#also the lack of recognition of botw

[blueskittlesart]

after the aoc art i was gonna send this but obv. the whole thing happened. anyways in what ways do u think aoc link and zelda have a different dynamic than in botw because it definitely felt different from what i could tell after the little i’ve played

hmm. you're 100% right about this and i think it comes down to the differences in circumstance between the two games. Because link and zelda are so lacking in communication for a lot of their relationship in both games, how they think about and interact with each other really comes down to what they know about each other from outside sources.

in AOC we have a link who is already an established member of the royal guard long before the master sword was even found. He is well-known among his peers as basically a fucking powerhouse on the battlefield. (the opening fight of the game establishes this--link gets a TON of praise and open recognition from multiple higher-ups for defeating moblins.) He's assigned to be zelda's knight specifically because he's proven himself in battle, NOT because of anything to do with the master sword. He is (almost) a stranger to zelda when he's assigned to protect her, but he's also not immediately representative of her own failure.

in botw's timeline, on the other hand, it's heavily implied that Link is only assigned to be zelda's knight AFTER having claimed the sword. (specifically in her diary she expresses disdain for him that doesn't really make sense unless she's already begun to view him as succeeding where she has failed, i.e. he already has the sword.) This means that zelda almost NEVER has the chance to see him as anything except the hero of hyrule. She is introduced to him as The Soldier Who Claimed The Master Sword, and by his own design she never sees anything else, which is why there's SO MUCH that she has to work through in regards to him.

AOC lets link and zelda sort of.. exist outside of the context of the lore for a few brief moments. Link is still her knight, he still has a duty to protect her, and he's STILL SILENT, but there's no longer this intense, crushing pressure that taints every single interaction. they're allowed to interact... not quite as people, per se, because they're still bound by the conventions of their social classes and zelda is still under the pressure of her destiny even when link isn't, but as... more than pawns in a long game, at the very least. in botw it's painfully obvious in many of their early interactions that they're being puppeted around for the sake of appearances, but in aoc there's juuuuust enough freedom pre-sword-claim to allow them to connect a little more.

by the time link claims the master sword, he and zelda have already established quite a bit of trust, to the point that it's not link reaching for the sword that makes it glow, it's him reaching for HER. That buildup of trust is what AOC zelink has early-on that botw lacks. botw zelink DOES get there, but it takes MUCH longer because they have to work past their mental blocks BEFORE bonding. AOC establishes the trust, and then adds the magical-destiny mental blocks back in to BREAK the trust. And zelda DOES still struggle with viewing link as representative of her failures, and link DOES still struggle under all that pressure, but the fact that they already know each other makes those struggles much much easier to resolve.

I didn't like a lot of the actual plot of aoc, but what they did well, they did WELL. the scenes that cement link and zelda's trust in one another, in particular, are INSANELY well-done, especially when compared to events as we know them in botw. for link, it's the choice to flee the castle with zelda instead of fighting to the death with the king. HE CHOOSES HER OVER HIS DUTY. we know this is NOT how it happened in botw. he had to flee, half-dead, from the castle after trying and FAILING to fight. In AOC, because he and zelda have had so much more time to establish that bond in each other, he listens when he is told to protect her. he chooses his duty to HER over his duty to the kingdom.

