#I know it was in his dialogue in botw

[jasper-crow]

Week 1 impressions of TotK

(No spoilers)

It feels...... Overtunned.

Like combat is punishing, not quite hard I don't think, but very very very punishing. I have about 10 hearts now and 20 armor score total and I'm still getting one shot by quite a few things if I go in swinging.

But the window for things like flurry rush and deflection has been pretty substantially increased. And the game keeps throwing stuff to make fire, ice, lightning, smoke, confusion, all kinds of crazy stuff at me. It very very clearly wants me to be using all the tools in the kit to make combat easier.

I can tell that once I fall into the groove the game wants me to be in I'll have a wonderful time, but anytime I stray outside of that groove and try to brute force my way through a problem the game decides to wear my skin as a new suit.

Which is..... Fine? I guess? I think it's going to turn a lot of people off. And I think it's much much much worse for new players to start on that BotW. The game clearly wants me to be doing stuff in a particular way, and it's very clearly designed to meat grinder you out of your BotW habits. But it feels very very unforgiving about that.

I guess to summarize my feelings so far I'd say it feels like that game world or book or story or other creative project that you have spent so much time and effort and blood and tears on, that it's now almost difficult for others to understand. It's the project you needed to stop working on about 6 months or a year before you did. It's a good game that has been so tightly wound that it's going to have some people bounce off it.

[azuresage]

It gets talked about a lot but I still can't stop nerding out about Link's characterization in TotK. It's done through his many creative dialogue choices and his expressions of course, but it's also done so subtly through what he *doesn't* say. Notably, he doesn't talk about himself. And this is why nobody recognizes him unless they've already met him. Because he doesn't tell them when they've got the wrong impression of him.

The meme about Link having Tony Hawk syndrome is so real. People will look at him and straight up say, "Wow, you look exactly like Link!" without a hint of irony. Lookout Landing has a detailed picture of his face in their watchtower and the search party still doesn't recognize him. Penn works with Link for a long time and thinks he's unlucky that the Yiga keep "mistaking" him for the Hero (granted, Traysi asked him to deliberately keep quiet, but Penn still didn't put two and two together himself). I think the reason for this, aside from it being really, really funny, is that Link just doesn't talk about himself. He doesn't feel the need to.

Characterization isn't just about what we see a character doing, it's also about how other characters respond to them. Link is so unassuming and humble that he doesn't match people's expectations of what "Link" should be like. The three Gerudo ladies hanging out around Outskirt Stable are one of many perfect examples. Link stands in front of them carrying the Master Sword, but they expect the Hero to be taller than they are, with a giant glowing sword, so they don’t believe it's him. Obviously that's not the reality, but they don't know that. Link doesn't correct them, either. Again, he doesn't feel the need to.

This is also why many NPCs from BotW don't recognize or remember Link. To them, he was just a passerby that did them a good turn once 6+ years ago. Nobody's going to remember a person like that for so long after. They had no way of knowing he was the Hero, unless it came up for story quest reasons. When they hear stories about the Princess's Appointed Knight who woke up from his 100 year nap, defeated the Calamity, and rescued Zelda, they imagine someone larger than life. Then when they see what Link actually is like, they can't put two and two together.

This is true even during the Hyrule Restoration efforts. Link always follows behind Zelda as her shadow, which she notes in her diary, but the people in the stable investigation quests and in Hateno don't recognize him either, even though he went everywhere she did. Link is just that unassuming. He resigns himself to being a shadow, allowing Zelda to take the lead and do as she pleases but always staying nearby to support and protect her. He doesn't need to be recognizable to do his job. And we know from both BotW and now TotK that he's wholly devoted to her. He's content with this. Many people more eloquent than I have spent many paragraphs elaborating on this. I just wanted to focus on what it says about his character.

Link is humble and unassuming, so much so that nobody believes that he's the Hero unless they already know him. He's devoted to Zelda, so much so that he's willing to do anything to chase even a glimpse of her. He doesn't talk about himself or correct people who have the wrong impression of him. He doesn't need to do that to chase his Zelda. He is a person of great humility in spite of his station. I think that's so interesting and neat how the comedy of him being unrecognizable also tells us all this about him. It's also cool how this is only one aspect of him; all the dialogue choices and expressions he makes during cutscenes and actions out in the world show a whole other, lighter side to him that meshes with this. It's all so good. I am in love with it. It always kills me inside when people dismiss his characterization as being nonexistant or flat just because it's not spoonfed to them or when they say Link being unrecognizable is lazy writing instead of a deliberate choice. I am biting and gnawing and gnashing over him and his relationship to Zelda. I love them so much.

[gay-jesus-probably]

Seeing as the Gerudo turned on Ganon, he might not have been that much better of a ruler.

First of all, we literally have no idea, because the only ancient Gerudo that we actually get to interact with is Ganondorf himself, and he has nothing to say about his own people. The ancient Gerudo sage doesn't count btw, she doesn't have a name, we never even see her face, and she has literally nothing to say except repeating the exact same dialogue as the sages for the other races. The narrative does not treat the ancient sages as people; they are four completely interchangable weapons that are owned by the royal family.

And secondly, I don't care how Ganon ruled them; the Gerudo only get one man every century, if their king sucks, they've obviously got their own system of government to fall back on. I have no idea what kind of authority the sages had among their own people, but honestly I'd say if the four of them were in charge of their respective people, then they were just puppet rulers appointed by Rauru, given that all four of them happily agreed that to sell their entire race into servitude the second Zelda asked them. Say what you will about Ganondorf, but I fucking know that if he was told the Gerudo people existed for the sole purpose of serving the glory of Hyrule, he'd drop kick Zelda into the fucking sun.

