#I have the same opinion of her as Sonia

[st-hedge]

Ghostly fish milf from twilight princess

[wilwheaton]

What’s strange about the opinion? First of all, there is the supposed harm to the plaintiff. Smith, by her own account, is not a designer of wedding websites. She is merely an aspiring wedding-website designer who reportedly dreamed from childhood of the heterosexual wedding websites she would someday create. While one can admire the particularity of this vision, her plight pales a bit beside the counterweight of gay couples trying to plan weddings without facing discrimination. On top of that, according to the mind-blowing reporting of the New Republic’s Melissa Gira Grant, a 2016 email included in the plaintiff’s filings from a gay man asking Smith for wedding design services is apparently fake. His contact information led Gira Grant to a straight, baffled, married web designer who says he would have had no reason to contact Smith. Then there is the argument itself. A wedding website is an example of “expression,” sure — both sides agree on that. But Gorsuch, following a lower court, calls such a website “pure speech,” as if no services were being provided and the primary point of the website was to express the designer’s views on matrimony. In any case, he argues, the right of protected classes to equal treatment holds no weight before the free speech rights of expressive vendors: “When Colorado’s public accommodations law and the Constitution collide, there can be no question which must prevail.” This seems awfully odd if only because there is such an obvious comparison to interracial marriage — historically anathema to certain religious groups but not, in my lifetime, something for which vendors could legally withhold services. But maybe I was the crazy one. So I asked for help from Lewis and Clark Law School professor James M. Oleske Jr., whose 2015 article comparing religious exemptions for interracial marriage and same-sex marriage is cited by Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent.

The Supreme Court's 303 Creative ruling is 'profoundly wrong'

The White House clearly saw the student loan ruling coming, and was ready with a speech and a plan.

Where is that for Affirmative Action? Where is that for the LGBTQ+ community?

I mean, come on, man. This ruling is fucking INSANE.

[nolongerapileofashprobably]

I remember a while back you said that TOTK ranks as one of the best narratives in the series, and replaying it again, I’m inclined to agree. Fans criticized it for being “incoherent,” but there’s literally nothing that happens in the story that isn’t set up in the opening/tutorial. The Imprisoning War, the Zonai, the statue depicting Rauru and Sonia, the Light Dragon flying near the temple, Link diving to Zelda, the Recall ability (how it serves as Link’s connection to Zelda throughout the game and will ultimately be how he saves her at the end). The recall ability is also how Link collects and examines the dragon tear memories. Even if you don’t collect the tears, Link’s last memory of her is the vision of her giving him Recall, so it makes sense that he restores her to how he remembers her (“coaxing the object’s memory” like Sonia says in one of the memories). The theme of community and togetherness is also woven into every aspect of the gameplay and story. BOTW and TOTK are both extremely narratively and thematically coherent.

THISSSSSS

Ive played the majority of Zelda games and some stories are iconic (OoT), some are DARK (MM), some are DIFFERENT (WW & TP), some are ROMANTIC (ST & SS), and all are adventurous and fun. This series has a plethora of interesting characters and captivating stories, but none truly compare to the intricacies of BoTW&ToTK. And this is achieved through the vast amount of details offered to players in each game.

BoTW has a TON of details for players who go looking for it, however none of them are actually necessary in completing the game. We know this is simply bc of the direction of botw and totk in terms of gameplay.

The stories are OPTIONAL in both of these games, but as you pointed out in ToTK, you don’t escape the Recall memory. And that ability is the one that is truly unique to the story and connects us directly to Zelda, and ultimately Zelda to her old self. Both of these games are directly related to Zelda’s journey as a character and are a testament to this Zelda and Link’s relationship. Without a romantic perspective (which actually requires you to neglect details given to us in both games), the story still stands in terms of development and emotional appeal.

I think everyone can agree that BoTW/ToTK Zelda is the most developed Zelda we have ever gotten, and if you accept that her development goes hand in hand with the story (which duh it does lol) then you realize that for all its faults, BoTW & ToTK has one of the best narratives of the series. To me, you can’t separate the games, because BoTW was the foundation of Zelda’s growth as a person and Zelda & Link’s relationship which resulted in the dedicated loyalty we see six years after the events of BoTW. Without that knowledge, we wouldn’t get the same emotional connection or understand how intimate the ending of ToTK is.

Link’s use of Recall, backed by Rauru’s light magic and Sonia’s time magic, is only achievable by HIS ability to remember Zelda, his own memories and the ones Zelda gifted him through the tears, in order to bring her back. This gives us the EXACT answer to the question BoTW ends on: “May I ask; do you really remember me?”

Like that is so impactful, it clears every other story in my opinion by a LONG SHOT. This doesn’t negate how amazing the other stories are, they are all powerful in their own way, but none compare to the fluid and consistent themes BoTW & ToTK are founded upon.

The story has its faults (as all do) and thus fans capitalize on them in order to tear down the games (which is natural for any popular franchise). But those faults do not impact what is perfectly executed in terms of Zelda and Link’s story. The things we wish to see more of are that of side characters and questions left unanswered (which provided the series a new set of lore to explore in future games). But I will forever stand by this era and it’s overarching story that still makes me stop whenever I see the light dragon or seek out those small details whenever I replay the games.

[smilesrobotlover]

Aight I’m gonna rant about the ending of totk… again. I deleted the first post cuz honestly my opinion has changed on it and I just wanna say some things cuz a lot of people left some awesome inputs.

Now I wanna say this first, I have nothing against happy endings. I love happy endings. Zelda games all have happy endings. But they’re also very bittersweet and some of them just outright devastating. This game def has a happy ending, but it’s underwhelming to me. What I want out of totk is CONSEQUENCE. You’re telling me that Link lost his arm and Zelda turned into a dragon and then in the end everything is back to normal and things are fine and dandy? Like it’s not a terrible thing, but it feels like everything you went through was kind of pointless cuz the characters don’t seem to have been affected by it. I would’ve been less upset if Zelda at least kept her memories as a dragon, or had some dragon features or something. The light dragon was easily the best part of the game and it ended in such an unsatisfying way. YOU don’t have to agree with that statement, but it was unsatisfying to me. I didn’t like how Rauru and Sonia’s bs magic just turned her back. I can understand Rauru’s arm being there since Link was there and Sonia’s time power turning her back to her original form, but how is she just there? It’s not a TERRIBLE solution but it’s not good to me personally.

A lot of people commented on the original post that there should’ve been a quest for Link to find a way to bring Zelda back, and I found that far more intriguing than leaving her as a dragon. This game is full of fetch quests but this type of quest I would’ve loved, besides, Impa WAS going to look for a way to bring Zelda back, it’s not like it would’ve come out of nowhere. I’m sure doing this would ruin the flow of the ending, but let’s think about AOC. Terrako dies. He stays dead at the ending. But after you finish the game, you can start rebuilding him, and there’s a second ending where Terrako is back with a cute second staff credit. Totk already has some AOC influence with the character bios and stuff, so I feel like it would’ve been fine if they had done this honestly. And it would’ve been more satisfying that the player WORKED towards Zelda returning back to normal. You can have the dive that parallels the beginning and all that stuff, it’s fine. I just feel like this would’ve been a better ending to the game.

But again, I want consequence. I want Zelda to either be haunted or amazed at seeing history before her very eyes as a dragon, I want Link’s arm to not magically regenerate, I want there to be something different with the characters. Cuz to me, it felt like the characters came out the same way they went in.

Now just to clarify, this would’ve fixed the ending for ME. If you’re content with the ending I do not care. Good for you. I’m so glad you’re happy. But this overhyped game wasn’t good for me and I have so many issues with it so I just wished that Nintendo did something better with the ending. Something more bittersweet or hopeful towards a future cuz there’s none of that (I guess Mineru dies but she was already dead and only Zelda cared about that so I really didn’t care that she officially died. And it’s not like she was an interesting character to begin with).

