Nephy Rambles #1: Five Hidden Themes
I've decided to write random articles from time to time on here in regards to Zelda. They are mostly ramblings and probably opinion peices... things no one should be interested in. They are probably based on random thoughts that come and don't go. So here we have Nephy Ramblings #1
Hidden Themes that Make Five Zelda Games Better than You Thought.
There are tons of fan theories in regards to "deeper meaning" or whatever term you want to attatch for each Zelda game. Majora's Mask has an entire army of theories, everything about the game really being about the five stages of grief to being an almost direct rip off of a Star Trek episode. Here are five that have crossed my mind but I've not really seen anywhere floating around the internet. Keep in mind, odds are the developers did not consciously think of these when making these games, but I'd not be surprised if they ended up being true.
5) Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask - Recapturing Youth is Overrated (and potentially catastrophic)
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
What it seems like it's about: A young boy is chosen by a forest deity to become a great warrior and stop an evil man from taking over the world. He grows from a young boy and learns to be a man during the adventure. After said victory, he ends up in an acid trip nightmare land and saves the world from a falling moon using time travel and the power of friendship, or something.
What it might actually be about: Having your childhood ripped away from you, being forced into adulthood, trying to regain your lost childhood only to find out being a kid sucks.
Ocarina of Time is a retelling of the classic coming of age story. A young boy becomes a man, learns about himself and the world, and becomes a hero in the process. Strange though, that he literally becomes a man over night from his point of view. Link never actually grows up, he's suddenly forced to be an adult against his will in order to face an increasingly cruel and dangerous world. It's almost as if he lost his childhood and never had one.
Ocarina of Time and its sequel Majora's Mask are less of a retelling of the coming of age story and more a retelling of Michael Jackson's life story. Link's life is full of innocence and peace, and he's literally ordered by forces far older than he is to rapidly become a monster slaying, world saving, evil tyrant murdering warrior in less time than it takes for the N64 to load the game. The world of Hyrule starts out relatively bright, both visually and the events that transpire. After Link is forced to become an adult, the color tones of the world become strikingly darker. Hyrule Castle Town is in burning ruins and populated by weeping flesh eating zombies. It's metaphorical of a sheltered and innocent child (being a Kokiri protected in the forest) forced to become a adult over night and face the real horrors in the world that were there all along, but never noticed. For Link's courage in facing the world and becoming a man, at the end of the game he is given the chance to try and recapture that childhood he lost, which leads us into our sequel, Majora's Mask.
In Majora's Mask, it's commonly accepted that Link begins his search of Navi. I propose that he is in fact trying to search for his childhood, probably represented by Navi. Fairies are very often the go-to mythical creature to relate to when referring to things being childish. Fairy Tales if you will. In fact, much of the conflict in Majora's Mask is caused by child characters terrorizing adults. Kafei, a grown man about to be married, is transformed into a child. Lulu's Children are missing, causing her to fall into depression. The Goron tribe's lone child is crying and driving the Goron elders insane. The Deku King's child daughter was supposedly kidnapped by children Monkeys. Cremia's little sister Romani is causing her all sorts of problems for being abducted. The two Fairies in the game, Tatl and Tael, are named after the actions of children who betray and turn on each other. The four bosses in the game appear to Link as little children at the end of the game. The main antagonist of Majora's Mask is Skull Kid. Majora's Mask is a giant play on how dangerous childish immaturity and ignorance can actually be and a world without adult authority would quickly turn to hell and collapse on itself. It's a giant middle finger to trying to recapture childhood: growing up and becoming a better person is something that should be heralded, not feared.
Link attempts to find his childhood again, only to discover that he can't go back after all he's been though. Not only that, but being a little child versus an adult is terrible. Termina is a world run entirely by children throwing tantrums, and the result is a purgatory full of misery and chaos that terminates with a moon shattering apocalypse.
And they said these games were made for little children. Oh wait...
4) Windwaker - Nostalgia Halts Progress
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
What it seems like it's about: A young boy sets off on a quest to save his sister, only to get caught up having to stop the guy from Ocarina of Time from bringing that old Hyrule back from the bottom of the sea and taking it over.