And don't get me started on the implications of the cultural differences we see between the independent Gerudo and the annexed Gerudo. The background Gerudo characters all have their own models, and we can clearly see that the ones siding with Ganon have their own unique looks - for example, the amazing lady with the mohawk that summons the molduga swarm in that one flashback. And men are never mentioned in these flashbacks at all, which implies that the Gerudo genuinely didn't care about settling down. Ganon even speaks derisively about marriage, implying that it's very rare for Gerudo women to make serious romantic commitments with men. It implies that their culture is more along the same line as their portrayal in OOT - they are a closed culture. Men trying to force their way into their areas are arrested, and mocked for being entitled dumbasses. Outsiders are only welcome if they can prove that they respect the Gerudo as people, and aren't just there to try and pick up chicks. It's never outright said, but OOT also makes it pretty clear that the Gerudo women just aren't interested in marrying outsiders - close relationships occur with other Gerudo, Hylian men are only considered useful for making babies.

Meanwhile the Gerudo we see serving Hyrule are all trying to measure up to Hylian beauty standards, and appeal to their men. Their one goal in life is to meet a man and get married. Men are welcome in their lands, and only kept out of the town itself... and even then, there's a small army of guys trying to force their way into the town anyways, which is brushed off as just haha, boys will be boys. No men allowed isn't even about independence, it's just a silly romantic tradition.

Of course this is just a fictional culture in a game world, but it's still really fucking uncomfortable that the 'evil' Gerudo are the ones that have independence, both politically and socially, and display a unique culture that refuses to tolerate disrespect from outsiders. Meanwhile the 'good' Gerudo are the ones that canonically exist to serve a kingdom where 95% of the population is light skinned (even setting aside the unfortunate implications, just saying one race exists to serve a different one is super fucked up), they have classes on how to be more appealing to Hylian's, and their entire social structure is built around finding a Hylian man to marry, making them all inherently dependent on the goodwill of outsiders. Even their biggest value of 'women only' is treated as a joke; men trying to trespass in BOTW are just shoved back out the door, letting them keep trying all day if they want. The crowds of men plotting to force their way in are laughed off as a joke. Nobody cares that there's a guy running laps around their city walls and trying to trick women into being alone with him. I mean for fucks sake, in TOTK we find that the creepy guy trying to lure women away has taken advantage of a massive disaster to get into the town, and he's still there once things return to normal. You can't kick him out, or alert anyone to his presence. And the Gerudo just tolerate Hylians blatantly ignoring their boundaries. For fucks sake, TOTK even reveals that the seven legendary heroines they've been revering the whole time were actually completely useless and unable to achieve anything... because they needed the eighth hero, a Hylian man to teach them basic tactics and do all the heavy lifting.

TOTK does not respect the Gerudo people in the slightest. It doesn't respect anyone who isn't Hylian or Zonai.

...This got a little off track, but the point I'm trying to make is, no, I don't consider the Gerudo turning on Ganon to mean anything. The entire game does not feel like the real story of what happened, it feels like the propaganda version of history meant to make Hyrule look as good as possible. I genuinely cannot believe that we're being told the real story about the Imprisoning War, because none of it feels real, and we don't get to know any details that might have made Hyrule look even slightly imperfect. We're told that Ganondorf is evil because he hates Hyrule, and he hates Hyrule because he's evil. The Gerudo people followed Ganondorf and saw him as a hero of their people, then suddenly he was their worst enemy. Hyrule is a perfect kingdom that has strong, equal alliances with the other races, but also all of the non-Hylian races exist for the sole purpose of serving Hyrule, and their leaders are expected to swear eternal loyalty and submission to the Hylian royal family. King Rauru and Queen Sonia united all of the races in peace and equality, which is why they're sitting on the world's supply of magical nuclear missiles, and every member of the Hylian royal family is allowed to walk around wearing them as cute accessories, but everyone else only gets them at the last second, and they all need to outright swear to only use that power to benefit Rauru and his descendants.

There's just so many fucked up contradictions, and so many hints of something more nuanced going on... but the story refuses to acknowledge any of it, and just keeps aggressively pushing the narrative that Hyrule is the ultimate good and couldn't possibly do anything wrong. I don't even believe that Ganon was a bad king honestly; we never hear why his people stopped following him. We also never even see if the Gerudo people turned on him at all; all we know is the ancient Gerudo sage wanted him dead, and given that she also happily sold her people into slavery, she's not exactly the most trustworthy source of information. All we know is that Ganondorf was a hero to his people, only one of his citizens is ever shown having an issue with him (and her motives are never explained), and then he lost the war and was sealed away, leaving his people open to be conquered by Zelda and annexed into Hyrule. By the time we see any Gerudo actually opposing Ganon (apart from the ancient sage), it's been ten thousand years since the war, and all anyone knows is the Hylian version of the story.

[a-bit-too-much-of-a-zelda-fan]

I really like the decision to set TotK a few years after BotW, as opposed to the few months we’re used to in direct Zelda sequels. It gave the world a substantial amount of time to change. Hyrule is livelier. In the years of relative peace since Calamity Ganon was vanquished, it’s been allowed to grow and thrive. Hateno Village, the largest Hylian settlement, is becoming economically significant as a tourist destination and food supplier. It’s especially cool to see Riju, Tulin, and Kass’s kids mature into their adult/teenage years, respectively.

Building on that, I think it’s neat that Link is in his early twenties now. This is the oldest Link we’ve ever played as (Skyward Sword held the previous record at 17.5 y/o). He’s had time to adjust to life post-calamity. His traumatic mutism seems to be all but gone. You ever notice just how much he talks in this game? Dialogue options galore, he’s constantly explaining things to other characters, all that. And he’s more expressive, too. He outright laughs when he fuses weapons.

Link’s relationship with Zelda has also had time to grow. Guys. Fellas. Broskis. They live in the same house. In which there is only one bed. They are together. The implication here is that they share most of their meals together, and remember, it’s key to his characterization that he opens up emotionally when he’s cooking or eating. That means there has been a lot of quality bonding time between them.

Before and during the Calamity, Link served as Zelda’s royal bodyguard because the king demanded it of him. Given how he went mostly mute from the pressure of being entrusted with the princess’s safety and being chosen as the Hylian Champion (at age 17, mind you), I’d wager he didn’t particularly like the assignment until he started bonding with her. He looks downright sad when she snaps at him in that one memory at the shrine. Hell, he doesn’t smile once in the memories.