Tldr; I wish there were more consequence to the game and I wish the light dragon had a more satisfying ending

[blueskittlesart]

As you approach the endgame of TotK, what is your overall opinion of the narrative compared to BotW (and by extension other 3d Zelda titles)?

wanted to save this one until i had actually finished the game to form complete thoughts and im glad i did!! because i think the endgame of totk is REALLY important to the overall cohesiveness of the story. let's get into it

i have sung botw's praises for the past 5 years specifically because the game is in my opinion perfectly cohesive. there is not a single thing in the game that feels out of place or thrown in without thought or narrative backing. i've lamented the details of the game, the way the story is told implicitly through the worldbuilding its themes are echoed in every facet of its gameplay. i sincerely believe totk hits these marks as well. its theming is more overt than botw, but it still keeps it consistent and cohesive across the board and the way the world and theming evolved from botw feels very natural. I don't think it's BETTER than botw, but it wasn't really SUPPOSED to be. totk and botw are two halves of the same story, and i think they FEEL that way. totk feels like the second half of botw, which is exactly what it is. no need to improve on perfection.

totk takes a theme that was already present in botw--healing, destruction and regrowth, and expands upon it. we are presented in totk with a hyrule around 5 or 6 years removed from what we last saw in botw, and there are noticeable changes. it is more populated. npcs we met in botw have grown into themselves. some have started families. new cities are forming. the enormous map that we knew is relatively unchanged, but the difference now is that it's so POPULATED. there are so many more PEOPLE. in almost every notable location, including ones that were COMPLETELY deserted in botw, people have now appeared. they are building or researching or travelling or whatever. we are shown a hyrule that is GROWING from the desolation we saw in botw. what once seemed broken beyond repair is slowly but surely being rebuilt, BY PEOPLE. totk's focus is undeniably on the PEOPLE of hyrule and how their work and perseverance has helped hyrule begin to heal.

this is the background framing, though, which, in a good game, ought to be echoed in its main storyline. and it IS. link and zelda in this game (and to a lesser extent the sages) are hyrule, the kingdom broken and desolate. link forced to give up his arm, zelda thrown into a thousand-year-old war which she ultimately sacrifices her sentience to. the sages dealing with corruption and destruction in their own ways after the regional phenomena caused by the upheaval. initially, all these things seem unchangeable. link's arm is so broken it must be replaced entirely. zelda will likely never return to her human form. the sages are each backed into their respective corners, unable to fix their peoples' problems alone. but none of these wounds prove to be truly unhealable. they just can't be done ALONE. link needs rauru, sonia, and the sages to get back zelda and his arm. the sages need link to save their people. this is where i think totk really shines as a continuation of botw, because the whole point of the initial calamity in botw is that link and zelda were ALONE when they faced it. the champions were ALONE in their divine beasts. they fell in botw because the world in which they were raised valued self-sufficiency above all. the champions called for help and no one came, and so they died alone. link had no one to help him when he faced the calamity, and so he was forced to flee, mortally wounded. in totk, link is NEVER alone. there is always some comforting presence, a guide, a FRIEND to assist him. rauru in the opening segment. purah and the sages later on. he is never alone in a desolate world as he was in botw, which is the whole POINT. he wins because he has an army behind him. he wins because hyrule's strength is in its people, in their stubborn perseverance, in their refusal to fall at the hands of ganondorf. rauru says himself "even if something were to happen to me, both my kingdom and the peace it brings--those will endure for generations to come." compare the sentiment of rauru, a king who relied on his sages and trusted in the strength of his people, to rhoam, a king who expected individualism and sacrifice, and it's clear why hyrule fell to destruction under rhoam but endured long after rauru's death.

tldr i think it's a good game and a good SEQUEL. i dont think it stands up perfectly on its own, but i don't think it was ever SUPPOSED to stand on its own. totk is a continuation of botw's narrative, so of course botw's narrative is integral when analyzing totk. the central theming is strong, it's echoed well in the worldbuilding and side quests, and in general all the pieces fall into place very nicely. i think it's a really good game and was well worth the wait!

[tanuki-civic]

I recently saw a post stating that it was weird how rauru had a bracelet that could steal peoples life force (something along those lines) here’s my two sense on the topic

First of all bracelet isn’t what “steals someone’s life force” it’s specifically Raurus secret stone. This isn’t speculation this is a fact, how do I know this? Well because of Sonia- kinda.

In Tear 6 Sonia makes a comment that it was difficult for Zelda to activate her sealing magic because, her time powers were stronger or over-shadowed her sealing magic.

I’m not going to debate whether or not Zelda’s sealing magic is the same as her light powers, it’s obviously that they’re one and the same.

Rauru and Zelda are related we know this and they share the same power.

So Raurus power of “stealing life forces” isn’t really out of the ordinary, it’s Raurus sealing magic. He has the power of light and is using that to seal the darkness ooo.

-anyways, why I think this person thought it was the bracelet is because the bracelet has spirals on it and you can see glowing light move through it. It’s simply raurus magic moving through the bracelet. Ganondorfs head pice does the same thing, it’s simply the secret stones magic flowing through.

Also I know Zelda’s sealing power has always been associated with the triforce and Rauru doesn’t seem to possess the triforce. I’m not adding the rules of the triforce here simply because it’s never really mentioned in the game and doesn’t seem really relevant. Also it seems to be a separate power from.

Now if I did apply the same rules to Rauru, I would say he wasn’t able to completely seal ganondorf away because he didn’t have the triforce. But that’s a bit of a stretch?

————

Hey Poster notes, please do not harass this person if you find out who the og posted is. It’s a video game it’s not that deep, I just wanted to add my personal opinions onto this.

If you disagree that’s totally fine!

[uselesstaroth]

Over two weeks ago I made this post

And here it is.

Sonic gets attacked by new eggman robots that he cannot damage in any way, and he gets separated from all his friends.

His only leads are:

The robots are similar to the ones from Starfall Islands

A gut feeling that Sage might be involved

A mysterious medallion he found after nearly drowning to death appears to reveal a map to a location he's never been in

Creative process beneath the "read more"

So, Sonic Underground came out in between the JP and US releases of Sonic Adventure, meaning it is completely divorced from moder Sonic media.

I always wanted to make a post-frontiers story that didn't involve some form of Evil Sonic or dead/missing Sonic.

I also noticed how few appearances Sonic makes in my usual stories, so I thought him as a focus would have been fun and a change of pace.

I watched Sonic Underground a lot as a kid, and I have held to this day that the most interesting thing that show did was giving Sonic two siblings to bounce off of that are the same age as him.

Now for the actual fic:

Most of my fics are LARP'd / music daydreamed before I write them down, which is why most of them are based on songs, and this one is... Actually an exception.

The post linked at the top is essentially how I came up with if this one. "What if Sonic Underground comes after Frontiers", and that's it.

That means that Sonic, Manic and Sonia have been apart for many years after their childhoods and that influenced how I wrote them.

I wrote Manic as a sort of community pillar vibe because of his scrappy upbringing evolving into a sense of community and activism. It also complemented with the decision to make a cymbal shield his main weapon of choice which does appear on the show. Him always breaking silences will be a running gag, don't you worry.

Sonia is a little more stick in the mud, mostly because right now she's in "business" mode, and I do plan to have her relax a bit as they make progress in saving the world. Also, the keyboard gun is not my invention, it's in the show, and that influenced her personality in this first chapter for sure.

Sonic is Sonic. Self explanatory in my opinion. The main changes from canon I suppose is that he's a lot more awkward around the other triplets, which just came about naturally, the fact that he's careful now (I imagine because Tails eventually gave him an earful about his attitude in Starfall Islands). Changing the laser guitar into a guitar sword is my firm belief that's how they'd do it if Underground had come out after Sonic and the Black Knight. It also helps him stand out from Sonia who also shoots lasers.

The most important thing I avoided was making the triplets eager to call eachother siblings. There's no way they get there quickly, they've lived their own lives for far too long. Manic being excited about it probably says something about his character.

The ending of this chapter comes from me realizing the seven chaos emeralds aren't a thing in Sonic Underground, and wanting to incorporate that in some way.

Also Infinite! What's he doing here? Not too sure.

And that's the gist of it

[toushindai]

speaking as someone who's repeatedly described herself as "just a girl trying to be an encyclopedia," I really wish we got more of Mineru

(headcanon/character analysis below)

My headcanon for the Zonai is that they just kind of. declined. Something about life in the sky made there be less and less of them until they dwindled to an unsustainable population level. This may be related to how much zonaite they can access--the idea of zonaite being scarce in the sky is introduced really early on[1]. And in terms of "the Zonai and scarcity" I also want to point at the description for the hydrant device, which says that the Zonai were experiencing water shortages until they invented the hydrant, which is an absolutely batshit thing to say, by the way. But anyway: scarcity. Something unsustainable about the way they lived. That's the general vibe for me.