What it might actually be about: Nostalgia for the good old Zelda games is holding the series back from getting better (oh the irony ten years after the fact...)
Windwaker was Nintendo's attempt to try and do something new, both on a superficial level (a completely new art style) and on a gameplay level. Before Windwaker released, a significant body of Zelda fans backlashed and raged against it for looking comically different from Ocarina of Time. Despite whether the game is actually good or terrible, Nintendo probably never deserved such a brutal attack from their fandom for wanting to try out something different. The fans made their strike, and Nintendo seems to just ignorantly shrug it off like a good company would. I am here to propose however, that Nintendo passive aggressively struck back in a very subtle and grin inducing way with what ended up being Windwaker's underlying theme.
Ganondorf's motivation in Windwaker is to restore the land of Hyrule from Ocarina of Time and once again take it over. He misses the good old days and apparently conquering a few defenseless island nations patrolled by just one pirate ship with a ten year old girl captain just doesn't cut it for his ego. After Ganondorf is defeated, King Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule makes a decent speech on how Link and Zelda have to let the Hyrule of the past go, and that he and Ganondorf are parts of the past and it would probably be best if they just went away. He wants Link and Zelda to explore new lands, new possibilities, and not cling to the old traditions. Wait a second...
Strange that the Hyrule that Ganondorf is trying to restore is specifically that of Ocarina of Time, the game fans raged about Windwaker not being similar enough to prior to its release. Strange that the King of Hyrule gave a lovely but self righteous speech about how that old Hyrule everyone seems to love so much should just go away and be forgotten about, new and improved futures are on the horizon after all. It almost seems like Ganondorf is a representation of Nintendo fans wanting more Ocarina of Time, and the good all knowing King is Nintendo casually telling him to get over it, that's in the past. Look towards the future and don't raise hell about it.
Unfortunately for Nintendo, fans and money speak louder than clever jabs in their video games. Despite critical praise and a sizable legion of fans that came from this game, Windwaker was actually a commercial flop (everyone seems to forget it didn't even hit a million copies for several years) and remained one of the lowest selling Zelda games until it's HD release ten years later. Nintendo eventually gave in and went full on Ocarina of Time 2.0 with the deliciously darker and superior Twilight Princess that would go on to sell 7 million copies in just two years. So much for bright new horizons!
3) Link's Awakening - The Owl is Link's Attempt to Justify Murder
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
What it seems like it's about: Link gets stuck in a giant fish's dream. He must destroy the nightmares in order to escape and get back to Hyrule.
What it might actually be about: Link is second guessing the actual motives of all the monsters he's mindlessly slaughtered like a psychopath in the last three Zelda games. Desperately tries to reason to himself through the random, conscious like appearance of an Owl that killing is ok.
Link's Awakening is a very strange game with a very strange set up and a bitter end. The main objective of the game is to awaken the Wind Fish by killing a host of evil nightmares and playing instruments. It's a good thing those evil nightmares are terrorizing everyone, giving you the moral ground to slaughter them all. Except... wait a minute...
Strangely, there actually is no conflict at all in the entire game until you the player rush into the homes of these so called monsters, smash up their furniture, and brutally murder them. The only aggressive move made against innocent people is committed by a Moblin who kidnaps a Dog from Mabe Village, probably because he's hungry. In fact, none of the monsters or even the so called Nightmares raise a single finger to harm any of the inhabitants on the land. In fact, you discover that the Nightmares only hid the instruments because if the Wind Fish wakes up, they and the entire island will be obliterated in a universe destroying apocalypse, Inception style. Not only will the nightmares vanish, every innocent person, animal, and the entire island itself will vanish. Strange... so then how do the Nightmares become the villain?
They never are, Link is the villain.