Zelda's power-activation scene falls into this exact same category. In botw, we know how this happens: Link, after working himself nearly to death trying desperately to fulfil his duty, collapses trying to defend zelda. Zelda, terrified that he will die if she doesn't intervene, subconsciously activates her powers in order to save him, but she is too late and he is already too near death to be saved without the shrine of resurrection. in AOC, on the other hand, we have almost the exact same scene, with several key differences. Link enters into this battle without many wounds to speak of. he is in relatively good shape, having chosen to flee the castle with zelda instead of staying to fight a losing battle. when he realizes he's going to be overwhelmed in battle, he ATTEMPTS to self-sacrifice in the same way we see him do in pre-calamity botw. he tells zelda to run, and stays to fight the monsters with seemingly little thought to what might happen to him. but zelda, fearing for his life, DISOBEYS HIS ORDERS and runs back to help him, activating her powers in the process. two things of note here: 1. zelda knows that link is an incredibly skilled fighter and that he was not injured when this fight began. Had she been a tiny bit less cognizant of link's personality and mental state, she could have easily seen him telling her to run as a simple "I'll finish these monsters off and catch up to you later." but because she KNOWS him, she immediately recognizes the attempt at self-sacrifice for what it is. and 2. she EXPLICITLY DISOBEYS HIM. zelda in both botw and aoc is a character who has a really complex relationship with herself and her own autonomy. her life is governed by prophecies and by the word of her father, and she constantly finds herself trapped and UNABLE to disobey. ive talked before about the botw power-activation scene and about how i think her powers activating was specifically due to her reclaiming the power that had been taken from her, which is EXACTLY WHAT WE SEE HERE, but the twist being that rather than defying her destiny or her father or whatever she is defying LINK and his attempt to self-sacrifice. it's a more thorough rejection of their destiny than even botw imo because she rejects both her lack of agency AND link's martyrdom, which she wasn't quite able to do in botw. AOC link is allowed to live and continue fighting because of that rejection specifically, where he wasn't able to in botw.

ALL OF THESE CHANGES, all the key differences in the way link and zelda interact with each other and the way the story progresses because of their interactions, ultimately trace back to the fact that they were given a very breif amount of time in which their relationship was nearly unaffected by the calamity. they were allowed to be princess and knight with no other strings attached, so even when things went batshit they still had that concrete foundation to fall back on. THAT'S the difference between aoc and botw zelink imo. thank you for coming to my ted talk

[eliteoftheskies]

wait um out of character important question theres gonna be totk spoilers on. this blog right

ooc: there should be no totk spoilers, definitely none in-character! this is an au solely based on botw and to a lesser extent aoc which can be poorly summed up as "hyrule but pokemon" and I really want to write someday and I am coping with the fact that I can't write it yet by making a postcanon tumblr blog.

I have finished totk, personally, but like. be courteous of others, y'all, I know a lot of people who haven't.

(something approaching a spoiler under the cut because I want to rant about it a little, if you'd rather be safe don't hit that button, this will be the one and only thing even approaching a spoiler on this blog unless things drastically change and if I do have any reason to do totk spoilers they will be tagged and put under cuts <3)

how am I supposed to have totk spoilers in-character on a revali blog lmao. literally every other champion gets at least some recognition. revali? fuck all. his name is only in the game on 1) revali's landing and 2) in the hyrule compendium. both of these things were also in botw.

I'm not bitter or anything (I say like a liar)

(I'm very bitter. it could be worse, they can't reduce him to like three character traits if he's Not There, so at least there's that. and for the record I really enjoyed totk! but I'm very sad about Lack Of Blorbo. even just a tiny bit of proof that he was remembered after botw would have been great and... nope. :C)

[lu-cia-lu-nacy]

Ask me how I liked the ending of BotW. Go ahead. Make my day.

lol jk I'm going to rant about anyway. The TL;DR is at the bottom of the post. Obviously, spoilers ahead. Buckle up, kids.

There I was: in front of the beast that is Calamity Ganon, the ugliest motherfucker I have ever had the displeasure of fighting in a final boss battle. The battle itself was great, but left something to be desired. Not only was Ganon at half health due to the Champions getting a shot at him before the battle officially began, but it also was terribly easy to just barrage the guy with Ancient Arrows without receiving a single scratch in return. By the time he was at a quarter health, he had gone beast mode with his defenses, which finally gave me the challenge I was expecting all along. At that point, the boss battle felt real, felt difficult, and, ultimately, felt gratifying.

Dark Beast Ganon was a great second phase to the battle, imo. I had to shoot at him on horseback while evading his efforts to trample me or kill me with Malice. Of course, Zelda swoops in when Ganon is weak and then seals him away, the words, "Destroy Ganon: Completed" filling the screen as she does it. Link's interaction with the princess afterwards was bittersweet. In fact, the entire ending was bittersweet, what with Link trying to remember who she is and Zelda finally coming to terms with Link being chosen to be the Hero of Hyrule for a reason. As the credits rolled, I was left to contemplate the ending that left me feeling both satisfied and a bit melancholy.

