad in the present day. This sacrifice involves her turning into a mindless dragon, and she is able to turn back into a human only after being healed by Link (and friends) at the end.

In short:

Zelda is absent from a large portion of the game

Zelda does have a story arc in which she demonstrates agency… by sacrificing herself to ensure that Link can play his heroic role

Without Link’s help, Zelda would be dead (and/or stuck as a dragon with no sense of self)

Hmm. I don’t know, but this sounds very much like Breath of the Wild to me.

But why the praise? Why such a gap in interpretation among the critics? The answer, I think, lies in Ed Smith’s excellent article on Resident Evil 4 Remake, “And Then There Are Things We Don't Remake”. In it, he observes that “commercial entertainment has gotten extremely good at ensuring that your beliefs, whatever they are, are somehow reflected back to you”, taking Ashley from Resident Evil 4 Remake as an example:

“If you’re a feminist, Ashley talks more, does more, is kind of semi appreciably less sexualised than before. It won’t work on everyone, but enough people will be impressed by this ostensible progress as compared to 2005 that Resident Evil 4 Remake more or less passes the look test. If you like things how they were, and you’re worried about how videogames increasingly seem politicised or driven by a liberal agenda, Ashley still doesn’t do that much, and you still get to order her around, and there’s a few decent close-ups of her and Ada.”

Put another way, female characters in modern, big-budget games are frequently written to appeal to all demographics, even conflicting ones. Progressives will latch onto the hints of nuance to the writing of a female character or her gameplay design, while anti-progressives are appeased because they see that nothing has changed in the overall scheme of things.

Tears of the Kingdom is good because all those flashbacks are focused on Zelda, and in them we see a capable, clever young woman make a very hard choice for the sake of her people. Tears of the Kingdom is bad because ultimately Zelda isn’t present for most of the game and needs to be saved by Link.

Alternatively: Tears of the Kingdom’s handling of Zelda isn’t great, but hey, did we really expect any better of Nintendo? The trouble is that the games most kaleidoscopic in their representation are likely the biggest names – and as Smith notes, “there’s only so much indignation you can have about this, because it’s obviously how it’s going to be, and always going to be—they’re always going to make games this way, the big games, because it’s an industry”.

His illustration of this defeatist mindset is spot-on, but I wish it wasn’t. It doesn’t need to be the case. Let’s keep looking to that horizon, rather than only sticking to familiar plains.

[maythevoidnotscreamback]

Zelda did NOT go back to 10,000 years ago!!

She just didn't!

Yes, she went back in time, I'm not arguing about that for obvious reason, but no, it wasn't to that recent an era! And, yes, I say 'recent' because she went even further back than that. By at least a few hundred years, if not thousands more.

Zelda's time-traveled all the way back to the supposed founding of the Kingdom of Hyrule. (Though, IMO, I think it's more a re-founding after the previous Kingdom had been lost in one way or another in parallel to the Adult timeline where Hyrule and the Master Sword/Fi alongside it in the end was drowned under the Great Sea in Wind Waker and Tetra re-founded Hyrule as New Hyrule elsewhere as one can surmise from Spirit Tracks. Because we all should know that Link and Zelda from Skyward Sword are the original founders of Hyrule after Hylia sent her favored mortals into the sky. Not a Zonai man named Rauru and his Hylian wife Sonia who'd since been crowned King and Queen.) A time in which has the last two members of the Zonai race, their technology and Secret Stones. A time in which Calamity Ganon isn't even a concept, the one from whom it manifests not Sealed under the land the castle would be built upon yet, let alone something to worry about. So, it would be strange that the King or his sister would want to use the Sheikah Tech when they've got, arguably better, Tech of their own.

Hell, if anything, it's that Mineru (before she passed) or Zelda (acting as the Sage of Time and/or interim Ruler in Sonia and Rauru's stead until a council or something similar {only in the event the Orphaned Child of Rauru and Sonia, Zelda's Ancestor, was too young to lead and/or be coronated} could take over the Kingdom's operations and what-not before Zelda made her choice) left orders behind to either bury or lift the Zonai Tech so deep or so high that no one could or would find it unless bid by some form of Higher Providence. Because, you gotta remember, the Sheikah Shrines and Towers, unless they'd opened into some form of Other Dimension via the Monks who'd given their lives to be mummified to pass on their Spirit Orbs in which case the point would be moot, had never reached into the Depths; not even the Shrine of Resurrection though I'm sure that one got the 'close-but-no-cigar' badge for effort.