Don't you find it strange that Link is actually in another being's dreams? And that in multiple points of the game we see him falling asleep and waking up? In fact, after playing the Ballad of the Wind Fish, it is he that wakes up in the sea, not the Wind Fish. In fact, the game is called The Legend of Zelda: LINK's Awakening, not the The Legend of Zelda: Wind Fish's Awakening. The Nightmares are Link's nightmares, they are the monsters and villains that he has unquestionably slain by the hundreds. And they are all the good guys in his dream, not lifting a single finger or being evil in any way. Link's Awakening is about a psychopathic murderer who has killed hundreds of lives struggling to justify an insane body count, second guessing himself and wondering if maybe the Moblin family he encountered back in Zelda II was actually just trying to get some food for the babies back in the den. Strangely, monsters that used to be portrayed as extremely animalistic like River Zoras are actually sentient now and can talk, asking link to just leave them alone when you try to converse with them.
Not once is the motivation of anyone questioned during Zelda I, II, or ALTTP. We never know why Ganon is doing what he is doing. We don't know why the Darknuts under his command are in his army for. All we know is that we have a sword, Zelda is in trouble, and they are in your way: it's time to just slaughter them without so much as an ounce of thought as to why and get the Princess in bed. For all we know, Princess Zelda invaded Ganon's home with her knights in Zelda I and murdered his parents and family. Link's Awakening is Link attempting to deal with the fact that he's killed entire legions of people and is desperately trying to justify his actions. Every time he begins to question why he's doing something, his consciousness, the Owl, flies in out of nowhere to justify his actions and tell himself "Oh yes these monsters are bad. You have to kill them if you want to wake up!" In fact, the only context for the villains being evil are the text snippets from the Owl, who only ever appears when you become lost or are wondering what to do. No one else on the island has ever heard of the Owl, only Link ever sees him. I should also point out that this is the only game in the series to actually label you for committing a crime, therefore making you think about the morality of an action you normally would not give an ounce a brain space to in other games at the time.
Link eventually convinces himself so many times that what he did was right that he can no longer discern between good and evil, giving him the ability to destroy an entire island full of people.
Link probably relives this video game every night when he falls asleep.
2) Skyward Sword - All of History is a Lie, We Give the Series too much Credit.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
What it seems like it's about: Link must save his childhood friend from a homoerotic spirit by using the powers of a dancing robot and the help from an idiot pompadour. Link inadvertently becomes the second Adam of all of Hyrule, and Akuma farts out an endlessly re-spawning Ganondorf. 10/10!
What it might actually be about: Everything your history books taught you is probably wrong. History is insanely romantisized and warped to sound better than it is. We then give too much credit to those legends that we love, compounding on the build up of the legend and making it better sounding than it actually is as time goes on.
Skyward Sword is probably the all time low of the Zelda series for me personally. When this game first released, it received insane critical praise by fans and virtually everyone. In recent years now that the dust has settled, it's pretty strange and humorous that tons explosive rants are showing up all over youtube exposing how absolutely uninspired and terrible this game is. My personal favorite is Egoraptor's grin inducing explosion:
While Skyward Sword is undoubtedly in my mind a boring game that completely and utterly destroys all the established lore and history of the Zelda series, that destruction of what I held dear might actually be a very clever theme the developers intended to slip into the game. If Hylia is Jesus, I am now St. Paul.
The origin of many icons from the Zelda series is explored, finally answered, and witnessed first hand in Skyward Sword. We see the creation of the legendary Master Sword, the establishing of the Kingdom of Hyrule, the origin of Ganondorf, and many things. All of these origins are also incredibly lame and stupid compared to how they were built up in past Zelda games. The Master Sword, long said to have been forged by the Seven Sages with all of their magic might to combat the evil forces of darkness in Hyrule's greatest war ever? Naw, it's a talking robot ballerina from outer space sent by a Goddess who's never ever ever ever mentioned before this game or ever again after.... all to stop just one sexually ambiguous spirit guy who never really causes any trouble for the Skyloftians at all. All of the origins in this game completely contradict what has been said in other Zelda games, which would have been fine if the origins were that much more interesting. Strangely, they are massively and shockingly lackluster (or just outright stupid) compared to what has been built up in future generations of Hyrule......... kind of like real history on earth.