So we have just Mineru and Rauru, now, and I think that that solitude sat differently on each of them. I think it drove Rauru to the surface, out of curiosity but also out of this horror of loneliness. We feel that loneliness when we explore the sky islands: that beautiful, lowing horn music--the cries of the birds--the gold during sunset that eats into your eyes and makes it hard to believe that you exist. A beauty that doesn't need you there. I think Rauru needed to escape that.

Mineru, I think, didn't feel that loneliness in the same way because upon realizing how little was left she buried herself in learning everything she could about the Zonai. This is after all (most likely) the first thing we learn about her: that she knows the most about the Zonai out of anyone. We know also from the tablets in the sky that she would often bury herself in her studies to the extent that she would forget to eat or sleep. And, we know the nature of her research: building a construct that would house her spirit after her body passed. There is not a doubt in my mind that she intended to make herself into the last of the Zonai, everlasting. A preserving tomb for her heritage. When she saw that she and Rauru were the last ones left--all that there would ever be--she put aside any desire to be her own person and instead intended to contain all her people's knowledge and legacy in her spirit and in the construct she crafted for it.

(But to some extent, this necessitated holding on to her sense of self. I already had this impression from thinking about the English, but the no-subject-needed nature of Japanese sentences made it even more certain in my mind: Mineru considered draconification for herself but decided that the ego death it entailed did not serve her purposes. This is why she knows of it; this is why her more heartfelt argument against it is not merely its forbidden nature but the loss of self that comes with it. What was it like, then, to see Zelda elect this course of action that Mineru had set aside for quite literally selfish reasons?)

I've seen meta before that suspects Mineru was subject to parentification, to the need to be both sister and parent to Rauru--I think that is very likely--my opinion differs from the analysis I've seen in that I do not think that was a role she fulfilled with much warmth or attention. She does not strike me as someone with much capacity for that to begin with, and once she set herself on the frankly dehumanizing path of carrying on her people's legacy I think warmth becomes a distantly tertiary concern. She has already ceased to wholly think of herself as a person, in service to the preservation of her people; she forgets or foregoes her own physical needs; it takes a mental shift, then, to ground herself enough to be present for Rauru. I would be surprised if it occurred to her to do this anywhere near as often as Rauru needed it.

I think Rauru and Sonia coaxing her down to the surface probably helped with all of this detachment a little, but not much. She really does not seem to me like a very present person. I think that if she saw Rauru's own attempts to preserve Zonai culture (teaching the Hylians to use Zonai technology, creating the shrines to encourage Zonai-style thought), it did not supersede or lessen the urgency of her own mission.

I think about the construct and her spirit--and Rauru's shrines for that matter--being converted from their original purpose of maintaining Zonai presence and legacy in Hyrule to being locked away for millennia in order to empower the hero of the future; I think about Mineru's spirit finally passing at the end of the game, Link's arm returned to his natural one instead of Rauru's, the Zonai finally and truly laid to rest. This letting go of trying to preserve one's culture forever, is it a relief or a tragedy or both?

Also I think she suffers from chronic pain and limited mobility, that's just the vibe I get from her, and that makes another reason for her to be interested in housing her spirit in a construct beyond the limits of her body, yes I know the one tablet says she dances, how nice it is that she has some low-pain days but some days I think moving is very hard and tiring for her. My mind will not be changed.

---

[1] though we should note, we are told this in a zonaite-mining cave on the Great Sky Island, which was not only not originally in the sky, it was not originally in the depths, now was it? introducing at least one location where zonaite could once be found on the surface

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Nah, your mention of the teacup scene was honestly perfect, because, just like P-Z it just feels so weird, and just kinda pointless/disjointed. Heckers, even the people I know who LIKE the story of totk, did not seem to like the teacup scene. Also, if I can throw in: It felt like a scene that, in its idea, should have been in the DLC. Maybe actually focus on just Sonia and Rauru as people, instead of the weird "talking around the bush, your powers don't work, Link, and the other piddly talk." Like in the botw DLC, the focus was more on a "slice of life" peek into the Champion's life. It's such a waste of main-story content, and literally established nothing new. Heck, I actually hate that scene because it's just such a lazy way for Rauru to find out who Link is, and then later tell Ganondorf about Link. Additionally, while we're talking about disappoint scenes/bad writing. Zelda's "I didn't remember anything from being a Dragon." It was such a bad cop-out, and it annoyed me to no end. They didn't need to mention it, leave it up to the player to interpret if Zelda remembers, and what she might have remembered or forgotten. The way it gets dropped is also like a hard rock. Riju: "So how was it?" Zelda: "Lol idk, don't remember." It's weird how you can put Botw-Zelda's sacrifice against Totk-Zelda's sacrifice, and Botw she just sacrificed a lot more, even though Totk really plays up the severity of the "Sacrificing yourself to become a dragon"-thing, only for it to just be the most overhyped McGuffin to get Zelda back into her time.

Hey, thanks for the follow-up!

Yeah, agreed. I have talked extensively about the dragon problem somewhere??? I'll try to find it. Here! Which is basically that even if I agree the dragon thing is super cool and powerful and visually jawdropping and emotionally something, it's... kind of not a lot of what it claims to be.

But in addition to that, you made me think of something else by having this comment; there are multiple times during voiced cutscenes specifically where lines are used (I say used because every voiced line costs *so much money* so producers will always beg you to keep them to a minimum) to reassure the player that nothing truly bad is happening.

The thing with Zelda telling you she doesn't remember her time as a dragon is a great example, but there are many more. The first time I actively noticed it was during the Sealing cutscene where Rauru dives in to put his hand in Ganondorf's uhh tender heart (and he steals his magic? I wish something was actually done with that it could have been great if Rauru was corrupting himself voluntarily or something), and there is a whole dialogue where Ganondorf goes "hahaha thousands of years will pass in the blink of an eye", which could be a way to just brush off Rauru's actions as negligeable, but could also be a way to minimize the toll of time taken on both of them the same way it did for Zelda, especially since they semi-turn to stone immediately after. There are a lot of dialogue bits that feel like they are here for damage control and reassure us that the nice things are nice and the bad things are bad (a lot of the gerudo Sage dialogue also reads like that to me as well).

But yes, in general, it is a game that is incredibly averse to consequences, which does a lot of harm to its narrative tension in my opinion.

[valictini]

How I wish the dragon tears quest had concluded and impacted the rest of the game without changing too much of what nintendo gave us (FULL endgame spoilers ahead)

First of all, I got inspired by a comment under a YouTube video and I fully agree with this idea: Impa could have just told Link to not divulge what happened to Zelda while she tries to figure out if there's a way to get her back. The justification behind it would be that not only it would shoot everyone's morale, but it could also create a political disaster if we randomly announced that Hyrule had no ruler anymore.

Impa could have transmitted the message to Purah so she can make her own research. Purah could have a unique dialog where she acknowledges that even though it probably won't get Zelda back, Link should still investigate the strange happenings around Hyrule, just in case.

Impa would actually be in Kakariko Village as soon as we finish the quest!! Idk why they didn't do this in the first place!!

When visiting the different regions, we'd have the same dialog and events, except we'd get a unique dialog where each future sage remarks that Link seems unenthusiastic about their search for "Zelda". Link being sworn to secrecy, and the sages being polite, they'd probably cut it short and apologise for prying or something.

When you finish each temple, they all remark that maybe it wasn't Zelda. Cue, another unique dialog where they ask Link if it's why he seemed reserved about this mission.

When we finish the regional quests, Purah tells Link that they didn't find anything yet, and maybe they should reveal the truth to the others for their input.

So they do just that and!! They have!! An actual!! Emotional response!! When they all learn the truth!!

Like holy shit was it just me or did they move on from this very quickly? Aren't they supposed to be friends? Idk man, maybe it was because I had been waiting for this moment for hours but it felt really underwhelming.

