⚠️ It's Dangerous To Go Alone...
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is my favorite installment in one of my all-time favorite video game franchises. It was the killer-app launch title for the Nintendo Switch and was hailed as a return to form for a series that had gone so deep on its own lore that... uh... I think the technical term is "it's head had disappeared up its own asshole." Breath of the Wild reoriented the gameplay on exploration instead of story progression, and it was such a success that seemingly every other AAA series started putting out imitators. This is how we ended up with an open-world Sonic the Hedgehog game, which is not a thing that needs to exist in any universe.
While it's considered story-light for this series--most of the narrative is told in snippets of flashback--the storytelling is actually one of my favorite things about it. For starters, I am a sucker for being drip-fed parts of a narrative and being forced to fill in the gaps with my own imagination. It hits the dopamine receptors just right, and it can make a smaller story end up feeling huge without committing to a lot of time spent watching cutscenes. And while the story is slight and mostly skippable, I still find it quite compelling and rich. I mean, the game essentially takes place during the "grand gesture" of a romance (don't worry, we'll get there). But the thing that interests me the most is the way it addresses the central problem of storytelling in Zelda: how do you present a damsel-in-distress narrative to a modern audience, especially when the damsel is the title character of the franchise?
Let's back up a bit.
The original The Legend of Zelda was released in Japan in 1986 and then to the rest of the world the following year. It was a game with a linear dungeon progression but with all of the entrances and a number of power-ups spread out across an open overworld. In it, an adventurer named Link must find the eight macguffins that will allow him entry into the final dungeon to defeat the evil monster Ganon and save the titular princess. This is also when we first get to see what she looks like, because despite her name being on the box, she doesn't make an appearance until you've already won.
Why is this? Why name a game after a character who is barely present? Well, it's the same reason The Wizard of Oz is named after the Wizard and not Dorothy; the title is about the thing being sought, not the person doing the seeking. But why was Link saving a princess, anyway? Isn't it enough to save the world? Does he need to save a princess too? I mean... look, that was just de rigeur in the mid 1980s. Nintendo's other big franchise, Super Mario Bros, was doing the exact same thing.
Mario, however, didn't end up with quite the same baggage as Zelda. By a weird quirk of history, Super Mario Bros 2 was deemed too hard for Americans. Instead the US got a port of the popular Japanese game Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, with the principle characters reskinned as Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Princess Toadstool. That princess has been a playable character since 1988. She regularly shows up as a playable character in Mario-themed games that aren't part of the main series (think Mario Kart or Mario Strikers), as well as spin-off games of her own. She has an iconic look, a dedicated fanbase, and is part of a big enough franchise that she has lots of opportunities to do something other than needing to be rescued.
The Zelda franchise was a different story. Zelda II: The Adventures of Link was a quick-and-dirty rehash of the plot of the first game with the same characters and worse gameplay. Zelda spends the game in a permanent sleep--visible to the player in the background, but not doing anything other than lying in bed waiting to be rescued (subtle, I know). The next game The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, begins to establish the idea that these games aren't necessarily sequels, but rather a mythic cycle. It's not the same Link or the same Zelda, but the basics still play out the same way. Every so often a monster called Ganon will conquer the kingdom of Hyrule and kidnap the Princess Zelda, and a boy named Link will rescue her and save the kingdom.
There are also some philosophical implications that marry the series to that mythic narrative. The primary macguffin of the franchise is a set of three triangular artifacts called the Triforce, representing the forces of Courage, Wisdom, and Power. As far back as the very first game, these Triforce are directly associated with specific characters. Link is tied to Courage, Zelda to Wisdom, and Ganon to Power. Ergo, thematically, the narrative of the series is that Power unchecked will overcome Wisdom and turn the world to evil, but it can be defeated with Courage, allowing Wisdom to eradicate the evil and bring the forces back into balance. Which means that in every iteration of this cycle, Zelda is gonna get herself kidnapped. I mean, that's just science.