History is written by the victors. Events are romanticized to make them sound better. Myths and legends are expounded upon generation after generation to give them that status of... well being a legend and a myth. The truth behind many historical events is probably a lot more lackluster than the books portray them, and in many cases probably happened so differently and possibly not at all. Just look at how easily information is distorted on the almighty internet. Give lack of unity and several hundred years a chance with the written word and you're bound to have a made up story or two in the history texts. Skyward Sword might have been a depiction of how the actual events that started these Legends really were not that remarkable at all, and a big lesson on how the people who love those legends in future generations are just shoving them unto pedestals and glamorizing them to the point where they do not represent the actual events. Hmmmm, almost like some fans do for actual Zelda series itself... Which leads to....
1) Hyrule Warriors - Obsessive Fanboys/Fangirls Ruin Everything
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
What it seems like it's about: Armies pointlessly clash over stupid objectives like protecting soup and butterflies. Somehow Ganondorf takes over the world during the process. We get our first butt and boob camera shot in the Zelda series. Oh the drama.
What it might actually be about: Being an obsessive and crazy fanatic for a fictional made up entertainment universe inadvertently ruins the thing you love for both yourself and everyone involved.
Unlike Skyward Sword, Hyrule Warriors has the huge advantage of actually being really damn fun to play despite how insanely stupid it is. I would argue it's actually probably the funnest Zelda game in the entire series. The skeleton of the game is the perfect foundation for a much superior Zelda title, and though it is unlikely it's my hope that if there ever is a sequel they will spend another year on its development and actually hire someone who knows how to write a cohesive story. Because my goodness, that """"""story"""""" in Hyrule Warriors is the most insane twelve year old teenager fan-fiction-fest ever.
As mentioned earlier, you'll join hundreds of warriors in battle who will march to their horrible death fighting over Pumpkin Soup and helping a butterfly some crazy homeless little seven year old girl told you was a Goddess fly through a warzone. Besides being an utterly baffled waste of a premise, the objectives and scenarios that unfold in this game are so stupid you'll be gasping at the mere possibility a grown man(men?) thought this up. Characters are so terribly opposite of their canon counterparts, lore is so hopelessly tossed out the window and utterly, horribly disregarded and destroyed, and everything is just so.... Mary Sue you would have to think that the only way a game's story and characters could end up like this is if it was intentionally made to be this terrible. No one sets out to make a terrible story written by a teenaged fanboy like that on purpose though!
Maybe they do...
Our main antagonist this time around is Cia. A super duper pretty perfect good at everything better than everyone else model who is hopelessly in love with Link, even though she's never met him once, knows nothing about his hopes or desires, and basically thinks of love like a 12 year old brat does. She systematically (and somehow literally and physically) messes up the canon of the entire series, warping three Zelda games into each other all in a convoluted no sense insanely stupid plan to somehow get Link in bed with her. At first, it sounds like the most insane Mary Sue character in the history of fan fiction ever. Upon closer examination, she might actually be a very clever parody of young obsessive fans getting their fingerprints all over the series.
At one point near the end of Hyrule Warriors, you enter Cia's house/palace/something. The point is she lives there. Inside are numerous paintings of Link and his various incarnations, as well as statues of him scattered throughout the gardens. If this sounds like a teenaged fangirl's bedroom, it's probably because it was intended to be so. Cia is a metaphorical representation of the typical obsessed Zelda fan trying to create fanfiction, fan theories, or whatever to better suit their own personal view of the series instead of accepting it for what it is, and in the process ruining everything. To add fuel to my theory, before Cia becomes involved she is described as an outside viewer, able to see and partake in events but not actually being involved in them physically. Does that not sound like a person playing a video game? All of the absurd and stupid events that happen in Hyrule Warriors are clever jabs at how far some fans will go to warp everything to suit their own personal desires to mess with the series and get what they want out of it. We are fighting a war over PUMPKIN SOUP for crying out loud! It's actually a pretty clever little way to jab at Zelda fanatics, something Aonuma and various members at Team Ninja have confirmed they are absolutely terrified of.
But did we really need a close up shot of Cia's thong riding up her butt and a shot of her cleavage? I guess I'll have to make fun of that with a shot of Ruto's thong riding up her rubbery fish butt in Hyrule: Total War now. Oh the agony
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Originally Posted by Jakeford