But you know what? I get the feeling that Link protects her now not out of duty like he used to, but out of love. That’s powerful because “love conquers all” and all that, but also, there’s no external pressure to be her bodyguard. Until the Upheaval, he was done being a special little hero. He was just a swordsman, but he still went where Zelda went to protect her. So instead of being crushed by that pressure, protecting her is an expression of his love for her. It’s a choice and he’s doing it because he wants to, not because it was forced on him.

That’s a lot of growth to go through, and it was paced over several years. He doesn’t appear to have aged much, but enough time has passed that Hudson has a daughter who can hold a mature conversation. That’s what, 5 years old? Yeah, Link is in his early twenties. Fucking finally, the task of saving the world falls on the shoulders of an adult (although speaking as someone entering his mid-twenties, that honestly isn’t much better).

I’m starting to ramble here so I’ll leave a parting observation of Link and Zelda’s house in Hateno. Zelda has redecorated a fair bit since moving in with Link, replacing his weapon racks with photos of her horse and various Hyruleans (her subjects who she cares deeply for), but the photo of her, Link, and the Champions is still up. And that’s really cute.

[candy8448]

Random details i noticed while rereading random bits of LU:

1. When going into a new world and asked if anyone recognises this place, Wild pulls out his slate (probably to check if his map is working) to see if they are in his hyrule. Ive seen this a lot in fics before but i never noticed that the idea may hhave come from the comic itself

2. When Wild feeds Epona, it has the same sparkle effect as in BotW!

3. "Its a secret to everyone" hehe

Wild also said it in that one extra where they discuss who knows about Twilight's wolf form

Intresting how its been used both times to do with dark world forms

4. Twilight looks like a werewolf, almost definetly probably intentional

5. When Legend reverts back to hylian form and is holding the master sword the tempered sword is also very obviously glowing, just thought it was intresting

6. "Nice hair" XD

Quote from Skyward Sword, Link says it to Groose at the begining when Groose hides Link's loftwing as one of his dialogue options

7. The first reactions we see to Wolfie being hit are the four people who know that Wolfie is Twilight

8. At this point, Warriors knows about Wolfie being Twilight, and probably knows that Wild is very close to him, so he lets Wild run off ahead, understanding that he probably needs to make sure Twilight is okay as soon as possible

9. "What a terrible fate" 0.0

10. This is probably going a little deep into analysis here, but when Wild starts talking here the pannel has him silhouetted against the background, as if he is laying his feelings plain and bare

11. We see the Link from 100 years ago here as a ghost with the champions, in his soldier armour, Wild probably sees him as a different person

12. I may be missunderstanding something here, but does Time not know that twilight is his descendant? Because in the Malon comics he does know, but the extra comics always did feel really seperate from the rest of the main story

13. Also! Malink baby!!!!!!!!

14. Also (ran outta space for photos) Hyrule's healing powers look similar to Mipha's healing powers

[carrotsnake]

Zelda and the Tale of Melusine

I'll be looking at the parallels between Zelda's arc and some Medieval tropes of female metamorphosis, using Melusine: Or the Noble History of Lusignan as an example. Specificially a translated copy of Jean d'Arras's version, since that's the most well known one.

To start, a run down of Melusine:

She's a half human, half fairy woman cursed by her mother for imprisoning her mortal father in a mountain. The curse dictates every Saturday she turns into a serpent from the naval down. She must marry a human man for a long time to slowly undo the curse and become fully human, but he must never see her monstrous form beforehand.

If he does, she'll lose her humanity forever and transform into a dragon.

She meets a knight in the woods, he suspects her otherworldly knowledge comes from "some phantasm or diabolical power", to which she goes don't worry about it kitten. But he likes her so he's like ok! ^_^ yay!

She keeps giving him cool fairy advice, and with it his life magically becomes a whole lot better - he gains wealth, power, and not just him but other people listen to her advice: crops flourish, castles are built. The kingdom is thriving! They love her just as much as he does, so it's no surprise they get married. But there's just one condition, she hides in the bathhouse every Saturday, and he's never to visit or peep at her.

He breaks his promise and discovers her secret. She says he's cursed both of them, and now he's lost her forever: "Be sure that as long as you live I shall always find pleasure in seeing you; but [...] never again shall you see me in female form."

The next passage is as follows:

'Melusine, uttering a very doleful cry and then a heavy sigh, leapt from the window into the void, and as she swept across the orchards she metamorphosed into a massive dragon some fifteen feet in length. [...] In her dragon form she circled the fortress three times, and each time she flew past the window she uttered such an excruciating, desolate cry that everyone wept for pity, knowing that she was leaving under constraint and against her will. Then she disappeared in the direction of Lusignan, letting out such rueful shrieking and strident cries that wherever she passed it seemed as if lightning and thunder were about to split the sky.'

He never sees her again after that. But phantoms of her start appearing in the castle, secretly visiting her children at night and generally just spooking people by standing there menacingly. And that's how the myth is born.

I've already drawn connections through the images above, but what's the point of this?

Like lots of other fans I was irked by the whole 'zelda jesus' thing in totk, yeah it is a little odd that everyone follows her advice without question, and it's never wrong.

I'm curious, if the team was drawing from Western myths, that this was supposed to echo the fae. Especially since most of the quests keep you on your toes on whether this was the real Zelda giving advice, or a fake - a phantom(!) - deliberately sabotaging them. It mirrors how opinions on Melusine were split between a benevolent fae or a demon. Splitting them into two entities though, I can see how that would defang it.

The og text wasn't exactly that nuanced either. I remember my prof joking the message amounted to "always listen to your weird snake wife!" Maybe we SHOULD listen to our weird snake wives.

It's interesting Melusine only interacts with children after the curse - botw+totk imply only young children who are pure of heart can see dragons.