Finally, after getting Mineru, we could have Impa and Purah announce to Link that they might have an idea: taking inspiration from Purah's experiments with age regression, they could possibly make a machine on a larger scale that would revert Zelda's age and hopefully get her back into a human. (still baffled that Purah's age experiment is just a background joke at this point, so why not make it actually relevant!!) They warn Link that it would take years to develop such technology and it could not work in the end so he shouldn't get his hopes up etc

Purah also remarks that if only they could somehow boost the time reversion power in Link's arm, it would be so much simpler. But alas, such amount of power seems impossible to acquire (wink wink)

She concludes by saying that unfortunately, all Link can do for now is fulfill Zelda's wish and kill Ganondorf once and for all.

Finally, thanks to all this foreshadowing, when we beat Ganondorf and get the cutscene where we see Rauru and Sonia boost Link's powers to revert Zelda, it wouldnt feel like such a Deus ex Machina anymore!!

(I mean, canonically they use both time and light but honestly i struggle to understand why they needed to specify that. At least in this version, they could have just said they boosted only the time power and simply kept it as a reference to the scene where Sonia and Zelda boosted Rauru's light powers to beat the moldugas)

As someone who finished the dragon tears quest line before I even started my second dungeon, I can't tell you how immersion breaking it was to have everyone chasing an obviously fake Zelda without being able to say anything.

It feels like such a huge oversight. I don't even understand how the Devs managed to give unique dialogs to every NPC depending on weather/what you wear etc and NOT think about players who'd finish this questline before the rest. So here's a simple but satisfying way that they could have done it IN MY OPINION

[logicandinstinct]

WARNING, long post ahead:

In my own personal opinion, Sonia’s death in Tears of the Kingdom was poorly handled, to not say dumb.

I dunno if it’s because I’m getting old or that I grew up in fucking LATAM of all places, but I don’t buy the way Ganondorf tricked Sonia in TotK.

Let me explain...

In the short scene we see a fake Zelda trying to assasinate queen Sonia, such attempt is stopped by the real Zelda who was in hiding, and the way Sonia reacts makes it clear that she was also aware that the other Zelda was a fake. Then Zelda uses her powers to return the dagger to the puppet and throwing it at her feet. Then the fake Zelda lets out an evil laugh and vanishes. Then Sonia and Zelda just stare at the place where the pupped vanished.

THAT last part is what bugs me.

I can see why the scene works, but very slightly. They were alert and looking straight at the place where the threat disappeared, and the scene passed fast enough for Ganondorf to strike, so it was a decoy.

HOWEVER, what bugs me is Sonia’s reaction after the puppet disappears. (or lack of any action at all, she doesn’t do jack shit)

Sonia was shown previously to be quite perceptive and wise. Then we add to that that she and Rauru were the first king and queen of Hyrule, so at least they could have already passed / be going through complicated times. I can’t think of any independent city or village willing to be annexed to a kingdom at the get go, such example are the Gerudo.

Based on this it is not difficult to image that Sonia would be a wise and experienced leader, and it would be expected from a queen.

So, after the decoy was revealed, it would have been more in character for her to be immediately on guard right after the puppet vanished, taking a look at the surroundings. Turning around to have a good look for any lingering danger should've been her immediate reaction, and is not like she was entirely alone for this to fail. Zelda was there and they could have been back to back, close enough to protect each other in case some shit like, I don’t know, Ganondorf coming out of nowhere and striking happened (herd animals, animals, do this in the wild!)

Someone gave me the excuse that “they thought the danger was over”. You want THAT to work better? Have the puppet pretend being defeated, screaming in frustration instead of letting out an evil laugh that just makes it painfully obvious that danger may still be lurking!

I would have believed the decoy fooling a younger, more naive character, but not Sonia, because as a diplomat and sage she should have known better to not just stand there like a fool after an assasination attempt.

Heck, ranting about it made me though of a better alternative, at least works for me:

Have everything stay the same, but this time after the puppet vanishes Sonia and Zelda BOTH stay on guard, scanning the area. Then Zelda steps away from Sonia (either to search better, say they can leave cuz it appears safe, I dunno, but she steps away). HERE is where you have Ganondorf coming out of the shadows and target Zelda instead (is not far-fetched as Zelda also had a secret stone which was the thing Ganondorf was after), but Sonia acts fast enough and in an attempt to protect Zelda, takes the hit instead. Then she dies, Zelda grieves and the rest stays the same.

Also, don't say it couldn't have happened because Zelda would have "messed with the past," because in canon events she was pretty proactive in that whole ordeal. (Ok, he didn't "mess" with the past exactly but you get the point.)

I really liked this alt scene because it sorta improves the three involved characters (IMO!!!):

Sonia dies doing something noble and not like and idiot fooled by Ganondorf.

Ganondorf appears more cunning, malicious and despicable (he’s already evil just because so why not?).

Zelda is impacted by the event and has a stronger reason why later in the story she’s so proactive in stopping the Demon King in the future. (I mean, her story is quite good already but adding a little more angst doesn’t hurt, right? at least to spice a bit more the story.)

Still, I mean sure sure, the actual canon events sorta work at the end, sure. Hyrule could have been more peaceful than our real world so Sonia didn’t need to be on her toes, or maybe she was just not informed enough about how shitty politics can be. I read somewhere that apparently she was a priestess before marrying Rauru, so sure, perhaps she was still naive and Rauru was the one actually managing most if not all of Hyrule’s external relationships and stuff. Heck, now I’m thinking that perhaps I thought too high of this hoe and the only character with the pants and relevance in the backstory was Rauru, and Sonia was just there to be a plot device, what a shame.

Anyway, I myself would feel disappointed if the previous reasons were true, because I did like this character and it did pissed me off the way her death was handled. Then I was even more pissed off when I came up with my optional turn of events, which to be honest I’ll make my own headcanon cuz screw it, Sonia deserved better.

In conclusion I repeat that this is just my own opinion and take on a game that to be fair I really enjoy, and what it may lack in story it makes up in a really fun gameplay experience. I repeat, I LOVE the game and think is good, even if (imo imo imo) it sacrifices a couple bits in its story department to work as well as it does in general.

[sablegear0]

Finished TotK Finally

As in, finished the story. End numbers after buying the last boss pictures and completing the Compendium were 87.72% complete. I may go back and do koroks and minigames sporadically when I want to wander around in the world again.

So I suppose people might expect my thoughts or a review. Idk if I have anything unique to say but I may as well so: Plot and BIG ending spoilers under the cut. Also extremely long detailed opinions. Like this one got REALLY long. TL;DR at the very bottom.

The End Bits The Light Dragon In a previous blog I applauded Nintendo for letting their women characters turn into incomprehensible beasties lately (TotK, Dread). For the record, I posted that shortly before being spoiled on the fact that Zelda changes back at the end. Needless to say I was re-disappointed. I get WHY they did it. Permanently removing the title character from the game via 10,000 years of ego death doesn't really seem like a great reward for the player seeking out the plot; BotW/TotK Link and Zelda have gone through more than most of their incarnations to get where they are, so it's nice to give them a happy ending, etc. It just... kinda sucks because that was a really cool move otherwise. But Nintendo will not tell us an intentionally tragic (or even bittersweet) story so we got our girl back.

Also she was fine, by the way. She just woke up fully able to move and speak like she'd just had a bit of a rough nap. She also canonically does not remember her millennia spent as a dragon in any fashion. I know the fan writers are probably having a field day with injury/trauma recovery fics for her and I don't blame them. 10k years of ego death and a monstrous transformation should come with some consequences, shouldn't it?

To be honest the nature of the deus ex machina in question bugs me more than the fact that it happened. "Idk Sonia and Rauru did something" is the actual explanation we get (thanks Mineru, you're a real one tho) and it feels... hollow. Like, if the two dragons had clashed and injured one another, and "dying" knocked Zelda out of the transformation the same way destroying the Secret Stone that Ganondorf had taken destroyed his dragon form, that would make more sense, right? You still get your dramatic ending that's a cinematic reflection of Skyward Sword and a symbolic close (presumably) to Ganon's cycle of reincarnation. The arbitrary "power of love" (and not even the Hero's love, come on) ending just doesn't sit right.