On top of this, the Zelda franchise wasn't popular enough to have spin-offs. The next game The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, doesn't have Zelda in it at all. Technically a direct sequel to A Link to the Past, it doesn't need to follow the cycle exactly, but instead of finding something different for Zelda to do, it has the usual gameplay loop, just with no princess in it. Instead Link is saving a fish. It's complicated. So the character of Zelda was in the strange position of being the name of the franchise without being the face of it. And since her character was not even the same person each time, she didn't have an iconic look. She was, for all intents and purposes, invisible--only there as a prize to be won if she was even there at all.
And this sort of thing was growing less and less acceptable in pop culture. 90s feminism was really leaning into the idea that beautiful women don't solely exist for men to rescue and, presumably, bed. So Nintendo overcorrected in the most 90s way possible. 1998's The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time featured a Zelda who was orchestrating everything behind the scenes and also secretly a harp-playing ninja guiding Link through basically all of the mid-game, only to be kidnapped at the very end so Link can still save her and the mythology will remain intact.
Her role has ping-ponged around ever since. In Major's Mask she's only present in a flashback. In The Wind Waker she's a pirate who doesn't know she's a princess. In Twilight Princess she's a usurped monarch who gets sidelined because Link is trying to save the children. She's not even the "Twilight Princess"--that's a different princess in this game. In The Minish Cap she's a statue. In Spirit Tracks she's a ghost. In the Oracle games, she's a complete afterthought, only visible in either if you've already beaten the other. In Skyward Sword she's a romantic interest but also the offspring of a goddess. The amount of agency she has in her stories fluctuates wildly, as does her appearance, characterization, and demeanor.
This is also where there series gets much more linear. There's less emphasis on exploration and more emphasis on developing the series' convoluted lore and using the games to tell a story about Link that features a princess named Zelda in some capacity or other. Skyward Sword is especially lore-heavy, and one of the worst games in the entire franchise. After that, Nintendo pivoted away, and the developers were drawing a lot of inspiration from an open-world game set in the Old West called Red Dead Redemption.
Which brings us to Breath of the Wild.
Breath of the Wild was, as mentioned above, a return to form, focusing on exploration rather than linear narrative. The game actively decouples itself from the existing lore, set so far into the future of the series that it can't be definitively placed on any of the canonical timelines. The entire gameplay drive is to explore the land of Hyrule until you are strong enough to challenge Calamity Ganon and free Princess Zelda. And yet... it's the first game I've played where Zelda feels like a real character.
The story as revealed through gameplay is that Link wakes up a hundred years after failing to prevent Ganon from overtaking Hyrule. They knew the calamity was coming and had tried to prepare, but all of their preparations had backfired. Their champions were slain and the machines they'd hoped to use to defeat Ganon had turned against them. After some tutorial business, you learn that Zelda challenged Ganon and has been locked in a magical stalemate against him for a century. She's been able to keep him inside Hyrule Castle, but the world has already been wrecked, and she's running out of strength. Once you defeat Calamity Ganon, she emerges, helps you out in the second phase of the boss fight, and then after that there's a brief scene of how she's planning to rebuild Hyrule with Link at her side.
But! There's a backstory that can be uncovered. Link lost his memories, but you can recover some of them by going to specific locations--because we're really focused on exploring here--and piece together the narrative of what happened to Zelda and her champions leading up to the Calamity. And it is a poignant love story about a young woman obsessed with scholarship, trying to solve the coming Calamity through technology because she's unable to tap into her true powers. She's saddled with a "protector" that she can't stand until he actually saves her life and she starts to see him in a new light. And then she hits her low point. Her champions--her only friends--have died because she wasn't able to unlock her power. Her father is dead. Her kingdom has been overrun. Her subjects have been all but wiped out. And her knight, this "Link" that she has grown so close to, has used up the last of his strength to protect her. So she throws herself in front of the killing blow that will end him and, in doing so, manifests her powers. And then sets up the events that will allow Link to re-awaken so that someday he can save her in return.
It is, beat for beat, a romance plot line starring Zelda. The Grand Gesture in a romance narrative is where one or both of the lovers perform some kind of sacrificial act as a testament of their love for the other, and that's the culmination of their character arcs. And that's what Zelda is doing in the lead-up to the main events of the game. She realizes her love for Link when she saves his life and performs a grand gesture by arranging for Link to be healed--knowing that it will take decades and will probably rob him of his memories--and then allows herself to be consumed by Ganon because it will buy Link the time he needs to recover so he can defeat Ganon himself. It's honestly hella romantic.