I recommend reading the whole thing if you can find it! Then you can look for more parallels, and read riveting pieces of dialogue such as this:

[retroquarium]

I’m sure someone has thought about this but my friend @ghoulishtomato thought it was worth something so

I think Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom Link is the chattiest Link despite what Zelda’s diary says in BotW because he literally forgot who he was 100 years ago. Like, we see that he openly talks to npcs during side quests and general conversation. Sometimes he even has multiple dialogue options that show his personality. So while we don’t verbally hear him talk he is still communicating with in world characters. I think this has to do with the fact that he genuinely doesn’t remember who he was. He doesn’t know his reasons for doing anything in the past and is just trying to go about life in the way he knows, but not in the way he used to.

Which leads me to another point, could you imagine not knowing who you were and finding out you were a completely different person to how you are now? Because that would mess with me. Who would be the real Link at that point? The one before the Calamity or the one after? What does Zelda think?

Idk man I love character angst and while this concept started out funny it led to an interesting character question :)

[ladyrijus]

so glad I'm not alone in how i feel about fanon Link versus canon with botw/totk. i don't think it's wrong for people to write him how they experienced the games, but like. that's not his actual canon personality ya know? and sometimes meta posts kind of ignore that distinction and it's so frustrating. (i think you already know this but i feel the same way about other noncanon stuff like the warriors games and the manga, including the skyward sword oneshot in the hyrule historia)

Right?

I don't have a problem either with making light of the game mechanics and drawing silly comics or writing funny scenarios; everyone has a right to do whatever the fuck they want.

But I can't help but feel a little... irritated when they portray BOTW/TOTK! Link to the other Links as this feral little gremlin who wants to cause mass destruction in nothing but his undergarments in comparison to the OTHER Links.

They act as if the other Links are more noble and honorable than him, the child who took up the sword even though it meant that he would no longer be seen as human but a war god in his people's eyes, the child who died a mortal all the same in his last stand against a beast of metal designed to protect him and his princess, the child who was given a chance at life AGAIN and still ran headfirst into danger for friends he could barely remember, because that is who Link truly is.

He was disabled at the start of BOTW due to the guardian attack and had to learn how to fight again; even then, unless you were an experienced player hell bent on fighting like lore-accurate Link, he never could surmount to the abilities he had pre-Calamity. That was something huge he ultimately came to terms with.

And then he becomes disabled AGAIN from the malice attack, losing an entire part of himself (physically and mentally) and has to learn how to fight with a stranger's arm that has been surgically attached to him without his consent. But he doesn't let that deter him. Doesn't let himself give up. He doesn't cry, "why me?" or get extra agitated in the dialogue with other NPCs (cough cough looking at you Skyward Sword Link). He gets up, and understands that there are people that need his help, and he's going to help them, regardless of what may come.

Also, he can literally see dragons, creatures that are deemed mythical in HIS world. That's not even the crazy part; the games confirm that typically children see dragons due to their pure hearts. If that doesn't speak volumes about Link's true character, I don't know what does.

[lemondonutsfromcirclek]

let me help you botw shippers by sharing my original suspected plot

so. basically i originally was like "what if we got to fight the champions in the divine beasts?" and when i found out that wasn't how it worked i was really sad but lemme spill it on out for ya. basically the whole thing up to ruta (who should be everyone's first divine beast imo, but im using it as an example) is the same, you wake up in the shrine of resurrection, you get the paraglider from the old man, you go to kakariko and talk to impa, etc etc. but when you get into ruta (or whatever your first divine beast was) its quiet. the sos tones in the music are much more audible. you find a sign that says "go to the guidance stone and get the map. i'm trusting you, link." or something along the lines of that, and you go, and you clear out the terminals and stuff and go to the main control unit. that's where you'd fight a blight, right? wrong. mipha (or the champion of that respective beast) drops down, covered in malice, with a malice eyeball near her heart. (the eyeball locations vary for each of the champions, urbosa has one on her hand, revali's is on his head, and daruk's is on his right knuckle. these correspond to not only their ablilities but their personalities as well. ex. revali's big ego) her eyes are black and she's a lot stronger, she'll hit you with giant waves that do a lot of damage. occasionally she'll scream out something like "you can do it link" or "help" or just a general noise of discomfort, and you have to hit the eyeball and only the eyeball (if you can.) if you miss the eyeball and hit mipha she'll take damage, which is uh. not what you want, obviously. in phase 2 of her fight she'll do ice mixed in with the waves, and might dash in and spear you with the lightscale trident. when you finally clear off the eyeball's health (around 800 hp if its your first or second beast, the original of waterblight, or 1600 if its your third or fourth) it will do a very dramatic... disappearance? and the malice will go away from mipha. this triggers a cutscene, she'll fall to the ground, using her arms to break the fall n' then look up at link. he'll offer her a hand up, she'll take it and say something like this. "You know, Link, I've been waiting for quite some time... I never lost hope. I knew you'd come to save us. You must go save the others (or if fourth, "You must go save the princess,"), I'll be here, locked onto Hyrule Castle, ready to strike with Ruta at just the right moment. I'd like you to take this ability to help you. It will take a lot from me, but I can recover. I have decided to call it, "Mipha's Grace." Now, go, Link. Save the others. I'm counting on you." And then you fade away like you normally do. Now of course these dialogues, bossfights, and cutscenes vary. Maybe I'll post about the other champion bossfights later but I wanna get to after you beat Ganon. In this, there's a postgame. All of the champions (if you cleared the Beasts and freed them from the malice. If not, you've already saved them before Ganon) come to Hyrule Castle to congratulate you, come see Zelda, etc.. Now that Ganon's sealed away, the Champions can go see their successors, for lack of a better word, and these have cutscenes that will *make you cry*. The Divine Beasts are adventure-able again, and you can hang out, get any chests you missed, and really whatever you want. You can hang out with the champions in their home villages, maybe even.... do a love story (GASP but this would never be canon probably. if i make a mod for this it will happen but if not its stuck in this tumblr post.) with them. There's a lot that you could probably do, a lot of postgame potential. You could go and hang out anywhere you wanted in the Vast Region Of Hyrule(TM). anyway yeah, take that ass you will.

[tirsynni]

If we're asking about BotW/TotK ships, any thoughts on Revalink? Asking mostly just because it has been living in my head rent-free for months and I constantly desire more people to talk about it.