Ganondorf Neither did the actual fight with Ganondorf, to be honest. I prepped some pretty high-value weapons, assuming that like BotW I'd have to break a few swords on him before the fight was over. But they just, again, deus ex machina'd that the Master Sword was indestructible for that fight and at no other time. My big scary weapons did see some good use in the wave fight beforehand, which was kind of neat but also kind of underwhelming. I guess that's the point where the game checks if you can handle that many enemies (ie. did you bring enough friends), similar to how doing the Divine Beasts halves Calamity Ganon's HP in BotW.

The duel-style fight for the first two phases was kind of cool. Made a bit annoying by TotK's tighter timing on parries and dodges. And the fact that the legitimate pressure of having your HP outright destroyed (cool, stressful) was removed by the third phase (annoying, no consequences for doing poorly in that part of the fight).

Third phase was neat. It was cinematic, but with no actual danger. I don't think I took any damage that wasn't just gloom-ticks from standing on the demon dragon to attack it. Didn't even get to use my cool bows in the aerial battle. Additionally I didn't have any need for the cool armour I had worked so hard to upgrade. I spent quite a lot of time and effort upgrading the Ancient Hero's Aspect and a second high-defense set (Champion's Leathers, Soldier's Greaves, Amber Earrings). The latter I did use in the demon dragon phase because it looked cool. The former I completely forgot that I had (despite having had to kill an ungodly amount of King Gleeoks to complete it). I used the Depths set for the first two-thirds of the fight because of the Gloom resistance it offered.

The Mechanics Devices All that said, what TotK set out to do it did decently well. It expanded on the physics-heavy improvisational gameplay of BotW with the addition of the Ultrahand fusion mechanic and Zonai Devices, improving on their base engine to create a system that I have heard other devs consider basically magic. Devices and weapon fusion, however, were clearly balanced with the early-to-mid-game in mind. The devices were tools, not weapons, even the ones that were nominally weapons. They simply did not put out enough raw damage to be used offensively, and were better as deterrents or distractions for enemies.

Weapon Fusion I know people weren't crazy about weapon degradation in BotW and I think TotK managed to make it slightly worse. In BotW, all you had to do was find where a desirable weapon spawned and make note of it so you could come back to pick it up after the Bloodmoon respawned everything. In TotK, you have to do that AND fight a monster with a good fuseable part to improve it. You have to do twice as much farming for about the same amount of gain. And that's not even accounting for the weapons you'd break fighting something big like a Lynel - sure they drop good parts, but you might break 2 or 3 weapons taking one down, even with help from your sages. You're operating at a net loss.

Granted the fused part of a weapon does the bulk of the work, but TotK did the interesting thing of making each flavour of weapon ("Soldier's", "Zonaite", "Gerudo", etc) have its own unique properties. This is very cool, until you find a type you like and struggle to find enough of them. Again, you have to trek around to find them and also hope you have the materials for a good fusion. It has its moments, like sticking a Silver Lynel horn on a Gerudo weapon to get a damage value over 100 (which is absurd, most "good" weapons cap out around 50 on average, barring any extra effects), but again, you're usually operating at a slight loss with respect to weapons.

Armour Upgrades To be frank: It's bad. It's bloated and way too resource-intensive. In BotW there were a limited number of sets you'd actually want to upgrade, as each had its own unique thing and that's it, there's one of each. Even doing all of them for completion's sake was achievable. In TotK they have those basic sets, plus a few more unique sets, plus a few redundant sets, and a frankly absurd number of generic aesthetic sets (which flavour of Link would you like? Ocarina of Time? Twilight Princess? Link's Awakenng Remake?) And in all of this they never thought to rebalance the amount of materials required for upgrading.

And on top of THAT, I think they messed with the item drop-rates too! Most enemies can drop 2 kinds of resources, some potentially have more, some only drop 1. in BotW I don't think (thought I may have to check) each type was a guaranteed drop, but you saw every type fairly frequently. In TotK each enemy now has distinct rare drops. And they can be RARE. And the worst part is you need a LOT of them for some armour upgrades. For example; Lizalfos tails are the Lizalfos rare drop, and the armour sets that need them can need up to 15 of the stupid things from a particular species of Lizalfos. Have fun grinding, because now you're playing Monster Hunter instead of Zelda.

Vehicles and Horses The vehicles both did and didn't trivialize crossing the map; a significant amount of grinding is needed before you have enough batteries to cover any distance, Wings (the bird-shaped gliders) have a limited lifespan to keep you from just flying everywhere, and the overworld is generally complicated enough that any fast wheeled vehicle will not be useful for long, and any all-terrain vehicle moves only at a modest speed. Ironically, just use horses where available. They're faster, more versatile, and can be called to you if they're within earshot. Also horses can spawn with overall higher stats than in BotW, and can be upgraded, though with significant resource investment. (It is worth noting that the "best" horse in base BotW, the royal white horse, is only middling to above-average stat-wise when compared to a good wild-caught horse in TotK. They power-crept the horses!)

The most interesting vehicles/movement devices, to me, were the rockets and hot-air balloons. Both add a lot instant verticality in a game that is all about traversal. Fusing a rocket to a shield gets you a huge boost for little resource expenditure (rockets are a bit rare until you can purchase devices). And once you find the Autobuild schematic for a hot air balloon base, all you need to add is a flame-emitter and you can ascend as far as your batteries allow.

Shrines In my humble opinion, TotK knocked it out of the park with its shrines. The ones that have actual puzzles, anyway. There is an unfortunately large proportion of "blessing" shrines that have no puzzle in them, and not all of them even need to be worked for that hard. The ones that do have puzzles are excellent. There are quite a few that highlight different uses for devices, and a good handful that take the Eventide Island/Master Trials-style challenge of stripping you of all your gear and put some twist on it. (Notably these are most interesting in the mid-game, when you have enough hearts to survive but not to trivialize the no-armour combat difficulty.)

They also did the very classy thing of not locking outfit parts behind hidden chests in Shrines. All the hidden chests were perfectly optional bonus chests that required no frustrating re-visits after finding out where that last piece of armour was hiding. Also the slight variations on the music theme was a nice touch that kept the shrines feeling fresh. No shade to the Sheikah Shrine theme, but the strong synths could get a bit grating at times. TotK's gentle, plinky shrine theme variations were an improvement.

The Map The Overworld Probably(?) the most common complaint about TotK and one I share. It's too damn big. In addition to mostly recycling the map from BotW (which bothered some people more than it bothered me, I think), they added an equivalent-sized map for the Depths. Now, BotW's overworld already felt a bit sparse, but it fit the tone of a literal post-apocalyptic world and encouraged you to poke around looking for koroks and investigating enemy camps. TotK's surface overworld is dotted with far more enemy camps and significantly fewer koroks, so it is about as dense but more dangerous/annoying (depending on your hp and gear) to traverse.

There are some major changes to the surface, beyond adding ruins to some spots; most of Death mountain is now safe to travel on foot (probably to encourage use of vehicles) and is no longer superheated, and there are a few spots where the road network is broken, dividing the map into 2 halves that cannot be crossed between on horseback. (In BotW, by comparison, all the roads were connected and you could auto-pilot a horse from one end of the map to the other, provided you took roads marked on the map.)

The Sky The Sky islands were relatively few, for all the hype they got in the promotional material. However I think their self-contained structure and handful of unique features (the "death star" islands, the dive challenges) helped them not overstay their welcome. Besides, the islands themselves are technically also ruins, 10,000 years old and finally visible to the naked eye from the surface, It's a wonder there's as much left and it's as functional as it is. They are beautiful, though. I did enjoy just loitering around in the sky to take in the view and the relaxed atmosphere, as there are fewer enemies up there.

The Depths The Depths... I think I share the majority gripe with the Depths. They're too big. The Depths are another whole open world that is more hostile with even less in it. It exists to grind for resources and pad the playtime. The challenge of the depths is in initially traversing it, having to light your way through impenetrable darkness and navigate dense enemy encampments and find Light Roots to fill out the map. After that, provided you have enough battery power, it can generally be ignored by flying over it. Which is unfortunate. If I were to fix the Depths, I would make it more akin to the Sky Islands; more self-contained, make it a series of winding, interconnected discrete caves, like one big dungeon crawl, rather than a second open world to ignore. Still have the Light Roots be important to vision and mapping, but have the general landscape be more contained. Maybe even have a few more areas that are inaccessible at first except by dropping into the correct chasms, like they did with the Eventide Island and Tingle Island Chain areas of the Depths.