Hell, the way I see it, what tech was left behind, and probably not much if any at all, not to mention nothing of how to power it, when the last of the Zonai died and the Sage of Time was long since considered Gone and The Orders carried out had been the basis the Ancient Sheikah used to create their own versions. It could even be that there wasn't any Zonai Tech left to be found, simply notes and diagrams and drawings and what-have-you that had been left behind that survived the ages, maybe even hidden, by Mineru and Zelda that had eventually been uncovered by one of Rauru's and Sonia's descendants who then commissioned the Sheikah to find out if it were possible to recreate anything found within the notes, and they went off from there.

As such, depending on how long it took for the Sheikah to create their Tech - and you've gotta remember that they'd have to create or find or trade for the ore(s) and any other stuff that made the material and other components their Tech were made of and in the amounts needed to make it all, find out how to process it and then shape it, how to put it all together {this is in regards to the Beasts and their size, not to mention the logistics regarding the various Shrines} and how it worked together (and that's after all they must've gone through before and when deciding to use it for their tech in the first place!), not to mention all the trial and error that would go into finding out what they could and couldn't do with their tech, how to power it, how to control it in the case of the Beasts and Guardians and how they came to such decisions regarding either, if it would even work or how, even how well it should/would work {Shrine of Resurrection} and all that other stuff like justifying why they created it in the first place or why it might be needed or how to make them work in regards to the Runes on the Slate - to which might've needed several generations of Sheikah building and bouncing ideas off each other when a roadblock was hit for all we know, it would've been a while after Rauru had Sealed Ganondorf beneath the castle. Hell, in BotW, Impa was mentioned to say that Calamity had been fought against and defeated more than once before they used the Sheikah tech against him 10,000 years ago and was the reason it had been meant to be used again when the prophecy made mention of what was "Dormant beneath the ground".

ANYWAY!! TL;DR - Zelda traveled even further than 10,000 years into the past so please stop making mention about that being the number of years she's found herself waiting and wandering through, I feel it's a helluva lot more, when she or link goes back in your fics dear authors. I'm getting real sick and tired of that because it just doesn't make sense if you actually think about it for a minute or two.

[blackautmedia]

How do you feel about ToTK overall as a game? Like, how would you rate it out of 10 and why?

Thanks for the ask! I suppose about a 7 out of 10?

ToTK is a lot of fun to play through in its problem solving. Kinda. The ability to build your own solution is one of the strongest things it has going and I really like that, but I also feel that the range of access to tools you have also means that you can really just throw a few solutions at it that kind of solve everything.

I really don't like how so much discourse around Tears is just people yelling at other people that they're playing the game wrong when so much of what makes the game appealing is that it's accessible to people who think very differently with puzzle-solving.

I enjoy collecting the armor and dressing Link up in goofy outfits as well as Link babysitting his Nephew Tulin. The Gerudo woman who wields the cannon and is proud of it deserves all the love and joy in the world.

I love Sonia a great deal. I'd love a version of this game where you play as her instead. But it's unforgivable to make a character as sweet and kind as Sonia--one of the few dark-skinned main characters in the series--and then kick her out of the plot in such a horrible way. Most of the dark-skinned Zelda characters are either the "good Arab" trope like say Urbosa, Riju, and Nabooru, or you get cases like Tetra and Sonia where they're just erased from existence.

The biggest drawback for me is the storytelling and the narrative, which I don't think is a particularly hot take. The mystery of Zelda's whereabouts has the potential to be interesting, and the problem isn't even that it's obvious, it's that the game continually repeats itself about a dozen times with nothing new or interesting to go with it. None of the characters in the past feel like actual people and instead feel like vehicles to push the plot along at best and racial caricatures at worst.

Ganon doesn't even get to be a cunning or sly villain because he rose to power from everyone else just being incompetent.

I'd love for a Zelda game that gives Ganon an actual motivation for being the villain beyond just linking his evil to his racial identity because dude has more than enough ham to steal the show on his own.

I don't need Zelda to be a big gripping political conflict or some complex war, but I feel it misses a lot of the heart that made a lot of older Zelda games so compelling.