Anonymous asked:

Sorry for asking about your opinion on Revalink without even checking to see that you had already written Revalink fics, feel free to ignore previous ask

Oh, honey. I am always happy to talk about Revalink. They are absolutely my BotW/TotK OTP. I also adore Revali and I hungrily devoured even the slightest mention of him in TotK and have multiple WIPs scribbled on my laptop finding out ways to have him actually in TotK.

(Do I still feel a little cheated? Maybe. I wasn't expecting much, but ow, TotK.)

This ship has an insane amount of potential, especially since we have so few of Link's memories available in BotW. Maybe it was always just brutal tension between two fucked up young Champions with far too much weight on their shoulders (with most of it being self-imposed!). Maybe they quietly figured out something, just for Link to forget or maybe he didn't even forget but it didn't matter because the Link of then and the Link of now are so different. Ack! So much potential!

...but anyway.

Pre-Calamity, these two had so much weight dragging them down and not a single positive communication skill in sight. Link was buried under the title of Champion and Hero to the point he could barely see the sky anymore. Revali pushed and pushed and pushed himself to the point of collapse. He was absolutely driven and stubborn and passionate and snarky and desperate for validation. Link was silently begging for everyone to not look at him and Revali was silently begging for someone to fucking see him.

Specifically, he wanted Link to see him.

That's what absolutely kills me about that pairing. We don't know what Link saw or thought. We got everyone's journal but his. Hell, even his memories seemed like they were from an outsider's perspective (especially the last one). But we got Revali's journal and we got to hear Revali speak (and snark and yell) and so it baffles me when people paint him as an asshole who hated Link.

Doubtlessly, Revali would have pushed himself forever without external validation, but it didn't change the fact that he was thirsty for it. Where do we see it most? In his interactions with Link. In his journal talking about Link. It was a constant chant of "See me, see me." Link was strong and skilled and we saw in his limited memories that he pushed himself, too. While Zelda quietly mused in a safe, dry spot, Link stood in the rain and continued to practice with his sword. He threw himself at hordes of monsters and Zelda scolded him for being reckless. For their own reasons, Revali and Link actively pushed themselves arguably long after almost anyone else would have stopped, and I think Revali saw that in Link -- saw a possible peer who valued hard work and sweat and determination -- and desperately wanted Link to see him, too.

When they reunited one hundred years later, for all of Revali's snark about Link making him wait, nothing can convince me that Revali wasn't happy to see him again. We won't know what happened in those final days before the Calamity or what Revali knew about Link during those hundred years, but the fact that Revali specifically told Link to avenge him will forever be telling to me. Revali -- fiercely independent, determined Revali -- recognized that he couldn't avenge his own death. He also didn't expect the fight to be impersonal for Link, for it to be another thing for Link to check off in his quest. He didn't want Link to kill the Blight on his behalf: he wanted Link to do what he couldn't, he wanted Link to treat the fight as something personal, he wanted Link to fight in Revali's name. He wanted Link to avenge him.

(And in return, he gave Link wings and personally lifted him into the sky. <3 With an adorable little flourish.)

I also love the dialogue choices during the fight, and they are part of my argument for why Revali isn't hateful: he's snappy and snarky and is absolutely the guy who shows he cares about by calling his love interest an idiot for failing to appropriately care for himself. He spends that entire fight scolding Link and cheering Link on and snarking at Link and fretting over Link, depending on how the fight goes. He gets so worried for Link. Not because Revali won't be avenged but because Link is hurt and he checks to see if he is okay. ;_;

On Link's half? If Revali is the bird who is desperate to fly as high as he can, Link is absolutely the trapped, muzzled songbird. There's one scene where the king is scolding Zelda and Link is kneeling beside Zelda, absolutely forgotten by both of them. He's pretty much part of the scenery in that memory. His head is bowed. His face is expressionless. He's disregarded butterly as the king berates Zelda and Zelda focuses on vainly defending herself. That exemplifies so much of his backstory: he's the silent Knight. He's the Wielder of Evil's Bane. He's the guy who effortlessly claimed his destiny by pulling the Master Sword while Zelda struggled fruitlessly to call upon her sacred powers. I would argue (and this isn't a slight against Zelda, who is clearly a traumatized, overburdened, and royal teenager in all of these memories) that when Zelda finally sees Link as an actual person and not just another symbol of her failure, she still struggles to see him as a true individual and not another way for her to deal with and understand her own problems. For most of the characters in those memories, Link is characterized by his role and his duty, not as an actual overburdened teenager himself.

Except Revali, who never shows any indication that he gives a damn about titles and destiny and all of that bullshit, sees Link and wants Link to see him. Revali wants a response. Revali wants Link.

I've also written briefly about this before, but in regards to symbolism, Revali is also the closest in-game parallel to things normally associated with the Heroes of Courage. Courage is Farore green, courage is Farore's Wind. In Skyward Sword, Link rides upon his loftwing, a sacred creature which connects the Hylians to the Goddess. In Wind Waker, well, do I need to say it? The other Champions fit well with Din/Power (Urbosa and Daruk) and Nayru/Wisdom (Zelda and Mipha). Revali? Fits great with Farore/Courage. Revali, who pushes Link and gets so pissed (and hurt) when Link doesn't push back. Revali, who tells Link to watch him as he flies and grows so upset when Link doesn't react to that magical moment at all.

To leave the Great Plateau and begin his journey, Link needs to take a leap of faith and glide through the sky. Link needs the wind. Link needs to fly.