Everything Else Side Quests and Koroks Honestly I enjoyed the variety of sidequests in TotK, and also enjoyed that some of them were quite involved. TotK had two "Tarrey Town"-equivalent long-form side-quest lines; one being visiting all the stables with Penn (I am counting this as one quest because you get drip-fed armour pieces from a unique set throughout it), and the other being the Mayoral Election / Local Cuisine questline in Hateno Village. There were also side-quests to optionally construct the Champions' weapons, which was neat, and to build a house with crazy Ultrahand powers, which was totally frivolous but fun to do. The one thing that bugged me a bit about the side-quests was running into NPCs that reasonably should have remembered Link but didn't. It felt odd, especially poking around Tarrey Town initially.

The Korok puzzles had some new variety to them, which was nice. The block puzzles were given the extra interest of being able to rotate things with Ultrahand, and the vehicle/towing mechanics were given a chance to shine with the "help me reach my friend" puzzles. Having Hestu appear in some less-than-ideal places to begin with (and the whole Lost Woods thing omg what a pain) kind of sucked, but getting those sweet sweet inventory upgrades is always worth it.

The Characters I love all the Sages, I'm going to say it right now. It was really cool to see some familiar faces from BotW (that actually recognized me) and learn what they'd been up to in the ambiguous time-gap. Teba being the slight exception but honestly - meeting Tulin and realizing this sweet bean bird boy looks just like both his parents hit me right in the heart. Mineru was also very cool and I'm glad we got to hang out with her (and bid her a tearful goodbye... my lovely lanky lady...). I also appreciated that doing the Ancient Writings quest teases Mineru's introduction. That was a nice touch.

Penn and Purah are fun, and the Lucky Clover Gazette and Monster Control Crew quests add some depth and background progression to BotW's Hyrule. You get to see how ordinary people are faring and how things are advancing post-Calamity. Seeing the various peoples of Hyrule gather at Lookout Landing after clearing a regional temple was neat, even if it was really only for show.

I know some people have beef with Rauru and that's maybe a blog for another time, but I don't think I have a strong enough opinion to bother. I didn't mind him, I think his arc was clear enough, I think I would have liked to see more of him and Sonia interacting with Zelda in a more everyday fashion - it seemed like she had a lot of fun in the distant past and something more than just a text log of that and a couple cutscenes might have been nice. Honestly I think I would have liked to see more of Sonia especially, she seems like an interesting lady (again, something more than Chaucerian text as proof would have been nice).

I'm honestly kind of mid on Matt Mercer's Ganondorf? I get that he's a big name and people were excited to hear him in the role but idk if the voice was entirely a good fit. They rocked the hell out of his visual design, though. Very good updated look, borrowing elements from some of his previous incarnations. Again I would have liked to see more elaboration on him though; what was the Gerudo tribe like under his rule? Were there dissenters? Give me more worldbuilding or I'll be forced to do it myself.

Music Mostly the same, actually. Overworld themes were recycled. Shrine themes were different and an upgrade imo. Combat themes were slightly different but I probably wouldn't be able to tell them apart at a listen. The Temple music though, oh boy. I loved these themes; they took the ramping instruments from the Divine Beasts control panel gimmick and mixed the Divine Beast Approach themes with each Sage's unique motif to create some really cool but pleasantly unobtrusive tracks. The Depths ambience was appropriately spooky, and the dynamic theme that kicks in when you high-dive was a nice touch, especially since there are distinct versions for diving to the surface and diving to the Depths.

But the standout tracks for me? First, the intro sequence where you descend with Zelda into the foundations of Hyrule Castle and hear the ever-layering Zonai chanting with the spooky reversed voice clips? MMM. 👌 So spooky, so tasty. Genuinely had me on edge even though I knew nothing would happen because it was the intro. The return sequence by the endgame has it build even more intensely as you descend even further and it's fantastic. Second is the Gloom's Approach / Gloom's Source battle theme. The distinctly electronic drone and beat associated with the Depths/gloom-related stuff gets room to shine when this tense bass-heavy track kicks in.

The Little Things I am actually going to stop this one here because I think this part deserves its own blog. There are a ton of little details in TotK that I absolutely adored and I want to gush about them with proper space allotted.

TL;DR TotK is alright. I know I'll catch flak for saying it's "good", so I won't. Settle down. It's alright. Some things it does extremely well, some things could have been edited for time, and some things remained just kinda mid from the original.

If I have to give it a number, it's a solid 6.5-7/10 . Competently constructed, technically impressive, mostly cut-and-pasted, mildly bloated, narratively kind of boring with no sense of stakes and an ending that undoes some otherwise interesting choices.

[treason-and-plot]

“It’s fine,” says Anya. “His wife, I mean ex-wife, will never agree so there's nothing to worry about-"

“That's not the point! Where does he get off thinking he can just railroad her like that?” says Phoebe. “Especially since the poor woman's suffered some sort of mental breakdown. Doesn't he have any empathy?"

“Of course he does! But it’s not like she’s a saint, Feeb. She stopped him having access to his kids, remember? And there’s been all kinds of other issues as well-“

“I get it. This is his revenge!” says Phoebe.

“No. It’s nothing to do with revenge. He honestly thinks we can all happily co-exist under the same roof after Sonia gets better. And that it’s in the best interests of his kids. That’s what this is about. His kids’ well-being.”

“Sure it is.”

“It totally is! He loves his kids. And he loves the house, too. Anyway, it’s not worth talking about, because his ex-wife will make sure it’s never going to happen,” says Anya. "Can we please change the subject?"

“You just don’t like hearing the truth," says Phoebe.

“It's not the truth. It's just your opinion,” says Anya, her face tightening. “Stop judging him.”

“It’s pretty damn hard not to,” says Phoebe.

“You’re happy to sit in his spa pool and admire his view and eat his waffles, though,” Anya says. Phoebe leans back and kicks some water in Anya's direction. Anya kicks water back.

"Look, all I'm just asking you to do is maintain some healthy cynicism about this relationship," says Phoebe. "Is that possible? Or are you a lost cause?"

"I just got handed a §4 million penthouse apartment and I'm being flown first-class to Paris next month to see my favourite band," says Anya."Of course I'm a lost cause."

"Ugh, I give up," says Phoebe. "I need a drink. Can I go downstairs and grab something from the fridge?"

"Be Roy's guest," says Anya, and then the door opens and Roy himself is standing there, his eyes crinkling and a slow smile arching across his face as he stares at Phoebe's naked, sodden body.

[blueskittlesart]

any thoughts on how once again zelda was robbed of her agency because her "father figure" didn't listen to her? even if rauru was kinder to her than her father. and that she had sonia who was patient and loving for a little while before she died (just like her mother). i know rauru apologizes for his hubris but still, i wish we saw zelda be upset about it. and even if zelda was such a big part of the quest she still literally sacrificed her humanity once again because of someone else's mistake- because rauru literally didn't listen to the girl from the future that warned you that shit was going to go down. o know nintendo just loves putting zelda inside crystals and stones but i wish we got something better. even if it was her decision to become a dragon... did she have any other choice? it really just feels like they robbed her of agency again just like botw and the games before

i've been trying to figure out how to answer this one. because there are two ways i could analyze this plot point, either from a writer's perspective or an in-story perspective, but neither of those lead to me fully agreeing with your interpretation? I think there's definitely something to be said about zelda consistently being pushed aside in these games, but. well. ok let's get into it ig

from a writer's perspective, I do honestly have quite a bit of sympathy for the zelda devs as they attempt to navigate the modern political landscape with these games. The cyclical lore, though canonized relatively recently, holds them to a standard of consistency in their games in terms of certain key elements. one of those key elements is that there has to be a princess, and that princess must somehow be the main macguffin of the game. The player must chase her, and the end goal of the game must be to reunite the player and the princess. In 1986 this was an incredibly easy sell. women didn't need to be characters. players were content with saving a 2-dimensional princess whose only purpose was to tell them "good job!" at the end. but as society advances, that princess becomes a much more difficult character to write while adhering to the established overarching canon. (as a side note: i don't necessarily believe that the writers SHOULD be held to the standards of that canon. I think deviating from it in certain areas would be a good change of pace. but i also recognize that deviations from the formula are widely hated by the loz playerbase and that they're trying to make money off these games, so we're working under the established rule that the formula must be at least loosely adhered to.) Modern fans want a princess who is a person, who has agency and makes decisions and struggles in the same way the hero does. but modern fans ALSO want a game that follows the established rules of the canon. so we need a princess who is a real character but who can ALSO serve as a macguffin within the narrative, something that is inherently somewhat objectifying.