But more importantly, it's her story. She's the one with the conflict, she's the one with the stakes, and she's the one who has to perform an act of love in order to unlock her potential. And this is not just subtext. One of the champions, Mipha, talks about using her healing powers on Link when they were younger, and it's plainly obvious that she's extremely horny for him. There's a set of armor that you're only allowed to acquire because it fits, and that meant Mipha made it for him, which meant she intended to marry him, and this is what allows him to swim up waterfalls--look, it's videogame logic, let's not interrogate it too deeply. But! She is in the middle of telling Zelda that she was first able to use her powers on Link because she was in lo-... and then Calamity strikes and they have to go their separate ways so they can all get murdered.
I love this for so many reasons. But here are a few of them.
First, this game really focuses on the idea that Zelda is a scholar. None of the other games have come anywhere close to this in terms of making her, ahem, link to the Triforce of Wisdom an essential part of her character--and the Triforce isn't even in this game. And she's not just a scholar; Zelda's kind of a nerd. In one of the recoverable memories she decides to conduct some field research by having Link eat a frog, as though it's the most natural thing in the world. But her obsession with scholarship is also a character flaw to be overcome. Not because scholarship is bad--both this game and its sequel celebrate the idea of scientific exploration--but rather because there isn't a technical solution to an emotional problem. Ganon is explicitly a force of malice and he can only be defeated by an act of love.
Second, Link has no agency at all in the narrative. It's Zelda's story. Link is driving gameplay, sure, but as far as the story goes, he is a lamp. Does he have any feelings towards Zelda? Who can say. It's established early on that he is more loyal to the King than he is to her, and that he's glued to her side because that's what the King tasked him with. Other than that, he's a cypher who is either engaged in badassery or is being put off by Zelda's earnestness. One gets the impression that if Zelda ever did manage to lure Link to her bedchamber that he wouldn't have the first clue what to do with her.
Third, Zelda's performance is top-notch. She has regal bearing, she has divine heritage, but she's also a seventeen-year-old dealing with some very big emotions right now. The animation and voice acting capture this beautifully. I love when she's giving Link his ceremonial swearing in and is struggling to hide how much she just doesn't believe a word she's saying. I love when she's praying to one of the goddess statues, hip-deep in water and wrapped in ceremonial garb, and just vents her frustration about how none of this is working. I love the despondent resolution after her last entreaty to the goddess has failed. I love how she screams at Link to stop following her even though it's literally his only job.
But it's the all-is-lost memory that absolutely wrecks me. She's trying to deal with how catastrophically she has failed everyone she cares for and collapses into Link's arms because he's the only one she hasn't lost. It's a heartbreaking bit of cinematic storytelling.
Finally, I love that the game never sacrifices Zelda's femininity. Too often writers create strong female characters by writing them as though they were men. This Zelda isn't a male-coded harp-playing ninja whose identity is only revealed at the end. Surprise! This badass is actually a girl! Aren't we progressive! No. This Zelda is a woman who demonstrates her strength, not through force, but through dedication, perseverance, and thoughtfulness. Because there are other types of strength than just physical power.
Retro-fitting the mythology into a romance arc was a great way to tell a story in Breath of the Wild and they repeat that formula more-or-less in Tears of the Kingdom. Zelda's plot role is somewhat different and the game gives Link more to do to actively progress the narrative, but the basics beats remain in place. This time the backstory focuses on Zelda's love for Hyrule, since her love for Link is already established. The arc is a transition from love for Link to love for her kingdom. The first thing we hear he say to Link, once the game-proper has begun, is "You must find me." But at the narrative moment of her Grand Gesture, her entreaty to Link is not to find her but to "Protect them all." She is willing to give up her connection to Link if it will ultimately save her people.
It's a beautiful way to tell a satisfying story that features the title character even if she's not directly involved in gameplay.
That's what I think anyway,
]{p
Comments