I could keep going for a while, but I think I should stop. lol I've written plenty of meta about these two before, though, so feel free to check out my Revalink tag. Always feel free to ask about these two (and fandom and such in general). I love rambling about them and people IRL tend to look at me like I'm crazy when I begin talking about this stuff. :D

[tokiro07]

I had no idea while I was writing my Zelda names posts that the Linked Universe fandom had already come up with nicknames for them

While I am a bit sad that this means my names probably won't catch on, I'm at least relieved to know that they're not mutually exclusive since mine were all epithets

Sun the Divine (Skyward Sword), Lullaby the Patient (OoT), Fable the Wise/Hopeful (LttP/Oracles), Dawn the Blessed (Zelda 1), Aurora the Accursed/Treasured (AoL), Dusk the Resolute (Twilight Princess), Artemis the Mighty (Warriors), Flora the Studious (BotW/TotK)

Bit of a nice ring to those if anyone cares to use them

I'm assuming that because this is specifically from Linked Universe though that Link Between Worlds is conflated with Link to the Past, and Minish Cap is rolled into the Four Swords duology? Bit of a shame, cus that means Zelda the Loving (LBW) completely goes to waste and I'd have to collapse Radiant (Minish Cap), Beautiful (Four Swords) and Harmonious (FSA) into one for Dot

I believe Four is meant to be the Minish Cap Link, so I suppose it would make sense for Dot to be as well. Fortunately "Radiant" and "Beautiful" can be synonyms, and honestly Harmonious was kind of arbitrarily picked from the only line of dialogue I could find in FSA that gave any indication of characterization, so I'm not too broken up about that

Dot the Radiant doesn't sound too bad, though I will ask...why is she called Dot? I get the jokes/references in the rest of them, but I can't find the origin for hers

Edit: @hotcheetohatredwastaken suggests it's because Four and his accompanying Zelda are small. I have no idea if that's correct, but it's the only explanation I've been given, and it sounds better than my original guess that it's a reference to Animaniacs (Dot's full name is Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca III, and both are known for being cute), so I'm going with that until someone corrects me

[sophitia-of-hyrule]

Tears of the Kingdom is killing my love for Zelda

BotW promised a bright future, a change to the status quo, only for TotK to throw all of BotW's themes in the trash and go back to the "good old days" of absolute divine right monarchy and sexist writing. Not to mention Ganondorf having zero nuance. Despite his gorgeous design, he's by far the worst Ganondorf personality and motivation-wise. He's such a nothing character. What's the point of giving Ganon his humanoid form back if he barely has more personality than the evil cloud around Hyrule Castle.

Twilight Princess came out almost 20 years ago and it had more active and likable female characters. TotK makes TP look like peak feminism. Why is the latest game in the series so goddamn regressive? Why are we going backwards?

There's barely anything interesting about TotK. It's so shallow and again, incredibly regressive for a game that came out this year.

The more I read interviews and Nintendo statements, the more I realize they don't fucking care. They don't care about giving you a good story that makes sense, or an immersive world, or likable characters. TotK is what happens when you take "gameplay over anything else" to it's extreme.

Sure gameplay is important, but what's the point of playing a game if I'm not immersed into the world? TotK is a huge sandbox, it doesn't feel like a world, it feels like a tech demo. It has the same energy as Yandere Simulator leaving a bunch of weapons right in front of the school gate so the player can go wild. This world doesn't feel alive to me. It's like Nintendo saw people complain about BotW being "empty" and tried to solve that problem by throwing a bunch of shit everywhere with no rhyme or reason.

Sonic Frontiers has it's issues. It really does. It's extremely janky, has some bad level design and the story has a few holes. However, I could feel so much love in the dialogue and the character interactions. It was a love letter to the series and its characters. It felt like a fanfiction, but in a good way. Like a passion project. Sure the game is far, FAR from perfect, but I could tell the people who wrote for it really cared.

I didn't get that feeling playing TotK. It really felt like Nintendo just wanted to flex their new physics engine and stupid fucking building mechanic. They really gave us Zelda Nuts & Bolts and everyone clapped.

What's the point of building shit if the world feels fake and the characters are merely shadows of their former selves? What's the point of making a sequel if you're just going to ignore everything that happened in BotW to "not confuse new players"? What's the point?

I don't fucking care about the building mechanic. That's not why I play Zelda. The story is important to me. The characters are important to me. The worldbuilding is important to me. And Nintendo ignored all of those things.

In my opinion TotK's opening and ending (minus the true ending) are fantastic. But everything in between is a bitter disappointment. Nintendo confirmed the depths took very little time to make because they were auto-generated. Hyrule has barely changed except for the fact that Hateno has a bunch of ugly mushrooms everywhere now. Sky islands are few and far between, and are copy-pasted to an absurd degree. Why the fuck did this game take longer to develop than BotW? There's barely anything new. "BUT THE PHYSICS ENGINE IS INCREDIBLE" "BUT YOU CAN BUILD THINGS" Big fucking whoop. I don't care. I don't play Zelda for the fucking physics.

My boyfriend got mad at me when I said it felt like a cash grab but that's genuinely how I feel.

Edit: TotK confirms that Link bought the house in Hateno village, yet everyone in Hateno acts like they've never met him before?? Bolson doesn't even recognize him despite TotK confirming that not only did Link buy the Hateno house, they went to Hudson's wedding together. Bolson should know who Link is. Who wrote this. Who thought this was okay. Why are people praising this game.

[vampire-wizard-solidarity]

if future zelda games will continue to have voice acting i think they really need to do something about the elephant in the room (link).

in the previous games (at least to me) link never really came off as abnormally quiet/silent because, well. none of the other games had proper voice acting. all of the other characters were practically silent too - written dialogue is already a level of abstraction in regards to character interactions, and so it’s easier to imagine that link isn’t literally always silent. when none of the other characters have voices it’s easier to interpret his silence as just another part of game abstraction.

in botw they introduced voice acting and clearly saw that this made link stick out like a sore thumb, so they made the in-game explanation of him being deliberately silent as a response to pressure from being a knight. i think they made him quite non-emotive for this reason too, because in previous games all characters relied on expressing emotion visually, but in a game where the characters mainly express emotions through line delivery having one character who refuses to speak and expresses emotion only visually would also stick out and look weird. so, link’s expression of emotion is generally pulled back, and they justify it in game. it’s still clunky, sometimes straight up comical, but at least they tried.

in totk, however, it just comes off sooooo weird. because he still doesn’t speak, and he is still largely non-emotive, but now 1. he’s properly involved in the story, in contrast to botw where the story was largely told through memories of the past so there was a level of distance between link and the other characters/major events 2. there’s no longer the in-game explanation of him being silent due to social pressure. like, you expect me to believe he’s super close with zelda and yet he can still only muster a smile when cooking? in botw him not reacting to the memories worked on a certain level because he literally doesn’t know this girl, but in totk he’s learning about what happened to his apparently close friend and expresses. nothing. he still reacts pretty much exclusively to physical pain, and in a story in which he’s much more involved it feels very. weird.