the two games that i think do the best job writing a princess with agency are skyward sword and botw (based on your ask, our opinions differ there lol. hear me out) in both games, we have a framing event which seperates zelda and link, but in both games, that separation was ZELDA'S CHOICE. skyward sword zelda runs away from link out of fear of hurting him. botw zelda chooses to return to the castle alone to allow link the time he needs to heal. sksw kinda fumbled later on by having ghirahim kidnap her anyway, but. i said BEST not PERFECT. botw zelda I think is the better example because, with the context of the memories, she's arguably MORE of a character than link is. we see her struggles, her breakdowns, her imperfection, specifically we see her struggle with her lack of agency within the context of the game itself. when she steps in front of link in the final memory, and when she chooses to return to the castle, those are some of the first choices we see her make almost completely free of outside influence; a RECLAMATION of her agency (within the narrative) after years of having it stripped from her. from an objective viewer's standpoint, this writing decision still means she is absent from 90% of the game and that she has little control over her actions for the duration of the player's journey. however I think this is just about the best they could have done to create a princess with agency and a real character arc while still keeping the macguffin formula intact--you're not really SAVING zelda in botw. SHE is the one that is saving YOU; when you wake up on the plateau with no memories, too weak to fight bokoblins, let alone calamity ganon. the reason you are allowed to train and heal in early-game botw is because SHE is in the castle holding ganon back, protecting YOU. When you enter the final fight, you're not rescuing zelda, you're relieving her of her duty. taking over the work she's been doing for the past hundred years. in the final hour, you both work in tandem to defeat ganon. while this isn't a PERFECT example of a female character with agency and narrative weight, i think it's a pretty good one, especially in the context of save-the-princess games like loz.

as for totk, you put a lot of emphasis on rauru not believing zelda and taking action immediately, which, again, from an objective standpoint, i understand. but even when we're writing characters with social implications in mind, those character's actions still need to... make sense. Rauru was a king ruling over what he believed to be a perfectly peaceful kingdom. zelda literally fell out of the sky, landed in front of him, claimed to be his long-lost granddaughter, and then told him that some random ruler of a fringe faction in the desert was going to murder him and he had to get the jump on it by killing him first. the ruler which this girl is trying to convince rauru to wage an unprompted war on has the power to disguise himself as other people. no one in their right mind would immediately take the girl at her word. war is not something any leader should jump into without proper research and consideration, and to rauru's credit, he DIDN'T ever outright dismiss zelda. he believed her when she said she was from the future, he allowed her to work with him and he took her warnings as seriously as he could without any further proof. but he could not wage an unprompted war on ganondorf. that's just genuinely not practical, especially for a king who values peace among his people as much as rauru seems to. as soon as ganondorf DID attack, giving rauru confirmation that zelda's accounts of the future were real, he began making preparations to confront him. remember that zelda didn't KNOW that rauru and sonia were going to be casualties of the war--she didn't make the connection between rauru's arm in the future and rauru the king until AFTER sonia's death, when rauru made the decision to attack ganondorf directly. I think the imprisoning war and the casualties of it were less an issue of zelda being denied agency and more an issue of no one, including zelda, having full context for the events as they were unfolding. if zelda had KNOWN that sonia and rauru were going to die from the beginning and was still unable to prevent it that would be a different issue, but she didn't. none of them did.

I think another thing worth pointing out with rauru and his death irt zelda is that rauru is clearly written specifically as a foil to rhoam. this is evident in how he treats both zelda and link, with a constant kindness and understanding which is clearly opposite to rhoam's dismissiveness and disappointment. consider rhoam's death and the circumstances surrounding it. He died because, in zelda's eyes, she was unable to do her duty; the one thing he constantly berated her for. Rhoam's death solidified zelda's belief that she was a failure, a belief which she KNEW rhoam held as well. his death was doubly traumatic to her because she knew he died believing it was her fault. Now contrast that to the circumstances surrounding rauru's death. Rauru CHOSE to die despite zelda's warnings, because he wanted zelda and his kingdom to live. rauru's death was not agency-stripping for zelda; in fact, it functioned almost as an admission that he believed her capable of continuing to live in his place. With him gone, the fate of the kingdom fell to her and the sages. he KNEW that he would die and still went into that battle confidently, trusting zelda to make the right decisions once he was gone. where rhoam believed zelda incapable of doing ANYTHING without link, rauru trusted zelda COMPLETELY with the fate of his kingdom. several details in totk confirm that when rauru died there was no plan for zelda to draconify, that all happened after rauru was gone. it was HER plan, the plan which rauru trusted her to come up with once he was gone. and I think it's also worth noting that zelda's sacrifice with the draconification parallels rauru's!! Rauru gives up his life trusting the sages and his people to be able to continue his work in his place. Zelda gives up her physical form trusting link and the sages in the future to be able to figure out what to do and find her. these games in general have this recurring theme but totk specifically is all about love and trust and reliance on others. zelda relies on link, link relies on zelda, they both rely on the champions and the sages and rauru and sonia and they all rely each other. reliance on others isn't lack of agency, it's a constant choice they make, and that choice is the thing which allows them to triumph.

The draconification itself is something i view similarly to zelda's sacrifice in botw--a choice she makes which, symbolically & within the confines of the narrative, is a demonstration of her reclaimed agency and places her at the center of the narrative, but which ALSO removes her from much of the player's experience and robs her of any overt presence or decisionmaking within the gameplay. again, I think this is a solution to the macguffin-with-agency dilemma, and it's probably one of the better solutions they could have come up with. Would I have liked to see a game where zelda is more present within the actual gameplay? yes, but I also understand that at this point the writers aren't quite willing to deviate that much from their formula. the alternative within the confines of this story would be to let zelda DIE in the past, removing her from gameplay ENTIRELY, which is an infinitely worse option in my opinion. draconification allowed her to be present, centered the narrative around her, and allowed the writers to reiterate the game's theme of trust and teamwork when she assists the player in the final battle, which i think was a REALLY great choice, narratively speaking.

In any case, I don't think it's right to say that zelda was completely robbed of her agency in botw and totk. Agency doesn't always mean that she's unburdened and constantly present, it means she's given the freedom to make her own choices and that her choices are realistically written with HER in mind, not just the male characters around her, and I think botw/totk do a pretty good job of writing her and her choices realistically and with nuance.

[vrisrezis]

I'm in love with your "dr characters + their ideal partners" posts. It all feels very true to their characters.

By any chance, would you write the sdr2 cast + the types of people they would hate? I'd just love to analyze/see what opinions they might have on other charactees I know.

Keep safe, I love your writing!

TYSM !!! I’m glad u agree :) this was rlly fun !

Mahiru would hate anyone that’s lazy, I feel as though this would be obvious to her though, she’s an open book and makes it very clear she hates those that are unreliable. If you remind her of her father, she just isn’t interested!

Peko would hate you if you acted like you were of the moral high ground but deep down were a piece of trash that didn’t actually care about others at all. The reason she liked fuyuhiko was because despite how he acted he has a kind heart deep down, so having somebody be the complete opposite.. she would hate that kinda person.

Ibuki doesn’t hate people really, but when it comes to romantically interests she’d be the least interested in somebody with an attitude like fuyuhiko or more accurately, hiyokos. She’s not gonna be very attracted to somebody that constantly belittles her and makes her feel bad, but I also find that ibuki things being kind to those around you is an important thing? She would be put off by this, deep down of course.

Hiyoko would hate you if you didn’t know how to defend yourself, perhaps like Mikan. It just reminds her of her old self and it would make her just fucking hate looking at you. However, I can see her somehow getting over this if she ended up liking you for some reason.

Mikan wouldn’t hate you either, but she wouldn’t like somebody that’s mean to her. It would form a toxic relationship with her for obvious reasons, she would feel an intense need to get you to forgive her already for living, maybe you do constantly berate her but you care about her somewhere right? She knows you make her feel awful all the time but it’s okay right?