And then the title screen came up.

Perplexed, I selected the "continue" option in hopes of looting the Sanctum in which I fought Ganon. I noticed a star next to the save file I created, so I assumed that meant my save file was altered to accommodate my victory.

I assumed wrong, becAUSE GANON WAS STILL THERE IN HIS EGG-CACOON-WHATEVER THING, WAITING TO BUST OUT AND FIGHT ME AGAIN.

At first, I thought it was my fault that I didn't save in between the boss phases, so I begrudgingly fought Ganon again with the few Ancient Arrows I had remaining all while remembering to save. I defeated him again, I saw Zelda and went through the Emotional Rainbow™ again, and I went through the credits again...only to end up at the title screen. Again.

And there it was. That tiny, little, piece of shit star next to my save file, that does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO THE GAME BECAUSE GANON IS STILL ALIVE AND WELL.

At this point, it's past 1:00 AM and I am livid. I check the forums to see what the deal is, only to find that other gamers are saying, "lol that's just how the game is otherwise we wouldn't have Blood Moons and we'd run out of things to do."

THAT'S WHAT DLC IS FOR, MY DUDES

YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THE DEVELOPERS OF THE LEGEND OF ZELDA REALLY THOUGHT THE BEST WAY TO REWARD A GAMER FOR COMPLETING THE FIRST EVER LOZ OPEN-WORLD GAME AND DEFEATING CALAMITY GANON IS PUTTING A STUPID STAR NEXT TO THE SAVE FILE??? The "Destroy Ganon" quest isn't even shown as completed in my Adventure Log! What the fuck, yo

I felt like Hidemaro Fujibayashi just strolled up to me, stuck to my shirt a gold star sticker that's barely the size of a thumb tack, and simply said, "Good job!" as he strolled back out. You'd think an open-world LoZ game would have done SOMETHING more to commemorate the gamer defeating the almighty Calamity Ganon. All those hours spent exploring, taking down monster camps, regaining control of the Divine Beasts, completing side quests, tirelessly grinding to upgrade all my armor, finding shrines, upgrading my Heart Containers and Stamina Wheel, learning exactly how to take down Guardians--it feels like all of that was invalidated by the game's lack of recognition of Ganon's defeat.

Look at a game like Skyrim. Believe it or not, there is a main quest, and believe it or not, one can sit down and defeat that main quest, thus "completing the game." As many Skyrim players know, just because you complete the main quest, doesn't mean you're done playing the game. There are boat loads of other quests and tasks and whatnot to do in the game that will keep you from putting it down, but the game will still recognize you managed to complete the main quest. Breath of the Wild is a huge game, yes, but so is Skyrim. So is Dark Souls. So is Fallout. Why couldn't Nintendo follow in the footsteps of these other open-world games by allowing Ganon to remain defeated all while still giving you plenty of quests to complete? I feel like Nintendo really dropped the ball when it came to how they handled what the player could do post-Ganon, and that's why I really despise the ending.

Don't get me wrong: I still love the game to bits. I still love anonymously bombing unsuspecting Bokoblin camps, or taking down Guardian Stalkers, or completing my Hyrule Compedium. I'm sure the game will still be fun to play because I still have about 30 shrines left and I plan on getting the DLC. Nevertheless, as a gamer, you want to feel satisfaction when you finally defeat the boss--not disappointment and frustration.

TL;DR: The boss battle had its moments, but left something to be desired. The fact that BotW will only recognize Ganon's defeat by putting a star next to your save file is infuriating, discouraging, and plain stupid. Other open-world games allow you to complete the main quest, get recognition for it, and still give you plenty of baddies to fight or quests to complete; why couldn't Breath of the Wild do the same thing? The ending would have been much more gratifying if they allowed Ganon to stay defeated and incorporated post-defeat content, but the fact they didn't makes me feel like I wasted my time preparing to fight Ganon in the first place.