nintendo is kind of digging themselves into a hole by trying to commit to this idea of link as a non-character, because they’re trying to have a story in which he develops relationships, is an active character within the events that are happening, but can’t have him express an emotion without it feeling uncanny.

it’s not like they couldn’t do something with this, but the options really are: 1. return to a more cartoony, goofy style or 2. make link an actual character.

at this point i really have no idea what they’re going to do with the next zelda project, despite the fact that many people say that botw “established a new formula”, i really don’t know what that formula is, considering totk wasn’t as much “following the formula botw set up” as much as it literally just rehashed botw structurally, and that’s not really a formula that’s just using the same skeleton to make two games. that’s one of my biggest disappointments with totk, i think, it’s the fact that they did nothing to address botw’s larger problems or show us what a new post-botw zelda game could look like.

[skipppppy]

Anyway I’m bored and Carmen Sandiego renaissance is on the brain. What are these characters like when they aren’t focused on the main plot?? Non VILE/ACME/Caper related dialogue seems so few and far between.. I wish we got to see their lives outside work. So I made some headcanons abt it

CARMEN

Player was her first exposure to the outside world so she probably holds a lot of his nerdy interests close to her heart. She’s not the best at video games but plays them regardless. She especially enjoys sci-fi horror movies from the 80s that go big on practical effects

Finding random trivia about different countries is genuinely one of her favourite hobbies. The little info segments she does are not part of the edutainment show. She is genuinely just like that. This woman is a trove of fun facts please let her unleash them upon you

In the same vein she LOVES quizzes. After missions she will drag Team Red to any bar doing a trivia night in her vicinity and will wipe the floor with everyone there. Fear her

Enjoys people watching. It’s why she’s so good at charming strangers despite her socially stunted upbringing. She’ll sit alone in a busy train station for hours and watch everyone pass her by

PLAYER

Look. We know this kid is a nerd. It’s canon. But which niche of nerdiness does he fall into exactly?

Despite being an avid gamer he isn’t very competitive about it. He prefers single player rpgs, especially ones with active modding scenes. He doesn’t even know what vanilla Skyrim looks like he probably wasn’t even born yet when it released

He will, however, duo queue with Carmen on unranked Overwatch. They are both terrible at it and think it’s the funniest shit

Enjoys sitting back and watching a good speedrun. Will have a video of someone doing a stupid BOTW challenge in the background while he hacks security cameras and such

Runs a DnD campaign for Team Red which they’re all crazy invested in. Shadowsan is the only one who doesn’t care for it but he keeps rolling nat 20’s on the dumbest shit and derailing the campaign and he finds everyone’s reactions too entertaining to stop. They have a rivalry only a DM and a stupidly lucky rogue could have

ZACK

We already know he’s kind of a meathead that enjoys sports and cars and cheesy action movies but I also think he has a lot of softer hobbies that he keeps to himself bc he knows they won’t take him seriously

He’s a secret crocheter. He’ll mend the team’s clothes when they rip but that’s the extent of their knowledge. He’ll sit for hours by himself and knit while listening to music. Sometimes Shadowsan will find a new pair of socks in his bag. When Carmen got sick once she woke up with a handmade blanket draped over her. Ivy has her suspicions but doesn’t wanna intrude

He loves animals. He never really brings it up because no one ever asks. He always checks out local zoos and aquariums if he has the chance. Grew up watching Steve Irwin-esque nature shows and still does to this day

His love of eating is less out of greed and more his own form of cultural appreciation. Idk what happened to his and Ivy’s parents but for reasons he can’t explain their cooking is one of the few things he hasn’t forgotten, so he has a lot of sentimental food-based memories. And experiencing other countries cuisine connects him with that

IVY

PERIOD DRAMAS. They don’t have to be good they just have to be steamy. She enjoys the hot women in pretty dresses. She and Carmen watch Bridgerton together and laugh about how historically inaccurate it is

She LOVES renfaires and similar high fantasy roleplaying communities. Someone please buy this woman a suit of armour

As an engineering prodigy AND fantasy buff she has a massive interest in Blacksmithing and Swords. That’s her designated lesbian hobby. She’s been trying to politely worm her way into a conversation with Shadowsan about the blade he returned to his brother for months now but isn’t sure if it’s too personal of a topic for him so she’s nervous

Her sweet tooth encompasses more than just chocolate. She’s secretly grateful to Zack since he takes most of the flack for being a glutton. She makes note of any bakeries they pass by on capers so she can come back later in secret and go ham on the pastries

SHADOWSAN

I think his interest in Samurai history starts and ends with his love for Hideo. He’ll happily discuss it and he’s studied it passionately, but out of a sense of respect and duty to do right by the brother he betrayed

He will NEVER, EVER admit it to anyone but he genuinely misses the adrenaline rush from committing petty crimes. He was a criminal for over 20 years. Lifestyles are hard to shake and change isn’t linear. He’d never succumb to impulse but he’s just kinda bored

He microdoses on the urge by pranking people. Everyone always blames Zack so he never gets caught. He also enjoys sneaking up on people and making them jump. He’ll always insist it’s unintentional. It isn’t

He’ll read and meditate and train to keep himself centred but he’s still a rowdy young punk at heart. Team Red is the first taste of freedom he’s had after a lifetime of VILE faculty monitoring him. The first thing he bought for himself after settling in at the San Diego HQ was a motorbike. The second was a new tattoo. The third was a potentially lethal amount of whiskey that he drank in one sitting

JULIA

We know she has a passion for history outside her work in Law Enforcement so she definitely goes to all kinds of museums in her free time. She’s the kind of person who enjoys learning just for the sake of learning (she and Carmen have that in common)

Outside of that she’s surprisingly good at karaoke? She gets stage fright but really likes singing and will go all out if you hype her up. Her taste in music is the exact opposite of her appearance and personality. Lots and lots of death metal