Nekomaru hates the idea of dating somebody who isn’t themselves. Who is constantly trying to be somebody else, he’s an honest guy and he just can’t stand the idea of dating somebody who can’t be honest to anybody, especially themselves.

Gundham is similar to nekomaru, he cannot stand dating a liar. Dating somebody who isn’t true to themselves, but at the same time he also feels like it’s due to the trust issues he possesses that makes him feel this way. Also not being an animal lover cuz. Tf

Nagito would hate anyone that’s .. yknow.. sad. Miserable. It’s the epitome of despair and he would hate somebody like that. To add onto this, being talentless. To him, you’re just boring and average and do nothing to improve society.

Chiaki wouldn’t want to date somebody who’s overly negative. It’s one thing to be pessimistic but being a Debby downer about everything is just upsetting to her and she’s extremely bothered by this. She won’t say too much on it though.

Sonia would hate if somebody was just simply a shallow individual. She’s a kind person and cannot imagine dating somebody that doesn’t care for others or have empathy in anyway. Especially for animals!

Akane can’t stand the idea of somebody constantly blubbering about how pathetic and useless they are. Like she doesn’t hate Mikan or anything, but somebody that uses being a victim as a shield for holding accountability. That’s the shit she truly hates.

Souda just can’t stand the thought of dating anyone that is like junko but honestly that’s really it. Souda is a pretty open guy and doesn’t hate people all that easily and would be down to date most people. You’d have to be downright terrible for him to hate you.

Fuyuhiko would hate to date anyone that made him feel like he didn’t matter to them. Example; not answering his texts, calls, only talking to him to get things from him, etc. he hates people like that so much.

Hajime hates the idea of dating an egotistical asshole to be honest. He just can’t imagine it, maybe it comes from a place of insecurity and a lack of confidence but he finds egotism annoying. He can excuse it if it’s due to an inferiority complex though.

[theworldvsyoshiko]

So, the current state of affairs...

The settlement's in pretty much its final shape. A few of the original buildings are still hanging around, but they're almost solely used for utility.

All the living area stuff is clustered around the rec hall. Everyone's got their very own Extremely Impressive bedroom, except the Thavon/Josefin/Payne polycule, who still share one. Still in the process of making rugs for all of them. Toward the right is the new hospital, and past that, the new guest rooms. There are now six paid guest rooms of roughly the same quality as the ones the actual members have, and the old rec room has been converted to free/cheap shared guest rooms. 18 guest beds, 8 hospital beds, and 4 prisoner beds, and at times most of those are full.

There's also a kill pacification-of-new-friends box to the south, since everything's walled in now. Apart from the spotlight, those are all tranq turrets off to the right. The lack of traps + lack of battle animals or mechs + use of nonlethal weapons means that fights are still pretty dicey in here, even with the raid difficulty set at like 50%.

Out of the 22 factions on the planet, 5 are allies, 5 more are neutral, and the rest are hostile. Not bad progress. Unfortunately, one of the factions...

... is perma-hostile, and can't be reasoned with. Nothing I've been able to do by fucking around in dev mode or anything can change this, so I think that probably Bandits don't have a generator for non-hostile pawns. Some other groups are like that, and thus can never be non-hostile. I thought I'd disabled them all at the game start, but guess I missed one.

So the Dancing Flock is gonna bring peace to the planet apart from these very stubborn bandits.

Aelanna "Anna" Cessara

Still not much to say about her. Anna spends all day cooking, gardening, and doctoring. Anna and Josefin have been close friends pretty much the entire time, and if it weren't for the penalties for non-human anatomy, they'd definitely be banging by now. Josefin is literally her only friend.

Josefin Xiontara

Just look at her. With 18 Shooting, an archotech arm, and the Askbarn bonuses, she's great in a shootout on the rare occasion that she gets to use an actual weapon. As it is she just makes masterwork furniture all day. You'd think that with double passion for Crafting she'd be great at it by now, but this group's needed so much construction that it's just about a full-time job.

Josefin actually gets along really well with almost everyone. She doesn't even hold a grudge against Saio for her still-broken nose. However, there's one exception: Sonia. That sassy little brat can't get enough of insulting her.

Erika Belsaas

She's now the group's Scalpelizer, their official super-doctor, so she's pretty much running the hospital. That, research, and getting high accounts for pretty much her entire day.

Similarly to Josefin, Erika likes everyone. Unlike Josefin, almost nobody likes her back that much. Erika really likes insulting people. Not sure what that's about, since there's no reason she should. But, while Erika considers about half the group to be her friends, only two of them actually think of her as a friend back. Presumably everybody else isn't fond of being compared to ungainly animals by a stoned moose.

Stork Saio

Saio's still the group's official artist, and he's damn good at it. (Apart from the Really Nice Pants incident.) He's pretty much constantly making sculptures these days. His melee skill... well, he still gets to use it sometimes, but I try to keep him and Payne out of combat when I can. They're too kill-y.

Saio only really likes Payne and Josefin, and barely has an opinion on anybody else. This includes Trav, who's his lone romantic option as a gay guy. For now, at least.

Thavon Rovon

Being the local mechanitor really should be a big deal, but this isn't a group that has a lot of use for, say Centipede Blasters. I probably should start progressing through the mechtech tree a bit, though. Thavon's melee skill is pointless. She's the group's second-best crafter, so she gets saddled with making a lot of the 'it's nice to have quality but I don't really care' stuff like clothes, and she trades off research duties with Erika.

Thavon's married to Payne, of course. Thavon's up there with Josefin in being pretty close with the whole group. ... except Josefin. Somehow these two have shared a bedroom and Payne for like half a year and they have basically no opinion of each other. I'd blame the fact that Josefin's always running around doing construction and Thavon spends all day in the workshop, but... so does Payne.

Willow Payne

20 melee hell yeah. Also, in addition to the combat aura and flight powers, Nephilim also have Lay On Hands, which is an instant wound-mending, similar to the one Sanguophages get. That's been such a fucking godsend for this whole hospital thing, because somebody can walk in half-dead and Payne just zaps them back into one piece. Payne's good at enough stuff that she stays pretty busy.

Married to Thavon, sleeping with Josefin, etc. Payne is so fucking pretty that most of the colony loves her, but she's only fond of a few people in return. And, she's the one person to outright hate someone. She cannot stand Saio. -41 relationship. She'd get a mood boost if he died. I think they have general low compatibility, but the two also got into a fight a while back. Since they're two melee monsters, it did not go well for anybody involved, and Payne ended up on the floor with about half her bones broken. She's holding a grudge.

Travis "Trav" Roth

Trav... isn't good at a lot, but another shooter is nice, and his weird fox powers are pretty handy in combat. The Animals skill would be great, if this group had any use for war animals. As it is, I've assigned Trav to handle the group's Gauranlen tree. It makes little fighty plant guys, don't worry about it. Getting some melee tanks out of it. Anyway yeah he spends about 6 hours a day pruning a magical tree because he isn't good at much else.

Trav's got it rough. He considers Payne, Thavon, and Anna to be friends, but none of them like him in return. The only person who does consider him a friend is somebody that Trav moderately dislikes.

Sonia Pseugite

Listen... she's 11. She's working on it. She got garbage growth at 10, thanks to showing up when she was already partway through that age bracket. She also got intensely unlucky though--she hit 10 right when she was literally about 20 in-game minutes away from ticking up to the next growth level, which would have given her another passion. As it is... I gave her a gun and she's been pitching in as a junior nurse, so hopefully some day she'll be good at something except digging. Right now she's like some kind of mole racial stereotype.

Sonia really likes Payne. Literally nobody likes Sonia. Nobody really hates her either. Not sure why that is. She's new, but she's not that new, compared to...

Luis "Silver" Vital

Okay look yes I never announced Silver when he showed up. He arrived here as a pirate, and a 7-flame Genie who was only a teenager was just too good to pass up. I mean, that Crafting is the main draw though. As soon as he arrived I put him in charge of making charge weapons for everyone who can shoot. They don't need them often, but when they need to fight, they need actual guns.

Despite being a socially-inept newcomer, Silver's friends with most of the group already. He's even the closest thing Sonia has to a friend.