Wind Waker wasn't a complicated game, but I always feel strongly when Link comes back to see his grandma is sick and worried about her family. Portraying Link as a small kid in a big world with a family and all really sold a lot of the game.

Beyond that, it feels like you're constantly fighting against the UI and constantly fighting against choices that add up in inconvenience.

Linking abilities like movement speed and mobility to armor also means you constantly have to switch things around and spend too much time in the pause menu like the Iron Boots from the N64 Ocarina of Time taken to eleven. Pair that with the sages, having to get used to the weird controls, having to fuse things manually each time rather than just having a "favorites" option and it adds up quickly.

A lot of the things like rain and weapon durability still don't add anything interesting or fun to the game either.

It's a fun ride, but it can also be very trying at times.

Also, you can't pet the doggos. Bad.

[x-authorship-x]

I was thinking about that Anon who proposed a LoZ AU and I was wondering, if Shisui is Link who's gonna be Zelda and who Ganondorf?

Hey, Anon!

Hmmm I'm not sure, tbh! In a partnership, the obvious choice would be, well, Itachi, but Itachi doesn't really fit with Zelda. In BotW at least, Zelda struggles with feeling like a failure, something that worsens with her feelings of inadequacy around Link (who is silent but admired), and it takes a good while for them to warm up to each other and their bond is only truly forged when they fight Calamity Ganon... Shisui, as I have it, was supportive with Itachi right from the start and Shisui was Itachi's safe space. Similarly, a huge part of Itachi's character is that he's always been so capable and ahead of the curve. Whilst there is parallels between Shisui being a guardian to Itachi like Link is Zelda's Knight, I don't think Itachi would have the same role as Zelda against Ganon. Maybe people will disagree with me, but I can't see Itachi as a counterpart like that.

I just answered another LoZ/Narutoverse ask:

And I mentioned there that, if Shisui was Link, I'd be more likely to - depending on what game you're basing this on - either have Ino has the princess he befriended, have some kind of symbolic Avatar of Konoha stand in for Zelda. Maybe having tachi as his counterpart in 'sealing the darkness' (this heavy handedness of the Uchiha's role as royal family doesn't sit right with me, I'll have to keep thinking)... or rethinking the whole dynamic instead to have Shisui as Zelda (battling Danzo's corrosive forces in the kingdom?) whilst Itachi or Kakashi or Tenzo (elf/fairy energy, maybe) or whoever plays the part of Link instead?

Frankly, I'd rather approach a LoZ/Narutoverse crossover as a very specific post-apocalyptic AU than putting all of the Narutoverse cast into LoZ plotline ☺️ less confinement

Hope this answer wasn't a total mess of contradictions 😂 have a good one, Anon!

[rawliverandgoronspice]

"well yeah zonai kingdom good ganon bad it's shown" yeah i know it's pretty obvious that ganon is evil and rauru is kind, i agree because it's pretty on the nose. but have you considered why the writers chose to display it that way? in that context? it's not always about in-fiction events but what they mean at a larger scale, characters and locations are tools to tell you something

I assume this ask is a comment on the Rauru post, expressing frustration about the way people defend the writing? If it is: yeah, I agree. I mean, the game demands that you take it to face value, so I understand why people do just that, it's what they're asked to do after all; but it is pretty puzzling to see such a wide misunderstanding of why some people are this miffed by the narrative choices. What I'm criticizing are the narrative sensitivities of whoever took these directorial decisions for the game, not the character themselves within their world --characters who are barely people anyway, so pretty hard to criticize without doing so with some degree of bad faith (which I have done, but it's also useful to reveal the cracks in the narrative and the way they could be interpreted without too much effort).

Still, there are an alarming number of people who fail to understand where the discomfort is coming from at a pretty fundamental level. I'm not saying people have to agree! I'm actually very open to counter-arguments that address the problems at the level they are criticized --so not intradiegetically, but as in: what other kind of thematic approach could we assume TotK is trying to touch on, beyond the importance of preserving the legacy of our past and fighting to defend our glorious and perfect nation of light now and forever and always? I have been pretty unconvinced by every take I read on the story being an exploration of sacrifice (like it could have been the intention for sure but to me it just doesn't translate, which is either an indication that it was not the goal or that it was done quite poorly) but hey, happy to have my mind changed if I'm truly missing something!