#when i think it's extremely clear within totk itself that they're manipulating totally different energies

[orangedodge]

A year on, one thing I would have liked had TotK handled it differently was Zelda's general sense of uncertainty.

There were specific areas where I think it made sense and was explicable for her to be unsure of herself. The time travel can be easily forgiven, of course. Having ancestral time powers was news to her, let alone understanding how to use them. And, up until the moment Ganondorf became the Demon King, the whole situation could theoretically have been one giant coincidence (as players participating in a narrative we know otherwise, but she didn't know she was a character in a story, so her trepidation there all checks out).

Having her struggle in Rauru's court was a good place to center her arc. It's been a long time since she's had to perform being a princess, and her father, the king, did a not-so-great job of preparing her for it. We know she's been functioning in a leadership role since BotW, but to the greatest extent, she seems to be working primarily through her Sheikah friends while being a recluse off in Link's house. She hasn't really been acting as The Crown. So having her take advantage her her time travel adventure to observe Rauru and Sonia, letting them correct her father's mistakes a little via example, bringing the story eventually to a close on her returning home and accepting the allegiance of the sages is a good, satisfying, direction for a sequel.

What detracts from it, though, is where Zelda's scenes specifically--and perhaps this is a consequence of how few of them there really are, necessitating as much economy of film shorthand as possible--tend to broaden her uncertainty in a few understandable areas into paralyzing uncertainty in all areas. Maybe she doesn't feel ready to jump right in to ruling all of Hyrule in the wake of BotW, but one thing she really should have down by now is the whole "sealing evil" thing. She's been doing THAT for over a century. And there were plenty of times where remembering that she had those powers would have been extremely useful. (If anything, maybe they could have made her a little too comfortable on that end? Ganondorf's whole thing was using trickery to take advantage of the complacency of more powerful foes. She's just sealed away Calamity Ganon, and Ganondorf himself is just... some guy, in comparison).

It doesn't diminish the game for me or anything, but effectively we do have a scenario where a 100+ year old woman has received two separate coming of age arcs, where the second one would have been more effective if imagined more as a time of healing and recovery now that her war with the Calamity is over. It's still very effective as an outright do-over of BotW, but as a sequel I hope they do better next time.