An aficionado for different types of tea. She keeps like 10 flavours in her house at all times. She especially likes floral ones that taste light and sweet. She hates iced tea with a passion though

Goes to botanical gardens whenever the weather is warm and the season is right. She likes the history of the old manor houses but she also loves admiring the landscaping and the blooming flowers. She could sit on a bench surrounded by local flora and fauna for hours

DEVINEAUX

Chase is an entirely different person when he’s off the clock. The unhinged high-energy maniac who froths at the mouth about La Femme Rouge goes dormant once he gets home. Especially after he got stranded on VILE island. That really gave him some introspection about work/life balance

The biggest, softest, sappiest hopeless romantic you will ever meet in your life. Passion is just part of his nature and he gets his heart broken A LOT. It’s why he throws himself into his work

He’s a really good chef. Like REALLY good. Before he was a cop he did a few summers as a line cook in his teen years and he retained most of the knowledge. His pantry is STACKED and he tries out recipes he picked up from his ACME travels in his free time. He’s a tad snobby about it because he’s French but you will not complain about the stuff he feeds you

Old movie enjoyer. His favourites are film noirs, cheesy romances, creepy eastern european animation and german expressionism. He has a fervent hatred of Marvel

Also one of those insane people who get up at 5am to do cardio. One morning before a mission he met Agent Zari with barely a glisten of sweat on his forehead and sadly informed her that he only got to run 15k and he wished he had time to do more. That was the first time she ever knew fear

[phoenixcatch7]

Thinking about possible totk dlc again... Listen, we all know we want it XD.

Thing is, I've read the interviews, and I think Nintendo is right. There's just no more mechanics they can add to the game without completely breaking it. Totk is maxxed out on mechanics and options and playability. There really is nothing more they can add ability wise without bogging the whole thing down and causing a million problems, both for themselves and players.

But that's not all there is in a game, is there?

There's master mode, for one. Gold enemies are missing from totk entirely, never mind all the craziness of regenerating enemies, new mob camps just floating around, the gleeok they'd probably put on the great sky island. People loved master mode in botw, there's no reason not to at least drop that button back in.

But... People do have a few complaints. There's stuff they're missing, stuff that leaves loose ends, stuff that wasn't explained well enough. It all mostly boils down to one thing.

Story.

We could have an answer to where the divine beasts and all the sheikah tech went. We could find a giant scrapyard at the bottom of a new/old chasm because hyrule tossed everything in that could be pried up. There could be like five remaining active guardians, just so we can mess them up like we did in botw. There's voids where water is on the surface, there's plenty of space! It'd solve both the 'where tf did they go' and the 'man I wish we still had guardians' issue in one fell swoop.

We could get casual dialogue that all the divine beasts were driven out to sea and sunk! I don't know! Some sort of closure! We could talk about generational trauma responses! The instinctive fear of sheikah tech if there is one! Link is certainly canonically traumatised, did you see him with the first sky tower??

We could get wolfie back! Update his teleportation code so he can keep up with our stupid endeavours and not get caught in crossfire! Make him immune to zonai tech, idk.

We could get a resolution to kass and Penn! That whole storyline ended so sadly, and the lack of kass is straight up disturbing. We could rescue him from the depths where he fell in or smth idk!! Just because you're a bird does NOT mean you can fly a kilometer + straight up in pitch black through a narrow cylinder with lethally toxic sides. Now he's got enough material for life! (and probably trauma. The only food down there is stuff the yiga brought, which - well, it's not like they'd worry about thieves down there.

That stupid chef from lookout landing who ran off to the castle. That's TOTALLY a quest come on :(. Let him come home.

More lookout landing expansion, if you're desperate for stuff that isn't 90% dialogue! Please let me install bigger towers and a bathing area and more shops or SOMETHING. Little outlet stalls from every capital! Let me rebuild the first home in castle town! I! D! K!

More newspaper news! We could randomise it like the spider man ps4 news feed, that was hilarious. Absolute hogwash rumours and stupid feuds between neighbours and the results of pumpkin growing competitions! Mix it up, traysi had bonkers stuff, it was so good. What does life look like from inside the world?

Hylia gossip? We know she doesn't keep strictly to her 'find shrine rewards for increased gains, link' thing. Let her ask link for random stuff for 'power buffs' and give him, like, a random buff that lasts precisely 24 minutes.

Maybe even a 'now we opened the plateau again, people want to investigate' side plot. No one wanted to see :(. I didn't like that the only people up there were yiga :((. Send some new research team dude to wax lyrical and beg link for photos of different areas or symbols.

Gloom hands should be able to attack link in the depths. This would solve nothing and in fact make things much worse, but it happened to me twice and it was so much worse than on the surface lol.

Maybe some idiot managed to make it to a Sky island with balloons but now they can't get down, whoops lol. Some of them really aren't that high up and there's a lot of very determined people XD.

Someone's been captured by the yiga and link has to do a full infiltration and smuggle them the keys to their cell. Come on, the yiga base is underutilised!!

The gerudo stable was being shut down because of the sandstorm turning away travellers. After we solve that, maybe we could help reopen it? It made me so sad...

Link vs the flower lady. She wants a sample of every single flower in hyrule to get it all nice for her majesty! She remembers his crimes...

Link and the new sages could have a silly bonding quest each! Let him test his mettle against them in a spar! I don't know!

The ability to pet dogs and horses! An idle sitting animation that makes link sit down properly to enjoy the view!

Heck, a master cycle equivalent....

There's just a almost infinite amount of options available for real, actual content, it doesn't just have to be new mechanics and new dungeons. Yes, it gets the adrenaline going, but neither the fans nor Nintendo want nor need more of that.

We know the story is more lacking in botw/totk than previous zelda games, an understandable and acceptable sacrifice when you're working with such a huge and complex open world as this, but this is the perfect opportunity to fix that, Nintendo, don't you see? Give that incredibly elaborate coding a break and give the writers something else to chew on.

Tag what quest line or question you want answered in the comments or tags!